"That I intended to explain to you," she said, after a pause. "When I felt myself ill (and my complaint commenced by excruciating pains in my stomach, accompanied with vomiting), I told my husband that I feared it would be necessary to call a doctor; but, ah, sir! the very thought of the necessity of medical aid to the object of so much love and tenderness, put him almost frantic. He confessed that it was a weakness; but declared his inability to conquer it. Yet, alas! his unremitting kindness has not diminished my disease. Though I have taken everything his solicitude has suggested and offered to me, my pains still continue, my appetite is entirely gone, and the weakness of my body has approached that of the helpless infant. Three days ago I thought I would have breathed my last; and parting thoughts of my native country, and the dear friends I left there to follow the fortunes of a dearer stranger, passed through my mind with the feeling of a long and everlasting farewell. My husband wept over me, and prayed for my recovery; but he could not think me so ill as to make the call of the doctor imperative; and I did not press a subject which I saw was painful to him. No, sir, I would rather have died than have produced in him the slightest uneasiness; and my object in calling you in the secret manner you have witnessed, was simply to avoid causing to him the pain of thinking that my illness was so great as to render your services absolutely necessary."

The communication I now heard, which was spoken in broken sentences and after considerable pauses, in place of clearing up my difficulty, increased it, and added to my surprise. Some light was, no doubt, thrown on the cause which produced the secret manner of my visitation; but every other circumstance attending the unfortunate lady's case was merged in deeper gloom and mystery. The circumstance of a husband who loved his wife refusing to call professional assistance, appeared to be not less extraordinary than the reason assigned for it—even with all the allowances, justified by a very prevailing prejudice, in some weak minds, against the extremity of calling a doctor. I had heard something of Colonel P——; that he was considered to be immensely rich, and known to be a deep gambler, but I never understood that he was a victim of weak or imaginary fears, and I was therefore inclined to doubt the truth of the reason assigned by the unsuspecting invalid, for the scrupulous delicacy of her husband's affection and solicitude. I pondered for a moment, and soon perceived that the nature of her complaint, and the kind of restoratives or medicines she might have been receiving, would, in all likelihood, yield me more information on the subject of my difficulty than I could procure from her broken sentences, which, at the best, only expressed the sentiments of a mind clouded with the prejudice of a devoted love and unbounded credulity. I proceeded, therefore, to ascertain the nature of her complaint; and soon discovered that the seat of it was, as she had said, in the region of the stomach, which not only produced to her great pain internally, but felt sore on the application of external pressure on the praecordia. Other symptoms of a disease in this principal organ were present: such as fits of painful vomiting after attempting to eat, her great emaciation, anxiety of countenance, thirst, restlessness, and debility; and, in ordinary circumstances, I would have been inclined to conclude that she laboured under some species of what we denominate gastritis, or inflammation of the stomach, though I could not account for such a disease not having been resolved and ended in much shorter time than the period which embraced her sufferings.

I next proceeded to ascertain what she had been taking in the form of medicaments; and discovered that her husband, proceeding on the idea that her stomach laboured under weakness and required some tonic medicine, had administered to her, on several occasions, what we term limatura ferri (iron filings)—a remedy for cases of dyspepsia and bad stomachs, but not suited to the inflammatory disorders of the kind under which she was suffering. I asked her if she had any of the medicine lying by her, and she replied, with simplicity, that her husband generally took charge of it himself; but that he had that evening laid a small paper, containing a portion of it, on the top of a side-table, until he administered to her the dose she was in the habit of receiving, and had gone away without laying it past, according to his custom. I took up the paper, examined it, and found, according to the rapid investigation I bestowed on it, without the aid of any tests, that it possessed all the appearances of the genuine medicine. I, however, took the precaution of emptying a small portion of it into another paper, and slipping it into my pocket unobserved by the patient. I then told her that I thought she should discontinue the use of the powder, which was entirely unsuited to her ailment.

"That is a cruel advice, sir," she cried, in a tone of great excitement. "How can I discontinue a medicine offered to me by the hands of a husband, without being able to give any reason for rejecting his kindness? I tremble to think of repaying all the attentions of that dear man with ingratitude, and wounding his sensibility by rejecting this testimony of his solicitude and affection. I cannot—I feel I cannot. The grief I would thereby produce to him would be reflected, by sympathy, on this weak frame, which is unable to struggle much longer with the pains of flesh alone, far less with the additional anguish of a wounded mind, grieved to death at causing sorrow to the man I so dearly love. Do not, oh! do not, sir, make me an ingrate."

I was struck with the devotion of this gentle being, who actually trembled at the idea of producing uneasiness to the man whom she had raised to affluence, and who yet would not allow her the benefit of a doctor in her distress; but, while I was pleased with this exhibition of a feature in the female character I had never before seen so strongly developed, though I had read and heard much of the fidelity and affection of the women of the east, I was much chagrined at the idea that so fair and beautiful a virtue would probably prevent me from doing anything effectual for a creature who, independently of her distance from her country, had so many other claims on my sympathy. I told her that I feared I could be of little service to her if she could not resolve upon discontinuing her husband's medicine; and tried to impress upon her the necessity of conforming to my advice, if she wished to make herself well—the best mode, assuredly, of making her husband happy; but she replied that she expected I would have been able to give her something to restore her to health independently of what she got from her husband—a result she wished above all things, as she sighed for the opportunity of delighting him, by attributing to his medicines and care her restoration and happiness. I replied that that was impossible—a statement that stung her with disappointment and pain.

"Then I will take my beloved's medicines, and die!" she cried, with a low struggling voice—resigning herself to the power of her weakness.

This extraordinary resolution of a female devotee put me in mind of the immolating custom of her countrywomen, called the suttee. It was a complete ultima ratio, and put all my remedial plans at fault in an instant. Her extreme weakness, or her devoted resolution, prevented her from speaking, and I sat by her bedside totally at a loss what to do, whether to persevere in my attempt to get her to renounce her husband's medicine and to conform to my prescriptions, or to leave her to the fate she seemed to court. I put several more questions to her, but received no other answer than a wave of the hand—a plain token of her wish that I should leave her to the tender mercies of her husband. I had now no alternative; and, rising, I bowed to her, and took my leave. I had some difficulty in finding my way out of the house; but, after several ineffectual turns through wrong passages, I reached the door through which I had entered, and returned home.

The extraordinary scene I had witnessed engaged my attention during the evening, but all my efforts at clearing up the mystery that enveloped the proceedings of these individuals were met by difficulties which for a time seemed insuperable. I sat cogitating and recogitating various theories and probabilities, and had several times examined the iron powder, which, for better observation, I had scattered on a sheet of white paper that lay on my table. My intention was to test it, and I waited the incoming of my assistant to aid me in my experiment. As I looked at it at intervals between my trains of thought, I was struck with a kind of glittering appearance it exhibited, and which was more observable when it caught my eye obliquely and collaterally, during the partial suspension of my perception by my cogitations. Roused by this circumstance, I proceeded instantly to a more minute investigation; and having, by means of a magnet, removed all the particles of iron, what was my surprise to find a residuum of triturated glass—one of the most searching and insidious poisons known in toxicology. Good God! what were my thoughts and feelings when the first flash of this discovery flared upon my mind—solving, in an instant, by the intensity of its painful light, all my doubts, and realizing all my suspicions. Every circumstance of this mysterious affair stood now revealed in clear relief—a dark scheme of murder, more revolting in its features than any recorded in the malefactor's journal, was illumined and exposed by a light which exhibited not only the workings of the design itself, but the reason which led to its perpetration. This man had married the confiding and devoted foreigner for the sake of her immense wealth, which raised him in an instant from mediocrity to magnificence; and, having attained the object of his ambition, he had resolved—with a view to the concealment of the means whereby he effected his purpose, and regardless of the sacred obligation of gratitude he owed to her who had left her country, her relations, and friends, to trust herself to his protection and love—to immolate the faithful, kind-hearted, and affectionate creature, by a cruel and protracted murder. In her own country the cowardly wretch could not have braved the vengeance of her countrymen; but, in a distant land, where few might be expected to stand up for the rights of the injured foreigner, he had thought he might execute his scheme with secrecy and success. But now it was discovered! By one of those extraordinary detached traces of the finger of the Almighty, exposed to the convicting power of divine intellect, it was discovered!

The great excitement produced in my mind by this miraculous discovery prevented me for some time from calmly deliberating on the steps I ought to pursue, with the view of saving the poor foreigner from the designs of her murderer. The picture of the devoted being lying, like a queen, in the midst of the wealth she had brought to her husband, and trembling at the very thought of rejecting his poison, for fear of giving him the slightest pain—yet on the very point of being sacrificed; her wealth, love, confidence, and gentleness, repaid by death, and her body consigned, unlamented by friends—who might never hear of her fate—to foreign dust, rose continually on my imagination, and interested my feelings to a degree incompatible with the exercise of a calm judgment. In proportion as my emotion subsided, the difficulty of my situation appeared to increase. I was, apparently, the only person who knew anything of this extraordinary purpose, and I saw the imprudence of taking upon myself the total responsibility of a report to the public authorities in a case where the chances of conviction would be diminished to nothing by the determination of the victim to save her destroyer, whom she never would believe guilty, and by the want of evidence of a direct nature that the powder I had tested was truly destined for her reception; while, in the event of an impeachment and acquittal of the culprit, I would be exposed to his vengeance, and his poor wife would be for ever subjected to his tyranny and oppression. On the other hand, I was at a loss to know how I could again get access to the sick victim, whom I had left without being requested to repeat my visit; and, even if that could be accomplished, I had many doubts whether she would pay the slightest attention or regard to my statement, that her husband, whom she seemed to prefer to her own divine Brama, designed to poison her. Yet it was clear that the poor victim behoved to be saved, in some way, from the dreadful fate which impended over her; and the necessity of some steps being taken with rapidity and efficacy, behoved to resolve scruples and doubts which otherwise might have been considered worthy of longer time and consideration.

Next day I found I had made little progress in coming to a resolution what step to pursue, yet every hour and minute that passed reproached me with cruelty, and my imagination brought continually before my eyes the poor victim swallowing the stated periodical quota of her death-drug. I could have no rest or peace of mind till something was done, at least to the extent of putting her on her guard against the schemes of her cruel destroyer; and, after all my cogitations, resolutions, and schemes, I found myself compelled to rest satisfied with seeing her, laying before her the true nature of her danger, and leaving to the operation of the instinctive principle of self-preservation the working out of her ultimate safety. At the same hour of the evening at which my former visit was made, I repaired to the back entrance of the large mansion, and, upon rapping at the door, was fortunate enough to be answered by the young woman who acted formerly as my guide. She led me, at my request, instantly to the sickroom of her lady, who, having immediately before been seized with an attack of vomiting, was lying in a state of exhaustion approaching to the inanity of death. I spoke to her, and she languidly opened her eyes. I saw no prospect of being able to impress upon her comatose mind the awful truth I had come to communicate; yet I had no alternative but to make the attempt; and I accordingly proceeded, with as few words as possible, and in a tone of voice suited to the lethargic state of her mind and senses, to inform her that the medicines she was getting from the hands of her husband were fraught with deadly poison, which was alone the cause of all her sufferings and agonies, and would soon be the means of a painful death. These words I spoke slowly and impressively, and watched the effect of them with anxiety and solicitude. A convulsive shudder passed over her, and shook her violently. She opened her eyes, which I saw fill with tears, and fixed a steady look on my countenance.

"It is impossible," she said, with a low, guttural tone, but with much emphasis; "and if it were possible, I would still take his medicine, and die, rather than outlive the consciousness of love and fidelity."

These words she accompanied with a wave of her hand, as if she wished me to depart. I could not get her to utter another syllable. I had discharged a painful duty; and, casting a look upon her, which I verily believed would be the last I would have it in my power to bestow on this personification of fidelity and gentleness, I took my departure.

I felt myself placed in a very painful position for two or three days after this interview, arising from a conviction that I had not done enough for the salvation of this poor victim, and yet without being able to fix upon any other means of rendering her any assistance, unless I put into execution a resolution that floated in my mind, to admonish her husband, by an anonymous communication, and threaten to divulge the secret of his guilt, unless he instantly desisted from his nefarious purpose—a plan that did not receive the entire sanction of my honour, however much it enlisted the approbation of my feelings. Some further time passed, and added, with its passing minutes, to my mental disquietude. One evening, when I was sitting meditating painfully on this sombre subject, a lackey, superbly dressed, was introduced to me by my servant, and stated that he had been commanded by his master Colonel P——, to request my attendance at his house without delay. I started at the mention of the name, and the nature of the message; and the man stared at me, as I exhibited the irresolution of doubt and the perturbation of surprise, in place of returning him a direct answer. Recovering myself, I replied, that I would attend upon the instant; and, indeed, I felt a greater anxiety to fly to that house on which my thoughts were painfully fixed, than I ever did to visit the most valued friend I ever attended in distress. As I hurried along, I took little time to think of the object of my call; but I suspected, either that Colonel P—— had got some notice of my having secretly visited, in my professional capacity, his wife, and being therefore privy to his design—a state of opposing circumstances, which he was now to endeavour in some way to counteract—or that, finding, from the extremity to which his wife was reduced, that he was necessitated to call a doctor, as a kind of cloak or cover to his cruel act, he had thus made a virtue of necessity, when, alas! it would be too late for my rendering the unfortunate creature any service. "He shall not, however, escape," muttered I, vehemently, through my teeth, as I proceeded. "He little knows that he is now calling to his assistance the man that shall hang him."

I soon arrived at the house, and rung the front door bell. The same powdered lackey who had preceded me, opened the door. I was led up two pair of stairs, and found myself in the same lobby with which I had already become somewhat familiar. I proceeded forward, thinking I was destined for the sick chamber of the lady; but the servant opened a door immediately next to that of her room, and ushered me into an apartment furnished in an elegant style, but much inferior to that occupied by his wife. In a bed lay a man of a genteel, yet sinister cast of countenance, with a large aquiline nose, and piercing black eyes. He appeared very pale and feverish, and threw upon me that anxious eye which we often find in patients who are under the first access of a serious disease; as if nature, while she kept her secret from the understanding, communicated it to the feelings, whose eloquence, expressed through the senses, we can often read with great facility. I knew, in an instant, that he was committed, by a relentless hand, to suffering, in all likelihood, in the form of a fever. He told me he was Colonel P——, and that, having been very suddenly taken ill, he had become alarmed for himself, and sent for me to administer to him my professional services. I looked at him intently; but he construed my stare into the eagerness of professional investigation. At that instant, a piercing scream rang through the house, and made my ears tingle. I asked him who had uttered that scream, which must have come from some creature in the very extremity of agony, and made an indication as if I would hasten to administer relief to the victim. In an instant, I was close and firm in the trembling clutch of the sick man, who, with a wild and confused look, begged me not to sacrifice him to any attention to the cause of this disturbance, which was produced by a servant in the house habitually given, through fits of hysterics, to the utterance of these screams. I put on an appearance of being satisfied with this statement; but I fixed my eye relentlessly on him, as he still shook, from the combined effects of his incipient disease, and his fear of my investigating the cause of the scream. I proceeded to examine into the nature of his complaint. The symptoms described by him, and detected by my observation, satisfied me that he had been seized with an attack of virulent typhus; and from the intensity of some of the indications—particularly his languor and small pulse, his loss of muscular strength, violent pains in the head, the inflammation of his eyes, the strong throbbing of his temporal arteries, his laborious respiration, parched tongue, and hot breath—I was convinced he had before him the long sands of a rough and rapid race with death. At the close of my investigation he looked anxiously and wistfully in my face, and asked me what I conceived to be the nature of his complaint. I told him at once, and with greater openness and readiness than I usually practise, that I was very much afraid he was committed for a severe course of virulent typhus. He felt the full force of an announcement which, to those who have had any experience of this king of fevers, cannot fail to carry terror in every syllable; and falling back on his pillow, turned up his eye to heaven. At this moment, a succession of screams, or rather yells, sounded through the house; but as I now saw that I had a chance of saving the innocent sufferer, I pretended not to regard the dreadful sounds, and purposely averted my eyes to escape the inquiring, nervous look of the sick man. I gave him some directions, promised to send some medicines, and took my leave.

As I shut the door, the waiting-maid, whom I had seen before, was standing in the door of her mistress's apartment, and beckoned me in, with a look of terror and secrecy. I was as anxious to visit her gentle mistress as she was to call me. On entering, which I did slowly and silently, to escape the ear of her husband, I found the unfortunate creature in the most intense state of agony. The ground glass she had swallowed, and a great part of which, doubtless, adhered to the stomach, was too clearly the cause of her screams; but, to my surprise, I discovered, from her broken ejaculations, that the grief of her husband's illness had been able, in its strength, to fight its way to her heart, through all her bodily agonies produced by his poison. My questions regarding her own condition were answered by hysterical sobs, mixed with ejaculations of pity, and requests to know how he was, and what was the nature of the complaint by which he had been attacked—hinting, in dubious terms, that she had been the cause of his illness, by entailing upon him the necessity of attending her, and wounding his sensitive heart by her distress. My former communications to her concerning the poison, and my caution against her acceptance of it from the hands of her intended murderer, had produced no effect upon a mind predetermined to believe nothing against the man she loved and trusted beyond all mortals. She had received it again from him after my communication; the effects of it were now exhibited in her tortured, burning viscera; and yet, in the very midst of her agonies, her faith, confidence, and love stood unshaken; a noble yet melancholy emblem of the most elevated, yet often least valued and most abused virtues of her sex. I endeavoured to answer her fevered inquiries about her husband, by telling her that he stood in great need of her attendance; and that, if she would agree to follow my precepts, and put herself entirely under my advice and direction, she might, in a very short time, be enabled to perform her duty of a faithful wife and a kind nurse to her distressed partner. The first perception she caught of the meaning of my communication, lighted up her eye, even in the midst of her wringing pains; and, starting up, she cried, that she would be the most abject slave to my will, and obey me in all things, if I could assure her of the blessing of being able to act as nurse and comforter to her husband. Now I saw my opportunity. On the instant I called up and despatched the waiting-maid to my home, with directions to my assistant, to send me instantly an oleaginous mixture, and some powerful emetics, which I described in a recipe. I waited the return of the messenger, administered the medicines, and watched for a time their operation and effects. Notwithstanding the continued attacks that had been made on her system by the doses of an active poison, I was satisfied that, if my energies were not, in some unforeseen way, thwarted and opposed, I would be able to bring this deserving wife and pattern of her sex from the brink of the grave that had been dug for her by the hand of her husband. After leaving with the waiting-maid some directions, I proceeded home, for the purpose of preparing the necessary medicines for my other patient.

I now commenced a series of regular visits to my two patients—the illness of the husband affording me the most ample scope for saving his wife. As he gradually descended into the unavoidable depths of his inexorable disease, she, by the elastic force of youth and a good constitution, operating in unison with my medicines, which were administered with the greatest regularity, gradually threw off the lurking poison, and advanced to a state of comparative safety and strength. I was much pleased to observe the salutary effects of my professional interference in behalf of my interesting patient; but could scarcely credit my own perceptions, as I had exhibited to me the most undoubted proofs, that the desire to minister to the wants and comforts of her sick husband, engrossed so completely every other feeling that might have been supposed consequent upon a restoration to health, that she seemed to disregard all other considerations. Her questions about the period when she might be able to attend him were unremitting; and every hour she was essaying to walk, though her efforts often ended in weak falls, or sinkings on the ground, when some one was required to assist her in getting up and returning to bed. She entreated me to allow her to be carried to his bedside; where, she said, they might mix their tears and console each other; and all my arguments against the impropriety of such an obvious mode of increasing her husband's illness, and augmenting those sufferings she was so solicitous to ameliorate, were scarcely sufficient to prevent her from putting her design into execution.

The husband's disease, which often runs a course of two months, though the crisis occurs generally between the third and fourth week, progressed steadily and relentlessly, mocking, as the fevers of that type generally do, all the boasted art of our profession. His pulse rose to the alarming height of 120; he exhibited the oppression at the chest, increased thirst, blackfurred tongue, and inarticulate, muttering speech, which are considered to be unfavourable indications; and there was, besides, a clear tendency to delirium—a common, yet critical symptom—leaving, even after the patient has recovered, and often for years, its marks in the weakened intellect. One evening I was standing by his bedside, studying his symptoms; witnessing the excess of his sufferings, and listening to the bursts of incoherent speech which, from time to time, came from him, as if expelled from his sick spirit by some internal power. He spoke often of his wife, whom he called by the name of Espras; and, in the midst of his broken ejaculations, gushes of intense feeling came on him, filling his yellow sunken eyes with rheumy tears, and producing heavy sobs, which, repressed by his loaded chest, assumed sounds unlike anything I ever heard, and beyond my power of description. I could not well understand these indications of the working of his spirit; but I fancied that, when he felt his own agonies, became conscious of what it is to suffer a certain extremity of pain, and learned, for the first time in his life, the sad experience of an inexorable disease, which presented to him the prospect of a lingering death, his mind recurred to the situation of his wife, who, as he thought, was, or might be, enduring tortures produced by his hand, transcending even his sufferings. There seemed to be less of conscience in his mental operations, than a new-born sorrow or sympathy, wrung out of a heart naturally obdurate, by the anguish of a personal experience of the pain he himself had produced in another, who had the strongest claims on his protection and love. His mind, though volatile and wandering, and not far from verging on delirium, was not yet deranged; and I was about to put a question to him concerning his wife, whom he had not directly mentioned to me, when the door opened, and the still pale and emaciated figure of Mrs. P——, dressed in a white morning gown, entered the apartment, struggling with her weakness to get forward, and clutching, in her breathless efforts, at whatever presented itself to her nerveless arms, to support her, and aid her in her progress to the sick-bed of her husband. The bed being in the middle of a large room, she was necessitated to trust partly to the weak powers of her limbs, which having failed her, she, in an attempt to spring forward and reach it before sinking, came short of her aim, and fell with a crash on the floor, uttering, as she stumbled, a scream of sorrow, wrung from her by the sight of her husband lying extended on a bed of sickness. The noise started the invalid, who turned his eyes wildly in the direction of the disturbance; and I rushed forwards to raise in my arms the exhausted victim. I had scarcely got her placed on her feet, when she again struggled to reach the bed; and having, by my assistance, got far enough forward, she threw herself on the body of the fever-ridden patient, ejaculating, as she seized him in her arms, and bedewed his pale face with tears—

"Frederick! my honoured husband, whom I am bound to cherish and nurse as becomes the fondest of wives, why is it that I have been deprived of this luxury of the grief-stricken heart—to watch your looks, and anticipate your wants? Thanks to the blessed powers of your faith and of mine, I have you now in my arms, and no mortal shall come between me and my love! Night and day I will watch and tend you, till the assiduities of my affection weary out the effects of your cruel disease brought on you—O God!—by your grief for me, your worthless Espras."

And she buried her head in the bosom of the sick man, and sobbed intensely. This scene, from the antithesis of its circumstances, appeared to me the most striking I had ever beheld; and, though it was my duty to prevent so exciting a cause of disturbance to the patient, I felt I had no power to stop this burst of true affection. I watched narrowly the eye of the patient; but it was too much clouded by the effects of the fever, and too nervous and fugacious, to enable me to distinguish between the effects of disease and the working of the natural affections. But that his mind and feelings were working, and were responding to this powerful moral impulse, was proved fearfully by his rapid indistinct muttering and jabbering, mixed with deep sighs, and the peculiar sound of the repressed sobs which I have already mentioned, but cannot assimilate to any sound I ever heard. All my efforts to remove the devoted wife by entreaty were vain; she still clung to him, as if he had been on the eve of being taken from her by death. Her sobbing continued unabated, and her tears fell on his cheek. These intense expressions of love and sorrow awoke the sympathy which I thought had previously been partially excited, for I now observed that he turned away his head, while a stream of tears flowed down his face. It was now, I found, necessary, for the sake of the patient, to remove the excited lady; and I was obliged to apply a gentle force before I could accomplish my purpose. She insisted, however, upon remaining in the room, and beseeched me so piteously for this privilege, that I consented to a couch being made up for her at a little distance from the bed of her husband, whom it was her determination to tend and nurse, to the exclusion of all others. I was not, indeed, ill pleased at this resolution, for I anticipated, from her unexampled love and devotedness, an effect on the heart of her husband which might cure its vices and regenerate its affections.

On the next occasion of my stated visit, I found my patient had at last fallen into a state of absolute delirium. On a soft arm-chair, situated by his bedside, sat his wife, the picture of despair, wringing her hands, and indulging in the most extravagant demonstrations of grief and affection. The wretched man exhibited the ordinary symptoms of that unnatural excitement of the brain under which he laboured—relapsing at times into silence, then uttering a multiplicity of confused words—jabbering wildly—looking about him with that extraordinary expression of the eye, as if every individual present was viewed as a murderer—then starting up, and, with an overstrained and choking voice, vociferating his frenzied thoughts, and then again relapsing into silence. It is but little we can do for patients in this extreme condition; but the faith his wife reposed in professional powers that had already saved her, suggested supplications and entreaties which I told her she had better direct to a higher Dispensator of hope and relief. The tumultuous thoughts of the raving victim were still at intervals rolling forth; and, all of a sudden, I was startled by a great increase of the intensity and connectedness of his speech. He had struck the chord that sounded most fearfully in his own ears. His attempt to murder the creature who now sat and heard his wild confession, was described by himself in intelligible, though broken sentences:—

"The fortune brought me by Espras," he vociferated, "is loaded by the burden of herself—that glass is not well ground—you are not so ill, my dear Espras, as to require a doctor—I cannot bear the thought of you labouring under that necessity—who can cure you so well as your devoted husband? Take this—fear not—why should love have suspicions? When she is gone, I shall have a wife of whom I may not be ashamed—yet, is she not a stranger in a foreign land? Has she not left her country, her relations, her friends, her gods, for me, whom she has raised to opulence? Cease, cease—I cannot stand these thoughts—there is a strife in this heart between the powers of hell and heaven—when will it terminate, and who shall rule my destiny?"

These words, which he accompanied with wild gestures, were followed by his usual indistinct muttering and jabbering. I directed my gaze upon his wife. She sat in the chair, motionless, with her eyes fixed on the ground as if she had been struck with death in that position, and been stiffened into a rigidity which retained her in her place. The issues of her tenderness and affection seemed to have been sent back upon the heart, whose pulses they stopped. The killing pain of an ingratitude, ingeniously heightened to the highest grade of that hell-king of all human crimes, operating upon a mind rendered so sensitively susceptible of its influences, paralyzed the whole moral constitution of the devoted creature, and realized the poetical creation of despair. I felt inclined to soften the sternness of her grief, by quickening her disbelief of the raving thoughts of a fever-maniac; but I paused as I thought of the probable necessity of her suspicion for her future safety from the schemes of a murderer, whose evil desires might be resuscitated by the return of health. I could do nothing more at that time for the dreadful condition of the wretched husband, and less for the more dreadful state of the miserable wife; and the personal pain I experienced in witnessing this high-wrought scene of terror, forced me to depart, leaving the one still raving in his madness, and the other bound in the stern grasp of the most awful of all moral visitations.

I expected that on my next visit I would find such a change on my patient as would enable me to decide whether he would live or die; but he was still delirious, with the crowded thoughts of the events of his past life careering through his fevered brain, as if their restlessness and agitation were produced by the burning fires that chased them from their legitimate territory of the mind. There was, however, a change in one quarter. His wife's confidence and affection had withstood and triumphed over the attack of the previous day, and she was again occupied in hanging over her raving husband, shedding on his unconscious face the tear of pity, and supplying, by anticipation, every want that could be supposed incident to his miserable condition. This new and additional proof of the strength of this woman's steadfastness, in her unparalleled fidelity and love, struck me even more forcibly than the previous indications she had given of this extraordinary feature in her character. But I was uncertain yet whether to construe her conduct as salutary or dangerous to her own personal interests—a circumstance depending on the further development of the sentiments of her husband. On that same evening the change suspected took place: the delirium abated, and consciousness, that had been driven forcibly from her throne, hastened to assume the sceptre of her authority. The crisis was past, and the patient began to be sensible of those attentions on the part of his devoted wife, which had not only the merit of being unremitting, but that of being sweetened by the tears of solicitude and the blandness of love. I marked attentively the first impressions made by her devotedness on the returning sense. I saw his look following her eye, which was continually inflamed and bedewed by the effects of her grief; and, after he had for a period of time fixed his half-conscious, half-wondering gaze on her, he turned it suddenly away, but not before he gave sufficient indications of sympathy and sorrow in a gush of tears. These manifestations were afterwards often repeated; but I thought I sometimes could perceive an abruptness in his manner, and a painful impatience of the minute, refined, and ingenious attentions of a highly-impassioned affection, which left me in doubt whether, after his disease was removed, sufficient reliance could be placed on the stability of his regeneration.

In my subsequent visits I kept up my study of the operations of his mind as well as the changes of his disease. His wife's attentions seemed rather to increase with the improvement of his health and her increased ability to discharge the duties of affection. He had improved so far as to be in a condition to receive medicines for the recovery of the tone of his stomach. I seized the opportunity of his wife leaving for a short time his sick room, and, as I seated myself on her chair by the bedside, I took from my pocket the powder of iron-filings and triturated glass he had prepared for the poisoning of her who had latterly been contributing all the energies of love to the saving of his life.

"A chalybeate mixture," said I, while I fixed my eyes on his countenance, "has been recommended for patients in your condition, for improving the power of the stomach weakened by the continued nausea of a protracted fever. Here is a powder composed of iron-filings, a good chalybeate, which I found lying in your wife's apartment. I have none better in my laboratory, and would recommend to you a full dose of it before I depart."

The electric effect of this statement was instantaneous and remarkable. He seemed like one who had felt the sharp sting of a musket bullet sent into his body by a hand unseen—uncertain of the nature of the wound, or of the aim by which it is produced. A sudden suspicion relieved his still fevered eye, which threw upon me the full blaze of staring wonder and terror, while an accompanying uncertainty of my intention sealed his mouth and added curiosity to his look. But I followed up my intention resolutely and determinedly.

"Here is on the table," continued I, "a mucilaginous vehicle for its conveyance into the stomach. I shall prepare it instantly. To seize quickly the handle of an auspicious occasion is the soul of our art."—(Approaching the bed with the medicine in my hand.)

"I cannot, I cannot take that medicine," he cried, wildly. "What means this? Help me, Heaven, in this emergency! I cannot, I dare not take that medicine."

"Why?" said I, still eyeing him intently. "Is it because there is ground glass in it? That cannot be; because I understand it was intended for Espras, your loving, faithful wife; and who would administer so dreadful a poison to a creature so gentle and interesting? She is, besides, a foreigner in our land; and who would treat the poor unprotected stranger with the dainty that has concealed in it a lurking death? Is this the hospitality of Britain?"

Every word was a thunderstroke to his heart. All uncertainty fled before these flaming sarcasms, which carried, on the bolt of truth, the keenness of his own poison. His pain became intense, and exhibited the peculiarity of a mixture of extreme terror, directed towards me as one that had the power of hanging him, and of intense sorrow for the injury he had produced to the wife of his bosom, whose emaciated figure, hanging over him in his distress, must have been deeply imprinted on his soul. Yet it was plain that his sorrow overcame his fear; for I saw his bosom heaving with an accumulation of hysterical emotions, which convulsed his frame in the intense manner of the aerial ball that chokes the female victim of excited nerves. The struggle lasted for several minutes, and at last a burst of dissolving tenderness, removing all the obstructions of prudence or terror, and stunning my ear with its loud sound, afforded him a temporary relief. Tears gushed down his cheeks, and groans of sorrow filled the room, and might have been heard in the apartment of his wife, whose entry, I feared, might have interrupted the extraordinary scene. Looking at me wistfully, he held out his hands, and sobbed out, in a tone of despair—

"Are you my friend, or are you my enemy?"

I answered him that I was the friend of his wife—one of the brightest patterns of female fidelity I had ever seen; and if by declaring myself his friend I would save her from the designs of the poisoner, and him from the pains of the law and the fire of hell, I would instantly sign the bond of amity.

"You have knocked from my soul the bonds of terror," he cried out, still sobbing; "and if I knew and were satisfied of one thing more, I would resign myself to God and my own breaking heart. Did Espras—yet why should I suspect one who rejects suspicion as others do the poison she would swallow from my hand, though labelled by the apothecary?—did Espras tell you what you have so darkly and fearfully hinted to me?"

I replied to him that, in place of telling me, the faithful unsuspecting creature had to that hour rejected and spurned the suspicion, as unworthy of her pure, confiding spirit.

"It is over!—it is over!" cried the changed man. "O God! How powerful is virtue! How strong is the force of those qualities of the heart which we men often treat as weak baubles to toy with, and throw away in our fits of proud spleen—the softness, the gentleness, the fidelity and devotedness of woman! How strangely, how wonderfully formed is the heart of man, which, disdaining the terrors of the rope of the executioner, breaks and succumbs at the touch of the thistle-down of a woman's love! This creature, sir, gave me my fortune, made me what I am, left for me her country and her friends, adhered to me through good and evil report—and I prepared for her a cruel death! Dreadful contrast! Who shall describe the shame, the sorrow, the humiliation, of the ingrate whose crime has risen to the fearful altitude of this enormity; and who, by the tenderness and love of his devoted victim, is forced to turn his eye on the grim reward of death for love, riches, and life? Gentle, beloved, injured Espras! that emaciated form, these trembling limbs, these sunken eyes, and these weak and whispering sounds of pity and affection have touched my heart with a power that never was vouchsafed to the tongue of eloquence. Transcending the rod of Moses, they have brought from the rock streams of blood; and every pulse is filled with tenderness and pity. Wretched fool! I was ashamed of your nativity, and of the colour you inherited from nature, and never estimated the qualities of your heart; but when shall the red-and-white beauty of England transcend my Espras in her fidelity and love, as she does in the skin-deep tints of a beguiling, treacherous face? God! what a change has come over this heart! Thanks, and prayers, and tears of blood, never can express the gratitude it owes to the great Author of our being for this miraculous return to virtue, effected by the simple means of a woman's confidence and love."

As he finished this impassioned speech, which I have repeated as correctly as my memory enabled me to commit to my note-book, he turned his eyes upwards, and remained for at least five minutes in silent prayer. As he was about finishing his wife entered. Her appearance called forth from his excited mind a burst of affection, and seizing her in his arms, he wept over her like a child. He was met as fervently by the gentle and affectionate creature, who, grateful to God for this renewed expression of her husband's love, turned up her eyes to heaven, and wept aloud. I never witnessed a scene like this. I left them to their enjoyment, and returned home.

I was subsequently a constant visitor at the house of Colonel P——; and, about eighteen months after his recovery, I officiated as accoucheur to his wife on the occasion of the birth of a son. Other children followed afterwards, and bound closer the bonds of that conjugal love which I had some hand in producing, and which I saw increase daily through a long course of years.



THE ADOPTED SON.

A TALE OF THE TIMES OF THE COVENANTERS.

"Oh, for the sword of Gideon, to rid the land of tyrants, to bring down the pride of apostates, and to smite the ungodly with confusion!" muttered John Brydone to himself, as he went into the fields in the September of 1645, and beheld that the greater part of a crop of oats, which had been cut down a few days before, was carried off. John was the proprietor of about sixty acres on the south bank of the Ettrick, a little above its junction with the Tweed. At the period we speak of, the talented and ambitious Marquis of Montrose, who had long been an apostate to the cause of the Covenant—and not only an apostate, but its most powerful enemy—having, as he thought, completely crushed its adherents in Scotland, in the pride of his heart led his followers towards England, to support the tottering cause of Charles in the south, and was now with his cavalry quartered at Selkirk, while his infantry were encamped at Philiphaugh, on the opposite side of the river.

Every reader has heard of Melrose Abbey—which is still venerated in its decay, majestic in its ruins—and they have read, too, of the abode of the northern wizard, who shed the halo of his genius over the surrounding scenery. But many have heard of Melrose, of Scott, and of Abbotsford, to whom the existence of Philiphaugh is unknown. It, however, is one of those places where our forefathers laid the foundation of our freedom with the bones of its enemies, and cemented it with their own blood. If the stranger who visits Melrose and Abbotsford pursue his journey a few miles farther, he may imagine that he is still following the source of the Tweed, until he arrive at Selkirk, when he finds that for some miles he has been upon the banks of the Ettrick, and that the Tweed is lost among the wooded hills to the north. Immediately below Selkirk, and where the forked river forms a sort of island, on the opposite side of the stream, he will see a spacious haugh, surrounded by wooded hills, and forming, if we may so speak, an amphitheatre bounded by the Ettrick, between the Yarrow and the Tweed. Such is Philiphaugh; where the arms of the Covenant triumphed, and where the sword of Montrose was blunted for ever.

Now, the sun had not yet risen, and a thick, dark mist covered the face of the earth, when, as we have said, John Brydone went out into his fields, and found that a quantity of his oats had been carried away. He doubted not but they had been taken for the use of Montrose's cavalry; and it was not for the loss of his substance that he grieved, and that his spirit was wroth, but because it was taken to assist the enemies of his country, and the persecutors of the truth; for than John Brydone, humble as he was, there was not a more dauntless or a more determined supporter of the Covenant in all Scotland. While he yet stood by the side of his field, and, from the thickness of the morning, was unable to discern objects at a few yards' distance, a party of horsemen rode up to where he stood. "Countryman," said one who appeared to be their leader, "can you inform us where the army of Montrose is encamped?"

John, taking them to be a party of the Royalists, sullenly replied—"There's mony ane asks the road they ken," and was proceeding into the field.

"Answer me!" demanded the horseman angrily, and raising a pistol in his hand—"Sir David Lesly commands you."

"Sir David Lesly!" cried John—"the champion of the truth!—the defender of the good cause! If ye be Sir David Lesly, as I trow ye be, get yer troops in readiness, and, before the mist vanish on the river, I will deliver the host o' the Philistines into your hand."

"See that ye play not the traitor," said Lesly, "or the nearest tree shall be unto thee as the gallows was to Haman which he prepared for Mordecai."

"Do even so to me, and more also," replied John, "if ye find me false. But think ye that I look as though I bore the mark of the beast upon my forehead?" he continued, taking off his Lowland bonnet, and gazing General Lesly full in the face.

"I will trust you," said the General; and, as he spoke, the van of his army appeared in sight.

John having described the situation of the enemy to Sir David, acted as their guide until they came to the Shaw Burn, when the General called a halt. Each man having partaken of a hurried repast, by order of Sir David, the word was given along the line that they should return thanks for being conducted to the place where the enemy of the Kirk and his army slept in imaginary security. The preachers at the head of the different divisions of the army gave out a psalm, and the entire host of the Covenanters, uncovering their heads, joined at the same moment in thanksgiving and praise. John Brydone was not a man of tears, but, as he joined in the psalm, they rolled down his cheeks, for his heart felt, while his tongue uttered praise, that a day of deliverance for the people of Scotland was at hand. The psalm being concluded, each preacher offered up a short but earnest prayer; and each man, grasping his weapon, was ready to lay down his life for his religion and his liberty.

John Brydone, with his bonnet in hand, approaching Sir David, said—"Now, sir, I that ken the ground, and the situation o' the enemy, would advise ye, as a man who has seen some service mysel', to halve your men; let the one party proceed by the river to attack them on the one side, and the other go round the hills to cut off their retreat."[J]

[J] "But halve your men in equal parts, Your purpose to fulfil; Let ae half keep the water-side, The rest gae round the hill." Battle of Philiphaugh—Border Ballad.

"Ye speak skilfully," said Sir David, and he gave orders as John Brydone had advised.

The Marquis of Montrose had been disappointed in reinforcements from his sovereign. Of two parties which had been sent to assist him in his raid into England, one had been routed in Yorkshire, and the other defeated on Carlisle sands, and only a few individuals from both parties joined him at Selkirk. A great part of his Highlanders had returned home to enjoy their plunder; but his army was still formidable, and he imagined that he had Scotland at his feet, and that he had nothing to fear from anything the Covenanters could bring against him. He had been writing despatches throughout the night; and he was sitting in the best house in Selkirk, penning a letter to his sovereign, when he was startled by the sounds of cannon and of musketry. He rushed to the street. The inhabitants were hurrying from their houses—many of his cavalry were mingling, half-dressed, with the crowd. "To horse!—to horse!" shouted Montrose. His command was promptly obeyed; and, in a few minutes, at the head of his cavalry, he rushed down the street leading to the river towards Philiphaugh. The mist was breaking away, and he beheld his army fleeing in every direction. The Covenanters had burst upon them as a thunderbolt. A thousand of his best troops lay dead upon the field.[K] He endeavoured to rally them, but in vain; and, cutting his way through the Covenanters, he fled at his utmost speed, and halted not until he had arrived within a short distance of where the delightful watering town of Innerleithen now stands, when he sought a temporary resting-place in the house of Lord Traquair.

[K] Sir Walter Scott says that "the number of slain in the field did not exceed three or four hundred." All the authorities I have seen state the number at a thousand. He also accuses Lesly of abusing his victory by slaughtering many of his prisoners in cold blood. Now, it is true that a hundred of the Irish adventurers were shot; but this was in pursuance of an act of both Parliaments, and not from any private revenge on the part of General Lesly.

John Brydone, having been furnished with a sword, had not been idle during the engagement; but, as he had fought upon foot, and the greater part of Lesly's army were cavalry, he had not joined in the pursuit; and, when the battle was over, he conceived it to be as much his duty to act the part of the Samaritan, as it had been to perform that of a soldier. He was busied, therefore, on the field in administering, as he could, to the wounded; and whether they were Cavalier or Covenanter, it was all one to John; for he was not one who could trample on a fallen foe, and in their hour of need he considered all men as brothers. He was passing within about twenty yards of a tent upon the Haugh, which had a superior appearance to the others—it was larger, and the cloth which covered it was of a finer quality; when his attention was arrested by a sound unlike all that belonged to a battle-field—the wailing and the cries of an infant! He looked around, and near him lay the dead body of a lady, and on her breast, locked in her cold arms, a child of a few months old was struggling. He ran towards them—he perceived that the lady was dead—he took the child in his arms—he held it to his bosom—he kissed its cheek—"Puir thing!—puir thing!" said John; "the innocent hae been left to perish amang the unrighteous." He was bearing away the child, patting its cheek, and caressing it as he went, and forgetting the soldier in the nurse, when he said unto himself—"Puir innocent!—an' belike yer wrang-headed faither is fleeing for his life, an' thinking aboot ye an' yer mother as he flees! Weel, ye may be claimed some day, an' I maun do a' in my power to gie an account o' ye." So John turned back towards the lifeless body of the child's mother; and he perceived that she wore a costly ring upon her finger, and bracelets on her arms; she also held a small parcel, resembling a book, in her hands, as though she had fled with it, without being able to conceal it, and almost at the door of her tent she had fallen with her child in her arms, and her treasure in her hand. John stooped upon the ground, and took the ring from her finger, and the bracelets from her arms; he took also the packet from her hands, and in it he found other jewels, and a purse of gold pieces. "These may find thee a faither, puir thing," said he; "or if they do not, they may befriend thee when John Brydone cannot."

He carried home the child to his own house, and his wife having at that time an infant daughter at her breast, she took the foundling from her husband's arms, and became unto it as a mother, nursing it with her own child. But John told not his wife of the purse, nor the ring, nor the rich jewels.

The child had been in their keeping for several weeks, but no one appeared to claim him. "The bairn may hae been baptized," said John; "but it wud be after the fashion o' the sons o' Belial; but he is a brand plucked from the burning—he is my bairn noo, and I shall be unto him as a faither—I'll tak upon me the vows—and, as though he were flesh o' my ain flesh, I will fulfil them." So the child was baptized. In consequence of his having been found on Philiphaugh, and of the victory there gained, he was called Philip; and as John had adopted him as his son, he bore also the name of Brydone. It is unnecessary for us to follow the foundling through his years of boyhood. John had two children—a son named Daniel, and Mary, who was nursed at his mother's breast with the orphan Philip. As the boy grew up, he called his protectors by the name of father and mother; but he knew they were not such, for John had shown him the spot upon the Haugh where he had found him wailing on the bosom of his dead mother. Frequently, too, when he quarrelled with his playfellows, they would call him the "Philiphaugh foundling," and "the Cavalier's brat;" and on such occasions Mary was wont to take his part, and, weeping, say "he was her brother." As he grew up, however, it grieved his protector to observe that he manifested but little of the piety, and less of the sedateness of his own children. "What is born i' the bane, isna easily rooted oot o' the flesh," said John; and in secret he prayed and wept that his adopted son might be brought to a knowledge of the truth. The days of the Commonwealth had come, and John and his son Daniel rejoiced in the triumphs of the Parliamentary armies, and the success of its fleets; but, while they spoke, Philip would mutter between his teeth—"It is the triumph of murderers!" He believed that but for the ascendancy of the Commonwealth, he might have obtained some tidings of his family; and this led him to hate a cause which the activity of his spirit might have tempted him to embrace.

Mary Brydone had always been dear to him; and, as he grew towards manhood, he gazed on her beautiful features with delight; but it was not the calm delight of a brother contemplating the fair face of a sister; for Philip's heart glowed as he gazed, and the blush gathered on his cheek. One summer evening they were returning from the fields together, the sun was sinking in the west, the Ettrick murmured along by their side, and the voice of the wood-dove was heard from the copse-wood which covered the hills.

"Why are you so sad, brother Philip?" said Mary; "would you hide anything from your own sister?"

"Do not call me brother, Mary," said he earnestly—"do not call me brother!"

"Who would call you brother, Philip, if I did not?" returned she affectionately.

"Let Daniel call me brother," said he, eagerly; "but not you—not you!"

She burst into tears. "When did I offend you, Philip," she added, "that I may not call you brother?"

"Never, Mary!—never!" he exclaimed; "call me Philip—your Philip!—anything but brother!" He took her hand within his—he pressed it to his bosom. "Mary," he added, "I have neither father, mother, brother, nor kindred—I am alone in the world—let there be something that I can call mine—something that will love me in return! Do you understand me, Mary?"

"You are cruel, Philip," said she, sobbing as she spoke; "you know I love you—I have always loved you!"

"Yes! as you love Daniel—as you love your father; but not as"——

"You love Mr. Duncan," he would have said; but his heart upbraided him for the suspicion, and he was silent. It is here necessary to inform the reader that Mr. Duncan was a preacher of the Covenant, and John Brydone revered him much. He was much older than Mary, but his heart cleaved to her, and he had asked her father's consent to become his son-in-law. John, though a stern man, was not one who would force the inclination of his daughter; but Mr. Duncan was, as he expressed it, "one of the faithful in Israel," and his proposal was pleasing to him. Mary, however, regarded the preacher with awe, but not with affection.

Mary felt that she understood Philip—that she loved him, and not as a brother. She hid her face upon his shoulder, and her hand returned the pressure of his. They entered the house together, and her father perceived that his daughter's face was troubled. The manner of both was changed. He was a shrewd man as well as a stern man, and he also suspected the cause.

"Philip," said he calmly, "for twenty years hae I protected ye, an' watched ower ye wi' a faither's care, an' I fear that, in return for my care, ye hae brought sorrow into the bosom o' my family, an' instilled disobedience into the flesh o' my ain flesh. But though ye hae cleaved—as it maun hae been inherent in your bluid—into the principles o' the sons o' this warld, yet, as I ne'er found ye guilty o' a falsehood, an' as I believe ye incapable o' are, tell me truly, why is your countenance an' that o' Mary changed—and why are ye baith troubled to look me straight in the face? Answer me—hae ye taught her to forget that she is your sister?"

"Yes!" answered Philip; "and can it offend the man who saved me, who has watched over me, and sheltered me from infancy till now, that I should wish to be his son in more than in name?"

"It does offend me, Philip," said the Covenanter; "even unto death it offends me! I hae consented that my dochter shall gie her hand to a guid an' a godly man, who will look after her weelfare baith here and hereafter. And ye kenned this—she kenned it, and she didna refuse; but ye hae come like the son o' darkness, an' sawn tares amang the wheat."

"Father," said Philip, "if you will still allow me to call you by that name—foundling though I am—unknown as I am—in what am I worse than him to whom you would sacrifice your daughter's happiness?"

"Sacrifice her happiness!" interrupted the old man; "hoo daur ye speak o' happiness, wha kens nae meanin' for the word but the vain pleasures o' this sinfu' warld! Think ye that, as a faither, an' as ane that has my offspring to answer for, that I daur sacrifice the eternal happiness o' my bairn, for the gratification o' a temporary feelin' which ye encourage the day and may extinguish the morn? Na, sir; they wha wad ken what true happiness is, maun first learn to crucify human passions. Mary," added he, sternly, turning to his daughter, "repeat the fifth commandment."

She had been weeping before, and she now wept aloud.

"Repeat it!" replied her father yet more sternly.

"Honour thy father and thy mother," added she, sobbing as she spoke.

"See, then, bairn," replied her father, "that ye remember that commandment in yer heart, as weel as on yer tongue. Remember, too, that o' a' the commands, it's the only ane to which a promise is attached; and, noo, mark what I say, an', as ye wadna disobey me, see, at yer peril, that ye ne'er permit this young man to speak to ye again, save only as a brither."

"Sir," said Philip, "we have grown up together like twin tendrils on the same vine, and can ye wonder that our hearts have become entwined round each other, or that they can tear asunder because ye command it! Or, could I look on the face of an angel"——

"Out on ye, blasphemer!" interrupted the Covenanter—"wad ye apply siccan epithets to a bairn o' mine? Once for all, hear me, Philip; there are but twa ways o't, and ye can tak yer choice. It's the first time I hae spoken to ye roughly, but it isna the first time my spirit has mourned ower ye. I hae tried to lead ye in the right path; ye hae had baith precept and example afore ye; but the leaven o' this warld—the leaven o' the persecutors o' the Kirk and the Covenant—was in yer very bluid; an' I believe, if opportunity had offered, ye wad hae drawn yer sword in the unholy cause. A' that I could say, an' a' that I could do, religion has ne'er had ony place in yer heart; but ye hae yearned aboot yer faither, and ye hae mourned aboot yer mother—an' that was natural aneugh—but oh! ye hae also desired to cling to the cauld formality o' Episcopacy, as they nae doot did: an' should ye e'er discover that yer parents hae been Papists, I believe that ye wad become ane too! An' aften, when the conversation turned upon the apostate Montrose, or the gallant Lesly, I hae seen ye manifest the spirit an' the very look o' a persecutor. Were I to gie up my dochter to such a man, I should be worse than the heathen wha sacrifice their offspring to the abomination o' idols. Noo, Philip, as I hae tauld ye, there are but twa ways o't. Either this very hour gie me your solemn promise that ye will think o' Mary as to be yer wife nae mair, or, wi' the risin' o' to-morrow's sun, leave this house for ever!"

"Sir," said Philip bitterly, "your last command I can obey, though it would be with a sad heart—though it would be in despair—your first I cannot—I will not!"

"You must—you shall!" replied the Covenanter.

"Never," answered Philip.

"Then," replied the old man, "leave the roof that has sheltered ye frae yer cradle!"

"I will!" said Philip, and the tears ran down his cheeks. He walked towards Mary, and, with a faltering voice, said—"Farewell, Mary!—Farewell! I did not expect this; but do not forget me—do not give your hand to another—and we shall meet again!"

"You shall not!" interrupted the inexorable old man.

Mary implored her father, for her sake, and for the sake of her departed mother, who had loved Philip as her own son, that he would not drive him from the house, and Daniel, too, entreated; but their supplications were vain.

"Farewell, then!" said Philip; "and, though I depart in misery, let it not be with thy curse, but let the blessing of him who has been to me a father until now, go with me."

"The blessin' o' Heaven be wi' ye and around ye, Philip!" groaned the Covenanter, struggling to conceal a tear: "but, if ye will follow the dictates o' yer rebellious heart and leave us, tak wi' ye yer property."

"My property!" replied Philip.

"Yer property," returned the old man. "Twenty years has it lain in that drawer, an' during that time eyes hae not seen it, nor fingers touched it. It will assist ye noo; an' when ye enter the warld, may throw some light upon yer parentage."

He went to a small drawer, and, unlocking it, took out the jewels, the bracelet, the ring, and the purse of gold, and, placing them in Philip's hands, exclaimed—"Fareweel!—fareweel!—but it maun be!" and he turned away his head.

"O Mary!" cried Philip, "keep—keep this in remembrance of me," as he attempted to place the ring in her hand.

"Awa, sir!" exclaimed the old man, vehemently, "wad ye bribe my bairn into disobedience, by the ornaments o' folly an' iniquity! Awa, ye son o' Belial, an' provoke me not to wrath!"

Philip groaned, he dashed his hand upon his brow, and rushed from the house. Mary wept long and bitterly, and Daniel walked to and fro across the room, mourning for one whom he loved as a brother. The old man went out into the fields to conceal the agony of his spirit; and, when he had wandered for a while, he communed with himself, saying, "I hae dune foolishly, an' an ungodly action hae I performed this nicht; I hae driven oot a young man upon a wicked warld, wi' a' his sins an' his follies on his head; an', if evil come upon him, or he plunge into the paths o' wickedness, his bluid an' his guilt will be laid at my hands! Puir Philip!" he added; "after a', he had a kind heart!" And the stern old man drew the sleeve of his coat across his eyes. In this frame of mind he returned to the house. "Has Philip not come back?" said he, as he entered. His son shook his head sorrowfully, and Mary sobbed more bitterly.

"Rin ye awa doun to Melrose, Daniel," said he, "an' I'll awa up to Selkirk, an' inquire for him, an' bring him back. Yer faither has allowed passion to get the better o' him, an' to owercome baith the man an' the Christian."

"Run, Daniel, run!" cried Mary eagerly. And the old man and his son went out in search of him.

Their inquiries were fruitless. Days, weeks, and months rolled on, but nothing more was heard of poor Philip. Mary refused to be comforted; and the exhortations, the kindness, and the tenderness shown towards her by the Rev. Mr. Duncan, if not hateful, were disagreeable. Dark thoughts, too, had taken possession of her father's mind, and he frequently sank into melancholy; for the thought haunted him that his adopted son, on being driven from his house, had laid violent hands upon his own life; and this idea embittered every day of his existence.

More than ten years had passed since Philip had left the house of John Brydone. The Commonwealth was at an end, and the second Charles had been recalled; but exile had not taught him wisdom, nor the fate of his father discretion. He madly attempted to be the lord and ruler of the people's conscience, as well as King of Britain. He was a libertine with some virtues—a bigot without religion. In the pride, or rather folly of his heart, he attempted to force Prelacy upon the people of Scotland; and he let his bloodhounds loose, to hunt the followers of the Covenant from hill to hill, to murder them on their own hearths, and, with the blood of his victims, to blot out the word conscience from the vocabulary of Scotchmen. The Covenanters sought their God in the desert and on the mountains which He had reared; they worshipped him in the temples which His own hands had framed; and there the persecutor sought them, the destroyer found them, and the sword of the tyrant was bathed in the blood of the worshipper! Even the family altar was profaned; and to raise the voice of prayer and praise in the cottage to the King of kings, was held to be as treason against him who professed to represent Him on earth. At this period, too, Graham of Claverhouse—whom some have painted as an angel, but whose actions were worthy of a fiend—at the head of his troopers, who were called by the profane, the ruling elders of the kirk, was carrying death and cold-blooded cruelty throughout the land.

Now, it was on a winter night in the year 1677, a party of troopers were passing near the house of old John Brydone, and he was known to them not only as being one who was a defender of the Covenant, but also as one who harboured the preachers, and whose house was regarded as a conventicle.

"Let us rouse the old psalm-singing heretic who lives here from his knees," said one of the troopers.

"Ay, let us stir him up," said the sergeant who had the command of the party; "he is an old offender, and I don't see we can make a better night's work than drag him along, bag and baggage, to the captain. I have heard as how it was he that betrayed our commander's kinsman, the gallant Montrose."

"Hark! hark!—softly! softly!" said another, "let us dismount—hear how the nasal drawl of the conventicle moans through the air! My horse pricks his ears at the sound already. We shall catch them in the act."

Eight of the party dismounted, and, having given their horses in charge to four of their comrades, who remained behind, walked on tiptoe to the door of the cottage. They heard the words given and sung—

"When cruel men against us rose To make of us their prey!"

"Why, they are singing treason," said one of the troopers. "What more do we need?"

The sergeant placed his forefinger on his lips, and for about ten minutes they continued to listen. The song of praise ceased, and a person commenced to read a chapter. They heard him also expound to his hearers as he read.

"It is enough," said the sergeant; and, placing their shoulders against the door, it was burst open. "You are our prisoners!" exclaimed the troopers, each man grasping a sword in his right hand, and a pistol in the left.

"It is the will of Heaven!" said the Rev. Mr. Duncan; for it was he who had been reading and expounding the Scriptures; "but, if ye stretch forth your hands against a hair o' our heads, HE, without whom a sparrow cannot fall to the ground, shall remember it against ye at the great day o' reckoning, when the trooper will be stripped of his armour, and his right hand shall be a witness against him!"

The soldiers burst into a laugh of derision. "No more of your homily, reverend oracle," said the sergeant; "I have an excellent recipe for short sermons here; utter another word and you shall have it!" The troopers laughed again, and the sergeant, as he spoke, held his pistol in the face of the preacher.

Besides the clergyman, there were in the room old John Brydone, his son Daniel, and Mary.

"Well, old greybeard," said the sergeant, addressing John, "you have been reported as a dangerous and disaffected Presbyterian knave, as we find you to be; you are also accused of being a harbourer and an accomplice of the preachers of sedition; and, lo! we have found also that your house is used as a conventicle. We have caught you in the act, and we shall take every soul of you as evidence against yourselves. So come along, old boy—I should only be doing my duty by blowing your brains against the wall; but that is a ceremony which our commander may wish to see performed in his own presence!"

"Sir," said John, "I neither fear ye nor your armed men. Tak me to the bloody Claverhouse, if you will, and at the day o' judgment it shall be said—'Let the murderers o' John Brydone stand forth!'"

"Let us despatch them at once," said one of the troopers.

"Nay," said the sergeant; "bind them together, and drive them before us to the captain: I don't know but he may wish to do justice to them with his own hand."

"The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel," groaned Mr. Duncan.

Mary wrung her hands—"Oh, spare my father!" she cried.

"Wheesht, Mary!" said the old man; "as soon wad a camel pass through the eye o' a needle, as ye wad find compassion in the hands o' these men!"

"Bind the girl and the preacher together," said the sergeant.

"Nay, by your leave, sergeant," interrupted one of the troopers, "I wouldn't be the man to lift a hand against a pretty girl like that, if you would give me a regiment for it."

"Ay, ay, Macdonald," replied the sergeant—"this comes of your serving under that canting fellow, Lieutenant Mowbray—he has no love for the service; and confound me if I don't believe he is half a Roundhead in his heart. Tie the hands of the girl, I command you."

"I will not!" returned Macdonald; "and hang me if any one else shall!" And, with his sword in his hand, he placed himself between Mary and his comrades.

"If you do not bind her hands, I shall cause others to bind yours," said the sergeant.

"They may try that who dare!" returned the soldier, who was the most powerful man of the party; "but what I've said I'll stand to."

"You shall answer for this to-morrow," said the sergeant, sullenly, who feared to provoke a quarrel with the trooper.

"I will answer it," replied the other.

John Brydone, his son Daniel, and the Rev. Mr. Duncan, were bound together with strong cords, and driven from the house. They were fastened, also, to the horses of the troopers. As they were dragged along, the cries and the lamentations of Mary followed them; and the troopers laughed at her wailing, or answered her cries with mockery, till the sound of her grief became inaudible in the distance, when again they imitated her cries, to harrow up the feelings of her father.

Claverhouse, and a party of his troops, were then in the neighbourhood of Traquair; and before that man, who knew not what mercy was, John Brydone, and his son, and the preacher were brought. It was on the afternoon of the day following that on which they had been made prisoners, that Claverhouse ordered them to be brought forth. He was sitting, with wine before him, in the midst of his officers; and amongst them was Lieutenant Mowbray, whose name was alluded to by the sergeant.

"Well, knaves!" began Claverhouse, "ye have been singing, praying, preaching, and holding conventicles.—Do ye know how Grahame of Claverhouse rewards such rebels?"

As the prisoners entered, Lieutenant Mowbray turned away his head, and placed his hand upon his brow.

"Sir," said John, addressing Claverhouse, "I'm neither knave nor rebel—I hae lifted up my voice to the God o' my faithers, according to my conscience; and, unworthy as I am o' the least o' His benefits, for threescore years and ten he has been my shepherd and deliverer, and, if it be good in His sight, He will deliver me now. My trust is in Him, and I fear neither the frown nor the sword o' the persecutor."

"Have done, grey-headed babbler!" cried Claverhouse.

Lieutenant Mowbray, who still sat with his face from the prisoners, raised his handkerchief to his eyes.

"Captain," said Mr. Duncan, "there's a day coming when ye shall stand before the great Judge, as we now stand before you; and when the remembrance o' this day, and the blood o' the righteous which ye hae shed, shall be written with letters o' fire on yer ain conscience, and recorded against ye; and ye shall call upon the rocks and mountains to cover ye"——

"Silence!" exclaimed Claverhouse. "Away with them!" he added, waving his hand to his troopers—"shoot them before sunrise!"

Shortly after the prisoners had been conveyed from the presence of Claverhouse, Lieutenant Mowbray withdrew; and having sent for the soldier who had interfered on behalf of Mary—"Macdonald," he began, "you were present yesterday when the prisoners, who are to die to-morrow, were taken. Where did you find them?"

"In the old man's house," replied the soldier; and he related all that he had seen, and how he had interfered to save the daughter. The heart of the officer was touched, and he walked across his room, as one whose spirit was troubled. "You did well, Macdonald!" said he, at length—"you did well!" He was again silent, and again he added—"And you found the preacher in the old man's house—you found HIM there!" There was an anxious wildness in the tone of the lieutenant.

"We found him there," replied the soldier.

The officer was again silent—again he thoughtfully paced across the floor of his apartment. At length, turning to the soldier, he added—"I can trust you, Macdonald. When night has set in, take your horse and ride to the house of the elder prisoner, and tell his daughter—the maiden whom you saved—to have horses in readiness for her father, her brother, and—and her—her husband!" said the lieutenant, faltering as he spoke; and when he had pronounced the word husband, he again paused, as though his heart were full. The soldier was retiring—"Stay," added the officer, "tell her, her father, her brother, and—the preacher, shall not die; before daybreak she shall see them again; and give her this ring as a token that ye speak truly."

He took a ring from his finger, and gave it into the hands of the soldier.

It was drawing towards midnight. The troops of Claverhouse were quartered around the country, and his three prisoners, still bound to each other, were confined in a small farm-house, from which the inhabitants had been expelled. They could hear the heavy and measured tread of the sentinel pacing backward and forward in front of the house; the sound of his footsteps seemed to measure out the moments between them and eternity. After they had sung a psalm and prayed together—"I am auld," said John Brydone, "and I fear not to die, but rather glory to lay down my life for the great cause; but, oh, Daniel! my heart yearns that yer bluid also should be shed—had they only spared ye, to hae been a protector to our puir Mary!—or had I no driven Philip frae the house"——

"Mention not the name of the cast-away," said the minister.

"Dinna mourn, faither," answered Daniel, "an arm mair powerful than that of man will be her supporter and protector."

"Amen!" responded Mr. Duncan. "She has aye been cauld to me, and has turned the ear o' the deaf adder to the voice o' my affection; but even noo, when my thochts should be elsewhere, the thocht o' her burns in my heart like a coal."

While they yet spoke, a soldier, wrapt up in a cloak, approached the sentinel, and said—

"It is a cold night, brother."

"Piercing," replied the other, striking his feet upon the ground.

"You are welcome to a mouthful of my spirit-warmer," added the first, taking a bottle from beneath his cloak.

"Thank ye!" rejoined the sentinel; "but I don't know your voice. You don't belong to our corps, I think."

"No," answered the other; "but it matters not for that—brother soldiers should give and take."

The sentinel took the bottle and raised it to his lips; he drank, and swore the liquor was excellent.

"Drink again," said the other; "you are welcome; it is as good as a double cloak around you." And the sentinel drank again.

"Good night, comrade," said the trooper. "Good night," replied the sentinel; and the stranger passed on.

Within half an hour, the same soldier, still muffled up in his cloak, returned. The sentinel had fallen against the door of the house, and was fast asleep. The stranger proceeded to the window—he raised it—he entered. "Fear nothing," he whispered to the prisoners, who were bound to staples that had been driven into the opposite wall of the room. He cut the cords with which their hands and their feet were fastened.

"Heaven reward ye for the mercy o' yer heart, and the courage o' this deed," said John.

"Say nothing," whispered their deliverer, "but follow me."

Each man crept from the window, and the stranger again closed it behind them. "Follow me, and speak not," whispered he again; and, walking at his utmost speed, he conducted them for several miles across the hills; but still he spoke not. Old John marvelled at the manner of their deliverer; and he marvelled yet more when he led them to Philiphaugh, and to the very spot where, more than thirty years before, he had found the child on the bosom of its dead mother; and there the stranger stood still, and, turning round to those he had delivered—"Here we part," said he; "hasten to your own house, but tarry not. You will find horses in readiness, and flee into Westmoreland; inquire there for the person to whom this letter is addressed; he will protect you." And he put a sealed letter into the hands of the old man, and, at the same time, placed a purse in the hands of Daniel, saying, "This will bear your expenses by the way—Farewell!—farewell!" They would have detained him, but he burst away, again exclaiming, as he ran—"Farewell!"

"This is a marvellous deliverance," said John; "it is a mystery, an' for him to leave us on this spot—on this very spot—where puir Philip"—— And here the heart of the old man failed him.

We need not describe the rage of Claverhouse, when he found, on the following day, that the prisoners had escaped; and how he examined and threatened the sentinels with death, and cast suspicious glances upon Lieutenant Mowbray; but he feared to accuse him, or quarrel with him openly.

As John, with the preacher and his son, approached the house, Mary heard their footsteps, rushed out to meet them, and fell weeping upon her father's neck. "My bairn!" cried the old man; "we are restored to ye as from the dead! Providence has dealt wi' us in mercy an' in mystery."

His four farm-horses were in readiness for their flight; and Mary told him how the same soldier who had saved her from sharing their fate, had come to their house at midnight, and assured her that they should not die, and to prepare for their flight; "and," added she, "in token that he who had sent him would keep his promise towards you, he gave me this ring, requesting me to wear it for your deliverer's sake."

"It is Philip's ring!" cried the old man, striking his hand before his eyes—"it is Philip's ring!"

"My Philip's!" exclaimed Mary; "oh, then, he lives!—he lives!"

The preacher leaned his brow against the walls of the cottage and groaned.

"It is still a mystery," said the old man, yet pressing his hands before his eyes in agony; "but it is—it maun be him. It was Philip that saved us—that conducted us to the very spot where I found him! But, oh," he added, "I wad rather I had died, than lived to ken that he has drawn his sword in the ranks o' the oppressor, and to murder the followers after the truth."

"Oh, dinna think that o' him, father!" exclaimed Mary; "Philip wadna—he couldna draw his sword but to defend the helpless!"

Knowing that they had been pursued and sought after, they hastened their flight to England, to seek the refuge to which their deliverer had directed them. But as they drew near to the Borders, the Rev. Mr. Duncan suddenly exclaimed—"Now, here we must part—part for ever! It is not meet that I should follow ye farther. When the sheep are pursued by the wolves, the shepherd should not flee from them. Farewell, dear friends—and, oh! farewell to you, Mary! Had it been sinful to hae loved you, I would hae been a guilty man this day—for, oh! beyond a' that is under the sun, ye hae been dear to my heart, and your remembrance has mingled wi' my very devotions. But I maun root it up, though, in so doing, I tear my very heart-strings. Fareweel!—fareweel! Peace be wi' you—and may ye be a' happier than will ever be the earthly lot o' Andrew Duncan!"

The tears fell upon Mary's cheeks; for, though she could not love, she respected the preacher, and she esteemed him for his worth. Her father and brother entreated him to accompany them. "No! no!" he answered; "I see how this flight will end. Go—there is happiness in store for you; but my portion is with the dispersed and the persecuted." And he turned and left them.

Lieutenant Mowbray was disgusted with the cold-blooded butchery of the service in which he was engaged; and, a few days after the escape of John Brydone and his son, he threw up his commission, and proceeded to Dumfriesshire. It was a Sabbath evening, and near nightfall; he had wandered into the fields alone, for his spirit was heavy. Sounds of rude laughter broke upon his ear; and, mingled with the sound of mirth, was a voice as if in earnest prayer. He hurried to a small wood from whence the sounds proceeded, and there he beheld four troopers, with their pistols in their hands, and before them was a man, who appeared to be a preacher, bound to a tree.

"Come, old Psalmody!" cried one of the troopers, raising his pistol, and addressing their intended victim, who was engaged in prayer; "make ready—we have other jobs on hand—and we gave you time to speak a prayer, but not to preach."

Mowbray rushed forward. He sprang between the troopers and their victim. "Hold! ye murderers, hold!" he exclaimed. "Is it thus that ye disgrace the name of soldiers by washing your hands in the blood of the innocent?"

They knew Mowbray, and they muttered, "You are no officer of ours now; he is our prisoner, and our orders ere to shoot every conventicle knave who falls into our hands."

"Shame on him who would give such orders!" said Mowbray; "and shame on those who would execute them! There," added he, "there is money! I will ransom him."

With an imprecation, they took the money that was offered them, and left their prisoner to Mowbray. He approached the tree where they had bound him—he started back—it was the Rev. Andrew Duncan!

"Rash man!" exclaimed Mowbray, as he again stepped forward to unloose the cords that bound him. "Why have ye again cast yourself into the hands of the men who seek your blood? Do you hold your life so cheap, that, in one week, ye would risk to sell it twice? Why did not ye, with your father, your brother, and your wife, flee into England, where protection was promised!"

"My father!—my brother!—my wife!—mine!—mine!" repeated the preacher wildly. "There are no such names for my tongue to utter!—none!—none to drop their love as morning dew upon the solitary soul o' Andrew Duncan!"