Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 05

by Unknown

CHAPTER IV.

As I was wending my way from the hospitable mansion of Whithaugh, up Hermitage Water, I was decoyed, by the near appearance of the old castle, to deviate a little from the straight but steep and difficult road to Hawick, to visit the ruins of this old Border keep—where Queen Mary once lodged, and Bothwell once met her—where still sleeps the stern ghost of Soulis, and the tremendous bones of the Count of Baldar. As the stream abounded in fish, I undid my pack, and, from the upper corner, extracted a fishing-rod, which I had purchased at Kendal, and amused myself, for an hour or two, in this most fascinating amusement. Alas! I have lived to see other times and other circumstances!—rivers without fish, and fishers without spirit: the one spoiled of their finny inhabitants by every chemical abomination, and the other contented with a brace of parr or a triad of minnows. But to my narrative. I soon filled a bag which I carried for the purpose, and was at last compelled to give up the sport, from my inability to carry any additional weight. By this time, I had reached the old castle, and taken an eye measurement of its meaningless and monotonous architecture. Strength and security seem to have been the only objects pursued in its erection. But time had destroyed the one, and the other had ceased to be an object. I was on the point of leaving this keep—with many suitable reflections on the changes which time had wrought since Soulis roasted his foes, or cut them to pieces in the dungeon with the saw-mill—when I thought that I perceived a little thread of blue smoke escaping through the loose stones by which the interior of the ruined walls was occupied. This naturally excited my suspicion that there were more doings going on than I was aware of; so, depositing my trouts and my pack on the green bank of the Hermitage Water, I began to peer and poke about, with the end of my fishing-rod, amongst the stones. Neptune, too, had smelt a rat, and was busy, nose, and feet, and tongue, in assisting me in some mighty discovery. But all our efforts were in vain: the smoke ceased to issue, if indeed it had been smoke at all; and, although Neptune encompassed the old tower as often as Moses did the city of Jericho, yet still the immense walls stood true to their foundation; and, night coming on, we were compelled, though reluctantly, to leave the spot. Having determined to reach Hawick this night, I pushed on, there being good moonlight, though the evening was cold; and Neptune, as usual, kept on the advance, giving me timely intimation of whatever might, or might seem, to approach us. At or near the top of the ridge which separates the vale of the Hermitage from that of the Kitterick, there stood, and perhaps still stands, a small public-house, built for the accommodation of such travellers as pass this way, dreary and difficult as it is. Into this, Neptune and I thrust our noses, and found a large family of children gathered around a blazing peat fire. We took our position immediately by the fire, and learned from the children that their mother was milking the cow—that their father had been killed in a quarry some months ago—and that there was a great number of fine-dressed gentlemen ben the house. The mother, a decent, melancholy-looking woman, soon entered, with the milk-stoup in her hand, and immediately proceeded to replenish the gill-stoup with a very different beverage, for the use of her ben-house customers.

"She didna ken weel what to mak o' them," she said; "but she thought, by their way o' speaking, and their dress, and ither accoutrements, they were maybe limbs o' the law—the deil's agents, excisemen—wha wadna let a puir body live, if they could prevent it."

At this time, one, who seemed to be the commander of the party, entered the kitchen, manifestly flustered with drink; and, seeing my fish-bag lying on the dresser, immediately seized it, exclaiming, "By G—! what have we got here?" However, he was soon disabused, if he imagined it to contain any illicit commodity; and, slipping a half-crown into my hand (which I willingly accepted), he ordered the fish to be immediately prepared for his supper, and that of his companions. They were, indeed, a jolly company, and, after a little while, invited me to partake of the produce of my own sport, and of a due qualification of whisky. In the course of an hour or two, we got exceedingly well acquainted; and I found, at last, from several incidental observations, that they had received information of an illicit still being in the neighbourhood, and were about to surprise those engaged in it so soon as the moon should set, and their approach might be covered by the darkness.

Upon finding how the land lay, it immediately occurred to me that my uncle would have contrived to turn this incident to his professional advantage. It was manifest that, although their information extended to the whereabouts, they were ignorant of the exact spot where the illicit manufacture of whisky was, in all probability, going forward. In fact, they were led to believe that an old shieling, or shepherd's hut, constructed out of a mountain cairn, was probably the place where the work was proceeding. I opened my mind to them somewhat cautiously, by proposing that they should deal with me in such goods as my pack, so recently replenished at Manchester, would supply. They were all very shy, and expressed their contempt indeed of any such preposterous proposal. But, when I hinted that I was in possession of such information as might lead to the accomplishment of their object, they took at once at the bait, and agreed that, not only they, but their wives and families, should be supplied from my stores. Fancy waistcoats, watch-chains, twelve-bladed knives, razors, snuff-boxes, and pocket-books, were immediately secured, and handsomely paid for; and Neptune and I (for I verily believe he understood the whole transaction) had the pleasure of making a very considerable profit, by gaining at least 100 per cent. upon the whole concern. About 11 o'clock—for they were now impatient to secure their prize—we advanced, seven strong (exclusive of Neptune), upon the old tower of Hermitage.

But our approach had been anticipated, and the bird was flown. Some friendly imp, one of the family where we had so recently been convened, had probably given the necessary intimation to the illicit distillers; and, after much searching, and some curious discoveries of dark passages, and dungeons half filled with rubbish, we found a cask or two of recently distilled spirit, with a few vats or tubs which had not been removed. It was manifest, however, from what we had discovered, that my information had been correct, and that, though flown, the bird would not be at any great distance. The whisky was removed to the public-house which we had just left; and, when we were in the act of returning upon our footsteps, we were met by a bare and curly-headed callant, about twelve years of age, who seemed inclined, when too late, to avoid any encounter. This excited our suspicion; and he was immediately secured, and questioned hard, whether he knew anything about the distillery in the Auld Tower.

"Na," said the urchin, "I ken naething about tilleries; but I ken weel there's something no canny about the place."

"What makes you think so, my man?"

"Ou, I dinna ken—I reckon it will be Auld Soulis' ghost; for he was an awfu wicked man, my mither says, and canna get rest in his grave at nae rate. I hae seen lichts about the auld place mysel."

And hereupon the rascal looked about him, as if afraid to speak out, and, in a low voice, gave us to understand that he had just met an awesome sight: it rowed owre the body, and owre the body, and rumbled away down the linn into the miller's house yonder. It was for a' the warl' like a whean corn-sacks, dyed black, and clinking ane against anither.

"Why, man, corn sacks dinna clink."

"Maybe no; but the deil's sacks are different. I reckon they wadna stand fire, unless they clinked."

There was no resisting this logic; so our informant was desired to show us the direction in which the apparition had gone. He pointed to a glen or linn on Hermitage Water, and to a light which flitted before us, appearing and disappearing at intervals. Down the glen we instantly rushed, through some brushwood, and along a narrow pass. When we had reached the mill-steading, the light had disappeared; and, on investigation, our informant likewise. We found the miller still at work, and not a little surprised at our untimely and really unwelcome visit. It was manifest now, that we had been imposed upon by the knowing urchin, who, to give time for escape to the illicit traders, had trumped up the ghost story, well knowing that a direct information might have been suspected. In a word, we were completely out; and, where the distillers betook themselves, whether across the Border, or into some of the almost inaccessible mountains of Eskdalemuir, remains to this day a secret. However, I had made my market, and earned additional patronage by a chance adventure, which was quite in my uncle's way, and gave me assurance that, by pursuing a similar course in future, I should undoubtedly prosper.

My next advantageous hit was made at Moffat. To this favourite resort of the invalid, the idle, and the wealthy, there had been added this season a dinner, given by the advocates in Edinburgh to the future author of the poems of Ossian. Macpherson had just published some fragments of the Gaelic poetry, and had excited the attention of the learned world, by his announcing that, if he had the means, he would collect through the Highlands many larger and more valuable works of Ossian and other bards. I had been lucky enough to have purchased, when at Glasgow, a cheap remnant of the Macpherson tartan, having heard that it would take in England—but I was mistaken; and I could not prevail upon a single gentleman or lady of any note, betwixt Carlisle and Manchester, to patronise it.

Their patronage, in my trade, as in most others, is everything. Only get some celebrated country belle to sport a particular and uncommon pattern at a market or at church, and the fate of your napkin-web is fixed. Only get the laird's eldest son to appear in the gallery, at church, in a waistcoat of a particular stripe and combination of colours, and every boor in the parish will purchase the like, at three or four prices. Only get a bride, on her wedding-day, to sport the newest ribbon, and your box is immediately emptied. It is thus that pedlar profit is realized, and a certain degree of notoriety, if not popularity, is obtained. I had got a waistcoat made, for my own use, out of this bit of unsaleable tartan—not, indeed, at the time anticipating any advantage, but the ordinary wear, from the garment. But, as good fortune would have it—and she has much to say in all professions—this very waistcoat was, in a sense, the making of me. I appeared in the town of Moffat in this tartan waistcoat, and had the good fortune, as I stood opposite to the inn-door where the company were to dine, adjusting my pack, and preparing to expose my goods to public view, to be observed from the window by Macpherson himself. He immediately announced the fact of the nature of the tartan which I wore to the gentlemen around him. They immediately began to wonder if the pedlar had any more of the same pattern in his pack; and, from one thing to another, it was agreed, at last, to address me on the subject. Down they came—for they had yet half-an-hour to wait for dinner; and, having made the necessary inquiries, were answered, somewhat shyly, by me, that I "didna ken but I micht hae a wee bit o' the same web." (In fact, I had upwards of two hundred yards deposited snugly in a friend's house, as I passed to England, besides the remnant carried along with me!) So I opened out my supply, and, in a few seconds, I sold the whole of it.

Next day, my pack was exposed at the principal well; and, to my no small delight, I saw Macpherson himself, with upwards of a score of advocates, all sporting the tartan. The thing took like wildfire; piece after piece, (always the last!) I produced and sold; and had I been possessed of double, or even ten times the quantity, I verily believe I might have sold it, at any price. The very shepherd lads, from Queensberry and Errickstane, were down upon me, coaxing and urging me to let them have a waistcoat-piece, at any price. But the more fixed merchants of the place saw my advantage; and, by dismissing an express to Glasgow, in two or three days had their windows filled with the Macpherson. The fever, however, was over. Macpherson himself, waistcoat and all, had set out on his celebrated Highland search; the advocates had returned to their briefs; and the Moffat haberdashers had reason to regret their hasty proceedings in this matter. I had, however, realized a round sum of profit—not less than forty pounds—on this hit; and was content to limit my sale to the more ordinary commodities of my pack, for the rest of the time which I sojourned here.

From Moffat, I took the road, across the hills, to Durrisdeer. At this time, the famous M'Gill was minister of this parish. He was a man celebrated, in his day, for fervency in preaching; for marrying a Miss Goodfellow, (who had paid for his education, and was on the wrong side—I don't say of fifty, but at least of seventeen;) and for his extensive powers and experience in haggis-eating. The "Kirkton" of Durrisdeer—a small cluster of houses around the church—has been celebrated by Burns, in his "Tam o' Shanter"—

"And at the Lord's house, even on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday."

This parish is principally mountainous, and, consequently, pastoral; and the shepherds and sheep-farmers were, at the time of which I speak, in the habit of transacting their worldly affairs, after church time, on the sabbath evenings. This traffic was carried on in small, thatched ale-houses, some of which still remain, kept in general, by old women. (one of whom lived to see 114 years!) and, in one particular exception, by a jolly young lass, yclept "Kirkton Jean." Nobody knew Jean better than Burns; and though, in his admirable poem, he places her near the Doon, yet, in fact, she was a nymph of the Carron, and a parishioner of Durrisdeer. It grieves me sore to say it, but Jean, though a stanch and steady believer and kirk-goer, though a great favourite with the minister, and with all the younger part of the plaided mountaineers, was detested by many decent women, and, in particular, by Mrs. M'Gill, who said she could not bear the sight of her. Her house, however, was much resorted to, and her company, as well as her ale, much sought after; and, when I reposed my pack on Jean's chest-lid, she gave me a hearty welcome, and, telling the old, blind body, her grandmother, that here was the pedlar, greeted me in the most kind and couthy manner possible. It was not my usual wont to put up in a public-house, where I had to pay for my food and bed; but I had my reasons in this case, as the reader will see anon. I arrived on the Tuesday of the sacrament, and attended sermon on Thursday and Saturday, as well as on Sunday.

Monday, however, came at last; and it was towards this Monday that I was looking during all the previous days; for this Monday was, in fact, the great market day of the parish. After M'Gill had preached in the open air to a vast multitude, (for he was the most popular preacher of the presbytery,) man, wife, and wean, master, servant, merchant—all classes and denominations of Christians—were immediately up to the ears in drink and traffic, buying, selling, hiring, niffering, as if religion and its observances had been unknown amongst them. The mind of man is a queer concern—at least, the heart, on the best authority, is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;" and, really, the "Kirkton" of Durrisdeer, in the days of M'Gill, and on the Monday of the sacrament in particular, but too manifestly exhibited the truth of this observation. I had placed my pack on a stand, by the kirk-stile; and, as the congregation dispersed, they had one and all an opportunity of seeing my goods in a state of full display. I had no rival, unless a very decent old woman might be considered as such. She sold a few articles of dress, such as stockings and plaids, all of her own and her daughter's manufacture; but mine were Manchester and Glasgow goods of the very newest fashion, and worn by every lady and gentleman of quality betwixt the two great marts. As the evening advanced, Jean's house became more and more difficult of access. My station was what is termed the spence, or the mid-room or closet, betwixt the kitchen and the ben. There I stood, with my ellwand in my hand, measuring off waistcoat-pieces, displaying shawls, and exhibiting watch-chains and knives, till late in the evening. Some moorland farmers purchased largely on credit—a mode of dealing which I greatly relished, for two reasons: first, because it gave me an opportunity of visiting them in their mountain homes; and, secondly, because I could then with a safe conscience, or, at least, without challenge, charge double the original price. I need not, and I shall not, proceed with the sequel of the evening's events. From Jean, I learned that old Fingland, who was now a widower, had actually asked her in marriage; and that, in a few days, she should, in all probability, be Mrs. Gibson. The poor, doited, drunken body had a good farm from the Duke of Buccleuch; and, having got rid of his family by his first spouse, thought himself entitled to enter anew into the hallowed and often-tried state. He lived to repent his precipitancy and indiscretion; for Jean ruined him in a few months, and making a moonlight flitting, was afterwards found in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, mistress of the public-house called the Harrow. But here my narrative must conclude for the present.

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DUNCAN SCHULEBRED'S VISION OF JUDGMENT.[2]

Well, it is always the same. We are fed by the moralities just as we are by potatoes. We must be always repeating the dose to keep the world in order, and thus it is that we go on. We see many examples of the extraordinary discovery of evil designs attempted to be concealed by all the craft of cunning man; nay, it is impossible to doubt, even with the many cases before us of the apparent success of criminal schemes, that it is a part of God's providence to lay open the secret actings—often the secret thoughts—of those who contravene his laws. The modes by which this purpose is fulfilled are as various as the designs themselves; and though some of them may not appear to be consistent with the seriousness and gravity of an avenging and punishing retribution, we are not, on that account, to doubt their authority or undervalue their effect. Now, we have a case to record of an extraordinary and ludicrous discovery of roguery, which, as well on account of its truth as the moral which, amidst all its grotesqueness, it inculcates, deserves to be remembered. It may do good too to that "muckle ne'er-do-weel," Human Nature, who is still enjoying his grin at the schoolmaster, the philanthropist, and the bible.

In that manufacturing town which has lately risen to considerable eminence, called Dunfermline, there lived, some time ago, a person of the name of Duncan Schulebred, by trade a weaver—or, as he chose rather to be called, a manufacturer, a term which the inhabitants love to apply to every man who can boast the property of a loom and its restless appendage. We believe the people of that town to be as honest and industrious as those of any mercantile place in the kingdom; but they have too much good sense to think of claiming for their entire community, a total exemption from the inroads of dishonesty and deceit—vices which prevail in every corner of this land. Unhappily, the individual we have mentioned had allowed himself to become a slave to those evil propensities which are concerned in the collecting together of ill-gotten wealth, and never left any feasible plan unattempted, which might present any chance of gratifying the ruling passion by which he was mastered. He was a little man, with a florid complexion, and the small twinkling eye which almost invariably accompanies cunning. His walk was that of a man accustomed to carry under his left arm a web of huckaback, and in his right hand a staff ellwand; and his style of speech, bland, conciliating, and persuasive, was derived from the habit of wheedling customers into exorbitant terms. He was a great coward, as well physical as moral—the consequence, doubtless, of being a dishonest trader. Altogether too contemptible to be hated, his greatest enemy was his own conscience, of which he stood in such terrible awe, that his wife was often obliged, during the dark hours of the reign of that mysterious agent, to rise and light a lamp for the purpose of exorcising the spirit which, seated on his heart, tormented him with the gnawing inflictions of its pain.

This trick of his conscience had hitherto been unable to prevent Duncan from using his short ellwand, and acting dishonestly. The moment he got into daylight and active life, he, like all other cowards, despised the enemy from which he thought himself at the time safe. In a strong-minded man, conscience produces resolution; in a weak, it gives rise merely to fears and vacillation. It is not often that greedy, cunning men are given to intoxication; yet we are obliged to add this vice to the character of Duncan Schulebred, who, exhibiting, however, the one vice in the other, never failed to get intoxicated, if he could effect his purpose at the cost of his neighbour—a result he often achieved, by leaving the tavern after he had got enough—on pretence of returning in a few minutes to the company of his unsuspecting victim.

Like many others of the peripatetic manufacturers of Dunfermline, Duncan Schulebred sold through the country the cloth he fabricated at home; so that, for one half, the winter, of the year, he sat, and for the other, the summer, he travelled. By the same means and ratio, Duncan Schulebred was one half of the year sober, and the other inebriated; for he could fleece no pot companion in his native town, where he was known; while, throughout the country, he could walk deliberately out of every ale-house on the road, and leave his travelling companions to pay for his drink, in exchange for that society which they had enjoyed.

Now, in the course of his journey, this individual had occasion, during the latter end of a summer, to be in Edinburgh, where he usually sold a considerable part of his stock. During the day, he had been in treaty with a person of the name of Andrew Gavin, a pettifogging writer, residing near the Luckenbooths, for the sale of a web of linen, which the latter, like a trout with a bait on a clear day, approached and examined, and looked at and felt, and yet still seemed irresolute in his determination to be caught. The weaver's twinkling eye saw and admired the gudgeon; the linen, to a safe extent, was unrolled, its texture felt with a "miller's thumb," its qualities extolled, and its price wondered at by him who fixed it and smiled inwardly at his profit and the trick by which he realized it. The unwary purchaser, though a man of the law, was at last caught—the bargain was struck, the money paid; and all that remained was, that Duncan Schulebred, in addition to cheating him in the manner to be explained, should, after his usual practice, get drunk at the expense of his customer.

The two parties accordingly repaired to a tavern known by the name of The Barleycorn, where they sat down deliberately, to indulge in a deep potation. In the midst of their orgies, the customer, who had a humour of his own, took many "rises" out of his companion, who submitted to his fun, in consideration of his determination to leave him to pay "the score," which would put "the laugh on the other side." As they went on in their potations, Duncan Schulebred gradually drifted from one condition of evil to another. Originally his desire was simply to cheat the writer as a man. This was mere vulgar selfishness. He would have "done" any man after the same fashion, because it was his nature. But in this instance, he was concerned in the purpose of cheating a pettifogger, whose very occupation it was to cheat every poor litigant that came in his way. Here was a great occasion for Duncan Schulebred. He felt another motive prompting him to the gratification of his wickedness, and that was pride—the pride of circumventing those who circumvent others. Ah, Duncan Schulebred! you never thought of the ugliness of this peculiar aggravation of sin, when the evil genius rejoices in itself—when it is puffed up with the glory of exaltation, when instead of being checked by conscience, it is rather inspired by conscience "turned back side fore—all the wrong way." Neither did he consider that the said conscience has an ugly trick of springing round into the normal state, with a jerk not over pleasant to sinners. But even here Duncan Schulebred did not stop, for his pride of overcoming the "devil's limb," was inflamed by revenge, in consequence of the pettifogger having traduced Dunfermline; not that Duncan Schulebred had any patriotism, even in Dr. Johnson's sense of that virtue; but that he felt all the hits as directed against himself, just as every knave is always trying on the cap, and declaring that it is no fit. Behold selfishness, pride, and revenge, all met in one purpose; and as probably the writer had as many motives for attempting, by urging Duncan to drink, to enlarge the bill—the two were antagonists worthy of each other.

Their wordy war only made the writer and the weaver more thirsty; every argument was followed by a draught, which slaked at once both thirst and revenge. The more they drank the warmer they grew in defence of their respective towns, till they came to that condition of topers, when, by the mere operation of their potations, they become unable even to dispute. All confirmed drunkards have in their drunkenness some ruling principle, which; however far gone they may be, regulates their wayward movements. The writer's habit was to sit when he thought he could not stand—one which many sober men might do well to adopt. The weaver's, again, was to walk when he wished not to stand the reckoning—a prudent maxim which never left him, even when all other ideas had been washed from his brain. It was now about one o'clock in the morning, and they had drank so much that neither of them could tell—for neither had any interest in a matter which did not seem to concern his pocket—how much would require to be paid; it was enough for Duncan Schulebred, that he knew that something, and not little, must be paid—and now was the time for escape.

"We were speakin o' the law," said Duncan Schulebred, winking with cunning and hiccuping with drink—"I fancy they never refuse siller at the bar here, ony mair than they do in Dumfarlan. There is only this difference atween the twa—that the folk wha resort to your bar pay when they enter, we (hiccup) pay as we gae oot. Rest yersel there till I cast up the bill, and if I hae ony plea wi' the landlord, ye can come and plead it."

"That's kind, Duncan," said the writer—"it will be the only plea I ever had from a Dunfermline weaver. If I gain it, we must have a—another gill."

"Twa o' them," replied Duncan, trying to rise. "We maun, at ony rate, hae (hiccup) the stirrup-cup, ye ken"—laughing and twinkling again his reeling eyes.

"O yes, but I—I fancy I must pay for that, seeing you are the traveller, and—and are besides to pay all this tremendous bill, that lies, doubtless, on the bar like a—a lawyer's memorial."

"Ye're an example o' an honest, ay, a generous writer," said Duncan Schulebred—"wha could hae thocht ye wad hae offered to pay the stirrup-cup? I'll send yer wife a piece o' dornock for that, as weel as a screed o' huckaback and harn, to keep up a gratefu' recollection o' me after I'm awa. I'll no be a minute at the bar; for it's a place (hiccup) I dinna like."

"Here," cried the writer, riping his pocket—"take with you and pay at the same time the price of the stirrup-gill—one settling will serve all."

"Ye're richt, Mr. Gavin," replied Duncan Schulebred, receiving the money; "but that's a sma sum (hiccup) in comparison o' what I hae to pay; but it's pleasant to discharge the obligations o' honour."

Now, the wily huckaback manufacturer was, as he spoke, approaching the corner where his staff ellwand lay—an article he stood more in need of at that time (short measure as it was) than ever, on any other occasion of taking off, he had encountered. The recourse to it for the purpose of merely going to the bar, could not fail to raise suspicions in the mind of the writer; but then, again, was he to lose a short measure, which, getting into the hands of a writer, might be sent—in revenge of the trick he had already played him, in selling a web of linen damaged in the heart, and that he was about to play—to the public authorities, who would hunt him to Dunfermline, and ruin him by the exposure? Not he. He besides required it for his support, for he could scarcely stand. In this dilemma, he had again recourse to his wits.

"I'm no sure aboot thae folk ben the hoose," said Duncan Schulebred, holding up the ellwand. "They may try to cheat me, seein I'm a simple cratur, besides being twa sheets i' the wind—(hiccup)—dinna ye think that I should tak my stick i' my hand, as a kind o' lawburrows and protection? No to say I would think o' usin't, but simply to keep the publican in awe, and within just and lawfu measure."

"Take it with thee, take it with thee, man," said the writer. "Say it is a—a Dunfermline baton, the sign of your constableship, and you will find the bill two inches shorter."

"Ingenious cratur!" ejaculated Duncan, with a hiccup, and the old leer of his grey eyes. "A law plea never can fail, surely, in the hands o' a man wi' sic a power o' suggestion as ye hae. But ye forget that Dumfarlan batons are no sae lang as Dumfarlan ellwands—(hiccup)—the power o' authority there's short, but the reach o' oor honesty's prodigious. That's a guid sign: our batons are short because we are quiet and civil, and our ellwands are lang because we are honest. Wad ye believe it, noo, that that ellwand o' mine, in spite o' the wear and tear o' walkin wi't, is a haiil inch different frae yer Edinburgh yards?"

This attack against the honesty of Edinburgh roused the blood of the writer, and another wordy battle was like to commence; but Duncan Schulebred saw at once, that, if he put off more time, the people of the house might, from the lateness of the hour, come and insist upon the reckoning on the spot—a measure which all his wits would not enable him to counteract. The open mouth of the writer was therefore shut, by a few conciliatory words from the aggressor:—

"I dinna say, Mr. Gavin," added Duncan Schulebred, "whether the inch belanged to Dumfarlan or Edinburgh. Ye may tak the benefit o' a presumption in yer ain favour till I come back. Mony ane o' yer tribe stick langer by a presumption than that, and, till it grows into a fact, it canna injure an honest man like me. Guid"—(he was going to add "night," and leered grotesquely at his own imprudence)—"guid—(hiccup)—guid luck to my speedy settlement o' the lawin!"

Then Duncan Schulebred staggered to the door, which he opened so gently that the writer might, if he had not been drunk, have suspected him of foul play. His foot was scarcely heard on the passage; but a sound, as if from the end of the stairs, indicated that some one had missed a step. No notice of it was taken by the writer, who sat with his eye fixed on the candle, concocting, like a good poet, one of those works of imagination called a preliminary or dilatory defence. Formerly, these works of fancy were very rife among lawyers, and, before the judicature act, they used to reach a second or even a third edition, under the form of "amended defences," "re-amended defences," and so forth. They are not now so much in favour, though the fancy which produces them is still as vivid as ever. How long Andrew Gavin sat dreaming over his intended work we cannot say; but never was poet more rudely, importunately, and unpleasantly roused from his dream, by the hand of a messenger-at-arms, than was the unsuspecting victim of Duncan Schulebred's treachery, as he was called upon by the landlord to pay the bill. He had no money upon him—the small sum he had given to the weaver to pay the last or stirrup gill, and which the varlet had carried away with him, having been all his remaining cash, after paying the price of the linen. He requested the importunate landlord to wait a little, to ascertain if Duncan would return; but the man wished to get to bed; and Andrew's credit being somewhat worn, like that of many others of his overdone profession, the publican insisted upon him leaving his watch, as a pledge for the payment of the money. The writer's pride—a quality never awanting in the race, especially when they're in liquor—was roused; he roared; he refused to impignorate, as he called it, his watch; he swore that he would rather remain in durance all night than succumb to the unreasonable demand of the publican. The man was as resolute as he, and, without saying a word, turned the key in the lock, and left the writer to dream over his legal works of fancy in the dark.

Meanwhile, the wily Duncan Schulebred, having recovered from a fall on the last step of the stair—produced by that impatience of slight obstacles which seizes an ambidexter at the successful termination of a well-concerted and better-executed scheme—proceeded down the Canongate. He was out and out intoxicated; but the wish to cheat, so long as it was in operation, kept his mind from that confusion which, his purpose being effected, immediately seized him. He was not certain of the direction in which he was moving; but he was satisfied with the idea that he was going from the sign of The Barleycorn, and any destination was better than that. A confused intention of sleeping all night in the town of Leith, with the view of catching the Fife boat in the morning, at last wrought its way through the cloud which overhung his mind; and having found himself as far as the Watergate, he continued his progress until he came to what is called the Easter Road, leading directly down to the Links. The air produced its usual effect upon a man who was filled to the throat with liquor; and every step he took he found himself getting more and more unsteady, and more and more unfit for prosecuting his journey. He was, however, still conscious of his condition, and felt great alarm lest some one should assail him, and take from him his money. By and by, even his consciousness left him, and he rolled from side to side, engrossing, for his own particular ambulation, the whole breadth of the road. Several times he came down, and, being unable to rise without many repeated attempts, lay on the ground for considerable periods. The necessity of motion of some kind is the last idea parted with by an intoxicated traveller; and Duncan Schulebred still retained it, even after he had lost his ellwand, his chief means of support. On and on he struggled, falling, and lying, and rising, and to it again, till he got at length as far as the green called the Links of Leith—an open space always as disadvantageous to the drunk man as it is pleasant to the sober. A road with two sides may be got over—the dikes keep him on; but an extended area of grass, with radiating openings all round, is a kind of place which a man in Duncan Schulebred's position, without the rudder or compass of consciousness, must always view with great uneasiness. Accordingly, Duncan Schulebred did beat about in this large circle for several hours, and at last entered a street which leads down to that called Salamander Street.

Having reached the south side of this street, Duncan Schulebred kept close by the walls and houses, stepping along, unwilling to trust himself again to open space. Alas! he knew nothing of whither he was progressing; he had lost all recollection of what he had been engaged in; he was unconscious of what he was doing; and he was utterly ignorant of all localities. As he moved past the houses, he came to an opening, and, staggering to a side, entered a small avenue into which it led, and proceeded along it, still holding by the wall, until he got into what he thought was a large house. There he lay down, and fell in an instant into a sleep, disturbed by those frightful dreams that haunt the pillow of the dissolute and the wicked.

Having lain for hours, Duncan Schulebred began at last to show some signs of returning consciousness, rolling his body backwards and forwards, as if under the effect of a night-mare of the fancy, or of that more terrible night-mare of the conscience by which he was often at home so relentlessly ridden. And so he was. Frightful dreams had filled his mind with terrors; and, having produced a kind of half-waking state, were followed, as they usually were, by the gnawing of his old enemy. A dim recollection came on him of all the wickedness he had committed—the number of innocent individuals he had cheated by his short measure and his damaged linen; the shirking of publicans, the duping of travellers, his drunkenness, his lies, his false pretences—all his thoughts being accompanied by the terrors of his roused conscience, which whispered punishment by fire and brimstone, and filled his half-sleeping fancy with vivid images of the place of punishment. It is not unlikely that this half-waking, dreamy cogitation, was aided insensibly by the painful operation of external sense, conveying some dim intelligence of what was going on around him—the operations of glass-blowing on a great scale.

A large furnace was lighted, and blown up to a red heat; vivid flames shot forth from a fire, which was, from time to time, supplied with great quantities of fuel; at every blow of a large pair of bellows, the living light flashed through the space around, which was comparatively dark, from the disproportion between the large area, and the few lights yet lighted. Obscure-looking beings were occupied about the furnace, the light striking on their sallow faces, and leaving all again in an instant nearly dark; a number of others were busy in the distance, performing other operations, dipping long tubes in some substance, and inflating a ball, till, red and glowing, it expanded into a fire globe. The dark beings were active in their movements, darting backwards and forwards between the furnace and the reservoirs, with the hot, red, glaring globes at the end of the tubes, and crossing and recrossing each other, in the dark obscure, so as to present the appearance of demons engaged in some mysterious doings of their avenging spirits. In all this, the fiery globes were the only appearances clearly discernible in continuation; the figures and faces of the individuals being only at intervals shown by the glare thrown upon them by the glowing furnace, as it responded to the loud murmuring bellow of the inflating and fire-producing blast.

This condition did not last long; Duncan Schulebred awoke to the full conviction of being in the very place of the damned. He heard the roaring of the bellows; then he saw huge red walls rising up to heaven; then his eyes turned round on that terrific furnace, vomiting forth its living fire, while the bearers of the burning globes, hurrying to and fro past him and around him, and plunging their fiery weapons into the receptacles, doubtless, of the condemned wicked—claimed, on every side, his rapt and terrified gaze. Fear prevented him from moving; his cogitations took the form of a soliloquy; and he communed with himself on his awful condition.

"Mercy on my puir soul!" exclaimed Duncan Schulebred, but so as not to let any eavesdropping devil hear him—"am I here at last? When I was in the body, how aften did I think and dream o' the bottomless pit?—can it be that I'm now in it? Alas! it's owre true! What hae I, a wicked cratur, now to expect frae thae fiends for a' the sins dune i' the body? But when did I dee? I dinna recollect the circumstance o' my death—dootless apoplexy—ay, ay, I was aye fear't for't. Yet did I no fa' doon the stair o' The Barleycorn? I did—that's it—I had been killed by the fa'. Death's a sma' affair to this. What a fiery furnace for a puir sinner! See hoo the devils run wi' their burning brands, forkin them into thae pits, whar lie craturs in the same condition wi' mysel! But why do they no come to me? Ah! the furnace is for me. I see Satan himsel at the bellows, and it's no for ilka sinner he wad condescend to work. It's for Duncan Schulebred, wha cheated the folk by a short ellwand at the rate o' thirty-six inches o' claith a-week for fifteen years—wha drank, and lee'd, and deceived—wha committed sins redder than scarlet and mair numerous than the mots i' the sun—wha dee'd i' the very act o' cheating Andrew Gavin, by selling him a wab o' damaged linen, and leaving him to pay the bill at The Barleycorn. Alas! am I at last in this awfu place!"

As he ended, he heard pronounced in a hollow voice, by some Belphegor behind him:

"Now, Duncan, thou wilt get thy fairin',
For here they'll roast thee like a herrin'."

"Ay, ay!" groaned Duncan.

Then a dark figure appeared before him, holding in his hand one of the fiery globes:—"Where," cried he, "is the weaver who cheated the public at the rate of thirty-six inches of cloth per week, and died in the very act of cheating our special friend, Andrew Gavin the writer (for every writer is our special friend, and must be protected by us, so long as he writes lying defences and long memorials), by selling him damaged linen, and leaving him to pay his tavern bill? Where is the scarlet rogue, that we may burn out the red of his sins by the red fire of this glowing furnace?"

A loud yell uttered by the Mephistophileses and Asmodeuses was the reply to this speech, and went to the very heart of the devoted Duncan Schulebred. The principal, followed by his demons, approached him; he was lying, shaking and groaning, upon his back, and looked at the legion, with their flaming brands, with an expression of countenance transcending anything that could be produced by mere earthly agony, or described by a mere goose quill of the upper world.

"What is thy name, sinner?" asked the Prince.

"Mercy on me!" ejaculated Duncan Schulebred, "I'm in for't now! An' please your excellent Majesty," replied he, in a voice scarcely audible, from the pure effect of terror, "Duncan Schulebred, wha, when in the upper warld, was by trade a puir weaver in the toun o' Dumfarlan. I did yer Honour some service i' my sma' way, and hope ye winna be sae ill to me as ye threaten. Oh, keep thae fierce fiends, wi' their burning torches frae me, and I'll confess to ye a' my crimes. Be mercifu' to a puir sinner!"

"What service didst thou ever do to me?" said Satan.

"I made ye some freens," replied Duncan Schulebred, still groaning. "I did a' that was i' my power to get the craturs i' the upper warld to drink wi' me till they were sae drunk that ye might hae run awa wi' them as easily as ye carried aff Doctor Faustus or danced awa wi' the exciseman. Oh, think o' that, and save me frae that awfu furnace!"

"Confess, sinner," said the Devil, "that thou didst that for the purpose of getting more easily quit of the tavern bills. Thou didst also cheat the lieges by a false measure."

"Lord, he kens everything," muttered Duncan—"I confess I did cheat the lieges; but I assure yer Majesty, upon my soul—now no muckle worth—that I never cheated ony o' yer Majesty's freens; for I aye dealt wi' honest folk. Surely that's a reason for some mercy."

"Recollect thyself, varlet," said Satan—"didst never cheat a writer?"

"How correct he is!" muttered Duncan Schulebred, with a groan. "Ou ay—true, true—a' writers are yer Majesty's freens. I forgot. I did cheat Andrew Gavin, by sellin him a wab o' rotten linen, and leavin him to pay the lawin at The Barleycorn—a name your Majesty, dootless, weel kens."

"I think I should," replied Satan, "seeing that is my grain, wherewith I work greater wonders than ever came out of the mustard seed. This place is fed with barleycorns—we bait our hooks with barleycorns—we spread barleycorns under our men-nets—the very man who sang the praises of the grain, under the personification of 'John Barleycorn,' and of its juice, under the soubriquet of 'barley-bree,' took our bait; but a redeeming angel touched him on the fore part of the stomach, and made him throw it, and heaven now boasts that glorious prize."

"Miserable as I am, I'm very glad o't," said Duncan, whose fears began to decline. "I wadna like to see our darling poet in sic a place as this."

"Impudent varlet!" said the Devil. "In with him into the furnace! Yet, stay. How much money did you cheat our friend Andrew Gavin of?"

"I needna try to conceal it," said Duncan to himself. "He kens it as weel as I do. Here it is" (speaking out) "and some mair—ye may hae it a', if ye'll no consign me to that red-hot fiery furnace. Fearfu, fearfu place!"

"Count it out," said Satan.

Duncan complied with trembling hands and Beelzebub took up the money.

"That is a most precious commodity," said he. "They say, above, that our dwelling is paved with good intentions—they should rather say, that it is paved with gold, a metal with which the ancient infidels said heaven was constructed. Never was there a greater error. 'The root of all evil' cannot surely be found in the very birth-place of good."

"I ken, at least," said Duncan Schulebred "that it was gowd that brought me here. Cursed trash! It is the gowd, and no the puir sinners deceived by't, that should be put into the furnace. Weel, weel has it been ca'd the root o' a' evil. Oh, cursed dross! what am I to suffer for ye?

'Yon warld's gear, when I think on
Its pride, and a' the lave o't;
Fie! fie! on silly coward man,
That he should be the slave o't.'"

"Doth the creature malign our staple commodity," said Satan, "and say it should be melted? Well, away with him, Asmody, to the furnace!—melt him!"

Now did Duncan scream for mercy, while the dark spirits laid hold of him, and proceeded to carry him to the mouth of the furnace, at last blown up into a fearful red heat. He continued to roar with very great vociferation, making all the cone ring, and casting about his legs and arms, like one distracted. Those who were not engaged in carrying him, brought within an inch of his face, their burning globes of glass, and made indications as if they would apply them to his body; the bearers, turning his head to the fiery volcano, laid it within a foot of the burning coal; the whole ceremony was accompanied by a chorus of really frightful yells, set up by the operators, and made to echo and reverberate throughout the area of the cone. Independently, altogether, of the conviction of being in the hands of the Evil One and his legions, the situation of Duncan, with his head within a foot of a furnace, and surrounded by wild-looking howling beings, intent apparently on his destruction, would have terrified a pretty stout heart; but he truly believed himself on the very eve of being punished for his crimes, by being thrust head-foremost into the burning furnace, from which no power could save him. And who could contemplate that position without horror? His agony was, in short, inexpressible, except by screams; and it was cruelly prolonged by affected manœuvres, such as blowing the bellows, and stirring and restirring the coals, to make them burn more fiercely, for the more adequate reception of the greatest of human sinners that had ever been consigned to the pit.

Having held him for some time in this position, Satan, seeming to recollect himself, cried out—

"Meph, do thou get the red-hot pincers. We were oblivious. He has not confessed all his crimes. We will pinch him for a few hours before we consign him to the fire, which is not, at any rate, red enough for so great a sinner. Asmody, lay him down close to the furnace, and now, a pair of pincers for each leg and arm. We will make him cry as loud as I did myself when St. Dunstan had me by the nose."

Then was Duncan Schulebred laid before the furnace, screaming at the top of his voice, and his eyes rolling about like fiery balls. The pincers were brought and put into the furnace, and the bellows again sent forth their dreadful sound; the howling was increased; and all the dark spirits, as they uttered their yells, danced round him, waving their red globes, and every now and then bringing them within a few inches of his face. The pincers were getting hot apace, by the fierce blowing of the bellows; and one of the legion held the head of the victim so as to force him to contemplate the instruments of his torture. Still the confusion grew worse confounded—the noise of the blowing forge, the howling of the legion, the groaning and screaming of Duncan, the loud word of command of the Prince, all blending together; while the rapid motions of the dancers, and the rising and falling of the bellows, again made the eyes of the distracted being reel like those of a maniac.

This punishment was continued until it appeared that the terrified Duncan Schulebred was about to faint. His cries ceased, and fear seemed to lose its effect over him. It was surely time to stop, as even amusement may be carried to the verge of death—and the unfortunate Duncan was more like death than life. The Prince accordingly gave the sign to his legion, and in an instant the bellows ceased to blow, and the men to dance, and all was as still as death. Apprehensive of having killed the victim by pure fright, the Prince, assisted by some of the crew, lifted him to a distance from the furnace, and having held up his head so as to get him to sit, some whisky was brought in by a Mephistophiles. As he sat pale and trembling, and looking wistfully about him, the chief actor filled up a glass of the spirits, and offered it to him. He seemed irresolute and timid—looking first at the whisky, then at the devils, and much at a loss what to think of his position. His grotesque appearance forced the chief actor to smile: the effect was instantaneous—Duncan caught the favourable indication, and took the glass into his hands.

"I didna think," said he, "that there was ony o' this kind o' liquor here. I expected naething but melted brimstone, said to be the staple drink o' your dominions. But is it really whisky? It's surely impossible—if the circumstance got wind aboon, that there was whisky in these parts, there wad be nae keepin folk out. How dinna ye spread the intelligence? Surely ye're no sae keen for recruits as ye were when ye danced awa wi' the exciseman."

"It is already known on earth that whisky was first brewed in Pandemonium," said the actor. "The nectar belongs to heaven, the wine to earth, and the whisky to the infernal regions. A thousand poets have sung about the drink of the gods, and a little old fellow—a Greek—who lies in one of these troughs, getting his wine-heated pate cooled with brimstone every five minutes, danced and sang the praises of wine till I got hold of him at the age of eighty. The only poet who has let out the secret of whisky being first brewed in our regions was a person of the name of M'Neil, who sang—

'Of a' the ills puir Caledonia
E'er yet pree'd, or e'er will taste,
Brewed in Hell's black Pandemonia,
Whisky's ill has scaithed her maist.'

I tried to get hold of the fellow, for his impudence in maligning our favourite liquor; but he wrote some sweet poems, and the gods took him under their wing."

"Ye were muckle indebted, I think, to Hector," replied Duncan Schulebred, "for tellin the folk that whisky was brewed here. It will save your Majesty a warld o' trouble; for customers, o' their ain accord, will come 'linkin to the black pit' in millions, if they're sure o' the spark."

"They are sure of the spark," replied the Prince. "But we give it here only as a medicine whereby we recover our patients that they may be the more able to feel our torments. The moment thou drinkest, the pincers will be applied."

"Then I beg leave to decline the liquor," said Duncan Schulebred, "I see nae use for fire baith ootside and in; besides, I hae renounced the practice o' drinkin at another person's expense—a tred I followed owre lang in the upper regions, to my sad cost this day."

"Thou hast paid for this with the money thou gavest me," said the actor.

"That's mair than I ever did upon earth," said Duncan with a leer which he could not restrain.

Now, it will have been seen that the truth had for some time been dawning upon the mind of Duncan Schulebred. He looked round and round him, and every look added fresh proof of the delusion under which he laboured. Peering into the face of Satan, he even was bold enough to smile, accompanying the act with one of his inimitable leers. It was impossible to resist this look of sly humour; and the whole company broke out into a fit of laughter, which made all the cone ring again. Then seizing the whisky he looked round upon all the parties, and, bowing, said—

"Gentlemen, I'm obleeged to ye for the trouble ye hae taen on my account. I see now how the land lies; but though I ken the haill extent o' this awfu delusion, dinna think that the part ye hae played is a piece o' mere fun and humour, to form afterwards the foundation o' a guid story. Ye hae dune mair this mornin for the regeneration o' a puir sinner than was effected by a' the sermons I ever heard frae the pulpits o' Scotland. I've confessed my crimes to ye, and I canna expect that this cone is to confine for ever my evil reputation. It maun gae abroad and condemn me, and ruin me; but" (lowering his voice seriously) "I will defy it to prevent me frae following the course I hae this day determined to pursue. Frae this hour henceforth, to that moment when it may please Heaven to tak me frae this warld, I shall be an upright, a sober, and a religious man; the folk I hae injured, cheated, and robbed, I will try to benefit to the utmost extent o' my puir ability; every day o' my life will be dedicated to the service o' the Almighty, and the guid o' his craturs. My first step will be to gang to Edinburgh, and pay back to Andrew Gavin the price o' the damaged linen he purchased frae me, and to settle the tavern bill at The Barleycorn, to assist me whereunto ye will dootless gie me back my siller. This resolution I confirm thus." And he flung the whisky into the furnace, which blazed up, a kind of holocaust, as a thanksgiving for the regeneration of a sinner.

Duncan Schulebred's money was paid back to him honestly, and the actors were well pleased that they had, out of their amusement, wrought so extraordinary a miracle. The regenerated man departed from the glass-works, and proceeded, according to his intention, direct to Edinburgh. He called first at Andrew Gavin's house.

"Is Mr. Gavin within?" said he to Mrs. Gavin.

"My husband," said the disconsolate wife, "has not been at home all night. The last time I saw him was when he departed with you. What have you done with him? I fear some sad mischief has befallen him; for unless he is at a proof or after a fugy, he never stays out of his own house at night. But what kind of linen was that ye sold him?"

"It was a piece o' rotten linen I sauld him," replied Duncan Schulebred.

Mrs. Gavin looked at him in amazement.

"Ay, and," he continued, "your husband is dootless locked up in The Barleycorn, because he couldna—puir man!—pay the lawin that I should hae paid, and ran awa and left him to pay."

Mrs. Gavin's amazement was increased.

"Ay, and," continued he, "I hae cheated thoosands besides you and yer husband—a greater sinner than I hae been, ye wadna find between the Mull o' Galloway and John o' Groats. If I had got my due, I wad hae been hanged, or at least sent to Botany Bay."

"Are you mad, or do you glory in your wickedness?" said Mrs. Gavin.

"Nane o' the twa," said Duncan. "I am as wise as ye are; and, in place o' gloryin in my wickedness, I am as repentant as a deein martyr."

"Repentance is nothing without works," replied she.

"Warks!" ejaculated Duncan. "Bring, bring me the rotten linen."

The astonished woman went and brought the article.

"There's the siller," said Duncan, "I got fra yer husband for that wab. I'll sell it noo for what it is—a piece o' vile deception. Need ye a commodity o' that description?"

"I think I could find use for it," said Mrs. Gavin. "It has one good end, but you will come to an ill one when you"——"roll it down," she would have said, but Duncan caught her:—

"When ye cheat yer neighbour," added he. "Ye're quite right, madam; a rotten-hearted wab is just like a rotten-hearted man—they baith come to an ill end. Oh, hoo gratefu I am to thae glass-blawers, wha hae blawn awa my crimes, and converted and reformed me!"

"He is surely mad, after all," muttered Mrs. Gavin, to herself—"who ever heard of glass-blowers converting sinners? I have always understood that glass-blowers are free livers, and need repentance themselves as much as other folk. How could they convert you, man?"

"There are strange mysteries i' the warld," said Duncan; "but we will better let that subject alane. We only, after a', see 'as through a glass darkly.' Stick to the linen—what is it worth?"

Mrs. Gavin stated a price, Duncan accepted her offer, and the damaged linen was sold.

"Noo," said Duncan, "I'll send ye yer husband."

"I will be obliged to you," said Mrs. Gavin; "and if you can get the glass-blowers to give him a blast, your kindness would be increased far beyond my poor powers of recompense."

"Ah, madam," said Duncan, "writers are owre well accustomed to blasts o' the horn, to care for ordinary wind-fa's. I ken nae better thing for an ill husband (no sayin that Andrew is liable to that charge) than a blast o' a wife's tongue. God be praised, Janet Schulebred will hae nae mair cause to lecture me! We will now live happily durin the remaining portion o' the time o' oor pilgrimage. I hae aye taen something hame to her. Last year I took some whisky bottles—probably made at the glass-warks o' Leith; this time I intend to tak a family Bible. Guid day, madam, I'm awa to The Barleycorn; and frae that I gang to a Bible repository, and then hame."

He repaired to The Barleycorn. He saw the landlord standing at the door, with a sombre face. He had the key of the room in his hand, and looked the very picture of a jailor. He knew Duncan instantly, and was proceeding to seize him, when the latter surrendered himself with so much good humour that the publican gave up his purpose and smiled at the prospect of getting his money.

"You forgot to come back last night," said the man. "Mr. Gavin says that you were the principal debtor to me for my drink, and that he was merely surety or cautioner. Is that true?"

"Perfectly true," replied Duncan. "I promised to pay the bill, and should hae paid the bill; but I was determined I wadna pay the bill. Accordingly, I ran awa for nae ither purpose than to avoid payin it."

"A trick ye'll no play a second time," said the publican seizing him.

"No," said Duncan, taking out the money, "seein I am come to pay ye plack and farthin. Let us adjourn to Mr. Gavin's prison."

"The vera place I intended to tak ye to," said the man.

They proceeded to the room where Andrew was confined, and found him sitting in a sombre fit of melancholy. As they entered, he looked at Duncan with an appearance of mixed anger and satisfaction. The latter feeling predominated, as his mind suggested that the poor weaver had been prevented by drunkenness from returning immediately to pay the bill, and had now come to make amends.

"I have been angry at you, Duncan," said he; "but I might have had more faith in your honour, than to doubt you, without better proof of dishonesty than not returning (when you were not able) to pay your debts."

"Ye couldna hae a better proof o' my dishonesty," replied Duncan, sternly; "for, last nicht, when I ran awa withoot payin the lawin, I had nae mair intention o' comin back than I had o' gangin doun to the bottomless pit."

Andrew looked at the speaker with the same amazement as was exhibited by his wife.

"How comes it, then," said the writer, "that thou hast returned here this morning?"

"I hae got some new licht," replied Andrew. "Ye ken—

'So long's the lamp hold's on to burn
The greatest sinner may return.'

I hae returned, no only to this tavern to pay my debt, but to a proper sense o' what is due to Heaven and to my fellow-creatures. I am a changed man, sir. Nae 'vision o' judgment,' penned by Southey or Byron, ever transcended that o' the bottle-blawers o' Leith."

The writer considered him mad, and trembled for the payment of the bill, which could not be extorted from a maniac. The tavern-keeper took a calmer view, and thought he was still drunk.

"What are ye starin at?" said Duncan. "Did ye never before see a repentant sinner? Bring yer bill, sir. And, Mr. Gavin, I refer ye to Mrs. Gavin for some information, regarding a wab o' rotten linen I sauld ye yesterday, bought back again, and sauld again to her this mornin."

The tavern-keeper brought the bill, which Duncan discharged.

"I cheated ye, Mr. Gavin, also o' the price o' the stirrup-cup."

"Let us drink it now," said Mr. Gavin—"Bring us a gill"—to the tavern-keeper.

The whisky was brought, and the writer took cleverly his morning dram, a practice which the craft has latterly renounced, but which they should have recourse to again, as a glass of whisky is a good beginning to a day's roguery, and has, besides, sometimes the same effect upon the conscience that it produces on the toothache—stills the pain. A glass was next filled out for Duncan. He took it up and held it in his hand.

"Your fire's no sae guid as the ane I saw last nicht," he said to the tavern-keeper.

"It is only newly lighted," was the apology of the host.

"It may be the better o' that," said the other, throwing the whisky into the grate, and making the fire blaze up. "Sae should a' burnin, fiery liquors be used. They might then warm the outsides, in place o' burnin the insides o' sinners. Ye hae seen some o' the first acts o' my repentance. This is ane o' them. Ye may hear and sae mair, if ye consider Duncan Schulebred worthy o' yer consideration, and trace his conduct through this weary, wicked, waefu warld, during the remainin period o' an ill-begun but (I hope) weel-ended life."

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ARCHY ARMSTRONG.

For thirty years Sandy Armstrong of the Cleughfoot had been one of the most daring and successful freebooters of his clan. His name was a sound of terror on the Borders, and was alike disagreeable to Scotch and English ears; for, like Esau, Sandy's hand was against every man, and every man's hand against him. His clan had been long broken and without a leader, and the Armstrongs were regarded as outlaws by both nations. Cleughfoot, in which Sandy resided, was a small square building of prodigious strength, around it was a court-yard, or rather an enclosure for cattle, surrounded by a massy wall, in which was an iron gate strong as the wall itself. The door of the dwelling was also of iron, and the windows, which were scarce larger than loop-holes, were barred. It was generally known by the name of "Lang Sandy's Keep," and was situated on the side of the Tarras, about ten miles from Langholm. Around it was a desolate morass, the passes of which were known only to Sandy and his few followers, and beyond the morass was a decaying but almost impenetrable forest. Sandy, like his forefathers, knew no law, save

"The good old law—the simple plan—
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."

He had had seven sons, and of these five had fallen while following him in the foray, the sixth had been devoured by a blood-hound, and he had but one, Archy, his youngest, left, to whom he could bequeath his stronghold, a fleet steed, and his sword. Land he had none, and he knew not its value: he found it more profitable to levy blackmail, to the right and to the left, on Englishman and on Scot; and he laughed at the authority of Elizabeth and of James, and defied the power of the Wardens of their Marches—"Bess may be Queen o' England," said he, "and book-learned Jamie, King o' braid Scotland, but Sandy Armstrong is lord o' the wilds o' Tarras."

On the death of Elizabeth, Sandy and his handful of retainers had been out in the raid to Penrith; in that desperate attempt, some of them had fallen, and others had been seized and executed at Carlisle. But Sandy had escaped, driving his booty through the wilds before him to Cleughfoot. On one side of the court-yard stood a score of oxen and six fleet steeds, and on the other was provender for them for many days. On the flat roof of Cleughfoot Keep sat Sandy Armstrong; before him was a wooden stoup filled with aqua vitæ, and in his hand he held a small quegh, neatly hooped round, and formed of wood of various colours. It had a short handle for the finger and thumb, was about two inches in diameter, and three quarters of an inch in depth, and out of this vessel Sandy, ever and anon, quaffed his strong potations, while his son Archy, a boy of twelve years old, stood by his side, receiving from his parent a Borderer's education. But, leaving the freebooter and his son on the turret of their fastness, we shall also, for a few moments, leave Dumfriesshire, and carrying back our narrative for some weeks, introduce the reader to the ancient town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

On Wednesday, the 8th of April, 1603, every soul in the good town of Berwick was up by daybreak;—wife and maiden flaunted in their newest gowns, with ample fardingales, and the sweating mechanic looked as spruce in his well brushed "jack," as a courtly cavalier. By sunrise, the cannon thundered from the ramparts. Before noon, the Marshal, Sir John Carey, at the head of the garrison, composed of horse and foot, marched out of the town towards Lamberton, firing feu-d'-joies as they went, while the cannon still pealed and the people shouted. The thunder of the artillery became more frequent—the bells rang merrily—the volleys of the garrison became louder and more loud, as though they again approached, and "He comes!—He comes!" shouted the crowd; "Hurra! Hurra!—the King! the King!" The garrison again entered the town, they filed to the right and left, lining the street. In front of Marygate stood William Selby, the gentleman porter, with the keys of the town. The voice of the artillery, the muskets, and the multitude, again mingled together. James of Scotland and of England stood before the gate—Selby bent upon his knee, he placed the keys of the town in the hands of the monarch, who instantly returned them, saying, "Rise, Sir William Selby, an' saul o' me, man, but ye should take it as nae sma' honour to be the first knight made by James, by the grace of God, an' the love o' our gracious cousin, King o' England an' Scotland likewise." His Majesty, followed by the multitude, proceeded down Marygate, through the files of the garrison, to the market-place, where the worshipful Hugh Gregson, the mayor, his brother aldermen, the bailiffs, and others of the principal burgesses, waited to receive him. The mayor knelt and presented him with a purse of gold and the corporation's charter. "Ye are a leal and considerate gentleman," said the king, handing the purse to one of his attendants—"worthy friends are ye a'; and now take back your charter, an' ye sall find in us a gracious and affectionate sovereign, ready to maintain the liberty and privileges it confers upon our trusty subjects o' our town o' Berwick." Mr. Christopher Parkinson, the recorder, then delivered a set and solemn speech, after which the king proceeded to the church, where the Rev. Toby Mathews, Bishop of Durham, preached a sermon suited to royal ears. On the following day, the demonstrations of rejoicing were equally loud, and his Majesty visited the garrison and fortifications; and as he walked upon the ramparts surrounded by lords from Scotland and from England, and while the people shouted, and the artillery belched forth fire, smoke, and thunder, the monarch, in order to give an unquestionable demonstration of his courage, in the presence of his new subjects, boldly advanced to the side of one of the cannon, and took the match from the hands of the soldier who was about to fire it. Once—twice—thrice, the monarch stretched forth his hand to the touch-hole, but touched it not. It was evident the royal hand trembled—the royal eyes were closed—yea, the royal cheeks became pale. At length the quivering match touched the powder, back bounded the thundering cannon, and back sprang the terrified monarch, knocking one of his attendants down—dropping the match upon the ground, and thrusting his fingers in his ears—stammering out, as plainly as his throbbing heart would permit, that "he feared their drum was split in twa!" Scarce had his Majesty recovered from this demonstration of his bravery, when a messenger arrived with the intelligence that the Armstrongs and other clans had committed grievous depredations on the Borders, and had even carried their work of spoliation and plunder as far as Penrith.

"Borders, man!" quoth the king, "our kingdom hath nae borders but the sea. It is our royal pleasure that the word borders sall never mair be used: wat ye not that what were the extremities or borders o' the twa kingdoms, are but the middle o' our kingdom, an' in future it is our will an' decree that ye ca' them nae langer the borders, but the middle counties. An' now, Sir William Selby, as we were graciously pleased yesterday by our ain hand, to confer on ye the high honour o' knighthood, take ye twa hundred and fifty horsemen, and gae ye up our middle counties, commanding every true man in our name, capable o' bearing arms, to join ye in crushing and in punishing sic thieves and rievers; hang ilka Armstrong and Johnstone amang them that resists our royal will—an' make the iron yetts o' their towers be converted into ploughshares. Away, sir, an' do your wark surely an' right quickly."

On the following day, Sir William Selby set out upon his mission; and before he had proceeded far, he found himself at the head of a thousand horsemen. They burned and destroyed the strongholds of the Borderers, as they went, and the more desperate amongst them who fell into their hands were sent in fetters to Carlisle.

It was early in May, and the young leaves, bursting into beauty and being, were spreading their summer livery over Tarras forest, and the breeze wafted their grateful fragrance over the morass; even on the morass itself, a thousand simple flowers, like fragments of beauty scattered in hand-fuls amidst the wide-spread desolation, peeped forth; and over the sharp cry of the wheeling lapwing rang the summer hymn of the joyful lark, when, as we have said before, Sandy Armstrong sat on the turret of Cleughfoot with his son by his side.

"Archy," said the freebooter, "this warld is turning upside down, an' honest men hae nae chance in't. We hear o' naething noo but law! law! law!—but the fient a grain o' justice is to be met wi' on the Borders. A man canna take a bit beast or twa in an honest way, or make a bonfire o' an enemy's haystack, but there's naethin' for't but Carlisle and a hempen cravat. But mind, callant, ye ha'e the bluid o' the Armstrongs in your veins, and their hands never earned bread by ony instrument but the sword, and it winna be the son o' Sandy o' Cleughfoot that will disgrace his kith and kin by trudging at a ploughtail, or learning some beggarly handicraft. Swear to me, Archy, that ye will live by the sword like your faithers afore ye—swear to your faither, callant, an' fear neither Jamie Stuart, his twa kingdoms, nor his horsemen—they'll ha'e stout hearts that cross Tarras moss, and there will be few sheep in Liddesdale before the pot at Cleughfoot need nae skimming."

"I will live like my faither before me—king o' Tarras-side," said the youth.

"That shall ye, Archy," rejoined the freebooter; "an' though the Scotts an' the Elliots may, like fause louns, make obeisance to the king, and get braid lands for bending their knees, what cares Sandy Armstrong for their lands, their manrents, or their sheep-skins, scrawled owre by a silk-fingered monk—his twa-handed blade and his Jeddart-staff shall be a better title to an Armstrong than an acre o' parchment."

The boy caught the spirit of his sire, and flourished his Jedburgh-staff, or battle-axe, in his hand. The father raised the quegh to his lips—"Here's to ye, Archy," he cried, "ye'll be cooper o' Fogo!"

He crossed his arms upon his breast—he sat thoughtful for a few minutes, and again added—"Archy—but my heart fills to look on ye—ye are a brave bairn, but this is nae langer the brave man's country. Courage is persecuted, and knaves only are encouraged, that can scribble like the monks o' Melrose. Ye had sax brithers, Archy—sax lads whase marrows warna to be found on a' the lang Borders—wi' them at my back an' I could hae ridden north and south, an' made the name o' Sandy Armstrong be feared; but they are gane—they're a' gane, and there's nane left but you to protect and defend your poor mother when I am gane too; and now they would hunt me like a deer if they durst, for they are butchering guid and true men for our bit raid to Penrith, as though the life o' an Armstrong were o' less value than an English nowt. If ye live to be a man, Archy, and to see your poor auld mother's head laid in the mould, take my sword and leave this poor, pitifu', king-ridden, an' book-ruined country; an' dinna ye disgrace your faither by makin' bickers like the coopers o' Nicolwood, or pinglin' wi' an elshin like the souters o' Selkirk."

The sleuth-dog, which lay at their feet, started up, snuffed the air, growled and lashed its tail. "Ha! Tiger! what is't, Tiger?" cried Sandy, addressing the dog, and springing to his feet.

"Troopers! troopers, faither!" cried Archy, "an' they are comin' frae ilka side o' the forest."

"Get ready the dags,[3] Archy," said the freebooter; "it's twa lang spears' length to the bottom o' Tarras moss, an they'll be light men and lighter horses that find na a grave in't—get ready the dags, and cauld lead shall welcome the first man that mentions King Jamie's name before the walls o' Cleughfoot."

The boy ran and brought his father's pistols—his mother accompanied him to the turret. She gazed earnestly on the threatening bands of horsemen as they approached, for a few seconds, then taking her husband's hand—"Sandy," said she, "I hae lang looked for this; but others that are wives the now shall gang widows to bed the night, as well as Elspeth Armstrong!"

"Fear naething, Elspeth, my doo," replied the riever; "there will be blood in the way if they attack the lion in his den. But there's a lang and tangled moss atween them an' Cleughfoot. We hae seen an enemy nearer an' be glad to turn back again."

"They will reach us, faither," cried Archy; "do ye no see they hae muffled men before them?"

"Muffled men! then, bairn, your faither's betrayed!" exclaimed the freebooter, "an' there's naething but revenge and death left for Sandy Armstrong!"

He stalked rapidly around the turret—he examined his pistols, the edge of his sword, his Jedburgh-staff, and his spear. Elspeth placed a steel cap on his head, and, from beneath it, his dark hair, mingled with grey, fell upon his brow. He stood with his ponderous spear in one hand and a pistol in the other, and the declining sun cast his shadow across the moss, to the very horses' feet of his invaders. Still the horsemen, who amounted to several hundreds, drew nearer and nearer on every side, and impenetrable as the morass was to strangers, yet, by devious windings, as a hound tracks its prey, the muffled men led them on, till they had arrived within pistol shot of Cleughfoot.

"What want ye, friends?" shouted the outlaw—"think ye that a poor man like Sandy Armstrong can gi'e upputtin' and provender for five hundred horse?"

"We come," replied an officer, advancing in front of the company, "by the authority o' our gracious prince, James, king o' England and Scotland, and in the name o' his commissioner, Sir William Selby, to punish and hand over to justice Border thieves and outlaws, o' whom we are weel assured that you, Sandy Armstrong, o' the Cleughfoot, are habit and repute, amangst the chief."

"Ye lie! ye lie!" returned the outlaw; "ye dyvors in scarlet an' cockades, ye lie! I hae lived thir fifty years by my ain hand, an' the man was never born that dared say Sandy Armstrong laid finger on the widow's cow or the puir man's mare, or that he scrimpit the orphan's meal. But I hae been a protector o' the poor and helpless, an' a defender o' the cowan-hearted, for a sma' but honest blackmail, that other men, wi' no half the strength o' Sandy Armstrong, wadna ta'en up at their foot.

"Do ye surrender in peace, ye boastin' rebel?" replied the herald, "or shall we burn your den about your ears?"

"I ken it is death ony way ye take it," rejoined the outlaw—"ye would show me an' mine the mercy that was shown to my kinsman, John o' Gilnokie,[4] and I shall surrender as an Armstrong surrenders—when the breath is out."

Fire flashed from a narrow crevice which resembled a cross in the turrets—the report of a pistol was heard, and the horse of the herald bounded, and fell beneath him.

"That wasna done like an Armstrong, Archy," said the freebooter; "ye hae shot the horse, an' it might hae been the rider—the man was but doing his duty, an' it was unfair and cowardly to fire on him till the affray began."

"I shall mind again, faither," said Archy, "but I thought, wi' sic odds against us, that every advantage was fair."

While these events transpired, Elspeth was busied placing powder and balls upon the roof of the turret; she brought up also a carabine, and putting it in her husband's hands, said—"Tak ye that, Sandy, to aim at their leaders, and gie Archy an' me the dags."

The horsemen encompassed the wall; Sandy, his wife, and his son, knelt upon the turret, keeping up, through the crevices, a hurried but deadly fire on the besiegers. It was evident the assailants intended to blow up the wall. The freebooter beheld the train laid, and the match applied. Already his last bullet was discharged. "Let us fire the straw among the cattle!" cried little Archy. "Weel thought, my bairn!" exclaimed the riever. The boy rushed down into the house, and in an instant returned with a flaming pine torch in his hand. He dropped it amongst the cattle. He dashed a handful of powder on the spot, and in a moment half of the court-yard burst into a flame. At the same instant a part of the court-wall trembled—exploded—fell. The horned cattle and the horses were rushing wildly to and fro through the fire. The invaders burst through the gap. Elspeth tore a pearl drop from her ears,[5] and, thrusting it into the pistol, discharged it at the head of the first man who approached the house. It was evident they intended to blow up the house, as they had done the wall. Sandy had now no weapon that he could render effective but his spear, and he said—"They shall taste the prick of the hedgehog before I die." He thrust it down furiously upon them, and several of them fell at his threshold, but the deadly instrument was grasped by a number of the besiegers, and wrenched from his hands.

The sun had already set, darkness was gathering over the morass, and still the fire burned, and the cattle rushed amongst the armed men in the court-yard.

"Elspeth," said the freebooter, "it is not your life they seek, and they canna hae the heart to harm our bairn. Gie me my Jeddard-staff in my hand—an' fareweel to ye, Elspeth—fareweel!—an eternal fareweel! Archy, fareweel, my gallant bairn!—never disgrace yer faither!—but ye winna—ye winna—an' if I am murdered, mind ye revenge me, Archy! Now we maun unbar the door, and I maun cut my way through them or perish."

Thus spoke the Borderer, and with his battle-axe in his hand, he embraced his wife and his son, and wept. "Now, Archy," said he, "slip and open the door—saftly!—saftly!—an' let me rush out."

Archy silently drew back the massy bars; in a moment the iron door stood ajar, and Sandy Armstrong, battle-axe in hand, burst into the court-yard, and into the midst of his besiegers. There was not a man amongst them that had not heard of the "terrible Jeddart-staff o' Sandy Armstrong." He cleaved them down before him—his very voice augmented their confusion—they shrank back at his approach; and while some fled from the infuriated cattle, others fled from the arm of the freebooter. In a few seconds he reached the gap in the court-wall—he rushed upon the moss;—darkness had begun, and a thick vapour was rising from the morass. "Follow me who dare!" shouted Sandy Armstrong.

Archy withdrew into a niche in the passage, as his father rushed out;—and as the besiegers speedily burst into the house, amongst them was one of the muffled men[6] bearing a torch in his hand. Revenge fired the young Borderer, and, with his Jedburgh-staff, he made a dash at the hand of the traitor. The torch fell upon the floor, and with it three of the fingers that grasped it. The besiegers were instantly enveloped in gloom, and Archy, escaping from the niche from whence he had struck the blow, said unto himself—"I've gien ye a mark to find out who you are, neighbour."

The besiegers took possession of Cleughfoot, and the chief men of the party remained in it daring the night, while a portion of their followers occupied the court-yard, and others, with their horses, remained on the morass. Archy and his mother were turned from their dwelling, and placed under a guard upon the moss, where they remained throughout the night; and, in the morning, Cleughfoot was blown up before them. They were conveyed as prisoners to Sir William Selby, who had fixed his quarters near Langholm.

"Whom do ye bring me here?" inquired the new-made knight; "a wife and bairn!—Hae ye been catching sparrows and let the eagle escape?—Whar hae ye the head and the hand o' the outlaw?"

"Troth, Sir Knight," replied an officer, "and his head is where it shouldna be—on his ain shouthers. At the darkenin' he escaped upon the moss; three troopers, guided by a muffler and a sleuth-dog, pursued him; an' as we crossed the bog this mornin', we found ane o' the troopers sunk to the middle in't, an' his horse below him; and far'er on were the dead bodies o' the other twa, the sleuth-dog, and the muffled man. I am sorry, therefore, to inform ye, Sir Knight, that Sandy Armstrong has escaped, but we hae made a bonefire o' his keep, an' brought ye his wife and his son—wha are Armstrongs, soul and body o' them—to do wi' them as ye may judge proper."

"Tuts, man," replied Sir William, "wad he hae us to disgrace our royal commission by hangin' an auld wife an a bairn? Gae awa, ye limmer, ye—gae awa wi' your brat," he added, addressing Elspeth, "an' learn to live like honest folk; or, if ye fa' in my way again, ye shall dance by the crook frae a woodie."

"Where can I gang?" said she sorrowfully, as she withdrew. "O Archy! we hae neither house nor hauld—friend nor kindred!—an' wha will shelter the wife and bairn o' poor persecuted Sandy Armstrong!"

"Dinna fret, mother," said Archy; "though they hae burned Cleughfoot, the stanes are still left, an' I can soon big a bit place to stop in; nor, while there's a hare in Tarras wood, or a sheep on the Leadhills, shall ye ever want, mother."

They returned in sorrow to the heap of ruins that had been their habitation; and Elspeth, in the bitterness of her spirit, sat down upon the stones and wept. But after she had wept long, and the sound of her lamentation had howled across the desert, she arose and assisted her son in constructing a hut from the ruins, in which they might lay their heads. In two days it was completed, but, on the third day, the disconsolate wife of the freebooter sank on her bed of rushes, and the sickness of death was in her heart.

"Oh, speak to me, mother!" cried Archy; "what—what can I do for ye?"

"Naethin', my bairn!—naethin'!" groaned the dying woman—"the sun's fa'in dark on the een o' Elspeth Armstrong; but, oh, may the saunts o' heaven protect my poor Archy!"

She tried to repeat the only prayer she had ever learned—for religion was as little understood in the house of a freebooter as the eighth commandment. Poor Archy wrung his hands and sobbed aloud.

"Dinna die, mother—oh! dinna die!" he exclaimed, "or what will become o' your Archy!" He rushed from the hut, and with a broken vessel which he had found among the ruins, he brought water from the rivulet. He applied it to her lips—he bathed her brow—"O mother! mother, dinna die!" he cried again, "and I will get you bread too!" He again hurried from the hut, and bounded across the moss with the fleetness of a young deer. It was four long miles to the nearest habitation, and in it dwelt Ringan Scott, a dependent of the Buccleuchs. There had never been friendship between his family and that of Sandy Armstrong, but, in the agony of Archy's feelings, he stopped not to think of that nor of aught but his dying mother. He rushed into the house—"Gie me bread!" he exclaimed wildly, "for the love o' heaven gie me bread, for my mother is perishin'!"

"Let her perish!—an may ye a' perish!" said a young man, the son of Ringan, who stood by the fire with his right hand in a sling, "ye's get nae bread here."

"I maun!—I shall!" cried Archy, vehemently. Half of a coarse cake lay upon the table; he snatched it up, and rushed out of the house. They pursued him for a time, but affection and despair gave wings to his speed. Breathless, he reached the wretched hut, and, on entering, he cried—"Mother, here is bread! I have gotten't! I have gotten't!" But his mother answered him not. "Speak, mother! O mother, speak! here is bread now—eat it an' ye'll be better," he cried, but his mother was still silent. He took her hand in his—"Are ye sleepin', mother?" he added—"here is bread!" He shook her gently, but she stirred not. He placed his hand upon her face; it was cold as the rude walls of the hut, and her extended arms were stiff and motionless. He raised them, and they fell heavily and lifeless. "Mother!—mother!" screamed Archy; but his mother was dead! He rushed from the hut wildly, tearing his hair—he flung himself upon the ground—he called upon his father, and the glens of Tarras echoed the cry; but no father was near to answer. He flew back to the hut. He knelt by his mother's corpse—he rubbed her face and her bosom—he placed his lips to hers, and again he invoked her to speak. Night drew on, and, as darkness fell over the ghastly features of the corpse, he fled with terror from the hut, and wandered weeping throughout the night upon the moss. At sunrise he returned, and again sat down and wept by the dead body of his mother. He became familiar with death, and his terror died away. Two nights more passed on, and the boy sat in the desolate hut in the wilderness, watching and mourning over the lifeless body of his mother. On the fourth day, he took a fragment of the iron gate, and began to dig her grave. He raised the dead body in his arms, and weeping, screaming, as he went, he bore it to the tomb he had prepared for it. He gently placed it in the cold earth, and covered it with the moss and the green sod. All the day long he toiled in rolling and carrying stones from the ruins of his father's house, to erect a cairn over his mother's grave. When his task was done; he wrung his hands, and exclaimed, "Now, poor Archy Armstrong hasna a friend in the wide world!" While he yet stood mourning over the new-made grave, a party of horsemen, who were still in quest of his father, rode up and accosted him. His tragic tale was soon told, and, in the bitterness of his heart, he accused them as being the murderers of his father and his mother. Amongst them was one of the chief men of the Elliot clan, who held lands in the neighbourhood. He felt compassion for Archy, and he admired his spirit; and, desiring him to follow him, he promised to provide for him. Archy reluctantly obeyed, and he was employed to watch the sheep of his protector on the hills.

Eighteen years passed away. Archy was now thirty years of age; he had learned to read, and even to write, like the monks that were in Melrose. He was the principal herdsman of his early benefactor, and was as much beloved as his father had been feared. But at times the spirit of the freebooter would burst forth; and he had not forgiven the persecutors, or, as he called them, the murderers of his parents. Amongst these was one called "Fingerless Dick," the son of Ringan Scott, of whom we have spoken. Archy had long known that he was one of the muffled men who had conducted Selby's horsemen to his father's house, and that he was the same from whose hand he had dashed the torch with his battle-axe. Now, there was to be a football fray in Liddesdale, and the Borderers thronged to it from many miles. Archy was there, and there also was his enemy—"Fingerless Dick." They quarrelled—they closed—both came to the ground, but Scott was undermost. He drew his knife—he stabbed his antagonist in the side—he was repeating the thrust, when Archy wrenched the weapon from his hand, and, in the fury of the moment, plunged it in his breast. At first the wound was believed to be mortal, and an attempt was made to seize Archy, but clutching an oaken cudgel from the hands of one who stood near him—"Lay hands on me wha dare!" he cried, as he brandished it in the air, and fled at his utmost speed.

Archy knew that though his enemy might recover, the Scotts would let loose the tender mercies of the law upon his head, and instead of returning to the house of his master, he sought safety in concealment.

On the third day after the fray in Liddesdale, he entered Dumfries. He was weary and wayworn, for he had fled from hill to hill, and from glen to glen, fearing pursuit. He inquired for a lodging, and was shown to a small house near the foot of a street leading to the river, and which, we believe, is now called the Bank Vennel; and in which, he was told, "the pig folk and other travellers put up for the night." There was a motley group in the house, beggars and chapmen, and amongst the former was an old man of uncommon stature; and his hair, as white as snow, descended down upon his shoulders. His beard was of equal whiteness, and fell upon his breast. An old grey cloak covered his person, which was fastened round his body with a piece of rope instead of a girdle. He appeared as one who had been in foreign wars, and he wore a shade or patch over his left eye. He spoke but little, but he gazed often and wistfully on the countenance of Archy, and more than once a tear found its way down his weather-beaten cheeks. In the morning when Archy rose to depart, "Whither gang ye, young man?" inquired the old beggar, earnestly—"are ye for the north or for the south?"

"Wherefore spier ye, auld man?" replied Archy.

"I hae a cause, an' ane that winna harm ye," said the stranger, "if ye will thole an auld man's company for a little way."

Archy agreed that he should accompany him, and they took the road towards Annan together. It was a calm and glorious morning: the Solway flashed in the sunlight like a silver lake, and not a cloud rested on the brow of the majestic Criffel. For the space of three miles they proceeded in silence, but the old man sighed oft and heavily, as though his spirit were troubled. "Let us rest here for a few minutes," said he, as he sat down on a green knoll by the way-side, and gazing steadfastly in Archy's face—"Young man," he added, "your face brings owre my heart the memories o' thirty years—and, oh! persecuted as the name is—answer me truly if your name be Armstrong?"

"It is!" replied Archy, "and perish the son o' Sandy Armstrong when he disowns it!"

"An' your faither—your mother," continued the old man, hesitating as he spoke—"do they—does she live?"

In a few words Archy told of his father's persecution—of his being hunted from the country like a wild beast—of the destruction of the home of his childhood—of his mother's death, and of her burial by his own hands in the wilderness.

"Oh! my poor Elspeth!" cried the aged beggar, "Archy! my son! my son! I am your faither! Sandy Armstrong, the outlaw!"

"My faither!" exclaimed Archy, pressing the beggar to his breast. When they had wept together,—"Let us gae nae farer south," said the old man, "but let us return to Tarras moss, that when the hand o' death comes, ye may lay me down in peace by the side of my Elspeth."

With a sorrowful heart Archy told his father that he was flying from the law and the vengeance of the Scotts. "Gie them gowd as a peace-offering," said the old man, and he pulled from beneath his coarse cloak a leathern purse, filled with gold, and placed it in the hands of his son. For nearly twenty years Sandy had served in foreign wars, and obtained honours and rewards; and on visiting his native land, he had assumed the beggar's garb for safety. They returned to Tarras-side together, and a few yellow coins quashed the prosecution of "Fingerless Dick." Archy married the daughter of his former employer, and became a sheep-farmer; and, at the age of fourscore years and ten, the old freebooter closed his eyes in peace in the house of his son, and in the midst of his grandchildren, and was buried, according to his own request, by the side of Elspeth in the wilderness.

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THE DOUBLE-BEDDED ROOM.

"Say you love
His person—be not asham'd of't; he's a man,
For whose embraces, though Endymion
Lay sleeping by, Cynthia would leave her orb,
And exchange kisses with him."

Massinger.

The morn was fair, the sky was clear, when Mr. Andrew Micklewhame set his foot aboard one of the "Stirling, Alloa, and Kincardine Steam Company's" boats, at the Chain Pier, Newhaven, for the purpose of proceeding to the first-named place, on a visit to his old friend, Davie Kerr, who had been, for upwards of twenty years, a respectable iron-monger in that romantic town. On reaching Alloa, however, where, as every one knows, the steamers pause for such length of time as enables them to take in a supply of coals, and the tide to run up, it began to rain, in the manner best expressed by the household phrase, "auld wives and pipe stapples." Notwithstanding this, Andrew being determined to make the most of his time—for a week was the utmost limit of his leave of absence from the Edinburgh cloth establishment, in which he was in the habit of wearing away his days and his coat sleeves—ascended from the cabin where he had been luxuriating over the only volume—the first of "Wilson's Tales of the Borders"—of which its library could boast; and unfurling his umbrella, walked ashore in the fond hope of seeing or hearing something worth the seeing or hearing. And Andrew was not disappointed; for, to his unspeakable delight, he descried against the gable-end of a white house, a play-bill, on which "Venice Preserved," appeared in letters of half-an-inch deep; the part of Pierre, by Mr. Ferdinand Gustavus Trash, and Jaffier, by Mr. Henry Watkins. The afterpiece, "Rob Roy." Being extremely partial to theatrical amusements, of whatever description, and, moreover, being a contributor to a dramatic review published weekly in the Scottish metropolis, it occurred to Mr. Andrew Micklewhame that here he might, in all probability, find materials sufficient on which to establish a funny critique, that would print to the extent of at least six of the twelve pages of the aforesaid dramatic review, and yield him good pay. Such an opportunity was not to be lost. He, therefore, resolved on remaining at Alloa that night to witness the performances, and proceeding to Stirling next morning by the earliest conveyance.

Having arranged this to his own content, he stalked majestically into an inn—without stopping to notice the sign which projected angularly over the door, bearing the representation of a ship in full sail, among emerald waves, with moon-rakers and sky-scrapers ingeniously mixed up with the indigo clouds above—and stoutly called for a pint of porter and a biscuit, to take the edge off his appetite. This inn rejoiced not in a landlord; he that was the landlord had, some twelve years before, taken himself off to "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns;" and his widow had not been lucky enough to meet with another ready and willing to let himself become entangled with her in the meshes of matrimony. The waiters who had, in her husband's time, been wont to serve the customers, had either died out, or gone to other and better situations, and left her with one solitary maid of all work—the same who had officiated as barmaid to the inn for fifteen years.

This maid of all work—Kirsty by name—was a tall, hard-featured woman, of—by her own acknowledgment—two-and-forty; not very tidy in her adornment, nor very bewitching in her manner. She it was who brought Mr. Andrew Micklewhame the pint of porter and the biscuit.

"I suppose, my dear!" said Andrew—(he had been a gay deceiver in his youth, and, ever since that period, the phrase, "my dear!" had stuck to him, and always when speaking to a female did he use it)—"I suppose, my dear," continued he, "I can have tea, and a beef-steak, or something of that kind, to it, in"—(here he stopped, and looked at his watch, from which he ascertained that it was then half-past four o'clock)—"in an hour and a half; and, as I purpose staying here to-night, I should like a bed. Will you arrange this for me?"

"Ye can easily get yer tea, sir," said the woman of forty-two, looking pleased at being addressed, "my dear;" "but, as for the bed, unless ye like to sleep in a dooble-bedded room, we canna gie ye accomodation. The lad that sleeps in ane o' the beds, is a decent sort o' a callant. We dinna ken much aboot him though; for he only comes here at nicht for his bed; and in the mornings, after his breakfast, awa' he gangs, and we never sees his face till nicht again; except upon the Sundays, when he aye has a pairty o' braw leddies an' gentlemen to dinner wi' him. He has leeved that way for a fortnicht or three weeks; an' my mistress hasna been the woman to ask him for a penny. Fegs! I'm thinkin' she has taen a notion o' the callant. What he is or what he diz we dinna ken, an' naebody can tell us."

"Mysterious being!" inwardly ejaculated (as the novelists' phrase goes) Mr. Micklewhame; then turning to Kirsty, with an inquiring look, he said—"Is he genteel in appearance? of good address? of pleasing manner? Is he"——

"Ou, ay!" was the reply; "he's a' that—I never see'd a genteeler young man in a' my days; and sae handsome too; sic black whiskers, an' sae broad aboot the shouthers. My certie, he's a stalworth chiel. An', as for his address; heth man, he often gies me a kiss in the mornings as he gangs oot, and promises me anither whan he comes back again. Ye needna be the least feared to sleep in the same room wi' him."

"Feared!" muttered Micklewhame. "Afraid of a man with black whiskers and broad shoulders! I flatter myself I never was afraid in my life." So saying, he elevated himself on his pins to the same degree as he rose at that moment in his own estimation. Then turning to the table whereon he had deposited his hat, he seized it up, and, with a dexterous jerk, stuck it on his head, at the same time exclaiming—"You may prepare the bed for me—I'll sleep in the room with this mysterious man; and, while the tea is getting ready, I'll just take a short stroll."

With these words he left the inn.

Mr. Andrew Micklewhame was a middle-aged man, with a rotundity of corpus, and a bachelor to boot. In his youthful days his love for the fair sex had partaken more of a general than a particular character; and now that he had arrived at the meridian of life, his taste had grown too particular for him to choose a partner for the remainder of his days from among those unmarried ladies whom he ranked among his acquaintances. "Girls," he would say, "are not now half so pretty, nor half so domestic, as they were in my young days." Then he would enter into a long tirade against the march of intellect, usually ending with a few observations upon pianoforte playing, and cooking a beef-steak, the latter accomplishment being in his opinion—as it is in that of every well-thinking person—the greater accomplishment of the two. One lady was too young; another was too old; a third was too tall; a fourth was too small; a fifth had no money; a sixth had money, but was downright ugly; a seventh was ill-tempered: in short, with every one on whom his matrimonial ideas had condescended to settle, he had some fault to find. There is no pleasing one who is predetermined not to be pleased.

Once, indeed, at a party to which he had been accidentally invited, he had felt a kind of a sort of a nervous tremulousness come over him on being set down at the supper table beside a lady, who, he discovered, was a widow; not from her garb, however; for widows—that is, young widows free of encumbrance—usually dress themselves in a much gayer manner than they were wont to do when "nice young maidens." He had made himself as agreeable as it was in his power to do, drinking wine with her at least half-a-dozen times, and otherwise doing, as he supposed, "the polite." Nay, he even went so far as to volunteer his services in seeing her home; and on the way over (she was from the country, and, pro tempore, resided with a friend in Bruntisfield Place, fronting the Links), he had the boldness to pop the question. He was accepted, and invited to breakfast with the lady the following morning. The morning came; but Andrew did not go—the fumes of the wine having subsided, and "Richard being himself again." He had taken a second thought on the subject, and determined on remaining a bachelor; by which arrangement the Widow Brown was, like Lord Ullin for his daughter, "left lamenting." Who her husband had been? whether she had money? what was her situation in life? were what Andrew tried long and earnestly to discover, but in vain—the Widow Brown seemed wrapped in mystery; and, from that hour, when he imprinted a kiss upon her lips, under a lamp-post, at two o'clock in the morning, in Bruntisfield Place, he had neither seen nor heard of her. Years—six in number—had elapsed since then, and Andrew had not ventured to accept another invitation to an evening party; but, as soon as his business for the day was over, he returned to his solitary lodging in Richmond Street; and, for the remainder of the evening, followed the example of the gentlemen of England, and "lived at home at ease," never stirring out, except to pay an occasional visit to the theatre.

The localities of Alloa were quite unknown to Andrew, for the best reason in the world—he had never been in it before; but, by dint of attending to the usual expedient resorted to on like occasions—that of following his nose—in the space of a few minutes he discovered that his feet, or fate, had led him into a dockyard, where a vessel was just upon the point of being wedded to the ocean. Some women and men—the former, as usual, predominant—were seated on logs beneath a shed; others, the more impatient seemingly, were walking about with umbrellas and parasols above their heads—young men with young misses—old men and babes. Children in their first childhood, of various shapes and sizes, chiefly barefooted, were scampering among the wet sawdust, round about the logs of wood, in the shed and out of it, quite absorbed in the spirit-stirring game of "tig"—ever and anon yelping out each other's names, and otherwise expressing their joy at not being "it." Among their seniors there was a great deal of gabble to very little purpose, with a preponderate share of bustle and agitation.

Carpenters were thumping away at the blocks on which the vessel rested, making more noise than progress. At length the blocks were fairly driven out, and away boomed the vessel into the Forth, amid the cheers of the assembled spectators. The general interest then subsided; and in a few minutes thereafter, with exception of the carpenters and some stray children, the dockyard presented the picture of emptiness. The din had ended; and the multitude, reversing the condition of Rob Roy, had left desolation where they had found plenty.

Tea over, Mr. Andrew Micklewhame, having first seen to his accommodation for the night, and secured a place in the Stirling omnibus, which was advertised to start the next morning precisely at nine, wended his way quietly to the theatre. It was in the Assembly Room—a rumbling old mansion, on the windows of which "time's effacing fingers" had taken pains to leave their mark so effectually, that sundry detachments of old soot-bedizzened "clouts" filled up those interstices where glass had once been. "The nonpareil company of comedians" entertained their audiences and held their orgies on the second floor—the first being occupied as an academy, where "young gentlemen are taken in and done for." The scenes in which the establishment rejoiced were five in number. Luckily, "Venice Preserved" did not require so many; but in "Rob Roy" the manager was compelled to make them perform double duty; and, consequently, the same scene was thrust on for the inside of a village inn apartment in Bailie Nicol Jarvie's, and the interior of Jean M'Alpine's change-house. The audience department was most gorgeous; there were boxes, pit, and gallery; or, in other words, front, middle, and back seats—the term "boxes" being applied to the front form, to which there was a back attached, most aristocratically garnished with green cloth, with brass nails in relief. At the farther end of this form "an efficient orchestra" was placed. It consisted of a boy to play the panpipes and the triangles at one and the same moment, a lad to thump away at the bass drum, and a blind man to perform on the clarionet—the last being dignified in the bills by the title of "leader of the orchestra, and conductor of music." The whole under the immediate superintendence of Mr. Ferdinand Gustavus Trash.

After an immensity of preliminary puffs into the clarionet, occasional rattles on the drum, and consultations among themselves as to the air to be played, the musicians struck up the spirit-stirring "All Round my Hat;" which, though achieved in beautiful disregard of time and concord, was received with great—ay, with very great applause, by the momentarily increasing audience, some of whom mistook it for "God Save the King," and, in an extreme fit of loyalty, bawled out—"Off hats! stand up!" with which command many did not hesitate to comply.

There was a pause, interrupted at length by the loudly expressed wish of the gods that the curtain should draw up. Up it went accordingly, and "Venice Preserved" commenced with some show of enthusiasm. Belvidera was personated by an interesting female of five-and-thirty, who, after parting in tears from Jaffier, a youth of eighteen, as the means of acquainting the audience with her extraordinary vocal abilities, consoled herself and them with that very appropriate ditty—"Within a Mile of Edinburgh Town," accompanied by the orchestra. The Doge of Venice, not to be outdone, as it were, left his throne after the terrific disclosures of Jaffier, and, in honest exultation at the discovery of the horrid plot, solaced the mysterious Council of Ten with—"I was the boy for bewitching them." The bass drum was particularly distinguished in the accompaniment.

In a critique of the performances which Mr. Micklewhame wrote, he says—"It would have greatly added to the delight of those conversant with the pure English idiom, had many of the actors paid a visit, for a short time, to the first floor of the Assembly Room, ere venturing to appear on the second."

The meagreness of the company compelled several of the principal performers to play inferior parts, in addition to those against which their names appeared in the bill. For instance, in "Rob Roy," the same person who performed Rashleigh had to "go on" in the capacity of a peasant, and sing a bass solo in the opening glee. Owen and Major Galbraith were done by the same individual. Mattie sung in the opening glee, and danced the Highland Fling at the Pass of Lochard, with Dougal and Bailie Nicol Jarvie. Some of the audience were scandalized at the appearance of Mattie on this occasion, and began to entertain great doubts of the morality of the bailie, when they saw his handmaid in his company so far from the Trongate.

Seated on the front form, with green cloth back studded with brass nails, and immediately behind a row of six penny dipped candles, tastefully arranged in order among an equivalent number of holes in a stick placed in front of the drop-scene to divide the audience from the actors, Andrew Micklewhame gazed on all this with the stoical indifference of one who is used to such things: in short, he gazed on it with the eye of an experienced critic—the best of all possible ways to mar one's enjoyment of a play. Occasionally, however, he felt inclined to indulge in a hearty laugh; but the dignity of the critic came to his aid, and he restrained it by turning away his face from the stage and casting his scrutinizing glance around the inhabitants of the seats in the rear, or listened to the remarks of those in the pit. It was during the latter part of the performance of the first act, and the interval between it and the second, that he, in this manner, overheard the fragments of a conversation carried on, sotto voce, in the seat immediately behind him. He had the curiosity to steal a glance at the speakers. They were a young woman, with fine dark eyes, and a young man, of apparently five-and-twenty years of age, with cheeks redolent of rouge, enveloped in a faded Petersham greatcoat, whom Andrew immediately set down as belonging to the company of comedians. He could hear the young woman with the dark eyes upbraiding the young man with the coloured cheeks for deserting her; then the young man said he had intended to write her soon, with some money, so she ought not to have followed him.

"I am pretty well situated in lodgings here at present," continued the young man; "but I cannot venture to take you there to-night, for the fact of my being a married man would not, were it known, raise me in the estimation of the landlady. But I will procure other lodgings for you after the play is over; and if you do not hear from me in the morning, at farthest by ten, you may call for me at the inn where I am staying." He ended by observing that he was wanted in the next act to go on as a Highlander; and, accordingly, he left her, and crept in behind the curtain.

There was nothing very extraordinary in all this; yet, though Andrew knew that such occurrences happened daily, he could not help thinking of what he had just overheard, and feeling interested in the damsel of the sparkling eyes. He did not dare, however, to take another peep at her, as he thought it would be too marked; and when he rose, at the termination of the performances, to go away, the seat behind him was quite vacant; nor could he discern, among the dense mass of human beings that obstructed the door-way, the slightest vestige of her, or the youth in the shabby greatcoat who had acknowledged himself her husband.

The rain had not ceased when Mr. Micklewhame left the Assembly Room, so he hurried to his inn with all possible despatch. Mr. Micklewhame prided himself on his knowledge of the principles of economy; and when he travelled he invariably made it a point to take no more than two meals per diem—breakfast and tea—both with a meat accompaniment; but this evening—this particular evening—as he sat toasting his toes before an excellent fire, in a comfortable parlour of a comfortable inn, and heard the rain pattering against the casement, it, somehow or other, entered into his head that a tumbler of punch would be by no means amiss. A tumbler of punch was ordered in accordingly; after that came a second; and a third; and—no, we can't exactly say that there was a fourth. At all events, there was a marked inclination, first towards one side of the staircase, and then towards the other, in Mr. Andrew Micklewhame's ascent to his bedroom that evening. Nay, more; he attempted to kiss Kirsty as she was depositing the candlestick upon the table; but he missed his aim, and measured his length on the floor. By the time he was up again, Kirsty had vanished.

Mr. Micklewhame was a little annoyed that he could not use the precaution of bolting his door. The mysterious man, with the black whiskers and broad shoulders, had not yet claimed his bed, although it was pretty well on towards

"The wee short hour ayont the twal."

"I don't half like this sleeping in a double-bedded room, with a man I never saw," he thought, but did not venture to say it aloud, lest some one might be within ear-shot, and set him down as a coward. "I wonder," exclaimed he, as he proceeded to undress before the yet glowing embers of a consumptive fire, "whether—hic—whether the f—f—fellow snores. I sha'n't sleep, I'm sure—hic—I sha'n't—hic—sleep, if the f—f—fellow snores."

Having delivered himself of this very sensible observation, he got into one of the beds in the best way he could, covered himself up warm, and fell fast asleep.

Dreams visited his pillow; distorted visions, in which Kirsty, the dark-eyed damoiselle, and the man with the black whiskers, bore prominent parts, flitted across his fancy. Then he felt himself borne through the air by a vulture in a shabby brown greatcoat, which set him down on the top of a high house, and flew away. He thought he got up and groped his way along the house-top; but, missing his footing, he fell over, and would certainly have had his brains dashed out upon the pavement below, had not the motion of his descent caused him to start and awaken. All was still within the chamber. He looked out of bed, but could discover no signs of the appearance of his mysterious neighbour; so he composed himself to sleep again. This time, however, he was not so successful as at first; for it was only after some time that he could coax himself into a sort of doze—something betwixt sleeping and waking. While in this state, he fancied he saw the man in the brown greatcoat enter the room; then he saw a flash of light; then he imagined he smelt sulphur; and then, all of a sudden, he felt himself in reality pulled half out of bed.

"Hollo, hollo!" cried he; "what the deuce is the matter?" and he rubbed his eyes until he found himself wide awake.

"Sir, sir!" cried a voice, "you've made a mistake—you've got into my bed in place of your own."

Any one in Andrew's place but Andrew himself would have cursed and sworn like a trooper at a person daring to awaken him from a comfortable snooze upon such slight pretences; but Andrew was a peaceable man—he never liked to make any disturbance—and he actually, without saying a word, turned out of the bed he had warmed for himself, and allowed the stranger to get into his place. He was sure, at all events, that he had not given up his bed to any but the lawful tenant of the room; for a blink of fire-light gleamed upon a pair of extensive whiskers, with shoulders to correspond. The features struck Andrew as being familiar to him; but he could not, though he tried, for the life of him, recollect where he had before seen them. He cursed the fellow's impudence, as he discovered that the smell of sulphur which had saluted his olfactory nerves, was not the smell of sulphur, but of a candle having been blown out. He did not dare, though, to utter a word on the subject. He felt very much afraid—indeed, so much so, that it was not till after an hour's perambulation through the room, that he could prevail on himself to lie down in the empty bed. Again he fell fast asleep.

When he awoke, the morning light was streaming into the room through the chinks of the shutters. He wondered very much what o'clock it was, as he remembered that he purposed setting off by the omnibus at nine, and groped about for his watch. Horror!—he had left it beneath the pillow of the other bed.

Jumping to the floor with considerable agility, and opening the shutters with a bang, in the hope that noise and daylight would bring him courage, the first objects that met his astonished gaze, were a shabby brown greatcoat and a shocking bad hat, lying carelessly on a chair. Had any one asked Andrew to shave his head without soap, or give sixpence for a penny loaf, he could not have been more amazed or terror-stricken than he was at that moment. That the shabby brown greatcoat and the shocking bad hat belonged to the mysterious man with the black whiskers, and that the mysterious man with the black whiskers, and he who had sat beside the damsel with the bright eyes at the play, were one and the same individual, Mr. Andrew Micklewhame had not the smallest doubt, and thereupon he began to get a little fidgetty regarding his watch. The curtains of the bed were closely drawn—so closely that Andrew could not see in; and he did not just like at first to open the curtains and disturb the whiskered youth in the same manner as the whiskered youth had disturbed him. No. Andrew was a more generous-minded man than that.

He paced the room for some time, fancying all sorts of things about the owner of the shabby brown greatcoat, but never taking his eye off the curtains, resolved to rush forward on the first appearance of their opening.

"'Tis for no good this fellow lives here," thought Andrew. "All a sham, too, his being connected with these players. I have no doubt in my own mind that he is either the murderer of Begbie in disguise, or a resurrectionist. Ah! perhaps he has run away from the world, and come here for the purpose of committing suicide in a quiet way. But, no; why should he? That's quite improbable." And, after thinking all this, he paused for about five minutes, then exclaimed, not aloud, however—"I can bear this suspense no longer. Ecod! I'll ask the fellow who he is, and, at the same time, claim my watch!"

So saying, he rushed forward with a determined air, drew the curtains, and discovered—the bed was empty!

"He can't have gone far, for he has left his coat and hat behind him," were Andrew's reflections; and as he said this, he looked for his watch, and then for his clothes. Amazement! they were all gone; watch, shirt, coat, vest, and inexpressibles—all had vanished. In a paroxysm of fury he rang the bell; and, presently, the voice of Kirsty, from without, inquired, as she half-opened the door, and thrust forward a pair of well worn Wellingtons, which Andrew recognised as not belonging to him—"D'ye please to want onything else?"

"Anything else!" roared Andrew, choking with rage, and utterly regardless of the respect due to the sex of the speaker. "Come in here, and help me to find my trowsers!"

"O you—ye'll wait awhile, I'm thinkin, or I do siccan a thing."

"Zounds! that infernal fellow must have carried them off!" muttered Andrew.

"Na, na," said Kirsty; "it's no the infernal gentleman ava, man. I wadna be the least surprised but it's that auld punchy buddy that sleepit in this room last nicht, and ran awa this morning, wi' the nine o'clock omnibush, without payin his reckonin, that's ta'en yer breeks; but ye needna mind, ye can just pit on his for a day."

This was too much. To be told that he himself was the thief of his own o-no-we-never-mention-ems, and that he had run away that morning without paying his reckoning, was more than Andrew Micklewhame could bear.

"Are you mad, woman?" cried he. "Confound you, I'll leave your house instantly, and bring an action for the recovery of my clothes."

"Your claes, quotha—your claes. My man, thae tricks winna do here, I can tell ye. Ye're fund oot at last. My certie, to hear a fallow speakin o' claes, whan it's weel kenned he had nae mair than a brown greatcoat, an auld hat, an' a pair o' boots I wadna gie tippence for. Ye're fund oot at last. There's twa chaps below has twa or three words to say to ye."

"They may go to the devil, and you along with them!" was Andrew's pert rejoinder.

"Bide a bit—just bide a bit. Hy," cried Kirsty, seemingly over the banisters of the stair, to some unknown individual or individuals below. "Stap up this way, will ye?"

And fast upon the heels of this summons, in walked two justice of peace officers, who, despite the asseverations of Mr. Andrew Micklewhame that he was himself and no other, ordered him to don the brown greatcoat, and the shocking bad hat, and follow them.

"We've pursued you from Queensferry," said the first—"round by Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Stirling; and Grog the innkeeper is determined to punish you, unless you pay him for the eight weeks' board you had in his house, and our expenses over and above."

It was in vain that Mr. Micklewhame protested he had never been in Queensferry in his life; nor had he the honour of the acquaintance of Grog, the innkeeper; but, at length, seeing that it was impossible to convince the officers to the contrary he thought it advisable to pay the amount of their demand, and trust to law and justice afterwards for retribution. Even with this he found himself unable to comply—his purse, containing every rap he owned in the world, was in the pockets of his inexpressibles.

There was no help for it. With despair in his countenance, he donned the shabby brown greatcoat and the dilapidated Wellingtons, took the shocking bad hat in his hand, and, in silence, followed the officers of justice down stairs, determining to appeal to the generosity of the landlady, who, he had no doubt, would give full credence to his story.

The present mishap of Mr. Micklewhame had arisen solely from the fact of his having taken so much toddy overnight, which was the cause of his sleeping longer and more soundly in the morning than usual. Kirsty, ever vigilant, had gone to the door of the double-bedded room and knocked, at the same time calling out, with a stentorian voice, that "the omnibush was ready to start." All this was unheeded by Andrew, who slept on, utterly unconscious of the progress of time. Not so, however, was it with the other occupant of the chamber; for no sooner did he hear Kirsty's summons, than a lucky thought occurred to him; and he bawled through the door, in tones "not loud but deep," that he would be down instantly. He then proceeded, in the coolest manner possible, to adorn himself in the habiliments of his somniferous neighbour; which, he soon perceived, were a "world too wide" for him—a fault which he instantly remedied by the assistance of a pillow, disposed of after the manner he had seen greater actors than himself "make themselves up" for the character of Falstaff. Thus equipped, he removed Andrew's watch from beneath the pillow, and placed it in the same pocket it had occupied the preceding day; took off his portable bushy whiskers, and put them in his pocket; then bidding adieu to his brown greatcoat and napless hat, which, with the accompaniment of a pair of well-worn Wellington boots, had been his only attire for many a day, he strode from the apartment, carefully shutting the door behind him. As he got to the foot of the stairs, there was Kirsty in the outer passage. For a moment he felt undetermined what course next to pursue; but his never-failing wit came to his aid, and, stepping into a side room, the window of which looked out into the street, he desired Kirsty to bring him his bill of fare—i. e., the bill of fare peculiar to Mr. Andrew Micklewhame—and a sheet of writing-paper, with pens and ink. Those being brought, and Kirsty having shut the door, leaving him "all alone in his glory," he scribbled a few lines on the paper, and made it up in the form of a letter. This was no sooner done, than the "impatient bugle"—vulgo vocato, tin horn—of the ominous cad, who stood on the opposite side of the street, just behind the omnibus, holding open the door with his left hand, blew a blast so loud and shrill, that all those in waiting in the street, who had serious intentions of proceeding to Stirling by that conveyance, seemed, of one accord, to know that it was their last warning; so, shaking hands with the friends who had come "to see them off," they scrambled nimbly up the steps of the omnibus, and passed from before the view of the bystanders into its ponderous interior. Our actor saw this, and, without more ado, he opened the window and jumped into the street. His letter he deposited in the post-office receiving-box, and his body in the omnibus, which, being now full, the cad banged to the door, gave the signal to the driver, and off the omnibus rattled; nor did Kirsty or her mistress know of the escapement of their guest, whom they both believed to be Andrew Micklewhame, until he was a considerable part on his way to Stirling.

---

Kirsty was in the bar, stamping the post-mark on some letters—for her mistress was postmaster—and talking to a young woman with bright eyes.

"The villain that he is!" said Kirsty. "A married man! Wha wad hae thocht it? an' a playactor too, crinkypatie! He'll be doon the noo, and ye'll see him then. There's twa gentlemen gaen up to him a wee while ago."

At this moment the landlady opened the door of a parlour off the bar, and handed to Kirsty some letters, which she had been ostensibly arranging for delivery—in reality, making herself acquainted with their contents.

"Here's six for delivery, and one to lie till called for!" Kirsty took them; and as her mistress shut the door, read aloud from the back of the letter—"'To lie till called for.' The name, 'Mrs. Isabella Young!'"

"What!" exclaimed the dark-eyed young woman starting, "a letter for me?" and she almost snatched it out of Kirsty's hand. A gleam of joy played upon her handsome face as she read—

"Dear Isy,—I enclose you a crown; if you want more, apply to Manager Trash for my arrears of salary. I'm off to Perth with the toggery of an old fellow who slept in the same room with me last night. They'll perhaps talk of pursuing me; if so, detain them as long as possible, and follow, at your leisure,

"Your affectionate

"Patrick Young."

At this juncture appeared Andrew in the custody of the two officers; and the damsel of the dark eyes, taking her cue from the document she had just perused, rushed forward and threw herself into his arms, exclaiming, "My own, my lost one!—Oh, do not—do not drag my husband from me!" The latter part of her sentence was addressed to the officers of justice.

"Loshifycairyme!" cried Kirsty; "he's lost his bonny black whiskers, and turned fatter nor he was!" Then, after a moment's reflection, she added—"But thae player buddies can do onything!"

"My pretty one," said Andrew, "I know nothing of you!" Yet the young woman still clung to her embrace. "You vile woman," he continued, waxing wroth, "get you gone. I'll tell your husband if you don't!" But Mrs. Young clung close and closer to him. He then addressed himself to Kirsty, desiring her to inform her mistress that he wished to say a few words to her. "Tell her," he continued, "that I am in great tribulation here, and I wish her to advance a small sum of money to these gentlemen, which will be returned with grateful thanks as soon as I get to Edinburgh."

Kirsty grumbled a little at being sent on such an errand; but proceeded into the little parlour off the bar. In a few seconds she returned, saying—"My mistress'll no advance money to ony man unless to her lawfu' husband; and she says gif ye like to marry her, she'll do't, but no unless. I'm sure I dinna ken what she means, seeing ye're a married man already!"

"What!" exclaimed Andrew, "marry a woman I never saw?"

"On nae ither condition will she advance the money. Between oorsels, my mistress is worth at least twa thousand."

"Two thousand pounds!" thought Andrew. "The speculation wouldn't be such a bad one after all." And, after a show of hesitation, he gave a reluctant consent, as the only way, and a speedy one, to relieve him from his difficulties. His private debts amounted to at least a hundred pounds; and with two thousand pounds he could pay that; ay, and live like a prince besides.

The whole party was ushered into the little back parlour, where, to complete Andrew's amazement, he descried, seated over a cup of coffee, the identical Widow Brown to whom he had given the slip six years before. She rose and shook him by the hand.

"Be not amazed!" she said. "The moment I saw you, from the window of this room, enter my inn yesterday, I recognised you, and my love for you returned. I know all." She certainly did, for she had read Patrick Young's letter to his wife. "I shall procure your immediate release; and should you rue the consent you have just given, you are free to return to Edinburgh as you came—a single man!"

"Generous woman!" cried Andrew, sinking on one knee, "this—this is too much! Think ye I could again desert you? No, by heaven!"—Here he laid his hand upon his breast, and turned up the white of his eyes in an attempt to look pathetic. The widow raised him and led him to a seat. The officers were dismissed; and the damsel with the dark eyes escaped through the open door as they went out, fearful of being detained for her deceitful attempt upon the person of Andrew Micklewhame.

In a few days the nuptials were solemnized; and Andrew Micklewhame ever blessed the lucky chance that led him to Alloa.

History is silent regarding the ultimate fate of Mr. Patrick Young; but it is to be hoped that he was either hanged or sent to Botany Bay. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Micklewhame thought it worth their while to pursue him for the injuries he had done them; and Grog, the innkeeper, could not, for his myrmidons had lost the scent of the stroller from the moment he fled from Alloa.

---

THE HIGHLAND BOY.

Strange, sometimes, are the destinies of men, and mysterious the ways of Providence. In these expressions there is nothing new, for they have been repeated a thousand times before; but we are not sure that they have often been more strikingly illustrated than in the following short narrative—alas! "owre true a tale." Within a short distance of the town of Inverary, in Argyleshire, there lived, towards the middle of last century, a person of the name of M'Lauchlane. He was a miller to business; but, if any idea be formed of his circumstances as such, or of the general condition and appearance of his establishment, from those of the "jolly millers" of the low country, with their large, well-built, slated mills, filled with expensive machinery—their comfortable houses, and rough and round abundance—it will be a very erroneous one. The highland miller—he, at any rate, of the last century—was a very different person, and very differently circumstanced. His business was trifling, as it must, of necessity, have been, in a country yielding but little corn—just sufficient, and barely so, to support, with other aids, its thin and widely scattered population. His mill was a small, thatched, crazy building; and its machinery (almost all of wood), the clumsy, rude workmanship of the miller himself. Such, at any rate, was M'Lauchlane's establishment—a very poor affair; and very poor, though very industrious, and an honest and upright man, was M'Lauchlane himself. Yet, strange as it may seem in a person in his situation in life, he was not only an upright man, but a man of some education, of a grave and intelligent cast of countenance, and of a tall and athletic form.

For fifteen years, M'Lauchlane toiled on his little farm with unwearied assiduity, struggling with a barren soil, that scarcely yielded a subsistence for his family, leaving no surplus for sale, the rent being paid by a few black cattle reared for the purpose; and more than half of that time dividing this labour with attendance on his little mill; and other fifteen years, had he lived so long, would, in all probability, have found him still thus employed, had not a circumstance occurred which suddenly changed his destiny. He quarrelled with his landlord, and resolved suddenly, in a fit of exasperation, upon leaving his mill. He never gave any further particulars of the occurrence which had galled his proud spirit. He never said what was the cause of quarrel between him and his laird; but the fancied disgrace of some harsh word which the latter had used towards him, preyed on his mind, and, in less than a fortnight after, he resigned his mill and his farm, and proceeded to the low country in search of employment. This he found in Edinburgh, where he had some friends, in the humble capacity of a caddie, or chairman.

On leaving the place of his residence in the Highlands, M'Lauchlane left behind him, until he should fall into some way of earning a subsistence, his wife, a son, and two daughters. The son was, at this period, about fifteen years of age; a fine, manly-looking boy, of kind and amiable dispositions, the pride of his mother's heart, and the stay of his father's hopes. It was not doubted that, on the latter obtaining employment, he would succeed in procuring some situation or other in Edinburgh for his son also; and, with these, and sundry other little plans and prospects, the family of M'Lauchlane, including himself, looked forward to the enjoyment of some happy days. Having obtained employment himself, M'Lauchlane lost no time in looking out for an engagement for his son; and, at length, found an opening for him in a merchant's counting-house in Leith. This good fortune he speedily communicated to his family, desiring that James should immediately set out for Edinburgh. James, however, had been already unexpectedly provided for, although not altogether to his liking. He had been engaged to assist some salmon-curers who had an establishment in the neighbourhood; and with these he was now employed. The wages, however, were small, and the work heavy; but it was considered by the dutiful boy himself a desirable situation, as it enabled him to reside with his mother, whom he tenderly loved, and to contribute more promptly and efficiently to her support than if he were at a distance. On these accounts, therefore, he determined to remain in his present employment for some time at least—this was till the ensuing term, when it was proposed that the whole family should proceed to Edinburgh, to join their head; and this was stated in reply to James' father, who, though he longed to have his boy with him, acquiesced in its propriety; and thus matters stood for several weeks, when it was found that James' strength was unequal to the labour imposed on him. The poor lad was long unwilling to admit this, even to himself, and continued to toil on with uncomplaining perseverance; but a mother's anxiety and scrutinizing solicitude soon discovered what he would have concealed. She saw, from his wan cheek and sunken eye, that he was tasked beyond his strength, and that a continuance much longer in his present employment might even endanger his life. Impressed with this idea, she insisted on him quitting it, and proceeding immediately to Edinburgh to join his father.

"But, mother," said the affectionate boy, "what will you do without me? My wages, though small, are a great help to you."

"They are, James, no doubt," replied his mother; "but what are your wages, or what would all the gold and silver in the world be to me, compared to your life, my child? Think ye that anything could compensate that to your mother, James? No, no; all the wealth of the Indies, my son, would be nothing to me, if anything was to happen you. Besides, you can help me even where you are going. You can remit me a little of your wages, along with what your father sends from his; and, at the term, you know, which is now only four months distant, we will all be together again, and as happy as the day's long."

Thus reasoned with, and feeling his own physical inadequacy to continue in his present employment, the boy finally consented to leave it, and to proceed to Edinburgh, to join his father. It was not thought necessary to give the latter any previous intimation of this change in his son's views; and no communication, therefore, took place on the subject.

The day fixed for the boy's departure having arrived, a little bundle, containing some small articles of wearing apparel, and some bread and cheese, was made up for him by the hands of his doting mother, whose tears fell fast and thick on the little humble package, as she tied it up. This completed, the boy took down a staff from amongst many that were hung to the roof of the cottage, thrust one end of it through the bundle, shouldered it manfully, clapped his bonnet on his head, and was about suddenly to rush out of the house, finding that he could not stand a more deliberate parting; when his mother, flying after him, caught him by the arm just as he had reached the door, and, murmuring his name, clasped him in her arms, and, in silent anguish, pressed him convulsively to her bosom. The weeping boy returned the fond embrace of his mother; but, at length, tore himself away, and hurried off, with a speed that soon carried him out of her sight.

The lad had now a long journey before him, not less than a hundred and fifty miles, the whole of which was to be performed on foot, for there were then no conveyances on his intended route; and, although there had, he had no money to pay for their use; but, as he was active and vigorous, and accustomed to rove over his native hills like a young deer, a journey on foot of even a hundred and fifty miles had nothing formidable whatever in it for him; and it was, therefore, with a fearless heart and bounding step that he now took the long, wild, and dreary highland road, that was to conduct him to the city in which his father resided.

In about four months after the boy had left home to join his father in Edinburgh, his mother, with her two daughters, also proceeded to that city, and for the same purpose; the period having arrived which, according to previous understanding, was to see the family once more united under one roof. We will not attempt to describe the poor mother's feelings of joyous anticipation on this occasion, as she looked forward to the exquisite happiness of embracing the two objects whom she loved best on earth, her husband and son. These feelings were such as the reader can imagine for himself without our aid or interference.

On M'Lauchlane's wife and daughters arriving, which they did in due time and in safety, at the humble domicile which the farmer's dutiful affection had provided for them in Edinburgh, the first question she asked of her husband, and she put it ere she had yet fairly entered his door, was—

"Where is James? Where is my dear boy, Fergus?"

"Why, Margaret," replied M'Lauchlane, laughingly, "you should know that fully better than I do. Where did you leave him?" The boy had never reached his father's house.

"Come, come, now, Fergus, none of your tricks," said his wife, smiling. "Tell me where my boy is—I cannot rest till I see him."

"Ha, ha!" rejoined her husband, now laughing outright, "you keep up the farce very well, Margaret; but, come, now, let James be produced; for I am impatient to see him. You want to tantalize me a little."

"Or rather it is you that wish to tantalize me, Fergus," replied his wife, good-humouredly; "but do not keep me longer in pain, I beseech you. Go and bring James to me immediately. Do now, I entreat of you."

"Margaret," said M'Lauchlane, now somewhat alarmedly—for the earnest manner of his wife struck him as very strange, and as carrying very little of jocularity in it—"Margaret," he said, gravely, "is this jest or earnest? Is James not with you?—and, if he is not, where is he?"

"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed his wife, in an agony of horror—she in turn having marked the serious manner of her husband—"what is this come over us? O Fergus, Fergus," she said, in dreadful agitation, and flinging her arms around her husband in wild despair, "has not James been with you for these three months past? He left home to come to you then, and I always believed him to be with you. O my God, my God! where is my child? What has come over my boy?" And she gave way to a fearful and uncontrollable paroxysm of grief.

During this scene, her husband sat silent and motionless; but there were dreadful workings going on in his bosom. His face was deadly pale, and his lips quivered with agonizing emotion.

"I have never seen him, Margaret," he at length said, in a slow and solemn tone—"never seen him. What has come over my boy?" And the strong man burst into tears.

We need not prolong our description of the scene of misery which ensued on the appalling discovery being made, as it now was, that the poor boy had never reached his destination. His distracted father instantly set about the apparently hopeless task of ascertaining what had been his fate; but, for some weeks after, all remained as great a mystery as ever; and no exertion or inquiries he could make, led to the slightest elucidation of the fact. At length, however, a clue to the mystery was obtained. It was gradually unwarped, and a train of circumstances finally unfolded the dreadful tale. In disclosing this tale to the reader, however, we have no occasion whatever to go through the tedious and digressive process by which M'Lauchlane ultimately arrived at the history of his unfortunate son's fate. Ours is a much simpler and much easier task. It is merely to place the facts in their order, divested of all extraneous matter; and this will be best done by our retrogressing a little, and resuming the history of the unhappy boy's proceedings after leaving his mother, at the point where we left it.

On the evening of the second day after his departure, the lad arrived at Stirling, and had thus accomplished about half his journey. On reaching this town, where he intended remaining for the night, young M'Lauchlane repaired to a certain public-house, which he knew, by report, to be much frequented by his countrymen, when going to and from the Highlands and the low country. This house was usually crowded with guests; but it happened that it contained but one on the night of his arrival. The solitary stranger was an Irishman, on his way to Edinburgh, as he said, to look for employment. Between young M'Lauchlane and this person—they being the only two guests in the house—a familiar footing was soon established, chiefly through the advances of the latter, who affected a sudden and strong liking for his young companion, whom he insisted on treating with some liquor. In the morning, they breakfasted together, and, immediately after, set out together for Edinburgh—M'Lauchlane delighted with the kindness and rattling off-hand glee of his companion, who seemed, to his unsuspicious and unsophisticated nature, one of the best and merriest fellows he had ever met with. In place, however, of showing an anxiety to prosecute the journey with the expedition natural to those seeking a distant destination, M'Lauchlane's companion seemed bent on living by the way. Every mile, and often within shorter distances, he insisted on his young friend's taking some refreshment with him. He would, in truth, scarcely pass a single public-house on the road; but he paid, in every instance, for the entertainment to which he invited his companion. Two consequences resulted from this manner of proceeding. These were—young M'Lauchlane's getting, for the first time in his life, somewhat intoxicated; and the expiry of the day, before they had completed their journey that comprehended the distance between Stirling and Edinburgh. The shades of evening were thus just beginning to gather, as the travellers reached a small village about six or seven miles from Edinburgh; and it had become pretty dark by the time they had got midway between the two places just named. At this particular locality, young M'Lauchlane and his companion passed a well-dressed, respectable-looking, elderly man, on the road, who was going in the same direction with themselves. On having gone beyond him, about the distance of a hundred yards or so, the Irishman suddenly stopped, and addressing his young friend, said—

"I owe that old rascal that we passed just now, a grudge, and have a good mind to go back and give him a taste of this twig, by way of recompense"—shaking a stout cudgel that he carried in his hand. "Will you lend me a hand?"

Stupefied, or rather, perhaps, distracted with the drink which he had swallowed, the poor, unreflecting boy at once agreed to assist his friend in revenging the injuries of which he complained. What these were, or when, where, or how they had taken place, he never thought of inquiring. It was enough for him that his companion had been injured, and enough also for him was the assertion of the latter that he had been so, and that the old man they had just passed was the inflictor of this injury.

In a minute after, the old man, whom they had now approached, was knocked down by the bludgeon of the Irishman—young M'Lauchlane standing close by. On his falling—

"Tip his watch there," said the former, in a hurried whisper to his companion, at the same time nudging him with his elbow; "and feel if the old fellow has any clink in his pockets. Out with it if he has. He owes me ten times more than he has about him, let that be what it may."

Without a moment's thought or hesitation, the unthinking boy, doing as he was desired, flung himself on the prostrate old man, seized his watch chain, and had just dragged it from its pocket, when he was seized by the collar from behind. On turning round, he found himself in the custody of two men, who had come up accidentally, unheard and unobserved, at least by him; but not by his companion, who, aware of their approach, had, without giving the unfortunate lad warning, darted through a hedge, and disappeared. It was in vain that the unhappy youth, on perceiving the dreadful predicament in which he stood, urged the extenuating facts of the case to his captors. All the circumstances of a highway robbery, aggravated by personal violence, were too apparent, and too clearly referable to M'Lauchlane as the perpetrator, to allow of anything he might assert to the contrary being for an instant believed.

On the recovery of the old man (whose face was streaming with blood) from the temporary stupefaction which the blow he had been struck had caused, M'Lauchlane was conveyed a prisoner to Edinburgh, handed over to the police, and eventually thrown into jail on a capital charge.

We may here pause a moment to remark that, at the period of our tale, the penal code of this country was enforced, with the most unrelenting ferocity, against all offenders who came within the reach of its sanguinary enactments. Mercy was then unknown in the dispensation of the criminal laws, which, written in blood, were executed to the letter, without regard to any of those considerations which are now permitted to have their influence on the side of clemency. The ultimate fate of the poor Highland boy may be anticipated; and this the more certainly, that his seducer was never taken, or even heard of; so that no chance was left him of the facts of his unhappy case being ascertained.

Shortly after being committed to prison, he was capitally indicted to stand trial before the court, which happened to be held in Edinburgh about six weeks after his apprehension; and, on the evidence of the old man and the two persons who had assisted in his capture, he was convicted of highway robbery, condemned to death, and actually executed at the usual place of execution; neither the boy's extreme youth, nor the extenuating circumstances connected with his case (which, indeed, the Court was not bound to believe, seeing there was only his own bare unsupported assertion of the facts), having the slightest effect on his judges, who, partaking at once of the spirit of the times and of the laws, were sternly rigorous in the execution of what they conceived to be their duty—seeing no safety for society but in a frequent and unsparing use of the gibbet.

We have now to explain the most extraordinary part of this piteous case—and that is, how it was that the poor boy's parents knew nothing of his miserable fate till it was discovered by the inquiry of which we shall shortly speak. In the first place, his father took it for granted that he was at home with his mother, and his mother believed that he was with his father, and thus his absence was known to neither; and, therefore, no unusual interest regarding him was excited. During his confinement, and at all his precognitions, the infatuated boy steadily refused—though for what reason we know not—to give up his name, or to give any account of himself whatever. He would neither tell where he came from, where or to whom he was going, nor what nor who were his parents; and in this resolution he remained to the last; and, as no one knew him, he was thus finally executed, without any single particular being known regarding him, excepting that for which he suffered. Neither could he be prevailed upon to make known his situation to any of his friends. In short, he seemed to have determined to prevent his fate from ever being associated with his identity.

What his motives were for this extraordinary conduct—whether it arose from a fear of disgracing his family, or from tenderness to the feelings of his parents—we cannot tell, nor will we trouble the reader with conjectures which he can make as well for himself. We content ourselves with relating the facts of the melancholy case, as they actually and truly occurred.

It was by an inquiry at the police-office of Edinburgh, whither he had gone, as a last expedient, to endeavour to find some trace of his son, that M'Lauchlane obtained the intelligence that led to the discovery of his unhappy fate. He had gone to the office, however, without the most remote idea that he should there learn anything of his boy as a violator of the laws, but merely as a repository of general intelligence on such subjects as that in which he was at the moment interested. Having stated his errand to two officers whom he found there, they asked him to describe the boy. This he did; when the men looked significantly at each other. Poor M'Lauchlane observed the look; and he felt his heart failing him, as he imagined, and too truly, that he saw in it something ominous.

"Do you know anything of my boy?" he said, looking piteously at the officers.

They made no reply, but seemed a good deal discomposed. They felt for the unfortunate father—having little or no doubt, from the personal description, and other particulars he gave of the boy, that it was he who had been executed for the robbery on the Stirling road.

"Tell me, for God's sake, if you know anything of my son," said the poor father, imploringly, after waiting some time in vain for an answer to his first inquiry of a similar kind.

The men would have still evaded a reply, and were, indeed, both edging out of the apartment, to avoid being further pressed on the subject, when M'Lauchlane seized one of them by the arm, and besought him not to leave him, without giving him what information he possessed on the subject of his inquiry. "Has any accident happened him?" said the miserable father. "Is he dead? Tell me, for Heaven's sake, tell me the worst at once. I can bear it. If he is dead, I say, God's will be done. Is it so or not, my friend?" again said M'Lauchlane, with a look of wretchedness that the man could not resist.

"I am afraid he is," was the reply.

"Still, I say God's will be done," said M'Lauchlane, endeavouring to display a composure he was far, very far from feeling. He next inquired into the time and manner of his death. On being informed, the unhappy man instantly sank down on the floor in a state of insensibility. He had little dreamt of such a horrible catastrophe; and, however resigned he might have been to his boy's having met with a natural death, his fortitude was unequal to the dreadful trial it was now called on to sustain. On coming again to himself, the unfortunate man left the office without exchanging a word with any one, and returned to his own house. When he entered, his wife, as was her usual practice, eagerly inquired if he had yet heard any tidings of their son; but she soon saw that she had no occasion whatever to put the question. The haggard countenance of her husband—a countenance in which the utmost depth of human misery was strongly depicted—assured her at once that tidings had been heard of the boy, and that these were of the most dismal kind.

"He's dead, then," she screamed out, on looking on the wo-begone, or rather horror-stricken face of her husband—"my boy is gone." And she flung herself on the floor in a paroxysm of grief and despair.

To his wife's exclamations, M'Lauchlane made no reply, but threw himself on a bed, and buried his head beneath the clothes. But this covering did not conceal the dreadful writhings of the crushed spirit beneath. The bedclothes heaved with the violent emotions that shook the powerful frame of the miserable sufferer. From that bed M'Lauchlane never again rose. He never, however, told his wife of the unhappy death her son had died; steadily and even sternly resisting all the importunities on that appalling subject; and whether she ever learned it, we are not aware.

---

MAJOR WEIR'S COACH.

A LEGEND OF EDINBURGH.[7]

The time of our story was September, early in the seventies of the last century, or it might be the end of the sixties—it matters not much as to the year—but it was in the month of September, when parties and politics had set the freemen and burgesses of the royal burghs by the ears—when feasting and caballing formed almost their whole employment. The exaltation of themselves or party friends to the civic honours engrossed their whole attention, and neither money nor time was grudgingly bestowed to obtain their objects. The embellishment and improvement of the city of Edinburgh were keenly urged and carried on by one party, at the head of which was Provost Drummond. He was keenly opposed by another, which, though fewer in number, and not so well organized, was not to be despised; for it only wanted a leader of nerve and tact to stop or utterly undo all that had been done, and keep the city, as it had been for more than a century, in a position of stately decay. The wild project of building a bridge over the North Loch was keenly contested; and ruin and bankruptcy were foretold to the good town, if the provost and his party were not put out of the council before it was begun to be carried into execution.

The heavens were illuminated by a glorious harvest moon, far in her southings; the High Street was deep in shade, like a long dark avenue; the dim oil lamps, perched high upon their wooden posts, few and far between, gleamed in the darkness like glow-worms—as two portly figures were seen in earnest discourse, walking, not with steady step, up the High Street.

"By my troth, deacon!" said one of them, "I fear Luckie Bell has had too much of our company this night. I had no idea it was so late. There is the eighth chime of St. Giles': what hour will strike?"

"Deil may care for me, Treasurer Kerr!" hiccuped the deacon.

"Preserve me, deacon!" replied the treasurer, "it has struck twelve! What shall I say to the wife? It's to-morrow, deacon! it's to-morrow!"

"Whisht, man, whisht! and no speak with such a melancholy voice," said the other. "Are you afraid of Kate? What have we to do with to-morrow? It is a day we shall never see, were we to live as long as Methusalem; for, auld as he was, he never saw 'to-morrow.' It's always to come, with its cares or joy." And the deacon stood and laughed aloud at his conceit. "Let to-morrow care for itself, Tom, say I. What can Kate say to you? What the deil need you care? Have we not had a happy evening? Have we not been well employed?" And they again moved on towards the Castlehill, where the deacon resided.

Thomas Kerr was treasurer of the incorporation, and hoped at this election to succeed his present companion, whose influence in the incorporation was great, and to secure which he was, for the time, his humble servant, and assiduous in his attentions to him—so much so, that, although his own domicile was in St. Mary's Wynd, at the other extremity of the High Street, his ambition had overcome his fears of his better half, and, still ascending the long street, he resolved to accompany the deacon home; not, however, without some strong misgivings as to what he might encounter at his return. Both were in that happy state of excitement when cares and fears press lightly on the human mind; but the deacon, who had presided at the meeting, and spoken a good deal, was much more overcome than his treasurer; and the liquor had made him loquacious.

"Tom, man," again said the deacon, "you walk by my side as douce as if you were afraid to meet Major Weir in his coach on your way down the wynd to Kate. Be cheerful man, as I am. Tell her she will be deaconess in a fortnight, and that will quiet her clatter, or I know not what will please her; they are all fond of honours. We have done good work this night—secured two votes against Drummond; other three would graze him. Pluck up your spirit, Tom, and be active; if we fail, the whole town will be turned upside down—confound him, and his wild projects, of what he calls improvements! The deil be in me, if I can help thinking—and it sticks in my gizzard yet—that he was at the bottom of the pulling down of my outside stair, by these drunken fellows of masons; the more by token that, when, after much trouble, I discovered them, and had them all safe in the guardhouse, he took a small bail, and only fined them two shillings a-piece, when it caused me an expense of ten good pounds to repair the mischief they had done; and, more than that, I was forced to erect it inside the walls; for they would not allow me to put it as it was, or grant me a Dean of Guild warrant on any other terms. They said it cumbered the foot-pavement, although, as you know, it had stood for fifty years. From that day to this I have been his firm opponent in and out of the council. Tom, are ye asleep? Where are your eyes? What high new wall is this? See, see, man!"

"This beats all he has done yet!" said the treasurer; "a high white wall across the High Street, and neither slap nor style that I can see! Wonderful, wonderful! A strange man that provost!"

"He has done it to vex me, since I came down to Luckie Bell's," replied the deacon. "It was not there in the early part of the evening. He must have had a hundred masons at it. But I'll make him repent this frolic to-morrow in the council, or my name is not Deacon Dickson!"

"What can he mean by it, deacon?" rejoined the other. "I see no purpose it can serve, for my part."

"But it does serve a purpose," hiccuped the deacon; "It will prevent me from getting home. It is done through malice against me, for the efforts I am making to get him and his party out of the council."

During the latter part of this discourse, they had walked, or rather staggered, from side to side of the street. Between the pillars that, before the great fires in Edinburgh, formed the base of the high tenement standing there, and St. Giles' Church, being the entrance into the Parliament Square, and between St. Giles' and the Exchange buildings, the full moon threw a stream of light, filling both the openings, and leaving all above and below involved in deep shade. It was the moon's rays thus thrown upon the ground, and reaching up to the second windows of the houses, that formed the wall which the two officials observed.

"Deil tak me," ejaculated the deacon, "but this is a fine trick to play upon the deacon of an incorporation in his own town! Were it not for exposing myself at this untimeous hour, I would raise the town, and pull it down at the head of the people. Faith, Tom, I will do it!" And he was on the point of shouting aloud at the pitch of his voice, when the more prudent treasurer put his hand upon the mouth of the enraged deacon.

"For mercy's sake, be quiet!" said he. "What are you going to be about? Is this a time of night for a member of council to make a riot, and expose himself in the High Street? To-morrow will be time enough to pull it down by force, if you cannot get a vote of the council to authorise it. No doubt it is a round-about way and a sair climb; but just, like a wise and prudent man, as you always are, put up with it for one night, and come along down the Fishmarket Close, up the Cowgate, and climb the West Bow, to the deaconess, who, I have no doubt, is weary waiting on you."

"Faith, Tom, I am in part persuaded you advise well for once," replied the deacon; "so I will act upon it, although I am your deacon, and all advice ought to come from me."

And away they trudged. Both were corpulent men; but the deacon, having been several times in the council, was by much the heavier of the two. Down they went by the Fishmarket Close, and up the Cowgate, the deacon, sulky and silent, meditating all the way vengeance against the provost; but, in ascending the steep and winding Bow, his patience entirely left him; he stopped, more than once, to wipe the perspiration from his brow, recover his breath, and mutter curses on the head of the official. At length, they reached the deacon's home, where his patient spouse waited his arrival. Without uttering a word, he threw himself upon a chair, placing his hat and wig upon a table. It was some minutes before he recovered his breath sufficiently to answer the questions of his anxious wife, or give vent to the anger that was consuming him. At length, to the fifty-times put questions of—

"Deacon, what has vexed you so sorely? what has happened to keep you so late?" he broke forth—

"What vexes me? what has kept me so late? You may, with good reason, inquire that, woman. Our pretty provost is the sole cause. You may be thankful that you have seen my face this night." And he commenced and gave an exaggerated account of the immense wall that the provost had caused to be built, from the Crames to the Royal Exchange, reaching as high as the third story of the houses; and the great length of time he had been detained in examining it, to discover a way to get over or through it—all which the simple deaconess believed, and heartily joined her husband in abusing the provost.

"Had a wall been built across the Castlehill," she said, "when the highlandmen were in the town, and the cannon balls flying down the street, I could have known the use of it; but to build a wall between the Crames and the Royal Exchange, to keep the Lawnmarket and Castlehill people from kirk and market—surely the man's mad!"

The treasurer had been for some time gone ere the worthy couple retired to rest, big with the events that were to be transacted on the morrow, for the downfall of the innovating provost. The morning was still grey, the sun was not above the horizon, when the deaconess, as was her wont, arose to begin her household duties; but, anxious to communicate the strange conduct of the provost, in raising the wall of partition in the city, she seized her water stoups, and hurried to the public well at the Bowhead, to replenish them, and ease her overcharged mind of the mighty circumstance. Early as the hour was, many of the wives of the good citizens were already there, seated on their water stoups, and awaiting their turn to be supplied—their shrill voices mixing with those of the more sonorous tones of the highland water-carriers, and rising in violent contention on the stillness of the morning, like the confusion of Babel.

The sensation caused by the relation of the deaconess of her husband's adventure of the preceding evening, was nothing impaired by the story being related at second-hand. Arms were raised in astonishment as she proceeded with her marvellous tale of the high wall built in so short a space by the provost. After some time spent in fruitless debate, it was agreed that they should go down in a body and examine this bold encroachment upon the citizens—and away they went, with the indignant deaconess at their head.

For some hundred feet down the Lawnmarket, the buildings of the jail and Luckenbooths hid that part of the street from the phalanx of Amazons; but, intent to reconnoitre where the wall of offence was said to stand, they reached the Luckenbooths, and a shout of laughter and derision burst from the band. The deaconess stood petrified, the image of shame and anger. No wall was there—everything stood as it had done for years!

"Lucky Dickson," cried one, "ye hae gien us a gowk's errand. I trow the deacon has been fu' yestreen. Where is the fearfu wa' ye spak o', that he neither could get through nor owre? Ha! ha! ha!"

"Did ye really believe what he told you, Mrs. Dickson?" screamed another. "It was a silly excuse for being owre late with his cronies. He surely thinks you a silly woman to believe such tales. Were my husband to serve me so, I would let him hear of it on the deafest side of his head."

"You need not doubt but that he shall hear of it," responded the deaconess; "and that before long. But, dear me, there must have been some witchcraft played off upon him and the treasurer last night; for, as true as death, they baith said they saw it with their een. There's been glamour in it. I fear Major Weir is playing more tricks in the town than riding his coach. There was no cause to tell me a lie as an excuse, for I am always happy to see him come hame safe at ony hour."

By this time they had returned to the well, where they resumed their water vessels and hurried home, some to report the strange adventure the deacon had encountered the night before, and the deaconess to tell her better half of the delusion he had been under. Before breakfast time, the story was in every one's mouth, from the Castle to the Abbey-gate, and as far as the town extended. On a clear moonlight night, for many years afterwards, Deacon Dickson's dike was pointed out by the inhabitants; and at jovial parties we have heard it said—"Sit still a little longer; we are all sober enough to get over Deacon Dickson's wall."

The treasurer, who was not so muddled by the effect of the evening's entertainment as the deacon, yet still impressed by the idea of the wall, proceeded homewards by the same route whereby he had reached the deacon's, but now much refreshed by the walk, and night, or rather morning air—for it was nearly one o'clock. As he approached the Bow-foot Well, the sobbing of a female broke the stillness of the night: he paused for a few minutes, and, looking towards the spot from whence the sound came, urged by humanity, he drew more near, till he perceived an aged female almost concealed by the dark shade of the well, against which she leaned to support herself. As soon as he saw her distinctly, with an emotion of grief and surprise he exclaimed—

"Mrs. Horner!—what has happened? Why are you here at this untimeous hour?—or what is the cause of your grief?"

"Thomas Kerr," replied she, "I am a poor unfortunate woman, whom God alone can help. Pass on, and leave me to my misery." And she buried her face in her hands, while the large drops of anguish welled through her withered fingers.

"I cannot leave you here in such a state," said he again. "Come home, my good woman, and I shall accompany you."

"I have no home," was her sad reply. "Alas! I have no home but the grave. I am a poor, silly, undone woman, in my old age. Comfortable, and even rich as I was, I am now destitute. I have neither house nor hall to cover my grey hairs. Oh, if I were only dead and buried out of this sinful world, to hide the shame of my own child. An hour is scarce passed since I thought my heart would burst in my bosom before I would be enabled to reach the Greyfriars' church-yard, to lay my head upon Willie Horner's grave, and the graves of my innocent babes that sleep in peace by his side. I feared my strength would fail; for all I wish is to die there. I did reach the object of my wish, and laid myself upon the cold turf, and prayed for death to join as he had separated us; but my heart refused to break, and tears that were denied me before, began to stream from my eyes. The fear of unearthly sights came strong upon me, stronger even than my grief. Strange moanings and sounds came on the faint night wind, from Bloody Mackenzie's tomb, and the bright moonlight made the tombstones look like unearthly things. I rose and fled. I will tarry here, and die in sight of the gallows stone; for it was here my only brother fell, killed by a shot from cruel Porteous' gun; and on the fatal tree which that stone is meant to support, my grandfather cheerfully gave his testimony for the covenanted rights of a persecuted kirk. Leave me, Thomas Kerr—leave me to my destiny. I can die here with pleasure; and it is time I were dead. To whom can a mother look for comfort or pity, when her own son has turned her out upon a cold world? I am as Rachel mourning for her children. I will not be comforted." And the mourner wrapped her mantle round her head with the energy of despair, and, bending it upon the well, burst anew into an agony of sobs and tears.

The treasurer felt himself in an awkward situation. He paused, and began to revolve in his mind what was best to be done at the moment—whether to obey the widow or the dictates of humanity. His better feeling prompted him to stay and do all in his power for the mourner, whom he had known in happier times; but his caution and avarice, backed by the dread of his spouse, urged him, with a force he felt every moment less able to resist, to leave her and hurry home. As he stood irresolute, the voice of the stern monitor sounded in the auricles of his heart like the knell of doom, and roused into fearful energy feelings he had long treated lightly, or striven to suppress when they rose upon him with greater force. He ran like a guilty criminal from the spot. The wailings of the crushed and pitiable object he had left, had given them a force he had never before known, and he urged his way down the Cowgate head as if he wished to fly from himself—the traces of the evening's enjoyments having fled, and their place being supplied by the pangs of an awakened conscience. There was, indeed, too much cause for his agitation, often hinted at by his acquaintances, but in its full extent only known in his own family—a striking similarity between the situation of his own mother and that of Widow Horner. The cases of the two aged individuals agreed in all points, save that he had not yet turned her out of doors; and conscience told him that even that result had been prevented, more by the patient endurance of his worthy parent herself, than any kindly feeling on the part of her son.

The father of the treasurer, and the husband of Widow Horner, had both been industrious, and, for their rank in life, wealthy burgesses of the city. At their death, they had left their widows with an only child to succeed them and be a comfort to their mothers, who had struggled hard to retain and add to the wealth, until their sons were of age to succeed and manage it for themselves. Their sole and rich reward, as they anticipated, would be the pleasure of witnessing the prosperity of their sons. That they would be ungrateful, was an idea so repugnant to their maternal feelings, that, for a moment, it was never harboured in their bosoms. A cruel reality was fated to falsify their anticipations.

The treasurer had, before he was twenty-five years of age, married a female, whom his fond mother had thought unworthy of her son; and to prevent the marriage she had certainly done all that lay in her power. Her endeavours and remonstrances had only served to hasten the event she wished so much to retard and hinder from taking place; the consequence was, that the hated alliance was made several weeks before she was made aware of it, by the kindness of a gossiping neighbour or two. Much as she felt, and sore as her heart was wrung, she, like a prudent woman, shed her tears of bitter anguish at the want of filial regard in her son, in secret. She at once resolved to pardon this act of ingratitude, and, for her son's sake, to receive her unwelcome daughter-in-law with all the kindness she could assume on the trying occasion. Not so her daughter-in-law, who was of an overbearing, subtile, and vindictive turn of mind. The mother of her husband had wounded her pride; she resolved never to forget or forgive; and, before she had crossed her threshold, a deep revenge was vowed against her, as soon as it was in her power to execute it. The first meeting was embarrassing on both sides; each had feelings to contend against and disguise; yet it passed off well to outward appearance—the widow from love to her son, striving to love his wife—the latter, again, with feigned smiles and meekness, affecting to gain her mother-in-law's esteem; and so well did she act her part, that, before many days after their first interview had passed, Thomas was requested to bring his wife into the house, to reside in the family, and to save the expense of a separate establishment. From that hour the house of Widow Kerr began to cease to be her own, for the first few months almost imperceptibly. Thomas, although a spoiled child, was not naturally of an unfeeling disposition, but selfish and capricious from over-indulgence. Amidst all his faults, there was still a love and esteem of his mother, which his wife, seeing it would be dangerous openly to attack it, had resolved to undermine, and therefore laid her wicked schemes accordingly. In the presence of her husband, she was, for a time, all smiles and affability; but, in his absence, she said and did a thousand little nameless things, to tease and irritate the good old dame. This produced complaints to her son, who, when he spoke to his wife of them, was only answered by her tears and lamentations, for the misery she suffered in being the object of his mother's dislike. To himself she referred, if she did not do all in her power to please his mother. These scenes had become of almost daily occurrence, and were so artfully managed, that the mother had the appearance of being in the fault. Gradually, the son's affection became deadened towards his parent; she had ceased to complain, and now suffered in silence. For her there was no redress—for, in a fit of fondness, she had made over to her son all she possessed in the world. She was thus in his power; yet her heart revolted at exposing his cruelty. The revenge of the wife was not complete, even after the spirit of the victim was completely crushed, and she had ceased to complain. Often the malignant woman would affect lowness of spirits, and even tears, refusing to tell the cause of her grief until urged by endearments, and obtaining an assurance that he would not regard her folly in yielding to her feelings; but she could not help it—were it not for her love to him, she knew not in what she had ever offended his mother, save in preferring him to every other lover who had sought her hand. Thus, partly by artifice, but more by her imperious turn of mind, which she had for years ceased to conceal, the treasurer was completely subdued to her dictation; and, by a just retribution, he was punished for his want of filial affection, for he was as much the sufferer from her temper as his mother was the victim of her malice. With a crushed heart, the old woman ate her morsel in the kitchen, moistened by her tears. Even her grandchildren were taught to insult and wound her feelings. So short-sighted is human nature, the parents did not perceive that by this proceeding they were laying rods in pickle for themselves, which, in due time, would be brought in use, when the recollection of their own conduct would give tenfold poignancy to every blow.

On the occasion to which we have alluded, the situation and wailings of Widow Horner still rung in the ears of the treasurer. All his acts of unkindness to his parent passed before him like a hideous phantasmagoria as he hurried down the Cowgate. He even became afraid of himself, as scene after scene arose to his awakened conscience—all the misery and indignities that had been heaped upon his parent by his termagant wife, he himself either looking on with indifference, or supporting his spouse in her cruelty. Goaded by remorse, he still hurried on. The celerity of his movements seemed to relieve him. He had formed no fixed resolution as to how he was to act upon his arrival at home. A dreamy idea floated in his tortured mind that he had some fearful act to perform to ease it, and do justice to his parent; yet, as often as he came to the resolution to dare every consequence, his courage would again quail at the thought of encountering one who had, in all contentions, ever been the victor, and riveted her chains the more closely around him on every attempt he had made to break them. In this pitiable state, he had got as far towards home as the foot of the College Wynd, when the sound of a carriage approaching rapidly from the east roused him and put all other thoughts to flight. With a start of horror and alarm, he groaned—"The Lord have mercy upon me! The Major's coach! If I see it, my days are numbered." And, with an effort resembling the energy of despair, he rushed into a stair foot, and, placing both his hands upon his face to shut out from his sight the fearful object, supported himself by leaning upon the wall. As the sound increased, so did the treasurer's fears; but what words can express his agony when it drew up at the foot of the very stair in which he stood, and a sepulchral voice issued from it—

"Is he here?"

"Just come," was the reply in a similar tone.

"Then all's right."

"O God! have mercy on my sinful soul!" screamed the treasurer, as he sank senseless out of the foot of the stair upon the street.

How long he remained in this state, or what passed in the interval, he could give no account. When he awoke to consciousness, he found himself seated in a carriage jolting along at a great speed, supported on each side by what appeared to him headless trunks; for the bright moonlight shone in at the carriage window, and exhibited two heads detached from their bodies dangling from the top. The glance was momentary. Uttering a deep groan, he shut his eyes to avoid the fearful sight. He would have spoken; but his palsied tongue refused to move, even to implore for mercy. Wringing his hands in despair, he would have sunk to the bottom of the coach upon his knees, but was restrained by the two figures. He felt their grasp upon his arms, firm as one of his own vices. The same fearful voice he had first heard fell again on his ear—"Sit still. Utter no cry. Make a clean breast, as you hope for mercy at the major's tribunal. He knows you well; but wishes to test your truth. Proceed!"

With a memory that called up every deed he had ever done, and sunk to nothingness any of the actions he had at one time thought good, he seemed as if he now stood before his Creator. All his days on earth appeared to have been one long black scene of sin and neglected duties. His head sunk upon his breast, and the tears of repentance moistened his bosom. When he had finished his minute confession, a pause ensued of a few minutes. The moon, now far in the west, was sinking behind a dense mass of clouds. The wind began to blow fitfully, with a melancholy sound, along the few objects that interrupted its way, and around the fearful conveyance in which he sat, more dead than alive. The measured tramp of the horses, and rattling of the carriage, fell on his ear like the knell of death. He felt a load at his heart, as if the blood refused to leave it and perform its functions. Human nature could not have sustained itself under such circumstances much longer. The carriage stopped; the door opened with violence; his breathing became like a quick succession of sobs; his ears whizzed, almost producing deafness. Still he was fearfully awake to every sensation; a painful vitality seemed to endow every nerve with tenfold its wonted activity; all were in action at the moment; his whole frame tingled; and the muscles seemed to quiver on his bones. The same hollow voice broke the silence.

"Thomas Kerr, your sincerity and contrition has delivered you from my power this once. Beware of a relapse. Go, do the duty of a son to your worthy parent. You have been a worse man than ever I was on earth. I have my parent's blessing with me in the midst of my sufferings; and there is a soothing in it which the wretched can alone feel."

Quick as thought he was lifted from the coach and seated upon the ground. With the speed of a whirlwind, as it appeared to him, the carriage disappeared, and the sound died away. For some time he sat bewildered, as if he had fallen from the clouds. Gradually he began to breathe more freely, and felt as if a fearful night-mare had just passed away. Slowly the events of the night rose in regular succession. The forlorn and desolate widow; the hideous spectres in the coach, that, without heads, spake and moved with such energy—the whole now passed before him so vividly that he shuddered. At first he hoped all had been a fearful dream; but the cold, damp ground on which he sat banished the fond idea. He felt, in all its force, that he was now wide awake, as he groped with his hands and touched the damp grass beneath him. All around was enveloped in impenetrable darkness. Not one star shone in the murky sky. How much of the night had passed, or where he at present was, he had no means of ascertaining. The first use he made of his restored faculties was to rise upon his knees, and pour out his soul to God, imploring pardon and protection in this hour of suffering. He rose with a heart much lightened, and felt his energies restored. Stumbling onwards, he proceeded, he knew not whither, until, bruised by falls and faint from exhaustion, he again seated himself upon a stone, to wait patiently the approach of dawn. Thus, melancholy and pensive, he sat, eager to catch the faintest sound; but all was silent as the grave, save the faint rustling of the long grass, waving around him in the night breeze, that was chilling his vitals, as it, in fitful gusts, swept past him. The hope of surviving the night had almost forsaken him, when the distant tramp of a horse fell on his longing ears. Then the cheerful sound of a popular air, whistled to cheer the darkness, gladdened his heart. In an ecstasy of pleasure, he sprung to his feet. The rolling of wheels over the rugged road, was soon added to the cheering sounds. With caution he approached them over hedge and ditch, until, dark as it was, he could discern the object of his search almost before him—a carrier's cart, with the driver seated upon the top, whistling and cracking his whip to the time.

"Stop friend, for mercy's sake, and take me up beside you."

"Na, na," replied the carrier; "I will do no such foolish action. Hap, Bassie! hap!" And, smacking his whip, the horse increased its speed. "Come not near my cart, or I will make Cæsar tear you in pieces. Look to him, Cæsar!" And the snarling of a dog gave fearful warning to the poor treasurer to keep at a distance; but, rendered desperate by his situation, he continued to follow, calling out—

"Stop, if you are a Christian; for mercy's sake, stop and hear me. I am a poor lost creature, sick and unable to harm, but rich enough to reward you, if you will save my life. I am no robber, but a decent burgess and freeman of Edinburgh; and where I am at present I cannot tell."

"Woo, Bassie! woo!" responded the carrier. "Silence, Cæsar! Preserve us from all evil! Amen! Sure you cannot be Thomas Kerr, whose shop is in Saint Mary's Wynd?"

"The very same; but who are you that know my voice?"

"Who should I be," rejoined he, "but Watty Clinkscales, the North-Berwick carrier, on my way to the town; for you may know well enough that Wednesday morning is my time to be in Edinburgh; but come up beside me, man, and do not stand longer there. If you have lost yourself, as you say, I will with pleasure give you a ride home this dark morning; but tell me how, in all the world, came you to be standing at the Figgate Whins, instead of being in your warm bed? I am thinking, friend Kerr, you have been at a corporation supper last night."

While the carrier was speaking, the treasurer mounted the cart, and took his seat beside him. They moved slowly on. To all the questions of the carrier, evasive answers were returned; the treasurer felt no desire to be communicative. As they reached the Watergate, the first rays of morning shone upon Arthur's Seat and the Calton Hill. Before they entered, the treasurer dismounted, having first rewarded his conveyer to the town, and proceeded to his home by the south back of the Canongate, faint and unwell. When he reached his own door, he was nearly exhausted. It was opened to him by his anxious mother, who had watched for him through the whole night. Alarmed by his haggard and sickly appearance, timidly she inquired what had happened to him, to cause such an alteration in his looks in so short a time. The tears started into his eyes as he looked at her venerable form, degraded by her attire. He took her hand in both his, and, pressing it to his lips, faltered out—

"Oh, my mother! can you pardon your undutiful son? Only say you will forgive me."

"Tammy, my bairn," she replied, "what have I to pardon? Is not all my pleasure in life to see you happy? What signifies what becomes of me, the few years I have to be on earth? But you are ill, my son—you are very ill!"

"I am indeed very unwell, both in body and mind," said he. "Say you pardon me, for the manner in which I have allowed you to be treated since my marriage; and give me your blessing, lest I die without hearing you pronounce it."

"Bless you, my Thomas, and all that is yours, my son! with my blessing, and the blessing of God, which is above all riches! But go to your bed, my bairn, and do not let me make dispeace in the family."

At this moment his spouse opened the door of the bedroom, and began, in her usual manner, to rate and abuse him for keeping untimeous hours. Still holding his mother's hands in his, he commanded her, in a voice he had never before assumed to her, to be silent. She looked at him in amazement, as if she had doubted the reality of his presence; and was on the point of becoming more violent, when his fierce glance, immediately followed by the sunken, sickly look which one night of suffering had given him, alarmed her for his safety, and she desisted, anxiously assisting his mother to undress and put him to bed.

He soon fell into a troubled sleep, from which he awoke in the afternoon, unrefreshed and feverish. His wife was seated by his bed when he awoke. Turning his languid eye towards her, he inquired for his mother. A scene of angry altercation would have ensued; but he was too ill to reply to the irritating language and reproaches of his spouse. The anger increased his fever, and delirium came on towards the evening. A physician was sent for, who at once pronounced his life to be in extreme danger; and, indeed, for many days it was despaired of.

The horrors of that night were the theme of his discourse, while the fever raged in his brain. The smallest noise, even the opening of a door, made him shriek and struggle to escape from those who watched him. His efforts were accompanied by cries for mercy from Major Weir; his bed was the coach, and his wife and mother the headless phantoms. Clinkscales had told the manner and where he had found him, on the morning he was taken ill. The sensation this excited through the city became extreme. Deacon Dickson told the hour in which he left his house, and the language of the sufferer filled up the space until he was met by the carrier. The nocturnal apparition of the major's carriage had, for many years, been a nursery tale of Edinburgh. Many firmly believed in its reality. There were not awanting several who affirmed they had seen it; and scarce an inhabitant of the Cowgate or St. Mary's Wynd, but thought they had heard it often before the present occurrence.

That the treasurer had by some means been transported to the Figgate Whins in the major's coach, a great many firmly believed; for two of the incorporation on the same night had been alarmed by a coach driving furiously down the Cowgate; but they could not describe its appearance, as they had hid themselves until it passed, fearful of seeing the spectre carriage and its unearthly attendants. It was at least certain that, of late, many had been aroused out of their sleep by the noise of a carriage; and, the report gaining ground, the terror of the citizens became so great that few chose to be upon any of the streets after twelve at night, unless urged by extreme necessity. This state of foolish alarm, as the magistrates called it, could not be allowed to continue within their jurisdiction; and they resolved to investigate the whole affair. Several were examined privately; but the treasurer was too ill to be spoken to, even by his friend the deacon. There was a strange harmony in the statements of several who had really distinctly heard the sounds of horses' feet, and the rumbling of a carriage, and the ravings of the unfortunate treasurer. The authorities were completely at a stand how to proceed. Several shook their heads and looked grave; others proposed to request the ministers of the city to watch the major's carriage, and pray it out of the city. But the provost's committee sent for the captain of the train-bands, and consulted with him: he agreed to have twelve of the band and six of the town-guard in readiness by twelve at night, to waylay the cause of annoyance, should it make its appearance, and unravel the mystery. That there was some unlawful purpose connected with it, several of the council had little doubt. These meetings were private, and the proceedings are not on record to guide us. It was with considerable difficulty the captain could get the number of his band required for the duty; they chose rather to pay the fine, believing it to be a real affair of diablerie; for their earliest recollections were associated with the truth of the major's night airings. For several nights the watch was strictly kept by many of the citizens; but in vain. No appearance disturbed the usual stillness of the night in the city; not even the sound of a carriage was heard. The whole affair gradually lost its intense interest, and ceased to be the engrossing theme of conversation. The sceptics triumphed over their believing acquaintance; and the mysterious occurrence was allowed to rest.

The election week for deacon of the crafts at length arrived. All was bustle among the freemen; the rival candidates canvassing and treating, and their partisans bustling about everywhere. City politics ran high; but the treasurer, although recovered, was still too weak to take an active part in the proceedings. Deacon Dickson, on this account, redoubled his exertions—for the indisposition of his treasurer had deranged his plans; and it was of great importance, in his eyes, to have one of his party elected in his place. Had Kerr been able to move about, to visit and flatter his supporters, his election was next to certain, so well had the whole affair been managed. Kerr was accordingly dropped by him, and a successor pitched upon, who could at this eventful period aid him in his efforts against the candidate of the Drummondites, as the supporters of the provost were called.

On the Thursday, when the long lists were voted, the deacon carried his list, and every one of the six were tried men, and hostile to the innovations of the provost and his party. The deacon was in great spirits, and told the treasurer, whom he visited as soon as his triumph was secure, that, if not cut off the list in shortening the leet, his election was sure. On the list coming down from the council, neither Kerr nor the person Dickson wished were on the leet; both had been struck off, and the choice behoved to fall upon one of three, none of whom had hoped, at this time, to succeed to office. Their joy was so much the greater, and the election dinner not less substantial.

It was the evening of the election, closely bordering upon the morning—for all respected the Sabbath-day, and even on this joyous occasion, would not infringe upon it—that a party of some ten or twelve were seen to issue from one of the narrow closes in the High Street, two and two, arm in arm, dressed in the first style of fashion, with bushy wigs, cocked hats, and gold-headed canes. At their head was, now old Deacon Dickson, and his successor in office. They were on their way, accompanying their new deacon home to his residence, near the foot of St. Mary's Wynd in the Cowgate, and to congratulate the deaconess on her husband's elevation to the council. None of them were exactly tipsy; but in that middle state when men do not stand upon niceties, neither are scared by trifles. The fears of the major's coach were not upon them; or, if any thought of it came over them, their numbers gave them confidence. Leaving the High Street, they proceeded down Merlin's Wynd to the Cowgate. Scarce had the head of the procession emerged from the dark thoroughfare, when the sound of a carriage, in rapid advance, fell on their astonished ears. The front stood still, and would have retreated back into the wynd, but could not; for those behind, unconscious of the cause of the stoppage, urged on and forced them out into the street. There was not a moment for reflection, scarce to utter a cry, before the fearful equipage was full upon them. Retreat was still impossible; and those in front, by the pressure from behind, becoming desperate by their situation, the two deacons seized the reins of the horses, to prevent their being ridden over. In a second, the head of the coachman (held in his hand!) was launched at Deacon Dickson, with so true an aim that it felled him to the ground, with the loss of his hat and wig. Though stunned by the blow, his presence of mind did not forsake him. Still holding on by the reins, and dragged by the horses, he called lustily for his companions to cut the traces. The head of the coachman, in the meantime, had returned to his hand, and been launched forth, with various effect, on the aggressors. Other heads flew from the windows on each side, and from the coach-box, in rapid, darting motions. The cries of the assailants resounded through the stillness of the night; fear had fled their bosoms; there was scarce one but had received contusions from the flying heads, and rage urged them on to revenge. Candles began to appear at the windows, exhibiting faces pale with fear. Some of the bolder of the male inhabitants, recognising the voice of some relative or acquaintance in the cries of the assailants, ran to the street and joined the fray. Dickson, who had never relinquished his first hold, recovered himself, severely hurt as he was by the feet of the horses, which were urged on, short as the struggle was, up to the College Wynd, in spite of the resistance. At the moment the carriage reached the foot of the wynd, the door on the left burst open, and two figures leaped out, disappearing instantly, although closely pursued. In the confusion of the pursuit, the coachman also disappeared. No one could tell how, or in what manner he had fled, he appeared to fall from the box among the crowd; and, when several stooped to lift and secure him, all that remained in their hands was a greatcoat, with basket work within the shoulders, so contrived as to conceal the head and neck of the wearer, to which was fastened a stout cord, the other end of which was attached to an artificial head, entangled in the strife between the horses and the pole of the coach. Two similar dresses were also found inside. The coach was heavily laden; but with what, the authorities never could discover, although envious persons said that several of the tradesmen's wives in the Cowgate afterwards wore silk gowns that had never before had one in their family, had better and stronger tea at their parties, and absolutely abounded in tobacco for many weeks. But whether these were the spoils of the combat with the infernal coach, or the natural results of successful industry, was long a matter of debate.

As for the coach and horses, they became the prize of Deacon Dickson and his friends, never having been claimed by the major. The sensation created on the following day by the exaggerated reports of the fearful rencounter and unheard of bravery of the tradesmen, was in proportion to the occasion. Several of the assailants were reported to have been killed, and, among the rest, the deacon. For several days, the inn-yard of the White Hart was crowded to excess to view the carriage and horses. As for the deacon, no doubt, he was considerably bruised about the legs; but the glory he had acquired was a medicine far more efficacious to his hurts than any the faculty could have prescribed. At the first toll of the bells for church, he was seen descending from the Castle Hill towards the Tron Church, limping much more, many thought, than there was occasion for, supported by his battered gold-headed cane on one side, and holding by the arm of the deaconess on the other. With an affected modesty, which no general after the most brilliant victory could better have assumed, he accepted the congratulations he had come out to receive. When he entered the church, a general whisper ran through it, and all eyes were upon him, while the minister had not yet entered. This was the proudest moment of his life. He had achieved, with the assistance of a few friends, what the train-bands and city-guard had failed to accomplish; that it was more by accident, and against his will he had performed the feat, he never once allowed to enter his mind, and stoutly denied when he heard it hinted at by those who envied him the glory he had acquired.

As soon as the afternoon's service was over, he proceeded to the treasurer's house, to congratulate him on his re-election to the treasurership, and give a full account of his adventure. To his exaggerated account, Kerr listened with the most intense interest; a feeling of horror crept over his frame as the deacon dwelt upon the blow he had received from the coachman's head, and the efficacious manner in which the two inside phantoms had used theirs, concluding with—

"It was a fearful and unequal strife—devils against mortal men."

"Do you really think they were devils, deacon? Was it really their own heads they threw about?" said the treasurer.

"I am not clear to say they were devils," replied the other; "but they fought like devils. Severe blows they gave, as I feel this moment. They could not be anything canny; for they got out from among our hands like a flash of light."

The deacon's vanity would have tempted him to say he believed them to be not of this earth; but the same feeling restrained him. Where there had been so many actors in the affair, he had as yet had no opportunity of learning their sentiments; and, above all things, he hated to be in a minority, or made an object of ridicule. Turning aside the direct question of the treasurer, he continued—

"Whatever they were, the horses are two as bonny blacks as any gentleman could wish to put into his carriage. By my troth, I have made a good adventure of it? I mean to propose, and I have no doubt I shall carry my motion, that they and the major's coach be sold, and the proceeds spent in a treat to the incorporation. Make haste, man, and get better. You are as welcome to a share as if you had been one of those present; although, indeed, I cannot give you a share of the glory of putting Major Weir and his devils to the rout—and no small glory it is, on the word of a deacon, treasurer."

The load that had for many days pressed down the treasurer's spirits gradually passed off as the deacon proceeded, and a new light shone on his mind; his countenance brightened up.

"Deacon," he said, "the truth begins to dawn upon me, and I feel a new man. Confess at once that the whole has been a contrivance of the smugglers to run their goods, availing themselves of the real major's coach. It was a bold game, deacon, and, like all unlawful games, a losing one in the end. Still, it is strange what inducement they could have had for their cruel conduct to me on that miserable night, or how I was enabled to survive, or retained my reason. I have been often lost in fearful misery upon this subject since the fever left me; but you, my friend, have restored peace to my mind."

And they parted for the evening. The treasurer's recovery was now most rapid. In a few days, all traces of his illness were nearly obliterated, and he went about his affairs as formerly. An altered man—all his wife's influence for evil was gone for ever; calmly and dispassionately he remonstrated with her; for a few days she struggled hard to retain her abused power; tears and threatened desertion of his house were used—but he heard her unmoved, still keeping his stern resolve with a quietness of manner which her cunning soon perceived it was not in her power to shake. She ceased to endeavour to shake it. His mother was restored to her proper station, and all was henceforth peace and harmony.

Several years had rolled on. The deaconship was, next election, bestowed upon Treasurer Kerr. He had served with credit, and his business prospered. The adventure with the major's coach was only talked of as an event of times long passed, when, one forenoon, an elderly person, in a seaman's dress, much soiled, entered his workshop, and, addressing him by name, requested employment. Being very much in want of men at the time, he at once said he had no objection to employ him, if he was a good hand.

"I cannot say, I am, now what I once was in this same shop," he replied. "It is long since I forsook the craft; but, if you are willing to employ me, I will do my best."

The stranger was at once engaged, and gave satisfaction to his employer—betraying a knowledge of events that had happened to the family, and that were only traditionary to his master. His curiosity became awakened; to gratify which, he took the man home, one evening, after his day's work was over. For some time after they entered the house, the stranger became pensive and reserved—his eyes, every opportunity, wandering to the mother of his master, with a look of anxious suspense. At length, he arose from his seat, and said, in a voice tremulous with emotion—

"Mistress! my ever-revered mistress! have you entirely forgot Watty Brown, the runaway apprentice of your husband?"

"Watty Brown, the yellow-haired laddie," ejaculated she, "I can never forget. He was always a favourite of mine. You cannot be him; your hair is grey?"

"My good mistress, old and grey-headed as you see me," said he, "I am Watty Brown; but much has passed over my once yellow head to bleach it white as you see. My master here was but an infant in your arms, when I left Edinburgh. Often have I rocked him in his cradle. After all that has passed, I am here again, safe. I am sure there is no one present would bring me into trouble for what is now so long passed."

"How time flies!" said she. "The Porteous mob is in my mind as if it had happened last week. O Watty! you were always a reckless lad. Sore, sore you have rued, I do not doubt, that night. Do tell us what has come of you since?"

"Well, mistress, you recollect there was little love between the apprentices of Edinburgh and Captain Porteous. All this might have passed off in smart skirmishes on a king's birthday, or so; but his brutal behaviour at poor Robinson's execution, and slaughter of the townsmen, could not be forgiven by lord or tradesman. Well, as all the land knows, he was condemned, and all were satisfied; for the guilty was to suffer. But his pardon came; the bloodshedder of the innocent was to leave the jail as if he had done nothing wrong! Was this to be endured? Murmurs and threats were in every tradesman's mouth; the feuds of the apprentices were quelled, for a time; all colours joined in hatred of the murderer. Yet no plan of operations was adopted. In this combustible frame of mind, the drums of the city beat to arms. I rushed from this very house to know the cause, and saw the trades' lads crowding towards the jail. I inquired what was their intention.

"'To execute righteous judgment!' a strange voice said, in the crowd.

"I returned to the shop; and, taking the forehammer, as the best weapon I could find, in my haste, with good will joined, and was at the door amongst the foremost of those who attempted to break it open. Numbers had torches. Lustily did I apply my hammer to its studded front. Vainly did I exert myself, until fire was put to it, when it at length gave way. As I ceased from my efforts, one of the crowd, carrying a torch, put a guinea into my hand, and said—

"'Well done, my good lad. Take this; you have wrought for it. If you are like to come to trouble for this night's work, fly to Anstruther, and you will find a friend.'

"While he spoke, those who had entered the jail were dragging Porteous down the stairs. My heart melted within me at the piteous sight. My anger left me, as his wailing voice implored mercy. I left the throng, who were hurrying him up towards the Lawnmarket, and hastened back to the workshop, where I deposited the hammer, and threw myself upon my bed; but I could not remain. The image of the wretched man, as he was dragged forth, appeared to be by my side. Partly to know the result, partly to ease my mind, I went again into the street. The crowds were stealing quietly to their homes. From some neighbour apprentices I learned the fatal catastrophe. I now became greatly alarmed for my safety, as numbers who knew me well had seen my efforts against the door of the jail. Bitterly did I now regret the active part I had taken. My immediate impulse was to fly from the city; but in what direction I knew not. Thus irresolute, I stood at the Netherbow Port, when the same person that gave me the guinea at the jail-door approached to where I stood. Embracing the opportunity, I told him the fear I was in of being informed upon, when the magistrates began to investigate and endeavour to discover those who had been active in the affair.

"'Well, my good fellow, follow me. It will not serve your purpose standing there.'

"There were about a dozen along with him. We proceeded to the beach at Fisherrow—going round Arthur's Seat, by Duddingston—and were joined by many others. Two boats lay for them, on the beach, at a distance from the harbour. We went on board and set sail for Fife, where we arrived before morning dawned. I found my new friend and acquaintance was captain and owner of a small vessel, who traded to the coast of Holland. He scrupled not to run a cargo upon his own account, without putting the revenue officers to any trouble, either measuring or weighing it. He had been the intimate friend of Robinson, and often sailed in the same vessel. I joined his crew; and, on the following day, we sailed for Antwerp. But why should I trouble you with the various turns my fortunes have taken for the last thirty-seven years? At times, I was stationary, and wrought at my trade; at others, I was at sea. My home has principally been in Rotterdam; but my heart has ever been in Auld Reekie. Many a time I joined the crew of a lugger, and clubbed my proportion of the adventure; my object being—more than the gain—to get a sight of it; for I feared to come to town—being ignorant as to how matters stood regarding my share in the Porteous riot. We heard in Holland only of the threats of the government; but I was always rejoiced to hear that no one had been convicted. Several years had passed before it was safe for me to return; and, when it was, I could not endure the thought of returning to be a bound apprentice, to serve out the few months of my engagement that were to run when I left my master. Years passed on. I had accumulated several hundred guilders, with the view of coming to end my days in Edinburgh, when I got acquainted with a townsman deeply engaged in the smuggling line. I unfortunately embarked my all. He had some associates in the Cowgate, who disposed of, to great advantage, any goods he succeeded in bringing to them. His colleagues on shore had provided a coach and horses, with suitable dresses, to personate Major Weir's carriage, agreeably to the most approved description. The coach and horses were furnished by an innkeeper, whom they supplied with liquors at a low rate. My unfortunate adventure left the port, and I anxiously waited its return for several months; but neither ship nor friend made their appearance. At length he came to my lodgings in the utmost poverty—all had been lost. Of what use was complaint? He had lost ten times more than I had—everything had gone against him. His narrative was short. He reached the coast in safety, and landed his cargo in part, when he was forced to run for it, a revenue cutter coming in sight. After a long chase, he was forced to run his vessel on shore, near St. Andrew's, and got ashore with only his clothes, and the little cash he had on board. He returned to where his goods were deposited—all that were saved. The coach was rigged out, and reached the Cowgate in the usual manner, when it was attacked and captured, in spite of stout resistance, by a party of citizens. What of the goods remained in the neighbourhood of Musselburgh, were detained for the loss of the horses and coach. I was now sick of Holland, and resolved to return, poor as I left it, to the haunts of my happiest recollections. To be rich, and riches still accumulating in a foreign land, the idea of what we can at any time enjoy, a return—makes it bearable. But poverty and disappointment sadden the heart of the exile; and make the toil that would be counted light at home, a burden that sinks him early in a foreign grave."

"Did your partner make no mention of carrying off one of the townsmen in the coach?" said the treasurer.

"Excuse me, master, for not mentioning it," replied Walter. "He did give me a full account of all that happened to you, and all you said; and regretted, when he heard of your illness, what, at the time, he was forced to do in self-preservation. When you fell out of the stair he meant to enter, he knew not who you were—a friend he knew you could not be, for only other two in the city had his secret. That you were a revenue officer, on the look-out for him, was his first idea. He was as much alarmed as you, until he found you were insensible. Not a moment was to be lost. The goods were hurried out, and you placed in the carriage, which was on its way from town before you showed any symptoms of returning consciousness. His first intention was to carry you on board his lugger, and convey you to Holland, then sell you to the Dutch East India Company, that you might never return to tell what you had been a witness of that night. The terror you were in, the sincerity of your confession, and belief that you were in the power of the major, saved you from the miserable fate he had fixed for you. Pity struggled against the caution and avarice which urged him to take you away. Pity triumphed—you had been both play and schoolfellows in former years. You were released—you know the rest."

The wife and mother scarce breathed, while Wattie related the danger the treasurer had been in; he himself gave a shudder—all thanked God for his escape. Wattie Brown continued in his employ, as foreman over his work, and died about the year 1789. Widow Horner did not long survive that night of intense anguish—she died of a broken heart in her son's house. It was remarked by all, that, while Thomas Kerr prospered, Walter Horner, who was at one time much the richer man, gradually sank into the most abject circumstances, and died a pensioner on his incorporation, more despised than pitied. And thus ends our tale of Major Weir's famous night airings in Edinburgh.

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THE DIVINITY STUDENT.

"So fades, so perishes, grows dim, and dies,
All that the world is proud of."

Wordsworth.

Although the revelations of a divine philosophy have taught us no more to entertain the blind notions of the Epicureans of old, that everything is the result of chance—or to agree with the Stoics, that the revolutions of the planetary system decree the fates and regulate the actions of mankind—yet the vicissitudes of human life, and the uncertainties of earthly hope, continue no less frequently to be the theme of the poet, and the regret of the philosopher. The truth is deep; nor is it ever suffered to be so long uncalled forth from our memories as to allow of its force being blunted. Striking and melancholy examples continually crowd upon us. Daily we are summoned to behold some noble aspiration blasted—to behold youth cut off in the bud—learning disappointed of its reward—worth suffering under the grip of misfortune—and industry sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind. These are dread and warning lessons to us, yet affording the surest marks of proof, that this sublunary and distempered world cannot be the final abode of man; that the seeds sown here will grow to maturity in a more genial clime; and that the events which now baffle the scrutiny of our moral reason, will yet appear to us revealed in clear and unperplexed beauty.

The story I am now about to narrate is simple in the extreme, yet affording scope for melancholy, and, it is to be hoped, not unprofitable meditation.

Robert Brown, a Scottish carrier, living in a remote district in Roxburghshire, contrived to bring up his family, consisting of five sons, by a course of unwearied industry and rigid economy, to an age at which the youngest had attained his sixteenth year—a time when it was thought by his friends that he might be able to take himself as a burthen from off his father's hands, and set about something towards his ultimate provision for life.

Consistently with their humble condition in the world, his brothers had all received the usual education of the Scottish peasantry—that is to say, they had been taught reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic; and, at suitable ages, had been alternately called from school to assist in farm work. They were fortunate in obtaining employment from the neighbouring landlords; and, though the servants of different masters, none of them were above two miles distant from their father's cottage. William, the youngest, had been destined from the cradle for something superior to the rest. They looked far forward, through the vista of years, to him as the pride of their old age, and the representative who was to carry down the respectability, credit, and good name of the family, to the succeeding generation. So far from the rest being chagrined at the partiality thus openly avowed, they contributed, "each in his degree," to the furtherance of the plan chalked out by their parents; judging, with honest pride, if William was destined to move in a sphere somewhat superior to their own, that a portion of the common approbation must necessarily be reflected on themselves, his relations. Thus all were united and amiable; no selfish and grovelling feelings introduced themselves to mar the cordiality of affection, or interfere with motives so upright and so honourable.

The object of this concentrated flood of generous love was certainly not an unworthy one. Having been born some years posterior to the other members of the family, he had never been a sharer in the youthful sports of his brothers, but was remembered by them as a favourite object on their Saturday evening meetings at their father's cottage. The frame of William was by no means so robust as that of the rest; and his dark glossy hair only set off more plainly the pale, and sometimes sallow hue of complexion. From both of these circumstances, his comparative youth, and his comparative delicacy of constitution, he ran a considerable chance of being, what is commonly termed, a spoiled child. He had, of course, contracted, from indulgence, a waywardness of disposition, which, however, by his innate modesty and good sense, was kept within very excusable limits, and soon wore entirely away, as the forwardness of boyhood began to subside into the more pensive thoughtfulness of maturer years.

After having exhausted all the means of instruction which an adjacent town supplied, he was obliged to have recourse to the grammar school of a neighbouring parish, about four miles distant from his home. For two years, neither summer's heat nor winter's snow were for a day allowed to frustrate his walking thither. He never returned till late in the afternoon; sometimes the evening star was the herald of his approach; and, during the brief days, towards the end or about the commencement of the year, darkness had set in before his face glimmered by the bickering fire of his parental hearth. Habits of temperance had been familiar to him all his days. Some cheese and oaten cake, regularly deposited in his satchel, served him for dinner, during the interval of school hours, after mid-day—and these he ate, walking about or reclining on the turf; but the warm tea and toast always awaited his evening arrival, and were set before him with all a mother's mindfulness and punctuality.

He was diligent at his books; and, being endowed by nature with good parts, he made a very fair and promising progress. He had none of that intellectual cleverness which makes advances by sudden fits and starts, and then relapses into apathy and idleness; but his steady industry, his attention, and his assiduity, gave omens favourable to his success, while his gentle and conciliatory manners gained him not only the love of his schoolfellows, but the esteem of his instructor.

It was now evident, that, from the pains and expense taken in regard to his education, he was destined for the pulpit—that climax of the honours and distinctions ever aimed at by a poor but respectable Scottish family. Years of rigid economy had been passed, almost without affording any hope as to the ultimate success and attainment of their laudable end.

His destination, almost unknown to himself, having been thus early fixed, it was resolved that he should be sent to Edinburgh, to attend the college there, professedly as a student of divinity. The expense, resulting from this resolution, bore hard upon their slender circumstances; but they were determined still farther to exert themselves, indulging the fond hope, that, one day or other, they would reap the reward of their honourable endeavours in the prosperity of their son.

To the university he set off, amid the ill-concealed tears of some, and the open and hearty blessings of all—so much were they attached to one, who, till that day, had never been even more temporarily separated from them, without many a caution, perhaps little required, to guard against the evil contaminations of the capital—little thinking, in their simple minds, that the slender means allowed him were barely sufficient for necessary purposes, without indulging in any uncalled for luxury, and that gold is the only key that fits pleasure's casket.

He found himself seated in the Scottish metropolis, in a cheap but snug and comfortable lodging, and encompassed by other sights and sounds than those which he had been accustomed to. The change struck on his heart with a low deep feeling of despondency, which a little time, conjoined with the urbanity and kindness of all around him, was sufficient to dissipate. The immense mass of lofty and majestic buildings, exhibiting their roofs in widening circles around him, and stretching far away, like the broken billows of an ocean, created thoughts of tumult, discord, and perplexity, when contrasted with the serene beauty of the calm pastoral district which he had left; and, amid the nightly crowd of population which engirded him, a sense of his own individual insignificance fell, with a crushing weight, on his spirit. The deeply engrafted strength of virtue and religion, however, at length prevailed, restoring to his mind its usual buoyancy; and he began to see objects in the same degree of relative value, but with a widely enlarged scope of sensation. He set about his studies with vigour and alacrity; and, keeping in recollection the circumstances of his relatives, he determined not only to avoid all unnecessary expense, but to exercise the most rigid economy. Few hours were allowed to sleep, and almost no time allotted to exercise and recreation. The hopes his father entertained he determined should not be frustrated, nor the confidence they reposed in him be shown erroneous, by any negligence on his part; while, by persevering with assiduity and ardour, he trusted, sooner than they expected, to relieve them of the burthen of his support—a burthen which, he knew, could not fail to press heavy on them all, however cheerfully supported.

In a course of the utmost economy, sobriety, and temperance, anxiously endeavouring to allow no opportunity of improvement to pass by unimproved, the winter session wore through, and left behind on his heart very few causes for self-disapprobation.

Towards the end of April, the pale student returned to the cottage of his father. Worn out by unwearied and unremitting studies, the vernal gales of the country came like a balsam to reanimate his flagging spirits; and the hopes that the object of so much exertion and care would be ultimately crowned with success, gained a strong hold on the mind it had threatened almost to forsake. In the crowd of the city he felt too deeply his own insignificance—an isolated stranger, poor and unknown of all, striving with a feverish hope, at rewards most likely to be carried away by more powerful interests. But here he felt a grain of self-importance return to elevate his fallen thoughts. The budding hawthorn, the singing birds, and the blue sky, were all delightful; and he began to lose his own bosom fears in the general exultation of nature.

The first ebullience of parental joy at his return, together with the congratulations of his affectionate brethren, having gradually subsided, few days were indeed allowed for idle recreation; and the same industrious course was persevered in.

Of the cottage, which consisted of three apartments, one of which served for kitchen, another was entirely set apart for William, that no interruptions might at any time disturb him. In the summer mornings he was up with the lark; but he closed not his book with her evening song. His studies were carried far into the silence of the night, and the belated traveller never failed to mark the taper gleaming from the window of his apartment.

Summer mellowed into autumn, which, with its fruitage, flowers, and yellow corn fields, also passed away; and again the hoar-frost lay whitely at morning on the wall of the little garden. Towards the end of October, our student, a second time, set out on his journey to Edinburgh.

The life of a college student is not one of incident or variety. Day after day calls him to the same routine of employment; and week is only known from week by the intervention of Sabbath repose. Suffice it, therefore, to say, that the second season passed away like the first, in frugal living and indefatigable exertion, and left our hero, at its close, the same uncorrupted, simple-hearted, and generous-minded youth, as when he first left the shadow of his father's door. His dress and his manners were very little altered. Amid the hum and the bustle of thousands, wealthy and toiling after wealth, he was an individual apart—a hermit standing on the rock, and listening to the roar of life's billowing ocean, but launching not his bark on its dim and dangerous waters.

His delicacy made him feel acutely, that the expenses which he had necessarily incurred, must weigh heavily on those upon whose open, but necessarily circumscribed bounty, he depended. It was, therefore, agreed on, at his own suggestion, to open a school for a season, in some one of the neighbouring villages. He hoped, by this means, to be enabled to raise a small fund for future exigencies, and to be indebted to his own industry for what necessity had hitherto obliged him to be dependent for on the bounty of others. Alas! this commendable design was but the protracting of a course of study already too severe for his tender and delicate constitution.

The scheme was, however, immediately acted on. A school in the village of Sauchieburn was opened, and, in a brief space, everything succeeded to the utmost of his expectations—for the school-room speedily began to fill; and, by a conscientious discharge of his duty to his pupils, the affection of their parents began to flow towards him. Although the quarterly payments were small, he contrived to lay aside by much the larger half. From the natural timidity of his disposition, conjoined with the fear of making acquaintances which might lead him into expenses, he lived almost alone, spending the leisure of his afternoons in walking with his book in his hand through the fields; his evenings passed over in solitary study.

Not long after his settlement, Mr. Allan, a farmer of some consideration in the neighbourhood, requested him to devote an hour or two daily to the tuition of his boys. In every point of view, this was a favourable circumstance for him. His labours were handsomely remunerated; and an introduction secured for him into a well-informed and rather elegant circle.

The family in whose house he lodged were little removed above the order of peasantry, but remarkable not only for their cleanliness and for the comfort of their dwelling, but for that integrity in their small concerns, and devout feeling of religious truth, still so frequently found united to narrow circumstances in the nooks and byways of Scotland, and constituting, certainly, not the least valuable gem in the coronal of her honour. Here he was regarded with looks of love; and his minutest wants attended to, with that scrupulous zeal which can only be expected from parental tenderness. He was regarded not only as a member of the family, but looked up to as something that was above them—doing honour to their dwelling. Every possible care was taken to render his situation as agreeable as possible to him; and his health was inquired after, by the kind inmates, with the most anxious and affectionate solicitude.

But the dark work was begun within, and the canker, which was to destroy the rose of health, was already committing dreadful ravages. He uttered no complaint; and, if pain was felt, its pangs were unacknowledged. A languor of the eye, an unusual paleness of the face, and the bursting forth of large drops of perspiration on the least exertion, were the only indications of declining health. The school was attended to as usual—not an hour was sacrificed to his weakness; and day succeeded day, and week followed week, without relaxation and without amendment. This could not last. The interregnum between receding health and approaching disease is generally of short duration, and the vacant throne is either greedily seized on by the angel or the demon.

He was getting gradually worse—gradually weaker. He had tried all those little remedies commonly prescribed for coughs, without advantage, and in secret. What was next to be done, he hardly knew. The school could no longer be continued, as he was unable to leave his room. After so much reluctant delay, a medical practitioner was consulted.

On inquiry, it was found that, for some weeks, he had been expectorating blood—he had nocturnal perspirations, hectic flushes, and almost incessant cough. His appetite was gone, and his whole frame in disorder. Poor William said, that he hoped he should soon be better, and able to persevere with his school. A week passed over, and matters were rapidly getting worse; yet it was not without reiterated persuasions, that the pale scholar could be persuaded to return for a season to the home of his fathers.

We must not omit, that, during his confinement, every attention was paid to William by the family of the Allans, and such small luxuries as his state seemed to require were sent by them unsolicited. Mr. Allan himself repeatedly called for him; and, one afternoon, as Miss Mary had walked as far as the village, she summoned up resolution to inquire at the door. William heard her voice, and requested her to come in. As he sat in a large stuffed chair, propped with pillows, his appearance evidently shocked her; and, when she wished to speak to him, her voice swelled in her throat. He extended his hand to her, and told her he would soon be better; but his long thin fingers thrilled her to the heart by their touch. She stood for a minute beside him; and, after again shaking hands with him, departed. Her sensations, during her solitary walk home, may be more easily imagined than described.

It was noted by the servants, that Miss Mary happened to be always the first to receive the communications of the messenger sent to the village of Sauchieburn. It was also remarked that the tidings, whether favourable or otherwise, could be read in a countenance not yet hardened by artifice, as so to belie the feelings of the heart.

Home he returned at length. To paint the distress of the family, on that occasion, at such a reappearance of one whom they had loved so tenderly, for whom they had done, and were yet willing to do, so much, were a heart-rending and melancholy task. As he entered the door, the mother rushed out to embrace her weak and emaciated son; and, throwing her arms around his neck, kissed his pale cheek with an agony of distress, while the tears, in spite of opposition, gushed in burning drops over her furrowed cheeks to the ground. The father grasped him by the hand, and supported him, with cheering words, into the apartment which of old he had inhabited. It had been but little used since he had last been its occupant; and the neat, clean, but plain furniture, remained almost as he had left it.

He was put to bed after the fatigue of travel, and every heart in that house was sorrowful. The poor scholar could not fail to see the distress so visible on his return; and his heart sank as the clouds of fate lowered over him. His brothers, as they dropped in, one after another, from the fields, approached affectionately to the bedside, and, taking his long, thin fingers in their toil-hardened hands, lamented his case, but cheered him with many a word of comfort, which almost belied themselves, from the uncertain tone in which they were uttered. And no wonder, for the alteration in his appearance was dreadful; and it was evident, to the least observant glance, that the poor young man was far gone in a consumption.

For some weeks the change of air, and the sight of so many countenances, so anxiously interested in his welfare, seemed to work a favourable change; and the gloom on his spirits began gradually to subside. In the sunny fore-noons, a chair was placed for him in the little garden behind the house. The spot commanded an extensive view of the country; and it amused him to look on the jolly reapers in the neighbouring field, and listen to their simple music while gathering in the yellow harvest treasures. Around him were many tall ash-trees, well remembered in the thoughts of other years. The gooseberry bushes, each of which was familiar to his memory, had shed their fruits, and were beginning to shed their leaves; but, on the later currants, some depending red and white strings were yet visible. The summer flowers were disappearing; but the more hardy roots, the spearmint, the gillyflower, the thyme, and the southernwood, sent forth to the autumnal air "a faint decaying smell." The beehive in the corner of the hedgerow was still unremoved, and the buzz of its never idle inhabitants filled the whole air with a continual pleasant murmur. The birds were all singing amid the beauty of nature, and, ever and anon, the lark, springing up on twinkling wings, sent a fainter and yet fainter note from its receding elevation.

So many agreeable images, so much affectionate attention, soothed the wounds that no earthly medicine could heal. In a short time, debility rendered him completely bed-ridden, and the tyrant of the human race betokened his approach "by many a drear foreboding sign."

It was one evening, when all the brothers had dropped in, one after another, that symptoms of rapid dissolution showed themselves. They sat down in silence around the hearth, and looked frequently, first at William and then at each other; while, at intervals, the fortitude of manhood could not forbear a half stifled sob. They saw that the curtain of death would soon be let down over eyes so beloved; and many a hurried glance of affection—and the agitated countenance—and the quivering hand—seemed to say, in silent eloquence, "Would to God I could die in my brother's stead!"

William was not insensible to the afflicting scene around him. He told them to bear up, and assured them that he suffered neither pain of body nor mind. "Heaven is wise in all its decrees," said the dying youth; "mourn not much for me; we shall, I trust, all meet again in Heaven. I only set out on my journey a little while before you. I feel that I have been much, too much of a burden to you all"——

Here he was eagerly interrupted by all of them, who conjured him not to speak in that manner, and that it was almost unkind of him to do so.

"Well," continued William, "I feel your affection as I ought. The reward hath not perished, and shall not be taken away, though now God calls upon me to leave you."

He then requested his father to read to him the latter part of the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, which he did with a composed and steady voice, amid the silent tears of his children, and the frequent sobs of the almost heart-broken mother, who leant with her face on the bedclothes, holding in hers the emaciated hand of her son. The soul of a mother can only comprehend the depth and the agony of her sufferings at that hour, when called on to part with her last born—the Benjamin of her small household.

In a short time his exhaustion was so great, that his efforts to speak were unavailing, and he fell into a gentle slumber, from which he never awoke—breathing his soul out upon the silent midnight without a groan!

However much the stroke of death may be expected, it never arrives without a violent shock to the feelings of all around. Here the grief was deep, but it was not upbraiding; and every pang was tempered by the gentle consolations of Christianity.

The mournful news was communicated to the inhabitants of Sauchieburn; and, amid the regrets of many a grateful parent, bright tears fell from the eyes of childhood, at the thoughts of their kind instructor's death. For a time, with the buoyancy of feeling incident to their years, they had considered the few first day's of play as something favourable and fortunate. Feeling the pleasurable effects, they forgot the melancholy cause. But now the "hope deferred" was taken away, and nothing but uncertainty and doubt were left in its place. They looked on the shut up windows and closed door of the school-house with a mingled feeling of curiosity and regret. The more affectionate said to each other, "our master shall never hear us lessons any more; they are going to lay him in the church-yard; we shall never see him again;" while the more selfish-minded busied themselves with conjectures about him who should come to them in his stead. The sorrows of childhood are of short duration; the heart is then like the softened wax, which takes all impressions—the one obliterates the other, and the last, whatever be its import, is still the deepest.

Not so evanescent was the melancholy at the house of the Allans. The two boys who had been under his charge spoke often of him as their kind master to Miss Mary, who seldom answered them but with a stifled accent, and an involuntary tear in her eye. That, almost unconsciously to herself, some impression had been made on her heart was evident. The feelings, perhaps, were reciprocal, for William had never mentioned her but in terms of deep respect, mingled with something of tenderness and admiration; but the wide gulf that separated them prevented him from having, even for a moment, indulged one dearer hope.

Certain it is, from whatever cause it might arise, that the health of Mary Allan declined rapidly, even to a state of the utmost delicacy; and the cheerful, lively girl, could hardly be recognised in the pale, emaciated, but still beautiful features, over which the ray of pleasure now seldom shot even a transient gleam. But time, the grand physician of all human troubles, by slow, but sure degrees, began the healing of the wound so afflictingly felt by her, and by the whole cottage family. Though, after the first burst of sorrow was over, each turned to his wonted avocation, yet the mainspring of activity was felt to be broken; and the heart often refuses, for a long period, to mould itself for the reception of new feelings and altered objects. Life assumes a different aspect; and the thoughts are often tardy to accommodate themselves to change, and its inevitable concomitants.

The remaining brothers met in the cottage of their parents, as heretofore, on the Saturday evenings; and, for a long time, the blank was felt—a chair was unoccupied—a beloved face was absent; but resignation to the decrees of Providence at length triumphed over the yearnings of natural affection. The father, on whose temples the few remaining hairs were changed to white, read the portion of Scripture with accustomed gravity, from the "big ha' Bible;" and exhibited a lesson, to all around, of noble, steadfast, and unshrinking piety.

The books, the papers, and everything that had belonged to William, were preserved by his relations with an affectionate regard, amounting almost to veneration; and, in a short time, a plain tombstone was erected at the head of the turf under which his ashes lay, inscribed simply with his name and age.

As the church was at more than two miles' distance from the cottage, the family usually spent the intervals between the forenoon and afternoon services, in loitering about the burial-ground. Around the grave of William, often were the whole remaining family observed, seated in the sunshine, upon the daisied turf, with their open Bibles in their hands.

The health of Miss Allan gradually recovered its former tone; but the shock she had sustained threw a shadow of change over her whole character. A degree of thoughtfulness and pensive grace hung around her looks and motions, softening down sorrow to resignation, and gaiety to cheerfulness. She grew more passionately fond of the beauties of external nature, and enjoyed a serene pleasure in solitary walks. Sometimes, in the light of the setting sun, when an azure shadow hung over the hills, when the clouds were tipped with refulgent glory, and the note of the blackbird, "most musical, most melancholy," burst on the ear from the neighbouring coppice, the eye of the passenger has, unawares, intruded on the privacy of her grief, as she stood silently gazing on the grave of him who had gone up before her into heaven.