The Darkest Hour before the Dawn.
Many months passed away, during which Andrew Black, clean-shaved, brushed-up, and converted into a very respectable, ordinary-looking artisan, carried on the trade of a turner, in an underground cellar in one of the most populous parts of the Cowgate. Lost in the crowd was his idea of security. And he was not far wrong. His cellar had a way of escape through a back door. Its grated window, under the level of the street, admitted light to his whirling lathe, but, aided by dirt on the glass, it baffled the gaze of the curious.
His evenings were spent in Candlemaker Row, where, seated by the window with his mother, Mrs Wallace, and the two girls, he smoked his pipe and commented on Scotland’s woes while gazing across the tombs at the glow in the western sky. Ramblin’ Peter—no longer a beardless boy, but a fairly well-grown and good-looking youth—was a constant visitor at the Row. Aggie Wilson had taught him the use of his tongue, but Peter was not the man to use it in idle flirtation—nor Aggie the girl to listen if he had done so. They had both seen too much of the stern side of life to condescend on trifling.
Once, by a superhuman effort, and with an alarming flush of the countenance, Peter succeeded in stammering a declaration of his sentiments. Aggie, with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes, accepted the declaration, and the matter was settled; that was all, for the subject had rushed upon both of them, as it were, unexpectedly, and as they were in the public street at the time and the hour was noon, further demonstration might have been awkward.
Thereafter they were understood to be “keeping company.” But they were a grave couple. If an eavesdropper had ventured to listen, sober talk alone would have repaid the sneaking act, and, not unfrequently, reference would have been heard in tones of deepest pathos to dreadful scenes that had occurred on the shores of the Solway, or sorrowful comments on the awful fate of beloved friends who had been banished to “the plantations.”
One day Jean—fair-haired, blue-eyed, pensive Jean—was seated in the cellar with her uncle. She had brought him his daily dinner in a tin can, and he having just finished it, was about to resume his work while the niece rose to depart. Time had transformed Jean from a pretty girl into a beautiful woman, but there was an expression of profound melancholy on her once bright face which never left it now, save when a passing jest called up for an instant a feeble reminiscence of the sweet old smile.
“Noo, Jean, awa’ wi’ ye. I’ll never get thae parritch-sticks feenished if ye sit haverin’ there.”
Something very like the old smile lighted up Jean’s face as she rose, and with a “weel, good-day, uncle,” left the cellar to its busy occupant.
Black was still at work, and the shadows of evening were beginning to throw the inner end of the cellar into gloom, when the door slowly opened and a man entered stealthily. The unusual action, as well as the appearance of the man, caused Black to seize hold of a heavy piece of wood that leaned against his lathe. The thought of being discovered and sent back to Dunnottar, or hanged, had implanted in our friend a salutary amount of caution, though it had not in the slightest degree affected his nerve or his cool promptitude in danger. He had deliberately made up his mind to remain quiet as long as he should be let alone, but if discovered, to escape or die in the attempt.
The intruder was a man of great size and strength, but as he seemed to be alone, Black quietly leaned the piece of wood against the lathe again in a handy position.