"Hur peen schulemaister and parish-clerk in Glencleugh for forty year," replied Dugald.
"Parish-clerk!" said Norton, eagerly, and checking himself, continued—"that is—in the church you mean, you raise the tunes?"
"Ou ay, hur nainsel' pe precenter too," answered Dugald; "put hur be schulemaister and parish-clerk into te pargain."
"And what are your duties as parish-clerk?" inquired the other, in a tone of indifference.
"Ou, it pe to keep te pooks wi' te marriages, te christenings, and te deaths. Here pe to your honour's very goot luck again," said he, swallowing another bumper.
Thus the holder of the birch and parish chronicler began to help himself to one glass after another, until the candles began to dance reels and strathspeys before him. At length the angler, expressing a wish to see such a curiosity as the matrimonial and baptismal register of a hamlet so remote, out sallied Dugald, describing curved lines as he went, and shortly returned, bearing the eventful quartos under his arm. Norton looked through them, laughing, jesting, and professing to be amused, and his eye quickly fell upon the page which he sought. Dugald laughed, drank, and talked, until his rough head sank upon his breast, and certain nasal sounds gave notice that the schoolmaster was abroad. In a moment, Norton transferred the leaf which contained the certificate of Lady Blackett's marriage, from the volume to his pocket. His father had ordered him to destroy it; but the son, vicious as the father, determined to keep it, and to hold it over him as an instrument of terror to extort money. The dominie being roused to take one glass more by way of a night-cap, was led home, as usual, by Mrs Macnab's servant-of-all-work, who carried the volumes.
Shortly after this, the marriage between Sir John Blackett and Miss Norton took place; her father rejoiced in the success of his schemes, and Henry was disinherited and disowned.
CHAPTER II.
While the latter events which we have recorded in the last chapter were taking place, Henry Blackett, the rebel soldier, was a fugitive, flying from hiding-place to hiding-place, seeking concealment in the mountains and in the glens, in the forest and crowded city, assuming every disguise, and hunted from covert to covert. A reward was not offered for his apprehension, in particular by government, but he was included amongst those whom loyal subjects were forbidden to conceal; and two emissaries, sent out by Norton, sought him continually, to deliver him up. Ignorant of his father's marriage, or of the villain's part he had acted towards him, though conscious of his anger at his having joined Prince Charles, he was wandering in Dumfries-shire, by the shores of the Solway, disguised as a sailor, and watching an opportunity to return home, when the hunters after his life suddenly sprang upon him, exclaiming—"Ha! Blackett, the traitor!—the five hundred pounds are ours!"