Chapter 3

"Shame, shame on you, M'Alister! You have slain them that took but their own; you have slain them you had injured! You have murdered the fatherless, and spoiled the widow! but he that is righteous shall judge between us, and the curse of God shall cling to you for this for ever. The sun rose on me the proud mother of two handsome boys; he sets on their stiffening bodies!" and she raised her arm, as she spoke, towards the gibbet. Her eye kindled, and her form dilated, as she turned again to her vindictive foe. "I suffer now," said she, "but you shall surfer always. You have made me childless, but you and yours shall be heirless for ever. Long may their name last, and wide may their lands be; but never, while the name and the lands continue, shall there be a son to the house of M'Alister!"

The curse of the bereaved widow clung steadily to the house of M'Alister. The lands passed from heir to heir, but no laird had ever been succeeded by a son. Often had the hopes of the clan been raised; often had they thought for years that the punishment of their ancestor's cruelty was to be continued to them no longer--that the spirits of the widow's sons were at length appeased; but M'Alister More was to suffer for ever; the hopes of his house might blossom, but they always faded. It was in the reign of the good Queen Anne that they flourished for the last time; they were blighted then, and for ever.

The laird and the lady had had several daughters born to them in succession, and at last a son: he grew up to manhood in safety--the pride of his people, and the darling of his parents; giving promise of every virtue that could adorn his rank. He had been early contracted in marriage to the daughter of another powerful chieftain in the North, and the alliance, which had been equally courted by both families, was concluded immediately on the return of the young laird from his travels. There was a great intercourse in those days with France--most of the young highland chiefs spent a year or two in that country, many of them were entirely educated there, but that was not the case with the young heir of M'Alister; he had only gone abroad to finish his breeding after coming to man's estate. It was shortly before the first rebellion in the 15, to speak as my informant spoke to me--and being young, and of an ardent nature, he was soon attracted to the court of the old Pretender, whose policy it was to gain every Scotch noble, by every means, to his views. The measures he took succeeded with the only son of M'Alister:--he returned to his native country, eager for the approaching contest, pledged heart and hand to his exiled sovereign. In the troubles which broke out almost immediately on the death of the queen, he and his father took different sides; the old laird fortified his high tower, and prepared to defend it to the last, against the enemies of the House of Hanover. The young laird bade adieu to his beautiful wife, and attended by a band of his young clansmen, easily gained to aid a cause so romantic, he secretly left his duchess, and joined the army of the Pretender at Perth.

The young wife had lived with her husband, at a small farm on the property, a little way up the glen, a mile or two from the castle. But when her husband deserted her, she was removed by her father-in-law to his own house for greater security. Months rolled away, and the various fortunes of the rebels were reported, from time to time, in the remote glen where the chief strength of the M'Alisters lay. News did not travel swiftly then, and often they heard what was little to be relied on, so much did hope or fear magnify any slight success, or any ill-fortune. At last, there came a sough of a great battle having been fought somewhere in the west country, which had decided the fate of the opposing parties. The young laird and his valiant band had turned the fortune of the day. Argyle was defeated and slain, and the Earl of Marr was victorious;--King James had arrived, and was to be crowned at Scone, and all Scotland was his own.

It was on a cold, bleak, stormy, November evening, when this news was brought, by a Brae-Marr-man, to the laird's tower. He was wise and prudent, and he would give no ear to a tale so lightly told: but his beautiful daughter-in-law, sanguine for her husband's sake, cherished reports that brightened all her prospects. She retired to her chamber, almost hoping that another day might see it enlivened by his presence, without whom life to her was a dreary blank. She was lodged in a small apartment on the third story of the tower, opening straight from a narrow passage at the head of the winding stairs. It had two small windows, which looked on the paved courtyard of the castle; and beyond, to what was then a bare meadow, and the river. The moon gave little light, and she turned from the gloomy prospect to the ample hearth, on which the bright logs were blazing. Her heart was full, and her mind so restless, that after her maidens left her, she continued to pace up and down her little chamber, unwilling to retire to rest. At length she threw herself upon her bed, exhausted by the eagerness of her feelings, and in the agitation of her ideas she forgot to say her prayers. Yet she slept, and calmly, but her sleep was short. She awakened suddenly, and starting half up, listened anxiously for some minutes. The wind blew strongly round the old tower, and a thick shower of sleet was driving fast against the casements; but, in the pauses of the storm, she thought she heard distinctly, though at a distance, the tramp of a horse at his speed. She bent forward and watched the sound. It came nearer--it grew louder--it gallopped over the hard ground, and approached with the swiftness of lightning. She gasped and trembled--it was he, it must be he,--she knew the long firm bound of her husband's charger. Its rapid feet struck loud on the pavement of the courtyard below, and in an instant dropt dead below the great door of the castle. She had neither power to breathe, nor to move, but she listened for the call of the porter's name, and the jar of the chains and bolts which secured the door. She heard nothing--she grew bewildered, and tried to rise to call for succour--but a spell was on her to keep her down. At length, from the very bottom of the winding stair, came the sound of a firm foot, ascending regularly step by step, without a pause in its motion, the several stories. It rang on the stone passage adjoining her apartment, and stept with a loud tread at her door. No lock was turned, no hinge was opened, but a rushing wind swept through the room. Her fire had burned away, and she had neither lamp nor taper by her, but as she started up in an agony of terror, the heavy logs in her wide chimney fell of themselves, and lighting by the fall, sent forth a blaze into the chamber. Almost frantic with fear, she seized with one hand the curtains of her bed, and darting a look of horror, she saw, seated by the hearth, a figure in martial array, without a head; it held its arms out towards her, and slowly rose. The scream she tried to utter was suffocated in her throat--she fell motionless; the last sight she saw was an eagle's plume steeped in blood, cast at her feet by the advancing spectre--the last sound she heard was the loud crash of every door in the castle. When her maidens came to her in the morning, she was extended in a swoon upon the floor. She lay for hours cold and insensible, and they thought that she was gone for ever. After many trials she came at last to herself, but she recovered only to hear the true tale of the battle of Sheriff-muir.

The Chevalier de St. George and the Earl of Marr had fled the country; many of their noble adherents had been fortunate enough to secure a retreat with them to France; some had been pardoned; a few had been taken in arms, and these few were executed; amongst them was the young heir of M'Alister--_Inspector._

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

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SADDLED AND BRIDLED.

BY A. CUNNINGHAM.

Saddled and bridled, And booted was he-- A plume at his helmet, A sword at his knee;-- Toom hame came the saddle At evening to me, And hame came his steed-- But hame never came he!

Down came his grey father, Sobbing fu' sair; Down came his auld mother, Tearing her hair: Down came his sweet wife, Wi' her bonnie bairns three-- Ane at her bosom, And twa at her knee!

There stood his fleet steed, All foaming and hot; There shrieked his sweet wife, And sank on the spot,-- There stood his grey father, Weeping fu' free, For hame came his steed, But hame never came he!

_Literary Magnet._

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TOBACCO-PIPE CONTROVERSY.

A furious, and yet unappeased, controversy has lately raged in the newspapers, upon the question of the filthy nuisance of smoking tobacco--segars or pipe; and as in all other cases when men allow their passions to be heated by opposition, has run in great personalities between gentlemen who sign themselves Viator and Tabatiere. Whole columns of the newspapers have been occupied in discussing, in the first place, whether a man who smokes at all is a beast or not; and secondly, the argument has run into the comparative beastliness of smoking and snuffing. A future Hume, on looking over the journals, may thus sum up the merits of the case. About this period great hostilities arose between the advocates of segars and their opponents, which occupied the attention of thousands, who took a lively interest in the successful issue of the controversy. By the advocates for the practice it was urged with some plausibility of statement, that as to the pleasure of a segar, none but those who used them ought to express an opinion upon the point--that to appeal to experience, tobacco was in more universal use among nations than bread corn--that it had been known to stay the plague, and was the friend and companion of rich and poor. These statements were met with undisguised contempt, and it was retaliated, that the practice of using tobacco either by smoke or snuff, was a nuisance to others, thus infringing the very primary principles of civil liberty--that it led to drunkenness and debauch--that snuff spoiled the complexion--stopped the nose to the perception of odours--and that as to the ladies, they would positively spurn any approach of familiar friendship from a snuff-taker. This raised the concealed anger of the snuff-takers, who had hitherto maintained a stubborn neutrality while the argument was kept to smoke. They replied both by wit and invective--they affirmed snuff to have a moral use--"Dust to dust"--would remind them of the brevity of life--that the king and ministers patronized the habit, and gave away £10,000 worth of snuff-boxes in every year--that as to the nose being blockaded, that was a happy circumstance to London residents, and enabled them to acquire the French accent more naturally--that as to the assumed yellowness of complexion complained of, it was only studious and Werter-like--and that as to the ladies refusing to be saluted by snuff-takers, that was a thing which modesty and prudence required them to sneeze at. The historian might add by way of reflection, that nothing could more clearly show the national freedom from anxious cares, when it was thought that the public took interest in the comparative merits of blackened teeth or a snuffy pocket-handkerchief.--_The Inspector._

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FASHIONABLE NOVELS.

Of the slip-slop reading, under this denomination, with which the town has lately been inundated, the following is a fair specimen:--

_Hyde Nugent._--The book is made up completely of the gossip of drawing-rooms, hotels, dinners, and balls. As to the hero, if any one has a grain of curiosity about him--gratify it. Hyde is the son of a man of family and fortune; he goes to Oxford, fights a duel, and is expelled--prevails upon a marquess to break the matter to the father--falls in love with the marquess's daughter--goes large and loose about town--is every where introduced--and one of every party. Notwithstanding certain warnings, and his own disgusts, he frequents Crockford's--gets plucked, and moreover deeply involved with the Jews. In the meanwhile he does not neglect the marquess's daughter. They soon come to an understanding. He is irresistible--she is an houri. But the consciousness of his embarrassments press heavily upon him, and he is on the point of taking some desperate step, when he is summoned to attend a friend in a duel, who kills his antagonist; and he and Hyde are obliged to fly. This rescues him from his gaming associates; though he gets among others at Lisbon, and narrowly escapes assassination. On his return to England, his sister has married a duke's eldest son, and all the family visit the said duke's, and there also assemble the aforesaid marquess and his beautiful daughter.

But now comes forward more than before, an officer of the guards--a guardsman is now become indispensable--who is also in love with the marquess's daughter, and being not at all scrupulous of the means of accomplishing his point--a very worthless person in short--he plays Iago, and pours into the lady's ear the tale of Hyde's gambling propensities, and his deep involvements; and moreover of a lady whose affection he had wantonly won, and wantonly cut, and who was now actually dying for him. This, however, was not all true; the lady alluded to was the daughter of his father's friend and neighbour; she and Hyde had been brought up together from children, and played and romped together, and once, before Hyde went to Oxford, he had forced from her a kiss. The poor fond girl had treasured up the kiss, and Hyde had thought no more of her, or of it. She, however, pined away, and let concealment feed on her damask cheek; and at this time was at Brighton for change of air. She has a brother, a lancer; he hears, through Hyde's precious rival, of the state of his sister, and for the first time, of the cause. He flies to the duke's--though deeply occupied, at the moment, in seducing the affections of a married woman in Ireland--and calls upon Hyde to meet him forthwith. Hyde's rival is the lancer's second. Hyde falls, and as he is borne bleeding to the house, Lady Georgina, the marquess's daughter, meets him. The shock kills her outright, and the story stops; but hints are given that he slowly recovers, and by still slower degrees is brought to think of the charming girl, who had treasured his boyish kiss, and marries.--_Monthly Magazine_.

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MAN-EATING SOCIETY.

There is a horrible institution among some of the Indian tribes, which furnishes a powerful illustration of their never-tiring love of vengeance. It is called the Man-Eating Society, and it is the duty of its associates to devour such prisoners as are preserved and delivered to them for that purpose. The members of this society belong to a particular family, and the dreadful inheritance descends to all the children, male and female. Its duties cannot be dispensed with, and the sanctions of religion are added to the obligations of immemorial usage. The feast is considered a solemn ceremony, at which the whole tribe is collected as actors or spectators. The miserable victim is fastened to a stake, and burned at a slow fire, with all the refinements of cruelty which savage ingenuity can invent. There is a traditionary ritual, which regulates, with revolting precision, the whole course of procedure at these ceremonies. The institution has latterly declined, but we know those who have seen and related to us the incidents which occurred on these occasions, when white men were sacrificed and consumed. The chief of the family and principal members of the society among the Miames, whose name was White Skin, we have seen, and with feelings of loathing, excited by a narrative of his atrocities, amid the scenes when they occurred..--_North American Review._

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THE SELECTOR;

AND

LITERARY NOTICES OF

_NEW WORKS._

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SAILING ROUND CONSTANTINOPLE.

Hiring a _peramidias_, or one of the beautiful boats which ply on the canal, I proceeded, accompanied by my janissary and dragoman, to make the circuit of the city, by rowing round the Seraglio Point into the sea of Marmora, then landing at the Seven Towers, and walking across the isthmus by the famous wall to the Golden Horn, where we again embarked, and returned to Pera. On passing the Seraglio Point, we remarked a number of cannon of different forms, ranged apparently more for effect than defence, as a sloop of war with a commanding breeze might dislodge the men; such is their exposed situation. Although two of the guns appeared to be of the calibre of sixteen or seventeen inches, and calculated to throw some immense stone-balls, which we observed near them, others were of small calibre, but having twelve barrels; over them, were suspended some very large bones, about which I could not get even a marvellous account, both my companions declaring honestly their ignorance of their history. The current sent us, with astonishing rapidity, round the Point, (on which men are always stationed with small lines to track boats upwards,) and we soon landed under the Seven Towers. The town on the west side, towards the sea presents a poor and miserable appearance. We were allowed just to enter the outer court of the castle, as it may be more properly called than the Seven Towers, because there are only two conspicuous towers, and I suspect that the term Seven Towers was originally applied to the whole wall which runs across the isthmus, and which has seven gates, over each of which was formerly placed a tower.

Leaving the castle, we proceeded along the great road which runs parallel to the venerable and highly interesting triple walls, said to have been begun by Constantine, and enlarged by the second Theodosius. They consist of alternate courses of large flat bricks and stones, in some parts perfect, with their battlements and towers; in others partly destroyed by earthquakes or time--the whole rendered venerable by thick ivy or shading trees. The height of the walls is such, that, when near them, the town is completely hid; and as the ditches are well cultivated as gardens or orchards, and the country beyond is clear of houses, it is difficult to fancy one's self so near the thickly populated city, once the mistress of the eastern world. The distance across the isthmus to the Golden Horn, or harbour, is about four miles, and the walls are uninterrupted by the before-mentioned gates. At about two-thirds of the distance, we came to Baloucli, where, in the ruins of a chapel dedicated by Justinian to the Virgin, is a fountain or well of excellent cold water, said to contain fish, black on one side and red on the other, or, according to tradition, half fried.

The Golden Horn, or harbour, terminates by the Valley of Sweet Waters, the sides of which are adorned with pleasure-grounds, and an imperial kiosk, near which, with extremely bad taste, art and expense have been exerted to the utmost to constrain and prune nature, so as to destroy the luxuriance and wildness of the rivulet and its banks, by giving them the appearance of a straight canal, passing through an avenue of formal trees, and occasionally over flights of marble steps, intended to represent cataracts. On gala days, this spot is the scene of festivity and enjoyment for persons of every sect; and before the last dispersion and persecution of the Greeks, is said, in consequence of the number of their women who frequented it, to have presented extraordinary animation and attraction. The sultan was often to be found enjoying the sight. Beyond this valley is another, where his horses are turned out to graze in the spring, and which takes place with extraordinary ceremony and pomp. So much consequence was formerly attached to the noble animals, that petitioners address themselves to the imperial stirrup. Between the Valley of the Sweet Waters and the walls, is the village of Eyub, pleasantly situated, adjoining to which are several palaces, belonging to members of the imperial family. But the most remarkable and interesting monument is the mosque or tomb of Eyub, (a disciple of Mahomet, who was killed in the first siege of Constantinople, in 608,) erected by Mahomet II. after the capture of the city, as is said, in consequence of the place of his sepulchre having been revealed to one of his favourites in a dream; he immediately ordered an excavation to be made, and very soon, either by hazard or imposture, a marble slab was discovered.

The Valley of the Sweet Waters, Eyub, and the country immediately behind the walls, may be considered the only pretty spots near Constantinople; for beyond them, and in other directions, nothing is to be seen but an expansion of unpopulated, and, at this time, sunburnt downs.

_Jones's Travels_.

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THE CORAL ISLAND.

On a stony eminence, that stood Girt with inferior ridges, at the point, Where light and darkness meet in spectral gloom. Midway between the height and depth of ocean, I mark'd a whirlpool in perpetual play, As though the mountain were itself alive, And catching prey on every side, with feelers Countless as sunbeams, slight as gossamer: Ere long transfigured, each fine film became An independent creature, self-employd, Yet but an agent in one common work, The slim of all their individual labours. Shap'less they seem'd, but endless shape assumed; Elongated like worms, they writhed and shrunk Their tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions; Compress'd like wedges, radiated like stars, Branching like sea-weed, whirl'd in dazzling rings; Subtle and variable as flickering flames, Sight could not trace their evanescent changes, Nor comprehend their motions, till minute And curious observation caught the clew To this live labyrinth,--where every one, By instinct taught, perform'd its little task; --To build its dwelling and its sepulchre, From its own essence exquisitely modell'd; There breed, and die, and leave a progeny, Still multiplied beyond the reach of numbers. To frame new cells and tombs; then breed and die, As all their ancestors had done,--and rest, Hermetically sealed, each in its shrine, A statue in this temple of oblivion! Millions of millions thus, from age to age, With simplest skill, and toil unwearyable. No moment and no movement unimproved, Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread, To swell the heightening, brightening gradual mound, By marvellous structure climbing tow'rds the day. Each wrought alone, yet altogether wrought, Unconscious, not unworthy, instruments, By which a hand invisible was rearing A new creation in the secret deep. Omnipotence wrought in them, with them, by them; Hence what Omnipotence alone could do, Worms did. I saw the living pile ascend. The mausoleum of its architects, Still dying upwards as their labours closed: Slime the material, but the slime was turn'd To adamant, by their petrific touch; Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, Their masonry imperishable. All Life's needful functions, food, exertion, rest, By nice economy of Providence Were overruled to carry on the process. Which out of water brought forth solid rock.