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Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 12

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Title: Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 12

Compiler: John Mackay Wilson

Editor: Alexander Leighton


        
Release date: October 27, 2010 [eBook #34149]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS AND OF SCOTLAND, VOLUME 12 ***




Produced by David Clarke, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net









                     WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS

                            AND OF SCOTLAND.

                HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.

                            WITH A GLOSSARY.

                               REVISED BY

                           ALEXANDER LEIGHTON

              ONE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS.


VOL. XII.

LONDON:

WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE

AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

1884.




CONTENTS


THE SCOTTISH HUNTERS OF HUDSON'S BAY, _(HUGH MILLER)_

THE PROFESSOR'S TALES, _(PROFESSOR THOMAS GILLESPIE)_

    THE WEDDING

MIKE MAXWELL AND THE GRETNA GREEN LOVERS, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_

REUBEN PURVES; OR, THE SPECULATOR, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

THE SEA-STORM, _(OLIVER RICHARDSON)_

THE HEIR OF INSHANNOCK, _(JAMES MAIDMENT)_

THE MOSSTROOPER, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_

THE FORGER, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_

THE SURGEON'S TALES, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_

    THE THREE LETTERS
    THE GLASS BACK

WE'LL HAVE ANOTHER, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

THE SCOTTISH VETERAN, _(JOHN HOWELL)_

THE WHITE WOMAN OF TARRAS, _(PATRICK MAXWELL)_




WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.




THE SCOTTISH HUNTERS OF HUDSON'S BAY.


The gloom of a boisterous winter evening was settling over one of the
wild, inhospitable tracts which lie to the north of the St Lawrence. The
earth, far as the eye could reach, was covered, to the depth of many
feet, by a continuous sheet of frozen snow; over which the bellying
clouds, heavily charged with the materials of a fresh storm, hung in
terrible array, fold beyond fold, as they descended on every side to
mingle with the distant horizon. On the one hand, a frozen lake, deeply
buried, like all the rest of the landscape, stretched its flat, unvaried
surface for leagues along the waste; on the other, a winding shore,
covered with stunted trees and bushes, alternately advanced into the
level, in the form of low, long promontories, or retired into little
hollow bays, edged with rock, and overhung by thickets of pine. All was
sublimely wild and desolate. The piercing north wind went whistling in
sudden gusts along the frozen surface of the lake, dashing against each
other the stiff, brittle branches of the underwood, and shaking off
their icicles, or whirling the lighter snow into huge columns, that ever
and anon went stalking along the waste like giants, and seemed at times
to thrust their foreheads into the very clouds. Not a single human
habitation--not so much as the wigwam of an Indian, or aught that could
give evidence of even the occasional visits of man--could be seen in
the whole frozen circle, from the centre to the horizon. All seemed
alike uninhabitable and uninhabited--a dreary unpeopled desert, the
undisputed domain of solitude and winter.

And yet, on this dismal evening, the landscape was enlivened by two
human figures. They were mounted on a rude sledge, drawn by four large
dogs, that now, as the evening began to darken, were urging their way at
full speed across one of the wider bays of the lake. The keen,
penetrating wind blew right ahead, so intensely chill that it felt to
the naked hand like a stream of ice; and the travellers, who were
seated, with their backs to the blast, on the front part of the car, and
who from time to time half turned their heads to direct the course of
the dogs, drew closer and closer together as they felt their limbs
stiffening, and a drowsy torpor stealing over all their faculties, under
the deadening influence of the cold. They were dressed from head to foot
in the skins of wild animals, with hoods, like those worn by the
Esquimaux, projecting over their faces, and long strips of some thick,
coarse fur wrapped in a spiral fashion round their limbs. One of them--a
robust, dark-complexioned young man, rather above the middle size--had
an Indian blanket bound round his shoulders; the other--who, though tall
and well-made, was of a rather slighter form, and much less deeply
bronzed by the climate--was closely enveloped in the folds of a Scottish
plaid.

"I am afraid, Sandy, it's all over with us," said Innes Cameron, the
fairer and handsomer of the two; "I have been dead asleep for the last
ten minutes--ah, me! and dreaming of Scotland, too, and of one I shall
never, never see more. Do you think there can be any chance of our yet
reaching the log-house?"

"I have been more than half asleep, too," said Sandy Munro, the more
robust traveller, "and my feet are ice to the ankles; but, if we can
hold out for barely one quarter-of-an-hour longer, we are safe. Pine
Creek Point is quite at hand--see how it stretches black across the snow
yonder, not four hundred yards away; and, hearken! you may hear the wind
whistling through the branches. There is a little bay beyond it, and the
log-house is at the bottom of the bay. Just strive and keep up for a few
minutes longer, Innes, and we shall get over this night with all the
rest."

The sledge reached the promontory, and entered the wood. It was thick
and dark; and there was a rustling and crackling on every side, as the
dogs went bounding among the underwood--their ears and tails erected,
and opening from time to time in quick, sharp barkings, sure indications
that they deemed themselves near the close of their journey. The trees
began to open; and, descending an abrupt ice declivity, the travellers
found themselves on the edge of a narrow creek, that went winding into
the interior, between steep banks laden with huge piles of snow, which,
hollowed by the blast into a thousand fantastic forms, hung bellying
over the level. A log-house, buried half-way to the eaves in front, and
overtopped by an immense wreath behind--resembling some hapless vessel
in the act of foundering--occupied an inflection of the bank opposite
the promontory; and in a few minutes the travellers had crossed the
creek, and stood fronting the door.

"Ah, no kindly smoke comes frae the lum, Innes," said Sandy, leaping out
of the car; "all dark, too, as midnight at Yule; but we maun just bestir
ourselves, and get up a blaze. Do exert yourself, my bonny man, or we
shall perish yet. Unfasten the dogs, and be sure you hang up the harness
out of their reach, or the puir hungry wratches will eat it up, every
snap, afore morning. Unfasten the door, too, and get out our driest
skins and driest tinder; and I, meanwhile, shall provide you with
brushwood aneugh to keep up a bonfire till morning."

He seized an axe, and began to ply lustily among the underwood; while
his neighbour unharnessed the dogs, and, clearing the door, entered the
log-house, which soon began to throw up a thick steam through the snow.
We shall take the liberty of following him. The apartment was about ten
feet square; the walls formed of undressed logs, and the roof of
shingles. The snow peeped in a hundred different places through the
interstices; and a multitude of huge icicles, the effects of a late
partial thaw, hung half-way down from the ceiling to the floor, and now
glistened in the light, as the flames rose gaily on the hearth. The dogs
were whining and pawing in a corner, impatient for their evening repast.
In a few minutes Sandy had half-filled the apartment with brushwood, and
then set himself to assist his companion, who seemed but indifferently
skilled in the culinary art, in preparing supper, which consisted mostly
of frozen fish and biscuit, relished by a dram of excellent rum. It was
soon smoking on the floor, and, with the assistance of the dogs, soon
discussed; and the two fur-gatherers sat indulging in the genial heat,
with the long dark evening before them, and neither of them in the least
disposed to retire to the bed of brushwood and skins which they had
formed on the floor, immediately behind them.

"We are strange, changeable creatures," said Sandy--"the bairn sticks to
us a' life lang; and, if we dinna laugh, and cry just in the ae breath,
it's no that the feelings dinna vary, but that the pride o' consistency
winna always let us show what we feel. Little mair nor an hour ago, we
were baith perishin in the bitter cauld, half resigned to die, that we
might escape frae our misery, and noo here we are as happy as if there
were no such things as death or hardship i' the warld. Man, what a bonny
fire! I could maist forget that I was a puir Hudson's Bay fur-gatherer,
and that kindly Scotland was four thousand miles awa."

"What," said his companion, "could have induced a steady, sensible
fellow like you, Sandy, to indenture with the company? 'Tis easy to
divine what brought most of our comrades here--they resemble David's
associates in the Cave of Adullam; but you, who could have been neither
in debt nor distress, and who are always so much the reverse of
discontented--I could never guess what brought you. Come, now, let us
have your story; the night is long and tedious, and I know not how we
could pass it to better purpose."

"But I do," replied Sandy. "My story is nae story ava. I am but a rude
man amang rude men like mysel; but you, Innes, what could hae brought
you here? You are a gentleman and a scholar, though ye hae but sma'
skill, maybe, in niffering brandy and glass beads for the skins o'
foumarts; and your story, no a vera gay one, I fear, will hae a' the
interest o' an auld ballad. It's but fair, however, that ye should hae
mine, such as it is, first. But draw just a wee bittie out o' the
draught; for there's a cauld, bitter wind soughin ben frae the door--and
only hear how the storm rages arout!

"There's a curious prejudice," continued Sandy, "among our country
folks--and, I suppose, among the folks o' every other country
besides--against some particular handicrafts. It's foolish in maist
cases. The souters o' Selkirk were gallant fellows; and, had a' our
Scottish knights fought half as weel at Flodden, our country would hae
lost a battle less; and yet ye canna but ken how our auld poets o' the
time--Dunbar, and Kennedy, and Davie Lindsay--ridicule the puir souters.
They say that, once on a time, the vera deil himsel wadna keep company
wi' ane o' them, till he had first got the puir man to wash himsel. Now,
the prejudice against tailors is hardly less strong in our ain days; and
yet a tailor may be a stalwart fellow, and bear a manly heart. I'm no
sure, had it no been for this prejudice, that I would now hae been a
fur-gatherer on the shores o' Hudson's Bay."

"Would to heaven," exclaimed his companion, interrupting him, "that I
had been bred a tailor! I'm mistaken if any such prejudice would have
sent me across the Atlantic."

"We can be a' wise enough on our neebor's weaknesses, Innes," said
Sandy; "but to the story.

"I come frae a seaport town in the north o' Scotland, no twenty miles
frae Inverness, your ain bonny half-Hieland, half-Lowland home. My
father, who had married late in life, was an old grey-headed man from
the time I first remember him. He had a sma' family; and, in his anxiety
to see us a' doing for oursels, I was apprenticed to a tailor in my
tenth year. Weel do I mind wi' what a disconsolate feeling I left the
twa cows I used to herd on a bonny brae-side speckled wi' gowans and
buttercups, to be crumpled down on the corner o' a board hardly bigger
than an apron, amang shreds and patches o' a' the colours o' the
rainbow, wi' an outlook through a dusty window on the side wa's o' an
auld warehouse. And then my comrades were such queer fallows, fu o' a
droll, little, wee sort o' conceit, that could ride on the neck o' a new
button, and a warld o' fashious bits o' tricks, naething sae guid as the
tricks o' a jackanapes, but every grain as wicked; and aften hae they
played them aff on the puir simple laddie. There are nane o' our
craftsfolks, Innes, but hae some peculiarity to mark them that grows up
oot o' their profession; and there's nae class mair marked than the
class I belong to."

"I have read Lamb on the Melancholy of Tailors," said Innes, "and
remember laughing heartily at the quaint humour of some of his remarks;
but I never wasted a thought on the subject after laying him down."

"Ah, Lamb, wi' a' his bonny, bairn-like humour and simplicity," said
Sandy, "is but a Cockney feelosopher after a', and kent naething o' the
matter. Melancholy o' tailors, forsooth! Why, man, a Hieland tailor is
aye the heartiest cock, and has aye the maist auld stories i' the
parish. But I maun gie you the feelosophy o' the thing at some ither
time.--I got on but ill wi' my companions," continued Sandy; "and the
royitous laddies outside used to jibe me wi' no being a man sax years
afore I ceased being a boy. Is it no hard that tailors should lose the
reputation o' manhood through a stupid misconception o' the sense o' an
auld-warld author? He tells us the tailor canna mak a man, just in the
spirit that Burns tells us a king canna mak an honest man. And, instead
o' the pith o' the remark being brought to bear on the beau and the
coxcomb, wha never separate the human creature frae his dress, it's
brought, oot o' sheer misapprehension, to bear against the puir
artisan."

"I see, Sandy," said Innes, with a smile, "you are still influenced by
_l'esprit de corps_. If you once get back to Scotland, you will take to
your old trade, and die a master tailor."

"I wish to goodness I were there to try!" replied Sandy. "But the story
lags wofully. I got on as I best could--longing sadly, i' the lang bonny
days o' simmer, to be oot amang the rocks o' the Sutors, or on the sea,
and in winter, thinking o' the Bay o' Udoll, wi' its wild ducks and its
swans, and o' the gran fun I could hae amang them wi' my auld
pistol--whan my master employed an auld ae-legged sodger to work wi' him
as a journeyman. He was a real fine fellow, save that he liked the drap
drink a wee owre weel, maybe; and he had wandered owre half the warld.
He had been in Egypt wi' Abercromby, and at Corunna wi' Moore, and o'er
a' Spain and at Waterloo wi' Wellington, and in mony a land and in mony
a fight besides; and noo he had come hame wi' a snug pension, and a
budget o' first-rate fine stories, that made the ears tingle and the
heart beat higher, to live and die amang his freends. Oh, the delight I
hae taen in that man's company! Why, Innes, at pension time, though I
never cared muckle for drink for its ain sake, I hae listened to his
stories i' the public-house till I hae felt my head spinnin round like a
tap, and my feet hae barely saired to carry me hame. I hae charged
Bonaparte's Invincibles wi' him, fifty and fifty times, and helped him
to carry aff Moore frae beside the thorn bush where he fell, and scaled
wi' him the breach at St Sebastian; and, in short, sae filled was I wi'
the spirit o' the sodger, that, had the wars no been owre, I would hae
broken my indentures, and gane awa to break heads and see foreign
countries. As it was, however, I learned to like my employment ten times
waur nor ever, and to break a head, noo and then, amang the town
prentices. Spite o' my close, in-door employment, I had grown stalwart
and strong; and I mind, on ae occasion, beating twa young fallows who
had twitted me on being but a _ninth_. Weel, the term o' my
apprenticeship cam till an end at last; and, flingin awa my thimble wi'
a jerk, and sendin my needle after it like an arrow, I determined on
seeing the warld. My crony, the auld veteran, advised me to enter the
army. I was formed baith in mind and body, he said, for a sodger; and if
I took but care--a thing he never could do himsel--I micht dee a
serjeant. But whatever love I micht hae for a guid fecht, I had nane for
the parade, and my thorough dread and detestation o' the halberds
o'er-mastered ony little ambition I micht hae indulged in when I dreamed
o' a battle. I thocht o' a voyage to Greenland--o' gangin a-sodgerin wi'
Lord Byron to Greece--o' emigratin to New South Wales or the Cape--o'
turnin a farmer in the backwoods--o' indenturin for a Jamaica
over-seer--o' goin oot to Mexica for a miner--ay, and o' fifty ither
plans besides--whan an adverteesement o' the Hudson's Bay Company caught
my notice, and determined me at once. I needna tell ye what the
directors promised to active young men: a paradise o' a country to live
in--the fun o' huntin and fishin frae Monday to Saturday nicht for our
only wark--and pocketfus o' money for our pay. I blessed my stars, and
closed wi' the agent at once. And now, here I am, Innes, in the seventh
year o' my service, no that meikle disposed to contemn my auld
profession, and mair nor half tired o' huntin, fishin, and seein the
warld. But just twa months mair, my boy, and I am free. And now, may I
no expect your story in turn?"

The wind, which had been rising since nightfall, now began to howl
around the log-house and through the neighbouring woods, like the roar
of the sea in a storm. There was an incessant creaking among the beams
of the roof, and the very floor at times seemed to rise and fall under
the foot, like the deck of a vessel which, after having lain stranded on
the beach, has just begun to float. The storm, which had been so long
impending, burst out in all its fury, and for some time the two
fur-gatherers, impressed by a feeling of natural awe, sat listening to
it in silence. The sounds rose and fell by intervals; at times sinking
into a deep, sullen roar, when all was comparatively still around; at
times swelling into thunder. In a pause of the blast, Sandy rose and
flung open the door. Day had sunk more than two hours before, and there
was no moon, but there was a strong flare of greenish-coloured light on
the snow, that served to discover the extreme dreariness of the scene;
and through a _bore_ in the far north, resembling, as Sandy said, the
opening of a dark lantern, he could see that, beyond the cloud, the
heavens were all a-flame with the aurora borealis. Earth and sky seemed
mingled; the snow, loose and fluctuating, and tossing its immense
wreaths to the hurricane, resembled the sea in a storm when the waves
run highest; the ice, though so deeply covered before, lay in some
places dark and bare, while in others, beneath the precipices, the drift
had accumulated over it to the depth of many fathoms. Again the blast
came roaring onwards with the fury of a tornado, and Sandy shut and
bolted the door.

"Ane o' the maist frightfu nichts, Innes," he said, "I ever saw in
America. It will be weel if we're no baith buried a hunder feet deep
afore mornin, wi' the log-house for our coffin. The like happened, about
twenty years syne, at Badger Hollow, where twa puir chields were covered
up till their skulls had grown white aneath their bannets. But though
alane, and in the desert, we're no oot o' the reach o' Providence yet."

"Ah no, my poor friend!" said Innes; "I do not feel, in these days, that
life is highly desirable; but nature shrinks from dissolution, and I am
still fain to live on. A poet, Sandy, would view our situation at
present with something like complacency; but I am afraid he would deem
your story, amusing as it is, little in keeping with the scene around
us, and a night so terrible as this. I can scarcely ask a tailor if he
remembers the little bit in 'Thalaba,' where the cave of the Lapland
sorceress is described? The long night of half-a-year has closed, and
wastes of eternal snow are stretching around; while in the midst, beside
her feeble light, that seems lost in the gloom of the cavern, the
sorceress is seated, ever drawing out and out from the revolving distaff
the golden thread of destiny."

"I mind better," replied Sandy, "Jamie Hogg's wild story o' my brother
craftsman, Allan Gordon, and how he wintered at the Pole in the cabin o'
a whomilt Greenlandman, wi' Nannie and a rum cask for his companions.
Dear me, how the roarins o' the bears outside used to amaze the puir
chield every time he was foolish aneugh to let himsel grow sober! But
gudesake, Innes, what's that?"

There was something sufficiently frightful in the interruption. A
fearfully-prolonged howl was heard outside, mingling with the hurricane,
and, in a moment after, the snorting and pawing of some animal at the
door. Sandy snatched up his musket, hastily examined the pan, to
ascertain that his powder had escaped the damp, and, setting it on full
cock, pointed it to the place whence the noises proceeded. Innes armed
himself with a hunting-spear. The sounds were repeated, but in a less
frightful tone: they were occasioned evidently by a dog whining for
admittance. "Some puir brute," said Sandy, "who has lost his master."
And, opening the door, a large Newfoundland dog came rushing into the
hut. With more than brute sagacity, he flung himself at the feet of the
fur-gatherers, as if imploring protection and assistance; and then,
springing up and laying hold of the skirts of Sandy's blanket, he began
to tug him violently towards the door.

"Let us follow the animal," said Innes; "it may be the means of rescuing
a fellow-creature from destruction; his master, I am convinced, is
perishing in the snow."

"I shall not fail you, Innes," exclaimed Sandy; and, hastily wrapping
their plaids around them, and snatching up, the one a loaded musket, the
other a bottle of spirits, the fur-gatherers plunged fearlessly into the
storm and the darkness.

A greenish-coloured light still glimmered faintly from the north,
through the thick drift and the falling snow, too faint, indeed, to
enable them to catch the outlines of surrounding objects, but sufficient
to show them the dog moving over the ice a few yards before them, like a
little black cloud. They followed hard in his track towards the bottom
of the creek. The steep banks on either hand contracted as they
advanced, till at length they could see their shagged summits high above
them in the darkness, and could hear the storm raging in the pines,
though it had become comparatively calm in the shelter below. The creek
at length terminated in a semicircular recess, surrounded by a steep
wall of precipices. The dog bounded forward to a fissure in the
rock--and there, at the edge of a huge wreath of snow, which half shut
up the entrance, lay what seemed, in the uncertain light, the dead body
of a man. The dog howled piteously over it, breathed hard in the face,
and then looked up imploringly to the fur-gatherers. Innes leaped over
the wreath, followed by Sandy, and, on raising up the body, found,
though the extremities were stiff and cold as the ice on which it lay,
that life was not yet extinct.

"Some unlucky huntsman," said Sandy; "we maun carry him, Innes, to the
log-house; life is sweet even among the deserts o' Hudson's Bay."

The perishing hunter muttered a few broken syllables, like a man in the
confusion of a dream. "It grows dark, Catherine," he said, "and I am
sick at heart, and cold."

"Puir, puir fallow!" exclaimed Sandy--"he's thinkin o' his wife or
sweetheart; but he'll no perish this time, Innes, if we can help it.
Pity, man, for the car and dogs; but minutes are precious, and we maun
just lug him wi' us as we best may."

Rolling their plaids around the almost lifeless stranger, the
fur-gatherers bore him away over the ice, the dog leaping and barking
with very joy before them; and in less than half-an-hour they had all
reached the log-house.

The means of restoring suspended animation, with which the casualties of
so many Hudson's Bay winters had made Sandy well acquainted, were
resorted to on this occasion with complete success; and the stranger
gradually recovered. He proved to be one of the most trusted and
influential of the company's managers--a native of Scotland, and much
loved and respected among the inferior retainers of the settlement, for
an obliging disposition and great rectitude of principle. He was a keen
sportsman, and had left his place of residence in the morning, on a
solitary hunting excursion, accompanied only by his dog. But, trusting
to his youth and strength, the enthusiasm of the hunter had drawn him
mile after mile from home; and, on the breaking out of the storm, he had
lost his way among the interminable bays and creeks of the lake. On his
recovery, he was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, and meant all
that he said. He was, perhaps, not much afraid to die, he remarked, but
then he had many inducements to live, and there were more than himself
who had a stake in his life, and who would feel grateful to his
preservers.

"Compose yourself," said Innes; "you have been strangely tried to-night,
and your spirits are still much flurried. Set yourself to sleep, for
never had man more need; and my companion and I shall watch beside you
during the night. Remember you are our patient, and entirely under our
control." The manager good-humouredly acquiesced in the prescription,
and in a few minutes after was fast asleep.

"Now, Innes," said Sandy, "as there's to be no bed for us to-night, you
maunna forget that you're pledged to me for your story. Remember, my
bonny man, our bargain when ye got mine."

"I do remember," replied Innes; "but I well know you will be both tired
and sleepy ere I have done."

"I have long had a liking for you, Sandy," continued Innes--"I knew you
from the first to be a man of a different cast from any of our fellows;
and, ever since I saw you take part with the poor Indian, whom the two
drunken Irishmen attempted to rob of his rum and his wife, I have wished
for your friendship. It is not good for man to be alone, and I have been
much too solitary since I entered with the company. You were, when in
Scotland, the victim of a silly prejudice against a humble, but honest
calling, but you could have lived in it, notwithstanding, had not a love
for wandering drawn you abroad. I, on the contrary--thought like the
hare with many friends, I was a favourite with every one--was literally
starved out of it. My father was a gentleman farmer, not thirty miles
from Inverness, whom the high war prices of cattle and grain had raised
from comparative poverty to sudden, though short-lived, affluence. No
man could be more sanguine in his hopes for his children. He had three
boys, and all of us were educated for the liberal professions, in the
full belief that we were all destined to rise in the world, and become
eminent. Alas! my brother, the divine, died of a broken heart, a poor
over-toiled usher in an English academy; my brother, the doctor,
perished in Greenland, where he had gone as the surgeon of a whaler,
after waiting on for years in the hope of some better appointment; and
here am I, a lawyer--prepared to practise, as soon as we get courts
established among the red men of Hudson's Bay. But I anticipate. I am
not sure nature ever intended that I should stand high as a scholar; but
I was no trifler, and so passed through the classes with tolerable
_eclat_. I am not at all convinced, either, that I possess the
capabilities of a first-rate lawyer; but I am certain I have seen men
rise in the world with not more knowledge, and with, perhaps, even less
judgment to direct it. What I chiefly wanted, I suspect, was a genius
for the knavish parts of the profession. Will you believe me when I say
I have known as much actual crime committed in the office of a
pettifogging country lawyer, as I ever saw tried in a sheriff court. Oh,
what finished rascality have I not seen skulking under the shelter of
the statute-book!--what remorseless blackening of character, for the
sake of a paltry fee!--what endless breaches of promise!--what shameless
betrayals of trust!--what reckless waste of property! Sandy Munro, I am
a poor Hudson's Bay fur-gatherer, and can indulge in no other hope than
that I shall one day lay my bones at the side of some nameless creek or
jungle; but rather that, a thousand, thousand times, than affluence,
and influence, and respectability--ay, respectability--through the
wretched means by which I have seen all these secured!"

"You are an honest chield, Innes," said Sandy, grasping him by the hand.
"I have had a regard for you ever since I first saw you; and the mair I
ken o' you the mair my respect rises."

"My father," continued Innes, "was respectably connected; I had a turn
for dress, a tolerably genteel figure, and was fond of female society;
and, during the four years I served with the lawyer in Inverness, I
found myself a welcome guest in all the more respectable circles of the
place. Scarcely a tea-drinking or dancing party was got up among the
_elite_ of the burgh, but I was sure of an invitation. I danced, played
on the flute, handed round the tea and the sweetmeats--all _par
excellence_--and was quite an adept in the art of speaking a great deal
without saying anything. In short, I became a most accomplished
trifler--an effect, perhaps, of my very imperfect love of my profession.
The men who rise to eminence, you know, rarely begin their course as
fine fellows; and were it not for a circumstance to which I owe more of
my happiness and more of my misery than to any other, I would have had
to attribute my failure in life less to an untoward destiny than to the
dissipation of this period. But I was taught diligence by the very means
through which most young people are _un_taught it. I fell in love. There
was a pretty, simple lassie, the daughter of one of the bailies of the
place, whom I used frequently to meet with in our evening parties, and
with whose appearance I was mightily taken from the moment I first saw
her. She united, in a rare degree, all the elegance of the young lady
with all the simplicity of the child; and, with better sense than falls
to the share of nineteen-twentieths of her sex, was more devoid than any
one I ever knew of their characteristic cunning. You have heard, I
daresay, that young ladies are anxious about getting husbands; but,
trust me, it is all a mistake. The anxiety is too natural a one to be
experienced by so artificial a personage as the mere young lady. It is
not persons but things she longs after--settlements, not sweethearts. I
have had a hundred young-lady friends, who liked my youth and gentility,
and who used to dance, and romp, and chat with me, with all the
good-will possible, but who thought as little of me as a sweetheart as
if I were one of themselves. Thoughts of that tender class were to be
reserved for some rich Indian, with a complexion the colour of a
drum-head, and a liver like a plum-pudding. This bonny lassie, however,
was born--poor thing!--with natural feelings. We met, and learned to
like one another; we sang and laughed together; talked of scenery and
the _belles lettres_; and, in short, lost our hearts to one another ere
we so much as dreamed that we had hearts to lose. You must be in love,
Sandy, ere all I could tell you could give you adequate notions of the
happiness I have enjoyed with that bonny, kind-hearted lassie. Love, I
have said, taught me diligence. I applied to my profession anew,
determined to be a lawyer, and the husband of Catherine. I waded through
whole tomes of black-letter statutes, studied my way over forty folios
of decisions, and did what I suppose no one ever did before--read Grigor
on the Game-laws. Not half-a-dozen practitioners in the country could
draw out a deed of settlement with equal adroitness--not one succeeded
in putting fewer double meanings into a will. My master used to consult
me on conveyancing; and when, at the expiry of my term, I left his
office and set up for myself, you will not wonder it was with the hope
that my at least average acquirements would secure for me an average
portion of success. You will see how that hope was realised.

"The father of my sweetheart was, as I have said, a Inverness bailie;
he was extensively engaged in trade, and all deemed him a rising man;
but the case was otherwise. An unlucky speculation, and the unexpected
failure of a friend, involved him in ruin; and I saw his office shut up
not three weeks after I had opened my own. A week after brought me the
intelligence of my father's death. He had been sinking in the world for
years before; getting, much against his will, into arrears with every
one; and now, immediately on his death, all his effects were seized by
the laird. He was an easy-tempered, obliging man--credulous and
confiding--and hence, perhaps, his misfortunes. You will deem me cold
and selfish, Sandy, to speak in this way of my father; and yet, believe
me, I felt as a son ought to feel; but repeated blows have a stupefying
effect, and I can now tell you, with scarcely a twinge, of hopes
blighted and friends lost. All my hopes of rising by my profession soon
failed me. No one entered my office. Though not without some confidence
in my acquirements, as you may see, I have ever had a sort of shamefaced
bashfulness about me, that has done me infinite harm. People were afraid
to trust their cases with one who seemed to mistrust himself--the
forward, the impudent, and the unprincipled carried off all the
employment, and I was left to starve."

"Honest, unlucky chield!" ejaculated Sandy, with a profound yawn. "One
might guess, by the way ye bargain wi' the Indians, that ye hae a vast
deal owre little brass for makin a fortune by the law. But what cam o'
your puir simple lassie, Innes, when her father broke?"

"Ah, dear, good girl," replied Innes, "with all her simplicity, she was,
by much, better fitted for making her way through the world than her
lover. She was highly accomplished, drew beautifully, read Chateaubriand
in the original, and had a pretty taste for music. Through the
recommendation of a friend, she was engaged as governess in the family
of a Highland proprietor, in which, when I left Scotland, she continued
to be employed--well, I trust, for her own happiness--usefully, I am
sure, for others. I shall forget many things, Sandy, ere I forget the
day I passed with her on the green top of _Tomnahurich_, ere we parted,
as it proved, for ever. You know that beautiful hill--the queen of all
our Highland _Tomhans_--with the long winding canal on the one side, and
the brattling Ness on the other, and surrounded by an assemblage of the
loveliest hills that ever dressed in purple and blue. It was a beautiful
day in early spring, and the sun shone cheerily on a hundred white
cottages at our feet, each looking out from its own little thicket of
birch and laburnum, and on the distant town, with its smoke-wreath
resting over it, and its two old steeples rising through. The world was
busy all around us: we could see the ploughman following his team, and
the mariner warping onward his vessel; the hum of eager occupation came
swelling with the breeze from the far-off streets--and yet there was I,
a poor supernumerary among the millions of my countrymen, parting almost
broken-hearted from her whom I loved better than myself, just because
there was no employment for me. Oh, the agony of that parting! But 'tis
passed, Sandy, and 'tis but folly thus to recall it. No one, as I have
already told you, ever thought of entering my office--no one, save my
landlord and the old woman with whom I lived; and you may believe there
was little of comfort in their visits. I was in arrears to the one for
rent, and to the other for lodging. So far was I reduced, that, in
passing through the old woman's room, I have been fain to take a potato
from off her platter, and that single potato has formed my meal for the
time. On one occasion I was for two days together without food."

"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Sandy--"what came o' a' the grand freends
that used to gie ye the teas and suppers? Had they nae bowels ava?"

"I would sooner have starved, Sandy, than have made my wants known to
the best of them. But there was one on whom I had a nearer claim, to
whom I applied in vain--a brother of my father--a close old hunks, who,
though he had realised thousands as a ship-broker in London, had not
heart enough to part with a shilling for the benefit of his poor nephew.
But I believe the wretched man was well-nigh as unkind to himself as he
was to me, and, in the midst of his wealth, fared nearly as ill. You are
getting sleepy, Sandy, and I daresay 'tis little wonder you should; but
I find a melancholy satisfaction in thus retracing the untoward events
of the past, which I am certain I could not feel, did conscience whisper
that my misfortunes were in any great degree owing to myself. Well, but
to conclude. I became squalid and shabby; all the ladies sent me to
Coventry, and all the gentlemen spurned me as a fellow of no spirit. I
had mistaken my profession, it was said; and blockheads, who had been
guiltless of a single new idea all their lives long, used to repeat from
one another that my father, in making a wretched lawyer of me, had
spoiled a good ploughman. I could bear no longer. The Hudson's Bay
Company had an agent, you know, at Inverness. I called on him one
evening after a day of fasting and miserable low spirits--and now here I
am, in the second year of my service with the company."

"But, how, Innes, man," inquired Sandy, "could ye hae found heart to
leave Scotland, without seein the puir lassie, your sweetheart? Do ye
ken aught o' her now?"

"Know of her!" exclaimed Innes; "alas! I too surely know I have lost
her. The last thing but one that I did ere I sailed from Stromness, was
to write her to say how I had fallen from all my hopes regarding her,
and to bid her forget me; the very last thing I did was to cry over a
kind, cheerful letter, which had followed me all the way from Inverness,
and in which she urged me to keep up my heart, for that all would yet be
well with us. Little did she know, when writing it, what I was on the
eve of becoming--a poor vagabond fur-gatherer on the wild shores of
Hudson's Bay. Dear, generous girl! I trust she is happy."

"May I ask," said the manager, who, unknown to the two fur-gatherers,
had lain awake for some time, listening to the narrative--"may I ask if
you are not Innes Cameron, late of Inverness, only surviving son of
Colin Cameron of Glendocharty, and nephew of the lately deceased Malachi
Cameron, of Upper Thames Street, London?"

"I am that Innes Cameron," said the fur-gatherer; "and so my poor old
uncle is dead?"

"And having died intestate," continued the manager, "you, as
heir-at-law, succeed to his entire estate, personal and real, consisting
of a property of a few hundred acres in the vicinity of Inverness, and
twenty thousand pounds vested in the three per cents. A considerable
remittance from London has been waiting you for the last month at the
Hawk River Settlement, and, what you will deem very handsome in the
circumstances, a free discharge from the company for your five remaining
years' servitude. I am acting manager at the River, and to my care the
whole has been committed."

Innes seemed astounded by the intelligence; his gayer companion leaped
up and performed a somerset on the floor.

"Innes, Innes, Innes!" he exclaimed, "why are ye no dancin?--why are ye
no dancin? Did I no ken ye were born to be a gentleman? I maun hae a
double glass to drink luck to ye; and I'm sure the manager winna say no.
Goodness, man, it's the best news I hae heard in America yet!"

Morning at length broke--a calm, clear morning, for the clouds had
passed away with the storm--and the travellers, after sharing in an
ample, though not very delicate, repast, prepared to set out on their
journey. The dogs were harnessed, and the car laden. The manager, who,
from the fatigue and exhaustion of the previous night, still felt
indisposed, was mounted in front; the two fur-gatherers were lacing on
their snow-shoes to follow on foot. At length the sun rose far to the
south, through a deep frosty haze, that seemed to swaddle the horizon
with a broad belt of russet, and the travellers set out in the direction
of a distant promontory of the lake. The snow all around, the woods that
rose thick over the level, the overhanging banks of the lake, the hills
in the far distance, were all bathed in one rich glow of crimson, that
more than emulated the blush of a summer's evening at sunset; the
shadows of the travellers, as they stretched for many fathoms across the
lake, had each a moon-like halo round the head, like the glory in an old
painting; and the very air, laden with frost rime, sparkled to the sun,
like the gold water of the chemist. The scene was altogether strangely,
I had almost said unnaturally, beautiful; it was one of those which,
once seen, are never forgotten.

"You have been silent, Innes," said Sandy, "for the last half-hour, and
look as wae and anxious as if some terrible mishanter had befallen ye.
I'll wad the best quid in my spleuchan, ye hae been thinkin about
Catherine Roberts, and o' your chance o' findin her single. I'd advise
ye, man, just for fear o' a disappointment, to marry the manager's
sister: she's ane o' the best, bonny lassies I ever saw, and plays
strathspeys and pibrochs like an angel. Oh, had ye but heard her at
'Lochaber no more,' and the 'Flowers o' the Forest,' ye wad hae grat
like a bairn, as I did. Dear me, but she's a fine lassie! Had I as mony
thousands as ye hae, Innes, I wad marry her mysel."

"How came you to hear her music?" asked Innes, in a tone that showed he
took but little interest in the query.

"Ah, there's a story belongs to that question," replied Sandy. "It's
about a month or twa mair nor a twelvemonth noo, sin Tam M'Intyre and I
set out frae Racoon Settlement, on ane o' the weariest and maist
desperate journeys I have yet taen in America. About Christmas, a
huntsman, in passing the settlement, tauld us there was to be a grand
ball on New-year's Day at the Hawk River, and that there were to be four
Scotch lassies at it, who had come owre the simmer afore, forbye a
bonnie young leddie, the manager's sister. The River, ye ken, is no
mickle aboon twa hundred miles frae Racoon Settlement, and Tam M'Intyre
and I, who for five years hadna seen a living creature liker a woman
than an Indian squaw, resolved on going to the ball, to see the lassies.
We yoked our sledges on a snell frosty morning, set out across the great
lake, and reached the log-house at Bear's Point about dark. We got up a
rousin fire, and drunk maybe a glass or twa extra owre our cracks about
Scotland and the lassies; but I'll tak my aith on't there was neither o'
us meikle the waur. But, however it happened, about midnight we baith
awakened mair nor half scomfisht, and there was the roof in a bright
lowe aboon our heads. M'Intyre singed a' his whiskers and eebrees in
getting out; I was luckier, and escaped wi' the loss only o' my blanket
and our twa days' provisions. But we just couldna help it; and, yokin
our dogs by the light o' the burnin, aff we set, weel aware that we wad
baith miss our breakfasts or we reached the Hawk River. We travelled a'
that day and a' the next nicht, the dogs hearty and strong, puir brutes,
for we had been lucky aneugh to get the hinder half o' a black fox in a
trap--the other half had been eaten by the wolves; but oursels, Innes,
were like to famish. When mornin came, we were within thirty miles o'
the Hawk River. There was little wind, but the frost burned like het
iron. I dinna remember a sneller morning. M'Intyre had to thaw his nose
three times, and my chin and ears had twice got as hard as bits o'
stockfish. We had rubbed off a' the skin in trying to mak the blood
circulate, and baith our faces had so swelled out o' the size, and
shape, and colour o' humanity, that, when we reached the settlement, we
were fain to steal into an outside hut, just that the lassies mightna
see us. Man, but it was a sair begeck! The ball night came, and we were
still uglier than ever, and I thought I wad hae gane daft wi' vexation.
We could hear the noise o' the fiddles, and the dancin--and that was
just a'. M'Intyre had some thoughts o' hangin himsel oot o' spite. Just
when we were at the warst, however, a genteel tap comes to the door; and
there there was a smart bonny lassie wi' a message to us frae her
mistress, the manager's sister. We were asked down, she said; her
mistress, hearing o' our misluck, and that we had baith come frae the
north country, had got up a snug little supper for us, where there would
be none to ferlie at us, and was noo waitin our comin. Was this no kind,
Innes? I made a veil o' my plaid as I best could, M'Intyre muffled
himself up in a napkin, and aff we went to the manager's. But, oh man!
sic kindness frae sae sweet a leddy! She sang and played till us--and
weel did it set her to do baith; and mixed up our toddy for us--for we
were gey blate, as ye may think; and, on takin our leave, she shook
hands wi' us as gin we had been her equals. I've never been fule aneugh
to be in love, Innes--beggin your pardon for sayin sae--but I feel I
could lay down my life for that bonny lassie ony day. Weel, but
kindliness is a kindly thing!"

"What is the young lady's name?" inquired Innes, with some eagerness, as
a sudden thought came across him. "Her brother, I think, calls her
Catherine."

"Ah, no your Catherine, though," said Sandy; "the manager's name is
Pringle, ye ken, and that's no Roberts."

"I am a fool," replied Innes, with a sigh; "and you see it, Sandy."

The track pursued by the party, which had hitherto lain along the edge
of the lake, now ascended the steep wooded bank which hung over it, and,
after winding for several miles through a series of shaggy thickets,
with here and there an intervening swamp, opened into an extensive
plain. A few straggling clumps of copsewood served to enliven the
otherwise unvaried surface, and, in the far distance, there was a range
of snowy hills that seemed to rise directly over a deep narrow valley in
which the plain terminated. There was no wind, and a column of smoke,
which issued from the centre of a distant wood, arose majestically in
the clear sunshine, till, reaching a lighter stratum of air, it spread
out equally on every side, like the foliage of a stately tree.

"Some Indian settlement," said the manager. "There is much of beauty in
this wild scene, Mr Cameron--beauty merging into the sublime; and the
poor red men, its sole inhabitants, form exactly the sort of figures one
would choose to introduce into such a landscape. I am now much more a
lover of such scenes than before my sister joined me."

"A taste for the wild and savage seems to be an acquired one," remarked
Innes; "a taste for the beautiful is natural. Certainly the first comes
later in life to the individual, and it is scarcely ever found among the
uneducated. One of the finest wild scenes in Ross-shire--a deep, rocky
ravine, overhung with wood, and with a turbulent Highland stream roaring
through it--is known by all the country folk in the neighbourhood by the
name of the Ugly Burn."

"The remark chimes in with my experience," said the manager. "I ever
admired the beautiful; but it was Catherine who first taught me to
admire the sublime. There is a savagely wild scene before us, where I
can now spend whole hours in the fine summer evenings, but which I used
to regard, only a few years ago, as positively a disagreeable one. But
such scenes make ever the deepest impression, whether the mind be
cultivated or no."

"Ay, Mr Pringle," remarked Sandy; "and frae that I draw my main
consolation for havin spent sae mony o' my best years in gatherin skins
for a wheen London merchants."

"How?" inquired the manager.

"Why, I just find that I am to bring hame wi' me recollections and
impressions aneugh to ser' me a' my life after; recollections o' mony a
desert prairie, and mony a fearfu storm--o' encounters wi' wild beasts
and wild men--o' a' that we deem hardship now, but which we will find it
pleasure to dwell on afterwards."

"Thank you for the remark, Sandy!" said Innes; "I find I am to bring
home with me something of that kind, too."

Towards the close of the day, the course of the travellers had lain
along the banks of the river; the waters were bound, from side to side,
with a broad belt of ice, but, at the rapids, they could hear them
growling beneath, like a wild beast in its den; and, just as the evening
was beginning to darken, they descended into a deep hollow, surrounded
by immense precipices and overhung by trees, into the upper part of
which the stream precipitated itself in one unbroken sheet of foam,
which had resisted the extremest influence of the frost. Innes thought
he had never before seen a scene of wilder or more savage grandeur.
There was a lofty amphitheatre of rock all around; the centre was
occupied by a dark mossy basin, in which the waters boiled and bubbled
as in a huge caldron; a broad, level strip, edged with trees and bushes,
lay immediately under the precipices; and, directly beneath the
cataract, there was a fantastic assemblage of tall riven peaks, laden
with icicles, that seemed in the gloom a conclave of giants. A deep,
gloomy cavern, whose echoes answered incessantly to the roar of the
torrent, opened behind and under it; while, immediately in front, there
rose a large circular mound, roughened with a multitude of lesser
hillocks, and now wrapped up, like all the rest of the landscape, in a
deep covering of snow.

"'Tis an Indian burying-place," said the manager, pointing to the mound;
"wild and savage, you see, as the people who have chosen it for their
final resting-place. These hillocks are sepulchral cairns. My sister
spends most of her summer evenings here--for we are now little more than
a mile from the settlement; and she has taught me to be well-nigh as
fond of it as herself. Should she die in this country, I am pledged to
lay her among the poor Indians. There are strange stories among them of
yonder cave and cataract--the one is a place of purification, they say,
the other, a way to the land of spirits. I am certain you will feel much
interest, Mr Cameron, in discussing with Catherine what she terms the
beginnings of mythology, as illustrated by this place. She has naturally
an original and highly vigorous mind, and her father (by the way, she is
but a half-sister of mine) spared no pains in cultivating it. But now
that we have gained the ridge, yonder is the settlement; see--that
higher light comes from Catherine's window. Trust me, you may calculate
on her warmest gratitude for what her brother owes you."

Hawk River Settlement is situated in the middle of a valley, surrounded
by low, swelling hills, with a river in front, and a deep pine-wood
behind. It forms a small straggling village, composed mostly of
log-houses, with a range of stone and lime buildings--the store places
of the company--rising in the centre. On reaching the manager's house--a
handsome erection of two storeys--Innes and his companion were shown
into a small, but very neat parlour. There were books, musical
instruments, and drawings. The very arrangement of the furniture showed
the delicate and nicely-regulated taste of an accomplished female. The
shutters were fast barred, there were candles burning on a neat mahogany
table, and the cheerful wood-fire glowed through the bars of a grate,
and threw up a broad powerful flame, that, in the intense frost, roared
in the chimney.

"Ah," said Innes to the manager, "your neat, Scotch-looking parlour
brings Scotland to my mind, and my old evening parties; it reminds me,
too, that a dress of skins is not quite the fittest for meeting a young
lady in. Can you not indulge me with a change of dress?"

"Ah, how stupid I am," replied the manager, "not to have thought of
that! Attribute it all to my eagerness to introduce you to Catherine.
There is a whole chestful of clothes from London waiting you below. Come
this way. We shall join you, Sandy, in less than twenty minutes, when Mr
Cameron has made his toilet; and Catherine, meanwhile, will find what
amusement for you she can."

On their return, Catherine and the fur-gatherer were engaged in
conversation.

She was a lady of about two-and-twenty; paler of cheek and sparer of
form than she had been once; for there was an indescribable something in
her expression that served to tell of sufferings long endured, and
exertions painfully protracted; but she was still eminently beautiful;
and there was an air of mingled spirit and good-nature in the light of
her fine black eyes, and the smile that seemed lurking about her mouth,
that might well be termed fascinating. Sandy had evidently felt its
influence ere his companion entered the room.

"And what," eagerly inquired the lady, as the manager opened the door,
"is the name of your companion, the man to whom, with you, my brave,
warmhearted countryman, I owe the life of my brother?"

"Good heavens!" ejaculated Innes, springing forward, "can it be
possible?--Catherine Roberts, the best, truest, dearest of all my
friends!"

"Innes Cameron!" exclaimed Catherine; and in one moment of intense,
life-invigorating joy, whole years of suffering were forgotten.

But why lengthen a story rapidly hastening to its conclusion, in the
vain attempt to describe what, from its very nature, must always elude
description? Never was there a happier evening passed on the shores of
Hudson's Bay.

It has long since become a truism, that, when fortune ceases to
persecute a man, his story ceases to interest. It was certainly so with
Innes Cameron and his story. Few men could be happier than he for the
two months he remained at Hawk River Settlement. When, however, the ice
broke up, and vessel after vessel began to arrive from Europe, he had
become happier still; and when, about the middle of summer, he sailed
for Stromness, in the good ship Falcon, accompanied by Miss Roberts and
his old comrade, Sandy, there was yet a further accession to his
happiness. An old file of Inverness newspapers, from which I manage to
extract a good deal of amusement in the long winter evenings--for no one
writes more pleasingly than Carruthers--shows me that his enjoyments
were not wholly full, until after his arrival in Scotland, when he was
married, says the paper, "at Belville Cottage, by the Rev. Dr Rose, to
the beautiful and highly accomplished Miss Catherine Roberts." I find,
in a more recent number of the same newspaper, a very neat description
of a masonic procession in one of our northern towns. "There is, to a
native of Scotland," says the editor, "something very pleasing in the
contemplation of a goodly assemblage of Scotchmen, powerful in muscle
and sinew--suited either to repulse or invade--to preserve the fame of
their country, or to extend it; and this feeling was of general
experience among the people of Sutorcreek on Friday last. After the
brethren had paraded the streets, they returned to their lodge, where
dinner was prepared for them, and where, after choosing Mr Alexander
Munro, late of Hudson's Bay, as their master for the ensuing year, they
spent the evening in meet cordiality." And here my story ends. The lives
of a country gentleman, of superior talent and worth, and a shrewd,
honest mechanic--varied only by those migrations which the Vicar of
Wakefield describes--migrations from the blue room to the brown, or from
the workshop to the street--however redolent of happiness and comfort to
themselves, furnish the writer with but little scope for either
narrative or description.




THE PROFESSOR'S TALES.




THE WEDDING.


On a certain vacation-day of August, of which I have still a vivid
recollection, I fished in Darr Water; and with so much success, that
night had gathered over me ere I was aware. I was at this moment fully
fifteen miles from home, in a locality unmarked by one single feature of
civilisation; for here neither plough, nor sickle, nor spade had ever
made an impression. For anything I knew to the contrary, there was not a
human habitation nearer than ten miles. I was loaded down to the very
earth with fish, and not a little fatigued by the forenoon's travel and
sport. It behoved me, however, at all events and risks, to set my face
homewards; and, although I might have followed the Darr till it united
with the Clyde, and thus made my way with a certainty home at last, yet
I preferred retracing my steps, and saving at least a dozen of miles of
mountain travel. But the mist was close and crawly, lying before me in
damp, danky obscurity; and the wind, which during the day had amounted
to a breeze, was now wrapped up, and put to rest in a wet blanket. All
was still, except the voice of the plover, mire-snipe, and peese-weep.
The moss or muir, or something partaking of the nature of both, and
rightly neither, was lone, uniform, and unmarked; it was like sailing
without star or compass over the Pacific. Meanwhile, day, which seemed
to be desirous of accelerating its departure, disappeared, and I was
left alone in my wilderness. I could not even lie down to rest, for the
spongy earth gave up its moisture in jets and squirts. I hurried on,
however, following my breath, which smoked like a furnace amidst the
mountain mist, and trailing my fish, in a large _bag_, after me. I had
killed somewhere about sixteen dozen. At last I gained a small stream,
and, as I have an instinctive liking for all manner of streams, I was
led by the ear along its course, till I found myself in a close ravine
or dell, surrounded on each hand by steep grassy ascents, scaurs and
rocks. I kept by the voice of the water, which now fell more
contractedly over gullet and precipice, till at last, to my infinite
delight, I heard, or thought I heard, the bark of a dog; and in a few
seconds one of these faithful animals occupied the steep above me,
giving audible intimation of my unlooked-for presence. The shepherd's
voice followed hard behind; and I never was happier in my life than on
the recognition of a fellow-creature. My tale was soon told, and as
readily understood and believed. To travel home on such a night was out
of the question; so I was conducted to the shepherd's sheiling--to that
covert in the wilderness in which there is more downright shelter,
comfort, and happiness than in town palaces; for comfort and happiness
are inmates of the bosom rather than of the home.

My entrance was welcomed by the shepherd's wife and an only daughter.
There was likewise a young lad, of about twelve years, who was the
younger of two sons, the elder being dead. Servants there were none; for
where all serve themselves, there is no need of what the Americans call
"helps." Nothing could exceed the kind hospitalities of this family; the
very dogs, with a couple of young puppies, gathered round me. They
licked the wet from my legs and clothes, and seemed sufficiently
satisfied even with a _look_ of approbation. My supper was the
uncelebrated, but unequalled, Dumfries-shire feast--champit
potatoes. I slept soundly till morning; and, after a breakfast of
porridge--"Scotland's halesome food"--and learning that the young and
beautiful woman, the shepherd's daughter, was to be married on Saturday
eight-days, I bent my way homewards, to hear and bear merited reproof
for the anxiety which my absence (which was, however, luckily attributed
to a stolen visit to an aunt) had occasioned.

Saturday eight-days dawned, and by this time I had resumed my fishing
preceptor and companion, _Willie Herdman_, to accompany me to the
mountains, thinking to decoy him, as it were, to the neighbourhood of
the wedding, and there to treat him with a view of the happy party and
blooming bride. I kept my own secret, and we were within a mile of the
sheiling ere I disclosed it. It was then about two o'clock, and, so far
as we could guess, precisely the marriage dinner-hour. Willie, who was
an old soldier, had no objection to join in the merriment, nor to drink
a glass to the future happiness of the young folks. So on we trudged,
our lines rolled up, and our fishing-wallet (for baskets we had none)
properly adjusted. We soon caught the descending stream; and, at a
pretty sharp turning, came all at once within view of the hospitable
cottage; but, to our surprise, there was neither noise nor
cavalcade--all was desolation and silence around. The very dogs rather
seemed to challenge than to invite our advance, and neither smoke nor
bustle indicated any preparation. At first I thought that I had mistaken
my way, and was upon the point of entering, to ascertain the fact, when
the shepherd presented himself in the doorway. I then could hear the
voice of mourning--"Rachel weeping" within, and the boy lying across a
half-demolished hay-rick, crying and sobbing as if his heart would
burst. The face of the shepherd was blank and awful--it was as if by a
sudden concussion of the brain he had lost all recollection of the past.
He stood leaning against both lintels of the door, and neither advanced
nor retreated. At last, hearing the voice of lamentation wax louder and
louder behind him, he turned suddenly round, and disappeared. Impressed
with the belief that something terrible had happened, but not knowing
the nature or extent of it, I advanced to the boy, with whom, as a
fellow-fisher in the mountain streams, I had made up an acquaintance at
the former meeting, and, taking him firmly by the shoulder, endeavoured
to turn his face towards me; but he kept it concealed in the hay, and
refused either commiseration or comfort. The very dogs seemed aware of
the calamity, and one of them howled mournfully from the corner of a
peat-stack adjoining. At last a woman, with whom I was totally
unacquainted, emerged from the doorway, and informed us of the cause of
all this lamentation. She had been sent for as a relation from a
distance, and had only arrived a few hours before. The particulars were
as follows:--Two days previous to the day set apart for the marriage,
the young, light-hearted, and blooming bride had been employed in
building a rick or stack of bog-hay, for winter fodder to the cow. She
was in the act of completing the erection, and standing on the
contracted apex, when her foot slipped, and she fell head foremost, and
at once dislocated her neck. Had there been immediate medical assistance
(as had been injudiciously communicated to the family), the fatal
accident might have been remedied; but, alas! there was not, and, long
ere surgical aid could be procured, the ill-fated bride had ceased to
breathe!

The first thought of the household had been directed towards the
bridegroom, who had, ever since the fatal tidings, lost his reason, and
become apparently fatuous, ever and anon insisting that the wedding
should take place "for a' that!"

We did not deem it proper, nor would it have been so, to inflict our
presence upon such a household. And for months after, I never slept
without dreaming of this incident, and of the distressed family--of
whose future fortunes I know nothing further.




MIKE MAXWELL AND THE GRETNA GREEN LOVERS.


There are many individuals who think they are safe if they act within
the strict letter of the law of the land, although they transgress the
precepts of Holy Writ, as well as the dictates of their conscience.
There is a wide field of right and wrong, good and evil, within the
lines of demarcation drawn by legislators or moralists; and as the acts
therein performed are equally removed from punishment and reward, the
merit of the actors is the greater, the less they are influenced by the
hope of praise or the fear of censure. It would, indeed, be as absurd
for an individual to say that he cannot be blamed if he acts within the
law, as for another to allege that he can do no good unless his actions
are blazoned in the columns of a newspaper, after the fashion of the
five-pound donations of dukes and duchesses; but, clear as the
proposition is, there are many who pretend to say that it is far from
being self-evident. To such mole-eyed moralists, the best lesson is one
derived from a practical example drawn from life; and we shall, as
public moral teachers, in our humble sphere, proceed to lay one, not, we
hope, altogether divested of amusement, before our readers.

The remembrance of the strange individual, Michael Maxwell, who lived,
in the end of the last century, in the village of Gretna, so famed for
irregular marriages, is not, it is supposed, yet extinct. He was the son
of a small farmer, called David Maxwell, who claimed relationship to the
Maxwells of Tinwald; and having died when Michael was still young, left
him to the care of his mother, without, however, any means of support.
His friends gave him a little education, and endeavoured to prevail
upon him to learn some trade; but early habits of roving, and living on
the chance occurrences of the day--perhaps strengthened by the continued
assistance of his mother's friends, who got her a small house, with an
acre or two of ground, for a trifling rent, and thus furnished some
occasion for his services (when these could be procured) at
home--rendered all kinds of business disagreeable to him.

He became remarkable, as he grew up, for great strength, strong love of
enterprise, and amazing bodily agility, so that no man in that part of
Dumfries-shire could cope with him at the games of the neighbourhood, or
in personal contest. Of these gifts he was prouder than those who are
possessed of undisputed superiority, in any respect, generally are; but
he claimed also the possession of other qualities, which are not often
found associated with those we have mentioned: an adroit cunning, or
Scottish sagacity, and certain powers of humour, on which he plumed
himself more than on his bodily strength and agility. In his trials of
strength with the English, whom he loved to vanquish, he sometimes
contrived to bring all those qualities into operation at once--a feat in
which he delighted. Giving his English vaunting opponent in a wrestling
match every advantage, he allowed him gradually to get more confident
and proud of his anticipated victory, wiled him on to greater exertions
and more impertinent boastings, and, when he saw him rising on his
tiptoe for the last triumphant throw, laid him on his back like a child,
amidst the mirth and applause of the assembled crowds.

It was a problem which few of the people about Gretna even attempted to
solve, how Mike Maxwell, as he was called, lived; and how he contrived
to keep a swift black mare always well fed and redd, besides supporting
his old mother, apparently from the proceeds of a small mailing of
ground, formed an addition to the difficulty, and set the wits of the
wiseacres at defiance. Some supposed that he had a secret intercourse
with the smugglers of the Solway, and that he kept the horse for the
purpose of aiding him in directing the contraband dealers on what part
of the coast to land their commodities; others again surmised that he
was secretly employed by the village secular-marriage priest, to act as
_avant courier_ to runaway couples, whom, by leading through circuitous
roads, he might enable to escape from their pursuers.

Of all those who speculated on the subject, none felt a greater interest
in the mystery than a young Englishwoman of the name of Alice Parker,
the daughter of a widow who lived on the English side of the Borders,
and with whom Maxwell had been long on habits of great intimacy,
notwithstanding of an indomitable prejudice he entertained against her
country and countrymen. The great leveller of all distinctions of rank
shows little respect for national prejudices; the two were devoted to
each other, and would have been united, if he would have complied with
her repeated request, to satisfy her as to the means whereby he
maintained himself, and would maintain her. The condition of the young
woman was reasonable; and one night, as she was accompanying him a short
way on his road homewards, she pressed the point with so much force,
that Maxwell could scarcely resist an explanation.

"It is not I alone," said she, "who feel a curiosity on this subject,
which perhaps you may think only concerns yourself. The inhabitants of
the surrounding country all know you, in consequence of the fame of your
strength; and my countrymen of Cumberland, by token of their broken
limbs and dislocated joints, know you in particular to their cost. It is
to this fame, which you yourself have produced, that you owe the
curiosity that is entertained about your means of living; for your
maimed enemies would fain make out that you betake yourself to the
highway--a very convenient and satisfactory way of accounting for the
mystery, as it includes an explanation of your object in keeping Black
Bess there; who, as I mention her name, looks about to chide me for the
imputation."

"Weel may she," answered Maxwell, "for it is a foul charge; and if I
knew wha originated it, I wad mak the place o' him it sprang frae (his
head) sae dizzy that he wad be at some loss again to find it. But is it
no yersel, Alice, wha maks the charge, and faithers it on the hail o'
Cumberland, to force me to gie ye an explanation, which, after a', ye
dinna need? The mailin I rent frae Laird Dempster keeps Bess, the
kailyard my mither, and" (smiling, and taking his companion round the
neck) "a man in love, Alice, needs little meat."

"No one has any chance with you, Mike," replied she. "Your arm lays your
foes on the ground, and your Scottish tongue, made supple by cunning,
baffles all attempts to reach your judgment; yet you have not succeeded
in this instance, for you tell me in plain terms that, if I marry you, I
must live on love. That sounds not well in the land of roast beef, of
which I am as fond as my neighbours; so you shall be no husband of
mine."

"You forget, Alice," said Maxwell, still smiling, "the three weeks ye
lay in bed sick wi' love, when I left ye for Bridget o' the Glen. How
muckle o' yer national dish did ye eat durin that time?"

"Again at your Scottish humour!" replied Alice; "but I am in earnest.
You treat me ill, Mike. What is your love to me, if I am denied your
confidence? Yet may I not be asking poison? I could not hear that you
were a lawless man, and live a week after I was intrusted with the
secret. Unhappy fate, to love, and be forced, by the mysterious conduct
of my lover, to suspect his honesty!"

"You are on dangerous ground, Alice," said Maxwell. "We o' the north
side o' the Borders say that love has nae suspicions, and that whar
there are suspicions, there is nae love. Do ye mean that I should
suspect yer love, as ye do my honesty."

"Would to heaven," cried Alice, "there were as little ground in the one
case as in the other! Here comes a carriage at full speed; take Bess to
the side of the road."

"Na," cried Mike, with a sudden start, and looking in the direction of
the carriage; "Bess and I will tak the middle o' the road. She'll no
stay behind a carriage; she has owre muckle gentle bluid in her veins."

The carriage came up with great speed; the blinds were up, and the route
was to Gretna.

"Guid-nicht, Alice," cried Mike, as he flung himself suddenly on the
back of Bess, and bounded off immediately behind the flying carriage.

The young woman stood and looked after her friend with feelings of
surprise, and it was some moments before she became sufficiently
self-possessed to try to account for so abrupt a departure. Was he angry
with her? His conversation showed the reverse, and his good-nature was a
prominent feature of his character. A painful question followed these
thoughts: Was he away after the carriage, to realise the suspicion she
had been communicating to him by the privilege of love? It seemed too
likely; for he had never left her before without many endearing
expressions of attachment; and she had observed the sudden change of
manner and look which seemed to be produced by the approaching vehicle.
All the vague reports she had heard concerning him came in aid of these
suspicious appearances; and as she wandered slowly home to Netherwood,
where her mother resided, she sunk into a gloomy train of thought, which
shadowed forth, on the dim horizon of futurity, disgrace and shame to
her lover, and misfortune and death to herself.

The carriage which Maxwell followed under such unfavourable appearances
was, as already said, on the route for Gretna. The speed of the horses,
and the loud cracking of the whip which propelled them, indicated haste;
and the close blinds told of adventure, secresy, and love. Maxwell
followed hard; and just as the vehicle turned to take the direction of
the village, Black Bess and her rider flew past with the speed of light,
and by another path reached the back-door of a small house, where she
stopped. Maxwell descended, and tapped lightly at the door.

"David Hoggins," said he, "are you in?"

"Yes," answered the individual addressed; "what's wanted?" And the door
was opened by an old man in a Kilmarnock nightcap.

"There's a couple on the road, David," said Maxwell, "dootless in search
o' you. The night is gettin dark, and the carriage-lights winna tell
them north frae south. I'll wait at the back-door till you try and get
me engaged to lead the fugitives out o' danger and the reach o' their
pursuers."

"The auld condition, I fancy," said David--"half and half."

"Lively," answered Mike--"quick; the row o' the wheels mak the village
ring. There, they're landed. Awa wi' your noose, and dinna let me slip
through the loop."

"I'm as sure's a hangman," said David, nodding significantly, and
shutting the door, to proceed to the front of the house, where his
presence was in great request.

Maxwell stood for a considerable time waiting the issue of his proposal,
stroking down occasionally the sleek back of Bess, and at times
muttering somewhat irreverent expressions of impatience against David
and his customers. At last the door opened.

"They dinna need ye," said David; "Jehu will do their business, though
it's clear they're pursued. They're for Berwick, and intend travellin a'
nicht. She's a bonny cratur, man; sae young and guileless, and yet sae
fond o' the wark, that she wad hae been doin wi' ae witness, to save the
time o' gettin anither. As for him, I can see naething o' him for
whiskers, the cause, I fear, o' a' the mischief. It's a Chancery touch,
doubtless. They're for aff this minute. Five guineas, Mike--ha! ha!"
(shutting the door.)

"Five guineas," muttered Maxwell, imitating David's laugh, "and naething
for me. Come, Bess, and let us try what our Scottish cunning may do
against English treachery. It has filled our purse afore, and I dinna
see how it shouldna do't again. If they winna hae us as guides, they
canna refuse us (that is, Bess, if your heels keep, as they say, the
spur o' your head) as followers; and I hae made as muckle i' the ae
capacity as the ither. Come, lass" (throwing himself in the saddle, and
clapping her sleek neck as she tossed her head in the air), "come--hark!
the wheels row--awa--but whip or spur--awa--we'll try baith their mettle
and metal."

As he finished these words, he dashed down the lane, the foot of which
he reached just as the carriage containing the buckled lovers passed, at
the top of the speed of their spurred horses. It was clear they were
afraid of pursuit, and were hastening on to Berwick, to take shipping
for the Continent, the usual retreat of all runaway lovers passing
through Gretna. Confiding in the abilities of Bess, Mike allowed the
carriage to proceed onwards for half-a-mile before he seriously took the
way, as he did not wish to be observed following it so near to the
village. He kept moving in the middle of the road, reining in Bess, who,
having been gratified by the noise of the carriage-wheels, pricked up
her ears, pawed the ground, and capered from side to side. Roused by the
sound of a strange voice, he started and turned round.

"You've time yet, man," cried Giles Baldwin, a Cumberland man, whose arm
Mike had broken at a wrestling-match the year before, and whose suit to
Alice Parker he had strangled by her consent. "But her going's like a
Scotsman running from an Englishman over the Borders. Were my arm whole,
I'd lead Bess's head to the follow. Away, man, or the booty's lost, like
the field o' Flodden, before it is won."

"Ye've anither arm to brak, Giles," said Mike, in a low voice. "A craven
has nae richt to be impudent till a' his banes are cracked, and then,
like the serpent, he may bend and spit his venom. I'll see ye at the
next match at Carlisle, and let ye feel the strength o' the grip o'
friendship and kind remembrance. Tell Alice, as ye pass Netherwood, that
I'm awa after a carriage, to show a couple the way to Berwick. Marriages
beget marriages, they say; and she'll maybe tak ye, to be neebor-like,
and to get quit o' me, against whom ye hae tried to poison her ear."

Saying these words, Mike bounded away; and gave the Cumberland man no
opportunity of replying, otherwise than by bawling out some further
impertinence about his successful rival's expectation of booty from the
expedition in which he was engaged.

"If I had been to put mysel within the reach o' the arm o' the law,"
muttered Mike to himself, as he moved rapidly along, "this man's
impudence micht hae scared me and saved me; but, thanks to Lewie
Threshum, the writer o' Dumfries, I ken what I'm about. I can wring a
man, in wrestling, to within an inch o' his life; and cut so close by an
act o' parliament, that the leaves o't move by the wind o' my flight.
Nae fiscal dare speak to me, sae lang as my Scottish cunning does
justice to Threshum's counsel, and my arm defends me against a' ithers.
Stretch on, guid Bess, and let me hae twa words wi' the happy couple."

The spirited animal increased her speed, and, in a short time,
approached the carriage, which continued to whirl along with great
rapidity. A series of quick bounds brought Mike alongside of it. He now
saw that the blinds were still up, and the driver so intent upon
propelling his horses forward, that he did not know that any one was in
pursuit, while the noise of the vehicle prevented the possibility of
hearing the soft pattering of Bess's heels. Taking the point of his
whip, Mike gave a slight and knowing tap on the carriage-blind, like the
announcement of an expected lover. A noise, as of sudden fright and
agitation, followed from within.

"A's richt," muttered Mike to himself.

But the blinds were still kept up. He paced on a little further, and,
seeing that no answer was returned to his application, repeated the rap
a little louder than before.

"Who's there?" cried a rough voice.

"A friend," answered Mike.

"What is your name?" said the other, evidently in agitation.

"I never gie my name through closed doors," answered Mike; "and sae lang
as ane acts within the law, there's nae use for imitatin the ways o'
jail birds. My name, however, is no unlike your lady's maiden ane--an
admission I mak through sheer courtesy and guid manners, and respect for
her worthy faither."

The blind was taken down hurriedly, and a face covered with a great
profusion of curly black hair presented itself. Mike drew down his hat,
so as to cover his face, and, clapping Bess on the neck, paced along at
great ease. After trying to scan his countenance, the gentleman seemed
at a great loss.

"What is it, sir, that you wish with me?" said he, "or what is your
object in thus disturbing peaceable travellers by legal turnpikes?"

"I beg your pardon," replied Mike. "The night is dark, and the road
lonely; I thought ye micht hae wished a companion--sma' thanks for my
courtesy. The gentlemen in the carriage that's comin up behind, at a
speed greater than yours, ken better what is due to Scottish civility. I
accompanied them a space, and enjoyed their conversation. They're in
search o' twa Gretna fugitives, and wished me to assist them in the
pursuit. I'm sorry I left them, seein I hae forgathered wi' ithers wha
dinna appreciate fully my motives. I think I canna do better than ask
Bess to slacken her pace, and bring me again to the enjoyment o' their
society and conversation."

A suppressed scream from a female within followed this speech. The
gentleman withdrew his head, to assist the lady; the coachman looked
round, and was inclined to halt; but the words, "Drive on!" rang in his
ears, and he obeyed. Mike calmly kept his course, clapping Bess's neck
occasionally, and pretending not to notice the agitation and confusion
within the carriage, where it seemed as if the lady had gone off in a
faint. After some time, the same whiskered face appeared at the
carriage-window.

"Hark ye, friend," said he, in an agitated tone; "you're a Scotchman, I
presume, and must be _up_, as we say in London. What would you take to
put the gentlemen in the other carriage _off the scent_?"

"What scent?" asked Mike, gravely.

"The scent of the couple they're after," said the other. "Could you not
stimulate their noses with a red herring drag? Don't understand me? Hey,
man, quick! What say ye?"

"I understand ye," answered Mike, "mair easily than I can assist ye, I
fear. The hounds ken their track owre weel. They're for Berwick direct;
but a Scotchman micht maybe send them scamperin to Newcastle--I mean
that is possible, barely possible."

"Well, well!--what say ye?" replied the other. "Name your sum. Come,
quick!"

"Let me see," said Mike; "by returnin, I may lose the market--a dead
loss o' twenty pound, at least. Gie me that, and I'll answer for their
being twenty miles on their way to Newcastle by the time ye're twenty
miles on to Berwick."

"Here, here, then," said the gentleman, holding out his hand.

Mike met him half-way, and received a handful of guineas, among which
was a ring.

"Keep yersel and the braw leddy easy," said he, as he put the money into
his pocket. "Drive on, my lad" (to the driver), "and, if ye keep aff the
Newcastle road, ye'll no fa' into the hands o' the chancellor."

With these words, Mike drew up Bess's head, turned, and sauntered slowly
back to Gretna, gratifying his humour by a few words of soliloquy.

"But whar is the coach, wi' its contents, I was to send on to Newcastle?
A principle o' honesty I hae aboot me maks me almost wish for an
opportunity o' fulfillin my promise; but a' I undertook to insure was
safety, and if they hae safety ony way, they get value for their siller;
so, after a', I'm nae cheat. But here's anither coach drivin at deil's
speed."

"Holloa! sirrah!" cries a person from the window; "met you a carriage on
your way, driving quickly, and with closed blinds, towards Berwick?"

"You'll no likely find what ye want atween this and Berwick," replied
Mike. "But I dinna wonder at your speed; I could almost wish to flee
after her mysel. Sweet cratur!--she maun be fond o' whiskers."

"Then you have met the carriage!" cried the man, with great vehemence,
quickened by the concluding remark of Mike. "Quick, quick--tell us where
they are, and whither going. We lose time."

"I lose nane," replied Mike; "I'm saunterin at ony rate, thinkin o' my
poverty; are o' the very warst o' a' subjects o' mortal meditation."

"Will money drag a direct answer from you, sir?" cried the man.

"No; but it will draw it out o' me as smoothly as oil," replied Mike.

"Here, then," said the other, handing him some--"will that satisfy you?"

"Double it," said Mike, "and I'll halve your labour."

The eagerness of the pursuers forced a ready compliance.

"The lady and gentleman you are in quest o'," said Mike, "hae changed
their minds, and are on to Newcastle. They gave out Berwick as a
decoy--an hour's ridin will bring ye up to them. But, hark ye! I have
acted honourably by you--you maun do the same by me; and, therefore,
when ye come up to the fugitives, ye will act discreetly, and say
naething o' your informer. A nod's as guid's a wink----ye ken the rest."

The pursuers took no time to reply, but flew off at full speed to
Newcastle, while Mike sought, at his ease, his mother's house, at a
little distance from Gretna. About two hours after he arrived, a loud
knock came to the door. Mike himself opened it.

"Is your name Mike Maxwell?" said a man habited like a sheriff-officer.

"It is," said Mike; "and wha in thae parts doesna ken me, either by grip
or sicht?"

"It's by the first I get my acquaintance o' folk," said the officer, as
he seized his prisoner. "I apprehend ye in the name o' the king, for
highway robbery, committed on a lady and gentleman bound for Berwick."

Maxwell threw himself back, and, freeing himself from the grasp of the
man, laid him, by one blow, at his feet. His humour was gratified; and,
laughing boisterously, he lifted the messenger from the ground.

"That was merely for your impudence," said Mike. "I'm owre confident o'
innocence, either to fecht or flee. A present is nae robbery--they gied
me what I got o' their ain free-will and accord; and, if this is the way
they tak to get their gifts back again, I can only say that the presents
o' the English to the Scotch are like their blows--weel returned."

"Then you admit having the property of the lady and gentleman," said a
second officer, who, attended by a concurrent, now came up. "We must
search you."

"There's nae occasion for that," said Mike; "there's the guineas and the
ring."

"But where is the portmanteau and the papers?" said the officer, as he
took the gold. "Search the house, Jem, while we hold him; the hen's no
far off when the chicken whistles."

The man searched the house. Mike looked surprised and confused, and
suspected they had mistaken their man. He told them he had taken no
portmanteau, and expressed total ignorance of what they meant. The men
only laughed at him; they had got a damning evidence against him
already--the ring, which had carved on it the initials "C. B." (Charles
Beachum), the individual who had been robbed; and they did not require
to hesitate an instant about his apprehension. They therefore carried
him direct to Dumfries Jail.

Next morning, the news had spread far and wide that Mike Maxwell had
been apprehended for highway robbery; he and another individual,
unknown, having, on the previous night, attacked a travelling-carriage,
knocked down the driver, wounded the gentleman, frightened the lady, and
carried off a portmanteau filled with valuable articles, and
particularly many important documents, together with the gentleman's
diamond ring (which had been found on Maxwell's person), and other
things of great value. On being examined, Maxwell thought it best to
tell (with a slight exception) the truth; that he had followed the
carriage to inform the runaway couple that they were pursued, and had
received the money and the ring for undertaking to disappoint their
pursuers. He kept the secret to himself, that when he got the money he
did not know, certainly, that there were any persons in pursuit, and had
therefore obtained it on false pretences; but, even with this prudent
qualification, his examination was held to be just as complete an
admission of the highway robbery as any criminal ever uttered, under the
excitement of fear or the promise of pardon. The great desideratum was
the portmanteau, which the robbers had carried off; and this, by the
request of Captain Beachum, who had left instructions to that effect at
the next inn, as he proceeded onwards, was searched for by many
individuals, under promise of a very high reward.

About two hours after his examination, Maxwell was told that a young
woman wished to get in to see him. He knew at once who it was; and the
jailer, who was an old acquaintance, permitted her to enter.

"The secret that is denied to true love," said Alice, as she stood
before Mike, looking at him sorrowfully and dignifiedly, "is sometimes
told to the king. You hate my country, yet an Englishwoman would have
saved you, if your confidence had been equal to the love you have
expressed for me. When I asked you how you lived, you told me that a
lover requires little food. How much, Mike Maxwell, does a prisoner
within these walls either require or get? What avails your Scottish
cunning now, and how much does it transcend English honesty? But, thank
heaven, I have made a narrow escape! What would your strength, your fair
face, and manly bearing, which have made such conquests at our country
games, have yielded me of pride or pleasure, if I had been wedded to a
_robber_? Is it possible that that word and Mike Maxwell claim
kindred?--that Alice Parker, who treasured up your image in her bosom
as a sacred thing, or a charm against the evil eye, should this day be
doomed to the pain of saying that that hateful word and the name of her
heart's choice are one and the same? Miserable hour!"

"Alice," replied Maxwell, "I did you injustice. I should have confided
everything to your bosom; but I didna require to pollute that pure
casket wi' the confidence o' a robber. I am nae robber--the first man
wha said the word was laid in an instant at my feet, and sae should a'
slanderers be served. I defy Scotland and England to prove Mike Maxwell
a robber."

"The ring you have given up to the sheriff," said Alice, "is proof
against you."

"Ha, Alice," replied Mike, laughing, "rings are dangerous things. Was
the ane I got frae you, wi' a plait o' that raven hair in't, a sign o'
robbery?"

"Would to heaven that it had been such a sign!" said the maiden; "I
would not then have had to lament this miserable hour, and this dreadful
night." (Pausing.) "But can it be, Mike, that you are so hardened in
vice that you can laugh in a jail?"

"And why no, my love, if ane is innocent?" replied Maxwell. "I am
indebted for this apprehension to some enemy--probably my rival, Giles
Baldwin--who has got up a story about a portmanteau that never was
stolen; and my honesty in confessin that I got the ring frae the
gentleman for puttin the English beagles wha pursued him aff the scent,
has gien the lee some colour o' truth. Conscious as I am o' my
innocence, I am determined to keep up my spirits, laugh at my enemies
till I get out, and then mak game o' their banes, by giein them joints
whar nature never intended them to be."

"You have often, in playfulness, mocked me, Mike," answered she, "and
turned the inquiries of my love into questions to myself, by the force
of your Scottish humour; but I bear faith that you never told me a lie.
Yet, when I think of the mystery of your life, your secresy, the strange
way in which you left me last night, to make after the carriage, your
admission concerning the ring, and many other circumstances, I must also
admit that my heart is not satisfied. I cannot help it. Even my love,
unbounded as it is, does not enable me to vanquish a cold feeling that,
like the shivering of an ague, creeps over my skin. I cannot say I
_disbelieve_ you; but oh, what would I not give for _proof_ to still
this restless aching heart!" (Pausing.) "That proof, Mike, I _shall_
have. The unpretending Englishwoman, whose counsel the wily Scotchman
despised, shall now try to redeem the character of her countrywomen, and
show that love and honesty are stronger than wiles and secresy."

"Weel said, heroine Alice!" cried Mike, still laughing. "Ye intend to
mak me guilty, to increase the glory o' your efforts to save me; but,
thanks to the laws o' our country, there's nae great merit in savin an
innocent man. I defy a' my faes, and wad prefer a kiss o' my bonny
Alice" (clasping her to his bosom), "to a' her noble endeavours to do
that which innocence itsel will do for her lover."

"We stand at present on a _new_ footing, Mike," said she, as she
struggled to get free, and retired back. "I must have my _proof_. Till
then, farewell!"

"Noble wench!" said Mike, as she departed. "However I may dislike her
suspicions, I canna but admire her guidness and spirit. But Lewie
Threshum will goon blaw awa this cloud, wi' the wind o' the leaves o'
Stair or Mackenzie, and a' will shine bright again on Alice Parker and
Mike Maxwell."

The views and feelings of Alice were very different: she suspected her
lover, and the thought was death to her; yet her native nobility of soul
urged her to the task of draining every source of evidence to prove his
innocence. She called on Lewis Threshum, who had undertaken Mike's
defence, and learned from him, what pained her to the uttermost, that
the evidence, so far as it went, was loaded with heavy presumptions
against the prisoner. A letter had been lodged in the hands of the
fiscal, from Captain Beachum, stating that the robbery was committed at
a distance of about ten miles from Gretna; that the perpetrators were
two ruffians, mounted on good horses; that they had taken the
portmanteau filled with valuable papers, and also his purse, containing
a balance of twenty-two guineas, and a diamond ring, marked "C. B.;" all
of which they carried off in the direction of Gretna. The letter
contained authority to the Lord Advocate to prosecute the perpetrators,
and recover the articles. The ring and guineas, _minus two_, had been
found on Mike Maxwell, within some hours of the robbery. Then Giles
Baldwin had sworn that he saw Mike Maxwell in full pursuit after the
carriage some short time before the robbery was committed; and some
other individuals swore that they saw him return to Gretna some time
after, mounted on his black mare. In addition to all this, was Mike's
improbable examination, which seemed of itself to be conclusive of the
case. This appeared to Alice overpowering, especially when she added to
it what she herself had witnessed--the arrival of the carriage, and the
precipitate retreat of Mike, at a time when it was _impossible_ he could
know that there was (according to his theory) any carriage coming up in
pursuit of the other.

She went home, sad and disconsolate, and passed the remaining part of
the day and the night in the greatest misery. She revolved in her head
various schemes for eliciting something favourable to her lover; but the
absence of Captain Beachum, who could alone give any account of the
circumstances attending the alleged robbery, formed a bar to her
inquiries which she could not overleap. As she sat next evening, musing
on the unfortunate current of events that cast her from the elevation of
the pride of one who possessed the favour of the most proper and comely
man of the Borders, to the shame of the confidential friend and lover of
a robber, who might shortly be hanged, after associating, on the
scaffold, her name with his sorrows--she was roused from her grief by a
tap at the window. She started. It was Mike's rap, and the very hour at
which he generally visited her. She flew to the window, thinking he had
escaped, and had thus come to communicate the joyful tidings.

"Is it possible? It is not you, Mike?" she said, lowly.

"No, but it is his friend," said a voice she thought she knew.

"What friend?" said she; "and with what object does he call here?"

"Names have a dangerous odour," said the other, "when the beagles are
out and snuffing every breeze for the scent of red game. You wish Mike
Maxwell well--you visited him yesterday; would you aid in his escape?"

"Doubtless," said Alice. "Tell me what I could do to attain that object
honourably."

"Here is the portmanteau," said the other, "which was taken from Captain
Beachum. If it is sent back to him, he will give up the prosecution
against Mike, as all he wants is the papers contained in it. Open the
window a little till I rest the end of it on the sill."

Rendered stupid by this statement, Alice obeyed like an automaton. She
lifted up the window. The portmanteau was placed within it in an
instant.

"Get it sent to Beachum," said the voice. "_I joined Mike in the
robbery, and wish him to get off._"

The window fell from the powerless hold of the thunderstruck girl, and
struck the speaker's hand which was on the end of the portmanteau. The
blow was a severe one; he ran off, and the portmanteau fell down within
the house, where it lay as if it had been placed there by the hands of a
housewife. It was some time before the miserable girl came back to the
consciousness of her true position. The last words of the voice--"I
joined Mike in the robbery, and wish him to get off"--rung in her ears
like a death-knell; and the next moment her eyes fell on the fatal
portmanteau--the very article stolen by her lover--that which was to
convict him, to hang him. She grew frantic, ran to the door, looked east
and west through the shadows of the trees, flew first one way, then
another, called aloud, screamed, and called again. No one answered. The
man was gone. She returned into the house, where her eyes again met and
recoiled from the damning memorial. Terror now took possession of her
mind. The circumstance of the portmanteau being found there would form
the only link wanting of the evidence that would hang her lover. Were
she to state how it came there--concealing the last dreadful words which
still haunted her ear--she would not be believed; and if she told the
whole truth, including the fatal words, the same result--the
condemnation of her lover--would follow. What therefore was she to do?
She could not discover it; but could she conceal it without danger to
herself as well as to him? It was clear she could not; and, besides, her
soul abhorred secresy and deceit of all kinds.

As she sat in this state of doubt and despair, a noise of footsteps was
heard at the door, with whisperings and broken ejaculations. A tremor
passed over her. They might be officers of justice come to search the
house. A rap sounded softly on the door, and the whisperings continued.
The portmanteau must, in any view, be concealed in _the meantime_; and,
until her mind was made up, she flew and seized the covering of the bed,
and hurriedly threw it over the glaring evidence of her lover's guilt.
She had scarcely accomplished this hasty, but fatal concealment, when
the door opened, and three sheriff-officers entered the house, and
asked her if Mike Maxwell had left anything to her charge? The necessity
for acting prudently called up her energies. She stood erect before the
men.

"No," she replied, "Mike Maxwell committed nothing to my charge."

"We have here a warrant for a search, young woman; and you will not be
annoyed by our putting it to execution."

She was silent, and shook from head to heel. One of the men drew off the
bed-cover, and discovered the object of their search. Captain Beachum's
name was on the top of it.

"So Mike committed nothing to your charge?" said the man, addressing
Alice again.

"No," she answered, firmly.

"You can tell that to the sheriff," said the man. "Meantime, we take
this article along with us."

He threw the portmanteau on his shoulders, and departed along with the
concurrents, leaving the girl fixed to the floor like a statue.

In a short time after, her mother, who was against Maxwell's suit, and
blamed her daughter for having anything to do with him, entered the
house. Alice dared not make her mother her confidant; she was reduced to
the necessity of not only wrestling single-handed with her difficulty,
but of concealing it from her parent. Bed-time came, and she retired to
rest, but slept none. At daybreak she started, dressed herself, and,
without saying one word to her mother, proceeded to Dumfries to visit
Lewis Threshum. On arriving at his house, she found he was in the prison
along with Maxwell, and waited till he came home. She informed him truly
of everything that had taken place, and saw, from the effects of her
communication, that she was condemning her lover. Starting up in great
agitation, he cried--

"Mike's life is in your hands, Alice: will you hang or save him?"

"Save him if I can," replied the girl.

"Then you must tell the shirra," said Lewie, "everything ye've tauld me,
but the last words uttered by the secret visiter. These you maun keep in
your bosom, and hauld like grim death, otherwise Mike's a dead man."

"I will speak the truth," said Alice, calmly.

"Didna you love Mike?" said the writer, staring at her.

"Yes, but I loved also, and still love, truth and honesty."

"Idiot cratur!" ejaculated Lewie, stamping with his feet. "Mike Maxwell
is a dead man--Mike Maxwell is a dead man!" (Pausing and looking at
her.) "Will you hide yourself then?"

"No," replied she; "I do not love secresy."

"Hang him then!" cried the infuriated man; "hang him, and then drown
yourself, like the rest o' your inconsistent sex."

Offended by the violence of Threshum, which resulted, however, from his
wish to save his friend and her lover, Alice left the room suddenly, and
had scarcely got to the door, when she heard the writer calling after
her. At this moment she was seized by a sheriff-officer, and conducted
before the sheriff to be examined. She told the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. The fatal words of the secret visiter--"I
joined Mike in the robbery, and wish him to get off"--were formally
recorded, and the deposition closed. Threshum, finding the necessity of
exerting his best energies to overcome the weight of this overpowering
evidence, called at the office of the fiscal, and demanded, on behalf of
his client, to see the contents of the portmanteau. This was conceded to
him; and the man of the law, having examined carefully the papers in
presence of the fiscal, and taken notes of them, departed, to turn his
information to the best account he could for his client. He discovered
that the papers belonged to Mr William Anson, merchant in Bristol, the
guardian of the runaway bride, Miss Julia Anson.

This done, Lewis got hold of Alice before she left Dumfries, and took
her with him to the prisoner, to see if the efforts of Mike would have
any effect upon making her depart from her intention of adhering to the
truth on the day of trial--the examination she had already undergone
being merely a step in the preparation of the evidence. When they
entered, they found Mike enjoying himself over some brandy, which the
friendship of the jailer had procured for him. Lewis told him, with a
grave face, of the extraordinary circumstances attending the recovery of
the portmanteau, and, in particular, the words uttered by the individual
who handed it in at the window. Mike remained unmoved.

"And do ye believe the words o' the ruffian wha thus hounds me?" said he
to Alice.

"I cannot disbelieve what accords so well with everything else I have
seen," replied she. "Alas! would that I could disbelieve them!"

"But ye'll keep them at least to yersel, Alice?" said Mike.

"If I could keep my heart to mysel, Mike, I would," replied she. "But
God does not allow that, and I must speak the truth. What would you have
me to do?"

"To say naething," replied he.

"Fule, man!" rejoined Lewis; "say naething! That wad hang ye mair
certainly than what she has already said to the fiscal (to whom she has
tauld everything), and intends to repeat at the trial, unless we can, in
some way, prevent it. Say naething, man! You and she are tryin, like the
competin millspinners o' Dryden's mill, which o' ye is best at twistin
hemp. If she said naething, wha wad be presumed to be the depositor o'
the portmanteau in the hands o' Alice Parker, the weel-kenned lover o'
Mike Maxwell? Wha but Mike Maxwell himsel? Could it come frae a mair
likely hand than that on whase finger the owner's diamond ring was, or
micht hae been? Ye're baith fules. The lassie should swear, and she
_maun_ swear (unless, indeed, she wants to hang ye, which seems to be
the case), that the portmanteau was handed in at the window by a man wha
said ye were innocent, and had sent back the papers to try to save ye."

"Will ye say that, Alice?" said Mike.

"I cannot tell a lie, Mike," replied Alice. "I will speak the truth; and
I would do that if Alice Parker's neck, in place of Mike Maxwell's, were
in danger of the rope."

"Incomprehensible wench!" cried Mike. "Is this the last and strongest
proof o' your affection? Does this agree wi' the sabbin heart and watery
ee o' the greetin Alice, as she used to hang round my neck amang the
green shaws o' Netherwood, and get me to promise that I never again wad
see May Balfour? or does it agree wi' my promise, made on the condition
that you wad renounce Giles Baldwin, wha, I fear, is at the bottom o' a'
this affair? Is it common for women to agree to marry simple men, and
then hang them?--to promise them a gowden ring for the finger, and gie
them a hempen ane for the craig?"

"It is common for women to love," replied Alice, "and it is too common
for women to lie for love; but the love that is leagued with the
falsehood of the tongue, cannot be supported by the truth of the heart.
No woman ever loved man as I loved you, Mike; but you are only a man,
and there is a God" (looking upwards) "to be loved--ay, and to be
feared. But you say you are innocent; and when did white-robed innocence
require the piebald, ragged covering of falsehood, to show the purity
which it covers? It were a mockery of the laws of God and man, to swear
falsely to save an innocent man. And, alas! if you are guilty (and
appearances are sadly against you), no falsehood ought to save you from
the injured laws of your country."

"The plain Scotch o' a' this English, Mike," said Lewie, "is, that the
lassie is determined to hang ye, as a repayment for a' the kisses ye
were at the trouble to gie her in the holms o' Netherwood; and, after
ye're dead, she'll sing 'Gilderoy' owre your grave. But, in sober
seriousness, she's an idiot, like a' the rest o' her English freends. A
Scotchwoman wad hae leed through fire and brimstone for her lover; and,
after she swore the rope aff his neck, placed her saft arms round his
craig, in place o' the hemp. Mercy on me, whar wad be a' my glory at
_proofs_ if folk were to speak the truth? My pawkieness, slyness,
cunnin, art, and triumph o' the cross-question, wad be o' nae mair avail
than sae muckle ordinary fair rubbish o' straightforward judgments and
honesty. Keep up your spirits, Mike; I'll no let her hang ye. The
English man or woman's no born that will hang Mike Maxwell."

"Are ye resolved, Alice?" said Mike, approaching her, and holding out
his arms to enfold her.

"I am," replied she, receding. "Clear yourself by the aid of truth, and
there's no haven in this world that could be dearer to me than these
arms. Till then, I am the bride of sorrow. Farewell!"

And she departed, leaving Lewis Threshum with Maxwell.

"Saw ye ever sic a stubborn fule?" said Lewie.

"I never saw sae noble a wench," replied Mike.

"Ha! ha!" cried the writer. "A pair o' fules! Ye're the first man, Mike,
I ever heard praise the person that swears awa his life; but this
nonsense will neither prove nor pay. We maun set aboot discoverin the
mystery o' this adventure at Alice's window. Ae thing seems to me
perfectly clear; and that is, that it wasna the robber that handed in
that portmanteau."

"Hoo do ye mak oot that?" said Mike.

"You're as simple's the puir English fule," replied Lewie. "Wad the man
wha took the portmanteau frae Captain Beachum hae admitted to Alice
Parker that he was the robber? and, what's mair, wad he hae said that ye
joined him in the robbery--a lee--at the very moment when he wanted to
save ye by returnin the stolen article?"

"You astonish me, Lewie," said Mike; "thae things never occurred to me."

"A lawyer's ee has twa lenses," said Lewie. "The man, whaever he is, who
handed in that portmanteau at Alice Parker's window is your enemy, and
no the robber. How he got the portmanteau is a different thing; but
maybe we may be able to discover that also."

"If my enemy," said Mike, "he maun be Giles Baldwin, the lover o'
Alice."

"Ha!" cried Lewie, "there's light there, man. Why was the portmanteau no
taen to yer mother's? The question's a curious ane. Baldwin was the
likely man to tak it to Alice's, and the _only_ man wha wad hae tauld
the lover o' his successfu rival that that rival was the robber. There's
conies i' this hole; I see the marks o' their feet; and whar will ye
find a better terrier than Lewie Threshum? Mair, man: wha sent the
officers to Alice's house? That I'll sune discover. Keep up your
spirits, Mike; and, while ye try to shake that fause English woman frae
yer heart, I'll try and keep Hangie frae yer craig."

And away Lewie hastened; to continue his inquiries. He went first to the
officers who searched for the portmanteau, and ascertained from them,
through the influence of that heart-aperient whisky, that it was in fact
Giles Baldwin who had told them to go and search the house of Widow
Parker. Lewis next proceeded to Gretna, where he interrogated Alice more
distinctly.

"If ye're determined to speak the truth," said he to the grieved girl,
"ye should tell us the hail truth, as ye did te the shirra. Did the
voice o' the man no strike ye as a kent ane?"

"It did," replied Alice; "but though I have been trying to discover
whose it resembled, I have not been able to make anything of it."

"What say ye to Giles Baldwin's?" said Lewie.

"When you mention it," said Alice, "it does strike me that the
resemblance between the two voices was very great. But a thought now
strikes me: when the man said that Mike had joined him in the robbery, I
let fall the window, which struck him over the knuckles a severe blow.
The mark must be on his hand yet. For God's sake, fly to Giles' house,
and see if his hand is hurt. If that is the case, I will believe that
Mike Maxwell is an innocent man."

"Why," said Lewie, looking cunningly into her face.

"Because," said she, "Mike Maxwell never would have joined Giles
Baldwin, his enemy, in a robbery; and, therefore, the statement made to
me at the window was a lie; and one lie, like a fly in a box of
ointment, corrupts the whole mass of evidence."

"My writing-chamber maun be like a charnel-house, then," said Lewie.
"But, lassie, you're surely Scotch, wi' merely an English tongue."

"Sir," said Alice, "I would wish you would hasten to Giles Baldwin,
rather than joke about this serious affair."

"A' my triumph in the law consists in jokin when I am serious," replied
Lewie, with a grave face. "Ye wadna tak my advice when I wanted ye to
save yer lover; and now I'll no tak yours when ye want me to save him"
(leering); "I mean, Alice, just that I'll gang to Giles Baldwin at my
ain time. Will ye swear to his voice and his hand?"

"If Giles Baldwin's hand," said she, "is cut in such a way as might have
been done by the fall of that window, I will swear to my perfect belief
of his being the man who handed in the portmanteau."

"Aneugh, aneugh," cried Lewie; "I kent ye were Scotch; and now I'll awa
to Giles, and _shak hands_ wi' him."

Lewis departed, and went away direct to Baldwin's house. He found Giles
at the door, and, holding out his hand, asked him, in a friendly manner,
how he did. Giles intuitively extended his hand, which, as Lewie seized
it, he observed, was clearly peeled along the back, a little above the
knuckles.

"Ye hae a hard grip, Giles," said the writer. "Is this the arm that Mike
Maxwell broke at the wrestlin match last year?" (Looking down at his
hand.) "I declare, there's the marks o' Mike's fingers on yer hand yet!
But I'm sorry ye hae fa'n into this new scrape, Giles. The craig's a
mair kittle part than the arm or the hand, and aften does penance for
the acts o' its restless freend. I'm sorry for you, Giles."

"What's the matter?" said Giles. "I need no man's sorrow, nor money
either."

"A man that has been successful in the highway doesna need the last,"
said Lewie; "but he is in great need o' the first. It was strange that
twa enemies should join thegither to commit robbery. It's now quite
ascertained that you and Mike Maxwell were the robbers o' Captain
Beachum."

"Wha dares say that?" replied Giles, looking alarmed.

"Alice Parker," said Lewie. "That nicht ye handed into her Captain
Beachum's portmanteau at the window, and got your hand" (taking hold of
it) "hurt by the fa' o' the sash (the mark is on't yet--Providence winna
let thae marks heal), you told her very honestly--but I canna say,
Giles, it was prudent o' ye--at least I wadna hae dune sae unguarded a
trick--that Mike Maxwell joined you in the robbery. You then told Jem
Anderson, the shirra-officer, to gae and search for the portmanteau in
Widow Parker's hoose. What made ye do that, man? Couldna ye hae come to
me, and gien me six and eightpence for an advice? The neck o' a sheep,
wi' the head at ae end, and the harrigals at the ither, is worth
eighteen-pence. Surely the craig o' a man is worth six and eightpence."

Giles was bewildered by this speech, and appeared like a man who gets
the folds and meshes of a net thrown over him. He stood and stared at
the writer. The great terror was the charge of robbery, of which he was
quite innocent; and he was conscious that he had so far convicted
himself, by an unwary statement to that effect made for a certain
purpose to Alice Parker. His mind, occupied by this fear, let go the
apprehension of a discovery of the mere act of handing in the
portmanteau.

"I see no harm in handing in the portmanteau," he said, irresolutely,
his mind still occupied by the major terror; "a person finding it on the
road might take that way of returning it to the owner, and saving poor
Mike. I committed no robbery."

"Giles Baldwin," said Lewie "this winna do; I can prove that ye hae
_admitted being a robber_. Now, tak yer choice--admit the truth about
the portmanteau, (for I dinna believe ye stole it), or run the risk o' a
trial for yer life. If ye refuse me, I'll hae ye apprehended within an
hour."

The scrape into which Giles had got was evident to himself. He saw no
way of escaping; but he was still dogged and silent.

"Guid-day, Mr Baldwin!" said Lewis; "ye needna try to flee the country;
I'll hae twa beagles after ye afore ye can even cut a stick frae that
ash to help ye on. Twa hangins on ae wuddy maks twa pair o' shoon to the
hangman, but only ae ploy to the people."

"Mr Threshum," cried Baldwin, as the writer was going out, "what do you
want?"

"Explain to me a' ye ken about the portmanteau," said Lewis, "and I'll
guarantee ye against the wuddy: that's fair."

"I found the portmanteau," said Giles, at last overcome with fear, "and
gave it to Alice Parker to send to the owner, and save Mike."

"That's no a' true," said Lewis. "If ye wanted to save Mike, why did ye
tell a lee, and say that he was ane o' the robbers, yoursel bein the
ither?"

Giles was caught; he saw now that he had only one course, and agreed to
sign a paper, setting forth all he knew and everything he did in
relation to the transaction. Lewis sat down accordingly, and took down
his declaration, which, after it was finished, he signed and
authenticated. It bore that he had a grudge against Mike Maxwell, for
having broken his arm, and taken from him his lover, Alice Parker. He
had heard the suspicions which were afloat in regard to Mike's mode of
living; and, having seen him that night sitting on Black Bess, and
looking after the carriage, he suspected he was after prey. He insulted
him in the way mentioned; and Mike having retaliated in the way also
already set forth, Giles was wroth against him, and seeing, some time
after, a carriage hastening after the other, he got up behind it, and
rode on, with the view of watching the motions of Mike, and of being
enabled to inform upon him, and thus revenge himself. After riding for
some time, he heard the conversation between Mike and the gentleman in
the carriage, which has been already detailed; and, having proceeded on
some distance farther, to get some whisky at a house where he was
acquainted, he noticed, as the carriage swerved to a side, a portmanteau
lying on the ground. He jumped down, and, taking hold of the article,
swung it behind a hedge, and covered it with leaves and twigs. Some time
after, two men came up, and asked him if he had seen a portmanteau. He
denied that he had, and they passed on. Then came two sheriff-officers,
who told him that a robbery had been committed on a lady and gentleman
going to Berwick, whereby a valuable portmanteau had been taken from the
carriage. This made Giles prick up his ears: he suspected that Mike had
been the robber; and his suspicion was confirmed by the fact, that he
had heard him send the gentleman in the second coach to Newcastle,
though he knew they were after the couple that were bound for Berwick--a
device resorted to by Mike, no doubt, for preventing them from coming
upon the robbed couple, and giving information against him when they had
met. Filled with this suspicion, and his desire of revenge, Giles sent
the officers to Mike's house, and afterwards gave as much evidence
against him as he could, consistently with his wish to keep the contents
of the portmanteau to himself. Having gone and examined it next day, he
found nothing in it but papers; and therefore resolved upon committing
it to the charge of Alice, and then informing the officers that it was
in her custody. To prevent Alice from telling how it came into her
possession, and of course to leave the presumption open that she had got
it from Mike, he said that Mike had been one of the robbers; and the
reason why he had said that he himself was the other, was, that he was
personating one of the robbers at the time when he was speaking to
Alice; and, as he knew that the report spoke of two robbers, he glided
naturally into the statement he had made to Alice, whom he wished also
to prejudice against his rival. This declaration Giles signed; and Lewis
came away with it in his pocket very well pleased. He read it to Alice
Parker as he passed along. She was delighted beyond adequate powers of
expression, and only wanted an explanation of the ring to satisfy her
entirely.

"That ye'll get too," said Lewie. "I hae a' that, cut and dry; but the
time's no just come yet. Ye maun hae patience, and I wad recommend to ye
to pay some attention in the meantime to puir Mike, and mak amends for
yer cruelty, in refusin to tell a lee to save the life o' a
fellow-cratur."

"If people were not cruel to themselves," said Alice, "they would not
require any one to commit for them so heinous a sin."

Lewis left her, and returned to Dumfries, where he communicated his
success to Mike. Some time afterwards, the former understood that
Captain Beachum had written from Paris, wishing to avoid a personal
appearance in Scotland; but the Lord Advocate wrote him back, to say
that, if he did not appear, he would neither get the criminal
prosecuted, nor receive up his portmanteau and papers. The captain
(leaving his young wife on the Continent) accordingly came over to
Dumfries, extremely anxious to have the trial over, and get possession
of his papers. As soon as Threshum knew he was arrived at the Cross
Keys, he waited upon him.

"Captain Beachum," said Lewis, "ye hae committed an honest man to
prison, on a charge o' being the individual wha robbed ye o' your
portmanteau, guineas, and ring. Wad ye ken him if ye saw him?"

"No," said the captain; "but there's proof enough against him; he had my
ring in his possession, and the portmanteau was discovered in the house
of his sweetheart."

"The last part o' the charge gaes for naething," said Lewis, "as I can
prove to your satisfaction; and the first proves nae robbery, but only
your munificence in giein a man a dimond ring, as a luck-penny to a
bargain, whereby ye saved yersel and yer wife frae the vengeance o' Mr
Anson, wha was that nicht followin you wi' a' the speed o' a guardian's
flight after his ward."

"What mean you?" said the captain.

"Do ye no recollect," said Lewis, "o' giein a man on a black mare twenty
guineas to mak a red-herrin drag across the nose o' Mr Anson?"

"I do," said the captain; "but I did not give him the ring."

"I can assure ye that ye did, though," said Lewis. "Recollect yoursel."

"I'm not inclined to try to recollect my own stupidity," said the
captain. "It is impossible I could be so foolish as to give away my
diamond ring, either as a present or by mistake."

"If you're no inclined to do that muckle justice to an injured man,
maybe you'll gie me the papers that belang to Mr Anson, by virtue o'
this letter o' authority" (taking out the letter). "Tak your choice."

"The papers, sir," said the captain, getting frightened, "are all I
want. I care nothing for the prosecution of the man. It's certainly
possible I may have given him the ring by mistake; but how do you
account for the portmanteau being in his lover's house?"

Lewis read to him Giles Baldwin's deposition.

"Then," said the captain, "all the evidence against Maxwell is the
ring?"

"Naething mair," said Lewis.

"He shall not be hanged for that," said the captain. "I shall go off to
the authorities, and inform them that it is very probable I gave the man
the ring in the way you mention. You say nothing of Mr Anson and the
papers, you know."

"I canna interfere, luckily," said Lewis.

On the statement of Captain Beachum, Mike was liberated. He afterwards
took a farm, married Alice Parker, whom he admired the more for her love
of truth, and lived with happily for many years; but he ever lamented
the course of life he had led. He ran a great risk of being hanged, from
the curious combination of circumstances that conspired against
him--lost reputation by it, and caused unspeakable grief to one of the
best of women. Hence our moral: that one is not always safe from the
effects of vice, though he act within the laws.




REUBEN PURVES; or, THE SPECULATOR.


Speculation is the soul of business; it is the mainspring of
improvement; it is essential to prosperity. Burns has signified that he
could not stoop to crawl into what he considered as the narrow holes of
bargain-making; and nine out of every ten persons who consider
themselves high-minded profess to sympathise with him, and say he was
right. But our immortal bard, in so saying, looked only at the odds and
ends--the corners and the disjointed extremities--of bargain-making,
properly so called; and he suffered his pride and his prejudices to
blind, in this instance, his mighty spirit, and contract his grasp, so
that he saw not the all-powerful, the humanising, and civilising
influence of the very bargain-making which he despised. True it is, that
as a spirit of speculation or bargain-making contracts itself, and every
day becomes more and more a thing of farthings and of fractions, it
begets a grovelling spirit of meanness, that may eventually end in
dishonesty; but as it expands, it exalts the man, imbues his mind with
liberality, and benefits society. The spirit of commercial speculation
will spread abroad, until it render useless the sword of the hero, cause
it to rust in its scabbard, and to be regarded as the barbarous
plaything of antiquity. It will go forth as a dove from the ark of
society, bearing the olive-branch of peace and of mutual benefits unto
all lands, until men shall learn war no more.

But at present I am not writing an essay on speculation or enterprise,
but the history of Reuben Purves, the Speculator; and I shall therefore
begin with it at once. Reuben was born in Galashiels, than which I do
not know a more thriving town, or one more beautifully situated, on all
the wide Borders. As you pass it, seated on the outside of the
Chevy-Chase coach on a summer day (if perchance a sunny shower shall
have fallen), it lies before you as a long and silvered line, the blue
slates reflecting back the sunbeams. In its streets, cleanliness and
prosperity join hands; while before it and behind it rise hills high
enough to be called mountains, where the gorgeous heather purples in its
season. Before it--I might say through it--wimples the Gala, almost
laving its thresholds. There the spirit of speculation and of trade has
taken up "a local habitation and a name," in the bosom of poetry. On the
one hand is the magic of Abbotsford, on the other the memories of
Melrose. But its description is best summed up in the condemnation of a
Cockney traveller, who said, "Vy, certainly, Galashiels would be wery
pretty, were it not its vood and vater!"

But I again digress from the history of Reuben Purves. I have said that
he was born in Galashiels: his father was a weaver, and the father
brought his son up to his own profession. But although Reuben

              "Was a wabster guid,
    Could stown a clue wi' onybody,"

his apprenticeship (if his instructions from his father could be called
one) was scarce expired, when, like Othello, he found "his occupation
gone," and the hand-loom was falling into disuse. Arkwright, who was
long considered a mere bee-headed barber, had--though in a great measure
by the aid of others--brought his mechanism to a degree of perfection
that not only astonished the world, but held out a more inexhaustible
and a richer source of wealth to Britain than its mines did to Peru.
Deep and bitter were the imprecations of many against the power-loom;
for it is difficult for any man to see good in that which dashes away
his hard-earned morsel from the mouths of his family, and leaves them
calling in vain for food. But there were a few spirits who could
appreciate the vast discovery, and who in it perceived not only the
benefits it would confer on the country, but on the human race.
Arkwright, who, though a wonderful man, was not one of deep or accurate
knowledge, with a vanity which in him is excusable, imagined that he
could carry out the results of his improvements to an extent that would
enable the country to pay off the national debt. It was a wild idea;
but, extravagant as it was, it must be acknowledged that the fruits of
his discoveries enabled Britain to bear up against its burdens, and
maintain its faith, in times of severest trial and oppression.

Reuben's father was one of those who complained most bitterly against
the modern innovation. He said, "the work could never be like a man's
work. It was a ridiculous novelty, and would justly end in the ruin of
all engaged in it." It had, indeed, not only reduced his wages the
one-half, but he had not half his wonted employment, and he saw nothing
but folly, ruin, and injustice in the speculation. Reuben, however,
pondered more deeply; he entered somewhat into the spirit of the
projector. He not only entertained the belief that it would enrich the
nation, but he cherished the hope that it would enrich himself. How it
was to accomplish his own advancement he did not exactly perceive, but
he lived in the idea--he dreamed of it--nothing could make him divest
himself of it; and he was encouraged by his mother saying--

"Weel, Reuben, I canna tell, things may be as ye say--only there is very
little appearance o' them at present, when the wages o' you and your
faither put thegither are hardly the half o' what ane o' ye could hae
made. But ae thing is certain--_they who bode for a silk gown always get
a sleeve o't_."

"Nonsense, woman! ye're as bad as him," was the reply of his father;
"wherefore would ye encourage the callant in his havers? I wonder,
seeing the distress we are a' brought to, he doesna think shame to speak
o' such a thing. Mak a fortune by the newfangled system, indeed!--my
truly! if it continue meikle langer, he winna be able to get brose
without butter."

"Weel, faither," was the answer of Reuben, "we'll see; but you must
perceive that there is no great improvement can take place, let it be
what it will, without doing injury to somebody. And it is our duty to
watch every opportunity to make the most of it."

"In my belief, the laddie is out o' his head," rejoined the father; "but
want will bring him to his senses."

Reuben, however, soon found that it became almost impossible to keep
soul and body together by the labours of the loom. He therefore began to
speculate on what he ought to do; and, like my honoured namesake, the
respectable poet, but immortal ornithologist, he took unto himself a
PACK, and, with it upon his shoulders, he resolved to perambulate the
Borders. There was no disgrace in the calling, for it is as ancient,
perhaps more ancient, than nobility; and we are told that, even in the
time of Solomon, "there were chapmen in the land in those days."
Therefore Reuben Purves became a chapman. He, as his original trade
might lead one to suppose, was purely a dealer in "_soft_" goods; and
when he entered a farmhouse, among the bonny buxom girls, he would have
flung his pack upon the table, and said--

"Here, now, my braw lassies; look ye here! Here's the real upright,
downright, elegant, and irresistible muslin for frills, which no
sweetheart upon this earth could have the power to withstand. And here's
the gown-pieces--cheap, cheap--actually giein them awa--the newest, the
most elegant patterns! Only look at them!--it is a sin to see them so
cheap! Naething could be mair handsome! Now or never, lassies. Look at
the ribands, too--blue, red, yellow, purple, green, plain, flowered, and
gauze. Now is the time for buskin your cockernony--naething could
withstand them wi' sic faces as yours--naething, naething, and that ye
would find. It would be out o' the question to talk o't. Come, hinnies,
only observe them, I'm sure ye canna but buy--or look at this lawn."

"O Reuben, man," they would have said, "they are very bonny; but we hae
nae siller."

"Havers!" answered he; "young queans like you talking about siller! Sell
your hair, dears, and buy lang lawn?"

Then did Reuben pull forth his scissors, and begin to exercise the
functions of a hairdresser, in addition to his calling as a
chapman--thinning, and sometimes almost cropping, the fair, the raven,
the auburn, or the brown tresses of the serving-maids, and giving them
his ribands and his cambrics in exchange for their shorn locks. The
ringlets he disposed of to the hairdressers in Edinburgh, Newcastle, or
Carlisle, and he confessed that he found it a very profitable
speculation; and where the colour or texture of the hair was beautiful,
he invariably preferred bartering for it, to receiving payment in money.
This was a trait in Reuben's character, at the outset of his career as a
speculator, which showed that he had a correct appreciation of the real
principles of trade--that he knew the importance of barter, without
which commerce could not exist; and it afforded an indication of the
future merchant.

He was in the habit of visiting every town, village, and farm-stead
within sixty miles of the Borders--to the north and to the south--and
taking in the entire breadth of the island. His visits became as regular
as clock-work. No merchant now-a-days knows more exactly the day and
almost the hour when he may expect a visit from the traveller of the
house with which he deals, accompanied with an invitation to drink a
bottle of wine, and pay his account, than the people in the Border
villages knew when Reuben would appear amongst them.

It was shrewdly suspected that Reuben did not confine himself solely to
the sale of ribands, gown-pieces, and such-like ware, but that his
goodly pack was in fact a magazine, in which was concealed tea, cognac,
and tobacco. At all events, he prospered amazingly, and in the course of
three years--though he lessened its weight at every village he came
to--his pack overgrew his shoulders, and prosperity compelled him,
first, to have recourse to a pack-horse, and, before he had had it long,
to a covered cart or caravan. In short, on arriving at a village,
instead of going round from house to house, with his stock upon his
shoulders, as he was wont to do, he sent round the drummer or bellman:
or, where no such functionaries are known, he employed some other
individual, with a key and a trencher, to go round the village and make
the proclamation--

"This is to give notice, that Mr Reuben Purves, with his grand and
elegant assortment of the newest and most fashionable varieties of
soft-ware goods, _and other commodities_, all bought by him for ready
money, so that great bargains may be expected, has just arrived (at such
an inn), and will remain for this day only; therefore those who wish the
real superior articles, at most excellent bargains, will embrace the
present opportunity."

Let not the reader despise Reuben because he practised and understood
the mysteries of puffing. There is nothing done in this world without
it. No gardener ever "lichtlied" his own leeks. All men practise it,
from the maker of books to the maker of shoe-blacking, or the vender of
matches. From the grandiloquent advertisement of a metropolitan
auctioneer, down to the "_only_ true and particular account" of an
execution, bawled by a flying-stationer on the streets, the spirit of
puffing, in its various degrees, is to be found. Therefore we blame not
Reuben; he only did what other people did, though perhaps after a
different fashion, and with better success. It gave a promise of his
success as a tradesman. He said he ventured on it as a speculation, and
finding it to suit his purpose, he continued it. In truth, scarce had
the herald made the proclamation which I have quoted, until Reuben's
cart was literally besieged. His customers said, "it went like a cried
fair--there was nae getting forward to it."

Moreover, he was always civil; he was always obliging. He had a smile
and a pleasant and merry word for every one. Buy or not buy, his
courtesy never failed him. In short, he would do anything to oblige his
customers, save to give them credit; and that, as he said, was not
because he had any doubt of their honesty, or that he was unwilling to
serve them, but because he had laid it down as a rule never to trust a
single penny, which rule he could not break. He was also possessed of a
goodly person; was some five feet ten inches in height; he had fair
hair, a ruddy, cheerful countenance, intelligent blue eyes; and his
years but little exceeded thirty.

At this period of Reuben's history, there lived in the town of Moffat
one Miss Priscilla Spottiswoode. Now, Priscilla was a portly, and withal
a comely, personage, and though rather stout, she was tall in proportion
to her stoutness. Nothing could surpass the smoothness of the clear red
and white upon her goodly countenance. There was by no means too much
red, and constitutional good-nature shed a sort of perpetual smile over
her features, like a sunbeam irradiating a tranquil lake. In short, it
was a reproach to every bachelor in the town and parish of Moffat, to
have permitted forty-and-four summers to roll over the head of
Priscilla, without one amongst them having the manliness to step forward
and offer his hand to rescue her from a state of single solitariness.
She had been for more than twenty years the maid, or rather I might say
the nurse, of an old and rich lady, who at her death bequeathed to her
five hundred pounds.

Reuben first saw Priscilla about three months after she had received
the legacy. "Five hundred pounds," thought he, "would set a man on his
feet." He also gazed on her kind, comely, smiling countenance, and he
said within himself that "the men of Moffat were blind." And eventually
he concluded, communing with himself, that the fair Priscilla was a
speculation worthy the thinking of. She wished to purchase a few yards
of lace for cap-borders, and such-like purposes; and as Reuben sold them
to her, he said to her a hundred pleasant things, and he let drop some
well-timed and well-turned compliments, and she blushed as his eulogy on
the lace aptly ended in praise of her own fair features. Yet this was
not all; for he not only sold to her fifty per cent. cheaper than he
would have parted with his goods to any other purchaser, but he
politely--by what appeared a wilful sort of accident--contrived to give
her a full yard into her bargain. Priscilla looked upon Reuben with more
than complacency; she acknowledged (that is, to herself) that he was the
best-looking, polite, and most sensible young man she had ever seen. She
resolved that in future she would deal with no one else; and, indeed,
she had got such an excellent bargain of the lace, that she had come to
the determination of again visiting his stock, and making a purchase of
other articles. And, added she, to a particular friend, "It does a body
good to buy from him, for he is always so pleasant."

But Reuben saved her the trouble; for early the next day he called at
her house, with a silk dress under his arm. He said--

"It was the last piece of the kind he had--indeed it was a perfect
beauty, equal to real India, and would become her exceedingly--and not
to think about the price, for that was no object."

"What, then, am I to think about?" thought Priscilla; and she admired
the silk much, but, peradventure, if the truth were told, she admired
its owner more.

Reuben spent more than two hours beneath the roof of the
too-long-neglected spinster. Often in those two hours she blushed, his
tongue faltered, and when he rose to depart, he had neither the silk
beneath his arm, nor the cash for it in his pocket; but he shook her
hand long and fervently, and he would have saluted her fair cheek--but
true love, like true genius, people say, is always modest. Priscilla, on
being left alone, felt her heart in a very unusual tumult; and now she
examined her face in a mirror, and again admired the silk which he had
presented to her. She had always heard him spoken of as a steady,
thriving, and deserving young man; and it became a settled point in her
mind, that, if he directly popped the important question, she would be
as candid with him, and at once answer, "_Yes_."

Reuben was frequently seen in Moffat after this, even when he brought no
goods for sale; and within six months after her purchase of the lace,
the sacred knot, which no man may unloose, was tied between them; and at
the age of forty-and-four years and four months, but before time had
"wrote a wrinkle" on her fair brow, Miss Priscilla Spottiswoode blushed
into Mrs Purves.

While following his avocation as a chapman, Reuben had accumulated
somewhat more than two hundred pounds, which, with the five hundred that
his wife brought him, raised his capital to more than seven hundred. But
he was not a man to look only at the needle point of things, or whose
soul would be lost in a nut-shell. Onward! onward! was the ruling
principle of Reuben--he had been fortunate in all his speculations, and
he trusted to be fortunate still. Never, during all his wanderings, had
he lost sight of the important discoveries of Arkwright, and of the
improvements which were every day being made upon them; and, while he
was convinced that they would become a source of inexhaustible wealth to
the nation, he still cherished the hope and the belief that they would
enrich himself. He said also--and Mrs Purves agreed with him--that
travelling the country was a most uncomfortable life for a married man.
He therefore sold his horse and his covered cart, disposed of his stock
at prime cost, and, with his wife and capital, removed to Manchester.

He took a room and a cellar at the top of Dean Street, and near to the
foot of Market Street,

    "Where merchants most do congregate."

The upper room served them for bedchamber, parlour, kitchen, and all,
while the cellar he converted into a wareroom. Perhaps, having more than
seven hundred pounds to begin the world with, some may think that he
might have taken more commodious premises; but rents were becoming high
in Manchester--many a great merchant has begun business in a cellar--and
Reuben, quoting the words of poor Richard, said:--

    "Vessels large may venture more,
    But little boats should keep near shore."

And he further said, "I am but serving my time yet; we must creep before
we walk."

Never was any man who prospered in the affairs of this world more
diligent in business than Reuben Purves, and in Priscilla he found an
admirable helpmate. She soon learned the name, the price, and the
quality of every description of goods; and when he was necessarily
absent, she could attend to the orders of customers as promptly as
himself. The reader unacquainted with the Manchester mode of business,
is not to suppose that Reuben, although his stock was wedged up in a
cellar, was a retail draper or haberdasher. Its magnitude considered,
there are fewer such in Manchester than in any other town in the
kingdom; but Reuben commenced as a wholesale merchant--one who supplies
the country dealers. He always went to the markets to purchase with the
money in his hand, as Joseph the patriarch's brethren came to him to
buy corn--and pity it is that the good old custom has too much fallen
into disuse. He made his purchases chiefly from the small manufacturers,
to whom ready money was an object of importance, and consequently bought
his goods to much advantage to himself. During his extensive
perambulations on the Borders, also, he had become generally acquainted
with the drapers in all the towns upon his circuit; and at the seasons
when they generally visit Manchester, he might have been seen rapidly
passing along what is now called Piccadilly, and passing the coach from
the north, just as it drew up to the inn; and if one whose face he knew
stepped off it or out of it, Reuben turned suddenly round as if by
accident, took the north-country purchaser by the hand, and invited him
home to "eat beef" with him, or to take supper, as the case might be. He
was generally successful; for to resist his solicitations was a matter
of difficulty, and after partaking of a frugal meal and a single glass,
the stranger was invited to examine the stock in the wareroom, and
seldom failed of becoming the purchaser of a part. By such means, and
perseverance, his business in a few years increased exceedingly. He was
of opinion that there is hardly anything too difficult for resolute
perseverance to accomplish or overcome, at least he always found it so;
and I confess I am very much of his mind.

Within three years he had taken extensive warerooms. He had a clerk, a
salesman, four warehousemen, a traveller, and a porter. He had also
taken his father from the loom. Reuben had seized fortune at the flood,
and he floated down with the stream. He said he never undertook a
speculation, but he was convinced in his own mind it would be
successful. He also said, that fortune-making was like courtship; it was
never venture never win--only to know what you were venturing upon.

I should have mentioned, that, previous to this, Priscilla had made
Reuben the happy father of twin daughters, and the one they named
Rachel, the other Elizabeth. The mother gloried in her children, and her
husband looked on them with delight. He was a fortunate man and a happy
one; and his cup of felicity, if it did not run over, was well filled.

In a short time, Reuben not only supplied with goods to a great extent
the merchants on the Borders, but throughout the three kingdoms; and he
also exported extensively to other countries, and even to some where the
importation of British goods was prohibited.

"A fig for their tariffs," he was wont to say, snapping his fingers;
"the profit will cover the risk. The principle of trade is like the
principle of steam--there is no restraining it. Neither kings, emperors,
congresses, nor laws, are a match for it. They canna cage it up like a
bird. They might as well say to the waves of the sea, 'hitherto shalt
thou come and no farther,' as to the spirit of trade--'_stop_!'"

In these speculations however, Reuben frequently experienced the common
fate of the smuggler; and the goods which he sent into countries where
they were prohibited were seized. He was of too ardent a temperament to
be merely the purchaser and vender of other men's manufactures, and
eventually he erected a cotton-mill of his own, a few miles out of
Manchester.

And here it will, perhaps, be more acceptable to the reader, that I
detail the remainder of Reuben's narrative in his own words, as he
related it to an old schoolfellow in his native town, after an absence
from it of more than thirty years. It was delivered with his unchanged
Scottish accent, and with many Scottish phrases and modes of expression,
which a residence of more than three times ten years in England had not
destroyed:--

I was now (said he, alluding to the erection of the mill), at what I
had always considered as the very pinnacle of my ambition--the
proprietor of a cotton-mill, and of one, too, that had cost me several
thousands in completing it. I had no manner of doubt, but that it would
turn out the master-speculation of my existence; for, bless ye, at that
period, to have a mill was to have a mine. A spinning-jenny was worth
its weight in rubies. There was Arkwright, made a fortune like a
nobleman's in a jiffy; and Robert Peel, greatly to his credit from being
a weaver lad, I may say, in less than no time, made a fortune that could
have bought up half the gentry in the country. Indeed, wealth just
poured in upon the millowners; and, I must confess, they werna bad times
for the like o' me, that bought their calicoes, and got them dressed and
printed to sell them out, as you may judge from my having been able to
erect a mill of my own before I had been many years in business. But, I
must confess, that the mill ran between me and my wits. All the time it
was building, I was out and in frae the town to see how the workmen were
getting on, wet or dry; and, I dare to say, that if I dreamed about it
once during the twelve months it was in hands, I dreamed about it a
thousand times. Many a time Priscilla has said to me--

"Reuben, I doubt ye are thinking owre meikle about that mill, and really
it's no richt--it is sinfu. I fear it is aneugh to mak the concern no
prosper."

"My dear," I used to say, "do ye consider what an immense speculation it
is?--it is like death or life to me; and, if I dinna think o't, and look
after the workmen to see how they are gettin on wi' it, who, do ye
suppose, would? There is naething like a man lookin after his own
concerns; and, where there is sae meikle at stake, it is impossible but
to think o't."

But, sir, I looked after the progress of the mill, and my thoughts were
taken up concerning it, to the neglect of my more immediate business.
After commencing in the wholesale line, I found it impossible to abide
by my original rule of--no credit; and, during my frequent absence from
my warehouse, my salesman had admitted the names of men into my books of
whom I knew nothing, but whom I afterwards learned were not to be
trusted. Their payments were not forthcoming in the proper season; and,
in looking after them, I put off insuring the mill at the time I
intended. Delay, sir, is a curse to a person in business; it is as
dangerous as the blandishments of a harlot to the young--and so I found
it. On the very night that the machinery and everything was completed, I
allowed the spinners and others that I had engaged, to have a supper and
dance in it wi' their wives and sweethearts. I keepit them company for
an hour mysel, and very merry they were. But, after charging them all to
keep sober and harmonious one with another, and to see that they locked
the doors behind them when they broke up, and to leave everything right,
I wished them good-night; and they drank my health, and gave me three
cheers as I left them. I got into my gig, and drove home to Manchester.
But I dinna think I had been three hours in bed, when Priscilla gied me
a dunch with her elbow, and, says she--

"Waken, Reuben! waken!--there's an unco knocking at the street-door."

"Hoot! it will be some drunk body passing," says I, and turned round on
my side to compose myself to sleep again.

But the knock, knocking, continued louder and louder.

"That is nae drunk body," said Priscilla; "something has happened."

I started owre the bed, and I was hardly half-dressed, when I heard the
street-door open, and the servant lass come fleein up the stair.

"What is it?" cried I.

"Oh, sir--the mill!--the mill!" said she.

Had she shot me, she could not have rendered me more stupefied.

"What about the mill?" cries I, all shaking with agitation.

"Oh, it's on fire--it's on fire!" replied the lassie.

I heard Priscilla scream, "On fire!" and she also sprung to the floor.

I cannot tell ye how I threw on my coat--I know that I banged out
without a napkin about my neck, and, rushing down the stairs, I couldna
even stop to get the horse from the stable and saddled, but away I flew
upon my feet. If ever a man ran as if for his life, it was me that
night. It was six miles to the mill, but I never slacked for a single
moment. I didna even discover, though the stones were cutting my feet,
that I had come away without my shoes. The mill absorbed both thought
and sense--I was dead to everything else. But oh, upon reaching it, what
a sight presented itself to my view! There was the great red flames
roaring and raging up the height of its five storeys; and the very
wheels of the machinery, seen through the windows, glowing as bright as
when in the hands of the smith that formed them. The great suffocating
clouds of smoke came rolling about me, and even blinding me. Hundreds of
women ran about screaming, some carrying water, and some running in the
way of others, and drunken men staggered to and fro, like lost spirits
in the midst of their tortures. Oh, sir, it was an awful sight for any
one to behold; but for me to witness it was terrible! For some minutes I
was bereft of both speech and reason; and, had the spectators not held
me back, I would have rushed into the middle of the flames. Crash after
crash, the newly-erected walls and the floors fell in, and I was a
helpless spectator of the destruction of my own property. In one night,
yea, in one hour, more than half of the fortune that I had struggled
for years to gather together, was swept, as by a whirlwind, from off the
face of the earth!

I stood till I beheld the edifice that had been the pride of my heart a
mass of smoking ruins, with, I may say, scarce one stone left upon
another. All the manufacturers round about sympathised with me very
sincerely, and one of them drove me back to Manchester in his drosky.
When I entered my own house, I believe I appeared like a person on whom
sentence of death has been passed, as he is removed from the bar, and
led back to his prison.

"Weel, Reuben," asked Priscilla, in her own calm and gentle way, "is the
damage great?"

"Oh, my dear," said I, "there is nothing left but a heap o' ashes!
Nothing! nothing!--we are ruined!"

"No, no," replied she, as quietly as ever, "we arena ruined. The back is
aye made fit for the burden. The Hand that sent the misfortune, as we
think it, upon us, will enable us to bear up against it. Now, just ye
compose yersel, and dinna be angry at what I am gaun to say, but we are
just as rich now as we were three years ago; and, I am sure, Reuben, we
were quite as happy then as we are now. Ye have still a very excellent
business, and a fortune far beyond onything that you and I could ever
expect to possess when we cam thegither. You have your health and I have
mine; and our twa bits o' bairnies are growing up to be a comfort to us
baith. They will ne'er feel the loss o' the cotton-mill, and you and I
ne'er kenned the guid o't. Wherefore, then, should ye grieve? Ye ought
rather to be thankfu that it is nane o' your family that is taen frae
ye. And, I have nae doubt that, although we self-wise and shortsighted
mortals canna see it, this visitation will be for the guid o' us a'. It
is better that ye should lose the mill than forget your Maker; and,
forgie me for saying it, but I feared it was setting your heart upon the
things o' this world to a degree which did not become the faither o' a
Christian family. Therefore, let me entreat you to say, 'His will be
done,' and to believe that this has fallen upon you for the best. Our
loss is not so great but that, if times keep good, we may soon o'ercome
it."

I had often experienced the value of my wife, and admired her meek,
patient spirit and affectionate heart; but I never, until this trial
came upon me, knew her real worth. She enabled me to begin the world;
ay, sir, and this far she had guided me through it. She was better than
twelve years older than me--but what of that? She looked as young like
at forty as ever I saw another woman do at twenty; and now, when she has
been my wife for thirty years, I hardly ken her aulder. A glaiket
lassie, under such circumstances, might have wrung her hands, and
upbraided me for allowing the supper and the dance; but Priscilla strove
only to comfort me, to imbue my mind with fortitude, and to turn the
accident to my eternal advantage. I had long loved and esteemed her, but
I now reverenced her.

I sat and I listened to her, and looked in her face for the space of ten
minutes, without speaking a word; and, at last, fairly overpowered wi'
her gentleness and her tenderness, I rose and took her hand; and
"Priscilla," says I, "for your sake, dear, I will think no more about
the matter. The mill is destroyed; but, as you say, we may overcome the
loss--and I shall try."

Though I have as keen feelings as onybody, I was not a person to sit
down long, and croon and shake my head over misfortunes that couldna be
helped. I might be driven back from an object, and defeated in
accomplishing it; but it would be necessary to take my life before I
could be made to relinquish my attempts, or to conquer me. Perseverance,
and a restless, ambitious spirit of enterprise, spurred me on.

I endeavoured to extend my business more widely than ever; and, as I had
sometimes had losses with houses on the Continent, I resolved to visit
France, and Germany, and other places, myself, and see in what situation
the land lay. I did so; and in Holland and Switzerland in particular I
entered into what proved some very profitable speculations. Now, sir, it
is my conviction, that where there is no speculation, there can be no
luck. As well might a man with his hands in his pockets expect a guinea
to drop into them. People who, perhaps, have been born with a silver
spoon in their mouths, or had enough to purchase them a hot joint every
day, thrust upon them by accident, will tell you, in speaking of any
particular subject, "Oh, I will have nothing to do with it--it is only a
speculation." Now, sir, but for some speculation that had been entered
into before they were, the one would have neither had the silver spoon
in his teeth, nor the other the hot joint. Without speculation, commerce
could not exist. In the community where its spirit is not felt, they
must be dull as horses in a ring; moving round and round as regularly
and as monotonously as the wheels of a machine, to procure the every-day
bread and cheese of existence. I have been a speculator all my life--I
am a speculator still. Neither you nor I have time for me to enter into
the particulars of thirty years' enterprises. It is true I have lost by
some, but in more I have been successful, or until this day I would have
been a hand-loom weaver in this my native town of Galashiels.

But, sir, within three years I had built another mill. I commenced
manufacturer, and prospered; and, in a short time, I began the business
of printer also. You understand me--it is a calico-printer I mean, not a
book or newspaper printer; for if, in a town in Lancashire, you ask for
a printer, nobody would think of showing you to a consumer of ink and
paper.

Our two daughters had been educated at a boarding-school in Yorkshire;
but they were now come home, and were, I may say, women grown, for they
were eighteen; and, although I say it, that, perhaps, ought not to say
it, remarkably fine-looking young women they were. People said that
Elizabeth was a perfect picture; though, so far as I could judge, Rachel
was the bonniest of the two; but they were remarkably like each other.
There, however, was this difference between them--Rachel was of a sedate
and serious disposition, and very plain in her dress, even plainer,
sometimes, than I wished to see her; but she was always so neat, that
she set whatever she put on. Elizabeth, on the other hand, though a
kind-hearted lassie, was more thoughtless, and more given to the
vanities of this world. When her sister was at her books, she was at her
looking-glass. She was as fond of dress as Rachel was the reverse. I
have often said to her--

"O Bessy! Bessy!--dress will turn your head some day or other. Ye will
frighten ony man from having ye."

"Don't be afraid of that, father," she replied, laughing, for there was
no putting her out of temper--she was like her mother in that--"there is
no danger, and it is time enough yet."

She was also excessively fond of amusements--such as balls, concerts,
plays, and parties; much fonder, indeed, than it was agreeable for me or
her mother to observe. And we frequently expostulated with her; for,
though we did not wish to debar her entirely from such amusements, yet
there is a medium to be observed in all things, and we did not like to
see her going beyond that medium.

Well, sir, she had been at a party one night in Mosley Street, and a
young gentleman, who, I afterwards understood, had shown her a great
deal of attention throughout the evening, saw her home. There was no
harm in this; but he called again the next day, and, as I shortly after
learned, every day. So, when I heard this, I thought it was right and
proper that I should see him, and learn who and what he was. I
accordingly stopped at home a forenoon for the express purpose, but not
much, as I easily observed, to the satisfaction of Elizabeth. About
eleven o'clock the gentleman came as usual. I easily saw that he was
rather taken aback on perceiving me; but he recovered his
self-possession as quick as the eyelids can twinkle, and perfectly
confused me with his superabundance of bows and scrapes. I did not like
his appearance. He was dressed like a perfect fop. He wore silk
stockings, and his feet were wedged into bits of French-soled pumps,
which, to my eye, made it perfectly painful to look on them. He had on a
light green, very fine, and very fashionable coat and trousers, with a
pure white waistcoat, and a riband about his neck. He also carried a
cane with an image on the head o't; and he had a great bunch of black
curls on each side of his head, which, I verily believe, were pomatumed,
brushed, and frizzled.

"I must put an end to your visits, billy," thinks I, before ever he
opened his lips.

He was what some ladies would call "a most agreeable young man." In
fact, I heard one (not my daughter) pronounce him to be "a prodigious
fine gentleman!" "Prodigious!" thought I, when I heard it. He had a
great flow of speech and spirits, and could run over all the scandal of
the town with a flippancy that disgusted me, but delighted many. He
could also talk like a critic about dancers, singers, actors, and
race-horses, and discuss the fashions like a milliner. All this I
ascertained during the half-hour I was in his company. He also gabbled
French and Italian, and played upon a thing like a sort of bass-fiddle
without a bow, that they call a guitar. I at once set him down in my own
mind for a mere fortune-hunter. He was a shallow puppy; he carried all
on the outside of his head, and nothing within it. I found he knew no
more about business than the man in the moon. But he pretended to be the
son of an Honourable, and carried cards with the words, "_Charles
Austin, Esq._," engraved upon them. He was above belonging to any
profession--he was a gentleman at large.

Disgusted as I was with him, I had not the face to rise and say to him,
"Sir, I will thank you to go out of my house, and not to enter it
again." And from the manner in which I had been brought up, I had not
the manner of what is called--bowing a person to the door. But what
vexed me most, while he remained, was to observe that even Priscilla
sometimes laughed at the silly things he said, which, as I afterwards
told her, was just encouraging him. When he left the house, I turned to
Elizabeth, and--

"Now, Betty, hinny," says I, "tak my advice, as yer faither and yer
freend, and ne'er speak to that young man again, nor alloo him to keep
ye company; for, as sure as my name is Reuben, there is something
essentially bad aboot him."

She hung her head, and there was a tear in her ee, and I think for the
first time ever I had observed it in my days, she looked rather sulky;
but I could get no satisfaction from her.

I think it was between two and three months after this--during which
time I had seen and heard no more of the fashionable Charles
Austin--that, having business to transact in Liverpool, I took Priscilla
down with me in the gig, for the benefit of her health. It was in the
summer season, and eleven o'clock had just chimed from the steeple of
the collegiate church before we returned at night. But never, never
shall I forget our miserable home-coming. There was our poor Rachel,
sitting by herself, wringing her hands, and the tears running down her
bonny cheeks.

"Rachel! dear Rachel! what is the matter, love?" cried her mother and
myself at the same instant.

"O Elizabeth!--Elizabeth is away!" sobbed my poor bairn.

Priscilla was stupified, and she repeated the word "Away!" but the
truth broke over me in a moment; and I sank back into a chair, as
helpless, for all the world, as a new-born infant.

Rachel tried to compose herself the best way she could; and she informed
us that her sister had left the house about ten o'clock in the forenoon,
and that she had not since returned. She also mentioned that Elizabeth
had been seen in the company of Charles Austin shortly after leaving the
house; and that, when she did not return in the course of the day,
suspecting that they had fled to Gretna, she had sent my principal
clerk, Thomas Galloway, after them, in a chaise-and-four, to bring back
Elizabeth.

Distressed as I was, I admired the presence of mind which Rachel had
exhibited. She had done all that I could have done myself, had I been at
home; and a fitter person than Thomas Galloway could not have been sent.
His zeal, honesty, and industry, had long rendered him a favourite with
me; and, though he was but a young man, I treated him more as an equal
than a clerk. Nor had I any doubt but in the mission he was sent upon,
he would show as much courage, if such an article were required, as he
had at all times shown zeal and prudence in my service.

But Thomas returned. He had heard nothing of them on the road, and they
had not been at Gretna. These tidings threw us all into deeper
affliction; and a week passed, and we could hear nothing of my daughter,
and our misery increased. But, on the ninth day after her disappearance,
a letter arrived from her. It was dated _Coldstream_. My fears read its
contents before it was opened. In it she poured forth a rhapsody in
praise of her "dear Charles," as she termed him, and said, if we knew
his virtues as well as she knew them, we would love him as she did. She
begged forgiveness for the step she had taken, and sought permission to
return with her husband, and receive mine and her mother's blessing. She
concluded the letter by signing herself our "affectionate and dutiful
daughter, _Elizabeth Austin_."

"_Dutiful!_--the ungrateful, the silly gipsy!" cried I, flinging down
the letter, and trampling it under my feet, in pure madness; "she shall
never inherit a penny of mine--she shall never enter my door. She is
ruined--she has married worthlessness and misery!"

It was some time before Priscilla said anything; but I saw she was very
greatly affected. At last, the mother's love for her offspring got the
better of every other consideration in her heart, and she endeavoured to
soothe me, and to prevail on me to forgive Elizabeth, and to see her
again.

I had intended that the marriage portion of my daughters, on the very
day they became wives, should be ten thousand each, providing that I
approved of the match--though I by no manner of means wished or intended
to direct their choice, or control their affections, further than it was
my duty as a parent to see that they did not throw themselves away. But
I was perfectly persuaded that, to give ten thousand, or the half of it,
or any sum, to such a person as Elizabeth had got, would be no better
than to fling it into the fire.

However, the entreaties and persuasion of Priscilla prevailed. I
consented that Elizabeth should return, and gave her husband five
thousand pounds as her dowery, with a promise of more, if they should
conduct themselves to my satisfaction. He had not received the money
many days when they set out for London.

Some time previous to this, I thought I had observed a sort of
particular kindness between my daughter Rachel and my clerk, Thomas
Galloway, of whom I have already spoken, and to whose worth I have borne
testimony. He was a native of Newton-Stewart, and a young man of humble
parentage, like myself; but I liked him nothing the worse upon that
account; for, in my opinion, there is no real respectability, save that
only which a man purchases through his own merits. Now, I once or twice,
when I went out to enjoy the air in the summer nights, after business
hours, perceived Rachel and Thomas oxtering together along the green
lanes, behind a place in the suburbs that is called Strangeways. Such
was the high opinion that I had of him, that I was determined, if there
was anything between them, to offer no obstacle in the world to their
marriage. I considered that a character, a disposition, and a knowledge
of business, such as Thomas had, were far before riches. But I knew
that, in certain respects, both of the two were such bashful creatures,
that neither of them would dare to mention the matter to me. So, after
their familiarity became every day more apparent, though they tried to
hide it, and when, at different times, I had tried humorously to sound
both of them in vain, I mentioned the subject to Priscilla. I found that
she had perceived it long before me; for women have quick eyes in such
matters. But she said that Rachel was such a strange reserved lassie,
that, though her own bairn, she could not speak to her with a mother's
freedom; though, now that she had heard my mind concerning the match,
she would ask Rachel how matters stood between her and Thomas Galloway
that very day.

She therefore went into the room where Rachel was sitting sewing, and,
after talking about various matters, by way of not just breaking the
matter at once, she said--

"Rachel, dear, are ye aware if your faither has ever made ony sort o'
recompense to Thomas Galloway for his trouble in gaun a' the way to
Gretna after Elizabeth, when the foolish lassie ran away wi' young Mr
Austin?"

"I do not think it," replied Rachel.

"Then," said her mother, "he has not done what he ought to have done.
Indeed, I think he would only be doing his duty if he were to do
something for Thomas; for he is a fine, genteel, deserving lad. Do ye
not think so, dear?"

This was a home-thrust which our bit lassie was not prepared for, and it
brought the vermilion to her cheeks. But, after a moment's hesitation,
she said, though not without a manifest degree of confusion--

"Yes, I think him a very deserving lad."

But her mother had made the first step, and she was not to be put back,
and therefore she continued--

"He is a lad that will rise in the world yet, and he weel deserves it;
for a kinder, or more prudent, and obliging young man, I never saw--and
I am glad, hinny, that ye hae the good sense to think weel o' him."

"Mother!" said Rachel, and her confusion greatly increased.

"Come, love," continued Priscilla, "ye needna blush or conceal onything
frae yer mother. She's a bad mother, indeed, that a daughter daurna
trust wi' a virtuous secret; and I hope ye ne'er saw onything in me,
Rachel, that need debar ye frae making yer feelings known to me. Dinna
suppose, love, that I am sae shortsighted but that I hae observed the
tender affection that has been long springing up between ye; and I have
not only observed it, but I have dune sae wi' satisfaction and pleasure;
for I know not a young man that I could have more credit by in calling
him son-in-law. So look up, dear, and tell me at once, am I not
right--would ye not prefer Thomas to any man ye have seen for your
husband?" And she kindly took our daughter by the hand.

"_Yes_, mother!" faltered my sweet, blushing blossom, and she sank her
head on her mother's breast.

"That is right, hinny," said her mother; "but ye micht hae tauld me
before, and it would hae saved ye baith mony a weary hour o' uneasiness,
I hae nae doobt. But ye shall find nae obstacles in yer way; for it is a
match that will gie baith yer faither and me great satisfaction. He has
observed the attentions o' Thomas to ye as weel as mysel, and spoke to
me concerning it this very hour. Indeed, I may just tell ye, that he
desired me to mention the subject to ye; and if I found that yer
feelings were as we supposed, that the marriage should immediately take
place. And he will also take Thomas into partnership."

Rachel, poor thing, grat with joy when her mother told her what I had
said; and when Thomas heard of it, he could have flung himself at my
feet. The upshot was, that, in a few weeks, they were married, and I
took Thomas into partnership with me, which lifted a great burden off my
shoulders--and more particularly as I had recently entered into a canal
speculation, and become one of the principal shareholders and directors
of the company.

For twelve months from the time that Elizabeth went to London, we had
but two letters from her; and one of them was abusing her sister for
what she termed her "grovelling spirit," in marrying her father's clerk,
and bringing disgrace upon the family. When I saw the letter, my answer
back to her was--

"Elizabeth, my woman, do not forget yourself. Your sister has married a
deserving lad; and your mother married a packman."

As to her husband, I never, in my born days, had a scribble from his
pen. But I heard, from people that had business in London, that they
were flinging away the money I had given them with both hands; and that
Elizabeth, so far from being a check upon her husband's extravagance,
thoughtlessly whirled round with him in the vortex of fashionable
dissipation.

The third letter we received from her was written about fourteen months
after her marriage. It was in a strain of the wildest agony. In one
line, she implored to have her full dowery bestowed upon her, and in the
next she demanded it--and again she entreated me to release her "dear
Charles," who, as she termed it, had been imprisoned for the paltry sum
of five hundred pounds. I saw plainly that to do anything for them would
be money thrown away, and only encouraging them in their ridiculous, not
to say wicked, course of fashion and folly. Therefore, in a way, I had
made up my mind to let them feel what distress was, so that they might
come to some kind of an understanding of the value and the use of money,
which it was as clear as the sun at noonday that neither the one nor the
other of them had. But Priscilla was dreadfully distressed; I never had
seen anything put her so much about. We held a sort of family
parliament, consisting of my wife and myself, Rachel and her husband, to
consider what was best to be done. Rachel, poor thing, pled hard for her
sister, which I was pleased to see, though I said nothing; and Thomas
suggested that I should release Charles Austin from prison, and give
Elizabeth two hundred pounds for their immediate wants, and that I would
set up her husband in whatever line of business he might prefer; but
that I neither could nor should keep them in idleness and extravagance.
This advice was agreed to. I released my hopeful son-in-law from prison,
and sent two hundred pounds to my daughter, with a long letter of
admonition, entreaty, and advice.

We heard no more of them for six months; and I wrote to Elizabeth again,
and her mother wrote, and so did Rachel; but we all wrote in vain--our
letters were never noticed. But there was one morning that my son,
Thomas Galloway, came into the parlour where I was sitting, with an open
letter in his hand, and his face was like the face of death. A trembling
seized me all over. I was glad that there was no person beside me, for I
saw that something had happened.

"Thomas!" cried I, as I saw the letter shake in his hand, "is my bairn
dead?"

"No," said he, "but----" And he stood still, and handed me the letter.

I just glanced my eyes on it, and it fell out of my hand. It showed us
that a forgery had been committed upon our house to the extent of ten
thousand pounds!--and, oh horrible!--by my own worthless son-in-law,
Charles Austin! It was a dreadful trial--I knew not how to act. If I
permitted the villain to escape unpunished, I was doing an injustice to
society; and, oh, on the other hand, how was it possible that I could
send to the gallows the husband of my own bairn! Thomas posted off
instantly to London, to see what could be done; and I broke the bitter
tidings in the best manner I could to Rachel and her mother. Their
distress was even greater than mine. Thomas returned in a few days, and
brought us word that the villain had escaped abroad somewhere; but where
he could not learn; and it was supposed he had taken his wife and child
with him--for they had an infant about eight months old.

It was not the loss of the money, nor even the manner in which it had
been lost, that chiefly affected me, but the loss, the ruin, the
disgrace of my bairn. Indeed, it made such an impression upon me, that I
never was the same man afterwards in any business transaction.
Therefore, about twelve months after this melancholy event, I purchased
a property in Dumfries-shire, and Priscilla and myself went to reside
upon it. I intrusted the entire business to the prudence and experience
of Thomas Galloway, and became merely a sleeping partner in the firm.

We had been better than a year in our house in Dumfries-shire--it was
about the Christmas time, and Thomas and Rachel were down seeing us,
with their little son, who was just beginning to run about and climb
upon our knees. It was a remarkably cold and gousty night, and a poor
wandering woman came to our door, with a bairn at her breast, and
another on her back, and begging a morsel, and a shelter for herself and
infants. We were all sitting round the fire, when one of the servants
came up and told us concerning her, asking if they might give her a seat
by the fire. I never liked to harbour beggars, and, says I--

"No: there is a shilling for her; gie her some broken meat, and tell her
to go down to the village--it is only two miles."

"And give her this from me," said Rachel; and Priscilla had her hand in
her pocket, when the lass added--

"Poor creature! I dinna believe she is able to crawl as far as the
village, for baith her and her infants seem starving to death."

"What like is she?" asked Rachel.

"A bonny young creature, ma'am," answered our servant, "but sair, sair
dejected."

"She had better be brought in, father," said my daughter.

"Take her into the kitchen, and let her warm herself and her bairns by
the fire," said Priscilla. And the lass went away down-stairs and
brought her in.

Well, in the course of half-an-hour, Rachel went down to the kitchen, to
see if there was anything that she could do for the poor woman and her
infants--anything that they stood in need of, like--such as a gown, a
frock, a pair of shoes, or the like of those things. But the sound of
her light footsteps was hardly off the stairs, when we heard a scream,
and the exclamations--

"Sister! sister!"

I started to my feet--we all started to our feet; and Priscilla, and
Thomas, and myself looked for a moment at each other, in an agony of
wonder. We hurried down to the kitchen, and there was Rachel weeping on
the bosom of the poor wandering woman--my lost, my ruined Elizabeth! She
sobbed as though her heart would burst, and would have fallen down and
embraced our knees; but her mother pressed her to her bosom, and cried,
"My bairn! my bairn!"

I took her hand, and, bursting into tears, could only sob, "My poor
Betsy!"--and I felt her heart throb, throbbing, as she pressed my hand
to her breast.

Rachel again flung her arms around her neck, and took her and her little
ones from the kitchen, to clothe them with her own apparel, and that of
her child. Poor Priscilla could do nothing but weep; and, when Rachel
had clothed her, and cast aside the rags that covered her, she brought
her into the parlour, where we sat waiting for them; and her mother and
myself again rose and kissed her cheek, and bade her welcome. Throughout
the evening, she sat sobbing and weeping, with her face towards the
ground, and could not be comforted. We were not in a state of feeling to
ask her questions, nor she to answer them.

But, in a few days, she voluntarily unbosomed her griefs to her sister,
who communicated to me her tale of wo. It was evident that she knew
nothing of the crime which her husband had committed, and we agreed that
she should never know, as it would only add a heavier load to her broken
spirit. All she knew was, that he had hastened with her to America,
where he had changed his name, in consequence, as he said, of a property
that had fallen to him in that country. He had long treated her with
coolness and neglect, and prohibited her from writing to us, using
threats that made her tremble for her life, if she attempted to do so.
But, on arriving in America, his indifference gave place to open
brutality; and in a few months he basely deserted her and her infants in
a strange land. She sold the few trinkets and articles of apparel he had
left her; and, with her children in her arms, fainting and
broken-hearted, slowly performed a journey of several hundred miles, to
the nearest seaport, where, after waiting for some months, doling out
the little money she had left to procure food for her children, she at
length found a vessel about to sail for Greenock, and her passage-money
deprived her of her last coin. My poor bairn had been landed in Scotland
without a penny in her pocket, and was begging her way to Manchester,
to throw herself at our feet, when Providence directed her to our door.

Never do I think of the sufferings which my bairn must at this period
have endured, but my heart melts within me, and I think what must have
been the tortures of her proud spirit before she could seek assistance
from the cold and measured hand of charity. Oh, what a struggle there
must have been in her gentle bosom, between the agonies of hunger, the
feelings of the mother, and the shame that burned upon her face, and
deprived her of utterance!--and while her bits of bairnies clung to her
neck, or pulled at her tattered gown, and cried, "Bread, mother--give us
bread!"--while her own heart was fainting within her--how dreadful must
have been the sufferings that my poor Betsy endured! The idea that she
was perishing, and begging like a wretched outcast from door to door,
while we were faring sumptuously every day, brings the tears to my eyes
even to this hour; and often has my heart overflowed in gratitude to the
Power that in mercy directed her steps to her father's house.

From that day, she and her children have never left my roof; and she
shall still share equally with Rachel. About six months ago, I received
a double letter from America. The outer one was from a clergyman, and
that which was enclosed bore the signature of _Charles Austin_. It was
his confession on his death-bed, begging my forgiveness, and the
forgiveness of his wife--my poor injured Elizabeth--for the wrongs and
the cruelties he had committed against her; and declaring that she was
ignorant and innocent of the crime he had committed against me. He also
beseeched me to provide for his children, for their mother's sake, if
they yet lived. It was the letter of a dying penitent. Four thousand of
the sum with which he had absconded he had not squandered, and it he had
directed to be restored to me. The letter from the clergyman announced
the death and burial of the unhappy young man, and that he had been
appointed to carry his dying requests into effect.

I communicated the tidings of his death and his repentance of his
conduct towards her; and she received them meekly, but wept as the
remembrance of young affection touched her heart.

Such, sir, is an account of my speculations, and the losses and crosses
with which they have been attended. But success and happiness have
predominated; and I must say that I am happier now than ever. And at the
season when Rachel and Thomas come down to see us, with the bairns, and
they run romping about with Elizabeth's, who are two interesting
creatures, and three or four will be crying at once, "Granny this, and
granny that," I believe there is not a happier auld woman in Britain
than my Priscilla, who first enabled me to speculate to some purpose.




THE SEA-STORM.


It was a beautiful, calm afternoon in summer; the surface of the Solway
was as smooth as glass, for it was just high-water, and there was
scarcely wind enough to dimple its surface, or to raise the dense train
of smoke which the Liverpool steamer left behind her, as she came
rapidly and steadily bearing down from Port Carlisle towards Annan
Water-foot, where a crowd of passengers were anxiously expecting her
arrival. The air was so still that the sound of her paddles, and the
rush of water from her bows, were distinctly heard a great distance, and
the toll of the bell of Bowness Church fell full and clear upon the ears
of the dweller on the Scottish coast. Here and there a solitary sea-gull
soared lazily over his shadow in the water, and then bending downwards,
dipped his wing in the smooth stream, rising up again with a sharp,
quick turn, and a shrill scream, which sounded rather ominously,
particularly as there was a kind of bright, hazy indistinctness hanging
over the whole scene, and a close, suffocating oppression in the
atmosphere, foretelling change and storm. The wooden jetty at the
water-foot was crowded with people--some about to embark for Liverpool,
others attracted by curiosity, and by the beauty of the afternoon. On
the road near the jetty lay a large flock of sheep, and several cattle,
ready for embarkation; and Ambrose Clarke's Dumfries coach, and other
conveyances, stood at hand, ready to transfer their freights into the
steamboat. It was altogether a beautiful and exciting scene; bright and
joyous summer seemed to have shed its cheering influence over the spirit
of man, as well as over the face of nature; and, amid the throng around
me, I did not remark a single unhappy countenance. At length the
steamboat bore up for the mouth of the Annan, and, after a great deal of
manoeuvring with the paddles, was laid safely alongside the jetty.
Then came the tug of war, and the peaceful quiet of the calm afternoon
was disturbed by the loud and various sounds of embarkation. The
bleating of sheep, the bellowing of cattle, the loud shouts of their
drivers; the elbowing and jostling of passengers of various classes
making a rush on board, dragging after them their trunks or
portmanteaus, regardless of legs or elbows in their progress; and, over
and above all, the loud, deafening, rushing, roaring noise of the steam,
like the voice of some giant bellowing to them all to be as quick as
possible--converted the late quiet scene into one of Babel-like
confusion. At length the sheep were comfortably wedged up together, and
the cattle secured; and then the bell rang as a warning to those who
were going to stay on board, and to those who were staying on board too
long, to take their departure.

While standing on the jetty, I had exchanged a few commonplace remarks
with a frank, middle-aged, gentlemanly-looking man standing near me,
who, like myself, was _en route_ for Liverpool; and when the steamboat
was fairly off, I made up to my new acquaintance again, and we had a
long and amusing conversation together. To those who are fond of
studying human character, and who derive amusement from observing its
numerous varieties, a public conveyance of any kind is an interesting
_study_--a cabinet in which they may chance to meet with strange and
rare specimens to add to their collection of human originals. I do not
envy the man who seems to think the warning bell of the steamboat, or
the shutting of the door of the stage-coach, a signal to him to close
the door of his mouth and ears; and who can doze away in a corner,
uninterested and uninteresting, and leaves the conveyance, as he entered
it, dull and heavy, uncomfortable and discontented himself, and a
species of incubus upon the spirits of his companions.

We had only left our port about two hours, when the sky began to
overcast, and heavy clouds rose slowly from the horizon. The wind seemed
to be awaiting in silence, and reserving its strength for the
approaching conflict of the elements, for there was not a breath
stirring; the sea-birds shrieked around us, as if to warn us of
approaching danger; and the smoke from the engine-fire hung heavily over
the deck, and covered the water around us, as if to hide us from the
coming storm. At length the forerunner of the _squall_ appeared in the
shape of a broad, bright, sudden blaze of lightning, followed by a
rattling peal of thunder, which seemed to have burst open the floodgates
of heaven, for the rain descended in torrents from the overcharged
clouds, while flash followed flash, and peal followed peal, in rapid
succession. A light breeze soon springing up from the south, the flashes
of lightning became less and less vivid; and we heard, afar off, the low
growling of the thunder, as the clouds slowly and unwillingly retreated
before the wind, which now freshened up rapidly. In a short time it blew
a gale, and occasioned such a heavy sea, that most of the passengers
were driven below by the violent motion of the vessel. I, being an old
stager, preferred the cool breeze on deck, to the close, confined air of
the cabin; and, to my great surprise, saw my new and agreeable
acquaintance walking up and down the deck as unconcernedly as if the
boat were lying at the jetty.

"You seem to have excellent _sea-legs_, sir," said I; "you walk the deck
with the confidence of one to whom such unsteady footing is familiar;
you do not look like a sailor, but still I am greatly mistaken if this
is the first time you have been in a gale of wind."

"You are right," replied he, "in both your conjectures: I am not a
sailor by profession, and I have been in many a gale. I owe the
greatest happiness of my life to a storm and its consequences."

"Indeed!" said I; "if it is not asking too much, will you favour me with
an account of the adventure to which you allude?--it will serve to
beguile the time till we turn in."

"With all my heart," said he; "and with the greater pleasure, because I
perceive you are a sailor, and will understand me. If you find me
tedious, remember you have yourself to blame for the infliction:"--

When I was a youngster, I was sent out by my friends to join a
mercantile house in Bombay, of which my father had formerly been a
partner. After labouring for some years as clerk, I was admitted as
junior member of the firm, and being considered a stirring man of
business, I was sent by the heads of the house as supercargo of one of
their ships trading to the Straits and China. It was in this way I
acquired the sea-legs on which you have been pleased to compliment me;
and, what was still more to the purpose, I managed well for my
employers, and added considerably to my own resources.

Fortune smiled upon all my private mercantile speculations; and, in the
course of a few years, I amassed what I considered a comfortable
competency. As my constitution, although it had been severely tried, was
still tolerably unimpaired, I thought it wiser to return home at once,
to enjoy the moderate fruits of my labour, than to risk my health in the
endeavour to add to my means. I accordingly retired from the firm, wound
up my affairs, transferred my money to the English funds, and took my
passage in a country ship to China. From thence I embarked in a fine
Indiaman of 1000 tons burden, called the Columbine, bound to England,
and to touch at the Cape of Good Hope. Our passage was quick and
pleasant; and I greatly enjoyed our fortnight's stay at the Cape, where
our party was increased, by the addition of a lady and gentleman to our
cabin circle. The gentleman was a retired surgeon of the Indian army,
and one of the funniest little Sancho Panza figures I ever beheld. When
he first stepped over the gangway, there was a general titter among the
crew at his strange appearance. He was dressed in a little scarlet
shell-jacket; a pair of wide Indian-made _continuations_ of nankeen,
with stockings as nearly as possible of the same colour; a little black
velvet hunting-cap, stuck on one side over his round, fat, rosy face; a
walking-cane in one hand (a walking-cane on board a ship!); and a
leather bottle, suspended by a belt from his shoulders. On further
acquaintance, I found he was as odd in character as in appearance. He
was a regular old bachelor, fidgety and particular. His countenance
bespoke him a lover of the good things of this life--and it did not
belie him, for dearly did he enjoy them all; nothing came amiss to him,
that came in a _perishable_ shape, provided it had all the "appliances
and means to boot" of the culinary art. It was really quite a treat to
hear the smack of genuine pleasure (a kind of _parting-salute_, a token
of good-will and kindly feeling) which followed the engulfment of every
mouthful of the captain's excellent claret--and his mouth, like the
Irishman's, held exactly a glass; and then his little dark eye twinkled
with anticipated delight, as it wandered discursively over the cuddy
table, when the covers were raised at dinner. And yet with all this
spice of epicurism and apparent selfishness, he was liberal,
kind-hearted, and obliging. He had been so long absent from home that he
had become completely _Indianised_; and his strange opinions and
expectations respecting England, were in the highest degree ludicrous.

The lady was a young widow, who had accompanied her husband, a Madras
civilian, many years her senior, to the Cape, in the hope of
re-establishing his health; but it was too late--the hand of death was
upon him, and he had been taken from her about six months before our
arrival. She remained at the Cape, waiting for expected letters from
Madras, and then determined upon proceeding to Europe. She came on board
in mourning and in tears: the sight of the ship seemed to have
re-awakened the memory of him she regretted; and she did not for some
time take her place at the cuddy-table, nor appear among the other
passengers. Now and then, in the calm moonlight evenings, she came
stealing up like a shadow, and wandered listlessly up and down the deck,
leaning on the captain's arm, or bending over the bulwark of the poop,
gazing mournfully on the waves below. Time, with the absence of all
objects that could revive her painful recollections, soon had the effect
of soothing her grief; and after we had crossed the _Line_, she was
persuaded to join the cuddy party. She was young, and without being
decidedly beautiful, was one of the most interesting-looking females I
had ever met with. There was an air of mild, uncomplaining resignation
in her look and manner, which irresistibly attracted sympathy and
admiration. During the bustling scenes of my life in various parts of
the East, I had met with all varieties and shades of beauty, and,
strange to say, had passed unharmed and "fancy-free" through the ordeal
of whole constellations of bright and beaming eyes. Love had hitherto
been a stranger to me; I had read of it, talked of it, heard of it, but
had never felt its overpowering influence; and I had begun to doubt
whether I had a heart at all, at least for the tender passion. But I now
soon found that I had been mistaken, and that I had feelings, and tender
ones too, as well as those whom I had been in the habit of ridiculing
for them. I could hardly analyse them at first, they were so various and
contradictory. I began with admiration of the widow's expressive
countenance and gentle manner. I was loud in her praise to every one who
would listen to me: "If ever there was an angel on earth" (afloat I
should have said), "she is one." I eagerly sought every opportunity of
throwing myself in her way, till I happened to hear one of the officers
calling me "the widow's shadow." Then, all at once, I felt confused
whenever her eyes met mine; the warm blood rushed to my cheeks, and a
flutter of nerve came over me, whenever she spoke to me. I gradually
withdrew from her society; lost my appetite; became fond of solitary
walks; and was seized with a most extraordinary oppression of the lungs,
which obliged me to sigh continually.

"Holloa, Wentworth!" said the officer of the deck to me one night, "what
is the matter with you? There was a sigh like the blowing of a grampus!"

He was an old friend of mine, and as kind-hearted a rough diamond as
ever breathed.

"I don't know, Wildman," replied I; "I'm afraid my liver is terribly out
of order."

"Liver!" said he, with a loud laugh--"tell that to the marines; I
suspect it's the heart that's out of trim more than the liver." And so
saying, he walked forward to hail the foretop, and left me to my
meditations. He left me an enlightened man; his words had flashed
conviction on my mind.

"And so," muttered I, "I am actually in love! How strange that the
_novelty_ of my emotions should so long have blinded me to their
_nature_! Heigh-ho! But why the plague should I sigh about it? Love! No,
no; I'm sure I'm going to have an attack of liver. I wonder if she likes
_me_?"

"Why don't you ask her?" said my sailor friend, who had returned
unobserved to his place at my elbow, and had overheard the last part of
my soliloquy. "Come, come, Wentworth," said he, seeing that I looked
rather annoyed, "don't be angry with me; you have been like the bird
that hides its head in the sand, and fancies no one can see it; but I
have long observed your growing partiality for the fair widow, and I
admire your taste--she is a prize worth trying for. Take a friend's
advice, and, if you are in a marrying mood, put your modesty under
hatches, and make a bold stroke for a wife at once."

"Oh, nonsense, Wildman!--how can you talk so foolishly? She is in such
affliction! I could not dream of following your advice; it would be
indelicate in the extreme at present."

"Ay, it is too soon to come to close quarters yet; but there is nothing
like laying an anchor to windward in time. Play at long balls with her,
my boy. Stand in a corner, and gaze in admiring silence; send a few
well-aimed die-away glances through her, and play off a sigh or two now
and then, backed by a little sentiment. Why, man, a broadside of such
red-hot sighs as yours would riddle her heart, and make her strike her
colours at once, if you had but courage to lay her alongside."

Whether it was that I tacitly followed my friend's advice, or that my
unconscious silent attentions had made the impression he anticipated, it
so came to pass that, in a short time, the fair widow seemed to feel a
pleasure in my society beyond that of any other on board. A slight
degree of mutual good understanding soon ripens into intimacy on board a
ship, where circumstances throw people into such close and constant
communion; the flimsy veil of mere artificial politeness is soon seen
through, and the character of each individual shows itself in its true
colours. The more I saw of hers, the more I admired it; she was so free
from the petty vanities of the sex, and so sweet and equable in her
temper. She was the daughter of a highly respectable physician in the
west of England, whose professional income had enabled him to bestow on
all his family a liberal education, and to bring them up suitably to
their apparent prospects, and to the station he expected them to fill
in society. Her elder brother had gone out to India in a mercantile
capacity, and had returned home to recruit his health in his native
vale. During the interval of his visit, his father, who had long been in
declining health, died, and, contrary to expectation, left his children
but poorly provided for; and the brother, after having arranged the
family affairs, and placed the juniors under the guardianship of an old
and tried friend, persuaded his sister to accompany him to the East.
When they arrived at Madras, my fair friend, whom I shall call Emily,
was not long without admirers. Among others was an elderly civilian,
high in the service, of great wealth and irreproachable character. He
urged his suit with the greatest assiduity; and, notwithstanding Emily's
evident coldness, he laid his heart and fortune at her feet.

All Emily's friends were urgent with her not to reject so advantageous a
settlement. Her brother _said_ nothing on the subject; but she had
learned to read his wishes in his countenance. She thought of the almost
destitute state of her family at home, and of the opportunities which
the wealth and liberality of so excellent a man might afford her of
benefiting them; and, after a long struggle of contending feeling, she
consented to become the wife of Mr Stacey. He was for two years all he
had promised--affectionate, considerate, and attentive to her slightest
wishes. She respected and esteemed him, and, when she closed his eyes in
a foreign land, she mourned for him as a sincere and valued friend. He
had left her by his will the sole and uncontrolled command of his large
fortune; and she was now returning home to comfort the declining years
of her mother, and rejoicing in the thought that her wealth would enable
her effectually to promote the interests of the junior members of her
family.

But I must proceed to other matters. Our passage from the Cape had been
a long, but to me a most delightful, one, and we were expecting to
_make_ the Lizard next day. The captain was very anxious to have a good
_landfall_, as his best chronometer had met with an accident a few days
before, and he was rather doubtful as to its correctness. The breeze was
light and fair, and the waves were breaking short and crisp, curling
their little white crests as they rose and fell in rapid succession; but
there was a long, heavy under-swell from the southward, which gave rise
to many an ominous shake of the head among the experienced hands on
board. For my part, I dreaded no danger, and I enjoyed to the utmost the
really beautiful scene around me. There was nothing, to be sure, to be
seen but sea and sky; but it was beautiful and boundless nature--nature
in her solitude and strength. There were no crowds of human beings
jostling and hurrying past each other, as in the haunts of man and of
art; but there was the glorious sun, shining in almost unclouded
splendour--the sea, with its playful waves dancing and smiling in the
sunb

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