"I am thy son, father—oh, I am thy son!"
Will could no more; for his heart was full, and his tears dropped hot and heavy on a father's face.
"Yes," replied the parent, after a convulsive solemn sob—(O Heaven! thou art just!)—"yes, thou art indeed my son—my long-denied and ill-used boy—whom the fear of the world's scorn has tempted me, against all the yearnings of my better nature, to use so unjustly. But come to my bosom—to a father's bosom now, for I know that voice too well to distrust thee."
In a few months after this interesting disclosure, John Scott was numbered with his fathers, and Will Scott (no longer Mather) became Laird of Auchincleuch.
Poor Nancy was at first somewhat distressed at this discovery, which put her betrothed in a position to expect a higher or genteeler match. But there was no cause of alarm. Will was true to the back-bone, and would as soon have burned his Bible as have sacrificed his future bride. After much pressing for an early day on the part of the lover, it was agreed, at last, that the marriage should take place at "Peat-casting Time," and that Nancy should, for the last turn, assist at the casting of her mother's peats.
I wish I could stop here, or at least proceed to give you an account of the happy nuptials of Will Scott and Nancy Morrison, the handsomest couple in the parish of Closeburn. But it may not be! These eyes, which are still filled (though it is forty-eight years since) with tears, and this pen, which trembles as I proceed, must attest and record the catastrophe.
Nancy, the beautiful bride, and I (for I was now on the point of leaving school for college) agreed to have a jump for the last time (often had we jumped before) from a suitable moss-brow.
"My frolicsome days will sune be owre," she cried, laughing; "the guidwife of Auchincleuch will hae something else to do than jump frae the moss-brow; and, while my name is Nancy Morrison, I'll hail the dules, or jump wi' the best o' my auld playmates."
"Weel dune, Nancy!" cried I; "you are now to be the wife o' the Laird o' Auchincleuch, when your jumping days will be at an end, and I am soon to be sent to college, where the only jump I may get may be from the top of a pile of old black-letter folios—no half sae guid a point of advantage as the moss-brow."
"There's the Laird o' Auchincleuch coming," cried Peggy Chalmers, one of the peat-casters, who was standing aside along with several others. "He's nae langer the daft Will Mather, wha liked a jump as weel as the blithest swankie o' the barnyard. Siller maks sair changes; and yet, wha wad exchange the Will Scott of Auchincleuch, your rich bridegroom, Nancy, for the Will Mather, your auld lover? Dinna tempt Providence, my hinny! The laird winna like to see his bride jumpin frae knowe to knowe like a daft giglet, within a week o' her marriage."