George Mordington accompanied his sister's corpse, as chief mourner, to the grave. The friends of his boyhood had forgotten the tale of his folly; but its consequences gnawed with fiercer agony in his heart than when he was first ashamed to behold his own face in a glass because of it. On the following day, it was stated that Marion was not expected to live, and she requested to speak with him before she died. He approached her bedside—she stretched her hand towards him. "Forgive me, George!" she cried. "I knew not that you yet lived. I am the wife of one who has long deserted me; my heart has long been broken, and your appearance has severed the last cord that linked me with existence. But I leave behind me a daughter. When I am gone, there will be no parent to provide for her—no father whose roof will shelter or hand defend her. As you once loved me, protect my poor child!"
"I will! I will!" he exclaimed. "Farewell, Marion!" And he rushed from the house.
She lingered for a few weeks, and he followed her to the grave, as he had done his sister. Yet the remembrance of his early shame still haunted him, and he imagined that every eye in the place of his birth looked on him with derision. He gave his mother's furniture in presents to her neighbours; and, with her and the daughter of Marion, proceeded to London. The widow lived for a few years, and, at her death, he bequeathed upon the daughter of his adoption all that his mother possessed.
"Maiden," he said, "I cannot look upon thy face, but it reminds me of the happiness I have lost, of the misery I have brought on myself and upon others. Child of my Marion, farewell! I leave you, if not rich, above want. Be virtuous, as your mother was." And again crying, "Farewell!" he left her; and George Mordington was no more heard of by any who had known him. But, after the lapse of many years, there appeared in an American newspaper the following paragraph:—
"Died, at Washington, in the seventieth year of his age, George Mordington, Esq., a native of Berwick-upon-Tweed, a patriotic senator, and an upright judge."
A LEGEND OF HOLYROOD.
Once upon a time, when a good story had not ceased to have a beginning in this way, there lived a person called William Glenday, who was a sort of sub-equerry to Mary Queen of Scots; or rather he assumed that title, because it sounded better than "head groom." This man was a widower, and lived with his daughter Mary, a very interesting young maiden, of about twenty years of age, in one of the houses within the precincts of the Abbey set apart for the Queen's household. William was a quaint Scotsman, shrewd and caustic in his remarks, like many of his nation. He was reputed rich, and somewhat addicted to making more than a proper display of his riches; in other words, he was "purse-proud." He was, however, a most loyal subject of the queen, whom he held to be a paragon of beauty. His daughter bore the same name; and it was even whispered that he had sought to trace a likeness between Mary Glenday and Mary Queen of Scots. What will the partiality of a father's love not accomplish?
On the other side of the Abbey strand—that is, on the unprivileged side—there was a house kept as a tavern or ale-house by a person of the name of Peter Connal, very well known in those days as a place of resort for the humble retainers about the palace. Instead of placing a dry picture of a type of his trade over his door, in the shape of stoups or bickers overflowing with his famous beverage, Peter conceived that he would be nearer his purpose of letting the public know the nature of his calling, by showing them the liquor itself, in a real quaigh, and in the act of being swallowed by a real toper; at least Peter gave out as a reason for his sitting on a barrel at his door during a great part of the day, drinking his ale, that he was merely showing the public a good example, and exercising the functions of his calling in such a manner as to fill his purse and his stomach at the same time—a reason which possessed so much of plausibility, that his wife, Janet Wilkinson, was not, by the mere power of logic alone, able to show any fallacy attached to it. Peter had a son named John—a very fine young man, who followed his father's trade, but demurred somewhat as to the propriety of imitating his father, when he should come to succeed him, in making himself a living signboard; a piece of self-willed precocious conceit on the part of the lad which Peter despised.
Nor did Peter Connal stand in any want of individuals to approve of these sentiments. Among others who collected at this door, and took their station on the seat on which he sat, were William Glenday, and an Italian called Giulio Massetto, a servant in the employ of the famous David Rizzio. These three were often seen sitting together at the door of the tavern, drinking Peter's ale, and discussing any point of interest which the strange proceedings of the palace at that time offered to their curiosity. Peter did not approve of the intimacy which existed between Rizzio and the queen; Giulio defended his master; and William stood up for the unfortunate Mary.