“Deil hae the gout and the cough too! Order the chair; I’ll see if it’s her in five minutes.”
And away, in spite of all objections and remonstrances, went the laird to pay his visit. Now, if any one should doubt of the success of his negotiations, I—the writer of this story—Charles Melville, late major, —th regiment, shall be happy to convince him of it, if he will drop in on me any day at Mowbray Hall, by my own evidence, and also that of my happy and still beautiful Madeline, though she is the mother of three rosy children, who at this moment are making such an intolerable noise that I cannot understand a sentence I am writing. I may just mention, that the laird attended the wedding, and that his cough entirely left him. He does not suffer an attack of the gout more than once a year. He has adopted my second boy, and every autumn we spend three months with him at Strath Lugas. Oh, that all match-makers were as innocent and disinterested as jolly old Simon Kirkton!—Blackwood’s Magazine.
EZRA PEDEN.
By Allan Cunningham.
I sat and watched while all men slept, and lo!
Between the green earth and the deep green sea
I saw bright spirits pass, pure as the touch
Of May’s first finger on the eastern hill.
Behind them followed fast a little cloud;
And from the cloud an evil spirit came—