CHAPTER II.

At that time horses were used as a mode of conveyance so much more than carriages, that almost every gentlewoman had her own steed, and Miss Cochrane, being a skilful rider, was possessed of a well-managed palfrey, on whose speed and other qualities she had been accustomed to depend. On the morning after she had bid her father farewell, long ere the inhabitants of Edinburgh were astir, she found herself many miles on the road to the Borders. She had taken care to attire herself in a manner which corresponded with the design of passing herself off for a young serving-woman journeying on a borrowed horse to the house of her mother in a distant part of the country; and by only resting at solitary cottages, where she generally found the family out at work, save perhaps an old woman or some children, she had the good fortune, on the second day after leaving Edinburgh, to reach in safety the abode of her old nurse, who lived on the English side of the Tweed, four miles beyond the town of Berwick. In this woman she knew she could place implicit confidence, and to her, therefore, revealed her secret. She was resolved, she said, to make an attempt to save her father’s life, by stopping the postman, an equestrian like herself, and forcing him to deliver up his bags, in which she expected to find the fatal warrant. Singular as such a determination may appear in a delicate young woman, especially if we consider that she was aware of the arms always carried by the man to whose charge the mail was committed, it is nevertheless an undoubted fact that such was her resolve. In pursuance of this design, she had brought with her a brace of small pistols, together with a horseman’s cloak tied up in a bundle, and hung on the crutch of her saddle; and now borrowed from her nurse the attire of her foster-brother, which, as he was a slight-made lad, fitted her reasonably well.

At that period, all those appliances which at this day accelerate the progress of the traveller were unknown, and the mail from London, which now arrives in about ten hours, took eight days in reaching the Scottish capital. Miss Cochrane thus calculated on a delay of sixteen or seventeen days in the execution of her father’s sentence—a space of time which she deemed amply sufficient to give a fair trial to the treaty set on foot for his liberation. She had, by means which it is unnecessary here to detail, possessed herself of the most minute information with regard to the places at which the postmen rested on their journey, one of which was a small public-house, kept by a widow woman, on the outskirts of the little town of Belford. There the man who received the bag at Durham was accustomed to arrive about six o’clock in the morning, and take a few hours’ repose before proceeding farther on his journey.[19] In pursuance of the plan laid down by Miss Cochrane, she arrived at this inn about an hour after the man had composed himself to sleep, in the hope of being able, by the exercise of her wit and dexterity, to ease him of his charge.

Footnote 19:

Lest it should appear at issue with probability that the postman should thus “take his ease at his inn,” it may be mentioned, as a fact defying all question, that this official, at a period much later, used sometimes to dismount on a muir, near the place here mentioned, and partake of a game at quoits, or other sports which might be proceeding by the wayside.

Having put her horse into the stable, which was a duty that devolved on the guests at this little change-house, from its mistress having no ostler, she entered the only apartment which the house afforded, and demanded refreshment.

“Sit down at the end of that table,” said the old woman, “for the best I have to give you is there already; and be pleased, my bonnie man, to make as little noise as ye can, for there’s ane asleep in that bed that I like ill to disturb.”

Miss Cochrane promised fairly; and after attempting to eat some of the viands, which were the remains of the sleeping man’s meal, she asked for some cold water.

“What!” said the old dame, as she handed it to her; “ye are a water-drinker, are ye? It’s but an ill custom for a change-house.”

“I am aware of that,” replied her guest; “and therefore, when in a public-house, I always pay for it the price of the stronger potation, which I cannot take.”

“Indeed!—well, that is but just,” said the landlady; “and I think the more of you for such reasonable conduct.”

“Is the well where you get this water near at hand?” said the young lady; “for if you will take the trouble to bring me some from it, as this is rather warm, it shall be considered in the lawing.”

“It is a good bit off,” responded the landlady; “but I cannot refuse to fetch some for such a civil, discreet lad, and will be as quick as I can; but, for any sake, take care and don’t meddle with these pistols,” she continued, pointing to a pair of pistols on the table, “for they are loaded, and I am always terrified for them.”

Saying this, she disappeared; and Miss Cochrane, who would have contrived some other errand for her, had the well been near, no sooner saw the door shut, than she passed, with trembling eagerness, and a cautious but rapid step, to the place where the man lay soundly sleeping, in one of those close wooden bedsteads common in the houses of the poor, the door of which was left half open to admit the air, and which she opened still wider, in the hope of seeing the mail-bag, and being able to seize upon it. But what was her dismay when she beheld only a part of the integument which contained what she would have sacrificed her life a thousand times to obtain, just peeping out from below the shaggy head and brawny shoulders of its keeper, who lay in such a position upon it as to give not the smallest hope of its extraction without his being aroused from his nap.

A few bitter moments of observation served to convince her that possession of this treasure must be obtained in some other way; and, again closing the door of the bed, she approached the pistols, and having taken them from the holsters, she as quickly as possible drew the loading, which having secreted, she then returned them to their cases, and resumed her seat at the foot of the table. She had barely time to recover from the agitation into which the fear of the man’s awakening during her recent occupation had thrown her, when the old woman returned with the water; and having taken a draught, of which she stood much in need, she settled her account much to her landlady’s content, by paying for the water the price of a pot of beer. Having then carelessly asked and ascertained how much longer the other guest was likely to continue his sleep, she left the house, and mounting her horse, set off at a trot, in a different direction from that in which she had arrived.

Making a compass of two or three miles, she once more fell into the high road between Belford and Berwick, where she walked her horse gently on, awaiting the coming up of the postman. Though all her faculties were now absorbed in one aim, and the thought of her father’s deliverance still reigned supreme in her mind, yet she could not help occasionally figuring to herself the possibility of her tampering with the pistols being discovered, and their loading replaced, in which case it was more than likely that her life would be the forfeit of the act she meditated. A woman’s fears would still intrude, notwithstanding all her heroism, and the glorious issue which promised to attend the success of her enterprise. When she at length saw and heard the postman advancing behind her, the strong necessity of the case gave her renewed courage; and it was with perfect coolness that, on his coming close up, she civilly saluted him, put her horse into the same pace with his, and rode on for some way in his company. He was a strong, thick-set fellow, with a good-humoured countenance, which did not seem to Miss Cochrane, as she looked anxiously upon it, to savour much of hardy daring. He rode with the mail-bags (for there were two—one containing the letters direct from London, and the other those taken up at the different post-offices on the road) strapped firmly to his saddle in front, close to the holsters. After riding a short distance together, Miss Cochrane deemed it time, as they were nearly half-way between Belford and Berwick, to commence her operations. She therefore rode nearly close to her companion, and said, in a tone of determination,—

“Friend, I have taken a fancy for those mail-bags of yours, and I must have them; therefore, take my advice, and deliver them up quietly, for I am provided for all hazards. I am mounted, as you see, on a fleet steed; I carry firearms; and, moreover, am allied with those who are stronger, though not bolder than myself. You see yonder wood,” she continued, pointing to one at the distance of about a mile, with an accent and air which was meant to carry intimidation with it; “again, I say, take my advice; give me the bags, and speed back the road you came for the present, nor dare to approach that wood for at least two or three hours to come.”

There was in such language from a stripling something so surprising that the man looked on Miss Cochrane for an instant in silent and unfeigned amazement.

“If you mean, my young master,” said he, as soon as he found his tongue, “to make yourself merry at my expense, you are welcome. I am no sour churl to take offence at the idle words of a foolish boy. But if,” he said, taking one of the pistols from the holster, and turning its muzzle towards her, “ye are mad enough to harbour one serious thought of such a matter, I am ready for you. But, methinks, my lad, you seem at an age when robbing a garden or an old woman’s fruit-stall would befit you better, if you must turn thief, than taking his Majesty’s mails upon his own highway, from such a stout man as I am. Be thankful, however, that you have met with one who will not shed blood if he can help it, and sheer off before you provoke me to fire.”

“Nay,” said his young antagonist, “I am not fonder of bloodshed than you are; but if you will not be persuaded, what can I do? for I have told you a truth, _that mail I must and will have_. So now choose,” she continued, as she drew one of the small pistols from under her cloak, and deliberately cocking it, presented it in his face.

“Then your blood be upon your own head,” said the fellow, as he raised his hand, and fired his pistol, which, however, only flashed in the pan. Dashing this weapon to the ground, he lost not a moment in pulling out the other, which he also aimed at his assailant, and fired with the same result. In a transport of rage and disappointment, the man sprung from his horse, and made an attempt to seize her; but by an adroit use of her spurs she eluded his grasp, and placed herself out of his reach. Meanwhile his horse had moved forward some yards, and to see and seize the advantage presented by this circumstance was one and the same to the heroic girl, who, darting towards it, caught the bridle, and having led her prize off about a hundred yards, stopped while she called to the thunderstruck postman to remind him of her advice about the wood. She then put both horses to their speed, and on turning to look at the man she had robbed, had the pleasure of perceiving that her mysterious threat had taken effect, and he was now pursuing his way back to Belford.

Miss Cochrane speedily entered the wood to which she had alluded, and tying the strange horse to a tree, out of all observation from the road, proceeded to unfasten the straps of the mail. By means of a sharp penknife, which set at defiance the appended locks, she was soon mistress of the contents, and with an eager hand broke open the Government dispatches, which were unerringly pointed out to her by their address to the council in Edinburgh, and their imposing weight and broad seals of office. Here she found not only the warrant for her father’s death, but also many other sentences inflicting different degrees of punishment on various delinquents. These, however, it may be readily supposed, she did not then stop to examine; she contented herself with tearing them into small fragments, and placing them carefully in her bosom.

The intrepid girl now mounted her steed, and rode off, leaving all the private papers as she had found them, imagining—what eventually proved the case—that they would be discovered ere long, from the hints she had thrown out about the wood, and thus reach their proper places of destination. She now made all haste to reach the cottage of her nurse, where, having not only committed to the flames the fragments of the dreaded warrant, but also the other obnoxious papers, she quickly resumed her female garments, and was again, after this manly and daring action, the simple and unassuming Miss Grizel Cochrane. Leaving the cloak and pistols behind her, to be concealed by her nurse, she again mounted her horse, and directed her flight towards Edinburgh, and by avoiding as much as possible the high road, and resting at sequestered cottages, as she had done before (and that only twice for a couple of hours each time), she reached town early in the morning of the next day.

It must now suffice to say that the time gained by the heroic act above related was productive of the end for which it was undertaken, and that Sir John Cochrane was pardoned, at the instigation of the king’s favourite counsellor, who interceded for him in consequence of receiving a bribe of five thousand pounds from the Earl of Dundonald. Of the feelings which on this occasion filled the heart of his courageous and devoted daughter, we cannot speak in adequate terms; and it is perhaps best at any rate to leave them to the imagination of the reader. The state of the times was not such for several years as to make it prudent that her adventure should be publicly known; but after the Revolution, when the country was at length relieved from persecution and danger, and every man was at liberty to speak of the trials he had undergone, and the expedients by which he had mastered them, her heroism was neither unknown nor unapproved. Miss Cochrane afterwards married Mr Ker of Moriston, in the county of Berwick; and there can be little doubt that she proved equally affectionate and amiable as a wife, as she had already been dutiful and devoted as a daughter.—_Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal._

THE FATAL PRAYER.

The village of Gourock is situated on the shore of a fine bay, about two miles from the town of Greenock. I was taken with the pleasantness of its situation, when one day viewing it at a little distance on the Greenock road, and sat down on the dyke by the roadside to enjoy the prospect at my leisure.

Presently an elderly man, of a grave aspect and a maritime appearance, passing slowly along the road, came and sat down near the same place. I guessed him to be one of the better class of fishermen, who had purchased, with the toil of his youth and his manhood, a little breathing-time to look about him in the evening of his days, ere the coming of night. After the usual salutations, we fell into discourse together, and I found him to be a man who had looked well about him in his pilgrimage, and reasoned on things and feelings—not living as the brutes that perish. After a pause in the conversation, he remarked, to my thinking, in a disjointed manner—

“Is it not strange, sir, that the thoughts that sometimes come into the brain of a man sleeping or waking—like a wind that blows across his bosom, coming he knows not whence, and going he knows not whither—leave behind them an impression and a feeling, and become the springs of human action, and mingle in the thread of human destiny?”

“Strange, indeed,” said I. “What you say has more than once occurred to me; but being unable to reason satisfactorily on the subject, I set down altogether such ideas as having no better foundation than the fears and superstitions of the ignorant. But it seems to me that your remark, though of a general nature, must have been made in mental reference to some particular thing; and I would fain crave to know what it is.”

“You are right,” said he; “I was thinking at the moment of something which has sat, for some days past, like a millstone on my mind: and I will tell it to you with pleasure.”

So I edged myself closer to him on the stones, that I might hear the better; and without more ado he began to discourse as follows:

“About six months ago, a wedding took place in the village, and a more comely and amiable couple never came together. Mr Douglas, though the son of a poor man, had been an officer in the army,—an ensign, I believe,—and when his regiment was disbanded, he came to live here on his half-pay, and whatever little else he might have. Jeanie Stuart at the time was staying with an uncle, one of our own folk, her parents having both been taken away from her; and she made up, as far as she could, for her board, by going in the summer season to sew in the families that come from the great towns for the sea-bathing. So gentle she was, and so calm in her deportment, and so fair to look on withal, that even these nobility of the loom and the sugar-hogshead thought it no dishonour to have her among them; and unconsciously, as it were, they treated her just as if she had been of the same human mould with themselves.

“Well, they soon got acquainted,—our Jeanie and Mr Douglas,—and drew kindly together; and the end of it was they were married. They lived in a house there, just beyond the point that you may see forms the opposite angle of the bay, not far from a place called Kempock; and Mr Douglas just employed himself, like any of us, in fishing and daundering about, and mending his nets, and such like. Jeanie was the happy woman now, for she had aye a mind above the commonality; and, I am bold to say, thought her stay long enough among these would-be gentry, where she sat many a wearisome day for no use, and would fain have retired from their foolishness into the strength and greenness of her own soul. But now she had a companion and an equal, and indeed a superior; for Mr Douglas had seen the world, and had read both books and men, and could wile away the time in discoursing of what he had seen and heard tell of in foreign lands, among strange people and unknown tongues. And Jeanie listened, and listened, and thought her husband the first of mankind. She clung to him as the honeysuckle clings to the tree: his pleasure was her pleasure—his sorrow was her sorrow—his bare word was her law.

“One day, about two weeks ago, she appeared dull and dispirited, and complained of a slight headache; on which Mr Douglas advised her to go to bed and rest herself awhile; which she said she would do; and having some business in the village he went out. On coming back, however, in the forenoon, he found her just in the same spot, leaning her head on her hand; but she told him she was better, and that it was nothing at all. He then began to get his nets ready, saying he was going out with some lads of the village to the deep-sea fishing, and would be back the next day. She looked at him, but said nothing; long and strangely she looked, as if wondering what he was doing, and not understanding anything that was going on. But finally when he came to kiss her and bid her good-bye, she threw her arms round him, and when he would have gone she held him fast, and her bosom heaved as if her heart would break; but still she said nothing.

“‘What can be the matter with you, Jeanie?’ said Mr Douglas.

“‘Stay with me to-day,’ said she at last; ‘depart not this night, just this one night—it is not much to ask—to-morrow you may go where you please, and I will not be your hindrance a moment.’

“But Mr Douglas was vexed at such folly, and she could answer nothing to his questions, except that a thought had come into her head, and she could not help it. So he was resolved to go, and kissing her fondly, he threw his nets on his shoulders and went away.

“For some minutes after his departure Jeanie did not move from the spot, but stood looking at the door whence he had gone out, and then began to tremble all over like the leaf of a tree. At length, coming to herself with a start, she knelt down, and throwing back her hair from her forehead, turned her face up towards heaven, and prayed with a loud voice to the Almighty, that she ‘might have her husband in her arms that night.’ For some moments she remained motionless and silent in the same attitude, till at length a sort of brightness, resembling a calm smile, passed over her countenance like a gleam of sunshine on the smooth sea, and bending her head low and reverently, she rose up. She then went as usual about her household affairs, and appeared not anything discomposed, but as tranquil and happy as if nothing had happened.

“Now the weather was fine and calm in the morning, but towards the afternoon it came on to blow; and indeed the air had been so sultry all day, that the seafarers might easily tell there would be a racket of the elements before long. As the wind, however, had been rather contrary, it was supposed that the boats could not have got far enough out to be in the mischief, but would put back when they saw the signs in the sky. But in the meantime the wind increased, till towards night it blew as hard a gale as we have seen in these parts for a long time. The ships out there, at the Tail of the Bank, were driven from their moorings, and two of them stranded on their beam ends on the other side; every stick and stitch on the sea made for any port they could find; and as the night came on in darkness and thunder, it was a scene that might cow even hearts that had been brought up on the water as if it was their proper element, and been familiar with the voice of the tempest from their young days. There was a sad lamenting and murmuring then, among the women folk especially—them that were kith or kin to the lads on the sea; and they went to one another’s houses in the midst of the storm and the rain, and put in their pale faces through the darkness, as if searching for hope and comfort, and drawing close to one another like a flock of frightened sheep in their fellowship of grief and fear. But there was one who stirred not from her house, and who felt no terror at the shrieking of the night-storm, and sought for no comfort in the countenance of man—and that was the wife of Mr Douglas. She sometimes, indeed, listened to the howling of the sea that came by fits on her ear like the voice of the water-kelpie, and starting would lay down her work for a moment; but then she remembered the prayer she had prayed to Him who holds the reins of the tempest in His hands, and who says to the roaring waters, ‘Be still,’ and they are still—and the glorious balm she had felt to sink into her heart at that moment of high and holy communion, even like the dew of heaven on a parched land. So her soul was comforted, and she said to herself, ‘God is not a man that He can lie;’ and she rested on His assurance as on a rock, and laughed to scorn the tremblings of her woman’s bosom. For why? The anchor of her hope was in heaven, and what earthly storm was so mighty as to remove it? Then she got up, and put the room in order, and placed her husband’s slippers to air at the fireside; and stirred up the fuel, and drew in the arm-chair for her weary and storm-beaten mariner. Then would she listen at the door, and look out into the night for his coming; but she could hear no sound save the voice of the waters, and the roar of the tempest, as it rushed along the deep. She re-entered the house, and walked to and fro in the room with a restless step, but an unblenched cheek.

“At last the neighbours came to her house, knowing that her husband was one of those who had gone out that day, and told her that they were going to walk down towards the Clough, even in the mirk hour, to try if they could not hear some news of the boats. So she went with them, and we all walked together along the road—women and men, it might be, some twenty or thirty of us. But it was remarked, that though she came not hurriedly nor in fear, yet she had not even thrown her cloak on her shoulders, to defend her from the night air, but came forth with her head uncovered, and in her usual raiment of white, like a bride to the altar. As we passed along, it must have been a strange sight to see so many pale faces by the red glare of the torches they carried, and to hear so many human wailings filling up the pauses of the storm; but at the head of our melancholy procession there was a calm heart and a firm step, and they were Jeanie’s. Sometimes, indeed, she would look back, as some cry of womanish foreboding from behind would smite on her ear, and strange thoughts would crowd into her mind; and once she was heard to mutter—if her prayer had but saved her husband to bind some other innocent victim to the mysterious altar of wrath! And she stopped for a moment, as if in anguish at the wild imagination.

“But now as we drew nearer the rocks where the lighthouse is built, sounds were heard distinctly on the shore, and we waved the torches in the air, and gave a great shout, which was answered by known voices—for they were some of our own people—and our journey was at an end. A number of us then went on before, and groped our way among the rocks as well as we could in the darkness; but a woful tale met our ear; for one of the boats had been shattered to pieces while endeavouring to land there, and when he went down they were just dragging the body of a comrade, stiff and stark, from the sea. When the women behind heard of this, there was a terrible cry of dismay, for no one knew but it might be her own husband, son, or brother; and some who carried lights dropped them from fear, and others held them trembling to have the terrors of their hearts confirmed.

“There was one, however, who stood calm and unmoved by the side of the dead body. She spoke some words of holy comfort to the women, and they were silent at her voice. She then stepped lightly forward, and took a torch from the trembling hand that held it, and bent down with it beside the corpse. As the light fell one moment on her own fair face, it showed no signs of womanish feeling at the sight and touch of mortality; a bright and lovely bloom glowed on her cheek, and a heavenly lustre beamed in her eye; and as she knelt there, her white garments and long dark hair floating far on the storm, there was that in her look which drew the gaze even of that terrified group from the object of their doubt and dread. The next moment the light fell on the face of the dead—the torch dropped from her hand, and she fell upon the body of her husband! _Her prayer was granted._ She held her husband in her arms that night, and although no struggles of parting life were heard or seen, she died on his breast.”

When the fisherman had concluded his story—and after some observations were made by us both, touching the mysterious warning, joined with a grateful acknowledgment that the stroke of death might be as often dealt in mercy as in wrath—we shook hands; and asking one another’s names, as it might so fortune that we should once more, in the course of our earthly pilgrimage, be within call of one another, the old man and I parted, going each his several way.—_Literary Melange._

GLENMANNOW, THE STRONG HERDSMAN.

BY WILLIAM BENNET.

Duke James of Queensberry, like others of our nobility and gentry, resided during a part of the year in London; and on one of his visits to the metropolis, he and a party of friends happened to have a match at discus, or, as it is more commonly called, “putting the stone.” Several adepts happened to be of the party, who boasted much of their superior strength and adroitness, and after making one of their best throws, offered to stake a large sum that not one of their companions knew of or could find a person to match it.

“The throw is certainly a good one,” said the Duke of Queensberry; “yet I think it were easy to find many champions of sufficient muscle to show us a much better. I myself have a homely unpractised herdsman in Scotland, on whose head I will stake the sum you mention, that he shall throw the quoit fully two yards over the best of you.”

“Done! produce your man!” was the reply of all; and the duke accordingly lost no time in dispatching a letter to one of his servants at Drumlanrig, ordering him to set out immediately on its receipt for Glenmannow, and to come with honest John M‘Call to London without delay.

The duke’s letter with Glenmannow was not less absolute than the order of an emperor. He wondered, but never thought of demurring; and without any further preparation than clothing himself in his Sunday’s suit, and giving Mally his wife a few charges about looking to the hill in his absence, he assumed his large staff, and departed with the servant for “Lunnun.”

On his arrival, the duke informed him of the purpose for which he had been sent, and desired that on the day, and at the hour appointed, he should make his appearance along with one of his servants, who knew perfectly the back streets and by-lanes of London, and who, after he should have decided the bet, would conduct him immediately in safety from the ground, as it was not improbable that his appearance and performance might attract a crowd and lead to unpleasant consequences. When the day arrived, the party assembled and proceeded to the ground, where, to the duke’s surprise, though not to his terror, his crafty opponents chose a spot directly in front of a high wall, and at such a distance that the best of their party should pitch the quoit exactly to the foot of it; so that their antagonist, to make good the duke’s boast of “two yards over them,” should be obliged to exceed them those two yards in height, instead of straight forward distance. This implied such an effort as amounted in their minds to a physical impossibility; and as the duke, from having neglected to specify the particular nature of the ground, could not legally object to this advantage, they looked upon the victory as already their own.

The quoit chosen was a large ball of lead, and already had the champion of the party tossed it to the wall, and demanded of the duke to produce the man appointed to take it up. His grace’s servant, who fully comprehended the instructions given to him, entered at this crisis with the ‘buirdly’ and, to them, uncouth Glenmannow. His appearance attracted no small notice, and even merriment; but the imperturbable object of it regarded the whole scene with the indifference peculiar to his character; and, with his mind fixed only upon the great end for which he was there, requested to be shown the quoit, and the spots from which and to where it had been thrown. This demand was soon complied with, and while he assumed his station, with the quoit in his hand, the duke whispered in his ear the deception which had been practised, and urged him to exert his whole force in order to render it unavailing.

“Will you throw off your coat? It will give you more freedom,” said his Grace in conclusion.

“My coat! Na, na; nae coats aff wi’ me for this silly affair,” replied he. “I thocht it had been some terrible I throw or ither that thae chaps had made, when I was ca’ed for a’ the way to Lunnun to see to gang ayont them; but if this be a’, I wadna hae meaned ye to hae done’t yoursel.” Then poising the ball for a little in his hand, and viewing it with an air of contempt, “There!” said he, tossing it carelessly from him into the air, “he that likes may gang and fetch it back.”

The ball, as if shot from the mouth of a cannon, flew on in a straight line completely over the wall, and alighted on the roof of a house at some distance beyond it. Its weight and velocity forced it through the tiles, and with a crash which immediately caused the house to be evacuated by its inmates, it penetrated also the garret floor, and rolled upon that of the next storey. An instantaneous hubbub ensued,—the party staring at each other in silence, and the crowd swearing it was the devil! but the servant knew his duty, and in a twinkling Glenmannow was no longer amongst them.

His Grace, after paying for the damage done to the house, conducted the whole party to his residence, there to discharge their forfeit, and to gaze upon the prodigy by whom they were vanquished. Glenmannow was well rewarded for his trouble and loss of time in journeying to London; and, over and above the immediate bounty of his Grace, he returned to his honest Mally with a discharge for one year’s rent of the farm in his pocket.

One summer, during his Grace’s residence at Drumlanrig, his friend the Duke of Buccleuch, who was at that time colonel of a regiment of fencibles, happened to be passing between Dumfries and Sanquhar with a company of his grenadiers; and having made Thornhill a station for the night, he went and billeted himself upon his Grace of Queensberry, by whom he was received with a hearty welcome. The two friends deeming one night’s intercourse too short, and Buccleuch’s marching orders not being peremptory in regard to time, it was agreed between them that they should spend the two succeeding days together, and that the soldiers, during that period, should be distributed among the tenantry around the castle.

Buccleuch, though a personal stranger to Glenmannow, was no stranger to his fame; and it was contrived between them, that a few of the grenadiers should be dispatched to beat up his quarters, and endeavour to force themselves upon him as his guests. Six of the stoutest were accordingly selected for this purpose, and after being told the character of the person to whom they were sent, and the joke which was intended to follow it, they received a formal billet, and set out for their destination. Their orders were to enter the house in a seemingly rough manner, to find fault with everything, to quarrel with Glenmannow, and endeavour, if possible, to overpower and bind him; but not on any account to injure either his person or effects in even the slightest degree. The soldiers, their commander knew, were arch fellows, and would acquit themselves in the true spirit of their instructions.

In those days few roads, excepting footpaths,—and those frequently too indistinctly marked to be traced by a stranger,—existed in the interior parts of the country. The soldiers, therefore, experienced no small difficulty in marshalling their way around the slope of the huge Cairnkinnow, in evading bogs and brakes, leaping burns and march dykes, and in traversing all the heights and hollows which lay between them and their secluded bourne. But the toils of their journey were more than compensated by the pleasures of it, for the pilgrim must possess little of either fancy or feeling, who could wander without delight amid the wild scenery of that mountainous district. When the top of Glenquhargen is reached, and the bottom of the Glen of Scaur is beheld far, far beneath your feet; when the little river, which gives to the glen its name, is seen, descending from the hills, like an infant commencing the journey of life, into the long level holm which spreads its bosom to receive it; when, after descending, the eyes are cast around on its amphitheatre of Alpine hills, arrayed in “the brightness of green,” and on the clouds that slumber, or the mists that curl along their summits; and when the head is thrown backward to contemplate the rocky peak of Glenquhargen, with the hawk, the gled, and the raven whirling, screaming, and croaking around it, that individual were dull and despicable indeed whose spirit would not fly forth and mingle, and identify itself, as it were, with the grand and the beautiful around him.

In a truly picturesque situation, on the side of one of the most northern of those hills, the soldiers beheld the house of Glenmannow. It was a low, thatchroofed building, with a peat-stack leaning against one gable, and what might well be denominated a hut, which served for barn, byre, and stable, attached to the other; while a short way farther up the hill stood a round bucht, in which, upon occasion, the sturdy tenant was in the habit of penning his flock. A more modern structure has now been reared in the immediate vicinity of Glenmannow’s domicile; yet in the beginning of the present century some vestiges of the ancient one were still remaining.

It was nearly noon when the party arrived in the “door-step;” yet at that late hour they found Mally busied in making a quantity of milk porridge for her own and her husband’s breakfast, who had not yet returned from his morning visit to the hill. The appearance of soldiers in so sequestered a spot was to her a matter of scarcely less surprise than was that of the Spaniards to the simple Indians, on their first landing upon the shores of the New World. Soldiers, too, are generally objects of terror in such places, where their names are associated in the minds of the peasantry only with ideas of oppression and of slaughter; and at the period referred to, this feeling was in much greater force than at present. Poor Mally endeavoured as much as possible to conceal her fears and embarrassment, and with all the politeness she was mistress of, desired the party to be seated. Her artifice, however, was far from equalling their penetration: they soon remarked her timorous side—glances and hesitating manner, as she walked backward and forward through the house; and they therefore resolved to divert themselves a little by working upon her prejudices.

“That bayonet of mine,” said one of the fellows, “will never be as clear again, I am afraid. The blood of that old herd, whom we did away with as we came, sticks confoundedly to it.”

Mally was at this moment dishing the porridge in two _goans_, one for herself and another for John, and on hearing this horrible annunciation, she made a dead pause, and letting go the foot of the pot, suffered it to fall to its perpendicular with a bang which forced the cleps out of her hand, and precipitated the whole, with a large quantity of undished porridge, to the floor.

“If we do any more such tricks to-day,” continued another wag, “I shall wipe mine well before the blood dries upon it, and then it will not rust as yours has done.”

Mally, regardless of the porridge she had spilt, now stepped with cautious, but quick and trembling steps to the door. Before she had reached the threshold—

“Come,” cried the soldier who had thus spoken, “let us taste this food which the mistress has been preparing. Good woman, return and give us spoons. No flinching! We won’t harm you, unless you provoke us to it. Why do you hesitate? Are you unwilling to part with your victuals? By my faith! the walk we have had this morning has given us such appetites, that if you are not active, we shall have a slice off yourself!”

“O mercy!” cried Mally, staring wildly, “hae patience a wee, an I’se gie ye ocht that’s in the house; but dinna meddle wi’ that goanfu’ o’ porridge, I beseech ye. They’re our John’s; and if he comes frae the hill, and finds them suppet, he’ll brain some o’ ye, as sure as I’m livin’.”

She then made for the cupboard, and began to draw from thence bread, butter, and cheese; but the rogues, on hearing that John was so partial to his porridge, deemed this opportunity of arousing his ire too favourable to be lost, and they therefore insisted on being accommodated with spoons in order to “scart the coggie.” Mally was obliged reluctantly to hand each a spoon from the wicker-creel which hung in the corner, and the six fellows were just in the act of devouring the contents of the goan, when honest Glenmannow made his appearance.

“What’s a’ this?” were his first words, on entering and perceiving such a bevy of red-coats.

“Why, honest man, we have got a billet upon you,” said one of them.

“A billet! Wha frae?”

“From the Duke of Queensberry, with whom our colonel, the Duke of Buccleuch, is stopping at present. We are just arrived; it was a deuced long walk; we were very hungry, and are just making free with your breakfast, until something better be prepared for us.”

“Ye’re makin’ mair free than welcome, I doubt, my lads. I hae nae objection, since our juke has sent ye, to gie ye a nicht’s quarters, an’ to let ye live on the best we can afford; but I think ye micht hae haen mair mense than to fa’ on my parritch that way, like a wheen collies.”

“Like what? Hold your peace, sir,” thundered the whole at once. “We are upon the king’s service, and have a right to what we please, wherever we are billeted.”

“For a’ sakes, John, let them alane!” cried Mally, who saw the tempest that was gathering on her husband’s brow. “We hae plenty o’ meal in the house, and canna be mickle the waur o’ what they’ll tak for ae day an’ nicht. Ye’se get something else to your breakfast directly.” Then she went close to his side, and whispered into his ear the fearful conversation she had heard. Glenmannow, though he never knew what it was to fear, was of a disposition too quiet and mild not to be easily pacified, and the soldiers saw with regret his looks beginning to brighten under the influence of Mally’s eloquence.

“Egad! there’s a fine calf before the window,” cried one of them, whom a new thought had opportunely struck; “Tom, go out and put a ball through it. We shall have a fine roast of veal, if this old lady knows how to manage it.”

“Ye’ll hae a fine roast deevil!” roared Glenmannow, now provoked beyond sufferance; “I’ll gie ye” ——

“Down, down with him!” cried the whole party at once, springing up, and endeavouring to surround him. But in this they resembled a posse of mastiffs attacking some lordly bull, which the enraged animal shakes from his sides and tramples in the dust. In one instant Glenmannow’s plaid was flung from him upon the bed; his staff also, which was too long for use at such close quarters, was relinquished, and seizing by the collar and thigh the first of the fellows who attacked him, he used him against the others, both as a weapon and shield, with such fury and effect, that they were all glad to provide for their safety by an instant retreat. Fortunately for them, the door chanced to be open, so that they reached the bent with comparatively little injury. But the poor fellow who was trussed in Glenmannow’s grasp, and dashed against this and the other of them with such violence, had his body beaten almost to a mummy, and kept howling and calling for mercy in a most lamentable manner. By Glenmannow, however, he was totally unheard, until, on rushing to the door, his eye chanced to fall upon one of his own cars placed on end, and leaning against the side of the house. Tossing the soldier from him upon the grass, he immediately seized this rude vehicle, and, wrenching from it a limb, cast the huge weapon upon his shoulder, and bounded off in pursuit of his enemies.

By this time the soldiers had gained a hundred yards in advance, and were stretching away like greyhounds toward the summit of Glenquhargen. They were all nimble-footed, and the panic with which they were now actually seized gave wings to their speed, and rendered a matter of no regard the rocks and other impediments over which they were flying. Their pursuer was not more speedy, but much longer winded, and the rage which then impelled him was not less potent than their terror. He possessed a fund of physical ability which was almost inexhaustible, and he had sworn not to drop the pursuit till he had “smashed the hale set,” so that from the length of the race the poor wights had but a small chance of safety. At length the top of Glenquhargen, then Cairnkinnow, and next Gowkthorn, were reached, without any loss or advantage to either party. From the latter of these places, the ground declines nearly the whole way to Drumlanrig, and the soldiers, with the start in their favour, flew on with a glimmering of hope that now they could scarcely be overtaken. Their hope was realised, but not without such overstraining as had nearly proved equally fatal with the vengeance from which they fled. Leaning forward almost to the ground, and staggering like drunkards from excess of fatigue, they at last reached the western staircase which leads into the court of the castle. Behind them Glenmannow rushed on also with abated speed, but with indignation as hot as ever. He still bore upon his shoulder the ponderous car limb; his face was literally bathed in perspiration; and the wild expression of his eyes, and the foam which was beginning to appear at each corner of his mouth, rendered him a true personification of Giant Madness broken from his chains.

The two dukes, who had been informed of their approach by some servants who observed them descending the opposite heights, were waiting to receive them within the balustrade which runs along that side of the castle; but on marking the fury of Glenmannow, Duke James deemed it prudent to retire with the exhausted soldiers until the storm should be passed; for while his tenant remained in that mood of mind, he dared not, absolute as was his authority, to come into his presence. His brother of Buccleuch was therefore left to bear the first brunt of the salutation, who, on Glenmannow’s approach, called out, “What is the matter? What is to do?” Glenmannow, without regarding this interrogatory further than by darting upon him a wild and fierce look, sprang up stairs, and rushed past him into the court of the castle. But here his progress was stopped; for among the several doors which lead from thence to every part of the castle, he knew not by which his enemies had entered. One, however, was known to him, and along that passage he rapidly hastened, until he at length arrived in the kitchen. There he was equally at fault, and there his pursuit was ended; for the smiles of the sonsy cook, and the fondlements of the various servants who thronged around him, succeeded in restoring his mind to a degree of calmness and repose. The cook eased his shoulder of the car limb, with the intention of repaying herself for the trouble by using it as fuel; others divested him of his bonnet; and all, with many words, prevailed upon him at last to assume a chair. After a moment’s silence, in which he seemed to be lost in reflection, “Ay, ay,” said he, “I see through a’ this noo. It has been a trick o’ the juke’s makin’ up.” Then, with a serious air, he added, “But it was dangerous though; for if I had gotten a haud o’ thae chaps, wha kens what I might hae done!”

The duke, on being informed of this change wrought upon his tenant, and having learnt from the soldiers the way in which he had been deprived of his breakfast, ordered him a plentiful refreshment, and afterwards sent for him into the presence of himself and of Buccleuch. The breach between them was speedily healed; and Glenmannow, nothing poorer for his race, returned shortly afterwards with a servant on horseback, who was dispatched to convey to headquarters the poor grenadier who had been so roughly handled in the affray.

Mally, with a humanity and forgiveness which the soldier had little right to expect, had succeeded in removing him from the spot where he was cast down, into the house, and having there laid him upon a bed, tended him with such kindness and care, that, by the time of Glenmannow’s return, he was so far recovered as to be able to sit upon the horse sent to remove him. Glenmannow, after Mally had wrapped round him a pair of blankets, bore him out in his arms, and placed him behind the servant, who in this manner conducted him in safety to Drumlanrig.

This is the last exploit of a remarkable kind which I have been able to glean respecting Glenmannow. He lived to a pretty long age, yet his life was abridged within its natural period by imprudently taxing his great strength beyond its actual capability. A high dyke was in the course of being built, from the heights on the left of the Nith into the channel of the river, about four miles above Drumlanrig, on the way to Sanquhar, and in order to resist the force of the current, the largest stones that could be moved were built into the dyke at its termination. One in particular, which lay near the place, was deemed excellently fitted for that purpose, but its weight rendered it unmanageable. Glenmannow undertook to lift it into its place, and in reality did so; but in the effort he injured his breast and spine, and brought on a lingering disorder, of which he died in less than a twelvemonth afterwards, in the year 1705. I am not aware of his having left any descendants to perpetuate and spread his name; one thing at least is certain, that in the present day none such are to be found in that district which was the principal scene of his exploits, and where still is cherished to such a degree his singular yet honest renown.—_Traits of Scottish Life, and Pictures of Scenes and Character._

MY GRANDMOTHER’S PORTRAIT.

BY DANIEL GORRIE.

In picture galleries, or in private apartments, portraits seldom receive much attention from visitors, unless they happen to have known the originals, or to be aware that the pictures are the productions of distinguished artists. And yet, whether we have known the originals or not, and apart altogether from the general artistic merit of the works, there are many portraits which have a wonderful effect in giving the mind a reflective and inquisitive turn. Portraits of this description may occasionally be seen in retired country houses of modest dimensions, where one need scarcely expect to find specimens of the highest class of art. Faces we may there observe, silently depending from the walls, on which strongly-pronounced character is depicted in spite of every artistic defect, and through the deep lines of which the record of a stirring or painful life seems to struggle earnestly for utterance. People are too much in the habit of regarding every person as commonplace and uninteresting who has not managed somehow to make a noise in the world; but in these “counterfeit presentments” of men and women who have died in comparative obscurity, known only to their own circle of friends, we may see much that strangely moves our hearts, and makes us long to learn what their history has been.

Let the reader look in fancy on that old portrait hanging before me there on the wall. To me it is no dead picture, but rather does it seem the living embodiment of a maternal grandmother—a heroic old dame, who never lost heart whatever might betide, and of whom that image is now almost the sole remaining relic. Even a stranger could scarcely fail to note with curious interest that small round face with nose and chin attenuated by years—those peering eyes, where a twinkle of youth yet breaks through the dim of eld—that wrinkled brow, shaded with a brown frontage-braid of borrowed hair—and that compact little head, encased in a snow-white cap with its broad band of black ribbon. The least skilful artist could hardly have failed in depicting the features; but the old familiar expression is also there, preserved as in amber, and the aged face is pleasantly blended in my mind with memories of early days. Detached incidents in her life, which she was fond of frequently relating to her grandchildren, who eagerly clustered around her, listening to the oft-told tale, recur to me with considerable freshness after the lapse of many years.

At the time when that portrait was taken, Mrs Moffat—as I shall name her—was well-nigh eighty years of age. For about the half of that period she had led a widowed life. Her husband, who witnessed many stirring scenes on sea and shore, had been a surgeon in the Royal Navy, and she was left “passing rich with forty pounds a year” of government pension.

There was one remarkable incident in his history to which she frequently recurred. Samuel Moffat obtained an appointment as surgeon on board the ill-fated _Royal George_; but before the time set apart for her leaving port, he found that the smell of the fresh paint of the new vessel created a feeling of nausea, which would have rendered him unfit for duty; and by his good fortune in getting transferred, on this account, to another man-of-war, he escaped the sad fate that befell so many hapless victims—

When Kempenfelt went down With twice four hundred men.

A striking incident of this kind naturally made a deep impression on his own mind, and it also formed a prominent reminiscence in the memory of his faithful partner during the long remainder of her life.

The earlier period of Mrs Moffat’s widowhood was passed in Edinburgh; but when death and marriage had scattered her family, she followed one of her married daughters to the country, and took up her abode in a neat poplar-shaded cottage on the outskirts of a quiet village, situated in a fertile and beautiful valley of the county that lies cradled in the twining arms of the Forth and the Tay. That cottage, with its garden behind, and pretty flower-borders in front, and with its row of poplar and rowan-trees, through which the summer breeze murmured so pleasantly, comes up vividly before my mind’s eye at this moment. Beautiful as of yore the valley smiles around, with its girdling ridges belted with woods, and dotted with pleasant dwellings; and away to westward, shutting in the peaceful scene from the tumult of the great world, rise the twin Lomond hills, glorious at morn and eve, when bathed in the beams of the rising and setting sun. The good old lady, who had spent a large portion of her life in “Auld Reekie,” when narrow Bristo Street and Potterrow and the adjoining courts were inhabited by the better class of citizens, took kindly to the country cottage, and she was fond of the garden and flowers. With a basket on her arm, she trotted about the garden, apparently very busy, but doing little after all. In autumn, after a gusty night, one of her first morning occupations was to gather up the fallen ruddy apples, which she preserved for the special gratification of her grandchildren. Many a time and oft were they debarred from touching the red berries of the rowan-trees, which look as tempting in children’s eyes as did the forbidden fruit in those of Mother Eve. The girls were even enjoined not to make necklaces of these clustering red deceivers.

In that retired village there were, in those days, a good many well-to-do people, who had not found it very difficult to make money out of a generous soil. The different families lived on very sociable terms, and during the winter season there were rounds of tea-parties, winding up with cold suppers and hot toddy. Teetotalism was a thing unknown in that district and in those days, though I shall do the good folks the justice of saying that they knew the virtues of moderation. To all those winter gatherings of the local gentry, Mrs Moffat invariably received an invitation. They could not do without her, relishing as they did her ready wit and hearty good-humour. She was, in sooth, the life of every party. On such occasions she displayed all the artless buoyancy of youth, as if she had never endured the agonies of bereavement, or borne the burdens of life. She was then the very image of “Old Delight,” and her aged face renewed its youth in the sunshine of joy. Some of the knowing lairds tried by bantering and otherwise to draw her out, and her quick cutting repartees were followed by explosions of mirth. It seemed marvellous that such a well of sunny mirth should be encased in that tiny frame. Indeed, it was nothing unusual for the hearty old lady to treat the company to a “canty” song at these village parties, and touches of melody still lingered about the cracks of her voice. When bothered overmuch to sing another song after she had already done enough, she generally met the request with a solitary stanza to this effect:—

There was a wee mannie an’ a wee wifie, And they lived in a vinegar bottle; “And O,” says the wee mannie to the wee wifie, “Wow, but oor warld is little, is little! Wow, but oor warld is little!”

Rare encounters of wit and amusing banter occasionally took place between her and a strange eccentric humorist of a lawyer of the old school, who frequently visited the village from a neighbouring country town. Old Bonthron was the name by which he was familiarly known.

It may readily be imagined that, when old Mr Bonthron and Mrs Moffat met in the same company, the fun would grow “fast and furious,” and such certainly was the case. I have seen the hearty old humorist take the equally hearty old lady on his knee, and dandle her there like a child, greatly to their own delight and to the infinite amusement of the company. There will be less genial and boisterous mirth now-a-days, I should imagine, in that sequestered village.

Such was Mrs Moffat in her lightsome hours, when friends met friends; but her grandchildren were as much delighted with her when, in graver mood, she recalled early recollections, told them pleasant little stories, and narrated graphically what to her were eventful incidents in her life.

I can still remember some of the pleasant pictures she gave us of her early days. She was born in the town of Dalkeith, which is beautiful for situation, being planted in the midst of the richest woodland scenery, and she imprinted in our hearts vivid impressions of the delighted feelings with which, in the days of her girlhood, she looked through the gate of the Duke’s great park, and saw the long winding avenue and the greensward traversed by nibbling sheep, and the magnificent trees whose “shadowing shroud” might cover a goodly company at their rural feast in the noontide of a summer’s day. She described the rustic seats and summer-houses on the banks of a brook, that wandered at its own sweet will through the wooded grounds—regions and resorts of joyance, where the children of the town, through the kindness of the then reigning Duke of Buccleuch, were permitted to spend the livelong summer’s day, thus enabling them to store their memories with pleasing recollections, which might come back upon them in their declining days, like visions of beauty from lands of old romance. There was a pathetic story about a family of larks that had their nest in the Duke’s Park, which she recited to us over and over again, by way of inculcating the virtue of treating kindly all the creatures of God. Her story was, that some of the young rascals of Dalkeith had caught the mother-bird in the nest, and had carried off her and the whole family of young ones at one fell swoop. The male bird, thus deprived at once of mate and family, took up his melancholy station near the nest, and mourned his loss with plaintive pipe for two days, at the end of which time the broken-hearted warbler died. This affecting incident, told with much seriousness and feeling, was not unproductive of good effect upon the young listeners. Cities and towns being still to us mysteries of which we had only a vague conception, it pleased us much to hear her tell how the bells of Dalkeith tolled children to bed, and how little boys walked through the streets at night, calling “Hot pies for supper!” It struck us that at whatever hour the bell tolled, we should have liked to remain out of bed till the pies went round.

On winter evenings, beside the good old lady’s cottage fire, she was often constrained to recount her famous voyage to London, in which she wellnigh suffered shipwreck. The war-vessel on board of which her husband acted as surgeon had arrived in the Thames. He could not then obtain leave of absence, and as they had not met for many long months, she determined—protracted as the passage then was from Leith to London—to make an effort to see her husband, and to visit the great metropolis. Steamers had not, at that period, come into existence, and the clipper-smacks that traded between Leith and London, and took a few venturesome passengers on their trips, dodged along the Scotch and English coasts for days and weeks, thus making a lengthened voyage of what is now a brief and pleasant sail. It was considered a bold and hazardous undertaking, in those days, for any lady to proceed alone on such a voyage. This, however, she did, as she was gifted with a wonderful amount of pluck, leaving her family in the charge of some friends till she returned.

The vessel had scarcely left the Firth of Forth, and got out into the open sea, when the weather underwent a bad turn, and soon they had to encounter all the fury of a severe storm, which caused many shipwrecks along the whole eastern seaboard. With a kind of placid contentment—nay, even with occasional glee—would she describe the protracted miseries and hardships they endured, having run short of supplies, and every hour expecting the vessel to founder. It was three weeks after leaving Leith until the smack was, as she described it, towed up the Thames like a dead dog, without either mast or bowsprit—a hapless and helpless hulk. However, she managed to see her husband, and the happiness of the meeting would be considered a good equivalent for the mishaps of the voyage. She saw, in the great metropolis, the then Prince of Wales—the “First Gentleman in Europe,” and used to relate, with considerable gusto (old ladies being more rough-and-ready then than now), how the Prince, as he was riding in St James’s Park, overheard a hussar in the crowd exclaiming, “He’s a d——d handsome fellow!” and immediately lifting his hat, his Royal Highness replied, “Thank you, my lad; but you put too much spice in your compliments!” That London expedition was a red-letter leaf in Mrs Moffat’s biography, and it was well thumbed by us juveniles. Her return voyage was comparatively comfortable, and much more rapid; but she never saw her husband again, as he died at sea, and was consigned to the deep.

Even more interesting than the London trip were all the stories and incidents connected with her only son—our uncle who _ought_ to have been, but who was dead before any of us were born. Through the kindness and influence of Admiral Greig of the Russian navy, he obtained a commission in the Russian service at an unusually early age—Russia and Britain being at that time in close alliance. Neither the Russian navy nor army was in the best condition, and the Emperor was very desirous to obtain the services of British officers, Scotsmen being preferred. Mrs Moffat loved her son with all the warmth of her kindly nature, and when he had been about a year or two in the Russian service, the news spread through Edinburgh one day, that a Russian man-of-war was coming up the Firth to Leith roads. I have heard the good lady relate the eventful incidents of that day with glistening eyes and tremulous voice.

The tidings were conveyed to her by friends who knew that she had some reason to be interested in the news. She had received no communication from her son for some time, as the mails were then very irregular, and letters often went amissing; and, filled with the hope that he might be on board the Russian vessel that was approaching the roads, she immediately hurried off for Leith, whither crowds of people were already repairing, as a Russian war-vessel in the Forth was as great a rarity then as it is now. Before she arrived at the pier, the vessel had anchored in the roads, and the pier, neither so long nor so commodious as it is now, was thronged with people pressing onwards to get a sight of the stranger ship. Nothing daunted by the crowd, Mrs Moffat squeezed herself forward, at the imminent risk of being seriously crushed. A gentleman who occupied a “coigne of vantage,” out of the stream of the crowd, observed this slight-looking lady pressing forward with great eagerness. He immediately hailed her, and asked, as she appeared very much interested, if she expected any one, or had any friends on board. She replied that she half expected her son to be with the vessel. The gentleman, who was to her a total stranger, but who must have been a gentleman every inch, immediately took her under his protection, and having a telescope in his hand, he made observations, and reported progress.

One of the ship’s boats had been let down, and he told her that he observed officers in white uniform rapidly descending. Mrs Moffat’s eagerness and anxiety were now on the increase. The boat put off from the ship, propelled by sturdy and regular strokes, cutting the water into foam, which sparkled in the sunshine. When the boat had approached midway between the ship and the shore, Mrs Moffat asked her protector if he could distinguish one officer apparently younger than the others.

“Yes,” he replied; “there is one who seems scarcely to have passed from boyhood to manhood.”

Her eager impatience, with hope and fear alternating in her heart, seemed now to agitate her whole frame, and the bystanders, seeing her anxiety, appeared also to share in her interest.

At last the boat, well filled with officers, shot alongside the pier, the crowd rushing and cheering, as it sped onward to the upper landing-place. It was with great difficulty that the gentleman could restrain the anxious mother from dashing into the rushing stream of people. When the crowd had thinned off a little, they made their way up the pier, and found that the officers had all left the boat and gone into the Old Ship Inn—probably because they had no desire of being mobbed. Mrs Moffat immediately went to the inn, and requested an attendant to ask if one of the officers belonged to Scotland, and if so, to be good enough to mention his name.

“Yes—Moffat!” was the cheery response, and in a short time mother and son were locked in each other’s arms in the doorway of the Old Ship.

With a glee, not unmingled with tender regrets, she used to tell how, when she and the spruce young officer were proceeding up Leith Walk together to Edinburgh, an old woman stopped them, and, clapping him kindly on the shoulder, said—“Ay, my mannie, ye’ll be a captain yet!” This prophecy of the old woman certainly met its fulfilment.

After staying a few days in the old home near the Meadows, young Moffat again took his departure, never more to see his affectionate mother, or the bald crown of Arthur Seat rising by the side of the familiar Firth. He joined the army (changes of officers from the navy to the army being then frequent in the Russian service), and reenacted his part honourably in many memorable scenes. Still do I remember the tender and tearful care with which his old mother opened up the yellow letters, with their faded ink-tracings, which contained descriptions of the part he played in harassing the French, during their disastrous retreat after the burning of Moscow. One of these letters, I recollect, commenced thus—“Here we are, driving the French before us like a flock of sheep;” and in others he gave painful descriptions of their coming up to small parties of French soldiers who were literally glued by the extreme frost to the ground—quite stiff and dead, but still in a standing attitude, and leaning on their muskets. Poor wretches! that was their sole reward for helping to whet the appetite of an insatiable ambition. In those warlike times, young Moffat grew into favour, and gained promotion. He received a gold-hilted sword from the Emperor for distinguished service, but he succumbed to fatigue, and died on foreign soil. The gold-headed sword and his epaulets, which he had bequeathed to a favourite sister, fell into the hands of harpies in London, and to this day have never reached Scotland.

In the quiet village Mrs Moffat spent her declining days in peace and sweet content, and she now sleeps in the village churchyard, till the last spring that visits the world shall waken inanimate dust to immortal life.

THE BAPTISM.

BY PROFESSOR WILSON.

It is a pleasant and impressive time, when, at the close of divine service, in some small country church, there takes place the gentle stir and preparation for a baptism. A sudden air of cheerfulness spreads over the whole congregation; the more solemn expression of all countenances fades away; and it is at once felt that a rite is about to be performed which, although of a sacred and awful kind, is yet connected with a thousand delightful associations of purity, beauty, and innocence. Then there is an eager bending of smiling faces over the humble galleries—an unconscious rising up in affectionate curiosity—and a slight murmuring sound, in which is no violation of the Sabbath sanctity of God’s house, when, in the middle passage of the church, the party of women is seen, matrons and maids, who bear in their bosoms, or in their arms, the helpless beings about to be made members of the Christian communion.

There sit, all dressed becomingly in white, the fond and happy baptismal group. The babies have been intrusted, for a precious hour, to the bosoms of young maidens, who tenderly fold them to their yearning hearts, and with endearments taught by nature, are stilling, not always successfully, their plaintive cries. Then the proud and delighted girls rise up, one after the other, in sight of the whole congregation, and hold up the infants, arrayed in neat caps and long flowing linen, into their fathers’ hands. For the poorest of the poor, if he has a heart at all, will have his infant well dressed on such a day, even although it should scant his meal for weeks to come, and force him to spare fuel to his winter fire.

And now the fathers were all standing below the pulpit, with grave and thoughtful faces. Each has tenderly taken his infant into his toil-hardened hands, and supports it in gentle and steadfast affection. They are all the children of poverty, and if they live, are destined to a life of toil. But now poverty puts on its most pleasant aspect, for it is beheld standing before the altar of religion with contentment and faith. This is a time when the better and deeper nature of every man must rise up within him, and when he must feel, more especially, that he is a spiritual and immortal being making covenant with God. He is about to take upon himself a holy charge; to promise to look after his child’s immortal soul; and to keep its little feet from the paths of evil, and in those of innocence and peace. Such a thought elevates the lowest mind above itself, diffuses additional tenderness over the domestic relations, and makes them who hold up their infants to the baptismal font, better fathers, husbands, and sons, by the deeper insight which they then possess into their nature and their life.

The minister consecrates the water; and, as it falls on his infant’s face, the father feels the great oath in his soul. As the poor helpless creature is wailing in his arms, he thinks how needful indeed to human infancy is the love of Providence! And when, after delivering each his child into the arms of the smiling maiden from whom he had received it, he again takes his place for admonition and advice before the pulpit, his mind is well disposed to think on the perfect beauty of that religion of which the Divine Founder said, “Suffer little children to be brought unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven!”

The rite of baptism had not thus been performed for several months in the kirk of Lanark. It was now the hottest time of persecution; and the inhabitants of that parish found other places in which to worship God and celebrate the ordinances of religion. It was now the Sabbath-day, and a small congregation of about a hundred souls had met for divine service in a place of worship more magnificent than any temple that human hands had ever built to Deity. Here, too, were three children about to be baptised. The congregation had not assembled to the toll of the bell, but each heart knew the hour and observed it; for there are a hundred sun-dials among the hills, woods, moors, and fields, and the shepherd and the peasant see the hours passing by them in sunshine and shadow.

The church in which they were assembled was hewn by God’s hand out of the eternal rocks. A river rolled its way through a mighty chasm of cliffs, several hundred feet high, of which the one side presented enormous masses, and the other corresponding recesses, as if the great stone girdle had been rent by a convulsion. The channel was overspread with prodigious fragments of rock or large loose stones, some of them smooth and bare, others containing soil and verdure in their rents and fissures, and here and there crowned with shrubs and trees. The eye could at once command a long stretching vista, seemingly closed and shut up at both extremities by the coalescing cliffs. This majestic reach of river contained pools, streams, rushing shelves, and waterfalls innumerable; and when the water was low, which it now was in the common drought, it was easy to walk up this scene, with the calm blue sky overhead, an utter and sublime solitude. On looking up, the soul was bowed down by the feeling of that prodigious height of unscaleable and often overhanging cliff. Between the channel and the summit of the far-extended precipices were perpetually flying rooks and wood-pigeons, and now and then a hawk, filling the profound abyss with their wild cawing, deep murmur, or shrilly shriek. Sometimes a heron would stand erect and still on some little stone island, or rise up like a white cloud along the black wall of the chasm and disappear. Winged creatures alone could inhabit this region. The fox and wild-cat chose more accessible haunts. Yet there came the persecuted Christians and worshipped God, whose hand hung over their heads those magnificent pillars and arches, scooped out those galleries from the solid rock, and laid at their feet the calm water in its transparent beauty, in which they could see themselves sitting in reflected groups, with their Bibles in their hands.

Here, upon a semicircular ledge of rocks, over a narrow chasm, of which the tiny stream played in a murmuring waterfall, and divided the congregation into two equal parts, sat about a hundred persons, all devoutly listening to their minister, who stood before them on what might well be called a small natural pulpit of living stone. Up to it there led a short flight of steps, and over it waved the canopy of a tall graceful birch-tree. This pulpit stood in the middle of the channel, directly facing that congregation, and separated from them by the clear deep sparkling pool into which the scarce-heard water poured over the blackened rock. The water, as it left the pool, separated into two streams, and flowed on each side of that altar, thus placing it on an island, whose large mossy stones were richly embowered under the golden blossoms and green tresses of the broom. Divine service was closed, and a row of maidens, all clothed in purest white, came gliding off from the congregation, and crossing the stream on some stepping-stones, arranged themselves at the foot of the pulpit, with the infants about to be baptized. The fathers of the infants, just as if they had been in their own kirk, had been sitting there during worship, and now stood up before the minister. The baptismal water, taken from the pellucid pool, was lying consecrated in a small hollow of one of the upright stones that formed one side or pillar of the pulpit, and the holy rite proceeded. Some of the younger ones in that semicircle kept gazing down into the pool, in which the whole scene was reflected, and now and then, in spite of the grave looks or admonishing whispers of their elders, letting a pebble fall into the water, that they might judge of its depth from the length of time that elapsed before the clear air-bells lay sparkling on the agitated surface. The rite was over, and the religious services of the day closed by a psalm. The mighty rocks hemmed in the holy sound, and sent it in a more compacted volume, clear, sweet, and strong, up to heaven. When the psalm ceased, an echo, like a spirit’s voice, was heard dying away up among the magnificent architecture of the cliffs, and once more might be noticed in the silence the reviving voice of the waterfall.

Just then a large stone fell from the top of the cliff into the pool, a loud voice was heard, and a plaid hung over on the point of a shepherd’s staff. Their watchful sentinel had descried danger, and this was his warning. Forthwith the congregation rose. There were paths dangerous to unpractised feet, along the ledges of the rocks, leading up to several caves and places of concealment. The more active and young assisted the elder—more especially the old pastor, and the women with the infants; and many minutes had not elapsed, till not a living creature was visible in the channel of the stream, but all of them hidden, or nearly so, in the clefts and caverns.

The shepherd who had given the alarm had lain down again in his plaid instantly on the greensward upon the summit of these precipices. A party of soldiers were immediately upon him, and demanded what signals he had been making, and to whom; when one of them, looking over the edge of the cliff, exclaimed, “See, see, Humphrey! we have caught the whole tabernacle of the Lord in a net at last. There they are, praising God among the stones of the river Mouss. These are the Cartland Craigs. By my soul’s salvation, a noble cathedral!” “Fling the lying sentinel over the cliffs. Here is a canting Covenanter for you, deceiving honest soldiers on the very Sabbath-day. Over with him, over with him—out of the gallery into the pit.” But the shepherd had vanished like a shadow; and, mixing with the tall green broom and brushes, was making his unseen way towards the wood. “Satan has saved his servant. But come, my lads, follow me; I know the way down into the bed of the stream, and the steps up to Wallace’s Cave. They are called the ‘Kittle Nine Stanes.’ The hunt’s up—we’ll be all in at the death. Halloo, my boys, halloo!”

The soldiers dashed down a less precipitous part of the wooded banks, a little below the “Craigs,” and hurried up the channel. But when they reached the altar where the old grayhaired minister had been seen standing, and the rocks that had been covered with people, all was silent and solitary—not a creature to be seen.

“Here is a Bible dropped by some of them,” cried a soldier; and with his foot spun it away into the pool.

“A bonnet! a bonnet!” cried another. “Now for the pretty sanctified face that rolled its demure eyes below it.”

But after a few jests and oaths the soldiers stood still, eyeing with a kind of mysterious dread the black and silent walls of the rock that hemmed them in, and hearing only the small voice of the stream that sent a profounder stillness through the heart of that majestic solitude. “Curse these cowardly Covenanters! What if they tumble down upon our heads pieces of rock from their hiding-places? Advance? Or retreat?”

There was no reply; for a slight fear was upon every man. Musket or bayonet could be of little use to men obliged to clamber up rocks, along slender paths, leading they knew not where; and they were aware that armed men now-a-days worshipped God,—men of iron hearts, who feared not the glitter of the soldier’s arms, neither barrel nor bayonet; men of long stride, firm step, and broad breast, who, on the open field, would have overthrown the marshalled line, and gone first and foremost if a city had to be taken by storm.

As the soldiers were standing together irresolute, a noise came upon their ears like distant thunder, but even more appalling; and a slight current of air, as if propelled by it, passed whispering along the sweetbriers and the broom, and the tresses of the birch-trees. It came deepening and rolling, and roaring on, and the very Cartland Craigs shook to their foundation as if in an earthquake. “The Lord have mercy upon us!—what is this?” And down fell many of the miserable wretches on their knees, and some on their faces, upon the sharp-pointed rocks. Now it was like the sound of many myriad chariots rolling on their iron axles down the stony channel of the torrent. The old grayhaired minister issued from the mouth of Wallace’s Cave, and said, with a loud voice, “The Lord God terrible reigneth!” A waterspout had burst up among the moorlands, and the river, in its power, was at hand. There it came—tumbling along into that long reach of cliffs, and in a moment filled it with one mass of waves. Huge agitated clouds of foam rode on the surface of a blood-red torrent. An army must have been swept off by that flood. The soldiers perished in a moment; but high up in the cliffs, above the sweep of destruction, were the Covenanters—men, women, and children, uttering prayers to God, unheard by themselves in that raging thunder.

THE LAIRD’S WOOING.

BY JOHN GALT.

The laird began the record of his eighteenth year in these words:—

There lived at this time, on the farmstead of Broomlands, a person that was a woman, by calling a widow; and she and her husband, when he was in this life, had atween them Annie Daisie, a dochter;—very fair she was to look upon, comely withal, and of a feleecity o’ nature.

This pretty Annie Daisie, I know not hoo, found favour in my eyes, and I made no scruple of going to the kirk every Sabbath day to see her, though Mr Glebeantiends was, to a certainty, a vera maksleepie preacher. When I forgathered with her by accident, I was all in a confusion; and when I would hae spoken to her wi’ kindly words, I could but look in her clear een and nicher like Willie Gouk, the haverel laddie; the which made her jeer me as if I had a want, and been daft likewise; so that seeing I cam no speed in courting for myself, I thocht o’ telling my mother; but that was a kittle job,—howsoever, I took heart, and said—

“Mother!”

“Well, son,” she made answer, “what would ye?”

“I’m going to be marriet,” quo’ I.

“Marriet!” cried she, spreading out her arms wi’ consternation. “And wha’s the bride?”

I didna like just to gie her an even down answer, but said I thought myself old enough for a helpmeet to my table, which caused her to respond with a laugh; whereupon I told her I was thinking of Annie Daisie.

“Ye’ll surely ne’er marry the like o’ her;—she’s only a gair’ner’s dochter.”

But I thocht of Adam and Eve, and said—“We’re a’ come of a gair’ner;”—the which caused her presently to wax vera wroth with me; and she stampit with her foot, and called me a blot on the ‘scutcheon o’ Auldbiggins; then she sat down, and began to reflec’ with herself; and, after a season, she spoke rawtional about the connection, saying she had a wife in her mind for me, far more to the purpose than such a causey-dancer as Annie Daisie.

But I couldna bide to hear Annie Daisie mislikened, and yet I was feart to commit the sin of disobedience, for my mother had no mercy when she thought I rebelled against her authority; so I sat down, and was in a tribulation, and then I speir’t, with a flutter of affliction, who it was that she had willed to be my wife.

“Miss Betty Græme,” said she; “if she can be persuaded to tak sic a headowit.”

Now this Miss Betty Græme was the tocherless sixth daughter o’ a broken Glasgow provost, and made her leevin’ by seamstress-work and flowering lawn; but she was come of gentle blood, and was herself a gentle creature, though no sae blithe as bonnie Annie Daisie; and for that I told my mother I would never take her, though it should be the death o’ me. Accordingly I ran out of the house, and took to the hills, and wistna where I was, till I found myself at the door of the Broomlands, with Annie Daisie before me, singing like a laverock as she watered the yarn of her ain spinning on the green. On seeing me, however, she stoppit, and cried—

“Gude keep us a’, laird!—what’s frightened you to flee hither?”

But I was desperate, and I ran till her, and fell on my knees in a lover-like fashion; but wha would hae thocht it?—she dang me ower on my back, and as I lay on the ground she watered me with her watering-can, and was like to dee wi’ laughing: the which sign and manifestation of hatred on her part quenched the low o’ love on mine; an’ I raise an’ went hame, drookit and dripping as I was, and told my mother I would be an obedient and dutiful son.

Soon after this, Annie Daisie was marriet to John Lounlans; and there was a fulsome phrasing about them when they were kirkit, as the comeliest couple in the parish. It was castor-oil to hear’t; and I was determined to be upsides with them, for the way she had jilted me.

In the meanwhile my mother, that never, when she had a turn in hand, alloo’t the grass to grow in her path, invited Miss Betty Græme to stay a week with us; the which, as her father’s family were in a straitened circumstance, she was glad to accept; and being come, and her mother with her, I could discern a confabbing atween the twa auld leddies—Mrs Græme shaking the head of scrupulosity, and my mother laying down the law and the gospel;—all denoting a matter-o’-money plot for me and Miss Betty.

At last it came to pass, on the morning of the third day, that Miss Betty did not rise to take her breakfast with us, but was indisposed; and when she came to her dinner, her een were bleared and begrutten. After dinner, however, my mother that day put down, what wasna common with her housewifery, a bottle o’ port in a decanter, instead o’ the gardevin for toddy, and made Miss Betty drink a glass to mak her better, and me to drink three, saying, “Faint heart never won fair leddy.” Upon the whilk hint I took another myself, and drank a toast for better acquaintance with Miss Betty. Then the twa matrons raise to leave the room, and Miss Betty was rising too; but her mother laid her hand upon her shouther, and said—

“It’s our lot, my dear, and we maun bear with it.”

Thus it came to pass that I and Miss Betty were left by ourselves in a very comical situation.

There was silence for a space of time between us; at last she drew a deep sigh, and I responded, to the best o’ my ability, with another. Then she took out her pocket-napkin, and began to wipe her eyes. This is something like serious courting, thocht I to myself, for sighs and tears are the food of love; but I wasna yet just ready to greet; hoosever, I likewise took up my pocket-napkin, and made a sign of sympathy by blowing my nose, and then I said—

“Miss Betty Græme, how would ye like to be Leddy of Auldbiggins, under my mother?”

“Oh, heavens!” cried she, in a voice that gart me a’ dinnle; and she burst into a passion of tears—the whilk to see so affectit me that I couldna help greeting too; the sight whereof made her rise and walk the room like a dementit bedlamite.

I was terrified, for her agitation wasna like the raptures I expectit; but I rose from my seat, and going round to the other side of the table where she was pacing the floor, I followed her, and pulling her by the skirt, said, in a gallant way, to raise her spirits—

“Miss Betty Græme, will ye sit doon on my knee?”

I’ll ne’er forget the look she gied for answer; but it raised my courage, and I said, “E’en’s ye like, Meg Dorts”—and with a flourish o’ my heel, I left her to tune her pipes alane. This did the business, as I thocht; for though I saw her no more that night, yet the next morning she came to breakfast a subdued woman, and my mother, before the week was out, began to make preparations for the wedding.

But, lo and behold! one afternoon, as Miss Betty and me were taking a walk, at her own request, on the high road, by came a whisky with a young man in it, that had been a penny-clerk to her father, and before you could say, hey cockolorum! she was up in the gig, and doon at his side, and aff and away like the dust in a whirlwind.

I was very angry to be sae jiltit a second time, but it wasna with an anger like the anger I suffered for what I met with at the hands of Annie Daisie. It was a real passion. I ran hame like a clap o’ thunder, and raged and rampaged till Mrs Græme was out of the house, bag and baggage. My mother thought I was gane wud, and stood and lookit at me, and didna daur to say nay to my commands. Whereas, the thocht o’ the usage I had gotten frae Annie Daisie bred a heart-sickness of humiliation, and I surely think that if she had not carried her scorn o’ me sae far as to prefer a bare farmer lad like John Lounlans, I had hae sank into a decline, and sought the grave with a broken heart. But her marrying him roused my corruption, and was as souring to the milk of my nature. I could hae forgiven her the watering; and had she gotten a gentleman of family, I would not have been overly miscontented; but to think, after the offer she had from a man of my degree, that she should take up with a tiller of the ground, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, was gall and wormwood. Truly, it was nothing less than a kithing of the evil spirit of the democraws that sae withered the green bay-trees of the world, when I was made a captain in the volunteers, by order of the Lord Lieutenant, ’cause, as his lordship said, of my stake in the country.—“_The Last of the Lairds._”

THOMAS THE RHYMER: _AN ANCIENT FAIRY LEGEND_.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Thomas of Erceldoune, in Lauderdale, called the Rhymer on account of his producing a poetical romance on the subject of Tristrem and Yseult, which is curious as the earliest specimen of English verse known to exist, flourished in the reign of Alexander III. of Scotland. Like other men of talent of the period, Thomas was suspected of magic. He was also said to have the gift of prophecy, which was accounted for in the following peculiar manner, referring entirely to the Elfin superstition. As Thomas lay on Huntly Bank (a place on the descent of the Eildon hills, which raise their triple crest above the celebrated monastery of Melrose), he saw a lady so extremely beautiful that he imagined it must be the Virgin Mary herself. Her appointments, however, were those rather of an amazon, or goddess of the woods. Her steed was of the highest beauty, and at his mane hung thirty silver bells and nine, which were music to the wind as she paced along. Her saddle was of “royal bone” (ivory), laid over with “orfeverie” (goldsmith’s work). Her stirrups—her dress—all corresponded with her extreme beauty and the magnificence of her array. The fair huntress had her bow in hand, and her arrows at her belt. She led three greyhounds in a leash, and three raches, or hounds of scent, followed her closely.

She rejected and disclaimed the homage which Thomas desired to pay to her; so that, passing from one extremity to the other, Thomas became as bold as he had at first been humble. The lady warns him that he must become her slave, if he should prosecute his suit towards her in the manner he proposes. Before their interview terminates, the appearance of the beautiful lady is changed into that of the most hideous hag in existence. A witch from the spital or almshouse would have been a goddess in comparison to the late beautiful huntress. Hideous as she was, Thomas’s irregular desires had placed him under the control of this hag, and when she bade him take leave of the sun, and of the leaf that grew on the tree, he felt himself under the necessity of obeying her. A cavern received them, in which, following his frightful guide, he for three days travelled in darkness, sometimes hearing the booming of a distant ocean, sometimes walking through rivers of blood, which crossed their subterranean path. At length they emerged into daylight, in a most beautiful orchard. Thomas, almost fainting for want of food, stretches out his hand towards the goodly fruit which hangs around him, but is forbidden by his conductress, who informs him that these are the fatal apples which were the cause of the fall of man. He perceives also that his guide had no sooner entered this mysterious ground, and breathed its magic air, than she was revived in beauty, equipage, and splendour, as fair or fairer than he had first seen her on the mountain. She then proceeds to explain to him the character of the country.

“Yonder right hand path,” she says, “conveys the spirits of the blest to paradise. Yon downward and well-worn way leads sinful souls to the place of everlasting punishment. The third road, by yonder dark brake, conducts to the milder place of pain, from which prayer and mass may release offenders. But see you yet a fourth road, sweeping along the plain to yonder splendid castle? Yonder is the road to Elfland, to which we are now bound. The lord of the castle is king of the country, and I am his queen. And when we enter yonder castle, you must observe strict silence, and answer no question that is asked at you, and I will account for your silence by saying I took your speech when I brought you from middle earth.”

Having thus instructed her lover, they journeyed on to the castle, and entering by the kitchen, found themselves in the midst of such a festive scene as might become the mansion of a great feudal lord or prince.

Thirty carcases of deer were lying on the massive kitchen board, under the hands of numerous cooks, who toiled to cut them up and dress them, while the gigantic greyhounds which had taken the spoil lay lapping the blood, and enjoying the sight of the slain game. They came next to the royal hall, where the king received his loving consort without censure or suspicion. Knights and ladies, dancing by threes, occupied the floor of the hall, and Thomas, the fatigues of his journey from the Eildon hills forgotten, went forward and joined in the revelry. After a period, however, which seemed to him a very short one, the queen spoke with him apart, and bade him prepare to return to his own country.

“Now,” said the queen, “how long think you that you have been here?”

“Certes, fair lady,” answered Thomas, “not above these seven days.”

“You are deceived,” answered the queen; “you have been seven years in this castle; and it is full time you were gone. Know, Thomas, that the archfiend will come to this castle to-morrow to demand his tribute, and so handsome a man as you will attract his eye. For all the world would I not suffer you to be betrayed to such a fate; therefore up, and let us be going.”

This terrible news reconciled Thomas to his departure from Elfin land, and the queen was not long in placing him upon Huntly Bank, where the birds were singing. She took a tender leave of him, and to ensure his reputation bestowed on him the tongue which _could not lie_. Thomas in vain objected to this inconvenient and involuntary adhesion to veracity, which would make him, as he thought, unfit for church or for market, for king’s court or for lady’s bower. But all his remonstrances were disregarded by the lady, and Thomas the Rhymer, whenever the discourse turned on the future, gained the credit of a prophet whether he would or not; for he could say nothing but what was sure to come to pass.

Thomas remained several years in his own tower near Erceldoune, and enjoyed the fame of his predictions, several of which are current among the country people to this day. At length, as the prophet was entertaining the Earl of March in his dwelling, a cry of astonishment arose in the village, on the appearance of a hart and hind, which left the forest, and, contrary to their shy nature, came quietly onward, traversing the village towards the dwelling of Thomas. The prophet instantly rose from the board; and acknowledging the prodigy as the summons of his fate, he accompanied the hart and hind into the forest, and though occasionally seen by individuals to whom he has chosen to show himself, he has never again mixed familiarly with mankind.

Thomas of Erceldoune, during his retirement, has been supposed, from time to time, to be levying forces to take the field in some crisis of his country’s fate. The story has often been told, of a daring horse-jockey having sold a black horse to a man of venerable and antique appearance, who appointed the remarkable hillock upon Eildon hills, called the Lucken-hare, as the place where, at twelve o’clock at night, he should receive the price. He came, and his money was paid in ancient coin, and he was invited by his customer to view his residence. The trader in horses followed his guide in the deepest astonishment through several ranges of stalls, in each of which a horse stood motionless, while an armed warrior lay equally still at the charger’s feet.

“All these men,” said the wizard in a whisper, “will awaken at the battle of Sheriffmuir.”

At the extremity of this extraordinary depôt hung a sword and a horn, which the prophet pointed out to the horse-dealer as containing the means of dissolving the spell. The man in confusion took the horn, and attempted to wind it. The horses instantly started in their stalls, stamped, and shook their bridles; the men arose and clashed their armour, and the mortal, terrified at the tumult he had excited, dropped the horn from his hand. A voice like that of a giant, louder even than the tumult around, pronounced these words:—

Woe to the coward that ever he was born, That did not draw the sword before he blew the horn!

A whirlwind expelled the horse-dealer from the cavern, the entrance to which he could never again find. A moral might, perhaps, be extracted from the legend,—namely, that it is best to be armed against danger before bidding it defiance. But it is a circumstance worth notice, that although this edition of the tale is limited to the year 1715, by the very mention of Sheriffmuir, yet a similar story appears to have been current during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which is given by Reginald Scot. The narrative is edifying as peculiarly illustrative of the mode of marring a curious tale in telling it, which was one of the virtues professed by Caius when he hired himself to King Lear. Reginald Scot, incredulous on the subject of witchcraft, seems to have given some weight to the belief of those who thought that the spirits of famous men do, after death, take up some particular habitations near cities, towns, and countries, and act as tutelary and guardian spirits to the places they loved while in the flesh.

“But more particularly to illustrate this conjecture,” says he, “I could name a person who hath lately appeared thrice since his decease, at least some ghostly being or other that calls itself by the name of such a person, who was dead a hundred years ago, and was in his lifetime accounted as a prophet or predicter, by the assistance of sublunary spirits; and now, at his appearance, did also give strange predictions respecting famine and plenty, war and bloodshed, and the end of the world. By the information of the person that had communication with him, the last of his appearances was in the following manner:—‘I had been,’ said he, ‘to sell a horse at the next market town, but not attaining my price, as I returned home, by the way I met this man, who began to be familiar with me, asking what news, and how affairs moved through the country. I answered as I thought fit; withal I told him of my horse, whom he began to cheapen, and proceeded with me so far that the price was agreed upon. So he turned back with me, and told me that if I would go along with him, I should receive my money. On our way we went,—I upon my horse, and he on another milk-white beast. After much travel, I asked him where he dwelt, and what his name was. He told me that his dwelling was a mile off, at a place called _Farran_, of which place I had never heard,[20] though I knew all the country round about. He also told me that he himself was the person of the family of Learmonths,[21] so much spoken of as a prophet. At which I began to be somewhat fearful, perceiving we were on a road which I had never been on before, which increased my fear and amazement more. Well! on we went till he brought me under ground, I knew not how, into the presence of a beautiful woman, who paid me the money without speaking a word. He conducted me out again through a large and long entry, where I saw above six hundred men in armour laid prostrate on the ground as if asleep. At last I found myself in the open field, by the help of the moonlight, in the very place where I first met him, and made a shift to get home by three in the morning. But the money I received was just double of what I esteemed it when the woman paid me, of which, at this instant, I have several pieces to show, consisting of ninepennies, thirteenpence-halfpennies, &c.’”

Footnote 20:

In this Sir Walter confesses himself “in the same ignorance as his namesake Reginald, though having at least as many opportunities of information.”

Footnote 21:

In popular tradition, the name of Thomas the Rhymer was always averred to be Learmonth, though he neither uses it himself, nor is described by his son other than Le Rymour. The Learmonths of Dairsie, in Fife, claimed descent from the prophet.

It is a great pity that this horse-dealer, having specimens of the fairy coin, of a quality more permanent than usual, had not favoured us with an account of an impress so valuable to medallists. It is not the less edifying, as we are deprived of the more picturesque parts of the story, to learn that Thomas’s payment was as faithful as his prophecies. The beautiful lady who bore the purse must have been undoubtedly the Fairy Queen, whose affection, though, like that of his own Yseult, we cannot term it altogether laudable, seems yet to have borne a faithful and firm character.

LACHLAN MORE: _A TRADITIONARY TALE OF THE WESTERN HIGHLANDS_.

Lachlan More Maclean, of Duart, was one of the most remarkable men connected with the Highlands of Scotland in his days. His father having died early, King James the Fifth took a considerable interest in this young man, and he was educated at his expense. Lachlan’s grandfather had been at the fatal battle of Flodden, with a large body of his clan, and he was killed in the immediate defence of his unfortunate prince.

The son and successor of James the Fourth was not unmindful of this, and he was desirous of forming a matrimonial connection between the young chief and the heiress of Athole. Preliminaries having been settled among the parties, the bridegroom was suddenly called to his own country, and on his way he visited the Earl of Glencairn, at his castle on the banks of the Clyde. Cards were introduced in the evening, and Maclean’s partner was one of the earl’s daughters. In the course of the evening the game happened to be changed, and the company again cut for partners; on which another of the daughters whispered in her sister’s ear, that if the Highland chief had been her partner, she would not have hazarded the loss of him by cutting anew. The chief heard the remark, and was so pleased with the compliment, and so fascinated with the charm of Lady Margaret Cunningham, that a match was made up between them, and they were speedily married. Maclean thus gave great offence to the king, and lost the richest heiress at that time in Scotland.

Lachlan More’s sister was married to Angus Macdonald, of Islay and Kintyre, then the most powerful of the branches which sprung from the Lord of the Isles. These two chiefs appear to have been much of the same disposition,—both were violent, ambitious, and turbulent. Their bloody feuds were productive of much misery to their people, and ended injuriously to all parties. Macdonald, on his return from the Isle of Skye, was forced to take shelter in that portion of the island of Jura which was the property of Maclean; and it unfortunately happened that two villains of the clan Macdonald, whose bad conduct had induced them to take refuge in Mull, to escape punishment from their own chief, happened to be then in Jura. It would seem that they delighted in mischief, and they adopted an expedient which effectually answered their purpose.

Maclean had some cattle close to the place where the Macdonalds lay; the two renegades slaughtered some of these, and carried away many more of them. They left Jura before daylight, and contrived to convey information to Lachlan More that Macdonald had done him all this damage. Duart collected a considerable number of his men, and arrived in Jura before the Macdonalds departed. Without making proper inquiry into the circumstances, he rashly attacked the other party, and many of them were slain, but their chief escaped. It appears to be admitted on all hands that this was the beginning of the sanguinary warfare which followed, and Maclean was certainly culpable. Mutual friends interfered, and endeavoured to effect a reconciliation between persons so nearly connected. The Earl of Argyle was maternal uncle to Lachlan, and chiefly by his powerful intercession the further effusion of blood was prevented for a time.

Macdonald had occasion to be again in Skye, and on his return he was invited by Maclean to visit him in the castle of Duart. After dinner, some unfortunate circumstance occurred which produced a quarrel. Tradition varies in regard to what immediately followed. It seems, however, that Maclean demanded that the other should yield to him possession of the whole island of Islay, of which he then held but the half. Some consideration was to have been given in return for this concession; but Maclean chose to detain as hostages, to ensure the fulfilment of the treaty, the eldest son of Macdonald, then a boy, and also a brother, together with several other persons of some note. Maclean soon after set out for Islay to take possession of that island. His nephew accompanied him, but the other hostages were left in Mull until the whole business should be arranged. What ensued was no more than might have been expected: Macdonald pretended to be disposed for an amicable adjustment of the terms formerly agreed upon, and prevailed on Lachlan More to visit him at his house in Islay, where nothing appeared to create alarm.

After supper, Maclean and his people retired to a barn for rest; but Macdonald soon knocked at the door, and said he had forgot to give his guests their reposing draught, and desired to be admitted for that purpose. A large force had by this time been collected, and Lachlan soon understood that he would be made to suffer for his former conduct. He was determined, however, to make a resolute defence. He stood in the door fully armed, and in his left hand he held his nephew, who lay with him. He was a man of extraordinary size and strength, as the appellation _More_ indicates, and his situation required all his prowess. Macdonald, desirous to save the life of his son, agreed to permit Lachlan to quit the barn, which had by this time been set on fire. The greater part of his attendants also followed their chief; but the two Macdonalds, who had first fomented this unhappy quarrel, were consumed in the flames.

Macdonald of Islay having now recovered possession of his son, was determined to put Maclean and all his people to death; but fortunately for them, he had a fall from his horse, by which one of his legs was fractured. This retarded the execution of his fell purpose, and enabled the Earl of Argyle to make a representation of the case to the government. Maclean was permitted to return to Mull; but several of the principal gentlemen of his clan, who had accompanied them to Islay, were retained as hostages for the safety of those who still remained in the same condition at Duart.

Very soon after Maclean’s departure from Islay, Macdonald of Ardnamurchan, commonly distinguished by the patronimic of _Mac-vic-Ian_, the son of John’s son, arrived there, and falsely informed Macdonald that Lachlan More had destroyed all his hostages on his return home. This was retaliated on Maclean’s hostages, who were all put to death, and the next day the other hostages arrived safely from Mull.

This is a specimen of the deplorable state of barbarism into which Scotland sunk during the minority of James the Sixth. The whole kingdom was full of blood and rapine, but the Highlands were in the worst condition of all. For a century afterwards very little amelioration seems to have taken place; but it is pleasing to reflect that for the last fifty years there is not in Europe a country where the law bears more absolute sway than in the Scottish Highlands.

Macdonald and Maclean were both committed to ward, one in the Bass, and the other in the Castle of Edinburgh, where they were detained for several years. They were liberated on strong assurances of peaceable conduct, and on giving hostages. Maclean was afterwards ordered to join the Earl of Argyle, who took the command of the army appointed to oppose the Earls of Huntly and Errol, then in open rebellion against the government of James the Sixth.

The two armies encountered at Glenlivat, and the rebels were victorious. Argyle, though brave, was young and inexperienced, nor were all his officers faithful to their trust. Innes, in his History of Moray, asserts that some of the principal men of his own name were in correspondence with the enemy; and other writers ascribe much effect to the cannon used by the rebel earls. On this occasion Lachlan More was greatly distinguished for bravery and for prudence, having acted the part of an experienced commander, and gained the applause of both armies.

It were well if he had always confined his warfare to such honourable combats. Soon after we find him again engaged in Islay against his nephew, James Macdonald, Angus, his former antagonist, being dead. On this occasion, it would seem, however, that he was disposed for peace. Lachlan had embraced the Protestant religion; and it was a practice with his Catholic ancestors to walk thrice in procession around the shores of a small island lying in Lochspelvie, invoking success to the expedition on which they were about to be engaged. With singular absurdity, Lachlan resolved to show his contempt for Catholic superstition: he walked thrice around the island, but his ancestors had always walked right about, or in the same course with the sun; but this enlightened Protestant reversed it. The day following he departed with his forces for Islay, and he never returned. The weather became boisterous, and he was compelled to bear away for Island Nare, in the mouth of Loch Gruinard. A day was appointed for a conference between himself and his nephew; and Lachlan, attended by a small portion of his men, was to be met by Macdonald with an equal number. Macdonald had, however, placed a large body in ambush at some distance. The conference commenced under favourable appearances, but a misunderstanding soon arose, and swords were drawn. A dreadful conflict ensued, and Maclean fought with astonishing bravery. The reserve which had lain concealed joined their friends; but both were on the eve of being defeated, when a body of auxiliaries from the island of Arran arrived, and Lachlan More was killed, with all those who had accompanied him on this fatal expedition.[22]

Footnote 22:

Lachlan More was killed in the year 1598.

His son had remained on the island with a much larger force, but the pacific appearances deceived him, and he neglected to keep the boats afloat. When the fight commenced on shore, he and his men were looking on, but could not launch their heavy boats, or render assistance. The Macdonalds suffered severe loss, and James (afterwards Sir James) was left for dead on the field.

A poor woman of his own clan, assisted by her son, conveyed Lachlan’s body on a sledge to the church of Kilchomen, in Islay, where she got him buried. By the jolting of the sledge, the features of the body acquired a particular expression, at which the young man smiled. His name was Macdonald, and his mother was so enraged at his sneer, that she made a thrust at him with a dirk, and wounded him severely.—_Lit. Gazette._

ALEMOOR: _A TALE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY_.

Sad is the wail that floats o’er Alemoor’s lake, And nightly bids her gulfs unbottomed quake, While moonbeams, sailing o’er her waters blue, Reveal the frequent tinge of blood-red hue. The water-birds, with shrill discordant scream, Oft rouse the peasant from his tranquil dream; He dreads to raise his slow unclosing eye, And thinks he hears an infant’s feeble cry.—_Leyden._