CHAPTER II.

When the ceremony was concluded, and both the clergyman and the witnesses had been satisfied and dismissed, the lovers left the house, with the design of walking forward into the city. In conformity to a previous arrangement, Lady Jean walked first, like a lady of quality, and Richard followed closely behind, with the dress and deportment of her servant. Her ladyship was dressed in her finest suit, and adorned with her finest jewels, all of which she had brought from Cumbernauld on purpose, in a mail or leathern trunk—for such was the name then given to the convenience now entitled a portmanteau. Her step was light, and her bearing gay, as she moved along; not on account of the success which had attended her expedition, or her satisfaction in being now united to the man of her choice, but because she anticipated the highest pleasure in the sight of a place whereof she had heard such wonderful stories, and from a participation in whose delights she had been so long withheld.

Like all persons educated in the country, she had been regaled in her childhood with magnificent descriptions of the capital—of its buildings, that seemed to mingle with the clouds—its shops, which apparently contained more wealth than all the world beside—of its paved streets (for paved streets were then wonders in Scotland)—and, above all, of the grand folks that thronged its Highgates, its Canongates, and its Cowgates—people whose lives seemed a perpetual holiday, whose attire was ever new, and who all lived in their several palaces.

Though, of course, Edinburgh had then little to boast of, the country people who occasionally visited it did not regard it with less admiration than that with which the peasantry of our own day may be supposed to view it, now that it is something so very different. It was then, as well as now, the capital of the country, and, as such, bore the same disproportion in point of magnificence to inferior towns, and to the country in general. In one respect it was superior to what it is in the present day, namely, in being the seat of government and of a court. Lady Jean had often heard all its glorious peculiarities described by her sisters, who, moreover, took occasion to colour the picture too highly, in order to raise her envy, and make themselves appear great in their alliance and association with so much greatness. She was, therefore, prepared to see a scene of the utmost splendour—a scene in which nothing horrible or paltry mingled, but which was altogether calculated to awe or to delight the senses.

Her ladyship was destined to be disappointed at the commencement, at least, of her acquaintance with the city. The first remarkable object which struck her eye, after leaving the inn, was the high “bow,” or arch, of the gate called the West Port. In this itself there was nothing worthy of particular attention, and she rather directed her eyes through the opening beneath, which half disclosed a wide space beyond, apparently crowded with people. But when she came close up to the gate, and cast, before passing, a last glance at the arch, she shuddered at the sight then presented to her eyes. On the very pinnacle of the arch was stuck the ghastly and weather-worn remains of a human head, the features of which, half flesh, half bone, were shaded and rendered still more indistinctly horrible by the long dark hair, which hung in meagre tresses around them.

“Oh, Richard, Richard!” she exclaimed, stopping and turning round, “what is that dreadful-looking thing?”

“That, madam,” said Richard, without any emotion, “is the broken remnant of a west country preacher, spiked up there to warn his countrymen who may approach this port, against doing anything to incur the fate which has overtaken himself. Methinks he has preached to small purpose, for yonder stands the gallows, ready, I suppose, to bring him some brother in affliction.”

“Horrible!” exclaimed Lady Jean; “and is this really the fine town of Edinburgh, where I was taught to expect so many grand sights? I thought it was just one universal palace, and it turns out to be a great charnel-house!”

“It is indeed more like that than anything else at times,” said Richard; “but, my dear Lady Jean, you are not going to start at this bugbear, which the very children, you see, do not heed in passing.”

“Indeed, I think, Richard,” answered her ladyship, “if Edinburgh is to be at all like this, it would be just as good to turn back at once, and postpone our visit to better times.”

“But it is not all like this,” replied Richard; “I assure you it is not. For Heaven’s sake, my lady, move on. The people are beginning to stare at us. You shall soon see grand sights enough, if we were once fairly out of this place. Make for the opposite corner of the Grassmarket, and ascend the street to the left of that horrible gibbet. We may yet get past it before the criminals are produced.”

Thus admonished, Lady Jean passed, not without a shudder, under the dreadful arch, and entered the spacious oblong square called the Grassmarket. This place was crowded at the west end with rustics engaged in all the bustle of a grain and cattle market, and at the eastern and most distant extremity, with a mob of idlers, who had gathered around the gibbet in order to witness the awful ceremony that was about to take place. The crowd, which was scarcely so dense as that which attends the rarer scene of a modern execution, made way on both sides for Lady Jean as she moved along; and wherever she went, she left behind her a “wake,” as it were, of admiration and confusion. So exquisite and so new a beauty, so splendid a suit of female attire, and so stout and handsome an attendant—these were all calculated to inspire reverence in the minds of the beholders. Her carriage at the same time was so stately and so graceful, that no one could be so rude as to interrupt or disturb it. The people, therefore, parted when she approached, and left a free passage for her on all sides, as if she had been an angel or a spirit come to walk amidst a mortal crowd, and whose person could not be touched, and might scarcely be beheld—whose motions were not to be interfered with by those among whom she chose to walk—but who was to be received with prostration of spirit, and permitted to depart as she had come, unquestioned and unapproached. In traversing the Grassmarket, two or three young coxcombs, with voluminous wigs, short cloaks, rapiers, and rose-knots at their knees and shoes, who, on observing her at a distance, had prepared to treat her with a condescending stare, fell back, awed and confounded, at her near approach, and spent the gaze, perhaps, upon the humbler mark of her follower, or upon vacancy.

Having at length passed the gibbet, Lady Jean began to ascend the steep and tortuous street denominated the West Bow. She had hitherto been unable to direct any attention to what she was most anxious to behold,—the scenic wonders of the capital. But having now got clear of the crowd, and no longer fearing to see the gallows, she ventured to lift up her eyes and look around. The tallness and massiveness of the buildings, some of which bore the cross of the Knights Templar on their pinnacles, while others seemed to be surmounted or overtopped by still taller edifices beyond, impressed her imagination; and the effect was rendered still more striking by the countless human figures which crowded the windows, and even the roofs of the houses, all alike bending their attention, as she thought, towards herself. The scene before her looked like an amphitheatre filled with spectators, while she and Richard seemed as the objects upon the arena. The thought caused her to hurry on, and she soon found herself in a great measure screened from observation by the overhanging projections of the narrower part of the West Bow, which she now entered.

With slow and difficult, but stately and graceful steps, she then proceeded, till she reached the upper angle of the street, where a novel and unexpected scene awaited her. A sound like that of rushing waters seemed first to proceed from the part of the street still concealed from her view, and presently appeared round the angle, the first rank of an impetuous crowd, which, rushing downward with prodigious force, would certainly have overwhelmed her delicate form, had she not dexterously avoided them, by stepping aside upon a projecting stair, to which Richard also sprung just in time to save himself from a similar fate. From this place of safety, which was not without its own crowd of children, women, and sage-looking elderly mechanics, with Kilmarnock cowls, they in the next moment saw the massive mob rush past, like the first wave of a flood, bearing either along or down everything that came in their way. Immediately after, but at a more deliberate pace, followed a procession of figures, which struck the heart of Lady Jean with as heavy a sense of sorrow as the crowd had just impressed with terror and surprise. First came a small company of the veterans of the city-guard, some of whom had perhaps figured in the campaigns of Middleton and Montrose, and whose bronzed, inflexible faces bore on this melancholy occasion precisely the same expression which they ordinarily exhibited on the joyful one of attending the magistrates at the drinking of the King’s health on the 29th of May.

Behind these, and encircled by some other soldiers of the same band, appeared two figures of a different sort. One of them was a young-looking, but pale and woe-worn man, the impressive wretchedness of whose appearance was strikingly increased by the ghastly dress which he wore. He was attired from head to foot in a white shroud, such as was sometimes worn in Scotland by criminals at the gallows, but which was, in the present instance, partly assumed as a badge of innocence. The excessive whiteness and emaciation of his countenance suited well with this dismal apparel, and, with the wild enthusiasm that kindled in his eyes, gave an almost supernatural effect to the whole scene, which rather resembled a pageant of the dead than a procession of earthly men. He was the only criminal: the person who walked by his side, and occasionally supported his steps, being, as the crowd whispered around, with many a varied expression of sympathy—his father. The old man had the air of a devout Presbyterian, with harsh, intelligent features, and a dress which bespoke his being a countryman of the lower rank. According to the report of the bystanders, he had educated this, his only son, for the unfortunate Church of Scotland, and now attended him to the fate which his talents and violent temperament had conspired to draw down upon his head. If ever he felt any pride in the popular admiration with which his son was honoured, no traces of such a sentiment now appeared. On the contrary, he seemed humbled to the very earth with sorrow; and though he had perhaps contemplated the issue, now about to take place, with no small portion of satisfaction, so long as it was at a distance and uncertain, the feelings of a father had evidently proved too much for his fortitude, when the event approached in all its dreadful reality. The emotions perceptible in that rough and rigid countenance were the more striking, as being so much at variance with its natural and characteristic expression; and the tear which gathered in his eye excited the greater commiseration, in so far as it seemed a stranger there. But the hero and heroine of our tale had little time to make observations on this piteous scene, for the procession passed quickly on, and was soon beyond their sight. When it was gone, the people of the Bow, who seemed accustomed to such sights, uttered various expressions of pity, indignation, and horror, according to their respective feelings, and then slowly retired to their dens in the stairs and booths which lined the whole of this ancient and singular street.

Lady Jean, whose beautiful eyes were suffused with tears at beholding so melancholy a spectacle, was then admonished by her attendant to proceed. With a heart deadened to all sensations of wonder and delight, she moved forward, and was soon ushered into the place called the Lawnmarket, then perhaps the most fashionable district in Edinburgh, but the grandeur and spaciousness of which she beheld almost without admiration. The scene here was, however, much gayer, and approached more nearly to her splendid preconceptions of the capital than any she had yet seen. The shops were, in her estimation, very fine, and some of the people on the street were of that noble description of which she had believed all inhabitants of cities to be. There was no crowd on the street, which, therefore, afforded room for the better display of her stately and beautiful person; and as she walked steadily onwards, still “ushed” (for such was then the phrase) by her handsome and noble-looking attendant, a greater degree of admiration was excited amongst the gay idlers whom she passed, than even that which marked her progress through the humbler crowd of the Grassmarket. Various noblemen, in passing towards their homes in the Castle Hill, lifted their feathered hats and bowed profoundly to the lovely vision; and one or two magnificent dames, sweeping along with their long silk trains borne up by liverymen, stared at or eyed askance the charms which threw their own so completely into shade. By the time Lady Jean arrived at the bottom of the Lawnmarket, that is to say, where it was partially closed up by the Tolbooth, she had in a great measure recovered her spirits, and found herself prepared to enjoy the sight of the public buildings, which were so thickly clustered together at this central part of the city.

She was directed by Richard to pass along the narrow road which then led between the houses and the Tolbooth on the south, and which, being continued by a still narrower passage skirting the west end of St Giles’ Church, formed the western approach to the Parliament Close. Obeying his guidance in this tortuous passage, she soon found herself at the opening, or the square space—so styled on account of its being closed on more than one side by the meeting-place of the legislative assembly of Scotland. Here a splendid scene awaited her. The whole square was filled with the members of the Scottish Parliament, Barons and Commons, who had just left the House in which they sat together,—with ladies, who on days of unusual ceremony were allowed to attend the House, and with horses richly caparisoned, and covered with gold-embroidered foot-cloths, some of which were mounted by their owners, while others were held in readiness by footmen. All was bustle and magnificence. Noblemen and gentlemen in splendid attire threaded the crowd in search of their horses; ladies tripped after them with timid and careful steps, endeavouring, by all in their power, to avoid contact with such objects as were calculated to injure their fineries; grooms strode heavily about, and more nimble lackeys jumped everywhere, here and there, some of them as drunk as the Parliament Close claret could make them, but all intent on doing the duties of attendance and respect to their masters. Some smart and well-dressed young gentlemen were arranging their cloaks and swords, and preparing to leave the square on foot, by the passage which had given entry to Master Richard and Lady Jean.

At sight of our heroine, most of these gallants stood still in admiration, and one of them, with the trained assurance of a rake, observing her to be beautiful, a stranger, and not too well protected, accosted her in a strain of language which caused her at once to blush and tremble. Richard’s brow reddened with anger as he hesitated not a moment in stepping up and telling the offender to leave the lady alone, on pain of certain consequences which might not prove agreeable.

“And who are you, my brave fellow?” said the youth, with bold assurance.

“Sirrah!” exclaimed Richard, so indignant as to forget himself, “I am that lady’s husband—her servant, I mean,” and here he stopped short in some confusion.

“Admirable!” exclaimed the other. “Ha! ha! ha! ha! Here, sirs, is a lady’s lacquey, who does not know whether he is his mistress’ servant or her husband. Let us give him up to the town-guard, to see whether the black hole will make him remember the real state of the case.”

So saying, he attempted to push Richard aside, and take hold of the lady. But he had not time to touch her garments with so much as a finger, before her protector had a rapier flourishing in his eyes, and threatened him with instant death, unless he desisted from his profane purpose. At sight of the bright steel he stepped back one or two paces, drew his own sword, and was preparing to fight, when one of his more grave associates called out—

“For shame, Rollo!—with a lady’s lacquey, too, and in the presence of the duke and duchess! I see their royal highnesses, already alarmed, are inquiring the cause of the disturbance.”

It was even as this gentleman said, and presently came up to the scene of contention some of the most distinguished personages in the crowd, one of whom demanded from the parties an explanation of so disgraceful an occurrence.

“Why, here is a fellow, my lord,” answered Rollo, “who says he is the husband of a lady whom he attends as a liveryman, and a lady, too, the bonniest, I daresay, that has been seen in Scotland since the days of Queen Magdalen!”

“And what matters it to you,” said the inquirer, who seemed to be a judge of the Session, “in what relation this man stands to his lady? Let the parties both come forward, and tell their ain tale. May it please your royal highness,” he continued, addressing a very grave dignitary, who sat on horseback behind him, as stiff and formal as a sign-post, “to hear the _declarator_ of thir twa strange incomers. But see—see—what is the matter wi’ Lord Wigton?” he added, pointing to an aged personage on horseback, who had just pushed forward, and seemed about to faint and fall from his horse. The person alluded to, at sight of his daughter in this unexpected place, was, in reality, confounded, and it was some time before he mastered voice enough to ejaculate—

“Oh, Jean, Jean! what is this ye’ve been about? or what has brocht you to Edinburgh?”

“Lord have a care of us!” exclaimed at this juncture another venerable peer, who had just come up, “what has brocht my sonsie son, Richie Livingstone, to Edinburgh, when he should have been fechtin’ the Dutch by this time in Transylvania?”

The two lovers, thus recognised by their respective parents, stood with downcast looks, and perfectly silent, while all was buzz and confusion in the brilliant circle around them; for the parties concerned were not more surprised at the aspect of their affairs, than were all the rest at the beauty of the far-famed but hitherto unseen Lady Jean Fleming. The Earl of Linlithgow, Richard’s father, was the first to speak aloud, after the general astonishment had for some time subsided; and this he did in a laconic though important query, which he couched in the simple words,—

“Are ye married, bairns?”

“Yes, dearest father,” said his son, gathering courage, and coming close up to his saddle-bow; “and I beseech you to extricate Lady Jean and me from this crowd, and I shall tell you all when we are alone.”

“A pretty man ye are, truly,” said the old man, who never took anything very seriously to heart, “to be staying at hame, and getting yoursel married, all this time you should have been abroad, winning honour and wealth, as your gallant granduncle did wi’ Gustavus i’ the thretties! Hooever, since better mayna be, I maun try and console my Lord Wigton, who, I doot, has the worst o’ the bargain, ye ne’er-do-weel!”

He then went up to Lady Jean’s father, shook him by the hand, and said, that “though they had been made relations against their wills, he hoped they would continue good friends. The young people,” he observed, “are no that ill-matched; and it is not the first time that the Flemings and the Livingstones have melled together, as witness the blithe marriage of the Queen’s Marie to Lord Fleming in the fifteen-saxty-five. At ony rate, my lord, let us put a good face on the matter, afore thae glowerin’ gentles, and whipper-snapper duchesses. I’ll get horses for the two, and they’ll join the riding’ down the street; and de’il hae me, if Lady Jean doesna outshine the hale o’ them!”

“My Lord Linlithgow,” responded the graver and more implacable Earl of Wigton, “it may set you to take this matter blithely, but let me tell you, its a muckle mair serious affair for me. What think ye am I to do wi’ Frances and Grizzy noo?”

“Hoot toot, my lord,” said Linlithgow with a sly smile, “their chance is as gude as ever it was, I assure you, and sae will everybody think that kens them. I _maun_ ca’ horses though, or the young folk will be ridden ower afore ever they do more gude, by thae rampaugin’ young men.” So saying, and taking Lord Wigton’s moody silence for assent, he proceeded to cry to his servants for the best pair of horses they could get, and these being speedily procured, Lord Richard and his bride were requested to mount; after which they were formally introduced to the gracious notice of the Duke and Duchess of York, and the Princess Anne, who happened to attend Parliament on this the last day of its session, when it was customary for all the members to ride both to and from the House in an orderly cavalcade.

The order was given to proceed, and the lovers were soon relieved in a great measure from the embarrassing notice of the crowd, by assuming a particular place in the procession, and finding themselves confounded with more than three hundred equally splendid figures. As the pageant, however, moved down the High Street in a continuous and open line, it was impossible not to distinguish the singular loveliness of Lady Jean, and the gallant carriage of her husband, from all the rest. Accordingly, the trained bands and city guard, who lined the street, and who were in general quite as insensible to the splendours of “the Riding” as are the musicians in a modern orchestra to the wonders of a melodrama in its fortieth night,—even they perceived and admired the graces of the young couple, whom they could not help gazing after with a stupid and lingering delight. From the windows, too, and the “stair-heads,” their beauty was well observed, and amply conjectured and commented on; while many a young cavalier endeavoured, by all sorts of pretences, to find occasion to break the order of the cavalcade, and get himself haply placed nearer to the exquisite figure, of which he had got just one killing glance in the square. Slowly and majestically the brilliant train paced down the great street of Edinburgh—the acclamations of the multitude ceaselessly expressing the delight which the people of Scotland felt in this sensible type and emblem of their ancient independence.

At length they reached the courtyard of Holyrood-house, where the duke and duchess invited the whole assemblage to a ball, which they designed to give that evening in the hall of the palace; after which all departed to their respective residences throughout the town, Lords Wigton and Linlithgow taking their young friends under their immediate protection, and seeking the residence of the former nobleman, a little way up the Canongate. In riding thither, the lovers had leisure to explain to their parents the singular circumstances of their union, and address enough to obtain unqualified forgiveness for their imprudence.

On alighting at Lord Wigton’s house, Lady Jean found her sisters confined to their rooms with headache, or some such serious indisposition, and in the utmost dejection on account of having been thereby withheld from the Riding of the Parliament. Their spirits, as may be supposed, were not much elevated, when, on coming forth in dishabille to welcome their sister, they learned that she had had the good fortune to be married before them. Their ill-luck was, however, irremediable, and so, making a merit of submitting to it, they condescended to be rather agreeable during the dinner and the afternoon. It was not long before all parties were perfectly reconciled to what had taken place; and by the time it was necessary to dress for the ball, the elder young ladies declared themselves so much recovered as to be able to accompany their happy sister.

The Earl of Linlithgow and his son then sent a servant for proper dresses, and prepared themselves for the occasion without leaving the house. When all were ready, a number of chairs were called to transport their dainty persons down the street. The news of Lady Jean’s arrival, and of her marriage, having now spread abroad, the court in front of the house, the alley, and even the open street, were crowded with people of all ranks, anxious to catch a passing glimpse of the heroine of so strange a tale. As her chair was carried along, a buzz of admiration from all who were so happy as to be near it, marked its progress. Happy, too, was the gentleman who had the good luck to be near her chair as it was set down at the palace-gate, and assist her in stepping from it upon the lighted pavement. From the outer gate, along the piazza of the inner court, and all the way up the broad staircase to the illuminated hall, two rows of noblemen and gentlemen formed a brilliant avenue, as she passed along, while a hundred plumed caps were doffed in honour of so much beauty, and as many youthful eyes glanced bright with satisfaction at beholding it. The object of all this attention tripped modestly along in the hand of the Earl of Linlithgow, acknowledging, with many a graceful flexure and undulation of person, the compliments of the spectators.

At length the company entered the spacious and splendid room in which the ball was to be held. At the extremity, opposite to the entry, upon an elevated platform, sat the three royal personages, all of whom, on Lady Jean’s introduction, rose and came forward to welcome her and her husband to the entertainments of Holyrood, and to hope that her ladyship would often adorn their circle. In a short time the dancing commenced; and, amidst all the ladies who exhibited their charms and their magnificent attire in that captivating exercise, who was, either in person or dress, half so brilliant as Lady Jean?—_Chambers’s Edin. Journal._

THE MONKEY: _A SECOND PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF WILLIAM M‘GEE, WEAVER IN HAMILTON_.

BY ROBERT MACNISH, LL.D.

I dinna think that in a’ nature there’s a mair curiouser cratur than a monkey. I mak this observe frae being witness to an extraordinar’ event that took place in Hamilton, three or four days after my never-to-be-forgotten Battle of the Breeks.[6] Some even gaed the length to say that it was to the full mair curiouser than that affair, in sae far as the principal performer in the ae case was a rational man, whereas in the ither he was only a bit ape. But folk may talk as they like about monkeys, and cry them down for being stupid and mischievous, I for ane will no gang that length. Whatever they may be on the score of mischief, there can be nae doubt, that, sae far as gumption is concerned, they are just uncommon; and for wit and fun they would beat ony man black and blue. In fact, I dinna think that monkeys are beasts ava. I hae a half notion that they are just wee hairy men, that canna or rather winna speak, in case they may be made to work like ither folk, instead of leading a life of idleness.

Footnote 6:

See _ante_, p. 223.

But to the point. I ance had a monkey, ane of the drollest looking deevils ye ever saw. He was gayan big for a monkey, and was hairy a’ ower, except his face and his bit hurdies, which had a degree of bareness about them, and were nearly as saft as a lady’s loof. Weel, what think ye that I did wi’ the beastie? ’Od, man, I dressed him up like a Heelandman, and put a kilt upon him, and a lang-tailed red coat, and a blue bannet, which for security’s sake I tied, womanlike, below his chin, wi’ twa bits of yellow ribbon. I not only did this, but I learnt him to walk upon his twa hinder legs, and to carry a stick in his right hand when he gaed out, the better to support him in his peregrinations. He was for a’ the world like a wee man in kilts—sae much sae, that when Glengarry, the great Heeland chieftain, wha happened to be at Hamilton on a visit to the Duke, saw him by chance, he swore by the powers that he was like ane o’ the Celtic Society, and that if I likit he would endeavour to get him admitted a member of that body. I thocht at the time that Glengarry was jokin’, but I hae since had gude reason for thinking that he was in real earnest, as Andrew Brand says that he and the Celts hae been like to cut ane anither’s throats, and that he micht mean this as an affront upon them. Hoosomever I maun do Glengarry the justice to say, that had he got my Nosey (that was his name) made a member, he wadna hae pruved the least witty or courageous o’ the society, and would hae dune nae disgrace to the chief’s recommendation.

But I am fleeing awa like a shuttle frae the subject on hand. Weel, it turned out in this manner, as ye shall hear. Ae afternoon towards the gloamin’, I was obligated to tak a stap down to the cross wi’ a web under my arm, which I had finished for Mr Weft, the muslin manufacturer. By way of frolic—a gayan foolish ane I allow—I brocht Nosey alang wi’ me. He had on, as for ordinar, his Heeland dress, and walkit behind me, wi’ the bit stick in his hand and his tail sticking out frae below his kilt, as if he had been my flunkey. It was, after a’, a queer sicht, and, as may be supposed, I drew a hale crowd o’ bairns after me, bawling out, “Here’s Willie M‘Gee’s monkey,” and giein’ him nits and gingerbread, and makin’ as muckle o’ the cratur as could be; for Nosey was a great favourite in the town, and everybody likit him for his droll tricks, and the way he used to girn, and dance, and tumble ower his head, to amuse them.

On entering Mr Weft’s shop, I faund it empty; there wasna leiving soul within. I supposed he had gane out for a licht; and being gayan familiar wi’ him, I took a stap ben to the back shop, leaving Nosey in the fore ane. I sat for twa or three minutes, but naebody made his appearance. At last the front door, which I had ta’en care to shut after me, opened, and I look’t to see what it could be, thinking that, nae doubt, it was Mr Weft, or his apprentice. It was neither the ane nor the ither, but a strong middle-aged, redfaced Heelandman, wi’ specks on, and wi’ a kilt and a bannet, by a’ the world like my monkey’s. Now, what think ye Nosey was about a’ this time? He was sittin’ behind the counter upon the lang three-leggit stool that stood forenent Mr Weft’s desk, and was turning ower the leaves of his ledger wi’ a look which, for auld-fashioned sagaciousness, was wonderfu’ to behold. I was sae tickled at the sight that I paid nae sort of attention to the Heelandman, but continued looking frae the backshop at Nosey, lauching a’ the time in my sleeve—for I jaloused that some queer scene would tak place between the twa. And I wasna far wrang, for the stranger, takin’ out a pound frae his spleuchan, handed it ower to the monkey, and speered at him, in his droll norland deealect, if he could change a note. When I heard this, I thought I would hae lauched outright; and naething but sheer curiosity to see how the thing would end made me keep my gravity. It was plain that Donald had ta’en Nosey for ane of his ain countrymen—and the thing after a’ wasna greatly to be wondered at, and that for three reasons.

Firstly, the shop was rather darkish.

Secondly, the Heelandman had on specks, as I hae just said; and it was likely on this account that he was rather short-sighted; and

Thirdly, Nosey, wi’ his kilt, and bannet, and red coat, was to a’ intents and purposes as like a human creature as a monkey could weel be.

Nae sooner, then, had he got the note than he opened it out, and lookit at it wi’ his wee, glowrin’, restless een, as if to see that it wasna a forgery. He then shook his head like a doctor when he’s no very sure what’s wrang wi’ a person, but wants to mak it appear that he kens a’ about it—and continued in this style till the Heelandman’s patience began to get exhausted.

“Can ye no shange the note, old shentleman?” quo’ Donald. Nosey gied his head anither shake, and lookit uncommon wise.

“Is the note no goot, sir?” spake the Heelandman, a second time; but the cratur, instead of answering him, only gied anither of his wise shakes, as much as to say, “I’m no very sure about it.” At this Donald lost his temper. “If the note doesna please ye, sir,” quo’ he, “I’ll thank ye to gie me it back again, and I’ll gang to some ither place.” And he stretchit out his hand to tak haud o’t, when my frien’ wi’ the tail, lifting up his stick, lent him sic a whack ower the fingers as made him pu’ back in the twinkling of an ee.

“Cot tamn ye, ye auld scoundrel,” said the man; “de ye mean to tak my money frae me?” And he lifted up a rung big eneugh to fell a stot, and let flee at the monkey; but Nosey was ower quick for him, and, jumping aside, he lichted on a shelf before ane could say Jock Robinson. Here he rowed up the note like a ba’ in his hand, and put it into his coat pouch like ony rational cratur. Not only this, but he mockit the Heelandman by a’ manner of means, shooting out his tongue at him, spitting at him, and girning at him wi’ his queer outlandish physiognomy. Then he would tak haud o’ his tail in his twa hands, and wag it at Donald, and steeking his nieves, he would seem to threaten him with a leatherin’! A’thegither he was desperate impudent, and eneugh to try the patience of a saunt, no to speak o’ a het-bluided Heelandman. It was gude for sair een to see how Donald behavit on this occasion. He raged like ane demented, misca’ing the monkey beyond measure, and swearing as mony Gaelic aiths as micht hae saired an ordinar man for a twalmonth. During this time, I never steered a foot, but keepit keekin’ frae the back shop upon a’ that was ganging on. I was highly delighted; and jalousing that Nosey was ower supple to be easily catched, I had nae apprehension for the event, and remained snug in my berth to see the upshot.

In a short time, in comes Mr Weft, wi’ a piece of lowing paper in his hand, that he had got from the next door to licht the shop; and nae sooner did Donald see him than he axed him for his note.

“What note, honest man?” said Mr Weft.

“Cot tamn,” quo’ Donald; “the note the auld scoundrel, your grandfater, stole frae me.”

“My grandfaither!” answered the ither wi’ amazement. “I am thinking, honest man, ye hae had a glass ower muckle. My grandfaither has been dead for saxteen years, and I ne’er heard tell till now that he was a fief.”

“Weel, weel, then,” quo’ the Heelandman, “I don’t care naething about it. If he’s no your grandfaither, he’ll be your faither, or your brither, or your cousin.”

“My faither or my brither, or my cousin!” repeated Mr Weft. “I maun tell ye plainly, frien’, that I hae neither faither, nor brither, nor cousin of ony description, on this side of the grave. I dinna understand ye, honest man, but I reckon that ye hae sat ower lang at the whisky, and my advice to ye is to stap awa hame and sleep it aff.”

At this speech the Heelandman lost a’ patience, and lookit sae awfully fairce, that ance or twice I was on the nick of coming forrit, and explaining how matters really stood; but curiosity keepit me chained to the back shop, and I just thoucht I would bide a wee, and see how the affair was like to end.

“Pray, wha are you, sir?” said Donald, putting his hands in his sides, and looking through his specks upon Mr Weft, like a deevil incarnit. “Wha are you, sir, that daur to speak to me in this manner?”

“Wha am I?” said the ither, drapping the remnant of the paper, which was burnin’ close to his fingers, “I am Saunders Weft, manufacturer in Hamilton—that’s what I am.”

“And I am Tonald Campbell, piper’s sister’s son to his grace the great, grand Tuke of Argyll,” thundered out the Heelandman, wi’ a voice that was fearsome to hear.

“And what about that?” quo’ Mr Weft, rather snappishly, as I thocht. “If ye were the great, grand Duke of Argyll himsel, as ye ca’ him, I’ll no permit you to kick up a dust in my shop.”

“Ye scounrel,” said Donald, seizing Mr Weft by the throat, and shaking him till he tottered like an aspen leaf, “div ye mean to speak ill of his grace the Tuke of Argyll?” And he gied him anither shake—then, laying haud of his nose, he swore that he would pu’t as lang as a cow’s tail, if he didna that instant restore him his lost property. At this sicht I began to grue a’ ower, and now saw the needcessity of stapping ben, and saving my employer frae farther damage, bodily and itherwise. Nae sooner had I made my appearance than Donald let go his grip of Mr Weft’s nose, and the latter, in a great passion, cried out—

“William M‘Gee, I tak ye to witness what I hae sufferit frae this bluidthirsty Heelandman! It’s no to be endured in a Christian country. I’ll hae the law of him, that I will. I’ll be whuppit but I’ll hae amends, although it costs me twenty pounds!”

“What’s the matter?” quo’ I, pretending ignorance of the hale concern. “What, in the name of Nebuchadnezzar, has set ye thegither by the lugs?”

Then Mr Weft began his tale, how he had been collared and weel nigh thrappled in his ain shop;—then the ither tauld how, in the first place, Mr Weft’s grandfaither, as he ca’d Nosey, had stolen his note, and how, in the second place, Mr Weft himself had insulted the great, grand Duke of Argyll. In a word, there was a desperate kick-up between them, the ane threeping that he would tak the law of the ither immediately. Na, in this respect Donald gaed the greatest length, for he swore that, rather than be defeated, he wad carry his cause to the House of Lords, although it cost him thretty pounds sterling. I now saw it was time to put in a word.

“Hout-tout, gentlemen,” quo’ I, “what’s the use of a’ this clishmaclaver? Ye’ve baith gotten the wrang sow by the lug, or my name’s no William M‘Gee. I’ll wager ye a penny-piece, that my monkey Nosey is at the bottom of the business.”

Nae sooner had I spoken the word, than the twa, looking round the shop, spied the beastie sitting upon the shelf, girning at them, and putting out his tongue, and wiggle-waggling his walking stick ower his left elbow, as if he had been playing upon the fiddle. Mr Weft at this apparition set up a loud laugh; his passion left him in a moment, when he saw the ridiculous mistake that the Heelandman had fa’en into, and I thocht he would hae bursted his sides wi’ evendown merriment. At first, Donald lookit desperate angry, and, judging frae the way he was twisting about his mouth and rowing his een, I opined that he intended some deadly skaith to the monkey. But his gude sense, of which Heelandmen are no a’thegither destitute, got the better of his anger, and he roared and lauched like the very mischief. Nor was this a’, for nae sooner had he began to lauch, than the monkey did the same thing, and held its sides in preceesely the same manner, imitating his actions, in the maist amusin’ way imaginable. This only set Donald a-lauching mair than ever, and when he lifted up his nieve, and shook it at Nosey in a gude-humoured way, what think ye that the cratur did? ’Od, man, he took the note frae his pouch, whaur it lay rowed up like a ba’, and papping it at Donald, hit him as fairly upon the nose as if it had been shot out of a weel-aimed musket. There was nae resisting this. The haill three, or rather the haill four, for Nosey joined us, set up a loud lauch; and the Heelandman’s was the loudest of a’, showing that he was really a man of sense, and could tak a joke as weel as his neighbours.

When the lauchin’ had a wee subsided, Mr Campbell, in order to show that he had nae ill will to Mr Weft, axed his pardon for the rough way he had treated him, but the worthy manufacturer wadna hear o’t. “Houts, man,” quo’ he, “dinna say a word about it. It’s a mistak a’thegither, and Solomon himsel, ye ken, whiles gaed wrang.” Whereupon the Heelandman bought a Kilmarnock nicht-cap, price elevenpence ha’penny, frae Mr Weft, and paid him wi’ part of the very note that brocht on the ferlie I hae just been relating. But his gude wull didna end here, for he insisted on takin’ us a’—Nosey amang the lave—to the nearest public, where he gied us a frien’ly glass, and we keepit talking about monkeys, and what not, in a manner at ance edifying and amusing to hear.

THE LADDER DANCER.

Men should know why They write, and for what end; but note or text, I never know the word which will come next; So on I ramble, now and then narrating, Now pondering.—_Byron._

It was a lovely evening in summer, when a crowd hallooing and shouting in the street of L——, a village of the north of Scotland, at once disturbed my reveries, and left me little leisure again to yield myself to their wayward dominion. In sooth, I had no pretence for indifference to a very singular spectacle of a something-like human being moving in mid-air; and although its saltatory gambols in this unusual situation could scarcely be called dancing, it was certainly intended to be like it, however little the resemblance might be approved. A something between a male and female in point of dress—a perfect hermaphrodite in regard to costume—had mounted herself on gigantic stilts, on which she hopped about, defying the secrecy even of the middle floors of the surrounding houses, and in some cases giving her a peep into the attic regions of less lofty domiciles. In this manner, stalking about from side to side, like a crane among the reeds, the very Diable Boiteux himself was never more inquisitive after the domestic concerns of his neighbours, or better fitted to explore them by his invisibility, than she was by her altitude. Her presence in mid-air, in more than one instance, was the subject of alarm to the sober inmates of the street, who, little suspicious of such intrusion, might perhaps be engaged in household cares which did not court observation, or had sunk into the relaxations of an undress, after the fatigues and heat of the day. Everywhere the windows might be heard thrown up with impatient haste,—the sash skirling and creaking in its ascent with the violence of the effort, and immediately after, a head might be seen poked forward to explore the “whence” and “wherefore,”—in short, to ask in one word, if it could be so condensed, the meaning and purpose of this aërial visitor.

The more desultory occupations of a little village hold but loosely together the different classes of it. Master and servant approach more nearly,—the one is less elevated, and the other less depressed, than in great towns,—a show is at least as great a treat to the one as to the other, and there is nothing in their respective notions of decorum to repress their joyous feelings, while under the irresistible impulse of the inimitable Mr Punch, or of the demure and clumsy bear, treading a measure with the graces of a _Mercandotti_. In short, the more simple elements of a villager’s mind are, like their own more robust frames, more easily inflamed;—there is more excitable stuff about them, because they are less frequently subjected to the tear and wear of novelty, which towns constantly afford. The schoolmaster and the schoolboy alike pour out from the lowly straw-roofed “academy,” with the same eager and breathless haste, to catch a first glance, or secure a favourable post. Syntax and arithmetic—blessed oblivion!—are for the moment forgotten. Think of the ecstacies of the little culprit, who was perhaps under the rod, if at that awful moment a troop of dancing dogs, with their full accompaniment of pipe and tabor, came under the school window, and was at once gladdened with a respite and a show. One moment watching the grim smile of the pedagogue; next lost in wonder at the accomplished puppets—nothing to disturb his bliss but the trammels of Concordance, or the intricacies of the Rule of Three.

But if mere novelty has such delights for the younger portion, to escape from the monotony of village life has not less charms for the graver class of its inhabitants. An old gentleman, evidently unmindful of his dishabille, popped his head forth of his casement, heedless of the red Kilmarnock in which it was bedight, and gazed with eager curiosity on the ambitious female who had now passed his lattice. He seemed to have caught a hint of the _dereglement_ of his own costume, by remarking that of his female neighbour at the adjoining window, who exposed courageously the snowy ringlets which begirt the region of bumps and qualities, in place of the brown and glossy curls, which, till that ill-fated moment, were supposed to have belonged to it.[7] He withdrew from sight with some precipitation, but whether in horror of his own recklessness, or in deference to the heedlessness of his neighbour, must for ever remain in doubt. Is it then strange if there was quite a revel-rout in the streets of the little village, when old and young alike responded to the wonder of the scene? To whatever quarter she passed, not a window was down; labour was suspended to witness feats which no labour of theirs could accomplish. Women, bearing with them the marks of the household toils in which they had been last engaged, stood at their doors, some with sarcastic, but all with curious gaze; while the sunburnt Piedmontoise at times danced on her stilts a kind of mock waltz, or hobbled from side to side, in ridicule, as it would seem, of the livelier measure and footing of the quadrille. When, mounted on the highest point of her stilts, she strided across the way, to collect or to solicit pence, the little urchins hanging about their mothers, clung more closely to them as she approached, and looked up to her, doubting and fearful, as fish are said to be scared by a passing cloud. She was most successful among the male spectators of the village. Her feats with them excited no feelings of rivalry, and their notions of decorum were not so easily disturbed as those of their helpmates, who, in refusing their contribution, never withhold their reprobation of such anti-Christian gambols.

Footnote 7:

I love to luxuriate in a note: it is like hunting in an unenclosed country. One word about the affectations of Graybeards. Among all the ten thousand reasons for their gray hairs, no one ever thought of years as being at least a probable cause. It is one of the very few hereditary peculiarities of physical constitution, which are loudly proclaimed and gladly seized, to apologise for the sin of hoary locks. Acute sorrow, or sudden surprise;—indigestion—that talismanic thing, the nerves—love, speculation—or anything, in short, are all approved theories to explain their first intrusion among the legitimate ringlets of male and female persons of “no particular age.” Even it is said that people have awoke gray who lay down under very different colours; of course, they had had a bad dream, or lain on the wrong side, but no conscientious perruquier could have sworn to their identity under such a metamorphosis. In short, gray hairs are purely accidental; they have nothing to do with years; and being deemed a misfortune, have from time immemorial been always spoken of with reverence, but nowhere that I can recollect are they spoken of with affection, save in the beautiful song, “John Anderson, my Jo,” where the kind-hearted wife invokes blessings on the frosty pow of her aged partner.

“Gae awa wi’ you, ye idle randie! Weel sets the like o’ sic misleard queans to gang about the country playing antics like a fule, to fules like yoursel,” was the answer given by a middle-aged woman, who stood near me, to the boy who carried round a wooden platter for the halfpence, and who instantly retired, to save herself from the latter part of her own reproach, dragging with her a ragged little rogue, who begged hard to remain till the end of the exhibition. By this time the procession had reached the end of the street, where some of the better class of the inhabitants resided, and some preparations were made for a more elaborate spectacle. The swarthy Savoyard, who accompanied the ladder-dancer, after surveying the field, seemed to fix his station opposite to a respectable-looking house, whose liberality he evidently measured by its outward pretensions.

There is no state of helplessness equal to that of ignorance of the language in which a favour is to be craved, and you may estimate the proficiency of the foreigner in the intricacies of our own dialect by the obsequiousness of his smile, which he at once adapts to the purposes of solicitation, and of defence against insult and ridicule. While with a look of preparation he bustled about, to gain attention, he grinned and nodded to the windows which were occupied, while he held a ladder upright, and placing his hat at the bottom of it to receive the niggard bounty of the spectators, he stood at the back of it, supporting it with both his hands. The lady of the stilts now advanced, and resting on one of them, with considerable address lifted up the other and pushed it forward, with an action that seemed to denote something like a salutation, or obeisance,—a kind of aërial salaam. At this moment the hall-door was opened, and a portly-looking woman of middle-age, evidently the mistress of the household, came forward and planted herself on the broad landing-place of the stair. There was about this personage the round, full look which betokens ease and affluence; and the firm, steady step which argues satisfaction with our condition. She fixed herself on the door-step with the solid perpendicularity of Pompey’s Pillar, and now and then turned round to some young girls who attended her, as if to chide them for mixing her up with so silly an exhibition.

I had supposed that the Piedmontoise would have laid aside her stilts when she ascended the ladder, but far from it, for in this consisted the singularity of the exhibition. She climbed the ladder, still mounted on them, then descended like a cat on the other side of it; she hopped down as she had hopped up, with equal steadiness and agility, and thought to crown her efforts by a notable feat, which was no less than standing on her head on the top of the ladder, and brandishing the two stilts, from which she had disengaged herself, round about her, like the arms of a windmill. It required no great skill to see that the old lady was very much offended with this last performance, for when the little dish was carried to her, and the ladder-dancer directed a beseeching look accompanied by an attitude which seemed to imply that there were other feats yet in reserve, if encouragement was held out, the patroness of the stair-head could restrain herself no longer, but poured out a torrent partaking both of objurgation and admonition.

“Ne’er-do-weel hussie,” and “vagrant gipsy,” were some of the sharp missiles shot at the unsuspecting figurante, who, as little aware of the meaning of all this “sharp-toothed violence,” as the bird is of the mischief aimed at him by the fowler, sadly misapprehended its import, and thinking it conveyed encouragement and approbation, ducked her head in acknowledgment, while the thunder of the old lady’s reprobation rolled about her in the most ceaseless rapidity of vituperation.

“Ye’re a pretty ane indeed, to play sic antics afore ony body’s house! Hae ye naebody to learn ye better manners that to rin up and down a ladder like a squirrel, twisting and turning yoursel till my banes are sair to look at you? Muckle fitter gin ye would read your Bible, if as much grace be left to ye; or maybe a religious tract, to begin wi’, for I doubt ye wad need preparation afore ye could drink at the spring-head wi’ ony special profit.”

The last part was conveyed with a kind of smile of self-approbation; for of all tasks, to reclaim a sinner is the most pleasing and soothing to religious vanity;—so comfortable it is to be allowed to scold on any terms, but doubly delightful, because it always implies superiority. But the ladder-dancer and her attendant were aware of no part of what was passing in the mind of the female lecturer, and fully as ignorant of the eloquent address I have just repeated; she only saw, in the gracious looks in which her feats were condemned, an approval of her labours, for it passed her philosophy to comprehend the ungodly qualities of standing on the head, or whirling like a top. Again the ladder-dancer cringed and bowed to her of the stair-head; and her male supporter, who acted as a kind of pedestal to her elevation, bowed and grinned a little more grimly, while the boy held out his plate to receive the results of all this assiduity. But they could not command a single word of broad English among them. Theirs only was the eloquence of nods and grimaces; a monkey could have done as much, and in the present humour of the old lady, would have been as much approved. The ladder-dancer grew impatient, and seemed determined on an effort to close her labours.

“Ah, Madame!” she exclaimed; “Madame” was repeated by the man, and “Madame” was re-echoed by the boy.

“Nane o’ your nonsense wi’ me,” was the response from the stair-head; “your madam’ing, and I dinna ken what mair havers. Ye needna fash your head to stand there a’ day girning at me, and making sic outlandish sport. I’m mair fule than you, that bides to look at you; a fine tale they’d hae to tell that could say they saw me here, idling my precious time on the like o’ you.”

She now whispered to one of the girls, who retired, and soon after returned, giving her a small parcel, which she examined, and seemed to say all was right. She beckoned the ladder-dancer, who slid down with cat-like agility, and was instantly with her, standing a step lower, in deference to the doughty dame.

“Here,” said she, with a gruff air, which was rather affected than real, “tak these precious gifts,” handing her a bunch of religious tracts. “See if ye canna find out your spiritual wants, and learn to seek for the ‘Pearl of Price.’ My certie, but ye’re a weel-faured hussie,” examining her more narrowly, “but your gaits are no that commendable; but for a’ that, a mair broken ship has reached the land.”

I could observe that she slipped a half-crown into the hand of the Piedmontoise; and as she turned away to avoid thanks, an elderly gentleman (perhaps her husband), who stood by, said in a low voice,—

“That’s like yoursel, Darsie; your bark was aye waur than your bite, ony day!”—_Blackwood’s Magazine_, 1826.

THE ELDER’S DEATH-BED.

BY PROFESSOR WILSON.

It was on a fierce and howling day that I was crossing the dreary moor of Auchindown, on my way to the manse of that parish—a solitary pedestrian. The snow, which had been incessantly falling for a week past, was drifted into beautiful but dangerous wreaths, far and wide, over the melancholy expanse; and the scene kept visibly shifting before me, as the strong wind that blew from every point of the compass struck the dazzling masses, and heaved them up and down in endless transformation. There was something inspiriting in the labour with which, in the buoyant strength of youth, I forced my way through the storm; and I could not but enjoy those gleamings of sunlight that ever and anon burst through some unexpected opening in the sky, and gave a character of cheerfulness, and even warmth, to the sides or summits of the stricken hills. Sometimes the wind stopped of a sudden, and then the air was as silent as the snow—not a murmur to be heard from spring or stream, now all frozen up over those high moorlands. As the momentary cessations of the sharp drift allowed my eyes to look onwards and around, I saw here and there, up the little opening valleys, cottages just visible beneath the black stems of their snow-covered clumps of trees, or beside some small spot of green pasture kept open for the sheep. These intimations of life and happiness came delightfully to me in the midst of the desolation; and the barking of a dog, attending some shepherd in his quest on the hill, put fresh vigour into my limbs, telling me that, lonely as I seemed to be, I was surrounded by cheerful, though unseen company, and that I was not the only wanderer over the snows.

As I walked along, my mind was insensibly filled with a crowd of pleasant images of rural winter life, that helped me gladly onwards over many miles of moor. I thought of the severe but cheerful labours of the barn—the mending of farm-gear by the fireside—the wheel turned by the foot of old age less for gain than as a thrifty pastime—the skilful mother making “auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new”—the ballad unconsciously listened to by the family all busy at their own tasks round the singing maiden—the old traditionary tale, told by some wayfarer hospitably housed till the storm should blow by—the unexpected visit of neighbours on need or friendship—or the footstep of lover undeterred by snow-drifts that have buried up his flocks;—but above all, I thought of those hours of religious worship that have not yet escaped from the domestic life of the peasantry of Scotland—of the sound of psalms that the depth of the snow cannot deaden to the ear of Him to whom they are chanted—and of that sublime Sabbath-keeping which, on days too tempestuous for the kirk, changes the cottage of the shepherd into the temple of God.

With such glad and peaceful images in my heart, I travelled along that dreary moor, with the cutting wind in my face, and my feet sinking in the snow, or sliding on the hard blue ice beneath it—as cheerfully as I ever walked in the dewy warmth of a summer morning, through fields of fragrance and of flowers. And now I could discern, within half an hour’s walk, before me, the spire of the church, close to which stood the manse of my aged friend and benefactor. My heart burned within me as a sudden gleam of stormy sunlight tipped it with fire; and I felt, at that moment, an inexpressible sense of the sublimity of the character of that grayheaded shepherd who had, for fifty years, abode in the wilderness, keeping together his own happy little flock.

As I was ascending a knoll, I saw before me on horseback an old man, with his long white hairs beaten against his face, who, nevertheless, advanced with a calm countenance against the hurricane. It was no other than my father, of whom I had been thinking—for my father had I called him for many years, and for many years my father had he truly been. My surprise at meeting him on such a moor—on such a day—was but momentary, for I knew that he was a shepherd who cared not for the winter’s wrath. As he stopped to take my hand kindly into his, and to give his blessing to his long-expected visitor, the wind fell calm—the whole face of the sky was softened, and brightness, like a smile, went over the blushing and crimson snow. The very elements seemed then to respect the hoary head of fourscore; and after our first greeting was over, when I looked around, in my affection, I felt how beautiful was winter.

“I am going,” said he, “to visit a man at the point of death; a man whom you cannot have forgotten; whose head will be missed in the kirk next Sabbath by all my congregation; a devout man, who feared God all his days, and whom, on this awful trial, God will assuredly remember. I am going, my son, to the Hazel Glen.”

I knew well in childhood that lonely farmhouse, so far off among the beautiful wild green hills, and it was not likely that I had forgotten the name of its possessor. For six years’ Sabbaths I had seen the Elder in his accustomed place beneath the pulpit, and, with a sort of solemn fear, had looked on his steadfast countenance during sermon, psalm, and prayer. On returning to the scenes of my infancy, I now met the pastor going to pray by his deathbed; and, with the privilege which nature gives us to behold, even in their last extremity, the loving and the beloved, I turned to accompany him to the house of sorrow, resignation, and death.

And now, for the first time, I observed walking close to the feet of his horse, a little boy of about ten years of age, who kept frequently looking up in the pastor’s face, with his blue eyes bathed in tears. A changeful expression of grief, hope, and despair, made almost pale cheeks that otherwise were blooming in health and beauty; and I recognised, in the small features and smooth forehead of childhood, a resemblance to the aged man whom we understood was now lying on his death-bed. “They had to send his grandson for me through the snow, mere child as he is,” said the minister to me, looking tenderly on the boy; “but love makes the young heart bold—and there is One who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.”

I again looked on the fearless child with his rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and yellow hair, so unlike grief or sorrow, yet now sobbing aloud as if his heart would break. “I do not fear but that my grandfather will yet recover, as soon as the minister has said one single prayer by his bedside. I had no hope, or little, as I was running by myself to the manse over hill after hill, but I am full of hopes, now that we are together; and oh! if God suffers my grandfather to recover, I will lie awake all the long winter nights blessing Him for His mercy. I will rise up in the middle of the darkness, and pray to Him in the cold on my naked knees!” and here his voice was choked, while he kept his eyes fixed, as if for consolation and encouragement, on the solemn and pitying countenance of the kind-hearted pious old man.

We soon left the main road, and struck off through scenery that, covered as it was with the bewildering snow, I sometimes dimly and sometimes vividly remembered; our little guide keeping ever a short distance before us, and with a sagacity like that of instinct, showing us our course, of which no trace was visible, save occasionally his own little footprints as he had been hurrying to the manse.

After crossing, for several miles, morass and frozen rivulet, and drifted hollow, with here and there the top of a stone-wall peeping through the snow, or the more visible circle of a sheep-bucht, we descended into the Hazel-glen, and saw before us the solitary house of the dying Elder.

A gleam of days gone by came suddenly over my soul. The last time that I had been in this glen was on a day of June, fifteen years before,—a holiday, the birthday of the king. A troop of laughing schoolboys, headed by our benign pastor, we danced over the sunny braes, and startled the linnets from their nests among the yellow broom. Austere as seemed to us the Elder’s Sabbath face when sitting in the kirk, we schoolboys knew that it had its week-day smiles, and we flew on the wings of joy to our annual festival of curds and cream in the farm-house of that little sylvan world. We rejoiced in the flowers and the leaves of that long, that interminable summer day; its memory was with our boyish hearts from June to June; and the sound of that sweet name, “Hazel Glen,” often came upon us at our tasks, and brought too brightly into the school-room the pastoral imagery of that mirthful solitude.

As we now slowly approached the cottage through a deep snow-drift, which the distress within had prevented the household from removing, we saw peeping out from the door, brothers and sisters of our little guide, who quickly disappeared, and then their mother showed herself in their stead, expressing by her raised eyes, and arms folded across her breast, how thankful she was to see at last the pastor, beloved in joy and trusted in trouble.

Soon as the venerable old man dismounted from his horse, our active little guide led it away into the humble stable, and we entered the cottage. Not a sound was heard but the ticking of the clock. The matron, who had silently welcomed us at the door, led us, with suppressed sighs and a face stained with weeping, into her father’s sick room, which even in that time of sore distress was as orderly as if health had blessed the house. I could not help remarking some old china ornaments on the chimneypiece, and in the window was an ever-blowing rose-tree, that almost touched the lowly roof, and brightened that end of the apartment with its blossoms. There was something tasteful in the simple furniture; and it seemed as if grief could not deprive the hand of that matron of its careful elegance. Sickness, almost hopeless sickness, lay there, surrounded with the same cheerful and beautiful objects which health had loved; and she, who had arranged and adorned the apartment in her happiness, still kept it from disorder and decay in her sorrow.

With a gentle hand she drew the curtain of the bed, and there, supported by pillows as white as the snow that lay without, reposed the dying Elder. It was plain that the hand of God was upon him, and that his days on the earth were numbered.

He greeted his minister with a faint smile, and a slight inclination of the head—for his daughter had so raised him on the pillows, that he was almost sitting up in his bed. It was easy to see that he knew himself to be dying, and that his soul was prepared for the great change; yet, along with the solemn resignation of a Christian who had made his peace with God and his Saviour, there was blended on his white and sunken countenance an expression of habitual reverence for the minister of his faith; and I saw that he could not have died in peace without that comforter to pray by his death-bed.

A few words sufficed to tell who was the stranger;—and the dying man, blessing me by name, held out to me his cold shrivelled hand, in token of recognition. I took my seat at a small distance from the bedside, and left a closer station for those who were more dear. The pastor sat down near his head; and, by the bed, leaning on it with gentle hands, stood that matron, his daughter-in-law—a figure that would have graced and sainted a higher dwelling, and whose native beauty was now more touching in its grief. But religion upheld her whom nature was bowing down. Not now for the first time were the lessons taught by her father to be put into practice, for I saw that she was clothed in deep mourning and she behaved like the daughter of a man whose life had been not only irreproachable but lofty, with fear and hope fighting desperately but silently in the core of her pure and pious heart.

While we thus remained in silence, the beautiful boy, who, at the risk of his life, had brought the minister of religion to the bedside of his beloved grandfather, softly and cautiously opened the door, and with the hoar-frost yet unmelted on his bright glistering ringlets, walked up to the pillow, evidently no stranger there. He no longer sobbed—he no longer wept—for hope had risen strongly within his innocent heart, from the consciousness of love so fearlessly exerted, and from the presence of the holy man in whose prayers he trusted, as in the intercession of some superior and heavenly nature. There he stood, still as an image in his grandfather’s eyes, that, in their dimness, fell upon him with delight. Yet, happy as was the trusting child, his heart was devoured by fear, and he looked as if one word might stir up the flood of tears that had subsided in his heart. As he crossed the dreary and dismal moors, he had thought of a corpse, a shroud, and a grave; he had been in terror, lest death should strike in his absence the old man, with whose gray hairs he had so often played; but now he _saw_ him alive, and felt that death was not able to tear him away from the clasps, and links, and fetters of his grandchild’s embracing love.

“If the storm do not abate,” said the sick man, after a pause, “it will be hard for my friends to carry me over the drifts to the kirkyard.” This sudden approach to the grave struck, as with a bar of ice, the heart of the loving boy; and, with a long deep sigh, he fell down with his face like ashes on the bed, while the old man’s palsied right hand had just strength to lay itself upon his head. “Blessed be thou, my little Jamie, even for His own name’s sake who died for us on the tree!” The mother, without terror, but with an averted face, lifted up her loving-hearted boy, now in a dead fainting-fit, and carried him into an adjoining room, where he soon revived. But that child and the old man were not to be separated. In vain he was asked to go to his brothers and sisters;—pale, breathless, and shivering, he took his place as before, with eyes fixed on his grandfather’s face, but neither weeping nor uttering a word. Terror had frozen up the blood of his heart; but his were now the only dry eyes in the room; and the pastor himself wept—albeit the grief of fourscore is seldom vented in tears.

“God has been gracious to me, a sinner,” said the dying man. “During thirty years that I have been an elder in your kirk, never have I missed sitting there one Sabbath. When the mother of my children was taken from me—it was on a Tuesday she died, and on Saturday she was buried—we stood together when my Alice was let down into the narrow house made for all living; on the Sabbath I joined in the public worship of God: she commanded me to do so the night before she went away. I could not join in the psalm that Sabbath, for her voice was not in the throng. Her grave was covered up, and grass and flowers grew there; so was my heart; but thou, whom, through the blood of Christ, I hope to see this night in Paradise, knowest that, from that hour to this day, never have I forgotten thee!”

The old man ceased speaking, and his grandchild, now able to endure the scene (for strong passion is its own support), glided softly to a little table, and bringing a cup in which a cordial had been mixed, held it in his small soft hands to his grandfather’s lips. He drank, and then said, “Come closer to me, Jamie, and kiss me for thine own and thy father’s sake;” and as the child fondly pressed his rosy lips on those of his grandfather, so white and withered, the tears fell over all the old man’s face, and then trickled down on the golden head of the child, at last sobbing in his bosom.

“Jamie, thy own father has forgotten thee in thy infancy, and me in my old age; but, Jamie, forget not thou thy father nor thy mother, for that thou knowest and feelest is the commandment of God.”

The broken-hearted boy could give no reply. He had gradually stolen closer and closer unto the old loving man, and now was lying, worn out with sorrow, drenched and dissolved in tears, in his grandfather’s bosom. His mother had sunk down on her knees and hid her face with her hands. “Oh! if my husband knew but of this—he would never, never desert his dying father!” and I now knew that the Elder was praying on his death-bed for a disobedient and wicked son.

At this affecting time the minister took the family Bible on his knees, and said, “Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, part of the fifteenth psalm;” and he read, with a tremulous and broken voice, those beautiful verses:—

“Within thy tabernacle, Lord, Who shall abide with thee? And in Thy high and holy hill Who shall a dweller be? The man that walketh uprightly, And worketh righteousness, And as he thinketh in his heart, So doth he truth express.”

The small congregation sang the noble hymn of the psalmist to “plaintiff Martyrs, worthy of the name.” The dying man himself, ever and anon, joined in the holy music; and when it feebly died away on his quivering lips, he continued still to follow the tune with the motion of his withered hand, and eyes devoutly and humbly lifted up to heaven. Nor was the sweet voice of his loving grandchild unheard; as if the strong fit of deadly passion had dissolved in the music, he sang with a sweet and silvery voice, that, to a passer-by, had seemed that of perfect happiness—a hymn sung in joy upon its knees by gladsome childhood before it flew out among the green hills, to quiet labour or gleesome play. As that sweetest voice came from the bosom of the old man, where the singer lay in affection, and blended with his own so tremulous, never had I felt so affectingly brought before me the beginning and the end of life, the cradle and the grave.

Ere the psalm was yet over, the door was opened, and a tall fine-looking man entered, but with a lowering and dark countenance, seemingly in sorrow, in misery, and remorse. Agitated, confounded, and awe-struck by the melancholy and dirge-like music, he sat down on a chair, and looked with a ghastly face towards his father’s death-bed. When the psalm ceased, the Elder said with a solemn voice, “My son, thou art come in time to receive thy father’s blessing. May the remembrance of what will happen in this room before the morning again shine over the Hazel Glen win thee from the error of thy ways! Thou art here, to witness the mercy of thy God and thy Saviour, whom thou hast forgotten.”

The minister looked, if not with a stern, yet with an upbraiding countenance, on the young man, who had not recovered his speech, and said, “William! for three years past your shadow has not darkened the door of the house of God. They who fear not the thunder may tremble at the still small voice; now is the hour for repentance, that your father’s spirit may carry up to heaven tidings of a contrite soul saved from the company of sinners!”

The young man, with much effort, advanced to the bedside, and at last found voice to say, “Father, I am not without the affections of nature, and I hurried home as soon as I heard that the minister had been seen riding towards our house. I hope that you will yet recover, and if I have ever made you unhappy, I ask your forgiveness; for though I may not think as you do on matters of religion, I have a human heart. Father! I may have been unkind, but I am not cruel. I ask your forgiveness.”

“Come nearer to me, William; kneel down by the bedside, and let my hand find the head of my beloved son—for blindness is coming fast upon me. Thou wert my first-born, and thou art my only living son. All thy brothers and sisters are lying in the kirkyard, beside her whose sweet face thine own, William, did once so much resemble. Long wert thou the joy, the pride of my soul—ay, too much the pride, for there was not in all the parish such a man, such a son, as my own William. If thy heart has since been changed, God may inspire it again with right thoughts. Could I die for thy sake—could I purchase thy salvation with the outpouring of thy father’s blood—but this the Son of God has done for thee, who hast denied Him! I have sorely wept for thee—ay, William, when there was none near me—even as David wept for Absalom, for thee, my son, my son!”

A long deep groan was the only reply; but the whole body of the kneeling man was convulsed; and it was easy to see his sufferings, his contrition, his remorse, and his despair. The pastor said, with a sterner voice and austerer countenance than were natural to him, “Know you whose hand is now lying on your rebellious head? But what signifies the word father to him who has denied God, the Father of us all?”—“Oh! press him not so hardly,” said the weeping wife, coming forward from a dark corner of the room, where she had tried to conceal herself in grief, fear, and shame. “Spare, oh! spare my husband—he has ever been kind to me;” and with that she knelt down beside him, with her long, soft, white arms mournfully and affectionately laid across his neck. “Go thou, likewise, my sweet little Jamie,” said the Elder, “go even out of my bosom, and kneel down beside thy father and thy mother, so that I may bless you all at once, and with one yearning prayer.” The child did as that solemn voice commanded, and knelt down somewhat timidly by his father’s side; nor did that unhappy man decline encircling with his arm the child too much neglected, but still dear to him as his own blood, in spite of the deadening and debasing influence of infidelity.

“Put the Word of God into the hands of my son, and let him read aloud to his dying father the 25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the eleventh chapter of the Gospel according to St John.” The pastor went up to the kneelers, and, with a voice of pity, condolence, and pardon, said, “There was a time when none, William, could read the Scriptures better than couldst thou—can it be that the son of my friend hath forgotten the lessons of his youth?” He had not forgotten them; there was no need for the repentant sinner to lift up his eyes from the bedside. The sacred stream of the Gospel had worn a channel in his heart, and the waters were again flowing. With a choked voice he said, “Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord; I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”

“That is not an unbeliever’s voice,” said the dying man triumphantly; “nor, William, hast thou an unbeliever’s heart. Say that thou believest in what thou hast now read, and thy father will die happy!”—“I do believe; and as thou forgivest me, so may I be forgiven by my Father who is in heaven.”

The Elder seemed like a man suddenly inspired with a new life. His faded eyes kindled—his pale cheeks glowed—his palsied hands seemed to wax strong—and his voice was clear as that of manhood in its prime. “Into Thy hands, O God, I commit my spirit!”—and so saying, he gently sank back on his pillow; and I thought I heard a sigh. There was then a long deep silence, and the father, and mother, and child rose from their knees. The eyes of us all were turned towards the white placid face of the figure now stretched in everlasting rest; and without lamentations, save the silent lamentations of the resigned soul, we stood around the “Death-bed of the Elder.”

A HIGHLAND FEUD.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The principal possessors of the Hebrides were originally of the name of MacDonald, the whole being under the government of a succession of chiefs, who bore the name of Donald of the Isles, and were possessed of authority almost independent of the kings of Scotland. But this great family becoming divided into two or three branches, other chiefs settled in some of the islands, and disputed the property of the original proprietors. Thus, the MacLeods, a powerful and numerous clan, who had extensive estates on the mainland, made themselves masters, at a very early period, of a great part of the large island of Skye, seized upon much of the Long Island, as the isles of Lewis and Harris are called, and fought fiercely with the MacDonalds and other tribes of the islands. The following is an example of the mode in which these feuds were conducted:—

About the end of the sixteenth century, a boat, manned by one or two of the MacLeods, landed in Eigg, a small island peopled by the MacDonalds. They were at first hospitably received; but having been guilty of some incivility to the young women of the island, it was so much resented by the inhabitants, that they tied the MacLeods hand and foot, and putting them on board of their own boat, towed it to the sea, and set it adrift, leaving the wretched men, bound as they were, to perish by famine, or by the winds and waves, as chance should determine. But fate so ordered it, that a boat belonging to the Laird of MacLeod fell in with that which had the captives on board, and brought them in safety to the Laird’s castle of Dunvegan, in Skye, where they complained of the injury which they had sustained from the MacDonalds of Eigg. MacLeod, in great rage, put to sea with his galleys, manned by a large body of his people, which the men of Eigg could not entertain any rational hope of resisting. Learning that their incensed enemy was approaching with superior forces, and deep vows of revenge, the inhabitants, who knew they had no mercy to expect at MacLeod’s hands, resolved, as the best chance of safety in their power, to conceal themselves in a large cavern on the sea-shore.

This place was particularly well-calculated for that purpose. The entrance resembles that of a fox-earth, being an opening so small that a man cannot enter save by creeping on hands and knees. A rill of water falls from the top of the rock, and serves, or rather served at the period we speak of, wholly to conceal the aperture. A stranger, even when apprised of the existence of such a cave, would find the greatest difficulty in discovering the entrance. Within, the cavern rises to a great height, and the floor is covered with white dry sand. It is extensive enough to contain a great number of people. The whole inhabitants of Eigg, who, with their wives and families, amounted to nearly two hundred souls, took refuge within its precincts.

MacLeod arrived with his armament, and landed on the island, but could discover no one on whom to wreak his vengeance—all was desert. The MacLeods destroyed the huts of the islanders, and plundered what property they could discover; but the vengeance of the chieftain could not be satisfied with such petty injuries. He knew that the inhabitants must either have fled in their boats to one of the islands possessed by the MacDonalds, or that they must be concealed somewhere in Eigg. After making a strict but unsuccessful search for two days, MacLeod had appointed the third to leave his anchorage, when, in the gray of the morning, one of the seamen beheld, from the deck of his galley, the figure of a man on the island. This was a spy whom the MacDonalds, impatient of their confinement in the cavern, had imprudently sent out to see whether MacLeod had retired or no. The poor fellow, when he saw himself discovered, endeavoured, by doubling after the manner of a hare or fox, to obliterate the track of his footsteps, and prevent its being discovered where he had re-entered the cavern. But all his art was in vain; the invaders again landed, and tracked him to the entrance of the cavern.

MacLeod then summoned those who were within it, and called upon them to deliver the individuals who had maltreated his men, to be disposed of at his pleasure. The MacDonalds, still confident in the strength of their fastness, which no assailant could enter but on hands and knees, refused to surrender their clansmen.

MacLeod then commenced a dreadful work of indiscriminate vengeance. He caused his people, by means of a ditch cut above the top of the rock, to turn away the stream of water which fell over the entrance of the precipice. This being done, the MacLeods collected all the combustibles which could be found on the island, particularly quantities of dry heather, piled them up against the aperture, and maintained an immense fire for many hours, until the smoke, penetrating into the inmost recesses of the cavern, stifled to death every creature within. There is no doubt of the truth of this story, dreadful as it is. The cavern is often visited by strangers; and I have myself seen the place, where the bones of the murdered MacDonalds still remain, lying as thick on the floor of the cave as in the charnel-house of a church.

THE RESURRECTION MEN.

BY D. M. MOIR, M.D.

How then was the Devil drest? He was in his Sunday’s best; His coat was red, and his breeches were blue, With a hole behind, where his tail came through.

Over the hill, and over the dale, And he went over the plain: And backward and forward he switched his tail, As a gentleman switches his cane. _Coleridge._

About this time[8] there arose a great sough and surmise that some loons were playing false with the kirkyard, howking up the bodies from their damp graves, and hurling them away to the college. Words canna describe the fear, and the dool, and the misery it caused. All flocked to the kirk yett; and the friends of the newly buried stood by the mools, which were yet dark, and the brown, newly-cast divots, that had not yet ta’en root, looking with mournful faces, to descry any tokens of sinking in.

Footnote 8:

See _ante_, “Benjie’s Christening,” page 214.

I’ll never forget it. I was standing by when three young lads took shools, and, lifting up the truff, proceeded to howk down to the coffin, wherein they had laid the gray hairs of their mother. They looked wild and bewildered like, and the glance of their een was like that of folk out of a mad-house; and none dared in the world to have spoken to them. They didna even speak to ane anither; but wrought on wi’ a great hurry till the spades struck on the coffin-lid—which was broken. The dead-claithes were there huddled a’thegither in a nook, but the dead was gane. I took haud o’ Willie Walker’s arm, and looked down. There was a cauld sweat all ower me;—losh me! but I was terribly frighted and eerie. Three mair graves were opened, and a’ just alike, save and except that of a wee unkirstened wean, which was aff bodily, coffin and a’.

There was a burst of righteous indignation throughout the parish; nor without reason. Tell me that doctors and graduates maun hae the dead; but tell it not to Mansie Wauch, that our hearts maun be trampled in the mire of scorn, and our best feelings laughed at, in order that a bruise may be properly plaistered up, or a sair head cured. Verily, the remedy is waur than the disease.

But what remead? It was to watch in the session-house, with loaded guns, night about, three at a time. I never likit to gang into the kirkyard after darkening, let-a-be to sit there through a lang winter night, windy and rainy, it may be, wi’ nane but the dead around us. Save us! it was an unco thought, and garred a’ my flesh creep; but the cause was gude,—my spirit was roused, and I was determined no to be dauntoned.

I counted and counted, but the dread day at length came, and I was summonsed. All the leivelang afternoon, when ca’ing the needle upon the brod, I tried to whistle Jenny Nettles, Niel Gow, and ither funny tunes, and whiles crooned to mysel between hands; but my consternation was visible, and a’ wadna do.

It was in November, and the cauld glimmering sun sank behind the Pentlands. The trees had been shorn of their frail leaves; and the misty night was closing fast in upon the dull and short day; but the candles glittered at the shop windows, and leery-light-the-lamps was brushing about wi’ his ladder in his oxter, and bleezing flamboy sparking out behind him. I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and down-sinking about my heart and stomach, to the dispelling of which I took a thimbleful of spirits, and, tying my red comforter about my neck, I marched briskly to the session-house. A neighbour (Andrew Goldie, the pensioner) lent me his piece, and loaded it to me. He took tent that it was only half-cock, and I wrapped a napkin round the dog-head, for it was raining. No being acquaint wi’ guns, I keepit the muzzle aye awa frae me; as it is every man’s duty no to throw his precious life into jeopardy.

A furm was set before the session-house fire, which bleezed brightly, nor had I ony thought that such an unearthly place could have been made to look half so comfortable, either by coal or candle; so my speerits rose up as if a weight had been ta’en aff them, and I wondered in my bravery, that a man like me could be afeard of onything. Nobody was there but a touzy, ragged, halflins callant of thirteen (for I speired his age), wi’ a desperate dirty face, and lang carroty hair, tearing a speldrin wi’ his teeth, which lookit lang and sharp eneugh, and throwing the skin and lugs intil the fire.

We sat for amaist an hour thegither, cracking the best way we could in sic a place; nor was onybody mair likely to cast up. The night was now pit-mirk; the wind soughed amid the headstanes and railings of the gentry (for we maun a’ dee); and the black corbies in the steeple-holes cackled and crawed in a fearsome manner. A’ at ance we heard a lonesome sound; and my heart began to play pit-pat—my skin grew a’ rough, like a poukit chicken—and I felt as if I didna ken what was the matter with me. It was only a false alarm, however, being the warning of the clock; and in a minute or twa thereafter the bell struck ten. Oh, but it was a lonesome and dreary sound! Every chap gaed through my breast like the dunt of a forehammer.

Then up and spak the red headed laddie: “It’s no fair; anither should hae come by this time. I wad rin awa hame, only I’m frightened to gang out my lane. Do ye think the doup o’ that candle wad carry in my cap?”

“Na, na, lad; we maun bide here, as we are here now. Leave me alane! Lord save us! and the yett lockit, and the bethrel sleepin’ wi’ the key in his breek-pouches! We canna win out now, though we would,” answered I, trying to look brave, though half frightened out of my seven senses. “Sit down, sit down; I’ve baith whisky and porter wi’ me. Hae, man, there’s a cauker to keep your heart warm; and set down that bottle,” quoth I, wiping the sawdust aff it with my hand, “to get a toast; I’se warrant it for Deacon Jaffrey’s best brown stout.”

The wind blew higher, and like a hurricane; the rain began to fall in perfect spouts; the auld kirk rumbled, and rowed, and made a sad soughing; and the bourtree tree behind the house, where auld Cockburn, that cuttit his throat, was buried, creakit and crazed in a frightful manner; but as to the roaring of the troubled waters, and the bumming in the lum-head, they were past a’ power of description. To make bad worse, just in the heart of the brattle, the grating sound of the yett turning on its rusty hinges was but too plainly heard. What was to be done? I thought of our baith running away; and then of our locking oursels in, and firing through the door; but wha was to pull the trigger?

Gudeness watch ower us! I tremble yet when I think on’t. We were perfectly between the deil and the deep sea—either to stand and fire our gun, or rin and be shot at. It was really a hang choice. As I stood swithering and shaking, the laddie ran to the door, and thrawing round the key, clapped his back till’t. Oh! how I lookit at him, as he stude, for a gliff, like a magpie hearkening wi’ his lug cockit up, or rather like a terrier watching a rotten.

“They’re coming! they’re coming!” he cried out; “cock the piece, ye sumph,” while the red hair rose up from his pow like feathers; “they’re coming, I hear them tramping on the gravel!” Out he stretched his arms against the wall, and brizzed his back against the door like mad; as if he had been Samson pushing over the pillars in the house of Dagon. “For the Lord’s sake, prime the gun,” he cried out, “or our throats will be cut frae lug to lug, before we can say Jack Robinson! See that there’s priming in the pan!”

I did the best I could; but my hale strength could hardly lift up the piece, which waggled to and fro like a cock’s tail on a rainy day; my knees knockit against ane anither, and though I was resigned to dee—I trust I was resigned to dee—’od, but it was a frightfu’ thing to be out of ane’s bed, and to be murdered in an auld session-house, at the dead hour of night, by unyearthly resurrection-men—or rather let me call them devils incarnate—wrapt up in dreadnoughts, wi’ blackit faces, pistols, big sticks, and other deadly weapons.

A snuff-snuffing was heard; and through below the door I saw a pair of glancing black een. ’Od, but my heart nearly loupit aff the bit—a snouff and a gur—gurring, and ower a’ the plain tramp of a man’s heavy tackets and cuddy-heels amang the gravel. Then cam a great slap like thunder on the wall; and the laddie quitting his grip, fell down, crying, “Fire, fire!—murder! holy murder!”

“Wha’s there?” growled a deep rough voice; “open—I’m a friend.”

I tried to speak, but could not; something like a halfpenny roll was sticking in my throat, so I tried to cough it up, but it wadna come. “Gie the pass-word, then,” said the laddie, staring as if his een wad loupen out; “gie the pass-word!”

First cam a loud whussle, and then “Copmahagen,” answered the voice. Oh! what a relief! The laddie started up like ane crazy wi’ joy. “Ou! ou!” cried he, thrawing round the key, and rubbing his hands, “by jingo! it’s the bethrel—it’s the bethrel—it’s auld Isaac himsel!”

First rushed in the dog, and then Isaac, wi’ his glazed hat, slouched ower his brow, and his horn bowet glimmering by his knee. “Has the French landit, do ye think? Losh keep us a’!” said he, wi’ a smile on his half-idiot face (for he was a kind of a sort of a natural, wi’ an infirmity in his leg). “’Od sauf us, man, put by your gun. Ye dinna mean to shoot me, do ye? What are ye aboot here wi’ the door lockit? I just keppit four resurrectioners louping ower the wa’.”

“Gude guide us!” I said, taking a long breath to drive the blude frae my heart, and something relieved by Isaac’s company. “Come now, Isaac, ye’re just giein’ us a fright. Isn’t that true, Isaac?”

“Yes, I’m joking,—and what for no? But they might have been, for onything ye wad hae hindered them to the contrair, I’m thinking. Na, na, ye maunna lock the door; that’s no fair play.”

When the door was put ajee, and the furm set fornent the fire, I gied Isaac a dram to keep his heart up on sic a cauld, stormy night. ’Od, but he was a droll fallow, Isaac. He sung and leuch as if he had been boozing in Lucky Tamson’s, wi’ some of his drucken cronies. Fient a hair cared he about auld kirks, or kirkyards, or vouts, or through-stanes, or dead folk in their winding-sheets, wi’ the wet grass growing ower them; and at last I began to brighten up a wee mysel; so when he had gone ower a good few funny stories, I said to him, quoth I, “Mony folk, I daresay, mak mair noise about their sitting up in a kirkyard than it’s a’ worth. There’s naething here to harm us.”

“I beg to differ wi’ ye there,” answered Isaac, taking out his horn mull from his coat pouch, and tapping on the lid in a queer style—“I could gie anither version of that story. Did ye no ken of three young doctors—Eirish students—alang wi’ some resurrectioners, as waff and wild as themselves, firing shottie for shottie wi’ the guard at Kirkmabreck, and lodging three slugs in ane o’ their backs, forbye firing a ramrod through anither ane’s hat?”

This was a wee alarming. “No,” quoth I—“no, Isaac, man, I ne’er heard o’t.”

“But let alane resurrectioners, do ye no think there is sic a thing as ghaists? Guide ye, my man, my granny could hae telled ye as muckle about them as wad hae filled a minister’s sermons from June to January.”

“Kay—kay—that’s a’ buff,” I said. “Are there nae cutty-stool businesses—are there nae marriages gaun, Isaac?” for I was keen to change the subject.

“Ye may kay—kay—as ye like, though; I can just tell ye this—ye’ll mind auld Armstrong, wi’ the leather breeks, and the brown three-storey wig—him that was the grave—digger? Weel, he saw a ghaist wi’ his leeving een—aye, and what’s better, in this very kirkyard too. It was a cauld spring morning, and daylight just coming in, when he cam to the yett yonder, thinking to meet his man, paidling Jock—but Jock had sleepit in, and wasna there. Weel, to the wast corner ower yonder he gaed, and throwing his coat ower a headstane, and his hat on the tap o’t, he dug awa wi’ his spade, casting out the mools, and the coffin-handles, and the green banes, and sic-like, till he stoppit a wee to tak breath.—What! are ye whistling to yoursel?” quo’ Isaac to me, “and no hearing what’s God’s truth?”

“Ou ay,” said I, “but ye didna tell me if ony body was cried last Sunday?” I wad hae given every farthing I had made by the needle to hae been at that blessed time in my bed wi’ my wife and wean. Ay, how I was gruing! I mostly chacked aff my tongue in chitterin’. But a’ wadna do.

“Weel, speaking of ghaists;—when he was resting on his spade, he looked up to the steeple, to see what o’clock it was, wondering what way Jock hadna come,—when lo, and behold! in the lang diced window of the kirk yonder, he saw a lady a’ in white, wi’ her hands clasped thegither, looking out to the kirkyard at him.

“He couldna believe his een, so he rubbit them wi’ his sark sleeve, but she was still there bodily, and, keeping ae ee on her, and anither on his road to the yett, he drew his coat and hat to him below his arm, and aff like mad, throwing his shool half a mile ahint him. Jock fand that; for he was coming singing in at the yett, when his maister ran clean ower the tap o’ him, and capseized him like a toom barrel; and never stoppin’ till he was in at his ain house, and the door baith bolted and barred at his tail.

“Did ye ever hear the like of that, Mansie? Weel man, I’ll explain the hale history o’t to ye. Ye see,—’od! how sound that callant’s sleeping,” continued Isaac; “he’s snoring like a nine-year-auld.”

I was glad he had stoppit, for I was like to sink through the grund wi’ fear; but na, it wadna do.

“Dinna ye ken—sauf us! what a fearsome night this is! The trees ’ll be a’ broken. What a noise in the lum! I dare say there is some auld hag of a witch-wife gaun to come rumble doun’t. It’s no the first time, I’ll swear. Hae ye a silver sixpence? Wad ye like that?” he bawled up the chimley. “Ye’ll hae heard,” said he, “lang ago, that a wee murdered wean was buried—didna ye hear a voice?—was buried below that corner—the hearthstane there, where the laddie’s lying on?”

I had now lost my breath, so that I couldna stop him.

“Ye never heard tell o’t, didna ye? Weel, I’se tell’t ye.—Sauf us! what swurls o’ smoke coming down the chimley—I could swear something no canny’s stopping up the lum-head—gang out and see!”

At that moment, a clap like thunder was heard—the candle was driven ower—the sleeping laddie roared “Help!” and “Murder!” and “Thieves!” and as the furm on which we were sitting played flee backwards, cripple Isaac bellowed out, “I’m dead!—I’m killed! shot through the head!—oh, oh, oh!”

Surely I had fainted away; for when I came to mysel, I found my red comforter loosed; my face a’ wet—Isaac rubbing down my waistcoat with his sleeve—the laddie swigging ale out of a bicker—and the brisk brown stout, which, by casting its cork, had caused a’ the alarm, whizz—whizz—whizzing in the chimley-lug.—_Mansie Wauch._

MARY WILSON.

On her white arm down sunk her head, She shivered, sighed, and died. _Mallet._

Joseph Wilson was a farmer in the parish of D——. He possessed enough of the goods of this world to make him be respected by all his neighbours, and esteemed by them as the most careful, well-doing man in the parish. Joseph knew well enough the value of his riches; but still the jewel which was nearest and dearest to his heart was his only daughter, the beautiful and innocent Mary Wilson. He loved her—and his love was not greater than that of Marjory, his wife—more than all he possessed; and when rallied by his neighbours on the depth of his purse, he was wont to say, that the brightest guinea he adored was the face of his own sweet Mary. While a child she was indulged; and the smiles of her pretty round face, and her caresses and kisses, gained all her little wants from her doting parents. While the daughters of other farmers assisted in household management, she was never required to soil her fingers, but would skip and dance before her father over the fields and the meadows, and sport as the little lamb round her parent. As she advanced from childhood, her days were clad in the same fair livery of joy. She danced and she toyed, and though no longer dandled and prattling on the knees of her parents, she made them the confidants of all her light amusements and secrets, and she sang to them all the legendary ballads which she had picked up, and their hearts were still gladdened in the little offspring of their wedlock.

From a child to the age of fifteen, she had attended the parish school along with all the boys and girls, both high and low. Here she was a general favourite, and the youths would crowd to attend Mary Wilson home, because she had the prettiest little lips, and the kindliest laugh, of any girl in the school; and happy was he, and proud of himself, who obtained her hand to dance at the Candlemas ball. The father and mother saw no harm in the adulations paid to their daughter, for they did not equal their own; and the good old schoolmaster loved to see Mary the favourite of all his youths, because she was a good scholar and the best singer in the school and in the church, and on that account the greatest favourite with himself. When he raised the tune on the Sabbath to the praise of the Lord, he would turn in his desk to the seat of Mary Wilson for her accompaniment, and, when her sweet voice was once heard through the church, then would the whole congregation join, and every young man emulate himself to gain the approbation of the fair and goodly singer. To those who are in the practice of attending a country parish church, I need not mention in how high estimation the best female singer is held amongst all the young men of the country side.

At the age of fifteen she was removed to a boarding-school in town. Here she remained two years, and though she perfected herself in accomplishments, and though many young men dangled after her, yet her heart, albeit naturally merry, was sensitive; and vapid appeared to her the revel in the midnight ball compared to the dance on the heaven-canopied lawn, when heart panted with heart, and every spirit caught the existing flame of pleasure; and frigid and disagreeable seemed to her the lips from whom politeness extorted studied words, compared to the lips of those who spoke the warm and momentary feelings of the mind. She returned to the place of her youth, and sought again for mirth and pleasure amongst her old companions; but she was changed both in person and in mind. She was no longer the light airy girl, but she was now the woman glowing in all the richness and luxuriance of female beauty. She could not now associate with the young men, and be their umpire in all their disputes and contentions, as in the days of her youth; nor could she find that delight in the company of her female companions which she did ere her departure. Mary was a flower,—

A violet by a mossy stone, Half hid from human eyes,

that, left undisturbed on the wild, would have flourished the loveliest of her comrades, but once transplanted for a little time into the garden, she took not so well when removed again to her native soil. Though she danced, and though she sung, as she was wont, still part of that which she had seen in town mingled itself with that which she enjoyed in the country; the customs of a populous city were not to be easily banished from her, and she could not be so happy as formerly. To her father and her mother she was the same adored object; both rejoiced in her beauty, and while they would at times talk of who might be her husband, they would soon chase away the idea as that of a robber that would deprive them of their all.

A little after Mary’s return to her father’s, Charles Morley returned likewise from the University. He was the son of the laird, but he had been at the parish school with the young men, and once been their constant companion. He hunted for birds’ nests with them, he had fished with them, he had often broken into his father’s garden with them, and Morley was as one of themselves. He had ever been attentive to Mary Wilson; and she, if the umpire of a race or a wrestle, was always happy when she could adjudge the honour of victory to Charlie Morley, because he would at times snatch a kiss from her, and would always take her hand and assist her when wading through the burns. He had completed his education at the University, and, while he had acquired knowledge, he had lost the command of himself. Long did he withstand the temptations laid in his way by more wicked companions, and long did he endeavour to retain the principles his old master had instilled into him; but in vain: while the sage was discoursing on the nobleness of man’s nature, and the blessings of wisdom, and while he acquiesced in all the learned man said, Charles Morley had become one of the most profligate young men in the college.

When he returned to the country, he often met Mary Wilson, both at her father’s and at the houses of the other tenants. Their meetings became frequent, and though they never made assignations, yet Charles Morley was sure to meet with Mary Wilson in her walks. She saw no harm in meeting with her old school companion, but he had his schemes laid; he saw her leaning on him in all her maiden fondness; he knew human nature, and he knew that if he attempted to wrong her in their early meetings, he would discover his baseness and be spurned. He suffered therefore her affection to grow upon her, and, when it had fully ripened, he gave her his feigned love, and received hers, as the offerings of a devotee to his God, in return. For some time she was almost happy, and though she knew her situation must soon be known, she was certain it would not be so till she was the wife of Charles Morley—for so he had promised; and could she doubt him? Time, however, flew on, and Mary becoming discontented and frightened, Morley, in order to draw her from a place where discovery would have been ruin to himself, proposed flight. When a woman has once gone astray, the man who has ruined her does not require great efforts to persuade her to anything. She is his, body and soul. Mary one night bade adieu to the house of her father, and fled with her paramour to an obscure lodging in the capital.

Sad was the morning which arose to her parents on the discovery of her departure, and more especially the cause of it, which neighbours were not slow in surmising and hinting. Her mother wept in all the bitterness of woe, but her tears could not express the sorrow of her heart. The father was louder in his grief; he wept and raved by turns. Now he grieved for her helplessness, and prayed to God to grant her mercy; then he cursed the hour in which she was born, and called down curses on him who had ruined the hope of his days. In a little time their violent grief had subsided; the fugitives could not be traced, and neither Joseph nor his wife suffered that name which was nearest to their hearts to pass their lips. But when Marjory would see the work-basket of her daughter, she would throw herself on her bed and weep; and Joseph, when anything came in his way that strongly associated the idea of his Mary, would seize his hat, rush from the house, and give utterance to a grief which he would fain conceal from an already heart-broken wife.

It was about five months after the departure of Mary, when Marjory, hearing one day a gentle tap at the door, went to open it. It was Mary who knocked; but oh! how changed from her who once was the boast of the country side! She was pale and emaciated, her eye had lost its lustre, and she seemed to be worse than the shadow of her former loveliness. Her dress was ragged and torn, and in her arms she bore a child—the ill-fated offspring of her illicit amour. Her mother held the door for some minutes, while she surveyed with melancholy eyes the woeworn condition of her daughter. “Mary,” she said—and her manner was composed—“Mary, you did not need formerly to knock at the door of your father’s house.” Mary stepped over the threshold, and staggering, rather than walking, forward into the kitchen, threw herself on the dais. “Mary,” said her mother again, “where have you been? Are you a married woman? Better be the wife of the poorest man than——.” Here her daughter buried her face in the bosom of her child, and sobbed aloud. “Mary,” again said her mother, “I reproach you not. God will grant you His forgiveness, as I do mine; I feel I cannot live long after this stroke, and we must all meet with trials on this side the grave; but Mary, oh, my darling Mary,” and she threw her arms around her daughter’s neck and kissed her, “your father! how will you bear the look of your father?” Her words were scarce finished when Joseph entered. He laid his hat on the table, he shaded back his gray hairs, and clasped his hands, and, from his hard-knitted brows, he seemed about to pray the vengeance of God on her who had so dishonoured his old age. He looked at his daughter; her eyes were on him, and her once lovely arm was extended as if to avoid the threatened curse; his brows relaxed, he unclasped his hands, and placing them on his face, wept aloud. She laid her child on the seat, she was at his feet on her knees, and her arms grasped him by the waist. He felt her, he placed one hand in hers, and raised the other as he said, “May God forgive thee, my daughter! Ah, Mary, Mary, thou art still my offspring, though thou art a defiled vessel in the eyes of God and man!”

On the second Sunday after her return to her father’s, she prepared to attend her purification in the kirk. She had gone through all preliminary forms, and was now once more to take her seat in the house of God. She went muffled up and attended by her father and mother, and was not recognised. During the singing of the first and second psalms she was silent; but at the third, her father desired her to sing to the praise of that God who had brought her back as a lost sheep into His fold. In the second line she joined the tune; but weakly and feebly compared to that voice which used to lead the whole kirk. It was, however, recognised; there was a more than momentary stop while all eyes were turned towards her; and her old master, turning towards the seat of his old favourite, strove, while the big tears rolled down his cheeks, and his voice faltered, to bear her through the tune. The minister again rose to prayer: he stretched his hands to heaven, and prayed for all mankind; he prayed for the sinner that had gone astray, and that the Father of mercies would have compassion on the wretched, and again take her into his bosom. There was not a dry eye in the kirk. Humanity for once prevailed, and human selfishness forgot itself in the woes of a fellow-mortal. She, for whom they were supplicating, stood with her hands firmly clasped, her eyes closed, and her head bowed to the earth; and though her father and mother sobbed and wept, she moved not, but, when service was over, she walked with a firm step, and uncovered face and head, through all the parishioners, to her father’s dwelling. She laid herself down on her bed, and in three weeks the grave yawned and closed on the unfortunate Mary Wilson.

A few weeks ago, I made it in my way to pass through D——. Many revolutions of a tropical sun had passed over my head since I had left my native land, and, on my return, I was anxious to visit that spot where I passed many of my happiest days, even though I knew that all my relatives were long since in the cold grave. As I turned round the hill, the well-known cottage of Joseph Wilson came in view, and the story of his daughter flashed vividly on my mind. I approached a countryman, who was standing with his plough and horses at the end of a furrow, wiping the sweat from his brow, and inquired, if Joseph Wilson was still living.

“Na,” replied he, “nor ane o’ his kith or kindred. The poor wean that suckled frae an unfortunate breast died soon after his mother, like a young shoot or sapling that has been rashly cut down. Then Marjory soon followed, and Joseph became a heart-broken man; a’thing gaed to wreck, and he died on the parish. There are sad ups and downs in life, and nae the lightest thing to disturb our balance is the waywardness of a child.”

“Poor Mary Wilson!” said I. She became as visible to my mind’s eye as when I saw her winding in the mazes of a dance in all her maiden beauty and innocence; and the lines of my favourite poet came to my lips:—

When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds, too late, that men betray, What charms can soothe her melancholy? What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom, is—to die.

“And what has become of the laird?” said I, looking to the well-known mansion.

“The old laird is dead, and the young one, that was once expected to be laird, lies rotting with many carcases in a foreign trench. He broke his father’s heart, spent his substance, and died a common soldier. The comforting dew of heaven seldom falls on him who disregards its commands: seldom does the friendly hands of woman smooth the dying bed of the seducer; and still more rarely does the insulter of a parent’s gray hairs sleep in the same grave wi’ him. Ye canna lament Mary Wilson mair than I do.”

“Do you possess her father’s land?” said I.

“Ay do I,” replied the rustic,—apparently much moved; “and it may be that I would hae ploughed them mair pleasantly, and whistled mair cheerfully to my horses, had Mary shared it with a plain man, as became her station; but we maunna repine.”

I had no wish to proceed farther; and in my ride back I enjoyed one of those deep, melancholy musings, far more congenial to my mind than the most ecstatic dreams of the most ambitious men.—_Aberdeen Censor._

THE LAIRD OF CASSWAY.

BY JAMES HOGG, THE “ETTRICK SHEPHERD.”