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The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

by James Hogg · English · Gutenberg #2276 · 474,879 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

Author: James Hogg


        
Release date: August 1, 2000 [eBook #2276]
                Most recently updated: December 31, 2020

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Andreas Philipp and Martin Adamson. HTML version
        by Al Haines.


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  THE PRIVATE MEMOIRS
  AND CONFESSIONS
  OF A JUSTIFIED SINNER

  WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

  WITH A DETAIL OF CURIOUS TRADITIONARY FACTS, AND
  OTHER EVIDENCE, BY THE EDITOR


By

James Hogg




THE EDITOR'S NARRATIVE


It appears from tradition, as well as some parish registers still
extant, that the lands of Dalcastle (or Dalchastel, as it is often
spelled) were possessed by a family of the name of Colwan, about one
hundred and fifty years ago, and for at least a century previous to
that period. That family was supposed to have been a branch of the
ancient family of Colquhoun, and it is certain that from it spring the
Cowans that spread towards the Border. I find that, in the year 1687,
George Colwan succeeded his uncle of the same name, in the lands of
Dalchastel and Balgrennan; and, this being all I can gather of the
family from history, to tradition I must appeal for the remainder of
the motley adventures of that house. But, of the matter furnished by
the latter of these powerful monitors, I have no reason to complain: It
has been handed down to the world in unlimited abundance; and I am
certain that, in recording the hideous events which follow, I am only
relating to the greater part of the inhabitants of at least four
counties of Scotland matters of which they were before perfectly well
informed.

This George was a rich man, or supposed to be so, and was married, when
considerably advanced in life, to the sole heiress and reputed daughter
of a Baillie Orde, of Glasgow. This proved a conjunction anything but
agreeable to the parties contracting. It is well known that the
Reformation principles had long before that time taken a powerful hold
of the hearts and affections of the people of Scotland, although the
feeling was by no means general, or in equal degrees; and it so
happened that this married couple felt completely at variance on the
subject. Granting it to have been so, one would have thought that the
laird, owing to his retiring situation, would have been the one that
inclined to the stern doctrines of the reformers; and that the young
and gay dame from the city would have adhered to the free principles
cherished by the court party, and indulged in rather to extremity, in
opposition to their severe and carping contemporaries.

The contrary, however, happened to be the case. The laird was what his
country neighbours called "a droll, careless chap", with a very limited
proportion of the fear of God in his heart, and very nearly as little
of the fear of man. The laird had not intentionally wronged or offended
either of the parties, and perceived not the necessity of deprecating
their vengeance. He had hitherto believed that he was living in most
cordial terms with the greater part of the inhabitants of the earth,
and with the powers above in particular: but woe be unto him if he was
not soon convinced of the fallacy of such damning security! for his
lady was the most severe and gloomy of all bigots to the principles of
the Reformation. Hers were not the tenets of the great reformers, but
theirs mightily overstrained and deformed. Theirs was an unguent hard
to be swallowed; but hers was that unguent embittered and overheated
until nature could not longer bear it. She had imbibed her ideas from
the doctrines of one flaming predestinarian divine alone; and these
were so rigid that they became a stumbling block to many of his
brethren, and a mighty handle for the enemies of his party to turn the
machine of the state against them.

The wedding festivities at Dalcastle partook of all the gaiety, not of
that stern age, but of one previous to it. There was feasting, dancing,
piping, and singing: the liquors were handed, around in great fulness,
the ale in large wooden bickers, and the brandy in capacious horns of
oxen. The laird gave full scope to his homely glee. He danced--he
snapped his fingers to the music--clapped his hands and shouted at the
turn of the tune. He saluted every girl in the hall whose appearance
was anything tolerable, and requested of their sweethearts to take the
same freedom with his bride, by way of retaliation. But there she sat
at the head of the hall in still and blooming beauty, absolutely
refusing to tread a single measure with any gentleman there. The only
enjoyment in which she appeared to partake was in now and then stealing
a word of sweet conversation with her favourite pastor about divine
things; for he had accompanied her home after marrying her to her
husband, to see her fairly settled in her new dwelling. He addressed
her several times by her new name, Mrs. Colwan; but she turned away her
head disgusted, and looked with pity and contempt towards the old
inadvertent sinner, capering away in the height of his unregenerated
mirth. The minister perceived the workings of her pious mind, and
thenceforward addressed her by the courteous title of Lady Dalcastle,
which sounded somewhat better, as not coupling her name with one of the
wicked: and there is too great reason to believe that, for all the
solemn vows she had come under, and these were of no ordinary binding,
particularly on the laird's part, she at that time despised, if not
abhorred him, in her heart.

The good parson again blessed her, and went away. She took leave of him
with tears in her eyes, entreating him often to visit her in that
heathen land of the Amorite, the Hittite, and the Girgashite: to which
he assented, on many solemn and qualifying conditions--and then the
comely bride retired to her chamber to pray.

It was customary, in those days, for the bride's-man and maiden, and a
few select friends, to visit the new-married couple after they had
retired to rest, and drink a cup to their healths, their happiness, and
a numerous posterity. But the laird delighted not in this: he wished to
have his jewel to himself; and, slipping away quietly from his jovial
party, he retired to his chamber to his beloved, and bolted the door.
He found her engaged with the writings of the Evangelists, and terribly
demure. The laird went up to caress her; but she turned away her head,
and spoke of the follies of aged men, and something of the broad way
that leadeth to destruction. The laird did not thoroughly comprehend
this allusion; but being considerably flustered by drinking, and
disposed to take all in good part, he only remarked, as he took off his
shoes and stockings, that, "whether the way was broad or narrow, it was
time that they were in their bed."

"Sure, Mr. Colwan, you won't go to bed to-night, at such an important
period of your life, without first saying prayers for yourself and me."

When she said this, the laird had his head down almost to the ground,
loosing his shoe-buckle; but when he heard of prayers, on such a night,
he raised his face suddenly up, which was all over as flushed and red
as a rose, and answered:

"Prayers, Mistress! Lord help your crazed head, is this a night for
prayers?"

He had better have held his peace. There was such a torrent of profound
divinity poured out upon him that the laird became ashamed, both of
himself and his new-made spouse, and wist not what to say: but the
brandy helped him out.

"It strikes me, my dear, that religious devotion would be somewhat out
of place to-night," said he. "Allowing that it is ever so beautiful,
and ever so beneficial, were we to ride on the rigging of it at all
times, would we not be constantly making a farce of it: It would be
like reading the Bible and the jestbook, verse about, and would render
the life of man a medley of absurdity and confusion."

But, against the cant of the bigot or the hypocrite, no reasoning can
aught avail. If you would argue until the end of life, the infallible
creature must alone be right. So it proved with the laird. One
Scripture text followed another, not in the least connected, and one
sentence of the profound Mr. Wringhim's sermons after another, proving
the duty of family worship, till the laird lost patience, and tossing
himself into bed, said carelessly that he would leave that duty upon
her shoulders for one night.

The meek mind of Lady Dalcastle was somewhat disarranged by this sudden
evolution. She felt that she was left rather in an awkward situation.
However, to show her unconscionable spouse that she was resolved to
hold fast her integrity, she kneeled down and prayed in terms so potent
that she deemed she was sure of making an impression on him. She did
so; for in a short time the laird began to utter a response so fervent
that she was utterly astounded, and fairly driven from the chain of her
orisons. He began, in truth, to sound a nasal bugle of no ordinary
calibre--the notes being little inferior to those of a military
trumpet. The lady tried to proceed, but every returning note from the
bed burst on her ear with a louder twang, and a longer peal, till the
concord of sweet sounds became so truly pathetic that the meek spirit
of the dame was quite overcome; and, after shedding a flood of tears,
she arose from her knees, and retired to the chimney-corner with her
Bible in her lap, there to spend the hours in holy meditation till such
time as the inebriated trumpeter should awaken to a sense of propriety.

The laird did not awake in any reasonable time; for, he being overcome
with fatigue and wassail, his sleep became sounder, and his Morphean
measures more intense. These varied a little in their structure; but
the general run of the bars sounded something in this way:
"Hic-hoc-wheew!" It was most profoundly ludicrous; and could not have
missed exciting risibility in anyone save a pious, a disappointed, and
humbled bride.

The good dame wept bitterly. She could not for her life go and awaken
the monster, and request him to make room for her: but she retired
somewhere, for the laird, on awaking next morning, found that he was
still lying alone. His sleep had been of the deepest and most genuine
sort; and, all the time that it lasted, he had never once thought of
either wives, children, or sweethearts, save in the way of dreaming
about them; but, as his spirit began again by slow degrees to verge
towards the boundaries of reason, it became lighter and more buoyant
from the effects of deep repose, and his dreams partook of that
buoyancy, yea, to a degree hardly expressible. He dreamed of the reel,
the jig, the strathspey, and the corant; and the elasticity of his
frame was such that he was bounding over the heads of maidens, and
making his feet skimmer against the ceiling, enjoying, the while, the
most ecstatic emotions. These grew too fervent for the shackles of the
drowsy god to restrain. The nasal bugle ceased its prolonged sounds in
one moment, and a sort of hectic laugh took its place. "Keep it
going--play up, you devils!" cried the laird, without changing his
position on the pillow. But this exertion to hold the fiddlers at their
work fairly awakened the delighted dreamer, and, though he could not
refrain from continuing, his laugh, beat length, by tracing out a
regular chain of facts, came to be sensible of his real situation.
"Rabina, where are you? What's become of you, my dear?" cried the
laird. But there was no voice nor anyone that answered or regarded. He
flung open the curtains, thinking to find her still on her knees, as he
had seen her, but she was not there, either sleeping or waking.
"Rabina! Mrs. Colwan!" shouted he, as loud as he could call, and then
added in the same breath, "God save the king--I have lost my wife!"

He sprung up and opened the casement: the day-light was beginning to
streak the east, for it was spring, and the nights were short, and the
mornings very long. The laird half dressed himself in an instant, and
strode through every room in the house, opening the windows as he went,
and scrutinizing every bed and every corner. He came into the hall
where the wedding festival had been held; and as he opened the various
windowboards, loving couples flew off like hares surprised too late in
the morning among the early braird. "Hoo-boo! Fie, be frightened!"
cried the laird. "Fie, rin like fools, as if ye were caught in an
ill-turn!" His bride was not among them; so he was obliged to betake
himself to further search. "She will be praying in some corner, poor
woman," said he to himself. "It is an unlucky thing this praying. But,
for my part, I fear I have behaved very ill; and I must endeavour to
make amends."

The laird continued his search, and at length found his beloved in the
same bed with her Glasgow cousin who had acted as bridesmaid. "You sly
and malevolent imp," said the laird; "you have played me such a trick
when I was fast asleep! I have not known a frolic so clever, and, at
the same time, so severe. Come along, you baggage you!"

"Sir, I will let you know that I detest your principles and your person
alike," said she. "It shall never be said, Sir, that my person was at
the control of a heathenish man of Belial--a dangler among the
daughters of women--a promiscuous dancer--and a player of unlawful
games. Forgo your rudeness, Sir, I say, and depart away from my
presence and that of my kinswoman.

"Come along, I say, my charming Rab. If you were the pink of all
puritans, and the saint of all saints, you are my wife, and must do as
I command you."

"Sir, I will sooner lay down my life than be subjected to your godless
will; therefore I say, desist, and begone with you."

But the laird regarded none of these testy sayings: he rolled her in a
blanket, and bore her triumphantly away to his chamber, taking care to
keep a fold or two of the blanket always rather near to her mouth, in
case of any outrageous forthcoming of noise.

The next day at breakfast the bride was long in making her appearance.
Her maid asked to see her; but George did not choose that anybody
should see her but himself. He paid her several visits, and always
turned the key as he came out. At length breakfast was served; and
during the time of refreshment the laird tried to break several jokes;
but it was remarked that they wanted their accustomed brilliancy, and
that his nose was particularly red at the top.

Matters, without all doubt, had been very bad between the new-married
couple; for in the course of the day the lady deserted her quarters,
and returned to her father's house in Glasgow, after having been a
night on the road; stage-coaches and steam-boats having then no
existence in that quarter.

Though Baillie Orde had acquiesced in his wife's asseveration regarding
the likeness of their only daughter to her father, he never loved or
admired her greatly; therefore this behaviour nothing astounded him. He
questioned her strictly as to the grievous offence committed against
her, and could discover nothing that warranted a procedure so fraught
with disagreeable consequences. So, after mature deliberation, the
baillie addressed her as follows:

"Aye, aye, Raby! An' sae I find that Dalcastle has actually refused to
say prayers with you when you ordered him; an' has guidit you in a rude
indelicate manner, outstepping the respect due to my daughter--as my
daughter. But, wi' regard to what is due to his own wife, of that he's
a better judge nor me. However, since he has behaved in that manner to
MY DAUGHTER, I shall be revenged on him for aince; for I shall return
the obligation to ane nearer to him: that is, I shall take pennyworths
of his wife--an' let him lick at that."

"What do you mean, Sir?" said the astonished damsel.

"I mean to be revenged on that villain Dalcastle," said he, "for what
he has done to my daughter. Come hither, Mrs. Colwan, you shall pay for
this."

So saying, the baillie began to inflict corporal punishment on the
runaway wife. His strokes were not indeed very deadly, but he made a
mighty flourish in the infliction, pretending to be in a great rage
only at the Laird of Dalcastle. "Villain that he is!" exclaimed he, "I
shall teach him to behave in such a manner to a child of mine, be she
as she may; since I cannot get at himself, I shall lounder her that is
nearest to him in life. Take you that, and that, Mrs. Colwan, for your
husband's impertinence!"

The poor afflicted woman wept and prayed, but the baillie would not
abate aught of his severity. After fuming and beating her with many
stripes, far drawn, and lightly laid down, he took her up to her
chamber, five stories high, locked her in, and there he fed her on
bread and water, all to be revenged on the presumptuous Laird of
Dalcastle; but ever and anon, as the baillie came down the stair from
carrying his daughter's meal, he said to himself: "I shall make the
sight of the laird the blithest she ever saw in her life."

Lady Dalcastle got plenty of time to read, and pray, and meditate; but
she was at a great loss for one to dispute with about religious tenets;
for she found that, without this advantage, about which there was a
perfect rage at that time, the reading and learning of Scripture texts,
and sentences of intricate doctrine, availed her naught; so she was
often driven to sit at her casement and look out for the approach of
the heathenish Laird of Dalcastle.

That hero, after a considerable lapse of time, at length made his
appearance. Matters were not hard to adjust; for his lady found that
there was no refuge for her in her father's house; and so, after some
sighs and tears, she accompanied her husband home. For all that had
passed, things went on no better. She WOULD convert the laird in spite
of his teeth: the laird would not be converted. She WOULD have the
laird to say family prayers, both morning and evening: the laird would
neither pray morning nor evening. He would not even sing psalms, and
kneel beside her while she performed the exercise; neither would he
converse at all times, and in all places, about the sacred mysteries of
religion, although his lady took occasion to contradict flatly every
assertion that he made, in order that she might spiritualize him by
drawing him into argument.

The laird kept his temper a long while, but at length his patience wore
out; he cut her short in all her futile attempts at spiritualization,
and mocked at her wire-drawn degrees of faith, hope, and repentance. He
also dared to doubt of the great standard doctrine of absolute
predestination, which put the crown on the lady's Christian resentment.
She declared her helpmate to be a limb of Antichrist, and one with whom
no regenerated person could associate. She therefore bespoke a separate
establishment, and, before the expiry of the first six months, the
arrangements of the separation were amicably adjusted. The upper, or
third, story of the old mansion-house was awarded to the lady for her
residence. She had a separate door, a separate stair, a separate
garden, and walks that in no instance intersected the laird's; so that
one would have thought the separation complete. They had each their own
parties, selected from their own sort of people; and, though the laird
never once chafed himself about the lady's companies, it was not long
before she began to intermeddle about some of his.

"Who is that fat bouncing dame that visits the laird so often, and
always by herself?" said she to her maid Martha one day.

"Oh dear, mem, how can I ken? We're banished frae our acquaintances
here, as weel as frae the sweet gospel ordinances."

"Find me out who that jolly dame is, Martha. You, who hold communion
with the household of this ungodly man, can be at no loss to attain
this information. I observe that she always casts her eye up toward our
windows, both in coming and going; and I suspect that she seldom
departs from the house emptyhanded."

That same evening Martha came with the information that this august
visitor was a Miss Logan, an old an intimate acquaintance of the
laird's, and a very worthy respectable lady, of good connections, whose
parents had lost their patrimony in the civil wars.

"Ha! very well!" said the lady; "very well, Martha! But, nevertheless,
go thou and watch this respectable lady's motions and behaviour the
next time she comes to visit the laird--and the next after that. You
will not, I see, lack opportunities."

Martha's information turned out of that nature that prayers were said
in the uppermost story of Dalcastle house against the Canaanitish
woman, every night and every morning; and great discontent prevailed
there, even to anathemas and tears. Letter after letter was dispatched
to Glasgow; and at length, to the lady's great consolation, the Rev.
Mr. Wringhim arrived safely and devoutly in her elevated sanctuary.
Marvellous was the conversation between these gifted people. Wringhim
had held in his doctrines that there were eight different kinds of
FAITH, all perfectly distinct in their operations and effects. But the
lady, in her secluded state, had discovered another five, making twelve
[sic] in all: the adjusting of the existence or fallacy of these five
faiths served for a most enlightened discussion of nearly seventeen
hours; in the course of which the two got warm in their arguments,
always in proportion as they receded from nature, utility, and common
sense. Wringhim at length got into unwonted fervour about some disputed
point between one of these faiths and TRUST: when the lady, fearing
that zeal was getting beyond its wonted barrier, broke in on his
vehement asseverations with the following abrupt discomfiture: "But,
Sir, as long as I remember, what is to be done with this case of open
and avowed iniquity?"

The minister was struck dumb. He leaned him back on his chair, stroked
his beard, hemmed--considered, and hemmed again, and then said, in an
altered and softened tone: "Why, that is a secondary consideration; you
mean the case between your husband and Miss Logan?"

"The same, Sir. I am scandalized at such intimacies going on under my
nose. The sufferance of it is a great and crying evil."

"Evil, madam, may be either operative, or passive. To them it is an
evil, but to us none. We have no more to do with the sins of the wicked
and unconverted here than with those of an infidel Turk; for all
earthly bonds and fellowships are absorbed and swallowed up in the holy
community of the Reformed Church. However, if it is your wish, I shall
take him to task, and reprimand and humble him in such a manner that he
shall be ashamed of his doings, and renounce such deeds for ever, out
of mere self-respect, though all unsanctified the heart, as well as the
deed, may be. To the wicked, all things are wicked; but to the just,
all things are just and right."

"Ah, that is a sweet and comfortable saying, Mr. Wringhim! How
delightful to think that a justified person can do no wrong! Who would
not envy the liberty wherewith we are made free? Go to my husband, that
poor unfortunate, blindfolded person, and open his eyes to his
degenerate and sinful state; for well are you fitted to the task."

"Yea, I will go in unto him, and confound him. I will lay the strong
holds of sin and Satan as flat before my face as the dung that is
spread out to fatten the land."

"Master, there's a gentleman at the fore-door wants a private word o'
ye."

"Tell him I'm engaged: I can't see any gentleman to-night. But I shall
attend on him to-morrow as soon as he pleases."

"'He's coming straight in, Sir. Stop a wee bit, Sir, my master is
engaged. He cannot see you at present, Sir."

"Stand aside, thou Moabite! My mission admits of no delay. I come to
save him from the jaws of destruction!"

"An that be the case, Sir, it maks a wide difference; an', as the
danger may threaten us a', I fancy I may as weel let ye gang by as
fight wi' ye, sin' ye seem sae intent on 't.--The man says he's comin'
to save ye, an' canna stop, Sir. Here he is."

The laird was going to break out into a volley of wrath against Waters,
his servant; but, before he got a word pronounced, the Rev. Mr.
Wringhim had stepped inside the room, and Waters had retired, shutting
the door behind him.

No introduction could be more mal-a-propos: it was impossible; for at
that very moment the laird and Arabella Logan were both sitting on one
seat, and both looking on one book, when the door opened. "What is it,
Sir?" said the laird fiercely.

"A message of the greatest importance, Sir," said the divine, striding
unceremoniously up to the chimney, turning his back to the fire, and
his face to the culprits. "I think you should know me, Sir?" continued
he, looking displeasedly at the laird, with his face half turned round.

"I think I should," returned the laird. "You are a Mr.
How's--tey--ca'--him, of Glasgow, who did me the worst turn ever I got
done to me in my life. You gentry are always ready to do a man such a
turn. Pray, Sir, did you ever do a good job for anyone to
counterbalance that? For, if you have not, you ought to be--"

"Hold, Sir, I say! None of your profanity before me. If I do evil to
anyone on such occasions, it is because he will have it so; therefore,
the evil is not of my doing. I ask you, Sir, before God and this
witness, I ask you, have you kept solemnly and inviolate the vows which
I laid upon you that day? Answer me!"

"Has the partner whom you bound me to kept hers inviolate? Answer me
that, Sir! None can better do so than you, Mr. How's--tey--ca'--you."

"So, then, you confess your backslidings, and avow the profligacy of
your life. And this person here is, I suppose, the partner of your
iniquity--she whose beauty hath caused you to err! Stand up, both of
you, till I rebuke you, and show you what you are in the eyes of God
and man."

"In the first place, stand you still there, till I tell you what you
are in the eyes of God and man. You are, Sir, a presumptuous,
self-conceited pedagogue, a stirrer up of strife and commotion in
church, in state, in families, and communities. You are one, Sir, whose
righteousness consists in splitting the doctrines of Calvin into
thousands of undistinguishable films, and in setting up a system of
justifying-grace against all breaches of all laws, moral or divine. In
short, Sir, you are a mildew--a canker-worm in the bosom of the
Reformed Church, generating a disease of which she will never be
purged, but by the shedding of blood. Go thou in peace, and do these
abominations no more; but humble thyself, lest a worse reproof come
upon thee."

Wringhim heard all this without flinching. He now and then twisted his
mouth in disdain, treasuring up, meantime, his vengeance against the
two aggressors; for he felt that he had them on the hip, and resolved
to pour out his vengeance and indignation upon them. Sorry am I that
the shackles of modern decorum restrain me from penning that famous
rebuke; fragments of which have been attributed to every divine of old
notoriety throughout Scotland. But I have it by heart; and a glorious
morsel it is to put into the hands of certain incendiaries. The
metaphors are so strong and so appalling that Miss Logan could only
stand them a very short time; she was obliged to withdraw in confusion.
The laird stood his ground with much ado, though his face was often
crimsoned over with the hues of shame and anger. Several times he was
on the point of turning the officious sycophant to the door; but good
manners, and an inherent respect that lie entertained for the clergy,
as the immediate servants of the Supreme Being, restrained him.

Wringhim, perceiving these symptoms of resentment, took them for marks
of shame and contrition, and pushed his reproaches farther than ever
divine ventured to do in a similar case. When he had finished, to
prevent further discussion, he walked slowly and majestically out of
the apartment, making his robes to swing behind him in a most
magisterial manner; he being, without doubt, elated with his high
conquest. He went to the upper story, and related to his metaphysical
associate his wonderful success; how he had driven the dame from the
house in tears and deep confusion, and left the backsliding laird in
such a quandary of shame and repentance that he could neither
articulate a word nor lift up his countenance. The dame thanked him
most cordially, lauding his friendly zeal and powerful eloquence; and
then the two again set keenly to the splitting of hairs, and making
distinctions in religion where none existed.

They being both children of adoption, and secured from falling into
snares, or anyway under the power of the wicked one, it was their
custom, on each visit, to sit up a night in the same apartment, for the
sake of sweet spiritual converse; but that time, in the course of the
night, they differed so materially on a small point somewhere between
justification and final election that the minister, in the heat of his
zeal, sprung from his seat, paced the floor, and maintained his point
with such ardour that Martha was alarmed, and, thinking they were going
to fight, and that the minister would be a hard match for her mistress,
she put on some clothes, and twice left her bed and stood listening at
the back of the door, ready to burst in should need require it. Should
anyone think this picture over-strained, I can assure him that it is
taken from nature and from truth; but I will not likewise aver that the
theologist was neither crazed nor inebriated. If the listener's words
were to be relied on, there was no love, no accommodating principle
manifested between the two, but a fiery burning zeal, relating to
points of such minor importance that a true Christian would blush to
hear them mentioned, and the infidel and profane make a handle of them
to turn our religion to scorn.

Great was the dame's exultation at the triumph of her beloved pastor
over her sinful neighbours in the lower parts of the house; and she
boasted of it to Martha in high-sounding terms. But it was of short
duration; for, in five weeks after that, Arabella Logan came to reside
with the laird as his housekeeper, sitting at his table and carrying
the keys as mistress-substitute of the mansion. The lady's grief and
indignation were now raised to a higher pitch than ever; and she set
every agent to work, with whom she had any power, to effect a
separation between these two suspected ones. Remonstrance was of no
avail: George laughed at them who tried such a course, and retained his
housekeeper, while the lady gave herself up to utter despair; for,
though she would not consort with her husband herself, she could not
endure that any other should do so.

But, to countervail this grievous offence, our saintly and afflicted
dame, in due time, was safely delivered of a fine boy whom the laird
acknowledged as his son and heir, and had him christened by his own
name, and nursed in his own premises. He gave the nurse permission to
take the boy to his mother's presence if ever she should desire to see
him; but, strange as it may appear, she never once desired to see him
from the day that he was born. The boy grew up, and was a healthful and
happy child; and, in the course of another year, the lady presented him
with a brother. A brother he certainly was, in the eye of the law, and
it is more than probable that he was his brother in reality. But the
laird thought otherwise; and, though he knew and acknowledged that he
was obliged to support and provide for him, he refused to acknowledge
him in other respects. He neither would countenance the banquet nor
take the baptismal vows on him in the child's name; of course, the poor
boy had to live and remain an alien from the visible church for a year
and a day; at which time, Mr. Wringhim out of pity and kindness, took
the lady herself as sponsor for the boy, and baptized him by the name
of Robert Wringhim--that being the noted divine's own name.

George was brought up with his father, and educated partly at the
parish school, and partly at home, by a tutor hired for the purpose. He
was a generous and kind-hearted youth; always ready to oblige, and
hardly ever dissatisfied with anybody. Robert was brought up with Mr.
Wringhim, the laird paying a certain allowance for him yearly; and
there the boy was early inured to all the sternness and severity of his
pastor's arbitrary and unyielding creed. He was taught to pray twice
every day, and seven times on Sabbath days; but he was only to pray for
the elect, and, like Devil of old, doom all that were aliens from God
to destruction. He had never, in that family into which he had been as
it were adopted, heard aught but evil spoken of his reputed father and
brother; consequently he held them in utter abhorrence, and prayed
against them every day, often "that the old hoary sinner might be cut
off in the full flush of his iniquity, and be carried quick into hell;
and that the young stem of the corrupt trunk might also be taken from a
world that he disgraced, but that his sins might be pardoned, because
he knew no better."

Such were the tenets in which it would appear young Robert was bred. He
was an acute boy, an excellent learner, had ardent and ungovernable
passions, and, withal, a sternness of demeanour from which other boys
shrunk. He was the best grammarian, the best reader, writer, and
accountant in the various classes that he attended, and was fond of
writing essays on controverted points of theology, for which he got
prizes, and great praise from his guardian and mother. George was much
behind him in scholastic acquirements, but greatly his superior in
personal prowess, form, feature, and all that constitutes gentility in
the deportment and appearance. The laird had often manifested to Miss
Logan an earnest wish that the two young men should never meet, or at
all events that they should be as little conversant as possible; and
Miss Logan, who was as much attached to George as if he had been her
own son, took every precaution, while he was a boy, that he should
never meet with his brother; but, as they advanced towards manhood,
this became impracticable. The lady was removed from her apartments in
her husband's house to Glasgow, to her great content; and all to
prevent the young laird being tainted with the company of her and her
second son; for the laird had felt the effects of the principles they
professed, and dreaded them more than persecution, fire, and sword.
During all the dreadful times that had overpast, though the laird had
been a moderate man, he had still leaned to the side of kingly
prerogative, and had escaped confiscation and fines, without ever
taking any active hand in suppressing the Covenanters. But, after
experiencing a specimen of their tenets and manner in his wife, from a
secret favourer of them and their doctrines, he grew alarmed at the
prevalence of such stern and factious principles, now that there was no
check or restraint upon them; and from that time he began to set
himself against them, joining with the Cavalier party of that day in
all their proceedings.

It so happened that, under the influence of the Earls of Seafield and
Tullibardine, he was returned for a Member of Parliament in the famous
session that sat at Edinburgh when the Duke of Queensberry was
commissioner, and in which party spirit ran to such an extremity. The
young laird went with his father to the court, and remained in town all
the time that the session lasted; and, as all interested people of both
factions flocked to the town at that period, so the important Mr.
Wringhim was there among the rest, during the greater part of the time,
blowing the coal of revolutionary principles with all his might, in
every society to which he could obtain admission. He was a great
favourite with some of the west country gentlemen of that faction, by
reason of his unbending impudence. No opposition could for a moment
cause him either to blush, or retract one item that he had advanced.
Therefore the Duke of Argyle and his friends made such use of him as
sportsmen often do of terriers, to start the game, and make a great
yelping noise to let them know whither the chase is proceeding. They
often did this out of sport, in order to tease their opponent; for of
all pesterers that ever fastened on man he was the most insufferable:
knowing that his coat protected him from manual chastisement, he spared
no acrimony, and delighted in the chagrin and anger of those with whom
he contended. But he was sometimes likewise of real use to the heads of
the Presbyterian faction, and therefore was admitted to their tables,
and of course conceived himself a very great man.

His ward accompanied him; and, very shortly after their arrival in
Edinburgh, Robert, for the first time, met with the young laird his
brother, in a match at tennis. The prowess and agility of the young
squire drew forth the loudest plaudits of approval from his associates,
and his own exertion alone carried the game every time on the one side,
and that so far as all I along to count three for their one. The hero's
name soon ran round the circle, and when his brother Robert, who was an
onlooker, learned who it was that was gaining so much applause, he came
and stood close beside him all the time that the game lasted, always
now and then putting in a cutting remark by way of mockery.

George could not help perceiving him, not only on account of his
impertinent remarks, but he, moreover, stood so near him that he
several times impeded him in his rapid evolutions, and of course got
himself shoved aside in no very ceremonious way. Instead of making him
keep his distance, these rude shocks and pushes, accompanied sometimes
with hasty curses, only made him cling the closer to this king of the
game. He seemed determined to maintain his right to his place as an
onlooker, as well as any of those engaged in the game, and, if they had
tried him at an argument, he would have carried his point; or perhaps
he wished to quarrel with this spark of his jealousy and aversion, and
draw the attention of the gay crowd to himself by these means; for,
like his guardian, he knew no other pleasure but what consisted in
opposition. George took him for some impertinent student of divinity,
rather set upon a joke than anything else. He perceived a lad with
black clothes, and a methodistical face, whose countenance and eye he
disliked exceedingly, several times in his way, and that was all the
notice he took of him the first time they two met. But the next day,
and every succeeding one, the same devilish-looking youth attended him
as constantly as his shadow; was always in his way as with intention to
impede him and ever and anon his deep and malignant eye met those of
his elder brother with a glance so fierce that it sometimes startled
him.

The very next time that George was engaged at tennis, he had not struck
the ball above twice till the same intrusive being was again in his
way. The party played for considerable stakes that day, namely, a
dinner and wine at the Black Bull tavern; and George, as the hero and
head of his party, was much interested in its honour; consequently the
sight of this moody and hellish-looking student affected him in no very
pleasant manner. "Pray Sir, be so good as keep without the range of the
ball," said he.

"Is there any law or enactment that can compel me to do so?" said the
other, biting his lip with scorn.

"If there is not, they are here that shall compel you," returned
George. "So, friend, I rede you to be on your guard."

As he said this, a flush of anger glowed in his handsome face and
flashed from his sparkling blue eye; but it was a stranger to both, and
momently took its departure. The black-coated youth set up his cap
before, brought his heavy brows over his deep dark eyes, put his hands
in the pockets of his black plush breeches, and stepped a little
farther into the semicircle, immediately on his brother's right hand,
than he had ever ventured to do before. There he set himself firm on
his legs, and, with a face as demure as death, seemed determined to
keep his ground. He pretended to be following the ball with his eyes;
but every moment they were glancing aside at George. One of the
competitors chanced to say rashly, in the moment of exultation, "That's
a d--d fine blow, George!" On which the intruder took up the word, as
characteristic of the competitors, and repeated it every stroke that
was given, making such a ludicrous use of it that several of the
onlookers were compelled to laugh immoderately; but the players were
terribly nettled at it, as he really contrived, by dint of sliding in
some canonical terms, to render the competitors and their game
ridiculous.

But matters at length came to a crisis that put them beyond sport.
George, in flying backward to gain the point at which the ball was
going to light, came inadvertently so rudely in contact with this
obstreperous interloper that lie not only overthrew him, but also got a
grievous fall over his legs; and, as he arose, the other made a spurn
at him with his foot, which, if it had hit to its aim, would
undoubtedly have finished the course of the young laird of Dalcastle
and Balgrennan. George, being irritated beyond measure, as may well be
conceived, especially at the deadly stroke aimed at him, struck the
assailant with his racket, rather slightly, but so that his mouth and
nose gushed out blood; and, at the same time, he said, turning to his
cronies: "Does any of you know who the infernal puppy is?"

"Do you know, Sir?" said one of the onlookers, a stranger, "the
gentleman is your own brother, Sir--Mr. Robert Wringhim Colwan!"

"No, not Colwan, Sir," said Robert, putting his hands in his pockets,
and setting himself still farther forward than before, "not a Colwan,
Sir; henceforth I disclaim the name."

"No, certainly not," repeated George. "My mother's son you may be--but
not a Colwan! There you are right." Then, turning around to his
informer, he said: "Mercy be about us, Sir! Is this the crazy
minister's son from Glasgow?"

This question was put in the irritation of the moment, but it was too
rude, and far too out of place, and no one deigned any answer to it. He
felt the reproof, and felt it deeply; seeming anxious for some
opportunity to make an acknowledgment, or some reparation.

In the meantime, young Wringhim was an object to all of the uttermost
disgust. The blood flowing from his mouth and nose he took no pains to
stem, neither did he so much as wipe it away; so that it spread over
all his cheeks, and breast, even off at his toes. In that state did he
take up his station in the middle of the competitors; and he did not
now keep his place, but ran about, impeding everyone who attempted to
make at the ball. They loaded him with execrations, but it availed
nothing; he seemed courting persecution and buffetings, keeping
steadfastly to his old joke of damnation, and marring the game so
completely that, in spite of every effort on the part of the players,
he forced them to stop their game and give it up. He was such a
rueful-looking object, covered with blood, that none of them had the
heart to kick him, although it appeared the only thing he wanted; and,
as for George, he said not another word to him, either in anger or
reproof.

When the game was fairly given up, and the party were washing their
hands in the stone fount, some of them besought Robert Wringhim to wash
himself; but he mocked at them, and said he was much better as he was.
George, at length, came forward abashedly towards him, and said: "I
have been greatly to blame, Robert, and am very sorry for what I have
done. But, in the first instance, I erred through ignorance, not
knowing you were my brother, which you certainly are; and, in the
second, through a momentary irritation, for which I am ashamed. I pray
you, therefore, to pardon me, and give me your hand."

As he said this, he held out his hand towards his polluted brother; but
the froward predestinarian took not his from his breeches pocket, but
lifting his foot, he gave his brother's hand a kick. "I'll give you
what will suit such a hand better than mine," said he, with a sneer.
And then, turning lightly about, he added: "Are there to be no more of
these d---d fine blows, gentlemen? For shame, to give up such a
profitable and edifying game!"

"This is too bad," said George. "But, since it is thus, I have the less
to regret." And, having made this general remark, he took no more note
of the uncouth aggressor. But the persecution of the latter terminated
not on the play-ground: he ranked up among them, bloody and disgusting
as he was, and, keeping close by his brother's side, he marched along
with the party all the way to the Black Bull. Before they got there, a
great number of boys and idle people had surrounded them, hooting and
incommoding them exceedingly, so that they were glad to get into the
inn; and the unaccountable monster actually tried to get in alongst
with them, to make one of the party at dinner. But the innkeeper and
his men, getting the hint, by force prevented him from entering,
although he attempted it again and again, both by telling lies and
offering a bribe. Finding he could not prevail, he set to exciting the
mob at the door to acts of violence; in which he had like to have
succeeded. The landlord had no other shift, at last, but to send
privately for two officers, and have him carried to the guard-house;
and the hilarity and joy of the party of young gentlemen, for the
evening, was quite spoiled by the inauspicious termination of their
game.

The Rev. Robert Wringhim was now to send for, to release his beloved
ward. The messenger found him at table, with a number of the leaders of
the Whig faction, the Marquis of Annandale being in the chair; and, the
prisoner's note being produced, Wringhim read it aloud, accompanying it
with some explanatory remarks. The circumstances of the case being thus
magnified and distorted, it excited the utmost abhorrence, both of the
deed and the perpetrators, among the assembled faction. They declaimed
against the act as an unnatural attempt on the character, and even the
life, of an unfortunate brother, who had been expelled from his
father's house. And, as party spirit was the order of the day, an
attempt was made to lay the burden of it to that account. In short, the
young culprit got some of the best blood of the land to enter as his
securities, and was set at liberty. But, when Wringhim perceived the
plight that he was in, he took him, as he was, and presented him to his
honourable patrons. This raised the indignation against the young laird
and his associates a thousand-fold, which actually roused the party to
temporary madness. They were, perhaps, a little excited by the wine and
spirits they had swallowed; else a casual quarrel between two young
men, at tennis, could not have driven them to such extremes. But
certain it is that, from one at first arising to address the party on
the atrocity of the offence, both in a moral and political point of
view, on a sudden there were six on their feet, at the same time,
expatiating on it; and, in a very short time thereafter, everyone in
the room was up talking with the utmost vociferation, all on the same
subject, and all taking the same side in the debate.

In the midst of this confusion, someone or other issued from the house,
which was at the back of the Canongate, calling out: "A plot, a plot!
Treason, treason! Down with the bloody incendiaries at the Black Bull!"

The concourse of people that were assembled in Edinburgh at that time
was prodigious; and, as they were all actuated by political motives,
they wanted only a ready-blown coal to set the mountain on fire. The
evening being fine, and the streets thronged, the cry ran from mouth to
mouth through the whole city. More than that, the mob that had of late
been gathered to the door of the Black Bull had, by degrees, dispersed;
but, they being young men, and idle vagrants, they had only spread
themselves over the rest of the street to lounge in search of further
amusement: consequently, a word was sufficient to send them back to
their late rendezvous, where they had previously witnessed something
they did not much approve of.

The master of the tavern was astonished at seeing the mob again
assembling; and that with such hurry and noise. But, his inmates being
all of the highest respectability, he judged himself sure of
protection, or at least of indemnity. He had two large parties in his
house at the time; the largest of which was of the Revolutionist
faction. The other consisted of our young Tennis-players, and their
associates, who were all of the Jacobite order; or, at all events,
leaned to the Episcopal side. The largest party were in a front room;
and the attack of the mob fell first on their windows, though rather
with fear and caution. Jingle went one pane; then a loud hurrah; and
that again was followed by a number of voices, endeavouring to restrain
the indignation from venting itself in destroying the windows, and to
turn it on the inmates. The Whigs, calling the landlord, inquired what
the assault meant: he cunningly answered that he suspected it was some
of the youths of the Cavalier, or High-Church party, exciting the mob
against them. The party consisted mostly of young gentlemen, by that
time in a key to engage in any row; and, at all events, to suffer
nothing from the other party, against whom their passions were mightily
inflamed.

The landlord, therefore, had no sooner given them the spirit-rousing
intelligence than everyone, as by instinct, swore his own natural oath,
and grasped his own natural weapon. A few of those of the highest rank
were armed with swords, which they boldly drew; those of the
subordinate orders immediately flew to such weapons as the room,
kitchen, and scullery afforded--such as tongs, pokers, spits, racks,
and shovels; and breathing vengeance on the prelatic party, the
children of Antichrist and the heirs of d--n--t--n! the barterers of
the liberties of their country, and betrayers of the most sacred
trust--thus elevated, and thus armed, in the cause of right, justice,
and liberty, our heroes rushed to the street, and attacked the mob with
such violence that they broke the mass in a moment, and dispersed their
thousands like chaff before the wind. The other party of young
Jacobites, who sat in a room farther from the front, and were those
against whom the fury of the mob was meant to have been directed, knew
nothing of this second uproar, till the noise of the sally made by the
Whigs assailed their ears; being then informed that the mob had
attacked the house on account of the treatment they themselves had
given to a young gentleman of the adverse faction, and that another
jovial party had issued from the house in their defence, and was now
engaged in an unequal combat, the sparks likewise flew, to the field to
back their defenders with all their prowess, without troubling their
heads about who they were.

A mob is like a spring tide in an eastern storm, that retires only to
return with more overwhelming fury. The crowd was taken by surprise
when such a strong and well-armed party issued from the house with so
great fury, laying all prostrate that came in their way. Those who were
next to the door, and were, of course, the first whom the imminent
danger assailed, rushed backwards among the crowd with their whole
force. The Black Bull standing in a small square half-way between the
High Street and the Cowgate, and the entrance to it being by two
closes, into these the pressure outwards was simultaneous, and
thousands were moved to an involuntary flight, they knew not why.

But the High Street of Edinburgh, which they soon reached, is a
dangerous place in which to make an open attack upon a mob. And it
appears that the entrances to the tavern had been somewhere near to the
Cross, on the south side of the street; for the crowd fled with great
expedition, both to the cast and west, and the conquerors, separating
themselves as chance directed, pursued impetuously, wounding and
maiming as they flew. But it so chanced that, before either of the
wings had followed the flying squadrons of their enemies for the space
of a hundred yards each way, the devil an enemy they had to pursue! the
multitude had vanished like so many thousands of phantoms! What could
our heroes do? Why, they faced about to return towards their citadel,
the Black Bull. But that feat was not so easily, nor so readily
accomplished as they divined. The unnumbered alleys on each side of the
street had swallowed up the multitude in a few seconds; but from these
they were busy reconnoitring; and  perceiving the deficiency in the
number of their assailants, the rush from both sides of the street was
as rapid, and as wonderful, as the disappearance of the crowd had been
a few minutes before. Each close vomited out its levies, and these
better armed with missiles than when they sought it for a temporary
retreat. Woe then to our two columns of victorious Whigs! The mob
actually closed around them as they would have swallowed them up; and,
in the meanwhile, shower after shower of the most abominable weapons of
offence were rained in upon them. If the gentlemen were irritated
before, this inflamed them still further; but their danger was now so
apparent they could not shut their eyes on it; therefore, both parties,
as if actuated by the same spirit, made a desperate effort to join, and
the greater part effected it; but some were knocked down, and others
were separated from their friends, and blithe to become silent members
of the mob.

The battle now raged immediately in front of the closes leading to the
Black Bull; the small body of Whig gentlemen was hardly bested, and it
is likely would have been overcome and trampled down every man, had
they not been then and there joined by the young Cavaliers; who, fresh
to arms, broke from the wynd, opened the head of the passage, laid
about them manfully, and thus kept up the spirits of the exasperated
Whigs, who were the men in fact that wrought the most deray among the
populace.

The town-guard was now on the alert; and two companies of the
Cameronian Regiment, with the Hon. Captain Douglas, rushed down from
the Castle to the scene of action; but, for all the noise and hubbub
that these caused in the street, the combat had become so close and
inveterate that numbers of both sides were taken prisoners fighting
hand to hand, and could scarcely be separated when the guardsmen and
soldiers had them by the necks.

Great was the alarm and confusion that night in Edinburgh; for everyone
concluded that it was a party scuffle, and, the two parties being so
equal in power, the most serious consequences were anticipated. The
agitation was so prevailing that every party in town, great and small,
was broken up; and the lord-commissioner thought proper to go to the
Council Chamber himself, even at that late hour, accompanied by the
sheriffs of Edinburgh and Linlithgow, with sundry noblemen besides, in
order to learn something of the origin of the affray.

For a long time the court was completely puzzled. Every gentleman
brought in exclaimed against the treatment he had received, in most
bitter terms, blaming a mob set on him and his friends by the adverse
party, and matters looked extremely ill until at length they began to
perceive that they were examining gentlemen of both parties, and that
they had been doing so from the beginning, almost alternately, so
equally had the prisoners been taken from both parties. Finally, it
turned out that a few gentlemen, two-thirds of whom were strenuous
Whigs themselves, had joined in mauling the whole Whig population of
Edinburgh. The investigation disclosed nothing the effect of which was
not ludicrous; and the Duke of Queensberry, whose aim was at that time
to conciliate the two factions, tried all that he could to turn the
whole fracas into a joke--an unlucky frolic, where no ill was meant on
either side, and which yet had been productive of a great deal.

The greater part of the people went home satisfied; but not so the Rev.
Robert Wringhim. He did all that he could to inflame both judges and
populace against the young Cavaliers, especially against the young
Laird of Dalcastle, whom he represented as an incendiary, set on by an
unnatural parent to slander his mother, and make away with a hapless
and only brother; and, in truth, that declaimer against all human merit
had that sort of powerful, homely, and bitter eloquence which seldom
missed affecting his hearers: the consequence at that time was that he
made the unfortunate affair between the two brothers appear in
extremely bad colours, and the populace retired to their homes
impressed with no very favourable opinion of either the Laird of
Dalcastle or his son George, neither of whom were there present to
speak for themselves.

As for Wringhim himself, he went home to his lodgings, filled with gall
and with spite against the young laird, whom he was made to believe the
aggressor, and that intentionally. But most of all he was filled with
indignation against the father, whom he held in abhorrence at all
times, and blamed solely for this unmannerly attack made on his
favourite ward, namesake, and adopted son; and for the public
imputation of a crime to his own reverence in calling the lad his son,
and thus charging him with a sin against which he was well known to
have levelled all the arrows of church censure with unsparing might.

But, filled as his heart was with some portion of these bad feelings,
to which all flesh is subject, he kept, nevertheless, the fear of the
Lord always before his eyes so far as never to omit any of the external
duties of religion, and farther than that man hath no power to pry. He
lodged with the family of a Mr. Miller, whose lady was originally from
Glasgow, and had been a hearer and, of course, a great admirer of Mr.
Wringhim. In that family he made public worship every evening; and that
night, in his petitions at a throne of grace, he prayed for so many
vials of wrath to be poured on the head of some particular sinner that
the hearers trembled, and stopped their ears. But that he might not
proceed with so violent a measure, amounting to excommunication,
without due scripture warrant, he began the exercise of the evening by
singing the following verses, which it is a pity should ever have been
admitted into a Christian psalmody, being so adverse to all its mild
and benevolent principles:


  Set thou the wicked over him,
  And upon his right hand
  Give thou his greatest enemy,
  Even Satan, leave to stand.

  And, when by thee he shall be judged,
  Let him remembered be;
  And let his prayer be turned to sin
  When he shall call on thee.

  Few be his days; and in his room
  His charge another take;
  His children let be fatherless;
  His wife a widow make:

  Let God his father's wickedness
  Still to remembrance call;
  And never let his mother's sin
  Be blotted out at all.

  As he in cursing pleasure took
  So let it to him fall;
  As he delighted not to bless,
  So bless him not at all.

  As cursing he like clothes put on,
  Into his bowels so,
  Like water, and into his bones
  Like oil, down let it go.


Young Wringhim only knew the full purport of this spiritual song; and
went to his bed better satisfied than ever that his father and brother
were castaways, reprobates, aliens from the Church and the true faith,
and cursed in time and eternity.

The next day George and his companions met as usual--all who were not
seriously wounded of them. But, as they strolled about the city, the
rancorous eye and the finger of scorn was pointed against them. None of
them was at first aware of the reason; but it threw a damp over their
spirits and enjoyments, which they could not master. They went to take
a forenoon game at their old play of tennis, not on a match, but by way
of improving themselves; but they had not well taken their places till
young Wringhim appeared in his old station, at his brother's right
hand, with looks more demure and determined than ever. His lips were
primmed so close that his mouth was hardly discernible, and his dark
deep eye flashed gleams of holy indignation on the godless set, but
particularly on his brother. His presence acted as a mildew on all
social intercourse or enjoyment; the game was marred, and ended ere
ever it was well begun. There were whisperings apart--the party
separated, and, in order to shake off the blighting influence of this
dogged persecutor, they entered sundry houses of their acquaintances,
with an understanding that they were to meet on the Links for a game at
cricket.

They did so; and, stripping off part of their clothes, they began that
violent and spirited game. They had not played five minutes till
Wringhim was stalking in the midst of them, and totally impeding the
play. A cry arose from all corners of: "Oh, this will never do. Kick
him out of the play-ground! Knock down the scoundrel; or bind him, and
let him lie in peace."

"By no means," cried George. "It is evident he wants nothing else. Pray
do not humour him so much as to touch him with either foot or finger."
Then, turning to a friend, he said in a whisper: "Speak to him, Gordon;
he surely will not refuse to let us have the ground to ourselves, if
you request it of him."

Gordon went up to him, and requested of him, civilly, but ardently, "to
retire to a certain distance, else none of them could or would be
answerable, however sore he might be hurt."

He turned disdainfully on his heel, uttered a kind of pulpit hem! and
then added, "I will take my chance of that; hurt me, any of you, at
your peril."

The young gentlemen smiled, through spite and disdain of the dogged
animal. Gordon followed him up, and tried to remonstrate with him; but
he let him know that "it was his pleasure to be there at that time;
and, unless he could demonstrate to him what superior right he and his
party had to that ground, in preference to him, and to the exclusion of
all others, he was determined to assert his right, and the rights of
his fellow-citizens, by keeping possession of whatsoever part of that
common field he chose."

"You are no gentleman, Sir," said Gordon.

"Are you one, Sir?" said the other.

"Yes, Sir. I will let you know that I am, by G--!"

"Then, thanks be to Him whose name you have profaned, I am none, If one
of the party be a gentleman, I do hope in God am not!"

It was now apparent to them all that he was courting obloquy and manual
chastisement from their hands, if  by any means he could provoke them
to the deed; and, apprehensive that he had some sinister and deep-laid
design in hunting after such a singular favour, they wisely restrained
one another from inflicting the punishment that each of them yearned to
bestow, personally, and which he so well deserved.

But the unpopularity of the younger George Colwan could no longer be
concealed from his associates. It was manifested wherever the populace
were assembled; and his young and intimate friend, Adam Gordon, was
obliged to warn him of the circumstance that he might not be surprised
at the gentlemen of their acquaintance withdrawing themselves from his
society, as they could not be seen with him without being insulted.
George thanked him; and it was agreed between them that the former
should keep himself retired during the daytime while he remained in
Edinburgh, and that at night they should meet together, along with such
of their companions as were disengaged.

George found it every day more and more necessary to adhere to this
system of seclusion; for it was not alone the hisses of the boys and
populace that pursued him--a fiend of more malignant aspect was ever at
his elbow, in the form of his brother. To whatever place of amusement
he betook himself, and however well he concealed his intentions of
going there from all flesh living, there was his brother Wringhim also,
and always within a few yards of him, generally about the same
distance, and ever and anon darting looks at him that chilled his very
soul. They were looks that cannot be described; but they were felt
piercing to the bosom's deepest core. They affected even the onlookers
in a very particular manner, for all whose eyes caught a glimpse of
these hideous glances followed them to the object towards which they
were darted: the gentlemanly and mild demeanour of that object
generally calmed their startled apprehensions; for no one ever yet
noted the glances of the young man's eye, in the black coat, at the
face of his brother, who did not at first manifest strong symptoms of
alarm.

George became utterly confounded; not only at the import of this
persecution, but how in the world it came to pass that this
unaccountable being knew all his motions, and every intention of his
heart, as it were intuitively. On consulting his own previous feelings
and resolutions, he found that the circumstances of his going to such
and such a place were often the most casual incidents in nature--the
caprice of a moment had carried him there, and yet he had never sat or
stood many minutes till there was the selfsame being, always in the
same position with regard to himself, as regularly as the shadow is
cast from the substance, or the ray of light from the opposing denser
medium.

For instance, he remembered one day of setting out with the intention
of going to attend divine worship in the High Church, and when, within
a short space of its door, he was overtaken by young Kilpatrick of
Closeburn, who was bound to the Grey-Friars to see his sweetheart, as
he said: "and if you will go with me, Colwan," said he, "I will let you
see her too, and then you will be just as far forward as I am."

George assented at once, and went; and, after taking his seat, he
leaned his head forwards on the pew to repeat over to himself a short
ejaculatory prayer, as had always been his custom on entering the house
of God. When he had done, he lifted his eye naturally towards that
point on his right hand where the fierce apparition of his brother had
been wont to meet his view: there he was, in the same habit, form,
demeanour, and precise point of distance, as usual! George again laid
down his head, and his mind was so astounded that he had nearly fallen
into a swoon. He tried shortly after to muster up courage to look at
the speaker, at the congregation, and at Captain Kilpatrick's
sweetheart in particular; but the fiendish glances of the young man in
the black clothes were too appalling to be withstood--his eye caught
them whether he was looking that way or not: at length his courage was
fairly mastered, and he was obliged to look down during the remainder
of the service.

By night or by day it was the same. In the gallery of the Parliament
House, in the boxes of the play-house, in the church, in the assembly,
in the streets, suburbs, and the fields; and every day, and every hour,
from the first rencounter of the two, the attendance became more and
more constant, more inexplicable, and altogether more alarming and
insufferable, until at last George was fairly driven from society, and
forced to spend his days in his and his father's lodgings with closed
doors. Even there, he was constantly harassed with the idea that, the
next time he lifted his eyes, he would to a certainty see that face,
the most repulsive to all his feelings of aught the earth contained.
The attendance of that brother was now become like the attendance of a
demon on some devoted being that had sold himself to destruction; his
approaches as undiscerned, and his looks as fraught with hideous
malignity. It was seldom that he saw him either following him in the
streets, or entering any house or church after him; he only appeared in
his place, George wist not how, or whence; and, having sped so ill in
his first friendly approaches, he had never spoken to his equivocal
attendant a second time.

It came at length into George's head, as he was pondering, by himself,
on the circumstances of this extraordinary attendance, that perhaps his
brother had relented, and, though of so sullen and unaccommodating a
temper that he would not acknowledge it, or beg a reconciliation, it
might be for that very purpose that he followed his steps night and day
in that extraordinary manner. "I cannot for my life see for what other
purpose it can be," thought he. "He never offers to attempt my life;
nor dares he, if he had the inclination; therefore, although his manner
is peculiarly repulsive to me, I shall not have my mind burdened with
the reflection that my own mother's son yearned for a reconciliation
with me and was repulsed by my haughty and insolent behaviour. The next
time he comes to my hand, I am resolved that I will accost him as one
brother ought to address another, whatever it may cost me; and, if I am
still flouted with disdain, then shall the blame rest with him."

After this generous resolution, it was a good while before his
gratuitous attendant appeared at his side again; and George began to
think that his visits were discontinued. The hope was a relief that
could not be calculated; but still George had a feeling that it was too
supreme to last. His enemy had been too pertinacious to abandon his
design, whatever it was. He, however, began to indulge in a little more
liberty, and for several days he enjoyed it with impunity.

George was, from infancy, of a stirring active disposition and could
not endure confinement; and, having been of late much restrained in his
youthful exercises by this singular persecutor, he grew uneasy under
such restraint, and, one morning, chancing to awaken very early, he
arose to make an excursion to the top of Arthur's Seat, to breathe the
breeze of the dawning, and see the sun arise out of the eastern ocean.
The morning was calm and serene; and as he walked down the south back
of the Canongate, towards the Palace, the haze was so close around him
that he could not see the houses on the opposite side of the way. As he
passed the Lord-Commissioner's house, the guards were in attendance,
who cautioned him not to go by the Palace, as all the gates would be
shut and guarded for an hour to come, on which he went by the back of
St. Anthony's gardens, and found his way into that little romantic
glade adjoining to the saint's chapel and well. He was still involved
in a blue haze, like a dense smoke, but yet in the midst of it the
respiration was the most refreshing and delicious. The grass and the
flowers were loaden with dew; and, on taking off his hat to wipe his
forehead, he perceived that the black glossy fur of which his chaperon
was wrought was all covered with a tissue of the most delicate
silver--a fairy web, composed of little spheres, so minute that no eye
could discern any of them; yet there they were shining in lovely
millions. Afraid of defacing so beautiful and so delicate a garnish, he
replaced his hat with the greatest caution, and went on his way light
of heart.

As he approached the swire at the head of the dell--that little
delightful verge from which in one moment the eastern limits and shores
of Lothian arise on the view--as he approached it, I say, and a little
space from the height, he beheld, to his astonishment, a bright halo in
the cloud of haze, that rose in a semicircle over his head like a pale
rainbow. He was struck motionless at the view of the lovely vision; for
it so chanced that he had never seen the same appearance before, though
common at early morn. But he soon perceived the cause of the
phenomenon, and that it proceeded from the rays of the sun from a pure
unclouded morning sky striking upon this dense vapour which refracted
them. But, the better all the works of nature are understood, the more
they will be ever admired. That was a scene that would have entranced
the man of science with delight, but which the uninitiated and sordid
man would have regarded less than the mole rearing up his hill in
silence and in darkness.

George did admire this halo of glory, which still grew wider, and less
defined, as he approached the surface, of the cloud. But, to his utter
amazement and supreme delight, he found, on reaching the top of
Arthur's Seat, that this sublunary rainbow, this terrestrial glory, was
spread in its most vivid hues beneath his feet. Still he could not
perceive the body of the sun, although the light behind him was
dazzling; but the cloud of haze lying dense in that deep dell that
separates the hill from the rocks of Salisbury, and the dull shadow of
the hill mingling with that cloud made the dell a pit of darkness. On
that shadowy cloud was the lovely rainbow formed, spreading itself on a
horizontal plain, and having a slight and brilliant shade of all the
colours of the heavenly bow, but all of them paler and less defined.
But this terrestrial phenomenon of the early morn cannot be better
delineated than by the name given of it by the shepherd boys, "The
little wee ghost of the rainbow."

Such was the description of the morning, and the wild shades of the
hill, that George gave to his father and Mr. Adam Gordon that same day
on which he had witnessed them; and it is necessary that the reader
should comprehend something of their nature to understand what follows.

He seated himself on the pinnacle of the rocky precipice, a little
within the top of the hill to the westward, and, with a light and
buoyant heart, viewed the beauties of the morning, and inhaled its
salubrious breeze. "Here," thought he, "I can converse with nature
without disturbance, and without being intruded on by any appalling or
obnoxious visitor." The idea of his brother's dark and malevolent looks
coming at that moment across his mind, he turned his eyes instinctively
to the right, to the point where that unwelcome guest was wont to make
his appearance. Gracious Heaven! What an apparition was there presented
to his view! He saw, delineated in the cloud, the shoulders, arms, and
features of a human being of the most dreadful aspect. The face was the
face of his brother, but dilated to twenty times the natural size. Its
dark eyes gleamed on him through the mist, while every furrow of its
hideous brow frowned deep as the ravines on the brow of the hill.
George started, and his hair stood up in bristles as he gazed on this
horrible monster. He saw every feature and every line of the face
distinctly as it gazed on him with an intensity that was hardly
brookable. Its eyes were fixed on him, in the same manner as those of
some carnivorous animal fixed on its prey; and yet there was fear and
trembling in these unearthly features, as plainly depicted as murderous
malice. The giant apparition seemed sometimes to be cowering down as in
terror, so that nothing but his brow and eyes were seen; still these
never turned one moment from their object--again it rose imperceptively
up, and began to approach with great caution; and, as it neared, the
dimensions of its form lessened, still continuing, however, far above
the natural size.

George conceived it to be a spirit. He could conceive it to be nothing
else; and he took it for some horrid demon by which he was haunted,
that had assumed the features of his brother in every lineament, but,
in taking on itself the human form, had miscalculated dreadfully on the
size, and presented itself thus to him in a blown-up, dilated frame of
embodied air, exhaled from the caverns of death or the regions of
devouring fire. He was further confirmed in the belief that it was a
malignant spirit on perceiving that it approached him across the front
of a precipice, where there was not footing for thing of mortal frame.
Still, what with terror and astonishment, he continued riveted to the
spot, till it approached, as he deemed, to within two yards of him; and
then, perceiving that it was setting itself to make a violent spring on
him, he started to his feet and fled distractedly in the opposite
direction, keeping his eye cast behind him lest he had been seized in
that dangerous place. But the very first bolt that he made in his
flight he came in contact with a real body of flesh and blood, and that
with such violence that both went down among some scragged rocks, and
George rolled over the other. The being called out "Murder"; and,
rising, fled precipitately. George then perceived that it was his
brother; and being confounded between the shadow and the substance, he
knew not what he was doing or what he had done; and, there being only
one natural way of retreat from the brink of the rock, he likewise
arose and pursued the affrighted culprit with all his speed towards the
top of the hill. Wringhim was braying out, "Murder! murder!" at which
George, being disgusted, and his spirits all in a ferment from some
hurried idea of intended harm, the moment he came up with the craven he
seized him rudely by the shoulder, and clapped his hand on his mouth.
"Murder, you beast!" said he; "what do you mean by roaring out murder
in that way? Who the devil is murdering you, or offering to murder you?"

Wringhim forced his mouth from under his brother's hand, and roared
with redoubled energy: "Eh! Egh! Murder! murder!" etc. George had felt
resolute to put down this shocking alarm, lest someone might hear it
and fly to the spot, or draw inferences widely different from the
truth; and, perceiving the terror of this elect youth to be so great
that expostulation was vain, he seized him by the mouth and nose with
his left hand so strenuously that he sank his fingers into his cheeks.
But, the poltroon still attempting to bray out, George gave him such a
stunning blow with his fist on the left temple that he crumbled, as it
were, to the ground, but more from the effects of terror than those of
the blow. His nose, however, again gushed out blood, a system of
defence which seemed as natural to him as that resorted to by the race
of stinkards. He then raised himself on his knees and hams, and raising
up his ghastly face, while the blood streamed over both ears, he
besought his life of his brother, in the most abject whining manner,
gaping and blubbering most piteously.

"Tell me then, Sir," said George, resolved to make the most of the
wretch's terror--"tell me for what purpose it is that you haunt my
steps? Tell me plainly, and instantly, else I will throw you from the
verge of that precipice."

"Oh, I will never do it again! I will never do it again! Spare my life,
dear, good brother! Spare my life! Sure I never did you any hurt."

"Swear to me, then, by the God that made you, that you will never
henceforth follow after me to torment me with your hellish threatening
looks; swear that you will never again come into my presence without
being invited. Will you take an oath to this effect?"

"Oh yes! I will, I will!"

"But this is not all: you must tell me for what purpose you sought me
out here this morning?"

"Oh, brother! For nothing but your good. I had nothing at heart but
your unspeakable profit, and great and endless good."

"So, then, you indeed knew that I was here?"

"I was told so by a friend, but I did not believe him; a--a--at least I
did not know that it was true till I saw you."

"Tell me this one thing, then, Robert, and all shall be forgotten and
forgiven. Who was that friend?"

"You do not know him."

"How then does he know me?"

"I cannot tell."

"Was he here present with you to-day?"

"Yes; he was not far distant. He came to this hill with me."

"Where then is he now?"

"I cannot tell."

"Then, wretch, confess that the devil was that friend who told you I
was here, and who came here with you. None else could possibly know of
my being here."

"Ah! how little you know of him! Would you argue that there is neither
man nor spirit endowed with so much foresight as to deduce natural
conclusions from previous actions and incidents but the devil? Alas,
brother! But why should I wonder at such abandoned notions and
principles? It was fore-ordained that you should cherish them, and that
they should be the ruin of your soul and body, before the world was
framed. Be assured of this, however, that I had no aim of seeking you
but your good!"

"Well, Robert, I will believe it. I am disposed to be hasty and
passionate: it is a fault in my nature; but I never meant, or wished
you evil; and God is my witness that I would as soon stretch out my
hand to my own life, or my father's, as to yours." At these words,
Wringhim uttered a hollow exulting laugh, put his hands in his pockets,
and withdrew a space to his accustomed distance. George continued: "And
now, once for all, I request that we may exchange forgiveness, and that
we may part and remain friends."

"Would such a thing be expedient, think you? Or consistent with the
glory of God? I doubt it."

"I can think of nothing that would be more so. Is it not consistent
with every precept of the Gospel? Come, brother, say that our
reconciliation is complete."

"Oh yes, certainly! I tell you, brother, according to the flesh: it is
just as complete as the lark's is with the adder, no more so, nor ever
can. Reconciled, forsooth! To what would I be reconciled?"

As he said this, he strode indignantly away. From the moment that he
heard his life was safe, he assumed his former insolence and revengeful
looks--and never were they more dreadful than on parting with his
brother that morning on the top of the hill. "Well, go thy way," said
George; "some would despise, but I pity thee. If thou art not a limb of
Satan, I never saw one."

The sun had now dispelled the vapours; and, the morning being lovely
beyond description, George sat himself down on the top of the hill, and
pondered deeply on the unaccountable incident that had befallen to him
that morning. He could in no-wise comprehend it; but, taking it with
other previous circumstances, he could not get quit of a conviction
that he was haunted by some evil genius in the shape of his brother, as
well as by that dark and mysterious wretch himself. In no other way
could he account for the apparition he saw that morning on the face of
the rock, nor for several sudden appearances of the same being, in
places where there was no possibility of any foreknowledge that he
himself was to be there, and as little that the same being, if he were
flesh and blood like other men, could always start up in the same
position with regard to him. He determined, therefore, on reaching
home, to relate all that had happened, from beginning to end, to his
father, asking his counsel and his assistance, although he knew full
well that his father was not the fittest man in the world to solve such
a problem. He was now involved in party politics, over head and ears;
and, moreover, he could never hear the names of either of the Wringhims
mentioned without getting into a quandary of disgust and anger; and all
that he would deign to say of them was, to call them by all the
opprobrious names he could invent.

It turned out as the young man from the first suggested: old Dalcastle
would listen to nothing concerning them with any patience. George
complained that his brother harassed him with his presence at all
times, and in all places. Old Dal asked why he did not kick the dog out
of his presence whenever he felt him disagreeable? George said he
seemed to have some demon for a familiar. Dal answered that he did not
wonder a bit at that, for the young spark was the third in a direct
line who had all been children of adultery; and it was well known that
all such were born half-deils themselves, and nothing was more likely
than that they should hold intercourse with their fellows. In the same
style did he sympathize with all his son's late sufferings and
perplexities.

In Mr. Adam Gordon, however, George found a friend who entered into all
his feelings, and had seen and known everything about the matter. He
tried to convince him that at all events there could be nothing
supernatural in the circumstances; and that the vision he had seen on
the rock, among the thick mist, was the shadow of his brother
approaching behind him. George could not swallow this, for he had seen
his own shadow on the cloud, and, instead of approaching to aught like
his own figure, he perceived nothing but a halo of glory round a point
of the cloud that was whither and purer than the rest. Gordon said, if
he would go with him to a mountain of his father's, which he named, in
Aberdeenshire, he would show him a giant spirit of the same dimensions,
any morning at the rising of the sun, provided he shone on that spot.
This statement excited George's curiosity exceedingly; and, being
disgusted with some things about Edinburgh, and glad to get out of the
way, he consented to go with Gordon to the Highlands for a space. The
day was accordingly set for their departure, the old laird's assent
obtained, and the two young sparks parted in a state of great
impatience for their excursion.

One of them found out another engagement, however, the instant after
this last was determined on. Young Wringhim went off the hill that
morning, and home to his upright guardian again without washing the
blood from his face and neck; and there he told a most woeful story
indeed: how he had gone out to take a morning's walk on the hill, where
he had encountered with his reprobate brother among the mist, who had
knocked him down and very near murdered him; threatening dreadfully,
and with horrid oaths, to throw him from the top of the cliff.

The wrath of the great divine was kindled beyond measure. He cursed the
aggressor in the name of the Most High; and bound himself, by an oath,
to cause that wicked one's transgressions return upon his own head
sevenfold. But, before he engaged further in the business of vengeance,
he kneeled with his adopted son, and committed the whole cause unto the
Lord, whom he addressed as one coming breathing burning coals of
juniper, and casting his lightnings before him, to destroy and root out
all who had moved hand or tongue against the children of the promise.
Thus did he arise confirmed, and go forth to certain conquest.

We cannot enter into the detail of the events that now occurred without
forestalling a part of the narrative of one who knew all the
circumstances--was deeply interested in them, and whose relation is of
higher value than anything that can be retailed out of the stores of
tradition and old registers; but, his narrative being different from
these, it was judged expedient to give the account as thus publicly
handed down to us. Suffice it that, before evening, George was
apprehended, and lodged in jail, on a criminal charge of an assault and
battery, to the shedding of blood, with the intent of committing
fratricide. Then was the old laird in great consternation, and blamed
himself for treating the thing so lightly, which seemed to have been
gone about, from the beginning, so systematically, and with an intent
which the villains were now going to realize, namely, to get the young
laird disposed of; and then his brother, in spite of the old
gentleman's teeth, would be laird himself.

Old Dal now set his whole interest to work among the noblemen and
lawyers of his party. His son's case looked exceedingly ill, owing to
the former assault before witnesses, and the unbecoming expressions
made use of by him on that occasion, as well as from the present
assault, which George did not deny, and for which no moving cause or
motive could be made to appear.

On his first declaration before the sheriff, matters looked no better:
but then the sheriff was a Whig. It is well known how differently the
people of the present day, in Scotland, view the cases of their own
party-men and those of opposite political principles. But this day is
nothing to that in such matters, although, God knows, they are still
sometimes barefaced enough. It appeared, from all the witnesses in the
first case, that the complainant was the first aggressor--that he
refused to stand out of the way, though apprised of his danger; and,
when his brother came against him inadvertently, he had aimed a blow at
him with his foot, which, if it had taken effect, would have killed
him. But as to the story of the apparition in fair day-light--the
flying from the face of it--the running foul of his brother pursuing
him, and knocking him down, why the judge smiled at the relation, and
saying: "It was a very extraordinary story," he remanded George to
prison, leaving the matter to the High Court of Justiciary.

When the case came before that court, matters took a different turn.
The constant and sullen attendance of the one brother upon the other
excited suspicions; and these were in some manner confirmed when the
guards at Queensberry House deported that the prisoner went by them on
his way to the hill that morning, about twenty minutes before the
complainant, and, when the latter passed, he asked if such a young man
had passed before him, describing the prisoner's appearance to them;
and that, on being answered in the affirmative, he mended his pace and
fell a-running.

The Lord Justice, on hearing this, asked the prisoner if he had any
suspicions that his brother had a design on his life.

He answered that all along, from the time of their first unfortunate
meeting, his brother had dogged his steps so constantly, and so
unaccountably, that he was convinced it was with some intent out of the
ordinary course of events; and that if, as his lordship supposed, it
was indeed his shadow that he had seen approaching him through the
mist, then, from the cowering and cautious manner that it advanced,
there was no little doubt that his brother's design had been to push
him headlong from the cliff that morning.

A conversation then took place between the judge and the Lord Advocate;
and, in the meantime, a bustle was seen in the hall; on which the doors
were ordered to be guarded, and, behold, the precious Mr. R. Wringhim
was taken into custody, trying to make his escape out of court. Finally
it turned out that George was honourably acquitted, and young Wringhim
bound over to keep the peace, with heavy penalties and securities.

That was a day of high exultation to George and his youthful
associates, all of whom abhorred Wringhim; and, the evening being spent
in great glee, it was agreed between Mr. Adam Gordon and George that
their visit to the Highlands, though thus long delayed, was not to be
abandoned; and though they had, through the machinations of an
incendiary, lost the season of delight, they would still find plenty of
sport in deer-shooting. Accordingly, the day was set a second time for
their departure; and, on the day preceding that, all the party were
invited by George to dine with him once more at the sign of the Black
Bull of Norway. Everyone promised to attend, anticipating nothing but
festivity and joy. Alas, what short-sighted improvident creatures we
are, all of us; and how often does the evening cup of joy lead to
sorrow in the morning!

The day arrived--the party of young noblemen and gentlemen met, and
were as happy and jovial as men could be. George was never seen so
brilliant, or so full of spirits; and exulting to see so many gallant
young chiefs and gentlemen about him, who all gloried in the same
principles of loyalty (perhaps this word should have been written
disloyalty), he made speeches, gave toasts, and sung songs, all leaning
slyly to the same side, until a very late hour. By that time he had
pushed the bottle so long and so freely that its fumes had taken
possession of every brain to such a degree that they held Dame Reason
rather at the staff's end, overbearing all her counsels and
expostulations; and it was imprudently proposed by a wild inebriated
spark, and carried by a majority of voices, that the whole party should
adjourn to a bagnio for the remainder of the night.

They did so; and it appears from what follows that the house, to which
they retired must have been somewhere on the opposite side of the
street to the Black Bull Inn, a little farther to the eastward. They
had not been an hour in that house till some altercation chanced to
arise between George Colwan and a Mr. Drummond, the younger son of a
nobleman of distinction. It was perfectly casual, and no one
thenceforward, to this day, could ever tell what it was about, if it
was not about the misunderstanding of some word or term that the one
had uttered. However it was, some high words passed between them; these
were followed by threats, and, in less than two minutes from the
commencement of the quarrel, Drummond left the house in apparent
displeasure, hinting to the other that they two should settle that in a
more convenient place.

The company looked at one another, for all was over before any of them
knew such a thing was begun. "What the devil is the matter?" cried one.
"What ails Drummond?" cried another. "Who has he quarrelled with?"
asked a third.

"Don't know."--"Can't tell, on my life."--"He has quarrelled with his
wine, I suppose, and is going to send it a challenge."

Such were the questions, and such the answers that passed in the jovial
party, and the matter was no more thought of.

But in the course of a very short space, about the length which the
ideas of the company were the next day at great variance, a sharp rap
came to the door. It was opened by a female; but, there being a chain
inside, she only saw one side of the person at the door. He appeared to
be a young gentleman, in appearance like him who had lately left the
house, and asked, in a low whispering voice, "if young Dalcastle was
still in the house?" The woman did not know. "If he is," added he,
"pray tell him to speak with me for a few minutes." The woman delivered
the message before all the party, among whom there were then sundry
courteous ladies of notable distinction, and George, on receiving it,
instantly rose from the side of one of them, and said, in the hearing
of them all, "I will bet a hundred merks that is Drummond."--"Don't go
to quarrel with him, George," said one.--"Bring him in with you," said
another. George stepped out; the door was again bolted, the chain drawn
across, and the inadvertent party, left within, thought no more of the
circumstance till the morning, that the report had spread over the city
that a young gentleman had been slain, on a little washing-green at the
side of the North Loch, and at the very bottom of the close where this
thoughtless party had been assembled.

Several of them, on first hearing the report, basted to the dead-room
in the Guard-house, where the corpse had been deposited, and soon
discovered the body to be that of their friend and late entertainer,
George Colwan. Great were the consternation and grief of all concerned,
and, in particular, of his old father and Miss Logan; for George had
always been the sole hope and darling of both, and the news of the
event paralysed them so as to render them incapable of all thought or
exertion. The spirit of the old laird was broken by the blow, and he
descended at once from a jolly, good-natured and active man to a mere
driveller, weeping over the body of his son, kissing his wound, his
lips, and his cold brow alternately; denouncing vengeance on his
murderers, and lamenting that he himself had not met the cruel doom, so
that the hope of his race might have been preserved. In short, finding
that all further motive of action and object of concern or of love,
here below, were for ever removed from him, he abandoned himself to
despair, and threatened to go down to the grave with his son.

But, although he made no attempt to discover the murderers, the arm of
justice was not idle; and, it being evident to all that the crime must
infallibly be brought home to young Drummond, some of his friends
sought him out, and compelled him, sorely against his will, to retire
into concealment till the issue of the proof that should be led was
made known. At the same time, he denied all knowledge of the incident
with a resolution that astonished his intimate friends and relations,
who to a man suspected him guilty. His father was not in Scotland, for
I think it was said to me that this young man was second son to a John,
Duke of Melfort, who lived abroad with the royal family of the Stuarts;
but this young gentleman lived with the relations of his mother, one of
whom, an uncle, was a Lord of Session: these, having thoroughly
effected his concealment, went away, and listened to the evidence; and
the examination of every new witness convinced them that their noble
young relative was the slayer of his friend.

All the young gentlemen of the party were examined, save Drummond, who,
when sent for, could not be found, which circumstance sorely confirmed
the suspicions against him in the minds of judges and jurors, friends
and enemies; and there is little doubt that the care of his relations
in concealing him injured his character and his cause. The young
gentlemen of whom the party was composed varied considerably with
respect to the quarrel between him and the deceased. Some of them had
neither heard nor noted it; others had, but not one of them could tell
how it began. Some of them had heard the threat uttered by Drummond on
leaving the house, and one only had noted him lay his hand on his
sword. Not one of them could swear that it was Drummond who came to the
door and desired to speak with the deceased, but the general impression
on the minds of them all was to that effect; and one of the women swore
that she heard the voice distinctly at the door, and every word that
voice pronounced, and at the same time heard the deceased say that it
was Drummond's.

On the other hand, there were some evidences on Drummond's part, which
Lord Craigie, his uncle, had taken care to collect. He produced the
sword which his nephew had worn that night, on which there was neither
blood nor blemish; and, above all, he insisted on the evidence of a
number of surgeons, who declared that both the wounds which the
deceased had received had been given behind. One of these was below the
left arm, and a slight one; the other was quite through the body, and
both evidently inflicted with the same weapon, a two-edged sword, of
the same dimensions as that worn by Drummond.

Upon the whole, there was a division in the court, but a majority
decided it. Drummond was pronounced guilty of the murder; outlawed for
not appearing, and a high reward offered for his apprehension. It was
with the greatest difficulty that he escaped on board of a small
trading vessel, which landed him in Holland, and from thence, flying
into Germany, he entered into the service of the Emperor Charles VI.
Many regretted that he was not taken, and made to suffer the penalty
due for such a crime, and the melancholy incident became a pulpit theme
over a great part of Scotland, being held up as a proper warning to
youth to beware of such haunts of vice and depravity, the nurses of all
that is precipitate, immoral, and base, among mankind.

After the funeral of this promising and excellent young man, his father
never more held up his head. Miss Logan, with all her art, could not
get him to attend to any worldly thing, or to make any settlement
whatsoever of his affairs, save making her over a present of what
disposable funds he had about him. As to his estates, when they were
mentioned to him, he wished them all in the bottom of the sea, and
himself along with them. But, whenever she mentioned the circumstance
of Thomas Drummond having been the murderer of his son, he shook his
head, and once made the remark that "It was all a mistake, a gross and
fatal error; but that God, who had permitted such a flagrant deed,
would bring it to light in his own time and way." In a few weeks he
followed his son to the grave, and the notorious Robert Wringhim took
possession of his estates as the lawful son of the late laird, born in
wedlock, and under his father's roof. The investiture was celebrated by
prayer, singing of psalms, and religious disputation. The late guardian
and adopted father, and the mother of the new laird, presided on the
grand occasion, making a conspicuous figure in all the work of the day;
and, though the youth himself indulged rather more freely in the bottle
than he had ever been seen to do before, it was agreed by all present
that there had never been a festivity so sanctified within the great
hall of Dalcastle. Then, after due thanks returned, they parted
rejoicing in spirit; which thanks, by the by, consisted wholly in
telling the Almighty what he was; and informing, with very particular
precision, what they were who addressed him; for Wringhim's whole
system of popular declamation consisted, it seems, in this--to denounce
all men and women to destruction, and then hold out hopes to his
adherents that they were the chosen few, included in the promises, and
who could never fall away. It would appear that this pharisaical
doctrine is a very delicious one, and the most grateful of all others
to the worst characters.

But the ways of heaven are altogether inscrutable, and soar as far
above and beyond the works and the comprehensions of man as the sun,
flaming in majesty, is above the tiny boy's evening rocket. It is the
controller of Nature alone that can bring light out of darkness, and
order out of confusion. Who is he that causeth the mole, from his
secret path of darkness, to throw up the gem, the gold, and the
precious ore? The same that from the mouths of babes and sucklings can
extract the perfection of praise, and who can make the most abject of
his creatures instrumental in bringing the most hidden truths to light.

Miss Logan had never lost the thought of her late master's prediction
that Heaven would bring to light the truth concerning the untimely
death of his son. She perceived that some strange conviction, too
horrible for expression, preyed on his mind from the moment that the
fatal news reached him to the last of his existence; and, in his last
ravings, he uttered some incoherent words about justification by faith
alone and absolute and eternal predestination having been the ruin of
his house. These, to be sure, were the words of superannuation, and of
the last and severest kind of it; but, for all that, they sunk deep
into Miss Logan's soul, and at last she began to think with herself:
"Is it possible the Wringhims, and the sophisticating wretch who is in
conjunction with them, the mother of my late beautiful and amiable
young master, can have effected his destruction? If so, I will spend my
days, and my little patrimony, in endeavours to rake up and expose the
unnatural deed."

In all her outgoings and incomings Mrs. Logan (as she was now styled)
never lost sight of this one object. Every new disappointment only
whetted her desire to fish up some particulars, concerning it; for she
thought so long and so ardently upon it that by degrees it became
settled in her mind as a sealed truth. And, as woman is always most
jealous of her own sex in such matters, her suspicions were fixed on
her greatest enemy, Mrs. Colwan, now the Lady Dowager of Dalcastle. All
was wrapt in a chaos of confusion and darkness; but at last, by dint of
a thousand sly and secret inquiries, Mrs. Logan found out where Lady
Dalcastle had been on the night that the murder happened, and likewise
what company she had kept, as well as some of the comers and goers; and
she had hopes of having discovered a clue, which, if she could keep
hold of the thread, would lead her through darkness to the light of
truth.

Returning very late one evening from a convocation of family servants,
which she had drawn together in order to fish something out of them,
her maid having been in attendance on her all the evening, they found,
on going home, that the house had been broken and a number of valuable
articles stolen therefrom. Mrs. Logan had grown quite heartless before
this stroke, having been altogether unsuccessful in her inquiries, and
now she began to entertain some resolutions of giving up the fruitless
search.

In a few days thereafter, she received intelligence that her clothes
and plate were mostly recovered, and that she for one was bound over to
prosecute the depredator, provided the articles turned out to be hers,
as libelled in the indictment, and as a king's evidence had given out.
She was likewise summoned, or requested, I know not which, being
ignorant of these matters, to go as far as the town of Peebles in
Tweedside, in order to survey these articles on such a day, and make
affidavit to their identity before the Sheriff She went accordingly;
but, on entering the town by the North Gate, she was accosted by a poor
girl in tattered apparel, who with great earnestness inquired if her
name was not Mrs. Logan? On being answered in the affirmative, she said
that the unfortunate prisoner in the Tolbooth requested her, as she
valued all that was dear to her in life, to go and see her before she
appeared in court at the hour of cause, as she (the prisoner) had
something of the greatest moment to impart to her. Mrs. Logan's
curiosity was excited, and she followed the girl straight to the
Tolbooth, who by the way said to her that she would find in the
prisoner a woman of superior mind, who had gone through all the
vicissitudes of life. "She has been very unfortunate, and I fear very
wicked," added the poor thing, "but she is my mother, and God knows,
with all her faults and failings, she has never been unkind to me. You,
madam, have it in your power to save her; but she has wronged you, and
therefore, if you will not do it for her sake, do it for mine, and the
God of the fatherless will reward you."

Mrs. Logan answered her with a cast of the head, and a hem! and only
remarked, that "the guilty must not always be suffered to escape, or
what a world must we be doomed to live in!"

She was admitted to the prison, and found a tall emaciated figure, who
appeared to have once possessed a sort of masculine beauty in no
ordinary degree, but was now considerably advanced in years. She viewed
Mrs. Logan with a stem, steady gaze, as if reading her features as a
margin to her intellect; and when she addressed her it was not with
that humility, and agonized fervour, which are natural for one in such
circumstances to address to another who has the power of her life and
death in her hands.

"I am deeply indebted to you for this timely visit, Mrs. Logan," said
she. "It is not that I value life, or because I fear death, that I have
sent for you so expressly. But the manner of the death that awaits me
has something peculiarly revolting in it to a female mind. Good God!
when I think of being hung up, a spectacle to a gazing, gaping
multitude, with numbers of which I have had intimacies and connections,
that would render the moment of parting so hideous, that, believe me,
it rends to flinders a soul born for another sphere than that in which
it has moved, had not the vile selfishness of a lordly fiend ruined all
my prospects and all my hopes. Hear me then; for I do not ask your
pity: I only ask of you to look to yourself, and behave with womanly
prudence, if you deny this day that these goods are yours, there is no
other evidence whatever against my life, and it is safe for the
present. For, as for the word of the wretch who has betrayed me, it is
of no avail; he has prevaricated so notoriously to save himself. If you
deny them, you shall have them all again to the value of a mite, and
more to the bargain. If you swear to the identity of them, the process
will, one way and another, cost you the half of what they are worth."

"And what security have I for that?" said Mrs. Logan.

"You have none but my word," said the other proudly, "and that never
yet was violated. If you cannot take that, I know the worst you can do.
But I had forgot--I have a poor helpless child without, waiting and
starving about the prison door. Surely it was of her that I wished to
speak. This shameful death of mine will leave her in a deplorable
state."

"The girl seems to have candour and strong affections," said Mrs.
Logan. "I grievously mistake if such a child would not be a thousand
times better without such a guardian and director."

"Then will you be so kind as to come to the Grass Market and see me put
down?" said the prisoner. "I thought a woman would estimate a woman's
and a mother's feelings, when such a dreadful throw was at stake, at
least in part. But you are callous, and have never known any feelings
but those of subordination to your old unnatural master. Alas, I have
no cause of offence! I have wronged you; and justice must take its
course. Will you forgive me before we part?"

Mrs. Logan hesitated, for her mind ran on something else. On which the
other subjoined: "No, you will not forgive me, I see. But you will pray
to God to forgive me? I know you will do that."

Mrs. Logan heard not this jeer, but, looking at the prisoner with an
absent and stupid stare, she said: "Did you know my late master?"

"Ay, that I did, and never for any good," said she. "I knew the old and
the young spark both, and was by when the latter was slain."

This careless sentence affected Mrs. Logan in a most peculiar manner. A
shower of tears burst from her eyes ere it was done, and, when it was,
she appeared like one bereaved of her mind. She first turned one way
and then another, as if looking for something she had dropped. She
seemed to think she had lost her eyes, instead of her tears, and at
length, as by instinct, she tottered close up to the prisoner's face,
and, looking wistfully and joyfully in it, said, with breathless
earnestness: "Pray, mistress, what is your name?"

"My name is Arabella Calvert," said the other. "Miss, mistress, or
widow, as you choose, for I have been all the three, and that not once
nor twice only. Ay, and something beyond all these. But, as for you,
you have never been anything!"

"Ay, ay! and so you are Bell Calvert? Well, I thought so--I thought
so," said Mrs. Logan; and, helping herself to a seat, she came and sat
down dose by the prisoner's knee. "So you are indeed Bell Calvert, so
called once. Well, of all the world you are the woman whom I have
longed and travailed the most to see. But you were invisible; a being
to be heard of, not seen."

"There have been days, madam," returned she, "when I was to be seen,
and when there were few to be seen like me. But since that time there
have indeed been days on which I was not to be seen. My crimes have
been great, but my sufferings have been greater. So great that neither
you nor the world can ever either know or conceive them. I hope they
will be taken into account by the Most High. Mine have been crimes of
utter desperation. But whom am I speaking to? You had better leave me
to myself, mistress."

"Leave you to yourself? That I will be loth to do till you tell me
where you were that night my young master was murdered."

"Where the devil would, I was! Will that suffice you? Ah, it was a vile
action! A night to be remembered that was! Won't you be going? I want
to trust my daughter with a commission."

"No, Mrs. Calvert, you and I part not till you have divulged that
mystery to me."

"You must accompany me to the other world, then, for you shall not have
it in this."

"If you refuse to answer me, I can have you before a tribunal, where
you shall be sifted to the soul."

"Such miserable inanity! What care I for your threatenings of a
tribunal? I who must soon stand before my last earthly one? What could
the word of such a culprit avail? Or, if it could, where is the judge
that could enforce it?"

"Did you not say that there was some mode of accommodating matters on
that score?"

"Yes, I prayed you to grant me my life, which is in your power. The
saving of it would not have cost you a plack, yet you refused to do it.
The taking of it will cost you a great deal, and yet to that purpose
you adhere. I can have no parley with such a spirit. I would not have
my life in a present from its motions, nor would I exchange courtesies
with its possessor."

"Indeed, Mrs. Calvert, since ever we met, I have been so busy thinking
about who you might be that I know not what you have been proposing. I
believe I meant to do what I could to save you But, once for all, tell
me everything that you know concerning that amiable young gentleman's
death, and here is my band there shall be nothing wanting that I can
effect for you."

"No I despise all barter with such mean and selfish curiosity; and, as
I believe that passion is stronger with you, than fear with me, we part
on equal terms. Do your worst; and my secret shall go to the gallows
and the grave with me."

Mrs. Logan was now greatly confounded, and after proffering in vain to
concede everything she could ask in exchange, for the particulars
relating to the murder, she became the suppliant in her turn. But the
unaccountable culprit, exulting in her advantage, laughed her to scorn;
and finally, in a paroxysm of pride and impatience, called in the
jailor and had her expelled, ordering him in her hearing not to grant
her admittance a second time, on any pretence.

Mrs. Logan was now hard put to it, and again driven almost to despair.
She might have succeeded in the attainment of that she thirsted for
most in life so easily had she known the character with which she had
to deal. Had she known to have soothed her high and afflicted spirit:
but that opportunity was past, and the hour of examination at hand. She
once thought of going and claiming her articles, as she at first
intended; but then, when she thought again of the Wringhims swaying it
at Dalcastle, where she had been wont to hear them held in such
contempt, if not abhorrence, and perhaps of holding it by the most
diabolical means, she was withheld from marring the only chance that
remained of having a glimpse into that mysterious affair.

Finally, she resolved not to answer to her name in the court, rather
than to appear and assert a falsehood, which she might be called on to
certify by oath. She did so; and heard the Sheriff give orders to the
officers to make inquiry for Miss Logan from Edinburgh, at the various
places of entertainment in town, and to expedite her arrival in court,
as things of great value were in dependence. She also heard the man who
had turned king's evidence against the prisoner examined for the second
time, and sifted most cunningly. His answers gave anything but
satisfaction to the Sheriff, though Mrs. Logan believed them to be
mainly truth. But there were a few questions and answers that struck
her above all others.

"How long is it since Mrs. Calvert and you became acquainted?"

"About a year and a half."

"State the precise time, if you please; the day, or night, according to
your remembrance."

"It was on the morning of the 28th of February, 1705."

"What time of the morning?"

"Perhaps about one."

"So early as that? At what place did you meet then?"

"It was at the foot of one of the north wynds of Edinburgh." "Was it by
appointment that you met?"

"No, it was not."

"For what purpose was it then?"

"For no purpose."

"How is it that you chance to remember the day and hour so minutely, if
you met that woman, whom you have accused, merely by chance, and for no
manner of purpose, as you must have met others that night, perhaps to
the amount of hundreds, in the same way?"

"I have good cause to remember it, my lord."

"What was that cause?--No answer?--You don't choose to say what that
cause was?"

"I am not at liberty to tell."

The Sheriff then descended to other particulars, all of which tended to
prove that the fellow was an accomplished villain, and that the
principal share of the atrocities had been committed by him. Indeed the
Sheriff hinted that he suspected the only share Mrs. Calvert had in
them was in being too much in his company, and too true to him. The
case was remitted to the Court of Justiciary;  but Mrs. Logan had heard
enough to convince her that the culprits first met at the very spot,
and the very hour, on which George Colwan was slain; and she had no
doubt that they were incendiaries set on by his mother, to forward her
own and her darling son's way to opulence. Mrs. Logan was wrong, as
will appear in the sequel; but her antipathy to Mrs. Colwan made her
watch the event with all care. She never quitted Peebles as long as
Bell Calvert remained there, and, when she was removed to Edinburgh,
the other followed. When the trial came on, Mrs. Logan and her maid
were again summoned as witnesses before the jury, and compelled by the
prosecutor for the Crown to appear.

The maid was first called; and, when she came into the witness box, the
anxious and hopeless looks of the prisoner were manifest to all. But
the girl, whose name, she said, was Bessy Gillies, answered in so
flippant and fearless a way that the auditors were much amused. After a
number of routine questions, the depute-advocate asked her if she was
at home on the morning of the fifth of September last, when her
mistress's house was robbed.

"Was I at hame, say ye? Na, faith-ye, lad! An' I had been at hame,
there had been mair to dee. I wad hae raised sic a yelloch!"

"Where were you that morning?"

"Where was I, say you? I was in the house where my mistress was,
sitting dozing an' half sleeping in the kitchen. I thought aye she
would be setting out every minute, for twa hours."

"And, when you went home, what did you find?"

"What found we? Be my sooth, we found a broken lock, an' toom kists."

"Relate some of the particulars, if you please."

"Sir, the thieves didna stand upon particulars: they were halesale
dealers in a' our best wares."

"I mean, what passed between your mistress and you on the occasion?"

"What passed, say ye? O, there wasna muckle: I was in a great passion,
but she was dung doitrified a wee. When she gaed to put the key i' the
door, up it flew to the fer wa'. 'Bless ye, jaud, what's the meaning o'
this?' quo she. 'Ye hae left the door open, ye tawpie!' quo she. 'The
ne'er o' that I did,' quo I, 'or may my shakel bane never turn another
key.' When we got the candle lightit, a' the house was in a hoad-road.
'Bessy, my woman,' quo she, 'we are baith ruined and undone creatures.'
'The deil a bit,' quo I; 'that I deny positively. H'mh! to speak o' a
lass o' my age being ruined and undone! I never had muckle except what
was within a good jerkin, an' let the thief ruin me there wha can.

"Do you remember aught else that your mistress said on the occasion?
Did you hear her blame any person?"

"O, she made a gread deal o' grumphing an' groaning about the
misfortune, as she ca'd it, an' I think she said it was a part o' the
ruin, wrought by the Ringans, or some sic name. 'They'll hae't a'!
They'll hae't a'!' cried she, wringing her hands; 'a'! they'll hae' a',
an' hell wi't, an' they'll get them baith.' 'Aweel, that's aye some
satisfaction,' quo I."

"Whom did she mean by the Ringans, do you know?"

"I fancy they are some creatures that she has dreamed about, for I
think there canna be as ill folks living as she ca's them."

"Did you never hear say that the prisoner at the bar there, Mrs.
Calvert, or Bell Calvert, was the robber of her house; or that she was
one of the Ringans?"

"Never. Somebody tauld her lately that ane Bell Calvert robbed her
house, but she disna believe it. Neither do I."

"What reasons have you for doubting it?"

"Because it was nae woman's fingers that broke up the bolts an' the
locks that were torn open that night."

"Very pertinent, Bessy. Come then within the bar, and look, at these
articles on the table. Did you ever see these silver spoons before?"

"I hae seen some very like them, and whaever has seen siller spoons has
done the same."

"Can you swear you never saw them before?"

"Na, na, I wadna swear to ony siller spoons that ever war made, unless
I had put a private mark on them wi' my ain hand, an' that's what I
never did to ane."

"See, they are all marked with a C."

"Sae are a' the spoons in Argyle, an' the half o' them in Edinburgh I
think. A C is a very common letter, an' so are a' the names that begin
wi't. Lay them by, lay them by, an' gie the poor woman her spoons
again. They are marked wi' her ain name, an' I hae little doubt they
are hers, an' that she has seen better days."

"Ah, God bless her heart!" sighed the prisoner; and that blessing was
echoed in the breathings of many a feeling breast.

"Did you ever see this gown before, think you?"

"I hae seen ane very like it."

"Could you not swear that gown was your mistress's once?"

"No, unless I saw her hae't on, an' kend that she had paid for't. I am
very scrupulous about an oath. Like is an ill mark. Sae ill indeed that
I wad hardly swear to anything."

"But you say that gown is very like one your mistress used to wear."

"I never said sic a thing. It is like one I hae seen her hae out airing
on the hay raip i' the back green. It is very like ane I hae seen Mrs.
Butler in the Grass Market wearing too: I rather think it is the same.
Bless you, sir, I wadna swear to my ain forefinger, if it had been as
lang out o' my sight an', brought in an' laid on that table."

"Perhaps you are not aware, girl, that this scrupulousness of yours is
likely to thwart the purposes of justice, and bereave your mistress of
property to the amount of a thousand merks." (From the Judge.)

"I canna help that, my lord: that's her look-out. For my part, I am
resolved to keep a clear conscience, till I be married, at any rate."

"Look over these things and see if there is any one article among them
which you can fix on as the property of your mistress."

"No ane o' them, sir, no ane o' them. An oath is an awfu' thing,
especially when it is for life or death. Gie the poor woman her things
again, an' let my mistress pick up the next she finds: that's my
advice."

When Mrs. Logan came into the box, the prisoner groaned and laid down
her head. But how she was astonished when she heard her deliver herself
something to the following purport--That, whatever penalties she was
doomed to abide, she was determined she would not bear witness against
a woman's life, from a certain conviction that it could not be a woman
who broke her house. "I have no doubt that I may find some of my own
things there," added she, "but, if they were found in her possession,
she has been made a tool, or the dupe, of an infernal set, who shall be
nameless here. I believe she did not rob me, and for that reason I will
have no hand in her condemnation."

The judge: "This is the most singular perversion I have ever witnessed.
Mrs. Logan, I entertain strong suspicions that the prisoner, or her
agents, have made some agreement with you on this matter to prevent the
course of justice."

"So far from that, my lord, I went into the jail at Peebles to this
woman, whom I had never seen before, and proffered to withdraw my part
in the prosecution, as well as my evidence, provided she would tell me
a few simple facts; but she spurned at my offer, and had me turned
insolently out of the prison, with orders to the jailor never to admit
me again on any pretence."

The prisoner's counsel, taking hold of this evidence, addressed the
jury with great fluency; and, finally, the prosecution was withdrawn,
and the prisoner dismissed from the bar, with a severe reprimand for
her past conduct, and an exhortation to keep better company.

It was not many days till a caddy came with a large parcel to Mrs.
Logan's house, which parcel he delivered into her hands, accompanied
with a sealed note, containing an inventory of the articles, and a
request to know if the unfortunate Arabella Calvert would be admitted
to converse with Mrs. Logan.

Never was there a woman so much overjoyed as Mrs. Logan was at this
message. She returned compliments. Would be most happy to see her; and
no article of the parcel should be looked at, or touched, till her
arrival. It was not long till she made her appearance, dressed in
somewhat better style than she had yet seen her; delivered her over the
greater part of the stolen property, besides many things that either
never had belonged to Mrs. Logan or that she thought proper to deny in
order that the other might retain them.

The tale that she told of her misfortunes was of the most distressing
nature, and was enough to stir up all the tender, as well as abhorrent
feelings in the bosom of humanity. She had suffered every deprivation
in fame, fortune, and person. She had been imprisoned; she had been
scourged, and branded as an impostor; and all on account of her
resolute and unmoving fidelity and truth to several of the very worst
of men, every one of whom had abandoned her to utter destitution and
shame. But this story we cannot enter on at present, as it would
perhaps mar the thread of our story, as much as it did the anxious
anticipations of Mrs. Logan, who sat pining and longing for the
relation that follows.

"Now I know, Mrs. Logan, that you are expecting a detail of the
circumstances relating to the death of Mr. George Colwan; and, in
gratitude for your unbounded generosity and disinterestedness, I will
tell you all that I know, although, for causes that will appear obvious
to you, I had determined never in life to divulge one circumstance of
it. I can tell you, however, that you will be disappointed, for it was
not the gentleman who was accused, found guilty, and would have
suffered the utmost penalty of the law had he not made his escape. It
was not he, I say, who slew your young master, nor had he any hand in
it."

"I never thought he had. But, pray, how do you come to know this?"

"You shall hear. I had been abandoned in York by an artful and
consummate fiend; and found guilty of being art and part concerned in
the most heinous atrocities, and, in his place, suffered what I yet
shudder to think of I was banished the county, begged my way with my
poor outcast child up to Edinburgh, and was there obliged, for the
second time in my life, to betake myself to the most degrading of all
means to support two wretched lives. I hired a dress, and betook me,
shivering, to the High Street, too well aware that my form and
appearance would soon draw me suitors enow at that throng and
intemperate time of the Parliament. On my very first stepping out to
the street, a party of young gentlemen was passing. I heard by the
noise they made, and the tenor of their speech, that they were more
then mellow, and so I resolved to keep near them, in order, if
possible, to make some of them my prey. But, just as one of them began
to eye me, I was rudely thrust into a narrow close by one of the
guardsmen. I had heard to what house the party was bound, for the men
were talking exceedingly loud, and making no secret of it: so I hasted
down the close, and round below to the one where their rendezvous was
to be; but I was too late, they were all housed and the door bolted. I
resolved to wait, thinking they could not all stay long; but I was
perishing with famine, and was like to fall down. The moon shone as
bright as day, and I perceived, by a sign at the bottom of the close,
that there was a small tavern of a certain description up two stairs
there. I went up and called, telling the mistress of the house my plan.
She approved of it mainly, and offered me her best apartment, provided
I could get one of these noble mates to accompany me. She abused Lucky
Sudds, as she called her, at the inn where the party was, envying her
huge profits, no doubt, and giving me afterwards something to drink for
which I really felt exceedingly grateful in my need. I stepped
downstairs in order to be on the alert. The moment that I reached the
ground, the door of Lucky Sudds' house opened and shut, and down came
the Honourable Thomas Drummond, with hasty and impassioned strides, his
sword rattling at his heel. I accosted him in a soft and soothing tone.
He was taken with my address; for he instantly stood still and gazed
intently at me, then at the place, and then at me again. I beckoned him
to follow me, which he did without further ceremony, and we soon found
ourselves together in the best room of a house where everything was
wretched. He still looked about him, and at me; but all this while he
had never spoken a word. At length, I asked if he would take any
refreshment? 'If you please,'  said he. I asked what he would have, but
he only answered, 'Whatever you choose, madam.' If he was taken with my
address, I was much more taken with his; for he was a complete
gentleman, and a gentleman will ever act as one. At length, he began as
follows:

"'I am utterly at a loss to account for this adventure, madam. It seems
to me like enchantment, and I can hardly believe my senses. An English
lady, I judge, and one, who from her manner and address should belong
to the first class of society, in such a place as this, is indeed
matter of wonder to me. At the foot of a close in Edinburgh! and at
this time of the night! Surely it must have been no common reverse of
fortune that reduced you to this?' I wept, or pretended to do so; on
which he added, 'Pray, madam, take heart. Tell me what has befallen
you; and if I can do anything for you, in restoring you to your country
or your friends, you shall command my interest.'

"I had great need of a friend then, and I thought now was the time to
secure one. So I began and told him the moving tale I have told you.
But I soon perceived that I had kept by the naked truth too
unvarnishedly, and thereby quite overshot my mark. When he learned that
he was sitting in a wretched corner of an irregular house, with a
felon, who had so lately been scourged and banished as a swindler and
impostor, his modest nature took the alarm, and he was shocked, instead
of being moved with pity. His eye fixed on some of the casual stripes
on my arm, and from that moment he became restless and impatient to be
gone. I tried some gentle arts to retain him, but in vain; so, after
paying both the landlady and me for pleasures he had neither tasted nor
asked, he took his leave.

"I showed him downstairs; and, just as he turned the corner of the next
land, a man came rushing violently by him; exchanged looks with him,
and came running up to me. He appeared in great agitation, and was
quite out of breath; and, taking my hand in his, we ran upstairs
together without speaking, and were instantly in the apartment I had
left, where a stoup of wine still stood untasted. 'Ah, this is
fortunate!' said my new spark, and helped himself. In the meanwhile, as
our apartment was a corner one, and looked both east and north, I ran
to the eastern casement to look after Drummond. Now, note me well: I
saw him going eastward in his tartans and bonnet, and the gilded hilt
of his claymore glittering in the moon; and, at the very same time, I
saw two men, the one in black, and the other likewise in tartans,
coming towards the steps from the opposite bank, by the foot of the
loch; and I saw Drummond and they eyeing each other as they passed. I
kept view of him till he vanished towards Leith Wynd, and by that time
the two strangers had come close up under our window. This is what I
wish you to pay particular attention to. I had only lost sight of
Drummond (who had given me his name and address) for the short space of
time that we took in running up one pair of short stairs; and during
that space he had halted a moment, for, when I got my eye on him again,
he had not crossed the mouth of the next entry, nor proceeded above ten
or twelve paces, and, at the same time, I saw the two men coming down
the bank on the opposite side of the loch, at about three hundred
paces' distance. Both he and they were distinctly in my view, and never
within speech of each other, until he vanished into one of the wynds
leading towards the bottom of the High Street, at which precise time
the two strangers came below my window; so that it was quite dear he
neither could be one of them nor have any communication with them.

"Yet, mark me again; for, of all things I have ever seen, this was the
most singular. When I looked down at the two strangers, one of them was
extremely like Drummond. So like was he that there was not one item in
dress, form, feature, nor voice, by which I could distinguish the one
from the other. I was certain it was not he, because I had seen the one
going and the other approaching at the same time, and my impression at
the moment was that I looked upon some spirit, or demon, in his
likeness. I felt a chillness creep all round my heart, my knees
tottered, and, withdrawing my head from the open casement that lay in
the dark shade, I said to the man who was with me, 'Good God, what is
this?'

"'What is it, my dear?' said he, as much alarmed as I was.

"'As I live, there stands an apparition!' said I.

"He was not so much afraid when he heard me say so, and, peeping
cautiously out, he looked and listened awhile, and then, drawing back,
he said in a whisper, 'They are both living men, and one of them is he
I passed at the corner.'

"'That he is not,' said I, emphatically. 'To that I will make oath.'

"He smiled and shook his head, and then added, 'I never then saw a man
before, whom I could not know again, particularly if he was the very
last I had seen. But what matters it whether it be or not? As it is no
concern of ours, let us sit down and enjoy ourselves.'

'But it does matter a very great deal with me, sir,' said I. 'Bless me,
my head is giddy--my breath quite gone, and I feel as if I were
surrounded with fiends. Who are you, sir?'

'You shall know that ere we two part, my love,'  said he. 'I cannot
conceive why the return of this young gentleman to the spot he so
lately left should discompose you. I suppose he got a glance of you as
he passed, and has returned to look after you, and that is the whole
secret of the matter.'

"'If you will be so civil as to walk out and join him then, it will
oblige me hugely,' said I, 'for I never in my life experienced such
boding apprehensions of evil company. I cannot conceive how you should
come up here without asking my permission. Will it please you to be
gone, sir?' I was within an ace of prevailing. He took out his purse--I
need not say more--I was bribed to let him remain. Ah, had I kept my
frail resolution of dismissing him at that moment, what a world of
shame and misery had been evited! But that, though uppermost still in
my mind, has nothing ado here.

"When I peeped over again, the two men were disputing in a whisper, the
one of them in violent agitation and terror, and the other upbraiding
him, and urging him on to some desperate act. At length I heard the
young man in the Highland garb say indignantly, 'Hush, recreant! It is
God's work which you are commissioned to execute, and it must be done.
But, if you positively decline it, I will do it myself, and do you
beware of the consequences.'

"'Oh, I will, I will!' cried the other in black clothes, in a wretched
beseeching tone. 'You shall instruct me in this, as in all things else.'

"I thought all this while I was closely concealed from them, and
wondered not a little when he in tartans gave me a sly nod, as much as
to say, 'What do you think of this?' or, 'Take note of what you see,'
or something to that effect; from which I perceived that, whatever he
was about, he did not wish it to be kept a secret. For all that, I was
impressed with a terror and anxiety that I could not overcome, but it
only made me mark every event with the more intense curiosity. The
Highlander, whom I still could not help regarding as the evil genius of
Thomas Drummond, performed every action as with the quickness of
thought. He concealed the youth in black in a narrow entry, a little to
the westward of my windows, and, as he was leading him across the
moonlight green by the shoulder, I perceived, for the first time, that
both of them were armed with rapiers. He pushed him without resistance
into the dark shaded close, made another signal to me, and hasted up
the close to Lucky Sudds' door. The city and the morning were so still
that I heard every word that was uttered, on putting my head out a
little. He knocked at the door sharply, and, after waiting a
considerable space, the bolt was drawn, and the door, as I conceived,
edged up as far as the massy chain would let it. 'Is young Dalcastle
still in the house?' said he sharply.

"I did not hear the answer, but I heard him say, shortly after, 'If he
is, pray tell him to speak with me for a few minutes.' He then withdrew
from the door, and came slowly down the close, in a lingering manner,
looking oft behind him. Dalcastle came out; advanced a few steps after
him, and then stood still, as if hesitating whether or not he should
call out a friend to accompany him; and that instant the door behind
him was closed, chained, and the iron bolt drawn; on hearing of which,
he followed his adversary without further hesitation. As he passed
below my window, I heard him say, 'I beseech you, Tom, let us do
nothing in this matter rashly'; but I could not hear the answer of the
other, who had turned the corner.

"I roused up my drowsy companion, who was leaning on the bed, and we
both looked together from the north window. We were in the shade, but
the moon shone full on the two young gentlemen. Young Dalcastle was
visibly the worse of liquor, and, his back being turned towards us, he
said something to the other which I could not make out, although he
spoke a considerable time, and, from his tones and gestures, appeared
to be reasoning.

"When he had done, the tall young man in the tartans drew his sword,
and, his face being straight to us, we heard him say distinctly, 'No
more words about it, George, if you please; but if you be a man, as I
take you to be, draw your sword, and let us settle it here.'

"Dalcastle drew his sword, without changing his attitude; but he spoke
with more warmth, for we heard his words, 'Think you that I fear you,
Tom? Be assured, Sir, I would not fear ten of the best of your name, at
each other's backs: all that I want is to have friends with us to see
fair play, for, if you close with me, you are a dead man.'

"The other stormed at these words. 'You are a braggart, Sir,' cried he,
'a wretch--a blot on the cheek of nature--a blight on the Christian
world--a reprobate--I'll have your soul, Sir. You must play at tennis,
and put down elect brethren in another world to-morrow.' As he said
this, he brandished his rapier, exciting Dalcastle to offence. He
gained his point. The latter, who had previously drawn, advanced upon
his vapouring and licentious antagonist, and a fierce combat ensued. My
companion was delighted beyond measure, and I could not keep him from
exclaiming, loud enough to have been heard, 'That's grand! That's
excellent!' For me, my heart quaked like an aspen. Young Dalcastle
either had a decided advantage over his adversary, or else the other
thought proper to let him have it; for he shifted, and swore, and
flitted from Dalcastle's thrusts like a shadow, uttering ofttimes a
sarcastic laugh, that seemed to provoke the other beyond all bearing.
At one time, he would spring away to a great distance, then advance
again on young Dalcastle with the swiftness of lightning. But that
young hero always stood his ground, and repelled the attack: he never
gave way, although they fought nearly twice round the bleaching green,
which you know is not a very small one. At length they fought close up
to the mouth of the dark entry, where the fellow in black stood all
this while concealed, and then the combatant in tartans closed with his
antagonist, or pretended to do so; but, the moment they began to
grapple, he wheeled about, turning Colwan's back towards the entry, and
then cried out, 'Ah, hell has it! My friend, my friend!'

"That moment the fellow in black rushed from his cover with his drawn
rapier, and gave the brave young Dalcastle two deadly wounds in the
back, as quick as arm could thrust, both of which I thought pierced
through his body. He fell, and, rolling himself on his back, he
perceived who it was that had slain him thus foully, and said, with a
dying emphasis, which I never heard equalled, 'oh, dog of hell, it is
you who has done this!'

"He articulated some more, which I could not hear for other sounds;
for, the moment that the man in black inflicted the deadly wound, my
companion called out, 'That's unfair, you rip! That's damnable! to
strike a brave fellow behind! One at a time, you cowards!' etc., to all
which the unnatural fiend in the tartans answered with a loud exulting
laugh; and then, taking the poor paralysed murderer by the bow of the
arm, he hurried him in the dark entry once more, where I lost sight of
them for ever."

Before this time Mrs. Logan had risen up; and, when the narrator had
finished, she was standing with her arms stretched upwards at their
full length, and her visage turned down, on which were portrayed the
lines of the most absolute horror. "The dark suspicions of my late
benefactor have been just, and his last prediction is fulfilled," cried
she. "The murderer of the accomplished George Colwan has been his own
brother, set on, there is little doubt, by her who bare them both, and
her directing angel, the self-justified bigot. Aye, and yonder they
sit, enjoying the luxuries so dearly purchased, with perfect impunity!
If the Almighty do not hurl them down, blasted with shame and
confusion, there is no hope of retribution in this life. And, by His
might, I will be the agent to accomplish it! Why did the man not pursue
the foul murderers? Why did he not raise the alarm, and call the watch?"

"He? The wretch! He durst not move from the shelter he had obtained.
No, not for the soul of him. He was pursued for his life, at the moment
when he first flew into my arms. But I did not know it;  no, I did not
then know him. May the curse of heaven, and the blight of hell, settle
on the detestable wretch! He pursue for the sake of justice! No; his
efforts have all been for evil, but never for good. But I raised the
alarm; miserable and degraded as I was, I pursued and raised the watch
myself Have you not heard the name of Bell Calvert coupled with that
hideous and mysterious affair?"

"Yes, I have. In secret often I have heard it. But how came it that you
could never be found? How came it that you never appeared in defence of
the Honourable Thomas Drummond; you, the only person who could have
justified him?"

"I could not, for I then fell under the power and guidance of a wretch
who durst not for the soul of him be brought forward in the affair.
And, what was worse, his evidence would have overborne mine, for he
would have sworn that the man who called out and fought Colwan was the
same he met leaving my apartment, and there was an end of it. And,
moreover, it is well known that this same man--this wretch of whom I
speak, never mistook one man for another in his life, which makes the
mystery of the likeness between this incendiary and Drummond the more
extraordinary."

"If it was Drummond, after all that you have asserted, then are my
surmises still wrong."

"There is nothing of which I can be more certain than that it was not
Drummond. We have nothing on earth but our senses to depend upon. If
these deceive us, what are we to do? I own I cannot account for it; nor
ever shall be able to account for it as long as I live."

"Could you know the man in black, if you saw him again?"

"I think I could, if I saw him walk or run: his gait was very
particular. He walked as if he had been flat-soled, and his legs made
of steel, without any joints in his feet or ankles."

"The very same! The very same! The very same! Pray will you take a few
days' journey into the country with me, to look at such a man?"

"You have preserved my life, and for you I will do anything. I will
accompany you with pleasure: and I think I can say that I will know
him, for his form left an impression on my heart not soon to be
effaced. But of this I am sure that my unworthy companion will
recognize him, and that he will be able to swear to his identity every
day as long as he lives."

"Where is he? Where is he? Oh! Mrs. Calvert, where is he?"

"Where is he? He is the wretch whom you heard giving me up to the
death; who, after experiencing every mark of affection that a poor
ruined being could confer, and after committing a thousand atrocities
of which she was ignorant, became an informer to save his diabolical
life, and attempted to offer up mine as a sacrifice for all. We will go
by ourselves first, and I will tell you if it is necessary to send any
farther."

The two dames, the very next morning, dressed themselves like country
goodwives, and, hiring two stout ponies furnished with pillions, they
took their journey westward, and the second evening after leaving
Edinburgh they arrived at the village about two miles below Dalcastle,
where they alighted. But Mrs. Logan, being anxious to have Mrs.
Calvert's judgment, without either hint or preparation, took care not
to mention that they were so near to the end of their journey. In
conformity with this plan, she said, after they had sat a while:
"Heigh-ho, but I am weary! What, suppose we should rest a day here
before we proceed farther on our journey?"

Mrs. Calvert was leaning on the casement and looking out when her
companion addressed these words to her, and by far too much engaged to
return any answer, for her eyes were riveted on two young men who
approached from the farther end of the village; and at length, turning
round her head, she said, with the most intense interest, "Proceed
farther on our journey, did you say? That we need not do; for, as I
live, here comes the very man!"

Mrs. Logan ran to the window, and, behold, there was indeed Robert
Wringhim Colwan (now the Laird of Dalcastle) coming forward almost
below their window, walking arm in arm with another young man; and, as
the two passed, the latter looked up and made a sly signal to the two
dames, biting his lip, winking with his left eye, and nodding his head.
Mrs. Calvert was astonished at this recognizance, the young man's
former companion having made exactly such another signal on the night
of the duel, by the light of the moon; and it struck her, moreover,
that she had somewhere seen this young man's face before. She looked
after him, and he winked over his shoulder to her; but she was
prevented from returning his salute by her companion, who uttered a
loud cry, between a groan and shriek, and fell down on the floor with a
rumble like a wall that had suddenly been undermined. She had fainted
quite away, and required all her companion's attention during the
remainder of the evening, for she had scarcely ever well recovered out
of one fit before she fell into another, and in the short intervals she
raved like one distracted or in a dream. After falling into a sound
sleep by night, she recovered her equanimity, and the two began to
converse seriously on what they had seen. Mrs. Calvert averred that the
young man who passed next to the window was the very man who stabbed
George Colwan in the back, and she said she was willing to take her
oath on it at any time when required, and was certain, if the wretch
Ridsley saw him, that he would make oath to the same purport, for that
his walk was so peculiar no one of common discernment could mistake it.

Mrs. Logan was in great agitation, and said: "It is what I have
suspected all along, and what I am sure my late master and benefactor
was persuaded of, and the horror of such an idea cut short his days.
That wretch, Mrs. Calvert, is the born brother of him he murdered, sons
of the same mother they were, whether or not of the same father, the
Lord only knows. But, Oh, Mrs. Calvert, that is not the main thing that
has discomposed me, and shaken my nerves to pieces at this time. Who do
you think the young man was who walked in his company to-night?"

"I cannot for my life recollect, but am convinced I have seen the same
fine form and face before."

"And did not he seem to know us, Mrs. Calvert? You who are able to
recollect things as they happened, did he not seem to recollect us, and
make signs to that effect?"

"He did, indeed, and apparently with great good humour."

"Oh, Mrs Calvert, hold me, else I shall fall into hysterics again! Who
is he? Who is he? Tell me who you suppose he is, for I cannot say my
own thought."

"On my life, I cannot remember."

"Did you note the appearance of the young gentleman you saw slain that
night? Do you recollect aught of the appearance of my young master,
George Colwan?"

Mrs. Calvert sat silent, and stared the other mildly in the face. Their
looks encountered, and there was an unearthly amazement that gleamed
from each, which, meeting together, caught real fire, and returned the
flame to their heated imaginations, till the two associates became like
two statues, with their hands spread, their eyes fixed, and their chops
fallen down upon their bosoms. An old woman who kept the lodging-house,
having been called in before when Mrs. Logan was faintish, chanced to
enter at this crisis with some cordial; and, seeing the state of her
lodgers, she caught the infection, and fell into the same rigid and
statue-like appearance. No scene more striking was ever exhibited; and
if Mrs. Calvert had not resumed strength of mind to speak, and break
the spell, it is impossible to say how long it might have continued.
"It is he, I believe," said she, uttering the words as it were
inwardly. "It can be none other but he. But, no, it is impossible! I
saw him stabbed through and through the heart; I saw him roll backward
on the green in his own blood, utter his last words, and groan away his
soul. Yet, if it is not he, who can it be?"

"It is he!" cried Mrs. Logan, hysterically.

"Yes, yes, it is he!" cried the landlady, in unison.

"It is who?" said Mrs. Calvert. "Whom do you mean, mistress?"

"Oh, I don't know! I don't know! I was affrighted."

"Hold your peace then till you recover your senses, and tell me, if you
can, who that young gentleman is who keeps company with the new Laird
of Dalcastle?"

"Oh, it is he! It is he!" screamed Mrs. Logan, wringing her hands.

"Oh, it is he! It is he!" cried the landlady, wringing hers.

Mrs. Calvert turned the latter gently and civilly out of the apartment,
observing that there seemed to be some infection in the air of the
room, and she would be wise for herself to keep out of it.

The two dames had a restless and hideous night. Sleep came not to their
relief, for their conversation was wholly about the dead, who seemed to
be alive, and their minds were wandering and groping in a chaos of
mystery. "Did you attend to his corpse, and know that he positively
died and was buried?" said Mrs. Calvert.

"Oh, yes, from the moment that his fair but mangled corpse was brought
home, I attended it till that when it was screwed in the coffin. I
washed the long stripes of blood from his lifeless form, on both sides
of the body. I bathed the livid wound that passed through his generous
and gentle heart. There was one through the flesh of his left side too,
which had bled most outwardly of them all. I bathed them, and bandaged
them up with wax and perfumed ointment, but still the blood oozed
through all, so that when he was laid in the coffin he was like one
newly murdered. My brave, my generous young master. He was always as a
son to me, and no son was ever more kind or more respectful to a
mother. But he was butchered--he was cut off from the earth ere he had
well reached to manhood--most barbarously and unfairly slain. And how
is it, how can it be, that we again see him here, walking arm in arm
with his murderer?"

"The thing cannot be, Mrs. Logan. It is a phantasy of our disturbed
imaginations, therefore let us compose ourselves till we investigate
this matter farther."

"It cannot be in nature, that is quite clear," said Mrs. Logan. "Yet
how it should be that I should think so--I who knew and nursed him from
his infancy--there lies the paradox. As you said once before, we have
nothing but our senses to depend on, and, if you and I believe that we
see a person, why, we do see him. Whose word, or whose reasoning can
convince us against our own senses? We will disguise ourselves as poor
women selling a few country wares, and we will go up to the Hall, and
see what is to see, and hear what we can hear, for this is a weighty
business in which we are engaged, namely, to turn the vengeance of the
law upon an unnatural monster; and we will further learn, if we can,
who this is that accompanies him."

Mrs. Calvert acquiesced, and the two dames took their way to Dalcastle,
with baskets well furnished with trifles. They did not take the common
path from the village, but went about, and approached the mansion by a
different way. But it seemed as if some overruling power ordered it
that they should miss no chance of attaining the information they
wanted. For ere ever they came within half a mile of Dalcastle they
perceived the two youths coming as to meet them, on the same path. The
road leading from Dalcastle towards the north-east, as all the country
knows, goes along a dark bank of brush-wood called the Bogle-heuch. It
was by this track that the two women were going, and, when they
perceived the two gentlemen meeting them, they turned back, and, the
moment they were out of their sight, they concealed themselves in a
thicket close by the road. They did this because Mrs. Logan was
terrified for being discovered, and because they wished to reconnoitre
without being seen. Mrs. Calvert now charged her, whatever she saw, or
whatever she heard, to put on a resolution, and support it, for if she
fainted there and was discovered, what was to become of her!

The two young men came on, in earnest and vehement conversation; but
the subject they were on was a terrible one, and hardly fit to be
repeated in the face of a Christian community. Wringhim was disputing
the boundlessness of the true Christian's freedom, and expressing
doubts that, chosen as he knew he was from all eternity, still it might
be possible for him to commit acts that would exclude him from the
limits of the covenant. The other argued, with mighty fluency, that the
thing was utterly impossible, and altogether inconsistent with eternal
predestination. The arguments of the latter prevailed, and the laird
was driven to sullen silence. But, to the women's utter surprise, as
the conquering disputant passed, he made a signal of recognizance
through the brambles to them, as formerly, and, that he might expose
his associate fully, and in his true colours, he led him back, wards
and forwards by the women more than twenty times, making him to confess
both the crimes that he had done and those he had in contemplation. At
length he said to him: "Assuredly I saw some strolling vagrant women on
this walk, my dear friend: I wish we could find them, for there is
little doubt that they are concealed here in your woods."

"I wish we could find them," answered Wringhim. "We would have fine
sport maltreating and abusing them."

"That we should, that we should! Now tell me, Robert, if you found a
malevolent woman, the latent enemy of your prosperity, lurking in these
woods to betray you, what would you inflict on her?"

"I would tear her to pieces with my dogs, and feed them with her flesh.
Oh, my dear friend, there is an old strumpet who lived with my
unnatural father, whom I hold in such utter detestation that I stand
constantly in dread of her, and would sacrifice the half of my estate
to shed her blood!"

"What will you give me if I will put her in your power, and give you a
fair and genuine excuse for making away with her; one for which you
shall answer at the bar, here or hereafter?"

"I should like to see the vile hag put down. She is in possession of
the family plate, that is mine by right, as well as a thousand valuable
relics, and great riches besides, all of which the old profligate
gifted shamefully away. And it is said, besides all these, that she has
sworn my destruction."

"She has, she has. But I see not how she can accomplish that, seeing
the deed was done so suddenly, and in the silence of the night."

"It was said there were some onlookers. But where shall we find that
disgraceful Miss Logan?"

"I will show you her by and by. But will you then consent to the other
meritorious deed? Come, be a man, and throw away scruples."

"If you can convince me that the promise is binding I will."

"Then step this way, till I give you a piece of information."

They walked a little way out of hearing, but went not out of sight;
therefore, though the women were in a terrible quandary, they durst not
stir, for they had some hopes that this extraordinary person was on a
mission of the same sort with themselves, knew of them, and was going
to make use of their testimony. Mrs. Logan was several times on the
point of falling into a swoon, so much did the appearance of the young
man impress her, until her associate covered her face that she might
listen without embarrassment. But this latter dialogue roused different
feelings within them; namely, those arising from imminent personal
danger. They saw his waggish associate point out the place of their
concealment to Wringhim, who came towards them, out of curiosity to see
what his friend meant by what he believed to be a joke, manifestly
without crediting it in the least degree. When he came running away,
the other called after him: "If she is too hard for you, call to me."
As he said this, he hasted out of sight, in the contrary direction,
apparently much delighted with the joke.

Wringhim came rushing through the thicket impetuously, to the very spot
where Mrs. Logan lay squatted. She held the wrapping close about her
head, but he tore it off and discovered her. "The curse of God be on
thee!" said he. "What fiend has brought thee here, and for what purpose
art thou come? But, whatever has brought thee, I have thee!" and with
that he seized her by the throat. The two women, when they heard what
jeopardy they were in from such a wretch, had squatted among the
underwood at a small distance from each other, so that he had never
observed Mrs. Calvert; but, no sooner had he seized her benefactor,
than, like a wild cat, she sprung out of the thicket, and had both
hands fixed at his throat, one of them twisted in his stock, in a
twinkling. She brought him back-over among the brushwood, and the two,
fixing on him like two harpies, mastered him with case. Then indeed was
he woefully beset. He deemed for a while that his friend was at his
back, and, turning his bloodshot eyes towards the path, he attempted to
call; but there was no friend there, and the women cut short his cries
by another twist of his stock. "Now, gallant and rightful Laird of
Dalcastle," said Mrs. Logan, "what hast thou to say for thyself? Lay
thy account to dree the weird thou hast so well earned. Now shalt thou
suffer due penance for murdering thy brave and only brother."

"Thou liest, thou hag of the pit! I touched not my brother's life."

"I saw thee do it with these eyes that now look thee in the face; ay,
when his back was to thee, too, and while he was hotly engaged with thy
friend," said Mrs. Calvert.

"I heard thee confess it again and again this same hour," said Mrs.
Logan.

"Ay, and so did I," said her companion. "Murder will out, though the
Almighty should lend hearing to the ears of the willow, and speech to
the seven tongues of the woodriff."

"You are liars and witches!" said he, foaming with rage, "and creatures
fitted from the beginning for eternal destruction. I'll have your bones
and your blood sacrificed on your cursed altars! O Gil-Martin!
Gil-Martin! Where art thou now? Here, here is the proper food for
blessed vengeance! Hilloa!"

There was no friend, no Gil-Martin there to hear or assist him: he was
in the two women's mercy, but they used it with moderation. They
mocked, they tormented, and they threatened him; but, finally, after
putting him in great terror, they bound his hands behind his back, and
his feet fast with long straps of garters which they chanced to have in
their baskets, to prevent him from pursuing them till they were out of
his reach. As they left him, which they did in the middle of the path,
Mrs. Calvert said: "We could easily put an end to thy sinful life, but
our hands shall be free of thy blood. Nevertheless thou art still in
our power, and the vengeance of thy country shall overtake thee, thou
mean and cowardly murderer, ay, and that more suddenly than thou art
aware!"

The women posted to Edinburgh; and as they put themselves under the
protection of an English merchant, who was journeying thither with
twenty horses laden, and armed servants, so they had scarcely any
conversation on the road. When they arrived at Mrs. Logan's house, then
they spoke of what they had seen and heard, and agreed that they had
sufficient proof to condemn young Wringhim, who they thought richly
deserved the severest doom of the law.

"I never in my life saw any human being," said Mrs. Calvert, "whom I
thought so like a fiend. If a demon could inherit flesh and blood, that
youth is precisely such a being as I could conceive that demon to be.
The depth and the malignity of his eye is hideous. His breath is like
the airs from a charnel house, and his flesh seems fading from his
bones, as if the worm that never dies were gnawing it away already."

"He was always repulsive, and every way repulsive," said the other,
"but he is now indeed altered greatly to the worse. While we were
hand-fasting him, I felt his body to be feeble and emaciated; but yet I
know him to be so puffed up with spiritual pride that I believe he
weens every one of his actions justified before God, and, instead of
having stings of conscience for these, he takes great merit to himself
in having effected them. Still my thoughts are less about him than the
extraordinary being who accompanies him. He does everything with so
much ease and indifference, so much velocity and effect, that all
bespeak him an adept in wickedness. The likeness to my late hapless
young master is so striking that I can hardly believe it to be a chance
model; and I think he imitates him in everything, for some purpose or
some effect on his sinful associate. Do you know that he is so like in
every lineament, look, and gesture, that, against the clearest light of
reason, I cannot in my mind separate the one from the other, and have a
certain indefinable expression on my mind that they are one and the
same being, or that the one was a prototype of the other."

"If there is an earthly crime," said Mrs. Calvert, "for the due
punishment of which the Almighty may be supposed to subvert the order
of nature, it is fratricide. But tell me, dear friend, did you remark
to what the subtile and hellish villain was endeavouring to prompt the
assassin?"

"No, I could not comprehend it. My senses were altogether so bewildered
that I thought they had combined to deceive me, and I gave them no
credit."

"Then bear me: I am almost certain he was using every persuasion to
induce him to make away with his mother; and I likewise conceive that I
heard the incendiary give his consent!"

"This is dreadful. Let us speak and think no more about it, till we see
the issue. In the meantime, let us do that which is our bounden
duty--go and divulge all that we know relating to this foul murder."

Accordingly the two women went to Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie, the
Lord justice Clerk (who was, I think, either uncle or grandfather to
young Drummond, who was outlawed and obliged to fly his country on
account of Colwan's death), and to that gentleman they related every
circumstance of what they had seen and heard. He examined Calvert very
minutely, and seemed deeply interested in her evidence--said he knew
she was relating the truth, and, in testimony of it, brought a letter
of young Drummond's from his desk, wherein that young gentleman, after
protesting his innocence in the most forcible terms, confessed having
been with such a woman in such a house, after leaving the company of
his friends; and that, on going home, Sir Thomas's servant had let him
in, in the dark, and from these circumstances he found it impossible to
prove an alibi. He begged of his relative, if ever an opportunity
offered, to do his endeavour to clear up that mystery, and remove the
horrid stigma from his name in his country, and among his kin, of
having stabbed a friend behind his back.

Lord Craigie, therefore, directed the two women to the proper
authorities, and, after hearing their evidence there, it was judged
proper to apprehend the present Laird of Dalcastle, and bring him to
his trial. But, before that, they sent the prisoner in the Tolbooth, he
who had seen the whole transaction along with Mrs. Calvert, to take a
view of Wringhim privately; and, his discrimination being so well known
as to be proverbial all over the land, they determined secretly to be
ruled by his report. They accordingly sent him on a pretended mission
of legality to Dalcastle, with orders to see and speak with the
proprietor, without giving him a hint what was wanted. On his return,
they examined him, and he told them that he found all things at the
place in utter confusion and dismay; that the lady of the place was
missing, and could not be found, dead or alive. On being asked if he
had ever seen the proprietor before, he looked astounded and unwilling
to answer. But it came out that he had; and that he had once seen him
kill a man on such a spot at such an hour.

Officers were then dispatched, without delay, to apprehend the monster,
and bring him to justice. On these going to the mansion, and inquiring
for him, they were told he was at home; on which they stationed guards,
and searched all the premises, but he was not to be found. It was in
vain that they overturned beds, raised floors, and broke open closets:
Robert Wringhim Colwan was lost once and for ever. His mother also was
lost; and strong suspicions attached to some of the farmers and house
servants to whom she was obnoxious, relating to her disappearance.

The Honourable Thomas Drummond became a distinguished officer in the
Austrian service, and died in the memorable year for Scotland, 1715;
and this is all with which history, justiciary records, and tradition,
furnish me relating to these matters.

I have now the pleasure of presenting my readers with an original
document of a most singular nature, and preserved for their perusal in
a still more singular manner. I offer no remarks on it, and make as few
additions to it, leaving everyone to judge for himself. We have heard
much of the rage of fanaticism in former days, but nothing to this.




  The Private Memoirs and
  Confessions of a Sinner
  WRITTEN BY HIMSELF



PRIVATE MEMOIRS AND CONFESSIONS OF A SINNER


My life has been a life of trouble and turmoil of change and
vicissitude; of anger and exultation; of sorrow and of vengeance. My
sorrows have all been for a slighted gospel, and my vengeance has been
wreaked on its adversaries. Therefore, in the might of Heaven, I will
sit down and write: I will let the wicked of this world know what I
have done in the faith of the promises, and justification by grace,
that they may read and tremble, and bless their gods of silver and gold
that the minister of Heaven was removed from their sphere before their
blood was mingled with their sacrifices.

I was born an outcast in the world, in which I was destined to act so
conspicuous a part. My mother was a burning and a shining light, in the
community of Scottish worthies, and in the days of her virginity had
suffered much in the persecution of the saints. But it so pleased
Heaven that, as a trial of her faith, she was married to one of the
wicked; a man all over spotted with the leprosy of sin. As well might
they have conjoined fire and water together, in hopes that they would
consort and amalgamate, as purity and corruption: She fled from his
embraces the first night after their marriage, and from that time forth
his iniquities so galled her upright heart that she quitted his society
altogether, keeping her own apartments in the same house with him.

I was the second son of this unhappy marriage, and, ere ever I was
born, my father according to the flesh disclaimed all relation or
connection with me, and all interest in me, save what the law compelled
him to take, which was to grant me a scanty maintenance; and had it not
been for a faithful minister of the gospel, my mother's early
instructor, I should have remained an outcast from the church visible.
He took pity on me, admitting me not only into that, but into the bosom
of his own household and ministry also, and to him am I indebted, under
Heaven, for the high conceptions and glorious discernment between good
and evil, right and wrong, which I attained even at an early age. It
was he who directed my studies aright, both in the learning of the
ancient fathers and the doctrines of the reformed church, and designed
me for his assistant and successor in the holy office. I missed no
opportunity of perfecting myself particularly in all the minute points
of theology in which my reverend father and mother took great delight;
but at length I acquired so much skill that I astonished my teachers,
and made them gaze at one another. I remember that it was the custom,
in my patron's house, to ask questions of the Single Catechism round
every Sabbath night. He asked the first, my mother the second, and so
on, everyone saying the question asked and then asking the next. It
fell to my mother to ask Effectual Calling at me. I said the answer
with propriety and emphasis. "Now, madam," added I, "my question to you
is: What is Ineffectual Calling?"

"Ineffectual Calling? There is no such thing, Robert," said she.

"But there is, madam," said I, and that answer proves how much you say
these fundamental precepts by rote, and without any consideration.
Ineffectual Calling is the outward call of the gospel without any
effect on the hearts of unregenerated and impenitent sinners. Have not
all these the same calls, warnings, doctrines, and reproofs, that we
have? And is not this ineffectual Calling? Has not Ardinferry the same?
Has not Patrick M'Lure the same? Has not the Laird of Dalcastle and his
reprobate heir the same? And will any tell me that this is not
Ineffectual Calling?"

"What a wonderful boy he is!" said my mother.

"I'm feared he turn out to be a conceited gowk," said old Barnet, the
minister's man.

"No," said my pastor, and father (as I shall henceforth denominate
him). "No, Barnet, he is a wonderful boy; and no marvel, for I have
prayed for these talents to be bestowed on him from his infancy: and do
you think that Heaven would refuse a prayer so disinterested? No, it is
impossible. But my dread is, madam," continued he, turning to my
mother, "that he is yet in the bond of iniquity."

"God forbid!" said my mother.

"I have struggled with the Almighty long and hard," continued he; "but
have as yet no certain token of acceptance in his behalf, I have indeed
fought a hard fight, but have been repulsed by him who hath seldom
refused my request; although I cited his own words against him, and
endeavoured to hold him at his promise, he hath so many turnings in the
supremacy of his power, that I have been rejected. How dreadful is it
to think of our darling being still without the pale of the covenant!
But I have vowed a vow, and in that there is hope."

My heart quaked with terror when I thought of being still living in a
state of reprobation, subjected to the awful issues of death, judgment,
and eternal misery, by the slightest accident or casualty; and I set
about the duty of prayer myself with the utmost earnestness. I prayed
three times every day, and seven times on the Sabbath; but, the more
frequently and fervently that I prayed, I sinned still the more. About
this time, and for a long period afterwards, amounting to several
years, I lived in a hopeless and deplorable state of mind; for I said
to myself, "If my name is not written in the book of life from all
eternity, it is in vain for me to presume that either vows or prayers
of mine, or those of all mankind combined, can ever procure its
insertion now." I had come under many vows, most solemnly taken, every
one of which I had broken; and I saw with the intensity of juvenile
grief that there was no hope for me. I went on sinning every hour, and
all the while most strenuously warring against sin, and repenting of
every one transgression as soon after the commission of it as I got
leisure to think. But, oh, what a wretched state this unregenerated
state is, in which every effort after righteousness only aggravates our
offences! I found it vanity to contend; for, after communing with my
heart, the conclusion was as follows: "If I could repent me of all my
sins, and shed tears of blood for them, still have I not a load of
original transgression pressing on me that is enough to crush me to the
lowest hell. I may be angry with my first parents for having sinned,
but how I shall repent me of their sin is beyond what I am able to
comprehend."

Still, in those days of depravity and corruption, I had some of those
principles implanted in my mind which were afterwards to spring up with
such amazing fertility among the heroes of the faith and the promises.
In particular, I felt great indignation against all the wicked of this
world, and often wished for the means of ridding it of such a noxious
burden. I liked John Barnet, my reverend father's serving-man,
extremely ill; but, from a supposition that he might be one of the
justified, I refrained from doing him any injury. He gave always his
word against me, and when we were by ourselves, in the barn or the
fields, he rated me with such severity for my faults that my heart
could brook it no longer. He discovered some notorious lies that I had
framed, and taxed me with them in such a manner that I could in no wise
get off. My cheek burnt, with offence, rather than shame; and he,
thinking he had got the mastery of me, exulted over me most
unmercifully, telling me I was a selfish and conceited blackguard, who
made great pretences towards religious devotion to cloak a disposition
tainted with deceit, and that it would not much astonish him if I
brought myself to the gallows.

I gathered some courage from his over-severity, and answered him as
follows: "Who made thee a judge of the actions or dispositions of the
Almighty's creatures--thou who art a worm and no man in his sight? How
it befits thee to deal out judgments and anathemas! Hath he not made
one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour, as in the case with
myself and thee? Hath he not builded his stories in the heavens, and
laid the foundations thereof in the earth, and how can a being like
thee judge between good and evil, that are both subjected to the
workings of his hand; or of the opposing principles in the soul of man,
correcting, modifying, and refining one another?"

I said this with that strong display of fervour for which I was
remarkable at my years, and expected old Barnet to be utterly
confounded; but he only shook his head, and, with the most provoking
grin, said: "There he goes! Sickan sublime and ridiculous sophistry I
never heard come out of another mouth but ane. There needs nae aiths to
be sworn afore the session wha is your father, young goodman. I ne'er,
for my part, saw a son sac like a dad, sin' my een first opened." With
that he went away, saying with an ill-natured wince: "You made to
honour and me to dishonour! Dirty bow-kail thing that thou be'st!"

"I will have the old rascal on the hip for this, if I live," thought I.
So I went and asked my mother if John was a righteous man. She could
not tell, but supposed he was, and therefore I got no encouragement
from her. I went next to my reverend father, and inquired his opinion,
expecting as little from that quarter. He knew the elect as it were by
instinct, and could have told you of all those in his own, and some
neighbouring parishes, who were born within the boundaries of the
covenant of promise, and who were not.

"I keep a good deal in company with your servant, old Barnet, father,"
said I.

"You do, boy, you do, I see," said he.

"I wish I may not keep too much in his company," said I, "not knowing
what kind of society I am in. Is John a good man, father?"

"Why, boy, he is but so so. A morally good man John is, but very little
of the leaven of true righteousness, which is faith, within. I am
afraid old Barnet, with all his stock of morality, will be a castaway."

My heart was greatly cheered by this remark; and I sighed very deeply,
and hung my head to one side. The worthy father observed me, and
inquired the cause, when I answered as follows: "How dreadful the
thought, that I have been going daily in company and fellowship with
one whose name is written on the red-letter side of the book of life;
whose body and soul have been, from all eternity, consigned over to
everlasting destruction, and to whom the blood of the atonement can
never, never reach! Father, this is an awful thing, and beyond my
comprehension."

"While we are in the world, we must mix with the inhabitants thereof,"
said he; "and the stains which adhere to us by reason of this mixture,
which is unavoidable, shall all be washed away. It is our duty,
however, to shun the society of wicked men as much as possible, lest we
partake of their sins, and become sharers with them in punishment.
John, however, is morally a good man, and may yet get a cast of grace."

"I always thought him a good man till to-day," said I, "when he threw
out some reflections on your character, so horrible that I quake to
think of the wickedness and malevolence of his heart. He was rating me
very impertinently for some supposed fault, which had no being save in
his own jealous brain, when I attempted to reason him out of his belief
in the spirit of calm Christian argument. But how do you think he
answered me? He did so, sir, by twisting his mouth at me, and remarking
that such sublime and ridiculous sophistry never came out of another
mouth but one (meaning yours) and that no oath before a kirk session
was necessary to prove who was my dad, for that he had never seen a son
so like a father as I was like mine."

"He durst not for his soul's salvation, and for his daily bread, which
he values much more, say such a word, boy; therefore, take care what
you assert," said my reverend father.

"He said these very words, and will not deny them, sir," said I.

My reverend father turned about in great wrath and indignation, and
went away in search of John, but I kept out of the way, and listened at
a back window; for John was dressing the plot of ground behind the
house; and I hope it was no sin in me that I did rejoice in the
dialogue which took place, it being the victory of righteousness over
error.

"Well, John, this is a fine day for your delving work."

"Ay, it's a tolerable day, sir."

"Are you thankful in heart, John, for such temporal mercies as these?"

"Aw doubt we're a' ower little thankfu', sir, baith for temporal an'
speeritual mercies; but it isna aye the maist thankfu' heart that maks
the greatest fraze wi' the tongue."

"I hope there is nothing personal under that remark, John?"

"Gin the bannet fits ony body's head, they're unco welcome to it, sir,
for me."

"John, I do not approve of these innuendoes. You have an arch malicious
manner of vending your aphorisms, which the men of the world are too
apt to read the wrong way, for your dark hints are sure to have one
very bad meaning."

"Hout na, sir, it's only bad folks that think sac. They find ma bits o'
gibes come hame to their hearts wi' a kind o' yerk, an' that gars them
wince."

"That saying is ten times worse than the other, John; it is a manifest
insult: it is just telling me to my face that you think me a bad man."

"A body canna help his thoughts, sir."

"No, but a man's thoughts are generally formed from observation. Now I
should like to know, even from the mouth of a misbeliever, what part of
my conduct warrants such a conclusion."

"Nae particular pairt, sir; I draw a' my conclusions frae the haill o'
a man's character, an' I'm no that aften far wrong."

"Well, John, and what sort of general character do you suppose mine to
be?"

"Yours is a Scripture character, sir, an' I'll prove it."

"I hope so, John. Well, which of the Scripture characters do you think
approximates nearest to my own?"

"Guess, sir, guess; I wish to lead a proof."

"Why, if it be an Old Testament character, I hope it is Melchizedek,
for at all events you cannot deny there is one point of resemblance: I,
like him, am a preacher of righteousness. If it be a New Testament
character, I suppose you mean the Apostle of the Gentiles, of whom I am
an unworthy representative."

"Na, na, sir, better nor that still, an' fer closer is the resemblance.
When ye bring me to the point, I maun speak. Ye are the just Pharisee,
sir, that gaed up wi' the poor publican to pray in the Temple; an'
ye're acting the very same pairt at this time, an' saying i'  your
heart, 'God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, an' in nae
way like this poor misbelieving unregenerate sinner, John Barnet.'"

"I hope I may say so indeed."

"There now! I tauld you how it was! But, d'ye hear, maister. Here
stands the poor sinner, John Barnet, your beadle an' servantman, wha
wadna change chances wi' you in the neist world, nor consciences in
this, for ten times a' that you possess--your justification by faith
an' awthegither."

"You are extremely audacious and impertinent, John; but the language of
reprobation cannot affect me: I came only to ask you one question,
which I desire you to answer candidly. Did you ever say to anyone that
I was the boy Robert's natural father?"

"Hout na, sir! Ha-ha-ha! Aih, fie, na, sir! I durst-na say that for my
life. I doubt the black stool, an' the sack gown, or maybe the juggs
wad hae been my portion had I said sic a thing as that. Hout, hout!
Fie, fie! Unco-like doings thae for a Melchizedek or a Saint Paul!"

"John, you are a profane old man, and I desire that you will not
presume to break your jests on me. Tell me, dare you say, or dare you
think, that I am the natural father of that boy?"

"Ye canna hinder me to think whatever I like, sir, nor can I hinder
mysel."

"But did you ever say to anyone that he resembled me, and fathered
himself well enough?"

"I hae said mony a time that he resembled you, sir. Naebody can mistake
that."

"But, John, there are many natural reasons for such likenesses, besides
that of consanguinity. They depend much on the thoughts and affections
of the mother; and it is probable that the mother of this boy, being
deserted by her worthless husband, having turned her thoughts on me, as
likely to be her protector, may have caused this striking resemblance."

"Ay, it may be, sir. I coudna say."

"I have known a lady, John, who was delivered of a blackamoor child,
merely from the circumstance of having got a start by the sudden
entrance of her negro servant, and not being able to forget him for
several hours."

"It may be, sir; but I ken this--an' I had been the laird, I wadna hae
ta'en that story in."

"So, then, John, you positively think, from a casual likeness, that
this boy is my son?"

"Man's thoughts are vanity, sir; they come unasked, an' gang away
without a dismissal, an' he canna' help them. I'm neither gaun to say
that I think he's your son, nor that I think he's no your son: sae ye
needna pose me nae mair about it."

"Hear then my determination, John. If you do not promise to me, in
faith and honour, that you never will say, or insinuate such a thing
again in your life, as that that boy is my natural son, I will take the
keys of the church from you, and dismiss you from my service."

John pulled out the keys, and dashed them on the gravel at the reverend
minister's feet. "There are the keys o' your kirk, sir! I hae never had
muckle mense o' them sin' ye entered the door o't. I hae carried them
this three and thretty year, but they hae aye been like to burn a hole
i' my pouch sin' ever they were turned for your admittance. Tak them
again, an' gie them to wha you will, and muckle gude may he get o'
them. Auld John may dee a beggar in a hay barn, or at the back of a
dike, but he sall aye be master o' his ain thoughts an' gie them vent
or no, as he likes."

He left the manse that day, and I rejoiced in the riddance; for I
disdained to be kept so much under by one who was in bond of iniquity,
and of whom there seemed no hope, as he rejoiced in his frowardness,
and refused to submit to that faithful teacher, his master.

It was about this time that my reverend father preached a sermon, one
sentence of which affected me most disagreeably. It was to the purport
that every unrepented sin was productive of a new sin with each breath
that a man drew; and every one of these new sins added to the catalogue
in the same manner. I was utterly confounded at the multitude of my
transgressions; for I was sensible that there were great numbers of
sins of which I had never been able thoroughly to repent, and these
momentary ones, by moderate calculation, had, I saw, long ago, amounted
to a hundred and fifty thousand in the minute, and I saw no end to the
series of repentances to which I had subjected myself. A life-time was
nothing to enable me to accomplish the sum, and then being, for
anything I was certain of, in my state of nature, and the grace of
repentance withheld from me--what was I to do, or what was to become of
me? In the meantime, I went on sinning without measure; but I was still
more troubled about the multitude than the magnitude of my
transgressions, and the small minute ones puzzled me more than those
that were more heinous, as the latter had generally some good effects
in the way of punishing wicked men, froward boys, and deceitful women;
and I rejoiced, even then in my early youth, at being used as a scourge
in the hand of the Lord; another Jehu, a Cyrus, or a Nebuchadnezzar.

On the whole, I remember that I got into great confusion relating to my
sins and repentances, and knew neither where to begin nor how to
proceed, and often had great fears that I was wholly without Christ,
and that I would find God a consuming fire to me. I could not help
running into new sins continually; but then I was mercifully dealt
with, for I was often made to repent of them most heartily, by reason
of bodily chastisements received on these delinquencies being
discovered. I was particularly prone to lying, and I cannot but admire
the mercy that has freely forgiven me all these juvenile sins. Now that
I know them all to be blotted out, and that I am an accepted person, I
may the more freely confess them: the truth is, that one lie always
paved the way for another, from hour to hour, from day to day, and from
year to year; so that I found myself constantly involved in a labyrinth
of deceit, from which it was impossible to extricate myself. If I knew
a person to be a godly one, I could almost have kissed his feet; but,
against the carnal portion of mankind, I set my face continually. I
esteemed the true ministers of the gospel; but the prelatic party, and
the preachers up of good works I abhorred, and to this hour I account
them the worst and most heinous of all transgressors.

There was only one boy at Mr. Witch's class who kept always the upper
hand of me in every part of education. I strove against him from year
to year, but it was all in vain; for he was a very wicked boy, and I
was convinced he had dealings with the Devil. Indeed, it was believed
all over the country that his mother was a witch; and I was at length
convinced, that it was no human ingenuity that beat me with so much
ease in the Latin, after I had often sat up a whole night with my
reverend father, studying my lesson in all its bearings. I often read
as well and sometimes better than he; but, the moment Mr. Wilson began
to examine us, my opponent popped up above me. I determined (as I knew
him for a wicked person, and one of the Devil's handfasted children) to
be revenged on him, and to humble him by some means or other.
Accordingly I lost no opportunity of setting the master against him,
and succeeded several times in getting him severely beaten for faults
of which he was innocent. I can hardly describe the joy that it gave to
my heart to see a wicked creature suffering, for, though he deserved it
not for one thing, he richly deserved it for others. This may be by
some people accounted a great sin in me; but I deny it, for I did it as
a duty, and what a man or boy does for the right will never be put into
the sum of his transgressions.

This boy, whose name was M'Gill, was, at all his leisure hours, engaged
in drawing profane pictures of beasts, men, women, houses, and trees,
and, in short, of all things that his eye encountered. These profane
things the master often smiled at, and admired; therefore I began
privately to try my hand likewise. I had scarcely tried above once to
draw the figure of a man, ere I conceived that I had hit the very
features of Mr. Wilson. They were so particular that they could not be
easily mistaken, and I was so tickled and pleased with the droll
likeness that I had drawn that I laughed immoderately at it. I tried no
other figure but this; and I tried it in every situation in which a man
and a schoolmaster could be placed. I often wrought for hours together
at this likeness, nor was it long before I made myself so much master
of the outline that I could have drawn it in any situation whatever,
almost off hand. I then took M'Gill's account book of algebra home with
me, and at my leisure put down a number of gross caricatures of Mr.
Wilson here and there, several of them in situations notoriously
ludicrous. I waited the discovery of this treasure with great
impatience; but the book, chancing to be one that M'Gill was not using,
I saw it might be long enough before I enjoyed the consummation of my
grand scheme: therefore, with all the ingenuity I was master of, I
brought it before our dominie's eye. But never shall I forget the rage
that gleamed in the tyrant's phiz! I was actually terrified to look at
him, and trembled at his voice. M'Gill was called upon, and examined
relating to the obnoxious figures. He denied flatly that any of them
were of his doing. But the master inquiring at him whose they were, he
could not tell, but affirmed it to be some trick. Mr. Wilson at one
time began, as I thought, to hesitate; but the evidence was so strong
against M'Gill that at length his solemn asseverations of innocence
only proved an aggravation of his crime. There was not one in the
school who had ever been known to draw a figure but himself, and on him
fell the whole weight of the tyrant's vengeance. It was dreadful; and I
was once in hopes that he would not leave life in the culprit. He,
however, left the school for several months, refusing to return to be
subjected to punishment for the faults of others, and I stood king of
the class.

Matters, were at last made up between M'Gill's parents and the
schoolmaster, but by that time I had got the start of him, and never in
my life did I exert myself so much as to keep the mastery. It was in
vain; the powers of enchantment prevailed, and I was again turned down
with the tear in my eye. I could think of no amends but one, and, being
driven to desperation, I put it in practice. I told a lie of him. I
came boldly up to the master, and told him that M'Gill had in my
hearing cursed him in a most shocking manner, and called him vile
names. He called M'Gill, and charged him with the crime, and the proud
young coxcomb was so stunned at the atrocity of the charge that his
face grew as red as crimson, and the words stuck in his throat as he
feebly denied it. His guilt was manifest, and he was again flogged most
nobly and dismissed the school for ever in disgrace, as a most
incorrigible vagabond.

This was a great victory gained, and I rejoiced and exulted exceedingly
in it. It had, however, very nigh cost me my life; for I not long
thereafter I encountered M'Gill in the fields, on which he came up and
challenged me for a liar, daring me to fight him. I refused, and said
that I looked on him as quite below my notice; but he would not quit
me, and finally told me that he should either lick me, or I should lick
him, as he had no other means of being revenged on such a scoundrel. I
tried to intimidate him, but it would not do; and I believe I would
have given all that I had in the world to be quit of him. He at length
went so far as first to kick me, and then strike me on the face; and,
being both older and stronger than he, I thought it scarcely became me
to take such insults patiently. I was, nevertheless, well aware that
the devilish powers of his mother would finally prevail; and either the
dread of this, or the inward consciousness of having wronged him,
certainly unnerved my arm, for I fought wretchedly, and was soon wholly
overcome. I was so sore defeated that I kneeled and was going to beg
his pardon; but another thought struck me momentarily, and I threw
myself on my face, and inwardly begged aid from heaven; at the same
time I felt as if assured that my prayer was heard, and would be
answered. While I was in this humble attitude, the villain kicked me
with his foot and cursed me; and I, being newly encouraged, arose and
encountered him once more. We had not fought long at this second turn
before I saw a man hastening towards us; on which I uttered a shout of
joy, and laid on valiantly; but my very next look assured me that the
man was old John Barnet, whom I had likewise wronged all that was in my
power, and between these two wicked persons I expected anything but
justice. My arm was again enfeebled, and that of my adversary
prevailed. I was knocked down and mauled most grievously, and, while
the ruffian was kicking and cuffing me at his will and pleasure, up
came old John Barnet, breathless with running, and, at one blow with
his open hand, levelled my opponent with the earth. "Tak ye that,
maister!" said John, "to learn ye better breeding. Hout awa, man! An ye
will fight, fight fair. Gude sauf us, ir ye a gentleman's brood, that
ye will kick an' cuff a lad when he's down?"

When I heard this kind and unexpected interference, I began once more
to value myself on my courage, and, springing up, I made at my
adversary; but John, without saying a word, bit his lip, and seizing me
by the neck threw me down. M'Gill begged of him to stand and see fair
play, and suffer us to finish the battle; for, added he, "he is a liar,
and a scoundrel, and deserves ten times more than I can give him."

"I ken he's a' that ye say, an' mair, my man," quoth John. "But am I
sure that ye're no as bad, an' waur? It says nae muckle for ony o' ye
to be tearing like tikes at one anither here."

John cocked his cudgel and stood between us, threatening to knock the
one dead who first offered to lift his hand against the other; but,
perceiving no disposition in any of us to separate, he drove me home
before him like a bullock, and keeping close guard behind me, lest
M'Gill had followed. I felt greatly indebted to John, yet I complained
of his interference to my mother, and the old officious sinner got no
thanks for his pains.

As I am writing only from recollection, so I remember of nothing
farther in these early days, in the least worthy of being recorded.
That I was a great, a transcendent sinner, I confess. But still I had
hopes of forgiveness, because I never sinned from principle, but
accident; and then I always tried to repent of these sins by the slump,
for individually it was impossible; and, though not always successful
in my endeavours, I could not help that, the grace of repentance being
withheld from me, I regarded myself as in no degree accountable for the
failure. Moreover, there were many of the most deadly sins into which I
never fell, for I dreaded those mentioned in the Revelations as
excluding sins, so that I guarded against them continually. In
particular, I brought myself to despise, if not to abhor, the beauty of
women, looking on it as the greatest snare to which mankind was
subjected, and though young men and maidens, and even old women (my
mother among the rest), taxed me with being an unnatural wretch, I
gloried in my acquisition; and, to this day, am thankful for having
escaped the most dangerous of all snares.

I kept myself also free of the sins of idolatry and misbelief, both of
a deadly nature; and, upon the whole, I think I had not then broken,
that is, absolutely broken, above four out of the ten commandments;
but, for all that, I had more sense than to regard either my good
works, or my evil deeds, as in the smallest degree influencing the
eternal decrees of God concerning me, either with regard to my
acceptance or reprobation. I depended entirely on the bounty of free
grace, holding all the righteousness of man as filthy rags, and
believing in the momentous and magnificent truth that, the more heavily
loaden with transgressions, the more welcome was the believer at the
throne of grace. And I have reason to believe that it was this
dependence and this belief that at last ensured my acceptance there.

I come now to the most important period of my existence--the period
that has modelled my character, and influenced every action of my
life--without which, this detail of my actions would have been as a
tale that hath been told--a monotonous farrago--an uninteresting
harangue--in short, a thing of nothing. Whereas, lo! it must now be a
relation of great and terrible actions, done in the might, and by the
commission of heaven. Amen.

Like the sinful king of Israel, I had been walking softly before the
Lord for a season. I had been humbled for my transgressions, and, as
far as I recollect, sorry on account of their numbers and heinousness.
My reverend father had been, moreover, examining me every day regarding
the state of my soul, and my answers sometimes appeared to give him
satisfaction, and sometimes not. As for my mother, she would harp on
the subject of my faith for ever; yet, though I knew her to be a
Christian, I confess that I always despised her motley instructions,
nor had I any great regard for her person. If this was a crime in me, I
never could help it. I confess it freely, and believe it was a judgment
from heaven inflicted on her for some sin of former days, and that I
had no power to have acted otherwise towards her than I did.

In this frame of mind was I when my reverend father one morning arose
from his seat, and, meeting me as I entered the room, he embraced me,
and welcomed me into the community of the just upon earth. I was struck
speechless, and could make no answer save by looks of surprise. My
mother also came to me, kissed, and wept over me; and, after showering
unnumbered blessings on my head, she also welcomed me into the society
of the just made perfect. Then each of them took me by a hand

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