CHAPTER II.

About four miles distant from the town in which Mr Aikin lived, there resided an extensive coal-mine proprietor of the name of Davidson; and it so happened that he, too, had a predilection for that particular article of dress, already so often named, viz., top boots; indeed, he was never known to wear anything else in their place. Davidson was an elderly gentleman, harsh and haughty in his manner, and extremely mean in all his dealings—a manner and disposition which made him greatly disliked by the whole country, and especially by his workmen, the miners, of whom he employed upwards of a hundred and fifty. The abhorrence in which Mr Davidson was at all times held by his servants, was at this particular moment greatly increased by an attempt which he was making to reduce his workmen’s wages; and to such a height had their resentment risen against their employer, that some of the more ferocious of them were heard to throw out dark hints of personal violence; and it was much feared by Davidson’s friends—of whom he had, however, but a very few, and these mostly connected with him by motives of interest—that such an occurrence would, in reality, happen one night or other, and that at no great distance of time. Nor was this fear groundless.

Mr Davidson was invited to dine with a neighbouring gentleman. He accepted the invitation, very foolishly, as his family thought; but he did accept it, and went accordingly. It was in the winter time, and the house of his host was about a mile distant from his own residence. Such an opportunity as this of giving their employer a sound drubbing had been long looked for by some half dozen of Mr Davidson’s workmen, and early and correct information on the subject of his dining out enabled them to avail themselves of it. The conspirators, having held a consultation, resolved to waylay Davidson on his return home. With this view they proceeded, after it became dark, in the direction of the house in which their employer was dining. Having gone about half way, they halted, and held another consultation, whereat it was determined that they should conceal themselves in a sunk fence which ran alongside of the road, until the object of their resentment approached, when they should all rush out upon him at once, and belabour him to their hearts’ content. This settled, they all cowered down into the ditch, to await the arrival of their victim. “But how will we ken him i’ the dark?” said Jock Tamson, one of the conspirators, in a low whisper, to his next neighbour; “we may fa’ foul o’ somebody else in a mistak.” The question rather posed Jock’s neighbour, who immediately put it to the person next him, and he again to the next, and on went the important query, until all were in possession of it; but none could answer it. At length, one of more happy device than the rest suggested that Mr Davidson might be recognised by his top boots. The idea pleased all, and was by all considered infallible, for the fame of Mr Aikin’s boots had not yet reached this particular quarter of the country. Satisfied that they had hit upon an unerring mark by which to know their man, the ruffians waited patiently for his approach.

At length, after fully two hours’ watching, the fall of a footstep broke faintly on their ears; it came nearer and nearer, and became every moment more and more distinct. Breathless with the intensity of their feelings, the conspirators, in dead silence, grasped their cudgels with increased energy, and sunk themselves in the ditch until their eyes were on a level with the ground, that they might at once place the approaching object full before them, and between them and the feeble light which lingered in the western sky. In the meantime, the wayfarer approached; two dim whitey objects glimmered indistinctly in the darkness. They were instantly recognized to be Mr Davidson’s top boots; a loud shout followed this feeling of conviction; the colliers rushed from their hiding-place, and in the next instant half a dozen bludgeons whistled round the ears of the unfortunate wayfarer. The sufferer roared lustily for mercy, but he roared in vain. The blows fell thick and fast upon his luckless head and shoulders, for it was necessary that the work should be done quickly; and a few seconds more saw him lying senseless and bleeding in the ditch in which his assailants had concealed themselves. Having satisfied their vengeance, the ruffians now fled, leaving their victim behind them in the condition we have described. Morning came; a man was found in a ditch, speechless, and bleeding profusely from many severe wounds on the head and face. He was dragged out, and, after cleansing his face from the blood and dirt with which it was encrusted, the unfortunate man was recognised to be—Mr Thomas Aikin!

The unlucky boots, and they alone, were the cause of poor Aikin’s mischance. He had, indeed, been mauled by mistake, as the reader will have already anticipated. There was no intention whatever on the part of the colliers to do Mr Aikin any injury, for Mr Aikin, in the whole course of his harmless life, had never done them any; indeed, he was wholly unknown to them, and they to him. It was the top boots, and nothing but the top boots, that did all the mischief. But to go on with our story. Aikin was carried home, and, through the strength of a naturally good constitution and skilful surgical assistance, recovered so far in six weeks as to be able to go about as usual, although he bore to his grave with him on his face the marks of the violence which he had received, besides being disfigured by the loss of some half dozen of his front teeth.

The top boots, which poor Aikin had worn before as articles of dress, and, of course, as a matter of choice, he was now obliged to wear daily from necessity, being, as we have already related, dismissed from his situation in the Excise. One would think that Aikin had now suffered enough for his predilection for top boots, seeing—at least so far as we can see—that there was no great harm in such an apparently inoffensive indulgence; but Mr Aikin’s evil stars, or his top boots themselves, we do not know which, were of a totally different opinion, and on this opinion they forthwith proceeded to act.

Some weeks after the occurrence of the disaster just recorded, the little town of ——, where Aikin resided, was suddenly thrown into a state of the utmost horror and consternation by the report of a foul murder and robbery having been committed on the highway, and within a short distance of the town; and of all the inhabitants who felt horror-struck on this occasion, there was no one more horrified than Mr Thomas Aikin. The report, however, of the murder and robbery was incorrect, in so far as the unfortunate man was still living, although little more, when found in the morning, for the deed had been committed over night. Being a stranger, he was immediately conveyed to the principal inn of the town, put to bed, and medical aid called in. The fiscal, on learning that the man was still in existence, instantly summoned his clerk, and, accompanied by a magistrate, hastened to the dying man’s bedside, to take down whatever particulars could be learnt from him regarding the assault and robbery. After patiently and laboriously connecting the half intelligible and disjointed sentences which they from time to time elicited from him, they made out that he was a cattle-dealer, that he belonged to Edinburgh, that he had been in Glasgow, and that, having missed the evening coach which plies between the former and the latter city, he had taken the road on foot, with the view of accomplishing one stage, and there awaiting the coming up of the next coach. They further elicited from him that he had had a large sum of money upon him, of which, of course, he had been deprived. The fiscal next proceeded to inquire if he could identify the person or persons who attacked him. He mumbled a reply in the negative.

“How many were there of them?” inquired the magistrate. “Were there more than one?”

“Only one,” muttered the unfortunate man.

“Was there any peculiarity in his dress or appearance that struck you?” asked the fiscal.

He mumbled a reply, but none of the bystanders could make it out. The question was again put, and both the magistrate and fiscal stooped down simultaneously to catch the answer. After an interval it came—and what think you it was, good reader? Why, “top boots,” distinctly and unequivocally. The fiscal and magistrate looked at each other for a second, but neither durst venture to hint at the astounding suspicion which the mention of these remarkable objects forced upon them.

“He wore top boots, you say?” again inquired the fiscal, to make sure that he had heard aright.

“Y-e-s, t-o-p b-o-o-ts,” was again the reply.

“Was he a thin man, or a stout man?”

“A stout man.”

“Young or middle-aged?”

“Middle-aged.”

“Tall or short?”

“Short,” groaned out the sufferer, and, with that word, the breath of life departed from him.

This event, of course, put an immediate end to the inquiry. The fiscal and magistrate now retired to consult together regarding what was best to be done, and to consider the deposition of the murdered man. There was a certain pair of top boots present to the minds of both, but the wearer of them had hitherto borne an unblemished character, and was personally known to them both as a kindhearted, inoffensive man. Indeed, up to this hour, they would as soon have believed that the minister of the parish would commit a robbery as Mr Aikin—we say Mr Aikin, for we can no longer conceal the fact, that it was Mr Aikin’s boots, however reluctantly admitted, that flashed upon the minds of the two gentlemen of whom we are now speaking.

“The thing is impossible, incredible of such a man as Mr Aikin,” said the magistrate, in reply to the first open insinuation of the fiscal, although, in saying this, he said what was not in strict accordance with certain vague suspicions which had taken possession of his own mind.

“Why, I should say so too,” replied the officer of the law, “were I to judge by the character which he has hitherto borne; but here,” he said, holding up the deposition of the murdered man, “here are circumstances which we cannot be warranted in overlooking, let them implicate whom they may. There is in especial the top boots,” went on the fiscal; “now, there is not another pair within ten miles of us but Aikin’s; for Mr Davidson, the only man whom I know that wears them besides, is now in London. There is the personal description, too, exact. And besides all this, bailie,” continued the law officer, “you will recollect that Mr Aikin is and has been out of employment for the last six months; and there is no saying what a man who has a large family upon his hands will do in these circumstances.”

The bailie acknowledged the force of his colleague’s observations, but remarked, that, as it was a serious charge, it must be gone cautiously and warily about. “For it wad be,” he said, “rather a hard matter to hang a man upon nae ither evidence than a pair o’ tap boots.”

“Doubtless it would,” replied the fiscal; “but here is,” he said, “a concatenation of circumstances—a chain of evidence, so far as it goes, perfectly entire and connected. But,” he continued, as if to reconcile the bailie to the dangerous suspicion, “an alibi on the part o’ Mr Aikin will set a’ to rights, and blaw the hale charge awa, like peelin’s o’ ingans; and if he be an innocent man, bailie, he can hae nae difficulty in establishing an alibi.”

Not so fast, Mr Fiscal, not so fast, if you please; this alibi was not so easily established, or rather it could not be established at all. Most unfortunately for poor Aikin, it turned out, upon an inquiry which the official authorities thought it necessary to set on foot before proceeding to extremities—that is, before taking any decisive steps against the object of their suspicion—that he had been not only absent from his own house until a late hour of the night on which the murder and robbery were committed, but had actually been at that late hour on the very identical road on which it had taken place. The truth is, that Aikin had been dining with a friend who lived about a mile into the country, and, as it unfortunately happened, in the very direction in which the crime had been perpetrated. Still, could it not have been shown that no unnecessary time had elapsed between the moment of his leaving his friend’s house and his arrival at his own? Such a circumstance would surely have weighed something in his favour. So it would, probably; but alas! even this slender exculpatory incident could not be urged in his behalf; for the poor man, little dreaming of what was to happen, had drunk a tumbler or two more than enough, and had fallen asleep on the road. In short, the fiscal, considering all the circumstances of the case as they now stood, did not think it consistent with his duty either to delay proceedings longer against Aikin, or to maintain any further delicacy with regard to him. A report of the whole affair was made to the sheriff of Glasgow, who immediately ordered a warrant to be made out for the apprehension of Aikin. This instrument was given forthwith into the custody of two criminal officers, who set out directly in a post-chaise to execute their commission.

Arriving in the middle of the night, they found poor Aikin, wholly unconscious of the situation in which he stood, in bed and sound asleep. Having roused the unhappy man, and barely allowed him time to draw on his top boots, they hurried him into the chaise, and in little more than an hour thereafter, Aikin was fairly lodged in Glasgow jail, to stand his trial for murder and robbery, and this mainly, if not wholly, on the strength of his top boots.

The day of trial came. The judge summed up the evidence, and, in an eloquent speech, directed the special attention of the jury to Aikin’s top boots: indeed, on these he dwelt so much, and with such effect, that the jury returned a verdict of guilty against the prisoner at the bar, who accordingly received sentence of death, but was strongly recommended to mercy by the jury, as well on the ground of his previous good character, as on that of certain misgivings regarding the top boots, which a number of the jury could not help entertaining, in despite of their prominence in the evidence which was led against their unfortunate owner.

Aikin’s friends, who could not be persuaded of his guilt, notwithstanding the strong circumstantial proof with which it was apparently established, availing themselves of this recommendation of the jury, immediately set to work to second the humane interference; and Providence in its mercy kindly assisted them. From a communication which the superintendent of police in Glasgow received from the corresponding officer in Edinburgh, about a week after Aikin’s condemnation, it appeared that there were more gentlemen of suspicious character in the world who wore top boots than poor Aikin. The letter alluded to announced the capture of a notorious character—regarding whom information had been received from Bow Street—a “flash cove,” fresh from London, on a foraying expedition in Scotland. The communication described him as being remarkably well dressed, and, in especial, alluded to the circumstance of his wearing top boots; concluding the whole, which was indeed the principal purpose of the letter, by inquiring if there was any charge in Glasgow against such a person as he described. The circumstance, by some fortunate chance, reached the ears of Aikin’s friends, and in the hope that something might be made of it, they employed an eminent lawyer in Edinburgh to sift the matter to the bottom.

In the meantime, the Englishman in the top boots was brought to trial for another highway robbery, found guilty, and sentenced to death without hope of mercy. The lawyer whom Aikin’s friends had employed, thinking this a favourable opportunity for eliciting the truth from him, seeing that he had now nothing more to fear in this world, waited upon the unfortunate man, and, amidst a confession of a long series of crimes, obtained from him that of the murder and robbery for which poor Aikin had been tried and condemned. The consequence of this important discovery was, the immediate liberation of Aikin, who again returned in peace to the bosom of his family. His friends, however, not contented with what they had done, represented the whole circumstances of the case to the Secretary of State for the Home Department; and under the impression that there lay a claim on the country for reparation for the injury, though inadvertent, which its laws had done to an innocent man, the application was replied to in favourable terms in course of post, and in less than three weeks thereafter, Mr Thomas Aikin was appointed to a situation in the custom-house in London, worth two hundred pounds a-year. His steadiness, integrity, and general good conduct, soon procured him still further advancement, and he finally died, after enjoying his appointment for many years, in the annual receipt of more than double the sum which we have just named. And thus ends the eventful history of Mr Thomas Aikin and his Top Boots.—_Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal._

MY FIRST AND LAST PLAY.

BY D. M. MOIR, M.D.

The time of Tammie Bodkin’s apprenticeship being nearly worn through, it behoved me, as a man attentive to business and the interests of my family, to cast my een around me in search of a callant to fill his place, as it is customary in our trade for our young men, when their time is out, taking a year’s journeymanship in Edinburgh to perfect them in the mair intricate branches of the business, and learn the newest manner of the French and London fashions, by cutting claith for the young advocates, the college students, and the rest of the principal tip-top bucks.

Having, though I say it myself, the word of being a canny maister, mair than ane brought their callants to me, on reading the bill of “An Apprentice Wanted” plaistered on my shop window. Offering to bind them for the regular time, yet not wishing to take but ane, I thocht best no to fix in a hurry, and make choice of him that seemed mair exactly cut out for my purpose. In the course of a few weeks three or four cast up, among whom was a laddie of Ben Aits, the mealmonger, and a son of William Burlings, the baker; to say little of Saunders Broom, the sweep, that wad fain hae putten his blackit-looking bit creature with the ae ee under my wing; but I aye lookit to respectability in these matters, so glad was I when I got the offer of Mungo Glen.—But more of this in half a minute.

I must say I was glad of any feasible excuse to make to the sweep, to get quit of him and his laddie,—the father being a drucken ne’er-do-weel, that I wonder didna fa’ lang ere this time of day from some chumley-head, and get his neck broken; so I tell’t him at lang and last, when he came papping into the shop, plaguing me every time he passed, that I had fittit mysel, and that there would be nae need of his taking the trouble to call again. Upon which he gaed his blackit neeve a desperate thump on the counter, making the observe, that out of respect for him I might have given his son the preference. Though I was a wee puzzled for an answer, I said to him, for want of a better, that having a timber leg, he couldna weel crook his hough to the labroad for our trade.

“Hout, tout,” said Saunders, giving his lips a smack—“crook his hough, ye body you! Do ye think his timber leg canna screw off? That’ll no pass.”

I was a wee dumbfoundered at this cleverness; so I said, mair on my guard, “True, true, Saunders; but he’s ower little.”

“Ower little, and be hanged to ye!” cried the disrespectful fellow, wheeling about on his heel, as he graspit the sneck of the shop door, and gaed a grin that showed the only clean pairts of his body—to wit, the whites o’ his een, and his sharp teeth,—“Ower little!—Pu, pu!—He’s like the blackamoor’s pig, then, Maister Wauch,—he’s like the blackamoor’s pig—he may be ver’ little, but he be tam ould;” and with this he showed his back, clapping the door at his tail without wishing a good day; and I am scarcely sorry when I confess that I never cuttit claith for either father or son from that day to this ane, the losing of such a customer being no great matter at best, and amaist clear gain, compared with saddling mysel wi’ a callant with only ae ee and ae leg, the tane having fa’en a victim to the dregs of the measles, and the ither having been harled aff wi’ a farmer’s threshing-mill. However, I got mysel properly suited.—But ye shall hear.

Our neighbour, Mrs Grassie, a widow woman, unco intimate wi’ our wife, and very attentive to Benjie when he had the chincough, had a far-away cousin o’ the name o’ Glen, that haddit out amang the howes of the Lammermoor hills—a distant part of the country, ye observe. Auld Glen, a decent-looking body of a creature, had come in wi’ his sheltie about some private matters of business—such as the buying of a horse, or something to that effect, where he could best fa’ in wi’t, either at our fair, or the Grassmarket, or sic like; so he had up-pitting free of expense from Mrs Grassie, on account of his relationship, Glen being second cousin to Mrs Grassie’s brother’s wife, wha is deceased. I might, indeed, have mentioned, that our neighbour hersel had been twice married, and had the misery of seeing out baith her gudemen; but sic was the will of fate, and she bore up with perfect resignation.

Having made a bit warm dinner ready—for she was a tidy body, and kent what was what—she thought she couldna do better than ask in a reputable neighbour to help her friend to eat it, and take a cheerer wi’ him; as, maybe, being a stranger here, he wouldna like to use the freedom of drinking by himsel—a custom which is at the best an unsocial ane—especially wi’ nane but women-folk near him, so she did me the honour to make choice of me, though I say’t, wha should na say’t; and when we got our jug filled for the second time, and began to grow better acquainted, ye would just wonder to see how we became merry, and crackit away just like twa pen-guns. I asked him, ye see, about sheep and cows, and corn and hay, and ploughing and thrashing, and horses and carts, and fallow land, and lambing-time, and har’st, and making cheese and butter, and selling eggs, and curing the sturdie, and the snifters, and the batts, and sic like; and he, in his turn, made enquiry regarding broad and narrow claith, Kilmarnock cowls, worsted comforters, Shetland hose, mittens, leather caps, stuffing and padding, metal and mule-buttons, thorls, pocket-linings, serge, twist, buckram, shaping, and sewing, back-splaying, rund-gooseing, measuring, and all the ither particulars belanging to our trade, which he said, at lang and last, after we had jokit thegither, was a power better ane than the farming.

“Ye should mak yer son ane, then,” said I, “if ye think sae. Have ye ony bairns?”

“Ye’ve het the nail on the head. ’Od, man, if ye wasna sae far away, I would bind our auldest callant to yersel, I’m sae weel pleased wi’ yer gentlemanly manners. But I’m speaking havers.”

“Havers here or havers there; what,” said I, “is to prevent ye boarding him, at a cheap rate, either wi’ our friend Mrs Grassie, or wi’ the wife? Either of the twa wad be a sort of mother till him.”

“’Deed, I daursay they would,” answered Maister Glen, stroking his chin, which was gey rough, and hadna got a clean sin’ Sunday, having had four days of sheer growth—our meeting, ye’ll observe by this, being on the Thursday afternoon—“’Deed would they. ’Od, I maun speak to the mistress about it.”

On the head of this we had anither jug, three being cannie, after which we were baith a wee tozy-mozy; so I daursay Mrs Grassie saw plainly that we were getting into a state where we wad not easily make a halt; so, without letting on, she brought in the tea things before us, and showed us a play-bill, to tell us that a company of strolling play-actors had come in a body in the morning, with a hale cartful of scenery and grand dresses, and were to make an exhibition at seven o’clock, at the ransom of a shilling a head, in Laird Wheatley’s barn.

Mony a time and often had I heard of play-acting, and of players making themselves kings and queens, and saying a great many wonderful things; but I had never before an opportunity of making mysel a witness to the truth of these hearsays. So Maister Glen being as fu’ o’ nonsense, and as fain to have his curiosity gratified as mysel, we took upon us the stout resolution to gang out thegither, he offering to treat me, and I determined to rin the risk of Maister Wiggie our minister’s rebuke for the transgression, hoping it would make no lasting impression on his mind, being for the first and only time. Folks shouldna at a’ times be ower scrupulous.

After paying our money at the door, never, while I live and breathe, will I forget what we saw and heard that night; it just looks to me, by all the world, when I think on’t, like a fairy dream. The place was crowded to the full; Maister Glen and me having nearly got our ribs dung in before we fand a seat, and them behint were obliged to mount the back benches to get a sight. Right to the forehand of us was a large green curtain, some five or six ells wide, a guid deal the waur of the wear, having seen service through twa three simmers; and, just in the front of it, were eight or ten penny candles stuck in a board fastened to the ground, to let us see the players’ feet like, when they came on the stage,—and even before they came on the stage,—for the curtain being scrimpit in length, we saw legs and feet moving behind the scenes very neatly; while twa blind fiddlers they had brought with them played the bonniest ye ever heard. ’Od, the very music was worth a sixpence of itsel.

The place, as I said before, was choke-full, just to excess, so that one could scarcely breathe. Indeed, I never saw ony part sae crowded, not even at a tent-preaching, when the Rev. Mr Roarer was giving his discourses on the building of Solomon’s Temple. We were obligated to have the windows opened for a mouthful of fresh air, the barn being as close as a baker’s oven, my neighbour and me fanning our red faces wi’ our hats, to keep us cool; and, though all were half stewed, we certainly had the worst o’t,—the toddy we had ta’en having fermented the blood of our bodies into a perfect fever.

Just at the time that the twa blind fiddles were playing “The Downfall of Paris,” a handbell rang, and up goes the green curtain; being hauled to the ceiling, as I observed wi’ the tail of my ee, by a birkie at the side, that had haud of a rope. So, on the music stopping, and all becoming as still as that you might have heard a pin fall, in comes a decent old gentleman at his leisure, weel powthered, wi’ an auld fashioned coat on, waistcoat with flap-pockets, brown breeches with buckles at the knees, and silk stockings with red gushets on a blue ground. I never saw a man in sic distress; he stampit about, dadding the end of his staff on the ground, and imploring all the powers of heaven and yearth to help him to find out his runawa’ daughter, that had decampit wi’ some ne’er-do-weel loon of a half-pay captain, that keppit her in his arms frae her bedroom window, up twa pair o’ stairs. Every father and head of a family maun hae felt for a man in his situation, thus to be rubbit of his dear bairn, and an only daughter too, as he tell’t us ower and ower again, as the saut, saut tears ran gushing down his withered face, and he aye blew his nose on his clean calendered pocket napkin. But, ye ken, the thing was absurd to suppose that we should ken onything about the matter, having never seen either him or his daughter between the een afore, and no kenning them by headmark; so though we sympathised with him, as folks ought to do wi’ a fellow-creature in affliction, we thought it best to haud our tongues, to see what might cast up better than he expected. So out he gaed stumping at the ither side, determined, he said, to find them out, though he should follow them to the world’s end, Johnny Groat’s House, or something to that effect.

Hardly was his back turned, and amaist before ye could cry Jack Robinson, in comes the birkie and the very young leddy the auld gentleman described, arm-in-arm thegither, smoodging and lauching like daft. Dog on it! it was a shameless piece of business. As true as death, before all the crowd of folk, he pat his arm round her waist, and ca’ed her his sweatheart, and love, and dearie, and darling, and everything that is sweet. If they had been courting in a close thegither on a Friday night, they couldna hae said mair to ane anither, or gaen greater lengths. I thought sic shame to be an ee-witness to sic ongoings, that I was obliged at last to haud up my hat afore my face, and look down; though, for a’ that, the young lad, to be sic a blackguard as his conduct showed, was weel enough faured, and had a gude coat to his back, wi’ double-gilt buttons, and fashionable lapells, to say little of a very weel-made pair of buckskins, a little the waur o’ the wear to be sure, but which, if they had been weel cleaned, would hae lookit amaist as gude as new. How they had come we never could learn, as we neither saw chaise nor gig; but, from his having spurs on his boots, it is mair than likely they had lightit at the back-door of the barn frae a horse, she riding on a pad behint him, maybe with her hand round his waist.

The faither lookit to be a rich auld bool, baith from his manner of speaking and the rewards he seemed to offer for the apprehension of his daughter; but, to be sure, when so many of us were present, that had an equal right to the spulzie, it wadna be a great deal a thousand pounds when divided, still it was worth the looking after; so we just bidit a wee.

Things were brought to a bearing, howsomever, sooner than either themsels, I daursay, or anybody else present, seemed to hae the least glimpse of; for, just in the middle of their fine goings-on, the sound of a coming fit was heard, and the lassie taking guilt to her, cried out, “Hide me, hide me, for the sake of gudeness, for yonder comes my auld faither!”

Nae sooner said than done. In he stappit her into a closet; and after shutting the door on her, he sat down upon a chair, pretending to be asleep in a moment. The auld faither came bouncing in, and seeing the fellow as sound as a tap, he ran forrit and gaed him sic a shake, as if he wad hae shooken him a’ sundry, which sune made him open his een as fast as he had steekit them.

After blackguarding the chield at no allowance, cursing him up hill and down dale, and ca’ing him every name but a gentleman, he held his staff ower his crown, and gripping him by the cuff o’ the neck, askit him what he had made o’ his daughter. Never since I was born did I ever see sic brazen-faced impudence. The rascal had the brass to say at ance, that he hadna seen word or wittens of his daughter for a month, though mair than a hundred folks sitting in his company had seen him dauting her with his arm round her jimpy waist not five minutes before. As a man, as a father, as an elder of our kirk, my corruption was raised,—for I aye hated leeing, as a puir cowardly sin, and an inbreak on the ten commandments; and I found my neebour, Mr Glen, fidgeting on the seat as well as me, so I thocht that whaever spoke first wad hae the best right to be entitled to the reward; whereupon, just as he was in the act of rising up, I took the word out of his mouth, saying, “Dinna believe him, auld gentleman—dinna believe him, friend; he’s telling a parcel of lees. Never saw her for a month! It’s no worth arguing, or ca’ing witnesses; just open that press door, and ye’ll see whether I’m speaking truth or no.”

The auld man stared, and lookit dumfoundered; and the young man, instead of rinnin’ forrit wi’ his doubled nieves to strike me—the only thing I was feared for—began a lauching, as if I had dune him a gude turn. But never since I had a being, did ever I witness sic an uproar and noise as immediately took place. The hale house was sae glad that the scoundrel had been exposed, that they set up siccan a roar o’ lauchter, and they thumpit away at siccan a rate at the boards wi’ their feet, that at lang and last, wi’ pushing and fidgeting, clapping their hands, and hadding their sides, down fell the place they ca’ the gallery, a’ the folk in’t being hurled tapsy-turvy, head foremost amang the sawdust on the floor below; their guffawing sune being turned to howling, ilka ane crying louder than anither at the tap of their voices, “Murder! Murder! haud aff me. Murder, my ribs are in. Murder! I’m killed—I’m speechless!” and ither lamentations to that effect; so that a rush to the door took place, in which everything was overturned—the doorkeeper being wheeled away like wildfire; the furms strampit to pieces; the lights knockit out; and the twa blind fiddlers dung head foremost ower the stage, the bass fiddle cracking like thunder at every bruise. Siccan tearing and swearing, and tumbling and squealing, was never witnessed in the memory of man, since the building of Babel; legs being likely to be broken, sides staved in, een knocked out, and lives lost; there being only one door, and that a sma’ ane; so that, when we had been carried aff our feet that length, my wind was fairly gane, and a sick dwalm cam ower me, lights of a’ manner of colours, red, blue, green, and orange, dancing before me, that entirely deprived me o’ my common sense, till on opening my een in the dark, I fand myself leaning wi’ my braid side against the wa’ on the opposite side of the close. It was some time before I mindit what had happened; so, dreading scaith, I fand first the ae arm, and then the ither, to see if they were broken—syne my head—and syne baith o’ my legs; but a’ as weel as I could discover was skin-hale and scart-free; on perceiving which, my joy was without bounds, having a great notion that I had been killed on the spot. So I reached round my hand very thankfully to tak out my pocket napkin, to gie my brow a wipe, when, lo and behold, the tail of my Sunday’s coat was fairly aff an’ away—dockit by the hench buttons.

Sae muckle for plays and play-actors—the first and last, I trust in grace, that I shall ever see. But indeed I could expect nae better, after the warning that Maister Wiggie had mair than ance gien us frae the puppit on the subject; sae, instead of getting my grand reward for finding the auld man’s daughter, the hale covey o’ them, nae better than a set of swindlers, took legbail, and made that very night a moonlight flitting, and Johnny Hammer, honest man, that had wrought frae sunrise to sunset, for twa days, fitting up their place by contract, instead of being well paid for his trouble, as he deserved, got naething left him but a rackle of his own gude deals, a’ dung to shivers.

JANE MALCOLM: _A VILLAGE TALE_.

Every town in Scotland has its “character,” in the shape of some bedlamite, innocent, or odd fish. There is something interesting about these out-of-the-way beings. Everything they do is a kind of current chapter of biography among their neighbours;—what they say is regarded as the words of an oracle—more worthy of memory than the inquiries of the laird or the advice of the parson. They are in a manner immortalised.

Having, in the course of different summers, taken up a short residence in some of the smaller borough towns and villages scattered through Scotland, I took no small delight in observing the peculiarities of many of those objects of compassion, and in tracing the source of that dismal malady which laid prostrate the edifice of reason, and arrested the harmonious mechanism of an organized mind. The task was sometimes of a melancholy nature: I found histories—real histories—turning upon incidents the most tragical, and only wonder they are so little known, and meet with such slender sympathy. The crisis of a well-written romance brings out more tears than were ever shed for the fall of man; but never have I read of anything so pathetic as was developed in the following sketch—a sketch which the pen of a Scott could do little to adorn. The naked truth of the story is a series of catastrophes, a parallel to which imagination seldom produces. It was told me by a sister of the unfortunate female who figures so conspicuously in it.

Jane Malcolm was the daughter of a lint-mill proprietor in the small town of K——n. Her father, being a wealthy man, held for a long time the provostship of the place—a Scottish burgh. His family consisted of two daughters and a son. Jane was the youngest of these, and her father’s favourite. There was something about the girl extremely attractive; she possessed all the advantages of personal beauty, combined with a gentleness of disposition and quickness of understanding, that wrought upon the affections of all she knew. At the manse she was peculiarly beloved; the good old minister recognised in her the image of one he had lost; the illusion strengthened as she grew up, and Jane Malcolm was as much an inmate there as she was in the house of her father. A few years saw her removed to Edinburgh, to finish an education imperfectly carried on under the superintendence of a village governess. She returned graceful and accomplished, to be looked up to by all her former companions. But Jane was not proud;—her early friendships she disdained to supplant by a feeling so unworthy—so unlike herself. Her over-bending nature, indeed, was her fault: it brought the vulgar and undiscerning mind into too much familiarity with her own. It became the cause of all her misery.

Among those most intimate with her was one Margaret Innes, a young and lively girl, but far below Jane’s rank in life. The daughter of an aged fisherman, it was not uncommon for Jane to find her employed in offices the most menial. For all this she loved her not the less. The affection and humble virtues of Margaret amply repaid Jane for her condescension. Mr Malcolm himself saw no harm in this growing friendship, marked, as it was, with such a strong disparity of situation. But he overlooked the circumstance that Margaret Innes had a brother, a handsome, fearless lad. A sailor by profession, it is true he was seldom at home, but though seldom, he was often enough for Jane to discover that his every return brought with it a stronger impression in his favour. When very young they were play-fellows together, and now when both were grown up, she could not refuse a smile or a word, whenever, after a long voyage, the light-hearted sailor returned to his native home. Sandy felt vain of her notice, but by no means attempted more familiarity than was consistent with his station. Without daring to love, he would have done anything to serve Miss Malcolm, and his readiness was not unfrequently put to the test.

Nothing Jane loved better than a short excursion upon the neighbouring sea. The boat of the old fisherman was often in request for this purpose, and he himself, accompanied by his daughter Margaret, made up the party on these occasions. When Sandy was at home, he supplied the place of his father, and his active and skilful hand directed many a pleasant voyage—made more pleasant by a fund of amusing anecdotes and adventures picked up in the course of his travels. One afternoon, on the day after his return from the coast of Norway, this little group had embarked to enjoy the delightful freshness of the sea-breeze, after a noon of intolerable heat. Standing up to gaze at a flock of sea-birds, collected for the purpose of devouring the small fry of the herring which at that season visited the coast, Jane Malcolm accidentally fell into the water. The boat receded rapidly from the spot, its sail being filled by the wind. Immediately, however, Sandy Innes swam towards the terrified girl. She clung to him for support. It was no easy matter to reach the boat, carried along as it was by the breeze, and not till Margaret had recovered from her first alarm, was she able, by turning the helm, to give them the required assistance. They were soon safe. This adventure called forth the liveliest feelings of gratitude on the part of Jane Malcolm. She regarded the youthful sailor as her preserver, and thought no recompense too liberal for the service he had rendered. Imprudently she revealed to his sister the secret of her growing attachment. Margaret was too generous all at once to give her brother the advantage offered. She reasoned with Jane on the impropriety—the unsuitableness of such a union as was hinted at; and, to render it impracticable for the present, she induced Sandy to engage with a ship bound for North America. Accordingly, he again left the country.

Miss Malcolm was not to be deterred. She upbraided Margaret for her want of feeling; and, in short, took it so much to heart, that the poor girl, on Sandy’s return, was, out of self-defence, obliged to communicate to him the tidings she willingly would have hid. To be brief, they were married without Mr Malcolm’s consent. This was a blow the old man never got over; he died a few days after the ceremony. His only son had just returned from England, a lieutenant in the army; alas! it was to lay in the grave the remains of a heart-broken father. Enraged at the cause of this melancholy blow, he vowed revenge against the innocent intruder into his domestic peace. The feelings of his unhappy sister he thought no sacrifice to win retaliation; the step she had already taken showed them, in his eye, to be blunted and incapable of injury. To have challenged one so much his inferior never entered into his mind; he brooded over a purpose more dark and sanguinary, though less consistent with his honour. His design was to have the husband of his sister murdered, and he appears to have formed it without a moment’s hesitation. Professing regard for his new brother-in-law, he pretended to be reconciled to the unfortunate marriage, and even divided with him and his other sister the patrimony of the deceased. This show of friendship had the effect of producing a seeming intimacy between them. Many a time they went out for a few hours upon fishing excursions, without any discovery being made by Sandy Innes of the growing hostility harboured by young Malcolm. One evening, however—the latter having, by various excuses, delayed their return to shore till after sunset—as the boat was lying quietly at anchor, about a mile from harbour, the unsuspecting sailor leant over to recover an oar which Malcolm had purposely dropped, when he found himself suddenly precipitated into the sea. In attempting to regain the vessel, he was driven back, and violently struck with the boat-hook, which his villanous brother-in-law had seized, with the intent to put the finish to his murderous treachery. In this, however, he was disappointed. Sandy Innes, with strong presence of mind, caught hold of the instrument, managing, at the same time, to overset the boat, and thus involve Malcolm in the same fate with himself. Both had a hard struggle for life; but alas! without success. Next morning the bodies of the two young men were discovered lying upon the beach. They were carried into Jane’s habitation without her knowledge—the unfortunate girl having gone out to a different part of the shore in quest of the boat, which, she fancied, had, by the wish of her brother, harboured all night at Inchkeith. When she returned, the first object that met her eyes was the body of her own dear husband—a cold corpse, with the long black hair hanging down over his once noble brow, and the dark eyes wide open, as if fixed in death upon her and heaven. A few days afterwards the young men were buried, side by side,—for a fearful story was whispered of Malcolm’s guilt: how he was seen by the crew of a boat that had landed, without notice, upon a neighbouring rock, at the moment he attempted the atrocious deed. Their assistance, though instantly offered, was too late, for both had gone down ere they reached the spot.

After that sad catastrophe Jane was never herself. A fever carried away her intellects, and left her mind in ruins. Though possessed of a competency, it has never been used. The same weeds, though now reduced to rags, still cover her in her long and sorrowful widowhood. The last time I saw her, I saw a fearful picture—a beautiful female altered to a revolting spectacle of squalidness and deformity. She was gathering the shell-fish from among the brown layers of tangle, beyond the farthest ebb of the tide. Now and then she broke the shells with her teeth, muttering,—“We shall find him here—we shall find him here;” and then she threw the shells round about her, with a sad sigh, as if her heart were longing to break, but felt chained up in a lone and weary prison. As I passed, I called to her—“Jane, this is a cold day, and you seem at cold work.” “Ay! ay!” she replied, “and so are the worms! But did ye see him? Bonny Sandy! If ye be gaun to the town, tell Meg Innes to come; for he’s a wild laddie, and maybe she’ll ken whaur he’s hidden himsel!” Poor creature, thought I, she will find rest in the grave!—_Edin. Lit. Jour._

BOWED JOSEPH: _A LAST-CENTURY EDINBURGH “CHARACTER.”_

BY ROBERT CHAMBERS, LL.D.

The mobs of Edinburgh have ever been celebrated as among the fiercest in Europe. The one which accomplished the death of Porteous, as narrated in the tale of the Heart of Midlothian, was a most surprising instance of popular vengeance, almost surpassing the bounds of belief; though it must sink considerably in our admiration, when we reflect upon the power and ferocity which at all periods have characterised the actions of this monstrous and danger-fraught collective. The time has been, when, in the words of the old song, “all Edinburgh” would “rise by thousands three,” and present such a strength to the legal authorities, that all opposition to their capricious will would be in vain. In the younger days of many now living, even the boys of the High School, and of Heriot’s Hospital, could erect themselves into a formidable body, equally resistless and indomitable. It is a fact, ludicrous enough too, that when the lads of these different schools were engaged in any of those squabbles, formerly so frequent and fatal, between them, they always showed a singular degree of political sagacity when assailed by the town-guard, in immediately joining their strengths, and combining against the common foe, when for the most part they succeeded in driving them from the scene of action. When such was the power of boys and striplings in this ill-protected city, and such the disorderliness of holiday assemblies, there is little left for wonder at the ravages committed by a mob formed of adults, actuated by violent feelings of jealousy, bigotry, and revenge.

Of this uncontrollable omnipotence of the populace, the annals of Edinburgh present many fearful records. At the various periods of the Reformation and the Revolution, the Chapel of Roslin was destroyed by a mob, whose purpose neither cooled nor evaporated during a walk of eight miles. James the Sixth was besieged and threatened in his courts, and in the midst of his Parliaments, by a rabble of mechanics, who, but for the stout walls of the Tolbooth, might perhaps have taken his life. The fine chapel of Holyrood-house was pillaged of not only its furniture and other valuables, but also of the still more sacred bones which lay within its precincts, by a mob which rose at the Revolution, and did such deeds of violence and rapine as fanaticism and ignorance alone could have excited. At the unfortunate issue of the Dover expedition, at the execution of Captain Green, at the Union, and at many other events of less importance, the populace of Edinburgh distinguished themselves by insurrection and acts of outrage, such as have alone found parallels, perhaps, in the various transactions of the French Revolution. Even so late as 1812, there happened a foray of a most appalling nature; the sports of an occasion of rejoicing were converted into scenes of frightful riot, unexampled as they were unlooked for. The fatal melancholy catastrophe of this event, had, however, the good effect of quenching the spirit of licentiousness and blackguardism in the Edinburgh youth, and finally undermined that system of unity and promptitude in action and in council by which its mobs had so often triumphed in their terrible resolutions.

In this fierce democracy, there once arose a mighty leader, who contrived, by means of great boldness, sagacity, and other personal merits, to subject the rabble to his will, and to elect himself dictator of all its motives and exploits. The person who thus found means to collect all the monstrous heads of the hydra within the grand grasp of his command was a little decrepit being, about four feet high, almost deprived of legs, and otherwise deformed. His name was Joseph Smith, or more commonly, “Bowed Joseph.” He lived in Leith Wynd, and his trade as a private citizen was a buff belt maker. This singular being—low, miserable, and contemptible as he appeared—might be said to have had at one time the complete command of the metropolis of Scotland. Whenever any transaction took place in the Town Council which Joseph considered to be of very improper tendency; whenever meal rose to whatever Joseph considered to be an improper price; whenever anything occurred in the city which did not accord with Joseph’s idea of right and wrong; in short, “when they werna gude bairns,” this hero could, in the course of an hour, collect a mob of ten thousand persons, all alike ready to execute his commands, or to disperse at his bidding. For this purpose, he is said to have employed a drum; and never surely had “fiery cross” of the Highland chieftain such an effect upon the warlike devotion of his clan, as “Bowed Joseph’s drum” had upon the _tinder_ spirits of the Edinburgh rabble.

The “lazy corner” was a lazy corner no longer as he marched along—the “town rats,” as they peeped forth like old cautious snails from their Patmos in the High Street, drew in their horns and shut their door as he approached—the West Bow ceased to clink as he descended. It seemed to be their enthusiasm to obey him in every order—whether to sack a granary, break the windows of an offensive magistrate, or to besiege the Town Council in their chamber. With all this absolute dominion over the affections and obedience of the mob, it is to be recorded to the honour of Bowed Joseph, that however irregular the nature of his authority, he never in any of his actions could be said to have transgressed the bounds of propriety. With great natural sagacity, he possessed a clear and quick-sighted faculty of judgment. And the real philanthropy of his disposition was not less remarkable than his other singular qualities. He was, in short, an advocate for “fair play,” as he called it, in everything. Fair play alone was the object of his government, and nothing else.

The following interesting story is handed down concerning Bowed Joseph, which proves his strong love of justice, as well as the humanity of his heart. A poor man in the Pleasance, from certain untoward circumstances, found it impossible to pay his rent at Martinmas; and his hard-hearted landlord, refusing a portion of the same with a forlorn promise of the remainder being soon paid, sold off the whole effects of the tenant, and threw him, with a family of six children, in the most miserable condition upon the wide world. The unfortunate man, in a fit of despair, immediately put an end to his existence, by which the family were only rendered still more destitute. Bowed Joseph, however, did not long remain ignorant of the case. As soon as the affair became generally known throughout the city, he shouldered his drum, and after half-an-hour’s beating through the streets, found himself followed by a mob of ten thousand people. With this enormous army he marched to an open space of ground, named in former times Thomson’s Park, where, mounted on the shoulders of six of his lieutenant-generals, he harangued them in the true “Cambyses vein,” concerning the flagrant and fatal proceedings for the redress of which they were assembled. He concluded by directing his men to seek the premises of the cruel landlord; and as his house lay directly opposite the spot in the Pleasance, there was no time lost in executing his orders. The mob entered, and seized upon every article of furniture that could be found, and in ten minutes the whole was packed in the park. Joseph set fire to the pile with his own hands, though the magistrates stood by with a guard of soldiers, and entreated him to desist. The eight-day clock is said to have struck twelve just as it was consigned to the flames.

When such was the strength and organisation of an Edinburgh mob so late as the year 1780, we need scarcely be surprised at the instance on which the tale of the Heart of Midlothian is founded, happening, as it did, at a much earlier period, and when the people were prompted to their terrible purpose by the sternest feelings of personal revenge.

In the exercise of his perilous office, it does not appear that Bowed Joseph ever drew down the vengeance of the more lawfully constituted authorities of the land. He was, on the contrary, in some degree countenanced by the magistrates of the city, who frequently sent for him to the Council Chamber, in cases of emergency, to consult him on the best means to be adopted for appeasing and dispersing the mob.

On an occasion of this moment, he was accustomed to look very large and consequential. With one hand carelessly applied to his side, and the other banged resolutely down upon the table, and with as much majesty as four feet of stature, and a beard of as many weeks old, could assume, and with as much turbulence in his fiery little eye, as if he was himself a mob, he would stand before them pleading the cause of his compeers, or directing the trembling Council to the most expeditious method of assuaging their fury. The dismissal of a mob, on these occasions, was usually accomplished at the expense of a few hogsheads of ale, broached on the Calton Hill, and by the subsequent order of their decrepit general, expressed in the simple words, “Disperse, my lads.”

Having for many years exercised an unlimited dominion over the affections of the rabble, Bowed Joseph met his death at last in a manner most unworthy of his character and great reputation. He fell from the top of a Leith coach in a state of intoxication, and broke his neck, which caused instantaneous death. He had been at the Leith races, and was on his return to Edinburgh when the accident took place; and his skeleton has the honour of being preserved in the anatomical class-room of the College of Edinburgh.

An Edinburgh mob, although it may supply excellent subjects for tales, in all its characteristic fierceness and insubordination, is now a matter of mere antiquity. In the present day, the working classes of Edinburgh, from whom it may be supposed the principal materials of the mobs used to be drafted, are in the highest degree orderly, both in private conduct, and in their public appearances in bodies. The printing press, the schoolmaster, and that general improvement of manners which now prevails, have entirely altered the character of the populace, and any mischief now committed through the public uproar is seen to arise not from the adult, but the juvenile and neglected portion of the community.

THE LAIRD OF WINEHOLM.

BY JAMES HOGG, THE “ETTRICK SHEPHERD.”

“Have you heard anything of the apparition which has been seen about Wineholm-place?” said the dominie.

“Na, I never heard o’ sic a thing, as yet,” quoth the smith; “but I wadna wonder muckle that the news should turn out to be true.”

The dominie shook his head, and muttered, “h’m—h’m—h’m,” as if he knew more than he was at liberty to tell.

“Weel, that beats the world,” said the smith, as he gave up blowing the bellows, and looked over the spectacles at the dominie’s face.

The dominie shook his head again.

The smith was now in the most ticklish quandary; eager to learn particulars, and spread the astounding news through the whole village, and the rest of the parish to boot, but yet afraid to press the inquiry, for fear the cautious dominie should take the alarm of being reported as a tattler, and keep all to himself. So the smith, after waiting till the windpipe of the great bellows ceased its rushing noise, and he had covered the gloss neatly up with a mixture of small coals, culm, and cinders; and then, perceiving that nothing more was forthcoming from the dominie, he began blowing again with more energy than before—changed his hand—put the other sooty one into his breeches-pocket—leaned to the horn—looked in a careless manner towards the window, or rather gazed on vacancy, and always now and then stole a sly look at the dominie’s face. It was quite immovable. His cheek was leaned upon his open hand, and his eyes fixed on the glowing fire.

It was very teasing for poor Clinkum, the smith. But what could he do? He took out his glowing iron, and made a shower of fire sweep through the whole smithy, whereof a good part, as intended, sputtered upon the dominie, but he only shielded his face with his elbow, turned his shoulder half round and held his peace. Thump—thump! clink—clink! went the hammer for a space; and then, when the iron was returned to the fire, “Weel, that beats the world!” quoth the smith.

“What is this that beats the world, Mr Clinkum?” said the dominie, with the most cool and provoking indifference.

“This story about the apparition,” quoth the smith.

“What story?” said the dominie.

Now, really this insolence was hardly to be borne, even from the learned dominie, who, with all his cold indifference of feeling, was sitting toasting himself at a good smithy fire. The smith felt this, for he was a man of acute feeling, and therefore he spit upon his hand and fell a-clinking and pelting at the stithy with both spirit and resignation, saying within himself, “These dominie bodies just beat the world!”

“What story?” reiterated the dominie. “For my part I related no story, nor have ever given assent to a belief in such story that any man has heard. Nevertheless, from the results of ratiocination, conclusions may be formed, though not algebraically, yet corporately by constituting a quantity, which shall be equivalent to the difference, subtracting the less from the greater, and striking a balance in order to get rid of any ambiguity or paradox.”

At the long adverb, _nevertheless_, the smith gave over blowing, and pricked up his ears, but the definition went beyond his comprehension.

“Ye ken that just beats the whole world for deepness,” said the smith, and again began blowing the bellows.

“You know, Mr Clinkum,” continued the dominie, “that a proposition is an assertion of some distinct truth, which only becomes manifest by demonstration. A corollary is an obvious, or easily inferred consequence _of_ a proposition; while a hypothesis is a _sup_position, or concession made, during the process of demonstration. Now, do you take me along with you? Because, if you do not, it is needless to proceed.”

“Yes, yes, I understand you middling weel; but I wad like better to hear what other folks say about it than you.”

“And why so? Wherefore would you rather hear another man’s demonstration than mine?” said the dominie, sternly.

“Because, ye ken, ye just beat the world for words,” quoth the smith.

“Ay, ay! that is to say, words without wisdom,” said the dominie, rising and stepping away. “Well, well, every man to his sphere, and the smith to his bellows.”

“Ye’re quite wrang, maister,” cried the smith after him. “It isna the _want_ o’ wisdom in you that plagues me; it is the owerplush o’t.”

This soothed the dominie, who returned, and said mildly,—

“By-the-by, Clinkum, I want a leister of your making, for I see no other tradesman makes them so well. A five-grained one make it; at your own price.”

“Very weel, sir. When will you be needing it?”

“Not till the end of the close time.”

“Ay, ye may gar the three auld anes do till then.”

“What do you wish to insinuate, sir? Would you infer, because I have three leisters, that therefore I am a breaker of the laws? That I, who am placed here as a pattern and monitor of the young and rising generation, should be the first to set them an example of insubordination?”

“Ye ken, that just beats a’ in words; but we ken what we ken, for a’ that, maister.”

“You had better take a little care what you say, Mr Clinkum; just a _little_ care. I do not request you to take particular care, for of that your tongue is incapable, but a very little is a correlative of consequences. And mark you—don’t go to say that I said this or that about a ghost, or mentioned such a ridiculous story.”

“The crabbitness o’ that body beats the world!” said the smith to himself, as the dominie went halting homeward.

The very next man who entered the smithy door was no other than John Broadcast, the new laird’s hind, who had also been hind to the late laird for many years, and who had no sooner said his errand, than the smith addressed him thus:—

“Have _you_ ever seen this ghost that there is such a noise about?”

“Ghost? Na, goodness be thankit! I never saw a ghost in my life, save ance a wraith. What ghost do you mean?”

“So you never saw nor heard tell of any apparition about Wineholm-place, lately?”

“No, I hae reason to be thankfu’ I have not.”

“Weel, that beats the world! Wow, man, but ye are sair in the dark! Do you no think there are siccan things in nature, as folk no coming fairly to their ends, John?”

“Goodness be wi’ us! Ye gar a’ the hairs o’ my head creep, man. What’s that you’re saying?”

“Had ye never ony suspicions o’ that kind, John?”

“No; I canna say that I had.”

“None in the least? Weel, that beats the world!”

“O, haud your tongue—haud your tongue! We hae great reason to be thankfu’ that we are as we are!”

“How as you are?”

“That we are nae stocks or stanes, or brute beasts, as the minister o’ Traquair says. But I hope in God there is nae siccan a thing about my master’s place as an unearthly visitor.”

The smith shook his head, and uttered a long hem! hem! hem! He had felt the powerful effect of that himself, and wished to make the same appeal to the feelings and longings after information of John Broadcast. The bait took; for the latent spark of superstition was kindled in the heart of honest John, and there being no wit in the head to counteract it, the portentous hint had its full sway. John’s eyes stelled in his head, and his visage grew long, assuming meanwhile something of the hue of dried clay in winter.

“Hech, man! but that’s an awsome story,” exclaimed he. “Folks hae great reason to be thankfu’ that they are as they are. It is truly an awsome story.”

“Ye ken, it just beats the world for that,” rejoined the smith.

“And is it really thought that this laird made away wi’ our auld maister?” said John.

The smith shook his head again, and gave a straight wink with his eyes.

“Weel, I hae great reason to be thankfu’ that I never heard siccan a story as that!” said John. “Wha was it tauld you a’ about it?”

“It was nae less a man than our mathewmatical dominie,” said the smith, “he that kens a’ things, and can prove a proposition to the nineteenth part of a hair. But he is terrified lest the tale should spread; and therefore ye maunna say a word about it.”

“Na, na; I hae great reason to be thankfu’ I can keep a secret as weel as the maist part of men, and better than the maist part of women. What did he say? Tell us a’ that he said.”

“It is not so easy to repeat what he says, for he has sae mony lang-nebbit words. But he said, though it was only a supposition, yet it was easily made manifest by positive demonstration.”

“Did you ever hear the like o’ that? Now, have we no reason to be thankfu’ that we are as we are? Did he say it was by poison that he was taken off, or that he was strangled?”

“Na; I thought he said it was by a collar, or collary, or something to that purpose.”

“Then it wad appear there is no doubt of the horrid transaction? I think the doctor has reason to be thankfu’ that he’s no taken up. Is no that strange?”

“O, ye ken, it just beats the world.”

“He deserves to be torn at young horses’ tails,” said the ploughman.

“Ay, or nippit to death with red-hot pinchers,” quoth the smith.

“Or harrowed to death, like the children of Ammon,” said the ploughman.

“Na, I’ll tell you what should be done wi’ him—he should just be docked, and fired like a farcied horse,” quoth the smith. “’Od help ye, man, I could beat the world for laying on a proper punishment!”

John Broadcast went home full of terror and dismay. He told his wife the story in a secret—she told the dairymaid with a tenfold degree of secrecy; and as Dr Davington, or the New Laird, as he was called, sometimes kissed the pretty dairymaid for amusement, it gave her a great deal of freedom with her master, so she went straight and told him the whole story to his face. He was unusually affected at hearing such a terrible accusation against himself, and changed colour again and again; and as pretty Martha, the dairymaid, supposed it was from anger, she fell to abusing the dominie without mercy—for he was session-clerk, and had been giving her some hints about her morality of which she did not approve. She therefore threw the whole blame upon him, assuring her master that he was the most spiteful and malicious man on the face of the earth; “and to show you that, sir”, added Martha, wiping her eyes, “he has spread it through the hale parish that you and I baith deserve to sit wi’ the sacking-gown on us.”

This enraged the doctor still farther, and he forthwith dispatched Martha to desire the dominie to come up to the Place to speak with her master, as he had something to say to him. Martha went, and delivered her message in so insulting a manner, that the dominie suspected there was bad blood a-brewing against him; and as he had too much self-importance to think of succumbing to any man alive, he sent an impertinent answer to the laird’s message, bearing that if Dr Davington had any business with him, he would be so good as attend at his class-room when he dismissed his scholars. And then he added, waving his hand towards the door, “Go out. There is contamination in your presence. What hath such a vulgar fraction ado to come into the halls of uprightness and science?”

When this message was delivered, the doctor, being almost beside himself with rage, instantly dispatched two village constables with a warrant to seize the dominie, and bring him before him, for the doctor was a justice of the peace. Accordingly, the poor dominie was seized at the head of his pupils, and dragged away, crutch and all, up before the new laird, to answer for such an abominable slander. The dominie denied everything anent it, as indeed he might, save having asked the smith the simple question, “if he had heard aught of a ghost at the Place?” But he refused to tell _why_ he had asked that question. He had his own reasons for it, he said, and reasons that to him were quite sufficient; but as he was not obliged to disclose them, neither would he.

The smith was then sent for, who declared that the dominie had told him of the ghost being seen, and a murder committed, which he called a _rash assassination_, and said it was obvious and easily inferred that it was done by a collar.

How the dominie did storm! He even twice threatened to knock down the smith with his crutch; not for the slander,—he cared not for that nor the doctor a pin, but for the total subversion of his grand illustration from geometry; and he, therefore, denominated the smith’s head _the logarithm to number one_, a reproach of which I do not understand the gist, but the appropriation of it pleased the dominie exceedingly, made him chuckle, and put him in better humour for a good while. It was in vain that he tried to prove that his words applied only to the definition of a problem in geometry,—he could not make himself understood; and the smith maintaining his point firmly, and apparently with conscientious truth, appearances were greatly against the dominie, and the doctor pronounced him a malevolent and dangerous person.

“O, ye ken, he just beats the world for that,” quoth the smith.

“I a malevolent and dangerous person, sir!” said the dominie, fiercely, and altering his crutch from one place to another of the floor, as if he could not get a place to set it on. “Dost thou call me a malevolent and dangerous person, sir? what, then, art thou? If thou knowest not, I will tell thee. Add a cipher to a ninth figure, and what does that make? Ninety you will say. Ay, but then put a cipher _above_ a nine, and what does that make? Ha—ha—ha—I have you there! Your case exactly in higher geometry! For say the chord of sixty degrees is radius, then the sine of ninety degrees is equal to the radius, so the secant of 0 (that is nihil-nothing, as the boys call it), is radius, and so is the co-sine of 0. The versed sine of ninety degrees is radius (that is nine with a cipher added, you know), and the versed sine of 180 degrees is the diameter; then, of course, the sine increases from nought (that is, cipher or nothing) till it becomes radius, and then it decreases till it becomes nothing. After this you note it lies on the _contrary_ side of the diameter, and consequently, if positive before, is negative now; so that it must end in 0, or a cipher above a nine at most.”

“This unintelligible jargon is out of place here, Mr Dominie; and if you can show no better reasons for raising such an abominable falsehood, in representing me as an incendiary and murderer, I shall procure you a lodging in the house of correction.”

“Why, sir, the long and the short of the matter is this:—I only asked at that fellow there—that logarithm of stupidity—if he had heard aught of a ghost having been seen about Wineholm Place. I added nothing farther, either positive or negative. Now, do you insist on my reasons for asking such a question?”

“I insist on having them.”

“Then what will you say, sir, when I inform you, and declare my readiness to depone to the truth of it, that I saw the ghost myself? Yes, sir, that I saw the ghost of your late worthy father-in-law myself, sir; and though I said no such thing to that decimal fraction, yet it told me, sir,—yes, the spirit of your father-in-law told me, sir, that you are a murderer.”

“Lord, now, what think ye o’ that?” quoth the smith. “Ye had better hae letten him alane; for, ’od, ye ken, he’s the deevil of a body as ever was made. He just beats the world!”

The doctor grew as pale as death, but whether from fear or rage, it was hard to say.

“Why, sir,” said he, “you are mad! stark, raving mad; therefore, for your own credit, and for the peace and comfort of my wife and myself, and our credit among our retainers, you must unsay every word that you have now said.”

“I’ll just as soon say that the parabola and the ellipsis are the same,” said the dominie; “or that the diameter is not the longest line that can be drawn in the circle. And now, sir, since you have forced me to divulge what I was much in doubt about, I have a great mind to have the old laird’s grave opened to-night, and have the body inspected before witnesses.”

“If you dare disturb the sanctuary of the grave,” said the doctor vehemently, “or with your unhallowed hands touch the remains of my venerable and revered predecessor, it had been better for you, and all who make the attempt, that you never had been born. If not then for my sake, for the sake of my wife, the sole daughter of the man to whom you have all been obliged, let this abominable and malicious calumny go no farther, but put it down; I pray of you to put it down, as you would value your own advantage.”

“I have seen him, and spoke with him—that I aver,” said the dominie. “And shall I tell you what he said to me?”

“No, no! I’ll hear no more of such absolute and disgusting nonsense,” said the doctor.

“Then, since it hath come to this, I will declare it in the face of the whole world, and pursue it to the last,” said the dominie, “ridiculous as it is, and I confess that it is even so. I have seen your father-in-law within the last twenty-four hours; at least a being in his form and habiliments, and having his aspect and voice. And he told me that he believed you were a very great scoundrel, and that you had helped him off the stage of time in a great haste, for fear of the operation of a will, which he had just executed, very much to your prejudice. I was somewhat aghast, but ventured to remark, that he must surely have been sensible whether you murdered him or not, and in what way. He replied that he was not very certain, for at the time you put him down, he was much in his customary way of nights—very drunk; but that he greatly suspected you had hanged him, for ever since he had died, he had been troubled with a severe crick in his neck. Having seen my late worthy patron’s body deposited in the coffin, and afterwards consigned to the grave, these things overcame me, and a kind of mist came over my senses; but I heard him saying as he withdrew, what a pity it was that my nerves could not stand this disclosure! Now, for my own satisfaction, I am resolved that, to-morrow, I shall raise the village, with the two ministers at the head of the multitude, and have the body, and particularly the neck of the deceased, minutely inspected.”

“If you do so, I shall make one of the number,” said the doctor. “But I am resolved that, in the first place, every means shall be tried to prevent a scene of madness and absurdity so disgraceful to a well-regulated village and a sober community.”

“There is but one direct line that can be followed, and any other would either form an acute or obtuse angle,” said the dominie; “therefore I am resolved to proceed right forward, on mathematical principles;” and away he went, skipping on his crutch, to arouse the villagers to the scrutiny.

The smith remained behind, concerting with the doctor how to controvert the dominie’s profound scheme of unshrouding the dead; and certainly the smith’s plan, viewed professionally, was not amiss—

“O, ye ken, sir, we maun just gie him another heat, and try to saften him to reason, for he’s just as stubborn as Muirkirk airn. He beats the world for that.”

While the two were in confabulation, Johnston, the old house servant, came in, and said to the doctor—

“Sir, your servants are going to leave the house, every one, this night, if you cannot fall on some means to divert them from it. The old laird is, it seems, risen again, and come back among them, and they are all in the utmost consternation. Indeed, they are quite out of their reason. He appeared in the stable to Broadcast, who has been these two hours dead with terror, but is now recovered, and telling such a tale downstairs as never was heard from the mouth of man.”

“Send him up here,” said the doctor. “I will silence him. What does the ignorant clown mean by joining in this unnatural clamour?”

John came up, with his broad bonnet in his hand, shut the door with hesitation, and then felt thrice with his hand if it was really shut.

“Well, John,” said the doctor, “what absurd lie is this that you are vending among your fellow-servants, of having seen a ghost?”

John picked some odds and ends of threads out of his bonnet, and said nothing.

“You are an old superstitious dreaming dotard,” continued the doctor; “but if you propose in future to manufacture such stories, you must, from this instant, do it somewhere else than in my service, and among my domestics. What have you to say for yourself?”

“Indeed, sir, I hae naething to say but this, that we hae a’ muckle reason to be thankfu’ that we are as we are.”

“And whereon does that wise saw bear? What relation has that to the seeing of a ghost? Confess then, this instant, that you have forged and vended a deliberate lie.”

“Indeed, sir, I hae muckle reason to be thankfu’—”

“For what?”

“That I never tauld a deliberate lie in my life. My late master came and spoke to me in the stable; but whether it was his ghaist or himself—a good angel or a bad ane—I hae reason to be thankfu’ I never said; for I _do—not—ken_.”

“Now, pray let us hear from that sage tongue of yours, so full of sublime adages, what this doubtful being said to you?”

“I wad rather be excused, an’ it were your honour’s will, and wad hae reason to be thankfu’.”

“And why should you decline telling this?”

“Because I ken ye wadna believe a word o’t, it is siccan a strange story. O, sirs, but folks hae muckle reason to be thankful that they are as they are!”

“Well, out with this strange story of yours. I do not promise to credit it, but shall give it a patient hearing, providing you swear that there is no forgery in it.”

“Weel, as I was suppering the horses the night, I was dressing my late kind master’s favourite mare, and I was just thinking to mysel, an’ he had been leeving, I wadna hae been my lane the night, for he wad hae been standing ower me, cracking his jokes, and swearing at me in his good-natured hamely way. Ay, but he’s gane to his lang account, thinks I, and we puir frail dying creatures that are left ahint, hae muckle reason to be thankfu’ that we are as we are; when I looks up, and behold there’s my auld master standing leaning against the trivage as he used to do, and looking at me. I canna but say my heart was a little astoundit, and maybe lap up through my midriff into my breath-bellows—I couldna say; but in the strength o’ the Lord I was enabled to retain my senses for a good while. ‘John Broadcast,’ said he, with a deep angry tone,—‘John Broadcast, what the d—l are you thinking about? You are not currying that mare half. What lubberly way of dressing a horse is that?’

“‘Lord make us thankfu’, master,’ says I; ‘are you there?’

“‘Where else would you have me be at this hour of the night, old blockhead?’ says he.

“‘In another hame than this, master,’ says I; ‘but I fear it is nae good ane, that ye are sae soon tired o’t.’

“‘A d—d bad one, I assure you,’ says he.

“‘Ay, but master,’ says I, ‘ye hae muckle reason to be thankfu’ that ye are as ye are.’

“‘In what respect, dotard?’ says he.

“‘That ye hae liberty to come out o’t a start now and then to get the air,’ says I; and oh, my heart was sair for him when I thought o’ his state! And though I was thankfu’ that I was as I was, my heart and flesh began to fail me, at thinking of my speaking face to face wi’ a being frae the unhappy place. But out he breaks again wi’ a great round o’ swearing, about the mare being ill-keepit; and he ordered me to cast my coat and curry her weel, for he had a lang journey to take on her the morn.

“‘You take a journey on her!’ says I; ‘I doubt my new master will dispute that privilege wi’ you, for he rides her himsel the morn.’

“‘He ride her!’ cried the angry spirit; and then he burst out into a lang string of imprecations, fearsome to hear, against you, sir; and then added, ‘Soon, soon, shall he be levelled with the dust!—the dog! the parricide! First to betray my child, and then to put down myself! But he shall not escape—he shall not escape!’ he cried with such a hellish growl that I fainted, and heard no more.”

“Weel, that beats the world,” exclaimed the smith. “I wad hae thought the mare wad hae luppen ower yird and stane, or fa’en down dead wi’ fright.”

“Na, na,” said John, “in place o’ that, whenever she heard him fa’ a swearing, she was sae glad that she fell a nichering.”

“Na, but that beats the hale world a’ thegither!” quoth the smith. “Then it has been nae ghaist ava, ye may depend on that.”

“I little wat what it was,” replied John, “but it was a being in nae gude or happy state o’ mind, and is a warning to us how muckle reason we hae to be thankfu’ that we are as we are.”

The doctor pretended to laugh at the absurdity of John’s narration, but it was with a ghastly and doubtful expression of countenance, as though he thought the story far too ridiculous for any clodpoll to have contrived out of his own head; and forthwith he dismissed the two dealers in the marvellous, with very little ceremony, the one protesting that the thing beat the world, and the other that they had both reason to be thankful that they were as they were.

Next morning the villagers, small and great, were assembled at an early hour to witness the lifting of the body of the late laird, and, headed by the established and dissenting clergymen, and two surgeons, they proceeded to the tomb, and soon extracted the splendid coffin, which they opened with all due caution and ceremony. But instead of the murdered body of their late benefactor, which they expected in good earnest to find, there was nothing in the coffin but a layer of gravel, of about the weight of a corpulent man.

The clamour against the new laird then rose all at once into a tumult that it was impossible to check, every one declaring that he had not only murdered their benefactor, but, for fear of discovery, had raised the body, and given, or rather sold it, for dissection. The thing was not to be tolerated; so the mob proceeded in a body to Wineholm Place, to take out their poor deluded lady, and burn the doctor and his basely acquired habitation to ashes. It was not till the multitude had surrounded the house that the ministers and two or three other gentlemen could stay them, which they only did by assuring the mob that they would bring out the doctor before their eyes, and deliver him up to justice. This pacified the throng; but on inquiry at the hall, it was found that the doctor had gone off early that morning, so that nothing further could be done for the present. But the coffin, filled with gravel, was laid up in the aisle, and kept open for inspection.

Nothing could now exceed the consternation of the simple villagers of Wineholm at these dark and mysterious events. Business, labour, and employment of every sort, were at a stand, and the people hurried about to one another’s houses, and mingled their conjectures together in one heterogeneous mass. The smith put his hand to his bellows, but forgot to blow till the fire went out; the weaver leaned on his loom, and listened to the legend of the ghastly tailor. The team stood in mid-furrow, and the thrasher agape over his flail; and even the dominie was heard to declare that the geometrical series of events was increasing by no _common_ ratio, and therefore ought to be calculated rather arithmetically than by logarithms; and John Broadcast saw more and more reason for being thankfu’ that he was as he was, and neither a stock, nor a stone, nor a brute beast.

Every new thing that happened was more extraordinary than the last; and the most puzzling of all was the circumstance of the late laird’s mare, saddle, bridle, and all, being off before daylight next morning; so that Dr Davington was obliged to have recourse to his own, on which he was seen posting away on the road towards Edinburgh. It was thus but too obvious that the late laird had ridden off on his favourite mare,—but whither, none of the sages of Wineholm could divine. But their souls grew chill as an iceberg, and their very frames rigid, at the thought of a spirit riding away on a brute beast to the place appointed for wicked men. And had not John Broadcast reason to be thankfu’ that he was as he was?

However, the outcry of the community became so outrageous of murder and foul play, in so many ways, that the officers of justice were compelled to take note of it; and accordingly the sheriff-substitute, the sheriff-clerk, the fiscal, and two assistants, came in two chaises to Wineholm to take a precognition; and there a court was held which lasted the whole day, at which Mrs Davington, the late laird’s only daughter, all the servants, and a great number of the villagers, were examined on oath. It appeared from the evidence that Dr Davington had come to the village and set up as a surgeon; that he had used every endeavour to be employed in the laird’s family in vain, as the latter detested him; that he, however, found means of inducing his only daughter to elope with him, which put the laird quite beside himself, and from thenceforward he became drowned in dissipation; that such, however, was his affection for his daughter, that he caused her to live with him, but would never suffer the doctor to enter his door; that it was, nevertheless, quite customary for the doctor to be sent for to his lady’s chamber, particularly when her father was in his cups; and that on a certain night, when the laird had had company, and was so overcome that he could not rise from his chair, he had died suddenly of apoplexy; and that no other skill was sent for, or near him, but this his detested son-in-law, whom he had by will disinherited, though the legal term for rendering that will competent had not expired. The body was coffined the second day after death, and locked up in a low room in one of the wings of the building; and nothing farther could be elicited. The doctor was missing, and it was whispered that he had absconded; indeed it was evident, and the sheriff acknowledged that, according to the evidence taken, the matter had a very suspicious aspect, although there was no direct proof against the doctor. It was proved that he had attempted to bleed the patient, but had not succeeded, and that at that time the old laird was black in the face.

When it began to wear nigh night, and nothing further could be learned, the sheriff-clerk, a quiet considerate gentleman, asked why they had not examined the wright who had made the coffin, and also placed the body in it. The thing had not been thought of; but he was found in court, and instantly put into the witness-box, and examined on oath. His name was James Sanderson, a little, stout-made, shrewd-looking man, with a very peculiar squint. He was examined thus by the procurator-fiscal:—

“Were you long acquainted with the late Laird of Wineholm, James?”

“Yes, ever since I left my apprenticeship; for, I suppose, about nineteen years.”

“Was he very much given to drinking of late?”

“I could not say; he took his glass geyan heartily.”

“Did you ever drink with him.”

“O yes, mony a time.”

“You must have seen him very drunk, then? Did you ever see him so drunk, for instance, that he could not rise?”

“Never; for long afore that, I could not have kenned whether he was sitting or standing.”

“Were you present at the corpse-chesting?”

“Yes, I was.”

“And were you certain the body was then deposited in the coffin?”

“Yes; quite certain.”

“Did you screw down the coffin lid firmly then, as you do others of the same make?”

“No, I did not.”

“What were your reasons for that?”

“They were no reasons of mine; I did what I was ordered. There were private reasons, which I then wist not of. But, gentlemen, there are some things connected with this affair, which I am bound in honour not to reveal. I hope you will not compel me to divulge them at present.”

“You are bound by a solemn oath, James, the highest of all obligations; and, for the sake of justice, you must tell everything you know; and it would be better if you would just tell your tale straightforward, without the interruption of question and answer.”

“Well, then, since it must be so:—That day, at the chesting, the doctor took me aside and said to me, ‘James Sanderson, it will be necessary that something be put into the coffin to prevent any unpleasant odour before the funeral; for owing to the corpulence, and the inflamed state of the body by apoplexy, there will be great danger of this.’

“‘Very well, sir,’ says I; ‘what shall I bring?’

“‘You had better only screw down the lid lightly at present, then,’ said he; ‘and if you could bring a bucketful of quicklime a little while hence, and pour it over the body, especially over the face, it is a very good thing, an excellent thing, for preventing any deleterious effluvia from escaping.’

“‘Very well, sir,’ said I; and so I followed his directions. I procured the lime; and as I was to come privately in the evening to deposit it in the coffin, in company with the doctor alone, I was putting off the time in my workshop, polishing some trifle, and thinking to myself that I could not find in my heart to choke up my old friend with quicklime, even after he was dead, when, to my unspeakable horror, who should enter my workshop but the identical laird himself, dressed in his dead-clothes in the very same manner in which I had seen him laid in the coffin, but apparently all streaming in blood to the feet. I fell back over against a cart-wheel, and was going to call out, but could not; and as he stood straight in the door, there was no means of escape. At length the apparition spoke to me in a hoarse trembling voice, and it said to me, ‘Jamie Sanderson! O, Jamie Sanderson! I have been forced to appear to you in a d—d frightful guise!’ These were the very first words it spoke, and they were far from being a lie; but I halfflins thought to mysel that a being in such circumstances might have spoken with a little more caution and decency. I could make no answer, for my tongue refused all attempts at articulation, and my lips would not come together; and all that I could do was to lie back against my new cart-wheel, and hold up my hands as a kind of defence. The ghastly and blood-stained apparition, advancing a step or two, held up both its hands, flying with dead ruffles, and cried to me in a still more frightful voice, ‘Oh, my faithful old friend, I have been murdered! I am a murdered man, Jamie Sanderson! And if you do not assist me in bringing upon the wretch due retribution, dire will be your punishment in the other world.’

“This is sheer raving, James,” said the sheriff, interrupting him. “These words can be nothing but the ravings of a disturbed and heated imagination. I entreat you to recollect that you have appealed to the Great Judge of heaven and earth for the truth of what you assert here, and to answer accordingly.”

“I know what I am saying, my Lord Sheriff,” said Sanderson; “and I am telling naething but the plain truth, as nearly as my state of mind at the time permits me to recollect. The appalling figure approached still nearer and nearer to me, breathing threatenings if I would not rise and fly to his assistance, and swearing like a sergeant of dragoons at both the doctor and myself. At length it came so close to me that I had no other shift but to hold up both feet and hands to shield me, as I had seen herons do when knocked down by a goshawk, and I cried out; but even my voice failed, so that I only cried like one through his sleep.”

“‘What the d—l are you lying gaping and braying at there?’ said he, seizing me by the wrist and dragging me after him. ‘Do you not see the plight I am in, and why won’t you fly to succour me?’

“I now felt, to my great relief, that this terrific apparition was a being of flesh, blood, and bones like myself;—that, in short, it was indeed my kind old friend the laird popped out of his open coffin, and come over to pay me an evening visit, but certainly in such a guise as earthly visit was never paid. I soon gathered up my scattered senses, took my old friend into my room, bathed him all over, and washed him well with lukewarm water; then put him into a warm bed, gave him a glass or two of hot punch, and he came round amazingly. He caused me to survey his neck a hundred times, I am sure; and I had no doubt he had been strangled, for there was a purple ring round it, which in some places was black, and a little swollen; his voice creaked like a door-hinge, and his features were still distorted. He swore terribly at both the doctor and myself; but nothing put him half so mad as the idea of the quicklime being poured over him, and particularly over his face. I am mistaken if that experiment does not serve him for a theme of execration as long as he lives.”

“So he is alive, then, you say?” asked the fiscal.

“O yes, sir, alive, and tolerably well, considering. We two have had several bottles together in my quiet room; for I have still kept him concealed, to see what the doctor would do next. He is in terror for him, somehow, until sixty days be over from some date that he talks of, and seems assured that the dog will have his life by hook or crook, unless he can bring him to the gallows betimes, and he is absent on that business to-day. One night lately, when fully half seas over, he set off to the schoolhouse, and frightened the dominie; and last night he went up to the stable, and gave old Broadcast a hearing for not keeping his mare well enough.

“It appears that some shaking motion in the coffining of the laird had brought him back to himself, after bleeding abundantly both at mouth and nose; that he was on his feet ere he knew how he had been disposed of, and was quite shocked at seeing the open coffin on the bed, and himself dressed in his grave-clothes, and all in one bath of blood. He flew to the door, but it was locked outside; he rapped furiously for something to drink, but the room was far removed from any inhabited part of the house, and none regarded; so he had nothing for it but to open the window, and come through the garden and the back lane leading to my workshop. And as I had got orders to bring a bucketful of quicklime, I went over in the forenight with a bucketful of heavy gravel, as much as I could carry, and a little white lime sprinkled on the top of it; and being let in by the doctor, I deposited it in the coffin, screwed down the lid, and left it. The funeral followed in due course, the whole of which the laird viewed from my window, and gave the doctor a hearty day’s cursing for daring to support his head and lay it in the grave. And this, gentlemen, is the substance of what I know concerning this enormous deed, which is, I think, quite sufficient. The laird bound me to secrecy until such time as he could bring matters to a proper bearing for securing the doctor; but as you have forced it from me, you must stand my surety, and answer the charges against me.”

The laird arrived that night with proper authority, and a number of officers, to have the doctor, his son-in-law, taken into custody; but the bird had flown; and from that day forth he was never seen, so as to be recognised, in Scotland. The laird lived many years after that; and though the thoughts of the quicklime made him drink a great deal, yet from that time he never suffered himself to get _quite_ drunk, lest some one might take it into his head to hang him, and he not know anything about it. The dominie acknowledged that it was as impracticable to calculate what might happen in human affairs as to square the circle, which could only be effected by knowing the ratio of the circumference to the radius. For shoeing horses, vending news, and awarding proper punishments, the smith to this day just beats the world. And old John Broadcast is as thankfu’ to heaven as ever that things are as they are.

AN INCIDENT IN THE GREAT MORAY FLOODS OF 1829.

BY SIR THOMAS DICK LAUDER.

The flood, both in the Spey and its tributary burn, was terrible at the village of Charlestown of Aberlour. On the 3d of August, Charles Cruickshanks, the innkeeper, had a party of friends in his house. There was no inebriety, but there was a fiddle; and what Scotsman is he who does not know that the well-jerked strains of a lively strathspey have a potent spell in them that goes beyond even the witchery of the bowl? On one who daily inhales the breezes from the musical stream that gives name to the measure, the influence is powerful, and it was that day felt by Cruickshanks with a more than ordinary degree of excitement. He was joyous to a pitch that made his wife grave. Mrs Cruickshanks was deeply affected by her husband’s jollity. “Surely my goodman is daft the day,” said she gravely; “I ne’er saw him dance at sic a rate. Lord grant that he binna _fey_!”[12]

Footnote 12:

“‘I think,’ said the old gardener to one of the maids, ‘the gauger’s _fie_’—by which word the common people express those violent spirits, which they think a presage of death.”—_Guy Mannering._

When the river began to rise rapidly in the evening, Cruickshanks, who had a quantity of wood lying near the mouth of the burn, asked two of his neighbours to go and assist him in dragging it out of the water. They readily complied, and Cruickshanks getting on the loose raft of wood, they followed him, and did what they could in pushing and hauling the pieces of timber ashore, till the stream increased so much, that, with one voice, they declared they would stay no longer, and, making a desperate effort, they plunged over-head, and reached the land with the greatest difficulty. They then tried all their eloquence to persuade Cruickshanks to come away, but he was a bold and experienced floater, and laughed at their fears; nay, so utterly reckless was he, that having now diminished the crazy ill-put-together raft he stood on, till it consisted of a few spars only, he employed himself in trying to catch at and save some haycocks belonging to the clergyman, which were floating past him. But while his attention was so engaged, the flood was rapidly increasing, till, at last, even his dauntless heart became appalled at its magnitude and fury. “A horse! a horse!” he loudly and anxiously exclaimed; “run for one of the minister’s horses, and ride in with a rope, else I must go with the stream.” He was quickly obeyed, but ere a horse arrived, the flood had rendered it impossible to approach him.

Seeing that he must abandon all hope of help in that way, Cruickshanks was now seen as if summoning up all his resolution and presence of mind to make the perilous attempt of dashing through the raging current, with his frail and imperfect raft. Grasping more firmly the iron-shod pole he held in his hand—called in floater’s language a _sting_—he pushed resolutely into it; but he had hardly done so when the violence of the water wrenched from his hold that which was all he had to depend on. A shriek burst from his friends, as they beheld the wretched raft dart off with him down the stream, like an arrow freed from the bowstring. But the mind of Cruickshanks was no common one to quail before the first approach of danger. He poised himself, and stood balanced, with determination and self-command in his eye, and no sound of fear, or of complaint, was heard to come from him.

At the point where the burn met the river, in the ordinary state of both, there grew some trees, now surrounded by deep and strong currents, and far from the land. The raft took a direction towards one of these, and seeing the wide and tumultuous waters of the Spey before him, in which there was no hope that his loosely-connected logs could stick one moment together, he coolly prepared himself, and, collecting all his force into one well-timed and well-directed effort, he sprang, caught a tree, and clung among its boughs, whilst the frail raft, hurried away from under his foot, was dashed into fragments, and scattered on the bosom of the waves. A shout of joy arose from his anxious friends, for they now deemed him safe; but _he_ uttered no shout in return. Every nerve was strained to procure help. “A boat!” was the general cry, and some ran this way, and some that, to endeavour to procure one. It was now between seven and eight o’clock in the evening. A boat was speedily obtained, and though no one was very expert in its use, it was quickly manned by people eager to save Cruickshanks from his perilous situation. The current was too terrible about the tree to admit of their nearing it, so as to take him directly into the boat; but their object was to row through the smoother water, to such a distance as might enable them to throw a rope to him, by which means they hoped to drag him to the boat. Frequently did they attempt this, and as frequently were they foiled, even by that which was considered as the gentler part of the stream, for it hurried them past the point whence they wished to make the cast of their rope, and compelled them to row up again by the side, to start on each fresh adventure.

Often were they carried so much in the direction of the tree as to be compelled to exert all their strength to pull themselves away from him they would have saved, that they might avoid the vortex that would have caught and swept them to destruction. And often was poor Cruickshanks tantalized with the approach of help, which came but to add to the other miseries of his situation that of the bitterest disappointment. Yet he bore all calmly. In the transient glimpses they had of him, as they were driven past him, they saw no blenching on his dauntless countenance—they heard no reproach, no complaint, no sound, but an occasional short exclamation of encouragement to persevere in their friendly endeavours. But the evening wore on, and still they were unsuccessful. It seemed to them that something more than mere natural causes was operating against them. “His hour is come!” said they, as they regarded one another with looks of awe; “our struggles are vain.” The courage and the hope which had hitherto supported them began to fail, and the descending shades of night extinguished the last feeble sparks of both, and put an end to their endeavours.

Fancy alone can picture the horrors that must have crept on the unfortunate man, as, amidst the impenetrable darkness which now prevailed, he became aware of the continued increase of the flood that roared around him, by its gradual advance towards his feet, whilst the rain and the tempest continued to beat more and more dreadfully upon him. That these were long ineffectual in shaking his collected mind, we know from the fact, afterwards ascertained, that he actually wound up his watch while in this dreadful situation. But, hearing no more the occasional passing exclamations of those who had been hitherto trying to succour him, he began to shout for help in a voice that became every moment more long-drawn and piteous, as, between the gusts of the tempest, and borne over the thunder of the waters, it fell from time to time on the ears of his clustered friends, and rent the heart of his distracted wife. Ever and anon it came, and hoarser than before, and there was an occasional wildness in its note, and now and then a strange and clamorous repetition for a time, as if despair had inspired him with an unnatural energy; but the shouts became gradually shorter,—less audible and less frequent,—till at last their eagerly listening ears could catch them no longer. “Is he gone?” was the half-whispered question they put to one another; and the smothered responses that were muttered around but too plainly told how much the fears of all were in unison.

“What was that?” cried his wife in a delirious scream; “that was his whistle I heard!” She said truly. A shrill whistle, such as that which is given with the fingers in the mouth, rose again over the loud din of the deluge and the yelling of the storm. He was not yet gone. His voice was but cracked by his frequent exertions to make it heard, and he had now resorted to an easier mode of transmitting to his friends the certainty of his safety. For some time his unhappy wife drew hope from such considerations, but his whistles, as they came more loud and prolonged, pierced the ears of his foreboding friends like the ill-omened cry of some warning spirit; and it may be matter of question whether all believed that the sounds they heard were really mortal. Still they came louder and clearer for a brief space; but at last they were heard no more, save in his frantic wife’s fancy, who continued to start, as if she still heard them, and to wander about, and to listen, when all but herself were satisfied that she could never hear them again.

Wet and weary, and shivering with cold, was this miserable woman, when the tardy dawn of morning beheld her straining her eye-balls through the imperfect light, towards the trees where Cruickshanks had been last seen. There was something there that looked like the figure of a man, and on that her eyes fixed. But those around her saw, alas! too well, that what she fondly supposed to be her husband was but a bunch of wreck gathered by the flood into one of the trees,—for the one to which he clung had been swept away.

The body of poor Cruickshanks was found in the afternoon of next day, on the Haugh of Dandaleith, some four or five miles below. As it had ever been his uniform practice to wind up his watch at night, and as it was discovered to be nearly full wound when it was taken from his pocket, the fact of his having had self-possession enough to obey his usual custom, under circumstances so terrible, is as unquestionable as it is wonderful. It had stopped at a quarter of an hour past eleven o’clock, which would seem to fix that as the fatal moment when the tree was rent away; for when that happened, his struggles amidst the raging waves of the Spey must have been few and short.

When the men, who had so unsuccessfully attempted to save him, were talking over the matter, and arguing that no human help could have availed him,—

“I’m thinkin’ I could hae ta’en him out,” said a voice in the circle.

All eyes were turned towards the speaker, and a general expression of contempt followed; for it was a boy of the name of Rainey, a reputed idiot, from the foot of Benrinnes, who spoke.

“You!” cried a dozen voices at once; “what would you have done, you wise man?”

“I wud hae tied an empty anker-cask to the end o’ a lang, lang tow, an’ I wud hae floated it aff frae near aboot whaur the raft was ta’en first awa; an’ syne, ye see, as the stream teuk the raft till the tree, maybe she wud hae ta’en the cask there too; an’ if Charlie Cruickshanks had ance gotten a haud o’ this rope——”

He would have finished, but his auditors were gone: they had silently slunk away in different directions, one man alone having muttered, as he went, something about “wisdom coming out of the mouth of fools.”

CHARLIE GRAHAM, THE TINKER.

BY GEORGE PENNY.

The notorious Charlie Graham belonged to a gang of tinkers, who had for a long time travelled through the country, and whose headquarters were at Lochgelly, in Fife. They were to be found at all markets, selling their horn spoons, which was their ostensible occupation. But there was a great deal of business done in the pickpocket line, and other branches of the thieving art. About Charlie there were some remarkable traits of generosity. In the midst of all the crimes he committed, he was never known to hurt a poor man, but often out of his plunder helped those in a strait. His father was in the same line, and was long at the head of the gang; but being afterwards imprisoned for theft, housebreaking, &c., he was banished the county, banished Scotland, and publicly whipped. On one occasion he was banished, with certification that if he returned, he was to be publicly whipped the first market-day, and thereafter to be banished. Old Charlie was not long away when he returned, and was apprehended and conveyed to Perth jail. A vacancy having occurred in the office of executioner, the first market-day was allowed to pass without inflicting the sentence, upon which Charlie entered a protest, and was liberated. In various ways he eluded justice,—sometimes by breaking the prison, and sometimes for want of evidence. The last time he was brought in, he was met by an old acquaintance, who asked, “What is the matter now?” to which old Charlie replied, “Oh, just the auld thing, and nae proof;” which saying has since become a proverb. But this time they did find proof, and he was again publicly whipped, and sent out of the country. One of his daughters, Meg Graham, who had been bred from her infancy in the same way, was every now and then apprehended for some petty theft. Indeed, she was so often in jail, that she got twenty-eight dinners from old John Rutherford, the writer, who gave the prisoners in the jail a dinner every Christmas. Meg, in her young days, was reckoned one of the first beauties of the time; but she was a wild one. She had been whipped and pilloried, but still the root of the matter remained.

Young Charlie was a man of uncommon strength and size, being about six feet high, and stout in proportion. His wrist was as thick as that of two ordinary men; he had long been the terror of the country, and attended all markets at the head of his gang, where they were sure to kick up a row among themselves. Two of their women would commence a battle-royal in the midst of the throng, scratch and tear one another’s caps, until a mob was assembled, when the rest were very busy in picking pockets. In this way they were frequently very successful.

At a market to the west of Crieff a farmer got his pocket-book taken from him. It being ascertained that Charlie Graham and his gang were in the market,—who were well known to several of the respectable farmers, who frequently lodged them on their way to the country,—it was proposed to get Charlie and give him a glass, and tell him the story. Charlie accepted the invitation; and during the circulation of the glass, one of the company introduced the subject, lamenting the poor man’s loss in such a feeling way, that the right chord was struck, and Charlie’s generosity roused. An appeal was made to him to lend the poor man such a sum, as his credit was at stake. Charlie said they had done nothing that day, but if anything cast up, he would see what could be done. During this conversation another company came into the room; amongst whom was a man with a greatcoat, a Highland bonnet, and a large drover whip. After being seated, this personage was recognised as belonging to the gang, and they were invited to drink with them, whilst the story of the robbery was repeated. On this Charlie asked his friend if he could lend him forty pounds to give to the poor man, and he would repay him in a few days. The man replied that he had forty pounds which he was going to pay away; but if it was to favour a friend, he would put off his business and help him; when, to their astonishment, the identical notes which the man had lost were tossed to him; and Charlie said that that would relieve him in the meantime, and he could repay him when convenient. It was evident that Charlie smelt a rat, and took this method to get off honourably. Of course, the forty pounds were never sought after.

Charlie was one day lodged with a poor widow, who had a few acres of ground, and kept a public-house. She complained to him that she was unable to raise her rent, that the factor was coming that night for payment, and that she was considerably deficient. Charlie gave her what made it up, and in the evening went out of the way, after learning at what time the factor would be there. The factor came, received payment, and returned home; but on the way he was met by Charlie, who eased him of his cash, and returned the rent to the poor widow.

The Rev. Mr Graham of Fossoway came one day to Perth to discount some bills in the Bank of Scotland. Having got his bills cashed, his spirits rose to blood-heat, and a hearty glass was given to his friends, until the parson got a little muddy. His friends, loth to leave him in that state, hired a horse each to convey him home. It was dark and late when they set out, and by the time they reached Damhead, where they put up their horses, it was morning. The house was re-building at the time, and the family living in the barn when the parson and his friends were introduced. Here they found Charlie and some of his friends over a bowl, of which the minister was cordially invited to partake. His companions also joined, and kept it up with great glee for some time—the minister singing his song, and Charlie getting very big. One of the friends, knowing how the land lay, was very anxious to be off, for fear of the minister’s money, and ordered out the horses; but to this Charlie would by no means consent. This alarmed the friends still more; as for the minister, he was now beyond all fear. However, in a short time a number of men came in and called for drink, and then Charlie, after the glass had gone round, said he thought it was time for the minister to get home, and went out to see them on their horses; when he told them he had detained them till the return of these men, who, if they had met them, might have proved dangerous neighbours; but now they could go home in safety.

He was one day on his way to Auchterarder market, when he met a farmer going from home, in whose barn he had frequently lodged, when Charlie told him he was to lodge with him that night. The farmer said he could not take strangers into his barn in its present state, as his summer’s cheese, and many other things, were lodged there. “D—n your cheese,” replied Charlie; “do you think, old boy, that I would lay down my honesty for your trash o’ cheese?” They parted, and Charlie got permission from the gudewife for himself, as there were no others with him. The farmer came home late, and knew not that Charlie was there. In the morning when he went into the barn, he was astonished to find it all in an uproar. Upwards of twenty individuals—men, women, and children—were lying among the straw. The wife was called upon to see what state the barn was in; and the old man, in no very soft voice, railed at her for admitting such a band. She replied that she would send them away quietly: and this she did by giving them as much brose and milk as they could take. On their departure, Charlie told him he was a mean old crab, and that his wife was worth a hundred of him. However, he kept his word as to the cheese, and nothing was touched.

In the market next day, a good deal of business was done in his way; several pockets were picked, and a number of petty thefts committed. Charlie being in the habit of dealing with respectable merchants for horn spoons, he was one day in the shop getting payment for a parcel. The money was counted down, but during the time his wife was taking it up, the merchant turned to speak to some one in the shop; the wife, on taking up the money, said she wanted five shillings; the merchant said he was positive he laid down the whole. She still insisted that she wanted five shillings, and the merchant was determined to resist; on which Charlie interfered, saying, “Come, come, ye limmer, down with the money; none of your tricks here.”

At one time he took it into his head to enlist for a regiment in India, with a party in Perth; he did very well until they were ordered to join the regiment. All the recruits being assembled but Charlie, he at last was found drinking in a public-house, but would not stir a foot. The officer was got, and the party attempted, after fair means had failed, to take him by force. They only got him the length of the street, when he drew a short bludgeon from an inside pocket, and laid about him from right to left, in such a way that the whole were soon sprawling on the street, and he escaped. The officer, seeing what kind of a character he was, desired the sergeant not to look after him, as he would have nothing to do with him.

At all the fairs he was present with his gang. If any row commenced he was sure to take a lead,—and whichever party he joined were generally left masters of the field. One midsummer market at Perth, a dreadful row got up between the weavers and the farmer lads, hundreds of whom attended the market at that time. Charlie and his friends joined the weavers; the streets were soon in a perfect uproar; the chapmen’s stands were upset, and themselves tumbled in the midst of their goods; sweeties and gingerbread were scattered in all directions by the pressure of the contending parties; and broken heads and faces were to be seen in abundance. The whole fair was thrown into a dreadful state of confusion, until a party of military were brought out, who at length succeeded in restoring order; but Charlie and his friends were not to be found. Many individuals lost their hats, &c., and got bruised bones and torn coats; it was also discovered that many pockets had been picked during the affray.

Charlie had often been convicted of theft, imprisoned, and banished the county. He not unfrequently made his escape by breaking out of prison; but was at length apprehended for horse stealing; and during his confinement was put in irons, in one of the strong cages in the old jail. During his imprisonment he was very cheerful, often declaring they could have no proof against him; but a short time convinced him of his folly. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged. When brought out to execution, he was attended by four artillerymen, for fear of resistance. He recognised many of his old acquaintances in the multitude—particularly the merchant with whom he dealt in spoons, and gave him a bow and a wave of his hand. When the fatal hour approached he appeared quite subdued, and submitted to his fate with calm resignation. After his body was cut down it was conveyed to the grave by an immense multitude; the coffin was opened and filled with quicklime, to render it useless for the surgeon.

Charlie’s death was a severe loss to the gang; immediately after this Charlie Brown, his brother-in-law, became leader. This fellow, although not so large a man, was stout, firmly built, of great activity, and, like Graham, had been frequently in the hands of the law, and made shift to get clear, until at last the fiscal was determined to have him. It being ascertained that he was in the neighbourhood, a party of light dragoons was sent out with the officers, who traced him to Auchtergaven. When he saw the party, he set off through the fields, until fairly run down by two of the horsemen, and brought to Perth. This desperate character had on him about eighty guineas; he was charged with several crimes, convicted, and sent to Botany Bay for life. After this the gang, who had for a long period infested the country, dispersed, and was seldom heard of.—_Traditions of Perth._

THE SNOWING-UP OF STRATH LUGAS; _OR, THE MATCH-MAKING LAIRD_.

Jolly old Simon Kirkton! thou art the very high-priest of Hymen. There is something softly persuasive to matrimony in thy contented, comfortable appearance; and thy house,—why, though it is situated in the farthest part of Inverness-shire, it is as fertile in connubial joys as if it were placed upon Gretna Green. Single blessedness is a term unknown in thy vocabulary; heaven itself would be a miserable place for thee, for _there_ is neither marrying nor giving in marriage!

Half the county was invited to a grand dinner and ball at Simon’s house in January 1812. All the young ladies had looked forward to it in joyous anticipation and hope, and all the young gentlemen, with considerable expectation—and fear. Everything was to be on the greatest scale: the dinner in the ancient hall, with the two family pipers discoursing sweet music between the courses, and the ball in the splendid new drawing-room, with a capital band from the county town. The Duke was to be there with all the nobility, rank, and fashion of the district; and, in short, such a splendid entertainment had never been given at Strath Lugas in the memory of man. The editor of the county paper had a description of it in type a month before, and the milliners far and near never said their prayers without a supplication for the health of Mr Kirkton. All this time that worthy gentleman was not idle. The drawing-room was dismantled of its furniture, and the floors industriously chalked over with innumerable groups of flowers. The larder was stocked as if for a siege; the domestics drilled into a knowledge of their duties; and every preparation completed in the most irreproachable style. I question whether Gunter ever dreamt of such a supper as was laid out in the dining-room: venison in all its forms, and fish of every kind. It would have victualled a seventy-four to China.

The day came at last,—a fine, sharp, clear day, as ever gave a bluish tinge to the countenance, or brought tears to “beauty’s eye.” There had been a great fall of snow a few days before, but the weather seemed now settled into a firm, enduring frost. The laird had not received a single apology, and waited in the hall along with his lady to receive the guests as they arrived.

“My dear, isna that a carriage coming up the Brose-fit-knowe? Auld Leddy Clavers, I declare. She’ll be going to dress here, and the three girls. Anne’s turned religious; so I’m thinking she’s ower auld to be married. It’s a pity the minister’s no coming: his wife’s just dead; but Jeanie’ll be looking out for somebody. We maun put her next to young Gerfluin. Elizabeth’s a thocht ower young; she can stay at the side-table with Tammy Maxwell—he’s just a hobbletehoy—it wad be a very good match in time.”

In this way, as each party made its appearance, the laird arranged in a moment the order in which every individual was to be placed at table; and even before dinner, he had the satisfaction of seeing his guests breaking off into the quiet _tête-à-têtes_, which the noise and occupation of a general company render sweet and secluded as a meeting “by moonlight alone.” While his eye wandered round the various parties thus pleasantly engaged, it rested on the figure of a very beautiful girl whom he had not previously remarked. She sat apart from all the rest, and was amusing herself with looking at the pictures suspended round the room, apparently unconscious of the presence of so many strangers. She seemed in deep thought; but as she gazed on the representation of a battlepiece, her face changed its expression from the calmness of apathy to the most vivid enthusiasm.

“Mercy on us a’!” whispered the laird to his wife, “wha’s she that? that beautiful young lassie in the white goon? An’ no’ a young bachelor within a mile o’ her. Deil ane o’ them deserves such an angel!”

“It’s a Miss Mowbray,” was the reply; “she came with Mrs Carmichael,—a great heiress they say: it’s the first time she was ever in Scotland.”

“Aha! say ye sae? Then we’ll see if we canna keep her among us noo that she is come. Angus M‘Leod—na, he’ll no do—he’s a gude enough lad, but he’s no bonnie. Chairlie Fletcher—he wad do weel enough; but I’m thinking he’ll do better for Bell Johnson. ’Od, donnered auld man, no to think o’ him before! Chairlie Melville’s the very man—the handsomest, bravest, cleverest chield she could hae; and if she’s gotten the siller, so much the better for Chairlie—they’ll mak a bonnie couple.”

And in an instant the laird laid his hand on the shoulder of a young man, who was engaged with a knot of gentlemen discussing some recent news from the Peninsula, and dragging him away, said,—

“For shame, Chairlie, for shame! Do you no see that sweet, modest lassie a’ by hersel? Gang up to her this minute—bide by her as lang as ye can—she’s weel worth a’ the attention ye can pay her. Miss Mowbray,” he continued, “I’m sorry my friend, Mrs Carmichael, has left ye sae much to yoursel; but here’s Chairlie, or rather I should say, Mr Charles, or rather I should say, Lieutenant Charles Melville, that will be happy to supply her place. He’ll tak ye in to yer dinner, and dance wi’ ye at the ball.”

“All in place of Mrs Carmichael, sir?” replied the young lady, with an arch look.

“Weel said, my dear, weel said; but I maun leave younger folks to answer ye. I’ve seen the time I wadna hae been very blate to gie ye an answer that wad hae stoppit your ‘wee bit mou, sae sweet and bonnie.’” Saying these words, and whispering to his young friend, “Stick till her, Chairlie,” he bustled off, “on hospitable thoughts intent,” to another part of the room.

After the introduction, the young people soon entered into conversation; and, greatly to the laird’s satisfaction, the young soldier conducted Miss Mowbray into the hall, sat next her all the time of dinner, and seemed as delighted with his companion as the most match-making lady or gentleman could desire. The lady, on the other hand, seemed in high spirits, and laughed at the remarks of her neighbour with the greatest appearance of enjoyment.

“How long have you been with Mrs Carmichael?”

“I came the day before yesterday.”

“Rather a savage sort of country, I am afraid, you find this, after the polished scenes of your own land?”

“Do you mean the country,” replied the lady, “or the inhabitants? They are not nearly such savages as I expected; some of them seem half-civilised.”

“It is only your good-nature that makes you think us so. When you know us better, you will alter your opinion.”

“Nay; now don’t be angry, or talk as all other Scotch people do, about your national virtues. I know you are a very wonderful people—your men all heroes, your peasants philosophers, and your women angels; but seriously, I was very much disappointed to find you so like other people.”

“Why, what did you expect? Did you think we were ‘men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders?’”

“No, I did not expect that; but I expected to find everything different from what I had been accustomed to. Now, the company here are dressed just like a party in England, and behave in the same manner. Even the language is intelligible at times; though the laird, I must say, would require an interpreter.”

“Ah, the jolly old laird! His face is a sort of polyglot dictionary—it is the expression for good-humour, kindness, and hospitality, in all languages.”

“And who is that at his right hand?”

“What? the henchman? That’s Rory M‘Taggart—he was piper for twenty years in the 73d, and killed three men with his own hand at Vimiera.”

“And is that the reason he is called the henchman?”

“Yes; henchman means, ‘the piper with the bloody hand—the slaughterer of three.’”

“What a comprehensive word! It is almost equal to the laird’s face.”

But here the laird broke in upon their conversation.

“Miss Mowbray, dinna be frightened at a’ the daft things the wild sodger is saying to you.” Then he added, in a lower tone, “Chairlie wad settle down into a douce, quiet, steady, married man, for a’ his tantrums. It wad be a pity if a Frenchman’s gun should spoil his beauty, puir fallow!”

The young lady bowed without comprehending a syllable of the speech of the worthy host.

“Are you likely to be soon ordered abroad?” she said.

“We expect the route for Spain every day; and then huzza for a peerage or Westminster Abbey!”

“Ah! war is a fine game when it is played at a distance. Why can’t kings settle their disputes without having recourse to the sword?”

“I really can’t answer your question, but I think it must be out of a kind regard for the interest of younger brothers. A war is a capital provision for poor fellows like myself, who were born to no estate but that excessively large one which the Catechism calls the ‘estate of sin and misery.’ But come, I see from your face you are very romantic, and are going to say something sentimental—luckily his Grace is proposing a removal into the ball-room; may I beg the honour of your hand?”

“Aha, lad!” cried the laird, who had heard the last sentence; “are ye at that wark already—asking a leddy’s hand on sic short an acquaintance? But folk canna do’t ower sune.”

The bustle caused by the secession of those who preferred Terpsichore to Bacchus, lucidly prevented Miss Mowbray’s hearing the laird’s observation, and in a few minutes she found herself entering with heart and soul into the full enjoyment of a country dance.

Marriages, they say, are made in heaven. Charles Melville devoutly wished the laird’s efforts might be successful, and that one could be made on earth. She was indeed, as the laird expressed it, “a bonnie cratur to look at.” I never could describe a beauty in my life—so the loveliness of the English heiress must be left to the imagination. At all events, she was “the bright consummate flower of the whole wreath” which was then gathered together at Strath Lugas; and even Lady Clavers said that—

“Miss Mowbray’s very weel put on indeed, for sae young a lassie. Her hair’s something like our Anne’s—only I think Anne’s has a wee richer tinge o’ the golden.”

“Preserve us a’!” whispered the laird; “puir Anne’s hair is as red as a carrot.”

“An’ dinna ye think her voice,” said her ladyship—“dinna ye think her voice is something like our Jeanie’s—only maybe no sae rich in the tone?”

“Feth, ma’am,” answered the laird, “I maun wait till I hear Miss Mowbray speak the Gaelic, for really the saft sort o’ beautiful English she speaks gies her a great advantage.”

“As ye say, Mr Kirkton,” continued her ladyship, who, like all great talkers, never attended to what any one said but herself, “Jeanie has a great advantage ower her; but she’s weel enough, for a’ that.”

In the meantime the young lady, who was the subject of this conversation, troubled herself very little as to what Lady Clavers said or thought on that occasion. I shall not on any account say that she was in love, for I highly disapprove of such a speedy surrender to Dan Cupid in the softer sex; but at all events she was highly delighted with the novelty of the scene, and evidently pleased with her partner. No scruple of the same kind restrains me from mentioning the state of Charlie Melville’s heart. He was as deeply in love as ever was the hero of a romance, and in the pauses of the dance indulged in various reveries about love and a cottage, and a number of other absurd notions, which are quite common, I believe, on such occasions. He never deigned to think on so contemptible an object as a butcher’s bill, or how inconvenient it would be to maintain a wife and four or five angels of either sex on ninety pounds a year; but at the same time, I must do him the justice to state, that, although he was a Scotsman, the fact of Miss Mowbray’s being an heiress never entered into his contemplation; and if I may mention my own opinion, I really believe he would have been better pleased if she had been as portionless as himself.

But time and tide wear through the roughest day; no wonder, then, they wore very rapidly through the happiest evening he had ever spent. The Duke and the more distant visitors had taken their leave; “the mirth and fun grew fast and furious” among the younger and better acquainted parties who were left; but, greatly to the mortification of the young soldier, his partner was called away at the end of a dance, just when he had been anticipating a delightful _tête-à-tête_ while the next was forming. With his heart nearly bursting with admiration and regret, he wrapt her in her cloaks and shawls, and in silent dejection, with only a warm pressure of the hand, which he was enchanted to find returned, he handed her into Mrs Carmichael’s old-fashioned open car, though the night was dark and stormy,—and after listening to the last sound of the wheels as they were lost among the snow, he slowly turned, and re-entered the ball-room.

Their absence, to all appearance, had not been noticed by a single eye,—a thing at which he, as a lover under such circumstances is bound to be, was greatly surprised. “Blockheads!” he said, “they would not see the darkness if the sun were extinguished at midday.” And he fell into a train of reflections, which, from the expression of his countenance, did not seem to be of a very exhilarating nature. In about twenty minutes, however, after his return, he was roused by the henchman, whom he had spoken of at dinner, who beckoned him from the hall.

“The bonny cratur!—the bonny cratur!” he began,—“an’ sic a nicht to gang hame in!—the stars a’ put out, the snaw beginning to drift, and a spate in the Lugas! Noo, if auld Andrew Strachan, the Leddy Carmichael’s coachman,—doited auld body, an’ mair than half fou’,—tries the ford, oh, the lassie, the bonny lassie’ll be lost! an’ I’ll never hae the heart to spend the crownpiece she slippit into my hand just afore the dancin’!”

But what more the worthy henchman might have said must remain a mystery to all succeeding time; for long before he had come to the episode of the crown, Charles had rushed hatless into the open air, and dashed forward at the top of his speed to overtake the carriage, in time to warn them from the ford. But the snow had already formed itself into enormous wreaths, which, besides impeding his progress, interfered greatly with his knowledge of the localities; and he pursued his toilsome way more in despair than hope. He shouted, in the expectation of his voice being heard, but he heard no reply. He stooped down to see the track of the wheels, but the snow fell so fast and drifted at the same time, that it was quite undistinguishable, even if the darkness had not been so deep. However, onwards he pressed towards the ford, and shouted louder and louder as he approached it.

The roaring of the stream, now swollen to a prodigious height, drowned his cries, and his eyes in vain searched for the object of his pursuit; far and near he directed his gaze, and felt a transport of joy at the hope, which their absence presented, that they had gone round by the bridge and were saved. He was about to return, when he thought he heard, in a bend in the river, a little way down, a faint scream above the roaring of the torrent. Quick as lightning he rushed towards the spot, and hallooed as loud as he could. The shriek was distinctly repeated, and a great way out in the water he saw some substance of considerable size. He shouted again, and a voice replied to him from the river. In an instant he had plunged into the stream, and though it was rushing with great impetuosity, it was luckily not so deep as to prevent his wading. And after considerable toil, for the water was above his breast, he succeeded in reaching the object he had descried from the bank. It was, indeed, Mrs Carmichael’s car, and in it he had the inexpressible delight to find the two ladies, terrified, indeed, but happily in full possession of their presence of mind.

In a few hurried words, he desired them to trust entirely to him, and begging the elder lady to remain quiet in the carriage, he lifted the younger in his arms,—but in the most earnest language she implored him to save her companion first, as she had such confidence in herself that she was certain she could remain in the carriage till he had effected his return. Pressing her to his heart in admiration of such magnanimity, he laid her gently back, and lifting Mrs Carmichael from her seat, he pushed desperately for the shore. The water even in this short time had perceptibly risen, and on reaching the bank, and depositing his burden in safety, he rushed once more through the torrent, fearful lest a moment’s delay should make it impracticable to reach the car. That light equipage was now shaking from the impetuous attacks of the stream, and at the moment when the fainting girl was lifted up, a rush of greater force taking it, now unbalanced by any weight, forced it on its side, and rolled it off into the great body of the river. It had been carried more than fifty yards below the ford, without, however, being overturned, and had luckily become entangled with the trunk of a tree; the horse, after severe struggles, had been drowned, and his inanimate weight had helped to delay the progress of the carriage. The coachman was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile the three, once more upon the land, pursued their path back to Strath Lugas. Long and toilsome was the road, but cheered to the young soldier by the happy consciousness that he had saved his “heart’s idol” from death. Tired, and nearly worn out with the harassing nature of their journey and of their feelings, they at length reached the hospitable mansion they had so lately quitted.

The music was still sounding, the lights still burning brightly,—but when old Simon Kirkton saw the party enter his hall, no words can do justice to the horror of his expression. The ladies were consigned to the attention of his wife. He himself took especial care of the hero of the story; and after having heard the whole adventure, when the soldier, refreshed, and in a suit of the laird’s apparel, was entering the dancing room, he slapped him on the shoulder, and said—

“Deil a doubt o’t noo. If ye’re no laird o’ the bonny English acres, and gudeman o’ the bonny English leddy, I’ve nae skill in spaein’, that’s a’.”

The adventure quickly spread, and people were sent off in all directions with lights, to discover, if possible, the body of the unfortunate Andrew Strachan. After searching for a long time, our friend the henchman thought he heard a voice close beside him, on the bank. He held down his lantern, and, sure enough, there he saw the object of their pursuit, lying at the very edge of the water, and his body on the land! The water from time to time burst over his face, and it was only on these occasions that an almost inarticulate grunt showed that the comatose disciple of John Barleycorn was yet alive. The henchman summoned his companions, and on attentively listening to the groans, as they considered them, of the dying man, they distinctly heard him, as he attempted to spit out the water which broke in tiny waves over his mouth, exclaiming, “Faugh, faugh! I doot ye’re changing the liquor—a wee drap mair whisky, and a sma’ spoonfu’ o’ sugar.” The nodding charioteer had been ejected from his seat on the first impetus of the “spate,” and been safely floated to land, without perceiving any remarkable change of situation. It is needless to say he was considerably surprised to discover where he was on being roused by the henchman’s party.

“It’s my belief,” said Jock Stewart, the piper, “the drucken body thocht he was tipplin’ a’ the time in the butler’s ha’! It wad be a gude deed to let the daidlin’ haveril follow his hat and wig; and I’m thinkin’ by this time they’ll be down about Fort-George.”

The weather was become so stormy, and the snow so deep, that it was impossible for any one to leave the house that night. The hospitable laird immediately set about making accommodation for so large a party, and by a little management he contrived to render everybody comfortable. The fiddlers were lodged in the barn, the ladies settled by the half-dozen in a room, and a supply of cloaks was collected for the gentlemen in the hall. Where people are willing to be pleased, it is astonishing how easy they find it. Laughter long and loud resounded through all the apartments, and morn began to stand “upon the misty mountain-tops” ere sleep and silence took possession of the mansion. Next day the storm still continued. The prospect, as far as the eye could reach, was a dreary waste of snow; and it was soon perceived, by those who were skilful in such matters, that the whole party were fairly snowed-up, and how long their imprisonment might last no one could tell. It was amazing with what equanimity the intelligence was listened to; one or two young ladies, who had been particularly pleased with their partners, went as far as to say it was delightful.

The elders of the party bore it with great good-humour, on being assured from the state of the larder that there was no danger of a famine; and, above all, the laird himself, who had some private schemes of his own to serve, was elevated into the seventh heaven by the embargo laid on his guests.

“If this bides three days there’ll be a dizzen couple before Leddy-day. It’s no possible for a lad and a lass to be snawed up thegither three days without melting;—but we’ll see the night how it’s a’ to be managed. Has onybody seen Mrs Carmichael and Miss Mowbray this morning?”

But before this question could be answered the ladies entered the room. They were both pale from their last night’s adventure; but while the elder lady was shaking hands with her friends, and receiving their congratulations, the eyes of her young companion wandered searchingly round the apartment till they fell on Charles Melville. Immediately a flush came over her cheek, which before was deadly pale, and she started forward and held out her hand. He rushed and caught it, and even in presence of all that company could scarcely resist the inclination to put it to his lips.

“Thanks! thanks!” was all she said; and even in saying these short words her voice trembled, and a tear came to her eye. But when she saw that all looks were fixed on her, she blushed more deeply than ever, and retired to the side of Mrs Carmichael. The scene passed by no means unheeded by the laird.

“Stupid whelp!” he said, “what for did he no kiss her, an it were just to gie her cheeks an excuse for growing sae rosy? ’Od, if I had saved her frae drooning, I wadna hae been sae nice,—that’s to say, my dear,” he added to his wife, who was standing by, “if I hadna a wife o’ my ain.”

The storm lasted for five days. How the plans of the laird with regard to the matrimonial comforts of his guests prospered, I have no intention of detailing. I believe, however, he was right in his predictions, and the minister was presented with eight several sets of tea-things within three months. Many a spinster at this moment looks back with regret to her absence from the snow-party of Strath Lugas, and dates all her misfortunes from that unhappy circumstance. On the fourth morning of their imprisonment the laird was presented with a letter from Charles Melville. In it he informed him that he dared not be absent longer, in case of his regiment being ordered abroad, and that he had taken his chance and set off on his homeward way in spite of the snow. It ended with thanks for all his kindness, and an affectionate farewell. When this was announced to the party they expressed great regret at his absence. It seemed to surprise them all. Mrs Carmichael was full of wonder on the occasion; but Miss Mowbray seemed totally unmoved by his departure. She was duller in spirits than before, and refused to dance; but in other respects the mirth was as uproarious, and the dancing as joyous, as ever;—and in a day the snow was sufficiently cleared away—the party by different conveyances broke up—and the laird was left alone, after a week of constant enjoyment.

Four years after the events I have related, a young man presented himself for the first time in the pump-room at Bath. The gossips of that busy city formed many conjectures as to who and what he could be. Some thought him a foreigner, some a man of consequence _incog._; but all agreed that he was a soldier and an invalid. He seemed to be about six-and-twenty, and was evidently a perfect stranger. After he had stayed in the room a short time, and listened to the music, he went out into the street, and just as he made his exit by one door, the marvels of the old beldames who congregated under the orchestra were called into activity by the entrance, through the other, of a young lady leaning on the arm of an old one. Even so simple an incident as this is sufficient in a place like Bath to give rise to various rumours and conjectures. She was tall, fair, and very beautiful, but she also seemed in bad health, and to be perfectly unknown. Such an event had not occurred at the pump-room for ages before. Even the master of the ceremonies was at fault. “As near as he could guess, to the best of his conjecture, he believed he had never seen either the gentleman or the lady.”

While surmises of all kinds were going their rounds in this manner, the gentleman pursued his walk up Milsom Street. His pace was slow, and his strength did not seem equal even to so gentle an exertion. He leant for support upon his walking-stick, and heard, mingled with many coughs, a voice which he well knew, calling,—

“Chairlie—Chairlie Melville, I say! pull, ye deil’s buckie,—ugh—ugh!—sic a confounded conveyance for a Highland gentleman. Ah, Chairlie, lad,” said our old acquaintance the laird, who had now got up to where his friend was standing, “sad times for baith of us. Here am I sent here wi’ a cough that wad shake a kirk, ugh—ugh.—An’ the gout in baith my feet,—to be hurled about in a chair that gangs upon wheels,—ugh—ugh,—by a lazy English vagabond that winna understand a word that I say till him.—An’ you,” and here the old man looked up in the young soldier’s face—“Oh, Chairlie, Chairlie! is this what the wars hae brocht ye to?—ugh—ugh—yer verra mither wadna ken ye,—but come awa,—come awa to my lodgings in Pultney Street, and tell us a’ about what ye’ve been doin’,—ugh—ugh,—my fit, my fit,—pu’ awa’, ye ne’er-do-weel; turn about, and be hanged till ye,—do ye no ken the road to Pultney Street yet? Come awa, Chairlie, my man, dinna hurry.” And thus mingling his commands to his chairman, with complaints of the gout to his friend, the laird led the way to his lodgings.

Charlie’s story was soon told. He had shared in all the dangers and triumphs of the last three years of the war. He had been severely wounded at Waterloo, and had come to Bath with a debilitated frame and a major’s commission. But though he spoke of past transactions as gaily as he could, the quick eyes of the laird perceived there was some “secret sorrow” which weighed down his spirits.

“An’ did ye meet with nae love adventure in your travels? For ye maunna tell me a bit wound in the shouther would mak ye sae doun-hearted as ye are. Is there nae Spanish or French lassie that gies ye a sair heart? Tell it a’ to me, an’ if I can be of ony use in bringin’ it about, ye may depend I’ll do all in my power to help ye.”

“No,” replied Charles, smiling at the continued match-making propensities of his friend; “I shall scarcely require your services on that score. I never saw Frenchwoman or Spaniard that cost me a single sigh.” And here, as if by the force of the word itself, the young man sighed.

“Weel, it must be some English or Scotch lassie then; for it’s easy to be seen that somebody costs ye a sigh. I ance thocht you were in a fair way o’ winnin’ yon bonny cratur ye saved frae the spate o’ the Lugas; but ye gaed awa in such a hurry the plant hadna time to tak root.”

“She was too rich for the poor penniless subaltern to look to,” replied the young man, a deep glow coming over his face.

“Havers! havers! She wad hae given a’ her lands yon night for a foot o’ dry grund. An’ as ye won her, ye had the best right to wear her. And I’m muckle mista’en if the lassie didna think sae hersel.”

“Miss Mowbray must have overrated my services; but at all events I had no right to take advantage of that fortunate accident to better my fortunes, by presuming on her feelings of gratitude to her preserver.”

“What for no? what for no?” cried the laird; “ye should hae married her on the spot. There were eight couples sprang frae the snaw-meeting—ye should hae made the ninth, and then ye needna hae had a ball put through your shouther, nor ever moved frae the braw holmes o’ Surrey. ’Od, I wish it had been me that took her out o’ the water; that is, if I had been as young as you, and Providence had afflicted me with the loss o’ Mrs Kirkton.”

“If I had been on a level with her as to fortune”——

“Weel, but noo yer brither’s dead, ye’re heir o’ the auld house, an’ ye’re a major—what’s to forbid the banns noo?”

“I have never heard of Miss Mowbray from that hour to this. In all probability she is married to some lucky fellow”——

“She wasna married when I saw Mrs Carmichael four months since; she was in what leddies call delicate health though; she had aye been melancholy since the time of the water business. Mrs Carmichael thought ye were a great fule for rinnin’ awa.”

“Mrs Carmichael is very kind.”

“’Deed is she,” replied the laird, “as kind-hearted a woman as ever lived. She’s maybe a thocht ower auld, or I dinna doubt she wad be very happy to marry you hersel.”

“I hope her gratitude would not carry her to such an alarming length,” said Charles, laughing. “It would make young men rather tender of saving ladies’ lives.”

“If I knew where she was just now, I wad soon put everything to rights. It’s no ower late yet, though ye maun get fatter before the marriage—ye wad be mair like a skeleton than a bridegroom. But, save us! what’s the matter wi’ ye? are ye no weel? headache? gout? what is’t, man? Confound my legs, I canna stir. Sit down, and rest ye.”

But Charles, with his eyes intently fixed on some object in the street, gazed as if some horrible apparition had met his sight. Alternately flushed and pale, he continued as if entranced, and then, deeply sighing, sunk senseless on the floor.

“Rory, Rory!” screamed the laird—“ugh, ugh! oh, that I could get at the bell! Cheer up, Chairlie. Fire! fire! ugh, ugh!—the lad will be dead before a soul comes near him. Rory, Rory!”

And luckily the ancient henchman, Rory MacTaggart, made his appearance in time to save his master from choking through fear and surprise. Charlie was soon recovered, and, when left again alone with the laird, he said—

“As I hope to live, I saw her from this very window, just as we were speaking of her. Even her face I saw! Oh, so changed and pale! But her walk—no _two_ can have such a graceful carriage!”

“Seen wha?” said the laird. “Mrs Carmichael? For it was her we were speaking o’—ay, she’s sair changed; and her walk is weel kent; only I thocht she was a wee stiffer frae the rheumatism last year. But whaur is she?”

“It was Miss Mowbray I saw. She went into that house opposite.”

“What! the house wi’ the brass knocker, green door—the verandah with the flower-pots, an’ twa dead geraniums?”

“Yes.”

“Then just ring the bell, and tell that English cratur to pu’ me in the wee whirligig across the street.”

“Impossible, my dear laird! recollect your gout.”

“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— A damnèd shape—one who in the dark pit Held sovereign sway; and power to him was given To chase the blessèd spirits from the earth, And rule it for a season. Soon he shed His hellish slough, and many a subtle wile Was his to seem a heavenly spirit to man. First he a hermit, sore subdued in flesh, O’er a cold cruse of water and a crust, Poured out meek prayers abundant. Then he changed Into a maid when she first dreams of man, And from beneath two silken eyelids sent The sidelong light of two such wondrous eyes, That all the saints grew sinners. He subdued Those wanton smiles, and grew a reverend dame, With wintry ringlets, and grave lips, which dropt Proverbial honey in her grandson’s ear. Then a professor of God’s Word he seemed, And o’er a multitude of upturned eyes Showered blessed dews, and made the pitchy path, Down which howl damnèd spirits, seem the bright Thrice-hallowed way to heaven. Yet grimly through The glorious veil of those seducing shapes Frowned out the fearful spirit.