THE CRADLE OF LOGIE.

It is not very easy, when we consider the great desire manifested by

authors and editors to serve up piquant dishes of fiction on the broad

table of literature, to account for the fact that the undoubtedly true

story of the Cradle of Logie and the Indian Princess, as she is often

called, should never have appeared in print. It has apparently escaped

the sharpest eyes of our chroniclers. Sir Walter Scott did not appear to

have much fancy for Angus; but it would seem that the facts of this

strange occurrence in a civilised country, and not very far back, had

never reached him. Even the histories of Forfarshire are silent; and the

pictures of Scotland for tourists, which generally seize on any romantic

trait connected with a locality or an old ruin, have also overlooked

them. Yet the principal personage in the drama was one whose name was

for years in the mouths of the people, not only for peculiarities of

character, but retribution of fate; and this local fame has died away

only within a comparatively recent period. It was in my very early years

that I saw the Cradle, and heard, imperfectly, its tale from my mother;

but her account was comparatively meagre. I sought long for details; nor

was I by any means successful till I fell in with a man named Aminadab

Fairweather, a resident at the Scouring Burn, in Dundee, who was in the

habit of frequenting Logie House, and who, though very old, remembered

many of the circumstances.

The truth is, there were rich flesh-pots in Logie House--richer than

those which supplied the muscles of the Theban mummies, so enduring

through long ages, no doubt, from being so well fed; for Mr. Fletcher of

Lindertes,[*] who was proprietor of the mansion, was the greatest

epicurean and glossogaster that ever lived since Leontine

times. Then a woman called Jenny McPherson, who had in early

life, like "a good Scotch louse," who "aye travels south," found her way

from Lochaber to London, where she had got into George's kitchen, and

learned something better than to make sour kraut, was the individual who

administered to her master's epicureanism, if not gulosity. Nay, it was

said she had a hand in the tragedy of the Cradle; but, however that may

be, it is certain she was deep in the confidences of Fletcher. But then

Mrs. McPherson, as she chose to call herself--though the never a

McPherson was connected with her except by the ties of blood, which,

like those of all Celts, had their loose terminations dangling into

infinity at the beginning of the world's history--was given to

administering the contents of her savoury flesh-pots to others than the

family of Logie; yea, like a true Highlander, she delighted in having

henchmen--or haunchmen truly, in this instance--who gave her love in

return for her edible luxuries. It happened that our said Aminadab was

one of those favoured individuals; and it is lucky for this generation

that he was, for if he had not been, there would assuredly have been no

records of the Cradle and the black lady.

[note *: Mr. Fletcher had also the property of Balinsloe as well

as Logie. They've all passed into other hands.]

It was in a little parlour off the big kitchen that Janet received her

henchmen. And was there ever man so happy as our good Aminadab?--and

that for several human reasons, whereof the first was certainly the

Logie flesh-pots; the second, the stories about the romantic place

wherewith she contrived to garnish and spice these savoury mouthfuls;

and last, Janet herself, who was always under the feminine delusion that

she was the corporate representative of the first of these reasons, if,

indeed, the others were not mere _adjecta_, not to be taken into

account; whereas there were doubts if she was for herself ever counted

at all, except as the mere "old-pot" which contained the realities. And

their happiness would certainly have been complete if it had not

been--at least in the case of Aminadab--that it could be enjoyed only by

passing through that grim medium, a churchyard. But then, is not all

celestial bliss burdened by this condition; nay, is not even our earthly

bliss, which is a foretaste of heaven, only a flower raised upon the

rottenness of other flowers--a type of the soul as it issues from

corruption? Yes, Aminadab could not get to the holy of holies except by

passing through Logie kirkyard, a small and most romantic Golgotha, on

the left of the road leading to Lochee, whose inhabitants it contained,

and which was so limited and crowded, that one might prefigure it as one

of those holes or dungeons in Michael Angelo's pictures, belching forth

spirits in the shape of inverted tadpoles, the tail uppermost, and yet

representing ascending sparks. The wickets that surrounded Logie

House--lying as it does upon the south side of Balgay Hill, and flanked

on the east by a deep gully, wherethrough runs a small stream, which, so

far as I know, has no name--were locked at night. The terrors of this

place, at the late hours when these said henchmen behoved to seek their

savoury rewards, were the only drawback to Aminadab's supreme bliss.

And if the time of these symposial meetings had been somewhat later in

the century, how much more formidable would have been a passage through

this contracted valley of tumuli and bones! No churchyard, except those

of Judea, was ever invested with such terrors--not the mystical fears of

a divine fate seen in the descending cloud, with Justice gleaming with

fiery eyes on Sin, and holding those scales, the decision of which would

destine to eternal bliss or eternal woe, and that Justice personified in

Him "whose glory is a burning like the burning of a fire,"--no, but the

revolting fears produced by the profanity of that poor worm of very

common mud, which has been since the beginning of time acting the God.

Ay, the aurelia-born image of grace sees a difference when it looks from

the sun to the epigenetic thing which He raises out of corruption. There

was, in that small place of skulls, a rehearsal of the great day. We

hear little of these freaks now-a-days; but it was different then, when

men made themselves demons by drink. One night William Maule of Panmure,

then in his days of graceless frolic; Fletcher Read, the nephew of the

laird, and subsequently the laird himself, of Logie; Rob Thornton, the

merchant, Dudhope, and other kindred spirits, who used to sing in the

inn of Sandy Morren, the hotel-keeper, "Death begone, here's none but

souls," sallied drunk from the inn. The story goes that the night was

dark, and there stood at the door a hearse, which had that day conveyed

to the "howf," now about to be shut up because of its offence against

the nostrils of men who are not destined to need a grave, the wife of an

inconsolable husband and the mother of children; and thereupon came from

Maule's mouth--for wickedness will seek its playful function in a

pun--the proposition that the bacchanals should have a rehearsal in the

kirkyard of Logie. Well, it signified, of course, nothing that the Black

Princess had been buried there, so far away from the land of "the balmy

East,"

"Where the roses blow and the oranges grow,

And all is divine but man below."

Fletcher Read might have recollected this, but what though? Was not the

pun a good one--worthy of Hood? They all mounted the hearse, Panmure

being driver; nor could Sandy Morren give to these white-robed spirits,

who were so soon to rise in glory from the envious earth, more than a

sour-milk horn and half a dozen of snow-white table-cloths for the

theatrical property of the great players. So it has been since the time

when the shepherd who killed the son of Aebolus, for that he gave them

wine which they thought was poison, because they found their heads out

of order--wine still generates on folly the afflatus of madness. The

story goes on. The night was as dark as those places they were to

illumine with their white robes, alas! not of innocence. But the

darkness was not of the moon's absence in another hemisphere; only that

darkness which is cloud-born, and must cede in twinkling yet glorious

intervening moments to the moon, when she will salute the graves and the

marriage-guests; and the hearse, as it slowly wended its way up the road

to Lochee, every now and then pouring forth from its dark inside peals

of laughter. The travellers on the road look with wide eyes at the grim

apparition, and flee. They arrive at the rough five-bar stile; it is

thrown back, and the hearse is driven into the place of the dead. The

story goes on. There is silence everywhere, and appropriately there,

where the four brick corners of the smoke-coloured Cradle rise from the

hollow of Balgay Hill. They waited till the moon shone out again in her

calm, breathless repose; and then resounded from the clanging black

boards of the hearse a terrible din resembling thunder, and already each

man, with his table-cover rolled round him, was snug behind the solemn

head-stones, storied with domestic loves severed by the dark angel.

Now was the time for the trumpet-call, which behoved to be sounded by

the cycloborean lungs of the broad-chested Panmure. The story has no

reason to flag where the stake of the _grimelinage_ is the upraising of

white-robed spirits. The sour-milk horn is sounded as it never was

sounded before on the earth which had passed away; every spirit comes

forth from below the head-stones; and there rose a wail of misery which

nothing but wine could have produced.

"Mercy on our poor souls!"

"Justice," cried Maule. "Stand out there, Bob Thornton, and answer for

the sins done in the body." The story goes on, and it intercalates "fie,

fie, on man." Thornton stands forth shrieking for the said mercy.

"Was not you, sir, last night, of the time of the past world, in the inn

kept by Sandy Morren, in the town called Bonnie Dundee--bonnie in all

save its sin, and its magistracy gone a-begging, and its

hemp-spinners,[*] and the effect of Sandy Riddoch's reign--drinking and

swearing?"

[note *: There is some prevision here which I cannot explain.]

"I was."

"Then down with you to the pit which has no bottom whatsomever."

And Thornton disappears in the hollow not far from where the brick

Cradle stands.

"Stand forth, Fletcher Read."

"Weren't you, sir, art and part in confining in yonder dungeon the poor

unfortunate black lady, whereby she was murdered by that villain of an

uncle of yours, Fletcher of Lindertes?"

"I was."

"Down with you to the pit and the lake of brimstone."

And down he went into the same valley.

"Stand forth, Dudhope."

"Were not you, sir, seen, on the 21st of December of the late dynasty of

time, in the company of one of these denizens of Rougedom in the

Overgate, that disgrace of the last world, for which it has very

properly been burnt up like a scroll of Sandy Riddoch's peculations?"

"I was."

"Then down to the pit."

And Dudhope--even he the representative of Graham of opprobrious

memory--disappeared.

"You're all (cried Maule) like the Lady of Luss's kain eggs, every one

of which fell through the ring into the tub, and didn't count."

And so on with the rest, till there were no more to go down. Yet the

horn sounded again, for Maule was not so drunk that he did not remember

there were any more to come; but then, had he not been singing in Sandy

Morren's, "Death begone, here's none but souls?" The story goes on. The

horn having sounded, there stood forth a figure that did not belong to

this crowd of sinners. It was a woman dressed in dark clothes, with a

black bonnet, and an umbrella in her hand. How the great God can show

his power over the little god, man! The woman was no other than a Mrs.

Geddes of Lochee, who, having got a little too much at the Scouring

Burn, had, on her way home, slipped into the resting-place of her

husband, who had been buried only a week before, and having got drowsy,

had fallen asleep on the flat stone which covered him. In a half dreamy

state she had seen all this terrible mummery--no mummery to her; for she

thought it real: and as every one stood forward by name, she often said

to herself, "When will it be Johnnie's turn, poor man? for he was an

awfu' sinner; I fear the pit's owre guid for him." But Johnnie was not

called. And then she expected her own summons--fell agony of a moment of

the expectation of scorching flames to envelope her body, the flesh of

which, as she pinched herself, had feeling and sensibility. Then if

these great men, whose names she had often heard of, and who, as having

white robes, and riches, and honours, might have expected to get to

heaven, and yet didn't, what was to become of her, who had only dark

garments, and who had been drinking that night at the Scouring Burn?

There was no great wonder that Mrs. Geddes was distressed, yea

miserable; and when she heard the horn sounded and no one went

forward--Johnnie was of course afraid, and was concealing himself--she

stood up with her umbrella in her hand. And Maule, now getting terrified

through the haze of his drunkenness, cried out, "Who are you?"

"Mrs. Geddes, Johnnie Geddes's wife, o' the village o' Lochee, just twa

miles frae that sink o' sin, Bonnie Dundee. I hae been a great sinner. I

kept company wi' Sandy Simpson when Johnnie was living, and came here to

greet owre his grave."

"A woman!" cried Maule; "then to heaven as fast as your wings will carry

you."

And this man, who braved God, shook with terror before a weak woman; and

so did all these brave bacchanals, who, on hearing the horn when no more

remained to be condemned, thought their false God had called them, and

had returned to witness the object of their new-born fear. Hurrying into

the hearse, the party were in a few minutes posting to Dundee in solemn

silence, where they arrived about two o'clock, not to resume their

orgies, but to separate each for his home, with the elements in him of a

sense of retribution, not forgotten for many a day. At the long run the

story finishes, and the chronicler, lifting up his hands to heaven,

cries, "Is there no end, Lord, is there no end to the profanity of man?

Lord, why stayeth the hand of vengeance?"

If guidman Aminadab had known these things--which he couldn't do,

because, like Sir James Colquhoun's last day (of the session), which he

wanted the judges to abolish, this last day (of the world) happened

after the said Aminadab was in the habit of seeking Mrs. M'Pherson's

parlour--he would have had greater deductions from his pleasure; for

Aminadab read his Bible, and belonged to the first Secession. And so it

was better he didn't, especially on that night when Mrs. M'Pherson had

been so extraordinarily condescending to her henchman as to set before

him a fine piece of pork, in recognition of his adherence to the

resolution of leaving the flesh-pots of Egypt--the old Church. It was a

dark night in January. There was a cheerful fire in the neat parlour,

and Janet was communicative, if not chatty, in good English, got in

George's kitchen at Kew.

"I would like all this better," said Aminadab, "if I had not that

churchyard to come through; and then there's that fearful-looking Cradle

in the hollow, with four lums like the stumpt posts of a child's

rocking-bed. What is it, Janet?--it's not a cow-house, nor a henhouse,

but a pure dungeon, fearful to free men, who might shudder to be

confined in it."

"What more?" said Janet. "Do you know anything more, Aminadab?"

"Yes; but I am eating Logie's pork, and don't like to say much."

"Never mind the pork, man; speak out. Do the folks down in the town say

anything, or shake their heads, or point their fingers?"

"Well, they say there's a human being confined in it," replied Aminadab.

"And so they may, for sounds have been heard coming from the dark

hole--ay, and I have heard them myself--deep moans and weeping. I would

like to know if there's a secret."

"Hush, hush, Aminadab. There is a secret, and you're the only man I

would speak of it to."

And Mrs. McPherson rose solemnly and locked the door upon herself and

her henchman.

"You know, Aminadab, that my master came from Bombay some years ago, and

brought home with him a black wife. Dear, good soul--so kind, so timid,

so cheerful too; but, Heaven help me, what could I do?--for you know Mr.

Fletcher is a terrible man. He does not fear the face of clay; and the

scowl upon his face when he is in his moods is terrible. I am bound to

obey."

"But what of her?" said Aminadab. "It's no surely she who is in the

horrid hole?"

"Never you mind that, but eat your bacon, you fool for stopping me. When

I'm stopped, I seldom begin again for a day and night at least."

"Something like your master, Janet."

"No, Aminadab; I have _a heart_, lad."

"That I know, Janet," said Aminadab, with a lump of pork in his mouth;

"and--and--it--is--fat--lass."

"And the easier swallowed," said she

"I meant your heart, Mrs. McPherson.

"And I must swallow that too, as it seems to come up my throat and choke

me, even as the pork seems to do you. Take time, Aminadab. There's no

hurry, man. Ah well, then, we have it all among the servants how Mr.

Fletcher got my lady. He was a great man in Bombay--governor, I think,

or something near that--and my lady was the only daughter of the Nawab

or Nabob of some kingdom near Bombay--I forget the strange Indian name.

She was the very petted child of her father; and when Mr. Fletcher saw

her, she was running about the palace like a wild, playful creature--I

may say, our bonny little roes of the Highland hills, or maybe another

creature she used to speak about, I think they call it gazelle, with

such wonderful eyes for shining, that you cannot look into them no more

you could at the sun. For, oh, Aminadab! they have strange things in

these places, which are much nearer the sun than we are here in this old

country. But the mighty Nabob was unwilling to give her to the

white-faced lover, even though he was the governor of Bombay, forbye

having Balinsloe and Lindertes in Scotland too. Maybe he thought a

Scotsman could not like a black Indian princess, though she was with her

grand shawls about her, and her jewelled turban, and diamonds and

pearls, and all that; and maybe, Aminadab, he thought"--and here Janet

lowered her husky voice--"that it was just for these fine things he

wanted her, rich though he was himself. Yet, strange enough too, the

Nabob had promised the man who should marry his daughter the weight of

herself in fine Indian gold, weighed in a balance, as her tocher. Heard

ye ever the like of a tocher, man?"

"That would depend upon her size and weight, Janet, lass. Now, had you a

tocher like that, it would be a gey business, I think,--fourteen

potato-stones at the very least, I would say, eh?"--and he must get quit

of the mouthful before he could finish--"Eh, Janet?"

"And if you go on at that rate with my pork, you will not, by-and-by, be

much behind me. But, guid faith, Aminadab, I'm not ashamed, lad, of my

size. A poor, smoke-dried, shrivelled cook shames her guid savoury

dishes, intended to fatten mankind and make them jolly. But you are

right about the offer of the Nabob. The creature was small, and light,

and lithe, and could not weigh much. But then, think of the jewels!

These did not depend upon her weight, but upon their own light. Oh, what

diamonds, and rubies, and pearls as big as marbles! I have looked at

them till my eyes reeled with the light of them; and no wonder, when I

have heard them valued at a hundred thousand guineas--and to think of

all that being held in a little box! There is one necklace worth fifteen

thousand itself."

"And yet a small neck, too, maybe?--'And thou shalt make a necklace to

fit her neck,' said the Lord. It would not be half the girth of yours,

Mrs. M'Pherson?"

"Ay, Aminadab; not a half, nor anything like it. But don't stop me

again, lad, or I'll stop the pork. (A pause.) Ah, well, I fear it was

the shining jewels, and not the black face, did the business on my

master's side. And, of course, he would be all smiles at the Nabob's

court; for, Aminadab, my lad, there never was on the face of God's earth

a man who could so soon change the horrid dark scowl into the very light

of sunshine as Mr. Fletcher. I have seen him, when in company with

Kincaldrum, and Dudhope, and Gleneagles, and the rest, laughing till his

face was as red as the sun, then, all of a sudden, when some of his

moods came over him, turn just like a fiend new come out of--oh, I'll

just say it out, Aminadab, though ye be of the Seceders--just hell,

lad."

"But, good mother Janet--"

"Mother your own mother, man, till you be a father, Aminadab. Have I not

told you to let me go on? There's no honour in a mother: that sow you

are eating was the mother six times of thirteen at each litter; and I

think that's about seventy-eight. Mother, forsooth! Ay, and yet you'll

see a beggar wretch, clad in tanterwallops--rags is owre guid a

word--coming to Logie door, and looking as if she had the right to

demand meal from me, merely because she has two at her feet and one in

her arms. Such honourable gaberlunzies get no meal from me. My master

was keen for the match; but the Nabob was shy of the white face. And

here's a curious thing--I got it from my lady herself. She said the

Nabob, her papa, as she called him--for, just like us here, they have

kindly words and real human feelings--made a bargain with my master,

that if he took her away out of India to where the big woman they call

the Company lives, he would be kind to her, and '_treat her as he would

do a child which is rocked in a cradle_.'"

"Better than Naomi's wish," said Aminadab; "'And the Lord grant ye find

rest in the house of thy husband.'"

"That bargain they made him sign with blood drawn just right over his

heart; and the Nabob signed, too, for the weight of gold and the jewels.

Then came the marriage. Such a day had not been witnessed in Bombay for

years, if ever, when a great son of the big woman was to be married to

the daughter of a Nawab. All the great men of Bombay, and the rich

Parsees, she called them, were at the king's court, and the little

princes round about for hundreds of miles, and all the ministers of

Indian state,--for you must know that the marriage was in the English

fashion, as the Nawab thought he could bind the bridegroom best in that

way. Then the grand feast, and such dancing, and deray, and firing of

cannons, and waving of flags, was never seen!"

"'And all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang

again.'"

"Just so, guid auld Burgher lad," rejoined Mrs. M'Pherson.

"They had only been a few months married, when Mr. Fletcher's health

having failed him,--and surely his liver is rotten to this day, if not

his heart too,--he came home with his wife, and bought this bonnie

place. She brought with her a squalling half-and-half thing,--there he's

at the door this moment." By-and-by, "My little prince (she cried), go

to Aditi--Ady, we call her--that's the black ayah my lady brought home

with her."

"That will be another wife, I fancy," said Aminadab. "They have all two

or three wives in the East, haven't they? Guid faith, ane's mair than

eneugh here, if the Nawab's daughter's in her cradle."

"No, no, no, ye fool."

"'And I shall cut off the multitude of No,' Ezekiel thirtieth, fifteen."

"An ayah is a servant; and Ady's a good black soul as ever foolishly

washed her face when there's no occasion for the trouble. And yet these

black creatures are for ever washing themselves. They wash before

breakfast and after breakfast, before dinner and after dinner, before

supper and after supper, but the never a bit whiter they are that ever I

could see."

"Yea, they might save themselves a great deal of trouble," said

Aminadab.

"But they won't," rejoined Janet. "We have been tortured with their

washings. Sometimes, when angry, I say to Ady, Can't you go down to the

_Scouring Burn_?"

"'And wash thyself in the brook Cherith, which is before Jordan.'"

"But she says it's Brahma that bids her--that's their biggest god; and

this Brahma is a trouble to us too. It seems he is everywhere; and Ady

seeks him on Balgay Hill and in the churchyard o' nights, when the

moon's out; thereafter coming in with those eyes of hers like flaming

coals, darting them on us, who don't believe in Brahma, as if we were

the real heathens, and not she and her mistress."

"'And thou shalt not erect a temple to Dagon, but cut him down to the

stumps,'" said Amimadab.

"Hush, hush, man. Our servants are all in terror. They say that Ady is

right, for that they have seen him in about the skirts of Balgay woods,

and down in the hollow of the ravine, moving about like a spirit of

darkness, with something white round his head, and a wide cloak wrapped

about him."

Aminadab had just taken up a large tankard of ale, wherewith he intended

to make a clean sweep of his hearty supper down his throat; but he

paused, laid down the tankard, turned pale, shook, and looked wistfully

into the face of his chieftainess. Nor did he speak a word, because some

idea had probably magnetized his tongue at the wrong end, and the other

would not move.

"Ady says, and so do the servants, that he has no shadow; and we should

think he shouldn't, because our ghosts hereaway have none that ever I

heard of. But that's a lie of their foolish religion; for I could swear

I one night saw his shadow flit like that of a sun-dial, when the sun's

in a hurry to get the curtains round his head, away past the east end of

the house, and disappear in a moment. But I'll tell you what, Aminadab,

he may, like our spirits, be a shadow himself. I could hardly speak for

fear, though five minutes before I had as good a tankard of that

Logie-brewed as you have before you; but I got my tongue through the ale

at the other end o't, and cried out with Zechariah, wherein I was

something like you, Aminadab, 'Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the

land of the north.'"

"That would stump his Dagonship," said Aminadab, with an effort to be

cheerful in spite of the foresaid idea, whatever it was. "Ay," he

continued, after drinking off the tankard, and getting courage and wit

at same time, "a line from the Bible is just like a rifle-shot in the

hinder-end of these false gods. They can't stand it nohow."

"And you've stumpt me," replied the cook, "with the chopping-knife of

your folly, so that I don't know where to find my legs again. It was a

year after he came to Logie before another half-and-half was born--a boy

too; and then there came a change over Mr. Fletcher's mind. There's

something strange about those English that live long in India. I've

noticed it when I was in London, in George's house; but it's all from

the liver," continued the cook. "First grilled upon the ribs, then

cooled with champagne, then healed up with curry, chiles, and ginger. No

wonder the devil gets into the kitchen, where a dish like that is

waiting him. Then they're so proud and selfish, and fond of themselves

and their worthless lives."

"'Skin for skin, yea, all that they have, will they give for their

lives.' So the devil said of him of Uz."

"But you see it's all in the liver," continued the cook. "Aditi came to

me one day, and said, 'De 'Gyptians in India tink body divided into

sixteen parts, with God to each part! he! he! Janette!' and the black

creature laughed. Then I say, the liver of an Englishman, after he comes

from India, is the devil's part; and so it was with Mr. Fletcher. He

began first to interfere with Kalee's religion. 'Oh, terrible, Janette!'

cried Ady, on another day; 'master cut off head of Kartekeya's peacock,

and smashed de tail of Garoora.' On another day, 'Right eye of elephant

head of Ganeso knocked into de skull.' Another day, this time in tears,

weeping awfully, 'Oh, Janette! tail of holy cow clean snapt over de

rump!'"

"All right," said Aminadab of the first Secession. "'And I will cause

their images to cease out of Noph.'"

"Ay, but I am 'wide,'" continued the cook.

"Three feet and a half across the bosom," said Aminadab, who was still

in his reverie, with the secret idea still exercising a power over him,

even after the tankard of ale.

"Wide in my mind and charities, ye fool, man," continued she, not

disinclined this time to laugh; for she was proud of being jolly in the

person. "I felt for poor Kalee. She wept incessantly at the loss of the

cow's tail, and asked me if I had seen it, nay, implored me like a

worshipper to try to recover it for her. I said, God forgive me, that I

had seen it in the dung-pit, and that George had carted it away. 'And

didn't know de value!' cried Ady. 'Worth de necklace of diamonds;' and

both she and Kalee broke out into such a yell as made the house ring.

Yet with all this, Kalee still loved the gloomy man. She would throw her

jewelled arms about his neck, and hang upon him, with her feet off the

ground, so little, light, and lithe. She was so like a sapling, you

could have bent her any way. And when the love was in her heart, and it

was never absent, she was really bonny. Our eyes hereaway are mere

cinders to these glowing churley bits of flaming sulphur; and then that

strange look of the shining face, just as if she yearned to enter into

his very soul,--ay, as the souls of these black creatures go up and form

a part of Brahma's spirit, that's all over the earth."

"All art," cried Aminadab, getting impatient of Janet's

eloquence--eloquence, I say; for Janet was a superior woman, and, though

a cook, a natural genius. "All art. 'And he made her to use

enchantments, and deal with familiar spirits and wizards,'"

"No, no, man, it was all real nature. But it wasna real nature made him

throw the poor black soul away, whose gold and jewels he had bartered

his white, I should say yellow, rotten-livered body for. Ay, if she had

been a man, I would have liked her better than him; for, as I hate the

skin of an old hen when the fat becomes rancid and golden, so do I hate

a yellow-faced man, with the devil sitting gnawing at his liver."

"The reason the devil's so bitter," said Aminadab.

"Ay, if you were to try a beef-steak off his rump or spare-rib, ye'll

find it more like the absynth I use in the kitchen than the flesh of a

capon or three-year old stot."

"Yea, I would be like unto him who was made to 'suck honey out of the

living rock.'"

"The cruel man threw her away from him, just as if her tocher had been

the weight of herself in copper, instead of gold. And oh! it was so

easily done; for the creature was not only, as I have said, light, but

she had such a touchiness when her glancing eye saw that her love was

not returned by him she loved beyond all the earth, that you would have

thought she shrunk all up into a tiny child, couring in the corner of

the big drawing-room, so like a wounded bird."

"Yaw-aw-aw," yawned the Seceder, half asleep. "'And he gave up the ghost

in the room, while he sought his meat to relieve his soul.'"

"Asleep and dreaming," cried Mrs. M'Pherson, who had got into the very

spirit of description. "Away to the Scouring Burn, and never show your

face here again."

But Aminadab soon pacified the wide-souled and wide-bodied cook, who,

being of his own persuasion, really loved the man. Yes, she was a

Seceder from the old faith; and such a Seceder! No wonder there was a

blank among the congregation of mere bodies.

It was now well on to twelve, and Aminadab had that Cradle to pass, and

the kirkyard to get through; all, too, with that idea in his head to

which we have alluded, and which, we may as well tell, was no other than

a vivid recollection of having seen this Brahma on a prior night. He had

discharged the notion at the time as an illusion, though in general he

had little power over his supernatural fears, which were to him not

indeed supernatural, but very natural; so much so, as we have said, that

a mere inanimate and dead, very dead burying-place, had been more than

once the means of cutting him out of a savoury piece of pork, and a good

Logie-brewed tankard. It was the allusion made by Janet that recalled

the suspicion that he had seen "something." Ah, "something!" what a

pregnant vocable--so mysterious, so provocative of curiosity--an

"it!"--of all the words in our language, the most suggestive of a

difference from the real being of flesh and blood, carrying a name got

at the baptismal font, whereby it shall be known and pass current like a

counter. And is it not at best only a counter, yea, a counterfeit? We

are only to each other as signs of things which are not seen; and yet we

laugh when we hear the "it," as if it might not be the very thing of

which we are one of the signs! Is it not thus that we are all humbugged

in this world of ours? For we take the sign for the thing; yea, talk to

the sign, and love it, or hate it, or worship it--all the while being as

ignorant as mules, "ne pictum quidem vidit;" the very sign may be as far

from the reality, as in philosophy we see it every day. And thus, all

wandering and groping in the dark, the blind leading the blind, we

screech like owls at a spark of light from the real fountain beyond

Aldebaran.

And the owls were more busy than pleasant that night in the deep woods

of Balgay Hill. It was a sign that the moon was not kindly to their

heavy eyes. The scene, as Aminadab issued from the postern, might have

been felt as beautiful, from the very awe which it inspired. But

Aminadab was no lover of Nature, especially if he saw in her recesses

any hiding-places for such beings as Brahma, more mysterious to him from

knowing nothing at all about him, except that he was some Ashtoreth, or

Chemosh, or Milcom, in a new form, let loose from hell, to disturb the

pure souls of Seceders destined for heaven. The full moon fell on the

hollow in the hills, surmounted by the dark woods of Balgay right aface

of him, the house of Logie behind, and the declinations on either side,

in one of which lay the little Golgotha. There, in the midst of the

hollow, stood, grim and desolate, the dark brick-built Cradle, casting

its shadow to the south; the four-corner prominences shooting out like

horns, and so unlike the habitation of a human being, yea, unlike any

composition of brick and lime ever reared by the hand of a genius for

house-making. The shadow lay on the grass like those ghastly

sun-pictures so called, yet more like moon-born things; and then the

solemn silence, only relieved to be deepened by the occasional to-hoo!

was oppressive to him, as if a medium for some footsteps to startle him

into superstition. Yet he was drawn towards the horrid dungeon in spite

of his very self. Janet's story would come at last, he thought, to a

termination which would justify his own suspicions. And even there

before him was evidence in the same direction; for having thrown

himself, as if by an effort, into the shade of the dungeon, he could see

beyond its verge, and by, as it were, looking round the corner, the body

of the dark-faced Aditi. She had, no doubt, come stealthily from the

house, and was postured in an attitude far deeper in humiliation and

adjuration than we practise in our land. Her face was covered by her

hands; for, in truth, she could see nothing through these mere

light-permitting slips of a brick's width, wherewith this horrible hole

was supplied, as if by a relaxation of severity in its last stage of

perfect inhumanity. No, nothing could be seen, but something might be

heard; yea, the most piteous moans that ever burst from an oppressed

heart, and yet so soft, so uncomplaining, as if the sufferer found no

fault with aught in the world but herself. Then Aditi's sounds were

something like responses, rising as the internal sounds rose, and as

they died away--a jabbering wail of an Eastern tongue. Aminadab, blunt

though he was, and fonder of pork than poetry, and of scriptural

quotations--which he had always at his tongue's end for conclaves of

weavers--than impassioned sentiments, rising at the inspiring touch of

this strange world's endless and ever-occurring occasions, was

impressed. He looked over the dark abode, up at the moon, then at the

prostrate Ady, and thought of the distance between that prisoner and the

gay palace where she was brought up, with its paradise of flowers, and

aromas, and singing birds of gold and azure--far away, far away. And

then that blood-written oath--oh, so literally fulfilled and obeyed! But

the thought was evanescent from very fear. Nor was his nervousness

unjustified; for, even as he turned his head, he saw a figure wrapped up

in a dark cloak, and surmounted by a white coil of pure linen, as he

thought, emerging from the clump of thick trees that stood on the north

end of the burying-ground. The figure, having run as it were in fear so

far forward, no sooner saw the projecting head of Aminadab, than it

turned and retreated. At the same instant Ady rose, as if disturbed, and

ran to the house. Yet the moaning did not cease. It seemed interminable;

or, if to be terminated by the absence of Ady, the sufferer did not know

she was gone. And oh, these wails!--Aminadab fled and took them along

with him, nor did they ever leave him.

Even when he went to bed they were fresh upon his ear, claiming

precedence to the vision of his eye; though that, too, asserted its

authority as something miraculous--whether the Eastern mystery itself,

or some tutelary genius brought from heaven by the shriek of man's

cruelty. Nor could he rest for the thought that, humble as he was, he

was surely taken there that he might go to the powers of earth to ask

them to aid the powers of heaven. Why, that Cradle had been built within

the limits of civilisation. Even the mason was known: the bricks were

not Egyptian bricks, nor the mortar foreign, nor the wood a tree from

the heart of Africa; and yet, why was it there--nay, why was the use of

it not inquired into? If Jeshurun had waxed fat and kicked against the

Lord of heaven, was there no lord of earth that could tame this

yellow-livered worshipper of Baal, who yet was received among the chiefs

of Israel to drink the pure juice of the grape, and make a god of his

belly, and to sing obscene songs? Even in that house there was riot and

debauchery upon the spoils of that woman, encaged like a beast, and at

the world's end from her natural protectors.

Yea, our good soul Aminadab became bold. He was privileged, if not

called. But then that Brahma--that incarnation of a power confessed by

millions on millions of people possessed of souls, and therefore

something in God's reckonings! It was no illusion. Twice he had seen the

mysterious being. How did he come hither to the Ultima Thule, as it

were, of the known world? Why did he come just at a juncture when the

daughter of a king of his own favoured people was immured in a dungeon,

and calling for his help? Because he must have known that a spark of the

spirit that belonged to him, and would go back to him, was threatened to

be extinguished by power in a land owing no obedience to him. But didn't

that same moon shine on the children of Brahma as well as on the

children of Christ? and were there no powers in heaven but what we

confessed? How philosophical all this in a Scouring Burn weaver in

hysterics! Yet there are greater men than Aminadab who could not explain

such things. Ah, well; to the honour of poor Aminadab, it was for once

not pork he sought at Logie House. Next night at ten he was in the

parlour; but how did he get there, and Brahma in these very woods?

Aminadab very probably could not have told himself; yet there he was.

"Come again so soon, Aminadab?"

"Ay," replied he. "'Though a man may fall, he may be raised up again.' I

stumbled in front of my friend, but she will not kick me; yea, she will

lift me up."

"Be silent," she said. "You were seen last night near the Cradle, where

no one dare approach. None of the servants go there save me; and even

Ady, if she goes, it is by stealth. Ah, you know something now; but

there's one thing you don't know, and that is, that rich men can pay

watchers to discover those who search into their iniquities."

"Whatever I know," said Aminadab, "I am ignorant of this: why that

dungeon, containing a human being, can keep its place at the distance of

a mile from a town with 30,000 inhabitants."

"But they don't know it, lad. Be you quiet, and pick that leg of a

chicken; that is better than the knowledge that kills. There is not one

of the magistrates would dare to touch a hair on Mr. Fletcher's head,

no, for all that lies in the power of Brahma."

"But why do you keep the secret? 'The steps of a good woman are ordered

by the Lord;' but does He order you to step to the Cradle?"

"I do it for good," said she, "because I can soften griefs that are

unbearable; and cooks have something in their power. But if I were to

say a word to Fletcher, I would be turned away, and another might treat

the prisoner worse."

"But why would not the powers interfere?"

"Because bailies love a dinner and fine wines; and it is easier to wink

than think, and easier to think than get themselves out of trouble by

acting on their thoughts. Will that satisfy you? It is a strange

business; but the world's a strange place, and strange men and women

live therein. Meat and drink and honour are better than wisdom. Look to

your plate, Aminadab. Oh! I wish I knew less; but I saw what was coming

when I saw George Cameron begin to build what he said was to be like a

cradle. Did I not recollect what Kalee told me about the blood-bond? Did

we not all witness the growing gloom gathering day by day over his face?

Then separate beds. Then no more companionship, out or in. The gloom for

ever, and the tears of Kalee for ever and ever, and the terror and

anguish of poor soul Aditi! Ah! yes; but he never struck her, never

upbraided her; and at length she shrunk from him as if from a serpent.

And this he could not bear: it made his dun-yellow black, Aminadab!

Then, when the Cradle was finished, and a truckle and a table and a

chair were put in, he called me to him, and said, with a horrid smile on

his face, 'M'Pherson, you are a Highlander, and staunch to your master.

I am true to my word. Yes, I signed a bond, when I married Kalee, that I

would treat her as a father would a child whom he rocked in a cradle. I

have obeyed. Kalee goes into the Cradle to-night. You are to give her

child's food; but you cannot rock the Cradle. Let the winds which drive

in past Balgay woods do that if they can. My honour is pure. Swear to

obey me.'

"I could not say no, and look on that face. Kalee has been in that

dungeon, fed by me, and has never seen her children for a whole year."

"The vengeance of the Lord hangeth over the wicked by a burnt thread,"

said Aminadab.

"Yes, who was to know that her own protector, even the great spirit of

her land, was to come here to help her? He was seen last night again! He

wanders about and about--flits hither and thither. He needs no rest--no

food. He is independent of rain, and wind, and thunder, and storms."

"But he does not help her," said Aminadab.

"His time is coming. Kalee is dying."

"Dying!"

"Ay, dying. Then Brahma will claim that which is a part of himself, and

then will be the time of his return to his chosen people."

"Horrible!" ejaculated Aminadab. The chicken stood untasted. "Does Mr.

Fletcher know this?"

"Why, to be sure, haven't I told him? But may not a child die in its own

cradle, and the father continue feasting with the lords and the lairds,

drinking and swearing, and debauching, when he knows that his honour is

discharged,--ay, and the blood-bond paid?"

"And the body, when she dies--"

"Will be in Logie burying-ground; ay, and strange people from the East,

a long way beyond where our sun rises, with black faces and bleeding

hearts, will come and bend over the little grave, and weep for the

daughter of their prince. Ah! Aminadab, grief makes a learned woman of

me, a poor servant; but I cannot save Kalee, none can save her now.

Consumption has set in; and bad air, and a rejected love, and a mother's

yearning will do the work. I was with her now with my cruse--all alone

with her; for no one dare approach. She knows she's dying. She asked for

the children--

"'Will you not let me see my boys?'

"I shook my head.

"'And will Fletcher not see me before I die, to receive my last kiss?'

"I shook my head.

"'And Aditi, who will return to my father's palace, is she to be kept

from me to the end?'

"I shook my head."

"And will no one watch?" said Aminadab.

"Yes, I will watch all night; but it will be unknown to Fletcher. No one

can speak to him now. He goes hither and thither. He has no rest yet;

the gloom is deeper than ever."

"Horrible mystery!" again ejaculated Aminadab. "But 'the wicked shall

perish; they shall consume into smoke, they shall consume away.'"

Occasions make heroes of very ordinary men; and Aminadab felt that he

could be one of these worthies that night. He soon left after these

words of Janet; but he was now more upon his guard against watchers.

Perhaps Janet had mentioned them to induce him to avoid too minute an

examination where there was danger of another kind; and this rather

encouraged him. The only fault of his heroism was the strange feelings

which arose in his mind when he thought of the Indian spirit. Somehow

this vision could not be got rid of, or analyzed by the small philosophy

he had. As for Fletcher, he viewed him merely as a human monster,--no

uncommon phenomenon at a time when, although there might not be any

greater evil than now, men were more reckless of consequences, more dead

to shame, less under the control of public opinion, probably not less

under the fear of God. He cleared the wicket. It was again a bright

moonlight night. He passed again the Cradle, and was bold enough to

listen again. Alas! the wail was weaker, the bright lamp of these eyes

was fast losing its oil. So he thought; for he could hear only now and

then a very inaudible sob, and occasionally a very weak wail, shrill and

yet low. He could not stay, for Janet would be coming stealthily with

her cruse,--yes, her cruse; for, so far as he could see by the narrow

slips, all was darkness around the dying stranger, in a proud land of

liberty and humanity--the proudest seen on the face of the earth, or

perhaps ever will be seen; yet by-and-by to have more reason to be

proud--by-and-by, when Kalee would be asleep in the bosom of Brahma, her

body only the monument of the shams of that proud land of liberty and

humanity, and the true religion of God's covenant from the beginning.

Retreating quickly, he proceeded over the green hollow, and got into the

skirt of Balgay wood. There he stood patiently, still fearful, but with

the new-born zeal of curiosity and sympathy. By-and-by he saw Janet come

out with her cruse, and walk as lightly as her huge body would permit.

She looked round and round, as if in great fear of Fletcher, probably of

the Indian spirit; for it was clear she had a conviction of the truth of

the real presence of Brahma. All is still; no Fletcher seen, nor watch.

But in about half an hour the dark Aditi came trotting out, clothed in

pure white, looking also fearfully about her; but it was more clear that

she expected some one. Stranger still, she made for the very spot where

Aminadab was watching. He studied her direction to the breadth of a

line, and stepped aside. There was plenty of foliage and some thick

bushes. He threw himself down on the ground, and heard the sighing of

Ady as if almost close to him. By-and-by she was joined by the

mystery--yes, that being who had so long been the terror of Logie House

to all but the master, who knew nothing of him. He was there; but

Aminadab could not see more of him than his head, which was, as usual,

enveloped in the same white cloth. He heard their conversation, of which

not a word could he understand. But oh, that natural language of the

heart, which is the same in all lands, and will be the same in

heaven--those quick utterances, deep sighs, shakings of the frame as if

the beings were convulsed! It seemed to be the last meeting; it was so

eloquent of heart loves, so mysterious in religious aspirations. But

here occurred a strange incident. Even at the distance where they were,

a loud, shrill scream was heard, as if the last of expiring human

nature. How it shook these two, till the very leaves rustled, and the

night-hawks and owls screamed their terrible discord! All was still

again. The male ran, as if moved by the frenzy of a dervish, forward

towards the Cradle; then, as he saw the door half open, retreated.

Aminadab could make nothing of the figure, beyond the conviction that it

was the same he had seen by fitful glimpses before. It was altogether

indescribable, unlike anything he had ever seen or read of. On his

return, Ady met him and caught him in her arms, as if to lead him back

to the wood. Yet he was fitful, anxious, and flighty, as if he knew not

where to go, or what to do. Again the rapid whisperings, so sharp and

intense as sometimes to appear like hissing of strange foreign

creatures. It seemed as if his soul was on fire, and urged him he knew

not whither. At that instant the door of the Cradle opened altogether,

and Janet came out with the light. Ady darted forward like a moonbeam in

the midst of another moonbeam, and seen by its superior whiteness. An

instant served for some communication between her and Janet. Then a

shrill scream from Ady, a running hither and thither on the part of the

male figure, and at length, darting into the wood, he disappeared.

Aminadab now saw Janet go into the house. Was all over? Aminadab could

not tell. Ady still hung round the Cradle. She even circled it like a

hovering ghost. At length she neared the door. The key had been left,

and she entered.

Now was Aminadab's time. He rushed forward, opened the door, and entered

the dungeon. A terrible sight met his eyes--sight! yes; even in the

comparative darkness, there was enough in the small glimmer of moonlight

entering by one of the holes to carry objects to eyes that would have

pierced the deepest gloom. There is said to be no darkness in the world

sufficient to conceal objects entirely; but here there was, in addition

to the attenuated beam, the white dress of Ady, and the bed where Kalee

lay. Janet had described it, and the table and the chair: what more than

the bare walls was there to describe? Nothing. On that bed, covered by a

thin white cloth, lay this Indian princess dead, with Ady hanging over

her, and pulling at her, and offering to her blank eyes, once like

diamonds, a small figure of an Indian god. Then the groans and

suppressed shrieks of the faithful soul, as she still pulled and shook

the corpse, as if she could get from it one last look directed to the

wooden figure. Too late! Kalee had died, not only away from her people,

but away from the gods of her people. All of a sudden the ayah ceased

her endeavours, and directed her eagle eye, suffused with tears, up to

the roof. Quick words followed the look. Aminadab could not understand

them, but the motions and aspirations convinced him that she cried,

"There, there, Brahma; there she goes, to be of thy eternal and infinite

soul, from which she came, and to which she flies."

Then, suddenly, she rushed out of the dungeon. Aminadab looked after

her. She did not go to Logie House, but in the direction of the wood,

whither the indescribable figure had gone. Aminadab heard no more,

scarcely saw more, if it was not the corpse lying before him. He was

afraid of Janet, more of Fletcher, who might now at length come to pass

his eyes over the body in the Cradle, where he was to cherish her as a

father cherisheth his child; yet he would look, and look again. How

shrivelled that face of darkness, yet how calm and loving-like; as if,

even in the midst of the agony of the last hour, it smiled love to her

destroyer!

By-and-by a light again approached. It was Janet with a white sheet.

"You here! Good heavens! Away, away! Fletcher is to look at her; yes, he

is to look at her in the cradle he promised her. Away! no more."

"I saw Brahma," said Aminadab; "yes, true Brahma, Brahma!"

"Fool, fool! Man, I only told you it was Brahma to keep you from the

Cradle for your own safety."

"Then who was the strange being?"

"I dare not tell you that; but I fear Ady's away with him, without hat,

or cloak, or box, or supper."

"To where?"

"Nor that, lad. But I fear you will hear more of this Scotch tragedy

some day. Get you gone; there is Fletcher."

Aminadab obeyed.

And Fletcher did see her. Some time after the departure of Aminadab he

crossed the green. It seemed that night he had refrained from company,

not through penitence, or any motive that man could divine in the nature

of the man. Strangely-formed beings do things which do not seem to

belong to their natures or to human nature, and it is this that makes

them strange. Before he entered this, not, alas! Domdaniel, he called

Janet to the door. He wanted to be alone. She gave him the cruse; and

with the old gloom upon his face, perhaps he wanted to test his courage.

It could not be that he wanted to look once more on the face of the

mother of his children; nor that he felt now that there had been one in

the world who really did love him, as few women have ever loved. Then

man measures woman's love by his own; but when was man's heart stirred

by nature's strongest passion like that of devoted woman? while now the

world did not contain one heart that was moved to him by anything

stronger than dithyrambic delirium. Who knows? But there was Fletcher

looking on the corpse of his wife, and waving over her face the light of

the small cruse he held in his hand! Was he moved, as he saw the still,

death-bound features, that once could not contain the expression which

the leaping heart, with that burning fire in it of that land of the sun,

tried in vain to force into it; the eye, too, that flashed and leapt as

never is seen in our country of humid fogs, stifling the inborn heat and

blearing the vision; and those arms that entwined him so as the vine

holds the olive in its grasp, as if it would give the juice which fires

and inebriates, for the oil that calms, and fattens, and sustains? All

over that lithe body which enabled her, when he saw her first in the

land of her fathers, to bound and flee as if she had wings, and these

beautiful as the monaul's, ay, and enabled her, too, to play round him

in that Eastern gaiety which had charmed him, if he ever loved her, and

even for a time made his home like Fairydom! Who shall say there was no

movement in his stern features, no moisture in his eye, no trembling of

the lip, no tremor of the body, as he might have read the last effort of

nature in the expression of calm forgiveness or continued affection? Who

could read _him_?

At midnight, two days after, Kalee slept in Logie kirkyard. There is no

stone to point out the grave of the Indian princess, who lies--as

becomes, too, in our boasted land of liberty, entitled to her boast in

an equality at length, which even pride cannot deny--among the humble

artisans and cottars of Lochee. Did Fletcher Read, on that after day,

when Panmure blew the white iron trump, not expect to see Kalee rise up

and seek judgment on the house of Logie? The blood was hereditary, and

the heart that is fed by the blood, and which impels it.

If it had not been that Aminadab married the portly Janet, we might have

heard no more of the fortunes of this man. But how true Aminadab's

quotation, that God's vengeance never sleeps! Where, in all the scathed

corpses of heaven's lightning, was there ever one that told its tale

like that of Fletcher of Balinsloe, Lindertes, and Logie? He was

recalled to India again.

"Ay, Aminadab, he was forced to go by the Government; but maybe the

Government was only like a thing that is moved by the storm, and cuts in

twain, where its own silly power could do nothing. Before he went, he

married a beautiful little woman,[*] perhaps the most spirited in the

shire, white as Kalee was black, and come, too, of gentle blood. Why did

she marry this man? Had she not heard of the fate of Kalee? Had she not

seen the Cradle (still standing in the hollow of the hill)? No doubt;

but woman will go through worse storms than man's passion to get to the

goal of wealth and honour. Then there is a frenzy in woman, Aminadab.

She is like the boys, who seek danger for its own sake, and will skim on

skates the rim of the black pool that descends from the film of ice down

to the bubbling well of death below. Women have an ambition to tame wild

men; ay, even wild men have a charm for them, which the tame sons of

prudence and industry cannot inspire. So it was: they were married, and

he took her to India."

[note *: Afterwards, as I have heard, the wife of Milne of

Milneford. She lived till nearly a hundred.]

"'So the Lord did lead him; and there was no strange god with them.'"

"Ay, but there was a God _before_ him, lad."

"What mean you, Janet?"

"Do you not recollect of Brahma?"

"Do not mention that strange figure, Janet. My blood runs cold."

Janet laughed.

"Runs cold, lad, at what? Brahma was just one of the Nawab's great men,

whom he sent over here to watch the fate of his daughter. Why, man, he

lodged next door to you, with Mrs. Lyon at the Scouring Burn."

"The black man the boys used to run after?"

"The very same. He returned with Ady, and was at the court of the Nawab

and told all, ay, and more than we knew--that Fletcher would be obliged

to visit Bombay again ere long after. He had got this from some of the

authorities in England. For many a day did the prince weep for his

Kalee; for many a day did he watch for the murderer's arrival, ay, as a

tiger of his jungles watches in the night with fiery eyes for a beast

even more cruel than himself. He had even all the coast of Coromandel, I

think they call it, to give intelligence of the vessel. The very name of

the vessel was known; the very paint of its sides, and the flag it

bore--so well had he kept up his knowledge of what was going on in

England."

"Wonderful!" cried Aminadab. "'And the fowler that did slay, falleth

into his own net.'"

"And a terrible net, with meshes of sharp steel to hold and cut."

"Ah!" cried Aminadab, as he rubbed his hands, and chuckled like a big

boy who sees the porridge boiling.

"You may well be anxious, lad; but you'll have more than you want."

"No, unless he is put into a fiery pit and burnt to a cinder, or into a

den of tigers, or a nest of hooded snakes, or--"

"Peace, lad; better than all. But surely we are forgetting that we are

Christians, that we have seen the new light of grace, Aminadab."

"Ay, true. Mercy pertaineth to the Lord. We belong to the furnace which

trieth gold; not to the refining-pot of the Old Church, which is for

silver."

"Ah, well! God's judgment was soon executed. The ship was recognised and

hailed long before she arrived at Bombay. A crowd of black devils

boarded her, seized Fletcher, and dragged him on shore. Not an instant

was lost. Trial was a laughter. They danced round in joy, making the

very Brahma hear their orgies. Four horses, ropes, victim between two

and two, whip, yell, and Fletcher is in four quarters.

"Nor did they end here. They had forgotten the white wife. She

too--justice demanded it. They did not ask why; but the sailors had

suspected what was going on; and when they saw the devils coming back,

they put Mrs. Fletcher into a big basket, and hoisted her to the

top-mast. The poor woman could see from that height the mangled remains

of her husband; but she was an extraordinary woman. She kept her place

composedly as she heard the yells of the demons. They could not find

her, and went away like wild animals deprived of their bloody prey. The

ship went on. Mrs. Fletcher returned safe to Scotland, where she was

known as the heroine who had gone through so much for the love of a

villain."

The story of Fletcher has died away in Angus; but at one time it was in

every mouth, and many a head was shaken as the Sunday loiterers from

Dundee and Lochee passed by the Cradle in their walks on Balgay Hill. I

have heard that it was demolished as a disgrace to Scotland somewhere

about 1810 or 1812. The hollow where the ruins stood is quite visible

yet, and the old circumambulating ghost, which, by-the-bye, has

unfortunately a white face, is not yet laid.