"Ha, ha!" rejoined her husband, now laughing outright, "you keep up the farce very well, Margaret; but, come, now, let James be produced; for I am impatient to see him. You want to tantalize me a little."
"Or rather it is you that wish to tantalize me, Fergus," replied his wife, good-humouredly; "but do not keep me longer in pain, I beseech you. Go and bring James to me immediately. Do now, I entreat of you."
"Margaret," said M'Lauchlane, now somewhat alarmedly—for the earnest manner of his wife struck him as very strange, and as carrying very little of jocularity in it—"Margaret," he said, gravely, "is this jest or earnest? Is James not with you?—and, if he is not, where is he?"
"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed his wife, in an agony of horror—she in turn having marked the serious manner of her husband—"what is this come over us? O Fergus, Fergus," she said, in dreadful agitation, and flinging her arms around her husband in wild despair, "has not James been with you for these three months past? He left home to come to you then, and I always believed him to be with you. O my God, my God! where is my child? What has come over my boy?" And she gave way to a fearful and uncontrollable paroxysm of grief.
During this scene, her husband sat silent and motionless; but there were dreadful workings going on in his bosom. His face was deadly pale, and his lips quivered with agonizing emotion.
"I have never seen him, Margaret," he at length said, in a slow and solemn tone—"never seen him. What has come over my boy?" And the strong man burst into tears.
We need not prolong our description of the scene of misery which ensued on the appalling discovery being made, as it now was, that the poor boy had never reached his destination. His distracted father instantly set about the apparently hopeless task of ascertaining what had been his fate; but, for some weeks after, all remained as great a mystery as ever; and no exertion or inquiries he could make, led to the slightest elucidation of the fact. At length, however, a clue to the mystery was obtained. It was gradually unwarped, and a train of circumstances finally unfolded the dreadful tale. In disclosing this tale to the reader, however, we have no occasion whatever to go through the tedious and digressive process by which M'Lauchlane ultimately arrived at the history of his unfortunate son's fate. Ours is a much simpler and much easier task. It is merely to place the facts in their order, divested of all extraneous matter; and this will be best done by our retrogressing a little, and resuming the history of the unhappy boy's proceedings after leaving his mother, at the point where we left it.
On the evening of the second day after his departure, the lad arrived at Stirling, and had thus accomplished about half his journey. On reaching this town, where he intended remaining for the night, young M'Lauchlane repaired to a certain public-house, which he knew, by report, to be much frequented by his countrymen, when going to and from the Highlands and the low country. This house was usually crowded with guests; but it happened that it contained but one on the night of his arrival. The solitary stranger was an Irishman, on his way to Edinburgh, as he said, to look for employment. Between young M'Lauchlane and this person—they being the only two guests in the house—a familiar footing was soon established, chiefly through the advances of the latter, who affected a sudden and strong liking for his young companion, whom he insisted on treating with some liquor. In the morning, they breakfasted together, and, immediately after, set out together for Edinburgh—M'Lauchlane delighted with the kindness and rattling off-hand glee of his companion, who seemed, to his unsuspicious and unsophisticated nature, one of the best and merriest fellows he had ever met with. In place, however, of showing an anxiety to prosecute the journey with the expedition natural to those seeking a distant destination, M'Lauchlane's companion seemed bent on living by the way. Every mile, and often within shorter distances, he insisted on his young friend's taking some refreshment with him. He would, in truth, scarcely pass a single public-house on the road; but he paid, in every instance, for the entertainment to which he invited his companion. Two consequences resulted from this manner of proceeding. These were—young M'Lauchlane's getting, for the first time in his life, somewhat intoxicated; and the expiry of the day, before they had completed their journey that comprehended the distance between Stirling and Edinburgh. The shades of evening were thus just beginning to gather, as the travellers reached a small village about six or seven miles from Edinburgh; and it had become pretty dark by the time they had got midway between the two places just named. At this particular locality, young M'Lauchlane and his companion passed a well-dressed, respectable-looking, elderly man, on the road, who was going in the same direction with themselves. On having gone beyond him, about the distance of a hundred yards or so, the Irishman suddenly stopped, and addressing his young friend, said—
"I owe that old rascal that we passed just now, a grudge, and have a good mind to go back and give him a taste of this twig, by way of recompense"—shaking a stout cudgel that he carried in his hand. "Will you lend me a hand?"
Stupefied, or rather, perhaps, distracted with the drink which he had swallowed, the poor, unreflecting boy at once agreed to assist his friend in revenging the injuries of which he complained. What these were, or when, where, or how they had taken place, he never thought of inquiring. It was enough for him that his companion had been injured, and enough also for him was the assertion of the latter that he had been so, and that the old man they had just passed was the inflictor of this injury.