"Big with the fate of Thomas and his mother."

He was to preach his trial sermon; and where? In his own parish—in his native village! It was summer, but his mother rose by daybreak. Her son, however, was at his studies before her; and when she entered his bedroom with a swimming heart and swimming eyes, Thomas was stalking across the floor, swinging his arms, stamping his feet, and shouting his sermon to the trembling curtains of a four-post bed, which she had purchased in honour of him alone. "Oh, my bairn! my matchless bairn!" cried she, "what a day o' joy is this for your poor mother! But oh, hinny, hae ye it weel aff? I hope there's nae fears o' ye stickin' or using notes!" "Dinna fret, mother—dinna fret," replied the young divine; "stickin' and notes are out o' the question. I hae every word o' it as clink as the A B C." The appointed hour arrived. She was first at the kirk. Her heart felt too big for her bosom. She could not sit—she walked again to the air—she trembled back—she gazed restless on the pulpit. The parish minister gave out the psalm—the book shook while she held it. The minister prayed, again gave out a psalm, and left the pulpit. The book fell from Mrs. Jeffrey's hand. A tall figure paced along the passage. He reached the pulpit stairs—took two steps at once. It was a bad omen; but arose from the length of his limbs—not levity. He opened the door—his knees smote upon one another. He sat down—he was paler than death. He rose—his bones were paralytic. The Bible was opened—his mouth opened at the same time, and remained open, but said nothing. His large eyes stared wildly around. At length his teeth chattered, and the text was announced, though half the congregation disputed it. "My brethren!" said he once, and the whiteness of his countenance increased; but he said no more. "My bre—thren!" responded he a second time; his teeth chattered louder; his cheeks became clammy and death-like. "My brethren!" stammered he a third time emphatically, and his knees fell together. A deep groan echoed from his mother's pew. His wildness increased. "My mother!" exclaimed the preacher. They were the last words he ever uttered in a pulpit. The shaking and the agony began in his heart, and his body caught the contagion. He covered his face with his hands, fell back, and wept. His mother screamed aloud, and fell back also; and thus perished her toils, her husband's prayer, her fond anticipations, and the pulpit oratory of her son. A few neighbours crowded round her to console her and render her assistance. They led her to the door. She gazed upon them with a look of vacancy—thrice sorrowfully waved her hand, in token that they should leave her; for their words fell upon her heart like dew upon a furnace. Silently she arose and left them, and reaching her cottage, threw herself upon her bed in bitterness. She shed no tears; neither did she groan, but her bosom heaved with burning agony. Sickness smote Thomas to his very heart; yea, even unto blindness he was sick. His tongue was like heated iron in his mouth, and his throat like a parched land. He was led from the pulpit. But he escaped not the persecution of the unfeeling titter, and the expressions of shallow pity. He would have rejoiced to have dwelt in darkness for ever, but there was no escape from the eyes of his tormentors. The congregation stood in groups in the kirkyard, "just," as they said, "to hae anither look at the orator;" and he must pass through the midst of them. With his very soul steeped in shame, and his cheeks covered with confusion, he stepped from the kirk door. A humming noise issued through the crowd, and every one turned their faces towards him. His misery was greater than he could bear. "Yon was oratory for ye!" said one. "Poor deevil!" added another, "I'm sorry for him; but it was as guid as a play." "Was it tragedy or comedy?" inquired a third, laughing as he spoke. The remarks fell upon his ear—he grated his teeth in madness, but he could endure no more; and, covering his face with his hands, he bounded off like a wounded deer to his mother's cottage. In despair he entered the house, scarce knowing what he did. He beheld her where she had fallen upon the bed, dead to all but misery. "Oh mother, mother!" he cried, "dinna ye be angry—dinna ye add to the afflictions of your son! Will ye no, mother?—will ye no?" A low groan was the only answer. He hurried to and fro across the room, wringing his hands. "Mother," he again exclaimed, "will ye no speak ae word? Oh, woman! ye wadna be angry if ye kenned what an awfu' thing it is to see a thousan' een below ye, and aboon ye, and round about ye, a' staring upon ye like condemning judges, an' looking into your very soul—ye hae nae idea o' it, mother; I tell ye, ye hae nae idea o't, or ye wadna be angry. The very pulpit floor gaed down wi' me, the kirk wa's gaed round about, and I thought the very crown o' my head wad pitch on the top o' the precentor. The very een o' the multitude soomed round me like fishes!—an' oh, woman! are ye dumb? will ye torment me mair? can ye no speak, mother?" But he spoke to one who never spoke again. Her reason departed, and her speech failed, but grief remained. She had lived upon one hope, and that hope was destroyed. Her round ruddy cheeks and portly form wasted away, and within a few weeks the neighbours, who performed the last office of humanity, declared that a thinner corpse was never wrapt in a winding sheet than Mrs. Jeffrey. Time soothed, but did not heal the sorrows, the shame, and the disappointment of the son. He sank into a village teacher, and often, in the midst of his little school, he would quote his first, his only text—imagine the children to be his congregation—attempt to proceed—gaze wildly round for a moment, and sit down and weep. Through these aberrations his school dwindled into nothingness, and poverty increased his delirium. Once, in the midst of the remaining few, he gave forth the fatal text. "My brethren!" he exclaimed, and smiting his hand upon his forehead, cried, "Speak, mother!—speak now!" and fell with his face upon the floor. The children rushed screaming from the school, and when the villagers entered, the troubled spirit had fled for ever.



THE LAWYER'S TALES.

THE STORY OF MYSIE CRAIG.

In detailing the curious circumstances of the following story, I am again only reporting a real law case to be found in the Court of Session Records, the turning-point of which was as invisible to the judges as to the parties themselves—that is, until the end came; a circumstance again which made the case a kind of developed romance. But as an end implies a beginning, and the one is certainly as necessary as the other, we request you to accompany us—taking care of your feet—up the narrow spiral staircase of a tenement called Corbet's Land, in the same old town where so many wonderful things in the complicated drama—or dream, if you are a Marphurius—of human life have occurred. Up which spiral stair having got by the help of our hands, almost as indispensable as that of the feet, we find ourselves in a little human dovecot of two small rooms, occupied by two persons not unlike, in many respects, two doves—Widow Craig and her daughter, called May, euphuized by the Scotch into Mysie. The chief respects in which they might be likened, without much stress, to the harmless creatures we have mentioned, were their love for each other, together with their total inoffensiveness as regarded the outside world; and we are delighted to say this, for we see so many of the multitudinous sides of human nature dark and depraved, that we are apt to think there is no bright side at all. Nor shall we let slip the opportunity of saying, at the risk of being considered very simple, that of all the gifts of felicity bestowed, as the Pagan Homer tells, upon mankind by the gods, no one is so perfect and beautiful as the love that exists between a good mother and a good daughter.

For so much we may be safe by having recourse to instinct, which is deeper than any secondary causes we poor mortals can see. But beyond this, there were special reasons tending to this same result of mutual affection, which come more within the scope of our observation. In explanation of which, we may say that the mother, having something in her power during her husband's life, had foreseen the advantages of using it in the instruction of her quick and intelligent daughter in an art of far more importance then than now—that of artistic, needlework. Nay, of so much importance was this beautiful art, and to such perfection was it brought at a time when a lady's petticoat, embroidered by the hand, with its profuse imitations of natural objects, flowers, and birds, and strange devices, would often cost twenty pounds Scots, that a sight of one of those operose achievements of genius would make us blush for our time and the labours of our women. Nor was the perfection in this ornamental industry a new thing, for the daughters of the Pictish kings confined in the castle were adepts in it; neither was it left altogether to paid sempstresses, for great ladies spent their time in it, and emulation quickened both the genius and the diligence. So we need hardly say it became to the mother a thing to be proud of, that her daughter Mysie proved herself so apt a scholar that she became an adept, and was soon known as one of the finest embroideresses in the great city. So, too, as a consequence, it came to pass that great ladies employed her; and often the narrow spiral staircase of Corbet's Land was brushed on either side by the huge masses of quilted and emblazoned silk that, enveloping the belles of the day, were with difficulty forced up to and down from the small room of the industrious Mysie.

But we are now speaking of art, while we should have more to say (for it concerns us more) of the character of the young woman who was destined to figure in a stranger way than in making beautiful figures on silk. Mysie was one of a class: few in number they are indeed, but on that account more to be prized. Her taste and fine manipulations were but counterparts of qualities of the heart—an organ to which the pale face, with its delicate lines and the clear liquid eyes, was a suitable index. The refinement which enabled her to make her imitation of beautiful objects on the delicate material of her work was only another form of a sensibility which pervaded her whole nature—that gift which is only conceded to peculiar organizations, and is such a doubtful one, too, if we go, as we cannot help doing, with the poet, when he sings that "chords that vibrate sweetest pleasures," often also "thrill the deepest notes of woe." Nay, we might say that the creatures themselves seem to fear the gift, for they shrink from the touch of the rough world, and retire within themselves as if to avoid it, while they are only courting its effects in the play of an imagination much too ardent for the duties of life; and, as a consequence, how they seek secretly the support of stronger natures, clinging to them as do those strange plants called parasites, which, with their tender arms and something so like fingers, cling to the nearest stem of a stouter neighbour, and embracing it, even though hollow and rotten, cover it, and choke it with a flood of flowers. So true is it that woman, like the generous vine, lives by being supported and held up; yet equally true that the strength she gains is from the embrace she gives; and so it is also that goodness, as our Scottish poet Home says, often wounds itself, and affection proves the spring of sorrow.

All which might truly be applied to Mysie Craig; but as yet the stronger stem to which she clung was her mother, and it was not likely, nor was it in reality, that that affection would prove to her anything but the spring of happiness, for it was ripened by love; and the earnings of the nimble fingers, moving often into the still hours of the night, not only kept the wolf from the door, but let in the lambs of domestic harmony and peace. Would that these things had so continued! But there are other wolves than those of poverty, and the "ae lamb o' the fauld" cannot be always under the protection of the ewe; and it so happened on a certain night, not particularized in the calendar, that our Mysie, having finished one of these floral petticoats on which she had been engaged for many weeks, went forth with her precious burden to deliver the same to its impatient owner, no other than the then famous Anabella Gilroy, who resided in Advocate's Close—of which fine lady, by the way, we may say, that of all the gay creatures who paraded between "the twa Bows," no one displayed such ample folds of brocaded silk, nodded her pon-pons more jauntily, or napped with a sharper crack her high-heeled shoes, all to approve herself to "the bucks" of the time, with their square coats brocaded with lace, their three-cornered hats on the top of their bob-wigs, their knee-buckles and shoe-buckles. And certainly not the least important of those, both in his own estimation and that of the sprightly Anabella, was George Balgarnie, a young man who had only a year before succeeded to the property of Balgruddery, somewhere in the north, and of whom we might say that, in forming him, Nature had taken so much pains with the building up of the body, that she had forgotten the mind, so that he had no more spiritual matter in him than sufficed to keep his blood hot, and enable his sensual organs to work out their own selfish gratifications; or, to perpetrate a metaphor, he was all the polished mahogany of a piano, without any more musical springs than might respond to one keynote of selfishness. And surely Anabella had approved herself to the fop to some purpose; for when our sempstress with her bundle had got into the parlour of the fine lady, she encountered no other than Balgarnie—a circumstance apparently of very small importance; but we know that a moment of time is sometimes like a small seed, which contains the nucleus of a great tree—perhaps a poisonous one. And so it turned out that, while Anabella was gloating over the beautiful work of the timid embroideress, Balgarnie was busy admiring the artist, but not merely—perhaps not at all—as an artist, only as an object over whom he wished to exercise power.

This circumstance was not unobserved by the little embroideress, but it was only observed to be shrunk from in her own timid way; and probably it would soon have passed from her mind, if it had not been followed up by something more direct and dangerous. And it was; for no sooner had Mysie got to the foot of the stairs than she encountered Balgarnie, who had gone out before her; and now began one of those romances in daily life of which the world is full, and of which the world is sick. Balgarnie, in short, commenced that kind of suit which is nearly as old as the serpent, and therefore not to be wondered at; neither are we to wonder that Mysie listened to it, because we have heard so much about "lovely woman stooping to folly," that we are content to put it to the large account of natural miracles. And not very miraculous either, when we remember that if the low-breathed accents of tenderness awaken the germ of love, they awaken at the same time faith and trust. And such was the beginning of the romance which was to go through the normal stages,—the appointment to meet again, the meeting itself, the others that followed, the extension of the moonlight walks, sometimes to the Hunter's Bog between Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, and sometimes to the song-famed "Wells o' Weary,"—all which were just as sun and shower to the germ of the plant. The love grew and grew, and the faith grew and grew also which saw in him that which it felt in itself. Nay, if any of those moonlight-loving elves that have left their foot-marks in the fairy rings to be seen near St. Anthony's Well had whispered in Mysie's ear, "Balgarnie will never make you his wife," she would have believed the words as readily as if they had impugned the sincerity of her own heart. In short, we have again the analogue of the parasitic plant. The very fragility and timidity of Mysie were at once the cause and consequence of her confidence. She would cling to him and cover him with the blossoms of her affection; nay, if there were unsoundness in the stem, these very blossoms would cover the rottenness.

This change in the life of the little sempstress could not fail to produce some corresponding change at home. We read smoothly the play we have acted ourselves; and so the mother read love in the daughter's eyes, and heard it, too, in her long sighs; nor did she fail to read the sign that the song which used to lighten her beautiful work was no longer heard; for love to creatures so formed as Mysie Craig is too serious an affair for poetical warbling. But she said nothing; for while she had faith in the good sense and virtue of her daughter, she knew also that there was forbearance due to one who was her support. Nor, as yet, had she reason to fear, for Mysie still plied her needle, and the roses and the lilies sprang up in all their varied colours out of the ground of the silk or satin as quickly and as beautifully as they were wont, though the lilies of her checks waxed paler as the days flitted. And why the latter should have been, we must leave to the reader; for ourselves only hazarding the supposition that, perhaps, she already thought that Balgarnie should be setting about to make her his wife—an issue which behoved to be the result of their intimacy sooner or later; for that in her simple mind there should be any other issue, was just about as impossible as that, in the event of the world lasting as long, the next moon would not, at her proper time, again shine in that green hollow, between the Lion's Head and Samson's Ribs, which had so often been the scene of their happiness. Nay, we might say that though a doubt on the subject had by any means got into her mind, it would not have remained there longer than it took a shudder to scare the wild thing away.

Of course, all this was only a question of time; but certain it is, that by-and-by the mother could see some connection between Mysie's being more seldom out on those moonlight nights than formerly, and a greater paleness in her thin face, as if the one had been the cause of the other. But still she said nothing, for she daily expected that Mysie would herself break the subject to her; and so she was left only to increasing fears that her daughter's heart and affections had been tampered with, and perhaps she had fears that went farther. Still, so far as yet had gone, there was no remission in the labours of Mysie's fingers, as if in the midst of all—whatever that all might be—she recognised the paramount necessity of bringing in by those fingers the required and usual amount of the means of their livelihood. Nay, somehow or other, there was at that very time, when her cheek was at the palest, and her sighs were at their longest, and her disinclination to speak was at the strongest, an increase of work upon her; for was not there a grand tunic to embroider for Miss Anabella, which was wanted on a given day; and were there not other things for Miss Anabella's friend, Miss Allardice, which were not to be delayed beyond that same day? And so she stitched and stitched on and on, till sometimes the little lamp seemed to go out for want of oil, while the true cause of her diminished light was really the intrusion of the morning sun, against which it had no chance. It might be, too, that her very anxiety to get these grand dresses finished helped to keep out of her mind ideas which could have done her small good, even if they had got in.

But at length the eventful hour came when the gentle sempstress withdrew the shining needle, made clear by long use, from the last touch of the last rose; and doubtless, if Mysie had not been under the cloud of sorrow we have mentioned, she would have been happier at the termination of so long a labour than she had ever been, for the finishing evening had always been celebrated by a glass of strong Edinburgh ale—a drink which, as both a liquor and a liqueur, was as famous then as it is at this day. But of what avail was this work-termination to her now? Was it not certain that she had not seen Balgarnie for two moons? and though the impossibility of his not marrying her was just as impossible as ever, why were these two moons left to shine in the green hollow and on the rising hill without the privilege of throwing the shadows of Mysie Craig and George Balgarnie on the grass, where the fairies had left the traces of their dances? Questions these which she was unable to answer, if it were not even that she was afraid to put them to herself. Then, when was it that she felt herself unable to tie up her work in order to take it home, and that her mother, seeing the reacting effect of the prior sleepless nights in her languid frame, did this little duty for her, even as while she was doing it she looked through her tears at her changed daughter? But Mysie would do so much. While the mother should go to Miss Allardice, Mysie would proceed to Miss Anabella; and so it was arranged. They went forth together, parting at the Nether Bow; and Mysie, in spite of a weakness which threatened to bring her with her burden to the ground, struggled on to her destination. At the top of Advocate's Close she saw a man hurry out and increase his step even as her eye rested on him; and if it had not appeared to her to be among the ultimate impossibilities of things, natural as well as unnatural, she would have sworn that that man was George Balgarnie; but then, it just so happened that Mysie came to the conclusion that such a circumstance was among these ultimate impossibilities.

This resolution was an effort which cost her more than the conviction would have done, though doubtless she did not feel this at the time, and so with a kind of forced step she mounted the stair; but when she got into the presence of Miss Gilroy, she could scarcely pronounce the words—

"I have brought you the dress, ma'am."

"And I am so delighted, Miss Craig, that I could almost take you into my arms," said the lady; "but what ails ye, dear? You are as white as any snow I ever saw, whereas you ought to have been as blithe as a bridesmaid, for don't you know that you have brought me home one of my marriage dresses? Come now, smile when I tell you that to-morrow is my wedding-day."

"Wedding-day," muttered Mysie, as she thought of the aforesaid utter impossibility of herself not being soon married to George Balgarnie; an impossibility not rendered less impossible by the resolution she had formed not to believe that within five minutes he had flown away from her.

"Yes, Miss Craig, and surely you must have heard who the gentleman is; for does not the town ring of it from the castle to the palace, from Kirk-o'-Field to the Calton?"

"I have not been out," said Mysie.

"That accounts for it," continued the lady; "and I am delighted at the reason, for wouldn't it have been terrible to think that my marriage with George Balgarnie of Balgruddery was a thing of so small a note as not to be known everywhere?"

If Mysie Craig had appeared shortly before to Miss Gilroy paler than any snow her ladyship had ever seen, she must now have been as pale as some other kind of snow that nobody ever saw. The dreadful words had indeed produced the adequate effect, but not in the most common way, for we are to keep in view that it is not the most shrinking and sensitive natures that are always the readiest to faint; and there was, besides, the aforesaid conviction of impossibility which, grasping the mind by a certain force, deadened the ear to words implying the contrary. Mysie stood fixed to the spot, as if she were trying to realize some certainty she dared not think was possible, her lips apart, her eyes riveted on the face of the lady—mute as that kind of picture which a certain ancient calls a silent poem, and motionless as a figure of marble.

An attitude and appearance still more inexplicable to Anabella, perhaps irritating as an unlucky omen, and therefore not possessing any claim for sympathy—at least it got none.

"Are you the Mysie Craig," she cried, as she looked at the girl, "who used to chat to me about the dresses you brought, and the flowers on them? Ah, jealous and envious, is that it? But you forget, George Balgarnie never could have made you his wife—a working needlewoman; he only fancied you as the plaything of an hour. He told me so himself when I charged him with having been seen in your company. So, Mysie, you may as well look cheerful. Your turn will come next with some one in your own station."

There are words which stimulate and confirm; there are others that seem to kill the nerve and take away the sense, nor can we ever tell the effect till we see it produced; and so we could not have told beforehand—nay, we would have looked for something quite opposite—that Mysie, shrinking and irritable as she was by nature, was saved from a faint (which had for some moments been threatening her) by the cruel insult which thus had been added to her misfortune. She had even power to have recourse to that strange device of some natures, that of "affecting to be not affected;" and casting a glance at the fine lady, she turned and went away without uttering a single word. But who knows the pain of the conventional concealment of pain except those who have experienced the agony of the trial? Even at the moment when she heard that George Balgarnie was to be married, and that she came to know that she had been for weeks sewing the marriage dress of his bride, she was carrying under her heart the living burden which was the fruit of her love for that man. Yet not the burden of shame and dishonour, as our story will show, for she was justified by the law of her country—yea, by certain words once written by an apostle to the Corinthians, all which may as yet appear a great mystery; but as regards Mysie Craig's agony, as she staggered down Miss Gilroy's stairs on her way home, there could be no doubt or mystery whatever.

Nor, when she got home, was there any comfort there for the daughter who had been so undutiful as to depart from her mother's precepts, and conceal from her not only her unfortunate connection with a villain, but the condition into which that connection had brought her. But she was at least saved from the pain of a part of the confession, for her mother had learned enough from Miss Allardice to satisfy her as to the cause of her daughter's change from the happy creature she once was, singing in the long nights, as she wrought unremittingly at her beautiful work, and the poor, sighing, pale, heart-broken thing she had been for months. Nor did she fail to see, with the quick eye of a mother, that as Mysie immediately on entering the house laid herself quietly on the bed, and sobbed in her great agony, she had learned the terrible truth from Miss Gilroy that the robe she had embroidered was to deck the bride of her destroyer. Moreover, her discretion enabled her to perceive that this was not the time for explanation, for the hours of grief are sacred, and the heart must be left to do its work by opening the issues of Nature's assuagement, or ceasing to beat. So the night passed, without question or answer; and the following day, that of the marriage, was one of silence, even as if death had touched the tongue that used to be the medium of cheerful words and tender sympathies—a strange contrast to the joy, if not revelry, in Advocate's Close.

It was not till after several days had passed that Mysie was able, as she still lay in bed, to whisper, amidst the recurring sobs, in the ear of her mother, as the latter bent over her, the real circumstances of her condition; and still, amidst the trembling words, came the vindication that she considered herself to be as much the wife of George Balgarnie as if they had been joined by "Holy Kirk;" a statement which the mother could not understand, if it was not to her a mystery, rendered even more mysterious by a reference which Mysie made to the law of the country, as she had heard the same from her cousin, George Davidson, a writer's clerk in the Lawnmarket. Much of which, as it came in broken syllables from the lips of the disconsolate daughter, the mother put to the account of the fond dreams of a mind put out of joint by the worst form of misery incident to young women. But what availed explanations, mysteries or no mysteries, where the fact was patent that Mysie Craig lay there, the poor heartbroken victim of man's perfidy—her powers of industry broken and useless—the fine weaving genius of her fancy, whereby she wrought her embroidered devices to deck and adorn beauty, only engaged now on portraying all the evils of her future life; and above all, was she not soon to become a mother?

Meanwhile, and in the midst of all this misery, the laid-up earnings of Mysie's industry wore away, where there was no work by those cunning fingers, now thin and emaciated; and before the days passed, and the critical day came whereon another burden would be imposed on the household, there was need for the sympathy of neighbours in that form which soon wears out—pecuniary help. That critical day at length came. Mysie Craig gave birth to a boy, and their necessities from that hour grew in quicker and greater proportion than the generosity of friends. There behoved something to be done, and that without delay. So when Mysie lay asleep, with the innocent evidence of her misfortune by her side, Mrs. Craig put on her red plaid and went forth on a mother's duty, and was soon in the presence of George Balgarnie and his young wife. She was under an impulse which made light of delicate conventionalities, and did not think it necessary to give the lady an opportunity of being absent: nay, she rather would have her to be present; for was she, who had been so far privy to the intercourse between her husband and Mysie, to be exempt from the consequences which she, in a sense, might have been said to have brought about?

"Ye have ruined Mysie Craig, sir!" cried at once the roused mother. "Ye have ta'en awa her honour. Ye have ta'en awa her health. Ye have ta'en awa her bread. Ay, and ye have reduced three human creatures to want, it may be starvation; and I have come here in sair sorrow and necessity to ask when and whaur is to be the remeid?"

"When and where you may find it, woman!" said the lady, as she cast a side-glance to her husband, probably by way of appeal for the truth of what she thought it right to say. "Mr. Balgarnie never injured your daughter. Let him who did the deed yield the remeid!"

"And do you stand by this?" said Mrs. Craig.

But the husband had been already claimed as free from blame by his wife, who kept her eye fixed upon him; and the obligation to conscience, said by sceptics to be an offspring of society, is sometimes weaker than what is due to a wife, in the estimation of whom a man may wish to stand in a certain degree of elevation.

"You must seek another father to the child of your daughter," said he lightly. And not content with the denial, he supplemented it by a laugh as he added, "When birds go to the greenwood, they must take the chance of meeting the goshawk."

"And that is your answer?" said she.

"It is; and you need never trouble either my wife or me more on this subject," was the reply.

"Then may the vengeance o' the God of justice light on the heads o' baith o' ye!" added Mrs. Craig, as she went hurriedly away.

Nor was her threat intended as an empty one, for she held on her way direct to the Lawnmarket, where she found George Davidson, to whom she related as much as she had been able to get out of Mysie, and also what had passed at the interview with Balgarnie and his lady. After hearing which, the young writer shook his head.

"You will get a trifle of aliment," said he; "perhaps half-a-crown a week, but no more; and Mysie could have made that in a day by her beautiful work."

"And she will never work mair," said the mother, with a sigh.

"For a hundred years," rejoined he, more to himself than to her, and probably in congratulation of himself for his perspicacity, "and since ever there was a College of Justice, there never was a case where a man pulled up on oath for a promise of marriage admitted the fact. It is a good Scotch law, only we want a people to obey it. But what," he added again, "if we were to try it, though it were only as a grim joke and a revenge in so sad and terrible a case as that of poor Mysie Craig!"

Words which the mother understood no more than she did law Latin; and so she was sent away as sorrowful as she had come, for Davidson did not want to raise hopes which there was no chance of being fulfilled; but he knew as a Scotchman that a man who trusts himself to a "strae rape" in the hope of its breaking, may possibly hang himself; and so it happened that the very next day a summons was served upon George Balgarnie, to have it found and declared by the Lords of Session that he had promised to marry Mysie Craig, whereupon a child had been born by her; or, in fault of that, he was bound to sustain the said child. Thereupon, without the ordinary law's delay, certain proceedings went on, in the course of which Mysie herself was examined as the mother to afford what the lawyers call a semiplena probatio, or half proof, to be supplemented otherwise, and thereafter George Balgarnie stood before the august fifteen. He denied stoutly all intercourse with Mysie, except an occasional walk in the Hunter's Bog; and this he would have denied also, but he knew that he had been seen, and that it would be sworn to by others. And then came the last question, which Mr. Greerson, Mysie's advocate, put in utter hopelessness. Nay, so futile did it seem to try to catch a Scotchman by advising him to put his head in a noose on the pretence of seeing how it fitted his neck, that he smiled even as the words came out of his mouth—

"Did you ever promise to marry Mysie Craig?"

Was prudence, the chief of the four cardinal virtues, ever yet consistent with vice? Balgarnie waxed clever—a dangerous trick in a witness. He stroked his beard with a smile on his face, and answered—

"Yes, once—when I was drunk!"

Words which were immediately followed by the crack of a single word in the dry mouth of one of the advocates—the word "NICKED."

And nicked he was; for the presiding judge, addressing the witness, said—

"The drunkenness may be good enough in its own way, sir; but it does not take away the effect of your promise; nay, it is even an aggravation, insomuch as having enjoyed the drink, you wanted to enjoy with impunity what you could make of the promise also."

If Balgarnie had been a reader, he might have remembered Waller's verse—

"That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which on the shaft that made him die Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high."

So Mysie gained her plea, and the marriage with Anabella, for whom she had embroidered the marriage gown, was dissolved. How matters progressed afterwards for a time, we know not; but the Scotch know that there is wisdom in making the best of a bad bargain, and in this case it was a good one; for, as the Lady of Balgruddery, Mysie Craig did no dishonour to George Balgarnie, who, moreover, found her a faithful wife, and a good mother to the children that came of this strange marriage.



THE TWIN BROTHERS.

William Sim was the son of a feuar in the southern part of Dumfriesshire, who, by dint of frugality, had hoarded together from three to four hundred pounds. This sum he was resolved to employ in setting up his son in business; and, in pursuance of this resolution, at the age of fourteen William was bound as an apprentice to a wealthy old grocer in Carlisle; and it was his fortune in a few months to ingratiate himself into the favour and confidence of his master. The grocer had a daughter, who, though not remarkable for the beauty of her face or the elegance of her person, had nevertheless an agreeable countenance, and ten thousand independent charms to render it more agreeable. She was some eighteen months older than William; and when he first came to be an apprentice with her father, and a boarder in his house, she looked upon him as quite a boy, while she considered herself to be a full-grown woman. He was, indeed, a mere boy—and a clownish-looking boy too. He wore a black leathern cap, edged and corded with red, which his mother called a bendy; a coarse grey jacket; a waistcoat of the same; and his trousers were of a brownish-green cord, termed thickset. His shoes were of the double-soled description, which ought more properly to be called brogues; and into them, on the evening previous to his departure, his father had driven tackets and sparables innumerable, until they became like a plate of iron or a piece of warlike workmanship, resembling the scaled cuirass of a mailed knight in the olden time; "for," said he, "the callant will hae runnin' about on the causeway and plainstanes o' Carlisle sufficient to drive a' the shoon in the world aff his feet." When, therefore, William Sim made his debut behind the counter of Mr. Carnaby, the rich grocer of Carlisle, and as he ran on a message through the streets, with his bendy cap, grey jacket, thickset trousers, and ironed shoes, striking fire behind him as he ran, and making a noise like a troop of cavalry, the sprucer youngsters of the city said he was "new caught." But William Sim had not been two years in Carlisle when he began to show his shirt collar; his clattering brogues gave place to silent pumps, his leathern bendy to a fashionable hat, and his coarse grey jacket to a coat with tails. Moreover, he began to bow and smile to the ladies when they entered the shop; he also became quite a connoisseur in teas and confections; he recommended them to them, and he bowed and smiled again as they left. Such was the work of less than two years; and before three went round, there was not a smarter or a better dressed youth in all Carlisle than William Sim. He became a favourite subject of conversation amongst the young belles; and there was not one of them who, if disengaged, would have said to him, "Get thee behind me." Miss Carnaby heard the conversation of her young companions, and she gradually became conscious that William was not a boy; in fact, she began to wonder how she had ever thought so, for he, as she said unto herself, was "certainly a very interesting young man." Within other four years, and before the period of his apprenticeship had expired, William began to repeat poetry—some said to write it, but that was not the fact; he only twisted or altered a few words now and then, to suit the occasion; and almost every line ended with words of such soft sounds as bliss, kiss—love, dove—joy, cloy, and others equally sweet, the delightful meanings of which are only to be met with in the sentimental glossary. He now gave Miss Carnaby his arm to church; and, on leaving it in the afternoons, they often walked into the fields together. On such occasions,

"Talk of various kinds deceived the road;"

and even when they were silent, their silence had an eloquence of its own. One day they had wandered farther than their wont, and they stood on the little bridge where the two kingdoms meet, about half a mile below Gretna. I know not what soft persuasion he employed, but she accompanied him up the hill which leadeth through the village of Springfield, and they went towards the far-famed Green together. In less than an hour, Miss Carnaby that was, returned towards Carlisle as Mrs. Sim, leaning affectionately on her husband's arm.

When the old grocer heard of what had taken place, he was exceedingly wroth; and although, as has been said, William stood high in his favour, he thus addressed him—

"Ay, ay, sir!—fine doings! This comes of your Sunday walking! And I suppose you say that my daughter is yours—that she is your wife; and she may be yours—but I'll let you know, sir, my money is mine; and I'll cut you both off. You shan't have a sixpence. I'll rather build a church, sir; I'll give it towards paying off the national debt, you rascal. You would steal my daughter—eh!"

Thus spoke Mr. Carnaby in his wrath; but when the effervescence of his indignation had subsided, he extended to both the hand of forgiveness, and resigned his business in favour of his son-in-law.

Mr. William Sim, therefore, began the world under the most favourable circumstances. He found a fortune prepared to his hands; he had only to improve it. In a few years the old grocer died; and he bequeathed to them the gains of half a century. For twenty years Mr. Sim continued in business, and he had nearly doubled the fortune which he obtained with his wife. Mrs. Sim was a kind-hearted woman; but by nature, or through education, she had also a considerable portion of vanity, and she began to think that it was the duty of her opulent husband to retire from business, and assume the character of an independent gentleman; or rather, I ought to say, of a country gentleman—a squire. She professed to be the more anxious that he should do this on account of the health of her daughter—the sole survivor of five children—and who was then entering upon womanhood. Maria Sim (for such was their daughter's name) was a delicate and accomplished girl of seventeen. The lovely hue that dwelt upon her cheeks, like the blush of a rainbow, was an emblem of beauty, not of health. At the solicitations of her mother, her father gave up his business, and purchased a neat villa, and a few acres that surrounded it, in the neighbourhood of Windermere. The house lay in the bosom of poetry; and the winds that shouted like a triumphant army through the mountain glens, or in gentle zephyrs sighed upon the lake, and gambolled with the ripples, made music around it.

The change, the beauty, I had almost said the deliciousness of their place of abode, had effected a wondrous improvement in the health of Maria; yet her mother was not happy. She was not treated by her neighbours with the obsequious reverence which she believed to be due to persons possessed of twenty thousand pounds. The fashionable ladies in the neighbourhood, also, called her "a mean person"—"a nobody"—"an upstart of yesterday." In truth, there were not a few who so spoke, because they envied the wealth of the Sims, and were resolved to humble them.

An opportunity for them to do so soon occurred. A subscription ball or assembly, patronized by all the fashionables in the district, was to take place at Keswick. Mrs. Sim, in some measure from a desire of display, and also, as she said, to bring out Maria, put down her husband's name, her own, and their daughter's, on the list. Many of the personages above referred to, on seeing the names of the Sim family on the subscription paper, turned upon their heel, and exclaimed—"Shocking!"

But the important evening arrived. Mrs. Sim had ordered a superb dress from London expressly for the occasion. A duchess might have worn it at a drawing-room. The dress of Maria was simplicity typified, and consisted of a frock of the finest and the whitest muslin; while her slender waist was girdled with a lavender ribbon, her raven hair descended down her snowy neck in ringlets, and around her head she wore a wreath of roses.

When Mr. Sim, with his wife and daughter, entered the room, there was a stare of wonderment amongst the company. No one spoke to them, no one bowed to them. The spirit of dumbness seemed to have smitten the assembly. But a general whispering, like the hissing of a congregation of adders, succeeded the silence. Then, at the head of the room, the voices of women rose sharp, angry, and loud. Six or eight, who appeared as the representatives of the company, were in earnest and excited conversation with the stewards; and the words—"low people!"—"vulgar!" —"not to be borne!"—"cheese! faugh!"—"impertinence!"—"must be humbled!" —became audible throughout the room. One of the stewards, a Mr. Morris of Morris House, approached Mr. Sim, and said—

"You, sir, are Mr. Sim, I believe, late grocer and cheesemonger in Carlisle?"

"I suppose, sir," replied the other, "you know that without me telling you; if you do not, you have some right to know me."

"Well, sir," continued the steward of the assembly, "I come to inform you that you have made a mistake. This is not a social dance amongst tradesmen, but an assembly of ladies and gentlemen; therefore, sir, your presence cannot be allowed here."

Poor Maria became blind, the hundred different head-dresses seemed to float around her. She clung to her father's arm for support. Her mother was in an agony of indignation.

"Sir," said Mr. Sim, "I don't know what you call gentlemen; but if it be not genteel to have sold teas and groceries, it is at least more honourable than to use them and never pay for them. You will remember, sir, there is a considerable sum standing against you in my books; and if the money be not paid to me tonight, you shall have less space to dance in before morning."

"Insolent barbarian!" exclaimed Squire Morris, stamping his foot upon the floor.

Mrs. Sim screamed; Maria's head fell upon her father's shoulder. A dozen gentlemen approached to the support of the steward; and one of them, waving his hand and addressing Mr. Sim, said, "Away, sir!"

The retired merchant bowed and withdrew, not in confusion, but with a smile of malignant triumph. He strove to soothe his wife—for his daughter, when relieved from the presence of the disdainful eyes that gazed on her, bore the insult that had been offered them meekly—and, after remaining an hour in Keswick, they returned to their villa in the same chaise in which they had arrived.

In the assembly room the dance began, and fairy forms glided through the floor, lightly, silently, as a falling blossom embraceth the earth. Mr. Morris was leading down a dance, when a noise was heard at the door. Some person insisted on being admitted, and the door-keepers resisted him. But the intruder carried with him a small staff, on the one end of which was a brass crown, and on its side the letters G. R. It was a talisman potent as the wand of a magician; the doorkeepers became powerless before it. The intruder entered the room—he passed through the mazes of the whirling dance—he approached Mr. Morris—he touched him on the shoulder—he put a piece of paper in his hand—he whispered in his ear—

"You are my prisoner!—come with me!"

His lady and his daughters were present, and they felt most bitterly the indignity which a low tradesman had offered them. Confusion paralyzed them; they stood still in the middle of the dance, and one of the young ladies swooned away and fell upon the ground. The time, the place, the manner of arrest, all bespoke malignant and premeditated insult.

Mr. Morris gnashed his teeth together, but, without speaking, accompanied the officer that had arrested him in the room. He remained in custody in an adjoining inn throughout the night; on the following day, was released on bail; and, within a week, his solicitor paid the debt, by augmenting the mortgage on Morris House estate.

It is hardly necessary to say—for such is human nature—that, after this incident, the hatred between Mr. Sim and Squire Morris became inveterate; and the wives of both, and the daughters of the latter, partook in the relentless animosity. Two years passed, and every day the mutual hatred and contempt in which they held each other increased. At that period, a younger son of Squire Morris, who was a lieutenant in the service of the East India Company, obtained leave to visit England and his friends. It was early in June; the swallows chased each other in sport, twittering as they flew over the blue bosom of Windermere; every bush, every tree—yea, it seemed as if every branch sent forth the music of singing birds, and the very air was redolent with melody, from the bold songs of the thrush and the lark to the love-note of the wood-pigeon; and even the earth rejoiced in the chirp of the grasshopper, its tiny but pleasant musician. The fields and the leaves were in the loveliness and freshness of youth, luxuriating in the sunbeams, in the depth of their summer green; and the butterfly sported, and the bee pursued its errand from flower to flower. The mighty mountains circled the scene, and threw their dun shadow on the lake, where, a hundred fathoms deep, they seemed a bronzed and inverted world. At this time, Maria Sim was sailing upon the lake in a small boat that her father had purchased for her, and which was guided by a boy.

A sudden, but not what could be called a strong, breeze came away. The boy had little strength and less skill, and, from his awkwardness in shifting the sail, he caused the boat to upset. Maria was immersed in the lake. The boy clung to the boat, but terror deprived him of ability to render her assistance. She struggled with the waters, and her garments bore her partially up for a time. A boat, in which was a young gentleman, had been sailing to and fro, and, at the time the accident occurred, was within three hundred yards of her. On hearing her sudden cry, and the continued screams of the boy, he drew in his sail, and, taking the oars, at his utmost strength pulled to her assistance. Almost at every third stroke he turned round his head to see the progress he had made, or if he had yet reached her. Twice he beheld her disappear beneath the water—a third time she rose to the surface—he was within a few yards of her. He sprang from his boat. She was again sinking. He dived after her, he raised her beneath his arm, and succeeded in placing her in his boat. He also rescued the boy, and conveyed them both to land.

Maria, though for a time speechless, was speedily, through the exertions of her deliverer, restored to consciousness. Even before she was capable of thanking him or of speaking to him—yea, before her eyes had opened to meet his—he had gazed with admiration on her beautiful features, which were lovely, though the shadow of death was then over them, almost its hand upon them. In truth, he had never gazed upon a fairer face, and when she spoke, he had never listened to a sweeter or a gentler voice. He had been beneath an Indian sun, where the impulses of the heart are fervid as the clime, and where, when the sun is gazed upon, its influence is acknowledged. But, had she been less beautiful than she was, and her features less lovely to look upon, there was a strong something in the very manner and accident of their being brought into each other's society, which appealed more powerfully to the heart than beauty could. It at least begot an interest in the fate of each other; and an interest so called is never very widely separated from affection. The individual who had saved Maria's life was Lieutenant Morris.

He conveyed her first to a peasant's cottage, and afterwards to her father's villa. He knew nothing of the feeling of hatred that existed between their families; and when Mr. Sim heard his name, though for a moment it caused a glow to pass over his face, every other emotion was speedily swallowed up in gratitude towards the deliverer of his child; and when Maria was sufficiently recovered to thank him, though she knew him to be the son of her father's enemy, it was with tears too deep for words—tears that told what eloquence would have failed to express. Even Mrs. Sim, for the time, forgot her hatred of the parents in her obligations to the son.

When, however, the young lieutenant returned to Morris House, and made mention of the adventure in which he had been engaged, and spoke at the same time, in the ardour of youthful admiration, of the beauty and gentleness of the fair being he had rescued from untimely death, the cheeks of his sisters became pale, their eyeballs distended as if with horror. The word "wretch!" escaped from his mother's lips, and she seemed struggling with smothered rage. He turned towards his father for an explanation of the change that had so suddenly come over the behaviour of his mother and sisters.

"Son," said the squire, "I had rather thou hadst perished than that a son of mine should have put forth his hand to assist a dog of the man whose daughter thou hast saved!"

On being made acquainted with the cause of the detestation that existed between the two families, Lieutenant Morris, in some degree, yielded to the whisperings of wounded pride, and began to regret that he had entered the house of a man who had offered an indignity to his father that was not to be forgiven. But he thought also of the beauty of Maria, of the sweetness of her smile, and of the tears of voiceless gratitude which he had seen bedimming the lustre of her bright eyes.

He had promised to call again at her father's on the day after the accident; and with an ardent kindliness, Mr. Sim had welcomed him to do so. But he went forth, he wandered by the side of the lake, he approached within sight of the house, there was a contention of strange feelings in his breast, and he returned without paying his promised visit. Nevertheless, thoughts of Maria haunted him, and her image mingled with all his fancies. She became as a spirit in his memory that he could not expel, and that he would not if he could.

Three weeks passed on—it was evening—the sun was sinking behind the mountains, and Lieutenant Morris was wandering through a wooded vale, towards Mr. Sim's mansion; for though he entered it not, he nightly drew towards it, as if instinctively, wandering around it, and gazing on its windows as he did so, marvelling as he gazed. He was absorbed in one of those dreamy reveries in which men saunter, speak, and muse unconsciously, when, in following the windings of a footpath which led through a thicket, he suddenly found himself in the presence of a young lady, who was walking slowly across the wood with a book in her hand. Their eyes met—they startled—the book dropped by her side—it was Maria.

I must not, however, dwell longer on this part of the subject; for the story of the twin brothers is yet to begin. Let it be sufficient to say that William, or, as I have hitherto called him, Lieutenant Morris, and Maria whom he saved, became attached to each other. Their dispositions were similar; they seemed formed for each other. Affection took deep root in their hearts; and to root up that affection in the breast of either, was to destroy the heart itself. He made known his attachment towards Maria to his father; and galled pride and hatred to those who had injured him being stronger in the breast of the old squire than the small still voice of affection, he spurned his son from him, and ordered him to leave his house for ever.

The parents of Maria, notwithstanding their first feelings of gratitude towards the saviour of their daughter, were equally averse to a union between them; but with Maria the impulse of the heart and the lover's passionate prayer prevailed over her parents' frowns. They were wed, they became all to each other, and were disowned by those who gave them birth.

When Lieutenant Morris left India, he obtained permission to remain in England for three years; and it was about twelve months after his arrival that the marriage between him and Maria took place. He had still two years to spend in his native land, and he hired a secluded and neat cottage on the banks of the Annan for that period, for the residence of himself and his young and beautiful wife.

Twelve months after their marriage, Maria became the mother of twins—the twin brothers of our tale. But three months had not passed, nor had her infants raised their first smile towards their mother's face, when the sterile hand of death touched the bosom that supplied them with life. The young husband wept by the bed of death, with the hand of her he loved in his.

"William!" said the gentle Maria—and they were her dying words, for she spoke not again—"my eyes will not behold another sun! I must leave you, love! Oh my husband! I must leave our poor, our helpless infants! It is hard to die thus! But when I am gone, dearest—when my babes have no mother—oh, go to my mother, and tell her—tell her, William—that it was the dying request of her Maria, that she would be as a mother to them. Farewell, love!—farewell! If"—

Emotion and the strugglings of death overpowered her—her speech failed—her eyes became fixed—her soul passed away, and the husband sat in stupefaction and in agony, holding the hand of his dead wife to his breast. He became conscious that she stirred not—that she breathed not—oh! that she was not! and the wail of the distracted widower rang suddenly and wildly through the cottage, startling his infants from their slumber, and, as some who stood round the bed said, causing even the features of the dead to move, as though the departed spirit had lingered, casting a farewell glance upon the body, and passed over it again, as the voice it had loved to hear rose loud in agony.

The father of Maria came and attended her body to its last, long resting-place. But he did no more; and he left the churchyard without acknowledging that he perceived his grief-stricken son-in-law.

In a few months it was necessary for Lieutenant Morris to return to India, and he could not take his motherless and tender infants thither. He wrote to the parents of his departed Maria; he told them of her last request, breathed by her last words; he implored them, as they had once loved her, during his absence to protect his children.

But the hatred between Mr. Sim and Squire Morris had in no degree abated. The former would have listened to his daughter's prayer, and taken her twins and the nurse into his house; but his wife was less susceptible to the influence of natural feeling, and even, while at intervals she wept for poor Maria, she said—

"Take both of them, indeed! No, no! I loved our poor, thoughtless, disobedient Maria, Mr. Sim, as well as you did, but I will not submit to the Morrises. They have nothing to give the children; we have. But they have the same, they have a greater right to provide for them than we have. They shall take one of them, or none of them come into this house." And again she broke into lamentations over the memory of Maria, and, in the midst of her mourning, exclaimed—"But the child that we take shall never be called Morris."

Mr. Sim wrote an answer to his son-in-law, as cold and formal as if it had been a note added to an invoice; colder indeed, for it had no equivalent to the poor, hackneyed phrase in all such, of "esteemed favours." In it he stated that he would "bring up" one of the children, provided that Squire Morris would undertake the charge of the other. The unhappy father clasped his hands together on perusing the letter, and exclaimed—

"Must my poor babes be parted?—shall they be brought up to hate each other? Oh Maria! would that I had died with you, and our children also!"

To take them to India with him, where a war was threatened, was impossible, and his heart revolted from the thought of leaving them in this country with strangers. At times he was seen, with an infant son on each arm, sitting over the stone upon the grave of their mother which he had reared to her memory, kissing their cheeks and weeping over them, while they smiled in his face unconsciously, and offered to him, in those smiles, affection's first innocent tribute. On such occasions their nurse stood gazing on the scene, wondering at her master's grief.

Morris, of Morris House, reluctantly consented to take one of his grandchildren under his care; but at the same time he refused to see his son previous to his departure.

The widowed father wept over his twin sons, and invoking a blessing on them, saw their little arms sundered, and each conveyed to the houses of those who had undertaken to be their protectors, while he again proceeded towards India. The names of the twin sons were George and Charles: the former was committed to the care of Mr. Morris, the other to Mr. Sim. Yet it seemed as if these innocent pledges of a family union, instead of destroying, strengthened the deep-rooted animosity that existed between them. Not a month passed that they did not, in some way, manifest their hatred of and their persecution towards each other.

The squire exhibited a proof of his vindictiveness, in not permitting the child of his son to remain beneath his roof. He had a small property in Devonshire, which was rented by an individual who, with his wife, had been servants under his father. To them George Morris, one of the infant sons of poor Maria, before he was yet twelve months old, was sent, with an injunction that he should be brought up as their own son, that he should be taught to consider himself as such, and bear their name.

The boy Charles, whose lot it was to be placed under the protection of his mother's parents, was more fortunate. The love they had borne towards their Maria they now lavished upon him. They called him by their own name—they spoke of him as their heir, as their sole heir, and they inquired not after his brother. That brother became included in the hatred which Mrs. Sim, at least, bore to his father's family. As he grew up, his father's name was not mentioned in his presence. He was taught to call his grandfather—father, and his grandmother—mother; and withal, his mother so called instilled into his earliest thoughts an abhorrence of the inmates of Morris House. At times his grandfather whispered to her on such occasions, "Do not do the like of that, dear; we know not how it may end." But she regarded not his admonitions, and she strove that her grandchild should hold the very name of Morris in hatred.

The peasants to whose keeping George was confided, occupied, as has been stated, a small farm under his grandfather, which lay on the banks of the Dart, a few miles from Totnes. Their name was Prescot: they were cold-hearted and ignorant people; they had no children of their own, nor affection for those of others; neither had they received instructions to show any to him whom they were to adopt as a son; and if they had been arraigned for not doing so, they were of a character to have said with Shylock—"It is not in the bond." When he grew up, there was then no school in that part of Devonshire to which they could have sent him, had they been inclined; but they were not inclined; though, if they had had the power to educate him, they could have referred again to their bond, and said that no injunction to educate him was mentioned there. His first ideas were a consciousness of cruelty and oppression. At seven years of age he was sent to herd a few sheep upon Dartmoor; before he was nine, he was placed as a parish apprentice to the owner of a tin mine, and buried from the light of heaven.

Often and anxiously Lieutenant Morris wrote from India, inquiring after his sons. He sent presents—love-gifts to each; but his letters were unheeded, his presents disregarded. His children grew up in ignorance of his existence, or of the existence of each other.

It was about eighteen years after the death of Maria, and what is called an annual Revel was held at Ashburton. Prizes were to be awarded to the best wrestlers, and hundreds were assembled from all parts of Devonshire to witness the sports of the day. Two companies of soldiers were stationed in the town at the time, and the officers, at the suggestion of a young ensign called Charles Sim, agreed to subscribe a purse of ten guineas towards the encouragement of the games. The young ensign was from Cumberland, where the science of wrestling is still a passion; and he, as the reader will have anticipated from the name he bore, was none other than one of the twin brothers. The games were skilfully and keenly contested; and a stripling from the neighbourhood of Totnes, amidst the shouts of the multitude, was declared the victor. The last he had overcome was a gigantic soldier, a native of Cumberland. When the young ensign beheld his champion overcome, his blood rose for the honour of his native county, and he regretted that he had not sustained it in his own person.

The purse subscribed by the officers was still to be wrestled for, and the stripling victor re-entered the ring to compete for it. On his design being perceived, others who wished to have contended for it drew back, and he stood in the ring alone, no one daring to come forward to compete with him. The umpire of the games was proclaiming that, if no one stood against him, the purse would be awarded to him who had already been pronounced the victor of the day, when Ensign Sim, who, with his brother officers, had witnessed the sports from the windows of an adjacent inn, said—

"Well, the lad shall have the purse, though I don't expect he will win it; for, if no one else will, I shall give him a throw to redeem the credit of old Cumberland."

"Bravo, Sim!" cried his brother officers, and they accompanied him towards the ring.

The people again shouted when they perceived that there was to be another game, and the more so when they discovered that the stranger competitor was a gentleman. The ensign, having cast off his regimentals, and equipped himself in the strait canvas jacket worn by wrestlers, entered the ring. But now arose a new subject of wonderment, which in a moment was perceived by the whole multitude; and the loud huzzas that had welcomed his approach were hushed in a confused murmur of astonishment.

"Zwinge!" exclaimed a hundred voices, as they approached each other; "they be loik one anoother as two beans!"

"Whoy, which be which?" inquired others.

The likeness between the two wrestlers was indeed remarkable; their age, their stature, the colour of their hair, their features, were alike. Spectators could not trace a difference between the one and the other. The ensign had a small and peculiar mark below his chin; he perceived that his antagonist had the same. They approached each other, extending their arms for the contest. They stood still, they gazed upon each other; as they gazed they started; their arms dropped by their sides; they stood anxiously scrutinizing the countenance of each other, in which each saw himself as in a glass. Astonishment deprived them of strength; they forgot the purpose for which they met; they stretched forth their hands, they grasped them together, and stood eagerly looking into each other's eyes.

"Friend," said the ensign, "this is indeed singular; our extraordinary resemblance to each other fills me with amazement. What is your name? from whence do you come?"

"Whoy, master," rejoined the other, "thou art so woundy like myself, that had I met thee anywhere but in the middle o' these folk, I should have been afeared that I was agoing to die, and had zeen mysel'. My name is George Prescot, at your sarvice. I coom from three miles down the river there; and what may they call thee?"

"My name," replied the soldier, "is Charles Sim. I am an orphan; my parents I never saw. And tell me—for this strange resemblance between us almost overpowers me—do yours live?"

"Whoy," was the reply, "old Tom Prescot and his woif be alive; and they zay as how they be my vather and moother, and I zuppose they be; but zoom cast up to them that they bean't."

No wrestling match took place between them; but hand in hand they walked round the ring together, while the spectators gazed upon them in silent wonder.

The ensign presented the youth, who might have been styled his fac-simile, with the purse subscribed by his brother officers and himself; and in so doing he offered to double its contents. But the youth, with a spirit above his condition, peremptorily refused the offer, and said—

"No, master—thank you the zame—I will take nothing but what I have won."

Charles was anxious to visit "old Tom Prescot and his wife," of whom the stranger had spoken; but the company to which he belonged was to march forward to Plymouth on the following day, and there to embark. His brother officers also dissuaded him from the thought.

"Why, Sim," said they, "the likeness between you and the conqueror of the ring was certainly a very pretty coincidence, and your meeting each other quite a drama. But, my good fellow," added they, laughing, "take the advice of older heads than your own—don't examine too closely into your father's faults."

Three years passed, and Charles, now promoted to the rank of a lieutenant, accompanied the Duke of York in his more memorable than brilliant campaign in Holland. A soldier was accused of having been found sleeping on guard; he was tried, found guilty, and condemned to be shot. A corporal's guard was accompanying the doomed soldier from the place where sentence had been pronounced against him to the prison-house, from whence he was to be brought forth for execution on the following day. Lieutenant Sim passed near them. A voice exclaimed—

"Master! master!—save me! save me!"

It was the voice of the condemned soldier. The lieutenant turned round, and in the captive who called to him for assistance he recognised the Devonshire wrestler—the strange portrait of himself. And even now, if it were possible, the resemblance between them was more striking than before; for, in the stranger, the awkwardness of the peasant had given place to the smartness of the soldier. Charles had felt an interest in him from the first moment he beheld him; he had wished to meet him again, and had resolved to seek for him should he return to England; and now the interest that he had before felt for him was increased tenfold. The offence and the fate of the doomed one were soon told. The lieutenant pledged himself that he would leave no effort untried to save him; and he redeemed his pledge. He discovered, he obtained proof that the condemned prisoner, George Prescot, had been employed on severe and dangerous duties, against which it was impossible for nature longer to stand up, but in all of which he had conducted himself as a good, a brave, and a faithful soldier; and, more, that it could not be proved that he was actually found asleep at his post, but that he was stupified through excess of fatigue.

He hastened to lay the evidence he had obtained respecting the conduct and innocence of the prisoner before his Royal Highness, who, whatever were his faults, was at least the soldier's friend. The Duke glanced over the documents which the lieutenant laid before him; he listened to the evidence of the comrades of the prisoner. He took a pen; he wrote a few lines; he placed them in the hands of Lieutenant Sim. They contained the free pardon of Private Prescot. Charles rushed with the pardon in his hand to the prisoner; he exclaimed—

"Take this—you are pardoned—you are free!"

The soldier would have embraced his knees to thank him; but the lieutenant said—

"No! kneel not to me—consider me as a brother. I have merely saved the life of an innocent and deserving man. But the strange resemblance between us seems to me more than a strange coincidence. You have doubts regarding your parentage; I know but little of mine. Nature has written a mystery on our faces which we need to have explained. When this campaign is over, we shall inquire concerning it. Farewell for the present; but we must meet again."

The feelings of the reprieved and unlettered soldier were too strong for his words to utter; he shook the hand of his deliverer and wept.

A few days after this some sharp fighting took place. The loss of the British was considerable, and they were compelled to continue their retreat, leaving their dead, and many of their wounded, exposed, as they fell behind them. When they again arrived at a halting-place, Lieutenant Sim sought the regiment to which the soldier who might be termed his second self belonged. But he was not to be found; and all that he could learn respecting him was, that, three days before, George Prescot had been seen fighting bravely, but that he fell covered with wounds, and in their retreat was left upon the field.

Tears gushed into the eyes of the lieutenant when he heard the tidings. His singular meeting with the stranger in Devonshire; their mysterious resemblance to each other; his meeting him again in Holland under circumstances yet more singular; his saving his life; and the dubious knowledge which each had respecting their birth and parentage,—all had sunk deep into his heart, and thoughts of these things chased sleep from his pillow.

It was but a short time after this that the regiment of Lieutenant Sim was ordered to India, and he accompanied it; and it was only a few months after his arrival, when the Governor-General gave an entertainment at his palace, at which all the military officers around were present. At table, opposite to Lieutenant Sim, sat a man of middle age; and, throughout the evening, his eyes remained fixed upon him, and occasionally seemed filled with tears. He was a colonel in the Company's service, and a man who, by the force of merit, had acquired wealth and reputation.

"I crave your pardon, sir," said he, addressing the lieutenant; "but if I be not too bold, a few words with you in private would confer a favour upon me, and if my conjectures be right, will give us both cause to rejoice."

"You may command me, sir," said the youth.

The colonel rose from the table and left the room, and the lieutenant rose also and accompanied him. They entered an adjoining apartment. The elder soldier gazed anxiously on the face of the younger, and again addressing him, said—

"Sir, do not attribute this strange behaviour upon my part to rudeness. It has been prompted by feelings painfully, deeply, I may add tenderly, interesting to me. It may be accident, but your features bring memories before my eyes that have become a part of my soul's existence. Nor is it your features only, but I have observed that there is the mark of a rose-bud beneath your chin. I remember twins on whom that mark was manifest, and the likeness of a countenance is graven upon my heart, the lineaments of which were as yours are. Forgive me then, sir, in thus abruptly requesting your name."

The lieutenant looked surprised at the anxiety and looks of the stranger, and he answered—

"My name is Charles Sim."

"Yes! yes!" replied the colonel, gasping as he spoke; "I saw it; I felt it! Your name is Charles, but not Sim; that was your mother's name—your sainted mother's. You bear it from your grandfather You come from Cumberland?"

"I do!" was the reply, in accents of astonishment.

"My son! my son!—child of my Maria!" were the accents that broke from the colonel, as he fell upon the neck of the other.

"My father!" exclaimed Charles, "have I then found a father?" And the tears streamed down his cheeks.

Many questions were asked, many answered; and amongst others, the father inquired—

"Where is your brother—my little George? Does he live? You were the miniatures of your mother; and so strikingly did you resemble each other, that while you were infants, it was necessary to tie a blue ribbon round his arm, and a green one round yours, to distinguish you from each other."

Charles became pale; his knees shook; his hands trembled.

"Then I had a brother?" he cried.

"You had," replied his father; "but wherefore do you say you had a brother? Is it possible that you do not know him? He has been brought up with my father—Mr. Morris of Morris House."

"No, he has not," replied Charles; "the man you speak of, and whom you say is my grandfather, has brought up no one—none of my age. I have hated him from childhood, for he has hated me; and but that you have told me he is my grandfather, I would hate him still. But he has brought up no one that could be a brother of mine."

"Then my child has died in infancy," rejoined the colonel.

"No, no," added Charles; "I knew not that I had a brother—not even that I had a father; but you say my brother resembled me; that I from my birth had the mark beneath my chin which I have now, and that he had the same: then I know him; I have seen my brother!"

"Where, where? when, when?" breathlessly inquired the anxious parent. "Speak, my son!—oh speak!"

"Shortly after I had joined my regiment," continued Charles, "I was present in Devonshire, at what is called a revel. Our mess gave a purse towards the games. We put forward a Cumberland man belonging to the regiment, in the full confidence that he would be the victor of the day; but a youth, a mere youth, threw not only our champion, but all who dared to oppose him. I was stung for the honour of Cumberland; I was loath to see the hero carry his laurels so easily from the field. I accoutred myself in the wrestler's garb; I entered the ring. The shouting of the multitude ceased instantaneously. I gazed upon my antagonist, he gazed upon me. Our hands fell; we both shook; we were the image of each other. Three years afterwards I was in Holland. A soldier was unjustly condemned to die; I saved him; I obtained his pardon. He was my strange counterpart whom I met in Devonshire. He had the mark of the rose-bud beneath his chin that I have, and which you say my brother has."

"And where is he now?" eagerly inquired the colonel.

"Alas! I know not," answered Charles; "nor do I think he lives. Three days after I had rescued him from unmerited death, I learned that he had fallen bravely on the field; and whether he be now a prisoner or with the dead, I cannot tell."

"Surely it was thy brother," said the colonel; "yet how he should be in Devonshire, or a soldier in the ranks, puzzles me to think. No, no, Charles, it cannot be; it is a coincidence, heightened by imagination. Your grandfather has not been kind to me, but he is not capable of the cruelty which the tale you have told would imply he had exercised towards the child I entrusted to his care. He hates me, but surely he could not be cruel to my offspring. You know Morris House?" he added.

"I know it well," replied Charles; "but I never knew in it one who could be my brother, nor one of my age; neither did I know Mr. Morris to be my grandfather; nor yet have I heard of him but as one who had injured my mother while she lived, and who had been the enemy of her parents."

"Enough, enough, my son," said the colonel; "my soul is filled with words which I cannot utter. I weep for your angel-mother; I weep for my son, your brother; and I mourn for the unceasing hatred that exists between your grandsires. But, Charles, we must return to England; we must do so instantly. I have now fortune enough for you and for your brother also, if he yet live, and if we can find him. But we must inquire after and go in quest of him."

Within three months Charles Morris, or Lieutenant Sim as he has hitherto been called, and his father returned to England together. But instead of following them, I shall return to George Prescot, the prize-wrestler and the condemned and pardoned soldier. It has been mentioned that he was wounded and left upon the field by a retreating army. I have to add that he was made prisoner, and when his wounds were healed, he was, though not perceptibly, disabled for active service. Amongst his brethren in captivity was a Captain Paling, who, when an exchange of prisoners took place, hastened to join his regiment, and gave George, who was deemed unfit for service, a letter to his mother and sisters who resided in Dartmouth. The letter was all that the captain could give him, for he was penniless as George was himself.

George Prescot feeling himself once more at liberty, took his passage from Rotterdam in a sloop bound for Dartmouth, and with only the letter of Captain Paling in his pocket to pay for his conveyance. He perceived that the skipper frequently cast suspicious glances towards him, as though he were about to ask, "Where is your money, sir?" But George saw this, and he bore it down with a high hand. He knew that the certain way of being treated with the contempt and neglect which poverty always introduces in its train, was to plead being poor. He was by no means learned, but he understood something of human nature, and he knew a good deal of the ways of men—of the shallowness of society, and the depths of civility. He therefore carried his head high. He called for the best that the ship could afford, and he fared as the skipper did, though he partook but sparingly.

But the vessel arrived in Dartmouth harbour; it entered the mouth of the romantic river, on the one side of which was the fort, still bearing the name of Cromwell, and on the other Kingsbridge, which Peter Pindar hath celebrated; while on both sides, as precipitous banks, rose towering hills, their summits covered by a stunted furze, and the blooming orchard meeting it midway.

Some rather unpleasant sensations visited the disabled soldier as the vessel sailed up the river towards the town. The beauty of its situation made no impression upon him, for he had seen it a thousand times; and it was perhaps as well that it did not; for to look on it from the river, or from a distant height—like a long line of houses hung on the breast of romance—and afterwards to enter it and find yourself in the midst of a narrow, dingy street, where scarce two wheelbarrows could pass, produceth only disappointment, and that, too, of the bitterest kind. It seems, indeed, that the Devonians have conceded so much of their beautiful county to the barrenness of Dartmoor, that they grudge every inch that is occupied as a street or highway. Ere this time, George Prescot had in a great measure dropped his Devonshire dialect; and now, taking the letter of Captain Paling from his pocket, he placed it in the hands of the commander of the packet, saying, "Send your boy ashore with this to a widow lady's of the name of Paling; you will know her family, I suppose. You may tell the boy to say that the letter is from her son, Captain Paling, and that I shall wait here until I receive her answer before proceeding up the river."

The skipper stated that he knew Mrs. Paling well, who was a most respectable lady, and that he remembered also her son, who was an officer in the army, and who for some time had been a prisoner of war.

The boy went on shore with the letter, and within a quarter of an hour returned, having with him a young gentleman, accompanied by a couple of pointer dogs. The stranger was the brother of Captain Paling. He inquired for George Prescot, and on seeing him, invited him to his mother's house. The skipper, on seeing his passenger in such respectable company, let fall no hint that the passage-money was not paid; and the soldier and the brother of Captain Paling went on shore together.