For a smack, let him choke with this metre.
Hip! hip! hip! &c.
This was followed with what Tom emphatically styled a grand crash of melody; that is, overturning the table, and burying in one indiscriminate ruin, bowls, bottles, glasses, and all things brittle.
My heart sickened at the riot, and, broken in spirit and penniless, I retreated to my lodgings.
Here I had at least peace to ruminate over my prostrate fortunes; but as meditation would not mend them, and next morning would assuredly bring the dire intelligence of my aunt’s marriage, I, that same night, made a forced march, anxious to secure a convenient spot for rustication and retirement, till fortune should again smile, or the ferocity of my creditors be somewhat tamed. Poor Tom! I had the savage satisfaction of breaking up his carousal by a few cabalistic words written in a strong half-text hand: “Stole away! Done up.—Fooled and finished.—Run, if you love freedom, and hate stone walls. You will find me earthed in the old hole.”
Next evening I was joined by my luckless shadow. He had a hard run for it; the scent lay strong, and the pack were sure-nosed and keen as razors. But he threw them out from his superior knowledge of localities. After this we both became exceedingly recluse and philosophical in our habits. We had the world to begin anew, and we had each our own very particular reasons for not making a noise about it.—Paisley Magazine.
THE COURT CAVE:
A LEGENDARY TALE OF FIFESHIRE.
By Drummond Bruce.
Chapter I.
A few years before the pride of Scotland had been prostrated by English bows and bills, on the disastrous day of Flodden, the holding of Balmeny, in the county of Fife, was possessed by Walter Colville, then considerably advanced in years. Walter Colville had acquired this small estate by the usual title to possession in the days in which he lived. When a mere stripling, he had followed the latest Earl of Douglas, when the banner of the bloody heart floated defiance to the Royal Stuart. But the wavering conduct of Earl James lost him at Abercorn the bravest of his adherents, and Walter Colville did not disdain to follow the example of the Knight of Cadzow. He was rewarded with the hand of the heiress of Balmeny, then a ward of Colville of East Wemyss. That baron could not of course hesitate to bestow her on one who brought the king’s command to that effect; and in the brief wooing space of a summer day, Walter saw and loved the lands which were to reward his loyal valour, and wooed and wedded the maiden by law appended to the enjoyment of them. The marriage proved fruitful; for six bold sons sprung up in rapid succession around his table, and one “fair May” being added at a considerable interval after, Walter felt, so far as his iron nature could feel, the pure and holy joys of parental love, as his eye lighted on the stalwart frames and glowing aspects of his boys, and on the mild blue eyes and blooming features of the young Edith, who, like a fair pearl set in a carcanet of jaspers, received an added lustre from her singleness. But alas for the stability of human happiness! The truth of the deep-seated belief that the instrument of our prosperity shall also be that of our decay, was mournfully displayed in the house of Walter Colville. By the sword had he cut his way to the station and wealth he now enjoyed; by the sword was his habitation rendered desolate, and his gray hairs whitened even before their time. On the field of Bannockburn—once the scene of a more glorious combat—three of his sons paid with their lives for their adherence to the royal cause. Two more perished with Sir Andrew Wood, when Steven Bull was forced to strike to the “Floure and Yellow Carvell.” The last, regardless of entreaties and commands, followed the fortunes of the “White Rose of York,” when Perkin Warbeck, as history malignantly continues to style the last Plantagenet, carried his fair wife and luckless cause to Ireland; and there young Colville found an untimely fate and bloody grave near Dublin.