Thomas Laing and Sarah Black were born and brought up under the same

roof--namely, that double-storied tenement which stands somewhat by

itself, overlooking the harbour. They entered by the same outer door,

but occupied each a separate story. Thomas Laing was always a stout,

hardy, fearless boy, better acquainted with every boat on the station

than with his single questions, and far fonder of little Sarah's company

than of the schoolmaster's. Sarah was likewise a healthy, stirring

child, extremely sensitive and easily offended, but capable, at the same

time, of the deepest feelings of gratitude and attachment. Thomas Laing

was, in fact, her champion, her Don Quixote, from the time when he could

square his arms and manage his fists; and much mischief and obloquy did

he suffer among his companions on account of his chivalrous defence of

little Sally. One day whilst the fisher boys and girls were playing on

the pier, whilst the tide was at the full, a mischievous boy, wishing to

annoy Thomas, pushed little Sall into the harbour, where, but for

Thomas's timely and skilful aid (for he was an excellent swimmer,) she

would probably have been drowned. Having placed his favourite in a

condition and place of safety, Tom felled the offender, with a terrible

fister, to the earth. The blow had taken place on the pit of the

stomach, and was mortal. Tom was taken up, imprisoned, and tried for

manslaughter; but, on account of his youth--being then only thirteen--he

was merely imprisoned for a certain number of months. Poor Sally, on

whose account Tom had incurred the punishment of the law, visited him,

as did many good-natured fishermen, whilst in prison, where he always

expressed extreme contrition for his rashness. After the expiry of his

imprisonment, Tom returned to Cellardykes, only to take farewell of his

parents, and his now more than ever dear Sally. He could not bear, he

said, to face the parents of the boy whose death he had occasioned. The

parting was momentary. He promised to spend one night at home; but he

had no such intention--and, for several years, nobody knew what had

become of Thomas Laing. The subject was at first a speculation, then a

wonder, next an occasional recollection; and, in a few months, the place

which once knew bold Tom Laing, knew him no more. Even his parents,

engaged as they were in the active pursuits of fishing, and surrounded

as they were by a large and dependent family, soon learned to forget

him. One bosom alone retained the image of Tom, more faithfully and

indelibly than ever did coin the impression of royalty. Meanwhile, Sarah

grew--for she was a year older than Tom--into womanhood, and fairly took

her share in all the more laborious parts of a fisher's life. She could

row a boat, carry a creel, or drive a cart with the best of them; and,

whilst her frame was thus hardened, her limbs acquired a consistency and

proportion which bespoke the buxom woman rather than the bonny lass. Her

eye, however, was large and brown, and her lips had that variety of

expression which lips only can exhibit. Many a jolly fisher wished and

attempted to press these lips to his; but was always repulsed. She

neither spoke of her Thomas, nor did she grieve for him much in secret;

but her heart revolted from a union with any other person whilst Thomas

might still be alive. Upon a person differently situated, the passion

(for passion assuredly it was) which she entertained for her absent

lover, might and would have produced very different effects. Had Sarah

been a young boarding-school miss, she would assuredly either have

eloped with another, or have died in a madhouse; had she been a

sentimental sprig of gentility, consumption must have followed: but

Sarah was neither of these. She had a heart to feel, and deeply too; but

she knew that labour was her destiny, and that when "want came in at the

door, love escapes by the window." So she just laboured, laughed, ate,

drank, and slept, very much like other people. Yet few sailors came to

the place whom she did not question about Thomas; and many a time and

oft did she retire to the rocks of a Sabbath eve, to think of and pray

for Thomas Laing. People imagine, from the free and open mariner, and

talk of the fisherwomen, that they are all or generally people of

doubtful morality. Never was there a greater mistake. To the public in

general they are inaccessible; they almost universally intermarry with

one another; and there are fewer cases (said my reverend informant) of

public or sessional reproof in Cellardykes, than in any other district

of my parish. But, from the precarious and somewhat solitary nature of

their employment, they are exceedingly superstitious; and I had access

to know, that many a sly sixpence passed from Sally's pocket into old

Effie the wise woman's, with the view of having the cards cut and cups

read for poor Thomas.

Time, however, passed on--with time came, but did not pass misfortune.

Sally's father, who had long been addicted, at intervals, to hard

drinking, was found one morning dead at the bottom of a cliff, over

which, in returning home inebriated, he had tumbled. There were now

three sisters, all below twelve, to provide for, and Sally's mother had

long been almost bedrid with severe and chronic rheumatism;

consequently, the burden of supporting this helpless family devolved

upon Sarah, who was now in the bloom and in the strength of her

womanhood. Instead of sitting down, however, to lament what could not be

helped, Sarah immediately redoubled her diligence. She even learned to

row a boat as well as a man, and contrived, by the help of the men her

father used to employ, to keep his boat still going. Things prospered

with her for a while; but, in a sudden storm, wherein five boats

perished with all on board, she lost her whole resources. They are a

high-minded people those Cellardyke fishers. The Blacks scorned to come

upon the session. The young girls salted herrings, and cried haddocks in

small baskets through the village and the adjoining burghs, and Sarah

contrived still to keep up a cart for country service. Meanwhile, Sarah

became the object of attention through the whole neighbourhood. Though

somewhat larger in feature and limb than the Venus de Medicis, she was,

notwithstanding, tight, clean, and sunny--her skin white as snow, and

her frame a well-proportioned Doric--just such a help-mate as a husband

who has to rough it through life might be disposed to select. Captain

William M'Guffock, or, as he was commonly called, Big Bill, was the

commander of a coasting craft, and a man of considerable substance.

True, he was considerably older than Sally, and a widower, but he had no

family, and a "bien house to bide in." You see that manse-looking

tenement there, on the broad head towards the east--that was Captain

M'Guffock's residence when his seafaring avocations did not demand his

presence elsewhere. Well, Bill came acourting to Sally; but Sally

"looked asclent and unco skeich." Someway or other, whenever she thought

of matrimony--which she did occasionally--she at the same time thought

of Thomas Laing, and, as she expressed it, her heart _scunnered_ at the

thought. Consequently, Bill made little progress in his courtship; which

was likewise liable to be interrupted, for weeks at a time, by his

professional voyages. At last a letter arrived from on board a king's

vessel, then lying in Leith Roads, apprising Thomas Laing's relatives

that he had died of fever on the West India station. This news affected

Sally more than anything which had hitherto happened to her. She shut

herself up for two hours in her mother's bedroom, weeping aloud and

bitterly, exclaiming, from time to time--"Oh! my Thomas!--my own dearest

Thomas! I shall never love man again. I am thine in life and in

death--in time and in eternity!" In vain did the poor bedrid woman try

to comfort her daughter. Nature had her way; and, in less than three

hours, Sarah Black was again in the streets, following, with a confused

but a cheerful look, her ordinary occupation. This grief of Sarah's, had

it been well nursed, might well have lasted a twelvemonth; but, luckily

for Sarah, and for the labouring classes in general, she had not time to

nurse her grief to keep it warm. "Give us this day our daily bread,"

said a poor helpless mother and three somewhat dependent sisters--and

Sarah's exertions were redoubled.

"Oh, what a feelingless woman!" said Mrs. Paterson to me, as Sarah

passed her door one day in my presence, absolutely singing--"Oh, what a

feelingless woman!--and her father dead, and her mother bedrid, and poor

Thomas Laing, whom she made such a fuss about, gone too--and there is

she, absolutely singing after all!"

Mrs. Paterson is now Mrs. Robson, having married her second husband just

six weeks after the death of the first, whom her improper conduct and

unhappy temper contributed first to render miserable here, and at last

to convey to the churchyard! Verily (added the worthy clergyman), the

heart is deceitful above all things. But what, after all, could poor

Sarah do, but marry Will M'Guffock, and thus amply provide, not only for

herself, but for her mother and sister? Had Thomas (and her heart heaved

at the thought) still been alive, she thought, she never would have

brought herself to think of it in earnest; but now that Thomas had long

ceased to think of her or of anything earthly, why should she not make a

man happy who seemed distractedly in love with her, and at the same time

honourably provide for her poor and dependent relatives? In the

meantime, the sacramental occasion came round, and I had a private

meeting previous to the first communion with Sarah Black. To me, in

secret, she laid open her whole heart as if in the presence of her God;

and I found her, though not a well-informed Christian by any means on

doctrinal points, yet well disposed and exceedingly humble; in short, I

had great pleasure in putting a token into her hand, at which she

continued to look for an instant, and then returned it to me. I

expressed surprise, at least by my looks. "I fear," said she, "that I am

_unworthy_; for I have not told you that I am thinking of marrying a man

whom I cannot love, merely to provide for our family. Is not this a

sin?--and can I, with an intention of doing what I know to be wrong,

safely communicate?" I assured her that, instead of thinking it a sin, I

thought her resolution commendable, particularly as the object of her

real affection was beyond its reach; and I mention the circumstance to

show that there is often much honour, and even delicacy of feeling,

natural as well as religious, under very uncongenial circumstances and

appearances. Having satisfied her mind on this subject, I had the

pleasure to see her at the communion table, conducting herself with much

seeming seriousness of spirit. I could see her shed tears, and formed

the very best opinion of her from her conduct throughout.

In a few days or weeks after this, the proclamation lines were put into

my hands, and I had the pleasure of uniting her to Captain M'Guffock in

due course. They had, however, only been married a few weeks, when an

occurrence of a very awkward character threw her and her husband, who

was, in fact, an ill-tempered, passionate man, into much perplexity. The

captain was absent on a coasting voyage, as usual; and his wife was

superintending the washing of some clothes, whilst the sun was setting.

It was a lovely evening in the month of July, and the fishing boats were

spread out all over the mouth of the Firth, from the East Neuk to the

Isle of May, in the same manner in which you see them at present. Mrs.

M'Guffock's mind assumed, notwithstanding the glorious scenery around

her, a serious cast, for she could not help recalling many such evenings

in which she had rejoiced in company and in unison with her beloved

Thomas. She felt and knew that it was wrong to indulge such emotions;

but she could not help it. At last, altogether overcome, she threw

herself forward on the green turf, and prayed audibly--"O my God, give

me strength and grace to forget my own truly beloved Thomas! Alas! he

knows not the struggles which I have to exclude him from my sinful

meditations. Even suppose he were again to arise from the dead, and

appear in all the reality of his youthful being, I must, and would fly

from him as from my most dangerous foe." She lifted up her eyes in the

twilight, and in the next instant felt herself in the arms of a powerful

person, who pressed her in silence to his breast. Amazed and bewildered,

she neither screamed nor fainted, but, putting his eager kisses aside,

calmly inquired who he was who dared thus to insult her. She had no

sooner pronounced the inquiry, than she heard the words, "Thomas--your

own Thomas!" pronounced in tones which could not be mistaken. This,

indeed, overpowered her; and, with a scream of agony, she sank down dead

on the earth. This brought immediate assistance; but she was found lying

by herself, and talking wildly about her Thomas Laing. Everybody who

heard her concluded that she had either actually seen her lover's ghost,

or that her mind had given way under the pressure of regret for her

marriage, and that she was now actually a lunatic. For twelve hours she

continued to evince the most manifest marks of insanity; but sleep at

last soothed and restored her, and she immediately sent for me. I

endeavoured to persuade her that it must be all a delusion, and that the

imagination oftentimes created such fancies. I gave instances from books

which I had read, as well as from a particular friend of my own who had

long been subject to such delusive impressions, and at last she became

actually persuaded that there had been no reality in what she had so

vividly perceived, and still most distinctly and fearfully recollected.

I took occasion then to urge upon her the exceeding sinfulness of

allowing any image to come betwixt her and her lawful married husband;

and left her restored, if not to her usual serenity, at least to a

conviction that she had only been disturbed by a vision.

When her husband returned, I took him aside, and explained my views of

the case, and stated my most decided apprehension that some similar

impression might return upon her nerves, and that her sisters (her

mother being now removed by death) should dwell in the same house with

her. To this, however, the captain objected, on the score that, though

he was willing to pay a person to take care of them in their own house,

he did not deem them proper company, in short, for a _captain's wife_. I

disliked the reasoning, and told him so; but he became passionate, and I

saw it was useless to contend further. From that day, however, Bill

M'Guffock seemed to have become an altered man. Jealousy, or something

nearly resembling it, took possession of his heart; and he even ventured

to affirm that his wife had a paramour somewhere concealed, with whom,

in his long and necessary absences, she associated. He alleged, too,

that in her sleep she would repeat the name of her favourite, and in

terms of present love and fondness. I now saw that I had not known the

depth of "a first love," otherwise I should not have advised this

unhappy marriage, all advantageous as it was in a worldly point of view.

A sailor's life, however, is one of manifest risk, and in less than a

twelvemonth Sarah M'Guffock was a young widow, without incumbrance, and

with her rights to her just share of the captain's effects. Her sorrow

for the death of her husband was, I believe, sincere; but I observed

that she took an early opportunity of joining her sisters in her old

habitation, immediately beneath that still tenanted by the friends of

Laing.

Matters were in this situation, when I was surprised one evening, whilst

sitting meditating in the manse of Kilrenny, about dusk, with a visit

from a tall and well-dressed stranger. He asked me at once if I could

give him a private interview for a few minutes, as he had something of

importance to communicate. Having taken him into my study, and shut the

door, I reached him a chair, and desired him to proceed.

"I had left the parish," said the stranger, "before you were minister of

Kilrenny, in the time of worthy Mr. Brown, and therefore you will

probably not know even my name. I am Thomas Laing!"

"I did not indeed," said I, "know you, but I have heard much about you;

and I know one who has taken but too deep an interest in your fate. But

how comes it," added I, beginning to think that I was conversing either

with a vision or an impostor--"how comes it that you are here, seemingly

alive and well, whilst we have all been assured of your death some years

ago?"

The stranger started, and immediately exclaimed--"Dead!--dead!--who said

I was dead?"

"Why," said I, "there was a letter came, I think, to your own father,

mentioning your death by fever in the West Indies."

"Do I look like a dead man?" said the stranger; but, immediately

becoming absent and embarrassed, he sat for a while silent, and then

resumed:--"Some one," said he, "has imposed upon my dear Sarah, and for

the basest of purposes. I now see it all. My dear girl has been sadly

used."

"This is, indeed, strange," said I; "but let me hear how it is that I

have the honour of a visit from you at this time and in this place?"

"Oh," replied Thomas Laing (for it was he in verity), "I will soon give

you the whole story:--

"When I left this, fourteen years ago come the time, I embarked at

Greenock, working my way out to New York. As I was an excellent hand at

a rope and an oar, I early attracted the captain's notice, who made some

inquiries respecting my place of birth and my views in life. I told him

that I was literally "at sea," having nothing particularly in view--that

I had been bred a fisher, and understood sailing and rowing as well as

any one on board. The captain seemed to have something in his head, for

he nodded to me, saying, 'Very well, we will see what can be done for

you when we arrive at New York.' When we were off Newfoundland, we were

overtaken by a terrible storm, which drove us completely out of our

latitude, till, at last, we struck on a sandbank--the sea making for

several hours a complete breach over the deck. Many were swept away into

the devouring flood; whilst some of us--amongst several others the

captain and myself--clung to what remained of the ship's masts till the

storm somewhat abated. We then got the boat launched, and made for land,

which we could see looming at some distance ahead. We got, however,

entangled amongst currents and breakers; and, within sight of a boat

which was making towards us from the shore, we fairly upset--and I

remember nothing more till I awoke, in dreadful torment, in some

fishermen's boat. Beside me lay the captain, the rest had perished. When

we arrived at the land, we were placed in one of the fishermen's huts,

where we were most kindly treated--assisting, as we did occasionally, in

the daily labours of the cod fishery. I displayed so much alertness and

skill in this employment, that the factor on the station made me an

advantageous offer, if I would remain with them and assist in their

labours. With this offer, having no other object distinctly in view, I

complied. But my kind and good-hearted captain, possessing less

dexterity in this employment, was early shipped at his own request for

England. The most of the hands, about two hundred in all, on the station

where I remained, were Scotch and Irish, and a merry, jovial set we

were. The men had wives and families; and the governor or factor lived

in a large slated house, very like your manse, upon a gentle eminence, a

little inland. Towards the coast the land is sandy and flat; but in the

interior there is much wood, a very rich soil, and excellent fresh

water. Where we remained the water was brackish, and constituted the

chief inconvenience of our station. The factor or agent, commonly called

by the men the governor, used to visit us almost every day, and remained

much on board when ships were loading for Europe. One fine summer's day

we were all enjoying the luxury of bathing, when, all on a sudden, the

shout was raised--'A shark! a shark!' I had just taken my place in the

boat, and was still undressed, when I observed one man disappear, being

dragged under the water by the sea monster. The factor, who was swimming

about in the neighbourhood, seemed to be paralyzed by terror, for he

made for the boat, plashing like a dog, with his hands and arms

frequently stretched out of the water. I saw his danger, and immediately

plunged in to his rescue, which, with some difficulty, I at last

effected.

"Poor Pat Moonie was seen no more; nor did the devouring monster

reappear. The factor immediately acknowledged his obligations to me, by

carrying me home with him, and introducing me to his lady and an only

daughter--I think I never beheld a more beautiful creature; but I looked

upon her as a being of a different order from myself, and I still

thought of my own dear Sally and sweet home at Cellardykes. Through the

factor's kindness, I got the management of a boat's crew, with

considerable emolument which belonged to the situation. I then behoved

to dress better, at least while on land, than I used to do, and I was an

almost daily visitor at Codfield House, the name of the captain's

residence. My affairs prospered; I made, and had no way of spending

money. The factor was my banker, and his fair daughter wrote out the

acknowledgments for her father to sign. One beautiful Sabbath-day, after

the factor--who officiated at our small station as clergyman--had read

us prayers and a sermon, I took a walk into the interior of the country,

where, with a book in her hand, and an accompaniment of Newfoundland

dogs, I chanced to meet with Miss Woodburn, the factor's beautiful

child. She was only fourteen, but quite grown, and as blooming a piece

of womanhood as ever wore kid gloves or black leather. She seemed

somewhat embarrassed at my presence, and blushed scarlet, entreating me

to prevent one of her dogs from running away with her glove, which he

was playfully tossing about in his mouth. The dog would not surrender

his charge to any one but to his mistress; and, in the struggle, he bit

my hand somewhat severely. You may see the marks of his teeth there

still" (holding out his hand while he spoke). "Poor Miss Woodburn knew

not what to do first; she immediately dropped the book which she was

reading--scolded the offending dog to a distance--took up the glove,

which the dog at her bidding had dropped, and wrapped it close and

firmly around my bleeding hand; a band of long grass served for thread

to make all secure, and in a few days my hand was in a fair way of

recovery--but not so my heart; I felt as if I had been all at once

transformed into a gentleman--the soft touch of Miss Eliza's fair

fingers seemed to have transformed me, skin, flesh, and bones, into

another species of being. I shook like an aspen leaf whenever I thought

of our interesting interview; and I could observe that Eliza changed

colour, and looked out of the window whenever I entered the room. But,

sir, I am too particular, and I will now hasten to a close." I entreated

him (said the parson) to go on in his own way, and without any reference

to my leisure. He then proceeded:--"Well, sir, from year to year I

prospered, and from year to year got more deeply in love with the angel

which moved about in my presence. At last our attachment became manifest

to the young lady's parent; and, to my great surprise, it was proposed

that we should make a voyage to New York, and there be united in

matrimony. All this while, sir, I thought of my own dear Sally, and the

thought not unfrequently made me miserable; but what was Sally to me

now?--perhaps she was dead--perhaps she was married--perhaps--but I

could scarcely think it--she had forgot me; and then the blooming

rosebud was ever in my presence, and hallowed me, by its superior purity

and beauty, into a complete gentleman. Well, married we were at New

York, and for several months I was the happiest of men, and my dear wife

(I know it) the happiest of women; but the time of her labour

approached--and child and mother lie buried in the cemetery at New York,

where we had now fixed our residence." (Here poor Thomas wept

plentifully, and, after a pause proceeded.)--"I could not reside longer

in a place which was so dismally associated in my mind; so, having wound

up my worldly affairs, and placed my little fortune--about one thousand

pounds--in the bank, I embarked for Europe, along with my father and

mother-in-law, who were going home to end their days in the place of

their nativity, Belfast, in Ireland. I determined upon landing at the

Cove of Cork, to visit once more my native village, and to have at least

one interview with Sally. I learned, on my arrival at Largo, that Sally

was married to the old captain. I resolved, however, ere I went finally

to settle in Belfast, to have one stolen peep at my first love--my own

dear Sally. I came upon her whilst repeating my name in her prayers--I

embraced her convulsively--repeated her name twice in her hearing--heard

her scream--saw her faint--kissed her fondly again and again--and,

strangers appearing, I immediately absconded."

"This," said the minister, "explains all;--but go on--I am anxious to

hear the conclusion of your somewhat eventful history."

"Why, I was off immediately for Belfast, where I at present reside with

my father-in-law, whose temper, since the loss of his child, has been

much altered for the worse. But I am here on a particular errand, in

which your kind offices, sir--for I have heard of your goodness of

heart--may be of service to me. I observed the death of the old captain

in the newspaper, and I am here once more to enjoy an interview with his

widow. I wish you, sir, to break the business to her; meanwhile, I will

lodge at the Old Inn, Mrs. Laing's, at Anstruther, and await your

return."

I agreed (continued the parson of Kilrenny) to wait upon the widow; and

to see, in fact, how the wind set, in regard to "first love." I found

her, as I expected, neatly clad in her habiliments of widowhood, and

employed in making some dresses for a sister's marriage. I asked and

obtained a private interview, when I detailed, as cautiously as I could,

the particulars of Thomas Laing's history. I could observe that her

whole frame shook occasionally, and that tears came, again and again,

into her eyes. I was present, but a fortnight ago, at their first

interview at the inn; and I never saw two human beings evince more real

attachment for each other. On their bended knees, and with faces turned

towards heaven, did they unite in thanking God that he had permitted

them, to have another interview with each other in this world of

uncertainty and death. It has been since discovered that the letter

announcing Laing's death was a forgery of the old captain, which has

reconciled his widow very much to the idea of shortening her days of

mourning. In a word, this evening, and in a few hours, I am going to

unite the widower and the widowed, together with a younger sister and a

fine young sailor, in the holy bonds of matrimony; and, as a punishment

for your giving me all this trouble in narrating this story, I shall

insist upon your eating fresh herring, with the fresh-herring Presbytery

of St. Andrew's, which meets here at Mrs. Laing's to-day, and afterwards

witnessing the double ceremony.

To this I assented, and certainly never spent an evening more agreeably

than that which I divided betwixt the merry lads of St. Andrew's

Presbytery, and the fair dames and maidens of Cellardykes, who graced

the marriage ceremony. Such dancing as there was, and such screaming,

and such music, and such laughing; yet, amidst it all, Mr. and Mrs.

Laing preserved that decent decorum, which plainly said, "We will not

mar the happiness of the young; but we feel the goodness and providence

of our God too deeply, to permit us to join in the noisy part of the

festivity."

"The fair maid of Cellardykes," with her kind-hearted husband--I may

mention, for the satisfaction of my fair readers in particular--may now

be seen daily at their own door, and in their own garden, on the face of

the steep which overlooks the village. They have already lived three

years in complete happiness, and have been blessed with two as fine

healthy children as a Cellardykes sun ever rose upon. Mr. Laing has

become an elder in the church, and both husband and wife are most

exemplary in the discharge of their religious, as well as relative

duties. God has blessed them with an ample competence; and sure is the

writer of this narrative, that no poor fisherman or woman ever applied

to this worthy couple without obtaining relief.

One circumstance more, and my narrative closes. As Mr. Laing was one

evening taking a walk along the seashore, viewing the boats as they

mustered for the herring fishing, he was shot at from behind one of the

rocks, and severely wounded in the shoulder--the ball or slug-shot

having lodged in the clavicle, and refusing, for some days, to be

extracted. The hue-and-cry was immediately raised; but the guilty person

was nowhere to be seen. He had escaped in a boat, or had hid himself in

a crevice of the rock, or in some private and friendly house in the

village. Poor Thomas Laing was carried home to his distracted wife more

dead than alive; and Dr. Goodsir being called, disclosed that, in his

present state, the lead could not be extracted. Poor Sarah was never a

moment from her husband's side, who fevered, and became occasionally

delirious--talking incoherently of murder and shipwreck, and Woodburn,

and love, and marriage, and Sarah Black. All within his brain was one

mad wheel of mixed and confused colours, such as children make when they

wheel a stick, dyed white, black, and red, rapidly around. Suspicion,

from the first, fell upon the brother of the boy Rob Paterson, whom

Laing had killed many years before. Revenge is the most enduring,

perhaps, of all the passions, and rather feeds upon itself than decays.

Like fame, "it acquires strength by time;" and it was suspected that Dan

Paterson, a reckless and a dissipated man, had done the deed. In

confirmation of this supposition, Dan was nowhere to be found, and it

was strongly suspected that his wife and his son, who returned at

midnight with the boat, had set Dan on shore somewhere on the coast, and

that he had effected his escape. Death, for some time, seemed every day

and hour nearer at hand; but at last the symptoms softened, the fever

mitigated, the swelling subsided, and, after much careful and skilful

surgery, most admirably conducted by Dr. Goodsir's son, the ball was

extracted. The wound closed without mortification; and, in a week or

two, Mr. Laing was not only out of danger, but out of bed, and walking

about, as he does to this hour, with his arm in a sling. It was about

the period of his recovery, that Dan Paterson was taken as he was

skulking about in the west country, apparently looking out for a ship in

which to sail to America. He was immediately brought back to

Cellardykes, and lodged in Anstruther prison. Mr. Laing would willingly

have forborne the prosecution; but the law behoved to have its course.

Dan was tried for "maiming with the intention of murder," and was

condemned to fourteen years' transportation. This happened in the year

1822, the year of the King's visit to Scotland. Mr. and Mrs. Laing

actually waited upon his Majesty King George the Fourth, at the palace

of Dalkeith, and, backed by the learned judge and counsel, obtained a

commutation of the punishment, from banishment to imprisonment for a

limited period. The great argument in his favour was the provocation he

had received. Dan Paterson now inhabits a neat cottage in the village,

and Mr. Laing has quite set him up with a boat of his own, ready rigged

and fitted for use. He has entirely reformed, has become a member of a

temperance society, and his wife and family are as happy as the day is

long. Mr. and Mrs. Laing are supplied with the very best of fish, and

stockings and mittens are manufactured by the Patersons for the little

Laings, particularly during boisterous weather, when fishing is out of

the question. Thus has a wise Providence made even the wrath of man to

praise him. The truth of the above narrative may be tested any day, by

waiting upon the Rev. Mr. Dickson, or upon the parties themselves at

Braehead of Cellardykes.

PRESCRIPTION;

OR, THE 29TH OF SEPTEMBER.

The serene calmness and holy inspiration of some of our cottage retreats

in Scotland are often the envy of the town-poet or philosopher, who

looks upon the sequestered spots as possessing all the beauty and repose

of the beatific Beulah, where the feet of the pilgrim found repose, and

his spirit rest. The desire arises out of that discontent which, less or

more, is the inheritance of man in this sphere; it is the residuum of

the worldly feelings which, like the clay that, in inspired hands, gave

the power of sight to the blind, opens the eyes to immortality. The wish

for retirement belongs to good, if it is not a part of the great

principle that inclines us to look far away to purer regions for the

rest which is never disturbed, and the joy that knows no abatement. Yet

how vain are often our thoughts as we survey the white-washed hut in the

valley, covered with honeysuckle and white roses; the plot before the

door; the croonin dame on her tripod; the lass with the lint-white

locks, singing, in snatches of Nature's own language, her purest

feelings, like the swelling of a mountain spring! The heart is not still

there, any more than in the crowded mart. The birds whistle, but they

die too; the rose blooms, but it is eaten in the heart by the palmer

worm; the sun shines, but there is a shade at his back. Alas for mortal

aspirations--there is nothing here of one side. Like the two parties who

fought for the truth of the two pleas--that the statue was white, or

that it was black--we find, after all our labour lost, that one side is

of the one colour, and the other of the opposite. These thoughts arise

in us at this moment, as we recollect the little cottage of Homestead,

situated in a collateral valley on the Borders. We were born at a

stone-cast from it; and, even in the dream of age, see issuing from it,

or entering it, a creature who might have stood for Wordsworth's

Highland Girl--a slender, gracile thing, retiring and modest; as

delicate in her feelings as in the hue of her complexion; her thoughts

of her glen and waterfall only natural to her--all others, fearful even

to herself, glenting forth through a flushed medium, which equally

betrayed the workings of the blood in the transparent veins--a being of

young life, elasticity, and sensitiveness, such as, like some modest

flower, we find only in certain recesses of the valleys in

mountain-lands. Such were you, Alice Scott, when you first darted across

our path on the hills. We have said that we see you now through the

dream of age; and, holding to the parallel, there is a change o'er the

mood of our vision, for we see you again in a form like that of "The

Ladye Geraldine"--your mountain russets off; the bandeau that bound the

flying locks laid aside; the irritability and flush of the young spirit

abated; and, instead of these, the gown of silk, the coif of satin, and

the slow and dignified step of conscious worth and superiority. And

whence this change?

The young female we have thus apostrophised, was the daughter of Adam

Scott, a cottar, who occupied the small cottage of Homestead, under the

proprietor of Whitecraigs--a fine property, lying to the south of the

cottage; and the mansion of which is yet to be seen by the traveller who

seeks the Tweed by the windings of the river Lyne. Old Adam died, and

left his widow and daughter to the protection of his superior, Mr.

Hayston, who, recollecting the services and stanch qualities of his

tenant, did not despise the charge. The small bield was allowed to the

mother and daughter, rent free; and some assistance, in addition to the

produce of their hands, enabled them to live as thousands in this

country live, whose capability of supporting life might be deemed a

problem difficult of solution by those whose only care is how to destroy

God's gifts. Nature is as curious in her disposal of qualities as the

great genius of chance or convention is of the distribution of means.

Literature has worn out the characteristic and gloomy lines of the

description of the fair and the good; and the impatience of the mind of

the nineteenth century--a mind greedy of caricature, and regardless of

written sentiment--may warn us from the portrayment of what people now

like better to see than to read or hear of. Away, then, with the usual

terms, and let old Dame Scott and her daughter be deemed as of those

beings who have interested you in the quiet recesses of humble poverty,

where Nature, as if in sport or satire, loves to play fantastic tricks.

If you have no living models to go by, call up some of the pages of the

thousand volumes that have been multiplied on a subject which has been

more spoiled by poetical imagery, than benefited by sober observation.

Within about five years of the death of the husband and father, old

Hayston died, and left Whitecraigs to his only son, Hector, who was kind

enough to continue the gift of the father to the inmates of Homestead;

but he loaded them with a condition, unspoken, yet implied. The young

laird and the pretty cottage maiden had foregathered often amidst the

romantic scenes on the Lyne; and that which Nature probably intended as

a guard and a mean of segregation--the shrinking timidity of her own

mountain child, when looked upon by the eye of, to her,

aristocracy--only tended to an opposite effect. A poet has compared love

to an Eastern bird, which loses all its beauty when it flies, and it is

as true as it is a pretty conceit; but if there was any feathered

creature whose wings, reflecting, from its monaul tints, the sun in

greater splendour, when on the wing, it would supply as applicable and

not less poetical an emblem of the object of the little god's

heart-stirrings; and so it seemed to the young laird of Whitecraigs,

that, as Alice Scott bounded away over the green hills, or down by the

Lyne banks, at his approach, her flight added to the interest which she

had already inspired when she had no means of escape. But, as the

wildest doe may be caught and tamed, so was she, who was as a white one

removed from the herd. The young man possessed attractions beside those

of imputed wealth and station; and probably, though we mean not to be

severe upon the sex, the process by which his affection had been

increased was reversed in its effects upon her, to whom assiduous

seeking was as the assiduous retreating had been to him.

Yet all was, we believe, honourable in the intentions of young Hayston;

and, as for Alice, she was in the primeval condition of a total

unconsciousness of evil. The "one blossom on earth's tree," as the poet

has it, was by her yet unplucked, nor knew she how many thousands have

had cause to sing--

"I have plucked the one blossom that hangs on earth's tree;

I have lived--I have loved, and die."

Her former timidity was the _à priori_ proof of the strength of the

feeling that followed, when the sensitiveness of fear gave way to

confidence. Town loves are a thing of sorry account: the best of them

are a mere preference of the one to the many; and he who is fortunate

enough to outshine his rivals, may pride himself in the possession of

some superior recommendations which have achieved a triumph. Were he to

look better to it, he might detect something, too, in the force of

resources. At best, a few hundred pounds will turn the scale; for he is

by all that a better man; and the trained eye of town beauties has a

strange responsive twinkle in the glare of the one thing needful. In the

remote and beautiful parts of a romantic country, things are otherwise

ordered: affection there, is as the mountain flower to the gallipot

rose; and it is a mockery to tell us that the difference is only

perceptible to those who are weak enough to be romantic. A doughty

warrior would recognise and acknowledge the difference, and fight a

great deal better too, after he had blubbered over a mountain or glen

born love for a creature who would look upon him as the soul of the

retreat, and hang on his breast in the outpourings of Nature's feelings.

That young Whitecraigs appreciated the triumph he had secured, there can

be no reason to doubt. He had been within the drying atmosphere of

towns, and had sung and waltzed, probably, with a round hundred of

creatures who understood the passion, much as Audrey understood

poetry--deeming it honest enough, but yet a composition made up of the

elements of side glances, arias, smorzando-sighs, and quadrilles. With

Alice Scott on his bosom, the quiet glen as their retreat, the green

umbrageous woods their defence, its birds as their musicians, and the

wimpling Lyne as the speaking Naiad, he forgot, if he did not despise,

the scenes he had left. She flew from him now no longer. The fowler had

succeeded to captivate, not intentionally to kill.

Two years passed over in this intercourse. There was no secret about it.

The dame was well apprised of their proceeding; and the open frankness

of the youth dispelled all the fears of wrong which the innocence of the

daughter, undefended by experience, might have scarcely guaranteed to

one who, at least, had heard something of the ways of the world. The

income from Whitecraigs, somewhere about seven hundred a-year, was more

than sufficient for the expenditure of the older Haystons; and Hector,

at this time, did not seem inclined to alter the line of life followed

by his fathers. He had not spoken of marriage to the mother; but he had

not hesitated to breathe into the ear of Alice all that was necessary to

lead her to the conclusion, to which her heart jumped, that she was to

be the lady of the stately white mansion that, at one time, had appeared

to her as a great temple where humble worshippers of the glen and the

wood might not lay their sandals at the doorway. She had entered the

vestibule only as an alms-seeker, and trembled to think she might have

been observed throwing a side glance into the interior, where

pier-glasses might have reflected the form of the russet-clad child of

the valley and hill. The tale has been told a thousand times, and the

world is not mended by it. The young master pressed her to his bosom,

imprinted a kiss, and was away into the mazes of life in the metropolis,

whither some affairs, left unsettled by his father, carried him. Six

months passed away, and the rents of the succeeding term were collected

by Mr. Pringle, the agent of the family, in Peebles. There was no word

for poor Alice, though the small allowance was handed in by the agent,

who, ignorant of the state of matters between the young couple, informed

the mother that the master of Whitecraigs was on the eve of being

married to a young lady of some wealth in the metropolis. The statement

was heard by the daughter; and what henceforth but that of Thekla's

song:--

"The clouds are flying, the woods are sighing--

The maiden is walking the grassy shore;

And as the wave breaks with might, with might,

She singeth aloud through the darksome night;

But a tear is in her troubled eye."

Alice Scott was changed; yet, who shall tell what that change was? If

the slow and even progress of the spirit may defy the eye of the

metaphysician, who may describe its moods of disturbance? Poetry is

familiar with these things, and we have fair rhymes to tell us of the

wanderings, and the lonely musings by mountain streams, and the eye that

looks and sees not, and the wasting form, and the words that come like

the sounds from deep caves; yet, after all, they tell us but little,

and that little is but to tickle us with the resonance of spoken

sentiment, leaving the sad truth as little understood as before. True it

was, that Alice Scott did all these things, and more too: the charm of

the hills and the water banks was gone: the light spirit that carried

her along, as if borne on the winds, was quenched; the songs by which

she gladdened the ears of her mother, as she plied her portable handwork

on the green, was no more heard mingling its notes with the music of the

Lyne; and the face that shone transparently, like painted alabaster, as

if part of the light came from within, was as the poet says--

"Like an April morn

Clad in a wintry cloud."

Nor did additional time seem to possess any power save that of

increasing the pain of the heart-stroke. Most of the griefs of mortals

have their appointed modes of alleviation--some are complaining griefs,

some are talkative, and some sorrows are sociable for selfishness. But

the heart-wound of her who has only those scenes of nature which were

associated with the image of the unkind one, to wear off the impressions

of which, under other hues, they form a part, is a silent mourner. There

is enough of a painful eloquence around her, and her voice would be only

the small whisper that is lost in the wailings of the storm in the glen.

Yet painful as the language is, she courts it in silence, even while it

mixes and blends with the poison which consumes her. It was in vain that

her mother, who saw with a parental eye the malady which is the best

understood by those of her class and age, urged her with kindness to

betake herself to her household duties. She was seldom to be prevailed

upon to remain within doors; the hill-side, or the bosom of the glen, or

the back of the willows by the water-side, were her choice. Ordinary

meal times were forgotten or unheeded, where Nature had renounced her

cravings, or given all her energies to the heart.

The next intelligence received at Homestead was that of the marriage of

Hector Hayston, and his departure for France. The servants at

Whitecraigs were discharged, as if there had been no expectation, for a

long period, of the return of the young laird. The supply to the two

females was increased, and paid by Mr. Pringle, who, now probably aware

of the situation of Alice, delicately avoided any allusion to his

employer. Report, however, was busy with her tales; and the absence of

the youth was attributed to the workings of conscience or of shame.

There was little truth in the report. The object of his first affections

might easily have been banished from Whitecraigs, and he who had been

guilty of leaving her maybe supposed capable of removing her from scenes

which could only add to her sorrow. A true solution of his conduct might

have been found in the fact, that Hayston was now following his

pleasures in the society of his wife's friends--a gay and lavish

circle--and did not wish to detract from his enjoyment by adding

banishment and destitution to a wrong now irremediable. Little more was

heard of him for some time, with the exception of a floating report,

that he had borrowed, through his agent, the sum of ten thousand pounds

from a Mr. Colville, a neighbouring proprietor, and pledged to him

Whitecraigs in security. The circumstance interested greatly the

neighbouring proprietors, who shook their heads in significant augury of

the probable fate of their young neighbour in the whirlpool of

continental life. Yet the allowance to Dame Scott at the next term was

regularly paid; and if there was a tear in her eye, as she looked, first

at the money, and then at the thin, pallid creature who sat silent at

the window, it was not that she dreaded its discontinuance from the

result of the extravagance of the giver. The effect of the act of

payment of the money had, on a former occasion, been noticed by Pringle

on the conduct of Alice: it was on this occasion repeated. She rose from

her seat, looked steadfastly for a moment at the gift as it lay on the

table, placed her hand on her forehead, and flitted out of the room. The

eye of the agent followed her from the window: her step was hurried,

without an object of impulse. She might go--but whither? probably she

knew not herself; yet on she sped till she was lost among the trees on

the edge of the glen.

Thus longer time passed, but there seemed no change to Alice, save in

the continual decrease of the frame, under the pressure of a mind that

communed with the past, and only looked to the future as containing some

day that would witness the termination of her sorrows. The anglers on

the Lyne became familiar with her figure, for they had seen it on the

heights, with her garments floating in the breeze, and had come up to

her as she sat by the waterside, but they passed on. At the worst she

could be but one whose spirit was not settled enough to admit of her

according with the ways of honest maidens; and they might regret that

the beauty that still lurked amidst the ravages of the disease of the

heart, had not been turned to better account. It is thus that one part

of mankind surveys another: they form their theory of a condition whose

secret nature is only known to its possessor; draw their moral from

false premises, formed as a compliment to their own conduct and

situation, and pass on to their pleasure.

Yet there occurred an important exception to these remarks:--One day

Alice had taken up her seat on the banks of a small pond in front of the

house of Whitecraigs. She sat opposite to the front of the dwelling, and

seemed to survey its closed windows and deserted appearance, with the

long grass growing up through the gravel of the walks--the broken

pailings and decayed out-houses; a scene that might be supposed to

harmonize with the feelings of a mind broken and desolate. There might

seem even a consanguinity in the causes of the condition of both. The

scene might have suited the genius of a Danby. There was no living

creature to disturb the silence. The house of faded white, among the

dark trees, cheerless and forsaken; the face of Alice Scott emaciated

and pale, with the lustre of the loch, shining in the sun, reflected on

it, directed towards the habitation of which she should have been

mistress; her eyes, which had forgotten the relief of tears, fixed on

the scene so pregnant with unavailing reminiscences--with these we would

aid the artist.

But the charm was gone, as a voice sounded behind her. She started, and,

according to her custom, would have fled as the hare that remembers the

snare; but she was detained. A man, advanced in years, poorly clad, with

hair well smitten with snow tints, and a staff in his hand, stood beside

her, holding her by the skirt of the gown.

"I am weary," said he; "I have walked from Moffat, and would sit here

for a time, if you would speak to me of the scenes and people of these

parts." And the application of his hand again to her gown secured a

compliance, dictated more by fear than inclination. She sat, while she

trembled. "You are fair," continued he; "but my experience of sorrow

tells me that grief has been busier with your young heart than years. I

will not pry into your secrets. To whom does Whitecraigs now belong?"

The name had not been breathed by her to mortal since that day she had

heard of the intended marriage. She made an effort to pronounce it,

failed, and fixed her eyes on the pond. The stranger gazed on her,

waiting for her reply.

"Hector Hayston," she at length muttered.

"And why has he left so fair a retreat to the desolation that has

overtaken it?" rejoined he again. The question was still more

unfortunate. She had no power to reply. Her face was turned from him,

and repressed breathings heaved her bosom. "You may tell me, then, if

one Dame Scott lives in these parts?" he said again, as he marked her

strange manner, and probably augured that his prior question was fraught

with pain.

"Yes--yes," she replied, with a sudden start, as if relieved from pain,

while she regained her feet; "yonder lives my mother."

The stranger stood with his eyes fixed upon her, as if in deep scrutiny

of the inexplicable features of her character and appearance; but he

added not a word, till he saw her move as if she wished to be gone.

"You will go with me?" he said.

But the words were scarcely uttered, when she was away through the

woods, leaving him to seek his way to the house of her mother, whither,

accordingly, he directed his steps, from some prior knowledge he

possessed of the locality about which he had been making inquiries. As

he went along, he seemed wrapt in meditation--again and again looking

back, to endeavour to get another sight of the girl, who was now seated

on the edge of the stream, and again seized by some engrossing thought

that claimed all the energies of his spirit. On coming up to the door of

the cottage, he tapped gently with his long staff; and, upon being

required by the dame to enter, he passed into the middle of the floor,

and stood and surveyed the house and its inmate.

"I have nothing for you," said the latter; "so you must pass on to those

whom God has ordained as the distributors of what the needy require.

Alas! I am myself but a beggar."

The words seemed to have been wrung out of her by the meditative mood in

which the stranger had found her, and, whether it was that the interest

which had been excited in him by the appearance of the daughter had

been increased by the confession of the mother, or that there was some

secret cause working in his mind, he passed his hand over his eyes, and

for a moment turned away his head.

"I have been both a beggar and a giver in my day," he replied, as he

laid down his hat and staff, and took a chair opposite to the dame; "and

I am weary of the one character and of the other. I have got with a

curse; and I have given for ingratitude. But I may here give, and you

may receive, without either. There is an unoccupied bed; I am weary of

wandering, and have enough to pay for rest."

"That is better than charity," rejoined the dame--"ay, even the charity

of the stranger."

"And why of the _stranger_, dame?" added he. "I have hitherto thought

that the charity of _friends_ was that which might be most easily borne.

And who may be your benefactor?"

"Hector Hayston of Whitecraigs," replied she, hanging her head, and

drawing a deep breath.

The stranger detected the same symptoms of pain in the mother as those

he had observed in the daughter.

"Then forgets he not his cottars in his absence," he added. "But why has

he left a retreat fairer than any I have yet seen throughout a long

pilgrimage over many lands?"

"We will not speak of that," she replied, rising slowly, and going to

the window, where she stood for a time in silence.

"You have a daughter, dame," resumed the man, as he watched the

indications of movement in the heart of the mother. "I saw her sitting

looking at the mansion of Whitecraigs. I fear she can lend you small

aid; yet, if her powers of mind and body were equal to the beauty that

has too clearly faded from her cheeks, methinks you would have had

small need to have taken the charity of either friends or strangers."

"Ay, poor Alice! poor Alice!" rejoined the mother, turning suddenly, and

applying her hand to something which required not her care at that

time--"Ay, poor Alice!" she added.

"Is it a bargain, then," said he, wishing to retreat from a subject that

so evidently pained her, "that I may remain here for a time, on your own

terms of remuneration?"

"It may be as you say," replied she, again taking her seat; "but only on

a condition."

"What is it?" inquired he.

"That you never mention the name of Hector Hayston, or of Whitecraigs,

while Alice is by. She harms no one; and I would not see her harmed."

"I perceive," said he, muttering to himself, "that I am not the only one

in the world who carries in his bosom a secret. But," he continued, in a

louder tone, "your condition, dame, shall be fulfilled; and now I may

hold myself to be your lodger." And he proceeded to take from the

stuffed pockets of his coat some night-clothes of a homely character,

and handed them to the dame. "And now," he said, "you may be, now or

after, wondering who he may be who has thus come, like a weary bird from

the waste that seeks refuge among the sere leaves, to live in the

habitation of sorrow. But you must question me not; and farther than my

name, which is Wallace, you may know nothing of me till after the 29th

day of September--ay, ay," he continued, as if calculating, "the 29th

day of September."

The dame started as she heard the mention of the day, looked steadfastly

at him, and was silent.

"Yes," he continued, "that day past, and I will once more draw my breath

freely in the land of my fathers; and my foot, which has only bowed the

head of the heather-bell in the valley, may yet collect energy enough

from my unstrung nerves to press fearlessly the sod of the mountain. How

long is it since your husband died?"

"Seven years," replied she.

"Well, short as our acquaintance has yet been," said he, "our words have

been only of unpleasant things. Now, I require refreshment; and here is

some small pay in advance, to remove the ordinary prejudice against

strangers. We shall be better acquainted by times. I will take, now,

what is readiest in the house; for you may guess, from my attire, that I

have been accustomed to that fare by which the poor contrive to spin out

the weary term of their pilgrimage."

So much being arranged, the dame set about preparing a meal; and Mr.

Wallace, as he had called himself, proceeded to transform his staff into

a fishing-rod, and arrange his other small matters connected with his

future residence. When the humble dish was prepared, the dame went out,

and, taking her position on a green tumulus that rose between the

cottage and the Lyne, stood, and, placing her hands over her eyes,

looked down the water. Her eye, accustomed to the search, detected the

form of her daughter far down the stream, and, waving her hand to her,

she beckoned her home. But she came not; and the two inmates sat down to

their repast.

"This shall be for my poor Alice," said the mother, as she laid aside a

portion of the frugal fare; "but she will take it at her own time, or

perhaps not at all."

"And yet how much she needs it," added the stranger, "her wasted form

and pale face too plainly show."

"There is a sad change there, sir," rejoined she. "There was not a

fairer or more gentle creature from Tweedscross to Tweedmouth than Alice

Scott; nor did ever the foot of light-hearted innocence pass swifter

over the hill or down the glen. You have seen her to-day where she is

often to be seen--by the pond opposite the closed-up house of

Whitecraigs--and may wonder to hear how one so wasted may still reach

the hill-heads; yet there, too, she is sometimes seen. I have struggled

sore to make her what she once was; but in vain. She will wander and

wander, and return and wander again; nor will this cease till I some day

find her dead body among the seggs of the Lyne, or in the lirk of the

hill. When I know you better, I may tell you more. At present, I am

eating the bread of one who is more connected with this sad subject than

I may now confess; and I have never been accounted ungrateful."

The stranger was moved, and ate his meal in meditative silence. In an

hour afterwards, Alice returned to the house, and, as she entered,

started as her eye met that of him who had, by his questions, stirred to

greater activity the feelings that were already too busy with her heart;

but her fears were removed, by his avoidance of the subject which had

pained her; and a few hours seemed to have rendered him as indifferent

to her as seemed the other objects around her. Some days passed, and the

widow would have been as well satisfied with her lodger as he was with

her, had it not been that he enjoined secrecy as to his residence in the

house--retiring to the spence when any one entered; and if at any time

he went along the Lyne in the morning, he avoided those whom he met; and

betook himself to private acts in the inner apartment during the day. At

times he left the cottage in the evening, and did not return for two

days; but whither he went, the inmates knew not. The dame conjectured he

had been as far as Peebles; but her reason was merely that he brought

newspapers with him, and intelligence of matters transacting there. The

secrecy was not suited to the open and simple manners to which she had

been accustomed; but she recollected his words, that on the 29th of

September, she would know all concerning him. Now these words were

connected by a chain of associations that startled her. The 29th of

September had been set apart by her deceased husband as a day of prayer.

He had never allowed it to pass without an offering of the contrite

heart to God; this practice he had continued till his death, and she had

witnessed the act repeated for fifteen years. She was no more

superstitious than the rest of her class; she was, indeed, probably less

so; and her theories, formed for an adequate explanation of the

startling coincidence, were probably as philosophical as if they had

been formed by reason acting under the astute direction of scepticism.

Yet where is the mind, untutored or learned, that can throw away at all

times, at all hours--when the heart is in the sunshine of the cheerful

day of worldly intercourse, or in the deep shadow of the wing of

eternity--all thoughts of all powers save those of natural causes, which

are themselves a mystery? We may sport with the subject; but it comes

again back on the heart, and we sigh in whispering words of fear, that

in the hands of God we are nothing.

One day Mr. Wallace was seated at breakfast; he had been away for two

nights; Alice was sitting by the side of the fire, looking into the

heart of the red embers, and the mother was superintending the

breakfast; he took out a newspaper from his pocket, and, without a word

of premonition, read a paragraph in a deep, solemn voice.

"Died at ---- Street, London, Maria Knight, wife of Hector Hayston,

Esq., of Whitecraigs, in the county of Peebles, in Scotland."

A peculiar sound struggled in the throat of Alice; but it passed, and

she was silent. The mother sat and looked Wallace in the face, to

ascertain what construction to put upon the occurrence which he had thus

read with an emphasis betokening a greater interest than it might

demand from one, as yet, all but ignorant, as she thought, of the true

circumstances of the condition of her daughter. He made no commentary on

what he had read; but looking again at the paper, and turning it over,

as if searching for some other news, he fixed his eyes on an

advertisement in the fourth page. He then read--

"On the 1st day of October next, there will be exposed to public roup

and sale, within the Town-Hall of Peebles, by virtue of the powers of

sale contained in a mortgage granted by Hector Hayston, Esq., of

Whitecraigs, in favour of George Colville of Haughton, all and hail the

lands and estate of Whitecraigs, situated in the parish of ----, and

shire of Peebles, with the mansion-house, offices, &c."

He then laid down the paper, and, looking the widow full in the face--

"The day of sale of Whitecraigs," said he, "is the _second_ day after

the 29th of September. It would have been too much had it been on that

day itself."

No reply was made to his remark. The announcement called up in the mind

of the dame more than she could express; but that which concerned more

closely herself, was too apparently veiled with no mystery. The sale of

Whitecraigs was the ejection of herself and daughter from Homestead; and

she knew not whither she and her daughter were now to be driven, to seek

refuge and sustenance from a world from which she had been so long

estranged.

"All things come to a termination," she said. "For many years I have

lived here, wife and widow; and if I have felt sorrow, I have also

enjoyed. The world is wide; and if I may be obliged to ask and to

receive charity, the God who moves the hand to give it, may not

again--now that His purpose may be served by my contrition--select that

of the destroyer of my child. But there is another that must be taken

from these haunts;" and, turning to Alice, whose face was still

directed to the fire, she gazed on her hapless daughter, while the tear

stole down her cheeks.

Wallace's eye was fixed on the couple. He seemed to understand the

allusion of the mother, which indicated plainly enough, that though the

hills and glens of Whitecraigs had been the scene of the ruin of her

daughter's peace, she anticipated still more fatal consequences from

taking her away from them. Meanwhile, Alice, who had listened to and

understood all, arose from her seat.

"I will never leave Whitecraigs, mother," she said; and bent her steps

towards the door.

"Let her follow her fancy," said Wallace. Then relapsing into a fit of

musing, he added--"the 29th of September of this year will soon be of

the time that is. For twenty years I have looked forward to that

day--under a burning sun, far from my native land, I have sighed for

it--in the midnight hour I have counted the years and days that were

between. Every anniversary was devoted to the God who has chastened the

heart of the sinner; and there was need, when that heart was full of the

thoughts inspired by that day, and penitence came on the wings of

terror. Now it approaches; and I have not miscalculated the benefits it

may pour on other heads than mine."

"Alas!" said the widow, as she cast her eye through the window after her

daughter, "there is no appointed day for the termination of the sorrows

of that poor creature. To the broken-hearted, one day as another,

sunshine or shower, is the same. But what hand shall bear Alice Scott

from Whitecraigs?"

"Perhaps none," replied Wallace, as, taking up the newspaper, he retired

to an inner apartment, where he usually spent the day. Some hours

passed; and, in the afternoon, Mr. Pringle, while passing, took occasion

to call at Homestead, and informed the widow that it would be her duty

to look out for another habitation, as Whitecraigs was to be sold by the

creditor, Mr. Colville, whose object in granting the loan was, if

possible, to take advantage of the difficulties into which extravagance

had plunged the young proprietor, and to bring the property into the

market, that he might purchase it as an appanage of the old estate of

Haughton, from which it had been disjoined. He represented it as a cruel

proceeding, and that its cruelty was enhanced by the circumstance of the

sale being advertised in the same paper which contained the intelligence

of the death of Hector's young wife. Another listener might have replied

that God's ways are just; but Dame Scott, if she thought at the time of

her daughter, considered also that Hayston had supported her for many

years.

"Good dame," added the agent, "it might have been well for my young

friend if he had remained at Whitecraigs. I never saw the wife he

married, and has just lost in the bloom of youth; but she must have been

fair indeed, if she was fairer than she whom he left. Yet Hector's

better principles did not, I am satisfied, entirely forsake him. The

disinclination he has shown to visit his paternal property, was the

result of a clinging remembrance of her he left mourning in the midst of

its glens; nor do I wonder at it, for even I have turned aside to avoid

the sight of Alice Scott. Misfortunes, however, are sometimes mercies;

and the change of residence you will be now driven to, may aid in the

cure of a disease that is only fed by these scenes of Whitecraigs."

He here paused, and, putting his hand in his pocket, took out some

money.

"This may be the last gift," he said, as he presented it to her, "that

Hector Hayston may ever send you. These are his words. His fortunes are

ruined, his wife is dead, and, worse than all, his peace of mind is

fled."

"Heaven have mercy on him!" replied the widow. "One word of reproach has

never escaped the lips of me or my daughter. I have suffered in this

cottage without murmuring, and the glens and hollows of Whitecraigs have

alone heard the complainings of Alice Scott. She will cling to these

places to the last; but were the windows of the deserted house again

opened, with strange faces there, and maybe the lights of the

entertainments of the happy shining through them, she might feel less

pleasure in sitting by the pond from which she now so often surveys the

deserted mansion. This last gift, sir, moves my tears--yea, for all I

and mine have suffered from Hector Hayston."

The agent had performed his duty, and departed with the promise that he

would, of his own accord, endeavour to prevail upon some of his

employers to grant her a cottage, if the purchaser of Whitecraigs should

resist an appeal for her to remain. He had no sooner gone, than the

stranger Wallace, who had heard the conversation, entered. He asked her

how much money Hector had sent as his last gift; and, on being

informed--

"That young man," he said, "has fallen a victim to the allurements of a

town life. The story of your daughter has been known to me; but I have

avoided the mention of the name of Hayston, which could only have

yielded pain without an amelioration of its cause. That gift speaks to

me volumes. Even fashion has not sterilized the heart of that young man.

He has erred--he may have transgressed--but for all, all, there is a

29th of September!"

The allusion he thus made was as inscrutable as ever. Again she

reflected upon her husband's conduct upon that day of the year; and

again, as she had done a hundred times, searched the face of the

speaker. But she abstained from question; and the day passed, and others

came, till the eventful morning was ushered in by sunshine. Wallace was

up by times; and his prayers were heard directed to the Throne of Mercy,

in thanks and heart-expressed contrition. In the forenoon he went forth

with freedom, climbed the hills, and conversed with the anglers he met

on the Lyne. He seemed as if relieved from some weighty burden; and the

dame, who had carefully watched his motions, waited anxiously for the

secret. He had not, however, pledged himself to reveal it on that day.

He had only said that all would be made known some time after the day

had passed; and, accordingly, he made no declaration. Yet, at bedtime,

he was again engaged in prayers, and even during the night he was heard

muttering expressions of thanksgiving to the Author of the day, and what

the day bringeth.

On the following morning, he announced his intention of going to

Peebles, whither he was supposed to have gone before; but now his manner

of going was changed. He purposed taking the coach, which, as it passed

within some miles of Whitecraigs, he intended to wait for, and on

departing--

"You will not hear of me till to-morrow night," he said. "I can now face

man; would that I could with the same confidence hold up my countenance

to God. Alice Scott," he continued, as he looked to the girl, "I will

not forget you in my absence. Your day of sorrow has been long; but

there may yet be a 29th of September even to you."

And, taking the maiden kindly in his arms, he whispered some words in

her ear, in which the magic syllables of a name she trembled to hear

were mixed. Her eyes exhibited a momentary brightness, a deep sigh

heaved her bosom, and again her head declined, with a whisper on her

lips--"Never, O never!" In a moment after, he was gone; and the widow

was left to ascertain from Alice what he had said, to bring again, even

for a moment, the blood to her cheek.

On the day after, there was a crowd of people in the Town-Hall of

Peebles, and the auctioneer was reading aloud the articles of roup of

the lands of Whitecraigs. Mr. Colville was there in high hopes; but

there were others too, who seemed inclined to disappoint them. The

property was set up at the price of fifteen thousand pounds, and that

sum was soon offered by the holder of the mortgage. Other bodes quickly

followed, and a competition commenced, which soon raised the price to

eighteen thousand, at which it seemed to be destined to be given to

Haughton. The other competitors appeared timid; and several declared

themselves done, one by one, until no one was expected to advance a

pound higher. All was silence, save for the voice of the auctioneer; and

he had already begun his ominous once, twice, when a voice which had not

yet been heard, cried--"Eighteen thousand two hundred." The hammer was

suspended, and all eyes turned to view the doughty assailant, who would,

at the end of the day, vanquish the champion who had as yet retained the

field. Those eyes recognised in the bidder a man poorly clothed, and

more like an alms-seeker than the purchaser of an estate--no other was

that man than Mr. Wallace. The auctioneer looked at him; others looked

and wondered; and Haughton gloomed, as he advanced another hundred; and

that was soon followed by a hundred more, which led to a competition

that seemed to be embittered on the one part by pride and contempt, and

on the other by determination. Hundred upon hundred followed in rapid

succession, till Haughton gave up in despair, and a shout rung through

the hall as the hammer fell, and the estate was declared the property of

the humble stranger, whom no one knew, and whom no one would have

considered worth more than the clothes he carried on his back. A

certificate of a banker at Peebles--that he held in his hands funds,

belonging to the purchaser, of greater amount than the price--satisfied

the judge of the roup; and the party were divided in circles, conversing

on the strange turn which had been given to the sale of Whitecraigs.

On the same night, Wallace returned to Homestead, and sat down

composedly to the humble meal that had been prepared for him by the

widow. Alice was in her usual seat; and the placidity of manner which

distinguished them from ordinary sufferers, spoke their usual obedience

to the Divine will.

"This day the property of Whitecraigs has changed masters!" said he.

"And who has purchased it?" inquired the mother.

"He who is now sitting before you!" replied he.

Alice turned her head to look at him; the mother sat mute with surprise;

while he rose and fastened the door.

"It is even so," he continued, as he again sat down; "David Scott, the

brother of your husband, and the uncle of Alice, has this day purchased

Whitecraigs."

A faint scream from the mother followed this announcement, and,

recovering herself, she again fixed her eyes on the stranger.

"It is true," continued he; "I am the brother of your deceased husband.

For two years after you were married to Adam, you would, doubtless, hear

him speak of me, as then engaged in a calling of which I may now be

ashamed, for I was one of the most daring smugglers on the Solway. The

29th of September, 17--, dawned upon me, yet with hands unsullied in the

blood of man; but the sun of that day set upon me as proscribed by God

and my country. My name was read on the house walls, and execration

followed my steps, as I flew from cave to cave. Yet who could have told

that that day in which my evil spirit wrought its greatest triumph over

good, was that whose evening shades closed upon a repentant soul!"

He paused, and placed his hand on his brow.

"These things are to me as an old dream," replied the widow, looking

round her, as if in search of memorials of stationary space. "My husband

never afterwards mentioned your name, save to inform me that you had

died in the West Indies; yet now I see the import of his devotion, in

the coming round of the day that shamed the honest family to whom he

belonged."

"And it was to save that shame, and to secure my safety under my assumed

name, that, after I flew to the islands of the west, I got intelligence

of my death sent to Scotland. What other than the issue of this day must

have been in the view of the great Disposer of events, when, in addition

to the grace He poured on the heart of the sinner, He invested the arm

that had been lifted against His creatures with the prosperity that

filled my coffers! But, alas! though I may have reason to trust to the

forgiveness of Heaven, that of man I may never expect."

"And punishment still awaits you?" rejoined she.

"No, no!" he cried, as he rose and placed his foot firmly on the floor.

"I am free--the heart may hate me, the tongue may scorn me, the hand may

point at me, but it dare not strike. On the 29th of September I was no

longer amenable to the laws for the crime which drove me to foreign

lands: twenty years free the culprit from the vengeance of man; the last

day of that period was the 29th of September--it is past; and now God is

my only judge." He again paused. "But I must live still as David

Wallace. The name of Scott shall not be sullied by me. As David Wallace

I have made my fortune, and as David Wallace made my supplications to

Heaven. By the same name I have bought Whitecraigs, and by that name I

shall make it over to one who may yet retrieve the honour of our humble

house--to Alice, who should, through other means, have been mistress.

Come to your natural protector, Alice, and tell him if you will consent

to be the lady of Whitecraigs."

The girl, on whom the ordinary occurrences of life now seldom made any

impression, had listened attentively to the extraordinary facts and

intentions thus evolved; and, at his bidding, rose and stood by his

side. He took her hand, and looked into her face.

"I knew," said he, "that I was pledged not to mention a certain name

while you were by; and I kept my word, with the exception of the whisper

I stole into your ear on the day I set out for Peebles. But things are

now changed. The rights of Whitecraigs are now in the act of being made

out in your name. Within a month you will be mistress of that mansion,

and of those green dells and hills you have loved to wander among in joy

and in sorrow. Now, will you answer me a question?"

"I will!" she replied.

"What would be your answer to Hector Hayston--who is now no longer a

husband, and no longer rich--were he to come to Whitecraigs and make

amends for all that is by and gone? Would you receive him kindly, or

turn him from the door of the house of his fathers?"

The question was too sudden, or too touchingly devised. She looked for a

moment in his face, burst into tears, and hid her face in his breast.

"Try her poor heart not thus!" cried the mother. "Time, that as yet has

done nothing but made ravages, may now, when things are so changed, work

miracles. Do not press the question. A woman and a mother knows better

than you can do what are now her feelings. The answer is not

asked--Alice, your uncle has taken back his question!"

"I have--I have!" replied he, as he pressed her to his breast. "Look up,

my dear Alice. I have, in my pride and power, been hasty, and thought I

could rule the heart of woman as I have done my own, even in its

rebellion against God. I have yet all to learn of those secret workings

of the spirit, in all save repentance. I never myself knew what it was

to love, far less what it is to love and be forsaken. No more--no more.

I will not again touch those strings."

And, rising hurriedly, he consigned the maid to her mother, and went

out, to afford her time to collect again her thoughts. During the

following week the furniture of Whitecraigs was disposed of by Mr.

Pringle, for behoof of the other creditors of Hayston, and purchased by

the uncle, who took another journey to Peebles, for the purpose of

negotiating the sale, and making further preparations for obtaining

entry. In a fortnight after, the keys were sent to Homestead by a

messenger, while the making up of the titles was in the course of

progress. It was no part of the intention of Wallace to reside in the

mansion-house: his object was still secrecy; and, though the form and

character of the transaction might lead ultimately to a discovery, he

cared not. By the prescription of the crime he had committed, he was

free from punishment; while, by retaining his name, and living

ostensibly in a humble condition, he had a chance of escaping a

detection of his true character, at the same time that he might, by

humility and good services, render himself more acceptable to that Great

Power whose servant he now considered himself to be.

On the twenty-first day of October, the house of Whitecraigs was again

open. Servants had been procured from Peebles; the fires were again

burning; the wreaths of smoke again ascended from among the trees; and

life and living action were taking the place of desertedness. On the

forenoon of that day, Wallace took the two females from Homestead, and

conducted them, hanging on his arms, to their new place of residence. To

speak of feelings, where a change comprehended an entire revolution of

a life of habit, thought, and sentiment, would be as vain as

unintelligible. From that day, when the uncle had put the trying

question to his niece, a change might have been detected working a

gradual influence on her appearance and conduct. Might we say that hope

had again lighted her taper within the recesses where all had been so

long dreary darkness! The change would not authorize an affirmative--it

would have startled the ear that might have feared and yet loved the

sounds. One not less versed in human nature might be safer in the

construction derived from the new objects, new duties, new desires, new

thoughts, from all the thousand things that act on the mind in this

wonderful scene of man's existence; but would he be truer to the nature

of the heart that has once loved? We may be contented with a mean, where

extremes shoot into the darkness of our mysterious nature. Alice Scott

took in gradually the interests of her new sphere; did not despise the

apparel suited to it; did not reject the manners that adorned it; did

not turn a deaf ear or a dead eye to the eloquent ministers that lay

around amidst the beauties of Whitecraigs and hailed her as mistress,

where she was once a servant, if not a beggar.

Meanwhile the house of Homestead was enlarged, to fit it as a residence

for the uncle. Mr. Pringle was continued agent for the proprietress of

Whitecraigs; and, while many, doubtless, speculated on a thousand

theories as to these strange occurrences, we may not deny to Hector

Hayston, wherever he was, or in whatever circumstances, some interest in

what concerned him so nearly as the disposal of his estate, and the

fortune of her by whom his first affections had been awakened. Neither

shall we say that Wallace and Pringle had not, too, their secret views

and understandings, and that the latter was not silent where the

interests of his old employer called for confidence. In all which we

may be justified by the fact that, one day, the agent of Whitecraigs

introduced to the bachelor of Homestead a young man: it was the former

proprietor of Whitecraigs.

"It is natural, Mr. Wallace," said Mr. Pringle, "that one should wish to

revisit the scenes of his youth--especially," he added, with a smile,

"when these have been one's own property, come from prior generations,

and lost by the thoughtlessness of youth."

"It is," replied Wallace, renouncing his usual gravity, "even though

there should be no one there who might claim the hand of old friendship.

But this young man has only, as yet, seen the hill-tops of his father's

lands; and these claim no seclusion from the eye of the traveller. He

might wish, with greater ardency, to see the bed where his mother lay

when she bore him, or the cradle (which may still be in the house) where

she rocked him to sleep."

"God be merciful to me!" replied the youth, as he turned away his head.

"This man touches strings whose vibrations harrow me. Sir," he added,

"were you ever yourself in the situation of him whose feelings you have

thus, from good motives, quickened so painfully?"

"What Whitecraigs and she who lives now in the house yonder were or are

to you, Scotland and my kindred were to me; but the house where I was

born knows me not, and the bed and the cradle do not own me. But Alice

Scott recognised me as a fellow-creature, whatever more I say not; and

even that, from one so good, and, even yet, so beautiful--is something

to live for. No more. I know all. Will you risk a meeting?"

"Mr. Pringle will answer for me," replied he, as he turned, with a full

heart, to the window.

"And I will answer for Mr. Pringle," said Wallace.

"But who will answer for _her_?" rejoined the other.

"Stay there," said Wallace. "I will return in a few minutes."

And, bending his steps to Whitecraigs House, he was, for a time, engaged

with Alice and her mother. He again returned to Homestead; and, in a few

minutes after, the three were walking towards the mansion. The eye of

the young man glanced furtively from side to side, as if to catch

glimpses of old features which had become strange to him; but in the

direction of the house he seemed to have no power to look--lagging

behind, and displaying an anxiety to be concealed, by the bodies of the

others, from the view of the windows. On arriving at the house, Wallace

and Pringle went into an apartment where the mother was seated. Hector

stood in the passage: he feared that Alice was there, and would not

enter.

"Think you," whispered Wallace, quickly returning to him, "that I, whom

you accused of touching tender chords, am so little acquainted with

human nature as to admit of witnesses to your meeting with Alice Scott?

There, the green parlour in the west wing," he continued, pointing up

the inside stair to a room well known to the youth. "If you cannot

effect it, who may try? Go--go!"

"I cannot--I cannot!" he replied, in deep tones. "My feet will not carry

me. That room was my mother's favourite parlour. A thousand associations

are busy with me. And now, who sits there?"

"Come, come!" said Pringle, as he came forth, in consequence of hearing

Hayston's irresolution. "What did you expect on coming here? Alice to

come and fly to you with open arms?"

"No, sir; to reject me with a wave of disdain!" replied the youth. "I am

smitten from within, and confidence has left me. Let me see her mother

first. My cruelty to her has been mixed with kindness, and she may give

me some heart."

And he turned to the apartment where the mother sat.

"Your confidence will not be restored by anything the mother can say!"

rejoined Pringle, who was getting alarmed for the success of his

efforts. "Alice is now mistress here, and must be won by contrition, and

a prayer for forgiveness."

"Ho!" interjected Wallace. "To what tends this mummery? Must I take you

by the hand, and lead you to one who, for years, has seen you in every

flitting shade of the hills, and heard you in every note of the sighing

winds of the valley?"

"To hate me as I deserve to be hated!" replied Hayston, still

irresolute. "None of you can give me any ground for hope, and seem to

push me on to experience a rejection which may seal my misery for ever!"

Wallace smiled in silence, beckoned Pringle into the room beside the

mother, and taking Hayston by the arm, with a show of humour that

accorded but indifferently with the real anguish of doubt and dismay by

which the young man's mind was occupied, forced him on to the first step

of the inside stair.

"You are now fairly committed!" said he, smiling; "to retreat, is ruin;

to advance, happiness, and love, and peace."

And he retreated to the room where Pringle was, leaving the youth to the

strength or weakness of his own resolution. His tread was now heard,

slow and hesitating, on the stair. Some time elapsed before the sound of

the opening door was heard; and that it remained for a time open, held

by the doubtful hand, might also have been observed. At last it was

shut; and quick steps on the floor indicated that the first look had not

been fraught with rejection.

The party below were, meanwhile, speculating on the result of the

meeting. Even the mother was not certain that it would, at first, be

attended with success. Alice had yielded no consent; and it was only

from the mother's construction of her looks, that she had given her

authority for the interview.

"All is now decided, for good or evil," said Wallace. "Go up stairs, and

bring us a report of the state of affairs."

The mother obeyed; and, after a considerable time, returned, with her

eyes swimming in tears.

"Is it so?" said her friend. "Is it really so? Has all my labour been

fruitless?"

"No," replied she; "but I could not stand the sight. I found her lying

on the breast of Hector, sobbing out the sorrows of years. Her eyes have

been long dry. The heart is at last opened."

"Too good a sight for me to lose," replied her friend. "For twenty years

I have only known the tears of penitence: I will now experience those

that flow from the happiness of others."

And, with these words, he hurried up stairs. We would follow, but that

we are aware of the danger of treading ground almost forbidden to

inspiration. Within two hours afterwards, Hector Hayston and Alice Scott

were again among the glens of Whitecraigs, seeking out those places

where, before, they used to breathe the accents of a first affection.

The one had been true to the end; and the other had been false only to

learn the beauty of truth. We have given these details from a true

record, and have derived pleasure from the recollections they have

awakened; but we fairly admit, that we would yield one half of what we

have experienced of the good, to have marked that day the workings of

the retrieved spirit in the eyes, and speech, and manners of Alice

Scott. These are nature's true magic. The drooping flower that is all

but dead in the dry, parched soil, raises its head, takes on fresh

colours, and gives forth fresh odours, as the spring showers fall on its

withered leaves. Oh! there is a magic there that escapes not even the

eye of dull labour, retiring home sick of all but the repose he needs.

But the process in the frame that is the temple of beauty, worth,

intelligence, sensibility, rearing all in loveliness afresh, out of what

was deemed the ruins only of what is the greatest and best of God's

works--to see this, and to feel it, is to rejoice that we are placed in

a world that, with all its elements of vice and sorrow, is yet a place

where the good and the virtuous may find something analogous to that for

which the spirit pants in other worlds.

Yet, though we saw it not, we have enough of the conception, through

fancy, to be thankful for the gift even of the _ideal_ of the good; and

here we are satisfied that we have more. Hector Hayston and Alice Scott

were married. David Wallace's history was long concealed, but curiosity

finally triumphed; yet with no effect calculated to impair the

equanimity of a mind which repentance, and a reliance on God's grace,

had long rendered independent of the opinions of men. He had wrought for

evil, and good came of it; and he lived long to see, in the house of

Whitecraigs, its master, mistress, and children, the benefits of the

prescription which the 29th of September effected--a principle of the

law of Scotland that was long deemed inconsistent with the good of the

land, but now more properly considered as being no less in unison with

the feelings of man than it is with divine mercy.

THE COUNTESS OF WISTONBURY.

In the summer of 1836 I had occasion to make a journey into Wiltshire,

in England. As the business that called me there, although of sufficient

importance to me, would have no interest whatever for the reader, I will

readily be excused, I dare say, from saying of what nature that business

was. It will more concern him, from its connection with the sequel, to

know that my residence, while in England, was in a certain beautiful

little village at the southern extremity of the shire above named, and

that mine host, during my stay there, was the worthy landlord of the

White Hart Inn, as intelligent and well-informed a man as it has often

been my good fortune to meet with. The nature of the business which made

me a guest of Michael Jones, left me a great deal more spare time than I

knew well what to do with. It hung heavy upon my hands; and my good

host, perceiving this, suggested a little excursion, which, he said, he

thought would dispose of one day, at any rate, agreeably enough.

"I would recommend you, sir," he said, "to pay a visit to Oxton Hall,

the seat of the Earl of Wistonbury.[5] It is one of the finest

residences in England; and, as the family are not there just now, you

may see the whole house, both inside and outside. If you think of it, I

will give you a line to the butler, a very old friend of mine, and he

will be glad to show you all that's worth seeing about the place."

[5] Under this name we choose, for obvious reasons, to conceal the real

one.--_Ed._

"How far distant is it?" I inquired.

"Oh, not more than three miles and a half--little more than an hour's

easy walk," replied mine host.

"Excellent!" said I; "thank you for the hint, landlord. Let me have the

introduction to the butler you spoke about, and I'll set off directly."

In less than five minutes, a card, addressed to Mr. John Grafton,

butler, Oxton Hall, was put into my hands, and in two minutes more I was

on my way to the ancient seat of the Earls of Wistonbury. The directions

given me as to my route, carefully noted on my part, brought me, in

little more than an hour, to a spacious and noble gateway, secured by a

magnificent gate of cast-iron. This I at once recognised, from the

description given me by Mr. Jones, to be the principal entrance to Oxton

Hall. Satisfied that it was so, I unhesitatingly entered--and the house

of one of the proudest of England's aristocracy stood before me, in all

its lordly magnificence. A spacious lawn, of the brightest and most

beautiful verdure, dotted over with noble oaks, and tenanted by some

scores of fallow-deer, stretched far and wide on every side. In the

centre of this splendid park--such a park as England alone can

exhibit--arose the mansion-house, an ancient and stately pile, of great

extent and lofty structure.

Having found the person to whose civilities I was recommended by mine

host of the White Hart--a mild and pleasant-looking old man, of about

seventy years of age--I put my credentials into his hands. On reading

it, the old man looked at me smilingly, and said that he would have much

pleasure in obliging his good friend Mr. Jones, by showing me all that

was worth seeing both in and about the house; and many things both

curious and rare, and, I may add, both costly and splendid, did I see

ere another hour had passed away; but fearing the reader's patience

would scarcely stand the trial of a description of them, I refrain from

the experiment, and proceed to say, that, just as our survey of the

house was concluded, my cicerone, as if suddenly recollecting himself,

said--

"By-the-by, sir, perhaps you would like to see the picture gallery,

although it is hardly worth seeing just now--most of the pictures having

been removed to our house in Grosvenor Square last winter; and, being in

this denuded state, I never think of showing it to visitors. There are,

however, a few portraits of different members of the family still left,

and these you may see if you have any curiosity regarding them."

Such curiosity I avowed I felt, and was immediately conducted into the

presence of a number of the pictorial ancestry of the illustrious house

of Wistonbury. The greater part of the pictures had been removed, as my

conductor had informed me; but a few still remained scattered along the

lofty walls of the gallery.

"That," said my cicerone, pointing to a grim warrior, clad from head to

heel in a panoply of steel,--"that is Henry, first Earl of Wistonbury,

who fell in Palestine during the holy wars; and this," directing my

attention to another picture, "is the grandfather of the present Earl."

"A very handsome and pleasant-looking young man," said I, struck with

the forcible representation of these qualities which the painting

exhibited.

"Ay," replied the old man, "and as good as he was handsome. He is the

pride of the house; and the country around yet rings with his name,

associated with all that is kind and charitable."

"And who is this lovely creature?" said I, now pointing in my turn to

the portrait of a young female of the most exquisite beauty--the face

strikingly resembling some of the best executed likenesses of the

unfortunate Queen Mary--which hung beside that of the Good Earl of

Wistonbury, as the nobleman of whom my cicerone had just spoken was

called throughout the country.

"That lady, sir," replied the latter, "was his wife--the Countess of

Wistonbury. She was one of the most beautiful women of her time; and,

like her husband, was beloved by all around her, for the gentleness of

her manners and benevolence of her disposition."

"But what's this?" said I, advancing a little nearer the picture, to

examine something in her attire that puzzled me. "A Scotch plaid!" I

exclaimed in considerable surprise, on ascertaining that this was the

article of dress which had perplexed me. "Pray, what has the Scotch

plaid to do here? How happens it that we find a Countess of Wistonbury

arrayed in the costume of Caledonia?"

"Why, sir, the reason is good--perfectly satisfactory," replied Mr.

Grafton, smilingly. "She was a native of that country."

"Indeed!" said I. "A countrywoman of mine! Of what family?" added I.

My conductor smiled.

"Truly," said he, after a pause, "that is a question easier put than

answered."

"What!" said I, "was she not of some distinguished house?"

"By no means, sir," replied Mr. Grafton. "She was a person of the

humblest birth and station; but this did not hinder her from becoming

Countess of Wistonbury, nor from being one of the best as well as most

beautiful that ever bore the title."

"Ah, ha!" said I to myself, "here's a story for the 'Tales of the

Borders.'" I did not say this to Mr. Grafton, however; but to him I did

say--"There must be some interesting story connected with this lady. The

history of her singular good fortune must be curious, and well worth

hearing."

"Why, it certainly is," replied my conductor, with the air of one who,

while he cannot but acknowledge that there is interest in a certain

piece of information which he possesses, is yet so familiar with it

himself, has owned it so long, and communicated it so often, that his

feelings seem to belie his words--the former remaining unmoved by the

tale which the latter unfolds. "There is certainly something curious in

the Countess's story," said Mr. Grafton; "and, now that we have seen

everything that is worth seeing, if you will come with me to my little

refectory, I will tell you all about it over a tankard of fine old ale

and a slice of cold round."

Need I say, good reader, that I at once and gladly accepted an

invitation that so happily combined the intellectual and the sensual?

You will give me credit for more sense; and the following story will

prove at once that your good opinion is not misplaced, that I must have

been an attentive listener, and, lastly, that I must be blessed with a

pretty retentive memory. I relate the story in my own way, but without

taking the slightest liberty with any single one of the details given me

by my informant, who, from having been upwards of forty-five years in

the service of the Earls of Wistonbury, and, during the greater part of

that time their principal and most confidential domestic, was minutely

and accurately informed regarding every remarkable event that had

occurred in the family for several generations back.

"But, before we leave this part of the house," resumed Mr. Grafton, "be

so good as step with me a moment into this small room here, till I show

you a certain little article that cuts some figure in the story which I

shall shortly tell you."

Saying this, he led the way into the small apartment he alluded to, and,

conducting me towards a handsome ebony or blackwood cabinet that

occupied one end of the room, he threw open its little folding doors,

and exhibited to me, not some rich or rare curiosity, as I had expected,

but a small, plain, very plain--or I should, perhaps, rather say very

coarse--country-looking, blue-painted chest.

"Do you see that little chest, sir?" said Mr. Grafton, smilingly.

"I do," said I; "and it seems a very homely article to be so splendidly

entombed, and so carefully kept."

"Yet," replied Mr. Grafton, "homely as it is, and small as is its

intrinsic value, that is one of the heir-looms of the family, and one of

the most fondly-cherished of them all."