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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of
+Scotland Volume 21, by Alexander Leighton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 21
+
+Author: Alexander Leighton
+
+Release Date: September 8, 2011 [EBook #37336]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILSON'S TALES OF THE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Katie Hernandez and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Wilson's Tales of the Borders
+
+AND OF SCOTLAND.
+
+HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.
+
+WITH A GLOSSARY.
+
+REVISED BY ALEXANDER LEIGHTON, _One of the Original Editors and
+Contributors._
+
+VOL. XXI. LONDON: WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, AND
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
+
+1884.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+    THE BURGHER'S TALES,                  (_Alexander Leighton_)--
+    THE HOUSE IN BELL'S WYND,                                           5
+
+    THE PRODIGAL SON,                     (_John Mackay Wilson_),       39
+
+    THE LAWYER'S TALES,                   (_Alexander Leighton_)--
+        THE WOMAN WITH THE WHITE MICE,                                  56
+
+    GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT,            (_Prof. Thos. Gillespie_)--
+        THE EARLY DAYS OF A FRIEND OF THE COVENANT,                     84
+
+    THE DETECTIVE'S TALE,                 (_Alexander Leighton_)--
+        THE CHANCE QUESTION,                                            119
+
+    THE MERCHANT'S DAUGHTER,              (_Alexander Campbell_),       139
+
+    THE BRIDE OF BELL'S TOWER,            (_Alexander Leighton_),       173
+
+    DOCTOR DOBBIE,                        (_Alexander Campbell_),       206
+
+    THE SEEKER,                           (_John Mackay Wilson_),       235
+
+    THE SURGEON'S TALES,                  (_Alexander Leighton_)--
+        THE WAGER,                                                      244
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.
+
+THE BURGHER'S TALES.
+
+THE HOUSE IN BELL'S WYND.
+
+
+Some reference has been made by Mr. Chambers, in his _Traditions of
+Edinburgh_, to a story which looks very like fiction, but the foundation
+of which, I dare to say, is the following, derived at most third-hand,
+from George Gourlay, a blacksmith, whose shop was in the Luckenbooths,
+his dwelling-house in Bell's Wynd, and who was himself an actor in the
+drama.
+
+It is not saying much for the topography of an Edinburgh wynd, to tell
+that it contained a flat such as that occupied by this blacksmith; but
+he who would describe one of these peculiar features of the Old Town,
+would be qualified to come after him who gave a graphic account of the
+Dĉdalian Labyrinth, or pictured Menander. Such a wynd has been likened
+to the vestibule to a certain place, more hot than cozy--at another
+time, to two long tiers of catacombs with living mummies piled row over
+row; but, resigning such extravagances, we may be within the bounds of
+moderation, and not beyond the attributes of fair similitude, when we
+say that one of these wynds is like a perpendicular town where the long,
+narrow, dark streets, in place of extending themselves, as they ought,
+on the earth's surface, proceed upwards to the sky. And which sky is
+scarcely visible--not that, if the perpendicular line were maintained,
+the empyrean would be so very much obscured, but that the inhabitants,
+in proportion as they rise away from mother earth and society, make
+amends by jutting out their dwellings in the form of Dutch gables, so as
+to be able to converse with their neighbours opposite on the affairs of
+the world below--that world above, to which they are so much nearer,
+being despised, on the principle of familiarity producing contempt. Then
+the sky-line would so much delight a Gothic architect, composed as it is
+of a long multiplicity on either side of pointed gables, lum-tops
+venting reek and smoke, dried women's heads venting something of the
+same kind. Next, the dark boles of openings to these perpendicular
+passages--so like entries to coal cellars,--yet where myriads of human
+beings pass and repass up to and down from these skyward streets, which
+have no name; being the only streets in the wide world without a
+nomenclature.
+
+We picture the said George Gourlay and his wife, of an evening, at the
+time of the history of Bell's Wynd, and other such wynds, when a change
+was taking place among the masses there. The New Town was beginning to
+hold out its aristocratic attractions to the grandees and wealthy
+merchants, who had chosen to live so long in so pent-up a place. Ay,
+many had left years before, or were leaving their lairs to be occupied
+by those who never thought they would live in houses with armorial
+bearings over the door. So it was that flats were shut up, and little
+wonder was created by the circumstance of windows being closed by inside
+shutters for years. The explanation simply was, that the good old
+family would come back to its old _lares_, or that no tenant could be
+got for the empty house. And then, of course, the furniture had flitted
+to the palaces beyond the North Loch; and what interest could there be
+in an empty house with the bare walls overhung by cobwebs, or gnawed
+into sinuosities by hungry rats, thus cruelly deserted by the cooks who
+ought to have fed them? Yet, in that same stair where Gourlay lived,
+there was a _door_ with a history that could not be explained in that
+easy way.
+
+"I say it puzzles me, guidwife Christian, and has done for years."
+
+"And mair it should me, George. You have been here only nine years, but
+'tis now twenty-one since my father was carried to the West Kirk; and a
+year afore that I heard him say the house was left o' a morning: nor
+sound nor sigh o' human being has been heard in't since that hour."
+
+"And then the changes," said Geordie, "hae ta'en awa the auld folk whase
+gleg een would hae noticed it. As for Bailie or Dean o' Guild, nane o'
+them hae ever tirled the padlock."
+
+"But the factor, auld Dallas o' Lady Stair's Close, dee'd shortly after
+my father, and that will partly account for't."
+
+"It accounts for naething, guidwife Christian," rejoined he. "Whar's the
+laird? Men are sometimes forgetfu'; but what man, or woman either, ever
+forgets their property or heirlooms? Ye ken, love Christian," he
+continued, looking askance at her, half in seriousness and half in
+humour, "I am a blacksmith, and hae routh o' skeleton keys."
+
+"And never ane o' them will touch that padlock while I'm in your
+keeping, Geordie. I took ye for an honest man."
+
+An opposition or check which Gourlay did not altogether like; for, in
+secret truth, he had long contemplated an entry by these said skeleton
+keys, and, like all people who want a justification for some act they
+wish to perform, not altogether consistent with what is right, he had
+often in serious playfulness knocked his foot against the old
+worm-eaten, wood-rusted, dry-rotted door, as if he expected some
+confined ghost to shriek, like that unhappy spirit of the Buchan Caves,
+"Let me out, let me out!" whereupon Mr. Gourlay would have been, we
+doubt not, more humane than his old father-god, who would not let the
+pretty mother of love out of his iron net.
+
+"Honest! there's twa-three kinds o' honesty, wife Christian. There's the
+cauld iron or steel kind, that will neither brak nor bend--the lukewarm,
+that is stiff--and the red hot, which canna be handled, but may be
+twisted by a bribe o' the hammer, or the cajoling o' the nippers. What
+kind would ye wish mine to be?"
+
+"The cauld, that winna bend."
+
+"And canna be fashioned to man's purposes, and made a picklock o'? Weel,
+weel, Christian, I'm content."
+
+But George Gourlay was not content, neither then nor for several nights;
+nor even in that hour when, having watched guidwife Christian as she lay
+on the liver side, and heard the "snurr, snurr," of her deepest sleep,
+and listened to the corresponding knurr of the old timepiece as it beat
+hoarsely the key-stone hour between the night and the day, he slipt
+noiselessly out of bed, and listened again to ascertain whether his
+stealthy movement had disturbed his wife. All safe--nor sound anywhere
+within the house, or even in the Wynd, where midnight orgies of the
+new-comers sometimes annoyed the remaining grandees not yet gone over
+the Loch; no, nor rap, rap, upwards from the spirits in the deserted
+house right below him, inviting him by the call of "Let me out." Most
+opportune silence,--not even broken by guidwife Christian's Baudron
+watching with brain-lighted eyes at some hole in a meat-press. And
+dark too, not less than Cimmerian, save only for a small rule of
+moonlight, which, penetrating a circular hole in the shutter, played
+fitfully, as the clouds went over its source, on a point of the red
+curtains--sometimes disappearing altogether. By a little groping he got
+his hose; nor more would he venture to search for, but finding his way
+by touch of the finger, he reached the kitchen, where he lighted the end
+of a small dip. A sorry glimmer indeed; but it enabled him to lay his
+hands on a bunch of crooked instruments, which he lifted so stealthily
+that even a mouse would have continued nibbling forbidden cheese, and
+been not a whit alarmed. Then there was the more dangerous opening of
+the door leading to the tortuous stair--dangerous, for that quick ear
+ben the house, which knew the creak as well as she did the accents of
+Geordie Gourlay. Ah, _tutum silentii prĉmium_! has he not gone through
+all this, and reached the stair without a sneeze or sigh of mortal to
+disturb him!
+
+So far was he fortunate; and slipshod in worsted of wife Christian's own
+working, who so little thought, as she pleased herself with the
+reflection of the softness for his feet, that she was to be cheated
+thereby, he slipped gently down the steps on this enterprise he had
+revolved in his mind for years and years of bygone time. Come to the
+identical old door. He had examined it often by candle-light before; and
+as for the rusty hasp and staple, and appended padlock, he knew them
+well, with all their difficulties to even smith's hands of his horny
+manipulation. He laid down the glimmering candle and paused. What a
+formidable object of occlusion, that door by which no one had entered
+for twenty years! Geordie knew nothing of the old notion, that time
+fills secret and vacant recesses with terrified ghosts, frightened away
+from the haunts of men; yet he had strange misgivings, which, being the
+instinctive suggestions of a rude mind, had a better chance for being
+true to nature. Perhaps the cold night air, to which his shirt offered
+small impediment, helped his tremulousness; and that was not diminished
+when, on seizing the padlock, a scream from some drunken unfortunate in
+the Wynd struck on his ear and died away in the midnight silence. Nor
+was he free from the pangs of conscience, as he thought of the
+injunctions of guidwife Christian, and, more than these, the sanctions
+of morality and the laws; but then he was not a thief,--only an
+antiquary, searching into a dungeon of time-hallowed curiosities and
+relics. He laid his hard hand on the rusty padlock. He was accustomed to
+the screech of old bolts, but that now was as if it came from some of
+Vulcan's chains whereby he caught the old thieves. The key-hole was
+entirely filled up with red rust, which, like silence stuffing up the
+mouth, had kept the brain-works unimpaired; so it needed no long time
+till, through his cunning crooks, he heard the nick of the receding
+bolt. A tug brought up the hasp, and now all ought to have been clear;
+but it was otherwise. Time, with his warpings and accumulating glues,
+had been there too long--the door would not give way, even to a smith's
+right hand; but Geordie had a potency in his back, before which other
+unwilling impediments of the same kind, sometimes with a debtor's
+resistance at the other side, had given way. That potency he applied;
+and the groan of the hinges responding fearfully to his ears, the vision
+was at length realized, of that door standing open for the passage of
+human beings.
+
+So far committed, Geordie's courage came with a drawing up of his
+muscles; and muttering between his teeth, which risped like files, "I
+will face any one except the devil," he lifted the candle, the glimmer
+of which paled in the thick air of the opening. He waved it up and down
+before he entered; but it seemed as if the weak rays could not find
+their way in the dense atmosphere--enough, notwithstanding, to show him
+dimly a long lobby. He snorted as the accumulated must stimulated his
+nostrils; but there was more than must--the smell was that of an opened
+grave which had been covered with moil for a century. Yet his step was
+instinctively forward,--the small light flitting here and there like the
+fitful gleam of a magic lantern. Half groping with the left hand, as he
+held the candle with his right, he soon began to discover particulars.
+There were three doors, opening no doubt to rooms, on his left; and as
+the light--becoming accustomed, like men's eyes, to the dark--shone
+forwards towards the end, he saw another door, which was open. Desperate
+men--and Geordie was now wound up--aim at the farthest extremities. He
+made his way forward, laying down each stocking-clad foot as if in fear
+of being heard by the family below, whose hysterics at a tread above
+them at midnight, and in that house, would lead to inquiry and
+detection.
+
+He came at length to the open door at the end of the lobby, and ventured
+in. He was presently in the middle of the kitchen, holding the candle up
+to see as far around him as he could. Geordie had never read of those
+scenes of enchantment where veritable men and women, with warm blood in
+their veins, were, on being touched by a wand, changed into statues with
+the very smile on their faces which they wore at the moment of
+transmutation; in which state they were to remain for a hundred years,
+till the wand was broken by a fairy, when they would all start into
+their old life. No matter if he had not, for here there was no change:
+the kitchen was as it had been left, twenty years before. The
+plate-rack, with the china set all along in regular order--no change
+there; nor on the row of pewter jugs, one of which stood on the dresser,
+with a bottle alongside, and a screw with the cork still on its spiral
+end. No doubt some one had been drinking just on the eve of the
+cessation of the living economy. A square fir-table stood in the middle,
+supplied with plates ready to be carried to the dining-room; and these
+plates were certainly not to have been supplied with imaginary meals,
+like those in the Eastern tale, for, as he held the candle down towards
+the grate, yet half filled with cinders, he saw the horizontal spit with
+the skeleton of a goose stuck on it. The motion of the spit had been
+suspended when the works ran out, and Baudron had feasted upon the flesh
+when it became cold. Nay, that cat, no doubt cherished, lay extended in
+anatomy before the fireplace. Nor could it be doubted that the roast had
+not been ready; for the axe lay beside a piece of coal half splintered,
+for the necessities of the diminished fire. An industrious house too,
+wherein the birr of the wheel and the sneck of the reel had sounded: the
+pirn was half filled, and the wisp, from which the thread had been
+drawn, lay over the back of a chair, as it had been taken from the waist
+of the servant maid. But why should not the sluttish girl's bed have
+been made at a time of the day when a goose was roasting for dinner? Nor
+did Geordie try to answer, because the question was as far from his
+wondering mind, as the time when he stood there himself enchanted was
+from the period of that marvellous dereliction.
+
+With eyes rounder, and wider, and considerably glegger, than when he
+left goodwife Christian snoring in her bed, so unconscious of what her
+husband was to see, he retraced his steps to the kitchen-door, and
+turning to the right, opened that next to him. It was the dining-room.
+He peered about as his wonder still grew. The long oak-table, in place
+of the modern sideboard, ran along the farther end, whereon were
+decanters and two silver cups; and not far from these a salver, with a
+shrivelled lump, hard as whinstone, and of the form of a loaf, with a
+knife lying alongside. The very cushion of the settee opposite to the
+fireplace had preserved upon it the indentation of a human head. But
+much less wonderful was the cloth-covered table, with salt-cellars and
+spice-boxes, and plates, with knives and forks appropriated to each; for
+had not Geordie seen the goose at the fire in the kitchen! The
+indispensable pictures, too, were all round on the dingy walls--every
+one a portrait--staring through dust; and a special one of a female,
+with voluminous silks, and a high flour-starched toupee, claimed the
+charmed eye of the blacksmith. Even in the vertigo of his wonder, he
+looked stedfastly at that beautiful face; nor did the painted eye look
+less stedfastly at him, as if, after twenty years, it was again charmed
+by the vision of a living man, to the withdrawing of that eye from the
+figure alongside of her, so clearly that of her husband. That they were
+master and mistress of this very house he would have concluded, if he
+had been calm enough to think; but he was, alas, still under the soufflé
+of the bellows of romantic wonder.
+
+Where next, if he could take his eye off that beautiful countenance?
+There was a middle door leading into another room: he would persevere
+and still explore. Holding up the fast-diminishing candle, he looked in.
+There was a female figure there, standing in the dark, beside a bed. It
+was arrayed in a long gown, reaching to the feet, of pure white (as
+accords). It moved. Geordie could see it plainly: it was the only thing
+with living motion in all that still and dreary habitation. Hitherto his
+hair had kept wonderfully flat and sleek, but now it began to crisp, and
+swirm, and rise on end; while his legs shook, and the trembling had made
+the glimmer oscillate in every direction, whereby sometimes it turned
+away from the figure, again to illuminate it sparingly, and again to
+vibrate off. He could not, notwithstanding his terror, recede; nay, he
+tried ineffectually to fix the ray on the very thing that thrilled him
+through every nerve. Verily, he would even go forward, under the charm
+of his fear, which, like other morbid feelings, would feed on the object
+which produced it. First a step, and then a step. The glimmer was again
+off the mark; and when he got to the bed, the figure was gone--according
+to the old law.
+
+But the bed was too certainly there, with its deep green curtains, which
+were drawn close, indicating midnight; and yet the goose at the fire,
+and the table laid! Nor could Geordie explain the physical anomaly,
+probably for the reason that he did not try. His candle was wasting away
+with those endless oscillations: the figure in white itself had run off
+with the half of the short stump; and he feared again to be left in the
+dark, where he would have a difficulty in finding his way out. Yet he
+felt he must draw these deep green curtains: the broad hand of Fate was
+upon his shoulders. He seized them hysterically, and pulled them aside
+far enough to let in his head and the candle hand. A dark counterpane
+was covered quarter-inch thick with dust; but the odour was not now of
+must, it was a choking flesh and bone rot, scarcely bearable; even the
+light felt the heaviness, and almost died away in his tremulous fingers.
+There were clothes beneath the counterpane, and a long, narrow tumulus
+down the middle, as if a body were there, of half its usual size; but
+little more was visible, till the eye was turned to the top where the
+pillow lay, half up which the dark counterpane was drawn. There was a
+head on the pillow, partly covered by the coverlet, partly by a
+round-eared mutch--once, no doubt, white as snow, now brown as a Norway
+rat's back; yet Geordie would peer, and peer, till he saw an orbless
+socket of pure white bone, and a portion of two rows of white teeth
+clenched. An undoing of the clothes would have shown him--how much more?
+But his shaking was now a palsy of the brain, and he could not undo the
+suspected horror. He turned suddenly; and, as the green curtain fell
+with a flap, the dip lost its flame, and a black reek vied with that
+heavy cadaverousness. He was in the dark.
+
+Such is the effect of degrees, that, as he groped and groped in a place
+where he had lost all landmarks, and the topography had become a
+confusion, he could have wished to see again the figure in white; which,
+from its own light, could surely, as a spirit, lead him out. His brain
+got into a swirl. If the white figure was the spirit of that thing which
+he had seen so partially in the bed, would it not return to flit about
+its own old tenement? yet not a trail of that white light cast a glance
+anywhere. Groping and groping, knocking his head against unknown things,
+he turned and turned, but could not find the lobby. He had got through
+another door, but not that leading outwards. He must have got into
+another room; for he felt and grasped things he had not heretofore seen.
+Then the noise he had made had such a dreary sound, falling on his
+strained, nerve-strung ear! His hand shrunk at everything he touched, as
+if it had been a deaf adder, or deadly nag--above all, a shock of hair,
+from which he recoiled more than ever yet, till the devious turns round
+and round obliterated every recollection of what he had understood of
+localities. So far he must have retraced his steps; for he had again the
+green curtain in his left hand without knowing it, and the right went
+slap upon that round-eared mutch, and the bone that was under the same.
+Recalled a little to his senses, he got at length to the kitchen,
+circumambulated and circummanipulated the table, and groped his way to
+the door in the end of the lobby, through which he had first entered.
+All safe now by the lines of the two walls, he hugged the outer door as
+if it had been a twenty years' absent friend, a father, or a wife.
+
+Nor did he take time to relock the padlock. He had, besides, lost his
+crooked instruments. Ah! how sweet to get into a warm bed safe and
+sound, after having fancied that from such a white figure hovering round
+dry bones he had heard--for Geordie had read plays--
+
+        "I am that body's spirit,
+    Doomed for a certain time to walk the night;
+    And for the day confined, to fast in fires,
+    Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
+    Are burnt and purged away."
+
+How delightful to Geordie was that snore of wife Christian, as she still
+lay on the liver side, perhaps dreaming of seraphim!
+
+The adventure of that midnight hour dated the beginning of a change on
+George Gourlay. One might have said of him, with the older playwright
+who never pictured a ghost, _quod scis nescis_; for then never a word
+scarcely would he speak to man or beast, nay, not even to a woman, who
+has a power of breaking the charm of that silence in others of which
+their sex are themselves incapable--even, we say, wife Christian. There
+are many Trophonian caves in the world about us, only known to
+ourselves, out of which, when we come, we are mute, because we have seen
+something different from the objects of the sunlight; yea, if, as the
+Indians say, the animals are the dumb of earth, these are the dumb of
+heaven. Certain at least it is, that while Geordie did not hesitate
+before that night to use his voice in asking an extravagant price for an
+old lock, or even damning him who below made more noise than nails, he
+never now used that tongue in such dishonesties and irreverences. But,
+what was even more strange, wife Christian did not seem to have any
+inclination to break his silent mood; nay, if he was moody, so was she.
+Then her eyelight was so changed to him, that he could not thereby, as
+formerly, read her thoughts. Perhaps she took all this on from
+imitation; but she was not one of the imitative children of
+genius--rather a hard-grained Cameronian, to whom others' thoughts are
+only as a snare; yet, might she not have had suspicions of her husband's
+silence? All facts were against such a supposition, except one: that, on
+the following morning, she observed dryly, that the dip she had left in
+the kitchen had burnt away of its own special accord. Vain thoughts all.
+Geordie was simply "born again;" and old women do not speak to infants,
+until, at least, they can hear.
+
+Nor did this mood promise amendment even up to that night, when a rap
+having come to the door, Geordie started, while guidwife Christian went
+undismayed to open the same; for, moody as she was, she was not affected
+by evening raps as he was, and had been since that eventful midnight.
+But if the sturdy blacksmith was afraid before she obeyed the call, he
+was greatly more so after she had opened the door, and when she led into
+the parlour an old man, with hair more than usually grey even for his
+years, with a staff in his hand, bearing up, as he came in, a tall,
+wasted body--so wasted, that he might have been supposed to have waited
+all this time for a leg of that goose which had been so very long at the
+fire. The grief of years had eaten up his face, and only left untouched
+the corrugations itself had made. Yet withal he was a gentleman; for his
+bow to Geordie was just that which the grandees of the Wynd made to each
+other as they passed and repassed. No sooner was he seated, holding his
+cane between his shrivelled legs, and his sharp grey eye fixed on the
+blacksmith, than the latter became as one enchanted for a second time,
+with all the horrors of the first catalepsy upon him, by the process of
+the double sense insisted for by Abercromby, but thus known in Bell's
+Wynd before his day. Yes, Geordie was entranced again, nor less guidwife
+Christian--both staring at the stranger, as if their minds had gone back
+through long bygone years to catch the features of a prototype for
+comparison with that long, withered face, so yellow and grave-like; then
+Christian looked stealthily, and concealed her face.
+
+"You are a blacksmith, Mr. Gourlay?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"How long have you been here in Bell's Wynd?"
+
+"Nine years, come Beltane Feast."
+
+"Not so much as the half of twenty," said the stranger, more inwards
+than outwards.
+
+"Twenty!" ejaculated Christian, as if she could not just help herself.
+
+And Geordie searched her rigid face for a stray sympathy, repeating
+within the teeth that very same word--"Twenty."
+
+"Then," continued the old man, "you cannot tell who occupied the flat
+below at that long period back?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And who occupies it now?"
+
+Geordie was as dumb as the white figure, or as the head on the pillow
+with the rat-brown mutch; and this time Christian answered for him:
+
+"It hasna been occupied for twenty years, sir; and it has been shut up
+a' that lang time."
+
+"Twenty years!" ejaculated the old man, pondering deeply, and sighing
+heavily and painfully.
+
+"Do any of you know Mr. Thomas Dallas, the Clerk to the Signet, who
+lived once in Lady Stair's Close?"
+
+"Dead eighteen years since," replied the wife.
+
+"Ah, I see," rejoined the stranger; "and so the house has been thus long
+closed!" Then musingly, "But then it will be empty--no furniture,
+nothing but bare walls."
+
+"Naebody kens," replied George, still busy examining the face of the
+questioner, as if he could not get it to be steady alongside the image
+in his own mind.
+
+"You can, of course, open a padlock?"
+
+"Ou ay, when it's no owre auld, and the brass slide has been well kept
+on the key-hole." Then, as if recollecting himself, "I hinna tried an
+auld ane for years."
+
+"One twenty years unopened?" rejoined the stranger.
+
+Geordie was again dumb and rigid.
+
+"Indeed, sir," replied Christian, who saw that her husband was under
+some strong feeling, "he can pick ony lock."
+
+"The very man," said the mysterious visitor. "And now, madam, will you
+allow me to take the liberty of requesting to be for a few moments the
+only one present in this room with your husband, as I have some business
+of a very secret nature to transact with him, which it would not be
+proper for a woman, even of your evident discretion and confidence, to
+be acquainted with?"
+
+"I dinna want ye to gang," whispered George.
+
+"And what for no?" muttered she. "Let evil-doers dree the shame o' their
+deeds. Didna ye say to me ye were an honest man, ay, even as cauld iron
+or steel, and what ought ye to hae to fear? And now, sir," turning
+round, "I will e'en tak me to the kitchen, that what ye want wi' George
+Gourlay you may do in secret, even as he has been secret wi' me."
+
+Then guidwife Christian went out, casting, as she went, a look of
+something like triumph at her husband.
+
+"And now, George Gourlay," said the stranger, "the secret thing I have
+to transact with you, and for which I have come three thousand miles, is
+to ask you to go with me this night and open the padlock of the door of
+that house below, which has not been opened for twenty years."
+
+"I winna, I canna, I daurna, sir. Gang to the Dean o' Guild. There's a
+dead body in the green bed, and there's a spirit in a lang white goun
+that watches it."
+
+The hand of the stranger shook, as he grasped spasmodically his staff;
+his teeth for a moment were clenched; and he plainly showed a resolution
+not to seem moved by that which as clearly did move him to the innermost
+parts of his being. Nor did it now escape Gourlay, as he sat and gazed
+at him, that he was the original of that picture in the dining-room,
+which hung by the side of the beautiful lady.
+
+"Then you must have been in?"
+
+Geordie was silent, meditating on some new light gradually breaking in
+upon him.
+
+"You must have been in, and--and--know the secret?"
+
+"I ken nae secret, except it be that the goose which has been at the
+fire for twenty years is no roasted yet."
+
+"That goose at the fire even yet!" ejaculated the stranger.
+
+"Ay, and the thread still on the pirn."
+
+"Pirn!" responded he mechanically.
+
+"Ay, and the bottle standing on the dresser along by the pewter mug."
+
+"Mug!"
+
+"Ay, and the half-cut loaf on the oaken table, with alongside o't the
+knife."
+
+"Knife!"
+
+"Ay, and to cap a', the green bed with the dark red counterpane, and in
+it still the corpse."
+
+"Corpse!"
+
+"So, so," continued the stranger, "I have been wandering the wide world
+for twenty years to escape from myself, as if a man could leave his
+shadow in the east when he has gone to the west, and all that time found
+the vanity of a forced forgetfulness where the touch of God's finger
+still burned in the heart. Ay, nor long prairies, nor savannahs where
+objects are cast behind and not seen, nor thick woods which exclude the
+sun, nor rocky caves by the sea-shore, where there is only heard the
+roaring of the waves, could untwine the dark soul from its
+recollections. But other things of earth and human workmanship rot and
+pass away, as if all were vanity, but man's spirit; and yet here it has
+been decreed by Heaven, and wrought by miracle, that things of flesh,
+and bone, and wood, and dried grass should be enchanted for duration,
+yea, kept in the very place, and form, and lineaments they possessed in
+a terrible hour, the memory of which they must conserve for a purpose.
+Speak man: Have those sights and things taught you aught of a purpose?
+Why look ye at me as if you saw into my heart, and grin as if you were
+gifted with the right of revenge? What thoughts have you--what wishes?
+What do you premeditate?"
+
+"Just nae mair than that you'll no get me to enter that house again."
+
+The stranger's head was bent down in heavy sorrow; and, after being
+silent for a while, he rose, and bidding Gourlay good night, went away,
+saying he would get another locksmith. The strange manner of Christian
+was now made even more remarkable, as, taking her bonnet and cloak, she
+sallied forth, late as the hour was, proceeding up the Wynd, and
+muttering as she went, "The very man, the very man," she made direct for
+Blackfriars Wynd, where she stopt, and looked up to a small window on
+the right hand. There was light in it; and ascending a narrow stair she
+reached a door, which she quietly opened. A woman was there, busily
+spinning. The birr ceased as the door opened.
+
+"Ann Hall," cried Christian, as she entered, "he is come, he is come! I
+kent his face the moment I saw it."
+
+"Patience, patience, Christian," replied the woman, "what are you to
+do?"
+
+"There maun be nae patience, when God says haste."
+
+"Canny, canny. The wa's are thin and ears are gleg. I can hear a whisper
+frae the next room. Now, I'll spin and you'll speak."
+
+And so she began to produce the dirl by turning the wheel and plying the
+thread.
+
+"What although ye hae seen him? that maks nae difference. Your aith is
+still afore the Lord; and though we are forbidden to swear, when we hae
+sworn we hae nae right to brak that aith, as if it were a silly wand,
+to be broken and cast awa' at the end o' our journey. And then ye maun
+keep in mind, if you brak your word, ye stretch his neck."
+
+"I carena," replied Christian. "The Lord maun hae His ain for reward,
+and Satan maun hae his ain, too, for punishment. Sin' ever that eery
+night when in my night-shirt I followed George into the house, and saw
+what I saw, the Spirit o' the Lord has been busy in my heart; and my
+aith has been to me nae mair than a windlestrae in the east wind, to be
+blawn awa' where it listeth. Ye are, like mysel', o' the Auld Light, and
+ken what it is to hae the finger o' command laid upon ye."
+
+"We maun obey; but we maun ken whether the finger is for the will o' the
+auld rebel o' pride, wha rebelled in heaven, or Him wha says to the
+murderer, Get ye among the rocks or caves o' secrecy, and I will search
+ye out, and rug ye into the licht."
+
+"And what for should I no ken whase finger it is?" said wife Christian.
+"Have I no seen what I have seen? For what are a' thae things keepit, as
+man keeps the apple o' his e'e? Is na the rust and the worm, ay, and
+Time's teeth, aye eating, and gnawing, and tearing, so that everything
+passes awa' to make room for others, as if the hail warld were a
+whirligig turning round like your ain wheel there for ever and ever?"
+
+"Ay, the Lord's hand, na doubt. The deil doesna keep the instruments and
+signs o' his evil, but shuffles them awa' in nooks and corners to be out
+o' the een o' his victims."
+
+"But hae I no laid my very hand on the fleshless head o' the bonny
+misguided creature? Wae tak the man wha brought sae muckle beauty to the
+earth to rot, and yet hae nae grave to cover it!"
+
+"Weel mind I o' her," said Ann, as she still made the wheel go round.
+"How she sailed up the Wynd wi' her load o' silks and satins, and the
+ribbons that waved in the wind, as if to say, Look here; saw ye ever the
+like among the daughters o' men?"
+
+"It was left to testify, woman, naething else; but the glimmer o'
+Geordie's candle showed me a' the lave. Ay, the very goose I plucked,
+and drew, and singed, and put on the spit--what for is it there, think
+ye, cummer, but to testify? and the pewter jug I drank out o' that
+forenoon, and my ain bed I hadna time to mak--what for but to testify?"
+
+"And punish. But oh, woman, he had sair provocations. Wha was that goose
+for?"
+
+"For her lover, nae doubt; for my master wasna expected hame for a week.
+And was I no guilty mysel', wha played into her hands, and was fause to
+him wha fed me?"
+
+"Haud your peace, then, and say naething. The Lord will forgi'e you."
+
+"Oh God, hae mercy on me, a sinner; and tak awa' frae me this
+transgression, that I may lift up my voice in the tabernacle without
+fear or trembling!"
+
+The wheel turned with greater celerity and more noise, and wife
+Christian was on her knees, beating her bosom and crying for mercy.
+
+"Say nae mair, woman," cried the spinner, "and do nae mair. Let the
+corpse lie in the green bed, and a' thing be in the wud-dream o' that
+dreary house; do nae mair."
+
+"But the Lord drives me."
+
+"Just sae; and he wham you would hang on the wuddy will stand up against
+ye, and swear ye were the cause o' the death o' his braw leddie, for
+that ye concealed her trothlessness, and winked at her wickedness."
+
+"Haud your tongue, cummer," cried the Old Light Sinner; "haud your
+tongue, or you'll drive me mad. Is my heart no like aneugh to brak its
+strings, but ye maun tug at them? Is my brain no het aneugh, but ye maun
+set lowe to it, and burn it? And my conscience, ken ye na what it is to
+hae that terrible thing within ye, when it's waukened up like a fiend o'
+hell, chasing ye wi' a red-het brand, and nae escape, for the angel o'
+the Lord hauds ye agen? Ann Hall, my auldest friend, will ye do this
+thing for me?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Gang to Mr B----, the fiscal, and tell him that the corpse is there,
+and that the man is here, and say naething o' me; do this, or I'll never
+haud up my hands again for grace and mercy."
+
+Ann was silent, only driving the wheel, the sound of which in the silent
+house--dark enough, too, in the small light of the oil cruise over the
+fireplace--was all that was heard, save the occasional sobs of the
+unhappy victim of conscience.
+
+"I canna, Christian; I canna, lass. I'll hang nae man for the death o' a
+light-o'-love limmer, and to save the conscience o' ane wha, if she
+didna see something wrang when it _was_ wrang, ought to hae seen it."
+
+"I repent and am sair in the spirit," replied Christian; "but if I had
+tauld him what I suspected was wrang between Spynie--and ye ken he was a
+lord, and titles cast glamour ower the een o' maidens--and my mistress,
+it would hae been a' the same. But wae's me!" she added, as she sighed
+from the depths of the heart, and wrung her hands, "I had a lichtness
+about me myself. A woman's no in her ain keeping at wild happy nineteen.
+The heart is aye jumping against the head. But oh, how changed when the
+Auld Licht shone ower me! And hae I no been a guid wife to Geordie
+Gourlay? Will you no help me, woman?"
+
+"I hae said it," replied Mrs Hall, as the energy of her resolution
+passed into the moving power of the wheel, and the revolutions became
+quicker and quicker.
+
+The Cameronian stood for a moment looking at her--the lips compressed,
+the brow knit, the hand firmly bound up, and striking it upon the wall.
+
+"Ye're o' my faith," said she bitterly; "and may the Evil One help ye
+when ye're in need o' the Lord!"
+
+And with these words she left her old friend, drawing the door after her
+with a clang, which shook the crazy tenement. In a moment she was in the
+street, now beginning to be deserted. The wooden-pillared lamps, so
+thinly distributed, and their small dreary spunk of life, showed only
+the darkness they were perhaps intended to illumine; and here and there
+was seen a gay-dressed sprig of aristocracy, with his gold-headed cane,
+cocked hat, and braided vest, strolling unsteadily home, after having
+drunk his couple of claret. Solitary city guardsmen were lounging about,
+as if waiting for the peace being broken, when an encounter occurred
+between some such ornamented braggadocio and a low Wynd
+blackguard--ready to use his quarter-staff against the silver-handled
+sword of the aristocrat; and here and there the high-pattened,
+short-gowned light-o'-love, regardless of the loud-screamed "gardy-loo,"
+frolicked with "gold lace and wine," or swore the Edinburgh oaths at
+untrue and discarded lovers of their own degree. But guidwife Christian
+saw none of all these things; only one engrossing vision was in her
+mind, that of the sleeping scene of enchantment in the old flat,
+associated with the figure of the stranger;--one feeling only was
+paramount in her heart, the inspired awe of the conviction that these
+petrified relics of another time, so long back, were there waiting for
+her to touch them, that they should be disenchanted, and speak and tell
+their tale, and then rot and depart, according to the usual law of
+change, and corruption, and decay.
+
+In this mood she got to the top of the Wynd, and was hurrying along the
+first or covered portion, overspread by the front lands, and therefore
+dark, when she encountered a man rolled up in a cloak. Even in the dim
+light coming from the street lamp on the main pavement, she recognised
+him in a moment. He was slouching down by the side of the wall, and did
+not seem to notice her. So Christian held back, until he had got farther
+on. She felt herself concentrated upon his movements, and observed that
+he hung about her own stair, standing in the middle of the close, with
+his eye fixed on the dark windows of the deserted flat. There was no
+meaning in his action. It seemed simply that his eye was bound to that
+house. So far Christian understood the ways of the world; but there are
+deeper mysteries there than she wotted of or dreamed just then. A man
+will examine a gangrene if it is hopeful; and will hope, and shrink, and
+be alarmed, when the hope fails only but a little; nay, he will dread
+the undoing of the bandages, lest the hope of the prior undoing should
+be changed by the new aspect into a conviction of aggravation; but there
+is a state of that ailment, as of moral ills, where all hope having
+vanished, despair comes to be reconciled to its own terrors, and the eye
+will peer into the hopeless thing, ay, and be charmed with it, and dally
+with it, as an irremediable condition, which is his own peculium, a part
+of his nature, so far changed. He then becomes a lover of pity, as
+before he was a seeker for hope; and, like a desperate bankrupt, will
+hawk the balance-sheet of his ills, to make up for the subtraction from
+his credit by the sympathy of the world. So did that man look upon that
+house, a hopeless sore, after twenty years pain and agony, with these
+green spots, and the caustic-defying "proud flesh." Was not the
+fleshless corpse of his dead wife still there? She was a skeleton; but
+he could only fancy her as he had seen her twenty years before, a young
+and beautiful woman. Nor was he alarmed as Christian, weary of waiting
+but not unsteeled now for a recognition, stept forward and confronted
+him.
+
+"Mrs. Gourlay!" he said, as he peered into her hard face.
+
+"Ay, guidwife Christian, as my husband says. Christian Gourlay that
+is--Christian Dempster that was."
+
+"Dempster!" ejaculated he, as he staggered and sustained himself against
+the side of the close.
+
+"Yes, sir--Patrick Guthrie that was when I was Dempster, and is--ay, and
+will be till you are born again, and baptized with fire."
+
+"Patrick Guthrie!" he repeated. "Yes, the man, the very man. And here,
+too, is the evidence kept and preserved, perhaps more than once snatched
+from death, to be here at this hour to see me, and lay your hand on me,
+and be certain that I am the man, the very man. And," after a pause,
+"you have kept your sworn promise?"
+
+"Till this day. Look up there, and see thae closed shutters; go in, and
+behold, and say whether or not."
+
+"Too faithful!" groaned he.
+
+"To an aith wrung out o' me by a money-bribe and terror."
+
+"And to be repaid by a money-reward and penitence."
+
+"The ane, sir, but never the other. Another day--another day," she
+repeated, "will try a'."
+
+"What mean you, Christian?"
+
+"Mean I? Why are you here?"
+
+"Because I am weary wandering over the face of the earth, an exile and a
+criminal, for twenty long--oh long years!"
+
+"And now want rest and peace! And how can ye get them but through the
+fire of the law, and the waters of the gospel? Where are you living?"
+
+"Why should I conceal from you, Christian?" said he, thoughtfully.
+"No--at the White Horse in the Canongate, under the name of Douglas."
+
+"_Her_ name! Then look ye to it; for there will be human voices where
+none have been for twenty years, and cries o' wonder, and tears o' pity.
+Yes, yes, the long sleep is ended, for the charm is broken. Good night."
+
+And hurrying away, she mounted the stair, leaving the man even more
+amazed than he was heart-broken and miserable. Nor will we be far wrong
+in supposing that Patrick Guthrie sought the White Horse probably not to
+sleep, but if to sleep, as probably to dream. As for guidwife Christian,
+she was soon on that side so propitious to her snoring; and as for her
+dreams, they were not more of seraphim, nor of Urim and Thummim, than
+they were on that night when she was the disembodied spirit of her who
+had lain so long in the bed with green curtains. Yet, no doubt, Geordie
+was just as certain that she slept as he was on that same night when he
+saw the said disembodied spirit; and as for himself, there could be
+little doubt that, sleeping or waking, his mind was occupied in tracing
+the marked resemblance of the stranger to the picture on the wall, which
+would lead him again to the beautiful lady, and which, again, would
+remind him of the bones below the red coverlet; and then there is as
+little doubt as there is about all these wonderful things, that he
+would fancy himself beridden with a terrible nightmare. Oppressed and
+tortured by thoughts which he could not bring to bear on any probable
+event, he turned and turned; but all his restlessness would produce no
+effect on guidwife Christian, who seemed as dead asleep as ever was he
+of the Cretan cave in the middle of the seventy years. Nor could he
+understand this: heretofore a slight cough, even slighter than that
+which brought the Doctor in the "Devil on Two Sticks," used to awaken
+the faithful wife; and now nothing would awaken her. He dodged, he
+cried; but she wouldn't help to take off the nightmare, which, with its
+old characteristic of tailor-folded legs and grinning aspect, sat upon
+his chest, as it heaved, but could not throw off the imp. But what was
+more extraordinary, this strange conduct of Christian was the
+continuation of--nay, a climax to--her inexplicable conduct since ever
+that night when he caught up in his mind, as in a prism, that midnight
+vision which he had seen, and the fiery coruscations of which still
+careered through his brain. Honest Geordie had no guile; and if he had
+had any, the new birth he had undergone, with the consequent baptism,
+would have taken it clean away, so that there was no chance of a
+suspicion of the part which guidwife Christian had played on the said
+occasion. Yet, wonder as he might, if he had known all, he would have
+wondered more how any woman, even with the advantage of a "New Light,"
+could have snored under the purpose she had revolved in her mind, and
+which she had so darkly revealed to her old master. Ah yes, that female
+member, of which so much has been said--even that it contains on the
+subtle point thereof a little nerve which anatomists cannot find in the
+corresponding organ in man--can swim lightly _tanquam suber_, and yet
+never give an indication of the depths below. But Geordie became
+wild;--was she dead outright? Dead people do not snore, but the dying do
+in apoplexy. He took her by the shoulders, and shook her.
+
+"Christian, woman, will ye no speak, when I can get nae rest? Wha was
+that man wha called here yestreen?"
+
+No, she wouldn't.
+
+"And did I no see you look at him as ye never looked at man before?"
+
+No avail.
+
+"And what took ye out so soon after he was awa'?"
+
+No reply.
+
+"And what's mair"--the murder was now out,--"did ye no meet him secretly
+at the stair-foot, and stand and speak to him in strange words and
+strange signs?"
+
+Not yet.
+
+"And what, in the name o' Heaven, and a' the ither powers up and down
+and round and round, was the aith that ye swore to him?"
+
+Another pause.
+
+"And what money-bribe was it ye spak o' sae secretly and darkly?"
+
+All in vain. At length the knurr of the clock, and the most solemn of
+all the hours, "one," sounded hoarsely. Wearied, exhausted, and sorely
+troubled, Geordie fell asleep, greatly aided thereto by the eternal
+oscillation of that little tongue at the back of the greater and mute
+one, the sound of which ceased when the blacksmith was fairly and
+certainly over, just as if its services had been no longer needed that
+night.
+
+Surely the next of these eventful days was destined, either by the
+Furies or the good goddess, to be that day that "would try a'." Even
+these words Geordie had heard, if he had not caught up many other
+broken sentences, which showed to his distracted mind that guidwife
+Christian was in some mysterious way mixed up with the events and things
+of the charmed house. The comparatively sleepless night induced a later
+than usual rising; but with what wonder did Geordie Gourlay ascertain,
+that late as Christian had been out on the previous night, she was
+already again forth of the house, leaving him to the bachelor work of
+making his own breakfast! Where she had gone he could not even venture
+to suppose; but certain he was that her absence was in some way
+connected with that stranger with whom he had seen her in communication
+the night before. The business did not admit of his waiting; so he took
+his morning meal of porridge and milk, and with thoughts anxious and
+deep, yet deeper in mere feeling than portrayment of outward coming
+events, he sallied forth for the Luckenbooths. On descending the stair,
+he found to his dire amazement the door of the portentous flat--that
+grave above ground of so many things that should have been either under
+the earth, in the sinless regions of mortality, or in the mendicant bag
+of Time, rolled away beyond the ken of mortal--open. Yes, that door,
+with the rusty padlock, and the creaking hinge, and the worm-eaten
+panels, was open. He shuddered: yet he looked ben into the old dark
+lobby, where he had groped and so nearly lost himself; and what did he
+see? His wife, guidwife Christian, standing in the middle thereof in her
+white short-gown, so like, to his imperfect vision, that spirit he had
+encountered in that house before! There seemed to be others there also;
+for he heard inside doors creaking, and by and by saw come out of the
+far-end door that very man--yea, the very man. The reflection of a light
+shone out upon him. To escape observation, he slipt to a side; and when
+he peered in again, no one was to be seen. They had passed together
+into some of the rooms, probably that bedroom where stood the bed with
+the green curtains. Resolved as he had been never to enter that door-way
+again, he would have rushed forward, had not a hand been laid on his
+shoulder.
+
+"George Gourlay," said a voice behind him.
+
+"Ay, nae doubt I'm weel kenned."
+
+"You are in the meantime my prisoner," said an officer, with the
+indispensable blue coat, and the red collar, and the cocked hat.
+
+"For what?" said Geordie.
+
+"Ye'll ken that by and by," replied the officer; "the fiscal will tell
+ye. Awa' wi' me to the office."
+
+"Humph! for picking a lock," said the blacksmith. "The deil put my left
+fingers between my hammer and the stiddy when I meddle again wi' rusty
+padlocks."
+
+"There's naething dune on earth but what is seen," said the man, as with
+something like a smile on his left cheek, the other retaining its
+gravity, he held up his finger as if pointing to heaven.
+
+"Ay, ay, there's an e'e there."
+
+"And to break open a house," continued the officer, "is death en the
+wuddy up yonder at the 'Auld Heart.'"
+
+"But wha, in God's name, is the witness against me?"
+
+"Guidwife Christian," said the officer again, seriously enough at least
+for Geordie's belief of his sincerity.
+
+"And the woman has turned against her husband! This is the warst blow
+ava. But, Lord, man, I stowe naething."
+
+"Thieves are no generally at the trouble of picking locks, rummaging a
+house, and going away empty-handed, as if out o' a kirk. But come, you
+can tell the Lord Advocate's deputy a' that."
+
+And George Gourlay was taken away, muttering to himself, as he went,
+"This explains a'. Nae wonder she wadna speak to the man she intended
+to hang. Woman, woman, verily from the beginning hae ye been we to man,
+and will be to the end."
+
+Led up the High Street, yet in such a way as to avoid any suspicion that
+he was in the hands of an officer, George Gourlay was placed safely in
+the room of Mr. B----, the procurator-fiscal of that time, for reasons
+unknown to us, in the Old Tolbooth. The entry through the thick
+iron-knobbed door to the inside of this dark and dreary pile, which
+borrowed its light only through openings left by the irregularities of
+the high masses of St. Giles, and the parallel rows of overshadowing
+houses, flanked by the booths and the Crames, was enough to vanquish the
+heart of the strongest and the most innocent. Nor was it the darkness
+and the squalor alone that were so formidable. Thick air, loaded with
+the breath and exhalations from unhealthiness and disease itself, had
+made livid faces and bloodshot eyes; drunken, uproarious voices, and
+bacchanalian songs, oaths, denunciations, and peals of laughter, mixed
+with groans. Only awanting that inscription seen by the Hermet shadow
+who led the Florentine. Up a stair--through the midst of these children
+of evil or victims of misfortune, the innocent rendered guilty by
+infection, the condemned to death made drearily jolly by despair,
+imitating the recklessness of mirth,--and now the unfortunate George
+Gourlay is before his examinator.
+
+"Mr. Gourlay," said the officer.
+
+"Sit down, sir," said Mr. B----, "and wait till the others come. We
+cannot want Mrs. Gourlay, though no doubt you can swear to the man. In
+the meantime, hold your peace, lest you commit yourself. Say nothing
+till you are asked. Most strange affair."
+
+Thus at once doomed to silence, George sat and listened to the mixed
+buzz of this misery become ludibund. Nor was his unhappiness thus
+limited: a fearful conviction seized him, that long before he was hanged
+he would take on the likeness of the wretches he had passed through;--he
+would become sleazy; his eyes would be red, fiery, or bleared with
+tears, dried up in the heat of his fevered blood; his cheeks would be
+pale-yellow or blue, his voice husky, and his nose red; he would sing,
+swear, dance--ay, douce Geordie would sing even as they. Better be
+hanged at once than sent hence thus deteriorated,--an unpleasant
+customer in the other world. Nay, one half of them had greasy, furzy,
+red nightcaps; and the chance was therefore a half that he would be
+thrown off in one of these, to the eternal disgrace of the Gourlays of
+Gersholm, from whom he was descended.
+
+A full hour passed, bringing no comfort on its heavy wings. At length
+another red-necked official entered, and introduced guidwife Christian
+herself, and--Patrick Guthrie.
+
+When these parties entered, Geordie's eyes and mouth had relapsed into
+that condition they presented on that occasion when he saw the wraith by
+the bed with the green curtains.
+
+"Mrs. Gourlay," said Mr. B----, "you are the wife of George Gourlay,
+blacksmith?"
+
+"Ay, and have been for nine years, come the time, the day, and the
+hour."
+
+"Please throw your mind back twenty years."
+
+"It ower aften gaes back to that time o' its ain accord, sir."
+
+"Well, tell us where you lived, and what you did about that time."
+
+"I was servant to Mr. Patrick Guthrie,--this gentleman sitting at my
+right hand."
+
+"Was Mr. Guthrie a married man?"
+
+"Ay, sir, he was married to a young lady, whose maiden name was
+Henrietta Douglas, ane o' the Brigstons, as I hae heard."
+
+"What kind of woman was she?"
+
+"Bonny, sir, as ony that ever walked the High Street or the Canongate;
+and the mair wae, sir. Cheerfu', too, and light-hearted and merry as the
+lavrock when it rises in the morning; ay, and the mair wae!"
+
+"Why do you add these words?" continued Mr. B----. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Because thae things brought gay gallants about the house when master
+was awa' in Angus, whaur he had a property near Gaigie; but he was nane,
+I think, o' the four Guthries."
+
+"Then you knew that they came without the knowledge and against the
+wishes of your master?"
+
+"Ower weel, sir, for my peace these twenty years bygane."
+
+"Then you think there was more than indiscretion in Mrs. Guthrie?"
+
+"Muckle mair, I doubt."
+
+"Do you recollect the names of any of these gay gallants?"
+
+"There was Lord Spynie, a wild dare-the-deil; but sae merry, and jovial,
+and pleasant, that his very een were nets to catch women's hearts."
+
+"Do you remember anything happening when Lord Spynie was in the house
+in Bell's Wynd?"
+
+"Ay; on the last day o' my service, yea, the last day o' my leddie's
+life. My maister had gane to Gaigie, as I thought; but I aye doubted if
+he had been farther than the White Horse. He wouldna return for a week,
+not he; and so my leddie thought, for the next day she ordered me to get
+a goose, and roast it on the spit; and weel I kenned wha the goose was
+for. But I didna like the business, for I had my pirns to finish--no,
+gude forgie me, that I was against this deception o' my master. The
+goose was bought, and plucket, and singed, and put to the fire. The
+dinner was to be at twa o'clock, and Lord Spynie was there by ane. In
+half an hour after, wha comes rushing in but my master? And the moment
+he saw Spynie, he drew his sword, and so did his lordship his. My
+mistress screamed, and ran between them; and oh! sir, the sword that was
+thrust at Spynie gaed clean through my mistress's fair body. She was
+dead. Then Lord Spynie lost a' his courage, and flew out o' the house;
+and just as he was passing through the door, my master thrust at him,
+and his bluidy sword snapt and was broken clean through. He came back
+and looked on my leddy, and kissed her, ay, and grat like a bairn; but
+oh! he was composed too. 'Christy,' said he, 'lay your mistress on the
+green bed.' And so I did, and streeked her, and drew the coverlet over
+her, and put a mutch upon her head. Oh how fair she was in death!
+'Christy,' said master, 'come hither.' I obeyed. 'Get the Bible,' he
+said. I got it. 'Get on your knees,' he said. I knelt. 'Here,' said he,
+'is twenty gowden guineas; and now swear upon the Laws and the Prophets,
+and the four Gospels, that you will never, by word, or look, or pen,
+reveal to man, or woman, or wean what has been done--in this house this
+day.' I swore. 'Now go,' said he; 'for I am to lock up the house, and go
+far away, where no man can know me.' So I took my little trunk, and went
+away sobbing. Nor was he a moment after me. I saw him shut the shutters
+and lock the door, and walk quickly away. Nor was he ever heard of more
+till yesterday; and there he is."
+
+"Is all this true, Mr. Guthrie?"
+
+"All true as God's word."
+
+"And all this happened twenty years ago?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then by the law of Scotland you are a free man, even were this murder
+or homicide; for twenty years is the period of our prescription. You may
+all go."
+
+Then they rose to depart.
+
+"Mr. Guthrie," cried Mr. B----, "bury your wife. And, hark ye, the goose
+has been at the fire for twenty years, and must now, I think, be
+roasted."
+
+
+
+
+THE PRODIGAL SON.
+
+
+The early sun was melting away the coronets of grey clouds on the brows
+of the mountains, and the lark, as if proud of its plumage, and
+surveying itself in an illuminated mirror, carolled over the bright
+water of Keswick, when two strangers met upon the side of the lofty
+Skiddaw. Each carried a small bag and a hammer, betokening that their
+common errand was to search for objects of geological interest. The one
+appeared about fifty, the other some twenty years younger. There is
+something in the solitude of the everlasting hills, which makes men who
+are strangers to each other despise the ceremonious introductions of the
+drawing-room. So it was with our geologists--their place of meeting,
+their common pursuit, produced an instantaneous familiarity. They spent
+the day, and dined on the mountain-side together. They shared the
+contents of their flasks with each other; and, ere they began to descend
+the hill, they felt, the one towards the other, as though they had been
+old friends. They had begun to take the road towards Keswick, when the
+elder said to the younger, "My meeting with you to-day recalls to my
+recollection a singular meeting which took place between a friend of
+mine and a stranger, about seven years ago, upon the same mountain. But,
+sir, I will relate to you the circumstances connected with it; and they
+might be called the History of the Prodigal Son."
+
+He paused for a few moments, and proceeded:--About thirty years ago a
+Mr. Fen-wick was possessed of property in Bamboroughshire worth about
+three hundred per annum. He had married while young, and seven fair
+children cheered the hearth of a glad father and a happy mother. Many
+years of joy and of peace had flown over them, when Death visited their
+domestic circle, and passed his icy hand over the cheek of the
+first-born; and, for five successive years, as their children opened
+into manhood and womanhood, the unwelcome visitor entered their
+dwelling, till of their little flock there was but one, the youngest,
+left. And O, sir, in the leaving of that one, lay the cruelty of
+Death--to have taken him, too, would have been an act of mercy. His name
+was Edward; and the love, the fondness, and the care which his parents
+had borne for all their children, were concentrated on him. His father,
+whose soul was stricken with affliction, yielded to his every wish; and
+his poor mother
+
+                                  "Would not permit
+    The winds of heaven to visit his cheek too roughly."
+
+But you shall hear how cruelly he repaid their love--how murderously he
+returned their kindness. He was headstrong and wayward; and though the
+small still voice of affection was never wholly silent in his breast, it
+was stifled by the storm of his passions and propensities. His first
+manifestation of open viciousness was a delight in the brutal practice
+of cock-fighting; and he became a constant attender at every "_main_"
+that took place at Northumberland. He was a habitual "_bettor_," and his
+losses were frequent; but hitherto his father, partly through fear, and
+partly from a too tender affection, had supplied him with money. A
+"main" was to take place in the neighbourhood of Morpeth, and he was
+present. Two noble birds were disfigured, the savage instruments of
+death were fixed upon them, and they were pitted against each other. "A
+hundred to one on the Felton Grey!" shouted Fen-wick. "Done! for
+guineas!" replied another. "Done! for guineas!--done!" repeated the
+prodigal--and the next moment the Felton Grey lay dead on the ground,
+pierced through the skull with the spur of the other. He rushed out of
+the cockpit--"I shall expect payment to-morrow, Fen-wick," cried the
+other. The prodigal mounted his horse, and rode homeward with the fury
+of a madman. Kind as his father was, and had been, he feared to meet him
+or tell him the amount of his loss. His mother perceived his agony, and
+strove to soothe him.
+
+"What is't that troubles thee, my bird?" inquired she. "Come, tell thy
+mother, darling."
+
+With an oath he cursed the mention of birds, and threatened to destroy
+himself.
+
+"O Edward, love! thou wilt kill thy poor mother. What can I do for
+thee?"
+
+"Do for me!" he exclaimed, wildly tearing his hair as he spoke--"do for
+me, mother. Get me a hundred pounds, or my heart's blood shall flow at
+your feet."
+
+"Child! child!" said she, "thou hast been at thy black trade of betting
+again. Thou wilt ruin thy father, Edward, and break thy mother's heart.
+But give me thy hand on't, dear, that thou'lt bet no more, and I'll get
+thy father to give thee the money."
+
+"My father must not know," he exclaimed; "I will die rather."
+
+"Love! love!" replied she; "but, without asking thy father, where could
+I get thee a hundred pounds?"
+
+"You have some money, mother," added he; "and you have
+trinkets--jewellery!" he gasped, and hid his face as he spoke.
+
+"Thou shalt have them!--thou shalt have them, child!" said she, "and
+all the money thy mother has--only say thou wilt bet no more. Dost thou
+promise, Edward--oh, dost thou promise thy poor mother this?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" he cried. And he burst into tears as he spoke.
+
+He received the money, and the trinkets, which his mother had not worn
+for thirty years, and hurried from the house, and with them discharged a
+portion of his dishonourable debt.
+
+He, however, did bet again; and I might tell you how he became a
+horse-racer also; but you shall hear that too. He was now about
+two-and-twenty, and for several years he had been acquainted with
+Eleanor Robinson--a fair being, made up of gentleness and love, if ever
+woman was. She was an orphan, and had a fortune at her own disposal of
+three thousand pounds. Her friends had often warned her against the
+dangerous habits of Edward Fen-wick. But she had given him her young
+heart--to him she had plighted her first vow--and, though she beheld his
+follies, she trusted that time and affection would wean him from them;
+and, with a heart full of hope and love, she bestowed on him her hand
+and fortune. Poor Eleanor! her hopes were vain, her love unworthily
+bestowed. Marriage produced no change on the habits of the prodigal son
+and thoughtless husband. For weeks he was absent from his own house,
+betting and carousing with his companions of the turf; while one vice
+led the way to another, and, by almost imperceptible degrees, he
+unconsciously sunk into all the habits of a profligate.
+
+It was about four years after his marriage, when, according to his
+custom, he took leave of his wife for a few days, to attend the meeting
+at Doncaster.
+
+"Good-bye, Eleanor, dear," he said gaily, as he rose to depart, and
+kissed her cheek; "I shall be back within five days."
+
+"Well, Edward," said she, tenderly, "if you will go, you must; but think
+of me, and think of these our little ones." And, with a tear in her eye,
+she desired a lovely boy and girl to kiss their father. "Now, think of
+us, Edward," she added; "and do not bet, dearest, do not bet!"
+
+"Nonsense, duck! nonsense!" said he; "did you ever see me lose?--do you
+suppose that Ned Fen-wick is not 'wide awake?' I know my horse, and its
+rider too--Barrymore's Highlander can distance everything. But, if it
+could not, I have it from a sure hand--the other horses are all
+'_safe_.' Do you understand that--eh?"
+
+"No, I do not understand it, Edward, nor do I wish to understand it,"
+added she; "but, dearest, as you love me--as you love our children--risk
+nothing."
+
+"Love you, little gipsy! you know I'd die for you," said he--and, with
+all his sins, the prodigal spoke the truth. "Come, Nell, kiss me again,
+my dear--no long faces--don't take a leaf out of my old mother's book;
+you know the saying, 'Never venture, never win--faint heart never won
+fair ladye!' Good-bye, love--'bye, Ned--good-bye, mother's darling," said
+he, addressing the children as he left the house.
+
+He reached Doncaster; he had paid his guinea for admission to the
+betting-rooms; he had whispered with, and slipped a fee to all the
+shrivelled, skin-and-bone, half-melted little manikins, called jockeys,
+to ascertain the secrets of their horses. "All's safe!" said the
+prodigal to himself, rejoicing in his heart. The great day of the
+festival--the important St. Leger--arrived. Hundreds were ready to back
+Highlander against the field: amongst them was Edward Fen-wick; he
+would take any odds--he did take them--he staked his all. "A thousand to
+five hundred on Highlander against the field," he cried, as he stood
+near a betting-post. "Done!" shouted a mustachioed peer of the realm, in
+a barouche by his side. "Done!" cried Fen-wick, "for the double, if you
+like, my lord." "Done!" added the peer; "and I'll treble it if you
+dare!" "Done!" rejoined the prodigal, in the confidence and excitement
+of the moment--"Done! my lord." The eventful hour arrived. There was not
+a false start. The horses took the ground beautifully. Highlander led
+the way at his ease; and his rider, in a tartan jacket and mazarine cap,
+looked confident. Fen-wick stood near the winning-post, grasping the
+rails with his hands; he was still confident, but he could not chase the
+admonition of his wife from his mind. The horses were not to be seen.
+His very soul became like a solid and sharp-edged substance within his
+breast. Of the twenty horses that started, four again appeared in sight.
+"The tartan yet! the tartan yet!" shouted the crowd. Fen-wick raised his
+eyes--he was blind with anxiety--he could not discern them; still he
+heard the cry of "The tartan! the tartan!" and his heart sprang to his
+mouth. "Well done, orange!--the orange will have it!" was the next cry.
+He again looked up, but he was more blind than before.
+
+"Beautiful!--beautiful! Go it, tartan! Well done, orange!" shouted the
+spectators; "a noble race!--neck and neck; six to five on the orange!"
+He became almost deaf as well as blind. "Now for it!--now for it!--it
+won't do, tartan!--hurrah!--hurrah!--orange has it!"
+
+"Liar!" exclaimed Fen-wick, starting as if from a trance, and grasping
+the spectator who stood next him by the throat--"I am not ruined!"--In a
+moment he dropped his hands by his side, he leaned over the railing,
+and gazed vacantly on the ground. His flesh writhed, and his soul
+groaned in agony. "Eleanor!--my poor Eleanor!" cried the prodigal. The
+crowd hurried towards the winning-post--he was left alone. The peer with
+whom he had betted, came behind him; he touched him on the shoulder with
+his whip--"Well, my covey," said the nobleman, "you have lost it."
+
+Fen-wick gazed on him with a look of fury and despair, and
+repeated--"Lost it!--I am ruined--soul and body!--wife and children
+ruined!"
+
+"Well, Mr. Fen-wick," said the sporting peer, "I suppose, if that be the
+case, you won't come to Doncaster again in a hurry. But my settling day
+is to-morrow--you know I keep sharp accounts; and if you have not the
+'_ready_' at hand, I shall expect an equivalent--you understand me."
+
+So saying, he rode off, leaving the prodigal to commit suicide if he
+chose. It is enough for me to tell you that, in his madness and his
+misery, and from the influence of what he called his sense of honour, he
+gave the winner a bill for the money--payable at sight. My feelings will
+not permit me to tell you how the poor infatuated madman more than once
+made attempts upon his own life; but the latent love of his wife and of
+his children prevailed over the rash thought, and, in a state bordering
+on insanity, he presented himself before the beings he had so deeply
+injured.
+
+I might describe to you how poor Eleanor was sitting in their little
+parlour, with her boy upon a stool by her side, and her little girl on
+her knee, telling them fondly that their father would be home soon, and
+anon singing to them the simple nursery rhyme--
+
+    "Hush, my babe, baby bunting,
+    Your father's at the hunting," etc.;
+
+when the door opened, and the guilty father entered, his hair clotted,
+his eyes rolling with the wildness of despair, and the cold sweat
+running down his pale cheeks.
+
+"Eleanor! Eleanor!" he cried, as he flung himself upon a sofa.
+
+She placed her little daughter on the floor--she flew towards him--"My
+Edward!--oh my Edward!" she cried--"what is it, love?--something
+troubles you."
+
+"Curse me, Eleanor!" exclaimed the wretched prodigal, turning his face
+from her. "I have ruined you I--I have ruined my children!--I am lost
+for ever!"
+
+"No, my husband!" exclaimed the best of wives; "your Eleanor will not
+curse you. Tell me the worst, and I will bear it--cheerfully bear it,
+for my Edward's sake."
+
+"You will not--you cannot," cried he; "I have sinned against you as
+never man sinned against woman. Oh! if you would spit upon the very
+ground where I tread, I would feel it as an alleviation of my
+sufferings; but your sympathy, your affection, makes my very soul
+destroy itself! Eleanor!--Eleanor-!--if you have mercy, hate me--tell
+me--show me that you do!"
+
+"O Edward!" said she, imploringly, "was it thus when your Eleanor
+spurned every offer for your sake, when you pledged to her everlasting
+love? She has none but you, and can you speak thus? O husband! if you
+will forsake _me_, forsake not my poor children--tell me! only tell me
+the worst--and I will rejoice to endure it with my Edward!"
+
+"Then," cried Fen-wick, "if you will add to my misery by professing to
+love a wretch like me--know you are a beggar!--and I have made you one!
+Now, can you share beggary with me?"
+
+She repeated the word "Beggary!"--she clasped her hands together--for a
+few moments she stood in silent anguish--her bosom heaved--the tears
+gushed forth--she flung her arms around her husband's neck--"Yes!" she
+cried, "I can meet even beggary with my Edward!"
+
+"O Heaven!" cried the prodigal, "would that the earth would swallow me!
+I cannot stand this!"
+
+I will not dwell upon the endeavours of the fond, forgiving wife, to
+soothe and to comfort her unworthy husband; nor yet will I describe to
+you the anguish of the prodigal's father and of his mother, when they
+heard the extent of his folly and of his guilt. Already he had cost
+the old man much, and, with a heavy and sorrowful heart, he proceeded
+to his son's house to comfort his daughter-in-law. When he entered,
+she was endeavouring to cheer her husband with a tune upon the
+harpsichord--though, Heaven knows, there was no music in her breast,
+save that of love--enduring love!
+
+"Well, Edward," said the old man, as he took a seat, "what is this that
+thou hast done now?"
+
+The prodigal was silent.
+
+"Edward," continued the grey-haired parent, "I have had deaths in my
+family--many deaths, and thou knowest it--but I never had to blush for a
+child but thee! I have felt sorrow, but thou hast added shame to
+sorrow--"
+
+"O father!" cried Eleanor, imploringly, "do not upbraid my poor
+husband."
+
+The old man wept--he pressed her hand, and, with a groan, said, "I am
+ashamed that thou shouldst call me father, sweetest; but if thou canst
+forgive him, I should. He is all that is left to me--all that the hand
+of death has spared me in this world! Yet, Eleanor, his conduct is a
+living death to me--it is worse than all that I have suffered. When
+affliction pressed heavily upon me, and, year after year, I followed my
+dear children to the grave, my neighbours sympathized with me--they
+mingled their tears with mine; but now, child--oh, now, I am ashamed to
+hold up my head amongst them! O Edward, man! if thou hast no regard for
+thy father or thy heart-broken mother, hast thou no affection for thy
+poor wife?--canst thou bring her and thy helpless children to ruin? But
+that, I may say, thou hast done already! Son! son! if thou wilt murder
+thy parents, hast thou no mercy for thine own flesh and blood?--wilt
+thou destroy thine own offspring? O Edward! if there be any sin that I
+will repent upon my death-bed, it will be that I have been a too
+indulgent father to thee--that I am the author of thy crimes!"
+
+"No, father! no!" cried the prodigal; "my sins are my own! I am their
+author, and my soul carries its own punishment! Spurn me! cast me
+off!--disown me for ever!--it is all I ask of you! You despise me--hate
+me too, and I will be less miserable!"
+
+"O Edward!" said the old man, "thou art a father, but little dost thou
+know a father's heart! Disown thee! Cast thee off, sayest thou! As soon
+could the graves of thy brothers give up their dead! Never, Edward!
+never! O son, wouldst thou but reform thy ways--wouldst thou but become
+a husband worthy of our dear Eleanor; and, after all the suffering thou
+hast brought upon her, and the shame thou hast brought upon thy family,
+I would part with my last shilling for thee, Edward, though I should go
+into the workhouse myself."
+
+You are affected, sir--I will not harrow up your feelings by further
+describing the interview between the father and his son. The misery of
+the prodigal was remorse, not penitence. It is sufficient for me to say,
+that the old man took a heavy mortgage on his property, and Edward
+Fen-wick commenced business as a wine and spirit merchant in Newcastle.
+But, sir, he did not attend upon business; and I need not tell you that
+such being the case, business was too proud a customer to attend upon
+him. Neither did he forsake his old habits, and, within two years, he
+became involved--deeply involved. Already, to sustain his tottering
+credit, his father had been brought to the verge of ruin. During his
+residence in Bamboroughshire, he had become acquainted with many
+individuals carrying on a contraband trade with Holland. To amend his
+desperate fortunes, he recklessly embarked in it. In order to obtain a
+part in the ownership of a lugger, he _used his father's name_! This was
+the crowning evil in the prodigal's drama. He made the voyage himself.
+They were pursued and overtaken when attempting to effect a landing near
+the Coquet. He escaped. But the papers of the vessel bespoke her as
+being chiefly the property of his father. Need I tell you that this was
+a finishing blow to the old man?
+
+Edward Fen-wick had ruined his wife and family--he had brought ruin upon
+his father, and was himself a fugitive. He was pursued by the law; he
+fled from them; and he would have fled from their remembrance if he
+could. It was now, sir, that the wrath of Heaven was showered upon the
+head, and began to touch the heart of the prodigal: Like Cain, he was a
+fugitive and a vagabond on the face of the earth. For many months he
+wandered in a distant part of the country; his body was emaciated and
+clothed with rags, and hunger preyed upon his very heart-strings. It is
+a vulgar thing, sir, to talk of hunger; but they who have never felt it
+know not what it means. He was fainting by the wayside, his teeth were
+grating together, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. "The servants
+of my father's house," he cried, "have bread enough and to spare, while
+I perish with hunger;" and continuing the language of the prodigal in
+the Scriptures, he said, "I will arise and go unto my father, and say, I
+have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight."
+
+With a slow and tottering step, he arose to proceed on his journey to
+his father's house. A month had passed--for every day he made less
+progress--ere the home of his infancy appeared in sight. It was noon,
+and, when he saw it, he sat down in a little wood by a hill-side and
+wept, until it had become dusk; for he was ashamed of his rags. He drew
+near the house, but none came forth to welcome him. With a timid hand he
+rapped at the door, but none answered him. A stranger came from one of
+the outhouses and inquired, "What dost thou want, man?"
+
+"Mr Fen-wick," feebly answered the prodigal.
+
+"Why, naebody lives there," said the other; "and auld Fen-wick died in
+Morpeth jail mair than three months sin'!"
+
+"Died in Morpeth jail!" groaned the miserable being, and fell against
+the door of the house that had been his father's.
+
+"I tell ye, ye cannot get in there," continued the other.
+
+"Sir," replied Edward, "pity me; and, oh, tell me is Mrs Fen-wick
+here--or her daughter-in-law?"
+
+"I know nought about them," said the stranger. "I'm put in charge here
+by the trustees."
+
+Want and misery kindled all their fires in the breast of the fugitive.
+He groaned, and, partly from exhaustion, partly from agony, sank upon
+the ground. The other lifted him to a shed, where cattle were wont to be
+fed. His lips were parched, his languid eyes rolled vacantly. "Water!
+give me water!" he muttered in a feeble voice; and a cup of water was
+brought to him. He gazed wistfully in the face of the person who stood
+over him--he would have asked for bread; but, in the midst of his
+sufferings, pride was yet strong in his heart, and he could not. The
+stranger, however, was not wholly destitute of humanity.
+
+"Poor wretch!" said he, "ye look very fatigued; dow ye think ye cud eat
+a bit bread, if I were gi'en it to thee?"
+
+Tears gathered in the lustreless eyes of the prodigal; but he could not
+speak. The stranger left him, and returning, placed a piece of coarse
+bread in his hand. He ate a morsel; but his very soul was sick, and his
+heart loathed to receive the food for lack of which he was perishing.
+
+Vain, sir, were the inquiries after his wife, his children, and his
+mother; all that he could learn was, that they had kept their sorrow and
+their shame to themselves, and had left Northumberland together, but
+where, none knew. He also learned that it was understood amongst his
+acquaintances that he had put a period to his existence, and that this
+belief was entertained by his family. Months of wretchedness followed,
+and Fen-wick, in despair, enlisted into a foot regiment, which, within
+twelve months, was ordered to embark for Egypt. At that period the
+British were anxious to hide the remembrance of their unsuccessful
+attack upon Cadiz, and resolved to wrench the ancient kingdom of the
+Pharaohs from the grasp of the proud armies of Napoleon. The Cabinet,
+therefore, on the surrender of Malta, having seconded the views of Sir
+Ralph Abercrombie, several transports were fitted out to join the
+squadron under Lord Keith. In one of those transports the penitent
+prodigal embarked. You are too young to remember it, sir; but at that
+period a love of country was more widely than ever becoming the ruling
+passion of every man in Britain; and, with all his sins, his follies,
+and his miseries, such a feeling glowed in the breast of Edward
+Fen-wick. He was weary of existence, and he longed to listen to the
+neighing of the war-horse, and the shout of its rider, and as they might
+rush on the invulnerable phalanx, and its breastwork of bayonets, to
+mingle in the rank of heroes; and, rather than pine in inglorious grief,
+to sell his life for the welfare of his country; or, like the gallant
+Graham, amidst the din of war, and the confusion of glory, to forget his
+sorrows. The regiment to which he belonged joined the main army off the
+Bay of Marmorice, and was the first that, with the gallant Moore at its
+head, on the memorable seventh of March, raised the shout of victory on
+the shores of Aboukir.
+
+In the moment of victory, Fen-wick fell wounded on the field, and his
+comrades, in their triumph, passed over him. He had some skill in
+surgery, and he was enabled to bind up his wound. He was fainting upon
+the burning sand, and he was creeping amongst the bodies of the slain,
+for a drop of moisture to cool his parched tongue, when he perceived a
+small bottle in the hands of a dead officer. It was half-filled with
+wine--he eagerly raised it to his lips--"Englishman!" cried a feeble
+voice, "for the love of Heaven! give me one drop--only one!--or I die!"
+He looked around--a French officer, apparently in the agonies of death,
+was vainly endeavouring to raise himself on his side, and stretching his
+hand towards him. "Why should I live?" cried the wretched prodigal;
+"take it, take it, and live, if you desire life!" He raised the wounded
+Frenchman's head from the sand--he placed the bottle to his lips--he
+untied his sash, and bound up his wounds. The other pressed his hand in
+gratitude. They were conveyed from the field together. Fen-wick was
+unable to follow the army, and he was disabled from continuing in the
+service. The French officer recovered, and he was grateful for the poor
+service that had been rendered to him; and, previous to his being sent
+off with other prisoners, he gave a present of a thousand francs to the
+joyless being whom he called his deliverer.
+
+I have told you that Fen-wick had some skill in surgery; he had studied
+some years for the medical profession, but abandoned it for the turf and
+its vices. He proceeded to Alexandria, where he began to practise as a
+surgeon, and, amongst an ignorant people, gained reputation. Many years
+passed, and he had acquired, if not riches, at least an independency.
+Repentance also had penetrated his soul. He had inquired long and
+anxiously after his family. He had but few other relatives; and to all
+of them he had anxiously written, imploring them to acquaint him with
+the residence of the beings whom he had brought to ruin, but whom he
+still loved. Some returned no answer to his applications, and others
+only said that they knew nothing of his wife, or his mother, or of his
+children, nor whether they yet lived; all they knew was, that they had
+endeavoured to hide the shame he had brought upon them from the world.
+These words were daggers to his bruised spirit; but he knew he deserved
+them, and he prayed that Heaven would grant him the consolation and the
+mercy that were denied him on earth.
+
+Somewhat more than seven years ago he returned to his native country,
+and he was wandering on the very mountain where, to-day, I met you, when
+he entered into conversation with a youth apparently about three or four
+and twenty years of age; and they spent the day together as we have
+done. Fen-wick was lodging in Keswick, and as, towards evening, they
+proceeded along the road together, they were overtaken by a storm. "You
+must accompany me home," said the young man, "until the storm be passed;
+my mother's house is at hand,"--and he conducted him to yonder lonely
+cottage, whose white walls you perceive peering through the trees by the
+water-side. It was dusk when the youth ushered him into a little parlour
+where two ladies sat; the one appeared about forty, the other threescore
+and ten. They welcomed the stranger graciously. He ascertained that they
+let out the rooms of their cottage to visitors to the lakes during the
+summer season. He expressed a wish to become their lodger, and made some
+observations on the beauty of the situation.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the younger lady, "the situation is indeed beautiful;
+but I have seen it when the water, and the mountains around it, could
+impart no charm to its dwellers. Providence has, indeed, been kind to
+us, and our lodgings have seldom been empty; but, sir, when we entered
+it, it was a sad house indeed. My poor mother-in-law and myself had
+experienced many sorrows; yet my poor fatherless children--for I might
+call them fatherless"--and she wept as she spoke--"with their innocent
+prattle, soothed our affliction. But my little Eleanor, who was loved by
+every one, began to droop day by day. It was a winter night--the snow
+was on the ground--I heard my little darling give a deep sigh upon my
+bosom. I started up. I called to my poor mother. She brought a light to
+the bedside--and I found my sweet child dead upon my breast. It was a
+long and sad night, as we sat by the dead body of my Eleanor, with no
+one near us; and after she =was= buried, my poor Edward there, as he
+sat by our side at night, would draw forward to his knee the stool on
+which his sister sat--while his grandmother would glance at him fondly,
+and push aside the stool with her foot, that I might not see it;--but I
+saw it all."
+
+The twilight had deepened in the little parlour, and its inmates could
+not perfectly distinguish the features of each other; but as the lady
+spoke, the soul of Edward Fen-wick glowed within him--his heart
+throbbed--his breathing became thick--the sweat burst upon his brow.
+"Pardon me, lady!" he cried, in agony; "but, oh! tell me your name?"
+
+"Fen-wick, sir," replied she.
+
+"Eleanor! my injured Eleanor!" he exclaimed, flinging himself at her
+feet. "I am Edward, your guilty husband! Mother! can you forgive me? My
+son! my son! intercede for your guilty father!"
+
+Ah, sir, there needed no intercession--their arms were around his
+neck--the prodigal was forgiven! "Behold," continued the narrator,
+"yonder from the cottage comes the mother, the wife, and the son of whom
+I have spoken! I will introduce you to them--you shall witness the
+happiness and the penitence of the prodigal--you must stop with me
+to-night. Start not, sir--I am Edward Fen-wick the Prodigal Son!"
+
+
+
+
+THE LAWYER'S TALES.
+
+THE WOMAN WITH THE WHITE MICE.
+
+
+Many have, doubtless, both heard and read of the case of murder in which
+Jeffrey performed his greatest feat of oratory and power over a jury,
+and in which, while engaged in his grand speech of more than six hours,
+he caught, from an open window, the aphony which threatened to close up
+his voice for ever afterwards. I have had occasion to notice the wants
+in reported cases tried before courts; and in reference to the one I
+have now mentioned, I have reason, from my inquiries, to know that the
+most curious details of the transaction are not only not to be found in
+the report, but not even suggested, if they do not, in some particulars,
+appear to be opposed to the public testimony. The agent of the panel
+sits behind the counsel, delivering to him sometimes very crude
+materials for the defence, and the counsel sifts that matter; sometimes
+taking a handful of the chaff to blind a juryman or a judge, but more
+often casting it away as either useless or dangerous. In that unused
+chaff there are often pickles not of the kind put into the sack, and
+again laid as an offering before the blind goddess, but of a different
+kind of grain--nor often less pleasant, or, if applied, less acceptable
+to justice.
+
+In a certain month in the year 18--, a writer in Dundee, of the name of
+David M----, was busy in his office, in a dark street off the High
+Street--busy, no doubt, in discharging the functions of that office
+represented by Ĉsop as occupied by a monkey, holding the scales between
+the litigating cats. He heard a horse stop at his office door, as if
+brought suddenly up by a jerk of the rein.
+
+"There is haste here," he thought; "what is up?"
+
+And presently the door opened, and there came, or rather rushed, in a
+man, of the appearance of a country farmer, greatly more excited than
+these douce men generally are--except, perhaps, in the midst of a
+plentiful harvest-home--splashed up with mud to the back of the neck,
+and breathing as hard as, no doubt, the horse was that carried him.
+
+"What is it, Mr. S----?" inquired the writer, as he looked at his
+client.
+
+"A dreadful business!" replied he; and he turned, went back to the door,
+shut it, and tested the hold of the lock; then laying down his hat and
+whip, and pulling off his big-coat, he drew a chair so near the writer,
+that the man of law, _brusque_ and even jolly as he was, instinctively
+withdrew his, as if he feared an appeal for money.
+
+"What is the business?" again asked the writer, as he saw the man in a
+spasmodic difficulty to begin.
+
+"We are all ruined at D----!" he at length said; "Mrs. S----is in your
+jail, hard by, on a charge of murder."
+
+"Mrs. S----! of all the women in the world!" ejaculated the writer in
+unfeigned amazement: "murder of whom?"
+
+"Of a servant at D----," replied Mr. S----; "one of our own women."
+
+"And what could be the motive?"
+
+"The young woman," continued S----, "had been observed to be pregnant,
+and the report was got up that my son was the party responsible and
+blameable. Then the charge is, that my wife gave the girl poison,
+either to procure abortion, or to take away her life. The woman is dead
+and buried; but, I believe, her body has been taken up out of the grave
+and examined, and poison found in the stomach."
+
+"An ugly account," said the writer. "I mean not ugly as regards the
+evidence, of which, as yet, I have heard nothing. I could say beforehand
+that I don't believe the authorities will be able to bring home an act
+of this kind to so rational and respectable a woman, as I have known
+Mrs. S----to be; but if you wish me to get her off, you must allow me to
+look at the case as if she were guilty."
+
+"Guilty!" echoed the man, with a shudder.
+
+"Yes. Were I to go fumbling about in an affair of this kind, acting upon
+a notion--whatever I may think or feel--that Mrs. S----, though your
+wife, _could not_ possibly do an act of that kind, I would neither hound
+up, as I ought, the investigations of the prosecutor, nor get up proper
+evidence--not to meet their proofs only, but to overturn them."
+
+"I would have thought you would have been keener to get off an innocent
+person--a wife, and the mother of a family, too--than a guilty one,"
+said S----.
+
+"We cannot get you people to understand these things," replied the
+writer; "but so it is, at least with me, and I rather think a good
+number of my brethren. We have a pride in getting off a guilty person;
+whereas we have only a spice of satisfaction in saving an innocent one.
+Perhaps I have an object, for your own sake, in speaking thus frankly to
+you; and I tell you at once, that if you intend to help me to get off
+your wife, you must, as soon as you can--even here, at this
+moment--renounce all blind confidence in her innocence."
+
+"Terrible condition!" said the farmer.
+
+"Not pleasant, but useful. How, in God's name, am I to know how to
+doctor, purge, or scarify, or anoint a testimony against you, unless I
+know that it exists, and where to find it?"
+
+"Very true," rejoined the farmer, trying to follow the clever "limb."
+
+"Don't hesitate. I will have more pleasure, and not, maybe, much less
+hope, in hearing you detail all the grounds of your suspicion against
+your wife, than in listening to your nasaling and canting about her
+innocence. All this is for your good, my dear sir, take it as you will."
+
+"I believe it," said the farmer, "and will try to act up to what you
+say; but I cannot, of my own knowledge, say much, as yet. These things
+are done privately, within the house, and a farmer is mostly out of
+doors."
+
+"Well, away, get access to your wife, ferret everything out of her, as
+well for her as against her. If she bought poison, where she bought it,
+what rats were to be poisoned, how it was applied, how she communicated
+with the girl, and where, and all, and everything you can gather.
+Question your servants all they saw or heard; your son, what he has to
+say; ascertain who came about the house, how affected towards the girl,
+whether there were more lovers than your son, whether the girl was
+melancholy, or hopeful, and likely to do the thing or not; but, above
+all, keep it ever in view that your wife is in prison, and suspected,
+and let me know every item you can bring against her. Away, and lose no
+time, for I see it's a matter of neck and neck between her and the
+prosecutor, and, consequently, neck and noose, or neck and no noose,
+between her and the hangman."
+
+Utterly confounded by this array of instructions, the poor farmer sat
+and looked blank. It was impossible he could remember all he had been
+requested to do; and the duty of finding out facts to criminate the wife
+who had lived with him so long in love and confidence, bore down upon
+him with a weight he could hardly sustain.
+
+"I will do what I can," he said.
+
+"You must do _more_ than you can," said the writer; "but, again I say,
+let me know every, the smallest item you can discover against your
+wife."
+
+And, thus charged, Mr. S----mounted his horse, and rode home to a
+miserable house with a miserable heart.
+
+Extraordinary as the case was, it was entrusted to the charge of an
+extraordinary man, well remembered yet throughout that county, and much
+beyond it. In personal respects he was strong, broad, and muscular, with
+a florid countenance never out of humour, and an eye that flashed in so
+many different directions, that it was impossible to arrest it for two
+moments at a time. All action, nothing resisted him; all impulse and
+sensibility, nothing escaped his observation; yet no one could say that
+any subject retained his mind for more time than would have sufficed
+another merely to glance at it. He could speak to a hundred men in a day
+upon a hundred topics, and sit down and run off twenty pages of a paper
+without an hour of previous meditation; break off at a pronoun, at a
+call to the further end of the town; drink as much in a few minutes'
+conversation with a client as would have taken another an hour to enjoy,
+and return and finish his paper in less time than another would take to
+think of it. Always, to appearance, off his guard, he was always master
+of his position, nor could any obstacle make him stand and calculate
+its dimensions--it must be surmounted or broken, if his head or the laws
+should be broken with it; always pressing, he never seemed to be
+impressed, and the gain or loss of a case was equally indifferent to
+him. His passion was action, his desire money; but the money went as it
+came--made without effort and spent without reason. Yet no man hated
+him; most loved him; few admired him; and even those he might injure by
+his apparent recklessness could not resist the good nature by which he
+warded off every attack.
+
+He saw at once, after he had dismissed S----, that he had got hold of a
+desperate case, and also that he behoved to have recourse to desperate
+means; but it seemed to take no grip of his mind for more than a few
+minutes, by the end of which he was full swing in some other matter of
+business, to be followed with the same rapidity by something else, and,
+probably, after that, pleasure till three in the morning, when he would
+be carried home to an elegant house in a certain species of carriage
+with one wheel. Nor had even that consummation any effect on to-morrow's
+avocations, for which he would be ready at the earliest hour; and in
+this case he _was_ ready. He set about his inquiries, first proceeded to
+D----to get a view of the premises--the room where the young woman lay,
+where the son slept, and the bedroom of the mother--and ascertain
+whether the premises permitted of intercourse with the servants unknown
+to the farmer and his wife. He next began his precognition of those
+connected with the house, and, on returning to town, procured access to
+Mrs. S----.
+
+The jail of Dundee was at that time over the courthouse, a miserable den
+of a few dark rooms, presenting the appearance of displenished garrets,
+with small grated windows and a few benches. Here the woman sat
+revolving, no doubt, in her mind all the events of a life of comfort and
+respectability, and now under the risk of being brought to a termination
+by her body being suspended in the front of that building where she had
+seen before this terrible consummation of justice enacted with the
+familiar and dismal forms of the tragedy of the gallows. We write of
+these things as parrots gabble, we read of them as monkeys ogle the, to
+them, strange actions of human beings; but what is all that comes by the
+eye or the ear of the experiences of an exterior spirit to the workings
+of that spirit in its own interior world, where thought follows thought
+with endless ramifications, weaving and interweaving scenes of love and
+joy and pain, contrasting and mixing, dissolving and remixing--bright
+lights and dark shadows--all seen through the blue-tinged and distorting
+lens of present shame? We cannot realize these things, nor did the
+writer try. He had only the practical work to do--if possible, to get
+this woman's neck kept out of a kench; nor did it signify much to him
+how that was effected; but effected it would be, if the invention of one
+man could do it, and if that failed, and the woman was suspended, it
+would trouble him no more than would the loss of a small-debt case.
+
+"Sorry to see you in this infernal place, Mrs. S----," he said, as he
+threw himself upon a bench. "I must get you out, that's certain; but I
+can promise you that certainty only upon the condition of making a clean
+breast--only to me, you know."
+
+"I know only that I never poisoned the woman," replied she.
+
+"Do you want to be hanged?" said he, with the reckless abruptness so
+peculiar a feature of his character, at the same time taking a rapid
+glance of her demeanour. He knew all about the firmness derived from
+the confidence of innocence, of which a certain class of rhapsodists
+make so much in a heroic way, and yet he had always entertained the
+heterodoxical notion that guilt is a firmer and often more composed
+condition than innocence, inasmuch as his experience led him to know
+that the latter is shaky, anxious, and sensitive, and the former stern
+and imperturbable. Nor did his quick mind want reasons for showing that
+such ought, by natural laws, to be the case; for it is never to be lost
+sight of, that, in so far as regards murder, which requires for its
+perpetration a peculiar form of mind and a most unnatural condition of
+the feelings, the same hardness of nerve which enables a man or woman to
+do the deed, serves equally well the purpose of helping them to stand up
+against the shame, while the innocent person, in nine hundred and
+ninety-nine cases out of a thousand--the probable proportion of those
+who _cannot_ kill--has not the fortitude to withstand the ignominy,
+simply because he wants the power to slay. So without in his heart
+prejudging the woman, he drew his conclusions, true or false, from the
+impassibility of her demeanour. Her answer was ready----
+
+"How could they hang an innocent woman?"
+
+"But they _do_ hang hundreds, who say just what you say," replied he.
+"What are you to make of that riddle? Come, did you ever buy any
+poison?--please leave out the rats."
+
+"No; neither for rats nor servants," was the composed reply.
+
+"And you never gave the woman a dose?"
+
+"Yes; I have given her medicine more than once."
+
+"Oh, a capital thing to save life; but you know her life was not saved.
+She died and was buried, and has been taken up; and I suspect it was not
+your jalap that was found in the body. But what interest had you in
+being so very kind to the woman who was to bring shame on your family by
+bearing a child to your son?"
+
+"I never knew she was in that way; but though I had known it, I could
+not have taken away her life."
+
+"Then, who gave her the poison?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"And cannot even suspect any one?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good-bye!" he said, as he started up and hurried away; muttering to
+himself, as the jailer undid the bolts, "Always the same!--the women are
+always innocent; and yet we see them stretching ropes other than
+clothes' ropes every now and then."
+
+Defeated, but as little discomfited, as we might gather from his pithy
+soliloquy, his next step was to double up, as he termed it, the
+authorities, who, he knew, would never have gone the length of
+apprehending the woman without having got hold of evidence sufficient to
+justify Sir William Rae, the Lord Advocate, a considerate and prudent
+man, that the charge lay heavy on the prisoner. He had no right of
+access, at this stage, to the names of the intended witnesses; but to a
+man of his activity it is no difficult matter to find these out, from
+the natural garrulity of the people, and a kind of self-importance in
+being a Crown testimony. Then to find them out was next to drawing them
+out; for it may be safely said for our writer that there was no man,
+from the time of John Wilkes, who could exercise a more winning
+persuasion. One by one he ferreted them out, wheedled, threatened,
+adjured, but found himself resisted in every attempt to break them down
+or to turn them to him. At every stage of his inquiry he saw the case
+for the prisoner assuming a dark aspect--as dark, he so termed it, as
+the face of a hanged culprit.
+
+"The beagles have got a track. There are more foxes in the cover than
+one; and shall it be said I, David M----, cannot beat out another as
+stimulating to the nose?"
+
+In a quarter of an hour after having made this observation to himself,
+he was posting on horseback to the farm of D----, where he arrived in as
+short a time as he generally took on his journeys.
+
+"I am afraid to ask you for intelligence," said the farmer, as he stood
+by the horse's side, and addressed the writer, who kept his seat.
+
+"Get me two and five-eighths of a glass of whisky in a jug of milk, and
+I'll tell you then what I want. I have no time to dismount."
+
+The farmer complied.
+
+"The case looks ugly," said the writer, as he handed back the jug.
+"These witnesses would hang a calendared saint of a hundred miracles.
+Are any tramps in the habit of coming about you?"
+
+"Too many."
+
+"Do you know any of them?"
+
+"Scarcely--not by name."
+
+"Any women?--never mind the men," said the writer impatiently.
+
+"Yes; there is one who used to come often; she sold small things."
+
+"Is that all you know of her? Has she no mark, man? Is her nose long or
+short? no squint, lame leg, or pock-pits?"
+
+"She had usually a small cage, in which she kept a couple of white
+mice."
+
+"White mice!" ejaculated the writer; "never was a better mark."
+
+"You don't know her name?"
+
+"No; nor do I think any of my present people do."
+
+"When was she here last?"
+
+"About a month ago."
+
+"Anywhere near the time of the girl's death?"
+
+"Ay, just about that time, or maybe a week before."
+
+"And you can give me no trace of her?"
+
+"None whatever, except that I think I saw her take to the east, in the
+way to Arbroath. But I do not see how she can be of any use."
+
+"I don't want you to see that she can be of any use," said the writer,
+laughing; "but I want you to hear whereabout she is."
+
+"I will try what I can," said the farmer.
+
+"And let me know by some messenger who can ride as fast as I can." Then
+adding, "Gilderoy was saved by a _brown_ mouse, which gnawed the string
+by which the key of the jail door of Forfar hung on a nail, whereby the
+key fell to the ground, and was pulled by him through an opening at the
+bottom. Heard you ever the story?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But it's true, nevertheless. What would you say if a _white_ mouse, or
+two of them, should save the life of your wife?"
+
+"I would say it was wonderful," replied the farmer, with eyes a-goggled
+by amazement.
+
+"And so would I," answered Mr. M----, as he put the rowels into the side
+of his horse and began a hard trot, which he would not slacken till he
+was at the Cowgate port, and not even then, for he made his way
+generally through the streets of the town with equal rapidity, and
+always the safer that he was the "fresher."
+
+On arriving at his office he sat down, and, without apparently any
+premeditation, unless what he had indulged in during his trot, wrote off
+with his usual rapidity four letters to the following effect:--"Dear
+Sir,--As agent for Mrs. S----, who now lies in our jail on a charge of
+murder, I request you will endeavour to find some trace of a woman who
+goes through the country with a cage and two white mice. Grave
+suspicions attach to her, as the person who administered the poison, and
+I wish your energies to be employed in aiding me to search her out." The
+letters were directed to agents in Arbroath, Forfar, Kirriemuir, and
+Montrose, and immediately committed to a clerk to be taken to the
+post-office, with a good-natured laugh on the lips of the writer--and,
+within the teeth, the little monologue--"The wrinkled skin easily
+conceals a scar."
+
+From some source or another, probably the true one may be guessed, an
+_uberrima fides_ began to hang round a report that a new feature had
+spread over the face of Mrs. S----'s case; and that, in place of her
+being the guilty person, the culprit was a tramp, with white mice in a
+cage. Nor were the authorities long in being startled by the report; but
+where that woman was no one could tell, and a vague report was no
+foundation for authoritative action. But if it was not for a Lord
+Advocate to seek out or hunt after white mice, that was no reason why
+the prisoner's agent should not condescend to so very humble an office;
+and, accordingly, two days after the despatch of the letters I have
+mentioned, the same horse that carried the writer on the former
+occasion, and knew so well the prick of his rowels, was ready saddled at
+the door of the office. The head of the agent was instantly drawn out of
+some other deep well of legal truth, some score of directions given to
+clerks, and he was off on the road to Glammis, but not before some
+flash had shown him what he was to do when he got there. The same rapid
+trot was commenced, and continued, to the great diminution of the sap of
+the animal, until the place he was destined for loomed before him. He
+now commenced inquiries upon inquiries. Every traveller was questioned,
+every door got a touch of his whip, until at length he got a trace, and
+he was again in full pursuit. I think it is Suidas who says that these
+pretty little animals, called white mice, are very amatory, and have a
+strong odour, but this must be only to their mates. I doubt if even the
+nostrils of a writer are equal to this perception, whatever sense they
+may possess in the case of pigeons with a pluckable covering. But,
+however this may be, it was soon observable that our pursuer had at
+least something in his eye. The spurs were active; and, by and by, he
+drew up at a small road-side change-house, into the kitchen of which he
+tumbled, without a premonitory question, and there, before him, sat the
+veritable mistress of these very white mice, spaeing the fortunes of
+some laughing girls, who saw the illuminated figures of their lovers in
+the future.[A]
+
+"Can you read me _my_ fortune?" he said, in his own peculiar way.
+
+"Na; I ken ye owre weel," was the quick reply, as she turned a pair of
+keen, grey eyes on him.
+
+"Well, you'll speak to me at any rate," he said. "I have something to
+say to you."
+
+And, going into the adjoining parlour, he called for a half-mutchkin. He
+needed some himself, and he knew the tramp was not an abstainer.
+
+"Tell the woman to come ben," he said, as the man placed the whisky on
+the table.
+
+"What can you want, Mr. M----, with that old, never-mend vagabond?"
+
+"Perhaps an uncle has left her five hundred pounds," said the writer
+with a chuckle.
+
+"Gude save us! the creature will go mad," said the man, as he went out,
+not knowing whether his guest was in humour or earnest.
+
+But, whatever he said to the woman, there she was, presently, white mice
+and all, seated alongside of the writer, who could make a beggar or a
+baron at home with him, with equal ease, and in an equally short time.
+
+"You're obliged to me, I think, if I can trust to a pretty long memory,"
+he said, handing her a glass of the spirits.
+
+"Ay; but it doesna need a lang memory to mind gi'en me this," she
+replied, not wishing any other reason for her obligation.
+
+"And you've forgotten the pirn scrape?"
+
+"The deil's in a lang memory; but I hinna," she replied, with more
+confidence, for by this time the whisky had disappeared in the
+accustomed bourne of departed spirits.
+
+"Weel, it's a bad business that at your auld freend's at D----," said
+he, getting into his Scotch, for familiarity. "Hae ye heard?"
+
+"Wha hasna heard? I kenned the lassie brawly; but I didna like her--she
+was never gude to a puir cratur like me."
+
+"But they say ye ken mair than ither folk?" said he.
+
+"Maybe I do," replied the woman, getting proud of the impeachment. "Hae
+we nae lugs and een, ay, and stamachs, like ither folk?"
+
+"And could ye do naething to save this puir woman, the wife o' a gude
+buirdly man, wi' an open hand to your kin, and the mither o' a family?"
+
+"I care naething about her being the wife o' a man, or the mither o' a
+family; but I ken what I ken."
+
+"And sometimes what ye dinna ken, when you tell the lasses o' their
+lovers ye never saw."
+
+"The deil tak their louping hearts into his hand for silly gawkies; if
+they werena a' red-wood about lads, they wadna heed me a whistle. But
+though I might try to get Mrs. S----'s head out o' the loop, I wadna
+like to put my ain in."
+
+"I'll tak gude care o' that," said the writer. "I got ye out o' a scrape
+before."
+
+"Weel than----"
+
+"And weel than," echoed he.
+
+"And better than weel than; suppose I swore I did it mysel'--and maybe I
+did; that's no your business--they wadna hang a puir wretch like me for
+her ain words, wad they, when there's nae proof I did it but my ain
+tongue?"
+
+"No likely," replied he; "and then a hunder gowden guineas as a present,
+no as a bribe----"
+
+"I want nae bribes--I gie value for my fortunes. If it's wind, wind is
+the breath o' life; a present!"
+
+"Would make your een jump," added he, finishing his sentence.
+
+"Jump! ay, loup! Whar are they?"
+
+"You'll get the half when you come into the town, and the other when
+Mrs. S----is safe. You will ca' at my office on Wednesday; and, after
+that, I'll tak care o' you. In the meantime, ye maun sell your mice."
+
+"Geordie Cameron offered me five shillings for them; I'll gie them to
+him."
+
+"No," replied the writer; "no to a _man_. Ken ye nae woman-tramp-will
+tak them, and show them about as you do?"
+
+"Ou ay; I'll gie them to Meg Davidson, wha's to be here the night. But
+whaurfor no Geordie?"
+
+"Never ye mind that, I ken the difference; and if Meg doesna give you
+the five shillings, I will."
+
+"Well, buy them yoursel'," said the woman.
+
+"Done," said he; "there's five guineas for them, and you can gie them to
+Meg as a present. Now, are ye firm?"
+
+"Firm!" she cried, as she clutched the money, and gave a shrill laugh,
+from a nerve that was never softened by pity or penitence. "I think nae
+mair on't, man--sir, I mean, for ye proved yoursel' a gentleman to me
+afore--than I do now in spaeing twins to your wife at her next
+doun-lying."
+
+A rap on the table, from the bottom of the pewter measure, brought in
+the landlord.
+
+"Fill that again," said the writer.
+
+And the man having re-entered with the pewter measure----
+
+"You're to give this woman board and lodging for a day or two, and I
+will pay you before I start."
+
+"That will be oot o' the five hundred frae her uncle," said the man,
+laughing. "She's my lady noo; but what will become o' the mice?"
+
+"There's Meg Davidson passing the window e'en noo," said the woman.
+
+"Send her in," said the writer to the change-house keeper.
+
+The woman going under this name was immediately introduced by the man,
+with a kind of mock formality; for he could not get quit of the
+impression that his old customer had really succeeded to the five
+hundred pounds--a sum, in his estimation, sufficiently large to insure
+respect.
+
+"Maggy," said the writer, "tak this chair, and here's a dram. What think
+ye?"
+
+"I dinna ken."
+
+"Ye're to get the twa white mice and the cage for naething, and this
+dram to boot."
+
+Meg's face cleared up like a June sun come out in a burst.
+
+"Na," she said; "ye're joking."
+
+"But it's upon a condition," rejoined he.
+
+"Weel, what is't--that I'm to feed them weel, and keep them clean?"
+
+"You'll do that too," said he, laughing, "for they're valuable
+creatures, and bonny; but you're to say you've had them for a year."
+
+"For twa, if you like," replied the woman; "a puir fusionless lee that,
+and no worth sending a body to the deil for."
+
+"Here they are," said the tramp; "and you're to tak care o' them.
+They've been my staff for mony a day, and they're the only creatures on
+earth I care for and like; for they never said to me, 'Get out, ye
+wretch,' or banned me for a witch; but were aye sae happy wi' their
+pickles o' barley, and maybe a knot o' sugar, when I could get at a
+farmer's wife's bowl."
+
+Even hags have pathetic moods. Meg was affected; and the writer, having
+appreciated the virtue, whispered in the ear of his _protegée_, "Seven
+o'clock on Wednesday night," and left them to the remainder of the
+whisky. At the door he settled with the man, and, mounting his horse,
+which he had ordered a bottle of strong ale for, in addition to his
+oats, he set off at his old trot.
+
+"Now let the Crown blood-hounds catch Meg Davidson and her mice," he
+said, as he pushed on.
+
+The writer was, no doubt, bent eagerly for home, but he seldom got to
+his intended destination, though we have given one or two examples of
+an uninterrupted course, without undergoing several stoppages, either
+from the sudden calls of business, which lay in every direction, or the
+seductions of conviviality, equally ubiquitous; and on this occasion he
+was hailed from the window of the inn by some ten-tumbler men of Forfar,
+whose plan for draining the loch, by making toddy of it, had not, to
+their discomfort, been realized, but who made due retaliation by very
+clean drainings elsewhere. The moment he heard the shout he understood
+the meaning thereof, because he knew the house, the locality, and the
+men; and Meg Davidson and her mice were passed into the wallet-bag of
+time, till he should give these revellers their satisfaction in a boon
+companion who could see them under the table, and then mount his horse,
+with a power of retention of his seat unexampled in a county famous for
+revolutions of heads as well as of bodies. Dismounting from his horse,
+he got his dinner, a meal he had expected at Dundee; and, in spite of
+the distance of fourteen miles which lay before him, he despatched
+tumbler after tumbler without being once tempted to the imprudence of
+letting out his extraordinary hunt, but rather with the prudence of
+sending, through his compotators, to the county town the fact that a
+woman who perambulated the country with white mice was really the
+murderer of the country girl. This statement he was able to make, even
+at that acme of his dithyrambics, when, as usual, he got upon the head
+of the table to make his speech of the evening. It was now eleven, and
+he had swallowed eight tumblers, yet he was comparatively steady when he
+mounted; and, though during the fourteen miles he swung like a
+well-ballasted barque in a gale of wind, he made sufficient headway to
+be home by half-past twelve.
+
+Next morning, as ready and able as usual for the work of the day, he was
+at his desk about eleven, and when engaged with one client, while others
+were waiting to be despatched in the way in which he alone could
+discharge clients, he was waited on by a gentleman connected with the
+Crown Office. Having been yielded a preference, the official took his
+seat.
+
+"I understand you are employed for Mrs. S----?" he said. "We have
+thought it necessary, as disinterested protectors of the lives of the
+king's subjects, to apprehend this woman. I need not say that our
+precognitions are our guarantee; but I have heard a report which would
+seem to impugn our discretion, if it do not shame our judgment, insomuch
+that, if it be true, we have seized the wrong person. Do you know
+anything of this woman with the white mice, who takes upon herself the
+burden of a self-accusation? Of course it is for you to help us to her
+as the salvation of your client."
+
+"Too evident that for a parade of candour," replied Mr. M----. "Her name
+is Margaret Davidson. Her white companions will identify her. Her
+residence is where you may chance to find her."
+
+"Very vague, considering your interest," replied the other. "Where did
+you find her?"
+
+"Ask me first, my dear sir, whether I have found her. Perhaps not. If it
+is my interest to search her out, it is not less your duty to catch her.
+A vagrant with white mice is a kenspeckle, and surely you can have no
+difficulty in tracing her. I need scarcely add, that when you do find
+her, you will substitute her for my client, and make amends for the
+disgrace you have brought upon an innocent woman and a respectable
+family."
+
+"I won't say that," replied the other, shaking his head. "The evidence
+against Mrs. S---- is too heavy to admit of our believing a vagrant,
+influenced by the desire of, perhaps, a paid martyrdom, or the
+excitement of a mania."
+
+"Then, why ask me to help you to find her?"
+
+"For our satisfaction as public officers."
+
+"And to my detriment as a private agent."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"Yes; if I choose to make her a witness for the defence, and leave the
+jury to judge of _paid_ martyrdom, or her real madness. Paid
+martyrdom!--paid by whom?"
+
+"Not necessarily by you."
+
+"But you want me to help you to be able to prove the bribe out of her
+own mouth, don't you?"
+
+"Of course we would examine her."
+
+"Yes, and cook her; but you must catch her first. Really, my dear sir, a
+very useful recipe in cuisine; and, hark ye, you can put the mice in the
+pan also. But, really, I am not bound, and cannot in justice be expected
+to do more. I have given you her name; and when had a culprit so
+peculiar and striking a designation as being the proprietor of a
+peripatetic menagerie?"
+
+"Ridiculous!"
+
+"Yes, _ridiculus mus_! But are you not the labouring mountain yourself,
+and do you not wish me to become the midwife?"
+
+"I perceive I can make nothing of you," at length said the gentleman.
+"You either don't want to save your client, or the means you trust to
+cannot stand the test."
+
+"God bless my soul!" roared the writer; "must I tell you again that I
+have given you her name and occupation? Even a cat, with nose-instinct
+put awry by the colour of the white race of victims, would smell her
+out."
+
+Bowing the official to the door with these words, he was presently in
+some other ravelled web, which he disentangled with equal success and
+apparent ease; but, following him in his great scheme, we find him in
+the afternoon posting again to the farm. He found the farmer in the same
+collapse of hope, sitting in the arm-chair so long pressed by his wife,
+with his chin upon his breast, and his eyes dim and dead. The evidence
+had got piece by piece to his ear, paralyzing more and more the tissues
+of his brain; and hope had assumed the character of an impossibility in
+the moral world of God's government.
+
+"You must cheer up," said the writer. "Come, some milk and whisky. Move
+about; I have got good news for you, but cannot trust you."
+
+The head of the man was raised up, and a slight beam was, as it were,
+struck from his eye by the jerk of a sudden impulse. His step, as he
+moved to gratify the agent, seemed to have acquired even a spring.
+
+"Why are you here," he said, as he brought the indispensable jug, with
+something even more than the five-eighths of the spiritual element added
+to the two glasses, "if you cannot tell me the grounds of my hope? I
+could not comprehend what you meant about the woman and the white mice."
+
+"Nor do I want you to understand it; it is enough if I do," replied Mr.
+M----, as he put the jug to his mouth; "but this I want you to
+understand, in the first place, that I want an order for fifty pounds
+from you."
+
+The farmer was too happy to write an order for any amount within the
+limits of his last farthing, and getting pen and ink, he wrote the
+cheque.
+
+"And you couldn't tell me the name of the woman with the mice; but I can
+tell you," he continued. "It is Margaret Davidson; and, hark ye--come
+near me, man--if you are called upon by any one with the appearance of a
+sheriff's beagle, or whatever he may be like, for the name of that
+woman, say it is Margaret Davidson, and that they will find her between
+Lerwick and Berwick. Do you comprehend?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"And, moreover, you are to tell every living soul within ear-shot,
+servants or strangers, that it was that very woman who gave the dose to
+the lass, and that the woman herself does not deny it."
+
+"Gude Lord! but is all this true, Mr. M----?"
+
+"Is it true your wife did it, then, you d----d idiot?" cried the writer,
+using thus one of his most familiar terms, but with perfect good-nature.
+"Don't you in your heart--or hope, at any rate--think the Lord Advocate
+a liar? and has his lordship a better right to lie than I or Meg
+Davidson? Isn't the world a great leavened lump of lies from the Cape of
+Good Hope to the Cape of Wrath? And you want your wife hanged, because
+the nose of truth is out of joint a bit! Ay, what though it were cut off
+altogether, if you get your wife's back without being coloured blue by
+the hangman? But, I tell you, it's not a lie: the woman with the white
+mice says it of her own accord."
+
+"Wonderful! the woman with the white mice!"
+
+"The woman with the white mice!" echoed the writer.
+
+And, getting again upon his legs, he hurried out, throwing back his
+injunctions upon S---- to obey his instructions. In a few minutes more
+he was again upon the road, leaving the clatter of his horse's hoofs to
+mingle with the confused thoughts of his mystified client. Arrived at
+the High Street, where, as used to be said of him, he could not be ten
+minutes without having seized some five or six persons by the breast of
+the coat, and put as many questions on various matters of business, just
+as the thought struck him on the instant, he pounced upon one, no other
+than the confidential clerk of the fiscal.
+
+"I say, man," seizing and holding him in the usual way, "have you
+catched the woman yet?"
+
+"What woman?" replied the clerk.
+
+"The woman with the white mice."
+
+"Oh," cried the young man, "we have no faith in that quarter--a mere
+get-up; but we're looking about for her, notwithstanding."
+
+"Well, tell your master that Meg Davidson was last seen on the Muir of
+Rannoch, and that the Highlanders in that outlandish quarter, having
+never seen white mice before, are in a state of perfect amazement."
+
+A bolt at some other person left the clerk probably in as great
+amazement as the Highlanders; but our man of the law did not stop to see
+the extent of it. All his avocations, however, did not prevent the
+coming round of that seven o'clock on Wednesday evening, which he had
+appointed as the hour of meeting with the woman on whom his hopes of
+saving his client almost altogether rested. He was at his desk at the
+hour, and the woman, no doubt eager for the phenomenon of the "louping
+ee," was as true as the time itself. The writer locked the door of his
+office, and drawing her as near him as possible, inquired first whether
+any knew she was in town.
+
+"Deil are," she replied; "naebody cares for me ony mair than I were an
+auld glandered spavin, ready for the knackers."
+
+"And you've been remembering a' ye are to say?"
+
+Now, the woman did not answer this question immediately. She had been,
+for some days, busy in the repository of her memory--a crazy box of
+shattered spunk-wood, through the crevices of which came the lurid
+lights sent from another box, called the imagination, and such was the
+close intimacy, or rather mixture, of the revelations of these two magic
+centres, that they could not be distinguished from one another; but the
+habit of fortune-telling had so quickened the light of the one, as to
+make it predominate over, and almost extinguish that of the other, so
+that she was at a loss to get a stray glimmer of the memory, to make her
+ready, on the instant, for the answer.
+
+"Remembering! Ay," she said, "there's no muckle to remember. The lass
+was under the burden of shame, and couldna bear it: she wanted some
+doctor's trash to tak that burden aff her, if it should carry her life
+alang wi' 't. I got the stuff, and the woman dee'd."
+
+All which was carefully written down--but the writer had his own way of
+doing his work. He would have day and date, the place where the doctor's
+trash was bought, the price thereof, the manner of administering the
+same, and many other particulars, every one of which was so carefully
+recorded, that the whole, no doubt, looked like a veritable precognition
+of facts, got from the said box called the memory, as if it had been
+that not one tint of light, from the conterminous chamber, had mixed
+with the pure spirit of truth.
+
+"Now," said he, "regaining his English, when his purpose was served,
+"you'll stand firm to this, in the face of judge, jury, justice, and all
+her angels?"
+
+"Never ye fear."
+
+"Then, you will go with me to a private lodging, where I wish you to
+remain, seen by as few as you can. You're a widow; your name is Mrs.
+Anderson; your husband was drowned in the Maelstrom. Get weeds, a veil,
+and look respectable."
+
+"A' save the last, for that's impossible."
+
+"Try; and, as you will need to pay for your board and lodgings, and your
+dress, here's the sum I promised ye; the other half when Mrs. S---- is
+saved."
+
+"A' right; and did I no say my ee would loup?--but 'ae gude turn
+deserves anither,' as the deil said to the loon o' Culloden, when he
+hauled him doun, screaming, to a place ye maybe ken o', and whaur I hae
+nae wish to be."
+
+"Where is Meg Davidson?" he then asked.
+
+"Oh ay!" she replied, "that puts me in mind o' a man wha met me on the
+road, and asked me if I was the woman wi' the twa white mice? I tauld
+him she was awa east to Montrose, and sae it is."
+
+"Not a cheep of the sale," added he.
+
+"Na, na, nor o' ony thing else, but just Mrs. Anderson, the widow, whase
+man was drouned in the Maelstream."
+
+And, having thus finished, the writer led the woman to her place of
+safety, there to lie _in retentis_ till the court-day.
+
+That eventful day came round. In the meantime, the prosecution never got
+access to the real white mouse tramp, and whatever they got out of Meg
+Davidson, satisfied them that she knew nothing of the murder. Large sums
+were given to secure the services of Jeffrey, then in the full blaze of
+his power, and Cockburn, so useful in examinations. The Lord Advocate
+led his proof, which was no darker than our writer had ascertained it to
+be, when he found himself driven to his clever expedient. The proof for
+the defence began; and, after some other witnesses were examined, the
+name of the woman with the white mice was called by the macer; and here
+occurred a circumstance, at the time known to very few. Cockburn turned
+round to our country agent, who was sitting behind him, and said, in a
+whisper--
+
+"M----, if the angel Gabriel were at this moment to come down and blow a
+trumpet, and tell me that what this woman is going to swear to is truth,
+I would not believe her."
+
+Nor is there any doubt to be entertained that the woman's testimony took
+the court and the audience by surprise. The judges looked at each other,
+and the jury were perplexed. There was only one thing that produced any
+solicitude in our writer. He feared the Lord Advocate would lay hands
+upon her, as either a murderer or a perjurer, the moment she left the
+witness-box. At that instant was he prepared. Quietly slipping out, he
+got hold of the woman, led her to the outer door, through a crowd,
+called to the door-keeper, who stood sentry, to open for the purpose of
+letting in a fresh witness of great importance to the accused; and
+having succeeded, as he seldom failed, he got the woman outside. A cab
+was in readiness--no time lost--the woman was pushed in, followed by her
+guardian, and in a short time was safely disposed of. Meanwhile, the
+Crown authorities had been preparing their warrant, and the woman was
+only saved from their mercies by a very few minutes.
+
+It is well known, as I have already mentioned, that Jeffrey's speech for
+Mrs. S---- was the greatest of all modern orations, yet it was delivered
+under peculiar circumstances. When he rose and began, he seemed languid
+and unwell. The wonted sparkle was not seen in his eye, the usually
+compressed lip was loose and flaccid, and his words, though all his
+beginnings were generally marked with a subdued tone, came with
+difficulty. Cockburn looked at him inquiringly, anxious and troubled.
+There was something wrong, and those interested in the defence augured
+ominously. All of a sudden the little man stopped, fixed his eye on one
+of the walls of the court-room, and cried out, "Shut that window."
+Through that opening a cold wind had been blowing-upon and chilling a
+body which, though firm and compact, was thin, wiry, and delicately
+toned to the refined requirements of the spirit that animated and moved
+it with a grace peculiarly his own. The chill, in consonance with
+well-known pathological laws, produced first depression, and then a
+feverish reaction, which latter was even morbidly favourable to the
+development of his powers. He began to revive; the blood, pulsing with
+more than natural activity, warmed still more at the call of his
+enthusiasm. He analyzed every part of the cause, tore up the characters
+of the prosecutor's witnesses, held up microscopic flaws, and passed
+them through the lens of his ingenious exaggeration, till they appeared
+serious in the eyes of the jury. Then how touching, if not noble, was
+the conduct of that strange witness for the defence--who, a wretched
+criminal herself, would yet, under a secret power, so far expiate her
+guilt by offering herself as a sacrifice for innocence! Beyond all was
+the pathos of his peroration, where he brought home the case to the
+jury, as loving husbands of loving wives, and tender fathers of beloved
+children. A woman sat there before them--a wife and a mother. She had
+undergone an ordeal not much less trying than death itself, and even then
+she was trembling under the agony of suspense, extended beyond mortal
+powers of endurance--to be terminated by the breath of their mouths,
+either for life and a restoration to a previously happy family, or for a
+death on a gallows, with all its ignominy.
+
+That speech, which nearly cost Jeffrey his life, saved that of another.
+The jury found the libel not proven; Mrs. S---- was free; Jeffrey was
+made more famous; but no one ever heard more of the woman with the white
+mice.
+
+
+
+
+GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT.
+
+THE EARLY DAYS OF A FRIEND OF THE COVENANT.
+
+
+I was born in the upper district and amidst the mountains of
+Dumfriesshire. My father, who died ere I had attained my second
+birthday, had seen better times; but, having engaged in mercantile
+speculations, had been overreached or unfortunate, or both, and during
+the latter years of his life had carried a gun, kept an amazing pointer
+bitch (of which my mother used to discourse largely), and had ultimately
+married in a fit of despondency. My mother, to whom he had long been
+affianced, was nearly connected with the Lairds of Clauchry, of which
+relationship she was vain; and in all her trials, of which she had no
+ordinary share, she still retained somewhat of the feelings, as well as
+the appearance of a gentlewoman. I remember, for example, a pair of
+high-heeled red Morocco shoes, overhung by the ample drapery of a
+quilted silk gown, in which habiliments she appeared on great occasions.
+Soon after my father's decease, my mother found it convenient and
+advisable to remove from the neighbourhood of the Clauchry to a cottage,
+or cottier as it was called, on her brother's farm, in the upper
+division of the parish of Closeburn.
+
+Few situations could be better fitted for the purpose of a quiet and
+sequestered retreat. The scene is now as vividly before me as it was on
+that day when I last saw it, and felt that, in all probability, I viewed
+it for the last time. A snug kailyard, surrounded by a fullgrown bushy
+hedge of bourtree, saugh, and thorn, lay along the border of a small
+mountain stream, and hard by a thatched cottage, with a peat-stack at
+the one end and a small byre at the other. All this was nestled as it
+were in the bosom of mountains, which, to the north and the east in
+particular, presented a defence against all winds, and an outline of
+bold grandeur exceedingly impressive. The south and the west were more
+open; consequently the mid-day and afternoon sun reposed, with
+delightful and unobstructed radiance, on the green border of the stream,
+and the flowery foliage of the brae. And when the evening was calm, and
+the season suitable, the blue smoke winded upwards, and the birds sang
+delightfully amidst hazel, and oak, and birch, with a profusion of which
+the eastern bank was covered. It was here that I spent my early days;
+and it was in this scene of mountain solitude, with no immediate
+associate but my mother, and for a few years of my existence my
+grandmother, that my "feelings and fortunes were formed and shaped out."
+
+To be brought up amidst mountain scenery, apart and afar from the busy
+or polluted haunts of man; to place one's little bare foot, with its
+first movement, on the greensward, the brown heath, or in the pure
+stream; to live in the retired glen, a perceptible part of all that
+lives and enjoys; to feel the bracing air of freedom in every breeze; to
+be possessed of elbow room from ridge to summit, from bank to
+brae,--this is, indeed, the most delightful of all infant schools, and,
+above all, prepares the young and infant mind for enlarged conception
+and resolute daring.
+
+    "To sit on rocks; to muse o'er flood and fell;
+      To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
+    Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
+      And mortal foot hath ne'er or seldom been;
+
+    To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
+      With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
+    Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean:
+      This is not solitude--'tis but to hold
+    Converse with Nature's God, and see his works unrolled."
+
+Here, indeed, are the things that own not the dominion of man! The
+everlasting hills, in their outlines of rock and heath; the floods that
+leap in freedom, or rush in defiance from steep to steep, from gullet to
+pool, and from pool to plain; the very tempest that overpowers; and
+heaven, through which the fowls of air sail with supreme and
+unchallenged dominion,--all these inspire the young heart with
+independence and self-reliance. True it is that the child, and even the
+boy, reflects not at all on the advantages of his situation; and this is
+the very reason that his whole imagination and heart are under their
+influence. He that is ever arresting and analyzing the current of his
+thoughts, will seldom think correctly; and he who examines with a
+microscopic eye the sources of beauty and sublimity, will seldom feel
+the full force and sway of such impressions. Early and lasting
+friendships are the fruit of accident, rather than of calculation--of
+feeling, rather than of reflection; and the circumstances of scenery and
+habit, which modify the child, and give a bent, a bias, and a character
+to the after-life, pass all unestimated in regard to such tendency at
+the time. The bulrush is not less unconscious of the marsh which
+modifies its growth, or the wallflower of the decay to which it clings,
+and by which alone its nature and growth would be most advantageously
+marked and perfected, than is the mountain child of that moral as well
+as physical development, which such peculiar circumstances are
+calculated to effect. If, through all the vicissitudes and trials of my
+past life, I have ever retained a spirit of independence, a spirit
+which has not, as the sequel (which I may yet give) will evince, proved
+at all times advantageous to my worldly advancement--if such has been
+the case, I owe it, in a great measure, to the impression which the home
+of my youth was calculated to make.
+
+My mother had originally received a better education than in those days
+was customary with individuals of her class; and, in addition to this
+advantage, she had long acted as housekeeper to an unmarried brother,
+the minister of a parish in Galloway. In this situation, she had access
+to a large and well-chosen library; and at leisure intervals had
+improved the opportunity thus presented. She was quite familiar with
+Young, and Pope, and Dryden, as well as with Tate's translation of
+Ovid's Epistles. These latter, in particular, she used to repeat to me
+during the winter evenings, with a tone of plaintiveness which I felt at
+the time, and the impression of which can never be obliterated. From
+these early associations and impressions I am enabled to deduce a taste
+for poetry, which, while it has served to beguile many an otherwise
+unsupportable sorrow, has largely contributed to the actual enjoyments
+of life. There are, indeed, moments of sadness and of joy, to which
+poetry can bring neither alleviation nor zest; but these, when compared
+with the more softening shadings, are but rare; and when the intensity
+of grief or of delight has yielded, or is in the act of yielding, to
+time or reflection, it is then, in the gloaming or the twilight, as
+darkness passes into light, or light into darkness, that the soothing
+and softening notes of poesy come over the soul like the blessed south.
+
+In religion, or rather in politics--in as far, at least, as they are
+interwoven with and inseparable from the Presbyterian faith--my mother
+was a staunch Covenanter. Nor was it at all surprising that one whose
+forefathers had suffered so severely in defence of the Covenant, and in
+opposition to oppression, should imbibe their sentiments. Her maternal
+grandfather had suffered at the Gallowlee; and her grandmother, who
+refused to give information to Clavers respecting the retreat of her
+husband, had her new-born babe plucked from her breast, dashed upon the
+floor, and the very bed, from which, to rescue her babe, she had sprung,
+pierced and perforated in a thousand places by the swords of the
+ruffians. Whilst this tragedy was enacting within doors, and in what, in
+these simple times, was denominated the _chaumer_, her eldest son, a boy
+of about twelve years of age, was arrested, and because he would not, or
+in all probability could not, disclose his father's retreat, he was
+blindfolded, tied to a tree, and taught to expect that every ball which
+he heard whizzing past his ear was aimed at his head. The boy was left
+bound; and, upon his being released by a menial, it was discovered that
+his reason had fled--and for ever! He died a few years afterwards, being
+known in the neighbourhood by the name of the Martyred Innocent! I have
+often looked at the bloody stone (for such stains are well known to be
+like those upon Lady Macbeth's hand, indelible,) where fell, after being
+perforated by a brace of bullets, Daniel M'Michael, a faithful witness
+to the truth, whose tomb, with its primitive and expressive inscription,
+is still to be seen in the churchyard of Durisdeer. Grierson of Lag made
+a conspicuous figure in the parish of Closeburn in particular; nor did
+my mother neglect to point out to me the ruined tower and the waste
+domain around it, which bespoke, according to her creed, the curse of
+God upon the seed of the persecutor. His elegy--somewhat lengthy and
+dull--I could once repeat. I can now only recall the striking lines
+where the Devil is introduced as lamenting over the death of his
+faithful and unflinching ally:--
+
+    "What fatal news is this I hear?--
+    On earth who shall my standard bear?--
+    For Lag, who was my champion brave,
+    Is dead, and now laid in his grave.
+
+    "The want of him is a great grief--
+    He was my manager-in-chief,
+    Who sought my kingdom to improve;
+    And to my laws he had great love," etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so on, through at least two hundred lines, composing a pamphlet,
+hawked about, in my younger days, in every huckster's basket, and sold
+in thousands to the peasantry of Dumfriesshire and Galloway, at the
+price of one penny. Whilst, however, the storm of evil passions raged
+with such fury in what was termed the western districts in particular,
+the poor, shelterless, and persecuted Covenanter was not altogether
+destitute of help or comfort. According to his own apprehension, at
+least, his Maker was on his side; his prayers, offered up on the
+mountain and in the cave, were heard and answered; and a watchful
+Providence often interfered, miraculously, both to punish his
+oppressors, and warn him against the approach of danger. In evidence of
+this, my mother was wont, amongst many others, to quote the following
+instances, respecting which she herself entertained no doubt
+whatever--instances which, having never before been committed to paper,
+have at least the recommendation of novelty in their favour.
+
+One of the chief rendezvous of the Covenant was Auchincairn, in the
+eastern district of Closeburn. To this friendly, but, on that account,
+suspected roof, did the poor wanderer of the mist, the glen, and the
+mountain repair, at dead of night, to obtain what was barely necessary
+for the support of nature. Grierson of Lag was not ignorant of the fact,
+and accordingly, by a sudden movement, was often found surrounding the
+steading with men and horses before daybreak; yet, prompt and well
+arranged as his measures were, they were never successful. The objects
+of his search uniformly escaped before the search was made. And this
+singular good fortune was owing, according to my authority, to the
+following circumstance. On the night previous to such an unwelcome
+visit, a little bird, of a peculiar feather and note, such as are not to
+be found in this country, came, and perching upon the topmost branch of
+the old ash tree in the corner of the garden, poured forth its notes of
+friendly intimation. To these the poor skulking friend of the Covenant
+listened, by these he was warned, lifted his eyes and his feet to the
+mountain, and was safe.
+
+The curate of Closeburn was eminently active in distressing his flock.
+He was one of those Aberdeen divines whom the wisdom of the Glasgow
+council had placed in the three hundred pulpits vacated in consequence
+of a drunken and absurd decree. As his church was deserted, he had had
+recourse to compulsory measures to enforce attendance, and had actually
+dragged servants and children, in carts and hurdles, to hear his
+spiritual and edifying addresses; whilst, on the other hand, his spies
+and emissaries were busied in giving information against such masters
+and parents as fled from his grasp, or resisted it. He had even gone so
+far, under the countenance and sanction of the infamous Lauderdale, as
+to forbid Christian burial in every case where there was no attendance
+on his ministry. Such was the character, and such the conduct of the man
+against whom the prayers of a private meeting of the friends of
+Presbytery were earnestly directed on the following occasion. The eldest
+son of the guidman of Auchincairn had paid the debt of nature, and
+behooved to be buried with his fathers in the churchyard of the parish.
+To this, from the well-known character both of curate and father, it was
+anticipated that resistance would be made. Against this resistance,
+however, measures were taken of a somewhat decided character. The body
+was to be borne to the churchyard by men in arms, whilst a part of the
+attendants were to remain at home, for the purpose of addressing their
+Maker in united prayer and supplication. Thus, doubly armed and
+prepared, the funeral advanced towards the church and manse. Meanwhile
+the prayer and supplication were warm, and almost expostulatory, that
+_His_ arm might be stretched forth in behalf of His own covenanted
+servants. A poor idiot, who had not been judged a proper person to join
+in this service, was heard to approach, and, after listening with great
+seeming attention to the strain of the petitions which were made, he, at
+length, unable to constrain himself any longer, was heard to exclaim,
+"Haud at him, sirs, haud at him--he's just at the pit brow!" Surprising
+as it may appear, and incredulous as some may be, there is sufficient
+evidence to prove that, just about the time when this prediction was
+uttered, the curate of Closeburn, whilst endeavouring to head and hurry
+on a party of the military, suddenly dropped down and expired.
+
+Is it, then, matter of surprise that with my mother's milk I imbibed a
+strong aversion to all manner of oppression, and that, in the broadest
+and best sense of the word, I became "a Whig?" To the mountain, then,
+and the flood, I owe my spirit of independence--that shelly-coat
+covering against which many arrows have been directed; to my mother,
+and her Cameronian and political bias, I owe my detestation of
+oppression--in other words, my political creed--together with my
+poetical leanings. But to my venerated grandmother, in particular, I am
+indebted for my early acquaintance with the whole history and economy of
+the spiritual kingdoms, divided as they are into bogle, ghost, and
+fairy-land.
+
+I shall probably be regarded as an enthusiast whose feelings no future
+evidence can reclaim from early impressions, when I express my regret
+that the dreams of my infancy and boyhood have fled--those dreams of
+dark and bright agency, which shall probably never again return, to
+agitate and interest--those dreams which charmed me in the midst of a
+spiritual world, and taught me to consider mere matter as only the
+visible and tangible instrument through which spirit was constantly
+acting--those dreams which appear as the shadow and reflection of sacred
+intimation, and which serve to guard the young heart, in particular,
+from the cold and revolting tenets of materialism. From the malevolence
+of him who walks and who works in darkness--who goes about like a
+roaring lion (but, in our climate and country, more frequently like a
+bull-dog, or a nondescript bogle), seeking whom he may terrify--I was
+taught to fly into the protecting arms of the omnipotent Jehovah; that
+no class of beings could break loose upon another without His high
+permission; that the Evil One, under whatever disguise or shape he might
+appear, was still restrained and over-mastered by the Source of all good
+and of all safety; whilst with the green-coated fairy, the laborious
+brownie, and the nocturnal hearth-bairn, I almost desired to live upon
+more intimate and friendly terms!
+
+How poor, comparatively speaking, are the incidents, how uninteresting
+is the machinery, of a modern fictitious narrative!--sudden and
+unlooked-for reappearances of those who were thought to be dead,
+discoveries of substituted births, with various chances and
+misnomers--"antres vast, and deserts wild!" One good, tall, stalking
+ghost, with its compressed lips and pointed fingers, with its glazed eye
+and measured step, is worth them all! Oh for a real "_white lady_" under
+the twilight of the year seventeen hundred and forty! When the elegant
+Greek or warlike Roman walked abroad or dined at home, he was surrounded
+by all the influences of an interesting and captivating mythology--by
+nymphs of the oak, of the mountain, and of the spring--by the Lares and
+Penates of his fireside and gateway--by the genius, the Ceres and the
+Bacchus of his banquet. When our forefathers contended for religious and
+civil liberty on the mountain--when they prayed for it in the glen, and
+in the silent darkness of the damp and cheerless cave--they were
+surrounded, not by material images, but by popular conceptions. The
+tempter was still in the wilderness, with his suggestions and his
+promises; and there, too, was the good angel, to warn and to comfort, to
+strengthen and to cheer. The very fowls of heaven bore on their wing and
+in their note a message of warning or a voice of comforting; and when
+the sound of psalms commingled with the swelling rush of the cascade,
+there were often heard, as it were, the harping of angels, the
+commingling of heavenly with earthly melody. All this was elevating and
+comforting precisely in proportion to the belief by which it was
+supported; and it may fairly be questioned whether such men as Peden and
+Cameron would have maintained the struggle with so much nerve and
+resolution if the sun of their faith had not been surrounded by a
+halo--if the noonday of the gospel had not shaded away imperceptibly
+into the twilight of superstition. In fact, superstition, in its softer
+and milder modifications, seems to form a kind of barrier or fence
+around the "sacred territory;" and it seldom if ever fails to happen
+that, when the outworks are driven in, the citadel is in danger; when
+the good old woman has been completely disabused of her harmless
+fancies, she may then aspire to the faith and the religious comforts of
+the philosophy of Volney.
+
+In confirmation of these observations, I may adduce the belief and life
+of my nearest relatives. To them, amidst all their superstitious
+impressions, religion, pure and undefiled, was still the main hold--the
+sheet anchor, stayed and steadied by which they were enabled to bear up
+amidst the turmoils and tempests of life. To an intimate acquaintance
+with, and a frequent reading of the sacred volume, was added, under our
+humble roof, family prayer both morning and evening--an exercise which
+was performed by mother and daughter alternately, and in a manner which,
+had I not actually thought them inspired, would have surprised me. Those
+who are unacquainted with the ancient Doric of our devotional and
+intelligent peasantry, and with that musical accentuation or chant of
+which it is not only susceptible, but upon which it is in a manner
+constructed, can have but a very imperfect notion of family prayer,
+performed in the manner I refer to. Many there are who smile at that
+familiarity of address and homeliness of expression which are generally
+made use of; but under that homely address there lie a sincerity and
+earnestness, a soothing, arousing, and penetrating eloquence, which
+neither in public nor in private prayer have ever been excelled. Again
+and again I have felt my breast swell and my eyes fill whilst the prayer
+of a parent was presented at a throne of grace in words to the
+following purpose:--"Help him, good Lord!" (speaking in reference to
+myself), "oh help my puir, faitherless bairn in the day of frowardness
+and in the hour of folly--in the season of forgetfulness and of
+unforeseen danger--in trial and in difficulty--in life and in death.
+Good Lord, for his sainted father's sake (who is now, we trust, with
+Thee), for my puir sake, who am unworthy to ask the favour, and, far
+aboon and above a', for thine own well-beloved Son's sake, do _Thou_ be
+pleased to keep, counsel, and support my puir helpless wean, when mine
+eyes shall be closed, and my lips shall be shut, and my hands shall have
+ceased to labour. Thou that didst visit Hagar and her child in the
+thirsty wilderness--Thou that didst bring thy servant Joseph from the
+pit and the miry clay--Thou that didst carry thy beloved people Israel
+through a barren desert to a promised and fruitful land--do Thou be a
+husband and a father to me and mine; and oh forbid that, in adversity or
+in prosperity, by day or by night, in the solitude or in the city, we
+should ever forget Thee!"
+
+In an age when, amongst our peasantry in particular, family prayer is so
+extensively and mournfully neglected--when the farmer, the manufacturer,
+the mechanic, not to mention the more elevated orders, have ceased to
+obey the injunction laid upon all Presbyterian parents in baptism--it is
+refreshing to look back to the time when the taking of the book, as it
+was termed, returned as regularly as the rising and the setting of the
+sun--when the whole household convened together, morning and evening, to
+worship the God of their fathers. In public worship, as well as in
+private prayer, there is much of comforting and spiritual support. It is
+pleasing, as well as useful, to unite voice with voice, and heart with
+heart; it is consolatory, as well as comforting, to retire from the
+world to commune with one's heart and be still; but it is not the less
+delightful and refreshing to unite in family prayer the charities and
+sympathies of life--to come to the throne of mercy and of pardon in the
+attitude and capacity of parent and child, brother and sister, husband
+and wife, master and servant, and to express, in the common confession,
+petition, and thanksgiving, our united feelings of sinfulness,
+resignation, and gratitude.
+
+Milton paints beautifully the first impressions which death made upon
+Eve; and sure I am that, though conceived in sin and brought forth in
+iniquity, I remember the time when I was entirely ignorant of death. I
+had indeed been informed that I had a father; but as to any change which
+had been effected upon him by death, I was as ignorant as if I had been
+embowered from my birth amidst the evergreens of paradise. Everything
+around me appeared to be permanent and undying, almost unchanging. The
+sun set only to rise again; the moon waned, and then reappeared,
+reassured in strength and repaired in form; the stars, in their courses,
+walked steadily and uniformly over my head; the flowers faded and
+nourished; the birds exchanged silence for song; the domestic animals
+were all my acquaintances from the dawn of memory. To me, and to those
+associated with me, similar events happened: we ate, drank, went to
+sleep, and arose again, with the utmost regularity. I had, indeed, heard
+of death as of some inconceivable evil; but, in my imagination, its
+operation had no figure. I had not even seen a dog die; for my father's
+favourite Gipsy lived for nine years after his death--a cherished and
+respected pensioner. At last, however, the period arrived when the spell
+was to be broken for ever--when I was to be let into the secret of the
+house of corruption, and made acquainted with the change which death
+induces upon the human countenance.
+
+My grandmother had attained a very advanced old age, yet was she
+straight in person, and perfect in all her mental faculties. Her
+countenance, which I still see distinctly, was expressive of good-will;
+and the wrinkles on her brow served to add a kind of intellectual
+activity to a face naturally soft, and even comely. She had told me so
+many stories, given me so many good advices, initiated me so carefully
+in the elements of all learning, "the small and capital letters," and,
+lastly, had so frequently interposed betwixt me and parental
+chastisement, that I bore her as much good-will and kindly feeling as a
+boy of seven years could reasonably be expected to exhibit. True it is,
+and of verity, that this kindly feeling was not incompatible with many
+acts of annoyance, for which I now take shame and express regret; but
+these acts were anything but malevolent, being committed under the view
+of self-indulgence merely. It was, therefore, with infinite concern that
+I received the intelligence from my mother that grannie was, in all
+probability, on the point of leaving us, and for ever.
+
+"Leaving us, and for ever," sounded in my ears like a dream of the
+night, in which I had seen the stream which passed our door swell
+suddenly into a torrent, and the torrent into a flood, carrying me, and
+everything around me, away in its waters. I felt unassured in regard to
+my condition, and was half disposed to believe that I was still asleep
+and imagining horrors! But when my mother told me that the disease which
+had for days confined my grandmother to bed would end in death--in other
+words, would place her alongside of my father's grave in the churchyard
+of Closeburn--I felt that I was not asleep, but awake to some dreadful
+reality, which was about to overtake us. From this period till within a
+few hours of her dissolution, I kept cautiously and carefully aloof from
+all intercourse with my grandmother--I felt, as it were, unwilling to
+renew an intercourse which was so certainly, and so soon, and so
+permanently to be interrupted; so I betook myself to the hills, and to
+the pursuit of all manner of bees and butterflies. I would not, in fact,
+rest; and as I lay extended on my back amidst the heath, and marked the
+soft and filmy cloud swimming slowly along, "making the blue one white,"
+I thought of her who was dying, and of some holy and happy residence far
+beyond the utmost elevation of cloud, or sun, or sky. Again and again I
+have risen from such reveries to plunge myself headlong into the pool,
+or pursue with increased activity the winged insects which buzzed and
+flitted around me. Strange indeed are the impressions made upon our yet
+unstamped, unbiassed nature; and could we in every instance recall them,
+their history would be so unlike our more recent experience, as to make
+us suspect our personal identity. I do not remember any more recent
+feeling which corresponded in character and degree with this, whose
+wayward and strange workings I am endeavouring to describe; and yet in
+this case, and in all its accompaniments, I have as perfect a
+recollection of facts, and reverence of feeling, as if I were yet the
+child of seven, visited for the first time with tidings of death.
+
+My grandmother's end drew nigh, and I was commanded, or rather dragged,
+to her bedside. There I still see her lying, calm, but emaciated, in
+remarkably white sheets, and a head dress which seemed to speak of some
+approaching change. It was drawn closely over her brow, and covered the
+chin up to her lips. Nature had manifestly given up the contest; and
+although her voice was scarcely audible, her reason evidently continued
+unclouded and entire. She spoke to me slowly and solemnly of religion,
+obedience to my mother, and being obliging to every one; laid, by my
+mother's assistance, her hand upon my head, as I kneeled at her bedside,
+and in a few instants had ceased to breathe. I lifted up my head at my
+mother's bidding, and beheld a corpse. What I saw or what I felt, I can
+never express in words. I can only recollect that I sprang immediately,
+horror-struck, to my feet, rushed out at the door, made for the closest
+and thickest part of the brushwood of the adjoining brae, and, casting
+myself headlong into the midst of it, burst into tears. I wept, nay,
+roared aloud; my grief and astonishment were intense whilst they lasted,
+but they did not last long; for when I returned home about dusk, I found
+a small table spread over with a clean cloth, upon which was placed a
+bottle with spirits, a loaf of bread, and cheese cut into pretty large
+pieces. Around this table sat my mother, with two old women from the
+nearest hamlet. They were talking in a low but in a wonderfully cheerful
+tone, as I thought, and had evidently been partaking of refreshment.
+Being asked to join them, I did so; but ever and anon the white sheet in
+the bed, which shaped itself out most fearfully into the human form,
+drew my attention, and excited something of the feeling which a ghost
+might have occasioned. I had ceased in a great measure to feel for my
+grandmother's death. I now felt the alarms and agitations of
+superstition. It was not because she had fled from us that I was
+agitated, but because that, though dead, she still seemed present, in
+all the inconceivable mystery of a dead life!
+
+The funeral called forth, from the adjoining glens and cottages, a
+respectable attendance, and at the same time gave me an opportunity of
+partaking, unnoticed, of more refreshment than suited the occasion or my
+years; in fact, I became little less than intoxicated, and was
+exceedingly surprised at finding myself, towards evening, in the midst
+of the same bush where I had experienced my paroxysm of grief, singing
+aloud, in all the exultation of exhilarated spirits. Such is infancy and
+boyhood--
+
+    "The tear forgot, as soon as shed."
+
+I returned, however, home, thoughtful and sad, and never, but once,
+thought the house so deserted and solitary as during that evening.
+
+My mother was not a Cameronian by communion, but she was in fact one in
+spirit. This spirit she had by inheritance, and it was kept alive by an
+occasional visit from "Fairly." This redoubted champion of the Covenant
+drew me one day towards him, and, placing me betwixt his knees,
+proceeded to question me how I would like to be a minister; and as I
+preserved silence, he proceeded to explain that he did not mean a parish
+minister, with a manse and glebe and stipend, but a poor Cameronian
+hill-preacher like himself. As he uttered these last words, I looked up,
+and saw before me an austere countenance, and a threadbare black coat
+hung loosely over what is termed a hunchback. I had often heard Fairly
+mentioned, not only with respect, but enthusiasm, and had already
+identified him and his followers with the "guid auld persecuted folks"
+of whom I had heard so much. Yet there was something so strange, not to
+say forbidding, in Fairly's appearance, that I hesitated to give my
+consent, and continued silent; whereupon Fairly rose to depart,
+observing to my mother, that "my time was not come yet." I did not then
+fully comprehend the meaning of this expression, nor do I perhaps now,
+but it passed over my heart like an awakening breeze over the strings of
+an Ĉolian harp. I immediately sprang forward, and catching Fairly by the
+skirt of his coat, exclaimed--
+
+"Oh stay, sir!--dinna gang and leave us, and I will do onything ye
+like."
+
+"But then mind, my wee man," continued Fairly in return, "mind that, if
+ye join us, ye will have neither house nor hame, and will often be cauld
+and hungry, without a bed to lie on."
+
+"I dinna care," was my uncouth, but resolute response.
+
+"There's mair metal in that callant than ye're aware o'," rejoined
+Fairly, addressing himself to my mother, and looking all the while most
+affectionately into my countenance. "Here, my little fellow, here's a
+penny for ye, to buy a _charitcher_; and gin ye leeve to be a man, ye'll
+aiblins be honoured wi' upholding the doctrines which it contains, on
+the mountain and in the glen, when my auld banes are mixed wi' the
+clods."
+
+I looked again at Fairly as he pronounced these words, and had an angel
+descended from heaven in all the radiance and benignity of undimmed
+glory, such a presence would not have impressed me more deeply with
+feelings of love, veneration, and esteem.
+
+This colloquy, short as it was, exercised considerable influence over my
+future life.
+
+I cannot suppose anything more imposing, and better calculated to excite
+the imagination, than the meetings of these Cameronians or hill-men.
+They are still vividly under my view: the precipitous and green hills of
+Durrisdeer on each side--the tent adjoining to the pure mountain stream
+beneath--the communion table stretching away in double rows from the
+tent towards the acclivity--the vast multitude in one wide amphitheatre
+round and above--the spring gushing solemnly and copiously from the
+rock, like that of Meribah, for the refreshment of the people--the still
+or whispering silence when Fairly appeared, with the Bible under his
+arm, without gown, or band, or any other clerical badge of
+distinction--the tent-ladder, ascended by the bald-headed and venerable
+old man, and his almost divine regard of benevolence, cast abroad upon a
+countless multitude--his earnestness in prayer--his plain and colloquial
+style of address--the deep and pious attention paid to him, from the
+plaided old woman at the front of the tent to the gaily dressed lad and
+lass on the extremity of the ground--his descent, and the communion
+service--his solemn and powerful consecration prayer, over which the
+passing cloud seemed to hover, and the sheep on the hill-side to forego
+for a time their pasture--his bald head (like a bare rock encompassed
+with furze) slightly fringed with grey hairs, remaining uncovered under
+the plashing of a descending torrent, and his right hand thrust upward,
+in holy indignation against the proffered umbrella;--all this I see
+under the alternating splendours and darkenings, lights and shadows, of
+a sultry summer's day. The thunder is heard in its awful sublimity; and
+whilst the hearts of man and of beast are quaking around and above,
+Fairly's voice is louder and more confirmed, his countenance is
+brighter, and his eye more assured, and stedfastly fixed on the
+muttering heaven. "Thou, O Lord, art ever near us, but we perceive Thee
+not; Thou speakest from Zion, and in a still small voice, but it is
+drowned in the world's murmurings. Then Thou comest forth as now, in thy
+throne of darkness, and encompassest thy Sinai with thunderings and
+lightnings; and then it is, that like silly and timid sheep who have
+strayed from their pasture, we stand afar off and tremble. _This_ flash
+of thy indignant majesty, which has now crossed these aged eyes, might,
+hadst Thou but so willed it, have dimmed them for ever; and this vast
+assemblage of sinful life might have been, in the twinkling of an eye,
+as the hosts of Assyria, or the inhabitants of Admah and Zeboim; but
+Thou knowest, O Lord, that Thou hast more work for me, and more mercy
+for them, and that the prayers of penitence which are now knocking hard
+for entrance and answer, must have time and trial to prove their
+sincerity. So be it, good Lord! for thine ire, that hath suddenly
+kindled, hath passed; and the Sun of Righteousness himself hath bid his
+own best image come forth from the cloud to enliven our assembly." In
+fact, the thunder-cloud had passed, and under the strong relief of a
+renewed effulgence, was wrapping in its trailing ascent the summits of
+the more distant mountains.
+
+    "I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
+      From whence doth come mine aid:
+    My safety cometh from the Lord"----
+
+These were the notes which pealed in the after-service of that memorable
+occasion from at least ten thousand hearts. Nor is there any object in
+nature better calculated to call forth the most elevated sentiments of
+devotion, than such a simultaneous concordant union of voice and
+purpose, in praise of Him "who heaven and earth hath made."
+
+    "All people that on earth do dwell,
+    Sing to the Lord"----
+
+So says the divine monitor; but what says modern fashion and refinement?
+Let them answer in succession for themselves. And first, then, in
+reference to fashion. When examined and duly purged, she deposeth that
+the time was when men were not ashamed to praise their God "before his
+people all;" when they even rejoiced with what tones they might to unite
+their tributary stream of praise to that vast flood which rolled, in
+accumulated efficacy, towards the throne on high; when lord and lady,
+husbandman and mechanic, learned and unlearned, prince and people, sent
+forth their hearts in their united voices towards Him who is the God
+over all and the Saviour of all. She further deposeth that the venerated
+founders of our Presbyterian Church were wont to scare the curlew and
+the bittern of the mountain and the marsh by their nightly songs of
+solemn and combined thanksgiving and praise; and that, with the view of
+securing a continuance of this delightful exercise, our Confession of
+Faith strictly enjoins us, providing, by the reading of "the line,"
+against cases of extreme ignorance or bodily infirmity; and yet she
+averreth that, in defiance of law and practice, of reason and
+revelation, of good feeling and common-sense, hath it become
+unfashionable to be seen or to be heard praising God. It is vulgar and
+unseemly, it would appear, in the extreme, to modulate the voice or to
+compose the countenance into any form or expression which might imply an
+interest in the exercise of praise. The young Miss in her teens, whose
+tender and susceptible heart is as wax to impressions, is half betrayed
+into a spontaneous exhibition of devotional feeling; but she looks at
+the marble countenance and changeless aspect of Mamma, and is silent.
+The home-bred, unadulterated peasant would willingly persevere in a
+practice to which he has been accustomed from his first entrance at the
+church stile; but his superiors, from pew and gallery, discountenance
+his feelings, and indicate by the carelessness--I had almost added the
+levity--of their demeanour, that they are thinking of anything, of
+everything, but God's praise; whilst the voices of the hired precentor
+and of a few old women and rustics are heard uniting in suppressed and
+feeble symphony. Nay, there is a case still more revolting than any
+which has been hitherto denounced--that, namely, of our young
+probationers and ministers, who, in many instances, refuse even in the
+pulpit that example which, with their last breath, they were perhaps
+employed in recommending. There they sit or stoop whilst the psalm is
+singing, busily employed in revising their MS., or in reviewing the
+congregation, in selecting and marking for emphasis the splendid
+passages, or in noting for observation whatever of interesting the dress
+or the countenances of the people may suggest. So much for _fashion_;
+and now for the deposition of _refinement_ on the same subject.
+
+Refinement has indeed much to answer for; she has brushed the coat
+threadbare; she has wiredrawn the thread till it can scarcely support
+its own weight; and in no one instance has her besetting sin been more
+conspicuous than in her intercommunings with our church psalmody. The
+old women who, from the original establishment of Presbytery, have
+continued to occupy and grace our pulpit stairs, are oftentimes
+defective in point of sweetness and delicacy of voice; in fact, they do
+not sing, but croon, and in some instances they have even been known to
+outrun the precentor by several measures, and to return upon him a
+second time ere the conclusion of the line. What then?--they always
+croon in a low key; and if _they_ are gratified, their Maker pleased,
+and the congregation in general undisturbed, the principal parties are
+disposed of. There is no doubt something unpleasing to a refined ear in
+the jarring concord of a rustic euphony, when, in full voice, of a
+sacramental Sabbath evening, they are inclined to hold on with
+irresistible swing. But what they want in harmony, they have in
+good-will; what they lose in melody, they gain in the ringing echo of
+their voices from roof and ceiling. And were it possible, without
+silencing the uninstructed, to gratify and encourage the refined and the
+disciplined, then were there at once a union and a unison of agreeables;
+but as this object has never been effected, or even attempted, and as
+refinement has at once laid aside all regard for the humble and
+untrained worshipper, and has set her stamp and seal upon a trained band
+of vocal performers, it becomes the duty of all rightly constituted
+minds to oppose, if they cannot stem the tide--to mark and stigmatize
+that as unbecoming and absurd which the folly of the age would have us
+consider as improvement. It is of little moment whether the office of
+psalm-singing be committed to a select band, who surround, with their
+merry faces and tenor pipes, the precentor's seat, or be entrusted to
+separate parties scattered through the congregation; still, so long as
+the _taught_ alone are expected to sing, the original end of
+psalm-singing is lost sight of, the habits of a Presbyterian
+congregation are violated, and _manner_ being preferred to _matter_--an
+attuned voice to a fervent spirit--a manifest violence is done to the
+feelings of the truly devout.
+
+No two things are probably more distinct and separate in the reader's
+mind than preaching and fishing; yet in mine they are closely
+associated.
+
+And is not fishing or angling with the rod a most fascinating amusement?
+There is just enough of address required to admit and imply a gratifying
+admixture of self-approbation; and enough, at the same time, of chance
+or circumstance, over which the fisher has no control, to keep
+expectation alive even during the most deplorable luck. Hence a real
+fisher is seldom found, from want of success merely, to relinquish his
+rod in disgust; but, with the spirit of a true hill-man of the old
+school, he is patient in tribulation, rejoicing in hope. "_Meliore
+opera_" is written upon his countenance; and whilst mischance and
+misfortune haunt him, it may be, from stream to stream, or from pool to
+pool, he still looks down the glen and along the river's course; he
+still regards in anxious expectation the alluring and more promising
+curl, the circulating and creamy froth, the suddenly broken and
+hesitating gullet, and the dark clayey bank, under which the water runs
+thick and the foam-bells figure bright and starry. He knows that one
+single hour of successful adventure, when the cloud has ascended and the
+shadow is deep, and the breeze comes upwards on the stream, and the
+whole finny race are in eager expectation of the approaching
+shower--that one single hour of this description will amply repay him
+for every discouragement and misfortune.
+
+And who that has enjoyed this one little hour of success would consider
+the purchase as dearly made? Is it with bait that you are angling?--and
+in the solitude of a mountain glen can you discover the stream of your
+hope, stretching away like a blue pennant waving into the distance, and
+escaping from view behind some projecting angle of the hill? Your
+fishing-rod is tight and right, your line is in order, your hook
+penetrates your finger to the barb; other companions than the plover,
+the lark, and the water-wagtail you have none. This is no hour for
+chirping grasshopper, or flaunting butterfly, or booming bee; the
+overshaded and ruffled water receives your bait with a plump; and ere it
+has travelled to the distance of six feet, it is nailed down to the
+leeward of a stone. You pull recklessly and fearlessly, and flash after
+flash, and flap after flap, comes there in upon your hull the spotted
+and ponderous inmate of the flood! Or is it the fly with which you are
+plying the river's fuller and more seaward flow? The wide extent of
+streamy pool is before you, and beyond your reach. Fathom after fathom
+goes reeling from your pirn, but still you are barely able to drop the
+far fly into the distant curl. "Habet!" he has it; and proudly does he
+bear himself in the plenitudes of strength, space, and freedom. Your
+line cuts and carves the water into all manner of squares, triangles,
+and parallelograms. Now he makes a few capers in the air, and shows you,
+as an opera dancer would do, his proportions and agility: now again he
+is sulky and restive, and gives you to understand that the _vis inertiĉ_
+is strong within him. But fate is in all his operations, and his last
+convulsive effort makes the sand and the water commingle at the
+landing-place.
+
+The resort of the fisher is amidst the retirements of what, and what
+alone, can be justly denominated undegraded nature. The furnace, and the
+manufactory, and the bleaching-green, and the tall red smoke-vomiting
+chimney are his utter aversion. The village, the clachan, the city, he
+avoids: he flies from them as something intolerably hostile to his
+hopes. He holds no voluntary intercourse with man, or with his petty and
+insignificant achievements. "He lifts his eyes to the hills," and his
+steps lie through the retired glen, and winding vale, and smiling
+strath, up to the misty eminence and cairn-topped peak. He catches the
+first beams of the sun, not through the dim and disfiguring smoke of a
+city, but over the sparkling and diamonded mountain, above the unbroken
+and undulating line of the distant horizon. His conversation is with
+heaven, with the mist, and the cloud, and the sky; the great, the
+unmeasured, the incomprehensible are around him; and all the agitation
+and excitement to which his hopes and fears as a mere fisher subject
+him, cannot completely withdraw his soul from that character of
+sublimity by which the mountain solitude is so perceptibly impressed.
+
+I shall never forget one day's sport. The morning was warm, and in fact
+somewhat sultry; and swarms of insects arose on my path. As every gullet
+was gushing with water, it behoved me to ascend, even beyond my former
+travel, to the purest streams or feeders, which ran unseen, in general,
+among the hills. The clouds, as I hurried on my way, began to gather up
+into a dense and darkening awning. There was a slight and somewhat
+hesitating breeze on the hill-side, for I could see the heath and
+bracken bending under it, but it was scarcely perceptible beneath. This,
+however, I regretted the less, as the mountain torrent to which I had
+attached myself was too precipitous and streamy in its course to require
+the aids of wind and curl to forward the sport. Let the true fisher--for
+he only can appreciate the circumstances--say what must have been my
+delight, my rapture, as I proceeded to prepare my rod, open out my line
+over the brink of a gullet, along which the water rushed like porter
+through the neck of a bottle, and at the lower extremity of which the
+froth tilted round and round in most inviting eddies! Here there was no
+springing of trouts to the surface, nor coursing of alarmed shoals
+beneath. The darkened heaven was reflected back by the darker water; and
+the torrent kept dashing, tumbling, and brawling along under the impulse
+and agitation of a swiftly ebbing flood. I had hit upon that very
+critical shade, betwixt the high brown and soft blue colour, which
+every mountain angler knows well how to appreciate; and I felt as if
+every turn and entanglement of my line formed a barrier betwixt me and
+paradise. The very first throw was successful, ere the bait had
+travelled twice round the eddy at the bottom of the gullet. When trouts
+in such circumstances take at all, they do so in good earnest. They are
+all on the outlook for food, and dash at the swiftly-descending bait
+with a freedom and good-will which almost uniformly insures their
+capture. And here, for the benefit of bait fishers, it may be proper to
+mention, that success depends not so much on the choosing and preparing
+of the worms--though these undoubtedly are important points--as in the
+throwing and drawing, or rather dragging of the line. In such mountain
+rapids, the trout always turn their heads to the current, and never
+gorge the bait till they have placed themselves lower down in the water;
+consequently, by pulling _downwards_, two manifest advantages are
+gained: the trout is often hooked without gorging, or even biting at
+all, and the current assists the fisher in landing his prize, which, in
+such circumstances, may be done in an instant, and at a single pull. But
+to return. My success on this occasion was altogether beyond precedent:
+at every turn and wheel of the winding torrent, I was sure to grace the
+green turf or sandy channel with another and another yellow-sided and
+brightly-spotted half-pounder. The very sheep, as they travelled along
+their mountain pathway, stopped and gazed down on the sport. The season
+was harvest, and the Lammas floods had brought up the bull or sea
+trouts. I had all along hoped that one or two stragglers might have
+reached my position; and this hope had animated every pull. It was not,
+however, till the day was well advanced, that I had the good fortune to
+succeed in hooking a large, powerful, active, and new-run "milter." In
+fisher weight he might seem _five_, but in imperial he would possibly
+not exceed two or three pounds. Immediately upon his feeling the steel
+he plunged madly, flung himself into the air, dived again into the
+depths, and flounced about in the most active and courageous style
+imaginable. At last, taking the stream-head somewhat suddenly, he showed
+tail and fin above the surface of the water, brought his two extremities
+almost into contact, shot himself upwards like an arrow, and was off
+with the hook and a yard of line ere I had time to prepare against the
+danger; but as unforeseen circumstances led to this catastrophe,
+occurrences equally unlooked-for repaired the loss; for in an instant I
+secured the disengaged captive whilst floundering upon the sand, having,
+by his headlong precipitancy, fairly pitched himself out of his native
+element. There he lay, like a ship in the shallows, exhibiting scale and
+fin, and shoulder and spot, of the most fascinating hue; and, ever and
+anon, as the recollection of the fatal precipitancy seemed to return
+upon him, he cut a few capers and exhibited a few somersets, which
+contributed materially to insure his capture, and increase my delight.
+
+By this time I had ascended nearly to the source of the stream; and at
+every opening up of the glen I could perceive a sensible diminution of
+the current. I was quite alone in the solitude; and my unwonted success
+had rendered me insensible to the escape of time. The glen terminated at
+last in a linn and scaur, beyond which it did not appear probable that
+trouts would ascend. Whilst I was engaged in the consideration of the
+objects around me, with a reference to my return home, I became all at
+once enveloped in mist and darkness. The mist was dense and close and
+suffocating, while the darkness increased every instant. I felt a
+difficulty in breathing, as if I had been shut up in an empty oven; my
+situation stared me at once in the face, and I took to my heels over the
+heath, in what I considered a homeward direction. Now that my ears were
+relieved from the gurgling sound of the water, I could perceive, through
+the stillness of the air, that the thunder was behind me. I had been
+taught to consider thunder as the voice of the "Most High," when He
+speaks in his wrath, and felt my whole soul prostrated under the divine
+rebuke. Some passages of the 18th Psalm rushed on my remembrance; and as
+the lightnings began to kindle, and the thunder to advance, I could hear
+myself involuntarily repeating--
+
+    "Up from his nostrils came a smoke,
+      And from his mouth there came
+    Devouring fire; and coals by it
+      Were turned into flame.
+
+    "The Lord God also in the heavens
+      Did thunder in his _ire_,
+    And there the Highest gave his voice--
+      Hail-stones and coals of fire."
+
+Such was the subject of my meditation, as the muttering and seemingly
+subterraneous thunder boomed and quavered behind me. At last, one broad
+and whizzing flash passed over, around, beneath, and I could almost
+imagine, _through_ me. The clap followed instantly, and, by its
+deafening knell, drove me head foremost into the heathy moss. Had the
+earth now opened (as to Curtius of old) before me, I should certainly
+have dashed into the crater, in order to escape from that explosive
+omnipotence which seemed to overtake me. Peal after peal pitched, with a
+rending and tearing sound, upon the drum of my ear and the parapet of my
+brain; whilst the mist and the darkness were kindled up around me into
+an open glow. I could hear a strange rush upon the mountain, and along
+the glen, as if the Solway had overleaped all bounds, and was careering
+some thousand feet abreast over Criffel and Queenberry. Down it came at
+last, in a swirl and a roar, as if rocks and cairns and heath were
+commingled in its sweep. This terrible blast was only the immediate
+precursor of a hail-storm, which, descending at first in separate and
+distinct pieces, as if the powers of darkness and uproar had been
+pitching marbles, came on at last with a rush, as if Satan himself had
+been dumriddling the elements. The water in the moss-hag rose up, and
+boiled and sputtered in the face of heaven, and a rock, underneath the
+hollow corner of which I had now crept on hands and knees, rattled all
+over, as if assailed by musketry. I lay now altogether invisible to
+mortal eye, amidst the mighty movements of the elements--a thing of
+nought, endeavouring to crawl into nonentity--a tiny percipient amidst
+the blind urgency of nature. I lay in all the prostration of a bruised
+and subdued spirit, praying fervently and loudly unto God that He might
+be pleased to cover me with his hand till his wrath was overpast. And,
+to my persuasion at the time, my prayers were not altogether
+insufficient: the storm softened, rain succeeded hail, a pause followed
+the hurricane, and the thunder's voice had already travelled away over
+the brow of the onward mountain.
+
+Whilst I was debating with myself whether it were safer, now that the
+night had fairly closed in upon the pathless moor, to remain all night
+in my present position, or to attempt once more my return home, I heard,
+all of a sudden, the sound of human voices, which the violence of the
+storm had prevented me from sooner perceiving. I scarcely knew whether I
+was more alarmed or comforted by this discovery. From my previous state
+of agitation, combined with my early and rooted belief in all manner of
+supernaturals, I was strongly disposed to terror; but the accents were
+so manifestly human, that, in spite of my apprehensions, they tended to
+cheer me. As I continued, therefore, to listen with mouth and ears, the
+voices became louder and louder, and more numerous, mixed and commingled
+as they appeared at last to be with the tread and the plash of horses'
+feet. These demonstrations of an approaching cavalcade naturally called
+upon me to narrow, as much and as speedily as possible, my
+circumference; in other words, to creep, as it were, into my shell, by
+occupying the farthest extremity of the recess, to which I betook myself
+at first for shelter, and now for concealment. There I lay like a limpet
+stuck to the rock, against which I could feel my heart beat with
+accelerated rapidity. In this situation I could distinguish voices and
+expressions, and ultimately unravel the import of a conversation
+interlarded with oaths and similar ornamental flourishes. There was a
+proposal to halt, alight, and refresh in this sequestered situation.
+Such a proposal, as may readily be supposed, was to me anything but
+agreeable. Here was I, according to my reckoning, surrounded by a band
+of robbers, and liable every instant to detection. Firearms were talked
+of, and preparations, offensive and defensive, were proposed. I could
+distinctly smell gunpowder. In the meantime, a fire was struck up at no
+great distance, under the glare of which I could distinguish horses
+heavily panniered, and strange-looking countenances, congregating within
+fifty paces of my retreat. The shadow of the intervening corner of the
+rock covered me, otherwise immediate detection would have been
+inevitable. The thunder and lightnings with all their terrors were
+nothing to this. In the one case, I was placed at the immediate disposal
+of a merciful, as well as a mighty Being; but at present I ran every
+risk of falling into the hands of those whose counsels I had overheard,
+and whose tender mercies were only cruelty. As I lay--rod, basket, and
+fish crumpled up into a corner of contracted dimensions--all ear,
+however, and eye towards the light--I could mark the shadows of several
+individuals who were manifestly engaged in the peaceful and ordinary
+process of eating and drinking; hands, arms, and flagons projected in
+lengthened obscurity over the mass, and intimated, by the rapidity and
+character of their movements, that jaws were likewise in motion. The
+long pull, with the accompanying _smack_, were likewise audible; and it
+was manifest that the repast was not more substantial than the beverage
+was exhilarating. "Word follows word, from question answer flows."
+Dangers and contingencies--which, while the flame was kindling and the
+flagon was filling, seemed to agitate and interest all--were now talked
+of as bugbears; and oaths of heavy and horrifying defiance were hurled
+into the ear of night, with many concomitant expressions of security and
+self-reliance. The night, though dark, had now become still and warm;
+and the ground which they occupied, like my own retreat, had been
+partially protected from the hail and the rain by the projecting rock.
+The stunted roots of burnt heath, or "brins," served them plentifully
+for fuel; and altogether their situation was not so uncomfortable as
+might have been expected. Still, however, their character, employment,
+and conversation appeared to me a fearful mystery. One thing, however,
+was evident, that they conceived themselves as engaged in some illegal
+transactions. Their whole revel was tainted with treason and
+insubordination: kings and rulers were disposed of with little
+ceremony; and excise officers, in particular, were visited with
+anathemas not to be mentioned. At this critical moment, when the whole
+party seemed verging towards downright intoxication, a pistol bullet
+burst itself to atoms on the projecting corner of the rock; and the
+report which accompanied this demonstration was followed up by oaths of
+challenge and imprecation. The fire went out as if by magic, and an
+immediate rush to arms, accompanied by shots and clashing of lethal
+weapons, indicated a struggle for life.
+
+"Stand and surrender, you smuggling scoundrels! or by all that is
+sacred, not one of you shall quit this spot in life!"
+
+This salutation was answered by a renewed discharge of musketry; and the
+darkness, which was relieved by the momentary flash, became instantly
+more impenetrable than ever. Men evidently pursued men, and horses were
+held by the bridle, or driven into speed as circumstances permitted. How
+it happened that I neither screamed, fainted, nor died outright, I am
+yet at a loss to determine. The darkness, however, was my covering; and
+even amidst the unknown horrors of the onset, I felt in some degree
+assured by the extinction of the fire. But this assurance was not of
+long continuance: the assailing party had evidently taken possession of
+the field; and, after a few questions of mutual recognition and
+congratulation, proceeded to secure their booty, which consisted of one
+horse, with a considerable assortment of barrels and panniers. This was
+done under the light of the rekindled fire, around which a repetition of
+the former festivities was immediately commenced. The fire, however, now
+flared full in my face, and led to my immediate detection. I was
+summoned to come forth, with the muzzle of a pistol placed within a few
+inches of my ear--an injunction which I was by no means prepared to
+resist. I rolled immediately outwards from under the rock, displaying my
+basket and rod, and screaming all the while heartily for mercy. At this
+critical moment a horse was heard to approach, and a challenge was
+immediately sent through the darkness,--every musket was levelled in the
+direction of the apprehended danger,--when a voice, to which I was by no
+means a stranger, immediately restored matters to their former bearing.
+
+"Now, what is the meaning o' a' this, my lads? And how come the king's
+servants to be sae ill lodged at this time o' night? He must be a shabby
+landlord that has naething better than the bare heath and the hard rock
+to accommodate his guests wi'."
+
+"Oh, Fairly, my old man of the Covenant," vociferated the leader of the
+party, "how come you to be keeping company with the whaup and the curlew
+at this time o' night? But a drink is shorter than a tale; fling the
+bridle owre the grey yad's shoulders, an' ca' her to the bent, till we
+mak ourselves better acquainted with this little natty gentleman, whom
+we have so opportunely encountered on the moor"--displaying, at the same
+time, a keg or small flask of liquor referred to, and shaking it
+joyously till it clunked again.
+
+In an instant Fairly was stationed by the side of the fire, with a can
+of Martin's brandy in his hands, and an expression of exceeding surprise
+on his countenance as he perceived my mother's son in full length
+exhibited before him. I did not, however, use the ceremony of a formal
+recognition; but, rushing on his person, I clung to it with all the
+convulsive desperation of a person drowning. Matters were now adjusted
+by mutual recognitions and explanations; and I learned that I had been
+the unconscious spectator of a scuffle betwixt the "king's officers"
+and a "band of smugglers;" and that Fairly, who had been preaching and
+baptizing that day at Burnfoot, and was on his return towards Durrisdeer
+(where he was next day to officiate), had heard and been attracted to
+the spot by the firing. In these times to which I refer, the Isle of Man
+formed a depot for illegal traffic. Tea, brandy, and tobacco, in
+particular, found their way from the Calf of Man to the Rinns of
+Galloway, Richmaden, and the mouth of the Solway. From the latter depot
+the said articles were smuggled, during night marches, into the
+interior, through such byways and mountain passes as were unfrequented
+or inaccessible. After suitable libations had been made, I was mounted
+betwixt a couple of panniers, and soon found myself in my own bed, some
+time before
+
+    "That hour o' night's black arch the keystane!"
+
+
+
+
+THE DETECTIVE'S TALE.
+
+THE CHANCE QUESTION.
+
+
+It is not long since the cleverest of these strangely constituted men
+called detectives [_entre nous_ myself] went up to his superintendent
+with a very rueful face, and told him that all his energies were vain in
+discovering a clue to an extensive robbery of plate which had occurred
+in ---- Street some short time before.
+
+"I confess myself fairly baffled," he said; and could say no more.
+
+"With that singular foxhound organ of yours?" replied his superior. "The
+herring must have been well smoked."
+
+"At the devil's own fire of pitch and brimstone," said the detective.
+"But the worst is, I have had no trail to be taken off. I never was so
+disconcerted before. Generally some object to point direction, if even
+only a dead crow or smothered sheep; but here, not even that."
+
+"No trace of P---- or any of the English gang?"
+
+"None; all beyond the bounds, or up chimneys, or down in cellars, or
+covered up in coal-bunkers. I am beginning to think the job to be of
+home manufacture."
+
+"Generally a clumsy affair; and therefore very easy for a man of your
+parts. What reason have you?"
+
+"Absolutely none."
+
+"That is, I fancy," said the superintendent, "the thousand pounds of
+good silver, watches, and rings, are absolutely gone."
+
+"You know my conditions," said the officer: "give me the thing stolen,
+and I will find to a living certainty the man who stole it; or give me
+the man who stole it, and I will find you to a dead certainty the thing
+stolen. But it's a deuced unfortunate thing that a man can't get even a
+sniff."
+
+"Yes, especially when, as in your case, all his soul is in his nose."
+
+"And with such a reward!" continued the chagrined officer; "scarcely
+anything so liberal has been offered in my time; but, after all, the
+reward is nothing--it is the honour of the force and one's character. It
+is well up for the night anyhow, and I rather think altogether, unless
+some flash come by telegraph."
+
+"You have no other place you can go to now?" said the superintendent
+musingly, and not altogether satisfied.
+
+"None," replied the officer resolutely. "I have been out of bed for ten
+nights--every den scoured, and every 'soup-kitchen'[B] visited, every
+swell watched and dogged, and every trull searched; I can do no more. It
+is now eleven, my eyes will hardly hold open, and I request to be
+allowed to go and rest for the present."
+
+"As you like," replied the superintendent. "We are neither omniscient
+nor omnipotent."
+
+"The people who get robbed think us both," said the officer; and taking
+his hat, left the office, and began to trudge slowly down the street.
+The orderly people had mostly retired to their homes. The midnight
+ghouls from the deep wynds and closes were beginning to form their
+gossiping clusters; the perambulators had begun their courses; and fast
+youths from the precincts of the College or the New Town were resuming
+their search for sprees, or determined to make them. There were among
+them many clients of our officer, whom he knew, and had hopes of at some
+future day; but now he surveyed them with the eye of one whose
+occupation for the time was gone. His sadness was of the colour of
+Jacques', but there was a difference: the one wove out of his melancholy
+golden verses in the forest of Arden; our hero could not draw out of his
+even silver plate in the dens of Edinburgh. He had come to the Tron
+Kirk, and hesitated whether, after all, he should renounce his hunt for
+the night--true to the peculiarity of this species of men, whose game
+are wretched and wicked beings, always less or more between them and the
+wind's eye, and therefore always stimulating to pursuit; but again he
+resolved upon home, or, rather, his heavy eyes and worn-out spirits
+resolved him, in spite of himself, and he turned south, in which
+direction his residence was. So on he trudged till he came about the
+middle part of the street called the South Bridge, when he heard
+pattering behind him the feet of a woman. She came up to him, and passed
+him, or rather was in the act of passing him, when, from something no
+better than a desire to stimulate activity, or rather to free himself
+from the conviction that he was utterly and entirely defeated, he turned
+round to the girl, whom he saw in an instant was a street-walker, and
+threw carelessly a question at her.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Home," was the reply.
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"In Simon Square."
+
+Here he was at first inclined to make a stop, having put the questions
+more as common routine than with any defined intention; but just as the
+girl came opposite to a lamp-post, and was on the eve of outstripping
+him, he said,
+
+"Oh, by-the-bye, do you know any one thereabouts, or anywhere else, who
+mends rings?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Abram."
+
+"What more?"
+
+"I don't know his other name; we just call him Abram, and sometimes Jew
+Abram."
+
+"Did you ever get anything mended by him?"
+
+"No; but I bought a ring from him once."
+
+"And what did you do with it?"
+
+"I have it on my finger," she replied.
+
+"Will you let me see it?" he continued.
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+And as they came forward to another lamp-post, he was shown the ring. He
+examined it carefully, taking from his waistcoat another, and comparing
+the two--"Won't do."
+
+"How long is it since you made this purchase?"
+
+"About ten days ago."
+
+"And what did you pay for it?"
+
+"Three and sixpence."
+
+By this time they had got opposite the square where the girl lived. She
+crossed, and he followed, in the meantime asking her name.
+
+"There is Abram's house," she said; "there's light in the window."
+
+And the officer, standing a little to see where she went, now began to
+examine the outside of Abram's premises. A chink in the shutters showed
+him a part of the person of some one inside, whom he conjectured to be
+Abram sitting at his work. He opened the door, and it was as he thought.
+An old man was sitting at a bench, with a pair of nippers in his hand,
+peering into some small object.
+
+"Can you mend that?" said the officer abruptly, and, without a word of
+prelocution, pressing into his hands a ring.
+
+"Anything," was the prompt reply.
+
+But no sooner had the ring come under the glance of his far-ben eye--
+
+"Yes--ah! ye-es--well--no--no."
+
+And the peering eye came, as it were, forward out of its recess, and
+scanned the face of the officer, who, on the other hand, was busy
+watching every turn of the Jew's features.
+
+"No; I cannot mend that."
+
+"Why? You said you could mend anything."
+
+"Ye-es, anything; but not that."
+
+"No matter--no harm in asking," replied the officer, as he looked round
+the apartment, and fixed his eye on the back wall, where, in utter
+opposition to all convenience, let alone taste, and even to the
+exclusion of required space, there were battered two or three coarse
+engravings.
+
+"Good night!"
+
+"Goo-ood night!"
+
+"Now what, in the name of decoration, are these prints hung up on that
+wall for?" asked the officer of himself, without making any question of
+the import of the Jew's look, and his yes and no. He was now standing in
+the middle of the square, and, turning round, he saw the light put out.
+Another thought struck him, but whatever it was, it was the cause of a
+laugh that took hold of him, even in the grasp of his anxiety; yea, he
+laughed, for a detective, greatly more heartily than could be authorized
+by anything I have recorded.
+
+"Why, the lower print is absolutely the old Jewish subject of the cup in
+the sack," he muttered, and laughed again. "Was ever detective so
+favoured?--a representation of concealed treasure on the very wall
+where that treasure is! Were the brethren fools enough to put the
+representation of a cup on Benjamin's sack?"
+
+"Robertson!" he called to one of his men, whom, by the light at the
+street-end of the entry, he saw passing, "send two men here upon the
+instant."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+And then he began to examine more thoroughly the premises, to ascertain
+whether there were any exit-openings besides the door and window. There
+were none. He had a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes to wait, and
+five of these had not passed before he observed some one go up and tap
+at Abram's door. A question, though he did not hear it, must have been
+put by the Jew, for an answer, in a low voice, responded,
+
+"Slabberdash!"
+
+"The crack name of that fellow Clinch, whom I've been after for a week,"
+said the officer to himself, as he kept in the shadow of a cellar which
+jutted out from the other houses.
+
+The Jew had again answered, for the visitor repeated to himself, as if
+in fear and surprise, "Red-light," and, looking cautiously about him,
+made off.
+
+"It is not my cue to follow," muttered the detective; "but I will do
+next best."
+
+And hurrying out of the mouth of the entry at the heels of the visitor,
+he caught the policeman on the Nicolson Street beat almost immediately.
+
+"Track that fellow," he said; "there--there, you see him--'tis
+Slabberdash; do not leave him or the front of his den till sunrise. I'll
+get a man for your beat."
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the policeman, adroitly blowing out his bull's-eye
+and making off at a canter.
+
+The officer returned to his post, and within the time the two assistants
+arrived.
+
+"Go you, Reid, to the office, and send a man to supply Nicolson Street
+beat till Ogilvy return; he's on commission; come back instantly."
+
+The man obeyed with alacrity.
+
+"And now, Jones, you and your neighbour take charge of that door--keep
+seeing it without it seeing; you understand? Keep watch; and if any one
+approach, scan him for Slabberdash, but take care he doesn't see you. I
+will relieve you at shutters-down in the morning; meanwhile, I'm at home
+for report or exigency."
+
+"I comprehend," replied the man, "and will be careful."
+
+The officer took for home, weary and drowsy, though a little awakened by
+the events of one half-hour. There was sight of game, as well as scent.
+The Jew's look by itself was not much, yet greatly more to the eye of a
+detective than even an expert physiognomist could imagine. The
+picture-plastered wall was more; the cup in the sack was merely an
+enlivening joke; but Slabberdash was no joke, as many a douce burgher in
+Edinburgh knew to his cost. The fellow was a match for the father of
+cheats and lies himself; and therefore it could be no dishonour to our
+clever detective that hitherto he had had no chance with him, any more
+than if he had been James Maccoul, or the great Mahoun.
+
+Meanwhile, the other watch having arrived, the two kept up their
+surveillance; nor would they be without something to report to their
+officer, were it nothing more than that little Abram--for he was very
+diminutive--about one in the morning rather surprised one of the guard,
+who was incautiously too near the house, by slowly opening the door,
+and looking out with an inquiring eye, in his shirt; and upon getting a
+glimpse of the dark figure of the policeman, saying, as if to himself,
+though intended for the said dark figure, whoever it might be,
+
+"I vash wondering if it vash moonlight."
+
+And, shutting the door hurriedly, he disappeared. About an hour
+afterwards, a tall female figure, coming up the entry from North
+Richmond Street, made a full stop, at about three yards from Abram's
+door, and then darted off, but not before one of the guard had seen
+enough, as he thought, to enable him to swear that it was Slabberdash's
+companion, a woman known by the slang name of Four-toed Mary, once one
+of the most dashing and beautiful of the local street-sirens. About an
+hour after that the two guards forgathered to compare notes.
+
+"The devil is surely in that little man," said the one who had heard the
+soliloquy about the moon; "for, whether or not he wanted light outside
+or in to drive away the shadows of his conscience, he served his purpose
+a few minutes since by lighting his lamp. I saw the light through the
+chinks, and venturing to listen, heard noises as of working. He is
+labouring at something, if not sweating."
+
+"Perhaps _melting_," said the other, with a laugh.
+
+"But here comes our officer; there is never rest for that man when
+there's a bird on the moor or a fox in the covert."
+
+The truth was, as the man said, the detective had gone home to sleep;
+but no sooner had he lain down than the little traces he had discovered
+began to excite his imagination, and that faculty, so suggestive in his
+class, getting inflamed, developed so many images in the camera of his
+mind, that he soon found sleep an impossibility, and he was now there
+to know whether anything further had transpired. The men made their
+report, and he soon saw there was something more than ordinary in
+Abram's curiosity about the moon, and still more in the coincidence of
+the visits of Slabberdash and Four-toes. He had a theory, too, about the
+working, though it did not admit the melting. He knew better what to
+augur. But he had a fault to find, and he was not slow to find it.
+
+"Why didn't one of you track Four-toes? One of you could have served
+here. She has been off the scene for three weeks, and is hiding. You
+ought to have known that a woman is a good subject for a detective. Her
+strength is her weakness, and her weakness our opportunity. But there's
+no help for it now. We must trace the links we have. If she come again,
+be more on the alert, and follow up the track. Keep your guard, and let
+not a circumstance escape you."
+
+"The light is out again," remarked one of the men; "he has gone to bed."
+
+"But not to sleep, I warrant," said his superior. "Look sharp and listen
+quick, and I will be with you when I promised."
+
+He now proceeded to the office in the High Street, where he found the
+superintendent waiting for a report in another case. He recounted all he
+had seen and heard.
+
+"You have a chance here," said the latter; "and, to confirm our hopes, I
+can tell you that Four-toes' mother gave yesterday to a shebeen-master
+in Toddrick's Close, one of the rings for a mutchkin of whisky; and,
+what is more, Clinch has been traced to the old woman's house in
+Blackfriars Wynd. I suspect that the picture's true after all. The cup
+is verily in Benjamin's sack."
+
+Thus fortified, our detective sought his way again down the High Street;
+and as he had time to kill between that and the opening of the shutters
+in Simon Square, he paid a visit to Blackfriars Wynd, where he found his
+faithful myrmidon keeping watch over the old mother's house, like a Skye
+terrier at the mouth of a rat-hole. He here learned that Mary with the
+deficient toe had also been seen to go upstairs to her mother's garret,
+which circumstance accorded perfectly with the statement of the guard in
+the square, as no doubt she had returned home after being startled at
+the door of Abram. But then she was seen to go out again, about an hour
+before, though whither she went the watch could not say. The hour of
+appointment was now approaching. The day had broken amidst watery
+clouds, driven about by a fitful, gusty wind, and every now and then
+sending stiff showers of rain, sufficient to have cooled the enthusiasm
+of any one but a hunter after the doers of evil. He had been drenched
+two or three times, and now he felt that a glass of brandy was necessary
+as an auxiliary to internal resistance against external aggression. He
+was soon supplied, and, wending his way to the old rendezvous, he found
+his guard, but without any addition to their report of midnight. Abram
+was long of getting up, and it seemed that he was first roused by the
+clink of a milkwoman's tankard on the window-shutter. The door was
+slowly opened, but in place of the vendor of milk handing in to her
+solitary customer the small half-pint, she went in herself, pails, and
+tankard, and all. Our detective marked the circumstance as being
+unusual, and, more than unusual still, the door was partly closed upon
+her as she entered. Then he began to think that she had nothing about
+her of the appearance of that class of young women.
+
+"Has not that woman the appearance of Four-toes?" said the officer.
+
+"I'm blowed if she's not the very woman I saw in the dark," said one of
+the men.
+
+"Split," said the lieutenant; "but be within sign."
+
+The precaution was wise. In a few minutes Abram's face was peering out
+at the door, not this time looking for the moon--more probably for the
+enemies of her minions; and what immediately succeeded showed that he
+had got a glimpse of the men, for by-and-by the milk-maid came forth and
+proceeded along the square.
+
+"Go and look into her pails," said the lieutenant to Reid, as he
+hastened up to him. "Jones and I will remain for a moment here."
+
+Reid set off, and disappeared in the narrow passage leading to West
+Richmond Street; but he remained only a short time.
+
+"Crumbie is yeld! there's not a drop of milk in her pitchers," said he,
+on his return; "and it's no other than Four-toes."
+
+"Ah, we've been seen by Abram," said the officer; "and the pitchers are
+sent away empty, which otherwise would have contained something more
+valuable than milk. After her again, and track her. Jones and I will pay
+Abram a morning visit."
+
+The man again set off; and the officer and Jones having hung about a few
+minutes till Abram came out to open the shutters and afford them light
+inside, they caught their opportunity, and, just as the Jew was taking
+down the shattered boards, they darted into the house. Abram was at
+their heels in a moment.
+
+"Vat ish it, gentlemen?"
+
+"A robbery of plate has been committed," said the officer at once; "and
+I am here, with your permission no doubt, to search this house."
+
+"Very goo-ood; there ish nothing but vat ish my property."
+
+The officer had even already seen a half of the bench--which had
+consisted of two parts put together, probably originally intended for
+some other purpose than mending jewellery--had been removed and placed
+against the wall where Joseph and his brethren were standing round the
+cup in the sack, so that it was more difficult to reach the wall, though
+the device was clearly only the half of an idea, as the prints still
+stood above the bench, and might, by a sharp eye, have still suggested
+the suspicion that they were intended for something else than
+decoration, or even the gratification of a Jew's love for the legends of
+his country. But the officer did not go first to the suspected part. He
+took a hammer from his pocket, and began rapping all round the wall.
+"Stone, stone--lath, lath; ah, a compact house."
+
+"Very goo-ood. Vash only three weeks a tenant."
+
+The officer recollected the estimate of the time given by the
+street-walker, the _fons et origo_ of all, and his hammer went more
+briskly till he came to the patriarchs. "Good head, that, of Joseph," he
+said with a laugh; "hollow, eh?"
+
+"Vash a good head--not hollow; the best at the court of Pharaoh."
+
+In an instant, a long chisel was through the picture; and in another,
+the poker, driven into the chisel-hole, and wrenched to a side, sent a
+thin covering of fir lath into a dozen of splinters. The hand did the
+rest. A cupboard was exposed to the eyes of the apparently wondering
+Israelite, containing, closely packed, an array of plate, watches,
+rings, and bijouterie, sufficient to make any eye besides a Jew's leap
+for the wish of possession.
+
+Abram held up his hands in affected wonderment as the lieutenant stood
+gazing at the treasure, and almost himself entranced. Jones was fixed to
+the ground; at one time looking at the costly treasure, at another at
+his superior, who had already, in this department of his art, acquired
+an envied reputation.
+
+"Very goo-ood!" exclaimed Abram; "vash only here three weeks. What fools
+to leave here all this wonderful treasure!"
+
+"Abram, will you be so good as take a walk up the High Street? Jones
+will show you the way. Breakfast will be waiting you. And do you,"
+looking to Jones, "send down a box large enough to hold this silver, and
+two of our men to remove it to the office."
+
+"Vash the other tenant," cried Abram, as he saw the plight he had got
+into--"vash not me, so help me the God of my forefathers, even Abraham,
+Isaac, and Jacob, who were just men, as I am a just man; it vash not me.
+Vash not the cup put in Benjamin's sack?"
+
+The officer laughed--at this time inside, for it behoved him now to be
+grave--at the recollection of the strange coincidence of the picture and
+the stolen plate.
+
+"Come," said Jones, "let us start;" and, clapping the Jew's old hat on
+the head of the little man, he took him under the arm to lead him out.
+
+"After depositing him," whispered the officer into Jones' ear, "get
+help; proceed to Blackfriars, where Ogilvy is on the watch, and lay hold
+of Clinch. Some others will start in search of Reid, who may have
+tracked Four-toes, and seize her. You comprehend?"
+
+"Perfectly. Come, Abram--unless you would like to walk at a safe
+distance?"
+
+"Surely I would," replied Abram; "and so would every man who vash as
+innocent as the child vash born yesterday, or this minute."
+
+When the prisoner had departed, the officer sat down on the Jew's stool
+to rest himself, previous to making a survey of the articles, with
+reference to an inventory he had in his pocket. In this attitude, he
+took up a pair of Abram's nippers to fasten a link in his watch chain,
+which threatened to give way, so that he might very well have
+represented the master of the establishment sitting at his work. This
+observation is here made, as explanatory of another circumstance which
+presently occurred in this altogether remarkable case. The door, which
+Jones had closed after him, was opened stealthily; an old woman, wrapped
+up in a duffle cloak, slipped quietly and timidly in, and going round
+the end of the bench, whispered into the ear of the lieutenant--
+
+"You'll be Abram, nae doubt?"
+
+"Ay," replied he.
+
+"Ye're early at wark."
+
+"Ay."
+
+"Weel, the milk-woman--ye ken wha I mean?"
+
+"Oh yes; Four-toes."
+
+"Ha! ha! ay, just Four-toes, that's Mary Burt; ah! she _was_ a buxom
+lass in my kennin'. Weel, she has sent me to you, in a quiet way, ye
+ken, to tell ye that the p'lice have an e'e on you. That ill-lookin'
+scoondrel, the cleverest o' the 'tectives, as they ca' them--I never saw
+him mysel, but dootless you'll ken him--has been seen in the coort here,
+wi' twa o' his beagles, and you're to tak tent."
+
+"Yes, I know the ill-looking Christian dog. Vat ish your name?"
+
+"Chirsty Anderson."
+
+"Where do you live, Christian?"
+
+"In Wardrop's Coort, at the tap o' the lang stair. And the
+milk-maid--ha! ha!--says you're to shift the things to my room i' the
+dark'nin', whaur Geordie, my laddie, will hae a plank lifted, and you
+can stow them awa, ayont the ken o' the cleverest o' them."
+
+"And where ish the milk-woman?"
+
+"In my room, pitchers an' a'."
+
+"Well, tell her to keep there, as vash a prisoner, till I come to her
+place."
+
+"I will."
+
+"Isn't Geordie, my good woman, called Squint?"
+
+"Just the same," she replied with a laugh; "and, ye ken, he has a right
+to a silver jug or twa, for he risked his neck for't as weel as Clinch."
+
+"Surely, surely."
+
+"But you're to gie me a ring to tak to her, for she's hard up, and I'll
+try Mr. E----e wi' 't at night, and get some shillings on't."
+
+"Certainly, Christian--not a good name that; but here," taking her by
+the shoulders, and turning sharply in the direction of the door--for he
+was afraid she might notice the wreck made in the recess,--"look out at
+the door, and be on the good watch for the ill-looking dog."
+
+"Ah, Abram, ye're sae clever! The deil's in them if they put saut on
+_your_ tail."
+
+"Here, give that to Four-toes, and tell her to keep good prisoner till I
+come."
+
+"Just sae--a bonny ring!"
+
+"Quick! turn to your right, and go by the Pleasance, along St. Mary's
+Wynd, up the High Street, to your home."
+
+"Ay," replied the woman as she departed.
+
+Not five minutes elapsed, when Jones and the two assistants with the box
+arrived; when the officer cried--
+
+"Jones, follow up an old woman, in a grey duffle cloak, Christian
+Anderson by name, who is this moment gone down by the Pleasance, to
+take St. Mary's Wynd and the High Street on her way to her room, in
+Wardrop's Court, at the top of the stair. Having seen her landed, stop
+five minutes at the door, to give her time to deliver a ring to
+Four-toes, then step in, and take the young woman to the office. You
+will find Geordie Anderson there also, the notorious Squint; so pick up
+a man as you go, and make Squint sure."
+
+"At once, sir," replied the man, and was off.
+
+By-and-by, and just as our officer was beginning to compare the plate
+with the inventory, the superintendent, who had got intelligence of the
+discovery, came hurrying in. They found, to their astonishment, that
+every article was there, excepting two rings--the one, probably, that
+offered to the shebeen-man by Four-toes' mother, and the other that
+which had been presently sent to Four-toes herself. A more complete
+recovery was perhaps never achieved; and it was all the more wonderful
+from the small beginning from which the trace had been detected. Having
+completed the examination and packed the treasure, which was presently
+removed to the office, the discoverer set about examining Abram's room;
+but so cunningly had the whole affair of the resettership been
+conducted, that there was not found a trace of any kind to show his
+connection with the burglars. The joke of the man in reference to the
+process of melting had, however, had a narrow escape from being
+realized; for a kind of furnace had been erected with bricks, and a
+large crucible, sufficient to hold a Scotch pint of the "silver soup,"
+was lying in what had been used as a coal-bunker. Meanwhile, Reid
+hurried in in great dejection, because the milk-woman had baffled him by
+going into a house in one of the wynds, and emerging by the back, and
+escaping.
+
+"She's provided for," said the officer, "and you may go. I don't need
+you here; but you may go to Wardrop's Court, top of stair, and help
+Jones to take care of Four-toes and George Anderson called Squint; you
+know him?"
+
+"Who that has once seen him will ever forget him?" replied the other.
+"When will Jones be there?"
+
+"Just when you will arrive, giving you time to walk slow, like a good
+detective."
+
+"And now," said our officer, as he proceeded to fasten up the door, "so
+much for a casual question,--a good night's work, and a reward of a
+hundred for recovering a thousand. I think I am entitled to my
+breakfast. It's not often a man makes so much of a morning." And
+resuming his deliberate walk--a characteristic, as he himself
+acknowledged, of a true thief-catcher--he repaired to a coffee-house in
+Nicolson Street, and allayed his hunger by coffee and a pound of chops.
+It was about ten o'clock when he reached the office, where he had the
+pleasant scene presented to him of a well-assorted bag of game--the last
+victims, Four-toes and Squint, being in the act of being deposited as he
+entered. The principals secure, the accessories were of less
+consequence. There were there Abram, Slabberdash, Squint, and Four-toes.
+
+"To complete our complement we must have Four-toes' mother and Mrs.
+Anderson," he said to the superintendent, "and Reid and Jones will go
+and fetch them."
+
+In the course of an hour both these ladies were brought into the already
+considerable company. That they were all surprised at the unexpected
+meeting, belongs to reasonable conjecture; and that Christian Anderson
+was more surprised than any of them, when she discovered her mistake in
+trusting her secrets to the "ill-looking scoundrel" of a detective in
+place of Abram, is not less reasonable. Our officer was, in truth, too
+gallant a man to traverse those laws of etiquette which demand respect
+for the feelings of females, and he never once alluded to the
+_contretemps_. But Chirsty did not feel the same delicacy in regard to
+him, who she feared would hang her for misplaced confidence. She had no
+sooner recovered from her surprise than she cried out to him, in a
+shrill, piercing voice--
+
+"I hope you'll hae mercy on me, sir. It wad do ye nae guid to stretch
+the wizzened craig o' an auld woman, because some silly words--I wish
+they had choket me--cam oot o't."
+
+"They will never be brought against you," said he; "make yourself easy
+on that score."
+
+"Then what am I here for?" she growled, as, relieved somewhat from her
+fear, she got into her natural temper.
+
+"For agreeing to hide stolen property."
+
+"Stolen property!" she replied. "And did ye no steal from me my secret
+about my puir laddie, that ye may string him to a wuddy? There's an auld
+sayin' that speech is silvern, but silence is gowden. Whaur is the
+difference between stealing frae me the siller o' my speech, and robbing
+a man o' the siller o' his jugs and teaspoons?"
+
+"Quiet," he said calmly. "Abram, I want to speak with you. Separate
+these," he added, addressing one of the men.
+
+And having got Abram by himself, he asked him if he was inclined to run
+the risk of a trial and condemnation, or tell the truth, and trust to
+the Royal mercy. The Jew hesitated; but our officer knew that a
+hesitating criminal is like a hesitating woman--each waits for an
+argument to resolve them against their faith and honour. He knew that
+misfortune breaks up the bonds of etiquette, even among the virtuous;
+and that the honour among themselves, of which thieves boast, and a
+portion of mankind, for some strange reason, secretly approve, becomes
+weak in proportion to the danger of retributive justice. Not much given
+to speculate, he yet sometimes wondered why it was that one should be
+despised and treated harshly because he comes forward to serve the ends
+of justice and benefit society; but a less acute mind may feel no
+difficulty in accounting for the anomaly. The king's-evidence, while he
+proves himself a coward and false to his faith, acts from pure
+selfishness; and though he offers a boon to society, it is in reality a
+bargain which he drives for self-preservation. These speculations
+certainly did not pass through the mind of Abram, if his prevailing
+thought was not more likely in the form--
+
+"If I can't get my pound of silver out of the Christian, I can at least
+keep my own pound of flesh."
+
+But whether he thought in this Jewish form or not, it is certain that he
+was not long in making as clean a breast as a Jew might be expected to
+make of the whole secret of the robbery. It was planned and executed, he
+said, by Slabberdash and Squint, and he agreed to become resetter on the
+condition of being allowed to retain a half of the proceeds. Four-toes
+brought the plate to him at half a dozen courses of her pitchers, and he
+had intended on that very day to melt all that was meltable. The watches
+and rings were to be reserved for opportunities, as occasions presented.
+
+I give this story by way of an example of those strange workings in a
+close society, whereby often great events are discovered from what is
+termed chance. Such occurrences, however they may startle us, are all
+explainable by the laws of probabilities. They occur often just in
+proportion to the increase of ramifications in civilised conditions.
+More people come into the plot; the increased activity drives the
+culprits to shifts, and these shifts are perilous from the very
+circumstance of being forced. We thus find detection often more easy and
+certain in populous towns, with a good staff of criminal officers, than
+in quieter places, where both plotters and shifts are proportionally
+fewer. If nature is always true to her purpose, so art, which is second
+nature, is equally true to hers, and man is better provided for than he
+deserves. I do not concern myself with the vulgar subject of
+punishments, never very agreeable to polite minds, and not at all times
+useful to those who gloat over descriptions of them. It is enough to say
+that the law was justly applied. Two got clear off--the mothers of
+Squint and Four-toes; and I may add that Chirsty Anderson probably
+afterwards acted up more to her own proverb, that "speech is silvern,
+but silence is golden."
+
+
+
+
+THE MERCHANT'S DAUGHTER.
+
+
+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, goodwife," 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, and 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 bedecked 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 resolved, although unbidden, to seek, very soon again, the fountain
+in the elm grove.
+
+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
+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 accidentally 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 supposititious 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 is that?" and he pointed to a very handsome mansion-house
+opposite.
+
+"That's the rector o' Hamilton's," replied the weaver.
+
+"And that are 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 ye 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 micht 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 tell 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 extraordinary 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 to ken?" 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 oot 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 hall, 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 more
+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.
+
+
+
+
+THE BRIDE OF BELL'S TOWER.
+
+
+Some time ago I made inquiry at the editor of _Notes and Queries_ for
+information as to the whereabouts of an old mansion called Bell's Tower,
+and whether it was occupied by a family of the name of Bower; but my
+inquiry was not attended with any success beyond the usual production of
+surmises and speculations. There was a place so called in Perthshire;
+but then it never was occupied by people of that name,--the Bowers being
+an old family in Angus, whose principal messuage was Kincaldrum. Yet I
+cannot be mistaken in the name, either of the house or the family, as
+connected with the occurrences of the tradition, the essentials of which
+have floated in my mind ever since I heard them from one to whom they
+were also traditional. Then the story has something of an antique air
+about it, as may be noticed from the application of adjectives to
+baptismal names, as Devil Isobel and Sweet Marjory,--by no means a
+modern usage, but easily recognised in analogues of our old poetry. We
+may say, at least, that whether the Bowers were a very or only a
+moderately ancient family, Bell's Tower was an old structure--the name
+being applied to the mansion, which was an addition to a peel or
+castle-house of many centuries--not without its battlements and barnkin,
+and all the other appurtenances of a strength, as such places were
+called.
+
+Had we more to do than our subject requires with the _physique_ of this
+mansion--and we have something; for what romance in the moral world is
+independent of a _locale_, and of those lights and shadows that play
+where men live and act all the wondrous things they do?--we might be
+particular in our description; but our narrator's shade will be
+sufficiently conciliated, if we say that there was room enough, and
+ill-lighted chambers enough, and sufficiently tortuous breakneck stairs
+here and there, as well as those peculiar to castles, lobbies in all
+conscience long enough--not forgetting a blue parlour with some
+mysterious associations--to supply elements for genius to weave the
+many-coloured web of fiction. But we have a humbler part to play; and it
+begins here,--that Mrs. Bower had in the said blue parlour, a fortnight
+before our incidents, told her eldest daughter, whom we are, for the
+sake of the antique nomenclature--discriminative, and therefore kindly,
+if also sometimes harsh--to call Sweet Marjory, a piece of information,
+to her unexpected and strange,--no other than that Isobel, her sister,
+was the accepting and accepted of the rich and chivalrous youth, Hector
+Ogilvy, a neighbouring laird's son. Nor would it have appeared
+wonderful, if we had known more of the inside of that heaving breast,
+wherein a heart was too obedient to those magic chords, with their
+minute capillaries spread over the tympanum, that Marjory was as mute
+and pale as a statue of marble. But the truth really was, that Ogilvy
+had courted Marjory, and won her heart, and Isobel--Devil Isobel--had
+contrived means to win him to herself, at the expense of a sister's
+reputation for all the beautiful qualities that adorn human nature. And
+as all the world knows that both men and women hate those they injure,
+we may be at no loss to ascertain the feelings by which Isobel regarded
+Marjory. Nor shall those who know the nature of woman have any
+difficulty in supposing that not more carefully does nature guard in the
+bosom the physical organ of the affections, than she concealed the
+feelings which had for that fortnight eaten into the vital tissues of
+her being.
+
+How swiftly that fortnight had flown for Isobel! how charged with heavy
+hours for Marjory! and to-morrow was the eventful day. What doings in
+Bell's Tower during this intervening time! what pattering of feet along
+the sombre lobbies! what gossiping among servants! what applications to
+the gate--comings and goings! and the rooms, how bestrewn with clippings
+of silk, and stray bits of artificial flowers! And, amidst all the
+triumphing, Isobel displayed her nature in spite of old saws and maxims,
+which lay upon brides conditions of reserve and humility, held to be so
+becoming in those who, as it were, occupy the place of a sacrifice; yea,
+if some tears are shed, so much better is custom obeyed. Then where
+could Marjory go, in the midst of this confusion of gaiety?--where, as
+the poet says, "weep her woes" in secret, and listen to the throbbings
+of a broken heart? Not in her own room, in the lower part of the castle
+tower, where her mother had still the privilege of chiding her for
+throwing the shadows of melancholy over a scene of happiness, and where
+Isobel would force an entrance, to show her, in the very spite of her
+evil nature, some bridal present from him who was still to the deserted
+one the idol of her heart. There was scarcely a refuge for grief, where
+joy was impatient of check, and, like all tyrants, would force reluctant
+conditions into a unanimity of compliance; but up these castle stairs,
+in the second room, there was one whom time had shut out from the
+sympathies of the world, so old, as to be almost forgotten, except by
+Marjory herself, who, all gentleness and love, delighted to supply
+vacant hearts with the fervours of her friendship, and to ameliorate
+evils by the appliances of her humanity.
+
+With languid step she ascended the stair, and was presently beside her
+great-grandaunt, Patricia Bower. Twilight was dropping her wing, and the
+shadows were fast collecting round the square windows, which, narrow and
+grated, would scarcely at noonday let in light enough to enliven the
+human eye. There, solitary and in the gloom, sat the creature of the
+prior century, whose birth could only be arrived at by going through
+generations back ninety and five years before; but not gloom to her, to
+whom the light of memory was as a necromancer, arraying before the gleg
+eye of her spirit the images of persons and things and circumstances of
+the far past, with all the vividness of enchantment, and still even
+raising again those very loves and sympathies they elicited when they
+were of the passing hour. Yet the doings in this house of Bell's Tower
+at the time, so far removed from the period of the living archetypes of
+her dreams, had got to her ear, where still the word marriage was a
+charm, against which the dry impassable nerve resisted in vain.
+
+"I will go to this marriage, Marjory," she said, as the maiden entered,
+and without appearing to notice her distress.
+
+"No, aunt," replied Marjory, as she sat down opposite to her.
+
+"And shall I not?" continued the ancient maiden, as her eyes seemed to
+come forward out of the deep sockets into which they had long sunk, and
+emitted an unearthly lustre. "And shall I not? It is four times a score
+of years bating five since I was at a bridal; and when all were waiting,
+ay, Marjory, expecting the young bridegroom, the door was opened, and
+four men carried in Walter Ogilvy's bleeding corpse, and laid him in
+the bridal hall; for he had been stabbed by a rival in the Craig Glen,
+down by there; and where could they take the body but to Bell's Tower,
+where his bride waited for him? But she did not go mad, Sweet Marjory;
+no, no."
+
+And as the image grew more distinct in the internal chambers, so did the
+eyes shine more lustrously, like stars peering through between grey
+clouds; and the shrivelled muscles, obeying once more the excited nerve,
+imparted to her almost the appearance of youth. Gradually a humming tone
+essayed to take form in words; but the wavering treble disconcerted her,
+till, calming herself by some effort, she recited, in solemn see-saw--
+
+    "The guests they came from the grey mountain side,--
+    The bride she was fair, and the bride she was fain;
+    But where was the lover, who sought not his bride?
+    Oh! a maid she is now, as a maid she was then;
+    And her cheek it is pale, and her hair it is grey,
+    Since the long long time of her bridal day."
+
+The last line descended into a quavering whisper.
+
+With the effusion, adopted probably from an old ditty, and brought forth
+from its long-retaining chamber of the brain by the inspiration of one
+of her often-returning visions, the fervour of the tasked spirit died
+away, and, reclining her head, she sat before the wondering Marjory--who
+had heard, as a tale of the family, and applicable to Patricia herself,
+the circumstances she had related--as one suspended between death and
+life; nor did it seem that it required more than a rude vibration to
+decide to which of the two worlds she would in a few minutes belong.
+Only a short time sufficed to restore her to her ordinary composure,
+and, waving her shrivelled hand, she said--
+
+"Open the door to the bartisan, Marjory, that I may have air, and see
+the moon, who, amidst all the changes of life, is ever the same to the
+miserable and the happy."
+
+Marjory obeyed her; and as she looked forth, the moon was rising over
+the tops of the trees, as if to chase away the envious shades, ready to
+follow the departure of twilight. There was solace in her soft splendour
+for the melancholy of the youthful girl, which might be ameliorated by a
+turn of fortune, as well as for the sadness of her aged friend, which
+was not only beyond the influence of worldly change, but so like the
+forecast gloom of the grave, as if the inexorable tyrant, long
+disappointed, was already rejoicing in his victim. But no sooner was the
+door casement opened, than the sound of voices entered. Then Marjory
+stepped out on the bartisan, not to listen, for her spirit was superior
+to artifice; and, leaning over the bartisan, she soon recognised the
+voices of Isobel and Ogilvy; nor could she escape the words--
+
+"I loved her for her own sake," said he, "before I loved you, Isobel;
+and now I love her as your sister. But I shall have no peace in my
+wedded life with you, save on the condition that you love her also; for
+my conscience tells me I have not done by Sweet Marjory what is deemed
+according to the honour of man. You see what your power has been,
+Isobel. Nor would I have spoken thus on the very evening before our
+wedding, were it not that I have heard you do not love her, nay, that
+you hate her."
+
+Then Marjory heard Devil Isobel reply; and she knew by the voice that
+she was in anger, though she cunningly repressed her passion.
+
+"Believe them not," said Isobel. "By the pale face of yonder moon, and
+all those bright stars that are coming out one by one to add honour upon
+honour to this evening, the last of my maiden life, I love sweet
+Marjory Bower; and I swear by Him who made all these heavenly orbs, that
+I shall love her as a sister ought."
+
+"It pleases me much to hear my Isobel speak thus," said Ogilvy. "And
+hark ye, love, I have here a valuable locket, set with diamonds and
+opals--see, it contains the grey hair of my mother; and, will I or nill
+I, she will send this by me to Marjory as a love-token. Now I want to
+convey it to Sweet Marjory through you, because it will make you a party
+to the love-gift, and so bind us all in a circle of affection."
+
+"Give it me," cried Isobel, fixing her piercing eye on the diamonds as
+they sparkled in the moonlight; "and, on the honour of a bride, I will
+give it to my sister, whom I love so dearly."
+
+And Isobel continued to speak; but the movement of the lovers as they
+walked prevented Marjory from hearing more. Still she followed them with
+her weeping eyes, as their figures, clearly revealed to her by the moon,
+glided among the wide-standing trees of the lawn, and at length
+disappeared. The moon had now less solace for her. Her wound had been
+retouched by a hand of all others calculated to irritate, even by that
+of Ogilvy himself, who, she now knew, felt compunction for the cruelty
+of his desertion. His regret was too late to save her sorrow, but it was
+not too late to increase that sorrow; for the words by which he had
+uttered it reminded her, in their tone, of that unctuous luxury he had
+so often poured into her heart, and which, in their sincerity, were so
+unlike the dissimulation of her wicked sister. With a deep-drawn sigh
+she entered the bartisan casement, shut it after her, and having spoken
+some kindly words to her aunt, whom she kissed, she sought her way down
+the bastle stair to her own room below. There she threw herself upon a
+couch, not to seek assuagement, but only to give rest to limbs that
+would scarcely support her. Nor did the closed door keep from her ear
+those notes of preparation, coming in so many shapes; for there was, in
+addition to the customary rites of the great sacrifice, to be a
+sumptuous feast, at which, too, she would be expected to attend. Yet all
+these noisy tokens did not keep from her mind the tones of that remorse
+she had heard from the lips of Ogilvy, and she fondled them, in her
+misery, as one would the dead body of a dear friend on whose face still
+sat the look of love in which he died. By-and-by she heard once more the
+voice of Isobel, who had returned; and she trembled as she expected the
+visit in execution of her commission. The door opened, and there entered
+her sister, with a face, as it appeared in the light of the lamp she
+carried, beaming with the old exultation, mingled with the smile of a
+soft deceit.
+
+"Look here, Sweet Marjory," she said, as she held out the golden
+trinket. "Saw you ever so lovely a piece of workmanship? But you cannot
+discern its value till you know it contains a lock of the hair of _my_
+mother-in-law-to-be--Mrs. Ogilvy. That locket was given to me even now
+by my Hector, the bridegroom----"
+
+"To give to me," sighed Marjory faintly.
+
+"You lie for a false fiend," cried Devil Isobel. "He gave it to me, and
+to me it belongs."
+
+"You may keep it," said Marjory; "but I heard Hector Ogilvy say to you
+that it was a gift from his mother to me, and you promised to him to
+deliver it."
+
+Isobel's lips turned white and whiter, as her eye flared with the
+internal light struck out of the quivering nerve by the brain inflamed
+by fury. Nor was it the detection alone that produced these effects:
+she had construed Ogilvy's confession that he once loved Marjory into an
+admission that the latter was still dear to him, and she considered
+herself justified in her suspicion by the tones of his regret; then
+there had shot through her the pang of envy, when she heard that there
+was a gift for Marjory from the mother, and none to her. All these
+pent-up passions had been quickened into expression by Marjory's gentle
+detection; and as Marjory looked at her, she trembled.
+
+"Do not be angry at me, Isobel," she said. "I did not go out upon the
+bartisan to hear you; and as for the gift, I do not want it."
+
+But Marjory's simplicity and generosity, in place of appeasing her
+passion, only gave it a turn into a forced stifling, which suited the
+purpose of her dissimulation. In an instant the evil features, which, as
+a moral expression, had changed her into hideousness, gave way, and she
+stood before her sister the beautiful being who had enchanted Ogilvy out
+of his first and purest love.
+
+"Come, Marjory," she said, as she grasped the faint hand of the almost
+unresisting girl. "Come."
+
+And leading her by a half-dragging effort out of the room and along the
+passages, she took her to the large hall, where servants were busy
+laying the long table for the feast.
+
+"There will be seventy here," she said, "and all to do honour to me. How
+would _you_ have liked it, Sweet Marjory? You do not envy me, though you
+look so sad? But oh! there is more honour for me. Come." And still, with
+the application of something like force, she led Marjory out by the
+front door towards the lawn, where a number of men were, with the light
+of pine torches, piling up fagots over layers of pitch. The glare of the
+torches was thrown over the dark bastle house, and under the relief of
+the deep shadows, where the light of the moon did not penetrate, was
+romantic enough even for the taste of Isobel, whose spirit ever panted
+for display. To add to the effect, the men were jolly; for their supply
+of ale had been ample, and the occasion of a marriage in the house of
+the Bowers warranted a merriment which was acceptable to her for whom
+all these expensive preparations were made.
+
+"This is the marriage-pile, Marjory," said Isobel. "I am not to be put
+upon it after the manner of Jephthah's daughter; but it will blaze up to
+the sky, and tell the gods and goddesses that there is one to be
+honoured here on earth. How would _you_ have liked that honour, Marjory?
+But you are not envious. Come, there is more."
+
+And as she was leading Marjory away, an exclamation from one of the men
+attracted their attention. On turning round, they saw the men's faces,
+lighted up by the torches, all directed to the bastle tower on which the
+glare shone full and red. Their merriment was gone, to give place to the
+feeling of awe; nor did a syllable escape from their lips. The eyes of
+the sisters followed those of the men, and were in like manner riveted.
+
+"It is the wraith bride o' the peel," said the old forester. "She gaes
+round about and round about. My mither saw it thirty years syne, when
+the laird brought hame his leddy; and we ken he broke his leg in coming
+off his horse to help her down. I have heard her say
+
+
+    'There's evil for the house o' Bower,
+    When the bride gaes round the bastle tower.'"
+
+"You are a lying knave," cried Isobel. "It is that old cantrup-working
+witch, Patricia Bower, who should have been burnt with tar-barrels and
+tormented by prickers fifty years ago. Nor ghost, nor ghoul, nor demon
+or devil, shall come between me and my happy destiny."
+
+A speech which, spoken in excitement, was cheered by all the men but the
+unfortunate forester; for, as we have said, they were merry with ale.
+And they knew by report, as they now saw with their eyes, the beauty of
+the young woman, who, in addition to her natural charms, appeared, as
+they whirled the torches round their heads, and the cheers rose and
+echoed in the woods, to be invested with the dignity of a queen. But as
+this natural enthusiasm died down, they turned again their wondering
+eyes to the bastle house; and as the figure still went round the
+bartisan and round the bartisan, they looked at each other, and shook
+their heads with a motion which appeared very grotesque in the glare of
+the torches. At length it disappeared, and they began again to pile the
+fagots, now in silence, and not with the merry words and snatches of
+their prior humour, as if each of them had foreseen some evil which he
+could not define.
+
+Meanwhile Isobel had again seized Marjory, to continue the round of her
+triumphs.
+
+"We will now go to my boudoir, nor mind that witch," she said, "and I
+will show you all the presents I have got from my neighbours and
+friends. Oh! they are so fine, that did I not know that you are not
+envious, I would fear that you would tear my eyes out. Oh, but look,
+there is Ogilvy's horse standing waiting for him to carry him home, and
+I shall see him only this once before I am made his wife." Then, pausing
+and becoming meditative, she led her sister into the shade of a gigantic
+elm, the stem of which sufficed to conceal them from observers. "Kneel
+down," she continued in a stern tone.
+
+"Why so?" replied Marjory, trembling with fear, yet obeying
+instinctively.
+
+"Swear," cried Isobel, "that you will not, before Ogilvy, contradict
+what I shall say to him about his mother's gift. Swear."
+
+"I swear," replied the sister.
+
+And rising up, her hand was again grasped by Isobel, as she led her
+forward to where the horse stood. Nor had they proceeded many paces,
+when Ogilvy himself was observed coming forward. He could see them by
+the light of the torches, as they saw him; and upon the instant, Isobel,
+clasping Marjory in her arms, kissed her with all the fervency of love.
+
+"How pleasant this is to me," said Ogilvy, as he came up equipped and
+spurred for his ride, "to see you so loving and sisterly!"
+
+"Did I not swear by Dian and the stars I would love her?" said Devil
+Isobel; "and is she not called Sweet Marjory?"
+
+"Sweet she is," said he, as he timidly scanned the face of his first
+love, and pressed her hand; but his countenance changed as he felt the
+silky-skinned hand of the girl tremble within his, as if it shrunk from
+the touch, and saw her blue eyes turned on the ground, and heard a sigh
+steal from her breast. A feeling that was new to him thrilled through
+the circle of his nerves, and made him tremble to the centre of his
+being. He had never calculated upon that strange emotion, nor could he
+analyze it: it was inscrutable, but it was terrible; it was not simply a
+return of his own love under the restraint of the new one, neither was
+it simple remorse, but a mixture of various thrills which induced no
+purpose, but only rendered him uncertain, feeble, and miserable. So
+engrossed for a moment was he, that he did not even seek the eye of
+Isobel, who was watching him in every turn of his countenance. Then he
+would seek some relief in words.
+
+"You have my mother's love at least, Marjory," he said; and he could not
+help saying it. "And I shall be pleased to see you wear her gift, which
+she sent to you through me, who gave it to Isobel."
+
+Marjory was silent, and Ogilvy turned his eye upon Isobel.
+
+"She rejects it," said Isobel, "and wishes me to return it."
+
+"Rejects it!" ejaculated the youth, as he again looked at Marjory.
+
+Marjory was still silent, and her eyes were even more timidly turned to
+the ground.
+
+"I did not regard the gift as valuable for the brilliants and opals,"
+continued he, "but as conveying the love of my mother; and surely
+Marjory cannot reject that love."
+
+Yet still was Marjory silent, for she had sworn.
+
+"Oh, she is frightened, poor Sweet Marjory," cried Isobel, with a
+satirical laugh; "for she has seen the wraith bride on the bastle
+tower."
+
+"The wraith bride!" responded Ogilvy, relapsing into silence, and
+instinctively looking round him, where only glared the torchlight among
+the trees of the lawn, and the dark bodies of the fagot-pilers were
+moving backwards and forwards. He had heard the couplet mentioned by the
+forester, and had of course viewed it as a play of superstition; but
+reason is a weak thing in the grasp of feeling, and now he was all
+feeling. The remorse of which he had had premonitions, had now taken him
+as a fit. His eye sought Marjory's down-turned face, and shrunk from
+Isobel's watchful stare; but the direction of that organ did not form an
+index to his mind, for his fancy was, even during these swift instants,
+busy weaving the many-coloured web of the future of his married life,
+and clouding it with sombre shades; nor did the active agent hesitate to
+draw materials from the past fortunes of the house of Bell's Tower, and
+mix them up as things yet to be repeated. Even the wraith bride
+performed her part now, where she had feeling to help her weakness, and
+set her up among realities.
+
+At this critical juncture of Ogilvy's thoughts, there came up from the
+mansion good Dame Bower herself, of portly corporation, often resonant
+of a comfortable laugh; and now, when flushed with the exercise of her
+domestic superintendence, looking the very picture of the joyous mother
+of a happy bride.
+
+"I had forgotten," she said as she approached, "to ask you to convey my
+thanks to Dame Ogilvy for that beautiful locket with her hair
+therein--more precious, I ween, than the diamonds and opals, though
+these, I'm told, are worth five thousand good merks--which she has so
+thoughtfully sent to Isobel."
+
+"Isobel!" ejaculated Ogilvy, fixing his eye on the face of his bride,
+where there were no blushes to reveal the consciousness of deceit. "To
+Isobel!" he repeated; "and did Isobel say this?"
+
+"Yes," replied the mother.
+
+"It is false," cried the damsel, precipitated by anger into the terrible
+imputation.
+
+The mother stood aghast, and Marjory held her head away.
+
+"Speak, Marjory," said Ogilvy, with lips that in an instant had become
+white and parched.
+
+"I have sworn," said Marjory.
+
+"And dare not speak?" said Ogilvy. Then a deep gloom spread over his
+face, his eye flashed with a sudden flame. He spoke not a word more;
+but, vaulting into the saddle, he drove his spurs into the side of his
+horse, and rode off. As he passed the fagot-hewers, he saw them
+clustered together, and heard high words among them, with names of so
+potent a charm to him, that, even in his confusion and speed, he could
+not drive them from his mind. These names were, Sweet Marjory and Devil
+Isobel.
+
+And as if the words had entered the rowels and made them sharper, his
+horse reared, and he sped on with a whirling tumult in his brain, but
+yet without uttering a word--nor even to himself did he mutter a
+remark--still urging his steed, yet unconscious that his journey's end
+would bring no assuagement of that tumult, nor mean of extricating him
+from his strange and perilous predicament. Nor was he aware of the speed
+of his riding, or how far he had gone, till he came to some huts in the
+outskirts of the Craigwood, which bounds the domain of Bell's Tower on
+the west, where he saw some cottagers assembled at a door, and again
+heard words which pierced his ear--no other than those of his own
+marriage. Again urged by curiosity, he put the question,
+
+"Whom do you speak of, good folks?"
+
+"Sweet Marjory," said one; and another added, "Devil Isobel."
+
+Fain would he have asked more--these were not to him more than
+sufficient; but pride interposed, and fear aided pride, and away he
+again sped even at a still quicker pace. Never before had he been so
+agitated: fear, anger, or remorse had never ruffled the tenor of an
+existence which passed amidst rural avocations and unsophisticated
+pleasures,--knew nothing of intrigue, falsehood, or dissimulation--those
+parasitic plagues that follow the societies of men. The moon that shone
+over his head was as placid and beautiful, and forest and wold as
+quiet, as they used to be when his mind was a reflection of the peace
+that was without; but now, as he rode on and on, wild images arose from
+the roused autonomy of the spirit, and seemed to be impressed by
+fire,--the face of Isobel reflecting the light of the moon, and those
+eyes which, looking up, were in their own expression an adjuration
+similar to that pronounced by her lips, that she would obey him, and
+deliver the diamond gift to its rightful owner; then the same eyes when,
+inflamed by the fire of her wrath, she called her mother a liar, and
+proved her own falsehood, while she cast off the duty of a daughter. But
+through all glided the face of Sweet Marjory, with its mildness,
+beneficence, and timidity; and the eye that, quailing under her sister's
+tyranny, looked so lovingly in the face of the mother, but dared not
+chide him who had been false to her. He felt within him that revolution
+from one feeling to its opposite, which, when it begins in the mind, is
+so energetic and startling. His love for Isobel--which had been a
+frenzy, tearing him from another love which had been a sweet
+dream--began to undergo the wonderful change: her beauty faded before a
+moral expression which waxed hideous, and grew up in these passing
+moments into a direct contrast with the gentle loveliness of her sister,
+which, coming from the heart, beamed through features fitted to enhance
+it. Nor could he stop this revolution of his sentiments, the full effect
+of which, aggravated by remorse, shook his frame, as his horse bounded,
+and added to the turmoil within him. Yet ever the words came from his
+quivering lips--"Am I fated to be the husband of Devil Isobel? Is Sweet
+Marjory destined to bless the nuptial bed of another?" And at every
+repetition he unconsciously drove the spur into the sides of his now
+foaming steed.
+
+But whither all this hot haste--whither was he flying? To his home,
+where he knew that his mother condemned his choice, though her delicacy
+had limited her dissatisfaction to that strange but pregnant expression,
+whereby she had sent her most valuable jewel to her whom she valued and
+loved, and whom, in the madness of fascination, he had left to sorrow,
+if not to heartbreaking--perhaps death. He felt that he behoved to be
+home to make certain preparations for his appearance on the morrow, as a
+bridegroom by the side of Isobel Bower; and yet he felt that he could
+not face his mother under the feelings which now ruled him, and the very
+weakness of his resolution prompted the device of tarrying by the way
+until she should have gone to bed. He knew where to watch her chamber
+light, and he began to draw the rein. Yet how unconscious he was of a
+peculiarity of that power that had been for some time working within
+him!--yea, even remorse, who, true to her unfailing purpose, was
+moulding his heart into that yearning to visit the victim on which she
+insists for ever as a condition of peace to the betrayer. He had come to
+the cross-road leading eastwards; and even while muttering his purpose
+of merely prolonging the period of his home-going, he was twitching the
+rein to the right, so that the obedient steed turned and carried him
+forward at the old speed. Whither now, versatile and remorseful youth?
+From this eastern road there goes off, a couple of miles forward, a
+rough track, leading to the mansion he had so recently left. And it was
+not long ere he reached the point of turn. Nor was he even decided when
+there, that he would again draw the rein to the right. But if he was
+master of his horse, he was not master of himself: the rough track was
+taken, and Ogilvy was in full swing to Bell's Tower. He did not know
+that it is only when the act is accomplished that one thinks of the
+decrees of Fate, though it is true that the purposes of man are equally
+fated in their beginnings, when reason is battling against feeling, as
+in their termination. In how short time was he in the pine wood, behind
+the house, where were his bane, and perhaps his antidote, though he
+could not divine the latter! And he trembled as through the trees he saw
+the flitting lights, as they came and went past the windows, indicating
+the joy of preparation: not for these he looked, only for one, sombre
+and steady, like Melancholy's dull eye, wherein no tear glistens.
+Leaving his horse tied to a pine stem, Ogilvy was in an instant kneeling
+at the low casement at the foot of the bastle house, where glimmered
+that light for which he had been so intensely looking.
+
+Was it that grief, forced into an excitement foreign to its lonely,
+self-indulgent nature, wooed the evening air, to cool by the open window
+the fever of her slow-throbbing veins? Certain it is at least that
+Marjory Bower expected no salutation from without at that hour.
+
+"Sweet Marjory, will you listen to one who once dared to love you, and
+who has now sorrow at his heart, yet Heaven's wrath will not send forth
+lightnings to kill?"
+
+"What terrible words are these?" replied the maiden, as she took her
+hand from her brow and looked in the direction of the open casement.
+
+"Not those," replied he, "which are winged with the hope of a
+bridegroom. But I am miserable! Marjory Bower, I loved you, and you
+returned my love; I deserted you, and you never even gloomed on me; and
+I am now the bridegroom of your sister,--ay, your sister, Devil Isobel!
+Will you give me hope if I break off this marriage?"
+
+"Nay," rejoined she; "that cannot be. You have gone too far to go back
+with honour."
+
+"Or forward with any hope of happiness," said he. "But I will brave all
+your father's anger, Isobel's revenge, and my loss of honour, if you
+will consent to be mine within a year."
+
+"Nay," repeated the maid with a sigh. "Out of my unhappiness may come
+the happiness of others. Though I may not live to see it, I may die in
+the hope that Isobel Bower may, in your keeping, come to deserve a name
+better than that terrible one she has earned, and which just now sounded
+so terrible from your lips."
+
+"Is she not a liar, who falsified my words?" said he impassionedly. "Is
+she not a thief, who appropriated the diamond gift of my mother,
+intended for you? Is she not an undutiful daughter, who first deceived
+her mother by a falsehood, and then denounced her as herself false? Is
+that woman, with the form of an angel and the heart of a devil, to be my
+wife? And does Marjory Bower counsel it? Then Marjory Bower hates Hector
+Ogilvy!"
+
+"Nay," replied she calmly, "I only love your honour. Night and day I
+will pray for a blessing on your marriage, and that God, who made the
+heart of my sister, may change it into love and goodness."
+
+A repressed spasmodic laugh shook the frame of the youth. "What a hope,"
+he said, "on which to found the happiness of a life, and for which to
+barter such a creature as you! But, Marjory, you have roused the pride
+of my honour, while you have appeased my remorse; and I will marry
+Isobel because you have said that I should. It is thus I shall punish
+myself by becoming a victim in turn to the honour I was false to."
+
+As he pronounced these words, he fixed his eye on the face of Marjory,
+which at the moment reflected brightly the light of the lamp. Her eyes
+were swimming in tears. She seemed to struggle with herself, as if she
+feared that, in thus counselling him, she incurred some heavy
+responsibility. So Ogilvy thought. But he little knew that there was
+mixed up with these emotions the keen anguish of a sacrifice; for she
+had not as yet admitted to him how dear he had been to her, and how
+bitterly she had felt the transference of his affections from her to her
+sister. He waited for a few moments. He got no reply, except from these
+swimming eyes. "Adieu! dear Marjory," he said; and hastened again to the
+pine wood, where, having flung himself on his steed, he started for
+home.
+
+As he hurried along, he felt that he had appeased one feeling at the
+expense of a life's happiness, and yet he was satisfied, according to
+that law whereby the present evil always appears the greatest. About
+half way up the rough track he met one of the servants of Bell's Tower
+proceeding homewards, and suspecting that he had been with a message to
+him or his mother, he stopped and questioned him.
+
+"I have been to Dame Ogilvy with a letter from Dame Bower," said the
+man; "and well I may," he added, as he sided up and whispered, "The
+fagot-hewers have seen the bride to-night on the top bartisan of the
+castle tower."
+
+"And I now see a fool," replied Ogilvy, and rode on. Not that he thought
+the man the fool he called him, but that he felt it necessary, as many
+men do, to make a protest against the weakness of superstition at the
+very moment when the mysterious power was busy with his heart; and,
+repeating the word "fool," he went on auguring and condemning in the
+double way of mortals. How strangely he had been led for the last hour!
+The terms he had heard applied to his bride, justifying what he had
+himself seen, had all but resolved him to remain absent from the
+intended ceremony of the morrow. He had had some lurking hope that
+Marjory would agree to his resolution, and again inspire him with hope;
+and he knew that his mother would be pleased with a change which would
+yield her a chance of having her favourite for her daughter-in-law. He
+had been proposing as a weak mortal. Another power was purposing as a
+God; and yet he considered himself as so much master of himself and the
+occasion as to laugh with bitter scorn at the rustic diviner, and his
+folly of the apparition bride. And now there was shining before him the
+light of the lamp from the chamber of his mother, whom he had still
+stronger reasons than ever for avoiding that night. But even these
+reasons were unavailing. The spirit of his honour, which had been so
+fragile a thing when opposed by the advent of a new love, had been
+breathed upon and increased to a flame by her he had deserted; and he
+for the moment felt he could face the mild reproof of a mother whom he
+loved. What a versatile, incomprehensible creature is man, even in those
+inspired moments, when, with the nerve trembling under the tension of
+purpose, he appears to himself and others in his highest position! In a
+few minutes more he was in the presence of his mother.
+
+There sat in her painted chamber the fine gentlewoman, with her fixed
+eye divining in the light of the gilded lamp, as the spirit cast upon
+the dark curtain of the future the forms which were but as
+re-adaptations of the signs of what had come and gone in her memory and
+experience. The two families had been linked by the power of fate, and
+the connection, which had never been dissolved; was to evolve in some
+new form. She had grieved for her gentle favourite, Marjory Bower; and
+had she been as stern as she was mild, she would have interposed a
+parent's authority against her son's change of purpose. Yea, there might
+have been true affection in that sternness; but such would have been the
+resolution of a mental strength which she did not possess, for she was
+as those whose parental love gratifies wilfulness from a fear of
+producing pain. Nor even now, when she held in her hand a letter of, to
+her, strange import, could she call up from her soft heart an energy to
+save her son from the ruin which seemed to impend over him. He stood for
+a moment before her, silent, pale, and resolved against all
+chances,--verily a puppet under the reaction of affections and
+principles he had dared to tamper with against the injunctions of
+honour,--and yet he could not see that the soft and trembling hand of
+her in Bell's Tower, which held the strings that bound him so, held them
+and straitened them by a spasm. Nor was it of use to him now that the
+strings trembled, and relaxed only for the time when the soft,
+reproving, yet loving light of his mother's eye, as it turned from her
+reverie, fell upon his soul; for his purpose came again, as his lip
+quivered and he waxed more pale.
+
+"What means this letter?" said she, as she held it forth in her hand.
+"Mrs. Bower thanks me for the gift I sent to your bride."
+
+"It means, dear mother," replied he firmly, "what it says. I was weak
+enough to think that, if I committed your jewelled locket to Isobel's
+hand as the mean whereby it would reach Marjory, I would do something to
+cement their love. I saw Isobel's eye light up as she fixed it on the
+diamonds--their glare had entered her soul and made it avaricious; and
+envy threw her red glance to fire the passion. Yes, she appropriated
+the gift. I have other evidence than this, even from my bride." And as
+he pronounced the word "bride," a scornful laugh escaped from him, and
+alarmed his mother.
+
+"And yet she _is_ your bride, and will be your wife to-morrow?" said
+she, looking inquiringly.
+
+"She will," replied he, in a tone which, though soft, if not pitiful,
+was firm, if a trait of sarcasm against himself might not have been
+detected in it.
+
+"Strange!" ejaculated the mother, as she still fixed her eyes on him.
+Then, musing a little, "Do you know that the bride has been seen
+to-night on the bastle tower?"
+
+"Superstition."
+
+"An ill-used word, Hector," said she; "as if God was not the Ruler of
+his own world. When we see unnatural motives swaying men, and all
+working to an event, are we not to suppose that that event shall also be
+out of Nature's scheme? and that which is out of Nature's scheme must be
+in God's immediate hand. What motives impel you to wed a woman with whom
+you must be miserable, and have that misery enhanced by seeing every day
+her who would have rendered you happy?"
+
+"My honour pledged to the world, which must condemn and laugh at a
+breach of faith, not to be justified except at the expense of Isobel."
+
+"A false reason," continued the mother. "Is there more honour in
+adhering to a breach of honour than in returning to the honour that was
+broken?"
+
+"There is another reason, mother," said Ogilvy, as he carried his hand
+over his sorrowful face.
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Sweet Marjory commands me."
+
+"Ah, Hector, Hector, how little you know of the heart of woman! Know
+you not that in a forsaken woman the heart has an irony even when it is
+breaking? Ask her if you should wed her rival, and the breaking
+heart-string will respond Yes, even as the cord of the harp will twang
+when it is severed. Well do I know Sweet Marjory, and what she must have
+felt when she uttered this command. The canker has begun, and she will
+die. The worm does not seek always the withered leaf. You've heard the
+song that Patricia used to sing--
+
+    "'The dainty worm, it loves the tomb,
+      And gnaws, and gnaws its nightly food;
+    But a daintier worm selects the bloom,
+      And a daintier still affects the bud.'"
+
+"Oh, God forgive me!" ejaculated the miserable youth, as, holding his
+hand on his brow, he rushed out of the room and sought his bed-chamber.
+Was there ever such a night before the day, of all days auspicious to
+mortals, of the culminating joy of human life! Could he not find refuge
+in sleep, where the miserable so often seek to escape from the
+vibrations of the leaping, palpitating nerve, inflamed by the fever of
+life? A half-hour's dreamy consciousness, an hour's vision of returning
+images, rest and unrest, haunting scenes woven by some secret power, so
+varied, so ephialtic, so monstrous, yet all, somehow or another, however
+unlike the reality, still vindicating a connection. Why should Sweet
+Marjory be in the deep recesses of the pine wood, resting by his foaming
+steed, with his mother sitting and breathing hope's accents in her ear,
+and ever and again calling on him in sobbing vocables to return from his
+pursuit of another? He would return. The charm of her sweet voice is
+felt to be irresistible; yet it is resisted. And though he looks back
+only to see her by the flaught of the lightning that plays among the
+trees, his steps are forward, where Devil Isobel charms him with a song,
+in comparison of which the magic of the sirens is but the rustle of the
+reed as it swerves in the blast. He struggles, and seizes the stems of
+the pines to hold him from his progress and keep him steady; and he
+writhes as he finds he cannot obey the maternal appeal to a son's love.
+All is still again, and there is rest, only to be alternated by the
+recurring visions always assuming new forms, changing and disappearing,
+flaring up again, and then the deep breast-riding oppression, and those
+hollow moans, which never can be imitated by the waking sense, as if
+Nature preserved this domain of the spirit as an evidence, in the night
+of the soul, that there is another world where the limbo of agony is not
+less certain than the heaven which is simulated by sweet dreams.
+
+But, _lucidus die--nocte inutilis_. As the day dawned, and the morning
+sun, fresh from the east, threw in between the chinks of the shutters
+the virgin beams, Ogilvy felt the truth of the old saying, that every
+day vindicates its two conditions of good and evil. There was again a
+change in the versatile mind of the romantic youth; and Honour, pinkt
+out in those gaudy decorations woven by the busy spirits that move so
+cunningly the springs of man's thoughts in a conventional world,
+appeared before him. If Isobel was still the Devil Isobel, Honour was a
+smiling angel, even more beautiful than Sweet Marjory. Yet he was not
+happy--only firm, as he confessed by that lying power of the mind, to
+the strength of bonds he had himself imposed, and yet repented
+of--setting necessity as a will-power amidst the wreck and ruin of his
+affections. The hour advanced, and he must superinduce the happy
+bridegroom on the dead statue. Unsteady and fitful even in the common
+actions of life--lifting the wrong thing, and suddenly throwing it down
+in the wrong place, again to snatch the right thing at the wrong
+time--he was not so this morning. Every step and manipulation was like
+the movement of a machine. Composedness was a luxury to him. Ornament
+after ornament, at a time when a bridegroom's decorations were the
+expression of a rude refinement, found its place with a steady, nay,
+affectedly formal hand; yea, a more cool bridegroom had never been seen
+in the world's history, since that eventful morning when the hero of
+Bĉotia put on his lion's skin, and took up his wooden club, to marry the
+fifty daughters of the king, though among these, if the wise man is
+right, there must have been forty-nine devils. As the solemn work went
+on, he looked again and again into the mirror, where he saw none of the
+wrinkles of care, no brow-knitting of fractiousness, no sternness of
+resolute determination,--all quiet, smooth, even mild. Ay, such a mime
+is man when he is a mome, that he even smiled as he felt his pulse,--how
+cool was his blood, how regular the vibrations! And so the mummery went
+on: the flowered-red vest, the braided coat of sky-blue, the cravat, the
+ruffles, the wrist-bands scolloped and stiff, the indispensable ruff,
+concealed behind by the long locks of auburn, so beautiful in Isobel's
+eyes, that flowed over his broad shoulders.
+
+The work was finished; Ogilvy was dressed--his body in all the colours
+of the arc of hope--his mind in the dark midnight weeds of a concealed
+misery, concealed even from himself. He sought the chamber of his
+mother, and, taking her hand, kissed it fervently; but could not trust
+himself to even a broken syllable of speech, and his silence was
+sympathetic. She looked into the face of her son, and then threw her eye
+solemnly over the array of his dress. The tear stood apparent, yet her
+face seemed to have borrowed his composedness, as if she felt that the
+old doom still followed the house of Ogilvy, and was inevitable, when
+the evil genius of the Bowers was in the ascendant. There was no reproof
+now, save that which lies in the dumb expression of sorrow--even that
+reproof which, melting the obstruction of man's egotism, finds its way
+to the heart, when even scorn would be only a hardening coruscation. Yet
+even this he could bear for the sake of that conventionality which is a
+tyrant. Turning away his head, he again kissed the soft hand, and
+hurried away.
+
+As he issued from the gate and mounted his steed, now refreshed from the
+rough stress of the previous evening, the sun shone high and flaring,
+and the face of the country, with its rising hills and heather-bloom,
+and patches of waving corn, responded--as became it surely on a bridal
+morning--to the clang of the bell in Bell's Tower,--so like in all but
+the workings of the heart to the Sabbath morning when the union is to be
+between the spirit of man and the Lamb without guile. Yet art,
+self-confident and pragmatic, was not to be cajoled by the solicitations
+of, to it, a lying nature, however beautiful; and Ogilvy found it
+convenient, if not manly and heroic, to knit his eyebrows against the
+sun. So does the Indian hurl his wooden spear against the lightning,
+because he is a greater being than the Author of the thunder. So he rode
+on to where the bells rung--for was not he specially called?--the gloom
+on his countenance, with which his forced determination kept pace,
+increasing as he proceeded. Nor had he ever ridden thus before. Even his
+steed might have known, as he opened his nostrils, that there was
+something more than common in the wind's eye, accustomed as he was to
+the speed of enthusiasm, or the walk of exhaustion. He was now a solemn
+stalking-horse, bearing a rigid, buckram-mailed showman, whose only
+sound or movement resided in the plates of his armour, or his lath sword
+or gilded spontoon.
+
+As Ogilvy had thus enrolled himself among the chivalry of honour, and
+was consequently, in his own estimation, as we have hinted, a personage
+of romance, so was it only consistent with the indispensable gloom of
+his dignity and sternness that he should ride alone: nor was it seeming
+that he should accost the guests whom he saw on either side, obeying the
+call of the bell, and riding along to the bridal and the feast. Yet the
+scene might have enlivened somewhat a very gloomy knight, as, looking
+around, he saw the lairds rounding the bases of the hills, and heard, as
+others came into sight, the sound of bagpipes, however little these
+might be associated with chivalric notions and aspirations. But then it
+was not easy to act this solitary part; for what more natural than that
+those passing to his own celebration should salute him? Nor could he
+avoid those salutations.
+
+"Joy to thee, Ogilvy," said one, as he rode up; "the nightshade is
+sweeter than the rose;" and departed.
+
+"A happy day," said another, "when the wolf becomes more innocent than
+the lamb."
+
+"Good morning, bridegroom," said a third. "The sun shines bright, and
+the moss-brown tarn is more limpid than the running rill."
+
+"All happiness," said a fourth rider, "when the merle nestles with the
+jolly owl, and is not afraid when he sounds his horn."
+
+But Ogilvy only compressed his lips the more, and looked the more
+gloomy, solacing himself with the vision of Honour, the beautiful yet
+stern virgin, and immaculate as she who shook her mailed petticoats
+after getting out of Jupiter's head. Nor was the inspiration diminished
+as he now saw rising before him the rugged pile of Bell's Tower, wherein
+the bell rang still more lustily as the hour approached. The guests were
+thronging in a multiform, many-coloured mass, all eager for the honour
+of a Bower's smile. He was soon among the midst of them, repaying
+neither compliment, nor salutation, nor mute nod, with a single sign of
+acknowledgment. And now he entered the great hall, where already the
+invited numbers were nearly completed. How grand the scene! What silks,
+and satins, and taffetas, flowerings, braidings, and be-purflings, and
+hooped inflations! what towering toupees, built up with horse-hair and
+dyed hemp, stiffened with starch! what nosegays, redolent of
+heather-bells, and roses, and orange blossoms! There sat Dame Bower
+herself, fat and jolly, with her ruby dewlap, looking dignity; and
+Bower, the laird, great in legend. Mess John, too, even fatter than
+tradition will have him--the sleek bald head and face, where a thousand
+slynesses could play together without jostling. But what were all these,
+and the fairest and the proudest there, to Isobel Bower, as, arrayed in
+her long white veil, she sailed about, heedless of all decorum,
+showering her triumph upon envious damsels, as if she would blight all
+their fond hopes to make a rich soil for the flowering of her own! If
+others sat and looked for being looked at, and others stood for being
+admired, she walked and moved for worship, as if she claimed the
+peripatetic honour of the entire round of adoration. Not that she stared
+for it: she was too intensely magnetized to doubt of the jumping of the
+steel sparks to be all arranged _rayonnant_, like a horse-shoe, round
+the centre of her glory. Then, as there is by the domestic law a wearock
+in every nest, however speckled, and however redolent of balm-leaves or
+resonant of chirpings, where was Sweet Marjory Bower? Where that law
+ought to place her, by older legends than the date of Bower pride and
+power--in a corner, plainly dressed, and trying with downcast eyes to
+escape observation. But how pallid!--as if all the colours there had
+vied to steal from her cheeks, not the rosy bloom--for it never was
+there---but the fresh white of the lily, more beautiful than all the
+flowers of the garden; and not the colour alone, but the light itself of
+the lily's eye. Nay, it would seem that the greatest robber of all was
+her sister, whose look turned upon her as if in scorn of her humility,
+and in pleasure of her woe.
+
+As Ogilvy entered, walking up direct and stedfastly to the midst of the
+great hall, there arose the welcome buzz, like that humming which makes
+musical the sphere where comes the reigning queen of the hive. But how
+soon, as the bell in the tower ceased to ring, was all that noise hushed
+into a death-like silence, as he stood without sign or movement, with
+his arms crossed, and his gloomy eyes fixed on the only empty space in
+that crowded assembly! Would he not look at the bride, or salute the
+bride's mother, or shake hands with the bride's father, or do any one of
+all those many things which lay to his duty--far more to his
+inclination--as a happy bridegroom? Not one of them. And there he stood,
+as a motionless Grecian god hewn out of veritable panthelion, with its
+ivory eyes, and the mute worshippers all about. Nay, the likeness was
+even more perfect; for as these worshippers, from the very fear of
+reverence and the impression of awe, kept at a distance from that centre
+of deity, so those guests who were nearest to the strange man moved
+instinctively away, leaving him in the middle of the charmed ring. But
+even this did not move him. Then there was business to be done. "Oh! he
+was only meditative." The greatness of the occasion was the mother of a
+hundred excuses. Still to all it was oppressive, killing enthusiasm, and
+so unlike what these gay hopefuls had prefigured of that celestial state
+in which they wished themselves to be. Only Isobel seemed unchanged. She
+whispered to Mess John--most unseemly; but was she not the Devil Isobel?
+Ogilvy, even as a statue, was hers, and could not get away. Then the
+bridesmaids sought each other, by the clustering sympathy of their gay
+wreaths and their office, and the bridesman stood in readiness. Mess
+John was at the altar; and the bell was to ring the celebrating peal
+after the ceremony was ended, and the guests should fall to their knives
+and forks; and the retainers on the lawn, where the fire blazed wild to
+roast the ox and honour the bride, should sit down to their marriage
+feast.
+
+As Solemnity is the mother of Angerona, with her finger on her lip, so
+here reigned now the utmost stillness that could be enforced by heaving
+hearts against the buzz of a crowd. Scarcely a sound was heard as the
+altar was encircled. You might have detected a sigh, if it had not been
+that every sigh was suppressed. Even Isobel was mute, but not from any
+cessation of her triumph--rather from the impression of its culmination
+in possession. She stood grandly, looking around her, in defiance of the
+inexorable law of down-gazing on the ground, where brides see so much
+which no one else sees. Nor had she yet expressed by a look any wonder
+at the statue bridegroom, whose attitude was still unchanged. All is
+eye, and ear, and throbbing heart, when of a sudden the door of the
+great hall opened, calling the eye in the direction of the screech. Who
+dared? Some one more daring than common humanity. A figure entered, in
+the dress of another bride,--a tall figure, with surely nothing to be
+covered by the white satin and the long lace mantilla, suspended from
+the top of a wreathed head white as the driven snows of Salmon, but
+bones, sheer bones. The face could scarcely be seen for the folds of the
+veil: only two eyes, with no more light in them than what plays on the
+surface of untransparent things, and fixed and immoveable as if they saw
+nothing. The guests were breathless from stupefying amazement. They
+beheld it pass into the middle of the hall, where, in the space that had
+been deserted, it began a movement something like dancing. Strange
+mutterings of a broken-voiced song, with words about long years having
+passed away, rhyming with bridal day, and so forth, in the
+cauldron-kettle-and-incantation style, came in snatches.
+
+"It is that infernal old witch, Patricia Bower," screamed Devil Isobel.
+
+And rushing forward, the impassioned creature threw the weight of her
+body on the composition of bones and satin. It fell, with a loud shrill
+scream from a windpipe dried by the breath of ninety-seven years.
+
+Dame Bower and Sweet Marjory rushed forward and drew back the veil. It
+was the antediluvian Patricia. She was dead. The last spark had been
+offered to Hymen, and the incense canister was broken. Drops of blood
+issued from her mouth and nose, and sat upon the marble face, with still
+remains of the old beauty in it which had charmed Walter Ogilvy, like
+dots on the tiger lily.
+
+At this moment the bell began to clang. Devil Isobel was gone. She had
+hurried out the moment she knew that the spark of life had fled. Nor
+could she be found. The song says--
+
+    "They sought her here, they sought her there,
+    By lochs and streams that scent the main,
+    By forests dark, and gardens fair;
+    But she was never seen again."
+
+A trick, this last line, of some of the old legend-mongers of the Bell's
+Tower minstrels, no doubt to conceal the shame of the family; for Devil
+Isobel had flown to the tower, where, having concealed herself till the
+bell-ringers went away to join in the feast of the ox, which they never
+tasted even after so much pulling and hauling, she mounted to the
+belfry. Somehow she had contrived to cast the bell-rope round one of the
+beams by which the bell was suspended, so as to produce no noise, and
+then, having made a noose of a different kind from that she had that day
+been busily twining, she suspended herself by the neck. It was some days
+before she was discovered. The long white figure, still arrayed in the
+marriage dress with the flowing veil, had been observed by some of the
+searchers; and then, strange enough, it was remembered that one solitary
+clang of the bell had been heard after the cessation of the ringing.
+That was the death-peal of Isobel Bower. But, a year after, that same
+bell had another peal to sound--no other than the celebration of the
+marriage of Hector Ogilvy and Sweet Marjory. Some say that Bell's Tower
+got its name from the contraction of Isobel. Names stick after the
+things have passed away. They did well at least to change the
+rope--_finis funis_.
+
+
+
+
+DOCTOR DOBBIE.
+
+
+The particular day in the life of the worthy disciple of Esculapius to
+which we desire to direct the attention of the reader, was raw, coldish,
+and drizzly in the morning, but cleared up towards noon; and although it
+never became what could be called warm (it was the latter end of
+September), it turned out a very passable sort of day on the whole--such
+a day as no man could reasonably object to, unless he had some
+particular purpose of his own to serve. In such case he might perhaps
+have wished more rain, or probably more sunshine, as the one or the
+other suited his interest; but where no such selfish motives interfered,
+the day must have been generally allowed to have been a good one. The
+thermometer stood at--we forget what; and the barometer indicated
+"Fair."
+
+
+PERSONAL APPEARANCE, CHARACTER, AND PECULIARITIES OF THE DOCTOR.
+
+The doctor was a little stout man, not what could be called corpulent,
+but presenting that sort of plump appearance which gives the idea of a
+person's being hard-packed, squeezed, crammed into his skin.
+
+Such was the doctor, then--not positively fat, but thick, firm, and
+stumpy; the latter characteristic being considerably heightened by his
+always wearing a pair of glossy Hessian boots, which, firmly encasing
+his little thick legs up nearly to the knees, gave a peculiar air of
+stamina and solidity to his nether person. The doctor stood like a rock
+in his Hessians, and stumped along in them--for he was excessively vain
+of them--as proudly as a field-marshal, planting his little iron heels
+on the flag-stones with a sharpness and decision that told of a firm and
+vigorous step.
+
+The doctor was no great hand at his trade; but this, it is but fair to
+observe, was not his own opinion. It was the opinion only of those who
+employed him, and of the little public to whom he was known. He himself
+entertained wholly different sentiments on the subject. The doctor, in
+truth, was a vain, conceited little gentleman; but, withal, a pleasant
+sort of person, and very generally liked. He sung a capital song, and
+had an inexhaustible fund of animal spirits.
+
+One consequence of the latter circumstance was his being much invited
+out amongst his friends and acquaintances. He was, in fact, a regular
+guest at all their festivities and merry-makings, and on these occasions
+used to get himself fully more strongly malted than became a gentleman
+of his grave profession.
+
+When returning home of a night in this state, the little doctor's little
+iron heels might be heard rap-rapping on the flag-stones at a great
+distance in the quiet street, for he then planted them with still more
+decision and vigour than when sober; and so well known in his
+neighbourhood was the sound of his footsteps, so audible were they in
+the stillness of the night, and so habitually late was he in returning
+home--his profession forming an excellent excuse for this--that people,
+even while sitting at their own firesides, or, it might be, in bed,
+although at the height of three storeys, became aware, the moment they
+heard his heels, that the doctor was passing beneath; and the
+exclamations, "That's the doctor," or "There goes the doctor," announced
+the important fact to many a family circle. All unconscious, however,
+of these recognitions, the doctor stumped on his way, reflecting the
+while, it might be, on the good cheer he had just been enjoying.
+
+On these occasions, the doctor, while he kept the open street, got on
+swimmingly; but the dark and somewhat tortuous staircase which he had to
+ascend to reach his domicile--the said domicile being on the third
+flat--used to annoy him sadly. When very much overcome, as, we grieve to
+say it, the doctor very frequently was, the labour it cost him to make
+out the three stairs was very serious. It was long protracted, too; it
+took him an immense time; for, conscious of his unsteady condition, he
+climbed slowly and deliberately, but we cannot add quietly; for his
+shuffling, kicking, and blowing, to which he frequently added a muttered
+objurgation or two on missing a step, as he struggled up the dark stair,
+were distinctly audible to the whole land. By merely listening, they
+could trace his whole progress with the utmost accuracy, from the moment
+he entered the close, until the slam of a door announced that the doctor
+was housed. They could hear him pass along the close--they could hear
+him commence his laborious ascent--they could hear him struggling
+upwards, and, anon, the point of his boot striking against a step, which
+he had taken more surely than necessary--they could hear him gain the
+landing-place at his own door, signified by a peculiar shuffle, which
+almost seemed to express the intelligence that a great work had been
+accomplished--they could hear the doctor fumbling amongst his keys and
+loose coin for his check-key, and again fumbling with this check-key
+about its aperture in the door, the hitting of the latter being a
+tedious and apparently most difficult achievement--and, lastly, they
+could hear the door flung to with great violence, announcing the finale
+of the doctor's progress.
+
+Over and above the more ordinary and obvious difficulties attending the
+doctor's ascent on such occasions, and under such circumstances as those
+of which we speak, there was one of a peculiar and particularly annoying
+nature. This was the difficulty he found in discriminating his own
+landing-place from the others,--a difficulty which was greatly increased
+by the entire similarity of all the landing-places on the stair, the
+doors in all of which were perfect counterparts of each other, and stood
+exactly in the same relative positions. This difficulty often nonplussed
+him sadly; but he at length fell upon a method of overcoming it, and of
+ensuring his making attempts on no door but his own. He counted the
+landing-places as he gained them, pausing a second or two on each to
+draw breath, and impress its number on his memory,--one, two, three,
+then out with the check-key.
+
+Now this was all very well had the doctor continued to reckon
+accurately; but, considering the state of obfuscation in which he
+generally returned home at night, it was very possible that he might
+miscount on an occasion, and take that for three which, according to
+Cocker, was only two, or that for two which, by the same authority, was
+but one. This was perfectly possible, as the sequel of our tale will
+sufficiently prove. In the meantime, we proceed to other matters; and,
+to make our history as complete as possible, we start anew with--
+
+
+THE DOCTOR'S SHOP.
+
+It had not a very imposing appearance; for, to tell a truth, the
+doctor's circumstances were by no means in a palmy state. The shop,
+therefore, was decidedly a shabby one. It was very small and very
+dirty, with a little projecting bow window, the lower panes of which
+were mystified with some sort of light green substance--paint or paper,
+we don't know which--in order to baffle the curiosity of the prying
+urchins who used to congregate about it. Not that they were attracted by
+anything in the window itself, but that it happened to be a favourite
+station of the boys in the neighbourhood,--a sort of mustering place, or
+place of call, where they could at any time find each other. The typical
+display in the doctor's window consisted of a blue bottle, a pound of
+salts, and a serpent; the second being made up into labelled packages of
+about an ounce weight each, and built up with nice skill against one of
+the panes, so as to make as much show as possible. The serpent was a
+native of the Lammermoor Hills, which a boy, who drove a buttermilk
+cart, brought in one morning, and sold to the doctor for a shilling.
+
+The inside of the doctor's shop, which besides being very dirty was very
+dark, had a strange, mysterious, equivocal sort of character about it.
+Everything was dingy, and greasy, and battered, and mutilated. Dirty
+broken glasses stood in dark and dirty corners; rows of dirty bottles,
+some without stoppers, and some with the necks chipped off, and
+containing drops of black, villanous-looking liquids, stood on dirty
+shelves; rows of battered, unctuous-looking drawers, rising tier above
+tier, lined one side of the shop, most of which were handled with bits
+of greasy cord, the brass handles with which they had been originally
+furnished having long since disappeared, and never having been replaced.
+
+What these drawers contained, no human being but the doctor himself
+could tell. In truth, few of them contained anything at all. Those that
+did, could be described only as holding mysterious, dirty-looking
+powders, lumps of incomprehensible substances, or masses of desiccated
+vegetable matter of powerful and most abominable flavour.
+
+For all these, the doctor had, doubtless, very learned names; but such
+as we have described them was their appearance to the eye of the
+uninitiated.
+
+To complete the charms of the doctor's medical establishment, it was
+constantly pervaded by a heavy, unearthly smell, that, we verily
+believe, no man but himself could have inhaled for an hour and lived.
+
+Notwithstanding the unpretending and homely character of the doctor's
+establishment, it boasted a sounding name. The doctor himself called it,
+and so did the signboard over the door, "The ---- Medical Hall,"--a
+title which the envious thought absurd enough for a place whose proudest
+show was a blue bottle, a pound of salts, and a serpent. But these
+people did not recollect, or did not choose to recollect, the high
+pretensions of the doctor himself. They did not advert to the numerous
+degrees, honorary titles, fellowships, etc., which he had acquired,
+otherwise they would have looked to the man, not to the shop. Probably,
+however, few of them were aware of the number of these which he boasted;
+but it is a fact, nevertheless, that the doctor could, and did on
+particular occasions, sign himself thus:--"David Dobbie, M.D.; E.F.;
+M.N.O.; U.V.; Z.Y.X.; W.V.U.;" nor did he hesitate sometimes to alter
+the letters according to the inspiration of the happy moment.
+
+Now, had the doctor's right to all these titles been taken into account,
+and, so taken, been appreciated as it ought, there would have been fewer
+sneers at his Medical Hall than there was as matters stood.
+
+
+
+
+THE INVITATION.
+
+
+In another part of this history we have stated that the doctor, being
+generally liked, was much invited out to feastings and merry-makings,
+and convivialities of all sorts, from the aristocratic roast turkey and
+bottle of port, to the plebeian Findhorn haddock and jug of toddy. But
+all, in this way, was fish that came in the doctor's net. Provided there
+was quantity--particularly in the liquor department--he was not much
+given to shying at quality. He certainly preferred wine, but by no means
+turned up his nose at a tumbler. Few men, in fact, could empty more at a
+sitting.
+
+It was observed of the doctor, by those who knew him intimately, that he
+was always in bad humour on what he called blank days. These were days
+on which he had no invitation on hand for any description of guzzle
+whatever--either dinner, tea, supper, or a "just come up and take a
+glass of toddy in the evening." This seldom occurred, but it did
+sometimes happen; and on these occasions the doctor's short and snappish
+answers gave sufficient intimation of the provoking fact.
+
+In such temper, then, and for such reason, was the doctor in the
+forenoon of the particular day in his life which we have made the
+subject of this paper. He was as cross as an old drill-sergeant; and
+what made him worse, the affair he had been at on the preceding night
+had been a very poor one. He had been hinted away after the third
+tumbler--treatment which had driven the doctor to swear, mentally, that
+he would never enter the house again. How far he would keep this
+determination, it remained for another invitation to prove.
+
+In this mood, then, and at the time already alluded to, was the doctor
+employed, behind his counter, in measuring off some liquid in a
+graduated glass, which he held between him and the light, and on which
+he was looking very intently, as the liquid was precious, the quantity
+wanted small, and the glass but faintly marked, when a little boy
+entered the shop, and inquired if Dr. Dobbie was within.
+
+"Yes. What do you want?" replied the doctor gruffly, and without taking
+his eye off the graduated glass.
+
+"Here's a line for ye, sir," said the boy, laying a card on the counter.
+
+"Who's it from?" roared the doctor.
+
+"Frae Mr. Walkinshaw, sir," replied the boy, meekly; "and he would like
+to ken whether ye can come or no."
+
+"Come; oh, surely. Let me see," said the doctor. "Come; ay, certainly,"
+he added, his tone suddenly dropping down to the mild and affable, and
+speaking from an intuitive knowledge of the tenor of the card. "Surely;
+let me see." And the doctor opened the note and read, his eyes gloating,
+and his countenance dissolving into smiles, as he did so:--
+
+     "DEAR DOCTOR,--A few friends at half-past eight. Just a haddock
+     and a jug of toddy. Be as pointed as you can. Won't be kept
+     _very_ late. Dear Doctor, yours truly,
+
+    "R. WALKINSHAW."
+
+"My compliments to Mr. Walkinshaw," said the doctor, with a bland smile,
+and folding up the card with a sort of affectionate air as he spoke,
+"and tell him I will be pointed. Stop, boy," he added, on the latter's
+being about to depart with his message; "stop," he said, running towards
+his till, and thence abstracting threepence, which he put into the boy's
+hand, with a--"There, my boy, take that to buy marbles." The doctor
+always rewarded such messengers; but he did so systematically, and by a
+rule of his own. For an invitation to breakfast he gave a penny, thus
+estimating that meal at all but the lowest possible rate; for an
+invitation to dinner he gave sixpence; for one to supper, threepence, as
+exemplified in the instance above.
+
+In possession of Mr. Walkinshaw's invitation, the doctor continued in
+excellent spirits throughout the remainder of the day.
+
+
+THE GUZZLE.
+
+At the height of three stories, in a respectable-looking tenement in a
+certain quarter of a certain city which shall be nameless, there resided
+a decent widow woman of the name of Paton, who kept lodgers.
+
+At the particular time, and on the particular occasion at and on which
+we introduce the reader to Mrs. Paton's lodging-house, there was a
+certain parlour in the said house in a state of unusual tidiness. Not to
+say that this parlour was not always in good order: it was; but in the
+present instance, it displayed an extra degree both of _redding_-up and
+of comfort.
+
+An unusually large fire blazed in the polished grate, and a couple of
+candles, in shining candlesticks, stood on the bright mahogany table. On
+a small old-fashioned sideboard was exhibited a goodly display of
+bottles and glasses, flanked by a sugar basin, heaped up with snowy bits
+of refined sugar; a small plate of cut cheese, another of biscuit, and a
+third bearing a couple of lemons.
+
+Everything about the room, in short, gave indication of an approaching
+guzzle. The symptoms were unmistakeable. The only occupant of the room
+at this time was a gentleman, who sat in an arm-chair opposite the
+fire, carelessly turning over the leaves of a new magazine. His heart,
+evidently, was not in the employment; he was merely putting off time,
+and doing so with some impatience of manner, for he was ever and anon
+pulling out his watch to see how the night sped on.
+
+This gentleman was Mr. Walkinshaw, the doctor's inviter, head clerk in a
+respectable mercantile establishment in the city; and, we need hardly
+say, one of Mrs. Paton's lodgers. Neither need we say, we fancy, that he
+was just now waiting, and every moment expecting, the arrival of the
+doctor, and the other friends he had invited, nor that the preparations
+above described were intended for the special enjoyment of the party
+alluded to.
+
+"Five-and-twenty minutes to nine," said Mr. Walkinshaw, looking for the
+twentieth time at the dial of his watch. "I wonder what has become of
+the doctor! _he_ used to be so pointed."
+
+At this moment a ring of the door bell announced a visitor. Mr.
+Walkinshaw, in his impatience for the appearance of his friends, and not
+doubting that this was one of them, snatched up the candle, and ran to
+the door himself. He opened it; when a little thick-set figure, in
+Hessian boots, wrapped up in an ample blue cloth cloak, with an immense
+cape, and having a red comforter tied round his throat, presented
+himself. It was the doctor.
+
+"How d'ye do? and how d'ye do? Come away. Glad to see you!" with cordial
+shaking of hands and joyous smiles, marked the satisfaction with which
+the inviter and the invited met. The doctor was in high spirits, as he
+always was on such occasions; that is, when there was a prospect of good
+eating and drinking, and nothing to pay.
+
+Having assisted the doctor to divest himself of his cloak, hat, and
+comforter, Mr. Walkinshaw ushered him into his room; and having kindly
+seated him in the arm-chair which he had himself occupied a minute or
+two before, he ran to the sideboard, took therefrom a small bottle, and
+very small glass of the shape of a thistle-top, and approaching his
+guest, said in a coaxing tone, filling up at the same time--
+
+"Thimbleful of brandy, doctor; just to take the chill off." Anything for
+an excuse in such cases.
+
+"Why, no objection, my dear sir," said the doctor, smiling most
+graciously, taking the proffered glass of ruby-coloured liquid, wishing
+health and a good wife to his host, and tossing off the tiny bumper.
+
+The doctor had scarcely bolted his alcohol, when the door bell again
+rung violently.
+
+"There _they_ are at last!" exclaimed Walkinshaw, joyously.
+
+And there they were, to be sure. Half-a-dozen rattling fellows all in a
+lump. In they poured into Walkinshaw's room with hilarious glee.
+
+"Ah, doctor. Oh, doctor. Here too, doctor. Hope you're well, doctor.
+Glad to see you, doctor!" resounded in all quarters; for they were all
+intimate acquaintances of our medical friend, and were really delighted
+to see him.
+
+To this running fire of salutation, the doctor replied by a series of
+becks, bows, and smiles, and a shaking of hands, right and left, in
+rapid succession.
+
+All these, and such like preliminaries, gone through, the party took
+their seats around the table, and the business of the evening began. It
+soon did more: it progressed, and that most joyously. Jug followed jug
+in rapid succession. The doctor got into exuberant spirits, and sung
+several of his best songs, in his best manner. But alas!--
+
+    "Pleasures are," etc. etc.
+
+They are, sweet poet, and no man could be more strongly impressed with,
+or would have more readily allowed the truth and happy application of
+thy beautiful similes, than the doctor, on the occasion of which we are
+speaking. Enjoyment was quickly succeeded by satiety; and alert
+apprehension, and quick perception, by that doziness and obfuscation of
+the faculties which marks the _quantum suff._ at the festive board.
+
+The doctor was a man who could have said with the face of clay--
+
+    "And cursed be he who first cries, Hold, enough!"
+
+But, being but mortal, after all, his powers were not illimitable. There
+was a boundary which even he could not pass, and at the same time lay
+his hand on his breast and say, "I'm sober."
+
+That boundary the doctor had now passed by a pretty good way. In plain
+language, he was cut, very much cut, as was made sufficiently evident by
+various little symptoms,--such as a certain thickness of speech; a
+certain diffusion of dull red over the whole countenance, extending to
+and including the ears, which seemed to become transparent, like a pair
+of thin, flat, red pebbles; a certain look of stupidity and
+non-comprehension; and a certain heaviness and lacklustreness of eye,
+that gave these organs a strong resemblance to a couple of parboiled
+gooseberries.
+
+Sensible of his own condition, sensible that he could hold out no
+longer, the doctor now moved, in the most intelligible language which he
+could conveniently command, that the diet should be deserted _pro loco
+et tempore_.
+
+The motion was unanimously approved of; this unanimity having been
+secured by the inability of several of the party, who had been rendered
+_hors de combat_, to express dissent.
+
+A general break up, then, was the consequence of the doctor's motion.
+Candle in hand, Mr. Walkinshaw rose and accompanied his guests to the
+door, towards which they moved in a long irregular file, he leading the
+way. In the passage, however, a momentary halt was called. It was to
+allow the doctor to don himself in his walking gear. With some
+assistance from his host, this was soon accomplished. His hat was stuck
+on his head, his martial cloak thrown around him, and his immense
+comforter, like a red blanket, coiled around his neck. Thus accoutred,
+the doctor and his friends evacuated the premises of their worthy host,
+Mr. Walkinshaw.
+
+
+THE RETURN HOME, AND INCIDENTS THEREFROM ARISING.
+
+The doctor had not proceeded far on his way home, until he found himself
+alone. One after another, his friends had popped off; some disappearing
+mysteriously, others giving fair warning of their departure, by shaking
+him by the hand, and wishing him
+
+    ----"good night,
+    And rosy dreams and slumbers light."
+
+Left to his own reflections, and, we may add, to his own exertions, the
+doctor stumped bravely homeward, and, without meeting with anything
+particularly worthy of notice, arrived safely at his own _close_ mouth.
+
+In another part of this history, we have mentioned that there were one
+or two difficulties that always awaited the doctor on his return home
+when in the particular state in which he was at this moment. The first
+of these difficulties was to climb the dark tortuous staircase, on the
+third story of which was his domicile. The second was to discriminate
+between his neighbours' door and his own. The reader will recollect
+that, to obviate this last difficulty, the doctor fell upon the
+ingenious expedient of counting the landing-places as he ascended, his
+own being number three.
+
+The reader's memory refreshed as to these particulars, we proceed to say
+that the doctor, having traversed the close with a tolerably firm and
+steady step, commenced his laborious ascent of the stair in his usual
+manner, but with evidently fully more difficulty, as some of the
+neighbours, who heard his struggles, remarked, than ordinary,--a
+circumstance from which they inferred--and correctly enough, as we have
+seen--that the doctor was more than ordinarily overcome.
+
+The first flight of steps the doctor accomplished with perfect success,
+and with perfect accuracy recorded it as number one. This done, he
+commenced the ascent of number two; and, after a severe struggle,
+accomplished it also. But by the time he had done so, the doctor had
+lost his reckoning, and, believing that he had gained his own
+landing-place, from which, we need hardly remind the reader, he was yet
+an entire flight of stairs distant, he deliberately pulled out his
+check-key, and applied it to the door of the neighbour who lived right
+under him,--a certain Mr. Thomson, who pursued the intellectual calling
+of a cheesemonger.
+
+Having inserted the key in the lock, the doctor gave it the necessary
+twitch; and, obedient to the hint, the bolt rose, the door opened, and
+the doctor walked in.
+
+Being pitch-dark, and the two houses--that is, the doctor's and Mr.
+Thomson's--being of precisely the same construction within, nothing
+presented itself to the unconscious burglar to inform him of the blunder
+he had made.
+
+Satisfied, or rather never doubting, that all was right, the doctor shut
+the door, and, groping along the passage, sought the door of a small
+apartment on the left, which, in his own house, was his bedroom. This
+room he readily found; and it so happened that in Mr. Thomson's house
+this same apartment was also a bedroom; so that the doctor, under all
+circumstances, could not be blamed for feeling perfectly at ease as to
+his situation. In this feeling, he planted himself down in a chair, and
+began deliberately to unbutton his waistcoat, preparatory to tumbling
+in. While thus employed, the doctor indulged in a sort of soliloquy,
+embracing certain reflections and reminiscences connected with his
+present condition and recent revelries.
+
+"All right, then," said the doctor, referring to his present position.
+"Snug in my own bedroom. Capital song yon of Ned's; one of Gilfirian's,
+I think. Writes a beautiful song, Gil--a pretty song--very pretty. Good
+feeling, sweet natural sentiment, and all that sort of thing. Must get
+his new edition, and learn half-a-dozen of them. Hah! confoundedly drunk
+though--that lee-lurch ugly. Never mind: dead sober in the morning;
+sound as a roach. Take a seidlitz, and all right."
+
+While thus expressing the ideas that were crowding through his addled
+brain, the doctor's attention was suddenly attracted by a noise at the
+outer door. He paused to listen. It was some one, with a key,
+endeavouring to gain access. What could it mean? Thieves, robbers, no
+doubt of it. The doctor did not doubt it. So, grasping a huge, thick
+crab-stick, which he always carried at night, and which he had on the
+present occasion laid against the wall close by where he sat, the doctor
+stole on tiptoe towards the door, and taking up a position about a yard
+distant from it, raised his crab-stick aloft, and in this attitude slily
+awaited the entrance of the thief, whom he proposed to knock quietly
+down the moment he passed the door-way.
+
+Leaving the doctor in this gallant position for a few seconds, we step
+aside to inform the reader of a circumstance or two with which it is
+right he should be made acquainted. In the first place, he should be, as
+he now is, informed that the person at the door, and whom the doctor
+took to be a midnight robber, was no other than the doctor's neighbour,
+Mr. Thomson himself, the lawful occupant of the house of which the
+former had taken possession. He had happened, like the doctor, to have
+been out late that night; and, like the doctor, too, was several sheets
+in the wind. However, that is neither here nor there to our story. But
+it is of some consequence to it to add, inasmuch as it accounts for the
+non-appearance of any one to avert the impending catastrophe, that there
+was no one residing in Mr. Thomson's house at the particular period of
+which we speak, but Mr. Thomson himself; his wife, children, and
+servant, being at sea-bathing quarters. Thus, then, it was that the
+doctor had been allowed to take and keep such undisturbed possession of
+the premises.
+
+Again, the doctor being a bachelor, kept no servant at all; the domestic
+duties of his establishment being performed by an old woman, who came at
+an early hour of the morning, remained all day, and left at night.
+
+There was thus no family circumstance connected with his own domestic
+establishment, the absence of which, on the present occasion, might have
+excited his suspicions as to his real position. Everything, then,
+favoured the unlucky chance now in progress. To resume: The doctor
+having placed himself in the hostile attitude already described, coolly
+and courageously awaited the entrance of the supposed burglar. He had
+not to wait long. The door opened; and, all unconscious of what was
+awaiting him, Thomson entered. It was all he was allowed to do, however;
+for, in the next instant, a well-directed blow from the doctor's
+crab-stick laid him senseless on the floor.
+
+"Take that, you burglarious villain," shouted the doctor triumphantly,
+on seeing the success of his assault; "and that, and that, and that," he
+added, plunging sundry forcible kicks into the body of his prostrate
+victim with the points of his little stumpy Hessians.
+
+Having settled his man, as he imagined, the doctor stooped down, and,
+seizing him by the neck of his coat, proceeded to drag him to the
+outside of the door. This was a work of some difficulty, as Thomson was
+rather a heavy man; but it was accomplished. The doctor exerted himself,
+and succeeded in hauling the unconscious body of his unfortunate
+neighbour on to the landing-place on the outside. Having got him there,
+he edged him towards the descent, and, giving him a shove with his foot,
+sent him rolling down the stairs.
+
+The housebreaker thus disposed of, and put, as the doctor believed,
+beyond all power of doing any more mischief in this world, the latter,
+highly satisfied with what he had done, and not a little vain of his
+prowess, re-entered the house, carefully secured the door after him with
+chain and bolt, and retired to the little bedroom of which he had been
+before in possession.
+
+Somewhat sobered by the occurrence which had just taken place, the
+doctor now discovered various little circumstances which rather
+surprised him. He could not, for instance, find his nightcap; it was not
+in the place where it used to be. Neither could he find the boot-jack;
+it was not where it used to be either. The bed, too, he thought, had
+taken up a strange position; it was not in the same corner of the room,
+and the head was reversed. The head of his bed used to be towards the
+door; he now found the foot in that direction.
+
+All these little matters the doctor noted, and thought them rather odd;
+but he set them all down to the debit of his housekeeper,--some as the
+results of carelessness--such as the absence of the nightcap and
+boot-jack; others--the shifting of the bed and altering its position--to
+the whim of some new arrangement.
+
+Thus satisfactorily accounting for the little omissions and
+discrepancies he noted, the doctor began to peel; and, in a short time
+after, was snugly buried beneath the blankets, with his red comforter
+round his head in place of a nightcap.
+
+Leaving the doctor for a time, thus comfortably quartered, we will look
+after the unfortunate victim of his prowess, whose rights he was now so
+complacently usurping.
+
+For fully half an hour after he had been bundled down stairs by the
+doctor in the way already described, poor Thomson lay without sense or
+motion. At about the end of that time, however, he so far recovered as
+to be able to emit two or three dismal groans, which happening to be
+overheard by the policeman on the station, who was at the moment going
+his rounds, he hastened towards the quarter from whence the alarming
+sounds proceeded, and found the ill-used cheesemonger lying at full
+length on the stair, head downwards, and, of course, feet uppermost.
+
+The policeman held his lantern close to the face of the unfortunate man,
+to see if he could recognise him; but this he could not, and that for
+two reasons: First, being newly come to the station, he did not know
+Thomson at all; and, second, the countenance of the latter was so
+covered with blood, and otherwise disfigured, that, suppose he had, he
+could not possibly have recognised him.
+
+Seeing the man in a senseless state, and, as he thought, perhaps
+mortally injured, the policeman hastened to the office to give notice of
+his situation, and to procure assistance to have him carried there; all
+of which was speedily done. A bier was brought, and on this bier the
+person of the unfortunate cheesemonger was placed, and borne to the
+police office.
+
+Medical aid being here afforded to the sufferer, he was soon brought so
+far round as to be able to give some account of himself, and of the
+misfortune which had befallen him. His face, too, having been cleared of
+the blood by which it was disguised, he was recognised by several
+persons in the office; and being known to be a respectable man, the
+wonder was greatly increased to see him in so lamentable a condition.
+Mr. Thomson's account, however, of the occurrences of the night
+explained all.
+
+He stated that, on returning home to his own house, in which there was
+no one living at present but himself, he was encountered by some one in
+the passage, and knocked down the instant he entered the door. Who or
+what the person was he could not tell, but he had no doubt that it was
+some one who had entered the house for the purpose of robbing it; and
+added his belief that the house was filled with robbers, who, he had no
+doubt, had plundered it of every portable article worth carrying away.
+
+How he came to be found on the stair he could not tell, but supposed
+that he had been dragged there after he had been knocked down--that
+proceeding having deprived him of all consciousness.
+
+Here ended Mr. Thomson's deposition; and great was the sensation, great
+the commotion which it excited in the police office. So daring a
+burglary--so daring an assault. The like had not been heard of for
+years. In a twinkling, eight or ten men were mustered, lanterned, and
+bludgeoned; and, headed by a sergeant, were on their march to the scene
+of robbery.
+
+On arriving at Mr. Thomson's door, they found it fast, and all quiet
+within. What was to be done? Force open the door? Perhaps some of the
+villains were still in the house. At any rate, it was proper to see what
+state things were in.
+
+A smith was accordingly sent for, the lock picked, and the door thrown
+open, when, headed by the sergeant with a pistol in his hand, in rushed
+a mob of policemen, a constellation of lanterns, a forest of bludgeons.
+
+The guardians of the night now dispersed themselves over the house; but,
+to their great surprise, found no trace whatever of the thieves. There
+appeared to have been nothing disturbed, and the doors and windows
+remained all fast.
+
+Puzzled by these circumstances, the police had begun to abate somewhat
+of that zeal with which they had first commenced their search, and were
+standing together in knots, some in one room and some in another,
+discussing the probabilities and likelihoods of the case, when those in
+the doctor's apartment were suddenly startled by a loud snore or grunt,
+proceeding from the bed, which was followed by a restless movement, and
+the exclamation--"Thieves, robbers!" muttered in the thick indistinct
+way of a person dreaming.
+
+In an instant, half a dozen policemen rushed towards the bed, drew aside
+the curtains, and there beheld the unconscious face of the heroic little
+doctor just peering out of the blankets, and a section of the red
+comforter in which his head was entombed in the manner already set
+forth. We have said that the face on which the astonished policemen now
+looked was an unconscious one. So it was; for, notwithstanding the grunt
+he had emitted, the movement he had made, and the exclamations he had
+uttered, the doctor was still sound asleep; the former having been
+merely the result of dreamy reminiscences of the past, awakened by an
+indistinct sense of the presence of some person or persons in the house.
+
+In mute surprise, the police, every one holding his lantern aloft, and
+thus surrounding the bed with a halo of light, gazed for a second or two
+on the sleeping Esculapius. They had never, in the course of all their
+experience, seen a burglar take things so coolly and comfortably. That
+he should enter a house with the intention of robbing it, and should
+deliberately strip, go to bed, and take a snooze in that house, was a
+piece of such daring impudence as they had never heard of before.
+
+It was no time, however, for making reflections on the subject. The
+business in hand was to secure the villain; and this was promptly done.
+Finding his sleep so profound as not to be easily disturbed, half a
+dozen men, lanterns and sticks in hand, flung themselves on the doctor,
+and, seizing him by the legs and arms, had him in a twinkling on the
+floor on the breadth of his back. Confounded and bewildered as he was by
+the extraordinary and appalling circumstances in which he now found
+himself--surrounded with what appeared to him to be a mob--lanterns
+flitting about as thick as the sparks on a piece of burned
+paper--cudgels bristling around him like a paling--and, to complete all,
+a clamour and hubbub of tongues that might have been heard three streets
+off;--we say, confounded and bewildered as he was by these sights and
+sounds, the doctor's pluck did not desert him. Starting to his feet, and
+not doubting that he was in the midst of a mob of housebreakers, he
+seized one of the policemen by the throat, when a deadly struggle
+ensued, in which the doctor's shirt was, in a twinkling, torn up into
+ribbons; in another twinkling he was floored by a blow from a baton, and
+rendered incapable of further resistance.
+
+The combat had been a most unequal one, and no other consequence could
+possibly have arisen from it.
+
+Having knocked down the doctor, the next business, as is usual in such
+and similar cases, was to get him up again. Accordingly, three or four
+men got hold of him by the arms and shoulders, and having raised him to
+his feet, planted him, still senseless, in a chair.
+
+A clamorous consultation, spoken in half a dozen different dialects, now
+ensued, as to how the housebreaker was to be disposed of.
+
+"We'll teuk him to the office, to pe surely," said a hard-faced,
+red-whiskered Celt. "What else you'll do wi' ta roke that'll proke into
+shentleman's hoose, and go to ped as comfortable as a lort. Dam's
+impitence."
+
+"Soul, and it's to the office we'll have him, by all manner o' means,
+and that in the twinkling of a bedpost," chimed in a tall raw-boned
+Irishman, with a spotted cotton handkerchief tied so high around the
+lower part of his face as to bury his mouth. "The thaif o' the world.
+It's a free passage across the wather he'll now get, anyhow, bad luck to
+him."
+
+"Fat, tiel, would you tak the man stark naked through the street?" said
+a little thick-set Aberdonian. "It would be verra undecent. There's a
+bit cloaky there; throw that aboot his shouthers, and then we'll link
+him awa like a water-stoup."
+
+"Od, ye'll no fin that so easy, I'm thinkin!" exclaimed a lumpish,
+broad-shouldered young fellow. "He's as fat's a Lochrin distillery pig.
+He's a hantle mair like his meat than his wark, that ane."
+
+Hitherto the unfortunate subject of these remarks had been able to take
+no part in what was passing; but, stupefied by the blow he had received,
+which had covered his face with blood, and further confounded by the
+various circumstances of the case--his previous debauch, the violence
+and suddenness of his awakening, and the extraordinary clamour and
+uproar that surrounded him--he sat, with drooping head and confused
+senses, without uttering a word.
+
+His physical energies, however, gradually recovering a little, he began
+to stare about him with a look of bewilderment; and at length, fixing
+his eye on the Irishman, who happened to be standing directly opposite
+him, he addressed him with a--
+
+"Pray, friend, what is the meaning of all this?"
+
+"Faiks, my purty fellow, and it's yourself that might be after guessing
+that with your own 'cute genius," replied Paddy. "Haven't you half a
+notion, now, of what you have been about the same blessed night?"
+
+"I have a pretty good notion that my house has been broken into by a
+parcel of ruffians," said the doctor, "and that I have been half,
+perhaps wholly, murdered by you."
+
+"Capital, ould fellow; capital," said the Irishman. "Tell truth, and
+shame the devil. Your house! Stick to that, my jewel, and you'll
+astonish the spalpeens. But come, come, my tight little mannikin, get up
+wid ye. You'll go and have a peep of _our_ house now. Time about's fair
+play."
+
+And he seized the doctor, who was now wrapped in his cloak, and was
+forcing him from his seat, when the latter, resisting this movement,
+called out--
+
+"Does no one here know me? Will no one here protect me? What am I
+assailed in my own house in this manner for? My name's Dobbie--Doctor
+Dobbie!"
+
+"Your name's no nosin to nobody, you roke," said Duncan M'Kay, seconding
+the efforts of his colleague to lug the doctor out of his seat. "You'll
+be one names to-day and anodder names to-morrow. So shust come along to
+ta office, toctor--since you calls yourselfs a toctor--and teuket a
+nicht's quarters wi' some o' your frients that's there afore you."
+
+"Let's get a grup o' him," exclaimed the broad-shouldered young fellow
+already spoken of, edging himself in to have a share in the honour of
+laying a capturing hand on the doctor. "Od, he's as round as a pokmanky.
+There's nae getting hand o' him. Come awa, doctor; come awa, my man.
+Bailie Morton 'll be unco glad to see ye," he added, having succeeded in
+getting hold of one of the doctor's arms, which he seized with a grip
+like a vice.
+
+Undeterred by the overpowering force with which he was assailed, the
+doctor still resisted, vainly announcing and re-announcing his name and
+calling. It had the effect only of increasing the clamour and hubbub
+amongst the police, who now all huddled round him in a mob; and without
+listening to a word he said, finally succeeded in carrying him bodily
+out of the house, in despite of some desperate struggling, and a great
+deal of noisy vociferation on the part of the doctor.
+
+
+THE POLICE OFFICE, AND FINALE.
+
+Leading off from and immediately behind the public office, there was a
+small carpeted room, provided with a sofa, some chairs, and a
+writing-desk.
+
+This room was appropriated to some of the upper functionaries connected
+with the police establishment of ----, and was the scene of private
+examinations of culprits, and of other kinds of proceedings of a private
+nature.
+
+At the time at which we introduce the reader to this apartment, there
+lay extended on the sofa above spoken of, a gentleman who appeared to
+have seen some recent service, if one might judge from the circumstance
+of his head being bound up in a blood-stained handkerchief, and his
+exhibiting some symptoms of languor and debility. This gentleman was Mr.
+Thomson, who was awaiting the result of the expedition which had gone to
+examine his house, and whose return he was now momentarily expecting.
+Awaiting the same issue then, and awaiting it in the same apartment, was
+another gentleman. This person was a sort of sub-superintendent of the
+police; and was, at the moment of which we speak, busily engaged writing
+at the desk formerly mentioned.
+
+Both of those persons, then, were anxiously waiting the return of the
+detachment whose proceedings are already before the reader, beguiling
+the time, meanwhile, by discussing the probabilities of the case. They
+were thus engaged, when a tremendous noise in the outer office gave
+intimation of an arrival, and one of no ordinary kind; for the tramping
+of feet was immense, and the hubbub astounding.
+
+"That's _them_," said Mr. Thomson.
+
+"I think it is," said the sub.
+
+Ere any other remark could be made, the door of the private apartment
+was opened, and in marched a short, stout, half-dressed, bloody-faced
+gentleman, in a blue cloth cloak, between two policemen, and followed by
+a mob of functionaries of the same description, who stood so thick as
+to completely block up the door. This stout, half-dressed gentleman in
+the blue cloth cloak was the doctor.
+
+"Dear me, doctor," said Mr. Thomson, advancing towards the former, whom
+he at once recognised, "what's the matter? What terrible affair is
+this?"
+
+"Terrible indeed--unheard of, monstrous!" exclaimed the doctor, in a
+towering passion. "My house, sir, has been broken into by these
+ruffians. I have been torn from my bed, maltreated in the way you see,
+and dragged here like a felon by them, and for what I know not. But I
+_will_ know it; and if I don't--"
+
+"This is odd, doctor," here interposed Mr. Thomson; "I have been the
+victim of a similar kind of violence to-night, as you may see by the
+state of my head, although the case is in other respects somewhat
+different. My house has been also broken into."
+
+"Bless my soul, very strange!" said the doctor, taking a momentary
+interest in the misfortunes of his neighbour. "By these ruffians?" he
+added, pointing to the police.
+
+"No, no, not them," replied Thomson; "housebreakers. Some villains had
+got into the house; and I had no sooner entered it, on returning home a
+little later than usual, than I was knocked down, dragged out to the
+stair, and thrown down, where I was found in a state of insensibility
+and brought here."
+
+The doctor winced a little at this statement: a vague suspicion, we can
+hardly say of the fact, but of something akin thereto, began to glimmer
+dimly on his mental optics. He, however, said nothing; nor, even had he
+been inclined to say anything, was opportunity afforded him; for here
+the presiding official of the place, the sub-superintendent, to whom the
+doctor was well known, and who had impatiently awaited the conclusion
+of the conversation between the latter and Thomson, interfered with a--
+
+"Good heaven, doctor, how came you to be in this situation? What is the
+meaning of all this?" he added, turning to his men.
+
+"The maining's as plain as a pike-staff, your honour," replied the Irish
+watchman, to whom we have already introduced the reader. "We found this
+little gentleman, since he turns out to be a gentleman, where he
+shouldn't have been."
+
+"And where was that, pray?" inquired the sub.
+
+"Why, in Mr. Thomson's house, your honour. And not only that, but in bed
+too, as snug as a fox in a chimbley."
+
+"In ta fery peds, ta roke!" here chimed in our friend M'Kay.
+
+"What! you don't mean to say that you found the doctor here in _Mr.
+Thomson's_ house?" said the astonished official, laying a marked
+emphasis on the name.
+
+"To pe surely we do, sir," replied Duncan.
+
+"I'll tak my Bible oath till't," added another personage, whom the
+reader will readily recognise.
+
+"In my house! The doctor in _my_ house!" exclaimed Mr. Thomson, in the
+utmost amazement.
+
+"Mr. Thomson's house! Me in Mr. Thomson's house!" said the doctor, with
+a look of blank dismay; for a tolerably distinct view of the truth had
+now begun to present itself to his mind's eye. It was, therefore, rather
+in the desperate hope of there being yet some chance in his favour, than
+from any conviction that the testimony against him was founded in error,
+that he added--
+
+"My _own_ house, you scoundrels; you found me in my _own_ house!"
+
+Here the whole mob of policemen simultaneously, and as if with one
+voice, shouted--"It's a lie, it's a lie. We found him in Mr. Thomson's."
+
+"How do you explain this, doctor?" said Mr. Thomson mildly, although
+beginning--he couldn't help it--to think rather queerly of the doctor.
+
+"Why, why," replied the crest-fallen and perplexed doctor, "if I really
+have been in your house, Mr. Thomson, although I can't believe it, I
+must, I must--in fact, I must have mistaken it for my own. To tell a
+truth, I came home rather cut last night; and it is possible, quite
+possible, although I can hardly think probable, that I may have taken
+your house for my own. That's the fact," added the doctor, with
+something like an appeal to the lenity of the person whose rights he had
+so unwittingly usurped, and whose corporeal substance he had so
+seriously maltreated.
+
+"And was it you that knocked me down, doctor?" said Mr. Thomson. "Too
+bad that, to knock me down in my own house."
+
+"Why, my dear sir, I trust I did not. I hope I did not. But really I
+don't know; perhaps I--you see, I thought thieves were coming in, and
+I--"
+
+Here a burst of laughter from the presiding officer, which was instantly
+taken up by every one in the apartment, and in which Thomson himself
+couldn't help joining, interrupted the doctor's further explanations.
+
+"Well, doctor," said the latter, who was a good-natured sort of person,
+and who, like every one else, had a kind of esteem for the little
+medical gentleman, "I must say that when you broke my head, you were
+only in the way of your trade; but I think the least thing you can do is
+to mend it for nothing."
+
+"Most gladly, my dear sir," replied the doctor; "for I did the
+damage,--at least I fear it, however unknowingly,--and am bound to
+repair it."
+
+"Done; let it be a bargain," said Thomson. "But, doctor, be so good as
+to give me previous notice when you again desire to take possession of
+my house. At any rate, don't knock me down when I come to seek a share
+of it."
+
+The doctor promised to observe the conditions; and shortly after, the
+two left the office, arm in arm, in the most friendly way imaginable.
+
+It is said, although we cannot vouch for the truth of the report, that
+the doctor, after this, fell upon the expedient of casting a knot on his
+handkerchief for each landing-place in the stair as he gained it, when
+ascending the latter under such circumstances as those that gave rise to
+the awkward occurrence which has been the subject of these pages.
+
+
+
+
+THE SEEKER.
+
+
+Amongst the many thousand readers of these tales, there are perhaps few
+who have not observed that the object of the writers is frequently of a
+higher kind than that of merely contributing to their amusement. They
+would wish "to point a moral," while they endeavour to "adorn a tale."
+It is with this view that I now lay before them the history of a SEEKER.
+The first time I remember hearing, or rather of noticing the term, was
+in a conversation with a living author respecting the merits of a
+popular poet, when, his religious opinions being adverted to, it was
+mentioned that, in a letter to a brother poet of equal celebrity, he
+described himself as a SEEKER. I was struck with the word and its
+application. I had never met with the fool who saith in his heart that
+there is no God; and though I had known many deniers of revelation, yet
+a SEEKER, in the sense in which the word was applied, appeared a new
+character. But, on reflection, I found it an epithet applicable to
+thousands, and adopted it as a title to our present story.
+
+Richard Storie was the eldest son of a Dissenting minister, who had the
+pastoral charge of a small congregation a few miles from Hawick. His
+father was not what the world calls a man of talent, but he possessed
+what is far beyond talents--piety and humanity. In his own heart he felt
+his Bible to be true--its words were as a lamp within him; and from his
+heart he poured forth its doctrines, its hopes, and consolations, to
+others, with a fervour and an earnestness which Faith only can inspire.
+It is not the thunder of declamation, the pomp of eloquence, the majesty
+of rhetoric, the rounded period, and the glow of imagery, which can
+chain the listening soul, and melt down the heart of the unbeliever, as
+metals yield to the heat of the furnace. Show me the hoary-headed
+preacher, who carries sincerity in his very look and in his very tones,
+who is animated because faith inspires him, and out of the fulness of
+his own heart his mouth speaketh, and there is the man from whose tongue
+truth floweth as from the lips of an apostle; and the small still voice
+of conscience echoes to his words, while hope burns, and the judgment
+becomes convinced. Where faith is not in the preacher, none will be
+produced in the hearer. Such a man was the father of Richard Storie. He
+had fulfilled his vows, and prayed with and for his children. He set
+before them the example of a Christian parent, and he rejoiced to
+perceive that that example was not lost upon them.
+
+We pass over the earlier years of Richard Storie, as during that period
+he had not become a SEEKER, nor did he differ from other children of his
+age. There was indeed a thoughtfulness and sensibility about his
+character; but these were by no means so remarkable as to require
+particular notice, nor did they mark his boyhood in a peculiar degree.
+The truths which from his childhood he had been accustomed to hear from
+his father's lips, he had never doubted; but he felt their truth as he
+felt his father's love, for both had been imparted to him together. He
+had fixed upon the profession of a surgeon, and at the age of eighteen
+he was sent to Edinburgh to attend the classes. He was a zealous
+student, and his progress realized the fondest wishes and anticipations
+of his parent. It was during his second session that Richard was
+induced, by some of his fellow collegians, to become a member of a
+debating society. It was composed of many bold and ambitious young men,
+who, in the confidence of their hearts, rashly dared to meddle with
+things too high for them. There were many amongst them who regarded it
+as a proof of manliness to avow their scepticism, and who gloried in
+scoffing at the eternal truths which had lighted the souls of their
+fathers when the darkness of death fell upon their eyelids. It is one of
+the besetting sins of youth to appear wise above what is written. There
+were many such amongst those with whom Richard Storie now associated.
+From them he first heard the truths which had been poured into his
+infant ear from his father's lips attacked, and the tongue of the
+scoffer rail against them. His first feeling was horror, and he
+shuddered at the impiety of his friends. He rose to combat their
+objections and refute their arguments, but he withdrew not from the
+society of the wicked. Week succeeded week, and he became a leading
+member of the club. He was no longer filled with horror at the bold
+assertions of the avowed sceptic, nor did he manifest disgust at the
+ribald jest. As night silently and imperceptibly creeps through the air,
+deepening shade on shade, till the earth lies buried in its darkness, so
+had the gloom of _Doubt_ crept over his mind, deepening and darkening,
+till his soul was bewildered in the sunless darkness.
+
+The members acted as chairman of the society in rotation, and, in his
+turn, the office fell upon Eichard Storie. For the first time, he seemed
+to feel conscious of the darkness in which his spirit was enveloped;
+conscience haunted him as a hound followeth its prey; and still its
+small still voice whispered,
+
+     "Who sitteth in the scorner's chair."
+
+The words seemed burning on his memory. He tried to forget them, to
+chase them away--to speak of, to listen to other things; but he could
+not. "_Who sitteth in the scorner's chair_" rose upon his mind as if
+printed before him--as if he heard the words from his father's
+tongue--as though they would rise to his own lips. He was troubled--his
+conscience smote him--the darkness in which his soul was shrouded was
+made visible. He left his companions--he hastened to his lodgings, and
+wept. But his tears brought not back the light which had been
+extinguished within him, nor restored the hopes which the pride and the
+rashness of reason had destroyed. He had become the willing prisoner of
+_Doubt_, and it now held him in its cold and iron grasp, struggling in
+despair.
+
+Reason, or rather the self-sufficient arrogance of fancied talent which
+frequently assumes its name, endeavoured to suppress the whisperings of
+conscience in his breast; and in such a state of mind was Richard
+Storie, when he was summoned to attend the death-bed of his father. It
+was winter, and the snow lay deep on the ground, and there was no
+conveyance to Hawick until the following day; but, ere the morrow came,
+eternity might be between him and his parent. He had wandered from the
+doctrines that parent had taught, but no blight had yet fallen on the
+affections of his heart. He hurried forth on foot; and having travelled
+all night in sorrow and anxiety, before daybreak he arrived at the home
+of his infancy. Two of the elders of the congregation stood before the
+door.
+
+"Ye are just in time, Mr. Richard," said one of them mournfully, "for
+he'll no be lang now; and he has prayed earnestly that he might only be
+spared till ye arrived."
+
+Richard wept aloud.
+
+"Oh, try and compose yoursel', dear sir," said the elder. "Your distress
+may break the peace with which he's like to pass away. It's a sair
+trial, nae doubt--a visitation to us a'; but ye ken, Richard, we must
+not mourn as those who have no hope."
+
+"Hope!" groaned the agonized son as he entered the house. He went
+towards the room where his father lay; his mother and his brethren sat
+weeping around the bed.
+
+"Richard!" said his afflicted mother as she rose and flung her arms
+around his neck. The dying man heard the name of his first-born, his
+languid eyes brightened, he endeavoured to raise himself upon his
+pillow, he stretched forth his feeble hand. "Richard!--my own Richard!"
+he exclaimed; "ye hae come, my son; my prayer is heard, and I can die in
+peace! I longed to see ye, for my spirit was troubled upon yer
+account--sore and sadly troubled; for there were expressions in yer last
+letter that made me tremble--that made me fear that the pride o' human
+learning was lifting up the heart o' my bairn, and leading his judgment
+into the dark paths o' error and unbelief; but oh! these tears are not
+the tears of an unbeliever!"
+
+He sank back exhausted. Richard trembled. He again raised his head.
+
+"Get the books," said he feebly, "and Richard will make worship. It is
+the last time we shall all join together in praise on this earth, and it
+will be the last time I shall hear the voice o' my bairn in prayer, and
+it is long since I heard it. Sing the hymn,
+
+     'The hour of my departure's come,'
+
+and read the twenty-third psalm."
+
+Richard did as his dying parent requested; and as he knelt by the
+bedside, and lifted up his voice in prayer, his conscience smote him,
+agony pierced his soul, and his tongue faltered. He now became a Seeker,
+seeking mercy and truth at the same moment; and, in the agitation of his
+spirit, his secret thoughts were revealed, his doubts were manifested! A
+deep groan issued from the dying-bed. The voice of the supplicant failed
+him--his _amen_ died upon his lips; he started to his feet in confusion.
+
+"My son! my son!" feebly cried the dying man, "ye hae lifted yer eyes to
+the mountains o' vanity, and the pride o' reason has darkened yer heart,
+but, as yet, it has not hardened it. Oh Richard! remember the last words
+o' yer dying faither: 'Seek, and ye shall find.' Pray with an humble and
+a contrite heart, and in yer last hour ye will hae, as I hae now, a
+licht to guide ye through the dark valley of the shadow of death."
+
+He called his wife and his other children around him--he blessed
+them--he strove to comfort them--he committed them to his care who is
+the Husband of the widow and the Father of the fatherless. The lustre
+that lighted up his eyes for a moment, as he besought a blessing on
+them, vanished away, his head sank back upon his pillow, a low moan was
+heard, and his spirit passed into peace.
+
+His father's death threw a blight upon the prospects of Richard. He no
+longer possessed the means of prosecuting his studies; and in order to
+support himself and assist his mother, he engaged himself as tutor in
+the family of a gentleman in East Lothian. But there his doubts followed
+him, and melancholy sat upon his breast. He had thoughtlessly, almost
+imperceptibly, stepped into the gloomy paths of unbelief, and anxiously
+he groped to retrace his steps; but it was as a blind man stumbles; and
+in wading through the maze of controversy for a guide, his way became
+more intricate, and the darkness of his mind more intense. He repented
+that he had ever listened to the words of the scoffer, or sat in the
+chair of the scorner; but he had permitted the cold mists of scepticism
+to gather round his mind, till even the affections of his heart became
+blighted by their influence. He was now a solitary man, shunning
+society; and at those hours when his pupils were not under his charge,
+he would wander alone in the wood or by the river, brooding over
+unutterable thoughts, and communing with despair; for he sought not, as
+is the manner of many, to instil the poison that had destroyed his own
+peace into the minds of others. He carried his punishment in his soul,
+and was silent--in the soul that was doubting its own existence! Of all
+hypochondriacs, to me the unbeliever seems the most absurd. For can
+matter think? can it reason, can it doubt? Is it not the thing that
+doubts which distrusts its own being? Often when he so wandered, the
+last words of his father--"Seek, and ye shall find"--were whispered in
+his heart, as though the spirit of the departed breathed them over him.
+Then would he raise his hands in agony, and his prayer rose from the
+solitude of the woods.
+
+After acting about two years as tutor, he returned to Edinburgh and
+completed his studies. Having with difficulty, from the scantiness of
+his means, obtained his diplomas, he commenced practice in his native
+village. His brothers and his sisters had arrived at manhood and
+womanhood, and his mother enjoyed a small annuity. Almost from boyhood
+he had been deeply attached to Agnes Brown, the daughter of a
+neighbouring farmer; and about three years after he had commenced
+practice, she bestowed on him her hand. She was all that his heart could
+wish--meek, gentle, and affectionate; and her anxious love threw a
+gleam of sunshine over the melancholy that had settled upon his soul.
+Often, when he fondly gazed in her eyes, where affection beamed, the
+hope of immortality would flash through his bosom; for one so good, so
+made of all that renders virtue dear, but to be born to die and to be no
+more, he deemed impossible. They had been married about nine years, and
+Agnes had become the mother of five fair children, when in one day death
+entered their dwelling, and robbed them of two of their little ones. The
+neighbours had gathered together to comfort them, and the mother in
+silent anguish wept over her babes; but the father stood tearless and
+stricken with grief, as though his hopes were sealed up in the coffin of
+his children. In his agony he uttered words of strange meaning. The
+doubts of the Seeker burst forth in the accents of despair. The
+neighbours gazed at each other. They had before had doubts of the
+religious principles of Dr. Storie; now those doubts were confirmed.
+Many began to regard him as an unsafe man to visit a death-bed, where he
+might attempt to rob the dying of the everlasting hope which enables
+them to triumph over the last enemy. His practice fell off, and the
+wants of his family increased. He was no longer able to maintain an
+appearance of respectability. His circumstances aggravated the gloom of
+his mind; and for a time he became, not a Seeker, but one who abandoned
+himself to callousness and despair. Even the affection of his
+wife--which knew no change, but rather increased as affliction and
+misfortune came upon them--with the smiles and affection of his
+children, became irksome. Their love increased his misery. His own house
+was all but forsaken, and the blacksmith's shop became his consulting
+room, the village alehouse his laboratory. Misery and contempt
+heightened the "shadows, clouds, and darkness" which rested on his
+mind. To his anguish and excitement he had now added habits of
+intemperance; his health became a wreck, and he sank upon his bed, a
+miserable and a ruined man. The shadow of death seemed lowering over
+him, and he lay trembling, shrinking from its approach, shuddering and
+brooding over the cheerless, the horrible thought--_annihilation_! But,
+even then, his poor Agnes watched over him with a love stronger than
+death. She strove to cheer him with the thought that he would still
+live--that they would again be happy. "Oh my husband!" cried she fondly,
+"yield not to despair; _seek, and ye shall find_!"
+
+"Oh heavens, Agnes!" exclaimed he, "I have sought!--I have sought! I
+have been a SEEKER until now; but Truth flees from me, Hope mocks me,
+and the terrors of Death only find me!"
+
+"Kneel with me, my children," she cried; "let us pray for mercy and
+peace of mind for your poor father!" And the fond wife and her offspring
+knelt around the bed where her husband lay. A gleam of joy passed over
+the sick man's countenance, as the voice of her supplication rose upon
+his ear, and a ray of hope fell upon his heart. "_Amen_!" he uttered as
+she arose; and "_Amen_!" responded their children.
+
+On the bed of sickness his heart had been humbled; he had, as it were,
+seen death face to face; and the nearer it approached, the stronger
+assurances did he feel of the immortality he had dared to doubt. He
+arose from his bed a new man; hope illumined, and faith began to glow in
+his bosom. His doubts were vanquished, his fears dispelled. He had
+sought, and at length found the hopes of the Christian.
+
+
+
+
+THE SURGEON'S TALES.
+
+THE WAGER.[C]
+
+
+About thirty years ago, the office of carrier between Edinburgh and a
+certain town on the north of the Tay was discharged by a person of the
+name of George Skirving. At the time of which we speak he might be about
+forty-five years of age, a man of considerable physical strength, and
+with as much mental firmness as will be found among the generality of
+mankind. His occupation, in travelling during night, required often the
+confirming influence of personal courage, to keep him from being
+alarmed; and his activity, and exposure to the fresh air of both land
+and water, were conducive to bodily health and elasticity of spirits. He
+was at once a faithful carrier and a good companion on the road, along
+which he was generally respected; and, by attention to business and
+economical habits of living, he had been enabled to realize as much
+money as might suffice to sustain him, with his wife and three children,
+in the event of his being disabled, by accident or ill health, from
+following his ordinary employment.
+
+The day in which George Skirving left the northern town for Edinburgh,
+was Wednesday of each week; and he started at the hour of seven, both in
+winter and summer. On one occasion, in the month of August, he set out
+from his quarters at his usual hour; and having crossed the Tay with his
+goods, proceeded on his way through Fife. He had with him his dog Wolf,
+who usually served him as a companion; his waggons were loaded with
+goods, the proceeds of the carriage of which he counted as he trudged
+along; and he now and then had recourse to a small flask of spirits
+which his wife had, without his knowledge, and contrary to her usual
+custom, placed in the breast-pocket of his great-coat. He was thus in
+good spirits; and as he applied himself with great moderation--for he
+was a sober man--to his inspiring companion, he jocularly blamed Betty
+(such was the name of his consort) for defrauding his houses of call on
+the road of the custom he used to bestow on them.
+
+"It was kind o' ye, Betty," he said; "but it saves naething; for if I,
+wha have travelled this road for sae mony years, were to pass John
+Sharpe's, or Widow M'Murdo's, or Andrew Gemmel's, without takin' my
+usual allowance, I would be set doun as fey or mad. I maun gae through
+a' my usual routine--mak my ca's, order my drams, drink them, and pay
+for them, as I hae dune for twenty years. Men are just like clocks--some
+gae owre fast, and some owre slow; but the carrier, beyond a', maun keep
+to his time aye, and _chap_ at the proper time and place, or idleness
+and beggary would soon mak time hang weary on his hands."
+
+He had trudged onwards in his slow pace for a space of about eight
+miles, and was at the distance of about three from Cupar, when he was
+accosted by a person of the name of James Cowie, an inhabitant of
+Dundee, with whom he had for a long time been in habits of intimacy.
+
+"You are weel forward the day, George," said Cowie. "Ye'll be in Cupar
+before your time. There's rowth a parcels for ye at John Sharpe's door,
+yonder. But, mercy on me!" he continued, starting and looking amazed,
+"what's the matter wi' ye, man?"
+
+"Naething," replied George. "I hae been takin' a few draps o' Betty's
+cordial, here," pointing to the flask, "and maybe the colour may have
+mounted to my face."
+
+"The colour mounted to your face, man!" ejaculated Cowie. "Is it
+whiteness--paleness--ye mean by colour? Ye're like a clout, man--a
+bleached clout. There's something wrang, rely upon it, George; some o'
+that intricate machinery o' our fearfu' systems out o' joint. Is it
+possible ye have felt or feel nae change?"
+
+"Nane whatever, Jamie," answered the carrier, somewhat alarmed. "You're
+surely joking me; I never felt better i' my life. No, no, Jamie, there's
+naething the matter; thank God, I'm in gude health."
+
+"It's weel ye think sae," replied Cowie, with a satirical tone; "but if
+I'm no cheated, ye're on the brink o' some fearfu' disease. Get up on
+your cart, man; hasten to Cupar, an' speak to Doctor Lowrie. It's a braw
+thing to tak diseases in time."
+
+"If a white face is a' ye judge by," said George, attempting to make
+light of the matter, "I can remove it by an application to Betty's
+cordial."
+
+"Ay, do that," said Cowie ironically, "and add fuel to the flame. If I
+werena your friend, I wadna tak this liberty wi' ye. I assure ye again,
+an' I hae some judgment o' thae matters, that ye're very ill. That's no
+an ordinary paleness: your lips are blue, an' your eyes dull an'
+heavy--sure signs o' an oncome. Haste ye to Cupar an' get advice, an' ye
+may yet ca' me your best friend."
+
+As he finished these words, Cowie turned to proceed onwards towards
+Newport.
+
+"Ye've either said owre little or owre muckle, James," replied George,
+after a slight pause, and resigning his carelessness.
+
+"I hae just said the truth, George," added Cowie; "but I maun be in
+Dundee by one o'clock, an' canna wait. I'll say naething to Mrs.
+Skirving to alarm her; but, for God's sake, tak my advice, an' consult
+Doctor Lowrie."
+
+He proceeded on his journey, leaving Skirving in doubt and perplexity.
+At first he was considerably affected by Cowie's speech and manner,
+because he knew him to be a serious man, and averse to all manner of
+joking. It was possible, he admitted, that a disease might be lurking
+secretly in his vitals, unknown to himself, but discernible to another;
+and the circumstance of his wife having put the flask of cordial in his
+coat-pocket, seemed to indicate that she had observed something wrong
+before he set out, and had been afraid to communicate it to him, in case
+it might alarm him. His spirits sank, as this confirmation of Cowie's
+statement came to his mind; he put his right hand to his left wrist, to
+feel the state of the pulse, and, as might have been expected,
+discovered (for he overlooked the effects of his fear) that it was much
+quicker than it used to be when he was in perfect health.
+
+Having been taken thus by surprise, he remained in a state of
+considerable depression for some time; but when he came to think of the
+inadequate grounds of his alarm, he began to rally; and his mind,
+rebounding, as it were, on the cessation of the depressing reverie,
+threw off the fear, and he recovered so far his natural courage as to
+laugh at the strange fancy that had taken possession of him.
+
+"I was a fule," he said to himself. "What though my face be pale, and my
+eyes heavy, and my pulse a little quicker than usual, am I to dee for a'
+that? Cowie has probably had his _morning_; and truly his appearance,
+now when I think of it, didna assort ill wi' that supposition. Johnny
+Sharpe and he are auld cronies, and they couldna part without some wet
+pledge o' their auld friendship. I'll wad my best horse on the point.
+Ha! ha! what a fule I was!" He accompanied these words by again feeling
+his pulse. The fear was greatly off, the pulsations had become more
+regular; and this confirmation enabled him to laugh off the effects the
+extraordinary announcements had made upon him.
+
+He proceeded onwards to Cupar, and stopped at John Sharpe's inn. The
+landlord was at the door. George looked at him narrowly, as he saluted
+him in the ordinary form. He thought the innkeeper looked also very
+narrowly at him, as he answered his salutation; but he was afraid to
+broach the question of his sickly appearance, and hurried away to get
+the goods packed that stood at the inn door. Having finished his work,
+during which he thought he saw the landlord looking strangely at him, he
+called for the quantity of spirits he was usually in the habit of
+getting, and, as he filled out the glass, asked quickly if James Cowie
+had been there that morning. The landlord answered that he had; but
+added, of his own accord, that he did not remain in the house so long as
+to give time for even drinking to each other. This answer produced a
+greater effect upon George than he was even then aware of; and it is not
+unlikely that this, and the impression that the landlord looked at him
+_strangely_, produced the very paleness that Cowie had mentioned. Be
+that as it may, he took up the glass of spirits and laid it down again,
+without almost tasting it; and his reason for this departure from his
+ordinary course, was, that he had already partaken sufficiently of his
+wife's cordial; and he had some strange misgivings about drinking ardent
+spirits, in case, after all, it might turn out that there was hanging
+about him some disease. The moment he laid down the full glass, the
+landlord said to him, looking in an inquiring and sympathetic manner
+into his face--
+
+"George, I haena seen you do that for ten years. Are you well enough?"
+
+"What! what! eh, what!" stammered out the carrier confusedly; "do you
+think I'm ill, John?"
+
+The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the inn bell rang, and the
+landlord was called away, and, being otherwise occupied, did not return.
+After waiting for him a considerable time, Skirving became impatient,
+and, making another effort to shake off his fears, applied the whip to
+his horses, and proceeded on his journey. For a time his mind was so
+much confused that he could not contemplate the whole import of the
+extraordinary coincidence he had just witnessed; but as he proceeded and
+came to a quieter part of the road, his thoughts reverted to the
+statements of James Cowie--who, he was now satisfied, had been quite
+sober--to the looks and extraordinary question of John Sharpe, and to
+the intention of his wife in providing him with the cordial. As he
+pondered on this strange accumulation of according facts, he again felt
+his pulse, which had again risen to the height it had attained during
+the prior paroxysm. The affair had now assumed a new aspect. It was
+impossible that this concurrence of circumstances could be fortuitous.
+He was now much afraid that he was ill--very ill indeed; perhaps under
+the incipient symptoms of typhus or brain fever, or small-pox, or some
+other dreadful disease. As these thoughts rose in his mind, he grew
+faint, and would have sat down; but he felt a reluctance to stop his
+carts, and a feeling of shame struggled against his conviction, and kept
+him walking.
+
+This state of nervous excitement remained, in spite of many efforts he
+made to throw off his fears. Yet he was bound to admit that he felt no
+symptoms of pain or sickness. By and by the feeling of alarm began again
+to decay, and by the time he got eight or ten miles farther on his road,
+he had conjured up a good many sustaining ideas and arguments, whereby
+he at least contrived to increase the quantum of _doubt_ of his being
+really ill. He rallied a little again; but the temporary elevation was
+destined to be succeeded by another depression, which, in its turn, gave
+place to another accession of relief; and thus he was kept in a painful
+alternation of changing fancies, until he was within a mile and a half
+of the next place of call--a little house at some distance from the
+Plasterers' Inn.
+
+He had hitherto been progressing at a very slow rate, and was in the act
+of raising his hand to apply the whip to his horses, when he saw before
+him Archibald Willison, a sort of itinerant cloth merchant, a native of
+Dundee, with whom he was on terms of intimacy. They had met often on the
+road, and had gossiped together over a little refreshment at the inns
+where the carrier stopped. At this particular time, George Skirving
+would rather have avoided his old friend; for he was under a depression
+of spirits, and felt also a disinclination or fear, he could not account
+for, to submit his face and appearance to the lynx eye of the travelling
+merchant. He had, however, no choice.
+
+"Ah, George," cried Archie, "it's lang since I saw ye. How are
+ye? What!"--starting as if surprised--"have ye been lyin',
+man--confined--sick?--what, in God's name, has been the matter wi' ye?
+Some sad complaint, surely, to produce so mighty a change!"
+
+This address seemed to George just the very confirmation he now
+required to make him perfectly satisfied of his danger. It was too much
+for him to hear and suffer. Staggering back, he leant upon the side of
+his cart, and drew breath with difficulty, attempting in vain to give
+his friend some reply.
+
+"It's wrang in ye, man," continued Archie, as he saw the carrier
+labouring to find words to reply to him--"it's wrang in ye, George, to
+be here in that state o' body. How did Betty permit it? Wha wad
+guarantee your no lyin' doun an' deein' by the road-side? I'm sure I
+wadna undertake the suretyship."
+
+"I have not been a day confined, Archie," said George, as he slightly
+recovered from the shock caused by the announcement. "I have not been
+ill; and left home this morning in my usual health."
+
+"Good God!" ejaculated Archie, "is that possible? Then is it sae muckle
+the waur. I thought it had been a' owre wi' ye--that ye had been ill,
+an' partly recovered; but now I see the disease is only comin' yet. How
+deadly pale ye are, man; an' what a strange colour there is on your
+lips, round the sockets o' your een, an' the edges o' your nostrils!"
+
+"I hae been told that the day already, Archie," said George; "I fear
+there's some truth in't. Yet I feel nae pain; I'm only weak an'
+nervous."
+
+"Ah, ye ken little about fevers o' the putrid kind--typhus, an' the
+like," continued the other,--"when ye think they show themselves by
+ordinary symptoms. I had a cousin who died o' typhus last week; an' he
+looked, when he took it, just as ye look, an' spoke just as ye speak.
+Tak the advice o' a friend, George. Dinna stop at Widow M'Murdo's; ye
+can get nae advice there; hurry on to Edinburgh, and apply immediately,
+on your arrival, to a doctor o' repute. I assure ye a' his skill will be
+required."
+
+After some conversation, all tending to the same effect, Willison parted
+from him, continuing his route to Cupar. All the doubt that had existed
+in the mind of the victim was now removed, and a settled conviction took
+hold of him that he was on the very eve of falling into some terrible
+illness. A train of gloomy fancies took possession of his mind, and he
+pictured himself lying extended on a bed of sickness, with the angel of
+death hanging over him, and an awakened conscience within, wringing him
+with its agonizing tortures. The nature of the disease which impended
+over him--the putrid typhus--was fixed, and put beyond doubt; and all
+the cases he had known of individuals who had died of that disease were
+brought before the eye of his imagination, to feed the appetite for
+horrors, which now began to crave food. He endeavoured to analyze his
+sensations, and discovered, what he never felt before, a hard,
+fluttering palpitation at his heart, a difficulty of breathing,
+weakness, trembling of the limbs, and other clear indications of the
+oncoming attack of a fatal disease.
+
+Moving slowly forward, under the load of these thoughts, he arrived at
+Widow M'Murdo's, where he fed his horses. He was silent and gloomy; and
+the fear under which he laboured produced a _real_ appearance of
+illness, which soon struck the eye of the kind dame.
+
+"What ails ye?" asked she kindly; and ran and brought out her bottle of
+cordial, to administer to him that universal medicine. But her question
+was enough. Moody and miserable, he paid little attention to her
+kindness, and departed for Kirkcaldy. Under the same load of despondency
+and apprehension, he arrived at Andrew Gemmel's, where it was his
+practice to remain all night. He exhibited the appearance of a person
+labouring under some grievous misfortune; and deputing the feeding of
+his horses to the ostler, he seemed to be careless whether justice was
+done to them or not. The landlord noticed the change that had taken
+place upon him. "What ails ye, George?" was asked repeatedly; and the
+death-like import of the question prevented him from giving any
+satisfactory answer. Long before his usual period, he retired to his
+bed, where he passed a night of fevered dreams, restlessness, and
+misery.
+
+In the morning, he was still under the operation of his apprehension,
+and was unable to take any breakfast. The ostler managed for him all the
+details of his business, and he departed in the same gloomy mood for
+Pettycur. Sauntering along at a slow pace, he met, half-way between the
+two towns, Duncan Paterson, a Dundee weaver, an old acquaintance, by
+whom he was hailed in the ordinary form of salutation. But he wished to
+proceed without standing to speak to his old friend; for he was so
+sorely depressed, and was so much afraid of another fearful announcement
+about his sickly appearance, that he could not bear an interview. This
+strange conduct seemed to rouse the curiosity of his friend, who,
+running up to him, held forth his hand, crying out--
+
+"Ha! George, man!--this is no like you, to pass auld friends. What ails
+ye, man?"
+
+"I dinna feel altogether weel," answered the carrier in a mournful tone.
+
+"I saw that, man, lang before ye cam up," replied the other; "and it was
+just because ye were looking so grievously ill, that I was determined to
+speak to ye. When were ye seized?"
+
+"I was weel when I left the north, yesterday morning; but I hadna been
+lang on the road, when I began to gie tokens o' illness," replied the
+carrier mournfully, and with a drooping head.
+
+"If I had met you in that waefu' state," said the other, "with that
+death-like face and unnatural-like look, I wadna have allowed ye to
+proceed a mile farther; but now since ye're sae far on the road, it's
+just as weel that ye hurry on to Edinburgh, whaur ye'll get the best
+advice. What symptoms do ye feel?"
+
+"I'm heavy and dull," replied George; "my pulse rises and fa's, my heart
+throbs, and my legs hae been shakin' under me, as if I were palsied."
+
+"Ah, George, George! these are a' clear signs o' typhus, man," replied
+Paterson. "My mother died o't. I watched, wi' filial care and affection,
+a' her maist minute symptoms. They were just yours. I'm vexed for ye;
+but maybe the hand o' a skilfu' doctor may avert the usual fatal issue."
+
+"Was yer mither lang ill?" asked George in a low tone.
+
+"Nine days," answered Paterson. "By the seventh she was spotted like a
+leopard, on the eighth she went mad, and the ninth put an end to her
+sufferings."
+
+"Ay, ay," muttered George, with a deep sigh.
+
+"But the power o' medicine's great," rejoined Paterson. "Lose nae time,
+after ye arrive in Edinburgh, in applying to a doctor. Mind my words."
+
+And Paterson, casting upon him a look suited to the parting statement,
+left the carrier, and proceeded on his way. The victim, now completely
+immerged in melancholy, progressed slowly onwards to Pettycur. His
+downcast appearance attracted there the attention of the people who
+assisted him in the discharge of his business. The question, "What ails
+ye, George?" was repeated, and answered by silence and a sorrowful look.
+In the boat in which he crossed the Forth, his unusual sadness was also
+noticed by the captain and crew, with whom he was intimately acquainted.
+As he sat in the fore-part of the vessel, silent and gloomy, they
+repeated the dreadful question--"What ails ye, George?"--that had been
+so often before put to him. To some he said he felt unwell, to others he
+replied by a melancholy stare, and relapsed again into his melancholy.
+
+When he arrived at Leith, he was assisted, according to custom, by
+porters, in getting his goods disembarked. The men were not long in
+noticing the great change that had taken place upon his spirits. "What
+ails ye, George?" was the uniform question; and every time it was put it
+went to his heart, for it showed more and more, as he thought, his
+sick-like appearance, which seemed to escape the eyes of no one. The men
+assisted him more assiduously than they had ever done before; and having
+got everything ready, he proceeded up Leith Walk. The toll-man noticed
+also his dejected appearance, and the same question was put by him. He
+proceeded to his quarters, and, committing his carts to a man that was
+in the habit of assisting him, he went into the house and threw himself
+into a chair. "What ails ye, George?" exclaimed Widow Gilmour, as she
+saw him exhibiting these indications of illness. He said he felt unwell,
+and, rising, went away up to his bedroom, where he retired to bed.
+
+The torture of mind to which he had been exposed for a day and a night,
+and a part of another day, with the want of food, and the exercise of
+his trade, had operated so powerfully on his body, that he was now in
+reality in a fever. The landlady felt his pulse, and, becoming alarmed,
+sent for a doctor, a young man, who immediately bled him to a much
+greater extent than was necessary; but the statements of George himself,
+and the fevered appearance he presented, convinced the young doctor
+that nothing but copious bleeding would overcome the disease. The
+application of the lancet stamped the whole affair with the character of
+reality; and the sick man, still overcome by gloomy anticipations, was
+soon in the very height of a dangerous fever. Two days afterwards, his
+wife was sent for; but the poor man got gradually worse, and,
+notwithstanding all the efforts of the doctor, was soon pronounced to be
+in a state of imminent danger. One day James Cowie called at the house,
+and inquired, in a flurried manner, how George Skirving was.
+
+"He is sae ill that I hae very little hope o' him," said Mrs. Skirving.
+
+"Good God!" replied the man, "is it possible? I have murdered him." And
+he groaned in distress.
+
+"What do ye mean, James?"
+
+"Six o' us wagered, three against three, and twa to ane," he proceeded,
+"that our side wadna put your husband to his bed. We met him in Fife at
+different places o' the road, and terrified him, by describing his
+looks, into an opinion that he was unwell. I'm come to make amends. What
+is the £10 to me when the life o' a fellow-creature is at jeopardy?"
+
+It was too late. We need say no more. The communication was made to the
+sick man; but he was too far gone to recover, and died in a few days
+afterwards. This is a true tale, and requires little more explanation.
+It may have been gathered from our narrative, that Cowie, Willison, and
+Paterson were the only persons who were in the plot. John Sharpe, Widow
+M'Murdo, Andrew Gemmel, and the others who merely noticed his dejection,
+were entirely ignorant of the cruel purpose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Footnote A: One version of the story says that Mr. M---- picked up the
+tramp at Cammerton, in Fife; but I adhere to my authority.]
+
+[Footnote B: Places for melting plate.]
+
+[Footnote C: This strange tale is given from materials supplied by the
+Surgeon with whom I was brought up.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of
+Scotland Volume 21, by Alexander Leighton
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILSON'S TALES OF THE ***
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