CHAPTER IV.

Mrs Holditch (the wife of old Jonathan) was wandering up the lane in

quest of her husband, wondering at the length of his absence, and

fretting for his return; for "the sweet lady," as she termed Helen,

"would not take breakfast without them." She had proceeded about half a

mile from the cottage, when she was met by none other than Laird Howison

of Primrose Hall, and the following dialogue took place:--

"Will ye hae the kindness to inform me, ma'am, if the person that used

to keep the gate of Sir John Blackett lives ony way aboot here?"

"He does, sir," replied she, with low obeisance.

"And, oh!" interrupted he, earnestly, "know ye if there be a young leddy

frae Scotland stopping there at present--for I have heard that there is?

Ye'll no think me inquisitive, ma'am; for really if ye kenned what

motive I hae for asking, ye would think it motive enough."

"There be, your honour," returned she, "and a dear excellent young lady

she is."

"Oh! if it be her that I mean," said he, "that she is _dear_, indeed, I

have owre guid reason to ken, and her excellence is written on every

line o' her beautiful countenance. But, if I'm no detaining ye, ma'am,

may I just ask her name?"

"She bade us call her Helen, sir," replied she; "we know no other."

"Yes! yes!" cried he, "it's just Helen!--Helen, and nothing else to me!

Mony a time has that name been offered up wi' my prayers. But I thought,

ma'am, ye said she bade _you_ call her Helen."

"Yes, your honour," said she; "I be the wife of old Jonathan Holditch,

and she be staying with us now."

"Bless you!" he exclaimed, "for the shelter which yer roof has afforded

to the head o' an orphan. But, oh! what like is _your_ Helen? Is her

neck whiter than the drifted snaw? Does her hair fa' in gowden ringlets,

like the clouds that curl round the brows o' the setting sun? Is her

form delicate as the willow, but stately as the young pine? Is her

countenance beautiful as the light o' laughing day, when it chases

sickness and darkness together from the chamber o' the invalid? If she

isna a' this--if her voice isna sweeter than the sough o' music on a

river--dear and excellent she may be, and they may call her Helen--but,

oh! she isna my _Helen_!--for there is none in the world like unto

_mine_. But, no! no!--she is _not mine now_! O Helen, woman! did I

expect this? Excuse me, ma'am, ye'll think my conduct strange; but, when

my poor seared-up heart thinks o' past enjoyment, it makes me forget

mysel'. Do you think your Helen is the same that I hae come to seek?"

"A sweeter and a lovelier lady," said she, "never called Christian man

father. She had business at Winburn Priory; but my husband says she was

driven away from the gate like a dog."

"It is her!" exclaimed he, "and she's no been at the Priory, then?"

"No, sir," returned she.

"Nor seen ony o' the Blackett family?" added he, eagerly.

"No, sir; for there be none of them in the neighbourhood," answered she.

"What's this I hear!" cried he:--"Gracious! if I may again hope!--and

why for no? But how is it that she is stopping wi' you?--wherefore did

she not return to the home where she has been cherished from infancy,

and where she will aye be welcome. Has Helen forgot me a'thegither?"

"Alas, sir!" said she; "it was partly grief, I believe, that brought on

a bad fever, and I had fears the sweet, patient creature would have died

in my hands. I sat by her bedside, watching night after night; and, oh!

sir, I daresay as how it was about you that she sometimes talked, and

wept, and laughed, and talked again, poor thing."

"And did _ye_," he inquired, fumbling with, a pocket book; "did _ye_

watch owre her? I'm your debtor for that. And ye think she spoke about

_me_--my name's Howison, ma'am--Thomas Howison of Primrose Hall, in the

county o' Dumfries. She would, maybe, call me _Thomas_!"

"Mr Howison!" replied the old woman: "yes, your honour, she often

mentioned such a name--very often."

"Did she really," added he; "did she mention me?--and often spoke about

me--often? Then she's no forgotten me a'thegither!"

He thrust a bank-note into the hands of Mrs Holditch, which she refused

to accept, saying that "the dear lady had more than paid her for all

that she had done already." But, while she spoke, they had arrived

within sight of the cottage, and he suddenly bounded forward,

exclaiming--"Oh! haud my heart!" as he beheld Helen, sitting looking

from the window--"yonder she is! yonder she is! O Helen! Helen!" he

cried, rushing towards the door--"wherefore did ye leave me?--why hae ye

forsaken me? But, joy o' my heart, I winna upbraid ye; for I hae found

ye again."

With an agitated step, she advanced to meet him--she extended her hand

towards him--she faltered--"My kind, kind benefactor."

He heard the words she uttered--with a glance he beheld the

marriage-ring upon her finger--he stood still in the midst of his

transport--his outstretched arms fell motionless by his side--"O Helen,

woman!" he cried in agony, "do ye really say _benefactor_?--that isna

the word I wish to hear frae ye. Ye never ca'ed me _benefactor_ before!"

The few words spoken by the old woman had called up his buried hopes;

but the word _benefactor_ had again whelmed him in despair.

"Oh!" he continued, dashing away the tears from his eyes, "my poor mind

is flung away upon a whirlwind, and my brain is the sport o' every

shadow! O Helen! I thought ye had forgotten me!"

"Forgotten you, my kind dear friend!" said she; "I have not, I will not,

I cannot forget you; and wherefore would you forget that I can only

remember you as a friend?"

"Poor, miserable, and deluded being that I am," added he; "I expected,

from what the mistress o' this house told me, that I wouldna be welcomed

by the cauldrife names o' _friend_ or _benefactor_. Do ye mind since ye

used to call me _Thomas_?"

"Mr Howison," answered she, "I know this visit has been made in

kindness--let me believe in parental anxiety. You have not now to learn

that I am a wife, and you can have heard nothing here to lead you to

think otherwise. I will not pretend to misunderstand your language. But

by what name can I call you save that of friend?--it was the first and

the only one by which I have ever known you."

"No, Helen," cried he, wringing her hand; "there was a time when ye only

said _Thomas!_ and the sound o' that ae word frae yer lips was a waff o'

music, which echoed, like the vibrations o' an angel's harp, about my

heart for hours and for hours!"

"If," added she, "from having been taught by you to call you by that

name in childhood, when I regarded you as my guardian, and you

condescended to be my playmate, will you upbraid me with ceasing to use

it now, when respect to you and to myself demand the use of another? Or

can you, by any act of mine, place another meaning upon my having used

it, than obedience to your wishes, and the familiarity of a thoughtless

girl? And, knowing this, is it possible that the best of men will heap

sorrow upon sorrow on the head of a friendless and afflicted woman?"

"Oh, dinna say friendless, Helen," cried he; "friendless ye canna be

while I am in existence. Ye hae torn the scales from my eyes, and the

first use o' sicht has been to show me that the past has been delusion,

and that the future is misery, solitary madness, or despair! And hae I

really a' this time mistaen sweetness for love, and familiarity for

affection? Do ye really say that it was only familiarity, Helen?"

"The feelings of a sister for a brother," she answered; "of a daughter

for a father."

"True," said he; "I see it now; I was, indeed, older than your father--I

didna recollect that."

He sat thoughtful for a few minutes, when Helen, to change the subject,

inquired after her old nurse, Janet White.

"Poor body," said he, raising his head, "her spirits are clean gone. I

understand she sits mourning for you by the fire, cowering thegither

like a pigeon that's lost its mate, or a ewe whose lamb has been struck

dead by its side. It would wring tears from a heart o' stane to hear her

lamenting, morning, noon, and night, for her 'dear bairn,' as she aye

ca'ed ye--rocking her head and chirming owre her sorrow, like a hen bird

owre its rifled nest. I had her owre at the Hall the day after I cam

back frae London, and just afore I cam here to seek for ye. But there is

naething aboot it that she taks delight in noo. And, when I strove to

amuse her, by taking her through the garden and plantations, (though I

stood mair in need o' comfort mysel'), she would stand still and lean

her head against a tree, in the very middle o' some o' the bonniest

spots, while a tear came rowing down her cheeks, and look in my face wi'

such a sorrowfu' expression, that a thousand arrows, entering my breast

at ance, couldna hae caused me mair agony. I felt that I was a puir,

solitary, and despised being, only cast into the midst o' a paradise,

that my comfortless bosom might appear the blacker and the more dismal.

The puir auld body saw what was passing within me, and she shook her

head, saying, 'Oh, sir! had I seen ye leading my bairn down thir bonny

avenues as your wife, Janet White would have been a happy woman.' Then

she wrung her withered hands, and the tears hailed down her cheeks

faster and faster; while I hadna a word o' consolation to say to her,

had it been to save my life. For the very chirping o' the birds grew

irksome, and the young leaves and the silky flowers painful to look

upon. O Helen! if ye only kenned what we a' suffer on yer account! If ye

only kenned what it is to have hope spired up, and affection preying

upon your ain heart for nourishment, ye wadna be angry at onything I

say."

"Think not it is possible," she replied, while her tears flowed faster

than her words; "but wherefore feed a hopeless passion, the indulgence

of which is now criminal?"

"Oh! forgie ye!" he exclaimed, vehemently; "dinna say that, Helen!

Hopeless it may be, but not _criminal_! That is the only cruel word I

ever heard frae yer lips! I didna think onybody would hae said that to

me! Did you really say _criminal_? But, oh! as matters stand, if ye'd

only alloo me to say anither word or twa anent the subject, and if ye

wadna just crush me as a moth, and tak pleasure in my agonies--or hae me

to perish wi' the sunless desolation o' my ain breast--ye'll alloo me to

say them. They relate to my last consolation--the last tie that links me

and the world together!"

"Speak," said Helen; "let not me be the cause of misery I can have power

to prevent."

"Oh, then!" replied he, "be not angry at what I'm going to say; and

mind, that, on your answer depends the future happiness or misery o' a

fellow-being. Yes, Helen! upon your word depends life and hope--madness

and misery; I say life and hope--for, if ye destroy the one, the other

winna hand lang oot; and I say madness--for, oh! if ye had been a

witness o' the wild and the melancholy days and nights that I hae

passed since I learned that ye had left me, and felt my heart burning

and beating, and my brain loup, louping for ever, like a living

substance, and shooting and stinging through my head, like stings o'

fire, till I neither kenned whar I was, nor what I did; but stood still,

or rushed out in agony, and screamed to the wind, or gripped at the echo

o' my voice!--I say, if ye had seen this, ye wadna think it strange that

I made use o' the words. And, now, as ye have heard nothing from----from

Henry Blackett, from the night that the ceremony o' marriage was

performed--and if ye should hear nothing o' him for seven years to come,

ye will then, ye ken, be at liberty--and will ye say that I may hope,

then? O Helen, woman! say but the word, and I'll wait the seven years,

as Jacob did for Rachel, and count them but a day if my Helen will bless

me wi' a smile o' hope!"

As he thus spoke, Mrs Holditch bustled into the room, exclaiming--"O

sweet lady, here be one coming thee knows--see! see! there be my

husband, and our own dear young master Henry, come to make us happy

again!"

"My Henry!" exclaimed Helen, springing towards the door--"where--oh,

where?".

"Here, my beloved! here!" replied Henry, meeting her on the threshold.

Poor Laird Howison stood dumb, his mouth open, his eyes extended,

staring on vacancy. He beheld the object of his delirious love sink into

her husband's arms, and saw no more. He clasped his hands together, and,

with a deep groan, reeled against the wall. Henry and Helen, in the

ecstasy of meeting each other, were unconscious of all around, and

Willie Galloway was the first to observe his countryman.

"Preserve us! you here, too, Mr Howison!" said he. But the features of

the laird remained rivetted in agony, and betrayed no symptom of

recognition. The mention of the laird's name by Willie, arrested the

attention of Henry, and approaching him, he said--"Sir, to you I ought

to offer an apology."

The unhappy man wildly grasped the hand of Henry, and seizing also

Helen's, he exclaimed--"It is a' owre now! The chain is forged, and the

iron is round my soul. But I bless you baith. Tak her! tak her!--and

hear me, Henry Blackett--as ye would escape wrath and judgment, be kind

to her as the westlin' winds and the morning dews to the leaves o'

spring. Let it be your part to clothe her countenance wi' smiles and her

bosom wi' joy! Fareweel, Helen!--look up!--let me, for the last time,

look upon your face, and I will carry that look upon my memory to the

grave!"

She gazed upon him wildly, crying--"Stay!--stay!--you must not leave

us!"

"Now!--now, it is past!" he cried; "it was a sair struggle, but reason

mastered it! Fareweel, Helen!--fareweel!"

Thus saying, he rushed out of the house, and Willie Galloway followed

him; but, although fleet of foot, he was compelled to give up the

pursuit.

A few minutes after the abrupt and wild departure of the laird, and

before Helen had recovered from the shock, the ruffians, who, at the

instigation of Norton, had hunted after Henry to deliver him up to the

government, and from whom he had already twice escaped, rushed into the

room, exclaiming--"Secure the traitor!"

Henry sprang back to defend himself, and Willie Galloway, who had

returned, threw himself into a pugilistic attitude. But Helen, stepping

between her husband and his pursuers, drew a paper from her bosom, and

placing it in his hands, said--"My Henry is free! he is pardoned!--the

king hath signed it!--laugh at the bloodhounds!" And, as she spoke, she

sank upon his breast. He opened the paper; it was his pardon under the

royal signature and the royal seal! "My own!--my wife!--my wife!" cried

Henry, pressing her to his heart, and weeping on her neck.

"That crowns a'!" exclaimed Willie Galloway; "O Helen!--what a lassie ye

are!"

The ruffians slunk from the room in confusion, and Willie informed them

that the sooner they were out of sight it would be the better for them.

Helen, on leaving Scotland, had proceeded to London, where, through the

interest of a friend of Laird Howison's, she gained access to the Duke

of Cumberland, and throwing herself at his feet, had, through him,

obtained her husband's pardon, and that pardon she had carried next her

bosom to his father's house, hoping to find him there.

* * * * *

Having divided this tale into chapters, we now come to the

CONCLUSION.

Henry being now pardoned, Willie Galloway advised that he should take

his wife to his father's house, and remain there, adding--"Mind ye,

Maister Henry, that possession is nine points o' law--and if ye be in

want o' the matter o' five hundred pounds for present use, or for mair

to prove your birthright at law, I am the man that will advance it, and

that will leave no stone unturned till I see you righted."

Willie's suggestion was acted upon; and Henry and Helen took up their

abode in the Priory, where they had been but a few weeks, when he

obtained information that his father had fallen in a duel, and that his

adversary was none other than Squire Norton, the father of his then

wife; but with his dying breath he declared, in the presence of his

seconds, and invoked them to record it, that his injured son Henry was

his only and lawful heir.

"That," exclaimed Norton, with a savage laugh over his dying antagonist,

"it will cost him some trouble to prove!"

The murderer, in the name of a child which his daughter had borne to Sir

John, had the hardihood to enter legal proceedings to obtain the estate.

Henry applied to the parish of Glencleugh for the register of his

mother's marriage; but no such record was found. Old Dugald Mackay had a

dreamy recollection of such a marriage taking place; but he said--"It pe

very strange that it isna in te pook; hur canna swear to it."

Many thought that the day would be given against Henry, and pitied him;

but before judgment was pronounced in the case, young Norton was found

guilty of forgery, and condemned to undergo the just severity of the

law. Previous to his ignominious death, in the presence of witnesses, he

confessed the injury he had done to Henry by tearing the leaves from the

parish register, and directed where they might be found. They were

found--old Norton fled from the country, and Henry obtained undisputed

possession of the estate; but on his father's widow and child he settled

a competency.

Laird Howison's sorrow moderated as his years increased; and when Henry

and Helen had children, and when they had grown up to run about, he

requested that they should be sent to him every year, to pull the

primroses around Primrose Hall; and they were sent. One of them, a girl,

the image of her mother, he often wept over, and said, he hoped to live

to love her, as he had loved her mother. Willie Galloway often visited

his friends in Cheshire, and remained "canny Willie" to the end of the

chapter.

THE BRIDE OF BRAMBLEHAUGH.[1]

It has been stated by the greatest critics the world ever saw--whose

names we would mention, if we did not wish to avoid interfering with the

simplicity of our humble annals--that no fictitious character ought to

be made at once virtuous and unfortunate; and the reason given for it is

that mankind, having a natural tendency to a belief of an adjustment,

even in this world, of the claims of virtue and the deserts of vice, are

displeased with a representation which at once overturns this belief,

and creates dissatisfaction with the ways of Providence. This may be

very good criticism, and we have no wish to find fault with it as

applied to works intended to produce a certain effect on the minds of

readers; but, so long as Nature and Providence work with machinery whose

secret springs are hid from our view, and evince--doubtless for wise

purposes--a disregard of the adjustment of rewards and punishments for

virtue and vice, we shall not want a higher authority than critics for

exhibiting things as they are, and portraying on the page of truth, wet

with unavailing tears, goodness that went to the grave, not only

unrewarded, but struck down with griefs that should have dried the heart

and grizzled the hairs of the wicked.

In a little haugh that runs parallel to the Tweed--at a part of its

course not far from Peebles, and through which there creeps, over a bed

of white pebbles, a little burn, whose voice is so small, except at

certain places where a larger stone raises its "sweet anger" to the

height of a tiny "buller," that the lowest note of the goldfinch drowns

it and charms it to silence--there stood, about the middle of the last

century, a cottage. Its white walls and dark roof, with some white roses

and honeysuckle flowering on its walls, bespoke the humble retreat of

contentment and comfort. The place went by the name of Bramblehaugh,

from the sides of the small burn being lined, for several miles, with

the bramble. The sloping collateral ground was covered with shrubs and

trees of various kinds, which harboured, in the summer months, a great

collection of birds--the blackbird, the starling, the mavis, and others

of the tuneful choir--whose notes rendered harmonious the secluded scene

where they sang unmolested. The spot is one of those which, scattered

sparingly over a wild country, woo the footsteps of lovers of nature,

and, by a few months of their simple charms, regenerate the health,

while they quicken and gratify the business-clouded fancies of the

denizens of smoky towns.

The cottage we have now described was occupied by David Mearns, and his

wife Elizabeth, called, by our national contraction, Betty. These

individuals earned a livelihood, and nothing more, by the mode in which

poor cotters in Scotland contrive to spin out an existence; the leading

feature of which, contentment, the result of necessity, is often falsely

denominated happiness by those whose positive pleasures, chequered by a

few misfortunes, are forgotten in the contemplation of a state of life

almost entirely negative. Difficulties that cannot be overcome deaden

the energies that have in vain been exerted to surmount them; and, when

all efforts to better our condition are relinquished, we acquire a

credit for contentedness, which is only a forced adaptation of limited

means to an unchangeable end. David Mearns, who had, in his younger

days, been ruined by a high farm, had learned from misfortune what he

would not have been very apt to have received from the much-applauded

philosophy which is said to generate a disposition to be pleased with

our lot. The bitterness of disappointment, and the wish to get beyond

the reach of obligations he could not discharge, suggested the remedy of

a reliance simply on his capability of earning a cotter's subsistence;

and having procured a cheap lease of the little domicile of

Bramblehaugh, he set himself down, with the partner of his hopes and

misfortunes, to eat, with that simulated contentment we have noticed,

the food of his hard labour, with the relish of health, and to extract

from the lot thus forced upon him as much happiness as it would yield.

The cottage and the small piece of ground attached to it, was the

property of an old man, who, having made a great deal of money by the

very means that had failed in the hands of David Mearns, had purchased

the property of Burnbank, lying on the side of the small rivulet already

mentioned, and, in consequence, it was said, of Betty Mearns bearing the

same name, (Cherrytrees,) though there was no relationship between them,

had let to David the small premises at a low rent.

A single child had blessed the marriage of David Mearns and his wife--a

daughter, called Euphemia, though generally, for the sake of brevity and

kindliness, called Effie; an interesting girl, who, at the period we

speak of, had arrived at the age of sixteen years. In a place where

there were few to raise the rude standard of beauty formed in the minds

of a limited country population, she was accounted "bonny"--a

much-abused word, no doubt, in Scotland, but yet having a very fair and

legitimate application to an interesting young creature, whose blue

eyes, however little real town beauty they may have expressed or

illuminated, gave out much tenderness and feeling, accompanied by that

inexpressible look of pure, unaffected modesty, which is the first, but

the most difficult gesture of the female manner attempted to be imitated

by those who are destitute of the feeling that produces it. An

expression of pensiveness--perhaps the fruit of the early misfortunes of

her parents operating on the tender mind of infancy, ever quick in

catching, with instinctive sympathy, the feeling that saddens or

enlivens the spirits of a mother--was seldom abroad from her

countenance, imparting to it a deep interest, and, by suggesting a wish

to relieve the cause of so early an indication of incipient melancholy,

creating an instant friendship, which subsequent intercourse did not

diminish.

Walter Cherrytrees, the Laird of Burnbank, a man approaching seventy

years of age, had a daughter, Lucy, about the same age as Effie Mearns.

He had lost his wife about fifteen years before; and--though a feeling

of anxiousness often found its way to his heart, suggesting to his

vacant mind, as the cure of his listlessness and the balm of his

bereavement, another wife--he had for a long time been nearly equally

poised between the hope of Lucy becoming his comfort in his old age, and

the wish for a tender partner of pleasures which, without participation,

lose their relish. His daughter, Lucy, was a sprightly, showy girl, who,

having got a good education, might, with the prospect she had of

inheriting her father's property, have been entitled to look for a

husband among the sons of the neighbouring proprietors, if her father's

secluded mode of life, and plain, blunt manners, had not to a great

extent limited her intercourse to a few acquaintances, by no means equal

to him in point of wealth or status, however estimable they might have

been in other respects. A more pleasant companion to the old Laird of

Burnbank could not be found, from the one end of Bramblehaugh to the

other, than David Mearns, his tenant, whose honesty and bluntness, set

off by a fertility of simple anecdote, had charms for one of the same

habits of thought and feeling, which all the disadvantages of his

poverty could not counterbalance. The intimacy of the fathers produced,

at a very early period, a friendship between the daughters, who,

notwithstanding, could not boast of the resemblance of thought and

manners, and community of feeling, which formed the foundation of the

attachment existing between the parents.

This friendship was not exclusive of some acquaintanceships with the

neighbouring young men and women, which, however, were in general

mutual; neither of the two young maidens having formed any intimacy with

another without, her friend participating in the friendship. Among

others, Lewis Campbell, the son of a neighbouring farmer, who had been a

large creditor of David Mearns at the time of his failure, called

sometimes at the cottage of Bramblehaugh, and was soon smitten with a

strong love for Effie. They sometimes indulged in long walks by the side

of the river.

We may anticipate, when we say that the hours spent in these

excursions--in which the greatest beauties of external nature, and the

strongest and purest emotions of two loving hearts, acting in

co-operation and harmony, formed a present and a future such as poets

dream of, and the world never realizes, but in momentary glimpses--were

the happiest of these lovers. Effie's inseparable companion, Lucy,

frequently met them as they sauntered along by the house of Burnbank;

and the soft breathings of ardent affection were relieved by the gay and

innocent prattle of the companions, who enjoyed, though in different

degrees, the conversation and manners of the young lover. The simplicity

and single-heartedness of Effie were entirely exclusive of a single

thought unfavourable to an equal openness and frankness on the part of

her companion, whom she had informed, in her artless way, of the state

of her affections. But what might not have resulted from a mere

acquaintanceship between Lucy and Effie's lover, was called forth by the

pride of the former, whose spirit of emulation, excited by the good

fortune of her poor friend, suggested a secret wish to alienate the

affections of Lewis from her companion, and direct them to herself. The

wish to be beloved, though the mere effect of emulation, is the surest

of the artificial modes by which love itself is generated in the heart

of the wisher; and Lucy soon became, unknown for a time to Effie, as

much enamoured of young Lewis as was her unsuspecting friend.

The first intimation that Effie received of the state of Lucy's feelings

towards her lover, was from Lewis himself. Sitting at a part of the

haugh called the Cross Knowe, from the circumstance of an old Romish

cruciform stone that stood on the top of a gentle elevation--a place

much resorted to by the lovers--Lewis, unable to conceal a single

thought or feeling from one who so well deserved his confidence, first

told her of the perfidy of her friend.

"You are not so well supplied with sweethearts, Effie," he began, "as I

am; for I can boast of two besides you."

"That speaks little in your favour, Lewie," replied she; "for, if it was

my wish, I could hae a' the young men o' the haugh makin love to me frae

mornin to e'en."

"That remark, Effie," said Lewis, "implies that I have courted, or at

least received marks of affection, from others besides you, while I was

leading you to suppose that my heart was entirely yours. Now, that is

not justified by what I said; for one may have sweethearts, and neither

know nor acknowledge them as such."

"Maybe I am wrang, Lewie," said Effie; "but what was I to think but that

the twa ither sweethearts ye mentioned were acknowledged by ye? It's no

in the pooer o' my puir heart to conceive how a young woman could love

are that neither kenned nor acknowledged her love. But I speak frae my

ain simple, an' maybe worthless thoughts. The world's wide, an' haulds

black an' fair, weak an' strong, heigh and laigh; an' wharfore no also

hearts an' minds as different as their bodies? The birds o' this haugh

hae only their ain single luves; but they're a' coloured alike that

belang to ae kind. Would that it had been God's pleasure to mak mankind

like thae bonny birds!"

"I fear, Effie," replied Lewis, "that a statement of mine, intended to

be partly in jest, has been construed by you in such a manner as to

produce to you pain. God is my witness that I am as single-hearted in my

affection as the birds of this haugh; and gaudier colours, sweeter

notes, and better scented bowers will never interfere with the love I

bear to Effie Mearns."

"What meant ye, then, Lewie, by sayin ye had twa sweethearts besides

Effie Mearns?" said she.

"That you shall immediately know," replied Lewis "and you will think

more highly of me when I shew you, by my revealing secrets, not indeed

confided to me, but still secrets, that you have all my heart and the

thoughts that it contains. The first of my other lovers you will not be

jealous of, for she is old Lizzy Buchanan, or, as she calls herself,

Buwhanan, my nurse, who loves me as well as you do, Effie; but the

other, I fear, may create in you an unpleasant feeling of confidence

misplaced, and friendship repaid by something like treachery. Surely I

need say no more."

"Is it indeed sae, Lewie?" said she. "It's lang sin I whispered--and my

heart beat and my limbs trembled as I did it--in the ear o' Lucy

Cherrytrees, that my puir, silly thoughts were never aff Lewie Campbell.

And what think ye she said to me? She said I needna look far ayont

Bramblehaugh for a bonnier and a brawer lover."

"Then," replied Lewis, "I am not much better off than you are; for she

told me that your simplicity, she feared, was art, and that your poverty

made any beauty you had; and she doubted if that bonny face was not a

great snare for the ruin of a penniless lover."

"Sae, sae," said she, sighing deeply; "and has the fair face o' life's

friendship put on the looks o' the hypocrite at the very time when

greater confidence was required? I hae read in Laird Cherrytrees' books

he is sae kind as lend me, many an example o' fause and faithless

creatures, baith men and women, o' the world, o' the great cities that

lie far ayont oor humble sphere; but little did I think that here in

Bramblehaugh, where our bughts ken nae nicht-thieves, and our hen-roosts

nae reynards, there was ane, and that ane my friend, wha could smile in

my face at the very moment she was tryin to ruin me in the eyes o' ane

wha is dearest to me on earth."

As she thus poured forth her feelings with greater loquacity than she

generally exhibited--being for the most part quiet and gentle--the tears

flowed down her cheeks in great profusion, and she sobbed bitterly, in

spite of all the efforts of Lewis to satisfy her that Lucy's endeavours

to lessen her in his estimation were entirely fruitless.

"Apprehend nothing, dear Effie, from the discovered treachery of a false

friend," said he, as he pressed her to his bosom. "It has less power

with me than the whispers of that gentle burn have on the sleeping

echoes of the Eagle's Rock that only answers to the voice of the

tempest."

"It's no that, Lewie," replied she, wiping away her tears, "that gies me

pain. I hae nae fear o' faith and troth that has been pledged, and

better than pledged; for I hae seen it i' yer looks, and heard it i' the

soonds o' yer deep-drawn sighs. Thae tears are for a broken

friendship--for the return o' evil for guid--for the withered blossoms

o' a bonny flower I hae cherished and watered, in the hope it wad yield

me a sweet smell when I kissed its leaves i' the daffin o' youth or the

kindliness o' age. If it is sae sair to lose a friend, what, Lewie--what

wad it be to lose a lover?"

"The very existence of great evils, Effie," said he, "makes us happy,

in the thought that they are beyond our reach."

"But did I no think," said she, "that I was beyond the reach o' the pain

o' experiencing the fauseness o' Lucy Cherrytrees--the very creature o'

a' ithers, I hae chosen as my bosom friend--to whom I confided a' my

thochts and the very secret o' my love?"

"But it is an ill wind that blaws naebody guid, as they say, Effie,"

said Lewis. "I can better appreciate your goodness, now that I have

experienced the faithlessness of another."

"An' if I hae lost a friend," replied Effie, "I am the mair sure o' my

lover. Ye dinna ken, Lewie, how muckle this has raised you even in my

mind, whar ye hae aye occupied the highest place. Ye hae rejected the

offered luve o' the braw heiress o' Burnbank, for the humble dochter o'

David Mearns, wha earns his bread in the sweat o' his brow. Oh! what can

a puir, penniless cottager's dochter gie in return to the man wha, for

her sake, turns his back on a big ha', a thoosand braid acres, an' a

braw heiress?"

"Her simple, genuine, unsophisticated heart," replied Lewis, "with one

unchangeable, devoted affection beating in its core. Were Burnbank Hall

as big as the Parliament House, and Burnbank itself longer than the

lands watered by the Brambleburn, and Lucy Cherrytrees as fair as our

unfortunate Mary Stuart, I would not give my simple Effie, with no more

property of her own than the bandeau that binds her fair locks, for Lucy

Cherrytrees and all her lands."

The two lovers continued their evening walks, indulging in conversations

which, embracing the subject of their affection, and anticipating the

pleasures of their ultimate union, realized that fullest enjoyment of

hope which is said to transcend possession. No notice was taken of their

mutual sentiments on the subject of Lucy Cherrytrees' affection for

Lewis, and her unjustifiable attempts to displace her old friend, to

make room for herself in the heart of the contested object of their

wishes.

Matters continued in this state for some time, Effie being regularly

gratified by a visit from Lewis three times a-week. On one occasion a

whole week passed without any intelligence of her lover. Her inquiries

had produced no satisfactory explanation of the unusual occurrence; and

Fancy, under the spell of the genius of Fear, was busy in her vocation

of drawing dark pictures of coming evil. At last she was told by her

father, who had procured the intelligence from a friend of George

Campbell, the father, that young Lewis had been suspected of an

intention to marry the poor daughter of the cottager, David Mearns, and

had been despatched, without a minute's premonition, 'to an uncle, who

was a merchant in Rio de Janeiro. No time had been given to him to write

to Effie; and care had been taken to prevent him from sending her any

intelligence while he remained at Liverpool, previous to his departure.

The statement was corroborated by intelligence to the same effect,

procured by one of Laird Cherrytrees' servants from one of the servants

of George Campbell, who told it to Lucy, and who again told it to Effie,

with tears in her eyes, which she took every care to conceal. The effect

produced on the mind of Effie Mearns, by this unexpected misfortune, was

proportioned to its magnitude, and the susceptibility of the feelings of

the delicate individual on whom it operated. For many days she wept

incessantly, refusing the ordinary sustenance of a life which she now

deemed of no importance to herself or to any one else. All attempts at

comforting a bruised heart were--as they generally are in cases of

disappointed love--unavailing; and the effects of time seemed only

apparent in a quieter, though not in any degree less poignant sorrow.

Every object kept alive the remembrance of the youth who had first made

an impression on her heart, and whose image was graven on every spot of

the neighbourhood which had been consecrated by the exchange of a mutual

passion. The scenes of their wanderings, hallowed as they had been in

her memory, were now peopled with undefined terrors; and every time that

she was forced abroad to take that air and exercise which latterly

seemed indispensable to her existence, her sorrow received an accession

of power from every tree under which they had sat, and every knowe or

dell where they had listened to the musical loves of the birds, as they

exchanged their own in not less eloquent sighs.

The first circumstance that produced any effect on the mind of the

disconsolate maiden, was a misfortune of another kind, which, realizing

the old adage, seemed to follow with all due rapidity the footsteps of

its precursor. Her mother, who sat on one side of the fire, while Effie

occupied her usual seat in a corner of the cottage in the other, had

been using all the force of her rude but impressive eloquence to get her

daughter to adopt the means that were in her power for the amelioration

of a grief which might render her childless.

"I am gettin auld, Effie," she said, "an' you are the only are I can

look to for administerin to yer faither an' to me that comfort we hae a

richt to expect at the hands o' a dochter wha never yet was deficient in

her duty. Our poverty, which winna be made ony less severe, as ye may

weel ken, by the income o' years, will mak yer attention to us mair

necessary; an' it may even be--God meise the means!--that your weak

hands may yet be required to work for the support o' yer auld parents. I

hae lang intended to speak to you in this way, and it was only pity for

my puir heart-broken Effie that put me aff frae day to day, in the

expectation that either some news wad come frae Lewie, or that ye wad

get consolation frae anither and a higher source, to support ye for

trials ye may yet hae to bear up against, for the sake o' them that

brocht ye into the world. A' ither means hae been tried to get ye to

determine to live, an' no lay yersel doun to dee, an' they havin failed,

what can I do but try the last remedy in my pooer--to speak, as I hae

now dune, to yer guid sense, an' lay afore ye the duties o' a dutifu'

bairn, which are far aboon the thochts o' a disappointed love. Promise,

now, my bonny Effie, that ye will try to gie up yer mournin, for the

sake o' parents whase love for ye is nae less than Lewie Campbell's."

As Betty finished her impressive admonition to Effie, who acknowledged

its force, and inwardly determined on complying with the request of her

mother, an unusual noise at the door of the cottage startled her anxious

ear. It seemed that a number of people were approaching the cottage, and

the groans of one in deep distress and pain were mixed with the low talk

of the crowd, who, from those inexpressible indications which the ear

can catch and analyse ere the mind is conscious of the operation, seemed

already to sympathise with one to whom they were bearing a grief. Housed

by that anticipative fear of evil which all unfortunate people feel,

Betty ran to the door, followed by her daughter, and opened it--to let

in the mangled body of her husband; who, in felling an oak, on the

property of Burnbank, had fallen under the weight of the tree, and got

his leg broken, and one of his arms dislocated at the shoulder-joint. He

was conveyed, by the kind neighbours, to a bed; and, by the time they

got him undressed, for the purpose of his wounds being submitted to the

curative process of the doctor, that individual arrived, and proceeded

to perform the painful operation of setting the broken bones. The full

effect of this misfortune to Effie and her mother was for a time

suspended by the call made upon them to relieve the sufferings of the

father and husband; and it was not till the bustle ceased, and the

neighbours (excepting two women, whose services, in addition to those

of the wife and daughter, might still be required) went away, that they

felt the full force of the gigantic evil that had befallen them, the

consequences of which might extend through the remaining years of their

existence.

A period of no less than eighteen months passed away, and David Mearns

was still unable to do more than, with assistance, to rise from his bed,

and sit, during a part of the day, by the fire, or at the window. During

the whole of this time, he had been tended by his daughter with

assiduous care. Her filial sympathies, called into active operation by

the sorrows of her parent, filled up the void that had been made in her

heart by the departure of her lover; and a new source of grief effected

(however paradoxical it may seem) a change in the morbid melancholy to

which she had been enslaved, which, although not for mental health or

ease, was so much in favour of exertion and remedial exercise, that she

came to present the appearance of one inclined to endeavour to sustain

her sorrow, rather than resign herself to the fatal power of an

irremediable woe. Among the visitors who took an interest in a family

reduced by one stroke to want and all its attendant evils, Laird

Cherrytrees evinced the strongest concern for the fate of his friend;

and, by a timeous contribution of necessary assistance, ameliorated, in

so far as man could, the unhappy condition of virtue under the load of

misery. The many visits of the good old laird, and the long periods of

time he passed by the bedside of the patient, enabled him to see and

appreciate the devoted attention of Effie to her parent; and often, as

she flew at the slightest indication of a wish for something to assuage

pain, or remove the uneasiness produced by the long confinement, he

would stop the current of his narrative, and fix his eyes on the kind

maiden, so long as her tender office engaged her attention and feelings

These long looks, not unaccompanied at times with a deep sigh, were

attributed, as they well might, to admiration and approbation of so much

filial affection and devotedness exercised towards one whom the old

laird respected above all his friends.

The visits of Laird Cherrytrees were at first twice or thrice a-week.

His infirm body already begun to exhibit the effects of old age,

prevented him from walking; and such was the anxiety he felt for the

unhappy patient, that he mounted his old pony, Donald, nearly as frail

as his master, to enable him to administer consolation so much required.

He came always at the same hour; Effie, who expected him, was often at

the door ready to receive him; and, while she held old Donald's head

till he dismounted, welcomed her father's friend with so much sincerity

and pleasure, that if she had failed in her ostlership, he would have

felt a disappointment he would not have liked to express. Even when at a

distance from the cottage, he strained his eyes to endeavour to catch a

glimpse of the faithful attendant; and, if he did not see her, the rein

of Donald was relaxed, and he was allowed to saunter along at his own

pleasure, or even to eat grass by the roadside, (a luxury he delighted

in from his having once belonged to a cadger,) so as to give Effie time

to get to her post.

The three days of the week on which Laird Cherrytrees was in the habit

of visiting David Mearns, were Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; and he

seldom came without bringing something to the poor family--either some

money for old Betty; some preserves, prepared by Lucy, for the invalid;

or a book, or a flower from Burnbank garden, for Effie. When his

conversation with David was finished--and every day it seemed to get

shorter and shorter, though there seemed no lack of either subjects or

ideas--he commenced to talk with Effie, chiefly on the nature and

contents of the books he brought her to read; and nothing seemed to

delight him more than to sit in the large arm-chair by David's bedside,

and hear Effie discoursing, _ex cathedra_, (on a three-footed stool at

the foot of the bed, opposite to the Laird's chair,) with her

characteristic simplicity and good sense, on the subjects he himself had

suggested. But, notwithstanding all her efforts to appear well-pleased

in presence of the man who was supporting her family, her train of

thoughts was often broken in upon by the recollections of Lewis

Campbell, and she would sit for an hour at a time, with the eyes of the

Laird fixed on her melancholy face, as if he had been all that time in

mute cogitation, suggesting some remedy for her sorrow. His ideas and

feelings seemed to be operated upon by the same power that ruled the

mind of the maiden; for his face followed, in its changing expressions,

the mutations of her countenance. Her melancholy seemed to be

communicated by a glance of her watery eye, as the thought of Lewis

entered her mind; and when she recovered from her gloomy reverie, a

corresponding indication of relief lighted up the grey, twinkling orbs

of the old Laird. This custom of "glowrin," for whole hours at a time,

on the face of the sensitive girl, at first painful to her, became a

matter of indifference; and the position and attitudes of the three

individuals--Betty being generally engaged about the house--undergoing,

while the Laird was present, no change, came to assume something like

the natural properties of the parties, as if they had been fixtures, or

lay figures for the study of a painter.

Every time the Laird came to the cottage, he extended the period of his

stay, and, latterly, he did not stir till a servant from Burnbank, sent

by Lucy, came to take him home. It seemed as if he could not get enough

of "glowrin;" for, latterly, all his occupation, which at first

consisted of rational conversation, merged in that mute eloquence of the

eye, or rather in that inebriation of the orb, "drinking of light,"

which lovers of sights, especially female countenances, are so fond of.

The visits had been so regular, not a day being ever missed, that, as

Effie held the stirrup till he mounted Donald, during all which time the

process of "glowrin" went on as regularly as at the bedside of David,

she never thought of asking, and he never thought of stating, when he

would call again. Time had stamped the act of calling with the impress

of unchangeable custom. The caseless clock of David's cottage was not

more regular; the only change being that already observed--that the time

of the Laird's stay gradually and gradually lengthened.

The homage paid by Effie to Laird Cherrytrees was, as may easily be

conceived, the respect, attention, and kindness of an open-hearted girl,

filled with gratitude to the preserver of the lives of her and her

parents. Every evening she offered up, at her bedside, prayers for the

preservation and happiness of the man but for whose kindness starvation

might have overtaken the helpless invalid, and not much less helpless

wife and daughter. In their prayers the "amen" of David and his wife was

the most heart-felt expression of love and gratitude that ever came from

the lips of mortal. This feeling, however, did not prevent David Mearns

and Betty from sometimes indulging, in the absence of Effie (in all

likelihood giving freedom to her tears, as she sat in some favourite

retreat of her absent lover,) in some remarks on the extraordinary

conduct of Laird Cherrytrees. They soon saw through the secret, and

resolved upon drawing him out; for which purpose Effie was to be called

away on the occasion of the next visit.

The Laird came as he used to do, took his seat, and resumed his gazing.

Effie pleased him exceedingly, by an account she gave him of the last

book he brought to her; and, throwing himself back in the arm chair, he

seemed, for a time, wrapped in meditation. Effie obeyed, in the

meantime, her mother's request, to come for a few minutes to the green

to assist her in her work; and, when the Laird again applied his eyes

to their accustomed vocation, he was surprised, but not (for once)

displeased, at her disappearance. A great struggle now commenced between

some wish and a restraint. He looked round the cottage, and then turned

his eyes on David; acts which he repeated several times. Incipient

syllables of words half-formed died away in his struggling throat. He

moved restlessly in the large chair, and twirled his silver-headed cane

in his hand. He even rose, went to the door, looked out, came back

again, and took his seat without saying a word. Holding away his face

from David, he at last made out a few words, uttered with great

difficulty.

"She's a fine lassie, Effie," he said.

"A bonnier an' a better never was brocht up in Bramblehaugh, savin yer

ain Lucy," replied David.

"Hoo auld is she noo?" said the Laird, still holding away his face.

"She will be nineteen come the time," replied David.

"It's a pity she's sae young," rejoined the Laird, with a great

struggle, and making a noise with his cane, as if he had repented of his

words, and wished to drown them before they reached the ears of David.

"I dinna think sae, beggin yer Honour's pardon," replied David. "We need

her assistance, in this trial; an' I'm just thinkin o' some way she

micht use her hands--an she's willing aneugh, puir cratur--for our

assistance."

"Are ye no pleased wi' my assistance?" said the Laird, displeased at

something in David's reply.

"Yer Honour has saved our lives," replied David, feelingly, "an' it wad

only be because we are ashamed o yer guidness that we wad wish our

dochter to tak a part o' that burden aff ane wha is under nae obligation

to serve us."

"If I hae been yer friend, ye hae been mine," said the Laird. "I hae got

guid advices frae ye; an', even noo, I hae something to ask ye

concernin mysel, that nae ither man i' the haugh could sae weel answer."

"What is that, yer Honour?" said David.

"What do ye think, David Mearns, I should do," said the Laird, moving

about in the chair in evident perplexity, "if my dochter Lucy were to

tak a husband an' leave Burnbank? I carena aboot fa'in into the hands o'

Jenny Mucklewham, wha, for this some time past, has neither cleaned my

buckles nor brushed my coat as I wad wish. She says I'm mair fashious;

but that's a mere excuse."

"I hae seen aulder men marry again," said David, thinking he would

please the Laird, by giving him such an answer as he was clearly fishing

for.

"Aulder men, David, man!" replied the Laird, looking down at his person,

and adjusting his wig. "Did I ask ye onything aboot my age? I wanted

merely your advice, what I should do in certain circumstances, an' ye

gie me a comparison for an answer.--Do ye think I should marry?"

"If yer Honour has ony wish in that way, I think ye should," said David.

"I never yet did wrang in following your advice, David Mearns," said the

Laird. "--She's a fine lassie, Effie."

"Ou, ay," responded David, at a loss what more to say.

"Very fine," again said the Laird, turning his face partially from the

window, so as the tail of his eye reached David's face, and waiting for

something more.

David could, however, say nothing. The very circumstance of the Laird's

wishing him to say something pertinent to the purpose already so broadly

hinted at, prevented him from touching so delicate a subject; and,

notwithstanding of another application of the tail of the Laird's eye,

he was silent.

"Ye hae gien me ae advice, David," said the Laird, in despair of getting

anything more out of David without a question: "could ye no tell me

_wha_ I should marry, man?" And having achieved this announcement, he

rose and walked to the window.

"That's owre delicate a subject for me to gie an advice on, yer Honour,"

replied David. "The doo lays aside ninety-nine guid straes, an' taks the

hundredth, though a crooked ane, for its nest. Ye maun judge for

yersel."

"What say ye to yer ain Effie, then?" said the Laird, relieved at last

from a dreadful burden.

"If yer Honour likes the lassie, an' she'll tak yer Honour, I can hae

nae objections," replied David.

The Laird, who seemed twenty years younger after this declaration, took

David by the hand, and shook it till the pain of his dislocated arm

almost made him cry.

"Will ye speak to her aboot it. David!" said he, still holding his hand.

"The best farm o' Burnbank will be your reward. Plead for me, David, my

best friend. Tell Betty aboot it, and get her to use a mother's pooer.

If I can trust my een, Effie doesna dislike me. If a' gaes weel, ye may

hae Ravelrigg, or Braidacre, or Muirfield--onything that's in my pooer

to gie, David." And the old lover, exhausted by the struggle and

excitement he had suffered, sank back into the chair.

"I will do my best," replied David. And the old Laird sighed, and

absolutely groaned with pure, unmixed satisfaction.

At the end of this scene, Effie and her mother came in. The damsel took

her old seat on the three-footed stool at the foot of the bed; the eyes

of the Laird sought again her face, where he thought they had a better

right now to rest. No more was spoken; enough for a day had been said

and done; and, with a parting look to David, to keep him in remembrance

of his promise, and a purse of money slipped into the hand of Betty, as

a solvent of any obstacle that might exist in her mind, the lover went

to the door to receive Donald from the soft hands of Effie, who, as was

her custom, had gone out before him, to lead the old cadger to the door,

and hold the bridle till he with an effort got into the saddle. The only

difference Effie could observe in his departure this day, was a kind of

mock-gallant wave of the hand, as he, with more than usual spirit,

struck his spurless heels into Donald's sides, and tried to rise in the

saddle, in response to the hobble of the old Highlander.

The Laird had been scarcely out of the house, when David had a communing

with his wife, in absence of Effie, on the extraordinary intimation made

by the old lover. Betty was agreeable to the match; but the tear came

into her eye as she thought of the sacrifice poor Effie was to be called

upon to make. Neither of them could answer for the consent of Effie,

whose melancholy, though somewhat ameliorated, was little diminished,

and whose recollections of Lewis Campbell were as vivid as they were on

the day of his departure. When she returned from one of her solitary

rambles, which fed her passion and increased her grief, she was

delicately told of the intentions of Laird Cherrytrees. The announcement

of the extraordinary intelligence produced an effect which neither her

father nor mother could have anticipated. A quick operation of her mind

placed before her all the affectionate acts of attention she had for

years been in the habit of applying to the old friend of her father, and

the preserver of their lives. Gratitude, operating in one of the most

grateful hearts that ever beat in the bosom of mortal, had produced in

her an exuberant kindness, a devotedness of a species of affection due

by a child to its godfather, a playful freedom of the confidence of one

who relied on the disparity of years for a license from even the

suspicion of a possibility of any other relation existing between them.

That now came back upon her, loaded with self-reproach and shame, and

attributing to her misconstrued attentions the extraordinary passion

that had taken hold of the heart of the old Laird. She was totally

unable to make any reply to her parents. The image of Lewis Campbell,

never absent from her mind, assumed a new form, and swam in the tears

which flowed from her eyes. The natural contrast between age and youth,

love and gratitude, assumed its legitimate strength. The first feeling

of her mind was, that she would suffer the death that had for a time

been impending over her, and whose finger was already on her breaking

heart, rather than comply with the wishes of her father and mother. They

saw the struggle that was in her mind, and abstained from pressing what

they had suggested. They did not ask her even to give her sentiments;

but the silent tears that stole down her cheek and dropped in her lap

from her drooping head, required no spoken commentary to tell them the

extent of her grief, and the resolution at least of a heart that might

entirely break, as it appeared to be breaking, but never could forget.

There was little sleep for the eyes of Effie on the succeeding night.

Her sobs reached the ears of her parents, who, unable to yield her

consolation, were obliged to leave her to wrestle with her grief;

sending up a silent prayer to the Author of all good dispensations, that

He might assuage the sorrow of one who had already, with exemplary

patience, submitted to the rod of affliction. The sacredness of her

feelings was too well appreciated by her parents to admit of any offer

of counsel, where deep-seated affection, the work of mysterious

instinct, stood in solemn derision of the vulgar ideas of this world's

expediency. The struggle in her mind arose from the strength of her

love, and the power of her filial devotion. No part of the attendant

circumstances or probable consequences of her decision escaped her mind.

She knew that she never could be happy as the wife of any other

individual, even of suitable age, than Lewis Campbell. But this

concerned only herself; and she knew, and trembled as she thought, that

the result of her decision might be the destitution, the want, perhaps

the death of her parents; their all depended on the breath of the man

whom she, by the sign of her finger, might change from a friend to a

foe; and she might thereby become the destroyer of those who gave her

being.

The morning came, but brought neither sleep nor relief to the unhappy

maiden. Her parents seemed inclined not to advert to the subject that

day, but to let her struggle on with her own thoughts. The hour of the

Laird's visit approached, and he was already on the road for the home of

his beloved, whom his ardent fancy pictured standing smiling at the

door, ready as usual to receive him and lead him into the house.

Donald--who knew a reverie in his master bettor than he did himself, and

did not fail to take advantage of it--ambled on with diminished speed.

The Laird approached the cottage. No Effie was there. His bright visions

took flight, and were succeeded by a cold shiver, the precursor of a

gloomy train of ideas, which pictured a refusal and all its attendant

horrors. He drew up the head of Donald, and even invited him to partake

of the long grass which grew by the way-side. He counted the moments as

Donald devoured the food; and, from time to time, lifted his eyes to see

if Effie was yet at the cottage door. She was not, to be seen--and she

had not been absent before for many months. His mind was unprepared for

a refusal; the ground-swell of his previous excited fancy distracted him

amidst the dead stillness of despair. He looked again, and for the last

time that day. Effie was not yet there. He turned the head of the

delighted, and no doubt astonished Donald, and quietly sought again the

house of Burnbank.

The same procedure was gone through on the succeeding day. Laird

Cherrytrees again proceeded to the cottage of David Mearns; and, as he

sauntered along, he thought it impossible that Effie should again be

absent from her post. He was too good a man, and too conceited a lover,

as all old lovers are, to allow his mind to dwell on the probable

operation of necessity and the fear of injuring her father's patron, on

the mind of the daughter; and yet a lurking, rebellious idea suggested

that he would rather see Effie at the door, impelled by that cause, than

absent altogether. His hopes again beat high, and Donald was pricked on

to the goal of his wishes with an asperity he did not relish so well as

a reverie. The spot was attained. Effie was still absent. Donald was

again remitted to the long grass, and all the resources of a lover's

mind were called up, to enable him to face the evil that awaited him.

But all was in vain--he found it impossible to proceed.

"I am rejected," he muttered to himself, with a sigh; "a cottager's

dochter has refused the Laird o' Burnbank; but her cauldness an' cruelty

mak me like her the mair. Effie Mearns, Effie Mearns! hoo little do ye

ken what commotion ye hae produced in this puir, burstin heart! But,

though ye winna hae me, I winna desert yer faither. Hame, Donald, to

Burnbank." And, as he pulled up the bridle with his left hand, he wiped

away the tears that had collected in his eyes, and, casting many a look

back to the cottage, cantered slowly home.

These proceedings of the Laird had been noticed by Betty Mearns from the

window of the cottage, and she and David were at no loss to guess the

cause of them. They knew his timid, sensitive disposition, and truly

attributed his return to his not seeing Effie at the door waiting for

him as usual. Apprehensions now seized the good mother, that the Laird

might withdraw his attentions and assistance from the family, the result

of which would be nothing but misery and ruin; as David's fractured

limbs were yet far from being healed, and a long period must yet pass

before he could earn a penny to keep in their lives. These fears were

increased by a third and a fourth day having passed without a visit

from the Laird, who had, notwithstanding, been seen reconnoitering as

usual at a distance from the cottage. Effie herself saw how matters

stood, and learned, from the looks of her father and mother, sentiments

they seemed unwilling to declare. She was still much convulsed with the

struggle of the antagonist duties, wishes, emotions, and fears, that

rose in her mind; and the apprehensions of her parents, which she

considered well-founded, added to her sorrow an additional source of

anguish.

"This house," said David, at last overcome by his feelings, "has become

mair like an hospital that has lost its mortification than an honest

man's cottage. Effie sits greetin an' sabbin the hail day, an' you,

Betty, look forward to starvation, wi' the gruesome face o' despair. I

am unhappy mysel, besides being an invalid. What is this to end in? What

are we to do? How are we to live withoot meat, now that Burnbank, guid

man, has deserted us?"

"There has come naething frae Burnbank for five days," replied Betty;

"an' the siller I got frae the guid auld man, the last time he was here,

I payed awa i' the village for necessaries I had taen on afore we got

that help. Our girnel winna haud oot lang against three mous; an' if

Laird Cherrytrees bides awa muckle langer, I see naething for it but to

beg."

The tear started to the eye of David. He looked at Effie. She wept and

sobbed, and covered her face with her hands.

"Effie, woman," said David, "a' this micht hae been averted if ye had

just gane to the door, an' welcomed the auld Laird, as ye were wont.

He's a blate man, though a guid carl; an' he has, nae doot, thocht he

was unwelcome when yer auld practice o' waitin for him was gien up."

"I tauld her that, David," said Betty, "an' pressed her to gang to the

door, though it was only to gie the blate Laird a glimpse o' her, whilk

was a' he wanted to bring him in; but she only sabbed the mair. Unhappy

hour she first saw that callant, wha may now be dead or married for

ought she kens!--an yet for his sake maun a hail family dree the dule o'

this day's misery. Effie, woman, can ye no forget are wha hasna thocht

ye worth the trouble o tellin ye, by ae scrape o' his pen, whether he be

i' the land o' the livin!"

A sob was the only reply Effie could make to this appeal.

"I hae tauld Effie," said David, "what wad save us frae the ruin an'

starvation that stare us i' the face; but my mind's made up to suffer to

the end, though I should lie here wi' my broken banes, and dree the

pains o' hunger, rather than force my dochter to marry a man against her

ain choice. But, O Effie, woman, wad ye see yer puir faither, broken as

he is baith in mind and body, lie starvin here in his bed, wi' nae mair

pooer to earn a bite o' bread than the unspeaned bairn, and no mak a

sacrifice to save him?"

"Ay, faither," replied Effie, "I wad dee to save ye."

"But deein winna save either him or me," said Betty. "Naething will hae

that effect but yer agreein to be the leddy o' the braw hoose an' braid

acres o' Burnbank. Wae's me! what a difference between that condition,

wi' servants at yer nod, an' a' the comforts an' luxuries o' life at yer

command, an', abune a', the pooer o' makin happy yer auld faither and

mother, an' this awfu prospect o' dreein the very warst an' last o' a'

the evils o' life--want an' auld age--ill-matched pair! Effie, woman, my

bonny bairn, hae ye nae love in yer heart, but for Lewie Campbell? Wad

ye, for his sake, see a' this misfortune fa' on the heads o' yer

parents, whom, by the laws o' God an' man, ye are bound to honour,

serve, and obey?"

It was easier for Effie to say she would die to save her parents, than

that she would comply with the wish of her mother; but the feeling

appeal of her parent increased her agony, which induced another paroxysm

of hysterical sobs--the only answer she could yet make to her mother.

"Effie doesna care for either you or me, Betty," said David, "or she wad

hae little hesitation aboot marryin a guid, fresh, clean, rich, auld

man, to save her faither and mother frae poverty and starvation. I see

nae great sacrifice i' the matter. Her young heart mayna rejoice i' the

pleasures o' a daft love, but her guid sense will be gratified by a

feelin o' duty far aboon the vain, frawart freaks o' a silly, giddy,

youthfu passion. Let her refuse Laird Cherrytrees, an' when Lewie

Campbell comes hame, the owrecome bread o' the funeral o' her faither

may grace a waddin bought wi' the price o' his life."

"Dinna speak that way, faither," cried Effie, lifting up her hands; "I

canna stand that. You said ye wadna force me, an' ye _are_ forcin me.

Oh, my puir heart, wha or what will support ye when grief for my parents

turns me against ye? Faither, faither, when I am dead, Laird Cherrytrees

will be again yer friend. A little time will do't: will ye no wait?"

"Hunger waits only eight days, as the sayin is," replied he, "an ye'll

live mair than that time, I hope an' trow. I will be dead afore ye,

Effie, an' ye'll hae the consolation, as ye maybe drap a tear on the

mossy grey stane that covers the Mearnses i' the kirkyard o' our parish,

to think, if ye shouldna like to say, in case ye micht be heard--though

thinkin an' speakin's a' ane to God--that 'that stane was lifted ten

years suner than it micht hae been, because I liked Lewie Campbell

better than auld Laird Cherrytrees.'"

"An' it's no likely," said the mother, "that I wad be there to hear

Effie mak sae waefu a speech. If I binna lyin wi' the Mearns, I'll be

wi' the Cherrytrees o' Mossnook--nae relations o' the Burnbanks, though

maybe as guid a family. But, afore I'm mixed wi' the dust o' that auld

hoose, Effie--an' it mayna be lang--ye may join the twa Cherrytrees, an'

let the gravestanes o' the Mearns, as weel as the Mossnooks, lie yet a

score years langer withoot bein moved. It's a pity to disturb the lang

grass. Its sough i' the nichtwind keeps the bats frae pickin the auld

banes, an' maybe it may save yer mother's, if ye send her there afore

her time."

Effie's feelings could no longer withstand these appeals. Her sobbing

ceased suddenly; and, starting up from her seat, she looked to the old

clock that stood against the wall of the cottage. She noticed that it

was upon the hour of the Laird's usual visit.

"It is twelve o'clock, faither," she said, firmly--"this hoor decides

the fate o' Effie Mearns."

Walking to the door, she placed herself in the position she used to

occupy when she intended to welcome her father's friend. Now she was to

welcome a husband. Laird Cherrytrees was, as might have been expected,

allowing Donald to take his liberty of the road-side, grazing while he

was busy reconnoitering the cottage. The moment he saw the form of Effie

standing where he had for several long days wished to see her, he pulled

up Donald's bridle with the alacrity of youth, and, striking his sides

with his unarmed heels, made all the speed of a bridegroom to get to his

bride. The sight of the object he had gazed upon so unceasingly for so

long a time, and whom he had strained his eyes in vain to see during

these eventful days, operated like a charm on the old lover. He

discovered at first sight the red, swollen eyes of Effie; but he was too

happy in thinking he had been successful, as he had no doubt he had, to

meditate on the struggle which produced his bliss. Having taken a long

draught of the fountain of his hopes and happiness, and feasted his eyes

on the face of the maiden, who attempted to smile through her tears,

which he did sitting on his horse, and, without speaking a word--for,

loquacious in politics or rural economy, he was mute in love--he

dismounted, while Effie, as usual, held the reins. He lost no time in

getting into his chair, falling back into it like a breathless traveller

who has at last attained the end of his journey. David and Betty, who

construed Effie's conduct into a consent, took an early opportunity,

while she was still at the door, of letting the happy Laird know that

their daughter, as they conceived, was inclined to the match. The Laird

received the intelligence as if it had been too much for mortal to bear.

He was at first beyond the vulgar habit of speech. He sighed, turned his

eyes in their sockets, groaned, and wrung his hands. On recovering

himself, he exclaimed----

"Whar is she, Betty? Let me see the dear creature. David, ye'll hae

Ravelrigg; it's the best o' them a'. Whan is't to be, Betty? Ye maun fix

the day; an' ye maun brak the thing to Lucy, and to Jenny Mucklewham;

for I hae nae pooer. Let me see her--let me see the sweet creature this

instant."

Effie, at the request of her mother, came in and resumed her seat on the

three-footed stool. Her eyes were still swollen, and she looked

sorrowfully at her father. The Laird fixed his eyes on her; but his

loquacity was gone. He had not a word to say; but his "glowrin" was in

some degree changed, being accompanied by a soft smile of

self-complacency and contentment, and freed from the nervous

irritability with which he used to solicit with his eyes a look from the

object of his affections. His visit this day was shorter than it used to

be. Next day, Betty was to visit Burnbank, to arrange for the marriage.

Meanwhile, the unfortunate girl resigned herself as a self-sacrifice

into the hands of her mother. Bound with the silken bands of filial

affection, she renounced all desire of exercising her own free-will, or

indulging in those feelings of the female heart which are deemed so

strong as to demand the sacrifice often of all other earthly

considerations. The fate of Iphiginia has occupied the pens and tongues

of pitying mortals for thousands of years. A lovely woman sacrificed for

a fair wind, doomed to have the blood that mantled in the blushing

cheeks of beauty sprinkled on the altar of a false religion, is a

spectacle which the imagination cannot contemplate without a

participation of the strongest sympathies of the heart; yet there are,

in the common every-day world we now live in, many a scene in the act of

being performed, where, though there is no bloodshed and no smoking

altar exhibited, the sacrifice is not less than that of the Grecian

victim. Our blessed, holy altar of matrimony is often, by the wayward

feelings of man--for we here say nothing of vice or corrupt

conduct--made more cruel than those of Moloch and Chiun. There is many a

bloodless Iphiginia in those days, whose sufferings are unknown and

unsung, because confined to the heart that broke over them and concealed

them in death. The young, tender, and devoted female, who, for the love

she bears to her parents, consents to intermarry with rich age, to

embrace dry bones, to extend her sympathies to churlishness, caprice,

and ill-nature, or, what is worse, to the asthmatic giggle of a

superannuated love, while all the while her heart, cheated of its

tribute and swelling with indignation, requires to be watched by her

with vigilance and firmness, the cruelty of which she herself

feels--presents a form of self-sacrifice possessing claims on the pity

of mankind beyond those of the boasted self-immolation of ancient

devotees.

The silence and dejection of our bride were construed, by her parents,

into that seemly and becoming sedateness which sensible young women

think it proper to assume on the eve of so important a change in their

condition as marriage; while the happy bridegroom had come to that time

of life when he is pleased with submission, though it be expressed

through tears. No chemical menstruum has so much power in the

dissolution of the hardest metals as the self-complacency of an old

lover has in construing, according to his wishes, the actions, words, or

looks of the young woman who is destined to be his bride. Silence and

tears are expressive of happiness as well as of grief; and, so long as

the desire of the ancient philosopher is uncomplied with by the gods,

and there is no window to the heart, that organ in the young victim may

break while the sexagenarian bridegroom is enjoying the imputed silent,

restrained happiness of the object of his ill-timed affection.

The sadness and melancholy of the apparently-resigned Effie Mearns had

no effect on the noise and show of the preparations for her marriage

with her old lover. The marriages of old men are well known to be

celebrated with higher bugle notes from the trumpet of fame than any

others. A sumptuous dinner was to be given to the neighbouring lairds,

and the cotters were to be fed and regaled on the green opposite to the

mansion. Dancing and music were to add their charms to the gay scene;

and it was even alleged that the light of a bonfire would lend its

peculiar aid, in raising the joy of the guests, predisposed to hilarity

by plenteous potations, to the proper height suited to the conquest of

the old bridegroom over, at once, a young woman and old Time.

For days previous to the eventful one, Effie Mearns was not heard to

open her lips. She looked on all the gay preparations for her marriage

as if they had been the mournful acts of the undertaker employed in

laying the silver trimming on the coffin lid of a lover. The bedside of

her sick parent, who was still unable to rise, was the place where she

sat "shrouded in silence." She heard the conversations of her father and

mother about the progress of the preparations, without exhibiting so

much interest as to show that she understood them. Misgivings crossed

the minds of the old couple, and brought tears to their eyes, as they

contemplated the animated corpse that sat there, waiting the nod of the

master of ceremonies, and ready to perform the part assigned to it in

the forthcoming orgies of mournful joy; but they had gone too far to

recede, and it was even a subject of satisfaction to them that the

period of the celebration was so near, for otherwise they might have had

reason to fear that their daughter would not have survived the

intermediate time. When the bridegroom called, his ears were alarmed by

the voices of the parents, who saw the necessity of endeavouring to hide

the condition of their daughter; and he was satisfied, if he got, free

and unrestrained, "a feast of the eyes." His love was still expressed by

silent gazing; for it was too deep in his old heart for either words or

tears; if, indeed, there was moisture enough in the seat of his

affection for the suppliance of the _softest_ expression of the soft

passion.

The eventful day arrived. The marriage was to take place in the cottage,

where David Mearns still lay confined to bed. The sick man wore a

marriage favour attached to the breast of his shirt!--for Laird

Cherrytrees would be contented with no less a demonstration of his

participation in his unparalleled happiness. The still silent bride

_submitted_ passively to all the acts of her nimble dressers, whose

laugh seemed to strike her ears like funeral bells; yet she tried--poor

victim! to smile, though the clouded beam came through a tear which, by

its steadfastness, seemed to belong to the orb. The bridegroom came at

the very instant when he ought to have come--the hand of the clock not

having had time to leave the mark of notation. He was dressed in the

style of his earliest days, with cocked hat, laced coat, and a sky-blue

vest, embroidered in the richest manner; while a new wig, ordered from

the metropolis, imparted to him the freshness of youth. His cheek was

flushed with the blood which joy had forced, for a moment, from where it

was more needed, at the drying fountain of life; and his eye spoke a

happiness which his parched tongue could not have achieved, without

causing shame even to himself. Everything was new, spruce, perking,

self-complacent. The clergyman next came, and all was prepared.

Throughout all this time and all these preparations, not the slightest

change had been observed on the bride. After she was dressed, she took

her seat again, silently by the side of her father's sickbed, where she

sat like a statue. The ceremony was now to commence, and she stood up,

when required by the clergyman, as if she obeyed the command of an

executioner. It was noticed that she seemed to incline to be as near as

possible to her father's bed; and her unwillingness or inability to come

forward forced the clergyman and the bridegroom some paces from the

situation they at first held. The ceremony proceeded till it came to the

part where the consent of the parties is asked. The happy bridegroom

pronounced his response, quick, sharp, and with an air of conceit, which

brought a smile to the faces of the parties present. There was now a

pause for the consent of the bride. All eyes were fixed on her

death-like face. A severe struggle was going on in her bosom; yet her

countenance was unmoved, and no one conjectured that she suffered more

than sensitive females often do in her situation. The clergyman repeated

his question. There was still a pause--the eyes of all were riveted on

her. "I _canna_, I _canna_!" at last she exclaimed, in a voice of agony,

and fell back on the bed--a corpse!

Six months after the death of Effie Mearns, Lucy Cherrytrees was

married, without faint or swoon, to Lewis Campbell, who returned home,

in spite of his reported death. The union was against the consent of the

Laird, who soon died of either a broken heart or old age--no doctor

could have told which.

[Footnote 1: This story will suggest the remembrance of a popular ballad, but the

similarity is casual; for the circumstances are here true, if they may

not be found of every-day occurrence somewhere about the temple of

Mammon.--ED.]

GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT.

XIV.--JAMES RENWICK.

In the times in which we live, party spirit is carried very far. Many

honest tradesmen, merchants, and shopkeepers, are ruined by their votes

at elections. The ordinary intercourse of social life is obstructed and

deranged. Friends go up to the polling station with friends, but

separate there, and become, it may be, the most inveterate enemies.

This, our later reformation of 1832, has cost us much; but our

sufferings are nothing to those which marked the two previous

reformations from Popery and Prelacy. In the one instance, fire and

faggot were the ordinary means adopted for defending political

arrangements; in the other, the gallows and the maiden did the same

work, and the boots and the thumbikins acted as ministering engines of

torture. The whole of society was convulsed; men's blood boiled in their

veins at the revolting sights which were almost daily obtruding upon

their attention; and their judgments being greatly influenced by their

feelings, it is not to be wondered at that they should, in a few

instances, have overshot, as it were, the mark--have sacrificed their

lives to the support of opinions which appear now not materially

different from those which their enemies pressed upon their acceptance.

It is a sad mistake to suppose that the friends of Presbytery, during

the fearful twenty-eight years' persecution of Charles and James, died

in the support of certain doctrines and forms of church government

merely. With these were, unhappily, or rather, as things have turned

out, fortunately, combined, political or civil liberty, the

establishment and support of a supreme power, vested in King, Lords,

and Commons--instead of being vested, by usurpation, merely in the King

alone. By avoiding to call Parliaments, and by obtaining supplies of

money from France and otherwise, the two last of the Stuart Despots had,

in fact, broken the compact of Government, and had exposed themselves

all along, through the twenty-eight years of persecution, to

dethronement for high treason. This was the strong view taken by those

who fought and who fell at Bothwell Bridge, and this was the view taken

by nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Scotland--of the descendants and

admirers of Bruce and Wallace--of Knox and Carstairs. James Renwick, the

last of the martyrs in the cause of religion and liberty, was executed

in Edinburgh in his twenty-sixth year. He was a young man of liberal

education, conducted both at the college of Edinburgh, and Groningen,

abroad--of the most amiable disposition, and the most unblemished moral

character--yet, simply because he avowed, and supported, and publicly

preached doctrines on which, in twelve months after his execution, the

British Government was based, he was adjudged to the death, and

ignominiously executed in the presence of his poor mother and other

relatives, as well as of the Edinburgh public. Mr Woodrow, in his

history of this man's life, alludes to some papers which he had seen,

containing notices of Mr Renwick's trials and hair-breadth escapes;

prior to his capture and execution--which, however, he refrains from

giving to the public. It so happens that, from my acquaintance with a

lineal descendent of the last of the Martyrs, I have it in my power, in

some measure, to supply the deficiency; his own note, or

memorandum-book, being still in existence, though it never has been, nor

ever will, probably, be published.

It was in the month of January 1688, that Mr Renwick was preaching,

after nightfall, to a few followers, at Braid Craigs, in the

neighbourhood of Edinburgh. The night was stormy--a cold east wind, with

occasional blasts of snow--whilst the moon, in her second quarter,

looked out, at intervals, on plaids and bonnets nestled to the leeward

of rocks and furze. It was a piteous sight to view rational and immortal

creatures reduced to a state upon the level with the hares and the

foxes. Renwick discoursed to them from the point of a rock which

protruded over the lee side of the Craigieknowe. His manner was solemn

and impressive. He was a young man of about twenty-five years of age;

and his mother, Elspeth Carson, sat immediately before him--an old woman

of threescore and upwards--in her tartan plaid and velvet hood. Her son

had been born to a larger promise, and had enjoyed an excellent academic

education; and much it had originally grieved the old woman's heart to

find all her hopes of seeing him minister of her native parish of

Glencairn, blasted; but his conscience would not allow him to conform;

and she had followed him in his wanderings and field-preachings, through

Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, and all along by the Pentland Hills, to

Edinburgh, where a sister of hers was married, and lived in a

respectable way on the Castle Hill. This evening, after psalm-singing

and prayer, Mr. Renwick had chosen for his text these words, in the

fourth verse of the eighteenth chapter of the book of Revelation--"Come

out of her, my people." The kindly phrase, "my people," was beautifully

insisted upon.

"There ye are," said Renwick, stretching out his hand to the darkening

sleet; "there ye are, a poor, shivering, fainting, despised, persecuted

remnant, whom the great ones despise, and the men of might, and of war,

and of blood, cut down with their swords, and rack with their tortures.

Ye are, like ye'r great Master, despised and rejected of men; but the

Master whom ye serve, and whom angels serve with veiled faces, and even

He who created and supports the sun, the moon, and the stars,

He--blessed be His name!--is not ashamed to acknowledge ye, under all

your humiliation, as _His_ people. 'Come out of her,' says He, '_my

people_.' O, sirs, this is a sweet and a loving invitation. Ye are '_His

people_,' the sheep of His pasture, after all; and who would have

thought it, that heard ye, but yesterday, denounced at the cross of

Edinburgh as traitors, and rebels, and non-conformists, as the

offscourings of the earth, the filth and the abomination in the eyes and

in the nostrils of the great and the mighty? 'Come out!' says the text,

and out ye have come--'done ere ye bade, guid Lord!' Ye may truly and

reverentially say--Here we are, guid Lord; we have come out from the

West Port, and from the Grassmarket, and from the Nether Bow, and from

the Canongate--out we have come, because we are thy people. We know thy

voice, and thy servants' voice, and a stranger and a hireling, with his

stipend and his worldly rewards, will we not follow; but we will listen

to him whose reward is with him; whose stipend is Thy divine

approbation; whose manse is the wilderness; and whose glebe land is the

barren rock and the shelterless knowe. Come out of _her_. There _she_

sits," (pointing towards Edinburgh, now visible in the scattered rays of

the moon,) "there she sits, like a lady, in her delicacies, and her

drawing-rooms, and her ball-rooms, and her closetings, and her

abominations. Ye can almost hear the hum of her many voices on the wings

of the tempest. There she sits in her easy chair, stretching her feet

downwards, from west to east, from castle to palace! But she has lost

her first love, and has deserted her covenanted husband. She hath gone

astray--she hath gone astray!--and He who made her hath denounced

her--He whose she was in the day of her betrothment, hath said--She is

no longer mine; 'come out of her, my people'--be not misled by her

witcheries, and her dalliance, and her smiles--be not terrified by her

threats, and cruelties, and her murderings--she is drunk, she is

drunk--and with the most dangerous and intoxicating beverage, too--she

is drunk with the blood of the saints. When shipwrecked and famishing

sailors kill each other, and drink the blood, it is written that they

immediately become mad, and, uttering all manner of blasphemies, expire!

Thus it is with the 'Lady of the rock'--she is now in her terrible

blasphemies, and will, by and by, expire in her frenzy. And who sits

upon her throne?--even the bloody Papist, who misrules these unhappy

lands--he, the usurper of a throne from which by law he is

debarred--even the cruel and Papistical _Duke_, whom men, in their folly

or in their fears, denominate 'KING'--he, too, is doomed--the decree

hath gone forth, and he will perish with her, because he would not _come

out_."

"Will he, indeed, Mr Bletherwell? But there are some here who must

perish first." So said the wily and infuriated Claverhouse, as he poured

in his men by a signal from the adjoining glen, (where the lonely

hermitage now stands in its silent beauty,) and in an instant had made

Renwick, and about ten of his followers--the old woman, his mother,

included--prisoners. This was done in an instant, for the arrangements

had been made prior to the hour of meeting, and Claverhouse, attired in

plaid and bonnet, had actually sat during the whole discourse, listening

to the speaker till once he should utter something treasonable, when, by

rising on a rock, and shaking the corners of his plaid, he brought the

troop up from their hiding-places, amidst the whins and the broom by

which the glen was at that time covered. Renwick, seeing all resistance

useless, and indeed forbidding his followers, who were not unprovided

for the occasion, to fire upon the military, marched onwards, in

silence, towards Edinburgh. As they passed along by the land now

denominated "Canaan," they halted at a small public-house kept by a

woman well known at the time by the nickname of "Red-herrings," on

account of her making frequent use of these viands to stimulate a desire

for her strong drink. Over her door-way, indeed, a red-herring and a

foaming tankard were rudely sketched on a sign-board, (like cause and

effect, or mere sequence!) in loving unity. The prisoners were

accommodated with standing-room in Tibby's kitchen; while the soldiers,

with their leader, occupied the ben-room and the only doorway--thus

securing their prisoners from all possibility of escape. Refreshments,

such as Tibby could muster, consisting principally of brandy and ale,

mixed up in about equal proportions of each, were distributed amongst

the soldiers--who were, in fact, from their long exposure in the open

air, in need of some such stimulants; whilst the poor prisoners were

only watched, and made a subject of great merriment by the soldiers. The

halt, however, was very temporary; but, temporary as it was, it enabled

several of the members of the field-meeting to reach Edinburgh, and to

apprise their friends, and what is termed the mob of the streets, of the

doings at "Braid Craigs." Onwards advanced the party--soldiers before

and behind, and their captives in the middle--till they reached the West

Port, at the foot of the Grassmarket. It was near about ten o'clock, and

the streets were in a buz with idle 'prentices, bakers' boys,

shoemakers' lads, &c. The march along the Grassmarket seemed to alarm

Clavers, for he halted his men, made them examine their firelocks,

spread themselves all around the prisoners, and, advancing himself in

front, and on his famous black horse, with drawn sword and holster

pistols, seemed to set all opposition at defiance. The party had already

gained the middle of that narrow and winding pass, the West Bow, when a

waggon, heavily loaded with stones, was hurled downwards upon the party,

with irresistible force and rapidity--Clavers's horse shied, and escaped

the moving destruction; but it came full force into the very midst of

the soldiers, who, from a natural instinct, turned off into open doors

and side closes; in this they were imitated by the poor prisoners, who

were better acquainted with the localities of the West Bow than the

soldiery. In an instant afterwards, a dense and armed mob rushed

headlong down the street, carrying all before them, and shouting aloud,

"Renwick for ever! Renwick for ever!" This was taken as a hint by the

prisoners, who, in an instant, had mixed with the mob; or sunk, as it

were, through the earth, into dark passages and cellars. "Fire!" was

Claverhouse's immediate order, so soon as the human torrent had reached

him; and _fire_ some of the soldiers did, but not to the injury of any

of the prisoners, but to that of a person--a bride, as it turned

out--who, in her curiosity or fear, had looked from a window above; she

was shot through the head, and died instantly. But, in the meantime, the

rescue was complete--Claverhouse, afraid manifestly of being shot from a

window, galloped up the brae, and made the best of his way to the

Castle, there to demand fresh troops to quell what he called an

insurrection: whilst, in the meantime, the men, after a very temporary

search or pursuit, marched onwards, with their muskets presented to the

open windows, in case any head should protrude. But no heads were to be

seen; and the soldiers escaped to the guard-house (to the Heart of

Midlothian) in safety. Here, however, a scene ensued of a most

heart-rending nature. Scarcely had the men grounded their muskets in the

guard-house, when a seeming maniac rushed upon them with an open knife,

and cut right and left like a fury. He was immediately secured, but not

till after many of the soldiers were bleeding profusely. They thrust him

immediately, bound hand and foot, into the black-hole, to await the

decision of next morning; but next morning death had decided his

fate--he had manifestly died of apoplexy, brought on by extreme

excitement. His mother, who had followed her son when he issued forth

deprived seemingly of reason, having lost sight of him in the darkness,

had learned next morning of his fate and situation. She came,

therefore, with the return of light, to the prison door, and had been

waiting hours before it was opened. At last Clavers arrived, and ordered

the maniac to be brought into his presence, and that of the Court, for

examination. But it was all over; and the distorted limbs and features

of a young and handsome man were all the mark by which a fond mother

could certify the identity of an only son. From this poor woman's

examination, it turned out that her son was to have been married on that

very day to a young woman whom he had long loved; but that he had been

called to see her corpse, after she was shot by the soldiery, and had

rushed out in the frantic and armed manner already described. The poor

woman, from that hour, became melancholy; refused to take food; and,

always calling upon the names of her "bonny murdered bairns," was found

dead one morning in her bed.

In the meantime, James Renwick had made the best of his way down the

Cowgate, and across, by a narrow wynd, into the Canongate, where a

friend of his kept a small public-house. He had gone to bed; but his

wife was still at the bar, and two men sat drinking in a small side

apartment. He asked immediately for her husband, and was recognised, but

with a wink and a look which but too plainly spoke her suspicion of the

persons who were witnesses of his entrance. Hereupon he called for some

refreshment, as if he had been a perfect stranger, and, seating himself

at a small table, began to read in a little note-book which he took from

his side pocket--"four, five, six, seven--yes, seven," said he--"and it

has cost me seven pounds my journey to Edinburgh." This he said so

audibly as to be heard by the persons who were sitting in the adjoining

box, that they might regard him as a stranger, and unconnected with

Edinburgh. But, as he afterwards expressed it, he deeply repented of the

attempt to mislead. The Lord, he said, had justly punished him for

distrusting his power to extricate him, as he had already done, from his

troubles. The men, after one had accosted him in a friendly tone about

the weather, or some indifferent subject, took their departure; and Mrs

Chalmers and he, now joined by the husband, enjoyed one hour's canny

crack ere bedtime, over some warm repast. The whole truth was made known

to them; but, though perfectly trustworthy themselves, they expressed a

doubt of their customers, who were known to be little better than hired

informers, who went about to public-houses, at the expense of the

Government, listening and prying if they could find any evidence against

the poor Covenanters. Next day, even before daylight, the house was

surrounded by armed men, and Renwick was demanded by name. Mr Chalmers

did not deny that he was in the house, but said that he came to him as

to a distant relation, and that he was no way connected with his

doctrines or opinions. In the meantime, Renwick was aroused, and had

resolved to sell his life as dearly as possible. He was a young and an

active man, and trusted, as he owned with great regret afterwards, to

his strength and activity, rather than to the mercy and the wisdom of

his Maker. So, rushing suddenly down stairs, and throwing himself,

whilst discharging a pistol, (which, however, did no harm), into the

street, he was out of sight in a twinkling; but, in passing along, his

hat fell off; and this circumstance drew the attention and suspicion of

every one whom he passed, to his appearance. One foot, in particular,

pressed hard upon him from behind, and a voice kept constantly crying,

"Stop thief!--stop thief!" He ran down a blind alley, on the other side

of the Canongate, and was at last taken, without resistance, by three

men, one of whom--and it was the one who had all along pursued him--was

the person who had accosted him last night in the public-house,

respecting the weather. He was immediately carried to prison, where he

remained--visited indeed by his mother--till next assizes, when he was

tried, condemned, and afterwards executed--the Last of the Martyrs!

The conversation which he had with his mother, his public confessions of

faith, and adherence to the covenanted cause, as well as his last

address, drowned at the time in the sound of drums--all these are given

at full length in Woodrow, (the edition of Dr Burns of Paisley), to

which I must refer the reader who is curious upon such subjects. In this

valuable work will likewise be found the inscription placed upon a very

handsome cippus, or monument of stone, erected to his memory. We give it

to the reader. There is another, if we mistake not, in the Greyfriars of

Edinburgh, somewhat in the same style. They are both equally simple and

touching.

In memory of the late

REVEREND JAMES RENWICK,

the last who suffered to the death for attachment to the

Covenanted Cause of Christ

in Scotland.

Born near this spot, 15th February, 1662,

and executed at the

Grassmarket, Edinburgh,

1688.

"The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance."

Ps. cxli. and 6.

Erected by subscription, 1828.

The late James Hastings, Esq. gave a donation of the ground. The

subscriptions, amounting to about L100, were collected at large from

Christians of all denominations; and the gentleman who took the most

active part in suggesting and carrying through the undertaking, was the

Rev. Gavin Mowat, minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation at

Whithorn, and formerly at Scar-brig, in Penpont, Dumfries-shire. The

monument is placed upon the farm of Knees, at no great distance from the

farm-house where the martyr was born. It stands upon an eminence, from

which it may be seen at the distance of several miles down the glen, in

which the village of Monyaive is situated. It was visited last summer by

the author of this narrative; when the resolution, which has now been

very imperfectly fulfilled, was taken.

XV.--OLD ISBEL KIRK.

Isbel Kirk lived in Pothouse, Closeburn, in that very house where that

distinguished scholar, the late Professor Hunter of St Andrew's, was

born. She had never been married, and lived in a small lonely cottage,

with no companions but her cat and cricket, which chirped occasionally

from beneath the hudstone, against which her peat-fire was built. There

sat old, and now nearly blind, Isbel Kirk, spinning or carding wool,

crooning occasionally an old Scotch song, or, it might be, one of

David's psalms, and enjoying at intervals her pipe, a visit from her

next neighbour, Nancy Nivison, or her champit-potatoes--a luxury which

the west country, and that alone, has hitherto enjoyed. Two old Irish

women had settled some time before this on the skirts of the opposite

brae, where they had built a small turf cabin, and lived nobody could

well tell how. They were generally understood to make a kind of

precarious living, by going about the country periodically, giving

_pigs_ or crockery-ware in exchange for wool. Isbel Kirk was a most

simple, honest creature, living on little, but procuring that little by

her industry in spinning sale yarn, weaving garters, and using her

needle occasionally, to assist the guidwife of Gilchristland in

shirt-making for a large family. But the M'Dermots were the aversion of

everybody, and seldom visited even by the guidman of Barmoor, on whose

farm, or rather on the debatable skirts of it, they had sat down, almost

in spite of his teeth. He was a humane man; and, though he loved not

such visitors, yet he tolerated the nuisance, as his wife reckoned them

skilled in curing children's diseases, and in spaeing the young women's

fortunes. John Watson pastured sheep, where corn harvests now wave in

abundance; and his flocks spread about to the doors of the M'Dermots and

Isbel Kirk. These flocks gradually decreased, and much suspicion was

attached to his Irish and heathenish neighbours, for they attended no

place of worship, not even the conformed Curate's; but there was no

proof against them. At last, a search was suddenly and secretly

instituted under the authority of the Laird of Closeburn; and, although

much wool was found, still there were no entire fleeces, nor any means

left of bringing it home to the M'Dermots.

"Na, na, guidman," said the elder of the two harridans. "Na--ye needna

stir aboot the kail-pot in that way--ye'll find naething there but a

fine bit o' the dead braxy I gat frae the guidman o' Gilchristland, for

helping the mistress wi' her kirn, that wadna mak butter; but there are

folks that ye dinna suspect, and that are maybe no that far off either,

wha could very weel tell ye gin they liked whar yer braw gimmer yows

gang till."

Being pushed to be more particular, they were seemingly compelled at

last to intimate that auld Isbel Kirk, she and her friend, Nanny

Nivison, could give an account of the stolen sheep, if they liked. The

guidman would not credit such allegations; but the old women persisted

in their averment, and even offered to give the guidman of Barmoor

occular demonstration of the guilt of the twa _saunts_, as they called

them. A few days passed, and still a lamb or an old sheep would

disappear--they melted away gradually, and the guidman began to think

that his flocks must be bewitched, and that the devil himself must keep

a kitchen somewhere about the Chaise Craig, over which Archy Tait had

often seen the _old gentleman_ driving six-in-hand about twelve o'clock

at night. Returning, therefore, one morning to the M'Dermots, and

renewing the conversation respecting Isbel Kirk and Nanny Nivison, it

was agreed that one of the Irish sisterhood should walk over to Isbel's

with him next forenoon, and that she would give him evidence of the fate

of his flocks. Isbel was sitting before her door, in the sunshine of a

fine spring morning, when the guidman and Esther M'Dermot arrived. She

welcomed them kindly into her small but clean and neat cottage; and,

with all the despatch which her blindness would permit of, dusted for

their use an old-fashioned chair, and a round stool, which served the

double purpose of stool and table. The conversation went on as usual

about the weather, and the last sufferer in the cause of the Covenant,

when Esther M'Dermot went into a dark corner, and forthwith drew out

into the guidman's view, and to his infinite astonishment, a sheep's

head, which bore the well-known mark of the farm on its ears.

"Look there, guidman," said Esther, "isna that proof positive of the way

in which your braw hirsel is disposed of? By Jasus and the holy St

Patrick! and here is a foot too, and twa horns!"

Poor Isbel Kirk could scarcely be made to apprehend the meaning of all

this--indeed she could scarcely see the evidences of her guilt--and

assured the guidman, in the most unequivocal manner imaginable, that she

was innocent as the child unborn; indeed, she said, what should she do

with dead sheep, or how should she get hold of them, seeing she was old

and blind, and had not enjoyed a bit of mutton, or any other flesh,

meat, since the new year?

"Ay," responded old Esther; "but ye hae friends that can help ye; dinna

I whiles see, after dark, twa tall figures stealing o'er your way frae

the Whitside linn yonder! I'se warrant they dinna live on deaf nits,

after lying a' day in a dark and damp cave." Isbel held up her hands in

prayer, entreating the Lord to be merciful to her and to his ain

inheritance, and to discomfit the plans of his and her enemies.

"Ye may pray," said Elspat, "as ye like, but ye'll no mak the guidman

here distrust his ain een, wi' yer praying and yer Whiggery." This last

suggestion of the nightly visitors staggered Mr Watson not a little; he

well knew how friendly old Isbel was to the poor Covenanters, and

brought himself to conclude, under the weighty and conclusive evidence

before him, that Isbel might have persuaded herself that she was

rendering God good service by feeding his chosen people with the best of

his flock. Isbel could only protest her innocence and ignorance of the

way in which these evidences against her came there; whilst the guidman

and Esther took their leave--he threatening that the matter should not

rest where it was, and the old Irish jade pretending to commiserate

Isbel on the unfortunate discovery.

Next morning, the pothouse was surrounded, and carefully searched by a

detachment of Lag's men, to whom information of Isbel's harbouring

rebels had been (the reader may guess how) communicated. Having been

unsuccessful in their search, they put the poor blind creature to the

torture, because she would not discover, or, perhaps, could not reveal,

the retreat of the persecuted people. A burning match was put betwixt

her fingers, and she was firmly tied to a bedpost, whilst the fire was

blown into a flame by one of the soldiers. Not a feature in Isbel's

countenance changed; but her lips moved, and she was evidently deeply

absorbed in devotional exercise.

"Come, come, old Bleary," said one, "out with it! or we will roast you

on the coals, like a red herring, for Beelzebub's breakfast."

"Ye can only do what ye're permitted to do," said the poor sufferer,

now writhing with pain, and suffering all the agonies of martyrdom. "Ye

may burn this poor auld body, and reduce it to its natural dust; but ye

will never hear my tongue betray any of the poor persecuted remnant."

It is horrible to relate, but the fact cannot be disputed, that these

monsters stood by and blew the match till the poor creature's fingers

were actually burnt off--yet she only once cried for mercy; but, when

they mentioned the conditions, she fainted; and thus nature relieved her

from her sufferings. When she came again to herself, she found that they

had killed the only living creature which she could call companion, and

actually hung the body of the dead cat around her neck; but they were

gone, and her hands were untied.

During the ensuing night a watch was set upon poor Isbel's house,

thinking, as the persecutors did, that they would catch the nightly

visitants, who were yet ignorant of their friend's sufferings in their

behalf. The men lay concealed among brackens, on the bank opposite to

the pothouse, and near to Staffybiggin, the residence of the M'Dermots.

To their surprise, a figure, about twelve o'clock, came warily and

stealthily around a flock of sheep which lay ruminating in the hollow.

It was a female figure, if not the devil in a female garb. They

continued to keep silent and lie still. At last they saw the whole flock

driven over and across a thick-set bush of fern. One of the sheep

immediately began to struggle; but it was manifestly held by the

foot--in a few instants, two figures were seen dragging it into

M'Dermot's door. This naturally excited their surprise, and, rushing

immediately into the hut, they found the two old women in the act of

preparing in a pit--which, during the day time, was concealed--mutton

for their own use. The murder was now out. These wretched women had been

in the habit, for some years, of supplying themselves from the Barmoor

flocks; the one lying flat down upon her back amongst the furze, and

the other driving the sheep over her breast. Thus the sister who caught,

had an opportunity of selecting; and the best of the wedders had thus

from time to time disappeared.

Poor Isbel Kirk!--her innocence was now fully established; but it was

too late. Her kind friend Nanny Nivison attended her in her last

illness, and the guidman of Barmoor paid every humane attention. But the

ruffians of a mistaken and ill-advised government had deranged her

nervous system. Besides, the burn never properly healed; it at last

mortified, and she died almost insensible, either of pain or presence.

Her soul seemed to have left its frail tabernacle ere life was extinct.

The example we have here given is taken from that humble source, which

the historian leaves open to the gleaner. Indeed, the histories of those

times give but a very imperfect idea of the atrocities of that

remarkable period. The cottage door must be opened to get at the truth;

but the stately political historian seldom enters.

XVI.--THE CURLERS.