Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 07

by Unknown

WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.

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JUDITH THE EGYPTIAN; OR, THE FATE OF THE HEIR OF RICCON.

"The black-eyed Judith, fair and tall,
Attracted the heir of Riccon Hall.

For years and years was Judith known,
Queen of a wild world all her own;
By Wooler Haugh, by silver Till,
By Coldstream Bridge, and Flodden Hill:

Until, at length, one morn, when sleet
Hung frozen round the traveller's feet,
By a grey ruin on Tweedside,
The creature laid her down and died."—Border Ballad.

More than three hundred years have elapsed since the people called Gipsies first made their appearance in this country; and, from all that I have been able to trace concerning them, it seems to have been about the same period that a number of their tribes or families proceeded northwards, and became dwellers and wanderers on the Borders. Their chief places of resort, and where, during the inclemency of winter, they horded or housed together, were, Kirk Yetholm, Rothbury, Horncliff, Spittal, and Tweedmouth. I believe that there are none of them now in Horncliff, which, on the bringing in of the muir, ceased to be a refuge for them; and there are but few in Spittal. But, in Rothbury and Kirk Yetholm, they still abound, and of late years have increased in Tweedmouth—that is, during the winter season, for they take to the hedges as soon as the primrose appears, and begin their wanderings. The principal names borne by the different tribes in these parts are Faa, Young, Gordon, Bailie, Blyth, Ruthven, and Winter. Their occupations are chiefly as itinerant muggers or potters, horners or "cuttie-spoon" makers, tinkers or smiths and tin-workers, and makers of besoms and foot-basses. They are still, with very few exceptions, a wandering and unlettered race, such as their fathers were when they first entered Britain. At Kirk Yetholm, however—which is their seat of royalty on the Borders, and where they have a lease of the houses in what is called Tinkler Row, for nineteen times nineteen years, on payment of a quit rent—they have not been so neglectful of the education of their children as in other parts of the country.

At the period of their first appearance in this kingdom, the land was overrun with thieves and vagabonds, who, in the severe and sanguinary laws of Queen Elizabeth and her father Harry, were described as "loyterers" and "sturdy beggars;" and it is more than probable that many of these, finding the mode of life followed by the gipsies congenial to them, associated with or intermarried amongst them, and so became as a part of them; and this may account for many, calling themselves gipsies, having European, or, I may say, British features. But the real gipsy there is no mistaking—their dark piercing eyes and Asiatic countenance mark them as distinctly as do the eyes and peculiar features of a Jew. (By the by, I wonder that no searcher after the marvellous has endeavoured to prove them to be a remnant of the lost tribes of Israel.) Like the Jews, they are scattered over the whole earth—like them, they are found in every land; and in every land they remain a distinct people.

Who they are, or whence they came, are questions involved in considerable mystery. Their being called Gipsies or Egyptians in this country, I hold to be a popular error which they themselves propagated. Egypt, from the earliest period, was distinguished above all lands for its soothsayers and diviners; and, as the chief occupation of the wanderers then was (and in many places still is) fortune-telling, they had cunning enough to profess to be Egyptians, or natives of the land wherein was taught the mysteries of rolling away the clouds which conceal fate and futurity. They have neither the language nor the manners of the Egyptians. No reason could be assigned for their leaving the land of the Pharaohs; and, although the gipsies of the present day profess to be Egyptians, they can bring forward no proof in support of the pretension. From all that I have read concerning them, it seems to me to be clearly proved that they are natives of Hindostan, where they formed a part of the lowest caste of Indians, called Pariars or Suders—a class held in detestation and abhorrence by the other castes. That the gipsy clans have a language peculiar to themselves, and which they frequently speak amongst themselves, is well known. It is not a written language; and they have endeavoured to conceal a knowledge of it from the people amongst whom they dwell. They have called it gibberish; and it has been very generally believed to be nothing more than what is usually understood by that term, or that at most it was a sort of slang, similar to the phrases used among thieves. This is an error. So far as those who have examined it have been able to ascertain, the secret language spoken by the British gipsies appears to be, with but trifling corruptions, the same as that which is spoken by the Indian caste of Suders in Hindostan.[1]

But a stronger proof that the gipsies scattered over Europe derive their origin from the Suders of India is demonstrated by the facts that the Suders were the only people who professed the art of palmistry—that they, like the gipsies, are a wandering race—that their occupations are almost identically the same, being fortune-tellers, dancers, and wandering musicians—that the smiths amongst them go about exactly in the same manner as the tinkers, in this country—that, like the gipsies, their favourite food is that of animals that have died of disease—that, like them, they have no fixed religion—and, like them, they endeavour to conceal their language. And the certainty of their being originally the same people is further strengthened, from the Suders having fled in thousands from India, during the murderous ravages of Timur Beg in 1408, which corresponds with the period of the first appearance of the gipsies in Europe. And that they are not Egyptians is strongly proved by the fact, that there are tribes of them in Egypt, where, as in other countries, they are regarded as strangers and foreigners.

I may have wearied the patience of the reader with this long and perhaps prosy introduction; but there may be some to whom it will not be uninteresting, as throwing a light on the probable origin of a singular people, of whom Judith the gipsy was one. And now to our story.

One of the chief men amongst the gipsies on the Borders, at the beginning of the last century, was Lussha Fleckie, who was only inferior in authority among the tribes to King Faa, who dwelt at Kirk Yetholm, and boasted of reigning lord over a free people. Lussha's avocations, like the avocations of all his brethren, were mere apologies for idleness. He was one day a tinker, on another a grinder, and on a third a wandering piper. He was a man of great stature and uncommon strength, and renowned for his exploits as a fisher and a sportsman.

The name of his wife was Mariam, and they had a daughter, called Judith, who, as she grew up towards womanhood, became known throughout Roxburgh and Northumberland as the Gipsy Beauty, or the Beautiful Gipsy. The appellation was not unmeritedly bestowed; for, though her skin was slightly tinged with the tawny hue of her race, a soul seemed to glow through her regular and lovely features, and the lustre of her dark eyes to throw a radiance over them. She was tall, and her figure was perfect as her face—it was symmetrical and commanding. Yet she was at once conscious of her beauty and vain of it, and her parents administered to her vanity. They had her fingers adorned with trinkets, her neck with bugles; for Lussha Fleckie, like most of his race, was fond of gold and silver ornaments; and, amongst others, he had in his possession a silver urn, which had been handed down to him through generations, and in which his fathers, as he now did, had deposited the fruits of their spoils and plunder, until it was filled with rich coins as a miser's coffer. He therefore, although a vagrant, was not a poor man, and could afford to deck the charms of his daughter. Judith was early initiated by her mother into the mysteries of the sybilline leaves—her education indeed extended no farther; and, at the age of fifteen, she was an adept in the art of palmistry. The proudest ladies in broad Northumberland or fair Roxburghshire eagerly submitted their hands to the inspection of the beautiful fortune-teller. The searching brightness of her dark eyes seemed to give a prophetic reality to her words; and, as she caused them to kindle with apparent joy or become transfixed at the discovery of coming wo, her fair and high-born patrons have trembled before her, and inquired, "What is it, Judith?" And, being a favourite with them all, for they both loved and feared her, her person was bedecked with their cast-off garments.

It was early in summer when about forty of the Faa people encamped near the foot of the Eildon Hills. A few minutes served for the erection of their portable village in a secure and sheltered situation, and speedily, supported on pieces of crossed branches, the caldrons swung over the crackling fires, each of which blazed fierce and merrily from between two stones. Savoury exhalations impregnated the air, and gave token of a feast. The banquet being spread upon the sward, when it was finished, and the brandy cup had been sent round, Lussha Fleckie took up his Northumbrian pipes, and began to play a merry reel. Old and young, men, women, and children, started to their feet, and joyous

"Tripp'd the light fantastic toe."

Judith glided through the midst of them, with her bright waving tresses falling on her shoulders, as queen of the glad scene. Of her it might have been said—

"A foot more light, a step more true,
Never from heath-flower dash'd the dew;
Even the light harebell raised its head,
Elastic from her airy tread!"

Her partner in the dance was Gemmel Græme; and in his veins also flowed gipsy blood. Gemmel was now a youth of twenty, and one of the most daring of his race. A passionate enthusiasm marked his disposition. In agile sports and feats of strength he had no competitor. In these he was what Lussha Fleckie had been. He boasted of his independence, and that he had never placed a finger on the property of friend or neighbour, nor been detected in levying his exactions on a stranger or a foe. His merits were acknowledged by all the tribes on the Borders; and, though he was not of the royal family of Faas, many looked to him as heir-apparent to the sovereignty. He held in princely contempt all trades, professions, and callings, and thought it beneath the dignity of a "lord of creation" to follow them. When, therefore, he accompanied the tribes in their migrations from place to place, he did not, as was the habit of others, assume the occupation of either tinker, grinder, bass-manufacturer, or the profession of a musician—but he went forth with his gun and his hound, or his leister and net, and every preserve, plantation, and river supplied him with food, and the barns of strangers with bread.

Judith was two years younger than Gemmel Græme, and he had not looked upon her lovely face with indifference; for the stronger passions and the gentler feelings of the soul find a habitation in the breast of the wandering gipsy as in those of other men. He had a bold manly bearing, and an expressive countenance. Judith, too, had seen much of his exploits. She had beheld him, to the neck in water, struggle with the strong salmon, raise it up, and cast it on the shore. She, too, had witnessed instances of his daring spirit, and in every sport had seen all vanquished who dared to contend with him. Yea, when the scented blossom, like fragrant fleece, overspread the hawthorn hedgerows, and the primrose and wild violet flowered at its roots—when the evening star shone glorious in the west, brightening through the deepening twilight—when the viewless cuckoo sighed "goodnight" to its mate, and the landrail took up its evening cry—then have Judith and Gemmel sat together by the hedge-side, at a distance from the encampment, with her hand in his. Then he would tell her of the feats he had achieved, of the wrestling-matches he had won, or the leaps he had made, and, pressing her hand, add, "But what care I for what I do, or for what others say, when the bright een o' my bonny Judith werena there to reward me wi' a blink o' joy!"

"Ye're a flatterer, Gemmel," whispered she.

"No, bonniest," answered he; "I deny that; I am nae flatterer. But if I were, ye are far beyont flattery sic as mine; and it is nane to say, that to my een ye are bonnier than yon gowden star, that shines by its single sel' in the wide heavens—and to me ye are dearer than the mountain is to the wild deer, or the green leaves to the singing birds."

Then he would press his lips to hers, and she blushed, but upbraided him not. But in the character of Judith, as in that of every woman over whose bosom vanity waveth its butterfly wings, there was something of the coquette. She did not at all times meet the affections of Gemmel with mutual tenderness, though she loved him beyond any one else, and was proud to see him wear her yoke. She had often smiled upon others, while her eyes glanced cold as illuminated ice upon him. Yet never was there one on whom she so smiled that repented not having courted or obtained it. For, as Gemmel's hand was strong and his love passionate, so was his jealousy keen and his revenge insatiate. There were cripples in the tribe, who owed their lameness to the hand of Gemmel, because, in some instance, Judith had shown a capricious preference to them while she slighted him.

Now, as has been said, it was a day of feasting and rejoicing amongst them, and Judith was Gemmel's partner in the dance. Walter, the young heir of Riccon, was riding round the Eildons, with his grey goshawk upon his arm, and his servant following him; and hearing sounds of music and shouts of revelry, he turned in the direction from whence they proceeded. He drew up his horse within a few yards of the merry group, and, from the first glance, the striking figure and the more striking features of Judith arrested his attention. His eyes followed her through the winding mazes of the dance. They sought to meet hers. Gemmel Græme observed him, and a scowl gathered on his brow. When the dance was ended, he led Judith to a green hillock on which her father sat, and approaching the heir of Riccon, inquired, fiercely, "What want ye, sir?—what look ye at?"

"Troth, friend," replied Walter, the master of Riccon, who was of too courageous a temperament to be awed by the face or frown of any man, "I look at yer bonny partner, and I want to speak to her, for a lovelier face or a gentler figure my een haena looked on since my mother bore me."

"Sir," retorted Gemmel, more fiercely, "ye hae yer grey goshawk, yer horses, and yer servant; I dinna covet them, and dinna ye covet what is mine, and to me mair precious. Awa' the road ye cam, or ony road ye like, but remain not here. Your company isna desired. Is it the manners o' you gentry to break in where ye are uninvited? Again, I warn ye, while the earth is green, to turn your horse's head away! I, Gemmel Græme, wha never vowed revenge but I satisfied it, warn ye!"

"As well," replied young Walter, haughtily, "might you vend your threats upon the rocks that compose those cloven mountains, as waste them upon me. I shall speak wi' your bonny partner;" and he struck his spurs into his horse to proceed towards her.

Gemmel grasped the bridle, and in a moment horse and rider were upon the ground.

"Gemmel Græme!" shouted Lussha Fleckie, "is that the welcome ye gie to strangers? Foul fa' ye! ye passionate tyke!—tak yer hands aff the gentleman, and if he wishes to join in oor merriment he's welcome. Gae, Judith, bring forward the gentle stranger."

Gemmel withdrew his hand from young Walter's throat; and, as he did so, he uttered wild and bitter words, and flung himself, as if in carelessness, on the ground, his head resting on his hand.

Judith, at her father's bidding, went and conducted the heir of Riccon to where her father sat and the late dancers were assembled, and Gemmel was left alone. A brief conversation passed between Lussha and Walter, during which the latter failed not to express his admiration of Judith. Her father smiled—there was a look of triumph in the eyes of her mother. The pipes again struck up, the dance was resumed, and Walter the heir of Riccon was the partner of Judith; while Gemmel Græme lay upon the ground, gazing upon them and gnashing his teeth.

"We maun see that nae harm come to the young Riccon oot o' this," whispered some of the eldest of the tribe to each other, who had not again joined in the dance, "for Gemmel is kicking his heel upon the ground, and whistlin' to himsel', and the horse-shoe is on his brow. It was wrong in Lussha to provoke him. There is an ill drink brewing for the young laird. He is dancing owre gunpoother where the touch-fire is creeping to it."

The dance was ended, and young Walter, taking a costly ring from his finger, placed it on Judith's, and whispered, "Wear it for my sake." And her cheeks seemed more lovely as she blushed, smiled, and accepted the gift.

Gemmel started to his feet as he beheld this. But Walter dashed his spurs into his horse, and, riding away, in a few minutes was out of sight. Gemmel glanced upbraidingly on Judith, and he passed by her parents in sullenness and in silence.

But the heir of Riccon had not ridden far, when he turned round and said to his servant, "We go now to Melrose, and from thence we shall go back and watch the movements o' the party we have seen. Mark ye weel the maiden wi' whom I danced, and whose marrow ye never saw; for rather would I that she was lady o' Riccon Ha', than that I shouldna meet her again."

Shortly after the departure of Walter, some of the tribe, perceiving that what had passed between him and Judith was likely to lead to a quarrel between Lussha Fleckie and Gemmel Græme, and knowing, from the nature of both, that such a quarrel would be deadly in its results, proposed that the festivities should terminate, and the encampment break up. The proposal was carried by a majority of voices; and even Lussha, though conscious of the reason why it was made, knew so well the fiery and desperate nature of him who was regarded by the tribe as the future husband of his daughter, that he brooked his own temper, and agreed to it. And, while they began to move their tents, and to load their asses and their ponies, Gemmel stood, whistling moodily, leaning against a tree, his eyes ever and anon directed with an inquisitive scowl towards the tent of Judith's father, his arms folded on his breast, and at intervals stamping his foot upon the ground; while his favourite hound looked in his face, howled, and shook its tail impatiently, as though it knew that there was work for it at hand.

Early on the following day, the servant of the heir of Riccon returned, and brought him tidings that the encampment had broken up, and Judith and her father had erected their tent in the neighbourhood of Kelso; for, as the ballad upon the subject hath it,

"Often by Tweed they saunter'd down
As far as pleasant Kelso town."

Walter mounted his horse, and arrived within sight of their tent before the sun had gone down. At a distance from it he perceived Judith. She was alone, and holding her hand towards the declining sun, gazing upon her fingers as if admiring the ring he had presented to her on the previous day. He rode to where she stood. She seemed so entranced that she perceived not his approach. She was indeed admiring the ring. Yet let not her sex blame her too harshly: men and women have all their foibles—this was one of Judith's; and she was a beautiful but ignorant girl of eighteen, whose mind had never been nurtured, and whose heart had been left to itself, to be swayed by every passion. He dismounted—he threw himself on his knees before her—he grasped her hand. "Loveliest of women!" he began——But I will not follow him through his rhapsody. Such speeches can be spoken but at one period of our lives, and they are interesting only to those to whom they are addressed: therefore I will spare my readers its recital. But it made an impression on the heart of Judith. He spoke not of his feats of strength, of his running, leaping, and wrestling, as Gemmel did; but he spoke of her, and in strains new but pleasant to her ear. And, although she had chided her first lover as a flatterer, she did not so chide the heir of Riccon. Vanity kindled at his words, and even while he knelt and spoke before her, she forgot Gemmel, and already fancied herself the jewelled lady of Riccon Hall.

He perceived the effect which his first gift had produced, and he saw also how earnestly she listened to his words. He wore a golden repeater, which he had purchased in Geneva, and which was secured by a chain of the same metal, that went round his neck. He placed the chain around her neck, he pressed the watch upon her bosom. In her bosom she heard, she felt it beat, while her own heart beat more rapidly.

"Hark!—hark!" said he, "how constantly it beats upon your breast—yet, trust me, loved one, my heart beats more truly for you."

Before they parted, another assignation was arranged. From that period, frequent interviews took place between Walter and the lovely Judith, and at each visit he brought her presents, and adorned her person with ornaments. Her parents knew of his addresses, but they forbade them not.

Now, one evening they had taken up their abode in a deserted building near to Twisel Bridge; and thither the young laird came to visit Judith. Her father invited him into what had once been an apartment in the ruined building, and requested him to sup with them. Walter consented; for the love he bore to Judith could render the coarsest morsel sweet. But, when he beheld the meat that was to be prepared and placed before him, his heart sickened and revolted, for it consisted of part of a sheep that had died; and, when Lussha beheld this, he said, "Wherefore shudder ye, young man, and why is your heart sick? Think ye not that the flesh o' the brute which has been slain by the hand o' its Creator, is fitter for man to eat than the flesh o' an animal which man has butchered?"[2]

Walter had not time to reply; for, as Lussha finished speaking, a dog bounded into the ruins amongst them. Judith started from the ground; she raised her hands, her eyes flashed with horror.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, in a voice of suppressed agony, "it is Gemmel's—Gemmel's hound! Fly, Walter, fly!"

"Wherefore should I fly?" returned the youth; "think ye, Judith, I am not able to defend myself and you against any man? Let this fierce braggart come."

"Away!—haste ye away, sir!" said Lussha, earnestly, grasping him by the arm, "or there will be blood and dead bodies on this floor! Come away! Gemmel Græme is at hand, and ye dinna ken him sae weel as I do!"

Walter would have remonstrated, but the gipsy, still grasping him by the arm, dragged him to a door of the ruin, adding, "Steal away—quick! quick among the trees, and keep down by the Till to Tweedside. Dinna speak!—away!"

It was a grey midnight in July, and the heir of Riccon had not been absent three minutes, when Gemmel Græme stalked into the ruin, and with his arms folded sat down upon a stone in sullen silence.

"We are glad to see ye, Gemmel," said Mariam; "ye hae been an unco stranger."

"Humph!" was his brief and cold reply.

The supper was spread upon the ground, and the mother of Judith again added, "Come, Gemmel, lad, it is o' nae use to be in a cankered humour for ever. Draw forward and help yersel'—ye see there is nae want."

"So I see!" replied he, sarcastically; "did ye expect company? I doubt yer fare would hardly be to his palate!"

"What do you mean, Gemmel?" cried Lussha; "think ye that we are to put up wi' yer fits?—or wherefore, if ye hae naething to say, come ye glunching here, wi' a brow as dark and threatening as a nicht in December?"

Gemmel rose angrily, and replied, "I hae something to say, Lussha, and that something is to Judith, but not in your presence. Judith, will ye speak wi' me?" added he, addressing her.

Judith, who had sat in a corner of the ruin, with her hands upon her bosom, covering the watch which young Walter had given her, and forgetting that the golden chain by which it was suspended from her neck was visible, cast a timid glance towards her father, as if imploring his protection.

"I am no sure, Gemmel," said Lussha, "whether I can trust my daughter in your company or no. If I do, will ye gie me yer thumb that ye winna harm her, nor raise your hand against her."

"Harm her!" exclaimed Gemmel, disdainfully: "I scorn it!—there's my thumb."

"Ye may gang, Judith," said her father.

Judith, with fear and guilt graven on her lovely features, rose and accompanied Gemmel. He walked in silence by her side until they came to an old and broad-branched tree, which stood about forty yards from the ruin. A waning summer moon had risen since he arrived, and mingled its light with the grey gloam of the night, revealing the ornaments which Judith wore.

"Judith," said Gemmel, breaking the silence, and raising her hand from her bosom, with which she concealed the watch, "where got ye thae braw ornaments? Has yer faither found a heart to lay his fingers on the treasures in the silver jug?"

She trembled, and remained silent.

"Poor thing! poor thing!—lost Judith!" exclaimed Gemmel. "I see how it is. For the sake o' thae vile gewgaws, ye hae deserted me—ye hae sacrificed peace o' mind, and bidden fareweel to happiness! O Judith, woman!—wha is the flatterer noo? Do you mind syne we sat by the hedge-side thegither, when the corn-craik counted the moments round about us, and tried to mind us hoo they flew—when the sun had sunk down in the west, and the bonny hawthorn showered its fragrance owre us, as though we sat in the garden where our first parents were happy? Do you mind o' thae days, Judith?—and hoo, when my heaving bosom beat upon yours, as we sat locked in ilka other's arms, I asked, 'Will ye be mine?' and ye let yer head fa' on my shouther, and said, 'I will!'—Judith! do ye mind o' thae things, and where are they noo?"

"Gemmel Græme," replied she, and she wept as she spoke, "let me gang—I canna bide wi' ye—and ye hae nae richt to put yer questions to me."

"Nae richt!" he returned. "O Judith! hae ye forgotten a' yer vows?—or hae ye forgotten the time when, in caulder nichts than this, when the snaw was on the ground, and the trees were bare o' leaves, that ye hae stood or wandered wi' me, frae the time that the sun gaed down, until the sea-birds and the craws sailed owre our heads seeking for their food on the next morning?—and now ye tell me ye canna bide wi' me! O Judith! ye hae dune what has made my heart miserable, and what will mak yer ain as miserable?" And as he spoke he still held her hand.

"Let me gang, Gemmel," she again sobbed, and struggled to wrest her hand from his grasp—"I hae naething to say to ye."

"Then ye will leave me, Judith!" he cried, wildly—"leave me for ever, wi' a withered heart and a maddened brain!" She answered him not, but still wept and struggled the more to escape from him.

"Then gang, Judith!" he cried, and flung her hand from him, "but beware hoo we meet again!"

Some months after this, and when the harvest-moon shone full on the fields of golden grain, and the leaves rustled dry and embrowned upon the trees, there was a sound of voices in a wood which overhung the Tweed near Coldstream. They were the voices of Walter the heir of Riccon and of Judith.

"Leave," said he, "dear Judith, leave this wandering life, and come wi' me, and ye shall be clad in silks, dearest, hae servants to wait on ye, and a carriage to ride in!"

"Ah!" she sighed, "but a wandering life is a pleasant life; and, if I were to gang wi' ye, would ye aye be kind to me, and love me as you do now?"

"Can ye be sae cruel as doubt me, Judith?" was his reply.

"Weel," returned she, "it was for yer sake that I left Gemmel Græme, wha is a bald and a leal lad, and one that I once thought I liked weel. Now, I dinna understand about your priests and your books, but will ye come before my faither and my mother, and the rest o' oor folk, and before them swear that I am yer lawfu' wife, the only lady o' Riccon Ha', and I will gang wi' ye?"

"My own Judith, I will!" replied Walter, earnestly.

"You will not!" exclaimed a loud and wild voice, "unless over the dead body of Gemmel Græme!"

At the same moment a pistol flashed within a few yards of where they stood, and Walter the heir of Riccon fell with a groan at the feet of Judith. Her screams rang through the woods, startling the slumbering birds from the branches, and causing them to fly to and fro in confusion. Gemmel sprang forward, and grasped her hand. "Now, fause ane," he cried, "kiss the lips o' yer bonny bridegroom!—catch his spirit as it leaves him! Hang roond his neck and haud him to yer heart till his corpse be cauld! Noo, he canna hae ye, and I winna! Fareweel!—fareweel!—fause, treacherous Judith!"

Thus saying, and striking his forehead, and uttering a loud and bitter scream, he rushed away.

Judith sank down by the dead body of Walter, and her tears fell upon his face. Her cries reached the encampment, where her parents and others of her race were. They hastened to the wood from whence her cries proceeded, and found her stretched upon the ground, her arms encircling the neck of the dead. They raised her in their arms, and tried to soothe her, but she screamed the more wildly, and seemed as one whose senses grief has bewildered.

"Judith," said her father, "speak to me, bairn—wha has done this? Was it——"

"Gemmel!—wicked Gemmel!" she cried; and in the same breath added, "No! no!—it wasna him! It was me!—it was me! It was fause Judith."

Gemmel Græme, however, had dropped his pistol on the ground when he beheld his victim fall, and one of the party taking it up, they knew him to be the murderer. Lussha Fleckie, touched by his daughter's grief, and disappointed by his dream of vain ambition being broken, caused each of his party to take a vow that they would search for Gemmel Græme, and whosoever found him should take blood for blood upon his head.

And they did search, but vainly, for Gemmel was no more heard of.

Twelve months passed, and autumn had come again. A young maniac mother, with a child at her breast, and dressed as a gipsy, endeavoured to cross the Tweed between Norham and Ladykirk. The waters rose suddenly, and as they rose she held her infant closer to her bosom, and sang to it; but the angry flood bore away the maniac mother and her babe. She was rescued and restored to life, though not to reason, but the child was seen no more.

For thirty years the poor maniac continued at intervals to visit the fatal spot, wandering by the river, stretching out her arms, calling on her child, saying, "Come to me—come to yer mother, my bonny bairn, for ye are heir o' Riccon, and why should I gang shoeless amang snaw! Come to me—it was cruel Gemmel Græme that murdered yer bonny faither—it wasna me!"

It was in January the body of a grey-haired woman, covered with a tattered red cloak, was found frozen and dead, below Norham Castle. It was the poor maniac Judith, the once beautiful gipsy. Some years afterwards, an old soldier, who had been in foreign wars, came to reside in the neighbourhood, and on his death-bed requested that he should be buried by the side of Judith, and the letters G. G. carved on a stone over his grave.

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THE DROICH.

On the evening of that eventful day which saw Patrick Hamilton, Abbot of Ferne, the young and learned Scotch proto-martyr to the Protestant faith, bend his head and resign his soul at the burning stake, in the head-quarters of Scottish superstition—St Andrews—a young man was slowly bending his steps from the scene of execution towards his home, a good many miles distant. The effect produced by that day's proceedings was, as is well known, felt throughout all Scotland, where the scene of martyrdom was, as yet, one of these mira nova which startle a country, and extort from the innermost recesses of the heart thoughts and feelings as new as intense. In the case of Hamilton, there were many features calculated, in an eminent degree, to strike deep into the minds of a sympathetic and meditative people; and doubtless, his birth, descended from the royal house of Albany—his learning, derived from the deep wells of Mair's philosophy—and his extreme youth—were not the least impressive; yet there was something in the mere manner of his death—abstracted even from the species of immolation not altogether new to Scotland, cruelly mangled, as he was, by an awkward or cold-blooded executioner—that deepened and riveted the effect produced by the extraordinary scene of his martyrdom. If casual or merely curious spectators might dream of that scene till their dying hour, we may form some estimate of what the friend and college companion of the martyr—for such was the young man whom we have now introduced to the reader—felt and thought, as, with eyes bent on the ground, he prosecuted his journey homewards, after witnessing the execution. Imbued himself with the spirit of the new faith, he had that day seen it proved, in a manner little less than miraculous. One of the softest and gentlest of mankind, who would have shrunk from the sight of pain inflicted on the meanest of God's creatures, had been enabled, by celestial influence, to stand, in the midst of a scorching and destroying fire, undaunted, unmoved, with smiles on his countenance, and words of exhortation on his lips. The feelings of the religionist were roused and sublimed by the contemplation of one of heaven's marvels; but the pity of the man and the friend was not lost in the admiration of the heaven-born fortitude that simulated total relief from bodily agony. Tears filled the eyes of the youth, and were wiped away only to rise again with the recurring thoughts of the various stages of the trial and triumph of his beloved friend. He had already wandered a considerable distance; but the space bore no proportion to the time occupied; for he had sat down often by the roadside, hid his face in his hands, and been lost in a species of charmed contemplation of images at which he shuddered.

While yet some miles from the end of his journey, the shades of night began to fall over the undulating heights that form the end of the Ochil chain to the west; but, as yet, the sun, the only object seen in the whole horizon, appeared in full disk, red and lurid, like the mass of ember-faggots which, some hours before, lay in the street of St Andrews, surmounted by the blackened corpse of the martyr. The traveller turned his eye in the direction of the luminary; but quickly passed his hand over his brow, from an instinctive feeling of horror, as a dim wreath of cloud, stretching along the superior part of the fiery circle, seemed to realise again, in solemn magnificence, the sight he had witnessed. The altitude of the object which suggested the resemblance, with the gorgeousness in which it was arrayed, again claimed the aspiring thought, that the spirit of his friend, sublimed by the doctrines of the new faith, was even then journeying to the spheres which he contemplated. The final triumph of the martyr was completed in the scene of his agonies; and the seal of eternal truth was, by God's finger, imprinted on the doctrines he had published and explained in the midst of the melting fire of the furnace. Placing his hand in his breast, he drew forth the beautiful Latin treatise which his friend had composed on the subject of the justification of the sinner, through a believing faith in Him who was foretold from the beginning of time; and, sitting again down by the side of a hedge, he struggled, in the descending twilight, to store his mind with some of those precepts which were destined to claim the reverence of an enlightened world. He was soon lost in the rapt meditation in which the spirits of the early reformers rejoiced amidst the persecution with which they were surrounded, and was again in regions brighter than those of this world, in communion with him who, when the flames were already crackling among the faggots, cried out, "Behold the way to everlasting life!" From the exalted sphere of his dreamy cogitations he looked down with a contempt which, as his head reclined among the grass, might have been observed curling the lip of indignant scorn, upon all the thousand corruptions of the Old Church—its sold indulgences, its certified beatifications, its pardons, its soul-redeeming masses, its chanting music, its sins, and its ineffectual mortifications. The bright spirit of Christianity, arrayed in her pure garment of white, was before the view of his fancy; her clear seraphic eye beamed through his soul: and, with finger pointed to heaven, she invited him to brave the pile and the persecution of men, and gain the crown which was now encircling the temples of Hamilton. He thought he could then have died as his friend had perished, and that the pangs of the circling flames would have been felt by him merely as the smart pungency of a healing medicament, which the patient rejoices in as the means of acquiring health.

How long he remained under the influence of this beatific vision he knew not himself. He had fallen asleep. He opened his eyes: the sun had now gone down into the western main; and all that was left of his glory was a thin stream of wavy light, which, shooting across the dark firmament, looked like the wake of the passing spirit of his friend on its journey to heaven. He arose. The searching dews of evening had penetrated to his skin; a cold shiver shot through his frame; and again, clutched by the humbling and levelling harpies of worldly feelings, fears, and experiences, he felt all the terror of his former sensations when he beheld the corpse of the martyr sink with a crash among the embers, which, as they received the body, sent forth a cloud of hissing, crackling sparkles of fire, mixed with a dense cloud of smoke.

"Alas! this spirit of mine is strong only in dreams," he muttered to himself, as the shiver of the night air passed over him. "It is as the eagle of Bencleugh, which, with his eye in the sun and his feet under his tail-plumes, will resist the storms that shiver the pines of the Ochils; yet bring him to earth, and draw one feather from his wing, and he can only raise a streperous noise amidst the sweltering suffocation of his earth-crib."

He had scarcely uttered the words, when he saw the short, thick figure of a man coming along the road, enveloped in a gown, and bearing a stick like a thraw-crook in his hand. Starting to his feet, he stood, for a moment, to see if he could recognise the individual.

"Good even to ye, young Master o' Riddlestain," said the individual, as he came up, and was recognised by the youth—"good even to ye; and God send ye a warmer bed than the hedge-beild, and a caulder than ane o' bleezing faggots."

"Good even, Carey," replied the youth. "I return your salutation. The one lair, as a beadsman of Pittenweem, you may have experienced ere now; the other you stand in small fears of. From St Andrews, if I can judge from your allusion to the sad doings of to-day in that part?"

"Ye guess right," replied the beadsman, as they proceeded forward, side by side; "but how could you guess wrang, when every outlyer and rinner-about in the East Neuk has been this day at the head-quarters o' prelacy. A strange day and a selcouth sight for auld een. It's no often that Carey Haggerston carries a fu' ee and a fu' wallet."

"Then you were moved by the fate of poor Hamilton, Carey?" replied the youth.

"And wha, Papist or heretic, could stand yon sight wi' dry een?" replied the man, in a voice that trembled in the sinews of his throat. "I wad hae gien a' the bodles the prelates threw me—the mair by token, I think, that the puir callant was writhing in the fire-flaughts o' their anger—for ae stroke wi' this kevel at the head o' yon culroun caitiff o' an executioner. The bonny youth was roasted as if he'd been a capon for the table o' the cardinal, only there was mair smoke than might hae suited his lordship's palate, I reckon."

"You have got a good awmous, Carey, will sleep sound, and think nothing of it on the morrow?" said the youth.

"Anster Fair was naething to it," replied the beadsman. "The scene seemed to open the hearts o' prelates and priors, that never gave a plack to a bluegown before. I held up the corner o' my gown beneath the chapel o' the cardinal, and, sure enough, there were mair groats than tears fell into it. Ah, sir, though my wallet was yape, my heart was youden. But we're near the haugh road to Riddlestain, Master Henry, and, as the night is loun and light, I carena though I step up past the Quarryheugh wi' ye."

"You may expect small alms from the Droich," said Henry.

"No muckle, I daresay," replied the bluegown; "but I stand in nae fear o' him, and that's mair than the bauldest heart o' the East Neuk can say. I wad stroke the lang hair o' the creature any day for an awmous, unearthly as he is."

"Know you aught of this extraordinary being, Carey?" said the youth, as they turned up the haugh loan.

"Ye're no the first nor the hundredth that has put that question to the beadsman," replied the other, as he looked up with a side-glance in the face of the questioner. "Everybody thinks I should ken auld Mansie o' the Quarryheugh—the mair by token, I fancy, that naebody on earth kens mair o' him than just that he is a hurklin, gnarled carle, wha cam to the Quarryheugh some months syne, and biggit, wi' his ain hands, a beild which has mair banes than stanes in its bouk."

"I know more of him myself than that, Carey," said the young man.

"What ken ye?" rejoined the other, with a laugh.

Henry's silence was probably meant as a quickener of the beadsman's garrulity.

"Ye may ken, maybe," said the other, "that he speels the sides o' the Quarryheugh—that is, whar there are trees to haud by—like a squirrel, swinging frae ae ryss to anither, and sometimes dangling over the deep pool aneath him, like a showman's signboard, or a gammon frae the kitchen ciel o' the Priory o' Pittenweem; but the creature's legs are nae bigger than an urchin's, while his trunk and arms are like the knur and branches of an oak. What ken ye mair o' him? What kens ony ane mair o' him, an it bena that he has been seen, in the moonlight, howking the banes o' the dead Melvilles o' Falconcleugh frae the side o' the quarry, whar it marches wi' the howf o' the auld house that stands by the brink? An auld wife's tale, doubtless, though maybe he needed the banes for his biggin."

"I believe the people in these parts would know more of him, were they not afraid to go near him," said the youth. "They stand peeping over the quarry brink at him, as if he were the 'gudeman of the croft,' Mahoun himself."

"And nae ferly either, Henry," said Carey; "for his face speaks as clearly o' the skaith o' fire as did that o' Patrick Hamilton when yon gust o' wind drove the flames to the east, and showed his cheeks—sae pale, alace! and like a delicate leddy's, as they ance were—burnt as brown as the wa's o' Falconcleugh House there."

The two speakers had now arrived at the old mansion of the Melvilles, which stood on the brink of the deep crater, whose high sides had procured for it the appellation of the Quarryheugh. At the side or end next the chasm, rose, beetling over it, a high turret, perforated in several storeys by small embrasures, and surrounded by three tiers of bartisans. From this flanking strength, the two side walls—relieved, at intervals, by circular projections containing spiral stairs—ran back, and were terminated by an ordinary gable, the inclined sides of which were cut in gradually-receding steps. The care which seemed to have been taken in securing the casements by closed shutters within, indicated, more certainly than did the general appearance of the withered house, that, though unoccupied, it was still deemed suitable for serving the uses of a dwelling, and that the choughs and stannyels that perched on its roofs were mere tenants at will, and might be removed on a day's warning. For a considerable distance around, there was nothing to be seen but a bare heath, the dark brown aspect of which suggested the probability of its having been swept by the destroying flames of muirburn. Even the few straggling boulders that shot up their grey heads through the scanty gorse stems, springing from their bases, wore a black, scathed appearance, as if they had still retained the traces of the ravage of the sweeping scourge. Hidden, except to near gazers amidst this wild waste, and shelving down from the tower of the mansion, the chasm or quarry, in the form of a huge crater, lay deep and still, with a dark mass of greenish-hued water reposing like another Dead Sea in its bosom. Around two sides of it, where there was a sufficiency of soil to support them, grew a number of stunted pines, the heads of none of which appeared above the superior circle; but, dipping down, added to the darkness of the water beneath, by the shadows they flung over its surface. At the eastern part, and where the pines in that direction ended, there seemed to have fallen down a large portion of the superincumbent bank, whereby there was formed a species of island, whose nearer edge might be about ten feet from the bank from which it had been severed.

On this insular spot, which was now accessible from the mainland by means of two pine trunks thrown across and wattled together, lived the extraordinary individual whose form and habits had, in the conversation of the two speakers, been, in a partial manner, described. The small domicile he had reared for himself was entirely composed of materials supplied by the chasm in which it was situated, and constructed in the rudest manner of a self-taught artist, whose object was to shield himself from the inclemency of the weather, without any view to comforts, which he either despised, or deemed it unsafe or improper to indulge. It was, indeed, a mere rough shieling, with four walls, composed of rubble stones, mixed with—what probably excited more wonder than all the other supernatural attributes of the place, and the being himself—a due proportion of bones, collected from the cemetery of the family of Falconcleugh House, which had, on some disruption of the sides of the chasm, been laid open on its western side. The roof was supported by one or two rough trunks of pines, thrown in a slanting direction across, and composed of small twigs and leaves, wattled and compressed in such a manner as to save the inmate from a part, at least, of heaven's more profuse inundations.

The bare and scorched wilderness around, over which the eyes of the beadsman and his companion were wandering, as they approached the scene of their conversation, had now resigned its embrowned hue, for the not less dreary and mystic tinge of the blue light of the young moon, as she struggled with the falling darkness. The circumstances of the still unseen chasm being tenanted by the only living mortal within the circumference of the bleak waste, and he himself, calculated, by his unusual formation of body, and imputed mystic powers and attributes, to aid the pregnant associations connected with his lonely condition, was, by those acquainted with the locality of Falconcleugh Muir, naturally combined with the dismal celebrity of the place for these deeds of violence so common at that period in Scotland. Whatever may have been felt by his less imaginative companion, whose familiarity with the overt proceedings of the occult powers of the waste and the ruin may have blunted his perceptions of the supernatural, it is at least certain, and assuredly no marvel either, that Henry Leslie surveyed the scene around him with the feelings natural to the time and the country when and where he lived. The dark figure of the house rose before him, claiming the homage due to the genius of the place, where it was almost the only object that arrested the eye. Replete in itself with the elements of gloomy associations, connected with the fate of the once happy Melvilles who resided there, it threw a wizard power over the surrounding heath-waste, investing the bleak inanity of Nature's most negative condition with an interest which could not have been possessed by her multiform productions. The absence of material objects of thought lent even a species of positive character of inspissated essence to the blue haze of the atmosphere, which seemed to hang like a mighty sea in the deepest stillness of nature's silence. For some time, neither of the parties had uttered a word. The brush of their feet on the heath, and the sound of their breath, were intensified by the silence into noises that to the younger of the two seemed startling and painful.

"Hooly, hooly," muttered the beadsman, as his last step brought him to the chasm; "loun and canny, young master—loun and lightly," he added, as he sat down on what seemed to have been a step of a ruined porch, close by the building, and by the brink of the shelving heugh. "Eh! but this silence is gousty and elric. That corbie's grane was like the roar of a lion. Didna ye think the drum o' yer ear would crack wi' the sound?"

Henry seated himself by the bluegown on the stone, and they both turned their eyes down on the deep hollow, where the waters seemed as dark as the Stygian stream.

"I hear nae stir in the howe," said the beadsman, "and see naething but that rickle o' a house standing on that eerie pinnacle, like a craw's nest on the tap o' a tree in a glen. The creature's surely sleeping after his day's wark; for he works like a dergar, and nae man kens what at. He maks neither wicker corbins nor quhorls, like the rest o' his Droich species."

"Hist! Carey; heard ye not a noise?" said the youth.

"A hungry stane hawk spooming down the quarry after some raven that has been picking the banes o' the Melvilles," replied the other. "Wear-awins! there's a sad change on Falconcleugh now," he continued, as he turned his face to the walls. "The fire o' the ha' has been eighteen years extinguished; and when it may be lighted again, it will be to warm fremmet blude o' the spoiler o' the auld family. Heard ye that Gilbert Blackburn o' Kingsbarns, the commendator o' Pittenweem, is shortly to tak up his residence here, whar, methinks, he has as little right as the puir beadsman."

"No," replied Henry, as, keeping his eye on the house of the strange inhabitant, he lent his ear to the gaberlunzie man.

"It is even so," continued the old man. "It is now eighteen years, come the time, since George Melville, the last o' his ancient race, was burned for a heretic in Bordeaux. He was driven frae that mansion there, and the braw lands o' Falconcleugh, by Gilbert Blackburn, the persecutor o' the heretics, even he wha had a hand in raising the black stake at the cross o' St Andrews the day. I saw his ee, red as the burning faggots, fixed on the puir youth. I'm thinking I didna thank him for his awmous."

"You seem friendly to the heretics, Carey, yet live by the kirk," said the youth, withdrawing his eye from the chasm.

"The kirk's penny has as mony placks in't as a heretic's—the mair by token, they hae baith three," replied Carey. "I hae my ain thoughts o' the auld faith and the new doctrines; but it's better to live by the altar than be burned on't."

"It might have been well for the earthly part of Patrick Hamilton, had he observed your worldly wisdom," said Henry.

"Ay; but his soul wadna hae been in yon blue lift the night," replied Carey, looking up to the sky. "Na, na, nor might that o' puir Falconcleugh have been there afore him, if he had bowed his head at the auld altar. Yet he tried to save his body by fleeing to France—vain flight, for his persecutor, Kingsbarns, wrote incontinent to the authorities at Bordeaux, to watch him as an enemy to the holy kirk. Then cam the sough, as pleasant to the ears o' Kingsbarns as the whistlin' winds to the outlaying bluegowns, that his victim was burned. His bonny wife, ane o' the Blebos, wha fled wi' him, died o' a broken heart; and now, they say, the race is dune. Whist! whist! Gude and the rude! What's the creature doing amang the trees o' the howe at this time o' nicht?"

A rustling noise arrested the ears of the speakers, and Henry's eye was turned in the direction of the sound. The short stunted figure of a man was dimly seen down among the pines, working his way along the face of the precipice, by means of his arms alone, swinging from one stem to another, and occasionally resting for a moment, by remaining suspended, in an apparently dangerous and fearful, yet perfectly composed manner, over the water in the deep basin of the crater. Continuing this operation, in which there was clearly exercised an extraordinary brachial power and energy, he approached, with marvellous rapidity, his dwelling; and, by one or two more salient movements, in which there could not be observed, any more than in his prior progress, the slightest use made of his inferior extremities, he came to the wattled trunks lying across the cleft. Seizing these with the same extraordinary power of grasp, he hung for a few seconds in mid-air, suspended by the hands; then, by two or three successive throws and jerks, which made the pines bend and creak, he reached the insular height whereon his hovel was erected, and drawing himself up, he sat down, apparently in a resting attitude, upon the brink of the riven bank. In this position he remained for a considerable time, with his head bent downwards, as if he were wrapped in deep meditation. The rough croaking of some crows that had been disturbed by the rustling movements he had made among the pines ceased, and, in the hushed silence that again reigned over the bleak waste, there might have been heard his deep inspirations, as he drew breath after his exertions. Turning round, and applying himself again to his hands, he began to move along on the narrow space between the walls of his house and the edge of the height, making his arms the principal instruments of his progress, and using his short inferior extremities as subserving agents. The motion thus produced seemed to be a compromising medium between the crawl and the spasmodic jump of a wounded quadruped; yet he made rapid progress; went round the small dwelling, and was seen again at the other side in an attitude which showed, that, however ineffectual his lower limbs might be in the operation of ambulation, they could yet support his broad, thick-set trunk. Standing erect, he exhibited an elevation of about four feet and a-half, a stature which—in an individual of corresponding dimensions in other members—might not have been sufficient to entitle him to enter the pale of the "Droichs;" but, when viewed in relation to the almost gigantic breadth of his chest and shoulders, the troll-like size of his head, and the extreme length of his arms, could not fail, when seen through the medium of the moonlight, and in the locality of a blasted heath-waste, to suggest a relationship to some of the stout "elfin" of Scandinavian fable.

The two spectators felt all the charm of the feelings of the supernatural in watching the motions of the eremite; and, probably—in so far, at least, as regarded the younger of the two—the interest was deepened by their total inability to understand his motions, as, having looked steadfastly for a few minutes down into the chasm, he again betook himself to his quadrupedal amble; entered his hut, and emerged with something in the form of a large volume—the brass clasps of which glittered in the moonlight—bound to his waist. The small space between the door and the end of the wattled trunks he cleared by a series of short, rapid, bounding strides, without the aid of his arms; and throwing his body again on the ground, he remained in that position for a few minutes, after which he again seized the end of the trunks, swung himself along them, and entered among the trees. The dark figure of his body was now indistinctly seen moving, by the same jerking, propulsive throws, from tree to tree, by which he had cleared the space before; and, getting beneath the shadow of the mansion, he disappeared from the view of the spectators, at the same time that the cracking of a branch, amid the sound of a splash in the water, came upon their ears. They neither heard nor saw more of him. The deepest silence reigned everywhere; and the dreary scene seemed as if in an instant deprived of every trace of living sound or motion, save the deep-drawn breath and palpitating throbs of the heart of the younger of the two observers. Overcome with the pressure of awe, he sat bound to his stone-seat, and turned his eye on the face of the beadsman, where he found an expression very different from what he expected.

"Is the creature not down in that dreadful basin of pitchy waters?" muttered he.

"And if he were," replied Carey, as he twinkled his grey eye, unmoved, in the face of the youth, "what would ye do, young Master o' Riddlestain? Seek him, as the baron did his brood-sow in the well, on the top o' the towering Bech, and maybe find mair than ye want—a farrow o' young water elfs? Na, na! let him alane—he'll no drown. He's maybe even now kissing some water queen in the bottom o' the loch."

The youth looked inquiringly in the face of the bluegown; but the same expression was still there. He was sorely puzzled: the feelings of humanity were throbbing in his heart in audible pulses. The old beggar was in one of his humours, and held him by the skirt of his coat as he attempted to rise, while at the very moment, as he imagined, a human being was perishing in the waters. He sat breathless, with his ear chained to the abyss, and his eye searching in vain for some traces of meaning in the face of his arch companion. The same hushed stillness pervaded the scene of dreary desolation; neither the sound of a death-struggle nor of living motion could be distinguished, and it was as difficult to account for an individual endowed with life and the desire of self-preservation drowning without a sigh or groan, as it was for the sudden disappearance of every trace of a still living being in the dismal abyss into which he had so mysteriously descended.

"It's a' owra now, at ony rate, Master Henry!" said the bluegown, adding to the youth's perplexity by a hint so directly opposed to his prior confidence, "the deil mair o' a sound comes frae earth, water, or air, than that croak o' a raven that even now flew o'er the quarry loch. We'll e'en be seeking hame, I think. I hae back to the road to Pittenweem to gae, and ye've a mile a-gate between ye and Riddlestain. Gude e'en to ye!"

And, without even troubling himself to look over the quarry brink, the beadsman began his ordinary half-trotting pace; and in a short time Henry saw him, in the distance, making rapid progress over the heath. Meanwhile he was himself at a loss what to think or what to do. The strange manner of the beadsman led him at one time to suppose that he was satisfied that no misfortune had occurred to the inhabitant of the quarry; and at another, his parting words, joined to the inexplicable disappearance of the extraordinary individual, inclined him to an opposite belief, and filled him with painful feelings of self-crimination for not having rendered a timely assistance in behalf of a fellow-creature. He could not yet move himself from the spot. Placing himself on his breast, he looked over the brink of the chasm, gazing through between the trees on the deep, sullen pool, which, like a sleeping monster, satiated with prey, lay as still as death. His ears were not less occupied: for a space, not less than half-an-hour, he lay in this position, without seeing or hearing the slightest indication of anything that might solve the mystery. He was enveloped in the gloom of his own personal experiences of the day. The thoughts of the calcinated corpse of Hamilton, and the speaking spirit of the wild place where he lay, all combined with the painful feelings of the inquiry in which he was engaged to render his mind susceptible of morbid influences, and fecundative of supernatural creations of awe. He resolved frequently to rise suddenly to escape from the depressing yet charmed influence of the place, and the inexplicable circumstances connected with it, and resolved, on the following moment, to endure still the creeping sensations of fear that run over him, in the hope of getting the mystery cleared up. His watch, however, still proved ineffectual. More time passed, but the silence continued unbroken by any sound, save, occasionally, the flap of a night-bird's wing, as it floated past, or the dying scream of a victim, awakened to die in the talons of the hawk. Rising, at length, he cast another look over the chasm, and bent his steps to Riddlestain.

When he reached home, he found his parents waiting impatiently for him.

"It is all over," said he, as he sat down, and covered his face with his hands. "The martyr has received his crown. God have mercy on us who are of the new faith!"

"And we are in danger from the commendator Blackburn," replied old Riddlestain. "He has taken the lands of Falconcleugh; and he will not be contented till he get Riddlestain also. Where is the martyr's treatise on the saving efficacy of faith? You took it with you to day to St. Andrews."

"Here, here," replied Henry, as he searched his bosom for the brochure. "No, no—it is gone!" he continued, as he rose and looked wildly around him. "I was reading it by the wayside; and, overcome with fatigue and suffering, I reclined, and slept—and now I find the book is gone. What may come of this, when our enemies are ranging the land with the fiery faggot?"

"Saw you no one by the way?" said the father.

"Only Carey, the wandering beadsman of Pittenweem," replied the son.

"Seek him—seek him, ere you sleep, Henry! Our lives depend on your recovering that book, which they call heretical, because it shows us the true way to that place where priests have no power. But the way it leads is through earthly flames, and we are not yet so well prepared for that ordeal as he who passed to-day."

The young man flew out of the house, and taking his way again past Falconcleugh, without stopping to know more certainly the fate of the inhabitant of the quarry, he was hurrying on in the direction which he supposed had been taken by the bluegown, when he heard a noise, as if of the opening of a door of the old mansion. The sound startled him, and he returned and placed himself in the shade of the walls. In a few minutes, he saw the old beadsman, who he thought had betaken himself to his quarters at Pittenweem, come forth, in the company of a young woman rolled up in a cloak. They hurried onwards as if afraid of discovery; and Henry, following them, traced them to the small cottage of Mossfell, about a half-a-mile distant from Falconcleugh. "My own Margaret again at Falconcleugh at a late hour," muttered the youth to himself, as he saw the young woman part with the bluegown, and betake herself to the cottage, while Carey proceeded on his way to Pittenweem. The youth allowed him to continue his course until he came to the spot where he had been reading the book. He then made up to him.

"Thus far only on your way, Carey?" said he, as he overtook him.

"Nae farther, Master Henry," was the reply, accompanied by a scrutinising twinkle of the beadsman's eye, as if to ascertain whether the questioner had noticed his proceedings. "But what has brought you again frae Riddlestain, at this late hour?"

"It is not to ask you what I know you will not tell me, Carey—the secret of Mansie of the Quarryheugh, and whether he be now in the bottom of the waters. I am myself in danger; and would know if you met any one on the road to-night, ere you came up to me?"

As he spoke, he proceeded to search for the heretical tract.

"So it was you," said the beadsman, "from whom, when sleepin by the roadside, was ta'en the written heresy that Blackburn's clerk, Geordie Dempster, was busy reading to his fellow-traveller, John o' the Priory, in Dame M'Gills, at the Haughfoot. The body o' young Riddlestain will be a cinder ere the sun has gane twelve times owre the East Neuk. If the commendator got Melville o' Falconcleugh burned in France, will he, think ye, hae ony great difficulty in getting Henry Leslie burned in Scotland?"

"Your words carry fire in them, Carey; but I have not said that the book was mine."

"There's nae occasion for the admission," replied the bluegown, "especially to ane wha lives by the auld kirk, and maybe ought, even now, to turn his face to St. Andrews, to evidence against you. You may be safe at Riddlestain for this night, but scarcely owre the morn. I will gie ye warnin, if ye will trust me."

"I will," replied Henry.

And the bluegown, waving his wand, continued on his journey, while the young man turned his steps, in fear, towards home. He again came to the cottage of Mossfell, and stood before the door. Margaret Bethune resided there, under the protection of old Dame Craigie. She was reputed an orphan; and, as such, she had secured the interest of the family at Riddlestain. By other claims she had secured the affection of the son; and never, until this night, had he observed in her conduct aught that excited any other feeling than love and respect, nor had what he had witnessed in any material degree altered the opinion he had formed of her. Yet, what object had she to serve by visiting the dark chambers of Falconcleugh with a wandering bluegown, at so late an hour of the night. He had heard from the servants at Riddlestain that she had been seen stealing from the old mansion at late hours; but she had uniformly avoided his inquiries for information. On this occasion, she might have gone to inquire as to the fate of Mansie, who had, apparently, been plunged into the waters. Yet why did the beadsman avoid the subject, and not offer satisfaction on a matter of importance to any one possessed of a spark of humanity? The danger of his own situation did not prevent him from indulging in these thoughts; and, as he stood and listened, he ascertained that the inmates had not gone to bed.

"I will see," he muttered, "whether Margaret and her old friend observe the same silence."

And he rapped at the door. He got admittance; and, seating himself by the fire—

"I am disturbed," he said. "As I returned this night from the scene of the death of my friend, I stood, with old Carey the beadsman, over the quarry of Falconcleugh, watching the motions of the old cripple who lives in that strange place. We heard a plash in the waters, and saw no more of him. Is it possible that he is drowned, and I, confused by selfish fears for my own safety, neglected to rouse my father's servants to make search for a fellow-creature."

He watched the countenance of Margaret as he spoke and finished. There was no trace there of the effects of a sensibility which usually responded to the minutest detail of suffering. He waited for her explanation of the object of her own visit to the quarry, but none was forthcoming.

"Ye needna fear for auld Mansie," said the dame. "If every plash o' a loose stane o' the auld wa's—ay, or a heughbane o' the auld Melvilles, or broken branch in the waters o' the quarry—were a sign o' his death, twenty times has he dreed the doom."

"You spoke of your own danger, Henry," said Margaret, retreating from the subject. "Is it from the persecutors of our secret, holy faith, who have this day burned Hamilton at St. Andrew's?"

"It is—it is, Margaret," rejoined the youth, as he rose, dissatisfied at what he supposed a trait of disingenuousness or secret mystery. "I may be compelled to leave Scotland, if I would not follow my friend through the flames. But old Carey the beadsman, or Mansie the cripple, may console you in my absence." And, with these words, he hastened to the door.

"What mean you, Henry?" said the girl, as she hastened after him, and stopped him, by seizing tremblingly his hand.

"Lovers have no secrets, Margaret," replied he. "You might have told me at once that you and the beadsman were at Falconcleugh. Why, if it was nothing more but a compliance with the dictates of humanity, to see whether or not, as we suspected, a fellow-creature had fallen into the basin, where was the reason for secresy? I am now satisfied the Droich is safe. He is nothing to me more than to others, who stand, and stare, and wonder at so strange a being in so strange a place; but a straw in the wind may tell us the direction of the argosy, and by this I may convict you of a want of ingenuousness. To-morrow I may be in flight for my life, in these tearful times, when the faggot surrounds the altar of the true faith; and how could I trust one with my secret who denies me satisfaction in a matter that concerns us scarcely more than it does the ordinary people of the world."

"Who said that I was at Falconcleugh this night?" answered she. "Was it the beadsman? Tell me Henry, am I betrayed by one of whom neither you nor I can deserve better? for he eats the unholy fruits of the faith he pretends to disown."

"No; Carey is as secret as yourself," rejoined he; "and, I hope, as true to me, who am also in his power."

"Thank God!" ejaculated she, "and now, Henry, if you love me, no more of Falconcleugh or its maimed inhabitant. Will you promise?"

"You put me to an unfair test, Margaret. I will reply to you in the same spirit. Will you, if I am forced to fly my country, accompany me as my wife?"

"I cannot," replied she. "There is one here who claims the sacrifice to my first love."

"Man or woman?" inquired he.

"I cannot answer more," said she. "The time is not come. When it is decreed that the fire shall no longer burn on the street of St. Andrews, you shall know all. Meanwhile, fly, if flight will save you; and take with you the pledge that I am yours, in heart and spirit, in all that belongs to true affection."

"So be it," he replied, hurriedly, and with a look of dissatisfaction. "Farewell! and it may be for ever."

With these words he left the cottage, and hurrying to Riddlestain, gave an account of the dangerous situation in which he was placed. His father saw the peril with perhaps a keener perception of the probable consequences. The act of 1525 against heretics was in full force, and the church authorities eked out its sanctions by wrested texts of Scripture, with an ingenuity and thirst of blood that threatened destruction to all heretics. It was resolved that Henry should be regulated by the warnings of the beadsman, whose sources of information would enable him to save the son of his old friend from ruin, if not death. The night was passed by the inmates of Riddlestain with fearful forebodings, and next morning, and during a part of the day, Henry expected a secret visit from the beadsman. As the evening approached, he ventured forth to look for the bearer of intelligence, but as yet he was not visible. The moon had risen, and was again flinging her beams over the muir of Falconcleugh, and the old mansion of the Melvilles stood in solemn darkness in the midst of the scene. Again he was occupied by the thoughts suggested by what he had seen on the previous night, and what he had heard from Carey and Margaret, yet all his attempts to unravel their conduct and converse was unavailing, and he felt half inclined to seek again the cottage at Mossfell, to put the maiden to another test, while he would ease her mind of the reflections which the abrupt if not cruel terms of his departure would inevitably suggest. In the midst of his reverie he was startled by a noise, and, on looking round, he saw the dark figure of the inhabitant of the Quarryheugh coming along by his peculiar springing movement. He had never before seen him beyond the precincts of the hollow where he had taken up his residence; and felt as he might have felt on the approach of some being from another world. Every now and then the creature stopped, and beckoned him forwards, but Henry retained his position as if transfixed to the ground, and, in a short time, the hermit was by his side, with his face—which was covered with long hair, and the features almost obliterated by scars—turned up to him in the full light of the moon.

"The fires of other lands," said he, "are as scorching as those of the Scotch faggot. Thou wouldst yet fly to them, and leave the commendator Blackburn to seize Riddlestain, while thy father suffers the fate thou wouldst avoid."

"Let him remain," replied Henry, "who has faith and fortitude to pass through the fiery ordeal. You did not, good Mansie, see Hamilton's blackened body sink among the blazing faggots."

A half-suppressed groan rumbled in the throat of the Droich.

"What I have seen—what I have felt, thou may'st never know," said he. "But see, there are the church emissaries already after thee."

Henry looked round, and saw some horsemen scouring along the muir, at a considerable distance, in the direction of Riddlestain. Throwing himself down on the heath to avoid being seen, he remained in that position for a few minutes, and by the time he again lifted his head, his Mentor was a considerable distance from him, working his progress forwards, on his hands and knees, with great effort. The next moment a hand was on his shoulder, and he shuddered with terror.

"I'm maybe owre late," said the beadsman. "Quick, quick?—Blackburn and his hounds are awa' to Riddlestain wi' a warrant to apprehend you."

Henry followed the beadsman, who hurried on towards Falconcleugh.

"Now for your choice," said he. "Auld Mansie was giein ye counsel, maybe, to stay and stand your doom. What say ye—flight or flaught, an exile or an eizel?"

"I am unresolved," replied the youth.

"And by the faith o' the auld kirk, ye hae muckle time to ponder. See!—see! the bloodhounds have changed their course; their scent lies this way."

"I am lost!" ejaculated the young man.

"It maun be!—it maun be!" responded the beadsman, as he stood by the dark walls of Falconcleugh mansion, and seemed to hesitate. "There's naeither mean. Here, here," he continued, as he descended some steps, and taking Henry by the arm, hurried him down, and then applied a key to a low door of the mansion, which he opened.

"There, there," he muttered, as he pushed the youth into a dark chamber. "I will turn their muzzles to the south."

The door was shut, and Henry immediately after heard the loud call of some horsemen, inquiring of the beadsman whether he had not with him a companion.

"Beggars hae short acquaintanceships," replied the bluegown. "The word awmous severs good company. Wha are ye after wi' the loose rein and the bloody spur?"

"Henry Leslie, younger, of Riddlestain," replied one of the men. "Whither has he gone?"

"My een lack now their former licht," replied the beadsman, "but if ye, wha are younger, look weel to the east, ye'll see something yonder thicker, I ween, than a munebeam. Ye ken what I mean. Ane wha has got an awmous frae his father canna speak plainer, even to the friends o' the auld kirk."

"Well said, old Carey," cried the men, as they set forth with redoubled speed in the direction pointed out by the beggar.

Now, left to himself in a dark chamber of the old mansion of the Melvilles, Henry began to look round him for some place where, in the event of a search being there made for him, he might, with greater chance of success, elude their efforts. Mounting up a few steps, he reached a recess in the wall, which had once been enclosed by a door, the hinges of which still adhered to the stones, and there he crouched, under the gloom of an anxiety that pictured in the future the images of the various forms of persecution to which the heretics of the time were exposed. There was scarcely any light in the chamber. The flapping of the wings of bats, that had been adhering, in a state of torpor, to the roof, was the only sound that met his ear. A noisome damp pervaded the atmosphere; and a creeping sensation ran over his flesh, which, co-operating with his fear and solitude, made him shiver. For two hours he heard no indications of any one approaching the building; he began to think of removing, while, now being dark he could escape to some greater distance from his enemies; yet he deemed it a dubious measure, while the absence of the beadsman augured danger from without. All was again still: the bats had again betaken themselves to the walls and the roof, and the sound of a cricket might have been heard throughout the extent of the dreary chamber. At length the grating sound of the hinges of a door startled him, and he stretched forth his head to watch the movement. The door opened, and a young woman, rolled up in a cloak, cautiously entered, taking from under her mantle a lantern, which she waved round and round, as if to ascertain that there was no one within. She then closed the door, and, proceeding to the side of the chamber next the quarry, made some audible knocks upon the side of an opening, somewhat of the form of a window, through which only a faint gleam of light had been able to struggle. This done, she sat down on the floor, and sighed heavily, muttering broken sentences in which the name of him who witnessed her strange proceedings could be distinguished. After a few minutes, the trees of the Quarryheugh, agitated by some living impulse, gave forth a rustling sound which, in the prevailing silence of the still night, reached the interior, and was observed by the listener. The movement continued, until the figure of the stunted inhabitant of the quarry appeared at the aperture, and, by two or three convulsive efforts, he flung himself into the apartment. The light from the lamp fell upon the couple. The girl still sat on the floor, and her companion reclined by her side, throwing out his maimed limbs, and turning up his face—which might have been fraught with terror to another—in the countenance of her who seemed to regard him with demonstrations of affection.

"Blackburn, the old enemy of our house, is forth again," said he; "and young Riddlestain may fall. Are you prepared?"

"It is to be hoped he will fly, father, and be yet saved to me," answered she, sorrowfully, while she took some edibles from a small corbin and placed them before him. Then drawing her hand over her eyes—"When is this wo and watching to cease?—when may I own my kindred, my love, and my faith?"

"Weep not—weep not," said the other; "or let it be up in the chamber of thy mother, whither I nightly drag those maimed and scorched limbs, that the heart which burns for vengeance on the enemies of the Melvilles may be quenched with the tribute of a love that mourns the dead. She cured these fragments of members when rescued from the stake, that I might come back to my country, a wreck whom none may recognise and all may scorn, but a daughter who must yet pity while she loves."

"Would that my love and my pity might be known," replied she. "How often have I asked permission to proceed to the court, to plead on my bended knees for relief to one who has already suffered what might expiate a thousand heresies—ay, more than death."

"While the commendator lives, it is vain, Margaret. I have waited for him long, to show him, in the mansion of my fathers, what his power has achieved—ha! ha! I would do him homage as the holder of a pendicle of the lands he has wrested from me—even the Quarryheugh. It is my duty. These arms, which the fires spared, might yet let him feel the strength of a vassal who has no power to follow him to the wars against the faithful."

"You fear me, father!" ejaculated the girl, as she bent over him, while he murmured, in growling accents, his threats. "The commendator is a man of power, and may get finished what his agents so wofully left undone in your exile."

"Power," groaned the other—"power, when alone in this dark chamber with me, to whom yet is left these arms!"

"Heaven keep him long away!" replied Margaret; "for your strength is a by-word to the creatures who gaze at you till they fly in fear from one they deem supernatural. Hush—a door has opened above."

"Hie thee to Mossfell—quick—quick, child."

"Oh remember that you have a daughter!" ejaculated she, as she retreated.

"And that I had a wife whom my wrongs killed—yea, that I had once the face and form of a man!" he added, as he flung the fragments of victuals out of the window, and then swung himself out by the immense strength of his arms.

The sound from above, which had thus startled the father and daughter, now chained the ear of Leslie whose curiosity had been roused and gratified by the strange scene he had witnessed. Footsteps now sounded overhead; and, by and by, the tread was heard on the inside stairs leading to the lower apartment. At the same moment, the door from which Margaret had issued opened quickly, and the head of another individual was presented. It was too dark for Leslie to ascertain who it was; but the words "Escape—fly," repeated hurriedly, satisfied him that it was the beadsman who was thus making an effort to save him. It was too late; the sound on the stairs indicated a near approach, and Leslie behoved to run the risk of being captured where he was, rather than make an effort to escape, which would be too clearly ineffectual. Several individuals now entered from the stair; and, by their statements, Leslie could perceive that they were in search of him.

"The bird, if ever here caged, has flown," cried one, as he approached the door and found it open.

"Then he cannot be far off," said another. "After him, and I shall wait here that you may report progress."

Several of the company immediately rushed to the door.

"Leave the light, Dempster," cried the voice of the last, and a man took from his cloak and placed on the floor a lantern. They were in an instant gone, and he who was left began to pace along the dark room. He was closely muffled up to the chin; and, as he continued to walk backwards and forwards, he occasionally seized the folds of his riding cloak, and wrapped them round him, ejaculating broken statements, as his thoughts and feelings rose on the suggestion of his situation and pursuits.

"I shall get Riddlestain for my pains," said he; "ay, even as I have got Falconcleugh. The Church is a kind mother to her children; yet, has not this gift been as yet useless to me? Why? Down, down, rebellious answer of a coward heart—I am not afraid to occupy the house of him who expired in the flames by the condemnation which I accomplished. Now is the test. The bones of the Melvilles lie white in the Quarryheugh. I am alone in their old residence, and tremble not."

And, as he argued against his fears, he quickened his step, listening, at intervals, for sounds from without. Not altogether satisfied that he was alone, he took the lantern and held it up so that the light might penetrate into the corners of the chamber.

"All is still, lonely, and dreary," said he again, as he approached the north wall, and placed his head in the aperture. He started. There was a face there such as man might not look on and be not afraid. The lantern fell from his hands, and lay on the floor unextinguished. Receding backwards, and still keeping his eye on the object, he sought the low door on the west, and, finding it locked, betook himself to the stair, up which he flew with a rapidity corresponding with his fears; but it was only to descend again in greater difficulty, after he essayed an exit in that direction in vain, against a door also locked.

"Oh! the Droich!" at length he exclaimed, as if suddenly recollecting himself, and affecting a composure well enough suited, probably, to his discovery, yet scarcely authorised by his finding himself a prisoner.

At the moment of his exclamation, the cripple bounded on the floor, and stood before him on his knees with his arms folded, and his scorched face reflecting the glimmer of the lantern that lay before him emitting a weak light.

"Gilbert Blackburn!" sounded in deep accents through the chamber. The commendator recoiled and recovered himself.

"Mansie—so do the people call you,"—said he, affecting conciliation, "you are but an uncourteous vassal—taking up your habitation on another's lands without leave, and startling your overlord by the humour of your gesture, while you should be paying his ground-fees."

"Mayhap, your honour," replied the cripple, "may remit these on behalf of my misfortunes. See you these limbs, and this countenance? I will show you them by the light of this lamp. Come closer to me. They say I am frightful to behold. Pshaw! Art thou afraid of a living man?—and yet thou didst now vaunt of thy courage, till thou didst even say that the spirits of the Melvilles would not terrify thee. Come closer to me, Gilbert Blackburn, and see if thou canst recognise in these features—horrid though they be—aught of the traces of one whom thou didst once think so well of that thou didst envy his lands of Falconcleugh."

"What! are you man or monster?" cried the commendator, as he receded before the progressive movements of his enemy.

"Both species are here," rejoined Melville; "I am a man, though like the other denomination. They called me George Melville, when I bore another shape, and I was of Falconcleugh. By that name I once lived happy in this mansion blessed with love and the reward of good offices. By that name, too, I worshipped God by the light of reason; and by that name was burned at the stake, till pity relieved me, and amputation saved the wreck that was not worth saving. Art thou not satisfied? Search these features. All is not gone. Enough of evidence there may be yet found to justify my claim for the remission of my ground-dues of Quarryheugh."

As he spoke, his countenance exhibited, in the midst of its deformity, the traces of a fury that was only for a few minutes kept in abeyance by the offering of bitter satire. The commendator, overcome by fear, and consciousness of a cruel and heartless purpose, kept receding; while Melville sure of his prey, and eying him with remorseless hatred, approached him by a series of leaps and contortions, more after the manner of an enraged and maimed beast of prey than that of a human being. The fame of his strength had gone forth with that of his other singular attributes; and probably, even if Blackburn had been gifted with ordinary courage, he would have quailed before the approach of the extraordinary being. Fear, however, had taken possession of a mind devoid of all courage, and he flew round the chamber, imploring that mercy which he had never shown to others. Leslie, who witnessed the extraordinary scene, meditated an interference, but he quelled the thought from a sense of his own danger, and continued through the gloom to mark the conduct of the parties. The pursuit was short. Blackburn, finding himself pressed towards an angle, attempted feebly to use his sword. It was seized and snapped asunder, and, next instant, he was down in the iron grip of his ruthless foe—writhing in the agony of fear, as he felt himself drawn towards the window that overlooked the chasm of the quarry. Twice the energies of an ordinary man of courage might not have resisted the cripple; and, though the struggles of despair sometimes transcend all calculation of supposed strength, they were too apparently, in this instance, unavailing. Two or three gigantic efforts, and the commendator was on the brink of the descent—his back to the chasm, his face to that of his intended destroyer. The light of the lamp served to show Leslie the countenance of the victim, and a part of that of Melville; and he shuddered at the fearful expression of agony on the one part, and vengeance on the other. Not a word was spoken, but the chamber was filled with deep-drawn respirations. A faint scream burst from the commendator, and down, down he went into the chasm of dark waters; Melville drew a deep breath, as if he once again enjoyed the free use of his lungs, remained silent for a few minutes, and then deliberately issued from the aperture, by the mode he had been in the habit of following, and which, to him, was attended with no danger.

Leslie was terror-struck. His first thoughts concerned his own position. Found there, he would be reputed the murderer of the commendator; and he hastened down to betake himself to flight. The doors defied his efforts; and he put his head out of the window, only to withdraw it with a shudder of horror. In a few minutes, the door was opened by the beadsman.

"Ye'll be as weel oot here, I'm thinkin, Master Henry," said he.

"Know you what has been done, Carey?" cried Henry.

"I ken that baith you and I are owre lang here," replied the beadsman, as he hurried out.

In a few minutes the muir was clear. The two took different directions; nor was Henry Leslie heard of again for a period of two years. During this interval, an investigation was made into the circumstances attending the murder of Blackburn. There was no evidence brought home to Melville; and the opinion prevailed that the commendator had fallen accidentally into the chasm. Melville, meanwhile, withdrew himself again to the Continent, where he died. The property was again restored to Margaret, in consideration of the injuries sustained by her parents. The death of Hamilton produced, throughout Scotland, so great an effect, that the prosecutions for heresy were for a time suspended, and Leslie returned to his native country. From the circumstance of Falconcleugh and Riddlestain being afterwards in the family of the Leslies, we may augur something of a union between the two lovers of our story. We merely, however, throw out this as a conjecture—our attention having been chiefly directed to the more important parts of the strange legend we have now given, which certainly does not exceed credibility.

---

THE LYKEWAKE.

I know no place where one may be brought acquainted with the more credulous beliefs of our forefathers at a less expense of inquiry and exertion, than in a country lykewake. The house of mourning is naturally a place of sombre thoughts and ghostly associations. There is something, too, in the very presence and appearance of death, that leads one to think of the place and state of the dead. Cowper has finely said, that the man and the beast who stand together, side by side, on the same hill-top, are, notwithstanding their proximity, the denizens of very different worlds. And I have felt the remark to apply still more strongly when sitting beside the dead. The world of intellect and feeling in which we ourselves are, and of which the lower propensities of our nature form a province, may be regarded as including, in part at least, that world of passion and instinct in which the brute lives; and we have but to analyse and abstract a little, to form for ourselves ideas of this latter world from even our own experience. But by what process of thought can we bring experience to bear on the world of the dead? It lies entirely beyond us—a terra incognita of cloud and darkness, and yet the thing at our side—the thing over which we can stretch our hand—the thing dead to us but living to it—has entered upon it, and, however uninformed or ignorant before, knows more of its dark, and, to us, inscrutable mysteries, than all our philosophers and all our divines. Is it wonder that we would fain put it to the question—that we would fain catechise it, if we could, regarding its newly-acquired experience—that we should fill up the gaps in the dialogue which its silence leaves to us, by imparting to one another the little we know regarding its state and its place—or that we should send our thoughts roaming in long excursions, to glean from the experience of the past all that it tells us of the occasional visits of the dead, and all that in their less taciturn and more social moments they have communicated to the living. And hence, from feelings so natural, and a train of associations so obvious, the character of a country lykewake and the cast of its stories—I say a country lykewake, for in at least all our larger towns, where a cold and barren scepticism has chilled the feelings and imaginations of the people, without, I fear, much improving their judgments, the conversation on such occasions takes a lower and less interesting range.

I once spent a night with a friend from the south, a man of an inquiring and highly philosophic cast of mind, at a lykewake in the upper part of the parish of Cromarty. I had excited his curiosity by an incidental remark or two of the kind I have just been dropping; and, on his expressing a wish that I should introduce him, by way of illustration, to some such scenes as I have been describing, we had set out together to the wake of an elderly female who had died that morning. Her cottage—a humble creation of stone and lime—was situated beside a thick fir wood, on the edge of the solitary Mulebuy, one of the dreariest and most extensive commons in Scotland. We had to pass, in our journey, over several miles of desolate muir, sprinkled with cairns and tumuli—the memorials of some forgotten conflict of the past; we had to pass, too, through a thick, dark wood, with here and there an intervening marsh, whitened over with moss and lichens, and which, from this circumstance, are known to the people of the country as the white bogs. Nor was the more distant landscape of a less gloomy character. On the one hand, there opened an interminable expanse of muir, that went stretching onwards, mile beyond mile, bleak, dreary, uninhabited, and uninhabitable, till it merged into the far horizon. On the other, there rose a range of blue, solitary hills, towering, as they receded, into loftier peaks and bolder acclivities, till they terminated on the snow-streaked Ben Weavis. The season, too, was in keeping with the scene. It was drawing towards the close of autumn; and, as we passed through the wood, the falling leaves were eddying round us with every wind, or lay in rustling heaps at our feet.

"I do not wonder," said my companion, "that the superstitions of so wild a district as this should bear in their character some marks of a corresponding wildness. Night itself, in a populous and cultivated country, is attended with less of the stern and the solemn than mid-day amid solitudes like these. Is the custom of watching beside the dead of remote antiquity in this part of the country?"

"Far beyond the reach of either history or tradition," I said. "But it has gradually been changing its character, as the people have been changing theirs; and is now a very different thing from what it was a century ago. It is not yet ninety years since lykewakes in the neighbouring Highlands used to be celebrated with music and dancing; and even here, on the borders of the low country, they used invariably, like the funerals of antiquity, to be the scenes of wild games and amusements, never introduced on any other occasion. You remember how Sir Walter describes the funeral of Athelstane. The Saxon ideas of condolence were the most natural imaginable. If grief was hungry, they supplied it with food, if thirsty, they gave it drink. Our simple ancestors here seem to have reasoned by a similar process. They made their seasons of deepest grief their times of greatest merriment; and the more they regretted the deceased, the gayer were they at his wake and his funeral. A friend of mine, now dead, a very old man, has told me that he once danced at a lykewake in the Highlands of Sutherland. It was that of an active and very robust man, taken away from his wife and family in the prime of life; and the poor widow, for the greater part of the evening, sat disconsolate beside the fire, refusing every invitation to join the dancers. She was at length, however, brought out by the father of the deceased. 'Little, little did he think,' he said, 'that she would be the last to dance at poor Rory's lykewake.'"

We reached the cottage, and went in. The apartment in which the dead lay was occupied by two men and three women. Every little piece of furniture it contained was hung in white, and the floor had recently been swept and sanded; but it was on the bed where the body lay, and on the body itself, that the greatest care had been lavished. The curtains had been taken down, and their place supplied by linen white as snow; and on the sheet that served as a counterpane, the body was laid out in a dress of white, fantastically crossed and recrossed in every direction by scalloped fringes, and fretted into a species of open work, at least intended to represent alternate rows of roses and tulips. A plate containing a little salt was placed over the breast of the corpse. As we entered, one of the women rose; and, filling two glasses with spirits, presented them to us on a salver. We tasted the liquor, and sat down on chairs placed for us beside the fire. The conversation, which had been interrupted by our entrance, began to flow apace; and an elderly female, who had lived under the same roof with the deceased, began to relate, in answer to the queries of one of the others, some of the particulars of her last illness and death.