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Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 14

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Title: Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 14

Compiler: John Mackay Wilson

Editor: Alexander Leighton


        
Release date: October 27, 2010 [eBook #34151]
                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 14 ***




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. XIV.

LONDON:

WALTER SCOTT. 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE

AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

1885.




CONTENTS.


THE COVENANTING FAMILY, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

THE OLD CHRONICLER'S TALES, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_

    THE PRINCE OF SCOTLAND

RETRIBUTION, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_

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

    THE ENTHUSIAST
    TREES AND BURNS
    KIRKYARDS

POLWARTH ON THE GREEN, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

THE FESTIVAL, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_

A LEGEND OF HOLYROOD, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_

THE RESTORED SON, _(OLIVER RICHARDSON)_

THE SKEAN DHU, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_

THE SEVEN YEARS' DEARTH, _(JOHN HOWELL_)

THE ORDER OF THE GARTER. A STORY OF WARK CASTLE, _(JOHN MACKAY
WILSON)_




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




THE COVENANTING FAMILY.


Thirty years ago, there dwelt an old man named Simon Cockburn, who
followed the avocations of parish teacher and precentor. Every Saturday
afternoon, after he had washed his hands from the labours of the week,
he went down to the public-house of the village in which he dwelt, and
took his seat by the parlour window or fire (according as it was summer
or winter), to read the newspaper, and see, as he said, "what country
Bonaparte had conquered _this_ week;" and, as Simon read of some new
achievement of "the terrible Corsican," as he called him, he was wont to
lay down the newspaper, take off his spectacles, and say unto himself
aloud, "But if the chield should come owre to Britain, surely he will
never be guilty o' the cruelty and folly o' doing onything to the parish
schoolmasters. He owes so much to learning himsel, that he will
certainly respect those who impart it to others."

But, if a stranger chanced to be in the room when he had glanced over
the news, and as he began to warm and wax mighty over his single pint
(or mutchkin) bottle of strong ale, Simon's wonted taciturnity gave way
to a flow of speech; and seldom had the conversation continued long,
when he invariably inquired, "Did ever ye hear o' the saying, by what
law the bishops were expelled from Scotland?"

The answer being in the negative, he continued--"Weel, it was neither
by civil law nor by canon law, but by _Dunse Law_!"

"By Dunse Law, old man!" inquired his auditors; "why, what law is that?"

If ye never heard o' it (answered he), it is worth your while going to
see it. Ye may become acquainted wi' it without paying a fee to a
writer. Dunse Law, sir, is a bonny round hill, which rises behind the
honest town o' that name. Ye have a magnificent view upon the top o' it.
In my opinion, it is equal to the view from the Calton at Edinburgh; and
some o' my scholars that have been travellers inform me that the view
from the Calton is every way equal to the far-famed view in the Bay o'
Naples. Ye have the whole Merse lying beneath your feet, like a
beautifully-laid-out and glorious garden--the garden o' some mighty
conqueror, that had converted a province into a pleasure-ground, and
walled it round wi' mountains. There ye behold the Blackadder wimpling
along; the Whitadder curling round below you, and as far as ye can
see--now glittering in a haugh, or buried among woody braes. Before ye,
also, ye behold the Cheviots and the Northumberland hills, wi' a broad
country, the very sister o' the Merse, lying below them, and which runs
to Tweedside, where they stand and look at each other! Down the middle
distance runs the Tweed, shining out here and there, like an illuminated
lake, and receiving the Border rivers o' both countries into its bosom,
just as a hen gathers its young under its wings. To the right hand,
also, ye behold Roxburghshire, wi' the dimness o' distance, like a thin
veil thrown owre its beauty, and its hills a' before ye. Ye see also the
smoke arising from towns, villages, and hamlets, and hovering owre them
in the midway air, like almost transparent clouds. Gentlemen's seats,
and the plantations around them, lie scattered owre the scene;
farmhouses that lairds might live in, and stackyards that no other
country could produce. On each elbow ye have the purple Lammermuir,
where a hundred hirsels graze; and to the east, the mighty ocean, wi'
the ships sailing upon it, where, wi' their white sails spread to the
sun, they look from the distance just like sea-birds poising themselves
on their out-stretched wings owre the deep. Ye see also the islands that
rise wondrously from its bosom--fragments which the great waters have
stolen from the dry land, or the dry land from the waters. But I ought
to have mentioned that, before ye, also, ye see the ruins o' castles,
some o' them still majestic, which changed masters a hundred times, as
victory chanced to decide for the English bow or the Scottish spear, and
which yet bear manifestations o' having been places o' strength and
terror. All these things, sir, and mony mair, do ye see from Dunse
Law--for I have described it very imperfectly; but I hope I have said
aneugh to convince ye that it is no everyday view. And now, I shall
endeavour to explain to ye the meaning o' the saying, that the bishops
were expelled from Scotland by _Dunse Law_.

When the first and unfortunate King Charles had the infatuation--and I
may also say the cruelty--to attempt to bend and twist the consciences
o' our forefaithers, just as if they had been willows in the hands o' a
basketmaker, to make them swallow the service-book, and to clothe and
feed bishops, and bow their heads to them, they, like men who regarded
liberty o' conscience, the freedom o' their country, and, above all, the
right o' worshipping their Maker as he had commanded them in his Word,
to be dearer than life--when the king caused his troopers to ride
rough-shod out owre Scotland, and to awe them into obedience with the
naked sword--they also laid their hands upon their swords, ready to
resist, and, flying to the hills, they congregated together a mighty
army.

The watchword o' the heroic army was, "_For Christ's Crown and the
Covenant_;" and, having congregated together to the number o' many
thousands, they, in accordance with the wish o' the Tables and chief
men, were placed under the command o' the famous General Leslie. When,
therefore, the king heard o' these things, he set out from London
towards Scotland at the head o' his gay cavaliers and valorous men o'
war, doubting not but that, at the glance o' his royal eyes, the
rebellious Scottish peasants would be stricken with awe and reverence,
lay down their arms, and bend their necks before him. Now, General
Leslie was an old man, and a little man; but he had a wise head, and,
like Bonaparte, he had a mighty spirit in his wee breast: and when he
heard that the king was on his way to Scotland, at the head o' a regular
army, he resolved to meet him face to face; and, for that purpose, the
army o' the Covenant marched forward to Dunglass.

But when Charles learned from his spies accounts of the numbers, the
discipline, and enthusiasm of the Covenanters, his heart failed him; and
when he looked on his own army, and perceived that they neither had zeal
in his cause, nor discipline, nor numbers, to enable them to contend
against the army that he was leading them to oppose, he lowered his tone
marvellously. He found that the divine prerogative which surrounds kings
is but a broken hedge, owre which every outlaw may trample, where the
hearts and affections o' the people dinna form an outer bulwark around
it. And though, a few days before, he had denounced all the inhabitants
o' Scotland as traitors, and threatened, in the arrogance and confidence
o' his heart, to deal with them as such, and had even given orders to
his generals to wreak their vengeance on the rebels, he was now glad to
send Lord Holland, with a trumpeter, to the camp o' the Covenanters at
Dunglass, to proclaim to them that he was willing to grant them all
their demands, and that their country should be free, provided they
would profess their allegiance to him, and not approach within ten miles
o' the Border.

Now, sir, the Covenanters were by no means republicans in their
principles: all they wanted was freedom--freedom o' mind and body; the
right o' worshipping in the manner most agreeable to their conscience;
and o' not being compelled to unbutton their pockets to pay for objects
o' which they disapproved. They had a sort o' liking for Charlie. His
faither was a Scotchman, and had been born among them; and they were
anxious to like him, if he would only put it in their power to do it.
They were loth to draw the sword against him; and, when they did do it,
it was for conscience sake. They therefore accepted his conditions
readily; for he promised fairly, and as much, if not more, than they
expected to wring from him by the slaughter o' his troops, and steeping
the land wi' the blood o' its inhabitants.

When Charles, therefore, heard o' the readiness with which they had
agreed to his proposal, in the vanity and delusion o' his spirit, he
attributed it to his great power and glory as a king; and he repented
that he had not offered to them more haughty and less righteous terms.
But those that he had proposed to them he had no design to keep.

He therefore marched forward his army, and encamped on the south bank o'
the Tweed, above Berwick, at a place which historians call the
Birks--which I take to be the fields lying between West Ord and Norham
Castle. Here he soon gave proofs that, having come from the Thames to
the Tweed, it was his resolution not to return until he had wreaked his
vengeance on the people o' Scotland, whom he still regarded as rebels.

When, therefore, General Leslie heard o' the king's doings, he gave
orders to his army to march towards Dunse.

But, before proceeding farther, I must make mention o' a Covenanting
family, who are to be more particularly the objects o' my present
discourse. At that time, there resided in the Castle Wynd in Dunse a
singular and godly woman, one Alice Cockburn (or, as some called her,
Weather-burn, that being her maiden name). She was the wife o' a devout
and worthy man, one Alexander Cockburn, who was the proprietor o' a
croft in the neighbourhood; and they had five sons, all men grown. Their
names were John, James, Andrew, William; and the youngest, who was
nineteen, was called Alexander, after his faither. I hae mentioned Alice
first, not only because her name will be hereafter mentioned in this
narrative, but also because, while we often speak in triumph o' what our
faithers did in securing our civil and religious liberty, we forget to
do justice to our mothers, who were even more enthusiastic in the great
and glorious cause than our faithers were. They fired their zeal--they
first lifted up a voice against tyranny--and, while our faithers fought
in the field, they bound up their bleeding wounds, brought water from
the brooks to cool their parched lips, and were purveyors to the army,
supplying them with clothing and with food.

It was on the evening o' the 5th o' June, 1639, that Alice Cockburn
hastened into her house, exclaiming, "Rise, husband!--rise, sons!--arm
yourselves, and let us awa to Dunse Law; for there is a sicht to be seen
there the nicht, such as never before was witnessed in a' broad
Scotland, nor yet in a' Christendie. Haste ye! gird your swords upon
your thighs, and awa to assist the armies o' the Kirk and our country to
do battle against the Philistines."

"Tell us what ye mean, Alice," said her husband. "The king and his
cavaliers are still near Berwick; I hae heard naething o' our people
having left Dunglass, and there can be nae battle on Dunse Law the
nicht--therefore, what is it ye allude to?"

"The king may be whar ye say," replied she; "but General Leslie and our
men are encamping upon the Law; and they are a host whose numbers seem
countless as the sand upon the sea-shore. Our oppressors will be
consumed as stubble before them, and tyrants will become their
captives. Haste ye, sons; arm yersels to be ready for the fight that is
to fight. Enrol yersels in the army o' the righteous, for the sake o'
the truth, for the sake o' conscience and yer country. And, on my
death-bed, if I be deprived o' every other consolation, I will still be
borne up by the secret joy, that my five sons and my half-marrow drew
their swords, and fought side by side, for the cause o' the Covenant."

"Alice," said her husband, "sae lang as I hae ye to stir me up, and mak
me mair fervent in the great cause, which it is our duty to support with
our whole might and our whole strength, ye shall never hear it said that
Sandy Cockburn shunned the brunt o' danger, or that his sword returned
empty when he met wi' an oppressor weapon to weapon. My richt hand is
aulder and stiffer than it has been; but, when ance suppled, it has lost
but little o' its strength--and I think I can answer for our sons."

"Ye may do that safely," said John, their eldest; "there shall nae want
o' daring be fixed to the name o' Cockburn."

His three younger brothers, James, Andrew, and William, agreed with him,
and spoke in the same manner; but Alexander, the youngest, and the
faither's namesake, though generally esteemed the boldest amongst them,
hastened not to provide himself with arms, as his brothers did, but he
sat with his arms folded upon his bosom, and was silent.

"Alexander," said his mother, "wherefore do ye sit wi' yer arms faulded,
and look like ane that wishes to conceal the word _coward_ written on
his breast?"

"Nae man, no even my brothers, durst ca' me a coward, mother," said he;
"but I canna help thinking that this is an unnatural war, in which
freends and kindred will plunge their swords into each other. And there
are some who would be fighting against us whose swords I would rather
feel pierced through my body, than raise mine against them."

"Oh, wae's me!" she cried, "am I to be disgraced--is the truth to be
deserted by my youngest and dearest--the Benjamin o' my age? Where,
laddie--where are a' the precepts I endeavoured to inculcate into you
now? But I see how it is: it a' arises out o' yer fondness for the
dauchter o' that enemy o' our cause--Robert Stuart. Is there naebody ye
can see to like but her? Her father is a spy and a persecutor, a
defender o' the supremacy o' bishops, an advocate o' the service-book,
and an upholder o' the absolute power o' the king. She is o' the same
spirit and principles as her faither is; and, in that respect, she is
more to be commended than ye are, for she has hearkened to the voice o'
her parents, and has not the sin o' disobedience on her head. Have ye
forgot the command, 'Be not unequally yoked?' Rise, Alexander, I command
ye, get ready yer arms, and gae wi' yer faither, yer brothers, and yer
mother to the camp."

"Na, na, guidwife," said her husband, "that maunna be; for liberty o'
conscience am I buckling on my sword; and I winna see the conscience o'
my ain bairn suffer wrang. If Alexander winna gang wi' us, a' that I ask
o' him is, that he winna draw his sword against the cause in defence o'
which his faither and his brothers go forth, ready to lay down their
lives, if they be required."

"Faither," cried Alexander, springing up, and grasping his hand, "I will
never fight against ye!--never! I stand by your side to the last, or die
by it, and my arm shall be ready to defend ye! Where you go, I will go!"

"That is right, Alexander, my man," said his eldest brother; "I kenned
there was mettle in the callant, and principle, too--though I must say
that he is rather unpleasantly situated, and I canna say that I would
like his case to be my ain."

His arms being sought out also, the father and his sons were accoutred
and ready to depart, when Alice again said--"We have not yet prepared
all that we ought to do. We are but stewards o' the inheritance
intrusted to our hands in this world; and to the sacred cause in which
ye are about to engage, it is our duty also to contribute liberally from
the substance with which we have been blessed. Now, what say ye,
guidman--do ye think that we could afford to take to the camp, and
present before the general, six sheep, six firlots o' wheat, and six
measures o' meal? Have ye faith to venture sae far?"

"Alice," replied he, "can ye doubt me? If it were necessary, I would
consider it my duty not only to part wi' my stock to the last sheep, and
wi' my corn to the last firlot--but I would sell the croft also, and
part wi' the money, rather than see one who has drawn his sword in
defence o' the Covenant and his country want."

"Ye mak my heart glad," answered Alice; "and now let us kneel and give
thanks that we have lived to see the day when the armies o' the Kirk are
gathered together, powerful as those which David led against the
Philistines."

And Alexander Cockburn and his family raised the voice o' thanksgiving,
after which they knelt down together, and he prayed aloud. When they
arose, each man girded his sword upon his thigh, and the father
commanded that a horse should be harnessed, which was laden with the
wheat and the meal for the army of the Covenant. The sheep they drove on
before them, and Alice accompanied her husband and her sons.

I must now, however, take notice o' Mr Stuart, o' whom particular
mention was made by Alice, as being an enemy to the Covenant, and a
persecutor o' its adherents. He was a man o' considerable substance, and
lived about midway between Dunse and Polwarth. His daughter, to whom
young Alexander Cockburn was attached, and whom his mother cast up to
him, was called Flora. She was at that period a bonny young creature o'
eighteen; her hair was like the yellow gowd when the sun shines on't,
and her een were a brighter and a safter blue than the sky on a summer
morning, when there isna a cloud in a' the heavens. She was tall and
gentle-looking, and her waist ye might hae spanned wi' your hand. It was
wranging her to ca' her a persecutor; for though she was an advocate for
Episcopacy, as her faither had taught her to be, there wasna a sentiment
in her heart that could hae wranged a worm.

Young Alexander and Flora had become very early acquainted wi' each
other, and as early intimate. They were yet but bairns in a manner; but,
young as they were, they had a happy _langsyne_, on which they could
look back, in which they had

          "Paidel'd in the burn,
    And pu'd the gowans fine."

They had been playmates from the time that they could toddle hand in
hand thegither; and the hands that they had joined to help each other to
run when but infants, they now wished to join for good and a', that they
might journey pleasantly together through life. Their hearts had become
insensibly twisted around each other, and they had been so long
entwined, that they had become as one.

But I must now inform you of the arrival of Alice, her husband, and her
sons, at Dunse Law. When they arrived at the camp, Alexander the elder
inquired of one who seemed, by the orders which he was giving, to be an
officer, or a man in authority, if he could see the general; for the
officers in the army of the Covenant wore the plain blue bonnet, and the
blue riband streaming from it, without any distinction from the men in
the ranks; and when the men lay upon the bare ground, so did they.

"Ye seem to come wi' a free-will offering," said the officer; "and not
only wi' an offering o' provision, but, judging by your soldierly array,
ye come to fight the battles o' conscience, the Covenant, and our
country."

"We do," said the father; "my five sons and mysel, and these sheep and
provisions, are the offerings o' my children's mother; which, my lord,
or whatever ye may be, wi' her husband and five sons thrown into the
scale, makes nae sma' sacrifice."

"Ye speak truly, worthy friend," said the officer; "we rejoice in such
devotedness towards our glorious purpose. It is a volunteer cause, and
Heaven affords us assurance of victory. Yonder, see ye, is the general
riding round the tents on the black horse; go to him before he take up
his quarters in the castle for the night. He will give ye a gracious
welcome."

"Weel, that is very odd," said the senior Alexander Cockburn, gazing
upon the general with a look o' surprise. "He is a wee, auld-looking
body. My opinion o' him was, that he would be something like what we
understand Sir William Wallace to have been--a man before whom his
enemies fled, at the shaking o' his spear."

"O Alexander!" said Alice, "hae ye forgot yoursel athegither, or rather
hae ye forgot your Bible? Do ye no remember the purposes for which the
weak things o' this earth were chosen?"

"True, Alice," said he; "I stand corrected." And the father, the mother,
their armed sons, and the sheep and provisions which they brought with
them, were placed before General Leslie.

"Well, good folk," inquired the general, "what would ye wi' me?"

"We come, sir," said the elder Cockburn, lifting his bonnet, "to offer
you our best services o' heart and hand, and to--to----"

Here old Alexander, who, though one o' the most rigid and unbending men
o' the Covenant, was withal a man o' singular modesty, and, in some
respects, o' bashfulness, began to falter; on which Alice, taking upon
herself the office o' speaker, began to say--"Yes, your
excellency--that is, your generalship--we are come----"

But her husband gently pulled her by the sleeve, whispering, "Haud sae,
Alice, just let me gang on--ye ken it behoves a woman to be silent, and
in an assembly to open not her mouth."

Though an obedient and an affectionate wife, this was a point which she
probably would have been disposed to argue with him; but the general,
interfering, said, "Wi' your good leave, sir, I shall hear your wife.
Scotland owes a debt to its wives and mothers, which, as a nation, they
should be proud to acknowledge; they are manifesting a godly enthusiasm,
which is far, far beyond the boasted virtue o' the mothers and maidens
o' Rome, when they saved their city from destruction. Speak on, good
woman."

Alice, thus emboldened, proceeded--"Weel, sir, as my husband has said,
he and our sons have come to offer you their best services o' heart and
hand; and o' the little we can spare, we hae brought ye six sheep, six
firlots o' wheat, and six measures o' meal. The latter is but a poor
offering; but when, as a wife, I present to ye my husband, and as a
mother, my five sons, I trust that what we bring will not be altogether
unacceptable; while it shall be my care to provide means at least for
their support; so that, if they be not of assistance to ye, they at
least shall not be a burden."

The old general dismounted, and took Alice by the hand. "While Scotland
can boast o' such wives and mothers as you," said he--"and I am proud to
say there are many such--the enemies o' the Covenant will never be able
to prevail against us."

Alexander Cockburn and his five sons then began to erect a sort o' half
hut, half tent, beside those o' the rest o' the army, that they might be
always in readiness. And, oh, sir, at that period, Dunse Law presented
one o' the grandest sights that ever the eyes o' man were witness to. On
the side o' that hill were encamped four-and-twenty thousand men.
Lowest down, lay the tents o' the nobles and the great officers, their
tops rising like pyramids; before them were placed forty pieces o'
cannon; and between them were the tents o' their captains; and from
every captain's tent streamed a broad blue flag, on which was inscribed
the words I have already quoted--"FOR CHRIST'S CROWN AND THE COVENANT."
Higher up the hill were the straw-covered and turf-built huts o' the
soldiers: and from the rising o' the sun until its going down, ye
wouldna hae heard an oath or a profane expression amongst those
four-and-twenty thousand men; but, on the contrary, hundreds o' the
ministers o' the gospel were there, each man with his Bible in his hand,
and his sword girt upon his thigh, ready to lead his followers to the
battle, or to lay down his life in testimony o' the truth o' the
doctrines which he preached. Morning and night there was public worship
throughout the camp, and the drum summoned the army to prayers and to
hearing the Word, while the services were attended by all, from the
general down to the humblest recruit that had but newly entered the
ranks. At every hour in the day, also, from some part o' the camp or
other, the sounds o' praise and prayer were heard. Every man in that
army was an enthusiast; but he had a glorious cause to excite his
enthusiasm--the cause o' his Creator, and his country's liberty--ay, and
the liberty, the rights, and privileges o' posterity also. Yes, sir, I
say o' posterity; for it is to those men that we are indebted for the
blessings and the freedom which we enjoy beyond the people o' other
countries; though there are men who dared to call them _mere
fanatics_!--fanatics, indeed!--but, oh, they are fanatics that saved
their country--that braved oppression--that defied it even to death, and
that wi' their own blood wrote the irrevocable charter o' our liberty!
If they were fanatics, they were such as every nation in the world would
be proud to call its sons, and would glory to have possessed. They are
fanatics, if they must be called so, whose deeds, whose characters,
whose firmness o' purpose, the integrity o' whose principles, and whose
matchless courage, with the sublime height to which they carried their
devotion, despising imprisonment, pain, and death, render us unworthy o'
being numbered as their descendants. I canna endure to hear the men,
whose graves are the foundations on which are built our civil and
religious liberties, so spoken o'; I winna see their graves--I winna
hear their memories profaned. More fit we were to set up a national
monument in remembrance o' them.

On the day after the army o' the Covenant encamped on Dunse Law, the
king held a grand review o' his army by Tweedside; but just as the
review was over--and when the king and his courtiers were retiring, to
sit down to their wine, and their feasts o' fat things, and his poor
half-hungered soldiers to kitchen out a broken biscuit or a piece o'
bare bannock (while the Covenanters were living like gentlemen on
wheaten bread and flesh-meat every day)--some o' the Loyalists, that had
clearer een than others, observed the great camp upon Dunse Law, and the
hundred banners waving in the wind, and ran to communicate what they had
observed to the king. Charles, to do him justice, was a canny, silly
sort o' a body, but just infatuated wi' his ideas about his
prerogative--by which he meant absolute power--and his foolish desire to
force everybody to swallow a bishop, gown, sleeves, and all! However,
when he heard that the "blue bonnets were bound for the Border," he
spoke angrily and disdainfully to his officers, and upbraided them that
they had not brought him tidings o' the movements o' his enemies; and,
calling for his prospect-glass, he stood upon the bank o' the river--and
there, sure enough, to his sorrow and consternation, he beheld the camp,
and the multitude o' armed men. He even to a nearness counted their
numbers. Now, Dunse, as the crow flies, not being quite seven miles to
where the Tweed forms the border line between Ladykirk and Norham, his
Majesty spoke o' punishing the Covenanters for having broken the compact
that they had entered into not to approach within ten miles--forgetting,
be it remembered, that he was the first aggressor, in having sent his
troops to attack a party o' the Covenanters at Kelso; and forgetting,
also, that his army was unable to stand up, even for a single hour,
against the host who stood over against them. He soon, however, became
sensible o' his weakness, and he again began to offer liberal and
generous terms to his armed subjects; but no sooner did he find them
ready to accept them, than his kingly word became like a whuff o' reek
that has vanished out o' sight in the air!--ye may seek it, but where
will ye find it? The Covenanters were not willing to bathe their swords
in the blood o' their fellow-subjects, and the king was feared to
measure the strength o' his army against the blue-bonneted host.

But, as it is not my intention to narrate to ye a history o' the wars o'
the Covenant, I shall only say that the king, seeing he had no chance if
it came to a battle, consented to summon a parliament, and that
everything should be settled as the Covenanters desired. Both armies
were accordingly disbanded, and Alexander Cockburn and his five sons
returned home to their own house, and laid their weapons aside.

The old man said that "he trusted the time had come when in this country
the sword should be turned into a ploughshare, and the spear into a
pruning-hook."

But Alice answered him, saying, "O Alexander! a foolish thing has been
done by our rulers. They have got an assurance from the king; but they
ought to have made assurance doubly sure. You have read, and they must
have read--'Put not your trust in princes.' The day is not distant when
they will rue that they overlooked that text."

There was too much o' the nature o' prophecy in the words which Alice
spoke; for twelve months had not passed, when the mischief-making little
churchman, Bishop Laud, and other evil spirits o' a similar stamp, egged
up the simple king to break a' the promises he had made to the people o'
Scotland, and wi' a strong hand carry war and revenge into the country.
But, poor man, he reckoned without his host. His advisers were like the
counsellors o' Solomon's son--they advised him to his ruin. The news o'
his intention ran through Scotland like wildfire. Beacons burned on the
mountains--men gathered on the plains--and before the king was in
readiness to leave London, all Scotland was in arms. Old Leslie was once
more chosen commander-in-chief; and the same valiant men that the year
before had encamped upon Dunse Law, gathered together, and marched
towards the Borders.

They had reached Chousely, which is between three and four miles west o'
Dunse, when Alexander Cockburn and his sons again joined them, and
brought with them an offering o' provisions, as before. The general
again remembered and welcomed them; and he recollected them the more
readily, because Alice accompanied them. On the following morning, when
the army began to march towards the south, she took her leave o' them,
saying, "Fareweel, husband! bairns!--to the protection o' Him whose
battles ye go forth to fight, I resign ye. Pray ye that, whate'er
betide, I may be strengthened to bow my head, and say, '_His will be
done_!' Go, then, acquit yoursels valiantly; think on the sacred cause
in which ye are engaged, and trust in the Hand that will sustain ye.
Bairns, fareweel!--your mother blesses you!--she will pray for you!
Husband, fareweel!--look after our bairns. Alexander! ye are the
youngling o' my flock; and oh, hinny, my heart yearns for ye, lest ye
permit unworthy thoughts to arise in yer breast, that may deprive yer
young arm o' its strength."

"Fear not for me, mother," replied the youth.

She therefore returned home; and they proceeded wi' the army towards
Coldstream, from whence they crossed the Tweed, and proceeded, by way o'
Wooler and Longframlington, towards Newcastle, o' which town they came
within sight on the tenth day after entering Northumberland; but,
finding Newcastle strongly fortified and garrisoned by the king's
troops, under General Conway, they proceeded a few miles up the Tyne to
Newburn, where the civil war in reality began, and the first battle was
fought.

When the king's troopers heard that the Covenanters were encamped at
Newburn, they galloped out o' Newcastle, sword in hand; each man
swearing lustily that he would kill a dozen o' the blue-bonnetted
Jockies--as they called the Covenanters in derision--and boasting that
they would make prisoners o' all who escaped the sword. But when the
inhabitants o' the canny toon heard the braggadocio o' the redcoats, as
they galloped through the streets, flourishing their swords, "Dinna brag
tow fast, lads," said they, shaking their heads; "words arena deeds; and
tak care that each ane o' ye doesna catch a Tartar."

Next morning, the battle o' Newburn was fought; and the tone o' the
king's soldiers was indeed lowered. They were routed at every point,
they ran to and fro in confusion, and their panic was like a whirlwind
in a barn-yard. "The road to Durham--show us, show us the road to
Durham!" they cried; and, helter-skelter, neck-or-nought, leaving
swords, pistols, carbines, muskets, everything they could throw away, by
the roadside, away to Durham, and far beyond it, they ran.

Only five o' the army o' the Covenant were left dead on the field, but
among those five was old Alexander Cockburn, the husband o' Alice. After
the battle, his sons found his mangled and lifeless body in a narrow
lane, between two gardens, surrounded by a heap o' dead Loyalists, who
had sunk beneath his sword before he fell.

It is said that the first blow is half the battle; and it was so wi' the
Covenanters upon this occasion; their sudden victory at Newburn not only
struck dismay into the hearts o' the royal troops, but reason and fear
baith began to whisper their warnings in the ears o' the monarch. He
once more became a negotiator and seeker for peace with his
thrice-cheated and injured subjects. They remembered the divine precept,
to forgive their brother though he offended against them seven times in
a day, and they kept this commandment before their eyes in all their
dealings with the king. They forgave him his lack o' faith, and the
hollowness o' his promises; and, extending to him the right hand o'
allegiance, he once more gave his kingly pledge to grant them all that
they desired, and to ratify it by the acts o' a parliament. Puir man! he
had lang been baith king and parliament in his ain person; and he
conceived that in him dwelt absolute power, and absolute wisdom; but
little did he dree what a dear parliament the ane that he then spoke o'
was to be to him. It is distinguished by the emphatic appellation o'
"THE PARLIAMENT" even unto this day; and by that designation it will
continue to be known. Thus the arms and the cause o' the Covenant again
triumphed; and, the objects for which the army took the field being
accomplished, they were dismissed, and returned every man to his own
house.

With afflicted hearts, while they rejoiced at the accomplishment o' the
object for which they had taken up arms, the five sons o' Alice Cockburn
returned to Dunse. She was yet ignorant o' her husband's death, and
having been informed o' their approach, she met them at the door. She
stretched out her arms to welcome them, but they fell, as if suddenly
stricken wi' palsy, by her side; and wi' a trembling voice, and a look
that bespoke her forebodings, she inquired, "Where is _he_?"

They looked sadly one towards another, as if each were anxious that the
other should communicate the tidings. Her eldest son took her hand, and
said mournfully, "Come into the house, mother."

Their sorrowfu looks, their dejected manner, told her but too plainly
her husband's fate.

"He is dead!" she cried, in a tone o' heart-piercing solitariness and
sorrow, as she accompanied them into the house, where she had beheld
them equip themselves for battle.

"My father is dead," said Alexander, her youngest; "but he died bravely,
mother, in the cause in which ye glory, and in which a' Scotland
glories; and, to the deeds done by his hand on the day he fell, we, in a
great measure, owe the freedom o' our country, and the security o' the
Covenant."

She clasped her hands together, and sat down and wept.

"Mother," said her sons, gathering round her, "dinna mourn."

She rose, she wept upon their necks from the eldest to the youngest. "Ye
hae lost a faither," said she, "whose loss to ye nane but thae wha
kenned him at his ain fireside can estimate; and I hae lost hae husband,
who, for eight-and-thirty years, has been dearer to me than the licht o'
the sun, for wherever he was, there was aye sunlicht upon my heart. But
his life has been laid down in a cause worthy o' the first martyrs. I
hae endeavoured to pray--'THY will be done;' and pray for me, bairns,
that I may submit to that will without repining, for the stroke is
heavy, and nature is weak."

Again she sat down and wept, and now she lifted her hands in prayer, and
again she wrung them in the bereavement o' widowhood, saying, "O my
Alexander!--my husband!--shall I never, never see ye again?" And her
sons gathered round her, to comfort her.

On the day following, Alexander, the youngest o' the sons o' Alice, went
towards Polwarth, in the hope o' obtaining an interview with Flora
Stuart, whom he had not seen for several months; for, from the time that
he had joined the Covenanting army on Dunse Law, her father had
forbidden him his house. He spoke o' him as the young traitor, and
forbade Flora, at her peril, to speak to him again. But, as the sang
says,

    Love will venture in where it daurna weel be seen;

and Alexander again ventured to see her whose image was for ever present
wi' his thoughts, as if her portrait were engraven on his heart. It was
about the back end o' harvest, and the full moon was shining bright upon
the stubble fields and the brown hills; he was passing by Chousely (or,
as some call it, Choicelee), the very place where his father, his
brothers, and himself, had last joined the army o' the Covenant, when he
observed a figure tripping along the road before him. One glance was
sufficient. He knew it was she whom he sought--his own Flora. He ran
forward.

"Flora!" he cried, "stop, dear--stop--it is me!"

She turned round and said, "Sir!"

The cold abruptness of that word "sir!" was like a dagger driven through
his bosom, and for a moment he stood before her, in silence and
confusion, as one who has been detected o' some offence. But true
affection is never long either in finding words or an equivalent for
them.

"Flora," said he, holding out his hand, "it is long since we met, I hae
suffered affliction since then, and encountered danger, and considering
the long, long friendship--the more than friendship, Flora--that has
been between us, and the vows we have exchanged wi' each other, I think
I micht have expected something mair frae ye now than--'Sir!' Is your
heart changed, Flora--hae ye forgot me--or do ye wish to forget me?"

"No, Alexander," said she, "I hae not forgotten ye; nor hae I forgotten
the vows that hae passed between us, as my unhappy heart is a secret
witness; and if I did wish to forget ye, it wouldna be possible. For,
wherever I micht be, the remembrance o' you would come o'er my thoughts
like the shadow o' a cloud passing across a river."

"And after it had passed, would it leave as little impression upon your
heart, Flora, as the shadow o' a cloud does upon a river?"

"Alexander," she replied, "I am not gaun to argue wi' ye, for I canna.
But oh, man, ye hae drawn your sword against your king--ye hae fought
against him, ye hae been a traitor in the land that gave ye birth; and,
as my faither says, they who are rebellious subjects will never mak good
husbands, or be regulated by the ties o' domestic life."

"Flora," returned he, "I deny altogether that what your faither says is
correct. But, even allowing that it were, I deny that I hae taken up
arms against my king, or that I am a rebellious subject. We took up arms
against injustice, tyranny, and oppression; and the king had previously
taken up arms against us. Look at the whole conduct o' the Covenant
army--hae they not always listened to every proposal o' the king, and
trusted to his royal word as faithful subjects who were wishful to prove
their attachment to his throne and person? But where can ye point out
the instance that he has not fled from his engagement and deceived us,
and showed us that his promises and his pledges were not stronger than
burned straw? Even the last engagement which he has made, and by which
he is to secure to us the rights we have sought for, prayed for, fought
for, I believe he will break--he will try to evade it, and give us
vengeance in its stead--and if he does so, I am no longer his subject,
but his enemy, even though it be at the sacrifice o' you, Flora; and
rather than part wi' you, were it in my power, I would ten thousand
times lay down my own life."

"Alexander," added she, "I haena forgotten the days when we were happy
thegither, and when we neither thought o' kings nor o' onything else,
but our twa sels. But now my faither forbids me to speak to ye; and I
maun obey him. And though I think that, in the principles ye are
following, ye are wrong, very wrong--yet, Alexander, be ye rebel, be ye
what you will, there shall never be another name but yours dear to my
heart--though we ne'er meet again."

"Dinna meet again, dearest!" cried he; "we will meet--we shall meet!--we
shall be happy too! Never talk o' no meeting again." And they clung
round each other's necks and wept.

They wandered lang backward and forward, forgetting how the hours flew
during their lang, fond whispers; and Flora's father, attended by a
servant man, came forth to seek her. He vehemently upbraided and
threatened his daughter, and he as vehemently reviled Alexander. He
called him by names that I couldna mention, and that he bore patiently;
but he also spoke disrespectfully o' his mother--he heaped insults on
the memory o' his dead faither. Alexander could endure no more; he
sprang forward, he grasped him by the throat. He placed his hand upon
his sword, which he still wore, and exclaimed, "Sir! there is a point to
all endurance, and you have passed it!"

Flora rushed forward, she placed her hand on Alexander's
arm--"Forbear!--what would you do?" she cried; "it is my faither!"

"Nothing!" he replied, calmly, yet sternly; "I would do nothing; I have
borne much provocation, and acted rashly--for which rashness forgie me,
Flora. When I first drew my sword to resist oppression, I vowed that,
should I meet one that was dear to you in the ranks o' the oppressor,
though his sword should pierce my body, mine should no be raised against
him. Fareweel, dearest--happier days may come."

Four years had not passed, when the Covenanters found that they had but
small cause to be satisfied wi' the promises and assurances o' the king.
Provoked by his exactions, and his attempts at despotism, the people o'
England had taken up arms against him. Montrose, who had been one o' the
leaders o' the Covenant party, though a man possessed o' wonderfu'
military talents, was to the full as ambitious as he was clever; and he
hadna principle aneugh to withstand royal promises, smiles, and
flattery, he therefore turned traitor to the cause in which he had at
first embarked, and he turned the arms o' his Highlanders, and a body o'
fierce Irishmen, against the men whom, three years before, he had led to
battle. Again many o' the Covenanters rushed to arms, and amongst them
the sons o' Alice Cockburn.

They served as musketeers under Sir James Scott, and fought side by side
at the battle of Tippermuir. When, through the treachery o' some, and
the want o' management o' others, the Covenanters were put to flight,
the little band o' musketeers, seeking refuge in some ruined buildings,
kept up an incessant fire upon the forces o' Montrose, as if resolved to
sell their lives at the dearest price. Montrose, after many efforts
finding that they would not surrender, put himself at the head o' a
powerful body o' Athole men, and rushed upon the gallant band, who
defended themselves like lions at bay. O' the five brothers, who fought
side by side, four fell; and the youngest only was left, like a servant
o' Job of old, to tell the tidings. When Alexander beheld the dead
bodies o' his brothers lying around him, sorrow and revenge raged in his
breast together. His fury became as the fury o' a tiger that is robbed
o' its young. He dashed into the midst o' his enemies--he pressed
forward to where Montrose was, crying, "Vengeance! vengeance!" he
reached him--they engaged hand to hand. Montrose was pressed against a
wall o' the ruins.

"Fause traitor! renegade!" exclaimed Alexander--"here shall I die, the
avenger o' my country and my brothers' blood!"

His sword was uplifted to strike, when a body o' Athole men rushing to
the rescue o' their commander, the sword was shivered in Alexander's
hand, and he was made prisoner.

Several who had heard the words which he had applied to their leader,
and had seen his hand raised against his life, insisted that his
punishment should be death; and in justification o' their demand, they
urged the threat o' the Covenanters to do the same by whosoever Montrose
might send to treat wi' them.

A sort o' court-martial was accordingly held, and the fettered prisoner
was brought forth before a tribunal who had already agreed upon his
sentence. He, however, looked his judges boldly in the face. His cheeks
were not blanched, nor did his lips move with fear; he heard the charges
read against him--the epithets that had been applied to Montrose, who
was the king's representative--and that he had raised his sword against
his life. He daringly admitted his having applied the epithets--he
repeated them again; and, raising his clenched and fettered hands in the
face of his judges, he justified what he had said; and he regretted that
his sword had been broken in his hand before it had accomplished the
deed which he desired.

Montrose drew his brows together, and glanced upon him sternly; but the
young prisoner met his gaze with a look of scorn.

"Away with him," said his judges; "to-morrow, let him be brought forth
for execution. His fate shall be an example to all rebels."

During the night which he had heard to be pronounced the last o' his
existence, and throughout which he heard the heavy tramp o' the sentinel
pacing before the place o' his confinement, he mourned not for his own
fate; but the tears ran down his cheeks when he thought o' his poor
widowed, desolate, and unfriended mother!

"Oh, who," he exclaimed--"who will tell her that her bairns are wi' the
dead!--that there's not one left, from the auldest to the youngest!--but
that her husband and her sons are gone--a' gone! My mother!--my poor
mother!" Then he would pause, strike his hand upon his bosom, lean his
brow against the wall o' the apartment, and raising it again, say, "And
Flora, too--my ain betrothed! who will tell, who will comfort her? Her
father may bear the tidings to her; but there will be nae sympathy for
me in his words, nae compassion for her sorrow. Oh! could I only have
seen her before I died--had there been any ane by whom I could hae sent
her some token o' my remembrance in death, I would hae bared my breast
to the muskets that are to destroy me without regret. But to die in the
manner I am to do, and not three-and-twenty yet! Oh, what will my poor
Flora say?"

Then, folding his arms in wretchedness, he threw himself upon the straw
which had been spread as a bed for his last night's repose.

Early on the following day he was brought forth for execution. Hundreds
o' armed men attended as spectators o' the scene; and, as he was passing
through the midst o' them, he started, as he approached one of them who
stood near to Montrose, and he exclaimed, "Mr. Stuart!"

He stood still for a few moments, and approaching the person whose
appearance had startled him--"Mr. Stuart," he added, "ye hae long
regarded me as an enemy, and as a destroyer o' your peace; but, as one,
the very minutes o' whose existence are numbered and as one for whom ye
once professed to hae a regard, I would make one sma' request to ye--a
dying request--and that is, that ye would take this watch, which is all
I hae to leave, and present it to your daughter, my ain betrothed Flora,
as the last bequest and token o' remembrance o' him to whom her first,
her only vow was plighted."

It was indeed the father o' Flora he addressed, whose loyalty had
induced him to take up arms with Montrose; but he turned away his head,
and waved back his hand, as Alexander addressed him, as though he knew
him not.

Montrose heard the words which the prisoner had spoken, and, approaching
Mr. Stuart, he said, "Sir, our young prisoner seems to know ye--yea, by
his words, it seems that ye were likely to be more than friends. Fear
not to countenance him; if ye can urge aught in his favour--yea, for the
services ye have rendered, if ye desire that he should be
pardoned--speak but the word, and he shall be pardoned. Montrose has
said it."

"My lord," said Stuart, "I will not stand in the way o' justice--I would
not, to save a brother! I have nothing to say for the young man."

And, as he turned away, he muttered, loud enough to be heard, "Let him
meet his appointed doom, and ye will extinguish the last o' a race o'
incorrigible rebels."

"Youth," said Montrose, addressing Alexander, "from the manner in which
ye addressed Mr Stuart, and the way in which he has answered my
inquiries respecting ye, it is evident to me that the turbulent spirit
o' the times has begotten a feeling between ye which ought not to exist;
and, through your quarrel, the heart o' a gentle maiden may be broken.
But I shall have no part in it. I think," he added, in a low tone, "I
have seen your face before. When the lot fell upon me to be the first to
cross the Tweed at Hirselhaugh into England, are ye not the stripling
that was the first to follow me?"

"I am," replied Alexander; "but what signifies that, my lord? _ye have
since crossed the water in an opposite direction!_"

Montrose frowned for a moment; but his better nature forced him to
admire the heroism of his prisoner; and he added, "Consent to leave the
rebellious cause into which you have plunged--embrace the service of
your king, and you are pardoned--you shall be promoted--the hand of the
maiden whom you love shall be yours. I will be surety for what I have
said."

Alexander remained silent for a few minutes, as though there were a
struggle in his bosom what he would say; at length, turning his eyes
towards Montrose, he answered, "What, my lord! turn renegrade like
you!--desert the cause for which my father and my brethren have laid
down their lives! Wi' a' the offers which ye hold out--and tempting one
o' them is--I scorn life at such a price. Let them lead me to execution;
and I have but one request to make to ye. Ye have heard the favour which
I besought o' that man, and which he refused to grant"--as he spoke he
pointed to the father of Flora. "Will ye inform his daughter that
Alexander Cockburn met death as became a man--that his last thoughts
were o' her--that his last breath breathed her name!"

"You shall not die!" exclaimed Montrose, impatiently; "I will not so far
gratify your pride. Conduct him to Perth," added he, addressing those
who guarded the prisoner; "and let him be held in safe keeping till our
further pleasure is known concerning him."

He had admired the dauntless spirit which young Cockburn displayed, and
he sought not his life, but he resolved, if it were possible, to engaged
him in his service.

For many weeks, Alexander remained as a prisoner in Perth, without hope
of rescue, and without being able to learn which cause prevailed--the
King, the Parliament, or the Covenant--for the Civil war was now
carried on by three parties. At length, by daily rubbing the iron bars
o' his prison window wi' some sort o' soap which he contrived to get,
they became so corroded, that the stanchels yielded to his hands as
rotten wood. He tore the blankets that covered him into ribands, and,
fastening them to a portion o' ane o' the broken bars, lowered himself
to the street.

It was night and he fled to the quay--and found concealment in the hold
of a vessel, which, on the following day, sailed for London.

But it is time to return to Alice--the widowed, the all but childless
mother. Day after day she prayed, she yearned, that she might obtain
tidings of her children; but no tidings came. Sleep forsook her solitary
pillow, and, like Rachel, she wept for her children because they were
not. But a messenger of evil at length arrived, bearing intelligence
that four of her sons had fallen in battle, and that the fifth, her
youngest, had been made prisoner, and was sentenced to die.

"My cup o' wretchedness is full," cried the bereaved mother; "have I
none left--not one--not even my Alexander, my youngest, the comfort o'
my age? But I must submit. It is for the best--it is a' for the best, or
it wadna be. I should rejoice that I hae been chastened, and that my
affliction has been for a cause that will confer liberty o' conscience
on posterity, and freedom on our poor distracted country. But oh, I
canna forget, my heart winna do it, that I was ance a wife--that I was a
mother, and had five sons, the marrow o' whom ye wouldna hae found in a'
the Merse, but now my husband is not, and my bairns are not, and I am a
lone widow, wearying to be wi' them, and wi' no ane here to speak to me!
Yet I ought not to murmur!--no! no! It was me that urged them to go
forth and fight the good fight; but, strong as my zeal then was--oh,
human nature and a wife's, a mother's feelings, are strong also!"

But Alice, in the day o' her distress, found a comforter, and one that
sympathised wi' her in all her sorrows, in one whom she had but small
right to expect to be a freend. When she was left to mourn in solitude,
wi' but few to visit her, there was one who came to condole wi' her, and
who, having once visited her, was seldom absent from her side--and that
was Flora Stuart, the betrothed o' her youngest son, o' whom she had
spoken rashly.

"Oh, bairn," said she, addressing Flora, "little, little indeed, does
Alice Cockburn deserve at yer hands!--for but for me, and my puir
Alexander might this day hae been in life, and held yer hand in his. But
forgie me, hinny! It was in a guid cause that I hae sacrificed a' that
was dear to me in this warld--only, it was a sair, sair stroke upon a
mother!"

Flora strove to comfort her; but it was in vain. She didna repine,
neither did she murmur as those who have no hope; but her health, which
had never been what doctors would call robust, was unable to stand the
shock which her feelings had met wi'; and, in a few weeks after hearing
o' the deaths o' her children, Alice Cockburn was gathered wi' the dead,
and Flora Stuart accompanied her body mourning to the grave.

I have mentioned that Alexander concealed himself on board a vessel
which sailed for London. He had been three days at sea before he
ventured from the place o' his concealment, and the captain himself
being the son o' a Covenanter, he was conveyed to the great city in
safety. He had been but a short time in London, when, meeting with a
gentleman who belonged to the neighbourhood o' Dunse, he learned that
his mother was dead, and that his father's brother, believing that he
was dead also, had taken possession o' the property.

Alexander had never had the same religious feelings in the cause in
which he had been engaged, that his father and his brothers had. He
fought for the sake o' what he called liberty, rather than for any
feeling o' conscience; and his ruling passion was a love o' warlike
adventures. He, therefore, had been but a short time in London, when he
joined the Parliamentary army; and his courage and talents soon drew
upon him the notice o' Cromwell, and others o' the Parliamentary
leaders.

It was about six years after the battle o' Tippermuir, when one, who was
supposed to be a spy from the royalists, fell into the hands o' a party
belonging to the Parliamentary army. He was examined, and evidence
bearing strongly against him, that he had come amongst them secretly to
pry out where the army would be most vulnerable, and, if possible, to
entrap them into the hands o' their enemies, was produced against him.
He was examined a second time, and letters were found concealed about
his person which left no doubt o' his being a spy. Some voted that he
should be immediately punished with death; but, while all agreed in the
nature o' the punishment that ought to be inflicted, there were some who
proposed that the execution o' his sentence should be deferred for a few
days, until the arrival o' their commanding officer, who was then
absent.

During the days that he was thus respited, a daughter o' the spy
arrived, and flinging herself upon her knees before the officers who had
condemned him, she besought them, with tears, that they would spare her
father's life. Her distress might have moved a heart o' stone. Before
them they beheld youth, beauty, loveliness, bathed in misery--bowed down
wi' distress. They saw her tears falling at their feet--but they had
been used to tears o' blood, and her wretchedness moved them not. All
that they could say to her was that their superior officer was not
present, and, with the evidence which they had to submit before him,
they could not revoke the sentence they had passed.

On the third day, the chief officer o' the party arrived. All that had
been proved against the prisoner was told to him, and the papers that
had been concealed about him were placed before him. He was about to
pronounce the words, "He shall surely die," when, pausing, he commanded
that the prisoner should be brought before him.

The doomed one was accordingly ushered into his presence. When the
officer beheld him approach, he started up.

"Can it be possible?" he exclaimed--"Mr Stuart?" and gasped as he spoke.

The prisoner also started at hearing his true name, and raising his head
said, "It is possible! Alexander Cockburn, I am your prisoner--_It is
your turn now_!"

The officer, who was chief in command o' the party, was none other than
Alexander Cockburn, the young Covenanter, and the doomed spy was Mr
Robert Stuart, the father o' Flora.

"Sir," said Alexander, "my turn is indeed come--it is come to prove to
you, that as generous feelings may kindle in the eyes that are barely
shaded by the blue bonnet o' a Covenanter as in those that look proudly
from beneath the gay beaver o' a cavalier. There was a time when I stood
as you were like to have done now, wi' but a few ticks o' a watch
between me and eternity--the watch that ye refused to take from my hand;
and when but the expression o' a wish from your lips was all that was
required to obtain my pardon, my freedom--and that wish ye wouldna
express."

"I ken it, lad! I ken it!" cried the prisoner; "but I am in your power
now; take your revenge--do by me as I would have done by you!"

"No, Mr Stuart!" replied the other, "vengeance belongs not to me. But I
rejoice that, in this instance, for the sake o' one whose name I dare
not mention here, I have the power o' pardoning. Soldiers, unloose his
hands--he is free--he is forgiven."

The soldiers did as they were commanded.

"Alexander Cockburn!" exclaimed the late captive, "will you make me
appear more contemptible than a worm in my own eyes? A minute has not
passed since you reminded me how I hated you, and how deadly I showed my
hatred. The remembrance o' the occasion on which I showed that feeling
has been like a biting adder in my breast ever since; and now to receive
life at your hands would be to make my future existence a mixture o'
wormwood and gall."

"Say not so," said Alexander, stepping forward, and taking his hand. "I
would speak with you in private."

At that moment a voice was heard without, crying, "Let me pass!--pray,
let me pass!--let a daughter intercede with your officer for the life of
a father!"

"Sir, sir!" exclaimed Alexander, "it is _her_!--it is _her_! My Flora's
voice!" And he rushed to the door to meet her.

"Flora!--my own Flora!" he continued; "your father is free--he is
forgiven--he shall live! What! do you not know me? I am your own
Alexander."

"Alexander!" she cried, springing forward to meet him, and, yielding to
the natural feelings o' the man, her father ran towards them, and
embraced them both.

My story (said the schoolmaster) is now at a close. Alexander gave up
his commission in the Parliamentary army. It was low-water mark wi' the
king's people, and Mr Stuart accompanied him; and need I tell ye, that
so did Flora. They had abundance to keep them comfortable; and, on the
day after they arrived at Dunse, she took them to the kirkyard, and
showed them the clean white headstone o' Alice Cockburn.

"Bless ye for this, my ain wife," said Alexander, while the tears were
in his een, and he raised her hand to his lips.

I have only to add (continued the narrator), that I, Simon Cockburn, am
the great-grandson o' Alexander Cockburn and Flora Stuart.




THE OLD CHRONICLER'S TALES.




THE PRINCE OF SCOTLAND.


The character of David, Earl of Carrick, better known by the title of
Duke of Rothsay, is one of those which nature seems to delight in
distributing among nations at distant periods, apparently with the view
of teaching mankind, that, however brilliant may be the powers of mind
with which an individual is endowed, however captivating the qualities
of his person, his sparkling wit, his graceful manners, and polite
conversation; and however amiable the generosity, liberality, and
feeling of his heart--though all combined with high rank, and even the
station of a king--he has no charter of immunity from the obligations of
ordinary life; and that, if he endeavours, by the aid of these, to turn
serious things into frolic, and force a pastime from the sanctions of
religious or moral duty, he must pay the usual forfeit of a departure
from the rights of nature, and suffer destruction.

This young prince, it is well known, was the son of Robert III. of
Scotland, who allowed the reins of government to be wrested from his
feeble hands by the cunning and powerful Duke of Albany. The feebleness
of the father was not inherited by the son. Rothsay had powers of mind
which were equal to the management of a kingdom; and these, there is
reason to suppose, he would have displayed for the advantage of his
country, if the current of events in which he was involved had not been
influenced by his uncle, Albany, and turned to suit his schemes of
ambition. The indications of great talent which, in early youth, he
exhibited, were hailed by his father with pride and satisfaction; but by
his uncle, the governor, with well-founded fear and suspicion.
Unfortunately, it soon appeared that the fertility of the soil did not
limit its powers of production to the nobler and more useful plants.
Along with the prince's great powers of intellect, there arose a love of
pleasure which could be gratified only--such was its insatiable
character--by every species of extravagant sally and wild frolic. His
heart was untainted by any inclination to injure seriously the health,
reputation, or interests of any individual, however humble; but,
unfortunately, when a love of enjoyment took possession of him, all his
intellectual powers, as well as some of his moral perceptions, were
abused or overlooked, and a character naturally generous was shaded by
the faults of vicious intemperance.

To make all this the more to be regretted, young Rothsay was a beautiful
youth. His voice was full and melodious, capable of being exerted--and
he had the art to do it--in exciting, by the strains of exquisite music,
the tenderest feelings of the heart. His manner had in it the affability
of a free romping girl, with the grace and dignity of a young prince.
His hilarity seemed to have no interval, and his good-humour was
scarcely capable of being disturbed. His love of amusement, and his
genius in contriving schemes for the promotion of the happiness of his
friends and associates, made his company the desire of the aged and the
envy of the young. Yet, amidst all this, it was remarked as wonderful,
that he seldom lowered the dignity of his rank. Even his frolics were
those of a prince, and his humblest acts were performed with that
consummate grace which can lend a charm to what, in other hands, would
incur the charge of vulgarity.

But, while these fair features often set off with greater effect the
faults which inevitably flow from the indulgence of unlawful passions,
Rothsay had the power of combining his good and evil, and so mixing up
his passionate sallies of intemperance or vicious sport with traits of
generosity, humanity, and feeling, that it was often impossible to say
whether some of his actions were good or bad, or whether the people who
had apparently suffered from his unrestrained licentiousness would have
escaped the injury to be deprived of the benefit which it produced from
the calm reflection of the generous youth.

The friendship of Rothsay was extended to most of the young nobles of
that period; but no one was so successful in securing his affections as
Sir John de Ramorgny--a young man supposed to have come originally from
France, and certainly justifying his extraction by his character.
Originally bred to the church, he was learned beyond the nobles with
whom he associated; and, while few could boast his erudition and
knowledge, fewer still could cope with him in original powers of mind.
But these powers were ill directed; for they were used only in base
intrigues and vicious projects. A more dangerous friend or fatal enemy
could not be found among insidious Frenchmen or the still savage Scots.
His dissimulation, address, and elegance of personal appearance and
manners, were all used, as occasion required, to cover or aid his
designs of ambition, or his base seductions and purposes of revenge.
Able for the weightier projects of war or diplomacy, and admirably
adapted for court intrigue, he did not hesitate to descend to the most
trifling and vulgar pleasures. He could play the murderer, the insidious
betrayer, and the buffoon or mountebank, with equal address and with
equal satisfaction. With these qualities, the more wicked and dangerous
of which he could conceal, Ramorgny was easily able to recommend himself
to Rothsay; and the affection with which he was treated by the prince
was no doubt the effect of a similarity in manners and accomplishments,
and a congeniality of humour, which the unsuspecting and generous prince
mistook for an agreement of disposition.

Scotland is said to have been used from one end to the other, by these
dissolute companions, as the theatre of their amusements. They wandered
about in disguise, laying rich and poor, old and young, under
contributions for their wild pastime. They were often for weeks
associated with bands of wandering minstrels and female dancers,
entering into their humours, playing on their instruments, learning the
secrets of their wandering professions, and imitating their
performances. The protean versatility of their powers rendered their
extravagant exhibitions of easy accomplishment; while their hilarity and
boisterous merriment, recommended by a profusion of money, made them
welcome into whatever society of vagabonds they were ambitious of
entering. Nor was it by merely courting the favours of these tribes that
the companions were permitted to join in their revels. They were able to
stand their ground on an equal footing of reckless hardihood, and, where
occasion required, of pugilistic authority. They could sing and dance,
swear and bawl, get drunk and fight, with the most profligate members of
these outlawed associations.

These extravagances soon became known; and Queen Arabella, the young
duke's mother, was greatly grieved that her eldest son, and the object
of her dearest hopes and most anxious solicitudes, should act a part
which, while it would alienate from him the hearts of the people, would
enable his uncle Albany to continue longer his usurped dominion as
governor of Scotland. An attempt was therefore made to unite him to the
cares and solicitudes of office; and he was soon installed into that of
lieutenant of the kingdom--a council being, at the same time, appointed
to advise with him. This step was not followed by its expected benefits;
for the governor did not consider it either as incompatible with the
duties of his situation, or derogatory to the dignity of his high place,
to resort to his old modes of pleasure and amusement. All that was
required was a greater degree of care employed upon the habiliments of
his disguises; and the lord-lieutenant might have been detected joining
in a rondeau with a singing girl, acting the fanfaron with a Hector,
performing a daring croupade with a rope-dancer, or tripping to the
sound of an Italian theorbo. In all these things he was still kept in
countenance by Ramorgny; who, however, while he was joining him in his
revels, was meditating schemes of villany and selfishness.

The affairs of state having thus little power in withdrawing the prince
from his licentious companions and unbecoming practices, it was next
suggested by the queen, that the restraining influence of a wife's
affections might overcome his propensity for the outlawed pleasures to
which he had become enslaved. The king seconded this measure; and
without consulting the duke's sentiments, or ascertaining his taste in
the choice of a wife, it was communicated to him that the interests of
the nation required him to marry and provide an heir to the throne, and
that his choice of a wife lay between Elizabeth Douglas, daughter of
Archibald, Earl of Douglas, and Elizabeth of Dunbar, daughter of the
powerful Earl of March. Neither of these ladies had ever been seen by
the prince. It was surmised that he had a special favourite of his own,
selected no doubt from a host of willing beauties with whom he
associated; and the intelligence that he was called upon to resign his
liberty into the hands of a woman he had never seen, could not be
expected to be highly relished by a person of his spirit and habits of
life.

Seeking Ramorgny, Rothsay communicated to him the intentions of his
mother, and the commands of his father and the nation, and asked his
advice in so trying an emergency.

"By your father's crown," cried Ramorgny, "I see nothing for it but to
obey. The difficulty lies in the selection; for, if I am able to
appreciate the beauty of woman, thou wilt have to choose between a crow
and a rook. Elizabeth of Dunbar is the descendant of Black Agnes, who
defended that old castle, in the days of the Second David, against the
arms of the Duke of Salisbury; and Elizabeth of Douglas cannot fail to
have in her some portion of the blood of the Black Earl, who fell in
Spain, trusting to the protecting charm of Robert's heart, which he
carried with him in a casket. So thou seest the black choice thou hast
got; and the matter is not mended by having two in thy option, if the
old proverb carries faith, which sayeth, that 'Two blacks will not make
a white.'"

"By the faith of a prince," replied the duke, "it is a black business;
but thou hast been talking genealogically, good Ramorgny, while I wished
to have thy opinion physically. Blood doth not follow the law of the
mountain stream, by getting more muddy as it descends; neither are men
and women of the nature of the gaffled cocks we use to fight at the
mains on the Inch of Perth, which send down their fighting propensities
to the tenth gallinaceous generation. The two Besses may be whiter than
their progenitors, and of less pugnacious propensities!"

"Thy argument, good lieutenant," cried Sir John, "hath the goodly
property of proving two things:--In the first place, it proves that the
two Besses may have white skins; and, secondly, that thou mayest have a
white liver; for, if courage hath no descent but in cocks, thou canst
not boast of having the heart of the first Robert!"

"Hold! thou art too severe," cried Rothsay, "and not logical. Thou art
mixing up actuality with potentiality--for that my liver is not white,
is proved by the blue evidences I painted on thy back, when, in the
gipsy tent at Bothwell, I fought thee for a kiss of the Brown
morris-dancer, Marion of Leghorn, who, having given me the reward of my
victory, dressed thy wounds for pity's sake, and then cudgelled thee for
mine."

"I could turn thy argument against thee," answered Ramorgny; "for thy
courage was so much at fault, that thou didst require the aid of an
Italian morris-dancer to do that which good King Robert would have done
himself. But we have wandered from the two Besses, whom it now behoves
us to take up, and treat with more respect. What is thy course?"

"As lieutenant of Scotland, I commission thee, Sir John de Ramorgny, to
repair to the castle of Dunbar, and thereafter to that of Douglas, to
inquire into the qualities of Elizabeth of Dunbar and Elizabeth
Douglas--to note the height of their persons--the hue of their
skins--the colour of their eyes, and the nature of their dispositions;
and thereafter to report as becometh a trusty and faithful commissioner
of the king."

"Thou shalt be obeyed," answered Ramorgny; "but, if the commissioner may
be allowed to judge of the matter of his mission, I would suggest that,
in my opinion, thou hast left out the most important part of my
instructions."

"What is that?" inquired the prince.

"The dowery, to be sure," answered Ramorgny. "What are complexions and
dispositions, to golden acres? What careth the housewife, who wanteth
strong broth, for the colour of the capon's tail?"

"We will leave that to the queen," said the duke. "Her Majesty wisheth
to put me up to sale, and to knock me down to the highest bidder. We can
bring the earls up to within a few acres of each other, and of the two
pigeons, both equally fat, and brought thus equally within shot, I, to
please my fancy, may strike the fairest."

Ramorgny was satisfied, and proceeded on his mission. He first went to
the residence of March, which at that time was in a castle situated near
the town of Dunse; the castle of Dunbar having been, during the late
wars, so much shattered, that it required to be put in a state of
repair. Ramorgny's rank procured him admittance to the family of the
earl, and his intimacy with Rothsay was a sufficient recommendation to
entitle him to the greatest attention and respect. March viewed his
visit as one of examination and discovery, and took the precaution to
prepare his daughter to treat him as the friend and confidant of her
future husband. A great dinner was got up in honour of the knight, at
which Gawin, the earl's son, and Maitland, his nephew, were present, and
all endeavoured, by every means in their power, to acquire the good-will
of the prince's favourite. It was not these, however, that Ramorgny
wished to study or to please. The daughter was his subject; and his
knowledge of human nature soon enabled him to form an estimate of her
character not far wide of the truth. She was dark, but beautiful; with a
clear, burning eye, which occasionally exhibited flashes of the spirit
of her ancestor, Black Agnes. Her temper was clearly that of a demon;
her spirit, wild and untamed. When contradicted, her anger,
notwithstanding the indications of the displeasure of her parents, burst
forth with ungovernable energy. She disregarded the rules of ordinary
politeness, by applying to her brother Gawin indecorous names. She
scolded the servants; and even, on one occasion, when she had risen from
table, and thought she was unobserved, she applied her fingers to the
ears of a female, and pinched her till she screamed. The earl, who
suspected what was going forward, beckoned to her; the lady winked; the
son pulled her by the gown. Their efforts were unavailing. Ramorgny was
satisfied that Elizabeth of Dunbar was a true scion of the stock of old
Agnes.

The experience which Ramorgny had thus acquired was completely
corroborated by the common report of the Borders, where the young lady
went by the name of Black Bess of Dunbar. She was represented as an
incarnation of Mahoun--a fiend, whom all the efforts of her father and
mother, aided by their relatives, had not been able to subdue, or soften
into the ordinary flexile consistence of mortals. The excuses which were
made to the knight by the parents, that she was ill, and had a headache,
and so forth, only tended to corroborate his experience and the report
of others. His only wonder was, that the Earl of March could have
thought of recommending such a female to the arms of a civilised man--to
a prince. No one but March could have dared!

Ramorgny next directed his steps to the Castle of Douglas, to make his
survey and examination in that quarter. He was received by Earl
Archibald, who was now an old man, with much cordiality, and in a short
time introduced to Elizabeth. The contrast between this lady and the one
he had left was remarkable at first sight, and before she had opened her
mouth to reply to the elegantly-polished compliments of the most
accomplished man of his time. She was fair, with auburn hair and blue
eyes; tall, and elegantly formed; imbued with so much of the spirit of a
gentlewoman, that her whole figure, in its easy, flexile movements,
seemed to obey the slightest touch of the presiding genius of grace and
beauty. Ramorgny felt and acknowledged, with that rapidity with which
men of the world can detect the indications of an elevated soul, the
power of the mute eloquence of this exquisitely-formed complex piece of
nature's machinery. But when the spirit spoke, and the combination of so
many charms started into new life, responding in every turn and
lineament to music that seemed to have been formed to give them
additional grace, and apparently claiming the voice as their own
individual expression, the effect was completed, to the disturbance of
Ramorgny's feelings, and the flight of his peace. Her soft and gentle
tones went straight to his heart. The silken cords of love were cast
around him by every look, motion, and expression; and the prince's
deputy became, in spite of himself, his rival.

Ramorgny felt disinclined to leave the castle. Every additional
circumstance that came under his observation increased his passion. The
prevailing character of Elizabeth's mind and feelings was extreme
gentleness, softness, and sensibility, in which could be discovered no
affectation of sentimentality. Her manner was natural and easy; and it
was impossible to behold her for a moment, without being sensible that
she was a creature formed to sacrifice herself, and her individual
thoughts, wishes, and aspirations, to the happiness of the man who
should be so fortunate as to secure her affections. This softness of
manner extended itself to the style of her speech, which was slow,
smooth, and natural, seeming to derive its sweetness from the perennial
smile that played upon her lips.

Struck with an intense passion, Ramorgny forgot the object of his
mission. The prince was only recollected as an unpleasant object that
came between him and the object of his affections. He resorted to every
means of cultivating the good opinion, if not the love, of the lady;
but, handsome and gallant as he was--invested with the powers of French
love-making, in all its details of conversation, protestation, and
badinage--he could not satisfy himself that the gentle and bewitching
manners of the lady received any accession, from any increase, in his
favour, of the regard and attention she seemed to extend to all the
visiters who frequented her father's castle. Ramorgny surveyed this
equability of enchanting manner, with the pain of one who, fired with, a
strong passion, sees ordinary companions basking in the sunshine of
favour which he wishes to be confined to himself. He felt pained, but
the pain was an increase of passion, with a diminution of hope. His
violent temper hurried him into secret cursing of the day on which he
entered in so thankless an expedition; determinations to escape from his
duty; and vows that he would secure Elizabeth's love, die, or sacrifice
his prince.

Ramorgny's threats were no empty sounds. Restrained by no religion--no
respect for laws--no terror of punishments--no fear of man--and
despising reputation and honour as gewgaws for old women and
children--he was fit for the execution of any measure, executed through
treachery and blood, to gratify his passions. Chagrined by the manner of
Elizabeth, which retained its torturing equability of gentleness and
kindness, without any exhibition of partiality, he was ill prepared for
a letter which arrived from the prince, chiding him for his delay;
hinting, in his manner, that the rooks of Dunbar and Douglas had flown
away with his heart, and requesting him to give up the chase, and return
to his friend. He added, that he understood that his mother, the queen,
had declared for the Douglas; and that he would take her, if she was as
black as the good Sir James himself.

"If thou wilt," ejaculated Ramorgny, as he perused the letter, "thou
shalt at least have the dowery of Ramorgny's sword!"

The incensed knight saw, in the midst of his passion, that little good
would result from remaining at present longer at the castle. His efforts
to produce a corresponding affection in the bosom of Elizabeth were
unavailing. He resolved, therefore, to take his departure; and, having
kissed the hand of his cruel mistress, and bid adieu to Lord Archibald,
he departed. As he journeyed to Linlithgow, where he was to meet the
duke, he occupied himself in deep meditation. His thoughts reverted
continually to Elizabeth Douglas, whom he pictured to himself the loving
and beloved wife of Rothsay, whose success with the fair he envied, but
whose openness and generosity he despised as weakness. There already
existed a rivalship between them as to the affections of a young lady
who had eloped with Ramorgny from her father's house, but who afterwards
left him for the more enchanting society of the young duke. This
Ramorgny had borne with apparent indifference; but, though he was
satisfied that the love of the damsel had not first been solicited by
Rothsay, he could not forgive him his superiority of attraction, and
imputed to him as a fault, what might, with more propriety, have been
termed a misfortune. To lose another object of his affections, and that,
too, by ministering to his own discomfiture, would ill become his
character for intrigue, and ill accord with the present state of his
love for the lady, and hatred for the rival. He must, therefore,
endeavour to prevent the union between Rothsay and Elizabeth Douglas;
and if that should fail, he was resolved that the loss of the lady would
not involve the loss of his victim. His first step was to falsify his
account of the two women; and in this he could not do better than
reverse their attributes, and substitute Bess of Dunbar for the fair
Douglas.

"Well, Ramorgny," cried the prince, as he met the knight in the
audience-chamber of the palace, "what progress hast thou made in the
south? Thy tarrying indicates enjoyment; for when did Ramorgny wait,
when there was not something to afford him pleasure and amusement?"

"Your grace is right," answered Ramorgny. "The pleasures of March's
castle are indeed intoxicating. But thou it was who didst send me in the
way of temptation; and if Elizabeth of Dunbar has, by her enchantment,
drawn largely on the time of thy commissioner, thou hast thyself to
blame. Lord Salisbury, thou knowest, said that her predecessor's
love-shafts--meaning the arrows she sent from the old castle walls--went
straight to the heart; and, as the lieutenant of this kingdom, and the
protector of its subjects, it was thy duty to guard me against a power
which seems to be hereditary in the family of March."

"Oh, then, Black Bess is fair, after all!" cried the duke. "Give me thy
hand. I am right glad on't; for I thought I had no choice--the one being
fair, the other ugly; and to have been forced to marry one woman, to
the exclusion of the darling liberty of selection, would, though she had
been as fair as Venus, have made her like the famed daughter of Phoreus,
whose face was as beautiful as that of the sister of Apollo, but whose
hair was writhing serpents."

"Thy choice, I fear, is not extended by the beauty of Elizabeth of
Dunbar," said Ramorgny; "for what she has, Elizabeth Douglas wants.
March's daughter is a dark beauty, but her colour is not derived from
the dingy hues of earth; it owes a higher origin, even the beams of the
son of Latona himself. Yet the jet eyes from which she sends her
hereditary love-shafts are the softest engines of death I have ever
witnessed. The fire she steals from heaven comes from her as it does
from her cognate thief, Phoebe, as soft as moonbeams. Her gentleness
is that of the lamb, and the tones of her voice are like the soft
strains that come from an AEolian harp, making the heart chase them as
they steal away into death-like silence."

"Bravo!" cried the prince--"a right good wench. I have ever admired
softness in a woman; and I still maintain that there is the same natural
fitness in that ordination, as existeth in the connection between heat
and fire, light and flame, mirth and life, darkness and death! What
sayest thou now to the other Bess?"

"Hast thou ever read of Omphale," replied the knight, "who took from
Hercules his club, and gave him a spindle, and when he complained,
chastised him with her slipper? It was well for the hero that he did not
live in Scotland in these days, when brogues, filled with nails, cover
the soft feet of some of our damsels. Elizabeth Douglas would certainly
imitate Omphale; but, I fear, her slipper would be a brogue; and she
farther differeth from her, in being as ugly as she was fair. She
seemeth to me to be a limb of the devil, which, in its hurry to escape
from the region of fire and brimstone, carried along with it some of
these elements of wrath, of which, I doubt not, she would make good use,
if a husband dared to say to her nay, in place of yea. Thou hast said
that thou lovest softness in woman; but I have heard thee say, in thy
mad freaks--wherein, doubtless, reason had no part--that thou wouldst
rejoice in an opportunity of taming a shrew. Truly, thy wish, at least
to the extent of making an attempt, may be gratified by marrying Bess
Douglas; but I would rede thee to consider, that she might tame _thee_.
Dost thou observe the difference there? Ha! the noble and high-spirited
Rothsay pinned, like a silken nose-cloth, to the skirt of the
linsey-woolsey tunic of a modern Xantippe!"

"Never fear, Ramorgny," cried the duke, impatiently; "thy efforts in my
behalf will save me this degradation. I am obliged to thee for thy
warning, and would repay thee, according to the measure of my gratitude
and thy desert, by recommending to thee as a wife Elizabeth Douglas,
while I will wed her of Dunbar."

The art by which Ramorgny thus sustained, apparently with good-humour,
his conversations with the duke regarding subjects which lay very near
his heart, and invested with serious import, was one of his cleverest
but most deceitful qualities. The duke himself treated everything
lightly; the unrestrainable buoyancy of his mind cast off with resilient
power everything which partook of a sombre character; but Ramorgny was
naturally dark, gloomy, and thoughtful; and his efforts at frolic,
successful as they were, were resorted to only as a means to accomplish
an end. In the present instance, he was necessitated, notwithstanding
the intensity of his passion, his vexation, and disappointment, to keep
up his old manner; for, where truth was generally arrayed in the
trappings of frivolity, deceit might have been suspected in an
appearance of sincerity.

Fortunately, however, the prince was not left altogether to the advice
of Ramorgny; but such is the fate of princes--he got counsel otherwise,
only in the suspicions he entertained of an enemy, his uncle Albany.
Having heard that he wished him to marry Elizabeth Douglas, and to
accompany him to Douglas Castle to see the lady on a certain day, the
prince, to escape the importunities of his uncle, and to gall him--a
pastime in which he took some pleasure--rode off precipitately to
March's castle, to enjoy the society of Elizabeth, in whom he expected
to find all the qualities described by his friend, who enjoyed his
absolute confidence.

When Rothsay arrived at the castle of March, the earl was on the eve of
setting out for Linlithgow, for the purpose of seeing him. The behaviour
of Elizabeth in presence of Ramorgny had filled March with solicitude as
to the issue of the projected match; and he wished to counteract, as far
as possible, the accounts which the favourite would, in all likelihood,
give of his self-willed daughter. On seeing the prince, he began to
entertain hopes that Ramorgny's account was not so unfavourable as he
suspected; but his surprise may be imagined, when, in a short
conversation he had with the prince previous to his introduction to the
ladies, he ascertained that Ramorgny's eulogistic description of
Elizabeth had filled him with an irresistible desire to see so beautiful
and gentle a creature. March looked askance at the prince, conceiving
that he was making him and his family the subject of an ill-timed
frolic; but he saw nothing in the face of the prince but the gravest
sincerity that his versatile temperament could exhibit. It is not
difficult to make doubtful facts quadrate with wishes; and March soon
became satisfied that the prince had received a favourable account, and
was deeply impressed with a sense of the beauty and merits of his
daughter. He immediately introduced him to Elizabeth, according to the
request of the prince; but it was not until he had got a gentle hint,
that he showed any inclination to leave them together--a piece of
etiquette reckoned due to a lover who had been proposed as the husband
of his daughter.

Pleased with the dark beauty, though unable to observe in her eye the
Cynthian beam so elaborately described by Ramorgny, the prince
approached the damsel, and, with that air of gallantry for which he was
so remarkable, fell at her feet, and, seizing her hand, said, in one of
his sweetest accents--

"I know not, gentle damsel, whether I have any authority thus to sue for
a slight indication of thy favour; but what may be refused by thy
goodness to a lover not yet permitted to approach thee with confidence,
may perhaps be granted to the lieutenant of the king. The triumphs of
beauty are best celebrated by favour; and condescension, which is the
prettiest foil of excellence, is exhibited to the kneeling knight, by
extending a hand to grace the act of his rising to receive it."

"Thou mayst e'en rise how and when thou wilt," replied Elizabeth,
snatching from him her hand; "or thou mayst kneel there till brown
Marion of Leghorn or Jean Lindsay of Rossie comes to help thee up. I
care no more for a general lover than I do for a general lieutenant. The
only difference I see between them is, that the one hath many female
slaves, and the other many male ones. By the soul of Black Agnes, I
shall love no man who loveth more than one woman!"

This speech soon raised the prince to his feet. He stared at the damsel,
doubtful if she was serious, or if he had his senses. Her seriousness
was clear enough; for she finished her speech by a stamp of her foot and
a clenching of the hand, suitable accompaniments of a female's oath.

"Art thou Elizabeth of Dunbar, the gentle daughter of the Earl of
March?" said the prince, hesitatingly.

"They say so," replied Elizabeth: "and it is to that reputation I owe a
prince's visit. I was born shortly after the sacking of Roxburgh by my
father; and, if I have any reputation for being gentle, as thou termest
me, it may be owing to my birth having followed so close upon that
famous occasion, on which mothers mourned the murder of their children,
and children hung at the breasts of their dying or dead mothers. There
is none of these things in our days: the world gets effeminate; and, in
place of women defending castles, and wiping the dust from the
battlements with their white handkerchiefs, as my ancestor did at
Dunbar, they teach the arts of spinning and knitting to the men, who,
with the Prince of Scotland at their head, vie with each other in the
softness of their skin and the smoothness of their speeches. How would
Black Agnes have answered to the speech thou didst now address to her
descendant, thinkest thou?"

"Very likely," replied the prince, "in the way in which she answered the
English who attacked her castle, or perhaps in the gentle way in which
thou hast done."

"Would that all men-spinsters were answered in the same way!" rejoined
Elizabeth. "But I would make a distinction: to men who have the boldness
to court women as they would attack a castle, I would speak softly; but
to the white-lipped simperers of smooth sayings, who attack the heart
with a tempest of sighs, and sap its foundations with floods of tears, I
would open the sally-port of my indignation, and kill them with a look."

"Then, I suppose," said the prince, "I owe my life to thy ladyship's
mercy, extended by way of tender exception to my individual case?"

"Say rather that thou owest it to my contempt," replied Elizabeth. "Thou
hast not yet experienced one of my looks. I have treated thee tenderly
because of the love I bear to Queen Arabella, thy mother, to whom I
would beg leave to commit thee for a farther supply of that
milk-and-breadberry, of which, as thy sallow cheeks indicate, thou hast
been cheated in thy infancy. Do not object that thou art too old; for
thy present condition is but an extension of childhood--even now I have
heard thy rattle."

"Women are privileged," replied the prince, losing temper.

"So are children," rejoined Elizabeth, smartly; "when thou hast arrived
at manhood, thou mayest then claim my indignation; meantime I recommend
thee to the queen."

And, saying this, she left the astonished prince standing in the chamber
like a statue. Recovering himself, he left the castle precipitately,
without seeing the earl, biting his lips, and muttering curses against
Ramorgny, who had deceived him, and Elizabeth, who had insulted him. As
he proceeded on his way homewards, he bethought himself of the different
characters Ramorgny gave the two ladies; and wishing to give him credit
for having confounded the attributes applicable to each, he resolved to
see Elizabeth Douglas; and, changing his course, proceeded in the
direction of Castle Douglas.

His arrival at the residence of the old earl, who had contributed to
place his family on the throne, brought into the mind of the prince some
recollections which evolved feelings which were deeply planted in his
nature, and only prevented from producing useful and amiable effects, by
lawless habits borrowed from dissolute companions. With his mind
elevated by noble aspirations, and high hopes of being one day an
ornament to his country, which he sincerely loved, he was in an
excellent mood for appreciating the virtues and beauty of a woman who
could, as a consort, make him a better and a happier man, and, by a
necessary consequence, a better governor, and subsequently a good king.
He met Elizabeth Douglas at a distance from the castle, and introducing
himself in the easy and elegant manner of which no man of his time was
more capable, was delighted with her conversation, and inspired by her
personal charms. Proceeding together to the castle, they were met at the
gate by the old earl, who complimented Rothsay, as well as his daughter,
by saying that all he had sighed for was that they should meet and be
able to appreciate each other's qualities; for he was assured that one
hour's conversation between persons so accomplished, actuated by such
motives, and inspired with such sentiments, would do more to procure an
attachment than a year's diplomacy and court intrigue.

Rothsay willingly remained for some time at the castle, and had frequent
opportunities of conversing with Elizabeth alone, and of appreciating
her noble qualities.

"I had got thee misrepresented to me," said the prince; "but I believe
unintentionally, and by a transposition of names. What would Elizabeth
Douglas think, if she were informed that she was likened to the wife of
Socrates, and the slipper-castigator of Hercules?"

"I should conceive that the reporter did not know me," answered
Elizabeth, "or wished to deceive. I am not an admirer of either of these
ladies, of whom I have before heard; but I plume not myself upon any
other quality than a wish to use my wealth and station for the benefit
of those who, though better and holier than I am, have, by the force of
dire necessity, been obliged to bow their necks under the yoke of
poverty and misfortune. Yet I fear all I can take credit for is a wish
to do good. My actions and my aspirations have not that accordance I
could wish; but, by the blessing of God, I hope to improve in my
self-discipline; and, in the meantime, I trust no one will be able to
accuse me of injuring the humblest of God's creatures."

"How seldom do these sentiments reach the ears of royalty," said
Rothsay, whose heart swelled with his genuine sentiments, long
concealed, "and especially from the lips of nobility! Yet, pleasant as
it is to contemplate goodness in mortals born of sin, it is difficult to
estimate the extent of the influence of generous sympathy when it is
found in the bosom of beauty. Do not pain me by saying I flatter thee.
At present I am not the gay son of King Robert; but by the wand of
enchantment changed for a season--would it were for ever!--into a sober
reasoner on the rights and claims of suffering humanity."

"Report hath not belied thee, good prince, though it hath me; for I have
ever heard that thy sentiments were generous--though, excuse my
boldness, they were not allowed to be called forth into action by the
scenes of common life. Believe a simple maiden, when she taketh the
liberty humbly to suggest, that royalty itself may be more ennobled by
one act of charity than by a glorious victory."

"Sweet maiden," cried the prince, seizing rapturously her hands, "thou
shalt be my counsellor. Thy sentiments shall be enforced by thy beauty,
and my heart and my exchequer be equally under the power of thy generous
feelings."

By such conversations, Rothsay gained an insight into the heart of his
mistress. He recurred frequently to the report of Ramorgny, and hinted
to the earl that he had found his daughter the very reverse of what she
had been represented to him. The earl paid particular attention to the
hint, and seemed inclined to insinuate that Ramorgny might have had some
cause to misrepresent Elizabeth. The duke, having proceeded so far, felt
his curiosity excited to get an explanation of the earl's remark; and,
upon further question, ascertained that, according to the earl's
opinion, which had been corroborated by his daughter, Ramorgny had been
inspired with a strong passion for Elizabeth, which showed itself in
various forms, and was the cause of his protracted stay at the castle.
This discovery changed, in a great measure, all the prince's feelings
towards his old friend. He had thus convicted him of deception,
practised with a view to his injury, and for the purpose of gratifying a
passion cherished for the intended wife of his friend and his prince.
Amidst all their departures from the rules of sober life, the prince had
never himself been guilty, or patronised in his friend, any breach of
truth and good faith; and this was the first occasion on which this
great cementing principle of mankind had been sacrificed to private
interest. Seriously, however, as he felt it, he resolved upon stating it
to Ramorgny in such a way as might not produce his enmity; for he had
seen enough of him, to be satisfied that he was more capable of forming
a worse enemy than he was of becoming a true friend.

While the prince had thus been engaged in the south, Ramorgny had been
in the north, enjoying his favourite pastime of hunting the red deer
among the hills surrounding the water of Islay. The friends arrived in
Edinburgh about the same time, ignorant of each other's
motions--Ramorgny still labouring under the effect of the passion with
which Elizabeth Douglas had inspired him, and for a partial relief from
whose engrossing influence he had gone to the hills; and the duke
smarting under the pain of a breach of confidence and friendship in one
on whom he had so long placed his affections, and bestowed many favours.

"The hills of Scotland," said Ramorgny, "are exquisite renovators of a
town-worn constitution. The roes of the Highlands supply the strength
which has been wasted on the town hinds. Thou hadst better have been
with me, exerting the powers of a master over the inhabitants of the
forest, than stooping to the counsel of that grave batch of seniors
appointed to advise with thee--that is, to dictate to thee--on the
affairs of the state. Believe me, prince, thou shouldst cashier these
greybeards. Thy own judgment, aided by mine, is quite sufficient to
enable thee to govern this small barbarous kingdom."

"Thy advice," replied the prince, smiling, with some indication of
satire, "if followed, by rejecting the counsel of my constituted
advisers, would be an advice to reject advice contrary to thy advice;
for my council recommend me to marry Elizabeth Douglas, and to reject
the March. Dost thou think that any of the greybeards--Albany is too
ambitious to marry again--have any private intentions on Bess of Dunbar.
If I thought that, I would reject the Douglas, and betake myself to the
March."

"And thou wouldst act sagely in so doing," replied Ramorgny, who did not
yet see the prince's satire. "If any one of these counsellors act from
such a motive--and I am not sure of Arran--he ought to lose his mistress
and his head at the same time."

"Sayest thou so, Ramorgny?" replied the prince. "Is it thy heart that so
speaketh, or thy judgment? Thou hast recommended me to the March, whom I
have seen and conversed with, and well know, and hast endeavoured to
terrify me from the Douglas, whom I have also seen, and can well
appreciate. Art thou quite sure thy advice is purer, sounder, truer, and
wiser, than that of my council?"

This question produced an evident effect upon Ramorgny. He endeavoured
to escape the prince's eye; but he found that no easy matter. Rothsay
kept looking at him intensely, and plainly showed that he was master of
the secret purpose for which he had endeavoured to precipitate him into
a connection that would have made him miserable for life. It was now,
however, too late for Ramorgny to retreat; and, boldly facing his
danger, he replied--

"Thy question carries with it more than meets the ear. If I depreciated
Elizabeth Douglas, and overrated Elizabeth Dunbar, a spirit of liberal
construction would give me credit for having been myself deceived."

"Stop!" said the prince, interrupting him. "I did not say that thou
didst depreciate the one and overrate the other. Why take guilt to
thyself?"

"By St Duthos," cried Ramorgny, who now saw he was caught, and resolved
upon another tack, "it is time now to be grave! Will that cursed spirit
of devilish frolic which I learned from thee cling to me, even after the
dreadful apparition of the first grey hair, which this morning appeared
to me in my glass? But thou art thyself to blame. A master of mirth
thyself--the prime minister of Momus, as well as of King Robert, and my
professor in the science of fun--wert thou unable to discover, in my
outrageous and elaborate description of the two damsels, the traces of
the pencil--for Momus could paint--of the laughing god? If thou wert
not, didst thou not deserve the harmless deception? Say, now, good
prince, condemn, if thou darest, thy scholar of a proficiency which thou
hast taught. Struck by thy own sword of lath, wilt thou amputate the
offending hand? Say, and if thou wilt, strike. A philosopher would
laugh--what shall the merry-making Rothsay do?"

The bold, dashing, laughing manner in which Ramorgny delivered this
speech, joined to a recollection of the high-flown and not serious
account he had given of the two damsels, drove out of the duke's mind
the suspicions roused by the communications of Earl Douglas, and with it
his anger. The boisterous good-humour of his friend carried him along
with him; and, answering the knight in his own way, he cried--

"Why, laugh too, perhaps, good Ramorgny. Thou hast certainly defeated me
in the first instance, but I have conquered thee in the second. I found
in the women what thou hast described them; only I was obliged to
substitute the name of Elizabeth Douglas for Bess of Dunbar. That
descendant of old Agnes is most certainly the devil, or at least his
viceregent. What dost thou think she recommended to me, to increase the
powers of my manhood? Why, milk and panado! The only woman, she thought,
I would be safe in the keeping of was my mother Arabella; the age, of
which she considered me a fair example, had retrograded from the days of
the sacking of Roxburgh by her father, into a state of mature infancy;
and as for our talents for war, she would scarcely allow us the mighty
power of infanticide. In short, thy description of Elizabeth Douglas
applied to her; and, when I say that thy description of her applied to
the other, why should I say that I was charmed with the fair Douglas?
Thou hast painted better than I can. She must be my wife; and I am glad
that my council, my mother, and myself, thus agree on a point which they
believe concerns the nation, but which I opine concerns only myself."

Ramorgny was at the moment well pleased to perceive that he had thus got
out of the scrape; but to have his snare twisted round his own limbs--to
have his description of his own lover adopted by a rival, in describing
her perfections, and thus to have, in a manner, precipitated his own
ruin--for he could not survive the marriage of Elizabeth Douglas with
another--touched him, as an accomplished intriguer, on the tenderest
parts of his nature. A second time deprived of the object of his
affections by his own disciple in the art of love, he determined that,
at least, there should never be a third opportunity for inflicting upon
him such degradation. His revenge deepened, but his smiles and apparent
good-humour quadrated with the increased necessity of concealing his
designs. These and their fatal issue are unfortunately but too well
known.

Untold to Rothsay, certain schemes had, in the meantime, been in
agitation between the Earl of March and a party at court, the object of
which was to get a match brought about between Rothsay and Elizabeth of
Dunbar. These, for a time, wrought so favourably, that March, who never
knew what had taken place between Rothsay and his daughter, entertained
the strongest hopes of success. He had offered an immense dowry, which
the great extent of his estates near the Borders enabled him to pay, as
the price of the connection with royalty; and it would seem that he had
received from head-quarters strong pledges that his wishes would be
gratified. Ramorgny secretly joined the March party; but all their
endeavours could not prevent the final triumph of the Douglas, who had
also offered a large sum with his daughter, and who was, besides, backed
by the queen, and by the secret wishes of Rothsay himself.

The nuptials of the prince with Elizabeth Douglas were celebrated with
great rejoicings at Edinburgh. They were graced by the presence of the
king and the queen, and all the principal nobility of the land. Among
the rest were to be seen two persons destined to supply afterwards the
materials of an extraordinary chapter in the history of Scotland; the
shadows of which, if presentiment had thrown them before, would have
wrapped the gay scene of the marriage in the gloomy mantle of the dismal
Atropos. The first of these was Rothsay's uncle Albany, who, ever since
he was displaced from his governorship by the faction who awarded to the
young prince the lieutenantcy of the kingdom, had prayed fervently for
the death of the royal stripling, that had, with precocious audacity,
dared to compete with disciplined age in the management of the affairs
of the kingdom. The other was Ramorgny, who appeared at the celebration
of the nuptials, dressed in the gayest style, and wearing on his lips
the fallacious smile of the treacherous courtier, while his heart was
filled with rage and jealousy, and his fancy teemed with schemes of
deadly revenge. The picture, to one who could have seen into futurity,
would have presented the extraordinary foreground of an apparent
universal joy, filling all hearts and making all glad; and, close
behind, the grinning furies of revenge writhing in their agonies of a
wild desire to break in upon the unconscious victims, and spread death
and desolation where pleasure was alone to be found.

Ramorgny, who knew the volatile nature of the prince, waited patiently
until the pleasures of the first moon were experienced and exhausted. He
cultivated more than formerly the good opinion of one who retained no
longer any suspicion of the treachery of his friend. Ramorgny knew the
prince's sentiments of his uncle--that there existed between the two
relatives an inimical feeling, amounting, on the side of the uncle, to a
hatred which, derived from thwarted political ambition, would not
hesitate at short and ready measures of removing the object to which it
was directed, and, on that of the nephew, to a youthful impatience of
the surveillance and restraint which his late governor had exercised
over him, and was still ready to employ, when his selfish purposes
required their application. That Rothsay, who, in reality, possessed a
noble and generous spirit, would stoop to any base purpose to get quit
of the authority and interference of his uncle, Ramorgny did not
suppose; but he hoped so far to implicate the thoughtless prince in a
scheme of his devising, as to make his act appear, by misconstruction,
of such a nature to Albany, as would give his revenge the specious
appearance of self-defence, and accelerate the fate of his victim.

In accordance with this scheme, Ramorgny continued, as he had done
formerly, to fill the prince's mind with details of his uncle's inimical
feelings towards him; which was of the more easy accomplishment, that
the prince was already aware of his uncle's disposition. The choleric
youth listened to these tales with impatience, and often allowed himself
to be hurried into extravagant expressions of indignation, which a
servant of Ramorgny's, a servile creature, ready to commit any crime for
money, was instructed, when occasion offered, to note and remember. For
a time, Ramorgny limited his details to such acts as occasionally
occurred, and which the unrestrainable hatred of Albany furnished in
such abundance, that he found no great necessity to have recourse to
invention, unless it were, indeed, to add the colouring, which was
generally of the most extravagant kind, and best suited to reach the
heart of the prince, and influence his anger and indignation.

Farther Ramorgny could not venture for a long time to go. The generous
youth sometimes got wearied with the recital of his uncle's indignities;
and, willing to leave him to his own heart, kept on in the tenor of his
own path; which, however, was none of the straightest--his aberrations
after his marriage being, as before, the result of every new fancy which
such men as Ramorgny, acting on an excited and irregular imagination,
chose, by their consummate arts, to introduce into his mind. This did
not suit Ramorgny. He required stronger materials to work with, and did
not hesitate to use them. It is easy to work for evil in a heart
originally corrupt; but to corrupt, and then to seduce, is a work of
time; and it is to the credit of human nature that virtue is often
strong enough to maintain its place against the attacks of the most
insidious schemers.

It was now Ramorgny's effort to rouse the suspicions of the prince as to
his personal safety from the designs of his uncle. He invented a story
of a conversation which had been overheard between Albany and a ruffian
often employed by him to execute his purposes of revenge. The import of
this conversation was, that Albany, having been superseded in his office
of governor, had resolved upon acquiring it again, and that he could not
succeed in that resolution so long as the prince was alive--that he
accordingly hinted to the ruffian that it would be pleasant to him if he
heard that the duke no longer lived--and that, for such information, a
reward would be given sufficient to stimulate the most scrupulous
executioner that ever aided an unhappy man across the Stygian stream.
All this was communicated to Rothsay by Ramorgny in a whisper, and with
an appearance, tone, and manner suited to the awful nature of the
intelligence. The duke believed the story, and, bursting forth into an
extravagant sally of indignation, cried--

"It is time that princes of the blood-royal should exert the power in
defence of themselves, which is intrusted to them for the defence of
others, when villains, in broad day, lay schemes for their lives. I can
plainly see, and have long seen, that this man and I cannot live in the
same age. Scotland is too narrow for us; and the viceroyal chair must be
polluted with blood! Yet shall age supplant youth? Is it meet that time
should go backwards, and that, by force and through blood, the order of
nature should be changed? It shall not be so! If one is to fall, nature
herself points out the victim--and that victim is Albany!"

These words, uttered in anger, and intended merely to indicate the
injustice of Albany's scheme, and the necessity of self-defence, in the
event of its being attempted to be carried into execution, were
carefully noted by Ramorgny's creature, who was in hearing. They were
plainly capable, however, of another construction by a person who did
not hear the rest of the conversation, and understand their application.
They might mean that Rothsay intended to get his uncle out of the way--a
construction which did not ill accord with the feelings which existed in
the prince's mind against the disturber of his peace, if these had been
formed in another bosom, but unjustified by the prince's noble
disposition, which would have despised any underhand scheme to rid
himself of his bitterest enemy. The words were, however, uttered, and
noted, and remembered; and they were not uttered in vain.

Ramorgny having thus procured evidence of the prince's designs against
the life of his uncle, repaired to Albany, and narrated to him the
statements made by the duke, and referred him, for corroboration, to his
servant. Albany wished nothing more ardently than this communication;
and, even without it, he would have been glad to have joined Ramorgny in
any scheme for the removal of his rival. Other enemies were brought into
action. Sir William Lindsay of Rossie, whose sister the duke had loved
and deserted; and Archibald Douglas, the brother of Elizabeth, piqued by
some private feeling, were willing to aid in the death of one who had
courted the relative of one of them to desert her, and married that of
the other to treat her with neglect. That the prince was unkind or
unfaithful to his wife, who bore a reputation of being so fair and
amiable, has been treated by some historians as a mere fable, resorted
to by the unnatural earl, her brother, as a palliative of conduct which
it was not suited to render in the slightest degree less revolting.
There is reason, however, to suppose that Lindsay had some cause for his
resentment in the desertion of his sister, who loved the duke, and never
recovered from the effects of his unfaithful conduct.

The first project of these conspirators was worthy of the talents of the
individuals who had determined to prostitute the best of the gifts of
God to destroy one of his creatures. It was resolved to work upon the
king in such a way as to procure from him some token of his
disapprobation of the conduct of his son. It is difficult now to
ascertain how this was effected, as there is no doubt that Rothsay still
held a strong claim on the affections of his father. The result,
however, shows that the means must have been of an extraordinary nature;
for King Robert was got to sign a writ for the confinement of the
prince. It is very probable that nothing more was intended by this than
to show the king's displeasure, which would gradually relax as the
slight punishment wrought the expected amendment. It has been doubted
whether such writ was ever truly signed by the king; and surely it is
not difficult to suppose that the men who, holding the gates of the
palace in their hands, could admit or deny whom they chose to the royal
presence, would not stop at forgery which they could conceal, if they
had made up their minds to murder, which has seldom or ever been
successfully concealed. But it matters not, in so far as regards the
fate of the prince, whether the writ was genuine or not. It was acted
upon, and the unfortunate son of a king was seized by his enemies,
Douglas and Ramorgny, lashed in his royal robes to the back of a sorry
horse, and hurried through Fife, to a prison adjoining to the palace of
Falkland.

The unhappy prince now saw that his death was determined; but he little
suspected what was to be its cruel nature. The work of his enemies was
done, but they had delegated what even their hard hearts could not
accomplish to ruffians, from whose bosoms every humane feeling had been
long eradicated. He was put under the charge of two men, brought, it is
supposed, from Aberdeen--a locality as far from the scene of the tragedy
they were to perform as possible--called John Wright and John Selkirk,
names that remained infamous in Scotland for many a day. The faces of
these men, filled with the expression of a determination to resist every
feeling of humanity, contrasted strangely with the countenance of the
royal youth, formed by nature, and moulded by his sympathies, to speak
eloquently the language of affection, and reflect the fair lineaments of
the most beautiful of the graces. It required only one glance of the
prince's inquiring eye, to see that, if his fate depended upon the
feelings of these men, he had no chance of salvation in this world.

The ruffians, having thrown the unfortunate youth into one of the low
dungeons of the prison, without speaking a word, were preparing to leave
him, when, urged by feelings of despair, he fell on his knees, and
besought them to tell him what commission they had got from his enemies
for the fulfilment of his fate.

"Tell me, good friends," he cried, "in what shape death is to come to
the son of a king, that he may prepare his mind to meet his end as
becometh a man. Grant me, at least, the privilege of dying by my own
hand, that the descendant of Bruce may escape the fate of malefactors,
or the mangled termination of the devoted victim of revenge. You are
not, you cannot be, so bad as the sternness of office makes you appear.
Shall the Prince of Scotland sue in vain to the subjects of his father
for the boon of a dagger? Merciful Heaven! am I refused this
request? Then is cruelty to be added to injustice; and perhaps
starvation--dreadful thought--awaits me, with its attendant agonies."

As the unfortunate prince uttered these words, he fell on the damp floor
of the dungeon. His appeal produced nothing but a hollow growl, more
like the sound of a mastiff's anger than the voice of a human being.
Turning abruptly from him, they left him extended on the ground, and in
an instant seemed to be entirely occupied about the manner in which they
should secure, with double certainty, the door of the dungeon. On
lifting his head, the victim heard nothing but the harsh expostulations
of the two men, as they differed about the expediency of riveting the
iron bars by which the door was fastened.

The wretched youth had truly anticipated his fate. Starvation was the
mode of death fixed upon by his cowardly murderers. What might have been
accomplished in an instant, was prolonged for many days. Cruelty was,
indeed, as he had said, added to injustice; and the merciful death of
the malefactor on the gallows was denied to the heartrending entreaties
of a prince. For fifteen days, according to a historian, he was suffered
to remain without food, under the charge of Wright and Selkirk, whose
task it was to watch the agony of their victim till it ended in death.
It is said that, for awhile, the wretched prisoner was preserved in a
remarkable manner, by the kindness of a poor woman, who, in passing
through the garden of Falkland, was attracted by his groans to the
grated window of his dungeon, which was level with the ground, and
became acquainted with his story. It was her custom to steal thither at
night, and bring him food, by dropping small cakes through the grating,
whilst milk, conducted through a pipe to his mouth, was the only way he
could be supplied with drink. But Wright and Selkirk, suspecting from
his appearance that he had some secret supply, watched, and detected the
charitable visitant, and the prince was abandoned to his fate.

Such was the death assigned to the son of a king, the most favoured by
nature, the most engaging, the most generous--what pity is it to add,
the most volatile and irregular--that ever was born to a kingdom, amidst
the acclamations of a loving people!




RETRIBUTION.


In these days, when a factitious style is made the vehicle of factitious
feelings, we offer to our readers a simple story; and when we say that
it is a true one, we may hope to claim an interest very different from
that which is inspired by ingenious fiction.

There may be some who yet remember Fanny Rutherford, of the Parish of
Carwhinn. She was one of the most gentle and amiable creatures that ever
breathed--warm in her attachments, confiding in her love, and mild and
kind in her dispositions. The daughter of a country gentleman, of small
estate, but of great respectability, she was, at the period of our
story, in her nineteenth year. Her father, though by no means wealthy,
had spared no expense in her education; and her quick natural parts
enabled her to derive all the benefit which that education was intended
to confer. She was also the joy of two brothers, both intelligent,
clever young men, bred to agricultural pursuits, in which they were
largely and extensively engaged.

Mr Rutherford was a widower; and his household duties therefore devolved
upon Fanny, who discharged them with exemplary propriety.

Hitherto, though of an ardent, susceptible, and even romantic
disposition, Fanny's peace had never been disturbed by love. The quiet
tenor of her days had passed away in the enjoyment of domestic
happiness, and in the interchange of endearments with her father and
brothers, to whom she was devotedly attached, and by whom she was most
sincerely and tenderly loved in return. Neither a thought nor a wish
beyond the sphere of this little round of felicity ever entered the
pure and unsophisticated mind of the happy and innocent girl. But this
was a happiness that was not to last. Love, that bane or blessing of
woman's existence, as its object is unworthy or otherwise, at length
found its way into the guileless bosom of Fanny Rutherford; and, oh,
what a consummation awaited that unfortunate attachment!

At the distance of about a mile from Mr Rutherford's, there lived a
young man of the name of Raeburn, the son of a gentleman in similar
circumstances with the former--that is, a small landed proprietor. This
young man, who had received a very liberal education, was possessed of
an agreeable person and of exceedingly pleasing manners; but there were
occasional developments of character that but very indifferently
harmonised with these qualities; and there were, besides, more than one
little incident in his life that betrayed a degree of selfishness, not
to say heartlessness, that would by no means have been expected in one
of so frank and cheerful a disposition. Still these symptoms were, after
all, of so trifling a character, that they could scarcely be said to
have affected the reputation which Raeburn aimed at, and succeeded with
a great many in acquiring--namely, that of a dashing, careless,
good-hearted, and liberal-minded young fellow.

At this period, Henry Raeburn was residing at home, waiting for an
appointment in the civil service of the East India Company, which had
been promised him by a friend of his father's; and much of the spare
time which his present circumstances placed at his disposal he spent at
Mr Rutherford's, where his agreeable manners and general intelligence
made him at all times a welcome visiter. But to none of the members of
the family were these visits more agreeable than to Fanny, over whose
affections his insinuating address and handsome exterior had made a
complete conquest. Nor was Raeburn himself apparently less the victim
of this passion than she was. He took every opportunity of pouring into
her ear the most ardent expressions of attachment. A thousand times he
swore that he was hers for ever--that the sun would change his course,
the stars forget to shine, ere he became inconstant to his Fanny. To all
these professions of love the unsuspecting and confiding girl lent a
willing ear, and listened and listened to the fascinating tale again and
again, till her whole soul became absorbed by one single idea--until she
found, in short, that she lived for Henry Raeburn alone.

Whether Raeburn was sincere in his professions of attachment to Fanny
Rutherford, at this stage of their acquaintance, we cannot say, and have
no means of ascertaining. That was a circumstance known to his Creator
and himself alone.

The young people, however, made no attempts to conceal their mutual
attachment--at least Fanny made none to conceal hers. Indeed, the
guileless simplicity, and open and candid nature, of the amiable girl
rendered her incapable of concealing it. Neither, though she could,
would she have done it: her sense of propriety and delicacy of feeling
would not have permitted her.

Fanny's father and brothers, therefore, were perfectly aware of the
attachment alluded to; and although, of course, the marriage of the
parties was a thing not to be thought of in their present circumstances,
yet, as Henry was likely soon to obtain a lucrative situation in India,
it was a very probable and very desirable contingency; and with this
prospective consideration, Fanny's father did not disapprove of her
choice, as young Raeburn was otherwise, by birth and education, a
perfectly eligible match for his daughter. All that was wanting was
fortune; and this was a desideratum which there was a reasonable
probability of Henry soon supplying.

When we said, however, that the visits of Fanny's lover were acceptable
to all the members of Mr Rutherford's family, we said fully more than
the facts warranted. There was one, at any rate, of that family to whom
these visits were not only not acceptable, but positively disagreeable.
This person was Fanny's eldest brother, Edward. Possessed of more
penetration than his father or younger brother, he had perceived
something in the character of Raeburn which he did not like, and which
struck him as being strangely at variance with his general pretensions
and professions. He had, in short, discovered several instances of
selfishness and want of principle in the young man, which, though they
were but of a trifling nature, had early imbued him with a secret
prejudice against him; and this he did not hesitate to avow to his own
family, and particularly to Fanny; but, in the latter case, his avowal
was always accompanied by the most tender expressions of affection for
herself, as if to convince her that it was on her account alone that he
feared.

One day, on her returning from Mr Raeburn's, where she had been to an
entertainment, and when Henry, who had accompanied her home, had just
left the house--

"My dear Fanny," said her brother, addressing her in the blunt way
peculiar to him, and taking her affectionately by the hand, "I don't
like that fellow Raeburn. I would not willingly or needlessly say any
thing harsh of anyone whom you esteem; but you are guileless, Fanny, and
ignorant of the ways of the world, still more so of the faithlessness of
man, and therefore liable to have your judgment misled by your heart. Be
cautious--be guarded, then, Fanny. Do, for your own sake, my dear
sister, be cautious how you admit this man to tamper with your
affections."

"Edward!" replied Fanny, bursting into tears, "what is the meaning of
this solemn objurgation? I have never done, and never will do, anything
without my father's consent and yours, Edward. But surely, surely you
judge unfairly of Henry, Edward. He is far too honourable and upright
to deceive any one, much less----"

"You, you would say," interrupted her brother.

Fanny blushed slightly, and went on: "If you had heard him, as I have
often done, express his sentiments on the duties we owe to each other,
and speak of the rules which ought to regulate our conduct, you would
entertain a very different opinion of him--I am sure you would, Edward."

"Simple girl, simple girl!" said her brother. "He speak of the duties we
owe to each other! He speak of the rules which ought to regulate our
conduct!" he added, with a bitter sneer. "Well, perhaps it is all right,
Fanny," he went on; "I may have judged harshly of Raeburn, and may be
doing him an injustice; but, if I am, I never was more mistaken in a man
in my life. But, Fanny," he added, with a sudden energy of manner, "here
I swear--and I wish Raeburn heard the oath--that, if he deceive or
injure you, I will pursue him to the ends of the earth--ay, through the
snows of Greenland, or the burning deserts of the tropics--and seek a
reparation that will cost the lives of one or both of us."

"Mercy, mercy!" exclaimed the weeping girl, terrified at the fierce
looks and manner of her brother, yet at the same time throwing herself
into his arms. "What dreadful language is this, Edward? What grounds on
earth have you for anticipating so dreadful a catastrophe? I am sure you
have seen nothing to warrant your expressing yourself in this frightful
manner."

"I have not said that I anticipated anything, Fanny, regarding this
attachment of yours," replied her brother. "I spoke only hypothetically.
But, from this hour, I say no more on the subject. I trust, however,
that what I have said will not be without its effect upon you, Fanny.
You will perceive, my dear sister," he added, embracing her tenderly,
"that it is my affection, and, I will add, my fears, for you, that have
prompted all I have said."

"I know it, Edward--I know it," replied Fanny; "and I am grateful to
you. But you will soon learn to like Henry better than you now do."

"Woman, woman--still woman to the last," said her brother, smiling. "But
do, Fanny, permit what I have said to make some impression on you." And
Edward left the apartment.

Woman, woman still, as her brother had said, the warmhearted girl's
affections for Raeburn suffered no diminution whatever from what had
just passed between her and her brother. In truth, as such interferences
almost always do, it had the effect rather of increasing her love, by
placing the object of her affections--in her sight, at any rate--in the
light of one who is injured by being harshly judged of.

"My Henry deceive me!" she thought within herself on this
occasion--"impossible! impossible! That kind and gentle look!--can that
deceive? That benignant smile!--can there be treachery there? That frank
and open manner!--is that assumed? No, no, Edward--you wrong Henry; you
do indeed, Edward. You wrong him grievously."

Such were the reflections in which Fanny Rutherford indulged when her
brother had left her, and such was the effect which his fears and
suspicions had upon her unsuspecting and confiding heart.

We have already informed the reader that Raeburn was at this time
waiting for an appointment in the civil service of the East India
Company. This appointment he at length obtained, and he was, at the same
time, ordered to proceed immediately to London, to embark for his new
destination; and with this order he complied, after taking an
affectionate leave of Fanny, to whom he once more, and for the last
time, vowed eternal constancy and love. It is almost unnecessary to add,
that a mutual promise to maintain a frequent and regular correspondence
during the period of their separation was also given by the lovers. But,
besides all this, a distinct arrangement, to which Fanny's father and
brothers were privy, was likewise made, that, so soon as Henry should be
fairly settled in India, and should have ascertained that his income was
sufficient to warrant such a step, Fanny, being previously informed of
this, was to join him, when their destinies should be united.

These matters arranged, Henry proceeded to London, where he soon after
embarked for Calcutta, which he eventually reached in safety, at the end
of the usual period occupied in that voyage.

Faithful to his promise, Henry, soon after his arrival, wrote to Fanny,
and gave a very flattering account of his situation and prospects,
expressing, at the same time, a hope that he would soon be in a
condition to invite her to come out and partake his good fortune.

This letter was followed in due time by another, in which the same
sentiments of love and affection were expressed; but it contained a less
flattering account of his circumstances. These, the writer said, had
scarcely answered the expectations he had formed from them on his first
arrival; and he feared, if they did not improve, that, however painful
their separation was to him, he would be compelled to submit to its
continuance for some time, as he could not think of bringing her there,
so far from her home and her friends, until he should be able to receive
her in a manner that would more unequivocally bespeak the sincerity of
his love than his present means would admit of.

These two letters, as we have said, came in due time; and,
notwithstanding the discouraging tenor of the last, were received by
poor Fanny with the most unfeigned delight. But, when the time came
round that another letter should have reached her from her lover, it was
in vain that the affectionate girl looked for that solace to her
wearied spirit. Week after week passed away, month succeeded month, and,
finally, year followed year, and still no letter came, to raise the
prostrate and withering hopes of poor Fanny Rutherford. For some time
she was impressed with a conviction that her lover was dead; for she
could not, and would not, believe that her Henry was faithless. But in
this belief--perhaps the least afflicting of the two--she was not
permitted long to remain; for it was ascertained, through Henry's
father, not only that he was still living, but that he was getting on
prosperously, and in a fair way of soon realising a fortune.

Unwilling, unwilling, indeed, was poor Fanny to believe this account of
Henry--but it was certain; and this certainty of the neglectfulness, or,
yet worse, faithlessness, of her lover threatened to hurry her to a
premature grave.

Nearly three years had now passed away since the receipt of her last
letter from Henry; and she had long given up all hopes of ever hearing
from him again, or of ever being more to him than she then was. While
sitting alone, however, one morning about this period, her head leaning
upon her hand, and listlessly gazing through a window that overlooked
the approach to her father's house, her curiosity was slightly excited
by observing the person who usually brought the letters from the
neighbouring village hurrying with unwonted speed towards the house,
and, as she approached nearer, waving a letter which she held in her
hand towards Fanny. In an instant the blood, which had long forsaken the
poor girl's cheeks, rushed back to its forgotten repositories. Her heart
beat fast and thick, and a violent tremor seized on her whole emaciated
frame. The letter was, and she now knew it, from Henry Raeburn.

Having got possession of the intensely-interesting document, she rushed
with it up-stairs to her own apartment, bolted the door, and flung
herself down on a bed; laying, at the same time, the letter, which,
from excessive agitation, she was unable at the moment to open, on a
small table beside her. Having, however, in a few minutes regained as
much composure as she conceived would enable her to venture on the
exciting task of perusing the letter, she arose, seized it convulsively,
and staggered with it unfolded in her grasp towards the window, where
she began to read. The letter commenced thus--

     "MY DEAREST, DEAREST FANNY,--What is the meaning of this?
     Cruel, cruel girl, it is now precisely two years and a-half
     since I received your last letter, although I have written to
     you at least six or seven times during that period. What a
     relief, Fanny, it would be to my mind, to know that these
     letters of mine had miscarried--that they had never reached
     you!--for, in that case, I might still hope, still believe,
     that my Fanny was faithful. Indeed, it is in this hope that I
     live; for, as I have been for the last two years going from
     place to place, at a great distance in the interior, I think it
     not improbable that my letters--all of which were despatched
     from these remote residences--have never found their way to
     you."

The writer then went on, praying Fanny not to lose a moment in relieving
his mind on this, to him, he said, most painful subject. After a good
deal more to similar purpose, he continued--

     "Will my Fanny not take it amiss--she will not, I know, if she
     still be to me as she once was, and what I still am to her--if
     I request her to send me her portrait?--that, since fortune
     still denies me the happiness of contemplating the original, I
     may, as I assuredly will, find some consolation in possessing
     the copy. I will then," continued the writer, "have you present
     to my corporeal eye, as you are, and have constantly been, to
     my mental vision. Enclosed, my dearest Fanny, you have a draft
     for twenty guineas, which please apply to the purpose just
     expressed, and let there not be a moment lost in forwarding me
     your beloved picture."

The writer then went on to say, that he expected to be in a condition to
invite her out in the course of a twelvemonth or so; and ultimately
finished by a repetition of the most tender expressions of affection and
love.

When Fanny had completed the perusal of this, to her, most gratifying
letter--that is, after she had read it at least six times over--she
rushed wildly down-stairs in quest of her brother Edward; and having
found him, "See, see, Edward!" exclaimed the delighted girl, forcing the
letter into his hands; "read that, Edward, and acknowledge, my brother,
the injustice which you and all of us have done to Henry. I knew, I
knew," she went on, "my Henry would not deceive me. I felt assured that
his silence and seeming neglect would one day be satisfactorily
accounted for, and without impugning his honour."

To these expressions of joy, and delight, and confidence, Fanny's
brother made no reply, but sat down coolly to read the letter that had
been put into his hands; and greatly disappointed was the poor girl, who
was watching his countenance with the most intense interest, while he
read, to find that the contents seemed to excite in him no emotion
whatever. When he finished--"Well, Fanny," he said, dryly, at the same
time carelessly returning her the letter, "it's all very well. I am glad
to find that Raeburn is not altogether the man I feared he was. He seems
to think of you with unabated regard still, Fanny."

"Oh yes, Edward!--oh yes! I knew Henry would not deceive me!" again
repeated the unsuspecting and delighted girl.

Edward, as we have already said, tenderly loved Fanny; and it was this
regard for her that prevented him saying all he thought of the letter he
had just read. He would not, for any consideration, have damped the
feelings of joy and happiness which it had inspired in the bosom of his
sister, by making any remarks that might have a tendency of that kind;
but he could not help observing sufficient grounds for such
observations. He saw, in the first place, that Raeburn's assertion that
he had written several letters to Fanny was a downright falsehood, or,
at best, of a very suspicious character; for his father--who lived, as
the reader will recollect we have already said, in the immediate
neighbourhood, and whom he frequently met with--had never made any
complaint of any interruption in his son's correspondence; and he
(Edward), moreover, knew that Henry's father had received many letters
from him during the very period of the suspension of his correspondence
with Fanny. It therefore appeared extremely odd to him that all the
letters addressed to the one should have miscarried, while all those
addressed to the other had reached their destination in safety, and in
due course of time. In the next place, Edward saw, or thought he saw,
that the general tenor of the letter was forced and unnatural; and,
lastly, that procrastination was apparently still the object of the
writer, notwithstanding his having vaguely named a period when he should
invite Fanny to share his fortunes as his wife.

All this Edward perceived in the letter in question; but the worst he
thought of it was, that Raeburn had for a time forgotten his sister,
probably in a temporary regard for another, and that his affection for
her having returned, he was now anxious to atone for his negligence or
infidelity; and, under this impression, he was willing to overlook the
subterfuge to which Raeburn had had recourse, to account for his
silence; and, in these views of the matter, Edward's father and brother
concurred.

Two or three days after the receipt of Henry's letter, Fanny, though in
a very indifferent state of health, proceeded to Edinburgh, and had her
likeness taken there in miniature. On her return, the picture was
carefully packed in a small box or case, and, accompanied by a letter
from Fanny, despatched to its remote destination. In this letter, the
poor girl, in allusion to the portrait, said--"I have, in compliance
with your wishes, Henry, sent you my portrait; but I fear it will sadly
disappoint you; for a more unpropitious time for transferring my
miserable countenance to canvas (I believe, however, in this case it is
ivory) could scarcely have been chosen; for I have been extremely ill
for a long time past, and am yet very far from being well. I have been
broken-hearted, Henry, and have been labouring under the worst and most
hopeless of all diseases--a crushed and broken spirit."

Thus did the poor girl allude to the misery which Raeburn's neglect had
entailed on her. Her delicacy forbade her saying more, and her candid
and confiding disposition would not permit her to say less.

Leaving matters in this state at Rose Vale (the name of Mr Rutherford's
residence), we will, with the reader's consent, embark in the same ship
with Fanny's portrait, and proceed to the East Indies, to see with our
own eyes what, at this period, was the general conduct, character, and
circumstances of him for whom that picture was intended. Having done
this--an easy matter with you and us, good reader, though no trifling
affair to others--we shall find Raeburn residing in a very handsome
house at Calcutta; and in one of the most conspicuous places in one of
the principal rooms in that house, we shall find the portrait of Fanny
Rutherford suspended--and well worthy of the distinction was this
likeness of the lovely girl. Beautiful! exceedingly beautiful in her
sadness!--for the painter had been faithful; and but too plainly did
that picture tell of sorrow and of suffering--"of hope deferred, that
maketh the heart sick." Nor did Henry Raeburn seem insensible to the
beauty expressed in that little picture. To every one who visited him he
showed it, with an air of exultation and triumph; pressed on their
notice the soft expression of the fine dark eye, the light, delicate,
and well-arched eyebrow, the ruby lip, and elegantly-formed nose and
chin. But, be it remarked--and it was an odd circumstance--it was to
the young unmarried men alone who visited him that he showed the
picture, and that he thus dwelt on the details of its beauties. Strange
distinction this--to the unmarried alone that he showed the picture, and
enlarged on the attractions of its subject! What does this mean? Much,
much it means; and a darker or more atrocious meaning never disgraced
the act of man. But we will leave the full explanation of this atrocity
to be developed by the progress of our story.

"Ah! you dogs, you!" Raeburn would say, with well-affected jocularity,
to his friends of the description already mentioned, when showing them
Fanny's portrait, "isn't that a pretty girl, now? and am not I a lucky
fellow to have secured the affections of so charming a woman? What would
you give, you rogues, you, for such a creature as that for a wife?"
Then, holding the portrait aloft, "Come, say now, gentlemen, what would
you give for her, suppose I was willing to part with her; which,
perhaps, I am, if I could get a fair price for my right. Bid for her,
gentlemen, bid for her!" he would say, laughingly, and _affecting_ to
make a joke of the matter. "I will put her up to sale, and warrant the
stock to be equal to the sample!" "A thousand rupees!" "Thank you, John.
Very well for a beginning! Get on, gentlemen, get on." "Two thousand!
three thousand!" "That's it. Go it, my spirited lads, go it; but she's
worth six times the money yet." "Eight thousand! ten thousand!" "Ay, now
you get on bravely, and are approaching the mark, though still at a
great distance from it." "Fifteen thousand! twenty thousand!" "Very
well--twenty thousand! Twenty thousand, gentlemen! Will no one bid more!
Why, Tom, I thought you were a better judge of female beauty than to
allow such a bargain as this to slip through your fingers!" "Twenty-five
thousand!" "Well done, Tom; I knew you were a lad of spirit, and had
too much of the knight-errant in you to allow a fair lady like this to
be knocked down below her value. Twenty-five thousand rupees--once,
twice, thrice! There, down she goes--she's yours, Tom; pay me the money,
and I'll order her out for you by the first ship."

This was a scene of frequent occurrence in Raeburn's house, when a
number of young fellows had got together there, and something very like
it was repeated to each of them individually when they chanced to call
alone; particularly in the case of one of them--a Mr Cressingham, the
son of a gentleman who held one of the highest civil situations in
India, and who was enormously wealthy. This was Raeburn's friend, Tom,
as he familiarly called him; and to him he was especially eloquent and
importunate on the subject of Fanny's beauty.

"Well, hang me if she an't a devilish pretty creature that, after all!"
said Tom Cressingham to Raeburn, as they one day sat alone smoking their
hookahs in the apartment in which Fanny's portrait hung, and on which he
was listlessly gazing.

"That she is, Tom," replied Raeburn; "wouldn't you fancy such a girl as
that, now, for a wife, Tom?"

"Faith and I would, Harry; I'd give ten thousand rupees for such a
wife."

"You're coming down in your price, Tom," replied Raeburn; "you offered
twenty-five thousand for her the other night."

"Well, I don't know but I would give that sum for her, after all, Harry;
for she's certainly a delightful-looking creature. But why don't you
bring out the girl, and marry her at once yourself, Harry?"

"Umph!" ejaculated Raeburn, "that wouldn't be altogether so convenient
just now. You know I'm confoundedly in debt, Tom" (this was but too
true; for he was grossly dissipated, and was living in a style far
beyond his income), "and must clear my feet a bit before I think of
marrying. Besides, to tell you a secret, Tom, I don't care much about
standing to my Scotch bargain in that matter; and, to be plain with you,
I wish you, or some one else, would relieve me of it, by taking the girl
off my hands; giving me, of course, a handsome consideration for my
right in the property."

This was said jokingly; but it was very easy to see that the speaker
would not care to be thought serious; and this Cressingham perceived.

"Harry," he said, "are you in earnest?"

"To be sure I am," replied Raeburn; "never was more in earnest in my
life."

"Then I'm your man, Harry, if we can agree about the terms," rejoined
Cressingham. "What say you about the consideration."

"Why, I don't know; you see she is a very handsome girl, Tom; and, on
the word of a _gentleman_, I assure you, she is as amiable as she is
lovely."

"Well, at a word, Harry," said Cressingham, "I'll give you five thousand
pounds sterling money, the day that woman becomes my wife; you being at
the expense of bringing her out, and managing all that part of the
business."

"Done!" said Raeburn.

"Done!" said Cressingham. And they struck hands upon the bargain.

Raeburn's villany, good reader, is now before you fully and fairly. The
conversation just recorded was no joke, but, as he himself acknowledged,
downright earnest; and it will readily be conceded, we think, that a
piece of more heartless depravity is not upon record. Neither, we beg to
assure the reader, is this villany imaginary, nor the character of
Raeburn the invention of fancy. The villany was actually perpetrated,
and the villain actually lived.

Fanny's portrait had been sent for for the express purpose of turning it
to the account to which we have seen it applied. He had sent for it that
he might exhibit it as a sample of goods which he had to dispose of, and
which he meant to sell to the highest bidder; and it was with this
view--with the view of finding a purchaser--that he had hung the
portrait of his victim in a conspicuous place, and had urged on the
notice of his visiters the various beauties which it displayed.

To return to our tale. Raeburn and Cressingham--the latter, we need
hardly say, being nearly as unprincipled as the former--having come to
the understanding which we have just detailed, Raeburn insisted that
their bargain should be expressed on paper; that is, that Cressingham
should bind himself by a written document to fulfil his part of the
transaction--in other words, should bind himself to pay the L5000 on the
day Fanny became his wife; although with what face he could produce such
a document in a court of justice to enforce his claim, in the event of
Cressingham evading it, it certainly is not easy to conceive. But,
desirous of being secure in the meantime, on such a document as that
alluded to, he insisted; and it was instantly given him.

This part of the transaction settled, it was Raeburn's business to
manage the rest:--the first step of which was to get Fanny out; the
next, to get her palmed upon Cressingham; and he lost no time in setting
about it.

As the subsequent proceedings of the villain, however, will be more
strikingly exhibited by shifting the scene once more to Rose Vale, we
request the reader to accompany us thither for a moment.

The year had a good while expired, which Raeburn had fixed on, in his
last letter to Fanny, as the period when he should send for her to join
him at Calcutta; and the poor girl was looking fondly and anxiously for
the promised invitation; but, for several months, she was again doomed
to suffer all the pains of suspense and disappointment. From this,
however, she was at length relieved by the appearance of the
long-expected letter. This, like all its predecessors, was filled with
the most tender expressions of regard and esteem. "It is now," said the
writer, "with the most heartfelt--nay, this is far too tame a phrase--it
is with a delight, my beloved Fanny, which I cannot find language to
express--that I inform you, that the circumstances in which I now find
myself warrant me in inviting you out to share my fortunes. I enclose a
draft for L150, to defray the expense of your passage, and other
contingencies connected with it; and I beg of you, my dearest, dearest
Fanny, as you value my happiness, nay, my existence, to lose no time in
coming out to me; for I will be miserable till you arrive." To this was
added a great many particular directions, as to Fanny's best mode of
proceeding in the business of her embarkation; and again the writer
resumed the strain of adulation with which he had begun; and with this
strain, also, he finally ended.

As in the former case, Fanny instantly put this letter into the hands of
her brother Edward; and again she was disappointed to find that it was
read without the smallest appearance of satisfaction. Neither was it
much more gratifying to her father and younger brother. But their
feelings regarding it proceeded chiefly from their reluctance to part
with Fanny, and to her going alone on so long and dreary a voyage; but
neither they, nor Edward, even with his more serious grounds of
dissatisfaction, felt that they would be warranted in preventing Fanny
from availing herself of the apparent good fortune which she was now
invited to partake. They felt that it would be an act of injustice
towards the amiable girl, to exercise any such authority over her
fortunes and affections; and, therefore, though it was not without great
reluctance, they finally consented to her departure. This conceded, and
every necessary preparation for the voyage being in a few days
completed, Edward accompanied Fanny to London, saw her on board of an
East Indiaman that was about to sail for Calcutta, and having consigned
her to the care of the captain, bade her an affectionate adieu. In less
than an hour afterwards, the ship was under weigh; and Fanny Rutherford
had commenced her ill-starred voyage to the East.

On the ship's arrival at Calcutta, which she reached in safety and in
due course of time, amongst the first persons who came on board of her
were Raeburn and Cressingham. Fanny was down below in the cabin, and in
the act of packing a small trunk, preparatory to her going ashore, when
Raeburn entered. The moment the poor girl saw him, she flew towards him,
with an expression of the wildest delight. But, oh! fond and confiding
heart, what a shock was it to thee--what a withering sensation was
thine--when you found your warm and generous impulses received with a
cold and distant civility!--for in such manner did Raeburn now receive
the gentle, affectionate, and unsuspecting girl, who had crossed the
"rude ocean," left kindred and home, to follow his fortunes--the
fortunes of the man she loved--in a far distant land.

In this atrocious conduct of Raeburn's there was policy as well as
natural heartlessness; for he was desirous of disgusting her with his
coldness, and thus preparing the way for the addresses of Cressingham.
Of this part of the villain's design, Fanny was, of course, utterly
ignorant; but the quick discerning eye of love enabled her instantly to
detect the brutal and ungracious manner of Raeburn, so different from
what she had expected; and the discovery fell upon her spirit with the
most deadly effect. She, however, made no complaint; but it was evident
that the manner of her reception by her deceiver had sunk deep into her
heart. Poor Fanny proceeded with the packing of her little trunk in
silence--a silence interrupted only by an occasional sigh, long drawn,
and heavy laden with grief. Tears, too, might have been detected
stealing down her cheeks, were it not that she kept her head, purposely,
too closely over the trunk to permit their being seen. In the work, too,
in which she was employed, be it observed, Raeburn did not offer her the
smallest assistance, but continued walking up and down the cabin,
whistling carelessly, and looking at the prints with which the walls
were hung.

This was the scene, then, in the cabin, when Raeburn, after the lapse of
a quarter-an-hour or so from the time of his first descending, suddenly,
and without giving Fanny the least previous notice of his intention,
went to the foot of the cabin-stair, and called loudly on Cressingham,
who was on deck. Cressingham appeared at the cabin-door.

"Why don't you come down?" said Raeburn. And he followed up this query
with a significant wink.

"Why, I waited till I should be called," replied Cressingham, with a
knowing smile; at the same time commencing his descent into the cabin.

"Mr Cressingham, Fanny," said Raeburn, when the former came down--"a
very particular friend of mine."

Fanny, before raising her head from the trunk, hurriedly wiped her eyes,
and stood up to receive the stranger; but it was wholly out of the poor
girl's power thus suddenly to regain her composure, or to obliterate
from her countenance the traces of the miserable feelings with which her
soul was agonised. These remained but too plain; and were at once
detected by Cressingham, who, in place of being moved to compassion by
them for the unhappy girl, looked on them as welcome indications of
feelings that promised to favour his own advances; inasmuch as they
bespoke a dissatisfaction on the part of Fanny, at once with her
situation and with Raeburn.

It being now Cressingham's time to begin the performance of his part of
the nefarious plot, he advanced towards Miss Rutherford with one of his
most gracious looks, and welcomed her to Calcutta. Then, placing himself
in a chair directly opposite to her, and leaning forward towards her,
till he had nearly thrust his head into her face, he began a strain of
the most impertinent adulation, not unmingled with expressions of a less
harmless character. These last did not escape Fanny, who deeply felt the
insult they involved, although she was already too much humbled in
spirit to resent them.

When Cressingham had taken up the position described, and had begun the
nauseous badinage alluded to, Raeburn, on some trifling pretence, left
the cabin and went on deck. The motive for this proceeding will at once
present itself to the reader. Cressingham, finding himself thus left
alone with Fanny, was proceeding to use other liberties than those of
speech; and had already, with the most impudent familiarity, thrown one
of his arms around Miss Rutherford's neck, when, with a violent effort,
she extricated herself from him, and rushed, in a state of great
agitation and alarm, up the cabin-stair, calling on Henry, who was at
the moment standing at the stern of the vessel, and directly opposite
the cabin-door.

Guessing, or rather knowing very well, the cause of Fanny's outcry and
terror, he went towards her, and sternly and angrily asked her, "What
she made all this noise for!"

"O Henry! Henry!" exclaimed the agitated girl, "take me out of this,
take me out of this. Let us go on shore, Henry, directly. Do, do, let us
go on shore; for I will not go down into that cabin again."

"Pooh, you silly fool, you!" replied Raeburn, harshly. "What are you
afraid of? Don't you like Cressingham? He's an excellent fellow, only a
little rough or so, now and then; but not a pin the worse for that. Why,
he's one of the handsomest and richest fellows in Calcutta, and half the
girls in the town are cocking their caps at him."

"I have nothing to say to or of Mr Cressingham, Henry," replied Fanny.

"All that I ask of you is, to take me immediately ashore."

With this request Raeburn, seeing that it would not be advisable to push
matters further at that moment, sulkily complied. A boat was ordered
alongside. Fanny's luggage was placed in it, and she, Raeburn, and
Cressingham, were forthwith rowed on shore, where, the moment they
landed, the latter, after whispering something into Raeburn's ear, and
offering some ineffectual attempts at making his peace with Miss
Rutherford, left them.

Where, now, does the reader imagine, did Raeburn conduct the unhappy
victim of his villany. To his own splendid mansion? No. To a decent
hotel, then?--or, probably, he consigned her to the care of some
respectable female friend or acquaintance? Neither of these did the
heartless ruffian do. He took her to a mean lodging, in one of the
meanest parts of the town, pleading some lame apology for not taking her
to his own house; and there left her in the hands of strangers, without
a word of consolation or comfort, or of kindness. He said, however,
before going away, that he would again call in the evening, and would,
in the meantime, send a female domestic from his own house, to attend
her, together with some necessaries.

It would be a vain, an idle task, to attempt to describe what were the
unfortunate girl's feelings, now that the hideous truth, that she had
been deceived and betrayed, though with what view she could not
conjecture, stood undisguised before her. They were dreadful, too
excruciating, too exquisitely agonising, to be expressed in words or in
wailing. Their effect was to benumb every faculty, and to prostrate
every sense; and, as one thus afflicted, sat poor Fanny Rutherford in a
chair, at the window of her shabby apartment.

That evening, the first of her arrival, Raeburn, contrary to his
promise, did not again visit her; but Cressingham came in his place,
and dreadful was the result of this unwelcome visit on the poor girl's
frame. It instantly brought on a crisis in that disease of the mind
under which she was already labouring.

The moment he entered the apartment, she uttered a piercing shriek, and
rushed frantically to the furthest corner of the room, in the greatest
terror, calling on the intruder in the name of Heaven not to come near
her--not to approach her. "Leave me, leave me!" she exclaimed, in a tone
of bitter agony. "If there be the smallest portion of humanity in your
nature, you will leave me instantly. For the love of Heaven," she again
repeated, "and of all that you hold dear, leave me! I am deceived and
betrayed by him in whom I put all my earthly trust. Oh! my father, my
brothers, if ye knew of this. But you will never know it: for I will
never see you again. Never, never, never!"

The extreme agitation, the terror and outcries of the unfortunate girl,
at once arrested Cressingham's progress, and brought several persons
that were in the house around her; and by these last--Cressingham having
sneaked off, without saying a word--it was judged advisable to send
immediately for medical assistance, which was accordingly done. Nor was
it unnecessary; for a strong fever had already seized on the poor young
lady, and was rapidly exhausting her strength.

The medical gentleman sent for instantly attended, and ordered Miss
Rutherford to be put to bed. He then prescribed for her as for one whose
danger he considered imminent; and he was not mistaken. Deeply
interested in the unfortunate girl, from whom he had learned a good deal
of her melancholy story, the medical gentleman who had been called in
did all that man could do to arrest the progress of the fatal disease
under which she was labouring. Night and day he attended her, during her
severe but brief illness, and not only employed his own skill to save
her, but that of some of the most eminent of his professional brethren
in the town, whom he brought to his assistance.

But all human efforts were vain. From hour to hour, the fever went on,
increasing alarmingly, accompanied by a proportionable diminution of the
poor patient's strength, until, at length, the awful and fatal crisis
arrived. On the evening of the third day after her arrival in Calcutta,
Fanny Rutherford breathed her last, surrounded with strangers, and in a
foreign land.


But where was the master ruffian all this time? How was he employed, and
how did he feel, while this dreadful and affecting scene was enacting?
Why, he was giving himself very little concern about it, further than
that which proceeded from his fears for his L5000.

He had indeed called two or three times at Fanny's lodgings during her
illness, to inquire for her, and had even sent her some
cordials--cordials, alas! of which she had never partaken--from his own
house; but more than this he had not done, nor in any other way had he
evinced the smallest sympathy for the unhappy victim of his villany.

Raeburn knew that Fanny's illness was of a dangerous nature--but he had
no idea that it was to terminate as it did so soon; and it was under
this mistaken impression that he and Cressingham called at Fanny's
lodgings on the very evening on which she died, and, as it happened,
within a few minutes after that melancholy event had taken place.

Having tapped gently at the door, which was slowly opened to him by the
lodging-house-keeper herself--

"How is your patient to-night, lady?" he said, addressing the latter,
smilingly.

"She is well, sir--she is well," replied the woman, in whom Fanny's
gentle nature and hard fate--of which she, too, had gathered something
during the unfortunate girl's fits of delirium--had excited a strong
feeling of sympathy. "She is well!--she is well!" she said, wiping her
eyes with her apron as she spoke. "She's in heaven, sir!"

"What!" exclaimed Raeburn, in a tone of voice startling from its
hollowness, and becoming deadly pale; his mean and dastardly soul
instantly sinking under the weight of guilt with which he felt this
dreadful intelligence burdening it. "What! she's not dead?"

"But she is though," replied the woman; "and there's an avenging God
above that will seek out and make a terror and example of those who have
been the cause of this poor girl's death."

"What do you mean, woman?" said Raeburn, in an alarm which he could not
conceal, and which the slightest allusion to his villany was now
sufficient to excite to an overwhelming degree; "you do not mean to say
that she died by violence?"

"I know what I know, Mr Raeburn," rejoined the lodging-house-keeper,
"and that's all I have to say about the matter." And she turned into the
house.

Having by no means any wish to renew the conversation, Raeburn availed
himself of the opportunity presented by the woman's retiring into the
house, to sneak off, which he did, and joined his friend Cressingham,
who was waiting for him at a little distance.

"She's dead, Cressingham!--she's dead!" he said, in great agitation, as
he approached the latter.

"Dead!" exclaimed Cressingham--"is it possible? Why, then, Harry, your
L5000 are gone, and you have been a villain for nothing."

"A villain, did you say, Cressingham?" repeated Raeburn, his lips pale
and quivering as he spoke.

"Yes; surely a villain--a double-dyed villain!" reiterated the former.
"Did you ever imagine you were anything else? My share in the
transaction is bad enough--I allow it; but it's nothing to yours,
Raeburn--nothing; for I would assuredly have married the girl, if she
would have had me. My conduct in the business was perhaps that of a
profligate: but yours--yours, Raeburn--was unquestionably that,"
repeated Cressingham, coolly and considerately--"that of a double-dyed
villain." Saying this, he turned on his heel and left him.

The instances just mentioned were the first and the only ones in which
Raeburn had yet suffered the martyrdom of hearing the opinion of others
of his conduct with regard to Miss Rutherford; but this was a species of
torture to which he was now to be frequently exposed. On this very
occasion, he had not proceeded twenty yards from the place where
Cressingham had left him, when he encountered the medical gentleman who
had been attending his victim. This person, conjecturing, from the
direction whence Raeburn was coming, that he had been inquiring for his
patient, accosted him, and asked him how she was.

Raeburn, it will readily be believed, would have gone fifty miles
about--ay, even on his bare knees--rather than have exposed himself to
this meeting; but it had taken place, and he now, therefore, endeavoured
to suppress his agitation, and tried to look as composed as possible;
and it was with this forced and affected calmness that he replied to the
physician's inquiry, that his patient was dead.

"Dead!" said the kind-hearted man; "ah, poor girl! I knew it was at
hand, but I thought she might have lived for at least twenty-four hours
yet. Well, then," he went on, and now looking Raeburn sternly in the
face, "since it is so, I will tell you, Mr Raeburn, my opinion of what
your conduct has been in this most heartrending affair; for you are
deeply implicated in it. My opinion, then, is, sir, that it has been
most infamous, most atrocious; and, regarding yourself, sir, I certainly
think you one of the most heartless ruffians that ever lived."

"Ruffian, sir!" repeated Raeburn, affecting to feel insulted, although
he was quaking in every limb--"ruffian, sir! I shall have satisfaction
for this, sir, you may depend upon it."

"Satisfaction, you scoundrel!" exclaimed Dr Henderson--the name of
Fanny's medical attendant--"what right have you to satisfaction? Who
would condescend to fight such a dastardly and disgraceful villain as
you are? But, mark me, sir," he went on; "I know who the lady's friends
are; and you may depend upon it, I shall not lose a moment in writing to
inform them of everything connected with this shocking affair, and of
your conduct towards the deceased. Take my word for that, sir. And, sir,
not only will I do this, but I will inform every one I know of your
conduct, until you are scouted from all society."

To this Raeburn made no other reply than by turning on his heel, and
muttering the words, "Dr Henderson, you shall hear from me."

"Hear from you, you basest and most infamous of men!" said the doctor,
looking with an expression of the most profound contempt and hatred
after Raeburn, as he receded; "the less we hear of you or from you, the
better for yourself, you ruffian."

Faithfully redeeming his pledge, Dr Henderson, on the following day,
wrote to Fanny's father, whose address he had learned from her while
attending her, and detailed all he knew--and this was nearly all that
was to be known--regarding Raeburn's conduct to his daughter; for,
although the latter had never accused Raeburn to him of ill-treatment,
the doctor had, by connecting the broken hints which she had dropped
from time to time, and especially by marking certain expressions which
escaped her during her temporary fits of delirium, arrived at a
knowledge of the whole truth. Having executed this part of his threat,
Dr Henderson set diligently about the remaining portion, which was to
give all the publicity he could to the story of Raeburn's infamy; and so
successful was he in his efforts in this way, that he had the
satisfaction in a very short time of seeing him shunned by all his
acquaintances, and completely debarred from respectable society.

After Fanny's death, Raeburn had evinced a disposition to take an active
part in her obsequies; and even expressed a willingness to defray the
whole of the funeral charges. But this Dr Henderson would on no account
permit. Neither would he suffer him to interfere in any way whatever
with the funeral rites; the whole expense of which he insisted on paying
out of his own pocket; and Raeburn knew too well the advantage the
doctor possessed over him, to offer any resistance to these peremptory
objections.

Thus stood matters, then, with Raeburn, and thus they remained for about
eighteen months afterwards. He still, during all this time, continued in
possession of his situation; but his superiors, who were well acquainted
with the story of his villany to Miss Rutherford, were eagerly and
anxiously watching for an opportunity to dismiss him. They did not feel
that they would have been warranted in discharging him for his infamous
conduct on the occasion alluded to, as it was a matter of which they had
no right, officially, to take cognisance; but they had determined that
the slightest dereliction of duty on his part should cost him his
situation. Of this Raeburn was perfectly aware; and it required all his
diligence, care, and attention, to avoid the visitation with which he
was threatened. Such, we say, then, was the state of matters with
Raeburn for about eighteen months after Fanny Rutherford's death. At the
expiry of this period, however, that event occurred which winds up this
tragic tale.

One evening, about nine o'clock, Raeburn was sitting solitary in his
room, musing on the miseries to which his villany had subjected him, and
no doubt indulging, as all villains do, in imaginary schemes of
vengeance against his enemies, when a waiter from one of the hotels in
town called, and said that a gentleman there desired to see him
immediately on a matter of importance.

Raeburn, conceiving that it might be on some official business that he
was wanted, instantly repaired to the hotel, and was ushered into the
room where the person was who wished to see him.

That person kept his back towards Raeburn till he had fairly entered the
apartment, and until the waiter who had shown him in had retired. This
done, he suddenly rushed towards the door, snatching up at the same time
one of a pair of pistols which lay on a table in the middle of the room,
and having locked the door in the inside, he fiercely confronted
Raeburn, who, horror-struck at the sight, instantly recognised, in the
person before him, Edward Rutherford, the brother of the unfortunate
Fanny.

"Do you know me, villain? Do you know me?" shouted out Edward, first
seizing him by the breast, and then dashing him from him with a violence
that sent him reeling to the farther end of the apartment. "Do you know
the brother of Fanny Rutherford, murderer? Did you think, ruffian, that
you were safe from my vengeance, because the half of the globe lay
between us? If you did, you mistook Edward Rutherford. But I will waste
no more words on you, villain! The shade of my murdered sister--murdered
by the cruellest of all deaths--is calling aloud for retribution, and,
in her name, I am here to demand it! Here, dastard!" he said, taking up
the other pistol, and presenting it to Raeburn--"here, take this, and
stand to me like a man; for I would not imbrue my hands in your filthy
blood but upon equal terms. Although you but little deserve it, I will
give you a chance for your life! Come, sir," he went on, Raeburn
declining to take the pistol, "take it--take it; for, by the heaven
above us, one or other of us, or both, must die; and your only chance
is in opposing me; for, if you do not fire, I will! By all that's
sacred, I will!" At this moment, Raeburn rushed to the window, with the
view of calling for assistance; and one supplicatory cry, which,
however, was unattended to, he did emit. But, ere he could fully effect
his object, Edward had him by the throat, and, holding his pistol within
a few inches of his head, threatened, if he stirred or repeated his
outcry, that that moment should be his last.

Seeing the desperate situation in which he was placed, the trembling
wretch now took the pistol from Rutherford's hand, being aware, as he
had been told, that it was indeed his only chance for life.

The parties now took their stations, one at each end of the room, and
confronted each other.

"Raise your weapon, Raeburn; raise your weapon!" exclaimed Rutherford,
on observing that his antagonist was not proceeding to assume a hostile
attitude. "Your not firing will not save you from mine. I give you fair
warning!"

Raeburn elevated, and levelled his pistol.

"Are you ready?" said his terrible opponent.

"Yes," replied Raeburn, faintly.

"Then fire, villain!" exclaimed Rutherford; and both pistols went off at
the same instant, but with very different effect. A retributive power
had directed the fatal engines of destruction. Raeburn's bullet struck
the wall wide of its mark, while Rutherford's passed through the heart
of him at whom it was aimed, and he fell lifeless on the floor.

Rutherford threw himself on his knees, and holding aloft the still
reeking weapon of death, thanked Heaven that he had been permitted to be
the avenger of his sister's wrongs.

The house in which this dreadful scene took place was a large one, and
the apartment, especially selected on that account by Rutherford, was a
remote one; so that the firing was not heard by any of the inmates--at
least not so distinctly as to inform them that it was the noise of
firearms. No one, therefore, appeared to interrupt the escape which
Rutherford now meditated, and lost no time in effecting. He left the
apartment, and, unheeded by any one, descended the great staircase which
led to it and to others, and fled from the house.

Although, however, Rutherford effected his escape in safety, the
transaction which rendered his flight necessary did not long remain
unknown. It came to the ears of justice, and she uncoupled her
bloodhounds after the offender; but, as the whole circumstances of the
case gradually transpired, it is supposed that the pursuit was neither a
very eager nor a very willing one. Certain it is, at any rate, that
Rutherford could nowhere be found, although it is equally certain that
several persons knew very well where he was for nearly two months after
the death of Raeburn.

To these it was known that, immediately after the fatal occurrence in
the hotel, a person closely wrapped up in a travelling-cloak called at
Dr Henderson's, and desired to have a private interview with the doctor.
When that gentleman entered the apartment into which the stranger had
been shown, the latter announced himself to be Edward Rutherford, the
brother of Fanny Rutherford, with whose melancholy story he said the
doctor was so well acquainted.

"The brother of poor Fanny!" said the doctor, in amazement, and at the
same time taking his visiter kindly by the hand. "I am happy to see you,
sir, on your poor unfortunate sister's account. Did you come with the
ship that arrived from England to-day, sir?"

"I did, sir," replied Edward.

"And pray, my dear sir," said the doctor, "if it be not an impertinent
question--I assure you it is put with the most friendly intentions--what
may be your purpose and views in coming out to India?"

"Vengeance, doctor! vengeance!" replied Rutherford, fiercely, "was my
sole object--and I have already had it."

"Raeburn!" exclaimed the doctor, eagerly.

"Yes, sir, Raeburn is no more--his villanous career is ended. I have
killed the ruffian; but, thank God! I killed him in fair fight. Villain
as he was, I took no advantage of him, farther than compelling him to
fight me." Edward then went on to detail the whole proceedings connected
with the duel in the hotel.

When he had concluded--

"On my word, sir," said Dr Henderson, smiling--he could not help
it--"you have made quick work of it indeed; and I assure you, I for one
am not sorry that the villain has met with his deserts. But we must now
care for your safety, Mr Rutherford, from the vengeance of the laws,"
added the doctor; "although I do not see how they can be very severe in
such a case as this. Yet it will be as well for you to keep out of
harm's way for a little. You must remain for some time in concealment;
and a fitter or more secure place than I shall provide for you in my
house here, you could not readily find anywhere; and I must insist on
your availing yourself of it."

Edward did not know how to express the gratitude he felt for the
singular and most disinterested kindness of his worthy host. He was, in
truth, too strongly impressed with it to be able to acknowledge it
otherwise than by a few broken sentences; but there was in these, and
still more in the manner in which they were spoken, enough to show Dr
Henderson that his friendly conduct was properly appreciated.

"Nothing at all, my dear sir!--nothing at all!" said the doctor, in
reply to Edward's attempts at acknowledgment of the generous part he was
acting towards him. "I'm very sure you would do the same for me, were I
placed in your situation. You have, besides, Mr Rutherford--although,
perhaps, a strict morality might question your right to the step you
have taken--you have, I say, notwithstanding this, a claim on the
friendly services of every man who can feel for the wrongs of another,
especially--most especially--such grievous wrongs as yours. It was a
just, and, on the part of him who has suffered, a well-merited
retribution."

Edward was shortly afterwards introduced into the place of
concealment--a comfortable little apartment, which had been prepared for
him by the kindness of the worthy doctor; and here he remained for about
seven weeks, experiencing every kindness and attention from his
benevolent host, when he was secretly conveyed on board of a ship about
to sail for London, where he arrived in safety, at the expiry of
somewhere about the usual period occupied in such a voyage.

On his return home, Edward found his father at the point of death. The
fate of his unfortunate daughter was hurrying him to the grave. Edward
had not told him what was his object in going out to India; but the old
man had guessed it, and had made several ineffectual attempts to
dissuade him from his purpose. On the former now approaching his
bedside, therefore, "Thank God!'" he said, stretching out his hand to
Edward, "that I see you safe again, my son;" and added--afraid to be
more particular in his inquiries--"have you seen Raeburn?"

"I have, father," was the only reply of his son; but it was said in a
manner, and accompanied by a look, which assured him of what had taken
place.

"I cannot approve, Edward, of what you have done," said his father; "but
God will forgive you!"

They were the last words he spoke; and Raeburn's villany boasted yet
another victim.




THE PROFESSOR'S TALES.




THE ENTHUSIAST.


There is a splendid book written, called "The Enthusiast;" but, though
it discovers the author's talents, to my apprehension and feelings, it
fails, after a few pages, to keep alive the attention--and why? Just
because the author, portraying the general character of enthusiasm,
steps beyond himself and his own personal observations, and talks about
the workings of the principle in a new and untried combination of
circumstances. From the law which regulates projectiles in _aere_, he
reasons to what should regulate them _in vacuo_; he reasons from things
seen to things unseen; and then leaves both himself and his reader in
the mud and the mist of mere supposition. But, in what I mean to say of
enthusiasm, I pledge myself to state nothing but what I have felt or
seen; and I shall separate this principle from all others, only marking
its influence when it is in a state of intensity, as one marks the
electric spark, not in the cloud or the machine, but as it passes from
one locality to another. Enthusiasm is, in fact, the electrical element
of life. It is more or less everywhere, and often where it is least
suspected. It bursts forth, occasionally, in the character of the
warrior, the scholar, the poet, the speculator; but it remains as
substantially, perhaps, though not so ostensibly, in the bosom of the
parent, the husband, the wife, the child, the friend, the kinsman. The
tradesman is an enthusiast, if he hopes to succeed; the merchant, the
labourer, the mechanic. I have seen a shoemaker as enthusiastic in
making his shoes fit neatly without pinching, as the scholar would be in
divining the meaning of a difficult passage. Without enthusiasm man had
never been what he is. It found him in the world naked, and it clothed
him; houseless, and it covered him; defenceless, and it armed him. It
run him up through the pastoral, the agricultural, to the commercial
state. It composed the "Idylls" of Theocritus, the "Georgics" of Virgil,
and the "Fleece" of Dyer. Without this there had been no shepherds to
sing, and no poets to sing of their singing; no husbandmen to labour,
and no Virgils and Hesiods to speak of their labour and argonautic
expeditions; and no sacred bard to celebrate their pursuit of the golden
fleece, commerce. But, though all this is true, in the enlarged and
diluted sense of the word, it is not so in that sense in which the term
is commonly understood. He is quite an enthusiast in the pursuit of
knowledge--of a fox--or of hoped-for discovery--or of fame or of
fortune--anybody knows to be terms applied to an unusually spirited
pursuit of any or all of these. But the enthusiasm of which I speak is
more limited still. It is a glow which originates and cools in the same
bosom; which has no view beyond itself. It is not a mean to an end, but
mean and end in one. Look at that boy: he is never to be found at a
leisure hour without a fishing-rod in his hand; at that other youth--his
book is his constant companion by the fountain and the hill; at that
religious devotee--prayer and Bible-reading are his heaven; at that
butcher's boy, who is now killing a lamb--his father has put the knife
into his hand to please him--he is an enthusiast in butchery--his
passion feeds on itself: it is, like virtue, its own reward--he cares
not for cutlets or brown roasts.

Having thus narrowed the field to a class, I shall now select an
individual, and that individual shall be one with whom I have had many
opportunities of becoming well acquainted. Curious reader, it is not
you, nor your brother Robert, nor your uncle Andrew, nor any, so far as
I know, of your kindred--it is "myself." And how has enthusiasm wrought
in me? That I am just going to tell you. It has made me, in the first
place, miserable--most miserable; and I'll tell you how. I took it into
my head, when a boy of about eight or nine years of age, that my
mother--my only living parent--was mortal; nay, that she was so old and
infirm--though she was not more than fifty, and in perfect health--that
she would drop down dead, even before my eyes. I followed her wherever
she went; held on by her apron-string, roaring aloud most mournfully,
and shedding, besides, a world of tears. In vain did my kind mother
endeavour to rally me, to reason me, to scold me, and even to chastise
me, out of my dream: it had taken such hold of my imagination, that,
sleeping or waking, it was there. When my mother travelled anywhere
abroad, I was sure to be after her, like a domestic cur. When she went
to offer up her private oblations to a throne of mercy, I crept in under
her plaid, and heard every audible aspiration. In my sleep she was still
before me as I had seen my grandmother--the lips parted, the eyes open,
and set in night. It was horrible. I started into real life, and wept
aloud. I rushed into my mother's apartment, felt her face all over, and
cried bitterly. Reader, have you always been made of pot-mettle? Have
you never experienced any such nervous enthusiasm as this? Have you been
at all times a child of realities--a very steady, thinking, prudent
person; slept like a top, ate like a raven, and talked to the amazement
even of the minister himself? You may be a steady, good person now. You
may even be married, with a family of thirteen children. You may have
succeeded in the world, and feathered your nest. You may have presided
well at various public dinners, and

                                "Never wrote
    One line which, dying, you would wish to blot;"

and for this simple and best of all reasons, that you have never
written, as far as the public is concerned, any lines at all. You may
be a sound-headed lawyer, a calculating merchant, an honest shopkeeper,
or, what is still more commendable, because more rare, an honest judge.
You may sole shoes or make greatcoats to a nicety--fabricate chairs, or
nails, or pins, or periwigs, to a thought; but you are no enthusiast. Do
you see that poor maniac, who is just receiving a visit from his mother
in his cell, whose eyes are turned up in wild uproar to the roof of his
dungeon, and who, in the damp icicles, is apostrophising sun, moon, and
stars, Venus, Jupiter, and Aldubaran? That emaciated form of scarcely
twenty years of age, which a weeping mother clasps, and whom a frenzied
son convulsively strains to his bare and fleshless breast--that is
Ferguson, the poet, the prince of enthusiasts--he at whose genius Burns
lighted that torch which has filled the world with light. Do you mark
that form sitting amongst the sands of Syracuse? The city is taken by
the Roman armies. The enemy are within the walls; pillage and murder are
the order of the hour. But what is that to him?--he is only an
enthusiast. The soldier has challenged him to surrender; his sword is
uplifted, and the challenge is repeated. He heeds it not; the sword
descends--and the greatest mathematician, the most complete enthusiast,
which the world has ever seen, lies before you, a gashed and mangled
corpse. The world--its wonders, its atoms, its various formations!--the
laws--the eternal laws of its construction and form!--there is one who
sung sweetly--oh, how divinely! There is one who sung sublimely--yes, as
one overpowered with the spirit of Him who said, "Let there be light,
and there was light;" but the cord which was overstrained is snapped,
and the bow is unstrung; the pressure upon the delicate fibres of the
brain has been too much, and the building of God has given way. Poor
Lucretius! the disease of which thou didst expire was "enthusiasm."

But it is time to shift the scene--to resort to that exquisite
happiness, and extensive benefit to society, which enthusiasm is
calculated to produce. Poetry is the language of nature. All languages
originated in poetry; the ballad is the mother of all living and dead
books. Whether it be repeated in the shape of Fescenine catches on the
banks of the Tiber, of glorious epic on those of the Scamander, of
chivalrous narrative by the rapid Rhone or sweet Liger--whether it
employ the time and the enthusiastic efforts of the bard, the
troubadour, the harper, or the minstrel--whether it resound through the
recesses of Pindus, of Arcady, or of Yarrow--still, still the ballad
presents the first germ of literature. What are the earlier pages of
Livy's "History" but popular ballads, connected and narratived? What the
history of our own Scotland--of her Bruces, and Wallaces, and all her
many and valorous achievements--but ballads? And

    "How canst thou resist the boundless store
      Of charms which Nature to her votaries yields--
    The warbling woodland--the resounding shore--
      The pomp of groves--and garniture of fields--

    Oh, how canst thou resist, and hope to be forgiven!"

But who can or does resist? Not even the robber Moor, who soliloquises
so poetically the setting sun. Not

    "The swain who, journeying homeward from
    A day's long labour, feels
    The form of beauty smiling on his soul."

Poetry is spread as widely through the human heart as is electricity
through all the works of nature. Man can no more help being poetical,
than he can new-model his frame. But what is the love--the passion of
poetry--but enthusiasm--enthusiasm which converts everything it looks
upon into beauty and sublimity? The man is born desert and lonely: and
is there no beauty in solitude--no grandeur in expansion? The mountains
are highland, wild, heathy, and tempest-beaten: and is there no
sublimity in their cliffs, their scarred fronts, and scarred sides? The
landscape is covered with wood, or there is at least a pleasing
alternation of forest and glade, of peopled levels and wooded hills: and
does not the soul nestle softly and lovingly amidst these pleasing
varieties? But you are making faces, and there is something like an
incipient yawn beginning to travel over your beauteous lips, my dearest
madam. Well, I'll have done with advising you to wed the "spirit of
poetry," if you wish to be completely happy. You need not write poems,
ma'am--that is not necessary; Livy never wrote poetry, and yet he is
every inch a poet. Robertson never wrote verse, and yet he is
essentially poetical. Witness Mexico and Montezuma. "Am I lying on a bed
of roses?"--There, for example, is me _now_--ay, just me--I am every
inch a poet! and yet, with the exception of a few things which need not
be excepted, I never wrote any poetry:--yet I see you want a story, and
you say, am I not reading "The Tales of the Borders, and of
Scotland?"--I cry you mercy, and shall give you the results of my
enthusiasm.

When in Edinburgh, at the college, while others prolonged the debauch,
it might be, till two or three of a fine moonlight night, I have stolen
away about twelve, taken my course through the King's Park to the
Echoing Rock, and from thence to that long hollow valley of Bagdad,
which runs betwixt Arthur Seat and Salisbury Craigs, and there I have
seen the Island of Inchkeith lying, like a glittering diamond, on the
face of the deep and the silver sea, and hazy shores of Fife, and the
fleecy heavens, and the stars, and the "bonny lady moon," and two
figures in the moonlight; they are walking away from me, and are busily
engaged in conversation--they do not perceive me--I will ensconce myself
behind this large stone till I see what may happen. They have now sat
down on the greensward, and I hear their voices very much elevated. The
woman is reproaching the man in loud and angry tones--the man makes no
reply; or, if he does, it is in an under tone--Ha! he has sprung upon
the woman all at once, like a tiger, and she screams, "Murder, murder!"
aloud. Shall I allow a poor woman to be murdered in the solitude of
nature, without making an effort, even at the risk of my own life, to
save her? My resolution, nerved by the wine I had drunk, was taken in an
instant--I sprang forward, crying loudly to my _companions_ to assist
me. When the horrible object understood how things were going, and
imagining, no doubt, that there were more than _one_ witness of its
horrible doings, it took to its heels with the speed of lightning. I did
not pursue; in fact, I had no inclination to do so; it was sufficient
for me if I could save life--I did not wish to take it, either
personally or legally. When I went up to the poor woman, she was all
astonishment, and her first accents were uttered in thanksgiving to
Almighty God for sending me into the desert for her rescue. I found
that, although the villain had clutched her by the throat, he had not
had time to suffocate her. Her throat was indeed sore from the pressure,
and she breathed for some time with difficulty; but there were no deadly
symptoms about her. What a mysterious Providence is about us!--and we
often know it not. I had originally no intention of taking a moonlight
walk that evening, or rather morning, had it not been to avoid the
impertinence of a fellow-member of the Dialectic Society, who manifestly
wished, in his cups, to fasten a quarrel upon me. I stepped out from
Young's, and was off. I was manifestly the messenger of Heaven, and
could not help regarding myself with a kind of reverence. The poor
woman, who was in fact the wife of this worthless man, gave me her
history, to the following purpose:--

That brute, as you very properly call him, is my husband, and was once
as kind and affectionate to me as I could wish. Ours was what is called
a pure love marriage, for I was born to better circumstances and
prospects than, from my present condition and appearance, you may well
imagine. (Here the poor woman shed tears, and proceeded.) I was the
daughter of a small proprietor in the neighbourhood of Durham, where the
Princess of Wales' regiment of Light Dragoons was raised, and was then
lying, under the command of Lord Darlington. We--that is to say, my
father, my mother, my sister, and myself--used to go frequently into a
field adjoining the city, and see this really handsome regiment
reviewed, and go through their exercise. One day there was a mock battle
represented, in the very field adjoining to my father's house. Several
regiments were collected together, from Newcastle and elsewhere, for the
purpose. It was to be a great show; and the whole town of Durham, as
well as all the country round, were congregated to see the battle.
Cannons were fired, charges of cavalry were made, and a detachment of
the Darlington troop rode, in pursuit of the supposed enemy, past our
door. My father and I were at the upper window when the troop came
dashing along, clearing fences and springing over ditches in the finest
style imaginable. Just as they came opposite to my father's door, a pig,
which had escaped from its confinement in the back-court, dashed
headlong forward amongst the feet of the horses. One of the horses fell;
and the rider, having pitched on his head, was seemingly killed on the
spot. He was immediately carried into our house, and surgical aid was at
hand. It was a dislocation of the neck-bone, and was immediately put to
rights; but the patient was bled, and ordered to be kept quiet for some
days. I naturally became the young gentleman's nurse; for he was the son
of a poor but titled family in the neighbourhood of Darlington. Mr
Fitzwilliam was a handsome man, about my own age; but he was penniless,
and a soldier of fortune. My father, early seeing the danger of my
remaining in the way of temptation, had sent me off to a grand house in
the neighbourhood of Newcastle. But William Fitzwilliam had won my
heart, and, in spite of all watchings and lookings, we were man and wife
in less than a fortnight after my departure for Newcastle.

We were married at Gretna Green; and I have accompanied him ever since,
through Carlisle and Dumfries, Ayr, Glasgow, and ultimately to Jock's
Lodge, where the regiment is now lying. He has taken lodgings for me in
Edinburgh; but of late has sadly deserted me. I have been enabled, by
taking up linen, and sewing articles for the ladies' exhibition, to do
something in aid of our scanty funds. But William has of late undergone
a sad change. He has become addicted to gambling; has even introduced
improper characters, both male and female, into my presence; and has
talked, particularly in his cups, about a divorce and separation. He
wishes _me_, he says, to divorce him; and takes every method of giving
me sufficient grounds for so doing; but, with all his errors and vices,
I love him still, nor can I think, now that I have time to reflect on
it, he would have murdered me outright, even though you had not so
providentially interfered. He has of late succeeded to a title, by the
death of an un

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