Sir John glanced on them, started, and became pale—they were his death-warrants.
"My deliverer," exclaimed he, "how shall I thank thee—how repay the saviour of my life! My father—my children—thank him for me!"
The old earl grasped the hand of the stranger; the children embraced his knees; and he burst into tears.
"By what name," eagerly inquired Sir John, "shall I thank my deliverer?"
The stranger wept aloud; and raising his beaver, the raven tresses of Grizel Cochrane fell upon the coarse cloak.
"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed the astonished and enraptured father—"my own child!—my saviour!—my own Grizel!"
It is unnecessary to add more—the imagination of the reader can supply the rest; and, we may only add, that Grizel Cochrane, whose heroism and noble affection we have here hurriedly and imperfectly sketched, was, tradition says, the grandmother of the late Sir John Stuart of Allanbank, and great-great-grandmother of Mr Coutts, the celebrated banker.[2]
SQUIRE BEN.
Before introducing my readers to the narrative of Squire Ben, it may be proper to inform them who Squire Ben was. In the year 1816, when the piping times of peace had begun, and our heroes, like Othello, "found their occupation gone," a thickset, bluff, burly-headed little man, whose every word and look reminded you of Incledon's "Cease, rude Boreas," and bespoke him to be one of those who had "sailed with noble Jervis," or,