Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 10

by Unknown

OR, WILLIE GRANT'S CONFESSIONS.

"Here's a bonny day, sir," said old Willie Grant, "and the Whitadder's in excellent trim—will ye get your gad and your creel, and we'll awa see what sort o' sport there is. If I'm no mistaen, the trouts will rise as fast as ye throw the line to-day."

"Oh, I canna be fashed," said the individual to whom he spoke.

"What's that I hear ye say?" added Willie, seriously. "Ye canna be fashed! can ye no? Do ye think ye could be fashed to read the 'Cottagers o' Glenburnie?' Ye would there see the meaning and the effects o' 'I canna be fashed' illustrated. But if ye can be fashed to hear, I'll gie ye an example in my ain case; and, I assure ye, that those four words, 'I—canna—be—fashed' (he spoke them very slowly, laying emphasis on each)—I say, sir, those four words hae cost me a thousand pounds twice told. I got them for naething; but, certes, they proved a dear bargain in the long run. They hae made me acquainted wi' a sair skin, a sair heart, and an empty pocket. I hae nae remembrance wha learned me the words, nor am I altogether certain but that they are words that just spring out o' the laziness and indolence o' our dispositions, like weeds out o' a neglected soil. But weel do I remember the first time when I was made to hae a feeling remembrance o' having used them. My faither was a bit sma' laird in East Lothian—no very far frae Dunglass—and the property consisted o' between thirty and forty acres, so that he managed to bring up a family o' five o' us very comfortably, and rather respectably—and the more especially as my mother was a very thrifty woman. I was the third o' the family; and, as I was gaun to say to ye, there was ae day that we were a' gilravishing about the floor, and wheeling ane anither in a little wheelbarrow that my faither had got a cartwright in Dunbar to mak for us (for he was a man that liked to see his bairns happy), when, says he to me—

"Willie, tie yer whings,[5] and dinna let yer shoon be shaughlin aff yer feet in that gate, or ye maun gang barefoot. Folk shouldna hae shoon that dinna ken hoo to wear them."

"I canna be fashed, faither," said I, and continued running after the wheelbarrow; but, before ever I wist, and before I thought that I had done ill, he gied me a cuff i' the haffits that made me birl half donnert by the cheek o' the lum.[6]

"Ay, man!" says he, "what's that I hear ye say—'ye canna be fashed!' Let me hear the words come out o' your lips again if ye daur, and I'll knock the life out o' ye."

That was the first time that I particularly remember o' having made use o' the phrase, and I am only sorry that the clout which my faither gied me didna drive it out o' my head frae that day henceforth, and for ever; though, truly, it had nae such effect, as ye shall hear, and as I experienced to my sorrow. I sat down whinging till my faither gaed out o' the house, and, as soon as his back was turned, I dried my een, and began to drive about the barrow again wi' my brothers and sisters; but I hadna ran aboon ten minutes, till my mother, wha was tired wi' the noise we were making, cried—

"Willie, laddie, gie me aff your stockings instantly. Preserve us! the callant has holes in their heels ye micht put yer nieve through!—There's what ye've dune wi' your running about without yer whings tied."

"Hoot, mother," cried I, "I canna be fashed—darn them again' nicht."

"I'll 'canna be fashed' ye—ye lazy monkey, ye. Did your faither no gie ye aneugh for that no ten minutes syne, and ye'll tell me ony siccan a story!"

She grippit me by the neck, and for my faither's ae clout she gied me ten, at every cuff saying, "I'll canna be fashed ye!" And at last she threw aff my shoon, and pulled the stockings aff my legs, and pushed me awa frae her wi' a great drive, crying, "Now, only let me hear ye making use o' thae words again, and ye'll maybe see what I can be fashed to do."

"Oh dear me!" thought I, "what ill have I done?" And I sat down, and I grat and I roared most heartily, and I kicked my bare feet upon the floor.

"Kick awa there, my man," said my mother—for she was a woman that never got into what ye could call a passion in her family, as I have seen some mothers do—"kick awa there," says she; "and if ye drive a hole in the heels o' the stockings you've on now, ye'll darn them yoursel."

But this, sir, was only the first thrashing that I got for "I canna be fashed"—it wasna the last, by a score o' times. My faither was a man that never liked to lay out a shilling where it could be saved; and he always grudged to employ other people to do anything when he thought it could be done within his own house—that is, by the members o' his own family—therefore, about the back end o' spring, or the fore end o' summer, he would have said to us—

"Now, bairns, haud awa to your beds, and before school-time the morn, gang and howe the potatoes, or weed the corn."

I never durst say onything then, but slipped awa to bed very unwillingly—just feeling as if I felt it a trouble to put aff my claes. But before sunrise in the morning, when my brothers would have wakened me, I used to rub my een, and gaunt, and say—

"What!—what!—hoots!—I canna be fashed!"

And my father, frae the ben-a-house, would have cried out, wi' a voice that made the very nails on my fingers shake, "What's that he's saying?—I'll be fashed him!"

Then up I would have got, shrugging my shoulders, and wriggling them frae side to side, and cried peevishly to one, "Where's my stockings?" and to another, "Where's my jacket?"

Then my faither would have cried out again, "I'll seek it for ye!" Then I soon found it, and got out o' the house wi' the rest o' them.

It was precisely the same thing when my brothers used to shake me in a morning, and say—

"Get up, Willie—ye haena your task yet."

I had invariably the same answer for them on such occasions also. I appeared as if naething could drive it out o' me. I have heard auld wives say, if ye were taking infants to ony part o' the globe ye like, and keeping them where they never would hear a human voice, nor speech o' one kind nor anither, that they would speak Hebrew! Now, I verily believe that, if ye had done the same by me—if ye had taken me, when a week auld, into the deserts o' Arawbia, wi' naething but dummies round about me, and not a living soul nor a living thing endowed wi' the power o' speech allowed to see me or come near me—I say, that I verily believe the first words I would have spoken would have been, "I canna be fashed!" in guid braid Scotch. The words literally seemed born wi' me. And, as I was telling ye about getting up to learn my tasks in the morning, many, many is the time, in the cauldest day o' winter, that my favourite phrase has caused the tawse to warm my hands, when the fingers o' a' the rest o' the scholars were dinnlin wi' cauld, and they were holding them at their mouths, and blowing their hot breath on them to take out the frost. My faither should have paid no coal-money for me. And more than this, the four insignificant and carelessly-uttered words which I allude to, while I was at school, always kept me near the bottom o' the class; or, if I rose one or two towards the top, it was purely on account o' others having been awa from the school for a day, or half-a-day, and having to take the foot o' the class, on account o' their absence, as a matter o' course. Often and often I could have tripped their heels, and taken my place aboon them—and the teacher kenned it as weel, and many a weary time has he said to me, "Oh, ye stupid stirk! why do ye stand there? why didna ye trap him?"

And once, in particular, I remember I answered him, "I couldna be fashed, sir!"

"Fashed!" he cried, in a perfect fury, and he raised the tawse to his teeth—"fashed, sirrah!" he cried again; "then I'll learn ye to be fashed!"

But o' a' the belabourings I ever got frae either faither or mother, for the same cause, they were naething to the schoolmaster's. It's a miracle to me that there was a tail left on his tawse; for he loundered me round the school and round the school; and, aye as he loundered, he ground his teeth together, and he cried, "Heard ever onybody the like o' that! Canna be fashed, truly!—I'll fash ye, my man!—I'll learn ye to gie me an answer o' that kind again!"

But a' the thrashings that faither, and mother, and master could thrash at me, on every occasion the confounded words were aye uppermost—they were perpetually at my tongue end. I was just an easy, indolent being—one that seemed disposed to steal through the world wi' my hands in pocket, as smoothly as possible. When I grew to be a lad, I daresay those that kenned me best were surprised that I could be fashed to gang a-courting, like other youngsters. But even then, when others would brush themselves up, and put on their half-best coat, and the like o' that, in order that they might look as smart as possible, I have thought to mysel, I wonder if I should shave and wash my face, and gie mysel a redd-up before I gang to see her the nicht; but perpetually I used to say to mysel—"Ou, I carena; I canna be fashed—I'll do very weel as I am." And there wasna less than three or four young lasses that I had a particular liking for—and each o' them, I daresay, would made an excellent wife, and I could been very happy wi' ony o' them—but they all broke off acquaintance wi' me, "just," as they said to their friends, "because I was o' such a slovenly disposition, that I couldna even be fashed to mak mysel purpose-like when I gaed to see a body."

The like o' this was very galling to me; but it hadna the effect o' making a better o' me. I couldna be fashed to be ony better, let come what might. "Losh-a-day," thought I, "I wonder what folk would hae me to be at, or how they can gie themsels sae meikle trouble, and be sae particular?"

But, beyond all others, there was one young woman that I had an affection for in a very extraordinary degree. She was as dear to me as the apple o' my ee; and I am sure she could hae done onything wi' me—save to break me o' my habit o' saying "I canna be fashed." That was beyond her power. It was my fixed intention to marry her; and, indeed, not only was the wedding-day set, but her wedding-gown and my coat were made, and the ring was bought, and she had spoken to her bridesmaid; and, besides buying a' sort o' things hersel, she had got her mother to have her providing packed up, and everything was in readiness just to be lifted to our new house—that is, the house we were to occupy. Now, when all this had taken place, there was one bonny starlight nicht that we were walking together, just as happy as twa wood-pigeons, and talking owre the settlements o' every thing, that she said to me—

"What did the joiner say last nicht, Willie?—will he be sure no to disappoint us wi' the furniture?—for I would like everything richt at the very first."

"Eh! weel-minded, my dear," says I; "I really forgot to gang and see him, for I was sae tired when I got hame last nicht, that—I couldna be fashed."

"That was silly o' ye, man," said she; "it was very thoughtless. But I hope ye didna forget to gie in the marriage lines to the minister?" (The session-clerk was ill at the time.)

"Save us a', hinny!" said I, "weel, I am sure that dings everything! But, as sure as death! as I told ye, I was sae tired, that I never minded a word about it till bed-time, when I had my waistcoat unbuttoned and my shoon off, and I couldna be fashed to put them on again, and, at ony rate, it was owre late."

"Very weel, Willie," says she, and apparently a good deal hurt, "I wouldna thought it o' ye—but no matter."

"No, love," said I, "it's no great matter, sure enough; for this is only Saturday nicht, and I'll just call in at the manse in the by-going, as I gang hame, and tell the minister a' about it. The thing can be done in a minute."

"Indeed, no," said she, "though I should never be cried,[7] ye are to go no such way. This is Saturday nicht—the morn is the Sabbath, and the minister will be at his studies, and ye are not to disturb him upon my account."

"Very well, love," said I, "we'll just have to put off a week, then."

"Maybe sae," said she. But I thought there was something unco dry in her manner o' saying "maybe sae." However, as I couldna be fashed to call upon the minister that nicht, I took nae mair notice o' the subject.

I could hardly get a word out o' her after this, for above an hour that I remained in her company. However, she rather came to a little (for she was a kind-hearted lassie), when we were about to part; and we promised faithfully to meet one another at the usual trysting-place, on the Wednesday nicht following, at eight o'clock, within a minute; and I was to have everything arranged wi' the minister and the joiner in the meantime.

On the Sunday morning, the minister passed me between the manse and the kirk, and, says he, quite familiarly—for he was a man that had nae stiffness about him—

"Willie, I thought you was to have been cried to-day."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said I; "but it was all my neglect; for I couldna be fashed until last nicht, and then I thought ye would be at your studies, and it was owre late to trouble ye."

"You were very considerate," said he, wi' a smile; "but I'll save you the trouble next week."

"I'll be obliged to ye, sir," said I, taking off my hat.

In going home, I overtook the joiner—no, I'm wrong, the joiner overtook me—and, after he had observed that it was a fine day, and I had said it was, and he had asked me what I thought o' the sermon, and so on, I said to him—"Now, I expect that ye'll no disappoint me wi' the furniture."

"Ye needna be feared o' that, Mr Grant," said he; "ye ken ye proposed that it was to be a ready-money transaction. It's no every day that we meet wi' jobs o' that kind, and ye may tak my word on't, I'll no disappoint ye—both for your sake and mine."

"Weel," thought I, "that's twa things aff my head—Isabella will surely be pleased now (for they ca'd her Isabella). I've been fortunate in meeting wi' them baith—in killing twa birds wi' ae stane."

But the appointed Wednesday nicht came, and perfectly do I recollect, that a dark, dirty, gousty nicht it was. I had full three miles to go to see her, and about seven o'clock I pulled out my watch, and I went to the door. A sma' drizzling rain came battering on my face. I looked a' round about the heavens, and saw that there was nae appearance o' the nicht's clearing up, and, thinks I—"Weel, she'll ne'er think o' coming to meet me the nicht. She'll no be sae daft. It's o' nae use o' me gaun, and—I canna be fashed."

So I went into the house again, and sat down quite contented; and a nicht or twa after, the weather having settled, I went to see her at her faither's. The auld folk received me, as usual, very kindly; and the auld man got a seat for me next the fire, and inquired if there were any news—while his guidwife asked me if I wadna hae my stockings changed, as the roads were very wet, and my feet might be damp—and I thanked her, and said "No." But there sat my intended, plaiting at a cap-border, or frill, or something o' that sort, as stiff and as silent as a stucco image, never letting on that she either saw or heard me. I spoke to her twice or thrice, and she gied a sort o' low, half cough, half hem! but not a syllable did I get out o' her. Never did she look to the side o' the house I was on. Her head seemed to be fixed in a blacksmith's vice in an opposite direction, and dear kens what sort o' cap or frill it was she keepit plait, plait, plaiting at; but her task was never like to come to an end, and she keepit pingle, pingling, and nip, nipping at it wi' a knife, until my patience was fairly worn out. In my opinion her fingers had discovered the perpetual motion; and when I had sat until vexation and anxiety were like to choke me, I felt a sort o' ha!—ha!—haing! in my throat, as though I could hae burst out into a fit o' passion, or greeting, or I dinna ken what—and wi' a great struggle I got up, and I managed to say—

"Will ye speak at the door, Isabella dear?"

"I canna be fashed!" said she.

O sir! sir! had ye experienced what I felt at that moment. The lounderings o' my faither, my mother, and my dominie, and the slights o' former sweethearts, were a mere naething to what her answer caused me to endure. I expected naething but that I would drop down upon the floor.

"Oh, ye foolish lassie, ye!" said her mother, who was sorry for me, "what do ye mean?"

"Get up!" said her faither.

"I canna be fashed!" said she again, more cuttingly than before, and half turned her een upon me, as she said it, in a manner that gaed through my breast as if ye had drawn a sharp knife across it.

Weel, sir, our names were ca'ed on the Sunday following; and between the first day o' their being published, and the day on which the marriage was to take place, I was three or four times back and forward at her faither's—but I got nae mair out o' her. I almost thought that I ought to stop the banns; but I thought, again, that that would be very unco like, and very contrary to what I wished; so I allowed them to go on, Sunday after Sunday.

I never imagined but that she was just in the pet at me having broken my tryst, and that, like everybody that was in the pet, she would come out o't when she found it necessary, and the sooner frae being left to hersel. But, on the very day we had fixed for the wedding, and when the best-man and I went to her faither's house, expecting to find her and the best-maid, and the whole o' them, in readiness to go before the minister—to my unutterable astonishment and dismay, there was she, sitting in her morning gown, as unconcerned as a judge, just as if naething had been to happen.

"Mercy me! Isabella!" says I, "are ye no ready?—where's the women?"

"Ready!" returned she—"what for?—what do ye mean?—what women?"

Oh! guid gracious! I'll never forget the sensation that I felt at that moment. I'm surprised that I didna drop dead on the floor. "Isabella," said I, "are ye no perfectly aware that this is our wedding-day, and that we were to be at the manse at twelve o'clock precisely?"

"Ay!" said she, "had ye keepit your tryst at such a time, and at such a place, nae doubt this would have been the day; but ye couldna be fashed to keep it then—and I canna be fashed now."

"Oh, confound it!" cried I; "Isabella, do ye want to drive me mad?"

"I dinna think there's ony danger o' that," replied she.

Vexation and surprise put me fairly beyont mysel—I was taken in a moment.

"Weel!" exclaimed I, "ye'll rue it, Isabella! ye'll rue it—there shall nae woman mak a fool o' me!"

"Nor man o' me," said she.

"Be it sae," said I; "yet, guidness me! you're no in earnest?"

"Earnest!" said she; "I tell you I canna be fashed."

At the sound o' the terrible words, I banged out o' the house. I never stopped till I came to Dunbar, and there, at the very moment I arrived, I took the coach for Edinburgh; and there I stopped but two days till I set off for London, for my heart was in such a terrible state o' perturbation, that I could have gone to the world's end, ay, and round it, and round it again, if I had had the means, in order that I might have found rest.

It seems that poor Isabella thought that I would come back—and the best-man persuaded her that I would—and she went to dress hersel, and sent for the best-maid. But little did she understand the character she had to deal wi'. I was either a' laziness, or a' desperation. I knew no medium; and I have no doubt that, before she got her hair dressed, and her gown fairly on, I was half-way to Edinburgh—for I flew to Dunbar as though furies had pursued me.

But, sir, the upshot was, that Isabella died a spinster, and I am a bachelor until this day, and will be, until the last day o' my existence; and thus did the four never-aneugh-to-be-detested words—"I canna be fashed"—place eternity, yea, an infinite chasm, between me and the only woman for whose sake I could have laid down my life, as cheaply as though it hadna been worth a sixpence.

Ye may think that the few instances I have related to ye, and their consequences, would have been aneugh to have cured me o' ever making use o' the words again—but ye shall see.

Now, you'll observe that, before the time I'm speaking o', my faither and mother were both dead, as well as two o' their family, so that there were but three o' us left, and we sold the property, and divided the money amongst us in equal shares. Therefore, when I got to London, I was not altogether bare-handed. Now, to my shame, I must confess that I had not been long there, till the remembrance o' Isabella, and the cause that had provoked me to come to desert her, were almost forgotten; for ye must remember that absence makes many changes—and there is many a bonny face in London. So, after I had looked about me for a week or two, I thought to mysel that I saw nobody doing better than the keepers o' wine and spirit vaults. It seemed a' ready-money; it was just nipper after nipper—that is, glass after glass, owre the counter—the money down, and done wi' it. I resolved to become a wine-vault keeper, and I looked around to see where such premises were to let. At length I pitched upon a shop that I thought would suit me exactly, on the north side of Clerkenwell Street, and nearly facing Jerusalem Passage.

There were a very great number o' compositors and pressmen, and bookbinders and gold-beaters, and other trades, in the immediate neighbourhood; and I understood that they were in the habit o' making the vaults which I was about to take their pay-house and house-o'-call. So I took the house, and entered upon the business, and, in a very short time, I thought very little about Isabella, or the grief she had caused me. I hadna long opened the house until the compositors and the pressmen, the bookbinders, gold-beaters, and others, a' came back to it. They were weel-spoken, civil lads. They spent a deal o' money, and I certainly tried to be as civil and obliging to them as I could; and, in short, they called me "a fine chap," and "the best Scotsman out of all sorts they had ever met with."

Weel, in a week or two, some o' them began to get on to my slates—not by name, for I didna like to ask it; it was impudent; and, thought I, oh, it might spoil their custom at ony rate; and I canna be fashed; it would be an awfu trouble writing names upon a slate, especially the names o' so many. But I knew them a' by head-mark, and I thought there was no need for it.

However, one got into my books, and another got into my books; but, no, I am wrong there again, for they only got on to the slates—I couldna be fashed to carry them into the books; I thought there was nae need for it; they generally paid upon the Saturday nicht, and there was nae fear o' me forgettin.

But, in a short time, there never was a Saturday nicht but there was always some o' my debtor customers amissing; and when I inquired for any o' them, the reply was—

"Oh, you're one of his ghosts, are you? well, I wish you may get it—he's got the bag.[8]"

"So, so," I would say; "and he is off with his finger in my bag too."

Well, in this way I lost more money than I can tell. But I lost it in another way also, and from the same cause. You know that in London every public-house has a porter-walk, or a beer-walk, as they call it, the same as the rounds of a milk-woman here, and they go round twice a-day, at dinner-time and supper-time. Well, to my surprise, in a few months I got the best beer-walk in all London. I couldna think how it was. I was almost rivalling the Alderney dairy which was at my very hand, for I had to engage two pot-boys to carry out my supply. But I gave credit; I trusted to the lads to keep an account of what they took out, and they trusted to me. I said "I couldna be fashed wi' the like o' that;" but they said they gave me the names and number o' the individuals with whom they had intrusted both porter and pewter-pots; and if I did not mark it down and see after it, it was my look-out, and not theirs. In this way, I believe, I lost five butts o' porter within twelve months. Yet, sir, these were not the only griefs and the only losses that the four words which are the subject of my story have brought upon me. Not only did I frequently neglect to insert in my own books what I had sent out on credit, but I as frequently delayed to mark down what had been sent to me by the brewer or distiller, and said, "Hoot, I haena time—I canna be fashed to enter it to-day, I will do it the morn, or the next day." But the next day and the next came, and I could be less fashed than ever, and the entry remained untouched. Many a heavy loss I am sensible this has caused me; and often has it made me appear as a rogue, when my intentions were honest.

Sir, what I have told ye is but a sample o' what "I canna be fashed" has cost me. I could relate to you a thousand o' its consequences; but half-a-dozen are as good, and perhaps better than a thousand, by way o' example.

I had been about fifteen years in business, when I became bond, for a friend that I thought I could have trusted as my own brother, to the extent o' three thousand pounds. I was certain he was perfectly solvent, and from the acquaintance I had had o' him, I could nae mair hae doubted him than I could hae doubted that I was the son o' my mother. But a few weeks after I had signed the bond, a mutual acquaintance called upon me, and, says he—

"Grant, you have acted like a fool."

"I dinna doubt," says I, for I was perfectly aware that I often had; "but what do ye mean to be at?"

"Why," says he, "So-and-so has taken you in. He is preparing to be off, bag and baggage, for America, and you will be left to pay the piper."

"Oh, ye are a suspicious wretch," says I; "man, I couldna believe the like o' that if ye were to swear it to me."

"Believe it or not," says he, "if you don't see after it instantly, your three thousand pounds are gone."

"Hoot! babbles!" said I, "the man's daft!—do ye think I dinna ken him better than that? The man is as sure as the bank. I would be the last man he would injure a farthing—I ken that weel aneugh. But, at ony rate, I am particularly busy, and I canna be fashed wi' ony nonsense o' the kind; so ye may keep yoursel easy, and I am only sorry that ye should hae such an opinion o' ony friend o' mine."

"Canna be fashed!" cried my acquaintance, hurrying from the shop; "what a deuced fool! Grant, you'll repent it."

I laughed at the man; for I had perfect confidence in my friend, and I knew that he had property worth three times the money that I was bond for him.

On the very next day, the same acquaintance came into my house very hastily, and says he—

"Grant, if you don't look after your money, and that very sharply, you will find your friend's property is no go, and you are in for paying the three thousand."

"Ye dinna mean to say the like o' that?" said I.

"Say that, you blockhead!" returned my acquaintance—"wherefore wouldn't you believe me yesterday?" And placing his arm through mine, he dragged me out o' the house. We reached the habitation o' the worthy gentleman for whom I was surety in the sum o' three thousand precious pounds sterling. But he was off—off like a bird whose nest has been robbed o' its eggs. Twelve hours before, he had sailed for America, or some other quarter o' the globe; but where I never knew.

"Come home, Grant," said my friend, "don't distress yourself now."

"Oh, dinna speak to me," says I—"I canna be fashed; my three thousand pounds!—my poor three thousand pounds!"

We went into a tavern, and I drank out o' pure desperation until I could hardly stand; and as we were going home I fell, and I dislocated my arm, or I broke it; at ony rate I did something to it, and it never was like to get better; and my friends advised me to send for a surgeon—but——

"What to do wi' a surgeon?" says I; "I canna be fashed wi' them. The arm will get better itsel."

But from that day until the present hour, I have never had the right use o' it. It made me useless, in a great measure, in the way o' business. Therefore I sold the goodwill o' my house, and wi' the other little remains o' what I had saved, I came down here, just to live as easy and as cheap as possible. And now, sir, as ye have seen what a great gainer I have been by the words "I canna be fashed," I hope and implore ye will never use them again, but take a warning by the example o' Willie Grant.

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TALES OF THE EAST NEUK OF FIFE.

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THE CASTLE OF CRAIL; OR, KING DAVID AND MAUDE.

"Ev'n kings hae taen a queen out o' the plain,
And what has been before may be again."—Allan Ramsay.

The reign of the illustrious Malcolm III., surnamed Canmore, King of Scotland, which began in the year 1057, was not more distinguished for heroism and literature than for love. He was both a religious and a valiant king, and was often victorious against the Danes, who frequently invaded Scotland. In his time, William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England, and in the great battle of Hastings, which took place in 1066, killed King Harold. Edgar, the lawful heir to the English crown, seeing the country conquered, and the nobles routed and dispersed, took shipping with his mother and sisters, and arrived in the Frith of Forth, and landed at Queensferry, which received its name from Margaret, the eldest sister of Edgar, whom King Malcolm afterwards married. King Malcolm was killed at the siege of Alnwick by Robert Moubray, who, unarmed, upon a light horse, came out of Alnwick Castle, with a lance in his hand, and bearing the keys of the castle upon its point.

King Malcolm, while earnestly regarding the keys, was stabbed by Moubray through the left eye to the brain, and died instantly. King William the Conqueror, in consequence of this achievement, changed the name of Moubray to that of Percy, of whom are descended the Dukes of Northumberland.

After sundry usurpations, Edgar and Alexander, the first and second sons of King Malcolm, severally reigned for a number of years, and died childless; and in 1124, David I., the hero of our tale, ascended the throne. He possessed a large share of his father's virtues, and during his reign cultivated those arts and sciences which Malcolm had encouraged. His heart was particularly susceptible of the tender passion, and of the power of beauty. It is a well-established historical fact, that King David occasionally resided at the Castle of Crail, which stood on a rock overhanging the harbour, and vestiges of this royal residence still remain. A summer-house now stands on the site, surrounded by a large garden; and the place is sometimes occupied by the owner, a landed gentleman in the neighbourhood, and his friends, for the purposes of good fellowship and social intercourse.

While residing at the Castle of Crail, the king and his younger nobles resolved on partaking of the wild sports of the neighbourhood; and with this view they proceeded one day, well mounted, and attended by the hounds, to Kingsbarns, a fine tract of land belonging to the crown, where the grain was stored in barns for payment of the king's rents; and from thence they passed on to an extensive and thickly-wooded district—in fact, a large forest, which now constitutes a considerable portion of the Parish of St Andrews and surrounding parishes. The ancient name of this district was Cursus Apri, or, the Boar-Chase, and hence is derived the present name of the village contiguous, "Boar-hills."

Having started a wild boar out of this forest, it took a westerly course towards Kingsmuir (which, as its name implies, also belonged to the crown), and the party set off in hot pursuit. This muir, now highly cultivated, was, at the time to which we refer, a waste or common of little value, and on which many of the neighbouring proprietors, in consequence, claimed a servitude right of pasturage; but it was under an officer of the crown, styled "Heritable Keeper of the Kingsmuir." Here, then, while engaged in the exciting sport of the chase of the boar (which, in the end, was killed at Kingscairn Mill), a deer, a fox, and a wild cat also broke cover, and the attention of the hunters and hounds being thus divided, the party separated, and the king found himself alone upon the muir.

David was in the prime of life—a very handsome man, and of princely bearing, and, while thus unattended and unknown, he met with a lovely young shepherdess in a lonely part of the muir, tending her father's sheep. The name of the young woman, he found, was Maude, or Matilda, and, having inquired of her where she abode, he departed, resolving to cultivate the acquaintance he had thus accidentally formed. He frequently visited the shepherdess after this (who was entirely ignorant of his rank), in the capacity of a private gentleman, and her conversation was his delight. There was something mysterious to him in her deportment and her accomplishments: she possessed the strictest innocence and the most dignified bearing without the slightest embarrassment. Though plainly attired, "grace was in all her steps," and every action exhibited courtly propriety and ease. Though her observations were chiefly confined to her flocks, and to rural affairs, yet she would occasionally surprise the king with her remarks upon astronomy, history, geography, morals, and agriculture, which bespoke a mind informed far above the common level. Being thus engaging in her mind and manners, it was not to be wondered at that every additional visit increased the love and affection of the astonished king, whose dignity was her torture. His passion grew stronger every day.

The king was captivated with her charms. Honour, however, governed his actions, and subjected his wishes to the control of virtue: he wished to raise her to an exalted situation, not to triumph over her innocence—in short, he wished to make her his royal bride; but this seemed impossible, and he returned dejected to his Castle of Crail. He regretted that high rank should now stand in the way of his happiness, and almost wished he had not been born a king. He consulted the Lord of Douglas, his prime minister, urged the beauty, the virtue, the genius of Matilda, but all in vain; the reply was, that policy and prudence required him to seek a union with some exalted character—an alliance with the daughter of a powerful and wealthy prince; and that, were he to place a shepherdess on the throne, his nobles would be disgusted, and quit his court, and in all probability proceed by open violence to resent the supposed insult to their dignity. The king admitted that what was said was too likely to be the fact, and at the same time reprobated that pride which deemed an alliance with obscure and untitled virtue disgraceful; but he knew the prejudices of his nobility were unconquerable, and he submitted with great reluctance to his fate. His friends—and amongst others the Lairds of Cambo, Anstruther, Grangemuir, and Balcombie, the Provost of Crail, and Prior of St Rufus, the remains of whose chapel may still be seen a little eastward of Crail, near Roome Bay, and whose well (called the Prior's Well) is yet resorted to occasionally by the good people of the Nethergate—those friends, we say, tried in vain to divert the king's thoughts, and alleviate his distress. They informed him of the great antiquity of the burgh—that it was a place of note in the ninth century. They conveyed him on horseback to the Dane's Dyke, the remains of a bulwark of stones thrown up by our Danish invaders in one night, where human bones, in great quantities, are yet cast up by the plough on the farm of Kilmining; and they then passed on to the Cave of Balcombie Sands, where they told him one of his majesty's predecessors, Constantine, the Scottish king, was beheaded by the Danes, in the year 871, he having been taken prisoner in a skirmish, while the enemy were retreating. The party then visited the Castle of Balcombie, a lofty and extensive pile of building, of immense strength and remote antiquity, where, in after years, Mary of Guise was hospitably entertained, on landing, after a tempestuous passage, at Fifeness-haven, in order to be married to King James V. From hence King David proceeded to Airdrie, or Ard-rhi—a name which in the Celtic language denotes "the king's height"—then a favourite royal hunting-station on the borders of Kingsmuir; and, returning to Crail, the Runic Cross was not forgotten.[9]

It were endless to tell of all the devices resorted to by his friends to alleviate the king's melancholy. The greatest beauties of the castle courted his smiles without effect. Their charms seemed but to remind him of the superior fascinations of his beloved Matilda. Nothing seemed to remain to him but the trying task of parting, perhaps for ever, from his captivating shepherdess.

The king often thought of asking Matilda for the story of her life, but dreaded that the narrative would but confirm his misery. Upon one of his visits, he missed her at the accustomed spot, but found a venerable old man attending the sheep in her place. The king anxiously inquired for Matilda, and was informed that she was visiting a family in the neighbourhood.

The family which she had gone to visit lived in an unpretending mansion beautifully situated on a ridge of rising ground, which stretches from east to west, nearly through the middle of what is now the Parish of Carnbee. This ridge rises in different places into hills of a beautiful conical form, and are green and verdant to the summit; these are Carnbee-law, Kellie-law. Gillingshill, and Cunner-law. It was to Gillingshill Matilda had directed her steps, and, occupying as it did an elevated position, the house commanded an extensive and splendid view.[10]

The maiden had acquainted her father that she often had a visiter when keeping her flocks in the muir, and, from her description of him, the old man conceived the individual present to be that person, and accordingly invited him to their habitation, which invitation David, throwing aside for awhile his usual courtly ceremony, accepted.

He went on with sorrowing steps, and yet would not have staid behind. The small and unpretending cottage before him damped him at first, but when he thought upon it as the home of his fair enchantress, his spirits were again cheered. He found in the place neatness and rural elegance. He would have been happy to have changed his sceptre for a shepherd's crook, and his noble Castle of Crail for this humble dwelling. He was invited to refresh himself, and Matilda soon joined them; but, although the table was spread with healthful rustic dainties, he could not do justice to the feast. Matilda's charming company and conversation was his regalement. The old man apologised for the homeliness of his fare, supposing that to be the cause of his guest's abstinence, and said, "That once he could have entertained him better, but now he had little more to offer than a hearty welcome."

A knock was heard at the door, and a young farmer having entered who wished to buy some sheep, the old man retired with him with the view of making a bargain.

The young couple being left alone, David moved his chair nearer to that of Matilda, and began to renew his attentions to her; but, however much she was pleased with the courtly air and intellectual conversation of her visiter, she was resolved to act with prudence and circumspection. She therefore took this opportunity of stating to him, in a polite and kindly manner, that, as he had said his visits were paid for the purpose of making her acquaintance, and that while she thanked him for the favourable opinion he had often expressed with regard to her, yet, as he was a stranger, and had never been regularly introduced, she should be obliged to decline his future visits. She further stated, that he must be well aware there can be no safe principle except this, that every man aiming at our acquaintance must be introduced to us by some person we already know, who becomes a guarantee, as it were, for the propriety of his behaviour and the honour of his views; that without this we can never be sure that the individual addressing us is not a designing adventurer, who would think nothing of making our happiness his sport; and that for a young female to admit the addresses of an unknown young man, however fascinating his manners or noble his air, would be to run a great risk of disappointment and unhappiness for life.

The old man now came into the room, and the subject of conversation being changed, King David shortly afterwards took leave of his entertainers, bowing respectfully as he retired.

Matilda's father had been her tutor, and he was well qualified for that office. To aid the development of her infant mind—to pour forth to her, as she grew in years and in reason, all the fruits of his own richly-cultivated intellect, was the solitary consolation of one over whose head was impending the misfortune of incompetence, or deficiency of means for the adequate support of himself and his daughter. Matilda was gifted with a mind which, even if her tutor had not been her father, would have rendered tuition a delight. Her lively imagination, which early unfolded itself; her dangerous but interesting vivacity; the keen delight, the swift enthusiasm with which she drank in knowledge, and then panted for more; her shrewd acuteness, and her innate passion for what was excellent and beautiful, filled her father with rapture, which he repressed, and made him feel conscious how much there was to check, to guide, and to form, as well as to cherish, to admire, and to applaud.

As she grew up, the bright parts of her character shone with increased lustre; but, in spite of the exertions of her instructor, some less admirable qualities had not yet disappeared. She was still too often the dupe of her imagination; and though perfectly inexperienced, her confidence in her theoretical knowledge of human nature was unbounded. She had an idea that she could penetrate the character of individuals at first meeting; and the consequence of this fatal axiom was, that she was always the slave of first impressions, and constantly the victim of prejudice; she was ever thinking individuals better or worse than they really were, and she believed it to be out of the power of any one to deceive her. Constant attendance during many years on a dying beloved mother, and her deep religious feelings, had first broken, and then controlled, a spirit which nature had intended to be arrogant and haughty. Her father she adored; and she seemed to devote to him all that consideration which, with more common characters, is generally distributed among their acquaintances.

We hint at her faults. How shall we describe her virtues? Her unbounded generosity, her dignified simplicity, her graceful frankness, her nobility of thought and feeling, her firmness, her courage, and her truth, her kindness to her inferiors, her constant charity, her devotion to her parents, her sympathy with sorrow, her detestation of oppression, her pure unsullied thoughts, her delicate taste, her deep religion—all these combined would have formed a delightful character, even if unaccompanied with such brilliant talents and such brilliant beauty as she possessed. Nature and art were the graces which had combined to form this girl. She was a jewel set in gold, and worthy of a king.

After the remarks made by Matilda on his last visit, the king resolved to make known to the old man and his daughter his rank and station with as little delay as possible; but, being wishful at the same time to ascertain previously what were the feelings of Matilda towards him as a private individual, irrespective of his kingly crown and dignity, he thought it best to postpone the communication until he should have learned the history of the old shepherd and his family. For this purpose he repaired on an early day to Kingsmuir, and bearing in mind the few words which formerly fell from the old man in reference to his having seen better days—words which had greatly raised the hopes of the king, and fixed his attention on the story of their fortunes—he entreated the sage to relate the same, which he agreed to do, and began as follows:—"I was formerly Earl of Northumberland, and husband of Juditha, grand-daughter of William the Conqueror. Our family were nearly connected with royalty, and my possessions in lands, flocks, and herds, exceedingly extensive and valuable. I lived in becoming splendour. I was beloved by my neighbours, and happy in my family. My estates are situated not far from the borders of Scotland, and were frequently invaded by the Scottish chiefs. For a long time my tenants and servants bravely repelled these attacks, but at length increasing in their numbers, we were overpowered. They spoiled and ravaged all our lands, and drove away our flocks and herds, save a small portion, with which I removed to the East of Fife, to find security and protection. Here have I since lived—suppressed my style and title, and passed myself off as a poor old shepherd, with this my humble but virtuous and affectionate daughter, the comfort and support of my declining years."

The king struggled to conceal the thrilling emotions which he felt at this narration, and asked the old man whether he had applied at court for succour in his distress. His question was answered thus:—"No; my family, consisting of but myself and young Matilda, and my desires being confined to narrow bounds, by the dictates of religion and philosophy, I thought it unjust to ask of this country that support which health and honest industry could procure, and thereby deprive more useful subjects of their just reward." The king admired the generous spirit of the venerable sage; told him he had interest at court; assured him that the king would be glad to see him, and insisted that he and his daughter should hasten thither; which journey, after considerable hesitation, they resolved to undertake.

It is impossible to describe the transports of the young king on this occasion. He came back to the castle, to inform his courtiers that two interesting strangers were shortly to visit them, and he made all due preparations for his expected and welcome guests. The scene was now changed from deep despondency to the most complete joy and felicity.

At the appointed time the old shepherd and his lovely daughter arrived at the good old town and Castle of Crail; and having recovered from their surprise, the king introduced them to the court in their rural habits, without disclosing their rank. As companions of the king, the courtiers were obliged to receive them with civility, but their affected politeness could ill conceal their absolute contempt. The court broke up, and the king again engaged in conversation with the Earl of Northumberland. He requested to know where his daughter derived so much knowledge? To which the earl replied, "From my own poor stock. She was my sole companion. I thought it my interest as well as my duty to teach her every science I knew. She had an apt and comprehensive intellect, and easily received instruction."

In a few days the king again assembled all his courtiers. He had previously advised with the prime minister and privy councillors on the propriety of a marriage with an earl's daughter of royal lineage, and obtained their unqualified consent and approval. He then introduced the old man as the Earl of Northumberland, and the beautiful shepherdess as his daughter Matilda. Shame seized the ungenerous nobility for their former conduct, but the offended parties soon removed their embarrassment; and a noble suite of apartments were soon set aside for the earl and Matilda in the house of the governor of the castle.[11]

In a fine summer afternoon David and his beloved Matilda were seated alone in a room of the governor's house.

Now, as interviews between lovers are usually very delightful to our fair young friends in general, we might for their benefit narrate at great length all that was said and done by the parties above mentioned; but, without disappointing them altogether, we shall be very brief on the subject, and rather hasten to unfold more important parts of their adventures.

"Sweet Matilda," began David, "my heart, that never knew another love, is all your own. Since we first met on Kingsmuir, your image has not quitted my mind for a second. Not for a moment have I ceased to think you the best, the most beautiful, the most enchanting, the most endearing creature that ever graced our country."

She turned; her eye glistened; her arm fell over his shoulder; she buried her head in his breast. At this very moment the door opened, and the earl her father entered; and David exclaimed, "Oh, my dear earl, I am the happiest man that ever breathed."

"What is all this?" inquired the earl.

"Is it possible," said the king, "that you have not long before detected the feelings I ventured to entertain for your daughter? In a word, she requires only your sanction to my being the most fortunate of men."

"My gracious sovereign," cried the earl, "it is out of the power of man to impart to me any event which could afford to me such exquisite pleasure."

The earl then approached his daughter, and, bending down, pressed the lips of his child. It was the seal to their plighted faith, and told without speech that the blessing of a father mingled with the vows of a lover. At this moment Matilda thought only of her father—that friend of her life in prosperity and adversity, whose love had never been wanting—was she now about to leave him? She rose; she threw her arms about her father's neck, and wept.

The earl at this time considerately remembered that he wanted to see his servant, and they were left alone. Their eyes meet; their soft looks tell that they are thinking of each other. His arm steals round the back of her chair, and with the other hand he gently lays hold on hers. But why more? First love—first love, how many a glowing bard has sung thy charms! Nature herself seemed to those loving hearts more beautiful than ever. Their own thoughts reflected themselves in every object that met their view, as they wandered amidst the shady woods or along the sunny braes near the royal residence.

But although the young king was in love, duty was not to be neglected; and the old earl entreated that the youthful pair should cease to wander on the West Braes, and Roome Links, and woods, and muirs which at that time surrounded the burgh. He urged the king to examine and make good the walls of the town, and the gates at the East and West Ports, and Jockey's Port, as well as those of the Nethergate and Shoregate; also the castle walls, gates, and defences, and whole fortifications. The armoury came likewise under observation, and an inspection took place of the bowmen, while practising archery in the Bow Butts. These precautions became necessary, as rumours began to be circulated that a war might speedily be expected with the English.

The affairs of state having also received due attention, the court resolved to visit the Isle of May.

The morning was remarkably fine, when the king, with the Earl of Northumberland, Matilda, and a number of his court, embarked at Crail in a pleasure-yacht for the May. The air was pure, the sea slightly ruffled with a favouring breeze, and the sky almost cloudless; all nature looked bright and beautiful, and the morning sun cast the shadows of the vessel's masts across the water in the harbour.

The harbour of Crail presented a very animated scene. Everything was in unison with the sunny day and the illustrious occasion. The piers were lined with soldiers, and behind them were dense crowds of spectators. The royal Scottish standard was flying from the castle, and from the south pier-head. The harbour was crowded with boats and small craft, to witness the departure. On the yacht leaving the harbour, the cheer was taken up by the soldiers and the populace, while the band struck up the national air.

The Island of May was reached in less than an hour. In sailing round the western side, the most discordant sounds saluted the ear from kittiewakes, seagulls, scouts, and other wild sea-fowl, which inhabit the rock in myriads, and nestle in the bare crevices; and some of the party, wishful to display their skill in archery, brought down a few of the birds with their arrows, both sitting and on the wing. A landing was safely made on the southern side, and the company separated into small parties, to stroll over the island, and view its natural curiosities and various remains of antiquity, particularly its priory and gifted holy well.

After spending a delightful day, the court embarked with the afternoon's tide for Crail, and, when at a distance from the island, they viewed with interest the romantic Castle of Dreel, the stronghold of the Anstruthers of Anstruther, to whom the king had lately granted a charter, wherein the heir is designed "Filius Willielmi de Candela, domini de Anstruther:" "son of William de Candela, Lord of Anstruther," a name obviously of Norman origin. This castle lies at the bottom of the bay, between the Billowness and Craignoon Rock, with its rough, grey, antique houses clustering round the mouth of the Dreel burn. Brightly on sea and on shore shone the unclouded afternoon's sun on the white cliffs of the isle, and the rugged shore of the East of Fife, with all its caverns, rocks, and towers, its ancient burghs, with their pointed spires, and long and straggling fishing villages, that dot the rocky beach. The scene was lovely and beautiful. The Forth shone like a stream of lucid gold; West Anstruther, with its old church of Norman architecture; Royal Crail, with its lofty castle, its chapel, and turreted battlements; Castle Cunningham, at the West Braes, and its gloomy caverns not far distant—all these were visible at once, and bathed in ruddy light.

King David having now declared his intention of espousing Matilda, the marriage was soon after solemnised within the chapel of the castle, with much splendour and dignity. The guests of the bridal were the nobility and dignified clergy, and in their suite a numerous assembly of vassals. A thousand knights, in their robes of silk, attended the bride on the morn of her nuptials, and several days were spent in hunting, feasting, dancing, and other circumstances of pomp and revelry.

A tournament, the frequent amusement of this warlike age, also took place. This was a martial sport or exercise which the ancient cavaliers used to perform to show their address and bravery. On this occasion, Walter Bisset, a powerful baron, who piqued himself on his skill in his weapons, was foiled by Patrick, Earl of Athole. An old feud which existed between these families embittered the defeat, and Athole was found murdered in his house, which, probably for the purpose of concealment, was set on fire by the assassins. The suspicion of this slaughter—which, even in an age familiar with ferocity, seems to have excited unwonted horror—immediately fell upon the Bissets; and although Walter was the person concerned in the tournament, the popular clamour pointed to William, the elder brother, and chief of the family. He was pursued by the nobility, who were incited to vengeance by the Earl of March and David de Hastings, and would have been torn to pieces, had not the interference of the king protected him from the fury of the friends of Athole. Ultimately the Bissets were condemned, their estates forfeited to the crown, and they were ordered to repair to Palestine, and there, for the remaining days of their lives, to pray for the soul of the murdered earl.

When we muse on the chivalric and martial sports which distinguished our ancient burgh in former days, and witness the silence and gloomy depopulation which now reign in our streets; when we compare its lofty and formidable castle with its present bare and defenceless walls; when we think of the great maritime and commercial interest carried on, before the Union, between its harbour and Holland, and other foreign countries, and see its present limited coasting trade, we can scarcely help regretting the loss of its ancient grandeur. One cannot help feeling that of this royal residence, where princes feasted and heroes fought—now in the bloody earnest of storm and siege, and now in the games of chivalry, where beauty dealt the prize which valour had won—all is now desolate, all its glory is departed. The mossy ruins of its castle walls only serve to show what their extent and splendour once was, and to impress on the mind of the musing visiter the transitory nature and value of all human possessions, and the true happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment.

Some of our readers may deem the marriage of David and Matilda a singular and improbable circumstance; but we can tell of a far more romantic bridal, and one well attested by historical evidence, which happened little more than a hundred years afterwards—viz., in 1272—with which important consequences were connected:—A Scottish knight of high birth, Robert de Bruce, younger of Annandale and Cleveland, was passing on horseback through the domains of Turnberry, which belonged to Marjory, Countess of Carrick. The lady happened at the moment to be pursuing the diversion of the chase, surrounded by her squires and damsels. They encountered the Bruce. The young countess was struck by his noble figure, and courteously entreated him to remain and take the recreation of hunting. Bruce, who, in those feudal days, knew the danger of paying too much attention to a ward of the king, declined the invitation, when he found himself suddenly surrounded by the attendants; and the lady, riding up, seized his bridle, and led off the knight with gentle violence to her Castle of Turnberry. Here, after fifteen days' residence, the adventure concluded as might have been anticipated: Bruce married the countess, without the knowledge of her relations, or obtaining the king's consent; upon which King Alexander seized her Castle of Turnberry. The intercession of friends, however, and a heavy fine, conciliated the mind of the monarch. Bruce became, in right of his wife, Lord of Carrick, and the son of this marriage of romantic love was the great Robert Bruce, the restorer of Scottish liberty.

Soon after the royal marriage, preparations were made for the queen's coronation (King David having been crowned when he ascended the throne), and the royal pair, with the court, proceeded to Scone Palace for that purpose.

It was a fine morning in the month of July when the party set out, and the dawn was beautiful. Before them lay the great Frith of Forth, rolling down in the bright sunshine from the mountains of the west, its shores teeming with fertility and natural loveliness. Along the banks the mists were rising from the verdant cones and waving woods of Innergellie, Lochton, and Balcomie. It was a spacious prospect of flowering meadow and ripening corn-field—of foliaged coppice and flowing ocean—of rising eminence and busy burgh town—of ships and fishing-boats at anchor or under sail, with the glorious sunshine beaming over all, and everything was full of life, of light, and of happiness around them. The road from Crail passed through Airdrie Woods, by the back of Kellie-law, and thence through the muirs to Falkland.[12] Here the royal party stopped and partook of refreshments, and thereafter proceeded on their journey to the Palace of Scone.

The mode in which the ceremony of Queen Matilda's coronation was performed is strikingly illustrative of the manners of the age. The Bishops of St Andrews and Dunkeld, with the Abbot of Scone, attended to officiate. The Bishop of St Andrews explained to her majesty the respective oaths, which were to be taken first in Latin, and afterwards in Norman French. They then conducted her to the regal chair or sacred stone of Scone, which stood before the cross in the eastern division of the chapel. Upon this she sat; the crown was placed on her head; she was invested with the royal mantle, and the nobility kneeling in homage threw their robes beneath her feet. A Highland bard or sennachy, clothed in a scarlet mantle, with hair venerably white, then advanced from the crowd, and bending before the throne, repeated in his native tongue the genealogy of the youthful queen.

Many years pass. Maude is dead; and our fancy, under a spell, leads us to Crail Church. The usual service has not yet commenced, and consequently neither the king, his family, nor attendants, have entered the church; but it is whispered that they may be looked for every moment, as his majesty was scrupulously punctual at prayers.

There was soon a large congregation assembled, certainly not less than a thousand persons, drawn hither by loyalty and curiosity, and in compliment to the royal birth-day. A soft and solemn strain of music now rose from the organ, and time is given, during the voluntary, to collect the distracted thoughts, and to compose them into calmness and order suitable to the occasion. There now ran a muffled whisper of "The King! the King!" and a vista being opened in front, his majesty is seen quite distinctly. He is a venerable old man, hoary and furrowed—no grandeur, no majesty, no assumption of princely dignity. Shading his dim eyes with one hand, he reverently knelt down, and inwardly breathed his composing aspiration to the Throne of Grace. The other hand rested on the shoulder of the fair-haired child who stood by his side, his little grand-daughter, whom he had led in his hand to the place of worship.

All this had passed in a few seconds: and there was now a deep hush, for the priests were in their places. The staring and whispering were suspended; the service commenced, and the aged monarch, bareheaded, his thin, trembling hands fervently clasped, his eyes uplifted as it were to the place to which all his earnest thoughts were now directed, in the attitude of intense, absorbing devotion—presented a picture of devotion of a character so solemn and impressive, that anything more striking could rarely be witnessed or imagined.

Here, then, is an end to all our previous dreams of royal splendour, for there stands the pious monarch, David, King of Scotland,

"His staff his sceptre, his grey hairs his crown,"

trembling in presence of his God, breathing the general confession of his sins with the beings of the same kindred and frail nature as himself that stood around him.

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THE LEGEND OF THE CHURCH OF ABERCROMBIE.

From authentic documents referred to by Sir John Connel in his "History of Tithes," Abercrombie, or Abercromlin, appears to have been a parish as far back as 1174. How long that character pertained to this portion of Fife we cannot say, but the church is obviously of very great antiquity. Having become so ruinous as to be unfit for a place of worship, it was abandoned in 1646, and since that time the parishes of Abercrombie and St Monans have been united, and the old church of St Monans, situated on the sea-shore, has served for the use of both.

In a romantic and beautiful situation within the grounds now forming part of the domain of Sir Ralph Abercrombie Anstruther of Balcaskie, Baronet, and in the old burying-place, still used as a cemetery by the Balcaskie family, stands the remains of the old grey parish church of Abercrombie, with its encircling lime-trees and its green ivy garment duskily investing its aged walls.

Dedicated to St Mary and St Margaret, tradition has deduced the origin of Abercrombie Church from the piety and wealth of two sisters similarly named.

About the middle of the twelfth century, the broad lands and swelling coffers of Sir Humphrey Abercrombie (failing male issue) devolved upon two maiden sisters, Mary and Margaret, only children of the baronet; and as both were young, and of unimpeachable descent—the true Norman blood mantling in every vein—the heiresses early became objects of absorbing interest in the eyes of such of the surrounding knights and thanes as could advance pretensions to as clear a shield and pure a lineage as their own.

Educated within the walls of the convent at Haddington, the sisters' limited experience and unripe notions of the world would have inadequately fitted them for the duties entailed upon them by their new position, were it not that nature had beneficently gifted the elder with a certain strength and self-reliance of character, imperfectly developed in the cloister, but daily expanding and maturing in a broader sphere, in proportion as circumstances seemed to call it into action, and demand its vigorous exercise.

The younger was a graceful, gentle girl, gifted with rare beauty, and with a disposition as femininely soft and placid as the mild and dove-like eyes through which her soul looked out upon a world but newly revealed to her enfranchised gaze.

How was it, then, that thus differing—thus unlike in mind and feature—the high-souled Mary and the shrinking, soft-eyed Margaret should, almost simultaneously, have set their hearts on one object? Was it that, under the handsome exterior of her soldier-cousin, Philip de Candela, the elder sister recognised a spirit similar to her own? And was it that the pliant mind of Margaret, putting forth a host of tendrils—impulses, affections, sympathies—craved some object for support, something to cling to and weave themselves around, encircling what they garlanded? Was it in the harder nature of the soldier these budding tendrils found, as it were, a massive trunk wooing their embrace and strengthening their growth? Was it that the elder loved him for the perils he had undergone in Palestine and in France, the exciting scenes in which he had conspicuously borne a brave man's part, and for the spirit of daring and adventure by which he had been influenced in his busy brief career? We may know that it was so; that continued intercourse confirmed and ripened love; that Mary's ears were seldom regaled with tales of war and chivalry, while the songs of Provence were carolled with a frequency and fervour most gratifying, it would seem, to the happy, hopeful Margaret; and that, in short, the soldier and his soft-eyed cousin plighted their troth, and then irrevocably sealed it with a sacred union. The ceremonial was performed by St Monan, a hermit or religious recluse belonging to the Monastery of Pittenweem, which was sheltered in a recess amongst the banks, walls, and crevices at the west end of the village of the same name, with a dusky-coloured mass of hard whinstone overhanging it behind, and a stair or gully winding past it in front. Haste and secresy could be purchased then as now, and Philip and his bride were ferried across the frith, and landed at North Berwick, hours ere their lengthened absence had been noted by the elder sister as an unusual circumstance.

How fierce and violent a storm of passion then swelled within the disappointed sister's breast—how from her heart she cursed them bitterly, bridegroom and bride—how vowed an unmitigable hatred to them both—how every soft and womanly feeling seemed utterly extinct—how in their stead arose an intense, consuming thirst to be avenged—how, in fact, her whole nature seemed changed, and how she moodily immured herself within her Castle of Abercrombie, day after day, week after week, brooding upon the scornful slight which had been put upon her love, and upon the cunning, as she deemed it, of the sister who had supplanted her—it were a charity to the infirmities of our common nature to touch upon but lightly, and so pass on to after incidents.

Six months had scarcely run their course after the marriage, when the war broke out between Stephen, the unpopular usurper of the English throne, and his fair relative and competitor, Maude. Margaret's husband was among the first to join the standard of King David, and to fling himself within the ranks of those who opposed Stephen. Alas! he was among the first also to fall a victim to that sanguinary strife, being slain in a mere chance skirmish, into which his zeal and well-known bravery had unhappily led him.

Poor Margaret might well be overwhelmed by such a fearful and unlooked-for bereavement. Reason almost gave way; and during the time that partial delirium deprived her of consciousness, her husband's kinsmen mercifully consigned the gashed and ghastly corpse to its last home, that the widow's eye might never look with agony upon the loved and distorted features of her slaughtered soldier.

When the elder sister heard of this sudden sharp calamity, her heart melted within her. In the presence of death, anger and hate, and jealousy, and wounded love, and baffled hope, stood solemnly rebuked. The cause of their disunion no longer found a place within their memory; but a more unclouded past, childhood and girlhood, the recollections of an era teeming with thoughts and images of love and tenderness—of a time when they two nestled their soft cheeks upon the same pillow, wove the same woof, shared the same rambles to Kellie-law and Kilconquhar Loch, to Macduff's Cave and Balcarras Craig—cherished the same dear rose-tree, wept and laughed, grew pale or crimson, sad or merry, as the same feelings swayed the hearts of both—came thronging to her mind; and as the past brought with it such gentle harmonising influences, why should they not renew it in the future? They had been too long widely and unwisely severed. Henceforth they would have, as they had had of yore, but one home and one heart.

Borne down, indeed, still almost distraught with grief, the younger yet could find a solace and a mitigation of her sorrow in her reunion with her elder sister; and when the latter fell upon the widow's bosom, and brokenly sobbed out her sorrow for the past, her grief for this last heavy stroke, and spoke of hope for better days, when suffering should be softened down by time, and submission soothe regret, her dark eyes kindled through her tears, and a faint smile, like a ray of fleeting sunshine gilding the blackness of the storm, played momentarily upon her compressed and pallid lips.

So the old Castle of Abercrombie received them once again, linked together by a closer tie—wiser and sadder both—the joyousness of youth displaced by thoughts of a graver, if not gloomier, texture, as though a few short months had done the work of years, and prematurely stamped the feelings of a later epoch upon their youthful minds. Perhaps the solitude in which they lived, disposing them to ponder on the after destination of the soul, or perhaps the converse of a priestly adviser, anxious to aggrandise the church (for there was only one church then, and for three hundred years after there was no other, namely, the Church of Rome) of which he was a member; or perhaps that natural revulsion of the mind from matters of momentary to matters of imperishable importance, which results from worldly disappointment and domestic calamities, influenced them in coming to the determination to which they came; but whatever may have been the influences which operated on them, this alone is certain—that the sisters mutually resolved to found a church, and dedicate it to the service of the Almighty, in token of their reconciliation; purposing likewise to endow it at their decease with the personal wealth of which they were possessed.

At that time the whole surrounding country, or at least the muirland portion of it, was little better than a leafy wilderness, intersected by numerous bridle-ways, with here and there a broader track, offering a passage for the slow and cumbrous carts and sledges of those rude days. At scattered intervals large clearances had been made; and out of the old primeval trees, and with the aid of turf taken from the soil, and rushes gathered from the margin of the burns, rivulets, and lochs, groups of cottages were framed, windowless and chimneyless—a miserable shelter for the hardy cottars who tenanted them. A frank tenementer's more commodious abode, a smithy, or perhaps a huckster's store, were the only tenements that varied that otherwise uniform aspect of these primitive clachans. Wherever the ground swelled into anything like a reasonable eminence, the stronghold of a baron might be observed perched on the summit, while the circumjacent hollow would exhibit its irregularly-clustered hovels, overlooked by the more massive and enduring residence of the rural magnate. Such churches, too, as then existed, were mostly built upon a rising ground, and seemed to serve as landmarks in that wild untravelled breadth of muir-moss and forest-land. It may be readily conceived, therefore, that at such a time, and in such a district, the rumour of the meditated erection in the first instance, and afterwards the commencement, continued progress, and completion of the sacred structure, were regarded as the gradual evolution of an event peculiarly important.

It was an event, moreover, that was regarded with the utmost satisfaction by the Romish Church, upon whose dignitaries, in due time, devolved the task of formally consecrating the edifice to the sacred object for which it was intended, and who purposed to lavish in the ceremonial all those adventitious aids by which the Church of Rome imparted a character of such imposing grandeur to every rite and ceremonial to which she lent her countenance, or in which she bore a part: and hence the consecration of this edifice, followed, or rather accompanied, by a solemn presentation of the sisters at the altar, in token of compunction for dissensions past, and thankfulness for love restored, was marked by features of such rare magnificence, by such impressive pomp, and such professional display, and witnessed by such a multitude of wondering spectators, gathered from far and near, that both the solemnity itself, and its strange issue, lived in the memories of succeeding generations for centuries afterwards.

On that solemnity we need not tarry to comment; our legend has reference to its issue only. As the sisters knelt before the altar, thus by a formal act to ratify their reconciliation in the sight of God and man, and the venerable diocesan, Bishop Arnold of St Andrews, bent down to give his benediction on them both, a flash of vivid lightning on a sudden filled the sacred edifice with a ruddy light, and a rattling peal of thunder rolled, as it were, along the very roof of the building.

There was a hush—a silence that was almost audible—a deep, dead calm reigning for a space in every portion of the holy pile. Most of the congregation lay prostrate on the pavement; the sisters knelt upon the altar steps, with buried heads and clasped hands; the old prelate stood alone erect, and folding his hands upon his breast, with eyes uplifted and serene, at length emphatically said, "Thy will be done!" A thousand voices as by one impulse, blending into chaos, made response, "Amen, amen!"

And then the good old bishop, gently touching the kneeling sisters, bade them rise; but neither speech nor motion answered him, for still they knelt, with heads bowed low and fingers intertwined—with mute lips and eyelids drooping heavily. Again and yet again he would have them raised from their kneeling posture; but there was neither word nor sign; and then awe fell upon the hearts of all present, for they knew that death was there! The spirits of the sisters, forgiving and forgiven, had passed away, and doubtless angels and redeemed spirits had heralded them to the mansions of the blessed.

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THE ROMANCE OF THE MAY.

The Isle of May, which lies at the mouth of the Forth, is about six miles from Crail, and is about a mile in length, and three-quarters in breadth. It has a well of excellent water, a small loch, and affords the finest pasturage for sheep.[13] The island contained a religious house and chapel dedicated to St Adrian, who was murdered by the Danes in 872, and buried at Anstruther-Wester, where his stone coffin is yet to be seen. The island belonged to the crown; King David afterwards presented it to the abbot and convent of Reading in Berkshire; and from this and many other valuable benefactions to the church, King James I., when he visited his tomb, three hundred years after, called him "a sair saint to the crown." From Prynne's records it appears that the abbot afterwards unwarrantably sold the island to William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews. It afterwards came into the possession of General Scott of Balcombie, whose daughter, the Duchess of Portland, sold it to the Commissioners of Northern Lights.

Some remarkable events are connected with this island. The first we shall advert to is the "Battle of the May."

Our readers have all doubtless heard or read of Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, a famous Scottish admiral in the reign of James III. In the year 1490, King Henry, the English monarch, mortified at the defeat of some of his ships by Admiral Wood the previous year, assembled his officers, and offered rewards to any of them who should take the sea against Sir Andrew, and bring him to him dead or alive. One Stephen Bull, a London merchantman, who, like Sir Andrew Wood, combined the pursuits of warfare and commerce, accepted the offer, and with three large ships set sail for the Frith of Forth, in order to get between Admiral Wood and the land on his return from Flanders, to which he had escorted a fleet of merchantmen.

The English ships anchored under shelter of the Isle of May; and Bull, having captured some sailors, compelled them to give him intelligence about Sir Andrew's movements.

Early by daybreak, on a fine summer morning, the 10th of August, Sir Andrew's two vessels, the one named "The Flower," and the other "The Yellow Carvel," were observed to come in sight, on which the English commander made preparations for engaging them, and distributed wine amongst his men to raise their courage. With regard to the Scottish admiral, Pitscottie the historian says, "On the other hand, Sir Andrew Wood came pertly forward, knowing no impediment of enemies to be in his gate, till at last he perceived their three ships under sail, and coming fast to them in fier of war. Then Sir Andrew Wood, seeing this, exhorted his men to battle, beseeching them to take courage against their enemies of England, who had sworn and made their vows that they should make us prisoners to the King of England, but, God willing, they shall fail of their purpose. Therefore set yourselves in order, every man in his own place. Let the gunners charge their artillery and the cors-bows make them ready; with the lyme-pots and fire-balls in our tops, and twe-handed swords in your fore-arms; and let every man be stout and diligent for his own part and for the honour of Scotland, and thereto he caused fill the wine, and every man drank to other."

The engagement that took place is described as being of the most desperate character. The Scottish admiral contrived to get to windward of the enemy. The fight lasted from sunrise to sunset, and was beheld by an immense crowd of men, women, and children on the coast of Fife. At last the two fleets were parted by the darkness, and drew off from each other, till the daylight next morning again enabled them to see what they were about.

The signal for a renewal of the engagement was then given by blowing of trumpets on both sides, when the two hosts encountered each other again, "and fought so cruely," says our historian, "that neither the skippers or mariners took heed of their ships," but allowed them to drift away with wind and tide till they reached as far as opposite the mouth of the Tay, the crews all the while contending hand to hand. At last the English admiral was compelled to yield, and to give up his sword to Sir Andrew Wood; and his three ships were then towed up to Dundee, where the wounded were landed, and placed under medical care. A few days after, Sir Andrew, our brave countryman, presented the English admiral and his officers to his majesty, James, King of Scotland, who, so far from returning evil for evil, released and sent back Admiral Bull, his officers and men, with their vessels, and with rich gifts as a present to the English king. King Henry of England had thus, in addition to his vexation at this signal defeat, the humiliation of being obliged to acknowledge the generosity and princely bearing of the Scottish king, whom he had insulted and injured without the slightest provocation.

The next occurrence which we shall record is the melancholy accident which took place on the Island of May in January, 1791.

For two evenings no light was exhibited from the lighthouse, and the weather was such as no boat could put off to ascertain the cause. On the third day the storm abated, and a boat was manned from Crail. No sooner had the crew of the boat landed, than they were assailed by a strong sulphurous smell, and proceeding directly to the lighthouse, they found the door shut, and no one answered their call. Forcing an entrance, they saw the keeper, his wife, and five children, all lying suffocated, and a sixth infant sucking its dead mother. In another room were found two men almost expiring, but who, by the timely assistance rendered, providentially recovered. It was supposed that this sad accident was occasioned by some burning coals being blown among some cinders and refuse lying at the bottom of the lighthouse.

The last incident to which we shall refer is the boat disaster at the island in 1837.

On the 1st of July, 1837, a skipper and boat-owner belonging to Cellardyke set sail from that harbour, with a large party, on a pleasure excursion to the Isle of May. The day was fine and wind favourable, and the party, chiefly young men and women, consisting of sixty-five persons, including the crew, were all in high spirits, having music on board, indulging freely in mirth and gaiety, and little thinking of the sad event impending over their heads, by which, in a little half-hour, so many of them were to perish.

Having approached close to the island, on the western side, it was not deemed fitting to land at the place called "the Stand," or "Atterstones," but to proceed round the southern end of the island to the eastern side thereof, with intention to disembark at a creek on the eastern side, called "Kirken Haven." In the attempt to enter this haven, there being a swell of the sea, or surge, setting in from the eastward at the time, the boat became unmanageable, and was violently driven against the shore; the stem, in consequence, having stuck fast on the rocks, while the stern floated in deep water, the swell or eddies, and broken water, upset or caused the boat to sink, and a great number of persons belonging to Anstruther, Cellardyke, and the neighbouring towns, were drowned. Of those, ten were young unmarried women, two married women, and one infant—in all, thirteen persons. One individual lost his wife, his mother, and his child; another, a young man, observing his sister and a young woman to whom he was warmly attached both struggling in the water, and sinking in the midst of furious breakers, boldly plunged into the boiling sea, and made his way to the perishing girls. And oh what a sight for those on shore, to see the noble-minded youth risking his life for those he loved! He supports both for some time; he comforts them with hopes of succour; but his strength begins to fail. What shall he do? Shall he part with one? and if so, which of the two? No; the idea is torment to him—he cannot for a moment entertain it. He will save both, or perish in the attempt. He sinks, and rises, and sinks again, with his precious burden. The waters close over their heads—they are given up for lost. The two young women perish, but a huge wave casts the young man nearer the shore; his comrades on the beach make the most extraordinary efforts to save him, and he is at last rescued from the very jaws of death.

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CALEB CRABBIN.

As a good theorising spirit in philosophy is the very soul of all progress in science, and the creatures that dabble in experiments with crucibles and retorts are no better than pioneers to the great geniuses that combine and generalise, so some think it an undoubted truth that speculation is the great spirit of commerce (including, of course, in the articles of that commerce, wives), and that those who do not make a bold stroke seldom make an effectual one. In no department of commerce is speculation held of greater importance than in that of marriage; and how rare is it to find a man who thoroughly understands it—if, indeed, it may not be said that ninety-nine out of a hundred do not know even the difference between buying and selling. The women marriage-traders, indeed, form a very creditable exception, because every one of them—knowing very well, for a surety, that they have on hand a stock that does not improve by keeping—are sellers, out and out; while the males again are almost all buyers, though, if they had the sense of a tortoise, they might know that they have just as good a stock to dispose of as their fair customers. There are, doubtless, some exceptions in our sex that go far to retrieve our characters; but, alas! they are very few; and it is just on that very account that we think it proper to give some account of Mr Caleb Crabbin, hosier in the Lawn-market in Edinburgh—so great a genius in the department to which we have alluded, that he discovered that all mongering in blankets and stockings was a perfect bagatelle in comparison of the profitable disposal of his own person; and no sooner did he make the discovery than he acted upon it, with all the boldness that belongs to original thinkers.

The worthy we have thus mentioned favourably—because we admire a supporter of the rights of free trade—had laboured for a period of six or eight years in disposing of articles of hosiery, for every one of which he paid a high price; and, whether it was that he could not buy to advantage—his genius, probably, not lying in that way—or that he could not sell with a profit, wherein he displayed the same want of natural tact—it is certain that he became a bankrupt about as soon as other people merely begin to see they might make "a good thing" of a stop. So he wound up cleverly, and made just as little of his bankruptcy—a matter of profit often to those who are mere bunglers in the department of solvency—and took it into his head to sell himself. So, accordingly, as chance would have it, he threw his eyes on Miss Belinda Yellowlees, who combined the two comely properties of wealth and weakness—in other words, she possessed a thousand pounds, and a very bad constitution; and here it was that Caleb's properties began to be manifested; for the man who thought himself not worth one farthing—and was, in fact, not worth more, in the estimation of any of his own sex—was proved to be worth no less than a thousand pounds, at which price Miss Yellowlees bought him, and thought, too, that she had got a very good bargain. Seldom, indeed, it happens that both buyer and seller, in a transaction of pure business concerns, think that they have made a hit; yet, of a surety, it was the case in this marriage; for Mr Caleb Crabbin actually conceived that he had made as good a bargain as did Miss Belinda Yellowlees; and so, to be sure, it was soon proved, by an exceeding good probatory test; for Miss Belinda, within six months, went the way of the dead, and her thousand pounds went the way of the living—that is, into the possession of her surviving husband.

No one will deny that this was undoubtedly a good beginning in this new commercial enterprise of Mr Caleb; and the best feature of the whole transaction was, that, along with the thousand pounds, he had actually got back again the commodity which he gave for it, and was thereby in a capacity to dispose of it again, on far better terms than ever. Many a good article of hosiery he had disposed of over the counter, and never seen a single glimpse again either of the price or the article; whereas here there was all the difference in the world; for he held the possession of both—the thing sold, and the price got for it; and, stimulated by his success, he, as soon as decency would permit, set about again endeavouring to make a bargain, upon the same, or better, terms than before. Nor was he long about encompassing his object; for the money he had got by the first transaction yielded a facility to the progress of the second; and, within a year of the death of the first unfortunate, Mrs Belinda Crabbin, he, after a hunt comprehending nearly all that period, found out an individual not only in every way worthy of his attention, but exhibiting all the features of being as good a market-woman as he was an out-and-out trader. The lady, whose name was Miss Amelia Reddie—clearly an orthographic phase of the cognomen Ready—was eager, or "yape," as the Scotch call it, for a transaction; and, having nothing to boast of but her patrimony of twelve hundred and fifty, she made the most of what she had; and the never a man of all she had ever spoken to but knew, as well as he did the number of his own fingers, the exact sum, to the odd fifty, which she was willing to give as the consideration. Many a dozen of suitors had heard her set forth her mercantile recommendation; but, then, she was the last of five, who had all died of consumption, leaving her the heir of the small sums that belonged to them; and this fact, which she tried assiduously to conceal, had, in a great measure, destroyed her saleable capability, till the time when there appeared in the mart Mr Caleb, who, instead of deeming it an objection, thought it the consideration next best to the amount of her funds. Well, without exhausting a lexicon upon the affair, we come to the point, as cleverly as did the hero himself, who was, in the thirteenth month after the death of his first wife, duly and lawfully put in possession of Miss Amelia Reddie and her twelve hundred and fifty.

"A deuced deal better than hosiery this!" said Caleb to himself, on his marriage night; "for here have I not made two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds in one year and a month, without ever a shop, or signboard, or risk or trouble at all!"

If we were to say that there was an atom of affection in a concern of this kind, we would assuredly be doing not only Mr Caleb a great injustice, but be committing a libel on the taste of our sex; and, to be sure, save for the money, there was none at all. But we have more to say; and that is, that, where a man does not love the woman (as why should he?) whom he has married for money, it follows, as a natural corollary, that he wishes her dead. With "a trembling hand," like that of the poet Tibullus, he would hold the fair one, when dying; but then the hand would tremble lest she should recover, not lest she should go the way of all flesh. But, alas for the plans of mortals! the greatest geniuses sometimes fail in noble undertakings; and, not long after Mr Crabbin had begun to discover ailing symptoms on the part of his helpmate, the truth broke upon him that he was about to become a father; and a father, too, in good time, he became, of as healthy a child as ever blessed a living husband who liked his wife.

"If I am to have half-a-dozen, or mayhap a dozen, of these," said he, "the devil a merchant that ever sold cheaper than he bought, ever made so bad a bargain. Every one of those creatures will cost, at least, three hundred pounds; so that, if I shall have six of them, I will be a loser to the extent of five hundred and fifty."

The speech was prophetic; for every year, for a period of six, the consumptive Mrs Amelia Crabbin presented her husband with a healthy pledge; and on every birth-day Mr Caleb made a speech almost the same, but with increased lugubrity. But for this he might have found very good authority among the ancients; and if he had known of that strange man who wept at the birth of a child, or of Xenophon, who continued the job of a sacrifice he was at, though a messenger told him of the death of his boy, he would have thought them very sensible men, of a very different kidney from the fool, John Zopilah, who died of joy, when he heard that his wife had brought him an heir male. But it availed Mr Caleb nothing.

"Better," said he, "I had stuck by the counter; for I might have become bankrupt as often as I chose; and, if I had made the never a penny by it, I might at least have got quit of my creditors; but children are a sort of creditors that a man cannot sweep off by any means, not even the famous cessio."

And what made the matter more intolerable was, that all this time, when Mrs Crabbin was thriving so excellently well, in the way of adding to the number of the human species, she was gradually declining in health, having, by the time she had the third child, become so lean and shrivelled, that neither the Atlas nor the Hercules would have insured her life at a premium of fifty per cent. Yet, as we have said, three more followed in good time, and healthier creatures never opened their eyes on an evil world. Mrs Amelia Crabbin had now, however, done her worst; and, having been wasted away to a mere sigh, she one night took Mr Caleb round the neck, and, weeping bitterly, told him she was going, in the midst of her prosperity, to where she once thought she would have gone six years before—even where her five sisters were—the grave; recommending to him to take care of the twelve hundred and fifty, for the sake of the six children she had left, as every penny of it, and more, would be needed by the dear orphans. Mr Caleb wept too; but it was at the touching allusion she had made to the danger she had escaped, of dying before the first of the children was born; and Mrs Amelia, seeing what she conceived to be undoubted evidence of his affection, hung awhile upon his neck, and then bid him bring in every one of the six. They were accordingly ranged by the side of her bed.

"Now, my little ones," she said to them, tenderly, "Caleb, Andrew, Maria, George, Amelia, and Augustus, your mother is going to die, and you may never see her again after this hour. Mr Crabbin," she continued, looking to her husband, "you must know that these children are the last of the blood of our Reddies, and proud am I to think that it has pleased Heaven that I should be the means of thus leaving so many scions of our ancient race, that there is no chance of the name being forgotten, seeing that they have all three names, the middle one being Reddie in every instance. I hope they will multiply as I have done. Bless you, my dear children! Your father will protect you; and thankful am I that the twelve hundred and fifty is yet all left, so that you will get your shares when you come to be of age."

In an hour afterwards Mrs Amelia Crabbin was no more, and in three days afterwards she was buried.

"It is finished," said the husband; "and a fair speculation never turned up an uglier balance, since the days of the bubble of the South Sea."

So he took to real weeping; and there was not a friend that came to give him consolation, but went away with the impression that he had been one of the most loving of husbands, and was one of the tenderest of men. Among those visiters, were two or three acquaintances of his deceased wife, and one or two of them possessed even more than twelve hundred and fifty. So, Mr Caleb, seeing through his wet eyes that his grief took with them very well, continued the indications—a very easy process, seeing he had only to look to the debit and credit of his speculation to make the tears drop as fast as hailstones.

"It's a heavy loss you have sustained, Mr Crabbin," said Miss Jean Gibbs.

"Very heavy loss," rejoined he, with emphasis on the principal word.

"But the children are a consolation."

"To be sure they are," answered Caleb; "and I have six of them, and now, you see, all without a female to take charge of them."

The hint did not take, as the saying goes; and Miss Jean having departed, and Miss Isabella Gentle, who had also a competency, having arrived, he tried the same plan with her; for his spirit for speculation was still strong; and he expected, yet, to make a far more successful hit than he had even done in the case of Miss Belinda Yellowlees. Now, Miss Isabella was just as sincere in her admiration of his sorrow as was Miss Jean Gibbs; and all that was gone over about the loss he had sustained, and the consolation of the children, and the feeling he exhibited, as became a good husband and a loving father. But the moment he made a hint about the poor creatures having no female to look after them, the same effect was as evident as in the case of Miss Jean—for Miss Isabella, for a certainty, did not seem to relish it.

"All this may come of my being too eager and too soon," said he. "But I fear these six children will be stumbling-blocks in the way of my farther enterprise; for a woman will not give so much for a man with six children, as she would do for himself. Had my second transaction come up to the first, I might to-day have been an independent man. But a third may do better; and, if it don't, it shall not, by Hymen, be Mr Caleb Crabbin that will be to blame."

Nor, indeed, could it be alleged that he spoke falsely; for, as soon as the proper time came, he set about a very vigorous search for a third helpmate in every direction where he thought he had any chance. He tried again Miss Jean Gibbs and Miss Isabella Gentle; but the children formed an objection which they could not get over.

"I will never marry a man with six children—no—nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two," said Miss Jean.

"I would far rather live and die an old maid, than become the slave of another woman's family," was the reply of Miss Isabella.

And then he tried Miss Julia Cross, who had something of a lying stock, though not much, and her answer was just as peremptory.

"I hold the woman to be mad, Mr Caleb Crabbin," said she, "who would undertake the charge of six children. One might as well become a schoolmistress at once."

And after this rebuff, he tried Miss Angelina Crabbe, who had an annuity of somewhere about seventy-five pounds, besides about three hundred of old savings; but Angelina said that she would not be a stepmother for the whole earth.

"I see it will not do," said he, after some farther rejections. "Unless I take a wife with nothing, I will never get another, where it is known that I am burdened with six children. But he who takes a wife with nothing is but a sorry trafficker; and the never a wife with nothing, were she as fair as Venus, will Caleb Crabbin marry in this world. I will pack off the whole crew, and try my fortune under other colours."

The resolution thus formed he put in execution, by getting the whole of his children boarded with friends who lived at a distance, upon the pretence that he was going to take a trip away somewhere abroad. Having achieved this preliminary, he set off for the nearest good watering-place, being no other than the noted Pitcaithly, where so many "wanters," have, with various success, been supplied; and he had not been a week there when he fell in with a buxom widow of five-and-thirty, who was reported as being worth not a jot less than one hundred and fifty pounds a-year, secured on the strong Atlas, by the providence of her deceased husband. The name she carried, Mrs Jemima Bowsie, was a mixture of her own maiden name and the surname of her husband, very well blended; and she carried herself with such an air of frankness, surrounded with the eclat of her fortune, which she had taken care to blaze pretty well, that Mr Caleb Crabbin was immediately struck.

"That is my mark," said he, "as sure as was Belinda Yellowlees; and, if I'm not worth the purchase at one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, on the life of Mrs Jemima Bowsie, I have lost all my saleable commodity."

One who had twice sold himself, and offered himself for sale a score of times over, had no difficulty in getting matters placed in a train for a new offer; and an hour had scarcely elapsed after the monologue we have mentioned, when Mr Caleb Crabbin and Mrs Jemima Bowsie were walking and talking together as if they had been acquainted from the period of conning the alphabet. Nor was their intimacy long limited to talking a-field; for he found his way to the house where she lodged, and she found her way to the house where he had taken up his quarters, and, in the course of these meetings, mutual hints and questions tended towards the expression of mutual wishes.

"By the way, Mr Crabbin," said Mrs Jemima, one evening when they were sitting together in her lodgings, "I have a question to put to you; and, as you respect a widow, left, as it were, alone in the world, you will answer me according to your conscience."

"That will I, Mrs Bowsie," answered Caleb, "as sincerely as if you were my wedded wife."

"That is tenderly and beautifully indited, Mr Crabbin," answered she. "Pray, sir, is the Atlas a strong company?"

"I believe it is a very strong concern, madam," replied he; "not much less so, I fancy, than the Royal, where I happen to have two thousand pounds deposited on an operating account. But might I have the great boldness, madam, to ask you why you put that question to me?"

"I am not sure," replied Mrs Jemima; "yet, let me see. Why, there can't be much harm in it either, only one does not like to trumpet forth her private affairs. But then it is to be remembered that I am a lonely creature in the world; and to whom can an unprotected widow speak, if it isn't to one who is just in her own situation?—for you hinted to me that your wife has gone, and left you also solitary."

"Too true," answered Caleb, affecting some ocular moisture. "My house is indeed empty enough. Indeed I have the key of it in my pocket; and one who has the never a one to speak to at home just wanders about where the fancy lists."

"How our positions and sentiments do coincide!" replied she. "Well, as to the reason for my putting the question about the strength of the Atlas; this," she continued, as she opened a box, and took out a policy—"this may explain it." And she handed the policy to Mr Caleb Crabbin.

"An annuity policy for one hundred and fifty, for the natural life," said he, as he affected surprise at what he knew as well as he did the amount of the sums possessed by his two deceased wives. "A handsome thing, madam, of a certainty."

"Very well for two single people," rejoined she, sentimentally; "but believe me, sir, I would not have put the question, had it not been that a female is apt to get nervous where her all is laid out on the security of one concern."

"There need be never a tone of apology about the matter, madam; for, to be plain with you, I often make inquiries about the stability of the Royal, where, as I told you, I have two thousand pounds deposited on an operating account; and, to be plainer still, I do not hesitate to tell you, madam, that my house being, as I said, locked up in these gloomy days of my widowhood, I carry about with me my receipt. Here it is." (Opening his pocket-book.) "You may take a glance at it just as I have done at your policy. Giff-gaff, as we say, makes good friends."

"And you have just hit upon the very reason," replied she, "why I carry about my policy with me; for, where there is no one at home to take an interest in one's affairs, or a charge of their effects, one feels uneasy about a valuable document, such as these in our hands. Of course you do not tell any one of the question I put to you; because, you know, the Atlas might come on me for damages."

"No fear on't, madam," said Caleb; "but pray—hem! hem!—is it your intention, Mrs Bowsie, ever again to change your name?"

"And, pray, Mr Crabbin," replied she, holding away her head, "is it your intention ever to give yours to another woman?"

"The never a doubt on't, madam," rejoined Mr Caleb. "Loneliness is poor company; and I would marry to-morrow, were it for nothing else than to produce some stir of life in my deserted house."

"And, for society's sake, I would almost be tempted to change condition, too," rejoined she, rising to put past the policy and conceal her blushes.

Unluckily, at this interesting moment, an acquaintance entered, and put an end to a conversation that was clearly tending towards a crisis, to which the boldness of Mr Caleb would soon have brought it. But enough had been said to dream upon; and by the time that the two met next day in the woods, the matter had been arranged in the minds of both. The question was "popped," a gracious answer returned, and, as Caleb had clearly induced her to believe, without any direct statement, that he had not a single child to mar Mrs Jemima's happiness, he saw the necessity of getting the transaction concluded without the loss of a moment of time, lest discoveries might break it up. But the widow was just as anxious for quick despatch as he was; and he did not fail to take advantage of so favourable a circumstance. So to Perth he went, and got all things put in readiness for a proclamation of banns. This preliminary was gone through on the following Sunday; on the Monday after, Mr Caleb Crabbin and Mrs Jemima Bowsie were man and wife; and thus had Caleb disposed of himself, for the third time, on terms which he conceived to form the elements of a good bargain.

These matters we have run over rapidly, leaving it, of course, to be understood that several explanations—such as the localities of their locked-up houses, their connections, and so forth, were mutually made and mutually relied on; and it becomes us, in the same manner, to leave to the fancy all the pretty excursions and conversations that lasted for the legitimate period of the sweet moon, at the end of which the couple arrived in Edinburgh to take possession of the husband's deserted house. And, to be sure, the house was empty enough, in so far as regarded human beings; for there was no one in it, and Mrs Jemima Crabbin surveyed it as her future home with no small expression of satisfaction. A new servant was got. A week passed, and all was as it should be—not a word of the six children having, as yet, been uttered by Caleb, and no one of the neighbours having taken it upon them to supply the want of knowledge which Caleb conceived to be necessary to a continuation of his happiness. On the eighth day, they went out together to draw the quarterly annuity from the agent of the Atlas Company; and never was a man better pleased with himself than Caleb, when he pocketed the thirty-seven pounds ten shillings, the first earnest of many drawings, even so long as the life of his helpmate. This was clearly not fated to last; because it behoved Caleb to make the necessary disclosure, to prevent its being made, perhaps, in a manner fraught with more pain to her who apparently looked forward to a life of genteel ease. It was clear that the sooner the disclosure was made the better; and a stronger cup of tea than usual (brewed on the head of the quarter's annuity) having been served up, he sat ruminating on the best way of breaking the intelligence.

"What are you thinking of, Mr Crabbin?" said the lady, as she sat filling out the first cup of tea, and while the door stood open that the servant might bring in the toast.

"There he is, you little darlings," said Mrs Reddie of Pennicuick, as she entered; and at the same instant Master Caleb Reddie Crabbin, Master Andrew Reddie Crabbin, and Miss Maria Reddie Crabbin, rushed forward with a united cry of "Papa! papa! papa!" and hung round his neck, and jumped on his knee, with a demonstration of affection that a father, in ordinary circumstances, would have been delighted to see.

"I couldna keep them awa, sir," said the woman. "They would be in, reason or nane."

Mrs Crabbin sat with the teapot in her hand, held nearly as high as her mouth, and contemplated the affectionate scene, with open lips and wide staring eyes; but never a word had Mr Caleb said, though the dear little ones hugged him more fondly than ever.

"Are these your children, Mr Crabbin?" at last said the wife.

Caleb looked at her, and saw something like a smile playing round the corner of her lips, in the midst of sufficient indications of surprise; but the meaning thereof transcended all his powers of construction.

"The children, you hear, say I'm their father," replied he, still gazing in her face, to try if he could catch again the same symptom he had observed before; and, to be sure, he did catch it, and, with it, another symptom that astonished him more still; for Mrs Crabbin immediately ejaculated—

"Why did you not tell me of this, Mr Crabbin? What nice, dear, sweet creatures! I'm delighted to see them. Come to me, George; come to me, Andrew; and, Maria, you are the prettiest little girl in the world."

"What an amiable wife I have got!" ejaculated he, as he saw her take the little ones and fondle them as kindly as if they had been her own.

"When saw ye the others," said Mrs Reddie—"George, Amelia, and Augustus? Are they weel aneugh?"

"Three more!" ejaculated Mrs Crabbin.

And Caleb again searched her face, to see if there was not some irony lurking about the muscles; but the never a trace could he find but satisfaction. He was puzzled as never man was puzzled since the days of Œdipus.

"Have I been at all these pains," muttered he, "to conceal what yields her pleasure rather than chagrin?"

"Now, Mr Crabbin," said his wife, as she still fondled the children, "you must send to-morrow for the others, that I may see them; for I long to show them that I shall be as kind to them as would have been their own mother."

"The never such another woman is to be found in all Christendom!" muttered Caleb.

"Jenny," cried Mrs Crabbin, "bring cups here, that the children may have their tea."

And so the cups were brought; and the whole group, Mrs Reddie—whose mouth had been closed up by the effect of the extraordinary scene—included, sat down in the most perfect harmony.

On the very next day, a messenger was sent off for Master George Reddie Crabbin, Miss Amelia Reddie Crabbin, and Master Augustus Reddie Crabbin; and they were expected to arrive at the house of their father within three days afterwards. Meanwhile, Mrs Crabbin displayed still the same degree of kindness she had at first exhibited; and Caleb continued to wonder more and more at conduct that seemed to set at defiance all the matrimonial maxims he had got proved to him by the many women he had solicited to become his wife. Nor can there be a doubt that he was pleased—if, indeed, it might not be said that he was delighted; for it cannot be denied that the weight of the secret he had carried about had materially interfered with his connubial happiness; and even the light of the honeymoon had been dashed with streaks of shade, thrown up from the cavern where the dread fact had lain concealed.

On the day on which the additional children were expected, Mrs Crabbin was occupied in making preparations for their home-coming. A thousand little matters were gone about with maternal assiduity; and, everything having been arranged, the couple and the three children sat down to tea, much in the same spirit they had done on the previous occasion. It was about five o'clock; and the coach would arrive somewhere about that time.

"Here they come at last," said Caleb, as he listened to a tread of many steps on the stair, accompanied by the clear clack of the tongues of happy children.

And, to be sure, in they came; but there happened to be no fewer than five, accompanied by an old nurse; and they had no sooner entered, than they ran forward to Mrs Crabbin, crying out "Mamma! mamma! mamma!" all together, and hanging round her neck, and kissing her, and climbing on her knees, just in the same affectionate manner that had been exhibited by Mr Crabbin's children on the prior occasion.

Meanwhile, Mrs Jemima Crabbin was busy with the face of Mr Caleb, to see what she could find there; but the man, who never had any great sense of justice, showed no smile, as she had done when his children came so unexpectedly in upon her. A sombre gloom covered his face, and he sat and looked as glum as he did on every occasion when Mrs Amelia Crabbin had brought him a child; and, probably, if there had been any deeper shade, or rather five times as deep as that expression, it would have found a place upon his face.

"Are all these your children, madam?" said Caleb, with a voice that expressed with the question a tendency to choke.

"Yes," answered Mrs Crabbin; "but you see, my dear sir, you beat me; for, while I have only five, you have six."

"Eleven of a family to support on two thousand pounds of principal, at four per cent., and one hundred and fifty per annum on the life of Mrs Jemima Crabbin!" groaned Mr Caleb. "A deuced poor trafficker I am proved to be! Would I not have been better as a hosier?"

"A hosier!" ejaculated Mrs Crabbin. "I took you for a gentleman, as Mr Frederick Bowsie was, every inch of him."

"And I took you for a solitary widow, as you led me to believe," responded he.

"And so, to be sure, I took you for a solitary widower, carrying the key of your house in your pocket, as you previously told me," was the just reply.

At this juncture the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the other three Crabbins, who acted over again the scene of their brothers and sister; and thus there were brought on the carpet no fewer than eleven of a family, one-half strangers to their half-brothers and sisters, and all talking, and laughing, and romping in a manner that might have afforded no small joy to well-conditioned parents. Yet Mr Caleb was not to be cajoled by their fun into anything like good humour, for no man likes to behold the evidence of the almost total defeat of a darling project, which he had held to be the pride and profit of his existence. Nor was the bringing of eight more tea-cups, instantly ordered by Mrs Crabbin, likely to effect what the romping of the "dear ones" had not been able to accomplish; and it is impossible to say how long he would have remained under the cloud of his gloom, had not Mrs Crabbin risen, and, going round to him by the backs of the circle of children, gently and playfully clapped him on the hanging clouded cheek.

"Come, now, Mr Crabbin," said she, "you see we are just in the position of the pot and kettle that fell into warfare, calling each other blackamores. You have cheated me, and I have cheated you, and therefore are we on a par. No good can come of complaining where each has so good a rejoinder; and, to be plain with you, if you gloom, I'll gloom, having just as good a right; whereas, if you are well pleased, and love my five, I shall be well pleased, and love your six; and thus we may make the best of a bad bargain. What say you, Mr Caleb Crabbin?"

Caleb threw his eye around the table, and groaned; but necessity is a strong monitor; and so he turned round—where there was a matrimonial kiss awaiting him—and, having taken the offering for better and for worse—

"I believe, Jemima, you are right, after all," said he; "but still it is a bad business; for, if we add five or six more children to that small army, we may come to starve."

"You can begin business again as a merchant (but not in the hosiery way) with your two thousand, and I shall be as frugal a wife as ever made the two ends of coming and going out meet."

Caleb meditated.

"You are right again, Jemima," said he; "for, after all, I have not been happy under the trade of wiving I have driven for so many years—always idle, and pointed out as one who lives on the means of his wives—so, to be sure, I'll immediately betake myself to an honourable calling, and before I die I may yet acquire the reputation of what is called a respectable member of society. For true it is," he added, "that a fortune-hunter, even if he has run down the game of thousands, is only a fortune-hunter to the end of the chapter. Out of my evil, you see, has come my good; and you, who a little ago seemed my bad angel, have turned out to be my good. So here be all our strife ended."

And another embrace settled the affair.

"Now," said Caleb, "you'll be kind enough to tell me the names of these children. By my faith, they are pretty ones—as pretty as my own!"

"This is William—this is George—this is Andrew—this is Mary—and this is Margaret."

"Well, we must fall upon some way of distinguishing those of mine and those of yours, who carry the same name. Let it be your George and my George, your Andrew and my Andrew. I see now no difficulty about the matter."

"Neither do I," answered Jemima. "All we have to provide against is to avoid calling our own mutual children George or Andrew, for a third of the name wouldn't do."

"Neither it would," rejoined he.

According to these arrangements, Mr Crabbin commenced business again; and, having been taught experience by his former failure, did very well. We believe there were at least two or three additional children born afterwards; but that was of no consequence, because Mr Crabbin's means became, by his own industry, proportionate. A good lesson hangeth by the peg of our tale, or we are somewhat out.

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THE SERJEANT'S TALES.

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THE IMPRUDENT MARRIAGE.

Serjeant Square again resumed the narrative of his adventures:—

There is a strange feeling, that every reflecting person must have often been conscious of, accompanying the idea of time. We feel as if in contact with the past, as far back as our memory can reach. If our reading has been extensive, it requires reflection to disentangle the events of early ages, as well as those of a more recent date; and, even as regards the time to come, we feel as if it also were for us, until the melancholy certainty of the shortness of life forces us back upon the present moment, which, until passed, we cannot call our own. Neither is there a situation in which we can be placed, in which we do not feel some cause of uneasiness, from the faintest shade of unfulfilled anticipation, to the depth of real suffering.

Gloomy were the reflections that haunted my mind for the first three weeks after my arrival in London. Often and far as I had been from Scotland, never until now had I been home-sick—if it could be called so in one who had neither kindred nor home in the world. Destitute of kindred as I was, the feeling seemed to extend my relationship: every Scotchman being my relation, and his accents music to my ears. An unaccountable melancholy was upon me; and I felt a strange presentiment as if some evil were about to befall me. I felt no pleasure, as I was wont, in walking about. My time was spent at my lodgings, in Lower Thames Street, save when I went occasionally to the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, to visit Captain H——. Even these visits had become irksome, as no good seemed likely to arise to me from them. I was always received in the most friendly manner. Still there was a constraint upon me I could not overcome, arising from the relative situation in which we had formerly stood towards each other as private seaman and captain. I would have felt far more at my ease had he treated me in a more distant manner. Frugal as my mode of life was, my cash wore done apace, and I had fixed upon no mode of obtaining a new supply. Once or twice I had made inquiries among the shipping for a situation, without success. Perhaps the fault was my own, as I was rather nice to please, and not over anxious to go to sea if I could do better. I hoped that the captain or his friend would propose something for my advantage; and thus the time had run on, while my lowness of spirits increased upon me. The weather had become wet and foggy. I cared not to leave the house, and remained at home for several days, so depressed that I even wished I were dead, and away from a world in which I had suffered so much. The pleasures I had also enjoyed were entirely blotted out from my recollection. All my life appeared to have been a scene of suffering, with no prospect before me but further misery and endurance.

This was a state of mind that could not long endure without leading to a fatal result. I began to regard suicide as the only remedy for my misery; and even to look upon it as a crime of no very deep atrocity. Yet there was a feeling within me that made death as a remedy horrible. At length, by an effort that cost me more to accomplish than anything I had ever done before or since, I shook off this, the darkest moral incubus of the darkest period of my life, and, after an absence of ten days, waited upon Captain H—— to bid him farewell, as I was resolved to leave London, and enter on board the first vessel wherever bound for, and in any capacity I could obtain a berth. When I reached the house, I found it shut up, and could obtain no information whither he had gone. All I learned was, that they had left the house three days before, it was believed for the country. I felt indignant and hurt, although I had no reason, at this sudden departure. I had no claim upon him. I had ever been overpaid for any service I had rendered. Still, this was not my feeling at the time; and I bent my steps towards my lodgings in no enviable mood, either with myself or the world. A numbing sensation was upon me. I felt once more alone in the world; and passed through the busy crowds that thronged the streets, almost unconscious of the presence of a human being, until I had reached Tower Hill, when my attention was roused by a crowd of men and boys, who were hooting and jostling an old man of rather respectable appearance, whose impatient anger caused them only to increase their shouts and annoyance. They were calling to him, "Rebel Scot," and "Scottish traitor;" and crying, "Roll him in the kennel," "Duck him in the river." I was in a humour to quarrel with any one, or even dare a host. My blood was on fire in a moment, for the old man upbraided them in Scotch, although tinctured by a foreign accent. He was tall, and had once been a very powerful man. His hat had been knocked off, and his grey hairs were in disorder, save what were retained by a neat cue that bobbed from side to side, as he was pushed, or turned to aim a blow at his cowardly assailants, many of whom, I blush to say, had reached man's estate. In an instant I was by his side, and shouted, to overtop the noise—

"For shame, to use an old man and a stranger so! Is that like Englishmen?"

For a moment there was a pause; it was but for a moment. My Scottish accent turned them as much against me as him whom I wished to befriend.

"They are both rebel Scots—serve them alike!" shouted a stout young fellow, as he aimed a blow at me. The others joined in the cry. The blow took effect upon the side of my head. I was stunned a little; but returned it with so good effect that he staggered back a pace or two. The blood flowed from my cheek, which was cut, pretty fast. In a moment the shouting ceased, and "A ring! a ring!" was the cry. "Give the Scottish sailor fair play—he has pluck in him." "Go it, Joe!" cried others; and their attention was directed from the old man to me and my opponent. A ring was formed. I gave my jacket and hat to the old man to hold, and to it we went; but, tall as I was and stout, I was forced to give in after a severe contest; my enemy's science prevailed; but my object was attained. The old man and myself were no longer hated. "I was a bit of good stuff," they said, "and had stood well up to fighting Joe of Smithfield." Even Joe said he would give any one a beating who molested us. We were conducted to a public-house, where I got myself cleaned and my bruises dressed. The old gentleman gave me a thousand thanks for the part I had taken in his rescue, and seemed to feel much more for the injuries I had received than I did myself. As soon as we had had some slight refreshment, he caused a coach to be brought, and accompanied me to my lodgings. During our short drive, I learned that he had only arrived from Holland the evening before, and was a stranger in London. He said he had resided for the last ten years there; that he had not been in Scotland for many years; and that he was on his way to it to lay his bones in the graves of his fathers. There was a reservedness of manner that interested me much in the man; and every time I looked to him, I grew the more certain that his face had been familiar to me at some former period of my life. Even his voice fell on my ear like some well-known sound. Neither of us had inquired the name of the other. The coach stopped at the door of my lodging, into which he assisted me; and I immediately went to bed at his request, he promising to call upon me in the morning.

After passing a restless night, I was awoke in the morning by my landlady entering my room to inquire if I would see Lieutenant Speare, the old gentleman who had accompanied me home the evening before. Although I felt rather feverish, I replied that I would be glad to see him. In a few minutes I was astonished to see him enter in an undress, until he informed me that he had been so fortunate as to obtain a room from my landlady; and, if I was agreeable, he wished to breakfast along with me and spend the day, as I was not, he felt assured, in a state to leave my room. I did not conceal that I felt very unwell, and would be happy to have his company. After he was seated, I inquired by what accident he had become involved with the rabble upon Tower Hill. After a short pause—

"You and I," replied he, "are countrymen, but strangers to each other. From the disinterested manner in which you interfered in my behalf, I feel that I may trust you with my secret. Even if we differ in opinion, you will not betray me; I therefore shall make no reserve.

"I was born and bred an adherent of the exiled royal family of Great Britain; have bled in their cause; suffered exile from all I held dear; and even now I tread my native land with a halter about my neck, which one word from you might attach to the fatal tree that has ceased to have any horrors for me, were it not for a sacred duty I have to perform before death put a period to my long life of suffering. Yesterday afternoon I had only been a few hours in London, for the first time in my life; yet its gloomy Tower, and blood-drinking Tower Hill, had long been familiar to my mind, as scenes of cruelty and tyranny, where the best blood of Scotland was poured out like water to satisfy the thirst of a usurper. I had surveyed the scene for some time in silent agony, when my oppressed feelings called before me the heroes, as I had seen and admired them, in manly vigour, struggling in a righteous cause, with the sad termination they experienced, when their headless trunks were insulted by an unfeeling crowd. All caution left me, and I expressed my thoughts aloud. I was overheard and assailed. You delivered me. I acknowledge my imprudence; and, on your account, lament what I have done."

"On my account there is no cause of regret," said I. "I am happy your unguarded language had no more fatal result. Your secret is safe in my keeping. I myself have been a sufferer through that fatal affair, although too young to distinguish between parties; for the miseries of civil war fall heaviest upon the innocent, the females and children. By it I was deprived of both my parents, and thrown destitute upon the world, without friends or home. If the great will struggle, urged by ambition or party zeal, what have the poor to do with their strife, who can, at the best, only change their taskmasters? Had my father remained in Edinburgh, my mother had not broken her heart, and I had not been an outcast orphan boy."

"Edinburgh, did you say, young man?" replied he. "Few joined the Prince from that city." His voice faltered; his whole frame shook. He gazed fixedly upon me for a short time; then, starting to his feet, he staggered to my bedside, supporting himself by the bedpost. "What is your name?" he eagerly said.

"John Square," I replied.

Uttering a cry that resembled a heavy groan, he sunk upon the bed, and, grasping my hand, bathed it with tears; then, clasping me to his breast, kissed my forehead. His heart was too full to speak; he held me in his embrace, and gazed upon my face. I was so much amazed at the strange conduct of the old man, that it was some time before I recovered from my surprise, or could inquire the cause of his, to me, unaccountable proceeding. Still grasping my hand—

"Now, welcome death!" said he. "My mission is accomplished. I shall die in peace. I have found thee, my long-forsaken and injured boy."

It was now my turn to feel the utmost agitation. Did my father really stand before me? I feared to ask the question, yet burned to do so.

"Are you my father?" cried I.

"Alas! no! I am not your father," said he. "Yet I am all the father you ever knew; and you were, and are, dear to me as my own son. Ah, my poor Mary!—she was a kind mother to you. Told she not the secret of your birth before she died?"

"No," was my answer. "I was too young and thoughtless at the time. I recollect she called me to her bedside often, and wept over me; but she only prayed, and blessed me. She sent one of her neighbours, who was very attentive, for the minister to come to her, saying she had something important to intrust him with; but, before he arrived, her mind began to wander, and she remained in that condition until her death, two days after. She had even forgot she had sent for the good man, who, after offering up a prayer, departed." I paused, for the old man wept bitterly while I spake. I did respect his feelings; but my own were too impetuous to be restrained. "Who was my father, since you are not?" cried I. "Is he alive? If you ever loved me, pause not a moment. Nay, I shall tear the secret from you." And I started up in my bed, sore as I was, and looked wildly at him, as he appeared to hesitate.

"Be composed, my dear John," said he. "It is a melancholy tale. I would more willingly spare your feelings than wound them by the relation; but it were cruel now to withhold it from you. You will have no cause to blush for your relatives. My own history is so deeply interwoven with that of your parents, that I cannot disentangle them, and therefore must give them, connected as they are. It was upon the borders of the romantic Esk I first awoke to consciousness, in the hospitable house of your grandfather, to whom my father had been head servant for many years. I was within a few weeks of the same age as John, your father, his third son. I was his foster-brother and playfellow, unequal as was our rank. I loved him with more than a brother's love, and would have risked my life for him, had he been in danger. He was my young master; his comfort was all my duty and care; and swiftly the days and hours passed on, until the period arrived that he was to go to Edinburgh to attend the classes at the university, and whither I was to accompany him. We were both young and inexperienced. Your father was of a fearless, open, and generous temper; and his rank in life gave him access to the best society in the city. At one of the assemblies he became acquainted with a young lady, the orphan daughter of an officer who had fallen in the wars of Marlborough. She resided with two rich maiden aunts, upon whom she depended for her present support and future fortune. Their intimacy soon ripened, unfortunately, into love. As politics raged at this time with a force and bitterness that divided friends and relations, even the sacred mysteries of love were interrupted by the offerings to the stern genius of discord. Rose's aunts were stern Whigs, supporters of what were then styled by us the Hanoverian usurpers; and their only surviving brother was an officer high of rank in their armies; while your grandfather was faithful to his lawful king, and as true a Tory as ever lived or bled for the Stewarts. Neither your father nor myself had ever troubled ourselves about the rival factions; yet we were, as we had been bred, staunch adherents to the royal exiles; but Love is of no party, and we were both under his influence. From the cause I have mentioned, your father's visits were unacceptable at Rose's aunts; their interviews were stolen, and, of course, more sweet. She was at times allowed to walk out for exercise, and to visit, but never unaccompanied by her maid, who had been her servant before her mother's death. She was a bar in my master's way; and, if he dared to converse with his beloved, she would have been kept entirely from his sight. To aid him in his interviews, I became acquainted with Mary, the servant, and was soon as deep in love as my master. Little did our young and joyous hearts dream of the bitter dregs that lay in the cup of pleasure we quaffed in the hours of romance, as we walked, or sat scarce in sight of each other, among the cliffs and sheltered valleys of Arthur Seat. Nothing but my love for your father could have blinded me to the folly he was guilty of, and the ruin that awaited his future prospects in life. As for myself, I could not be other than I was. Mary was of my own rank, born to toil, and with little to lose; while they had a fearful height to fall from, if they wedded without consent of friends. But when, alas! did ever youthful love calculate consequences aright, until the calculation is useless?

"Thus intoxicated with love, the time ran on with unheeded speed; yet my master was unremitting in his studies. He had, with the consent of his father, fixed upon the law as his profession, as the political opinions of the latter gave his son small chance of rising in the army. Rose and he had often exchanged vows of mutual constancy, until more fortunate times for their love should arrive. Your father had pictured to himself speedy success at the bar; and the first use he was to make of his fame was to claim your mother from her aunts; and if they refused, as, from the vain efforts he had made to gain their good graces, he had every reason to expect, to wed her without their consent, or one farthing of fortune. His father's consent he knew he could not hope for before the marriage; but his forgiveness afterwards he had no doubt of obtaining. Thus had he lulled himself into a pleasant dream of security, from which he was soon awakened. It was in the beginning of the third session of college, that one of the two aunts was taken suddenly ill, and died in a few days, without making any will. Elizabeth, the younger sister, who had never been very kind to Rose, was now her sole protector; and she, sweet lady, was rendered very unhappy—a circumstance that gave great pain and uneasiness to your father, and was the cause of the imprudent step he took. Scarcely was the funeral over, when Mary her maid was discharged, as an unnecessary burden; and, with my master's consent, she and I were married. Aided by his bounty, I began housekeeping, still waiting upon him; and, meanwhile, our house was the scene of the meeting of the lovers. The penury and harshness of her aunt rendered the young lady's life miserable. Her secret was communicated to my wife, who again told my master. This precipitated the consummation of the long courtship. He prevailed upon his beloved to give her consent to a private marriage, that he might have the right to shelter her from suffering longer from her aunt's tyranny. They were privately married in my house, at the head of Mary King's Close.

"Your father had not yet passed as an advocate, and had no means of subsistence, save what he got from his father. It was imperative that his marriage should be kept secret from every one. Your mother resided with her aunt only until your father had furnished a small house, near the foot of our close, for his beloved wife—an achievement he could not get accomplished so quickly as he wished, without raising curiosity as to the cause of his repeated demands for money. Nearly four months passed on after the marriage, and your mother still resided with her aunt, who, since her sister's death, had become gay, and had many visiters—principally bachelors—all paying her court, old as she was, for the sake of her wealth; and several of them often paying more attention to the young wife than she wished. Among the visitants was one, a great favourite with the aunt, a retired officer, of an abandoned turn, but connected with some of the oldest families in Scotland. He was well received in most companies, and welcomed for his wit and jovial manner. I recollect I was waiting your father's return from a tavern party, principally young lawyers, before I went to my own house for the night, when he came home much sooner than I had expected, greatly agitated, and in high anger. Alarmed at his unwonted manner, I, with all the humble freedom I could ever use with him, implored him to tell me what had occurred to disturb him so much. After he had become more calm, he told me that Captain Ogilvie had been of the party; that they had drunk pretty freely, and were giving toasts; that the captain pledged Rose, your mother, and spoke more lightly of her than he could endure to hear; and that a quarrel had ensued, and blows had been struck. He then desired me to see that his rapier was sharp and in order, as he was to meet the captain by five the next morning in the Duke's Walk. My anger against the vile traducer was as great as that of my master. I wished I could meet him in his place; for I had a strong feeling that evil would come out of it; but this was impossible.

"Your father sat down to his writing-table, and began two letters—one for his young wife, the other to his father—and, while he was thus employed, I ran home, told Mary not to expect me home that night, and put on a suit of plain clothes. Before he was done, I had his sword and my own in excellent order; for I was as good at fencing as he was, in consequence of having practised with him all the manly exercises he had learned. As soon as he was ready, we began play at the swords; as the captain was an expert swordsman, while my master had had no practice for several years. Thus we passed the night until past four o'clock. When we sallied forth, we called at Blackford's Wynd upon his second, whom we found waiting upon him, and then proceeded by St Mary's Wynd Port and the South Back of the Canongate to the ground, which we reached a few minutes before the appointed time. The captain and his friend arrived almost as soon as we did. Since then, I have seen blood spilled as freely as water; but never did my heart quail as at this time. In fighting with the blood warm, there is a fierce pleasure; but to me nothing is, or can be, more distressing than to stand an idle spectator, and see your friend engaged, and hear the clash and rasp of the weapon aimed at his heart, as if it were your own, and your hands bound. Such were my feelings at this time. The seconds wished to reconcile them, but neither would hear of it. Each drew, and stood on his guard. A fearful pause of a few seconds ensued, while they eyed each other like hungry wolves. My eyes felt as if they would start from their sockets; my breath was suspended; all was still as death; a sudden clang rung on my ears; their swords gleamed in the rays of the rising sun; and so rapid were their movements, that my eye could not follow them. I saw that the captain, from his fence, was a complete master of his weapon, having practised abroad. My master had been foiled in his favourite assault—the one, indeed, on which I had placed my reliance. A moment's pause ensued; neither had drawn blood. Again they closed, and, after a few unsuccessful attacks, paused again for breath. I saw the blood upon my master's arm, from a slight cut. My hand grasped my sword; but, by a violent effort, I restrained myself. They had been engaged nearly half-an-hour; my master's hand was dyed in blood; but he was young and alert; while his antagonist was rather corpulent, and his constitution shaken by dissipation. His play became now more feeble and cautious, and my confidence began to revive. He was yet without a scratch; and, collecting all his energies, he made a desperate lunge, which your father only parried so far as to make it pass between his side and the sword-arm, piercing his vest; and the captain lay at his feet transfixed. My heart leaped for joy as I ran to your father's aid. I bound up his arm, while the two seconds attended to the captain. I found my master but slightly hurt. He despatched me for aid to his antagonist, with which I returned; and, as the captain's wound appeared to be mortal, we left them, and proceeded over the hill. We scarcely exchanged words. Passing up the valley, we stood upon the crest of the height that commanded a view of Craigmillar Castle, and the distant hills, with the level country between. Here we paused; and your father, clasping his hands in agony, gazed around for a few minutes in silence. My own heart was too full to speak, and I stood looking upon his mental suffering, which I knew no mode of soothing, and reverenced too much to interrupt. At length he said, as if unconscious of my presence, 'Farewell, sweet scenes of my happiness! my cruel destiny drives me from you, and her who is dearer to me than life. But that thought is distraction. Rose! my beloved Rose! in what a state am I forced to leave you! Alas! I dare not even bid you farewell. My hands are red with blood, and the avengers will soon be on my track; but in defence of your honour it was shed, and Heaven will justify the act. Who now—who will protect you when I am an outlaw?'

"He dashed his hands upon his forehead, and groaned. I could endure in silence no longer, and at length soothed him into something like composure. It was agreed that he should go to his father, inform him of his duel, and act by his counsel; while I should return to my own house, watch the progress of the captain's wound, and, happen what would, meet him at Roslin Chapel at ten o'clock in the evening, to consult what was farther to be done. We parted at St Leonard's Hill.

"In the forenoon nothing was talked of in the city but Captain Ogilvie's duel; and it had become a party question. The Whigs had one version of the cause of quarrel, the Tories another, I gave no ear to either; but was rejoiced to learn that the captain was not dead, although his life was despaired of.

"It was now past six o'clock—the quarter had chimed upon the clock of St Giles. I had my hand on the latch to go once more to the captain's, to know how he continued since my last inquiry, when the rasp was gently moved. I opened the door, and your mother staggered into my arms, pale as death, and swooned away. With difficulty Mary and I restored her to consciousness. I told her of your father's safety; and she replied that she was now, save for her husband, a destitute outcast; that her aunt, who only waited a pretext, had turned her out upon the world; and that the cause of her expulsion was her conduct in being the mean of her aunt's favourite, Captain Ogilvie's death. I told her that the captain was not yet dead, and would, I hoped, survive; and, leaving her in charge of Mary, I hurried to ascertain what ground there was for any hope. I found that the captain was still alive, but that his death was hourly expected.

"With a sorrowful heart I hurried out by Bristo Port, after getting the word for the night from the keeper, that I might be admitted, on my return, into the city. I was at the chapel some time before ten o'clock, and found my master waiting for me. When I told him that the captain was still in life, he took my hand—'Square,' he said, 'this has been a sad and dreary day to me. It is a fearful thing to have blood upon our hands, even in a just cause. I pray with my whole soul he may recover, both for his own sake and mine.'

"I then told him what had befallen your mother.

"'I am happy it is so,' he said, 'I shall leave her under the keeping of Mary and you with more confidence than I could in her aunt's. My mind is relieved of a burden; my greatest difficulty was how to dispose of my beloved until my return; for, by the command of my father, I set off for France to-morrow—to St Germains, where I will remain until this untoward affair blows over. If all go as we anticipate, you will, perhaps, see me here sooner than you expect—ay, with a gallant band of patriots, to redress Scotland's wrongs, and restore our rightful prince. My father is not displeased at my conduct—would that he knew the right I had to take my Rose's part! But the time will come. As I know not how soon the officers of justice may be in quest of me, I must depart to-morrow morning for England, on my way to France. I must therefore see Rose, to bid her good-by for a short season. I shall be waiting for her near St Anthony's Chapel, to weep our parting, where we have so often smiled at our meetings. O William, William! these thoughts unman me.'

"'My dear master,' said I, 'am I to accompany you?'

"'No, William,' replied he—'no; I leave my beloved wife to your care until my return, when I will requite you as she shall report of you.'

"It was early in the morning before I reached Edinburgh. I found your mother and Mary still out of bed, awaiting my return. The night was spent in tears by the females, and a melancholy presentiment was on my own heart. Before we set out to meet the fugitive, I caused them to disguise themselves—your mother having my wife's maud, and she a dress she had never before worn. They proceeded down the street by themselves, while I went to inquire how the captain had spent the night. I found he was still in life, but no hopes were entertained of his recovery.

"The shades of evening were beginning to fall before this last and sorrowful parting terminated. They never met again. Your mother, who was in the family way, although we knew not the fact for weeks afterwards, began to droop and pine—a sadness of heart seemed to consume her; in vain we strove to cheer her gloom; and her aunt made no inquiries after her. Once a-week I visited the banks of the Esk to inquire after my master; and occasionally got accounts of his welfare; but they were few and far between—only, indeed, when the letters could be forwarded by some one coming to Scotland. No letter had as yet come to me for his wife. How often have I left her, with a faint smile of hope dispelling the habitual sadness of her lovely countenance, and returned with an aching heart to witness her increased melancholy. Your father had left her all the gold he could, even more than he could spare; yet we would have given it all for a single letter from his hand; but none came. Meanwhile Captain Ogilvie, who continued long in a precarious state, ultimately recovered.

"At length you were born; but your unfortunate mother did not survive many days; and scarcely was the sod green on her grave, when my master came back to Scotland. His grief, his agony, I shall not attempt to describe. In a few weeks after he returned to France, for his native country was hateful to him; and I would have accompanied him, but that Mary was in delicate health, and I could not leave her. As his father was displeased at him for relinquishing his study of the law, he gave him only a small sum to maintain him in France. You passed, meanwhile, as my own child, and went under my name.

"At length the long-expected deliverer came. I concealed the certificate of your father's marriage, and some other papers, in the wainscot of our room, and would have joined my master in the north; but, as the party were in rapid advance to Edinburgh, I thought I could be of more service to the cause in Edinburgh. It was I who contrived the way, and caused the easy entry of the Prince into the city, by the Netherbow Port. The gentleman you saw once or twice in conversation with Mary, whom you took for your mother, was your father; but it was not thought prudent to undeceive you. We had the greatest confidence in the success of our righteous cause. Alas! we were prosperous for a time, only to feel more bitterly our reverse. We advanced into England, elate with the victory of Tranent, where we scattered the red-coats like frightened deer. I had no opportunity of visiting Edinburgh again, until it would have been death to me to dare the act. Your father was wounded at the Battle of Falkirk, and required my utmost care. After the Prince retired from the siege of Stirling, and Cumberland's arrival in the north, our affairs began to wear a different aspect. Carlisle had been recaptured, and our success seemed farther from us than at the commencement. My master's wound was, by good management, so much better that he could travel by easy stages. The volunteers and adherents of the Hanoverians were beginning to show more bravery, by apprehending all whom they knew belonged to the Prince; so that, without taking leave, we left our landlord in the night; and, crossing at Kincardine, got into Fife, and travelled down the shores of the Forth until we reached Dysart, where your father was confined to bed, by fever, for some days. Here we received the heart-breaking intelligence of Culloden Field, and the massacre of the friends of royalty. Scotland was no longer a country for us. My master had acted too open and conspicuous a part to hope for pardon. I would, perhaps, on Mary's account and yours, have ventured my life in a return to Edinburgh; but I could not leave your father in his present situation. As yet no one suspected we had belonged to the Highland army; for I had so adroitly concealed my master's wound, that he was thought to be only sick of a fever. Fortunately, there was a vessel about to sail for Rotterdam. We embarked for Holland without interruption, and arrived safe. During your father's convalescence we were reduced to great straits; for our supply of cash was, when we left Scotland, much reduced, and here it entirely failed. My master had written to his brother for assistance; but he had found it for his advantage to change sides; and, so far from sending a remittance, he never answered one of his letters. Had it not been for the disinterested aid of a Scottish merchant, who was established in the place of our retreat, and who had been a college friend of your father, we must have been reduced to absolute want. Through his influence, he obtained for him a commission in the Scottish Brigade, then in the service of the States; and thus relieved him from the humiliation of dependence; but this was not accomplished until nearly the end of the second year after I had left my peaceful home. During all this time we were in the greatest anxiety—he about his son, I about my dear wife. Yet we had no means of ascertaining your fates; and the consciousness of the poverty you must be plunged in embittered all our thoughts. As soon as my master joined the division of the brigade, which was quartered in Bergen-op-Zoom, he borrowed a sum of money for my use. At all hazards I had resolved to return to Edinburgh, use all the precaution I could to avoid being recognised, and bring over with me to Holland you and my dear Mary.

"All being prepared, I bade adieu to your father, and embarked, in the dress of a Dutch skipper, on board of a vessel bound for Dysart, principally loaded with old iron, for the nailers of Pathhead. She was a Fife vessel; and the captain knew me only as William Speare, a Dutchman. Upon our arrival, I crossed, with the first Kinghorn boat, for Leith, and hurried up to Edinburgh. Our passage across the Frith had been very tedious; and the shades of evening were just coming on when I reached the Abbey Hill. With a heart equally divided between hope and fear, I walked up the Canongate, through the Netherbow Port, and up the High Street. I saw many that I had known in happier days, and my heart yearned to address them; but, alas! I was a proscribed outlaw, shut out from the society I loved. When I reached Mary King's Close, my heart beat so ardently, that I was forced to pause for breath as I climbed the stair to my old door. I took the rasp in my hand, and gave my wonted tirl. A female opened the door, about the same height as her I loved. It was very dusky. That it was my wife I had no doubt. I threw my arms around her, crying, 'Dear Mary!' The female pushed me from her, and screamed out for help. I thought I would have sunk to the ground, and leaned against the door for support. An elderly female came in haste with a light. I attempted to speak, but could only sob, and felt sick almost to death. The women looked upon me in amazement, for the tears were silently stealing down my face. After whispering a few words, I was kindly invited into the house which I had expected to have been my own. It was tidily furnished; but everything in it was strange to me, and wore a look of desolation and loneliness. Neither my wife nor you were there. Not to betray myself, I told them that I had not been in Edinburgh for a long time; but that, when I left it last, a very dear friend had resided there, whom I had hoped to find where I left her, and that my mistake must plead my excuse for any apparent rudeness. Their answers to my inquiries crushed all my hopes. Mary was in her silent grave, and you had disappeared. Nothing now remained to me in Scotland that I cared for; and, after in vain offering a reward to any one who could give any information concerning you, and shedding a few tears over the grave of my wife, I returned to Holland with my sorrowful intelligence. Your father, quite sunk with your uncertain fate, fell into a lowness of spirits that preyed upon his health, and continually reflected upon himself as the cause of your mother's early death, and your destitution.

"As the monotony and dulness of garrison duty in a strongly-fortified town served to increase his melancholy, which threatened to merge into consumption, he, by the advice of his physician—that change of scene, and a warm climate, might remove all the bad symptoms he exhibited—exchanged into a regiment stationed in the Island of Ceylon, into which I also enlisted, that I might accompany him. There was, alas! no other individual on earth for whom I cared. Far from recovering on the voyage, its tedious dulness sunk him more and more into his habitual lowness of spirits; and, on our arrival on the island, he grew worse, and did not survive many months. I buried him at Trincomalee. Alas! how true is the saying, that 'all men know where they were born, but none where they shall lay their bones.'"

So intense had been the interest I felt in his narrative, that I scarcely moved, lest I should lose a word, or interrupt him. He paused at this event, and wiped a tear from his eyes. William and Mary I had until this hour looked upon as my real parents. For those I now heard of, I had new feelings to acquire. I noticed that he did not tell me the surname of my parents, and I pressed not the question. All that I asked of him was to continue his history, and inform me what had induced him once more to return to Scotland.

"Can a Scotsman ask that question of a Scotsman?" said he. "In whatever part of the globe he may be, the hope to lay his bones with his fathers is the Polar Star that cheers his wanderings, be they prosperous or adverse. Remove this hope, and his energies from that moment sink, for he has lost all of life worth caring for. I have both known and felt it. But to proceed:—

"After your father's death, I felt the most solitary of men for many months. Still I continued to do my duty as a private soldier, without taking any interest in surrounding events. About two years after my arrival, a revolt broke out in the colony: the Singaleese were aided by the Candians from the mountains; and the handful of Europeans could scarce make head against the multitudes of the natives, who had courage and ferocity more than sufficient to have exterminated us every man; but, fortunately for us, they had no discipline or other mode of warfare, but to rush on their enemy and overpower them. This they found to be a vain attempt; yet they never changed their mode until compelled to sue for peace, by the immense slaughter made of them in this war of carnage and massacre. I had been several times the decided cause of victory to the Dutch, in preventing small detachments from being cut off, and directing the movements of the main body; for which services I was promoted to a lieutenantcy. I never rose higher, nor do I believe I would have attained this rank, had it not been to enable me to take command of small parties, for which I was qualified from my being ever on the outskirts of the army, or in the borders of the jungle. Great numbers of my men died through fatigue and fever. I, myself for several years, remained robust; but my turn came at length. I fevered and relapsed; several times my life was despaired of for whole weeks; and many wounds I had received from the Candian spears and arrows broke out afresh, and baffled the power of medicine. My constitution triumphed over my malady; but I was unfit for service. I have one wound here on my side that is hurrying me to my grave; which, I hope, will be in Pennycuick churchyard. But, now that I have the happiness to find my long-lost charge, there is one more duty for me to perform when we reach Edinburgh, whither you must return with me, to consign me to the dust. That duty I never did expect to be called to perform—it is to re-possess myself of the certificates of your father's marriage and your baptism, which are, as I told you, concealed behind the wainscot in the house in Mary King's Close. I trust, for your sake, they are still safe, and may be the means of placing you in your proper rank in society."

"Dear father," I replied—"for I must still call you so—if it is to be of any service to me alone, it is of no avail to proceed further on that errand, for fortune baffles all my undertakings, and I tell you you will not succeed; still I have no objection to return with you to Scotland, although my present object in London was to go to sea in a vessel bound for the Indian seas—the only place of all I ever visited where fortune smiled upon me, and I scorned her favours."

After dinner I gave the lieutenant an outline of my adventures since he had left Edinburgh, at which he was much moved. When I told him of the obligation I lay under to the worthy lawyer—

"Ah, Johnnie!" said he, "we have already half-gained the victory. Mr Davidson was at college and intimate with your father, and ho knows me well as your father's servant. Scotland does not contain a better man for our purpose. I shall fee him liberally, and fortune may yet smile upon us." It was now late in the evening, and the lieutenant left me for the night.

Scarce was he gone, when a new passion took entire possession of me—that of pride and ambition. I felt myself quite changed, and strange visions of imaginary importance floated before me. My present finances were now deemed low enough—eleven guineas—which at one period I would have considered an immense sum. So sanguine had a few hours made me, that I looked upon it only as so many pence. From this period I date a complete revolution in my train of thoughts. Formerly I had cared but for the passing hour, nor heeded for to-morrow. My early education had, until now, clung to me in all my vicissitudes, being ever the outcast orphan boy, who, his belly full, his back warm, had nothing further to obtain. My contentment was now gone. But to proceed:—

For a few days I was forced to keep at home, until the marks of my Tower Hill affray had disappeared; during which, urged by my new passion (pride), I got myself equipped in the extreme of fashion. I now smile at my folly, when I look back to these few weeks in which I was swayed by it. But no young lady, getting her first ball-dress, was ever more fidgety or hard to please than John Square. The lieutenant was pleased to see me ape the gentleman; for he really looked upon me as such, and paid me every deference, as the son of his master. The money he had saved while in Ceylon he counted as mutual; nor would he allow me to expend one farthing of my own. We both were now anxious to proceed to Edinburgh, and embarked in the first trader bound for Leith. This voyage was the most pleasant I had ever made; I was in fairyland, and the lieutenant not far behind me.

When we were landed, with the earliest convenience we proceeded to Edinburgh, with far different feelings from any I had before experienced. Having arrived in the evening, it was next morning, after an early breakfast, that we proceeded from our inn in the Canongate towards the Cross, to reconnoitre the old domicile of William Square, the house in which I had first drawn breath. You may judge our horror, surprise, and grief—I cannot describe it—that loved edifice had disappeared from the earth; it no longer existed. Where it had once stood, new walls were shooting up towards the firmament. It and many others had been swept away, to make room for the site of the present Royal Exchange. A feeling of desolation, bordering on despair, took possession of my heart. The lieutenant, uttering a groan, wrung his hands, and looked upon me with a gaze that pierced me to the soul. I felt his frame leaning upon me with the weight of death. He would have sunk to the ground, had I not supported him. With, difficulty I conveyed him into Corbet's tavern, under the Piazzas, where, after a time, he recovered, only to give vent to a burst of anguish.

"Ill-fated parent and ill-fated child!" he cried, "it was not that my heart yearned not to tell you the family from whence you sprang, but a presentiment hung heavy upon my mind that there was evil still in store for you. Alas, my poor John! are you really doomed to dree the weird assigned your forebears. Your father's father was Mr William —— of ——. Can it be possible that these canting Whigamores have the spirit of prophecy? This almost forces me to think they had—

'For saints' blood and saints harried,
The third generation will ne'er inherit.'

"It is too true, too true!"

These last sentences he repeated to himself several times as if unconsciously, and again sunk back upon his chair in a state of stupor; nor could I rouse him by all the gentle methods I could use. At length I called a sedan-chair, and had him conveyed to the inn, and put to bed. He seemed quite unconscious and passive, until, disturbed by our moving him into bed, when, as if mechanically, he again said—

"'For saints' blood and saints harried,
The third generation will ne'er inherit.'

My poor boy! my poor boy!"

At this time a physician arrived, and, having administered the remedies he thought most efficacious in my foster-parent's case, was about to retire, when I inquired if he thought there was any immediate danger. He candidly said he thought there was; for the patient's constitution was much reduced, and he had received some violent shock, which might dash out the remaining drops from the nearly exhausted glass. He advised that he should not be left alone for any time; and, above all, that he must be kept quiet, until he called again in the afternoon.

As soon as I had recovered myself a little from the agitation this untoward event had produced, I wrote a note to Mr Davidson, requesting he would be so kind as call upon me as soon as convenient, stating that I had urgent business to consult him upon, and pleading, as my excuse for putting him to the trouble, the sudden illness of a friend. When the cadie was sent off with my card, I began to ruminate upon my prospects, which again had been so suddenly overcast. He on whom my sole dependence was placed lay in the room where I sat, in a state of prostration bordering almost upon unconsciousness. The visions of pride and consequence in which I had indulged, from the time I first heard of my gentle forefathers, began to fade from before me; a short time of sad and melancholy reasoning on probabilities had swept them away as completely as the innovating hands of the good citizens had removed the old tenement in which the testimonials of their reality had been concealed. In the midst of these reflections, the lawyer arrived. His astonishment at seeing me was equalled by my joy at meeting with one in whose judgment and shrewdness I had the utmost confidence. The sight of him renewed my hopes; and the fond clinging to self-importance, so natural, yet so foolish, when it is derived from no merit or endeavour of the individual, again returned upon me.

After mutual congratulations, we at once proceeded to business. After stating my arrival in London, and strange meeting with the lieutenant, I narrated the melancholy fate of my parents. He heard me to the end with all the imperturbability of a man of business; yet his countenance betrayed the interest he took in my recital. When I concluded, he rose to his feet; and, placing his hands behind his back, moved quickly two or three times across the room, then stopped at the side of the bed where the lieutenant lay; and, after gazing for a short time upon his altered countenance, turned to me, and gave his head an ominous shake.

"Mr Square," said he, "this is a strange business. I myself have not a doubt of the truth of all the circumstances, some of which I have a distinct recollection of—more especially the quarrel and duel; but how to obtain the necessary evidence I at present cannot divine. The loss of the papers is a very material point; and the sudden illness of your foster-parent is very unfortunate. But there is also another difficulty, even were we so fortunate, as I hope we will be, as to restore him to health and consciousness: his testimony could not be taken in any court of justice; he is an outlaw, tainted by actual rebellion, and liable to be apprehended and executed as a traitor. His mildest punishment, if not pardoned after sentence, would be banishment; and, what is not the least worthy of serious consideration, the object to be attained, unless your friend is very rich, may not be worth the expense and trouble. That foolish rhyme has been fulfilled, in the meantime, so far. Your great-grandfather was a zealous partisan of the Lauderdale administration in Scotland; and, I believe, rather rigorous with the adherents of the Covenant. At the Revolution, he fell into disgrace with the powers that assumed the reins of government, and so turned his hopes upon the restoration of the exiled family, and impoverished himself in aiding the intrigues to restore them. Your grandfather had been bred in, and adhered to, the same politics, now a losing game. He still farther reduced the rent-roll by sales and bonds; and, at his death, your two uncles, who remained at home, changed their party. The older died young, without having married; and the younger succeeded to what remained of the estate of his ancestors—a mere wreck, soon spent in dissipation. Not one furr of land that once owned your ancestors as lord now owns their sway. With the sum produced by the last sale, your uncle bade adieu to Scotland; and you are the last of the race. I would advise no farther proceedings than to endeavour, if possible, to recover the documents relating to your birth and legitimacy, if they have not been destroyed in pulling down the old walls."

Why should I dwell on my disappointment. Mr Davidson used every effort, by inquiries and offers of reward; but the papers never were recovered, although we got from one of the workmen the brass Dutch box in which they had been placed. He had purchased it from one of the labourers who picked it up in the ruins, and had destroyed the papers as of no importance. I had now the knowledge of the family from whom I was descended, but no proof to establish my claim, even though my right to property to any amount would have been the consequence.

As for my foster-parent, he gradually recovered from the stupor that had overwhelmed him, but never regained his wonted energies. He was possessed of a few hundred pounds, besides his half-pay from the Dutch Government, which was regularly paid. He never could endure me for any length of time out of his sight; and I remained with him until his death, a few years afterwards. I know that I was wasting my time; yet I could not desert the old man, whose whole happiness was concentrated in me; and, shall I confess, I felt a strange happiness in his society—for he alone of all mankind treated the beggar-boy of former years as an individual of rank; and our conversation was generally about the traditions of my ancestors. When the weather would permit, it was our wont to leave our house at Clock Mill, to wander over the scenes he loved—the spots in and around the bosom of Arthur Seat, where he had first won the affections of his departed Mary—and point out the favourite haunts which my father and mother used to sit in or walk. On these we would gaze, until our imagination seemed vested with the power of calling the personages before us. Thus passed on the time until the lieutenant's death, which happened suddenly.

I was thus once more alone in the world, without a tie to bind me to it, save the natural love of life inherent in man.

In Edinburgh I had formed no acquaintance; a continual soreness haunted me as to the dignity of birth, yet I never assumed even the name of my parent. I only heard it pronounced by my foster-father, who urged me to adopt my family honours. The conversation of the lieutenant had given my mind a military bias. I was weary of Edinburgh, which recalled to my mind too many sad reflections; and I mentioned to Mr Davidson the resolution I had formed. After winding up the affairs of the lieutenant, I found that I was possessed of one hundred and seventy pounds. Mr Davidson, who still insisted that the money I had left as a gift in his hands was at my disposal, generously offered to advance the amount required to purchase me an ensigncy; but this I would on no account allow. My pride revolted at a pecuniary obligation, as a derogation from my family dignity, which still hung heavy upon me. By his advice, and through his assistance, I sunk in the hands of the magistrates one hundred and fifty pounds, as the most profitable way I could invest it—the interest to accumulate until my return in person to claim it. It was about the year 1775, when the troubles in America had commenced. Accounts had just arrived that blood had been shed at Lexington and Concord; and the bootless victory at Boston was announced, but not confirmed. It was the month of August, and the utmost excitement reigned among the people in the city: every means, both legal and scarcely legal, being employed to raise troops. The comprehending act was passed, by which the justices of the peace were empowered to impress and send to the army all idle or immoral characters: an engine of great tyranny and oppression in their hands; for every person who was in the least obnoxious to them was hurried to the army, whatever his character might be. Without informing my friend Mr Davidson, I bade him farewell, and proceeded to Glasgow, where I entered as a private into the Fraser Highlanders, resolved to carve out my own fortune with my sword. This I did through my foolish pride, so little had I learned by my former experience. During my short stay with the party, before I joined the regiment, my mind became disgusted by the modes I saw practised to augment the army, by trepanning and actual violence. The landed gentlemen and magistrates appeared to have lost, in their zeal, every sense of justice. The most disgusting modes were resorted to: such as putting a shilling into a drinking jug, and causing the king's health to be pledged; while the soldier, in plain clothes, sitting in company as a tradesman, or a person from the country, was ready to seize the person whom he had pitched upon, the moment he drank the royal toast. If he resisted, nothing could save him from prison; enlist, and attest he must. So prevalent, indeed, was this mode, that the publicans were under the necessity of getting pewter jugs with glass bottoms to drink from, or their houses would have been deserted. This gave security to the customer that there was not a shilling in the bottom; and allowed him to watch through the glass the motions of the persons with whom he drank. The only redress the kidnapped individual got was, that he might choose the regiment he would join; and he in general fixed upon some other one than the one to which his betrayer belonged. One instance disgusted me beyond endurance. It happened to a good-looking young lad, belonging to Hamilton. An intimate acquaintance of his had been enlisted, whether voluntarily or not I do not recollect, but he was still without any marks of his new profession. Several of the old soldiers were also with him, prowling about for recruits, when he recognised his former friend in the Briggate, accompanied by his intended bride and their mothers, who had come to Glasgow with the young people to purchase their plenishing. Rejoiced to meet an old acquaintance in the city, the party, being fatigued with their walk and the heat of the weather, retired to a neighbouring public-house to rest and refresh themselves. The companions of the betrayer, to avoid suspicion, had passed on, as if they were not of his party, but entered the house a short time after. As those from the country had business to transact, they refused to tarry, and the new-made soldier insisted to pay for the entertainment, which, after a good-natured dispute, he was allowed to do. By design, or otherwise, he sat at the far end of the table, and when the landlady was called, he said, handing forward a shilling—

"Here, George, is a shilling; be so good as hand it to the landlady."

"The reckoning is one and sixpence," said she.

"Oh, I have plenty of the king's coin. Here is another for you, George."

To the alarm and grief of the bridal party, when they were at the door to proceed on the business they had come to town upon, the soldiers in waiting seized the young man, and declared him one of the king's men. The betrayer shrunk back, not yet hardened to the trade; but his associates compelled the victim to go with them to the jail. Fortunately for them and the young man, they had respectable friends in the city, who waited upon some of the magistrates. An investigation took place. The soldiers scrupled not to maintain that he was enlisted, and were willing to swear that he had taken the second shilling in the king's name—the usual words of voluntary enlistment. They even produced the landlady, who, either leaning towards the soldiers (her good customers), or not paying much attention at the time, declared that she heard, when the second shilling was given, distinctly the words "king and coin." So powerful was the feeling at this time, that he was declared duly enlisted, and only escaped by paying to the party a round sum of smart-money.

After passing the winter at drill, I was embarked with a numerous body, to reinforce the army besieged in Quebec, where we arrived in the month of May. I was now on the field where I was to reap the fruits of my ambition; but I found it unpromising, and strewed with thorns. Still I had an object to attain, however distant it might be, and my oppression left me. I was most assiduous in my duties, and was soon made a corporal. My heart leaped for joy. This was the first step to my ambition; my hopes began to brighten, and I submitted to our privations without a murmur. At the storming of St John's, I was made a serjeant; and here I stuck. In vain was all my daring and good conduct. At the descent upon Long Island, I was as conspicuous as I dared to be by the rules of strict discipline, and, in consequence, often had the charge of small picquets upon dangerous service, and was twice slightly wounded. Once I led the company, and took several prisoners, after both the captain and ensign were carried to the rear dangerously wounded. The ensign died in a few days of his wound; and it was generally believed by the men of the regiment that I would have been promoted to his rank. At length, in the month of August, 1781, I was made paymaster-serjeant; which rank I did not long retain; for the army was not long after completely surrounded by the Americans, besieged in Yorktown and at Gloucester, and, after suffering the extreme of hardships for twelve days, from sickness, famine, and the fire of the enemy, Lord Cornwallis, hopeless of being relieved, surrendered himself and army prisoners of war. This put an extinguisher upon all my hopes. I was now a prisoner, sick, and looked upon for death, and must have perished, had it not been for one of the captains of the American army, to whom the sick prisoners were delivered over. He proved to have been one of the palantines—an Aberdeen lad—who had been my companion in early misfortune, now an extensive proprietor in New England. To him I was indebted for much kindness during my imprisonment until the peace. When I returned to Britain, I was discharged with a pension of one shilling per day, being what is called the king's letter, which, with the accumulation of my annuity, enables me to finish my chequered career in competence, and wander as I list amidst these scenes of wo and pleasure, lovely by nature, and endeared by former recollections.

---

THE BEWILDERED STUDENT.[14]

Fifty years ago, the roads in many parts of Scotland were so bad that they could only be travelled on with safety in broad daylight. The dangers which the tourist had to encounter did not arise from the lawless dispositions of the people; for Scotland was then a highly moral and highly hospitable country. But, ere the genius of road-making had visited it, the benighted wanderer had more reason to apprehend destruction from the delusive light of the "moss-traversing spunkie," than from the sudden flash of the robber's pistol. Vast undrained marshes were common in every part of the country. From these marshes many a goodly peat-stack had been delved, and the holes were soon filled up with stagnant water—covered with zoophytes and other aquatic plants, and surrounded by tall rushes, which concealed from the eye those dangerous pits, where a whole regiment of soldiers might have found an inglorious grave.

The roads, in many places, passed so close to these unwholesome bogs, that a false step in the dark was often equal to stepping out of this world. Nor was this the only risk that a traveller had to calculate upon, when settling the propriety of making his will before he undertook a journey; for the highways—properly so called, at that period—frequently ascended in the most abrupt manner from the swampy valley to the rocky hill-side, where they winded along the edges of precipices, which afforded admirable facilities for despairing lovers to take the loup without being suspected of suicide.

Besides the actual danger which attended travelling in those days, there were many inconveniences, which, though less appalling, were even more perplexing to a forward spirit, than the risk of tumbling from a rock-head, or plunging into a peat-bog. The roads in many places branched out in different directions upon lonely muirs, where no information could be obtained concerning the places to which they led; and the consequence was, that many a weary wight, after cogitating half-an-hour upon the propriety of turning to the right hand or the left, dashed into one of the doubtful paths, and proceeded for another hour at his utmost speed, to no better purpose than simply to receive information that he had walked four miles out of his way. Inns, too, were almost unknown, except in the towns and upon the most frequented roads; and even there the accommodation was so meagre, that equestrians had often the greatest difficulty in finding lodgings for themselves and horses. Steam-waggons and stage-coaches, as yet, lay packed up in the heads of their inventors; and the traveller, though otherwise in comfortable circumstances, had no other means of conveyance but his own two legs, and an oaken or hazel staff, with which he urged them onward when ascending, and prevented them running away with him when descending the hill-side. Thus equipped, he could find lodgings in the first cottage which he came to; and, if his mind was not too refined for the conversation of simple, social, warm-hearted men, nor his taste too delicate for the "halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food," he could generally pass the night with tolerable comfort, and very little expense. In this way, many of the most eminent men of the time became acquainted with the humble homes and virtuous habits of the peasantry of their native land; and the information which they thus acquired formed a link of connection between the different classes of society, which the prejudices of fashion could never afterwards wholly destroy. But we have a simple story to narrate, which will sufficiently illustrate the kindly hospitality which characterised the poorest of our rural population, and the generous feeling with which the greatest could remember and requite the little services which inclination induced, or necessity forced, them to accept.

Upon the banks of one of the most beautiful little lakes which is to be found in the Lowlands of Scotland, and not far from the ancient and now half-forgotten village of Lindores, stand four humble cottages, which are still the abodes of men; though, to the eyes of a modern traveller, their low walls and moss-covered roofs would present the idea of sheep-cots or cattle-sheds, rather than that of human habitations. The fields around them are now in the highest state of cultivation; and the gentle hills with which they are on all sides surrounded, where inaccessible to the plough, are, for the most part, covered with thriving plantations, which give a sheltered and picturesque appearance to the little world in which they are situated. These simple shielings seem to have outlasted many of their humble contemporaries, the sites of which are now only indicated by two or three decaying trees, which, in the greenness of youth, must have beautified the little gardens of sober old men, who are long ago in their graves, and shaded the sports of children, who are now, perhaps, tottering with bleached locks through the crowded streets of some smoky town, forgetful alike of the quiet fields upon which they danced away the innocent morning of existence, and the spreading trees beneath whose branches they had imitated the voice of the cuckoo, and listened to the song of birds, with spirits as light and musical as their own.

About fifty years ago, one of these cottages was occupied by James W—— and his wife, a most respectable and industrious pair, whose humble virtues are still remembered with esteem by the elderly part of the community in the neighbourhood where they lived. James was a weaver, and, like most of his craft at that time, he manufactured his own yarn, and sold his own cloth. But, besides this little business, which he carried on for himself, he was often employed by the country people in what was called customer work. He also farmed a small piece of ground, which afforded him a healthful occupation in the spring months, and supported a cow, whose produce, to use his own language, "keepit a fu' house a' the year round."

James was rather an intelligent man for his station. Besides being deeply versed in all that Biblical knowledge which was then so happily cultivated by the labouring class in Scotland, he had read Josephus and some other old historians, whose writings he quoted with so much promptness and propriety, that many of his simple listeners believed him to be almost inspired, and some of them went even so far as to say that his speech wanted only a little polishing to make him a match for the minister. But, though James really possessed a greater amount of knowledge than most of those with whom he mingled, he never exhibited that arrogant, overbearing manner, which is too often allied to superior abilities. His good-nature was equal to his other acquirements, and he was a special favourite with all who knew him. He could explain an abstruse doctrine to the satisfaction of the old gudemen, and enlarge with great animation on the merits of good housewifery, not forgetting, in the course of discussion, to pay a delicate compliment to the thrifty dames who intrusted him with the manufacturing of their linen. Nor was he less admired by the younger part of the community; for, while the old and sober asserted that James was a canny man, and a learned man, the young and frolicsome assured one another that he was a droll man, and a funny man. On the harvest field he was the very "soul of all;" for he never wanted a queer story or a witty jest, to cheer the spirits of his fellow-labourers, when they began to flag under the heat and toil of the day. His wit, however, was of that quiet, inoffensive kind, which delights those who listen, without wounding the feelings of those upon whom it is exercised. He possessed a happy turn, too, for settling the disputes which frequently arose among the young and fiery spirits composing the little army of reapers with whom he was engaged. When a competition, or campe, as it was called, occurred, James's mediation was often necessary to reconcile the contending parties to the results of the contest; and his talent was seldom exerted in vain. While the pride of the vanquished brought forth charges of unfair play to cover the shame of defeat, and while these charges were repelled by the boasting of the victors, James stepped forward with some humorous remark, or displayed some piece of ludicrous mimicry, which overpowered the spirit of contention, and united both parties in a harmonious roar of laughter. He was not only umpire in their quarrels, and master of the ceremonies at their feasts, but chaplain in ordinary at their common breakfasts and dinners among the stooks. Upon these occasions, it was pleasing to remark the solemnity which prevailed in the usually noisy assembly, when James took off his old dimpled hat, and, with a devotional gravity, which contrasted finely with the cheerful expression of his ordinary countenance, solicited the blessing of God upon the simple repast of which they were about to partake. If at any time the sly winks of some mischievous wag succeeded in raising a titter among the younger part of the company, it was suppressed in a moment; for, though James was extremely good-natured, he was always severe in rebuking the conduct of those who showed the least disrespect to religion.

Having thus given a general account of James's character, we must now proceed to narrate a simple anecdote in his life, which we consider worthy of being known, not only on account of the generosity of feeling which it exhibits, but also on account of the opportunity which it affords for displaying the genuine simplicity of manners prevailing among the class to which he belonged at the period when it occurred.

One fine afternoon, in the beginning of the winter of 1776, as James was busily employed at his occupation in the shop, Nanny, his wife, entered with a handful of pirns, and a countenance which betokened something of importance. She was evidently in a hurry, and needed her husband's assistance; but hesitated about the propriety of asking it.

"When Jamie's aff the loom," said she to herself, "neither beam-traddles nor bore-staff'll budge a single bit; and, if he fa's in wi' onybody by the gate, wha kens when he may come back again?—for the greatest faut that oor Jamie has, is just that he likes a crack owre weel."

Notwithstanding of these prudential considerations, Nanny did broach the subject in a most becoming and delicate manner, by asking her husband's advice in her present perplexity.

"What are we to do noo, Jamie?" said she, in a rather depressed tone. "There's no a pickle meal i' the barrel; and I hae the cow's supper to get in, and the butter to mak, and the bed to mak, and the milk to 'earn, forby mony a ither thing that maun be done—sae, ye see, I hae nae time to gang for meal the nicht."

"Hout, lassie!" said James, with a smile; "I'll tell ye what we'll do. I'll just get a pock, and set up by to Sandy Laing's for a peck or twa to keep oor teeth gaun till oor ain melder come frae the mill."

"Weel, aweel, Jamie," said the guidwife, glad to find such a ready remedy for all her difficulties. "If ye'll bring the meal, I'll mak the parritch, lad; but it wad hae been a braw thing if we had haen a bit cratur o' oor ain to gang an errant like this, and we micht hae been makin something at oor wark i' the time."

"It's very true, lassie," said James; "but, if we hae nae bairn to carry meal, we hae nane to eat it—let's aye be content, woman."

James was soon provided with a clean linen bag, which he deposited in his pocket; and, crossing his arms upon his back, he set off to the neighbouring village of Lindores for the necessary supply of meal. As he was proceeding along the ridge of a natural embankment, which forms the north-eastern boundary of the loch, he saw a well-dressed young man advancing towards him. The stranger seemed to be in a hurry—at least one might have supposed so from the rapidity of his motion; but he occasionally stopped and looked down upon the frozen lake, which expanded to the sky like a mighty mirror for the passing clouds to behold their own shadows in. After gazing for a few minutes, as if he had forgotten the length of his journey in contemplating the beauty of the prospect which extended beneath him, he would start off at a quicker pace, as if anxious to redeem the time which he had lost in gratifying an idle curiosity. When he drew near, James could easily discover, from his superior dress, slender make, and pale, meditative countenance, that he did not belong to that class "who drudge through wet and dry with never-ceasing toil;" and, notwithstanding of his itch for conversation, he would have passed the stranger without making any remark upon the state of the weather, the beauty of the scenery, or the antiquities of the parish. But the young man, who seemed to be as inquisitive as James was communicative, addressed him in a tone of frank cordiality, which at once removed every feeling of reserve.

After a few questions had been asked and answered, James, recollecting his errand, pulled out the bag which he had received from his wife, and, exhibiting it to his new-found acquaintance, remarked—

"I'm just gaun doon by to Sandy Laing's here, to get twa pecks o' meal; and gin ye'll stap at leisure for a wee, I'll gae doon the hill wi' ye, and point oot a' the curiosities o' the place by the gate."

The stranger agreed to this proposal, and James marched off with most ungentlemanly strides to the merchant's, from which he returned in an incredibly short time, with his meal on his back, his hat in his hand, and his body bent forward several degrees beyond its usual perpendicular position.

"Ugh!" said James, as he again came up with the stranger, "I'm clean oot o' breath wi' my hurry; but an auld body's blast's sune blawn, and that's a stiff brae to climb wi' a burden; but mine's no a heavy ane."

"Permit me to carry it a bit till you recover yourself," said the stranger, taking hold of the bag.

"Na, na, sir," said James, laughing. "I'm muckle obliged—greatly obliged, sir; but ye dinna ken the penalty o' carryin a pock o' meal yet. Only look at my back, and think hoo sic a melvyin wad suit on your fine black coat. It wad mak ye look like a miller athegither; and the ladies, whan they saw ye neist, wadna ken that it was just yersel again. But I'll gather wund in a wee; and, i' the meantime, as I promised to gie ye an account o' the curiosities o' the place, I'll just begin wi' the nearest first; and, I assure ye, if onything short o' real richteousness can hallow the dust o' the earth, we noo stand on hallowed ground. This very spot where we noo breathe bears the name o' M'Duff's Hill; and thae auld stumps o' wa's, that ye see lookin oot amang the grass there, are the remains o' what was ance a castle or a palace belangin to the Thanes o' Fife. It wad be a very unpregnable place afore the invention o' gunpowther; for ye'll observe that it has Lindores Loch on the south, the Dog Loch on the wast, the Boistart Loch on the north, and the Childert Loch on the east; and there's nae doot but they wad hae ditches atween, to prevent their enemies frae gettin in upon them by surprise. I could tell ye some fine stories about the sieges and battles that hae happened here; but, as it wad tak owre muckle o' yer time, I shall just mention hoo the lochs cam to get their names. About Lindores Loch I need say naething. A'body kens that it's just ca'ed after the little towny there, that stands on the north side o't. But the Dog Loch's rather a darker subject. It's supposed to hae derived its name frae the purpose it was devoted to. In auld times, ilka great chief had twa or three packs o' hounds, for huntin boars, and deers, and men wi'; and it's believed that the dogs frae the castle were aye driven to that loch to drink, when the chase was done; and the auld anes, that were owre sair bursten to rin again, were thrown into the middle o't, wi' stanes about their necks, to droon. Sae, ye see, frae this circumstance it got the name o' the Dog Loch. The Boistart Loch, again, as ye'll observe, lies atween twa hills; and when the wind blaws frae the east or the wast, it gathers into great gusts i' the glen, and maks the water jaw, and jawp, and foam like a caldron; and for this reason it has been ca'ed Boistart, or Boisterous, Loch. But there's a better story than this connected wi' the name o' the Childert Loch; and I aye like to tell't, on account o' the generosity that it displays, and the honour that it reflects upon oor countrywomen, wha, even in the maist savage times, werena athegither withoot some gliffins o' natural affection. It was the custom, it seems, in thae rude ages, for the leddies to engage in oot-door sports as weel as the men; and a very common amusement hereabout, wi' mothers and nurses o' a' descriptions, was the drawin o' their bairns, in a sort o' boxes or cradles, upon the smooth ice o' the loch. This diverted the women folk, and exercised the little anes, wha were thus prepared for the hardships o' the wild life that they afterwards led. Aweel, ae fine winter afternoon, as ane o' the bairns' maids frae the castle was pu'in a young Macduff, in a braw silver-mounted cradle, upon the loch, and his mother lookin at them frae the hill here—maybe frae the very place where we noo stand—the ice brak, and doon gaed the cradle, bairn and a', to the bottom o' the loch. The puir lassie, wha stood upon a stronger part o' the ice, and still had the broken leadin-strings in her hand, heard the screams o' the distracted mother, and saw the muddy water risin owre the head o' the helpless wean; and, castin a confused look around, to see if ony assistance was at hand, she plunged into the same hole; and, in tryin to save the bairn, lost hersel. The watchman on the castle-tower heard the screams o' the leddy, and saw the melancholy accident; and ae tout o' his horn sent a hunder hardy callants to the place; but they were owre late. The bairn and his nurse were pu'ed oot o' the loch clasped in ane anither's arms; but the life had gaen oot o' them baith. It's said, however, that the body o' the bit lassie wha had perished in tryin to save that young sprout o' nobility received a' the honour that the gratitude o' its high-minded parents could confer. The last act o' her life was noble, and she was buried in the same grave wi' the son o' Macduff. But, noo that I've recovered my breath, we'll be joggin awa, if ye like; for ye'll be clean wearied oot wi' waitin upon an auld man's havers."

"I assure you I am not," said the stranger. "I have been much delighted with your recital; and I shall never think that time lost which is spent listening to such interesting anecdotes. But, pray, what is the name of that old, grey-roofed house upon the bank, at the western extremity of the loch?"

"Ou, that's just oor auld kirk," said James; "and a very venerable biggin it is, too. It was ance a Roman Catholic chapel; but the altar and the images hae been a' demolished; and the only vestige o' superstition that remains noo is the cross upon the riggin, and the jugs, and a stane basin for the holy water, in the porch. But that's a fine, solemn situation, ye'll alloo, for a kirk; and that's a bonny burying-ground around it, too. It's just a pleasure to puir bodies like me to think that they hae a claim to sic a quiet inheritance, when a' the toils and troubles o' life are past."

"Tis indeed a sweetly-retired spot," said the stranger; "and it wants only that 'cheerless, unsocial plant,' the sepulchral yew, to make it accord exactly to the description given by Gray in these beautiful lines of the Elegy—

'Beneath these rugged elms—that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.'"

"The description agrees unco weel, sir," said James; "for mony a sober Christian and mony a royit callant lie thegither below yon grassy divot, withoot bein sensible o' the company they keep. But, noo that we're speakin o' kirks, gin y'll just turn a wee bit to the richt wi' me, I'll let ye see a kirk construckit by the hands o' the Creawtor himsel; and, I'm sure, he has been mony a time as devootly worshipped there as ever he was in temples built by human hands."

The distance was but a few steps out of the way; and, as the stranger was enthusiastic in his desire to see every curiosity, he readily agreed to accompany James to the place. They accordingly turned into a narrow footpath, which diverged to the right, and winded among the gorse in a more southerly direction. The lake, which had been for some time concealed by a shoulder of the hill, again appeared; and the hill itself, divided into two ridges—forming a capacious amphitheatre, covered by smooth grass, and surrounded on all sides by tall broom and impenetrable furze. At the head or northern end of this dingle, the ground rises into a mound of considerable height and regularity of form; and from this mound the prospect in all directions is unobstructed and extensive.

"There," said James, "is the kirk o' the Covenanters; and mony a guid sermon has been preached there, in defiance o' the winter's cauld and the summer's heat, and the persecution o' cruel men, that was waur to bide than them baith. In that howe stood the minister, upon a muckle stane that has been lang syne removed; and the congregation sat upon the brae around him. The sentry stood upon this knowe here, at yer richt hand; and it still bears the name o' the Watchman's Tower. His business, as ye'll maybe ken, was to watch for the appearance o' an enemy, and gie warnin to the preacher and his hearers to provide for their safety, by standin to their arms or takin to their heels. Mony a time I picture to mysel the confusion that wad tak place amang the women folk, when a party o' wild dragoons were seen scamperin in this direction. I think I hear the watchman fire his gun, as he rins to the congregation; I think I see the minister faulding up the Word o' God, and descendin to his audience wi' the composed dignity o' ane that has settled his account wi' time, and is prepared to dee for the doctrines he has advanced; then there is the animatin address that he delivers to his little flock, as they gather around him, wi' their swords in their richt hand, and their Bibles in the left; the tears o' their greetin wives, and dochters, and sisters, and sweethearts, fa'in thick as a simmer shower, while they stand tremblin and sabbin, and pleadin wi' their freens to flee frae the dangers o' the comin storm. I think I see them wringin their hands and rivin their hair wi' agony, when their entreaties are answered by the deliberate determination o' the auld, and the fiery resolution o' the young, wi' the fearfu assurance that they will conquer or dee. I think I see that little company o' matrons and maidens retirin slowly frae the scene o' confusion; while aye noo and then some kind-hearted youth, wha convoys and comforts them, fa's oot frae the band, and rins back to the ranks. Then they begin singin a hymn o' praise to the God o' battles, wha is able to withstand the powerfu, and protect the oppressed; and immediately—when the crack o' the guns and the clang o' the swords has convinced them that the deadly wark is indeed begun—they are kneelin doon on the grass, wi' their een turned up to heaven, and sabbin oot wordless prayers for the success and the safety o' their freens; there is that little band o' heroes, noo broken and driven back by superior numbers, noo rallyin around their leader, and returnin to the charge wi' a shout o' triumph that maks a' the hills ring; they are noo ance mair repulsed, and nearly borne down by the heavy onset o' their mair skilfu enemies—and, just as my heart begins to tremble for their sakes, I hear the cheers o' a fresh reinforcement o' countrymen, and see their swords brandishin owre the brae, as they rush down to the assistance o' their freens, wha welcome them to the ranks wi' the inspirin war-cry o' the party, 'God and oor country!' The bluidy persecutors are at last broken and dispersed afore the irresistible charge o' the united pawtriots; and, while they are scamperin frae the field wi' mony a toom saddle in their train, the victors are busy, devoutly offerin up thanks to Heaven for the battle they hae won.

"But this is no a', sir. I think I see the women folk returnin to the scene o' strife, to lament owre the dead, and to administer consolation to the deein. There is a puir widow supportin the lifeless head o' her husband—kissin his bluidy lips i' the agonies o' her grief, and strivin to close the gapin wounds, that gie nae mair pain to the body that bears them; a beautifu and an affectionate dochter kneelin by the side o' her expirin parent, twinin her arms around his neck, and droonin wi' her bitter lamentations the deep groans o' the deein man; a band o' sisters are noo endeavourin to bear awa the dead body o' a fair-haired striplin, wha had been the pride o' their family, and the joy o' their hearts; and there is ane there wha, though nae relation to the youth, feels his fate mair deeply than the nearest o' his kin; upon her pale face there is a fearfu struggle between modesty and grief—the last overcomes, and, forgetfu o' the presence o' ony but the dead, she clasps him in her arms, while her breast heaves and sabs like ane wha is suffocatin wi some unutterable feelin! Then there are her neebors, wha never kenned onything o' her affections, till death had divulged them, remarkin, in the language o' Scripture, 'Behold how she loved him!' But, 'deed, sir, I maun hae dune; for ye'll be like to think that I've gane clean daft athegither wi' sae muckle nonsense; and I maun confess, that, when I get on thae auld stories, I haena guid gettin aff them again."

"I just think," said the stranger, "that, if you had lived in the days of the Covenant, you would have been a most inveterate conventicler; and, to confess a truth, had I lived at the same period, I would most likely have been found in the same ranks; for, ere I arrived at that age when men are ashamed to cry, I often wept most heartily over the sufferings of the poor hillmen. But night approaches; and, as I suppose I have a long way to go before I can get a bed, I would thank you to direct me the nearest road to Cupar."

"To Cupar, sir?" said James, in surprise. "Ye dinna surely intend to gang to Cupar this nicht?"

"No," said the stranger; "I only intend to go as far as the first public-house where I can find accommodation for the night; but that will not be just at hand, I believe."

"Atweel no, sir," said James; "for there's no a public-house on the road to Cupar nearer than John Denmill's—and that's at Easter Fernie a' the gate. But John's a queer chap, and he will divert ye, if ye ance get there."

"Well," said the stranger, "a good fire, a good supper, and a jolly landlord, make the best entertainment for a traveller on a winter evening."

Our two friends proceeded for a short distance farther together; and before they parted, James not only gave the young man the best instructions he could with respect to the road, but also invited him to come to his cottage, which was just at hand, and partake of some bread and cheese, assuring him at the same time "that he wad get nae meat on the hill, and that his guidwife wad be as proud as a duchess to hae sic a guest under her roof."

The stranger thanked James most heartily for his kindness, but civilly declined the offered entertainment. They parted with mutual esteem. James went home with his meal, and the stranger went on his way.

By this time the sun had sunk to the verge of the horizon, and the sky, which had been previously clear, began to overcast. A fresh gale, too, sprung up from the east, and blew full in the stranger's face. Night was approaching fast; and he had five miles to travel upon an intricate hilly road, before he could reach any place of shelter. The moon, upon which he had depended for light, now threatened to be of little service; for though she occasionally burst upon his eye through the ragged edges of the driving clouds, it was but a momentary flash, which deepened, instead of dissipating the surrounding darkness. He buttoned his coat, drew his hat closer down upon his head, and made all the speed he could against the tempest, which now blew so violently that it sometimes brought him to a dead stand; and notwithstanding of his perilous circumstances, he could not refrain from laughing at himself, as he struggled with the viewless element which opposed his progress, and whistled defiance to his vengeance.

He at length came to a place where the road divided, and, turning his back to the storm, he stood for a few minutes to recollect the instructions which he had received from his late guide. A number of little lights now caught his eye, twinkling from the cottage windows in the vale below; and as he again proceeded on his way, he could not help looking back, and indulging a momentary feeling of envy over the condition of those who were sitting warm and dry by their own firesides, while he was toiling amid the tempest. The poorest inhabitants of these cottages, thought he, are, for the present, blessed, when compared with me. They possess all the comforts of home, and perhaps do not appreciate their worth, while I am destitute of all but a deep knowledge of the value of what I do not possess.

As he advanced, the lights began to disappear. He seemed to have passed beyond the limits of the inhabited country, and nothing was to be seen but an uncertain road before him, and darkness on every side. The storm grew wilder, and the doubtful path, which he had previously pursued, terminated in a number of little tracks, which diverged in all directions among the furze, as if they had been formed by a flock of sheep scattered over the hill in search of their pasture. He tried to retrace his steps, in the supposition that he had taken the wrong road; but a blinding shower of snow came driving with the wind, and concealed every object which might have guided him in his return. He became completely bewildered, and every moment increased his confusion. The snow began to drift; and all the stories that he had ever heard of benighted travellers lost among the hills rushed into his mind with painful distinctness. He began to run in the direction, as he supposed, of the little hamlets which he had passed in the afternoon; but his feet got entangled among the gorse and broom which covered the hill, and he fell several times at full length among the snow. He stood still and listened, with the faint expectation that he might hear some sound which would lead him to the abodes of men. Something tinkled at a distance, between the gusts of the storm, like the ringing of a bell. He immediately shaped his course by the sound, and was glad to hear that it grew louder as he advanced. Though he could not conjecture the purpose of a bell in that deserted region, yet such it certainly was; and, as no bell will ring without motion, he trusted to find some one who would be able to direct him to a place of shelter. But, after he had walked for a considerable time, at his utmost speed, he found himself very little nearer the object of his pursuit, which seemed to retire as fast as he advanced. He again began to run, and soon had the satisfaction to find himself within a very few yards of the sound; but still he could not perceive the object from which it proceeded. The mysterious bellringer seemed to increase his speed, as if he had discovered a pursuer, and determined to elude his grasp.

The stranger was out of breath; he paused to listen. The bell still rung, and still retired, though at a less rapid rate. He had never believed in ghosts nor fairies; but this mysterious phenomenon seemed to confirm his nurse's tales, and make "chimeras true." He was not one, however, who would shrink from phantoms without evidence of their existence.

"Honest, honest, Iago!" said he, quoting Shakspere,

'If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.'

But, devil or ghost, I will hunt thee to thy den, and if I can overtake thee, I will tread thee under my feet."

So saying, he renewed the chase, and, in a few minutes, the bell was again jingling at a fearful rate, almost among his feet. He called out to the flying mystery to stop and speak with him. No answer was made; but his words seemed to produce some effect; for in a moment more the bell was off in another direction, tinkling and jingling as loudly as ever.

"You shall not escape me thus," said the stranger, who had quite forgotten his own bewildered condition in his earnestness to discover the cause of this unaccountable noise.

He again turned, and followed the bell with his utmost speed; and, after a long pursuit, and many doublings and windings among the broom, he at length tumbled over some soft body, which rolled among his feet. He grasped it in his arms and listened. The bell had ceased to jingle, and nothing was to be heard but the howling of the wind and the rustling of the drift.

"I have you now, my boy," said the stranger; "and I will bring you to a severe reckoning for all this sport."

"Bae!" cried the terrified bellringer, struggling to escape from the rude grasp which held him.

"Bae!" said the stranger, imitating the voice of the animal. "What a silly pursuit I have been engaged in! But I am glad to find that I am not alone on these wild hills in this wild night."

The young man's knowledge of rural economy convinced him that he had chased from his companions a poor sheep, who had been intrusted with a bell about his neck, as was the custom in many parts of the country, to enable the shepherd to discover his flock in the morning. The adventure of the renowned Don Quixote occurred to his mind, and he could not help laughing at himself even in the midst of his misery.

Both the sheep and the man were completely exhausted, and they lay still together for some time among the snow; but the piercing blast and the gathering drift soon convinced the latter that he must either renew his exertions, or perish with his fleecy companion beneath the accumulating heap. He accordingly started up, and proceeded—he knew not where. His imagination became haunted with the horrors of his condition, and the idea

"Of covered pits unfathomably deep,
A dire descent, beyond the reach of frost;
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smoothed up with snow"—

'so paralysed his powers that he could scarcely move. But again

"The thoughts of home
Rush'd on his nerves, and call'd their vigour forth."

He now found himself descending the hill-side; but whether it was the same side which he had ascended, or some other, he could not conjecture. By this time the snow had accumulated to a considerable depth in the hollows; and he frequently plunged into it up to the middle before he was aware. He pulled out his watch to try if he could ascertain the hour; but he could not. He tried his voice, in the hope that some one might hear him, and come to his assistance; but his feeble cry died away unanswered upon the blast. His situation was a desperate one, and he resolved to make one desperate effort more for existence. He turned his back to the storm, determined to run before it as far as he was able; and, should he perish, if possible to perish upon his feet. He had not proceeded far, however, when he tumbled over a steep bank, and rolled from hillock to hillock till he reached the bottom of the den in a state of insensibility. When he again recovered, he found himself beneath the storm, stretched among the undrifted snow, which was lying about a foot deep around him, while close by his side a brawling stream was dashing over the large stones which, like him, had rolled down the hill, and rested in the bottom of the glen. "Here," thought the stranger, "I have at last found a place where I may die in peace; and it is, perhaps, better to give up the struggle, then again to rush into the tempest only to perish beneath its pitiless pelting."

What were his religious feelings in the prospect of death we know not; but his home and his friends, the grief which his early fate would occasion, and the melancholy satisfaction which they would derive from bestowing the last rites upon his lifeless remains, were present to his imagination. And, lest they should be deprived of the performance of these sadly-pleasing duties, by the ignorance of those who found him, he pulled out his pocket-book, and endeavoured to write his own name, with the name of his father's farm, and the name of the parish in which it was situated.

While thus engaged, in that

"Hopeless certainty of mind
Which makes us feel at length resign'd
To that which our foreboding years
Presents the worst and last of fears,"

the deep sonorous sound of a well-blown horn fell upon his ears, and roused him to fresh exertions. He had crossed the burn and clambered to the top of the bank before the blast had ceased; and, as he endeavoured to fix the direction of the sound, the horn was again winded. It seemed not to be very distant. Hope invigorated his weary limbs, and he dashed through the opposing wreaths as stoutly as if his toils had been only newly begun. Another blast was blown, and he continued to run upon the sound till it ceased, and it was not again repeated.

He recollected that it was common for the farmers, in many parts of Scotland, to blow a horn at eight o'clock on the winter evenings, for the purpose of warning their servants to attend to the suppering of the horses; and he hoped that, if he could keep to the proper direction, this might lead him to some hospitable farmhouse, where he would soon forget the horrors of the storm before a comfortable fire. He now proceeded more leisurely, striving not to deviate from the course which the horn had induced him to take; and keeping a sharp look-out on all sides, and an intense attention to every sound, in the expectation that some cottage light might twinkle upon his eye, or some human voice reach his ear, in the intervals of the deafening blast. But still he could discover no sight nor sound of man; and the shifting tempest, which attacked him from every direction, soon confounded all his ideas of time and distance. In some places, too, the snow had accumulated in such immense masses, that he could not pass through them; and the circuits which he was obliged to make tended farther to confuse his mind. His spirits again began to sink, and his limbs to falter; and that sluggish indifference which follows the extinction of hope again took possession of his senses. But, while he was dragging himself onward with slow and feeble steps, a new and extraordinary noise broke upon his ear. He stood still and listened; but he could not conjecture the cause of it. It seemed to mingle with, and yet it was different from, the ravings of the storm. It proceeded from one quarter, and remained steadily in one place. There was a mingling of sounds, like the dashing of waves, the rushing of winds, and the jingling of a thousand little bells, accompanied occasionally by a harsh, guttural cry, like that which is emitted by a band of wild geese when disturbed in their "watery haunt."

Though this mysterious noise was more appalling than attractive, and though it promised neither rest nor shelter to the stranger, yet it operated upon his curiosity, and induced him to continue his exertions. The terrific sounds grew louder and louder as he advanced. The clouds of snow, which were every moment dashed into his face, prevented him from seeing more than a few yards before him; and an involuntary shudder passed over his frame, as he thought that he might even now be toppling upon the brink of some dreadful gulf, and that another step might precipitate him into destruction. Something terrible was certainly at hand; but what was the nature of the danger was beyond his powers of conception.

The unaccountable noise, which was now thundering beneath him, resembled most the dashing of a cataract, or the roaring of the ocean, when its far-accumulated waves are broken into foaming madness among hidden rocks. He stood still, and gazed intently in the direction of the sound.

The storm abated a little in its violence, and he thought he could perceive a black expanse at a little distance stretching out before him. He advanced a few steps nearer it. It was tossing in fearful commotion, and here and there streaked with lines, and dotted with patches of white. It was evidently water; but whether lake, river, or ocean, was all a mystery.

"Can it be possible," thought he, "that the storm has insensibly driven me in the right direction? Do I now stand among the rocks that look down upon the breaker-beaten bay of St Andrews? Or have I returned again to the banks of the Tay? Or can this be the little loch which I passed in the afternoon, and which then lay stretched out in frozen tranquillity beneath me?"

His heart grew sick and his brain dizzy with conjecture. He turned away from the stunning scene with a shiver of despair. A strange sense of torpidity and madness passed along his nerves—it was the confused energy of an active soul, struggling with the numbedness of exhausted nature. The snow seemed to swim around him—his eyes became heavy, and, when he closed them, numberless phantoms seemed to pass before him, like figures in a dream. In this state of drowsy insensibility, he lost for a time all recollection of his sufferings—his blood began to stagnate in his veins, and the icy coldness of death was stealing over his extremities, when a covey of wild ducks swept past, and their short, sharp cries startled him again into consciousness of his condition. When he opened his eyes, a faint light seemed to be glimmering from a hill-side about a hundred yards above him. It was now seen, and now lost, as the clouds of drift passed between him and the place from which it issued. But still it was there; and its dim, shadowy lustre was to him like life to the dead. Hope again returned to his heart, and animation to his limbs; and in a few minutes he had reached the window of a little cottage, which was so completely drifted up with snow on all sides save that on which he stood, that any one might have passed in broad daylight without supposing it to be a human habitation.

The stranger looked in at the window. The fire, which was composed of peats, had been covered up with ashes to prevent them from wasting through the night; but, by this time, the small dust had passed through the grate, and there only remained a little heap of live embers, which cast a sombre glow around the interior of the cottage. The family were in bed. The stranger rapped gently on the window, and then listened for an answer; but nothing stirred. He rapped a little louder, and again listened.

"What's that, Jamie?" said a female voice within.

"Hoch, hoch, hey!" said another, yawning and stretching out his arms from the same box or bed, as if to relieve them from the uneasiness of lying long in one position. It was evident that the voice of the first speaker had awakened the second, without communicating to his mind the purport of the question, which was again repeated.

"What was that Jamie?"

"What was what, lassie?" said the wondering husband. "I see naething by ordinar."

"Man," returned the guidwife, "did you no hear yon awfu rattle at the windock? My flesh's a' creepin, for I fear something no canny's aboot the back o' the hoose. It was just like the noise that was heard at Willy Patty's windock last year afore his mither dee'd."

"Havers, lassie; ye've just been dreamin," said the guidman, who was anxious to quiet his partner's fears, though he was not altogether free from some tremours himself.

The stranger gave another rap.

"Hear ye that, then, Jamie?" said the guidwife. "It's no sic a dream, I trow; for that's something awfu."

"Deed is't," said James, who was now convinced that the "rattle" was not quite so terrible as it had been represented; "it's an awfu thing for ony puir body to be oot in sic a nicht as this; but let's be thankfu, Nanny, that we hae a roof to hap oorsels frae the storm, and a door to let a hooseless body in at."

James flung himself around, and disentangled his feet from the bedclothes, with the intention of going immediately to admit the stranger; but, ere he got away from the bedside, his "better half" laid hold of him, and cried out, in great perturbation—

"Stop, Jamie—stop, I beseech ye; and consider weel what ye're aboot; for ye ken that, forby the danger o' robbers and rascals, the evil spirits just delight to range aboot in sic a nicht as this, like roarin lions, seekin wham they may devour; and wha kens what may come owre ye, if ye pit yersel i' their merciment."

"Havers, woman!" said James again; "let me go, I tell ye; for I'll speak at the windock, and spier if he wants shelter, though it war auld Satan himsel."

Nanny relaxed her grasp; but she seemed determined that the guidman should encounter no danger which she did not take a share of; and she too sprung to the floor, and followed him to the window.

"Wha's there?" cried James, in a voice that showed he was neither to be cowed by fiends, fairies, ghosts, nor men.

"A bewildered stranger," was the reply.

"Weel," said James, "a great stranger may be a great villain; but, for a' that, if I understand my Bible richtly, the words, 'I was a stranger and ye took me in,' will never be addressed to ane wha has the hard heart to refuse a hameless wanderer the shelter o' his roof in sic a nicht as this. Sae just gang ye aboot to the tither side o' the hoose, and come alang the fore wa' a' the gate, till ye find the door, and I'll let ye in."

"Thank you!" said the stranger.

Nanny, who now discovered that the object of all her fears was neither ghost nor goblin, but a conversable and civil creature of her own species, thought that her husband might be safely trusted in his presence without her support; and she accordingly returned again to her bed.

James lighted the lamp, and went to admit the stranger; but, when he opened the door, he opened no passage for his entrance. A solid wall of snow still separated the guidman and his intended guest.

"Preserve's a'!" cried the former, "that's been an awfu' nicht, indeed. The door's drifted up to the lintel; and there's no a hole i' the hale hicht o't, that a mouse could creep oot or in through. Are ye aye there yet, freen?" (addressing the stranger, who answered in the affirmative.) "Aweel, aweel," he continued, "ye maun just content yersel awhile or I get a spade and try and mak some oot-gate in't."

James got a spade, and commenced to delve the snow into the passage, between the hallant and the outer door; but he had no sooner broken down a part of the barrier, than the insidious drift entered the aperture, and, getting under his shirt, which was the only garment he had on, it whirled about his bare legs. He persisted for awhile, but his powers of perseverance ultimately forsook him. He flung down the spade, and, as every gust of wind brought a fresh volley of snow whistling about his ankles, he leaped as high as the henroost, which formed the ceiling of the lobby, would permit.

"Preserve's a', that's dreadfu!" he at length cried out, making a most magnificent jump at the same time. "Flesh and bluid canna endure that—it wad gar a horse swither. Ye'll just hae to thole awee till I get my claes on, lad."

James bounded into the house, and commenced immediately to get his shivering limbs conducted into the proper openings of a pair of canvas trousers. But this was no easy task. He had got one foot in, and the other within a few inches of the entrance, when his great toe unluckily got entangled in one of the pockets of the garment, and, as he was striving to preserve his equilibrium, by hopping through the house backwards upon one leg, the stranger, who had forced himself through the aperture which he had made in the doorway, entered like a moving mass of snow. James at length succeeded, by the support of the bed, which happily resisted his retrograde movement, in getting on his clothes; and then all his attention was directed to the comfort of his guest.

"Dear me, man," said he, taking hold of the stranger's arm with the one hand, and a broom with the other, "ye'll need hauf-an-hoor's soopin afore we get a sicht o' ye. I'm sure ye're unco far frae comfortable below that wread o' snaw."

As the stranger was standing before the fire, while James was endeavouring to clear away the snow from his neck and shoulder, the sudden change of temperature which he had experienced, expanding the fluids faster than the vessels which contained them, produced in his extremities that agonising sensation which is more forcibly expressed by the Scottish word dinnling, than by any other word with which we are acquainted. Sickness and pain overpowered his exhausted nerves. His eyes turned wildly up to the roof of the cottage. He gave one suffocating gasp for breath, and sank senseless upon the floor. James seized him in his arms, and called out to his wife—

"O Nanny, Nanny, woman! get up and help's here! The puir callant's fa'en into a drow, and I'm feared he's gaun to dee upon our hands athegither. Get up, woman, and let's try if onything can be dune to bring him aboot again."

Nanny sprang up at the call of her husband; and, seizing the stranger by the hand, cried out—

"Preserve us a', Jamie! he's perfectly perishin'; his hand is as cauld and stiff as the poker. I maun get on the kettle and heat some water to thaw the snaw aff him."

"Na, na," cried James, "that wad mak him waur, woman. Rin ye to the door and get a gowpen o' snaw, and rub his hands wi' it and a rough clout time aboot, and sprinkle some cauld water in his face, and he'll may be sune come till himsel again."

"Jamie," said the guidwife, in a tone of gentle remonstrance, "the lad's gotten owre muckle snaw and cauld water already; that's just what's the matter wi' him. I maun hae up the fire and get something warm till 'im."

"Ye're haverin, Nanny," said James, who was too much agitated to be respectful. "Gang ye and get the snaw, I tell ye; for ye understand naething o' the matter."

"Aweel, aweel, then," said Nanny, "ye hae mair skill o' doctory than me, Jamie; but it's a very unnatural-like cure, to rub cauld snaw on a man perishin' wi' the cauld."

Nanny got the snow, and commenced the operation with great activity, while James reached his hand to a pitcher which was standing near, and sprinkled a few drops of water in the stranger's face. He soon began to show some symptoms of returning animation, and James earnestly inquired—

"How are ye yet? Are ye better noo?"

After a considerable pause, the stranger replied, as if the question had only then reached him—

"I'm better now, I thank you!"

"God be praised that it's sae!" said James. "Gie him a drink, Nanny, woman, and he'll be a' richt in a wee again."

Nanny brought some water, and, while she was endeavouring to pour it into the stranger's mouth, James got a full view of his face, and cried out—

"He's the very young gentleman that I cam doon the hill wi' this afternoon. Dear me, what a nicht he's had, wanderin amang the drift sin yon time!"

"He's a bonny laddie at ony rate," said Nanny, looking close into his face, "Ye'll no grudge to let him get some heat noo, Jamie. Help me aff wi' his coat and his shoon; and we'll just coup him inowre in oor ain warm bed, here."

"That's weel thocht on," said James. "I canna say but ye hae sometimes a gliffin o' sense aboot ye, Nanny."

The stranger soon recovered so far as to be able to put off his own clothes; and though he remonstrated strongly against taking possession of the honest couple's bed, they would not be resisted in their kindness; and he was obliged to comply. Nanny now took the management of the patient wholly into her own hands; and, as she had all her life considered heat the only remedy for a man perishing with cold, she began to make preparations for applying her own cure. She stirred the fire, supplied it with fresh fuel, laid a brick across it on each side, and placed a panful of water between them. She then took James's leather apron, and folded it so as to form a substitute for a fan; and with it she blew the slumbering embers into flaming activity. In a very short time the bricks were red, and the water boiling hot. The former were immersed in water, and then wrapped up in flannel, and laid to the stranger's feet and breast; the latter was converted into gruel, which, though not very thirsty, he drank with a very good appetite—having missed his supper that night on the hill.

"Noo, sir," said Nanny, "ye maun just lie doon and try if ye can get a gloffen o' sleep; for I'll warrant ye're baith tired and drowsy, after sic a wrastle amang the snaw. Gin ye want onything, Jamie and me'll just be sittin at the ingle here; but we'll mak nae din to disturb ye."

Thus heated within and without, the stranger soon lost all recollection of his wanderings, in a deep and refreshing sleep.

"The storm without micht rair and rustle,
He didna mind the storm a whustle."

James betook himself to his old companion, Josephus; and Nanny sat down by the other side of the fire, and resumed her evening's employment, which had been the knitting of a pair of stockings for the guidman. She now felt all a mother's anxiety for the comfort of the stranger; and she frequently rose and peeped into the bed, to see how he rested; then returned to her husband, with a smile, and whispered into his ear—

"The lad's sleepin as sound as a tap, yet."

The night passed away; and by the time that daylight dawned down the lum—the little windows being drifted up with the snow—Nanny had prepared a warm breakfast for the stranger, the guidman, and herself. It consisted of oatmeal porridge, served up in two wooden platters, with a jugful of milk and three horn spoons set down on the table between them. Nanny now awakened the stranger by asking how he had rested. She then took his clothes, which had been carefully dried and warmed before the fire; and, handing them into the bed, which had to serve the purpose of a dressing-room also, she closed the lids—remarking, that "the parritch was ready; and it wad be better to sup them afore they got owre cauld." The stranger dressed, and took a seat beside his kind entertainers. James asked a blessing, apologised for the coarseness of the fare, and despatched his portion of the repast in shorter time than a fashionable eater would take to stir about his coffee and crack the shell of his egg. It occurred to Nanny that she might make the porridge more agreeable to the stranger's delicate taste, by giving him cream, instead of milk, to sup them with. She accordingly brought her evening's meltith, and skimmed it into his dish, remarking, at the same time—

"Ye'll no like oor coorse way o' livin, sir; but hunger's guid kitchen, they say, and that's no ill sap, I think, for it was just drawn frae the coo yestreen." The stranger assured her that he liked the dish exceedingly well; and Nanny added—"Ye'll be used to drappies o' tea, I warrant; but we haena had ootower twa brewins i' the hoose sin we were married; and, though a wee sirple o't may do brawly when the sap's scarce, yet I aye thocht that it was an unco feckless sort o' a diet, for a manbody especially."

After breakfast, the young student (for such was the stranger) gave his entertainers an account of his wildered wanderings on the hill, as we have already narrated them; and James explained all the mysteries which he had met to his entire satisfaction. We shall only give his exposition of the last; namely, the fearful minglings of sounds which had alarmed him so much when he approached the lake. These were occasioned by the breaking up of the ice, which, driven ashore in innumerable fragments by the wind, rose and fell with every wave, making a confused tinkling, like the ringing of a thousand little bells.

The storm had now abated; and, though the roads in many places were entirely blocked up, by keeping along the high ground it was possible for a person on foot to pursue his journey. The stranger, who was travelling to the College of St. Andrews, prepared to depart. He offered Nanny such a sum of money as he could spare, in acknowledgement of her kindness; but she refused it.

"Na, sir!" said she, "we'll hae nae reward. Only look what a dad o' a stockin I've wrocht, that wadna been wrocht gin ye hadna been here; and the guidman's gotten as muckle lear oot o' that auld book, as may ser' him for a twalmonth to crack aboot; sae, ye see, we hae made some profit o' yer visit, forby a' the pleasure o' yer company."

James also refused money; and still further enhanced his kindness, by accompanying the stranger to the top of the hill, where he gave him the best directions with respect to the road, and bade him an affectionate farewell.

Many years after this, a medical student from the neighbourhood was attending the lectures of the celebrated Dr. B—— of Edinburgh, who one evening intimated a desire to speak with him after the class was dismissed. He accordingly waited, and the doctor opened the conversation by inquiring if he knew an individual of the name of James W——, who lived near the village of Lindores. He was answered in the affirmative.

"Well," said the doctor, "I owe my life to the exertions of that old man and his wife; and I received my first lessons in medical science from them. When I was a student at the College of St. Andrews, I lost my way among the hills, and was nearly smothered among the snow. I at last discovered their cottage, and was kindly admitted. Like all good knights of misventure, I fainted and fell down upon the floor. James and his wife held a consultation over me, and I afterwards came to learn that even here 'doctors differed.' James was an Emperic, and argued from experience, or experiment, that cold water and friction was the best remedy for numbed fingers. Nanny adhered to the Dogmatics, and inferred, from reason and nature, that heat was the best application for driving away cold.

"Thus Epilogism and Dogmatism contended in the mouths of people who had probably never heard of the names of Aristotle and Plato in their lives. But, in my case, both the systems were adopted with advantage. I was resuscitated by the empiric with cold, and recovered by the theorist with heat. And, what is more wonderful still, my kind physicians, unlike all other members of the profession, refused to take any fee. But they are not forgotten. They cast their bread upon the water, and they shall find it again after many days."

We shall only add, that in a short time after this James received an elegant silver-mounted snuff-box, bearing the following inscription:—"From Dr B—— to James W——. 'I was a stranger, and ye took me in.'"

Nanny at the same time received a more useful present; and both rejoiced that they had once possessed an opportunity of being useful to a man whose genius had made him an honour to his country, and an ornament to the profession to which he belonged.

---

THE CROOKED COMYN.

Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, one of the "three Comyns," all earls, who, in the minority of Alexander III., possessed so much power in Scotland as to be able to oppose all the other nobility together, was a very remarkable man. Of low stature, deformed in his person, dark in his complexion, of gigantic strength—he possessed the spirit of a lion with the subtlety of a fox. Neither in the planning nor the executing of a political scheme could any man in Scotland or England cope with him. He made his two brothers, and the thirty-three knights who joined him against the measures of the English regency, his puppets, allowing them no will of their own, but subjugating them entirely to his direction. He could read the human countenance even of a courtier of Henry III. of England as easily as he could do the court hand of the clerks of his time; and, to complete his character, he so falsified the muscles of his face, by mixing up smiles and frowns in such a thorough confusion of activity and change, that no one could tell his thoughts or his feelings.

His wife, the countess, was directly the reverse of her husband. Tall in her person, handsomely formed, with graceful movements and accomplished manners, she was accounted open-hearted, good-humoured, approaching to simplicity, destitute of all guile and deceit. Her countenance wore a continual smile, and was so open and ingenuous, that it might be read like the page of a book. The best proof of her goodness was the kindness she exhibited to the deformed partner of her life. She boasted—and he admitted—that she was the only person who could read him, not from her powers of penetration, but from his yielding relaxation of the deceptive discipline of his face and manners. He often remarked that it was fortunate for him that his Countess Margaret was so much of a child; for he felt and acknowledged that it was only in the presence of children that he considered himself safe in throwing off his disguise, and appearing for a time in his natural character. Such are the effects of ambition.

A legend saith that, on one occasion, the following conversation took place between these dissimilar yet well-mated companions—

"Wert thou not so simple, fair Margaret," said the earl, "I would suspect thou hadst no great affection for him whom King Henry calleth the 'Crooked Comyn.' Men may love me for my subtlety and power, from interest; my brothers because I am their brother, from instinct; and my wolf-dog, Grim, because I join him in the chase. Now, to gratify my humour for frolic on this night when I think I have overturned the power of the English regent, tell me what thou lovest me for, good simpleton; for I cannot doubt that simpletons have their fancies like other folks; and, if thou dost not love me, why hast thou prepared for me, even now on this night of my triumph, that cup of warm milk curdled with sack which thou callest a posset? I asked it not of thee, and love must have suggested it."

"What should I love my Walter for," replied Countess Margaret, "but his noble qualities, placed in a person the defects of which, as he states them, I cannot see? Custom hath made thee straight, and love hath embellished both thy mind and body; but, above all, I love thee because thou lovest me; for it is an old saying in our cottage, that love begets love, and"—patting him playfully on the cheek—"my heart must have been barren indeed, if, after ten years of thy wooing, it produced no more affection than was able to prepare for thee a posset of milk and sack on the evening of the day of thy triumph."

"Thou hast made a good turn of the subject, simpleton," said Comyn. "If I beat my political opponents during the day, thou worstest me at night by thy ingenious pleasantry. Thou conquerest even nature's twists and torsels, for my crooked mind and deformed body become straight under the soft ministration of thy simple manners. I cannot help sometimes thinking that, if it had been thy fate to be wedded to such a fair piece of nature's handiwork as the English baron, John Russel, who banqueted with us yesterday—a thing of red and white pigment—an automaton mannerist, without a mind—every woman's slave, and never his own master—thy simplicity would have lost its power, for, having no foil, it would have merged into the idiocy of thy husband, and you would have become a pair of quarrelsome simpletons."

"And if thou hadst got a wife," answered Countess Margaret, smiling, "as deep and subtle as thyself, the charm thou hast for me—thy mental superiority—would have been lost, for want of a foil; but thou wert too clever to fall into that snare, and didst avoid artful and knowing women, though beautiful, as anxiously as I, if I were still unmarried, would avoid that fair painted Jackalent thou hast mentioned, the English baron, John Russel. Sheep, thou knowest often fight, and get entangled in each other's horns. They are then an easy prey to the wolves. I would not give my 'Crooked Comyn' for all the Russels of England."

"Thy rattle pleaseth me, sweet Margaret," said Comyn. "But how is this? I feel ill. What can ail Comyn on the night of his day of triumph? These pains rack me. So sudden an attack! These are not usual feelings that now assail me."

"Ill in the midst of health!" cried Countess Margaret. "What meaneth this!—where is the complaint? Speak, dear husband! tell thy devoted wife what may enable her to yield thee relief."

"A burning pain wringeth my heart," replied Comyn, with an expression of agony, "and unmanneth a soul that never knew subjugation; that is to me the only symptom of danger. When Comyn trembleth, death cannot be far distant."

"Thou alarmest me, dear husband," cried Countess Margaret; "speak not in such ominous terms of what I could not survive one solitary moon. What can I minister to thee?"

"Water, water from the icy springs of Lapland!" cried the frantic earl; "yet the frozen sea will not quench this burning fire! What availeth now the wiles, the subtlety, the courage of Scotland's proudest earl? I never was master or director of such pains as these. Death! how successfully dost thou earn thy reputation of being the grim king! Water, beloved Margaret, for this miniature hell!"

"It is here, good heart," cried Countess Margaret. "God bless its efficacy!—drink."

"It is as nothing," cried Comyn, after swallowing the contents of the cup. "It is as nothing—these tormina laugh at the puny quencher of fires fiercer than those of Gehenna. I must submit. Thou wilt have no terce from my earldom, wherein I am not yet feudally seised. Alas! shall my innocent be left terceless—a beggar—the dependant of my brothers? 'Sdeath, this is worse than these scorching fires! Call the clerk of St John's—quick."

The countess flow out of the room, and in a short time returned with the clerical lawyer.

"Attend, sir," cried Comyn. "Thou seest one in the hands of death; prepare, with the greatest speed of thy quill, a liferent disposition of my whole earldom in favour of Countess Margaret, my wife. I shall then confess to thee, and thou shalt pray for me."

"The liferent disposition I shall make out," replied the clerk of St John's; "for Comyn's commands must be obeyed. But I, in behalf of the holy brethren of our order, must tell thee, noble earl, that our prayers can be of little avail if they are limited, in point of time, to the period of thy sojourn on earth. Thy mausoleum must be lighted for ten years with wax tapers, a thousand masses must be said for thy soul, and a pilgrimage to the Holy Land must be performed, ere we can hope to bring thee out of purgatory. If thou leavest the liferent of thy earldom to Countess Margaret—the fee going to thy eldest brother as heir—what is to pay the monks of St John for all their labours, in thus endeavouring to free thee from the pains of that temporary place of punishment?"

"No purgatory can equal these pains, man," cried the earl. "Thou shalt have my earldom this instant for one hour's relief from this hell-fire."

"Why, good priest," said the lady, "canst thou thus talk of worldly possessions to one in such agony? While I am thus ministering to the body, it would better become thee to minister to the soul, while it is still in its earthly tabernacle. I, his dear wife, asked for no liferent, and yet thou requirest a mortification."

"It is for his own sake," said the priest, "that I have recommended the provision of the means for saving his soul. We are not bees, to produce wax for tapers; nor birds of paradise, to fly from hence to Jerusalem, and sit on the holy shrine, without being fed as other birds; nor are we canonised saints, requiring no meat nor drink. We must live, or we cannot pray. Wilt thou, madam, give up a half of thy liferent, to aid in the redemption of the soul thou lovest so ardently?"

"Thou hast heard my lord's commands," rejoined the lady. "I cannot allow my mind to be occupied at present with thoughts of that contemptible trash thou callest gold. What is all the earldom of the Comyns to the preservation of the life of my dear husband?—Walter, dear Walter! what can be done for thee?"

"The priest hath already my commands," answered the earl. "The parchment!—the parchment!—and—and—water—water!"

"Hie thee away to thy work, good monk," cried the lady. "There's no time for parley. Away. Thou seest that I deny him not his request."

"Water costeth little," said the priest, with a smile of suspicion, "and availeth little either to assuage these pains or those of purgatory."

The priest retired, and in the course of an hour returned, with the deed extended, and two witnesses at his back. The paper was read. Comyn was still able to sign it. He attached his name, and in a few minutes expired.

Thus died that remarkable man. A dark story now arose in Scotland: Countess Margaret had encouraged a criminal passion for the English baron, John Russel, and was openly accused of having poisoned her husband, by means of a posset of milk and sack, to make way for her paramour, whom she married with indecent haste. Insulted and disgraced, she and her husband were thrown into prison, despoiled of their estate, and compelled to leave the kingdom. It was afterwards rumoured in Scotland that she quarrelled with Russel—who ill-used her, and stood in continual fear of being treated in the same way as Comyn—and, finally, drowned herself in the river Thames.