Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 02

by Unknown

THE CONVIVIALISTS.

We must introduce our readers, with an apology for our abruptness, into a party of about half-a-dozen young gallants, who had evidently been making deep and frequent libations at the shrine of Bacchus. The loud bursts of hearty laughter which rang round the room like so many triple bobmajors, the leering eyes, the familiar diminutives with which the various parties addressed each other, and the frequent locking of hands together in a grasp the force of which was meant to express an ardour of social friendship which words were too weak to convey—all showed that the symposiasts had cleared the fences which prudence or selfishness set up in the sober intercourse of life, and were now, with loosened reins, spurring away over the free wild fields of fancy and fun. An immense quantity of walnut-shells—which the mercurial compotators had been amusing themselves by throwing at each other—lay scattered about the table and on the floor; two or three shivered wine glasses had been shoved into the centre of the table, the fragments glittering upon a pile of glorious Woodvilles, all speckled over, like Jacob’s sheep; each man had one of the weeds stuck rakishly in the corner of his mouth, and was knocking off the ashes upon his deviled biscuits; and, to the right of the president’s chair, a long straggling regiment of empty bottles gave dumb but eloquent proof of the bibulous capabilities of the company. Each man was talking vehemently to his neighbour, and every one for himself; in order, as a wag among them said, to get through the work quickly, and jump at once to a conclusion. They were, as Sheridan has it, “arguing in platoons.” There was one exception, however, to the boisterous mirth of the convivialists, in the person of Frank Elliot, in celebration of whose obtaining his medical degree the feast had been given. He was leaning back in his chair, gazing, with a slight curl of contempt on his lip, at the rude glee of his associates. He had distinguished himself so highly among his fellow-students, that one of the professors had, in the ceremony of the morning, singled him out, before all his contemporaries, with the highest eulogiums, and had predicted, in the most flattering manner, his certain celebrity in his profession. Perhaps the natural vanity which these public honours had created, the bright prospect which lay before him, and his being less excited than his companions—caused him to turn, with disgust, from the silly ribaldry and weak witticisms which circled round his table. Amid the uproar his silence was for some time unheeded; but at length Harry Whitaker, his old college chum, now lieutenant in his Majesty’s navy, and with a considerable portion of broad sailor’s humour and slang, observed it, and slapping him roundly on the back, cried, “Hilloa, Frank! what are you dodging about?—quizzing the rig of your convoy, because they have too much light duck set to walk steadily through the water?”

“Frank! why, isn’t he asleep all this time? I haven’t heard his voice this half hour,” exclaimed another.

“‘Parce meum, quisquis tanges cava marmora somnum
Rumpere; sive bibas, sive lavere, tace,’”

said Elliot beseechingly.

“Come, come,” said Harry, “none of your heathenish lingo over the mahogany. Boys! I move that Frank be made to swallow a tumbler of port for using bad language, and to make him fit company for the rest of us honest fellows.”

“Fiat experimentum in corpore vili,” squeaked a first year medical student, shoving the lighted end of his cigar, by mistake, into his mouth when he had delivered his sentence, and then springing up and sputtering out a mighty oath and a quantity of hot tobacco ashes.

“Ashes to ashes,” cried Harry, filling up a tumbler to the brim; “we’ll let you off this time, as you’re a fire-eater; but rally round, lads, and see this land shark swallow his grog.”

“Nay, but, my friends”——began Frank, seeing, with horror, that the party had gathered round him, and that Harry held the glass inexorably in his mouth.

“Get a gag rigged,” shouted the young sailor; “we’ll find a way into his grog shop.”

“Upon my word, Whitaker,” said Frank, with a ludicrous intonation of voice, between real anger and distress, “this is too hard on one who has filled fairly from the first—to punish him without an inquiry into the justice of the case.”

“Jeddart justice—hang first, and judge after!” roared a student from the sylvan banks of the Jed.

“No freeman can, under any pretence,” hiccupped a young advocate, who was unable to rise from his chair, “be condemned, except by the legal decision of his peers, or by the law of the land. So sayeth the Magna Charta—King John—(hic)—right of all free-born Englishmen—including thereby all inhabitants of Great Britain, incorporated at the Union—hic—and Ireland.”

Whitaker set the tumbler down in despair, finding that his companions, like the generality of raw students, were so completely wedded to their pedantry, that the fine, if insisted on, would have to go all round.

“Let’s have a song, Rhimeson,” cried Frank, very glad to escape from his threatened bumper, and still fearful that it might be insisted upon, “a song extempore, as becomes a poet in his cups, and in thine own vein; for what says Spenser?—

‘For Bacchus’ fruit is friend to Phœbus wise;
And when, with wine, the brain begins to sweat,
The numbers flow as fast as spring doth rise.’”

“By Jove, boys! you shall have it,” cried Rhimeson, filling his glass with unsteady hand, and muttering, from the same prince of poets—

“‘Who can counsell a thirstie soule,
With patience to forbeare the offred bowle?’”

“That is the pure well of English undefiled, old fellows, and so here goes—‘The Lass we Love!’

Tune—‘Duncan Davison.’

“Come, fill your glass, my trusty friend,
And fill it sparkling to the brim—
A flowing bumper, bright and strong—
And push the bottle back again;
For what is man without his drink?
An oyster prison’d in his shell;
A rushlight in the vaults of death;
A rattlesnake without his tail.

chorus.

This world, we know, is full of cares,
And sorrow darkens every day;
But wine and love shall be the stars
To light us on our weary way.

Beyond yon hills there lives a lass,
Her name I dare not even speak;
The wine that sparkles in my glass
Was ne’er so rosy as her cheek.
Her neck is clearer than the spring
That streams the water lilies on;
So, here’s to her I long have loved—
The fairest flower in Albion.

Let knaves and fools this world divide,
As they have done since Adam’s time;
Let misers by their hoards abide,
And poets weave their rotten rhyme;
But ye, who, in an hour like this,
Feel every pulse to rapture move,
Fill high! each lip the goblet kiss—
The pledge shall be—‘The Lass we Love!’”

After a good deal of roaritorious applause, the young gentlemen began to act upon the hint contained in the song, and each to give, as a toast, the lady of his heart. When it came to Elliot’s turn, he declared he was unable to fulfil the conditions of the toast, as there was not a woman in the world for whom he had the slightest predilection.

“Why, thou personified snowball! thou human icicle!” cried Whitaker.

“Say an avalanche,” interrupted Frank; “for, when once my heart is shaken, it will be as irresistible in its course as one of these ‘thunderbolts of snow.’”

“Still, it’s nothing but cold snow, for all that,” cried Harry.

“Who talks of Frank Elliot and love in the same breath?” cried Rhimeson; “why, his heart is like a rock, and love, like a torpid serpent, enclosed in it.”

“True,” replied Frank; “but, you know, these same serpents sting as hard as ever when once they get into the open air; besides, love, as the shepherd in Virgil discovered, is an inhabitant of the rocks.”

“Confound the fellow! he’s a walking apothegm—as consequential as a syllogism!” muttered Harry; “but come now, Frank, let us have the inexpressive she, without backing and filling any longer.”

“Upon my word, Harry, it is out of my power; but, in a few weeks, I hope to”——said Elliot.

“Hope, Frank, hope, my good fellow, is a courtier very pleasant and agreeable in his conversation, but very much given to forget his promises. But I’ll tell you, Frank, since you won’t give a toast, I will, because I know it will punish you—so, gentlemen”——

The toast was only suited for the meridian of the place in which it was given, and we will, therefore, be excused from repeating it. But Whitaker had judged rightly that he had punished his friend, who, from the strictness of his education, and a certain delicacy in his opinions respecting women, could never tolerate the desecration of these opinions by the libertine ribaldry which forms so great a part of the conversation of many men after the first bottle. Frank’s brow darkened, his keen eye turned with a glance of indignation to Harry; and he was prevented only by the circumstance of being in his own house, from instantly kicking him out of the room.

“Look at Frank now, gentles,” continued the young sailor, when the mirth had subsided; “his face is as long as a ropewalk, while every one of yours is as broad as the main hatchway. He has a reverence for women as great as I have for my own tight, clean, sprightly craft; but because a fellow kicks one of my loose spars, or puts it to a base use, I’m not to quarrel with him, as if he had called my vessel a collier, eh? Frank, my good fellow, you’re too sober; you’re thinking too much of yourself; you’re looking at the world with convex glasses; and thus the world seems little—you yourself only great; but, recollect, everybody looks through a convex glass; and that’s vanity, Frank:—there, now! the murder’s out.”

“Nay, Harry,” cried Rhimeson, good-naturedly; for he saw Elliot’s nether lip grow white with suppressed passion; “don’t push Frank too hard, for charity’s sake.”

“Charity, to be sure!” interrupted Harry; “but consider what I must have suffered if I had not got that dead weight pitched overboard. I was labouring in the trough, man, and would have foundered with that spite in my hold. Charity begins at home.”

“’Tis a pity that the charity of many persons ends there too,” said Frank drily.

“Frank’s wit is like the King of Prussia’s regiment of death,” said the young seaman—“it gives no quarter. But come now, my lads, rig me out a female craft fit for that snow-blooded youngster to go captain of in the voyage of matrimony; do it shipshape, and bear a hand. I would try it myself; but the room looks, to my eyes, as it were filled with dancing logarithms; and then he’s so cold, slow, misty-hearted”——

“That if,” cried Rhimeson, interrupting him, “he addresses a lady as cold, slow, and misty-hearted as himself, they may go on courting the whole course of their natural lives, like the assymptotes of a hyperbola, which approach nearer and nearer, ad infinitum, without the possibility of ever meeting.”

“Ha, ha, ha!—ay,” shouted Harry; “and if he addresses one of a sanguine temperament, there will be a pretty considerable traffic of quarrels carried on between them, typified and illustrated very well by the constant commerce of heat which is maintained between the poles and the equator, by the agency of opposite currents in the atmosphere. By Jove! Frank, matrimony presents the fire of two batteries at you; one rakes you fore and aft, and the other strikes between wind and water.”

“And pray, Harry, what sort of a consort will you sail with yourself?” inquired Rhimeson. This was, perhaps, a question, of all others, that the young sailor would have wished to avoid answering at that time. He was the accepted lover of the sister of his friend Elliot—and, at the moment he was running Frank down, to be, as he himself might have said, brought up standing, was sufficiently disagreeable.

“Come, come, Harry,” cried the young poet, seeing the sailor hesitate; “let’s have her from skysail-mast fid to keel—from starboard to larboard stunsails—from the tip of the flying, jib-boom to the taffrail.”

“They’re all fireships, Rhimeson!” replied Harry, with forced gaiety—for he was indignant at Elliot’s keen and suspicious glance—“and, if I do come near them, it shall always be to windward, for the Christian purpose of blowing them out of the water.”

“A libertine,” said Frank, significantly, “reviles women just in the same way that licentious priests lay the blame of the disrespect with which parsons are treated on the irreligion of the laity.”

“I don’t understand either your wit or your manner, Frank,” replied Harry, giving a lurch in his chair; “but this I know, that I don’t care a handful of shakings for either of them; and I say still, that women are all fireships—keep to windward of them—pretty things to try your young gunners at; but, if you close with them, you’re gone, that’s all.”

“I’ll tell you what you’re very like, just now, Harry,” said Frank—who had been pouring down glass after glass of wine, as if to quench his anger—“you’re just like a turkey cock after his head has been cut off, which will keep stalking on in the same gait for several yards before he drops.”

“Elliot! do you mean to insult me?” cried Whitaker, springing furiously from his seat.

“I leave that to the decision of your own incomparable judgment, sir,” replied Elliot, bowing, with a sneer just visible on his features.

“If I thought so, Frank, I would——but it’s impossible; you are my oldest friend.” And the young sailor sat down with a moody brow.

“What would you, sir?” said Elliot, in a tone of calm contempt; “bear it meekly, I presume? Nay, do not look big, and clench your hands, sir, unless, like Bob Acres, you feel your valour oozing out at your palms, and are striving to retain it!”

“I’ll tell you what, Elliot,” cried the young sailor, again springing to his feet, and seizing a decanter of wine by the neck, “I don’t know what prevents me from driving this at your head.”

“It would be quite in keeping with the rest of your gentlemanly conduct, sir,” replied Frank, still keeping his seat, and looking at Harry with the most cool and provoking derision; “but I’ll tell you why you don’t—you dare not!”

“But that you are Harriet Elliot’s brother”——began Harry, furiously.

“Scoundrel!” thundered Elliot, rising suddenly, and making a stride towards the young sailor, while the veins of his brow protruded like lines of cordage; “utter that name again, before me, with these blasphemous lips”——

Elliot had scarce, however, let fall the opprobrious epithet, ere the decanter flew, with furious force, from Whitaker’s hand, and, narrowly missing Frank’s head, was shivered on the wall beyond.

In a moment the young sailor was in the nervous grasp of Frank, who, apparently without the slightest exertion of his vast strength, lifted up the comparatively slight form of Whitaker, and laid him on his back on the floor.

“Be grateful, sir,” said he, pressing the prostrate youth firmly down with one hand; “be grateful to the laws of hospitality, which, though you may think it a slight matter to violate, prevent me from striking you in my own house, or pitching you out of the window. Rise, sir, and begone.”

Harry rose slowly; and it was almost fearful to see the change which passion had wrought in a few moments on his features. The red flush of drunken rage was entirely gone, and the livid cheek, the pale quivering lip, and collected eye, which had usurped its place, showed that the degradation he had just undergone had completely sobered him, and given his passion a new but more malignant character. He stood for a brief period in moody silence, whilst the rest of the young men closed round him and Frank, with the intention of reconciling them. At length he moved away towards the door, pushing his friends rudely aside; but turning, before he left the room, he said, in a voice trembling with suppressed emotion—

“I hope to meet Mr. Elliot where his mere brute strength will be laid aside for more honourable and equitable weapons.”

“I shall be happy, at any place or time, to show my sense of Mr. Whitaker’s late courtesy,” replied Frank, bowing slightly, and then drawing up his magnificent figure to its utmost height.

“Let it be now, then, sir,” said the young sailor, stepping back into the centre of the room, and pointing to a brace of sharps, which, among foils and masks, hung on one of the walls.

“Oh, no, no!—for God’s sake, not now!” burst from every one except Frank.

“It can neither be now nor here, sir,” replied he, firmly, motioning Whitaker haughtily to the door.

“Gentlemen,” said Harry, turning round to his friends with a loud laugh of derision, “you see that vanity is stronger than valour. Pompey’s troops were beaten at the battle of Pharsalia, only because they were afraid of their pretty faces. Upon my soul, I believe Mr. Elliot’s handsome features stand in the way of his gallantry.”

“Begone, trifler!” cried Frank, relapsing into fury.

“Coward!” shouted the young sailor at the top of his voice.

“Ha!” exclaimed Elliot, starting, as if an adder had stung him; then, with a convulsive effort controlling his rage, he took down the swords, threw one of them upon the table, and putting his arm into Rhimeson’s, beckoned the young sailor to follow him, and left the apartment. As it was in vain that the remainder of the young men attempted to restrain Whitaker, they agreed to accompany him in a body, in order, if possible, to prevent mischief; all but the young advocate whom we have before mentioned, who, having too great a respect for the law to patronise other methods of redressing grievances, ran off to secure the assistance of the city authorities.

The moon, which had been wading among thick masses of clouds, emerged into the clear blue sky, and scattered her silver showers of light on the rocks and green sides of Arthur’s Seat, as the young men reached a secluded part in the valley at its foot.

“Gracious Heaven!” exclaimed the young poet to Frank, as they turned to wait for Whitaker and his companions, “how horrible it is to desecrate a scene and hour like this by violence—perhaps, Elliot, by murder!” Frank did not reply; his thoughts were at that time with his aged mother and his now unprotected sister; and he bitterly reflected that to whoever of them, in the approaching contest, wounds or death might fall, poor Harriet would have equally to suffer. But the young sailor, still boiling with rage, at that moment approached, and throwing his cloak on a rock, cried, “Now, sir!” and placed himself in attitude.

Their swords crossed, and, for a brief space, nothing was heard but the hard breathing of the spectators and the clashing of the steel, as the well-practised combatants parried each other’s thrusts. Elliot was, incomparably, the cooler of the two, and he threw away many chances in which his adversary placed himself open to a palpable hit, his aim being to disarm his antagonist without wounding him. An unforeseen accident prevented this. Whitaker, pressing furiously forward, struck his foot against a stone, and falling, received Elliot’s sword in his body, the hilt, striking with a deep, quick, sullen sound against his breast. The young sailor fell with a sharp aspiration of anguish; and his victorious adversary, horrified by the sight, and rendered silent by the sudden revulsion of his feelings, stood, for some time, gazing at his sword, from the point of which the blood drops trickled slowly, and fell on the dewy sward. “’Tis the blood of my dearest, oldest friend—of my brother; and shed by my hand!” he muttered at length, flinging away the guilty blade. His only answer was the groans of his victim, and the shrill whistle of the weapon as it flew through the air.

“Harry, my friend, my brother!” cried the young man, in a tone of unutterable anguish, kneeling down on the grass, and pressing the already cold clammy hand of his late foe.

“Your voice is pleasant to me, Frank, even in death,” muttered the young sailor, in a thick obstructed voice. “I have done you wrong—forgive me while I can hear you; and tell Harriet—oh!”

“I do, I do forgive you; but, oh! how shall I forgive myself? Speak to me, Harry!” And Elliot, frantic at the sight of the bloody motionless heap before him, repeated the name of his friend till his voice rose into a scream of agony that curdled the very blood of his friends, and re-echoed among the rocks above, like the voices of tortured demons. Affairs were in this situation when the young advocate came running breathless up to them, and saw, at a glance, that he was too late. “Fly, for Heaven’s sake! fly, Elliot; here is money; you may need it,” he cried; “the officers will be here instantly, and your existence may be the forfeit of this unhappy chance. Fly! every moment lost is a stab at your life!”

“Be it so,” replied the wretched young man, rising and gazing with folded arms down upon his victim; “what have I to do with life?—he has ceased to live. I will not leave him.”

His friends joined in urging Elliot to instant flight; but he only pointed to the body, and said, in the low tones of calm despair: “Do you think I can leave him now, and thus? Let those fly who are in love with life; I shall remain and meet my fate.”

“Frank Elliot!” muttered the wounded man, reviving from the fainting fit into which he had fallen; “come near to me, for I am very weak, and swear to grant the request I have to make, as you would have my last moments free from the bitterest agony.”

Elliot flung himself on the ground by the side of his friend, and, in a voice broken by anguish, swore to attend to his words. “Then leave this spot immediately,” said the young sailor, speaking slowly and with extreme difficulty; “and should this be my last request—as I feel it must be—get out of the country till the present unhappy affair is forgotten; and moreover, mark, Frank—and, my friends, attend to my words:—I entreat, I command you to lay the entire blame of this quarrel and its consequences on me. One of you will write to my poor father, and say it was my last request that he should consider Elliot innocent, and that I give my dying curse to any one who shall attempt to revenge my death. Ah! that was a pang! How dim your faces look in the moonlight! Your hand, dearest Frank, once more; and now away! Keep this, I charge you, from my Harriet—my Harriet! O God!” And, with a shudder, that shook visibly his whole frame, the unfortunate youth relapsed into insensibility. There was a brief pause, during which the feelings of the spectators may be better imagined than described, though, assuredly, admiration of the generous anxiety of the young sailor to do justice to his friend was the prevailing sentiment of their minds. At length the stifled sound of voices, and the dimly seen forms of two or three men stealing towards them, within the shadow of the mountain, roused them from their reverie; and Rhimeson, who had not till now spoken, entreated Elliot to obey the dying request of his friend, and fly before the police reached them. “I have not before urged you to this,” he said, “lest you should think it was from a selfish motive; for, as your second, I am equally implicated with you in this unhappy affair; but now,” continued he, with melancholy emphasis, “there is nothing to be gained and everything to be hazarded by remaining.”

The generous argument of the poet at length overcame Elliot’s resolution; he bent down quickly and kissed the cold lips of his friend, then waving a silent adieu to the others, he quitted the melancholy scene. The police—for it proved to be they—were within a hundred yards of the spot when the young men left the rest of the group, and, instantly emerging from the shadow which had till now partially concealed them, the leader of the party directed one of his attendants to remain with the body, and set off, with two or three others, in pursuit of the fugitives.

“Follow me,” cried Rhimeson, when he saw this movement of the pursuers; and springing as he spoke towards the entrance of a narrow defile which lay entirely in the shadow of the mountain. A deep convulsive sob burst from the pent-up bosom of Elliot ere he replied: “Leave me to my fate, my friend; I cannot fly; the weight of his blood crushes me!”

“This is childish, unjust,” said Rhimeson, with strong emotion; “but once more, Frank, will you control this weakness and follow me, or will you slight the last wish of one friend, and sacrifice another, by remaining? for without you I will not stir. Now, choose.”

“Lead on,” said Elliot, rousing himself with a convulsive effort; and, striking into the gloom, the two young men sped forward with a step as fleet as that of the hunted deer.

Their pursuers having seen them stand, had slackened their pace, or it is probable the fugitives would have been captured before Rhimeson had prevailed on his friend to fly; but now, separating so as to intercept them if they deviated from the direct path, the policemen raised a loud shout and instantly gave chase. But the young poet, in his solitary rambles amid the noble scenery of Arthur’s Seat and the adjoining valleys, had become intimately acquainted with every path which led through their romantic recesses; and he now sped along the broken footway which skirted the mountain-side with as much confidence as if he had trod on a level sward in the light of noonday. Elliot, having his mind diverted by the necessity of looking to his immediate preservation—for the path, strewed with fragments of rock, led along what might well be termed a precipice, of two or three hundred feet in height—roused up all his energies, and followed his friend with a speed which speedily left their pursuers far behind. Thus they held on for about a quarter of an hour, gradually and obliquely ascending the mountain side, until the voices of the policemen, calling to each other far down in the valley, proved that they had escaped the immediate danger which had threatened them. Still, however, Rhimeson kept on, though he relaxed his pace in order to hold some communication with his companion.

“We have distanced the bloodhounds for the nonce, Frank,” he said; “these ale-swilling rascals cannot set a stout heart to a stey brae; but whither shall we go now? Edinburgh, perhaps Scotland, is too hot to hold us, and the point is how to get out of it. What do you advise?”

“I am utterly careless about it, Rhimeson; do as you think best,” replied Elliot, in a tone of deep despondency.

“Cheer up, cheer up! my dear Frank,” said the young poet, feigning a confidence of hope which his heart belied. “Whitaker may still recover; he is too gallant a fellow to be lost to us in a drunken brawl; and even if the worst should happen, it must still keep you from despair to reflect that you were forced into this rencontre, and that it was an unhappy accident, resulting from his own violence and not your intention, which deprived him of his life.” Elliot stopped suddenly, and gazing down from the height which they had now reached into the valley, seemed to be searching for the spot where the fatal accident had taken place, as if to assist him in the train of thought which his friend’s words had aroused. The dark group of human beings were seen dimly in the moonlight, moving with a slow pace along the hollow of the gorge towards the city, bearing along with them the body of the young sailor.

“Dear, dear Frank,” said Rhimeson, deeply commiserating the anguish which developed itself in the clasped uplifted hands and shuddering frame of his unhappy friend, “bear up against this cruel accident like a man—he may still recover.” Elliot moved away from the ridge which overlooked the valley, muttering, as if unconsciously—

“‘Action is momentary—
The motion of a muscle this way or that;
Suffering is long, obscure, and infinite!’[G]

How profound and awful is that sentiment!”

The sound of a piece of rock dislodged from the mountain side, and thundering and crashing down the steep, awakened Rhimeson from his contemplation of Elliot’s grief; and, springing again to the brink of the almost precipitous descent, he saw that one of their pursuers had crept up by the inequalities of the rock, and was within a few yards of the summit.

“Dog!” cried the young man, heaving off a fragment of rock, and in the act of dashing it down upon the unprotected head of the policeman, “offer to stir, and I will scatter your brains upon the cliffs!”

A shrill cry of terror burst from the poor fellow’s lips as he gazed upwards at the frightful attitude of his enemy, and expected every moment to see the dreadful engine hurled at his head. The cry was answered by the shouts of his companions, who, by different paths, had arrived within a short distance of the fugitives.

“Retire miscreant! or I will send your mangled carcass down to the foot without your help,” shouted Rhimeson, swinging the huge stone up to the extent of his arms. His answer was a pistol shot, which, whistling past his cheek, struck the uplifted fragment of rock with such force as to send a stunning feeling up to his very shoulders. The stone fell from his benumbed grasp, and, striking the edge of the cliff, bounded innocuous over the head of the policeman, who, springing upwards, was within a few feet of Rhimeson before he had fully recovered himself. “Away!” he cried, taking again the path up the mountain, and closely followed by Elliot, who, during the few moments in which the foregoing scene was being enacted, had remained almost motionless—“Away! give them a flying shot at least,” continued he, feeling all the romance of his nature aroused by the circumstances in which he was placed. The policeman, however, who had only fired in self-defence, refrained from using his other pistol, now that the danger was past; but grasping it firmly in his hand, he followed the steps of the young men with a speed stimulated by the desire of revenge, and a kind of professional eagerness to capture so daring an offender. But, in spite of his exertions, the superior agility of the fugitives gradually widened the distance between them; and at length, as they emerged from the rocky ground upon the smooth short grass, where a footfall could not be heard, the moon became again obscured by dark clouds, and Rhimeson, whispering his companion to observe his motions, turned short off the path they had been following, and struck eastward among the green hills towards the sea. They could hear the curse of the policeman, and the click of his pistol lock, as if he had intended to send a leaden messenger into the darkness in search of them. But the expected report did not follow; and, favoured by the continued obscurity of the night, they were, in a short time, descending the hill behind Duddingstone, which lies at the opposite extremity of the King’s Park. Still continuing their route eastward, they walked forward at a rapid pace, consulting on their future movements. The sound of wheels rapidly approaching, interrupted their conversation. It was the south mail.

In a short time they were flying through the country towards Newcastle, at the rate of ten miles an hour, including stoppages. Elliot was at the river side, searching for a vessel to convey them to some part of the continent, and Rhimeson was dozing over a newspaper in the Turk’s Head in that town, when a policeman entered, and, mistaking him for Elliot, took him into custody. How their route had been discovered, Rhimeson knew not; but he was possessed of sufficient presence of mind to personate his friend, and offer to accompany the police officer instantly back to Edinburgh, leaving a letter and a considerable sum of money for Elliot. In a few minutes, the generous fellow leaped into the post-chaise, with a heart as light as many a bridegroom when flying on the wings of love and behind the tails of four broken-winded hacks to some wilderness, where “transport and security entwine”—the anticipated scene of a delicious honeymoon. Elliot, while in search of a vessel, had fallen in with a young man whom he had known as a medical student at Edinburgh, and who was now about to go as surgeon of a Greenland vessel, in order to earn, during the summer, the necessary sum for defraying his college expenses. He accompanied Elliot to his inn, and heard, during the way, the story of his misfortunes. It is unnecessary to describe Frank’s surprise and grief at the capture of his friend, Rhimeson. At first, he determined instantly to return and relieve him from durance. But, influenced by the entreaties contained in Rhimeson’s note, and by the arguments of the young Northumbrian, he at length changed this resolution, and determined on accepting the situation of surgeon in the whaling vessel for which his present companion had been about to depart. Frank presented the Northumbrian with a sum more than equal to the expected profits of the voyage, and received his thanks in tones wherein the natural roughness of his accent was increased to a fearful degree by the strength of his emotion. All things being arranged, Frank shook his acquaintance by the hand, and remarked that it would be well for him to keep out of the way for a while. So bidding the man of harsh aspirations adieu, he made his way to the coach, and, in twenty-four hours, was embarked in the Labrador, with a stiff westerly breeze ready to carry him away from all that he loved and dreaded.

Let the reader imagine that six months have passed over—and let him imagine, also, if he can, the anguish which the mother and sister of Elliot suffered on account of his mysterious disappearance. It was now September. The broad harvest moon was shining full upon the bosom of Teviot, and glittering upon the rustling leaves of the woods that overhang her banks, and pouring a flood of more golden light upon the already golden grain that waved—ripe for the sickle—along the margin of the lovely stream, the stars, few in number, but most brilliant, had taken their places in the sky; the owl was whooping from the ivied tower; the corn-craik was calling drowsily; now and then the distant baying of a watch-dog startled the silence, otherwise undisturbed, save by the plaintive murmuring of the stream, which, as it flowed past, uttered such querulous sounds, that, as some one has happily expressed it, “one was almost tempted to ask what ailed it.” A traveller was moving slowly up the side of the river, and ever and anon stopping, as if to muse over some particular object. It was Elliot. He had returned from Greenland, and, in disguise, had come to the place of his birth—to the dwelling of his mother and his sister; he had heard that his mother was ill—that anxiety, on his account, had reduced her almost to the grave—and that she was now but slowly recovering. He had been able to acquire no information respecting Whitaker; and the weight of his friend’s blood lay yet heavy on his soul, for he considered himself as his murderer. It was with feelings of the most miserable anxiety that he approached the place of his birth. The stately beeches that lined the avenue which led to his mother’s door were in sight; they stooped and raised their stately branches, with all the gorgeous drapery of leaves, as if they welcomed him back; the very river seemed to utter, in accents familiar to him, that he was now near the hall of his fathers. Oh! how is the home of our youth enshrined in our most sacred affections! by what multitudinous fibres is it entwined with our heart-strings!—it is part of our being—its influences remain with us for ever, though years spent in foreign lands divide us from “our early home that cradled life and love.” Elliot was framed to feel keenly these sacred influences—and often, even after brief absences from home, he had experienced them in deep intensity; but now the throb of exultation was kept down by the crushing weight of remorse, and the gush of tenderness checked by bitter fears. He entered the avenue which led up to the house. Yonder were the windows of his mother’s chamber—there was a light in it. He would have given worlds to have seen before him the interior. As he quickened his pace, he heard the sound of voices in the avenue. He turned aside out of the principal walk; and, standing under the branches of a venerable beech, which swept down almost to the ground, and fully concealed him, he waited the approach of the speakers, in hopes of hearing some intelligence respecting his family. Through the screen of the leaves he presently saw that it was a pair of lovers, for their arms were locked around each other, and their cheeks were pressed together as they came down the avenue—treading as slowly as though they were attempting to show how much of rest there might be in motion.

“To-morrow, then, my sweet Harriet,” said the young man, “I leave you; and though it is torture to me to be away from your side, yet I have resolved never again to see you until I have made the most perfect search for your brother; until I can win a dearer embrace than any I have yet received, by placing him before you.”

“Would to heaven it may be so!” replied the young lady; “but my mother—how will I be able to support her when you are gone, dearest Henry? She is kept up only by the happy strains of hope which your very voice creates. How shall I, myself unsupported, ever keep her from despondency? Oh! she will sink—she will die! Remain with us, Henry; and let us trust to providence to restore my brother to us—if he be yet alive!”

“Ask it not, my beloved Harriet, I beseech you,” said the young man, “lest I be unable to deny you. If your brother, as is likely, has sought some foreign land, and remains in ignorance of my recovery from the wounds I received from him, how shall I answer to myself—how shall I even dare to ask for this fair hand—how shall I ever hope to rest upon your bosom in peace—if I do not use every possible means to discover him? O my dear Elliot—friend of my youth—if thou couldest translate the language of my heart, as it beats at this moment—if thou couldest hear my sacred resolve!”—

“Whitaker, my friend! Harriet, my beloved sister!” cried Elliot, bursting out from beneath the overspreading beech, and snatching his sister in his arms—“I am here—I see all—I understand the whole of the events—how much too graciously brought about for me, Father of mercies! I acknowledge. Let us now go to my mother.”

It is in scenes such as this that we find how weak words are to describe the feelings of the actors—the rapid transition of events—the passions that chase one another over the minds and hearts of those concerned, like waves in a tempest. Nor is it necessary. The reader who can feel and comprehend such situations as those in which the actors in our little tale are placed, are able to draw, from their own hearts and imaginations, much fitter and more rapidly sketched portraitures of the passions which are awakened, the feelings that develop themselves in such situations and with such persons, than can be painted in words.

The harvest moon was gone, and another young moon was in the skies, when Whitaker, and the same young lady of whom we before spoke, trode down the avenue, locked in each other’s arms, and with cheek pressed to cheek. They talked of a thousand things most interesting to persons in their situation—for they were to be married on the morrow—but, perhaps, not so interesting to our readers, many of whom may have performed in the same scenes.

Elliot’s mother was recovered; and he himself was happy, or, at least, he put on all the trappings of happiness; for, in a huge deer-skin Esquimaux dress, which he had brought from Greenland, he danced at his sister’s wedding until the great bear had set in the sea, and the autumn sun began to peer through the shutters of the drawing-room of his ancient hall.

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