AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
1885.
CONTENTS.
[The Unknown, (John Mackay Wilson)]
[The Trials Of Menie Dempster, (Alexander Leighton)]
[The Professor's Tales, (Professor Thomas Gillespie)]
[The Natural History Of Idiots]
[The Floshend Inn, (Alexander Campbell)]
[Lottery Hall, (John Mackay Wilson)]
[The Dominie and the Souter, (James Wilson)]
[The Dominie's Courtship]
[The Souter's Wedding]
[Roseallan's Daughter, (Alexander Leighton)]
[The Two Sailors, (Oliver Richardson)]
[The Dream, (Alexander Campbell)]
WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.
THE UNKNOWN.
In the year 1785, a young and beautiful woman, whose dress and features bespoke her to be a native of Spain, was observed a few miles beyond Ponteland, on the road which leads to Rothbury. She appeared faint and weary; dimness was deepening over the lustre of her dark eyes, and their glance bespoke anxious misery. Her raiment was of the finest silk; but time had caused its colour to fade; and it hung around her a tattered robe—an ensign of present poverty and wretchedness, a ruined remnant of prouder days that were past. She walked feebly and slowly along, bearing in her arms an infant boy; and she was observed, at intervals, to sit down, press her pale lips to her child's cheek, and weep. Several peasants, who were returning from their labours in the fields, stood and spoke to her; but she gazed on them with wild looks of despair, and she answered them in a strange language, which they did not understand.