I give this story by way of an example of those strange workings in a close society, whereby often great events are discovered from what is termed chance. Such occurrences, however they may startle us, are all explainable by the laws of probabilities. They occur often just in proportion to the increase of ramifications in civilised conditions. More people come into the plot; the increased activity drives the culprits to shifts, and these shifts are perilous from the very circumstance of being forced. We thus find detection often more easy and certain in populous towns, with a good staff of criminal officers, than in quieter places, where both plotters and shifts are proportionally fewer. If nature is always true to her purpose, so art, which is second nature, is equally true to hers, and man is better provided for than he deserves. I do not concern myself with the vulgar subject of punishments, never very agreeable to polite minds, and not at all times useful to those who gloat over descriptions of them. It is enough to say that the law was justly applied. Two got clear off—the mothers of Squint and Four-toes; and I may add that Chirsty Anderson probably afterwards acted up more to her own proverb, that "speech is silvern, but silence is golden."
THE MERCHANT'S DAUGHTER.
On the western skirts of the Torwood—famous in Scottish story for its association with the names of Wallace and Bruce—there stood, in the middle of the sixteenth century, a farm-house of rather superior appearance for the period.
This house was occupied at the time of which we speak by a person of the name of Henderson, who farmed a pretty extensive tract of land in the neighbourhood.
Henderson was a respectable man; and although not affluent, was in tolerably easy circumstances.
The night on which our story opens, which was in the September of the year 1530, was a remarkably wild and stormy one. The ancient oaks of the Torwood were bending and groaning beneath the pressure of the storm; and, ever and anon, large portions of the dark forest were rendered visible, and a wild light thrown into its deepest recesses by the flashing lightning.
The night, too, was pitch-dark; and, to add to its dismal character, a heavy drenching rain, borne on the furious blast, deluged the earth, and beat with violence on all opposing objects.
"A terrible night this, goodwife," said Henderson to his helpmate, as he double-barred the outer door, while she stood behind him with a candle to afford him the necessary light to perform this operation.
"I wish these streamers that have been dancing all night in the north may not bode some ill to poor Scotland. They were seen, I mind, just as they are now, eight nights precisely before that cursed battle of Flodden; and it was well judged by them that some serious disaster was at hand."