In his letter the captain dwelt on many kindnesses which he had received from its bearer, and of the bravery which he had seen him evince on the field; informing them also that his pockets would be but ill provided with cash, and regretting his own inability to replenish them.

The kindness of Mrs. Paling and her family towards him knew no limits. She asked him a hundred questions respecting her son, her daughters concerning their brother; and they imagined wants for him, that they might show him a kindness. Now, however, twelve miles was all that lay between him and his home. They entreated him to remain until next day; but he refused, for

"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

It is true, he could hardly give the name of home to the house of those whom he called his parents, for it had ever been to him the habitation of oppressors; yet it was his home, as the mountain covered with eternal snow is the home of the Greenlander, and he knew no other. The usual road to it was by crossing the Dart at a ferry about a hundred yards above the house of Mrs. Paling. Any other road caused a circuit of many miles.

"If you will not remain with us to-night," said the brother of Captain Paling, who had conducted him from the vessel to his mother's house, "I shall accompany you to the ferry."

"No, I thank you—I thank you," said George, confusedly; "there is no occasion for it—none whatever. I shall not forget your kindness."

He did not intend to go by the ferry; for though the charge of the boatman was but a halfpenny, that halfpenny he had not in his possession; and he wished to conceal his poverty.

But women have sharp eyes in these matters. They see where men are blind; and a sister of Captain Paling named Caroline read the meaning of their guest's confusion, and of his refusing to permit her brother to accompany him to the shore; and, with a delicacy which spoke to the heart of him to whom the words were addressed, she said—

"Mr. Prescot, you have only now arrived from the Continent, and it is most likely that you have no small change in your pocket. The ferrymen are unreasonable people to deal with. If you give them a crown, they will row away and thank you, forgetting to return the change. The regular charge is but a halfpenny; therefore you had better take coppers with you;" and as she spoke, she held a halfpenny in her fingers towards him.

"Well, well," stammered out George, with his hand in his pocket, "I believe I have no coppers;" and he accepted the halfpenny from the hand of Caroline Paling; and while he did so, he could not conceal the tears that rose to his eyes.

But, trifling as the amount of her offer was, it must be understood that the person to whom it was tendered was one who would not have accepted more—who was ashamed of his poverty, and strove to conceal it; and there was a soul, there was a delicacy, in her manner of tendering it which I can speak of, but not describe. It saved him also from having to wander weary and solitary miles at midnight.

No sooner had the disabled soldier crossed the river, and entered the narrow lanes overshadowed by dark hedges of hazel, than he burst into tears, and his first words were, "Caroline, I will remember thee!"

It was near midnight when he approached the house which he called his home. The inmates were asleep. He tapped at the window, the panes of which were framed in lead after the form of diamonds.

"Who be there?" cried an angry voice.

"Your son! your son!" he replied. "George!"

"Zon!" repeated the voice; "we have no zon. If it be thee, go to Coomberland, lad. We have noughts to do with thee. Thy old grandfather, Zquire Morris, be now dead, and he ha'n't paid us so well for what we have done as to have oughts to zay to thee again; zo good night, lad."

"Father! mother!" cried George, striking more passionately on the window, "what do you mean?"

"Whoy, ha'n't I told thee?" answered the voice that had spoken to him before. "Thou art no zon of ours. Thou moost go to Coomberland, man, to Zquire Morris—to his zeketors,[*] I mean, for he is dead. They may tell thee who thou art; I can't. We ha'n't been paid for what we have done for thee already. However, thou may'st coom in for t'night;" and as the old man who had professed to be his father spoke, he arose and opened the door.

[note *: Executors.]

George entered the house, trembling with agitation.

"Father," he said—"for thou hast taught me to call thee father; and if thou art not, tell me who I am."

"Ha'n't I told thee, lad?" answered the old man. "Go to Coomberland; I know noughts about thee."

"To Cumberland!" exclaimed George; and he thought of the young officer whom he had twice met, who belonged to that county, and whose features were the picture of his own. "Why should I go to Cumberland?"

"Whoy, I can't tell thee whoy thou shouldst go," said the old man; "but thou was zent me from there, and there thou moost go back again, vor a bad bargain thou hast been to me. Zquire Morris zent thee here, and forgot to pay for thee; and if thou lodgest here to-night, thou won't forget to be a-moving, bag and baggage, in the morning."

George was wearied, and glad to sleep beneath the inhospitable roof of those whom he had considered as his parents; but on the following morning he took leave of them, after learning from them all that they knew of his history.

But I must again leave him, and return to Colonel Morris, and his son Charles.

They came to England together, and hastened towards Morris House; and there the long disowned son learned that his father was dead, and that his mother and his sisters knew not where his child was, or what had become of him. But his kindred had ascertained that he was now rich, and they repented of their unkindness towards him.

"Son," said his mother, "I know nothing of thy child. Thy father was a strange man—he told little to me. If any one can tell thee aught concerning thy boy, it will be John Bell, the old coachman; but he has not been in the family for six years, and where he now is I cannot tell, though I believe he is still somewhere in the neighbourhood."

With sad and anxious hearts the colonel and his son next visited the house of Mr. Sim—the dwelling-place in which the infancy, the childhood, and what may be called the youth, of the latter had been passed.

Tears gathered in the eyes of Charles as he approached the door. He knew that his grandsire and his grandmother had acted wrongly towards him, in never speaking to him of his father, or making known to him that such a person lived; but when he again saw the house which had been the scene of a thousand happy days, round which he had chased the gaudy butterfly and the busy bee, or sought the nest of the chaffinch, the yellowhammer, and the hedge-sparrow, the feelings of boyhood rose too strong in his soul for resentment; and on meeting Mr. Sim (his grandfather) as they approached the door of the house, Charles ran towards him, and, stretching out his hand, cried, "Father!"

The old man recognised him, and exclaimed, "Charles!—Charles!—child of my Maria!" and wept.

At the mention of her name, the colonel wept also.

"What gentleman is this with thee, Charles?" inquired Mr. Sim.

"It is my father!" was the reply.

Mr. Sim, who was now a grey-haired man, reeled back a few paces—he raised his hands—he exclaimed, "Can I be forgiven?"

"Forgiven!—ay, doubly forgiven!" answered Colonel Morris, "as the father of lost, loved Maria, and as having been more than a father to my boy, who is now by my side. But know you nothing of my other son? My Maria bore twins."

"Nothing! nothing!" replied Mr. Sim; "that question has cost me many an anxious thought. It has troubled also the conscience of my wife; for it was her fault that he also was not committed to my charge; and I would have inquired after your child long ago, but that there was no good-will between your father and me; and I was a plain, retired citizen—he a magistrate, and a justice of the peace for the county, who could do no wrong."

The colonel groaned.

They proceeded towards the villa together. Mrs. Sim met her grandson with a flood of tears, and, in her joy at meeting him, she forgot her dislike to his father and her hatred to that father's family.

The colonel endeavoured to obtain information from his father-in-law respecting his other son; and he told him all that his mother had said, of what she had spoken regarding the coachman, and also of what Charles had told him, in twice meeting one who so strongly resembled himself.

"Colonel," said Mr. Sim, "I know the John Bell your mother speaks of; he now keeps an inn near Langholm. To-morrow we shall go to his house, and make inquiry concerning all that he knows."

"Be it so, father," said the colonel. And on the following day they took a chaise and set out together—the grandfather, the father, and the son.

They had to cross the Annan, and to pass the churchyard where Maria slept. As they drew near to it, the colonel desired the driver to stop.

"Follow me, Charles," he said; and Mr. Sim accompanied them. They entered the churchyard; the colonel led them to the humble grave-stone that he had raised to the memory of his Maria. He sat down upon it, he pressed his lips to it and wept.

"Charles," said he, "look on your mother's grave. Here, on this stone, day after day, I was wont to sit with you and your brother upon my knee, fondling you, breathing your mother's name in your ears; and though neither of you knew what I said, you smiled as I wept and spoke. Oh Charles! though you then filled my whole heart (and you do now), I could only distinguish you from each other by the ribbons on your arms. Would to Heaven that I may discover my child! and, whatever be his condition, I shall forgive my father for the injustice he has done me and mine—I shall be happy. And, oh! should we indeed find your brother—should he prove to be the youth whom you have twice met—I shall say that Heaven has remembered me when I forgot myself! But come hither, Charles—come, kneel upon your mother's grave—kiss the sod where she lies, and angels will write it in their books, and show it to your mother, where she is happy. Come, my boy."

Charles knelt on his mother's grave. He had arisen, and they were about to depart; for his grandfather had accompanied them, and was a silent but tearful spectator of the scene.

They were leaving the churchyard, joined in the arms of each other, when two strangers entered it. The one was John Bell, the other George Prescot.

"Colonel! Colonel! there is John Bell that you spoke of," exclaimed Mr. Sim.

"Father! father!" at the same instant cried his son, "he is here—it is him!—my brother—or—he whom I have told you of, who so strangely resembles me."

Charles rushed forward—it was George Prescot—and he took the proffered hand of the other, and said, "Sir, I rejoice to meet thee again—it seems I belong to Cumberland as well as thou dost; and this gentleman (pointing to John Bell), who seems to know more of me than I do myself, has promised to show me here my mother's grave!"

"And where is that grave?" cried the colonel earnestly, who had been an interested spectator of all that passed.

"Even where the wife of your youth is buried, your honour," answered John Bell; "you have with you one son—behold his twin brother!"

The colonel pressed his new-found son to his breast. With his children he sat down on the stone over Maria's grave, and they wept together.

Our tale is told. Colonel Morris and his sons had met. His elder brothers died, and he became the heir of his father's property. Mr. Sim also stated that, in his will, he should divide his substance equally between the brothers; and he did so. I have but another word to add. George forgot not Caroline Paling, who had assisted him when his heart was full and his pocket empty, and within twelve months he again visited Dartmouth; but when he returned from it, Caroline accompanied him as his wife; and when he introduced her to his father and his brother—"Behold," said he, "what a halfpenny, delicately tendered, may produce."



THE STORY OF THE GIRL FORGER.

It is a common thing for writers of a certain class, when they want to produce the feeling of wonder in their readers, to introduce some frantic action, and then to account for it by letting out the secret that the actor was mad. The trick is not so necessary as it seems, for the strength of human passions is a potentiality only limited by experience; and so it is that a sane person may under certain stimulants do the maddest thing in the world. The passion itself is always true—it is only the motive that may be false; and therefore it is that in narrating for your amusement, perhaps I may add instruction, the following singular story—traces of the main parts of which I got in the old books of a former procurator-fiscal—I assume that there was no more insanity in the principal actor, Euphemia, or, as she was called, Effie Carr, when she brought herself within the arms of the law, than there is in you, when now you are reading the story of her strange life. She was the only daughter of John Carr, a grain merchant, who lived in Bristo Street. It would be easy to ascribe to her all the ordinary and extraordinary charms that are thought so necessary to embellish heroines; but as we are not told what these were in her case, we must be contented with the assurance that nature had been kind enough to her to give her power over the hearts of men. We shall be nearer our purpose when we state, what is necessary to explain a peculiar part of our story, that her father, in consequence of his own insufficient education, had got her trained to help him in keeping his accounts with the farmers, and in writing up his books; nay, she enjoyed the privilege of writing his drafts upon the Bank of Scotland, which the father contrived to sign, though in his own illiterate way, and with a peculiarity which it would not have been easy to imitate.

But our gentle clerk did not consider these duties imposed upon her by her father as excluding her either from gratifying her love of domestic habits, by assisting her mother in what at that time was denominated hussyskep or housekeeping, or from a certain other gratification, which might without a hint from us be anticipated—no other than the luxury of falling head and ears, and heart too we fancy, in love with a certain dashing young student of the name of Robert Stormonth, then attending the University, more for the sake of polish than of mere study, for he was the son of the proprietor of Kelton, and required to follow no profession. How Effie got entangled with this youth we have no means of knowing, so we must be contented with the Scotch proverb—

"Tell me where the flea may bite, And I will tell where love may light."

The probability is, that from the difference of their stations and the retiring nature of our gentle clerk, we shall be safe in assuming that he had, as the saying goes, been smitten by her charms in some of those street encounters, where there is more of love's work done than in "black-footed" tea coteries expressly held for the accommodation of Cupid. And that the smiting was a genuine feeling we are not left to doubt; for in addition to the reasons we shall afterwards have too good occasion to know, he treated Effie not as those wild students who are great men's sons do "the light o' loves" they meet in their escapades, for he entrusted his secrets to her, he took such small counsel from her poor head as a "learned clerk" might be supposed able to give; nay, he told her of his mother, and how one day he hoped to be able to introduce her at Kelton as his wife. All which Effie repaid with the devotedness of that most wonderful affection called the first or virgin love—the purest, the deepest, the most thorough-going of all the emotions of the human heart. But as yet he had not conceded to her wish that he should consent to their love being made known to Effie's father and mother. Love is only a leveller to itself and its object: the high-born youth, inured to refined manners, shrank from a family intercourse, which put him too much in mind of the revolt he had made against the presumed wishes and intentions of his proud parents. Wherein, after all, he was only true to the instincts of that institution, apparently so inhumane as well as unchristian in its exclusiveness, called aristocracy, and yet with the excuse that its roots are pretty deeply set in human nature.

But, proud as he was, Bob Stormonth, the younger of Kelton, was amenable to the obligations of a necessity, forged by his own imprudent hands. He had, by a fast mode of living, got into debt—a condition from which his father, a stern man, had relieved him twice before, but with a threat on the last occasion, that if he persevered in his prodigality, he would withdraw from him his yearly allowance, and throw him upon his own resources. The threat proved ineffectual, and this young heir of entail, with all his pride, was once in the grasp of low-born creditors; nay, things in this evil direction had gone so far that writs were out against him, and one in the form of a caption was already in the hands of a messenger-at-arms. That the debts were comparatively small in amount, was no amelioration where the purse was all but empty; and he had exhausted the limited exchequers of his chums, which with college youths was, and is, not difficult to do. So the gay Bob was driven to his last shift, and that, as is generally the case, was a mean one; for necessity, as the mother of inventions, does not think it proper to limit her births to genteel or noble devices to please her proud consort. He even had recourse to poor Effie to help him; and, however ridiculous this may seem, there were reasons that made the application appear not so desperate as some of his other schemes. It was only the caption that as yet quickened his fears; and as the sum for which the writ was issued was only twenty pounds, it was not, after all, so much beyond the power of a clerk.

It was during one of their ordinary walks in the Meadows that the pressing necessity was opened by Stormonth to the vexed and terrified girl. He told her that, but for the small help he required in the meantime, he would be ruined. The wrath of his father would be excited once more, and probably to the exclusion of all reconciliation; and he himself compelled to flee, but whither he knew not. He had his plan prepared, and proposed to Effie, who had no means of her own, to take a loan of the sum out of her father's cash-box—words very properly chosen according to the euphemistic policy of the devil; but Effie's genuine spirit was roused and alarmed.

"Dreadful!" she whispered, as if afraid that the night wind would carry her words to honest ears. "Besides," she continued, "my father, who is a hard man, keeps his desk lockit."

Words which took Stormonth aback, for even he saw there was here a necessity as strong as his own; yet the power of invention went to work again.

"Listen, Effie," said he. "If you cannot help me, it is not likely we shall meet again. I am desperate, and will go into the army."

The ear of Effie was chained to a force which was direct upon the heart. She trembled and looked wistfully into his face, even as if by that look she could extract from him some other device less fearful, by which she might have the power of retaining him for so short a period as a day.

"You draw out your father's drafts on the bank, Effie," he continued. "Write one out for me, and I will put your father's name to it. You can draw the money. I will be saved from ruin; and your father will never know."

A proposal which again brought a shudder over the girl.

"Is it Robert Stormonth who asks me to do this thing?" she whispered again.

"No," said he; "for I am not myself. Yesterday, and before the messenger was after me, I would have shrunk from the suggestion. I am not myself, I say, Effie. Ay or no; keep me or lose me—that is the alternative."

"Oh, I cannot," was the language of her innocence, and for which he was prepared; for the stimulant was again applied in the most powerful of all forms—the word farewell was sounded in her ear.

"Stop, Robert! let me think." But there was no thought, only the heart beating wildly. "I will do it; and may the penalty be mine, and mine only."

So it was: "even virtue's self turns vice when misapplied." What her mind shrank from was embraced by the heart as a kind of sacred duty of a love making a sacrifice for the object of its first worship. It was arranged; and as the firmness of a purpose is often in proportion to the prior disinclination, so Effie's determination to save her lover from ruin was forthwith put in execution; nay, there was even a touch of the heroine in her, so wonderfully does the heart, acting under its primary instincts, sanctify the device which favours its affection. That same evening Effie Carr wrote out the draft for twenty pounds on the Bank of Scotland, gave it to Stormonth, who, from a signature of the father's, also furnished by her, perpetrated the forgery—a crime at that time punishable by death. The draft so signed was returned to Effie. Next forenoon she went to the bank, as she had often done for her father before; and the document being in her handwriting, as prior ones of the same kind had also been, no scrutinizing eye was turned to the signature. The money was handed over, but not counted by the recipient, as before had been her careful habit—a circumstance with its effect to follow in due time. Meanwhile Stormonth was at a place of appointment out of the reach of the executor of the law, and was soon found out by Effie, who gave him the money with trembling hands. For this surely a kiss was due. We do not know; but she returned with the satisfaction, overcoming all the impulses of fear and remorse, that she had saved the object of her first and only love from ruin and flight.

But even then the reaction was on the spring; the rebound was to be fearful and fatal. The teller at the bank had been struck with Effie's manner; and the non-counting of the notes had roused a suspicion, which fought its way even against the improbability of a mere girl perpetrating a crime from which females are generally free. He examined the draft, and soon saw that the signature was a bad imitation. Thereupon a messenger was despatched to Bristo Street for inquiry. John Carr, taken by surprise, declared that the draft, though written by his daughter, was forged—the forgery being in his own mind attributed to George Lindsay, his young salesman. Enough this for the bank, who had in the first place only to do with the utterer, against whom their evidence as yet only lay. Within a few hours afterwards Effie Carr was in the Tolbooth, charged with the crime of forging a cheque on her father's account-current.

The news soon spread over Edinburgh—at that time only an overgrown village, in so far as regarded local facilities for the spread of wonders. It had begun there, where the mother was in recurring faints, the father in distraction and not less mystery, George Lindsay in terror and pity. And here comes in the next strange turn of our story. Lindsay all of a sudden declared he was the person who imitated the name—a device of the yearning heart to save the girl of his affection from the gallows, and clutched at by the mother and father as a means of their daughter's redemption. One of those thinly-sown beings who are cold-blooded by nature, who take on love slowly but surely, and seem fitted to be martyrs, Lindsay defied all consequences, so that it might be that Effie Carr should escape an ignominious death. Nor did he take time for further deliberation: in less than half an hour he was in the procurator-fiscal's office—the willing self-criminator; the man who did the deed; the man who was ready to die for his young mistress and his love. His story, too, was as ready as it was truth-seeming. He declared that he had got Effie to write out the draft as if commissioned by John Carr; that he took it away, and with his own hands added the name; that he had returned the check to Effie to go with it to the bank, and had received the money from her on her return. The consequence was his wish, and it was inevitable. That same day George Lindsay was lodged also in the Tolbooth, satisfied that he had made a sacrifice of his life for one whom he had loved for years, and who yet had never shown him even a symptom of hope that his love would be returned.

All which proceedings soon came on the wings of rumour to the ears of Robert Stormonth, who was not formed to be a martyr even for a love which was to him as true as his nature would permit. He saw his danger, because he did not see the character of a faithful girl who would die rather than compromise her lover. He fled—aided probably by that very money he had wrung out of the hands of the devoted girl; nor was his disappearance connected with the tragic transaction; for, as we have said, the connection between him and Effie had been kept a secret, and his flight could be sufficiently accounted for by his debt.

Meanwhile the precognitions or examination of the parties went on, and with a result as strange as it was puzzling to the officials. Effie was firm to her declaration, that she not only wrote the body of the cheque, but attached to it the name of her father, and had appropriated the money in a way which she declined to state. On the other hand, Lindsay was equally staunch to his statement made to the procurator-fiscal, that he had got Effie to write the draft, had forged the name to it, and got the money from her. The authorities very soon saw that they had got more than the law bargained for or wanted; nor was the difficulty likely soon to be solved. The two parties could not both be guilty, according to the evidence, nor could one of them be guilty to the exclusion of the other; neither, when the balance was cast, was there much difference in the weight of the scales, because, while it was in one view more likely that Lindsay signed the false name, it was beyond doubt that Effie wrote the body of the document, and she had, moreover, presented it. But was it for the honour of the law that people should be hanged on a likelihood? It was a new case without new heads to decide it, and it made no difference that the body of the people, who soon became inflamed on the subject, took the part of the girl and declared against the man. It was easy to be seen that the tracing of the money would go far to solve the mystery; and accordingly there was a strict search made in Lindsay's lodgings, as well as in Effie's private repositories at home. We need not say with what effect, where the money was over the Border and away. It was thus in all views more a case for Astraea than common heads; but then she had gone to heaven. The Lord Advocate soon saw that the law was likely to be caught in its own meshes. The first glimpse was got of the danger of hanging so versatile, so inconsistent, so unsearchable a creature as a human being on a mere confession of guilt. That that had been the law of Scotland in all time, nay, that it had been the law of the world from the beginning, there was no doubt. Who could know the murderer or the forger better than the murderer or the forger himself? and would any one throw away his life on a false plea? The reasoning does not exhaust the deep subject; there remains the presumption that the criminal will, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, deny, and deny boldly. But our case threw a new light on the old law, and the Lord Advocate was slow to indict where he saw not only reasons for failure, but also rising difficulties which might strike at the respect upon which the law was founded.

The affair hung loose for a time, and Lindsay's friends, anxious to save him, got him induced to run his letters—the effect of which is to give the prosecutor a period wherein to try the culprit, on failure of which the person charged is free. The same was done by Effie's father; but quickened as the Lord Advocate was, the difficulty still met him like a ghost that would not be laid, that if he put Effie at the bar, Lindsay would appear in the witness-box; and if he put Lindsay on his trial, Effie would swear he was innocent; and as for two people forging the same name, the thing had never been heard of. And so it came to pass that the authorities at last, feeling they were in a cleft stick, where if they relieved one hand the other would be caught, were inclined to liberate both panels. But the bank was at that time preyed upon by forgeries, and were determined to make an example now when they had a culprit, or perhaps two. The consequence was, that the authorities were forced to give way, vindicating their right of choice as to the party they should arraign. That party was Effie Carr, and the choice justified itself by two considerations: that she, by writing and uttering the cheque, was so far committed by evidence exterior to her self-inculpation; and secondly, that Lindsay might break down in the witness-box under a searching examination. Effie was therefore indicted and placed at the bar. She pleaded guilty, but the prosecutor, notwithstanding, led evidence, and at length Lindsay appeared as a witness for the defence. The people who crowded the court had been aware from report of the condition in which Lindsay stood; but the deep silence which reigned throughout the hall when he was called to answer, evinced the doubt whether he would stand true to his self-impeachment. The doubt was soon solved. With a face on which no trace of fear could be perceived, with a voice in which there was no quaver, he swore that it was he who signed the draft and sent Effie for the money. The oscillation of sympathy, which had for a time been suspended, came round again to the thin pale girl, who sat there looking wistfully and wonderingly into the face of the witness, and the murmuring approbation that broke out, in spite of the shrill "silence" of the crier, expressed at once admiration of the man—criminal as he swore himself to be—and pity for the accused. What could the issue be? Effie was acquitted, and Lindsay sent back to gaol. Was he not to be tried? The officials felt that the game was dangerous. If Lindsay had stood firm in the box, had not Effie sat firm at the bar, with the very gallows in her eye, and would not she, in her turn, be as firm in the box? All which was too evident, and the consequence in the end came to be, that Lindsay was in the course of a few days set at liberty.

And now there occurred proceedings not less strange in the house of John Carr. Lindsay was turned off, because, though he had made a sacrifice of himself to save the life of Effie, the sacrifice was only that due to the justice he had offended. The dismissal was against the protestations of Effie, who alone knew he was innocent; and she had to bear the further grief of learning that Stormonth had left the city on the very day whereon she was apprehended—a discovery this too much for a frame always weak, and latterly so wasted by her confinement in prison, and the anguish of mind consequent upon her strange position. And so it came to pass in a few more days that she took to her bed, a wan, wasted, heart-broken creature; but stung as she had been by the conduct of the man she had offered to die to save, she felt even more the sting of ingratitude in herself for not divulging to her mother as much of her secret as would have saved Lindsay from dismissal, for she was now more and more satisfied that it was the strength of his love for her that had driven him to his great and perilous sacrifice. Nor could her mother, as she bent over her daughter, understand why her liberation should have been followed by so much sorrow; nay, loving her as she did, she even reproached her as being ungrateful to God.

"Mother," said the girl, "I have a secret that lies like a stane upon my heart. George Lindsay had nae mair to do with that forgery than you."

"And who had to do with it then, Effie, dear?"

"Myself," continued the daughter; "I filled up the cheque at the bidding o' Robert Stormonth, whom I had lang loved. It was he wha put my faither's name to it. It was to him I gave the money, to relieve him from debt, and he has fled."

"Effie, Effie," cried the mother; "and we have done this thing to George Lindsay—ta'en from him his basket and his store, yea, the bread o' his mouth, in recompense for trying to save your life by offering his ain!"

"Yes, mother," added Effie; "but we must make that wrang richt."

"And mair, lass," rejoined the mother, as she rose abruptly and nervously, and hurried to her husband, to whom she told the strange intelligence. Then John Carr was a just man as well as a loving parent; and while he forgave his unfortunate daughter, he went and brought back George Lindsay to his old place that very night; nor did he or Mrs. Carr know the joy they had poured into the heart of the young man, for the reason that they did not know the love he bore to their daughter. But if this was a satisfaction to Effie, in so far as it relieved her heart of a burden, it brought to her a burden of another kind. The mother soon saw how matters stood with the heart of Lindsay, and she, moreover, saw that her or her daughter's gratitude could not be complete so long as he was denied the boon of being allowed to marry the girl he had saved from the gallows, and she waited her opportunity of breaking the delicate subject to Effie. It was not time yet, when Effie was an invalid, and even so far wasted and worn as to cause apprehensions of her ultimate fate, even death; nor perhaps would that time ever come when she could bear to hear the appeal without pain; for though Stormonth had ruined her character and her peace of mind—nay, had left her in circumstances almost unprecedented for treachery, baseness, and cruelty—he retained still the niche where the offerings of a first love had been made: his image had been indeed burned into the virgin heart, and no other form of man's face, though representing the possessor of beauty, wealth, and worldly honours, would ever take away that treasured symbol. It haunted her even as a shadow of herself, which, disappearing at sundown, comes again at the rising of the noon; nay, she would have been contented to make other sacrifices equally great as that which she had made; nor wild moors, nor streams, nor rugged hills, would have stopped her in an effort to look upon him once more, and replace that inevitable image by the real vision, which had first taken captive her young heart.

But time passed, bringing the usual ameliorations to the miserable. Effie got so far better in health that she became able to resume, in a languid way, her former duties, with the exception of those of "the gentle clerk"—for of these she had had enough; even the very look of a bank-draft brought a shudder over her; nor would she have entered the Bank of Scotland again, even with a good cheque for a thousand pounds, to have been all her own. Meanwhile the patient George had plied a suit which he could only express by his eyes or the attentions of one who worships, but he never alluded, even in their conversations, to the old sacrifice. The mother too, and not less the father, saw the advantages that might result as well to the health of her mind as that of her body. They had waited—a vain waiting—for the wearing out of the traces of the obdurate image; and when they thought they might take placidity as the sign of what they waited for, they first hinted, and then expressed in plain terms, the wishes of their hearts. For a time all their efforts were fruitless; but John Carr getting old and weak, wished to be succeeded in his business by George; and the wife, when she became a widow, would require to be maintained—reasons which had more weight with Effie than any others, excepting always the act of George's self-immolation at the shrine in which his fancy had placed her. The importunities at length wore out her resistings, without effacing the lines of the old and still endeared image, and she gave a cold, we may say reluctant, consent. The bride's "ay" was a sigh, the rapture a tear of sadness. But George was pleased even with this: Effie, the long-cherished Effie, was at length his.

In her new situation, Effie Carr—now Mrs. Lindsay—performed all the duties of a good and faithful wife; by an effort of the will no doubt, though in another sense only a sad obedience to necessity, of which we are all, as the creatures of motives, the very slaves. But the old image resisted the appeals of her reason, as well as the blandishments of a husband's love. She was only true, faithful, and kind, till the birth of a child lent its reconciling power to the efforts of duty. Some time afterwards John Carr died—an event which carried in its train the subsequent death of his wife. There was left to the son-in-law a dwindling business, and a very small sum of money, for the father had met with misfortunes in his declining years, which impaired health prevented him from resisting. Time wore on, and showed that the power of the martyr-spirit is not always that of the champion of worldly success, for it was now but a struggle between George Lindsay, with a stained name, and the stern demon of misfortune. He was at length overtaken by poverty, which, as affecting Effie, preyed so relentlessly upon his spirits, that within two years he followed John Carr to the grave. Effie was now left with two children to the work of her fingers, a poor weapon wherewith to beat off the wolf of want, and even this was curtailed by the effects of the old crime, which the public still kept in green remembrance.

Throughout, our story has been the sensationalism of angry fate, and even less likely to be believed than the work of fiction. Nor was the vulture face of the Nemesis yet smoothed down. The grief of her bereavement had only partially diverted Effie's mind from the recollections of him who had ruined her, and yet could not be hated by her, nay, could not be but loved by her. The sensitized nerve, which had received the old image, gave it out fresh again to the reviving power of memory, and this was only a continuation of what had been a corroding custom of years and years. But, as the saying goes, it is a long road that does not offer by its side the spreading bough of shade to the way-worn traveller. One day, when Effie was engaged with her work, of which she was as weary as of the dreaming which accompanied it, there appeared before her, without premonition or foreshadowing sign, Robert Stormonth of Kelton, dressed as a country gentleman, booted, and with a whip in his hand.

"Are you Effie Carr?"

The question was useless to one who was already lying back in her chair in a state of unconsciousness, from which she recovered only to open her eyes and avert them, and shut them and open them again, like the victim of epilepsy.

"And do you fear me?" said the excited man, as he took her in his strong arms and stared wildly into her face; "I have more reason to fear you, whom I ruined," he continued. "Ay, brought within the verge of the gallows. I know it all, Effie. Open your eyes, dear soul, and smile once more upon me. Nay, I have known it for years, during which remorse has scourged me through the world. Look up, dear Effie, while I tell you I could bear the agony no longer; and now opportunity favours the wretched penitent, for my father is dead, and I am not only my own master, but master of Kelton, of which you once heard me speak. Will you not look up yet, dear Effie? I come to make amends to you, not by wealth merely, but to offer you again that love I once bore to you, and still bear. Another such look, dear—it is oil to my parched spirit. You are to consent to be my wife; the very smallest boon I dare offer."

During which strange rambling speech Effie was partly insensible; yet she heard enough to afford her clouded mind a glimpse of her condition, and of the meaning of what was said to her. For a time she kept staring into his face as if she had doubts of his real personality; nor could she find words to express even those more collected thoughts that began to gather into form.

"Robert Stormonth," at length she said, calmly, "and have you suffered too? Oh, this is more wonderful to me than a' the rest o' these wonderful things."

"As no man ever suffered, dear Effie," he answered. "I was on the eve of coming to you, when a friend I retained here wrote me to London of your marriage with the man who saved you from the fate into which I precipitated you. How I envied that man who offered to die for you! He seemed to take from me my only means of reparation; nay, my only chance of happiness. But he is dead. Heaven give peace to so noble a spirit! And now you are mine. It is mercy I come to seek in the first instance; the love—if that, after all that is past, is indeed possible—I will take my chance of that."

"Robert," cried the now weeping woman, "if that love had been aince less, what misery I would have been spared! Ay, and my father, and mother, and poor George Lindsay, a' helped awa to the grave by my crime, for it stuck to us to the end." And she buried her head in his bosom, sobbing piteously.

"My crime, dear Effie, not yours," said he. "It was you who saved my life; and if Heaven has a kindlier part than another for those who err by the fault of others, it will be reserved for one who made a sacrifice of love. But we have, I hope, something to enjoy before you go there, and as yet I have not got your forgiveness."

"It is yours—it is yours, Robert," was the sobbing answer. "Ay, and with it a' the love I ever had for you."

"Enough for this time, dear Effie," said he. "My horse waits for me. Expect me to-morrow at this hour with a better-arranged purpose." And folding her in his arms, and kissing her fervently, even as his remorse were thereby assuaged as well as his love gratified, he departed, leaving Effie to thoughts we should be sorry to think ourselves capable of putting into words. Nor need we say more than that Stormonth kept his word. Effie Carr was in a few days Mrs. Stormonth, and in not many more the presiding female power in the fine residence of Kelton.



THE BURGHER'S TALES.

THE TWO RED SLIPPERS.

The taking down of the old house of four or five flats called Gowanlock's Land, in that part of the High Street which used to be called the Luckenbooths, has given rise to various stories connected with the building. Out of these I have selected a very strange legend—so strange indeed, that, if not true, it must have been the production, quod est in arte summa, of a capital inventor; nor need I say that it is of much importance to talk of the authenticity of these things, for the most authentic are embellished by invention—and it is certainly the best embellished that live the longest; for all which we have very good reasons in human nature.

Gowanlock's Land, it would seem, merely occupied the site of an older house, which belonged, at the time of Prince Charlie's occupation of the city, to an old town councillor of the name of Yellowlees. This older house was also one of many stories—an old form in Edinburgh, supposed to have been adopted from the French; but it had, which was not uncommon, an entry from the street running under an arch, and leading to the back of the premises to the lower part of the tenement, that part occupied by the councillor. There was a lower flat, and one above, which thus constituted an entire house; and which, moreover, rejoiced in the privilege of having an extensive garden, running down as far as the sheet of water called the North Loch, that secret "domestic witness," as the ancients used to say, of many of the dark crimes of the old city. These gardens were the pride of the rich burghers of the time, decorated by Dutch-clipped hollies and trim boxwood walks; and in our special instance of Councillor Yellowlees' retreat, there was, in addition, a summer-house or rustic bower standing at the bottom, that is, towards the north, and close upon the loch. I may mention also that, in consequence of the damp, this little bower was strewed with rushes for the very special comfort of Miss Annie Yellowlees, the only and much petted child of the good councillor.

All which you must take as introductory to the important fact that the said Miss Annie, who, as a matter of course, was "very bonnie," as well as passing rich to be, had been, somewhat previous to the prince's entry to the town, pledged to be married to no less considerable a personage than Maister John Menelaws, a son of him of the very same name who dealt in pelts in a shop of the Canongate, and a student of medicine in the Edinburgh University; but as the councillor had in his secret soul hankerings after the prince, and the said student, John, was a red-hot royalist, the marriage was suspended, all to the inexpressible grief of our "bonnie Annie," who would not have given her John for all the Charlies and Geordies to be found from Berwick to Lerwick. On the other hand, while Annie was depressed, and forced to seek relief in solitary musings in her bower by the loch, it is just as true that "it is an ill wind that blaws naebody gude;" nay, the truth of the saying was verified in Richard Templeton, a fellow-student of Menelaws, and a rival, too, in the affections of Annie; who, being a Charlieite as well as an Annieite, rejoiced that his companion was in the meantime foiled and disappointed.

Meanwhile, and, I may say, while the domestic affairs of the councillor's house were still in this unfortunate position, the prince's bubble burst in the way which history tells us of, and thereupon out came proscriptions of terrible import, and, as fate would have it, young Templeton's name was in the bloody register; the more by reason that he had been as noisy as Edinburgh students generally are in the proclamation of his partisanship. He must fly or secrete himself, or perhaps lose a head in which there was concealed a considerable amount of Scotch cunning. He at once thought of the councillor's house, with that secluded back garden and summer-house, all so convenient for secrecy, and the envied Annie there, too, whom he might by soft wooings detach from the hated Menelaws, and make his own through the medium of the pity that is akin to love. And so, to be sure, he straightway, under the shade of night, repaired to the house of the councillor, who, being a tender-hearted man, could not see a sympathiser with the glorious cause in danger of losing his head. Templeton was received—a report set abroad that he had gone to France—and all proper measures were taken within the house to prevent any domestic from letting out the secret.

In this scheme, Annie, we need hardly say, was a favouring party; not that she had any love for the young man, for her heart was still true to Menelaws (who, however, for safety's sake, was now excluded from the house), but that, with a filial obedience to a beloved father, she felt, with a woman's heart, sympathy for one who was in distress, and a martyr to the cause which her father loved. Need we wonder at an issue which may already be looming on the vision of those who know anything of human nature? The two young folks were thrown together. They were seldom out of each other's company. Suffering is love's opportunity, and Templeton had to plead for him not only his misfortune, but a tongue rendered subtle and winning by love's action in the heart. As the days passed, Annie saw some new qualities in the martyr prisoner which she had not seen before; nay, the pretty little domestic attentions had the usual reflex effect upon the heart which administered them, and all that the recurring image of Menelaws could do to fight against these rising predilections was so far unavailing, that that very image waxed dimmer and dimmer, while the present object was always working through the magic of sensation. Yes, Annie Yellowlees grew day by day fonder of her protege, until at length she got, as the saying goes, "over head and ears." Nay, was she not, in the long nights, busy working a pair of red slippers for the object of her new affections, and were not these so very suitable to one who, like Hercules, was reduced almost to the distaff, and who, unlike that woman-tamed hero, did not need them to be applied anywhere but to the feet?

In the midst of all this secluded domesticity, there was all that comfort which is said to come from stolen waters. Then was there not the prospect of the proscription being taken off, and the two would be made happy? Even in the meantime they made small escapades into free space. When the moon was just so far up as not to be a tell-tale, Templeton would, either with or without Annie, step out into the garden with these very red slippers on his feet. That bower by the loch, too, was favourable to the fondlings of a secret love; nor was it sometimes less to the prisoner a refuge from the eeriness which comes of ennui—if it is not the same thing—under the pressure of which strange feeling he would creep out at times when Annie could not be with him; nay, sometimes when the family had gone to bed.

And now we come to a very wonderful turn in our strange story. One morning Templeton did not make his appearance in the breakfast parlour, but of course he would when he got up and got his red slippers on. Yet he was so punctual; and Annie, who knew that her father had to go to the council chamber, would see what was the cause of the young man's delay. She went to his bedroom door. It was open; but where was Templeton? He was not there. He could not be out in the city; he could not be even in the garden with the full light of a bright morning sun shining on it. He was not in the house; he was not in the garden, as they could see from the windows. He was nowhere to be found; and, what added to the wonder, he had taken with him his red slippers, wherever he had gone. The inmates were in wonderment and consternation, and, conduplicated evil! they could make no inquiry for one who lay under the ban of a bloody proscription.

But wonders, as we all know, generally ensconce themselves in some snug theory, and die by a kind of pleasant euthanasia; and so it was with this wonder of ours. The councillor came, as the days passed, to the conclusion that Templeton, wearied out by his long confinement, had become desperate, and had gone abroad. As good a theory as could be got, seeing that he had not trusted himself in going near his friends; and Annie, whose grief was sharp and poignant, came also to settle down with a belief which still promised her her lover, though perhaps at a long date. But, somehow or another, Annie could not explain why, even with all the fondness he had to the work of her hands, he should have elected to expose himself to damp feet by making the love-token slippers do the duty of the pair of good shoes he had left in the bedroom.

Even this latter wonder wore away; and months and months passed on the revolving wheel which casts months, not less than moments, into that gulf we call eternity. The rigour of the Government prosecutions was relaxed, and timid sympathisers began to show their heads out of doors, but Richard Templeton never returned to claim either immunity or the woman of his affections. Nor within all this time did John Menelaws enter the house of the councillor; so that Annie's days were renounced to sadness, and her nights to reveries. But at last comes the eventful "one day" of the greatest of all story-tellers, Time, whereon happen his startling discoveries. Verily one day Annie had wandered disconsolately into the garden, and seated herself on the wooden form in the summer-house, where in the moonlight she had often nestled in the arms of her proscribed lover, who was now gone, it might be, for ever. Objective thought cast her into a reverie, and the reverie brought up again the images of these objects, till her heart beat with an affection renewed through a dream. At length she started up, and, wishing to hurry from a place which seemed filled with images at once lovable and terrible, she felt her foot caught by an impediment whereby she stumbled. On looking down she observed some object of a reddish-brown colour; and becoming alarmed lest it might be one of the toads with which the place was sometimes invaded, she started back. Yet curiosity forced her to a closer inspection. She applied her hand to the object, and brought away one of those very slippers which she had made for Templeton. All very strange; but what maybe conceived to have been her feelings when she saw, sticking up from beneath the rushes, the white skeleton of a foot which had filled that very slipper! A terrible suspicion shot through her mind. She flew to her father, and, hurrying him to the spot, pointed out to him the grim object, and showed him the slipper which had covered it. Mr. Yellowlees was a shrewd man, and soon saw that, the foot being there, the rest of the body was not far away. He saw, too, that his safety might be compromised either as having been concerned in a murder or the harbourage of a rebel; and so, making caution the better part of his policy, he repaired to a sympathiser, and having told him the story, claimed his assistance. Nor was this refused. That same night, by the light of a lamp, they exhumed the body of Templeton, much reduced, but enveloped with his clothes; only they observed that the other red slipper was wanting. On examining the body, they could trace the evidence of a sword-stab through the heart. All this they kept to themselves; and that same night they contrived to get the sexton of the Canongate to inter the body as that of a rebel who had been killed, and left where it was found.

This wonder also passed away, and, as time sped, old things began to get again into their natural order. Menelaws began to come again about the house; and as an old love, when the impediments are removed, is soon rekindled again, he and Annie became even all that which they had once been to each other. The old vows were repeated without the slightest reference being made by either party to the cause which had interfered to prevent them from having been fulfilled. It was not for Annie to proffer a reason, and it did not seem to be the wish of Menelaws to ask one. In a short time afterwards they were married.

The new-married couple, apparently happy in the enjoyment of an affection which had continued so long, and had survived the crossing of a new love, at least on one side, removed to a separate house farther up in the Lawnmarket. Menelaws had previously graduated as a doctor, and he commenced to practise as such, not without an amount of success. Meanwhile the councillor died, leaving Annie a considerable fortune. In the course of somewhere about ten years they had five children. They at length resolved on occupying the old house with the garden, for Annie's reluctance became weakened by time. It was on the occasion of the flitting that Annie had to rummage an old trunk which Menelaws, long after the marriage, had brought from the house of his father, the dealer in pelts. There at the bottom, covered over by a piece of brown paper, she found—what? The very slipper which matched the one she still secretly retained in her possession. Verbum sapienti. You may now see where the strange land lies; nor was Annie blind. She concluded in an instant, and with a horror that thrilled through her whole body, that Menelaws had murdered his rival. She had lain for ten years in the arms of a murderer. She had borne to him five children. Nay, she loved him with all the force of an ardent temperament. The thought was terrible, and she recoiled from the very possibility of living with him a moment longer. She took the fatal memorial and secreted it along with its neighbour; and having a friend at a little distance from Edinburgh, she hurried thither, taking with her her children. Her father had left in her own power a sufficiency for her support, and she afterwards returned to town. All the requests of her husband for an explanation she resisted, and indeed they were not long persisted in, for Menelaws no doubt gauged the reason of her obduracy—a conclusion the more likely that he subsequently left Scotland. I have reason to believe that some of the existing Menelaws' are descended from this strange union.



THE FAITHFUL WIFE

There is very prevalent, along the Borders, an opinion that the arms of the town of Selkirk represent an incident which occurred there at the time of the battle of Flodden. The device, it is well known, consists of a female bearing a child in her arms, seated on a tomb, on which is also placed the Scottish lion. Antiquaries tell us that this device was adopted in consequence of the melancholy circumstance of the wife of an inhabitant of the town having been found, by a party returning from the battle, lying dead at the place called Ladywood-edge, with a child sucking at her breast.

We have not the slightest wish to disturb this venerable legend. It commemorates, with striking force, the desolation of one of Scotland's greatest calamities; and though the device is rudely and coarsely imagined, there is a graphic strength in the conception, which, independently of the truth of the story, recommends it to the lover of the bold and fervid genius of our countrymen. We must, at same time, be allowed to say that there is another version, and this we intend, shortly, now to lay before the public, without vouching for its superiority of accuracy over its more favoured and cherished brother; and rather, indeed, cautioning the credulous lovers of old legends to be upon their guard, lest Dr. Johnson's reproof of Richardson be applicable to us, in saying that we have it upon authority.

When recruits were required by King James the Fourth for the invasion of the English territory, which produced the most lamentable of all our defeats, it is well known that great exertions were used in the cause by the town-clerk of Selkirk, whose name was William Brydone, for which King James the Fifth afterwards conferred on him the honour of knighthood. Many of the inhabitants of Selkirk, fired with the ardour which the chivalric spirit of James infused into the hearts of his people, and with the spirit of emulation which Brydone had the art of exciting among his townsmen, as Borderers, joined the banners of their provost. Among these was one, Alexander Hume, a shoemaker, a strong stalwart man, bold and energetic in his character, and extremely enthusiastic in the cause of the king. He was deemed of considerable importance by Brydone, being held the second best man of the hundred citizens who are said to have joined his standard. When he came among his companions he was uniformly cheered. They had confidence in his sagacity and prudence, respected his valour, and admired his strength.

If Hume was thus courted by his companions, and urged by Brydone to the dangerous enterprise in which the king, by the wiles and flattery of the French queen, had engaged, he was treated in a very different manner by Margaret, his wife,—a fine young woman, who, fond to distraction of her husband, was desirous of preventing him from risking his life in a cause which she feared, with prophetic feeling, would bring desolation on her country. Every effort which love and female cajolery could suggest was used by this dutiful wife to keep her husband at home. She hung round his neck,—held up to his face a fine child five months old, whose mute eloquence softened the heart, but could not alter the purpose of the father,—wept, prayed, implored. She asked him the startling question—Who, when he was dead—and die he might—would shield her from injury and misfortune, and cherish, with the tenderness and love which its beauty and innocence deserved, the interesting pledge of their affection? She painted in glowing colours—which the imagination, excited by love, can so well supply—the situation of her as a widow and her child as an orphan. Their natural protector gone, what would be left to her but grief, what would remain for her child but destitution? His spirit would hear her wails; but beggary would array her in its rags, and hunger would steal from her cheek the vestiges of health and the lineaments of beauty.

These appeals were borne by Hume by the panoply of resolution. He loved Margaret as dearly, as truly as man could love woman, as a husband could love the partner of his life and fortunes. He answered with tears and embraces; but he remained true to the cause of his king and his country.

"Would you hae me, Margaret," he said, "to disgrace mysel' in the face o' my townsmen? Doesna our guid king intend to leave his fair Margaret, and risk the royal bluid o' the Bruce for the interests o' auld Scotland? and doesna our honoured provost mean to desert, for a day o' glory, his braw wife, that he may deck her wimple wi' the roses o' England, and her name wi' a Scotch title? Wharfore, then, should I, a puir tradesman, fear to put in jeopardy for the country that bore me the life that is hers as weel as yours, and sacrifice, sae far as the guid that my arm can produce, the glory o' my king and the character o' my country?"

Margaret heard this speech with the most intense grief. She was incapable of argument. She was inconsolable. Her husband remained inexorable, and entreaty gave way to anger. She had adopted the idea that Hume was buoyed up with the pride of leadership; and she told him, with some acrimony, that his ambition of being thought the bravest man of Selkirk would not, in the event of his death, supply the child he was bound to work for with a bite of bread. Her love and anger carried her beyond bounds. She used other language of a harsher character, which forced her good-natured husband to retaliate in terms unusual to him, unsuited to the serious subject which they had in hand, and far less to the dangerous separation which they were about to experience. The conversation got more acrimonious. Words of a high cast produced expressions stronger still, and Hume left his wife in anger, to go to the field from which he might never return.

Regret follows close upon the heels of incensed love. Alexander Hume had not been many paces from his own house, when his wife saw, in its proper light, the true character of her situation. Her husband had gone on a perilous enterprise. He might perish. She had perhaps got her last look of him who was dearest to her bosom. That look was in anger. The idea was terrible. Those who know the strength and delicacy of the feelings of true affection may conceive the situation of Margaret Hume. Unable to control herself, she threw her child into its crib, and rushed out of the house. One parting glance of reconciliation was all she wanted. She hurried through the town with an excited and terrified aspect, searching everywhere for her husband. He had departed with his companions; and Margaret was left in the agony of one whose sorrow is destined to be increased by the workings of an excited fancy, and the remorseful feelings of self-impeachment.

In the meantime, Hume having joined his companions, proceeded to the main army of the king, which was encamped on the hill of Flodden, lying on the left of the river Till. The party with which he was associated put themselves under the command of Lord Home; who, with the Earls of Crawford and Montrose, led the left of the van of the Scottish army. This part of the king's troops, it is well known, was opposed to Sir Edmund Howard. They were early engaged, and fought so successfully that Howard soon stood in need of succour from Lord Dacre, to save him from being speared on the field.

In this struggle Alexander Hume displayed the greatest prowess. He was seen in every direction dealing out death wherever he went. He was not, however, alone. His companions kept well up to him; and, in particular, one individual, who had joined the party as they approached the field, fought with a bravery equal to that of Hume himself. That person kept continually by his side, and seemed to consider the brave Borderer as his chosen companion-in-arms, whom he was bound to defend through all the perils of the fight. A leather haubergeon and an iron helmet, in which there was placed a small white feather, plucked from a cock's wing, constituted the armour of this brave seconder of Hume's gallantry. When Hume was attacked by the English with more force than his individual arm could sustain, no one of his companions was more ready to bring him aid than this individual. On several occasions he may be said to have saved his life, for Hume's recklessness drew him often into the very midst of the fight, where he must have perished had it not been for the timely assistance of his friend. On one occasion, in particular, an Englishman came behind him, and was in the very act of inserting a spear between the clasps of his armour, when his companion struck the dastardly fellow to the earth, and resumed the fight in front of the battle.

This noble conduct was not unappreciated by Hume; for where is bravery found segregated from gratitude and generosity? He called upon him, even in the midst of the battle, for his name, that he might, in the event of their being separated, recollect and commemorate his friendship. The request was not complied with, but the superintending and saving arm of the stranger continued to be exercised in favour of the Borderer. They fought together to the end of the battle. The result of the bloody contest is but too well known. The strains of poetry have carried the wail of bereavement to the ends of the earth, and sorrow has claimed the sounds as its own individual expression.

The Scottish troops took their flight in different directions. Hume and his companions were obliged to lie in secret for a considerable time in the surrounding forests. He made many inquiries among his friends for the individual who had fought with him so bravely and saved his life. He could find no trace of him, beyond the information that he had disappeared when Hume had given up the fight. The direction in which he went was unknown; nor could any one tell the place from which he came.

The people of Selkirk who had been in the fight, sought their town as soon as they could with safety get out of the reach of the English. Their numbers formed a sorry contrast to those who had, with light hearts and high hopes, sought the field of battle; and it has been reported that when the wretched wounded and bloodstained remnant entered the town, a cry of sorrow was raised by the inhabitants collected to meet them, the remembrance of which remained on the hearts of their children long after those who uttered it had been consigned with their griefs to the grave.

Hume, who had also grievously repented of the harsh words he had applied to his beloved wife on the occasion of their separation, was all impatience to clasp her to his bosom, and seal their reconciliation with a kiss of repentance and love. Leaving his companions as they entered the town, he flew to the house. He approached the door. He reached it with a trembling heart. He had prepared the kind words of salutation. He had wounds to show, and to get dressed by the tender hand of sympathy. Lifting the latch, he entered. No one came to meet him. No sound, either of wife or child, met his ear. On looking round he saw, sitting in an arm-chair, the person who had accompanied him in battle, wearing the same haubergeon, the same helmet, the individual white feather that had attracted his attention. That person was Margaret Hume. She was dead. Her head reclined on the back of the chair, her arms hung by her side, the edge of her haubergeon was uplifted, and at her white bosom, from which flowed streams of blood, her child sucked the milk of a dead mother. Omissis nugis rem experiamur.

END OF VOL. XXIII.