"Sir," said Wonderlove, "I could tell you of a strange thing, which I cannot help thinking is somehow connected with his death. I was acquainted with the son of the parish minister. He and his father had occasion to go down to the churchyard, on account of something which had gone wrong with the cattle. A loud scream was heard at the west-end of the church, in a little while followed by another. The son, who hurried forward to see what was the matter, beheld a light streaming from the window of the Elphinstone aisle; and, on looking in, he could perceive a human figure, lying on the central grave-stone, under a white sheet. He stood and gazed till, from below the white sheet, another scream came pealing exactly like the two he had heard before; and then he ran back in terror to his father, and both made the best of their way home. Next morning, Edward Elphinstone was found dead in the neighbouring woods. He had fired his own gun through his head, by means of a string attached to the trigger, and passed round the butt end. Now, sir, what is your opinion as to that?"
"I would say," replied Plainworth, "that it must have been the poor youth stretching himself in life, in the place where he was shortly to lie dead—put down, alas! by his own hand—one of the strange fancies of a mind meditating suicide, and therefore labouring under a degree of frenzied excitement. Had he been conveyed home, the catastrophe might have been prevented."
"An admirable explanation," said the other, "and a true."
"What!" cried Plainworth, "and is Wonderlove so ready to give up such a likely and well-authenticated tale of diablerie? Well, in return for your candour, I assure you that William Elphinstone, the first of the line who seems to have been freed from the dread hereditary doom, really did marry 'a maiden of low degree.' I was his friend, and the confidant of his innocent and honourable love."
"And the thing you mean to tell us of—does it concern him?" asked Wonderlove.
"It does, as you shall hear," replied Plainworth. "After the death of Edward, the second son," continued Plainworth, "there remained of the family of Elphinstone, only the Laird, and William, the youngest son, my particular friend. The health of the laird had been irreparably injured, both by early excesses, and by a fall which he got from his horse while hunting. After this accident, his life was despaired of; and, although he partially recovered, his constitution, owing to an injury in the head, was ruined for ever. A cousin, who would have succeeded to the estates, failing him and his brother, made various abortive attempts to sow dissension between them; which, being ascribed to their true motive, caused the laird to hate him most cordially. To defeat the crooked policy of this bad man, he was anxious to keep William at home; and he endeavoured to effect a marriage between him and an heiress of good family, great fortune, and greater expectations. The lady was favourable—her friends not less so. But William had placed his affections in a lower sphere. He had long loved the only daughter of a Mr Constant, the humble proprietor of about fifty acres of poor land, called Sanditofts. Mary Constant was a young woman who had everything to recommend her, except fortune. William had succeeded in gaining her heart; but, with a noble disinterestedness, she persisted in discouraging his addresses to herself, and did her utmost to prevail on him to gratify his elder brother, by preferring the more advantageous match.
"Of this ground of difference, the first which had existed between the brothers, the wicked cousin endeavoured to make the most. He contrived to have unworthy suspicions of the innocent object of William's love, insinuated into the mind of the laird; and that there might be some foundation for these suspicions, the fiend had insidiously pointed her out to the notice of a Sir Charles Ranger—a man of fashion and profligate manners, who happened at the time to be resident in this part of the country. Observing something peculiar in William's manner one day, I wrung from him the secret cause, which was, that he had been given to understand that Mary was in the habit of receiving, and with encouragement, the attentions of Sir Charles. 'If that should be true,' said he, with a sigh, 'how inconsistent in a creature who, in mind as well as in person, seems to be all perfection!' On my demanding his authority, he stated that his brother had been his first informer, who had got his information from one lady, who had got it from another, and so on; but that he thought he had been able, very nearly, to run up the slander to his cousin, with whom it must have originated."
"'What can be the villain's motive?' cried I, indignantly.
"'Evidently,' said he, 'to give my brother an unfavourable opinion of Mary, that he may be induced to set his face, like flint, against my being united to her in marriage; in which case he may anticipate that such a quarrel might arise between him and me as would admit of no reconciliation; and that, as I might then have to lead the precarious unsettled life of an adventurer, the extinction of the elder branch of the family would become more likely. That may be his policy, for, in my brother's infirm state, I am certainly the chief obstruction to his hope of eventually succeeding to the family inheritance; but why speculate about the motives of such a man? I beat him soundly on the occasion you know of, when he attempted to do me ill offices with my brother.'
"'Beat him, did you?' cried I.