"This is Mr Wentworth," said Emily.
Mrs Walford took my hand in both hers, and pressed it to her heart, and, with a broken and trembling voice, she exclaimed—
"The blessing of a widowed mother be upon you, sir. You have saved my grey hairs from going down in sorrow to the grave."
I was greatly affected by her warm expressions of gratitude, and by the almost maternal cordiality with which she urged me to accompany them home. This invitation, it may be readily supposed, I was not at all unwilling to avail myself of; and, as none of the party were encumbered with baggage, nothing having been saved from the wreck, we soon left the cottage, carrying with us the good wishes and blessings of its inmates, whom Mrs Walford had most liberally rewarded for their hospitality. Three months afterwards, Emily Stacely became my wife; and, as I said before, sir, I owe the greatest blessing of my life to a storm and its consequences.
The steamboat soon afterwards entered the Mersey; and, when we parted on the quay at Liverpool, it was with mutual regret, and with a promise to renew our acquaintance as soon as possible. I have since had reason, like Mr Wentworth, to bless a "storm and its consequences;" for the next greatest blessing to a good wife is a good friend, and such he has ever proved himself to be, since our "stormy" meeting in the steamboat.
THE HEIR OF INSHANNOCK.
The ill-fated struggle of the partisans of the House of Stuart, in the year 1745, terminated, as our readers know, in the total ruin of almost all who were engaged in that unfortunate rebellion. The scaffold was deluged with the noblest blood in Scotland; and even those who were so fortunate as to escape the axe of the executioner, became penniless wanderers in a foreign land, meeting with little sympathy, and still less relief.
Amongst those who preferred the risk of hanging in their own country, to the certainty of starvation in a foreign one, was Reginald, or, as he was usually called, Ranald Grahame of Inshannock—a gentleman who was distantly connected with the Viscounts of Dundee. His estates were extensive, although his rental was small. He resided in an old building called the Tower of Gloom, which stood on a ridge of a terrific defile overhanging Loch Lomond.
Great rewards were offered for his apprehension by the Duke of Argyle, who entertained towards him a very hostile feeling, not founded in any patriotic desire to put down a rebel, but from an old grudge, either real or imaginary, which the great M'Callum Mor was not disposed to stomach. Hitherto, every effort to capture Reginald had been fruitless; for, secure in the devoted attachment of his tenantry, and the difficulty of an approach to the tower, he laughed at the threats of the chief of the Campbells, although backed by formidable government proclamations. It was to this security that Reginald became a victim. In his earlier years he had been intimate with Donald Campbell of Dungyle, who, although the nominal proprietor of these lands, derived nothing from them, as they were burdened by what is called, in Scottish law-language, a wadset. Now, Donald found it somewhat inconvenient to live upon nothing, or next to it; and he thought it no bad speculation to exchange his nominal estate for a real one, by handing his friend Reginald over to the tender mercies of the ministers of George II.; and, in return, quietly taking his place in the Tower of Gloom.