THE 
 
 EDINBURGH TALES 
 
 CONDUCTED BY 
 
 MRS. JOHNSTONE 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 WILLIAM TAIT, EDINBURGH. 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, LONDON. 
 
 JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN, 
 
 MDCCCXLV.
 
 KDINHUKCH : 
 by WILLIAM TAIT, 107, Prince's Street.
 
 TT? 
 
 J304- 
 J5 
 V. I 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 Page 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ MRS. JOHNSTONS. ... 1 
 
 YOUNG MRS. ROBERTS* THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS .... 11 
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR, A LONDON LOVE STORY .... 33 
 
 GOVERNOR FOX .... 62 
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL .... 93 
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER .... Ill 
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER .... 152 
 
 THE COUSINS MRS. FRASER 167 
 
 THE RENOUNCED TREASURE. (From the Swedish of Meander.) WILLIAM HOWITT. . . . 191 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR MRS. GORE 203 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT EDWARD QUILLINAN. . . 223 
 
 THE ELVES. ( Frwi the German of Tieck.} THOMAS CARL YLE. . . . 252 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES MRS. JOHNSTONE. . . . 261 
 
 THE FRESHWATER FISHERMAN MISS MITFORD 334 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON MRS. CROWE 342 
 
 THE DEFORMED M. FRASER TYTLER. . . 367 
 
 THE WHITE FAWN ; A NORTH AMERICAN STORY COLONEL JOHNSON. . . 380 
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSH1RE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER... WILLIAM HOWITT. . . 391 
 
 STORY OF FARQUHARSOX OF INVEREY KIR THOMAS DICK LAUDER. 40o
 
 THE 
 
 EDINBURGH TALES 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 TNtRODUCTIOS. 
 
 THERE must be many persons in London, 
 particularly in the busy neighbourhood 
 extending from St Paul's Churchyard to 
 Charing Cross, perfectly familiar with Mr 
 RICHARD TAYLOR. His burrow, or central 
 point, was in some lane, small street, or alley, 
 between Arundel Street and Surrey Stairs, 
 whence he daily revolved in an orbit of which 
 no man could trace the eccentricity. Its 
 extremities seemed to be Gray's Inn on the 
 north, the Obelisk on the south, the London 
 Docks on the vulgar side, and Hyde Park 
 Corner on the point of gentility. It was next 
 to impossible, any day from eleven till two 
 o'clock, between the years 1815 and 1832, to 
 walk from Pall Mall to St Paul's, without 
 once, if not oftener, encountering " The Gen- 
 tleman with the Umbrella." There he 
 emerged from Chancery Lane, and here he 
 popped upon you from Temple Lane ; you 
 saw him glide down Norfolk" Street, or lost 
 sight of him all at once about Drury Lane ; 
 or beheld him holding on briskly, but with- 
 out effort, along the Strand, till, about Char- 
 ing Cross, he suddenly disappeared to start 
 upon you, like a Will o' the Wisp, in some 
 unexpected corner. Now was he seen in the 
 Chancery Court now sauntering towards 
 Billingsgate Market now at the Stock Ex- 
 change, and again at the Bow Street Office. 
 He might, in the same hour, be seen at the 
 hustings in Palace Yard, and hovering on the 
 outskirts of one of Orator Hunt's meetings, 
 as far off as Spa-fields ; at a reasonable hour, 
 in the gallery of the House of Commons, and 
 next in Mr Edward Irving's Chapel. The 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 British Museum divided his favour with the 
 great butcher markets, and with the picture 
 and book auctions, which he regularly fre- 
 quented. The best idea may be formed of 
 the movements of Mr Richard Taylor, from 
 the different notions formed of his character 
 and calling. For the first five years of his 
 sojourning in London, many conjectures were 
 formed concerning this "Gentleman about 
 town," or " The Gentleman with the Um- 
 brella ; " by which descriptive appellation he 
 came to be pretty generally known among 
 the shopmen and clerks along his line of 
 quick-march. His costume and appearance, 
 strange as the association seems, was half- 
 military, half-Moravian. By many he was 
 set down as a reporter for the daily prints 
 vulgarly a penny-a-liner; a calling univer- 
 sally sneered at by those whose figments and 
 marvels are paid from twopence a line up- 
 wards. His frequent attendance at the Police 
 Offices, and in the Courts of Law, favoured 
 this conjecture, as well as his occasional ap- 
 pearance at places of public amusement. A 
 sagacious tradesman in Cockspur Street, a 
 reformer, who had been involved in "the 
 troubles " of the times of Hardy and Home 
 Tooke, set him down as a half-pay officer, 
 now a spy of the Home Office. A tavern- 
 keeper in Fleet Street, who had seen him at 
 the Bow Street Office voluntarily step for- 
 ward to interpret for a poor Polish Jew, 
 against whom law was going hard from igno- 
 rance of the Cockney dialect of the English 
 language, affirmed that he was a Polish 
 refugee. But he had also been heard to in- 
 terpret for an itinerant weather-glass seller 
 from the Lake of Como, in a similar scrape ; 
 
 No. 1.
 
 TIIK EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 and for a Turkish seaman who, having first 
 been robbed, was next to be sent to prison for 
 not consenting to be twice robbed of his 
 time and his money in prosecuting the thief. 
 These things rather told in his favour. One 
 day the editor of a well-known liberal paper 
 was seen to stop " The Gentleman with the 
 Umbrella," and carry him into a great book- 
 seller's shop ; and on another he was dis- 
 covered in a hackney coach with some bene- 
 volent quakers from America, who had been 
 looking on the seamy side of civilization in 
 Newgate. Here was corroboration of good 
 character. Of "The Gentleman with the 
 Umbrella," we may tell farther, that his 
 sister-in-law, Mrs James Taylor, the wife of 
 the rich solicitor in Brunswick Square, af- 
 fectionately named him, among her friends, 
 "our excellent and unfortunate brother, Mi- 
 Richard ; " her husband, familiarly, " our 
 poor Dick;" a young Templar, studying 
 German, quaintly called him "Mephisto- 
 philes ; " and Mary Anne Moir, his god- 
 daughter, emphatically, " The Good Genius" 
 It was, however, as " The Gentleman with 
 the Umbrella" that Mr Richard Taylor was 
 best known ; for this was his name with the 
 multitude, the many poor women and chil- 
 dren of whom he was the daily speaking 
 acquaintance, and with two-thirds of the 
 men. He was, indeed, lavish of his acquain- 
 tanceship, but as chary of his intimacy. His 
 circle took in both extremes of society, and 
 all that lay between them. On the same 
 morning he might have been seen leaning on 
 the cane of the neatly rolled up brown silk 
 umbrella, fixed with its mother-of-pearl but- 
 ton, talking with the richest merchants leaving 
 the Exchange, or conversing with an Irish 
 market-woman, or an old Jew clothesman. 
 Such was the street stattts of Mr Richard 
 Taylor, when Peace sent the hero of Water- 
 loo to perambulate the pavement of London ; 
 and, in his Grace, the people of Mr Richard's 
 beat discovered, to his great annoyance, the 
 double of their " Gentleman with the Um- 
 brella." In the height, and the general out- 
 line of the figure, the compactness of the 
 person, the alacrity and firmness of movement, 
 and also in the length of the countenance, 
 there might be some slight resemblance, as 
 well as in the plainness, accuracy, and (a 
 certain style established) the unpretending 
 neatness of the dress. But the main feature 
 was assuredly the umbrella ; with something 
 perhaps of that cast of countenance which 
 Richard himself called the mock-heroic, and 
 which he had but narrowly escaped, while 
 
 lie thought it more fully developed in the more 
 aristocratic nose of his double. Any one who 
 had seen these alleged counterparts without 
 their hats, would have been on the instant 
 dispossessed of this ideal resemblance. Even 
 young ladies allowed that Mr Richard Taylor, 
 without his hat, was a quite other tiling. And 
 Mary Anne, whose glory was her beautiful 
 and redundant golden tresses, then looked 
 with genuine admiration on the superb deve- 
 lopment of brain displayed in 
 
 The bald polish of the honoured head 
 of her godfather ; and in his deep-sunk, dark 
 eyes, grey and lucid, saw gatherings of mean- 
 ings, and signs of thoughts, which do not 
 often visit the minds of heroes. This alleged, 
 or imaginary resemblance, was, we have said, 
 exceedingly annoying to Mr Richard Taylor, 
 who forthwith became for some months a 
 small lion ; or, what is more teasing, the reflec- 
 tion of a great lion, and a regular spectacle to 
 holiday folks and country cousins. To crown 
 his chagrin, some shabby artist, who had 
 better opportunities of seeing him than his 
 Grace of Wellington, actually sketched him 
 en liero ; and, at the small cost of a few frogs 
 and a stiff stock, posted him in several print 
 shops as the true lion of Waterloo. This 
 was the more provoking to our hero, as, if 
 there was one set of men whom he detested 
 more than another, it was heroes. He had 
 suffered by them, and seen others suffer : they 
 were but instruments, it is true ; but he said 
 " One does not like the gallows any more than 
 the hangman." 
 
 1-Vw words may tell Mr Richard's story, 
 and explain the causes which, at a compara- 
 tively early period of life, sent him abroad 
 among the busy population of London, with 
 no apparent charge save his umbrella, and no 
 occupation save doing some little good to his 
 fellow-creatures. Richard and his brother, 
 James Taylor, were the only children of a 
 London solicitor of great reputed wealth, and 
 in high and extensive business. The little 
 boys were, James at five, and Richard at 
 three years old, left motherless. They lived 
 in a pretty cottage near Guildford, which be- 
 longed to their father. When Nurse Wilks 
 was in good humour, she would tell them, 
 their father was the richest gentleman in all 
 London, among the Christians ; and if in bad 
 humour, from such causes as dirty pinafores 
 and muddy shoes, that he was going to be 
 married to a lord's daughter, who woiild snub 
 them ; mentioning, at the same time, the 
 name of a nobleman high in office, who was 
 reckoned the patron of Mr Taylor. One
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 day when the little boys were at play in the 
 garden, Nurse Wilks rushed out to them, 
 crying aloud that their papa had shot himself 
 Avith a pistol ; that the cottage was to be sold, 
 and they Avere to get new mourning, though 
 whether there would be any for the servants 
 she could not tell. In circles better informed 
 than that of Mrs Wilks, it was said that the 
 unhappy insolvent had been involved in dis- 
 grace, as well as pecuniary difficulty, by 
 speculating in the Funds with money belong- 
 ing to his clients, and trusting to information 
 received from his official patron, who made 
 this use of place to benefit his own pocket, 
 though he would have disdained the imputa- 
 tion of peculating on the public. Dame 
 Wilks Avent a hop-picking without her wages. 
 The little boys were for a short time boarded 
 at a cheap school, by the charity of their 
 father's noble friend ; and by the same inte- 
 rest Avere admitted into the Blue-Coat Hospi- 
 tal, which seminary James left for the cham- 
 bers of a solicitor, who had been one of his 
 father's principal clerks ; and Richard for a 
 counting-house in the city. The brothers 
 had never till now been separated ; and 
 they had loved each other the better that 
 each Avas all the other had to love. Twelve 
 years had exhausted the kindness of all their 
 father's former friends, if he had ever had 
 any ; besides, as was truly said, the boys were, 
 
 by the benevolence of Lord , most 
 
 satisfactorily established. In process of time, 
 Richard Avent to Dantzick, as an agent for 
 the house in Avhich he was bred ; and after- 
 wards to Leghorn, where the same great firm 
 had established a kind of entrepot for their 
 extensive Levant and Italian traffic. About 
 the close of the Avar he had been for some 
 years a partner in that house, and high in the 
 esteem of his associates. At the age of tAventy- 
 four, he Avas said to be worth 24,000 ; and 
 set down as a bold and fortunate speculator, 
 an intelligent and a liberal merchant. His 
 brother had lately married the only child of 
 his master and succeeded to his business ; and 
 no tAA^o more prosperous men, for their stand- 
 ing, could be pointed out than the orphan 
 children of the suicide. Of his fast-increas- 
 ing fortune, Richard had made a small in- 
 vestment in England, which yielded 100 a- 
 year ; which sum the munificent merchant 
 alloAved for toys to his brother's nursery ; 
 aware, however, that his sister Anne had 
 more good sense than to interpret the order 
 literally. About the same time he bought 
 the lease, and settled on Nurse Wilks the 
 house which her married daughter occupied 
 
 in that conglomeration of buildings, streets, 
 lanes, alleys, and yards, between the middle 
 of the Strand and the river, reserving for his 
 own use the chambers he now occupied in it, 
 should he ever require them. This was done 
 to lessen the ostentation of such a gift ; and 
 from no hope, no fear, that he should ever be 
 driven to seek in this place an asylum from 
 adverse fortune. 
 
 The Revolutionary war Avas still in pro- 
 gress. Italy had been overrun and conquered. 
 Richard, at this time an open and ardent 
 admirer of the French, became suspected by 
 the Tuscan government, and only escaped 
 imprisonment, if not death, by finding refuge 
 on board an English frigate. That asylum 
 was granted to the liberal and hospitable 
 English merchant, which Avould have been 
 refused to a man of his known principles 
 Avho had no such claims on his countrymen. 
 The suddenness of his flight, and many con- 
 curring circumstances connected with the in- 
 vasion of the country, the total suspension of 
 trade, and the destruction of confidence 
 among commercial men, threw the affairs of 
 the firm into great confusion. It was in fact 
 insolvent ; and, to croAA-n the misfortune, Mr 
 Taylor, in the hurry of escape, lost all the 
 books and papers of the company.- They 
 AA'ere stolen, he could not have a doubt of it, 
 as his first and last care had been their safety, 
 till he saw the hamper, in which they Avere 
 hastily packed, placed in the boat which 
 took him to the side of the frigate. He was 
 like a man distracted on missing them, and 
 entreated at all hazards to be set on shore ; 
 but, Avith this request, the safety of the A r es- 
 sel and the interests of the service forbade 
 compliance. Richard had been prepared foi 
 ruin, utter ruin ; but here there Avas disgrace, 
 the disgrace of culpable negligence, and 
 room for the suspicion of failure in that high 
 integrity which Avas his pride. 
 
 Mr James Taylor, on receiving a letter 
 from the captain of the frigate, which, how- 
 ever cautiously worded, filled him and his 
 wife Avith inexpressible alarm, hurried down 
 to Plymouth, and found his brother in a con- 
 dition most trying to his fraternal feelings. 
 The catastrophe of their father took posses- 
 sion of James's mind. He neither durst dis- 
 close his apprehensions to Richard, nor yet 
 lose sight of him for a moment, day nor night. 
 It was Richard, the silent, moody Richard, 
 whose hair sorroAv had suddenly blanched, 
 and Avhose emaciated person and sunken 
 features told the tale his lips refused to utter, 
 that first entered upon the trying topic.
 
 TIIK KDINBURGII TALKS. 
 
 "When do you go to town, James? At 
 this season 1 know you can ill be spared from 
 business ; my sister's health, you say, has 
 been delicate. When do you return to Anne? " 
 "The moment you are ready," replied 
 James, with forced cheerfulness. " You are 
 in better spirits to-day, Richard ; you look 
 more yourself. Be a man, Dick, and no fear 
 of us. Shall I take places for London by 
 the mail ? Or, stay, better have a chaise 
 to ourselves, where we can talk freely ; you 
 look as if you needed a lean to your back." 
 James said this with his natural smile, the 
 look which Richard liked in his brother. 
 
 " I must learn to sit upright, though," he 
 replied : " upright, alone ; and you shall not 
 waste more time in propping me. I must 
 leave this, but I cannot go to London. I must 
 have quiet time to think, time to think, 
 James." 
 
 James believed that the less he thought the 
 better ; but his entreaties were useless, and 
 he desisted for that time. 
 
 On the third day, Richard, in whose cha- 
 racter there was a rich fund of humour, 
 depressed and despairing as he was, became 
 amused by the drolly perplexed countenance 
 of his brother ; which wife, children, and 
 business pulled one way, and strong fraternal 
 affection, and tormenting fears, the other. If 
 they walked on the pier, or near the water's 
 edge, James involuntarily grasped Richard's 
 arm, as if he expected him to make a sudden 
 spring and plunge. Fearful of irritating tho 
 bruised mind, he was hour by hour inventing 
 excuses to delay his own departure, which 
 provoked Richard to smiles. He must see 
 all the docks ; he could not go back to Anne 
 without being able to describe the romantic 
 beauties of Mount Edgecuinbe. He would 
 visit Dartmoor ; it was doubtful when so 
 good an opportunity would offer ; ay, and 
 climb Hengist Down, and perhaps explore 
 the banks of the Tamar. How fraught with 
 thoughtful meanings, witli warm and grate- 
 ful feelings, was the sad smile, humorous and 
 tender, with which Richard listened to this 
 random talk of his affectionate, ringle-mifided 
 brother ; for James, be it known, and he 
 cared little who knew it, was much better 
 acquainted with the forms and boundaries of 
 English law ; its barren wastes, and misty 
 pinnacles, and crooked and thorny paths, than 
 with the local scenery of England ; for which, 
 even in these touring times, he entertained a 
 happy indifference. As they walked about 
 daily in the beautiful environs of Plymouth, 
 James affected to make notes of what he ob- 
 
 served ; though he would not move a step in 
 any direction, unless his arm was locked in 
 Richard's. 
 
 On the fourth or fifth day of this fettered 
 intercourse, the brothers sat together by the 
 water's edge. Richard had seen James re- 
 ceive, among a huge packet of business letters, 
 per mail, not per post, (for there was no Row- 
 land Hill in those days,) one addressed in the 
 handwriting of Anne, which, strange to say, 
 was not handed over to him as soon as perused 
 by her husband. This had been the practice 
 of former days. All these epistles, various 
 in quality, appearance, object, and style, had 
 been huddled up, the moment that Richard 
 took his hat to give his brother leisure to read 
 and answer them. They now sat in silence 
 for a quarter of an hour : the mind of James 
 probably in London ; that of Richard, rapidly 
 traversing his whole path in life, from the 
 cottage of Dame Wilks to the deck of the 
 frigate, where the rain had drenched, the 
 night-dews cooled, his fevered frame, and 
 where he had communed with his own heart 
 more earnestly than during all his former 
 life. That firm and yet tender heart smote 
 him now as he looked stealthily upon the 
 troubled countenance of his affectionate watch- 
 man : smote him for the selfish, misanthropic 
 bitterness, which thus sorely tried the love o 
 his best friend, and that friend his only bro- 
 ther. The dark cloud had broken up, and 
 was drifting off; but there were still frag- 
 ments and trails of it hovering about the 
 mind of Richard. 
 
 " You have seen all the sights now, I 
 fancy? " said he : " good note taken of them ?" 
 There was a ray of Richard's old humour in 
 his eye, a tone of Richard's old, frank kind- 
 ness in his voice ; and James looked brightly 
 up. " Suppose you go home now, James." 
 This was a damper. " You never were so 
 long away from Anne since you married, I 
 presume ? " 
 
 " O, yes, I have ; in the middle of a term, 
 too. If you were well, Richard " 
 
 " Well ! am I not perfectly well ? How 
 many compliments have you not paid me on 
 my good looks during these last three days?" 
 
 Poor James ! If the reader can remember 
 Lord Althorp, ten or twelve years ago, pressed 
 by days and dates, and the very words of an 
 old forgotten speech faithfully reflected in the 
 " Mirror of Parliament," a machinery some- 
 times holding up reflections as disagreeable 
 and provoking, as ever did looking-glass to 
 an ancient beauty, he may form some notion 
 of the manner in which James related an
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 anecdote, which Richard, if himself, would 
 have enjoyed so much. It was of his old 
 acquaintance, whimsical Miss Lambert ; a 
 maiden of large fortune, who had sent for 
 James to Bath, because she would have no 
 one to draw out her nineteenth will, but Mi- 
 James Taylor ; and had kept him waiting nine 
 days, whilst she changed her mind eighteen 
 times. " The perverse woman wanted to be 
 coaxed into making our little Dick her heir. 
 She was his uncle Dick's godmother a bad 
 custom of our Church this, by the way, 
 which perpetuates many very troublesome 
 connexions." 
 
 " And the attorney, Dick's father, would 
 not have it so ? " 
 
 " No ! " said James gruffly, in a voice 
 which if it had not been sulky, would have 
 betrayed the speaker, who now felt a little 
 choked. 
 
 " How can I droll with this kind being," 
 was the quick thought of Richard ; and there 
 was another long silence, before Richard said 
 in an earnest and quite natural tone, " My 
 sister wrote you to-day to come home was 
 it not?" 
 
 " Quite the reverse," replied James, with 
 his Althorpian air, false, certainly, but what 
 no candid man would call deceitful. " Anne 
 is delighted that I am with you, enjoying 
 myself in so fine a part of the country. She 
 only wishes she were with us ; but no haste 
 for us. She is making pleasant excursions 
 every where with the children." 
 
 " Show me her letter you wont to give me 
 all Anne's letters." 
 
 James looked more Althorpian than ever. 
 Having chanced on so apt an illustration 
 we cannot afford to drop it. He faltered, 
 looked perplexed, distressed, searched his 
 pockets ; " Perhaps he had left it within : it 
 contained some trifling matters of private 
 business." There was another pause, while 
 James concocted (he did not fabricate) an 
 appendix to the letter. " Anne, I assure you, 
 does not wish me home. She says, I need 
 not come without Richard, on pain of return- 
 ing. I thought Dick," added the brother, in 
 a tone of affectionate reproach, " that, after 
 five years, you, who seemed so fond of them, 
 would have liked to see my wife and her 
 children." 
 
 Richard compressed his lips, gulped, choked, 
 swallowed down the feelings which, in a man 
 less proud, would have been expressed in a 
 groan or sigh of anguish and tenderness ; and 
 hurriedly said what else had not been uttered 
 at all. 
 
 " James, why don't you frankly tell me I 
 am mad, and that you think so ? " 
 
 " Mad, Richard ! What on earth on 
 this earth, Richard, can put such wild fancies 
 into your brain ? But " and James tried 
 to laugh " you know it was always said 
 at school you were to be a poet ; like Cole- 
 ridge, you know, or Charles Lamb, or that 
 old set of us Mad ! " 
 
 " Ay, mad meditating self-destruction ! " 
 cried Richard in a tone bordering on madness 
 but which yet seemed, even to his suspi- 
 cious brother, only the fearful energy of 
 roused passions. 
 
 " Richard, my dear brother, this passes a 
 jest with us with the recollection of our 
 poor father. Let us walk, Richard, pray : 
 I thank God there is no hereditary disease of 
 any kind in our family. Our poor father 
 he was hard pressed. In my mind the l&ss a 
 man has to do with these lords the better, 
 save in the way of fair business. Anne will 
 have something to tell you about these things 
 when we get home. But, Richard, there is a 
 temporary madness when men, forsaken of 
 reason, are in a moment guilty of they know 
 not what. On your courage, your manliness, 
 your high sense of man's worth, and man's 
 duty, I have had reliance which should quiet 
 all apprehensions, terribly as you have been 
 harrowed." 
 
 " Yet you won't leave with me a razor or a 
 penknife," interrupted Richard, bitterly ; "ye 
 tremble at the sudden flash of a little instru- 
 ment like this ! " 
 
 Mr James Taylor, though he had engrossed 
 all the phlegm of the Taylor blood, leaving 
 his brother its fire and nervous excitability, 
 became pale as death, as he clutched and 
 tried to strike down the pistol which Richard 
 drew from his breast, and steadily fired off. 
 
 " It was not even loaded," he said. He 
 gave the pistol into his brother's trembling 
 hands. " I am not mad, James I am not 
 of the kind of men who run mad. I have 
 purposes in life to fulfil. I shall neither die 
 nor go mad ; but I know best what is good 
 for me. Are you now ready to set out for 
 London ? My home is with Nurse Wilks, 
 but for one hour I will break my rule to 
 thank Anne for the kindness which extends 
 your leave." Mr James Taylor groped 
 hastily in his pockets, and now found his 
 wife's letter, and without a word placed it 
 in Richard's hands ; who fell back, free at 
 last from his brother's affectionate grasp, to 
 read what Anne said. When he again ad- 
 vanced, he quietly took his brother's arm,
 
 fi 
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 saying, in a very low voice, with no great 
 apparent emotion, yet more consciousness of 
 betrayed feeling than an Englishman cares 
 to show, " Those who have brothers and 
 sisters like James and Anne don't shoot 
 themselves. I will keep Anne's letter." 
 
 In three more days Richard had seen his 
 sister, and seemed tolerably cheerful ; but 
 there lay a crushing load on the heart and 
 spirit of the broken merchant, bankrupt 
 alike in fortune, and, as he fancied, in repu- 
 tation, which the buoyant energy of his 
 natural character could not, all at once, shake 
 off. He was not mad, but spell-bound ; 
 struggling as if with a moral nightmare, con- 
 scious of the paltry cause of the exquisite 
 agony under which he writhed, which para- 
 lyzed the strength, and checked the whole- 
 some current of life, but condemned him to 
 struggle on. 
 
 " Better madness, or death itself," said 
 James, one day that he returned from visiting 
 his brother, in answer to the anxious ques- 
 tioning of his wife. " He becomes more 
 spectral every day ; sitting with sheets of 
 figures before him, the image of concentrated 
 misery." James next spoke of what Dr 
 Palmer had said of needful restraint ; but 
 the gentle Anne still implored patience, quiet, 
 and indulgence of Richard's most wayward 
 moods. Thus passed the winter ; when Mrs 
 James Taylor, one morning towards its close, 
 heard a strange gabbling in her hall, and 
 presently a man, a savage the maids said, 
 burst upon her in spite of her servant, carry- 
 ing a torn hamper, which she almost screamed 
 with delight to understand contained Rich- 
 ard's missing papers and accompt books. 
 This faithful Calabrese, whom, while they 
 were in some measure equally foreigners and 
 strangers in Leghorn, Richard Taylor had 
 treated with that common humanity which 
 sunk deeply into the neglected man's heart, 
 had, with great personal trouble, recovered 
 these missing papers. All that he had lost, 
 ten times told, could not have so much rejoiced 
 Richard Taylor. That was fortune : here 
 were the means of establishing the integrity 
 which it was in vain to assure him no one 
 ever doubted. After some months of hard 
 labour he had the satisfaction of putting the 
 affairs of the firm into such train that there 
 was a likelihood every creditor would be fully 
 paid. It was, however, nearly three years 
 before his toils relaxed and all arrangements 
 were completed. In this time he had made 
 several voyages. The creditors, English and 
 foreign, with the most liberal testimonies to 
 
 his probity and zeal, would have present! -d 
 him with money to begin the world again, 
 and offered him credit to any amount. Thebc 
 generous offers he declined, though he now 
 looked as well in health and spirits, and as 
 fit for labour as any man ; walked a dozen 
 miles a-day, and slept, in his own phrase, 
 like a boy after a supper of bread and milk. 
 His former partners, and other mercantile 
 capitalists who knew the value of his abilities, 
 his skill in modern languages, and intimate 
 knowledge of European commerce, would 
 have persuaded him to recommence with 
 them ; but to the mortification of his brother, 
 who affectionately remonstrated against his 
 resolution, Richard resisted all such propo- 
 sals. 
 
 "Say no more, James," he would reply. 
 " You love me well, but do not quite under- 
 stand me : Anne reads me closer. Once you 
 were in agony lest I should shoot myself ; 
 now you are afraid I shall die not rich. I 
 have enough for all my wants nay, more 
 for all my desires. A wise man who has been 
 in my condition, has but one remaining wish 
 Peace, peace of mind. Add the wealth of 
 Rothschild to that of the Barings, join the 
 Bourse to the Stock Exchange, and I am 
 proof." 
 
 " And have you then no ambition, Richard 
 no sense of duty no wish to realize your 
 once ardent desire of doing good no love of 
 independence ? With your paltry misera- 
 ble pittance ! " 
 
 James waxed warm and wrothful, and 
 choked upon his anger ; and Richard calmly 
 smiled. 
 
 " Enough for me, James. Be assured I 
 made my calculations rigidly and nicely 
 before I struck my final balance. Indepen- 
 dence is to me as needful as the air I breathe ; 
 'tis the lungs of my moral existence. I am 
 independent ! No sense of duty reprehends 
 me for standing by an idle, and yet not all 
 idle, spectator, seeing the mad world play its 
 own game, I holding no stake. Let no man 
 whatever, not even you, James, flatter him- 
 self the world cannot carry on its game and 
 its business without him. All the Tories in 
 England believed the globe would stop re- 
 volving on its axis when Pitt was worn out 
 of life in their hard service ; but a sense of 
 duty made Perceval accept of office ; and 
 he did wondrous well till duty again gave 
 us Lord Castlereagh. Then came poor Can- 
 ning, urged by duty, too, and soon broke a 
 Man's heart : and still the world goes on. 
 No, no ; the struggle to make Dick Taylor a
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 rich Turkey merchant, instead of Tom, or 
 John, or Bob Something-else a struggle, 
 too, which dooms him either to live in tor- 
 ture or sink into callousness, and perhaps 
 perish at last is not worth his while. I 
 am done with speculation, and with trade, 
 but not with life." 
 
 For months nay years the battle was 
 renewed at intervals between the brothers, 
 Anne, though she regretted her brother's 
 obstinacy, acting ever as the gentle peace- 
 maker. When Richard, at any time, by his 
 clear head, his knowledge and sagacity, 
 cleared the intricacies of business to his bro- 
 ther, James, in a fit of mingled anger and 
 admiration, would burst forth : " There is a 
 man might be Chancellor of the Exchequer ; 
 and his matchless abilities must be lost for a 
 crotchet!" and he would denounce Rich- 
 ard's selfish, narrow, idling, scheme of life, 
 epithets at which his brother only smiled, 
 denying idleness : there was not, indeed, a 
 busier man in London, or one who saw, ob- 
 served, and noted more, than Richard Taylor. 
 
 "But to what use?" 
 
 " You will find that out by-and-by. I 
 intend to strike out in an original line a 
 Reformer, Sir." 
 
 " Fine subject for drolling, truly ! " said 
 the half-angry James. " No, Dick ; stick 
 by us Tories, and we '11 try to get you made 
 dragoman to the Bow Street Office ; w and 
 the lawyer, who had heard of Richard's ex- 
 hibitions there, now laughed heartily at his 
 own bad joke. 
 
 " I have done some good even there : with 
 my bad Lingua Franca, and other worse 
 dialects, had I a touch of the Malay, or of 
 any lingo that could enable me to help out 
 these miserable Lascars. How the beau- 
 ties and tender mercies of English law, and 
 of the London Cadis, must astonish these 
 poor Asiatics ! What stories they must have 
 to tell of us in the Indian Islands, and the 
 Peninsula of India ! What a volume it 
 would be, that would give us the frank, 
 unbiassed opinions, not of Europeans and 
 Americans they are all near of kin but 
 of Chinese, Turks, Esquimaux, and New 
 Zealanders, of our manners and institutions-!" 
 
 " Which you are to reform " 
 
 " Not the institutions ; I leave them to 
 the wisdom of Parliament. I am a domestic, 
 an in-door reformer. Could I once pro- 
 selytize all the women and children, I doubt 
 not but I should soon wield the fierce mas- 
 culine democracy, as far as I wish." 
 
 Mr Richard Taylor, or, "The Gentleman 
 
 with the Umbrella," had now lived for a 
 number of years in London in this singular 
 way ; his friends said singular, though thou- 
 sands of small annuitants follow apparently 
 a similar line of life. The men called him a 
 Character, or a Humorist ; the ladies, an 
 Oddity. He was a great favourite with a 
 certain class of clever young men. Them he 
 assured, that his great secret of happiness 
 and independence, lay in having at once set 
 himself above the mean misery of what is 
 called keeping up appearances. But he would 
 sigh as he added, " You, lads, dare not play 
 my game. You are striving to rise, poor 
 fellows ! in your professions ; the strong hand, 
 the crushing, iron hand of custom is upon 
 you. How charmingly, now, would that 
 poor Pennant have filled up this outline of 
 his " History of the Literature of the Last 
 Century," had not that tailor's bill come 
 against him though a man of energy will 
 not be idle even in the Fleet : and, I dare- 
 say, save for appearances, to make a figure 
 in the great, squinting, goggle eyes of the 
 public, the poor lad never would have run 
 up this bill, and would have been quite as 
 happy scribbling in his old coat." 
 
 As Mr Richard Taylor became older, his 
 favourite study was more than ever domestic 
 manners and economy. He left politicians 
 to discover what ruins states he was con- 
 tent to know what ruined families. 
 
 His acquaintance insensibly extended 
 among respectable families of middle rank, 
 as his young friends married ; and his age, 
 and character of a benevolent humorist, privi- 
 leged him among all housemaids, nursemaids, 
 washerwomen, and charwomen. No man 
 knew London better, to the most black and 
 hidden recesses of its mighty heart. Having 
 the key to All Max in the East, he read by it, 
 fluently and pretty accurately, Almacks in 
 the West. " Courts ! " he would say ; " every 
 man who can read may know them far better 
 than the flutterers and flatterers living in 
 and about them. The saloons of aristocracy ! 
 what is there new in them ? The petty 
 mystery reproduced in the new mode ; the 
 actors the same, all but in name." 
 
 Mr Richard might, had he so chosen, have 
 been a constant diner-out. His garb, scru- 
 pulously neat and clean, was always glossy 
 enough to pass with the sensible mistress of 
 any respectable family, especially in a cha- 
 racter. He did say odd things, some ladies 
 thought ; but he had qualities to counter- 
 balance this startling habit : he kept early 
 hours ; the children liked him ; several dis-
 
 Till: EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 tinguished people were known to be of his 
 acquaintance ; he was a water-drinker. With 
 these qualities he might have dined out every 
 day of the week, and three times every day. 
 
 " I won't dine with a man I don't like," he 
 would say. " Nay, I must esteem him, too ; 
 and I must like his wife also, and be able to 
 .idure his children ; and, after all, I won't 
 .line with him, unless I am pretty sure he 
 an well afford the good dinner he takes 
 siiinself every day, and the better which he 
 ^ives to me and his friends some days. The 
 reverse would be of bad example." 
 
 Mr Richard, as he grew older, was punctual 
 in visiting all brides. If he had previously 
 liked the husband, or taken an interest in 
 the wife, his second call was a surprise, to 
 take the lady at unawares, when he might 
 judge more fairly of her tastes, her character, 
 and the style of her management. 
 
 " Few men," he said, " were entitled to do 
 this, save himself. Few had studied in-door 
 life so thoroughly. It would be unfair for an 
 ignorant jackanapes to pounce upon a young 
 housekeeper in my fashion ; but I understand 
 all the exigencies of domestic life. I can 
 allow for washing-day, and comprehend the 
 sweeping of the chimneys." If the manager 
 stood his test, he would repeat the visit ; or 
 if the woman pleased, he would return again. 
 Where both fell far short of his standard ; 
 where there were neither the useful talents 
 of the housewife, nor the pleasing manners, 
 and teachable and pliant dispositions of the 
 young woman, he dropped the acquaintance, 
 unless he entertained some hope of being use- 
 ful in improving or totally reforming the 
 almost hopeless subject. His bridal present 
 to the wife of any of his favourite young 
 friends, was a small book, printed but not 
 published, which he called " Richard Taylor's 
 Grammar of Good Housewifery ; " and, for 
 the joint use of husband and wife, a copy of 
 the "Philosophy of Arithmetic," by the same 
 author, also unpublished ; and, where he 
 " took to visiting," he became the pleasant, 
 steady, safe, and useful friend of the young 
 pair ; able in any exigency to assist by his 
 knowledge of life and character, and his 
 sagacious counsel ; prompt to sympathize in 
 adversity ; to stimulate in difficulty ; and, 
 what was a nicer task, to temper and mode- 
 rate rash hopes in a sudden and perilous flow 
 of good fortune at the outset of life. Sensible 
 and amiable women liked and esteemed Mr 
 Richard, after their first fears were over, not 
 the less, perhaps, that his influence was in 
 general thrown into the scale of the wife. 
 
 This he called the course of justice. His 
 final morning visit every day was paid to 
 his sister Anne, when his brother's family 
 were in town, though he began to feel the 
 distance. They thoroughly understood each 
 other. They were the best of friends ; though, 
 as Mrs James grew older, and her husband 
 richer, and her daughters taller, Richard 
 feared the love of the pomps and vanities of 
 the world was stealing on the gentle Anne. 
 
 One day during the frost of a severe winter, 
 when the Thames was frozen over for weeks 
 on weeks, Richard went, as usual, to Bruns- 
 wick Square. 
 
 " You did not meet us yesterday at the 
 Franklands'," said Mrs James ; " it was a 
 severe disappointment to me all strangers : 
 and I know you got a card, because it came 
 with ours." 
 
 " Ay, and answered it, too, a fortnight ago. 
 They could not expect me. I accept of 
 dinners from no man who lives above his 
 income, and beyond that respectable and be- 
 coming style warranted by his fortune rather 
 than his prospects." 
 
 " You used to like young Frankland." 
 
 "I like him still. When I wont to rout 
 him out from his books, and his dingy, air- 
 less chamber, to enjoy Nurse Wilks' toast, 
 and my vista, I had immense hopes of that 
 lad ; which provokes me the more now. He 
 has got a few fees, I grant you ; what then ? 
 his wife gives two dinners for every brief. 
 And the fine house, and the lady wife, and 
 the lady nursemaid, and the milliner's bill, 
 and the tailor's bill, and the play and opera 
 tickets, and the little trip to Brighton, and 
 the wine-merchant's bill, and the coach- 
 hire" 
 
 " Nay, nay, stop there," cried Anne 
 
 "Without coming to baker, butcher, grocer, 
 or milkman, as poor Frankland must do : 
 to see so admirable a head, so no'ble a heart, 
 torn, crushed, broken, and cast away thus 
 madly ! " 
 
 " Let us hope better. Fees may come 
 pouring in ; a little flash at the outset is 
 absolutely necessary sometimes." 
 
 " Cowardly necessity, mean necessity, base 
 necessity ! " cried Mr Richard, passionately. 
 
 " They are really a handsome, elegant 
 couple. I don't wonder they should like to 
 have things nice about them. Mrs Frank- 
 land looks as if used to it, and like one that 
 must have things right and proper; fine 
 flashy people." 
 
 " Anne, you accepted of their hospitality." 
 
 " Of this entertainment I did," said Mrs
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Taylor, smiling at the implied reproach. 
 " Splendid it was : a party of eighteen ; 
 rather too many for comfort, but not for 
 economy ; a turbot, at Heaven knows what 
 price ! I know I have not ventured to speak 
 to my fishmonger on the subject this season ; 
 ortolans, or some such foreign rarity ; and 
 a magnificent haunch. And such a dessert ! 
 I never did see any thing so beautiful and 
 elegant ; with wines in number above my 
 reckoning, and in name beyond my know- 
 ledge. The house the set-out altogether ! 
 the child's robes ! the nursemaid's dress ! 
 I wonder you did not, for once, accept your 
 paragon friend Frankland's invitation." 
 
 Mr Richard, though compressing his lips, 
 emitted a sound between groan and grumble, 
 before he burst forth '"Unless Frankland's 
 creditors, that are and will be, had joined in 
 the invitation, I don't see how any honest 
 man could have accepted of it : I, for one, 
 could not. In the sparkling champagne I 
 would have seen the dark scowling faces of 
 angry wine-merchants ; I would have de- 
 tected an asp in the pine-apple ; a fish-bone 
 would have stuck in my throat as I eat my 
 half-guinea slice of Frankland's salmon ; I 
 would have seen the livery-servants meta- 
 morphosed into bailiffs ; the gentleman in 
 plain clothes into one of the bankruptcy 
 commissioners, which they unquestionably 
 will be ere long. No, no, Madam ; I left my 
 share of the spoil to some fool or foolish 
 knave, who w r ould not fail to be asked to 
 occupy my place ; and I dined luxuriously 
 on threepence worth of mackerel, which are 
 prime just now, as every thing is, thank 
 Heaven ! when at the cheapest." 
 
 Mrs Taylor was somewhat annoyed. 
 " Then, of course, Richard, you think yonr 
 brother and I did wrong to go to this dinner, 
 and do wrong to accept of such dinners ? " 
 
 " Sound logic a fair inference, sister 
 Anne." 
 
 " And what could we do ? Mr Frankland 
 has been obliged to James in the line of his 
 profession, and wished to show his sense of it. 
 Is not that quite proper in a young barrister ?" 
 
 " Quite proper the sense ; very improper 
 the manner of showing it." 
 
 " You know James would not do a wrong, 
 or an injurious thing for the world. He was, 
 indeed, rather averse to accepting of any 
 dinners at this season, save those we must 
 take from old friends." 
 
 " There is a necessity ! " said Richard ; 
 " some must take ; many must want." 
 
 " That pleasant, polite, young Frankland, 
 
 whom you liked so well, and his very pretty 
 wife," continued the lady, " I could not be 
 so churlish as to refuse ; besides, they had 
 visited us. It would have been positively 
 rude." 
 
 "Well, Anne," said the gentleman but- 
 toning to the chin, " I suppose I must just 
 pardon your ' Do as other folks do ;' the 
 maxim that fills half our prisons. It will 
 be time enough to think more of Frankland 
 when he is in the Bench." 
 
 " Or on the Bench," cried Mrs Taylor. 
 " Let us take the best view of it. No fish to 
 be caught without bait ; and some gudgeons 
 won't bite unless it glitter." 
 
 " Even in that case success should not ex- 
 cuse to me his present imprudence ; the price 
 of the ticket is too high a risk for even the 
 first prize : That price is peace of mind, it is 
 principle, sister Anne." 
 
 Indignation and grief might have contri- 
 buted to render Mr Richard's steps unsteady 
 on this afternoon, for he was warmly at- 
 tached to Frankland, of whose career he had 
 of ten prophesied great things, but at any rate 
 he slid on the ice in going home, and sprained 
 his ankle so severely, that he was kept prisoner 
 in his chamber for three months. His brother 
 and sister-in-law, and several other friends, 
 urged him to become their inmate during his 
 slow recovery, but he would not leave his 
 own lodgings, Nurse Wilks, his vista, his 
 lathe, his books, and all his thousand nick- 
 nacks. He would be in nobody's way, he 
 said ; and he as frankly confessed that he 
 liked nobody in his. He would accept of no 
 pecuniary assistance from his brother. " Do 
 you think I am so bad a calculator and pro- 
 vider as not to know that I may be sick at 
 some time, and require a doctor ? And think," 
 he said laughing, "howmuch I savein shoes !" 
 There was a tinge of misanthropy at the 
 bottom of Richard Taylor's proud character, 
 disguise it as he might. It never deadened 
 his sympathies, never chilled the glow of 
 humanity, but it lurked there. 
 
 In the mean time a man who was a geometer, 
 a geographer, a draughtsman, a mechanic, and, 
 finally, a good classical scholar and universal 
 reader, could not lack amusement during a 
 three months' confinement unattended with 
 much pain of body or mind. Richard Tay- 
 lor was, besides, that nondescript being, a 
 humorist ; and his fancy was a very Pro- 
 teus. He re-read Swift, a favourite author; 
 a selection of the British Essayists ; the 
 works of De Foe and of Fielding, great 
 favourites both ; the Farces of Foote, the
 
 10 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Newgate Calendar, and the Lives of the 
 Phyors. He had a small, a very small se- 
 lection of more serious books, which he never 
 showed save to choice visitors, such as Frank- 
 land the barrister had been. 
 
 There were now as many inquiries at and 
 about Richard's cul de sac as if a prince had 
 been sick ; and the apothecary thought of 
 issuing a regular bulletin. A kind, a very 
 kind, a cordial letter came from Frankland, 
 who had gone down to stand a contested elec- 
 tion for some Cornwall borough, and thus 
 could not visit his old friend. It was left 
 by Mrs Frankland, " in her nown carriage" 
 Nurse Wilks said ; with a note reminding 
 Mr Taylor how much Frankland required 
 the support of his friends at this juncture, 
 and of his own well-known influence with 
 the public press. A few paragraphs did 
 appear for the " talented candidate," but none 
 of them were traced to his misanthropic old 
 friend : none of them had emanated from 
 Richard Taylor. 
 
 No man, after the years of studentship, 
 can read for ever ; but it was by pure acci- 
 dent that Richard Taylor, to vaiy his amuse- 
 ments, began to scrawl on an old half-written 
 ledger, characters of his friends, and sketches 
 of his life and his adventures, particularly 
 since he had first run the circle round this 
 alley. Paragraphs insensibly swelled to 
 pages ; pages grew to chapters. At the head 
 of one might have been seen written FRANK- 
 LAND THE BARRISTER ; but that was not yet 
 full. Another he called by the odd name of 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR, and that one was com- 
 plete. So humble was Richard's estimate of 
 his own literary powers that, if writing had 
 cost him but one groat for quills or ink, he 
 would certainly have renounced the occupa- 
 tion, fancying the monej r far better bestowed 
 in sending another Irish child for a week to 
 the Dame's school he had contrived to esta- 
 blish in his neighbourhood ; but his sister 
 Anne, happy to see that he had found a new 
 amusement, liberally supplied him with sta- 
 tionery from her husband's chambers, an 
 attention he was not too proud to accept. 
 
 Many heads were opened in the old blank 
 ledger, but few were filled up. HOUSEHOLD 
 STATISTICS was one ; the germ of what after- 
 wards grew to his "Philosophy of Arithmetic." 
 Then came GIN AND GENTILITY, a Tale ; and 
 next, YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS 
 DINNERS, followed by THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 OF PEG PLUNKET, THE ORANGE WOMAN," an 
 old campaigner who had shared in the glories 
 of the Peninsular war ; with whom he had a 
 
 gussiji at the head of the alley every day of his 
 life. Next followed GOVERNOR Fox, a sketch. 
 
 " Dick," said Mr James Taylor, as he sat 
 with his brother during morning service, one 
 holiday, and placed his spectacles in the led- 
 ger, after a half-hour's perusal of its contents ; 
 " Dick, this would print." 
 
 " Will it read though ?" said Richard, 
 smiling. 
 
 " I think it may. I have seen my wif- 
 have books lying about, almost as great non- 
 sense." 
 
 " You are a polite and pleasant person, 
 James, with a happy knack at compliment : 
 but I must have other literary judgments, 
 and less indulgent criticism than yours, of 
 my my MS. works.''' 
 
 " There is no saying what trash people 
 won't read nowadays, Dick : just try them. 
 But I would have you be at no expense for 
 printing. I would not promise you that they 
 don't find this I have not read it very fine ; 
 if you add a few nourishes about sunset, and 
 the sea ; and he sure you be bountiful enough, 
 and have a rogue of a lawyer. In a story 
 money costs nothing, and beauty still less : 
 and all the women look for them." 
 
 "You think the modern novelist's calling 
 something like the fortune-teller's?" 
 
 " Very like : handsome, gallant husbands, 
 exquisitely beautiful wives, and immense 
 riches ; that is the aim and end of all popular 
 novels." 
 
 " Then poor Mary Anne won't do ; she 
 had none of this dazzling beauty no for- 
 tune : and for a lover " 
 
 " Let me see," interrupted Mr James 
 Taylor ; and, snatching up the old ledger, he 
 read, as we have already done, 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR. 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 " * THERE was not a more respected family 
 in our court, nor a more contented and com- 
 fortable household, than that of old David 
 Moir, when I knew it first, among the two 
 hundred and fifty thousand families then 
 supposed to form the mighty aggregate of the 
 population of London. This honest man was 
 originally from North Britain, and either 
 a native of Aberdeen or Banft'shire ' 
 
 " You don't mean old Moir, the porter in 
 C s's bank ?" inquired the attorney. 
 
 "I do ; and his daughter, my own god- 
 daughter : poor little Mary Anne she is my 
 heroine." 
 
 " Don't risk paper and printing, Dick," 
 said Mr James Taylor emphatically, and
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 11 
 
 thumping the ledger down. " It would be 
 voted the vulgarest dull stuff ask Anne 
 An old bank porter in London, and his 
 daughter ! a most worthy man, no doubt ; 
 and she was a very nice little girl but 
 what to make a story of? Besides " 
 
 Richard would not hear what besides. 
 Like the Archbishop of Granada, wishing 
 his brother all manner of prosperity, he also 
 wished him a little more taste. But he was 
 more offended as a moralist and liberal 
 philosopher than as an author, of which he 
 had indeed never thought till this conversa- 
 tion occurred. 
 
 Much was added to the ledger, though no 
 one ever saw it after this. How it finally, 
 along with his Diary, has come into our hands, 
 must remain a secret. Its contents, which 
 are all that is important about it, we mean, 
 from time to time, to submit to the courteous 
 readers of THE EDINBURGH TALES, not, how- 
 ever, hazarding, as a beginning, the story of 
 Mary Anne's Hair, denounced by Mr James 
 Taylor from the lowliness of its heroine ; but 
 selecting, in its stead, " Young Mrs Roberts' 
 Three Christmas Dinners," as equally cha- 
 racteristic of Mr Richard Taylor, and more 
 congenial to this festive season. 
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THOUGH an old bachelor myself, I have 
 always had a fancy for visiting new-married 
 people. I cannot, however, pretend that I 
 have been able to approve of above half the 
 unions my young friends are pleased to form. 
 Yet I am so little of a Malthusian philosopher 
 as never to have been able to comprehend 
 how Jerry Jenkins is to be dissuaded from 
 intermarrying with his beloved Jenny Jones, 
 because their remote posterity may chance 
 to add an inconvenient fraction to the living 
 thirty millions of the British Isles, and pro- 
 bably become a burden, at some time or 
 other, on the parishes of De-Ia-mere-cum- 
 Diss. But whether I approved the marriage 
 or not, where I liked the parties, and the 
 deed was done, I have always found it plea- 
 sant to visit them, as soon as the first blush 
 of the affair was over, and the sober house- 
 hold-moon rising over, whether that of pure 
 honey, or of treacle and butter, I like to 
 look upon the first home, however humble, 
 in which the young bride has shrined so 
 many fond hopes ; and to witness the effects 
 of the heart-taught taste which has adorned 
 her bower in the brick-and-mortar wilderness. 
 Then there are to be seen the little tokens of 
 the affection and good- will of distant friends, 
 which surround her like tributes and trophies. 
 There is, too, the indescribable flutter of a 
 vanity, now first divided between her own 
 pretty person, decked in its bridal garniture, 
 and her pretty sofas and window curtains ; 
 both repressed by the matronly dignity of a 
 woman to whom belongs, of sole right, a 
 certain number of silver spoons, and china 
 cups and saucers, and the whole consolidated 
 
 by the awful responsibility of her who bears 
 three small keys of office upon a steel or silver 
 ring, and has a six inch account book, " to 
 chronicle small beer," locked in a new rose- 
 wood eighteen-inch writing desk, and who, 
 you see by her face, nobly resolves to do her 
 Duty, as becomes a married woman, who has 
 the responsibility of laying out money, and 
 of keeping house for herself and another, who 
 may never yet have taken her capacity for 
 domestic management into much account. 
 There may be, nay, there are, many giddy- 
 headed, shallow-hearted creatures, who feel 
 all the vanity, with none of the tremendous 
 responsibility of this condition. My business, 
 at present, is not with them. 
 
 It was my good fortune, in 1829, to pay 
 rny devoirs to three newly married women, 
 on one frosty October morning ; one of them 
 in humble life, the two others in what is 
 called the middle rank of society. Of these 
 marriages I had heartily approved one, 
 that of my friend Joseph Greene ; while I 
 was doubtful of Mr George Roberts' matri- 
 mony, and had openly disapproved, and, so 
 far as my advice went, opposed the wedding 
 of Sally Owen. This Welsh girl was edu- 
 cated in a public charity ; and, from ten 
 years old to eighteen, lived, first as an ap- 
 prentice, and then a voluntary servant, under 
 the same roof with myself, enjoying in her 
 early discipline the vigilant superintendence 
 of notable Nurse Wilks. From our abode 
 she went into a better, that is to say, a more 
 lucrative service ; but our house she considered 
 her home her rendezvous on her Sunday-out, 
 aiid in all seasons of trial and difficulty. 
 While with us, Sally was chiefly noticeable 
 as a well-tempered, industrious girl, who
 
 12 
 
 Tiii; : i:\ri;R!i:\<'Ks OK RICHARD TAYLOR, 
 
 cheerily scrubbed and dusted all day, and 
 sani,' like a lark, " Far beyond the Mountains" 
 and other Welsh airs. In her new service 
 she became more prudent and less girlish, 
 which increased my concern when she came 
 formally to announce her marriage. No 
 folly that girls like her can possibly commit 
 in the way of matrimony, will ever excite 
 my surprise. Her intended husband was 
 a boot-closer. He could make his couple 
 of guineas a-week, if he liked to keep steady ; 
 and needed never he out of employment, if he 
 chose to work. Ifs and buts spoil many a 
 good charter : and it proved so with Sally 
 Owen, who wept all night over my warnings 
 and Nurse Wilks' scolding prophecies, and 
 married in the morning in very tolerable 
 spirits. 
 
 This was all past by two months or more, 
 and I visited her tidy single room, not to 
 hear more of her husband's faults, but much 
 better pleased to listen to her shy praise of 
 his kindness and steadiness ; and that in one 
 week he had earned fifty shillings ! and 
 placed it in her hand. I hoped she would 
 take care of it, and so, with good wishes em- 
 bodying good advice, I left my compliments 
 for Mr Hardy, the extraordinary boot-closer, 
 who could work miracles when he liked ; 
 and placed my gift of Franklin's Life on a 
 little rack above Sally's drawers. 
 
 Joseph Greene was a member of the Society 
 of Friends. He was the eldest son of my old 
 friend, Joseph Greene the draper, to whose 
 long-established business he had lately suc- 
 ceeded. About the same time a courtship, 
 if such it might be called, of some three or 
 four years' duration, had been brought to a 
 close by Joseph marrying, with the full ap- 
 probation of all concerned, the eldest daughter 
 of a cloth manufacturer in Yorkshire, who, 
 I need not say, was a member of the same 
 Society. The fair Quaker, I found endowed 
 with a competent share of the comely and 
 intelligent looks which distinguish the fe- 
 males of her beneficent sect. I was pleased 
 with her manners, her conversation, her 
 comfortable and well-arranged abode ; pleased, 
 but not yet particularly interested, nor in the 
 least charmed. Perhaps, I was too late of 
 paying my marriage visit to this serenely 
 sensible person, who, for aught that I saw, 
 might have been married for seven years. 
 
 So far as human beings may dare to cal- 
 culate on the course of human events, it was 
 clear that this was to be a soberly happy 
 couple, and theirs a flourishing household, 
 established on the sure basis of prudence, 
 
 mutual esteem, rational affection, competence 
 of the means of a moderate life, perhaps a 
 little romantic love also, though for this last 
 I cannot swear ; but certainly with a deep 
 and holy sense of the duties and claims of 
 the condition upon which they had delibe- 
 rately entered, obtained by the discipline of 
 a life, and enforced by the customs of their 
 society, and the sanctions of their peculiar 
 institutions. Chance had thrown my third 
 Bride into the next door of the neat row of 
 new houses, one of which, while their house 
 was building, fonned the temporary abode of 
 Joseph and Rachel Greene. She was now 
 the two months' wife of Mr George Roberts, 
 my brother's confidential clerk, whom I had 
 known from a foolish boy, who had, indeed, 
 grown up with and among us. He was now 
 neither a fool nor a boy ; he was, instead, a 
 sensible and singularly acute fellow, above 
 thirty ; yet it had pleased him to fall in love, 
 in the previous month of July, with a very 
 pretty young woman, a governess in a school 
 at Hastings, to whom he had chanced to 
 carry a letter, and whom he had seen after- 
 wards at church, and met two or three times 
 during his sea-side sojourn. My brother and 
 his wife, to whom Roberts was more than an 
 ordinary attache, thought the thing a more 
 " foolish affair " than they might have done 
 some twenty years before ; but Roberts had 
 certainly a right to please himself, which 
 he did, by marrying at Michaelmas, and lay- 
 ing out his savings, and probably a little 
 more, in furnishing smartly the house next 
 door, as I have said, to Joseph Greene. He 
 insisted that I should come to see, he did not 
 exactly say to admire, his wife and his house ; 
 and I complied willingly. I had already 
 seen her at a party given by my sister, in 
 honour of " the foolish marriage." She was 
 a lively, and almost a handsome, black-eyed 
 girl, about twenty ; and if not what ladies 
 would allow to be fashionable-looking, she 
 was at least showy and dressy ; vain enough 
 quite, and occasionally affected in her man- 
 ners, though not yet wholly incrusted with 
 either the scurf sugar-work or worse frost- 
 work of an incurable affectation. Although 
 the assumed fine personage would rise, and 
 obtrusively come between one and the natural 
 woman, it was not yet difficult to doff the 
 shadow aside and come at the real substance. 
 Mrs George Roberts, like, I fear, ten thou- 
 sand others of my country-women, had mar- 
 ried with little more knowledge of the duties 
 of her new condition, than belonged to the 
 marriage dresses, the cake and cards, her
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 13 
 
 ring and its brilliant guard, at which she 
 glanced fifty times by the hour, her bracelets 
 and combs, and the other paraphernalia of 
 her rank and state. Yet there was occasion- 
 ally that about her, which did not bespeak a 
 woman to whom nature had denied either 
 heart or mind, and I hoped she had fallen 
 into tolerably good hands. 
 
 In those digital acquirements, named ac- 
 complishments, young Mrs Roberts was no 
 mean proficient. She also read French, and 
 a little Italian, and had a natural talent for 
 music, and, moreover, an ill-toned, brass- 
 mounted new cabinet piano~forte, which 
 formed the principal ornament of the small 
 drawing-room, into which I was ushered by 
 a fluttering girl in a wedding cap and top- 
 knot. It was a temple worthy of the god- 
 dess ; yet the general effect at this time, 
 while every thing w r ore the gloss and fresh- 
 ness of novelty, was airy, and, so to speak, 
 tasteful French, or Anglo-Gallican ; and I 
 suppressed the cynical idea, forced by an 
 involuntary comparison of this apartment 
 with Rachel Greene's roomy bed-chamber, on 
 the other side of the party- wall, and the 
 question, " How will all these flimsies look 
 two years hence, mistress included?" At 
 present all was glittering, if not golden ; and 
 " brightly blue " muslin draperies, coarse 
 gilding and lacker, and spider-limbed, crazy- 
 jointed chairs and sofas, painted and var- 
 nished in imitation of expensive woods, 
 made up the inventory, and all obtained 
 prodigious bargains ! 
 
 " As we can't afford to give many dinner- 
 parties, it don't much signify for the dining- 
 parlour," said George, with the prudent air 
 so becoming in a young husband. " And as 
 we have only a limited sum to lay out in 
 furniture, we have made any thing do for the 
 family-room down stairs, to have this one 
 nice for Maria's little parties." 
 
 " But where the deuce are you to sleep ? 
 This is your neighbour Greene's chamber 
 through the wall there. Is your house 
 larger ? " 
 
 " Self-same every way ; but the Greenes 
 have no drawing-room : there is a very good 
 small attic chamber What signifies where 
 people sleep ? " 
 
 " Then this is the show-room. It really 
 looks pretty to-day, umph." 
 
 " It was so good of Mr Roberts to leave 
 the decorating of this apartment to myself," 
 said the bride. " I so love a bright, delicate, 
 pale, but not too pale, blue." We all looked 
 round us admiringly at chairs, and squabs, 
 
 and pillows, all " beautifully, brightly blue," 
 and at the flowered muslin curtains, bordered 
 with blue, and at every thing fegtooned with 
 bunches of "bonny blue ribbons," even to 
 Maria's dark hair. On her varnished work- 
 table, with its blue silk-bag, were blue bell- 
 ropes, the twisting and twining of which 
 formed her present employment. On other 
 tables were volumes of neatly bound little 
 books, and vases of artificial flowers, and cards 
 of wedding guests ; and the chimney-piece was 
 profuse of " ladies' work," in its numerous 
 conceits and flimsy varieties. But the most 
 striking, and to me the most provoking part 
 of the details, was the small portable grate, 
 placed within a large bronzed and lackered 
 one, in which smouldered and smoked a few 
 small coal, contrasting dismally, on this chill, 
 lowering day, with the clear-burning fire and 
 cheerful fireside I had left in the next house. 
 I am not yet done with these details. Upon 
 the spider-legged work-table, which a puff of 
 air might have overturned, lay the lady's 
 cambric-laced pocket-handkerchief, bordered 
 by her nicely-clean French gloves, which had 
 been taken off, that she might prosecute the 
 bell-pull industry ; and on the handkerchief, 
 a very pretty purse made of gold and purple 
 twist, with a rich clasp and tassel ; half 
 sovereigns and sixpences glancing brightly 
 through, ready to start forth, prompt to do 
 the hests of the fair owner as long as they 
 lasted. I had no right nor wish to be sulty, 
 nor yet to anticipate evil. There was nothing 
 positively wrong, though there might be in- 
 dications of excess of right. There certainly 
 was nothing irreclaimable, nothing that a 
 year's tear and wear of life, with its attendant 
 experience, might not rectify. My friend 
 George was so evidently delighted and 
 charmed with his wife, his house, his domes- 
 tic happiness and good fortune, that I could 
 not be otherwise. I could also see that the 
 household virtues, with their concomitant 
 vices, were budding already in the thought- 
 ful heart of his bride. 
 
 I would have been content with something 
 quieter this morning than the lilac silk frock, 
 one of the principal bridal dresses, and my 
 brother's present, put on to do me honour ; 
 but then the motive was so good. Mrs Roberts 
 was already half aware that frugality was a 
 virtue, hence the bad fire and industry a duty, 
 hence the blue bell-roping, till the poor girl 
 was herself blue with cold. 
 
 " You have been calling for our neighbour, 
 Mrs Greene," said Roberts. 
 
 " Is she so very pretty? " inquired the lady.
 
 14 
 
 TI1K EXl'ElllKXCES OK RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 " Tlie Quaker ladies are all imagined so hand- 
 some ; that odd dress of theirs attracts atten- 
 tion to their faces, yet I ara sure it is not in 
 the least becoming." 
 
 "Not in the least, only convenient, and 
 comfortable as clothing. I wish their female 
 costume were more elegant. But I beg pardon. 
 My friend Joseph's wife is not very pretty. 
 She looks the mild, intelligent, amiable young 
 woman which I am certain she is. Her face 
 is very English, both in features, and in its 
 serene beauty of expression, the real, not 
 the beau-ideal, English beauty of modern 
 artists." 
 
 " The Quakers are not musical, I believe ?" 
 
 " No ? I am sorry they are not. I do not 
 mean exactly musical, that is now an odious 
 hackneyed phrase ; but that those whom 
 Nature has attuned to the harmonies of 
 sound, are not allowed to follow her bent. 
 There can be no true wisdom in obliterating 
 the gift of a fine ear, or a delicious voice, 
 because it may sometimes be abused. Rachel 
 Greene has a small bookcase in her chamber, 
 where your piano-forte stands. I should 
 like to see both where there is taste and 
 leisure." 
 
 " They seem to have very nice furniture 
 though ; very expensive furniture," rejoined 
 the lady. The subject had become of impor- 
 tance to the young housekeeper, with whom 
 sofas and tables were fairly dividing empire 
 with gowns and bonnets, and threatened to 
 subvert their reign. 
 
 " Perhaps the Quakers think dear things 
 cheapest. They have excellent, substantial, 
 and even handsome mahogany furniture in 
 sufficient quantity. This tasty little drawing- 
 room corresponds to their family chamber. 
 They have no flowery muslin draperies, 
 gilding or imitation work : black hair-cloth 
 chairs, and couches ; and window curtains, 
 and carpets of some warm colour and sub- 
 stantial fabric I cannot tell you what all 
 they have." 
 
 " And they have no best room," cried Mrs 
 Roberts, glancing round with triumph on her 
 arrangements. 
 
 " They have, and keep it for themselves," 
 cried George laughing. "That is so like 
 Broadbrim." 
 
 " I presume they may imagine themselves 
 best entitled to the use of their own house. 
 'Greatest-happiness principle,' hey George! 
 Sleep in a dog-hole all the year round, to have 
 a handsome apartment to receive one's plea- 
 sant idle friends, once a-month or so." 
 
 " One can't do without one apartment to 
 
 keep neat for company. Roberts insists on 
 making this our ordinary sitting-room ; but 
 as it is fitted up, that cannot prudently be." 
 
 I admired the emphasis, and did not despair 
 of Mrs Roberts yet comprehending the true 
 import of the word graced with it. Another 
 trifling incident I noted. Rachel Greene had 
 herself taken from her small sideboard the 
 glasses and bright silver salver required when 
 the refreshment of cake and a glass of wine 
 was offered me. She had but one servant- 
 girl, who had come up with her from York- 
 shire. Maria Roberts had exactly the same 
 complement of domestic help ; but the tem- 
 porary bell-pull gave way, in sounding the 
 alarum to the kitchen for the supply of our 
 wants, and considerable bustle, misunderstand- 
 ing, and delay occurred, before the gaudy 
 japan equipage was forthcoming. When I 
 took leave, Roberts told me laughingly, that 
 I must come often to lecture his wife. I had 
 a foreboding that the lectures might be re- 
 quired sooner than he anticipated. The 
 question with me was, did Mrs Roberts seem 
 a woman likely to profit by elder experience 
 in league with her own ; and as I saw no 
 reason to despair of her, but in her energy, 
 activity, and liveliness quite the reverse, 1 
 frequently repeated my visits, and always 
 found her busily employed in one useless 
 way or another. 
 
 The first grand marriage-d inner followed 
 close on the completion of the fittings-up, the 
 covering of the ottoman with blue, and the 
 suspension of the blue bell-ropes. I could 
 not resist it. My brother's wife, with pru- 
 dent consideration of a very small house, 
 took only one daughter to represent the five 
 who were to appear at tea. Mrs Roberts 
 had spared neither time, nor thought, nor 
 labour. She had given her orders with spirit ; 
 and freely drawn upon the thrice-replenished 
 gold and purple purse. The result was, 
 every thing considered, and fair allowance 
 made, a very gcidcel entertainment. True, 
 we were sadly crowded : many things were 
 forgotten, several lacked of the thousand-and- 
 one requisites necessary to English stylish 
 dinners ; and there occurred numerous 
 casualties. Several compulsory levies were 
 made during dinner on the glass and plate 
 stores of Rachel Greene. But, on the whole, 
 though the thing did not work so well, where 
 hired cook, hired footman, hired charwoman, 
 hired every thing, were strange and awkward, 
 as where there is a well-drilled establishment, 
 we got through the day, without affording 
 materials to Theodore Hook for a piquant
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 15 
 
 chapter ou boxirgeois pretension ; leaving on 
 the field of action three imitation rosewood 
 chairs dislocated, and two broken, many stains 
 on the bright-blue furniture, compelled for 
 the day to do parlour duty, with a large lot 
 of cracked china and glass, and several plated 
 forks reported missing. 
 
 " What's the good of Roberts giving such 
 expensive fine dinners ? " said my ungrateful 
 In-other, (who had praised the venison to the 
 skies, and been helped twice,) as we drove 
 home. " His wife is but a child, poor thing, 
 but he should have more sense. I must tell 
 Master George this won't do." 
 
 My sister made her ordinary good-natured 
 excuses. "It was the first entertainment 
 a marriage dinner ; people must be like their 
 neighbours." 
 
 " Well, well ; all very good, Anne ; but 
 we shall see." What selfish suspicious 
 wretches prudent men in business are ! 
 James was already thinking of another clerk. 
 
 On my future calls upon Mrs George 
 Roberts, I found her always at work, busily 
 employed, as if for daily bread, in embroider- 
 ing caps and habit shirts, or altering and 
 repairing her own dresses. One day in the 
 end of March, as I find by my diary, I visited 
 Mrs Roberts, after having called upon her 
 neighbour, Rachel Greene. Indeed, I never 
 \vent to see the one lady withont calling for 
 the other. Both appeared alike anxious to 
 fulfil their duties ; both were economical 
 and industrious ; but with how different an 
 understanding of the domestic virtues ! Maria 
 Roberts was, beyond all doubt, the most 
 laborious of these fair neighbours. By 
 twelve o'clock, or earlier, any day that I 
 called, I found Rachel, all the arrangements 
 completed that took her to the kitchen, seated 
 in her parlour with her plain work. All her 
 work I found was what women called plain 
 ivorJc ; making or repairing useful garments 
 often of very ugly shapes without seem- 
 ing to consider that one kind of useful seam 
 had greater pretensions to gentility or ele- 
 gance than another. Her work was very 
 often neighboured by a book ; for, as she 
 modestly told me, this year she had more 
 reading leisure than she could in future look 
 to have. At a regular hour she went abroad 
 for her accustomed exercise, and generally 
 brought home my friend Joseph to an early 
 and comfortable dinner. 
 
 " How I envy my neighbour her walking 
 and reading leisure ! " said Maria, with whom 
 I was now so intimate that she. pursued her 
 ungenteel work in my presence. " She looks 
 
 always as if she had nothing to do nothing 
 to trouble her." The placid pair were pass- 
 ing, arm in arm, into their dwelling, accom- 
 panied by an elderly friend from the country, 
 who had come on chance to share their family 
 dinner. 
 
 " Why don't you make leisure ? what 
 are you always doing ? Your family is 
 exactly the size of Mrs Greene's ; your 
 labours less in one way, for Rachel is a 
 martinet about her house and furniture. She 
 is making her new tables all looking-glasses. 
 You tell me you have given up parties 
 what are you always doing ? " 
 
 " Doing ! Mr Richard Taylor ; I wish you 
 knew the half of it : but gentlemen never do 
 understand ladies' work. I wish school-girls 
 only knew what married life is, with a 
 small income, (a sigh.} I have not opened 
 my instrument these six weeks ; I have not 
 looked into a book ; indeed, I have given up 
 the newspaper, it was so expensive, and such 
 a waste of time, as Robert's sees it at his 
 chambers. It is always sew, sew, sewing, as 
 you see ; but I don't repine at this. It is 
 necessary that I should be industrious, and 
 I rather like it." And she pinched, plaited, 
 and held off, at arm's length, some part of 
 the lilac silk dress which she was adapting 
 to a new spring fashion, the garment having 
 the misfortune to have been made in the 
 extreme mode of the last October. I could 
 perceive it was a tough job, and one which 
 required both patience and affection for the 
 work. 
 
 The flirtish form to coarse materials lent, 
 And one poor robe through fifty fashions sent. 
 
 How much of female time is consumed in 
 this wretched way : time, valuable for health, 
 for knowledge, for social enjoyment, for really 
 productive labour, is thus wasted ! 
 
 " Maria, when we obtain that nicely ba- 
 lanced constitution of King, Ladies, and 
 Commons, of which we have so often talked, 
 I hope Rachel Greene, representative of the 
 women of this district, will bring in a bill, 
 decreeing that when a dress is once made in 
 the proper form, there it shall remain till 
 worn, out, or, at least, till it require to be 
 turned. I will have no remodelling, no 
 adaptations to new style. How many morn- 
 ings will this piece of gear cost you now 1 " 
 
 " Mornings ! ay and evenings, Mr Taylor, 
 four or five at the least, I assure you ! 
 If I have it finished before Easter Sunday, it 
 is all I expect : " and she again turned it 
 over, and plaited away. 
 
 " Fit preparation for that festival ! Let us
 
 16' 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 count the cost. Four or five long delightful 
 walks in these bracing, invigorating, sprinir 
 mornings, exhilarating to health and spirits 
 even in London streets. A great many hours 
 of pleasant, useful, or serious reading ; stor- 
 ing knowledge for future days ; ay, and 
 several long evenings, in which you might 
 have indulged your own taste and that of 
 your friends, with some very good music, 
 which you can give them when you like 
 no lady better." 
 
 " It'is hard ! " (a sigh} " But you know 
 I work from principle from a sense of duty. 
 I can't afford to pay a dressmaker." 
 
 " Fashion anew a lilac silk gown from 
 principle ! Umph ! " 
 
 " From a principle of economy, Mr Rich- 
 ard ! "{peevishly}" What can I do? I 
 brought Roberts no fortune I must be in- 
 dustrious ; " and the needle flew, while the 
 colour rose. How could I be displeased ? I 
 blamed my own severity, and gave her virtue 
 the praise it merited ; for here was the virtue 
 of industry, however unenlightened and mis- 
 directed. 
 
 " Your good opinion, I am sure, is very 
 flattering to me, Mr Roberts has told me so 
 much good of you ; and I am so strange here 
 and inexperienced, that I am most grateful 
 for your advice. I have been so much bene- 
 fited by your conversation and knowledge 
 already. It was you first gave me the motive 
 to industry, by showing me how expensive 
 every thing is in London." 
 
 " I am afraid I have blundered exceed- 
 ingly, or else my patient has misunderstood 
 my directions. If this sort of work must be 
 done, it would, in my opinion, be better 
 economy, better sense, better every thing, to 
 pay for it ten times over, than ruin your 
 health, waste your spirits, and sacrifice the 
 comforts of your domestic arrangements in 
 this way." Her colour rose yet higher, as 
 we both looked round the somewhat littered 
 parlour, in which Mr Roberts was in a short 
 time expected to dinner. 
 
 My remonstrances were not yet of any 
 effect. My young friend was acquiring a 
 young housewife's passion for work. She 
 was what the women call neat-handed. She 
 was inventive, ingenious, and loved to be 
 fashionably dressed ; and her whole time was 
 accordingly spent in fabricating ornaments 
 for her own person or her house. Hannah 
 More speaks somewhere of six weeks of the 
 precious time of an immortal creature being- 
 spent in embroidering a child's cap. She 
 should have said not by a poor creature 
 
 who, to sustain the life of her own infant, must 
 labour thus to decorate the child of some 
 more fortunate woman, but by ladies com- 
 manding money as well as leisure. If Mrs 
 Roberts took not above a month to her 
 christening-cap, it was because she was a 
 very deft, and indefatigible needle-woman. 
 Hardly was she earning the praise bestowed 
 upon her by the good-natured of her own 
 sex, of being a remarkably genteel, nicely- 
 dressed young woman, and so excellent an 
 economist ! The ill-natured sneered at the 
 foolish attempt of a person, such as she, 
 striving to appear like one of thrice her for- 
 tune ; and they perhaps were in the right. 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 DUTY. 
 
 I have often been amused by the meaning 
 women attach to particular words, and 
 among others, to the stern word Duiy^ that 
 principle by which the stars are kept from 
 " going wrong," and households from being 
 converted into dens of dirt and discomfort. 
 One morning, on my way to Roberts' house, 
 I called upon one of my numerous dowager 
 acquaintances, to pay my respects to a niece 
 of a certain age then with her on a visit. I 
 pretend to some skill in female works, for 
 which, with my learned friends, I plead the 
 example of Rousseau. When I had satisfied 
 myself, or at least the lady, about the aston- 
 ishing progress made by her pupils in the 
 country, to whom my sister Anne had re- 
 commended her, I examined and admired her 
 work. 
 
 "And such industry, Mr Richard!" cried 
 the aunt. " In the ten days she has been 
 here, she has done as much as will trim five ! 
 and yet we go about all day." 
 
 " My dear aunt," cried the younger lady, 
 bridling, yet with a modest blushing dis- 
 claimer of all superhuman virtue, " I am only 
 doing my DUTY." 
 
 The ditty was twisting tape into a xh:-zng 
 form, to make a railing for the bottom of her 
 five new petticoats. 
 
 When I walked to Rachel Greene's, I met 
 her at the door, going out to visit the Infant 
 School she had assisted to organize in this 
 neighbourhood, and which she anxiously and 
 unostentatiously superintended. She invited 
 me to accompany her ; and I asked permis- 
 sion to take young Mrs Roberts. I wished 
 much that these neighbours were better friends. 
 " Certainly," said Rachel cheerfully ; " these 
 visits will soon form to her, as they already
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 17 
 
 do to me, a delightful DUTY. I have of late 
 taken a great fancy to watch children. I 
 wish Friend Roberts and I were better neigh- 
 bours. I used to love to hear her through 
 the party- wall singing her hymns and psalms; 
 but I think she has given that up." Here 
 was unexpected liberality. Perhaps Maria's 
 music might be only Italian melodies or opera 
 songs ; but I was not going to tell that to 
 Rachel. Maria could not accompany us ; 
 she regretted it sincerely ; " but all this must 
 be done before dinner." She was making up 
 a head-dress for an evening party to save 
 money " You would not have me desert 
 my duty ? " 
 
 " Certainly not ; but think beforehand I 
 would have you, of the kind of duties you 
 lay upon yourself." Maria watched our 
 return, and tapped on the window as soon as 
 I had left my fair friend within doors. " 0, 
 that sweet, serene Rachel Greene," she cried, 
 half laughing ; " how I do envy her !" 
 
 " Had you seen her in the last hour you 
 might." 
 
 "Nay, I shall be jealous too. Roberts 
 gets as bad as yourself ; we shall have green- 
 eyed monsters among us I can tell you, if 
 we cannot be more Greene." 
 
 " Why not be as Greene as is desirable." 
 
 " Is it the soft vernal grass, or bright apple, 
 or brilliant emerald green you would have 
 me ? Really, Mr Richard, you would not wish 
 me to turn Quaker ?" 
 
 " Clearly not, unless your reason and con- 
 science bid you : I don't intend to turn 
 Quaker myself, but I would like to see you 
 turn a Rational, for which I am sure nature 
 intended you, Maria ; and from the Friends 
 you may obtain excellent hints. With what 
 you call your limited income, how much 
 comfort and leisure a Quaker family could 
 command ; but how much more enjoyment 
 could you command with your accomplish- 
 ments and taste." There was, with me, one 
 decided superiority which Maria held over 
 my friend Rachel. Her different mode of 
 education, and scope of reading and lively 
 fancy, made her understand all my allusions, 
 whether playful or sarcastic. This had at 
 once established a certain intelligence and 
 sympathy between us, even when we quar- 
 relled. But if Rachel did not always per- 
 ceive the point of my illustrations, Maria was 
 far more backward in apprehending the force 
 of my reasoning, when directed against her 
 own notions and practices. It was in vain 
 that I strove to convince her that the house- 
 hold god she had set uu under the name of 
 VOL, I. 
 
 Duty, was an ugly misshapen idol, blubber- 
 lipped and with squinting eyes, consuming 
 the time and wealth of its votaries in the 
 besotted rites of a stupid and blinded idola- 
 try. In vain I talked to her of the slavery 
 to which she was hourly condemning her- 
 self. She could not yet renounce her idol- 
 worship. 
 
 " I wish we were as rich as the Greenes, 
 Mr Richard," said she, "and then I should 
 be so happy to visit your Infant School, 
 or walk, or read, or be social : but at pre- 
 sent " 
 
 " Why, at present you spend more money 
 than Rachel Greene." 
 
 " You don't say so ! This last to be sure 
 has been a dreadfully extravagant year ; the 
 outset always must ; and that shockingly 
 expensive dinner ! " 
 
 " I can at once tell you what Rachel 
 Greene's housekeeping cost in the last twelve 
 months." 
 
 " Does she talk to you of her family affairs ? 
 I thought that had been indelicate, improper, 
 in money concerns." 
 
 " So English people in general seem to 
 think. Money is the only thing of which 
 they must not speak, because they are eter- 
 nally thinking of it, because it occupies their 
 whole souls, and because, poor creatures ! 
 they really feel it a disgrace and crime not 
 to have a very great deal of filthy lucre or 
 what is thought a great deal for them. Why 
 else may not people talk with as much can- 
 dour and frankness about their incomes as 
 they do about their children, or any thing 
 else nearly pertaining to them." 
 
 " Family matters ! Mr Richard ? " 
 
 " Ay, family matters is the word. Be 
 assured, Maria, it is either selfishness, insin- 
 cerity, or coldness, that prevents/am^ matters 
 from being the topic most frequently talked 
 over of all matters between time friends. These 
 are interests, which, above all others, * come 
 home to women's business and bosoms.' " (A 
 long deep sigh followed by a pause.} 
 
 " I believe that, Mr Richard : but you per- 
 ceive how the world goes " 
 
 " The world of England ? " 
 
 " All one sees, hears, or reads, forbids the 
 sort of frankness, and the notions you hold. 
 No one writes a book on education, on domes- 
 tic morals, on household economy, or even on 
 cookery, but what is adapted to wealthy 
 persons, Miss Edge worth and Rousseau in- 
 cluded. Their systems are all concocted for 
 people worth at least 500 a-year : and they 
 require much more." 
 
 No. 2.
 
 18 
 
 Till: EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 " I wish we had better elementary or guide- 
 books, Maria. Your remark is acute, and 
 far more just than many that are made by 
 the critics on these works. HANNAH MORE 
 was an honest woman, when she said Hints 
 for the Education of a young Princess, limiting 
 her book to one individual. All works on 
 education hitherto published, ought, in com- 
 mon honesty, to be entitled, Treatises for 
 Training the children of the Kick : or Books of 
 counsel for the Wealthy. We have no sys- 
 tems for the Many but still we have our ' old 
 experience ' " 
 
 " To what does it attain in my case, sir ? " 
 My young friend smiled upon me with so 
 much sweet earnestness, that I could not 
 help vowing my best efforts to aid in solving 
 her difficulty. 
 
 " With given data to something like abso- 
 lute certainty, Maria. For example, how 
 much domestic comfort of the extrinsic kind, 
 a family of three or four persons in London 
 may secure for 200 a-year. Or take any- 
 British or Irish town, and vary our estimates 
 from 15 to 25 per cent. You won't live 25 
 per cent cheaper in Kerry or Shetland than 
 in London, believe me, Maria nor in any 
 Continental town I ever knew ; though you 
 may vary your style of living, you may 
 retrench. If London is not a cheap place, 
 to those who wish to make it so, then is the 
 division of labour a mockery, cheap carriage 
 and the principle of competition all humbug. 
 But London is a cheap place, cheaper than 
 Boulogne, or the Norman Islands, if you 
 please to exercise your understanding aright, 
 and exorcise, cast out, the Demon Fashion, 
 and the Imp Style." 
 
 " To return to the data, Mr Richard," said 
 my fair friend. She really stuck better to a 
 text than most women. 
 
 " The data, madam, in the present case, is 
 197, 15s. 8^d. I found it in Rachel Greene's 
 little book." 
 
 " Sordid creatures ! " exclaimed Mrs Ro- 
 . berts, " with an income like theirs to spend 
 so little ! For what do they hoard ? " 
 
 " You are unjust, Maria. You take their 
 highest rate of income. So do all enterprising 
 gentlemen who afterwards grace the bankrupt 
 list. My friend Joseph Greene's income, 
 unlike my friend Mr Roberts', is fluctuating. 
 This year his profits may be .500 ; next 
 year 1 50, or less. Bad times have come on 
 all retail dealers, and threaten to continue. 
 His father made much more money in the 
 same trade and shop. Now, Joseph and his 
 wife in their honeymoon " 
 
 " A Quaker honeymoon ! " cried Maria, in 
 scornful mirth. " Fancy a pair of Quaker 
 turtles ! " (a scornful hollow laugh.) 
 
 " Call it what you will, Mrs Roberts ; it 
 was the time of the first sensible, prudent, 
 affectionate, and confidential talk between 
 my friends, Joseph and Rachel Greene, by 
 their own fireside, in the first month of their 
 marriage : then and there they struck the 
 average of the profits of our friend Joseph's 
 trade, and resolved that 200 a-year was all 
 that could at present be reasonably afforded 
 for household expenses." 
 
 " Sordid ! " again exclaimed Maria. 
 
 "Far from it. The only circumstance I 
 ever heard Rachel Greene regret and she 
 speaks most frankly of her means of life, not 
 considering that there is any difference be- 
 tween 50 a-year and 50,000, where each 
 is the sole product of honest industry and 
 diligence is, that she cannot know exactly 
 at the end of each year how much is over 
 to be laid up, as she said, ' where moth and rust 
 cannot corrupt, nor thieves break through.' 
 She already guesses, I suspect, that our friend 
 Joseph admires a different kind of invest- 
 ment. All her own savings, I know, she 
 devotes to deeds of benevolence. Her heart, 
 like the hearts of most women, is naturally 
 compassionate. She even gives to common 
 beggars, and forgets the far-seeing wisdom of 
 her sect, and of the political economists. One 
 day I checked her. 'Alas ! 'was her reply, 
 ' that poor old man's pale, emaciated face tells 
 me a true stoiy. Shall not we women apply 
 the lenitive, till you philosophers cure the dis- 
 temper : because that poor man may perhaps 
 be so far an impostor, shall I harden my 
 heart against my fellow-creature my fel- 
 low-immortal? Him who, as a Christian I 
 am bound to hope, will share the joys of 
 heaven with me, shall I withhold from him 
 my wretched pittance on earth ? Is this to 
 do the will of Him who maketh his sun to 
 shine and his rain to descend, alike upon the 
 just and the unjust ? ' " 
 
 " Amiable woman ! I was base to doubt 
 her worth," cried my young friend, in whose 
 eyes tears had gathered. " How shall I re- 
 semble her? Where learn like her to know 
 and do my duty ? " 
 
 However unfit I may be to give counsel, I 
 am not the man to hear such an appeal with 
 indifference. 
 
 " I have been surprised," I continued, " to 
 find how nearly Friend Rachel hit the mark 
 in her expenditure. But she would not spend 
 more did not wish to spend much less. She
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 19 
 
 has an excellent idea of the prices and values 
 of all ordinary commodities, and of how much 
 of every thing is required in a family of a 
 certain number ; and this knowledge she 
 possesses along with the domestic discipline, 
 frugality, and good management, which the 
 uniform, regular habits of the Quakers, and 
 of many quiet English families, give their 
 women, as it were, by hereditary right." 
 
 " Management ! " Maria's ear mechanically 
 caught the word. " Can you explain to me 
 Mrs Greene's system ? " 
 
 " I cannot probably it is not what you 
 would call a system. 
 
 A few good instincts, and a few plain rules, 
 Maria, derived from her Yorkshire grand- 
 dames. ' Economy, ' says Johnson, no 
 economist himself, 'is a very nice thing 
 one man's coat wears out much sooner than 
 another's.' Neatness, regularity above all, 
 order, and the absence of every sort of pre- 
 tension, must be essential to her system. I 
 believe that young housekeepers often fail 
 from want of knowledge of the principles of 
 arithmetic." 
 
 " Of ciphering, Mr Richard ? Nay, I can 
 challenge the whole Quaker and housekeep- 
 ing world there ! I got three prizes at school 
 for ciphering." 
 
 " But can you apply your knowledge, fair 
 lady? Can you tell me in a moment how 
 much a young couple, whose annual income 
 is under 300 a-year call it for safety 270 
 may afford to expend on one dinner? 
 Come, now, by any rule you please? Experience 
 Practice is best I mean without forestal- 
 ling their income, an increase of their family 
 rendering a certain enlargement of expendi- 
 ture necessary." Poor Maria fluttered and 
 coloured, tears again gathering to her eyes. I 
 cannot say whether management or maternity 
 now preponderated in her heart. 
 
 " I cannot yet tell ; but I fear not so much 
 as this." She had unlocked the little desk, 
 and taken out the book so thumbed and 
 studied, and so mysterious in the frightful 
 totals which it cast up out of nothing. To 
 me the amount was at least not astonishing, 
 as I was quite aware to what an enormous 
 expense her absurdly extravagant Christmas 
 Dinner must have come ; the soups, the 
 fish, the game, the jellies, the creams, the 
 dessert, the wines, the hundred-and-one in- 
 cidental charges, which any woman less clever 
 and anxious to probe to the bottom of the 
 evil would have overlooked or slurred over ; 
 but which here stood in a formidable array 
 of figures. Plunder ought to have formed a 
 
 considerable item, I dare say ; but it was not 
 entered under this head. It is always for- 
 tunate to make a good smashing loss at once, 
 which may startle one, and put one on one's 
 guard. " 18, 5s. 3d. ; well, I don't think 
 that so far out of the way, considering the 
 good style in which the thing was done. Some 
 things appear very reasonable, other items 
 extravagant enough. A monstrous quantity 
 of Epping butter ; but good cookery requires 
 good oiling ; nothing in the world goes sweetly 
 at first without it." 
 
 " And we gave a very nice, genteel even- 
 ing party with the left things ham, cakes, 
 jellies, and other things." 
 
 " And that is a per contra" 
 
 " Oh ! Mr Richard, a per contra to this 
 abominable bill! No, no! I am grieved 
 and ashamed to look at it. How useful to 
 me were half that money at present to get 
 decencies and necessary comforts : no wonder 
 Roberts says I cannot manage." This was 
 unlooked-for humility. " I dare say Mrs 
 Greene would have given half-a-dozen dinners 
 with that money ? " 
 
 " Probably a whole dozen, Maria, all good 
 of their kind, too ; but then the party would 
 have been small, in conformity to the house, 
 the attendants, the income, the number of 
 real friends, to economy, good sense, and true 
 social enjoyment." 
 
 " I see it all, Mr Richard ; Roberts was 
 right in saying I can manage no more than 
 a baby no more than a baby ! Think 
 of that, sir ; you who have seen how I have 
 laboured for eight months out of the twelve 
 I have been here, injuring my health, as you 
 have told me often, and spending almost 
 nothing upon myself : to be sure, I was 
 fully equipped last year. I declare, when I 
 have been chilled to death, tortured with 
 chilblains, and threatened with rheumatism, 
 I have denied myself a shovel of coals in my 
 chamber, to economize ; while Mrs Greene 
 has a good fire every cold evening, and her 
 chamber so much more comfortable than 
 mine, as they have no drawing-room ; but 
 let the Quaker ladies alone for taking care of 
 themselves." 
 
 " To how much does almost nothing come, 
 Maria ? " was my rejoinder. " You must 
 forgive my freedom, since you invite my 
 counsel. Let us see." The little book was 
 again produced. I was aware of one irresis- 
 tible French summer bonnet and scarf, and an 
 indispensable autumn evening shawl ; but as 
 it turned out, there were fifty other trifles, bits 
 of lace, and joining lace, morsels of ribbon,
 
 20 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 scraps of gauze, gloves, shoes, &c. &c. that 
 came, when summed up, to above 8. Maria 
 was in astonishment. Her dexterous cipher- 
 ing had never suggested any thing like this. 
 " What you say of my friend Rachel's ex- 
 travagance in fire and comfort, is quite like 
 her good sense. She keeps possession of her 
 own house for her own self ; lives to her own 
 feelings, her own conscience, even to her own 
 comfortable bodily sensations, rather than to 
 idle people's eyes, or to fashion and vanity ; 
 and is she not right ? " 
 
 " That Mrs Pantague almost made me buy 
 that bonnet and scarf, one day that she did 
 me the honour to introduce me to her own 
 milliner. I know it was wrong, too, to pur- 
 chase French things. We should encourage 
 the lace-makers and embroideresses of our 
 own country." 
 
 I smiled involuntarily. " Now," she con- 
 tinued, " the Quaker ladies give no encourage- 
 ment to the industry of their own sex. They 
 wear no lace, embroidery, or fancy articles. 
 And, surely it is right for women to encourage 
 the industry of their own sex ; and all ladies, 
 you say, have a right to buy whatever they 
 like and can afford." 
 
 " Which conscience and understanding ap- 
 prove : clearly, Maria." 
 
 " Now, were we all to turn Quakers, the 
 whole factory-women would be thrown idle, 
 with all the lace-workers." 
 
 " Not idle ; only differently, and, I am sure, 
 better employed, in their own households, as 
 daughters, wives, and mothers, for such ra- 
 tional length of time daily, as neither trenched 
 on health nor enjoyment, and the mental cul- 
 ture, without which the condition of the hu- 
 man being, even with lace and embroidery, 
 is but little above that of the beast that 
 perishes. You blame the Quaker ladies for 
 not buying lace and embroidery ; do you know 
 any thing of the state of the poor women en- 
 gaged in that manufacture, or in what you 
 term fancy articles, married as well as single 
 women ? " 
 
 " Not much ; only I know they work 
 amazingly cheaply: so cheaply, that if I 
 were as rich as Mrs Greene, I would always 
 buy, never make. That thing, as like an 
 ungallant gentleman, you term my beautiful 
 canezou, has cost me six weeks' labour ; and 
 I could buy it in a cheap shop in the city for 
 1, 2s." 
 
 " And certainly not the half of that sum 
 went to the poor creature, who sat bundled 
 up fourteen or sixteen hours a-day, poking 
 her eyes out working it, earning from 6d. to 
 
 8d. daily. Have you ever had an opportunity 
 of visiting the cottagesor town-dwellings of the 
 lace-workers in Buckinghamshire, Notting- 
 hamshire, or Northampton county ? always 
 abodes of discomfort and penury, often of 
 actual starvation where the natural order 
 of things is very frequently inverted, the 
 husband arranging the house, that the hands 
 of the sickly, slatternly wife, may not be 
 rendered unfit for the delicate employment 
 on which her children's bread depends. 
 
 The free maids that weave their lace with hones, 
 are among the most miserable of the slaves 
 of civilisation ; and its chains press upon 
 and gall us every one, the rich as well as the 
 poor. But let me not say civilisation it is 
 fashion, vanity, madness, I really mean. 
 Society cannot be too highly civilized. I 
 would see it rise to far higher enjoyments 
 among its Marias, than this everlasting orna- 
 menting, and needle and scissor work." 
 
 My young friend took up a book, with an 
 arch glance at me. " This is a favourite 
 writer with you, sir. What says he ' I 
 love ornament : all nature is full of it.' " 
 
 "And so do I, love the ornament with 
 which all nature is full : its colours, odours, 
 forms ; all its exquisite beauty, intricate or 
 palpable, universal or minute cannot be 
 enough admired and glorified. Flowers, ' the 
 stars of earth ;' stars, ' the poetry of heaven ;' 
 these are the ornaments I love and for this, 
 among a million reasons, that their beauty is 
 immutable, unchanging. The rose has been 
 the * red red rose,' with the same rich foliage, 
 since it first blossomed in Eden. The pale 
 lily has risen on the self-same graceful stem 
 since the general Mother 'fairest of her 
 daughters,' first bent her dewy eyes upon 
 that flower of Paradise. So when you quote 
 Leigh Hunt against me, Maria, in favour of 
 changeful fashions, as well as profuse orna- 
 ment, you must quote in the spirit. If the 
 rose chose to prank herself every season in 
 new garniture, and sported yellow flowers 
 with blue leaves, this year, and brown with 
 white the next, I should tire even of her ; if 
 the lily forsook her slender stem and changed 
 her pearly white tint her Naiad-like beauty 
 to flaunt in crimson, with glossy leaves, I 
 would be for instantly deposing her as the 
 Queen of Flowers: yea, if Jupiter himself 
 
 The star of Jove, so beautiful and large, 
 chose to astonish the nations by rising to- 
 night, angular in shape, with a deep, sapphire 
 radiance, and to-morrow in flame-coloured 
 taffeta, I would vote him a huge bore and 
 any thing but an ornament to the heavens.
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 21 
 
 The analogy between the ornament of which 
 all nature is full, and the perpetually-chang- 
 ing, gaudy, inappropriate artificial ornaments 
 of vanity and fashion, does not in the least 
 hold, or rather it makes for me." 
 
 " Then you would not discard all beautiful, 
 all magnificent things, nor even our pretty 
 decorations?" 
 
 " Certainly I would not, only ugly trum- 
 pery, useless trash, to which you make your- 
 selves slaves." 
 
 " Lace, for example, that exquisite fabric 
 which Rousseau admired so much?" 
 
 " The Man of Nature was in many things 
 a very sophisticated, artificial personage, 
 Maria, almost a coxcomb. I have no ob- 
 jection to your lace, and delicate needlework ; 
 though, in my Arcadia my ideal republic 
 the beauty, health, and spirits of one order 
 of the women shall never be sacrificed, that 
 another may wear a thing about her face 
 which Rachel Greene looks very pretty with- 
 out, and Maria Roberts also." 
 
 " A compliment by implication ! I shall 
 value it were it but for the rarity," said niy 
 laughing companion. " Well, though our 
 caps and veils cost something, pink bows and 
 brides included, the Quaker ladies don't dress, 
 clothe themselves, I beg pardon for no- 
 thing. In the quality and fineness of the 
 material, they are perfect exquisites" 
 
 " A consequence of really enlightened eco- 
 nomy. Mrs Greene seriously asked me one 
 day if I could, in this part of London, recom- 
 mend her to a dear shop. Persons with whom 
 a fashion lasts till a garment wears out, show 
 good sense in making it of such materials as 
 are worth bestowing labour upon. But let 
 us reckon now, Maria, the real difference of 
 money-cost between your lace English cap, 
 and Rachel's snug Quaker one ; or, say, 
 between it and the tasteful veil of thin 
 muslin, the becoming head-dress of a Genoese 
 girl." 
 
 "I presume the Genoese head -gear like 
 the Quakers (like, and yet how unlike !) 
 may cost 2s. or 3s. ; mine, my own labour, 
 brides and bows included, at least 25s. ; so 
 there is a clear 21s. or more for Rachel 
 Greene to hoard, which I distribute in en- 
 couraging manufactures, you perceive, sir." 
 
 " To spend on her Infant School, as like, 
 Maria ; or very probably in fuel or flannel 
 petticoats for the poor creatures who have 
 become sickly, and prematurely old, spending 
 their life in fabricating ornaments for more 
 fortunate women." 
 
 Maria sighed at this view of the question. 
 
 " I do envy the rich, and the Friends, their 
 means of benerolcnce." 
 
 " Don't be content with envying attain ; 
 go to the fountain-head. The means of en- 
 lightened benevolence are in every one's 
 power. Begin with my amiable young friend, 
 Maria Roberts ; emancipate her, in the first 
 place, from her profitless, thankless toils, and 
 this will be one great good gained." 
 
 "If the world would only come to your 
 way of thinking, Mr Richard : the first edict, 
 I assure you of your King, Ladies, and Com- 
 mons, which commands more rational con- 
 duct " 
 
 " Unfortunately edicts won't do it." There 
 was consequently no more to be said. What 
 Maria called the world was still too strong 
 for her. She was more and more its reluc- 
 tant and repining slave ; but not the less 
 fettered that her very restiveness made the 
 chain gall and fester. 
 
 Before I saw Mrs Roberts again, she had 
 suffered from a severe rheumatic fever, pro- 
 duced by the cold sifting airs of her attic 
 chamber ; and by imagining that it was ab- 
 solutely necessary to have furs to wear abroad, 
 while flannel and fleecy hosiery might be 
 dispensed with, not being visible, which, by 
 the by, seems the practical belief of two-thirds 
 of the female world, where both cannot be 
 obtained. 
 
 Towards the end of the year tradesmen's 
 bills, of all sorts and sizes, came tumbling 
 in. Every new bill was a fresh surprise ; 
 yet their items were like housemaids' news- 
 paper characters, undeniable. Maria studied, 
 and summed and filed, but could not cipher 
 away the startling amount ; and now mis- 
 taking the reverse of wrong for right, as far 
 astray as ever, and more offensively so, the 
 small coal was meted out by scuttlefuls, the 
 salt by cupfuls, she counted the candle ends, 
 and reckoned the potatoes. The small joint 
 was charred for want of fire and Epping 
 moisture, the pie-crust smelt of rancid kit- 
 chen stuff. Roberts, in an angry fit, vowed 
 that he would dine at an ordinary, and the 
 maid mutinied. Another was procured 
 cheap, an awkward country lass, who, 
 hitherto accustomed to handle only wooden 
 pails and buckets, broke all more brittle 
 wares. Roberts was for the time appeased. 
 Indeed, if he had not, he must have been a 
 savage, for poor Maria, almost killed with 
 mental anxiety and efforts at management, 
 gave birth to her first child ; and, to save 
 expense, dismissed her nurse so soon, and was 
 taken so seriously ill in consequence, that my
 
 22 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 sister instantly procured a country nurse for 
 her infant, and another for herself, scolding 
 the unhappy Roberts for his senselessness ; 
 and making such inroads on Maria's savings 
 and plans of retrenchment and economy, as 
 I fully believe retarded her recovery. 
 
 By the middle of February Maria was re- 
 stored to health pale and meagre enough, 
 but quite well as she vowed ; and she brought 
 home her child, from affection and economy, 
 to be what old Irish and Scotch nurses call 
 brought up " by the pan and the spoon," 
 and English ones, " by the hand." 
 
 The christening feast and annual Christmas 
 holiday-dinner were to be consolidated this 
 year in furtherance of economy and retrench- 
 ment. Maria had given up her needle. She 
 was now an active housewife. Long were 
 the consultations we held. " I will show you 
 a different bill from last year's," said she to 
 me with harmless exultation in her newly- 
 acquired knowledge, "You shall see how 
 I will manage !" 
 
 I had no wish to damp Maria's ardour, 
 nor yet to check the current of her self-teach- 
 ing. Painful experience I foresaw it was to 
 turn out, but not the less wholesome in its 
 effects. Her first dinner had been the sense- 
 lessly-ostentatious ; her second was to be the 
 most absurd of all, the worst of mistakes, 
 the Shabby-genteel, I reserve its mortifying 
 details and consequences for another chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE SHABBY-GENTEEL. 
 
 At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen ; 
 At the bottom was tripe, in a swinging tureen ; 
 At the sides there were spinach and pudding made hot ; 
 In the middle a place where the pasty was not. 
 
 GOLDSMITH. 
 
 How often soever it may have been said, 
 that we never seem ridiculous from what we 
 are, but from what we assume to be, the 
 saying remains as true as ever ; and, there- 
 fore, I once more repeat it, at the opening of 
 this chapter. Taken in this sense, ridicule 
 is indeed the test of truth, for nothing true 
 can be in itself ridiculous. We may smile 
 in contempt or derision of conceit and folly ; 
 or laugh in sympathy with comic or ludicrous 
 scenes and ideas ; but it is pretension, as- 
 sumption only, that move our ridicule. To 
 be above its insolent insulting inflictions we 
 have only to be ourselves ; which simple part, 
 to the bulk of mankind, appears the most 
 difficult to perform of any. Our social cus- 
 toms universally conspire to make us attempt 
 every thing, rather than display the real cha- 
 
 racter ; l)ut above all to conceal the true 
 circumstances in which we live. We must 
 either seem above, or though far more rarely 
 below them. The very wealthy do some- 
 times take to 
 
 The Devil's own vice, 
 
 The pride that apes humility, 
 
 as soon as they rise above the more common 
 affectations of vanity. 
 
 My young friend, Mrs Roberts, exposed 
 herself to ridicule, by the common folly of 
 assuming to give dinners, to dress, and to live 
 in the style of persons of double her income ; 
 but, for the credit of English morality, I 
 regret to say, that she only incurred the pe- 
 nalty by attempting to reconcile discretion 
 and honesty with what, in such circum- 
 stances, was quite incompatible. Extrava- 
 gance, folly, debt, gross dishonesty, might, in 
 short, have been pardoned, where the thing 
 was managed with dash, and a proper under- 
 standing of effect ; but who can pardon the 
 Shabby-genteel, abhorred of gods, men, and 
 charwomen. And on a charwoman turned 
 the fortunes of Maria Roberts' Second Christ- 
 mas Dinner. 
 
 I mentioned in the last chapter that she 
 had, from frugality, hired one of those won- 
 drous machines, a maid-of-all-work, ignorant 
 and stupid, at half wages, who made up the 
 balance by breaking china and glass, and 
 damaging every article of furniture that fell 
 in her way. I have frequently noticed that 
 notable housekeeping ladies are, in general, 
 fatalists about breaking. Mrs Roberts, after 
 the first three months, concluded that Jane 
 
 had got through most of her breakings. 
 
 " And she was so good-hearted and kind to 
 'baby,' that important small personage in 
 so many small households, and was believed 
 so honest." " With myself, Jane, and the 
 charwoman, and a good deal of forethought, 
 I can manage very well," said Maria, at one 
 of our final consultations. " I shall have 
 every thing possible done beforehand, the 
 cooking will be all over before the company 
 begin to arrive, then I can dress in a 
 minute ; and Biddy, [the Irish charwoman,] 
 when she has sent in dinner, can assist Jane 
 to wait at table. I cannot think of having 
 one of those insolent fellows of hired footmen 
 in the house again ; and those cooks who go 
 about, are so horridly extravagant, conceited, 
 and dictating, one of them, whom Mrs 
 Pantague hires to assist her cook, charges 
 15s. a-day ; and must be mne'd and portered, 
 and waited upon and coaxed." 
 
 I entirely approved of dispensing with the
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 23 
 
 perambulating footman, whether "of parts 
 or figure," and also the consequential cook 
 mentioned, whom I knew to be as trouble- 
 some and conceited as if she had taken a 
 regular diploma from M. Ude ; but how Jane 
 and Biddy were to perform their various 
 functions was still an affair through which 
 I could not see my way. Of the latter I 
 had indeed considerable suspicion all along ; 
 strenuously as I understood she had been 
 recommended by her countrywoman, my 
 neighbour, the orange-seller, Mrs Plunkett, 
 as possessing every good quality requisite 
 under a kitchen roof, " had lived cook in 
 genteel families, both in Bath and Dublin 
 city itself ; and in her first husband's time, 
 assisted the cook to the mess of the 92d 
 regiment, though that was fifteen years ago." 
 
 My doubts threw Maria into fresh per- 
 plexity : she studied her bill of fare. " It 
 would be taking too great a liberty to ask 
 Mrs James Taylor to lend me her cook for a 
 day ; but I might ask her advice she is 
 always so gentle, and so kind to me." 
 
 " But you won't ask her advice though," 
 I put in abruptly. " My sister Anne is one 
 of the best women that breathes ; no one 
 more amiable more generous ; but, good 
 worthy lady, she has been happy and mode- 
 rate enough never to have known any one 
 serious domestic difficulty in her life. She 
 has always been so perfectly at ease in money 
 matters herself, that, like many more excel- 
 lent women one meets, she is rather puzzled 
 to find out why other people are not as much 
 at their ease, and have not every thing as 
 nice and proper about their nurseries and 
 theiv table as herself. When Roberts can 
 allow you 600 or 800 a-year for your 
 housekeeping, about half my brother's liberal 
 allowance, then advise with my sister Anne. 
 She can discourse most sensibly on economy, 
 and wonder, too, how people need be so very 
 ill off. In which sort of surprise, I have seen 
 her sensible husband join her, and with a 
 most proper and husband-like admiration of 
 his wife's domestic talents, declare that where 
 families do not go on well, (with probably 
 not the fourth of her means,) there must be 
 bad management at bottom. And yet they 
 are among the best people I know. To com- 
 prehend the exigencies of your position in 
 society, or rather that of struggling profes- 
 sional people the most difficult of any is 
 quite out of their way. Your part in life, 
 once clearly ascertained, ought to be easily 
 filled." 
 
 " I assure you, to me it seems the most diffi- 
 
 cult of any. If with the fourth part of Mrs 
 James Taylor's income, one could do with 
 the fourth of the beef, bread, tea, coals, 
 candles, butter, and so forth ; but you see 
 how it is that would be no rule, and 
 what to save upon, while one must have 
 every thing the self-same as those wealthy 
 people " 
 
 " Or at least some mock imitation, and 
 make-shift, thing, Maria. Well, it is a 
 wretched system, a despicable slavery this 
 making one guinea do the fashionable work 
 of three, or seem to do ; for, after all, it never 
 gets beyond seeming. Like the foolish bird, 
 we hide our heads under the wing of our 
 own vanity, and fancy that the whole world 
 is not seeing and laughing at us, because we 
 have hoodwinked ourselves." 
 
 I had probably pushed the conversation 
 beyond the point of politeness ; for on this 
 subject, and with so interesting a victim be- 
 fore me, I could have no reserve or patience. 
 Sometimes my heart misgave me, and I was 
 on the point of warning Maria against the 
 absurdities she was about to commit, and the 
 ridicule she was to draw upon herself, by her 
 " Three Courses and a Dessert ;" but stern 
 friendship counselled that I should let her do 
 her worst, and endure the penalty of shame 
 and mortification at once and for ever. 
 
 I undertook several little commissions for 
 Maria, connected with her fete, and promised 
 to come myself very early, to amuse Mr Sam. 
 Madox, a cockney bachelor of some sixty 
 years ; somewhat of a virtuoso, but more of a 
 gourmand, finical and withal priggish, and 
 known by the ladies of the many families 
 with whom he manage.d to be a dinner-visiter, 
 as "that plague, old Madox, who always 
 comes so early." Not that he came a second 
 before the appointed hour, but to that he 
 appeared punctual as the hand of his watch. 
 
 I did not appear before my services were 
 required. Great as are the mysterious powers 
 of ubiquity possessed by a maid-of-all-work, 
 it is still just possible that the most thorough- 
 bred of the corps cannot overtake every thing. 
 When I arrived, all was, as is said, at sixes 
 and sevens. The parlour fire was still unlit ; 
 the confusion in the kitchen might have been, 
 as the charwoman who made it said, " stirred 
 with a stick." Maria, in a morning gown and 
 apron, not over clean, of course, and her brown 
 tresses in papillotes, was hushing "baby," 
 who squalled, as if on purpose, ten times 
 louder than ever he had squalled before, 
 and casting looks of distraction and despair 
 on Biddy, the regular charwoman and brevet
 
 24 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 cook. To me the latter was the most amusing 
 person of the group. Maria watched her as 
 a clever sensible patient may an ignorant 
 surgeon, certain that all was going wrong, 
 that some dreadful mischief was impending, 
 but overawed by the dignity of the profession, 
 and afraid to interfere. Mrs Roberts was 
 conscious that, though perfectly able to judge 
 of results, she still knew little or nothing of 
 preliminary culinary processes ; and was, in 
 many cases, an entire stranger to the mode 
 by which particular effects were to be pro- 
 duced. It was not difficult to perceive that 
 Biddy, if she had ever possessed the requisite 
 skill, had let her right hand forget its cun- 
 ning. Like all other persons in office who 
 do not know their own business, she required 
 a deputy. 
 
 " Sorrow be on you, girl, won't you give 
 me the cullender ; and the tureen, as you 
 see, between my own hands." Mrs Roberts 
 flew with the desired utensil. " Och, excuse 
 me is it yourself, ma'am where the diaoul 
 has that creature Jane put the disfl-cloth, 
 which was in my own hands this njinute. 
 In troth, then, sir," continued she, /looking 
 at me with one of her broadest grins, " if you 
 don't lave that, we'll be thinking of pinning 
 it to your tails. But just mention, mi-lady, 
 now, what s&wce you would like for the roast 
 bullock's heart, that's to relave the soused 
 rabbits and onion sawce." 
 
 " Oh, not the rabbits," cried Maria : " surely 
 you know better you can't forget it is the 
 Hessian ragout, that the mock roast-hare 
 relieves " 
 
 " Well, never mind the one or the other 
 it is, any way. Sure, I saw it oftener than 
 there 's teeth in my jaws, both ways. With 
 the mess of the 92d it was always the t'other 
 way ; but your ladyship may take your own 
 way for all that." 
 
 " Think how time flies, my good woman," 
 cried the anxious hostess "almost five! 
 Will you take another draught of beer 
 and then the pheasant not singed yet. 
 
 Mrs James Taylor has sent me such a 
 
 beautiful pheasant ! " 
 
 " We '11 be none the worse of the liquor, 
 any way, ma'am. And is not he an illiganl 
 love of a bird, now, Mr Richard, many is 
 the likes of him I seen in my own country 
 only a thought larger. (Drinks') That's no 
 bad beer. Cox's house is one of the best in 
 Lunnon, both for measure and quality. Bu 
 would you like his head twisted this wav 
 ma'am, or that way, ma'am ? He is a prince 
 of a bird ! He '11 grace vour table, ma'am !' 
 
 " So I hope. It was so good of Mrs Taylor 
 ,o send me this game I never would have 
 one to this bird's price. But dear me, cook, 
 truss the head any way : really, my good 
 woman, this is no time for conversation 
 jleasantly as you talk any way with his 
 lead you know best about that." 
 
 " / shud" was pronounced with emphatic 
 jrevity ; and the neck of the unhappy biped 
 tvas twisted every way but that which fashion 
 or custom prescribes and calls the right way. 
 Maria guessed as much ; and I admired the 
 strong good sense and presence of mind which 
 prevented her from fretting, or standing on 
 trifles in such an emergency. She was like 
 Napoleon giving his commands to the surgeon 
 accoucheur of Marie Louise. Mrs Roberts' 
 silence seemed to say, "Treat my golden 
 pheasant as if it were but an ordinary barn- 
 door fowl." 
 
 " And never fear," replied Biddy, " I'll have 
 him in in pudding-time, I warrant me, the 
 pisant and the sowles, ma'am, first An't 
 that it?" 
 
 " dear, no, no," cried Maria, now thor- 
 oughly vexed. " The pheasant the game, is 
 for the third course." 
 
 " The third coorse ! Sure I have seen 
 him in the first, when a donny bird like that, 
 both in mi-lady Cark's, and Mr Sergeant 
 Saurin's too." 
 
 " But in England Biddy ! Well, you 
 Jane, you will surely remember when the 
 pheasant is to be sent in. Here 's the bill 
 of fare." 
 
 Again, perverse " baby " squalled out, and 
 drowned all our voices. 
 
 " Such a scene, Mr Richard will you, 
 pray, step into the parlour, Jane has lit the 
 fire now again, I hope. 0, baby, cruel 
 baby ! if you knew what your poor mother 
 has to undergo to-day, you would surely be 
 a better boy. Gracious ! that 's old Madox's 
 knock ! " 
 
 This luckily proved a false alarm; "baby," 
 by good fortune, had now exhausted himself 
 in squalling, and fell asleep. Maria had five 
 minutes to dress ; but how, she whispered, 
 could she leave that fearful Biddy. 
 
 " Make yourself asy, ma'am : trust to 
 myself, and mind you your good company. 
 First, the sowles, and the Hissian ragout : 
 but there's no good any way of letting this 
 drop of beer die a natral death in the mug. 
 A merry meeting of friends to you, mi-lady ! 
 and trust your dinner to myself, and I'll do 
 it handsome and gentale, as Mr Richard there 
 will tell you."
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 25 
 
 The maid, by power of bellows, had by 
 this time forced a tardy reluctant fire in the 
 parlour, and sent clouds of ashes over all the 
 neatly laid-out table, the labours of the in- 
 defatigable Maria. Willing to be useful, 
 aware that the mode of a service may often 
 double its value, and having no fitter means, 
 I dusted all round and over with my veri- 
 tably dean silk handkerchief and sagacious- 
 ly comprehending that a bundle of half or 
 one-third-bumt wax-lights, such as thrifty 
 housewives buy cheap in London, were meant 
 to be stuck in the candlesticks, but forgotten 
 by her of all-work, I also performed this other 
 duty. And now Madox fairly knocked, and 
 Maria flew down, adorned, from her attic 
 chamber. Miss Kelly never shifted her 
 costume more rapidly. We were both in the 
 passage on our way to the drawing-room ; 
 but the final orders were to be given to 
 panting Jane, who was about half-dressed. 
 " Now, for any sake, Jane, don't forget what 
 I have driven into you ! Don't affront me 
 by your stupidity : the thickened butter 
 and to have the coffee hot and to heat the 
 cream and the drawing-room fire ; and oh, 
 I lo try to keep ' baby ' quiet, if he awake ; 
 and don't let him pull his nice cap. But 
 don't put it on till I ring for him and 
 above all, be sure you don't let Biddy roar 
 so loud, or touch more beer you know what 
 a beast she makes of herself she will spoil 
 the dinner, and break the things. ! that 
 plague, old Madox ! How he does knock ! " 
 
 " Yes mar'am no mar' am," followed at 
 intervals from the bewildered maid of all- 
 work, whose replies were mechanically mea- 
 sured by time ; certainly not dictated by 
 sense for true it was, as Maria said. 
 
 " Now, Jane, you don't know a word I 
 have been saying to you. Oh me 1 " 
 
 Maria had not composed her looks, or 
 drawn on her gloves, when Mr Madox was 
 upon us in the blue drawing-room. 
 
 Whether the devil tempted him or not, I 
 cannot tell, but he talked away at no allow- 
 ance of the excellence of the London markets 
 always at this holiday-time. Fish so good 
 salmon, prime game wild ducks teal. 
 It was the very season for the London car- 
 nival. 
 
 Mrs Pantague here sailed in imperially 
 spread abroad in brocade, capped and jewel- 
 led ; and after the ordinary compliments, the 
 discourse flowed in the former channel. She 
 had been ordering things that morning, though 
 she rarely marketed herself. Mrs Pantague 
 was one of those many English people, who 
 
 use the possessive pronoun on all possible 
 occasions. " My fishmonger." " My confec- 
 tioner." One might have thought she held 
 the whole of each poor man in sole property. 
 My cook is nothing. 
 
 " My cook is so exquisite a judge, that I 
 rarely look at any thing. I can so fully 
 rely upon my butcher. How do you manage, 
 my dear Mrs Roberts 1 " 
 
 " The London markets are splendidly filled 
 at present, ma'am," said Plague Madox to 
 the great lady. " Few London sights equal 
 to them after all, ma'am." 
 
 " And so they are, Mr Madox : Paris, 
 Brussels. I don't say much about Vienna, 
 though my friend, Lady Danvers, who lived 
 long there, when his Lordship was connected 
 with the embassy, has often told me that 
 Vienna is in bonne chere a superb city ; but 
 after all, Mr Madox, as you say, commend 
 me to the London markets. Cookery may 
 be better understood in Paris. You have been 
 in Paris, I conclude, Mr Madox, often ? " 
 Madox bowed. "But for provisions; the 
 sterling English staple, as Sir John says, 
 London may challenge the world, fish, flesh, 
 or fowl." 
 
 " Right, madam, and so it may. Old Eng- 
 lish roast beef, the growth of every county. 
 Banstead mutton, Essex veal, Dorking fowls, 
 Norfolk turkeys, Lincolnshire geese. Hey, 
 Mr Roberts, got before you." Maria bit her 
 lips over the alimentary catalogue of the 
 month, while Roberts saluted the company. 
 
 I cannot go into the mortifying details of 
 this Three Courses, and a Dessert. The 
 bawling, and mishaps of Biddy, the blunders 
 of distracted Jane, the agony of poor Mrs 
 Roberts, and the distant squalling of " baby." 
 Even /could not have anticipated a chain of 
 such mortifying accidents, though they were 
 all quite natural. 
 
 The awkwardness of the guests who pos- 
 sessed politeness and delicacy, and the ill- 
 suppressed grumbling of the ruder natures, 
 disappointed in that great affair, a dinner, 
 was nothing to the airs of insolent disgust, 
 with which Mrs Pantague pushed away plate 
 after plate touched, yet untouched. I must 
 acknowledge that the soles were not of the 
 freshest, though they might be correspond- 
 ingly cheap, nor were they the best cooked. 
 Mrs Pantague, in pure malice, I am certain, 
 required to have the dish named Hessian 
 ragout, analyzed by Madox. 
 
 " Bullocks' cheek stew ! that is a ragout 
 I am not acquainted with ; not any, thank 
 you : indeed I have dined." The great lady
 
 26 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, 
 
 leant back in her chair with a look of haughty 
 yet piteous resignation to her fat*. 
 
 " There's a pheasant coming," faltered poor 
 Mrs Roberts. It was in her dinner like the 
 single great lord among a vain man's ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 " I will trouble you, Mrs Roberts," said 
 my hearty brother James, " I did not know 
 the dish under its fine name. You remem- 
 ber, Dick, how we used to lay our ears in 
 this stew at Nurse Wilks's on Sundays. Never 
 was turtle so glorious." 
 
 This was scarcely a rally for Maria. At 
 another time it would have been mortifica- 
 tion. Plague Madox now ventured upon 
 "Just one-half spoonful of the ragout, 
 thick ; " and, after cautiously reconnoitering 
 the table, had the dose repeated. This looked 
 better ; and 
 
 By and by, the second cour?e 
 Came lagging like a distanced hone. 
 
 Bullocks' heart stuffed and roasted has its 
 admirers even among gourmands : but then 
 it must be roasted, sanguinary as English 
 eaters are. The condition was, therefore, a 
 capital disappointment to more than one 
 gentleman, and worse to Mrs Roberts, com- 
 pelled to say, " Take this away," though it 
 had been her main reliance ; a dish that both 
 Mr James Taylor and Mr Madox particu- 
 larly admired and rarely saw. A young 
 puppy, one of Mr Roberts' friends, who had 
 got, by chance or accident, a copy of verses 
 into a magazine, and set up literary preten- 
 sions accordingly, regaled us at our side of 
 the table with the story of " De Coucy's 
 Heart," and the " Basil Pot," till the ladles 
 began to look pale and sick. Across the 
 table there was a dialogue on cannibalism 
 and the New Zealanders, which, so far as it 
 was heard, did not mend our health nor 
 quicken our appetites ; but all this was no- 
 thing to the tremendous crash which came at 
 once above, below, and around us ! and the 
 exclamation, 
 
 " Och diaoul ! come quick, jewel, Mr 
 Richard. Did not the kitchen chimney go 
 on fire we are all in a blaze ! " And Biddy, 
 like ten furies, was in the midst of us. 
 
 The ladies huddled together and screamed, 
 and would have run into the street if not 
 prevented by main force, backed by my speedy 
 assurance that this was a false alarm merely 
 a blaze of overturned grease as their noses 
 might inform them. Maria, forgetting every 
 thing but a mother's feelings, flew to find her 
 child, who appeared among us after all in 
 his night-cap, but yet helped wonderfully to 
 
 restore tranquillity, as all the women were 
 bound in turns to seize, and kiss him. Things 
 looked better again. The sweets, previously 
 prepared by poor Maria with great pains and 
 care, and want of sleep, and a wonderful effort 
 for a first, got the length of being " damned 
 with faint praise " by the lady-judges, though 
 Mrs Pantague did recommend Mrs Roberts 
 to try " My confectioner only for once. He 
 was, to be sure, an unconscionable wretch in 
 his prices but exquisite in taste. His Van- 
 illa Cream was allowed to be unequalled in 
 London. It was sent to the Pavilion, and to 
 Devonshire House, when nothing else of his 
 was taken. It was indeed a great favour to 
 procure it." What was the final catastrophe 
 of the pheasant I cannot to this day tell, but 
 he never appeared ; and Plague Madox in- 
 demnified himself witli blue stilton and some 
 tolerable Edinburgh Ale. The Port, it 
 was called clarety-port something that was 
 to unite cheaply the body of Portugal with the 
 spirit of France, he had sipped eyed be- 
 tween him and the candle and pulled in 
 on trial another decanter. I suppose the 
 Sherry, or rather Cape Madeira, he hit upon, 
 was a leap out of the frying-pan into the fire. 
 He actually made faces. 
 
 " Who is your wine-merchant, Roberts I " 
 cried loud Mr Pantague, the stock-broker, 
 from where he sat by the elbow of the miser- 
 able hostess, who had now lost self-posses- 
 sion and almost temper, and who afterwards 
 told me that it was with great difficulty she 
 kept from crying. Pantague was also smack- 
 ing critically, and holding his glass between 
 him and the candle. Roberts looked as simple 
 as his wife, and more vexed. Either no 
 current name of value in the wine-trade 
 occurred to him, or he might not like to lie. 
 He had, after a moment's pause, the fore- 
 thought, the true John-Bull spirit and man- 
 liness to say, " The very little wine I use, 
 Mr Pantague, I buy where I find it best and 
 cheapest" 
 
 " right quite right," cried Mr Pantague, 
 and he tossed off his glass. This was the most 
 hopeful feature of the night. Could I have 
 caught the eyes of the speaker mine would 
 have thanked him. 
 
 " Very fair port, this," said Mr James 
 Taylor, the rich thriving solicitor. Plague 
 Madox drew his red wine glass to him again, 
 and filled it once more. " New ; but very 
 good : what say you, Dick 1 My brother is 
 one of the best judges of wines now in London. 
 You need not gainsay it now, Dick : your 
 Italian residence, and your early pursuits,
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 27 
 
 have made you so ; but I believe you refer it 
 to your unsophisticated palate." 
 
 I rose one hundred per cent with the 
 company in one second ; and resolved to im- 
 prove my sudden accession of vinous fame to 
 the benefit of Maria Roberts. 
 
 " There ought to be wine in this house ; 
 ladies' wine, at least," I said, nodding, know- 
 ingly, to Mrs Roberts. " If the lady of it 
 would only appoint me her butler for the 
 night, I think I could find it." 
 
 " With the utmost pleasure, Mr Richard ; 
 but you know " 
 
 " What I know, give me your key." 
 Maria stared at me. There was method in 
 my madness. I returned in five minutes, or 
 rather more, and solemnly placed a couple of 
 pint bottles upon the table. Jane furnished 
 me with fresh glasses. 
 
 " I am not going to accuse our hostess of 
 not bestowing the very best wine she has 
 upon her friends ; but I am afraid I must 
 accuse her of not having taste enough in wine 
 to know the value of her own treasures." 
 
 " Nay, if I had thought that half as ad- 
 mired as " 
 
 " Give me leave, ma'am. We need not 
 mystify the matter. This is two of six 
 bottles, but we must not rob Mrs Roberts 
 of more than one, this little cobwebbed fel- 
 low, that came as a present from the 
 
 Bishop of 's cellars ; sent by his lady to 
 
 her goddaughter, our amiable hostess, before 
 her late confinement. The late brother of 
 the Bishop was for some time Governor at 
 the Cape. Give me your opinion, ladies, of 
 this coddlwg wine, that you send in presents 
 to favourites." I had said enough for a 
 lady of such quick tact as Mrs Pantague. 
 
 " Delicious Constantia ! " was her affect- 
 edly rapturous exclamation. "'Tis not 
 every where one meets with the like of this. 
 And the Bishop's Lady, whom I have seen 
 at Brighton, is your godmother, Mrs 
 Roberts?" 
 
 " I have that honour." 
 
 " Exquisite wine ! The veritable nectar of 
 the gods, Mr Richard, must be Constantia. 
 Nay, nay ; this must be kept for a bonne 
 bouche, husbanded, a fourth of a glass, 
 if you please." I had no wish to hazard a 
 second trial, having come off so well upon 
 the first. 
 
 " The bouquet, the delicious fragrance 
 of this wine, is its charm to me," said our 
 young poet. " You must be sensible of it, 
 Mr Richard V 
 
 " I'll be hanged if I smell any thing save 
 
 the burning grease the cook had nearly set 
 the chimney on fire with," replied my brother. 
 " She seems, by the way, on very happy 
 terms of familiarity with you, Dick ; and 
 quite a character in your way. I believe you 
 know all the Irish charwomen in London." 
 
 All the ladies tasted the "delicious Constan- 
 tia," while Maria, trying to look frowningly, 
 really looked half-comic, half-amused, at my 
 impudent fraud. Several of the fair judges 
 pronounced it very fine. My sister, Anne, 
 said it was very sweet and nice indeed, but 
 of wine she was no judge ; and Miss Claves, 
 a very lively young lady, vowed it was so 
 like Milk Punch, which was quite a charm- 
 ing thing, that she could not tell the diffe- 
 rence for her life. 
 
 " Oh, the green taste of raw girls, Mi- 
 Richard ! " whispered Mrs Pantague. " How 
 many good things in life are thrown away 
 upon them! Your niece, Charlotte, has really 
 then positively refused the old banker her 
 ultimatum given ? But will Mrs Roberts 
 never move, think you? Really, to be 
 frank, I long for a cup of even cold wish- 
 washy coffee after this (a shrug} absurd 
 visceral repast. I wish some friend would 
 give the poor young woman a hint ! Could 
 not you, Mr Richard ? " She looked at her 
 watch. 
 
 I vowed in my indignant heart that Maria 
 should, in hearing every word of this, reap 
 the bitter fruit of her own vain toils. But 
 I did not need to be so severe in my lesson. 
 
 Before the poet and myself reached the 
 drawing-room, half the ladies had disap- 
 peared. From below Plague Madox, my 
 brother, and all the old stagers went off 
 without looking near us. The clarety-port 
 could not have been very good, after all, I 
 suspect. Madox swore that either the wine 
 or the fare had deranged him sadly ; for 
 three days fairly baffled Dr Kitchener's 
 Peptic Precepts, lost him two good dinner 
 parties, and raised doubts whether ha 
 would ever accept an invitation from Roberts, 
 or any man who kept no regular cook, in 
 his life again, where every thing was, he said, 
 "more provoking and worse than another. 
 Pity the poor fellow with such a wife ! " 
 
 In the mean time I have forgotten to tell, 
 that, when very late, George Roberts, and a 
 few young men, who, in spite of every dis- 
 aster, stood by him and the bottle, staggered 
 up stairs. I was now alone in the drawing- 
 room. The young ladies, after yawning, 
 hour after hour, in the vain hope of relief 
 from below ; after examining and re-examin-
 
 28 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 ing Maria's store of nick-nacks, and hope- 
 lessly endeavouring to extract music and 
 young gentlemen from the broken-stringed 
 cabinet piano-forte, had all taken wing while 
 Maria was gone to put " baby" to sleep. 
 
 Roberts was half tipsy, half chagrined, and 
 I perceived in a fair way of getting into 
 very bad temper. This was his day of festi- 
 val, the christening fete of his first-born; and 
 there was no joy, no sociality, no pleasure, 
 no amusement. He had promised his young 
 friends, his wife's music, female society, a 
 dance, and there remained for them an 
 empty disordered room, where " Queer Mr 
 Richard Taylor" kept watch over four blink- 
 ing wax-candle ends and a few smouldering 
 cinders. 
 
 " Where are all the ladies where is 
 Maria?" was said hurriedly. "Where is 
 Mrs Roberts?" in a more imperative, and 
 husband-like tone. Echo might answer 
 where, if she chose, but I was dumb. Roberts 
 jerked the blue bell rope ; and down it came, 
 and up came panting Jane. 
 " Where is your mistress ? " 
 " Putting 'baby' to sleep, Sir." 
 It would be treason against nature to sup- 
 pose that Roberts could really have said 
 "Deuce take 'baby ;'" but Jane, who looked 
 perfectly aghast, and, indeed, in utter horror, 
 certainly believed those shocking, unnatural 
 words were spoken ; and had they even been, 
 they woxild have meant nothing serious a 
 proof that a man must not always be judged 
 by his rash expressions. 
 
 "By Jove!" was the next exclamation, 
 " if we cannot have amusement above stairs, 
 we shall have jollity below. Here you, 
 
 Biddy, or whatever they call you " 
 
 " Biddy Duigenan, an' plase your honour 
 
 so christened by Father " 
 
 " Get us a dry devil, or a broiled bone, or 
 something peppery and famous." 
 
 " Och then ! devil a bone with a thread 
 on it, within the dour of ye. The mistress 
 chooses her mate without bones. She's a 
 mighty frugal, managing young cratur." 
 
 This conversation passed aloud, between 
 the door of the drawing-room and the bottom 
 of the stairs. The young men roared in full 
 chorus ; and Mr Sullivan the Templar, in- 
 stantly challenged a countrywoman in Biddy, 
 who was heard laughing jollily below, cry- 
 ing to Jane, " Faix, but it does myself good 
 to see the gentlemen getting hearty and 
 merry at last. One might thought their 
 faste a Keanin, no luck till the bits of 
 misses, the craturs, go off." 
 
 " By the Powers ! if we can't get meat we 
 shall have drink, boys," cried Mr George 
 Roberts again, in a most uproarious and 
 savage humour, something affected too by the 
 satirical commentary made by one of his 
 friends on " a lady choosing her mate without 
 bones," which as a husband of some eighteen 
 months, and consequently still very touchy 
 on the score of hen-pecking, he fancied it 
 mightily concerned his honour and master- 
 hood to resent. 
 
 "Ay, bones and blood, and spirit too, by 
 Jove. Maria ! Mrs Roberts ! Madam, I say, 
 come down stairs ! You shall see, gentle- 
 men, who is master in this house if all the 
 wives in Christendom" But it is idle to 
 repeat the ravings of an intoxicated man. 
 I knew Maria would have the delicacy and 
 sense not to come down stairs ; and Sullivan, 
 by far the soberest of the pai-ty, having 
 brought our host to order, and promised to 
 me to take care of the party, I stole away. 
 Jane, as I afterwards learned, a simple 
 country girl, immediately became so fright- 
 ened, that she crept up to her mistress, re- 
 porting " that the gentlemen were tipsy and 
 riotous, and that one of them had pulled her 
 on the stairs. Master was tramping up and 
 down, rummaging all the cupboards for 
 brandy to make punch ; and Biddy was 
 worse than all the rest." Maria, a stranger 
 to every species of excess, a girl transferred 
 from school to her own house, became more 
 nervous than Jane ; and as the noise of song 
 and revelry, 
 
 Of tipsy dance and jollity, 
 
 rose louder and louder from the polluted blue- 
 room, constituted into a kind of Free-and-Easy 
 club-room, the women bolted themselves in. 
 Jane, after her hard day's work, soon fell 
 asleep, sitting on the floor ; and it was not till 
 the watchmen, attracted by the riot within, 
 had rung repeatedly, and that the young men 
 sallied out " to thrash the Charleys," when a 
 general mele ensued, that she was awoke by 
 the shaking and suppressed cries of her 
 mistress, as the whole party below, Biddy 
 Duigenan included, were carried off by the 
 guardians of the night, and safely lodged ! 
 How Maria got through the dreadful night, 
 I cannot tell ; but I lost no time, after re- 
 ceiving her early message, in repairing to the 
 Office. Mr Roberts and his friends were 
 already liberated without examination, and 
 had slunk away, bribing Biddy to silence 
 with sundry shillings and half-crowns. 
 
 Roberts looked foolish enough when I 
 found him at home, sitting amid the wrecks
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 29 
 
 of the blue-room, writing a note of apology 
 to Joseph Greene for the nocturnal distur- 
 bance ; but he still seemed to believe that 
 the whole mischief arose from Maria's absurd 
 management, and that air of pretension, 
 which, together with the shabby gentility of 
 her entertainment, had made them both 
 ridiculous. To the same cause he imputed 
 the discomfort and mal-arrangement of every 
 thing, nay, even what he termed the im- 
 pudence of that Irish hag, and the insolence 
 of that stock-broker's dame. He did, how- 
 ever, condescend to apologize to his wife for 
 the outrage of which he had subsequently 
 been guilty ; and his boon companions of the 
 night, one and all, afterwards declared, that 
 they durst never look Mrs Roberts in the 
 face again. 
 
 This was not the end of the affair. Roberts 
 was forgiven by his wife, who, in her igno- 
 rance of life, fancied his conduct far more 
 grievous and degrading than he was disposed 
 to own it. But there was another reckoning 
 to adjust. By some means my brother got 
 intelligence of the manner in which Roberts' 
 fete had ended. " A married man, in his 
 own house, it is too bad. I fear this is 
 not the first of it," James said to me. " For 
 some weeks, Richard, I have wished to con- 
 sult you about this. Do you know, Roberts 
 is short of his cash ? " 
 
 Awful charge against a confidential clerk ! 
 I guessed how much it imported. 
 
 " To what extent ? " 
 
 " No great extent ; but the thing is so 
 wrong, so unbusiness-like" This is another 
 most significant phrass. "About 60 or 
 70 and perhaps he may have some 
 claim against me ; but I don't like the look 
 of it. Such arrears are so imbusincss-like. 
 I fear he is extravagant getting dissi- 
 pated " 
 
 "Only foolish or something of that sort," 
 was my careless reply; "but he will mend, 
 I dare say. What, meanwhile, have you 
 done ? " 
 
 " Ordered him to balance his cash, and 
 pay up by Friday at farthest." 
 
 " Quite right." 
 
 I instantly took my way to the Row. 
 Maria was in the blue drawing-room ; now 
 in its gilding and draperies of all hues, soiled 
 and tawdry ; the ornaments smoked and 
 tarnished ; the chairs and tables crazy or 
 fractured, and the purple and gold purse 
 sadly faded from its original splendour, as I 
 remarked on seeing it on the table. 
 
 "Alas! it has acquired a worse fault," 
 
 Maria said, while she shook it to display its 
 emptiness, smiling and sighing. 
 
 "A sieve-like quality the faculty of 
 running out faster than Roberts pours in " 
 
 " Something very like that, I confess." 
 " Do you pardon my frankness, Mrs 
 Roberts, and give me leave to be sincere with 
 you?" 
 
 " I do, I do, and thank you most sincerely. 
 With our limited income " (hesitation.) 
 
 "All your stitching and pulling cannot 
 keep fortune in at heels, and make both ends 
 meet." 
 
 " You have guessed it, Mr Richard. Were 
 it not for my poor child, and poor Roberts, 
 too, I would certainly endeavour to procure 
 a situation as a governess, and Roberts, he 
 might go into lodgings again, since it seems 
 I cannot, with all my skill and economy, 
 manage that we should live within our in- 
 come, and it is worse than that with us ! 
 Oh, I assure you, it has almost broken my 
 heart ! Mr Roberts is short of Mr Taylor's 
 cash. It is shocking ! his probity may be 
 doubted ; and he is in fearful temper this 
 morning. I dread his coming back." Maria 
 could no longer restrain her tears. I was 
 gratified by her confidence in me, pleased 
 that Roberts had at once told her the cir- 
 cumstance so important to them both ; but 
 she had another motive for confiding in me. 
 " I have a great favour to beg of you : I have 
 a few trinkets," she said ; " presents and 
 gifts of one kind or another. It would be 
 such a kindness in you to dispose of them 
 for me, that I may help Roberts so far. 
 There is the piano, too, and other useless 
 
 things " she looked round the room 
 
 "they would not bring much, but every 
 thing helps." 
 
 I knew, for I had seen it, that Maria had 
 at least the full value for her suit of pearls 
 and other ornaments ; but principle and 
 generous affection were far more powerful 
 than vanity. Roberts had peremptorily re- 
 fused to dispose of her trinkets ; he was even 
 affronted by the proposal, and she depended 
 on me, and urged me ; and with the case in 
 my pocket I left her, and encountered her 
 husband at the comer of the street. 
 
 " You have been calling for your favourite, 
 Mrs Greene ? " said Roberts. 
 
 " No ; I have spent the last hour with my 
 more interesting favourite, Mrs Roberts." 
 
 Mr Roberts looked confused and uneasy. 
 He remembered in what humour he had left 
 his wife in the morning. " Then, sir, you 
 have spent your time with a very silly, in-
 
 30 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 corrigible woman : but this, I suppose, is no 
 news to you ; you see how all reason and 
 advice are thrown away upon her." 
 
 These were high airs, indeed, for Mr 
 George to give himself ! he who deserved at 
 least a full half share of the common blame. 
 
 " Pardon me if I see no such thing ; but 
 quite the reverse. To me, Mrs Roberts ap- 
 pears an uncommonly clever young woman, 
 generous, candid, and well-principled, 
 and most anxious to do her duty, so far as 
 she understands it. All she requires is, for- 
 bearance, kindness, and gentle guidance, till 
 her rapidly increasing knowledge is matured 
 into experience." 
 
 The honeymoon was long past, and Roberts, 
 as I have said, in the crisis when young hus- 
 bands are the most susceptible of jealousy 
 for their many privileges and powers ; yet 
 was Roberts much better pleased with my 
 opinion of his wife, than if it had coincided 
 with that which he had expressed. I took his 
 arm, and we walked back towards his house. 
 One of the peculiar blessings of an old bache- 
 lor and slender annuitant like myself, is 
 the power of saying, when the salvation of a 
 friend demands frankness, things that it 
 would frighten a sensible man with a wife 
 and six small children, to dream of uttering. 
 Some of these startling things I now whispered 
 in the ear of George Roberts and his wife. 
 They were young, healthy, virtuous, sincerely 
 attached to each other, better endowed with 
 world's goods than on the average are four- 
 fifths of their fellow-citizens why should 
 they not be happy ? " How great a blessing 
 were it," said George, sensibly, "if young 
 women were trained to the utilities, and com- 
 forts, and solidities, like Rachel Greene, and 
 less to the refinements of life, like Maria." 
 
 Now, though Maria was more my favourite 
 at present, from compassionate interest, and 
 though custom had stamped many of her 
 little pretty ways and affectations with the 
 name of refinement, was she in reality more 
 truly refined, farther removed from the vul- 
 garities and the assumptions of affectation, 
 than Rachel Greene, the amiable Quakeress, 
 with whom she was contrasted ? 
 
 " If Maria had been taught a little plain 
 housewifery, instead of so much music," 
 continued sensible George, " how much better 
 for us all now ! " 
 
 Yet Maria had not been taught so very much 
 music. She had not, at least, acquired more 
 than any girl might easily learn between 
 seven and seventeen, and practise while it 
 was desirable, without interfering, in the 
 
 least, with her domestic duties, where music 
 is kept as an elegant recreation, not held as 
 a means of coquetry and display. 
 
 "If we could be carded through each other," 
 said Maria, half laughing. 
 
 " Ay, Rachel's substance, with Maria's 
 gloss and colour, would be a first-rate fabric. 
 I think I see it in my fancy-loom. I shall 
 never despair of wotnan in the general, nor of 
 Maria in particular." 
 
 I took my leave, inviting myself back to 
 tea, at which time, in a regular family-council, 
 I deposited the price of Maria's pearls in her 
 husband's hands. He was half-offended, half- 
 vexed. I have ever noted that men have 
 much less true magnanimity and simple 
 greatness, on such occasions, than women. 
 He was at first ashamed and angry at being 
 obliged to his own wife ; but better feelings 
 prevailed. We had a long, frank, and there- 
 fore a most satisfactory explanation. The 
 limited income was the first head of discourse. 
 I heard George expatiate on that with some 
 impatience. " Your income is, at least, more, 
 by three times, than the richest rector in 
 England affords to his drudge curate, twice 
 or near three times more than the income of 
 two-thirds of our half-pay officers, with con- 
 siderable perquisites in addition." 
 
 "These have undone me," said Roberts. 
 " Trusting to these, I forbore to be so explicit 
 with my wife as I ought to have been. I 
 trusted to contingencies. I did not choose to 
 seem churlish and sordid, by perpetual inter- 
 ference with her arrangements, for I read all 
 her anxiety to do right." 
 
 " Fluctuating income and sanguine cal- 
 culation have ruined thousands," was my 
 sensible, though rather commonplace rejoin- 
 der. 
 
 George Roberts needed not my directions, 
 now that his good sense was roused. His 
 wife's generous sacrifice, for so he was pleased 
 to call it, though neither Maria nor myself 
 would allow the phrase, and the sale of nearly 
 all the moveables of the blue room, enabled 
 him next day to clear scores with my kind 
 brother, Mr James Taylor, who now said 
 there was no such pressing haste, as Mr 
 Roberts, with his first year's outlay, might 
 need a little indulgence. 
 
 On the same day Maria could say she at 
 last had a house of her own to live in, almost 
 as comfortable as Rachel Greene's. 
 
 Jane and she had indeed worked hard to 
 have all right before Roberts came home, to 
 dine in comfort ; bringing myself along with 
 him, after the completion of our blue sale, to
 
 YOUNG MRS ROBERTS' THREE CHRISTMAS DINNERS. 
 
 31 
 
 share the very small but sufficient juicy stew 
 of meat with vegetables and apple-pasty, 
 which formed the dinner. After dinner, 
 while she filled my tall Teniers-looking glass 
 with amber-coloured creaming Scottish ale, 
 Maria said, with a more elevated spirit than 
 I had ever seen her assume, with an air 
 of noble simplicity, " Drink to the happy 
 woman, my excellent friend, whose husband 
 owes no man a shilling, and to her who 
 resolves that, so far as depends upon her 
 economy and management, he never shall." 
 
 I never accepted pledge with more sincere 
 pleasure in all my life. 
 
 " But what will Mrs Pantague say ? " said 
 Roberts, laughing. 
 
 "Exquisite Constantia ! " mimicked Maria, 
 archly, as she sipped the cream off her ale ; 
 and the merriest young natural laugh rang 
 out that I had ever heard her indulge. My 
 fears for the peace of the Roberts family 
 for their prosperity and happiness, were laid 
 for ever. The spell of fashion was broken 
 the demon, Mrs Pantague, exorcised ; and 
 Maria was one more proof that a well-prin- 
 cipled character, an intelligent and active 
 mind, when its energy is roused, will be found 
 in every circumstance equal to the common 
 duties of life. She became an excellent 
 housewife. 
 
 There were few of the many houses at 
 which " I dropt in " where the fireside now r 
 looked so snug and sunny as that of Mrs 
 Roberts. Even " baby," my old antipathy, 
 now well managed and healthy, had grown 
 a fat, good humoured, smiling, conversable 
 fellow. Maria once again ventured to take 
 in the newspapers at the usual expense, and 
 never grudged to pay for as much reading as 
 Roberts or myself chose to give her at what 
 she called the mother's hours of work, from 
 seven to ten in the evening. 
 
 Towards the end of the year I was again 
 consulted by my sagacious brother, James. 
 
 " What do you think, Dick ; that old fox, 
 Martin of Chancery Lane, is trying to steal 
 George Roberts from me the man who 
 knows all my affairs better than myself 
 the boy I brought up, whom I trust as my 
 right hand. Don't you think, Dick, I might 
 do worse, now that I am growing lazy and 
 fond of the farm, than give so steady a fellow 
 as Roberts some sort of share ? " 
 
 " There was an obstacle about his arrears," 
 was my sly reply, " Was there not ? He 
 either overdrew, or was behind in Ms cash" 
 
 Mr James Taylor could remember nothing 
 of it ; and there was no affectation, much less 
 
 insincerity, in his oblivion on those points, 
 which inclines me to think that when states- 
 men sometimes totally forget their early pro- 
 fessions, they may not be so hypocritical as 
 people imagine. 
 
 " Is there any thing you think Mrs Roberts 
 would like at this Christmas season ? You 
 are a great friend of hers, I find, and she has 
 considerable influence with Roberts." 
 
 " My brother wished to show you some 
 substantial mark of his good-will," said I to 
 Maria, when two hours afterwards I went to 
 her house. " I have counselled him to assist 
 Roberts in purchasing the lease of the house 
 next your friend Rachel Greene's new abode. 
 He has money to lend at a very low rate of 
 interest ; and as you often truly tell me, rent 
 is such an eat-em, (item,} as the Scots say, 
 in a fixed income. On your own personal 
 account, instead of gaud or toy, I accepted 
 only of this." And I called in the boy who 
 bore the guitar I had chosen and purchased 
 for her as my brother's gift. Maria was not 
 too proud to feel warmly, to seem highly 
 gratified ; and in six weeks afterwards I 
 partook of her THIRD CHRISTMAS DINNER, in 
 her new house. 
 
 " I am afraid to venture," said she before- 
 hand, " strong as is still the recollection of 
 all my mortifications, and disgraces, and 
 miserable failure of last year ; but with the 
 treasure you have given me in poor Sally 
 Owen, who is the most neat, industrious, and 
 excellent servant-of-all-work I have ever seen, 
 I think I must venture, since Roberts insists 
 we can now, by better economy and sense, 
 afford to see our real friends, and a pleasant 
 acquaintance too. But I grieve to tease Sally 
 with a party, who still pines so about her 
 little girl, and that scamp of a husband of 
 hers." 
 
 " The sooner she is roused from these recol- 
 lections the better." 
 
 I could think with no patience of Mr 
 Hardy, the marvellous boot-closer, who, be- 
 cause he could earn very great wages, con- 
 tented himself with half; wasted that pit- 
 tance in riot ; starved, beat, broke the heart 
 of his uncomplaining wife ; whom I could 
 sometimes have beaten also in anger of her 
 foolish forbearance, and really tender but 
 senseless attachment to this worthless fellow, 
 who had, I was assured by her, " so good and 
 kind a heart when he kept sober." 
 
 I cannot comprehend the infatuation of 
 women. After the boot-closer had behaved 
 as ill as mechanic or man could do, squan- 
 dered all their little furniture, and the fruits
 
 32 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 of Sally's early savings, he ran off in a 
 drunken frolic to Liverpool. She was com- 
 pelled, to avoid starvation, to take service, 
 and Jet her child go to the work-house. I 
 thought myself fortunate, for both their sakes, 
 i-n recommending her to Mrs Roberts. For 
 ten months the boot-closer was not once heard 
 ef, and Sally looked a forlorn Penelope. He 
 had gone to Dublin, and thence to Belfast, 
 where we first heard of him in the hospital, 
 ill of typhus. He should have had my leave 
 to take time to recover. But what an un- 
 natural monster did my fair friends, Mrs 
 Roberts, Rachel Greene, and Nurse Wilks 
 imagine me, when I suggested the propriety 
 of letting Mr Hardy quietly lay his restless 
 bones in Ireland, without disturbing his wife. 
 
 Blessings upon their kind, simple hearts ! 
 
 He spoke to them who 'never had a husband ! 
 Would I keep Sally from her duty ? 
 
 Poor men's wives have often very hard 
 conjugal duties compared with those of the 
 ladies ef the rich. Sally tied up her few 
 remaining clothes, with my recommendatory 
 letter to a very particular old favourite of 
 mine, who had settled in Ireland, (whom I 
 may yet introduce to my readers, by her 
 maiden name of Mary Anne,) kissed her 
 child, and trudged away to walk a couple of 
 stages ere she took the top of the Liverpool 
 coach, on her way to her sick husband. It 
 was six weeks before she returned to us, thin 
 as a greyhound, much dejected, and looking 
 twenty years older ; but all the wo'men con- 
 cerned assured me Sally had done her duty ; 
 for the extraordinary boot-closer said on his 
 death-bed, that he sincerely repented of his 
 unkindness ; and he sent his blessing to his 
 child, whom he solemnly charged Sally to 
 bring up in the fear of God. 
 
 Excellent consistent mam ! for his sake 
 Sally resolved she never would make a second 
 choice. With her wages, and a little help, 
 she could now take her child from the work- 
 house, and send it to the country to nurse ; 
 and as soon as it was five years old, Mrs 
 Roberts determined to fetch the little girl 
 home to be first a comfort, and then a help 
 to its subdued mother. This prospect gave 
 a zeal and warmth to poor Sally's services 
 which no other motive could have furnished. 
 She was permitted to go to see her child on 
 a Sunday. Poor Sally Owen could not now 
 have been known for the blithe, light-hearted, 
 ruddy Welsh girl, who wont to sing like a 
 bird all day at her work. She had plenty 
 of work still ; but her mistress was kind and 
 sisterly, and in her little girl Sally had some- 
 
 thing dearly to love ; so that, upon the whole, 
 I believe, the widow of the accomplished boot- 
 closer, who starved his family, and killed 
 himself because he could make double wages 
 when he chose to keep sober, (I do confess a 
 spite at the man,) was upon the whole in 
 fully as felicitous circumstances as ever his 
 wife had been ; tjiough I durst not say so. 
 
 From Mrs Roberts' THIRD CHRISTMAS DIN- 
 NER, I walked home part of the way with 
 my brother, Mr Sullivan, and Plague Madox, 
 whom I saw to the Haymarket, near where 
 he lodged. 
 
 " Very pleasant party," said the old buck, 
 for the third time, as we stood to take leave. 
 " Remarkably well-dressed, well-served din- 
 ner ; so good, and enough only no John 
 Bull load. She is an excellent valuable 
 creature that Sally Owen. I suppose the 
 mutton was Welsh. Really Roberts' wife 
 looks a hundred per cent better since she 
 plumped out a little, and dressed in that neat 
 plain way. Last year I have not seen her 
 since she looked so fretful, tawdry, and 
 haggard, that, upon my honour, I was con- 
 cerned for Roberts. I don't think I would 
 have visited them again, if Mrs James had 
 not hinted at decided improvement. I am 
 to dine at your brother's charming house 
 to-morrow. Every thing delightful there, 
 though I don't think the young ladies are- 
 better guitarists than Mrs Roberts." 
 
 " The difference being that Mrs Roberts is 
 a tolerable performer on that charming unpre- 
 tending instrument, which links the romance 
 of sunny lands to a quiet English fireside, 
 while my nieces " 
 
 " Charming girls ! " But the wind set in 
 most cuttingly. " Eliza reminds me most of 
 Abingdon of any lady I know." This was 
 unintelligibly breathed through ten folds of 
 a Barcelona handkerchief, and Madox went 
 off, hating the east wind as much as he loved 
 a pleasant dinner party, with all its accom- 
 paniments guitar music included. 
 
 I coald not forbear calling to congratulate 
 Mrs Roberts next day. " Always at home 
 to you, sir," said smiling Sally Owen to me, 
 "though mistress has been so busy putting 
 things to rights." " Quite done now, though," 
 cried Maria, opening the parlour door ; " I 
 know your knock so well." It is pleasant 
 to have friends, particularly female friends, 
 that know one's knock. I like to hear it. 
 
 " Your triumph is complete, Mrs Roberts !" 
 I said. " Plague Madox has pronounced you 
 perfect ! But you need never hope for the 
 Pantague suffrage."
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 33 
 
 Maria was still laughing heartily, when 
 Sally brought in a packet. I knew its con- 
 tents before it was opened, for I had seen 
 Madox purchase that morning, at an auction, 
 a whole lot of cheap guitar music. No man 
 in London could exchange this sort of notes 
 for solid dinners more knowingly than my 
 old acquaintance. I had foreseen that Mrs. 
 Roberts, now fairly ranked among the com- 
 fortable dinner-giving women, was to have 
 her share of the purchase. 
 
 " Confirmation strong!" cried Maria, laugh- 
 ingly holding out to me the printed sheet of 
 music, inscribed in his best hand, ' With Mr. 
 Madox's compliments to Mrs. George Roberts.' 
 " But in spite of this polite note, and ' ZarcCs 
 
 Ear-rings' to boot," said Maria, " a charming 
 bribe, no doubt, I do think a young couple 
 like Roberts and myself, beginning life, may 
 find, if we beat up diligently the highways 
 and hedges, more suitable or desirable family 
 guests than the Plague Madoxes of society. 
 I have imbibed your own notions and Rachel 
 Greene's of thai in which true hospitality con- 
 sists. They exclude the regular diners-out" 
 I must some day write the biography of 
 my friend, Plague Madox ; who had dined 
 out for nearly thirty years upon the reputa- 
 tion of a farce, damned forty years ago, and 
 three anecdotes of Sheridan ; and this, though 
 the ladies where he visited detested him with 
 one accord. 
 
 MARY AXNE'S HAIR. A LONDON LOVE TALE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " THERE was not," I have said, " when I 
 first knew it, a more comfortable household 
 than that of David Moir, among the two 
 hundred and fifty thousand families, which 
 then formed the mighty aggregate of the 
 population of London." 
 
 My original acquaintance with my opposite 
 neighbour, old Moir, was as a draught-player. 
 He was a first-rate hand, and some of his 
 countrymen, in his name for David had no 
 idiotic ambition challenged London. A 
 refugee French priest was, about the same 
 time, my opponent in chess. I learnt to beat 
 my master, the Abbe ; but old Cairnbogue, 
 as David was called by his countrymen, re- 
 tained undisputed ascendency. The cool, dry, 
 easy, unconscious manner in which he beat 
 me was infinitely provoking. I gave up the 
 contest for victory ; and our friendship was 
 prosecuted upon a new principle. I cannot 
 tell what David liked me for, or if he cared, 
 at this time, much about me at all ; but he 
 attracted me. He was the first Scotsman 
 of the old school that I had ever known 
 intimately. His phlegm ; his dry humour ; 
 his accent, broad, and yet sharp ; his odd 
 turns of phrase, indicating a manner of 
 thought quite new to me ; and a certain vein 
 of what I called antiquarianism, which ran 
 through his discourse, combined to give him 
 interest. He was no book-man, though he 
 had received the common good education of 
 his country ; but he came from a part of the 
 island where manners, habits, and modes of 
 thinking, were some centuries older than 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 those with which I was familiar. Da rid was 
 a Jacobite in politics, and, moi-e wonderful ! 
 a Whig in religion ; but more a feudalist 
 than either the one or the other. His great- 
 est man on earth, next to the Pretender, but 
 in many points before him, was the LAIRD o' 
 BRODIE. THE LAIRD, as David emphatically 
 called him when our acquaintance ripened to 
 intimacy not Laird John, t>r James, or 
 Robert, but THE BRODIE the reigning po- 
 tentate. 
 
 Though David's trade, for thirty years, 
 had been to escort bullion wagons from 
 wharfs to banks, and carry about bills of ex- 
 change, and all manner of papers significant 
 of scrip, omnium, &c. &c. London and the 
 prestige of riches had scarcely lessened his 
 hereditary impressions of feudal rank. The 
 celebrated speech of the clanswoman to her 
 husband in the cave " Come out, Donald, and 
 be hanged, and no anger the Laird ! " might 
 to David have sounded sublime and pathetic. 
 
 David's insensibility to wealth may in part 
 be accounted for by his very moderate par- 
 ticipation in the profits of the Bank. It is 
 certain that his fortunate millionaire country- 
 man and employer only appeared in David s 
 eyes, like a richer sort of Bailie of Banff or 
 Forres, and the Establishment only a larger 
 kind of shop dealing in money. During 
 the mornings, David spoke of his employer as 
 "the Master ;" but in his hours of relaxation, 
 his father's or uncle's old school-fellow uni- 
 formly diminished into the familiar Tarn, his 
 abbreviation of Thomas. 
 
 A certain portion of respect, regard, and 
 Scottish affection established, David's anec- 
 
 No. 3.
 
 34 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 dotes, strictures, and censures on his shrewd, 
 vain, ostentatious, and lucky countryman, 
 were free enough. He could partly under- 
 stand, but never forgive, the court and aris- 
 tocracy of London for visiting Tarn, and 
 p&rtakiog of his splendid shows, while David 
 was morally certain, never one of them had 
 yet paid their respects to our neighbour, Mrs. 
 Gordon, the larne lieutenant's widow, and "a 
 far-away cousin of THE BRODIE." 
 
 Mr. Moir's original lodging in London, 
 while hanging on looking out for employ- 
 ment, was a small back attic in the house of 
 which he afterwards became the proprietor, 
 and which he has lately built anew from the 
 foundation, with a handsome front, and three 
 sashes a-row, the architectural glory of our 
 lane. Among his many early difficulties and 
 distresses, his original stock of 12 diminish- 
 ing every day in spite of him, and no pro- 
 spect of employment opening, David has often 
 told me none ever pressed so hard as his old 
 landlady the aunt of his future wife 
 giving warning, not to himself, but to a 
 cracked flute, on which, after reading (seated 
 on his kist) a chapter in his Bible, he wont 
 to bray away the dinnerless dinner hour, 
 with " O'er Bogie," or " The Birks of Ender- 
 may," as the Pensive or the Comic Muse 
 chanced to preside over the hollow and 
 hungry hour. 
 
 Poor David, whose twin-born horrors, 
 arising from London lodgings, were plunder 
 and pollution, would have submitted to any 
 thing rather than leave this attic sanctuary 
 of his purity, and of his good stock of wire- 
 knit hose and coarse linen. To this cross 
 landlady's he had been recommended by a 
 Scots coachman of Tarn's as an honest house. 
 
 "With my heart in my mouth," said 
 David and his mouth would have held one 
 even fully as large as was his honest circulatory 
 organ " Wi' my heart in my mouth, I locked 
 the bit whistle in the kist, though it was all 
 my comforter. I had another in this wilder- 
 ness of brick and plaster. I could, by stand- 
 ing on the top o' the kist, have a keek from 
 my four-paned skylight of a green spot out- 
 over the timber-yard, there, behind us, with 
 all its deals, logs, casks, and tar-barrels ; and 
 that ye '11 allow was refreshing. How I 
 leuch when Mrs. Nott called these bits o' 
 green knublocks, the Surrey hills. ' Hills,' 
 quoth she ! they were liker mondiewarp 
 hillocks ; but they were aye something in 
 a strange land." 
 
 It was plain to me that the magnitude 
 and dignity of his native mountains was felt 
 
 by David as ample compensation for the 
 poverty of his country, and as fairly turning 
 the scale in his favour against England and 
 Mrs. Nott. 
 
 " Ye'll never have seen any thing like a 
 real hill, I reckon, Mr. Richard, save maybe 
 in the playhouse?" said David to me one 
 evening after we had long been intimate. 
 
 " Only the Alps and Appenines, with a keek, 
 as you term it, of the mountains of Norway." 
 Here I had my Scot on the hip ; but he did 
 not yield. 
 
 " That's true I forgot that ; but ye were 
 not like born among them to them." 
 
 This was the sort of maundering which 
 formed interludes to those games which David 
 carried off from me with such easy superi- 
 ority, and which first drew my liking to 
 Mm, while he " loved me that I did listen to 
 him." 
 
 " man ! " would he cry, wanning up to 
 cordial familiarity, " but a real hill does fill 
 a body's heart. Could ye but see the Linus 
 o' Dee, and there-away, where I once carried 
 THE BRODIE'S gun when a younker ; or even 
 our ain Forres Moss, where Macbeth-met the 
 witches, ye ken. It's nothing in the play- 
 house. I once threw three white shillings 
 to the cocks for that nonsense. But if it 
 were a blae misty day, the rack hanging low 
 on the moor, and the whaups whistling, ye 
 canna tell where, and the crack o' the Laird's 
 gun, bursting out of the cluds as it were. 
 
 Oh man ! " David, like orators and poets, 
 
 left the rest to imagination. 
 
 Mr. David Moir had obtained a respectable 
 footing with lane, landlady, and Banking- 
 house, by the fifth year of his sojourn in 
 London. Mrs. Nott's original contempt of 
 his country was giving way in favour of the 
 sober, steady, punctually-paying individual, 
 though she still thought it concerned her 
 dignity to resent every attempt that her 
 lodger made to introduce Scottish habits and 
 Scottish cookery into her back attic, and, 
 though a rigid economist herself, to show a 
 proper degree of contempt for his national 
 stinginess. 
 
 The smell of certain dried little fishes 
 since highly prized in London as Finnan 
 Haddocks of which David received an 
 annual supply, was as offensive to her nose 
 in his attic, as his flute had been to the ears 
 of the whole neighbourhood ; but chance 
 averted a rupt\ire. Lodging-house keeping 
 though David did estimate highly the 
 profits of Mrs. Nott, to which he contributed 
 3s. 9d. weekly cannot, after all, be so
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 35 
 
 lucrative a calling as lodgers generally ima- 
 gine. They probably calculate as authors 
 do with publishers, clients with agents, or 
 day-boarders with those who feed them. 
 That is to say, as every body in this world is 
 too apt to do, they grossly over-rate the ad- 
 vantages others derive from them, and under- 
 rate what they receive in return. David 
 was utterly astonished when he heard of an 
 execution in Mrs. Nott's house. There was 
 his own liberal pay the old player gentle- 
 woman's in the back chamber on the second 
 floor, 15d. a-week better, and my friend 
 Harvey's, 1 5s. a-week, for what the landlady 
 was pleased to call the drawing-room-floor : 
 " And to see her sauciness ! " continued 
 David. This I suppose was a Scottish trait. 
 " Sauciness" could not, in David's mind, be 
 the quality of a landlady going back in the 
 world. 
 
 David looked strictly into the affair. A 
 heavy debt had been hanging over the poor 
 woman's head from the death of her hus- 
 band. On tolerably satisfactory security 
 being given, David relaxed his gluey purse- 
 strings ; and as he rather, in business, ap- 
 proved an honest but moderate equivalent, 
 next Sunday at noon saw him rejoicing over 
 platter after platter of sheep's head broth. 
 " Not," as he remarked, " as such a daintith 
 and delicate might have been readied in THE 
 BUDDIE'S kitchen, or even in a farm ha'- 
 house in a landward parish at hame, but 
 wonderful for a first attempt in this court." 
 This was an aflair which interested all the 
 gossips of our lane ; and from this era of 
 Free Trade between the nations, and the 
 recognition of a system of fair equivalents, 
 Mr. Moir and Mrs. Nott lived on a much 
 better understanding. Death removed the 
 old player gentlewoman ; and David, in a 
 very cold winter, descended to her quarters, 
 and with the aid of " a bed by night, a chest 
 of drawers by day," rose to the brevet rank 
 of a parlour lodger. 
 
 This room, in which our first games were 
 performed, became the beau-ideal of a thrifty 
 Scots bachelor's London crib. Here stood 
 David's Sunday hat-box of mahogany, and 
 his draught-board ; and lo ! an auctioned 
 desk, with a new bookcase over it, containing 
 Ossian, (Burns was not yet familiar,) Allan 
 Ramsay, Ferguson's Poems, the Life of 
 Wallace, the Scots Worthies, Blair's Sermons, 
 and Ross's Shepherdess, (if I don't mistake 
 the name,) all bought cheap, and each 
 afterwards encased in substantial calf-boards. 
 David was not one of your modern literary 
 
 Scots, who have read every thing and know 
 every thing. A hair-cloth easy chair, pre- 
 sented to David during a fit of rheumatism 
 by an old and favourite female friend, 
 closely connected with the C establish- 
 ment, whom he still familiarly called Cookie, 
 from her original vocation, and with whose 
 eventful history he made me perfectly fami- 
 liar, completed his catalogue of chamber- 
 gear, independently of the garniture pertain- 
 ing to Mrs. Nott ; and, taken together, it 
 showed so inveterate a purpose of bache- 
 lorism, that, though beyond the age of being 
 surprised at the strangeness of marriages, 
 I was rather astounded when I received 
 David's invitation to do him the honour to 
 attend him to church. 
 
 The case was this. In spite of David's 
 ministrations of Scotch groat-gruel and Glen- 
 livat toddy, poor old Mrs. Nott died one win- 
 ter, of that cough which had indeed attacked 
 and clung to her for the twenty preceding 
 seasons ; and David, her executor, was 
 obliged to look about him. Quitting his 
 grandfather's moorland farm could not have 
 been more distressing to the lad than it was 
 to the elderly thriving man to leave this lane, 
 now endeared by its " old, familiar faces," 
 and his snug parlour-chamber. He could 
 imagine no second-floor back-apartment in 
 London, where his broken flute, and his 
 draught- board, and his bookcase, could be 
 placed in such security, and appear to such 
 advantage ; and thus he was secretly charmed 
 to hear a lady of a certain age, Mrs. Nott's 
 sole heiress, who arrived in due time, per 
 the Chelmsford wagon, declare, that as they 
 were a large family at home, she was ad- 
 vised to try to carry on the House, (the 
 lodging-house to-wit,) the furniture being 
 hers, though it might be a rash thing in her, 
 & young and unprotected woman, to make 
 such a venture. I can imagine how David 
 replied ; and how self-seeking and disinteres- 
 ted kindness for the legatee contended in his 
 honest heart, as he gravely when urged 
 as the person on whose judgment her " dear 
 deceased aunt had such reliance," coun- 
 selled Miss Penny (Penelope) Nott, in this 
 crisis of her fate, to carry on the house, 
 allowing his own claim over the furniture to 
 run on at ordinary interest. 
 
 Ladies have gained husbands in an in- 
 credible number of ways, if we may believe 
 rumour. Mrs. Moir is alleged to have gained 
 her gudeman in a manner which, to me at 
 least, in all my experiences, is perfectly origi- 
 nal. I have heard of women billiarding,
 
 36 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 duetting, wait/ing, hunting, boating, racing, 
 gaming, versifying, mimicking, psalm-sing- 
 ing, sketching, nay, drinking themselves into 
 good matches; but none who, like Miss Penny 
 Nott, gained a husband by being taught by 
 him to knit ribbed worsted hose. This ac- 
 complishment, which David had acquired 
 while a herd in the heights of Morayshire, 
 and which he 8till affectionately remembered 
 in all its details, of the loop and the back- 
 seam, and the rig-and-fur, though it had been 
 nearly forty years in abeyance, he revived 
 upon the reiterated instances of his maiden 
 landlady, with whom he took tea as seldom 
 as he civilly could avoid giving her inexpe- 
 rienced youth the solicited aid of his guiding 
 counsel. There were many little hinges on 
 which the affair finally turned, before David 
 made up his mind to indict me to serve as 
 his bridesman. 
 
 Imprimis, There was the bond over the 
 furniture, which there was no prospect of 
 ever being cancelled, save by such harsh 
 measures as the gallant Scot never could 
 have used to a woman. Secondly, The lease 
 of the house was for sale, and a bargain. 
 Thirdly, Miss Nott was really much more 
 civil than her aunt, though David was not 
 yet nearly so much at his ease with her as 
 if her years had been three score instead of 
 two twenties. Fourthly, But this was scarce 
 a motive, for David, never thinking evil of 
 any one, was no close or keen observer of 
 female manners : Fourthly, however, In 
 twenty years he had regularly noted the 
 maiden's annual visits to her deceased aunt, 
 and she had always seemed a steady, solid, 
 industrious, well-behaved young woman, " or 
 elderly lass," with a taste for knitting worsted 
 hose : and, Finally, and to crown all, and for 
 ever determine David, When &sugh of scandal 
 went abroad in our lane, and when Mrs. Baker 
 tittered to Mrs. Chandler, and Irish Peg, the 
 orange- woman, sniggered to Bob, the pot-boy, 
 who carried in David's diurnal half-pint, he 
 arose before me, in his mighty Norland wrath, 
 and, slapping his thigh, gallantly swore that 
 " Nae virtuous maiden had e'er owed the 
 scathe o' her good name to a man o' the 
 House o' Cairnbogue, and he should not be 
 the first." 
 
 Bravo, man of the mountains ! 
 Hail, Usages of ancient mould, 
 And Ye that guard them, Mountains old. 
 
 Cairnbogue, my readers are to know, was 
 the many hundred acres of stone and heather 
 which my friend's ancestors had rented from 
 THE BRODIE, or some other northern Thane, 
 
 for above three centuries. The House, of 
 which he was the London represents tiv?, 
 must have meant, if meaning it had, the 
 chain of black, straggling huts, comprehend- 
 ing dwelling, barn, stable, and long cow lyre, 
 which were pitched about the lowland out- 
 skirts of that barren holding. 
 
 " No that I cared a , for my own part, 
 
 for their clish-ma-claver," as David who, 
 on occasion, would crack his fingers, and 
 swear in a moderate way afterwards said 
 to me, in referring to those laughing gossips ; 
 who assuredly could not have believed their 
 own scandal, and whose roguish malice was 
 very probably stimulated by David's profound 
 stolidity of aspect and demeanour, and the 
 indescribable air of prudery which, as a young 
 lady of a certain age, acting in the matron's 
 office of lodging-letting, distinguished my 
 friend Miss Penny; particularly when she 
 impressed David's sturdy arm into the rather 
 reluctant service of escorting her to hear 
 some favourite divine at his Presbyterian 
 chapel. 
 
 But I am impatient to get to my god- 
 daughter, my little Mary Anne, the " Sally 
 of our alley," "The Venus of Trotterdown 
 Hill," and must, therefore, make shorter work 
 than Miss Nott might have approved, with 
 the ceremonial of her wedding-day. 
 
 I still remember with what resentment I 
 heard my countrywoman secretly explain, 
 and apologize to me for marrying a Scots- 
 man. She, Essex-born, and salt-marsh bred, 
 to wed with a man of the heathery moun- 
 tains. " It was so odd ; but such things 
 were ordained to happen, and she hoped all 
 would turn out for the best." 
 
 It indeed turned out remarkably well. 
 For the encouragement of all couples who 
 begin wedded life with a very slender stock 
 of love, passionate and undiluted, I am bound 
 to say that I have seldom known a more 
 comfortable union, according to the fifth de- 
 gree on my scale matrimonial. I am afraid 
 David never was a lover at all, at least of 
 Miss Penny, much less an ardent one, though 
 the poor man did his very best to assume 
 certain requisite grimaces in his bridegroom 
 state ; and sang " Tullochgorum," " The Ewie 
 wi' the Crooked Horn," and many other 
 jovial Scottish songs at the merry wedding- 
 supper. 
 
 On the hint of Mrs. Chandler, he bought 
 and presented to his bride a certain Paisley 
 shawl. A Cairngorum brooch was a relative 
 idea ; not that David would have grudged to 
 do so, but the thing never occurred to him.
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 37 
 
 " He had little skill o' the women folk," he 
 owned, and he ever remained a singularly 
 undemonstrative husband in outward show 
 and small attentions, though what is usually 
 called a dutifxil, if not an affectionate one. 
 
 My new friend, Mrs. Moir, bore David's 
 "vulgarity" fully better than I at first ex- 
 pected. Perhaps she loved him not the less 
 for that " quantity," which, as she informed 
 me, she had to endure from his awkward 
 habits. These were all placed against Scot- 
 land and his accent, which remained most un- 
 disguisedly Scottish, and provincially Moray. 
 To counterbalance those severe domestic 
 afflictions came the esteem in which David 
 was held by his employers of the Bank the 
 cancelled bond the better income the ap- 
 probation of Messieurs Baker and Chandler, 
 and their ladies ; the witty congratulations of 
 Irish Peg, and the grins of Pot-Bob ; together 
 with the regard of myself, the philosopher, 
 and of Harvey, the fine gentleman of our 
 lane. It was indeed a satisfactory union. 
 To increase its delights, the Banking-house, 
 on the marriage-cake being, by the address 
 of Mrs. Moir, presented to a lady connected 
 with the establishment, on her suggestion, 
 its head, in a forenoon fit of good-humour, 
 raised David's salary thirty pounds. My 
 thrifty, disinterested friend, no more thought 
 of plotting for an increase of salary than of 
 lavishing his superfluous cash ; that is to say, 
 all his income above one guinea a-week, to 
 which David, on his marriage, raised his 
 expenditure the House going on as before, 
 under the active management of his wife. 
 
 I never had more occasion to admire David 
 than on this advance of salary. He was told 
 that he owed it to the lady, whose generosity, 
 beauty, and blandishments, though all had 
 been tried, had never yet been able to shake 
 his fealty, or withdraw him from his original 
 allegiance to his old friend, Cookie, who had 
 now, for a long period, been the wife of his 
 master. I can conceive the wry faces and 
 contortions of repugnance our Man of the 
 House of Cairnbogue must have made when 
 informed that he must go, in his bridegroom 
 suit, to thank his patroness for his increased 
 salary. Though he had a proper respect for 
 30 a-year additional, or rather for twelve 
 shillings save some fractions a-week for 
 David rather counted by weeks than years 
 nothing could induce him to commit what he 
 considered an act of treachery to his old friend, 
 and of personal degradation to himself. 
 
 " Tarn got into a tantrum," David after- 
 wards told me, when talking of this affair. 
 
 " He thinks a' the warld should be as be- 
 glamoured by his glory and his gold, and his 
 Idol, that playactor cuttie , as he is him- 
 self, poor auld ne'er-do-well ; and lightlie his 
 
 lawful wife and her bonny bairntime : " 
 
 I must not go into the particulars of David's 
 tale. The Kirk had laid on him, however it 
 may fare with his richer expatriated coun- 
 trymen, 
 
 The strong hand of her discipline. 
 
 Religion had given him strict moral prin- 
 ciples ; feudalism yes feudalism clanship 
 in spite of my philosophy I must own it 
 warm and grateful social feelings ; though 
 they might not always be the most enlight- 
 ened or expansive that philosophy may 
 imagine. 
 
 " I slept little that night," continued David. 
 "There was poor Penny, three weeks after 
 marriage, lying snoring laighly beyont me, 
 little dreaming what was hanging over us. 
 If I had been a single man, I could have ta'en 
 a knot o' ropes and gone to the wharf ; and I 
 had character enough left to get me a porter's 
 ticket in a city and neighbourhood where I 
 have lived upwards of thirty years. But what 
 would Penny say to that? It's an auld tale 
 in my country-side, Mr Richard, that a man 
 will never thrive unless his wife let him ; but 
 I have an odd notion that it is still more 
 difficult for him (especially if in office like 
 me) to be an honest man unless the wife 
 bauldly say yea. It would have gone to my 
 heart, too, to have eaten another man's bread 
 than Tarn's. Auld sinner as he is, we had 
 been lang acquaint. I think I drank an 
 extra pint next night, when there was never 
 another word from him about it ; and sang 
 ' O'er Bogie,' and ne'er let on to Penny. 
 Wives shouldna ken a' thing, Mr Richard. 
 Ye'll find that out when ye come to marry." 
 
 If my readers have not now some tolerable 
 notion of my little Mary Anne's progenitor, 
 I am sorry for it ; for I can spend no longer 
 time on David. Never was a child more 
 welcome or more valuable to her parents in 
 their humble way than was my pretty god- 
 daughter. It was Mary Anne's dawning 
 smiles that first genially introduced David to 
 his new fireside, and made him feel at home, 
 after having, for eighteen months, left his 
 old chamber above stairs, and sat opposite 
 Miss Penny. It was the child that even 
 taught him to conquer the habit of calling 
 his wife by that unmatronly name. The 
 individuality of the middle-aged, staid couple, 
 was soon lost in that of the little stranger. 
 Mrs. Moir now first found for her husband the 

 
 .38 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 satisfactory denomination, mingling respect 
 with familiar affection, of " My Mary Anne's 
 Papa," and David converted his blundering 
 " Miss Penny" into "Our bit lassie's mother." 
 
 I think it went a great way to convert 
 David from Jacobitism, which, however, had 
 waxed dim of itself, that my goddaughter, by 
 what both her parents, and all the females of 
 our alley thought a marvellous coincidence, 
 was born on the birthday of the late Prin- 
 cess Charlotte. Mrs. Moir, in particular, 
 could never have done admiring the good 
 luck which predicted some extraordinary 
 stroke of good fortune to " The Princess," 
 which became one of my many caressing 
 names for little Mary Anne. 
 
 David Moir was a poor, unlettered, vulgar 
 
 Scotsman, a porter to C & Co. the 
 
 bankers. I was a broken merchant a 
 chagrined, pitied, baffled, and thrown-out 
 man of the world ; an oddity, a crazy 
 humorist, something of an early scholar, and 
 betraying a touch of the new philosophy ; 
 yet we two spent many tolerably happy even- 
 ings together ; at least when Mrs. Moir, grown 
 more notable and active than ever, now that 
 she "had a family to provide for," left us 
 alone, with the draught-board, and the nur- 
 sing of Mary Anne. The child, though 
 merely a delicious, diamond i. e. a very little 
 edition of my friend, and, indeed, so like 
 him as to provoke her mother for the honour 
 of Essex beauty, was really a very pretty 
 creature ; or, perhaps, she was only the first 
 child I had ever closely watched as it grew. 
 Perhaps she was not beautiful, not even 
 pretty, after all. It was, I acknowledge, 
 impossible to reduce any mouth in imitation 
 of friend David's to the size or curvature of 
 the lips of either loves, nymphs, or graces. 
 But his daughter had his mild and meaning 
 Scottish eyes not bright but ever ready to 
 kindle " like fire to heather set " a lovely, 
 pure skin, and sweet dimples ; and, to orna- 
 ment her head, David's bunches of carrots, 
 now frosted, had been refined in some alembic 
 of the Graces, till, in her third year, they 
 flowed in redundant Ossianic tresses of " paly 
 gold," over her little ivory shoulders, and 
 down to her, not yet, clipsome waist. No 
 shears were permitted to approach those 
 precious ringlets. Mrs. Baker, with her lace- 
 capped little ones, might wonder, and Mrs. 
 Chandler protest and remonstrate ; David 
 was inflexible ont his one point, and Mrs. 
 Moir was willing to be forced to honour and 
 obey ; so the ringlets hung down to the 
 ledges of the pew on Sundays, to the admira- 
 
 tion of the whole Caledonian congregation of 
 London Wall : or David thought so, which 
 was much the same thing. 
 
 From October to March, in a particular 
 year, this little maid regularly made a third 
 at our draught-board, seated on her father's 
 knee ; who, between crowning and capturing, 
 would still clumsily fondle or dandle the 
 pouting or smiling child, to the chanted 
 romance of " The Lord o' Gordon's Three 
 Bonny Daughters," or the heroic strain of 
 " The Red Harlaw," and sometimes in the 
 plenitude of his admiration, and the simplicity 
 of his heart, David would break off to ask 
 me if she was not as bonnie as a Flander's 
 babbie ; while I, from a sound conscience, 
 protested that she was ten times prettier than 
 the most resplendent of the beauties specified 
 Dutch Dolls, to wit. 
 
 "And, O ! Mr Richard," the thoughtful 
 father would exclaim, " what a terrible town 
 this to bring up a lassie in ! " And David 
 would sigh, and resume his crooning lullaby 
 about the indifference to rank, and the power 
 of love over " The bonny Jeanie Gordon." 
 
 In our first approaches to any thing resem- 
 bling demonstrative affection, the advances 
 were all on Mary Anne's side, of which, long 
 afterwards, I never failed to remind her. 
 This, as she grew up, she heard with maidenly 
 smiles and blushes of the purest good-humour, 
 until one unlucky day in her eighteenth year, 
 when conscience made my raillery glance 
 sharply aside, stamping her small foot in 
 sudden passion, while the glow of her eyes 
 and cheeks scorched up the bursting tears of 
 love, pride, shame, and resentment, and in- 
 dignantly repelling my implied suspicion, 
 she clasped her knit fingers across her brows, 
 exclaiming 
 
 " You insult and wrong me, Mr Richard ; 
 I did THAT, but I would die ! die ten thou- 
 sand times, sooner than care for any one who 
 did not first care for me ! " Poor little Mary 
 Anne ! care was her maidenly substitute for 
 the obnoxious word, love, which she would 
 not, in her own case, have used honestly for 
 the world. Alas ! she did not feel it the 
 less. One was her word for man, or rather 
 
 for but no matter her secret was still 
 
 safe with me. I could only sigh, and, with 
 a slight variation, repeat old David's ejacu- 
 lation of fifteen years before : " O, what a 
 world to bring up a lassie in ! " 
 
 I must glance back on these fifteen years 
 before that world, with its turbulent scenes 
 and troubled passions, came to disturb us ; and 
 when Mary Anne, unprompted, remembered
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 39 
 
 me iu her baby prayers, and dispensed to me 
 the good-night kiss, which that good, indus- 
 trious woman, her mother, partly grudged, 
 as something going out of the family, and 
 partly resented as an indecorum in Miss, as 
 she called the child. How I came to love 
 this little thing better than other children, and 
 even than my own nieces, may be simply ac- 
 counted for by her being so much in my way, 
 exceedingly ingratiating, very fond of myself; 
 and, above all, that her mother, being kept 
 off by her continual housewifery, no one, not 
 even a nursemaid, interfered to check and 
 restrain the free course and interchange of 
 our affection, by the peremptory observance 
 of nursery etiquette, curtsies, and pretty 
 behaviour. Nothing like Free Trade ! There 
 was yet another reason : I had not much, 
 indeed I had no experience of children's 
 characters ; but, compared with the romps, 
 Missies, fine little fellows, and frugiverous, 
 or tart-loving monsters, whom I usually en- 
 countered, my own goddaughter possessed, as 
 I imagined, great talents, and uncommon na- 
 tural sensibility ; and was already, in her 
 little mould of woman, an exquisitely femi- 
 nine creature a living thing, by which, 
 without interfering in any way with her 
 education, I might test the educational theories 
 of Rousseau, which I was studying about 
 this time. 
 
 I hope my friends will not believe that I 
 was in the smallest degree influenced in my 
 studies by the imperial ordinance of the 
 dashing dame of my brother's broker, Mrs. 
 Pantague, namely, whom my readers have 
 already seen as a guest at young Mrs. Roberts' 
 unlucky Christmas Dinner. This conse- 
 quential lady had laid her commands upon 
 me " to throw together my ideas on female 
 education, as she certainly did mean, if pos- 
 sible, to retire to the Isle of Wight, or some 
 quiet watering place, say Worthing to take 
 Miss Edgeworth with her, (books meant,) and 
 give herself up the whole season to forming 
 the characters of her sweet twins, Charlotte 
 Victoria and Victoria Charlotte." I heard 
 all with the profound bow that became one 
 so honoured. 
 
 This lady was, according to my sister 
 Anne, one of my especial female pets. She 
 still says this was because the lady wished to 
 patronize me. I deny that ; but I own I 
 did the woman, at one time, the honour of 
 giving her a very respectable share of my 
 dislike, while contempt was all she really 
 merited. There was something in her hard, 
 undaunted, unquestioning, assumption of su- 
 
 periority in her circle, that was infinitely 
 irritating in some of my old moods. It was 
 my misery, at first, not to be able to feel her 
 insignificance, or, if I ever did, her cool, 
 unconscious audacity again threw me out. 
 
 In our social contests, she, the fine iady of 
 her clique, had the advantage of being cased 
 in the hide of a buffalo ; while my thin cuticle 
 might be likened to gold-beater's leaf, barely 
 covering the raw integuments. This Mrs. 
 Pantague, whom I allowed to be an occasional 
 tormentor for some years, though only the 
 daughter of a Bath hotel-keeper and the wife 
 of a stock-broker, might have gained high 
 fame as a duchess, had she achieved that 
 enviable rank. Her consequence, and her 
 inconsequence (I cannot English it) her 
 hauteur, her apparently unconscious effrontery, 
 her total disregard and contempt, or, perhaps, 
 ignorance of the feelings of others her love 
 of show and expense, and the active energy 
 of her style of dissipation, might have adorned 
 the highest circles. They made her the won- 
 der of her own. The woman really had | 
 talents. She was mischievous, not insignifi- 
 cant. She would, in the mood, have won 
 your pity for the severe hardships to which 
 she, hard-working woman, was exposed in 
 spending her husband's income ; and she 
 certainly believed herself entitled to universal 
 sympathy and admiration, for the magnani- 
 mity and spirit with which she bore up under 
 the continual fatigue of rounds of engage- 
 ments, with the third-rate great people to 
 whom, reversing the common rule, she made 
 her way by audacity, afterwards holding her 
 place by obsequiousness. 
 
 We shall meet again. In the mean time, 
 the porter' s-load of works on education, which 
 she unhesitatingly ordered to our lane from 
 a fashionable bookseller's shop, was the acci- 
 dental means of turning my thoughts into 
 the channel she had indicated. My friends 
 will not believe me so simple, nor yet so very 
 humble, as to have exposed in her drawing- 
 room the recondite ideas on female education 
 of " that clever odd creature, Richard Taylor, 
 
 the particular friend of B and of C ." 
 
 In such circles, a literary man, as they called 
 me, like a suspicious bill, always, I have re- 
 marked, requires at least two endorsers. I 
 could not expose my precious parcel of ideas 
 to the ridicule of being paraded for three 
 days among the other show-boards of Mrs. 
 Pantague's drawing-room to be afterwards 
 overlaid by its rubbish of fashionable Annuals, 
 vulgar caricatures, and tawdry trinketry. 
 
 I did, however, admire the idea, not an
 
 40 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 uncommon one among ladies, of forming, or 
 forcing, character in a season like an aspara- 
 gus-bed, but that, I believe, takes several 
 successive seasons ; and having returned Mrs 
 Pantague's books, I got a Rousseau and Miss 
 Edgeworth of my own ; and, while Mrs 
 Hannah More was writing for the benefit of 
 her Princess, Mr Richard Taylor was cogita- 
 ting no less anxiously for the good of his own 
 equally beloved one, his Mary Anne. 
 
 Chance sent my Princess something better 
 than a mitred tutor ; since Mary Anne's em- 
 pire was, I hoped, to be over a few devoted 
 hearts, and many affectionate and attached 
 ones. 
 
 I never saw, save at the interview when 
 she was bequeathed to my friendship, the 
 Soeur Agathe the exiled mm, the sister of 
 my old friend, the refugee Abbe La Martine. 
 
 Blessings on the French tongue ! and on 
 my own imperfect knowledge of it, for 
 many a happy hour has it provided for me 
 during my metropolitan pilgrimage! Many 
 years before this time an act of common 
 civility, or of common humanity to a foreigner 
 in distress, gained for me, owing solely to my 
 slight knowledge of French, the friendship of 
 the exiled Abbe. I had afterwards been 
 able to procure him some teaching in the 
 City. It was in vain that I attempted to 
 dissuade him from joining the mad expedi- 
 tion to Quiberon Bay. He devoted himself 
 to destruction with his eyes open ; for Agathe 
 sanctioned, blessed the enterprise. 
 
 I shall ever upbraid myself for the vul- 
 garity of those associations which made me 
 feel shocked when I first saw the sister of my 
 friend. But one somehow always imagines 
 a nun beautiful, and, at least, not very old. 
 She was very old, very small, very pale, 
 
 of a figure originally slight, and now al- 
 most etherealized, by rigorous fasts, and the 
 rigid exercise of her rule of devotion. Re- 
 publican as I am sometimes accused of being, 
 I could not help venerating the exalted senti- 
 ment of loyalty and piety which animated 
 those heavenly-minded beings catholics, 
 bigots, infatuated royalists as they were. 
 Why is it that the shrines of the False 
 Oracles so often allure the purest and most 
 fervent worshippers? 
 
 I shall never forget the figure of the aged 
 
 nun, bending to receive from the brother, who 
 \\.is many years younger than herself, the 
 priestly benediction ; nor the look of almost 
 inspiration with which, without ons tear, or 
 a faltering accent, she sent him, The servant 
 of the Cross, forth in the strength of the 
 Cross, to battle for his Prince with the Sword. 
 I could have envied, while I pitied, her en- 
 thusiasm ; and, as it was, I peevishly thought, 
 When will the cause of MANKIND inspire 
 women with kindred sentiments? Is Hero- 
 worship the natural destiny of man, till 
 it degenerate into doting superstition like 
 this, which still throws illusion around the 
 degenerate, grovelling, and sensual race of 
 St Louis ? 
 
 We never exactly learned how La Martine 
 fell. He was understood to have perished in 
 some obscure mountain skirmish in La Vendee. 
 
 Long after this event it required all my 
 address and influence to prevail with Mrs. 
 Moir to allow Sister Agathe the miserable 
 shelter of one of her attics, though at a fair 
 stipend. She, the gentlest and most benevo- 
 lent of God's creatures, was disliked as a 
 Frenchwoman and, moreover, as an old 
 Frenchwoman (Mrs. Moir had never before 
 seen an aged specimen) as a Papist, a nun, 
 and an " odd sort of body," who saw no one ; 
 never quitted her chamber ; wore a strange 
 coarse black garb ; and gained a miserable 
 living by weaving cushion-lace.* That I 
 carried the point, was not so much from 
 being Mary Anne's godfather, and the 
 "ffenteelest of David's personal friends," as 
 that my friend Harvey was exhibiting symp- 
 toms of being more than usually sensible to 
 the drawing-room smoking. 
 
 The curiosity of childhood, and the dawn- 
 ing sense of the marvellous and mysterious, 
 soon led my goddaughter to slip up the stairs 
 stealthily, and scratch at the yielding door of 
 Sister Agathe's garret. The sweetly modu- 
 lated voice, the winning smile, and natural 
 courtesy of the nun, captivated the opening 
 affections of Mary Anne, who ran to her on 
 every opportunity, caught her language and 
 her manner, and gradually became to her, 
 what the solitary religieuse must, I fear, have 
 felt, even sinfully dear, 
 
 Mary Anne's first trials and I have no 
 doubt that they were most grievous ones to 
 
 * Irish Peg and myself afterwards became disinterested agents for the disposal of this delicate commodity 
 among ladies, and females of inferior degree. My fair customers lay among the better orders, whose rapacity 
 for a bargain, knowing how my wares came, often enraged and disgusted me. Peg's customers lay among 
 small green-grocers, pot-house keepers' wives, and hucksters driving a brisk trade ; who, if they coveted a bit of 
 real Wallenchines, never grudged to pay freely and even generously for it. I must make a chapter of my lace 
 trade. It brought me in contact with some strange female propensities.
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 41 
 
 a child of her sensibility arose from the 
 prejudices of her mother, and her rudeness 
 to this poor nun. Mrs. Moir, though partly 
 sensible of the advantages the little girl de- 
 rived from the instructions of Sister Agathe, 
 grudged the over-payment of the child's 
 vehement and even passionate affection for 
 the nun. Poor Mary Anne ! It was, even 
 thus early, her misfortune to love too rashly, 
 and too well, and to siffer for it. 
 
 Mrs. Moir would, as she told me, have 
 grudged nothing in reason by the month, or 
 quarter, or lesson, for the child's education : 
 she could, thank God ! pay in money ; but 
 no Frenchwoman should dare to steal her 
 daughter's affections from her. Sister Agathe 
 had often, before this, secretly mingled her 
 tears with those of her affectionate pupil ; 
 and it was long before she could summon 
 resolution to acquaint me that her duty re- 
 quired that she should leave this house, again 
 to go forth among strangers and heretics : 
 this last she did not say. She blamed no 
 one. It was Irish Peg's SQolding accost at 
 the head of the lane, and Mary Anne's tear- 
 stained face, that first acquainted me with 
 this odious domestic persecution. Peg, a 
 generous Tipperary termagant, (or randy, 
 as David called her,) and a true Catholic, was 
 the thorough-going friend of the friendless 
 nun ; not the less, perhaps, that she cordially 
 detested Mrs. Moir, and did not understand 
 one word of French. 
 
 My expostulatory conversation with the 
 worthy lady of David, showed me English 
 prejudice, as it existed in female bosoms in 
 the last generation, in all its narrowness and 
 rankness. On a patient cross-examination, 
 I found that Agathe's only faults were the 
 black garb and close coif-veil of her order ; 
 untidiness (sometimes) implied by certain 
 spots on her floor, which were a dreadful 
 affliction to Mrs. Moir's fidgety neatness ; and, 
 above all, the occasional visits of Irish Peg. 
 If the Irish woman could have ascended by 
 wings, she might at first have been forgiven, 
 but her steps necessarily fell on the stair's 
 carpet ; and though the poor orange-woman, 
 in reverence of English niceness, sometimes 
 actually stole up stairs without her shoes, 
 and in what she called her " vamps," that was 
 no palliation ; since it was correctly imagined, 
 that she had no good tale to rehearse at the 
 end of her journey, though one of which, 
 haply, the nun comprehended not a word. 
 The humour of the landlady fell somewhat, 
 when I calmly pointed out to her the injury 
 she was doing her child ; but it rose again 
 
 when I fairly acquainted her that the aged 
 sister of my dear friend La Martine, should 
 remain the inmate of no house where she was 
 not treated with every respect. This was 
 pushing matters to an extreme on which the 
 lady had not counted. 
 
 " Let her go," she exclaimed, with the 
 hyena-laugh of malignant feelings, " a blest 
 riddance. Had it not been to oblige you, 
 sir " But Mary Anne, a silent and most 
 anxious listener, started from her stool, cry- 
 ing 
 
 " And if Agathe go, then Mary Anne goes !" 
 And the child burst into tears. This sally, 
 in a creature so gentle and docile, and the 
 still more generous feeling it expressed, pro- 
 voked the mother, who violently and re- 
 peatedly struck her child before I could 
 interfere. I could have knocked the woman 
 down, had I not been better engaged in shield- 
 ing within my arms my dear little god- 
 daughter, whom I kissed, and pressed to my 
 heart as if for the first time, and have loved 
 ever since with a new love, the sudden growth 
 of that moment ; a passion which I may say 
 rivals in tenderness, and has often exceeded 
 in anxiety, the paternal affection of old David 
 himself. 
 
 I was but too happy to restore the general 
 peace on terms rather favourable, at least, for 
 Mary Anne and her amiable. Bonne ; that is, 
 if the other contracting party had kept faith 
 which she did not. It is a trait of my 
 countrywoman, who was too English, too 
 proud, and, according to her light, too honest 
 to accept of gratuitous service from the des- 
 pised poor, that on this Friday, and other 
 meagre days, she commissioned her daughter, 
 who, at ten years old, had ten times her 
 sense, and a thousand times her delicacy, to 
 carry to the thin etherealized Catholic re- 
 .cluse a huge slice of plum-pudding! Mary 
 Anne either swallowed as much as she could 
 herself, or dexterously conveyed such rations 
 to Irish Peg, too delicate to expose her 
 mother, or, as she imagined, to affront her 
 tutoress, whose refusal of such gifts, however 
 polite, woiild have mortally offended the in- 
 sular power. 
 
 I am afraid that these little concealments, 
 though practised for the most amiable pur- 
 pose, laid the foundation of future evil in the 
 naturally ingenuous mind of my goddaughter. 
 But before this went too far, she had lost the 
 beloved and revered friend of her childhood. 
 Let me recall them on this evening of the 
 general pacification. It forms an era in the 
 history of our Princess.
 
 Till: EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 The window of my second-floor bed- 
 chamber, and the window of Sister AGATIII:'S 
 attic, stood at right angles ; for nurse Wilks's 
 is a stately three-storeyed pile. Lovers might 
 have held intercourse, and friends with long 
 arms might have shaken hands, across the 
 intervening space. When I wished at any 
 time to have a lattice conference with my 
 Princess, I had only to draw up my case- 
 ment. For the first twelve years of her life, 
 Mary Anne, if within sight or ear-shot, ever 
 obeyed the signal. On this sunshiny even- 
 ing sunshine after storm in the heavens 
 and in our lane up went my casement to 
 catch the breeze from the unseen river, and 
 up sprang Sister Agathe's. What could be 
 prettier than the home picture it revealed ! 
 The happy little maid, now all smiles, sitting 
 within the muslin screen and the embower- 
 ing mignonette, singing, and tossing about 
 her lace bobbins with the indescribable 
 pctillante air of a French girl, and anon 
 stopping to nod or kiss her hand to " le bon, 
 petit Monsieur Richard" while, retired from 
 view, the nun kept fondly brushing out those 
 luxuriant golden tresses, disturbed from their 
 now usual conventual neatness of arrange- 
 ment by the tempestuous day we had passed ; 
 and over her attenuated form towered the 
 Oroad face and broader grins of Peg Plunkett, 
 come openly to sing Te Deum for Mrs. Moir's 
 defeat. 
 
 I could not conclude the chapter more 
 happily than with this view of three of the 
 leading female characters of our lane ; and 
 while the evil influences that were darkening 
 around my goddaughter were still but faintly 
 foreshadowed. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MARY ANNE was in her thirteenth year 
 when we lost, by rapid, but gentle decay, her 
 friend and instructress, Sister Agathe. Had 
 I never heard of the immortality of the soul 
 of man, I would have received intimation of 
 this great truth from the life and death of 
 that poor nun. She could not be said to die : 
 her soul exhaled from a frame that had al- 
 ready nearly thrown off every earthy and 
 grosser particle. For the last ten days of her 
 life, while her spirit enkindled, and burned 
 brighter and brighter to its close, her only 
 sustenance was a few drops of wine and 
 water, administered by her young, weeping 
 nurse. The devotees who crowded to her 
 couch in the last days of her life, would fain 
 
 liave cried, " A miracle ! " but the time was 
 not propitious. 
 
 It was painful to me to lay the attenuated, 
 the almost ethereali/ed body, among the 
 huddled festering heaps of a common London 
 d, swelling with the mounds of past 
 but there were pious rites, 
 decent regrets, solemn ceremonial, and, what 
 is of far more price, tears which purified the 
 living, while they fell in oblation to the dead. 
 My friend, Mrs. Plunkett, the orange- woman, 
 had it of kind and country to get up a few 
 reverential tears in honour of the dead, even 
 when the claim was merely one of neigh- 
 bourhood or slight acquaintance ; and she 
 sincerely " wept the blessed saint," though 
 the next hour saw her, necessarily perhaps, 
 wrangling with her customers, or calling her 
 wares. The grief of my goddaughter was a 
 more profound feeling. To a creature of her 
 age, when gifted with her depth of heart, 
 the death-bed of one beloved is a powerful 
 preacher. Among the first intelligible sen- 
 tences that she spoke to me was, " Oh ! how 
 could I so weep for my mother's chidings, 
 and my own little crosses, when for her I can 
 now do no more than weep ! " 
 
 As Agathe's executor, I thought it proper 
 to put aside, for a time, those books of Madame 
 Guyon and other enthusiasts and mystics 
 which she had daily perused with so much 
 unction, and bequeathed to Mary Anne, as 
 the most precious legacy. Property she had 
 none. Her burial charges were bestowed 
 by Christian charity, in which it is but jus- 
 tice to Mrs. Moir to say, that, with all her 
 perverseness, she was not at this time back- 
 ward ; and yet, strange woman ! she had 
 grudged her daughter's love to the living 
 nun, as she now did her tears to the departed 
 angel. 
 
 After the death of Agatlie, her pupil became 
 for a season morbidly fond of solitude. The 
 bustle of the family below stairs, the sharp 
 tones of their voices, the creaking of doors 
 and shoes, were painful and irritating to her 
 nerves ; and her only happiness was to spend 
 whole days, shut up in the little apartment, 
 where she found so much food for memory, 
 and leisure for musing, and where alone she 
 said she was happy. 
 
 I quite agreed with Mrs. Moir, that too 
 much of this " moping " would never do. I 
 took Agathe's place as instructor, that is 
 to say, for fifteen minutes a-day or so, we 
 studied geography together, read a little 
 Italian, in which I was able to be her school- 
 master, and kept alive our French, in which
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 Mary Anne far excelled me. I also supplied 
 ner with a few suitable books ; but I soon 
 discovered, with some alarm, and also I fear 
 amusement, that by the good offices of Mrs. 
 Plunkett and her children, Mary Anne con- 
 trived, through aid of her father's secret 
 half-crowns, to supply herself clandestinely 
 with a great many ; and was, at the age of 
 fifteen, far deeper in the Mysteries of Udolpho, 
 and the Romance of the Black Forest, than 
 myself. There had been detections, storms, 
 threatenings, and tears in abundance. Coming 
 generations owe to Sir Walter Scott and some 
 of the late novelists, the open sanction of 
 indulgence in the contraband reading which, 
 being made criminal in their grandmothers, 
 was attended by some of the consequences of 
 crime. The industrious habits of Mrs. Moir 
 were opposed to all reading ; her ignorance 
 or moral prejudices, to all novel-reading, 
 without any exception, save for an abridged 
 Pamela. I knew not rightly how to decide 
 between mother and daughter ; and as free 
 trade was prohibited, I went on winking hard 
 at the smuggling system. 
 
 The manoeuvres of the girl to conceal the 
 furtive volume were to me wickedly amusing. 
 She sat in a window-seat d la Turque, her 
 work in her lap, the subject of study con- 
 veniently placed under her legs, ready to be 
 perused, but on the instant concealed, if the 
 mother's step was heard approaching from 
 the kitchen. As she was a very nimble 
 sempstress, the small quantity of work done 
 did not lead to detection. This, with morn- 
 ings, bits of the night, when a supply of 
 candles could be got, and hours when mamma 
 was at market, supplied a good deal of leisure 
 to a girl devouring tales of sentiment and 
 wonder with the green appetite of fifteen. 
 
 I repeatedly endeavoured, as a measure of 
 safety, to obtain a relaxation of the maternal 
 rule on this point ; but Mrs. Moir appeared 
 to become more obstinate from opposition. 
 Wherever she had obtained her principles of 
 criticism, to me they appeared singularenough. 
 One day I saw poor Mary Anne detected in 
 the very act of stealthily reading Werter, 
 the fascinations of which had thrown her off 
 her guard. The dangerous volume was taken 
 from her with very unnecessary violence, as 
 she had never dreamed of opposition, or of 
 fighting to retain the harbinger of Goethe's 
 genius ; and I found that Mrs. Moir's fears 
 were not of love but suicide. 
 
 " A disobedient little minx, idling her pre- 
 cious time with a book that teaches people 
 to kill themselves ! " Save for my god- 
 
 daughter's tears I should certainly have 
 laughed. The farther history of the de- 
 nounced volume had a very different effect 
 on me from that which it produced on the 
 mother. Mary Anne denied that the book 
 had been procured in the usual way by the 
 Irishwoman, in a manner that convinced me 
 of her truth. Her mother insulted her by 
 broad and rude disbelief of her statement, 
 and my goddaughter became indignant and 
 sullen. But violent threats against her Irish 
 agent, nothing less, indeed, than utter ruin 
 in soul, body, and estate, \vould have drawn 
 the whole truth from the weeping girl, when 
 another actor came on the scene. 
 
 This was a lodger Mrs. Moir had obtained 
 some months before, who, passing the open 
 parlour door, and hearing the dispute, stept 
 in. 
 
 " If there be harm done, I am the guilty 
 person, madam. It was I that lent Miss 
 Mary Anne this book, not my poor coun- 
 trywoman at the head of the lane.'' Mary 
 Anne, covered with blushes, drowned in tears, 
 and, in an agony of youthful shame, hid her 
 face with her hands. 
 
 " Certainly Mr. Lyndsay Boyle, that makes 
 a great difference. My girl getting a book 
 in loan from a gentleman in our own family, 
 and throwing away her pocket-money, wast- 
 ing her time, and conniving with a low Irish- 
 woman I beg pardon, sir, improper to 
 smuggle books into my house at any rate 
 makes all the odds in the world." 
 
 " Certainly, madam," said the young fel- 
 low, with a look even more sarcastic than his 
 disdainful tone. " May I then be permitted 
 to offer to Miss Mary Anne such volumes as 
 my scanty collection affords that can give 
 her any pleasure ? " 
 
 " She will be greatly obliged," replied the 
 sensible mother. 
 
 " Indeed, I don't want I won't have any 
 more," cried the girl, stealing a hasty look 
 at myself, which procured me the honour of 
 a more searching than ceremonious scrutiny 
 from her new friend. 
 
 With an attempt at complacence, he said, 
 " I am glad to understand that you, sir, have 
 more liberal ideas of books." 
 
 " This is more a question of the propriety 
 of certain loans than of studies," was my 
 somewhat pragmatical reply ; for I was indeed 
 uneasy and even alarmed, I knew not very 
 well for what, and pleased when the gentle- 
 man, bowing very slightly, walked off. I 
 was, however, by no means satisfied with the 
 hasty, timid glance Mary Anne, now first
 
 44 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 daring to look up, sent after him and her 
 mother, who followed him out. 
 
 " Tell me all about this, my dear Mary 
 Anne ?" I sat down with her on her window- 
 seat. I took her hand. I allowed her in 
 silence to weep on. 
 
 "Mr. Lyndsay Boyle heard mamma scolding 
 me one day and perhaps I deserve to he 
 scolded and scolding poor Mrs. Plunkett ; 
 and he asked Betty about it, and sent me 
 books by her several times, which I have 
 liked to read, and I did not like to be so rude 
 as refuse to take them ; and indeed that is 
 all ! " 
 
 " Positively all ? " 
 
 "Almost all. Once Mr. Lyndsay Boyle 
 asked my father to take him to chapel with 
 us he is from the North of Ireland, and his 
 mother is a Presbyterian ; once he met me 
 in the rain, and turned and brought me to 
 the head of the lane under his umbrella ; and 
 once he bowed to mamma and myself as we 
 were returning from church, and he passing 
 in a little open carriage with another gentle- 
 man." 
 
 What an accurate memory for items ! I 
 liked it not ; though I was charmed with 
 the candour, and even the minuteness of the 
 avowal ; and the delicacy for I am afraid 
 it was rather intuitive delicacy than delibera- 
 tive wisdom which led my goddaughter to 
 declare, that " she woxild take no more books 
 from Mr. Lyndsay Boyle, because it made her 
 feel strange." 
 
 That very evening I beset my sister Anne 
 afresh, with an old scheme of having Mary 
 Anne taken as a half-boarder in the excellent 
 school at Bognor, at which my nieces and 
 several of their juvenile friends had been 
 educated. I had seen something of the ladies 
 by whom the seminary was conducted. I 
 liked their letters, for they were not very 
 clever, nor well- written ; and they said no- 
 thing at all to the mothers about their "talented 
 pupils," or " the remarkable genius of the 
 very interesting charge committed to them," 
 a customary phraseology of some boarding- 
 school letters, which I plead guilty to hating. 
 
 In the .mean time, I undertook to supply 
 my goddaughter with healthful books. I had 
 all along done so to some extent ; but had 
 never properly calculated on the inordinate 
 diseased appetite, be it for chalk or romances, 
 which may consume an ill-managed girl of 
 fifteen. 
 
 While the Bognor negotiation was pending, 
 came the period when I earned from Mary 
 Anne the name of THE GOOD GENIUS ; and 
 
 she has since told me, that my sudden ap- 
 pearances, and crossings of her secret paths, 
 at this time, in places the most unexpected, 
 seemed to her absolutely supernatural. Con- 
 science is the mother of superstition. 
 
 Levity, fickleness, affectation, the love ot 
 dress and amusements, were none of my fears 
 for Mary Anne. Her nature Heaven knows 
 whence she derived it ! was too deep and 
 passionate to make the common errors of 
 girlhood very dangerous to her. I would 
 rather have seen her curling her hair, and 
 making up dresses all day long, or at 
 twenty balls, caparisoned in gauze and 
 flowers, and perspiring in the gallopade, than 
 as I once surprised her " under the shade ot 
 melancholy boughs," leaning frightened at 
 herself and at every thing around her on 
 the arm of that confounded young Irishman, 
 listening to music, which a set of young men 
 had, that summer, got up for the delectation 
 of their fair neighbours, about the Temple 
 Gardens. Her blushes, her trembling, her 
 apparently agonizing consciousness of shame 
 and wrong, where another girl would have 
 felt lightly enoiigh, made the matter worse. 
 She drew away her arm pettishly and petu- 
 lantly, then looked with anxious deprecation 
 on her offended companion ; and though she 
 voluntarily took my arm, and begged to go 
 home with me, I believe she struggled with 
 her. tears the whole way. Yet to go home 
 was her own earnest proposal. 
 
 The deuce was in the girl ; she was verily 
 bewitched. 
 
 Upon another occasion, a few weeks after- 
 wards, I certainly, by perfect accident, came 
 suddenly upon my goddaughter, with one or 
 two young companions, this same young 
 Irishman and another lad, stepping into a 
 boat for a pleasure sail, in apparently high 
 but fluttered spirits. Female conscience was 
 not slumbering, though Mary Anne had bid 
 it go to sleep. She started almost screamed ; 
 and obeying nay eye, like a fascinated bird, 
 slowly advanced to me. 
 
 " Mary Anne, why will you leave us ? " 
 cried the girls. " Mr. Lyndsay Boyle is to 
 show us a beautiful new steamer at Black- 
 wall, Mr. Richard, cried one." I did not in- 
 terfere. 
 
 " Indeed, indeed, I cannot go I must not 
 go. Do not fancy me very capricious." I 
 would rather she had gone ten times than 
 seen that alarmed, deprecating look. 
 
 The youth, the projector of the party, 
 glowed with resentment, divided between my 
 goddaughter and myself. Her tears partly
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 45 
 
 disarmed him ; but still, haughtily enough, 
 he said, " Miss Mary Anne must act as she 
 thinks best," and he pushed off the little 
 barque, leaving the damsel to a day of sad- 
 ness, imbittered by reflection on her folly, 
 her caprice, but above all, I fear, by the dread 
 of her new admirer's displeasure. 
 
 I was not sorry to find that he soon met 
 flirting society, where he was not distracted 
 by girls having qualms of conscience, scruples 
 of delicacy, tears, caprices, unequivocal marks 
 of tenderness alternating with fits of pettish- 
 ness, pride, and pouting disdain of attentions 
 more lively than profound. In flirtations 
 with the Miss Bakers, the Miss Chandlers, 
 and others of our neighbours, the young 
 Irishman forgot, or seemed to forget, the little 
 spoiled whimsical girl for whom his good- 
 nature and gallantry had been piqued, when 
 lie saw her persecuted by her vulgar mother 
 for the congenial sin of reading romances. 
 The mother was the cause of a final estrange- 
 ment, at which I rejoiced ; for, so far I fear 
 as Mary Anne was personally concerned, 
 every fresh love-quarrel and pouting-fit only 
 deepened those feelings that were hourly 
 gaining alarming power over her. It was not 
 till long afterwards that I was made ac- 
 quainted with the circumstances of the final 
 quarrel. 
 
 " How I long to be at Bognor, and far 
 away from this," said my goddaughter to me 
 one evening, and this was often repeated : 
 but when the journey was finally arranged, 
 in a few weeks afterwards, she wept in secret 
 incessantly ; and honest David would have 
 altered the whole arrangement, save for her 
 own good sense and my firmness. A party 
 of her young friends spent the evening pre- 
 vious to her departure with her. Mr. Lynd- 
 say Boyle, on the mother's invitation, made 
 one ; and the old lady treated us with a little 
 supper. The Irishman was a handsome, 
 lively young fellow ; with the frank, ingra- 
 tiating manners of his country, eloquent, 
 full of frolic, and with just that slight touch 
 of swagger which sits so gracefully upon the 
 sons of the Sister Isle, and on them alone. 
 He fairly eclipsed all the John-Bull beaux of 
 Mrs. Moir's circle ; and one might have sworn 
 that he had turned the heads of all the five 
 girls present, save one. Even I might have 
 been deceived, but for the slight tremor of 
 voice with which Mary Anne tried, and failed, 
 to return the " Farewell" cordially, but some- 
 what carelessly addressed to her by the 
 gentleman, in anticipation of her early jour- 
 ney in the morning. 
 
 For the next twelve months, my god- 
 daughter lived, and, I believe, prospered at 
 Bognor. At the second holidays, she would 
 still have declined to come home, so anxiously 
 occupied was she, as she stated, with her 
 duties and her studies ; and so desirous had 
 she become of profiting by this period of 
 leisure. But mother, and David, and god- 
 father, and all, longed to see Mary Anne ; 
 and at the close of the next term, she came 
 back to us for good ; and, what all the women 
 called, " vastly improved." Really, she was 
 a very charming young creature. Nothing, 
 at least, could be prettier than her little 
 hands, her pretty feet, her delicate shape, her 
 clear and varying complexion, the ivory ears 
 displayed by the womanly style in which she 
 now arranged the splendid hair that formerly 
 wont to hang curling on her neck. She had 
 read little in this year, and yet had improved 
 herself. She had worked caps and lappets 
 for her mother, and a green purse for my- 
 self ; and the letters addressed to " Dear 
 Papa," especially such as contained a request 
 for any thing, were now penned with studied 
 neatness. 
 
 I was apprehensive that shs might feel 
 disgusted, and become discontented or peevish 
 in her old quarters, after enjoying the air, 
 the comparative elegance, and the refinements 
 of her school. My alarm was vain. Sweet 
 flexibility of woman's nature ! Mary Anne, 
 without effort, accommodated herself to her old 
 way of life. Her quiet and gentle demeanour 
 even imposed restraint on her mother's vio- 
 lence ; she was allowed to regulate her own 
 hours and occupations, and acknowledged to 
 be industrious., though still chargeable with 
 the old fault of " moping." 
 
 I knew not whether to regret or rejoice at 
 the total silence she maintained on the sub- 
 ject of Mr. Lyndsay Boyle, who had left the 
 house a very few weeks after herself, and had, 
 as I understood, been going to the devil in 
 very good style ever since. 
 
 This young man had received his education 
 at Trinity College, Dublin, and his friends 
 had intended him for the bar ; but the family 
 finances failing, he had entered the employ- 
 ment of one of the many flash Wine and 
 Spirit Companies, which in London spring 
 up like mushrooms ; and had become the con- 
 fidential clerk. In this capacity, Mr. L. Boyle 
 was probably about as foolish and extrava- 
 gant as are nine-tenths of his contemporaries. 
 His salary was large, with some per centage 
 on the sales of the house, on which last he 
 calculated like an Irishman of twenty-three.
 
 41! 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES <>!' RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Among his first follies, was leaving Mrs. 
 Moir's frugal and respectable lodgings in our 
 lane, though for this he pleaded hatred of 
 his landlady. There must have heen some 
 natural antipathy between Mrs. Moir and 
 Hibernians, as I never knew one of the 
 nation who could endure her. 
 
 But if all were silent, some of us had not 
 forgotten Mr. Lyndsay Boyle. There are 
 few persons in London who can altogether 
 escape being hooked into the purchase of 
 benefit tickets. My brother James was one 
 of those good-natured souls, who once or 
 twice a-year had a quantity of these com- 
 modities thrust upon him by the satellites of 
 the great Stars. Had they been taken from 
 players really needing this sort of largesse, 
 one would less have minded ; but, as it was, 
 I occasionally accepted of one or two from 
 him, and at this time did so, for the sake of 
 my goddaughter, who, though bred in the 
 heart of London, had not been three times in 
 her life in any theatre. This, I have reason 
 to believe, is the case with the daughters of 
 many of the respectable small tradesmen and 
 shopkeepers, especially among the numerous 
 dissenters ; and though the theatre is a school 
 of morals and manners, I see little to regret 
 in well-brought up young women missing 
 many of its sights, and some of its lessons. 
 
 But we were this night Covent-Garden 
 bound ; and in good spirits we glanced over 
 the English ballad opera that was to furnish 
 our night's entertainment ; and both to keep 
 our custom for our friends at home, a funda- 
 mental principle of British commerce, and to 
 purchase reasonably, David came out and 
 Imught us oranges from Mrs. Plunkett ; who 
 blessed its both, and swore she had never 
 seen MS look rosier or purtier than that same 
 night ; and wished to the blessed saints that 
 Mr. Lyndsay Boyle could only see us. 
 
 We went on one of us laughing, neither 
 of us the merrier. 
 
 " And by the way, Mary Anne, I saw that 
 same 
 
 Old true love of thine, 
 
 in the Park this same day, gallantly mounted, 
 but a whole league too far off from Blackwall, 
 or wherever he ought to be." 
 
 There was no reply : a little shiver fol- 
 lowed, but this was rather a cold night. 
 
 It was a well-filled, not a crowded house 
 that we entered. We got good places, how- 
 ever ; and amused ourselves by examining 
 the company. There is, I confess, some per- 
 verseness in human nature which does occa- 
 sionally make one feel more cheerful, social, 
 
 and kindly in a play-house than in a church. 
 Mary Anne now prattled even gaily, certainly 
 freely and carelessly ; hut this was not long. 
 If he did not see her, she saw him. It was 
 one of those exhibitions which, even to in- 
 different parties, do not recommend the 
 arrangements of English theatres. The cause 
 of the involuntary clutch made by my com- 
 panion at my arm, while she pressed her- 
 self against my side, as if she would have 
 grown to me for protection from blasting 
 images of horror and impurity, my own eyes 
 following her glance soon detected. Yet there 
 was almost nothing the indifferent would have 
 remarked as extraordinary ; for what more 
 common than groups of gay young men talk- 
 ing with gay women in a theatre. 
 
 I was in pain for Mary Anne, though not 
 particularly sorry that her own eyes had 
 been her monitors ; for how deep-seated, how 
 powerful, must have been those feelings that, 
 after a lapse of nearly two years, produced 
 this terrible revulsion, this marble hue and 
 universal shuddering, and time it was they 
 were extirpated. I do not suppose that 
 Mary Anne, spell-bound, trusted herself with 
 another look in the direction that had tor- 
 tured her. When I looked again, after the 
 space of a few minutes, Mr. Lyndsay Boyle 
 had left his fair friends, certainly without 
 having recognised his old acquaintances. 
 
 Once or twice I offered to take her home. 
 " No, no mamma would wonder." But we 
 ultimately came away before the afterpiece, 
 both of us, I believe, tired and sick of the 
 theatre. Several times, on her homeward 
 walk, Mary Anne tried to speak, and failed. 
 We were almost under the lamp at the head of 
 our lane, when she whispered tremulously, 
 
 " My godfather, I wish to tell you some- 
 thing," It was the very endearing, simple 
 phrase of her childish days of unlimited con- 
 fidence, "something it would do me good 
 to tell you, and then I should be well again." 
 She was now dreadfully agitated. 
 
 " My love, Mary Anne, you shall tell me 
 what you please. Shall I take you home, or 
 to Nurse Wilks' first ? to my own apart- 
 ments " 
 
 " Oh, no, no I cannot to-night bear lights 
 and houses. The dark the stars this cold 
 free air, which keeps me from choking " 
 
 I permitted her to lead me on ; and, by 
 choice, or more likely accident, Blackfriars 
 Bridge, at this hour solitary enough, became 
 our confessional. Her head leaning on my 
 shoulder, her lips close to my ear, she several 
 times, as we stood, repeated, as if trying to
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 commence her broken story, the words 
 " Once I once imagined I was a very 
 young a very foolish girl almost a child, 
 yon remember, who could fancy children 
 having such dreams ! to last so very long : 
 I imagined" There was another suf- 
 focating pause a kind of hysterical swelling 
 in her throat and passionately turning 
 away, she exclaimed aloud " O, I cannot 
 tell it ! " 
 
 So far as regarded so penetrating an old 
 gentleman as myself, the confidence was 
 indeed quite superfluous. But this was no 
 jesting matter to my poor Mary Anne, nor 
 yet to me at that moment. I allowed her 
 to sob herself to composure ; and she took up 
 the tale aloud, which she appeared to have 
 been pursuing in her mind, and as if I had 
 heard the first part. " One day that I walked 
 with Mm, thinking every moment that you 
 would meet me, he spoke of my mother 
 light, scoffing, rude words. Perhaps he forgot 
 she was my mother ; but it was cruel. I 
 felt no one could love me right, and speak so 
 of my poor mother. I loved his mother : 
 and every soul in Ireland he ever told me of, 
 how I loved them all ! That was our last 
 quarrel, and it is nearly two years since. But 
 I never told him why I was offended ; for if 
 he had loved me right, he would have known 
 that. I waited these two years. And to- 
 night ! to-night ! " 
 
 The low, quivering voice of anguish in 
 which these words were thrilled, told me 
 that whatever might be her fate otherwise, 
 there was for Mary Anne slender chance of 
 ever in this world being loved as she could 
 love, of being, as she childishly phrased it, 
 "loved right," with the purity, the pride, 
 the tenderness, the delicacy, the annihilation 
 of self, the boundless devotion, which made 
 up her notion, or rather her feeling of the 
 blissful condition she conceived, but could 
 not describe. 
 
 In silence I brought her home. She ran 
 up stairs, for a few minutes, probably to 
 bathe her eyes, and then descended to us 
 with that air of composure, that sweet stern- 
 ness, which women borrow I know not 
 whence. 
 
 The spring and the summer passed, and I 
 heard no more about Lyndsay Boyle, save 
 vague rumours of his folly and extravagance. 
 Nor could I complain of my goddaughter. 
 She was attentive to all her duties ; helpful 
 to her mother ; cheerful and obliging with 
 her few young companions ; and, so far as I 
 could see, contented and sei-ene in her own 
 
 mind. During this interval, she spent a good 
 deal of her time in the family of my brother, 
 where, twice a- week, she had an opportunity 
 of sharing in the many lessons which my 
 two elder nieces were receiving, with a view 
 to her becoming, during the winter, the 
 governess of their little sisters. Though 
 David was rather dissatisfied, Mrs. Moir, 
 Mary Anne, and myself, highly approved this 
 arrangement. Still, my good friend, Mrs. 
 Moir, would occasionally complain of her 
 daughter "moping" and "drooping." She 
 had no young confidantes ; no constant cor- 
 respondent ; and a disinclination to spend 
 money on herself, or, in her mother's phrase, 
 " to make herself smart," which, in a girl 
 of eighteen, was, at least, very uncommon. 
 Once, and but once, I ventured afar off to 
 sound the state of her feelings. It was in 
 the month of September of the same year in 
 which we had been at Covent Garden. In- 
 stead of eluding, she invited the subject ; but 
 not its protracted discussion. I was even 
 surprised by the firmness and air of serenity 
 the farthest in the world, however, from 
 indifference with which she said, " If he is 
 happy, I am content." 
 
 " With no desire that he should return to 
 his allegiance ? " 
 
 " None whatever. Peace, I have learned, 
 is too dear a good to be perilled, even for that 
 which we call happiness." 
 
 " Then hail la douce indifference ! " was my 
 light response. 
 
 Mary Anne sighed, faintly smiled, and 
 resumed her work. She had not reached the 
 point I desired. She could be calmly firm, 
 proudly content, but not yet coldly or serenely 
 indifferent. 
 
 I was about this time in the habit of read- 
 ing a newspaper, and spending an idle evening 
 hour, once or twice a-week, with an old Blue- 
 coat school-fellow, in a little shop which his 
 wife kept for the sale of small wares and 
 perfumery, near the corner of Street. 
 
 After waiting in vain for clerical prefer- 
 ment, writing for newspapers and periodicals, 
 lecturing on chemistry, trying a boarding- 
 school in the Isle of Man, a circulating library 
 in Liverpool, and various other occupations, 
 
 G had returned to London, and at last 
 
 consented to let his wife do battle, single- 
 handed, with the world, for what might 
 maintain her philosopher, their three children 
 and tidy Manx maid, while he seriously ap- 
 plied himself once more to his often-laid- 
 aside, but never abandoned translation of
 
 48 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Lucretius ; and in that absorbing task forgot, 
 for the time, all his disappointments and 
 privations. I would have rejoiced in this 
 oblivion of worldly cares, had he not also 
 appeared to forget his wife's " meaner toils," 
 and to overlook the probability of the children 
 of a very learned man growing up without 
 any education at all, save what comes by 
 accident and casual association. 
 
 It was by a gracious humility that, towards 
 six o'clock in an evening, when customers 
 
 began to grow slack, G , after a long 
 
 morning of study, locked up Lucretius, as- 
 sumed his wife's place, and allowed the poor 
 woman to change, for an hour, the scene of 
 her labours, from the back of her little 
 counter to the centre of her young family, 
 and to snatch her tea-dinner. On the even- 
 ings I was expected, Lucretius generally 
 visited the crib, named the back-shop, for the 
 benefit of my critical remarks, and the hope, 
 nightly growing fainter, of my praise of the 
 undertaking which, besides Imaging fame, 
 might yet woo back fortune. At times I 
 could have pitched the translated poet on the 
 back of the few cinders which G 's true- 
 hearted, cheerful wife, swept together before 
 going away, to make the compartment com- 
 fortable for her scholar, and his old friend. 
 
 Theirs had been a love-match, I found ; 
 though in intellectual qualities and accom- 
 plishments there could hardly be two per- 
 sons born in the same country more opposite. 
 She was a neat, compact, little person ; a 
 first-hand, I believe, as a milliner, all action, 
 and with no more thought than guided her 
 immediate finger- work : he, a man of great 
 nnd various learning, a metaphysical, dream- 
 ing genius ; and one of those men whom the 
 worldly justly term indolent, though more 
 ideas of a certain kind passed through his 
 mind in an hour than would have occupied 
 the worldling for a month, I mean in 
 number ; in quality and value no comparison 
 could be made. 
 
 But while G 's thoughts were " wander- 
 ing through eternity," or lost in Chaos and 
 Atoms, his large lumbering person was, at 
 certain hours, to be found in the narrow 
 region of space I have indicated. I am sure 
 he sincerely loved his wife an<! their children ; 
 and, as he was a man of sound moral feeling, 
 he as certainly regretted that Chance or Edu- 
 cation had denied him the power of doing 
 better for them, after his wife's little fortune 
 had been thrown away on the boarding-school 
 speculation, the original project by which 
 prudence appeared to sanction marriage. 
 
 I could, however, never bring G to 
 
 disparage the classics nor Ins education ; nor 
 
 yet to believe that Mrs. G merited better 
 
 to be called a heroic mother and wife, than 
 either Cornelia, or Agrippina the wife of 
 Germanicus. At such times he would raise 
 liis great and rather dull eyes upon me, as if 
 questioning my sanity or my seriousness ; 
 but when I proceeded, "The most truly 
 heroic mother I ever had the happiness of 
 knowing, is, after all, Peg Plunkett, the 
 orange-woman, whose barrow stands at the 
 head of our lane," he could no longer doubt 
 that I was speaking in the boyish vein 
 which had formerly led me to mistify my old 
 school-fellows. 1 never was more serious in 
 my life, however, but let that pass for the 
 present. 
 
 Besides the pleasure I took in G 's 
 
 conversation, I felt a strong interest in the 
 prosperity of his wife's little traffic, the more, 
 perhaps, that my former connexions enabled 
 me to open up a new and lucrative branch, 
 as soon as, to speak it grandly, the general 
 peace gave security to commercial specula- 
 tions. The reputation of my sagacity in 
 affairs, and the hazard of 20, embarked on 
 my own responsibility, might have quick- 
 ened my zeal for the disposal of her small 
 fancy sculptures ; those beautiful and delicate 
 vases and figures in alabaster and composi- 
 tion, which I obtained from Florence, where 
 they are so cheaply made and bought, and 
 
 which Mrs. G , at first, sold to very great 
 
 advantage in her little shop. It was for her 
 a prodigious stroke ! and Rothschild could 
 not have congratulated himself more on a 
 successfully negotiated foreign loan, than I 
 did on the small venture which set my friend's 
 wife fairly arto.it in her business ; and even 
 introduced her to a better, that is, to a richer 
 description of customers, for her other nick- 
 nack wares, before the petty sculpture trade 
 deadened. This speculation did me another 
 
 service with the family, it raised G 's 
 
 opinion of my judgment and capacity for 
 affairs ; the worthy translator having some- 
 times taken it upon him to affect surprise, 
 that / who had played my cards so ill, 
 and, with a great game before me, had so 
 abruptly thrown all up should assume the 
 right to lecture him ; and over Lucretius and 
 more favoured classics, provokingly quote 
 against him the Scottish poet, Burns, 
 
 What makes fireside a happy clime 
 
 To bairns and wife ; 
 That 's the true pathos and sublime 
 
 Of human life.
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 49 
 
 G would not allow that Burns was a 
 
 poet in any sense. A more uncandid man 
 would, in answer to me, have impeached his 
 life ; he only disparaged his verse. 
 
 " Between lights," on a misty afternoon, 
 late in Octoher, with slimy, slippery streets, 
 and the choking fetid air that creeps over 
 and shrivels one's skin, and pierces and chills 
 
 one's marrow, I had made my way to 
 
 Street, and sat with my friend in the cabinet, 
 boxed off from the shop, hearing him thunder 
 out his last translated hundred and fifty 
 verses, my eye prudently directed through a 
 loop-hole in the green silk curtain which 
 screened the four panes commanding the shut 
 glass-door and the counter. Three times I 
 had marked a figure glide past, and a female 
 face momentarily gazing through the damp 
 glass, and as quickly withdrawn. It is one 
 of the miseries of London, distrust of one's 
 fellow creatures being to me always gnawing 
 misery, that the idea of a thief in such cir- 
 cumstances is never far distant. Whether 
 the perfume of attar of roses and eau dc 
 Cologne, or the many surrounding prettinesses, 
 elegancies, and appliances of female refine- 
 ment, had inspired gentler and more gallant 
 notions, I cannot tell ; but it was not of a 
 thief I thought at this time. 
 
 The door was gently and yet quickly 
 opened, as if the person were in some haste 
 or perturbation. The girl advanced, a slight 
 youthful figure ; and there was a little 
 drumming summons sounded on the glass- 
 case on the counter. I could see by the lamp- 
 light the quick panting of the closely wrapped- 
 up girl, and even hear her hurried, unequal 
 breathings. 
 
 " Some waiting-maid for rouge or black- 
 pins," said G , peevishly laying down his 
 
 MS. for the uncongenial office of supplying 
 the customer. " These things, my wife tells 
 me, are always neglected till the moment ladies 
 are at their evening toilet." With a few 
 more peevish expressions, by way of indem- 
 nifying his classic dignity, for the degradation 
 
 of his secular office, G carefully shut the 
 
 door upon me, to spare at least one of us the 
 humiliation of coming in contact with black- 
 pins, though both knew that bread was 
 scarcely to be made by black letter, nor yet 
 by the black art itself. 
 
 The girl supported herself leaning on the 
 glass case, her features concealed by a faded 
 green gauze veil, which hung lank and wet 
 about her. Could it be? It was Mary 
 Anne and why this mystery ? 
 
 " Your pleasure, ma'am ? " said G 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 formally to his silent customer. "At this 
 
 hour Mrs. G is generally out of the shop ; 
 
 and I fear you will find me but an indifferent 
 substitute. Will you be seated, ma'am I 
 shall do my best." 
 
 "O quite, quite well, you will do, sir 
 for I hope you will buy my my hair." 
 
 Low, rapid, and quivering as the voice was 
 in which these few words were rather breathed 
 than articulated, I could not be deceived in 
 its tones. This was indeed Mary Anne. I 
 apprehended in an instant something very 
 near the truth. 
 
 Hastily pushing the shop-door close with 
 one hand, as if seeking concealment, with the 
 other the girl slipped off her bonnet and a 
 close-eared cap, and tossing her head with an 
 air customary to her, let down, as if tempting 
 her chapman with the beauty of her fully- 
 displayed wares, the redundant flood of her 
 shining tresses. Then looking up in his face 
 with an anxious imploring agony of expres- 
 sion, she whispered again more earnestly, " I 
 do hope, sir, you will buy this hair." She 
 passed her right arm under it, lifting it up 
 again, as if to show all its brightness and 
 length, but without anot'her word. 
 
 G must have been struck and em- 
 barrassed by the appearance and manner of 
 the dealer. After some little hesitation he 
 
 replied, " We do, ma'am that is, Mrs. G 
 
 does buy hair. Yours is very beautiful, 
 certainly : of that classic tinge, ma'am, whick 
 Tacitus, that is, I mean, of a colour now 
 very rare the hue between golden and 
 auburn, which the Roman beauties ahem ! " 
 This was probably intended for the back- 
 shop, for Dionysius's Ear. " I mean, 
 
 ma'am " But what cared I for listening 
 
 to G 's meanings ? 
 
 What a contrast did those bright, sunny 
 tresses make with the pale, passion-struck 
 the almost haggard fc countenance of the 
 wretched girl, whose starting eyes were 
 straining after the reply that was impending 
 over her like a judge's sentence on a criminal. 
 What was the real matter? What could 
 have happened to have sent Mary Anne 
 abroad on such a night ? But the weather 
 was nothing : it was, why on such an 
 errand for what reason thus concealed for 
 what secret, for what guilty purpose could 
 Mary Anne covet money obtained so strange- 
 ly ? My thoughts were in tumult and insur- 
 rection. I could only hastily resolve to 
 watch, that I might aid or save her. 
 
 This was a purchase too important to be 
 made by my friend without the knowledge 
 
 No. 4.
 
 .50 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 of his wife. It was an affair of importance 
 as a business specxilation ; for he knew she 
 had an order at this time for female hair of 
 this very peculiar colour, to adorn the in- 
 triguing head of a prodigiously great lady 
 belonging to the North of Europe. Indeed, 
 I believe I had gossipped about this very 
 commission in the hearing of Mary Anne. 
 
 Was it the influence of the classics, or his 
 naturally trustful and urbane temper that 
 
 made G think as little of thieves as 
 
 myself, when, scholarly and courteously 
 placing a chair, he begged the agitated girl 
 to be seated, while he went round the corner 
 to summon his wife ? At this proposal she 
 caught at once, and appeared to breathe more 
 freely. 
 
 " Then you think it probable, sir, that she 
 will buy ? " 
 
 " I do think it very probable, if you can 
 
 come to terms." G had not learned to 
 
 disparage what he purchased he was, in- 
 deed, a wretched shopkeeper. "But you 
 must naturally expect a great deal for your 
 beautiful hair " 
 
 " 0, no, no ! not a great deal : any 
 thing ; but I want a great deal too a very 
 great deal of money, this very hour ! " 
 
 The agitation of her manner must have 
 
 been remarked even by G , though not 
 
 naturally the quickest of men. For my own 
 part, I knew not how to act. Was her mind 
 shaken by this unknown distress ? I never 
 had more difficulty in my life than to com- 
 mand myself during the few minutes that 
 
 G was absent ; and when Mary Anne, 
 
 left alone, abandoning herself to a burst of 
 passion, leaned down her head on her crossed 
 arms, while she sobbed in her agony, with 
 those frightful choked sobs, which are to me 
 more excruciating than the most outrageous 
 expression of woman's grief. Amidst her 
 sobbing a name was unconsciously breathed 
 which gave me the clew to one, perhaps to 
 the leading, cause of her distress, while every 
 circumstance connected with it remained 
 more mysterious than before. 
 
 Is it habit, or nature, or mere mobility of 
 temperament, that gives women that remark- 
 able power I have so often noticed, of at 
 once suppressing every violent external symp- 
 tom of the passions by which they are strongly 
 agitated ? The mere mechanical effect of 
 
 G or his wife touching the handle of the 
 
 door, acted on Mary Anne's senses, and in- 
 stantly restored at least the outward sem- 
 blance of composure. She did not, however, 
 speak again ; but by a little gesture signified 
 
 assent to what was said, and bended her 
 
 head while Mrs. G examined, with an 
 
 approving eye, the offered merchandise. 
 
 If I have been too severe on the poets, I 
 wish to give fair play to their influences. 
 
 " Would it not be a pity, ma'am," said 
 the scholar. His wife shook her head in 
 
 admonition. " Then, Mrs. G , you must 
 
 give the young lady a handsome price for 
 this hair. You have an order, you know, 
 from " 
 
 Mrs. G > was really angry now. So 
 
 simple a man ! Was it not enough, as she 
 afterwards told me, that he could not earn a 
 penny himself for his family, but he must 
 spoil her trade ! 
 
 " The utmost farthing she could afford was 
 three guineas ;" and with complying gestures, 
 on the part of Mary Anne, and abundant 
 speech from my friend's wife, the bargain 
 was concluded ; and the tradeswoman having 
 thus secured her advantage, the woman came 
 into play in her more natural character, which 
 was kind and cheerful. It seemed a great 
 relief to the poor girl that Mrs. G pro- 
 posed doing the office of the friseur herself. 
 She brought the girl within her counter, drew 
 her little screens, and dexterously plying her 
 scissors, to which her tongue kept a running 
 accompaniment, added tress by tress to the 
 golden sheaf that hung glittering over her 
 table. 
 
 What all this while were the feelings of 
 Mary Anne ? Her back was turned to me. 
 She sat as still, and apparently as uncon- 
 scious, as a sculptured figure, till the business 
 was nearly ended. 
 
 The cutting off the hair of the Novice 
 immediately before she takes the last solemn 
 vows, which separate her for ever from the 
 world, is often represented as a very affecting 
 ceremony. The resignation of the beautiful 
 and graceful ornament of the youthful vestal, 
 the Bride of Heaven, is imagined a great and 
 touching sacrifice ; and the hair is consecrated 
 by the weeping friends, among whom it is 
 divided and treasured, as the last relic of the 
 living-dead. There was no one to mourn 
 over Mary Anne's severed locks not even 
 myself. I thought of her heart, not her head, 
 or at least not of its spoils ; and a truss of 
 straw, a rush-cap, would at the moment 
 have been as important to the poor girl her- 
 self. To say she cared not for her loss was 
 nothing. I am convinced that she never 
 once thought of it. When the business was 
 nearly ended, she drew from a silk bag a 
 little seal formed of a Cairngorum pebble, on
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 51 
 
 which the national thistle and a Scottish motto 
 were cut ; and a few strings of coral beads. 
 I knew both well. One was the highly 
 valued gift of her honest father ; the other a 
 present from my sister Anne, made long since 
 to my goddaughter. 
 
 " Pray, ma'am, what might these be 
 
 worth?" Mrs. G stopped her nimble 
 
 scissors, and with a brief malediction on 
 pawnbrokers, replied, " Somewhere from ten 
 to twelve shillings, perhaps." 
 
 " But to sell them out at once ?" 
 
 " Not much more, I fear ; they are hor- 
 rid Jews those pawnbrokers." With a low 
 sigh the trinkets were returned to their 
 keeping-place. 
 
 My friend's wife, though a sharp trades- 
 woman, had known adversity in its best uses. 
 She began, I imagine, to feel some touch of 
 remorse, under the conviction that she was 
 certainly making a very good bargain in her 
 rare purchase. From what I afterwards 
 learned, there was the more prevailing idea, 
 with a woman of her good heart, of a poor 
 girl parting with the natural ornament a 
 young female is supposed to cherish so fondly, 
 and with her little trinkets, in some severe 
 family strait ; perhaps to supply the wants 
 of little brothers and sisters, or of a father 
 and mother. Taxes, rates ; socks and 
 shoes for children, now October was so far 
 on, rent-day that terrible day! all these 
 things I could learn had flashed through 
 Mrs. G 's mind, and many more house- 
 hold ideas, as her scissors cut the last locks ; 
 and kindness and prudence parleyed, and 
 came to a compromise. 
 
 " Your hair is in such quantity that I 
 think I must mend my offer, my dear " 
 
 " I told you so, Mrs. G ," said G . 
 
 " This classic tinge, my love, so much 
 prized by the Roman ladies, after the Roman 
 arms " 
 
 "Nonsense! Mr. G ." " by as 
 
 much as any pawnbroker would give for your 
 little things, if you meant to part with them." 
 
 " Thank you, ma'am." 
 
 " And if you were to call in a few days, 
 when I see how this turns out, perhaps we 
 might afford a little more. I shall have no 
 scruple to ask my price ; but these great 
 ladies are so capricious ; any way, yon 
 must keep your little trinkets ; and at your 
 age your beautiful hair will soon grow again, 
 thick and long." This was cheerfully and 
 kindly said. 
 
 " You are very good," was the whispered 
 reply. 
 
 Of how many shades of meaning are those 
 few, simple words susceptible when tones 
 become more expressive than speech. Though 
 the face was still averted, the voice told me 
 that now 
 
 The tears had left their bed. 
 
 " I have left some nice pretty curls on the 
 
 temples here, my dear," said Mrs. G , as 
 
 Mary Anne rose, and as Mrs. G kindly 
 
 tied on her cap. 
 
 A faint smile gave place to the anxious 
 
 fixed look which she had fastened on G 
 
 as she turned towards him. He was at the 
 till, slowly counting out the money. The 
 smile vanished far more rapidly than it 
 gathered, as the dole, the gift, the means to 
 some mysterious end, was eagerly grasped. 
 
 As she curtsied, her dry lips moved in a 
 mechanical effort to return thanks. I had 
 already taken my hat ; but rapid as were 
 my movements, and deaf as I was to the call 
 
 of G , and the exclamations of his curious 
 
 wife, the fleeter steps of my goddaughter had 
 left me considerably behind. She made 
 several windings, wanting courage, as I be- 
 lieved, to enter any of the pawnbrokers' shop- 
 doors, near which she hovered. At last, as 
 if by a desperate effort, she entered one in 
 Fenchurch Street ; and I presume there was 
 little difficulty in honest David's national 
 Thistle, and my sister Anne's strings of coral, 
 finding a destination the original donors could 
 little have anticipated for their gifts. 
 
 It was my object to trace Mary Anne to 
 her destination, not to accompany her ; and 
 the rapidity of her movements as she skimmed 
 on, and probably the rapt state of her mind, 
 prevented any chance of detection. She 
 stopt at a door in a street which I do not 
 choose to name, but, as the wits say, not 
 above a hundred and fifty miles from the Old 
 Bailey. It was my purpose to arrest her at 
 this point, but before I could advance, the 
 hall door opened to her quick knock, and 
 was shut again ; and I read on the door-plate, 
 the familiar name of a well-known, or more 
 properly, a notorious sharking Old Bailey 
 attorney. I was more than ever perplexed. 
 What could a creature like Mary Anne want 
 with such a character? what communion 
 could there be between the spirit of innocence, 
 and the presiding genius of the spot? 
 That it was here the three or four pounds 
 she had so strangely obtained were to be left, 
 I could not doubt ; for no entrance could be 
 gained through these doors save with a golden 
 key; though peace, hope, happiness, character, 
 life, might be bartered or forfeited to find one.
 
 52 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Her stay, lingering as the moments seemed 
 to me, could not have been above five minutes. 
 Other wretches were besieging the door ; and 
 as they passed in, Mary Anne glided out, and 
 took the straight way homewards, at a rate 
 of speed which put me to my best pace. At 
 the last crossing, I accosted her, as if acci- 
 dentally, crying out, " Ho, Mary Anne ! 
 whither so fast? Take me with you, or a 
 part of my umbrella, any way." She started 
 like a guilty thing, mumbling, " Yes, indeed, 
 I believe it does rain." From the arm I 
 drew within my own, I could feel that the 
 whole frame trembled and shook as if to 
 dissolution. 
 
 " You shiver, Mary Anne, and your hands 
 arc scorching. Are you quite well, my poor 
 Princess ? And why abroad and alone in 
 such a night ? Has mamma been scolding 
 very bad ? " I tried to laugh, as I confiden- 
 tially pressed the hand, lying on my arm. 
 
 " Oh, no ! Not my poor mother 'tis I 
 am in fault only I if fault it be, which is 
 deep, deadly misery. I would I must tell 
 you all that I am the most wretched of all 
 creatures this night." 
 
 She stopped : she hung her whole weight 
 on my arm, and sobbed without restraint. 
 I passed my arm under her cloak, and hurried 
 her forward, to avoid the notice of the gazers 
 on the street. Innocent, and even knightly 
 as I was, I was too well aware of the danger 
 of rousing the gallantry and chivalrous feel- 
 ings of John Bull towards a damsel in distress, 
 to court unnecessary observation. I intended 
 to take her to my own apartments before I 
 proceeded farther in cross-examination ; and 
 we were now in the lane. Fortune was 
 unfavourable. As we approached Mr. Moir's 
 door, his industrious lady happened to open 
 it. She accosted me with unwonted bland- 
 ness and courtesy, thanking me for having 
 " escorted her Mary Anne home from Bruns- 
 wick Square ! " More mystery ! Mary 
 Anne pressed my arm ; and though I could 
 not exactly comprehend why I should be 
 made a party to her concealments, neither 
 could I betray her. So I told, or what came 
 to the self-same tiling, I, by a simper, ac- 
 quiesced in the lie. I give it the plain name, 
 as I never was casuist or hair-splitter enough 
 to perceive essential difference between the 
 lie spoken and the lie acted. 
 
 We were now in the neat, snug parlour ; 
 and Mrs. Moir, instead of scolding, or what 
 David called yatterin the Scottish language 
 is rich in descriptive epithets was unusually 
 attentive to the comforts of a daughter, who, 
 
 in a bad evening, had returned from spending 
 a day with Mrs. James Taylor and her 
 gented family in Brunswick Square. Her 
 affability extended to me ; and she insisted 
 that, as tea was just ready, I should remain. 
 Curiosity and a better feeling were stronger 
 prompters. I did long to fathom the depths 
 of this day's history. 
 
 The old lady bustled away for her tea 
 equipage, and Mary Anne then first spoke. 
 
 " You think strangely, perhaps meanly, 
 perhaps unkindly, of me," cried the agitated 
 girl, again clasping my arm with both her 
 clasped hands. " Once that would have killed 
 me : nothing hurts me now ! My cold, 
 lumpish heart feels at times as if already 
 dead within me. My poor mother thinks I 
 have spent a happy day with the kind friends 
 you made my friends Ah, no ! no ! " 
 
 "And where, then, dearest Mary Anne? 
 my own good girl but I will not hurry you 
 I " I never could, in emotion, speak to 
 my goddaughter without drawing her to me ; 
 without, in short, caressing her as if she were 
 still the little affectionate child that had 
 grown up under my eye, and almest in my 
 arms. 
 
 " Ha ! Mr. Richard," cried the tray-bearing 
 mamma, with half-affected glee, " still flirting 
 with my Mary Anne ! I wish you were 
 twenty years younger for her sake : I am 
 sure you would carry her off from all the 
 younger beaux. Arid, bless me, my dear, 
 how you have mudded your petticoat ! A 
 dozen spots at least ! Fie, Mary Anne ! you 
 who are so tidy a walker sure you could not 
 have appeared in nice, sweet Mrs. James 
 Taylor's drawing-room this morning with 
 them spots." 
 
 Mrs. Moir always commended good women 
 and good puddings in precisely the same 
 terms. They were nice or sweet ; and to 
 express the superlative both epithets were 
 employed. This is, indeed, a female practice ; 
 nor would tracing the analogy between ladies 
 and custards greatly puzzle a metaphysician 
 or philologist. 
 
 I was glad of this diversion to the mud 
 spots, for the countenance could worse have 
 borne keen maternal scrutiny. I pleaded 
 guilty to the splashes ; but Mrs. Moir was 
 too civil to allow so dire an imputation to 
 rest upon me, as splashing a fair companion, 
 though in very dirty streets. She was, in 
 reality, more occupied with her daughter than 
 her guest ; nor could I help regretting, that 
 with so much genuine affection and dutiful- 
 ness on both sides, there should be so entire
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 a want of confidence and sympathy between 
 the mother and her child. 
 
 " Go, put away your bonnet : And, bless 
 me, what are you doing with that old green 
 veil ! and change your shoes, my Mary 
 Anne ! Papa would say, like the Scots, 
 ' change your feet ! ' Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 The woman was crazy. I had never before 
 seen her in this rantipole humour. " And 
 bless me again, girl, I forgot your boa: now, 
 Mary Anne, love, where is it ? Have you 
 made a nice bargain? Is it ermine or fitch ? 
 You know what I recommended. But let 
 us see." 
 
 Mary Anne looked to me with anxiety 
 and confusion. Was another lie required ? 
 
 " I thought I forgot it is not here, 
 mamma." 
 
 " Left in Brunswick Square ! Stupid 
 monkey ! Well, no matter ; it would have 
 been prudent had you done so of purpose in 
 such weather with a new boa. And how 
 much got you back of my three bright sove- 
 reigns? Now let us see how you can shop 
 for yourself. Eighteen almost, hey, Mr. 
 Taylor ! and I trusted her this morning to 
 buy a boa for herself, as I wished her to be 
 respectable going to spend a day with excel- 
 lent Mrs. James, who sees so much genteel 
 company of a morning. Now, how much 
 change have you, my Mary Anne ? tell us 
 all about it." The gracious matron smiled, 
 as if generously expecting not a farthing, and 
 as if not grudging her money for a nice smart 
 boa of, as the shop-bills accurately describe 
 it, " London-made fur." 
 
 I saw the poor girl was in torture. With 
 more self-possession, she might have come off 
 perfectly well, merely by using smiles and 
 grimaces ; but she faltered, as if bound to 
 declare, " Indeed, mother, I have no money 
 not a farthing." 
 
 " Well, well, child, never expose your 
 poverty ; make yourself comfortable, and 
 come back to riiake tea for your godfather 
 and your papa." 
 
 My friend David came down stairs. While 
 he shook my hand, I fancied that his eyes 
 were fixed earnestly on his daughter. My 
 merits as an escort were again recited, and 
 David seemed relieved and satisfied on hear- 
 ing, from his wife, whence I had brought 
 Mary Anne, who now left us. W"e chatted 
 of this and that, waiting her return for about 
 twenty minutes, when the maid-servant, in 
 answer to the mother's inquiry, reported that 
 Miss Mary Anne had gone out ! 
 
 " With her bonnet on ? " cried the mother. 
 
 " Out the lassie ! " gasped David ; and invo- 
 luntarily, as if by a simultaneous movement, 
 we went to the street door, following Mrs. Moir. 
 It was impossible for Mary Anne to deny 
 that the female from whom she hurriedly 
 parted, under a distant door-way, was the 
 obnoxious and redoubtable Mrs. Peg Plunkett. 
 Evidently in great terror, the girl hurriedly 
 approached us, panting in haste and alarm 
 " I forgot some reels of cotton that I re- 
 quired " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, minx ! " cried the 
 mother, pushing her daughter into the house, 
 and slamming the door after the whole party. 
 " You will not believe me, David Moir do 
 you believe your own eyes? ocular demon- 
 stration before your own eyes, sir of your 
 precious daughter ? colleaguing with that 
 wicked, vagabond, Irish barrow-woman, Mr. 
 Richard ! " I admired the climax. " Will 
 I be believed now ? What want you, hussy, 
 with that vagabond woman ? What wants 
 she with you ? To rob your mother's house, 
 is it ? " She shook the terrified girl by the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Hush, hush ! for any sake, my dear 
 madam, unless you wish to raise the neigh- 
 bourhood," was my peace-cry. David looked 
 from daughter to wife, arid to the daughter 
 back again, wringing his hands ; and Mary 
 Anne wept in silent anguish. 
 
 I shall not describe all the violence, in 
 action and speech, of my good friend Mrs. 
 Moir ; who certainly might have some cause 
 of displeasure, but nothing that could justify 
 the preposterous lengths to which her anger 
 went. 
 
 " But, madam, Mrs. Moir," I ventured at 
 last to say, when the first tornado was pretty 
 well spent, " where is the terrible harm, after 
 all, of my goddaughter exchanging a few 
 civil words with Mrs. Plunkett a thing 
 which I do once or oftener every day of my 
 life, with great comfort and social refresh- 
 ment to myself?" 
 
 " An old neighbour ! " muttered David, 
 pitching his voice to the proper tone of con- 
 jugal deprecation, and looking compassion- 
 ately at the weeping girl. 
 
 "An old fiddlestick, Mr. Moir!" How- 
 irreverent, and even impudent, some of these 
 married women do become ! " And as to 
 you, Mr. Richard, who are thought a rather 
 particular gentleman, you are no rule, 
 gentlemen may do as they please. But that 
 bold girl, whom I have ordered and com- 
 manded, at her peril, not to look to that 
 woman, or speak to that woman ; whom you,
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Mr. Moir, if worth your ears, sir, would have 
 had removed from this neighbourhood, long 
 and long ago, as a nuisance, sir, there where 
 she stands, to laugh at your wife and ruin 
 your child," &c. &c. 
 
 Now my friend Peg's crime was meditating 
 housebreaking, now ruining girls! I could 
 make little sense of this, though I was forced 
 to perceive my goddaughter's transgression 
 and disobedience. 
 
 " My dear Mary Anne, it is clear you must 
 not speak to poor Peg again. Perhaps Mrs. 
 Moir is right in thinking her not quite the 
 best sort of even speaking acquaintance for a 
 young woman. And you, my good madam, 
 must be reasonable with our daughter. 
 Though she is your own property, I doubt if 
 you know half her value." Mrs. Moir, 
 though far enough from a reasonable mother, 
 had about her a good deal of the she-bear's 
 fondness for her offspring ; so she also began 
 to sob and cry in her own obstreperous 
 fashion. 
 
 "I would have Mary Anne value herself, 
 Mr. Richard keep her own place, sir and 
 show a proper pride, Mr. Richard." 
 
 "I am afraid my friend Mrs. Plunkett 
 fancies she shows even an improper pride, 
 ma'am. Only last week she was hinting to 
 me of the changed face Mary Anne shows 
 her." This was well thrown in ; but Mary 
 Anne's quick and wann candour spoiled all. 
 
 " I have not till yesterday spoken and 
 scarce looked to her for six months scarce 
 since I returned from Bognor. If she were 
 not a generous-hearted, a high-minded woman, 
 she would not now have forgiven, or have 
 spoken to me." 
 
 " Grant me patience ! Do you hear her, 
 Mr. Richard ? do you hear her, Mr. Moir? 
 Is the girl mad? An Irish barrow- woman, 
 an orange-woman condescend to speak to my 
 child ! Girl, girl, what have you to say to 
 that vagabond Are you mad outright ? " 
 
 "Gude help us a'," ejaculated David, 
 driven to his mother-tongue ; and he fairly 
 ran out of the room. 
 
 Mary Anne lay weeping, her head on the 
 table : she quickly raised herself, and in a 
 voice whose tones I shall never forget, 
 breathed out, " Mother, I am not mad 
 not yet mad O, spare me then to-night, 
 dear mother, if you would not see me so ! 
 Strange things are about me. Spare me 
 for this night! I know how you love me : 
 and you will rue it all the days of your 
 life if you are too hard with me to-night. I 
 should like to go to bed now." 
 
 I could see that the mother was affected, 
 and even alarmed. I promptly interposed, 
 and approached Mary Anne. " Certainly, 
 my dear, you shall go to bed do to-night 
 whatever you will: I answer for Mrs. Moir. 
 Indeed, I mistake if you are not far from 
 being well to-night. I stooped over her 
 where she sat, my back turned to the mother, 
 who stood by irresolute. I held the poor 
 girl's burning hands clasped within both 
 mine. She leant down her head, and kissed 
 my hands repeatedly, passionately breath- 
 ing, " My own kind godfather, my Good 
 Genius ! " 
 
 The tears that fell on my hands were 
 scalding ; but the fever of the mind \vus, I 
 feared, yet higher than that which raged in 
 the blood. I would have given more than I 
 need name to have had a few minutes of 
 confidential communing with the distracted 
 girl. I saw that her heart, with all its load 
 of sorrows, was in my hands. She ventured 
 to kiss her mother, but in silence, and then 
 left us. The good lady followed in a very 
 few minutes ; and almost immediately re- 
 turned to say, " The foolish thing was already 
 asleep ! " And no doubt Mary Anne had 
 feigned sleep. 
 
 We now had tea ; and when Mrs. Moir, 
 carrying tea with her to Mary Anne, left us 
 to gather intelligence for a second bulletin, 
 David assailed me with a whispered, " I be- 
 seech ye, Mr. Richard, speak to the wife to 
 be less severe with the bit lassie ! They'll 
 break my heart between them ! She sees nae 
 peer to Mary Anne, I ken that ; and yet the 
 yammer for one fault or another is never out 
 of her mouth. Of the thousand ways the 
 women-folks have of spoiling their dochters, 
 Mr. Richard, the worst, to my mind, is this 
 endless yammerin', and yatterin', and nag- 
 nagging, for little or nothing. And the worst 
 of all is, these ?ewc/i-(tough) hearted auld car- 
 lins little think how their bitter scalding words 
 blister and crush a tender young spirit. I 
 mind myself the bursting heart I used to 
 have, even when man-muckle, when, if I had 
 slept an hour ower lang in a morning, or let 
 the young beasts I was herding get a rug o' 
 the green corn, a thrawn auld sorrow o' a 
 bachelor uncle I had would have prophesied 
 the ill end such sinful beginnings would come 
 to ; and that less than the gallows, the end 
 just made by one Rob Gunn, hanged at 
 Aberdeen for horse-stealing, would not atone 
 for backslidings like mine. These are cruel, 
 senseless sayings, Mr. Richard ! and they are 
 worse than foolish that drive young creatures
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 to judge ower hardly o' themselves, and lose 
 self-respect, for mere nonsense. There was 
 ne'er ony thing lost by showing kindness to a 
 kindly nature. I wish our minister would 
 preach about that." 
 
 In honest David's strictures on moral dis- 
 cipline, so far as I understood them, I fully 
 concurred. Mary Anne was reported still 
 quiet, and asleep. I was, at least, aware 
 that she wished to seem so, to avoid all con- 
 versation for this night. 
 
 From my own window I saw her chamber 
 was dark by midnight ; and I went to bed, 
 ruminating on the events of the evening, and 
 more perplexed than ever. It was idle to 
 torment myself. I was convinced that she 
 wished to give me her confidence, and with 
 it the power of aiding and counselling her ; 
 and I subdued my anxiety and curiosity, re- 
 solving to visit her chamber next morning, 
 a liberty which I had always enjoyed, in 
 common with her father, when she was 
 really sick. 
 
 I was taking my morning coffee, in the 
 straggling light of a gray, damp day-break, 
 when Mrs. Moir's maid-servant brought the 
 hasty tidings, that " Master had gone early 
 to the Bank, Missis was in hicfoterics, and 
 Miss Mary Anne was run away." 
 
 I lost no time in going to " Missis." The 
 slight natural antipathy which existed be- 
 tween us, and all the petty tiffs and resent- 
 ments of eighteen years, gave way before the 
 extreme distress of my neighbour ; violent 
 and undignified in expression, but deep and 
 real in suffering. She accused her husband, 
 she upbraided myself, she railed at the Irish- 
 woman, she execrated her own harshness, 
 and blamed the whole world, save her " Dear, 
 beautiful child her Mary Anne who must, 
 she was certain, have thrown herself over 
 Blackfriars Bridge, for fear of being scolded 
 for the loss of her boa : there could be no 
 doubt of it." 
 
 The only thing in which the unhappy 
 woman showed reason, was, that I should 
 lose no time in setting out in my search, 
 and in being persuaded to put off her pattens, 
 remain where she was, and keep herself and 
 her clamorous maid within doors ; leav- 
 ing me, instead of the constable, to deal 
 with Mrs. Plunkett. I left her rather more 
 composed by my assurance, that the catas- 
 trophe she dreaded was utterly impossible, 
 and my promise of not returning without 
 tidings of Mary Anne. 
 
 This interview occupied a very few minutes. 
 My first hope was Mrs. Plunkett, who was 
 
 already on duty at her station, talking to 
 herself, rubbing gently, and piling her oranges 
 and lollypops. She accosted me in her ordi- 
 nary way, with the genial, heart-reaching 
 courtesy of an Irish greeting. 
 
 " Morrow ! Mr. Richard, sir, and a raw 
 one it is to them poor boys were hung that 
 same. I see where you been down the lane. 
 The Misthress is among her troubles, this 
 misty morning, it seems : well, sorrow bit 
 of myself heeds that same, if no harm come 
 to the good, purty girl. Och, devil a care 
 for the ould one, Mr. Richard, sir." She 
 laughed good-humouredly. 
 
 Though Peg was a generous woman, her 
 generosity was of the national complexion. 
 It was rarely displayed in magnanimity to- 
 wards an enemy, or even to a fallen foe. 
 
 " She 'd be glad to have the little girl at 
 home to-day, even to spaike to the Irish 
 barry-woman," added Peg. 
 
 All my address could extract little infor- 
 mation from so stanch an ally and auxiliary 
 as Mrs. Plunkett, who hated her insolent 
 English neighbour with a hatred of twenty 
 years' standing ; and who, besides, reckoned 
 herself of the daughter's faction, and there- 
 fore opposed to the mother. Any sacrifice 
 would have seemed slight, compared to the 
 dishonour of betraying Mary Anne, or to the 
 baseness of treachery. 
 
 " I'll tell ye nothing, Mr. Richard ; what 
 should I know of the little girl ? I seen 
 where ye come from, sir, down the lane. 
 What should I tell ye of the poor girl?" 
 
 I could not disabuse the woman of the 
 belief, that to tell of Mary Anne's doings to 
 her mother was wrong and treachery. I had 
 lost my time and my eloquence. I became 
 angry at last, and was so far left to my own 
 folly and ignorance, or forgetfulness of Irish 
 nature, as to threaten a magistrate, that 
 insolent threat, always too familiar to London 
 lips. All her Hibernian blood was in a rage. 
 I wish some of our cold, stiff, tragedy heroines 
 had seen Peg as she drew herself up and ex- 
 claimed 
 
 " And ye would would ye ? ye would 
 to the widow stranger woman, who sought 
 honest bread under the shadow of your roof 
 for seven years, for the bed-rid mother, and 
 
 the fatherless little ones? Och, no, Mr. 
 
 Richard, and that ye would not : and, 
 excuse my passion but ye should not have 
 said that same, sir." I was, indeed, heartily 
 ashamed of having said " that same." 
 
 " But for a hasty word, ill would it become 
 me to forget what ye done for me and mine :"
 
 56 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 I had attended the family with my best 
 medical skill in typhus fever, though I fear 
 they had little faith in me " Or showed the 
 will to do, any way, which is the same and 
 what she done ! " And the grateful woman 
 kissed the little ehony cross, with which I 
 had presented her on the death of our com- 
 mon friend, Sister Agathe, whom she regarded 
 as a Saint, and, for ought I knew, on holi- 
 days invoked as one. " And if it be, sir, 
 that it is as you say, for the little girl's own 
 good, that I should tell you all I know, then 
 I will, if you swear on the Book, not to 
 acquaint the mother. By the same token, I 
 had a notion that I ought to tell you, and 
 had a drame about that same this last night 
 too." Here a female friend and country- 
 woman was called from a neighbouring cellar. 
 
 " Morrow I Mrs. Tuomy. She is a 
 
 true creature, Mr Richard, I would trust 
 her with a barry of gould, that Mrs. 
 Tuomy. Will ye just give a luke to the 
 barry, ma'am, whilst I run up to the place 
 with the doctor, to see the ould lady, poor 
 ould baiste, and sure I'd do more for your- 
 self again." 
 
 " With all the veins, Mrs. Plunkett, ma'am, 
 and compliments to the ould lady this same 
 morning." And, these civilities exchanged, 
 I followed Peg's stoutest campaigning stride 
 to the garret, where her bed-rid ancient 
 mother, so affectionately named " the poor 
 ould baiste," had lain for many years. 
 
 " Welcome to the place, sir, and to the seat 
 in it ! She '11 be glad to see ye, dear ould 
 baiste. Moder dear, this is the doctor ! " 
 Peg bawled. But I have no time for this 
 scene, which Peg had tact enough to perceive 
 I was impatient of. She took, from a small 
 brown, broken tea-pot, or pipkin of some 
 kind, part of the apparatus used in her 
 lollypop manufacture, I believe, a number 
 of letters or papers, blotted and tear-stained 
 scrawls, but all in the well-known hand- 
 writing of my poor Mary Anne. There may 
 be persons who would have thought it dis- 
 honourable to read these writings. I had no 
 scruples or admonitions of conscience. I 
 loved the writer well, and my heart gave 
 my eyes free warrant. 
 
 " And you were the messenger in this 
 affair?" 
 
 " To Newgate prison, sir ? then, in troth, 
 I was. I don't deny it, Mr. Richard. Could 
 I refuse the poor cratur, who, the thin white 
 face tould me, was on her knees to me, as 
 for the bare life to go? In troth, then, I 
 could not." 
 
 " I do not blame you ; but tell me, and 
 quickly, what passed." I looked to the 
 papers again. They were blotted, confused, 
 interlined, as they appeared the history of 
 a criminal case materials for a brief, in 
 short full of pathetic pleading, heart-inspired 
 eloquence, and, what was more surprising, 
 acute reasoning on facts and minute circum- 
 stances of evidence, though the writer was 
 only my poor Mary Anne, and this, beyond 
 all doubt, her first law-paper. 
 
 " Go on, Mrs. Plunkett ! I am all im- 
 patience." 
 
 " Then, first, the poor girl swore me on the 
 Book, or, all as one, tuke my word and 
 honour, as an Irishwoman, never to tell who 
 sent me there ; for, somehow, she saw in the 
 papers, that Mr. Lyndsay Boyle, who is a 
 gentleman born, was put up by them dirty 
 scamps, for some thrifle of money 'bezzled." 
 
 I held the blotted brief ; so I knew the 
 whole history, and I was impatient on other 
 points. Mr. Lyndsay Boyle's habits of 
 thoughtless extravagance had led him into 
 difficulties. He had exhausted the funds, 
 and offended the feelings of his relations. 
 He had also quarrelled with his rascally 
 employers, the flash Wine and Spirit Com- 
 pany. He was in possession of their dis- 
 honest secrets of trade, which he had detected, 
 and they were resolved to ruin him, and send 
 him out of the country. It was an unhappy 
 affair, and, very probably, a case of infamous 
 conspiracy. But how came my unfortunate 
 goddaughter to be involved in it ? 
 
 " No more than the babe to be born to- 
 morrow knew the poor cratur, Mr. Richard, 
 though the boy was once, in a way, her 
 bachelor ; but was she to see him hung ?" 
 
 " Hung ! not so bad as that neither. It 
 is only transportation a case under Sir 
 Thomas Plomer's act, that merciful and 
 equitable law, Mrs. Plunkett, by which the 
 pinched embezzler of 5s. is more liable to 
 punishment, ruin to himself, and all connec- 
 ted with him, in fame, fortune, and happi- 
 ness, than the embezzler of 50,000 ; as the 
 latter has a thousand better chances of 
 eluding justice in the first instance, or of 
 baffling it in the end. The sum for which 
 this foolish young fellow is committed seems 
 4, 10s." 
 
 " Just that, sir Mr. Tim Byrne, a 
 countryman, a Treda* man I met in New- 
 gate, tould me all about it ; for the young 
 gentleman himself is, they say, mad entirely 
 
 * Drogheda, I believe, is meant.
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 57 
 
 with the grief and affront and indeed he 
 looked like it. The shame of the world on 
 them ! to harm so handsome a boy, and to 
 break the heart of the poor girleen for such 
 a thrifle." 
 
 Mrs. Plunkett would look neither to 
 statute nor common law, nor offence to 
 justice. She stuck to "ruining a boy for 4, 
 10s." I had difficulty in keeping her to her 
 text, on which she discoursed something at 
 large. 
 
 " Och, little could I make of him, though 
 I was as cunning as the Ould One not to 
 mention the girleen. He looked mighty 
 high, and hardened, and proud at first ; and 
 whistled, and tramped about the yard as long 
 as I stood, and made a laughing too. 'And 
 how is your neighbour, old David Moir, and 
 his pretty daughter?' says he. 'All very 
 well, but will be sorry to the heart for you, 
 sir,' says I. ' Oh, tell Miss Mary Anne not 
 to concern herself about me ;' and with 
 that the whistle began again ; and then he 
 shouted ' DAMNATION ! ' and round on his 
 heel, and away from me, for we were in the 
 yard. And with that comes my countryman, 
 Tim Byrne, who makes his bit of brade, poor 
 sowl, writing of letters for the prisoners, and 
 the like. ' He is a fine young man, Mrs. 
 Plunkett, ma'am,' says he ; " and if you 
 care for him or his, you must get an attorney, 
 ma'am, and a counsel, and a brief drawn, 
 and no time to lose ; and five pounds 
 at the very laste.' And with that I came 
 home to Miss Mary Anne, waiting me here, 
 poor dear ! 
 
 " ' Not concern myself ? ' cried the poor 
 cratur. Had you but seen her, Mr. Richard I 
 ' Och ! how can he imagine his friends could 
 help that ! ' cried she. Troth, had I born her, 
 I could not be more sorry for the young 
 cratur ; and he was a gay, frank boy, too. 
 Miss Mary Anne durst not tell the mother 
 or the father ; and five pounds were to us 
 the Bank of Ireland to her and myself, 
 I mean ; for if I had it, Mr. Richard " 
 
 "Well, what did you?" 
 
 " Och ! one or other of us, I believe it 
 was herself, thinks, ' Sure Tim Byrne 
 could help us something.' So back I goes, 
 just as they were locking up, and Tim going 
 home for the night ; and I traited him my- 
 self on the way back, not to be bringing gin 
 to the place, and poor Miss Mary Anne, who 
 is a genteel cratur,' waiting in it Mr. Lynd- 
 say Boyle's sister, as I called her to Tim : 
 no occasion for that vagabone knowing every 
 thing. So he tould her the whole story ; and 
 
 all night long she sat up in her own place, 
 and wrote them scribbles, myself buying 
 candles for her, to chate the ould one ; and 
 yesterday morning early, I took the clean 
 
 copy the brief it is to Mr. , with 
 
 two gould sovereigns ; and the cruel baiste, 
 putting that in his pocket, would not look to 
 me. ' More money ! ' says he, ' I can 
 offer no counsel this long brief with a paltry 
 two sovereigns ;' and back I came to the poor 
 girl, who looked like one distracted. The 
 Sessions going hot on no attorney, no 
 counsel, no witness, and no money to pro- 
 cure them. Tim frightened the poor girleen 
 out of her little wits ; and indeed, and in 
 troth, I fear he is a bit of a rogue, Tim. 
 ' Could not you get something on them ear- 
 rings, ma'am,' says he ; and out came the 
 bits of ear-rings down in his hand and 
 away she fled, and I saw her no more." 
 
 " And where is Mary Anne now, at this 
 moment ? " was my impatient cry. 
 
 " And indeed, and in troth, the Pace 
 knows, Mr. Richard ! Only this morning, 
 the cratur that slaves for the ould woman her 
 mother, tould me the pretty bird had flown ; 
 and where she is gone was the very thing I 
 meant, sir, to ax yourself : and if I were in 
 your place, sir, I would have the young 
 things married out of hand, and let them 
 comfort one another." 
 
 I was already half way down the crazy 
 stair. " How could you, woman, delay me 
 in this way?" 
 
 " Then, indeed, Mr. Richard, darling " 
 
 " Go to the ! I mean go to your 
 
 barrow, Peg ; and if you see Mary Anne re- 
 turning, bring her here to wait me." 
 
 " Then I will, jewel ; and why would 
 the ould lady cross her? She took her own 
 way why cross the poor girl, if it's that 
 young man she fancies ? " 
 
 " Hush, hush ! " 
 
 Newgate prison was my aim ; but in- 
 fluenced by Peg's information, as this was 
 in the heat of the Sessions, I went first to the 
 Old Bailey that wholesale mart of English 
 criminal justice, where till the other day life, 
 character, happiness, peace of mind, were, 
 from six to ten times in one hour, going ! 
 agoing ! gone ! 
 
 Who that has once seen the general aspect, 
 and watched the proceedings of that yawning 
 mouth of Avernus can ever forget it ? Why 
 have we not moral as well as historical 
 painters ? Hogarth has left us some striking 
 lessons, and Cruikshanks has done something : 
 the Old Bailey alone, every day of the
 
 58 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Sessions, might have furnished numbers 
 without number. It was about ten o'clock 
 when I entered the Court. Before eleven I 
 had seen at least six cases tried, and as many 
 juvenile thieves found guilty, and left ready, 
 at a future day, to be sentenced in the lump. 
 I mean, in one day, or rather one hour, to be 
 condemned by the score to the hulks, trans- 
 portation, whipping, or imprisonment. There 
 was complete division of labour here. I en- 
 deavoured to ascertain what cases stood next 
 to come on. No one could tell. Probably 
 no one there distinctly new. It seemed all 
 matter of accident or caprice ; and all was 
 crowd, hurry, buzz, bustle, and confusion. I 
 was at a loss whether to remain where I was, 
 or at once repair to Newgate, when nay resolu- 
 tion was fixed by the mumbled calUor a 
 prisoner, whose name, at least to my fancy, 
 resembled " Lyndsay Boyle ; " and the young 
 man himself was brought forward, escorted 
 in the usual manner, changed, indeed, from 
 what I had seen him some months before. I 
 could not look upon the poor youth without 
 deepinterest and compassion. His case appear- 
 ed to excite considerable curiosity. The court 
 became crowded and choked up by all kinds 
 of people. I was pushed back, and, from the 
 noise, confusion, and hubbub on every side, 
 it was impossible, from the place where I 
 stood at last jammed in, to hear one word 
 distinctly of the trial proceeding before me in 
 dumb show. I looked on the unfortunate 
 culprit, and the pantomime of justice per- 
 forming before me, with a swell of indignant 
 feeling which I shall not describe. The 
 attorney, with whom I knew poor Mary Anne 
 had left her hard-earned money, was visible 
 in the crowd, but distant from the bewildered 
 prisoner, gesticulating violently, as if calling, 
 or pretending to call, to the officers of the 
 court to get forward his witnesses searching, 
 or pretending to search, for the counsel who 
 held the brief, and who could not be found. 
 The Bench naturally grumbled. I was after- 
 wards told that very unusual patience and 
 indulgence had been shown to the prisoner. 
 It was indeed fourteen minutes by my watch 
 from the time he was placed at the bar till 
 the thrilling shriek of a female voice followed 
 the awful guilty ; and in the gallery, to which 
 I now first looked, I saw a green gauze veil 
 falling with the sinking head. The shriek 
 of woman's agony was in those days not so 
 rare in that Court as to produce any very 
 marked sensation. 
 
 " Remove the woman! " was but a customary 
 official mandate. I pressed forward to take 
 
 my goddaughter from the officers who has- 
 tened to conduct, or carry her out. 
 
 " lie is sold the poor fellow is sold ! " 
 were the indignant whispers and exclamations 
 of the respectable persons around me, in whom 
 free notions of the rights of property, and the 
 habit of thieving, had by no means obliterated 
 all sense of natural justice, whatever the 
 virtuous may think. Their sympathy with 
 Boyle was lively and intense. Many of the 
 poor wretches had probably passed through 
 the same ordeal, or were liable to it. As I 
 pushed through the crowd, I came upon the 
 attorney, who had been apparently in hot 
 pursuit of the counsel, now first found. 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " cried the attorney, " but 
 tliis is really unlucky." Has that man a 
 soul by which to bless himself ? 
 
 " Ha ! the case closed," replied the counsel, 
 wheeling round ; and, flirting his bundled 
 briefs, involving the fortunes of probably 
 some other half dozen wretches, he scampered 
 off to another Court. 
 
 " And is my evidence to be wholly useless ? 
 not to be heard, sir?" said a decent-looking 
 young tradesman, who now found the attor- 
 ney that had been in search of him. " I have 
 waited here every day this week, and this is 
 Thursday, to give evidence, which I am morally 
 certain would have cleared Mr. Lyndsay 
 Boyle." 
 
 " We must now see what can be done 
 through the Pardon Power," said the attorney. 
 "If he has friends, there is no fear of him yet." 
 
 " But if he have none ? " said the witness. 
 
 The attorney shrugged his shoulders. " I 
 have a dozen cases here to-day good bye, 
 sir write to his friends, if you wish him 
 well, to move the Pardon Power even that 
 takes cash : make way for the lady fainted, 
 poor thing ! " 
 
 I claimed the unfortunate girl from the 
 men who almost carried her. At the sound 
 of my voice she revived. She flew to me, 
 clasped me, clung to me, and then lay insen- 
 sible in my arms, till the coach, into which 
 some of the humane bystanders had assisted 
 me to lift her, stopped at my brother's door. 
 
 "Then," she first murmured, " You saw 
 it all ? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 "Just God ! who judgest ! and was that a 
 just trial ? I never before witnessed one. It 
 had ended before I knew it was begun. 
 GUILTY ! O, what will become of him ? 
 And they say he is half-mad already. If 
 the King were to know this, he would pity 
 him ; and indeed, indeed, he is not guilty."
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 59 
 
 I could not deprive the poor girl of the 
 hope that was the growth of her despair. 
 "Indeed, I don't believe him guilty, Mary 
 Anne ; at least I am certain the punishment 
 is most unequal far exceeds the crime." 
 
 " You don't ! you don't ! " she cried, her 
 eyes flashing over me with a wild joy ; and 
 she covered my hands with her burning 
 kisses. 
 
 " You must be still, my dear Mary Anne. 
 You are grieving me and destroying yourself ; 
 you must be composed and trust to me." 
 
 "To you! 0, yes! to you, my best, my 
 only, my true friend, MY GOOD GENIUS ! " 
 
 " I have brought you to my brother's for 
 a few hours. The family are out of town 
 to-day : you must go to bed and be well, and 
 in the evening your mother will take you 
 home ; and no one shall know our affairs 
 but ourselves." I was pleased with my own 
 arrangement pleased that my gentle and 
 prudent sister was not at home, who, I had 
 some doubts, would, with all her indulgence, 
 have been strongly disposed to condemn the 
 conduct of my goddaughter as a very fla- 
 grant breach of female propriety, which no 
 doubt it was. 
 
 I told the necessary lies to the housekeeper, 
 who was well acquainted with my god- 
 daughter ; and the patient, " suddenly seized," 
 was regularly put to bed, and her chamber 
 darkened. I returned home. When Mrs. Moir 
 heard where I had left her sick daughter, the 
 boa again recurred to her as the reason of 
 Mary Anne's early flight, which I allowed 
 her to believe was as she imagined, induced 
 by dread of her righteous displeasure for the 
 loss of that piece of gear ; a loss which I was 
 
 aware Mr. Attorney had made pretty 
 
 certain. 
 
 Under what influence, I am at a loss to 
 say, but involuntarily my steps turned to 
 Newgate. Under this same statute against 
 embezzlement, I had known gross injustice and 
 oppression practised. To city merchants, 
 attorneys, and dealers of all kinds, embezzle- 
 ment to the smallest extent appears the 
 blackest and most atrocious of all crimes : 
 hanging is too good for it. From Mary Anne's 
 brief, or instructions to the attorney, it ap- 
 peared that arrears of salary, or the per 
 centage on sales due to the prisoner, very 
 considerably exceeded the sum he was charged 
 with having embezzled. That sum had been 
 paid on a Saturday by the tradesman who 
 stood ready to be his leading witness. He 
 had granted a regular receipt for it ; but on 
 Tuesday it had not been paid over to his em- 
 
 ployers, and that night he was arrested. One 
 or two gentlemen in business, with whom I 
 talked the affair over on my way to Newgate, 
 gave me very little hope. Fourteen years' 
 transportation to the penal colonies was 
 really no such great hardship to a young 
 fellow, who might make his way there very 
 well. The jury would not recommend him 
 as a fit subject of the Pardon Power, assuredly; 
 nor would a single gentleman in the city say 
 one word in behalf of a man convicted of the 
 dangerous and growing crime of embezzle- 
 ment. The extravagance and dishonesty of 
 clerks were getting beyond all bounds. Mr. 
 Lyndsay Boyle attended races, probably 
 gamed ; kept a couple of horses, and, at least, 
 one mistress. I need not say, that though 
 the youth had been foolish enough, there was 
 not one word of truth in these statements, as 
 I found, when I afterwards rigidly traced 
 his whole course of life and conversation. 
 
 But, in the mean time, I went to visit the 
 prisoner. Our previous acquaintance had 
 neither been very intimate nor cordial. Now 
 he received me with coldness and hauteur 
 enough, and talked of his own condition in 
 what I may fairly term a style of unbecom- 
 ing bravado. But by and by he lowered his 
 tone ; and on his clearly perceiving that I 
 really had a strong impression of his inno- 
 cence, and questioned the fairness of his trial, 
 I gained him at once. He became as frank 
 as he had been haughty ; and placed so much 
 confidence in my sympathy as, on slender 
 solicitation, to tell me his whole story, and 
 to all but weep in my presence, without being 
 humiliated by the exposure of his true feel- 
 ings. 
 
 The neglect of his relatives stung him the 
 deepest. He had written and re-written 
 home. True, there was little time ; but 
 could they not have sent, could they not 
 have flown ! He never once alluded to Mary 
 Anne or her family, save to say, very coldly, 
 that he " had been weak enough mean 
 enough to apply to David Moir for a loan 
 of five pounds to procure legal assistance, 
 and had received no answer." I afterwards 
 learned that it was the furtive perusal of this 
 letter, intercepted by her mother, which had 
 made my goddaughter acquainted with the 
 fate of Boyle. 
 
 We had conversed for at least two hours ; 
 and I was now really, for his own sake and 
 that of justice, and quite independently of 
 Mary Anne, animated by the desire of aiding 
 the young man to clear up this unhappy 
 transaction. When we were about to part,
 
 60 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 and while lie pressed me to return to see him 
 the jailors, or their assistants, ushered in a 
 party of gentlemen with an unusual bustle 
 and ceremony, one of them evidently just off 
 a long journey. 
 
 " My uncle ! " cried the prisoner, springing 
 forward to meet a gentleman attended by 
 the Common Sergeant, the Chaplain of New- 
 gate, and one of the Aldermen, who, if I 
 remember aright, was Mr. Alderman Waith- 
 man. 
 
 "And I am too late! Lyndsay, what 
 dreadful disgrace is this ? " The gentleman 
 sat down without seeing, at least without 
 accepting the hand his unfortunate nephew 
 had held out. The young man changed 
 colour repeatedly, and, indeed, appeared so 
 painfully agitated, that I would have gone 
 away to spare my own feelings, had he not 
 silently held me. 
 
 Scenting the prey from afar, the attorney 
 in the case followed the gentlemen into the 
 private room we now obtained ; and Boyle's 
 uncle, who belonged to the legal profession, 
 heard him " on the merits." He made state- 
 ments, which, from Mary Anne's memorial, 
 I took it upon myself to contradict and 
 explain. The uncle now held out his hand to 
 his young kinsman, who appeared astonished 
 to learn that he really, after all, had enjoyed 
 the benefit of legal assistance at his trial. 
 The attorney had still to play his part ; and 
 as several functionaries were present whom it 
 was not prudent to offend, I had the pleasure 
 of hearing judge, jury, agent, and counsel, 
 exonerated from all blame. Nothing had 
 gone amiss ; the trial was full and fair ; 
 every one had done his duty, and no one was 
 in fault save " the poor young woman, the 
 prisoner's wife or sister, who was so dreadfully 
 agitated, that she had made a memorial so 
 long and confused, that no counsel could read 
 it, and was so late of lodging the fee, &c. 
 Now, there was nothing for it but the Pardon 
 Power." 
 
 I thought Boyle's eyes would have pierced 
 me during part of this discourse. I left him 
 with his friends, by his uncle's direction 
 writing to his mother, and went to my 
 brother's to see Mary Anne. 
 
 " Are you quite alone 1 " said the languid 
 girl. 
 
 " Quite alone ! " There was a long pause. 
 
 " And have you any news ? " 
 
 " Very good news." She started up from 
 her pillow, looking anxiously in my face. 
 " Well, lie down till I tell you." 
 
 " I am lying." 
 
 " Turn your eyes from the light, then. I 
 left Mr. Boyle with an uncle from Dublin, 
 the Common Sergeant, the Recorder of 
 London." 
 
 " His uncle, Mr. Lyndsay ? " 
 
 " How the deuce should 1 know the lad's 
 Irish relations ? Alderman Waithman, and 
 a Mr. , a particularly rascally attorney." 
 
 " Oh ! " sighed the patient. " And now I 
 have no doubt that a pardon will be obtained 
 for Boyle," she sprang up again, " in a few 
 weeks, perhaps ; so we need trouble our wise 
 heads no more about him." 
 
 " Oh, no ! no ! no more " sobbed my 
 
 patient. " This is, indeed, all ice could desire. 
 
 He will be pardoned ; and he is innocent. 
 
 But do the innocent need pardon? lie is 
 innocent." 
 
 " Hush ! I hear your mother's voice." 
 
 " 0, it is enough he is pardoned." There 
 was another pause. " And was that all ? " 
 
 "All! Mr. Boyle had the delicacy not 
 to mention to me the name of any former 
 friend." 
 
 " That was right," sighed my patient, 
 becoming very pale, and sinking down on 
 her pillow. " Now, he can never know ; no 
 one can guess. It would kill me should any 
 one suspect the wild things of these last two 
 days." 
 
 Mrs. Moir entered on tip-toe. I used a 
 little finesse. " Sleeping and decidedly 
 better," was my whisper "fever much lower 
 ran so high that it was thought best to cut 
 off her hair ! " 
 
 " My Mary Anne's beautiful hair ! her 
 father will be so vexed ! " 
 
 " Well, but don't vex her about it never 
 mention her loss ! " 
 
 " Certainly not and though her father 
 likes that Scottish snood, I always thought 
 Mary Anne looked much nicer in a neat, 
 tidy cap." 
 
 Three days after this my goddaughter 
 walked with me for some miles, quite recover- 
 ed, she said ; but it took a time. In a few 
 weeks, however, she went into my brother's 
 family for the winter, on the condition, that 
 from Saturday to Monday, she was to come 
 home to our lane. 
 
 With all the inquiries, and all the influ- 
 ences of back-stairs and front entrances that 
 could be exerted, it was full two months 
 before the Pardon Power released the prisoner, 
 acknowledged to have been unjustly con- 
 demned. By this time we were become great 
 friends. I had seen him often. Perhaps 
 adversity had been of service in correcting
 
 MARY ANNE'S HAIR. 
 
 61 
 
 his faults of pride and heedlessness, and some- 
 thing might be attributed to the removal of 
 my original prejudices, for now I not only 
 merely liked, but, on increased intimacy, 
 conceived a highly favourable opinion of Mr. 
 Lyndsay Boyle. 
 
 One of his first visits on his enlargement, 
 was made to myself. He was about to return 
 to Ireland with good prospects ; and having 
 a great opinion of my skill, save the mark ! 
 in vertu, he wished my directions in laying 
 out some of the money his liberal uncle had 
 supplied him with in pretty things as presents 
 to take home cameos, or mosaic ornaments, 
 or trinketry of some kind or other. I took 
 
 him to the shop of my friend, Mrs. G ; 
 
 and his own good taste led him to select some 
 of her fairy sculptures. While he bargained 
 
 with the lady, G talked apart in an under 
 
 voice to me : " The great lady has returned 
 from Brighton at last, Richard ; and she is 
 charmed with the young girl's hair. You 
 
 can't have forgot the girl who sold Mrs. G 
 
 her hair ; whom you scampered after like a 
 madman that night in October last. Don't 
 you remember the girl's hair that you said, 
 in your own wild way, the old Greeks would 
 have raised into a constellation, and adored 
 by the name of Mariamne." 
 
 " Mary Anna, my love," cried glib Mrs. 
 
 G , who, though deeply engaged in her 
 
 Italian merchandise, had, like all clever shop- 
 women, at least three pairs of eyes and ears 
 corresponding ; nor were young Boyle's de- 
 ficient. As we walked along, he said, a propos 
 des bottes, " By the way, how are our old 
 friends, the Moirs ? Miss Moir is not at home 
 I believe ? " " My goddaughter resides for this 
 winter in my brother's family." He walked 
 with me to the door of the house, and was 
 not invited in. We stood on the steps. " Do 
 you not, pardon me, Mr. Richard, think 
 Mrs. Moir an exceedingly disagreeable, ill- 
 tempered woman ?" 
 
 " That is an odd, if not a severe remark : 
 most ladies can be disagreeable enough when 
 it so pleases them ; exceedingly disagreeable, 
 is a strong phrase." 
 
 " Were it not for that vulgar woman : 
 now, David is an honest old Trojan I like 
 him." It was not my business to spell out 
 Mr. Boyle's meanings : he fished out of me 
 that I was, that same evening, to attend my 
 brother's children and their little governess 
 to the pantomime. He was in the box before 
 us with a cousin I had formerly seen ; a lad 
 just entered at Lincoln's Inn. I was first 
 made aware of his presence by my god- 
 
 daughter, who sat by me, being seized with 
 one of her ague-fits, that universal shivering 
 which was her strongest manifestation of 
 feeling, when soul and body maintained the 
 passionate struggle. Not a feature was dis- 
 composed ; nor could any one, save myself, 
 have guessed that her emotion arose from 
 any thing save severe external cold. " 0, 
 dear, poor Miss Moir is so cold ! " cried one of 
 my little nieces, wrapping her fat arms round 
 Mary Anne, as she pushed farther into a 
 corner, and drew her shawl the closer. As 
 the performance proceeded, keeping her eyes 
 steadily fixed upon the stage, she talked and 
 even smiled with the laughing children and 
 myself, and showed so wonderfully little of 
 affected surprise, when Mr. Lyndsay Boyle 
 ventured to recognise her, and when she coldly 
 bowed to him, as to baffle even me. 
 
 " I thought she had been younger, Lynd- 
 say," was the whisper of the cousin. " She 
 looks quite an old woman, or at least a young 
 matron." 
 
 " She is not so very old, though ; but that 
 ugly cap, it covers her glorious hair." 
 
 " Glorious hair ! " returned the youth, 
 laughing at the extravagant phrase ; " Do 
 you hear Lyndsay's description, Mr. Taylor 1" 
 
 " Beautiful hair she had" was my re- 
 sponse. 
 
 " And why has not now?" 
 
 " Because she cut it off in a brain fever, 
 one night in October last," was my whisper 
 a sally repented as soon as made. 
 
 The young man started up suddenly, 
 placed his handkerchief to his brow, and left 
 ths box. The cousin followed, imagining 
 some sudden illness. I was almost provoked 
 by the cold, demure air, which Mary Anne 
 wore throughout the rest of the night ; and 
 was only reconciled to her, when I had, un- 
 intentionally, worked up her womanly feel- 
 ings to a rage of pride, fully six months after 
 Boyle had left London, without any attempt to 
 see more of us. But to that paroxysm I have 
 already alluded ; nor did I ever again dare to 
 hint at the possibility of Mary Anne having 
 fallen in love, without due wooing, and all 
 the proper rites of courtship. 
 
 Mr. Boyle had been franker in explanation 
 with myself ; but I was prudent this time, 
 and thought silence, as to his sentiments, no 
 bad auxiliary to the maidenly pride of my 
 goddaughter, disdainful as she was become. 
 If rash and impetuous in her love, Mary 
 Anne was, at least, abundantly prudent in 
 her marriage. She appeared for some years 
 to show even that natural vocation to the
 
 G2 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 serenity of old maidenhood, which some 
 women really have let the men say as 
 they will. Her mother had been dead for 
 three years, and her father retired from the 
 bank before the united entreaties of her 
 friends could shake a resolution early formed 
 against the "honoured state." She has now, 
 however, been, for above seven years, the wife 
 
 and, I have reason to believe, the happy 
 one of a thriving and highly respectable 
 distiller in the county of Antrim, and the 
 mother of I know not how many fine chil- 
 dren. Her father, who lives with her, is, I 
 find, extremely useful to her husband ; and 
 happier, he writes me, than ever he was in 
 his life before. At this very period, Mary 
 Anne is still spoiling her third boy, Dick 
 Taylor, who, by David's letters, is almost as 
 great a genius and prodigy as his name-father 
 
 according to Nurse Wilks was fifty 
 years ago. Specimens of his poetry have 
 been sent me ; and of his painting I possess 
 a "chimera dire," which I am credibly in- 
 
 formed is a horse. Mary Anne's last letter 
 to me begins, " I am writing to my dear god- 
 father with Dick in my lap. Indeed every 
 body says he is the most charming little 
 fellow they ever saw. He insists on making 
 these scratches for a letter to ' Grandpapa 
 Taylor.' " 
 
 But the charm of my Mary Anne's epistles 
 is, that though I have not seen her for seven 
 years, each is written as if I had kissed her 
 last night. We shall never grow out of ac- 
 quaintance. My brother's family visited the 
 Moirs last summer, on their tour to the 
 Giant's Causeway. The most novel intelli- 
 gence they brought me Avas this from my 
 sister Anne : " And gracious, Richard, 
 could you ever believe it, Mrs. LYNDSAY 
 BOYLE is growing stout, and can whip her 
 children ! Her very last words to me, with 
 tears in her eyes, after I was in the carriage, 
 were, * Will my godfather never come !'" 
 Yes, before I die, I shall see ould Ireland and 
 my dear Mary Anne ! 
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 BY RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 THERE is one corner of a newspaper which 
 never escapes me, no, not in the broadest, 
 closest double-sheet, put forth after a long 
 debate about pensions and sinecures. During 
 a money panic, I may chance to look first at 
 the price of stocks, and, pending a West- 
 minster election, glance at the latest state of 
 the poll ; but sooner or later I am sure to 
 return and pore over the obituary. Some of 
 my friends say this is a symptom of age 
 creeping on, something like an old lady buy- 
 ing a new " Practice of Piety," in a print a 
 size larger than is required by her present 
 spectacles. I only know that the obituary 
 is to me a column which at all times teems 
 with grave, yet not unpleasant histories. 
 There I see my old acquaintances, slight or 
 intimate, and long lost sight of, for the last 
 time. We meet once again to part in peace, 
 and for ever. No man indulges harsh or 
 unkindly feelings in perusing the obituary. 
 This column, with which the newspaper 
 moralizes its motley pages, is to myself as 
 productive of musing contemplation, as a 
 saunter, backwards and forwards, beneath 
 the elms of some antique and rural church- 
 yard, in a June evening, when the rooks 
 above have settled for the night, when the 
 
 curfew has ceased to toll, and the fantastic, 
 flickering shadows cast by the sunken tomb- 
 stones, are fast vanishing from the grass. 
 
 I could not exactly recollect whether it was 
 to my young friend Walpole, with whom I 
 sat, that I owed my original acquaintance 
 with Captain Stephen Fox, or if I first saw 
 him as the client of my brother James : but I 
 well remember the circumstances which taught 
 me to revise my hasty and unfavourable- 
 opinion of the tough old Governor. Had I 
 known him only in his capacity of client, 
 his death, in the obituary of a provincial 
 paper, would scarcely have drawn from me 
 the half-suppressed eJieu ! with which I met 
 the likeliest piece of intelligence in the world, 
 that a strong-willed, hale man, of nearly 
 fourscore, full of vitality, and resolute upon 
 living on for another ten years, had neverthe- 
 less been compelled suddenly to submit to 
 the common lot, all his plans unexecuted. 
 One thing remarkable was the list of legacies 
 appended to the notice. These were out of all 
 keeping with the character of the bequeather ; 
 but this might be the effect of a fit of death- 
 bed remorse. 
 
 My young friend, who, from various cir- 
 cumstances, felt even more interest in the
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 63 
 
 event than myself, had thrust the newspaper 
 into my hand, pointing to the notice, say- 
 ing, in a slightly tremulous voice " See 
 here ! Poor, old fellow ! He was, with all his 
 queernesses, a sound-hearted man, and the 
 [ Yiend of me and mine, when a friend was of 
 more value to xis than now." 
 
 I now perfectly recollected where I had 
 first seen the old Governor. It was at a 
 funera^where the gentleman with whom I 
 now sat, then a boy of six years, attended as 
 chief mourner. I recollected the greyish tint 
 of the sky, and the colour and smell of the 
 Thames, on that day, when Nature appeared 
 in her pensive, half-mourning weeds, as I 
 hurried on from London to Rochester in the 
 stage-coach. 
 
 " This is quite a duty to your mind, 
 Richard," my brother had said. He wished 
 to make me his deputy. "I have some 
 touch of a flying gout to-day, and am, be- 
 sides, to tell the truth, so plaguily busy at 
 this opening of the term. The undertaker 
 will, of course, do every thing in the best 
 manner ; but the Walpoles are not persons to 
 be neglected and I shall like to be able to 
 write to Northamptonshire, that, though in- 
 disposition prevented me from attending the 
 funeral, my brother had seen every proper 
 attention paid to the remains of Lieutenant 
 Walpole, which became his birth and 
 family." 
 
 " His remains ! could nothing have been 
 done for the animated body? Is he the 
 same poor young man I saw lately at your 
 chambers?" 
 
 " The same, poor fellow ! He was severely 
 wounded in the affair of Alkmaer, and 
 brought into Chatham. There is a poor 
 widow, too, who posted down to meet him, 
 and one or two children. It is a melancholy 
 story, but Anne will tell you all about it. 
 I have no time, only my instructions from 
 Sir Hugh Walpole's steward, are, that the 
 funeral be conducted in the most respectable 
 manner ; and that the death be properly, but 
 simply announced in the St. James's Chro- 
 nicle. Will you attend to that too ?" 
 
 " And the young widow, and the two or 
 three children 1 ?" 
 
 " ! I have no orders about them, I am 
 sorry to say. Walpole's was some foolish 
 love-match, I believe." 
 
 There was no time to lose. I put myself 
 into my half- worn suit of solemn black, and, 
 declining the proffered chaise, which I then 
 conceived a robbery of the widow, reached 
 Rochester bv a common stage-coach. The 
 
 whole scene, though past for twenty-three 
 years, instantly revived to my memory, with 
 its principal actors, Governor Fox and the 
 little weeping bay whom he led in his hand, 
 with the bit of rusty crape tied over the sleeve 
 of his blue jacket. That boy was now trans- 
 formed into the gentleman opposite to whom 
 I sat. 
 
 On this particular day, as Walpole vowed 
 he did not know what to do with himself, I 
 had consented to dine with him tete-a-tete, to 
 survey his new house which he had just 
 entered. He was at the high-top-gallant of 
 his joy, in the way of making a rapid for- 
 tune ; and within a few days of marrying 
 my third, and it is said favourite niece, 
 Charlotte, for whom he had, in the ladies' 
 phrase, proposed three years before ; and who, 
 if not absolutely denied to his hopes, had been 
 prudently withheld. I had been a kind of 
 half-confidant of their attachment, my 
 latent romance a qualifier in their behalf of 
 excessive parental prudence. 
 
 " I shall begin to believe what you old 
 folks say of the brevity of life," said Wal- 
 pole. " Looking backward, * down the vista 
 of time elapsed,' to that funeral service in 
 Rochester cathedral, the distance appears so 
 mere a span, yet it is full two-and-twenty 
 years since, older than Charlotte." 
 
 One way or other we were disposed to 
 become very social and communicative on 
 this particular afternoon. The verge of the 
 new life upon which he stood, was to Wal- 
 pole a point of 'vantage, from which he could 
 look back with complacency on the rough, 
 up-hill track he had traversed in storm and 
 calm, in sunshine and shadow ; with many 
 changes of fortune, but ever, I believe, with 
 a hopeful and unfaltering spirit. Prominent 
 before him, in every early stage, stood the 
 image of the old Governor, whose oddities 
 and humours were but so many incrustations 
 to which the predilections of friends might 
 grow and cling the faster. 
 
 " Poor old fellow ! I hoped next week to 
 have given him the pleasure of seeing Char- 
 lotte." There was too much Charlotte in our 
 talk certainly for good taste ; but in a bride- 
 groom an uncle might forgive it, especially 
 when the bride was his favourite niece. " I 
 thought he would have weathered out a few 
 more winters ! for, except the load of nearly 
 eighty years, and a touch of deafness, which 
 made him only more pleasant by making 
 him more testy than before, there was not a 
 symptom of vital decay about him. Here is 
 a letter of his not yet five days old, written
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 with his usual brevity ; but every character 
 as sturdy, firm, and right-angled, as his best 
 official despatches forty years back. Many 
 of them, I warrant me, lying in the Colonial 
 Office still unopened. Well, I owe him a 
 libation, any way. Here 's to the memory 
 of Stephen Fox ! in the liquor he loved best 
 sound old port." 
 
 " I should not have imagined port an Afri- 
 can Governor's favourite drink." 
 
 " He had lived long enough in England for 
 it to have become so. You know, I presume, 
 that Govenior Fox rose from the ranks. The 
 Ishmaelite took great pride in the circum- 
 stance that Stephen Fox owed no favour to 
 any patron." 
 
 "I know that, and much more good of 
 him." 
 
 " For example, that it was not his fault that 
 I, your nephew-elect, am not a Northampton- 
 shire Squire, lord of three manors. Even his 
 kindness I owe to her to whom my friends 
 may trace whatever is bearable about me, 
 to my poor mother." 
 
 Walpole was in the fair way, in his mixed 
 mood of a gentle sorrow tempering full-blown 
 joy, to an overflow of heart. It is so rare in 
 these highly civilized times for one man to 
 let another have a peep into his breast, that 
 were the confidence fairly given, though by 
 a shoe-black to a Prince, such is sympathetic 
 human nature, that I believe it would be 
 prized. 
 
 " Did you ever know that I had been an 
 author in my time, Mr. Richard ? " he went 
 on. 
 
 " It is rare to meet with a man under 
 thirty who is not, but I was not aware of 
 your initiation." 
 
 " I am one of you, however. Re-wrote 
 three formidable pamphlets or Memorials to 
 the Colonial Secretary, setting forth ten thou- 
 sand abuses connected with that African 
 sovereignty ; and/before I was sixteen, grinded, 
 and partly top-dressed, the Autobiography 
 and the Opinions of Men and Things, at home 
 arid abroad, of Stephen Fox, Esq. Captain 
 of Marines, and Governor of that abandoned 
 fort, which he conceived of more importance 
 to Great Britain than all her Eastern and 
 Australian Colonies taken together. To the 
 abandonment of that pitiful pin-fold, kept 
 for British soldiers to rot in, and the abolition 
 of the Slave Trade, he imputed the enormous 
 increase of the National Debt, the power of 
 Napoleon, and all the disasters of this coun- 
 try. My dressing spoiled his story, I have 
 no doubt. All self-taught persons, as the 
 
 best educated men are often called, tell their 
 own tale best ; but though he affected to 
 ilr-jiisc Greek and Latin, he had the good 
 stupid old English veneration for scholar- 
 ship : as if his own pithy mother-English 
 had not been twenty times better than nr, i 
 raw, pedantic, dog-Latin style." 
 
 I confess I relished more such racy .creels 
 of his own story, as I had from time to time 
 hoard the Governor relate, rivrt .^ ft thun 
 the elaborate narrative polished i young 
 Walpole, which it had cost its her;* ma .y 
 years of his later life to add to and revi:*.-, 
 when he had become so deaf and cross, as , 
 Chatham ladies said, that no soul in Rochester, 
 Chatham, Brompton, or Stroud, or the regions 
 thereabout, however devoted to the four aces 
 and the odd trick, would sit down to a rubber 
 with him. 
 
 When I first saw Governor Fox he must 
 have been near sixty. He had returned to 
 England but six months before, and had 
 plunged himself into twice as many lawsuits 
 about nothing. He seemed at the period of 
 his return, taken altogether, (though there 
 was a touch of the sea about him,) the hard- 
 est, most angular, and bristly specimen of 
 the old unmodified domineering soldier of the 
 German wars, that I had ever coped with : 
 and I confess a latent prepossession against 
 the whole class, so different from the en- 
 lightened and liberalized modern soldier, 
 whose profession has thrown him into the 
 exact line of the " march' of mind " and the 
 conflict of opinion ; while civilians either 
 remain wrapped up in their original preju- 
 dices, or get rid of them much more slowly. 
 
 There was nothing very remarkable in the 
 early history of the Governor. It was his 
 pride to tell that he was the son of a miller, 
 on one of those Northamptonshire manors 
 which belonged to the Walpole family, and 
 that he had been on the world, his own 
 master and provider, from eleven years of a . '. 
 His manner of abandoning his home was quite 
 characteristic. 
 
 "The old fellow," he would say, "had 
 seven of us, sir, you observe ; and when the 
 poor woman was carried off by fever, he 
 could not easily do without a housekeeper, 
 the curate told him so on the day of the 
 funeral. But that was no reason for bring- 
 ing home, in three months, a snivelling jade 
 from Peterborough, good for nothing but 
 bearing sickly brats and drinking tea, instead 
 of a hearty motherly countrywoman, who 
 could have known the gage of his boys' 
 stomachs, and kept their shirts clean."
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 65 
 
 It was in this respectful manner that the 
 Governor spoke to Mrs. Walpole and myself, 
 of father, mother, and step-dame ; and his 
 small, grey-green eyes would twinkle with 
 roguish malice, when he told us, that after 
 being half-starved, and often beaten by his 
 mother-in-law, his father was one day per- 
 suaded by her to flog him, for breaking some 
 favourite china tea-cup, and that for this he 
 took the glorious revenge of smashing every 
 article of crockery she had brought to the 
 farm-house, before taking flight from the 
 paternal roof for ever. He had fled across 
 the country, and got to the Suffolk coast. 
 From thence, in a ship to London, and thence 
 again to the uttermost parts of the earth. He 
 was, at least, no more heard of in Northamp- 
 tonshire for above thirty years of hardship 
 and adventure. In the course of that time, 
 he had been first ship-boy, and then private, 
 corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, and captain of 
 marines ; but it so happened that he had 
 never visited England. His stations were 
 the West Indies or the African coast ; and, 
 for a long time, he had been doing duty in 
 New South Wales. The Governor's early 
 years had not flown on wings of down. I 
 am, indeed, afraid that a ship-boy in a 
 British merchantman, is often one of the 
 veriest slaves on earth. " Nothing good 
 about it, sir," the Governor would say, " but 
 the pease soup, and allowance of salt junk, 
 when stores were full. I knew something 
 about my book while at home in Northamp- 
 tonshire, and could have answered, * Who 
 gave you that name ? ' ' My godfathers and 
 godmothers,' and such like ; but all religion 
 was forgotten at sea. It was not till I was 
 corporal, a tall fellow of twenty-one, that I 
 took seriously to my learning. I saw by the 
 Scots, that there was no getting on without it." 
 
 The Governor had never taken doggedly 
 to any one. thing in his life, without making 
 something of it, either by fair means or 
 violent, were it but repairing the pathway, 
 or watering the road to Chatham. He owed 
 his first commission to a sudden mortality 
 among the troops, which carried off the seven 
 officers of the party, and left Sergeant Fox 
 in chief command of the fort, of which he, 
 twenty years afterwards, became the Gover- 
 nor. It was bravely and skilfully defended 
 by the sergeant and the few remaining 
 marines fit for duty, when suddenly attacked 
 by the insurgent natives, who had learned 
 the sickly state of the garrison. The Com- 
 mander-in-chief was so much pleased with 
 the courage, promptitude, and judgment, dis- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 played by the sergeant, and by the clearness 
 and brevity of his despatches, that he was at 
 once commissioned. 
 
 " It was all my luck, sir," he would say, 
 " that Abercromby happened to be chief in 
 
 command then. Had it been now, why 
 
 I might have rotted out in the service as 
 Sergeant Fox. Yet Abercromby was a 
 
 Scotsman, and a countryman of my 
 
 own. I am not partial to the Scots, sir. 
 Too many of them have lately got into the 
 marine service, far too many of the hungry 
 rapscallions come here to eat up Englishmen's 
 bread and beef; but, as poor Ned Walpole 
 would say, that young chap's father, 'the 
 Scots are like water-melons, nineteen you 
 may throw to the pigs, but the twentieth is 
 a fellow to make your mouth water,' Sir 
 Ralph was one of the twentieths, sir." 
 
 This is a faint specimen of the talk of my 
 old friend the Governor. The Scottish nation 
 were not singular in his bad graces. He was, 
 indeed, qualified to gain the full love of Dr. 
 Johnson, as a most energetic and thorough 
 hater. While abroad, he had hated Jews, 
 Frenchmen, Scots, and Irish, but, above all, 
 the Americans the Yankees. He was also 
 rather jealous of the naval service : but the 
 military was the object of his peculiar disgust. 
 Indeed, half his despatches and memorials 
 went to prove the entire uselessness of troops 
 of the line and cavalry : seamen alone the 
 wooden walls ! with well-appointed marine 
 corps, being all that was needed for the 
 defence of Old England and her colonies. 
 The general name, Great Britain, was one the 
 Governor never would recognise. 
 
 After his return to England his hatreds 
 remained undiminished in force, and increased 
 in number ; but their objects gradually 
 changed, exactly as did the external relations 
 of the Governor. In a few years, people 
 said, he was no longer the same man ; but 
 he was the very same individual in a new 
 position. By the time I enjoyed the pleasure 
 of his acquaintance, among the numerous 
 objects of his spleen were the Colonial Secre- 
 tary, with every individual connected with 
 the Colonial department ; the Anti-slavery 
 party, and especially their leaders, with the 
 ladies he called the She-Saints. On these 
 ladies he poured unmitigated wrath. 
 
 Governor Fox had also many minor and 
 individual objects of detestation, such as the 
 Baptist druggist, who opposed him at vestry- 
 meetings, and the numerous brood of North- 
 amptonshire Foxes, let loose upon him as 
 soon as he returned home with a fortune. As 
 
 No. 5.
 
 66 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 no one could tell the amoxint of that fortune, 
 every one was at liberty to guess, and to fix 
 upon the scale best fitted to his own ideas of 
 the wealth and magnificence, corresponding 
 to the dignity of Governor Fox. It seemed 
 to cost him more trouble to defend his pocket 
 from the real and imaginary attacks made on 
 it by " this greedy pack," as he styled his 
 numerous relations, than his Fort and Govern- 
 ment from the natives, of whom he spoke 
 with much greater respect and affection. 
 This Government he had abandoned in a hot 
 fit of ill-humour, because, during the short 
 administration of his namesake Fox, at the 
 beginning of the century, he had been pri- 
 vately admonished concerning his arbitrary, 
 if not oppressive, dismissal of a Wesleyan 
 missionary from his station, whom he threat- 
 ened to tar and feather if he ventured to 
 approach the colony again. And the Gover- 
 nor would have been a man of his word. 
 
 Home he came, after an absence of fifty 
 years, in a hissing-hot fit of tropical rage. 
 " Those Whig fellows," he said, " were all 
 Buonaparte and Wilberforce men. They 
 would destroy all subordination and good 
 government, and play the devil with Old 
 England. They had done so already. What 
 a pretty place they had made of Northamp- 
 tonshire ! every thing turned topsy-turvy 
 there ; and one Peel, a spinning-jenny fellow, 
 in possession of some of the finest manors in 
 Staffordshire and his own native county." 
 
 But I have not yet got to this chapter. 
 Nothing at this time could irritate the Gover- 
 nor more than being supposed a humble 
 cousin of the Holland family, save being 
 questioned on his probable descent from 
 George Fox, the founder of the Quakers. 
 "I'm a whelp of a better litter," he would 
 say ; angry perhaps, such is human nature, 
 that he was not able to reply in the affir- 
 mative. 
 
 Yet with such ideas in ]800, I lived to see 
 the Governor, under the combined influence 
 of shrewd commonsense, a strong, unper- 
 verted, however unenlightened, love of justice, 
 and a splenetic temper, fearfully aggravated 
 by his long residence abroad and the habit of 
 absolute command, become a stanch Reformer, 
 in all save the name. It might have helped 
 to sharpen his scent for abuses that he no 
 longer profited by them in any shape. It 
 became his boast, " that Stephen Fox, though 
 a man of fifteen stone, did not add one ounce 
 to the dead-weight." He had sold his com- 
 mission, and, for a wonder, drew no retired 
 salary from his abolished Government, lie 
 
 was, therefore, free to grumble and complain 
 of every thing, as last as one grievance was 
 found out after another, from his excised 
 cigar to his taxed pipe of Madeira. It was 
 amusing to me to watch the stages the Gover- 
 nor made on the high-road to the grumbling 
 state, often nick-named Radicalism, some- 
 times slowly, sometimes by a great kangaroo 
 leap ; as in the affair of his property-tax, an 
 impost then so arbitrarily levied. 
 
 The OLD ENGLAND to which Governor Fox 
 had returned, did not in the least resemble 
 the Old England of his imagination ; the Eng- 
 land which, prosaic as he was thought to be, 
 had haunted him under the ton-id skies of 
 Africa, with visions of cool green lanes, open 
 breezy downs, and driving his mother's cows 
 at dewy dawn to the village common. 
 
 This desired land to which he came back, 
 was not even the Old England of recollection. 
 The Governor's first experiment was made, 
 in Northamptonshire, in the scene of his 
 childhood ; and it proved a complete failure. 
 Ten years 'afterwards he related the adven- 
 tures of his journey to me, with fire and fury 
 in his eyes : 
 
 " I pitched my tent in the Neio Royal 
 Oak, sir, for the Oak itself was down every 
 stone of it, and the buxom landlady, who 
 often, when I carried her eggs from the mill, 
 wont to give me a good hunch of home-baked 
 bread home-baked, you observe, well buttered 
 with lard, had gone the way we must all fol- 
 low, sir; for some time I took my Christian 
 name of Stephen, Mr. Stephen, a gentleman 
 from foreign parts, looking about him. I 
 wished to reconnoitre the Fox earths, you 
 observe, without putting 'em all on the scent 
 after ' the grand Governor, their cousin, and 
 his Indiey fortin.' " The Governor had a 
 spice of English humour about him, though 
 his rage or hot choler often dried it up. 
 
 " Old England has been on the quick march 
 since you went abroad, I guess, sir," quoth 
 my puppy landlord, " you must see great 
 changes and improvements in the village, Mr. 
 Stephen ? " 
 
 "Quick march to Old Nick, man, with 
 the Whigs, drumming her on. The fellow 
 did not mean to tell me, Mr. Richard, that 
 the poor cottagers who grazed their cows on 
 the common are a fig the better for yonder 
 new cake-houses, filled with the bull-frog 
 farmers, and their ladies, forsooth ! and the 
 small Esquire puppies, with their belts, 
 clumps, and circular sweeps. A great 
 change, quoth he ! To be sure I did see 
 that : English labourers wearing cotton-
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 rags, meaner than the convicts' slop-clothes 
 at Botany Bay, and their dames sloping at 
 treacled bohea. A great change, truly ! An 
 empty rectory, sir, and a full Methodist 
 chapel, cottagers' dwellings fallen to ruin, 
 and a big workhouse erected. Not a spot 
 of ground on which the poor man dare set 
 his foot ; and their common divided among 
 thieves ; a good slice to the Lord of the 
 Manor, but a better, I'm told, to his 
 steward. A great change, forsooth ! Rents 
 doubled and tripled : yet every other estate 
 eaten up with Jew mortgages, and wheat at 
 4, 10s. a-quarter ! " 
 
 In short, the Governor had been displeased 
 wherever he went, and with every thing he 
 heard and saw ; but especially with his 
 rapacious kindred, to the tenth degree, whom 
 he styled "'worse than the blood-sucking 
 vampires of Surinam." From some marine 
 predilections and old friendships, he had 
 originally fixed his head-quarters at Roches- 
 ter, to be near Chatham ; and thither he 
 returned from Northamptonshire, quarrelling 
 with every soul he encountered at home or 
 a-field : with turnpike-gate keepers, guards 
 and drivers, overcharging landlords, and a 
 new, unknown species of greedy animal, called 
 Soots. On the road his testy temper and 
 mahogany complexion obtained him credit 
 for being an American on his travels, a 
 mistake enough of itself to have provoked the 
 Governor to do murder. " A true-born Eng- 
 lishman could not, in these days, be known 
 for one in Old England ! " 
 
 At home Governor Fox appealed against 
 every tax-gatherer, and from all manner of 
 impostures and surcharges. He had one 
 lawsuit about the right to a pump in the 
 stable-yard ; and another about the party- 
 wall which divided his bit of garden from 
 the premises of the Baptist druggist. His 
 tailor cheated him in buckram and broad- 
 cloth, and he first swore at him, like his 
 namesake, frugal King Stephen, and then 
 kicked him out. The tailor very properly 
 " took the law of him." His housekeeper 
 was saucy when he gave orders, or looked 
 into matters unbecoming the munificence and 
 dignity of a Governor whom she served, 
 and he would have dearly liked to kick her 
 too. His laundress was unpunctual, because 
 yhe washed for the gentlemen of the line, who 
 were often in a hurry to embark ; and in 
 free Old England, of which he had so long 
 boasted, it was neither thought seemly to flog 
 a scullion- wench, nor yet the frequent custom 
 to kick even a tailor. 
 
 The Governor had been too long habituated 
 to a summary redress of domestic grievances, 
 not to make repeated attempts at introducing 
 tropical discipline into his Rochester house- 
 hold, for its more speedy and effectual reform. 
 This produced endless actions for assault and 
 battery, and prosecutions for the recovery of 
 wages and board. Now it was the cook gave 
 warning, and went off on the third day, just 
 before dinner; now the chambermaid "would 
 have his honour to know she was not to be 
 sarved like his black niggers ! " 
 
 On one occasion he was left alone in the 
 house with black Sam, a negro-lad he had 
 brought home. Sam had grown up with him 
 from a very young boy ; so to him he made, on 
 the whole, a kind master, notwithstanding a 
 little occasional African discipline. He had 
 taken considerable pains with Sam's early 
 education. It was the Governor himself had 
 taught him to polish boots to perfection, 
 groom a horse, keep his teeth and nails clean, 
 and repeat the Creed. 
 
 The three days in which the Governor and 
 Sam were alone in the house, were, on the 
 whole, the most tranquil he had yet known 
 in England. He contemplated living in 
 future merely with Sam, and a groom lad 
 who slept out, and letting " no saucy jade, 
 with her teapot, and her hair-papers, ever 
 again enter his door," or female of any kind ; 
 unless some of his nautical friends, who made 
 trading trips to the Coast, would bring him 
 over a handy negro- wench, about eighteen ; 
 whom he mentally proposed to marry to Sam, 
 and thus raise a breed of niggers for the 
 home supply. The only obstacle to this 
 scheme, was his frequent purpose of turning 
 his back upon Old England, its taxes and 
 fogs, its paupers and pampered servants, al- 
 together, and returning to Africa : which he 
 probably would have done in a fit of spleen, 
 save that his funds were now locked up in 
 one or other of the many " profitable invest- 
 ments," that had, by this time, been recom- 
 mended and urged upon him and could not 
 easily be realized. 
 
 I do not think the Governor could have 
 been avaricious while he enjoyed power; but 
 in Old England, like every other man, he 
 soon found that next to power great power 
 and superior to rank, is money. If he had 
 previously ever liked money, it was nega- 
 tively, not positively. At the beginning of 
 the French war, and in the end of the Ameri- 
 can war, he had made considerable prize- 
 money. He took no pains to increase it. 
 But as he never spent, and, at his Coast
 
 68 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Fort, was neither troubled with needy cousins, 
 blood-sucking tax-gatherers, tailors who 
 cabbaged broadcloth, nor smart housekeepers 
 who liked their masters to have tilings hand- 
 some about them, his fortune had im- 
 perceptibly accumulated. Still he never 
 spent. The housekeeper and cook had been 
 forced on him by the Chatham ladies, who 
 liked to patronize an old rich Governor, and 
 to assist in his household appointments, be- 
 cause he " was such an acquisition to the 
 neighbourhood ! " 
 
 The Governor, of all human things, 
 abhorred and despised a spendthrift, next 
 to a dirty woman, a drunken marine, 
 a negro in a state of perspiration, or a 
 lady carrying about a subscription-paper 
 for a religious charity. A man who out- 
 ran his means was a knave, and dis- 
 honoured ; and there was no more to be 
 said of him. No indulgence, no sympathy, 
 for the poor subaltern who got into difficul- 
 ties. "The puppy, sir, knew his means," 
 said he to me, in reference to a poor lieute- 
 nant, with a sickly wife and three or four 
 children, who was known at this time to be 
 in great distress in an adjoining lodging. 
 "A man sir, may live handsomely upon a 
 shilling a day ; comfortably upon sixpence. / 
 have done with less." 
 
 This was always conclusive. " The man 
 who is a slave to his belly or his back or 
 to the vanity of some silly hussy he may have 
 married, must drink as he brews. I don't 
 know how it is with those who buy and sell ; 
 but I know this, that I never wish to see any 
 man my debtor, for from that moment I am 
 tempted to hate and despise him. I cannot 
 feel for him like a Christian he seems 
 meaner than a nigger." 
 
 With these ideas, the Governor, ever since 
 his return, had been looking about him for 
 what moneyed capitalists call a profitable in- 
 vestment. With all his natural shrewdness, 
 a great deal of simplicity and no small por- 
 tion of credulity were mingled in his charac- 
 ter, which laid him open to the designing. 
 From the many " profitable investments" he 
 had made, several fortunes were to be realized. 
 One large fortune he was making, by shares 
 in a brewery of Scottish ale, made at Roches- 
 ter, for the London market ; another was to 
 arise from shares of a commercial speculation 
 to South America ; and a third, more singular 
 still, by shares of the Drury-Lane Theatre ! 
 Each concern was of large promise ; but, in the 
 meanwhile, another lawsuit was on the tapis. 
 
 On the fourth day of the joint housekeep- 
 
 ing of black Sam ami his master, the Governor, 
 before walking to Chatham Barracks, his 
 ordinary morning promenade, gave his orders 
 for the day: dinner punctual at five, a 
 sole, a curried chicken, and tomatas. Ue 
 was not absolutely sure whether Colonel 
 Bamboo of the Marines would mess with him 
 that day or not : but, at all evonts, a couple 
 of chops in addition would do the thing well 
 enough in a bachelor way, with a bottle of 
 his Kast India Madeira. This last was a 
 lure rarely resisted by the retired militairet, 
 with whom he daily conferred on the bad 
 conduct of the war, and the important aid 
 the marines lent to the regulars, who deprived 
 the amphibious heroes of their laurels. 
 
 Colonel Bamboo, having no other engage- 
 ment, accepted the invitation, as it was in- 
 deed a hundred to one that he would unless 
 he had had a better. I happened to be that 
 day in Rochester on business connected with 
 Mrs. Walpole's endless Chancery suit ; and 
 the Governor had reasons of his own for being 
 civil to his solicitor's brother ; and, besides, 
 " abhorred fellows devouring widows' sub- 
 stance like Methodist parsons," especially 
 that of the " Widow Walpole," or " Ned's 
 widow," for whom he had conceived a high 
 respect. In brief, to spare her couple of mutton- 
 chops, as he considerately supposed, he in- 
 troduced me to his friend, Bamboo, and 
 frankly vouchsafed me a share of the currie 
 and the sole. We walked towards the snug 
 box, for it was no more, occupied by the 
 Governor, who meanwhile studied Robins's 
 advertisements, and sometimes had visions of 
 an estate and a mansion in Northamptonshire, 
 as soon as the Scottish ale and old Drury had 
 laid their golden eggs. 
 
 No black Sam appeared to the master- 
 knock of the Governor, who became appre- 
 hensive that his trusty major-domo might 
 have been taken suddenly ill. Failure in 
 punctuality was quite out of reckoning with 
 the Governor. 
 
 " We never have any accidents" was his 
 reply to Bamboo's suggestion. " I never 
 allow accidents. Something must have be- 
 devilled Sam." 
 
 Governor Fox was essentially a humane 
 man, if my readers can reconcile humanity 
 with the exercise of moderate flogging. I do 
 not mean to say he was a man of quick 
 sensibility, or of any delicacy or refinement 
 of feeling ; but he could sympathize with 
 cold, hunger, filth, the ague, and the dry 
 colic, for these ills he had experienced him- 
 self, ay, and do more for the relief of the
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 sufferers under them than persons of far finer 
 feelings. 
 
 Neither cold, hunger, nor ague, could be 
 suspected here ; so it must be the other case. 
 And, by the help of Bamboo, the Governor 
 scaled the wall with surprising agility, to 
 make a breach by the back-kitchen. While 
 he was thus engaged, in fingering about the 
 latch I chanced to find it open, and accord- 
 ingly advanced with Bamboo from the front 
 so as to encounter the party that approached 
 by the rear. What was the Governor's rage 
 to find the sooty object of his recent solicitude, 
 his frizzly hair greased and powdered, and 
 his person decked out in his holiday frilled 
 shirt and scarlet waistcoat, not dead drunk 
 an African seldom is so but intoxicated 
 to the pitch of madness, strutting about the 
 kitchen, his arms extended, and his eyes 
 rolling, spouting 
 
 " Slabes cannot breadth in Hengland ! " 
 The scene was irresistibly ludicrous. 
 
 " You confounded black rascal, what have 
 you been after? Are you drunk, you 
 Villain 1" 
 
 " Yes ! me drunk, Massa Goberner ! Glo- 
 rious drunk ! " cried Sam. " Me no black 
 rascal ; me free nigger ! free as Massa 
 Goberner, or Massa Colonel Bamby 
 " Slabes cannot breadth in Hengland ! " 
 
 I feared the Governor would have choked ; 
 he became black in the face. " You cursed 
 impudent negro dog, who has been putting 
 this rebellious stuff into your woolly head ? 
 You shall find, you villain, that slaves can 
 both breathe and howl in England. Where 
 is my whip 1 " 
 
 " In de lobby, massa," cried the blubber- 
 ing, terrified black, from the mere spaniel- 
 like instinct of obedience. " Oh, Massa, 
 Massa Goberner, no flog, no flog your 
 slave ! " 
 
 The scene became painfnlly mixed with 
 the ludicrous and the pitiable. I had as 
 great an antipathy to the phrase your slave 
 as Matthew Lewis himself, as great a horror 
 of the scourge as any man, as dejected a 
 spirit to find the heroic resolution inspired by 
 the new-born sense of freedom so easily cowed 
 in poor Sam. It was scarcely to be expected 
 that the Governor would spare the rod upon 
 this occasion ; but his rage ran too high to 
 allow his punishment to be very effective. 
 The length of the driving whip, with which 
 he administered discipline, made it recoil, and 
 coil at every fresh stroke round his own 
 person ; while Sam skipped, and leaped, and 
 screamed about, with little or no corporal 
 
 damage, however his new-bom notions of 
 personal liberty might be outraged, until the 
 Governor was fairly blown by the unusual 
 exertion. Colonel Bamboo held it as a point 
 of honour not to interfere with a gentleman's 
 right " to wallop his own nigger," even 
 though Sam had not richly deserved a flog- 
 ging by neglect of the sole, the currie, the 
 lime punch, and other et ceteras. 
 
 The result was, that the Governor dragged 
 and partly kicked Sam into his usual lair, 
 turned the key upon him, refreshed himself 
 and his friends, after his fatigues, with a 
 rummer of Madeira and water, and, like an 
 old campaigner, making all safe in garrison, 
 locked the door, put the key in his pocket, 
 and took his way with us to dine at the bar- 
 racks' mess, where we were sure of a welcome, 
 and for which there was still time. 
 
 It was but three or four days later that I 
 saw the Governor arrive at my brother's 
 chambers, in a towering passion, vowing, with 
 a deep imprecation, that if he spent his last 
 shilling of ready money, and sold out his 
 Drury-Lane shares, he would have justice on 
 the canting, snivelling, hypocritical Methodist 
 scoundrels, who had first put such rebellious 
 notions into the head of his slave, then broken 
 into his house, and now wanted to deprive 
 him of his property. 
 
 Sam, after we left the house, instead of 
 sleeping off his liquor as his master had in- 
 tended, had been overheard bellowing in his 
 half-drunken state by the neighbours, who, 
 in their zeal of humanity, had broken into 
 the house and freed the captive. 
 
 The case was warmly taken up by certain 
 persons more distinguished for zeal than 
 discrimination, and particularly by the vestry 
 opponents of the Governor. Black Sam, 
 therefore, enjoyed the felicity of being, for a 
 few days, the talk of many tea-tables, and 
 the guest or lion of a few. He was repre- 
 sented as the son of an African Prince, in- 
 veigled, when a child, by the Governor, into 
 the Fort, and made a slave, while his parents 
 were massacred. Though Sam was rather 
 an honest fellow, and at bottom warmly at- 
 tached to "Massa Gobernor," he had not 
 heart all at once to strip himself of those 
 imputed honours of birth, or to deny that he 
 had been cruelly kidnapped from his royal 
 parents. 
 
 My brother's endeavours to prevent a fresh 
 suit, 'upon account of Black Sam, were quite 
 thrown away. The Governor swore he would 
 have the rascal back, were it but to make 
 pie-meat of the ungrateful, rebellious nigger,
 
 70 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 if there was any justice or law left iu Eng- 
 land. If Mr. James Taylor would not take 
 up the case, why then another would. There 
 was, thank God, no scarcity of attorneys in 
 London. The fact was undeniable. 
 
 The case gave rise to several amusing 
 scenes, particularly when Black Sam and 
 the Governor met face to face as parties in 
 Court. So strong was the habit of slavery 
 in the subdued soul of the poor, trembling 
 African, that he could scarcely be primed to 
 meet the terrible Governor at all, but never 
 once to confront him manfully ; while it 
 required the utmost vigilance of his counsel, 
 and his friends, and a hundred warnings 
 about the dignity and sanctity of the temples 
 of justice in England, to impress upon the 
 Governor the necessity of restraining himself 
 from inflicting punishment on the black hide 
 of " that ungrateful scoundrel Sam," in open 
 Court. The array of "She-Saints," who 
 appeared as spectators, exasperated him still 
 more. He tried to affront them to their 
 faces, by asking aloud of Bamboo, who stood 
 by him, " What all those ugly hussies wanted 
 in a Court? had they no work at home 
 or had they taken a longing for black flesh, 
 like the unnatural woman in Shakspere's 
 play, which he had seen acted at Kingston I " 
 
 The unkiudest cut made by the champions 
 of freedom, in the person of black Sam, was 
 compelling Colonel Bamboo to bear witness 
 to the flogging. Every military gentleman 
 who heard of the circumstance, declared it a 
 
 d d unhandsome proceeding, to compel a 
 
 gentleman to so flagrant a violation of honour 
 and hospitality. Bamboo managed with 
 great delicacy and tact, and gave the Governor 
 a flaming character for humanity, which, in 
 the instance of Black Sam, I rather believed 
 he deserved. Governor Fox was, he said, 
 remarkable for humanity to all his negroes 
 he had been known to administer their medi- 
 cine himself, and to attend the hospital, in 
 the meanest offices, when the soldiers were 
 too sickly to do duty. 
 
 The Governor got rather well off, in short, 
 though he considered himself the worst used 
 gentleman that ever had claimed justice in 
 an English Court. For " was not Sam his 
 born slave ? and was not the nigger declared 
 as free and good a man as any white Chris- 
 tian?" 
 
 This unrighteous decision, with a swingeing 
 sum of costs, made him a more determined 
 hater than ever of all Baptists, Methodists, 
 Quakers, and She-Saints, the last class, in 
 particular, were, from this date, his mortal 
 
 antipathy. But Old England, heivjlf, sunk 
 still farther in his esteem. She was become 
 a land fit only for tax-gatherers, pensioners, 
 and canting Methodists. He would go back 
 to the West Indies ! A few retired veterans, 
 and families of military, or West India con- 
 nexion, warmly joined the faction of the 
 Governor, and the neighbourhood was kept 
 in hot water between the Slavery and Anti- 
 slavery, the Evangelical and the Church 
 party, who, to say truth, had, on some points, 
 very little Christian charity to divide between 
 them. 
 
 It afforded a great triumph to the Gover- 
 nor, about three months after Sam had been 
 rescued from his tyrannical grasp, and de- 
 clared a free man, to find the poor fellow iu 
 rags, begging on the streets of London. He 
 had just been dismissed from an hospital. 
 The poor creature would have been most 
 thankful to lie restored, on any terms, to his 
 old quarters ; and as those of the Governor, 
 though they implied complete slavery, said 
 nothing about half rations or flogging, he 
 was delighted to return home, as he called the 
 Governor's dwelling. 
 
 On a Saturday night, therefore, the Gover- 
 nor, who liked this kind of duty, saw Sam 
 duly scrubbed, and well-soused with divers 
 buckets of water, administered by the groom, 
 at the same pump about which the lawsuit 
 was proceeding, and his rags burned in the 
 yard; to free him, the Governor said, "of 
 the vermin he had gathered among the 
 Saints." Next morning, piqued into making 
 Sam as good a Christian as they could do for 
 their hearts, he strictly examined him, him- 
 self, on the Creed, and enjoyed the triumph 
 of telling a military chaplain, that, " With 
 all the canting of the Evangelical fellows, 
 Sam, in the three months he had been among 
 them, had been so much neglected in his 
 religious principles, that he committed more 
 blunders in repeating his Creed, than when, 
 he was only ten years old ; though he pre- 
 tended the old ladies had taught him to pray 
 off book." 
 
 Sam submitted to be paraded before the 
 windows of some of his late emancipators, 
 with a legend about his neck, bearing that 
 he, Sam, a black man of the Sow-sow nation, 
 was the born slave of Governor Stephen Fox! 
 
 For some weeks Sam's master and he went 
 on tolerably well together, until it was dis- 
 covered that Sam, who was socially inclined, 
 sometimes, when the Governor dined at 
 Chatham, stole out to a prayer meeting. 
 This was crime enough of itself; but a
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 71 
 
 waggish ensign informed the Governor that his 
 own servant, who was also an attendant, told 
 that Sain publicly prayed every night, " That 
 Goramighty would hear the poor nigger's 
 prayers, and have mercy on the sinful soul 
 of poor, ould, wicked Massa Gubbana ; and 
 not send him to the bad place." 
 
 If not held back by main force, the Gover- 
 nor would certainly have gone forthwith, 
 and dispersed the alleged conventicle by the 
 use of his cane. As it was, he vowed he 
 would break every bone in the black knave's 
 carcass ! Pray for him, indeed ! Him, a 
 white Christian ! Was there not Bishops 
 and Rectors enough, well paid, too, in Eng- 
 land, to pray for Churchmen ; but Methodists, 
 and Niggers, and She-Saints, must have the 
 impudence to pray for them ! He would 
 have the Church look to that. 
 
 Poor Sam, under view of the whip often 
 threatened, but seldom applied on his knees, 
 promised that he never again would have the 
 audacity to pray for his white master. 
 
 Under this religious persecution he was 
 tempted from without to leave his master a 
 second time ; but Sam still remembered how 
 hungry and cold he had been, and he said, 
 " Black Sam stay and pray for poor wicked 
 Massa Gubbana : him best understand Sam's 
 congsitution. Bery good Massa when not in 
 a h u ff 
 
 The Governor, whatever his pious neigh- 
 bours might think of it, piqued himself on 
 being a most exemplary Church Christian. 
 Unlike black Sam, he could repeat the 
 Creed without blundering one word. In his 
 Fort he had made a point of reading the 
 Service every Sunday morning, and on 
 Monday morning, of flogging as many 
 of the negroes as did not attend chapel. 
 Zealously had he defended the outworks of 
 the Church from the attacks of Methodists, 
 as he had proved by his angry abdication. 
 He would have sworn to the Thirty-Nine 
 Articles, and with a perfectly safe conscience, 
 as often as any statute required or custom 
 dictated. For why ? " every body, save 
 Methodists and Presbyterians, did so." It 
 is probable that the Governor, who was, in 
 every point, a man of action, did not enjoy 
 the ministrations of a regular clergyman so 
 well as his own service ; for, until the era of 
 black Sam, he had not regularly attended 
 Church. Now he went, marching his mar- 
 shalled household to church, every morning, 
 Sam walking before, carrying his master's 
 crimson and gold large Prayer Book ; which 
 was to the Governor exactly what his bre- 
 
 viary is to a good Catholic a thing of 
 mysterious sanctity ; something resembling a 
 bishop in full canonicals a tangible and 
 comely body of faith. The Bible held but a 
 secondary place in the Governor's esteem. 
 It was a good book, to be read on holyday 
 evenings, by those who had time, but suspi- 
 ciously revered by the Scotch, the Methodists, 
 and Quakers. 
 
 Now, solemnly seated, at the head of his 
 pew, the Amen certainly did not stick in his 
 throat. His strenuous responses, and loud 
 joining in the psalm, overpowered the choir 
 and startled the congregation. He now par- 
 took of the communion regularly at Christ- 
 mas, Easter, and other solemn tides ; because 
 such was the duty of a churchman, and 
 because he read in the newspapers that the 
 King and the Royal Family did so, with the 
 Dukes of York and Clarence. A doubt of 
 his fitness had never once clouded his mind. 
 This was a mysterious rite, in which all good 
 churchmen, rich and poor, were entitled to 
 participate and none else: and no "mis- 
 sionary puppies " had a right to dispense the 
 holy sacrament, nor negroes to partake of it. 
 He had never permitted such a profanation 
 in his Government. 
 
 The religious opinions of Governor Fox 
 might not have been the most enlightened, 
 but they were the natural growth of his 
 education, and of the system working around 
 him. He was, like most other human beings, 
 very much the creature of external influ- 
 ences ; and he had been, for the greater part 
 of his life, placed in circumstances which shut 
 out light by nearly every approach. In 
 England, light streamed in through many 
 crannies. I have said that the Governor, 
 save on the question of slavery, the black 
 niggers, and the Church, latterly became a 
 sort of Tory-Radical ; and it may be regarded 
 as a sign of the times, that, towards the close 
 of his life, he had been so far corrupted by 
 Cobbett's writings as to begin to question 
 why a Bishop should have so much higher 
 pay than an Admiral of the Red ; and a 
 Rector, than a Colonel of Marines? He 
 never got further than this ; though the direct 
 operation of tithe upon himself would, I have 
 no doubt, in one season, have made the 
 Governor a thorough Church-reformer. He 
 had already, by the unaided light of con- 
 science, discovered that no work no pay, was 
 the true principle to which society should 
 adhere, with all its servants. At Church- 
 rate he grumbled excessively ; and for this 
 hardship his remedy was, that the Methodists,
 
 72 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 his general term for all dissenters, should I 
 be made to contribute double, to relieve 
 churchmen of such burdens. 
 
 I am afraid that my old friend will scarce 
 appear cither a very amiable or even consis- 
 tent character. He was, however, quite 
 consistent with himself. Besides, I have 
 hitherto been exhibiting his asperities and 
 angular points, in that unhappy interval of 
 ten years, when, having just lost absolute 
 power, he had not yet learned to live on terms 
 of equality and forbearance with his fellow 
 men ; and when every passing day, from his 
 own overbearing conduct, litigiousness, and 
 credulity, was roughly dispelling his life-long 
 dreams of the state of society in happy Old 
 England. His faults were more those of 
 ignorance and temper than of heart. As his 
 understanding expanded, his judgment became 
 more correct and his character improved. 
 Though his prejudices were violent, they were 
 few. He had no respect for names or persons, 
 no partisan feelings, save in the nigger, and 
 the Church cases ; and in him these were at 
 least honest. Present any truth to him ; and 
 if he was able to perceive, he at once embraced 
 it. General or abstract truth was not in his 
 way. His, from original constitution and 
 training, was a mind of facts and details ; 
 yet without any large views or well-defined 
 principles, he often arrived at fair, practical 
 conclusions. His moral pole-star was ditty, 
 though he had no very enlarged idea of the 
 principle. His duty to his horse, to black 
 Sam, and his country, stood pretty much on 
 the same level ; though he might have a 
 clearer idea of the former than of the latter 
 kind of duty. 
 
 I have dwelt too long in these generalities. 
 The first time I beheld Governor Fox, with 
 knowledge, so, I mean, as to note and re- 
 member him as a man of some mark, was, 
 as I have said, at the funeral of Lieutenant 
 Walpole, leading "poor Ned's boy," as his 
 phrase was. This was to see him to advan- 
 tage. He was hotly and most characteristi- 
 cally alive to the indignity offered, as he 
 thought, to the memory of " poor Ned," by 
 the Walpole family sending an undertaker 
 and their agent's brother, to see the last duties 
 performed. Though he had quarrelled with 
 all his kindred himself, he entertained that 
 true old English respect for the remains of 
 relations by blood, that had the degree of 
 consanguinity exacted the attention, he would 
 at once have travelled a hundred miles to 
 fulfil the duty of attending their funerals 
 putting himself, as the Gazette says, "into 
 
 decent mourning." " Poor Ned " was only 
 a brother officer scarcely even that, for he 
 had the misfortune to belong to the regulars 
 and the Governor appeared at the funeral 
 in his ordinary dress, with the customary 
 knot of crape on his arm. He might at this 
 time have been about sixty-two years of age ; 
 but he had not lost one hairVbreadth of his 
 original stature of five feet ten inches, nor a 
 single tooth. The strongest impression given 
 by the first view of his person an d*. physiog- 
 nomy was that of decision. His firm struc- 
 ture, and compact fibre, the movement of his 
 limbs, his erect, and somewhat stiff mien, the 
 firmness of his walk, his compressed lips, and 
 loud tone of voice, all bespoke promptitude, 
 and hardy, confident decision, a man nevei 
 given to question or doubt, much less to 
 speculate. Yet no one could have dreamed 
 that his was the decision of a high and vigo- 
 rous intellect. It was the pushing, strenuous 
 force, the sinewy and muscular determina- 
 tion, of a bold animal, or of a strong-willed 
 man, whose maxim is, " Where there is a 
 will, there is a way." 
 
 The eye was the most striking feature in 
 the tanned face of the old Governor. In a 
 cold day, when I have seen him buttoned 
 and wrapped above the nose, and the eye 
 alone visible, it was a luminary to be marked. 
 That strong greyish-green, clear, frosty eye, 
 quick but not penetrating, was of itself 
 enough to show the man of prompt decision. 
 It was certainly not in the least an eye like 
 that of Mars, " to threaten or command ; " 
 yet it could sometimes twinkle and scintillate 
 in a way which plainly demonstrated that 
 the person who looked at you was not a 
 character which it might be altogether pru- 
 dent to trifle with. I have seen something 
 very like it, though far more cunning, and 
 as it were better instructed, under the shaggy 
 brows of a Bow Street officer, near the head 
 of the department. It would have been a 
 perfectly appropriate feature in the counte- 
 nance of a pilot, a smuggler, a whaler ; then 
 it might have been more ferocious or uneasy 
 in expression ; now, when it lightened, it 
 was only an angry, not a ferocious eye the 
 eye of a man who could flourish a whip, but 
 who abhorred a stiletto. 
 
 His natural love of order, a military educa- 
 tion, and long residence in a burning climate, 
 had made my old friend scrupulous and even 
 finical about personal cleanliness, and in all 
 his arrangements of the toilet. " Cleanliness," 
 he said, " his mother had taught him, was 
 next to Godliness ; and the physical virtue
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 was certainly much better understood by the 
 Governor than the spiritual grace. The one 
 dwelt in forms and usages, the other was 
 shown in the thorough, daily, and hourly 
 purification of the spotlessly kept outward 
 man. His costume denoted the substance and 
 respectability of the wearer. It was an in- 
 variable ample blue coat, of the finest cloth, 
 with red facings, and under garments of the 
 same material, which in summer were ex- 
 changed for white linen or nankeen. The 
 black stock had its own set, the hat, like 
 that of every man of individual character, its 
 own fit. His boots, very thick in the soles, 
 seemed a part of his original structure. I 
 never saw him. out of them but twice, and 
 then he rolled like a sailor come on shore 
 after being five years afloat, and scarcely 
 looked his own man. The Governor's taste 
 was fixed before the date of embroidered 
 military surtouts and Hessians, which he 
 despised, together with the most of the 
 " regular puppies " who wore them. All his 
 habits were as fixed as his dress. His favour- 
 ite dish was roast pork, with hean-pudding ; 
 his general drink, rum and water. But 
 though plain in- his own taste, he was not 
 stinted in hospitality, unless he saw his 
 guests troublesome or gourmands. Such 
 characters he despised even more than he did 
 a nigger or a Yankee. His favourite game 
 was backgammon, though he played a cool, 
 steady game at whist, showing no indulgence 
 to lax players ; insisting upon every advan- 
 tage to which he was fairly entitled, and no 
 more ; and sticking punctiliously to the game, 
 the whole game, and nothing but the game. 
 His poet was Dibdin, but on holydays, 
 Sternhold and Hopkins ; his favourite author 
 was De Foe, whose stories he could never 
 fully persuade himself were fictions, though 
 he knew this was generally said. He had at 
 once found out " that fellow Gulliver," which 
 I presented to him : " He was all bam ! " 
 The Governor had " sailed the world round, 
 and seen no such little people ; and, what 
 was more, there was nothing of them in Mr. 
 Guthrie's Grammar of Geography " his 
 staple scientific work. If any one would 
 have taken the trouble, as I sometimes did, 
 to tell him of the adventures of Cook and 
 La Perouse, while he smoked his pipe, he 
 would have listened with great interest and 
 delight, and have made very pertinent re- 
 marks ; but he relished oral much better than 
 written narrative. " The puppies," he said, 
 " put their stuff together, o' purpose, in such 
 a way, that no plain man could spell 'em 
 
 out." And yet he had made young Walpole 
 transform his own log-book in this fashion. 
 
 The Governor's favourite print was Cobbett's 
 Register, a taste common, I have noticed, 
 among old military men. Cobbett once 
 offended him, by refusing to print his com- 
 munications ; and he dropt the Register for 
 two weeks, but on the third gave in. One 
 number served him exactly a week. 
 
 Though always rather averse to the society 
 of females, whom he divided into the two 
 grand classes of white ladies, and black 
 wenches, the wives of the marines, when 
 abroad, belonging to the former class, the 
 Governor was compelled to associate with 
 women sometimes, or give up Chatham 
 parties altogether. On trial, he confessed, he 
 rather liked some of the " baggages," parti- 
 cularly those who had " seen service ; " and 
 after he had fixed his household, he conceived 
 himself bound in honour to receive the ladies 
 on the occasion of his grand annual dinner ; 
 at which periodical festival every point of 
 graciousness and gallantry was shown forth, 
 in the exercise of his duty as a hospitable 
 landlord. All his curious shells and stuffed 
 birds were turned out. The highest-priced 
 tea, the most costly sweetmeats, and the richest 
 cake London could afford, were brought down 
 by himself, to entertain his fair guests, who, 
 he presumed, were all addicted to such dainties. 
 I have seen his temporal arteries start, and 
 his eyes redden, with the force with which, 
 for their entertainment, he poured forth, 
 
 Thursday, in the morning, the nineteenth day of May, 
 
 For ever be recorded the glorious sixty-two, 
 Brave Russell did espy before the dawn of day, &c. 
 
 At such high tides, black Sam, officiating 
 in his gala costume, of white-muslin trousers 
 and turban, with beads, a scarlet waistcoat, 
 and sky-blue jacket, grinned, with an open- 
 mouthed hospitality, upon the fair guests, 
 and in admiration of his master's wit and 
 humour, that to me gave no small additional 
 relish to the entertainment. Rolling with 
 suppressed laughter at his master's jokes and 
 annual song, he would burst forth with 
 " Bery funny, Massa Massa Gubbana ! " 
 and then, as if afraid of having gone beyond 
 the point of respect before strangers, he would 
 throw down his distended eyelids, " Bery 
 grand, Massa, too." Poor fellow, how happy 
 was he then ! Was my occasional sickly 
 feeling of pity for his childish mirth, not, 
 after all, misplaced ? No one feels compas- 
 sion in witnessing the exuberant glee and 
 bounding joy of children, and of young 
 frolicsome animals of every kind. Why
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 regret that Nature's sable family, with the 
 simplest elements of pleasure around them, 
 and its unbroken sprint,' in their hearts, 
 should forget how humiliated they are, and 
 how wretched, reason says, they ought to feel. 
 
 The Governor held no maxims of conduct 
 upon which he did not act ; and this made 
 me rather wonder why, with his utilitarian 
 notions, he disguised Sam in this fantastic 
 costume at his galas. But besides some par- 
 ticles of latent vanity, or fondness of barbaric 
 pomp, brought from his Government and his 
 days of African splendour, he alleged that 
 monkeys, popinjays, and niggers, were meant 
 by Nature to wear yellow, green, and scarlet ; 
 and the latter to dance, sing, chatter, and 
 play the bassoon and negro-drum, and culti- 
 vate sugar canes for white Christians. 
 
 A supplementary, or fragmentary feast, 
 always followed the Governor's annual ban- 
 quet, which was, in various ways, more in- 
 teresting than the grander display. It was 
 a true Old English exhibition of beef, beer, 
 and bread, to his various clients in the neigh- 
 bourhood, disabled marines, and their dames. 
 Though his house was not often open either 
 to the needy or to the suffering, " who had 
 seen better days," there was a class of per- 
 sons to whom Governor Fox was nobly liberal 
 old, infirm paupers, and maimed or blind 
 persons, evidently disqualified to earn their 
 own bread, especially if they had been in 
 service, wounded, and without pensions. 
 They had only to come to him with clean 
 skins, at a reasonable hour, and say they 
 belonged to the Church, to be sure of aid 
 any day, so far as a substantial meal and a 
 few coppers. His locality often swarmed 
 with miserable women, followers of the troops, 
 or soldiers' wives, with &fry of half-starved, 
 puny children, to whom his casual bounty 
 was uniformly extended ; though, on such 
 occasions, he never failed, for the benefit of 
 society, to deliver the whole sum and sub- 
 stance of the doctrines of Malthus, in a few 
 sweeping and pithy sentences, generally put 
 in the interrogative form, and pronounced 
 with angry emphasis and energy : no matter 
 how public the preaching-place, or who were 
 the auditors. Walking, riding, or driving, 
 the Governor, before distributing his bounty, 
 at the rate of about a penny a-head on the 
 attendant military brood, never failed to halt 
 and rebuke the mother in a few pithy words 
 of Malthusian doctrine. The Governor was, 
 however, in this, quite innocent of plagiary 
 even the name of the great modern philoso- 
 pher had never reached his ears, till some 
 
 years afterwards, when he became a Reformer, 
 and began to study every old soldier's favour- 
 ite print, Cobbett's Register. 
 
 This was not until his fortunes had under- 
 gone a mortifying change. The fate of the 
 South American speculation may be sur- 
 mised. He lost every shilling of his " in- 
 vestment." The Scottish Ale .Company 
 turned out even worse ; but the Drury-Lane 
 shares was the worst concern of all. We 
 were now at the most ticklish time of the 
 war near its tremendous close. The Funds 
 were tumbling down every day ; and in one 
 of the few anxious days that preceded the 
 battle of Waterloo, I saw the Governor 
 arrive very early from Rochester, on foot! in 
 a plight that I shall not easily forget. He 
 came directly to my lodging. He had been 
 on the road from midnight. 
 
 "On foot!" 
 
 " Ay, and why not ? Is it for beggars to 
 ride a-horseback, sir? Don't you see how 
 
 those d d Stocks are tumbling down. Let 
 
 Master Pitt look up now, I bid him, to his 
 act of 1797 his paper rags. Not but that 
 I could weather it for myself, if the trifle 
 Widow Walpole intrusted to my manage- 
 ment, were once secured in hard gold. 
 Thank God, I can handle a pickaxe, a spade, 
 or a skull 011 the Thames yet; but a widow, 
 and a gentlewoman, cheated, or bubbled in 
 trusting to Stephen Fox ! all she had 
 scraped up for seven years, to give Ned his 
 schooling, without being beholden to these 
 Northamptonshire Dons, her husband's rela- 
 tions, who have neither conscience nor bowels. 
 It is enough to drive a man mad." 
 
 " You have not invested Mrs. Walpole's 
 slender funds, I trust?" 
 
 "No!" roared the Governor, "save in 
 those blasted English Funds : down one- 
 fourth, Friday, down one-sixteenth, Saturday, 
 down one-eighth, yesterday. The vitals are 
 eaten out of Old England by subsidies, loan- 
 contractors, and Jew-jobbers. I have walked 
 up to London, sir, with this hazel-stick in my 
 hand, and a couple of clean shirts, and my 
 Prayer-book, in this bundle, to begin the 
 world again. Can your landlady let me 
 have any dog-hole of a garret at 2s. Gd. a- 
 week, or so. I can't promise more at first. 
 I have written to Bamboo to take the lease 
 of my Box, which he always longed for, and 
 Sam off my hands. An idle man has better 
 chance of a job about London, where there 
 are so many coal-lighters, and so forth, than 
 down yonder." 
 
 " Governor Fox, you amaze me ! "
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 " Amazed, to see an old man, a fool, and a 
 beggar ! ha ! ha ! ha ! from having been a 
 credulous idiot ! " 
 
 There was something terrific in his laugh ; 
 but Governor Fox was too firm-spirited long- 
 to give way to this wild mood. 
 
 " Have I any claim to Chelsea, or Green- 
 wich, think ye? -My pipe is what I shall 
 miss the most, no luxuries now. I hope 
 the Lord will call me home, however, before 
 old age and frailty drive Stephen Fox on his 
 parish, with all his cousins grinning at the 
 Governor. In the mean time, can your 
 landlady let me have a garret ? I must have 
 my billet settled for the night, before I look 
 about me. I can make my own bed, buy 
 and cook my own victuals, wash my own 
 shirt, and keep my place clean myself. You 
 can answer to her, I suppose, that I am a 
 man of sober, regular habits, who attend 
 Church, and pay my way as I go. I can 
 surely make my bread, were it but selling 
 mackerel, what the deuce should I let 
 down my heart for?" 
 
 Ludicrous as tins was, I could not, durst 
 not laugh. 
 
 " My dear Governor, though you have had 
 losses and crosses in these evil times, you are 
 certainly exaggerating the tricks of fortune. 
 Depressed as the funds are, you must have, 
 even though selling out to-day, which none 
 but a madman would do, a very comfortable 
 reversion." 
 
 " Not a doit ! not a stiver, I believe, 
 will be left ; but no matter, I will have, what 
 with the lease, the furniture, my three swords, 
 and gold epaulettes, enough to clear with 
 poor Mrs. Walpole. There's a woman of 
 honour and resolution, sir ! saving from her 
 widow's pension ; while I have been squander- 
 ing like an extravagant puppy. It was her 
 duty to be frugal, and she has been so ; but 
 how few of the baggages, if at her age, could 
 have been equally resolute : they must 
 have this gown ; and it would not be decent 
 to go without that cap not that they ever 
 care about it for themselves, not at all ! 
 Then who the devil does? let them answer 
 that." # 
 
 I let the Governor divert himself by 
 rambling in this new course, and indulged 
 my private fancies as to the origin of the 
 unusual warmth of his rooted esteem for the 
 widow, who, last night, when he had apprized 
 her of her danger, had behaved, he said, " like 
 a hero, and an angel." 
 
 " The general run of womankind would 
 say, ' Oh ! the rich relations will surely some 
 
 time seek after, and educate the boy. I must 
 have this new bonnet, and t'other gim-crack.' 
 Mrs. Walpole has trusted to no such con- 
 tingency. Contingency ! do you mark, sir. 
 And what, pray, makes the difference between 
 a man or a woman of sense, and born-idiots, 
 but this same trusting to contingencies ; 
 that the one holds the whip-hand of Fortune, 
 as she has done, and that the other lets the 
 jade drive him, like me. But having secured 
 my billet for the night, I must be off to my 
 broker. I have written to him by every 
 post : always down, down, down. Last 
 night lie rather advises selling. If I have 
 one five guineas, ay, or five shillings, of 
 reversion, after paying my just and lawful 
 debts, by Jove, I'll hoard ! I'll lock 'em in 
 my old sea-chest, which I bought when a 
 boy at Halifax, for a dollar and a half. It 
 can now hold all my worldly goods I must 
 send it up cheap by the wagon. But I must 
 be off: the broker, that puppy Pantague, 
 urges selling out to-day. Next mail will 
 bring us down, perhaps, a whole per cent 
 perhaps ten, or blow us out of the water 
 altogether, who can tell ? who can tell ? 
 If I had taken Cobbett's advice and warnings 
 now, and laid up a few guineas? Where is 
 there a Cockney scribbler among them, with 
 their Tiims and their Chronicles, ever showed 
 how fast this country is going to the devil, 
 so satisfactorily and clearly as the old Ser- 
 geant ? " 
 
 " Cold comfort that, Governor ; but I do 
 insist and entreat, that, before giving Mr. 
 Pantague your final orders, you wait the next 
 mail. London is on the tiptoe of expectation, 
 good news must come, worse than our 
 fears have painted cannot arrive. We shall 
 have a rise this morning ! " 
 
 My persuasions had no effect, which I 
 regretted, as I believed he had received bad, 
 I was unwilling to think sinister, advice from 
 his broker. It was a crisis of fearful excite- 
 ment, panic, and delusion. Every hour might 
 relieve us from suspense ; but then it might 
 be to deepen our loss or sufferings ; and I was 
 a fundholder, too. I assured the Governor, 
 in the mean time, that not Nurse Wilks's 
 garret, but the best chamber in her house, 
 and that was my own, was much at his 
 service : but, in the meanwhile, I hoped he 
 could return home in a chaise to-day yet, and 
 sleep on his own bed. 
 
 I accompanied the Governor to his desti- 
 nation, though he assured me there was no 
 danger of leaving him alone. 
 
 "Your turtle-feeding Aldermen may go
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 after their lost plums, to feed the great fishes. 
 I will neither drown like a blind puppy, nor 
 hang myself like a nigger in the sulks. I can 
 work, sir." 
 
 There was already an unusual buzz in the 
 streets. I held the Governor fast by the 
 arm, to detain him a few more minutes from 
 his broker. 
 
 " If I were a rich man, Governor, or one 
 whose credit was good, I would, at this mo- 
 ment, underwrite your whole present funded 
 property, as you originally placed it, for five 
 shillings." 
 
 " More than it's worth, egad ! but let me 
 go, man, don't you see Pantague signalizing 
 me from his window ; there's the carnage 
 coming to convey him to 'Change. They'll 
 ride it out, by Jove ! over our necks, whatever 
 becomes of old men, widows, and orphans." 
 
 I held him the faster ; men, boys, women, 
 were now all hurrying to and fro, or collect- 
 ing in groups, with eager speech and animated 
 looks, on every side ; carriages and horsemen 
 hurried along, some east, some west. News 
 certainly had arrived ; express came hot after 
 express ; but no bulletin had yet been sent 
 from Downing Street to the City. A dreadful 
 defeat, it was whispered about, had been sus- 
 tained by the Allies, the ruin was total, 
 of Europe, and of Governor Fox. The 
 morning papers were all doubt and mystery. 
 
 " Let me off, man, if I don't sell out to- 
 day, I may hang myself at night, for I never 
 can face Rochester. They'll be at twenty- 
 five to-morrow. We shall have French as- 
 signats for old English guineas, by Jupiter!" 
 
 We had something like a struggle when 
 he offered to break off. " Remember, I 
 protest : I warn you, for Mrs. Walpole's, 
 for Edward's sake : you are going to throw 
 away her little means, which to-day it is in 
 your power so much to improve, to ruin 
 absolutely, or deeply injure yourself : you 
 are the dupe of jobbers, you will curse 
 yourself to-morrow and for ever, if you sell 
 to-day. Did I not plead with you against 
 the Scottish Ale Company, the Drury-Lane 
 Shares, the South American Speculation. 
 Hark ! " It was the roll of a distant gun : 
 another, and another. The Governor was 
 a little deaf even then, on one side of the 
 head ; but when the rejoicing boom rolled 
 majestically up the river from the Tower 
 guns, there was no longer doubt. The exult- 
 ing shouts of the gathering multitude, the 
 outburst of all the bells in London, told the 
 same tale : a splendid, a decisive victory ! 
 The newsmen blew their horns. " Three 
 
 per cent better already ! Hey, Governor ! " 
 was my rising cry to the now stunned 
 capitalist, stunned but for five seconds. 
 We went along and heard the first confused 
 tidings of the Field of Waterloo. Eighteen 
 or eight-and-twenty thousand human beings 
 had there bitten the dust, what an image is 
 that homely one of mortal agony ! and 
 London was in a frenzy of joy, and the funds 
 up, I cannot tell how much, in one hour. 
 What histories were that day in men's 
 faces ! 
 
 The Governor bore the sudden tide of 
 fortune with entire equanimity. He had 
 been quite ready to take a spade or an oar, 
 and was now equally ready to hire a chaise 
 to go home, to be wiser in future. He 
 thanked me for my counsel, and owned that 
 for once he had done well not to act upon 
 his own judgment "For why? he had 
 some knowledge of war, especially with 
 niggers and maroons, and had studied gun- 
 nery and fortification ; but how could any 
 honest man out of London, though a good 
 marine officer, be up to half the tricks of 
 those stock-jobbing fellows, who ought to 
 have their ears cropped, and be transported, 
 every mother's son of them, as knaves and 
 cozeners ? 
 
 " Now, mark me, Mr. Richard Taylor ; let 
 me only get back my own of them I scorn 
 a sixpence of their dirty Jew money and 
 if a guinea is to be bought for twenty-five 
 shillings in England, and a strong-box to 
 lodge it in, by Jove, you shall see if Stephen 
 Fox is to be humbugged a second time by 
 that great humbug, which will burst and go 
 off some morning like the shell of an over- 
 charged bomb. I have a plan in my head 
 but never mind, I shall tell you as we go 
 down to Rochester. The only obstacle is 
 Ned, and the young puppy loves me, and 
 has been bred about my own hand, a trac- 
 table, sharp rascal, and all as one as my own 
 already." 
 
 The reader will please to remember that 
 it was with this same " Ned " I sat talking 
 over all these old matters, now suggested by 
 reading the death ofcthe old Governor in the 
 newspaper. In spite of his sincere regret, 
 when we got the length of the Governor's 
 sudden brightening of fortune priming him 
 for matrimony, Mr. Walpole burst into a 
 loud and violent fit of laughter, as the whole 
 scene of the Governor's unpropitious wooing 
 rose to his memory of the Governor, who 
 always took time by the forelock, arriving at 
 his mother's cottage in full regimentals,
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 77 
 
 sword, and epaulettes, and heralded by black 
 Sam, on the evening of the same day he had 
 walked to London to sell out and seek for 
 honest labour, his bold, resolute look, as a 
 bachelor of sixty, who had now first screwed 
 his courage to the sticking place, and resolved 
 he would not fail, and the embarrassment 
 of poor Mrs. Walpole, who was innocent of 
 all design of charming her kind old acquain- 
 tance, the friendly Governor, within many 
 degrees of matrimony, and who was now 
 considerably alarmed by her conquest. Yet 
 she had certainly assured him, on the previous 
 evening, " That however low the funds fell, 
 and precious as was her little hoard to her 
 son, she should ever rest fully satisfied that 
 his intentions had been most kind and dis- 
 interested. What, after all, was their loss 
 to that of the many anxious, and soon pro- 
 bably to be, the bereaved and sorrowing 
 mothers and wives of England ! " When 
 Walpole thought of all this, he laughed out- 
 rageously. 
 
 How she contrived to reject without mor- 
 tally offending her admirer, I cannot tell, 
 neither could Master Ned, Black Sam, nor 
 Hannah the housemaid, who had taken their 
 station in one listening group, without the 
 parlour door, to overhear the Governor's de- 
 claration in form. " A parson," the Governor 
 used to say, " could not have put it into 
 prettier language." 
 
 " It was exceedingly impertinent in me, I 
 own," said Walpole ; " for I was then a 
 shrewd boy, and the negro and the girl little 
 better than idiots ; but somehow, though my 
 own mother was concerned, the temptation 
 was irresistible. The comical face of Sam 
 alone, who was grinning from ear to ear, 
 rubbing his hands, half-dancing through the 
 kitchen, and singing extemporaneously, in 
 negro fashion, 
 
 Pretty Missey Walpool, 
 Marry ould Massa Gubanna ; 
 Him be a crusty ould fellow, 
 And Massa Neddy's pappa, 
 
 was it not enough to plead for me, a fun- 
 loving lad of fourteen. Poor old fellow ! but 
 among all these odd legacies of his very odd 
 for him, certainly, 200 to the Ladies' Tract 
 Society ; 500 for the Wesleyan Missions ; 
 (How the Saints have got about him at 
 last!) 150 to the Society for Preventing 
 Cruelty to Animals, &c. &c. who, I wonder, 
 is to be the happy legatee of Sain Dixon, a 
 black man of the Sow-Sow nation? If 
 Charlotte would not be dreadfully shocked 
 by his hideous ugliness, which soon wears 
 
 off, I would be so happy to receive poor Sam 
 under my own roof; and you know how 
 handy and trustworthy a fellow he is how 
 much worth his board and wages to any 
 family ; suppose the idea were to come from 
 you?" 
 
 I liked the notion of conspiring against 
 my niece with her future husband, in her 
 own house, which she had as yet only seen 
 about half-a-dozen times, under my escort, 
 and strictly incognita, and took it up at 
 once. 
 
 " If Sam does not whine to death, like a 
 faithful spaniel, on his master's grave, I give 
 you joy of so [excellent a domestic ; though 
 hardly yet can I believe this printed will 
 authentic, 1500 for the conversion of the 
 Jews ! Perfectly preposterous ! or else our 
 old friend has gone delirious on his death- 
 bed." 
 
 The rapid drawing up of a carriage a 
 thundering peal at the house-door, and the 
 loud, hale, clear tones of the old Governor 
 burst on our admiring ears ! We were down 
 stairs in a moment. Walpole could not have 
 given his bride a warmer he might a gentler, 
 welcome. He absolutely hugged the old 
 Governor, who hugged " Ned " in turn. 
 
 " So you saw the puppies had killed me 
 off, and made my will, too, and be cursed 
 to their impudence ! 150 to the Ladies' 
 Tract Society ! Did ye note that ? Mr. 
 Richard, my service to ye ; here's a hand 
 for you, too. It's all an election rouse, man." 
 
 This was a frequent lingual slip of the 
 Governor's, among others ; he meant ruse ; 
 and the substantial meaning is so much the 
 same, that the mistake is scarcely worth 
 noticing. 
 
 " An electioneering rouse, sir, put out by 
 some of the editor puppies on the Bamboo 
 interest." 
 
 " My dear Governor you a candidate for 
 Parliament seriously ? And opposed to 
 Colonel Bamboo ? " 
 
 " Why, ay. Is it so wonderful now, that 
 a man, a bachelor, without chick or child, 
 should throw away a few thousands to be 
 something of a patriot. Don't you see, 
 Wellington is driving the nation to the dogs, 
 four-in-hand ? They'll let up the Papists in 
 Ireland to cut all Protestant throats ; they'll 
 let loose the niggers ; they won't take off the 
 malt-tax ; they won't give us gold for the 
 paper-rags ; they make the loaf double 
 price, as I'm told, to the poor man. I'll 
 have down the loaf ; all the commons restored, 
 and the bypaths opened ; poor men shall
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 brew their own beer, and make their own 
 soap, without taxes and gaugers. The fat 
 parsons get too much, I begin to think. Oh ! 
 you shall sco how I will lay about me, and 
 pull up pensioners and all, once I get into 
 the House ; and I'm told it won't cost much 
 above 3000 altogether. Those newspaper 
 coxcombs at Rochester, who never have 
 room to take up my ideas when I write them, 
 will be glad to print my speeches." 
 
 Walpole and myself were struck dumb at 
 first. A sharking attorney, the agent of a 
 more sharking Jew boroughmonger, who 
 looked round and sold to the highest bidder, 
 had been practising on our single-minded 
 unsuspicious friend, who was supposed much 
 richer than he really was. He made no 
 secret of the affair. He was to be supported 
 against Bamboo, who wished to come in on 
 what he called the liberal interest ; though 
 so far as his medley of political notions could 
 be comprehended, the Governor was out of 
 sight the more liberal of the two. We knew 
 the nature of our pig too well to try at once 
 to unship him, by pulling him backwards. 
 
 " The gallant member for Cftewsburgh on 
 his legs," cried Walpole. " Hear ! hear ! " 
 
 The Governor chuckled involuntarily. 
 
 " The Colonial Office fellows will deign me 
 a reply to my memorials then, perhaps," he 
 said. 
 
 "Rather inaudible in the gallery, Loud 
 laughter, cries of Question ! Question ! 
 through all parts of the House," continued 
 Walpole. 
 
 " The Parliament puppies can be cursed 
 impertinent I know ; but that don't frighten 
 me, let me alone to manage 'em. I won't 
 be browbeat. Have I not drilled marines, 
 and harangued the native chiefs before now? 
 It must be your business, Mr. Richard, to 
 get me fairly reported. Those reporter 
 whelps, I'm told, play the deuce with a new 
 member where they take a spite." 
 
 " I have no doubt, Governor, but that you 
 will be a prodigious favourite with all the 
 reporters. An honest man with a new face 
 has a great chance with them, were it only 
 for the novelty. How I shall long to read 
 your maiden speech ! " 
 
 The Governor laughed again with irrepres- 
 sible glee. 
 
 The Jews were to have his money any 
 way. If not for their conversion, then for 
 his own victimizing. 
 
 " The newspapers," continued he, " with 
 their usual impudence, will, no doubt, be 
 saying, Ned there makes my speeches for me. 
 
 I'll have them know that Stephen Fox, as an 
 independent member of Parliament, will take 
 his Jc.son of no man." 
 
 "Jealous of me, Governor?" paid Wal- 
 pole. 
 
 " No Ned ; but you must not come near 
 me for three months or so after I'm in. The 
 fellows about Brookes'?, and the United 
 Service puppies, will swear Ned Walpole has 
 primed the old Governor. So I'll make no 
 fine Latin speeches, d'ye mark ? but just 
 take my post somewhere against a pillar, like 
 Joseph Hume, and give it 'em hot and hot 
 every night of the week ; and, egad, if I don't 
 pepper 'em ! Now, Ned, if you need a frank 
 or so for your mother, you know where that 
 worthy lady has a friend." 
 
 Mr. Walpole and I exchanged looks. ITow 
 was this moonstruck madness to be stayed ? 
 
 All the address of Mr. Walpole and my- 
 self could not break off the negotiation pro- 
 ceeding under such "favourable auspices," 
 between the agent of the Jew boroughmonger 
 and our friend Governor Fox. He would be in 
 Parliament. He had set his heart upon it. 
 He would reform many abuses, and remove 
 numerous grievances ; make a great figure, 
 do a prodigious quantity of good to the poor, 
 the Church, and the Marine Sen-ice ; and, 
 above all, defeat Colonel Bamboo, whose cool 
 effrontery, as he conceived it, in opposing 
 him, after eating his curries and drinking his 
 Madeira for so many years, provoked him to 
 the highest degree. It was a breach of 
 every law of hospitality and good-fellowship, 
 almost a personal affront. An electioneer- 
 ing attorney could not have desired a more 
 hopeful subject. The Governor was wound 
 ii]> to the pitch of carrying on the Avar with 
 spirit, and spending half his fortune in the 
 contest ; and I don't know how it is, but this 
 fever of election excitement is wonderfully 
 catching. We who had begun by strenuous 
 opposition, first covert, and then avowed 
 seeing better might not be, at last lent our- 
 selves heartily to the " Fox interest." Even 
 in their honeymoon, the last week of it 
 however, Walpole was penning election- 
 eering squibs, and Charlotte making up Fox 
 favours of navy blue and red ; while I worked 
 hard in the Governor's committee, principally, 
 I confess, as a check upon the lavish expen- 
 diture incurred in every quarter. I was 
 resolved that, in the first place, he should 
 pay as cheaply as possible for his whistle ; 
 and next, that he should have skill to play 
 it, so far as that art might be speedily im- 
 parted by his friends. With the requisite
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 physical energy, lunge, and wind, he was 
 largely endowed. 
 
 Though, as a rational reformer, I am 
 bound to hope that, in the enlightened pro- 
 gress of society, canvassing, and, much more, 
 bribing an English elector, will soon be ac- 
 counted as profligate and scandalous as it 
 would at present be to canvass or bribe a 
 British judge, I must confess, that there is 
 something wonderfully exhilarating to " cor- 
 rupt human nature" in the bustle of a can- 
 vass, when any thing like the show of freedom 
 of choice remained among the great body of 
 the voters. Now, our borough, though as 
 corrupt as any one subsequently placed in 
 the purgatory of schedule B., was not quite 
 sunk into the torpor of those which after- 
 wards found a place in schedule A. With 
 Chewsburgh it was universal gangrene, but 
 not yet absolute putrefaction of the whole 
 parts. 
 
 We carried through our man with great 
 eclat, though protests were taken by the 
 other candidate against so many of our votes, 
 that, if one-third of the exceptions held 
 good, it was clear the Governor must be un- 
 seated. Of this consequence he had no ade- 
 quate notion. He was told he was the sit- 
 ting member for Chewsburgh ! He was in 
 extravagant spirits, and the hurry and bus- 
 tle of the affair left him no leisure to think 
 of the bill of costs : 
 
 " Then comes the reckoning -when the feast is o'er." 
 But we were still at the banquet. 
 
 After our candidate had foundered in 
 several set speeches penned for him by the 
 attorney and by Walpole, when fairly driven 
 to his own natural eloquence, quickened by 
 passion, his addresses made such an impres- 
 sion upon the John Bulls of all complexions, 
 collected in front of his rostrum, (the balcony, 
 over the porch of the inn,) that had the 
 market people been voters, we would certainly 
 have carried the Governor by acclamation, 
 in the teeth of the professedly liberal candi- 
 date. The hearty cheering of the crowd 
 produced a wonderful effect on the spirits of 
 the orator. I have never yet seen a man more 
 elated for the moment by that intoxicating 
 incense, that true laughing gas, 
 
 " The fickle reek of popular breath." 
 It is true, strong and sound as his brains 
 were, he was late in life of first inhaling it. 
 
 " And if I speak here in open day to the 
 satisfaction of 500 honest chaw-bacons and 
 smock-frocks, and 150 men in broad-cloath, 
 why may'nt I to the 100 honest independent 
 members in St. Stephen's Chapel, with the 
 
 300 humbugs, and the rest of the jackanapes, 
 the surtout and mustachio sprigs of quality 
 fellows to boot of 'em ! Let me alone. I 
 have hit the nail on the head at last." 
 
 " I was always certain Governor Fox 
 would make a most useful and distinguished 
 member of the House of Commons," said the 
 attorney. "And unless he had possessed 
 extraordinary mental and moral qualifica- 
 tions, I never " 
 
 My most frequent and peaceful mode of 
 rebuke is to interrupt the speaker : "I 
 have not the least doubt," I observed, " but 
 that the Governor will be sufficiently dis- 
 tinguished, were it but for that rare quality 
 of straight-forward, blunt sincerity." 
 
 There was but one drawback to the eclat 
 of our election : though Bamboo was hissed 
 to our hearts' content, the few favourable 
 symptoms of a riot, which broke out at the 
 close of the poll, soon died away, and the 
 tremendous crash which made the eyes of 
 our new-made legislator twinkle and brighten, 
 as he hastened to the window, proved, on 
 investigation, to be nothing more than a 
 lawful, though rough hammering down of the 
 polling-booth. The smashing of the windows 
 of Bamboo's inn, on the opposite side of the 
 market-place the committee-room of the 
 Yellows would, I believe, have done the 
 Governor more good than his own apotheosis 
 of chairing, which, however, he enjoyed im- 
 mensely. Though not fond of expense, I am 
 sure he would have willingly paid the broken 
 glass, and plastered the broken heads out of 
 his own pocket, to have had his true old 
 English revenge on his rival complete. He 
 affected none of the hand-shaking, compli- 
 mentary magnanimity of these silken times. 
 He owned, or rather he proclaimed, that he 
 hated Bamboo like the devil, and wished him 
 to lose above all things. Though bound by the 
 duties and decorums of an infant law-maker, 
 I fancied a tone of reproach in his remark to 
 Mr. Walpole, when all was over, "that English- 
 men had lost half their spirit at elections." 
 
 And now all was undeniably over, and the 
 new Member had written franks for every 
 body around him. Beginning, as a mark of 
 high distinction, with Mrs. Walpole, dowager, 
 he left not off till mine host of the Red 
 Dragon, and even Boots himself, was supplied 
 with one frank for his mother, and another, 
 I dare say, for his sweetheart. The Governor's 
 bounty in franking was boundless. 
 
 The Bill of the Red Dragon was still to 
 pay, and the new Member had never left any 
 house of public reception with his bill un-
 
 80 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 settled, in his life. Red Dragon preferrad 
 settling with the agent, according to the 
 ancient and approved custom of all elections 
 in Chewsburgh whether contested or not. 
 It was, indeed, with some reason that the 
 landlord persisted in refusing to tender his 
 bill, pleading want of time, where there were 
 so many trifling items to enter ; as I have 
 little doubt that our new law-maker, on its 
 presentation, would have furnished him with 
 a few more such as " To one broken head," 
 or " To a kicking down my own stairs," had 
 it been tendered on the spot. I cannot tell 
 to how much the Jew agent's per centage on 
 the whole amount might come : but I recol- 
 lect that one item of the bill, of many folio 
 sheets in length, was .764, 11s. 3^d. for 
 chaise-hire for bringing in the out-voters. 
 Brandy and water furnished to the com- 
 mittee-room alone, independently of soups, 
 sandwiches, lunches, wine, wax-tapers, &C. 
 &c. &c., came to above .240 during our one 
 week's labour. At that awful reckoning, the 
 settling of which took place some months 
 afterwards, I still recollect the sneaking look 
 and whining tone of the country attorney, 
 while he addressed the rampant Governor in 
 these words, "But the duty, my dear sir 
 you don't consider the heavy duty on brandies, 
 Governor, with the expense of the victuallers' 
 license, sir, and the house-tax, and window- 
 tax, which, on the Red Dragon, amount to 
 a heavier annual sum than the corresponding 
 taxes on the noblest mansions in the county 
 to double of that, indeed." 
 
 " You are telling me a cursed lie," cried 
 the furious Governor, "when you tell me 
 that that paltry inn but it's a good enough 
 inn but that that paltry fellow pays half, 
 or fiftieth as much house-tax as is paid for 
 B Castle." 
 
 The man appealed to me ; and I believed 
 this part of his statement, at least, extremely 
 probable, though I was prepared to deny that 
 these premises warranted the sweeping con- 
 clusions of Red Dragon's bill. When the 
 attorney had been summarily dismissed, with 
 a peremptory assurance that, until the bill 
 was cut down two-thirds, not a sixpence 
 would be forthcoming, the Governor reverted 
 to the subject. 
 
 " .240 for brandy and water, and refresh- 
 ments ! how much is the water a quart in 
 the Red Dragon ? Heard you ever, Mr. 
 Richard, of such an extortioning rascal ? 
 Why, every man of the six of ye might have 
 been kept royally drunk, from morn to night, 
 for a month, upon 40 worth of real Nantes. 
 
 ' But the duty, my dear sir,' " he continued, 
 with an air of mimicking the attorney. "And 
 what the deuce is the duty ? " 
 
 " What would reduce the brandy charged 
 in your bill to at least one fourth of its price 
 the duty is, at present, about 22s. 6d. a 
 gallon." 
 
 " The deuce it is ! I knew it was damnable 
 upon Schiedam, or old Jamaica rum either. 
 The doctors ordered brandy for old Stokes of 
 the artillery, and Geneva toddy for Lieu- 
 tenant Denovan of the Invalids ; but they, 
 poor fellows, can't afford it that's hard now. 
 Though old Jamaica rum be, out of sight, a 
 sounder, better liquor than either, the brandy 
 and Scheidam were to them in the nature of 
 medicine. I understand I am paying more 
 than treble price here for Leeward Island 
 rum which I did abroad for Jamaica the 
 primest. That is harder still ; and the 
 Yankees getting it as cheap as ditch-water. 
 Why the devil, can you tell me, have we 
 Englishmen not our own rums, and sugars, 
 and teas, as cheap as the Dutch and the 
 Yankees ? " 
 
 "It will be your duty, as a Member of 
 Parliament, to inquire into that." 
 
 " And that it will ; and, what is more, I'll 
 do it. I know, though, it is quite right not 
 to let good British gold go to our natural 
 enemies, the dancing, capering Monsheers, or 
 to the greedy Dutchmen, with their big 
 breeches : I suppose it is for that they tax 
 Geneva and brandy so cruelly ; but old 
 Jamaica rum, made in our own colonies, by 
 our own niggers, for the benefit of our own 
 planters " 
 
 " That makes a difference to be sure ; but 
 not so much, either, to men like poor dyspeptic 
 Stokes or Denovan liking better pure brandy 
 and Schiedam-punch, or requiring them for 
 cure or comfort, and too poor to purchase 
 solace or healing, in consequence of the high 
 rate of our taxation." 
 
 " But you see it is to keep our gold out of 
 the pockets of the French and the Dutch, 
 who fit out fleets and armies against us, and 
 fight us with our own cash." 
 
 " Or pour it into the pockets of those not 
 nmch nearer and dearer to us than the Gauls 
 and Batavians. Is it not folly, think you, 
 Governor, for a man to punish himself in the 
 first place that he may annoy his neighbour 
 in the second, admitting that such annoyance 
 were justifiable at all, or that we had power 
 to inflict it ? The man must have a large 
 stomach for revenge who does so. Would 
 you not think him a fool ? "
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 81 
 
 " One must do a great deal for the good 
 of one's native country, Mr. Richard." 
 
 " Granted. If the real good of Old England 
 requires that, though preferring or requiring 
 foreign spirits, we should, nevertheless, poison 
 ourselves with villanous English gin, I am 
 too good a patriot to object. If for the 
 national good, set the ten thousand casks 
 abroach, let them 
 
 For ever dribble out their base contents, 
 
 Touched by the Midas finger of the State, 
 
 Bleed gold for Ministers to sport away. 
 
 Drink and he poisoned ; 'tis your country bids. 
 
 Gloriously drunk, obey the important call : 
 
 Her cause demands the assistance of your throats, 
 
 Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more." 
 
 The Governor had scarcely patience to hear 
 me out. " This is some of the piperly stuff 
 of your snivelling poets, or Temperance 
 Society fellows." 
 
 " No such thing, at any rate the words 
 are used by me only as a plea for better 
 tipple. I avow I see no means of putting an 
 end to gin-drinking, half so effectual, as 
 allowing people to have cheaply, good rum, 
 Hollands, and brandy, with food, shelter, and 
 clothing. These are my engines for putting 
 an end to intemperance. But this abomina- 
 ble bill! " I took up that of the Red Dragon, 
 which, if laid on end, would have extended 
 over all its mazy passages. 
 
 "What withheld me yet, Mr. Richard, 
 from kicking that rascally attorney down 
 stairs, when he dared say to my face, that 
 his Grace the Duke of , pays less house- 
 tax for B Castle, than that cheating 
 
 fellow, his employer, lately the butler of a 
 small squire, for his paltry inn ? " 
 
 " First, my dear Governor, because kicking 
 save duns is not a parliamentary privi- 
 lege ; and lastly, because, I dare say, you 
 suspect that the statement may be quite true." 
 
 " What, sir ! the Duke of pay no 
 
 more house-tax than a paltry tavern-keeper, 
 in a country town ! It would be a manifest 
 affront put upon the old nobility of England 
 to let them pay no more." 
 
 " Ay, Governor ; yet that noble Duke, and 
 also he of Leeds, and Newcastle, and Devon- 
 shire, and Marlborough, and Northumberland, 
 and Grafton, and Buckingham, and the whole 
 ducal bead-roll, pay at the same rate. It is 
 marvellous with what good grace their Graces 
 submit very gracefully to the affront of pay- 
 ing a very small share, or none, of the national 
 reckoning." 
 
 "Now, arn't you joking with me, Mr. 
 Richard?" 
 
 " Never was more serious in my life. This 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 is a fact so notorious, that even a new member 
 of Parliament might know it. How much 
 house-duty do you pay at Rochester ? " 
 
 " Why, about 12. I appealed, to be sure, 
 but the rascals showed me an Act of Parlia- 
 ment for it ; and I appealed, also, against 
 2, 19s. or something that way, which they 
 charged Mrs. Walpole for her small cottage, 
 the lubberly fellows ! plundering widow 
 women, living barely on their small pensions ; 
 but that was for her windows, too, and 
 indeed the rickety brick and plaster tene- 
 ment, which I could have pushed over with 
 a good drive of my shoulder, was not worth 
 more than that sum of rent." 
 
 I inquired what several other of his friends 
 and neighbours paid, and was satisfactorily 
 answered. They were all charged the full 
 amount exigible on their rent, and that rent 
 highly, if not exorbitantly rated. My bro- 
 ther's house-tax, for a house in London, rated 
 at 300 a-year, was above forty guineas. 
 
 " Well, my brother pays this. His house 
 is, to be sure, dear-rented from its locality, 
 now what pays Euston Hall, one seat of 
 the Duke of Grafton ? " 
 
 " What ! the show-place the place we 
 see in the pictures ? " 
 
 " The same." 
 
 " Why, a good round number of hundreds, 
 I'll be sworn." 
 
 " What pays Blenheim, the Marlborough 
 family's place, you have seen Blenheim ? 
 or what Nottingham Castle, the pride of the 
 Newcastles ? " 
 
 " A swingeing sum, I guess, if Mr. James 
 Taylor pays above forty guineas for his house 
 in town, and myself 12 for my box at 
 Rochester." 
 
 "Why, 14 for Euston Hall, and ditto 
 for the Duke of Newcastle's stronghold." 
 
 " By the Lord Harry, you don't say it ! 
 Well, there is work ready cut out for me. 
 If I don't affront them, from Land's End to 
 Berwick-upon-Tweed, and make 'em table 
 their coins, call me a crop-ear. Why the 
 deuce don't the Dukes and Lords pay fair 
 down, like other honest householders ? " 
 
 " Affront them ! poh, poh. That is not 
 so easily done." 
 
 " You may say that, any way, of those 
 who have their lady mothers and dowager 
 grandmothers pensioners ; though their hus- 
 bands, perhaps, never saw more service than 
 a review day at Hounslow, or in camp on 
 the Sussex coast played at soldiers. Why, 
 they are meaner beggars than a hobnail's 
 gammer in the work-house, for she would not 
 
 No. 6.
 
 82 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 be there if her son had wherewithal to keep 
 her out." 
 
 " With this additional circumstance of 
 aggravation, that the honest chaw-bacon is 
 so cruelly taxed in his basket and his store, 
 for the benefit of the grandee parties, that he 
 is rendered totally unable to support his own 
 mother." 
 
 " Now you are at that bread-tax again. It 
 is all puzzle-work that to me, though I see 
 no business an industrious free-born English- 
 man has to pay more for his loaf than a 
 Frenchman or a Hollander." 
 
 " Or to be tied up from buying where he 
 can find bread, or what is the same thing, 
 bread-corn, best and cheapest ? " 
 
 "By Jove not certainly not ! Why should 
 he?" 
 
 " Why, because landlords must be able to 
 clear their mortgage interest, and maintain 
 their splendour ; and don't know else how to 
 set about it." 
 
 " Why the deuce do people let 'em ? They 
 shan't pay out of my pocket, though." 
 
 " Nor out of the pockets of your consti- 
 tuents, if you can help it ? " 
 
 " My constituents ! You know that is all 
 humbug ; but why should bread and meat 
 be dearer than it was when I was a boy ? 
 That's the question. One of the first things 
 I remember was my father speaking about 
 the Hanoverian rats, and Walpole, who 
 brought in the excise and the tax on beer ; 
 I'll have off all that ; but what, now, in my 
 place, Mr. Richard, would be the first thing 
 you would broach in the House ? A bill to 
 burn all these spinning-jennies, which spin 
 the Peels and Arkwrights into fine estates, 
 while Englishmen are working for them upon 
 potatoes and water-gruel? The threshing- 
 machines, too, which take the work out of 
 the poor labourers' teeth, and send them to 
 the work-house ? " 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 " I'll be hanged now, sir, if I know what 
 you would be at. Well, if we may'nt burn 
 'em, what say you to taking the owners 
 bound, that no Englishman, shall be thrown 
 out of bread on this account. When you 
 knock up any office, you always pension off 
 the fellow that held it, and call that only 
 justice, since you take away his employment ; 
 and what is more, I will hear nothing of the 
 machines, unless they come bound to afford 
 the men working them, fire, food, and cloth- 
 ing, as Englishmen should. You are shaking 
 your wise pate again; do I ask what is 
 unreasonable ? " 
 
 " Only impracticable, T frr.r." 
 
 " My next bill shall be to make every 
 body go to church, which you must own will 
 be a vast saving in point of economy, besides 
 promoting piety and good discipline, no 
 straggling after Methodists, and Ranters, and 
 Anabaptist fellows, no good in paying twice 
 over ; first to the parson, which they must 
 do any way, and then to the chapel, for 
 their whims. There will be a good swinge- 
 ing saving at once." 
 
 " There are two ways of accomplishing 
 this : pay him only whose services you 
 require." 
 
 " What, sir ? " 
 
 " I say that I agree with you : once pay- 
 ing the parson is quite enough ; but let it be 
 him you pay, by whom you wish to be served. 
 There are two ways, you see, of accomplish- 
 ing your excellent, economical object. If 
 every man pay only for the religious ministry 
 he approves, there will be no double-payment, 
 and consequently no hardship." 
 
 " You are at that puzzle-work again. 
 Don't you see, man, that the landlords and 
 farmers are bound to pay the parsons to 
 preach in church to the poor people ; so why 
 need they tax and starve themselves to keep 
 up Methodist chapels ? " 
 
 With all this, and though the Governor's 
 repugnance to the "snivelling, canting Metho- 
 dist fellows " never was fully conquered, he 
 was more easily brought to see that tithes, 
 and every kind of church revenues, were 
 national property, than if born heir to the 
 advowson of a good benefice or two. Still 
 he was sadly perplexed for as yet he had 
 little more knowledge of any public principle, 
 or political question, than ninety of the hun- 
 dred of the young, or even the middle-aged 
 gentlemen, at that time chosen members of 
 the Honourable House. 
 
 Though I failed in most other points, pro- 
 bably from attempting too much at once, I 
 succeeded completely in demonstrating to my 
 pupil the propriety and necessity of a free 
 trade in the first necessaries of life. It was 
 a proof of the integrity of his mind, and the 
 singleness of his heart, that he believed the 
 landed proprietors of Great Britain only re- 
 quired to have the same facts clearly set 
 before them, to cease from grinding their 
 fellow-subjects by a monopoly for which 
 posterity must think with contempt of the 
 men of the nineteenth century, who endured 
 it so long, after fully perceiving its iniquity. 
 The Governor came to know them better ; 
 but unfortunately he never found an oppor-
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 tunity of entering the lists for the labourer, 
 against, as he said, those who thrust their 
 greedy fingers into his dish ; and who, for every 
 slice of his loaf that went to feed his children, 
 subtracted a half one, or what was equal its 
 value, for their own benefit. The Governor 
 had only spoken once in the House though 
 he voted stanchly against Catholic Emanci- 
 pation, and for the abolition of the duty on 
 Baltic timber when an election committee, 
 after all fitting deliberation, the examination 
 of a host of witnesses, and numerous reports, 
 declared his election void ! Bamboo was the 
 sitting member, and the bill of the Red 
 Dragon was yet unsettled ! 
 
 The poor Governor ! I give myself praise 
 for the long-suffering with which I bore his 
 transports of rage at first, and his sallies of 
 temper long afterwards. A bilious attack 
 ended in a violent fever, which acted as a 
 counter-irritant in mitigation of the worst 
 symptoms. To save the patient from a fatal 
 relapse, Mr. Walpole, during his recovery, 
 parried the attacks of Red Dragon, and, after- 
 wards, by threatening Jew, agent, and land- 
 lord with exposure, effected a considerable 
 deduction from the bill of election expenses. 
 
 The final settlement left our old friend 
 minus 5700, a considerable quantity of black 
 bile, and all the fragments of his honest pre- 
 judices for merry Old England. This affair 
 brought the infirmities of old age with rapid 
 strides upon the Governor. At the com- 
 mencement of the canvass, though verging on 
 fourscore, Governor Fox looked more like a 
 hale man of sixty-five ; but a painful change 
 was now perceptible. He never fully re- 
 covered his flesh, or former toughness. 
 Toughness, rather than mere strength, had 
 been alike his physical and spiritual quality ; 
 and though, 
 
 " Even in his ashes lived their -wonted fires," 
 it was easy to perceive that gradual decrepi- 
 tude of mind was to be the sure attendant 
 of an enfeebled frame. The Governor was 
 stimulated to a desperate rally. The cause 
 I proceed to relate. 
 
 During any of his previous attacks of 
 illness, which though, like every thing about 
 him, violent, were unfrequent, Mrs. Walpole 
 had acted the intelligent, friendly woman's 
 part in the bachelor establishment. It was 
 she that counselled and directed Black Sam, 
 and saw that the nurse rigidly obeyed the 
 instructions of the Baptist apothecary, whose 
 long bills the Governor never would have 
 paid unaudited, save that the infallible 
 "Widow Walpole," who, he knew, would do 
 
 every thing that was good for him, except 
 marrying him had called in the objectionable 
 satellite of Esculapius. Great gossip as the 
 Public or the World is, in Rochester as every 
 where else, she had never either smiled, 
 sneered, or surmised aught evil or amiss of 
 Mrs. Walpole's friendly attentions to the 
 insulated old bachelor. The lady, it was 
 known, neither wanted a husband for herself, 
 nor, now at least, a legacy for her prosperous 
 son. But when the Governor was seized 
 with the election-fever, of which, many as 
 strong men have died, Mrs. Walpole was 
 making a distant and long visit to an early 
 friend ; and her post by the Governor's bed- 
 side, was usurped by a lady of very different 
 character. 
 
 When I first saw Miss Catherine Chad- 
 leigh, at a military ball, she might have been 
 about thirty-six, though she was still what 
 is called " a remarkably handsome woman." 
 She was the eldest of the five daughters of a 
 half-pay lieutenant of foot, who, in conse- 
 quence of severe wounds received in India, 
 had early obtained retirement, and now held 
 a small office in the public works at Chatham. 
 The whole family, parents and children, 
 were strikingly military in tastes, manners, 
 habits, morals : gay to levity, fond of show, 
 and, above all, wonderfully skilled in the 
 art of maintaining a dashing exterior on very 
 slender means. The ladies among the Ro- 
 chester and Stroud civilians could not com- 
 prehend their economy. It was a constant, 
 enduring theme of wonder. It appeared to 
 them, at tea-table calculations, that the 
 whole income of Lieutenant in common 
 parlance Captain Chadleigh, was not enough 
 to keep his beautiful girls in slippers and 
 sashes. How clean cards, wax-lights, and 
 refreshments were afforded for the frequent 
 evening parties he gave the officers, was a 
 deeper mystery ; but it was understood that 
 among the many accomplishments of the 
 Chadleigh family was dexterous play. Even 
 the youngest girl Chatti, she of thirteen 
 was more than a match at ecarte, loo, vint-et- 
 une, brag, &c. &c. &c., for any lately-joined 
 officer of engineers not to speak of fledg- 
 ling ensigns and raw lieutenants. Yet there 
 was no unfair play no high stakes all 
 was superior knowledge and dexterity ; and 
 the young men were contented to lose a trifle 
 in the evenings to the fair and elegant crea- 
 tures who graced their morning promenade, 
 sang duets with them, or were their partners in 
 the carpet dance. Mrs. Chadleigh contrived 
 that it should be a difficulty, and reckoned
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, 
 
 a favour, as it certainly wss an enjoyment, 
 to the young subalterns, to be admitted to her 
 tea and card parties. Though it was doubtful 
 to the Chatham ladies whether any of the 
 girls would " settle to advantage," it was 
 quite clear that each might, without much 
 difficulty, "scamble up some sort of husband" 
 from among the corps after corps of officers, 
 which this transport station, and the fre- 
 quent changes during the war, threw in 
 their way. The eldest the most beauti- 
 ful and the most admired woman of the 
 really handsome family, remained the doubt- 
 ful case. Three of the younger girls had 
 married under twenty ; the respective matri- 
 monial prizes being a lieutenant of marines, 
 an assistant surgeon, and a purser in the 
 navy. Chatti, always celebrated as the 
 cleverest girl of the set, caught a captain 
 of engineers. These were small doings in 
 the eyes of Miss Chadleigh. The homage of 
 successive generations of military men had 
 done less to swell her pride, and stimulate 
 her ambition, than the idle patronage, or 
 friendship, as it was called, of a lady of 
 quality, the wife of a retired colonel in the 
 neighbourhood, who, in her comparative 
 solitude and imaginary poverty, found the 
 society, accomplishments, and flattery of a 
 pretty young woman, with whom she needed 
 to be on no ceremony, a relief from the tedium 
 of Chatham life. Lady Louisa paid Miss 
 Chadleigh attentions which the four younger 
 Miss Chadleighs considered quite enviable. 
 Lady Louisa drove her friend on airings in 
 her pony phaeton, invited her to spend days, 
 and finally weeks and months at her house, 
 presented her with showy dresses, and 
 enriched her with cast-off trinkets and other 
 faded relics of her own past age of beauty and 
 belleship. She did more : she introduced her 
 favourite to the Colonel's ancient friends and 
 dinner guests, several of whom might have 
 been considered "a great catch," Governor 
 Fox being then esteemed the worst parti on 
 the veteran list. But Miss Chadleigh was 
 yet far off from what the ladies call " Last 
 Prayers." She was still a youthful ambitious 
 beauty, the Governor a cross, vulgar, old 
 bore ; and the nephew of Lady Louisa, the 
 Honourable George Tynwald, a late Etonian, 
 a favourite at Windsor, second son of an 
 Earl, and a newly-joined cornet in the 
 Guards, surpassed every other cornet in every 
 desirable quality she had ever imagined of 
 man or boy : he was but nineteen ; it was 
 his only fault. True, he was poor, and Miss 
 Chadleigh knew all the unpleasant attendants 
 
 on genteel or titled poverty, but then the 
 family had interest : and there never yet 
 was real cause to fear that the second son of 
 an Earl, so closely connected with many 
 noble families and government people, as was 
 the Honourable George, would ever suffer 
 real want. Lady Louisa and the Colonel, 
 for example, were miserably poor; yet they 
 kept a handsome establishment of servants 
 and horses, a good table, a pony phaeton, 
 saw company, and made visits and excur- 
 sions. 
 
 Miss Chadleigh, at twenty-five, wanted 
 not for prudence ; yet the poverty of an 
 Earl's daughter-in-law presented nothing to 
 alarm the daughter of Lieutenant Chadleigh. 
 Then Lady Louisa, and the other noble rela- 
 tives of the Honourable George, might be as 
 indignant as they chose, but they must 1 it- 
 forced to acknowledge that love only pure, 
 disinterested, resistless passion had been her 
 sole motive in one night packing up the coral 
 necklaces and bracelets, and Roman pearls, 
 with which her hostess had enriched her, and 
 stealing through the shrubbery of the Lodge 
 to where the chaise waited, under the shade 
 of a row of poplars, with the impatient lover. 
 The young cornet's servant, a party to the 
 enterprise, imagined that, in playing the lady 
 false, he would best serve himself, and also 
 his boyish master ; who, he perceived, had 
 become rather alarmed at the length to which 
 the affair had got, and doubtful whether he 
 had any true vocation at this time to a 
 Scottish matrimony. It was not wholly for 
 nothing that the honourable George had cost 
 his noble father 2000 at Eton. There un- 
 doubtedly is superiority in well-cultivated 
 masculine intellect. At nineteen, the Etonian 
 fairly outwitted a practised coquette of twen- 
 ty-five, at least all the Chatham ladies 
 whispered as much ; and it was certain that, 
 on the third day, the lingering runaway 
 lovers allowed themselves to be overtaken 
 near Nottingham, on their desultory progress 
 northwards. 
 
 At this time, no mercy was shown to Miss 
 Chadleigh ; though from ten to fifteen years 
 afterwards, the ladies declared, almost unani- 
 mously, that Major General Tynwald ought 
 to have married Catherine Chadleigh, instead 
 of his cousin. Until that marriage took 
 place, Miss Chadleigh, no longer the young 
 and beautiful, but still the wonderfully hand- 
 some Miss Chadleigh, whose charms had been 
 celebrated and toasted wherever British keels 
 plough the sea, or the Union Jack flies, and 
 British swords hesv their way to victory,
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 had not wholly despaired, or had not formed 
 any decided plan. If any matrimonial over- 
 tures had been cogitated, in the meanwhile, 
 fey transient admirers, one class of charitable 
 female friends were ever ready to suggest, 
 that after her disappointnent with Captain, 
 Major, and, latterly, General Tynwald, Miss 
 Chadleigh, they were sure, would never 
 marry ; and another set, more frank and 
 more sagacious, repeated the old sentence of 
 condemnation on the treacherous juvenile 
 lover, who ought to have married. The opi- 
 nions at mess were still more decided. 
 
 Time, which had ripened Miss Chadleigh 
 into a most beautiful and lovely girl, next 
 into a remarkably handsome woman of thirty, 
 and then into a still wonderfully handsome 
 woman of thirty-eight, had made Lady Louisa 
 an aged and widowed card-playing dowager, 
 approaching seventy, and patched up a truce 
 between her and her early favourite, after 
 many years of hatred and estrangement. 
 They were necessary to each other ; and Mrs. 
 Chadleigh could well spare from her humble 
 home, her ambitious, chagrined, and now fear- 
 fully-tempered daughter, who vented upon 
 her poor mother the misanthropic hatred and 
 wrath, inspired by recent disappointments, 
 deserved and wholly self-incurred, but not 
 the less bitter and rankling to a proud and 
 imperious mind thwarted in all its hopes and 
 affections. Between this lady and Governor 
 Fox there had been almost open feud in the 
 early period of their acquaintance ; and, 
 indeed, my frank friend had said every where, 
 from the first, that Chadleigh should marry 
 off his handsome girls as fast as possible, for 
 they would assuredly go to the dogs else ; 
 especially Miss Kate, who, at the game of 
 ambitious matrimony, would find young ladies 
 were as apt to be tricked as young lords. 
 
 Though the lady had cheated him, or some- 
 thing like it, at cards, by her dexterous and 
 rapid play, and ridiculed him almost to his 
 face, for the amusement of Lady Louisa, the 
 Governor did not exult long nor immoderately 
 in the downfal of the ambitious project of 
 Miss Chadleigh. A part of the wrath of his 
 naturally candid mind was even directed 
 against the stripling lover, of whose heart- 
 lessness and juvenile depravity of mind he 
 spoke in terms that produced a rupture of 
 some years' duration with the Lady Louisa. 
 However, in the rapid succession of Chatham 
 inhabitants, the "old familiar faces" drew 
 together again. 
 
 The Dowager Lady Louisa, and Miss Chad- 
 leigh, at last, self-invited, honoured the 
 
 Governor's annual high banquet by their 
 presence ; and he was occasionally seen at 
 the card-tables of the Lodge, losing a few 
 crowns, he knew not well how, but with 
 tolerably good grace. But the first hearty 
 reciprocation of regard arose out of the affair 
 of Black Sam. Both ladies were violently 
 of the Governor's faction, and both proclaimed 
 it ; and the satire and mimickry which Miss 
 Chadleigh indulged against their mutual 
 enemies, the She-Saints, captivated his whole 
 heart. Her witticisms were reported by him 
 at the Mess as faithfully as they had ever 
 been in her most brilliant days by her young 
 military adorers. When the Governor met 
 Miss Chadleigh shopping, he now gave her 
 his arm home to the Lodge gate, and some- 
 times thought himself bound in politeness to 
 stay dinner or even to return to tea, if Lady 
 Louisa vouchsafed graciously to invite him. 
 At charity-balls and fancy-fairs, he became 
 their approved squire. When rallied by the 
 other veterans on the apparent flirtation, the 
 Governor such is the latent vanity of man's 
 heart would chuckle aloud, and take as a 
 personal compliment such sayings, as, " What 
 would Kate Chadleigh have taken twenty 
 years back to have been seen on the prome- 
 nade leaned by old Governor Fox ! " His 
 turn was come then ; the proud beauty, now 
 no longer young, though still so wonderfully 
 handsome, and in such brilliant preservation, 
 had come down a peg, had descended to his 
 level, would be glad, perhaps, to accept of 
 him, no saying ! The Governor repressed 
 the soft idea ; but when any of his dowager 
 friends hinted that it was believed a fixed 
 thing, he only laughed the louder. 
 
 Mrs. Walpole, the most charitable, the 
 mildest and kindest of womankind, at last 
 thought it necessary to hint danger. It was 
 upon a visit which Edward and I made her 
 on a Saturday, a few weeks before we heard 
 the false report of the Governor's death, that 
 she first spoke. 
 
 " The death of Lady Louisa will leave 
 Miss Chadleigh, with her habits, a very 
 helpless woman," said she, considerately ; 
 " unless, indeed, there be any serious intention 
 of matrimony entertained by our old friend." 
 
 " No fear, mother," cried Walpole. " I 
 know what you mean now, that Miss Chad- 
 leigh is likely to entrap the old Governor ; 
 but no fear of him. He would as soon think 
 of marrying Tippoo's mother, if there be in 
 existence such a lady. He will die as he 
 has lived, your single-minded, unwedded 
 adorer :
 
 86 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 No maid will owe her scathe to him, 
 He never loved but you." 
 
 " Don't he so absurd, Edward, unless you 
 wish to affront me. I do not blame his 
 attentions, if the genuine motive of them be 
 clear to Miss Chadleigh. From her, one 
 would believe, that he certainly entertains a 
 serious design of proposing for her, were Lady 
 Louisa, whom she ostentatiously affects that 
 she never will leave, removed." 
 
 " A trick to neutralize you, mother. I do 
 believe she imagines you will have the Gover- 
 nor yet." 
 
 Mrs. Walpole was now really offended. 
 " I will hold no more discourse on this sub- 
 ject with you, Edward. I only wished 
 the Governor's friends to comprehend, that 
 whether such a marriage were likely to con- 
 duce to his happiness and respectability or 
 not, it may very probably be brought about. 
 Half Chatham believes it a settled thing." 
 
 "And laughs accordingly. No, no, mother. 
 I can't give my consent. Let him make Miss 
 Kate his heir, if he chooses, to what reasonable 
 or unreasonable extent seems to him good ; 
 but he shan't marry her, I promise you, if I 
 can help it." 
 
 The Governor dined with us on that day, 
 as he always did when Mr. Walpole visited 
 his mother. 
 
 In the morning we had met him, the 
 walking military escort of the pony phaeton 
 in which Miss Chadleigh slowly drove the 
 fat, arm-chair Lady Louisa. The exceeding 
 graciousness of the younger lady to Walpole, 
 who had never been a favourite, was a sus- 
 picious circumstance. She even manoeuvred 
 that we should both be invited to the card 
 party at the Lodge on the same evening, 
 which we however declined. 
 
 I have said the Governor dined with us. 
 Immediately after Mrs. Walpole left the 
 dining-room, we began our concerted plan of 
 operation. It is told, that a maiden lady of 
 fourscore, on being asked at what age a 
 woman ceases to think of marriage, candidly 
 told the interrogator, he must apply to an 
 older woman than herself. The age at which 
 an old man's vanity, in affairs regarding the 
 sex, becomes extinct, is equally dubious. The 
 Governor, when rallied on his conquest, and 
 the prevalent rumours in the Chatham circles, 
 seemed highly gratified and flattered, though 
 he became at last angry to perceive that we 
 could seriously believe he entertained the 
 remotest idea that he intended to marry any 
 one, and least of all Miss Chadleigh, however 
 willing she might be in the humility of 
 
 two score, to accept of his fortune and his 
 hand. 
 
 " No, no," was his final answer. " Kate 
 and I know each other too well. One house 
 would never hold us." 
 
 The prospect of Governor Fox getting into 
 Parliament, had quickened Miss Chadleigh's 
 operations. During the canvass, Lady Louisa 
 died suddenly of apoplexy, leaving her funded 
 property to her " beloved nephew," the 
 Major-General, and her wardrobe to her 
 " dear companion and domestic friend, Miss 
 Catherine Chadleigh." I shall not attempt 
 to paint the rage of the proud, disappointed, 
 and betrayed woman ; for the old lady whose 
 humours she had so long borne, and whose 
 household she had superintended, an unpaid 
 servant, had often in the lulls following a 
 squall, assured her that her interests were 
 not overlooked. 
 
 The letter addressed by the agent of the 
 principal legatee and sole executor, the once 
 Honourable George, to his aunt's companion, 
 his own early true-love, contained as polite a 
 turning-out-of-doors as could well be couched 
 in ten lines of English. It was delivered to 
 Miss Chadleigh, by the same traitorous or 
 faithful servant, who, so many years before, 
 had disconcerted her scheme of elopement. 
 Then he had been the valet of a cornet, now 
 he was the butler and confidential man of a 
 General, who, in virtue of his family interest, 
 had several good posts. Mr. Tomkins pro- 
 ceeded, in right of his master, to remove the 
 seals affixed by the Rochester attorney to the 
 old lady's repositories, and to make inven- 
 tories preliminary to the sale of every article 
 the lodge contained : even the old lady's 
 pet cockatoo and tortoise-shell cat were 
 booked. 
 
 Miss Chadleigh, by a message sent up to 
 her chamber, was requested to remove her 
 goods and chattels : the wardrobe, namely, 
 the trumpery finery, faded satins, moth-eaten 
 furs, and court lappets of previous generations, 
 as soon as suited her convenience ; as the 
 Lodge was already let to a friend of the 
 Major General's and the sale was to take 
 place immediately. Miss Chadleigh gave 
 instant orders for the removal of her proper- 
 ties ; but it was not clear to the legal inter- 
 preters of the will of the Lady Louisa, that 
 the fair legatee was entitled to the walnut- 
 tree drawers, the japan cabinets, and carved 
 chests, containing the aforesaid wardrobe ; 
 and she was too high-spirited and too indig- 
 nant to enter into debate on the point with 
 the despised valet in brief authority. Her
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 87 
 
 resolution was instantly taken ; and in one 
 half hour after she had despatched a note to 
 Rochester by the discharged gardener, Gover- 
 nor Fox drove up to the gate in a chaise, to 
 conduct her, as she had earnestly requested 
 him, to their " friend " Mrs. Walpole's, where 
 he understood she was invited and expected. 
 
 Miss Chadleigh was at this moment in the 
 act of assisting a hot, perspiring servant girl, 
 who, armful on armful, flung from a chamber 
 window into the front court the miscellaneous 
 contents of drawers, trunks, and wardrobes, 
 the finery of the Lady Louisa. Miss Chad- 
 leigh's own corded trunks and piles of band- 
 boxes were already arranged in the hall. 
 
 " Are you going to open a Rag Fair with 
 the old lady's trumpery?" inquired the 
 Governor, as he eyed, with a feeling of amuse- 
 ment, the tag-rag legacy of all hues and 
 textures, fluttering upon the gravel. 
 
 "I am about to perform an auto da, fe, 
 Governor, an act of faith, and one of puri- 
 fication and penance. Rake these rags closer 
 together, Molly. Nay, use your mop, pile 
 them higher. I claim for myself, Governor 
 Fox, the honour of applying the torch." 
 
 The discharged servants stood by grinning ; 
 the Governor was lost in perplexed amaze- 
 ment, while Miss Chadleigh, towering in the 
 majesty of tragic indignation, swept by him 
 in her gorgeous panoply of fresh black crape, 
 bombazeen, and broad hems, and fired the 
 pile. She stood sternly looking on, till silk, 
 satin, tissue and brocade, muslin, lawn, and 
 lace, fell together into ashes. And so perished 
 the Lady Louisa's legacy : and the legatee, 
 majestically taking the arm of the Governor, 
 led him, rather than was led by him, to the 
 carriage. 
 
 What an evening of talk that was in 
 Rochester, Brompton, Chatham, and even 
 Stroud ! Maidstone heard of the cremation. 
 The rumour by the next morning reached 
 Canterbury, was carried by coach to Dover, 
 and thence across the Channel, before it found 
 its sure way into the newspapers, under the 
 title, of The Toady's Legacy Curious Affair 
 in the Fashionable World. 
 
 " What a fury, what a vixen ! " cried one 
 party. " Such a high spirit ! so noble a 
 mind ! " exclaimed another. Every one spoke 
 in superlatives of the daring deed of Miss 
 Chadleigh, whose instant marriage with 
 Governor Fox was now universally affirmed, 
 and fondly hoped, at all events, by the 
 Chatham milliner, mercer, and perfumer, in 
 whose books the lady stood several figures 
 deep. 
 
 Had the Governor, it was remarked, not 
 gone in person, and carried her directly from 
 the lodge to his friend Mrs. Walpole's cottage, 
 where no doubt she was to remain till the 
 ceremony took place \ The only doubt re- 
 maining, that could disturb the public mind, 
 was, whether the marriage was to be by banns 
 or a special license ; or if the bride was to 
 have pearls or diamonds. The period of 
 mourning would cause no delay, after the 
 funeral pile Miss Chadleigh's affection had 
 reared in honour of the memory of her noble 
 patroness. Miss Scragg had indeed with her 
 own eyes, and they were piercers into such 
 affairs, seen Miss Chadleigh and the Governor, 
 only yesterday, choosing a paper for his best 
 chamber. Clusters of pansies on a salmon- 
 coloured ground had been preferred by the 
 lady : at a push, the paper could be hung, 
 and a new mantel-piece inserted, long before 
 the new-married pair returned from their 
 honey-moon excursion. 
 
 In the meanwhile, though Mrs. Walpole 
 possessed largely that better part of politeness, 
 kindness and benevolence, she could, after a 
 little time, have spared the guest who had 
 manoeuvred herself into the Cottage, unin- 
 vited and unexpected, but certainly not un- 
 welcome in her present friendless and pitiable 
 condition. Governor Fox was aware that 
 the " Widow Walpole " had previously enter- 
 tained no particular affection either for the 
 Lady Louisa, her fair companion, or any of 
 " that set." Her friends, indeed, lay rather 
 among the She-Saints ; and this, so far as he 
 knew, was her only weakness ; but kindness 
 and tender humanity for every creature in 
 distress, were to her so natural, that he was 
 not surprised at her affording a temporary 
 asylum " to poor Kate Chadleigh, whom the 
 old quality dame had bilked in her will." 
 He was surprised, however, that the lady's 
 visit drew to such length ; and so were the 
 gossips of Chatham, that the lover's ardour 
 permitted such a length of visitation upon 
 poor, dear Mrs. Walpole. 
 
 After the election disappointment, the 
 Governor found Miss Chadleigh the sole in- 
 mate of Mrs. Walpole's cottage, 'the mis- 
 tress of the house, as a civil way of getting 
 rid of her guest, having abandoned the garri- 
 son ; and, on recovering from the delirium 
 of his election fever, he found Kate acting 
 in the capacity of his own self-appointed 
 guardian angel. 
 
 She retreated almost immediately to the 
 Cottage, to prevent a discharge on the spot, 
 and thus retained the right of making daily
 
 88 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 visits of inquiry .and condolence, and latterly 
 of spending whole mornings and afternoons 
 in nursing and amusing the invalid, who 
 once more began to take interest in the per- 
 petual train of public coaches and private 
 equipages passing on the great thoroughfare, 
 commanded by his windows. 
 
 A sick-bed had probably reminded Gover- 
 nor Fox of his mortality ; and his enormous 
 electioneering bill, of the good which half the 
 sum, divided into small, refreshing streams 
 of bounty, might have done among his North- 
 amptonshire herd of female cousins, and nieces 
 by the half blood. My brother James's con- 
 fidential clerk, Mr. George Roberts, was sent 
 down to Rochester, accordingly, to take the 
 Governor's directions in drawing out his last 
 will and testament. It was, I believe, upon 
 the whole, a sensible, just, and discreet settle- 
 ment, which accordingly pleased nobody. I 
 was, myself, a legatee to the extent of one 
 hundred guineas. Mrs. Walpole and her son 
 were dismissed, at their own request, with 
 affectionate expressions and some complimen- 
 tary bequest. Black Sam was provided for ; 
 and the Governor, completely anti-feudal in 
 all his notions, divided the residue of his 
 fortune principally among his needy female 
 relatives, far as kin could count, in life 
 annuities, while the principal was finally 
 devoted to building, and slenderly endowing 
 some alms-houses or other, to be named the 
 Fox Alms-houses, for the widows and un- 
 married daughters of marines, women above 
 sixty, who had led virtuous and unblemished 
 lives, and were members of the Church of 
 England, the names of Fox and Walpole to 
 have a preference. This is tedious informa- 
 tion. The clause really important to my 
 story, was that which bequeathed to Miss 
 Chadleigh and her mother, the same life- 
 annuity the Governor had left to his half- 
 nieces, and poor cousins. I forget whether 
 it was .30 or ,40 a-year. The lady who 
 was almost constantly in the house, while 
 the attorney's deputy was receiving his in- 
 structions, soon learnt the extent of her legacy, 
 and the complete failure of her ultimate ex- 
 pectations. Where the testator expected 
 thanks and gratitude, he found indignation 
 and well-affected surprise. The wronged 
 lady 'at last withdrew from Mrs. W'alpole's 
 to her old mother's residence ; and her 
 attorney forthwith waited, "in a friendly 
 way," upon the Governor, to remonstrate. 
 
 Though the Governor had been for some 
 time convalescent, he had scarcely yet gone 
 beyond his garden wall ; but this was not an 
 
 affair with which to dally ; and the rate at 
 which he drove to London, gave the news- 
 mongers of the next morning some colour 
 for a Revolution in Paris, and important 
 despatches from our ambassador at St. Peters- 
 burg, via Berlin. Before his smoking coursers 
 were reined up at the head of our lane, it was 
 time for ghosts, absent from the churchyard 
 on a three hours' leave, to be returning within 
 the rules. My Irish neighbour and friend, 
 Mrs. Plunkett, was also returning home. She 
 had lately obtained the privilege of attending 
 one of the minor theatres, as a vender of 
 oranges , which, to Peg, by the way, from 
 the irregular hours it compelled her to keep, 
 proved a demoralizing occupation, to the 
 extent of several quarterns of gin daily, 
 beyond her old fixed allowance when a 
 barrow-woman. So that all her profits were 
 not clear gain, nor the theatre wholly a 
 school of virtue. It was Peg, herself, how- 
 ever, ever friendly and obliging, if not quite 
 correct, who rung the alarum at our door on 
 the Governor's arrival ; but we were too well 
 used to nocturnal disturbances to rouse our- 
 selves at once. I dare say the Governor and 
 Peg, as common friends of mine, might have 
 been acquainted before this time, for neither 
 were difficult of access ; but if not, the free- 
 masonry of the military spirit had familiar- 
 ized them at once. 
 
 "They're sleeping as sound as sintinels," 
 I overheard Peg say, as she beat another 
 'larum. 
 
 "And you have seen service, good woman?" 
 was returned by the Governor. 
 
 "It's myself believes I have seen some 
 thrifle of hot work in my day, plase your 
 Honour, in Indiy and Flanders, ay, and in 
 Portingal and Spain. Your honour may 
 have heard of a place called Seringupatam. 
 Had a certain famale known the vally of 
 certain pretty things were found there, its 
 myself need not be carrying an orange basket 
 this night, or rather this blessed dawn, for 
 it's near sun-riz. Sure Mr. Richard got on 
 his night-cap sweetly last night, which is 
 rare to him, the cratur, that he sleeps so 
 sound." 
 
 Another thundering peal followed. " So 
 you threw away your plunder in ignorance, 
 poor woman?" rejoined the Governor, in a 
 compassionate tone. " Sold your plunder to 
 some of those sutlers, or Jew fellows, for 
 they an't Christians, on the commissariat?" 
 
 " Ay, indeed, and them riding past me in 
 their coaches, while I am tramping a-foot, 
 vour Honoxir. There was a Lieutenant Chad-
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 89 
 
 leigh, of ours, sir, he was pay-master at 
 same time, by the same token I washed for 
 his Lady, and Miss " 
 
 " Kate ? " 
 
 " The same. You knowed her then? By 
 my faix ! she was a rare one among the hoys, 
 that is, the young jintlemen of our army, 
 and the beauty of the world at same time. 
 Well, her father the lieutenant got a bit of 
 what for all the world looked like red glass, 
 I have seen as good sold at a Donnybrook 
 booth for a tinpenny, either as brooch or 
 are-rings, which he parted with to the wife 
 of one of the sutlers, Molly Pantague by 
 name, (whose son is now a topping man in 
 this big town,) for ten rupees for these were 
 our Indiy money a pair of shoes, and a 
 pound of tay, and which she afterwards sould 
 to a Jew jeweller here in London, for what, 
 thinks your Honour now? But sure there is 
 ould Lady Wilkes stirring her stumps at long 
 last. Open the dure, ma'am ! Mr. Richard 
 is wanted in mighty haste, ma'am." 
 
 My old nurse, if she heard the speakers 
 below at all, had not that confidence in Peg's 
 steadiness, and general propriety and respec- 
 tability of conduct, which warranted leaving a 
 comfortable bed upon her midnight summons. 
 I was now dressing myself, and peeping 
 through the blind : Peg became impatient. 
 
 " Diaoul ! saw you ever such churlish 
 baistes as them Lon'oners to a jintleman and 
 a stranger." And now, setting down her 
 basket, she thundered what is called the 
 devil's tattoo upon the door, with both her 
 closed fists. 
 
 " To shout, murder ! murder ! now, would 
 help us no more than calling the watch on 
 top of Knoc Phadrig ; while they lie in a 
 sound skin themselves, you may be kilt dead on 
 their dure-stone, and the cockney j in tie women 
 would not turn over to the 'tother side of 
 them, for fare of ruffling their nice night-cap 
 borders. If it were not that the house is 
 part Mr. Richard's, who is a good-hearted, 
 simple, poor soul, and a jintleman every inch 
 of him besides, it's little myself would think 
 now to smash the ould woman in a dozen of 
 her peens handsome, with them rotten 
 Chiney oranges." 
 
 The implied threat, notwithstanding the 
 saving clause, redoubled my diligence in 
 dressing myself. With Peg I knew it was 
 at this hour but a word and a blow. I was 
 about the last button when Peg, with a 
 vociferous triumphant laugh, exclaimed to 
 her growling companion, who had at last 
 assailed the door himself, " Stop, your 
 
 Honour ! I have it now." And she screamed, 
 " Fire ! fire ! fire !" The plan was effectual. 
 On the instant, that old familiar London cry 
 came home to every man's bosom : windows 
 flew up, doors opened, and nightcaps of both 
 sexes peered out into the alley, while the 
 watchmen gathered in. Peg was in an ecstacy 
 of laughter at the commotion she had created. 
 She introduced the Governor to my landlady 
 as a jintleman who shurely had some good 
 news for Mr. Richard ; and went her way, 
 declaring the trifling piece of service was no 
 more than she would perform by day or 
 night for any cratur ever beat a drum for his- 
 Majesty, much more for his Honour, Mr. 
 Richard's friend, who she hoped brought good 
 news. 
 
 I was now in the hall. What could that 
 news be ? Had any harm befallen Walpole? 
 Was it some dreadful accident, to be broken 
 to my niece through me ? 
 
 " What has brought me at such hours to 
 London?" was the Governor's reply to my 
 rapid inquiries. " You may ask that, egad ; 
 and also what made me alarm a decent family 
 at these hours ! But I crave your pardon, 
 ma'am ; my business with your lodger 
 would brook no delay. I suppose we shan't 
 get at the lubberly lawyers for a couple of 
 hours yet, though ? " 
 
 " Lawyers ! " 
 
 " Ay, just so, sir. Action of damages ! 
 breach of promise of marriage ! Damages laid 
 at .7,000, and full costs prayed !" 
 
 " And you, defendant ! and the fair plain- 
 tiff, pray?" 
 
 "Who, but that Kate Chadleigh!" 
 
 roared the Governor, in a voice which shook 
 our dwelling from cellar to garret. 
 
 It was with difficulty I refrained from 
 laughing aloud. I was certain it was all a 
 hoax. 
 
 " Here is what comes of elderly gentlemen 
 flirting for years, at no allowance, with semi- 
 aged young ladies ! " 
 
 "Don't provoke me, man : I have some- 
 times more than a mind to marry the jade, 
 keep her on bread and water, and baste 
 her ribs every day she rises. Don't the law 
 of England permit a man to thrash his wife's" 
 
 " To correct his wife in reason, I believe, 
 is allowable ; for so has said some of our 
 most learned judges." 
 
 " Judge Buller for one, a true-born Eng- 
 lishman and sound constitutional lawyer, laid 
 down at a western assize, I'm told, that a 
 man might baste his wife with a switch the 
 thickness of one's thumb."
 
 90 
 
 TUP: EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 "And the ladies of Exeter, at the next 
 circuit, sent, respectfully soliciting the exact 
 measurement of Judge Buller's thumb, that 
 they might have neither more nor less of the 
 rod matrimonial than they were by law en- 
 titled to." 
 
 " By Jove, mine should be a miller's thumb 
 if I married Kate Chadleigh. I cannot quite 
 bring my mind up to it, though the devil 
 is continually putting it into my head, as 
 the best way of having my revenge on the 
 bold jade." 
 
 " You must resist the devil, Governor, and 
 he will flee. I question if even Judge Buller 
 himself would approve of a man marrying 
 for the mere purpose of being allowed to beat 
 his wife, under sanction of the common law ; 
 for I don't suppose there is any statute to 
 found upon. But sit down, and tell me the 
 rights of this mad affair." 
 
 While the Governor swallowed the cup of 
 hot coffee, hastily prepared, and smoked a 
 sedative pipe, I perused his correspondence 
 with the attorney of Miss Chadleigh. It 
 was on his part sufficiently energetic and 
 laconic. I had no doubt that the whole was 
 an infamous conspiracy to extort money, in- 
 stigated by the attorney, who was the nephew 
 of the late Lady Louisa's mercer, the principal 
 creditor of Miss Chadleigh. Compassion for the 
 unfortunate, the miscalculating, and, I must 
 confess, the unprincipled beauty of past 
 days, was with me as powerful a feeling, as 
 anxiety to spare my old friend the ridicule 
 which the exposures of a trial must inevitably 
 produce. 
 
 Though there was, in reality, not a particle 
 of sound evidence to sustain the case of the 
 lady, it is astonishing how much plausible 
 oral testimony was raked together from the 
 gossiping chronicles of Chatham. Break 
 down it must, if it ever came into a court ; 
 but it was certainly dexterously piled up. 
 At every new disclosure, the perfidy and 
 treachery of the faithless octogenarian lover 
 became more evident and more atrocious. 
 The long course of " true love" assiduously 
 persevered in during the latter years of Lady 
 Louisa, was ready to be distinctly sworn to 
 by several chambermaids, and by lady visitors 
 innumerable ; as well as her ladyship's con- 
 fident expectation that "her dear, domestic 
 companion" was to be provided for at her 
 death in an honourable marriage, which 
 made other provision for her quite super- 
 fluous. True, there was the auto dafe; but 
 this deed did not invalidate the stronger testi- 
 mony borne to the Governor's intention?. 
 
 Had he not exulted in her spirit displayed in 
 that action 1 Had he not placed her under 
 the protection of Mrs. Walpole ? 
 
 The Governor's general defence was "Denied 
 wholly" " The bold baggage had forced her- 
 self into the Widow Walpole's cottage, the 
 better to deceive the world, and conceal her 
 plot to extort money : never could she believe 
 that he, Stephen Fox, knowing all of her 
 which he knew, could ever dream of marry- 
 ing such a hussy." 
 
 Affirmed, that even by the evidence of his 
 man, Samuel Dixon, a negro, it could be 
 shown that, for many months, Miss Chad- 
 leigh had, while the health of her betrothed 
 required her tender care, almost lived in 
 his house, and on every Sunday occupied 
 his pew in church. The Governor was at 
 last almost distracted. He was like a man 
 accused of witchcraft, or some impossible 
 crime, who, seeing evidence accumulating so 
 powerfully against him, begins at last to 
 suspect himself of being the guilty creature 
 which he is accused of being. But his spirit 
 rose and cleared. 
 
 I must do the lawyers, on both sides, the 
 justice to say that they had no doubts what- 
 ever. Miss Chadleigh's counsel saw the case 
 even more clearly than Mr. Frankland, who 
 was retained for the Governor, as the former 
 was in closer contact with the other parties, 
 and saw more of their tactics. It may be 
 presumed that the affair afforded a great deal 
 of conversation and amusement. Walpole 
 believed that it never could come to trial, 
 the case, he said, had not a leg to stand upon ; 
 but Miss Chadleigh's lawyer, on the other 
 hand, placed great faith in an English Jury. 
 A rich old defendant, a handsome woman, 
 destitute and in distress : he must be a poor 
 orator, indeed, who could not make some few 
 thousands out of such a case. He advised 
 compromise, paying a handsome sum down 
 at once, the defendant could well afford it. 
 I was also almost inclined to some trimming 
 course. The Governor, vexed as he was, 
 possessed a better spirit. His strength lay in 
 his obstinacy. " Suffer the vixen to brow- 
 beat me, and diddle me ! No, by Jupiter ! 
 if my last sixpence go for it." 
 
 The important day arrived. The case 
 was tried in London. The Court was 
 crowded to suffocation. Plaintiff and defen- 
 dant both appeared personally, attended by 
 their respective attorneys and private friends. 
 Miss Chadleigh, well rouged, looked resplen- 
 dent through her veil. Her still fine person 
 was, to her counsel, like the dead body of
 
 GOVERNOR FOX. 
 
 91 
 
 Caesar, iu the Capitol, to Mark Antony. 
 With pride and confidence he referred "the 
 intelligent Gentlemen of the Jury fathers 
 and brothers to this accomplished, this 
 lovely woman the orphan child of one who 
 had fought and bled in the battles of his 
 country wounded in woman's dearest and 
 most tender affections, there where she had 
 garnered up her heart, by the caprice, the 
 fickleness, the unaccountable, the unprovoked 
 and cruel desertion of the sexagenarian, gal- 
 lant and wealthy defendant." 
 
 If there were any truth in the Highland 
 and Hibernian Evil Eye, or the Jettatura of 
 the Continent, this eloquent gentleman had 
 assuredly not escaped unscathed from this 
 exhibition. Anon the Governor would dart 
 a fiery glance at him in his mid career of 
 professional falsehood ; then wipe his brows, 
 half rise, and suddenly plunge down in his 
 seat, as I plucked him backwards, muttering, 
 
 " D d lies by Jupiter Ammon ! and a 
 
 string of them ! Let me contradict the fel- 
 low, Mr. Richard, or I shall burst ! " 
 
 I was not much more at ease myself. 
 True, Frankland had still to speak ; but the 
 " intelligent Gentlemen of the Jury " began 
 so seriously to incline to the harangue of 
 the orator a popular favourite at the time 
 that I became strangely apprehensive. The 
 day looked ill for us. I wished to my heart 
 that we had some older, more cunning, and 
 " used hand " than Frankland, who could pay 
 back our opponent in his own false coin. 
 To heighten the effect and I can also 
 believe that she was not wholly unmoved 
 Miss Chadleigh's suppressed hysterical sobs 
 were followed by a fainting fit which, how- 
 ever, did not take from her all sense and 
 feeling ; as I perceived that, when she was 
 about to be removed, at a very critical 
 minute, she saw and heard as acutely as she 
 had ever done in her life. She raised herself 
 at once, on seeing the Governor's old enemy, 
 the Baptist druggist, and a most respectable 
 lady of Rochester, one of the Governor's 
 enemies, the She-Saints, enter the Court, and 
 the former deliver a small silk-bag, such as 
 ladies usually carry about, to my brother 
 James, the anxious agent in this case. 
 Governor Fox leant back on the bench, and 
 whispered to me. 
 
 "We are dished now, by Jupiter, Mr. 
 Richard ! The crop-ear and the quean will 
 swear I am the Devil, and wear horns, if it 
 can serve Kate Chadleigh, and make against 
 that rampant sinner, Stephen Fox." 
 
 "Don't believe that, Governor. If that 
 
 lady's friends went into a Court to protect 
 your Negro servant from what they believed 
 your cruelty and oppression, they will as 
 readily step forward to defend you from this 
 abominable conspiracy. I cannot tell what 
 brings them here to-day ; but it must be for 
 the sake of truth." 
 
 Frankland, to whom my brother made 
 some hasty communication, immediately 
 whispered the orator on the opposite side, 
 who reluctantly paused in the full flight of 
 his tropes, and received letters or papers from 
 the mysterious embroidered bag. 
 
 Our eloquent opponent, whom the Governor 
 had already given to all the devils, for a 
 brazen-faced, lying rascal examined them 
 with a rapid, keen, professional eye. I 
 watched his face with intense anxiety ; for 
 I knew that though quite likely to feel 
 great professional pride in making much of 
 a very bad case he would not lend himself 
 to a client so foolish or simple as to let his 
 knavery be easily found out. No matter for 
 his own opinion, or his own conviction. 
 While the world the " intelligent Gentle- 
 men of the Jury," could be gulled, the case 
 was good and defensible. To look at the 
 morale of any case was entirely out of the 
 question. He looked to his brief, his fee, 
 and his fame in the profession. 
 
 While he hastily examined the documents, 
 Miss Chadleigh's attorney interfered; but 
 the barrister, despite the breach of profes- 
 sional etiquette, waved him off. He examined 
 the signatures of two different letters, and the 
 post-marks, once and again ; returned the 
 papers to Frankland ; and throwing his 
 brief, or his notes, with some violence upon 
 the table, bowed to the bench, and said aloud 
 and emphatically, that he abandoned this 
 case. 
 
 He flung away, the fluttering of his gown 
 fanning the now really fainting plaintiff, 
 and familiarly nodded to the Governor as he 
 passed, saying, in a loud whisper, " I con- 
 gratulate you, Governor Fox. Had I this 
 morning known of this case what I know now, 
 I would never have opened my lips in it." 
 
 " Small thanks to you, sir," returned the 
 Governor, with a stiff bow. " You don't like 
 to be found out, I see." But Frankland was 
 addressing the bench, and I begged silence. 
 
 In brief, the jury were discharged. The 
 attorney of the enemy, who was himself 
 deeply implicated, attempted to bustle and 
 bluster aside to my brother ; but at the sight 
 of his own letters, he changed colour, and 
 darted a look of fury at the wretched plain-
 
 02 
 
 TIMO EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 tiff', whom, in defiance of the Governor's 
 anger, I conducted out of court, and placed 
 in ,i coach at the nearest stand. Neither of 
 us spoke one word ; but my fair companion 
 trembled exceedingly. She attempted no 
 vindication, no palliation of her conduct ; nor 
 shall I, farther than to state, that it after- 
 wards appeared she had entered upon the 
 prosecution with reluctance, and under the 
 threatened horrors of a jail. This much was 
 disclosed by the correspondence in the bag, so 
 opportunely picked up by one of the girls of 
 
 a poor widow, patronized by Mrs. , and 
 
 carried to that lady. 
 
 The carriage and horses of this lady, who 
 proved the deliverer of the Governor at his 
 need, waited near the court. I found him 
 making warmly grateful and polite speeches, 
 to which she listened with placid dignity and 
 a benevolent smile. Sometimes I could fancy 
 that a slight fugitive ray of humour played 
 about her lips. Una had subdued the Lion. 
 
 To the lady, at parting, the Governor mad'o 
 the lowest bow he had attempted since he 
 attended the levee of George the Third, in 
 1805 ; and, with the Baptist druggist he 
 shook hands with cordial frankness, hoping 
 that, as old neighbours, they might yet be 
 better acquainted : had he known what a 
 
 d d good fellow he was, they should have 
 
 settled their old affair about the pump, over 
 a bottle of Madeira, without those rascally 
 attorneys. But here his conscience suggested 
 the horrible word which he had just em- 
 ployed in presence of a She-Saint of that 
 most excellent lady. I enjoyed his perplexity 
 not a little ; and so, perhaps, did she, though 
 she looked quite unconscious. 
 
 " You must pardon me, madam. We 
 military men of the old school are not always 
 quite so proper in our language as we ought 
 to be : but if the heart be right " 
 
 "That is much that is all in all," re- 
 turned the lady, with her habitual benevolent 
 and cheerful smile. Her carriage drove off 
 for Rochester. 
 
 " And that jade, Kate Chadleigh, mimicked, 
 ridiculed, and taught me to despise that good 
 woman, Mr. Richard." 
 
 "And you have lived to learn that 
 may be worse women in the world than the 
 She-Saints," I rejoined. 
 
 " Little did I merit such kindness at her 
 hands, though I can't abide women going 
 about to Meetings, Tracts, and Societies, and 
 all that stuff: bold hussies, and so quiet 
 and shy all the while." 
 
 " Nor yet their coming boldly into a 
 court of law, and exposing, without hope or 
 fear, a conspiracy against the purse and 
 character of an old bachelor, who had suf- 
 fered himself to be bamboozled " 
 
 " Hang it, man ! say no more about it ; 
 catch any gipsy taking me in again. You 
 are grinning now at the protection of four- 
 score ; but a man is never too old to learn 
 wisdom." 
 
 Whether it be increase of wisdom, better 
 society, or the sedative effects of an old age 
 passed without pain, fear, or anxiety, I cannot 
 say ; but the improvement, the kindly ripen- 
 ing, and mellowing of the Governor's temper, 
 has become the subject of remark and con- 
 gratulation to all his friends, and particularly 
 to the Wai poles and myself. Sometimes a 
 whole week will elapse, during which he and 
 his man Sam will duly read the Prayer 
 Book, and over the blinds watch the transit 
 of the Dover coaches, .now the Governor's 
 chief occupation, without his once launch- 
 ing his crutch after the long heels of the 
 offending Black. 
 
 He has lately been prevailed upon by Mrs. 
 Walpole, and his now esteemed friend, his 
 former " She-Saint," to reinstate Mrs. and 
 Miss Chadleigh in his will, exactly as they 
 stood before the trial ; and, of his own im- 
 pulse, he went the length of presenting the 
 latter, who was known to be in extreme want, 
 with twenty guineas, at last Christmas, 
 which largesse was to remain a dead secret 
 between himself and the bearer, Sam. With 
 him it ever will do so. Perhaps I have said 
 too much about my old friend : but, in spite 
 of his superfluous use of expletives, and fre- 
 quent reference to his Satanic majesty, there 
 are many worse men talked of in the world 
 and figuring in books than GOVKUXOR Fox.
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL. 
 
 THERE is not a more weather-proof man in 
 all London than myself, though I say it ; 
 nor one who, in all seasons, has more contempt 
 for the Cockney comforts of omnibuses, cahs, 
 and all chance lifts whatsoever ; from the 
 dignity of " a friend's carriage," to a " set 
 down " in the family apothecary's snug one- 
 horse chaise. Yet, in one or two days of 
 every year those few days which have a 
 sensible effect in thinning the rolling human 
 tide which sets in from Temple-Bar, through 
 Fleet Street and the Strand* I am sometimes 
 in spite of the protective powers of my 
 famous umbrella induced, knowingly, to 
 give Nurse Wilks's remonstrances the credit 
 of a temporary confinement ; and to remain 
 for a whole morning in my apartment, with 
 no better society than a good sea-coal fire, 
 nor more amusing companion than my old 
 " Diaries." My readers know that these are 
 kept in useless ledgers, crossed and re-crossed 
 in choice hieroglyphics of my own invention. 
 I trust none of my admiring friends to 
 vindicate the credit of their own sagacity 
 in having distinguished me will, after my 
 death, present these tomes to the British 
 Museum. They would assuredly puzzle 
 future antiquaries more than the celebrated 
 Rosetta stone. The key to that has, I believe, 
 been found ; but I defy any future Cham- 
 pollion to discover that the violet and the oak 
 sapling, which illuminate my page 486, signify 
 Little Fanny Bethel and somebody else. 
 
 In running over this aforesaid ledger, I am 
 sometimes tempted to believe that I shall 
 have a long account one day against my 
 thriving brother James, the rich solicitor, for 
 trouble taken and anxiety endured in his 
 matters. He gets off by alleging that I never 
 undertake any job for him unless I first take 
 a fancy to it myself. He would insinuate 
 that, in business affairs, I am little more 
 than an amateur performer, and that I will 
 play nothing save my own favourite pieces, 
 and those in my own time ; and that, in 
 the particular case of the little Allahbad 
 Bethels, upon which I raised a special claim, 
 I was certainly a volunteer. 1 It may have 
 been so. The protracted silence of the rela- 
 tives of two very young orphan creatures 
 gave scope and leisure for anxiety upon their 
 account to any one who chose to take interest 
 in them. I had undertaken to communicate 
 to their uncle, Mr. Bethel, then at Baden, the 
 
 death of his brother in India. This event 
 had been followed, in a few days, by that of 
 Captain Bethel's widow ; and the children, 
 through the kindness of friends in the regi- 
 ment of their father, had been sent to England 
 by a private subscription. They were now 
 on the high seas, consigned to the care of their 
 late father's agent in London, Mr. James 
 Taylor. The gist of my epistle was : 
 " Rich and powerful elder brother, what is 
 to be done with your younger brother's orphan 
 children ? You are head of the house ; its 
 fortunes have devolved to you in consequence 
 of your rights of birth ; but you have the 
 feelings of a Christian and a brother, and the 
 principles of an honourable man. You know 
 your duty." It was a well- worded epistle 
 enough ; but having been three times read 
 and admired, and having received the praises 
 of my sister Anne, I had the discretion to 
 burn it, notwithstanding ; and to adopt, with 
 slight alteration, that concocted officially by 
 my brother's clerk, George Roberts, which 
 contained only the needful. I was aware of 
 being upon ticklish ground with Mr. Bethel. 
 
 While he was pondering our information 
 at Baden, the Indiaman, by which the little 
 orphans were coming home, was encountering 
 heavy gales in the Channel ; and, though 
 not absolutely wrecked, the vessel was so 
 much damaged, that it was found necessary 
 to lighten her, as she lay off Margate. As 
 many of the passengers as could get off in 
 the pilot boats had landed ; and the captain 
 and subordinate officers, too much occupied 
 by their onerous and responsible duties, had 
 sent their little passengers to a hotel in Mar- 
 gate, together with their Ayah, or Hindoo 
 nurse-maid ; and, by a hasty note, informed 
 my brother that they must immediately be 
 taken away ! Ay, taken away ! But whither? 
 Baden was mute ; and the Rectory of Stock- 
 ham-Magna gave no sign. In it resided 
 another family of Bethels " more than kin 
 and less than kind." 
 
 "No independent provision for the poor 
 little things at all ! " sighed my ever good- 
 hearted indulgent sister-in-law. " But mili- 
 tary men can now save so little in India, with 
 reduced allowances and increased expenses." 
 
 " I shall never forgive Tom Bethel, though, 
 for not ensuring his life," said my brother. 
 " I urged him to it before he embarked, five 
 years ago. Were it but a thousand pounds,
 
 94 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 it might have educated the hoy at some olu'.'ip 
 Yorkshire school ; and surely the friends will 
 take the little girl ! " 
 
 " The friends ! " I repeated ; for this name 
 for the aggregate Bethels of the Hall and the 
 Rectory sounded at this time oddly to me, in 
 relation to the children at Margate. But 
 they must be taken away ; and I was upon 
 the road in the next hour. 
 
 The Bethels of shire were one of those 
 
 stanch, far-descended families of wealthy Eng- 
 lish commoners, who, from pride of birth 
 and Jacobite politics, had disdained to veil a 
 name so long distinguished in county annals 
 under a modern title. They had even shunned 
 the alliance of new-made nobility. But they 
 had been much less successful in warding off 
 the inroads of modern habits of expense. 
 Notwithstanding their large estates, their 
 church livings, and their West India property, 
 the Bethels had been a struggling family for 
 two generations ; and, in the third, this 
 began to be severely felt. It had been a 
 family custom existing from the reign of 
 Henry VIII., which had brought the Bethels 
 a liberal share of the general " spoliation " of 
 that period to reserve the best of thefamify- 
 livings for the younger sons of the family 
 the second son being, in general, preferred. 
 But, in the last generation, my gay acquain- 
 tance, Tom Bethel, between admiration of a 
 dragoon uniform and saddle, and some com- 
 punctious doubts about his own vocation to 
 the Church, had committed the indiscretion 
 as his college friends called it of allowing 
 the third brother, John, to take orders, and 
 step into the living of Stockham-Magna, 
 which, of itself, was worth above a clear 
 1 200 a-year. 
 
 " Indiscretion," and " great indiscretion," 
 were the phrases of Tom's mother and sisters, 
 with whom his fine temper and handsome 
 person made him a favourite. This act was 
 afterwards called in the family, " Tom's 
 generosity ; " for John, though much more 
 cautious, had imprudently married a young 
 woman of birth equal to his own, with 
 exactly nothing between them, save the hopes 
 derived from Tom's vocation to glory. In due 
 time, the Reverend John, who, his mother 
 soon discovered, had a decided call, settled 
 soberly down in the Rectory ; gave up fox- 
 hunting, to which, as a shireman, he 
 
 had been born ; exchanged the trifle of 
 chicken-hazard, into which he had been se- 
 duced by his elder brother's fashionable guests, 
 for a quiet, earnest rubber of whist, with a 
 few pleasant neighbours ; and, had the family 
 
 interest been as good as in the reign of the 
 Charleses, bade as fair to die a bishop as any 
 preceding Bethel of the stock. 
 
 The Dowager Mrs. Bethel informed those 
 of her Cheltenham correspondents who were 
 of a serious character, that her son, John, 
 was a most exemplary and pious clergyman ; 
 and they reciprocated, that he was, indeed, 
 an ornament to the Church of England, and 
 one who, by his piety and learning, would 
 adorn the mitre. His sermon at Brighton 
 had made the proper impression in the proper 
 quarter. 
 
 When Captain Bethel, aboiit two years 
 after his love-match, visited his relations 
 previous to embarking for India, his young 
 wife, who, though she still thought Tom 
 " divinely handsome " in his dragoon uniform, 
 had also felt the slightest possible pinch of 
 poverty, exclaimed, as they drove from the 
 Rectory, "What pity, dear Tom, that you 
 conceived such an aversion to the Church ! 
 Stockham-Magna would have been a paradise 
 to ns and so near all our friends ! " 
 
 " I chose rather to die a general and to 
 plunder the enemy, instead of fleecing my 
 flock, Frances," returned Lieutenant Bethel. 
 And, with hopes of being a general, he did 
 die a captain. Mrs. Bethel gave* a long, 
 lingering, farewell look to that charming 
 place, where she could willingly have left 
 her little girl, the infant Fanny ; but, as she 
 told us in passing through London, neither 
 her mother-in-law, the dowager, nor Mrs. 
 John Bethel, had once spoken of her infant, 
 deadly as India was to children. 
 
 People will die in England as well as in 
 India, even though living in a comfortable 
 Rectory, drawing great tithes and small, and 
 in momentary expectation of golden prebends. 
 The family vault was again opened to receive 
 the Rev. Dr. Bethel, shortly after he had 
 followed his mother to that resting-place, and 
 some months before the death of his brother 
 in India. His wife, though she had rashly 
 entered the family, had gained the esteem of 
 its leading members, Mr. Bethel and his lady ; 
 and, when she was left a widow with three 
 young children, things were arranged plea- 
 santly for her, by the appointment of the 
 same young cousin to the living who had 
 preached Dr. Bethel's funeral sermon. She 
 continued to reside at the Rectory, as before ; 
 and the intimacy between the family at 
 Bethel's Court and that at the Parsonage, 
 became more cordial and intimate than it 
 had ever been during the life of the excellent 
 and venerated person, as he was called in
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL. 
 
 95 
 
 the funeral sermon, who had formed the bond 
 of union. It was whispered in the tea and 
 card circles of Wincham the neighbouring 
 market town, a place of great ecclesiastical 
 antiquity, and, until the era of schedule B, 
 of great political consideration that Mrs. Dr. 
 Bethel had a still deeper concern in the great 
 and small tithes of Stockham-Magna, than 
 arose from her continued residence in the 
 Rectory. But this amounted nearly to that 
 ill-defined crime called simony ; and the 
 rumour had clearly originated with one or 
 other of the five Misses Roach, sisters of the 
 whilom principal surgeon of Wincham, who, 
 when attending the lady at the Hall in a 
 sudden illness, had, as the reward of his skill 
 and assiduity, obtained a half promise of the 
 living for his son and their nephew : it was, 
 therefore, liable to question, if not to doubt. 
 No one in Wincham would or could believe 
 that Mr. Bethel, with his high-church prin- 
 ciples and high gentlemanly feelings, could 
 wink at an arrangement which spared his 
 own purse, by fixing his brother's family 
 upon the new incumbent. It was not to be 
 credited. But, at the same time, it was agreed, 
 on all hands, that Mr. Whitstone, the new 
 Rector, was the most generous of cousins, 
 and that Mrs. Dr. Bethel and her children 
 still lived in the same comfort and elegance 
 which they had enjoyed during the life of her 
 husband. 
 
 Sales by piecemeal, and mortgages by 
 wholesale, had nearly eaten up the family 
 estates of the Bethels : but Mr. Bethel still 
 derived a very large income from the estates 
 which his lady, also a Bethel, of a younger 
 branch, had brought into the family; though 
 the tenure by which they were held consti- 
 tuted the greatest cross which he and his 
 wife were destined to bear. At her death, 
 without children, they went to yet another 
 branch of this far-spread stock ; and Mrs. 
 Bethel had given no heir to the united pro- 
 perties. The want of children, in a great and 
 ancient family, like that of the Bethels, is 
 always a subject of infinite interest to the 
 kindred, and of concernment to the whole 
 neighbourhood. In ordinary circumstances, 
 Mrs. Dr. Bethel, of the Rectory, might have 
 submitted to the will of Heaven, under a 
 misfortune which brought her own son next 
 in succession : after " Tom's boy in India," 
 indeed, but a child there was hardly worth 
 reckoning upon. As the family stood, how- 
 ever, she would far rather that a cousin- 
 german of her daughters' should be at the 
 head of this fine property, than that it should 
 
 pass away to a lad in the North, whom no 
 one knew any thing about. Her sincere 
 sympathy in the family affliction of Bethel's 
 Court, had advanced her in favour there ; but 
 it was her aversion to the unknown heir pre- 
 sumptive, sometimes laughingly insinuated, 
 and at other times seriously betrayed, as if by 
 accident, when prudence and good-breeding 
 were conquered by strong feeling, that con- 
 firmed her influence at the Hall. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bethel, still a fashionable, 
 but not now a gay couple, had lived a good 
 deal on the continent for several years ; during 
 which period, their clever sister-in-law was 
 their confidant and manager in all domestic 
 affairs. It was, therefore, to her that Mr. 
 Bethel wrote, upon receipt of my brother's 
 letter, regarding the disposal of the orphan 
 children. We were afterwards told that he 
 was much affected by the death of his only 
 remaining brother, whom he had always 
 loved better than the Rev. John ; and that, 
 in the first impulse of tenderness, he proposed 
 to take the children home ; but his lady 
 prudently referred to her sister-in-law. 
 
 In the mean time, I reached Margate 
 
 without any remarkable adventures. These 
 
 are, indeed, become as rare in England as the 
 
 wild boar or the wolf. 
 
 What a pretty image is that of Campbell! 
 
 Led by his dusky guide, 
 
 Like Morning brought by Night. 
 
 I prevented it being literally realized to me ; 
 for I ran up stairs to the parlour, where the 
 fair little people whom I sought, sat upon 
 the carpet, in the lap of their dusky guide, 
 the amusement and delight, with their strange 
 speech and pretty voices and ways, of all the 
 chamber-maids and waiters of the establish- 
 ment. The little English speech among the 
 three was possessed by the lovely fairy crea- 
 ture afterwards known among us as " Little 
 Fanny Bethel." She was, at this time, not 
 more than six years old, small and delicate 
 of her age ; and with the tender pale-rose 
 tint of children who have been born, or who 
 have spent their childhood in India. She 
 started up on my approach, advanced a step, 
 and then timidly hung back, raising her mild 
 and intelligent gray eyes with a look of doubt 
 and deprecation. I was more struck with the 
 remarkable expression of the countenance of 
 the little maiden than with the loveliness of 
 her features, and the flood of silky fair hair, 
 which contrasted so singularly with the 
 bronzed complexion and dark eyes of the 
 squat attendant upon whose shoulder she 
 shrunk back. Her heart, revealed through her
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 eyes, gave out meanings which it was impos- 
 sible that she could herself have apprehended. 
 Her feminine instincts, child as she was, had 
 far outstripped her understanding ; and she 
 looked at me with a perplexed consciousness 
 that her fate was in my hands that she was 
 a friendless orphan among strangers. Happy 
 confidence or be it credulity, still tin-ice 
 blest credulity of childhood, which throws 
 itself, in boundless trust, into the bosom of 
 whatever approaches it wearing the smiling 
 semblance of kindness ! Little Fanny's brow 
 and eyes cleared and brightened at my frank 
 accost, and she voluntarily continued to hold 
 by the hand which she had kissed in a pretty 
 fashion of her own. Poor little thing ! my 
 heart already yearned over her ; her kiss was 
 more loving than a lover's. 
 
 In a very few seconds, nothing seemed to 
 affect Fanny, save a feeling of sisterly re- 
 sponsibility for the manners and bearing of 
 her little brother, in whose behalf she wished 
 to bespeak my kindness, while she introduced 
 him to me. 
 
 Tom, who, from the lap of his nurse, had 
 been anxiously eyeing the visiter, was a bold, 
 resolute-looking urchin, with a square and 
 very broad forehead, which he knitted into a 
 most martial frown, when I attempted to 
 take the hand that he clenched and drew 
 back. Master Tom's attitudes were as valiant 
 in defiance as his sister's had been gentle in 
 deprecation ; but, as I am not apt to fall in 
 love with strangers at first sight myself nor 
 fond of your very civil and demonstrative 
 people I winked at Tom's repulse, and 
 wisely forebore pressing my attentions until 
 they might be more welcome. I was already 
 amused by the little maiden, who, with, a 
 look of indescribable childish blandishment, 
 whispered in Hindostanee, and caressed the 
 little fellow, as if coaxing him not to throw 
 away his friend in foolish passion, until 
 Master Tom laughed out with returning 
 good humour, and looked so much handsomer 
 when showing his white teeth, and a mouth 
 wreathed with smiles and dimples, that I 
 made a second attempt to introduce myself, 
 which again instantly overclouded him, and 
 grieved Fanny. 
 
 "Poor Tom is so yoimg dear little fellow!" 
 she whispered in her liquid infant voice, and 
 in a tone between apology, coaxing, and 
 entreaty, which might have melted a savage. 
 I felt that, if all the world were like myself, 
 the faults of turbulent Tom stood a good 
 chance of being forgiven, were it but for the 
 sake of sweet Fanny. While tliis passed, the 
 
 Ayali was gesticulating even to sputtering, 
 and addressing me in those shrill tones, which, 
 had I not been well accustomed to overhear 
 the colloquies of my fair neighbour, Mrs. 
 Plunkett, the Irish orange-woman a title, by 
 the way, this of Orange-\fom&n, Peg has, of 
 late, mightily resented I should have ima- 
 gined arrant scolding ; especially as, in the 
 course of her appeal, her dark eyes continually 
 flashed from me to the children, and shot out 
 lurid fire. So far, however, as Fanny could 
 interpret Hindostanee, the discourse of the 
 Ayah was the very reverse of hostile. It 
 was compassionate and complimentary of 
 herself a daughter of Brahma upon her 
 sacrifices for the sake of the children, and 
 her exceeding condescension in coming into 
 contact with a vile, degraded, and filthy hog- 
 eating race of Europeans. 
 
 By the kindness of the landlady, I pro- 
 cured some warm clothing for the half-naked 
 children ; and we set out for London, to which 
 I intended to return by Chatham, that Mrs. 
 Walpole, and my friend Governor Fox, might 
 see their old friend Tom Bethel's children. 
 If I was not legacy-hunting, I was friend- 
 seeking for my pretty charge. The Ayah 
 sat in the bottom of the carriage, by her own 
 request ; and Fanny, keeping constant pos- 
 session of my hand, looked from one window, 
 while Tom hallooed from another, as we 
 bowled through the rich meadows and farmy 
 fields of the Isle of Tha.net, as light-hearted 
 and happy as if the fondest parents and the 
 most genial home were awaiting us at our 
 journey's end. 
 
 Tom, by this time, did me the honour to 
 suppose I could play the tom-tom very well, 
 and to command a specimen of my powers 
 when we should get home; and, with his 
 sister's aid as interpreter, he communicated 
 many things very interesting to himself, 
 which had taken place at Allahbad, or upon 
 the voyage. Without any thing approaching 
 the grace, sweetness, and infant fascination 
 of little Fanny, Master Tom was a manly 
 and intelligent child ; and, as the brother 
 and sister, having sung a Hindostanee air 
 and said their prayers, fell asleep in my arms, 
 worn out by their own vivacity, I could not 
 help philosophizing upon the state of society, 
 or rather of factitious feeling, which made a 
 horse, a picture, or a necklace, any mark of 
 conventional distinction yea, the merest 
 trifle, be considered so important by their 
 high-born relations, and those lovely and 
 engaging creatures, gifted with such admi- 
 rable powers and wonderful faculties, be
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 considered a burden and a plague. There is 
 nothing of so little real value, save for a few 
 years to the original owners, as those small 
 germs of the lords of the creation. The value 
 of every other commodity is better maintained 
 in polished society, than what is surely, in 
 mistake, called the noblest and most valuable 
 of all. Had Tom and Fanny been a brace 
 of spaniels, or cockers of the King Charles 
 or Marlborough breed, how much easier would 
 it have been to dispose of them ! 
 
 Governor Fox kept us a day, and treated 
 us with the utmost kindness and hospitality. 
 Black Sam, whose amusing tricks probably 
 reminded Tom of his Indian bearer, ingratia- 
 ted himself with the Ayah and the children ; 
 and the Governor yielded so far to the in- 
 fantine fascination of little Fanny, as to pre- 
 sent her with a lapful of his favourite African 
 curiosities ; while he privately assured me, 
 that, if Madam Bethel and the rest failed to 
 do the handsome thing by Tom's babies, why 
 then he was a bachelor without chick or 
 child, and he would show them Northampton- 
 shire ! This he again solemnly repeated as 
 he put us into the coach for London ; and I 
 was not disposed to forget it ; for the Gover- 
 nor was none of your smooth-lipped profes- 
 sing persons. His word was his bond and 
 it carried interest, too. 
 
 The orphans were received with genuine 
 motherly kindness by my sister Anne, to 
 whom Tom at once gave that place in his 
 affections and confidence which it had taken 
 me three days to acquire. Even yet he ad- 
 mitted of no personal contact, but returned a 
 salute as often with a blow as a caress. The 
 first trial of the children in London, was 
 parting with their dark nurse, for whom we 
 found an opportunity of returning home with 
 a family going out to India. It was Tom's 
 boast that he cried first when Moomee sailed 
 away home; but it is certain that Fanny 
 cried longest. The quick sensibility of this 
 child was less remarkable than the tenacity 
 of her grief, which broke out afresh when 
 thus reminded of the loss of " poor mamma," 
 by the absence of Moomee. Time, the 
 gracious balm-shedder, usually does his work 
 of healing rapidly with patients under seven 
 years of age, but it was not altogether so 
 with Fanny Bethel ; and Tom's perverseness 
 was almost welcome to us as a diversion of 
 her sorrow. Yet Tom's rebellion scarcely 
 deserves so hard a name. Accustomed to 
 a train of Indian attendants anticipating 
 every wish, studying every glance, and fol- 
 lowing every movement like silent shadows, 
 
 YOL. I. 
 
 Master Tom, in a London nursery, felt like 
 a deposed prince, and was quite as ready to 
 play the tyrant when an occasion offered. 
 The turbulence, caprice, and open rebellion 
 in which he had been encouraged by the Ayah, 
 had threatened to subvert the mild despotism 
 of Mrs. Gifford, my sister's confidential nurse, 
 who, for eighteen years, had been as supreme 
 above stairs, in her legitimate territory, as 
 was my brother's will in the parlour, or his 
 wife's pleasure in the drawing-room. Master 
 Tom had, in a rage, torn her best lace cap, 
 threatened to throw her shawl on the fire, 
 and kicked her shins. The free-born spirit 
 of an English nurse could not brook such 
 treatment. " Did Master Tom fancy she 
 was one of his black nigger slaves ? " So, if 
 he kicked, she cuffed ; while poor little Fanny 
 was the deepest, if not the only sufferer of 
 the three. What was sport to Gifford and 
 Tom, was to her death. Soothing down 
 Tom's passion, pleading and apologizing to 
 Gifford, and weeping, while, like the Sabine 
 women, she threw herself into the strife, 
 little Fanny would clasp her brother and 
 address the nurse, whispering, in that voice 
 which no one could resist " Poor Tom is 
 so young, dear little fellow, and he has no 
 mamma now to make him good." 
 
 It was then the subdued Gifford' s turn to 
 apologize ; while Tom himself would volun- 
 teer a fraternal kiss, as if already manfully 
 conscious that the slightest atonement, on 
 his part, ought to be thankfully received by 
 Fanny. This is a lesson which little brothers 
 learn with astonishing facility, even when 
 it is not directly taught, and sometimes 
 when the very reverse is apparently incul- 
 cated. 
 
 " Gentle and easy to be entreated," Fanny 
 appeared the obliged party upon all such 
 occasions of general reconciliation ; for, to 
 her sweet nature, sullenness or unkindness 
 was the bitterest form of suffering. To live 
 surrounded with cold hearts and scowling or 
 averted eyes, was blighting and misery. In 
 the few weeks the children remained with us, 
 Fanny endeared herself to our whole circle; 
 nor did Tom want friends and admirers, who 
 were willing to place his faults to an Indian 
 education. Along with little Fanny's singu- 
 lar sweetness of nature, was the fascination 
 of her ever-wakeful and watchful affection 
 for her little brother. She already seemed 
 his unconscious guardian angel, whose salu- 
 tary influence over his wayward moods was 
 daily upon the increase. Though Tom, in 
 his violent fits, would meet a sugar plum, a 
 
 No. 7.
 
 98 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 sugared promise, or a menace, alike with a 
 blow, he would look serious and try to com- 
 mand himself, when he perceived how much 
 he afflicted Fanny. 
 
 While the children were displaying their 
 natural characters in such childish ways, 
 Mrs. Dr. Bethel was making her calculations 
 at Stockham-Magna ; the result of which 
 was, offering to take charge of Fanny, and 
 to educate her along with her own two 
 daughters. But, for the hoy! "She was 
 indeed at a loss what to do with her own 
 son women were so inadequate to training 
 boys even in their infant years." 
 
 It was not unreasonable to imagine that 
 Mr. Bethel would charge himself with the 
 education of both his nephews ; and it is 
 certainly easier to receive a little girl into a 
 family where there are already girls, than to 
 maintain a youth at school and college. In 
 the following week, I escorted the children 
 and my sister, who now made a long-pro- 
 mised visit, to Stockham-Magna. We had 
 a charming excursion. It was now near 
 midsummer the pride of the year in the 
 pastoral and woodland country we traversed. 
 And then the Rectory of Stockham-Magna 
 itself! I had never seen so picturesque, 
 so natural, so perfectly English a resting- 
 place for the musings of divine philosophy 
 for dignified intellectual repose and calm 
 meditation. Neither the district nor the 
 particular spot boasted any bold original 
 feature of scenery. A grassy vale, or, as 
 probably, a rushy one, a stream, and a few 
 knolls and slight inequalities of surface, 
 formed the groundwork from which this 
 abode of learned leisure and pastoral care had 
 been fashioned out centuries before, and 
 gradually moulded into its present beauty. 
 Episcopalian superintendence had preserved 
 and perfected what Popish taste had projec- 
 ted and so far completed ; and Time, with 
 his ripening and mellowing touches, had 
 harmonized the whole. 
 
 The buildings were of what is called the 
 Elizabethan age a phrase which I defy 
 any man to define ; though, popularly, it is 
 very well understood in its application to 
 whatever form of dwelling, be it manor-house, 
 farm-house, or parsonage, that is irregular 
 and antique, graced with tall clustered chim- 
 ney stalks, quaint windows, and an infinity 
 of intricate adjuncts, forming a picturesque 
 whole. But, if those arched and lancet 
 windows and doorways, glancing from the 
 rich sylvan garniture of ivy and trailing 
 plants, like the bright face of a young beauty 
 
 half veiled by her dishevelled ringlets, were 
 of the happy age of Elizabeth for I hold 
 them of much older date surely those 
 magnificent trees were of more ancient 
 growth. Both looked as if they had flou- 
 rished in undisturbed tranquillity for cen- 
 turies. The old walnut trees, of prodigious 
 size, which stood near the house, were pro- 
 bably finer specimens of their kind than 
 those avenues of beeches leading to the 
 " willowy brook" and piece of water, (beyond 
 the massy garden walls,) in which the swans, 
 at this hour, appeared floating as in an in- 
 verted sky, or as if nestling among the 
 trembling shadows of the bordering trees. 
 And every thing was so trim, and in such 
 high yet easy and enjoying habitable order 
 
 there was such entire freedom, with un- 
 obtrusive neatness. 
 
 My pretty companions were enchanted, as 
 I imagined, with the first view of their future 
 home ; but I subsequently discovered that 
 the small delicate spaniel and the greyhoiind 
 had attracted my friend Tom's regard, while 
 Fanny rejoiced in those troops of doves that, 
 on the roof of the porch and at every "coigne 
 of vantage," were cooing, in drowsy mur- 
 murs, as they luxuriously basked in the sun. 
 Truly some small portion of that pail of the 
 national wealth called the great tithes of 
 Stockham-Magna, could hardly be better 
 expended than in preserving the beauty and 
 order of this ecclesiastical abode, had it been 
 no more than as a picture and ornament to 
 the neighbourhood. Dear, good, and haply 
 honest and enlightened church-reformer, 
 wheresoever your zeal may carry the besom 
 and direct the ploughshare, do, in the name 
 of natural taste and gentle antiquity, spare 
 me the Rectory of Stockham-Magna ! By 
 the memory of the hundreds of solemn festi- 
 vals and holyday tides, and of the wakes and 
 processions which it has witnessed by the 
 ever fresh beauty of that terraced garden 
 by those clipt monster yews, and that box- 
 hedge, broad and high as the walls of ancient 
 Babylon, the wonder and pride of the county 
 
 by that quaintly-carved, heavy clial, with 
 its rich and cumbrous masonry : by all 
 this, and by the mightier conjuration of the 
 memory of good men's feasts, and of those 
 social charities which, long gathering in a 
 hundredfold, dispensed at the rate of ten or 
 five spare me this one cosie nest of the life 
 called holy and the leisure named learned ; 
 this pleasant land of drowsyhead, where a 
 succession of mild, gentlemanly persons for 
 generations lived a tranquil, elegant, semi-
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL. 
 
 99 
 
 sensual life, undisturbed by Methodists, 
 Ranters, Radical prints, and the School- 
 master : spare me but this one memorial of 
 the times when as yet the reverential pea- 
 santry had not surmised, that warmer affec- 
 tion for their pigs and corn-sheaves emanated 
 from the Rectory, than for either the com- 
 fort of their bodies or the care of their souls. 
 
 The appearance of a lady's cap, at one of 
 the embowered lower windows, must have 
 recalled the wandering attention of little 
 Fanny, and the noise of the chaise- wheels on 
 the instant brought all the Bethels of Stock- 
 ham-Magna to the porch, to welcome the 
 orphans of Allahbad. "Oh, Tom, do be a 
 good boy ! " whispered Fanny, kissing him, 
 as she anxiously adjusted his shirt-frill, and 
 shaded back his hair, while the carriage drew 
 up. 
 
 " Aunt Bethel " performed her part very 
 well. She received the orphans in her 
 maternal arms with good and graceful effect ; 
 spoke not too much ; and, while she gave 
 her hand to my sister, suppressed the start- 
 ing tears. Fanny pressed her lips to the 
 lady's hand in her own sweet fashion ; and, 
 alarmed at Tom's sturdy backwardness, 
 whispered, in her pretty imperfect English, 
 her wonted apologetic " Tom is so young, 
 poor little fellow ! and he has no mamma 
 now to make him good." Every one was 
 melted. Her two cousins, Harriet and 
 Fanny, affectionately kissed " Allahbad 
 Fanny," and shook hands, almost in spite 
 of him, with Tom, whom their brother 
 Henry soon carried off on some boyish quest 
 Fanny's eyes anxiously following them, as 
 if she were afraid that her turbulent charge 
 might, in some way, compromise himself 
 with these new friends, even in the first 
 hour. The ladies were now engaged in con- 
 versation ; and it was from me, to whom she 
 sidled up, that Fanny entreated leave to 
 follow " poor Tom." The leave was instantly 
 granted by Mrs. Bethel; and the children, 
 in the glow of novelty, went out in a group. 
 It was now that my sister eloquently expa- 
 tiated upon the sweet disposition and affec- 
 tionate nature of little Fanny, her gentle 
 docility, and remarkable attachment to her 
 little brother. " Poor little creatures ! they 
 love each other the better for having nothing 
 else to love 1 " was her concluding observation, 
 while tears glistened in her eyes. My good 
 sister, perhaps, showed more tenderness than 
 discretion, in thus addressing the future 
 patroness of Fanny ; but that lady, a rigid 
 and zealous worshipper of all the family of 
 
 the Decorums and Proprieties, performed her 
 part to admiration neither overdoing, nor 
 yet falling short of what ought to be expected 
 from her, or was due to position and circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Our stay, which was to have been for a 
 fortnight, was with difficulty prolonged to a 
 week. My sister, upon hearing that some of 
 her children had colds, affected fully as much 
 home-sickness as she really felt ; for the 
 studious observance of every rite of hospi- 
 tality, and the most scrupulous politeness, 
 did not compensate for a certain feeling of 
 restraint, a lack of that frank, social, cordial- 
 ity which it is much easier to understand than 
 to explain. Our mutual sympathy on these 
 points, and our affection for the orphan chil- 
 dren, made us both sedulous though tacit 
 observers of the characters of those among 
 whom they were thrown. 
 
 In the disputes which early arose between 
 the boys, though Mrs. Dr. Bethel, like a 
 female Brutus, gave judgment against her 
 own son, on consideration of Tom being a 
 spoilt child, of little more than half his age, 
 it was easy to see to which side her heart 
 inclined. Then Tom, with his tricks and 
 wilfulness, kept her in a state of perpetual 
 nervous apprehension. He was for ever in 
 perils or scrapes, and seducing his cousins 
 into like adventures. Nature had stamped 
 him a bold, resolute, daring imp ; and his five 
 months' voyage had confirmed the tendency. 
 Now he was tumbling into the pond ; now 
 embarking in tubs 011 voyages of discovery; 
 next plunging into the dog-kennel, or running 
 among the horses' feet ; and encouraging 
 Henry to climb the walnut trees, up into 
 which the unbreeched urchin would leap like 
 a squirrel, laughing at the screams and re- 
 monstrances of nurse-maids and cousins. 
 
 But Fanny was naturally as tractable as 
 Tom was rebellious. It was astonishing how 
 soon she learned, as if by instinct, that she 
 was to have no will, no property, no pleasure, 
 that was not at the sufferance and mercy of 
 her cousins ; because her name-sake, Frances, 
 was "such a child," and Harriet's health 
 " was so delicate." It was equally astonish- 
 ing how quickly Tom, as if by a similar 
 instinct, constituted himself her champion, 
 and did battle for her rights, in the nursery 
 or the garden, in spite of herself, and long 
 before he understood the language of those 
 around him who were invading them. 
 
 Among the toys which Fanny had brought 
 from London, was a Dutch milkwoman in 
 complete costume, which Harriet, who loved
 
 ICO 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 every thing that was novel, and admired 
 whatever was not her own, appropriated 
 without much ceremony ; and which Tom 
 reclaimed with even less. In the struggle, 
 the Dutch lady was denuded, and Harriet, 
 who was at the age when children shed their 
 teeth, lost one of hers in the fray, and was 
 brought bleeding into the drawing-room, fol- 
 lowed by a maid dragging in the sturdy 
 culprit, accompanied by the weeping Fanny. 
 One might have excused a mother for being 
 at first alarmed and offended, though the 
 criminal was almost an infant ; but what 
 came out, in the course of investigation, 
 ought to have produced a more impartial 
 judgment and a mitigated punishment. 
 
 But Harriet's tooth was gone, and it had 
 been followed by a few drops of blood and 
 torrents of vengeful tears ; and she protested 
 that she did not mean to keep the Frau 
 Jansen the Dutchwoman, the unlucky 
 Helen of this new Trojan war but only 
 for a day or so, to look at her. Tom was 
 summarily adjudged to solitary confinement 
 in the housemaid's broom closet, on the attic 
 floor, and was led off, persisting in dogged 
 silence, while Fanny sobbed as if her little 
 heart would burst. From that hour, open 
 hostilities were proclaimed between Tom and 
 the family, which never again ceased for 
 many years, save during some temporary, and 
 always hollow truce. 
 
 When I left the ladies in the drawing- 
 room after dinner, on the day of Tom's punish- 
 ment, I sought the children in the Wilderness, 
 where they generally Avent, with their atten- 
 dant, at this sultry hour : but no Fanny was 
 there. 
 
 " She is naughty, too," said her little name- 
 sake, tossing her head with the air of a small 
 woman and a thorough family partisan. I 
 followed up the adventure by seeking out my 
 little friend. She was sitting on the garret 
 stairs, at the door of Tom's prison, whispering 
 to him through the key-hole. The sight of a 
 sympathizing friend for nature had already 
 told her that I was one made Fanny's tears 
 flow afresh, and she began to sob out her 
 little apology, as senseless, perhaps, as the 
 reiterated wail of a lapwing, but as plaintive 
 " Poor Tom is so young, poor little fellow," 
 &c. &c. I played the discreet part for once, 
 and led her to her aunt. Tom was released, 
 on our joint pleading an amnesty was pro- 
 claimed and Frau Jansen, like one of the 
 wantonly-sacrificed minor powers at a general 
 pacification, was made a bonfire of. 
 
 We left the Rectory next morning, Fanny 
 
 weeping abundantly to part with us, while 
 Tom would have been well contented to 
 return to London, which he proposed to do, 
 had his sister not been condemned to remain 
 behind him. I have seldom seen my sister 
 Anne more affected, than when we fairly got 
 out of sight, and when she first gave un- 
 restrained way to her feelings a tender 
 mother's foreboding feelings for orphan chil- 
 dren ! 
 
 That dear little Fanny ! how perilous to 
 a creature situated like her were those gifts 
 which nature had so lavishly bestowed that 
 tenderness and quick sensibility to which the 
 contact of the cold and the selfish must bring 
 either blighting or perversion ! 
 
 Turbulent and rebellious as Master Tom 
 continued to be a care and often a grief to 
 his sister I believe he was her greatest bless- 
 ing too ; for, with all his faults, he sincerely 
 loved her, and he was one being on whom 
 her affectionate feelings could expand them- 
 selves unchecked. No one, I believe, brings 
 into this world a heart like Fanny's, without 
 finding something to love, even in the very 
 worst circumstances : but Fanny found so 
 much to love in every one with whom she 
 came in contact, until Tom, as he grew up, 
 began to despise the affection she bore to 
 many persons whom he hated, as girlish 
 poltroonery ', or almost meanness ; and he even 
 charged her with hypocrisy in her attach- 
 ment to an aunt who had riot been too kind, 
 and to cousins not too gentle. But Tom 
 durst not persist in an accusation to which 
 his heart gave the lie as strongly as did 
 Fanny's silent tears. 
 
 Tom had been early sent off to school with 
 his cousin Henry ; and when the returning 
 holydays brought the boys to the Rectory, 
 the Allahbad Bethels, in again meeting each 
 other, were almost as happy as the children 
 gathered beneath the wing of their mother. 
 Then came a full interchange of hearts and 
 confidence, as with interwined arms the 
 orphans wandered away together through 
 the woods and dells of Bethel's Court, which 
 converged on the narrow grounds of the 
 Rectory. Tom was more and more asto- 
 nished, and almost angry, in every succeeding 
 year, while he was below fifteen, that Fanny 
 had so little or rather nothing to complain of 
 no quarrel that he could adopt no enemy 
 on which his prowess might revenge her. 
 
 In all this time, I had never seen Fanny 
 Bethel nor her brother, though I had occa- 
 sionally corresponded with both. Indeed, I 
 believe that I was for some years Fanny's
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL. 
 
 101 
 
 only correspondent ; and, as my epistles 
 always accompanied my sister's well-executed 
 town commissions, and presents of toys and 
 books for the Rectory children, they were 
 probably tolerated, if not welcome. 
 
 For the first six years after I had seen 
 her, Fanny partook of the instructions of the 
 governess Mrs. Bethel had engaged for her 
 own daughters ; and, blessed with a humble, 
 loving nature, meekness and submissiveness 
 cost her less effort than any other creature I 
 ever knew, and I believe that her childhood 
 was not unhappy. But a more critical age 
 was arriving, and Providence was silently 
 opening up new resources to the orphan girl. 
 
 The sisters of Mr. Whitstone, the Rector 
 of Stockham-Magna, had, some years after 
 the arrival of the Allahbad Bethels, settled 
 in the neighbouring town of Wincham, to be 
 near their brother, who, though his nominal 
 residence was the Rectory, oftener lived with 
 them. These respectable old maiden ladies, 
 the daughters of a deceased clergyman, were, 
 of course, as near in degree of kindred to Mrs. 
 Dr. Bethel as was their brother, though she 
 never seemed to know this. The younger, 
 Miss Rebecca Whitstone though younger 
 was here but a relative term, for she was 
 almost fifty was merely a good, plain, useful, 
 and active person, sincerely devoted to her 
 brother and her elder sister, Miss Hannah, 
 who had obtained over her the influence 
 which a strong mind is said to hold over a 
 feeble one within its range. The latter lady 
 had been an invalid from a very early age, 
 in consequence of a fall from horseback ; and, 
 to afford occupation and exercise to an un- 
 commonly active intellect, she had afterwards 
 received from her father what is termed a 
 learned education, which, however, had none 
 of the effects that learning is said to pro- 
 duce upon female minds. She did read the 
 classics in the originals for that was her 
 solace as she lay the livelong day upon the 
 couch to which her helpless lameness confined 
 her ; and she studied the sciences ; and in 
 astronomy, in particular, was believed, even 
 by her brother's old college companions, to 
 have made astonishing progress ; and not 
 " for a woman : " that mortifying qualifi- 
 cation was, in her case, withheld. Simply, 
 she had made astonishing progress, and even 
 discoveries, in science. With all this deep 
 learning, and a taste for refined literature, 
 Miss Whitstone was a woman of magnani- 
 mous feelings and high principles ; pleasant, 
 kind, and social in her manners ; tinctured 
 with high-souled romance, and yet not above 
 
 her surrounding world of Wincham. She 
 also possessed a flexible vein of humour, 
 which had made her conversation exceedingly 
 captivating to young and old, before her 
 acquirements had risen in judgment against 
 her ; and Miss Whitstone's invalid chamber 
 came in time to be, after a certain hour of 
 the morning, the levee-room of the privileged 
 talent and modest worth of Wincham. It 
 was the rallying point of its best, if not its 
 finest society ; though, this being a small 
 town where no one was liable to be com- 
 promised, the very finest yea, even stray 
 specimens of the " county people " were 
 among Miss Whitstone's occasional visitors. 
 It was even said that matches had been, if 
 not made, yet certainly helped on, around her 
 invalid chair ; though the parties were not 
 of such consideration as to make Mrs. Dr. 
 Bethel desirous (now that Harriet was twenty, 
 and her own Fanny seventeen) that her 
 daughters should often appear among the 
 learned lady's bonny blue belles. 
 
 If there be such a thing as sympathetic 
 attachment and I am sure there are spon- 
 taneous feelings which are quite equivalent 
 to it such had grown up between the invalid 
 Miss Whitstone and the orphan Fanny. The 
 Rector himself came, in time, to partake of 
 an affection so warmly felt by his favourite 
 sister ; and the notable Miss Rebecca, moved 
 by these considerations, and the gentleness 
 and good looks of the child, early and kindly 
 began, characteristically, to attend to little 
 omissions and flaws in gloves and ribbons, 
 and shoes and stockings, which a mother's 
 eye prevented from appearing in her cousins. 
 During a year that those young ladies were 
 sent to a first-rate finishing seminary near 
 London, Fanny, who had often spent happy 
 days, weeks, and months with the poor Miss 
 Whitstones, lived with them altogether, to 
 enjoy the advantage of such masters as chance 
 and the London holydays relieved, by changing 
 the scene of their professional fagging, from 
 a very great town to a very small one. 
 
 One of these was a drawing-master whom 
 I had introduced by letter to the Miss Whit- 
 stones. It was certainly a misfortune 
 but, in this locality, no ineradicable blot 
 that the Rector's sisters, for a certain part of 
 the year, let their first floor to such respec- 
 table lodgers, as being single men, and 
 certainly gentlemen were well recommended 
 to them. Mr. Edmund, the gentleman I had 
 recommended, was a painter, and a gifted 
 one, as was proved by the beautiful contents 
 of his portfolio, and a few finished cabinet
 
 102 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 specimens which he carried down ; but he 
 seemed to receive little or no encouragement 
 in Wincham to open classes for teaching his 
 art ; and he spent his time, either in reading 
 or rambling about the surrounding country, 
 of which one of the most attractive spots, to 
 an artist, was the beautiful park of Bethel's 
 Court. Miss Rebecca was concerned that a 
 lodger so regular in all his habits, so gentle- 
 manlike in his manners, so nice in his linen, 
 and so punctual with his bills, should find 
 no pupils ; and Miss Whitstone, stretched 
 upon her invalid couch, was doubly vexed, 
 first, because it must be annoying to a man 
 whose business is to teach drawing, to have 
 no one to teach ; and, secondly, that she 
 could not afford to engage his services wholly 
 for Fanny, and thus an opportunity might 
 be lost such as was never likely to recur, 
 for when would so masterly an artist again 
 appear in Wincham ? Besides, Fanny had 
 a decided genius for painting. Miss Whit- 
 stone had, indeed, a knack of discovering 
 natural genius for every thing high and 
 amiable in Fanny. Her first delightful dis- 
 covery had been Fanny's exceeding genius 
 for loving, and especially for loving her 
 brother Tom ; while to Fanny, Miss Whit- 
 stone's earliest, and still dearest charm, was 
 discovering good qualities in "poor Tom," 
 even in his perverse early boyhood ; which 
 no one else would allow. " Give a dog an 
 ill name and hang him," says the proverb ; 
 and the converse holds as strongly. Miss 
 Whitstone was ever anxious to find out, and 
 place in the proper light, young Bethel's 
 good qualities ; and they germinated and ex- 
 panded in the warmth of her generous culture 
 and encouragement, while others could only 
 perceive the ill weeds waxing apace. Fanny, 
 who had, for several years, been her aman- 
 uensis, never performed that duty with more 
 good will, than when Miss Whitstone wrote 
 to Eton to Tom, sending him those affection- 
 ate counsels which his respect for her made 
 effectual for the moment, and which, in 
 tenderness, only a mother could have ex- 
 ceeded ; and those directions for his subor- 
 dinate studies which few mothers have the 
 power of giving, and not many fathers. 
 
 From the time that he had, at three years' 
 old, traversed so much of the wide ocean, 
 Tom's decided vocation had been the sea. 
 This would seem almost an instinct with 
 some boys, as if implanted by nature to 
 facilitate the intercourse and promote the 
 civilisation and happiness of mankind ; and 
 Tom Bethel was of the predestined salt-water 
 
 number. But his uncle, who had never yet 
 seen him, had decided that Tom, the would- 
 be sailor, should be Thomas the forced divine ; 
 and the boy had no choice save submission 
 or running away to sea, which he would 
 willingly have done at every school vacation, 
 save for Fanny's sake ; but, as Tom advanced 
 nearer the years of discretion, he began to 
 think better of a mode of life which, as soon 
 as he got through the university, and one of 
 the family livings fell vacant, opened a home 
 to that gentle sister. He would even have 
 submitted to the death of Mr. Whitstone as 
 soon as he had obtained orders himself, and 
 have felt no remorse at depriving his aunt of 
 her alleged simoniacal share of the great 
 tithes ; because he squared this want of affec- 
 tion to his own conscience, by arranging 
 that Miss Whitstone and Miss Rebecca could 
 then live with Fanny and himself at the 
 Rectory, like gentlewomen ; and give up 
 letting first-floors to itinerant painters and 
 drawing-masters. Tom, as a male branch 
 of the house of Bethel, though one of the 
 barest, had not been for seven years at a 
 public school, without acquiring ideas of 
 family consequence and of style quite beyond 
 those of his sister ; though, on some points, 
 they were qualified by generous exceptions 
 for plebeian friends. 
 
 In the first season of Mr. Edmund appear- 
 ing at Wincham as a portrait-painter with- 
 out sitters, and a drawing-master without 
 pupils, he had been tolerated by the lively 
 Eton lad, in consideration of Miss Whit- 
 stone's esteem, what Tom reckoned his un- 
 obtrusive modesty, and the quiet refinement 
 of his manners ; but, in the second summer, 
 when Tom found him almost domesticated 
 in the family parlour, and the companion of 
 Fanny in sketching-practice excursions round 
 the country, the young gentleman and he 
 was not quite sixteen took an affair in 
 dudgeon, which had already been seriously 
 discussed in Miss Collins the milliner's back- 
 shop, by her best customers, and at more 
 than one tea-table of the town. Now, in 
 Wincham, Allahbad Fanny was a general 
 and a great favourite ; which was the more 
 remarkable, as she had never courted popu- 
 larity, and was in no condition either to 
 grace with her favour, or patronize by her 
 interest. Howsoever it may fare with other 
 country towns, I can assure my readers that a 
 young lady who enjoyed the united suffrages 
 of Wincham, was in circumstances as rare as 
 enviable. And even now there was censure; 
 but Miss Whitstone, with her learning
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL. 
 
 103 
 
 and her odd ways, was more blamed than 
 Fanny Bethel, for those rural outbreaks 
 which were held a gross and daring innova- 
 tion on all the ruled proprieties of this com- 
 munity. That the curate's orphan daughter, 
 Patty, whom her aunt, .Miss Collins, was 
 educating for a governess, shared in Fanny's 
 lessons, and generally in her sketching ex- 
 cursions, was a shallow blind, at which they 
 and Tom Bethel laughed outright, the latter 
 angrily. As for Miss Whitstone sanctioning 
 this kind of intercourse learned, clever, 
 and excellent woman, as she undoubtedly 
 was how, as Tom justly thought, was any 
 provincial elderly lady, such as she, to know 
 the world and mankind like an Eton scholar,? 
 As the natural protector of his sister, it was 
 become Tom's duty to interfere, and to as- 
 sume a part which female guardians and 
 friends had so obviously neglected. No time 
 was to be lost. But how was Tom to scold 
 Fanny that dear, kind, generous, and most 
 disinterested creature, whom every one loved 
 yes! even worldly Aunt Bethel who, 
 from infancy had had no hope, no joy, no 
 being save in him ? No ! Tom could not 
 scold, nor even remonstrate ; but he heartily 
 abused both the Mesdames Bethel, who so 
 improperly deserted their duty to their orphan 
 niece ; and then playfully, or at least in a 
 way Tom meant to be playful, he rallied 
 Fanny first upon her intimacy with all the 
 vulgar spinsters and dowagers of Wincham, 
 and next upon her new passion for sketching 
 from nature. Fanny's blushes and evident 
 distress stopped the current of Tom's wit, 
 and quickened his fears ; and now he re- 
 minded her, still with affected pleasantry, 
 (for Tom was very sly,) of her birth as a 
 Bethel, beggar Bethel as, in the meanwhile, 
 she was ; and of the matrimonial distinctions 
 her eminent personal advantages and family 
 connexions entitled her to look for, were she 
 only placed where she ought to be, and thus 
 seen, admired, and courted by the noble, the 
 wealthy, and the honourable. Fanny laughed 
 now, and Tom was displeased. There was 
 implied ridicule of his judgment and know- 
 ledge of life, in the tone of her laughter ; and 
 these were points on which Tom was at this 
 time very susceptible ; yet he would have 
 forgiven this in consideration of her secluded 
 education, and innate modesty and humility 
 of character, save for the many cross acci- 
 dents that were arising to mar her splendid 
 fortunes. Her cousins had lately returned 
 from their finishing school, and lengthened 
 visits to fashionable friends and relatives ; 
 
 with much of that high-toned air, that 
 manner and style, so captivating to Tom and 
 his brother Etonians ; and in which Fanny, 
 retiring, shy, sensitive, was still so lamen- 
 tably deficient. That his own sister, "Little 
 Fanny," as she continued to be named, long 
 after her graceful pliant figure overtopped all 
 the females of her family, was beyond com- 
 parison a lovelier, and far more lovedble girl, 
 than either the cold, stately, fashionable 
 looking Harriet, or the vivacious, pretty, 
 petulant Fan, he was most reluctant to 
 doubt ; but then, schoolboys imagining 
 themselves youths, and college-lads fancying 
 themselves men, had admired the thorough- 
 bred air and style of the Rectory Bethels, at 
 a Music Meeting, and had altogether passed 
 over Allahbad Fanny, who had been left to 
 the attentions of Mr. Edmund, her drawing- 
 master, and a little good-natured notice from 
 her cousin Henry, who had always been kind 
 to her. Now, the above were immutable 
 authorities with Tom in all questions of taste. 
 It is true, Henry Bethel, who was also be- 
 coming a judge of ladies, wines, and horses, 
 and who, moreover, was now of Christ Church, 
 made some atonement, by declaring, after a 
 couple of bottles of wine, that, though his 
 sister Harriet was certainly a showy, dashing 
 girl, and Frances a pretty creature enough, 
 neither were to be compared in a summer's 
 day with little Allahbad Fanny ; and he con- 
 cluded, by washing that he were a rich man 
 for her sake though his mother must not 
 hear of this. Tom, both gratified and resent- 
 ful, was compelled to gulp as much of this 
 declaration as his pride could not swallow ; 
 and now he fancied he had found a cue to 
 Mrs. Dr. Bethel giving up so much of her 
 niece's society to " poor Cousin Whitstone, 
 to whom little Fanny was always such a 
 comfort." It is probable that Mrs. Bethel 
 had not very overwhelming fears of imme- 
 diate danger from a constant domestic inter- 
 course between her niece and her son still, 
 it was prudent to be guarded. Her daughters 
 were now to be introduced into life ; and she 
 felt that two marriageable young ladies were 
 quite enough at a time in one family. Two 
 young ladies might be admissible into small 
 social parties, where three could not be 
 thought of. Besides, Mrs. Bethel was pru- 
 dently doubtful, how far it was proper to give 
 Fanny a taste for gaieties and a condition 
 of life that she had so slender a chance of 
 permanently enjoying. Of her personal at- 
 tractions she really was not afraid. A 
 mother's vanity had probably blinded her to
 
 104 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 what to every one else appeared her main 
 reason for rarely producing her niece along 
 with her daughters. The master of the Free 
 Grammar School of Wincham, a protege of 
 Miss Whitstone's and an estimable young 
 man, who had lately obtained the Lecture- 
 ship of St. Nicolas, was understood to admire 
 Fanny, and only to wait for some better 
 piece of preferment to make his proposal in 
 form ; and Mr. Edmund, the artist, also a 
 highly respectable young man, with remark- 
 able talents, and one who, if properly intro- 
 duced and pushed in London in the portrait- 
 line, could not fail to realize a handsome 
 income, and probably to keep a carriage, 
 was believed to be deeply attached to his 
 pupil; though Fanny herself, when questioned, 
 denied the possibility of this attachment, 
 even with tears. Mr. Edmund, she said, 
 though at first he seemed to like her society, 
 probably for the sake of Miss Whitstone's 
 conversation, and from the love of his art, to 
 which Fanny was for the time enthusiasti- 
 cally devoted, had been silent, distant, and 
 almost studiously cold in his manners to her, 
 particularly of late. He could have no 
 thoughts of her. 
 
 " Well, child, there is no use crying about 
 it, at any rate," said the aunt ; " but, as I do 
 not, on such grounds, give up my own opinion, 
 I shall write to-night to Mr. Richard Taylor, 
 inquiring farther about the gentleman." 
 Fanny, horrified by the indelicacy of this 
 proceeding, implored her aunt's forbearance, 
 and protested again and again that Mr. Ed- 
 mund's attentions to herself had been only 
 those of a friend and amiable instructor, to 
 one whom he considered merely as a child ; 
 but she betrayed so much emotion in her 
 denial, that Mrs. Bethel, with one of her dis- 
 comfiting, keen, worldly, penetrating looks, 
 abruptly turned from her, and went to Miss 
 Whitstone in the next room, whom she 
 bluntly taxed with having suffered Fanny to 
 entangle her affections with this " paragon 
 painter." The accused lady as flatly dis- 
 claimed the instrumentality as Fanny herself 
 could have done the deed ; but she acknow- 
 ledged that, if old signs held, Mr. Edmund, 
 into whose praise she launched with anima- 
 tion, did seem, and that, indeed, for successive 
 years he had seemed to feel a very deep 
 interest in her young friend ; and, moreover, 
 that Fanny did not appear indifferent to his 
 opinion of her. 
 
 Mrs. Dr. Bethel did not lose a post in in- 
 quiring into the character and professional 
 prospects of Mr. Edmund ; and I did not ; 
 
 keep her an hour in suspense. The character 
 of the gentleman was every thing that could 
 render a reasonable and amiable woman 
 and, above all, one of the quiet, affectionate, 
 and humble character of little Fanny Bethel 
 perfectly happy. His talents, as an artist, 
 spoke for themselves they were eminent 
 but his professional prospects depended en- 
 tirely upon his own industry and perseverance. 
 The answer was perfectly satisfactory to Mrs. 
 Bethel ; and she resolved to have an expla- 
 natory communing with Mr. Edmund next 
 day ; and wrote to him that, if every thing 
 was as she imagined, she would not hesitate 
 to give her sanction to his addresses to her 
 niece, which she had no doubt would be fol- 
 lowed by that of the family abroad. 
 
 Poor Fanny was in an agony of distress. 
 She would, at the moment, have gladly con- 
 sented never to see Mr. Edmund again in 
 this world ; never listen to his delightful 
 conversation with Miss Whitstoue ; never 
 again enjoy one of their social reading even- 
 ings, or one of those charming sketching 
 rambles, in which his conversation was, if 
 possible, still more captivating than at other 
 times though it was not easy to recall much 
 of it rather than that he should imagine 
 her the indelicate, forward, imwomanly, vain 
 girl, who had so grossly misconstrued and 
 misrepresented his attentions, that he must 
 now be subjected to the coarse questioning of 
 her relatives. 
 
 This was certainly the most wretched day 
 of Fanny Bethel's whole life. Twenty times 
 she began to write to Mr. Edmund, protesting 
 her own innocence, and her horror at the 
 course her aunt had followed ; but natural 
 timidity, and the same delicacy of feeling 
 which prompted this bold step, prevented its 
 execution. She applied to Miss Whitstone, 
 who was also become uneasy and perplexed 
 between her yoxing friends, though, upon the 
 whole, pleased with the prospect of an expla- 
 nation, which, she was assured, would pro- 
 duce satisfactory results. 
 
 " But, my dear Fanny," said this lady, 
 with a certain air of benevolent humour 
 " let me exactly understand what I am to 
 say to Mr. Edmund : That you are not in 
 love with him? but that might have been 
 left to my own discretion. Or is it that you 
 do not believe never did believe nor ever 
 will believe, that he is in love with you ? " 
 
 Fanny wept from vexation. " Dear ma'am, 
 I am sure you understand quite well what I 
 mean." 
 
 " Indeed, I think I do but cannot be
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL. 
 
 105 
 
 sure. But here comes Tom, who may help 
 me. Do you know that all the gossips of 
 Wincham are obligingly giving your sister 
 Mr. Edmund as a lover, Tom ? " 
 
 " And that she disclaims him as such, and 
 the honour altogether," cried Tom petulantly. 
 
 " I do ! I do ! " exclaimed Fanny. "Mr. 
 Edmund think of me ! Good heavens ! 
 With his fine talents and genius, and thou- 
 sand, thousand amiable qualities, to think of 
 poor little me ! foolish me, who always 
 feel like a child beside him, and Avho was 
 never so happy as when long ago he treated 
 me as one ! " 
 
 " Confound your humility, Miss Fanny 
 Bethel ! " cried the Etonian. " It is some- 
 what out of place." 
 
 " How was it possible that Fanny could 
 believe any man could admire so disagreeable 
 and plain a little girl as herself ? " said Miss 
 Whitstone, laughing. " Yet, even in the 
 case of Mr. Edmund, it is, in my humble 
 judgment, a conquest she may very well be 
 proud of, yet without doubting its absolute 
 possibility." 
 
 " Proud, ma'am ! " returned the fuming 
 Etonian, only restrained from the violent 
 expression of anger by his deep respect for 
 Miss Whitstone. "Give me leave to say, 
 ma'am, that, though any man ay, any man 
 in all England might be proud of gaining 
 the affections of Captain Bethel's daughter 
 of my sister Fanny, ma'am I see no 
 occasion for her being overpowered with 
 gratitude for the attentions of any gentleman 
 whatever, even although his birth and station 
 in society entitled him to address her." 
 
 Poor Fanny had never in her life felt 
 so self-abased as by this attempt to exalt 
 her ; and, almost inarticulately, she implored 
 her brother to say no more on the subject, 
 and gave way to another burst of tears ; 
 while Miss Whitstone, frankly extending her 
 hand in amity to Tom, declared that they 
 had come exactly to the same conclusion, 
 though from different premises " There was 
 indeed no man in England, whatever his rank 
 or fortune, who might not be proud of gain- 
 ing the heart of little Fanny by her own 
 self, Fanny." Upon this, Tom kissed his 
 sister, and playfully adopting the language 
 of their childhood, promised to be " a good 
 boy if Fanny would not cry no more." 
 
 There was thus the appearance of sunshine 
 after showers, when Fortune, who delights 
 in games of cross purposes, sent Mr. Edmund 
 himself into the apartment, which he entered 
 in some haste. Tom was still hanging over 
 
 Fanny's chair, and Fanny had been in tears. 
 The painter looked with interest to the brother 
 and sister, and with meaning to Miss Whit- 
 stone, as if he required her permission to re- 
 main. She invited him to sit down ; and 
 Tom, with a sudden assumption of the dignity 
 becoming the presumptive heir of the mort- 
 gaged acres of Bethel's Court, drew his sister's 
 arm within his own, and, bowing slightly to 
 Miss Whitstone, said, " I require Miss Bethel's 
 presence in another apartment, ma'am." The 
 lady smiled in mingled pity and amusement ; 
 but anxiety for Fanny was predominant 
 over every other feeling, and she was glad 
 when Mr. Edmund very naturally led to the 
 subject, by remarking, with a smile, " Tom 
 Bethel is in his altitudes to-night but I 
 am sure he loves his sister ? " 
 
 " More than his life I'll say that for 
 him," returned Miss Whitstone : and a con- 
 versation was begun which Fanny fancied 
 would never end, and during which Tom 
 returned to his present head-quarters at the 
 Rectory. When Fanny, after Mr. Edmund 
 had withdrawn, ran in to say good-night to 
 her friend, and, perhaps, to hear all she could 
 hear without the direct inquiry she could 
 not venture to make, Miss .Whitstone in- 
 formed her that Mr. Edmund was suddenly 
 called away, and had left his farewell com- 
 pliments for her, as he was to set off by the 
 mail at midnight. Poor Fanny ! Miss 
 Whitstone was too generous to look at, much 
 less to speak to her. She sent her away to 
 search for a book ; and Fanny returned in 
 ten minutes, protesting that she was so 
 thankful Mr. Edmund was to go, as this 
 would disconcert the horrid scheme of her 
 aunt Bethel. 
 
 Next morning, rather earlier than her 
 usual hour, Fanny appeared at the bedside 
 of her friend, looking pale, perhaps, though 
 she seemed almost in flighty spirits, while 
 she craved leave of absence for a morning's 
 ramble in the woods of Bethel's Court, with 
 only Patty Collins. 
 
 Before this plan to which Miss Whitstone 
 consented, with silent, meaning caresses, that 
 drew grateful tears from her favourite 
 could be put in execution, Mrs. Bethel's 
 carriage drove up to the door, with the whole 
 family of the Rectory. Letters had been 
 received that morning, announcing the death 
 of Mrs. Bethel at Aix-la-Chapelle, an event 
 which changed the whole prospects of the 
 family, to whom her large independent for- 
 tune was thus completely lost. And Mr. 
 Bethel might marry again, and Tom and
 
 106 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Henry thus be thrown back in the succession 
 to even those poor remnants of the original 
 property, which, meanwhile however, Mrs. 
 Dr. Bethel had a shrewd notion were bur- 
 dened beyond their yearly revenue. 
 
 While despatching notes, receiving con- 
 dolences, and looking over silks and muslins, 
 crapes and bombazeens, and giving orders 
 for mourning, Mrs. Bethel could yet find 
 time to notice, sarcastically, the precipitate 
 retreat of Mr. Edmund, to whom she had 
 intimated her wish for an interview and ex- 
 planatory conversation at the Rectory. 
 
 " I cannot allow myself to believe that it 
 is indifference to the subject of the intended 
 conversation, which has made Mr. Edmund 
 avoid you at this time, cousin ; or any thing 
 but the simple reason he has assigned 
 business. But I may refer to his note for 
 your better information." Miss Whitstone 
 handed the sealed letter intrusted to her to 
 the lady to whom it was addressed, and who 
 tore it open without farther ceremony, and 
 rapidly skimmed the contents. 
 
 " Well, this is very proper now ; and 
 quite well expressed. He does propose for 
 Fanny, or means to do so, as soon as he 
 obtains the consent of her natural guardians. 
 I can answer for Mr. Bethel and as to my- 
 self. Well, I am pleased at having brought 
 
 the man to the point. This late heavy loss 
 makes Fanny's marriage, in almost any 
 respectable way, more than ever desirable. 
 Her uncle will now have more than enough 
 to do with himself. My own children are 
 just at the age when the expenses of a family 
 come to be seriously felt. How Tom's cleri- 
 cal education is now to be carried through, I 
 cannot foresee. Perhaps your brother may 
 get him to the university as a sizar though 
 the sea, to which he seems bom, and for 
 which he has so strong an inclination, might 
 be better still." 
 
 There was but one reason against overset- 
 ting Tom's present views. If Fanny were 
 once fairly married, and if Tom obtained one 
 of the family livings, there might be a pis- 
 aller for her youngest daughter. But, at 
 present, she had a first duty to perform, and, 
 snatching a pen, she instantly wrote her full 
 consent and approbation of Mr. Edmund's 
 addresses to her niece, with many well-turned 
 compliments to himself, and phrases of ma- 
 ternal endearment in relation to Fanny. 
 Miss Whitstone, having twice hinted, " Are 
 you not precipitate, cousin, with the death of 
 Mrs. Bethel so recent?" looked silently on, 
 until the letter was folded, when she obtained 
 
 an answer. " Not a bit too precipitate, 
 cousin. The sooner little Fanny is settled 
 the better. The small the very small 
 allowance her uncle has hitherto made me 
 for her, must stop with the death of his wife ; 
 and this Mr. Edmund says, he must have 
 three or four months to look out for a proper 
 house, and so forth : even if he be so far 
 fortunate as to obtain the consent of my 
 niece of which, by the way, I dare say, he 
 fancies himself tolerably certain and the 
 approbation of her relations of which I 
 now give him joyful assurance." 
 
 " And, in so doing, you make him a happy 
 man, I am persuaded. But there is Tom 
 Bethel to be consulted next whose ideas of 
 Fanny's deserts are so high and so just." 
 
 " Tom Bethel ! a headstrong, foolish 
 boy ! No, cousin, we may make Tom a 
 bridesman ; but to consult him about his 
 sister's marriage is entirely out of the ques- 
 tion. But here comes Miss Collins. Now, 
 I fancy something very slight and plain may 
 do for Fanny's mourning, as she is so quiet 
 at present with you ; and we must save all 
 we can, you know, for the trousseau." 
 
 Miss Whitstone allowed the lady to have 
 it all her own way ; though Tom, in a rage 
 at afterwards finding his sister's mourning 
 for their aunt scanty and much inferior in 
 quality to that of his dashing cousins, re- 
 monstrated loudly upon that injustice 
 threw Fanny into a paroxysm of grief by his 
 violence in her cause and filled the ladies 
 of the Rectory with such indignation that 
 they upbraided him with ingratitude. This 
 Tom denied ; accusing Mrs. Bethel, in turn, of 
 having made a job of his sister, for whom she 
 had a handsome allowance, and a slave of 
 her for so many years. The polite, politic 
 Mrs. Bethel had never met with any thing so 
 provoking in her whole life as this schoolboy 
 affair. It became the talk of all Wincham ; 
 and Tom found numerous partisans, who 
 seized the present opportunity of reviving the 
 old story of Mrs. Dr. Bethel's secret bargain 
 for the lion's share of the great tithes of 
 Stockham-Magna. The controversy even 
 went the length of mysterious paragraphs in 
 the Wincham Journal ; and was only ended 
 by Tom becoming convinced, that, if it were 
 carried farther, the affair would be Fanny's 
 death. She was, indeed, looking so wretch- 
 edly ill, three months after the remains of 
 her aunt had been brought home to be laid 
 in the family vault, that, when Tom next 
 came from school on a visit, he flew to Miss 
 Whitstone's room, in the deepest distress, to
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL. 
 
 107 
 
 inquire if his sister was not in a consumption. 
 Miss Whitstone hoped not. Fanny had not 
 been well. She was in unequal spirits, and 
 thinner, and paler ; but without any decided 
 ailment. 
 
 " She is pining for that fellow, Edmund," 
 Tom cried, with a glowing face ; " to whom 
 her kind aunt, Bethel, would have given her 
 with so little ceremony ; and who does not 
 seem in a hurry to claim the hand he once 
 pretended to value so much. Forgive me, 
 Miss Whitstone : you are the only human 
 being, save Fanny herself, in whom I have 
 confidence, or to whom I can look for sym- 
 pathy. I am sure if I knew what was best 
 for poor Fanny, to whom I owe every thing, 
 I would do it, if it broke my own heart." 
 And the subdued youth wept. 
 
 " That duty should not be heart-breaking, 
 Tom. Your sister, with the tender and very 
 uncommon ties that from babyhood have 
 knit you together, would receive far more 
 pleasure from your single approbation of her 
 choice, than that of all her other relations 
 put together. Your pride, Tom, or your 
 prejudice, call it which you will, has been 
 far more distressing to your sister than all 
 her other trials. And you wrong Mr. Ed- 
 mund : he only waits her slightest intima- 
 tion to fly to her ; but while every week 
 brought a fresh heroic epistle from you in- 
 deed, you must forgive my freedom, Tom 
 what could the poor girl do ? I assure you 
 she has not wanted for my instigation to fol- 
 low the dictates of her own heart and judg- 
 ment in a matter which looks like one of life 
 or death to her." 
 
 " I know you entertain but an indifferent 
 opinion of my understanding and knowledge 
 of life, ma'am," said Tom, with some pique ; 
 " but I am sure you cannot doubt the since- 
 rity of my love for my sister." 
 
 " If I did so, sir, I should not now be thus 
 parleying with you," replied the lady with 
 severity. 
 
 " Well, dear ma'am," returned Tom, in- 
 sinuatingly, " you who love my own dear 
 Fanny that best, kindest, gentlest, sweetest 
 of all sisters so well, will you allow me 
 one last experiment of a week's duration 
 only ? And, if it fail, I promise to give my 
 consent to Captain Bethel's daughter becom- 
 ing an artist's wife." The heroic air with 
 which this was said, provoked a smile on the 
 placid and benevolent features of Miss Whit- 
 stone, in spite of herself ; and, before she 
 could speak, Testy Tom exclaimed, "You 
 laugh at me, as a foolish, raw schoolboy ; 
 
 but I don't mind that, so that you trust me 
 this once." 
 
 " Laugh at you, Tom ! no, surely on 
 the contrary, I am hand in glove with you ; 
 but may we learn the nature of your scheme, 
 which I can have no doubt does equal honour 
 to your fraternal affection, and Etonian 
 acuteness ? " 
 
 "You must not laugh at me, though," 
 returned Thomas, his face mantling with the 
 consciousness of possessing a delightful my- 
 stery - " I can bear you to laugh at me 
 about any thing in the world, save this." And 
 he took a letter from his pocket-book. " You 
 won't guess who this is from : my late 
 aunt's heir, the Northern Bethel, as we have 
 been used to call him. Ill as my uncle and 
 the whole family have used him neglected 
 him like a poor relation, and hated him like 
 an heir presumptive he has behaved like 
 an angel to my uncle Bethel. He has been 
 at Aix-la-Chapelle to visit him ; and one of 
 our gentlemen (viz., an Eton boy) informs 
 me that it is understood he is to allow my 
 uncle to enjoy a full half of my late aunt's 
 revenue for the remainder of his life. My 
 uncle, you may be sure, was touched with 
 this delicate generosity ; for, beyond the term 
 of her death, he was not, by law, entitled to 
 draw one shilling. He has written me to be 
 an attentive scholar, as he means to carry 
 out the original plan of my education. But 
 this letter" and Tom struck it with his 
 open fingers " this is from that fine fellow, 
 young Bethel himself, inviting me to Bethel's 
 Court, which my uncle has given up to him 
 as a residence, and saying the kindest things 
 to me and Fanny, whom he begs to call his 
 * cousins.' Now, the beauty the very 
 cream of it is, that he has not written to 
 the Rectory people at all." 
 
 Tom's eyes sparkled with gratified revenge. 
 " So it won't be madam, my aunt, who can 
 either obtain for me and my friends, or re- 
 fuse us, a day's shooting at Bethel's Court, 
 in a hurry again or act as if all its gar- 
 dens, hot-houses, and vineries, were more 
 hers and her daughter's, than poor Fanny's 
 and mine." 
 
 Miss Whitstone, who had smiled all along, 
 was now reading the letter, which she pro- 
 nounced charming. " But, then, what has 
 all this to do with delaying Mr. Edmund's 
 answer a week, when the suspense is so 
 hurtful to your sister's spirits, and so dis- 
 respectful to a person of whom we all have 
 reason to think so highly as we do of Mr. 
 Edmund?"
 
 108 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Tom suddenly recollected himself. " I I 
 shall tell you, only you, that, ma'am for, 
 wild dreamer as you may conclude me, I am 
 sure you will not betray me ; I wish 
 Fanny to see Mr. Bethel, before she irrevo- 
 cably pledge her fate. I am told he is a very 
 well-looking man, and an accomplished, 
 perfect gentleman ; and you know, when a 
 man comes to his property, he always thinks 
 of marrying." 
 
 " At any rate, I am sure you will, Tom," 
 said the smiling lady. " But what then ? " 
 
 " What then ? Dear ma'am, you are not 
 wont to be so dull of apprehension : if, 
 which I think extremely likely, he should 
 fancy our own Fanny ! " 
 
 Miss Whitstone laughed heartily over 
 Tom's basket of unhatched chickens ; but 
 looked in such good humour, that Tom durst 
 not resent the liberty ; and she atoned for all, 
 by vowing that she knew not where the new 
 inhabitant of Bethel's Court could find any 
 wife half so charming or half so worthy of 
 him. " And to have her, sweetest creature, 
 so near me, too ! " said the old lady, actually 
 melting into delicious tears at Tom's hair- 
 brained scheme. " But, poor Mr. Edmund ! " 
 she sighed, at last, but yet smiled as she 
 looked to Tom. " Poh ! never mind, my 
 dear ma'am : I assure you we, lords of crea- 
 tion, are by no means so inconsolable upon 
 such occasions as you ladies sometimes flatter 
 yourselves. He shall get young Mrs. Bethel's 
 picture to paint, at five hundred guineas : 
 and, perhaps, if he wait ten years, my aunt, 
 who admires him so much for Fanny, will 
 give him my cousin Harriet." 
 
 Tom permitted Miss Whitstone to tell his 
 sister the conditions upon which his brotherly 
 approbation was to be obtained to her mar- 
 riage : namely, if she did not prefer Mr. 
 Bethel in one week, or failed to make a con- 
 quest of him in one month. Tom now 
 stipulated that it should be a full month 
 after that gentleman's arrival ; but he was 
 hourly expected. Even with this distorted 
 prospect of a haven, Fanny rather improved 
 in spirits ; for there was no chance of any 
 one falling in love with her she was sure 
 of that and as for her fidelity ! 
 
 Tom did the best he could to cheer her, 
 and get her into good looks and proper train- 
 ing, before the important first interview. 
 
 Next day, cards were issued, by Mrs. Dr. 
 Bethel, to the relatives and such neighbours as 
 she deemed proper for Mr. Bethel's acquain- 
 tance, for a welcoming dinner at Bethel's 
 Court, to be followed by a ball to the tenants 
 
 and a few friends. Tom swelled with indig- 
 nation in the knowledge that his aunt assumed 
 to manage this entertainment at the owner's 
 expense, however and, at once, to take 
 Fanny's intended lover into her own dexte- 
 rous hands. He vowed to circumvent her. 
 
 When the day of the entertainment came, 
 Fanny was so nervous and distressed that 
 there was no need to feign the headach 
 which she pleaded as an excuse for absence 
 in the note sent to her aunt, by whom her 
 illness was very graciously lamented. Mrs. 
 Dr. Bethel did not approve of distracting a 
 young gentleman's affections by too many 
 fair objects at the same time. He had his 
 choice of Harriet, the stately and stylish, and 
 Frances, the lively and pretty, with the dif- 
 ferent foils her maternal cares had collected 
 in the neighbourhood. 
 
 From the quarrel originating in the family 
 mourning, Tom had not once crossed the 
 threshold of the Rectory. He lived with a 
 family in the vicinity of Bethel's Court, but 
 beyond it in relation to Wincham, and only 
 arrived in that town to see his sister receive 
 those finishing touches in dress from Aliss 
 Collins' own hands, and those of the most 
 fashionable friseur in the place, which he 
 had bespoken ; and to attend her to the grand 
 scene of display. 
 
 What was Tom's horror and, in spite of 
 all his tenderness, his anger to find his 
 beauty of the night, languid, pale, exhausted, 
 and bearing deep traces of suffering and 
 recent tears ! He scolded, he kissed, he 
 coaxed in turns. Surely she would go with 
 him to the ball ? " It was not too late for 
 that, though they might miss dinner. She 
 might even lie down for an hour to refresh 
 herself, and recover her looks. Their allies, 
 the Taylors, and her particular correspon- 
 dent and admirer, Mr. Richard, were come 
 down, and would be so rejoiced to see her." 
 
 " I know all that," returned Fanny ; "but 
 with them came Mr. Edmund ! Indeed, 
 indeed, Tom dear brother you must not 
 force me out to-night." 
 
 Tom looked aghast at her information, and 
 muttered what sounded in her ears as curses 
 of her lover. Spite of her gentleness, this 
 was more than Fanny could endure. " I 
 will not hear this ! " she exclaimed passion- 
 ately, and becoming deadly pale, as if about 
 to faint ; and Tom, overcome and alarmed, 
 implored her forgiveness, and brought Miss 
 Whitstone to mediate for him, and restore 
 Fanny. Tom began to fancy that there 
 might be, even among girls, affections too
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL. 
 
 109 
 
 strong and deep to be fully understood by 
 the wits of Eton. Fanny, who had never 
 denied any request of Tom's in her whole 
 life, however unreasonable in itself, was not 
 slow to accord her forgiveness, deeply and 
 indelibly as his conduct had wounded her 
 heart ; and no sooner was he pardoned than, 
 like a true man, he returned to his original 
 point : " Would she not confirm his pardon 
 by granting his request to appear with him 
 when he was first presented to Mr. Bethel 
 whose good opinion and friendship might be 
 so important to his future prospects ? " Tom 
 now pleaded on the score of prudence, and as 
 if for the greatest personal favour ; and Miss 
 Whitstone at last joined him. " Indeed, my 
 love, I think you might gratify Tom this 
 once, since he has set his heart upon it with 
 so many old friends to see too and the new 
 master of Bethel's Court might, I flatter my- 
 self, miss his young cousins." 
 
 "Cousins a hundred and fifty times re- 
 moved," said Fanny, almost pettishly. But, 
 with her natural sweetness, she added 
 " Since you rule it so, ma'am, I shall pre- 
 pare." And as she rose, Tom kissed her 
 over and over, and ran himself to the per- 
 fumers for as much rose-water to take away 
 the redness about her eyes, as might have 
 half-drowned her. His charges to Miss 
 Collins and Patty, who were now both sum- 
 moned by Tom as assistant dressers, were, 
 " Now, don't let Miss Bethel make a dowdy 
 of herself." And when the dressing was 
 finished, though Patty declared that, in that 
 clear muslin frock and white satin slip, she 
 looked like an angel, Tom found her not 
 half like enough to a " Fashion of the Month " 
 to please him. Her gloves did not fit, and 
 her slippers far too large for her were, 
 indeed, what it would have made Tom mad 
 to know, misfits of her cousin Fanny's, sent 
 to her in economy. Then her ringlets drooped 
 too long and hung too free. Fashionable 
 
 girls wore their hair at present so Tom 
 
 could not name it, but he endeavoured to 
 imitate the thing he meant ; and Miss Collins 
 joined in opinion with him ; while Patty 
 cried " Oh no ! Those lovely flowing ring- 
 kts which Mr. Edmund thinks so charming 
 a style for Miss Bethel ! " Tom would not 
 curse now ; but it cost him an effort to be 
 tranquil, while he inquired why Fanny did 
 not wear her pearls with the ruby clasps 
 her mother's beautiful pearls, which had 
 been preserved for her ; and he requested 
 her, at least on this gala night, to gratify 
 him by using those ornaments. They were 
 
 at the Rectory. " Then, we shall call round 
 till you get them and your mother's beauti- 
 ful Cachmere too : and then, if our Fanny 
 hey, Miss Whitstone ! cannot be so fashion- 
 able as Aunt Bethel's bedizened beauties, she 
 shall be as expensively attired." 
 
 " Now, Tom, my dear boy, keep your 
 temper," said the lady addressed. " I was 
 almost as angry with Fanny's simplicity 
 yesterday, as you could have been ; and even 
 more angry with the ehcroacliing, selfish 
 temper of my cousin, who chose to display 
 the shawl to advantage on Harriet's fine 
 figure, and contrast the strings of pearls with 
 her own Fanny's dark tresses. Let us hope 
 that the principal beaux to-night those 
 worth killing, I mean believe, though the 
 belief grows every day more rare, ' that loveli- 
 ness needs not ' you all remember it. At 
 least, my love, if the gentlemen of Bethel's 
 Court don't admire you just as you are, be 
 assured that Patty, and myself, and Mr. 
 Edmund will and Mr. Tom also." 
 
 " And that is all I care for," said the dis- 
 tracted Fanny, taking leave. " But how I 
 wish this night were over, and I was back 
 to you ! but don't you sit for me." 
 
 " Nay, I shall sit. You know, I am this 
 night to give you, and Mr. Edmund, and friend 
 Tom there, if he choose, and Mr. Richard 
 Taylor, my very old friend, a petit sowper, of 
 sago and small negus, in my own chamber, 
 in the style of the Old Court." 
 
 " Don't wait us, pray, ma'am," cried Tom, 
 pulling his sister's arm within his own, toler- 
 ably well pleased, or reconciled to Fanny's 
 dress, and fancying her ringlets not unbe- 
 coming after all, and tolerably confident that 
 she must captivate Mr. Bethel if she would 
 only let herself out. His kind encourage- 
 ment, and thanks for exertion to oblige him, 
 and a drive in the quiet starlight, with 
 Tom's arm around her, tended to tranquillize 
 Fanny's spirits. " It is but a few more 
 hours," she whispered to herself " and then 
 but a few days ; and as soon as poor Tom, 
 who does all these cruel things from the 
 truest, though the most mistaken, love for 
 me, learns to know Mr. Edmund, as he can- 
 not fail soon to be known, we shall be so 
 happy, with again a home, a fireside of our 
 own a happiness we have never known from 
 infancy. I shall be so glad to see the Taylors, 
 too, who were so kind to iis in childhood." 
 And she said aloud "You remember the 
 Brunswick Square Taylors, Tom, who were 
 so kind to us when we came from India ? " 
 
 "Well and also who gave you that famous
 
 110 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Frau Jansen which Harriet robbed you of, 
 as she has to-night of your Cachmere. By 
 Heavens ! if I saw her hanging on Mr. 
 Bethel's arm in that shawl, I would almost 
 pluck it from her shoulders." 
 
 The carriage was now within the extensive 
 grounds of Bethel's Court ; and at every open- 
 ing of the trees, or curve of the long winding 
 approach, glimpses of the illuminated mansion 
 were alternately caught, and again darkened 
 in shadow or lost in total obscurity. Though 
 the Allahbad Bethels had now resided for 
 more than twelve years in this vicinity, 
 neither of them had ever before seen the 
 cheerful, life-giving sight of evening lights 
 in their ancestral home. The house stood 
 rather low, by the river, which made so fine 
 a feature in the home landscape ; and, as 
 they passed through the thick obscurity of 
 the neighbouring groves, they found the old 
 hereditary rooks startled from their nests, 
 wheeling overhead, and cawing in terror. 
 When the full sweep of the low, wide, blaz- 
 ing architectural front burst upon them, every 
 object touched by the magic of light and 
 shadow, Tom Bethel, in the high-wrought 
 enthusiasm of the moment, pressed his sister 
 more closely to his side, and exclaimed, " My 
 own darling Fanny ! could I but once see 
 you the mistress of that house, I would give 
 up every wish, surmount every care, for my- 
 self." And Tom was not more insincere 
 than thousands of brothers and mothers have 
 been before him, who, in pursuing their own 
 half-selfish ambition, fancy they are making 
 amazing sacrifices to promote the happiness 
 of the being they torment. 
 
 The aristocracy of the party were leaving 
 the drawing-room to proceed to the saloon 
 as the old stone hall had been new-named 
 to open the ball, as Tom Bethel's chaise 
 drove up ; and, amid the blaze of flambeaux 
 without, and lamps within, he perceived, far 
 off, his aunt, and his cousin Harriet, in the 
 Cachmere, conducted by a gentleman, whom 
 he rightly concluded the master of the man- 
 sion. 
 
 " They've hooked him already, by all that's 
 sacred ! " whispered Tom. " 0, Fanny ! why 
 would you not come sooner ? But, for any 
 sake, now, don't be foolish don't tremble so, 
 you dear little fool." He lifted her out, and 
 they entered the hall. Mr. Bethel and his 
 ladies had paused in crossing, at the far end 
 of the hall, to examine some of that rare 
 quaint rich carving in wood, still to be found 
 in a few ancient English mansions, and for 
 which England was at one time so celebrated. 
 
 His party, and those approaching them, were 
 still separated by a short flight of marble 
 steps, running across the hall ; so that, while 
 Fanny and her brother were below, Mr. 
 Bethel stood as it were upon a platform, or 
 dais, with his back to those advancing. It 
 was with difficulty that Tom, with his sup- 
 porting arm round her waist, dragged his 
 sister up these few steps ; but, upon the last, 
 she sunk on her knees, and leaned upon his 
 shoulder ; while, moved, as if by an instinc- 
 tive feeling of her presence for he could 
 scarcely have seen her Mr. Bethel disen- 
 gaged himself from the arms of mother and 
 daughter, and flew to Fanny's assistance. 
 
 " Very well, indeed ! " said the younger 
 lady, with a sneer. " If Fanny be late, she 
 is determined to make a sensation when she 
 does come." But Mrs. Bethel advanced to 
 the group. Fanny had not fainted. She 
 held the hands of her brother Tom and Mr. 
 Edmund in her own, while her beautiful 
 face, now richly suffused with rosy bloom, 
 breathed the rapture of a spirit that first sees 
 unfolded the gates of Paradise. 
 
 Though I had not seen Little Fanny Bethel 
 for so many years standing where she stood, 
 and looking as she then looked, and knowing 
 all I knew, I recognised her in the instant, 
 and introduced myself. Then turning to 
 Tom, after a friendly shake of his disengaged 
 hand, I claimed the privilege, as a common 
 acquaintance, of introducing Mr. Edmund 
 Bethel to Mr. Thomas Bethel. All his 
 Etonian self-possession could not sustain Tom 
 at this instant. His face became of twenty 
 colours, the burning crimson of shame pre- 
 dominating, and remaining fixed on his brow. 
 
 " Oh, what a fool I have been ! what a 
 monster to my poor Fanny ! who, while 
 she has fifty times my goodness, has a hun- 
 dred times my sense." Mr. Bethel, without 
 exactly hearing or caring to hear these words, 
 shook hands most cordially with Tom, " his 
 cousin " to whom he " hoped soon to be 
 more nearly allied, " he whispered ; and 
 Fanny smiled like an angelic being. 
 
 "Fanny, my dear," said the advancing 
 Mrs. Bethel, " what tempted you to brave 
 the night air? I shall positively send you 
 back with the carriage which has brought 
 you" 
 
 " Oh, do, dear ma'am ! " returned Fanny, 
 who found this proposal the greatest possible 
 relief in the present state of her feelings. 
 
 " Leave my niece to my management, Mr. 
 Bethel," continued the bustling lady ; " I 
 shall chide cousin Whitstone well, I assure
 
 LITTLE FANNY BETHEL. 
 
 Ill 
 
 you, for letting her abroad. Come, Fanny, 
 dear, I shall send Hopkins, my own maid, 
 home with you." 
 
 " I will attend my sister home," cried Tom 
 Bethel. 
 
 " I must be permitted that honour," cried 
 Mr. Bethel. " My friendly guests, to whom 
 I am quite a stranger save, I dare say, that 
 I have painted staring portraits of some of 
 them will gladly take Tom and Mr. Henry 
 as my gay substitutes in their revel ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bethel stared. " I would give up my 
 claim for no man living, save Mr. Edmund 
 Bethel," was my rejoinder. 
 
 Mrs. Bethel started! and looked from 
 one to another. The truth flashed upon her 
 mind. She had overshot the mark. Ex- 
 quisite dissembler as she was, it was impos- 
 sible altogether to conceal her feelings upon 
 this singular turn of fortune. Tom Bethel 
 gloated upon the passionate working and 
 twitching of his aunt's features. He ran 
 himself to inform Harriet, that Mr. Edmund, 
 the painter, whose addresses to his sister had 
 lately been urged on by her mother, was 
 none other than Mr. Edmund Bethel ! Her 
 stifled scream of surprise was music to him. 
 
 It was finally settled that Mr. Bethel and 
 myself should attend Fanny to Wincham, 
 while Tom and Henry Bethel, who were 
 every way qualified, should do the honours 
 of the rustic ball. I pretended a love of free 
 air and star-gazing, and desired to sit with- 
 out ; and, though Fanny pleaded and pro- 
 tested that I would catch cold, I persisted, 
 and I hope she forgave my obstinacy. She 
 ran to Miss Whitstone smiling, benevolent, 
 happy Miss Whitstone as we entered the 
 
 house ; and playfully chided her for having 
 so mystified them, and allowed Tom to com- 
 mit himself. " Poor Tom is still so young, 
 poor fellow ! " said she, stealing at Mr. Bethel 
 one of her old childish looks of innocent fas- 
 cination, " and he loves me so truly ! " 
 
 " And that affection might cover a multi- 
 tude of sins, were they ten times worse than 
 those of poor Tom," returned Mr. Bethel. 
 " Be assured, I forgive his no-offence to my- 
 self most sincerely. Indeed, Fanny, I grudged 
 you to a poor painter as much as Tom could 
 himself have done, though that painter was 
 myself ! " 
 
 Nothing could be better said ; and few 
 explanations were required. Mr. Edmund 
 Bethel had wished to spend a summer near 
 Bethel's Court, and had found inducements 
 to return another and another. It seems I 
 had, among so many Bethels, introduced him 
 as Mr. Edmund, and he kept by the half- 
 name given him. The marriage took place 
 in a month afterwards, to the entire satisfac- 
 tion of all Wincham and Stockham-Magna 
 so universal a favourite was Fanny. It was, 
 perhaps, the only marriage ever contracted 
 under such flattering auspices ; for even Mrs. 
 Bethel was with the majority. She very 
 properly said that, if she had consented while 
 Fanny's lover was an obscure person, how 
 rejoiced she must be now to find him one so 
 different ! 
 
 On the day of his sister's marriage, Tom 
 obtained an appointment as midshipman in 
 his Majesty's navy. He is now a lieutenant, 
 and has lost, with much of his Latin and 
 Greek, a great deal of his Etonian refinement 
 and knowledge of the world. 
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 With prospects bright upon the world he came, 
 Pure love of virtue, strong desire of fame ; 
 Men watched the way his lofty mind would take, 
 And all foretold the progress he would make. 
 
 OF the lost friends that have the most 
 deeply interested my feelings in my solitary 
 journey through life, I have a dim and melan- 
 choly pleasure in recalling my first impres- 
 sions and earliest sentiment. I strive to 
 revive the look, the attitude, the tone of 
 voice, the individualized image, as it was 
 seen in that peculiar aspect of the human 
 physiognomy which can be beheld but twice 
 first when we see the living man, with 
 awakened attention ; and again, when we 
 
 CRABBE. 
 
 gaze upon the death-fixed, marble features 
 of the recent corpse. 
 
 I have rarely met with any individual, 
 even of the other sex, who, at first sight, 
 made altogether a more favourable impression 
 upon me, than Mr. James Charles Frankland ; 
 yet I rather pique myself on not being very 
 impressible by outward shows and signs ; nor 
 easily captivated by either man or woman. 
 
 I can well remember that Frankland and 
 myself first met in the pit of Drury Lane
 
 112 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Theatre, about the middle of a season ren- 
 dered memorable by the management of Lord 
 Byron. From the period when Johnson and 
 Burke, Topham Beauclerk and Reynolds, 
 went to "the first nights" of Goldsmith's 
 comedies, the playhouse had not been so 
 attractive to a certain order of literary 
 loungers, as in this year, when the presence 
 of Byron and his friends drew together, al- 
 most every night, crowds of hangers-on, 
 young templars, coffee-house critics, and 
 fledgling poets " about town." At the head 
 of a rather numerous circle of this well- 
 understood, but not very describable, fluctuat- 
 ing body, was Frankland ; " among them, 
 but not of them " already a brilliant name 
 in their order, and the main link which con- 
 nected its youth of promise with the higher 
 literary gradation of the Hunts, and Hazlitts, 
 and Lambs. 
 
 Frankland was, at the same time, honour- 
 ably known to the stars of the Byron box, 
 who shone a nightly constellation, and the 
 sun of the lesser lights that now occupied the 
 critical bench of the pit, upon the first and 
 last representation of Jack Greene's RUNEY- 
 BIEDE, or FAIR ROSAMOND, (I really forget 
 which,) a tragedy. To the dramatist, who 
 was fluttering, in a dreadful state of nervous 
 excitement, from the pit and gallery, to the 
 boxes, I owed the honour of my introduction 
 to the distinguished young barrister, who 
 remained surrounded during the whole even- 
 ing by a crowd of juvenile idolaters, watch- 
 ing his every look and tone, and picking up 
 the crumbs of wit and criticism that fell from 
 his table, to be doled out to their different 
 admiring circles. Without a particle of ar- 
 rogance in his manner, which, though highly 
 polished, was manly and simple, I could 
 perceive that Frankland was somewhat dis- 
 dainful of the flock of worshippers, who, in 
 the genius, eloquence, and acquirements of 
 the man who illustrated their class, foresaw 
 a future Burke, Erskine, or Brougham; and, 
 beyond all doubt, if not an entire and perfect 
 Chancellor, yet a very eminent Attorney- 
 general " Unless his politics prove a bar 
 to his advancement," whispered a fellowcraft, 
 and one of his admirers. " Frankland is 
 thoroughly liberal' a speculative Republican 
 at the least." 
 
 " No insurmountable obstruction that, if 
 one may judge of his profession by past ex- 
 perience," I returned. I presume my re- 
 mark was overheard ; for my new acquain- 
 tance turned round and honoured me with a 
 scrutinizing and rather sharp glance. 
 
 " The only doubt at one time was, whether 
 literature or politics were to engross all of 
 the man that law will spare," continued my 
 whispering informer ; " but : politics have 
 fairly turned the scale : you have read 
 that famous series of papers in The Chronicle 
 under the signature Philo Junius ? Well 
 
 but mum an under-secretary was 
 employed by Castlereagh to fish out the 
 writer." 
 
 Perhaps this was also overheard ; and I 
 had smiled in such a sort, as to irritate the 
 sensitive pride of Frankland, who turned 
 abruptly to us, saying, "Am I not a fortu- 
 nate man, Mr. Taylor ; surrounded as I am 
 by a phalanx of young friends, who speak, 
 write, flatter, nay, almost lie me into fame. 
 
 I must, however, do the Treasury the 
 bare justice to say, that, if it has ever done 
 me the honour to put a price upon my head, 
 I am still ignorant of its benevolent inten- 
 tions. I am afraid his Majesty's Govern- 
 ment has become singularly indifferent to 
 the effusions of Aristides, Publicola, Vetus, 
 and all the rest of us. A single vexatious 
 motion in the House by Joseph Hume the 
 mute eloquence of a table of figures a slap 
 at sinecures and pensions affect them more 
 at this time than would all the philippics of 
 Demosthenes. 
 
 " But to your duty, gentlemen. I foresee 
 FAIR ROSAMOND'S trial is to be short and 
 sharp the audience is about to play Queen 
 Eleanor with her : how goes it in the rare 
 old ballad 
 
 With that she dashed her on the lips, 
 
 So dyed double red 
 Hard was the hand that dealt the hlow, 
 
 Soft were the lips that bled." 
 
 Our prescribed duty was to applaud, right 
 or wrong, and without rhyme or reason, the 
 tragedy which Frankland had unhesitatingly 
 and sternly condemned and endeavoured to 
 stifle in the birth ; though kindness for its 
 author had brought him from his chambers 
 to sit out the unhappy play, and countenance 
 the more unhappy writer. 
 
 It had been brought forward from reasons 
 more creditable to the good-nature, than to 
 the judgment or critical taste of the noble 
 manager ; who, during the third act, seeing 
 the " deep damnation" inevitable, was among 
 the first of the audience visibly to give way 
 to the overwhelming sense of the ludicrous. 
 This was not Frankland's style of backing 
 his friends. A sudden compression of the 
 lips, and knitting of the brow, marked his 
 quick feeling of indignation, as the curtain
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 113 
 
 fell amidst the open laughter of the amateur 
 managers and the critics, and the yet smaller 
 creatures who fluttered around them, and 
 those throughout the house, who caught their 
 tone from that Pandora's box. 
 
 The unfortunate author, a young man of 
 weak character and amiable feeling, was so 
 overpowered by his disgrace, as actually to 
 weep behind Frankland's shoulder, while he 
 whispered regret at not following his counsels 
 and suppressing the unlucky play. 
 
 A single trait revealed to me much of the 
 inner character of my new acquaintance, as 
 a single lightning-flash will momentarily 
 disclose the depths of a ravine which the 
 sun's rays can never penetrate. A message 
 was brought by one of the volunteer gentle- 
 men ever in waiting upon Byron, requesting 
 Mr. Frankland to come round to the Green 
 Room, where " his Lordship" was with Kean 
 and the distinguished persons who had been 
 induced to witness the play. There might 
 oe a touch of pride and caprice in the re- 
 fusal ; but, I believe, indignant generosity 
 was the prevailing sentiment, when Mr. 
 Frankland briefly stated in excuse an en- 
 gagement with Mr. Greene. An amended 
 summons came back Lord Byron particu- 
 larly requested to see Mr. Greene also ; and 
 the discomfited poet would have sneaked 
 along, had not the other held him, crying, 
 " No, by heavens ! you sha'n't, Jack." The 
 woful dramatist, who, from their schoolboy 
 days, had never dreamed of resisting the im- 
 petuous resolution of his friend Frankland, 
 at once submitted. 
 
 The engagement with Greene proved a 
 tavern supper, 'into which I allowed myself 
 to be for once seduced ; so much had I been 
 captivated by what I had seen of the young 
 lawyer, and amused by his satellites. 
 
 Cordial and confidential as Frankland and 
 I finally became, our friendship was of slow 
 growth. A full quarter century makes a 
 difference between man and man ; and, 
 though Frankland was a ripe man of his 
 twenty-seven years, he was not one of those 
 that " wear the heart upon the sleeve for 
 daws to peck at." It was not until a much 
 later period of our acquaintance, that he was 
 so far thrown off the guard constantly main- 
 tained by his sensitive pride, as once to tell 
 me, in a tone of self-complacency which it 
 was impossible to misunderstand, that Byron, 
 piqued by the indifference shown to the 
 flattering attentions of one so privileged and 
 so pr&rogatived as his capricious Lordship, 
 had complained to a common literary friend, 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 that Frankland, whom he had known at 
 Cambridge, was the only man, resting his 
 claims in society upon genius and personal 
 merit alone, who had ever repelled him. 
 
 I almost sympathized in the pride of my 
 young friend ; for it was now a time when 
 talents and merit demanded indemnity from 
 the frequent accesses of temper, caprice, and 
 arrogance of the poet, who never forgot the 
 peer ; and who lived in continual apprehen- 
 sion, lest others should, in the man of splendid 
 genius, forget the disquieting circumstance 
 of his accidental rank. I less liked Byron's 
 reported sneering addition " The young 
 liberal, no doubt, fancies himself vastly inde- 
 pendent ; Frankland thinks it quite heroic 
 to despise a lord : stop till he needs a silk 
 gown, or becomes Tory Attorney-general 
 in expectancy." This was laughingly told 
 me ; but I liked it not. The future author 
 of Beppo and Don Juan, read men's vanities, 
 selfishnesses, and besetting weaknesses, but too 
 fluently ; and, even when I could have pledged 
 my soul's peace upon the integrity of Frank- 
 land, I was haunted by the insidious pro- 
 phecy. 
 
 There was this common resemblance be- 
 tween the struggling young lawyer and the 
 idolized peer, that both had rashly appeared 
 in nonage before the world as poets : but it 
 went no farther ; for Frankland had met 
 with a reception that would infallibly have 
 ruined any youth of feebler character or of 
 moderate vanity. His rapidly-ripening judg- 
 ment and fastidious taste, soon perceived the 
 worthlessness of his juvenile productions ; 
 and, at twenty-three, had it been possible to 
 have swept into oblivion every poem printed 
 for seven previous years, so as to have anni- 
 hilated the remembrance of his early humilia- 
 tion, which had now made a five years' 
 " eternal blazon " in albums, poets' corners, 
 and souvenirs, his pride would gladly have 
 received the sacrifice. Censure he could have 
 endured. Laughed at, he could have laughed 
 again, however scornfully ; but the crude, 
 inane criticism the faint, and still more the 
 fulsome praise the vulgar indiscriminate 
 compliments the insufferable airs of the 
 small dealers out of fame the patronage of 
 the drawing-rooms disgusted and almost 
 maddened him, in the reflection that the 
 enthusiasm of the senseless boy had volun- 
 tarily subjected the man to such mortifica- 
 tion. 
 
 Before we became acquainted, he had 
 outlived this second burning stage, and could 
 even bear to laugh at, and rally himself upon 
 
 No. 8.
 
 114 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 those collateral absurdities in so many men's 
 lives, a first love and a first volume of verse. 
 As he could not expel the poetical elements 
 with which nature had so strongly imbued 
 his mind, he had given them what he thought 
 a nobler or a more manly direction ; and I 
 have sometimes wondered how a man so far 
 above the ordinary social vanities, should have 
 taken so much pleasure in the exercise of 
 astonishing conversational powers, and what 
 seemed premeditated displays of eloquence. 
 Oratory is, in one sense, as much an original 
 gift of nature as the talent of personation, or 
 the endowment of a fine voice : I mean in 
 that sense in which George Whitefield, or 
 some nameless preacher among the Ranters, 
 was a greater natural orator than Burke or 
 Fox. To the intellect, and fine and ductile 
 imagination of Frankland, nature had super- 
 added this power, which art had highly culti- 
 vated and embellished, until his jealous sense 
 of personal dignity, fastidious refinement, and 
 disdainful temper, awakened the morbid 
 apprehension of being mistaken for a spouter, 
 a speechifier, a political charlatan ; which 
 came in place of his former impatient scorn 
 of being known as the author of " those 
 delightful morsels," Weeds and Wildflowcrs, 
 and of Gems from the Antique. 
 
 His horror at being celebrated as the author 
 of that crack article in Colburn for May last, 
 had given place to equal horror of being 
 mistaken for a man seeking to obtrude him- 
 self on public notice, and to advance his 
 fortunes by vulgar arts. Under this idea, 
 he had withdrawn himself from the friendly 
 clubs and debating or literary societies of 
 his former associates ; who now perceived 
 that, out of the Courts, Mr. Frankland would 
 not henceforth seek to sway, by his persuasive 
 eloquence, any assembly less distinguished 
 than his Majesty's Faithful Commons. The 
 Opposition benches were imagined the im- 
 mediate goal of his ambition. And what a 
 figure Frankland would make in Parliament ! 
 was the current language of his admiring 
 associates ; and Frankland had some intima- 
 tions of the same kind, that were even stronger 
 than those which had made him a poet and 
 a contributor of " crack articles " to the 
 Reviews and Magazines ; not that he over- 
 estimated his own powers : his error lay, not 
 in an overweening opinion of himself, but in 
 the morbidly acute perception and scornful 
 temper which led him to strip away the false 
 pretensions, unveil the mean motives, and 
 rate, at their very lowest value, the men who 
 might become his rivals those more seeming- 
 
 fortunate men with whom he disdained to 
 measure himself in intellectual stature, and 
 who won their way either by truckling sub- 
 servience, or by the sacrifice of that lofty 
 feeling of independence and self-sustaining 
 pride of integrity, which he held the noblest 
 personal attributes of man. With what fiery 
 indignation and withering scorn, have I heard 
 him denounce the trucklers and trimmers of 
 the time the paltry deserters of their early 
 opinions the compound knaves and fools, 
 whom a mean and narrow view of immediate 
 interests drew into the betrayal of their true 
 interests ! Of such abject creatures, he said, 
 his own profession, above all others, was ever 
 fruitful : contemptible apostates, who bartered 
 the bright jewel of fame, the proudest con- 
 quests of intellect, for, perhaps, some paltry 
 place : pitiful traitors to mankind and 
 themselves, who blazoned their infamy on 
 coronets ! 
 
 A little more indulgence for others, and far 
 more humility and self-distrust for himself, 
 would have been wisdom in my young un- 
 tempted friend. 
 
 I need not say, that Frankland, notwith- 
 standing his great abilities and eloquence, and 
 competent knowledge of his profession, was 
 not the character to make rapid way among 
 old cautious technical men of business and 
 well-employed solicitors, who looked with 
 wholesome distrust upon his supposed habits 
 of literary composition, and accordingly gave 
 him much less credit than he really deserved 
 for indefatigable attention to whatever briefs 
 he was so fortunate as to obtain. He was of 
 too manly and honourable a character not 
 to execute well whatever was intrusted to 
 him, independently of other motives. But 
 he was known to have been guilty of both 
 poetry and fiction ; to have scribbled in 
 periodical works in his greener years, and, 
 what was worse, with applause ; and even when 
 his sound professional knowledge was tardily 
 forced upon their conviction, Frankland still 
 wanted the kind of acceptance, or status, 
 which, to a lawyer, comes as much by time 
 and chance, and assiduous and patient culti- 
 vation, as from superior abilities. 
 
 As a means to an end, Frankland had 
 now, for some years, spared no pains in 
 qualifying himself for the exercise of his 
 profession. In it his honour, his interest, 
 his ambition, were concentrated : but still 
 success came tardily. He saw duller, but 
 more conciliatory and practical men, greater 
 adepts in the homely arts of life, continually 
 stepping before him ; while he stood aside,
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 115 
 
 haughty, and almost scowling too proud to 
 push and jostle in the race, or even to come 
 into contact with the vulgar herd of inferior 
 competitors. Yet he could not, in any 
 instance, be accused of actual neglect or 
 inattention : punctual in the courts year 
 after year faithful to that everlasting western 
 circuit, in which he did not clear his travelling 
 expenses he could be blamed for nothing 
 save the indomitable pride which helped to 
 close against him many of the ordinary 
 avenues to fortune. 
 
 In the progress of our intimacy, I came to 
 learn that Frankland's originally narrow 
 patrimony had been nearly expended upon 
 his education ; his guardians deeming the 
 acquirement of a liberal profession, to a youth 
 of such endowments, the best manner of laying 
 out a small fortune. And, as I walked with 
 my eyes open, I knew the world too well to 
 require being told, in as many words, that a 
 shower of briefs, however thin, would have 
 been acceptable to my friend ; especially 
 about the season when London tradesmen 
 humbly intimate to their customers, that 
 something more substantial is looked for, 
 once or twice a-year, than the mere pleasure 
 of executing their commands. But I did not 
 yet know all the reasons which made even 
 a moderate rate of professional emolument 
 desirable. Often as I had called at his 
 chambers "in soft twilight," I had never 
 once found Frankland sighing over a minia- 
 ture, or inditing poetry ; but I too often found 
 him among his law-books and papers, pale, 
 and dispirited even to despondency, and I 
 flattered myself that the consolations of my 
 homely practical philosophy were strengthen- 
 ing to his mental health ; and that the 
 sincere flatteries of my partial friendship, 
 which pointed to brighter days, soothed his 
 irritable pride. 
 
 I have never known a man whom it re- 
 quired so much finesse and dexterity to flatter ; 
 and indeed finesse and dexterity could not 
 have succeeded. The homage of his young 
 admirers he received as a matter of course ; 
 compliments in the ordinary strain, he 
 despised too much to resent their imperti- 
 nence ; but he came to bear 'my admiration, 
 and to feel it sit pleasantly upon him, as he 
 perceived that I could appreciate his cha- 
 racter, and at least understand, if I could 
 not approve, those delicate abstractions and 
 refinements which sometimes made him un- 
 reasonable and unhappy, and allow for that 
 querulous pride with which I could not 
 sympathize. 
 
 Even while execrating, for Frankland's 
 sake, the jargon, the dry technicalities, and 
 mazy intricacies, and the whole forms and 
 practice which made law a ready way to 
 fortune with inferior men, I never abated in 
 my exhortations on the wisdom of taking 
 the thing as it was found, and making the 
 best of it ; and of persevering till the tide 
 turned. And still I hoped that some splendid 
 occasion might arrive some affair of national 
 importance some principle of right to be 
 protected against power, by truth, and know- 
 ledge, and eloquence which must fix the 
 eyes of the world upon my friend, and at 
 once stamp his title to the high place which 
 nature had disqualified him for crawling to, 
 by the slow, sure, slimy advances of some of 
 his rivals. 
 
 The Hour came and the Man was ready. 
 It could, however, neither have been hope of 
 gain nor yet of great professional distinction, 
 that first induced Frankland to take up the 
 singular case of his old school-fellow, Jack 
 Greene, the .author of the unlucky tragedy. 
 It was, indeed, one too desperate for any 
 well-employed counsel to engage in. The 
 simple fellow, while he had lived on a small 
 annuity left him by his father, was, though 
 no conjuror, never once suspected of greater 
 f<5lly than a hundred other men who conduct 
 their own affairs in a way with which no 
 one assumes a right to intermeddle. But, 
 unexpectedly, Jack fell heir to a considerable 
 fortune. He might have been a little excited 
 by the acquisition, but certainly not to the 
 length which authorized, in " the next of 
 kin," (two married sisters,) the discovery 
 that he was insane, unfit to manage his own 
 affairs, and fully qualified for the custody of 
 a mad doctor. 
 
 I am not aware if the horrible law is yet 
 mitigated, by which sordid relatives, after a 
 very brief process, and upon obtaining 
 easy document the certificate of two medi- 
 cal men, can consign an unfortunate indivi- 
 dual to a common mad-house, and thus do 
 much to render him the maniac which it 
 may suit their cruel and selfish purposes to 
 represent him. But this dangerous law ex- 
 isted a few years back in full force, and does, 
 I believe, still exist, in a land where so much 
 is every day heard about the sacredness of 
 person and property. All at once Greene 
 disappeared, and it was believed he had gone 
 to the Continent, when a curious letter, which 
 he had prevailed with a discarded keeper to 
 bring to London, informed Frankland of his 
 condition. This singular epistle, which con-
 
 110 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 sisted of a very few words of Latin, pricked 
 with a pin on a piece of strongly -gin ml 
 linen the lining of his hat, as I remember 
 bore no token of insanity ; but very different, 
 I confess, was the impression made on me 
 by the raving communication received, when 
 Frankland, by the same messenger, contrived 
 to write him, and supply him with a pencil 
 and paper. 
 
 This second was too surely, I thought, a 
 madman's letter. Frankland would not be- 
 lieve so. At all events, it was not less cer- 
 tain that the poor fellow was, at worst, a 
 perfectly harmless, crazy poet ; who had, for 
 the first twenty-eight years of his life, never 
 walked into a draw-well ; and that he might 
 to its close have been allowed wits sufficient 
 to manage his small income at his own dis- 
 cretion. This he, indeed, had done with 
 remarkable integrity and economy, driving 
 hard bargains with his printers ; though the 
 grave charge remained of employing their 
 services at all, instead of falling into the 
 more usual modes of a young man's expen- 
 diture. Had he raced, or gamed, or kept 
 mistresses, no charge could have been brought 
 against Greene's wits ; but barely keeping a 
 decent coat on his back, he had preferred 
 printing very bad poetry of his own compo- 
 sition, and paying the cost ; and no English 
 jury could sanction such conduct in a man 
 pretending to be sane. I confess, as I have 
 said, that I gave him up myself, when I read 
 his second letter, which out-Leared Lear in 
 raving quotation, and original bursts of poetic 
 imprecation upon his two unnatual sisters 
 Betsy in particular, the younger, to whom 
 he had affectionately dedicated his first 
 volume, in four stanzas in the Spenserian 
 measure, and who to that volume had con- 
 tributed those touching lines " To my Bro- 
 ther's Fishing-Rod" Betsy, now, indeed, 
 a wife and mother, yet surely not for these 
 extended charities the less susceptible of 
 sisterly tenderness, to join with the rest in 
 consigning him to a mad-house " for life ! 
 for life ! to stripes, a strait waistcoat, and 
 the denial of pen and ink ! " 
 
 There was so strange a jumble of the 
 ludicrous and the pathetic in poor Jack's 
 rhapsody, that Frankland himself acknow- 
 ledged, that, if he had not known Greene 
 from boyhood, he might, like me, have set 
 down this raving for the effusion of & lunatic ; 
 but after declaiming against the enormous 
 injustice, the dreadful oppression to which 
 the law regarding lunacy gives facility, he 
 pictured so many whimsical imaginary cases 
 
 of madness which might be made out against 
 many of our mutual acquaintances, had it 
 been any object to make them victims ; and 
 instanced so many glaring and laughable 
 proofs of my own lunacy, that I was com- 
 pelled to admit that Greene might be no more 
 insane than he had ever been, unless torture 
 and terror, acting upon a feeble mind and 
 weak nerves, had goaded him to madness. 
 
 Next to some great political question in- 
 volving the permanent interests of society, 
 this was a case, independently of private 
 feelings, to absorb the whole mind of a man 
 like Frankland. In it were involved the 
 most subtle metaphysical and scientific dis- 
 cussion, and also the fundamental principles 
 of justice and of jurisprudence. While Ins 
 faculties and knowledge were tasked to the 
 utmost by the complicated questions to which 
 tliis case gave rise, his sympathies were 
 pledged to the protection of humanity in its 
 dearest and most delicate relations and his 
 spirit was roused to guard society against an 
 evil which threatened to subvert the very 
 foundation of social life ; which undermined 
 the household hearth, broke up the family com- 
 pact, and converted the charities of kindred 
 into deadly hate, and the blessings of domestic 
 life into its bale. There was a power per- 
 mitted by this law, which, under the impulse 
 of sordid or interested feeling, became perilous 
 and ruinous alike to the innocent victim and 
 the guilty betrayer ; a power most dangerous 
 to frail human nature. Poor Greene's favour- 
 ite sister had withheld her consent to the 
 measures taken against him, until she became 
 apprehensive that he would marry, and thus 
 might deprive her children of their share of 
 the unexpected fortune. 
 
 "Her virtue or her affection could not 
 resist the contingency of Greene marrying 
 the Laura of his juvenile sonnets," said 
 Frankland to me, " and appropriating his 
 wealth to his own purposes : every thing 
 might have been forgiven him but that. I 
 should not be surprised if his design of mar- 
 rying the girl who made gowns for his sisters, 
 is not brought forward on the trial as a proof 
 of insanity, and a reason for his fortune and 
 person being sequestered." 
 
 "Can these harpies be so unnatural, so 
 unutterably base, knowing all the while 
 their brother to be sane ?" was my indignant 
 exclamation. 
 
 " 0, no ! not quite so bad they are 
 sisters and Christian gentlewomen, " was 
 Fraukland's reply, made in that subdued 
 voice which gave such thrilling effect to his
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 117 
 
 simplest words. " They do believe him 
 mad, doubtless ; the alchemy of gold can 
 work stranger conversions than this. Look 
 around you," we were walking in the Park, 
 then filled with gay company, " have we 
 not seen it harden the heart of the child 
 against the mother, and turn the mother's 
 milk to gall convert doubt into faith, and 
 faith into denial make an unprincipled 
 
 pensioner of and a titled prostitute of 
 
 ! " He pointed to two of the " distin- 
 guished persons " glittering before us. 
 " Horrible passion ! which, beyond all others, 
 shows the human heart ay, even woman's, 
 the pure, the kind, the household heart ! to 
 be, indeed, ' deceitful above all things, and 
 desperately wicked.' " 
 
 " Horrible indeed ! but are you not now 
 confounding the sordid craving, to which 
 these wretched sisters have yielded, with the 
 equally fatal temptations to which the most 
 generous natures are exposed, especially 
 among the refined classes of an improvident 
 and spendthrift society. That illustrious 
 pensioner, that admired and beautiful woman, 
 now glittering before us, yielded, as I appre- 
 hend, rather to the overpowering necessity of 
 obtaining money, than to the mere love of 
 gold for its own sake. Even with occasional 
 cases like this of Greene's, the law protects 
 our fortunes tolerably well, against the cupi- 
 dity and fraud of those about us ; but, Frank- 
 land, what power less than our own strong 
 will, our own established virtue, founded upon 
 the sure, if homely foundation of good habits, 
 industry, and economy shall guard us 
 against ourselves? Where one man, in 
 our times, makes shipwreck of honour and 
 peace, from the sordid desire of accumulation, 
 ten thousand sink into deeper disgrace from 
 what are termed Pecuniar!/ Involvements ; 
 though the true name is heart-breaking, soul- 
 ensnaring, mean, yet corroding misery ; the 
 defence against which every man of sense 
 and spirit holds in his own hand, if he had 
 sufficient moral energy to use it. Extrava- 
 gance is the prominent vice of our age ; yet 
 our prodigal system, instead of elevating 
 and liberalizing, actually narrows the spirit ; 
 the broad scheme of modern expensiveness 
 rendering all manner of pitiful pinching and 
 screwing necessary in conducting the details. 
 No man is at ease. We cannot afford to be 
 social, because it costs so much to be fine ; 
 and how can they be either generous or 
 charitable, who require much more than they 
 possess to pay for their necessary superfluities ? 
 Without timely resistance of the insidious 
 
 temptations which, at present, waylay every 
 man of liberal feelings without fortune, what 
 are patriotism, independence, and public 
 virtue, but empty names if not showy 
 labels, telling the minister, or those who 
 
 cater for him, that man's market price ! 
 
 But we are wandering far from the treache- 
 rous designs of Greene's relatives." 
 
 " In which they shall not prosper, by 
 God ! " exclaimed Frankland, with even more 
 than his wonted energy ; and I have never 
 seen a handsome and manly countenance 
 more dignified by a generous and enthusiastic 
 sentiment, than that which beamed upon 
 me, as y pausing in the path, he uttered this 
 solemn adjuration. " Every man must love 
 something ; and I like poor Jack, with the 
 love of remembered boyhood, and of habit, if 
 nothing better. But were it not so, it is a 
 man's achievement to attempt to throw open 
 the doors of those solitary English Bedlams ; 
 and destroy the law which, in this country, 
 lodges the most monstrous power of despotic 
 states in the hands of avaricious relatives. 
 No Bastiles in England ! there are half a 
 score, at this moment, and of the worst des- 
 cription, in the county of Surrey alone. 
 What matters it, whether the power of issu- 
 ing the Lettre de cachet is lodged with a 
 minister or a physician ? " 
 
 Frankland threw himself into this case 
 with his whole soul, periling upon it all that 
 more prudent or more selfish men esteem 
 the slender remains of his fortune, and his 
 gathering professional reputation. This 
 farther hardship attended the case that 
 Greene's funds were either tied up, or turned 
 by his friends into engines against him. 
 Who would undertake the cause of a virtually 
 pauper lunatic, already in confinement, under 
 regular process of law, conducted by the 
 ablest counsel and most respectable solicitors 
 in London ; and to which such a body of 
 evidence, medical and common, gave credit 
 and stability ? 
 
 For months, it remained doubtful whether 
 all the courage, energy, and ability of 
 Frankland, might not be eventually baffled 
 by the power of purse possessed by the oppo- 
 site party, and his client be really driven mad, 
 long before opportunity was obtained to 
 prove his sanity. In these desperate cir- 
 cumstances, Frankland adoptedbold measures. 
 Throwing the conventionalities of his profes- 
 sion overboard, he brought that potent auxi- 
 liary, of which all the learned faculties are 
 so peculiarly jealous the Press to bear 
 upon the case.
 
 118 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Doctors were at last despatched, by order 
 of the Court, to examine the state of the 
 patient ; and it is fortunate for mankind that 
 doctors will sometimes differ. 
 
 The kind and degree of Greene's insanity 
 afforded an excellent theme for learned talk 
 and lengthened debate, which occupied many 
 pages of the medical journals, until, by and 
 by, it came to be questioned if his madness 
 was really of the sort that disqualified a man 
 for the management of his own affairs, or 
 which made perpetual restraint necessary. 
 
 The opposite party, upon this, became 
 alarmed, pleaded, warned and tried to upset 
 the whole proceedings, by trying to set the 
 weak-minded client against his generous ad- 
 vocate. Greene was not quite so insane as 
 to fall into the snare, though laid by her who 
 had been his favourite sister ; and this abor- 
 tive attempt was construed into a fresh proof 
 of his alienation of mind the horror and 
 aversion he now showed to this lady being 
 held as evidence against him ; as if there had 
 not been reason enough for this feeling, in 
 her unsisterly and atrocious conduct. 
 
 There was a prospect, at last, that a ques- 
 tion which the most celebrated physicians in 
 London could not solve, would be decided by 
 a common jury ; and that tradesmen and 
 shopkeepers might determine more righte- 
 ously than the wise and the learned, what 
 degree of mental aberration was to subject a 
 fellow-citizen to a civil death, and to the 
 lingering and horrible punishment of perpe- 
 tual confinement. 
 
 I had assisted Frankland's, or rather 
 Greene's solicitors, in finding evidence to 
 rebut the volumes of ludicrous, distorted, 
 and vamped-up testimony that was arrayed 
 against him ; and I had often visited him 
 with the physicians sent down to examine 
 and report upon his case, in which, had it 
 only been from sympathy with Frankland's 
 anxiety, I would have felt deep concern. But 
 my intercourse with the poor defendant 
 wlio, to convince the doctors of his profound 
 wisdom, at one time assumed so cunning a 
 look, and such airs of solemnity, and, at 
 another, gave way to his over-wrought feel- 
 ings, in bursts of rage at his relatives, and 
 despair for himself redoubled my interest 
 in the case. My amazement, at last, was, 
 that his feeble and shaken mind resisted the 
 tortures of suspense and apprehension, which 
 dictated the perpetually recurring question 
 "Do you think it possible a jury will find 
 me mad ? How shall I stand that dreadful 
 trial? May I, perhaps, be kept in this 
 
 horrible place to the end of life ? and I 
 shall not be twenty-eight till Ladyday? 
 Good God! I shall go distracted ! " 
 
 These apprehensions, to which was added 
 his uncertainty about the fate of the Laura 
 of his muse, whom he now, however, soberly 
 named to me Patty or Peggy were but 
 sorry preparatives for that fiery ordeal 
 through which the most sane man could not 
 easily pass. 
 
 The preliminary conflict, and the remark- 
 able nature of the case, had attracted a large 
 share of the public attention before the trial 
 came on. In its conduct, whatever is whole- 
 some and generous in the profession of the 
 hired advocate, and all that is sinister, equi- 
 vocal, or directly evil, were strikingly con- 
 spicuous. Their fame, their fees, the pro- 
 fessional spirit, and the consciousness of 
 public attention, stimulated both the medical 
 men and the lawyers to extraordinary exer- 
 tion. But I rejoice to say the opponents 
 sharpened their weapons and mustered their 
 forces, only to swell the triumph of Frank- 
 land. A trial of four days, during which 
 the faculties of all engaged were strained to 
 the utmost, terminated in the establishment 
 of Mr. Greene in the possession of his senses 
 and the uncontrolled management of his 
 fortune. 
 
 In how exalted a light did Frankland ap- 
 pear to me at the close of that memorable 
 fourth, and most anxious day! I knew and 
 had participated in all his fears and feelings ; 
 I had been the witness, and, in some respects, 
 the sharer of his previous efforts under the 
 awful responsibility he had assumed for his 
 unhappy friend. Had the case terminated 
 ill, I knew that to himself the consequences 
 must have been overwhelming ; and when 
 with the most consummate skill of the advo- 
 cate, and the most persuasive powers of the 
 accomplished orator, w r ho yet finds his true 
 inspiration in his own heart he closed his 
 address, by imploring the jury, in finding for 
 his unfortunate client, to defend Englishmen, 
 in all future time, from the power of a law 
 more hostile to personal liberty, more fatally 
 subversive of the natural affections, and of 
 those tender domestic charities which alone 
 make life desirable, than any ever before 
 held over civilized man how was I thrilled 
 by the sense of the glorious gifts with which 
 it had pleased God to endow this man, for 
 the blessing and grace of his fellow-creatures ! 
 And was I to live to witness those noble 
 energies worse than thrown away to see 
 those talents perverted, prostrated, and finally
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 119 
 
 converted into the instrument of torture and 
 shame to the man they had so glorified ! 
 
 Exhausted by his gigantic effort, and still 
 more by mental anxiety for Frankland 
 was, at no time, of those cool counsel, who, 
 having done all they can, lie down content, 
 and take the event lightly he retired early 
 from the congratulations of the bar, and of 
 the members of the medical faculty, the 
 philosophers, and moralists, and mere lawyers, 
 who filled the court ; leaving each with the 
 impression that it was in his own science, his 
 own particular pursuit, that the accomplished 
 barrister had displayed the greatest know- 
 ledge, and excelled the most. He had pre- 
 viously recommended Greene to my especial 
 care for the day ; and had not one or two 
 sympathizing jurymen, melted by the elo- 
 quence of Frankland, wept with the poor 
 fellow, for company, I am afraid we might 
 have had a motion for a new trial, founded 
 on such evidences of sensibility, in a man 
 who had just escaped destruction worse than 
 death. I prevailed with him to take at least 
 one night's repose before he set off for Dor- 
 setshire, in pursuit of Laura, a chase which 
 did not, in the least, lead me to doubt his 
 soundness of mind, and which furnished me 
 with another agreeable proof of his sound- 
 ness of heart ; as he informed me, the at- 
 tachment arose long before he was a man of 
 fortune. 
 
 Next morning, Frankland's servant a 
 negro lad, of most spaniel-like affection, sub- 
 mission, and fidelity to his master, but whom 
 I disliked, nevertheless, as an expensive, and 
 not absolutely necessary appendage brought 
 me intelligence that his master had been very 
 ill all night, and that in a joint consultation 
 held between himself, Timothy, and Sal the 
 laundress, it was agreed that the apothecary 
 should be called in, as the malady had re- 
 sisted Tim's applications of linen cloths dip- 
 ped in sfither, and applied to the temples, 
 which he had sometimes seen his master em- 
 ploy, and the woman's sole internal specific 
 of burnt brandy. It was an equal chance 
 that they had not killed him between them, 
 which they assuredly would have done had 
 they not fortunately differed about the mode 
 of treatment : Sal being for a phlogistic, and 
 Tim for an anti-phlogistic regimen. I found 
 their patient under a violent fever, and al- 
 ready partially delirious, quite prostrate and 
 unable to speak to me, although he still re- 
 cognised me, and pressed my hand. On his 
 table by the bed-side, where Sal had mustered 
 the various insignia of her assumed office of 
 
 sick nurse, lay an unclosed penciled note, 
 addressed to myself, in a handwriting which 
 showed how shattered the nerves of the writer 
 were. It was in these words : 
 
 " My dear Sir I scrawl these lines before 
 being put, in spite of myself, to bed. I fear 
 I am about to be seriously indisposed : I have 
 felt this for the last few days. Liability to 
 violent fever, I have received from my 
 mother, along with much of good and some- 
 thing of evil the inheritance of a suscep- 
 tible organization and a hot Carolinian blood. 
 Is the jargon of physiology and the 
 ' philosophy of mind,' of which we have 
 been hearing so much in these last days, up- 
 setting my brain already ? I have not a 
 moment to lose. In a few hours I shall 
 probably be delirious in a few days I may 
 die. Will you be my Executor ? I am sure 
 that I know you ; and I think you under- 
 stand one who, with all his faults, fully ap- 
 preciates your manly and sincere character, 
 though he may never have told you so. 
 Will you, then, come to me, direct my 
 doctor, and, if need be, see me buried? I 
 know you will. But a more trying office 
 remains. Will you open whatever letters 
 may come addressed to me during my illness, 
 whether from man or woman, and act for me 
 as my knowledge of your honour and sensi- 
 bility assures me you will act, if you con- 
 sent at all ? Do not refuse me. You per- 
 ceive how helplessly and entirely I throw 
 myself upon you. 
 
 " From boyhood, my pride or call it by 
 what hard name you will has preserved 
 me from even the shadow of a weak, or a 
 misplaced confidence, or an unworthy love 
 yet, in my ravings, names may escape me, 
 and old scenes be alluded to, which, I may 
 frankly say, I would not voluntarily pour 
 even into your friendly ear, were I master 
 of my faculties. Let no one near me. 
 
 " If I die, I hope the sale of my books will 
 bury me, and pay my debts they are too 
 numerous ; but if I live, that fault shall be 
 amended. Greene will make up any defi- 
 ciency. Transmit the sealed packet you will 
 find in my desk, when I am buried, not 
 sooner. God bless you and farewell ! " 
 
 I did not require this letter to animate the 
 zeal of friendship ; yet I could not read it 
 without being strongly affected. I called in 
 immediate advice and watched by my friend 
 throughout the day. Two gentlemen, both 
 eminent in their profession, and in great 
 practice, who had come in contact with 
 Frankland on the late trial, called in the
 
 120 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 course of the second day, on accidentally 
 hearing of his illness, and that he was alone 
 in chambers, and distant from any relative. 
 Their offers of professional service were so 
 frankly and affectionately made ; and fees, 
 on the part of an unconscious and not a rich 
 man, were so sincerely disclaimed, that, as 
 Frankland's friend, I did both gentlemen the 
 kindness and it was kindness to accept 
 of their offers of attendance. Had their 
 patient been a prince of the blood, this I will 
 say for them, more attention could not have 
 been paid to him ; nor would half the real 
 anxiety have been felt, which these gentle- 
 men showed to save the valuable life of a 
 man whose only claim was the promise of a 
 noble career, and the possession of transcen- 
 dent talents. It would have been a proud 
 trophy of their science to restore to society 
 such a character as Frankland must become. 
 
 Events fell out nearly as Frankland had 
 foreseen. He was fearfully ill ; and I did 
 not choose to leave him in those critical days, 
 when life hovered on the cast of every hour, 
 to the sole care of either the nurse or the 
 apothecary. I accordingly regularly changed 
 guard with Black Timothy, in whose affection 
 and care I could fully confide. 
 
 On the third night, the fever rose very 
 high, and I had difficulty to keep the patient 
 in bed. " Mother ! " was the frequent ex- 
 clamation of his delirium ; and he would 
 touchingly address his mother who, I was 
 aware, had been, for several years, dead as 
 if she were present with him. Another 
 image haunted his excited brain, which 
 revealed to me the nature of the obscure 
 allusions of his note. 
 
 The midnight solitary watch kept over the 
 dead body of one we have loved in life, has 
 often been pathetically described. To my 
 feelings such solemn vigil is less affecting 
 than that held by anxious affection over the 
 sick couch of one tossing in the violence of 
 delirious fever marking the wanderings of 
 wild eyes, and listening to those incoherent 
 ravings which indicate the strife and agony 
 of passion, and the fierce travail of the mind, 
 over which reason holds no control ; watching, 
 as it were, the visible conflict of blood and 
 judgment, of the immaterial with the earthy ; 
 and, more than all, beholding the strength 
 and integrity of the sentiments and affections 
 triumphing amidst the wandering and obscu- 
 ration of the senses. At another time I 
 might have smiled now I was more inclined 
 to weep at the bursts of laughter which the 
 negro, in the midst of his dolour, when moved 
 
 by the frantic illusions under which his 
 master laboured, sent through that lonely 
 chamber. Although Timothy appeared per- 
 fectly sensible in this failure in respect, and 
 outrage of common humanity, the black dog 
 could not control his irresistible feeling of 
 the ludicrous, when Frankland, springing 
 from the bed, his eyes flashing over me with 
 the unnatural brightness of delirium, caught 
 and strained me to his bosom " Hugging 
 ould Massa Richar," the sable villain said, 
 shaking in convulsions of laughter, " for 
 Missey Eleeny ; though him hab such black 
 brush beard." 
 
 " Helena ! dearest Helena ! " was the 
 frantic and pathetic cry, which left me no 
 inclination for mirth ; " Will the wretches 
 so dishonour you ? Will they force you upon 
 the public gaze ? violate all the virgin 
 sanctities of your nature ? Do they persist 
 in their damned, damned scheme ? No, no, 
 no I will perish sooner : no more prudence 
 no more waiting I am sick of it sick, 
 sick, Helena ! Lay your cool fingers on 
 my temples, love how they throb there, 
 there ! " His head faintly sunk on my arm ; 
 and, in a little while, we were able to replace 
 him in bed. Through the rest of the night, 
 among his other delirious wanderings, he 
 frequently burst into eloquent addresses to 
 juries, alternating with impassioned ravings 
 about the fate from which he was to rescue 
 this beloved Helena ; and imprecations against 
 some ruthless one, who assumed power over 
 her destinies. 
 
 The mental health of Frankland was 
 beyond my medicaments ; but I flattered 
 myself that my care and vigilance were 
 helpful in his bodily restoration, after nature, 
 seconded by the eminent skill of his zealous 
 physicians, had subdued the disease. The 
 delicate offers of service from many unex- 
 pected quarters, which were pressed upon me 
 in his behalf, made me proud of my friend, 
 and pleased with my species. 
 
 As the violence of his disorder abated, my 
 duties became daily much lighter, though 
 they promised to be tedious. Some of my 
 functions were easy indeed. The men of 
 business appeared to know, by instinct, that 
 Frankland was incapable of professional 
 exertion ; for no briefs were even offered at 
 this time, and very few letters came, and 
 those not of the delicate kind to which my 
 mission specially referred. I made it my 
 daily business to be in the way at the delivery 
 of the post from the West ; for it was in that 
 direction I knew that Frankland's early
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 121 
 
 connexions lay, though he had, I understood, 
 no near surviving relatives. 
 
 He had been confined for three weeks 
 before the expected despatches, so mysteri- 
 ously announced in his note, arrived. The 
 correspondence could not then have been 
 either a very close or vehement one. I had 
 no doubt about the sex of the writer of the 
 missive I touched so gingerly, cautiously 
 reconnoitring the outside. But had my 
 instincts, informed by the negro's grin, been 
 at fault, the tiny German characters of the 
 name so often repeated by the unconscious 
 Frankland, and impressed on the seal, was 
 sure confirmation. Was my curiosity ex- 
 cited ? Yes, a little ; but I had honourably 
 resisted its cravings, as often as Timothy, 
 in the simplicity of his heart, wept over 
 "Massa dying," and pitied "poor leetelMissey 
 Heleny," as if tempting me to question him. 
 Even now, though I well remembered the 
 injunctions of my friend, and, indeed, re- 
 perused his directions, I could not all at once 
 violate that tiny seal, and possess myself of 
 the confidence which I felt was never meant 
 for me. In obedience to these delicate 
 scruples, I carried the epistle in my waistcoat 
 pocket for some hours ; not looking, first 
 at it, and then at poor Frankland, above 
 once in the ten minutes. Days and weeks, I 
 foresaw, might elapse before he was able to 
 relieve me from these embarrassments, or 
 with safety bear the agitation which might 
 attend the opening of this little letter ; and, 
 as the hour of post drew near, my refine- 
 ments and ruminations gave way to my 
 prescribed duty and the dictates of common 
 sense I broke the seal. 
 
 The pathetic exclamations of Frankland 
 had not prepared me for what, at first sight, 
 seemed an exceedingly tame epistle ; so dry 
 and flat, that it might have been written by 
 a man of business, doing the needful, and no 
 more ; and unable, in conscience, to spin out 
 what would turn the leaf and so double the 
 charge. The leaf, in fact, was merely turned ; 
 and there was no pithy postscript, no emphatic 
 Italics, no exclamatory sentences nothing, 
 in short, to have offended The Young Lady's 
 Monitress for 1735, or the starched genius of 
 Miss Harriet Byron ; yet the name Helena 
 Vane appeared at full length, and in very 
 fair characters, after a plain yours sincerely. 
 I perfectly remember the tenor of this seem- 
 ing-calm epistle, in which there was not a 
 single interpolation or erasure, save in the 
 address, which originally appeared to have 
 been, dear James Charles and now hovered 
 
 between Dear Sir and Dear Mr. Frankland, 
 to which was appended : 
 
 " When I last saw you, which, I remember, 
 was on the morning after the autumn assize 
 ball, for a few minutes, in going to Harris' 
 Library, you requested me to renew the 
 promise you had exacted in the former year, 
 that I should not enter upon the profession 
 my noble patrons here believe would be so 
 advantageous to my sisters and myself, or, 
 at least, not consent to appear in public, until 
 I had acquainted you. I consider it my duty 
 to fulfil this promise, with which I could not 
 comply in words at the time, as you may 
 remember the party that came up to us. 
 There are so many Vanes, and old friends 
 and connexions of our family in Bath this 
 season, who kindly interest themselves for 
 
 my advantage, that Lady says she can 
 
 no longer suffer childish scruples to stand in 
 the way of my true interests and the prospects 
 of my sisters. They also are impatient for 
 my decision. My decision ! Does the point 
 then rest with me ? This is, without doubt, a 
 very awful affair to me, and one which I know 
 must colour my whole future life. But, while 
 so many better-informed and friendly persons 
 urge the adoption of a profession, which, but 
 for the one fatal and insurmountable objec- 
 tion of publicity, I should dearly love, I must 
 endeavour to conquer personal repugnance ; 
 and, indeed, I see no course left but immediate 
 and grateful acquiescence with the wishes 
 of those who have already done so much for 
 us all, and with whom I have dallied too 
 long. 
 
 " Mamma and my sisters beg to congratu- 
 late you upon the triumph of our old play- 
 mate, poor Jack Greene of which we read 
 with great interest in the newspapers. Your 
 admirers, who are numerous in this quarter, 
 say that this must have a happy influence 
 upon your professional prospects. 
 
 " If I come out, and if I am successful here 
 that first tremendous if! my friends 
 imagine that they may procure me an 
 advantageous engagement in London next 
 season. Perhaps we may then sometimes 
 meet, and renew the memory of happy old 
 times ; if again if grave and learned law- 
 yers may tolerate frivolous stage heroines. 
 I have now tried to redeem my implied pro- 
 mise ; and, if I do not hear from you before 
 the 10th of next month, then, on that night, 
 pray for the poor, lost Ophelia ! Yours 
 sincerely, " Helena Vane." 
 
 This, then, was the clew to Frankland's 
 broken exclamations in his delirium. He
 
 122 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 could not, in ordinary prudence, afford to 
 marry ; he would not endure that the woman 
 to whom he had in earlier years been pas- 
 sionately, as he was still deeply, attached, 
 and who, he hoped, returned his affection, 
 should go upon the stage, in opposition, as 
 he believed, to her own inclination, but over- 
 powered by the necessities of her family, and 
 the solicitations and flatteries of those around 
 her. 
 
 Helena Vane was the youngest of three 
 sisters ; the flower of one of those families 
 of lovely, elegant, and well-born paupers, 
 who cannot dig, and who to beg become, in 
 time, not ashamed. Her father had been in 
 the navy ; and the widow, with her daugh- 
 ters, after romancing about in Scottish, 
 Welsh, and Swiss Cottages, and graduating 
 into toad-eaters, now lived in a small house 
 in the neighbourhood of Gosport. The elder 
 girls, by dint of personal accomplishments, 
 a little dexterous flattery, and a wide, gen- 
 teel, and well-cultivated acquaintance, visited 
 a great deal about ; and were even received 
 in one or two noble families partly from 
 whim, partly from mistaken benevolence, 
 and, in one instance, from the patrician 
 patrons desiring to mortify other noble per- 
 sons, who were the relatives, and who thus 
 ought to have been the friends of the unpro- 
 tected girls. 
 
 I can scarcely conceive any course of life 
 less favourable to the formation of firm and 
 virtuous character, and happy feminine dis- 
 positions, than that led by the elder Miss 
 Vanes after leaving school. It alternated 
 between the luxurious mansions of the great 
 and their mother's poor home ; between re- 
 pining and luxury ambitious projects and 
 disappointed hopes. They were courtiers 
 upon a small scale, but unpensioned. They 
 were seldom together, as one was considered 
 enough at a time in any family ; and, in 
 spite of the seeming graciousness and real 
 bounty of patrons, they found themselves 
 neither treated with the kindliness of relation- 
 ship, nor the frank equality of independent 
 friendship : not considered quite as menials 
 but never as equals. In their own minds 
 were combined the pride of birth with the 
 meanness of dependence. 
 
 Marriage upon which all women, unhap- 
 pily for themselves, place but too much re- 
 liance, merely as a means of life was next 
 to impossible in their condition. Such girls 
 are of the Flying-fish class of society. If 
 they aspire, the watchful inhabitants of the 
 upper air pounce upon and drive them back 
 
 to the inferior element ; while they are dis- 
 claimed and chased away by those below, :is 
 dangerous and rapacious encroachers, wliu 
 only seek the deep to snatch a prey. The 
 dowagers, accordingly, were on the alert, to 
 preserve minor sons, and nephews at school, 
 from the arts and fascinations of the Miss 
 Vanes ; while the substantial yeoman, the 
 small squire, the curate, the rural surgeon, 
 the surveyor of the estate, the engineer con- 
 structing the new bridge, nay, the very excise- 
 man himself, though all and each might 
 occasionally find themselves in company with 
 the beautiful Miss Vanes at election balls, 
 and also at good men's feasts, and might 
 wonder and admire, and fancy Caroline a 
 more distinguished-looking woman than my 
 Lady, and Harriet a lovelier creature than 
 the young Countess herself, yet curate, and 
 squire, and yeoman, never went farther than 
 wonder and admiration ; too humble or too 
 prudent to aspire to the high-bred, penniless, 
 hanger-on beauties. 
 
 The younger sister, the beloved of my 
 friend, had lived much more at home. She 
 was not yet depreciated by notoriety, and 
 her great musical talents, which were now 
 to make the fortune of the family, already 
 made her of more momentary consequence in 
 high society than her sisters. Happier in- 
 fluences had been around her youth. She 
 was the darling of a mother, affectionate, 
 though frivolous ; and her Incipient attach- 
 ment to a man of the character of Frankland, 
 was a talisman to protect the young girl 
 against the blandishments of unequal society, 
 and the seductions of her own vanity. I do no t 
 mean to say that she had passed through the 
 dangerous ordeal wholly unscathed. Gentle 
 and yielding, beautiful in person, and ingra- 
 tiating in manners I would fain believe 
 that, in her instance, a woman's stars may 
 
 sometimes be more in fault than herself. 
 
 But I have wandered from her epistle, which 
 I studied until I fancied I comprehended 
 the whole case. My friend was not in cir- 
 cumstances to warrant their immediate union ; 
 and his pride, or his propriety or call it an 
 overstrained sense of delicacy could not 
 submit to his future wife appearing on the 
 public stage, even under the most flattering 
 auspices, and with the probability of rapidly 
 making a fortune. How was he, who could 
 not bear, with ordinary patience, even clumsy 
 flattery, and vulgar, mal-adroit praise of him- 
 self, to endure criticism upon the beauty, the 
 accomplishments, the dress, and the character 
 of Helena ? to see her become the hackneyed
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 123 
 
 theme of a nine days' wonder dragged 
 through all the Sunday journals ihe/Scmirge 
 pronouncing her of gawky height, and the 
 Snake of dumpy stature ; one saying her eyes 
 were black, and the other blue, while a third 
 made them out of a greenish-gray tint ; one 
 declaring her petticoats, or her tucker, a 
 straw's breadth too scanty, and the other 
 setting her down as a muffled prude, because 
 these errors were amended. 
 
 I understood the character of Frankland 
 too well to doubt for a moment the part 
 which he would have taken if capable of 
 acting for himself. He would, I knew, 
 either at once have married, or for ever have 
 resigned her to her profession and to the 
 service of the family, whose chief dependence 
 was now on her talents. In these circum- 
 stances, I trimmed as dexterously as I could ; 
 and, with as much delicacy as possible, ac- 
 quainted the young lady with the nature of 
 my trust, and with the serious illness of my 
 friend ; and earnestly suggested, that what- 
 ever affair of moment was at his decision, or 
 depending on his advice, should be delayed 
 for, at least, one month. 
 
 This delay was, I presume, conceded ; but 
 I cannot tell the interior workings of the 
 family policy of the Vanes and their patron- 
 esses. There was, I fear, no solid basis of 
 principle in any of the women, upon which 
 to found any consistent scheme. It would, 
 I afterwards understood, have been gratify- 
 ing to the family to see Helena married to a 
 man like Frankland, had he already been in 
 tolerable practice ; and the humiliation of 
 her intended sacrifice was, at times, severely 
 felt by them all, especially as it might after- 
 wards affect the unmarried sisters. The 
 most brilliant success, and fortune itself, 
 could never obliterate the recollection that a 
 sister of the daughters of Captain Vane, was, 
 or had been, upon the stage ; while, upon the 
 other side, immediate exigency, the importu- 
 nity of patrons and amateurs, and the bitter- 
 ness of dependence, which they had drunk to 
 the very dregs, urged Helena on to her fate. 
 That propitious opening in Frankland's 
 affairs, which the family council hoped from 
 the fortunate issue of the case of Greene, was 
 suddenly shut by his unfortunate and tedious 
 illness ; and, if Helena was ever to appear, 
 there could be no season so auspicious as the 
 present. 
 
 Frankland was, meanwhile, slowly re- 
 covering, and already took cognizance, though 
 apparently little interest, in any thing passing 
 around him, save the delivery of the West 
 
 post. When that hour passed, and day after 
 day produced only old newspapers, or indif- 
 ferent letters, he generally sunk into apathe- 
 tic silence for some hours, apparently at once 
 relieved and disappointed. 
 
 I had not yet given him an account of 
 my stewardship, reserving the disclosure until 
 his health was more confirmed, and until he 
 could safely hold a pen. But long before 
 that period arrived, he had contrived, by the 
 aid of Timothy, at many different sittings 
 up in bed, to scrawl out in those feeble 
 characters which proved how much he had 
 suffered, and how deeply he felt a letter, 
 intended to meet no eyes save those of the 
 lady to whom I was requested to address it. 
 
 I was surprised, nay offended, that no re- 
 ply came to so affecting a proof of undecay- 
 iiig tenderness ; of an affection which had 
 held power over his mind in its most aliena- 
 ted state, and which was the first to awaken 
 in his bosom, as thought, and feeling, and 
 the hope of life returned. Let me not blame 
 Helena. Her sisters, divided in opinion be- 
 tween an immediate interest and an enduring 
 family pride, were, at all events, agreed in 
 the necessity of suppressing her letters, and 
 of not distracting her attention, and with- 
 drawing her mind from what they called her 
 studies, at so critical a period: For Frank- 
 land spoke only of distant hopes of profes- 
 sional success, and, in the meanwhile, of 
 privation and struggle ; and noble patrons 
 were urgent, and excited amateurs impatient 
 for a consummation, which, whether it might 
 be life or death to the young debutante, ac- 
 cording as she sustained or fell short of 
 highly-raised pubh'c expectation, was, to 
 them, but the trifling difference between 
 flattering and caressing, or despising and 
 neglecting her ; and excellent amusement 
 either way. 
 
 Continued debility and relaxed nerves 
 made my friend probably more quiescent 
 under the continued silence of Helena than 
 he might have been at another season. They, 
 besides, had rarely corresponded ; and he 
 rested, with tolerable security, upon her 
 having adopted my suggestion of delay. In 
 the progress of his slow recovery, conversa- 
 tion frequently turned upon the Vane family. 
 I could learn, that he admired without liking 
 the sisters almost despised the fond mother 
 and felt warm affection for Helena 
 which yet admitted of some doubts and draw- 
 backs. " She had been, in some points, spoiled 
 by her family," he said. This was a great 
 length for a lover to go ; but neither strong
 
 124 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 attachment, nor a high sense of honour, 
 which held him to engagements, which, if 
 not expressed, had been well understood, 
 permitted him to recede. She had given the 
 concerted signal, which he had entreated, 
 and it remained for him immediately to 
 reply to it. 
 
 My secret prepossession was for a com- 
 promise, a juste-milieu measure. " Could 
 not this angelic songstress remain for a year 
 or two longer in single blessedness and safe 
 retirement, awaiting the issue of those bril- 
 liant professional prospects which, in the case 
 of her lover, are almost certain to be realized 
 unless, indeed" I added, hesitatingly. 
 
 " Unless what, my friend," was the ani- 
 mated rejoinder of Frankland, catching 
 eagerly at whatever favoured the scheme 
 which his judgment refused to sanction. 
 
 " Unless this beautiful Helena, superadded 
 to all her virtues and charms, possess a force 
 of character, and habits of activity and self- 
 dependence, which, I regret to say, modern 
 female education does not tend to form. If 
 we train women only for the enervating re- 
 finements of luxurious life, how shall we 
 blame their lack of the useful virtues ? The 
 portionless wife of a struggling professional 
 man, would require, in this age, to be some- 
 thing more than a mere angel. It is more 
 the prevailing character of the women, I 
 assure you, and the expensive habits of 
 modern society, that inspire my proverbial 
 horror of improvident marriages, than the 
 mere objection of a narrow income." 
 
 Frankland was silent ; and I felt that I 
 had said enough, and took my leave, arrang- 
 ing a longer airing for the morrow than he 
 had yet ventured upon. But, for this pur- 
 pose, no morrow came. On that day, Frank- 
 land learned from Greene, who had arrived 
 from Bath, the distracting intelligence that 
 Helena was to appear on the same night. 
 The news was confirmed, by the usual pre- 
 liminary flourish of trumpets, in the Bath 
 and Bristol papers. When I reached his 
 chambers, I found only Greene busied in 
 directing Timothy. 
 
 " Gone to Bath ! " was my horror-struck 
 exclamation, in answer to Greene's informa- 
 tion. 
 
 " And will certainly reach soon after the 
 drawing up of the curtain. How I envy 
 Frankland his feelings ! to witness the 
 lady of his secret love debut under such bril- 
 liant circiimstancea ! You have never, I 
 believe, seen the beauteous Helena Vane. 
 rose of May ! dear maid ! kind sister ! 
 
 sweet Ophelia ! Never had Hamlet's love 
 so exquisite a representative. What melting 
 pathos, what sensibility in her looks and 
 tones, in those seeming simple words 
 
 He is dead and gone, ladye, 
 He is dead and gone." 
 
 The provoking fellow would have inflicted 
 more of these lines upon me, had I not yelled 
 again, " Gone to Bath ! What did he say ? 
 How did he look? Left he no message? 
 How could you, Mr. Greene, permit such 
 madness? He is probably again delirious: 
 he will expire on the road." 
 
 " What do you mean ? I never saw 
 Frankland look better his colour fine 
 his eyes flashing with life and soul ; he even 
 said something witty about not being like 
 Byron, not having time to wait for a blue 
 coat to be married in. He also said he 
 would write you, and that you must send 
 Timothy, and his medicine, and dressing 
 things by the first coach and fifty pounds, 
 for which I have just run to my banker's. 
 Half my fortune is at the disposal of the 
 generous friend to whom I owe the whole of 
 it and my happiness too. But there is 
 
 a certain Laura . Well, no more of 
 
 that. If I were not positively engaged to re- 
 turn to Dorsetshire to-day, I would have run 
 down with Frankland to witness the most 
 interesting debut that has probably ever taken 
 place on the English stage. How I would 
 have enjoyed the reflected sunshine of his 
 rapturous feelings, when he perceives that 
 ' Sweet Ophelia' recognises him in the stage- 
 box : for, even if he should get horses 
 readily, he cannot reach before the third 
 act." 
 
 I digested my impatience in the best way 
 I could. " Had Fair Rosamond," he pro- 
 vokingly continued, " been sustained by the 
 genius and sensibility of Helena Vane, the 
 town might have witnessed a very different 
 result, Mr. Richard. But no matter ; there 
 are such things as revivals." 
 
 Notwithstanding his allegiance to his lady, 
 Laura, I believed Frankland had shaken off 
 Greene in the morning ; for, when I an- 
 nounced my purpose of taking the place of 
 Timothy, and setting off after my friend, he 
 proposed to accompany me. This I at once 
 negatived, aware that Frankland might be 
 offended by me pursuing him myself, and 
 utterly indignant at the implied interference 
 of Greene. 
 
 i How differently individuals, who may be 
 supposed to feel alike, sometimes view the 
 same event ! There was Greene in ecstasy
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 with the opening of an adventure which dis- 
 tressed me beyond measure. An indifferent 
 spectator might have smiled at Sir Gravity, 
 seated upon a trunk, watching Timothy 
 showing the double row of his white teeth, 
 as, on his knees, he tugged, and pushed, and 
 stuffed a carpet-bag, with the unromantic 
 appliances of boots and pocket-handkerchiefs, 
 for his fugitive master, who, I feared, was 
 rushing on ruin ; and the excited Poet, 
 vowing, in the fulness of his rapturous grati- 
 tude, that Frankland, and Frankland alone, 
 was worthy of the rich homage of youth, 
 beauty, genius, fame in short, of that piece 
 of most admired perfection, the new Ophelia. 
 
 My chagrin and perplexity were, I dare 
 say, visible in my face, as I burst, from a 
 fit of musing, into the abrupt question 
 '' What sort of girl is she ? " 
 
 " Girl ! Well, it is become a sweet word, 
 especially in Moore's and Byron's verse. But 
 for the beauteous Helena ! 
 
 Oh ! she is more than painting can express, 
 Or youthful poets fancy when they dream." 
 
 " Soli ! But has she any fortune ? has 
 she any sense ? Frankland' s wife would 
 need both." 
 
 My question showed not much of the latter 
 quality, considering the man to whom it was 
 addressed. I could obtain nothing from him, 
 save that the astonishing tragic powers of 
 Helena, who was first intended to appeal- 
 merely as a singer, had been unexpectedly 
 " developed," in his own lyric of the " Mad 
 Maiden's Madrigal." So had said, and so 
 had written, Miss Caroline Vane to the man 
 whose capacity to manage 1500 a-year had 
 been as "unexpectedly developed," by the 
 verdict of a jury. I trembled for Laura, 
 afar off in Dorsetshire. 
 
 The fates had decreed that I should make 
 no journey to Bath at this time ; and I felt 
 respited, unpleasant as were the circumstances 
 which freed me. Mrs. Hannah More has 
 said and had any woman, less hallowed, 
 ventured the same freedom, it would certainly 
 have been called profane " That the only 
 real evils of this lower world are sin and bile." 
 Mrs. Hannah, I apprehend, was too fortunate 
 and prudent a person to have tasted of a third 
 evil, which is sometimes termed the root of 
 all evil. It is a root of which few, whether 
 rich or poor, escape, at one time or other, 
 tasting the bitterness. Frankland, imagined 
 to be flying on the wings of love, was secretly 
 chewing it on the Bath road ; and its 
 sedative effects had so far allayed the impetu- 
 ous current of passion and locomotion, that 
 
 he took time, while the horses were changing, 
 to write a hasty letter, acquainting me with 
 his sudden but necessary resolution, and his 
 lack of the ways and means. 
 
 I did my duty to my friend, and abided 
 the event with as much patience as I could 
 summon up. From the newspapers I received 
 the first certain intelligence. The Bath and 
 the London journals, with the many lesser 
 lights revolving in the small country towns, 
 were full of the affair ; and every drawing- 
 room, green-room, pump-room, parlour, back- 
 shop, and coffee-house, rung, for some days, 
 with " the gallantry of the celebrated liberal 
 
 barrister, Mr. F , who had snatched the 
 
 lovely Miss V , whose debut had created 
 
 such a sensation in Bath, from the boards, 
 on her first night ; and run away with her 
 to that happy land of love and romance, 
 where Cupid, rose-lipped, impatient imp, is 
 not bound to wait the good pleasure of drowsy 
 parsons, and their lazy clerks, nor yet for mar- 
 riage-licenses, whether special or common." 
 
 But my chief medium of intelligence was 
 Greene, who received letter upon letter from 
 the sister of the heroine. He, whose element 
 was excitement, was now more moved by the 
 eclat of the hasty marriage, and the gallant 
 and romantic circumstances attending it, than 
 if Helena had introduced the " Mad Maiden's 
 Madrigal," in the third act, and come forth, 
 from the ordeal of a first night, the most 
 triumphant of all Ophelias. His only busi- 
 ness, for three days, was to run from coffee- 
 house to coffee-house, and from club to club, 
 wherever he could find admittance, to expa- 
 tiate upon the gallantry of his distinguished 
 friend dauntless in love as in law on the 
 rare beauty of " the Arabian bird " Frank- 
 land had caught in her first flight, and to 
 favour me with long extracts from Miss 
 Vane's letters. 
 
 For the third time, he caught me by the 
 button, in the full, rolling human tide of the 
 Strand. "Was it not a dashing affair? 
 Who would have expected such a fiery out- 
 break from Frankland? but the Carolinian 
 blood was a-blaze. He drove the last two 
 stages himself feeble as he was would 
 trust no post-boy. Drove up to the theatre, 
 four-in-hand, slap-bang a prodigious crowd 
 assembled rushed upon the stage, and 
 caught Helena divine Ophelia ! in his 
 arms, as she was about to sink under her 
 own overpowering emotions poor girl ! 
 and Kean's devilish 
 
 Ha ! ha ! are you honest ? 
 Just in the nick of time you see, and down
 
 126 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 sunk the lovers in each other's arms, Frank- 
 land as dead as Harry the Eighth and 
 ('.own tumbled the curtain. The house was 
 in rare confusion and amaze as you may 
 suppose the manager in agony and Ham- 
 let, stamping for his Ophelia ravished from 
 him. But he is a good-hearted fellow at 
 bottom, Kean ; with a pretty spice of 
 enthusiasm and romance in his composition, 
 too. He went before the curtain, and, in a 
 neat speech, informed the ladies and gentle- 
 men, that their tragedy, of that night, was 
 likely to end, after the approved manner of 
 all comedies, with the near prospect of a 
 wedding. And down came pit, gallery, and 
 boxes, in three distinct rounds, to the happy 
 pair. Many of the young ladies were driven 
 to their cambric, I am told, by the pathos of 
 the scene. I dare say we may expect the 
 young couple in town very soon. They are 
 quite a passion in Bath Caroline writes me 
 
 so feted and petted." 
 
 I could only interject an occasional humph 
 as my contribution to this information, the 
 one-half of which was absurd exaggeration. 
 
 " But that is not the best of it. Bath is 
 divided into two furious factions ; one 
 hostile, headed by Helena's former patroness, 
 the Marchioness of Longlappette, the old 
 doctors, and the manager, who complains of 
 great pecuniary loss and very bad usage ; 
 and the other, by all the young ladies, the 
 gay young men, and the young doctors, who 
 uphold the lovers. Lady Longlappette, it is 
 thought entre nous dexterously seized the 
 opportunity of getting rid of the whole family 
 
 moved, as she says, by the deceit and in- 
 gratitude of the younger girl, and her insolent 
 usage of Mr. Manager and the most fashion- 
 able audience that had been seen in Bath 
 theatre for years. Miss Caroline Vane, 
 who, in epistolary eloquence, rivals Madame 
 de Sevigne herself, has filled sheet upon sheet 
 to the Marchioness, breathing unappeasable 
 sorrow, and Harriet even knelt before her ; 
 but the old lady continues inflexible, whip- 
 ping her jaded hacks round Bath, bewailing 
 her own candid, unsuspicious nature, which 
 lays her so open to the arts of the designing, 
 and vowing her nerves can't stand the shock 
 of ever seeing a Vane in her house again. 
 Martyn, whom you have seen, writes me 
 this." 
 
 " And what is to become of the young 
 ladies ? " 
 
 " For the present, I believe, they will come 
 to town, and reside with their lovely sister, 
 Mrs. Frankland." 
 
 " Humph ! So Frankland has married 
 three wives." 
 
 "My good sir, your conclusions are rather 
 rapid. It fortunately so happened, that, at 
 the time of Helena's debut, Lord Tilsit, the 
 head of the Vanes and a near relation of the 
 young ladies, happened to be in Bath, by 
 recommendation of his physicians. Indeed, 
 this influenced the period chosen for Helena's 
 appearance." 
 
 "Tilsit the Cabinet Minister?" 
 
 "The same. Conceive how fortunate a 
 stroke for our friend, this connexion." 
 
 " Humph ! " 
 
 " Well, sir, Lord Tilsit had, it was believed, 
 resented the name of Vane appearing in a 
 playbill ; and was so much pleased with the 
 spirit displayed by Frnnkland, whom he 
 knows by character, no doubt, that he made 
 his physician, the celebrated Dr. Coddler, the 
 bearer of the olive branch to the Misses 
 Vanes. They had been driven to find an 
 asylum in their milliner's for the time, by 
 their furious patroness, who literally turned 
 them out of doors. As soon as the license, 
 about which his Lordship wrote to his friend 
 the Archbishop with his own hand, was 
 obtained, the marriage took place in his 
 ready-furnished house ; and he himself gave 
 away the bride, who, with her sisters, had 
 been living with him for some days previous 
 to the marriage. Every soul in Bath, save 
 the Longlappette faction, was so charmed, as 
 his Lordship had, for five years, taken no 
 notice of his fair relatives. Mrs. Frankland, 
 in particular, had grown up an angelic crea- 
 ture since he had seen the Vanes. What do 
 you guess was his wedding gift ? " 
 
 "Something very pretty from the Bath 
 trinket-shops; or, perhaps for Lord Tilsit 
 knows the world a small draft upon 
 Hoare " 
 
 " Better, sir a gift of the most considerate 
 and yet splendid kind his late residence in 
 Berkeley Square, with all the furniture as it 
 stands, down to the veiy scrubbing-brushes, 
 and including the silver dishes." 
 
 " Humph ! and how are they to be filled ? 
 though I believe genteel economy can 
 make much out of silver dishes." 
 
 " O cynic ! that is ever the way with you." 
 
 " You don't mean to tell me that Frank- 
 land will occupy that great, cast-off house 
 so far away from the regions of business 
 so large and expensive, that it would eat 
 him up in taxes unless, indeed, Lord Tilsit 
 has given his beautiful relative an income, 
 and one of his cast-off carnages too."
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 127 
 
 I was sensible of my own silly bitterness, 
 without having power to restrain it. In 
 what was this beginning to end ? 
 
 " A new carriage, if she will do me the 
 honour to accept of it, shall be my humble 
 gift to Mrs. Frankland. And, as to income, 
 it is universally allowed to be disgraceful, 
 that young ladies, the daughters of a gallant 
 officer, and the near relatives of a man who 
 has done so much for his country as Lord 
 Tilsit, should remain in a dependent situa- 
 tion. The Royal bounty could not flow in 
 purer channels." 
 
 " Humph ! the spinsters are to be pen- 
 sioned, then?" 
 
 " You are sometimes pleased to indulge in 
 a caustic style of remark, Mr. Richard ; but, 
 as I know Frankland has no truer friend, 
 and not one he esteems more, I may just hint 
 to you in confidence " 
 
 " Tell me nothing, sir ." I left him 
 
 abruptly, mortified and sad, and heard no 
 more of Frankland for about ten days. 
 Then my friend Timothy, in a smart new 
 livery, came with a rather long letter from 
 his master, dated from the new residence 
 to which, however, Frankland made no allu- 
 sion whatever apologizing for silence. He 
 requested as a particular favour, that I would 
 breakfast with him on next Sunday morning : 
 he longed so much to see me, and had so 
 much to say. " Helena also," he added, 
 " impatiently desires the pleasure of making 
 the acquaintance of my guide, philosopher, 
 and friend, her unknown correspondent, 
 and my nurse." Of the sisters he said no- 
 thing. 
 
 There was in my bosom a well-spring of 
 affection for this man, which partook of the 
 force and warmth of kindred blood. My late 
 cares and anxieties for him, and even my 
 present forebodings, endeared Frankland the 
 more ; and I chided down my suspicions, 
 though my fears I could not conquer, as I 
 viewed the precipice upon which he was 
 venturing. 
 
 While I mused over his letter, which, 
 though as friendly as possible, was, I ima- 
 gined, not without a certain air of restraint, 
 Timothy, translated, by his dress and the 
 favour of his mistress, into a complete negro 
 coxcomb, was entertaining Nurse Wilks and 
 her helper in the kitchen with the glory and 
 grandeur of Massa Frankland's new dwelling, 
 his lady, the bride-cake, the coach, and the 
 company. The topic was so acceptable to 
 his audience and himself, that I was per- 
 mitted as long time as I chose to answer his 
 
 master's note ; which I did by accepting his 
 invitation. 
 
 Nurse Wilks, when Sunday arrived, hinted 
 at the propriety of making my first visit in 
 " my own hackney coach ; " and, as I was 
 going out in only my second-best surtout, 
 fairly caught me, remonstrated, and swore, 
 in the face of the heavens, which 
 
 Grew black as she was speaking, 
 that there would not be a drop of rain that 
 day ; and, moreover, was not I the well- 
 known Gentleman with the Umbrella. 
 
 I set my face towards ** the splendid man- 
 sion in Berkeley Square," at a heavier pace 
 than the elastic step which had so oft borne 
 me on to Frankland's chambers. The time 
 of receiving me, though so prudently ordered, 
 proved, I fear, somewhat mal a propos. I 
 was admitted by a strange domestic ; though 
 Timothy, grinning welcome from ear to ear, 
 usurped the office of groom of the chambers, 
 in right of our intimacy ; and had his claim 
 allowed by the other man, perhaps, in re- 
 spect of my thrifty, rain-defying surtout. 
 
 Tim's hilarity, gay attire, and fresh Sun- 
 day-morning bouquet, were not in harmony 
 with the appearance of his master. I found 
 Frankland alone in a small side apartment, 
 and engaged in writing. If not quite so pale, 
 he was even more thin than when I had last 
 seen him ; and, in the course of our three 
 hours' interview, I remarked, with pain, that, 
 if not so abstracted and thoughtful as I had 
 often seen him, he was frequently absent and 
 labouring in mind disturbed and anxious. 
 Our meeting was more than friendly. He 
 received my hurried congratulations with a 
 flush of those silent smiles which enkindled 
 his face to its finest expression ; and our 
 all-hail, if not attended by violent demonstra- 
 tions on either side, was of a character that 
 showed me I had not yet lost my friend, and 
 that he had not yet lost himself. Neither of 
 us alluded to the past ; and although I have 
 no reason to imagine that Frankland was 
 either ashamed of his marriage, or of its 
 mode, I never found him voluntarily recur- 
 ring to those romantic adventures at Bath, 
 which had so enchanted Greene and others, 
 among his green friends. 
 
 Timothy announced breakfast in the 
 library ; and a shade of embarrassment 
 clouded Frankland's features. "My plans 
 have not turned out well," he said, forcing a 
 smile. " The fact is, I fancied Sunday 
 morning the best of quiet, sober seasons, to 
 make Helena acquainted with you ; and 
 most unexpectedly her relation, Lord Tilsit,
 
 12S 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 arrived in town hist night, and craved her 
 hospitality for a few days, as he is an invalid, 
 and fears the chambers of his new house are 
 still damp. I fancied you might find it 
 pleasanter to see us alone at first, than in 
 their circle, and ordered breakfast below : 
 but at your pleasure. Shall we join my 
 wife's family and his Lordship up stairs, or 
 remain where we are ? I find Lord Tilsit a 
 pleasant enough acquaintance." 
 
 Inclination, as well as delicacy, determined 
 iny choice. I knew that Frankland's pride, 
 if no worthier motive, would have made him 
 disdain the meanness of seeming or being 
 ashamed to produce an old friend, had a 
 prince been his guest instead of a diplomatic 
 peer ; but I also knew the lady- world too well 
 not to be aware that my appearance might 
 have embarrassed the Miss Vanes, as much 
 as that of worthy Mr. C***** the poet did 
 that humble and unworldly Christian woman, 
 Hannah More, when discovered by her quality 
 morning-visiters tete-a-tete with her, and 
 wished fairly up the chimney. 
 
 We were ushered into the library, a 
 handsome, almost a magnificent room, from 
 which his Lordship's books were not yet re- 
 moved, and where a splendid dejeuner was 
 laid out, though no lady appeared. Frank- 
 land himself went in search of his dilatory 
 wife ; betraying to me, who so well could 
 read every varying shade of that candid and 
 expressive countenance, some signs of impa- 
 tience, verging to displeasure. While he 
 disappeared by the principal entrance, she 
 glided in by the door opening on the small 
 side apartment ; a lovely and gracious-looking 
 creature, still in the first bloom of youthful feel- 
 ings, her spirit fresh in the dew of her youth. 
 
 A voice of witching sweetness, calling his 
 name, arrested Frankland's steps ; but ere he 
 returned, she had already almost walked into 
 my arms, introducing herself by saying, " I 
 am certain I have at last the pleasure of 
 seeing Mr. Frankland's particular friend 
 Mr. Richard Taylor? I cannot expect to 
 attain the high place my husband holds in 
 his heart ; but I shall hope, in time, to glide 
 into some small corner near Frankland." 
 And now Frankland's face first brightened 
 and beamed with something like bridal 
 gladness. 
 
 With whatever he might be dissatisfied, he 
 was evidently proud as well as fond of his 
 wife. Throwing his arm round her waist, 
 he drew her caressingly towards me, and, 
 smiling upon her, he said, " I must bespeak 
 your special kindness for this lady. I trust 
 
 you are not in dancer of finding her what I 
 know you sometimes dread in modern young 
 wives too much angel 'tis her only fault." 
 The lady, elated by the pride and felicity of 
 her position, made some gay remark, which 
 was mid-way encountered by my gallant, if 
 somewhat ancient, compliments ; and we sat 
 down to breakfast, in good spirits, and pleased 
 with each other. 
 
 I found Mrs. Frankland, on further obser- 
 vation, a more beautiful woman than even 
 Greene's raptures had led me to expect, 
 though far from my beau-ideal of her that 
 might have been the chosen wife of Frank- 
 land. And, indeed, I was afterwards told 
 by her sisters, that Helena had become twice 
 as handsome after her marriage. Still her 
 extreme loveliness was rather of that kind 
 for which we look in the ideal of an Helen, 
 a Gabrielle, or a Fair Rosamond in a 
 woman whose business it is unconsciously to 
 dazzle and charm than what a prudent 
 man admires in the wife of a younger friend, 
 for whose prosperity and happiness he is 
 anxious. 
 
 Helena's was neither the beauty of a high 
 intelligence, nor yet that of a lively sensi- 
 bility. With strong and profound feeling it 
 could hold no communion ; and, great tragic 
 actress as she had been pronounced, she never 
 could have been my Ophelia. Little informing 
 mind mingled with 
 
 The music breathing from her face. 
 I am told, by the way, the great critics call 
 this line nonsense ; but let that pass. But 
 that face, harmonious in features, brilliant in 
 tincture, and brightened by those infantile 
 evanescent smiles which relieved its sweet 
 passivity, was less alloyed by the animalism 
 of mere beauty than is usual with the halcyon 
 countenance. I may give a better idea of 
 my friend's wife by saying, that, in the 
 circle of Charles II., she might have rivalled 
 Castlcmain, though most unlike to her, and 
 have eclipsed the fair Stuart. 
 
 I shall have blame to impute to this lady, 
 which I must, in candour, even at this pre- 
 liminary stage, divide with the world in 
 which she moved and had her whole being. 
 Gentle and flexible in her temper, indolent 
 and luxurious in her habits, weak-principled, 
 rather from ignorance, than from vice of dis- 
 position, and more capable of being false than 
 of seeming harsh and unkind enlightened 
 charity ought almost to grant so uninstruc- 
 ted, and fair, and frail a creature, a dispensa- 
 tion from moral responsibility ; and, in her 
 case, and that of her class, to have admitted
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 129 
 
 the new and dangerous doctrine, that character 
 is formed for and not by the individual. 
 
 My first impression had heen favourahle, 
 though the woman, as I have said, was so 
 different from my ideal of a wife for Frank- 
 land. My philosophy, or my cynicism, was 
 melting away under the winning grace of her 
 simple manners, and the sweetness of her 
 voice ; but the interview had not closed before 
 it became too evident that this insidious 
 charmer, with all her beauty and amiability, 
 was not the helpmate for a man like my 
 friend. Neither his mind, his temper, nor 
 his fortune, could afford a mere toy, however 
 elegant ; and, as I perceived that he was 
 already suspicious of the opinion I formed of 
 his wife, I trembled for their happiness. 
 Joyous, unreflecting, and inconsequent 
 fully conscious of her attractions of person, 
 and of the possession of one brilliant talent, 
 which she had learned far to over-rate as an 
 element of enduring fireside happiness she 
 was yet docile and affectionate, and proud of 
 her husband ; and she might easily have 
 been moulded to his will, if not to his mind, 
 had not the world stepped in and conspired 
 against both, with a force too potent for her 
 feeble reason and compliant temper. Yes ! 
 her stars were more in fault than Helena. 
 She was created for moderate affection and 
 placid enjoyment ; and had been trained for 
 a world where roses bloom all the year round, 
 where sound is music, and common breath 
 odorous. She was like thousands upon 
 thousands of the refined women of Europe, 
 whom we inconsiderately blame as frivolous 
 and perverted, while nearly all their faults 
 are chargeable upon their education, and the 
 sophisticated state of the society in which 
 they move. In some golden isle of the Indian 
 seas, Helena, for example, like thousands of 
 her sisters, might have led a life that was 
 one long, vague dream of luxurious sensation ; 
 basking in the sunshine, or floating on the 
 tide ; indolently gathering her meal from the 
 bread-fruit tree, warbling her native music 
 like a bird, and encountering no heavier toil 
 than wreathing her hair with flowers. 
 Equally happy might her life have been 
 passed, reposing her jewelled limbs in volup- 
 tuous languor upon the cushions of the 
 harem, breathing incense, and drowsily 
 listening to oriental fictions. She might even 
 have been happy in England or France, as a 
 modiste, spending her life in contrasting gay 
 colours, and inventing elegant forms ; or in 
 the humble condition of one of those " pretty 
 maidens" one encounters in gardens, attend- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 ing rosy cherubs, in muslin trousers and 
 straw bonnets. None of these may appear 
 very dignified modes of existence ; but in 
 showing how easily the real woman could 
 have been made happy, I wish to prove 
 society and the stars more in fault than the 
 sex, when vanity leads to extravagance, and 
 this besetting vice of the modern world, in 
 its turn, to meanness in conduct, and depra- 
 vity in principle. Moderate success in the 
 profession to which she had been destined, 
 might also have made Helena perfectly 
 happy ; for I confess that, in a creature 
 familiar with exhibition from infancy, I 
 never could perceive any marked sign of 
 those " virgin sanctities of her nature," of 
 which her lover, in his delirium, had depre- 
 cated the violation. 
 
 Even in a merely mercenary union, as the 
 partner of a wealthy, good-humoured, and 
 ostentatious man, Helena might have been 
 both happy and respectable. Her stars were 
 again in fault. Her lot had been taken 
 above her caste ; and, if the marriage of un- 
 equal ranks be perilous to happiness, how much 
 worse is that of unequal minds ! Helena had 
 taken her'place, side byside,with a remarkable 
 man, in a life of lofty endeavour ; which, if it 
 promised high, and the highest of all reward, 
 was yet, for a long time, to be one of sacrifice, 
 privation, and self-command ; though wisdom 
 might, in every hour, have sweetened its auste- 
 rities by enjoyments, which Helena, though 
 capable of relishing, had, unfortunately for 
 herself, not been taught to prize. I would 
 be charitable with Helena. For an exposed 
 position in the midst of a world of conflict, 
 and suffering, and sorrow, she was not more 
 unprepared than is frequent in her class ; but 
 yet how miserably deficient ! 
 
 It may be imagined that I magnify the 
 importance of the character of the wife on 
 the prospects and conduct, and ultimate fate 
 of her husband and her family : but this I 
 deny as impossibility, if that husband be in a 
 condition resembling that of my friend. 
 
 I do not know whether it might be heed- 
 lessness or forethought, that, as we lingered 
 at the breakfast-table, made Helena laugh- 
 ingly remark, "Mr. Frankland once told 
 me that you might not think our marriage 
 such a mad freak as the world gave us credit 
 for until Lord Tilsit was so kind to us. 
 Mamma is so glad that any prudent friend 
 approves ; especially you who, they say, go 
 about in gay society like a Death's head and 
 cross-bones. Frankland said you gave him 
 good encouragement to marry." 
 
 No. 9.
 
 130 
 
 THE -EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 " Provided he found the kind of wife I 
 pictured, who would accept of him." 
 
 " And that was exactly you, Helena," said 
 Frankland, smiling upon her, his voice invo- 
 luntarily sinking to those tones which bespoke 
 the tenderness of a fond if troubled affection. 
 " She was, I remember, to be my intelligent 
 friend, my endearing and cheerful companion ; 
 sympathizing in my sorrows and trials, and 
 enjoying my triumphs " 
 
 " I can, at least, answer for that, dear 
 James ! " she cried, looking, at the moment, 
 quite beautiful ; " whether they be in profes- 
 sional life, or in society. I was so proud of 
 him the other night, Mr. Richard, at Lady 
 Amen's party, when Mr. Rigby praised him 
 so highly to my sister Caroline, though, I 
 believe, they differ in politics." 
 
 With a vengeance they differed in politics, 
 and in many other interests ; though Rigby 
 was, I knew, the oracle of the world in which 
 Helena had moved, and one known to all 
 other spheres as the dispenser of literary 
 fame. 
 
 " So you met the great Rigby," was my 
 rejoinder ? " How did you find the man you 
 used to despise ? " 
 
 Frankland was rather disconcerted by my 
 abruptness. " Quite as witty as I expected," 
 he replied ; " perhaps more so, and much 
 more pleasant. I recalled a lesson of charity 
 you once gave me, in observing, that, if you 
 had been the contemporary of Swift, you 
 would have detested him ; but, that now, 
 seeing so much of his inner life and feelings, 
 you were inclined to think of his character 
 with great indulgence to pity, and almost 
 to like him." 
 
 " Oh, ho, sir ! and you. mean to commend 
 my own lesson back to me ! but I won't 
 have your warm detestation of the satirical, 
 vicious Tory melt away with Lady Amen's 
 ices in this way." 
 
 Frankland could still smile : his con- 
 science was clear. 
 
 " And what more was the paragon wife to 
 perform ? " said Mrs. Frankland. 
 
 " Darn her husband's hose, madam, when 
 needful," was my rude reply ; and she smiled, 
 as at a very bad joke ; " and make long 
 extracts from musty law-books, or any simi- 
 lar duty, if so far honoured by his confidence." 
 Helena gave my imagined bad joke the com- 
 pliment of another civil smile ; but, for the 
 first time, looked as ladies do, when they are 
 perplexed to unriddle " a strange odd crea- 
 ture." 
 
 " To make home happy, comprehends most 
 
 of the duties of a wife ; yet that, I fear, is 
 an art not so easily attainable as young 
 ladies sometimes imagine." 
 
 Helena looked to her husband with the 
 half-disdainful, radiant smiles of the conscious 
 charmer ; as if she pitied my old bachelor 
 ignorance of the bliss which beauty, tender- 
 ness, and accomplishment like hers, had the 
 power to impart, too much to be piqued by 
 the freedom of my remark. Frankland 
 answered her appealing yet triumphant 
 glance by smiles as assured if more grave ; 
 and his wife fancied it necessary in vindi- 
 cation, I presume, of her matronly prudence 
 to confess, with a look of candid humility, 
 " I dare say I shall not, at first, be the very 
 best of possible housekeepers ; but I have 
 often been out witli married ladies, and seen 
 them order things for the family from their 
 tradespeople. My own maid is very clever, 
 with a proper notion of every thing, as 
 she has lived with several ladies of good 
 fashion, and was particularly recommended 
 to mamma." 
 
 I did not allow myself to smile, as she 
 continued " Lord Tilsit's tradespeople have 
 been pestering us, ever since we came to 
 town, with notes and cards, soliciting Mrs. 
 Frankland's patronage and orders." Frank- 
 land looked uneasy again, as, with the Gold- 
 smithian tact, upon which my friends have 
 sometimes complimented me, I blurted out, 
 " London tradesmen, like the tragic lover, 
 seem in love with ruin in these days : 
 
 Another's first, and then their own," 
 I continued, endeavouring to turn the awk- 
 ward speech gently off " Decay of business 
 and competition among the shopkeepers, 
 have worked an entire revolution in retail 
 trade within these twenty years, especially 
 at the West End." 
 
 " And you don't approve of changes ? " 
 said Frankland, smiling again : " you are 
 Conservative ? " 
 
 "I plead guilty to being old enough to 
 grumble at many modern novelties the 
 system of long book-debts, and, consequently, 
 improvident and rash orders and extravagant 
 charges, among the rest." 
 
 " I believe there may be defects in the 
 present financial system, domestic and pub- 
 lic ; but, I presume, it will right itself. We 
 philosophers can only regret, that expensive 
 luxury is the tax ever necessarily entailed 
 upon refinement of taste and manners. " 
 He smiled in mockery of his own common- 
 place. 
 
 " I deny the necessity," I rejoined, briskly.
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 131 
 
 " So do I ; but we must all submit, more 
 or less, to something as imperative in its 
 exactions," returned Frankland. 
 
 l; While in May Fair, bow to May Fair's law?" 
 said I. 
 
 " Why, I fear it is so. Our prudence may 
 be shown in the degree of compliance, and 
 our fortitude in the strength of resistance ; 
 but to the goddess, Fashion, all must yield, 
 as you may perceive : " and he bowed. 
 
 The latter part of this speech was directed 
 to the Miss Vanes, who entered the room, 
 splendidly equipped, to attend the Sunday 
 Opera of St. Church, after having agree- 
 ably spent an hour or two in the Morning 
 Sacrifice of arranging their hair and costume, 
 so as, with the most dazzling effect, to confess 
 themselves " Miserable sinners ! " in the eyes 
 of a polite congregation of other miserable 
 sinners ! Both were very handsome and 
 elegant women, with more of the decided 
 the pronounced air of high fashion, and 
 much more of what ladies call manner, than 
 their younger sister. She flew to them, in 
 affectionate admiration of their looks and air, 
 but especially of their clothes ; and, after the 
 sisterly kiss, busied herself, first in adjusting 
 something about Caroline's bonnet, and then 
 Harriet's sandal. 
 
 I cannot tell whether Frankland was merely 
 absent, or did not intend me the honour of 
 an introduction to his new relatives ; but 
 Helena had certainly forgotten me, until 
 her self-possessed elder sister, in an audible 
 whisper, begged to be introduced to Mr. 
 Frankland's "admirable friend." My re- 
 ception was most flattering and gracious, and 
 not very much overdone ; for the Vanes were 
 really well-bred women, and, therefore, not 
 apt to err on the side of excessive condescen- 
 sion to inferiors. 
 
 I afterwards found that the Miss Vanes 
 were of the class of universal charmers. They 
 had been trained to the business of pleasing ; 
 and, in absence of the lord or lady, appeared 
 as desirous of captivating, in their several 
 turns, the child, the chaplain, the butler, the 
 gardener, the groom, or the old house-dog 
 himself ; and they generally succeeded, save 
 with the child and the house-dog, with whom 
 words and mock caresses were not current 
 coin. 
 
 The young ladies were now gaily rallying 
 Frankland on his irregular attendance at 
 church. They were, themselves, so far 
 exemplary, that, if no friend took them to 
 the Opera on Saturday night, and thus, by 
 late hours, put them out of good lobks, they 
 
 never neglected the fashionable service on 
 Sunday. Religion is, at present, made so 
 very easy and accommodating to gentlefolks, 
 not to say amusing and attractive to the 
 fashionable world, that it is unpardonable if 
 any large portion of it remain longer either 
 sceptical or unregenerate. I understand there 
 is decided improvement. Miss Harriet Vane 
 has lately exhibited, on Sundays, and even 
 on week days, when in " serious society," 
 symptoms of a decided call. Her emotion, 
 her exultation, her delight, may, therefore, 
 be imagined, when, as we still chatted, Lord 
 Tilsit's servant brought his Lordship's com- 
 pliments to Mrs. Frankland. " He meant 
 to accompany her to church." Of the three 
 sisters, each was excited in her own way. 
 
 Helena flushed terrestrial rosy-red, with 
 gratified pride, and looked to Frankland : 
 "And you will go, James?" was uttered in 
 her most persuasive tones, as her arm slid 
 within his. Her elder sister was ever alert 
 to cover her blunders : " And, if I have 
 leave, I will remain to entertain Mr. Richard 
 Taylor until your return ; especially as I 
 shall have all those potent Russia and 
 Morocco auxiliaries." She pointed to the 
 book-cases. 
 
 " Now, pray do, Frankland," cried the still 
 clinging charmer ; " go with us to church." 
 
 " Let me not stand in the way of any 
 devout purpose," I exclaimed : " I am going 
 to church myself." This was an evident 
 relief to the ladies, though another bar came in 
 the way of their pious intentions, as Harriet 
 suddenly recollected that some " horrid crea- 
 ture " or other had not sent home Mrs. 
 Frankland's bonnet ; and the esprit plumes 
 of that which she had, had suffered in the 
 dews and rains of the honeymoon. This was 
 whispered among them. There was, more- 
 over, neither carnage-room nor pew-room for 
 more than four persons ; and Miss Vane 
 showed her sisterly affection and her pru- 
 dence, by forcing her bonnet, with her seat, 
 upon her married sister. " His Lordship 
 would be so disappointed if she and Mr. 
 Frankland did not accompany him to hear 
 the Dean preach." Helena withdrew to 
 attire herself, and soon returned. 
 
 " Let me see yon soon," said Frankland, 
 shaking hands "very soon. This is but 
 an abrupt meeting." 
 
 " Oh, do come to see us again, soon ! " cried 
 Helena ; " and I shall sing for you as long 
 as ever you please. But his Lordship has 
 got into the carriage." 
 
 We were now all in the entrance hall, and
 
 132 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 Miss Harriet, who had taken her place, 
 jumped out again, and running to her sister 
 Caroline, whispered, " His Lordship means 
 to request the freedom of asking his friend, 
 the Dean, to eat a morsel of dinner with us 
 in the evening, as he leaves town early to- 
 morrow, and they have business, I suppose. 
 Attend you to that, Caroline, he begs, and 
 don't tease Frankland and Helena. His 
 gentleman will do all that is requisite, and 
 
 obtain from the Club House whatever 
 
 you choose to order. The Dean is, his Lord- 
 ship says, as to gourmandise, moderate, but 
 rather fastidious." 
 
 " I have a high opinion of your discretion, 
 Caroline," cried his Lordship from the car- 
 riage, " and of your savoir vivre" 
 
 " I shall be proud to merit your Lordship's 
 good opinion." Slap-bang, up went the steps, 
 and the carriage rolled off, leaving me half 
 ensconced behind a pillar of the hall, won- 
 dering where my hat was to be looked for ; 
 and Miss Caroline already brooding hospi- 
 talities towards a Dean whose voice was 
 potential alike in Church, State, Court, and 
 University. 
 
 The church bells were now all ringing, 
 carriages were rolling along ; and, in this 
 quarter, even a few pedestrians, chiefly smart 
 female servants, might be seen. I had pro- 
 bably been observed coming out of the house ; 
 for, within a few yards of it, I was arrested 
 by a young girl whom I had long known as 
 the daughter of a respectable tradesman in 
 our lane ; and who, I understood, had lately 
 obtained the rank of apprentice in the estab- 
 lishment of a fashionable French milliner. 
 Though the traces of late hours were already 
 visible in Mary Coxe's pale sharp features, 
 she had still the tiptoe springy step and alert 
 look of her class. She attempted to conceal 
 her bandbox under her shawl, as an offence 
 to the church-goers, while evidently glad to 
 meet one who, she hoped, would assist her 
 vain search for Mrs. Frankland. 
 
 " Madame Royet," she told me, " was so 
 afraid to disappoint that lady, as it wa* a 
 new family, and three or four ladies ; but 
 she was always so busy before Sundays, now 
 that the town was filling so fast. There were 
 five-and-twenty young ladies in the estab- 
 lishment, journey- women and apprentices, 
 and they had been up every night for three 
 weeks, till four in the morning, and all night 
 on Saturdays : dresses were so required for 
 Church and the Park." 
 
 " Then you will go home and have a good 
 long sleep now, Mary, which you seem to 
 
 want," said I, pointing out Frankland's house 
 in the distance. 
 
 " No, indeed." And it came out in ex- 
 planation, that, after the repeated vigils of 
 these tea-stimulated handmaids of fashion 
 and fashionable piety, an hour or two must 
 be stolen from the Sunday to repair their 
 own wardrobe, and improve it with such 
 fragmentary finery as might enable them 
 also to visit the scene of exhibition to 
 regale their eyes with the sight of their past 
 labours, and, if girls of taste, genius, and 
 invention, to obtain ideas for novel perfor- 
 mances. 
 
 Poor things ! a dray-horse, or a coal-heaver 
 required less strength of constitution than 
 the damsels on Madame Iloyet's staff, at this 
 busy season. The little girl of whom I speak, 
 soon became sickly, consumptive, and dis- 
 torted in the spine, and dropped into the grave 
 before she was twenty, still regretting to me, 
 on her deathbed, that Mrs. Fraukland had 
 the misfortune to have gone out on that day ; 
 as she was, when inspected hi the Park, found 
 all so handsome, save that ugly Bath : made 
 bonnet ! It was consolation, when I con- 
 firmed Mary's protestations of the bells being 
 still ringing, when she was near the house ; 
 and that, if Mrs. Frankland's patience had 
 been equal to Madame's punctuality, the 
 bonnet might have been in time for church 
 and Park, and the disgrace prevented. To 
 Madame, this might only be sorrow at the 
 loss of a dozen orders for bonnets similar to 
 the one worn by a pretty new face ; but to 
 poor dying Mary, making ornaments for 
 herself as she sat up in bed, it was " stuff 
 of the conscience," that a lady whom Mr. 
 Richard Taylor knew should have been so 
 very unfortunate, and she concerned. 
 
 I know not what has tempted me into 
 this digression on the female labourers in the 
 London fashion-factories. Thinking of them, 
 I am convinced that Cowpet included women 
 in the general term, when he exclaimed 
 
 There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart 
 It doth not feel for man ! 
 
 What a blessing to Helena Frankland, as 
 well as to little Mary Coxe, had both females 
 been early taught to discern and cleave to 
 the universal constituents of real happiness. 
 Thus, what had prevented the curvature of 
 Mary's spine, might haply have averted the 
 distortion of Helena's mind. 
 
 Months passed it was the height of the 
 London season and I saw little of Frank- 
 land, and heard much more than I wished. 
 When we chanced to meet, though his kind-
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 1C3 
 
 ness was undiminished, there was restraint 
 upon our intercourse, which soon made it, 
 from being stiff, become painful. Each, in 
 relation to the other, was labouring under 
 the load of a reserve of thought, completely 
 destructive of the comfort and freedom of 
 friendly intercourse, especially as neither 
 could treat the opinions the other formed of 
 his conduct and sentiments with indifference. 
 Our way of life, besides, lay every day farther 
 apart. The beauty and musical talent of 
 his wife, the attractions perhaps I might 
 say, the allurements of her sisters, his own 
 celebrity, and, more than all, the fresh vogue 
 and combined force of the various agremens 
 of his house, made it the resort of many of 
 the better order of fashionable people, as well 
 as of the host of the frivolous ; and of persons 
 distinguished by merit and accomplishment, 
 eminent in the professions, in the arts, in 
 literature, and in public life, whom it was 
 pride and pleasure to entertain and to meet, 
 but for the one dreadful reflection, how or 
 where was all this to end, to a man without 
 fortune, without large professional income, 
 and placed in the most expensive capital in 
 the world. 
 
 An interesting class of persons whom one 
 was sure to meet at Mr. Frankland's evening 
 parties were foreigners accomplished men, 
 generally of liberal opinions some of them 
 refugees, Italians, Poles, Spaniards, French- 
 men, Belgians, and natives of America 
 whose presence, it was alleged, I never could 
 resist, even when I set my face the most 
 determinedly against both fashionable parties 
 and what Miss Vane called prudential dinners. 
 These were the dinners which that lady, in 
 her wisdom, began to make her sister barter 
 against the expectation of increasing profes- 
 sional employment for her husband. The 
 great man, the head of the house of Vane, 
 though he countenanced the young couple, 
 was nearly as powerless in this respect as 
 were Mrs. Frankland's songs, with her 
 sisters' blandishments, and her husband's 
 dinners, to boot. 
 
 It was painful to me to hear that Frank- 
 land's professional business was falling off, 
 at the very time when increase became so 
 necessary to him. To this many small 
 causes contributed, against which his great 
 abilities and new connexions offered no coun- 
 terpoise. His locality, the dissipation of 
 time and thought attendant on his mode of 
 life, and perpetual and torturing mental 
 anxiety, were gradually disqualifying him 
 for his diminishing duties ; and the shrewd, 
 
 professional men, who seldom refused to assist 
 at Miss Caroline Vane's " prudential dinners ," 
 affected to believe, that Frankland, devoted 
 to literature, and politics, and engaged in 
 fashionable life, could have no serious desire 
 to fight his way into practice as a barrister. 
 
 No one could exactly tell what his views 
 might be. It was no one's concern ; and, in 
 London, there are so many dashing families, 
 whose means are mysteries, that this case, 
 even to the gossiping inquirers, made but one 
 more of the sort. 
 
 Frankland, about this time, became more 
 closely connected with a new set of acquain- 
 tances. Though official duty absolved Lord 
 Tilsit from all social ceremonies, save with 
 personages in high station, and though he 
 never appeared at Mrs. Frankland's evening 
 parties, he sometimes saw the family, with 
 his other connexions, in private ; and Frank- 
 land, in spite of the bad odour of his liberalism, 
 was often invited to his friendly dinners. 
 There he met with one or two individuals, 
 already well known to him by character, as 
 rising politicians upon the thriving side : 
 under-secretaries, second-rate speakers in 
 Parliament, and noted partisan writers. 
 Arrogance was no part of his proud nature ; 
 and, I believe, he rated himself too justly to 
 be overpowered by their civilities and flat- 
 teries, yet the candid and favourable appre- 
 ciation of an able adversary must ever be 
 peculiarly grateful to a generous mind. If 
 Frankland retained his original repugnance 
 to the opinions of these gentlemen, his aver- 
 sion to their personal characters abated by 
 intimacy. It is not possible to retain strong 
 dislike to those with whom one voluntarily 
 meets every day in pleasant society. Frank- 
 land, who was prevailed with, to join one of 
 their social and literary clubs, forgot that he 
 had so lately haughtily regarded the men 
 with whom he now associated, as hollow 
 trimmers or interested sycophants of power, 
 some of them adding the meanness of the 
 place-hunter to the malignity of the bigot or 
 the rabid frenzy which marks the conscious 
 renegade. Compliments were now frequently 
 paid to his talents in their party journals ; and 
 hopes were expressed of him, which begot fear 
 among those old friends on whom he began 
 to look coldly, and who were gradually fall- 
 ing off, in doubt and perplexity, though no 
 decided act yet gave colour to their suspicions. 
 
 It could scarcely be laid to Frankland's 
 charge, that his wife's unmarried sisters, the 
 fair relations of Lord Tilsit, had obtained, 
 through his Lordship's interest and the kind-
 
 134 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 ness of the Dean, pensions less unjustifiable 
 in principle than many that are granted, and 
 not large in amount. But the ladies lived 
 in his family, and one of the Liberal journals, 
 upon this circumstance, commenced a series 
 of attacks, which, I fear, enabled Frankland 
 to palliate to himself the contempt he was 
 beginning to avow for the whole liberal party ; 
 as if the ill-nature of all the editors in the 
 world, and the fierceness, envy, or mean- 
 mindedness of a few vulgar partisans, could 
 bring disgrace upon the public principles 
 which they supported, often, indeed, with 
 suspicious honesty and singularly bad taste. 
 In the same, or some similar quarter, it was 
 soon afterwards asserted that Frankland was 
 the author of an article in a high Tory 
 periodical publication, which contained an 
 elaborate defence of the attempt made by the 
 Duke D'Angouleme upon the liberties of 
 Spain. His "brilliant and pointed style" 
 was pretended to be recognised ; and passages 
 were contrasted with what were known to be 
 his earlier writings, in proof against him ; 
 while the ministerialists were sneeringly con- 
 gratulated upon gaining the disinterested and 
 faithful lawyer. His intimacy with some 
 gentlemen connected with the French embassy 
 made the proof positive. The amount in 
 snuff-boxes or Napoleons received from the 
 French Court was hinted at not specified. 
 
 At another time, he might have despised 
 these attacks ; but Frankland, sensitive to 
 the intense extreme which makes life misery, 
 now suffered under that perpetual fever of 
 the mind, when every trifle irritates and in- 
 flames. In a paroxysm of fury, his eyes 
 darting maniacal fires, while the cold perspi- 
 ration burst over his high, pale forehead, I 
 saw him tear asunder the miserable printed 
 sheet, which he dashed into the fire. In the 
 next instant, the recoil of his feelings filled 
 him with indignant shame at having been 
 moved by so unworthy a cause, and at thus 
 betraying his feelings. 
 
 " These reptiles of the press," he exclaimed, 
 forcing a bitter smile " these cold, creeping, 
 slimy, venomous things are, of themselves, 
 enough to disgust any man with the cause 
 they pretend to advocate. The Tories are, 
 at least, persons of high and gentlemanly 
 feelings." 
 
 " Some of them," was my reply ; " nor 
 are their journals a whit less capable of 
 lying a little and slandering a good deal, 
 than those of their neighbours. Much de- 
 pends on the spectacles through which a man 
 reads this sort of things." 
 
 Frankland was in the mood to find a sneer, 
 even in this pointless remark. lie quivered 
 as he regarded me ; but I had sufficient pre- 
 sence of mind to look quite unconscious, and 
 his better part of man prevailed. I have 
 read, in some forgotten German author or 
 another, an essay upon the Demoniacal Ele- 
 ment in the human mind. I am afraid that, 
 in high-toned spirits, there is always a liberal 
 infusion of what my author would have con- 
 sidered this principle, ready to be called forth 
 by causes more slight than those which were 
 pressing upon my friend. In him it began 
 to be strongly developed. He was now near 
 the close of his first year of married life, 
 occupying a conspicuous place in society, 
 without any thing like adequate professional 
 employment ; at the end of his narrow means, 
 and involved in the most harassing kind of 
 debts not, indeed, what the world would 
 term very large in amount, but more tortur- 
 ing in their consequences than if the hundreds 
 had been thousands. His original error had 
 been the acceptance, or rather the occupation 
 of the mansion with which Lord Tilsit had 
 dowered his wife, as a home to her whole 
 family. But, perhaps, it was too much to 
 expect that Frankland, in the honeymoon, 
 spent, as the newspapers echoed for a month, 
 " at Coombe Abbey, the delightful seat of 
 Lord Tilsit, in Devonshire," could tell his 
 Helena, that the town residence now belong- 
 ing to her, of which she prattled with affec- 
 tionate gaiety, as our house, our new home, 
 where life was to open in joy, and flow on in 
 endless felicity, 
 
 And all go merry as a wedding bell 
 was not a fit dwelling for them ; that their 
 safe, humble home must be selected among 
 those of her husband's rank and professional 
 standing ; and that years on years must re- 
 volve, and find her at a distance from the 
 privileged localities where Helena doubted 
 not that she was to reign. 
 
 Like too many men of liberal feelings and 
 noble natures, Frankland was not one of nice 
 calculation. Of money he never had pos- 
 sessed much, and what he had, passed through 
 his fingers like counters, with no check, save 
 that high integrity which had hitherto limi- 
 ted his wants, so as to ensure the avoidance 
 of those pecuniary meannesses, which to a 
 man of his temper, would have been unen- 
 durable. 
 
 The impropriety and impmdence of estab- 
 lishing himself in Berkeley Square, had cer- 
 tainly crossed Frankland's mind ; but his 
 new female relatives expatiated so prudently
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 135 
 
 upon the advantages of what they called 
 " starting well," and the indelicacy of not 
 appropriating, and yet making profit of Lord 
 Tilsit's magnificent marriage gift of the house, 
 that I suppose no decided opposition was made 
 to the scheme which was to keep their "sweet 
 Helena out of some low quarter where no- 
 body would visit her." Before Frankland 
 was well aware of what he was about, he 
 therefore found himself established in a 
 splendid residence, completely furnished, and 
 yet wanting many things ; without a shilling 
 of income, save the precarious gains of his 
 pen and his profession, and the main depen- 
 dence of a set of women whom I cannot call 
 of extravagant habits, considering that they 
 had been fostered in luxury not the less 
 craving and insatiate in its demands that it 
 had often been meanly, if not furtively, in- 
 dulged. It was their notions that were false 
 and perverted their whole scheme and scale 
 of life that was radically overcharged and evil ; 
 for, I believe, its details were, in many points, 
 managed by Miss Caroline Vane, with vigi- 
 lance and economy which bordered upon 
 meanness. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that, while persons 
 of the middle class were exclaiming against 
 the extravagance of the Franklands, the 
 order of serving-men and maids were railing 
 at the shabbiness and stinginess of "the 
 people in Lord Tilsit's house," where the 
 poor servants never saw wine, and were 
 stinted of their beef and beer. Want of 
 economy if by economy we mean making 
 the most out of a given income is, after all, 
 not the prevailing fault of the age. The 
 error lies in the construction of the scale 
 in the endless number of the wants to be 
 supplied : that dangerous error, which ties 
 down and narrows the mind to a wretched 
 and paltry system of perpetual pinching and 
 farthing calculation, the object of which is 
 not prudent saving to gain money or ease of 
 mind, but to attain the power of ostentatious 
 expense in some other direction of vanity or 
 imaginary necessity. 
 
 Involved and struggling on in this pernicious 
 system, from my soul I pitied a man with 
 the feelings of Frankland, even when I 
 blamed him the most. Distinguished above 
 his fellows by force of intellect, his volition, 
 like that of nine-tenths of all mankind, was, 
 to his understanding, as a dwarf to a giant. 
 With the clearest perception of moral recti- 
 tude, the warmest admiration of the free, the 
 manly, and the independent in thought and 
 action, he wanted strength of will to cleave 
 
 to that principle which is the foundation- 
 stone of all those virtues that principle, 
 without which Marvel had, perhaps, been a 
 court parasite, and Milton a hireling church- 
 man. 
 
 Why do we not at once remove the standard 
 of the truly noble in character from the mind's 
 capacities of thought, to its power of resolu- 
 tion and fortitude in action or in resistance ? 
 Why not at once dethrone the proud usurper, 
 Intellect, and instal Virtue in what ought to 
 be her own high place ? Why not proclaim 
 Goodness as the supreme on earth, and 
 Genius as not more than her noblest minister ? 
 The indulgence, the tender charity, with 
 which it is thought graceful to judge the 
 errors and vices of men of genius and of 
 distinguished ability, are they not treason 
 against the best interests of man ? But 
 leaving this grand moral revolution which 
 might place a gray-haired peasant above a 
 court preacher ; and a poor artisan, who, 
 under the temptation of a bribe at a borough 
 election, disdained to betray his country or 
 belie his conscience, above a Burke I must 
 return to my friend. 
 
 Alas ! that he also should have afforded so 
 remarkable an instance of the moral frailty 
 which the world has so often had to lament 
 in its master minds, the minds, whose scope 
 of thought and of imagination seems too often 
 only to widen the range of trial and tempta- 
 tion, while it communicates no corresponding 
 power of resistance ! 
 
 The facilities of credit which London 
 affords to the thoughtless might have been 
 pleaded as excuse for Helena, but not for the 
 carelessness of Frankland. Exhibiting a 
 specious exterior, and connected with a 
 powerful family, credit, the bane of so many 
 persons setting out in life, had been pressed 
 upon the young couple by their different 
 tradesmen. Milliners, jewellers, perfumers, 
 music-sellers, confectioners, mercers, uphol- 
 sterers, and an attendant host, besides the 
 more humble butcher and grocer, competed 
 for the custom of the celebrated barrister, 
 who had married the niece of Lord Tilsit, 
 and lived in a house whence each had drawn 
 so much good money. The servile eagerness, 
 the absolute fatuity, with which many Lon- 
 don tradesmen offer credit, almost deserves 
 the punishment it so often brings. The self- 
 complacence, the good-natured vanity of 
 Helena, were gratified in obliging those most 
 obliging, assiduous, respectful people, who, 
 having had " the honour of supplying Lord 
 Tilsit's family, " so earnestly solicited her
 
 136 
 
 T1IK EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 orders. It was a pleasant and matronly 
 pastime, to drive out with her mother or her 
 sisters, after a long luxurious morning of 
 music, and gratify those kind creatures by 
 ordering quantities of the pretty things with 
 which they tempted her. She had also got 
 the very common idea that married women 
 are, in right of their condition, entitled to 
 elegancies and indulgences denied to spinsters', 
 unless the costly articles are presented to the 
 young ladies by their family or friends. 
 On this notion she acted generously, botli to 
 herself and her sisters, abetted by the praises 
 of her weak and doating mother, and un- 
 checked, save by the remonstrances of her 
 elder sister a worldly-minded woman, of 
 mean and perverted principles, but of shrewd 
 sense who soon perceived, that, upon this 
 system, the family must hurry to the end 
 of the game, long before any of them had 
 obtained time to play the advantageous part 
 her ambition had forecasted. This clever 
 woman, in her progresses, during ten years, 
 among great houses, had learned the great 
 world well. She was also, I believe, affec- 
 tionately attached to her younger sister, and 
 proud of the talents of her new brother, 
 which were, in her calculations, the means to 
 an end. The abilities and reputation of the 
 husband were already of more consequence 
 with Lord Tilsit, than the beauty and fasci- 
 nations of the wife, thoiigh she was an ac- 
 knowledged favourite with her noble relative. 
 It was, therefore, clear to Miss Vane, that 
 the worldly prosperity of the whole family 
 depended upon the use Frankland made 
 of his powers ; and, in her whole life, the 
 idea of success had never once occurred to 
 her, unconnected with patrons and family 
 interest. 
 
 But Frankland required delicate manage- 
 ment. Something might be made of his 
 passionate mind by irritation nothing by 
 flattery. The senseless insults and mortify- 
 ing suspicions, to which his equivocal situa- 
 tion and quick feelings gave point, and the 
 tears into which she could at any time throw 
 Helena, by scornfully pointing to these slan- 
 ders in the newspapers, were more powerful 
 auxiliaries to Caroline, in alienating her 
 " brother," as she affected to call him, from 
 the perils of unthriving Liberalism, than all 
 her address. It appeared her study, to find 
 out whatever could be twisted into an insi- 
 nuation against him, whether in speech or 
 print, if proceeding from what she pretended 
 to consider his party ; and to dwell with ex- 
 ultation upon the more just and generous 
 
 appreciation which his political opponents 
 made of his qualities. And Helena's triumph 
 in the praise, and wet-eyed indignation at 
 the blame, were ever the ready medium to 
 convey the desired impression to the mind of 
 her husband, which had first been adroitly 
 given to herself. Miss Vane would, for ex- 
 ample, take occasion, in the hearing of Frank- 
 land, to assure me, that " she despised this 
 vulgar malice, as much as her brother could 
 do, for his soul ; but that our Radical friends 
 ought to have some mercy upon female feel- 
 ings. Did they suppose that wives and sis- 
 ters were stocks and stones ? To a creature of 
 such quick sensibility as Helena, and devoted, 
 as she was, to her husband living but in 
 him these insinuations against his honour 
 were absolutely murderous. And directed 
 against such a man ! To what splendid 
 account might his talents and eloquence be 
 turned ! How mortifying to see him so 
 neglected his faculties running to waste, 
 and with so lovely and gifted a creature 
 and soon, probably, other dear and helpless 
 beings depending upon his prospects, which 
 she was sorry to find so very, very far from 
 satisfactory." And now the whole truth 
 came oxit " If he had her spirit, he would 
 make himself of consequence to one party or 
 another." 
 
 This was first plainly said one morning 
 that I called by the particular request of 
 Frankland, who had sent me a note, saying 
 he wished to see me on a business in which 
 I could be useful to him. The hope of being 
 of use or comfort to Frankland, grieved and 
 angry as I was alternately made by the 
 reckless course he was pursuing, was motive 
 enough with me to any exertion of friend- 
 ship. My resentment at his ill-judging 
 scheme of life, strong when I saw him not, 
 could never, for five minutes, stand against 
 his bland smile and the witchery of his con- 
 versation. 
 
 On my way to Berkeley Square, I met 
 Jack Greene with a face of remarkable ex- 
 tension and gravity. For the last six months, 
 he had almost lived in Frankland's house, 
 enchanted with every thing around him, and 
 in love with all the three ladies at once. 
 When informed whither I was going, he 
 requested leave to walk with me part of the 
 way ; and began 
 
 " Great favourite as you are with Mrs. 
 Frankland and the young ladies, I think 
 you don't so often visit Frankland as when 
 he was a bachelor, Mr. Richard." 
 
 " I may have been fearful that the excessive
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 137 
 
 kindness and blandishments of so many 
 charming women would turn my head and 
 make a fool of me : I never could resist 
 pleasant female flatteries," was rny pragmati- 
 cal reply. 
 
 " There is certainly no house in London so 
 
 attractive, save for one consideration." 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " That there is an execution in it ? Is 
 that what you mean ? Or, is the thing so 
 wonderful I has there been only one ? " 
 
 "You always delighted in a startling 
 manner, Mr. Richard. I did not mean that 
 distressing affair immediately : it is, I fear, 
 one of the natural consequences one of the 
 concomitants of a course of of " 
 
 " Shall I help you out Of improvidence, 
 folly, infatuation of the vanity of wives, 
 and the mistaken indulgence of husbands. 
 Oh, that the world's dread laugh that hyena 
 laugh ! should have power over a mind like 
 Frankland's ! " 
 
 " You would wrong me much, sir, if you 
 suppose that I do not feel to the depth of my 
 soul for our friend. What pity, that, with 
 his liberal spirit, fortune has not done him 
 more justice or that his means are not more 
 ample. But it is a bad affair a serious 
 affair for a married man. I once took the 
 liberty of giving a hint to Fiankland by 
 letter, for I durst not have spoken to him 
 of my plan, which, I have reason to know, 
 the ladies approve " 
 
 "And what did your conjoint wisdom 
 propound? At least, I hope clever Caroline 
 suggested that you should lend her no more 
 money for their housekeeping. Why did you 
 not say so to her long ago ? Do you imagine 
 your facility real friendship either to Frank- 
 land or his wife ? " 
 
 "'Twas, at least, so intended," returned 
 the good-natured fellow, with an air of 
 blended vexation and pique, which quite 
 disarmed me ; " and," he continued, in a 
 more impressive tone, "to see Frankland 
 and his charming wife so distressed, breaks 
 my very heart but what more can I do ? " 
 
 " Nothing probably you have done too 
 much already, when one considers to what it 
 all tends." 
 
 "And yet for Frankland! You do not 
 guess half what I owe him. Last year, he 
 rescued me from being plundered and degraded 
 by others : now, he has saved me from making 
 a fool and a villain of myself " 
 
 "Prevented you, perhaps, from marrying his 
 sister-in-law, Harriet from deeply injuring 
 an innocent and virtuous girl, to whom you 
 
 have long been engaged and making your- 
 self wretched for life. Yes, he is capable of 
 the noblest actions ! " 
 
 " And you know it all ! It has been a 
 most perplexing affair. How cautious every 
 unmarried man ought to be ! I protest, 
 before Heaven ! nothing was farther from my 
 intention than making this unhappy, though, 
 to me, most flattering impression, upon a 
 beautiful and too susceptible girl." 
 
 I almost laughed aloud. 
 
 " If half my fortune could atone to her 
 feelings for this cruel mistake " 
 
 " The half is very good, but the whole 
 would be better. Miss Harriet went for the 
 whole hog depend on it : but how has 
 Frankland crossed her true love ? He is 
 still himself, and, with all his faults, a glorious 
 being." 
 
 I was already aware, from different sources, 
 that the whole Vane family would have 
 winked hard at a runaway match between 
 Harriet and " Dorsetshire Laura's lover." 
 Even Mrs. Frankland, who perfectly imder- 
 stood the nature of his engagements, thought 
 it " more eligible, that poor Jack Greene, one 
 of their own set, whom they all liked so much, 
 should marry Harriet, since he admired her 
 so excessively, and she had so warm a pre- 
 possession for him, rather than the low person 
 with whom he had had some boyish entangle- 
 ment, before he succeeded to the fortune, 
 which ought quite to alter and raise his 
 views in life. Frankland had hurt her 
 cruelly, by ill-judged interference with the 
 young people, who, surely, could best manage 
 their affairs themselves." 
 
 All the women concerned, as if by intuition, 
 had, at first, felt the necessity of concealing 
 this affair from Frankland. Miss Caroline 
 even acted so dexterously, as to leave him in 
 doubt to the last whether she had not disap- 
 proved of Harriet's passion and Greene's 
 idiotic involvement in the foolish predicament 
 of being in love with four women at once, 
 and about to marry the one he probably liked 
 the least. 
 
 The manner in which Frankland termi- 
 nated the affair was quite characteristic. 
 Apprized of what was impending, he ordered 
 Timothy to show Mr. Greene into his private 
 room when he next visited the ladies ; for 
 Frankland was now so closely engaged with 
 his pen, as seldom to join them till dinner- 
 time. Greene informed me that, when he 
 was announced, Frankland pointed to him to 
 sit down, and was silent until he had finished 
 his page, or his letter. As he folded his
 
 138 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 paper, he said, "I have been so busy in 
 playing the fool myself, Jack, that I have 
 had no leisure to attend to your motions. 
 They tell me you are in love with my wife 
 and her two sisters perhaps with her mother 
 also, who is still a very pretty woman : 
 all that, however, is of small consequence ; 
 but the thing looks serious when marriage is 
 talked of. 
 
 " You shall not marry Harriot Vane. Do 
 you hear me ? I, your friend, say so ; and 
 you may now go up stairs and tell the ladies 
 as much ; or let me do it for you, which will 
 be wiser. You marvel at this high tone 
 from a man who owes you so much money ; 
 but I know you much better than you do 
 yourself. You imagine yourself in love 
 and so, I hope, you still are with Martha 
 Ashford. Go down to Dorsetshire, and you 
 will discover it. Try if that true-hearted 
 sensible girl will still accept of you. But 
 tell her first how your friend Frankland has 
 plundered you, though he would not permit 
 you to marry his wife's sister. As soon as 
 you are married, come back here, if you are 
 of the mind, and I shall then give you leave 
 to be in love with my wife's sisters as much 
 and as long as you please." 
 
 Greene, half-frightened by the peremptory 
 mandate, was, nevertheless, secretly pleased, 
 I believe, at this energetic cutting of the 
 Gordian knot of the silken cord so skilfully 
 coiled around him. He protested his honour, 
 his innocence, his unappeasable regret, for 
 having been the unconscious means of dis- 
 turbing the serenity of a lovely woman, whom, 
 though he admired excessively who could 
 avoid that ? with his engagement and early 
 attachment, he could not hope to render so 
 happy as she deserved to be. But how was 
 it to be broken to her ? 
 
 "Leave that to me," Frankland had re- 
 plied. " Since one woman, at least, must 
 die for your love, Jack, 'tis heroic in me to 
 say, it shall be my own sister-in-law whom 
 I doom to the sacrifice. And now, I advise 
 you to be off : this house is no proper place 
 for you." 
 
 The advice had been acted upon ; and 
 Greene confessed to me how much he felt 
 relieved by his friend's decision, and how 
 sincerely he hoped Miss Harriet would soon 
 forget him. His vanity, I perceived, could 
 have accepted of a trifle of love-lornness. 
 
 I was not very uneasy on the score of Miss 
 Harriet's woe, although, when I was shown 
 into the back drawing-room, I found all the 
 ladies of the family assembled save Harriet, 
 
 who had " a bad headache." Mrs. Frank- 
 land and her mother were seated on the same 
 couch. I believe they had both been crying. 
 In the appearance of the former there was 
 painful change visible to me. 
 
 Helena was apparently near the term of 
 her confinement ; dispirited and languid ; and 
 not so carefully and expensively attired us it 
 was her delight to be. A look of repining, 
 amounting almost to the expression of dis- 
 content, had taken possession of her lovely 
 placid features. Her tones were drawling 
 and querulous ; and I fancied her, for the 
 first time, very like her mother ; yet I could 
 not regard her without deep interest. The 
 conversation which I have noticed above, took 
 place. Caroline was the oracle of her family ; 
 and when she talked of the use to which 
 Frankland might apply his powers if he were 
 placed in a more favourable position, Helena 
 began to suspect that her husband knew less 
 of the necessary science of "getting on in life" 
 than her accomplished sister, or even than 
 herself. 
 
 " Have you seen Mr. Frankland lately ? " 
 she languidly asked of me. I had not. 
 "Then, I fear you will find him looking 
 wretchedly ill. He has sold his horse, and 
 takes no exercise." 
 
 " The fag of business and the fatigues of 
 fashionable life united, will tell, even in a 
 single season : one is enough but both are 
 the deuce." 
 
 " Mental anxiety, too," added Caroline, 
 gravely. 
 
 " He wants change of air almost as much 
 as Dr. Coddler says mamma and I do," said 
 the wife, peevishly. " Every body, at this 
 season, goes a month or two somewhere, on 
 the coast to Brighton, or any where." 
 
 " Hush, Helena ! " said her sister. " Poor 
 Helena is nervous this morning." 
 
 " It is unfortunate, when professional men 
 marry before they have ascertained their 
 prospects," said their mother, in a tone that 
 piqued me. 
 
 "It is, ma'am. Your son-in-law knew 
 better : his prospects were well ascertained, 
 hopeful nay, brilliant." 
 
 " Would to Heaven, that, for the sake of 
 my dear child, I could believe you, sir," 
 returned the old lady, almost sobbing with 
 anger ; and Helena fairly burst into tears. 
 
 " He needed but fair play, time, and ease 
 of mind, to rise to the head of his profession," 
 I said, warmly ; " but a lawyer, of all men, 
 requires a free and disengaged mind. To 
 leave the burden of both the home and the
 
 . FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 139 
 
 foreign departments upon him, with inade- 
 quate ways and means to boot, is somewhat 
 like overtasking." 
 
 " No young people could have started with 
 such advantages," whined the old lady: "my 
 daughter so caressed by every body always 
 so great a favourite in the best society. A 
 handsome house in so good a part of London, 
 without costing him one sixpence, and the 
 countenance of Lord Tilsit and his friends, 
 must have made any young man's fortune, 
 if there were not something radically wrong 
 I cannot tell what, I am sure ; but the 
 consequences are painfully apparent in the 
 face of my dear child. Helena, my love, 
 had you not better lie down for an hour ? 
 You will be out of voice as well as looks 
 to-night." 
 
 " You, who are so prudent, will not be 
 surpi'ised at my mother's natural anxiety for 
 those young people, Mr. Richard," whispered 
 Caroline ; " nor must you imagine that 
 mamma undervalues Mr. Frankland ; far 
 indeed from that ! " 
 
 " With Frankland's splendid genius, and 
 our good connexion and family interest, 
 mamma considers it his own fault, however, 
 that he does not more distinguish himself," 
 said Helena. " Mr. Rigby and every one says 
 so. You know how much it has been our 
 ambition that Mr. Frankland should make 
 
 a figure in life " " And then," I mentally 
 
 added, " his beautiful wife might have money 
 enough to purchase ornaments, give private 
 concerts, and be generous to her relations, 
 and kind, indeed, to every one around her, 
 if it cost her no sacrifice or exertion of body 
 or mind." 
 
 Pride in her husband's attainments and 
 high character might have been an auxiliary 
 to the unestablished virtues of this really 
 amiable woman, had his qualities not been 
 found thus early so utterly unproductive of 
 the money power of commanding those 
 things she had been taught to consider the 
 absolute necessaries, as well as the chief 
 enjoyments of life. Genius not convertible 
 into the current coin of the realm, may be a 
 fine thing enough for ladies to read of in a 
 book ; and, even to men of the world, may 
 seem noble and venerable, looking back 
 through the lapse of a century, or through 
 the dim vista which shows the blind school- 
 master, John Milton, seated at his organ 
 in his mean, obscure dwelling ; but, in 
 
 actual contemporary life ! really Mrs. 
 
 Vane "had no opinion of geniuses : those 
 geniuses were always poor or struggling, and 
 
 often, she was sorry to say, suspected of being 
 tainted with infidel principles. Even since 
 her daughter had married Frankland, Mr. 
 had got a silk gown ; and, it was be- 
 lieved, the next move would carry him to the 
 bench, or, at all events, make him Solicitor- 
 General." 
 
 "The great drawback with Frankland is 
 not being in Parliament," cried Helena, 
 raising herself with some vivacity. " A 
 literary man, or a lawyer, people who know 
 the world well tell me, is nothing in society, 
 until he get into Parliament. We all hoped 
 he would make a great figure in public life. 
 Did not you, sir ? " 
 
 " He has made a great figure already, 
 ma'am." 
 
 " So great," cried the politic Caroline, 
 " that it quickens one's ambition for him." 
 
 " And he might have been in Parliament 
 before this time," continued Helena, her 
 colour rising, " but for some extravagant 
 ideas which obstruct " 
 
 " Hush, dear love ! " interrupted Caroline : 
 "you agitate yourself too much. Do, mamma, 
 make Helena lie down. The truth is, we all 
 have a prodigious ambition for Mr. Frank- 
 land : an only brother, and the sole gentleman 
 among so many ladies, is, no doubt, a person 
 of vast consequence to us : yet I revere his 
 scruples though air is not more free than 
 Frankland would have been, representing the 
 borough of Trimmington." 
 
 " Save on a very few points, really of no 
 manner of consequence that I can perceive, 
 and rather understood than expressed," added 
 Helena. " Indeed, Mr. Richard, so true a 
 friend as you must persuade Frankland. I 
 am certain he has the highest respect for 
 your judgment, which would go very far to 
 influence him." 
 
 " I should rejoice to see Mr. Frankland in 
 Parliament, as I am certain no man is better 
 able to do his country good service there." 
 
 " I was sure of it ! " cried Helena. " Then 
 we must make a joint set upon him. Greene 
 has pleaded till he is tired." 
 
 " Hear me out, ladies : Provided he come 
 into the House of Commons with those prin- 
 ciples and views which have hitherto guided 
 his political life, and on which alone he can 
 now act with honour to himself and useful- 
 ness to the country." 
 
 Mrs. Frankland sunk silently back in her 
 couch, with a look of haughty chagrin ; and 
 her mother, I suppose, suspended her projected 
 hospitable order for refreshments, as she took 
 her hand from the bell.
 
 140 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 " This is all misconception, Helena," said 
 Caroline, eagerly : " depend on it, you and 
 Mr. Richard are at one in your views for 
 Franklaud. Give him time for reflection. 
 And I must not have you say one word to 
 him, sir, on this subject : he may fancy we 
 women have heen attempting to get you to 
 join our conspiracy ; and you know the 
 gentleman we have to deal with." 
 
 Visiters were announced in the front draw- 
 ingroom ; and Caroline, evidently wishing 
 me off, was, however, compelled to leave the 
 field free to me, enjoining Helena soothingly 
 and emphatically, to keep quiet, and not to 
 agitate herself to have a little patience and 
 all would be well: it was all misunderstanding. 
 
 Mrs. Frankland and her mother were 
 simple women compared with the retreating 
 lady, whose faculties had been developed by 
 so early and extensive an intercourse with 
 the great world. Bit by bit, their several 
 grievances were revealed to me, in anger, in 
 sorrow, or in involuntary bursts of weak 
 confidence. Helena's lingering pride in her 
 husband, and the greater delicacy of her 
 youthful mind, acted as a restraint ; and she 
 sometimes endeavoured to check her mother, 
 who volubly poured forth a catalogue of 
 female grievances and wrongs, all chargeable 
 upon Frankland's poverty, or, perhaps, his 
 integrity, though indirectly laid to his tem- 
 per and parsimonious habits. Such charges 
 would have astounded himself. The old 
 lady, who stood in considerable awe of her 
 son-in-law when he was present, seemed ab- 
 solutely to rejoice in an opportunity of rail- 
 ing at him to his friend and before his wife ; 
 feebly opposed by Helena's " Oh, mamma ! 
 Stay, mother ! Mamma's extreme tender- 
 ness for unworthy me makes her almost un- 
 just to my husband. It is all the fault of 
 his position indeed it is, mother." 
 
 I resolved to hear them out, and to learn 
 how unjust and contemptible it was possible 
 for women to be. 
 
 "And whose fault is that?" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Vane, with an inflamed face. " What 
 keeps him hanging on in this wretched way, 
 which makes you so miserable? He is in 
 debt to every body. An execution at this 
 moment in his house " 
 
 " Hush, mamma ! for Heaven's sake ! 
 Why expose these matters even to a 
 friend." 
 
 "I will not hush, Helena! let Mr. 
 Frankland's friends, let all the world know 
 the condition to which he has brought my 
 child : without the merest necessaries 
 
 destitute of every comfort required by her 
 delicate condition." 
 
 Was it the chosen wife of Frankland that 
 was thus situated ! Helena's tears accom- 
 panied the woful statement in profuse floods. 
 She reclined on her mother's neck, dissolved 
 in tender pity for her beautiful self and her 
 unmerited conjugal afflictions, when Timothy 
 announced a young woman, from a cheap 
 baby-linen warehouse in the city, with things 
 ordered on the previous day. The mere 
 announcement acted as a counter-charm with 
 both ladies ; and, though Helena at first 
 peevishly refused to look at the things, or 
 to admit the girl, her mother's curiosity 
 prevailed. 
 
 I now expressed my belief that Frankland 
 had forgotten me, and would have left the 
 ladies to their consultation, had not Helena, 
 whose good-humour partly returned at the 
 sight of so many pretty articlss of dress for 
 ladies and babies, entreated me to remain as 
 a known critic in work and lace, and a nice 
 chamber counsel. Grief was now forgotten 
 in admiration. Every thing was beautiful ! 
 some few articles were exquisite ! but the 
 perfection of all, was a suit of baby-linen, 
 the exact counter-part, in pattern and quality, 
 of one Mrs. Vane had seen with Lady Amen's 
 youngest daughter, who had married the 
 city banker, and so enviable woman ! 
 had whatever she wished, for, like the lady 
 in a fairy tale. I remarked that, while 
 Helena was so far under the influence of new 
 and delightful feelings as to look with the 
 fondest longing upon the baby robes and 
 little caps, the old lady cast her wannest re- 
 gards upon the laced muslin wrapping gowns, 
 and such lady caps as would ornament her 
 child ; on whom she fitted and tried them, 
 exactly as a little girl may with her doll ; 
 quite happy, apparently, and entirely forget- 
 ful of debts, executions, and the character 
 she had attributed to her son-in-law. I was 
 divided between pity and contempt for beings 
 so frivolous ; yet it was impossible to resist 
 some degree of sympathy with their evident 
 admiration and enjoyment, as they tumbled 
 over the goods, coveting every thing, then 
 selecting, and then dismissing the girl, to 
 prudently calculate the cost a necessary 
 precaution, now that Frankland was become 
 " so stingy." 
 
 The affair was ultimately concluded by 
 the mother, who purchased to the amount of 
 some 4O or ^50, of things which I took the 
 liberty of thinking very trash, including a 
 couple of caps, which Helena insisted upon
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 141 
 
 keeping for mamma, appealing to me if they 
 were not exceedingly becoming to that wor- 
 thy lady. Mrs. Vane certainly declined 
 them : but, in the strife of affectionate gene- 
 rosity, yielded to the daughter; who declared, 
 . that, if mamaa refused them, she would have 
 none of those other "mere necessaries" to 
 the wife of a man plunged in debt and diffi- 
 culty, and struggling for the very means of 
 daily bread. I am ashamed to mention the 
 wretched trifles in which these unthinking 
 women showed their power to involve, and so 
 far to dishonour, the man whom the one 
 loved and the other feared. 
 
 The mother carefully arranged the new 
 purchases, while a packet of music was brought 
 for Helena, which placed her amiable weak- 
 nesses, at least, in a more captivating light. 
 She had viewed " the mere necessaries" with 
 eager pleasure, and the desire to appropriate 
 them ; but in the music of the new opera, a 
 selection from which was to be performed by 
 herself and her friends, that night, in her 
 own house, there was inspiration that in- 
 stantly kindled her passion for her art ; and, 
 animated and beautiful, and full of a rap- 
 turous enjoyment, forgetful of every thing 
 around her, she played and sang for an hour 
 and a half, sometimes calling on us to admire 
 and her mother's bravas never failed 
 and once or twice charming me, by exclaim- 
 ing, involuntarily "How I wish James 
 were here I this passage is for him ! " 
 
 But he came not. He had surely for- 
 gotten that I was in the house, by his own 
 desire, and waiting his leisure. I took the 
 liberty of sending Timothy to bring me to 
 his recollection. 
 
 "Frankland is become the most absent 
 creature," said Helena, throwing herself into 
 her couch, exhausted with her passionate 
 musical fit. " Writing whole mornings 
 six and eight hours on end taking no 
 proper exercise, and shunning society. You 
 must pardon mamma, though," she whis- 
 pered : " she does not quite understand Mr. 
 Frankland ; and mothers are apt to be ex- 
 acting for pet daughters, you know. 
 Caroline has much more sense than all of us 
 together ; and, from the hour I married, she 
 has been constantly saying, that Frankland 
 must get into Parliament. I assure you, Mr. 
 Richard, I shall consider no man my hus- 
 band's friend, or the friend of his family, 
 who says otherwise." This was said with 
 energy quite unexpected in Helena. I 
 bowed . 
 
 " We are to have some charming people 
 
 here to-night and one, particularly, who, 
 though a foreigner, Caroline thinks may be 
 useful to Mr. Frankland. I hope, in mercy, 
 I shall be in voice. Do you think I am in 
 voice to day, mamma? I did improve in 
 my last air " 
 
 " In beautiful voice, my love ; but you 
 must lie down." 
 
 " You may fancy us rather gay for this 
 particular time," observed the prudent old 
 lady ; " but, as Mr. Frankland, from some 
 crotchet, has positively forbid his wife to 
 sing at other people's houses for the last 
 month even at Lord Tilsit's we can 
 neither lock our doors against those who are 
 dying to hear her sing, nor debar Helena 
 from the only pleasure left her that of 
 giving pleasure to her friends by her talent." 
 
 " The only pleasure- left the wife of Frank- 
 land ! " I shrugged my shoulders. " Her 
 life should be all pleasure." 
 
 " My good sir, what are you dreaming of?" 
 
 " Of a New Earth, madam." 
 
 " It cannot, indeed, be this one, in which 
 poor women's trials are appointed," returned 
 the old lady, smartly. 
 
 " Mamma is thinking now of Harriet," 
 said Helena. " Mr Frankland gave us all so 
 terrible a jobation the other day, for allow- 
 ing that good, silly, generous creature, Jack 
 Greene, to fall in love with my second 
 sister." 
 
 " It was too bad," cried the old lady, 
 reddening with sudden passion " too, too 
 bad indelicate and improper, and entirely 
 out of the line of Mr. Frankland's duty to 
 my family. Is it not enough that he has 
 ruined one daughter, without blasting the 
 prospects of another ?" ' 
 
 " Don't say so for me, dear mamma," re- 
 turned the daughter, about, however, to give 
 way to tears. "But it was inconsiderate, 
 indeed cruel to me, was it not ? to break 
 off a match which my mother approved, and 
 on which my sister and Mr. Greene had set 
 their hearts?" 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Richard Taylor!" whined the 
 old lady, her handkerchief at her eyes, 
 " conceive the situation in which Mr. Frank- 
 land's high peremptory temper has placed 
 me ! One unhappy child in the interesting 
 condition of dear Helena, and with such 
 dark and melancholy prospects ! another 
 dear girl wounded in her tenderest hopes." 
 
 " Mr. Greene's house in the country would 
 always have been a pleasant retreat for 
 mamma," chimed in Helena, "while Caroline 
 is with friends, whatever should become of
 
 142 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 wretched me" It was ever me with these 
 ladies, when driven off their guard. I strug- 
 gled to keep down my indignation. Many 
 good women, of " a certain condition," are 
 apt to be scoundrels in matrimonial concerns : 
 scoundrels, if not so young as to be only 
 fools. In this focus is concentrated the whole 
 scoundrelism which the other sex divide and 
 diffuse through all the avenues to fortune. 
 For them there are the sword, the pen, the 
 bar, the bench, the camp, the church, the 
 desk, the counter : the ten thousand paths of 
 success are ever open while the poor women 
 are bound to the horns of the altar. And 
 this melancholy consideration has always 
 made me judge of their lax matrimonial 
 principles and equivocal projects with indul- 
 gence, save when they go the length of 
 downright cheating or swindling. I am, at 
 least, charitable where there is genteel neces- 
 sity to plead on the one hand, and wealthy 
 temptation upon the other. This, to be sure, 
 of Greene's was rather an aggravated case, ay 
 there was a positive engagement well under- 
 stood ; but, as Mrs. Vane said, " Dear, pru- 
 dent Harriet had been willing to overlook 
 Greene's foolish entanglement, though very 
 strict in her ideas ; and it was a maxim with 
 herself that no young lady had any concern 
 with the liaisons a gentleman might have 
 formed before he proposed for her. It was, 
 indeed, extremely indelicate. Harriet would 
 have been no daughter of hers if she could 
 have endured those explanations about the 
 Dorsetshire young person, which Mr. Frank- 
 land took pains to give her, but which she 
 declined to hear. And now my daughter 
 vows she will never again speak to Mr. 
 Frankland ; and I cannot condemn her." 
 
 The disgust I felt for the mother was fast 
 spreading to the daughter, already hopelessly 
 tainted by her vanity and her worse mean- 
 ness of disposition ; and yet, so strangely are 
 good and ill blended, that I was touched by 
 the lively affection, the fond admiration, (the 
 love of instinct and of habit,) which they 
 felt for each other, displayed in soothing and 
 coddling, in caresses and flatteries. There 
 might, with great mutual blindness, be an 
 alloy of selfishness in this affection it might 
 have been found incapable of any heroic 
 sacrifice : but its warmth and sincerity were 
 beyond all doubt. 
 
 The time was wearing so rapidly away 
 its flight unmarked by Helena, who, after 
 her rest, was again absorbed in rehearsing 
 her music, and making experiment of her 
 voice that I was about to leave the 
 
 house without seeing my friend, when Timo- 
 thy returned to announce that his master 
 would receive me immediately ; and, in 
 virtue of our old ties, Tim whispered, u Mass;i 
 Printer's debil boder Massa all dis morning." 
 
 I was aware of something like this, and 
 also that Frankland was every day rendered 
 more unfit, by his habits of life and distrac- 
 tion of mind, for the trifling business that 
 now waited his acceptance. Often had he 
 attended in the courts upon the mornings 
 following one of his own and his wife's late 
 parties, nearly without employment, and 
 with, I am sure, an aching head, and fore- 
 boding heart ; sorrowing or maddening over 
 the headlong course which, circumstanced as 
 he was, he wanted force of character to arrest. 
 At length, he came to be distracted by the 
 most vulgar exigencies of the passing day ; 
 finding the literary labours of his long morn- 
 ing those stimulating and exhausting toils, 
 consuming to a mind at ease, and to him, at 
 this time, murderous insufficient to meet 
 the wants of the night. 
 
 Frankland was doing himself injustice in 
 every way writing in haste, and far below 
 himself, impelled by the same necessity which 
 sets to work the veriest industrious Grub 
 Street scribbler, whom the aristocracy of 
 literature that most arrogant and senseless 
 of all aristocracies ridicules and despises. 
 The spur of his lofty mind was as surely the 
 ignoble one of immediate pecuniary emer- 
 gency. Papers, the fruits of long labour, 
 and others, the bright transcripts of his mind 
 in happier times, now found their hurried 
 way to the journals. Portions of the long- 
 projected work that History of English 
 Literature xipon which he was to rest his 
 reputation among men of letters, and with 
 posterity were detached from the main 
 body of the MS. wherever it could best bear 
 mutilation, and disposed of, in such instal- 
 ments, like inferior wares, by this spend- 
 thrift of his own wits. The fruits of future 
 projected labours were forestalled ; his genius 
 was mortgaged to the publishers ; and, what 
 was worse, such mortgages were not always 
 redeemed. I had even heard of him borrow- 
 ing, or, more properly, trying to borrow, 
 small sums of former friends. It is wonder- 
 ful how such things creep abroad, even in 
 the bustle of London society ; and, need I 
 say, with what degrading and blighting effect? 
 I remarked, that those especially who refused 
 to comply with the humiliating request, were 
 the most certain to vindicate their own pru- 
 dence and better conduct, by its gratuitous
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 143 
 
 exposure. In one point alone, Frankland, 
 up to this moment, stood clear : In spite of 
 the many insinuations, sarcasms, and slanders, 
 thrown out against him by the Liberal press, 
 as it called itself, he had not yet done one 
 act, written one sentence, which could make 
 his friends blush or his enemies triumph. 
 But, alas ! how true is it, that, in a down- 
 ward course, like Frankland's, there is than 
 "the lowest deep a lower deep," into which 
 the struggling man may be precipitated before 
 he is aware of his danger. 
 
 It was close upon the dinner hour before 
 the tasked author had been able to accom- 
 plish his business ; and I was shown to a 
 chamber near the top of the house, where sat 
 the spectre of my former friend. He pressed 
 my hand in silence. 
 
 Another man might have apologized and 
 talked " about and about ; " but this was not 
 Frankland's temper : his silence was moody 
 and gloomy for several moments, and then 
 he abruptly said, " You have seen Helena 
 seen her, how miserably changed from the 
 bright creature you beheld last year ! You 
 may guess one cause of my misery God 
 forbid, that any man should be able to 
 imagine all its extent ! But this is idle 
 talk." 
 
 He pulled out a drawer, took from it a 
 roll of written papers, and, with a forced 
 and ghastly smile, continued " I have been 
 at work here, you perceive ; and you must, 
 to-night yet, if possible, dispose of the fruits 
 of my labour. The story of Johnson com- 
 posing ' Rasselas,' at the rate of forty pages 
 a-day, in order to bury his mother, is pathetic 
 enough, no doubt ; but we have got beyond 
 all that. Johnson was a poor rogue then 
 a hackney scribbler ; much at his ease, in a 
 mean lodging, working for only bread and 
 cheese, with beer to it. These, sir, are the 
 compositions, in prose and verse, of the cele- 
 brated Mr. Frankland, who occupies a splen- 
 did house in a square whose beautiful wife 
 is the idol of the fashionable world whose 
 musical parties have been the most attractive 
 in London. Tell your chapman all this : 
 the tale will prove attractive he will get up 
 an advertisement from it, for the Morning 
 papers. And you may heighten the pathos, 
 by adding, that this romance was written by 
 Frankland, even more rapidly than the 
 ' Prince of Abyssinia,' to meet, not the neces- 
 sary expenses of a mother's burial, but of a 
 wife's " 
 
 The reckless, enforced courage of despair 
 could stretch no farther. He started up, and 
 
 walked hurriedly across the room, his hand 
 shading his eyes ; nor did I dare to address 
 him. 
 
 " This is desperate work," he said, seating 
 himself again " extreme folly. But, some- 
 how, the tone of your voice unmanned me. 
 You comprehend what I exact of your friend- 
 ship. The sooner I obtain the money the 
 better. Poor Helena relies upon my promise 
 of this morning, to get her money for her 
 occasions. The necessity is extreme : and 
 that execution prevents me from raising even 
 one guinea, though upon my remaining 
 books." 
 
 The worst remained to be said ; and the 
 haughty spirit struggled and writhed before 
 utterance was given to the caution not to 
 carry the manuscripts to two different pub- 
 lishers named. " They have advanced me 
 small sums. I am in arrear with them. 
 You are aware of the notions of tradesmen ; 
 and the purpose of the price of this volume 
 is sacred and urgent. I shall soon make up 
 to them." 
 
 I struggled to suppress the commiserating 
 groan which might have offended the pride 
 of my friend, and, with few words, accepted 
 the office. Without going home to dinner, I 
 set about my task. Despatch, and an ad- 
 vantageous or fair bargain, were incompati- 
 ble. I was not at liberty to use Frankland's 
 name, and my own was not of the kind 
 which passes current with booksellers as a 
 voucher. In happy time, it struck me to 
 employ the agency and influence of Mr. 
 Rigby, with whom I was now slightly ac- 
 quainted, from having met him once or twice 
 at Mrs. Frankland's parties ; and I left the 
 MS. at his house, with an explanatory note. 
 Next morning, I received an answer, expres- 
 sive of the highest admiration of the work, 
 which had "enchained " Mr. Rigby to his 
 library chair till three in the morning, and 
 requesting an interview. 
 
 I had no doubt whatever that the real 
 author was perfectly well known to the 
 Aristarch. He carried me and my papers, 
 in his own carriage, to the great publisher, 
 who requested that he should dictate the 
 terms. They were liberal, almost to excess, 
 as I fancied ; though my conscious ignorance, 
 or perhaps avarice for Frankland, kept me 
 silent. Before two o'clock, I treated myself 
 with a cab to Berkeley Square, charged with 
 bills and cash, amounting to a full third of 
 the price which the newspapers, about a 
 month afterwards, stated to have been given 
 for the wonderful forthcoming work, which
 
 144 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 was to astonish the fashionable and political 
 world. 
 
 One might have imagined, that the relief, 
 the actual joy, which this sum carried into 
 this distressed household from the master, 
 who could with difficulty conceal his emotion, 
 to Timothy, who instinctively knew and 
 participated in the general satisfaction one 
 might have been assured, that, though fru- 
 gality and self-denial, which require long 
 and painful lessons, might not all at once 
 have been taught, yet that great caution 
 would, at this time, have been used in dis- 
 bursement. It was not money alone that 
 was to be saved here, by the timely exercise 
 of those homely virtues : it was integrity, 
 peace of mind, future well-being, indepen- 
 dence in public, and honour in private life. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Helena, imagining, I 
 suppose, that my looks, or the extravagance 
 of the cab, boded good, had followed me up 
 stairs to her husband's temporary study ; 
 paler than ever, from the exhausting musical 
 vigil of the last night, and wrapt in the 
 invalid shawl which alternated with nuked 
 shoulders. I could with difficulty keep down 
 the quick feeling of disgust with which I 
 saw the eager look, the joyful flush with 
 which this beautiful creature regarded the 
 money I had spread upon the table. I hope 
 Frankland was not so quick-sighted. Her 
 joy brimmed over upon me ; and then she 
 descended to give her mother the intelligence, 
 which might improve that lady's opinion of 
 genius and of her son-in-law, at least for a 
 few days. 
 
 When we had talked about ten minutes 
 longer, a note came up to Frankland from 
 Caroline, suggesting that the execution might 
 instantly be taken off the carriage. Mrs. Frank- 
 land's health required air and exercise ; but 
 her mother's matronly experience had refused, 
 for the last month, to intrust her, either to 
 her legs in the square, or to the worse calamity 
 of being seen in a hackney coach. 
 
 The carriage was set free as soon as pos- 
 sible ; the most urgent debts were paid ; 
 more piirchases were made of " merest neces- 
 saries ; " a sum was laid aside to repay 
 the advances of the booksellers and private 
 loans ; and many prudent acts were projected, 
 before I took leave. 
 
 When I next called, I found that Mr. and 
 Mrs. Frankland, with Mrs. Vane, had gone 
 to Brighton ! and, in a fortnight or less, tin- 
 newspapers announced that the beautiful 
 Mrs. Frankland, after assisting at a private 
 concert at the Pavilion, where the Russian 
 
 and Austrian ambassadors, with their ladies, 
 and many of the nobility, were present, was 
 sent home suddenly in one of the royal car- 
 riages, and prematurely, but safely, delivered 
 of a daughter ! Helena was destined to create 
 sensations in the great world. Princesses 
 left their cards at her lodgings : Duchesses 
 sent baby-linen and caudle cups, to supply 
 the store of " merest necessaries " left behind 
 in Berkeley Square ; and one of the elite 
 requested to stand god-mother to the infant 
 Georgina. 
 
 The old lady was in ecstasy ; Lord Tilsit 
 sent down compliments and corals ; and 
 Frankland, drinking in joy from the soft 
 eyes of his wife, or bending in unutterable 
 tenderness over his child, forgot the past, and 
 strove to shut his eyes to the future. He 
 now made himself believe that it was cruelty, 
 in the present condition of his wife, to distress 
 her with the details of our plan of letting 
 the Berkeley Square house, laying aside, for 
 the present, Jack Greene's inauspicious gift of 
 the carriage, and being contented with love, 
 and, if not a cottage, yet a very small house, 
 which there was, at least, a fair chance that 
 the exertions of Frankland might maintain 
 in comfort and honour, or, at all events, in 
 respectable and, therefore, with all the 
 wise and the good respected povertj'. 
 
 With what dignified philosophy, with 
 what elevated sentiment, was this scheme 
 discussed, in the letters which he wrote me 
 from his wife's chamber, during her confine- 
 ment ! It is so easy to philosophize on paper 
 ay, and to moralize. Yet the fashionable 
 eclat of the moment, and his latent ambition, 
 were not sufficient to wean him from the 
 sober plan of which his natural dignity of 
 mind, and the recollection of former agonies, 
 made him more and more tenacious. He 
 employed me to look for the kind of house 
 that would suit him ; and informed me that 
 he would be in town in the following week, 
 to prepare for the reception of Helena, before 
 he made her aware of his purpose. 
 
 I was better pleased that he should nego- 
 tiate with his wife and her mother at a 
 distance from them. I advised him at once 
 to cut-and-run from the world in which he 
 was so inextricably involved ; and, despising 
 the cowardly continental retreats of gay 
 spendthrifts, to fix himself at once where his 
 duties and his future interests lay, whatever 
 mortification false pride might temporarily 
 receive. 
 
 If proof against the sullcns, Frankland was 
 only too susceptible to the influence of smiles
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 14.5 
 
 and tears, and silent looks of gentle reproach 
 and entreaty. He was also, I fully believe, 
 already anxious to escape from thinking too 
 closely of some obvious points in his wife's 
 character, lest his judgment should have 
 hurried him into the condemnation from 
 which his yearning affection shrunk. He 
 felt himself bankrupt in the means of render- 
 ing his wife happy ; and this consciousness 
 covered the multitude of her faults. 
 
 From Berkeley Square, immediately upon 
 his arrival, Frankland wrote down to Brigh- 
 ton. His letters afterwards fell into my 
 hands. I do not wish to screen him, nor 
 to lessen his faults. He had been much to 
 blame. To him judgment and foresight had 
 been given in large measure. He knew the 
 world much better than most men of his 
 age, and far better than his young wife. He 
 had none of her peculiar vanities or habits to 
 contend against ; and, before God and man, 
 he held the right and the power to control 
 her tastes, for their mutual comfort and 
 benefit. He had failed in these first duties ; 
 and now he took the whole blame upon him- 
 self, of what was past and irredeemable ; and, 
 passionately appealing to her affection, to her 
 feelings, as a wife and a mother, he implored 
 her to make the best of their joint lot ; and, 
 in language which I thought far too strong, 
 pathetically lamented the untoward fortiine 
 which made it needful that she should, for a 
 time, live apart from those circles she was 
 formed to enjoy and to grace. 
 
 Frankland waited the result of this letter 
 with some anxiety, though he must have 
 been far, indeed, from anticipating the blow 
 which struck him to the earth. Helena did 
 not reply to her husband herself. She was 
 alleged to be so much affected by his com- 
 munication as to be incapable of holding a 
 pen ; but her sister Caroline performed the 
 office of amanuensis in her best style of 
 diplomacy, and Frankland, though with a 
 great deal of circumlocution and verbiage, 
 was distinctly informed, " That his wife and 
 her family conceived it a duty which she 
 owed to herself and her unfortunate infant, 
 and even to her husband himself, rather than 
 submit to his proposal, to resume the pro- 
 fession, in prosecuting which she had been 
 interrupted by a marriage contracted with 
 very different prospects from those it had 
 been her fortune to see realized. The general 
 interest and sympathy excited by the youth, 
 beauty, and misfortunes of her unhappy 
 sister, (though far was she from blaming 
 any one, much less Mr. Frankland,) made 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 it probable that her permanent advantage, 
 might not have suffered much by the delay 
 which had made her known to a wider and 
 even higher circle of patrons and admirers." 
 
 All that Frankland had ever encountered 
 was, with his peculiar feelings, as dust in 
 the balance compared to this. I could not, 
 by any conjecture, divine what had befallen 
 him, when, late at night, Timothy brought 
 me a note, containing these few hardly legible 
 words : 
 
 ''Once, when I supposed myself dying, I 
 entreated you to come to me. I then felt 
 that life was dear. I have lived to know 
 that there are things in life that are dearer 
 than life. They are dealing with me now." 
 He did not even request my presence. I had 
 fears for a duel or some dreadful catastrophe ; 
 for I knew that the war of impertinent para- 
 graphs had again been renewed against the 
 Liberal Barrister, from the date of his wife 
 having obtained the honour of an invitation 
 to the Pavilion, whither, having reluctantly 
 permitted her to go, he naturally and pro- 
 perly accompanied her. I set off for Berkeley 
 Square. 
 
 One or two ugly ill-omened visages met 
 me in the vestibule ; and I found a man 
 seated in the same room with Frankland, 
 but apart, whom I at once knew to be a 
 bailiff. Was he under arrest ? He was 
 sunk in stupor ; but recovered himself so far 
 on my appearance, as to desire the man to 
 wait without the door, and to put Caroline 
 Vane's letter, of four close pages, into my 
 hand. 
 
 Heaven forgive me, if, at the first blush 
 of the affair, my heart did bound lightly, as 
 I whispered to myself, "A blest riddance 
 could he but think so : Frankland required 
 something like this to rouse and restore him 
 to himself." What folly to conclude of his 
 feelings, by my own dispassionate, perhaps 
 disparaging judgment of his wife ! Fortu- 
 nately, I had too much delicacy and respect 
 for my friend, to say what I felt and thought 
 of her, even when my indignation was at the 
 height. 
 
 I returned him the letter. 
 
 " It is all hollow and false, as you per- 
 ceive," he said bitterly ; " but she cannot 
 have ratified it ; you know her facility, her 
 gentle submissiveness, and the fatal power 
 those women her mother's fondness, and 
 her sister's art have over her resolutions." 
 
 " And may I crave to know your purpose ?" 
 
 " Is it necessary to ask it ? To go down 
 to Brighton to take Helena's determination 
 
 No. 10.
 
 14fi 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 from no lips save her own and if it be for 
 
 this " His colour became livid, his eyes 
 
 glared upon me for an instant, and he abruptly 
 turned away. 
 
 " But you perceive in whose clutches I 
 am," he added, on turning back : " arrested 
 at the suit of my wife's milliner. Madame 
 Royet would have borne every thing, save 
 the affront of Mrs. Frankland taking her 
 Pavilion dress, on credit, from a rival house." 
 
 This was said in a tone of bitter irony. 
 
 " Then, I presume, you cannot go down to 
 Brighton until this arrest is withdrawn ? " 
 
 " It needed not your quick wit to divine 
 that," he replied, in a tone of haughty petu- 
 lance, which I patiently endured giving 
 way to the impatient sallies of the chafed 
 spirit. And, in a little while, he added, 
 " Heaven forgive me ! I seem to myself, 
 for this last long year, as if struggling and 
 tossing in some wild dream ; but 'tis one 
 from which I shall never awake to peace 
 never ! never ! " 
 
 "Do not allow yourself to think thus 
 gloomily. You will find Mrs. Frankland 
 exactly what you wish to make her get 
 her but once away from her family. ' Tis 
 but the intervention of a few more days." 
 He was now walking slowly about the apart- 
 ment, apparently insensible of my presence, 
 with the fixed, abstracted gaze of a man 
 whose whole thoughts are bent inward. 
 
 I could only guess the current of his 
 thoughts, from hearing him murmur, in 
 tones that thrilled me, those ever-memorable 
 words 
 
 " Alone on my hearth with my household 
 gods shivering around me! Alone on my 
 hearth ! These words cling to my brain 
 strangely to-night," he said, at last, " and I 
 trifle away precious time. Their author 
 once prophesied that temptation might make 
 Frankland a scoundrel : but he, at least, 
 honoured me by thinking I should be the 
 slave of a noble ambition not the weak, 
 pitiful creature of chance and circumstance ; 
 that, with a man's choice in my power, I 
 should act the part of a man ay, though 
 haply a. base one. What has my course 
 been, that even my wife's mother claims the 
 right to despise the falterer, the loiterer?" 
 
 This was not the mood in which a man 
 may be reasoned with ; and I forebore argu- 
 ment, and even consolation, limiting my 
 efforts to enabling him to set off on his jour- 
 ney as speedily as possible. This was at- 
 tended with considerable difficulty, and the 
 arrangements were not completed until noon 
 
 the next day. I was informed by Timothy 
 that his master had not gone to bed, but con- 
 tinued either walking or writing all night : 
 and, indeed, the night-guards Madame Royet 
 had appointed him, were not of the kind 
 that shed poppies around a man's couch. 
 When we had got fairly rid of them, I took 
 upon me to discharge the three female ser- 
 vants, and left Timothy in charge of the 
 garrison until I should hear from Brighton. 
 
 I can only form an idea of the scenes 
 which passed there, from the events that 
 followed. 
 
 The real purpose of his wife's family must 
 have been to force Frankland into their own 
 terms, though it is probable that Helena was 
 not privy to the design. In appearing as a 
 public singer, she imagined herself the victim 
 of overpowering necessity ; which, however, 
 was not without its consolations, in the 
 nattering attention which it drew upon her, 
 and the sympathy and admiration excited 
 by what the few patrons, let into the secret, 
 were pleased to rave about, as " The wonder- 
 ful sacrifice, made by this gifted creature, 
 to her maternal tenderness and filial de- 
 votion ! " 
 
 How falsely are human actions often esti- 
 mated ! The consequences of Frankland's 
 interview, or rupture with his wife, opened 
 the whole female world in full cry upon the 
 monster ! who had even threatened to deprive 
 Mrs. Frankland of her infant, if she persisted 
 in her heroic sacrifice. He was of the temper 
 to hold this kind of censure in utter scorn ; 
 but the toils were around him, and tenderness 
 effected what neither art nor hostility could 
 have won. 
 
 Frankland had just returned to Berkeley 
 Square, overwhelmed with sorrow having 
 first taken a long farewell of his wife when 
 he was followed by an express from Brighton, 
 announcing her dangerous illness, and the 
 necessity of his immediate return, if he 
 wished to see her in life. She might have 
 been, I dare say, seriously indisposed 
 though not in quite so perilous a condition 
 as had been represented. Frankland, with- 
 out removing his few effects from that fatal 
 home he had resolved to abandon, lost not 
 an hour in obeying the summons. Miss 
 Caroline might, perhaps, by this time, have 
 seen that she had finessed too far. Lord Til- 
 sit had been apprized of the fracas, and of 
 the intentions of his fair cousin ; and his 
 Lordship appeased the angry and wounded 
 feelings of Frankland by totally condemning 
 what he called the wild, extravagant, and
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 147 
 
 indecent plan, to which neither Mr. Frank- 
 land, nor any man of spirit, could or ought 
 to submit ; nor could he perceive the necessity 
 urged. But, allowing it to exist, he still 
 entirely approved of Mr. Frankland's deter- 
 mination. Pecuniary difficulties might be 
 suffered and surmounted, but the stigma 
 remaining from Helena's scheme, even ad- 
 mitting it to be, on trial, completely success- 
 ful, would be indelible to her husband and 
 her family. It was not for a moment to be 
 thought of. 
 
 Helena could only shed showers of tears, 
 lament her hard fate, and declare her willing- 
 ness to submit to whatever decision her 
 husband and his Lordship thought best. The 
 latter displayed not merely what the world 
 would call good judgment, but delicacy, and 
 high generosity, in mediating between hus- 
 band and Avife. Before negotiating at all, he 
 insisted upon Helena returning to her home 
 with her child, and leaving her mother, 
 though the journey and cruel separation 
 might be attended with some part of the 
 awful consequences which Mrs. Vane, in the 
 agony of her maternal apprehensions, pre- 
 dicted. This separation of families, in the 
 case of the mother and Harriet he suggested 
 should be final, though it was not yet neces- 
 sary to apprize Mrs. Frankland of the im- 
 pending catastrophe. Lord Tilsit's plans were 
 warmly seconded by Caroline. She was 
 probably so far in his confidence, or rather 
 had divined so much of what might be, as 
 now to throw the whole weight of her in- 
 fluence into Frankland's scale. 
 
 Caroline accordingly came up to town to 
 nurse her sister ; and so manoeuvred as to be 
 able to write to me, before I had once seen 
 my friend, "begging my congratulations on 
 the felicitous adjustment of Mr. Frankland's 
 numerous disagreeables. Lord Tilsit had 
 acted more like a tender father than any 
 thing else to the young pair. He was the 
 real author of the solid happiness, which 
 already made No. seem a second paradise. 
 I would be rejoiced to learn that our long- 
 cherished hopes for Frankland were about to 
 be realized. Though averse to office, he had 
 at length permitted himself to be nominated 
 a candidate for Trimmington, and with every 
 chance of success." I could not doubt it ; 
 and my heart shrivelled within me, as I 
 learned the blasting truth, that the high- 
 minded Frankland had been so completely 
 subdued to the level of his fortunes, as to en- 
 joy temporary relief from that compromise 
 with principle which might rescue him from 
 
 the distracting pecuniary involvements of 
 the last year, and which restored the bloom 
 and cheerfulness of his wife, and the peace 
 and brightness of his home. 
 
 It is sometimes unwise, if not morally un- 
 safe, to investigate too nicely those subtleties 
 and sophistries by which the acute conscience- 
 smitten backslider strives to stifle his inward 
 convictions, and fortify himself in wilful 
 error ; and especially so if the sinner is one 
 so dear and still so valued as this man was 
 by me. 
 
 I durst not trust myself to listen to Frank- 
 land's ingenious and seductive fallacies ; 
 though I was, perhaps, mistaken in fancying 
 that his pride would have stooped to any 
 kind of vindication or apology for his con- 
 duct. Besides this latter impression, I judged 
 it best to leave him to himself. No accuser, 
 I was assured, could rise up in condemnation, 
 half so stem as that which lurked within his 
 own breast. I, therefore, declined the re- 
 peated invitations which Mrs. Frankland, in 
 all likelihood prompted by her politic sister, 
 sent me ; for an instinctive feeling intimated 
 that my reproachful presence could not, at 
 this time, be welcome to Frankland. 
 
 Of the notes which I received from him 
 on trifling matters of business, connected with 
 his book and other things, not one bore the 
 slightest reference to his change of prospects. 
 
 The new member for Trimmington, the 
 holder of a patent place, worth about 800 
 a-year, and called \ 800 by some of the 
 newspapers, bore his faculties bashfully, 
 " though the place was one which cost the 
 country nothing," his new friends averred ; 
 as Lord Tilsit had been so liberal as to re- 
 sign it in Frankland's behalf : so it was quite 
 a family arrangement. ' 
 
 It was not mentioned that the pluralist 
 peer had been actually badgered and shamed 
 out of this one office ; and that, having no 
 younger son, he disposed of it to the best 
 advantage, by making it over to a near 
 connexion, likely to become an able retainer. 
 There was some recollection of a Parliamen- 
 tary commission having, long ago, recom- 
 mended that particular place to be abolished ; 
 but the time was perhaps not yet come. And 
 I began to question my own judgment when 
 my brother, my sister Anne, and poor Jack 
 Greene who would have admired Frasikland 
 in the galleys, and many other sensible and 
 prudent friends persons, in private life, of 
 great worth and the strictest integrity un- 
 hesitatingly congratulated me, on Frankland 
 and his lovely wife obtaining so comfortable
 
 14K 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 an addition to their income, by the generosity 
 of their noble relative. "Nothing to what 
 they may look for, no doubt ; but a good be- 
 ginning," said my brother James. " How 
 kind and considerate ! " cried the ladies, in 
 one voice. It did them so much good even 
 to hear of such things. 
 
 " Better a friend at the court than a penny 
 in the purse," observed my sage Nurse Wilks, 
 when Timothy, more sleek and glossy-sable 
 than for many preceding months, came to 
 gossip, in his broken English, of his master's 
 good luck. Was I then strait-laced in my 
 notions, and scrupulous overmuch? The 
 Liberal journals, which had fiercely assailed 
 Frankland during the heat of the election, 
 did not encourage those charitable doubts. 
 Day by day, he was stigmatized as the mean 
 deserter of his early principles, the base hire- 
 ling of corrupt power. If such ribald and 
 unscrupulous attacks had formerly maddened 
 a mind supported by the proud consciousness 
 of integrity, how was it now with the con- 
 science-wounded man ? His own heart sent 
 up no voice of congratulation when all were 
 rejoicing around him ; and the compliments 
 of his acquaintance must often have been felt 
 as insult the cold, shy, averted looks of old 
 friends as intolerable cutting reproach. 
 
 Soon after his election, Frankland entirely 
 deserted the courts, from being unable, I 
 believe, to meet those oblique regards and 
 covert sneers which tell the deeper that a 
 man is not entitled to notice or resent them. 
 The admiration which he met with in his 
 clubs and in the circles of his new political 
 associates, might, at first, have been some 
 compensation for what, I dare say, he strove 
 and, I am certain, in vain to think the 
 injustice of his fonner party ; but his high 
 mind, wrenched from its original bias, never 
 again found its own place. He had forfeited 
 his own esteem ; he had become the very 
 being he had, from boyhood, despised. 
 Whither were fled those noble aspirations, 
 that generous ambition which had animated 
 his youth ? Though he might attain to the 
 utmost summit of power, what he had been, 
 must now for ever remain recorded against 
 him. He daily saw himself pictured in some 
 of the prosperous persons around him, whose 
 odious lineaments were not the less disgusting 
 for the fancied resemblance. 
 
 Parliament opened. Frankland, had he 
 wanted feeling as much as certain other du 
 tinguished renegades, possessed better taste 
 than all at once to blazon his desertion of 
 the national standard, and to glory in his 
 
 shame. W T e have seen persons, who, with 
 los necessity, have acted a worse part as 
 if impatient for the opportunity of a bare- 
 faced abandonment of their principles as 
 if fearful of being, for a few more days, sus- 
 pected of cherishing some lingering regret. 
 
 There was great curiosity to see how 
 Frankland was to shape his course and what 
 flving bridge his ingenuity was to construct 
 to carry the patriot decently over to the 
 enemy's lines. Was he to feign excessive 
 alarm a very common pretext with apos- 
 tates ? And whether was it to be for the 
 safety of the Church, the Monarchy, or which 
 other of our venerable institutions ? But 
 night after night passed, and he gave merely 
 a silent, sullen vote with the division to 
 which he was, hand and foot, bound. Was 
 he, then, to pocket his retaining fee, and do 
 no more actual service than the most stolid 
 vociferator of Ay or No in the House? Mrs. 
 Frankland became impatient for her hus- 
 band's maiden speech ; his friends astonished 
 at his silence ; Lord Tilsit displeased by the 
 failure of his reasonable expectations from 
 the champion he had engaged. Frankland 
 spoke, at last, in a frenzy-fit, stimulated to 
 fury by the indecent, though indirect sarcasms 
 levelled at him, in consequence of the 
 wretched pittance lately granted to his 
 sisters-in-law. The spell was now broken. 
 What he considered an unprovoked attack 
 produced fierce retort. His chafed spirit 
 heated in the nightly struggle, the cheers of 
 his stanch party-friends acted upon his ex- 
 citable sympathies, and animated a contest, 
 which, if not for right, was for glory and 
 mastery. He soon felt his power, and 
 learned to take a fierce joy in its abuse ; 
 unheedful of every thing, so that, for the 
 moment, he overwhelmed his adversary by 
 the bitterness of his invective and the blight- 
 ing of his scorn. On several occasions, he 
 made speeches which the newspapers of his 
 party lauded to the skies, and which, also, 
 drew forth the compliments of his rivals. But 
 they were not exactly upon party questions ; 
 and it became a matter of dubiety among the ! 
 Tory leaders, before the end of the session, if ' 
 Frankland was, after all, a safe man. A 
 useful or zealous partisan he had not yet 
 proved himself, though he had received every 
 kind of encouragement. His new friends 
 feared that he was not what they termed a 
 practical man. He often made admissions 
 startling by their candour. He wandered 
 into discussion of constitutional or of abstract 
 principles ; and though he might, sometimes, I
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 149 
 
 wisely abstain from their application, he had 
 no talent to fashion his doctrines to the vary- 
 ing hour. In short, he made his political 
 sponsors uneasy ; even when holding to the 
 ignoble condition of his bond, and voting, 
 night after night, against his conscience. 
 Liberality of sentiment, so native to his 
 mind that it seemed involuntary or spon- 
 taneous, and not to be kept down, shook the j 
 confidence of the party in the equivocal par- 
 tisan, who was a Liberal at heart ; and 
 pointed the sneers of those who congratulated 
 themselves upon enjoying the benefit of his 
 speeches, while his votes were given to the 
 other side. 
 
 Before the close of the first session, it was 
 fully ascertained that, though Frankland 
 might be a formidable enemy, he was, save 
 for his simple vote, and the celebrity of his 
 name in certain town-circles, almost a dead- 
 weight upon his new friends. It was well 
 known to them that he had earnestly wished 
 for some responsible situation, to improve 
 his straitened pecuniary circumstances, and 
 especially to free him from the degrading 
 imputation of being a bought sinecurist ; and 
 different places of moderate emolument fell 
 vacant, which were, in turn, refused to him ; 
 either from rising doubts among the higher 
 powers of how far dependence could be placed 
 upon him as a thick-and-thin partisan, or 
 from other arrangements. It must soon have 
 become evident to himself, that, however 
 highly he might be considered as a tool, or a 
 useful and keen instrument, of the admini- 
 stration, he must not aspire farther. He 
 was neither constituted with the requisite 
 degree of callousness and flexibility, nor yet 
 endowed with the tact and discretion desira- 
 ble. He had forfeited the pure fame of his 
 youth ; and he lacked the intrepidity which 
 has so often enabled men of his profession, 
 in like circumstances, to vamp up a false 
 reputation by impudent pretension, and 
 maintain it by bustle and effrontery, until 
 the counterfeit passed current with the un- 
 thinking world for the real. 
 
 It was from this period that Frankland 
 became thoroughly miserable, his life a 
 burden more than he was able to bear ; dis- 
 trusted, as he imagined, by every party ; 
 baffled in that path of perverted ambition 
 upon which his indiscreet involvements had 
 thrust him ; degraded before the world, and 
 lowered in his own esteem ; finding the wages 
 of his disgrace quite inadequate to the still 
 increasing wants of his household ; and the 
 wife of his bosom, the joint cause of his ruin, i 
 
 altogether incapable of comprehending why 
 " Frankland was so very wretched, now that 
 their prospects were so much improved, would 
 lie only exert himself a little more" 
 
 He rallied a little during the summer and 
 autumn months, which he spent somewhere 
 in the country, in composition ; finding at 
 once relief to his spirits, and a needful addi- 
 tion to his income, in literary occupation. 
 But the meeting of Parliament could not be 
 averted by Frankland's reluctance to enact a 
 hateful part. Questions were impending 
 which left no refuge for temporizers. As 
 one of the ablest and most eloquent men of 
 his party, he was expected, for its interests, 
 or in its defence, to unsay all that he had 
 ever maintained ; to outrage his feelings ; 
 to belie his conscience ; to immolate his cha- 
 racter in the face of the disgusted public, 
 and that with his own suicidal hand. As 
 the time drew near, his intellect must, I 
 think, have become partially disordered ; for 
 the worst part of madness is surely already 
 realized, when the unfortunate man is 
 haunted by the horrible apprehension that 
 his reeling mind is about to be prostrated 
 beneath the accumulating load of a misery 
 composed of so many struggling and chaotic 
 elements. 
 
 A lamentable change was now wrought 
 upon his temper, which became fitful, moody, 
 and suspicious misanthropic gloom alter- 
 nating with paroxysms of fury, which made 
 the possessed man a terror to himself and all 
 around him. This distressing symptom, was, 
 in part, and I believe rightly, attributed to 
 the excessive use of wine and opiates, to 
 which he had become fatally addicted within 
 the last two years the insidious slave hav- 
 ing, during this long interregnum of his 
 reason, become the imperious master. He 
 had been seen more than once in the House 
 of Commons under this destroying influence. 
 The failure of his mental faculties under this 
 withering and blight of the heart, and freez- 
 ing up of all that was living and genial in 
 the spirit, was soon painfully manifest to his 
 friends ; and, at what might be called his 
 lucid intervals, tormentingly so to himself 
 to whose proud mind, raving insanity itself 
 appeared a lighter infliction than drivelling, 
 maudlin imbecility. 
 
 Upon a certain night, about the middle of 
 the Session, it had been arranged in divan, 
 at Tilsit House, that Frankland was to open 
 an important debate in introducing a minis- 
 terial bill. The question involved a point of 
 international law with which he was known
 
 150 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ. 
 
 to be well acquainted, and one, at the same 
 time, which afforded scope for his poetic fire, 
 his earnest eloquence, and the range of apt 
 and felicitious illustration over which he 
 held unrivalled mastery. His really friendly 
 patron, Lord Tilsit, who now well knew 
 both his strength and his weakness, had 
 taken the precaution to enjoin Caroline Vane 
 to keep her brother-in-law in proper trim, as 
 much depended that night upon his self-posses- 
 sion, and the cool and entire command of all 
 his faculties. Where so much was at stake, 
 the esprit de famille of Miss Vane would, I 
 am certain, not allow her to be negligent, and 
 Frankland himself had a double motive to 
 play his part well. There was responsibility 
 and honour connected with it ; and the 
 manner in which he performed his task was 
 to be the vindication of the minister with the 
 public in doing a generous thing. 
 
 It had been suggested partly, perhaps, in 
 compassion, but, quite as likely, to gratify a 
 colleague, and get rid of an encumbrance 
 that Mr. Frankland, this bill well through, 
 should obtain a judgeship in India. Here 
 was, at last, the prospect of ample income, 
 sweetened to Helena and her family, by the 
 magic title of " My Lady : " an Indian 
 judge is always knighted. 
 
 This night Frankland hoped might be 
 nay, he passionately longed that it should 
 be his final appearance in that arena, to 
 figure in which had been the dream of his 
 highest youthful ambition. The hope of long, 
 perhaps interminable exile, from the country 
 in which he had lately suffered so much, 
 came to his withered spirit like the rush of 
 waters to the parched traveller of the desert. 
 It had already made him a new man. His 
 dormant sympathies were awakened ; his 
 temper softened, his heart melted and over- 
 flowed. But once more he was to appear in 
 Parliament ; and, like the phoenix, he would 
 expire in purifying and revivifying fires ; and, 
 when he had passed away, the memory of 
 his errors might surely be forgotten, and men 
 think of him more in sorrow than in anger. 
 
 Though he had been for months more or 
 less under the influence of fever, he seemed 
 in better and more tranquil spirits on this 
 evening. He wrote me the last note I was 
 ever to receive from him, with an order for 
 admission into the House of Commons, and 
 a request that I would come and hear his 
 last speech and confession. I presumed, that 
 he intended to make some apology or vindi- 
 cation of his public conduct. He informed 
 me of his Indian prospects, and added a few 
 
 of those touching words, which made my 
 heart leap back to him, as the heart of a 
 mother may cling to and yearn over her sin- 
 ful, but ever beloved child. 
 
 I was afterwards informed, that while he 
 drank coffee with his wife and her sister, he 
 talked incessantly of India, and with some- 
 what of the light-heartedness of his brightest 
 days. He took what afterwards became a 
 memorably affectionate leave of his infant 
 daughter ; and, turning back, advised Mrs. 
 Frankland to go early to bed as the House 
 would sit late. He then despatched Timothy 
 with some volumes necessary for reference in 
 the course of his speech, and said he would 
 follow him. Frankland had received this 
 faithful black, at the age of ten or twelve 
 years, as a legacy from his mother. Timothy, 
 with his coxcombry, his broken English, his 
 hilarity, and simple good-heartedness, was a 
 favourite with every one, from peevish Mrs. 
 Vane to her infant grand-daughter ; and to 
 every one he was obliging but to his 
 master, devoted, with what looked like the 
 worship of an inferior nature to some pro- 
 tecting beneficent intelligence. No degree of 
 caprice, or harshness of temper, in his altered 
 master, could alienate the affection of Timo- 
 thy. Mrs. Frankland might repine and 
 complain of her husband ; but Timothy could 
 only look somewhat grave ; or, if much 
 pressed, remark that " Massa hab bery much 
 to wex him." 
 
 Frankland was naturally too aristocratic 
 to have endured any degree of sociality in a 
 white servant : the tie which connected him 
 with Timothy for so many years was more 
 like that which attaches a man to his faithful 
 dog, than the bond existing between a gentle- 
 man and his domestic. It implied blind 
 fidelity and affection upon the one side, and 
 unlimited protection upon the other. 
 
 Timothy was now well known about the 
 purlieus of the House of Commons to the 
 party-coloured loungers there, as Mr. Frank- 
 land's servant "Frankland the Barrister, 
 the famous RAT ; " and the poor fellow had 
 been subjected to taunts and insults from 
 the Liberals of the shoulder-knot, upon his 
 master's apostacy, which the instinct of affec- 
 tion alone could have led him to comprehend 
 and conceal. Timothy had parried or en- 
 dured these attacks with all the temper and 
 patience he could muster, until this evening, 
 when the insolent varlets so jostled and 
 crowded him as to throw the books he earned 
 into the mud, while they jeered him as usual 
 with his master's dishonour. His fervid
 
 FRANKLAND THE BARRISTER. 
 
 151 
 
 African blood was raised to the boiling pitch, 
 and Timothy was skirmishing all around, in 
 a kind of general melee, blood streaming 
 down his distorted visage, when his master 
 came up, and in a passionate, and what the 
 by-standers considered an imperious tone, 
 demanded who had dared to insult his ser- 
 vant ; at the same time, collaring and dragging 
 forward a fellow, whom he supposed the 
 ringleader in the assault. There was now 
 a general rush and tumult ; and the negro, 
 blind with rage, struck out with both hands 
 at a man dressed like a respectable mechanic, 
 who, he blubbered, was " The dam rascal say 
 Massa Frankland turn him coat." 
 
 The mortal pang which shot through the 
 proud heart of Frankland may be imagined, 
 as the crowd raised a rude laugh, and yelled 
 back, in mockery, the words employed by 
 the black. Insult like this must have wound 
 to frenzy the sensitive mind of a man of 
 proud nature, who, from childhood, had been 
 taught to cherish a feeling of personal dignity, 
 morbid in its delicacy and excess. His pale 
 haughty countenance, distorted by passion, 
 and his contemptuous and defying tone, were 
 not suited to the humour of John Bull, who 
 might naturally fancy himself entitled to a 
 little fun at the expense of his own pensioner. 
 
 Though the persons nearest at hand stood 
 off in decent respect, the yelling and hooting 
 on the outskirts of the crowd increased, and 
 stones were thrown, not at Timothy, but his 
 master. Frankland had been thus baited 
 for some minutes, before he fell into a fit 
 from the violence of his overwrought feelings. 
 The savages became tame on the instant ; 
 and he was carried into the nearest coffee- 
 house. He was not long of recovering sense, 
 and the recollection of his position and duties ; 
 and, in spite of the bold dissuasions of 
 Timothy, the innocent cause of all this mis- 
 chief, he persisted in going to the House ; 
 and, accordingly, leaning on the black, stag- 
 gered out, shivering, as the poor fellow, in 
 his affectionate jargon, afterwards informed 
 me, as if in an ague fit. 
 
 The Speaker was already in the chair ; the 
 members were fast gathering ; and Lord 
 Tilsit's private Secretary had the satisfaction 
 to report, by note, to his employer, then in 
 the House of Peers, that Mr. Frankland was 
 in his place, and sitting very quietly, as if 
 concentrating his ideas. I was already at 
 my post, and congratulated myself on being 
 able to tell some of my acquaintances among 
 the reporters, that Mr. Frankland was to 
 redeem himself to-night. 
 
 The House was opened, the routine business 
 despatched and Frankland's hour was come. 
 He seemed still buried in thought, abstracted 
 or absent ; and one of the ministerial party 
 on the bench beside him, and acquainted 
 with the programme of the night, hastily 
 pushed by and whispered to him. He rose, 
 and commenced with the customary words ; 
 but in a low and tremulous, though perfectly 
 distinct voice ; the tones of which struck on 
 my ear, as if they were the echo of the 
 thrilling whispers of his exquisitely modu- 
 lated, oratorical speech. There was a deep 
 hush throughout the House. He suddenly 
 ceased. Still there was unbroken respectful 
 silence. He attempted again and again to 
 resume ; but appeared spell-bound, or as if 
 his faculties had suddenly deserted him. The 
 patience, the good-breeding let me give it 
 the true name the humane sympathy of 
 his auditors with the fallen man, were, indeed, 
 remarkable, time and place considered. 
 
 There were some muffled encouraging 
 cheers, or rather murmurs : and the winks 
 and whispers about his suspected condition, 
 were, I am sure, not meant to be perceived 
 by himself. Lord Byron has somewhere told 
 of poor Sheridan talking of himself and his 
 misfortunes until he at midnight would shed 
 tears. " Perhaps he was maudlin," observes 
 his Lordship " and does not this make it but 
 the more affecting 1 " I forget the words ; but 
 the sentiment is correct, and shows Byron to 
 have had a more profound sensibility than I can 
 discover in much of his most admired poetry. 
 
 In the House of Commons, there were a 
 few men who could feel the deeper compas- 
 sion for Frankland, that he was thus cast 
 down he who had stpod so high who had 
 shone a light among his fellows. He sat 
 down for, perhaps, about ten seconds, as if 
 to recover himself. HE alone who has 
 breathed upon man, and from the dust created 
 the living spirit, can reckon the measure of 
 agony which, in that brief space of time, 
 may be sustained by the immortal essence. 
 I was almost paralyzed myself before Frank- 
 land feebly rose and again repeated by rote 
 the customary words then abruptly stopped, 
 and, after a thrilling pause, whispered, "Gen- 
 tlemen, I fear I have forgot it all," and burst 
 into an agony of tears ! 
 
 While I breathe, I shall from my soul 
 detest the brutal ruffian, dishonouring a 
 chivalrous name, whose vociferous laugh, 
 preceding the words 
 
 " Maudlin, by Jove ! " set the House into 
 a roar.
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF RICHARD TAYLOR, ESQ, 
 
 Frankland, on the instant, raised his head, 
 drew himself up and back, and regarded the 
 unfeeling fox-hunter with a look which no 
 one who beheld it can ever forget. His high 
 spirit burst its earthy tenement : he fell for- 
 ward, and was borne away. 
 
 It was a full half hour before I could trace 
 whither he had been carried, so that I might 
 follow him. I was shown to a locked-up 
 chamber at the top of a neighbouring coffee- 
 house, across the threshold of which lay the 
 negro, grovelling like a dog, and howling in 
 his despair. I passed over his prostrate body 
 into the apartment. Upon a long table, in 
 the centre of it, lay, stretched in his clothes 
 I need tell no more. 
 
 I turned down the corner of the napkin 
 which covered the face, and started and 
 thrilled to behold the very lineaments of the 
 lofty and benign countenance which had first 
 beamed upon me in the pit of Drury Lane 
 seven years before, and which I had never 
 seen since then, until the present hour. 
 * * * * 
 
 Poetic justice ! It is, indeed, the merest 
 chimera a mockery for rhymers and fictiou- 
 ists to point their tales withal. Within less 
 than two years, Mrs. Frankland became the 
 wife of Lord Tilsit's former secretary a man 
 certainly not " of genius," and one sufficiently 
 prudent and beneticed to satisfy even the 
 desires of Mrs. Vane. The ladies declare that 
 Helena is more beautiful than ever, a finer 
 
 woman, and a more fashionable matron. Her 
 house is still in Berkeley Square. 
 
 As her carriage rolls past me, if in a quiet 
 street, she will smile and kiss her hand. 
 Once, lately, she summoned me to its steps, 
 as it drew up opposite a shop in Bond Street ; 
 and, between the whiles that the cringing shop- 
 men brought out their wares, to be inspected 
 at her ease, she said many kind things, and 
 flattering things, almost in the voice of her 
 sister Caroline, about my friendship for Mr. 
 Frankland. I was even affected by the rush of 
 tears which flowed to her " violet eyes," until 
 she sighed, "Poor Frankland and I would have 
 been so happy, save for those wretched pecu- 
 niary involvements ! Apropos, you must call 
 some morning, and see if we can make 
 nothing of his masses of old papers." 
 
 There is a certain picturesque churchyard 
 within a few miles of London, to which I, 
 every spring, for the last five years, have 
 made an Easter Sunday-morning pilgrimage. 
 Among its numerous monuments and tomb- 
 stones, is one plain white marble slab, which 
 bears this simple inscription : 
 
 JAMES CHARLES FRANKLANP, ESQ., 
 
 BARRISTER AT LAW, 
 
 DIED ON 7TH APRIL 182-. AGED THIRTY-TWO. 
 
 THIS STONE IS ERECTED TO HIS MEMORY, 
 
 BY HIS GRATEFUL FRIEND, 
 
 JOHN GREENE. 
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 THEY misconceive the character of this 
 northern land who imagine of its people as a 
 cold, sullen, and ungenial race, shut up from 
 the social charities, and incrusted with self- 
 conceit, spiritual pride, and gloomy bigotry ; 
 but they do Scotland, and their own under- 
 standings, worse wrong, who imagine that 
 this unsocial and austere national temper is 
 derived from that high-hearted reformed faith 
 which has ever allied itself with the spirit of 
 independence, and the sternest assertion of 
 the principles of civil liberty, which has 
 disdained to truckle to expediency, and 
 braved every peril in maintaining the char- 
 ter wherewith God has made man free. 
 ' The Sabbatical observances of Scotland 
 especially, have been misrepresented and 
 ridiculed by those who are so inconsistent in 
 their boasted liberality as to contend that the 
 Scotsman, by constitution a man of staid 
 
 deportment and serious thought, however 
 warm or enthusiastic his inward feelings may 
 be, is a bigot and a fanatic, who would blot 
 the sun from the firmament, and enshroud 
 the face of nature with universal glooin ; 
 because he will not demonstrate his high 
 enjoyment of the Day of Rest, by frisking or 
 carousing, cricketing with the peasant of 
 England, or capering under the green trees 
 with the working-man of France. They 
 will not pause to consider that, to him, the 
 highest enjoyment of leisure, independently 
 of religious feelings altogether, may be, " to 
 commune with his own heart, and be still ; " 
 or, the season of public worship past, to live 
 apart in unbroken communion with those to 
 whom his heart is knit by the strongest ties 
 of duty, and th sweetest claims of affection. 
 The gay Sunday of the theatre and the 
 Guinguette, and the more boisterous mirth
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 1 58 
 
 of the tea-garden and the skittle-ground, 
 would, to many a native of Scotland, prove 
 as joyless and burdensome on any day of the 
 seven, as indecent and profane on the Sabbath, 
 which he consecrates to retirement and medi- 
 tation, or restricts to family intercourse and 
 religious and intellectual exercises ; regarding 
 it as time redeemed to the self-examination 
 and inward thought which his early moral 
 and religious discipline have enabled him to 
 employ aright and enjoy profoundly. Nor is 
 it easy to say why liberal politicians and 
 philosophers should almost force the People 
 on modes of enjoyment, on their one day of 
 leisure, which they would consider quite 
 unworthy of their own higher mental culti- 
 vation and pursuits. 
 
 One Sabbath for the rich, and another for 
 the poor restraint upon the scanty enjoy- 
 ments of the hard-toiling many, and impunity 
 and bounty to the luxurious pleasures of the 
 wealthy few r are at the same time so directly 
 subversive of the plainest precepts and in- 
 junctions of that religion which recognises 
 man's complete equality in civil rights and 
 in moral obligation, that we have not one 
 word to say for prohibitions that must press 
 unequally. 
 
 These remarks detain us too long from 
 our story, which we meant to preface by the 
 assertion, that the types of neither the Scot- 
 tish Presbyterian, nor the English Puritan, 
 were of the austere, sullen, and cynical cha- 
 racter which their adversaries have alleged. 
 John Knox himself kept a cellar of good 
 wine, and knew how to use as not abusing 
 it. From the " Memoirs of Colonel Hutchi* 
 son," and many other sources, we learn that 
 the Puritans were, in domestic life, accom- 
 plished and enjoying, as well as learned 
 persons. Those who insist that our national 
 Sabbath must be gloomy, because, in despite 
 of nature, we do not, like Grimm's German 
 Baron, keep jumping over chairs and tables 
 all day " to make ourselves lively," are but 
 shallow philosophers. One redeeming social 
 feature even they might acknowledge in 
 our Day of Rest, THE SABBATH NIGHT'S 
 SUPPER. And we trust that the venerable 
 custom is not falling into desuetude. 
 
 The family re-union, and stated feast, was 
 at first almost a necessary consequence of 
 long journeys to distant kirks, while the 
 population of the country was thin and 
 scattered, and of those preposterous and 
 interminable diets of sermonizing, which 
 made Sunday literally a fast-day, until the 
 evening. Then, indeed, the kitchen-fires 
 
 were lighted up, then the flesh-pots seethed 
 and diffused a savoury steam, or the broche 
 spun round in the rural Manse, and in all 
 the bien ha'-houses in the parish, or comfort- 
 able dwellings " within burgh." At the close 
 of his hard day's work, the reverend labourer 
 was entitled to his social meal, of better than 
 ordinary fare "a feast of fat things" 
 hospitably shared with the chance guest, 
 the modest young helper, or the venerable 
 elder. Nor was there wanting, if such were 
 the taste and temper of the reverend presider 
 at the banquet, the zest of the clerical joke 
 that promoted blameless hilarity and easy 
 digestion. The manse set the custom to the 
 parish. Now, to have insisted that the douce 
 minister, with his family, or the decent 
 farmer, with his lads and lasses, should, to 
 show their holyday feelings, first scamper 
 here and there all day any way far enough 
 from home and then go out of doors, to 
 frisk, like so many young manikins, in the 
 moonlight, would be about as intolerant as 
 to compel the champagne-loving Gallican to 
 swallow, for his especial enjoyment, the 
 smoky-flavoured Glenlivet toddy with which 
 the Scotsman soberly crowned the banquet 
 of the Sabbath Night. 
 
 In the family of Adam Hepburn of the 
 Fernylees, the Sabbath Night's Supper had 
 been a standing family festival for several 
 generations. The little quiet bustle of pre- 
 paration among the women, the better fare, 
 the more inspirited looks, the expanding 
 social hearts, had become a thing of inviolate 
 custom, following the solemnities of family 
 worship as regularly as the observance of 
 that domestic ordinance. The venerable 
 head of the house would then tell of the times 
 when Cargill, and Renwick, and Rutherford, 
 and other potent divines of the evil times, 
 Fathers and Mighty men in Israel, burning 
 and shining lights in a darkened land, had, 
 when fleeing before the bloody and persecut- 
 ing house of Stuart, from whom the curse 
 would never depart ! by their blessings and 
 their prayers hallowed the hospitalities which 
 they shared in this very dwelling ; and that 
 although the then inmates of Fernylees had 
 been proscribed, and often severely mulcted, 
 for harbouring the men of God, their sub- 
 stance had rather increased than diminished 
 under this oppression, which they felt, not 
 for themselves, but for the faithful of the 
 land, and the afflicted Church of Scotland, 
 tried in the furnace.
 
 154 
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 No one had ever listened with more atten- 
 tion to these noble tales, of doing and daring 
 for conscience' sake, than Charles Hepburn, 
 the youngest son of the family of Fernylees, 
 who was born to admire with enthusiasm, 
 but not yet to emulate, the virtues of those 
 heroic sufferers. 
 
 The elderly female servant who super- 
 intended Adam Hepburn's household, had 
 been more than usually provident of the 
 creature-comforts destined to cover his board 
 on the particular night on which our story 
 opens. The circumstances of the family 
 made it a time of more than ordinary tender- 
 ness and solemnity. The following morning 
 was to witness the final breach and disrup- 
 tion of all that now remained to be taken 
 away of the young props of the roof-tree of 
 the house of Fernylees. The elder daughter, 
 who had borne the chills of celibacy, ten 
 years after her three sisters were married, 
 was to leave the home of her youth to sojourn, 
 as her old father in his prayer expressed it, 
 in the allusion he made to her circumstances 
 as a bride, in the tents of strangers. But it 
 was the going forth into the evil, unknown, 
 and dreaded world, of one who from infancy 
 had, by his fascinations and his very errors, 
 excited far more of fear and of hope, one 
 over whom his father's heart yearned while 
 his spirit travailed, that the old man dwelt, 
 in his devotions, with a touching and simple 
 pathos, and poured forth his feelings in that 
 Scriptural language and imagery familiar to 
 his lips, replied to by the low, involuntary 
 sob of a married sister of the youth who was 
 the object of these fervent petitions, and by 
 the sympathetic chord touched in the staid 
 bosom of Tibby Elliott, the above-mentioned 
 elderly serving-woman. The contagion even 
 spread to old Robin, the shepherd. 
 
 When the worshippers rose from their 
 knees, and turned to the neatly-spread table, 
 on which was already laid the apparatus for 
 the feast, the aged father sinking in his high- 
 backed chair, shaded his thin temples with 
 his hand ; and remained silent, as if his spirit 
 were yet within the veil. 
 
 Charles Hepburn retired to the porch with 
 his married sister they were silently, hand 
 in hand, standing, looking out upon the 
 stars when the ancient maid-servant ap- 
 peared : and " Charlie, my man," was 
 the whisper of the motherly Tibby, as drying 
 her eyes with her apron, she passed out into 
 the kitchen, which was in a wing of the 
 tenement, " My man, Charlie, if ye be not a 
 good bairn now." She had gone on before 
 
 Charles could reply, if he had been inclined or 
 able to speak. 
 
 Tibby Elliott was on this night a woman 
 cumbered with many cares. "Gie ye the 
 broche a twirl, Robin," was her first cry. 
 " I would no like, nor you either, but to see 
 things right and mensfu' in the Ha' House 
 o' the Fernylees, and a son and a daughter 
 going in the same day frae under its roof- 
 tree. "etch down that bowen o' eggs, Robin ; 
 we'se have u drappit egg with the stoved 
 eerocks, the breed o' Charlie's sprangled game 
 hens he was so proud of langsyne, poor 
 callant. But, oh, man ! heard ye ever the 
 auld Master sae powerfu' in intercession as 
 this night. It's weel to be seen who lies 
 next his heart's kernel his motherless son ! 
 And no other wonder ; for, with all his 
 faults and they are neither few nor far to 
 seek a better-hearted youth, of the name, 
 never crossed the door-step of the Fernylees 
 in all its generations." 
 
 " If ye gie him a' his ain way, and keep 
 his pouches routh o' siller," replied the shep- 
 herd, who was of the species of dry humorists 
 not rare in Scotland in his condition. 
 
 " And what for should he no' have his ain 
 gait, and gold in gowpens ? " cried Tibby, 
 who, by the way, was in general much less 
 indulgent to the faults of Charles than was 
 her friend the shepherd, who had loved him 
 from the days of fishing with a crooked pin, 
 and shooting with bourtree guns, though he 
 knew, what indeed was no longer a secret, 
 that the youth possessed a fatal facility and 
 unsteadiness of character, already yielded to 
 to an extent that alarmed those who loved 
 him best, for his rectitude as much as for his 
 worldly prosperity. 
 
 It is not uncommon to find in a large family 
 one peculiarly gifted child, to endow whom 
 nature seems to have robbed the others of 
 genius, beauty, and attractiveness. Charles 
 Hepburn, by seven years the youngest, was 
 " the flower of the flock of Fernylees," loved, 
 indulged, spoiled, as far as a gracious temper 
 and a generous heart will spoil ; and that, 
 alas, was in his case far enough ! He had 
 been the caressed plaything, the petted child, 
 the pampered school-boy of his brothers, but 
 particularly of his younger sisters. But at 
 the age of twenty-four, the overweening 
 affection of his aged father alone remained 
 unimpaired, increased, deepened by the very 
 causes which alienated other hearts. He who 
 had the most suffered, still loved the most. 
 Nor to a stranger did this seem wonderful. 
 Look in the open, genial, and handsome
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 155 
 
 countenance of Charles, and his besetting sins 
 could not be imagined of very deep dye ; 
 spend with him a quietly social, or brightly 
 convivial hour, and all errors or defects of 
 character had disappeared before the charm 
 of his manner, and were forgotten or denied 
 to exist. Yet their undeniable existence had 
 crushed and grieved the spirit of his venerable 
 father, and fallen hard on the shortened 
 means that were to sustain his old age in 
 humble independence. Nor was Charles 
 unaware of any part of this ; and the re- 
 proaches of his elder brother, a man of quite 
 opposite temper, or the affectionate remon- 
 strances of his married sister, were less severe 
 than his own frequent bitter self-upbraidings. 
 Now he stood on the threshold of a new life. 
 Hope was once more dawning upon him, 
 after repeated disappointment, not the less 
 afflictive that it was self-caused ; and his 
 sanguine, bold, and happy temper, rose to 
 meet the new crisis. 
 
 Charles had received what is usually termed 
 a good education. But it could not have 
 been the wisest, for its early fruits were not 
 soul-nurture, nor wisdom and peace. He 
 had been highly distinguished at the Univer- 
 sity of Glasgow ; and his father, who had 
 in his own heart early devoted him to the 
 service of the altar, secretly rejoiced in the 
 hope of seeing him an ornament of the 
 Church. But his natural abilities and ad- 
 vantages of education had not yet been 
 improved even to any worldly purpose. 
 
 " To throw all his lear to the cocks, and 
 leave us ! " said the old shepherd, while Tibby 
 and himself discussed the circumstances of 
 the family and the prospects of the cadet, 
 with the freedom assumed by all menials, 
 and justifiable in old attached domestics : 
 " It is grieving." 
 
 "And would ye have had him play the 
 hypocrite pretend to a gift and a call to 
 preach the Gospel when it's ower weel kent 
 Rob Burns' light-headed ballands aye came 
 far readier to Charlie than the Psalms of 
 David in metre," cried Tibby Elliott, honest 
 indignation giving energy to her tones, as on 
 her knees she ladled or fished up the salted 
 goose and greens, that were to act vis-a^vis, 
 to her stewed eerocks, Anglice, chickens. 
 
 " Houts, tuts, woman ; ye are owerly 
 strait-laced for this day o' the warld ; what 
 would have ailed Charlie to have graned 
 away among the auld leddies till he had 
 gotten the CALL, and the patron's presentation 
 too, and a good sappy down-sitten, when, I 
 daursay, he could have seen the wisdom o' 
 
 being a wee bit twa-faced, like his neighbour 
 ministers, and on his peremptors before folk 
 ony way. With eighteen or twenty chalder 
 victual stipend, a new Manse, and a piece 
 gude glebe-land, it's no sae dooms difficult to 
 be a douce parish minister as ye trow, Tibby. 
 I would undertake the job myself for half the 
 pay. Gi'e our young Chevalier a black 
 gown and Geneva ban's, and let him alane 
 for a year or twa to settle down, and I'll 
 wad he's turn out a great gun o' the Gospel." 
 
 " Ye profane knave ! " cried Tibby, shaking 
 her fist in the face of her old friend, between 
 jest and earnest : " Have ye been reading 
 Tarn Pen, [Paine] that ye speak sae lightly 
 o' ministers ! Mr. Charles, with all his 
 backslidings, is no sae far left to himself as 
 to lay a rash, uncalled hand on the Ark, 
 and the Lord will bless him for it. He is 
 the bairn, as I can testify, o' many a secret 
 prayer. I do not misdoubt to see him the 
 grandest merchant in a' Liverpool yet. Sore 
 trial as it has been to the kind, gude, auld 
 Maister, crossed in his pride, and spulyied in 
 his purse, to see Charles stick in the wark 
 
 o' the ministry. But redde the gait there, 
 
 till I carry ben the supper." 
 
 " Ye like a' to make a sicker bargain you 
 unco-gude folks, Tibby. A sappy foretaste 
 here, and a " 
 
 "Now Robin, ye Radical, hold the scorning 
 tongue o' ye ; would ye see the Maister 
 scrimpit o' his Sabbath night's supper, wi' a' 
 his bairns happy about him ? " 
 
 " That would I not, lass ; though I might 
 just as weel like the auld time when rent 
 was light, though woo' less by the stone, and 
 when the Man and the Woman sat at the 
 master's board-end. , I wish the auld Maister 
 no scant measure o' a' good things. May 
 blessings be multiplied on him and his. May 
 the upper and the nether springs be his 
 portion ! and his also, the thought of whom 
 lies heavy on his spirit, this night ! " The 
 old man reverently lifted the bonnet off his 
 silvered head as he uttered these good wishes 
 for his master, to which the friendship and 
 daily intercourse of threescore years gave the 
 fervour of a prayer. 
 
 In a lighter tone, Robin added, nearly as 
 much ashamed of strong, or deep emotion, as 
 if he had been a man of the world instead of 
 a shepherd of the Border hills, " We can 
 a' take precious good care o' ourselves, Tibby; 
 save just the auld Maister himself, and the 
 young Chevalier. There's canny Mr. Gilbert, 
 our auldest hope, let number one alone to 
 see after him. And as for mim Miss Mysie,
 
 156 
 
 TIIJI SABBATH NHJHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 I'll wager she's thinking more this night, 
 Sahbath though it be, of her bridal fal-als, 
 and the blankets and sheets she can rieve frae 
 the Fernylees, to her new hame, and of the 
 hundred more pounds o' tocher she should 
 have had, had so much not been spent on 
 Charlie's learning, than o' the father's house, 
 and the kindred she's leaving, and the witless, 
 glaiket brother she is parting from." 
 
 Tibby could not dispute this affirmation. 
 With the goose smoking on the assiette, 
 between her hands, she halted to remark, 
 that " The deadening o' natural affection, 
 the sure sign o' the rampant growth of pride, 
 prodigality, and the love o' filthy lucre, was 
 among the sorest of the defections of these 
 sinfu' times ; when gear sindered the hearts 
 nature had made the sibbest." 
 
 The time was gone by, when the man and 
 the woman sat at the board-end of the house 
 o' the Fernylees ; but on this night of peculiar 
 solemnity, the old respectable pair who occu- 
 pied the kitchen, were invited into the parlour 
 to drink prosperity to the departing inmates; 
 the other servants were on the new system, 
 lodged in bothies, save one young girl, Tibby's 
 aide-de-camp. This invitation was made on 
 the motion of Charles, who was himself the 
 bearer of it, and who returned with Tibby 
 under his arm, smirking and smoothing down 
 her newly-donned clean apron, Robin Steele 
 following, with his queerest, funniest face, 
 and his broad blue bonnet, en chapcau bras. 
 Cold, and half-offended, though the bride- 
 elect might look from under her dropt eyelids, 
 the countenance of the auld Maister, and even 
 those of the married daughters of the family, 
 brightened in welcome of this addition to the 
 party. Robin's Young Chevalier diligently 
 filled the glass of Charles's Grtysteel,* such 
 were their old caressing names for each other 
 caressing after the humorous fashion of 
 Scottish wooing, of " nipping and scratching." 
 
 The heart of the patriarchal farmer, at the 
 head of the board, appeared to become lighter, 
 for the whispered, half-heard, kindly jibes, 
 passing below the salt. 
 
 " What can I do for you, Robin, and for 
 you too, Tibby," whispered Charles, "in 
 yonder far-away big town ? " The conside- 
 rate maiden paused. 
 
 " Send her a sure account o' the state o' 
 the Gospel in Whirlpool," whispered Robin, 
 smiling, and winking. " And him," retorted 
 
 * Grcyiletl, the name, few natiTes of Scotland need 
 be told, given by James the Fourth, when a boy, to 
 the Douglas. The young Pretender was called the 
 Chevalier. 
 
 Tibby, snelly, " be sure ye send him a sound 
 prent" (Robin's name for a Radical news- 
 paper,) " showing how the nation is going to 
 wrack, and the woo' rising." 
 
 " E'en let it be sae," rejoined the shepherd 
 laughing. " That is, if it cost ye no expense. 
 I'm not particular about the age, if the doc- 
 trine's sound when it comes ; the Vihigprents 
 
 are grown as wersh and fuzionless as " 
 
 what we cannot tell, for the conversation 
 swelled into a higher key, and became more 
 general and lively. Charles was allowed to 
 replenish the punch-bowl once ; but the 
 motion for another was promptly opposed 
 by Tibby, and quietly overruled by the 
 Master. And the youth, just beginning to 
 taste " the sweet o' the night," wished Sunday 
 had been Monday. It was, as Robin Steele 
 afterwards sorrowfully remarked, the founda- 
 tion of all his faults, that " He ne'er kenned 
 when to stop." Long before the conviviality 
 had reached the pitch to which Charles was 
 attuned, the table had been cleared, and the 
 " Big Ha' Bible " again placed upon it. Mr. 
 Hepburn requested, on this night, that his 
 friends should sing with him and his children, 
 the scriptural paraphrase of the chapter which 
 he called on his son, Charles, to read, the 
 vision of the Patriarch, as he journeyed to 
 Padanaram, the covenant pillar of Bethel. 
 
 The devotional feelings of Charles Hepburn, 
 though he had made shipwreck of his intended 
 profession, were still as warm and excitable 
 as his convivial sympathies. When that 
 beautiful hymn, 
 
 " O God of Bethel," 
 
 was sung, which so powerfully blends human 
 charities with heavenly trust, every fibre of 
 his frame was vibrating. Repelled by the 
 seeming coldness of those around him, who 
 could now, as he scornfully thought, quietly 
 say good night, and retire to bed, he wan- 
 dered out beneath the stars. The very natural 
 thought rose as he gazed around : tl What 
 shall have occurred to me, before I look again 
 on Fernylees, and share my dear Father's 
 SaUtath Nighfs Supper ?" 
 
 There would probably have appeared little 
 beauty in the scene on which the moon was 
 now rising to any one whose eyes had not, 
 like those of Charles, first opened upon this 
 nook of earth. The Fernylees was a rather 
 bare, extensive pasture farm, lying on " the 
 winter-shaded " side of a range of Border 
 hills, near the foot of which, on a gentle 
 ascent, stood the thatched farm-house. A 
 few small arable fields and rushy meadows, 
 stretched ont in front and along the holm, by
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER, 
 
 157 
 
 the side of the river, a humble stream, yet 
 not unknown in Scottish song. Around, lay 
 the open pastures, running up into the hills, 
 and covered with patches of fern, and strag- 
 gling tufts of juniper and gorse, or shelving 
 into hollows and little glades interspersed 
 with natural coppices of hazel, alder, and 
 sloe-thorn. On one hand was a low range 
 of bothies and farm-offices : on the other, 
 about equi-distant, rose, on an airy mound, 
 the barn-yard, exactly on the site of the old 
 Peel-house of the Fernylees. Its massy 
 sunken wall or bulwark was part of the 
 original structure. Four very large ash trees 
 had remained here, and, save one, thriven, 
 since the times of the Border raids. On the 
 partially blasted ash the tyrant baron of the 
 Fernylees (which was now a fraction of 
 a ducal domain,) had hung Judon Ker, a 
 Border thief, whose prowess was recorded in 
 one of Tibby Elliott's ballads. In a nest, 
 or cradle, amid its withered branches, the 
 boy Charles had found an out-look far up 
 and down the valley, and a place removed 
 from the bustle of the family, in which to 
 con his book in quiet, Charles, the youth, 
 a spot " for ruminating sweet and bitter 
 fancies," and for a repentance too seldom 
 followed by good fruits. 
 
 He once again swung himself up into his 
 old nestling place ; and, on the eve of a new 
 existence, cast his thoughts backwards upon 
 his few and evil days, from the time that he 
 had left the University. His course had 
 been a series of errors and of failures in 
 various attempts to obtain a living, alternat- 
 ing with periods of complete idleness, spent 
 often in bitterness while lounging about his 
 father's farm. Though Charles was but too 
 prone to divide the blame of his misconduct 
 with others, and to find it in any cause save 
 the true one, it was not in a season like this, 
 when unveiled conscience arraigned his 
 thoughts, to listen to her solemn deliverance 
 pronounced on his conduct, that he could 
 deceive himself. His elder brother and 
 sister had treated him with coldness, had 
 scowled upon him as the idle waster of his 
 father's substance, which was robbery of their 
 rights. What he called their selfishness 
 usually raised his indignation ; but his feel- 
 ings were moderate at this hour, and did 
 more justice to his just, if not very generous 
 or cordial relatives. While this train of 
 thought and sentiment absorbed the young 
 man, his affairs still formed the theme of 
 the kitchen fireside, to which the shepherd 
 had returned to light his pipe, after supper- 
 
 ing the steed that was to bear Charles away 
 early in the morning to a spot traversed by 
 the Carlisle mail, and to which his Greysteel 
 was to accompany him on the pony. 
 
 " I have no brew of this sudden journey, 
 Robin," said the thoughtful Tibby. " Ye 
 see how ill fit that lad is to take care of him- 
 self : anither bowl on a Sabbath night ! He's 
 not fit to be trusted frae hame his wild aits 
 are far from being a' sown yet, or I'm sair 
 mista'en." 
 
 " And no place fitter than the Fernylees 
 to drap them, where I'm sure there's no want 
 o' geese to pick them up," said Robin, in a 
 humour between mirth and bitterness. No 
 one foresaw the dangers of his friend Charles's 
 character more clearly than himself ; but he 
 saw farther, and looked hopefully to the 
 future effects of the young man's early train- 
 ing, and to the natural strength of his under- 
 standing yet correcting errors in whose source 
 were mingled 
 
 So much of Earth so much of Heaven, 
 And such impetuous blood. 
 
 The thick over-spreading branches of "Ju- 
 don's ash, " had for generations formed 
 a kind of chapelry to the farm-house of 
 Fernylees. It was the fortune of Charles 
 Hepburn to be now, as it drew on to mid- 
 night, the involuntary listener to his gray- 
 haired father's earnest prayers for himself. 
 With feelings he listened, from which we 
 withdraw in reverence, though their fountain 
 was no deeper than the breast of a gay and 
 very thoughtless young man. 
 
 The lingering influence of these feelings 
 made him listen with more than ordinary 
 patience and humility, to the final warning 
 and lecture with which Robin and Tibby 
 gratuitously favoured him. 
 
 " Dinna let wise Mr. Gilbert be casting ye 
 up in our dish," said the shepherd, appealing 
 to a species of motive, at all times too power- 
 ful with Charles. 
 
 " And oh, Charlie," wailed the privileged 
 and now weeping maiden, " be wise now, like 
 a dear bairn, and bring not shame upon the 
 honest house of Fernylees ; and the gray 
 hairs o' the Maister, with sorrow to the 
 grave." 
 
 Charles could not reply then ; but seven- 
 teen miles off, and ten hours later, when he 
 shook hands with the shepherd, as the mail 
 came up, he said with the frank cordiality 
 and sanguine confidence that kept the hearts 
 his follies would have alienated : "You shall 
 hear how steady a fellow I am growing, 
 Robin. Don't despair of seeing me, though
 
 158 
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPl'KK. 
 
 going out a poor clerk, Mayor of Liverpool 
 yet ; while wise Gibby, at home yonder " 
 The coach-horn drowned the prognostication 
 of the young prophet, whatever it might be, 
 regarding his staid, industrious brother ; and 
 he mounted and was whirling over the moor, 
 while his Greysted followed him with glisten- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 And now two years had passed over the 
 house of Fernylees, unmarked by any im- 
 portant change, save that Tibby Elliott 
 fancied, with some truth, that her old master 
 looked a dozen years older, and Robin Steele 
 silently remarked the increasing difficulty 
 with which he met the half-yearly rent-day. 
 Frequent and various in the same period had 
 been the shifting fortunes of Charles Hep- 
 burn ; and flattering, painful, and contra- 
 dictory the accounts received of and from 
 him. Now all promised prosperity, and 
 Robin received a half-dozen newspapers by 
 one post ; and next time it was heard, from 
 some chance source, that Charles had again 
 lost his employment, or had as usual aban- 
 doned it. 
 
 Wise Gilbert had married, in the mean- 
 while, and brought home his wife ; which 
 made Tibby prudently abdicate to avert a 
 virtual dethronement. She retired to a small 
 cottage, in a thriving village, some miles off, 
 the recent creation of the wool of the adjoin- 
 ing hills. In a few months her " kind, gude, 
 auld Maister," surrendering his concerns into 
 the hands of his elder son, on a very slender 
 annuity, to terminate with his lease, made 
 the ancient maiden happy, by becoming her 
 lodger, or rather the master of her cottage. 
 
 The trusty Robin Steele, who still lived at 
 the farm, often joined their family worship 
 on the evenings of Sundays ; and so far 
 as Tibby's means and management would 
 stretch, the SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER, pro- 
 scribed by the more refined manners of the 
 modern lady of Fernylees, was not yet wholly 
 wanting to the venerable auld Maister ; nor 
 was the health of Charles ever forgotten by 
 Robin. If ever the father spoke of him, 
 whom his thoughts seldom left, it was to 
 these two humble friends that his confidings 
 were made ; his fears and hopes, and fears 
 again. In a fit of generous, thoiigh some- 
 what misplaced indignation, Charles, usually 
 a most irregular correspondent, wrote home 
 when he learned the terms on which his 
 father had surrendered his lease, enclosing 
 all of his year's salary that he could realize, 
 fifty pounds. 
 
 With what exultation did Tibby carry 
 this intelligence to Robin, that same after- 
 noon, as she saw him wearing the hoggs down 
 the braes overhanging the village. Scarcely 
 could he prevail with her to keep from taunt- 
 ing the penurious brother with the generosity 
 of the prodigal son, " Ye wot not lass," 
 Robin said, " the hard bargain and sore strife 
 Gilbert has with a lady wife, down-looking 
 merkates, and the ransom rent of the Ferny- 
 lees." 
 
 Tibby was a woman, and, therefore, though 
 almost always kind, not always perfectly 
 reasonable. "Ye'll see Charlie Hepburn 
 bigg us a braw sclated house with a byre at 
 the gait-end, and male' the auld Maister walk 
 down the town with his gold-headed cane yet," 
 was her frequent boast ; but till the accom- 
 plishment of these prophecies, which some- 
 times made the saint-like old man smile, he 
 thoughtfully laid aside the greater part of 
 the money sent him, fearing that Charles was 
 not yet past all his expensive follies, and 
 therefore not above want for himself. And 
 he congratulated himself on this forethought, 
 when, after another long silence, it was heard 
 by accident, from a neighbouring farmer, who 
 had been at Liverpool to sell his wool, that 
 Charles Hepburn was married ! Tibby's 
 first impiilse was indignation ; but she sup- 
 pressed her own feelings to spare those of 
 her master. " We '11 be sure to get a letter 
 next week," she would say, at the spare 
 weekly Sabbath Night's Supper, to which 
 some old friend or neighbour often came in, 
 uninvited but welcome. " Postage, Mr. 
 Charles knows to be no light charge : ye are 
 aye complaining o' the parliamenters, Robin ; 
 will ye get them to take off that post-letter 
 cess that brings sae meikle heart-break to 
 poor wives, widow women, and lanely 
 mothers. But I'se warrant me Mr. Charles, 
 now that he is a married man, with the care 
 of a family upon his head, is another guess 
 thing. I never saw the wise man yet that 
 marriage did not sober and steady." 
 
 Even to such slender consolation the old 
 father would try to smile. Of the new ties 
 and duties Charles had taken upon himself, 
 in a distant land, he knew nothing : but he 
 hoped, and prayed ; and his heart revived, 
 and grew strong in its trust, when his son's 
 next letter called upon him to send his con- 
 gratulations to the gentle English girl who 
 had -preferred his Charles to wealthier suitors, 
 and a grandsire's blessing to the new-born 
 infant, named, in pride and fondness, by his 
 venerated name. It had been then that
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 159 
 
 Charles, ever the man of impulse, had written 
 home, and then, under the influence of new- 
 born feelings, he had vowed, on the lips of 
 his child, a future life of wisdom and firm- 
 ness of purpose a resolution kept for three 
 long months. At the end of that time his 
 wife requested to add a postscript to his letter 
 home, for Fernylees was still called home, 
 in which she declared herself, though cast 
 off by her friends, for what they considered 
 her imprudent choice, to be, as the wife of 
 Charles, the happiest woman in England. 
 There was that in the phrase which made 
 the old father fear, that, short as her term of 
 married life had been, it had not all been 
 thus happy. And he was right. The young 
 pair and the wife was very young had 
 not been many weeks married, when Charles, 
 by his frequently recurring inattentions and 
 imprudencies, lost an advantageous employ- 
 ment. Then came a season of great hardship 
 and privation, in which every thing failed but 
 the affection which mutual suffering deepened 
 between them into unutterable tenderness. 
 Oh, well may the strongest-minded of the 
 human race dread the subduing force of evil 
 habit, and guard against the very appearance 
 of evil, when Charles Hepburn, now feeling 
 to madness the folly and cruelty of his own 
 unsteady conduct, and pardoned times with- 
 out number, could again fall into error ! 
 His final lapse w r as more pardonable in the 
 immediate cause, than many of his former 
 misadventures, though it chanced to be 
 attended by worse consequences ; for, though 
 the least, it was the last drop in the overflow- 
 ing cup. 
 
 Six months before, when sunk in the very 
 depths of misery, shunned by his gay com- 
 panions, and looking forward to the last 
 extremity of poverty ; and when, but for the 
 sake of his wife, he would have fled to the 
 ends of the earth to avoid or amend his for- 
 tunes, he once more found employment as an 
 inferior clerk to an extensive company, the 
 senior partner of which was a native of 
 Scotland. Their business was chiefly with 
 the United States. For some weeks the 
 punctuality and diligence of Charles were 
 quite exemplary. Mr. Dennistoun began to 
 hope that the bad business character which 
 his young countryman universally bore in 
 Liverpool, was unfounded or exaggerated. 
 
 " New brooms sweep clean," said the cau- 
 tious Mr. William Smith, a junior partner, 
 promoted from the quill and packing-cord, 
 for industry and attention. He had, indeed, 
 been very unwilling to receive the branded 
 
 clerk, who, among other sins, was understood 
 to have committed that of rhyme. Mr. 
 Smith was right. The old leaven still fer- 
 mented in the constitution of Hepburn ; and 
 simultaneously with the discovery of his 
 superior intelligence in some departments of 
 business, came the painful experience that 
 had been forced upon all his employers. The 
 temptations of society, pleasure, and what he 
 called friendship, returned with unmitigated 
 force upon their fascinated victim. Three 
 times in the course of the twelve months he 
 had been discharged, and restored upon pro- 
 mises of amendment. The last time to the 
 tears and intercessions of his wife, whom, 
 as a desperate expedient, Charles had hum- 
 bled himself so far as to permit to plead for 
 him. Mr. Dennistoun pronounced his con- 
 duct " ruinous," such as he could not over- 
 look, save for Mrs. Hepburn's sake, just this 
 once. And could Agnes, who loved so tenderly 
 and hoped so brightly, doubt that now her 
 husband, restored to comfort and respecta- 
 bility, would be steady be all that was 
 wanting to make her, poor and unregarded as 
 she was become, still " the happiest woman 
 in England." Once again evil habit pre- 
 vailed over the sincere but infirm resolution 
 of Hepburn. 
 
 In the bitter cold morning of the 2Gth of 
 January, 18 , the young wife of Charles 
 Hepburn and she was still under nineteen 
 sat in the single poor apartment they 
 rented by the week, hushing her moaning 
 child ; and at the same time preparing coffee 
 for her husband's breakfast, to be ready 
 against the minute he would awake. She 
 knew that he slept too long. Her eyes, 
 heavier from a long night of watching than 
 from tears, for of late she seldom wept, were 
 mournfully fixed on her infant, and then a 
 single tear stole down the cheek, thin and 
 sunken from the " peachy bloom" once cele- 
 brated in Charles's sonnets. The snow-drift 
 was spinning without, and the twilight was 
 gray and dull enough that morning, in this 
 narrow and mean street of a busy and 
 crowded part of Liverpool. 
 
 Agnes- had opened but a small part of the 
 shutter, that her husband might obtain 
 another half-hour's sleep after his prolonged 
 revel. The clock of a neighbouring church 
 struck a late hour. Starting at the sound, 
 she stole on tip-toe to the side of the bed, and 
 gazed, through now fast-gathering tears, on 
 the sleeper, the dreamer whether awake or 
 asleep ! gently pressed her cold lips to his 
 flushed brow, and turned way. Soft as
 
 160 
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 her movements had been, they had awaked 
 the restless shnnberer ; and she was but seat- 
 ed, with her child in her lap, when he tossed 
 a.-iide the curtain. 
 
 " You are up already, Agnes, love : I'm 
 afraid I kept you up. very late last night too ; 
 surely you did not watch for me? But what 
 a glorious night, Agnes ! how BURNS himself 
 would have enjoyed it ; a glorious night ! 
 a Noctcs Amlrosiancp, !" 
 
 There was no immediate reply. 
 
 " Was Burns a married man ?" at last 
 whispered the Englishwoman, whose young 
 silvery voice was already touched with sor- 
 row ; and she leant her head on the bosom of 
 her child. 
 
 " Married ! ay, to be sure ; have you for- 
 gotten ' Bonny Jean,' and the little charming 
 song you made me teach you ' When first 
 1 went a wooing of you?'" cried the Scots- 
 man, with some impatience of his wife's 
 ignorance on points so familiar to himself. 
 " You have then forgotten ' Of all the airts 
 the wind can blaw,'" he went on, in a half- 
 reproachful, half-playful tone. 
 
 " Oh, no, no, I have not forgotten that." 
 
 " Then, quick, Agnes dearest, get me some 
 tea not coffee to-day my throat is parched, 
 and my head aches like a hundred fiends. 
 Fetch your son here, and I will nurse him 
 till you get breakfast ; I trust he is better to- 
 day. But when did you get up, love? I 
 hope you did not sit for me : I dare say it 
 was two o'clock before I got home." 
 
 Agnes did not now say how much later it 
 had been, nor yet how long she had held her 
 solitary vigil. She placed the boy in his 
 father's arms, and hastened to procure a 
 small quantity of tea with her almost last 
 shilling. While she moved about the room, 
 Charles, still under the excitement of his 
 revel, talked wildly of the wit, the gaiety, 
 the national feeling, the rapturous convivia- 
 lity, with which his friends and himself, 
 men of different nations, Scottish, English, 
 Irish, and American, united by the bond of 
 enthusiastic admiration, had celebrated the 
 birth-day of Scotland's immortal bard : 
 
 And the bonds they grew tighter the more they wore 
 wet. 
 
 He repeated the flashes of Scottish genius 
 which had electrified the banqueters, the 
 bursts of Irish humour which had set the 
 table in a roar. Either the fire and spirit of 
 these sallies had totally evaporated, or Agnes 
 was an unfit recipient. On this morning she, 
 for the first time, could not feel with Charles, 
 or her sympathy was feigned or faint her 
 
 smile, for she attempted to smile, forced and 
 languid. Charles, whose sensibility was 
 quick as ethereal fire, felt damped, disconcer- 
 ted, and became silent. 
 
 The neighbouring church-clock again sul- 
 lenly swung forth another hour, with the 
 peculiar heavy sound of bells in a snow-fall. 
 
 He paused in playing with and tossing the 
 child, whom, in whatever humour it might 
 be, he always succeeded in making laugh, 
 paused to count the strokes. " Seven, eight, 
 nine" he started " ten, eleven ! " UK 
 threw down the boy, and seized his watch. 
 It had run down amid his jollity. " Good 
 God ! is that clock true ! Agnes, how 
 thoughtless, how very thoughtless, to let me 
 sleep so long ! " Conscience checked the 
 unjust reproach. " I could not, Charles ; 
 indeed I could not find heart to awake you 
 while you looked so fevered and flushed, 
 so much to need rest." 
 
 " Foolish woman ! For this your child 
 may want bread !" He hastily dressed him- 
 self, or rather huddled on his clothes, soiled 
 and unbrushed from his revel ; while ready 
 to faint amid the struggles of her various 
 feelings, Agnes tremblingly held the cup of 
 tea to his parched lips, which he but tasted, 
 as with one look fixed upon her, in which 
 burned love, grief, and remorse, he started 
 away. He flew to the warehouse, where he 
 should have been, where he had most uncon- 
 ditionally and indeed voluntarily promised 
 to be, by nine o'clock ; to the dock, where 
 the New York packet had lain, in which he 
 was that morning to have shipped a valuable 
 consignment of expensive British shawls, 
 which were only to arrive in Liverpool 
 through the night. It was a duty which 
 Mr. Dennistoun, in a fit of confidence and 
 good-humour, had intmsted to Charles, 
 had specially selected him to manage, as a 
 mark of confidence. The vessel had left the 
 dock she was out at sea ! In a state of 
 feeling very far from " glorious," Charles 
 bent his steps to his place of business with 
 shame and apprehension not unmingled 
 with self-condemnation striving, in vain, 
 to fortify himself with the reflection of how 
 weak it was in Agnes not to have roused 
 him earlier. True, she knew not of his im- 
 portant engagements ; she had indeed scarce 
 seen him for the last twenty-four hours. 
 
 The first object that met the eyes of 
 Charles, on entering the dreaded counting- 
 house, was Mr. Dennistoun himself, writing 
 at the desk usually called Mr. Hepburn's. 
 Mr. Smith was similarly employed at his
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 161 
 
 own desk ; but the young gentleman partner, 
 the capitalist, lounged over a newspaper. 
 Every clerk was, in his own department, 
 quill-driving as if for life and death ; and 
 nought was heard but the rustle of sharp- 
 nibbed pens on paper. The office clock 
 struck the half-hour past mid-day : clocks, 
 his enemies throughout all his life, were this 
 clay to be the ruin of Charles Hepburn 
 living things with mocking voices, taunting 
 his misery. Pie stood crushing his hat be- 
 tween his hands, by the side of his own desk ; 
 and, on his first attempt to speak, the eyes of 
 all the persons present were involuntarily 
 turned upon him, with expressions varying 
 with the character of the spectators all 
 eyes, save those of Mr. Dennistoun, who 
 never once raised his head. As there was, 
 after five minutes waiting, no symptom of that 
 gentleman relaxing in his writing, Charles, 
 his brow flushing, muttered, in deep con- 
 fusion, " I am quite ashamed 'quite unpar- 
 donable my conduct is this morning, Sir." 
 The old gentleman bowed coldly in assent, 
 and continued his writing. " But the Wash- 
 ington has not sailed, though the John Adams 
 has gone. I trust there is yet time." 
 
 " Spare yourself all trouble on that account, 
 Mr. Hepburn," said the old gentleman, who 
 could be as stately, when he so pleased, as if 
 bred in a court, instead of a Glasgow counting- 
 house. " The goods are shipped, though 
 tardily, yet in good order. That, sir, became 
 my duty, as I had been credulous enough to 
 believe the Ethiopian could change his skin ; 
 weak enough to assume an improper respon- 
 sibility." He was still writing ; and now 
 coolly handed a slip of paper to Hepburn, 
 who, while his eyes flashed, and then became 
 dim, read an order to the cash-keeper to pay 
 instantly whatever arrears of salary were 
 due to him. That was not much, but Dennis- 
 toun, Smith, and Company, had no further 
 occasion for his services ! Charles stood at 
 iirst dumb and petrified ; he then attempted 
 to speak, to remonstrate, to supplicate. He 
 thought of Agnes and her boy, and bitter 
 and wretched were his feelings. This dis- 
 missal was not merely loss of employment ; 
 it was the wreck of the last remains of his 
 professional character. Who would trust 
 any man dismissed in disgrace by the calm 
 and liberal Dennistoun. In reply to his 
 broken solicitation, this gentleman, now in- 
 exorable, however kind he had formerly been, 
 without uttering a word, wrote away, merely 
 bowing and waving his hand, in signal to the 
 speaker to be gone. Choking with feelings 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 of pride, of grief now chafed to anger, Hep- 
 burn abruptly left the counting-house, and 
 the old gentleman picked up the order he 
 had dropt, and desired the cash-keeper to 
 pay over the money to himself. As Charles 
 passed through the outer-room, the lounging 
 gentleman partner called to him to pay him 
 a compliment on his verses, recited at the 
 festival of the preceding night, which he, an 
 amateur of the Muses, had just finished 
 reading, though in business hours. It wanted 
 but this, in the present mood of the unfor- 
 tunate Hepburn, to madden him outright. 
 He ran out ; he passed from street to street ; 
 his only distinct thought being by which 
 avenue he could soonest escape from the 
 town. In an hour he was several miles 
 beyond money-making, many-masted Liver- 
 pool, cursing his existence, and the day that 
 had given birth to a wretch whose life was 
 fraught with blighting to all that loved him. 
 An expression once wrung in anguish from 
 his aged father, now haunted him, as one 
 idea will cling to the brain in which reason 
 is failing : " Unstable as water, thou shall 
 not excel ! " This he muttered ; shouted in 
 his own ears ; screamed out in his despair. 
 
 The long winter's day wore heavily on 
 with the drooping and ill-boding Agnes ; yet 
 she exerted herself to amuse her child, and to 
 prepare such food against her husband's 
 arrival, as her slender means afforded, and 
 such as she conceived best adapted to the 
 state of inanition in which she knew he must 
 return home after his revel and subsequent 
 exhaustion. That he would not return, never 
 once occurred to her, many as were the 
 anxious thoughts over which she brooded. 
 As the day wore later, Agnes became more 
 and more uneasy. Occasionally Hepburn's 
 impulsive zeal had detained him after the 
 ordinary hours of business ; and but too 
 frequently he encountered, in the busy streets 
 of Liverpool, " friends, countrymen, and 
 lovers," all joyously met ; whom he could 
 not entertain in his own poor lodging, and 
 accordingly adjourned with to a tavern. 
 
 In the evening, one or two of Charles's 
 convivial companions, of the previous night, 
 called at his lodging to fight their battles o'er 
 again ; but he was found to be abroad, and 
 his wife, usually a very lively person, was 
 " sullen," one young man said ; and another, 
 more candid, " in low spirits, and no won- 
 der." Later in the night, a porter called, 
 belonging to the Dennistoun and Smith firm, 
 who was from Charles's native parish, and 
 
 No. 11.
 
 162 
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 who felt kindly towards him, and was often 
 helpful to him and his wife in many little 
 matters. When informed that Mr. Hepburn 
 had not yet come home to dinner, the man 
 looked so blank, that the imagination of 
 Agnes, prone of late to gloomy apprehension, 
 caught fresh alarm, and the simple man was 
 glad to escape from her anxious questionings. 
 Leaving her sleeping child to the care of her 
 landlady, Agnes walked to the extensive ware- 
 houses of Mr. Dennistoun. All was shut up 
 in darkness, and must have been so for some 
 hours. With difficulty she made her way 
 home, where Hepburn had not yet appeared ; 
 and now exhausted from want of sleep and 
 of food, and tortured by apprehension, she 
 became so ill, that when the landlady pro- 
 posed to go to the private residence of Mr. 
 Dennistoun, to obtain intelligence of Charles, 
 no opposition was offered. 
 
 The Liverpool merchant was in his splen- 
 did drawing-room, enjoying his well-earned 
 evening leisure in the midst of his family, 
 and with a small circle of friends. Among 
 the pleasures of the evening, his favourite 
 grand-child, a girl of thirteen or fourteen, had 
 sung to the old Highland air to which they 
 were appropriated, the unlucky Burns' verses 
 of the more unfortunate Hepburn, which had 
 been so much admired in the newspapers of 
 the morning. Mr. Dennistoun was luckily 
 not aware of the author of Letitia's song, or 
 he might have listened, on this night, with 
 impatience. The old melody, (Arrie nam 
 badan,) tender at once and spirited, had been 
 first heard by him among the hills of Anrylf, 
 more than half a century before. Whether 
 it were in the music, the voice of the singer, 
 or the braes and brackens, and heather-bells 
 and long yellow broom that mingled in the 
 song, that the spell lay, or, as was more likely, 
 in the whole combination, we cannot tell, 
 but the thoughts of Hepburn, which had 
 hung upon the old Scotsman's spirits all day, 
 returned to him more painfully than ever. 
 Not that he repented what he had done, or 
 of any thing save his weak forbearance, and 
 pernicious indulgence of errors of so bad ex- 
 ample. Yet a man may be fully acquitted 
 by his conscience, as to the justice of a par- 
 ticular action, and yet be very far from com- 
 fortable in his inward feelings. So at least 
 it was with Mr. Dennistoun, even before a 
 message was brought up stairs that a woman 
 was below inquiring for Mr. Charles Hepburn, 
 one of the clerks, whose wife was dying, 
 while he could not be heard of any where ! 
 The old gentleman became greatly 'agitated. 
 
 His first thought was indeed terrific. Those 
 excitable hare-brained geniuses like Hepburn, 
 there was no saying what mad act, when in 
 a desperate mood, abandoned of reason and 
 of God, they might perpetrate ! He recalled 
 the appearance of the young man, the wild 
 excitement of hilarity and the fumes of wine 
 scarcely out of his brain, when they must 
 have been succeeded by the fierce extremes of 
 despair and of stinging self-reproach. Late 
 as it was, and in spite of the remonstrances 
 of his family, Mr. Dennistoun resolved to 
 accompany the woman to Hepburn's lodging, 
 and his nephew, the mercantile amateur of 
 the Muses, attended him, to take care of him 
 home again. The uncomfortable apartment, 
 and its details, were of themselves full of 
 reproach of the thoughtless and improvident 
 habits of the owner. Agnes, recovered from 
 the fainting fit which had so much alarmed 
 the landlady, on the appeai-ance of the two 
 gentlemen, taxed her spirit to its utmost 
 powers to learn the worst that fate had in 
 store for her ; but Dennistoun had neither 
 heart nor nerve, nor could he think it wisdom 
 to say more at this time, to the poor creature 
 for whom he felt so strongly, than that he 
 had seen Hepburn early in the day. And, 
 in a tone of parental kindness, he added, 
 " We are both aware, madam, that our friend 
 Charles is not always the most punctual of 
 men." Agnes sighed. The nephew, who, 
 from delicacy, had not ventured farther than 
 the door of the room, could from thence see 
 that Hepburn's girlish-looking wife, sitting 
 on a low stool by the side of the cradle, was 
 the most meek, pale, Madonna-like, mourn- 
 ful beauty he had ever beheld. Hepburn 
 himself was, he knew, a man of great talents, 
 absolutely a genins. He felt the strongest 
 desire in the world to have him pardoned and 
 reinstated. Certainly it was shameful, un- 
 kind, disgraceful, to leave so sweet and 
 beautiful a creature pining in poverty in this 
 miserable place, while her husband was 
 revelling, spending a guinea, or perhaps two 
 guineas, on a single dinner. 
 
 But even the light that led astray, 
 Was light from Heaven ! 
 
 As much from pity for Agnes, however, as 
 from sympathy with her husband's poetical 
 and social tastes, he ventured farther into 
 the apartment ; and to his uncle spoke some- 
 thing between excuse and vindication of the 
 absent culprit. Agnes then, first looking 
 eagerly up, her eyes swimming in grateful 
 tears, gave him encouragement to proceed ; 
 and he urged his suit till he had fairly
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 163 
 
 exasperated the benevolent, but somewhat 
 impatient temper of his senior, and turned 
 against himself the very feelings on which 
 he had relied for Hepburn's exculpation and 
 forgiveness. He lauded the genius of those 
 men Scotsmen in whom warmth and ex- 
 altation of feeling palliated aberrations un- 
 pardonable in the dull, cold-blooded, money- 
 making mortals, who lived by square and 
 rule. " There was," he continued in illus- 
 tration, " your glorious Burns " 
 
 " Be silent, sir ! " cried the old man, in a 
 tone of stern severity, which made Agnes 
 start and shudder, and which at once imposed 
 silence on the speaker. " If there be to young 
 men of genius one warning example more 
 impressive and solemn than another, it is 
 that of the life and death of my noble and 
 unfortunate countryman, ROBERT BURNS. 
 And weak, and shallow, and false are they, 
 who dare plead his magnified or imaginary 
 errors in extenuation of their meaner follies. 
 Have the weaklings any right to plead his 
 faults, who are neither fired by his genius, 
 elevated by his virtues, nor tortured by his 
 passions and his pride ? If Burns has left 
 a few careless verses, which unthinking fools 
 construe to their hurt, has he not given them 
 hundreds of lessons of deep and purifying 
 tenderness ; of virtue in its loveliest, holiest 
 simplicity ? For one careless expression ; 
 for the record perhaps fictitious of one 
 reckless carouse, may we not, from his writ- 
 ings, learn of thousands of times when, after 
 a day of hard toil, he wandered away into 
 solitude, feeling within him the first stirrings 
 of the hidden strength, 'the gropings of the 
 Cyclop round the walls of his cave' his 
 '\vn splendid image. Do not the address to 
 a Field-mouse and the Cotter's Saturday Night, 
 alone, tell us of months and years of medita- 
 tion on the loftiest and the tenderest themes 
 that can exalt the thoughts of the true poet, 
 musing on humanity of the rapt spirit, 
 rising ' to Him who walks upon the wings of 
 the wind ;' or, in another mood, welling up 
 from its depths of tenderness, over the little 
 wild flower lying crushed in his path ? And 
 what chilling years of barren toil and hopeless 
 privation were those ! I declare, before 
 Heaven, it were enough to make that Mighty 
 Spirit burst its prison-house to hear a crowd 
 of drivelling idiots charge their vices and 
 follies upon the memory of Burns ! " 
 , The old gentleman struck his cane upon 
 the floor with an energy that recalled his 
 own senses to the obstreperousness of his tone, 
 and the violence of his indignant rhapsody. 
 
 An octave or two lower, he apologized to 
 Agnes for his violence, while he acknowledged 
 that this was a subject which always pro- 
 voked him. " There is," he said, " no doubt 
 something wrong, and in false taste in a few 
 of the bravading verses of Burns, and in later 
 things of the same kind from other pens, in 
 which fools read damnation to themselves ; 
 but still nothing whatever to excuse those 
 who thus construe them to their own hurt. 
 Those scenes of gaiety, merriment, and ex- 
 travagant conviviality, or of downright 
 degrading sensuality, certainly never had 
 existence, save in the brains of the writers, 
 or the pages of a book. Shall we blame the 
 genius of Schiller, because a few hot-headed, 
 excitable, and weak-principled lads chose to 
 band themselves as robbers, and take to the 
 forests in emulation of his hero ? " 
 
 " Yes," cried Agnes, impressively, " the 
 heart-broken mothers and sisters of those 
 misled youths well might blame him whose 
 writings proved so perniciously seductive. 
 Why will not genius inlist itself in a nobler 
 cause ? " 
 
 " My dear madam, this I fear often resolves 
 itself into a simple question of commerce," 
 said Dennistoun, smiling, " which is another 
 category." The conversation reverted to 
 Hepburn ; and, kindly enjoining Agnes to 
 take care of herself and her child, and to send 
 Charles to him early in the morning, Mr. 
 Dennistoun took his leave. 
 
 This well-meant advice could not realize 
 itself to the extent of the benevolent man's 
 desire. The forsaken Agnes could indeed 
 undress herself and her child, and fold its 
 little fevered frame to her bosom, and for its 
 sake endeavour to take necessary sustenance ; 
 but she could not command her tortured 
 spirit to be tranquil, nor her aching eyes to 
 close. 
 
 The first tidings of Charles Hepburn were 
 not obtained by Mr. Dennistoun until the 
 fourth day, and then through a Lancaster 
 newspaper ; in which, for the humane purpose 
 of giving information to friends, a gentleman 
 answering the appearance of Hepburn, was 
 described to be lying in a violent brain-fever, 
 at . a little wayside public-house. His hat 
 and his linen bore the initials C. H., but no 
 papers, or property of any kind, nor means 
 of tracing him, had been found about his 
 person, which had probably been rifled before 
 he was discovered by a traveller passing in a 
 gig. A man had been seen running from 
 the spot across a field ; but there was no 
 visible injury on the person of the stranger.
 
 164 
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 The condition of his clothes showed that he 
 must have wandered far; and probably lain 
 in the open air, for one or more of those 
 severe nights. It was added, that the inces- 
 sant, incoherent, hoarse cry of the unfortunate 
 man, was " Unstable as water, thoti shall not 
 txcel." 
 
 It was a week later, and far up on the 
 topmost heights of the Fernylees pasture 
 range, that Robin Steele, at all times a much 
 greater newsmonger than his master, read 
 the same paragraph in a Carlisle paper, and 
 instantly left his flock ; and only four more 
 days had elapsed before the gray-headed, 
 heart-broken father stood by the bedside of 
 his daughter-in-law and her apparently dying 
 infant, poisoned by the fevered maternal 
 nutriment which should have been its life. 
 
 By the prompt care of the humane Den- 
 nistoun, Charles Hepburn had, meanwhile, 
 received every attention needful to his con- 
 dition. He was now in the house of a medical 
 man, in Lancaster, and the strength of his 
 constitution had already overmastered the 
 fever. Of the more enduring and less medi- 
 cable ailments of his patient, the surgeon 
 knew, and could say nothing, save that it 
 had done Mr. Hepburn immense good to 
 hear that his father was in Liverpool with 
 his wife, and that he might probably join 
 them in a few days. But long years elapsed 
 before that meeting took place. 
 
 It was with prospects dark enough that 
 Charles Hepburn, commending, in the most 
 passionate terms, his forsaken wife and his 
 infant to the care and love of his father, and 
 to the tenderness of Agnes the gray hairs 
 he was, indeed, bringing to the grave with 
 sorrow, took a pathetic leave of them both 
 when about to enter, as a private seaman, a 
 merchant vessel preparing for the voyage to 
 India. His letter was dated at Bristol, 
 where the ship was lying. " Since I cannot 
 live by reason," he said, " I must live by 
 rule ; since I cannot be my own master, I 
 must be the slave of another man's will. 
 Need I say, my own Agnes, dearest! best 
 beloved ! most injured ! that I go, carrying 
 with me but one feeble hope the hope of 
 once again appearing before you, if conscience 
 shall, after my long, self-prescribed period of 
 exile and probation, say, that there is still 
 peace on earth for the veriest wretch its 
 surface now bears." 
 
 The rule which the unhappy man had 
 prescribed for himself was as rigid as that of 
 the most self-mortified anchorite. It was 
 
 more severe, from being practised in the 
 midst of society and business. His rule was 
 not temperance, for he hid never been intem- 
 perate, but total abstinence from wine. 
 Solitude was not in his power, for he wished 
 to be continually engagec' in business ; but 
 he resolved never to employ English speech 
 farther than was absolutely needful, nor one 
 superfluous word in any human language. 
 Charles Hepburn left the ship at Bombay. 
 By his conduct he had secured the esteem and 
 goodwill of the captain ; and from this cir- 
 cumstance, and the proofs of his superior 
 education and capacity, he obtained an ap- 
 pointment on an indigo plantation, in the 
 Upper Provinces, where he esteemed himself 
 fortunate in having no European associates 
 no society whatever, save that of the simple 
 natives. After remaining here for two years 
 he had money to transmit, and he ventured 
 to write home ; but these letters never reached 
 his wife and his father. The money was 
 never claimed. He now imagined himself 
 strong enough to endure better the tempta- 
 tions of society : and he longed to be rich ! 
 Who had motives like his for gaining what 
 an Indian would smile at as but a very paltry 
 competence ! The speechless, melancholy 
 man became the supercargo of a private ship 
 trading between Bengal and China. His 
 associates or thosehuman beings about him, 
 were now chiefly Lascars, for still he shunned 
 European society. Again he had written 
 home, but this time he sent no order for 
 money. All he was worth was embarked in 
 trade on his own account ; and his intelli- 
 gence and energy were agreeably manifested 
 in the success of his speculations. At the 
 end of his third voyage Hepburn hoped he was 
 reformed ! He was at least rich enough in 
 his own estimation, for he had in his posses- 
 sion bills on London for .8000 ; and letters 
 from Agnes and his father had waited him 
 at Madras, beseeching him to come to them 
 only to come home ! to love to happiness 
 to a share of the bread which by God's 
 blessing on frugal industry, had never yet 
 failed them which his exertions must in- 
 crease his presence sweeten ! They had 
 complied with all his proud wishes ; never 
 had his name been mentioned by them. It 
 was enough that in their own hearts they 
 knew that he lived and loved them. 
 
 About noon on an October Sunday, the 
 Carlisle mail, rolling over the same moor, but 
 at a vastly augmented rate of speed, set down 
 a traveller, on the exact spot, where, ten 
 years before, Charles Hepburn had left his
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 1G5 
 
 G-reystecl. The traveller was a handsome, 
 grave-looking man, between thirty and forty, 
 embrowned by the burning suns of a hot 
 climate, and of the appearance, which, for 
 want of a more accurate definition, is usually 
 called military. He carried a very small 
 portmanteau ; and, as the coach drove off, 
 proceeded on foot up the stony path, merely 
 a bridle-way, which led winding into the 
 hills from the wide open moor. Frequently 
 he paused looked round the country, or to 
 his watch, and to the sun, which was still 
 high. In one of these halts, he was over- 
 taken by a young shepherd, with his dog, but 
 in his Sunday clothes, for he was returning, 
 as he told, from the Seceder meeting-house, 
 which stood far off on the verge of the moor. 
 In such circumstances, conversation was in- 
 evitable. An intelligent Scottish shepherd 
 is not, by very many degrees, less curious 
 than a Yankee fanner. 
 
 "An' ye have been in the Indies? 'Od, 
 it maun be a queer country the Indies. 
 Was't the place where they have the breed o' 
 sheep Robin Steele tells about, with tails sae 
 braid that ilk ane maun have a whirlbarrow 
 to carry the tail o't after it. Ye'll have seen 
 Sir Pulteney and young Craigdarroch, I 
 reckon ? It's a desperate place the Indies for 
 making siller." The stranger said he had 
 seen the gentlemen alluded to ; and added, 
 "And Robin Steele is alive stilll" 
 
 " Howt ay. Sae ye kenned Robin ? 
 Alive ! what should ail him : a doure, 
 steive auld deevil, who ran wi' the souplest 
 o' us at the last games." 
 
 " And as great a Whig as ever?" said the 
 stranger, smiling. 
 
 " Worse," said the man, laughing to see 
 Robin's character so well understood ; " a 
 clean Glasgow Radical. It might cost auld 
 Fernylees his tack, if the Dyeuke or the 
 Factor were to hear the half o' Robin's 
 nonsense ay, and sense too, which they 
 like far waur." The stranger held his hat 
 before his face, while his companion eyed him 
 keenly. 
 
 " And Robin is still at the Fernylees?" 
 
 " Ye may be sure o' that, and him in the 
 body. How could the place do without 
 Robin, or Robin without the place ? All the 
 three years the auld Maister lived in the 
 village, Robin hung on about the farm ; and 
 so was there before him, to welcome him and 
 his gude-dochter, when they went back." 
 
 "His whom?" inquired the stranger, eagerly . 
 
 "His gude-dochter that's what the Eng- 
 lish call his daughter-in-law : ye'il no 
 
 understand our Scottish tongue. And a good 
 dochter has she been to him English and 
 stranger to our country though she be. Yea, 
 in truth, what Ruth the Moabitess was to 
 ancient Naomi, and better to him than ten 
 sons. Mrs. Charles is, to be sure, an angel 
 upon the y earth sent to make up to that 
 worthy patriarch o' the Fernylees i' the end 
 of his day for the crossing and cumber he 
 has had with his family, and fight with 
 
 world's gear. I'm jalousing ye have aynce 
 
 kenned something o' the Fernylees folk ? " 
 
 The stranger bowed in acquiescence. 
 
 " Their tale is soon told. Old Fernylees 
 gave up the farm to Mr. Gilbert, and brought 
 home Charles's English wife and her child, 
 just after that good-hearted, harumscarum, 
 ne'er-do-weel, ran off from her and his bairn 
 to gude kens whither-and-beyont. Tibby 
 Elliott (if ye kenned the lave, ye would ken 
 Tibby, for she was aye the tongue o' the trump 
 in the house of Femylees) grudged at first a 
 fremit woman, with a young wean, coming 
 home to be a burden on the auld Maister's 
 sma' means ; but He who brings good out of 
 ill, made the sight o' that young English 
 lady even the greatest blessing ever fell on 
 the auld Maister's gray head. With her 
 white genty hands she wrought wi' her needle 
 and her shears, late and early, for him and 
 her bairn ; keeping a bit school for the 
 farmers' dochters here about : and wi' her 
 kindness and her counsel she stayed and 
 comforted him in all his afflictions. The 
 hale country-side blessed her ; and when, in 
 the hinder-end of the ither year, the plea 
 about her tocher, carried on by the great Mr. 
 Dennistoun, the Liverpool merchant, out of 
 his own pocket, Itose or win, for her 
 behoof and her bairn's, was fairly won, 
 conscience ! ye would have thought it was 
 the auld Dyeuke's birth-day come back, 
 when rents were reasonable, and nae Radicals 
 in the country-side. There was as good as 
 five thousand pound o' it, very convenient 
 it came to buy back the stocking of the 
 Fernylees, when Mr. Gilbert, seeing every 
 year growing worse than the last in this 
 rack-rent country, would be off to Van 
 Diemen's Land, before the Dyeuke had gotten 
 his last plack. Robin Steele will no let on 
 what the new rent is ; but if mercats bide 
 up, there's bread to be made out o' the Ferny- 
 lees yet, he says, if there were younger eeii 
 to look after it. Yet it is just wonderful how 
 the auld Maister, in his blindness, goes about 
 the knowes, led by his grandson ; but he has 
 kenned the braes all his davs."
 
 166 
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 " My father ! My father ! " exclaimed 
 the stranger, surprised and shocked by the 
 information of his father's blindness; and 
 the voluble young shepherd, considerably 
 abashed, now knew in whose presence he 
 stood. Where his now quiet companion's 
 road struck off, Charles shook hands, and 
 parted from him almost in silence. 
 
 Charles suffered the shades of night to fall 
 deep before he found courage to leave the 
 hazel copse and approach the house, and peer 
 over the window-curtain into the little green- 
 walled parlour, where, in the blaze of the 
 turf-fire, sat all that was dearest to him, the 
 faces that had haunted him, asleep or awake, 
 in the jungle, on the deck, or at the desk ! 
 On one side of the fire, in his old place, sat 
 his silver-haired blind father ; on the opposite 
 seat, his Agnes ; and leaning on the old 
 man's knee, with a book yes, that was his 
 boy ! He was now prattling to the grandsire, 
 who spoke and smiled to Agnes ; and as she 
 returned his speech and smile, he drew his 
 hand caressingly over the child's head, as if 
 complying with some fond request. Charles 
 could stand no longer. He perceived his 
 friend Tibby, unchanged in looks, dress, or 
 bearing, spreading the cloth on the small 
 table, from which she had just removed the 
 Bible, probably after family-worship, and he 
 drew into the shade of the porch as she passed 
 him to go to the outer kitchen, and smiled 
 internally, yet not without a slight pang, as 
 he heard her say, " Na, Robin, ye'll see we 
 are just going to have anither spoiled bairn 
 the auld game o* the young Chevalier ower 
 again. There's the auld Maister consenting 
 that the little rogue shall sit up this night, 
 to the SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER : but, to be 
 sure, there's a reason for it ; for the bairn 
 repeated the fifth Command in the distinct 
 way it would have done your heart good to 
 hear. I maun make him a pancake." 
 
 In ten minutes afterwards the boy spoken 
 of, panting and rosy, came flying into the 
 kitchen, crying, "Robin, Robin shepherd! 
 there's a grand gentleman sitting under 
 Judon's ash, just where my grandpa' says 
 his prayers : come and see him." They went 
 out hand in hand. 
 
 In three minutes Robin was back his 
 eyes staring, his hair rising. "As I'm a 
 living sinner, Tibby Elliott, if Charles Hep- 
 burn be in the body, he is sitting under 
 Judon's ash, and I have seen him ! " 
 
 Tibby turned round, the frying-pan in her 
 hand ; and brandishing it about, burst into 
 the most extraordinary screaming and eldritch 
 
 laugh her old friend had ever heard, seen, or 
 imagined. Nervous disorders and hysterics 
 were rare at the Fernylees. 
 
 " I' the body ! and what for should he no 
 be i' the body ! heich ! heich ! heich ! Eli, 
 sirs ! " and down dropt the frying-pan ; and 
 Tibby raised her hands, wept, and sobbed, in 
 a manner yet more frightful and eldritch. 
 " As ye are a living sinner ! and are na ye 
 a living sinner ? I could prove it. And what 
 for should not Charlie Hepburn come hame, 
 and appear in the body to his ain bairn on 
 the very spot where his godly father has 
 
 wrestled heich ! heich ! heich ! " 
 
 and she went off into another fit of hideous 
 and wild laughter. 
 
 Robin was now almost at his wit's end. It 
 was clear Tibby had lost her senses, so there 
 was no time to lose with her. He had read 
 or heard that cold water was a specific in 
 hysterics, or vapours, or some female ailment 
 or other ; and seizing a large cog, that stood 
 full on the dresser, he dashed its whole con- 
 tents about her, leaving her in the middle of 
 the kitchen like a dissolving Niobe. 
 
 When Robin went again to Judon's ash no 
 one was there ! but through the same pane 
 where Charles Hepburn had lately looked, he 
 saw " the blithest sight had e'er been seen in 
 the Fernylees since the auld Maister's bridal." 
 An instinctive feeling of delicacy, which 
 nature often denies to the peer to plant in the 
 bosom of the shepherd-swain, told Robin that 
 this, however, was no sight for him, and he 
 went back to his friend. 
 
 " It's just Charlie Hepburn, Tibby lass ! 
 come home at last, a wise man and a wealthy. 
 Losh, woman ! ye surely canna be angered at 
 me, a feal auld friend ! for twa or three draps 
 o' clean cauld water spilt between us, meant 
 a' for your good ? Let me help ye off with 
 your dripping duds, and busk ye quick to 
 welcome the Young Chevalififc, 
 
 If I've done ye offence, I'll make ye amends." 
 
 " I freely forgi'e ye, Robin," Tibby sobbed ; 
 " freely forgi'e ye, ye meant weel. But this 
 should be a SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER we 
 ne'er saw the marrow o' in the Ha' House o' 
 the ' Fernylees. And, save us, man ! draAv 
 back the broche ! Is this a time to scouther 
 the single dyeuke, [duck meant this time, 
 not Duke,] when I hae skailt in my joy the 
 dear bairn's pancake. But ye are no caring, 
 dear, deed are ye no !" cried the gracious 
 Tibby, as the boy burst bounding upon 
 them, and clasping Robin's knees, exclaimed, 
 "That gentleman is my papa, I took him 
 from Judon's ash to my mamma. Did you
 
 THE SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER. 
 
 167 
 
 see him, Robin ? He's a braw gentleman ! 
 I have looked at him all this time. Mamma 
 cried, but my blind papa lifted his hands and 
 said his prayers ; and my other papa said to 
 me, ' Run now, my boy, and call my trusty 
 fere, Robin Steele. Let me have all my 
 father's friends about me.' " 
 
 The " trusty fere " kept the child for some 
 time ; and then they went together to sum- 
 mon Tibby's old aid, now a decent shepherd's 
 wife, and mistress of a neighbouring bothie. 
 
 Seated by the thrice-blest Agnes at the 
 head of his board, the dim eyes of the venera- 
 ble old man seemed on this night to beam 
 with a heavenly lustre. " Nay, Robin, nay 
 Tibby, ye shall sit by, and among us," he 
 said, as the faithful old servants would on 
 this night have withdrawn ; " ye have shared 
 days of sorrow wi' us, we will share our joy 
 together. Sit ye down, dear friends, while 
 we crave the Almighty's blessing on anither 
 SABBATH NIGHT'S SUPPER." 
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 BY MRS. PHASER. 
 
 AMY and ALICE GRAY were brother and 
 sister's children. Although Alice was now 
 an orphan, in her uncle's house, she had not 
 always dwelt in the pretty cottage of Bill- 
 stane glen ; and though its roses and honey- 
 suckles were sweet and fragrant, yet when 
 she thought of the wild thyme and heather, 
 and the bees which hummed among them, 
 near her mother's dwelling, she wished her- 
 self once more back at Logan House, and 
 playing again upon the bonny Pentland 
 hills. But the cottage in which Alice had 
 been born was now desolate ; already was 
 the little garden overgrown with weeds, and 
 the sheep browsed upon the few flowers which 
 had formerly been her delight. 
 
 The mother of Alice had once been the 
 favourite sister of John Gray, who now re- 
 ceived her orphan daughter into his family. 
 But there had been a coldness for many 
 years between the brother and sister, for she 
 had displeased him by marrying a poor, and, 
 what he considered worse, a sickly lad, a 
 relative of her own ; and the disappointed 
 brother consoled himself, in some measure, 
 for this wound to his pride, by witnessing 
 the gradual progress of the evil he had pre- 
 dicted from the unfortunate connexion. 
 
 Yet Mary and her husband lived happily 
 together for several years, in spite of the 
 threatened evils, although she could not al- 
 ways shut her eyes against their slow but 
 certain approach. Her husband, though 
 cheerful and active, was by no means strong; 
 and his hearty laugh would often be cut short 
 by an alarming cough, which rung like a 
 knell on Mary's heart ; or the song which he 
 sung to his little girl would be checked by a 
 feeling of breathlessness and pain which 
 betrayed the lurking disease. Still, the pro- 
 
 gress of that disease was so gradual as scarcely 
 to be remarked ; and nine happy summers had 
 little Alice played upon Logan braes, when 
 her father one evening, returning over-heated 
 from his work, was seized with a shivering 
 fit, and one short week saw Mary a widow, 
 and her child fatherless. 
 
 Poor Mary tried to shake off the cold, 
 benumbing stupor which oppressed her brain, 
 and clung around her heart, deadening every 
 feeling, even that of affection for her child. 
 In vain would she say " It is his it is all 
 that is left me of him : shall I not then 
 live for its sake shall I not be grateful ? " 
 then clasping it to her breast, as a fresh 
 burst of grief would shake her enfeebled 
 frame, she blessed God when tears came to 
 her relief, and she could weep over this sole 
 remaining pledge of all she had lost. But 
 Mary had loved her husband as few in her 
 rank of life are wont to love. It is fortunate, 
 perhaps, for the poor, that a life of perpetual 
 care and toil leaves little room for the growth 
 of these engrossing affections, the destruction 
 of which is death to those who lived upon 
 them ; but the life of Mary and her hus- 
 band, although spent in poverty, had been 
 one of more ease and enjoyment than usually 
 falls to the share of persons in such circum- 
 stances. Their dwelling was lonely and 
 secluded, their mutual exertions had been 
 able to supply their few wants, and they 
 were all in all to each other. Their only 
 child was a source of happy occupation to its 
 mother, and of unceasing delight to its father. 
 William had been reckoned a scholar among 
 his companions, and he taught his little girl 
 all he knew. At six years of age she could 
 read the ballad of "Jemmy Dawson," and 
 weep over the story of " The Babes in the
 
 168 
 
 T11K COl .SINS. 
 
 Wood ; " and how proud a inotlier, and how 
 happy a wife was Mary, when seated l>y her 
 husband on the bank of the bonny burn of 
 Glcncorse, ehe listened to her little girl as, 
 sitting on her father's knees, she read a chap- 
 ter from the sacred book. Xo human creature 
 besides themselves dwelt in this pleasant 
 solitude, the quiet sheep alone cropped the 
 grass around them ; and at such times Mary 
 had peculiarly felt how much her husband 
 and her child were every tiling to her, and 
 she loved him the more because for his sake 
 she had separated herself from all the world 
 besides. What wonder, then, was it that 
 now, when he was lost to her for ever, her 
 reasonings with herself, and her struggles to 
 be resigned, were alike in vain ? 
 
 Resignation, however, came at length ; 
 but it was when she felt that she soon must 
 follow her husband to his quiet resting- 
 place : with melancholy pleasure would she 
 then sit in the stillness of evening beside the 
 simple stone which marked where he lay. 
 It was in that deserted, but beautiful bury- 
 ing-ground of St. Catharines,* where I my- 
 self have often wished to lie. Quiet as it now 
 is, it was not always a scene of peace ; for 
 near this spot was fought the battle of Rullion 
 Green, and in this burying-ground are laid 
 the bones of many of the old covenanters 
 who fell there ; but now its perfect repose 
 is only interrupted by the nmrmurings of 
 the wood-pigeons which roost undisturbed 
 among the branches of one solitary tree, that 
 overshadows the tombs of the forgotten dead. 
 But I must not linger among those scenes so 
 dear to my childhood, which rise up before 
 me in all their pastoral greenness, fresh and 
 lovely as the youthful days that were spent 
 among them ! 
 
 Here, then, let us leave the mortal remains 
 of Mary and her husband, and follow the 
 little orphan to her new home. An aunt of 
 her mother's, who was the widow of a school- 
 master in the village of Pennycuick, had 
 attended Mary in her last illness, and would 
 willingly have received the little Alice into 
 her house ; but her uncle Gray, too late 
 repenting his harshness to his sister, was 
 anxious to stifle the reproaches of his own 
 heart by affording shelter to her orphan 
 child ; and none chose to oppose this wish, 
 for he was known to be a thriving man, and 
 who, having but one little girl of his own., 
 
 * This lonely and beautiful burying-ground will now 
 be sought for in vain it has long since been covered 
 by the waters of the Compensation Pond on the Glen- 
 corse water. 
 
 could well afford to provide for his niece. 
 
 Alice thus became an inmate of 
 cottage ; and many would have thought, in 
 its external beauties and internal plenty, she 
 had made a happy exchange for the solitary 
 wildness of her late abode ; but the simple- 
 hearted child could not be persuaded of this, 
 and long pined for the freedom of her native 
 hills, and for the looks of kindness which 
 were wont to meet her in her father's house 
 when she returned from rambling among 
 them. 
 
 Her uncle Gray, content with giving her 
 a hearty welcome to his house, and assuring 
 her that she should want for nothing in it, 
 took little further concern about her, but 
 turned her over to the charge of his wife ; 
 and Mrs. Gray as she chose to be called 
 a selfish, cold-hearted woman, who, by in- 
 judicious management, and still more per- 
 nicious example, was fast destroying the fine 
 temper and amiable dispositions of her own 
 child, only tolerated the little stranger, in the 
 hope that she might some day or other become 
 a useful assistant in the house, and would 
 meantime be a playmate and attendant on her 
 own little Amy. Amy, however, naturally 
 frank and affectionate, received her weeping 
 cousin with a kindness which won the little 
 orphan's heart, and she clung to her with all 
 the love of a sister, although constantly re- 
 minded by her aunt that they were not sisters, 
 
 that their situations were widely different, 
 
 and accustomed to see this difference in- 
 vidiously enough marked whenever a pre- 
 ference could be shown. 
 
 Mild and unassuming by nature, and 
 satisfied with the love of her cousin, poor 
 Alice never murmured at this preference ; 
 she appeared quickly to comprehend the 
 character of her aunt, and accommodated 
 her conduct and feelings to her illiberal 
 prejudices. It was only when Amy forgot 
 herself, and gave way to petulance or selfish- 
 ness, that the heart of Alice would swell, 
 and the tears of wounded feeling fill her eyes. 
 " Oh, they are teaching my little Amy to be 
 cold and cruel to me, like the rest," would 
 the poor orphan exclaim ; " and what shall 
 I then do for some one to love?" Poor 
 child ! that was the want which she felt most 
 keenly, for to her warm and gentle heart, an 
 object to love and cling to was as necessary 
 as life itself. Alas ! little do the gay and 
 fortunate of mankind dream of the misery, 
 the withering chill, which blights a fond, 
 confiding heart, when it looks around and 
 meets only the cold glance of indifference,
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 169 
 
 when it feels that it has no object on which 
 to pour out its tenderness none to which 
 itself is dear ! 
 
 Happily for Alice, her parents had early 
 taught her on whom she ought to lean, in 
 whom alone she might safely put her trust. 
 Child though she was, the instruction, con- 
 veyed with an earnestness which was increased 
 by the conviction that she soon might require 
 to apply it, impressed her young mind with 
 an indelible force. Her religion took its tone 
 from her character, and was formed of sim- 
 plicity, dependence, and love. On such 
 occasions, when her heart was wounded by 
 unkindness, she turned with confidence to it, 
 as to an unfailing source of consolation ; and 
 fain would she have shared its consolations 
 and its pleasures with her cousin, fain 
 would she have induced her to think and 
 feel with her : but it was in vain. The youth- 
 ful Amy's besetting sins were vanity and 
 selfishness ; not, indeed, that sort of selfish- 
 ness which closes up the heart to the wants 
 or the sufferings of others, for she was 
 lavish of her gifts, and more than commonly 
 compassionate. But her's was the selfish- 
 ness which cannot brook a rival in the love 
 or admiration which it delights to excite. 
 To be envied by her companions for the 
 pretty straw hat she wore at church, or to 
 be noticed by strangers for the lovely face 
 which smiled beneath it, would call, indeed, 
 a rosy blush into the cheek of Amy Gray, 
 but it was the blush of triumph, not of 
 modesty ; and the side-long glance which at 
 such moments she would steal at her cousin, 
 said as plainly as a look could speak, " Do 
 you see that ? it is me they are admiring ! " 
 
 " What for do you look at me sae mourn- 
 fully ? " said Amy, once on such an occasion, 
 upon their return from church, as she saw 
 the eyes of Alice fill with tears, and heard 
 the sigh of regret which burst from her heart : 
 " What are ye thinking of, wi' that lang face ? 
 one would think ye were gazing at auld 
 blind Jenny, there, instead of at me." 
 
 " Well, Amy," replied her cousin, " what 
 would ye say ? would you be very angry if I 
 were thinking it might be better maybe, for 
 you to be as blind as poor auld Janet, than 
 to have your een only open to this warld's 
 vanities, when your heart should be filled 
 with better things. See how she holds her 
 Bible to her breast, as if it contained her only 
 treasure. Oh, Amy, bonny as all the warld 
 thinks you, God may see mair beauty in 
 the sightless face of auld blind Janet, than 
 either in vou or in me." .. 
 
 " I'm sure you are as good as auld Janet, 
 and a great deal bonnier," said Amy, laugh- 
 ing ; " and whiles, in spite of a' my nonsense, 
 I wish I was just like you, Alice, for then I 
 would be far happier than I am now. But 
 I'll try to be a gude bairn when I'm in 
 the kirk, and I'll sit far back in the seat, 
 and only look at our auld minister ; his 
 dour face will mak me grave enough, at 
 least, I'se warrant ; " and Amy's pious re- 
 solutions would last till she got beyond the 
 churchyard, when the first sight of a gay 
 bonnet, or glance of admiration from a 
 passing stranger, would set them all afloat 
 again ; as the first wave of the advancing 
 tide erases the sagest maxim that can be 
 written on the smooth sand of the shore. It 
 was, indeed, impossible for any one to asso- 
 ciate long with the meek Alice, whose devotion 
 seemed to flow from a heart pure as the 
 fountain of heavenly love itself, without being 
 in some degree influenced by the beauty of 
 holiness ; and many a vow did Amy make 
 to emulate her cousin in piety and prudence 
 vows, alas ! shortlived as the momentary 
 impulse which produced them. 
 
 Thus years rolled on and each, as it 
 passed, brought increase to the charms of 
 Amy Gray, whose infant beauty ripened 
 gradually into the perfect loveliness of woman. 
 She was the unrivalled beauty of the church 
 of Lasswade, the rose of Billstane glen ; 
 yet some there were who felt that there was 
 as much to call forth love, if not admiration, in 
 the deep blue of Alice's mild eyes, and in the 
 varying colour which a word of kindness 
 would call forth into her pale cheek, as in 
 the more brilliant charms of her cousin. 
 
 One lovely summer*s evening, the beauty 
 of the weather and the scene had tempted the 
 two girls to prolong their walk to the old 
 chapel of Roslin ; and they still lingered 
 among its ruins, when Alice, observing a 
 chasm in the wall, advanced to take a look 
 at the interior of the building. An object 
 within arrested her attention ; and, after a 
 further glance, she discovered it to be a female 
 figure, whose tattered and fantastic dress, lit 
 up as it was by a stream of light which fell 
 upon her person from the aperture, left little 
 doubt that its wearer was some unhappy 
 creature deprived of reason. She was seated 
 upon a gravestone, and was engaged in decking 
 herself out with a parcel of old and various 
 coloured rags and shreds of soiled ribbons. 
 
 The light by which she pursued this occu- 
 pation becoming obscured, as Amy also 
 stepped forward to the aperture, the maniac
 
 170 
 
 TIIK COPSLNS. 
 
 exclaimed in a loud and angry voice, "Wha's 
 that putting out Lady Roslin's lamp, and 
 she expectin' to see company the night ? " 
 Then observing the cousins, she added, "Hech 
 sire! but tha'es twa bonnie lasses! I'se 
 wan-ant ye '11 be some o' the company now ! 
 Come awa come in then, leddies ye 're in 
 right gude time, for her Leddyship'a no risen 
 yet ye '11 no be feared to see her in her 
 dead claithes ? I see'd them putten on her ; 
 and whan I saw all the crimpings and the 
 flounces, I tell't the fouk that her Leddyship 
 was surely expectin' to see company, and I 
 promised to come to the enterteenment." 
 
 " For God's sake, Alice, come away ! " ex- 
 claimed Amy, terrified at this wild harangue, 
 and they were hastily turning to leave the 
 spot, when at the moment, two young men 
 entered the garden, laughing boisterously 
 and loud. Alice, observing them, checked 
 her cousin " Let us stay where we are," 
 said she, "or let us retire into the chapel until 
 these noisy men pass on they are far more 
 to be dreaded than this poor creature. I 
 know well who she is, Amy. I have often met 
 her, when a child, wandering about the woods 
 of old Woodhouselee. She is quite harmless ; 
 she calls herself Lady Bothwell, and " 
 
 "Calls herself Leddy Bothwell ! " exclaimed 
 the madwoman, rising in a fury, " and wha 
 says I'm no Leddy Bothwell?" At this, Amy, 
 already half alarmed, could contain herself 
 no longer ; but, darting forward towards the 
 two young men, exclaimed in a voice of the 
 utmost terror, " For God's sake, sir ! protect 
 us from that mad creature. She will kill us!" 
 " Protect you ? yes, that will I, my pretty 
 girl, as long as you please. By heavens ! a 
 perfect beauty," cried he, seizing her round 
 the waist, " Look here, Herries ! and she 
 puts herself under my protection, too." 
 
 "Oh, no, no let me go let me pass," 
 cried the now still more terrified girl ; and 
 springing from his hold with all the strength 
 of fear, she fell almost senseless to the ground. 
 " For shame ! Bennet," said his companion, 
 coming forward to assist her, "what sort of 
 conduct is this let her alone who are you, 
 my girls ? " added he, addressing Alice, who 
 now, unheeding their presence, was entirely 
 occupied in attending to her cousin. 
 
 " We are from Billstane glen, sir," replied 
 she, raising her head modestly, but firmly ; 
 " we are the daughter and niece of Fanner 
 Gray, to whose house we must instantly 
 return, for they will already be uneasy at 
 our absence ; and I beg you will prevent 
 your companion from detaining us longer." 
 
 The quiet resolution of Alice's manner had 
 all the effect she wished on the young man ; 
 he turned to his companion, who still appeared 
 resolved to proceed with his attentions, and 
 said, " Let these girls alone, Bennet, molest 
 them no further they are respectable, and 
 I will suffer no insult to be offered them." 
 
 " You will not suffer ! and pray, sir, by 
 what right will you attempt to control or 
 direct my conduct ? " 
 
 " I may reply to that question at another 
 time, perhaps," rejoined the other ; " mean- 
 while, I repeat the injunction, and am resolved 
 to enforce it it will not be the part of a 
 gentleman to press the matter further at 
 present afterwards I shall be quite at your 
 service in any way you please." 
 
 " Hoh ! it is thus, then," exclaimed Ben- 
 net, with a sneer ; " you play the part of 
 knight-errant protector, it appears, on this 
 very creditable occasion. Well be it so 
 another day may come. Meantime, ladies, 
 I shall resign you to the unimpeachable pro- 
 tection of the honourable Charles Herries, 
 gentleman, of no-place-at-all : but let me 
 whisper you, that for all his reverend care of 
 your characters, you would be fully more 
 safe with my Lady Bothwell there, who is 
 just as much of the lady as he is of the 
 gentleman ; and so I take my leave ; " and, 
 exchanging one furious and indignant glance 
 with his late companion, he stalked away. 
 
 Herries permitted him to depart ; and then 
 turning to the girls, "You must permit me 
 to see you safe home," said he, addressing 
 himself to Alice ; " your cousin requires more 
 assistance than you can give ; " and Alice 
 saw, with increased uneasiness, that such 
 assistance had become really needful. Amy, 
 pale and exhausted with her terror, still 
 trembled so much on attempting to rise, that, 
 without a firmer support than her own, 
 Alice saw no hope of getting her home. She 
 was forced, therefore, to accept the offered 
 arm of Herries, to which, indeed, Amy ap- 
 peared disposed to cling far more than her 
 more prudent cousin could have wished. But 
 when she observed the respectful demeanour 
 of the young man, whose gaze, though full 
 of admiration, was expressive of neither for- 
 wardness nor familiarity, she became sincerely 
 thankful for his timely aid, and satisfied there 
 was no danger in accepting it. Amy herself 
 soon recovered so far as to be able to laugh 
 at her childish alarm ; but she continued 
 sufficiently feeble to afford an excuse for 
 making use of her protector's arm until they 
 reached their home.
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 171 
 
 " Preserve us a', bairns ! what's come ower 
 ye the night ? " exclaimed Mrs. Gray, who 
 appeared watching for them at the end of the 
 little garden. " And ye're no come frae Lass- 
 wade, after a' and me pacifying your father 
 wi' telling liim that ye wad just be doun to 
 Lasswade, clavering wi' Jess Tod, and getting 
 a sight of her new bannet. But wha's that 
 ahint you ? My certie, if it's no' a gentleman ! 
 I think ye might a' had the discretion to 
 hae telled me o' this, Alice. Winna ye please 
 come in, sir," continued Mrs. Gray, now 
 curtseying and coming forward ; " it's maybe 
 no a place for the like o' you, but it's nae 
 waur in the inside than it is o' the out ; and 
 it's nae few that stops as they gang by, to 
 spier wha's aught it " 
 
 Alice now interposed, and stopped the career 
 of her aunt's tongue by relating what had 
 happened to detain them, and how much they 
 owed to the kindness of Mr. Herries ; while 
 Amy, hearing her father's voice near the 
 house, went to apprise him of their having 
 brought a guest, and the reason of his being 
 with them. 
 
 The welcome of John Gray was as frank 
 and warm as his disposition was open and 
 hospitable. "What for hae ye shown the 
 gentleman into this empty room, without a 
 spunk o' fire to welcome him ? " said he to 
 his better half. " Meg, Meg, the brawest 
 is aye the best wi' you ; but come yere ways 
 ben, sir, and ye '11 see a bleezing ingle, and 
 a working-man's supper, the kitchen's a 
 far cantier place than this." 
 
 The exchange from Mrs. Gray's little 
 parlour to the clean and cheerful kitchen 
 which they now entered, was no bad proof 
 of the sense and good taste of the old farmer. 
 The apartment, in its warmth, brightness, and 
 perfect order, resembled rather the kitchen of 
 a little English inn, than that of a Scottish 
 cottage ; and the white tablecloth, on which 
 was placed a smoking dish of potatoes, ac- 
 companied by another of salt herrings, with 
 an ample plate of fine fresh butter, betokened 
 somewhat of the plenty and comfort, as well 
 as the cleanliness of our more advanced neigh- 
 bours. It required no great pressing to 
 make Herries sit down and partake of such 
 a meal, especially when he saw Amy pre- 
 paring to take the seat opposite him. 
 
 " Amy, my bairn, ask a blessing," said the 
 old man ; and Amy, closing her lovely 
 eyes, and raising her hands, pronounced the 
 simple prayer of thanksgiving, in a voice so 
 soft and sweet, even in its Scottish accent, 
 that Herries felt it thrill through every vein. 
 
 Ho remained standing after the others were 
 seated, with eyes intently fixed on the beauti- 
 ful creature before him, until her deep blushes 
 at last recalled him to himself. But Herries 
 was not a youth to be embarrassed by the 
 blushes of a country girl. He soon recovered 
 his recollection, and joined in the conversation, 
 which the old man promoted. His gaiety 
 and good humour disposed him to be easily 
 pleased with those around him, and not less 
 so with himself. Particular circumstances 
 had led him to suppose that he was by birth 
 superior in rank to the society into which he 
 had early been thrown ; and however much 
 disposed to enjoy the frolic and fun of his 
 companions for the time, his ambition had 
 hitherto been rather to add in every way to 
 his consequence, than to diminish it by any 
 low connexion ; still, upon the present occa- 
 sion, the fascinations of the rustic beauty, 
 and the frank hospitality of the honest 
 fanner, overpowered the whisperings of pride, 
 and he willingly gave himself up to the 
 enjoyment of the passing hour. 
 
 "Aweel. Mr. Herries," said the old man 
 at parting, " ye ? 11 maybe gie us a ca' on the 
 Saturdays, wlian ye '11 be this way on ony 
 o' your fishing ploys. The college will haud 
 a grip o' ye through the week ; but I 've 
 seen the professors themselves as glad as 
 the callants whan Saturday cam' round, 
 and just as keen o' a ploy to Habbie's How, 
 or Roslin." 
 
 Herries readily promised to see his friends 
 at Billstane cottage, ere long ; and they parted 
 mutually well pleased with each other's 
 acquaintance. As the young man walked 
 up the quiet, beautiful glen, he could not 
 help thinking how little might suffice for 
 happiness with so lovely a girl as Amy Gray 
 for a partner : when he laid his head upon 
 the pillow, her image, as she clung to him 
 in terror, still haunted his dreams ; nor was 
 the business and bustle of the succeeding 
 day sufficient to banish it from his waking 
 thoughts. 
 
 Next morning, as the family were assem- 
 bled at breakfast, they were surprised by the 
 sight of Cuddy Willie, the only Post, express, 
 and messenger of the town of Lasswade, who 
 made his appearance with a letter in his 
 hand. What idea it might be that darted 
 through Amy's mind on this occasion, and 
 spread her cheeks and neck all over with a 
 crimson blush, or how far her busy fancy 
 might connect the arrival of this letter with 
 the events of the preceding evening, it would 
 be unfair to conjecture ; but it is certain that
 
 172 
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 she was the first to start up and stretch forth 
 her hand to receive it. 
 
 " Deil's in the lassie, does she think that 
 nane maun hae a letter but hersel," said 
 Willie. " I'se warrant, now, ye thought it 
 was frae ye're jo ; but na na, it's no for you : 
 this is nae whilly-wha o' a love letter ; it 
 was no flory chap that wrote the like o' this 
 See, John Gray ; here, man ; the letter's for 
 you, and it's the Pennycuick post-mark that's 
 on it." 
 
 Farmer Gray opened the letter, which had 
 indeed little resemblance to a love epistle, and 
 found its contents to be as follow : 
 
 " This conies to inform ye, John Gray, that 
 ye're gude-sister, Marion Brown, was not ex- 
 pected, this morning whan I left the Haugh. 
 She's been taen wi' a sair dwam, by ordinar. 
 Widow Grindly says how it's only the heart- 
 ague ; but I impeach the goudy-aumous she 
 gaed to this day was a fortnight, at Penny- 
 cuick. The Collier bodies killed a bit lamb 
 that was deeing o' the bats, and made a ' loup 
 in the kettle* wi' it ; your gude sister was in- 
 vited, and I'se warrant she had her share, 
 for she was nae hersel' the nextmornin ; and 
 I canna but jalouse the meat, for it was no 
 natral. But howsomever, she's aye speering 
 for Alice Gray, and what for she's no coming 
 till her ; and indeed it's nae mair than natu- 
 rality might expect, that her ain niece wad 
 come to tend her, and no leave her to fremed 
 folk ; so if Alice looks to see her Aunty in 
 the body, she'll come aff as sune as she gets 
 this, 
 
 " Yours to command, 
 
 " John Gourlay." 
 
 "Well, Alice,"said her uncle, "will ye be for 
 going to your Aunty's ? she's a lone woman, 
 and I'm thinking there will be mair fash 
 than comfort in ony attendance the niebours 
 can gie." 
 
 " Surely, uncle, I will go," said Alice ; 
 " and'the sooner the better. Peddie's carts are 
 going to Pennycuick the day, and they can 
 put me down at the Haugh. It's naething o' 
 a walk frae this, but they'll take my trunk 
 wi' me." So with Peddie's carts did Alice go 
 accordingly, and was set down at the opening 
 of a little glen, which led to the Haugh in 
 which her aunt's cottage stood. 
 
 Alice listened for a moment at the door 
 before she had courage to lift the latch ; but 
 hearing the voice of some one reading aloud, 
 she felt assured that things were better than 
 she had looked for. The gentle tap of Alice 
 
 at the door was answered by a request to 
 come in, and she was relieved by finding her 
 aunt in bed indeed, but still able to speak to 
 her, and to thank her for coming so readily 
 to nurse her. " Alice, my bairn," said she, 
 " I have wearied sair for you, and now I 
 have got baith my blessings at ance. Little 
 did I think, when I heard the chap at the 
 door last night, and said to mysel, wha's that 
 coming to fash me now? that it was my 
 bonny Willie Douglas, come to see his auld 
 schule-mistress in her distress : but he was 
 aye the kindest hearted callant, as weel as the 
 best. And now, Willie, my man, ye' 11 get a 
 sound sleep the night ; for he watched me a' last 
 night, Alice, after he had putten out Widow 
 Hislop and Widow Grindly ; for, troth, their 
 tongues were like to drive me demented. But 
 ye'll gang but the house the night, Willie, and 
 sleep in the ither bed, and my bonny Alice 
 will lie down in that ane, and be near me 
 whenever I stir." 
 
 " Yes, yes, mother. I'll do whatever ye 
 bid me," replied William ; " but ye maunna 
 speak ony mair, for your een are as bright as 
 candles, and the Doctor says, there is owre 
 muckle fever about you already." 
 
 There was indeed too much fever about the 
 poor woman ; she passed a restless night, and 
 when the Doctor saw her in the morning, he 
 told Alice, that he feared her aunt had not 
 strength to combat long against the violence 
 of the disease. She continued to linger for 
 a fortnight, gradually sinking ; at times 
 collected, and aware of all around her, 
 but at other moments wandering ; and 
 towards night, as the fever increased, the aid 
 of William Douglas was sometimes required 
 to manage and constrain her. Often did 
 Alice think how helpless she should have found 
 herself without such aid, and this kind and 
 judicious assistance became every hour more 
 valuable to her ; while William, as he wit- 
 nessed her tender care, her gentleness and un- 
 wearying patience, her piety and affection, 
 could not but feel inwardly what a treasure 
 she would prove to the man who could win 
 her heart. 
 
 It was on the morning of the fourteenth 
 day, that Alice observed a change in her 
 aunt's appearance, so obvious, that she felt 
 the hour which was to part them for ever 
 could not be far distant. She pointed out 
 to William the sunken eye, the shrunk and 
 fallen features, and saw her fears confirmed 
 in his expression. The two young creatures 
 sat down in silence beside the bed of sickness 
 and of death, and watched the heavy breath-
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 173 
 
 ing of the sufferer. She still appeared to 
 know them, and after a pause of some min- 
 utes, during which they thought she slept, 
 she opened her eyes, and looking at Douglas, 
 faintly articulated, " God's word ! " William 
 took the Bible, and read to her the 14th 
 chapter of St. John. She listened with ap- 
 parent intelligence and pleasure ; " God bless 
 my boy," said she, " he was aye my best 
 scholar ; aye at the head o' the class ; but 
 Willie, my dear, dismiss the school now I'm 
 no able for their young tongues ; I maun 
 hae peace." 
 
 " The peace of God be yours ! " said Alice, 
 in a low voice. 
 
 " It is, it is, my bairn," uttered the dying 
 woman faintly, and again she sunk into a 
 short slumber. 
 
 At this moment, Alice thought she heard 
 a gentle tap at the door, and while she beck- 
 oned to Douglas to open it, felt persuaded 
 that she heard the voice of her cousin. It 
 was indeed her own Amy, who had come to 
 see how all went with Alice. Alice kissed her 
 in silence, while the large drops stood in her 
 eyes as she pointed to the bed where her aunt 
 lay ; and Amy, with deep emotion, laid aside 
 her bonnet and cloak, and sat down beside 
 her cousin ; while Douglas stood looking 
 alternately at the two lovely girls, and then 
 at the bed of death, and felt how striking 
 was the contrast. The beauty and bloom 
 of Amy, seemed such as death could never 
 touch : that glow of warmth, and life, and 
 health could it ever change into a form so 
 appalling as that before him ? there was 
 something almost revolting in the thought. 
 Hastily withdrawing his eyes, they fell upon 
 the sweet pale face of Alice, so gentle in its 
 sorrow, that she seemed like the link between 
 heaven and earth ; he felt it as balm to his 
 troubled soul, and dwelt with unmixed delight 
 upon her meek and pensive countenance. 
 
 " Did you come alone, Amy ? " inquired 
 Alice ; " I'm sure your mother would not 
 like that ! " 
 
 Amy coloured like scarlet, while she re- 
 plied, " No, Charles Herries walked part of 
 the way wi' me." 
 
 " Charles Herries ! " repeated Alice in a 
 tone of surprise. 
 
 " Charles Herries ! " echoed the voice of 
 the dying woman, starting up in her bed ; 
 " whare is he ? Oh, Willie, dinna let him in 
 dinna let him come here. I never had but 
 trouble wi' that young man ; and dinna tak 
 up wi' Charles Herries, Alice he's no what 
 he seems to he. Surely his father oh if I 
 
 had breath to tell ye " But it -was in vain 
 the increase of agitation only hastened the 
 closing scene ; that fearful noise, the last 
 which issues from the dying, choaked her 
 words, and told that the spirit was separating 
 from the body, that the last struggle was 
 over ; and Marion Brown sunk back upon 
 the pillow a lifeless corpse. In vain did 
 Douglas and Alice exhaust their efforts to 
 recall the feeble spark it had fled for ever ! 
 
 Amy exerted herself to restrain her own 
 terror, that she might soothe and comfort her 
 afflicted cousin ; and it was not until the even- 
 ing was far advanced, that the necessity of 
 her return home, forced itself upon their con- 
 sideration. 
 
 " You cannot go alone, Amy ; William 
 Douglas will see you home." 
 
 " And leave you alone at such a time, and 
 in such circumstances?" returned Amy. 
 
 " I am not alone, dear Amy I have all I 
 ought to want, or trust to, at such a moment 
 my God and my Bible. Remember how 
 frightened you were at Roslin, Amy. I can- 
 not think of your going home alone." 
 
 Amy urged her refusal no farther ; but, 
 kissing her cousin, promised to send Douglas 
 back as soon as she got in sight of Loanhead, 
 and quitted the cottage. 
 
 Left to herself, Alice knelt down by the 
 bed, where lay the mortal remains of her 
 aunt, and poured out her soul in prayer. 
 She felt soothed and strengthened as she 
 called upon her Saviour, and put herself un- 
 der the sole protection of her God. The evening 
 was soft and lovely ; the last rays of the sun, 
 though they no longer penetrated into the glen, 
 still glowed on the distant Pentlands, and 
 edged the clouds with purple and gold. Alice 
 softly opened the latticed window, and pull- 
 ing some pieces of the sweetbriar and honey- 
 suckle, which had been the pride of her aunt, 
 strewed them upon the bed of death. The 
 evening air refreshed her ; and, taking her 
 Bible, she sat by the open window, and read 
 until the light forsook her. It was now that 
 her thoughts became busy, and not unmingled 
 with terror : the last broken expressions of 
 her aunt dwelt fearfully on her memory. It 
 appeared from them that she had known 
 Herries, and considered him with no favour- 
 able eye : the effort to which expiring nature 
 had been roused, must have originated in 
 some very powerful feeling. Death had 
 stopped the intended communication ; but 
 Alice felt that enough had been uttered to 
 give reasonable grounds of suspicion ; and 
 that the earnest warning of the dead, was to
 
 174 
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 be regarded as of the most solemn importance. 
 Her imagination would then conjure up the 
 tales she had heard of spirits, after death, 
 returning to disburden themselves of painful 
 secrets ; and she did not now dare to turn her 
 eyes towards the bed where the body lay, lest 
 she might see it arise and beckon her. What 
 would she now have given for the presence of 
 William Douglas ! but the thought revived 
 her weakened reason, " Shall I wish for the 
 presence of a creature like myself, and for- 
 get that He who made us is near me ? Forgive 
 me, God ! I will shake off these childish, 
 these impious terrors, and trust in thee ! " 
 And rousing herself, she went towards the 
 fire, stirred it up, and lighting the lamp, sat 
 down once more to read her Bible. 
 
 She had not been many minutes thus em- 
 ployed, when she was startled by a noise, as 
 of some one pushing open the casemented 
 window ; and turning round, what was her 
 horror to see a pale and haggard countenance 
 gazing in upon her! Sick with affright, 
 her senses reeled, and for a while she could 
 distinguish nothing further ; but, recovering 
 after a few moments, she recognized the 
 wild features, and fantastic garments of 
 the wretched maniac who had terrified her 
 cousin and herself at Roslin Chapel. 
 
 "Alice Gray!" said the crazy creature, 
 " open the door this moment ; I maun speak 
 wi' yere aunty. I ken she's in the dead- 
 thraw ; but she canna win awa' wi' that on 
 her mind which I wot o'." 
 
 " Oh, for the love of Heaven, leave this 
 place," exclaimed Alice ; " Marion Brown is 
 dead." 
 
 "Dead!" echoed the maniac, raising her 
 voice to a fearful pitch ; " Dinna tell me 
 she's dead : but if she were dead and streekit 
 ay, if she were in her grave she maun 
 keep tryst and promise wi' me. Speak to 
 me, Marion Brown ; as you hope for the 
 grace of Heaven, tell me whare is my bairn, 
 my honny bairn ! Oh, I never knew trouble 
 till they took him frae me ! he lay in my 
 bosom, and keepit my heart aye warm ; and 
 now it's cauld as the snaw on Tintock, and 
 my head's burning like the pit o' Tophet : 
 hut open the door, Alice Gray, or I'll gar it 
 flee in as mony splinters as wad make spunks 
 to the deevil for a twalmonth." 
 
 " Xow God help me in this strait ! " ex- 
 claimed the terrified girl, raising her clasped 
 hands in earnest supplication to Heaven ; 
 " how shall I pacify this fearful woman?" 
 and she sprung from her seat, scarcely con- 
 scious of what she did ; for at this moment 
 
 the maniac, enraged by the delay, lent her 
 whole strength to break down the frail bar- 
 rier which opposed itself to her fury. Alice 
 felt that the next moment must place her in 
 the power of the mad creature ; yet she thought 
 less of herself than of shielding the remains 
 of her aunt from such sacrilegeous violence ; 
 and clinging to the bed, she listened in breath- 
 less horror as the door shook on its hinges at 
 every blow a violent crash told her that it 
 had given way ; she heard no more, but sunk 
 insensible upon the body of the dead. 
 
 When Alice awoke to consciousness, her 
 opening eyes met those of William Douglas, 
 anxiously fixed upon her ; but it was some 
 time ere she could recall the fearful scene 
 which had deprived her of sense. She was 
 now lying upon a bed in the adjoining room, 
 and one of their female neighbours was sit- 
 ting by her. " Oh, William ! when did you 
 come ? who is in the next room ? is that 
 dreadful woman gone?" asked Alice, as all 
 that had passed began to dawn upon her 
 memory. 
 
 " Yes, dear Alice, she is gone ; she never 
 was in that room I came up just as she had 
 burst open the door. John Mortcloth, the 
 kirk beadle, and Phemy there, were with me ; 
 and you know she is feared for the beadle ; 
 so she set off for Pennycuick the moment she 
 saw him, and John will take care to have 
 her confined, at all events till the burial is 
 over. But ye maun go to bed now, Alice, 
 and get a good night's rest, or we'll hae the 
 Doctor wi' you next : Phemy there will sleep 
 by you, and I'll watch mysel' in the next 
 room ; so naething need fear ye : and your 
 uncle and Amy's to be here the morn." 
 
 Rest was, in truth, most necessary for 
 Alic-o, who was so much worn out, that she 
 soon sunk to sleep ; and was so much re- 
 freshed by it, that she rose the next morning 
 able to meet her uncle and cousin with com- 
 posure. They all remained at the Haugh 
 until after the funeral, at which William 
 Douglas carried the head of his old school- 
 mistress to the grave. She had not forgotten 
 her favourite scholar in the disposal of her 
 few worldly goods : the small selection 01 
 books, which she denominated her husband's 
 library, were bestowed upon William, while 
 Alice was left sole heiress of all the other 
 goods and chattels, half-made webs, and few 
 odd pounds, which the widow died possessed 
 of. 
 
 The party now returned to Billstane glen, 
 and here William Douglas was obliged to 
 take leave of his friends, and return to his
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 175 
 
 usual occupations. He was assistant gar- 
 dener to a baronet's family near the town of 
 Pennycuick, and too clever a hand to be 
 spared longer than was necessary. He shook 
 hands with Amy and her father, and promised 
 soon to see them at Billstane glen ; but when 
 he turned to Alice, he could not utter a word, 
 he only took her hand, and held it, as if 
 he would have kept it for ever. As Alice 
 gently withdrew it, the tears stood in her 
 eyes, and William felt that had there been 
 fewer witnesses, their parting might have 
 been different. 
 
 A fortnight had nearly passed since the 
 return of Alice, and the cousins had resumed 
 their former course of life, when Alice began 
 to remark that the innocent gaiety which the 
 fine spirits of Amy used to spread over their 
 hours of mutual occupation, had quite dis- 
 appeared. She observed that her cousin 
 would start at the slightest noise from with- 
 out. If a dog barked, the colour would rise 
 to her cheek, and her eager eyes seemed ever 
 on the look out, as if she sought for some 
 one ; the next moment would show disap- 
 pointment painted in every feature. The 
 thought of Herries, and his evident admira- 
 tion of Amy, recurred to the mind of Alice, 
 and she speedily became impressed with the 
 fear that he, in some shape or other, was the 
 cause of so marked a change. Filled with 
 alarm, she resolved to mention to her uncle 
 the words which her aunt had dropt concern- 
 ing that young man ; but the occurrence of 
 the next day rendered her doubtful as to the 
 justness of her suspicions, and uncertain 
 whether Herries was really the object of 
 Amy's preference. 
 
 The family were just preparing to seat 
 themselves at their two o'clock dinner, when 
 the smart crack of a whip drew the bustling 
 Mrs. Gray to the window, and thrusting out 
 as much of her person as its dimensions would 
 admit, she exclaimed, " Preserve us a' ! it's 
 Mr. Herries ; and he 's mounted on a fine 
 horse. Here, John, man ! ye maun rise and 
 tak a haud o't ye '11 hae to gang ower to 
 Peddie's wi' it." A glance which Alice could 
 not help stealing at her cousin, discovered to 
 her the colour rising like crimson in her 
 cheeks ; but it resembled rather the flush of 
 resentment than that of pleasure, as she 
 turned to her mother, saying, "Troth, mother, 
 ye 've little to do, sending my father on sic 
 an errand. If Mr. Herries kens his place nae 
 better than to come galloping on fine horses 
 to poor folks' houses, I think my father should 
 ken his better than to act as his servant." ' 
 
 " Nonsense, lassie what's that ye're say- 
 ing ? is nae Mr. Herries a gentleman ? " 
 
 "I ken nae, and I care nae what Mr. 
 Herries may be," said Amy ; " I'm sure we 
 hae seen little o' him of late, and I'm thinking 
 " but here Amy's eloquence was inter- 
 rupted by the entrance of Mr. Herries him- 
 self. He did not, however, come alone, for 
 William Douglas entered the room at the 
 same moment. Amy, who had turned away 
 as if to avoid being the first to speak to 
 Herries, now rose, and holding out her hand 
 to Douglas, welcomed him in the kindest 
 manner ; then turning to Herries, she ob- 
 served, with a slight toss of her head, " Bless 
 me, Mr. Herries, is this you ? ye're a sight 
 for sair e'en ; and mine are sae blind, I did 
 nae see ye." 
 
 Herries coloured, but replied with a laugh, 
 " Then we must have a consultation, Amy. 
 You know I'm to be a doctor, I must ex- 
 amine them." 
 
 "I thank you, sir," said Amy, rather 
 scornfully ; "but we're weel enough off in 
 the country here for doctor's attendance ; 
 your Edinbi-o' folk are no sae muckle to be 
 depended on ; there 's ower lang atween their 
 visits it tempts a body to look other gaits." 
 So saying, Amy turned to William Douglas, 
 and helping him to the best of all that was 
 before her, she chatted and laughed with him 
 during the whole time of dinner. 
 
 Alice was bewildered. Could it be William 
 Douglas, after all, that her cousin preferredl 
 The bare possibility of this sent a pang 
 through her heart ; yet, was he not a wor- 
 thy, an excellent young man ? and, had she 
 not dreaded her cousin's apparent attachment 
 to Hei-ries ? Had she mot even resolved to 
 inform her uncle of the cause which she had 
 for this alarm ? What, then, could account 
 for the pain she experienced at a discovery 
 which could only redound to the advantage 
 of that cousin whom she loved so much? 
 She more than once asked herself this ques- 
 tion ; yet the task of self-examination was so 
 painful, that she could not force herself to 
 perform it rigidly. 
 
 Alice passed a miserable day. How diffe- 
 rent from what she had expected, in again 
 meeting with Douglas ! She did think that 
 once or twice he had tried to disengage him- 
 self from her cousin, and turn to her ; and 
 more than once their eyes had met as his 
 were fixed upon her with affection ; but 
 Alice felt that she herself had been so pre- 
 occupied and miserable, that her very look 
 might have chilled his advances. And in
 
 176 
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 truth such was the case, for William left the 
 cottage at night, disappointed and unhappy 
 at the behaviour of Alice, so different from 
 her former frank and open manner, and re- 
 solved to know more of her heart, before he 
 should permit his own to dwell so exclusively 
 upon her. How Amy and Herries had 
 parted, Alice had not seen ; hut that night 
 Amy was in better spirits, and talked gayly 
 with her cousin, although she avoided all 
 mention of the name of Herries. Alice would 
 fain have introduced the subject when they 
 retired for the night, and have inquired 
 directly of her cousin what were in truth her 
 sentiments with regard to Herries ; but she 
 met with no encouragement, and the doubts 
 which she now entertained respecting the 
 situation of Douglas's affections, were so 
 painful, that she was but little inclined to 
 press a conversation that might have touched 
 on so tender a point. 
 
 Matters had continued thus for some days 
 when Alice returning home one afternoon 
 from Lasswade, observed a boy standing with 
 a horse at the end of a little lane which leads 
 down to the river. Thinking th#t she recog- 
 nised it as the same which Herries had ridden 
 when last at the cottage, she inquired of the 
 boy, whether the horse did not belong to a 
 gentleman of that name. 
 
 " I ken nae if he be a Mr. Herries or no," 
 said the boy ; " but it's a gentleman I have 
 seen afore now at our public, and he trysted 
 me to wait him here wi' his horse at twa 
 o'clock. I'm thinking he's gaen doun the 
 water, for he had his fishing wand wi' him." 
 On hearing this Alice hastened home, but 
 found there only her aunt ; " Where is Amy ? 
 where is my cousin?" asked she with some 
 anxiety. 
 
 " What's the lassie in sic a fluster about?" 
 returned her aunt ; " Amy's doun at Kevock 
 Mill, looking after Mrs. Peddie's bees : she 
 said how Mrs. Peddie wanted her, for a' her 
 ain lassies were thrang washing ; so Amy took 
 her seam wi' her, and gaed awa about an hour 
 syne." 
 
 . The alarm of Alice was in no degree abated 
 by this account of the matter, she hurried 
 from her aunt, and sought her cousin in Mrs. 
 Peddie's garden. There she was not ; but 
 her work was lying on the grass, and she 
 was convinced that its owner could not be 
 far distant. She turned to the water side, and 
 after straining her eyes as far as she could 
 see in search of her cousin, was just turning 
 away to make farther inquiry at the mill, 
 when she caught a 'glimpse of a woman's 
 
 shawl. A group of trees intervened between 
 her and this object ; but shifting her position, 
 and climbing up the bank, she distinctly saw 
 Amy in conversation with a person whom 
 she could not for a moment doubt to be 
 Herries. In the next instant the gentleman 
 crossed the fence, and disappeared so quickly 
 that Alice thought she must have been ob- 
 served ; while Amy advanced alone by the 
 path near the water side. 
 
 Alice now hastened to join her cousin, and 
 coming up with her, put at once the question, 
 if it was Mr. Herries from whom she had 
 just parted ? 
 
 " May lie it was, and maybe it wasna," 
 replied Amy, pettishly ; " but ye needna fash 
 yoursel' wi' what disna concern you, Alice. 
 Ye didna see me herding after you this gait, 
 whan you and Willie Douglas were sae thick 
 at the Haugh thegither." 
 
 " Oh, Amy, dinna speak sae unkindly to 
 me," replied her cousin. " Ye ken weel if 
 it was the like of Willie Douglas that was 
 after ye, I wadna think o' watching you this 
 gait. Oh remember my aunt's dying words 
 about Charles Herries ; he's no to be trusted, 
 Amy. He's a gentleman out of your station 
 entirely : he can never mak you his wife 
 and surely " 
 
 "And surely I'll never be his mistress," 
 returned Amy. " I'm muckle obliged to ye 
 for yer good opinion, Alice ; but if there's no 
 much to trust to in my honesty, ye might 
 have trusted something to my pride : but keep 
 your mind easy, cousin ; for ye may live to 
 see me Willie Douglas's wife, but never 
 Charles Herries's madam." 
 
 Cut to the heart by her cousin's unkind- 
 ness, Alice turned from her in silence, and 
 went home to her work. But as Amy seemed 
 resolved against confiding in her, she on her 
 part determined to acquaint her uncle with 
 all that had passed, that he might watch 
 over his daughter's safety ; and, accordingly, 
 she took the first opportunity of doing so. 
 Her uncle thanked her, kindly observing, 
 " Weel, Alice, ye hae acted like a good and 
 prudent lassie in telling me a' this ; for I 
 was just saying as muckle to her mother, and 
 telling her that I never seed ony gude come 
 o' gentlemen gallivanting after puir folk : 
 but her mother's a fule, ye ken, and thinks 
 naething's ower gude for her bairn. But 
 troth, Alice, I was looking gey gleg after the 
 lassie the tither day, whan thae twa chaps 
 cam here, and I couldna help thinking it was 
 Willie Douglas she was maist ta'enup about; 
 and J/m sure if it was sae, I wad never
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES, 
 
 177 
 
 thwart her ; for, though Willie's no far ben 
 in the waiid yet, and has naething laid to 
 the fore, I hae plenty, and he 's ane that will 
 rise, or I 'm mistaen ; for lie's a clever chap, 
 and wad male a kind hushand to my bairn. 
 But ye '11 say naething o' this to yer aunty 
 it's nonsense raising the stour to blind our 
 ain een ; but look weel to my bairn, Alice ; 
 and if she's thinking o' Willie Douglas, ye 
 can tee the ba' till her, and keep that flory 
 chap Herries out o' her gait : and I '11 ha8 
 a crack wi' Willie ; he 's no want my coun- 
 tenance, though he may hae naething o' his 
 ain to the fore yet." 
 
 Poor Alice ! what a task had her uncle 
 unconsciously imposed on her ! to sacrifice 
 her own happiness without even the certainty 
 of promoting that of her cousin ; nor could 
 she avoid asking herself how far it might even 
 be her duty to do so. Yet how could she hesi- 
 tate to watch over Amy, and save her at all 
 risks from the seductions of Herries ? In this, 
 her heart told her that she could not err. 
 " Amy must be saved," said she to herself, 
 " cost what it may, even should my own 
 happiness be the price ; " and too soon had 
 she reason to believe that duty and friendship 
 required no less a sacrifice. 
 
 William Douglas continued his visits at 
 the cottage, and observed with increasing- 
 perplexity aud pain, that, while Amy received 
 him with kindness and good humour, Alice, 
 unhappy and preoccupied herself, kept aloof, 
 and at times appeared even to bestow more 
 of her attention upon Herries than on him. 
 He watched her eye, as it followed the move- 
 ments of Herries, with disquiet and jealousy ; 
 and, during their walks, if William attempted 
 to linger behind with her, or sought to engross 
 that attention which she once so readily 
 yielded him, he saw that she became restless 
 until an opportunity occurred for quickening 
 her pace and joining her cousin. The affec- 
 tionate but proud heart of Douglas could not 
 long endure this change of conduct in one 
 who had once regarded him so differently ; 
 and, after some ineffectual efforts to regain 
 his former footing in the good graces of Alice, 
 he at length sought to soothe his irritated 
 feelings with the gaiety and good humour of 
 her cousin's society, and in this he met with 
 every encouragement, from the father at least. 
 
 The first sensations of Douglas were only 
 those of gratitude for the kindness shown to 
 him ; but, after a while, flattered by the 
 attention of Amy, he became more sensible 
 to her beauty, and yielded to it, at length, a 
 degree of admiration, which, however different 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 from the devotion of true affection, was suffi- 
 cient to deceive both himself and others. 
 Alice could not but perceive this, and felt it 
 with a bitterness which she could not always 
 conceal. One evening when William, more 
 than usually elevated by the father's kind- 
 ness, and the obvious encouragement of the 
 daughter, appeared, in his devotion to his 
 new mistress, to have forgotten even the 
 presence of the meek, but neglected Alice, 
 the poor girl, unable to endure the pain of 
 slighted and insulted affection, sought her 
 own room, to give vent to the anguish she 
 could no longer conceal. Her retreat was 
 remarked by Amy, whose eye had discovered 
 her distress, and too well guessed the cause. 
 Struck with a pang of remorse, she waited 
 but till Douglas had gone, when she sought 
 her cousin with the intention of making her 
 peace with her. But Amy was too conscious 
 of her own inexcusable conduct, to be in very 
 good humour with herself or any one else ; 
 and she opened the door of her room scarce 
 knowing what to say. Alice, who had 
 thrown herself upon her bed, to weep without 
 control, now started from it and endeavoured 
 to conceal her tears. 
 
 " What is the matter, Alice ? " inquired 
 Amy, looking earnestly at her pale face and 
 swollen eyes. 
 
 " Oh nothing, Amy leave me leave 
 me," returned the weeping girl. 
 
 " I canna leave ye till ye tell me what 
 ails ye, for I'm sure, Alice, I dinna ken 
 what ye wad be at. First ye was ill pleased 
 whan ye thought me ta'en up wi' Charles 
 Herries, and now yer worse vexed whan ye 
 think it's Willie Douglas. I'm sure I dinna 
 ken how to please you, or what will mak 
 you happy." 
 
 " Ye can never mak me happy again, 
 Amy ; but oh ! if I only thought that in 
 spoiling my happiness ye had made sure o' 
 your ain, and that of the poor lad who thinks 
 ye love him, I wad be content ; but I fear 
 I fear " 
 
 " Weel, weel, dear Alice, dinna vex yersel 
 sae ; for if I canna content ye that way, I 
 maybe may anither, and a' may rin right 
 yet, I hope. Mony a mair broken boat 
 than I 've to row, has come to land ; but it 
 maun a' be left to my ain guiding " 
 
 " May Heaven guide you right ! " exclaimed 
 Alice ; " but oh ! remember ye scarce can 
 expect that, if ye lead others wrang " 
 
 " Weel, weel, lassie, I '11 try and be a 
 better bairn ; so kiss me, Alice, and say 
 we 're friends again." The kiss which Alice 
 
 No. 12.
 
 178 
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 gave her cousin was a true pledge that not 
 one feeling of resentment remained in her 
 guileless breast ; and kneeling down in her 
 little apartment, she commended herself, as 
 well as the thoughtless Amy, to that God, 
 who is able to bring good out of seeming 
 evil, and shed a light over the darkest way. 
 
 Some weeks elapsed after this conversation 
 between the cousins, during the greater part 
 of which time Alice was confined to the 
 house by a severe sprain in her ankle ; an 
 accident which she the more regretted, as it 
 was the means of removing from Amy the 
 wholesome restraint of her constant presence ; 
 and she grieved to observe that her thought- 
 less cousin was but too willing to take 
 advantage of this unfortunate liberty. Her 
 frequent absences were not unmarked by 
 Alice ; and she tried, though with but little 
 success, to awaken her aunt's attention to 
 this subject. 
 
 "Dear sirs," said Mrs. Gray, on one of 
 these occasions, " what needs ye be making 
 sic a speakulation about the lassie diverting 
 hersel a wee? I'm sure I'm thankfu' to see 
 her ta'en up wi' ony kind o' nonsense ; for 
 she 's been dowie enough o' late. And what 
 is it, after a' ? she 's only gaen doun to Jess 
 Tod's to buy ribbons, to help to busk hersel 
 for the dance at John Thamson's kirn the 
 night." 
 
 "Oh, aunt," said Alice, earnestly, "yer 
 surely no going to let Amy gang to the kirn 
 the night ; and her father no at hame, and 
 me laid up here, and nane to look after 
 her ! " 
 
 "Nane to look after her! My certie," 
 exclaimed the indignant Mrs. Gray, " things 
 are come to a bonny pass, whan a mither's 
 no' thought fit to look after her ain bairn. 
 But I never kenned muckle gude come o' sae 
 muckle herding. Young folk maun be young 
 folk ; and it's nonsense to look for auld heads 
 on young shouthers. I dinna want to see 
 my bairn setting up there as mim as a May 
 puddock ; it 's just enough to hae ane in the 
 house to preach to them that's aulder nor 
 hersel." 
 
 Alice saw it was in vain to insist further; 
 but she earnestly hoped that her uncle might 
 return before her aunt expected him ; but in 
 this she was doomed to be disappointed. The 
 evening came, and her aunt and Amy set out 
 for Lasswade, to join the party at John 
 Thompson's kirn, whilst Alice was left to 
 wonder at her own apprehensions, and to 
 count the hours till their return. Ten o'clock 
 at length came ; and with joy she heard the 
 
 bark of old Jowler in the garden, and her 
 aunt's voice soothing him as she came into 
 the house. 
 
 " But where is Amy ? " inquired Alice, on 
 seeing her aunt enter alone, " where is my 
 cousin ? " 
 
 " Whare would she be," returned her aunt, 
 " but just skipping like a mawkin on John 
 Thamson's floor ! Troth, I hadna the heart 
 to bring the creature hame sae sune in the 
 flight ; and my een were gathering straes, 
 this hour past, wi' being sae sune up in the 
 morning, so I behoved to come hame mysel." 
 
 " But, dear aunt, could ye leave Amy to 
 come hame in the dark, and sae late at night, 
 and you no wi' her?" 
 
 " She 's no' coming hame in the dark ; ye 
 think naebody has a mouthfu' of sense but 
 yersel, Alice ; but Amy promised me to sleep 
 a' night at Jess Tod's, and to be up here in 
 gude time in the morning: sae gang t<> yer 
 bed, lassie, and dinna be clavering there a' 
 night about naething." Alice did go to bed ; 
 and, after some hours of restless anxiety, at 
 last she fell asleep. 
 
 The low sun of an October morning was 
 still struggling through the mist which hung 
 in light wreaths above the Swallow brae, and 
 partly hid and partly showed the beautiful 
 woods of Mavis bank, bright in their autumnal 
 dress, when Farmer Gray, mounted on his 
 shaggy pony, came trotting down the glen of 
 Billstane burn. He was now near his home ; 
 and his heart warmed at the thoughts of 
 eating his comfortable meal at his own fire- 
 side, surrounded by his family. " Truly my 
 lot has fallen in pleasant places," said the 
 good man to himself, as he looked around 
 him on the lovely scene, not altogether 
 insensible to its beauty ; " and, if I could 
 only see my bairn married to some weel-doing 
 lad, I wadna hae a care in this warld. But, 
 Lord guide us ! what'n a crature's yon, 
 standing on the brae-head, like a bogle to 
 scare the crows wi' ? I wish she mayna 
 frighten the powney." Just at that moment 
 this wild and tattered figure leaped from the 
 bank ; and, springing forward, attempted to 
 seize the bridle of the pony : but the animal 
 started and plunged so violently, that it threw 
 the old man ; and then, finding itself free 
 from its burden, set off, at a full gallop, down 
 the lane. 
 
 " Deil's in the daft fule," said Gray, rising 
 and shaking himself ; " hae ye nae better 
 morning's wark than to drive an honest man 
 aff his beast, and maist break the banes o' 
 him?"
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 179 
 
 " Hand yer hand, senseless crature," replied 
 the mad woman, in a tone of lofty contempt ; 
 "haud yer hand, and dinna add sin to sorrow; 
 be thankful yer head's no broken, though 
 I'm thinking ye '11 sune find a broken heart 
 is waur to bind. Gang yer ways hame, and 
 see if there 's no a waur fa' biding ye than 
 that ye hae gotten frae me this morning. 
 See if yer bonny daughter can dight the stain 
 frae her gude name as readily as ye '11 ding 
 aff the dirt frae yer auld coat ! " 
 
 "For God's sake, woman, what do you 
 mean ? " asked the terrified father. 
 
 " I just mean that yer dochter's aff wi' a 
 braw gentleman in a carriage and four just 
 the gait I gaed mysel but see what cam 
 o't?" 
 
 " Wha was in the carriage, woman ? " 
 
 " Wha was in the carriage, man ! am I 
 no telling ye ? It was either Amy Gray, or 
 else mysel, I dinna ken which," replied the 
 crazy creature ; "but weel do I ken him that 
 was sitting beside her. Just the same gait 
 did he look on me wi' his twa black glancing 
 een ; for there canna be twa in this weary 
 warld, sae weel-faured and sae ill-minded. 
 And to tak my bairn frae me, too ! Oh do 
 ye ken whare they pat it ? for I'm wearied 
 seeking it night and day, and the screeching 
 blackgards in every town rinning after me, 
 and the very howlets and pyets laughing and 
 chattering, and making a fule o' me about 
 it!" 
 
 " Tut ! she 's but a crazy body after all," 
 muttered the poor man to himself, endea- 
 vouring to shake off the effect of her alarming 
 address. "What needs I be terrifying mysel 
 in this way wi' her nonsense ? " so he turned 
 from her, and walked forward to his own 
 house at a quick pace. 
 
 The voice of his wife speaking cheerfully 
 within the house relieved his heart, and he 
 entered tHe little kitchen with an animated 
 countenance. "How's a' wi' ye, gudewife, 
 and how are baith my bairns ? " said he, look- 
 ing round, "But whare's Amy? Alice, 
 whare 's your cousin ? " 
 
 " Amy 's no far aff, gudeman ; she '11 be 
 here belive, she 's only doun at Lasswade 
 for a gliffy." 
 
 " Uncle," said Alice, " Amy was at Tham- 
 son's kirn last night ; my aunt allowed her 
 to sleep at Lasswade, and she has been at 
 Jess Tod's a' night." 
 
 " God grant it may be sae," returned the 
 old man. " But I maun gang doun and see, 
 for I wish a' may be right." With these 
 words, he snatched up his hat, and darted 
 
 from the house. Mrs. Gray followed calling 
 after him, and endeavouring to assure him of 
 her daughter's safety, but in vain ; the 
 anxious father hurried on. Alice partook 
 deeply of her uncle's fears ; all her former 
 doubts and suspicions returned to her mind ; 
 and sick with apprehension, she awaited his 
 return in breathless anxiety. 
 
 Her terror was by no means diminished 
 when she saw her uncle return some time 
 after, and enter the little garden alone. In 
 his face of misery she read the confirmation 
 of all her worst fears. She could not speak ; 
 but she clasped her uncle's hands, and gazed 
 with fearful earnestness in his face. 
 
 " Gudeman, for God's sake, speak," said 
 Mrs. Gray. "What ails ye? where is Amy? 
 where is my bairn ? " 
 
 " Gane, gane for ever, gane wi' a villain," 
 said the old man, with bitter emphasis. " Oh, 
 it was ower true what that mad creature 
 tauld me ; for he 's carried her aff, and what 
 can she look for, but shame and misery : to be 
 thrown from him like a worthless weed whan 
 he 's tired o' wearing her ? " 
 
 "Dinna say that, John Gray," said his 
 wife. " I'll never believe that my bairn 'ill 
 gang siccan a gait : she's ower muckle sense, 
 and ower muckle pride, to follow ony man 
 and her no his leal wife. She might hae 
 tell't her mither, to be sure, and I wad hae 
 keepet her secret safe ; but there 's reasons 
 for a' things, and nae doubt we'll hear o' her 
 sune. But, for God's sake, sit doun, gude- 
 man, for ye 're no weel able to stand : yer 
 breath 's clean gane, and yer e'en are starting 
 out o' yer head like a wull cat's." 
 
 " Dear uncle, do sit doun ; it 's true that 
 my aunt 's saying. Ye 're no able for all 
 ye've done, ye maun lie doun a little," 
 urged Alice. 
 
 " Na, na, Alice, I'll never lie doun till I 
 ken what 's come o' my bairn. I maun awa' 
 to Edinburgh, and see what help I can get 
 there. But gie me a drink ony thing 
 that 's cauld, for my head 's burning." His 
 wife gave him a jug of beer, which he drank 
 off at a draught ; then rising, he took his 
 hat, and would have put it on, but, stagger- 
 ing back a pace, he exclaimed, " My head ! 
 my head ! " and fell senseless on the ground. 
 
 Alice flew to his relief. She untied his 
 neckcloth, for his face was purple and swol- 
 len ; then raising his head upon her lap, she 
 called to her aunt, for God's sake, to bring 
 her some water. The poor woman stood 
 stupified, unable to speak or to move. " Oh, 
 bring me water ! he 's only in a faint.
 
 ISO 
 
 TIIK COUSLNS. 
 
 There's some one in the garden, call on any 
 body to help us ! " The poor woman ran 
 out into the garden, and returned in a moment 
 followed by William Douglas, whom she met 
 coming to the house. " Oh, William, God 
 has sent you in our greatest need ! run, for 
 Heaven's sake, to Lasswade, and bring the 
 doctor, my uncle's very ill." Douglas 
 saw the state in which the poor man was, 
 and without a word of question or reply, 
 hurried to obey the orders of Alice. 
 
 Alas ! it was too late. Before the surgeon 
 came, her uncle was gone for ever. Indeed, 
 the only symptom of life he had shown since 
 his fall, was once raising his hand with a 
 convulsive motion to his head, while Alice 
 sat supporting him upon her lap ; but the 
 next moment it fell powerless by his side, 
 and she knew that all was over. 
 
 Her aunt had run out to seek the assis- 
 tance of her neighbours, believing that her 
 husband was only in a swoon ; and when 
 William returned with the surgeon, they 
 found Alice still sitting on the ground sup- 
 porting her uncle's head. " Oh, you are 
 too late, I fear," said the poor girl ; " he is 
 gone, I fear, for ever." The surgeon put his 
 hand to the pulse, and, taking out his lan- 
 cets, attempted to bleed the unfortunate man, 
 but in vain, the blood had taken a fatal 
 direction to the head, and the attack had 
 been mortal. 
 
 The surgeon assisted Douglas in remov- 
 ing the body into the next room, whither 
 Alice would have followed it ; but he 
 begged her now to think of herself. " You 
 do not seem strong, my good girl ; and this 
 has been a severe trial on you. You must 
 now attend to your own health." But of 
 herself Alice could not think : who was to 
 acquaint her poor aunt with the fatal event? 
 who should prepare her for this heavy 
 blow? Douglas guessed her thoughts, and 
 entreating her to spare herself, assured her 
 that he would go and meet her aunt, and tell 
 her every thing. 
 
 In a short time they entered the house ; 
 and Alice saw, in the increased agitation of 
 William's countenance, that her aunt had 
 acquainted him with Amy's flight, and the 
 cause of all this misery. The tears ran down 
 the cheeks of Alice as she held out her hand 
 to William, who took it and pressed it with 
 fervour. For some minutes he was unable 
 to speak ; but at length, " Oh, Alice," he said, 
 " we have been cruelly deceived ! Did you 
 suspect nothing o' all this ? " 
 
 " Yes, William, I did suspect it, at least 
 
 I had reason to fear that Amy lias long been 
 attached to Herries ; so did my poor uncle. 
 But, oh ! I never believed she could have had 
 the heart to leave us; and of late I didna 
 ken what to think. I did what I could to 
 keep her out o' that bad man's way ; but she 
 never would open her heart to me, and I was 
 working in the dark." 
 
 " Oh, we ha'e all been working in the 
 dark, Alice," said William, with bitterness ; 
 " but nane were sae blinded as I was. I 
 might ha'e kenned you better, vain sense- 
 less creature that I was ; and for one sae 
 heartless too ! " 
 
 " Oh, dinna ca' her heartless, William ! 
 she's no that ! I'm sure she never meant 
 to bring such sorrow on us. She liked her 
 father dearly, and wouldna ha'e hurted a 
 hair o' his head : and cunningly, I'm sure, 
 maun that wretch ha'e deceived her ! " 
 
 " How do we ken if it 's wi' her will that 
 she 's gaen wi' him ? " said Douglas. 
 
 " Oh, William, that was what my uncle 
 was going to Edinburgh to see about to try 
 and find them out ; but now oh, I have 
 only you to look to, for I canna rest till I 
 ken whether Amy 's his wife or no, or 
 whether she went wi' him willingly." 
 
 " His wife, Alice ? I fear he 's no the man 
 to mak her that. I ha'e learnt mair about 
 him since I was here, than ever I kenned 
 before ; and I was just coming on purpose to 
 consult your uncle about it, little thinking o' 
 what was to meet me here." He then in- 
 formed Alice, that in looking over some old 
 books and papers belonging to her aunt, he 
 had met with several notices relating to 
 Herries's birth. They consisted chiefly of 
 letters from the young man's father, who 
 signed himself " George Dalton ; " the earlier 
 ones were addressed to the husband of Marion 
 Brown, the latter ones to herself. It appeared 
 that Mr. Dalton was a gentleman of property 
 in Yorkshire ; and, by what William Dou- 
 glas could gather from these papers, little 
 doubt remained that Herries was his natural 
 son, placed, as it appeared, for some years 
 under the care of William and Marion 
 Brown, but subsequently removed into Edin- 
 burgh for education. An anxious wish was 
 expressed in these letters, that the boy should 
 be kept ignorant of his parents, and especially 
 prevented from any intercourse with his 
 mother, who was alluded to as being in an 
 unsound state of mind ; and certain expres- 
 sions contained in one of them left little 
 doubt in Douglas's mind, as to the identity 
 of this unfortunate mother. This letter was
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 181 
 
 apparently in reply to some communication 
 from Widow Brown, and ran as follows : 
 
 " I have received your letter with regard 
 to that unfortunate woman, and have only 
 to reply, that it is not with my consent that 
 she is again at liberty. But those who had 
 charge of her became unreasonable in their 
 demands, and it is possible that my refusal 
 to comply with these may have induced them 
 to abandon it without informing me of their 
 intention. I do not, however, see why I 
 should continue to pay so large a sum for 
 depriving the poor creature of her liberty. 
 She is harmless ; and in the long period 
 which has elapsed, has probably forgotten 
 those whom it certainly would be unadvisable 
 that she should remember. The fancy of 
 calling herself Lady Bothwell is fortunate in 
 every way. You acted against my wishes at 
 first, in having any communication with her, 
 and must now take the consequence ; but 
 should she prove seriously troublesome, I 
 shall take steps for her removal," &c. 
 
 Another letter threw some light upon the 
 character of Herries ; but it was not of a 
 favourable nature. It alluded to complaints 
 which had been made against him by the 
 person with whom he lodged in Edinburgh, 
 and contained the following passage : "I 
 must trouble you again to find a more suit- 
 able person, under whom to place that wild 
 boy. The accounts I receive of his extrava- 
 gance and dissipation are such as might 
 almost induce me to throw him off for ever ; 
 yet God knows what he may be reserved for ! 
 He who stands between this prodigal and a 
 fair inheritance, may in one moment be 
 
 taken from me, and then but it is idle 
 
 to speculate." 
 
 The perusal of these papers afforded no 
 relief to the uneasiness of Alice. In the 
 knowledge of Herries's parents, they had, it 
 is true, something which might serve as a clue 
 by which to trace his movements ; but still 
 it did not appear probable that he would carry 
 Amy into England. Edinburgh would more 
 likely be selected for their seclusion, and there 
 Douglas resolved to seek them. In the mean- 
 time, however, the arrangements consequent 
 upon the death of Farmer Gray required their 
 attention, for his widow was totally unfit to 
 think or to act upon the occasion. But it 
 was no small relief to Alice to see, that how- 
 ever unable to make herself useful her aunt 
 might be, she found no small relief in weeping 
 over and talking of her misfortunes to every 
 neighbour who came in ; and of these spiri- 
 tual comforters she soon assembled a strong 
 
 party, who all poured in consolation accord- 
 ing to their several abilities. 
 
 " Dear heart ! " said Mrs. Peddie ; " it's an 
 awfu' dispensation this, and sae sudden too : 
 but we maun a' die ; it's a debt we maun a' 
 pay ! and he was ten years aulder than yer- 
 sel, gudewife, was he no?" 
 
 " Ten years ! " repeated the sobbing widow, 
 " na, ye little ken, woman ; he was mair than 
 twal. A'body wondered whan we gaed the- 
 gither ; but what's a' that now I'll no miss 
 him the less ;" and the sobbing recommenced 
 more violently. 
 
 " Nae doubt, nae doubt, that's true ; but 
 ye suld mind, gudewife, that he was the full 
 ripe corn ready for the sickle, and no caff, 
 to be ta'en unawares. His spiritual affairs 
 were weel seen to, and nae doubt sae were 
 his temporals : ye'll be weel seen to, Mrs. 
 Gray." 
 
 " Ay, ye'll no hae poverty and grief baith 
 at ance hadding you doon, like mony a puir 
 body," said Jess Tod ; " and ye needna 
 grudge on ye're mournings; tho' I'll mak 
 them cheaper than ony o' your Edinburgh 
 queans. Ye hae but ae bairn too." 
 
 " And she's provided for," interrupted the 
 impatient Mrs. Thompson, who had long been 
 watching to get in her word. " I aye thought 
 we wad hae news o' her bonny face ; I never 
 saw muckle gude come o' sae muckle beauty. 
 Thank Heaven ! my twa lassies are just 
 neebour-like." 
 
 " Ye're thankfu' for sma' mercies, nee- 
 bour," returned Mrs. Gray, somewhat tartly. 
 " They said I wasna that ill-faured mysel', 
 ance ; yet I think I have gotten on in the 
 world just as weel as otfhers : God forgie me 
 for saying sae now. But as to my puir bairn, 
 ye needna be for lifting her up, before ye're 
 siu-e she's doon : but I ken what ye're at ; 
 ye're spited at her because she wadna tak up 
 wi' your Jock." 
 
 " Weel, I hope she's taen up wi' nae waur, 
 neebour," replied Mrs. Thompson " But 
 here comes Alice, and she's a credit till ony 
 house." 
 
 Alice came to thank the neighbours for 
 their attention, and to dismiss them for the 
 night, permitting only Mrs. Peddie to remain, 
 at her aunt's solicitation, she being supposed 
 best to understand the art of consolation. 
 
 Next morning, Douglas, who had walked 
 early to Lasswade, in hopes of picking up 
 some intelligence, returned with a letter ad- 
 dressed to Alice, which, upon opening, she 
 found to be from Amy, and to run as fol- 
 lows :
 
 182 
 
 Tin: COUSINS. 
 
 " Dear Alice, I write to you, for ye've been 
 mair than a sister to me, and aye my best 
 friend and counsellor; and now yemauu stand 
 my advocate wi' my dear father and mother, 
 and get them to forgie their bairn, for a' the 
 distress she may hae gien them. But I could 
 not prevent it for I didua ken what was to 
 happen. But dinna think he took me awa' 
 against my will : that wasna the case. 
 There's muckle about it that I canna tell at 
 present ; but there's neither sin nor shame 
 in it, farther than no consulting my parents ; 
 but that he wadna let me do, and I've to 
 trust a' to him. I hope, however, that the 
 day will soon come when I may ask their 
 blessing on mair than myself, and my father 
 and mother be proud to gie it. But mean- 
 time they maun mak no inquiries about it, 
 for that wad only breed mischief, and 
 trust to hearing from me ; for I hope the 
 sun will soon get above the mist, and a' that's 
 dark at present will be cleared up to their 
 satisfaction. I wish I could hear about you 
 all ; but I maun just bide till things tak a 
 turn. Meantime, dear Alice, dinna think 
 hardly o' me ; for I had a ravelled pirn to 
 wind, and was aft obliged to go in and out 
 rather than break it a' thegether. And now 
 I maun say, God bless my dear family, prays 
 their loving daughter, 
 
 AMY." 
 
 Such was the letter, and it conveyed great 
 relief to Alice's mind, for it convinced her 
 that however he might desire to conceal it 
 from his parents for a time, her cousin was 
 in truth the wife of Herries. " Oh," thought 
 she, " had we received this letter before my 
 uncle came home, all might yet have been 
 well. Poor Amy, little do you think what 
 a price ye hae payed for the rash step ye've 
 taen ; and sorely will ye suffer, poor thing, 
 when ye ken how dear it's cost ye ; and God 
 knows, there's mair will suffer than you. A 
 ravelled pirn ye've made o' it ; but, better ye 
 had broken yere ain thread, than tangled 
 others wi' it. But may God forgie her as 
 freely as I do ; it will be a comfort to her 
 mother, and to poor William, to see this 
 letter," saying which, Alice arose and sought 
 her aunt. 
 
 We must now leave the family at Billstane 
 glen, and follow the thoughtless Amy to a 
 small lodging in the vicinity of Edinburgh, 
 where Herries had carried her immediately 
 after their elopement. Amy had not deceived 
 her parents in saying, that she herself was 
 unprepared for the suddenness of that step. 
 She had no farther object in remaining be- 
 
 hind her mother, on the evening when it took 
 place, than the hopes of seeing IKT lover, 
 who had concerted with her this plan of 
 meeting atFarmer Thompson's merry making. 
 This he easily effected ; for, no sooner was 
 he aware of Mrs. Gray's retreat, than he 
 sauntered towards the barn, wliich was the 
 scene of this rural festivity, and after remain- 
 ing some time a mere spectator, was, as he 
 expected, invited by some idlers near the 
 door, to join in the dance : he thus obtained 
 all the opportunity he desired of communi- 
 cating with Amy, and soon prevailed upon 
 her to leave her companions, and accompany 
 him to a place where they could converse at 
 greater liberty. 
 
 The object of this conversation was to in- 
 duce his mistress no longer to delay their 
 mutual happiness, but to consent to a private 
 marriage, and go off with him that very 
 night, while her father's absence, and her 
 mother's permission for her to sleep at Lass- 
 wade, all favoured their operations. It is 
 useless to detail the arguments which her 
 lover made use of in order to bring Amy into 
 his views. They were at last unhappily 
 successful, and with the sole stipulation, that 
 they should drive immediately to the house 
 of a clergyman in the vicinity of Edinburgh, 
 on whose secrecy they could depend, did Amy 
 yield to the pleadings of her lover, and ere 
 another hour had passed over her head, she 
 was the wife of Herries. 
 
 It seems probable that Herries himself was 
 scarcely more prepared than his mistress for 
 taking this last irrevocable step. Perhaps he 
 had hopes of gaining her upon easier terms, 
 but the difficulty which he found in recon- 
 ciling her even to this far less alarming 
 measure, effectually prevented any hint of a 
 more questionable description. As for the 
 confiding Amy, she believed his hesitation to 
 have been alone occasioned by the difficulties 
 of his situation, and his ignorance regarding 
 those on whom he was dependant ; and cer- 
 tainly, on his first acquaintance Avith Amy, 
 this consideration had influenced his conduct, 
 and had induced him frequently to absent 
 himself, and to struggle against that ascen- 
 dency which she was daily gaining over him. 
 He could not forget that, in forming a con- 
 nexion beneath himself, he risked the dis- 
 pleasure of his patrons, for although ignorant 
 of his parents, it was impossible for him to 
 doubt that he had been bom in the rank of 
 a gentleman. His education had been libe- 
 ral, his supplies were equally so ; and al- 
 though the irregularities of his conduct had
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 183 
 
 met with reprehension, involving even a threat 
 of forfeiting the means of support, and of 
 being abandoned for ever, these were often 
 coupled with expressions of earnest anxiety 
 for his welfare, and the most impressive cau- 
 tions against forming any connexions which 
 might embarrass him in future, should he be 
 called upon to move in a higher rank of life. 
 Often had these cautions occurred to his mind 
 during his first acquaintance with Amy Gray ; 
 but the witchery of her beauty had been too 
 powerful for his resolution, and now the 
 possession of so lovely and innocent a crea- 
 ture, banished from his mind every thought 
 beyond those of exultation at having secured 
 his prize. 
 
 This dream of happiness continued longer 
 than such visions do in general ; for the sweet- 
 ness and gaiety of his young wife combined 
 with her beauty in securing to her a very 
 powerful influence over the affections even 
 of the fickle and selfish Herries. But this 
 state of things could not last for ever. Amy 
 had urged her husband repeatedly to write 
 his guardian and own his marriage. It was 
 better, she justly observed, to ascertain their 
 real situation at once, than to live on in con- 
 cealment and haunted by a constant dread 
 of detection. But Herries never wanted a 
 reason for delaying this communication : 
 " He should wait," he said, " until his next 
 quarterly allowance should be paid ; it would 
 be madness to risk its being withheld, which 
 would undoubtedly be the case upon the first 
 disclosure of his rashness. He must also 
 wait the next letter from his guardian, which 
 had been longer delayed than usual ; the tone 
 of these would enable him to judge how far 
 it might be safe to commit themselves by a 
 confession." Amy sighed, and anxiously 
 awaited the arrival of these important dis- 
 patches. 
 
 They came at last ; and Herries eagerly 
 tearing open the packet, exclaimed, " It is 
 from my guardian ! " while his young wife 
 stood by, and watched with intense interest 
 the countenance of her husband. She had 
 reason to be uneasy, for it seemed that the 
 communication affected him powerfully. He 
 started as he read the first few lines ; the 
 colour rose to his very temples, and his eyes 
 seemed to devour the words as he proceeded. 
 " Good God! do I see aright!" he exclaimed. 
 " Oh, had this but reached me sooner." 
 
 " What can you mean, dear Charles ? Tell 
 me oh tell me, has he heard of our mar- 
 riage 1 " 
 
 " Marriage ! married ! " repeated he, and 
 
 struck his forehead violently : " But see 
 read this, Amy, for know it you must sooner 
 or later ; and then your love for me, and your 
 own good sense, will show you how well it 
 was that I did not yield to your desire of 
 declaring our marriage." 
 
 Trembling with alarm, Amy took the 
 letter and read as follows : 
 
 " My dear Son, for now I may call you 
 such, it has pleased Providence to take from 
 me the only child with which my marriage 
 had been blessed. The loss, though long con- 
 templated by me, has fallen on me heavily. 
 Although the child was weak and puny from 
 its infancy, and that its life for 7 some time 
 past has been almost a miracle, still every 
 year which passed over him added to the 
 hopes of his mother, and to my difficulties 
 with regard to your future destiny. I had 
 never concealed your existence from my wife. 
 The first years of our married life giving no 
 prospect of a family, I was. early led to 
 interest her in your behalf, and succeeded so 
 far, that it was with her concurrence you 
 received the education of a gentleman, al- 
 though we deemed it prudent to keep you in 
 ignorance of the title which you had to re- 
 ceive it. I shall not conceal from you, 
 Charles, that had our boy lived, you never 
 should have known your father, otherwise 
 than as a liberal benefactor, who had educa- 
 ted and would have provided for you. In 
 such case it was my intention to have placed 
 you in the army, and settled five thousand 
 pounds upon you, provided I had been satis- 
 fied with your conduct. That this last has 
 not always been the case, I need scarcely re- 
 mind you ; but I taLfe this opportunity of 
 distinctly declaring, that whether I am to 
 bring you forward as Charles Dalton, my son 
 and heir, or Charles Herries, my illegitimate 
 offspring, will entirely depend upon your 
 future conduct and the connexions you may 
 form. I have only to add, that upon receipt 
 of this, you will pay off your lodgings in 
 Edinburgh, and all outstanding accounts, and 
 proceed without delay by the York mail to 
 Dalton Manor," &c. 
 
 Thunderstruck at what she had read, poor 
 Amy stood like one stupified, unable to 
 comprehend its full import. Then returning 
 the letter to her husband, she threw herself 
 upon his bosom and wept bitterly. Herries 
 soothed and caressed her for a while, and 
 then ventured to observe. " Well, Amy, you 
 will allow that I was right in not yielding 
 to your wish of disclosing our marriage to 
 my guardian, or, I should rather say, my
 
 184 
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 father, at such a time; think what his wrath 
 would have been at this moment." 
 
 " Oh, would to God you had disclosed it!" 
 said his weeping wife ; " and oh, Charles ! if 
 not for my sake, at least for your own, 
 weigh well the consequences of such conceal- 
 ment ; better by far to bide the full burst of 
 your father's anger now while you are yet but 
 as a stranger to him, than steal into his bosom, 
 take the place of a son, and win his confi- 
 dence, only to deceive him : that were indeed 
 to bring down tenfold misery on your head !" 
 
 " This is a matter, Amy, you must leave 
 entirely to my discretion," said her husband. 
 " You surely would not wish to be the means 
 of bringing down ruin upon me, when, by a 
 little patience and management, all that you 
 are most desirous of may assuredly be 
 brought about. Let me but once gain a place 
 in my father's love, and fear not but that the 
 rest will be effected in a little time. My 
 greatest difficulty is how to leave you, my 
 dearest Amy ! " 
 
 " Leave me ? " exclaimed Amy, starting 
 from him. " God forgi'e you for saying 
 such a word ! and is it for this that I left 
 all to follow you? But hear me, Charles 
 Herries or Dalton, if sae it is to be ; for my 
 husband you are, equally whatever name ye 
 bear, or whoever may be your father as a wife 
 I shall obey you in all things, so far as my 
 poor sense o' duty goes ; but when I swore 
 to abide by you, through good report and 
 bad report, you did the like by me ; there- 
 fore speak not o' leaving me. I shall wait 
 your own time to own me as your wife in 
 the sight o' man ; but in the sight o' God I 
 am sae, and, with God's blessing, as such I 
 shall act." 
 
 Herries was little prepared for this display 
 of determination in his wife's character. As 
 yet, he had only experienced her sweetness, 
 liveliness, and affection ; but he now dis- 
 covered that it would be by no means advis- 
 able to push to extremities a disposition 
 which might be influenced by kindness, but 
 scarcely swayed by authority. He saw that 
 it was necessary to temporize, at all events ; 
 and accordingly resolved to carry Amy with 
 him into England, to place her in a lodging 
 in York, where her residence would give rise 
 to no suspicion, and where he might see her 
 frequently, while he felt his way with his 
 family. In the mean time, he sought to 
 remove from the mind of his wife the unlucky 
 impression he had given ; but although she 
 acquiesced in the present scheme, and met 
 his advances with sweetness and affection, a 
 
 deep wound had been given to her heart. 
 Her confidence in the depth and generosity of 
 her husband's love was greatly shaken ; and 
 she saw with sorrow that her interest and 
 happiness was by no means his only, or even 
 his first consideration. 
 
 Upon reaching York, Herries's first mea- 
 sure was to place Amy in a small lodging 
 in the suburbs of the town ; and there, with 
 a young girl who acted as her servant, did 
 he leave his solitary wife to arrange her little 
 household, and then to sit down and weep, 
 as she looked around her and felt all so 
 strange, so desolate ! Poor Amy ! her heart 
 swelled as she remembered the cheerful fire- 
 side at Billstane glen, and thought of her 
 father, her mother, of her own dear generous 
 Alice. Oh, could they at that moment have 
 seen her, she who had been their idol, the 
 object of their every thought and care : what 
 was she now ? a deserted wife ; an encum- 
 brance to the very man for whom she had 
 abandoned home and friends ! The mist 
 which vanity and passion had spread before 
 her eyes, was now cleared away, and she saw 
 too clearly the misery that lay before her. 
 " Oh," thought she, " if in these early days 
 of our love, he can suffer warld's wealth to 
 draw him frae me, weak indeed is the reed 
 I have to trust to, when spirits fail and 
 beauty fades ! God knows that if my love 
 and duty could make his happiness, little is 
 it that would suffice for mine ; but oh ! I 
 wasna fitted for a Leddy, and so, I fear, he 
 sune will think ! But I maunna sit sorrow- 
 ing here this gait, or I'll sune tyne my rosy 
 cheeks, and that '11 no mak matters ony 
 better ; I maun try to keep my heart up, 
 and see gin things mayna turn out better 
 than we think for ; for, as auld Janet used 
 to say, ' the night is aye mirkest whan it's 
 near the dawn.'" 
 
 And Amy thought that the dawn was in- 
 deed breaking around her, when, after the 
 second day of solitude, she was again pressed 
 to the heart of her truant husband. As she 
 clung to his bosom, and bound her arms 
 around him, she felt as if her happiness were 
 sevenfold restored to her, when, looking in 
 his face, she read there that his delight was 
 equal to her own. Oh could she but have 
 held him there for ever, what would all the 
 world beside have been to her. 
 
 Herries now asked a thousand questions, 
 which all showed that, though absent in 
 person, she had been ever in his thoughts ; 
 and he came provided with many little com- 
 forts, and every thing he could devise to amuse
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 185 
 
 her in her solitude. He had brought her 
 books, and as she spoke of them, he proposed 
 to her that she should now give a part of her 
 leisure hours to the improvement of her mind. 
 Amy had received, it is true, greater advan- 
 tages of education than most girls in her 
 station ; but she had been a careless scholar, 
 and readily confessed that she lacked much, 
 which, as his wife, it would be highly expe- 
 dient to supply ; and she expressed her earnest 
 wish to do so. Her husband promised every 
 assistance in his power to promote so desir- 
 able an end ; but as it would not be possible 
 for him to be her daily teacher, he said he 
 should endeavour to supply her with a suitable 
 person to act in his stead. Nothing could 
 have been more gratifying to Amy than this 
 scheme, and the interest which her husband 
 appeared to take in it ; for she saw in it a 
 preparation for the future an earnest of 
 happiness which might one day be realized, 
 and which filled her sanguine heart with 
 hope and comfort. What would she not 
 undertake to fit herself to be his compa- 
 nion, the wife he should one day present to 
 his family ! And Amy, in her turn, asked 
 a thousand questions about that family. 
 How had he been received ? had his father 
 been kind to him ? did he see any prospect 
 of speedily ingratiating himself with his 
 parents ? Charles expressed his hope and 
 conviction that he should succeed in time ; 
 but declared that time and patience would 
 both be required. His father, he added, was 
 kind, but reserved Mrs. Dalton civil, but 
 distant ; and haughty, he thought, in her 
 manner. As yet there had been but little 
 confidential conversation between his father 
 and him ; and the little which had passed, 
 related chiefly to the difficulties which his 
 father had encountered in bringing him for- 
 ward in the world. His father's property 
 was, it seemed, all at his own disposal ; but 
 failing their son, Mrs. Dalton had always 
 wished her husband to consider her own re- 
 lations as the persons to succeed to their for- 
 tune ; and it had mortified her not a little 
 to find that Mr. Dalton did not agree with 
 her in this point. Herries observed, that all 
 these circumstances called loudly for a con- 
 tinuance of caution upon their part ; and 
 Amy, with a deep sigh, was forced to ac- 
 quiesce. 
 
 She now came to the resolution of not 
 clouding the few hours of her husband's stay 
 with anticipations of doubt and gloom. 
 " There will be time enough to weep while 
 he is absent," said she to herself ; " he will 
 
 come the oftener, if he finds a smiling face to 
 welcome him." But it was not always that 
 Amy could smile away the tears which hope 
 deferred, and sickening disappointment, too 
 often caused to flow. As time passed on, 
 she saw less of her husband, and that little 
 was ill-calculated to relieve her increasing 
 care. It is true that he still met her with 
 fondness, sometimes even with agitation ; but, 
 while he pressed her to his bosom, the emotion 
 he displayed appeared to arise from painful 
 rather than pleasing associations. She could 
 see that he was restless and pre-occupied ; 
 that something, which he had not courage to 
 communicate, lay heavy on his mind, and 
 gave, even to his caresses, an air of constraint. 
 Amy had also a communication to make, but 
 it was one which she believed would give her 
 husband a pleasure almost equal to her own ; 
 for, in the hopes of being a mother, she saw 
 a recompense for suffering, for solitude, and 
 every other ill. What then was her horror 
 at seeing that the intelligence only added to 
 the gloom and disquiet of him, who should 
 have been the most eager to congratulate and 
 support her. " Oh Charles," exclaimed she, 
 in the bitterness of her heart, "can you grieve 
 that I shall have something to love, something 
 to cling to in the hours and days when I am 
 left alone ?" 
 
 " No, Amy," he replied, " God knows I 
 should not grieve at that, for one part of the 
 suffering which weighs upon me at this mo- 
 ment, is, that I came to tell you I must leave 
 you for a short time. Yes, Amy, my father 
 is going on a visit to Mrs. Dalton's relations, 
 and he wishes me to accompany him." 
 
 Not as formerly did the poor girl exclaim 
 against this continued abandonment ; neglect 
 and suffering had subdued that high spirit, 
 and, in the present instance, she felt that she 
 had only to submit. 
 
 Bitter was the parting between Amy and 
 her husband ! When left alone, she sank 
 into a state of listless melancholy, alike in- 
 jurious to mental and bodily exertion. Her 
 studies, in which, at first, her husband took 
 considerable interest, but of late he had sel- 
 dom inquired about, were now entirely thrown 
 aside : for hours would she sit gazing on 
 vacancy, until some thought, perhaps of home, 
 and all she had forsaken for him who thus 
 neglected her, would rise before her, and a 
 burst of tears would relieve for a time the op- 
 pression of her heart. 
 
 But Amy, by degrees, awoke to better 
 thoughts. The time approached when she 
 would have something to care for in this cold
 
 18G 
 
 THE COUSLXS. 
 
 nnd heartless world: and, as she sat and 
 worked for her baby, she felt a melancholy 
 pleasure in au occupation which could not 
 fail to interest so young and warm a heart. 
 She had forced herself at length to attend 
 more to her health ; and, as the spring ad- 
 vanced, she often walked to a neighbouring 
 garden, which possessed a strong interest for 
 her, for the couple to whom it belonged were 
 Scottish ; and to hear the accents of her own 
 country, spoken in a land of strangers, was 
 a medicine to her wounded spirit. 
 
 But, in our interest for the deserted wife, 
 we must not altogether forget her gentle 
 cousin, who, amidst her own share of sorrows 
 still thought of the absent Amy with all a 
 sister's love. In vain had she looked to hear 
 from her cousin ; month after month had 
 elapsed, but no second letter ever came. 
 William Douglas, after making every possi- 
 ble inquiry in and about Edinburgh, had 
 learned from a college friend of Herries's, 
 that the young man had left that place for 
 England, some weeks after the period of 
 Amy's disappearance ; but this was the 
 amount of all his information, nor did there 
 remain any farther means of tracing the 
 fugitives. Even the unfortunate maniac, 
 whom they knew to be so nearly connected 
 with Herries, seemed to have left the country, 
 and Alice conjectured that she might again 
 be in confinement. Nothing remained but 
 to await with patience, until it should please 
 Heaven to afford her tidings of her poor lost 
 cousin. 
 
 Her aunt's temper, under her severe trials, 
 had been daily getting worse. In vain did 
 Alice exert the most unwearied attention and 
 kindness to soothe and cheer her ; nothing 
 she did was right. She declared that if she 
 did not soon hear from her daughter, she 
 would fret herself to death, and she seemed 
 determined that it should not be alone. In 
 all this distress, Alice's greatest comfort was 
 when Douglas could obtain leave from his 
 master to pass a day at Billstane cottage. 
 Confidence and kindness were again quickly 
 re-establishing themselves between them ; and 
 that feeling of shame and reproach, which 
 for some time kept William at a distance, 
 was fast yielding to the influence of Alice's 
 gentle and engaging dispositions. 
 
 But even of this only solace, was poor 
 Alice soon destined to be deprived. One day, 
 Douglas came to inform her, that his master 
 had just desired him to prepare for a journey 
 into Yorkshire, in order to superintend the 
 erection of a green-house, at the seat of his 
 
 brother, in which some new improvements 
 were to be introduced under William's care. 
 " I shall not be long absent," added he, " and 
 when I return, my kind master has signified 
 his intention to promote me to the place of 
 upper gardener, and I shall then have good 
 wages, and a comfortable house ; and then, 
 dear Alice, when I return from Yorkshire, 
 perhaps " 
 
 " Perhaps," said the blushing Alice, inter- 
 rupting him, " Perhaps you will then have 
 heard something of our poor lost Amy." 
 
 William coloured deeply as he replied, 
 " Yes, Alice, for your sake and her mother's, 
 I will make every inquiry about the unfor- 
 tunate Amy. But it was not of her I was 
 thinking, when I said . But I had best 
 keep my mind to mysel, perhaps ; and no 
 risk angering you. Only, dear Alice, think 
 of me kindly when I am away, and let me 
 write to you what I may learn of poor Amy." 
 And William and Alice parted on these 
 terms. 
 
 No long time elapsed before a letter from 
 Douglas arrived ; and though, as yet, he had 
 heard nothing directly concerning Amy, his 
 letter still contained much which was interest- 
 ing to her cousin. Among other matters, he 
 mentioned, that while riding on the top of 
 the coach a few miles from York, his atten- 
 tion had been arrested by a figure so closely 
 resembling the maniac who called herself 
 " Lady Bothwell," that he felt almost assured 
 it was she ; but the rapid motion of the 
 coach had prevented him from ascertaining the 
 fact beyond a doubt. He then informed her 
 that, in reply to her inquiries regarding the 
 family at Dalton manor, he had learned that 
 Mr. Dalton, soon after losing his boy, had 
 brought forward and introduced into society 
 an illegitimate son, whom it was said he in- 
 tended to make his heir, and between whom 
 and his cousin, a niece of Mr. Dalton's, a 
 marriage was confidently said to be in con- 
 templation. Of the unfortunate Amy he 
 could hear nothing : no one appeared to know 
 that such a being existed. He ended by 
 observing, that as the greater number of the 
 neighbouring gentlemen would probably be 
 assembled together at the races, which were 
 to take place in a few days, he should attend 
 them in hopes of seeing or hearing something 
 of Herries, and that he would leave nothing 
 unattempted to discover the fate of the unfor- 
 tunate Amy. 
 
 There was another who, with blighted heart 
 and worn-out frame, resolved to drag her 
 wearied limbs to this scene of joyous festivity,
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 in the hope of seeing there, perhaps for the 
 last time, the perjured husband who seemed 
 now to have utterly forsaken her. 
 
 Months had passed away since Amy had 
 parted from her husband ; and during this 
 long and weary period, a few hurried lines, 
 after great intervals of silence, was all she 
 had received from him. At last came a letter 
 desiring that she should not hazard any far- 
 ther communication with him ; but assuring 
 her that he should soon be with her, and 
 take measures to prepare for her approaching 
 confinement. Too late, at length, did Amy 
 see that she had nothing to hope from the 
 justice or generosity of so selfish a being ; 
 and she determined to await but the event of 
 her confinement, when, if the feelings of a 
 father should fail to move this unnatural 
 husband to do justice to his child, she then, 
 at all hazard, would act as became a mother, 
 and make known her story to his family. 
 What was all their wealth to her ? It could 
 not give her back what she had lost, it 
 could never restore her husband's love. But 
 she owed to the worth of her honest parents, 
 to her own character, and to the innocent 
 creature she was about to give birth to, that 
 her marriage should no longer remain a 
 secret ; and this duty she resolved to perform. 
 
 In the mean time, accounts reached her of 
 the return of the family to Dalton manor. 
 A large party was there assembled to attend 
 the York races ; and among other reports, 
 Amy heard it said, that the newly brought 
 forward heir was paying his addresses to the 
 beautiful niece of Mr. Dalton. Unworthy 
 as he had proved himself, she scarcely could 
 believe in such wanton baseness ; for what 
 could he propose by it ? She was herself his 
 lawful wedded wife, beyond all question ; 
 yet, spite of this conviction, some fearful 
 glimmerings of the informality of Scottish 
 marriages, and a scarcely admitted dread of 
 the possibility of his intention to disown her, 
 would flash across her terrified mind. Might 
 she not be unwise to await even the period of 
 her confinement? what events might not 
 even a day bring forth ? She was tossed on 
 a sea of irresolution and doubt ; and in this 
 fever of mind she determined to go where she 
 knew he would be, to see him once more, and 
 to act as Providence might appoint. 
 
 Amy was by this time unable to walk any 
 distance ; but the good old Scottish couple, 
 who had taken a great interest in her, and 
 who were to have a booth near the race- 
 ground for the sale of their fruits and flowers, 
 offered to take her along with them in their 
 
 little cart. The eventful morning came ; and 
 Amy, with a sick and fluttering heart, pre- 
 pared to accompany her only friends to the 
 scene of general gaiety. Sad as was that 
 heart, it beat with a feeling not unallied to 
 pleasure, as they stopt at the spot where 
 Andrew Fairbairn had exhibited all the 
 riches of his thriving garden. Andrew's 
 booth stood apart from the grand confusion, 
 upon a little height which overlooked the 
 race-course ; and it had been the old man's 
 pride to deck it out with all the flowers of 
 his native country he could collect. He had 
 walked several miles to gather a sufficiency 
 of heather and of broom, to cover in the 
 little bothy ; and, bright in its purple and 
 yellow blossoms, it attracted the attention of 
 all the idlers who passed by. Many a nose- 
 gay was bought that day from Andrew Fair- 
 bairn ; and many who came to purchase the 
 blooming flowers, remained some moments to 
 gaze upon the pale living rose which sheltered 
 there, and shrunk from notice ! 
 
 " Do, Miss Mowbray, leave the stand for 
 a moment, and come with me," said the 
 young Laird of Hazeldean. " I will show 
 you the prettiest Highland hut you ever saw 
 out of Scotland. Oh, do not wait for Charles, 
 he has a bet upon the Marquis's filly, and 
 has eyes for nothing else just now. Dalton, 
 you can follow us, when the race is over, to 
 that little heather hut at the end of the 
 race-course ; your Scottish heart will soon 
 find it out." And away went the gay Harry 
 Gordon, with his beautiful charge, to the 
 booth of Andrew Fairbairn. 
 
 If Miss Mowbray was delighted with the 
 Highland bothy, she was still more inter- 
 ested by the lovely but fragile creature who 
 sat within it. In vain did Amy shrink from 
 her observation. Miss Mowbray's curiosity 
 was of a sort not easily checked. Com- 
 plaining of the heat, she begged to rest her- 
 self a few minutes, and declared she should 
 treat herself with some of the old man's 
 fruit. Amy was thus forced to attend upon 
 her ; and her sweet Scottish accents, when 
 she answered their questions, delighted Harry 
 Gordon and his lovely companion. But 
 another voice was at that moment heard 
 without, which arrested the attention of the 
 whole party. In a wild and high-pitched 
 key, it sang the old Scottish song, " My love 
 built me a bonnie bower," " And a bonnie 
 bower in troth, sir, it is," exclaimed the 
 songstress, stopping short close by the place 
 where Gordon stood. " Hech, sirs ! it's just 
 like that o' puir Bessy Bell and Mary Gray ;
 
 188 
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 but they couldna keep the plague out o' it, 
 an' neither can you, I'm thinking, for there 's 
 a man in it already, and when did a man 
 ever visit maiden's bower without bringing 
 mischief to it ? " 
 
 " By heavens ! it 's my old acquaintance, 
 Lady Bothwell," exclaimed Gordon ; " and 
 what has brought your ladyship so far from 
 home?" 
 
 " Far frae hame ? " repeated the maniac ; 
 " and how do ye ken sae weel whare my 
 hame may be ? I'se warrant there's as braw 
 houses in England, as ever there were in 
 Scotland, and I've lived in them as lang, too ; 
 but I'm thinking there 's mair frae hame 
 than me, here. Hech, sirs, isna that Amy 
 Gray ? Wha wad ha'e thought o' her leaving 
 bonnie Billstane burn to seek for a hame 
 amang thae glaiket Englishers ; and a bonnie 
 hame they'll find for her a wisp o' strae, 
 and bread and water in a nook o' Bedlam ; 
 that's the hame he put me into, and how 
 will ye like that, my bonnie dow? Better 
 for ye to ha'e stayed wi' yer auld father ; 
 but he 's dead an' gane, puir man ! " 
 
 " Dead ! " exclaimed Amy, springing for- 
 ward, and seizing the crazy creature by the 
 arm. " Oh, dinna say sae ! tell me, for 
 God's sake, is my father dead 1 " 
 
 The maniac burst into a wild laugh. " Ay, 
 ye're a cunning ane, I'se warrant ye," replied 
 she ; "when ye ken a' body says ye murdered 
 him yersel." 
 
 " Murdered him ! " exclaimed Amy, with 
 a piercing shriek, and sank lifeless on the 
 ground. 
 
 " What 's the matter, Miss Mowbray ? 
 what 's all this confusion about ? " demanded 
 Charles Dalton and his father, who at this 
 moment entered the bothy. " Good God ! 
 what means this ?" exclaimed the young man, 
 as his eye fell upon the insensible form of 
 Amy, which lay prostrate before him ; " who 
 has done this 1 " 
 
 " Wha has done it ? " echoed the mad 
 woman, turning upon him her wild and 
 scornful eyes. " I '11 tell ye wha did it ; it 
 was just the deevil in the shape o' a Dalton. 
 Puir thing, she thought he was an angel ; she 
 didna notice his cloven feet. But troth, I 
 wasna muckle wiser mysel ; for first he took 
 my gude name frae me, and syne my bonnie 
 face : and yet weel did I like him, till he 
 took my puir bairnie ! Ay, Amy, ye '11 
 no ken it's the deevil till he taks your bairnie; 
 and then ye'll care little whether it's to heaven 
 or hell ye '11 gang to seek it in." 
 
 "Peace, wretched woman," cried young 
 
 Dalton, seizing her fiercely, with the intention 
 of pushing her from the hut. But his arm 
 was arrested by a young man, who, just 
 then forcing his way through the crowd, 
 exclaimed, in loud and resolute tones, "Stay 
 your hand, rash man ; add not to your 
 sins by so iinnatural an outrage : touch 
 not that unfortunate, for know that she is 
 your parent, your unhappy mother ! Yes, 
 Charles Dalton, it is true. God has this 
 day raised up witnesses to your sin and to 
 your shame ; nor can they be silent any 
 longer. Answer me, Charles Dalton, here, 
 in the presence of your family, what have 
 you done with Amy Gray? where is your 
 innocent and helpless wife ? But, my God ! 
 what is this ? Can it be possible ? Wretched, 
 unfortunate girl! he has then indeed destroyed 
 you ! " And William Douglas threw himself 
 by the still senseless form, and gazing on 
 that face which he had so lately beheld in 
 all the glow of health and beauty, now shrunk 
 and lifeless, he scarce could repress a bitter 
 curse upon her heartless betrayer. At length, 
 after collecting himself for some moments, he 
 turned to the elder Mr. Dalton, " For God's 
 sake, sir," said he, "if you are indeed a Chris- 
 tian, have pity on this unhappy young creature, 
 and help me to have her removed into some 
 more fitting place than this ; and if, as I 
 believe you are, the father of that young 
 man, know " 
 
 " Peace, I charge you, Douglas," inter- 
 rupted Charles Dalton, once more coming 
 forward. " Be silent this is no place for 
 that which you would say. Follow me, if 
 you will, to my father's house, and hear all 
 that I shall say to my father. I have now 
 no purpose of concealment would to God I 
 never had But let us first place this most 
 unhappy one in safety : that is my first 
 duty." 
 
 Harry Gordon, who had been a wondering, 
 and by no means unmoved spectator of this 
 singular and imexpected scene, now made 
 offer of his uncle's carriage, which was at no 
 great distance, to convey the poor sufferer to 
 her home ; and the still unconscious Amy 
 was carefully lifted, in the arms of her 
 husband, and placed in it ; while Douglas 
 and the good old couple, who were resolved 
 not to lose sight of their charge, followed in 
 their little cart. 
 
 Arrived at Amy's lodging, every means 
 were employed to recover her from the deadly 
 swoon in which she still lay. It was long 
 ere any symptoms of returning animation 
 appeared to relieve the anxiety of her atten-
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 189 
 
 dants ; and, when she did at length open 
 her eyes, it was but to gaze wildly around 
 her, and then, as if in dread of what they 
 might meet, to close them again. After a 
 while, the colour which had long deserted 
 her cheek, began to show itself in heightened 
 tints ; but it was the flush of pain and not 
 of health ; and Mrs. Fairbairn and Dalton 
 became aware that more skilful aid than 
 theirs would soon be necessary. 
 
 " Douglas," said the agitated husband, 
 "you must run for medical assistance. I 
 cannot leave my poor wife in this hour of 
 trial. Go also to my father, and tell him I 
 am with my unfortunate wife ; and that this 
 will be my home until God restores her to me." 
 
 It was amidst the most violent bodily and 
 mental agony that the unfortunate Amy at 
 length gave birth to a little girl ; and, as her 
 sufferings in some degree subsided, she lay 
 exhausted and quiet, apparently unconscious 
 of every thing around her. Her husband 
 never left her ; and, if Justice had sought to 
 inflict upon him a punishment commensurate 
 with his crime, he endured it in witnessing 
 the sufferings of his victim, and listening to 
 the ravings of her fevered mind. Sad as he 
 now felt it to gaze on her pale face as it lay 
 in almost lifeless stillness, it was heaven to 
 what he had experienced in watching its 
 convulsive agonies ; and he fervently blessed 
 God that the storm had passed away, what- 
 ever might yet be its effects. 
 
 The doctor now declared that every thing 
 depended upon perfect quiet, and using all 
 possible means for promoting sleep. He 
 likewise advised Dalton to leave her to the 
 care of Mrs. Fairbairn and himself, lest, 
 when she should awake to consciousness, she 
 might suffer from agitation at seeing him 
 near her. In obedience to these suggestions 
 of his medical friend, Dalton retired to a 
 neighbouring hotel, where he resolved to 
 employ the next few hours in writing to his 
 father, to confess his ties to Amy, and his 
 resolution to abide by them. That this con- 
 fession was now wmng from him, principally 
 by the impossibility of farther concealment, 
 appears sufficiently evident from his previous 
 conduct. The heart of this unprincipled 
 young man had been hardened by sudden 
 and unexpected prosperity ; and it is too 
 certain that he had resolved, if possible, to 
 shake himself free of an encumbrance which 
 interrupted his ambitious views. The cir- 
 cumstance of his being under age at the time 
 of his marriage, and the absence of any other 
 witness than the clergyman who performed 
 
 the ceremony, encouraged him in the belief 
 that this might be effected. But circum- 
 stances which he could not control, had 
 defeated these projects. The striking events, 
 too, which he had just witnessed, and the 
 misery of his young and wretched wife, had 
 awakened the better feelings of his nature, 
 at least for the time ; and nothing now 
 remained but to throw himself on the mercy 
 of his father, and trust to the beauty and 
 virtues of Amy, to soften his resentment. 
 
 Amidst the agitation and confusion of the 
 scenes which had just taken place, Dalton 
 could scarcely judge of the impression which 
 had been made upon the mind of his father, 
 by the unexpected declaration of William 
 Douglas. That Mr. Dalton's agitation at the 
 extraordinary address of the mad woman had 
 been even greater than his own, had not 
 escaped his observation ; nor had he failed 
 to remark, that the moment the wretched 
 creature had turned her eyes upon his father 
 she had screamed, and fled from the hut ; 
 but the situation of Amy had occupied him 
 too intently to allow of his reflecting upon 
 these circumstances before. The strange 
 assertion of William Douglas, too, that the 
 maniac was actually his mother, occurred to 
 his recollection with pain and alarm ; and he 
 eagerly waited for an opportunity of ques- 
 tioning the young man with regard to this 
 fearful mystery. These reflections, joined to 
 his apprehensions for the fate of his wife, 
 rendered that night the longest and most 
 painful that Charles Dalton had ever spent. 
 
 All was yet quiet in the chamber of the 
 young mother, when her husband, with the 
 earliest light, stood by her bedside. Amy 
 still slept peacefully and sweetly ; but the 
 extreme paleness of her face, and the sunken 
 look of every feature, alarmed the anxious 
 husband, and he watched with impatience for 
 the arrival of the doctor. The first sounds 
 which recalled Amy to consciousness, were 
 the wailings of her baby ; she was too weak 
 to utter a word, but her opening eyes fell 
 upon her husband standing at the fire with 
 his head leaning on the mantel-piece, with 
 the good Mrs. Fairbairn seated near him, 
 holding an infant on her knee ; a slight move- 
 ment of Amy, drew Dalton to her bedside, 
 and he saw with thankfulness that, although 
 unable from weakness for the least exertion, 
 she still was conscious of his presence. He 
 hastened to support her with the cordials 
 which the doctor had prescribed, and was 
 soon gratified by observing the return of 
 strength which they produced.
 
 190 
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 " Dearest Amy," said he, " I thank God you 
 are restored to your grateful husband, and 
 are the mother of a living child. Mrs. Fair- 
 hairn, bring hither our infant and let me 
 place it in its mother's arms." Amy received 
 her baby from her husband, and clasping it 
 to her breast bathed it with her tears. Nor 
 did she refuse to embrace the repentant 
 father. 
 
 " Dearest Amy, dry these painful tears," 
 said he ; " they are the last, I trust, that I 
 shall ever cause you to shed ; my father by 
 this time knows every thing, and now no 
 power can separate you from me." 
 
 " Alas ! there is a power which will sepa- 
 rate us," replied the feeble voice of Amy, 
 " a power which I feel through all this 
 wasted frame, and which I have neither 
 means nor wish to resist ! Listen tome, my 
 husband ; for breath is ebbing fast away. 
 For many months my life has been a trouble 
 to me, and I have been long a burden to 
 you, a burden from which I would fain set 
 you free. I have but one favour to ask of 
 you, and in the name of God do not refuse 
 me. If my baby lives, send it to Alice. Oh 
 dinna trust it to cauld English hearts, but 
 send it where it will be made pious and 
 humble, and mair fit for heaven than its 
 poor mother is. But whose voice is that I 
 hear. Oh let him in ! Then it was not a 
 dream when I thought I saw William 
 Douglas? Oh Charles let me see William, 
 for I maun speak to him." 
 
 Douglas, smothering his emotion, came 
 forward to the bed, and grasped in silence 
 the hand which Amy held out to him. 
 "Tell me, William" said she, earnestly, "and 
 tell me the truth, is my father dead ? Oh 
 was it me that killed him ? was it a' true 
 that fearfu' woman said ?" 
 
 " Dearest Amy," said the agitated Douglas, 
 " do not terrify yourself so. Your father 
 was an old man, and God removed him in 
 the fulness of his years, to a better world ; 
 your mother and Alice still live to bless 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, William, never will I see their dear 
 dear faces more. My body will lie amang 
 strangers, far far frae my ain kindred and 
 bonny Billstane glen. But take my baby 
 there ; oh swear to me, my husband, that you 
 will send it to Alice, for she will make it 
 good like herself. Alice always loved you, 
 William ! God forgie me for the ill I wrought 
 her ! But she will love you still. Tell her to 
 do so for my sake, and you will be a father 
 to my baby. Oh, my husband, swear to 
 
 me that she shall never be tnisted to the 
 rich and the great ; let her go to Billstane 
 glen, and I will die in peace, upon your 
 bosom." 
 
 Dalton, inexpressibly agitated, could not 
 immediately reply ; he' clasped her to his 
 breast, and in broken accents promised 
 solemnly to obey her. Amy's only reply was 
 a convulsive embrace, it was her last effort ; in 
 another moment her feeble arms relaxed their 
 hold, and she sunk upon the bed a lifeless 
 corpse. 
 
 It was a lovely evening in the end of 
 autumn when Alice observed a young woman 
 with a baby in her arms, accompanied by a 
 man who carried a bundle in one hand, and 
 a trunk upon his shoulder, advancing down 
 the road of Billstane glen. The evening was 
 shutting in, and Alice could not distinguish 
 the features of those who thus approached 
 her. But as the young man drew near, he 
 dropt his load, threw from him his bundle, 
 and snatching the infant from the woman's 
 arms, sprang forwards, exclaiming, " Alice ! 
 dearest Alice ! did you not know me?" 
 
 " Oh, William, is it you indeed ! and, Amy, 
 dear lost Amy ! this is your baby ! My 
 poor poor Amy ! and this is all that is left 
 me of you ! Oh let me take it to my heart! 
 fondly shall it be cherished, and faithfully 
 will I obey her dying wishes." 
 
 " And will you obey all her wishes, Alice?" 
 whispered her lover, " and take another to 
 your heart, who promised to be a father to 
 that baby ?" Alice, the happy Alice, did not 
 say no ; but gently releasing herself from the 
 arms of her lover, carried the baby into the 
 cottage, and amid tears and smiles saw it 
 pressed to the 'bosom of its grandmother. 
 
 And here I would willingly close the 
 story of the Cousins. As 
 
 I do not write for that dull elf, 
 Who cannot picture to himself, 
 
 I would leave it to my readers to appor- 
 tion according to their several notions of 
 justice and of mercy, the meed of reward 
 or punishment, which they think due to the 
 various characters of the piece. But for the 
 sake of the unreasonable few, who may per- 
 sist in " wondering what became of Dalton ?" 
 and "whether the baby lived," or who "think 
 the author might as well have told us whether 
 William and Alice were married," &c. I 
 will shortly declare, that Charles Dalton, in 
 reply to his letter to his father, received a few 
 lines enclosing a commision in a regiment on 
 the eve of embarking for India, with a draft 
 for three thousand pounds, and informing
 
 THE COUSINS. 
 
 191 
 
 him that this was all he was ever to look for 
 from a father he had deceived and of a family 
 he had disgraced. 
 
 Three happy years had passed of the mar- 
 ried life of William and Alice, when the first 
 tears they were called upon to shed, were 
 dropt over the grave of Amy's child ; but 
 the smiles and caresses of a little Amy of 
 their own, and the Messed feeling that they 
 had indeed been as parents to the infant 
 while it lived, spoke peace and consolation 
 to their hearts. 
 
 William wrote to the elder Mr. Dalton, 
 announcing the death of his grandchild, and 
 some months afterwards he received an 
 answer informing him that his unfortunate 
 
 son had fallen a victim to the unwholesome- 
 ness of the climate, a few months after his 
 arrival in India, and that by his will lately 
 received, it appeared that William and Alice 
 were entitled to the sum of three thousand 
 pounds, which, failing his infant daughter, he 
 had bequeathed to them. With this sum 
 they purchased the farm of Billstane glen, 
 which had been rented only by John Gray ; 
 and as Mrs. Gray did not long survive her 
 grandchild, they were also left the sole pos- 
 sessors of her little property. Thus they 
 had enough of this world's wealth ; but their 
 richest blessing was still in the love of each 
 other, and in the smiles of a happy, a pious, 
 and a thriving family. 
 
 THE RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM HOWITT, FROM THE SWEDISH OF NICANDER. 
 
 IN the heart of Rome, not far from the 
 palace of San Marco, lies a great and vene- 
 rable building, darkened by age, but with 
 walls which seem to defy time, and to be 
 calculated for eternity. The simple, una- 
 dorned architecture augments the solemn im- 
 pression which the very mass awakes in and 
 for itself. Like the rest of the Roman 
 palaces, it stands forth largest and proudest 
 in the moonlight. Its enclosed situation 
 causesthat it almostalways stands intheshade, 
 or seems to shroud itself in a mystical gigan- 
 tic gloom, while all the surrounding and more 
 gay churches and palaces are brightly lit up. 
 The building is called the Collegio Romano, 
 and is at present the residence of the Jesuit 
 order. 
 
 Massive as the palace is, it yet partakes 
 the fate of all other buildings ; it must be 
 repaired that it may not by degrees fall to 
 ruin. Its enormous extent, and the multi- 
 tude of rooms which it contains, the greater 
 part of which are inhabited by the members, 
 adepts, and pupils of the Order, or serve as 
 depositories for the Order's archives, treasury, 
 library, and similar purposes, induce the 
 necessity of a constant inspection, and almost 
 equally constant repairs. Few months elapse 
 without workmen being there on some account, 
 joinering, painting, building, or plastering. 
 
 One day in August 1828 a bricklayer, 
 Antonio Dossi, living in the neighbourhood 
 of Maria Sopra Minerva, was sent for to 
 begin and complete in haste a job for the 
 holy order of Jesuits. The bricklayer, a 
 
 man of merit, and burning with a desire to 
 recommend himself to so influential and 
 powerful a community, hastened immediately 
 to the Collegio Romano, followed by two trusty 
 journeymen. One of the subordinate brothers 
 of the Order conducted the bricklayer into 
 the second story, and showed him two ad- 
 joining rooms, the one large, and the other 
 small, but which had no communication with 
 each other. The larger one had shortly be- 
 fore been the private library of an eminent 
 deceased brother of the Order, and had fallen 
 to his successor. The intention now was 
 that the bricklayer should not only pull down 
 all the old drawing in this room, but should, 
 for the greater accommodation of the new 
 occupant, open a door between the two rooms, 
 and in the best manner replaster and embel- 
 lish them. Antonio bound himself within 
 a given time and for a reasonable price to 
 accomplish the business. 
 
 The young Jesuit withdrew, and in the 
 empty room which had been ready cleared of 
 furniture, the bricklayers immediately set to 
 work with their hammers and picks. Anto- 
 nio himself attacked in the lesser room the 
 wall which separated it from the adjoining 
 large saloon, and had with him one of the 
 journeymen. The other journeyman began 
 in the first place to rip off the old paper, and 
 hew down the old drawing. One piece of 
 drawing after another thus came tumbling 
 down in both rooms ; the floor was speedily 
 covered with heaps of rubbish, and a thick, 
 whirling dust of lime pothered around the
 
 192 
 
 T1IK RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 active workmen, who soon could not see, but 
 merely hear one another. The hammer 
 strokes, at first so active, became by degrees 
 slower and lighter ; finally the Roman work- 
 men, according to their wont, rested fre- 
 quently, and the nearer it approached to 
 noon, the more the zeal for work abated, 
 and left room for mutual time-killing gossip. 
 "Maestro Antonio," said Pietro, who 
 worked by his side, " I would very gladly 
 get out of this lime smoke some minutes be- 
 fore noon ; for to-day, just as the clock strikes 
 twelve, they begin to draw the numbers at 
 the lottery on Monte Citorio. I hope that 
 San Giuseppe will help me to a half or a 
 third for the sake of my devotion. I have 
 staked on number eight, because eight are 
 the letters of San Giuseppe's name ; on seven, 
 because G is the seventh letter of the alpha- 
 bet ; and on fifteen, because seven and eight 
 together make fifteen." 
 
 " Simpleton ! " replied Antonio. " Once in 
 my life I too put into the lottery : I won 
 twelve scudi, and that put an end to all 
 desire in me to put into lotteries. I had 
 reckoned at least on winning two hundred." 
 
 " Maestro Antonio," now cried Tomaso, 
 the other journeyman in the large room, 
 here is something written on the wall that I 
 cannot rightly make out." 
 
 Antonio, who was rather more at home in 
 the art of " reading written" than his assis- 
 tant, went to Tomaso, stalked bravely over 
 the fallen paper, drew near to the wall, and 
 read out, after some pondering, the following 
 lines : 
 
 Multo mi piace, 
 Donna o Muro che tace. 
 
 They laughed aloud at the little rhymes, 
 which certainly might have found a more 
 befitting place then a Jesuit's College ; but 
 Antonio and his men began to hack on the 
 wall, and knocked down without mercy even 
 the stones which contained the rhyming 
 lines. 
 
 But Antonio, while with vigorous strokes 
 he assailed the wall just where the door 
 should be opened, heard soon a peculiar sound, 
 which was repeated as often as the blow fell 
 on the same spot. Although he could not 
 comprehend the real occasion of this sound, 
 which resembled a slight vibration, yet he 
 began to suspect, by reflection on the inscrip- 
 tion, that possibly something particular might 
 be concealed within the wall. He became 
 more and more convinced of the reality of 
 the sound, although neither of the men heard 
 
 it, and resolved to have the inquiry into it 
 all to himself. 
 
 " Pietro," said the master therefore to the 
 joiirneyman who had desired it, " I will give 
 the quarter which is yet wanting to twelve 
 o'clock. Go to Monte Citorio, and hear what 
 numbers are drawn by the white boy on the 
 balcony, and contrive to win a good sum. 
 Tomaso may go with thee. This Satan's 
 pother must lay itself, or fume itself away. 
 No poor sinner can well endure it longer. 
 Go then to your dinners, and within an hour 
 and half let us meet here again. I will 
 merely cut away to the corner there ; Monte 
 Citorio, and thy numbers, I do not trouble 
 myself about." 
 
 The two journeymen were not long in 
 taking the master at his word, and disappear- 
 ing. With more determined and vigorous 
 strokes, he now thundered on the mysterious 
 place, and heard distinctly not merely a vi- 
 bration, but an actual jingling within the 
 wall. A large stone fell out, and in the 
 opening there appeared a little black slide. 
 " Aha ! " thought Antonio, as he set his gray 
 cap, powdered with the white lime, on one side, 
 " Aha ! here is some walled-up treasure." 
 In the greatest haste, he made a cross on his 
 breast, and hesitated in his excitement for 
 three seconds, whether he should open the 
 slide or not. He set a chisel into the joint - 
 crack ! a stroke with the hammer, the slide 
 flew open, and down before Antonio's feet 
 streamed an amazing number of solid gold 
 zecclrins. 
 
 Antonio stood for some moments speechless, 
 contemplating the falling shower of gold. 
 If some one of the reverend fathers had 
 chanced to enter, the bricklayer had certainly 
 lifted his cap, and related the whole aftair, 
 without making the slightest claim to a single 
 one of the dainty gold coins. Yes ! he al- 
 most wished that some one might come in 
 and see them. But he continued alone, all 
 was silent in the great palace. Without 
 waiting long to consider, he gathered all the 
 zecchins into his spacious pocket, which had 
 hitherto never carried any thing beyond silver 
 coinage, or bajocchi, and occasionally half 
 eaten rolls, or fruit. To balance the gold 
 coins, and prevent them betraying themselves 
 and him by too distinct a jingle, he filled his 
 pockets out with fine rubbish, annihilated every 
 trace of the secret box in the wall, and with an 
 air as if nothing had occurred, he descended the 
 steps as with the intention of betaking him- 
 self home to his young wife, and with her 
 to partake a good and yet frugal dinner.
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 193 
 
 Had he now met some of the brethren of the 
 Order, and they had happened to fix on him 
 a sharp look, it is very probable that he would 
 have changed colour, and would have given 
 up the zecchins in order to come with a whole 
 skin out of the game. But he met no one ; 
 only on the bottom step sat two young Jesuits, 
 who were passing through the last stages of 
 their period of probation in humility, and 
 now, in the presence of some curious Romans, 
 and two or three curious English, sat eating 
 with four crippled tatterdemalions from the 
 Sabine buildings. 
 
 Antonio greeted in passing the two humble 
 young Jesuits, who still more graciously re- 
 turned the greeting, but with downcast eyes, 
 and wholly absorbed therein, went on with 
 their love feast. Unobserved, and with a 
 lighter heart, he came out into the street, 
 took a long wind past the Pantheon, and 
 gulped down all fear and anxiety in a good 
 draught of aqua vitse, which, in one of the 
 corner shops near the Piazza della Rotonda, 
 was offered to him by the friendly host. All 
 now became so light before his eyes, and so 
 comfortable in his bosom ; with a proud step, 
 and twinkling eyes, he walked humming 
 along the direct way to his own house. 
 
 He entered into the great vaulted room in 
 the gallery, where he found his young, black- 
 eyed wife Bettina in the utmost comfort, sit- 
 ting by the long table, and at some distance 
 from her a strange man in a brown coat, 
 with curly hair, and dark features. Antonio 
 soon recognized in the man an old acquain- 
 tance, namely, one of those acquaintances 
 who frequently fasten themselves on an 
 honest fellow, who cannot, by fair means, 
 get rid of him. This fellow's name was 
 Teodoro Pistrelli, but he was often called in 
 jest, and in reference to his uncommon bodily 
 strength, il Toro, the bull. He had been a 
 butcher, but became bankrupt, and slood now 
 in a secret but close connexion with the pope's 
 favourite, the apothecary Fumirolli. Many 
 confidently believed that he was the head of 
 Fumirolli's spy-troop, and that it was he in 
 particular who made the greatest and most 
 profitable attacks on the smugglers in the 
 markets of Anoona, Rimini, and Sinigaglia. 
 By virtue of an inborn and perhaps genteel 
 portion of impudence, he insinuated himself 
 almost every where, and sought, by all possi- 
 ble means, to come into closer acquaintance 
 with men and women in their houses, so 
 that he might thereby be able to gain the 
 slightest advantage for himself and his plans. 
 
 The moment Antonio entered the door, the 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 handsome Bettina sprang forwards to meet 
 him, gave him a kiss, and began immediately 
 to set out his dinner. Teodoro had fixed 
 with himself to dine to-day with Antonio, 
 and therefore waited for no invitation, but 
 seated himself, when he had greeted Antonio, 
 and attacked a certain steaming dish piled 
 with boiled triglier, a kind of little fish, re- 
 sembling smelt, and filled his glass from the 
 flask of Velletri wine. 
 
 Antonio, who, on many accounts, was by 
 no means pleased with the presence of this 
 self-invited guest, kept silence like a good 
 child ; and only by the haste with which he 
 swallowed some warm fishes, and for com- 
 pany sent after them some deep draughts 
 from the bottle, allowed it to be seen that 
 any thing restless was at work within his 
 breast, or that any thing unusual had hap- 
 pened. He seemed to have a vehement 
 desire to speak, but did not bring out a 
 syllable. He ate his soup hot as it came out 
 of the pot, while Teodoro sat and blew every 
 spoonful, and occasionally cast side glances 
 at Antonio. As the dinner was concluded 
 by a dish of roasted chestnuts, and the two 
 men despatched this also without much talk, 
 Bettina sung a little song, as she cleared 
 away the dishes and plates ; but it produced 
 no great effect. By degrees they began to 
 talk of the weather, and court, and of the 
 last bull-fight in the Mausoleum of Augustus, 
 and the like matters. 
 
 Teodoro arose when he had emptied his 
 glass, took his hat, and said, " Brother 
 Antonio, a word with you. I want to ask 
 you a favour ; I am in a little difficulty. 
 Can you lend me ten scudi for a few weeks ? " 
 
 " Hem ! " said Antonio, and scratched his 
 head. " You know that I am a poor devil, 
 and that I seldom have more than is neces- 
 sary for the day ; and to-day, per Bacco ! 
 I could not lend to my own brother ten 
 bajocchi ; but, never mind, another day 
 to-morrow, or the day after, I will try what 
 I can do. I shall then receive a little money. 
 Come again then, and we shall see. To-day, 
 I have the very devil in my head. I am 
 very sorry, but just now it is impossible ! " 
 
 Thereupon, for the sake of politeness, he 
 begged his guest to sit down, and drink 
 another glass or two ; but Teodoro nodded 
 coldly, twisted his hat into a variety of 
 strange shapes, looked gloomy, bit his lips, 
 and marched out of doors, without saying 
 goodbye to host or hostess. 
 
 Scarcely was he out, when Antonio sprang 
 to the door, and bolted it fast on the inside. 
 
 No. 13.
 
 194 
 
 Tin: RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 Bcttina, already amazed at the usually calm 
 and friendly man's impatient looks and 
 gestures, turned pale with terror, flew to a 
 distant corner, and demanded with trembling 
 lips, " What ails thee, Antonio ? What dost 
 thou mean ? " 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! " said Antonio, solemnly. 
 But Bettina's eyes began to glisten with 
 tears, and she demanded again, " Antonio ! 
 what is the matter ? Thou art not surely 
 jealous of me, because of the unthankful 
 Teodoro ? I could not help it, that he came 
 and sat himself down while thou wert away. 
 Hear me, and be reasonable, Antonio ? " 
 
 " Ah ! such foolish prate ! " said Antonio. 
 " Here is something else to be done, than to 
 be jealous. Now we are alone. Wilt thou 
 see, Bettina ? " And with this word, Antonio 
 emptied by handfuls, his gold out on the 
 table. 
 
 At this, Bettina fell into another kind of 
 terror, which was at the same time mingled 
 with a tolerable portion of amazement and 
 curiosity. With large eyes she contemplated 
 now Antonio, and now the money ; and, 
 while he took one handful of glittering 
 zecchins after another, and piled them on 
 the table, into a great heap, she exclaimed 
 with vehemence, " Oh, Santa Madonna ! 
 Antonio, hast thou stolen them ? " 
 
 " No, Bettina ; but hush, say I. Don't 
 scream, and so shalt thou hear all. All these 
 golden zecchins have I hit upon in the Col- 
 legio Romano. They almost came down my 
 throat as I struck the wall. But I repent 
 already that I took them. I could not resist 
 the temptation to bring them home and show 
 them to my Bettina ; but this very day I 
 will go and put them back again." 
 
 " Ah, sweet Antonio ! " exclaimed Bettina, 
 as she cautiously approached the table. 
 " What a brave heap of gold ! And thou 
 hast really not stolen it, but found it in a 
 wall ? Yes, certainly ought thou to return 
 the money, if anyone wanted it ; but perhaps 
 no living soul knows any thing of it, or 
 assuredly they would have taken good care 
 not to leave them lying in a wall which 
 might be pulled down. Be silent a while, 
 I exhort thee, Antonio. See if any one asks 
 after the zecchins ; and if not, thou art a 
 rich man. Thou canst purchase a vineyard 
 here ; or we can go to Naples, where my 
 father lives, and buy us a little house, and 
 live happily ; and I will become grand, and 
 drive every Sunday on the Toledo, and thou 
 shalt see, Antonio, thou wilt see how all the 
 gentlemen will lift their hats, and inquire 
 
 tiow you do, and how thy Bettina does ; and 
 thou'wilt thank them politely, and invite thy 
 Friends home to take a glass of Greek wine. 
 Nay, sweet Antonio ! keep the lovely money 
 a while. If any one miss them, he will 
 speedily inquire after them, and then thou 
 canst return them. But how many zecchins 
 hast thou fallen on ? Let us count them ! " 
 Now followed a whole chapter of caresses 
 and protestations, after which the zecchins 
 were counted, and were found to amount to 
 seven hundred and ninety-five. By Bettina's 
 advice, Antonio deposited his treasure in a 
 strong chest, furnished with a strong lock, 
 and he then pored night and day over his 
 wealth. His heart beat with anxiety every 
 morning that he betook himself to the 
 Collegio Romano ; and every time that a 
 Jesuit paid him a visit in the room where he 
 was at work, he dreaded to hear the start- 
 ling address, " Villain ! where are the 
 zecchins ? " In the mean time, he proceeded 
 with zeal, and speedily completed his job to 
 the satisfaction of the Jesuits. He received 
 his stipulated payment. No one had the 
 least conception of the matter ; no one asked 
 him the slightest question. 
 
 So passed over two weeks ; and Antonio 
 became thinner and thinner, through mere 
 care. Before, in his poverty, he had been 
 gay and joyous. The golden treasure lay 
 almost untouched under lock and key. Al- 
 most, for five or six zecchins had been taken 
 out to pay off some pressing debts, and to 
 buy some little ornamental articles for Bet- 
 tina. Teodoro never came again to borrow 
 his ten scudi. 
 
 The 39th of August was a lovely day. 
 The festival of Santa Rosa was celebrated in 
 the Minerva church, and Antonio went 
 thither. Amid the throng of worshippers, 
 he made, his way into the saint's chapel, 
 which blazed with burning wax lights, 
 painted with varied colours, and cast himself 
 on his knees before the richly-adorned image 
 of the Madonna. It was the same image 
 before which Santa Rosa, in her lifetime, was 
 accustomed to perform her devotions. * A 
 Dominican stood by the altar in his mass 
 attire. It was Father Silvestro, the most 
 eloquent and handsomest of all the brethren 
 of the Order ; tall in stature, still in the fresh 
 prime of life, but pale with his strict atten- 
 tion to his sacred duties. His voice sounded 
 deep and solemnly. When he elevated the 
 host, he looked a more than earthly being ; 
 and his eyes glowed so piercingly, that it 
 seemed as if nothing could be concealed from
 
 THE RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 195 
 
 them. As Antonio now looked up towards 
 the Dominican's reverence-inspiring counte- 
 nance, and thence on the glittering image of 
 the Virgin, there fell a naming taper, and 
 burned him on the hand. Silvestro looked 
 sharply at Antonio. Antonio lay on his 
 knee, confused, trembling, and humiliated. 
 As soon as mass was over, he staggered 
 home. 
 
 Antonio slept not a wink during the night. 
 The following morning, as Father Silvestro 
 sat in the confessional, a sinner approached 
 with downcast eyes, fell on his knees at the 
 lattice, and whispered, after a deep sigh, into 
 the Dominican's ear, " Father, pardon ! I 
 have sinned deeply. I am the bricklayer, 
 Antonio Dossi. In the Jesuit's palace I 
 found a hidden treasure, seven hundred 
 zecchins and ninety. For these fourteen days 
 I have wickedly concealed my discovery ; 
 but nothing or little of it is dissipated. I 
 will deliver all up, and free my soul ; but I 
 dare not myself advance into the presence of 
 the strange Jesuit fathers, without some 
 mediator. Father ! do thou tell them the 
 wrong that I have done, but will now repair. 
 Before thee I dared to unburden my heart. 
 Thou art good and kind, and will not deal 
 hardly with me and my poor Bettina ! " 
 
 Father Silvestro sat, after listening to 
 this confession, for some minutes in silence, 
 and thoughtful. " My son ! " said he, at 
 length, "thy faith has saved thee, and thy 
 repentance will atone for thy fault. Tell me 
 all, and I will free thy heart from its sinful 
 burden." 
 
 With a much relieved bosom, Antonio 
 related all the particulars of his golden 
 adventure. When he had concluded, and 
 still continued on his knees, as if awaiting 
 his final doom, Father Silvestro lightly 
 touched his head with his snow-white hand, 
 and said, "Peace be with them in whose 
 heart is no guile. Be still and discreet. Tell 
 no one what thou hast revealed to me. When 
 I have reflected and acted, I will visit thee 
 in thy house. Go in the peace of the Lord !" 
 
 Antonio kissed, through the lattice, the 
 priestly hand, bowed, and went. Before the 
 wonderful image of the Madonna, he again 
 fell on his knees for a while, crossed him- 
 self on the breast, and, as he now read 
 pardon and kindness in the looks of the 
 Holy Virgin, and the peace of the church fell 
 on him so still and warmly, he became much 
 composed in his spirit. More joyous than 
 when he carried home the golden heap from 
 the Collegio Romano, he now bore with him 
 
 from the church the certainty of getting rid 
 of his burden ; and Bettina wondered, at 
 dinner, at the unusual heartiness with which 
 he threw his arms round her and kissed her. 
 
 Soon after Antonio's departure, Father 
 Silvestro also quitted the church ; but walked 
 long to and fro in the colonnade, which, on the 
 four sides of the inner court, surrounded a little 
 pleasant garden. Sometimes he went out 
 into the garden, stood before a rich and 
 luxuriant stand of flowers, bound carefully 
 up a fallen branch, and lopped off here and 
 there from the orange trees some withered 
 twigs. He then shut himself up in his cell ; 
 and it was not till evening that he appeared 
 in his festive black-and-white Dominican 
 costume, and with a fine, large, and over- 
 shadowing hat on his trimmed head, passed 
 through the convent gate, and directed his 
 course towards the Collegio Romano. 
 
 To see a Dominican monk within a Jesuit's 
 palace gate, is just as rare as to find magpies 
 in a raven's nest. The Jesuits and the 
 Dominicans, the most learned and accom- 
 plished of the brethren of the Catholic Orders, 
 were, even from the earliest period, if not 
 sworn foes, yet decided rivals, who met each 
 other with a cold pride : the former priding 
 themselves on their wealth, their crafty heads, 
 and wide-extended influence ; the latter on 
 the consciousness of their classical learning, 
 their purer manners and intentions. The 
 deep-rooted aversion was now perhaps greater 
 than ever, because the reigning pope, Leo XII. 
 without altogether neglecting the Dominicans, 
 yet embraced the Jesuit brethren with a too 
 fatherly preference, whom he regarded as his 
 and the Church's most devoted children and 
 most stanch pillars, aVid on whom he, both 
 in and out of Italy, showered wealth and 
 testimonies of his favour. Between the two 
 Orders, indeed, as between their individual 
 members, there was practised an outward 
 dignified politeness ; but seldom did a Jesuit 
 stand in a close and familiar connexion with 
 a Dominican, and never were they accustomed 
 to visit each other, if not compelled thereto 
 by peremptory duty. It raised, therefore, 
 no little observation, as Father Silvestro 
 entered the Jesuits' college, and desired on 
 particular business to see, not the General of 
 the Order himself, for he lay ill, but the 
 worthy Father Gregorio, who had assumed 
 the management of the affairs of the Order 
 of Jesuits in Rome. 
 
 "Peace be with thee, Father Silvestro, 
 the holy Dominican Order's ornament and 
 honour," said the polite and complacent
 
 196 
 
 THE RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 Father Gregorio, who recognized the Domi- 
 nican, as Father Silvestro reverently yet 
 with dignity advanced to greet him. Gregorio 
 arose, advanced three steps to meet him, 
 pressed lightly his hand with two fingers, 
 and showed him a seat, as he again resumed 
 his own. 
 
 A fine and friendly smile now played on 
 the lips of the dignified Jesuit, while he 
 turned about a beautifully worked gold snuff- 
 box in his fingers. Before Silvestro could 
 utter a word, he continued, " The brotherly 
 affection and the concord which prevail 
 between our holy Orders and their individual 
 members, as well as the friendship which for 
 a long time thou hast kindly professed for me, 
 brother Silvestro, were, in themselves sufficient 
 to explain the occasion of uncommon pleasure 
 which thou givest me at this moment ; yet it 
 would be flattering myself were I to believe 
 that thou art come hither merely to see and 
 commune with an old friend. If thou art 
 therefore in any weighty trouble, either on 
 thy own or thy brethren's account, confide 
 it to me. Thou shalt find in me a friend 
 zealous to serve thee, if thou wilt speak to 
 me as a brother." 
 
 Silvestro now began, in sustained serious- 
 ness and without embarrassment, to state the 
 occasion of his visit. " Worthy father," said 
 he, "thy friendly and obliging words ad- 
 monish me of my duty to speak openly : 
 thy valuable time reminds me to speak con- 
 cisely. I am not come hither to seek or to 
 ask any thing for my brethren or myself. 
 We have, God be praised, enough, and require 
 little. But as the humble servant of the 
 Reconciler am I come to entreat thee to deal 
 gently with a misguided and repentant 
 Christian, who has sinned against thee and 
 the venerable society of the holy Ignatius, 
 and who has put his fate into my hands. 
 But before I tell thee his name and his 
 offence, promise me, worthy Father Gregorio, 
 not to use thy power over the sinner's wel- 
 fare otherwise than by a gentle forgiveness, 
 for I assure thee that he, as far as in a 
 Christian lies, shall make good his failing." 
 
 " Am I then held to be so hard a wielder 
 of the vengeance of the law," said the Jesuit, 
 " that thou art obliged to place thy word as 
 a cushion between me and the culprit ? " 
 
 " Not so, not so," answered the Dominican ; 
 " but severity is frequently the judge's duty : 
 but when the culprit converts himself into 
 the contrite, then first can we hope to speak 
 to his judge's heart ; and as he has not dared 
 to speak for himself, I have ventured to speak 
 
 for him. Promise, therefore, Father Gregorio, 
 to be lenient towards him." 
 
 " / shall and will not be severe with him : 
 there hast thou my promise," said the Jesuit. 
 
 " Nor any other through thee ? " added 
 Silvestro, calmly. 
 
 " No, no, no ! " exclaimed Gregorio, as 
 impatiently he took three pinches out of his 
 box, one after another. 
 
 Father Silvestro now related to the listen- 
 ing Jesuit the whole confession of Antonio 
 at the confessional ; but for sufficient reasons, 
 and not to imbitter him, he made no mention 
 of the inscription found by the bricklayer 
 on the wall. During the relation, which he 
 made with a simple eloquence, he fixed his 
 eyes now and then steadily on Father Gre- 
 gorio's face, to trace the impression of anger, 
 astonishment, or joy, which his communica- 
 tion might excite ; but not the slightest 
 change was visible in the Jesuit's counte- 
 nance, which at the conclusion of the narra- 
 tive remained as friendly and unconstrained 
 as before the commencement. 
 
 " Brother Silvestro, " said Gregorio, as 
 Silvestro ceased to speak, " I now ask thee 
 whether thou wilt pardon the sinner ? " 
 
 " Whom ? I ? Why should I not pardon 
 him?" 
 
 " Because from thy judgment he has the 
 most to dread. He has mocked thee ! " 
 
 " Mocked ! Nay, brother Gregorio ! The 
 man has before God confided to me in the 
 confessional the truth." 
 
 " Listen, Brother Silvestro ! " resumed 
 Gregorio, without warmth, but with glistening 
 eyes. " Listen to me ; observe me well first, 
 and read my countenance, to convince thyself 
 that I am calm, and then listen. Thou art 
 misled. The singular story which thou 
 relatest, I know not whether more to despise 
 or resent. A workman find a treasure 
 within these walls ! Nay, brother ! I defy 
 all the bricklayers in the world, here, in the 
 abode of world-renouncing poverty and silent 
 contemplation, and in the solitary cell of a 
 poor but honoured departed brother Jesuit, 
 to find worldly wealth. Is not our Order 
 recently reawakened from a violent death to 
 a dawning life, and still, by men of the world, 
 misunderstood and persecuted ? Is not our 
 house a house of prayer, where we put up 
 our petitions for worldly poverty and heavenly 
 riches ? Wander not our brethren round the 
 world, battling with the evil spirit of the 
 age, abhorred as circumcised Israelites, and 
 held in as little regard as the first apostles 
 of the Holy Church, because they preach
 
 THE RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 197 
 
 against the world's vanity and corruption ? 
 Have they, indeed, any hope hut in a happy 
 death, after a blameless, but a tried and 
 painful pilgrimage ; and seldom hearing out 
 of the mouths of men any other word, than 
 ' Crucify tJiem ! crucify them ! ' And here, at 
 the stroke of a bricklayer's hammer, gold 
 shall stream out of ; walls and ceilings ? 
 Siivestro ! did I not know thy high and 
 Christian virtues, thy honourable calling and 
 great reputation, I should be tempted to say 
 that thou came to mock me, or for something 
 still worse. But thou, thyself, through thy 
 great integrity, art misled. Even the noblest 
 may be too precipitate, and the most sagacious 
 may be imposed upon. Thy Antonio is either 
 a knave or a fool." 
 
 " Neither, Father Gregorio ! " answered 
 Siivestro. "A knave would have retained the 
 gold which he found and no one missed. A 
 fool does not speak so clearly and so sensibly 
 as Antonio to-day spoke to me." 
 
 " Be it with him as God and our Lady 
 will ! " said the Jesuit. " But thou mayest 
 assure thyself, that here, in this our cell, is 
 found no flowing vein of gold. Leave the 
 man alone ; or let him undergo a legal 
 inquiry, or send him to the hospital of the 
 Holy Ghost : from us he has stolen nothing. 
 Cordial thanks, brother Siivestro, for thy 
 good intentions and thy trouble." 
 
 The Dominican arose with a warmth which 
 betrayed displeasure, and would go. But 
 Gregorio, who had bethought himself a 
 moment, said again. " Wait a while, brother, 
 if it be not unpleasant to thee ; " and at the 
 same time he seized the bell handle and rung. 
 There immediately entered an attendant 
 Order' s-brother, who awaited at the door the 
 commands of his exalted superior. 
 
 " Call hither Angelo and Luigi ! " said 
 Gregorio. Soon after there stood in the room 
 two young Order' s-brethren, with pale but 
 handsome and expressive countenances and 
 downcast eyes. Gregorio gave them a look 
 as they made their humble greeting, and then 
 began to play with his gold-box, and asked : 
 
 " You have both of you lately seen here 
 a bricklayer, Antonio Dossi, who has been 
 doing some work for the Holy Order ?" 
 
 " Yes ! most reverend Father ! " replied 
 they both. 
 
 " Have you always found the man to be of 
 sound and perfect understanding?" demanded 
 Gregorio, and gave the interrogated Jesuits 
 another look. 
 
 " To judge by speech and action, he 
 resembled rather a crazy person than a sane 
 
 one," answered Angelo. " He frequently 
 trembled, as if seized with a sudden tremor, 
 when I entered the room to see how he was 
 getting on with his work. Sometimes he 
 sung, or laughed wildly without any visible 
 cause." 
 
 " He once seized me fast about the neck 
 as if he would strangle me," said Luigi, " and 
 put his mouth to my ear ; but I reprimanded 
 him for his impropriety, and said, ' Antonio, 
 take heed that you don't do what you may 
 repent ; ' and on that he let me go, saying, 
 ' You are right, young Father ! we should 
 do nothing that we may here repent of ; ' 
 and then he laughed wildly and long." 
 
 On this, Gregorio looked significantly at 
 the Dominican, and demanded of the two 
 Jesuits, " So, then, you imagine this Antonio 
 to have lost his wits ? " 
 
 " Yes, most reverend Father," answered 
 Luigi ; " if Providence, since that time, has 
 not been merciful to him, he is, at this hour, 
 not rightly in his senses." 
 
 " That is true," added Angelo ; and, at a 
 sign from Gregorio, the two Jesuits withdrew 
 with a deep obeisance. 
 
 "What think you now, Brother Siivestro ?" 
 exclaimed Gregorio, as soon as they were 
 alone. 
 
 " I think that I have fulfilled my duty ; 
 that I need not, and ought not to go farther 
 in this matter. I shall, therefore, tell Antonio 
 that he may keep his zecchins, for that the 
 Collegio Romano will not receive them as 
 its property." 
 
 " God and the holy Ignatius preserve us," 
 interrupted the Jesuit, " from the possession 
 of this and all other wr'ongly acquired goods. 
 Let the holder answer it to himself and to 
 God how it got into his possession, and how 
 he applies it. See ! there you have my first 
 and last word on the subject." 
 
 " Forget, then, what I have said, and 
 pardon the interruption of my visit," said 
 Siivestro, as he took his hat and advanced 
 to the Jesuit, to take his leave. "Farewell, 
 Father Gregorio ! God's peace ! Farewell, 
 farewell ! " 
 
 " Farewell, father Siivestro ! " said Gre- 
 gorio. " Thy visit has been flattering and 
 dear to me. God grant that thou one day 
 mayest come hither on such an errand, that 
 by word and deed I may be able to testify 
 how highly I esteem thee. I shall include 
 thee in my prayers, as certainly as I hope 
 that thou wilt not forget me in thine." 
 
 With this, Gregorio arose from his chair, 
 took Siivestro by the hand, and accompanied
 
 198 
 
 T1IJ-: RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 him to the door. Yes, he would have gone 
 further with him, had not Silvestro pro- 
 tested against it, and closed the door, saying, 
 " Thanks, thanks ! Father Gregorio ! Give 
 yourself no farther trouble. Adieu, adieu!" 
 "Dio tibenedica!" was heard as a parting 
 salutation from the Jesuit's room. The 
 Dominican flung his hat on his burning head, 
 as he now advanced alone out of the corridor, 
 and gave vent, in a long sigh, to his sup- 
 pressed indignation. When he reached the 
 gate, he shook the dust from his feet, and 
 said, "Sycophants! hypocrites! Should I 
 ever become like you, then for the next time 
 will I set my foot within these walls." 
 
 Father Silvestro did not return immediately 
 to his convent, but went to Antonio. As the 
 latter became aware of the approach of his 
 venerable confessor, he sprang to the door, 
 and, with bows and kisses of the hand, bade 
 him welcome. The Dominican greeted An- 
 {onio gently, took a chair, and said seriously, 
 but calmly, "Antonio ! thou hast not deceived 
 me ? Thou hast found seven hundred and 
 ninety-five zecchins in the Jesuits' College ? " 
 " God, and the Madonna, and the holy 
 Antonio, whose name I poor sinner bear, 
 preserve me from lying and deceit," answered 
 Antonio, with astonishment. 
 
 "Let me see the money," said Silvestro, 
 as he himself arose to close the door, and 
 looked around the room as if he feared the 
 presence of some improper witness. But they 
 were quite alone even at this time : Bettiua 
 was not within. 
 
 " Yes, most worthy Father ! " said Antonio. 
 " All shalt thou see, every penny, except the 
 five zecchins which I changed away, but 
 which I will soon earn again. Rather will 
 I remain poor, and seek my bread with labour 
 and care, than possess what does not belong 
 to me ; " and with this he conducted the 
 Dominican to the secret chest, raised the lid, 
 and showed him that the zecchins actually 
 lay there, protesting, once more, that all had 
 occurred exactly as he had stated in the 
 confessional. 
 
 " Thou art right, Antonio !" said Silvestro, 
 " I was quite convinced that thou wert 
 neither a knave nor a fool. But see thou, 
 the Jesuit Fathers will not acknowledge the 
 treasure that thou hast found. They deny 
 it. Keep, therefore, what fortune has thrown 
 in thy way, and be from this moment as free 
 from remorse, as thou art free from guilt. 
 Now art thou pure. I award to thee this 
 glittering gold as the gift of Providence. Let 
 it be expended for good and noble purposes, 
 
 for the benefit of thyself and thy fellow-men. 
 But thou must now preserve thy secret. 
 Dangers encompass thee. Good night ! 
 Before morning dawns I will see thee again, 
 or send thee a messenger. And that which 
 I counsel thee, thou must do. I will pray 
 for thee as for a son ; thy welfare lies at my 
 heart. Farewell ! God bless thee ! " 
 
 And before Antonio was able to stammer 
 out his reverential gratitude, Father Silvestro 
 had vanished. 
 
 "Corpo di Bacco!" exclaimed Antonio, 
 after he had sat some moments as if petrified ; 
 but at length the thought of the wonderful 
 find comes with a sense of how glad he was. 
 " Corpo di Bacco ! Now I am rich. Bettina, 
 Bettina, come quickly. Ah ! thou abomin- 
 able Bettina, if thou didst but know, how 
 thou wouldst come ! " 
 
 Bettina soon came home. A great part of 
 the night, the happy couple spent in talk over 
 their good fortune, and in plans and castles 
 in the air for the future. Already the cock 
 crew ; already rattled along the Via dell 
 Corso the wagons pouring in from the 
 country, while hoarse voices cried " Aqua- 
 vite ! Aquavite ! " when Antonio and Bettina 
 fell asleep, and continued the building of their 
 splendid air castles in their dreams. 
 
 The night after St. Egidius's day, which 
 was the 1st of September, there was a loud 
 knocking at the gate of the house in which 
 Antonio lived. The neighbours heard the 
 hard knocking, and, as no one opened the 
 door, here and there was protruded a head 
 from the windows of the adjoining house, to 
 see what was the matter. In the street stood 
 three gensdarmes, one of whom at length 
 shouted with a rough bass voice " Antonio 
 Dossi ! open the door ! In the name of the 
 Ministers of Justice, I command thee open ! " 
 
 There was then opened, not the door, but 
 a little window into the street ; an old head 
 with its night-cap was thrust out of it, and 
 demanded with a tone which issued half 
 through the mouth, and half through the 
 nose, " Signori, may I ask whom you are in 
 quest of?" 
 
 " We seek the bricklayer, Antonio Dossi," 
 said the principal of the gensdarmes. 
 
 " Then you come let me see, then you 
 come exactly ten hours too late, Signori ! 
 Antonio and his wife are now, God will ! al- 
 ready beyond the Pontine Marshes ; or indeed 
 they are at La Storta, if they travelled north, 
 or at Subiaco, if they took an easterly direc- 
 tion. Enough, Signori ! they have, like 
 Christian people, honourably paid their rent,
 
 THE RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 1.99 
 
 and are gone hence. Adieu! excuse me, 
 Signori !" and with that the old man shut 
 to the window. 
 
 "Open, baldpate!" now bawled the cor- 
 poral : " Antonio is my prisoner. Open, or 
 I will knock in the gate ! " 
 
 Before this menace could be carried into 
 effect, the gate growled upon its hinges, and 
 the gensdarmes entered. 
 
 The whole house was now searched through. 
 The old host bade the soldiers look everywhere ; 
 and when they had at length convinced them- 
 selves of the fruitlessness of all this trouble, 
 and grumbling, were about to depart, then 
 advanced the old man, and said politely, and 
 smilingly, " Signori ! excuse me, that I put 
 one single question to you : By what authority 
 are you come hither to disturb the nightly 
 repose of me and mine? What have I or 
 my family to do with the officers of justice ? " 
 
 The corporal produced his written order 
 to take and commit to prison the bricklayer, 
 Antonio Dossi, charged by Teodoro Pistrelli 
 with a robbery. With spectacles on nose, 
 and by the light of a bright brass lamp, 
 Aatonio's host read the high commands of 
 the Buon Governo, the Good Ruler, and said 
 coldly and shortly, as he returned the war- 
 rant, " Signori ! I cannot understand how 
 Signor Teodoro can all at once have become 
 so rich, that he can let some hundreds of 
 zecchins be stolen from him ; but this I know, 
 that Antonio Dossi is no thief, but an honest 
 fellow ; and that he is now no longer to be 
 found here, ought to be properly inquired into. 
 Signori! il mio respetto;" and with that he 
 lighted the servants of justice out of doors, 
 yes, even out of the gate, which he carefully 
 barred ; and the gensdarmes set out on their 
 way back through a great crowd, which 
 in the meantime had collected, and which at 
 their departure accompanied them with a loud 
 burst of laughter. 
 
 It is now incumbent that we briefly ex- 
 plain the occasion not only of this nocturnal 
 visit, but of Antonio's sudden flight. Teodoro 
 Pistrelli, who would not go again to Antonio 
 to borrow the money, had nevertheless 
 watched secretly for an opportunity, in the 
 absence of the gruff husband, to seek Bettina, 
 and to gather up from her, if not money, at 
 least some useful particulars touching her 
 husband, and the singular state of mind in 
 which he found Antonio at his last visit. 
 He would not apply to Antonio himself with 
 farther solicitations or questions, for fear that 
 he might get the stab of a knife for his an- 
 swer ; for that the man was horribly jealous, 
 
 both his self-love, and his base intentions 
 persuaded him. Often, in the evenings, did 
 he stand on the watch in the neighbourhood 
 of the bricklayer's dwelling, in the hope of 
 seeing Antonio go out when Bettina was in, 
 or to see Bettina come home while Antonio 
 was away. But fate had not favoured his 
 wishes, till one evening he saw the Domini- 
 can monk Silvestro, as he had just returned 
 from the Jesuits' college, enter the room in 
 which Antonio lived, and close the door after 
 him. 
 
 Teodoro crept as close to the door as he 
 could, laid his ear to it, and gathered, with 
 his fine organs of hearing, the greater part of 
 the conversation between the monk and 
 Antonio. Before Father Silvestro again 
 opened the door, Teodoro had disappeared 
 out of the gateway, and hastened to his 
 powerful patron, the Apothecary Fumarolli, 
 to lighten his heart, and with him to con- 
 trive a plan conducive both to his thirst for 
 vengeance and his cupidity. Fumarolli 
 listened attentively to Teodoro's relation ; 
 and before Pistrelli could get out the last 
 word, he had a plan already in his head, 
 through which he hoped, in a double fashion, 
 to benefit the holy Jesuits' College, and 
 equally to advance his own interest. In the 
 first place, he would manoeuvre the treasure, 
 which the Jesuits had refused, back into 
 their hands, when he had taken care first to 
 levy a handsome per centage upon it for his 
 own and his assistants' benefit ; and in the 
 second, he would deeply humiliate Father 
 Silvestro, and in him the whole Dominican 
 Order so detested by the Jesuits. 
 
 Fumarolli did not linger long at home, but 
 betook himself to the Collegio Romano, and 
 got admission to Father Gregorio. There he 
 found, however, that all his haste was need- 
 less ; and that his whole artful scheme lay be- 
 fore his arrival quite prepared in the more art- 
 ful Jesuit's brain. The fruit of this confiden- 
 tial interview was the already described order 
 of the city magistrate to seize Antonio, who 
 was charged with having stolen the gold from 
 Teodoro Pistrelli. Indefatigable hi his zeal 
 to injure another and to enrich himself, 
 hastened Fumarolli from the Jesuits' College 
 to the Vatican ; where in the Pope's cabinet, 
 in the company of a favoured few, he fre- 
 quently passed the evenings, and sometimes, 
 yes nearly as often, sped the time with play- 
 ing at cards. It is said in Rome that the 
 holy Father carried his weakness for the un- 
 worthy favourite so far, that he himself 
 honoured this company with his exalted
 
 200 
 
 Till-: RKNOl NCKI) TREASURE. 
 
 presence, though no one dared to assert that 
 he took the cards in hand. As Fiunarolli 
 now entered the cabinet, and found the Pope 
 in a humour very favourable to his designs, 
 he did not delay to avail himself of it. He 
 described in his usual, and occasionally bluff 
 and cunning manner, Silvestro's visit to the 
 Jesuit Gregorio, as it had been related to 
 him by the latter, probably with necessary 
 additions, and represented the proceeding of 
 the Dominican in such a light that the Pope 
 was seized with the most violent rage, and 
 swore by St. Peter's keys that Silvestro 
 should dearly atone for his shameful attempt 
 to cast a stain on the Order of the Jesuits, 
 so distinguished for its services to both church 
 and state. 
 
 The Pope laid it so deeply to heart, and 
 chafed himself so about it, that in the night 
 he was seized with one of his periodical attacks 
 of gout, and for some days was in actual 
 danger, till the united exertions of physician 
 and apothecary placed him in an apparent, but 
 yet from day to day declining state of health. 
 
 Father Silvestro, although ignorant of all 
 these plottings, had nevertheless foreseen with 
 a foreboding bordering on certainty, that the 
 Jesuits' Order, which would not openly ac- 
 knowledge the discovered treasure, would 
 despise no secret means of getting it into its 
 power, and therefore, that Antonio could no 
 longer be secure in Rome. When he had, 
 after his last conversation with Antonio, in 
 his cell in the silence of night, reflected on 
 what was best to be done, he rose early in 
 the morning, wrote a short but affectionate 
 and cordial letter to his friend, the Dominican 
 Lorenzo, in Naples ; and procured, through 
 his high standing, a passport for the brick- 
 layer and his wife from the Governor of 
 Rome ; for he had not yet been anticipated by 
 the Jesuits or Fumarolli, who, through the 
 Pope's sudden illness, was for the moment 
 engrossed by weighter cares. Silvestro then 
 hastened to Antonio and Bettina, and warned 
 them, with all expedition, to put their affairs 
 in order, and with all their easily moveable 
 effects to get themselves over the borders of 
 the Roman state, and into the kingdom and 
 city of Naples. At the same time, he de- 
 livered to them the letter which he had pre- 
 pared, and commanded them, on their arrival 
 in the strange city, to commit themselves 
 entirely to the counsel and guidance of the 
 noble Father Lorenzo. He commended them 
 to God's protection, wished them a happy 
 journey, and returned to his cloister. 
 
 Before two o'clock on the 1st of September, 
 
 husband and wife were already without the 
 gate of St. Giovanni, on the way to Naples, 
 having left the greater part of their effects 
 behind in Rome, to avoid attracting observa- 
 tion ; but the important hoard of gold they 
 had not forgotten. 
 
 Seven days ufter Antonio and Bettina's 
 departure, wandered Father Silvestro, clad 
 in his most ornate robes, and attended by a 
 servant, past the deserted dwelling of the 
 fugitives. Then he lifted a warm glance 
 towards heaven, grateful for the beautiful 
 lot to which heaven had called him, to be a 
 father to the innocent and the persecuted, 
 even at the sacrifice of himself. The happy 
 escape and reward of Antonio might be read 
 in his mild and glorified features ; and yet 
 there stood before him in the next moment a 
 severe trial ; and he knew it. 
 
 Silvestro was called to the presence of the 
 Pope, and was now on his way to the Vatican. 
 It was eleven o'clock before noon of Trinita 
 do Monti, that is, sixteen o'clock, according 
 to the Italian mode of reckoning time, as 
 he ascended the splendid steps amid Swiss 
 guards, and stood in one of the eleven thou- 
 sand halls of the Vatican palace. 
 
 Here he did not wait long, for Leo XII., 
 punctual himself, and precise in ceremonies 
 and small matters, seldom allowed any one 
 to wait on him. 
 
 Just as the folding-doors of the holy 
 Father's cabinet were flung open by a sable- 
 clad valet, and the Dominican, conducted by 
 one of the officers in waiting of the Noble- 
 guard, with a silent but a firm step trod the 
 rich gobelin carpet of the cabinet, there flitted, 
 like an evil genius, a black figure past, with 
 a shameless countenance, and disappeared at 
 a side-door. It was the Apothecary Fumarolli. 
 
 The holy Father himself sate at a distance 
 in the cabinet, in a golden chair. He was 
 clad in a white robe, reaching to the feet ; 
 but wore on his shoulders the purple velvet 
 collar, bordered with sVan's-down, and on 
 his head the white calotte, from beneath which 
 a few thin gray hairs projected, and formed 
 about the ears some scanty locks. His coun- 
 tenance, pale as his dress but much sallower, 
 seemed nearly devoid of life ; but the thin, 
 pale-blue lips trembled still, as if with inward 
 rage. The right hand, white as ivory, and 
 adorned by the beaming fisher's ring, rested 
 on a table of polished black gold-veined 
 marble, where some papers were scattered 
 about, with which the fingers played. 
 
 Father Silvestro fell upon his knees with 
 his head reverentially bared, and with
 
 THE RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 201 
 
 clasped hands. Thus remained he some 
 seconds. 
 
 " Thou art Silvestro, the Dominican ? Come 
 nearer," said Leo, with a trembling tongue, 
 and in a voice scarcely audible. 
 
 " Holy Father, I am he ! " answered Sil- 
 vestro ; raised himself, advanced some steps, 
 and again fell down, kissing the Pope's right 
 foot, whose purple slipper, with its golden 
 cross, appeared from beneath the long white 
 robe. 
 
 " Judas ! " exclaimed the Pope, and a 
 momentary flush of red flamed up in his 
 cold and withered cheeks, but quickly faded 
 again into a pale hue of death, like that 
 Avhich covers the Alps when the evening red 
 vanishes. " Judas ! dost thou betray the 
 Head of the Church, and thy Lord, with a 
 kiss ? " and at the same instant, he drew his 
 foot beneath his mantle. " Thou ansvverest 
 nothing : thou art silent ? " 
 
 " Holy Father," said Silvestro, " when 
 thou speakest, it becomes thy servant to be 
 silent ; and, if thou addressest me in thy 
 wrath, I can only be dumb and abased." 
 
 "I know you, ye black and white monks! 
 Ye would undermine and destroy your own 
 mother, the holy Church, which I protect 
 and govern. Ye would devour me, who yet, 
 like the pelican, open my own bosom for 
 you. But see ! I will scourge you with my 
 pinions, and I will keep you in check so long 
 as my head remains above the earth. But," 
 added he, with a slower, deeper tone, " would 
 to God that I already lay dead and cold in 
 the vault beneath St. Peter's, I, the least 
 and most unfortunate of all the successors of 
 the first Apostles, ego, omnium Pontificum 
 infimus et infelicissimus. But thou, " here 
 he again elevated his voice, " thou art crafty 
 with all thine humility, and I meant thee 
 well." 
 
 But the Dominican said, when the Pope 
 had ceased, " Here stand I to-day, as faithful 
 as before, and without hypocrisy before your 
 Holiness's throne. Be pleased to tell me, by 
 what I have forfeited your favour, that I 
 may be able to regain it in the way of truth." 
 
 " Thou knowest it thou knowest it, 
 monk ! " burst out the Pope, with growing 
 wrath " thou knowest it well. We have 
 not called thee hither, that thou mayest 
 excuse thyself, and coil thyself again like an 
 adder around our heart, but that thou mayest 
 hear that we know thee. Thou hast spun a 
 lie and a snare to cast ridicule and dirt on 
 those whom thou oughtest to honour and love. 
 Thou rememberest thy conversation with 
 
 Gregorio, our faithful servant, and who 
 might serve thee for an example. Thou 
 recollectest well that thou accusedst our good 
 Jesuit Order of base cupidity, and tauntedst 
 them with concealed treasure. Thou art a 
 knave thou art a genuine Dominican 
 thou" 
 
 " Judge me as your Holiness will ; in this 
 matter I am wholly absolved by my con- 
 science. I have calumniated no one, cast re- 
 proach on no one. What I spoke was the 
 truth," said Silvestro. 
 
 " Thy conscience is a knave, monk ! It 
 lies to thee, and thou believest it, and liest to 
 us ; when thou ought alone to be true to us, 
 and to obey our commands. See here ! " 
 Leo now took up from the table with a trem- 
 bling hand a paper. " Canst thou read this 
 name ? Read it aloud." 
 
 Silvestro took the extended paper from the 
 Pope, and read calmly and distinctly all the 
 names which it contained, and amongst them 
 his own ; whereupon the Pope hastily 
 stretched out his hand, and took back the 
 paper. 
 
 " Thou hast seen and read these names," 
 said he. " All these we had proposed soon to 
 grace with the Cardinal's purple ; even thee, 
 ungrateful one ! but our eyes are now opened. 
 We have called thee hither to see how we 
 strike thee out of this honourable list of car- 
 dinals. Thy name shall not disgrace with 
 its neighbourhood, theirs. As I now dash 
 out thy name from this leaf, Silvestro, art 
 thou from this hour excluded from our Apos- 
 tolical favour. Write now the name of 
 Gregorio in its place, of Gregorio whom thou 
 hast calumniated and, blackened. So merci- 
 fully do we avenge ourselves to-day ! " 
 
 When the Dominican had again received 
 the paper, and, as he was commanded, had 
 written in the Jesuit's name, the Pope con- 
 templated him with the most transpiercing 
 look that he could assume ; and when he* 
 could detect in Silvestro's countenance no 
 sign of sorrow or dejection, he said, as he 
 rolled up the paper, " Thou wilt be no Car- 
 dinal, during the reign of Leo XII. Go !" 
 
 Silvestro went. Silently and dignified as 
 he came, he passed through the marble halls, 
 and descended again the marble steps ; and 
 the feelings which possessed him, as in St. 
 Peter's Square the beautiful, clear, Roman 
 heaven vaulted itself above his head, were 
 not inspired by sorrow or care, but by an 
 inward satisfaction. He was glad to find 
 himself again without the walls of the Vati- 
 can ; and said to himself many times, on his
 
 202 
 
 THE RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 way to his peaceful <vll in the Minerva Con- 
 vent, " If I am no Cardinal, I am neverthe- 
 less a good Christian, and hav done a good 
 deed ; and, if I do not clothe myself in a 
 purple robe, I am still happy enough not to 
 envy all those that will." 
 
 Silvestro went into his cell. He was the 
 same at his return, as he was at his going 
 out ; equally mild, serious, and calm, and 
 fulfilled his calling with the same unspotted 
 integrity and zeal, as before. None of his 
 brethren could from his behaviour or coun- 
 tenance, guess that he had lost a Cardinal's 
 hat. Yet was Father Silvestro not without 
 disquiet, not concerning himself and the dis- 
 favour into which he had fallen at the Pon- 
 tifical court, but concerning the fate of the 
 fugitives under his protection. Well did he 
 know that they had happily escaped the first 
 pursuit, and hoped, on good grounds, that 
 they were no longer within the territories 
 of the church ; but the crafty and powerful 
 enemies might yet possess meansin their hands, 
 even at a greater distance and in a foreign 
 country, to pursue their victims. He knew 
 too well the Jesuits, and the fine web of 
 machinations with which they know how in 
 secret to involve their prey, which they could 
 not arrive at by open force. He knew, too, 
 Fumarolli for a willing and effective work- 
 tool for carrying out all profitable schemes. 
 
 But if Silvestro frequently feared every 
 thing from their united power, he yet hoped 
 almost equally often that Providence, the 
 father of all success, would bless the steps 
 which, in his littleness, he had taken to 
 counteract and bring to nothing all wicked 
 plots. Thus did he vibrate many days be- 
 tween hope and fear. Many a night did he 
 watch in his cell by his gleaming lamp and 
 his Bible, with quiet prayers and silent tears ; 
 and often, when he at length slumbered, did 
 he again awake at the slightest sound, and 
 with a beating heart fancied that some one 
 knocked at the convent gate, and brought 
 him a letter from Naples. How great, there- 
 fore was his joy, as one evening at the close 
 of September, a Vetturino, with great boots, 
 hanging locks, and a downright honest coun- 
 tenance, entered the convent gate, and desired 
 to speak with Father Silvestro, whom him- 
 self he encountered. 
 
 Conducted by the monk into his cell, he 
 greeted him as heartily as copiously from 
 Fra Lorenzo of St. Domenico Maggiore in 
 Naples ; and drew forth a letter which he 
 had carefully and faithfully concealed under 
 his clothes. With beaming eyes, Silvestro 
 
 read the clear and long-expected letter, while 
 the Vetturino refreshed himself with a silver 
 cup of the convent cellar's most excellent 
 wine; but it was not till after he had delivered 
 to the departing messenger his answer, writ- 
 ten with a glowing heart, that he enjoyed in 
 the re-perusal of the letter, in the peace of 
 solitude and a pure conscience, his happiest 
 hour. Fra Lorenzo's letter ran thus : 
 
 " Naples and St. Dominico Maggiore. 
 Sept. 25th, 1828. 
 
 " Beloved Brother ! Antonio and Bettina, 
 through thy affectionate vigilance, escaped 
 from a threatening danger, are happily 
 arrived in Naples. I should certainly have 
 written off earlier to thank thee, paternally 
 and warmly, for the letter which they brought, 
 and for the dear confidence that thou reposest 
 in me ; but I waited for the moment in which 
 with full assurance I could say, they are 
 arrived, free and happy. 
 
 " Now can I do that ! So soon as Antonio 
 and Bettina found me out, I easily influ- 
 enced our Prior to allow them an asylum 
 in the convent. There they lived some days 
 concealed, protected by the convent's right of 
 hospitality, but not without danger of being 
 taken, if they ventured out ; for already had 
 the officers of police received a hint from 
 Rome regarding the affair of the fugitives, 
 and their slightest movements were watched. 
 This could not, and ought not long to endure. 
 I went to our Minister of State, Prince Luigi 
 de Medici, who resembles his Tuscan ances- 
 tors, in that he loves learning and detests 
 the hierarchical power ; and I laid before 
 him thy client's matter in the clearest light. 
 This proceeding was crowned with such suc- 
 cess, that, on the commands of the minister, 
 all the inquiries of the police were stopped. 
 Yes ! Antonio and Bettina are already an- 
 nounced as Neapolitan citizens, and cannot 
 l)e reached by the papal power. They have 
 left the convent, and purchased a little neat 
 charming house, with its adjoining vineyard, 
 not far from Castel Sant' Elmo, and in the 
 neighbourhood of an estate which belongs to 
 Bettina's own relations. 
 
 " They flitted thither three days ago ; and 
 there I visited them this evening. Antonio 
 seems to me honesty and piety itself, but he 
 is also strong and active. Bettina is quite 
 too handsome to be free from the weaknesses 
 of her sex ; but she is good, sensible, and 
 sincere, and she has a gently and easily 
 touched heart. There was wanting, as I 
 to-day entered their dwelling, nothing but
 
 THE RENOUNCED TREASURE. 
 
 2(K 
 
 thyself, beloved and honoured brother, to 
 make their and my happiness complete. 
 Antonio squeezed my hand, and said, * Oh, 
 that Father Silvestro were but a sinful 
 mortal like myself, that I might be able to 
 embrace him and say, Take all it is thine! 
 all which thou seest here hast thou given us, 
 and more also. Be with us what thou wilt. 
 Let us be thy house-folk, and serve thee all 
 thy days. But he is a holy man, and needs 
 not even our prayers. Bettina, Bettina, come 
 hither.' 
 
 " The lovely woman approached modestly, 
 while she put back from her pure brow the 
 dark locks. Then fell they both on their 
 knees at my feet, I could not prevent it, 
 and they said, ' Father Lorenzo, pray to God 
 with us that we may be thankful till death ! ' 
 and I lifted my hand, trembling with emo- 
 tion, and said, ' Lord, grant them thy fullest 
 peace.' 
 
 " I remained till late in the evening with 
 them, partaking their simple but tasteful 
 supper, beneath the crown of a young palm, 
 and surrounded by the branches of vines. 
 I tasted the greatest enjoyment in their 
 sincere affection, and rejoiced myself in 
 their dawning domestic happiness. We 
 talk much about thee. When I left their 
 cottage, Antonio accompanied me a part of 
 the way, and imparted to me his hope of ere 
 long becoming a father. He said, if the child 
 should be a son, it was the wish of both him- 
 
 self and Bettina, that he should be called 
 Silvestro; that when both father and mother 
 rejoiced in the child, they should be daily 
 and hourly reminded of their deep obligations 
 to thee. 
 
 " As I afterwards pursued my way alone 
 to San Dominico, I could not avoid saying to 
 myself, ' So, then, it was the fixed design of 
 Providence, that even a Jesuit should contri- 
 bute to the happiness of two human beings, 
 although contrary to his wish, and after his 
 death.' 
 
 " Brother, I thank God who has allowed 
 me to become, in a small measure, instru- 
 mental in carrying out thy noble work, and 
 who gave me a dear occasion yet more highly 
 to love and honour thee. When spring 
 clothes in its flowery garb our most beautiful 
 neighbourhood, then pay a visit to Antonio 
 and Bettina, and 
 
 "Thy faithful 
 
 " LORENZO." 
 
 If the noble Dominican be not now a 
 Cardinal, he yet possesses this letter, which 
 is dearer to him than all the Cardinal's 
 diplomas in the world. If no purple of the 
 Church covers his shoulders, he can never- 
 theless, when spring comes, travel to Naples, 
 and behold on the cheeks of Antonio and 
 Bettina, made happy by him, the purple of 
 health and gratitude ; and how much more 
 precious is this purple to liini ! 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 BY MRS. GORE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves 
 Shall never tremble. Hence, horrible shadow ! 
 Unreal mockery, hence ! Macbeth. 
 
 IT was a gloomy evening, towards the 
 autumn of the year 1676, and the driving 
 blasts which swept from the sea upon Greville 
 Cross, a drearv and exposed mansion on the 
 coast of Lancashire, gave promise of a stormy 
 night, and added to the desolation which at 
 all times pervaded its vast and comfortless 
 apartments. 
 
 Greville Cross had formerly been a Bene- 
 dictine Monastery, and had been bestowed at 
 the Reformation, together with its rights of 
 forestry, upon Sir Ralph de Greville, the an- 
 cestor of its present possessor. Although that 
 part of the building containing the chapel 
 
 and refectory had been long in ruins, the 
 remainder of the gloomy quadrangle was 
 strongly marked with the characteristics of 
 its monastic origin. It had never been a 
 favourite residence of the Greville family, 
 who were possessed of two other magnificent 
 seats, at one of which, Silsea Castle, in Kent, 
 the present Lord Greville constantly resided ; 
 and the Cross, usually so called from a large 
 iron cross which stood in the centre of the 
 court-yard, and to which a thousand romantic 
 legends were attached, had received few im- 
 provements from the modernizing hand of 
 taste. 
 
 Indeed, as the faults of the edifice were 
 those of solid construction, it would have 
 been difficult to render it less gloomy or 
 more convenient by any change that art
 
 204 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 could effect. Its massive walls ami huge 
 oaken beams would neither permit the en- 
 largement of its narrow windows, nor the 
 destruction of its maze of useless corridors ; 
 and it was therefore allowed to remain 
 unmolested and unadorned, unless when an 
 occasional visit from some member of the 
 Greville family demanded an addition to its 
 rude attempts at splendour and elegance. 
 But it was difficult to convey the new- 
 fangled luxuries of the capital to this remote 
 spot ; and the tapestry, whose faded hues 
 and mouldering texture betrayed the influ- 
 ence of the sea air, had not yet given place 
 to richer hangings. The suite of state apart- 
 ments was cold and comfortless in the ex- 
 treme ; but one of the chambers had been 
 recently decorated with more than usual cost, 
 on the arrival of Lord and Lady Greville, 
 the latter of whom had never before visited 
 her northern abode. Its dimensions, which 
 were somewhat less vast than those of the 
 rest of the suite, rendered it fitter for modern 
 habits of life ; and it had long ensured the 
 preference of the ladies of the house of Gre- 
 ville, and obtained the name of " the lady's 
 chamber," by which it is even to this day 
 distinguished. The walls were not encum- 
 bered by the portraits of those grim ancestors 
 who frowned in mail, or smiled in farthingale 
 on the walls of the adjacent galleries. The 
 huge chimney had suffered some inhospitable 
 contraction, and was surmounted with mar- 
 ble ; and huge settees, glittering with gilding 
 and satin, which in their turn would now be 
 displaced by the hand of Gillow or Oakle}', 
 had dispossessed the tall, straight, ebony- 
 backed chairs which, in the olden time, must 
 have inflicted martyrdom on the persons of 
 our weary forefathers. 
 
 The present visit of Lord Greville to the 
 Cross, was supposed to originate in the dan- 
 gerous illness of an old and favourite female 
 servant, who had held undisturbed control 
 over the household since the death of the first 
 Lady Greville, about ten years before. She 
 had been from her infancy attached to the 
 family service ; and having married a retainer 
 of the house, had been nurse to Lord Greville, 
 whom she still regarded with something of a 
 maternal affection. Her husband had died 
 the preceding year, equally lamented by the 
 master whom he served, and the domestics 
 whom he ruled ; and his wife was now daily 
 declining, and threatening to follow her aged 
 partner to the grave. It was even imagined 
 by the other members of the establishment, 
 that the old lady had written to her master, 
 
 with whom she frequently corresponded, to 
 entreat a personal interview, in order that 
 she might resign her stewardship into his 
 hands before her final release from all earthly 
 cares and anxieties ; and in consideration of 
 the length and importance of her services, 
 none were surprised at the readiness with 
 which her request was granted. 
 
 Lord Greville had never visited the north 
 since the death of his first wife ; a young 
 and beautiful woman, whom he had tenderly 
 loved, and who died and was interred at 
 Greville Cross. She left no children ; and 
 the heir, a fine boy, in the full bloom of 
 childhood and beauty, who now accompanied 
 Lord Greville, was the sole offspring of his 
 second marriage. 
 
 Helen, the present Lady Greville, was by 
 birth a Percy ; and although her predecessor 
 had been celebrated at the court of Charles, as 
 one of the most distinguished beauties of her 
 time, there were many who considered her 
 eclipsed by the lovely and gentle being that 
 now filled her place. She was considerably 
 younger than her husband ; but her attach- 
 ment to him, and to her child, as well as her 
 naturally domestic disposition, prevented the 
 ill effects often resulting from disparity of 
 years. Lord Greville, whose parents were 
 zealous supporters of the royal cause, had 
 himself shared the banishment of the second 
 Charles ; had fought by his side in his hour 
 of peril, and shared the revelries of his court 
 in his after days of prosperity. At an age 
 when the judgment is rarely matured, unless 
 by an untimely encounter with the dangers 
 and adversities of the world, such as those 
 disastrous times too often afforded, he had 
 been employed with signal success in several 
 foreign missions ; and it was universally 
 known that the monarch was ever prompt 
 to acknowledge the benefit he had on many 
 occasions derived from the prudent counsels 
 of his adherent, as well as from his valour in 
 the field. But notwithstanding the bond of 
 union subsisting between them, from the 
 period of his first marriage, which had taken 
 place under the royal auspices, Greville had 
 retired to Silsea Castle ; and resisting equally 
 the invitations of his condescending master, 
 and the entreaties of his former gay com- 
 panions, he had never again joined in the 
 amusements of the court. Whether his 
 retirement originated in some disgust occa- 
 sioned by the licentious habits and insolent 
 companions of Charles, whose present mode of 
 life was peculiarly unfitted to the purer taste 
 and intellectual character of Lord Greville ;
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 205 
 
 or, whether it arose solely from his natural 
 distaste for the parasitical existence of a 
 courtier, was uncertain ; but it was undeniable 
 that he had faithfully followed the fortunes 
 of the expatriated king, and even supplied 
 his necessities from his own resources, and 
 that he had only withdrawn his services when 
 they were no longer required. 
 
 After the death of Lady Greville, his 
 secluded habits seemed more than ever con- 
 firmed ; hut when he again became possessed 
 of a bride, whose youth, beauty, and rank 
 in society appeared to demand an introduction 
 to those pleasures which her age had hitherto 
 prevented her from sharing, it was a matter 
 of no small mortification to Lord and Lady 
 Percy, to perceive that their son-in-law 
 evinced no disposition to profit by the royal 
 favour, or to relinquish the solitude of 
 Silsea for the splendour of the capital. But 
 Helen shared not in their regrets. She had 
 been educated in retirement ; she knew but 
 by report the licentious, but seductive gaieties 
 of the court of Charles ; and she had not the 
 slightest wish to increase her knowledge of 
 such dangerous pleasures. Content with 
 loving, and being beloved by, a husband 
 whom she regarded with profound venera- 
 tion, her happiness was not disturbed by a 
 restless search after new enjoyments ; and her 
 delighted parents soon forgot their disappoint- 
 ment in witnessing the contentment of their 
 child. 
 
 For some years succeeding her marriage, 
 they perceived no change in the state of her 
 feelings ; but at length the anxiety of parental 
 love led them to form surmises, which 
 renewed their former disapprobation of the 
 conduct of Greville. During their frequent 
 visits to Silsea, they observed that his love 
 of study and retirement had deepened almost 
 into moroseness ; that his address, always 
 cold and reserved, was becoming offensively 
 distant ; and that he was subject to fits of 
 abstraction, and at other times to a peevish 
 discontent, which materially threatened the 
 happiness of their daughter. They also 
 discovered that Helen, whose playful humour 
 and gaiety of heart had been their solace 
 and amusement, even from her infancy, was 
 now pensive and dispirited. By degrees, the 
 bright expression of her countenance had 
 lost all that beaming joyousness of youth, 
 which had been its great attraction, and 
 though still, 
 
 Sphered in the stillness of those heaven-blue eyes, 
 The soul sat beautiful, 
 
 it was the soul of melancholy beauty. 
 
 Alarmed and unhappy, Lady Percy wearied 
 her daughter with inquiries as to the cause 
 of this inauspicious change ; but in vain. 
 Helen denied that any alteration had taken 
 place in her feelings ; and declared that the 
 new and serious tone of her character arose 
 naturally from her advance in life, and from 
 the duties devolving upon her as a wife and 
 mother. 
 
 " Be satisfied, dear madam," said she, "that 
 I am still a happy and adoring wife. You 
 well know that my affections were not won 
 by an outward show of splendour and gay 
 accomplishments, nor by the common attrac- 
 tion of an idle gallantry. It was on Greville's 
 high reputation for just and honourable prin- 
 ciples, and on his manly and noble nature, 
 that my love was founded, and these will 
 never change ; and if, at times, unpleasant 
 circumstances should arise, into which my 
 sex and age unfit me to inquire, to throw a 
 cloud over his features, or a transient peevish- 
 ness into his humour, it would ill become 
 me in short," continued she, in a trembling 
 voice, and throwing her arms round Lady 
 Percy's neck, to conceal her tears, " in short, 
 dear madam, you must remember that dearly, 
 tenderly, dutifully, as Helen loves her mother, 
 the wife of Greville can have no complaints 
 to make to the Countess of Percy." 
 
 But however well the suffering wife might 
 succeed in disguising the bitterness of wounded 
 affection from her inquiring family, she could 
 not conceal it from her own heart. She had 
 devoted herself, in the pride of youthful 
 beauty, to the most secluded retirement, 
 through romantic attachment for one who 
 had appeared to return her love with at least 
 an equal fervour. He/ father's house her 
 own opening and brilliant prospects her 
 numerous family connexions and " troops of 
 friends," she had deserted all for him, in 
 her generous confidence in his future kindness. 
 " His people had become her people, and his 
 God, her God ! " She had fondly expected 
 that his society would atone for every loss, 
 and compensate every sacrifice ; that in the 
 retirement she shared with him, he would 
 devote some part of his time to the improve- 
 ment of her mind, and the development of 
 her character ; and that in return for her 
 self-devotion, he would cheerfully grant her 
 his confidence and affection. But there 
 " there where she had garnered up her heart," 
 she was doomed to bear the bitterest dis- 
 appointment. She found herself, on awaking 
 from her early dream of unqualified mutual 
 affection, treated with negligence, and at
 
 206 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 times with unkindness ; and though gleams 
 of his former tenderness would sometimes 
 hreak through the sullen darkness of his 
 present disposition, he continually manifested 
 towards both her child and herself, a discon- 
 tented and peevish sternness, wounding her 
 deeply, and filling her heart with inquietude. 
 She retained, however, too deep a veneration 
 for her husband, too strong a sense of his 
 superiority, to permit her to resent, by the 
 most trifling show of displeasure, the altera- 
 tion in his conduct. She forbore to indulge 
 even in the 
 
 Silence that chides, and woundings of the eye. 
 Helen's was no common character. Young, 
 gentle, timid as she was, the texture of her 
 mind was framed of sterner stuff; and she 
 nourished an intensity of wife-like devotion 
 and endurance, which no unkindness could 
 tire ; and a fixedness of resolve, and high 
 sense of moral rectitude, which no meaner 
 feeling had yet obtained the power to blemish. 
 " Let him be as cold and stern as he will," 
 said she to herself, in her patient affliction, 
 " he is my husband the husband of my 
 free choice ; and by that I must abide. He 
 may have crosses and sorrows of which I 
 know not ; and is it fitting that I should 
 pry into the secrets of a mind devoted to 
 pursuits and studies which J am incapable 
 of sharing ? There was a time when I fondly 
 trusted he would seek to qualify me for his 
 companion and friend : but the enchantment 
 which sealed my eyes is over ; and I must 
 meet the common fate of woman, distrust 
 and neglect, as best I may." 
 
 Anxious to escape the observation of her 
 family, she earnestly requested Lord Greville's 
 permission to accompany him with her son, 
 when he suddenly announced his intention 
 of visiting Greville Cross. Her petition was 
 at first met with a cold negative ; but when 
 she ventured to plead the advice she had 
 received recently from several physicians to 
 remove to the sea-coast, and reminded him 
 of her frequent indispositions, and present 
 feebleness of constitution, he looked at her 
 for a time with astonishment at the circum- 
 stance of her thus exhibiting so unusual an 
 opposition to his will ; and afterwards, with 
 sincere and evident distress, at the confirma- 
 tion borne by her faded countenance to the 
 truth of her representation. 
 
 " Thou art so patient a sufferer," he replied, 
 " that I am somewhat too prone to forget 
 the weakness of thy frame ; but be content! 
 I must be alone in this long and tedious 
 journey." 
 
 The tears which rose in her eyes were her 
 only remonstrance ; and her husband stood 
 regarding her for some minutes in silence, 
 but with the most apparent signs of mental 
 agitation on his countenance. 
 
 "Helen," said he, at length, in a low, 
 earnest tone, " Helen, thou wert worthy of a 
 better fate than to be linked to the endurance 
 of my waywardness ; but God, who sees thine 
 unmurmuring patience, will give thee strength 
 to meet thy destiny. Thou hast scarcely 
 enough of womanly weakness in thee to shrink 
 from idle terrors, or I might strive to appal 
 thee," he added, faintly smiling, " with a 
 description of the gloom and discomfort of 
 thine unknown northern mansion ; but if 
 thou art willing to bear with its scanty means 
 of accommodation, as well as with thy hus- 
 band's variable temper, come with him to 
 the Cross." 
 
 Helen longed to throw herself into his 
 arms as in happier days, when he granted 
 her petition ; but she had been more than 
 once repulsed from his bosom, and she there- 
 fore contented herself with thanking him 
 respectfully ; and in another week, they 
 became inmates of Greville Cross. 
 
 The evening, whose stormy and cheerless 
 commencement I have before described, was 
 the fourth after her arrival in the north ; and 
 notwithstanding the anxiety she had felt for 
 a change of habitation, she could not disguise 
 from herself that there was an air of desola- 
 tion, a general aspect of dreariness about her 
 new abode, which justified the description 
 afforded by her husband. As she crossed the 
 portal, a sensation of terror, ill-defined, but 
 painful and overwhelming, smote upon her 
 heart such as we feel in the presence of a 
 secret enemy ; and Lord Greville's increasing 
 uneasiness and abstraction since he had re- 
 turned to the mansion of his forefathers, did 
 not tend to enliven its gloomy precincts. 
 
 The wind beat wildly against the casement 
 of the apartment in which they sat; and 
 which, although named " the lady's cham- 
 ber," afforded none of those feminine luxuries, 
 which are now to be found in the most re- 
 mote parts of England, within the dwellings 
 of the noble and wealthy. By the side of a 
 huge hearth, where the crackling and blazing 
 logs imparted the only cheerful sound or 
 sight in the apartment, in a richly-carved 
 oaken chair, emblazoned with the armorial 
 bearings of his house, sat Lord Greville, lost 
 in silent contemplation. A chased goblet of 
 wine, with which he occasionally moistened 
 his lips, stood on a table beside him, on
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 207 
 
 which an elegantly fretted silver lamp was 
 burning ; and while it only emitted sufficient 
 light to render the gloom of the spacious 
 chamber still more apparent, it threw a 
 strong glare upon his expressive countenance 
 and noble figure, and rendered conspicuous 
 that richness of attire which the fashion of 
 those stately days demanded from " the mag- 
 nates of the land ;" and which we now only 
 admire amid the mummeries of theatrical 
 pageant, or on the glowing canvass of Van- 
 dyck. His head rested on his hand ; and 
 while Lady Greville, who was seated on an 
 opposite couch, was apparently engrossed by 
 the embroidery-frame over which she leaned, 
 his attention was equally occupied by liis 
 son ; who stood at her knee, interrupting her 
 progress by twining his little hands in the 
 slender ringlets which profusely overhung her 
 work, and by qxiestions which betrayed the 
 unsuspicious sportiveness of his age. 
 
 " Mother," said the boy, " are we to re- 
 main all the winter in this ruinous den? 
 Do you know, Margaret says that some of 
 the northern sea winds will shake it down 
 over our heads one stormy night ; and that 
 she would as soon lie under the ruins, as be 
 buried alive in its walls. Now I must own 
 I would rather return to Silsea, and visit my 
 hawks, and Csesar, and " 
 
 " Hush ! Sir, you prate something too wildly; 
 nor do I wish to hear you repeat Margaret's 
 idle observations." 
 
 " But, mother, I know you long yourself 
 to walk once again in your own dear sun- 
 shiny orangerie ? " 
 
 " My Hugh," said Lady Greville, without 
 attending to his question, "has Margaret 
 shown you the descent to the walk below the 
 cliffs, and have you brought me the shells 
 you promised to gather ? " 
 
 "How! dear mother with the spring 
 tide beating against the foot of the rocks, 
 and the sea raging so furiously that the very 
 gulls dared not take their delicious perch 
 upon the waves. To-morrow, perhaps " 
 
 " Must I deem thee afraid to venture ? 
 When I walked on the sands at noon, there 
 was a bow-shot space of shore ! " 
 
 " No, mother, no ! not afraid ; not 
 afraid to venture a fall, or meet a sprinkling 
 of sea-spray ; and, good truth, I have enough 
 to do with fears in-doors, here in this grim 
 old mansion, without " 
 "Fears!" 
 
 " Yes, fears, dear mother," said the boy, 
 looking archly round at his attendant, who 
 waited in the back-ground, and who vainly 
 
 sought by signs to silence her unruly charge. 
 " Do you know that the figure of King 
 Herod, cruel Herod, the murderer of his 
 wife and the slayer of the innocents stalks 
 down every night from the tapestry in my 
 sleeping room, and wanders through the 
 galleries at midnight ? And then the Cross, 
 where the three Jews were executed a long, 
 long time ago in the reign of King John, 
 I think they say that it drops blood on 
 the morning of the Holy Friday. And 
 then, mother and this is really true," con- 
 tinued the child, changing from his playful 
 manner to a tone of great earnestness, " there 
 is the figure of a lady in rich attire, but pale, 
 very pale, who glides in the gray twilight 
 through the apartments. Yes ! Herbert, 
 and Richard, and several of the serving-men 
 have seen it ; and Mistress Alice, poor old 
 soul ! was once seen to address it ; but she 
 would allow no one to question her on the 
 subject ; and they say it was her doom, and 
 that she must die of her present sickness. 
 Ay, 'twas in this very room, too the 
 lady's chamber." 
 
 " Boy," interrupted Lord Greville, sternly, 
 " if thou canst find no better subject for thy 
 prate than these unbecoming fooleries, be 
 silent. Helen ! why should you encourage 
 his forwardness, and girlish love of babbling? 
 Go hence, sirrah ! take thyself to rest ; 
 and you, Margaret," added he, turning 
 angrily to the woman, " remember, that 
 from this hour I hear no more insolent re- 
 marks on any dwelling it may suit your 
 betters to inhabit, nor of this imp's cowardly 
 apprehensions.' ' 
 
 Margaret led her young charge from the 
 room ; who, however ad his heart at being 
 thus abruptly dismissed, walked firm and 
 erect, with all the swelling consciousness of 
 wounded pride. Helen followed him to the 
 door with her eyes ; and when they fell 
 again upon her work, they were too dim 
 with tears to distinguish the colours of the 
 flowers she was weaving. Lord Greville had 
 again relapsed into silent musing ; and as 
 she occasionally stole a glance towards him, 
 she perceived traces of a severe mental 
 struggle on his countenance ; the muscles of 
 his fine throat worked convulsively, his lips 
 quivered yet still he spoke not. At length 
 his eyes closed, and he seemed as if seeking 
 to lose his own reflections in sleep. 
 
 " I will try the spell which drove the evil 
 spirit from the mind of the King of Israel," 
 thought the sad and terrified wife ; " music 
 hath often power to soothe the darkness of
 
 208 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 the soul ; " and she tuned her lute, and 
 brought forth the softest of its tones. 
 
 At length her charm was successful ; Lord 
 Greville slept ; and while she watched, with 
 all the intense anxiety of alarmed affection, 
 the unquiet slumbers which distorted one of 
 the finest countenances that sculptor or 
 painter ever conceived, she affected to occupy 
 herself with her instrument, lest he should 
 awake and be displeased to find her atten- 
 tion fixed on himself. With the sweetest 
 notes of a " voice ever soft and low, an excel- 
 lent thing in woman," she murmured the 
 following song ; which was recorded in her 
 family to have been composed by her elder 
 brother, on parting from a lady to whom he 
 was attached, previous to embarking on the 
 expedition in which he fell, and to which it 
 alludes. 
 
 Parte la nave, 
 Spiegan le vele, 
 Vento crudele 
 Mi fa parti r. 
 Addio Teresa, 
 Teresa, addio ! 
 Piacendo a Dio 
 Ti rivedro. 
 Non pianger bella, 
 Non pianger, No! 
 Che al mio ritorno 
 Ti sposero. 
 
 II Capitano 
 Mi cliiama a bordo ; 
 lo faccio il sordo 
 Per non partir ! 
 Addio Teresa, 
 Teresa, Addio ! 
 Piacendo a Dio 
 Ti rivedro. 
 Non pianger, bella, 
 Non pianger, No ! 
 'Che al mio ritorno 
 Ti sposero. 
 
 Vado a levante 
 Vado a ponente 
 Se trovo gente 
 Ti scrivero. 
 Addio Teresa. 
 Teresa Addio ; 
 Piacendo a Dio 
 Ti rivedro, 
 Non pianger bella, 
 Non pianger, No ! 
 Che al mio ritorno 
 Ti sposerd. 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 The good ship is rea<ly, 
 
 The full sail floats gay, 
 The cruel -wind steady 
 
 Would waft me away. 
 Adieu, Theresa, love, 
 
 Theresa, adieu! 
 If it please God above, 
 
 Again I'll meet you. 
 Weep not, Theresa, dear, 
 
 Weep not, my life, 
 Soon I shall seek thee here 
 
 To make thee my wife. 
 
 "On board," cries the Captain; 
 
 I turn not nor start, 
 But look like a deaf man 
 
 I cannot depart ! 
 Atlieu, Theresa, love, 
 
 Theresa, adieu ! 
 If it please God above, 
 
 Again I'll meet you. 
 Weep not, Theresa, dear, 
 
 Weep not, my life, 
 Soon I shall seek thee here 
 
 To make thee my wife. 
 
 Though eastward I roam, love, 
 
 Though westward I go, 
 Tidings to thy home, love, 
 
 For ever shall flow. 
 Adieu, Theresa, love, 
 
 Theresa, adieu ! 
 If it please God above, 
 
 Again I'll meet you. 
 Weep not, Theresa, dear, 
 
 Weep not, my life, 
 Soon I shall seek thee her 
 
 To make thee my wife. 
 
 Helen had reached the concluding cadence 
 of her soft and melancholy song, when, rais- 
 ing her eyes from the strings to her still 
 sleeping husband, she beheld, with panic- 
 struck and breathless amazement, a female 
 figure standing opposite, resting her hand on 
 the back of his chair ; silent, and motion- 
 less, and with fixed and glassy eyes gazing 
 
 mournfully on herself. She saw yes ! 
 distinctly saw, as described by little Hugh, 
 " a lady in rich attire, but pale, very pale ; " 
 and in the stillness and gloom of the apart- 
 ment and the hour, 
 
 Twas frightful there to see 
 A lady richly clad as she, 
 Beautiful exceedingly ! 
 
 The paleness of that pensive face did not 
 lessen its loveliness, and the hair which hung 
 in bright curls on her shoulders and gorgeous 
 apparel, was white and glossy as silver. 
 Helen gn/.oi for a moment spell-bound ; for 
 she beheld in that countenance, without the 
 possibility of doubt, the resemblance of the 
 deceased Lady Greville, whose portrait, in 
 a similar dress, hung in the picture gallery 
 at Silsea Castle. She shuddered ; for the 
 eyes of the spectre remained steadfastly fixed 
 upon her ; and its lips moved as if about to 
 address her. " Mother of God, protect 
 me !" exclaimed Helen convulsively, and she 
 fell insensible on the floor. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Sorrow seems pleased to dwell with so much sweetness ; 
 And now and then a melancholy smile 
 Breaks loose like lightning on a winter's night 
 And shows a moment's day. Drydvn. 
 
 On the succeeding morning, when Lady 
 Greville recovered sufficiently from a succes- 
 sion of fainting fits to collect her remem- 
 brances of the dreadful cause of her illness, 
 she eagerly demanded of her attendants in 
 what manner, and by whom, she had been 
 placed in her usual sleeping room. They 
 replied, that Lord Greville had conveyed her 
 there insensible in his arms ; and had sum- 
 moned them in great agitation to her assis- 
 tance. He had since frequently sent to in- 
 quire after her health, and had expressed 
 great delight when the last message, an- 
 nouncing her recovery, had reached him. 
 But he came not himself to watch over her ; 
 and though the shock she had received had 
 brought on an alarming degree of fever, 
 which confined her for several days to her 
 room, he never visited her chamber. Helen 
 was the more surprised and pained by this 
 neglect, as she knew he made frequent visits 
 to the sick bed of old Alice ; and she wept 
 secretly and bitterly over this fresh proof of 
 his alienated love. 
 
 During the tedious hours of illness, the 
 mental sufferings of the neglected wife far 
 exceeded those of her corporeal frame. She 
 could reflect but on one subject ; one idea,
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 209 
 
 one pervading horrible idea, had taken pos- 
 session of her soul. She felt that though 
 every person to whom she might impart her 
 tale would listen with incredulity, and 
 mockery, the truth of that awful visitation 
 could not be questioned by her own better 
 judgment. She considered herself one 
 
 To -whom the world unknown 
 
 In all its shadowy shapes is shown. 
 
 She shuddered over the remembrance of 
 the past, she trembled with apprehension of 
 the future. The approach of night was 
 beginning to be terrible to her feelings ; the 
 very air appeared, to her disordered imagina- 
 tion, instinct with being ; low whisperings 
 seemed to approach her ears ; and if the 
 female attendant whom she had stationed by 
 her bedside disappeared for a moment, she 
 instantly fancied she saw that noble figure 
 approach, that pale soft countenance once 
 more gazing upon her, and those cold lips 
 about to address her ; and in an agony of 
 approaching insanity, she prayed aloud to 
 the God of all grace, for deliverance from 
 the torture that assailed her. Her prayers 
 were heard ; for as her constitution recovered 
 from the shocks it had sustained, her mind 
 gradually returned to its wonted serenity ; the 
 impression of the event became less vivid, and 
 in less than a week she was enabled to resume 
 her accustomed habits. 
 
 Her return was more warmly greeted by 
 Lord Greville than she had expected. There 
 was something of " lang syne," in his man- 
 ner of welcoming her to her sitting apart- 
 ment, which rejoiced her warm and affec- 
 tionate heart. She did not, however, approach 
 it without trembling ; for it was the lady's 
 chamber ! Her feelings were fortunately 
 occupied by the unusual kindness displayed 
 by Lord Greville ; and as she silently and 
 gratefully pressed the hand which led her to 
 her seat, she was thankful that he made no 
 inquiries into the particular cause of her ill- 
 ness. She knew that he treated all super- 
 natural terrors with especial contempt ; and 
 considered them only as fit subjects for the 
 discussion of the low-minded and ignorant. 
 She had formerly heard him reason soundly, 
 and express himself strongly, on the subject ; 
 and her own scepticism on the possibility of 
 spectral visitation, was principally owing to 
 the arguments she had heard from his lips. 
 Frequently had he praised her in former 
 times for her composure of mind in peril, and 
 for her unfeminine superiority to all ideal 
 terrors ; and she did noi, dare provoke his 
 surprise and contempt by a revocation of her 
 
 VOL. I, 
 
 principles, or by a relation of the mysterious 
 event which had befallen her. As soon as 
 he left her, she descended into the court en- 
 closed by the quadrangle of the mansion ; 
 and as long as day-light lasted, she continued 
 to walk there in order to avoid the solitude 
 of her own dreaded apartment. As she tra- 
 versed the pavement with hurried steps, she 
 gazed on the huge iron cross, and no longer 
 regarded with indifference the terrific legends 
 attached to it. But at length the closing 
 evening, accompanied by tempestuous winds, 
 compelled her to retire to the house. 
 
 Once more she found herself installed for 
 the evening in the abhorred chamber. All 
 was as before her husband was seated oppo- 
 site to her in the same chair, by the same 
 lamp-light ; the ticking of the time-piece 
 was again painfully audible from the weari- 
 some stillness of the apartment ; and her 
 own trembling hands were again lingering 
 over the embroidery-frame from which she 
 dared not lift her eyes. Her heart beat pain- 
 fully, her breath became oppressed, and 
 she ventured to steal a look at her husband, 
 who to her surprise was regarding her with 
 an air of affectionate interest. Believed for 
 a moment, she returned to her occupation ; 
 but her former terrors soon overcame her. 
 She would have given worlds to escape from 
 that room, from that dwelling, and wandered 
 she cared not how, she knew not whither, so 
 she might be rescued from the sight of that 
 awful figure, from the sound of that dreaded 
 voice. 
 
 The conflict in her mind became at length 
 too strong for endurance ; and suddenly fling- 
 ing down her work, she threw herself at her 
 husband's feet, and burying her face in his 
 knees, she sobbed aloud : " Save me from 
 myself, save me, save me, from her ! " 
 
 He raised her gently, and folded her in his 
 arms. " Save thee from whom, my beloved 
 Helen?" 
 
 " Greville, believe me or not as thou wilt, 
 but as the Almighty hears and judges me, I 
 have beheld the apparition of thy wife. I 
 saw her freely, distinctly, standing beside 
 thee even where thou sittest ; clearly visible 
 as the form of a living being : and she would 
 have spoken, and doubtless revealed some 
 dreadful secret, had not the weakness of my 
 nature refused to support me. Oh ! Greville, 
 take me from this room, take me from this 
 house : I am not able to bear the horrible 
 imaginings which have filled my mind since 
 that awful hour. My very brain is mad- 
 dened ! Oh ! Greville, take me hence." 
 
 No. 14.
 
 210 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 Even in the agony of her fear, Helen started 
 with delighted surprise to feel the tears of her 
 husband falling on her hand. Yes ! he, the 
 stern Greville, the estranged husband, 
 moved by the deep distress manifested in the 
 appearance of his wife, acknowledged his 
 sympathy by the first tears he had shed in 
 her presence. 
 
 " This is a mere phantasm of the brain," 
 said he at length, attempting to regain his 
 composure ; " the coinage of a lively imagina- 
 tion, which loves to deceive itself by, But 
 
 no," continued he, observing her incredulous 
 and agonized expression of countenance, "no ! 
 my Helen, I will not longer rack thy generous 
 mind by these sufferings, however bitter the 
 truth may be to utter or to hear. Helen ! it 
 was no vision no idle dream it was a living 
 form, a breathing curse to thee and me ! 
 Thou who hast accused me of insensibility to 
 thy charms, and to thine endearing affection, 
 judge of the strength of my love by the 
 labyrinth of sin into which it hath betrayed 
 me. Helen ! my wife still lives, and I am 
 not thy lawful husband." 
 
 It was many hours before the unfortunate 
 Lady Greville sufficiently recovered her com- 
 posure to understand and feel the full extent 
 of the fatal intelligence she had received, and 
 the immediate bearing it must have upon her 
 happiness, her rights, and those of her child. 
 As by degrees the full measure of her misery 
 unfolded to her comprehension, she fell into 
 no paroxysm of angry grief, she vented her 
 despair in no revilings against the guilty 
 Greville. Sorrowfully, indeed, but calmly, 
 she requested to be made acquainted with the 
 whole extent of her miserable destiny. 
 
 " Let me know the worst," said she. " I 
 have been long, too long deceived ; and the 
 only mercy you can now bestow upon me is 
 an unreserved and unqualified confidence." 
 
 But Lord Greville could not trust himself 
 to make so painful a communication in words, 
 and after passing the night in writing, he 
 delivered to her the following relation : 
 
 LORD GREVILLE'S HISTORY. 
 
 " I need not dwell upon the occurrences of 
 my childhood ; I need not relate the events 
 which rendered my youth equally eventful 
 and distinguished. My early life was passed 
 so entirely in the immediate service of my 
 sovereign, and in participation of the troubles 
 and dangers which disastrous times and a 
 rebellious people heaped upon his head, that 
 the tenor of my life has been as public as his 
 own. 
 
 " Yet, forgive me, Helen, for saying that 
 I cannot even now, in this my day of humi- 
 liation, but glory in the happy fortune which 
 crowned with success my efforts in the royal 
 cause, both iu the field and in the cabinet, 
 and won for me at once the affection of my 
 king, and the approbation of my fellow- 
 countrymen, when I remember that to these 
 flattering testimonies I owe not only the 
 friendship of your father, but the first affec- 
 tions of his child. How frequently have you 
 owned to me, in our early days of joy and 
 love, that long before we met, my public re- 
 putation had excited the strongest interest in 
 your mind ; those days, those happy days, 
 when I was rich alike in the warmest devo- 
 tion of popular favour, and the approval of, 
 but I must not permit myself to indulge in 
 fond retrospections ! I must steel my heart ; 
 and calmly and coldly relate the progress of 
 my misery and guilt, and of its present re-' 
 morse and punishment. 
 
 "You have heard, that soon after the 
 restoration of Charles Stuart to the throne of 
 his ancestors, I was sent on a mission of 
 great public moment to the Hague ; where I 
 remained for nearly two years, and having 
 succeeded in the object of government, returned 
 home shortly after the union of the king with 
 the princess of Portugal. I was warmly 
 received by his majesty ; and presented by 
 him to the young queen, as one whom he 
 regarded equally as an affectionate friend, 
 and as one of the most faithful servants of 
 the crown. Thus introduced to her notice, 
 it is not wonderful that my homage was most 
 graciously received ; and that I was frequently 
 invited to renew it, by admission into the 
 evening circle at Whitehall. The very night 
 after my arrival in London, I was called upon 
 to assist at a masque given on'the anniver- 
 sary of the royal nuptials ; at which their 
 majesties alone, and their immediate atten- 
 dants, Avere unmasked. The latter, indeed, 
 were habited in character ; but among the 
 splendidly-attired group of the maids of 
 honour, I was surprised at perceiving one 
 in a costume of deep mourning. Her extreme 
 beaut}' and the grace of her demeanour ex- 
 cited an immediate interest in her favour ; 
 and her sable suit only served to render yet 
 more brilliant the exquisite fairness and 
 purity of her complexion. 
 
 " It was not so much the regular cast of her 
 features as their sweet and pensive expression 
 which produced so strong an effect on the 
 feelings. At the moment I was first struck 
 by her appearance, I happened to be con-
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 211 
 
 versing with his majesty, who was making 
 the tou-r of the apartment, graciously leaning 
 on my arm ; and my attention was so com- 
 pletely captivated by her surpassing loveliness, 
 that the king could not fail to perceive my 
 absence of mind. 
 
 " ' How now, Charles, how now,' said he 
 kindly ; ' twenty-four hours in the capital, 
 and beauty-struck already ? Which among 
 our simple English maidens hath the merit 
 of thus gaining the approval of thy travelled 
 eyes ? What Venus hath bribed the purer 
 taste of our new Paris ? Ha ! let me see 
 Lady Joscelyn ? Lady No ! by heaven,' 
 said he, following my looks, ' it is as I could 
 wish Theresa Marchmont herself. How! 
 man knowest thou not the daughter of our 
 old comrade, who fell at my side in the 
 unfortunate affair at Worcester ? ' 
 
 "The king took an early opportunity of 
 mak'ing my admiration known to her majesty; 
 and of requesting her pel-mission for my 
 introduction to Miss Marchmont ; who, 
 although born of a family distinguished only 
 by its loyalty to the house of Stuart, having 
 been recommended to the royal attention from 
 the loss of her only surviving parent in its 
 cause, had sufficiently won the good-will of 
 the monarch by her beauty and elegant 
 accomplishments, to obtain a distinguished 
 post about the person of the new queen. 
 
 " From tljis period, admitted as I was into 
 the domestic circle of the royal household, I 
 had frequent opportunities afforded me of 
 improving my acquaintance with Theresa ; 
 whose gentle and interesting manners more 
 than completed the conquest which her beauty 
 had begun. Helen ! I had visited many 
 foreign courts, and had been familiarized 
 with the reigning beauties of our own, at 
 that time eminently distinguished by the 
 brilliancy of female beauty ; but never in 
 any station of life did I behold a being so 
 lovely in the expressive sadness of her fine 
 countenance, so graceful in every movement 
 of her person. But this was not all Theresa 
 possessed beyond other women that retiring 
 modesty of demeanour, that unsullied purity 
 of look and speech, which made her suffi- 
 ciently remarkable in the midst of a licentious 
 court, and among companions whose levity 
 at least equalled their loveliness. On making 
 more particular inquiries respecting her family 
 connexions, I found that they were strictly 
 respectable, but of the middle class of life ; 
 and that she had passed the period inter- 
 vening between the death of her father, 
 General Marchmont, and her appointment 
 
 at court, in the county of Devon, in the 
 family of an aged relative ; by whom indeed 
 she had been principally educated. It was 
 at the dying instigation of this, her last 
 surviving friend and protector, that her 
 destitute situation had been represented to 
 the king by the Lady Wriothesly, to whose 
 good offices she was indebted for her present 
 honourable station. Being thus, as it were, 
 friendless, as well as dowerless, and backed 
 in my suit by the powerful assistance of the 
 king's approbation, I did not anticipate much 
 opposition to my pretensions to the hand of 
 Miss Marchmont, which had now become 
 the object of my dearest ambition. I knew 
 myself to be formed by nature for domestic 
 life ; and while the disastrous position of 
 public affairs had obliged me to waste the 
 days of my early youth in camps or courts, 
 and in exile from my own hereditary pos- 
 sessions, I resolved to pass the evening of my 
 life in the repose of a happy and well-ordered 
 home in my native country. 
 
 " To the vitiated taste of the gallants of 
 the court, many of whom might have proved 
 powerful rivals had they been so inclined, 
 marriage had no attractions. The acknow- 
 ledged distaste of Charles for a matrimonial 
 life, and his avowed infidelities, sanctioned 
 the disdain of his dissolute companions for 
 all the more holy and endearing ties of exis- 
 tence. I had therefore little to fear from 
 coiropetrtion ; indeed, among the maids of 
 honour of the queen, whose situation threw 
 them into hourly scenes of revelry and dissi- 
 pation, Theresa Marchmont, who was uni- 
 versally acknowledged to be the loveliest of 
 the train, excited less than any, those atten- 
 tions of idle gallantry which, however sought 
 and prized by her livelier companions, are 
 offensive to true modesty. I attributed this 
 flattering distinction to the respect ensured 
 by the extreme retenue and propriety of her 
 manners'; but I have had reason since to 
 ascribe the reserve of the courtiers to a less 
 commendable motive. On 'occasion of a 
 masqued festival given by her majesty on 
 her birth-day at Kew, the king, in distributing 
 the characters, allotted to Miss Marchmont 
 that of Diana. 
 
 " ' Your majesty,' said the Duchess of 
 Grafton, ' has judiciously assigned the part 
 of the frigid goddess, to the only statue of 
 snow visible among us. Mademoiselle se 
 rencTierit sur un petit air de province, glacial 
 et arrange' continued she, fuming to the 
 Comte de Grammont. 
 
 " ' Madam,' said the king, bowing respect-
 
 212 
 
 TJii; .MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 fully to Theresa, with all that captivating 
 grace of adress for which he was distinguished, 
 ' if every frozen statue were as lovely and 
 attractive as this, I should forget to wish for 
 their animation ; and become myself a votary 
 of the 
 
 ' Queen and huntress, eliaste and fair ! ' 
 
 " ' Ay,' whispered the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, 'even at the perilous risk of being 
 termed Charles King .and Lunatic? 
 
 " This sobriquet of Diana had passed into a 
 proverb ; and such was Theresa's character 
 for coldness and reserve, that I attributed to 
 her temper of mind, the evident indifference 
 with which she received my attentions. 
 Meeting her as I did, either in public assem- 
 blies, or in the antechamber of the queen, 
 among the other ladies in waiting, I had no 
 opportunity of making myself more parti- 
 cularly acquainted with her sentiments and 
 character. When I addressed her in the 
 evening circle, although she readily entered 
 into conversation on general subjects, and 
 displayed powers of mind of no common 
 order, yet, if I attempted to introduce any 
 topic which might lead to a discussion of our 
 mutual situation, she relapsed into silence. 
 At times her countenance became so pensive, 
 so touchingly sorrowful, that I could not 
 help suspecting she nourished some secret 
 and hidden cause of grief; and once, on 
 hinting this opinion to the king, who fre- 
 quently in our familiar intercourse rallied 
 me on my passion for Theresa, and questioned 
 me as to the progress of my suit, lie told 
 me, that Miss Marchmont's dejection was 
 generally attributed to her regret for the loss 
 of Lady Wriothesly, the kind patroness 
 who had first recommended her to his pro- 
 tection, and by whose death, immediately 
 before my return from Holland, she had lost 
 her only surviving friend. 
 
 " ' It remains to be proved,' added he, 
 ' whether her lingering affection for the me- 
 mory of an old woman will yield readily to 
 her dawning attachment for her future 
 husband.' 
 
 "Another suspicion sometimes crossed my 
 mind, but in so uncertain a form, that I 
 could scarcely myself resolve the nature of 
 the evil I apprehended. I observed that 
 Theresa constantly and anxiously watched 
 the eye of the king, whenever she formed a 
 part of the royal suite ; and if she perceived 
 his attention fixed on herself, or if he chanced 
 to approach the spot where she stood, she 
 would turn abruptly to me, and enter into 
 conversation with an air of empressement, as 
 
 though to confirm his opinion of our mutual 
 good understanding. Upon one occasion, as 
 I passed through the gallery leading to the 
 queen's apartments, I found his majesty 
 standing in the embrasure of a window, in 
 earnest conversation with Miss Marchmont. 
 They did not at first perceive me ; and I had 
 leisure to observe that Theresa was agitated 
 even to tears. . She turned round at the 
 sound of approaching footsteps, but betrayed 
 no distress at my surprising her in this 
 unusual situation. In reply to some obser- 
 vation of the king's, she answered, with a 
 respectful inclination, ' Your commands, Sire, 
 shall be obeyed,' and left the gallery ; while 
 Charles, gaily taking my arm, led me into 
 the adjoining saloon, and informed me, that 
 he had been pleading my cause with my fair 
 tormentor, as he was pleased to term her. 
 
 " ' The worst torment I can be called to 
 endure, Sire,' said I haughtily, ' is prolonged 
 suspense ; and I must earnestly request your 
 majesty's gracious intercession for Miss 
 Marchmont's early reply to my application 
 for the honour of her hand. Should it be 
 refused, I must further entreat your majesty's 
 permission to resign the post I so unworthily 
 hold, in order that I may be enabled to pass 
 some years on the continent.' 
 
 "Charles appeared both startled and dis- 
 pleased by the firm tone of resolution I had 
 assumed. ' Were I inclined for idle alterca- 
 tion,' answered he, coldly, 'I might argue some- 
 thing for the dignity of the fair sex, who 
 have ever claimed their prescriptive right of 
 holding us lingering in their chains ; and 
 Lord Greville would do well to remember 
 that his services are too important to his 
 country to be held on the caprices of a silly 
 girl's affected coyness. But be it so ! since 
 you are so petulant a lover, be prepared 
 when you join her majesty's circle to-night, 
 to expect Miss Marchmont's reply.' 
 
 " It happened that there was a splendid 
 fete given at the palace that evening, in 
 honour of the arrival of a French ambassador. 
 When I entered the ball-room I caught the 
 eye of the king, who was standing apart, 
 with his hand resting negligently on the 
 shoulder of the Duke of Buckingham ; and 
 indulging in an immoderate gaiety apparently 
 caused by some ' fool-born jest ' of the 
 favourite's ; in which, I know not why, I 
 immediately suspected myself to be con- 
 cerned. On perceiving my arrival, however, 
 Charles forsook his station ; and approaching 
 me with that graceful ease which rendered 
 him at all times the most finished gentleman
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 213 
 
 of his court, he took me affectionately by the 
 hand, and congratulating me on my good 
 fortune, he led me to Theresa, who was seated 
 behind her companions. Occupied as I was 
 with my own happiness, and with the neces- 
 sity of immediately expressing my gratitude 
 both to Theresa and the king, I could not 
 avoid being struck by the dreadful paleness 
 of her agitated countenance, which contrasted 
 frightfully with her brilliant attire ; for I 
 now saw her for the first time out of mourn- 
 ing for Lady Wriothesly. When I entreated 
 her to confirm by words the happy tidings I 
 had learned from his majesty, who had again 
 returned to the enlivening society of his noble 
 buffoon, she spoke with an unfaltering voice, 
 but in a tone of such deep dejection, and 
 with a fixed look of such sorrowful resolu- 
 tion, that I could scarcely refrain, even in 
 that splendid assemblage, from throwing 
 myself at her feet, and imploring her to 
 tell me whether her consent had not been 
 obtained by an undue exertion of the roj^al 
 authority. But there was always in Theresa 
 an apparent dread of every cause of emotion 
 and excitement, which made me feel that a 
 wilful disturbance of her calm serenity would 
 be sacrilege. 
 
 " During the short period intervening be- 
 tween her consent and our marriage, which, 
 by the command of the king, was unneces- 
 sarily and even indecorously hastened, these 
 doubts, these fears, constantly recurred to 
 my mind whenever I found myself in the 
 presence of Theresa ; but during my absence, 
 I listened to nothing but the flattering in- 
 sinuations of my own heart ; and I succeeded 
 in persuading myself that her coldness arose 
 solely from maidenly reserve, and from the 
 annoyance of being too much the object of 
 public attention. I remembered the sweet- 
 ness of her manner, when one day, in reply 
 to some fond anticipation of my future hap- 
 piness, she assured me, although she could 
 not promise me at once that ardour of affec- 
 tion which my present enthusiasm seemed to 
 require, that if a grateful and submissive 
 wife could satisfy my wishes, I should be 
 possessed of her entire devotion. But al- 
 though thus reassured, I could scarcely divest 
 myself of apprehension ; and on the morning 
 of our nuptials, which took place in the 
 Royal Chapel in presence of the whole court, 
 her countenance wore a look of such deadly, 
 such fixed despair, that the joy even of that 
 happy moment, when I was about to receive 
 the hand of the woman I adored before the 
 altar of God, was completely obliterated. 
 
 " She had been adorned by the hand of the 
 queen, by whom she was fondly beloved, 
 with all the splendour and elegance which 
 could enrich her lovely figure ; and in the 
 foldings of her bridal veil, her countenance 
 assumed a cast of such angelic beauty, that 
 his majesty, as he presented me with her 
 hand, paused for a moment in delighted 
 emotion to gaze upon her. But even thus, 
 late as it was, and embarrassed by the royal 
 presence, I was so pained by her tears, that 
 I could keep silence no longer. 
 
 " ' Theresa,' I whispered to her, as we ap- 
 proached the altar, ' if this marriage be not 
 the result of your own free will, speak ! it 
 is not yet too late. Heed not these prepara- 
 tions fear not the king's displeasure, I will 
 take all upon myself. Speak to me, dearest, 
 deal with me sincerely. Theresa, are you 
 willing to be mine ? ' 
 
 " She only replied by bending her knee 
 upon the gorgeous cushion before her. 
 ' Hush ! ' said she, in a suppressed tone, 
 ' hush, my lord let iis pray to the Almighty 
 for support,' And the service instantly 
 began. 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 Let not the Heavens hear these tell-tale women 
 Rail on the Lord's anointed. Richard III. 
 
 " The month which followed our marriage 
 we passed in the happy retirement of. Silsea ; 
 and there for the first time I became ac- 
 quainted with the real character of my 
 Theresa. Her beauty had indeed been the 
 glory of the court ; but it was only amid 
 the privacy of domestic life that the accom- 
 plishments of her cultivated mind, and the 
 submissive gentleness of her disposition be- 
 came apparent. Timid almost to a fault, I 
 sometimes doubted whether to attribute her 
 implicit obedience to my wishes to the habit 
 of early dependence upon the caprice of those 
 around her, or to the resignation of a broken 
 spirit. Still she did not appear unhappy. 
 The wearisome publicity and etiquette of 
 the life she had been hitherto compelled to 
 lead, was most unsuitable to her taste for 
 retirement ; and she enjoyed equally with 
 myself the calm repose of our quiet home. 
 When she made it her first request to me, 
 that I would take the earliest opportunity to 
 retire from public life, and by settling on my 
 patrimonial estate release her from the slavery 
 of a court, all my former apprehensions 
 vanished ; and I began to flatter myself that 
 the love I had so fondly, so frankly bestowed,
 
 214 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 had met with an equal return. Prompt as 
 we are to seize on every point which yields 
 confirmation to our secret wishes, and eagerly 
 credulous, where the entire happiness of our 
 lives is dependent on our wilful self-decep- 
 tion, is it wonderful that I mistook the calm 
 fortitude of a well-regulated mind for content, 
 and the gratitude of a warm heart for affec- 
 tion? I inquired not, I dared not inquire 
 minutely into the past ; I shrank from any 
 question that might again disturb the serenity 
 of my mind by jealous fears. ' I will not speak 
 of past storms on so bright a day,' said I, 
 secretly, while I gazed upon my gentle 
 Theresa ; ' it might break the spell.' Alas ! 
 the spell endured not long ; for, however un- 
 willingly, we were now obliged to resume 
 our situation at Whitehall. 
 
 " Our re-appearance at court was marked 
 by the most nattering attentions on the part 
 of the king and queen. Several brilliant 
 fetes were given by their majesties on occa- 
 sion of our marriage ; and I began to fear 
 that the homage which every where seemed 
 to await my young and lovely bride, and the 
 promising career of royal favour which opened 
 to her view, might weaken her inclination for 
 the retirement we meditated. To me, how- 
 ever, she constantly renewed her entreaties 
 for a furtherance of her former wishes on the 
 subject ; in consequence of which, I declined 
 the gracious offers of his majesty ; who was 
 at this time particularly desirous that I should 
 take a more active part in public measures, 
 and accept a situation in the new ministry, 
 which would formerly have placed the utmost 
 bounds to my ambition. I was now, however, 
 only waiting a favourable opportunity to re- 
 tire altogether to the happy fire-side, where 
 I trusted to dream away the evening of my 
 days in the society of my own family. 
 
 " In this position of our affairs, it chanced 
 that we were both in attendance on the queen, 
 at Kew ; where, one evening, a chosen few, 
 distinguished by her majesty's favour, formed 
 a select circle. The conversation turned upon 
 music ; and the queen, who had been de- 
 scribing with national partiality the beauty 
 of the hymns sung by the Portuguese mari- 
 ners, suddenly addressing me, observed, that 
 since she left her native country she had 
 heard no vocal music which had given her 
 pleasure, except from the lips of Miss March- 
 mont. 
 
 " ' I cannot,' said she, kindly smiling, ' as 
 you may perceive, forget the name of one, 
 whose society I prized so highly; but if 
 ' Lady Greville ' will pardon my inadvertence, 
 
 and oblige me by singing one of those airs 
 with which she was wont fomerly to charm 
 me to sleep when I suffered either mental or 
 bodily affliction, I will in tum forgive you, 
 my lord, for robbing me of the attendance of 
 my friend.' 
 
 " Theresa instantly obeyed, and while she 
 hung over her instrument her attitude was 
 so graceful, that the queen again observed to 
 me, ' We must have our Theresa seen by Lely 
 in that costume, and thus occupied. Slit- 
 would make a charming study for his pencil ; 
 and I promise myself the pleasure of possess- 
 ing it as a lasting memorial of lay young 
 friend.' The portrait to which this observa- 
 tion gave rise, you must have seen yourself, 
 my Helen, in the gallery at Silsea Castle. 
 
 " While I was thus engaged by her ma- 
 jesty, I observed the Duke of Buckingham 
 approach my wife with an air of deference 
 bordering on irony ; he appeared to make 
 some unpleasant request, which he affected 
 to urge with an earnestness beyond the rules 
 of gallantry or good-breeding ; and which 
 she refused with an appearance of haughti- 
 ness I had never before seen her exercise. 
 He then respectfully addressed the queen, 
 and entreated her intercession with Lady 
 Greville for a favourite Italian air ; one, he 
 said, which her majesty had probably never 
 enjoyed the happiness of hearing. But be- 
 fore the queen could reply, before I had 
 time to inquire into the cause of the agony 
 and shame which were mingled in Lady 
 Greville's looks, she covered her brow with 
 her hands, and exclaimed with hysteric vio- 
 lence, ' No, never more never again. Alas 1 
 it is too late ! ' 
 
 " The queen, herself deeply skilled in the 
 sorrows of a wounded heart, appeared warmly 
 to compassionate the distress which had 
 robbed her favourite of all presence of mind ; 
 and rising, evidently to divert the attention 
 of the circle, whose malignant smiles were 
 instantly repressed, she invited us to follow 
 her into the adjoining gallery, at that time 
 occupied by Sir Peter Lely, for the comple- 
 tion of his exquisite series of portraits of the 
 beauties of Charles's court. In their own 
 idle comments and petty jealousies arising 
 from the resemblances before them, Lady 
 Greville was forgotten. 
 
 " While I was deliberating, the following 
 morning, in what manner I could with deli- 
 cacy interrogate Theresa on the extraordinary 
 scene I had witnessed, I was surprised by her 
 sudden, but firm declaration, that she could 
 not, would not longer remain in the royal
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 215 
 
 suite ; and she concluded by imploring me 
 on her knees, as I valued her peace of mind, 
 her health, her salvation, to remove her in- 
 stantly to Silsea. 
 
 '"I have obtained her majesty's private 
 sanction,' said she, showing me a billet in the 
 handwriting of the queen ; ' and it only 
 remains for you publicly to give in our resig- 
 nation.' The letter was written in French, 
 and contained the following words :- 
 
 " ' Go, my beloved Theresa ! dearly as I 
 prize youv society, I feel that our mutual 
 happiness can only be ensured by the retire- 
 ment you so prudently meditate. May it be 
 a consolation to you to reflect that you must 
 ever be remembered with respect and grati- 
 tude, by 
 
 ' Your affectionate friend.' 
 
 " The peculiar terms of this billet surprised 
 me ; and I began to request an explanation, 
 when Theresa interrupted me by saying 
 hastily, ' Do not question me, for I cannot 
 at present open my mind to you ; but satisfy 
 yourself that when I linked my fate to yours 
 in the sight of God and man, your honour 
 and happiness became precious to me as my 
 own ; and may He desert me in my hour of 
 need, if in aught I fail to consult your repu- 
 tation and peace of mind. Let me pray of 
 you to leave this place without delay. I 
 know that you will urge against me the 
 benefit of avoiding the various surmises which 
 will arise from the apparent precipitancy 
 of our retreat ; but trust to me, my lord, that 
 it is a necessary measure ; and that we have 
 nothing to fear from the opposition of the 
 king.' 
 
 " The pretext we adopted for our hasty 
 retirement from public life was the delicate 
 state of Lady Greville's health, who was 
 within a few months of becoming a mother; 
 and having hastily passed through the neces- 
 sary ceremonies, we again exchanged the 
 tumults of the capital for the exquisite en- 
 joyments and freedom of home. As we 
 traversed the venerable avenue at Silsea, 
 amid the acclamations of my assembled 
 tenantry, I formed the resolution never again 
 to desert the dwelling of my ancestors ; but, 
 having now entered into the bonds of domes- 
 tic life, to seek from them alone the future 
 enjoyments of existence. I had in one re- 
 spect immediate reason to congratulate my- 
 self on the change of our destiny ; for Theresa, 
 whose health had for some months gradually 
 declined, soon regained her former strength 
 in the quiet of the country. She occupied 
 
 herself constantly in some active employment. 
 The interests of the sick, the poor, and the 
 decrepit, led her frequently to the village ; 
 where I doubt not you have often heard her 
 named with gratitude and affection ; and 
 when she returned to the castle, the self- 
 content of gratified benevolence spread a glow 
 over her countenance which almost dispelled 
 the clouds of sorrow still lingering there. 
 All went well with us ; and if I dared not 
 flatter myself with being passionately be- 
 loved, I felt assured that I should in time 
 obtain her entire confidence. 
 
 " I was beginning to look forward with 
 the happy anxiety of affection to the event 
 of Lady Greville's approaching confinement, 
 when one morning I was surprised by the 
 arrival of a courier with a letter from the 
 Duke of Buckingham. I was astonished 
 that he should take the trouble of renewing 
 a correspondence with me ; as a very slight 
 degree of friendship had originally subsisted 
 between us : and the displeasure publicly 
 testified by Charles on my hasty removal 
 from his service, had hitherto freed me from 
 the importunities of my courtier acquain- 
 tance. The letter was. apparently one of mere 
 complimentary inquiry after the health of 
 Lady Greville, to whom there was an enclo- 
 sure, addressed to Miss Marchmont, which he 
 begged me to deliver with his respectful 
 services to my much esteemed lady. He 
 concluded with announcing some public news 
 of a nature highly gratifying to every 
 Briton, in the detail of a great victory ob- 
 tained by our fleet over the Dutch admiral 
 De Ruyter. It was that, my Helen, in 
 which your noble brother fell, at the moment 
 of obtaining one of tne most signal successes 
 hitherto recorded in the naval annals of our 
 country. You were too young to be conscious 
 of the public sympathy testified towards this 
 intrepid and unfortunate young man ; but 
 I may safely affirm with the crafty Bucking- 
 ham, that his loss too dearly purchased even 
 the splendid victory he had obtained. 
 
 '* ' What news from the court ? ' said 
 Theresa, as I entered the apartment in which 
 she sat. 
 
 " ' At once good and bad,' I replied. ' We 
 have obtained a brilliant victory over De 
 Ruyter ; but, alas ! it has cost us the lives of 
 several of our most distinguished officers.' 
 
 "She started from her seat, and wildly 
 approaching me, whispered in a tone of sup- 
 pressed agnoy, ' Tell me, tell me truly, 
 is lie dead?' 
 
 " ' Of whom do you speak ? '
 
 216 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 " ' Of him of my beloved ray be- 
 trothed ; of Percy, my own own Percy,' 
 said she with frantic violence. 
 
 " Helen even then, heartstruck as I was, 
 I could not but pity the unfortunate being 
 whose very apprehensions were thus agoniz- 
 ing. I dared not answer her ! I dared not 
 summon assistance, lest she should betray 
 herself to others as she had done to her 
 husband ; for she had lost all self-command. 
 I attempted to pacify her by an indefinite 
 reply to her inquiries, but in vain. 
 
 " ' Do not deceive me,' said she, ' Greville ! 
 you were ever good and generous ; tell me, 
 did he know all, did he curse me, did he 
 seek his death ?' 
 
 " It occurred to me that the letter which 
 
 I held in my hand might be from from 
 
 her dead lover ; and with a sensation of 
 loathing, I gave it to her. She tore it open, 
 and a lock of hair dropped from the envelope. 
 I found afterwards that it contained a 
 few words of farewell, dictated by Percy in 
 his dying moments ; and this sufficiently 
 accounted for the state of mind into which 
 its perusal plunged the unhappy Theresa. 
 Before night she was a raving maniac, and 
 in this state she was delivered of a dead 
 infant. 
 
 " Need I describe my own feelings? need 
 I tell you of the bitter disappointment of my 
 heart in finding myself thus cruelly deceived? 
 I had ventured all my hopes of earthly 
 happiness on Theresa's affection ; and one 
 evil hour had seen the wreck of all ! The 
 eventful moment to which I had looked for- 
 ward as that which was to confirm the bless- 
 ings I held, by the most sacred of ties, had 
 brought with it misery and despair ; for I 
 was childless, and could scarcely still ac- 
 knowledge myself a husband, till I knew 
 how far I had been betrayed. Yet when I 
 looked upon the ill-starred and suffering 
 being before me, my angry feelings became 
 appeased ; and the words of reviling and bit- 
 terness expired upon my lips. 
 
 "Amid the ravings of her delirium, the 
 unfortunate Theresa alternately called upon 
 Percy and myself, to defend her against the 
 arts of her enemies, to save her from the 
 king. 
 
 "'They seek my dishonour,' she would 
 say, with the most touching expression, ' and, 
 alas ! I am fatherless I ' 
 
 " * From the vehemence of her indignation 
 whenever she mentioned the name of Charles, 
 I became at length persuaded that some 
 painful mystery connected with my marriage 
 
 remained to be unfolded ; and the papers 
 which her estrangement of mind necessarily 
 threw into my hands, soon made me acquain- 
 ted with her eventful history. Such was 
 the compassion with which it inspired me 
 for the innocent and injured Theresa, that 
 I have sat by her bedside, and wept for very 
 pity to hear her address her Percy her lost 
 and beloved Percy ; and at other times, call 
 down the vengeance of Heaven upon the 
 king, for his licentious and cruel tyranny. 
 
 " It was during her residence on the coast 
 of Devonshire, that she had formed an ac- 
 quaintance with Lord Hugh Percy, whose 
 ship was stationed at a neighbouring port. 
 They became strongly attached to each other ; 
 and with the buoyant incautiousness of 
 youth, had already plighted their faith, be- 
 fore it occurred to either that her want of 
 birth and fortune would render her unaccep- 
 table to his parents. Knowing, which he 
 did, that they entertained very different 
 views for his future establishment in life, he 
 dared not at present even make them ac- 
 quainted with his engagement ; and it was, 
 therefore, mutually agreed between them, 
 that she should accept the proffered services 
 of Lady Wriothesly for an introduction to 
 the royal notice ; and that he, in the mean 
 while, should seek in his profession the means 
 of their future subsistence. Secure in their 
 mutual good faith, they parted ; and it was 
 on this occasion, that he had given her a 
 song, which in her insanity she was con- 
 stantly repeating. The refrain, ' Addio, 
 Teresa! Teresa, Addio!' I remembered to 
 have heard murmured by the Duke of 
 Buckingham, with a very significant expres- 
 sion, on the night when the agitation of 
 Lady Greville had made itself so painfully 
 apparent in the circle of the queen. 
 
 " You will believe with what indignation, 
 with what disgust, I discovered that shortly 
 after her appointment at court, she had been 
 persecuted with the licentious addresses of 
 the king. It was nothing new to me that 
 Charles, in the selfish indulgence of his pas- 
 sions, overlooked every barrier of honour and 
 decency ; but that the unprotected innocence 
 of the daughter of an old and faithful ser- 
 vant, whose very life-blood had been poured 
 forth in his defence, should not have been a 
 safeguard in his eyes, was indeed incredible 
 and revolting. But it was this orphan help- 
 lessness, this afflicting destitution, which 
 marked her for his prey. 
 
 " Encompassed by the toils of the spoiler, 
 and friendless as she was, the unhappy
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 217 
 
 Theresa knew net to whom to apply for suc- 
 cour or counsel : and in this painful exigence, 
 she could only trust to her own discretion 
 and purity of intention to shield her from 
 the advances from which she shrank with 
 horror. Irritated by the opposition he en- 
 countered, and astonished by that dignity of 
 virtue, which, 'severe in youthful beauty,' 
 had power to awe even a monarch in the 
 consciousness of guilt, the king, by the most 
 ungenerous private scrutiny of her corres- 
 pondence, made himself acquainted with her 
 attachment to Lord Hugh ; and while she 
 was eagerly looking for the arrival of the 
 ship which contained her only protector, the 
 authority of his majesty prolonged its station 
 in a distant and unhealthy climate ; where 
 her letters did not reach him, and whence 
 his aid could avail her nothing. 
 
 " In this dilemma, when the death of 
 Lady Wriothesly had deprived her of even 
 the semblance of a friend, I was first pre- 
 sented to Miss Marchmont. The motive of 
 the king in encouraging my attachment, I 
 can hardly guess ; unless he thought to fix 
 her at court by her marriage, where some 
 future change of sentiment might throw her 
 into his power ; or possibly he hoped to make 
 my addresses the means of separating her 
 from the real object of her attachment, with- 
 out contemplating a farther result ; and thus 
 the same wanton selfishness which rendered 
 him regardless of every tie of moral feeling 
 towards Theresa, led him to prepare a life of 
 misery and dishonour for his early friend and 
 faithful adherent. 
 
 " Agitated by a daily and hourly exposure 
 to the importunities of Charles ; insulted by 
 the suspicions which the insinuations of 
 Buckingham had excited in the minds of her 
 companions ; friendless helpless hopeless, 
 dreading that she might be betrayed by 
 her ignorance of the world into some unfore- 
 seen evil, and knowing that even in the 
 event of Percy's return, her engagement with 
 him must long remain unfulfilled, the 
 unhappy girl naturally looked upon her 
 union with me as the only deliverance from 
 these assailing misfortunes ; and in an hour 
 of desperation she gave me her hand. That 
 her strongest efforts of mind had been exerted, 
 from the moment of her marriage, to banish 
 all remembrance of her former lover, I firmly 
 believe. The letter acquainting him with 
 the breach of faith which her miserable 
 destiny seemed to render inevitable, had never 
 reached him ; and happily alas ! how 
 happily for him his last earthly thoughts 
 
 were permitted to rest on Theresa, as his 
 beloved and affianced wife. I am persuaded 
 that had he returned in safety to his native 
 country, she would have avoided his society 
 as studiously as she did that of the king ; 
 and that, had she been spared the blow which 
 deprived her of reason, her dutiful regard, 
 and, in time, her devoted affection, would 
 have been mine as firmly, as though the vows 
 which gave them to my hopes had been 
 untainted by any former passion. As it was, 
 we were both victims I, to her misfortunes 
 she, to the brutality of the king. 
 
 " It appeared to me that on our return to 
 court, after our ill-fated union, the king had 
 for some time refrained from his former 
 insulting importunities ; and had merely 
 distressed Lady Greville by indulging in a 
 mockery of respectful deference, which ex- 
 posed her to the ridicule of those around her, 
 who could not fail to observe his change of 
 manner. Perceiving, by my unconstrained 
 expressions of grateful acknowledgment for 
 his furtherance of my marriage with Theresa, 
 that she had kept his secret ; and incapable 
 of appreciating that purity of mind which 
 rendered such an avowal difficult, even to 
 her husband, and that prudence which 
 foresaw the evils resulting to both from such 
 a disclosure ; he drew false inferences from 
 her discretion, and gradually resumed his 
 former levities. Nor was this the only evil 
 with which she had now to contend. Some 
 malicious enemy had profited by her absence 
 to poison the mind of the queen, with jealous 
 suspicions of her favourite : and to inspire 
 her with a belief, that Miss Marchmont's 
 propriety of demeanou^r in public, had only 
 been a successful mask of private indiscre- 
 tion ; that Charles, in short, had not been 
 an unsuccessful lover. 
 
 " Unwilling to confide to me the difficulties 
 by which she was assailed, unable alone to 
 steer among the rocks that impeded her 
 course, Theresa at length adopted the bold 
 measure of confiding her whole tale to her 
 royal mistress ; whose knowledge of the 
 king's infidelities was already too accurate to 
 admit of an increase of affliction from this 
 new proof ; and on receiving a letter from 
 the avowed friend of her husband, the 
 grateful patron of her dead father, the 
 august father of his people, containing the 
 most insolent declarations of passion, she 
 vindicated her innocence by placing it in the 
 hands of the queen ; at the same time en- 
 treating permission that her further services 
 might be dispensed with.
 
 218 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 " Her majesty's reply, equally gratifying 
 and affectionate, you have already seen ; and 
 it was in savage and unmanly revenge towards 
 Theresa for the frankness and decision of her 
 conduct, that the king had directed his 
 favourite to enclose me that letter whose 
 sudden perusal had wrought the destruction 
 of my unhappy wife. You will easily con- 
 ceive that the terms of my answer to the 
 Duke of Buckingham were those of unmea- 
 sured indignation : yet he, the parasite, 
 the ready instrument of royal vice, and the 
 malignant associate of Charles in his last act 
 of premeditated cruelty, suffered the accusa- 
 tions of the injured husband to pass unnoticed 
 and unrepelled ; and I am persuaded that 
 nothing but the dread of exposure prevented 
 me from feeling the full abuse of the prero- 
 gative of the crown, by the master I had 
 served with so much fidelity and affection. 
 I have never since that period held direct or 
 indirect communication with a court where 
 the basest treachery had been my only 
 reward. 
 
 " For many months the paroxysms of 
 Lady Greville's distemper were so violent as 
 to require the strictest confinement ; and the 
 medical man who attended her assured me 
 that when this state of irritation should 
 subside, she would either be restored entirely 
 to the full exercise of her mental faculties, 
 or be plunged into a state of apathy, of 
 tranquil but confirmed dejection, from 
 which, although it might not affect her 
 bodily health, she would never recover. How 
 anxiously did I watch for this crisis of her 
 disorder ! and yet at times I scarcely wished 
 her to awake to a keener sense of her afflic- 
 tions ; for being incapable of recognising 
 my person in my frequent visits to her 
 chamber, I have heard her address me in 
 her wanderings for pardon and pity. 
 
 " ' Forgive me, Greville ! forgive me ! ' she 
 would say. ' Remember how forlorn a 
 wretch I shall become, when thou too, like 
 the rest, shalt abandon and persecute me. 
 Am I not thy wedded wife, and as faithful 
 as I am miserable ? Am I not the mother 
 of thy child? and yet I know not ; for 
 I seek my poor infant, and they will not, 
 will not give it to me. Tell me,' she whis- 
 pered, with a ghastly smile, ' have they buried 
 it in the raging sea, with him whom I must 
 not name \ ' 
 
 " The decisive moment arrived ; and Lady 
 Greville's insanity was, in the opinion of her 
 physicians and attendants, confirmed for life. 
 She relapsed into that state of composed but 
 
 decided aberration of mind, in which she still 
 remains. I soon observed that my presence 
 alone appeared to retain the power of irritating 
 her feelings ; she seemed to shrink instinc- 
 tively from every person with whom she had 
 been in habits of intercourse previous to her 
 misfortune. I therefore consigned this helpless 
 sufferer to the charge of the nurse of my own 
 infancy, Alice Wishart ; whom, from her 
 constant residence at The Cross, Lady Gre- 
 ville had never seen. 
 
 " This trustworthy woman, and her hus- 
 band, who was also an hereditary retainer of 
 our house, willingly devoted themselves to 
 the melancholy service required ; and hateful 
 as Silsea had now become to my feelings, I 
 broke up in part my establishment, and 
 became a restless and unhappy wanderer ; 
 seeking in vain, oblivion for the past, or hope 
 for the future. Would to God I had pos- 
 sessed sufficient fortitude to remain chained 
 to the isolation of my miserable home ! for 
 then had we never met ; and thou, my Helen, 
 wouldst have escaped this hour of shame and 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Courteous Lord one word 
 Sir, you and I have loved but that's not it 
 Sir, you and I must part. Anthony and Cleopatra. 
 
 " HITHERTO I have had to dwell in my 
 recital on the vices and frailties of my brothers 
 of the dust, and to describe myself as an 
 innocent sufferer ; but I now approach a 
 period of my life, from the mention of which 
 I shrink with well-grounded apprehensions. 
 Yet judge me with candour ; remember the 
 strength of the temptation through which I 
 erred ; and divesting yourself, if possible, 
 of the recollection of your own injuries, 
 moderate your resentment against an unfor- 
 tunate being, who for many long years of 
 his existence has not enjoyed one easy hour. 
 
 " It was nearly three years after the period 
 to which I have alluded, that an accident of 
 which I need not remind you, my beloved 
 Helen, introduced me to the acquaintance of 
 your family. You may remember the back- 
 wardness with which I first received their 
 approaches ; the very name of Percy had 
 become ominously painful to me, and yet it 
 inspired me with a strange and undefinable 
 interest. A spell appeared to attract me 
 towards you ; and in spite of my first reso- 
 lution to the contrary, in spite of the 
 melancholy reserve that still dwelt upon my 
 mind, I became an acquaintance, and at
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 219 
 
 length the favoured inmate and friend of 
 your father. Could I imagine the dangers 
 that lurked beneath his roof ? Could I 
 believe that, while I thus once more indulged 
 in the social converse to which I had been 
 long a stranger, I should gain the affections 
 of his child ? The playful girl, towards 
 whom my age enabled me to assume an 
 almost parental authority, while I exercised, 
 in turn, the parts of playmate and preceptor, 
 beloved as she was in all the charms of her 
 dawning beauty, and artless naivete, inspired 
 me with no deeper sentiment ; not even 
 when I saw her gradually expand into the 
 maturer pride of womanhood, and acquire 
 that feminine gentleness, that dignified sim- 
 plicity of character, which had attracted 
 me in Theresa Marchmont. Early in our 
 intercourse I had acquainted Lord Percy that 
 the confinement of a beloved wife, in a state 
 of mental derangement, was the unhappy 
 cause of my dejection and wandering habits of 
 life ; and I rejoiced to perceive that his own 
 wise seclusion from the world had prevented 
 him from hearing my history related by 
 others. He was also ignorant of the name 
 and connexions of the lady to whom he 
 knew his beloved and lamented son to have 
 been attached ; and little indeed did he sus- 
 pect his own share in producing my domestic 
 calamity. 
 
 "The disparity of our years, and their 
 knowledge of my own previous marriage, 
 prevented them from regarding with suspicion 
 the partiality displayed by their Helen for 
 my society, and the influence which I had 
 unconsciously acquired over her feelings. For 
 a length of time I was myself equally blind; 
 and the moment I ventured to fear the 
 dangers of the attachment she was beginning 
 to form, I took the resolution of tearing my- 
 self altogether from her society ; and, without 
 the delay of an hour, I returned to Silsea. 
 
 " But what a scene did I select to reconcile 
 me to the loss of the cheerful society I had 
 abandoned ! My deserted home seemed 
 haunted by shadows of the past, and tenanted 
 only by -remembrances of former affliction. 
 In my hour of loneliness and sorrow, I had 
 no kind friend to whom to turn for consola- 
 tion ; and for the first time the sterile and 
 gloomy waste over which my future path of 
 life was appointed, filled me with emotions 
 of terror and regret. My very existence 
 appeared blighted through the treachery of 
 others ; and all those holy ties which enrich 
 the evening of our days with treasures far 
 dearer than awaited us even in the morning 
 
 of youth, appeared withheld from me, and 
 me only. Helen ! it was then, in that 
 moment of disappointment and bitterness, 
 that the remembrance of thy loveliness, and 
 the suspicion of thine affection, conspired to 
 form that fatal passion which has been the 
 bane of thy happiness, and the origin of my 
 guilt. 
 
 " Avoiding as I scrupulously did the range 
 of apartments inhabited by the unfortunate 
 Lady Greville, several years had passed since 
 I had beheld her ; and sometimes when I 
 had been bewildered in the reveries of my 
 own desolate heart, I began to doubt her 
 very existence. Yet this unseen being, who 
 appeared to occupy no place in the scale of 
 human nature, this unconscious creature, 
 who now dwelt in my remembrance like the 
 unreal mockery of a dream, presented an 
 insuperable obstacle to my happiness. I saw 
 my inheritance destined to be wrenched from 
 me 
 
 By an unlineal hand, 
 
 No son of mine succeeding ; 
 
 and I felt myself doomed to resign every 
 enjoyment and every hope for the sake of 
 one to whom the sacrifice availed as nothing ; 
 one too who had permitted me to fold her to 
 my heart in the full confidence of undivided 
 affection, while her own was occupied by a 
 passion whose violence had deprived me of 
 my child, and herself of intellect and health. 
 " Such were the arguments by which I 
 strove to blind myself to my rising passion 
 for another ; and to smother the self-re- 
 proaches which assailed me when I first con- 
 ceived the fatal project of imposing upon the 
 world by the supposed death of my wife, and 
 of seeking your hand in marriage. How 
 often did the better feelings of my nature 
 recoil from such an act of villany how often 
 was my project abandoned, how often re- 
 sumed, at the alternate bidding of passion 
 and of virtue ! I will not repeat the idle 
 sophistry which served to complete my wilful 
 blindness ; nor dare I degrade myself in your 
 eyes by a confession of the tissue of contemp- 
 tible fraud and hypocrisy into which I was 
 necessarily betrayed by the execution of my 
 dark designs. Oh ! Helen this heart of 
 mine was once honest, once good and true as 
 thine own ; but now there crawls not on this 
 earth a wretch whose lying lips have uttered 
 falsehoods more villanous than mine ! and 
 honour, the characteristic of the ancient house 
 I have disgraced, the best attribute of the high 
 calling I have polluted, is now a watchword 
 of dismay to my ear.
 
 220 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 " In Alice Wishart and her husband I 
 found ready instruments for the completion 
 of my purpose ; and indeed the difficulties 
 which awaited me were even fewer than I 
 had first anticipated. The ravings of Lady 
 Greville, and her distracted addresses to the 
 name of her lover, had inspired her atten- 
 dants with a belief of her guiltiness, which in 
 the beginning of her illness I had vainly at- 
 tempted to combat. It was not, therefore, to 
 be expected, that these faithful adherents of 
 my family, who loved me with an almost 
 parental devotion, and whose regret for the 
 extinction of the name of Greville, was the 
 ruling passion of their breasts, should con- 
 sider her an object worthy the sacrifice of my 
 entire happiness. The few scruples they ex- 
 hibited, which were those rather of expedi- 
 ency than of conscience, were easily overcome. 
 By their own desire they removed to Greville 
 Cross, for the more ready furtherance of our 
 guilty plan ; under pretence that the health 
 of the unfortunate Theresa required change 
 of air. On their arrival, they found it easy 
 to impress the servants of the establishment 
 with a belief of her precarious state ; and 
 the nature of her malady afforded them a 
 plausible pretext for secluding her from their 
 observation and attendance. Accustomed to 
 receive from Alice a daily account of her 
 declining condition, the announcement of her 
 death excited no surprise. In a few weeks 
 after her journey, a fictitious funeral com- 
 pleted our system of deception. 
 
 " The moment when, according to our con- 
 certed plan, the death and interment of Lady 
 Greville were formally announced to me, I 
 repented of the detestable scheme which had 
 been thus successfully executed. My soul 
 revolted from the part of * excellent dissem- 
 bling ' I had yet to act ; and refused to stoop 
 to a public exhibition of feigned affliction. I 
 shuddered, too, when I contemplated the 
 shame which awaited me, should some future 
 event, yet hidden in the lap of time, reveal 
 to the world the secret villany of the man 
 who had borne himself so proudly among his 
 fellows. Yet even these regrets, even the 
 apprehension of fresh difficulties in the con- 
 cealment of my crime, were insufficient to 
 deter me from the prosecution of my original 
 intention ; and blinded by the intemperance 
 of misguided affection, heedless of the shame 
 and misery into which I was about to plunge 
 the woman I adored, I sought and obtained 
 your hand. 
 
 " Helen ! from that moment I have not 
 known one happy hour ; and the first punish- 
 
 ment dealt upon my sin was an utter incapa- 
 bility to enjoy that affection for which I 
 have forfeited all claim to mercy, here and 
 hereafter. The remembrance of Theresa, 
 not in her present state of self-abstraction, 
 but captivating as when she first received my 
 vows before God, to ' love and honour her, in 
 sickness and in health,' haunted me through 
 every scene of domestic endearment ; and 
 pursued me even to the hearth whose house- 
 hold deities I had blasphemed. I trembled 
 when I heard my Helen addressed as Lady 
 Greville ; when I saw her usurping the 
 rights, and occupying the place of one, who 
 now appeared a nameless ' link between the 
 living and the dead.' I could not gaze upon 
 the woman whose affections had been so par- 
 tially, so disinterestedly bestowed upon me, 
 and whose existence I had in return polluted 
 by a pretended marriage. I could not behold 
 my boy, the descendant of two of the noblest 
 houses in Britain, yet upon whom the stain 
 of illegitimacy might hereafter rest, without 
 feelings of self-accusation which filled the 
 cup of life with the waters of bitterness. 
 Alas ! its very springs were poisoned ! and 
 Helen, however strong, however just thine 
 indignation against thy betrayer, believe, oh ! 
 believe that even in this life I have endured 
 no trifling measure of punishment for my deep 
 offences against thee and thine ! 
 
 " But such is the fraility of human nature, 
 that it was upon these very victims I suffered 
 the effects of my remorse and mental agony 
 to fall. The ill-suppressed violence of my 
 temper, irritated by the dangers of my situa- 
 tion, has already caused you many a sorrow- 
 ful moment ; and the increase of gloom you 
 must have lately perceived, has originated 
 in the fresh difficulties arising to me from 
 the death of the husband of Alice, and the 
 dread of her own approaching dissolution. 
 From these causes, my present visit to this 
 dreary abode was determined ; and to them I 
 am indebted for the premature disclosure 
 which has made thy life as wretched as my 
 own. The sickness of her surviving attendant 
 has latterly allowed more liberty to the un- 
 happy Theresa than her condition renders 
 safe either to her or me. I could not, on 
 my arrival here, collect sufficient resolution 
 to look upon her, and to adopt those measures 
 of security which the weakness of Alice has 
 left disregarded. To this infirmity of purpose 
 on my part, must be ascribed the dreadful 
 shock you sustained by the sudden appear- 
 ance of the unfortunate maniac, who, I 
 conclude, was attracted to our apartment by
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 221 
 
 the long-forgotten sound of music. On 
 that fatal evening, your fall awoke me from 
 my sleep ; and I then perceived my Helen 
 lying insensible on the floor ; and Theresa 
 yes ! the altered, and to me terrible figure 
 of Theresa, bending over her. For one 
 dreadful moment I believed that you had 
 fallen a victim to her insanity. 
 
 " And now, Helen, my injured but 
 fondly-beloved Helen, now that my tale of 
 evil is fully disclosed, resolve at once the 
 doom of my future being. Yet in mercy be 
 prompt in your decision ; and, whether you 
 determine to unfold to the whole world the 
 measure of my guilt, or, since nothing can 
 now extricate us from the web of sin and 
 shame in which we are involved, to assist in 
 shielding me from a discovery which would 
 be fatal to the interests of our innocent child, 
 let me briefly hear the result of your judg- 
 ment. Of this alone it remains for me to 
 assure you that I will not one single hour 
 survive the publication of my dishonour." 
 
 For several hours succeeding the perusal 
 of the foregoing history, Lady Greville re- 
 mained chained as it were to her seat, by 
 the bewildering perplexities of her mind. 
 The blow, in itself so sudden, so fraught with 
 mischiefs, involving a thousand interests, and 
 affording no hope to lessen its infliction, 
 appeared to stupify her faculties. Lost in 
 the contemplation of evils from which no 
 worldly resource availed to save herself or her 
 child, indignation, compassion, and despair, 
 by turns obtained possession of her bosom. 
 Her first impulse, worthy of her gentle 
 nature, was to rush to the bed-side of her 
 sleeping boy, and there, on her knees, to 
 implore divine aid to shelter his unoffending 
 innocence, and grace to enlighten her mind 
 in the choice of her future destiny. And He, 
 who in dealing the wound of affliction, 
 refuseth not to those who seek it the balm 
 that softens its endurance, imparted to her 
 soul a fortitude to bear, and a wisdom to 
 extricate herself from the perils by which she 
 was assailed. The following letter acquainted 
 Lord Greville with her final determination : 
 
 " GREVILLE ! 
 
 " I was about, in the inadvertence of my 
 bewildered mind, to address you once more 
 by the title of husband ; but that holy name 
 must hereafter perish on my lips, and be 
 banished like a withering curse from my 
 heart. Yet it was that alone, which, hold- 
 ing a sacred charter over my bosom, bound 
 
 me to the cheerful endurance of many a bitter 
 hour ; ere I knew that through him who 
 bore it, a descendant of the house of Percy 
 would be branded as an adulteress, and her 
 child as the nameless offspring of shame. 
 Rich as I was in worldly gifts, my birth, my 
 character, the fair fortunes which you have 
 blighted, and the parental care from which 
 you have withdrawn me, alike appeared to 
 shelter me from the evils which have befallen 
 me. But wo is me ! even these were an in- 
 sufficient protection against the craftiness of 
 mine enemy. 
 
 " But reproaches avail me not. Henceforth 
 I will shut up my sorrow and my complaining 
 within the solitude of my own wounded heart; 
 and thou, 'my companion, my counsellor, 
 mine own familiar friend,' the beloved of my 
 early youth, the father of my child, must, 
 from this hour, be as nothing unto me ! 
 
 " Hear my decision ! Since one who has 
 already trampled upon every tie, divine and 
 human, at the instigation of his own evil 
 passions, would scarcely be deterred from 
 further wickedness by any argument of mine, 
 I dare not tempt the mischief contemplated 
 by your ungovernable feelings against your 
 life. I will, therefore, solemnly engage to 
 assist you, by every means in my power, in 
 the preservation of the secret on which your 
 very existence appears to depend. As the 
 first measure towards this object, I will my- 
 self undertake that attendance on Lady 
 Greville which cannot be otherwise procured 
 without peril of disclosure. Towards this un- 
 fortunate being, my noble brother's betrothed 
 wife, whose interests have been sacrificed to 
 mine, no sisterly care, no affectionate watch- 
 fulness shall be wanting on my part to lessen 
 the measure of her afflictions. I will remain 
 with her at Greville Cross, sharing the duties 
 of Alice so long as she shall live, and supply- 
 ing her place when she shall be no more. 
 I feel that God has doomed my proud spirit 
 to the humiliation of this trial ; and I trust 
 in his goodness that I may have strength 
 cheerfully and worthily to fulfil my part. 
 From you I have one condition to exact in 
 return. 
 
 " Henceforward we must meet no more in 
 this world. I can pity you, I can even 
 forgive you, but I cannot yet school my 
 heart to that forgetfulness of the past, that 
 indifference, with which I ought to regard 
 the husband of another. Greville ! we must 
 meet no more ! 
 
 " And since my son will shortly attain 
 an age when seclusion in this remote spot
 
 222 
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 would be prejudicial to his interests, and to 
 the formation of his character, I pray you 
 take him from me at once, that I may have 
 no further sacrifice to contemplate. Let him 
 reside with you at Silsea, under the tuition 
 of proper instructors ; breed him up in 
 nobleness and truth ; and let not his early 
 nurture, and the care with which I have 
 sought to instil into his mind principles of 
 honour and virtue, be utterly lost. Let his 
 happiness be the pledge of my dutiful ful- 
 filment of the task I have undertaken ; and 
 may God desert me and him, when I fail 
 through negligence or hardness of heart. 
 
 " And if at times the stigma of his birth 
 should present itself to irritate your mind 
 against his helpless innocence, as, alas ! I 
 have latterly witnessed, smite him not, Gre- 
 ville, in your guilty wrath ; remember he 
 is come of gentle blood, even on his mother's 
 side and ask yourself to whom we owe our 
 degradation, and from whose quiver the 
 arrow was launched against us ? 
 
 " And now, farewell niay the Almighty 
 
 enlighten and forgive you, and if in this 
 address there appear a trace of bitterness, do 
 not ascribe it to any uncharitable feelings ; 
 but look back upon the past, and think on 
 what I was, on what I am. Consider whether 
 ever woman loved or trusted as I have done, 
 or was ever more cruelly betrayed ? Oh ! 
 Greville, Greville! did I not regard you 
 with an affection too intense for my happi- 
 ness ! did I not confide in you with a reve- 
 rence, a veneration, unmeet to be lavished on 
 a creature of clay ? But you have broken 
 the fragile idol of my worship before my 
 eyes ; and the after-path of my life is dark 
 with fear and loneliness. But be it so ; my 
 soul was proud of its good gifts ; and now 
 that I am stricken to the dust, its vanity is 
 laid bare to my sight : haply, ' it is good 
 
 for me that I have been afflicted.' 
 
 Farewell for ever ! " 
 
 The conditions of this letter were mutually 
 and strictly fulfilled ; but the mental strug- 
 gle sustained by Lord Greville, his humilia- 
 tion on witnessing the saint-like self-devotion 
 of Helen Percy, combined with the necessity 
 which rendered it expedient to accept her 
 proffered sacrifice, were too much for his 
 frame. In less than a year after his return 
 to Silsea he died a prey to remorse. 
 
 Previous to his decease, in contemplation 
 of the nobleness of mind which would pro- 
 bably induce the nominal Lady Greville to 
 renounce his succession, he framed two testa- 
 
 mentary acts. By one of these he acknow- 
 ledged the nullity of his second marriage, but 
 bequeathed to Helen, and her child, all that 
 the law of the land enabled him to bestow ; 
 by the other he referred to Helen only as his 
 lawful wife, and to her son as his represen- 
 tative and successor ; adding to their legal 
 inheritance all his unentailed property. 
 Both were enclosed in a letter to Lady Gre- 
 ville, written on his death-bed ; which left it 
 entirely at her own disposal, which to publish, 
 which to destroy. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the selection 
 cost her one moment's hesitation. Having 
 resigned into the hands of the lawful inheri- 
 tor all that the strictest probity could require, 
 and much that his admiration of her magna- 
 nimity would have prevailed on her to re- 
 tain, she retired peaceably to a mansion in the 
 South, bequeathed by Lord Greville to her 
 son, and occupied herself exclusively with 
 his education. In the commencement of the 
 ensuing reign he obtained the royal sanction 
 to use the name and arms of Percy ; and in 
 his grateful affection, and the virtuous dis- 
 tinctions he early attained, his mother met 
 with her reward. 
 
 Theresa, the helpless Theresa, the 
 guardianship of whose person had been be- 
 queathed to Helen, as a mournful legacy, by 
 Lord Greville, was removed with her from 
 her dreary imprisonment at the Cross ; and 
 to the latest moment of her existence par- 
 took of her affectionate and watchful atten- 
 tion. 
 
 It was a touching sight to behold these 
 two unfortunate beings, linked together by 
 ties of so painful a nature, and dwelling to- 
 gether in companionship. The one richly 
 gifted with youthful loveliness, clad in a deep 
 mourning habit, and bearing on her counte- 
 nance an air of fixed dejection ; the other, 
 though far her elder in years, still beautiful, 
 with her long silver hair, blanched by sor- 
 row, not by time, hanging over her shoulders ; 
 and wearing, as if in mockery of her uncon- 
 scious widowhood, the gaudy and embroidered 
 raiment to which a glimmering remembrance 
 of happier times appeared to attach her. 
 The vacant smile and wandering glance of 
 insanity lent at times a terrible brilliancy to 
 her fair features ; but for the most part her 
 malady assumed a cast of settled melancholy : 
 and patient as 
 
 Thefemaledove, ere yet her golden couplets are disclosed, 
 Her silence would sit drooping. 
 
 Her gentleness and submission would have 
 endeared her to a guardian even less tenderly
 
 THE MAID OF HONOUR. 
 
 223 
 
 interested in her fate than Helen Percy; 
 towards whom, from their first interview, she 
 had evinced the most gratifying partiality. 
 
 " I know you," she said, on beholding her; 
 " you have the look and voice of Percy ; you 
 are a ministering angel whom he has sent to 
 defend his poor Theresa from the King, now 
 
 that she is sad and friendless. You will 
 never ahandon me, will you ?" continued she, 
 taking her hand, and pressing it to her 
 hosom. 
 
 " Never never so help me, Heaven ! " 
 answered the agitated Helen ; and that sacred 
 promise remained unbroken. 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 BY EDWARD QUILLINAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A creature not too bright or good 
 
 For human nature's daily food ; 
 
 For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
 
 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles ; 
 
 And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
 
 With something of an angel light. 
 
 Wordsii'orth. 
 
 There is but one shamed that never was gracious, 
 
 Sliakspere. 
 
 TYRERAGH is a tract of country on the 
 north-western coast of Ireland. A stranger, 
 first visiting it in the winter season, might 
 imagine that he had penetrated to the very 
 region of desolation. It is thinly sprinkled 
 with dwellings, and those are not of the most 
 inviting appearance. Few treesorgreenfences 
 are to be seen within its mountain boundaries ; 
 low loose walls, of gray stone, drearily inter- 
 sect the farms ; but the soil is good ; its corn- 
 fields are as productive as lands of smoother 
 dress, and its pastures are as green as the 
 valley of Urseren. The dark heights, with 
 which it is diversified, have an air of gloomy 
 greatness that overshadows the stranger's 
 mind with melancholy. Here and there, 
 however, their severity is softened by the 
 yellow bloom of the furze, or the warm tints 
 of various heaths which give shelter to many 
 packs of grouse. There are steep, broken 
 acclivities, and stony caverns, the abodes of 
 birds of prey, in these heights ; and the sports- 
 man is not only often annoyed by the bleat- 
 ing of the heather-cock the signal warning 
 to his mate and brood of the presence of an 
 enemy or the approach of a storm but he 
 is occasionally assailed by the screams of the 
 vulture or the eagle, that denounces him as 
 the invader of its rights. 
 
 Towards the centre of this district, and 
 nearly three miles from a coast where the 
 billows of the Atlantic beat against craggy 
 promontories and creeks, and toss their spray- 
 wreathsupon the heads of the dark rocks, stood 
 Dromore, the ancient seat of Sir Guy Ver- 
 
 non. This place, being much sheltered, had 
 the advantage of being nearly surrounded 
 with majestic old wood, in which, with the 
 exceptions of this and one neighbouring seat, 
 the barony of Tyreragh was then as deficient 
 as it is still. Dromore was situated at the 
 foot of the mountain called Knockachree, the 
 hill of the heart, which was at that time clad, 
 almost to the summit, with fine oak and 
 horse-chestnut trees. To every window of 
 the house some striking prospect was pre- 
 sented ; but from the front in particular were 
 seen the beautiful bay of Sligo, and the wild 
 shores of Altbo, overlooked by a superb 
 amphitheatre of mountains, of which Knock- 
 naree, the hill of the king, famous for its 
 romantic glen, and Benbulbin, the Mil of 
 hawks, stand pre-eminent in height and mag- 
 nitude. The long straight avenue to Dro- 
 more was so thickly shaded by oaks as to 
 receive but a partial light at noonday ; and 
 the solemn effect thus given to the approach 
 harmonized well with the outward appear- 
 ance of the mansion, a structure raised in 
 the time of Henry VIII., in that blended 
 style of architecture then in vogue, a quaint 
 mixture of monastic and Roman, not in the 
 purest taste, but lordly and imposing. 
 
 So far, too, as relates to a due observance 
 of the rites of hospitality, the interior of the 
 building preserved its old Irish character, at 
 the time to which I refer, for its possessor 
 had all the convivial qualities of his country- 
 men. But Sir Guy, though a goodnatured 
 man, was also a person of strong passions 
 and prejudices ; and, though of a sociable 
 disposition, he not only excluded from his 
 intimacy almost every person who was not, 
 like himself, " a stanch loyalist and Protes- 
 tant," terms synonymous in the Orange 
 vocabulary, but he had actually ceased to be 
 on visiting terms with his best and nearest 
 neighbour, a brother baronet and magistrate 
 moreover, because the latter had refused his
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 name to an Orange lodge of Sir Guy's forma- 
 tion. 
 
 Yet Sir Guy was not altogether consistent 
 in regard to his party prejudices ; for, though 
 his Orange creed had descended to him like 
 an heir-loom, and he wished " confusion to 
 popery," without exactly knowing why ; and 
 though he felt it equally natural to hate a 
 papist, and to drink the " glorious memory," 
 and he did both with all his heart and soul, 
 there were, nevertheless, times when his cha- 
 racteristic good humour, the false coin which 
 frequently passes for genuine good temper, 
 seemed to allow his catholic antipathies to 
 slumber ; he could even, on occasion, en- 
 dure the company of some individuals of 
 the caste, but perhaps he seldom, if ever, 
 thoroughly enjoyed it. 
 
 Lady Vernon was an elegant and accom- 
 plished woman, gifted with that fascination 
 of easy manner, and those lively conversa- 
 tional talents, for which Irish ladies are so 
 distinguished. 
 
 Mary Vernon was their only child, and 
 had but just attained her seventeenth year. 
 Every heroine of romance is beautiful ; and, 
 as this is a romantic story, it may be expect- 
 ed that Mary, the genius of the tale, should 
 be arrayed in no ordinary graces. I might, 
 indeed, without painting ideal charms, re- 
 present her as a lovely and most interesting 
 girl. I might dwell OH the golden curling 
 tresses, the skin of spotless purity, the light 
 variable eyes of ineffable expression, the airy 
 sylph-like form, and the voice melodious as 
 the song of angels. But all this would con- 
 vey little idea of the person and none of the 
 mind of -Mary Vernon. There was some- 
 thing in her air and manner above the praise 
 of common language ; some eternal charm of 
 such perfect delicacy as none but words of 
 inspiration could describe. 
 
 No fountain from its rocky cave 
 E'er tripped with foot so free ; 
 
 She seemed as happy as a wave 
 That dances on the sea. 
 
 Her mind had been nurtured with all the 
 assiduity which the fondest mother, herself 
 studiously accomplished, could apply, with 
 judiciously selected aids, to the tuition of an 
 only child, endowed by nature with quick 
 perception. Never was a creature more 
 poetically attractive than Mary, when, at 
 this time, all innocence and joy, she looked 
 the very figure of Hope, in all its spirituality 
 and animation, "when Hope, enchanted, 
 smiled, and waved her golden hair." Let 
 her not, however, be supposed to be a fault- 
 
 less female monster, disowned by Nature, 
 and useless for the purpose of example, be- 
 cause above all mortal imitation. Mary 
 had her failings, her movements of vanity, 
 and 
 
 for even in the tranquillest climes 
 
 Light hreezes will ruffle the flowers sometimes 
 
 her occasional waywardness of temper. Lady 
 Vernon' s immoderate partiality had blinded 
 her to her daughter's faults, or, at least, to 
 the danger attending them, and she had 
 suffered Mary to grow up a creature of im- 
 pulse, in the almost unbounded indulgence of 
 her own will. 
 
 One of the very few near neighbours of 
 the Vernons was Mr. O'Neil, a Roman 
 Catholic gentleman, of some wealth, a jealous 
 stickler for the dignity of his family, about 
 whose historical glories he was insane, and a 
 strangely selfish old man. He resided in a 
 dismally hideous, but very large, house, on 
 his own estate, about three miles distant from 
 Dromore. He was a bigot without religion, 
 a tyrant without power ; he was proud with- 
 out honour, because at once the vainest as 
 well as haughtiest of men ; a hermit through 
 self-love, he made a shrine of his own breast 
 for the idol which his neighbours would not 
 worship : he detested his neighbours, over 
 whom he affected every superiority, both 
 personal and derivative ; and yet he was 
 tremblingly sensitive to their censure and 
 dislike. Flattery melted him to meanness, 
 and at the slightest offence he would bristle 
 with resentment. 
 
 There could not be much cordiality be- 
 tween such a character and Sir Guy Vernon. 
 Their mutual ancestors had seldom been on 
 good terms, political and religious subjects of 
 animosity constantly estranging them. It 
 oddly happened, however, that Sir Guy was 
 almost the only one of his neighbours with 
 whom Mr. O'Neil had not quarrelled ; and, 
 latterly, the " lofty old Jacobite," as Sir Guy 
 termed him, had condescended to be very civil 
 to the Vernons. He was not without a mo- 
 tive for this rare urbanity. Mr. O'Neil was 
 a widower, who had two sons ; Miss Vernon 
 was an heiress, whose broad future heritage 
 lay commodiously contiguous to his own less 
 considerable demesne. It was not, however, 
 for his elder, but for his younger son, that he 
 destined the prize. He hated his first-born, 
 Gerald Fitzmaurice O'Neil, because, curious 
 old man ! his features did not please him ; 
 in common parlance, " he did not think him 
 handsome ! " and yet this Gerald Fitzmaurice 
 was, both in features and person, as striking
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 225 
 
 a likeness of his father as the smooth and 
 fresh young tree can be to the same scored 
 and weather-stricken tree of after-years. In 
 mind no father and son were ever more dis- 
 similar. It was the younger whose mind 
 was the mirror of his father's but a cracked 
 mirror, multiplying its deformities :, more of 
 him presently. 
 
 Gerald Fitzmaurice, the elder son, was at 
 Douay College. lie was in his twenty-third 
 year. Mr. O'Neil had hit upon a notable 
 plan of keeping him unmarried, that the 
 family estate might eventually devolve to the 
 junior. He had worked on the religious 
 sensibility and enthusiastic temperament of 
 Gerald Fitzmaurice, and persuaded him that 
 he had a decided vocation to the altar, and 
 that it was his duty to become a priest ! It 
 was not the custom for eldest sons to take to 
 the church : so much the better ; the self- 
 offering would be therefore the more accept- 
 able to Heaven, and the example the more 
 edifying. Instructions conformable to these 
 views had been sent with him to the presi- 
 dent of the college ; he had now been there 
 eight years, and the scheme seemed likely to 
 succeed. 
 
 The younger son, Aubrey Buller O'Neil, 
 now in the twenty-second year of his age, 
 was already initiated in the family manoeuvre ; 
 for his father had explained to him his inten- 
 tions, both with regard to his own estate and 
 Sir Guy's. The boy grinned with a surly 
 acquiescence in his father's views, scorning 
 the facility of his brother, whose bargain he 
 thought worse than Esau's. 
 
 As to Miss Vernon, he had often seen, but 
 never spoken to her ; and he was in no hurry 
 for the acquaintance for her own sake, be- 
 cause he was utterly incapable of a refined 
 attachment : but as an accompaniment of the 
 Dromore estates, she was worth his consider- 
 ation. There was, however, time enough for 
 that. In the meanwhile, humbler amours 
 were more congenial to his taste, though no 
 marriage alliance could be too high for his 
 pretensions. A strange animal was this 
 Aubrey ; with arrogance that would reach 
 the clouds, but for want of strength of wing 
 was for ever sweeping the dust. If nature 
 ever deigned to produce a human machinery 
 in little for the lowest purposes of art, and 
 needing only time and growth to be fit for 
 its ignoble functions, here was the example. 
 He was an attorney in embryo from the hour 
 of his birth. He had a twin-brother, and at 
 the breast cheated him of his fair share of 
 their mother's milk. Laughable as this may 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 seem, it was no joke to the wretched little 
 co-candidate for suction ; for they were so 
 alike that it was not easy to guard against 
 imposture : he who squalled and kicked the 
 most was supposed to be the aggrieved party ; 
 so the feebler urchin died of starvation, and 
 little Aubrey Buller was left master of the 
 field, where he tugged and grunted till he 
 quite exhausted the strength of the mother, 
 who refused to hand him over to a wet-nurse, 
 and died of consumption a few months after 
 he was weaned. In the nursery, as he grew 
 up, the sullen impracticable brat won for 
 himself the title of " the Angry Boy," which 
 he never afterwards lost. But I am not going 
 to weary the reader with the history of his 
 dogged childhood. He is now, as I have said, 
 almost twenty-two years of age, and he has 
 already all the vices of his father in a coarser 
 grain. In all his movements, too, there is a 
 mysteriousness which he mistakes for worldly 
 science. He fancies himself a domestic poli- 
 tician ; he is simply a Machiavel of the key- 
 hole : his art is exercised in extracting secrets 
 from letters dishonestly procured, in violating 
 the safeguards of seals and locks, in perpe- 
 trating every imaginable act of petty and 
 unmanly turpitude. With all this, he is 
 moody and irascible to excess, exigent of 
 deference, and jealously watchful of disre- 
 spect ; and, in his least unaimable moods, he 
 is a scoffer, whose expression of countenance 
 is that of the laughing hysena. He is a 
 ruffian in manners, and a pickpocket in morals 
 How much of the unqualified odiousness of 
 this character may be attributed to parental 
 neglect, or evil training, is now hardly worth 
 speculation. Certain it is that he had been 
 permitted from infancy to run wild as the 
 colts in his father's park ; not like them to 
 be submitted in due time to the bit and the 
 menage. He had indeed been sent to a school 
 at Sligo, from which he ran away and the 
 only further education he had received was 
 very irregularly supplied by the parish priest. 
 An occasional visit to Dublin, where he fell 
 into boisterous and profligate company, 
 taught him the vices of the city without its 
 civilities. 
 
 Such was the hopeful youth for whom Mr. 
 O'Neil would willingly have nullified the 
 privileges of his first-born. Yet, even here, 
 his partiality could hardly be referred to 
 affection for the cadet. It was in fact the 
 effect of self-love in Mr. O'Neil ; for, though 
 his bodily eyes could not perceive Gerald 
 Fitzmaurice's resemblance in outward feature 
 to himself, his mind could see its own likeness 
 
 No. 15.
 
 226 
 
 THE RAXiKRS OF COSNAUGHT. 
 
 in the dark and tortuous mind of the Angry 
 Boy. He admired his arrogance and pre- 
 sumption, which he called self-defensive 
 pride ; his dishonesty and falsehood, which 
 he considered worldly sagacity ; his love of 
 secrecy, which he termed prudence ; his con- 
 tempt'forallthe decent charities of life, which 
 he rejoiced in as a glorious exemption from 
 vulgar prejudices : in short, he approved of 
 all his evU qualities, because they were his 
 own, in even exaggerated ugliness. But 
 enough, for the present, of this rare specimen 
 of "the blood of the O'Neils." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TT hvarje stood i dodlighetea 
 Af tiden mats ochhar sin grans, 
 
 Men dodens kyss och karlekens 
 De aro barn af evigheten. 
 
 Tke SicediiA Poet, Esaias TcgHer. 
 
 To all things else the sun beneath 
 A bound is set by Time's decree ; 
 
 Bat the kiss of Love and kiss of Death, 
 Are children of eternity. 
 
 TrauilatioH by Oscar Baker. 
 
 THB time was drawing near for Gerald 
 Fitzmaurice's ordination, so anxiously ex- 
 pected by his father. Nothing had been 
 omitted, either on his own part or that 
 of his instructors, to qualify him for so 
 important a procedure ; and in every point 
 but the most essential one he was quali- 
 fied. But his inclinations had undergone a 
 thorough change ; he could no longer deceive 
 himself; he felt that he had mistaken his 
 early sensibilities, that he had not the requi- 
 site vocation to the sacred ministry, and, 
 when once he was self-assured of this fact, 
 he resolved to abandon the project. His 
 conscience and his really strong religious 
 feelings rendered it impossible for him to do 
 otherwise. 
 
 He had become intimate at Douay with 
 several of his countrymen, some of whom 
 were fugitive rebels ; and he had not been 
 long in imbibing the political notions of his 
 friends, whose fervour and impetuosity of 
 character assorted but too well with his own. 
 He was about to return, therefore, to his 
 native shores with no very favourable senti- 
 ments towards the government, which, ac- 
 cording to his judgment, misruled his country 
 as much as it insulted his faith. When his 
 exiled compatriots bade him farewell, it was 
 not without dark intimations from them that 
 he might soon see some of them again on 
 their native soil, in spite of the penalties that 
 warned them off. 
 
 Fitzmaurice announced to his superiors 
 
 the conviction to which he had come, of his 
 unworthiuess for sacerdotal functions, and 
 respectfully solicited permission to depart. 
 They were disconcerted ; but he was firm, and 
 all remonstrance was vain. He received their 
 blessing, and affectionately took his leave. 
 So prompt were his movements, that in a few 
 days he was under his father's roof, and the 
 first to break to him the unwelcome intelli- 
 gence of the subversion of that cherished 
 scheme ; though, as yet, Fitzmauriee was 
 unsuspicious of the godless and unnatural 
 motive that had doomed him to the priest- 
 hood. The disappointed parent turned pale 
 with disgust, but uttered not one word either 
 of welcome or reproach. 
 
 Aubrey Buller, the Angry Boy, had gone 
 to Dublin some days before, on one of his 
 graceless courses. 
 
 While Fitzmaurice, mortified, and some- 
 what indignant, at the coldness of his father's 
 reception after so long a separation, was yet 
 standing in the presence of Mr. O'Neil, who 
 sat sullenly cushioned in an old arm-chair, 
 a servant ushered in two morning visiters, 
 Sir Guy Vernon and Mr. Sullivan. Visiters 
 were so few in Mr. O'Neil's house (he was so 
 unpopular), that he was always " at home." 
 With Sir Guy the reader is already acquaint- 
 ed. Mr. Sullivan was a Squireen; he was 
 a hero of the Curragh, where he seldom failed 
 to cheat and beat his betters ; the soul of every 
 gambling-table, where his successes seemed 
 miraculous, yet never made him rich ; and 
 the adhesive friend of Sir Guy, whom he 
 mystified with the most incredible effrontery. 
 
 Mr. O'Neil rose with unwonted alacrity to 
 receive his guests ; he extended both his 
 hands to Sir Guy, and so gave him a double 
 welcome : he made a stately inclination of 
 the head to Mr. Sullivan, requested both to 
 be seated, and ensconced himself again in his 
 own huge chair. After some further com- 
 monplace interchange of civilities, Sir Guy, 
 who never felt at home in " the old Jacobite's 
 den," was glad to find in the person of Fitz- 
 maurice a subject for eking out a conversation 
 that was already becoming barren, though 
 the shortest term of a decent visit of courtesy 
 was not completed. After attentively eyeing 
 Fitzmaurice for some moments, " Mr. O'Neil," 
 said he, " you have not introduced me to your 
 son ; for I am quite sure, from what I can 
 remember of him when he was a child, and 
 from his remarkable likeness to you, that this 
 young gentleman is your eldest son." 
 
 " What ! " interrupted Sullivan, " is this 
 the young priest 1 "
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 22? 
 
 "You are right, Sir Guy," replied Mr. 
 O'Neil, somewhat nettled ; " that is my son, 
 Mr. Gerald Fitzmaurice O'Neil ; but, as to 
 his likeness to me, I see nothing of it ; you 
 really natter me." 
 
 " Not at all, not at all," cried Sullivan, 
 with the grandest of emphatic brogues ; " the 
 baronet speaks the truth, allowing for the 
 difference of age : he is a true chip of the 
 old block, and not so much handsomer than 
 his father either, barring the comeliness of 
 the young man's eyes and his good-natured- 
 looking face. What a pity that he should 
 be a priest ! " 
 
 " I am not a priest, sir," said Fitzmaurice, 
 coldly. 
 
 " I beg your reverence's pardon," rejoined 
 Sullivan ; " but you are to be, and that's all 
 the same." 
 
 Fitzmaurice did not think it worth while 
 to answer ; but Mr. O'Neil took that oppor- 
 tunity of venting his displeasure at his son's 
 return and its cause ; addressing himself to 
 Sir Guy, for he disdained Sullivan on account 
 of his vulgarity and supposed insignificance. 
 " That youth, sir, has done me the honour 
 to absent himself from home for eight years, 
 to receive a first-rate and most expensive 
 education in a foreign college, because it was 
 his own choice to prepare himself for the 
 priesthood ; and he, to-day, comes back and 
 tells me, without notice or ceremony, that he 
 has changed his mind. But he will think 
 better of it." 
 
 " Excuse me, sir," said Fitzmaurice, 
 proudly, " my mind has not been so lightly 
 changed." 
 
 " Ay, ay," exclaimed Sullivan, a shrewd 
 malicious fellow, who began to guess at the 
 true state of the matter, "the young man 
 may be right, and a very decent young man 
 he is. One 'man may lead a horse to the 
 pond, you know, Mr. O'Neil, but twenty 
 won't make him drink. So your son seems 
 to have no taste for holy water. Well, you 
 see you've done your best to give him a 
 chance of being canonized ; but it isn 't in 
 the blood of the O'Neils they were always 
 devils of fellows." 
 
 The laugh with which Sullivan tried to 
 carry off this sally did not cover its insolence, 
 which Mr. O'Neil strongly felt, though he 
 had brought it on himself by his stiff affec- 
 tation of overlooking Sullivan as a person 
 beneath his notice. 
 
 " But where's your brother, Mr. Gerald ? " 
 continued the latter ; " where's your brother 
 Aubrey ? may be he 'd like to step into your 
 
 shoes, since you've kicked them off; he'd 
 make a pleasant father-confessor to the 
 women ; he 's the devil's own boy, that 
 Aubrey." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," interposed the stately 
 Mr. O'Neil. * 
 
 " Oh, it 's not that I 'm meaning at all, 
 Mr. O'Neil," said Sullivan. " I ask your 
 pardon, sir ; but there 's many a true word 
 said in jest." 
 
 Sir Guy could not help smiling at the awful 
 stare with which Mr. O'Neil now regarded 
 Sullivan ; but he was gentleman enough to 
 feel that his friend's familiarity was in " bad 
 taste," and he saw that Fitzmaurice, too, 
 was beginning to look doubtful whether he 
 ought not to be offended ; therefore, turning 
 to the latter, whom he was inclined to like 
 since he had heard that he refused to be made 
 one of " the Pope's Irish ministers," he pro- 
 posed to him to accompany them in their 
 ride to Dromore. Fitzmaurice, willing to 
 move, ordered his brother's horse, and in a 
 few minutes they were gone. 
 
 Mr. O'Neil, though glad to be relieved from 
 such a visiter as Sullivan, was by no means 
 satisfied with Gerald's ride to Dromore. He 
 felt that Aubrey Buller's horse should have 
 had his owner on his back when the rider 
 took that direction. He immediately wrote 
 a letter to Aubrey, desiring him to return 
 without delay, for very especial reasons ; but, 
 as the reasons were not stated, the summons 
 had little chance of being attended to till it 
 suited the caprice or convenience of the Angry 
 Boy to come home. In effect, he did not 
 return for four months, in spite of several 
 urgent repetitions of his father's orders ; 
 making various excuses at first, and none at 
 all latterly, till he required a fresh supply of 
 money ; and then he wrote with all humility, 
 explained that he had been confined by a 
 fever for several weeks to his bed, and that 
 he had refrained from giving his honoured 
 parent uneasiness on the subject till he could 
 inform him, as he then could, that all danger 
 was over, and that he would be able to travel 
 in a few days. The truth was, that, in a 
 brawl at the theatre, (he was always in 
 brawls,) he had been roughly handled accord- 
 ing to his deserts, and kicked out into the 
 street, where he was again so severely beaten, 
 that he was carried almost insensible to his 
 lodging, where he continued in a crippled 
 state for above a month. 
 
 These four months were the happiest of 
 Gerald Fitzmaurice's existence. Mary Vernon 
 has been described ; and it will be readily
 
 228 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 believed that Gerald's first visit to Dromore, 
 under the flattering 1 auspice of her own 
 father's introduction, was followed by many 
 others. Circumstances soon concurred to 
 confirm the favourable impression which 
 two young persons of amiable manners, with 
 the fewest possible objects of attraction around 
 them, could hardly fail to make on each other 
 at their first interview. Accidentally meeting 
 her a few days afterwards in one of her walks, 
 Fitzmaurice availed himself so well of that 
 opportunity to improve their acquaintance, 
 that Mary thought it the most delightful 
 ramble she had ever taken. After this, they 
 occasionally fell in with each other in their 
 excursions ; and whenever Fitzmaurice at- 
 tended her home, which he now and then 
 ventured to do, his kind reception by Lady 
 Vernon flattered and encouraged him. Lady 
 Vernon, too, frequently rode out with her 
 daughter ; and Fitzmaurice, who was con- 
 stantly exploring the country on horse-back, 
 seldom missed them. If he did not always 
 join them, for a fit of bashful reserve, 
 or timid humility, would sometimes restrain 
 him, yet he saw Mary at least for a moment; 
 and a word, a smile, a nod, are substantial 
 food for a lover's reveries for hours after. 
 On wet days, which were but too frequent, 
 he was restless and impatient, now wandering 
 without an aim throughout the endless apart- 
 ments and passages of the gloomy old mansion 
 of his fathers, now mounting his horse, and 
 galloping against wind and rain to look upon 
 Mary's home ; then, as if afraid of approach- 
 ing too near, wheeling off at a quickened 
 pace, and making a circuit to look upon the 
 sea, whose turbid breast seemed an image of 
 his own, and whose turbulence enchanted 
 him like his own wild feelings. 
 
 The first time that he saw her in public, 
 she was at a ball in the town of Sligo, where 
 he was more than ever struck with the graces 
 of her figure, which raised her above all 
 comparison with the fairest in the room. A 
 day or two afterwards, he presented to her a 
 copy of " the Rape of the Lock," on a blank 
 leaf of which he had written the following 
 lines, without, I fear, being candid enough 
 to acknowledge a plagiarism in the first 
 stanza, from Soame Jenyns, an author whom 
 she was not likely to know. 
 
 TO MARY DANCING. 
 
 Diana's queen-like step is thine, 
 And when in dance thy feet combine 
 
 They i'all with truth so sweet, 
 The music seems to come from thee, 
 And all the notes appear to be 
 
 The echoes of thy feet. 
 
 And every limb with all the notes 
 In that accordant beauty floats 
 
 And careless air of chance, 
 That 'tis a rapture to behold 
 Thee thus, with waving locks of gold, 
 
 The very soul of Dance. 
 
 The loveliness so rich before 
 Puts on a thousand graces more 
 
 In that inspiring maze ; 
 Like jewels brighter when in motion, 
 Or sunshine on the waves of ocean 
 
 Alive with trembling rays. 
 
 Mary read this little tribute to her charms 
 with all the delightful fhitter of the bosom 
 with which such praise is for the first time 
 received by the young and unpractised girl 
 from an object who is dearer to her than she 
 knows ; and when Fitzmaurice at their next 
 meeting urged her to reward him with a lock 
 of her own hair, he did not find her quite so 
 tenacious as Belinda was of "the best and 
 favourite curl," nor even deeply resentful 
 when he presumed to imprint upon her cheek 
 the first kiss of a pure and manly affection. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 How pleasant the banks and green valleys below, 
 AVhere wild in the woodlands the primroses blow ! 
 There oft, as mild Evening sweeps over the lea, 
 The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 
 
 Bums. 
 
 A CHANGE of manner soon began to be 
 observable in Mary. At times she seemed 
 no longer the giddy girl, fresh as the straw- 
 berry just ripened on the sunny slope beneath 
 her window, and blithe as the young thrush 
 that was pecking at the fruit. The anima- 
 tion of her cheek and eye often deserted her. 
 She appeared to court solitude, and frequently 
 rode to the coast, where, dismissing her pony 
 and attendant to a hut about half a mile 
 distant, she would take her station on some 
 stupendous cliff, and sit for hours gazing on 
 the tumultuous mass of waters, and indulging 
 the spirit of her thoughts till her heart was 
 full, almost to oppression, with a sweet and 
 melancholy pleasure. And this was happi- 
 ness ! exquisite happiness ! 
 
 The hut just alluded to as the place where 
 her servant waited on these occasions, was 
 occupied by the parents of a poor blind boy 
 named Conolly, who was in the habit of 
 wandering from house to house, every where 
 welcome for the sake of his pipe, on which 
 he played the favourite Irish airs with won- 
 derful power and feeling. He was especially 
 befriended by Fitamaurice, among whose 
 relatives he had been a sort of petted familiar, 
 almost a household superstition, from his
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 229 
 
 childhood ; and he was also as much a 
 favourite at Dromore. 
 
 When it chanced that he was at home on 
 the arrival of Mary's horses and servant, he 
 would sometimes steal away to the coast, where 
 he well knew how to find her, and he would 
 exert his delightful art while she melted into 
 tears. This was no intrusion on her solitude ; 
 it'seemed merely setting her own sweet and 
 lonely thoughts to music. 
 
 Gerald Fitzmaurice did not always suffer 
 her to enjoy this luxury without participa- 
 tion. He grew bolder in his approaches, by 
 degrees, as he was more and more convinced 
 that the prize was really worth winning, and 
 willing to be won. He became a still more 
 constant visiter at Dromore, where he was 
 civilly enough received by Sir Guy, when he 
 happened to be in the way, and always 
 frankly welcomed by Lady Vernon, who 
 frequently invited him to dinner. His walks 
 with Mary were more frequent than before, 
 and Lady Vernon was seldom particular in 
 her inquiries as to the cause of her daughter's 
 protracted absence on these occasions. In such 
 intimate association they passed many hours 
 of many weeks delightfully, and Fitzmaurice 
 was every day more enchanted with the 
 charms of his companion, and her peculiar 
 graceful originality of manner and expression, 
 which was even more captivating than her 
 beauty. But he could not but be conscious 
 that Sir Guy might not, with his Orange 
 party-spirit, be at all willing to have a 
 Catholic son-in-law. 
 
 And here was the luckless blot in Mary's 
 conduct. She deceived her father, and was 
 not ingenuous with her mother. Nothing is 
 more common than this sort of dissimulation 
 in a daughter towards a parent. The delight 
 of a new emotion, of which she dreads the 
 security, and perhaps doubts the propriety, 
 makes her a dissembler ; and, from the mo- 
 ment that she has become one at home, she 
 has abandoned her surest footing, and walks 
 on quicksands at her peril, with but a blind 
 guide, even if the new acquaintance, the 
 lover of yesterday, be in truth a lover, as 
 Fitzmaurice was, and not one of the heartless 
 herd of flatterers who infest the social walks 
 of life, and sun their own paltry vanity, or 
 mercenary hopes still more paltry, in the 
 smiles of inexperienced and credulous girl- 
 hood. 
 
 Among their favourite walks, was a little 
 spot which they called the Well among the 
 Mountains, whose spring was believed to 
 possess a holy virtue, and to which the 
 
 country people, therefore, resorted on the 
 anniversary of Saint Patrick, to whom it was 
 dedicated. Except on that day of pilgrimage 
 it was little frequented, but by Mary and 
 Fitzmaurice ; and the redbreast, singing to 
 himself, was usually the only preoccupant 
 they found. This rustic shrine, with its 
 most rudely carved little crucifix of wood, in 
 its quiet nook, may be still seen within its 
 circular shade of sycamores and thorns, and 
 its bubbling waters still tinkle as of yore, 
 
 basined in an unsunned cleft, 
 
 A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears. 
 
 These flowery days were sweet and tran- 
 sient. The persons of whom Sir Guy's con- 
 vivial parties consisted, were not in general 
 such as Fitzmaurice would have chosen for 
 his/associates, had not the powerful attraction 
 of Mary's home drawn him among them. 
 He was almost the only Roman Catholic 
 gentleman who visited at Dromore. The 
 majority of Sir Guy Vernon's accustomed 
 guests were violently set against his religion 
 and its professors, and sometimes, in their 
 anti-popish zeal, over the baronet's claret, 
 forgot that a papist was present. 
 
 The most offensive of these guests to the 
 " Romish youth " was Mr. Sullivan ; but he 
 never forgot himself or Fitzmaurice. He was 
 deliberately and grossly virulent in his general 
 sarcasms on Papists whenever Fitzmaurice 
 was one of the company at Dromore, though 
 he took care to avoid personality. He had 
 soon looked on Gerald with contempt when 
 he discovered that he could be made nothing 
 of in his line ; that he did not play at cards, 
 nor bet on them, nor even amuse himself at 
 billiards, and that the raqing calendar formed 
 no part of his erudition. But his contempt 
 was quickly sharpened into bitter hostility 
 for a reason which Fitzmaurice would hardly 
 have guessed at. Mr. Sullivan, who was 
 forty, about the age of Sir Guy, had long 
 ago made up his mind that Mary Vernon, 
 not yet eighteen, should be his wife, though 
 he was as yet cautious not to betray his 
 views, while he seduloxisly promoted them by 
 means not easily penetrable. He paid no 
 marked attention to Miss Vernon, but he 
 laboured day and night to get her unsus- 
 pecting father into his power. He was 
 acute enough to discover presently that he 
 had a formidable rival in Fitzmaurice, and, 
 from the moment that he had arrived at 
 that conviction, he was his enemy, and 
 watched for his overthrow. He well knew 
 how to work upon Sir Guy. 
 
 Fitzmaurice shortly perceived, to his un-
 
 230 
 
 T1IK RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 speakable mortification, that Sir Guy Vernon 
 was, on the point of religion, quite as illi- 
 beral as any of his friends, and a thousand 
 little circumstances convinced him, that, 
 whatever kindness he might hope for from 
 Lady Vernon, no argument would ever make 
 her husband favourable to the wish that had 
 sprung up, at first almost insensibly, and had 
 now grown into impassioned strength, in his 
 breast. As his alarm on this subject became 
 excited, his tenderness for Mary grew more 
 confirmed and exclusive. His passion now 
 appeared to him like a forbidden worship, 
 secret, difficult, and perilous ; and, 'like all 
 prohibited rites, was the more religiously 
 respected in proportion to its difficulty, and 
 the more fondly cherished in consideration of 
 its danger. 
 
 He soon received proof that his anxiety 
 was well grounded. Some rumour of an 
 organized insurrection in the southern parts 
 of the province reached Dromore late one 
 night, when a large party, after supper, was 
 at the height of convivial enjoyment. Fitz- 
 maurice was unfortunately present. Inspired 
 by their native nectar the favourite poison 
 distilled in the secret wilds of the opposite 
 coast of Donegal some of Sir Guy's friends 
 waxed eloquent on the subject of " rebellion 
 and popery." Fitzmaurice was the only 
 sober man of the company, for he was not 
 yet reconciled to the fumid odour of illicit 
 whisky, and he had contrived to evade the 
 summary law by which the guest, whether 
 willing or not, was formerly bound to drink 
 at the pleasure of his host. He heard in 
 silent forbearance the drunken ravings of 
 bigotry, and even sat without betraying his 
 disgust while "loyal songs" were sung to 
 the tunes of "The Boyne Water" and "The 
 Pope and the Devil ; " but when Sir Guy 
 himself exerted his vocal powers on a song 
 of which the words were in the highest 
 degree exasperating, and which was set to 
 the insulting air of "Croppies, lie down," 
 Fitzmaurice rose and quitted the house in 
 fury and despair. The intoxication of the 
 party prevented much notice of his abrupt 
 departure, and they probably the next morn- 
 ing forgot what had occurred. But he rode 
 home in an evil hour. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Which is the villain ? Let me see his eyes ; 
 That when I note another man like him 
 I may avoid him. Slmksperc. 
 
 FITZMAURICE, at his father's hall-door, 
 resigned his horse to a groom, received the 
 
 drowsy footman's welcome and a bed-chamber 
 light without remark, hurried across the hall, 
 and ascended the stair-case towards his cham- 
 ber in silence. When near the extremity of 
 a gallery that led to his apartment, he paused 
 at a few paces from his father's room, which 
 was exactly opposite. There were lights in 
 that room, and he heard voices. This was 
 unusual ; it was considerably past midnight, 
 and Mr. O'Neil was seldom spoken to or 
 seen after ten o'clock. Some internal moni- 
 tor seemed to tell him that he must watch 
 and listen : he did not listen ; a more power- 
 ful monitor made him disdain the suggestion : 
 he advanced rapidly to his father's door, 
 knocked, and immediately opened it. His 
 brother, Aubrey Buller, stood before him ; 
 and dark was the scowl with which Fitz- 
 maurice was greeted by the Angry Boy. 
 
 His father was seated, and frowned at the 
 interruption. " Mr. Gerald Fitzmaurice 
 O'Neil," said he, "you are unceremonioxis. 
 I am not used to uninvited visiters in my 
 own apartment after midnight. Where do 
 you come from, sir ? " 
 
 " Sir," replied Fitzmaurice, " I come from 
 Dromore. The strangeness of seeing lights 
 and hearing voices at this late hour in your 
 chamber occasioned the trespass, which I 
 beg you will excuse, especially as it affords 
 me this unexpected meeting with my bro- 
 ther. When did you arrive, Aubrey ? But 
 my father is tired come with me to my 
 room. Good-night, sir." 
 
 The two brothers quitted their father's 
 apartment, and Fitzmaurice led the way to 
 his own ; but when he reached his door he 
 was alone : Aubrey Buller had sulkily 
 evaded his invitation. " Still the same in- 
 corrigible Angry Boy ! " murmured Fitz- 
 maurice, and slammed his door harshly to, 
 for it may be supposed that he was in no 
 very placid humour. 
 
 Stung to the quick with all the vexations of 
 the day and night, it was long before he fell 
 into a slumber a most uneasy one, from 
 which lie was presently roused. He heard a 
 stealthy step, and saw a dim light : his door 
 was slowly opened, his cxirtain drawn, and 
 the Angry Boy stood at his bedside, his lamp 
 in one hand, a pistol in the other. 
 
 " Aubrey ! good God ! what is the matter?" 
 exclaimed Fitzmaurice. 
 
 " What, sir ! you are awake ? " replied the 
 intruder. " The matter is, that I abhor you, 
 Gerald ! You have broken your pact with 
 tis. You were to be a priest, and I was to 
 be what the accident of a year or two's
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 231 
 
 seniority may enable you to prevent my ever 
 being, if I am fool enough to submit to your 
 caprice the future master of these lands. 
 You must go to Dromore, too ; you pretend 
 to the heiress, I suppose ! Take that, to 
 settle all disputes ! " and the fellow actually 
 levelled the pistol at his brother's head, and 
 pulled the trigger ; but there was no explo- 
 sion. He flung the pistol on the bed, and 
 disappeared with the expression of counte- 
 nance of a baffled fiend. 
 
 Was this a dream? a nightmare? Alas, 
 no ! Fitzmaurice provided himself with a 
 light, and examined the pistol : it was loaded, 
 and he drew the charge the ball had been 
 inserted before the powder. Whether, as is 
 most probable, this was done intentionally, 
 that the Angry Boy might vent his malice 
 by alarming his naked and defenceless brother 
 with a paltry trick of tragic farce, or in the 
 blind and blundering agitation of superlative 
 guilt of purpose, it is impossible to decide. 
 Fitzmaurice was disposed to attribute it to a 
 momentary paroxysm of insanity in his 
 brother. He put on a dressing-gown, and 
 followed to his chamber. He found him 
 already in bed, and apparently fast asleep ! 
 He did not disturb him, but returned to his 
 own room, taking the precaution this time 
 to lock his door before he got into bed again. 
 The narrator of this incident, to whom Fitz- 
 maurice mentioned it the next day, never 
 afterwards beheld the Angry Boy without 
 the steady conviction that he was a Cain, 
 without Cain's courage. Aubrey Buller 
 would, in his opinion, have been an appalling 
 curiosity of wickedness, had his hand dared 
 to act up to the audacity of his will ; but his 
 nerve failed him, and he was therefore a mere 
 vulgar villain, a pettifogging blusterer. 
 
 Perhaps, however, Fitzmaurice was not 
 far from the truth in believing his brother to 
 have been mad upon this occasion. We are 
 told * of a tribe of savages in South America, 
 who were subject to a sort of fury which 
 they called by the unpronounceable name of 
 Nakaiketergehes. It was "manifestly that 
 deliberate sort of madness which may be 
 cured by the certainty of punishment. A 
 chief effectually put a stop to the disease by 
 proclaiming that the first person who was 
 seized with it should be put to death." Mad- 
 men of the above species are not uncommon 
 in Europe. The Angry Boy was often seized 
 with the Nakaiketergehes. 
 
 * By Souther, in his History of Brazil, vol. iii. 
 p. 412, quarto edition, quoting Dobrizhoffer. 
 
 Several days elapsed. Not a word of 
 explanation passed between the brothers ; not 
 an allusion on either side to the strange fact 
 just recorded. They met with coldness, but 
 without incivility. Aubrey pretended to be 
 utterly unconscious of any particular occur- 
 rence having taken place between them. 
 Gerald would have forgotten it if he could, 
 but that was impossible. He had heard as 
 well as seen too much : Aubrey's address to 
 him had been but too clear and too astound- 
 ing a commentary on his father's repulsive 
 manner, though the latter was of course 
 neither privy to nor subsequently made 
 acquainted with Aubrey's attempt, or pre- 
 tended attempt, at assassination. Gerald 
 now knew why his father's house was to 
 him no home, and he had made the discovery 
 at the moment when the only other house in 
 the wide world where he could have desired 
 to find a substitute for home seemed closed to 
 him by the intolerable bigotry whose excesses 
 of tongue in excess of drink had driven him 
 forth from it. 
 
 It has been said that several of his familiar 
 friends at Douay were disaffected Irishmen. 
 Some of these maintained a correspondence 
 with him, of which the matter was often 
 indiscreet and dangerous. There was no 
 sophistry untried to persuade him that he 
 could only prove himself " a good Irishman" 
 by setting his allegiance at nought. He was 
 no very loyal subject when he left Douay. 
 His ill reception by his father, the unnatural 
 conduct of his brother, and the insolence of 
 his Orange neighbours, all seemed to goad 
 him to break the j^oke of social observances, 
 and stand out in some independent character. 
 Then, the evident partiality of the poorer 
 classes for him, their confidence in his good- 
 will, and their officious devotedness of manner, 
 with their well-known and hardly suppressed 
 hatred of most of their other superiors in 
 condition, seemed to tell him that he was the 
 elected of their hope, and that he had returned 
 to his country for some sterner purpose than 
 that of sighing for an Orange bigot's daughter. 
 Just then, when the high excitement of a 
 wounded mind laid him open to any wild 
 temptation, the tempter came : 
 
 Fitzmaurice was in his gloomy little study, 
 musing at the small window that looked upon 
 a dead wall of the courtyard, when a servant 
 knocked, and announced a visiter. He turned 
 round, and beheld Mr. Carew Dillon, the 
 most intimate of his Douay friends, and 
 correspondents. This person, though very 
 young, had already contrived to make himself
 
 232 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 distinguished, for he was one of the Irishmen 
 especially exempted from pardon in a pro- 
 clamation from Dublin Castle, dated about 
 two years back, after the suppression of a 
 revolt in Kerry. 
 
 " Dillon ! you here ! how can you be so 
 rash ? What can you expect ? " 
 
 " Sanctuary." 
 
 "That you shall have. But will it hold 
 good, proclaimed as you are 1 " 
 
 " True ; but I am not known in this part 
 of Ireland." 
 
 "But consider how my father may be 
 compromised. I do not believe you could 
 remain undiscovered with us a month not 
 a week." 
 
 " I ask not for refuge so long. I want 
 nothing but rest for eight houi-s, and then it 
 will be dark, and you and I can follow our 
 vocation." 
 
 "What is that, Dillon?" 
 
 " Mine to lead you to * the friends of the 
 West,' your genuine Connaught Rangers, and 
 yours to become their leader. All the coun- 
 try will be up in arms. You are depended 
 on for this part of your district." 
 
 " But can you be in earnest ? Such pre- 
 cipitation too 1 Gently, Dillon, let us hear 
 more." 
 
 It has been said that "the woman who 
 deliberates is lost." So is the man, when 
 the cause is bad, and when he knows it to 
 be so before his deliberation begins. Dillon 
 had been in the neighbourhood some time, 
 and now explained to him, at great length, 
 all that had been done, what preparations 
 were made, what the objects aimed at, and 
 his reasons for being confident of success. 
 
 In less than eight hours after the com- 
 mencement of their conference, the two friends 
 quitted the house together, but not before the 
 Angry Boy had quietly opened the door, and 
 looked in upon them for an instant with a 
 grin of delight, and his peculiar chuckle. 
 
 In less than two hours after their departure, 
 Gerald Fitzmaurice O'Neil was a sworn-in 
 rebel and a leader of rebels. 
 
 Several of the treasonable letters that he 
 had received since his arrival in Ireland were 
 already in the hands of the government 
 authorities, by the exemplary loyalty of the 
 Angry Boy, who had stolen them, read them, 
 and forwarded them to the Castle. But why 
 did this amiable specimen of human nature 
 grin with delight when he saw Fitzmaurice 
 and Dillon closeted together ? Because Dillon 
 was a traitor to his friend, as traitors to their 
 country not unusually are ; and the meeting, 
 
 and the preparations for it, and the result, 
 had all been concerted between them, between 
 the Angry Boy and the Douay Patriot, Carew 
 Dillon ! The latter, having felt the incon- 
 veniences of proscription, had been willing to 
 make his peace by becoming a government 
 spy, and the former was in hopes of getting 
 rid of his elder brother by the hangman. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 They all are met ! 
 From the lakes and from the fens, 
 From the rocks and from the dens, 
 From the woods and from the caves, 
 
 There are they. 
 
 lien Jonson. 
 
 The disturbances of which there had already 
 been rumours from the Southern parts of 
 the province of Connaught began now to 
 threaten more nearly ; and nightly meetings 
 were held in Tyreragh to an extent that was 
 alarming. 
 
 The visits of Gerald Fitzmaurice to Dro- 
 more had entirely ceased, a circumstance 
 inexplicable to Lady Vernon and her daugh- 
 ter, both of whom had retired long before the 
 drunken orgies commenced on that night 
 when Fitzmaurice quitted their mansion in 
 such unmitigated disgust. Sir Guy made no 
 comment whatever on his absence. Another 
 circumstance soon perplexed the ladies still 
 more. 
 
 One night the tramp of many horses was 
 heard along the public road with which the 
 avenue was connected. Sir Guy was in some 
 agitation, being as yet but ill prepared to 
 defend his house against attack, to which he 
 knew himself to be obnoxious on account of 
 the intolerant bravados in which he and his 
 friends had been more than usually indulging 
 of late. Presently, a single horseman cantered 
 up the avenue, threw a letter over the inner 
 lodge gate, and then, retiring immediately, 
 joined the troop who had formed up near 
 the first lodge, but now peaceably continued 
 their course along the road. The letter was 
 brief, and written in a strange hand ; it ran 
 thus : 
 
 " Sir Guy Vernon is faithfully assured of 
 the safety of himself and his family. What- 
 ever contrary suspicion appearances may 
 suggest, not a creature of his household will 
 be molested, nor the smallest injury done on 
 the estate of Dromore." 
 
 This friendly cartel from the enemy some- 
 what fortified Sir Guy, who had half resolved
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 233 
 
 on the risk of attempting to remove his family 
 to Dublin till the event of the impending storm 
 should be decided. For some days, however, 
 no precaution was laid aside, and none of the 
 family ventured to stir abroad, except Sir 
 Guy, whose duty frequently called him to a 
 meeting of magistrates at a distance. Sir 
 Guy Vernon had a better grounded conjecture 
 than he told as to the quarter from which the 
 pledge of his security had come ; and nothing 
 short of a recommendation of an urgent 
 nature from high authority could have im- 
 posed silence on a man of his communicative 
 turn. -> 
 
 A requisition had been forwarded to the 
 military commander of the district, for a body 
 of troops for the barony of Tyreragh ; but, 
 as the indications of disaffection were general 
 throughout the province and several adjoining 
 counties, none had yet arrived, some difficulty 
 having been found in the distribution of the 
 small force which the General had at his 
 disposal. In the meantime, considerable 
 numbers of armed peasants were known to 
 assemble nightly very near to Dromore, but 
 no act of violence or depredation had been 
 committed there, though arms had been for- 
 cibly taken from the houses of almost every 
 other landowner's protestant tenantry in that 
 and the adjacent baronies, and in some in- 
 stances from the mansions of the landed pro- 
 prietors themselves. 
 
 Fears of, personal danger gradually sub- 
 siding in Sir Guy's establishment, Mary, 
 whom confinement and the absence of Fitz- 
 maurice rendered miserable, was allowed to 
 take her accustomed walks. She was almost 
 idolized by the surrounding tenantry, and, 
 so far as her own safety was concerned, had 
 never entertained any fear at all. But the 
 conduct of Fitzmaurice was unaccountable 
 to her ; and, as she wandered again among 
 the scenes of her childhood, she felt that their 
 charm was no longer the same. He whose 
 presence had of late afforded her in her walks 
 or rides a novelty of delight of which she was 
 too inexperienced in the subtleties of love to 
 analyse the cause, was no longer at her side, 
 and every prospect looked dreary and forlorn. 
 She had, one day, in this mournful state of 
 spirits, rode towards the sea-shore, and sent 
 her pony home, saying that she would return 
 on foot. 
 
 Lovelier than Naiad by the side 
 Of Grecian brook, or Lady of the Mere 
 Sole sitting by the shores of old Romance, 
 
 she sat down on the edge of one of the dark 
 frightful precipices of Altbo, and the gran- 
 
 deur of the scenes around her could not divest 
 her thoughts of their deep sadness. At her 
 feet the waters of the Atlantic dashed against 
 the rocks, and receded with hoarse unceasing 
 murmurs. Before her, across the heaving 
 waters, the mountains of Donegal rose, purple 
 in the distance. On the left swelled her own 
 wild height, the Hill of the Heart, and on her 
 right Knocknaree and Benbulbin. The strong 
 beams of the sun were darted under and be- 
 tween rich masses of dark clouds. The broad 
 decided lines and sheets of light thus thrown 
 upon the hills and waves gave them a magical 
 character. Any mind but the love-struck 
 mind of Mary might have been enchanted. 
 But scenery, however sublime, and however 
 efficient to raise for awhile the spirit that 
 droops under worldly troubles, cannot win a 
 youthful heart from the earnest tenderness 
 with which it dwells on its first and most 
 spiritual passion. It rather co-operates with 
 solitude to strengthen, and almost to sanctify, 
 the feeling. 
 
 The love of a young woman (such love as 
 deserves the name) is no sordid calculation 
 of selfish interests ; the happiness of its object 
 is her first, her own the second consideration, 
 only depending on the first. It is this absence 
 of self, this generous devotedness in woman, 
 that makes her first passion so pure and so 
 delightful. 
 
 Every thing near her reminded Mary Ver- 
 non of the absence of Fitzmaurice. On that 
 very rock where she was now seated he had, 
 at various times, read to her the Odes of 
 Collins, the Pastor Fido of Guarini, and St. 
 Pierre's affecting tale of the Mauritius. Along 
 that coast they had often strayed together, 
 and often had she ventured too near the edges 
 of the precipice to be secretly delighted with 
 his vigilance in drawing her away, and his 
 reproachful petulance in exaggerating her 
 temerity. From one of the neighbouring 
 acclivities most difficult of access, he had 
 procured for her a young merlin-hawk, hav- 
 ing heard her express a wish to possess one of 
 those beautiful birds. It had grown so tame 
 under her care as frequently to fly after her 
 in her rambles, sometimes perching on her 
 neck, yet showing all its native fierceness to 
 strangers, and permitting the familiarity of 
 no one but its mistress. In short, there was 
 not a spot around her which had not been 
 endeared, of late, beyond its early charm, by 
 some association with Fitzmaurice. She had 
 continued musing on the pleasures that were 
 past, till her dejection became insupportable, 
 and she rose to return home. On looking at
 
 234 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 the sun she was astonished to find him in the 
 west, and her watch converted her surprise 
 into agitation, by showing her the lateness 
 of the hour. She resolved to hurry home ; 
 but a disappointment that weighed down her 
 mind seemed also to retard her steps ; for, 
 however unreasonable the expectation, she 
 had almost unconsciously indulged a hope of 
 encountering Fitzmaurice on his favourite 
 coast. The shades of evening were gathering 
 fast, as she entered the avenue of oaks, whose 
 usual gloom was already nearly deepened into 
 the obscurity of midnight. Appalled at the 
 darkness, and eager to terminate the solici- 
 tude that her long absence must have occa- 
 sioned, she was hastening on, when a well- 
 known voice arrested her, and fixed her in 
 amazement to the spot " Mary !" And the 
 hand of Fitzmaurice held hers while he spoke: 
 "Pity and forgive a wretch whose destiny 
 forces him from you, and hurries him to 
 destruction. I would say, forget me too, but 
 I cannot bear that Mary should quite forget 
 
 me. You will be told " 
 
 He was proceeding, when the swift approach 
 of horsemen was heard. He raised to his lips 
 the hand which he had taken, and in a 
 moment vanished. Poor Mary remained 
 motionless till the horsemen came up ; and, 
 in the exclamation of inquiry which they 
 uttered, she recognized the voices of two of 
 her father's servants who had been sent in 
 quest of her, and had met each other in re- 
 turning from their unsuccessful search. In 
 a state of emotion, easily imagined, she pre- 
 ceded them to the house, and rushed into the 
 arms of her mother. Lady Vernon was pre- 
 pared to reprove her, and began to inquire 
 peremptorily into the cause of an absence so 
 extraordinary ; but the excited girl burst 
 into tears and entreated to be spared. The 
 tears of Mary were ever irresistible, and at 
 once silenced both question and reproach from 
 the too indulgent mother. 
 
 Sir Guy was gone to Sligo on magisterial 
 business, and was not expected back for two 
 days. 
 
 Mary retired to her chamber as early as 
 she could, to pass a wakeful and a weaiy 
 night, during which she was often obliged to 
 counterfeit repose, when a soft tread and an 
 approaching light warned her that her kind 
 mother was coming to see whether she 
 slept. 
 
 In the morning she rose early, and imme- 
 diately turned her steps into the avenue of 
 oaks, the place of her sudden interview with 
 Fitzmaurice. As she lingered under the 
 
 solemn shade, with a mind enfeebled by con- 
 sternation and grief, she was startled by every 
 gust of air among the trees, and almost ex- 
 pected the very leaves of her own oaks to 
 become vocal, like those in the fabled grove 
 of Dodona, and to breathe terrible oracles in 
 the same accents which had pierced her heart 
 on the preceding night. 
 
 A fear of giving offence or uneasiness to 
 her mother made her subdue, during the rest 
 of that day, an impatient longing to return 
 to the gloom and solitude of her oaks. But 
 every succeeding hour appeared more insuf- 
 ferably long and wretched than that which 
 went before it ; and her uncertainty as to the 
 fate of Fitzmaurice was fretted into anguish. 
 Mary was a novice in the school of sorrow, 
 and therefore the more sensibly felt the harsh- 
 ness of its inflictions. A spoiled, though an 
 amiable girl, who had been gratified from 
 infancy in almost every caprice, she had never 
 been practically taught the lesson of patience ; 
 and now, when, for the first time in her life, 
 that virtue became essentially necessary for 
 her peace, she was unequal to the fortitude 
 that could have commanded it, and pined 
 after lost enjoyment, and vainly quarrelled 
 with her lot, as the newly-fettered eaglet, the 
 native of her own hills, frets for the freedom 
 of his wing, and struggles to break the chain 
 that keeps him from the heaven to which he 
 directed his earliest flights so gladly. 
 
 CHAPTER vr. 
 
 I hear my love, and him I see 
 Come leaping by the mountains there ; 
 Lo, o'er the hillocks trippeth he, 
 And roe or stag-like doth appear. 
 Lo, from behind the wall he pries ; 
 Now at the window grate is he : 
 Now speaks my dear, and says, " Arise, 
 My love, my fair, and come to me ! " 
 
 George Wither. 
 
 THE next day Sir Guy Vernon returned, 
 and the intelligence that he brought completed 
 the misery of his daughter, and struck Lady 
 Vernon with dismay. Gerald Fitzmaurice 
 
 O'Neil had joined the rebels at , and 
 
 two or three hundred of his father's tenants 
 had followed him. A considerable body 
 of troops was in motion to attack them, and 
 it was confidently expected that the insur- 
 gents would be put down before they could 
 concentrate much strength in that portion of 
 the island. For some time Fitzmaurice had 
 been an object of attention to the Govern- 
 ment, on account of the correspondence pur- 
 loined and transmitted by his brother ; and
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 the sheriff of the county had even, within a 
 few days past, received from Dublin Castle 
 directions, which he privately communicated 
 to the magistrates, to use every exertion to 
 arrest him. Accordingly, Sir Guy among 
 the number had been secretly on the watch 
 to have him secured ; but Fitzmaurice had 
 now such good information, and took such 
 measures of precaution, as effectually baffled 
 all their vigilance. 
 
 Among the guardians over his safety, the 
 least suspected, yet not the least efficient, 
 was the poor blind boy, Conolly. His acti- 
 vity in moving from place to place was un- 
 wearied, and the facility with which he made 
 his way without a guide was very remarkable. 
 Every hint which he could catch from con- 
 versation he had sagacity enough to make 
 the most of. An uncle of Fitzmaurice, now 
 dead, had been his best friend. Mary Ver- 
 non often detained him for hours together to 
 play to her in her garden ; and Fitzmaurice 
 himself had never suffered him to feel the loss 
 of his patron as to bounty. So much was 
 not required to bind an Irish peasant boy to 
 a gentleman in misfortune. 
 
 It may be now understood why Sir Guy 
 did not partake of the astonishment of his 
 family on the abrupt disappearance of Fitz- 
 maurice, and how he had been but little at a 
 loss to ascribe to its true author the anony- 
 mous note that had been thrown over his 
 gate. That note, however, though he relied 
 on its assurance, in no degree mitigated the 
 indignation which he had conceived against 
 Fitzmaurice on being apprized of his treason- 
 able practices.. That he should so far use 
 his influence with his followers as to prevent 
 injury to the persons and property of a 
 family whose hospitality he had experienced, 
 was almost a matter of course in the fair and 
 frank judgment of the baronet, but could by 
 no means check his readiness and even eager- 
 ness as a loyal subject to deliver up a foe of 
 the state to punishment. 
 
 It was not the smallest of poor Mary's 
 trials that she was forced to hear the name 
 she loved coupled with insult by her father, 
 who, having no suspicion of her attachment, 
 never perceived the sickness of soul that 
 came over his child when he boasted of the 
 caution with which he had kept his secret 
 while endeavouring to execute his commission 
 against Fitzmaurice. 
 
 Lady Vernon was not now so blind as her 
 lord to their daughter's agitation and its cause. 
 She had some time since observed a growing 
 partiality between Mary and Fitzmaurice, 
 
 and had even anticipated their future union 
 with satisfaction, hoping to have influence 
 enough over Sir Guy to surmount his anti- 
 catholic prejudices. She had too much sense 
 to be a bigot ; and, as Fitzmaurice was well- 
 born, well-educated, heir to a considerable 
 fortune, and their immediate and much- 
 respected neighbour, she could not think the 
 difference in their Christian persuasions an 
 insuperable objection to his becoming the 
 husband of her child, though she knew it to 
 be desirable that such difference did not exist. 
 She had never dreamt that the civil disquali- 
 fications under which he and those of his 
 church laboured for their religion, would 
 produce the disastrous effect now made mani- 
 fest ; and her astonishment was equalled by 
 her grief when she found that this prepos- 
 sessing young person, whose manners were 
 peculiarly mild and unambitious, cherished 
 in a fiery temperament a fatal and daring 
 spirit of disloyalty. A feeling of self-re- 
 proach for the encouraging reception she had 
 always given him, now imparted something of 
 indescribable tenderness to her compassion 
 for her daughter. Mary felt it deeply ; she 
 now felt, too, that her interest in Fitzmaurice 
 was no longer a secret from her mother : and, 
 though not a word of explanation was ex- 
 changed between them, she had comfort in 
 the consciousness of being understood, and 
 pitied, and forgiven, and found a sad relief 
 in being allowed, uninterrogated and uncen- 
 sured, to shed her tears on the bosom of a 
 parent. 
 
 Mary now passed a considerable portion of 
 each morning in the avenue, where she 
 walked with a quick and impatient step, 
 watching for the return of the messenger who 
 was daily despatched to the Post-office at 
 Sligo, a distance of twelve miles. She was 
 not long without intelligence concerning Fitz- 
 maurice. After a few days ages to her 
 an account arrived of an engagement in 
 which the insurgents had been totally routed 
 by the King's troops. Fitzmaurice, when all 
 was over, had effected his escape from the 
 field, or at least such was the general belief, 
 as he was not recognised among the prisoners 
 or killed, though he had been noticed in the 
 act of attempting to rally a small body of the 
 fugitives towards the close of the contest. 
 The newspapers contained a proclamation 
 offering rewards of various amount for the 
 apprehension of such of the insurgent leaders 
 as were supposed to have absconded ; and on 
 the list of proclaimed was the name of Gerald 
 Fitzmaurice O'Neil, for the seizure of whom
 
 236 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONN AUGHT. 
 
 the sum of a thousand pounds was offered. 
 A mortal numbness of frame awhile arrested 
 the sensibility to mental suffering in Mary 
 after this was read. But the kindly stupor 
 did not last long ; and the unhappy girl was 
 for some days in a state of horrible excite- 
 ment that threatened to subvert her reason. 
 The constant and judicious attention of her 
 mother saved her from this worst calamity, 
 and so touched the warm grateful heart of 
 Mary, that, by efforts infinitely painful, she 
 forced herself into an appearance of resigna- 
 tion in her presence. 
 
 But when alone, she gave way without 
 reserve to the anguish of her heart. The 
 image of the gallant lost Fitzmaurice, branded 
 with ignominy, and pursued with relentless 
 vengeance, was ever before her in her solitary 
 hours. She seemed to have but one fearful 
 hope left to her in the world ; and that rested 
 on the possibility of his evading pursuit and 
 retiring into perpetual exile. There were 
 moments when her generous little heart 
 throbbed almost joyfully in the supposed 
 realization of this dreary hope. 
 
 One morning, soon after daybreak, taking 
 her accustomed walk in the avenue, where 
 Conolly often lingered to soothe her with his 
 music, and beyond which she no longer felt 
 any desire to go, she was startled by a rust- 
 ling sound, and instantly afterwards heard 
 her name pronounced in the deep sweet tone 
 that could not be mistaken. An involuntary 
 cry had hardly escaped her when a letter fell 
 at her feet ; but so confounded was she with 
 rapturous surprise, that perhaps it might have 
 been unnoticed had not her attention been 
 drawn to it by her merlin-hawk, who pounced 
 upon it and began to tear it with his beak. 
 She eagerly seized it, and, after looking fear- 
 fully about her, read the following words : 
 
 " A wretched outlaw ought not to obtrude 
 his misery on the beautiful and innocent 
 Mary. But he cannot flee from his native 
 land for ever without imploring one last 
 interview with almost the only person upon 
 earth the forfeiture of whose society will 
 make him regret the part he took in a just 
 though unprosperous cause. To-morrow, 
 concealed from observation, he will be ap- 
 prised of any person's approach towards the 
 shore of Altbo. In the evening he will em- 
 bark, and, whether soothed in his parting 
 hour by a kind farewell from Mary, or 
 doomed to find his last entreaty rejected, he 
 will trouble her peace no more. 
 
 "G.F." 
 
 After hastily perusing this note, Maiy's 
 fears were roused lest he should be discovered 
 in his return to his hiding-place, as he 
 must have received information of her habit 
 of walking so early in the avenue, and had, 
 no doubt, repaired thither before dawn with 
 the hazardous determination to see her and 
 to prefer his written request. Before she re- 
 turned to the house, she ascended an eminence 
 that overlooked the road and park and the 
 adjacent fields ; but her eyes in vain sought 
 the object on whom they dreaded and longed 
 to rest, and she retired with a tumultuous 
 throbbing of the heart that was equally the 
 effect of joy and consternation. During the 
 remainder of the day, these feelings alter- 
 nately preponderated, as the certainty that 
 he lived and loved her, and his melancholy 
 and dangerous situation, successively pressed 
 upon her mind. As to a compliance with 
 his wish she felt no hesitation. What will 
 not a young woman do for her lover in his 
 hour of desolation and sorrow ? 
 
 CHAFFER VII. 
 
 I will go, 
 
 Softly tripping o'er the mees, 
 Like the silver-footed doe 
 Seeking shelter in green trees. 
 
 Chattcrton. 
 
 WE often hear the old and the middle-aged 
 speak with contempt of the sorrows of youth. 
 " The young," they say, " can have few real 
 griefs. It is for us, experienced in human 
 difficulties, and burdened with many charges, 
 to complain of the cares of life." There is 
 more of overweening self-love than of true 
 philosophy in this proposition. Experience 
 in the world is too apt to chill and to con- 
 tract the heart, deadening its generous sym- 
 pathies, and narrowing its affections. As 
 we increase in age we ripen in selfishness, 
 and hence it is that the old think so little 
 of the calamities of the young, and so much 
 of their own. 
 
 With the various evils and reverses of 
 fortune to which mankind are liable, the old 
 are of course more familiar than the young, 
 but they are not therefore more entitled to 
 the gloomy privilege of acquaintance with 
 care. Adversity takes many shapes ; and 
 those ideal ones in which it often appears to 
 the fanciful and sensitive minds of youth are 
 not the least terrible of its forms, nor the less 
 baneful in their effects on happiness, because 
 the cold eye of age can disenchant them of 
 their horrors.
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 237 
 
 There is no kind of misfortune which is 
 thought so frivolous by the old as a young 
 person's first disappointment in her affections ; 
 but there is neither charity nor justice in this 
 idea. A young and guileless woman, for 
 instance, won by amiable qualities, possibly 
 real, probably imaginary, yields up her heart 
 to its first passion, imperceptibly to herself, 
 perhaps, and secretly from all but the favoured 
 object, who is never wholly deceived. Her 
 tenderness, modest, yet most earnest, is for 
 ever finding or creating in him some new 
 quality in which to glory. He is her daily 
 thought and nightly dream, far more, be it 
 conceded, than any earthly object should ever 
 be. Her native delicacy at times reproaches 
 her that her heart should be thus absorbed in 
 a sentiment Avhich her tongue would not 
 dare to confess. She struggles to subdue it, 
 and it conquers her ; and more than ever 
 she cherishes it in her inmost soul, in a soul 
 still hallowed by good and spotless thoughts, 
 and into which the earthly idol was not ad- 
 mitted till freed by her fancy from the dross 
 of human frailty and endowed with more 
 than mortal attributes. Her life is bound 
 up in him ; and the hope of Youth, that 
 sweet false prophet, whispers it a life of 
 almost cloudless serenity. At that confiding 
 moment, probably, the storm is nearest. It 
 breaks, and overwhelms her. The interdic- 
 tion, well or ill judged, of parents the false- 
 hood or misfortune of the lover blights the 
 young promise of her mind, and blights it 
 perhaps for ever. This is no uncommon 
 case ; but the poor victim of disappointment, 
 thus crushed where her sensibility was keen- 
 est, has no claim to the pity of the wise and 
 aged, because " she has sustained no real loss, 
 incurred none of the real cares of life ! " A 
 wider charity affords a juster view. 
 
 Age, by care opprest, 
 
 Feels for the couch, and drops into the grave. 
 The tranquil scene lies further far from youth. 
 Frenzied ambition and desponding love 
 Consume youth's fairest flowers. Compared with youth, 
 Age has a something, something like repose.* 
 
 At as early an hour on the following morn- 
 ing as Mary could quit the house without 
 exciting remark or curiosity, she set forward 
 with a beating heart. Numerous were, the 
 times that she paused and looked round to 
 see if she were followed or observed. The 
 lark that sprung from her feet startled and 
 affrighted her, and the faint sound of her own 
 
 Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 quick footsteps seemed to be unusually loud, 
 and likely to betray her course and its object 
 to some enemy of Fitzmaurice. At length 
 she arrived at the coast, and she had scarcely 
 seated herself on one of the rocks overhanging 
 the sea, when her expectation was roused by 
 one of those shrill piercing whistles that the 
 Irish peasants blow between their fingers, 
 and by which they convey signals to a dis- 
 tance beyond which the blasts /of a bugle-horn 
 would hardly be heard. Though she could 
 perceive no person near, she had not the least 
 doubt but that this notice proceeded from some 
 one in the confidence of Fitzmaurice ; and, 
 accordingly, in a few moments, she discerned 
 her friend approaching round the beach be- 
 low, not so disguised but that the quick eye 
 of fondness knew him. He was dressed in 
 the common garb of a sailor. He surmounted 
 the steep with ease, and was almost imme- 
 diately at the side of Mary, whose hand he 
 took fervently and silently, and whom he at 
 once conducted down the rocks by a descent 
 dizzy and difficult, though somewhat less 
 abrupt than the crags which he had climbed. 
 Supported by the arm of Fitzmaurice, she 
 felt no personal fear. When they had de- 
 scended but a little way, they became en- 
 veloped as it were amid the dark cliffs, till, 
 at a sudden turn, they found themselves, 
 near the edge of a tremendous precipice, on a 
 rock, which, jutting considerably beyond the 
 rest, stretched over upon the ocean. This is 
 the favourite haunt of the sea-fowl. At the 
 appearance of Mary and Fitzmaurice, the 
 birds started away with a simultaneous 
 burst, and wheeled and hovered over them 
 with loud melancholy screams, literally ob- 
 scuring the air for, some moments by the 
 abrupt expansion of such a multitude of 
 wings. 
 
 Large flocks of cormorants, with their 
 long picturesque forms of shining jet, and 
 gulls, with their white breasts and wild bright 
 eyes and backs of ashy gray, have their nests 
 in this part of the coast, and are to be seen 
 promiscuously mingled along the rocks, to 
 which they give an extraordinary appearance 
 by their inconceivable numbers and the con- 
 trasts of their colours and shapes. 
 
 It was not the first time that Mary had 
 ventured to this place with her companion. 
 In more auspicious hours they had visited it 
 together, and, among the solemn sights and 
 sounds which it presented, had tempered 
 down the giddy ecstasy of youthful enjoyment 
 to the reflective sobriety in which true happi- 
 ness is best felt and understood. In their
 
 238 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 present altered condition, Fitzmaurice only 
 found the place favourable to the darkest 
 contemplations ; and, as he stood with Mary 
 on the brink of the abyss, after a long silence, 
 he hastily turned to her, and, with a hurried 
 but emphatical expression, borrowing the 
 language of another enthusiast, exclaimed, 
 " Do you remember the ancient use of the 
 rock of Leucadia? This place resembles it 
 in many respects : the rock is high, the 
 water is deep, and I am in despair." 
 
 Mary did not shrink back at this dreadful 
 question ; she only clung more closely to his 
 ami, as if resolute to share his fate, should 
 he be so desperate as to decide it there. 
 Fitzmaurice was the first to recover from this 
 horrible state of mind, and snatched her 
 away with trembling eagerness. " This 
 place," said he, " is not good for us, Mary. 
 These brown rocks look churlishly upon 
 us, and these clamorous birds are shrieking 
 their dismissal to me too harshly and too 
 soon." 
 
 He supported her to the foot of the cliff, 
 and, after walking for a short distance along 
 the beach, turned into a deep recess formed 
 by a chasm in the rock. Here they were 
 quite concealed from observation from the 
 land side, and could descry any vessel or 
 boat that might appear on the sea, whose 
 murmur was the only sound that now reached 
 their ears. 
 
 There are, along this shore, several of 
 these secluded inlets, which, notwithstanding 
 the cries of the sea-birds resounding among 
 the adjacent heights, are so silent and so 
 lonely that they might seem to have had no 
 visiters but the waves since the foundation 
 of the world. Such was the tranquillity of 
 the spot to which these lovers had now re- 
 tired, and where they were about to undergo 
 the agony of parting without hope of reunion. 
 The majestic rocks were around and above 
 them ; the sun was in his glory, in the rich 
 blue heaven ; the green space of waters spread 
 before them ; and the waves, pursuing each 
 other over the yellow sands, rippled at their 
 feet. To happy lovers such a scene and such 
 an hour would have " sent into the heart a 
 summer feeling." To an exile, about to be 
 cut off for ever from his native shore, where, 
 in future, his very name would be a by- word 
 of execration except among the lowly and 
 devoted peasants, whose wretchedness of con- 
 dition had only been aggravated by the 
 frantic plot in which he had encouraged 
 them except, too, with her who was, as yet 
 for a little while, sitting pale and speechless 
 
 at his side to him, and to that young fond 
 victim of his errors and her love, how did 
 that sun shine in mockery, and that peaceful 
 retreat invite to happiness in vain ! They 
 sate in the mute anguish of hopelessness, 
 neither daring to address the other, lest the 
 answer should be farewell ! 
 
 Fitzmaurice at last remembered that Mary 
 was far from home, and that many reasons 
 required the termination of this useless and 
 afflicting interview. He addressed her in a 
 voice almost inarticulate from emotion. " I 
 resolved at all risks to see you, Mary, before 
 my departure ; and perhaps I owe my safety 
 to this resolution ; for a quarter where I am 
 so well known is the last in which my en- 
 emies would expect to find me. I thought 
 that it would be some alleviation to my 
 misery if I could but be convinced that, in 
 spite of my unworthiness, you had not en- 
 tirely cast me off from your regard. I am 
 already sufficiently punished for having so 
 selfishly exposed you to the trial of this hour. 
 I behold you, and I see indeed that you do 
 not hate me, and I am at once torn with 
 remorse and jealous foreboding. To think 
 that the peace of a blameless mind like 
 yours is to be poisoned by regret for a lost 
 wretch like me, is horror : to consider that 
 I see you for the last time, and that some 
 other suitor, Mary, may soon teach you to 
 forget the outcast, is distraction. Reason 
 and conscience in vain persuade me that I 
 ought, for the sake of your whole life's wel- 
 fare, to desire to be forgotten. To-night I 
 shall be abroad on the Atlantic. I shall 
 never behold you more ; but I shall hear 
 that you are the bride of some better and 
 happier man, and my yearning heart will 
 torment me into madness." 
 
 " 0, my unhappy friend," replied Mary, 
 " how shall I convince you of the error of 
 that fear? To-night you will be on the 
 Atlantic shall I go with you, Gerald, and 
 break my mother's heart, and make the 
 hearth of my father desolate 1" 
 
 " No, lovely and generous girl ; I will 
 never lure you from your parents to follow 
 the fortunes of an outlawed man. I am not 
 so lost to honour as to tempt you to such a 
 sacrifice and such a crime." 
 
 Overcome with agitation, Fitzmaurice 
 burst into tears. Those of Mary had long 
 been flowing ; but when she saw her lover 
 weep, she threw herself into his arms with 
 a shriek of which the thrilling delirious agony 
 was such that Fitzmaurice, for years after- 
 wards, could not revert to this moment with-
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 239 
 
 out shuddering. She clung to his bosom with 
 the energy of a maniac, while he soothed 
 her with all the prodigality of fond expres- 
 sion. 
 
 They were suddenly alarmed by a scream- 
 ing whistle, still more shrill and piercing 
 than that which had given Fitzmaurice 
 notice of Mary's arrival at the cliff. 
 
 "What can that sound mean?" whispered 
 Mary, trembling ; " it is surely the cry of 
 a banshee ; no human signal was ever so 
 dreadful." 
 
 " It is the cry of my death-ghost, Mary," 
 said Fitzmaurice, solemnly, after pausing to 
 listen for a few seconds ; " I am taken in 
 the toils. Can Dillon have betrayed me ? 
 Now leave me, and God for ever and for ever 
 bless you ! " 
 
 '* I will not leave you, Gerald," was the 
 answer ; and she twined her arms round him 
 and listened. Then, suddenly disengaging 
 herself, she exclaimed : " Fly, fly, Fitzmau- 
 rice ; I hear the tread of many feet upon the 
 sands." 
 
 " It is too late to fly," he replied ; " the 
 bloodhounds are too near : but let them not 
 see you ; remain in this cave, and I will 
 meet them." 
 
 He kissed her cheek and rushed forward ; 
 but he dragged her with him, for she had 
 again clung to his arm. At that instant a 
 detachment of twelve foot-soldiers, with an 
 officer, appeared, accompanied by two persons 
 on horseback, Sir Guy Vernon (followed by 
 a groom) and Mr. Sullivan. Fitzmaurice 
 stood motionless, with Mary on his arm, till 
 they came close up. Sir Guy's astonishment 
 and rage, at finding his daughter in such a 
 situation, it would not be easy to depict. 
 He had never, till that instant, suspected her 
 attachment. 
 
 Sullivan, however, had long more than 
 suspected it, and it was through his impor- 
 tunity that Sir Guy was now present to be 
 so effectually enlightened ; for a twinge of 
 remorse had almost prevented him from being 
 of the party to seize Fitzmaurice, but Sulli- 
 van's representations of the importance of 
 the presence of a magistrate at the capture 
 had overruled him. It was Dillon who had 
 given information to Sir Guy of Fitzmaurice' s 
 being concealed near the coast but it was 
 an anonymous note from the Angry Boy, 
 who had played the spy with singular ad- 
 dress, that had pointed out to Sullivan the 
 exact spot where, in the course of that day, 
 the outlaw might be expected to take boat 
 for the ship which was to bear him off. 
 
 Sir Guy poured out a volley of execrations, 
 and fiercely called on the soldiers to seize the 
 papist traitor, Gerald Fitzmaurice O'Neil, 
 whom he further insulted with abuse to which 
 he received no answer. The officer had 
 halted his men, and he now commanded 
 them not to stir ; and, walking singly up to 
 Fitzmaurice, he said to him in a tone not 
 unsoftened by compassion, " Sir, you are 
 my prisoner." Fitzmaurice bent his head 
 in acquiescence, while Mary precipitated her- 
 self towards her father, and implored him 
 to have mercy, which was now not less 
 far from his inclination than from his power. 
 His only notice of her supplication was, "Take 
 that wretched girl away, Sullivan, and see 
 her home." This man, however, being 
 determined not to lose sight of Fitzmaurice 
 till the door of a cell in Sligo jail separated 
 them, excused himself, and suggested that 
 Miss Vernon would, under the circumstances, 
 be best satisfied to be followed home by no one 
 but her father's servant. To this Sir Guy 
 assented, and, impatient of being in the 
 presence of Fitzmaurice, he ordered his 
 daughter to be gone, and his groom to follow 
 her ; and then told the officer that he would 
 precede his party to the town, and inform 
 the other magistrates of the capture ; on 
 which he rode off, without casting another 
 look on any of the parties. Mary rushed to 
 her lover, embraced him, and, instantly 
 assuming a composed and even dignified air, 
 turned to the servant and said, " You may 
 come, for now I will go home." She did 
 not trust herself to look back at Fitzmaurice, 
 but retired with a quick step, attended by 
 the groom, who had dismounted and now 
 led his horse. The detachment of soldiers 
 immediately proceeded with their prisoner in 
 the opposite direction, towards the county 
 town, Mr. Sullivan riding by them. 
 
 As soon as Miss Vernon had ascended to 
 the cliff by the nearest bridle-way, she told 
 the groom he might mount his horse. This 
 led to a conversation, of which the substance 
 was as follows, but the servant's share in it 
 is given without its peculiar Irish phraseo- 
 logy, for want of skill in the writer to report 
 it accurately : 
 
 " It would be a strange sight if the servant 
 rode while his master's daughter was on foot," 
 said the man. 
 
 " There are stranger sights than that, 
 Doolan. What did you see but now ?" 
 
 " I saw a brave young rebel led away for 
 justice." 
 
 " Sirrah, you saw the noblest gentleman of
 
 240 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 Connaught, the bravest and the best, led to 
 the slaughter by mercenary ruffians." 
 
 " I crave your pardon, lady ; I saw him 
 in the custody of the king's soldiers, -with 
 an honoured magistrate at their head, your 
 father, Sir Guy Vernon." 
 
 "Worse wo! worse wo ! " cried Miss Vernon. 
 "Doolan, you are a man, and have human 
 feelings : is it right that Mr. Gerald Fitz- 
 maurice O'Neil should die for an opinion ? " 
 
 " It is right that the breaker of the law 
 should suffer by the law : but it is pity that 
 Mr. Gerald Fitzmaurice O'Neil should die so 
 young." 
 
 " Pity ! " echoed the young lady. " Is it 
 not too horrible that he should be cut off 
 from this world so abruptly, and by such a 
 fate?" 
 
 " It might be better," replied Doolan, 
 " that he had time to repent of popery and 
 treason." 
 
 This was but a brutal answer, yet poor 
 Miss Vernon caught at it with hope. "You 
 are right ; it is fitting that he should live to 
 gain more wisdom. Perhaps it is in your 
 power to save his life." 
 
 " In mine, lady ! " 
 
 " In your's, Doolan ! Will you do it, if I 
 can tell you how ? " 
 
 "Not for the worth of all the lands of 
 O'Neil ! " was the answer. " I am your 
 father's servant, and I am member of an 
 Orange Lodge : I am not the man to betray 
 my master for a papist's cause." 
 
 Miss Vernon looked at him steadily : 
 there was nothing like indecision on his 
 countenance. She proceeded on her way in 
 silence, but more speedily than ever. 
 
 " That is not the shortest way home, Miss 
 Vernon," said the groom, observing that his 
 young mistress struck into a path that would 
 take them somewhat to the left of the more 
 direct line to Dromore. 
 
 " This is the way that I choose to take," 
 answered the lady, " and your business, I 
 believe, is to attend, not to direct me." 
 
 Thus rebuked, the man apologized for his 
 interference, and pursued the course that 
 he was ordered. They presently arrived at 
 a cabin, the same that has been mentioned 
 as the hut of the parents of the blind boy, 
 Conolly. Miss Vernon entered the place, 
 and, to her fearful delight, saw the boy seated 
 alone at the hearth. She whispered to him 
 for some minutes. The boy trembled, and, 
 the moment she had ceased, he darted out 
 by a back door. Miss Vernon retreated by 
 that through which she had come in, and 
 
 resumed her walk homeward, but very slowly 
 now, followed by Doolan with his led horse. 
 They had hardly gone a quarter of a mile, 
 when, at a turning of the lane, three men 
 with crape over their faces jumped over a 
 wall : two of them seized Doolan by the 
 arms, while the third snatched the bridle 
 from his hand, mounted his horse, and rode 
 away at speed. The groom struggled with 
 the two men who held him till Miss Vernon 
 said to him, " Be patient, Doolan ; resistance 
 is useless ; these men will offer you no injury 
 if you make no outcry : but you must sub- 
 mit." The men then hustled him into the 
 nearest cabin, where he suffered no further 
 wrong than the deprivation of liberty for a 
 few hours, and some extra trouble in groom- 
 ing his horse, which was restored to him 
 at daylight, when he was released. Miss 
 Vernon walked home the rest of the way 
 alone. 
 
 The man who had rode off with the groom's 
 horse understood well and executed promptly 
 the instructions of the young lady of Dromore 
 as delivered by Conolly. He scoured the 
 country and raised the peasants to the rescue 
 of Fitzmaurice. In less than half an hour 
 nearly two hundred men, most of them armed 
 with clubs only, and some few with pikes or 
 pistols, were on their way to intercept the 
 soldiers who had him in charge. Their 
 knowledge of the country, and the certainty 
 with which experience enabled them to 
 traverse the swamp}', or otherwise dangerous, 
 parts of it, and so to curtail distances, made 
 it easy for them to assemble at the appointed 
 place long before the military escort arrived 
 there. As they severally reached the spot 
 they concealed themselves on the edge of an 
 extensive bog, behind heaps of recently cut 
 turf, that lay in ridges or small stacks near 
 the road into which the party must strike 
 when they came up from the beach. Pre- 
 sently a man on the watch gave them notice 
 that " the army " were close at hand : in 
 five minutes more this " army," a lieutenant 
 and a dozen men, as has been said, appeared ; 
 and, the moment they had reached the spot 
 on which it had been decided to attack them, 
 the body in ambush rose with a loud yell, 
 and rushed on and surrounded them. It was 
 utterly impossible for so small a number of 
 the steadiest and staunchest soldiers to oppose 
 with any effect such a multitude of unex- 
 pected and determined assailants. The officer 
 and men did all that it was in the power of 
 brave fellows to do. Several of them were 
 severely hurt, and every one of them was
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 241 
 
 disarmed and made prisoner. Fitzmaurice, 
 on the first assault, instantly comprehending 
 its meaning, had snatched the sword out of 
 the officer's hand ; but, having so disarmed, 
 he protected him from injury, though he took 
 care to have him secured. Sullivan rode 
 about like a madman, and screamed and 
 cursed in vain. Then, resolved that Fitz- 
 maurice should not get free, and trusting 
 that he himself might easily do so, being the 
 only person mounted, he drew a pistol from 
 his holster, and was in the act of presenting 
 it at Fitzmaurice, when a sturdy blow of a 
 shilelagh laid him prostrate on the earth. 
 " Lie there, spawn of the devil ! " cried the 
 owner of the cudgel that had done this good 
 service, and, in his fury, he kicked the fallen 
 horseman. Another of the peasants secured 
 the horse, and replaced the pistol in the 
 holster, after examining it, and ascertaining 
 that it was properly charged. Fitzmaurice 
 then mounted the horse. He thanked his 
 deliverers fervently, while they urged him to 
 be gone. He required their promise that 
 the officer and men should be well treated, 
 that Sullivan should not receive any further 
 violence, and that the whole party should be 
 released in eight hours. They pledged them- 
 selves to obey his injunctions strictly, but 
 vociferously interrupted him by imploring 
 him to fly. It was indeed a crisis at which 
 time could not be prudently lost. He waved 
 his hat to his friends, bowed to the officer, 
 and galloped back for the shore of Altbo, 
 at the full speed of Sullivan's blood-horse, 
 which was one of the most admired in the 
 province. 
 
 As Fitzmaurice rode along the beach he 
 perceived a brig lying-to in the offing of the 
 bay ; and, when he had passed about a 
 quarter of a mile beyond the spot where he 
 had been arrested, he observed a boat, in 
 which were four sailors, with Conolly, the 
 blind minstrel-boy. He hailed the men, and 
 asked if they belonged to the brig Adventure, 
 to which they answered in the affirmative, 
 expressing impatience at the delay they had 
 made for him, and muttering something about 
 the tide. Conolly, the moment that he heard 
 the voice of Fitzmaurice, leaped out of the 
 boat, knelt upon the sand, and passionately 
 thanked Heaven, sobbing with ecstasy. Fitz- 
 maurice dismounted, patted the steed's neck 
 and let him loose, threw his arms round the 
 boy and raised him up, and learned from 
 him with astonishment that he was indebted 
 for the rescue to the energy of Mary. There 
 was no leisure for the full indulgence of his 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 feelings at such a communication. He once 
 more hugged the poor boy to his breast, and 
 then stepped into the boat. 
 
 The sun was dropping behind Knockacree 
 when the boat of the Adventure was pushed 
 off from the beach, and, before the blushing 
 cloud that rested on the mountain-top became 
 pale, Fitzmaurice, the Exile, " miserable, de- 
 solate, undone," reached the vessel that was to 
 bear him to a far-off land. 
 
 In the mean time, the officer and soldiers, 
 who had been so unceremoniously forced to 
 resign their prisoner and their own freedom, 
 were conducted across the bog by ways which 
 would have subjected them to the peril, almost 
 to the certainty, of being drowned, had any 
 other than the peasants of the neighbourhood 
 been their guides. After traversing that 
 black and spongy waste for two or three 
 miles, they were introduced into a ruined 
 cabin, of which the roof had been destroyed 
 by fire, through the wantonness of an excise- 
 officer, who, having some time before, pro- 
 tected by a party of military, sought for 
 here and discovered an illicit still, had pro- 
 ceeded, as was his duty, after securing the 
 worm, to destroy the other utensils for dis- 
 tillation, but so carelessly that the flames 
 which he had lit to burn the tubs had caught 
 the rafters, and the inhabitants of the poor 
 hovel had been driven for shelter elsewhither. 
 In the floor of this cabin was a trap-door, 
 which was now opened by one of the peasants, 
 and here the soldiers were compelled to 
 descend by a ladder into a spacious vault, to 
 which a little light and air could be admitted 
 by an aperture through the earth, the opening 
 being at a great distance from the cabin, and 
 easily concealed at pleasure. Here the mili- 
 tary were obliged to remain all night, during 
 which, though they were otherwise civilly 
 treated, they had not the consolation of 
 tranquil rest, for the men on guard over 
 them beguiled the hours in singing rebel 
 songs, one of which I am tempted to give 
 to the reader, not so much for the words, 
 which are but a poor specimen of rebel 
 poetry, but for the sake of the pleasing air 
 to which they were set. Shan Van, or 
 perhaps Sean Bean, is, I believe, an old 
 woman, under which character Ireland is 
 here typified. The words are given exactly 
 as they used to be sung in earnest formerly, 
 and as they are occasionally still sung for 
 amusement in very loyal companies.* 
 
 * There are many more verses of later, and some of 
 very recent date. 
 
 No. IH.
 
 242 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
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 The French are on the sea, ) , . 
 Said the Shan Van Vo ; ( bls> 
 The French are on the sea, 
 They'll be here without delay, 
 And the Orange shall decay, 
 Said the Shan Van Vo. 
 What colour shall they wear ? y . 
 Said the Shan Van Vo ; f l "*- 
 What colour should be seen, 
 Where our fathers' hones have been, 
 But our own immortal green 9 
 Said the Shan Van Vo. 
 What will the yeomen do ? ) , . 
 Said the Shan Van Vo ; / bl5 ' 
 What would the yeomen do, 
 
 :BEL SONG. 
 
 But give up the red and blue, 
 And swear that they'll be true 
 To the Shan Van Vo? 
 
 Where will they make their camp ? { , . 
 Said the Shan Van Vo ; ] b "' 
 On the Curragh of Kildare ; 
 Lord Gerald will be there, 
 And their pikes in good repair, 
 Said the Shan Van Vo. 
 
 Will Ireland then be free ? ) . . 
 Said the Shan Van Vo; / 
 Yes, Ireland shall be free; 
 We '11 plant a laurel-tree 
 And name it Liberty, 
 Said the Shan Van V.
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 243 
 
 At daybreak the soldiers were escorted to 
 a by-road that led to Sligo, and were then 
 left to pursue their way. Their arms had 
 not been restored, and the poorer classes did 
 not repress jeers and exultations as the party 
 passed through the suburbs and streets of 
 Sligo to their barracks. Scouts had been 
 abroad all night, without gaining tidings of 
 the absentees, and great had been the wonder 
 of the small force left in the barrack at the 
 delay of their detachment, and greater the 
 rage of Sir Guy Vernon and his co-magis- 
 trates at the non-appearance of the prisoner. 
 
 Sullivan, having been so roughly dealt with 
 as has been described, was unable to walk, 
 and was therefore earned by two men to the 
 nearest empty shed, and there abandoned, 
 to weather it out as he could. He passed 
 the night undisturbed, except by the pain 
 of his bruises and his fears of worse treat- 
 ment. At daylight he ventured to crawl 
 away to Tanderago, whence he was forwarded 
 to Sligo by the humanity of a gentleman who 
 resided at the mansion of that name. His 
 horse had been running wild, but was re- 
 covered in the course of the day, and ever 
 after, in allusion to the use made of him by 
 Fitzmaurice, went by the name of Escape, 
 under which he won several races at the 
 Curragh, and elsewhere. 
 
 At Dromore the mystery was not fully 
 explained even after the return of Doolan 
 with his restored horse, early in the morning, 
 till that of Sir. Guy, some hours later. But 
 Mary had been relieved earlier from the 
 anguish of suspense as to the issue of her 
 desperate scheme for the liberation of her 
 lover. Not even to her mother had she ven- 
 tured to relate what had occurred ; and she 
 had been on the watch for some hours at an 
 open window, when, about ten at night, she 
 heard the sound of Conolly's pipe below. He 
 played a cheerful air, then sang a wild sort 
 of spontaneous ballad in Irish, which may be 
 thus rudely interpreted. 
 
 His chain is snapt, his wing is free, 
 The Merlin-hawk of Knockacree ! 
 Alas for us, alas for thee, 
 We 've lost the Hawk of Knockacree ! 
 
 The Merlin-hawk of Knockacree, 
 So fierce to some, so fond to thee ! 
 He bends his flight beyond the sea ; 
 God speed the Hawk of Knockacree ! 
 
 An emphatic " God bless you, Conolly ! " 
 before she closed the window, informed the 
 faithful boy that he had been heard. She 
 sank on her knees, and poured out her soul 
 in humble gratitude to God for the mercy 
 
 vouchsafed to her lover, after which she 
 hastened to nestle herself in her mother's 
 arms, and to confess all. 
 
 CHAPTER vm. 
 
 Yet wandering I found on my ruinous walk, 
 
 By the dial-stone aged and green, 
 A rose of the wilderness left on its stalk 
 
 To mark where a garden had been. 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 The shades of evening round them close 
 
 Between the land and tide : 
 Who but a lover ever chose 
 
 A blind boy for a guide ? 
 
 THE brig in which a passage had been 
 engaged for Fitzmaurice, was an American 
 merchantman, that had discharged a cargo 
 of flax-seed and timber at Sligo, and was 
 now bound to Madeira for wine. In about 
 three weeks it reached its destination ; and 
 Fitzmaurice, on his arrival at Funchal, might 
 have had several companions, young men of 
 his own nation, fugitives like himself, from 
 the same disastrous cause. But his spirits 
 were broken, and he could not endure the 
 society of his countrymen. His long resi- 
 dence at Douay had given him a partiality 
 for the gloom of religious buildings, which 
 now became more grateful to his spirit than 
 ever, and his only pleasure was in solitary 
 perambulations along the aisles of churches, 
 or among the solemn shades of convent 
 grounds. In the course of his excursions, 
 in the romantic neighbourhood of the town, 
 he was particularly struck with the pictur- 
 esque aspect of a monastery in a most secluded 
 situation ; and the superior, after some in- 
 quiries and examination of his references, 
 made no difficulty of admitting him as a 
 boarder into the convent. 
 
 He had been here about three months, 
 when a letter from his father, couched in 
 kindlier terms than any that he had ever 
 received from him, and transmitting a credit 
 with a Funchal house for any sums he might 
 require, informed him that his brother, the 
 wretched Aubrey Buller, had been shot in a 
 duel in Dublin, in consequence of some gamb- 
 ling quarrel, by the very Dillon with whom 
 he had been in league to betray Fitzmaurice. 
 Dillon had absconded. He added, that the 
 hand of death was on himself, and that he 
 felt an acute pang at the thought of the utter 
 improbability of his living long enough to 
 see his only remaining son, that he might 
 forgive and be forgiven, for that they had 
 mutually sinned towards each other. 
 
 A letter of a later date, but which arrived 
 by the same packet, from a friend at Sligo,
 
 244 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 whose authority could not be doubted, brought 
 him intelligence of his father's decease ; and 
 also infonned him that Miss Vernon was on 
 the eve of marriage with Mr. Sullivan. The 
 latter fact, it said, strange as it sounded, was 
 certain, for both Mr. Sullivan and Sir Guy 
 Vernon, who was in Dublin with his family, 
 had formally announced it to their friends. 
 
 This letter also urged him to lose no time 
 in using his interest with his powerful Eng- 
 lish relatives to prevent the forfeiture by 
 attainder of his natural inheritance, and to 
 obtain, if possible, a free pardon from the 
 king, with permission to return home. But 
 the earthly hopes of Fitzmaurice were now 
 over ; and though he did not altogether 
 neglect this latter advice, he turned his 
 thoughts to a higher source of grace, with 
 the compunction of one who had forsaken 
 the house of peace and longed for re-admis- 
 sion. His education having qualified him 
 for the priesthood, he resolved on fulfilling 
 the destiny that had been designed for him 
 by his father, and by the purer feelings of 
 his own youthful piety. Accordingly, after 
 as short a preparation as the forms of the 
 Church would allow, he became a consecrated 
 priest. 
 
 Some months after he had taken the irre- 
 vocable vow, further intelligence from Ireland 
 induced him to apply for leave to quit the 
 island of Madeira. The Diocesan, whose 
 esteem and confidence he had won, would 
 gladly have detained him ; but his request 
 was urgent, and his reasons were forcible, 
 and the permission was granted with reluc- 
 tance and good grace. 
 
 It was about twenty months after the 
 separation of Mary and Fitzmaurice, when a 
 stranger one morning advanced up the dis- 
 membered avenue of Dromore. He looked 
 around him with a dejected air, as if he 
 missed, like lost old friends, the noble trees 
 that used to shade it, for all had disappeared. 
 
 At a distance, the house still looked as 
 inviting as formerly ; but when he approached, 
 its air of desolation struck him the more 
 forcibly. The carriage-road was grass-grown ; 
 grass and groundsel had pushed their way 
 unmolested between the interstices of the 
 stone steps that led up to the hall door, and 
 had even crept among the tesselated marble 
 that paved the hall itself. Not an article of 
 furniture was visible in the mansion, except 
 the heraldic carvings that adorned the stately 
 entrance. The hills and the ocean looked a's 
 grandly as ever, but, immediately below and 
 
 around the house, the park almost without a 
 tree, the pastures without stock, except two 
 or three wretched animals driven thither on 
 trespass ; the cabins black, dirty, and ruinous 
 all gave dreary proofs of the departure of 
 the family of Dromore. He descended into 
 the garden, formerly the best in the country, 
 and found it a labyrinth of weeds. A little 
 sunny slope had been a flower-parterre, and 
 it was once the delight of Mary to cultivate 
 and embellish it. This was now overrun 
 with thistles, nettles, and dock, and its former 
 use was only marked out by a few rose-trees 
 and other vigorous plants that still struggled 
 through the obstructions, but whose sickly 
 leaves and buds showed how ill they fared 
 among the coarse usurpers of the soil. The 
 stranger plucked one of those sickly blossoms, 
 and thrust it into his bosom : some nettle- 
 leaves were incautiously pulled with it, and 
 he heeded not their sting. 
 
 In another part of the garden was an arti- 
 ficial mound of considerable height, on which 
 was a rustic summer house, approached 
 through a pretty maze of holly-trees and 
 laurels. This had been a favourite retreat 
 of Mary in her childhood, where she studied 
 her lessons, and where she often said them to 
 her mother. To this spot the stranger was 
 suddenly attracted by the sound of a pipe, 
 which he well remembered to have heard 
 before. He ascended with a wary tread, till 
 he attained such a situation as enabled him 
 to see, without disturbing the rustic musician, 
 poor blind Conolly, while he played Savour- 
 ncen Dcelish, that exquisitely pathetic air, 
 which formerly thrilled to the Irish heart, 
 and is still listened to with fond emotion. 
 The moment he ceased to play, the boy be- 
 came conscious of the presence of an intruder, 
 who w r as not aware of having made even a 
 leaf rustle since he had taken his stand. 
 Quickly turning his pale faded face, the 
 musician eagerly inquired, who was there ? 
 
 " You choose a mournful tune, Conolly," 
 was the answer : and the well-remembered 
 voice in an instant brought the delighted and 
 trembling boy to the feet of Gerald Fitz- 
 maxirice. He clung to his knees, and ad- 
 dressed him with a thousand wild touching 
 exclamations of wonder and welcome. Fitz- 
 maurice eagerly asked many questions relative 
 to the Vernons. The reply that he received 
 to the first made him immediately set forward 
 for the sea-shore with Conolly for his guide, 
 who, during their walk, related the following 
 circumstances, with some of which Fitz- 
 maurice was already acquainted.
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 245 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Pluck up thy heart ! for why despond ? 
 
 Thou hust a daughter fine ; 
 She'll raze thy name from off the bond 
 
 By changing her's to mine. 
 
 ADVERSITY had been busy in the family of 
 Sir Guy Vernon since the flight of Fitz- 
 maurice. He became inextricably entangled 
 in gambling transactions by the spider-skill 
 of the wily Sullivan. He had been ever very 
 unlucky at play, and never much disposed to 
 calculate the consequences. 
 
 Mr. Sullivan was the most fortunate, but 
 at the same time the most accommodating 
 and liberal, of his friends. He would take a 
 bond, advance money or procure its advance- 
 ment for Sir Guy, buy up the debt due to a 
 troublesome or needy creditor ; for a small 
 sum due take a horse, a curricle, a car, any 
 tangible thing ; and for a large one he would 
 be satisfied with a mortgage of a fair pro- 
 portion of the baronet's land. Thus, sum 
 after sum was borrowed on ruinous interest, 
 and staked and lost, and acres after acres 
 were mortgaged, till the estate was pledged 
 beyond half its value ; and, the heir-male 
 failing, there was no entail. 
 
 Partly aware of her husband's situation, 
 and also alarmed by Mary's sunken spirits 
 and declining health, Lady Vernon urged 
 him to take them to Dublin, and he at length 
 consented. But their first day's journey 
 was only a few miles beyond Collooney, to 
 the house of Mr. Sullivan. He wished to 
 entertain his friends on their departtire, and 
 had, he said, invited a large party to meet 
 them. Apologies, however, came to him from 
 the members, male and female, of two or 
 three families who certainly had been asked, 
 but not till after it was ascertained by Mr. 
 Sullivan that they had other engagements 
 for that day. Their absence was not regretted 
 by Lady Vernon and Mary, who wished to 
 avoid company, and who now heard with 
 more pain than pleasure that four gentlemen 
 and three ladies were still to join them at 
 dinner. But, when the time came, not one 
 of these had appeared, and they waited a full 
 hour in vain expectation of their arrival. 
 They were then ushered into the dining-room, 
 where there was cheerful preparation for a 
 party a blazing hearth, and a table covered 
 for twelve persons, of whom only five, the 
 three Vernons with their host and his sister, 
 were present. Rain fell in torrents (as it too 
 often does on that bibulous isle, which is, 
 alas! the secret of its epithet of emerald.) 
 Mr. Sullivan attributed to the bad weather 
 
 the failure of the rest of his bidden friends. 
 Sir Guy, though in some respects a shrewd 
 and clever man, was an easy dupe to a liar, 
 because he was himself veracious. He had 
 not the least suspicion of the fact, which was, 
 that no other guest had been really expected ; 
 though Sullivan had played off the trick of 
 making it appear so, that he might have his 
 prey alone that night without the semblance 
 of design. 
 
 The three ladies retired soon after dinner, 
 and while the rain and wind were shaking 
 the ill-fitted window-frames, the two gentle- 
 men drew closer to the crackling hearth to 
 imbibe strong port. The baronet, whose 
 customary and much less potent after-dinner 
 beverage was claret, was speedily wanned 
 into high spirits. Sullivan had apologized 
 for the deficiency of his cellar ; his last batch 
 of claret, he pretended, was unfortunately 
 exhausted. Sir Guy did not much relish the 
 new, black, and fiery juice at first, but by 
 degrees his taste improved, and he pronounced 
 it excellent, suiting the action to the word 
 with right good will. 
 
 A dice-box was on a side-table it had 
 been left there by accident, of course. It 
 caught Sir Guy's eye : he gazed at it till it 
 seemed two dice-boxes. He immediately 
 proposed play. Mr. Sullivan objected, and, 
 thoiigh Sir Guy pressed him hard for his 
 revenge, he held out till it was reasonable to 
 believe that 3iis friend's wife and daughter 
 had retired to their chamber, for Lady Ver- 
 11011 and Mary had lately always occupied 
 but one bed-room, on account of the mother's 
 anxiety about her child's health. 
 
 Sullivan was then with seeming reluctance 
 prevailed on to play, and they threw with 
 various success for some time ; the baronet, 
 whether he gained or lost, applying to his 
 glass at every throw. He consequently be- 
 came so intoxicated as to be hardly able to 
 hold the box with sufficient steadiness to 
 prosecute the game. Miss Sullivan, the 
 honest sister of a scoundrel, unexpectedly 
 entered the room and entreated Sir Guy to 
 go to rest. A ruffian scowl from her brother 
 scared her out of the apartment. The play 
 was continued till the ruin of Sir Guy was 
 completed. Before he was conducted up to 
 bed, he signed, with a hand guided by Sulli- 
 van himself, an acknowledgment of the new 
 debt which he had thus incurred. 
 
 It was not till he arose at mid-day, sobered 
 by some hours' sleep, that he became conscious 
 of the full extent of his misfortune. He did 
 not, even then, remember the occurrences of
 
 24(1 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 the night; but Mr. Sullivan produced the 
 document, which soon convinced him that he 
 was at his mercy. Sir Guy no longer bore 
 his ill fortune with composure. His eyes 
 seemed opened all at once to the full horrors 
 of ruin. It never occurred to him for a 
 moment to dispute any part of this or any 
 other " debt of honour" after he had pledged 
 his signature for its liquidation. But he 
 stamped up and down the room like a mad- 
 man, venting imprecations on the false friends 
 who had allured him to destruction, and most 
 of all on Sullivan, who heard his outrages 
 with calmness, and watched every turn of 
 his countenance with close and patient atten- 
 tion. At last he found his opportunity to 
 speak, and made a proposal to Sir Guy which 
 astonished and silenced him. After half an 
 hour's conference, Sir Guy desired a servant 
 to tell Miss Vernon that her father wished to 
 see her in ten minutes. In vain did Mr. 
 Sullivan now deprecate so much precipitation ; 
 he was positive in his resolution to settle the 
 matter at once, and Sullivan withdrew and 
 rode out of the way. Sir Guy went up to 
 his own bed-room, and returned with a pair 
 of pistols which he had deliberately loaded. 
 He placed them on a table. Mary appeared, 
 and started back with terror when she saw 
 her father's flashing eyes and ominous brow. 
 He locked the door and drew her forward 
 towards the table, and, pointing to the pistols, 
 told her that unless she would save her family 
 from ruin by solemnly contracting to marry 
 Mr. Sullivan, she must see her father destroy 
 himself in her presence. She conjured him, 
 but without effect, to give her time for a 
 reply, to let her at least remove those fatal 
 weapons before she gave an answer. He 
 would hear nothing but her distinct and in- 
 stant consent to the terms on which Sullivan 
 offered to relinquish the greater part of his 
 pecuniary claims. She was also enjoined 
 not to make any communication to her 
 mother on the subject at present, nor at any 
 time to betray to her the motive of her accep- 
 tance of Sullivan. All that she could at last 
 gain was an agreement that the marriage 
 should not take place for three months. For 
 the rest of that day she avoided, as much as 
 she could, the odious attentions of Sullivan, 
 and the next morning she set out with her 
 father and mother for Dublin, leaving him to 
 boast of his bride-elect in confidential 
 whispers all over the county. But his prize 
 was not so secure as he believed. About a 
 month after their arrival in Dublin, Sir Guy 
 Vernon was seized with typhus fever. His 
 
 mind was already " brought very low," and 
 as sick with trouble as that of Jephtha, the 
 Gileadite, after he had vowed his daughter ; 
 for Mary too was her father's " only child ; 
 beside her he had neither son nor daughter." 
 Probably the malignity of the bodily disease 
 was quickened by his mental sufferings, 
 which perhaps were far from being allayed 
 by the persevering attendance of Mary, as 
 well as of Lady Vernon, at his bedside. ' The 
 filial piety that shrunk not from the danger 
 of mortal contagion perhaps smote on the 
 heart of the parent who had so cruelly de- 
 voted Tier as a sacrifice in his necessity, and 
 " could not go back." He died in the prime 
 of manhood, after a few weeks' illness. 
 
 The situation of Sir Guy's widow and 
 child was now dismal indeed, and Sullivan 
 lost no time in offering them his services, 
 nothing doubting a favourable reception. 
 The motive that had forced Mary to sanction 
 his pretensions to her hand had expired with 
 her father, and she repulsed the fellow with 
 a disgust too decisive to leave him further 
 hope. He at once revenged and consoled 
 himself by making the best use he could of 
 such legal powers as he had obtained over 
 the family estate. He took possession of 
 Dromore, and sold off all the furniture : and 
 he cut down and removed the timber as fast 
 as possible ; this he called " disparking the 
 demesne." Even the old oaks of the avenue 
 were not respected : 
 
 he sent forth word 
 
 To level with the eartli a noble horde, 
 A hrotherhood of venerable trees, 
 Leaving an ancient dome 
 Beggared and outraged ! Many hearts deplored 
 The fate of those old trees, and oft with pain 
 The traveller at this day will stop and gaze 
 On wrongs which nature scarcely seems to heed. 
 For sheltered places, bosoms, nooks and bap, 
 And the pure mountains, and the glorious b'e;i, 
 And the green silent pastures yet remain. 
 
 Lady Vernon and Mary returned to the 
 neighbourhood of their desolate home, and 
 secluded themselves in the cottage of an old 
 housekeeper of Mary's grandfather, the widow 
 Trench, a respectable and faithful woman, 
 whose decline of lifs was rendered comfort- 
 able by a legacy from her master, whose 
 finances had been more discreetly regulated 
 than those of his heir. They had been but 
 a few days here when the pernicious effects 
 of sedulous attendance on Sir Guy discovered 
 themselves in Mary. She had inhaled the 
 infection, and was now in a condition from 
 which there was as much to fear as to hope.
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Oh ! rose of May ! 
 
 O heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits 
 Should be as mortal as an old man's life ? 
 
 Shakspere. 
 
 IT was dark when Fitzmaurice and his 
 blind but sure guide reached the cottage, 
 which was situated under a long rocky ridge, 
 close upon the sea-shore. There were a few 
 more cottages along the hank, but at con- 
 siderable intervals from each other. The 
 loneliness, therefore, of the place was not at 
 this hour much relieved by the few and 
 straggling lights that glimmered from them. 
 Fitzmaurice was now about to be delivered 
 from the suspense in which he had been 
 during his hurried walk from Dromore. He 
 paused at the door, breathless, dreading the 
 event, and almost wishing he was not so near. 
 He had scarcely been there a minute when 
 he heard a hoarse and sternly complaining 
 voice within. There was something familiar 
 to him in the accent, and it made him 
 shudder. Could that rough masculine voice 
 be Mary's? 
 
 Her voice, that even in its mirthful mood 
 Has made him wish to steal away and weep ! 
 
 her voice was ever soft, 
 
 Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman. 
 
 A suspicion of the truth flashed upon his 
 mind ; he listened with intense eagerness, and 
 was soon confirmed in his dreadful suspicion. 
 She spoke more loudly, and the language of 
 violent delirium could no longer be mistaken. 
 She had evidently already talked and 
 screamed herself hoarse ; but she continued 
 to pour forth, with almost unceasing volu- 
 bility, a torrent of malicious invective so un- 
 natural from Mary as to curdle his blood 
 with horror. Lady Vernon and he were the 
 particular objects of her reproach the two 
 beings in the world to whom she had been 
 most devotedly attached. His name, espe- 
 cially, repeatedly burst from her lips, accom- 
 panied by the wildest and bitterest expres- 
 sions of accusation and hatred. At length 
 she stopped, from utter weariness. Fitz- 
 maurice, after waiting some time to assure 
 himself that she was quiet, ventured to knock 
 as gently as possible. 
 
 "Who is there?" immediately exclaimed 
 Mary, whom not a sound escaped. 
 
 He would have retreated, but the door was 
 immediately opened by Mrs. Trench, who 
 held a light up to his face, and, unable to 
 command her astonishment at seeing him, 
 unguardedly cried out, " It is Mr. Gerald 
 
 Fitzmaurice O'lN'eil!" Mary caught the 
 exclamation, and the effect of the presence of 
 her lover was most painfully extraordinary. 
 She did not shriek nor make any violent 
 signal of sorrow or of joy. She only hastily 
 drew aside the bed-curtains, and, with a sort 
 of quiet sarcastic gaiety and mock-politeness, 
 invited him to draw near. The orbs of her 
 eyes seemed expanded to an unusual size, 
 and were " as bright as freezing stars." Her 
 flushed cheeks were of the brightest vermilion 
 imaginable. Some loose locks of her long 
 hair floated over her neck and bosom. She 
 did not show any surprise at his arrival, but 
 took it quite as an ordinary occurrence. Her 
 mother was seated by the further side of the 
 bed, too full of grief to be readily susceptible 
 of any other feeling on this occasion, except 
 perhaps of hope, which did seem to be par- 
 tially awakened as she watched the effect of 
 this unexpected visit on her daughter's mind. 
 Fitzmaurice drew near, and, forgetful or 
 careless of the hazard of infection, took her 
 little burning hand, which she yielded with- 
 out ceremony. Lovely as she always was, 
 she now looked unnaturally beautiful. She 
 stared at him with a gay and saucy smile, 
 from which he must have turned in dismay, 
 had he not dwelt on it with anguish and pity. 
 She talked to him, incessantly, in the most 
 flippant and unmeaning manner ; sometimes 
 lowering her voice to a whisper, as if to make 
 some private communication, and then break- 
 ing into long-continued hysterical laughter, till 
 she became so exhausted that she sank back 
 on her pillow and afforded Fitzmaurice an 
 opportunity of withdrawing. 
 
 After a short and afflicting interview with 
 Lady Vernon, he was accommodated with a 
 small apartment in the cottage. There he 
 threw himself on his knees, and, with humble 
 fervour, breathed forth aspirations for the 
 recovery of Mary : he was too sincere a Chris- 
 tian to despair, even in this hour of severe 
 and almost intolerable misery. 
 
 For a considerable while there was not a 
 sound to disturb his devotion, except the 
 precise sharp clicking of a clock, and the 
 sullen dashing of the waves as the tide 
 measured every step that it gained upon the 
 beach, 
 
 And, shining with a gloominess, the -water 
 Swang as the moon had taught her. 
 
 But, suddenly, a scream from Mary, followed 
 by the distinct enunciation of his name, 
 brought him to her bedside.
 
 248 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGJ1 T. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Go, hang aloft the traitor-knave: 
 
 And let me don my shoon, 
 And merrily dance above his grave 
 
 A hornpipe in the moon. 
 
 SHE was seated upright on the bed. By 
 the glimmering of the lamp, the livid paleness 
 of death seemed spread over her countenance ; 
 but, when her mother and her nurse endea- 
 voured to persuade her to lie down, she 
 pushed them from her with fierceness, and, 
 grappling a hand of Fitzinaurice, as if her 
 sinews were of iron, she gradually leaned 
 towards him till her stern malicious eyes 
 were close to his face. She then assailed him 
 with a volley of reproaches, her features every 
 moment growing fiercer till her dilated eye- 
 balls, curled lips, and clenched teeth, gave 
 her the appearance of a grinning demon. 
 
 " Yes ! I know I am mad," she cried ; 
 " you made me so ! You, Gerald the Rebel ! 
 You and my mother stole my father's gold. 
 You murdered my father. You plundered 
 our house, and tried to kill me, but I foiled 
 you. You heaped fire upon me, and drove 
 me mad. But L will have Mr. Sullivan. 
 He shall be iny husband. We will be mar- 
 ried on the day that sees a rope round the 
 neck of Gerald the Rebel." 
 
 In this strain she continued, till, with the 
 abrupt change so common in these melan- 
 choly cases, her hand all at once relaxed its 
 hold, and her eyes lost their hideous expres- 
 sion, and the tenderness of woman rushed 
 into them and quenched their fury with a 
 flood of tears. She kissed, repeatedly, the 
 hand she had so strenuously held ; and, with 
 the most moving looks, interrupted by con- 
 vulsive weeping, she earnestly asked him 
 why he had deserted her. She almost seemed 
 to have recovered her faculties. But for the 
 altered voice, she was almost the Mary who 
 had parted from her lover some months 
 before under the rocks of Coradunn. Fitz- 
 maurice with difficulty supported the scene ; 
 but it was of brief duration. Her irritability 
 revived, and she passed the night in alternate 
 ravings of anger, mockery, and mirth. 
 
 Day broke upon this cottage of wretched- 
 ness. The keenness of the morning air 
 seemed to allay the fever of her brain, and 
 she at last sank in a slumber less restless 
 than had yet come over her. Soon after- 
 wards the tread of horses' hoofs and the voice 
 of Conolly were heard from without. He 
 had been despatched by Fitzmaurice to a 
 cabin at some distance, where he found a 
 confidential person, whom he was instructed 
 
 to send to Sligo for a, medical gentleman, one 
 who had acquired just celebrity in the coun- 
 try, but who had not been in attendance on 
 the Vernons. Conolly now announced his 
 arrival. Fitzmaurice, without hesitation, 
 went out and presented himself before him. 
 The physician looked at him with gravity 
 and surprise. 
 
 " Mr. O'Neil ! can this be possible ! " 
 " Well, sir," replied Fitzmaurice, " you 
 recognise me. I am still an outlaw in this 
 country, yet I thus expose myself to a man 
 whose political sentiments I know to be 
 hostile to my safety. But, sir, my errand 
 here has nothing to do with treason ; and I 
 have always heard Doctor Kirwan mentioned 
 as a man of honour." 
 
 "Mr. O'Neil," said the doctor, "shall 
 have no reason to contradict that favourable 
 report." 
 
 This short dialogue was held in a tone 
 perfectly satisfactory to both parties. Each 
 appeared to understand and to rely upon the 
 other, and Fitzmaurice at once proceeded to 
 detail the particulars of Miss Vernon's situ- 
 ation. Doctor Kirwan listened with profound 
 attention, and then went in to see her, and 
 to confer with Lady Vernon ; after which 
 he expressed much regret at the interviews 
 that had taken place between Fitzmaurice 
 and the invalid, considering them likely to 
 aggravate the mental disorder. He strongly 
 urged the necessity of removing from her 
 sight every object with which she was most 
 familiar, as well as the persons in whom her 
 affections were most interested, particularly 
 Lady Vernon and Fitzmaurice. He did not 
 attach much importance to the fever, which 
 he thought she had taken in but a slight 
 degree ; and he attributed the confusion of 
 her intellect much less to this cause tban to 
 the operation of many circumstances of 
 severe and afflicting trial on a mind acutely 
 sensitive. 
 
 At the distance of about a mile from their 
 present residence, and in a very sequestered 
 situation, close to the sands, there was a 
 comfortably furnished cottage to be let, called 
 The Mermaid's Lodge. Thither Doctor 
 Kirwan proposed to remove Miss Vernon, 
 and to place her under the exclusive care of 
 a woman of his own selection, on whose 
 experience and proper temper he could'depend. 
 Afflictive as such an arrangement must be 
 to Lady Vernon, she, as well as Fitzmaurice, 
 had the good sense to submit at once to the 
 separation, and to promise not to visit her 
 daughter till the physician's consent should
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 249 
 
 be given. The widow Trench did not so 
 peaceably acquiesce in the resignation of the 
 office of nurse to a stranger ; but, in spite 
 of her expostulations, the removal was effected 
 the next morning, and she was forbidden to 
 follow. 
 
 For spme subseqiient months Lady Vernon 
 was obliged to content herself with the 
 account given, two or three times a-week, 
 by Doctor Kirwan, who never failed to call 
 on her, in his ride home, after his visits to 
 Mary. Fitzmaurice was, for a short time, 
 compelled to hide himself for safety during 
 the day, but he often approached close to 
 Mary's residence, at dusk, to listen for her 
 voice. 
 
 Fitzmaurice had written from Madeira, 
 and also from the place of his debarkation 
 in Ireland, to his English relations on the 
 subject of his proscription. He had laid open 
 to them his altered views in life, and his 
 wish to reside in his native country ; and 
 there, by the proper exercise of his priestly 
 functions, to make reparation for the grievous 
 errors into which he had fallen. He had 
 not long to wait for a fair answer. The 
 interest of his friends had been recently 
 strengthened by some changes in the Minis- 
 try, and they not only obtained for him the 
 king's full pardon but a release of his estate, 
 which, on his father's death, had been attached 
 by the crown. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Oh come, oh teach me nature to subdue, 
 Renounce my love, my life, myself and you ! 
 
 1'ope. 
 
 JUDICIOUS treatment, tranquillity of place, 
 and estrangement from all to whom she was 
 dear or familiar, gave a salutary check to 
 the excitement of Mary's mind ; but her 
 complete recovery was the work of many 
 slow-paced, anxious weeks. She gradually 
 became calmer, till she sank into a tame and 
 stupid apathy, which her medical visiter 
 observed with satisfaction. She was then 
 permitted to walk on the beach with her 
 attendant, and, as she regained strength, her 
 sensibility returned ; she grew conscious of 
 her deliverance from the most dreadful of 
 human calamities, and more and more fondly 
 anxious to go back to her mother, and to see 
 Fitzmaurice, who now, screening themselves 
 from observation, often watched her when 
 she walked out. Finally, the happy morning 
 arrived when she could be restored to her 
 mother. Dr. Kirwan's attendant was dis- 
 placed by the widow Trench, whose extrava- 
 
 gant joy was at once touching and ludicrous. 
 Lady Vernon clasped her daughter to her 
 bosom with such delight as every mother's 
 feelings can comprehend, but not even a 
 mother's words could tell. 
 
 Fitzmaurice was permitted to see her on 
 the following morning. Lady Vernon thought 
 proper to be present at the interview ; for she 
 had been made acquainted, to her bitter dis- 
 appointment, with the irrevocable, and, as 
 she could not help thinking, rashly incurred, 
 obligation which precluded all hope of his 
 ever being more than as a brother to her 
 child. Fitzmaurice stifled his emotion, but 
 Mary could not repress either her blushes or 
 her tears. 
 
 The friend of her heart was henceforward 
 a regular visiter at the secluded cottage ; and 
 when any chance delayed his arrival beyond 
 the customary hour, Mary's continual and 
 anxious looks at the casement made it appear 
 but too evident to Lady Vernon that the 
 hardest trial yet awaited her daughter, in 
 that disclosure which must once more anni- 
 hilate her hopes. To Lady Vernon the 
 difficulty of breaking the secret seemed every 
 day to increase. But Fitzmaurice thought 
 otherwise : he was by degrees preparing the 
 ductile mind of Mary for the communication, 
 and, without any attempt to make her a 
 proselyte to his faith, was weaning her affec- 
 tions from objects of temporal consideration, 
 and directing them more exclusively to 
 Heaven. In this delicate and arduous task 
 he derived most powerful assistance from the 
 spiritual works of the Archbishop of Cam- 
 bray, whose pleadings to the heart against 
 the heart itself, to the, affections against every 
 deceitful or unhallowed bias, against every 
 feeling of creature-worship, at the same time 
 that they breathe the purest principles of love 
 of our neighbour, as a part and an evidence 
 of our love of his Maker, are precious ex- 
 amples of the mild Christian eloquence, whose 
 suavity is strength. 
 
 It will be asked, what became of Fitz- 
 maurice's own feelings ? Could he so easily 
 overcome them? Could he remember the 
 early days of their attachment, the simplicity 
 of her early love, her devotedness to him in 
 sorrow and danger ; and could he then, with- 
 out intolerable agony, see her again before 
 him, restored as it were from another world, 
 lovely and affectionate as ever, with no ob- 
 stacle to their union but that one bar, sacred 
 and insurmountable, that he himself had too 
 hastily established between them from an 
 unjust impression of her inconstancy ? Un-
 
 250 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 doubtedly the task wus mighty, the struggle 
 terrible, but the necessity for its accomplish- 
 ment was obvious and imperative ; and to what 
 is religious fortitude unequal ? Fenelon, more 
 than any other instructor not absolutely in- 
 spired, had taught him submission, and had 
 taught him also how to teach it. 
 
 For the present, Fitzmaurice assiduously 
 employed himself in forwarding his views 
 with Mary when with her ; and, when ab- 
 sent from her, in regulating his worldly in- 
 terests so as to make them most subservient 
 to his future ministry ; and in attending also 
 to those of Lady Vernon. By the aid of 
 several gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and 
 backed by able lawyers, he was at last enabled 
 to drive Sullivan to such a compromise as 
 deprived him of all further control over the 
 Dromore property, which, however, was very 
 considerably diminished. 
 
 In due time the discovery so dreaded by 
 Lady Vernon was to be made. Fitzmaurice 
 had gained permission from her to make it 
 himself on the following day. On the eve of 
 that day, a bland and beautiful summer 
 evening, the two ladies and he were seated 
 under the porch of the Mermaid's Lodge, 
 looking at the sun that was just sinking 
 beyond the western ocean. 
 
 Nor moon nor stars were out : 
 They did not dare to tread so soon about, 
 Though trembling in the footsteps of the sun. 
 The light was neither night nor day's, but one 
 Which life-like had a beauty in its doubt ; 
 And Silence's impassioned breathings round 
 Seemed wandering into sound. 
 
 Mary was sitting between her mother and 
 Fitzmaurice. After a very long pause, the 
 first words that were spoken proceeded from 
 her, and exceedingly surprised her two 
 auditors. In a low, very low tone, scarcely 
 above a whisper, but perfectly distinct and 
 audible, she said to Fitzmaurice, " Dear and 
 reverend friend, you take a long time to pre- 
 pare me for your secret." 
 
 Fitzmaurice was strongly agitated by this 
 address, and hardly knew whether he heard 
 aright. 
 
 " My dearest Mary," said Lady Vernon, 
 " what do you mean ? " 
 
 "My dearest mother," answered Mary, 
 whom perhaps the twilight obscurity had 
 imboldened for a moment, but whose accents 
 now came faltering, and as if with difficulty, 
 "you understand my meaning well;" the 
 remainder of the sentence she uttered still 
 more faintly but rapidly "and so does he who 
 chose the better part, and gave up poor Mary 
 to devote himself to the service of the altar." 
 
 "Tell me, Mary," cried Fitzmaurice, much 
 moved, " do you suppose that I have been 
 faithless to you ? " 
 
 Before she could reply, Lady Vernon inter- 
 posed a remonstrance : " Hush, hush, Fitz- 
 maurice ; remember that we must not excite 
 her." 
 
 " Do not fear for me, my mother," resumed 
 Mary ; " I am collected and sustained. No, 
 Gerald, no ; neither of us has been faith- 
 less, we were both unfortunate. I was affi- 
 anced to another under compulsion, and you 
 vowed yourself to the Church on the impulse 
 of a rumour no, pardon me, Gerald, not 
 that no doubt, no doubt it was a holy 
 impulse ; you have done well for yourself, 
 and well for me. I am happy now ; and it 
 is your sweet counsel that has made me so." 
 
 " But how is this ? " asked Lady Vernon. 
 
 " My dear mother, " continued Mary, 
 " Gerald thought that he was fortifying me 
 against a fearful attack that was still to be 
 made upon my peace of mind, while he was 
 only pouring balm upon the hurt spirit that 
 had already suffered the attack. Dr. Kirwau 
 would by no means trust me out of his 
 hands, nor allow either of you to approach 
 me, before he had himself carefully imparted 
 the whole truth to me. He was afraid that 
 neither of you could inflict the necessary 
 pain so skilfully as himself. It was hard to 
 bear ; yet it was soothing to know that I was 
 not deserted for another." 
 
 " Deserted, Mary ! " said Fitzmaurice, 
 mournfully. 
 
 " Then you never will desert me, Gerald, 
 will you ? " said Mary, touched and gratified ; 
 " you will always be to me as you are now, 
 next to my mother, my best and dearest 
 counsellor and friend ? " 
 
 " Ever, ever, Mary, your brother on earth, 
 and, by the blessing of God, in heaven ! " 
 
 " I am content, more than content," she 
 said ; " I am very happy." 
 
 " But why, Mary," inquired Lady Vernon, 
 " did you not sooner communicate to us your 
 knowledge of Mr. O'Neil's situation ? Why 
 did not Dr. Kirwan tell us ?" 
 
 " He perhaps had more reasons than one 
 for his positive injunction to me of reserve on 
 the subject. Perhaps he thought that it was 
 safest for me tliat there should be some check 
 upon us all, thai I might be as little exposed 
 as possible to agitating conversations : so he 
 left you your secret to keep, and the know- 
 ledge of it was to be my secret. The only 
 reason he gave me, however, was one that 
 concerned the discipline of my own mind : he
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 251 
 
 said that it would be good and wholesome 
 for it that I should train it awhile to the 
 curb of a restraint of this sort. He did not 
 remove the restriction till this morning. He 
 praised me for my obedience, and said, smil- 
 ing, as he left me, ' You may now do as you 
 like ; I will trust you in every thing to your 
 own discretion.' " 
 
 Mary turned to Fitzmaurice, and tenderly 
 added " Gerald, neither you nor I could be 
 complimented on our discretion, when we 
 stood on the sea-fowls' ledge on the day of 
 our parting but we are wiser now." 
 
 This was indeed perilous ground for the 
 memory to go back to. Fitzmaurice could 
 not help answering "Yet to what but to 
 the true love that is heart-wisdom, the best 
 and surest of all, Mary to what but your 
 own heart-wisdom, under divine favour, on 
 that very day, and after that miserable 
 parting, do I owe the preservation of my 
 life ? " 
 
 Lady Vernon here observed, that the chill 
 of the evening might be prejudicial to Mary. 
 
 Fitzmaurice felt that he had scarcely been 
 sufficiently guarded in the words he had just 
 hazarded to Miss Vernon. He made a re- 
 solution to be more wary, and he kept it. 
 
 The event proved not only that Fitzmaurice 
 had been strong enough to restrain his own 
 heart, but that he had had the influence to 
 contribute to the acquirement of that most 
 difficult of victories by the young and en- 
 thusiastic Beauty of Dromore. 
 
 I will not say that, continuing as they did 
 to reside near to each other, with all the 
 memorials of their most true passion and its 
 delusive prospects around them, feelings of 
 the most acute regret did not often press 
 upon their minds. Nor is it to be denied 
 that Mary frequently repeated her visits to 
 the rocks of Coradunn, and to the cavern 
 on the shore, and to the well among the 
 mountains, nor that her eyes on her return 
 often betrayed that she had not seen these 
 places without emotion. 
 
 I will not pretend that even after she had 
 attained, as she hoped, complete resignation, 
 the struggle was not often, and again and 
 again, renewed in her womanly heart between 
 forbidden love and forbidding duty. At first 
 she would frequently murmur^, to herself : 
 
 " Hard fate ! He reappeared among us as 
 unexpectedly as if an inhabitant of the tomb 
 had arisen ; and his apparition has been 
 almost as visionary ; for the vowed priest 
 seems to me but as the spectre of my deceased 
 lover." 
 
 At a later period her musings, not always 
 inaudible to her mother, would run thus : 
 
 " I have been so long inured to affliction 
 that I should feel strange without it. Grief 
 seems my natural aliment. Sorrow is my 
 joy, my own sorrow ; I pet it with a selfish 
 tenderness, as the poor mother doats on an 
 ugly and perverse brat : no ; that is not a 
 just illustration ; there is sweetness and love- 
 liness in my sorrow ; my misery is not 
 misery ; and I almost love my own sad lot. 
 But I am weak, weak ; the indulgence of 
 these thoughts is folly. I must go to the 
 old burial-ground (but not to the little well,) 
 and, as, I stand by the graves of those I 
 loved, I will learn a lesson of wisdom. Their 
 trials were perhaps greater than mine, and 
 some of them died broken-hearted ; but how 
 quietly they sleep now ! and I shall soon sleep 
 by them, a long perfect sleep, till the trumpet 
 shall sound, and the dead shall awake at the 
 call of the Archangel, and shall be caught 
 up in the clouds to meet their Lord in air." 
 
 In such moods she would hie to the church- 
 yard, and listen to the whispers of the dead, 
 more impressive than a thousand homilies ; 
 and on such occasions she would pass near 
 the favourite little well, for it was on her 
 way both as she went to and from the cemetery 
 of Dromard ; but she could not always 
 resist the attraction of that beloved spot, even 
 when she had resolved not to turn her steps 
 to it. One evening, as she returned from 
 the tombs, she found herself almost uncon- 
 sciously at the Well. The setting sun was 
 touching the grand brow of Knockacree, 
 glorifying too the summits of the adjacent 
 hills and distant mountains, leaving in 
 shadow that one spot only which once no 
 shadow could ever darken to her fancy. It 
 now looked dull and forlorn ; far more so 
 than the graves she had just left : her heart 
 was penetrated by deep and fond emotions as 
 she stood beneath the old sycamore, and leaned 
 on the altar at its foot. Hither it was that 
 Fitzmaurice had so often conducted her in 
 the happy spring-time of their acquaintance ; 
 here they had so often rested together. 
 Again in idea she turned to that dear voice ; 
 again she looked into those eyes, and thought 
 she read the language of " lang syne." 
 
 At this moment Fitzmaurice himself ap- 
 peared, and, interrupting her reverie, gently 
 chid her, as if he had indeed read her medi- 
 tations. 
 
 " Mary, this place is devoted to religious 
 usages many of your faith will say to 
 idolatrous superstitions you do not judge of
 
 2.32 
 
 THE RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT. 
 
 even the zealots of my faith so harshly 
 but what if I say that you and I have perhaps 
 been the only idolaters here, for here we have 
 worshipped each other, worshipped images of 
 clay, unrebuked by the sanctity of the place ; 
 while the poor creatures who come hither 
 annually, and who kiss that little rude 
 crucifix, not in reverence, as they are accused, 
 of the worthless wood, unless they be fear- 
 fully nusinstructed, hut of the great mystery 
 of redemption, which it symbolizes, leave all 
 human respects behind them when they 
 approach that altar, and worship only their 
 Lord and Mediator, imploring the saints also 
 to assist them by their supplications to Him 
 through whom alone they can be saved. 
 Mary, you and I have desecrated this place 
 by making it one of our chosen resorts for 
 meditation on each other : we have set up 
 idols here ; let us never do so again. This 
 place is more dangerous for you than the 
 cliff of Altbo. Let us leave it, ray dearest 
 friend, and let us learn to live more apart 
 from one another, and all will soon be well." 
 But Fitzmaurice was very far from being 
 exempt from the weaknesses to which he was 
 at once indulgent and rigorous in Mary. 
 Even his holiest contemplations were for a 
 long time intruded on by distractions from 
 the past. Here again Fenelon taught him 
 
 how to baffle these insidious tormenters, by 
 laying his heart at the foot of the cross, and 
 steadily prosecuting his devotions instead of 
 turning to contend with dark shadows. 
 
 Finally, one of the firmest hopes and the 
 most earnest and constant of the prayers of 
 this Catholic minister was, that he might be 
 witness to the happiness of his Protestant 
 friends in another world ; and the thought 
 of seeing " Mary in Heaven" would frequently 
 support him when his spirit tottered under 
 the burden of his recollections. 
 
 Lady Vernon saw her daughter compara- 
 tively happy, and moderated her chagrin at 
 perceiving that there was no chance of ever 
 bringing her to accept the hand of any suitor. 
 For the rest, let it be enough to say, that, 
 remarkably circumstanced as Mary and Fitz- 
 maurice were, no tongue was ever heard to 
 utter, nor mind known to harbour a senti- 
 ment injurious to the reputation of either. 
 Kindly thoughts of Mary Vernon will long 
 be cherished as traditional inheritances by 
 many a warm heart in those wild regions ; 
 and the active virtues of Gerald Fitzmaurice 
 O'Neil, his self-denial, his zeal in his profes- 
 sion, and the honest plainness of his course 
 in the prosecution of his arduous duties, are 
 to this day recalled as examples for priestly 
 imitation. 
 
 THE ELVES. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK. BY THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 " WHERE is our little Mary ? " said the 
 father. 
 
 " She is playing out upon the green there, 
 with our neighbour's boy," replied the mother. 
 
 " I wish they may not run away and lose 
 themselves," said he ; " they are so thought- 
 less." 
 
 The mother looked for the little ones, and 
 brought them their evening luncheon. " It 
 is warm," said the boy ; " and Mary had a 
 longing for the red cherries." 
 
 " Have a care, children," said the mother, 
 " and do not run too far from home, and not 
 into the wood ; father and I are going to the 
 fields." 
 
 Little Andres answered : " Never fear, the 
 wood frightens us ; we shall sit here by the 
 house, where there are people near us." 
 
 The mother went in, and soon came out 
 again with her husband. They locked the 
 door, and turned towards the fields to look 
 
 after their labourers, and see their hay-harvest 
 in the meadow. Their house lay upon a 
 little green height, encircled by a pretty ring 
 of paling, which likewise enclosed their fruit 
 and flower garden. The hamlet stretched 
 somewhat deeper down, and on the other 
 side lay the castle of the Count. Martin 
 rented the large farm from this nobleman ; 
 and was living in contentment with his wife 
 and only child ; for he yearly saved some 
 money, and had the prospect of becoming a 
 man of substance by his industry, for the 
 ground was productive, and the Count not 
 illiberal. 
 
 As he walked with his wife to the fields, 
 he gazed cheerfully round, and said : "What 
 a different look this quarter has, Brigitta, 
 from the place we lived in formerly ! Here 
 it is all so green ; the whole village is bedecked 
 with thick-spreading fruit-trees ; the ground 
 is full of beautiful herbs and flowers ; all
 
 THE ELVES. 
 
 2.53 
 
 the houses are cheerful and cleanly, the 
 inhabitants are at their ease : nay, I could 
 almost fancy that the woods are greener here 
 than elsewhere, and the sky bluer ; and, so 
 far as the eye can reach, you have pleasure 
 and delight in beholding the bountiful Earth." 
 
 "And whenever you cross the stream," 
 said Brigitta, " you are, as it were, in another 
 world, all is so dreary and withered ; but 
 every traveller declares that our village is the 
 fairest in the country far and near." 
 
 " All but that fir-ground," said her hus- 
 band ; " do but look back to it, how dark 
 and dismal that solitary spot is lying in the 
 gay scene ; the dingy fir-trees with the smoky 
 huts behind them, the ruined stalls, the brook 
 flowing past with a sluggish melancholy." 
 
 " It is true," replied Brigitta ; " if you 
 but approach that spot, you grow disconsolate 
 and sad, you know not why. What sort of 
 people can they be that live there, and keep 
 themselves so separate from the rest of us, as 
 if they had an evil conscience ? " 
 
 " A miserable crew," replied the young 
 farmer : " gypsies, seemingly, that steal and 
 cheat in other quarters, and have their hoard 
 and hiding-place here. I wonder only that 
 his lordship suffers them." 
 
 " Who knows," said the wife, with an 
 accent of pity, " but perhaps they may be 
 poor people, wishing, out of shame, to conceal 
 their poverty ; for, after all, no one can say 
 aught ill of them ; the only thing is, that 
 they do not go to church, and none knows 
 how they live ; for the little garden, which 
 indeed seems altogether waste, cannot pos- 
 sibly support them ; and fields they have 
 none." 
 
 " God knows," said Martin, as they went 
 along, " what trade they follow ; no mortal 
 comes to them ; for the place they live in 
 is as if bewitched and excommunicated, so 
 that even our wildest fellows will not venture 
 into it." 
 
 Such conversation they pursued, while 
 walking to the fields. That gloomy spot 
 they spoke of lay aside from the hamlet. In 
 a dell, begirt with firs, you might behold a 
 hut, and various ruined office-houses ; rarely 
 was smoke seen to mount from it, still more 
 rarely did men appear there ; though at 
 times curious people, venturing somewhat 
 nearer, had perceived upon the bench before 
 the hut, some hideous women, in ragged 
 clothes, dandling in their arms some children 
 equally dirty and ill-favoured ; black dogs 
 were running up and down upon the boun- 
 dary ; and, of an evening, a man of monstrous 
 
 size was seen to cross the foot-bridge of the 
 brook, and disappear 'in the hut ; and, in 
 the darkness, various shapes were observed, 
 moving like shadows round a fire in the open 
 air. This piece of ground, the firs, and the 
 ruined huts, formed in truth a strange con- 
 trast with the bright green landscape, the 
 white houses of the hamlet, and the stately 
 neAv-built castle. 
 
 The two little ones had now eaten their 
 fruit ; it came into their heads to run races ; 
 and the little nimble Mary always got the 
 start of the less active Andres. "It is not 
 fair," cried Andres at last : " let us try it 
 for some length, then we shall see who ' 
 wins." 
 
 " As thou wilt," said Mary ; " only to the 
 brook we must not run." 
 
 " No," said Andres ; " but there, on the 
 hill, stands the large pear-tree, a quarter of 
 a mile from this. I shall run by the left, 
 round past the fir-ground ; thou canst try it 
 by the right over the fields ; so we do not 
 meet till we get up, and then we shall see 
 which of us is swifter." 
 
 " Done," cried Mary, and began to run ; 
 " for we shall not mar one another by the 
 way, and my father says it is as far to the 
 hill by that side of the Gypsies' house as by 
 this." 
 
 Andres had already started, and Mary, 
 turning to the right, could no longer see 
 him. " It is very silly," said she to herself : 
 " I have only to take heart, and run along 
 the bridge, past the hut, and through the 
 yard, and I shall certainly be first." She 
 was already standing by the brook and the 
 clump of firs. " Shall ^? No: it is too fright- 
 ful," said she. A little white dog was standing 
 on the farther side, and barking with might 
 and main. In her terror, Mary thought the 
 dog some monster, and sprang back. " Fy ! 
 fy ! " said she : " the dolt is gone half way 
 by this time, while I stand here considering." 
 The little dog kept barking, and, as she 
 looked at it more narrowly, it seemed no 
 longer frightful, but, on the contrary, quite 
 pretty : it had a red collar round its neck, 
 with a glittering bell ; and as it raised its 
 head, and shook itself in barking, the little 
 bell sounded with the finest tinkle. " Well, 
 I must risk it ! " cried she : " I will run for 
 life ; quick, quick, I am through ; certainly 
 to Heaven, they cannot eat me up alive in 
 half a minute ! " And with this, the gay, 
 courageous, little Mary, sprang along the 
 foot-bridge ; passed the dog, which ceased its 
 barking, and began to fawn on her ; and in
 
 2.34 
 
 THE ELVES. 
 
 a moment she was standing on the other 
 bank, and the black firs all round concealed 
 from view her father's house, and the rest of 
 the landscape. 
 
 But what was her astonishment when here ! 
 The loveliest, most variegated flower-garden, 
 lay round her ; tulips, roses, and lilies, were 
 glittering in the fairest colours ; blue and 
 gold-red butterflies were wavering in the 
 blossoms ; cages of shining wire were hung 
 on the espaliers, with many-coloured birds 
 in them, singing beautiful songs ; and 
 children, in short white frocks, with flowing 
 yellow hair and brilliant eyes, were frolick- 
 ing about ; some playing with lambkins, 
 some feeding the birds, or gathering flowers, 
 and giving them to one another ; some, again, 
 were eating cherries, grapes, and ruddy apri- 
 cots. No hut was to be seen ; but instead 
 of it, a large fair house, with a brazen door 
 and lofty statues, stood glancing in the middle 
 of the space. Mary was confounded with 
 surprise, and knew not what to think ; but, 
 not being bashful, she went right up to the 
 first of the children, held out her hand, and 
 wished the little creature good even. 
 
 "Art thou come to visit us, then?" said 
 the glittering child ; " I saw thee running, 
 playing on the other side, but thou wert 
 frightened for our little dog." 
 
 " So you are not gypsies and rogues," said 
 Mary, " as Andres always told me ! He is 
 a stupid thing, and talks of much he does not 
 understand." 
 
 " Stay with us," said the strange little girl ; 
 " thou wilt like it well." 
 
 " But we are running a race." 
 
 " Thou wilt find thy comrade soon enough. 
 There, take and eat." 
 
 Mary ate, and found the fruit more sweet 
 than any she had ever tasted in her life be- 
 fore ; and Andres, and the race, and the 
 prohibition of her parents, were entirely 
 forgotten. 
 
 A stately woman, in a shining robe, came 
 towards them, and asked about the stranger 
 child. " Fairest lady," said Mary, " I came 
 running hither by chance, and now they 
 wish to keep me." 
 
 " Thou art aware, Zerina," said the lady, 
 " that she can be here but for a little while ; 
 besides, thou should' st have asked my leave." 
 
 "I thought," said Zerina, "when I saw 
 her admitted across the bridge, that I might 
 do it ; we have often seen her running in 
 the fields, and thou thyself hast taken plea- 
 sure in her lively temper. She will have to 
 leave us soon enough." 
 
 "No, I will stay here," said the little 
 stranger ; " for here it is so beautiful, and 
 here I shall find the prettiest playthings, and 
 store of berries and cherries to boot. On the 
 other side it is not half so grand." 
 
 The gold-robed lady went away with a 
 smile ; and many of the children now came 
 bounding round the happy Mary in their 
 mirth, and twitched her, and incited her to 
 dance ; others brought her lambs, or curious 
 playthings ; others made music on instru- 
 ments, and sang to it. 
 
 She kept, however, by the playmate who 
 had first met her ; for Zerina was the kind- 
 est and loveliest of them all. Little Mary 
 cried and cried again : " I will stay with you 
 for ever ; I will stay with you, and you shall 
 be my sisters;" at which the children all 
 laughed, and embraced her. " Now, we shall 
 have a royal sport," said Zerina. She ran 
 into the palace, and returned with a little 
 golden box, in which lay a quantity of seeds, 
 like glittering dust. She lifted of it with 
 her little hand, and scattered some grains on 
 the green earth. Instantly the grass began 
 to move, as in waves ; and, after a few 
 moments, bright rose-bushes started from the 
 ground, shot rapidly up, and budded all at 
 once, while the sweetest perfume filled the 
 place. Mary also took a little of the dust, 
 and, having scattered it, she saw white lilies, 
 and the most variegated pinks, pushing up. 
 At a signal from Zerina, the flowers disap- 
 peared, and others rose in their room. 
 " Now," said Zerina, " look for something 
 greater." She laid two pine-seeds in the 
 ground, and stamped them in sharply with 
 her foot. Two green bushes stood before 
 them. " Grasp me fast," said she ; and 
 Mary threw her arms about the slender form. 
 She felt herself borne upwards ; for the trees 
 were springing under them with the greatest 
 speed ; the tall pines waved to and fro, and 
 the two children held each other fast em- 
 braced, swinging this way and that in the 
 red clouds of the twilight, and kissed each 
 other ; while the rest were climbing up and 
 down the trunks with quick dexterity, push- 
 ing and teazing one another with loud 
 laughter when they met ; if any one fell 
 down in the press, it flew through the air, 
 and sank slowly and surely to the ground. 
 At length Mary was beginning to be fright- 
 ened ; and the other little child sang a few 
 loud tones, and the trees again sank down, 
 and set them on the ground as gradually as 
 they had lifted them before to the clouds. 
 
 They next went through the brazen door
 
 THE ELVES. 
 
 255 
 
 of the palace. Here many fair women, 
 elderly and young, were sitting in the round 
 hall, partaking of the fairest fruits, and 
 listening to glorious invisible music. In the 
 vaulting of the ceiling, palms, flowers, and 
 groves stood painted, among which little 
 figures of children were sporting and winding 
 in every graceful posture ; and with the 
 tones of the music, the images altered and 
 glowed with the most burning colours ; now 
 the blue and green were sparkling like radiant 
 light, now these tints faded back in paleness, 
 the purple flamed up, and the gold took fire ; 
 and then the naked children seemed to be 
 alive among the flower-garlands, and to draw 
 breath, and emit it through their ruby- 
 coloured lips ; so that by fits you could see 
 the glance of their little white teeth, and the 
 lighting up of their azure eyes. 
 
 From the hall, a stair of brass led down 
 to a subterranean chamber. Here lay much 
 gold and silver, and precious stones of every 
 hue shone out between them. Strange vessels 
 stood along the walls, and all seemed filled 
 with costly things. The gold was worked 
 into many forms, and glittered with the 
 friendliest red. Many little dwarfs were 
 busied sorting the pieces from the heap, and 
 putting them in the vessels ; others, hunch- 
 backed, and bandy-legged, with long red 
 noses, were tottering slowly along, half-bent 
 to the ground, under full sacks, which they 
 bore as millers do their grain ; and, with 
 much panting, shaking out the gold-dust on 
 the ground. Then they darted awkwardly 
 to the right and left, and caught the rolling 
 balls that were like to run away ; and it 
 happened now and then that one in his 
 eagerness overset the other, so that both fell 
 heavily and clumsily to the ground. They 
 made angry faces, and looked askance, as 
 Mary laughed at their gestures and their 
 ugliness. Behind them sat an old crumpled 
 little man, whom Zerina reverently greeted ; 
 he thanked her with a grave inclination of 
 his head. He held a sceptre in his hand, 
 and wore a crown upon his brow, and all 
 the other dwarfs appeared to regard him as 
 their master, and obey his nod. 
 
 " What more wanted ? " asked he, with a 
 surly voice, as the children came a little 
 nearer. Mary was afraid, and did not speak ; 
 but her companion answered, they were only 
 come to look about them in the chambers. 
 " Still your old child's tricks ! " replied the 
 dwarf : " Will there never be an end to 
 idleness ? " With this, he turned again to 
 his employment, kept his people weighing 
 
 and sorting the ingots ; some he sent away 
 on errands, some he chid with angry 
 tones. 
 
 " Who is the gentleman 1 " said Mary. 
 
 " Our Metal-Prince," replied Zerina, as 
 they walked along. 
 
 They seemed once more to reach the open 
 air, for they were standing by a lake, yet no 
 sun appeared, and they saw no sky above 
 their heads. A little boat received them, 
 and Zerina steered it diligently forwards. 
 It shot rapidly along. On gaining the middle 
 of the lake, the stranger saw that multitudes 
 of pipes, channels, and brooks, were spreading 
 from the little sea in every direction. "These 
 waters to the right," said Zerina, " flow 
 beneath your garden, and this is why it 
 blooms so freshly ; by the other side we get 
 down into the great stream." On a sudden, 
 out of all the channels, and from every quarter 
 of the lake, came a crowd of little children 
 swimming up ; some wore garlands of sedge 
 and water-lily ; some had red stems of coral, 
 others were blowing on crooked shells ; a 
 tumultuous noise echoed merrily from the 
 dark shores ; among the children might be 
 seen the fairest women sporting in the waters, 
 and often several of the children sprang about 
 some one of them, and with kisses hung 
 upon her neck and shoulders. All saluted 
 the strangers ; and these steered onwards 
 through the revelry out of the lake, into a 
 little river, which grew narrower and nar- 
 rower. At last the boat came aground. The 
 strangers took their leave, and Zerina knocked 
 against the cliff. This opened like a door, 
 and a female form, all red, assisted them to 
 mount. " Are you all brisk here ? " inquired 
 Zerina. 
 
 " They are just at work," replied the other, 
 " and happy as they could wish ; indeed, the 
 heat is very pleasant." 
 
 They went up a winding stair, and on a 
 sudden Mary found herself in a most resplen- 
 dent hall, so that, as she entered, her eyes 
 were dazzled by the radiance. Flame-coloured 
 tapestry covered the walls with a purple 
 glow ; and when her eye had grown a little 
 used to it, the stranger saw, to her astonish- 
 ment, that, in the tapestry, there were figures 
 moving up and down in dancing joyfulness ; 
 in form so beautiful, and of so fair pro- 
 portions, that nothing could be seen more 
 graceful ; their bodies were as of red crystal, 
 so that it appeared as if the blood were visible 
 within them, flowing and playing in its 
 courses. They smiled on the stranger, and 
 saluted her with various bows ; but as Mary
 
 256 
 
 THE ELVKS. 
 
 was about approaching nearer them, Zerina 
 plucked her sharply hack, crying : " Thou 
 wilt burn thyself, my little Mary, for the 
 whole of it is fire." 
 
 Mary felt the heat, " Why do the pretty 
 creatures not come out," said she, " and play 
 with us?" 
 
 " As thou livest in the Air," replied the 
 other, " so are they obliged to stay continually 
 in Fire, and would faint and languish if they 
 left it. Look now, how glad they are, how 
 they laugh and shout ; those down below 
 spread out the fire-floods every where beneath 
 the earth, and thereby the flowers, and 
 fruits, and wine, are made to flourish ; these 
 red streams, again, are to run beside the 
 brooks of water ; and- thus the fiery crea- 
 tures are kept ever busy and glad. But 
 for thee it is too hot here ; let us return to 
 the garden." 
 
 In the garden, the scene had changed since 
 they left it. The moonshine was lying on 
 every flower ; the birds were silent, and the 
 children were asleep in complicated groups, 
 among the green groves. Mary and her 
 friend, however, did not feel fatigue, but 
 walked about in the warm summer night, in 
 abundant talk, till morning. 
 
 When the day dawned, they refreshed 
 themselves on fruit and milk, and Mary said : 
 " Suppose we go, by way of change, to the 
 firs, and see how things look there?" 
 
 " With all my heart," replied Zerina ; 
 " tkou wilt see our watchmen, too, and they 
 will surely please thee ; they are standing 
 up among the trees on the mound." The 
 two proceeded through the flower garden by 
 pleasant groves, full of nightingales ; then 
 they ascended a vine-hill ; and at last, after 
 long following the windings of a clear brook, 
 arrived at the firs, and the height which 
 bounded the domain. " How does it come," 
 said Mary, " that we have to walk so far 
 here, when, without, the circuit is so narrow?" 
 
 " I know not," said her friend ; " but so 
 it is." 
 
 They mounted to the dark firs, and a chill 
 wind blew from without in their faces ; a 
 haze seemed lying far and wide over the 
 landscape. On the top were many strange 
 forms standing ; with mealy, dusty faces ; 
 their mis-shapen heads not unlike those of 
 white owls ; they were clad in folded cloaks 
 of shaggy wool; they held umbrellas of 
 curious skins stretched out above them ; and 
 they waved and fanned themselves inces- 
 santly with large bat's wings, which flared 
 out curiously beside the woollen roqueiaures. 
 
 " I could laugh, yet I am frightened," cried 
 Mary. 
 
 " These are our good trusty watchmen," 
 said her playmate ; "they stand here and wave 
 their fans, that cold anxiety and inexplicable 
 fear may fall on every one that attempts to 
 approach us. They are covered so, bccjuisc 
 without it is now cold and rainy, which they 
 cannot bear. But snow, or wind, or cold air, 
 never reaches down to us ; here is an ever- 
 lasting spring and summer : yet if these poor 
 people on the top were not frequently relieved, 
 they would certainly perish." 
 
 " But who are you, then ? " said Mary, 
 while again descending to the flowery frag- 
 rance ; "or have you no name at all?" 
 
 " We are called the Elves," replied the 
 friendly child ; " people talk about us in the 
 Earth, as I have heard." 
 
 They now perceived a mighty bustle on 
 the green. " The fair Bird is come ! " cried 
 the children to them : all hastened to the hall. 
 Here, as they approached, young and old 
 were crowding over the threshold, all shout- 
 ing for joy ; and from within resounded a 
 triumphant peal of music. Having entered, 
 they perceived the vast circuit filled with the 
 most varied forms, and all were looking up- 
 wards to a large Bird with glancing plumage, 
 that was sweeping slowly round in the dome, 
 and in its stately flight describing many a 
 circle. The music sounded more gaily than 
 before ; the colours and lights alternated more 
 rapidly. At last the music ceased ; and the 
 Bird, with a rustling noise, floated down upon 
 a glittering crown that hung hovering in air 
 under the high window, by which the hall 
 was lighted from above. His plumage was 
 purple and green, and shining golden streaks 
 played through it ; on his head there waved 
 a diadem of feathers, so resplendent that they 
 glanced like jewels. His bill was red, and 
 his legs of a glancing blue. As he moved, 
 the tints gleamed through each other, and 
 the eye was charmed with their radiance. 
 His size was as that of an eagle. But now 
 he opened his glittering beak ; and sweetest 
 melodies came pouring from his moved breast, 
 in finer tones than the love-sick nightingale 
 gives forth ; still stronger rose the song, and 
 streamed like floods of Light, so that all, the 
 very children themselves, were moved by 
 it to tears of joy and rapture. When he 
 ceased, all bowed before him ; he again flew 
 round the dome in circles, then darted through 
 the door, and soared into the light heaven, 
 where he shone far up like a red point, and 
 then aoon vanished from their eves.
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 257 
 
 " Why are ye all so glad ?" inquired Mary, 
 bending to her fair playmate, who seemed 
 smaller than yesterday. 
 
 " The King is coming ! " said the little 
 one ; "many of us have never seen him, and 
 whithersoever he turns his face, there is 
 happiness and mirth ; we have long looked 
 for him, more anxiously than you look for 
 spring when winter lingers with you ; and 
 now he has announced, by his fair herald, 
 that he is at hand. This wise and glorious 
 Bird, that has been sent to us by the King, 
 is called Phoenix ; he dwells far off in Arabia, 
 on a tree, which there is no other that re- 
 sembles on Earth, as in like manner there is 
 no second Phcenix. When he feels himself 
 grown old, he builds a pile of balm and in- 
 cense, kindles it, and dies singing ; and then 
 from the fragrant ashes, soars up the re- 
 newed Phoenix with unlessened beauty. It 
 is seldom he so wings his course that men 
 behold him ; and when once in centuries this 
 does occur, they note it in their annals, and 
 expect remarkable events. But now, my 
 friend, thou and I must part ; for the sight 
 of the King is not permitted thee." 
 
 Then the lady with the golden robe came 
 through the throng, and beckoning Mary to 
 her, led her into a sequestered walk. " Thou 
 must leave us, my dear child," said she ; 
 " the King is to hold his court here for twenty 
 years, perhaps longer ; and fruitfulness and 
 blessings will spread far over the land, but 
 chiefly here beside us ; all the brooks and 
 rivulets will become more bountiful, all the 
 fields and gardens richer, the wine more 
 generous, the meadows more fertile, and the 
 woods more fresh and green ; a milder air 
 will blow, no hail shall hurt, no flood shall 
 threaten. Take this ring, and think of us: 
 but beware of telling any one of our exis- 
 tence ; or we must fly this land, and thou and 
 all around will lose the happiness and blessing 
 of our neighbourhood. Once more, kiss thy 
 playmate, and farewell." They issued from 
 the walk ; Zerina wept, Mary stooped to 
 embrace her, and they parted. Already she 
 was on the narrow bridge ; the cold air was 
 blowing on her back from the firs ; the little 
 dog barked with all its might, and rang its 
 little bell ; she looked round, then hastened 
 over, for the darkness of the firs, the bleak- 
 ness of the ruined huts, the shadows of the 
 twilight, were filling her with terror. 
 
 " What a night my parents must have had 
 on my account ! " said she within herself, as 
 she stept on the green ; " and I dare not tell 
 them where I have been, or what wonders I 
 
 VOL. I, 
 
 have witnessed, nor indeed would they believe 
 me." Two men passing by saluted her, and 
 as they went along, she heard them say : 
 " What a pretty girl ! Where can she come 
 from?" With quickened steps she ap- 
 proached the house : but the trees which 
 were hanging last night loaded with fruit, 
 were now standing dry and leafless ; the 
 house was differently painted, and a new 
 barn had been built beside it. Mary was 
 amazed, and thought she must be dreaming. 
 In this perplexity she opened the door ; and 
 behind the table sat her father, between an 
 unknown woman and a stranger youth. 
 " Good God ! Father," cried she, " where is 
 my mother ? " 
 
 " Thy mother ! " said the woman, with a 
 forecasting tone, and sprang towards her : 
 " Ha, thou surely canst not Yes, indeed, 
 indeed thou art my lost, long-lost dear, only 
 Mary ! " She had recognised her by a little 
 brown mole beneath the chin, as well as by 
 her eyes and shape. All embraced her, all 
 were moved with joy, and the parents wept. 
 Mary was astonished that she almost reached 
 to her father's stature ; and she could not 
 understand how her mother had become so 
 changed and faded ; she asked the name of 
 the stranger youth. " It is our neighbour's 
 Andres," said Martin. " How comest thou 
 to us again, so unexpectedly, after seven long 
 years ? Where hast thou been ? Why didst 
 thou never send us tidings of thee ?" 
 
 " Seven years ! " said Mary, and could not 
 order her ideas and recollections. "Seven 
 whole years?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Andres, laughing, and 
 shaking her trustfully by the hand ; " I have 
 won the race, good Mary ; I was at the pear- 
 tree and back again seven years ago, and 
 thou, sluggish creature, art but just re- 
 turned ! " 
 
 They again asked, they pressed her ; but 
 remembering her instruction, she could 
 answer nothing. It was they themselves 
 chiefly that, by degrees, shaped a story for 
 her : How, having lost her way, she had 
 been taken up by a coach, and carried to a 
 strange remote part, where she could not give 
 the people any notion of her parents' resi- 
 dence ; how she was conducted to a distant 
 town, where certain worthy persons brought 
 her up, and loved her ; how they had lately 
 died, and at length she had recollected her 
 birth-place, and so returned. " No matter 
 how it is!" exclaimed her mother ; " enough, 
 that we have thee again, my little daughter, 
 my own, my all !" 
 
 No. 17.
 
 258 
 
 THE ELVES. 
 
 Andres waited supper, and Mary could 
 not be at home in any thing she saw. The 
 house seemed small and dark ; she felt 
 astonished at her dress, which was clean and 
 simple, but appeared quite foreign ; she looked 
 at the ring on her finger, and the gold of it 
 glittered strangely, enclosing a stone of burn- 
 ing red. To her father's question, she re- 
 plied that the ring also was a present from 
 her benefactors. 
 
 She was glad when the hour of sleep 
 arrived, and she hastened to her bed. Next 
 morning she felt mxich more collected ; she 
 had now arranged her thoughts a little, and 
 could better stand the questions of the people 
 in the village, all of whom came in to bid her 
 welcome. Andres was there too with the 
 earliest, active, glad, and serviceable beyond 
 all others. The blooming maiden of fifteen 
 had made a deep impression on him ; he had 
 passed a sleepless night. The people of the 
 castle likewise sent for Mary, and she had 
 once more to tell her story to them, which 
 was now grown quite familiar to her. The 
 old Count and his Lady were surprised at 
 her good breeding ; she was modest, but not 
 embarrassed ; she made answer courteously 
 in good phrases to all their questions ; all 
 fear of noble persons and their equipage had 
 passed away from her ; for when she mea- 
 sured these halls and forms by the wonders 
 and the high beauty she had seen with the 
 Elves in their hidden abode, this earthly 
 splendour seemed but dim to her, the presence 
 of men was almost mean. The young lords 
 were charmed with her beauty. 
 
 It was now February. The trees were 
 budding earlier than usual ; the nightingale 
 had never come so soon ; the spring rose 
 fairer in the land than the oldest men could 
 recollect it. In every quarter, little brooks 
 gushed out to irrigate the pastures and 
 meadows ; the hills seemed heaving, the vines 
 rose higher and higher, the fmit-trees blos- 
 somed as they had never done ; and a swell- 
 ing fragrant blessedness hung suspended 
 heavily in rosy clouds over the scene. All 
 prospered beyond expectation ; no rude day, 
 no tempest injured the fruits ; the wine 
 flowed blushing in immense grapes ; and the 
 inhabitants of the place felt astonished, and 
 were captivated as in a sweet dream. The 
 next year was like its forerunner ; but men 
 had now become accustomed to the marvel- 
 lous. In autumn, Mary yielded to the 
 pressing entreaties of Andres and her parents ; 
 she was betrothed to him, and in winter they 
 were married. 
 
 She often thought with inward longing of 
 her residence behind the fir-trees ; she con- 
 tinued serious and still. Beautiful as all that 
 lay around her was, she knew of something 
 yet more beautiful ; and from the remem- 
 brance of this, a faint regret att\ined her 
 nature to soft melancholy. It smote her 
 painfully Avhen her father and mother talked 
 aboxit the gypsies and vagabonds, that dwelt 
 in the dark spot of ground. Often she was 
 on the point of speaking oiit in defence of 
 those good beings, whom she knew to be the 
 benefactors of the land ; especially to Andres, 
 who appeared to take delight in zealously 
 abusing them : yet still she repressed the 
 word that was struggling to escape her bosom. 
 So passed this year ; in the next she was 
 solaced by a little daughter, whom she named 
 Elfrida, thinking of the designation of her 
 friendly Elves. 
 
 The young people lived with Martin and 
 Brigitta, the house being large enough for 
 all ; and helped their parents in conducting 
 their now extended husbandry. The little 
 Elfrida soon displayed peculiar faculties and 
 gifts ; for she could walk at a very early 
 age, and could speak perfectly before she was 
 a twelvemonth old ; and after some few years, 
 she had become so wise and clever, and of 
 such wondrous beauty, that all people re- 
 garded her with astonishment ; and her 
 mother could not keep away the thought 
 that her child resembled one of those shining 
 little ones in the space behind the Firs. 
 Elfrida cared not to be with other children ; 
 but seemed to avoid, with a sort of horror, 
 their tumultuous amusements, and liked best 
 to be alone. She would then retire into a 
 corner of the gai'den, and read, or work dili- 
 gently with her needle ; often also you might 
 see her sitting, as if deep sunk in thought ; 
 or violently walking up and down the alleys, 
 speaking to herself. Her parents readily 
 allowed her to have her will in these things, 
 for she was healthy, and waxed apace ; only 
 her strange sagacious answers and observa- 
 tions often made them anxious. " Such 
 wise children do not grow to age," her grand- 
 mother, Brigitta, many times observed ; 
 " they are too good for this world ; the 
 child, besides, is beautiful beyond nature, 
 and will never find its proper place on 
 Earth." 
 
 The little gii-1 had this peculiarity, that 
 she was very loath to let herself be served by 
 any one, but endeavoured to do every thing 
 herself. She was almost the earliest riser in 
 the house ; she washed herself carefully, and
 
 THE ELVES. 
 
 259 
 
 dressed without assistance : at night she was 
 equally careful ; she took special heed to 
 pack up her clothes and washes with her own 
 hands, allowing no one, not even her mother, 
 to meddle with her articles. The mother 
 humoured her in this caprice, not thinking 
 it of any consequence. But what was her 
 astonishment, when, happening one holiday 
 to insist, regardless of Elfrida's tears and 
 screams, on dressing her out for a visit to the 
 castle, she found upon her breast, suspended 
 by a string, a piece of gold of a strange form, 
 which she directly recognized as one of that 
 sort she had seen in such abundance in the 
 subterranean vault ! The little thing was 
 greatly frightened, and at last confessed that 
 she had found it in the garden, and as she 
 liked it much, had kept it carefully : she at 
 the same time prayed so earnestly and press- 
 ingly to have it back, that Mary fastened 
 it again on its former place, and, full of 
 thoughts, went out with her in silence to 
 the castle. 
 
 Sidewards from the farm-house lay some 
 offices for the storing of produce and imple- 
 ments ; and behind these there was a little 
 green, with an old grove, now visited by no 
 one, as, from the new arrangement of the 
 buildings, it lay too far from the garden. In 
 this solitude, Elfrida delighted most ; and it 
 occurred to nobody to interrupt her here, so 
 that frequently her parents did not see her 
 for half a day. One afternoon her mother 
 chanced to be in these buildings, seeking for 
 some lost article among the lumber, and she 
 noticed that a beam of light was coming in, 
 through a chink in the wall. She took a 
 thought of looking through this aperture, 
 and seeing what her child was busied with ; 
 and it happened that a stone was lying loose, 
 and could be pushed aside, so that she ob- 
 tained a view right into the grove. Elfrida 
 was sitting there on a little bench, and beside 
 her the well-known Zerina ; and the children 
 were playing and amusing one another in the 
 kindliest unity. The Elf embraced her 
 beautiful companion, and said mournfully : 
 " Ah ! dear little creature, as I sport with 
 thee, so have I sported with thy mother, 
 when she was a child ; but you mortals so 
 soon grow tall and thoughtful ! It is very 
 hard : wert thou but to be a child as long as 
 I!" 
 
 " Willingly would I do it," said Elfrida ; 
 " but they all say I shall come to sense, and 
 give over playing altogether ; for I have great 
 gifts, as they think, for growing wise. Ah ! 
 and then I shall see thee no more, thou dear 
 
 Zerina ! Yet it is with us, as with the fruit- 
 tree flowers : how glorious the blossoming 
 apple-tree, with its red bursting buds ! It 
 looks so stately and broad, and every one 
 that passes under it thinks, surely something 
 great will come of it ; then the sun grows 
 hot, and the buds come joyfully forth ; but 
 the wicked kernel is already there, which 
 pushes off and casts away the fair flower's 
 dress ; and now, in pain and waxing, it can 
 do nothing more, but must grow to fruit in 
 harvest. An apple, to be sure, is pretty and 
 refreshing ; yet nothing to the blossom of 
 spring. So is it also with us mortals : I am 
 not glad in the least at growing to be a tall 
 girl. Ah ! could I but once visit you ! " 
 
 " Since the King is with us," said Zerina, 
 " it is quite impossible ; but I will come to 
 thee, my darling, often, often, and none shall 
 see me either here or there. I will pass in- 
 visible through the air, or fly over to thee 
 like a bird : Oh ! we will be much, much 
 together, while thou art still little. What 
 can I do to please thee ? " 
 
 " Thou must like me very dearly," said 
 Elfrida, " as I like thee in my heart : but 
 come, let us make another rose." 
 
 Zerina took the well-known box from her 
 bosom, threw two grains from it on the 
 ground ; and instantly a green bush stood 
 before them, with two deep-red roses, bending 
 their heads, as if to kiss each other. The 
 children plucked them smiling, and the bush 
 disappeared. "O that it would not die so 
 soon ! " said Elfrida ; " this red child, this 
 wonder of the Earth !" 
 
 " Give it me here," said the little Elf ; then 
 breathed thrice upon the budding rose, and 
 kissed it thrice, " Now," said she, giving back 
 the rose, " it will continue fresh and bloom- 
 ing till winter." 
 
 "I will keep it," said Elfrida, "as an 
 image of thee ; I will guard it in my little 
 room, and kiss it night and morning, as if it 
 were thyself." 
 
 " The sun is setting," said the other, " I 
 must home." They embraced again, and 
 Zerina vanished. 
 
 In the evening, Mary clasped her child to 
 her breast, with a feeling of alarm and vene- 
 ration. She henceforth allowed the good 
 little girl more liberty than formerly ; and 
 often calmed her husband, when he came to 
 search for the child ; which for some time he 
 was wont to do, as her retiredness did not 
 please him, and he feared that, in the end, it 
 might make her silly, or even pervert her 
 understanding. The mother often glided to
 
 260 
 
 THE ELVES. 
 
 the chink ; and almost always found the 
 bright Elf beside her child, employed in 
 sport, or in earnest conversation. 
 
 " Wouldst thou like to fly?" inquired 
 Zerina, once. 
 
 "Oh, well ! How well ! " replied Elfrida ; 
 and the fairy clasped her mortal playmate in 
 her arms, and mounted with her from the 
 ground, till they hovered above the grove. 
 The mother, in alarm, forgot herself, and 
 pushed out her head in terror to look after 
 them ; when Zerina, from the air, held 
 up her finger, and threatened, yet smiled ; 
 then descended with the child, embraced her, 
 and disappeared. After this, it happened 
 more than once that Mary was observed by 
 her ; and every time, the shining little crea- 
 ture shook her head, or threatened, yet with 
 friendly looks. 
 
 Often, in disputing with her husband, 
 Mary had said in her zeal : " Thou dost in- 
 justice to the poor people in the hut ! " But 
 when Andres pressed her to explain why she 
 differed in opinion from the whole village, 
 nay, from his Lordship himself; and how 
 she could understand it better than the whole 
 of them, she still broke off embarrassed, and 
 became silent. One day, after dinner, Andres 
 grew more violent than ever ; and maintained 
 that, by one means or another, the crew must 
 be packed away, as a nuisance to the coun- 
 try ; when his wife in anger said to him : 
 " Hush ! for they are benefactors to thee and 
 to every one of us." 
 
 " Benefactors ! " cried the other in astonish- 
 ment : " These rogues and vagabonds ! " 
 
 In her indignation, she was now at last 
 tempted to relate to him, under promise of 
 the strictest secrecy, the history of her youth : 
 and as Andres at every word grew more in- 
 credulous, and shook his head in mockery, 
 she took him by the hand and led him to the 
 chink : where, to his amazement, ho beheld 
 the glittering Elf sporting with his child, 
 and caressing her in the grove. He knew 
 not what to say ; an exclamation of astonish- 
 ment escaped him, and Zerina raised her eyes. 
 On the instant she grew pale, and trembled 
 violently ; not with friendly, but with indig- 
 nant looks, she made the sign of threatening, 
 and then said to Elfrida : " Thou canst not 
 help it, dearest heart ; but they will never 
 learn sense, wise as they believe themselves." 
 She embraced the little one with stormy 
 haste ; and then, in the shape of a raven, 
 flew with hoarse cries over the garden, to- 
 wards the Firs. 
 
 In the evening, the little one was very 
 
 still, she kissed her rose with tears ; Mary 
 felt depressed and frightened, Andres scarcely 
 spoke. It grew dark. Suddenly there went 
 a rustling through the trees ; birds flew to 
 and fro with wild screaming, thunder was 
 heard to roll, the Earth shook, and tones of 
 lamentation moaned in the air. Andres and 
 his wife had not courage to rise ; they 
 shrouded themselves within the curtains, and 
 with fear and trembling awaited the day. 
 Towards morning it grew calmer ; and all 
 was silent when the Sun, with his cheerful 
 light, rose over the wood. 
 
 Andres dressed himself, and Mary now 
 observed that the stone of the ring upon her 
 finger had become quite pale. On opening 
 the door, the sun shone clear on their faces, 
 but the scene around them they could scarcely 
 recognise. The freshness of the wood was 
 gone ; the hills were shrunk, the brooks were 
 flowing languidly with scanty streams, the 
 sky seemed gray ; and when you turned to 
 the Firs, they were standing there, no darker 
 or more dreary than the other trees. The 
 huts behind them were no longer frightful ; 
 and several inhabitants of the village came 
 and told about the fearful night, and how 
 they had been across the spot where the 
 gypsies had lived ; how these people must 
 have left the place at last, for their huts 
 were standing empty, and within had quite 
 a common look, just like the dwellings of 
 other poor people : some of their household 
 gear was left behind. 
 
 Elfrida in secret said to her mother : " I 
 could not sleep last night ; and in my fright 
 at the noise, I was praying from the bottom 
 of my heart, when the door suddenly opened, 
 and my playmate entered to take leave of 
 me. She had a travelling-pouch slung round 
 her, a hat on her head, and a large staff' in 
 her hand. She was very angry at thee ; 
 since on thy account she had now to suffer 
 the severest and most painful punishments, 
 as she had always been so fond of thee ; for 
 all of them, she said, were very loath to leave 
 this quarter." 
 
 Mary forbade her to speak of this ; and 
 now the ferrymen came across the river, and 
 told them new wonders. As it was growing 
 dark, a stranger man of large size had come 
 to him, and hired his boat till sunrise ; and 
 with this condition, that the boatman should 
 remain quiet in his house, at least should not 
 cross the threshold of his door. " I was 
 frightened," continued the old man, "and 
 the strange bargain would not let me sleep. 
 I slipped softly to the window, and looked
 
 THE ELVES. 
 
 2G1 
 
 towards the river. Great clouds were driv- 
 ing restlessly through the sky, and the 
 distant woods were rustling fearfully ; it w r as 
 as if my cottage shook, and moans and lamen- 
 tations glided round it. On a sudden I per- 
 ceived a white streaming light, that grew 
 broader and broader, like many thousands of 
 falling stars ; sparkling and waving, it pro- 
 ceeded forward from the dark Fir-ground, 
 moved over the fields, and spread itself along 
 towards the river. Then I heard a tramp- 
 ling, a jingling, a bustling, and rushing, 
 nearer and nearer ; it went forwards to my 
 boat, and all stept into it, men and women, 
 as it seemed, and children ; and the tall 
 stranger ferried them over. In the river 
 were by the boat swimming many thousands 
 of glittering forms ; in the air, white clouds 
 and lights were wavering ; and all lamented 
 and bewailed that they must travel forth so 
 far, far away, and leave their beloved dwell- 
 ing. The noise of the rudder and the water 
 creaked and gurgled between whiles, and 
 then suddenly there would be silence. Many 
 a time the boat landed, and went back, and 
 was again laden ; many heavy casks, too, 
 they took along with them, which multitudes 
 of horrid-looking little fellows earned and 
 rolled ; whether they were devils or goblins, 
 Heaven only knows. Then came, in waving 
 brightness, a stately freight; it seemed an 
 old man mounted on a small white horse, 
 and all were crowding round him. I saw 
 nothing of the horse but its head ; for the 
 
 rest of it was covered with costly glittering 
 cloths and trappings : on his brow the old 
 man had a crown, so bright, that as he came 
 across I thought the sun was rising there, 
 and the redness of the dawn glimmering in 
 my eyes. Thus it went on all night ; I at 
 last fell asleep in the tumult, half in joy, 
 half in terror. In the morning all was still ; 
 but the river is, as it were, run off, and I know 
 not how I am to steer my boat in it now." 
 
 The same year there came a blight ; the 
 woods died away, the springs ran dry ; and 
 the scene, which had once been the joy of 
 every traveller, was in autumn standing 
 waste, naked, and bald ; scarcely showing 
 here and there, in the sea of sand, a spot or 
 two where grass, with a dingy greenness, still 
 grew up. The fruit-trees all withered, the 
 vines faded away, and the aspect of the place 
 became so melancholy, that the Count, with 
 his people, next year left the castle, which 
 in time decayed and fell to ruins. 
 
 Elfrida gazed on her rose day and night 
 with deep longing, and thought of her kind 
 playmate ; and as it drooped and withered, 
 so did she also hang her head ; and before 
 the spring, the little maiden had herself 
 faded away. Mary often stood upon the 
 spot before the hut, and wept for the happi- 
 ness that had departed. She wasted herself 
 away like her child, and in a few years she 
 too was gone. Old Martin, with his son-in- 
 law, returned to the quarter where he had 
 lived before. 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 BY MRS. JOHNSTONE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WITH Prince Muskwa Puckler, and other 
 travellers of like note, we hold it a mistake 
 to imagine, that Exclusivism, or the prin- 
 ciple of keeping others without a certain pale, 
 and boasting of being within it ourselves, 
 while we only scramble to gain admittance, 
 
 is to be found solely in what is termed 
 Fashionable Life, and among persons of high 
 station. The Exclusives, properly so called, 
 
 those who enjoy the privilege of dancing 
 in Willis's Rooms on certain nights, and 
 dining and gaming at Crockford's, or the 
 more select clubs, form, after all, but 
 the inner circle of a concentric series, 
 which, somewhat like chain-mail, link 
 within link, covers the entire surface of 
 
 British society, save the few dark depths 
 unpenetrated by the feeblest ray of the sun 
 of Fashion. 
 
 The proper order of Metropolitan Exclusives 
 we accordingly hold to be merely the sun of 
 a system continually revolving with and 
 around that central sphere. " Human nature 
 is every where the same," say the sages. It 
 is but a difference in mode which exists 
 
 between the Countess of G , snatching a 
 
 crow-quill from a golden standish, and, by 
 concurrence of the patronesses, remorselessly 
 dashing off the sentence of exclusion which 
 dooms to disappointment and despair the 
 
 Honourable Mrs. H and her fair debutante 
 
 of the season ; and Maggy Mucklebacket, who, 
 having attained the respectability of dealing 
 in haddocks and flounders, in the amplitude
 
 262 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 of her yellow petticoats, looks disdain on 
 draggle-tailed Nance Prawns, who, she con- 
 temptuously observes, in passing, "will never 
 get aboon the mussel line." Property is, as 
 in this last case, one element of Exclusivism, 
 though it is often the least essential one. 
 
 The aristocratic Exclusives certainly pos- 
 sess some advantages over the less prominent 
 species of the Order. They have both a 
 better denned line of demarcation, and a 
 much narrower frontier to defend ; one 
 guarded, too, by many artificial bulwarks, 
 unknown in the open champaign, or great 
 levels, of society. 
 
 In provincial situations, and even in such 
 towns as Bath, York, and Edinburgh, the 
 defences are, from natural and obvious 
 causes, far less impregnable than in London. 
 Again, in localities where there is a class of 
 gentry and another of professional people, 
 the danger of the caste immediately below, 
 breaking through the out-works, and either 
 sapping and mining, or forcing their way 
 forward, is not nearly so great as in such 
 places as Birmingham, Liverpool, and Glas- 
 gow, where the professional section is closely 
 dependent upon the commercial division, and 
 where there are few or no gentry. But this is 
 again counterbalanced by the great traffickers 
 and manufacturers of the trading towns, 
 keeping out the smaller fry of retail dealers 
 and tradesmen. 
 
 The Central Exclusives, those whose 
 head-quarters is in the metropolis, possess 
 another immense advantage over all provin- 
 cialists, from acting in combination and as 
 one compact alert body, whose decision is 
 law, and whose laws are like those of the 
 Medes and Persians. The Central Exclusives 
 those of Almacks and the Clubs form, 
 in fact, the best organized Union in the three 
 kingdoms. 
 
 But if it be a mistake to believe that 
 Exclusivism is confined to a small section 
 among the higher ranks, it is equally so to 
 imagine that the Exclusives are a new sect, 
 though, we confess, they have of late become 
 more active and prominent, from having been 
 compelled to stand to their guns by the 
 incessant inroads of the millionaires, and 
 other poachers and unqualified persons. We 
 have no doubt that the body may be traced 
 up to the Conquest, when the Norman Ex- 
 clusives crushed the Saxon pretenders. We 
 see them distinctly acting in concert ever 
 after the Restoration ; and in the reign of 
 George II., we find from the letters of Horace 
 Walpole, (a choice member of the society,) 
 
 and from other great authorities, that they 
 were formally incorporated. Then was laid 
 the foundation of Ahuacks' Society, and then, 
 too, we first perceive the origin of high play 
 in the private apartments of the fair leudeia 
 among the Exclusives. 
 
 Of the Exclusives of the higher caste, we 
 have, for some years past, heard quite enough 
 through their oracles, the fashionable novels. 
 The minor Exclusives, those of the infinite 
 gradations of the middle rank, who occupy 
 the smaller towns, and the genteel villages, 
 are a more fertile and amusing, as well as a 
 more novel subject of study. 
 
 Into the high central class there is clearly 
 no forcing a way, though the entrance may 
 sometimes be yielded to immense wealth, and 
 to brilliant talent, especially if found in foreign 
 artists capable of adroit flattery ; but in such 
 small places as Bath, military and professional 
 Exclusives, and those of the inferior gentry, 
 will often be seen to approach and amalga- 
 mate ; though even there the " moneyed 
 interest " is not permitted to intrude too 
 far, at least not en masse, upon the military 
 and aristocratic order. Exceptions which 
 may be noted every day, rather confirm than 
 disprove the general rule. Temporary vogue 
 will carry a man forward, and in some 
 localities a blue or red ribbon, and in others 
 an alderman's chain, will at once invest the 
 fortunate wearer with the Brahminical string, 
 and entitle him to the privileges of the highest 
 caste in his immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 Many minor considerations affect the 
 principle of Exclusivism. Space is an 
 important element. A man who has made 
 his fortune by sugar and rum in Jamaica 
 has fewer obstacles to contend with than an 
 equally rich distiller or sugar-refiner at home. 
 The reason is obvious. Numbers in this, as 
 in every other condition of human affairs, 
 modify the principle of Exclusivism. It can 
 act with force and entire independence only 
 where people are congregated in considerable 
 masses. Hence the London barristers, as a 
 body, exclude the inferior order of attorneys ; 
 while in Dublin and Edinburgh, the coun- 
 sellors and solicitors, the advocates and W T .S.s, 
 take tlifir whisky-toddy together on pretty 
 familiar and equal terms, agreeing only to 
 keep out, to exclude, the tradesmen and shop- 
 keepers. 
 
 Professional Exclusivism admits of some 
 few exceptions in favour of commerce. A 
 man who deals in bank notes and bills 
 who keeps a money-shop, in short however 
 considered by the higher aristocracy, is
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 2C3 
 
 always held as an equal by the gentlemen of 
 the learned professions, though the military 
 order may frequently question his claims. 
 There are two remarkable exceptions allowed 
 among traffickers. Those who deal in wines 
 and in books, if not quite equal in rank, 
 come next in order to the professional Ex- 
 clusives of the learned faculties, and are 
 freely admitted into their society, particularly 
 if they game and give dinners. Gentlemen 
 farmers formed another exception during the 
 era of war-prices and yeomanry cavalry ; 
 while bakers, butchers, shoemakers, haber- 
 dashers, &c. &c. &c., can with difficulty rise 
 even by the aid of great wealth and Esquire- 
 ship, or absolute retirement from business. 
 They may purchase estates, and become 
 squires, and marry women " of condition ; " 
 but the way in which their money was 
 acquired must exclude at least that genera- 
 tion. Their gold smells of the shop. 
 
 The whist-table and reading-room Exclu- 
 sives of such small places as Lichfield or 
 Huntingdon, Dumfries or Inverness, are 
 often compelled to give way, on account of 
 their limited numbers, though no Exclusives 
 whatever are more zealous and clamorous in 
 defending the barriers, than those of small 
 towns blessed with a " genteel society." In 
 such localities, the fantastic tricks of the 
 Proteus principle, become most amusing, 
 the admission of the curate, and the exclusion 
 of the schoolmaster ; the welcome to the 
 poor surgeon, and the denial to the rich 
 apothecary ; the all-hail to the gay, poor 
 half-pay officer, and the rebuff to the rich 
 smart mercer, beget exquisite scenes ; 
 especially when the interest is complicated 
 by the apothecary having married the niece 
 
 of the rector, and the haberdasher being 
 betrothed to the sister of the surgeon. 
 
 In brief, we hold that this country is as 
 thickly studded with Exclusive circles, as is 
 the sky with stars in a frosty night ; and 
 that the only difference between them, mag- 
 nitude and lustre, is frequently delusive. 
 
 It would be an endless task to examine 
 how the circumfluent, and converging bodies 
 of Exclusives affect each other. Their broad 
 distinctions we have pointed out ; but thou- 
 sands of minute ramifications are to be traced. 
 Thus the pretensions to Exclusivism are 
 locally affected by the town, street, dwelling, 
 and the floor thereof, occupied by an aspirant. 
 
 The pew in church, in which a fair Ex- 
 clusive in a small town may sit, becomes 
 relatively as important as the box of an 
 Exclusive duchess in the Opera-House. 
 Good birth, added to the wealth of Craesus, 
 would not, at this day, sustain for one season 
 the pretensions of a fashionable family who 
 lived in the Cauongate or Cowgate of Edin- 
 burgh, though here resided the court, the 
 nobility, and gentry of Scotland and though 
 the mansions are the same, and the breath of 
 Heaven smells as wooingly as ever. The 
 Exclusives of Russell Square are, in their 
 rule, quite as rigid against the denizens of 
 Thames Street, as are the more brilliant 
 society of Grosvenor Square against them- 
 selves.* 
 
 Exclusiceness, though not a more firmly 
 established principle among women than 
 men, is certainly more active in its demon- 
 strations with the sex. The status of the 
 wife is, as in all other cases, fixed by the 
 rank of the husband ; but there are many 
 peculiarities created fcy the present condition 
 
 * No one can have lived long in this world, without seeing many amusing, and even ludicrous instances of the 
 working of this mischievous spirit. To pass minor ones, we have seen a whole splendid quarter in a city con- 
 signed for a time to desertion, and ultimately to degradation, because a rich dealer in gin had bought a palace 
 there. The gin was an objectionable article certainly, but there would, we fear, have been no exception even 
 for mild, innocent milk, or useful shoes. Some years back, one of those many abortive attempts at establishing 
 sociality on equal terms in a proud, provincial city, had a diverting result. Card, and dancing assemblies were 
 projected, upon the footing of the society of Almacks ! the admissions to be granted, in the same manner, by a 
 tribunal of patronesses. The wife of an attorney or W.S. of " no family," had, of course, no pretensions, in her 
 own person, to act as one of the Lady patronesses ; but it was alleged, that through her influence with her daughter, 
 whose claim from marriage with a small highland laird conferred a qualification for office, she interfered with all 
 claims, and settled them as she pleased, one dissentient lady being sufficient to exclude any claimant from so very 
 select and fashionable a society. Among the black-balled were the wife, and, consequently, the daughters of a 
 medical practitioner, who was, at the same time, a man of ancient family, and a Professor in the University of 
 the town. The misfortune of the excluded family was, that their head practised that branch of his profession 
 cultivated by Dr. Slop ; and no " Howdie's wife," as his lady was politely designated, could be admitted into the 
 Northern Almacks ! that was poz. 
 
 The case naturally created a great sensation, particularly in the female and fashionable world. Each lady had 
 her partisans ; and the rejected candidate was so far successful as to carry her cause to the appellate jurisdiction 
 of Almacks Proper which certainly ought to be the court of final resort. The memorials were, no doubt, pro- 
 perly weighed and considered by that august tribunal, though the decision was got rid of by a blistering side- 
 wind a sheer south-easter; it being declared, that " all the parties concerned the wives and daughters of 
 Writers to the Signet, Scotch Professors, and small Highland lairds would be held equally inadmissible to 
 Almacks ! " The decision, we believe, gave general satisfaction.
 
 264 
 
 MRS. .MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 of women in Britain. Thus, the daughter 
 of the poor professional man, or military 
 officer, starving in gentility, looks with scorn, 
 not only upon the child of the wealthy trades- 
 man, but upon every young woman of her 
 own rank, who, in similar circumstances 
 with herself, ventures to turn her acquire- 
 ments to any useful purpose. The son of a 
 poor gentleman may, without degradation, 
 become a tutor, or physician, or clergyman ; 
 but if his daughter should condescend to 
 become a governess or music-teacher, she 
 inevitably forfeits caste. She may, with 
 impunity, sink into a dependent or a toad- 
 eater, or exhibit her beauty and talents iipon 
 the public stage ; but, as a teacher of her 
 own sex, she may be personally respected, 
 but yet she is socially degraded. To earn 
 her bread by other modes of female industry 
 is yet worse. It is a cause of reproach to 
 Southey and Coleridge, which one genera- 
 tion will scarce obliterate, that their wives 
 were milliners, young women who, instead 
 of remaining idle, useless, and helpless crea- 
 tures, burdens upon their relatives and society, 
 actually exercised their organs of construc- 
 tiveness upon gauze and ribbons, to main- 
 tain their personal independence and dignity. 
 The biographers of Mrs. Siddons think it 
 necessary to vindicate her memory from the 
 alarming charge of having been, for a short 
 time, a servant in a quiet gentleman's family, 
 the disgrace of smoothing linen or scrub- 
 bing tables being, to a lovely young female, 
 so much greater, it would appear, than the 
 danger and degradation of the exposed con- 
 dition of a strolling player, it being, no 
 doubt, so much more difficult to preserve 
 the innate delicacy and propriety of the 
 female character in the kitchen than upon 
 the village stage, where the airs and graces of 
 the young actress, her doublet and hose, and 
 bare bosom, may be exposed with impunity to 
 every bumpkin who can muster a shilling. 
 
 These caprices and anomalies of the prin- 
 ciple of Exdusivism have led us far away 
 from the story which suggested the above 
 observations one of Exclusivism as it exists 
 among the minor orders of the middle class, 
 and as it is modified by their peculiar social 
 condition. Many of our readers will be 
 better able to judge of the truth of the por- 
 traiture than ourselves, though we consider 
 its faithful resemblance, even where the like- 
 ness is but faintly expressed. 
 
 About the year of trade, 18 , Mr. Mark 
 laike was considered one of the most thriv- 
 
 ing grocers in all Glasgow. He had been 
 many years in business, and was all but set 
 down Ly the ladies of his neighbourhood as 
 a confirmed bachelor, when a rumour was 
 suddenly revived, that he only waited the 
 expiration of a six months of mourning, to 
 obtain the hand of Miss Barbara Peaston, 
 who had rejected him some seven years 
 before, as neither genteel, nor yet improveable 
 in manners or calling. 
 
 The mourning was in honour of an aunt 
 by whom the young lady had been brought 
 up, and whose heiress she was declared. 
 Her fortune of .700 would have been " a 
 good something," to Mr. Mark Luke in for- 
 mer years ; now his might almost be called 
 a love-match, though the lady, besides her 
 actual tocher, had considerable expectations 
 from a brother, who, like many of his com- 
 patriots, had gone to the West Indies to 
 make his fortune, and that done, to die as 
 fast as possible, and leave it to his weeping 
 relatives. True, he was young, and might 
 marry, which his sister was indeed contin- 
 ually hoping he would, though she probably 
 never seriously doubted the other conclusion 
 of his history ; an "event so common, that in 
 looking around upon her female acquaintance 
 with legacies, it seemed only the ordinary and 
 proper course of nature. 
 
 Thus the lady possessed both fortune and 
 expectations ; and the Trongate had at last 
 the satisfaction of witnessing the consumma- 
 tion of the felicity of Miss Barbara Peaston 
 and Mr. Mark Luke. 
 
 So early as nine o'clock, one fine June 
 morning, Miss Penny Parlane, a particular 
 friend of the bride's, arrived at the apart- 
 ments of Miss Betty Bogle, another intimate 
 friend, to watch, from the window, the 
 chaise roll off with the thrice-blest pair 
 towards the Falls of Clyde, on their wedding 
 jaunt. 
 
 " Wedding-jaunt, indeed ! as wise-like 
 Mark had staid at home and looked after the 
 shop," said the former lady. " He'll need 
 all his orra pennies to maintain the state of 
 Miss Baby, or I'm far mistaken." 
 
 " Ye are not far wrang there, Mem ; but 
 as Mrs. Duncan Smith had a marriage-jaunt, 
 how could Baby Peaston put ower with less? 
 But oh the chaise is long of making its 
 appearance! It's a Tontine chaise black 
 and green. It went first up the street for 
 the minister, and it's a strucken hour since 
 then, by my watch. What if there should 
 have been another blow-up ! " 
 
 " So ye heard of the stramash about Mark
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 2G5 
 
 wanting to have the power of her tocher? 
 the swine had near run through the match. 
 It was like to be a dead split upon settle- 
 ments he ! he ! he ! However, Baby had 
 wit in her anger. Seeing better could not be, 
 she came o' will, and took simple Mark iu 
 her own hand ; and I doubt not she'll make 
 her jointure out just as well that way as by 
 contract." 
 
 " Ay, a bride come to the years of discre- 
 tion may be expected to act discreetly ; 
 but surely something has hindered the cere- 
 mony." 
 
 " I can't think Baby is so much older than 
 Mark, as they say," rejoined Miss Bogle ; 
 (Baby was only ten years younger;) "though 
 when I was not the height of that stool, I 
 remember her a great flirt at Mr. Skreecham's 
 singing school, in the Ram's-horn Kirk, with 
 my oldest sister, and just as big and woman- 
 like as she is this day." 
 
 " And that will be above thirty years ago," 
 returned the other, in a dry marked tone, 
 dropping her eyes. "I warrant Baby a 
 Dumbarton youth, any way, and that is well 
 known to be six-and-thirty good. However, 
 that's Mark's business, not ours, and, no 
 doubt, she will have the more sense tr 
 manage him and his family : but I cannot 
 get over my surprise that so old a friend as 
 you, Miss Bogle, were not invited to witness 
 the ceremony. Ye have heard, no doubt, 
 that the great Mrs. Duncan Smith though 
 there was some kind of curtshying acquain- 
 tance refused to let her eldest lassie be 
 best maiden at the bridal : Mean and 
 pitiful as it was of Baby Peaston to ask that 
 small favour at her hand, it was as insolent 
 of Madam Smith to refuse what never is 
 refused. What does that woman think her- 
 self, I wonder, that nothing in Glasgow is 
 good enough for her ? I had it from a sure 
 hand that her remark was, 'If I let my 
 daughter be bride's maid to a grocer's wife, 
 I suppose I must next visit and be visited by 
 the grocer. I will do no such thing; that 
 sort of people must be kept off from the first, 
 give them an inch, they'll take an ell.' 
 But surely that's the chaise now !" 
 
 Both ladies once more started to their feet. 
 It was undeniably the Tontine chaise, which 
 whirled past as if conscious of the high 
 destinies it contained. 
 
 " Mr. Luke ! Mr. Luke ! " cried the bride ; 
 " do not, I beseech you, look the way of Miss 
 Betty Bogle's windows ; there's Penny Par- 
 lane's grey eyne, I' m sure, glowering ower 
 the blind to spy ferlies." 
 
 And the bride jerked forward her head 
 that the ensconced ladies might have a satis- 
 factory view of her white satin hat and its 
 snowy " swaling" plumes ; and then rolled 
 rapidly away to that memorable examination 
 of the Hamilton House Picture Gallery, 
 which enabled Mrs. Mark Luke to descant on 
 the Fine Arts for fifteen years afterwards, 
 and her husband to wonder at her astonish- 
 ing memory. 
 
 "A white satin hat and ostrich feathers I" 
 exclaimed Miss Parlane, throwing herself 
 back on her chair, " useful, sensible head- 
 dress, for Mark Luke's wife ! Will she go 
 behind the counter wi' them? or have the 
 face to put her foot within the Kirk of St. 
 John's decked out in that style, not eight 
 months after her aunty's burial ?" 
 
 The ladies now proceeded seriatim to the 
 discussion of the extravagant trousseau, or, 
 as they called it, the Wedding Sou* of Mrs. 
 Mark Luke. Some half dozen laced night- 
 caps, in particular, made by a pattern fur- 
 tively obtained from the laundress of Mrs. 
 Duncan Smith, were enough of themselves to 
 bring down a visible judgment upon the 
 Trongate, and ruin upon the shop and trade 
 of Mr. Mark Luke. 
 
 The fair friends were however among the 
 very first to pay their compliments to the 
 bride upon her return from Cora Linn, and 
 afterwards to drink tea with her. Their 
 joint report was, that he was a wonderful 
 kind brother that Bob Peaston in Demerara. 
 Many a ring and silk gown he sent his sister, 
 of which the very moral had been seen in 
 Mr. Trinkum's window in Argyle Street, the 
 day before. However, they daresayed, " Mark 
 could stand it ; he had a capital business, 
 and he would need it. Baby had aye boded 
 a silk gown, and she was likely to get a 
 sleeve." 
 
 And here our history, limited in space, 
 may leave Mrs. Mark Luke for the next ten 
 years, during which she continued to live 
 and to dress as like the Smiths as possible, 
 that is to say, as expensively and finely as 
 " circumstances," Mark's "peculiar temper," 
 and her own good sense permitted ; for she 
 was only relatively, not positively, either a 
 fool or extravagant. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Mr. Mark Luke had so 
 extended his trade and prospered in all his 
 shares, and stocks, and speculations, that he 
 was considered a very wealthy man, not only 
 
 * One of the many terms the Scots derive from the 
 French.
 
 266 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 for one in his way but in any way. One of 
 his wife's miseries was, that she never could 
 ascertain the actual amount of Mark's 
 fortune. 
 
 Philosophers have said, that human beings 
 change completely in seven years ; but in 
 eight, though Mrs. Mark Luke was con- 
 siderably a different woman, she was not 
 become wholly new. In nine cases out of 
 ten, wives are always genteeler and have more 
 taste than their husbands. Where the re- 
 verse holds, we have generally remarked, 
 that that is an uncomfortable household. 
 Mr. Luke's family followed the general rule. 
 His lady always more ambitious, more re- 
 fined, more every thing, was at the end of 
 ten years become prodigiously more genteel, 
 though she was no longer either quite so 
 good-looking or half so good-humoured. The 
 gradual process of refinement had been carried 
 on chiefly at the small watering-places which 
 she frequented. The history of these summer 
 lodgings, and the society into which they 
 threw Mrs. Mark Luke, had we time to pur- 
 sue it, would completely show the several 
 stages of the progress and polishing of man- 
 ners among Exclusives in the West. There 
 was, first, the bedroom at Gourock, where 
 the neighbourhood was vulgar ; next, the 
 parlour with the bed thrust out of sight into 
 a dark closet, at Roseneath decidedly the 
 more genteel ; next, the airy lodging, of two 
 or three apartments at Rothesay ; and lastly 
 but we have not yet got to Largs. 
 
 The most remarkable incidents of these 
 years, were the birth of Marjory Robina ; a 
 scandalous story about the purloining of a 
 London-made baby's frock, by an English 
 servant of Mrs. Duncan Smith's, the dis- 
 missal of the girl, and her reception in the 
 family of Mrs. Luke ; and the death of that 
 lady's brother in St. Kitt's, of a second attack 
 of the yellow fever, without a will, prodi- 
 giously rich, no doubt of it, and his sister his 
 only heir. His affairs were, however, "in great 
 confusion ; " and Mr. Mark Luke thought 
 within himself that Mrs. Mark Luke assumed 
 fully more consequence from the St. Kitt's 
 fortune than was needful, until the assets 
 were forthcoming. But she was not the less 
 Mrs. Mark Luke, and the mother of Mysie, 
 who was become, at five years old, the very 
 apple of Mark's eye. Her white cheeks now 
 powerfully enforced her mother's annual 
 pleading for the bracing air of Largs, instead 
 of that of Glasgow, or even of Gourock, or 
 Dunoon, or any other spot she had ever 
 visited before, in quest of health. For why? 
 
 The Smiths had already been two years at 
 Largs, with several other genteel Glasgow 
 families ; and the old haunts were evidently 
 falling into comparative neglect and disre- 
 pute. Mr. Luke, as we have intimated, 
 dearly loved little Mysie ; and the child 
 being, as we have said, only five years old, 
 and not having yet discovered how essentially 
 vulgar her father and his calling were, loved 
 him in return, without abatement of affection, 
 either on account of groceries, china, or 
 common crockery, a profitable new branch 
 which Mark had commenced, in spite of the 
 angry pleading of his lady, for whom it had 
 obtained the cognomen of the Pigwife among 
 the Smiths, and all the lodgers and bathers 
 in rank " above her." 
 
 Mark, moreover, loved a quiet life quiet, 
 but busy grudging even the few hours 
 which his hebdomadal visit to the coast, kept 
 him out of the shop on a Monday morning 
 after the regular hour of opening. 
 
 This state of things brings us to the spring 
 and hot summer of 181G ; which saw Mark 
 a Bank Director in Ordinary, and Mrs. Mark 
 Luke and her daughter, and confidential 
 maid-servant she who stole the frock, or 
 rather the pattern set down in a lodging at 
 Largs, and in hourly view of the " Beautiful, 
 lately finished Marine Villa of Halcyon 
 Bank." So it was described in the adver- 
 tisements, with its " splendid sea-views, and 
 well-stocked garden ; fruit-trees and bushes 
 in full bearing ; three-stall stable, and gig- 
 house ; fitted up with hot and cold baths 
 catacomb wine cellar, and a conservatory 
 finished to the glazing." How often on rainy 
 days did Mrs. Mark Luke sigh, and look, 
 peruse that advertisement, and sigh again ! 
 
 The proprietor and late occupier of Hal- 
 cyon Bank, was a West Indian planter, who 
 had gone to Demerara at eighteen, as a book- 
 keeper without a groat, and returned, at 
 forty-five, half ruined by the fall of colonial 
 produce, to build Halcyon Bank, and lay out 
 its grounds. 
 
 In his first fever of constructiveness, this 
 ruined man had spared no pains to complete 
 and accomplish the marine villa, at all points, 
 as a permanent residence for a man of fortune ; 
 but he calculated without his hostess, a mis- 
 take as dangerous as reckoning without the 
 host. His best excuse was, that at this time 
 he had no such Avomaii with whom to reckon. 
 Next summer, she was found in the person 
 of a young lady from Edinburgh, then on a 
 visit in Ayrshire ; and in 1816, she had the 
 pleasure of withdrawing him to a more
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 267 
 
 "eligible neighbourhood." Halcyon Bank, 
 though far from perfect as a residence, for 
 it had but one drawing-room, and that only 
 twenty-eight feet by nineteen, would have 
 been endurable to Mrs. Gengebre, though 
 accustomed all her life to a suite of " recep- 
 tion rooms," save for the society, the horrid 
 society of the West ! 
 
 Mrs. Gengebre could not decide which class 
 of the West-country people was the most 
 odious, the molasses and rum, or the mus- 
 lin and twist Magnificoes, who looked as if 
 they despised Demerara fortunes of ,,55,000, 
 even when administered by the daughter of 
 an Edinburgh advocate or the Glasgow and 
 Paisley shopocracy, and small-fry manufac- 
 turers, who, every season, rushed, in all 
 their finery, down upon the sea-coast and 
 into the water, as if bit by mad dogs ; jostling, 
 elbowing, and galling the kibes of their betters. 
 There was positively no enduring them, and 
 no keeping them off. 
 
 In vain, indeed, had the Exclusives re- 
 treated, year after year, before the spreading 
 shoals of the Huns, who, unlike the herrings 
 which lead the bottle-nose whales and por- 
 poises round the lochs and bays, are always 
 led by the great fish. From Roseneath the 
 comme-il-faut squadron had been beaten back 
 to Helensburgh. Hence they retreated, in 
 good order, to Rothesay ; but the enemy 
 advanced by steam. Largs was no sanctuary ; 
 Arran itself no refuge at last ; and still the 
 spring note following that of the cuckoo, was, 
 " They come." 
 
 " Jura would prove no hiding place," 
 so prophesied Mrs. Gengebre ; and if respec- 
 table people fled to St. Kilda itself, thither, 
 she was morally certain, the ambitious and 
 restless canaille would bend their sails. 
 
 " But what the worse are we 1 " said Mr. 
 Gengebre, for the fiftieth time. Mrs. Gen- 
 gebre had one unfailing argument, and but 
 one, suited to her husband's understanding, 
 in the present reduced state of colonial pro- 
 duce. 
 
 " The worse, Mr. Gengebre ! Do you not 
 see, sir, how these hordes enhance the price 
 of every commodity requisite in a family. 
 Butter is a penny a-pound dearer than last 
 year ; poultry, but there is, indeed, no 
 buying it : to retain our plain, quiet style of 
 living and dressing in this neighbourhood, is 
 out of the question. In short, Mr. Gengebre, 
 we cannot afford it." 
 
 Mr. Gengebre was much struck with the 
 sudden prudence of his wife. " It was not," 
 her female cousin who came from Edinburgh 
 
 to assist in the removal, said " it was not 
 to be planted among such a set, that Anne 
 Lennox had sacrificed her youth, beauty, 
 and accomplishments to that yellow-brown 
 elderly gentleman, not to be planted among 
 off-sets of sugar canes and cotton stalks, far 
 away from the refined and polite society to 
 which she had always been accustomed." 
 
 The summer of 1816 witnessed, accordingly, 
 one of those connected changes perpetually 
 going on in society. In that season Mr. and 
 Mrs. Bethel set off from the Marine Parade, 
 Brighton, for a tour and residence of some 
 duration in Rhenish Germany ; Mr. and Mrs. 
 Winram, in the same week, left their villa 
 at Inveresk, Musselburgh, and arrived in due 
 time in the Marine Parade, Brighton ; and 
 the proprietors of Halcyon Bank were so 
 fortunate as to obtain that " capital mansion" 
 which the Winrams had deserted, and that, 
 they were assured, in the face of ten other 
 applicants. 
 
 The changes did not stop here. James 
 Howison, foreman to Walkinshaws and Wal- 
 kinshaw, Glasgow, entered the small house 
 lately inhabited by Mr. Robert Fur-nishins, 
 tailor ; who took possession, at Whitsunday, 
 of " that comfortable, airy, roomy, first-flat, 
 consisting of dining-room, parlour, three 
 bed-rooms, cellar in the area, and right to 
 the common green, the whole as lately 
 occupied by Mark Luke, Esquire ! " 
 
 Though Mrs. Mark Luke thought it was 
 taking a very great liberty to harl their 
 name through the papers in connexion with 
 aflat in the Trongate, there was consolation 
 in the Esquire. Meanwhile, our chain is not 
 complete in all its links ; for Mrs. Mark Luke 
 had not yet attained the now tenantless 
 terrestrial Paradise of Halcyon Bank, the 
 ultimate point of her inhabitive ambition. 
 But she had taken up a position, sat down 
 in front of it, and, in military phrase, masked 
 it. Mr. Mark Luke had been contented, on 
 his frugal wife's suggestion, of saving a half- 
 year's rent, to pack away his furniture in 
 his warehouse ; and Mrs. Mark Luke vowed 
 in her secret heart that she should never 
 return to Glasgow, to any place less dignified 
 than a Square ; or, at all eventsj a street- 
 door and " a house within itself." 
 
 What were the motives and consequences 
 of these connected movements ? Mr. and 
 Mrs. Bethel of Bethel's Court saw that they 
 must retrench ; but carrying London and 
 Brighton habits along with them, tliey also 
 found that retrenchment was not so easy of 
 accomplishment, even in cheap Rhenish Ger-
 
 2G8 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 many, and were discontented, as a matter 
 of course. The Winrams had gone to 
 Brighton, to be "more in the way of their 
 friends," that is, of those who could help 
 them to appointments for their sons, and 
 establishments for their daughters, and 
 found themselves as much out of the way 
 of such friends as-ever. The late mistress of 
 Halcyon Bank was satisfied for a time, as 
 she "had got back to the world." But the 
 tailor who had taken possession of the late 
 domicile of Mrs. Mark Luke, was charmed 
 with so capital a situation for business ; and 
 the large small family of the Walkinshaws' 
 foreman were perfectly transported with the 
 additional elbow-room, of one more closet for 
 two more children and a wife's mother. The 
 Furnishins alone thoroughly enjoyed their 
 removal and new situation. 
 
 For a time our heroine, Mrs. Mark Luke, 
 was tolerably satisfied with her genteel 
 lodging, and with gazing at the ticket among 
 the hollies of Halycon Bank, and wondering 
 when that St. Kitt's attorney would make 
 such a remittance as might enable her to lay 
 the subject before Mark with effect. 
 
 The first Sunday he came down, she led 
 him that way, as they took their evening 
 walk en famille. The green peas they had 
 at dinner were bought from the person who 
 had charge of the house, " Not a worm in 
 them," Mrs. Mark Luke remarked ; " the 
 garden certainly was productive, the adver- 
 tisement told no lie in that ; and the flowers 
 were so fresh and luxuriant. How could 
 that fine Edinburgh lady, Mrs. Gengebre, 
 leave such a paradise ? " 
 
 " There's a worm in every mortal thing, 
 my doo," moralized Mark ; " Ye see Halycon 
 Bank and all its beauties could not content 
 the craving heart of Mrs. Gengebre, poor 
 woman. 
 
 Man never is, but always to be blest, Baby." 
 
 " Huts, tuts, that's true in a sense, Mr. 
 Luke, and very proper Sabbath night's dis- 
 course it is ; but she who was not content 
 with this gem for a summer-place must be 
 an unreasonable woman." 
 
 June, July, and August passed, and still 
 the ticket shone among the green hollies, 
 and still the Luke family, by tacit consent, 
 directed their steps thitherward. Mr. Mark 
 Luke would now affectionately lift up little 
 Mysie to have a peep through the sweet-brier 
 and privet hedges flourishing within the 
 railings, while the exclamatory admiration 
 of this the 
 
 Sole daughter of his house and heart, 
 
 enhanced every charm to her admiring 
 parent. 
 
 " You would be a good girl and learn your 
 First Book well, if papa would take you to 
 live in that braw, bonny house, Mysie, dear?" 
 said sly Mrs. Mark Luke, who, years after- 
 wards, wont to remark that, from the first 
 sight of the ticket, it was borne in on her 
 mind that she was to live in Halycon Bank. 
 It was somehow she could not tell how 
 but so it was. The presentiment, in our 
 opinion, denoted, at least, the foregone con- 
 clusion of worrying or concussing Mr. Mark 
 Luke into the purchase of the marine villa, 
 which she was astonished to see so overlooked 
 in the market. But nobody could know of 
 it. 
 
 The nights of October now looked rousingly 
 in the illuminated Trongate. The apothe- 
 cary's windows flamed ruby, emerald, and 
 sapphire ; Mr. Furnishins' work-shop, with 
 its three windows, looked like one huge gas- 
 lamp, and Mrs. Mark Luke, in the early part 
 of the month, obtained a town dwelling, with 
 that great object of her ambition, a Main 
 Door of which the dignity, nicely appre- 
 ciated on the local scale of gentility, might 
 be reckoned about two and a half degrees in 
 better fashion than her abandoned " capital 
 first flat." Settled here, she selected some 
 new carpets, and cut some old acquaintances ; 
 and issued a household edict, that, from that 
 day, on pain of the housemaid's instant dis- 
 missal, little Mysie was to be styled " Miss 
 Luke." 
 
 At the house-wanning Mark saw few of 
 the old familiar faces, nor were the new what 
 his wife entirely approved, but they were, 
 at least, as much in advance of the old set, 
 as was her house. Great ladies have an 
 uncommon advantage over such votaries of 
 fashion as our Mrs. Mark Luke. All their 
 nobodies were to her somebodies, in spite of 
 herself ; and very troublesome somebodies, 
 too. Kindred by blood and marriage it 
 was impossible, with Scottish prejudices and 
 customs, to get easily rid of ; and though 
 she readily perceived, that not to be excluded, 
 she must first become rigidly exclusive herself, 
 this was not all at once so easily accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke was, indeed, become a 
 woman of many sorrows. There was no 
 stopping the tongues of Penny Parlane and 
 Betty Bogle, even when she admitted them 
 to her tea-parties and it was much worse 
 when they were excluded ; nor yet of depre- 
 cating the contempt of the Smiths. It was
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 269 
 
 hard for her, as she told her confidential 
 maid, " to say whether her own relations or 
 Mark's were the most troublesome and 
 intrusive, now that she, the mother of an 
 only girl, of considerable expectations, found 
 it necessary, in duty to her child, to move in 
 a different sphere. It was so very imper- 
 tinent and provoking in the Sprot girls, 
 Mark's Saltcoat nieces, to come up to Glas- 
 gow, when, though obliged to ask them, they 
 might have known she did not want them ; 
 and then to be aunty-auntying at her at the 
 Bairns' Ball, even while Mrs. Dr. Wilson 
 was politely talking to her, and while Master 
 James was waltzing with Miss Luke." 
 
 But the winter campaign was as yet scarce 
 opened. It at first promised fair, though 
 the demon of small ambitions, he whose 
 name, verily, is Legion, was about to play 
 his scurvy tricks, as usual, to Mrs. Mark 
 Luke. In the first years of her married life, 
 
 the Rev. Dr. was at the height of his 
 
 vogue as a preacher, and it was about as 
 difficult to obtain a good pew in his church 
 in Glasgow, as a good box at the Italian 
 Opera House, in London, in a very full 
 season ; and equally the subject of anxiety 
 and ambition to Exdusives, Mrs. Mark Luke 
 had sat for some years under a gallery where 
 her well furbelowed pelisses, and, undeniably, 
 Edinburgh bonnets, were seen to little ad- 
 vantage. From this eclipse she had, in three 
 years, wriggled forward only two pews. 
 She could not hear, she told Mr. Luke, where 
 she sat, she should have said she could 
 not see, nor be Been. The Luke name had 
 been on the vacant seat list for all that time ; 
 and it was exceedingly provoking not to get 
 a proper seat. It was so pleasant, too, to 
 have a place for a stranger. 
 
 " You are lady of your wish at last, good- 
 wife," said Mark, as he came into dinner one 
 day, in a peculiarly bright humour. 
 
 " Ye have bought it !" exclaimed Mrs. Mark 
 Luke, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. Mark 
 understood this well: "Halcyon Bank." 
 
 " You have the seats, goodwife." 
 
 " In the Smiths' pew ? " Mr. Mark Luke 
 nodded affirmatively. " The whole pew, 
 Mr. Luke ? " Now Mrs. Mark Luke did 
 not wish for the whole she wanted genteel 
 companionship. 
 
 " Only two seats, near the pulpit, for my 
 mother and you to hear. I can shift about : 
 or take the elders' seat when at the plate." 
 
 The arrangement did not exactly please. 
 Mark himself, even with all her pains, 
 was far from being so polished in manners as 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke could have wished ; but 
 his ill-dressed vulgar old mother, in her brown 
 bombazeens, who spoke so broad Glasgow ? 
 
 For the Smiths' sake she would not 
 
 submit to putting such a pewmate upon them ; 
 but it would not do to be rash on this point. 
 Mark had his pride too. 
 
 The places in this most enviable pew had 
 been those of a widow lady and her daughter, 
 who had neglected to secure them in time ; 
 and " first come first served," was the free- 
 trade maxim of Mark Luke. 
 
 " Mrs. John Smith and Miss Bella should 
 have taken their seats before they gaed to 
 the Troon," said he. 
 
 " Went to Ardrossan, Mr. Luke, my dear. 
 You know how anxious I am that Miss 
 Luke acquire, from the first, a correct pro- 
 nunciation, and that no improper word reach 
 her ear ; for what do I give such wages to 
 the English girl we obtained from Mrs. 
 Smith's family five pounds in the half 
 year?" 
 
 "Ardrossan be it, goodwife ; and bid the 
 English lass with the burr, bring ben the 
 hotch-potch, for I 'm in a hurry to-day." 
 
 " Hodge-podge, Mr. Luke ! " 
 
 " Hocus-pocus if ye like, Mrs. Luke, only 
 let us have dinner ; I 'm in haste and 
 pressed with a power of orders from Cumnock 
 and Kilmarnock, and the shop standing to 
 the door full of carriers." 
 
 So pleasant to the ears of Mrs. Mark Luke 
 was it to hear of a power of orders, that 
 polished as she always was, and purist as she 
 was lately become, she constrained herself 
 to overlook any vulgarity of language and 
 pronunciation at this time, and to hasten 
 dinner. She was also absorbed by the new 
 church-seats. In the course of the summer 
 she had frequently seen at Largs, her haughty 
 and unconscious future pew-fellows, the Ex- 
 clusive Smiths. " Mighty gentry to be 
 sure they were, though Miss Penny Parlane's 
 father remembered old Smith, a broken farmer 
 in the parish of Delap ; and it was still known 
 to thousands in Glasgow, that Smith himself 
 had been a clerk to the Watertwists for 
 many a year, at 60 ; ay, and had helped 
 himself well, too, or report wronged him." 
 But all this previous knowledge did not now 
 make Mrs. Mark Luke one whit less anxious 
 about her first appearance in their pew. She 
 resolved to be, and to look as unconscious as 
 possible to be neither too haughty nor too 
 humble in her bearing ; and to shape her 
 course by circumstances. She, moreover, 
 reserved her new winter pelisse and bonnet,
 
 270 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 with those of Mysie, for the first Sunday on 
 which the Smiths could be expected. 
 
 It must be understood that the Smiths 
 were a family of the first distinction. Their 
 mother was an " East-country lady," i. e. 
 the daughter of an Edinburgh writer, and 
 their connexions were all either East-country 
 people, or West India people. The son was 
 training for the Scottish bar : Was it in 
 the Fates that the skirt of his black gown 
 might yet be extended over the naked family- 
 tree of Mark Luke, and cover the defects of 
 Miss Mysie's birth ? 
 
 The daughters had been educated by their 
 mother's particular friend, the Madame Cam- 
 pan of the West, whose seminary for young 
 ladies flourished somewhere about the Sauchie 
 Hall Road. 
 
 It is to us quite wonderful, how, by hook 
 or by crook, Mrs. Mark Luke contrived to 
 make herself so thoroughly acquainted with 
 the proceedings, and, indeed, whole internal 
 economy of the Smith family, for as well as 
 they kept her, as Miss Parlane said, at the 
 staff's end. She knew that on the Saturday 
 preceding the Sunday, on which she was to 
 put on her new bonnet, they had a dinner 
 party, and turtle ! and that instead of sherry 
 wine, as in other genteel families, Glasgow 
 punch, styled simply punch, Avas used at 
 table, as something infinitely more fashionable 
 and recherch^, and which, of course, she would 
 have at her next dinner. But poor Mrs. 
 Mark Luke, clever as she was, did not know 
 that, minus the turtle, the punch was out of 
 place and thoroughly vulgar. She had much 
 to learn ; and, indeed, in fashionable life, it 
 is live and learn, so rapid are the shadowy 
 transitions. Never, however, was there a 
 more apt and willing scholar than our Mrs. 
 Mark Luke. 
 
 Among the guests of the Smiths on that 
 day, were, as Mrs. Mark Luke understood, a 
 young advocate from Edinburgh, who, though 
 he had not much to do at the assizes, might 
 probably have still less to call him home ; 
 and a Liverpool merchant of the breed of the 
 Medici, an Exquisite of the counting-house, 
 equally a judge of dry goods and the Fine 
 Arts. Both were desirable men enough in 
 their respective places, though Miss Smith 
 inclined to the cultivated merchant, and Miss 
 Maria admired the literary barrister. Both 
 were most flattered and most happy to be 
 permitted to attend the ladies to church next 
 morning ; and on Saturday night at twelve 
 precisely Maria closed her piano, while Miss 
 Smith "pledged her honour the gentlemen 
 
 would receive one of the richest intellectual 
 treats they had ever enjoyed, in hearing the 
 Doctor. Seats were scarcely to be obtained ; 
 but there was always room, in papa's pew, 
 for friends, who knew how to appreciate 
 eloquence : you know, Maria, Aunt John 
 and Bella can shift about among the Lukes 
 for a day." 
 
 "Oh, that Mrs. Mark Luke will be the 
 death of me ! " exclaimed Maria, laughing. 
 " I met her this morning coming from her 
 marketing, I dare say, poor thing ; and such 
 a set-out ! a black velvet mantle, for all 
 the world like a saulie's cloak, at a funeral." 
 
 " These are the ugly things the fashionable 
 women wear in London this season," said 
 the travelled merchant, in his ignorance and 
 wish to please. The young ladies exchanged 
 looks Maria coloured : was it possible that 
 Mrs. Mark Luke had taken a leap beyond 
 them, stolen a march, and forestalled them 
 in fashionable costume ? So stood the mel- 
 ancholy fact. Money, talent, and activity, 
 will do any thing. 
 
 The Smiths were too genteel a family to 
 be tied down by kirk-going bells. Indepen- 
 dently of the little fuss and bustle which 
 attended all their movements, it was impos- 
 sible to get that lazy rascal Bob out of bed, 
 or Maria dressed in time ; but they generally 
 took their places very soon after the service 
 had commenced. The Lukes, from Mark's 
 love of punctuality, were still an unfashion- 
 ably early family. 
 
 On this eventful morning, Miss Smith was 
 conducted up the passage of the kirk by the 
 Liverpool exquisite, and Miss Maria by the 
 young Edinburgh barrister, while Mr. Smith 
 followed his portly lady : Bob, " the rascal," 
 was probably still brushing his moustaches 
 at home. Miss Smith, at the pew-door, first 
 paused, to give place to her mother, for at 
 the Belle Retiro Establishment etiquette had 
 been most rigidly enforced paused, we have 
 said, and then first turned her eyes upon the 
 family pew. 
 
 O gods, and goddesses, sylphs, gnomes, 
 nixies, pixies, fays, nymphs, brownies, mer- 
 maidens, and water-kelpies ! Spirits of earth, 
 water, air, or of whatsoever element ye be, 
 to whose charge is committed such mighty 
 mortal distinctions as refining sugar by the 
 hogshead, or selling it out by the cwt. or lb., 
 iiiumine the confusion of this injured house- 
 hold, and judge and revenge their cause upon 
 the audacious head of Mrs. Mark Luke ! 
 that vulgar woman ! that grocer's wife ! 
 squatted at the head of papa's pew her
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 271 
 
 flaming, fashionable silks spread out her 
 new gilt Bible on the desk her rings, and 
 jewelled watch, and brooches, a-many, glanc- 
 ing to the October sun : And, oh, horror of 
 horrors ! her complacent simper of recogni- 
 tion and of lawful possession, confirmed by the 
 polite start of Mr. Mark Luke, who rushed 
 out to do the honours of the pew to Mrs. 
 Duncan Smith, and to all the Smith ladies, 
 without perceiving, or seeming in the least 
 conscious of the dilemma in which they were 
 placed by his wife's unimaginable audacity. 
 
 Here indeed was a shock for a Scottish 
 Christian family to sustain upon a Sabbath 
 morning no warning given ! 
 
 Miss Smith vowed in her secret heart, 
 that if her father had the spirit of a flea, 
 (she was only thinking, you know not 
 for the world would she have uttered the 
 shocking Avord,) the whole family would 
 next week become Episcopalians, and for 
 ever abandon a religious community where 
 they had been so monstrously used : " There 
 was, besides, a much genteeler congregation 
 in the Chapel. She had long wished for an 
 opportunity to break off decently from the 
 Kirk, the English service was so sublime, 
 and the organ so beautiful ! " 
 
 In the meanwhile, there was no help for 
 the misadventure ; and the Smith ladies con- 
 descended at last to sit down ; Mr. Mark 
 Luke, in the exuberance of his politeness, 
 taking his place edge-ways upon four inches 
 of sitting-room at the bottom of the bench. 
 But this show of humility in nothing counter- 
 balanced the insult and provocation given 
 by his wife, jtfcm# up ! and maintaining her 
 position with little Mysie at the head of the 
 pew. She even had the effrontery, poor 
 woman, in her simple ignorance, to point out 
 to Miss Maria the psalm at which she was 
 herself singing away unconsciously, during 
 the time of the flurry, as if either psalms or 
 prayers could at this time have concerned 
 the agitated Miss Smith. 
 
 Haughtily reining her neck, and at the 
 same time ludicrously dropping her mouth 
 and eyes, Miss Maria exchanged looks with 
 her indignant sister, while both at a glance 
 seemed to make a rapid inventory and ap- 
 praisement of Mrs. Mark Luke, and her 
 entire set-out. That lady, whatever they 
 might think, was not without quickness of 
 observation, where her self-love was inter- 
 ested, nor yet without pride and resentment. 
 She now tingled with indignation, but 
 shame was the quickly-succeeding feeling : 
 for had she not been palpably detected in the 
 
 vulgar practice of singing the psalm ! Habit 
 had been too powerful for fashion ; just as 
 when she still sometimes mispronounced a 
 Avord, or Used an expression of a kind which 
 neither the delicate substitute of the Lord 
 Chamberlain, nor the matron of the Belle 
 Retiro Establishment could have sanctioned. 
 
 On perceiving her blunder, her naturally 
 good voice died away to a faint quaver 
 
 Fine by degrees, and beautifully less ; 
 and her Paisley science Avas never again dis- 
 played within the walls of St. . It 
 
 had been all very well to sing the psalnij 
 while she sat with her old-fashioned mother- 
 in-laAv, under the gallery. But now 
 
 Upon the very same principle which Mrs. 
 Mark Luke lost her voice, the Smiths ought 
 to have recovered theirs, for as she pushed 
 forward they retreated. 
 
 Mr. Smith would not that Aveek consent 
 to become an Episcopalian, ill as he allowed 
 his wife and daughters had been used ; and 
 the Miss Smiths were consequently compelled 
 to delay their conversion to the genteeler re- 
 ligion until they should marry ; an event 
 which Maria thought could not be very far 
 off IIOAV. He was, however, prevailed with 
 to sanction the exchange of places in church 
 then negotiating between his Avife and the 
 family tailor. 
 
 Here was diamond cut diamond for Mrs. 
 Mark Luke ! Even the oldest and the most 
 sand-blind, and high-gravel blind of the 
 crones early gathered on the pulpit stairs, 
 (afterwards roosted out, by the way, as a 
 vulgar feature,) noticed the new crimson- 
 covered seat, next the door, on which a boy 
 in the Smith livery had early mounted guard ; 
 and in ten minutes afteinvards, Avhile all the 
 bells of Glasgow were ringing out, up the 
 passage marched Mr. Furnishins the tailor, 
 and his wife, and Mr. Brown the dyer, and 
 his wife, following rank and file in the wake 
 or trough of Mrs. Mark Luke's new amber- 
 coloured pelisse, and of her streamers, re- 
 garded as the broad pennant of their new 
 peAv ! Composedly they took their places 
 by her side, first Mrs. Furnishins, then Mrs. 
 Brown ! 
 
 She saw, she felt that she was betrayed, 
 insulted, lost ! To make the matter Avorse, 
 she could not pretend to deny but that Fur- 
 nishins Avas a genteel tailor. Did he not 
 make for the Smiths, for her OAvn husband, 
 and the best in Glasgow, occupy her late 
 flat, and send his family to Helensburgh in 
 summer ? 
 
 But the dyer ! he was merely one of old
 
 272 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 gowns and shawls, not of webs and whole 
 pieces ; a man who dipped his own self, 
 and who, accordingly, came to church on 
 Sunday with fingers of all hues blue, green, 
 and purple as if fresh out of the vat. Could 
 the man not wear mittens ? 
 
 The case of the Smiths had been suffi- 
 ciently deplorable ; but, was ever kirk-going 
 Christian matron so afflicted about church 
 matters as Mrs. Mark Luke? Even those 
 of her sympathizing fellow-Christians who 
 railed the loudest at the arrogance of the 
 Smiths, thus openly displayed in the face of 
 the whole congregation, could not wholly 
 forbear a sly joke at the mortified appear- 
 ance of the lady, who in her place of state, 
 at the head of her new pew, looked as if 
 placed on a seat of distinction, now generally, 
 we believe, fallen into desuetude in Lowland 
 churches ; anciently yclept the Black Stool 
 of Repentance. 
 
 There was not even her respectable old 
 mother-in-law to keep her in countenance. 
 She had manoeuvred that the old lady 
 should, of her own accord, express a desire 
 to return to " sit under " worthy, drowsy, 
 
 droning Dr. , whose " style of language " 
 
 she said, " she comprehended better than the 
 flory flights of that young Doctor, who had 
 turned all the leddies' heads." 
 
 Even this old lady resented the insult 
 offered to her offspring, and the bile of Mark 
 was for the first time fairly heated and 
 stirred in his wife's quarrels. The insolent 
 conduct of the Smiths would, indeed, every 
 one assured him, have provoked a saint. 
 Nothing else was talked of for that week in 
 Glasgow, or, atleast,in theloquacious circles 
 of Mrs. Mark Luke, and Miss Penny Par- 
 lane, who generously made up a feud with 
 her friend Mrs. Luke, of some months' stand- 
 ing, and gave tongue loudly against the 
 Smiths, wherever she went. 
 
 How was Mrs. Mark Luke ever again to 
 appear in church ? that was the question. 
 If the Smiths meditated Lutheranism, she 
 ruminated as deeply on becoming a Seceder. 
 Some very genteel meeting-houses had lately 
 been built in Glasgow, and were filled by 
 very well-dressed congregations. To this 
 Mark steadily opposed his veto ; and indeed 
 Mrs. Mark Luke could not, on many ac- 
 counts, have seriously thought of so retro- 
 grade a movement ; the Seceders or Volun- 
 taries being decidely as much below par, as 
 the English Chapel was above it. 
 
 On the first Sunday it luckily rained 
 "cats and dogs." No lady could stir out 
 
 that day, even in a noddy. On the next, 
 Mrs. Mark Lxike pleaded a gum-boil and 
 swelled face ; so the tailor and dyer and 
 their ladies remained undisturbed in posses- 
 sion for her. Mrs. Mark Luke had never been 
 three successive Sundays out of church in her 
 life ; so upon the third Sunday, some return- 
 ing sense of duty, and partly, perhaps, some 
 small longing to see what new faces, cloaks, 
 and bonnets were abroad, prevailed over the 
 still rankling feelings of wounded, irritated 
 pride. It may be all very easy for those 
 ladies who have parties, and soirees, and 
 concerts, and plays, and operas to attend, to 
 avoid the church ; but our Mrs. Mark Luke 
 was none of those. There was not at that 
 time so much as an occasional lecture upon 
 Temperance, Phrenology, or Negro Slavery, 
 to beguile the tedium of the week. So she 
 went to church ; and on that day the " dear, 
 young Doctor" happened to choose for his text 
 those words. 
 
 "Pride goeth before destruction, and a 
 haughty spirit before a fall" 
 
 Dr. Chalmers himself could not have 
 handled the subject better. Mrs. Luke saw 
 it was meant for a palpable hit. The tail 
 of Miss Betty Bogle's eye, pointed as plainly 
 at a certain crimson-covered back seat as 
 a lady's eye with a slight skelly could well 
 point. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke vowed in her secret mind 
 to call upon the Doctor's lady to-morrow, 
 and sound her as to whether a new gown of 
 best Prince's stuff, to cost 25, or a silver 
 tea-pot, as a present from the ladies of the 
 congregation, would be the most acceptable 
 tribute to the Doctor's eloquence. 
 
 Even Mr. Mark Luke himself noticed the 
 close practical application of the text ; and 
 at the end of the service, so deeply impressed 
 was Mrs. Mark with the discourse, that she 
 nodded condescendingly to Mrs. Dyer Brown, 
 and whispered an inquiry about her baby 
 and the measles ; and spoke of a pot of cur- 
 rant jelly to be sent to-morrow. 
 
 Ye gods and goddesses ! we were but a few 
 pages back invoking you to avenge the in- 
 jury offered to the illustrious hoiise of Smith, 
 by what Mark Luke most vulgarly and 
 profanely called " two bottom-rooms" being 
 granted to him and his wife in the Smiths' 
 pew, in a Presbyterian Kirk ! Is it of you, 
 or of what other delicate, tricksy, humorous, 
 laughing sprites, that we should now inquire, 
 how it rejoiced the reins so to speak 
 of your incorporeal natures, to witness the 
 kindly gracious humanity, the great humility,
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 273 
 
 of Mrs. Mark Luke, when she thus con- 
 descended to address her neighbour the dyer's 
 wife in open church ? 
 
 If "the dear Doctor" had hitherto been 
 considered the first of priests by the ladies, 
 he soon became to Mrs. Mark Luke, the 
 greatest of prophets. But that will appear 
 in order. 
 
 Fairly set down in her new house and her 
 new pew, and the first dreadful rebuff sur- 
 mounted, Mrs. Mark Luke, during this 
 winter, worked double tides in making up 
 lost way in the difficult navigation of gen- 
 tility. She laid her plans well ; she gave 
 excellent dinners, and did not turn her com- 
 pany out of doors before a second dinner 
 appeared at her command, under the name 
 of supper. This was an improvement upon 
 the Exclusive, or " East-Country Hunger- 
 'em-out" system, introduced by Mrs. Smith, 
 and as such it propitiated convivial guests of 
 the old school. To be sure, only the town's 
 people, as the Smiths truly said, visited the 
 Pig-wife ; and even some of the young super- 
 refined Edinburghers, and Greenockians, and 
 men of Liverpool, were deceitful enough to 
 say in Exclusive circles, that they went to 
 Mrs. Mark Luke's dinners merely for the fun 
 of the thing ; while those good easy souls, 
 who liked good feeding and easy sociality, 
 and did not much care for Rossini's music or 
 Exclusimsm, asserted with more truth, that no 
 dinners could be really better in themselves, 
 or more perfectly appointed than those given 
 by Mrs. Luke ; no house was better furnished 
 than hers, no lady better dressed, nor hostess 
 more attentive and obliging in her mariners. 
 
 " A little empressement might be noted," 
 remarked Mr. Ewins, a great authority in 
 such matters, for he had travelled with a 
 young nobleman, and had been at Ham- 
 burg, Leipsic, and Paris, and he had dined 
 at Hamilton Palace, and with the Member ; 
 " but urgent hospitality is almost a virtue or 
 a grace in a Scottish landlady ! " he added. 
 
 This was said in the hearing of a select 
 Exclusive Smith party ; and he, or rather she, 
 our poor Mrs. Mark Luke, and her enter- 
 tainments were not to be so easily let off. 
 
 " Was it you, Mr. Ewins," cried Miss 
 Maria, with her charming vivacity of manner, 
 " that Mrs. Luke insisted upon tasting the 
 soles she had got per coach, from Aberdeen, 
 at 1, 2s. cost, after she had gorged you with 
 Highland mutton ? " 
 
 " What we call her sofc-cism," said Bob 
 the wit. " And did she not insist upon you 
 swallowing a glass of raw old rum instead of 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 a little brandy, raw rum, as your liqueur 
 after your fish," added he, laughing aloud. 
 
 Either the taste, or good-nature, or both, 
 of Mrs. Luke's guest of yesterday, were piqued 
 by this impertinence. Besides, it in truth 
 defied him, " a travelled gentleman," to per- 
 ceive any shade of difference between the 
 Luke and the Smith style, save, that with 
 the former, there was really less pretension ; 
 and that Mrs. Luke's affectation of refine- 
 ment was less troublesome and obtrusive. 
 
 " I am sorry, for the sake of the ladies," 
 he replied, " that I cannot charge my memory 
 with the exact order in which I ate my 
 dinner yesterday. I rather think, however, 
 Mrs. Luke observes the established order of 
 Glasgow in the succession of her dishes. 
 Soles, or any sort of fish, in the second course, 
 would, no doubt, be supreme bon ton in Paris, 
 at Petersburgh, or Vienna. I do not know if 
 Mrs. Luke has yet got so far a-head of her 
 own city in the march of refinement. And 
 as for rum, my friend Robert cannot surely 
 have been so much in Paris without learning 
 that veritable Martinique is considered as 
 much superior to brandy at a French table, 
 as among us brandy is to Kilbagie." 
 
 This was a damper, a wet blanket, a 
 slap in the face. The champion, however, 
 did his lady no permanent good. If it were 
 so that fish and rum were ordered thus in 
 France, which they doubted, it was not the 
 less a vulgar practice in Glasgow ; and at 
 best, Mrs. Mark Luke had but blundered 
 upon the higher style. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke's increased activity in 
 competition, and the affair of the pew, had 
 now changed contempt into persecution. She 
 might advance with the lovers of good dinners, 
 but the Exclusive ladies, even of those who 
 ate them, still held her aloof. 
 
 Poor woman ! often when meaning to 
 confer a kindness she did incalculable mis- 
 chief. A new pattern of a cap or shawl 
 border which she might p\irchase, perhaps, 
 only to encourage a young beginner, was 
 immediately vulgarized, and the sale ruined 
 by the adoption of the article by Mrs. Mark 
 Luke. Any thing beautiful or novel which 
 she, in her indefatigable activity, obtained 
 and wore first, was forthwith christened a 
 LUKE, and so proscribed. Her name liber- 
 ally set down for six copies, ruined the hopes 
 of a young poet then publishing by subscrip- 
 tion. No Exclusive lady would for a long 
 time send her daughter to the new drawing- 
 master, or music-master, to which Mysie 
 Luke had been sent, however eminent the 
 
 No. 18.
 
 274 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 stranger might be in his art. Mysie's 
 mother's name at the head of a list, or near 
 it, almost knocked up, this winter, a Chanty 
 Concert and two balls. Tickets were certainly 
 taken, but then nobody went, that is to say, 
 none but nobodies attended. It was enough, 
 as Mrs. Smith said, "that they paid their 
 money without mixing promiscuously with 
 that set." 
 
 About the end of the season, Mrs. Mark 
 Luke had been earnestly requested to patron- 
 ize the benefit of a female player. Mrs. 
 Mark Luke was a generous woman, as well 
 as an ostentatious one. Her box, early 
 taken, left half the others empty ; and she 
 was thus at the very last day compelled to 
 beat up for play-goers, and send out such 
 scouts as Miss Penny Pavlane and Miss 
 Bogle, to aid in distributing tickets, for 
 which she paid, and to promise teas, far and 
 wide. This single transaction threw her 
 back months, as the crisis compelled her to 
 seek support, by renewing old cast-off in- 
 timacies, and yielding, of necessity, to im- 
 proper new alliances. The Furnishins and 
 Browns were not, to be sure, taken into her 
 own box, but it Avas undeniable that they 
 were in the boxes upon the only night that 
 she had graced the theatre with her presence. 
 
 Sick with -so many chagrins, Mrs. Mark 
 Luke longed for summer and the Largs ; and, 
 in the first fine days of spring, she set off in 
 search of genteel summer lodgings. Now, 
 what lodgings could possibly be so genteel as 
 those which had been rented for two years 
 by the Smiths? Mark Luke might fancy 
 them too expensive ; but there was the St. 
 Kitts' remittances certainly coming with the 
 next fleet, and upon the faith of this, inquiry 
 was instituted. 
 
 Was ever professional landlady, with a 
 lodging upon her hands, so cold and dry in 
 manner, and so reluctant to admit inspectors, 
 as this Largs one ? Mrs. Girvan drawled 
 out that " She was not quite sure yet, what 
 she was to do about her hoos. She was not 
 even sure if it was to let at all, or if she was 
 not actually in terms about it already." She 
 accordingly followed rather than led the bold 
 intruder into her dining-room. There stood 
 the very sofa on which Madam Smith had 
 sat in state last summer ; there hung the 
 muslin draperies from behind which Miss 
 Maria had " cut her capers," and Miss Smith 
 cast her haughty airs upon Mrs. Mark Luke 
 and her little daughter, as they went full-fig 
 to the evening promenade. She would at 
 this moment have given triple rent for the 
 
 lodging, of which the tenantless or tenant- 
 able condition appeared so dubious to the 
 landlady. An idea suddenly struck the 
 applicant, Was the woman afraid of her 
 payment ? 
 
 " You surely do not remember me, ma'am," 
 said Mrs. Mark Luke, with a simpering con- 
 sciousness of being as good as the bank. 
 
 Mrs. Girvan could not plead ignorance. 
 
 " I know you well enough, mem ye wont 
 to pass this way often enough last season : 
 ye are Mrs. Luke, the grocer's wife in the 
 Trongate ; and I'm not just sure that I'm 
 free to set my hoos." 
 
 " Mrs. Luke, the grocer's wife in the Tron- 
 gate ! " it sounded harshly on the delicate 
 auricular nerve of our Mrs. Mark Luke. 
 Had she then no higher status no indepen- 
 dent existence, even with the St. Kitts' 
 fortune ? She evacuated the lodging in 
 sulky silence, and strayed towards the still 
 empty, unsold Halcyon Bank ; while the 
 landlady, now finding her tongue, lost as 
 little time as possible in informing her gossips, 
 how loath she had been to set off Mrs. Luke ; 
 for Mark Luke's siller was as sure as Johnny 
 Carrick's ; but she had no choice, as it would 
 ruin the character of her house for ever, if 
 she took in the Pig-wife. Her ignorance on 
 such points had cost her enough before. 
 
 In inadvertently receiving the Smiths 
 themselves, she had for ever forfeited all 
 hope of getting back the Dempsters, " who 
 were a cut aboon the Smiths, in spite of all 
 their airs and pride, and cousins of Mrs. 
 Gengebre's of the Bank, (Halcyon Bank, to 
 wit,) who was a real lady." False woman ! 
 had she not given those same Smiths reason 
 to believe she thought them the greatest people 
 on Westland ground ; and, to their faces, 
 sneered at the pride and poverty of the East 
 country gentles, of the writer tribe. 
 
 When Mrs. Luke returned home without 
 having secured any lodging, she found her 
 husband in a humour which, for the first 
 time, fairly threw him within her sphere of 
 sympathies. Nor did she neglect to improve 
 the circumstance. A piece of ground had 
 recently been enclosed in Glasgow, for a new 
 cemetery, which was to be sold out in small 
 portions, and Mark, among his many pur- 
 chases, had ambitioned that of a decent family 
 lair, to which his father's bones might be 
 lifted, and in which might soon be laid, first 
 his mother, next Mrs. Mark Luke, and then 
 himself Mysie and her posterity following, 
 to the latest generations. 
 
 Why Mark imagined that his wife, ten
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 275 
 
 years younger than himself, was to tenant 
 the Luke family lair, and have her virtues 
 recorded on its marble head-stone, before 
 himself, we cannot tell, save that matrimonial 
 longevity seems a privilege of the nobler 
 sex. 
 
 The burying ground for sale was laid out 
 and divided. Mark studied the ground-plan, 
 which was submitted to him before any places 
 were sold, or many bespoken, and he fixed 
 upon his own, with the approbation of his 
 wife. It was horribly dear, he owned ; but 
 in a respectable juste milieu situation, among 
 the illustrious dead of the Barony parish ; 
 dry, neither too large nor too small, too back- 
 ward nor too forward ; and great was Mark's 
 indignation when he was informed by one 
 of the Trustees that, notwithstanding the 
 earliness of his application, and the extent of 
 his wealth and credit, there was no place for 
 him and his among the defunct Exclusives of 
 his native city. Smith himself, ay, and 
 Dempster, had quashed his claim at once : 
 no lady had a hand in this. As Trustees for 
 the new ground, these gentlemen alleged that 
 it was their duty to reject such applications as 
 might deter respectable persons from coming 
 forward. " The Walkinshaws are in terms," 
 said Mr. Smith ; " but if they hear that such 
 people as Mark Luke are applying, the 
 speculation is ruined : no one will or can 
 purchase after him." 
 
 Was ever so ill-starred a family as the 
 Lukes ! Excluded in church-pews, excluded 
 in summer-lodgings, excluded in a burial- 
 ground ! 
 
 It was some slight atonement or consolation 
 that, when Mrs. Mark Luke next read in the 
 Chronicle, " Upset price still farther reduced. 
 That charmingly situated and most desirable 
 Marine Villa," &c. &c. there followed in 
 the Bankrupt list lo ! and behold ! it was 
 no mistake : " Meeting of the creditors of 
 Duncan Smith, merchant, to be held in the 
 Tontine, &c. &c. for the purpose of appoint- 
 ing an interim factor." 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke instantly ordered her 
 clogs, to return a call from Miss Penny 
 Parlane, a visit long past due. 
 
 " Me never to hear a word of this ! but 
 I hear nothing that goes on in Glasgow." 
 
 "And Mr. Luke's to be Trustee on the 
 sequestrated estate. It's no possible, but 
 ye must have heard ? " said Penny. 
 
 " Well, if I did, Miss Penny, it was but 
 prudence seeing how Mr. Luke stood in 
 relation to the unhappy case to say little. 
 Here is a downcome ! " 
 
 " Ay, mem ! You remember that great 
 discourse of the Doctor's upon the words, 
 ' Pride goeth before destruction ? ' " 
 
 " The Doctor is great upon every subject," 
 said Mrs. Mark Luke, somewhat statelily ; 
 and she took her leave, perceiving that she 
 had a better clew for information than even 
 that which Miss Penny was able to afford. 
 Mark, too, to cheat her so, and keep his 
 thumb upon all this ! 
 
 To do our heroine justice, she was not, 
 considering the many provocations she had 
 received, at all vindictive ; and though Mark, 
 besides being factor, was himself a large 
 creditor, she did not press her belief, which 
 she could indeed have established by the 
 evidence of her confidential English maid, 
 the lass with the burr, that the Smiths had 
 a great many more silver spoons and forks, 
 and much more napery than appeared in 
 the inventory. There were, in particular, 
 a silver tray and a vase and corners. 
 
 Mark himself acted with humanity and 
 fairness ; nor did Mrs. Mark Luke next year 
 canvass against the appointment of Mr. 
 Smith as agent to some Insurance company, 
 in which she could now certainly have baffled 
 him. She did not even insult the fallen 
 greatness of the family by pressing her 
 services and society upon them. N.B. 
 While the first meeting of creditors was being 
 held, a letter arrived by the carrier to Mark, 
 ordering some tea and sugar ; and announcing, 
 " that Mrs. Luke might now have Mrs. 
 Girvan's lodgings," but Mrs. Luke was 
 supplied ! 
 
 Mr. Smith did not long hold his new 
 situation. He died of what was called a 
 broken heart ; and the friends of the family, 
 Mark Luke aiding and assisting, purchased 
 for his widow and daughters the good-will 
 of the Sauchie-Hall Road Establishment, 
 from which the presiding lady was oppor- 
 tunely retiring to the higher latitude of 
 Portobello, near Edinburgh. 
 
 While these arrangements were in progress, 
 Mrs. Mark Luke's sympathies were deeply 
 engaged for those " who had seen better days, 
 and who were surely humble enough now." 
 Humble they might be ; but it now became 
 a matter of calculation to be more rigidly 
 and tenaciously exclusive than ever. This, 
 Miss Smith said, was imperatively demanded 
 by the first interests of the Establishment; 
 which, as the sure way to success, opened 
 with every thing either new, distant, or 
 foreign ; and, at least, as anti-Glasgow as 
 possible.
 
 276 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 In the mean while Mrs. Luke had the 
 great good fortune to procure the reversion 
 of a very clever upper-servant, or under- 
 governess of the Smiths, discharged on the 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 The English girl with the burr, engaged so 
 long ago for the sake of the early purity of 
 Miss Luke's accent, who was to lisp in Eng- 
 lish speech, 
 
 And drink from the well of English undefiled 
 had been discharged as next thing to an 
 impostor. She was only from Durham or 
 thereabouts ; and Robina, herself, had detected 
 her mispronunciations and bad grammar ; 
 but Miss Dedham was a quite different style 
 of person, and, indeed, in every way, an 
 immense acquisition to Mrs. Luke and her 
 daughter. 
 
 We have said that our heroine was an 
 apt scholar ; thus, she profited, though she 
 was " too much the lady " to own that she 
 either required or received any instruction in 
 high-life and high-lived manners, from the 
 adroit hints of her new companion ; or from 
 her descriptions of how such things were 
 managed, by her direction, in her former 
 family, and her former nursery and school- 
 room. 
 
 Smollet pretends that in one month Pere- 
 grine Pickle qualified the gipsy girl he picked 
 up under a hedge, to play her part as a young 
 lady of breeding and education in polished 
 society, which she accordingly performed, not 
 only without detection, but with great eclat, till 
 in an evil hour, the force of original habit 
 burst through conventional usage, not yet 
 become habitual and confirmed. We have 
 ever held this story as a scurvy satire upon 
 modern refinement ; but certain it is, that 
 with her own good natural parts, the tacit 
 lessons of the clever governess, and those 
 ever-ready ministers to the improvement in 
 fashionable taste of ladies who have plenty 
 of money the milliners, namely, and the 
 perfumers, and jewellers, and confectioners, 
 and toy-dealers, and elocutionists, and lec- 
 turers Mrs. Mark Luke had genteelified and 
 absolutely refined more in one season, than 
 in some half-a-dozen former years of stinted 
 appliances, and with no one of sufficient 
 authority to instruct her in the use of such 
 as were proper. 
 
 Miss Ferrier, Captain Hamilton, and, above 
 all, Mr. Theodore Hook, among the modern 
 novelists, have exhausted themselves in ridi- 
 cule of the blundering, clumsy, and ludicrous 
 attempts of the would-be gentlefolks to 
 imitate their betters ; the impertinence of 
 
 cits, nouvoaux riches, and parvenus, and cock- 
 neys, who presume to converse and give 
 musical parties and dinners like the highly- 
 polished privileged orders. Even Miss Edge- 
 worth has given one ambitious dinner, 
 remarkable for entire and ludicrous failure ; 
 but then she has the discrimination to show, 
 that the failure does not arise from any 
 want of knowledge in the grocer's refined 
 and ambitious lady, but solely from want of 
 adequate means to accomplish her elegant 
 hospitality. Lady Clonbrony has more vices 
 of pronunciation, and is guilty of more 
 breaches of conventional English manners, 
 than the Dublin vulgarian ; and while Lady 
 Dashfort is as brusque, rude, and familiar as 
 her high rank warrants, her maid is the very 
 pink of formal, elaborate politeness. In this 
 Miss Edgeworth shows her superiority to 
 ordinary fictionists : she is aware that while 
 Maria Louisa, the daughter of an Emperor, 
 and the descendant of a line of Princes, born 
 to the manner, if such may be, was simple 
 to awkwardness, Josephine, the poor Creole, 
 possessed all the refinement and elegance of 
 manners which accomplishes an Exclusive 
 petite maitresse. 
 
 Our own wonder and amusement have never 
 been excited by the blunders of such preten- 
 ders as Mrs. Mark Luke, but rather by the 
 truth, the vraisemblance of their imitation ; 
 and the absolute identity with great folks, 
 in all exterior shows, which they were able 
 to maintain and display after a very little 
 experience. The ladies of the family of a 
 rural esquire or laird, though of undisput- 
 able gentility of birth, will much oftener 
 blunder in some part or other of costume, 
 and in the last forms of etiquette, than the 
 females of a respectable town tradesman. It 
 has been remarked that the purest speakers 
 of the English language in England, next to 
 the highest class of nobility, are those shop- 
 keepers and tradesmen in the west end of 
 London, who associate with them daily in 
 supplying their wants. The principle holds 
 in many other points ; and we think that 
 the sketchers of parvenu manners should now 
 rather direct their observation to how the 
 proscribed castes pronounce their minds and 
 accentuate their ideas, than to their aa's and 
 ee's; or to how are pronounced, or exhi- 
 bited, the few distinctions in their natural 
 modes of thinking and feeling, between classes 
 so far separated by external rank. 
 
 To return to our heroine. Mrs. Mark 
 Luke tired of the tacit teaching of the ac- 
 complished Miss Dedham, and was pleased
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 277 
 
 to be rid of her, as " rather too clever ;" and 
 in the course of other two years, she formed 
 quite another plan for Miss Luke than the 
 original one of a home education. 
 
 She no longer required instruction in speak- 
 ing English herself; for though she still 
 occasionally hlurted out a broad aw, when a 
 delicate a was prescribed, and dealt largely 
 in false emphasis, she began to feel returning 
 confidence in herself, from Kean or O'Neil 
 we really forget which having sanctified 
 some of her supposed blunders, freely attack- 
 ed by Miss Dedham. Besides, Mysie's Eng- 
 lish master, (the highest charger in Glasgow 
 for private lessons,) had, in different words, 
 decided against the governess ; and, in short, 
 she was civilly dismissed with handsome 
 presents. 
 
 Miss Luke was now, in jockey phrase, 
 rising eleven ; and a plain, good-tempered, 
 sensible child, who " took," it was said, after 
 her father. Her mother's friends, and Miss 
 Dedham, in particular, long affirmed that she 
 promised to be a beauty ; and Miss Betty 
 Bogle, that Lukie would never keep her 
 word. Even her own mother feared for 
 Mysie's beauty ; but she resolved that she 
 should be highly accomplished, and never 
 keep but the best company ; in short for it 
 is nonsense to conceal it longer that she 
 should be finished off at the Eelle Retiro 
 Establishment. 
 
 Mr. Luke thought Mysie very pretty al- 
 ready, and to him her acquirements at eleven 
 were quite wonderful save in music. There 
 Mark, who had a natural gift, felt that his 
 heiress fell far short of her mamma ; while 
 Mrs. Luke herself, and Miss Dedham, affirmed 
 just the contrary. Miss Luke was wonder- 
 ful in music, as in every thing else, for her 
 years. Often had Mark given up his eyes to 
 satisfy them, but he could not yield his ears. 
 If Mysie's attempts were music, then was 
 the female world of the West advancing 
 backwards. His own family afforded an 
 apt illustration. Before going to his appren- 
 ticeship he had been charmed by the old 
 ballads of the 
 
 Free maids who wove their thread with hones, 
 in Hamilton ; and with his old mother's song 
 of " Saw ye my Father." Even the ever- 
 lasting " Flower of Dumblane," and the 
 " Whistle, and I'll come to ye," of his wife 
 in their sprightly days of courtship, were, if 
 not well sung, at least intelligible ; and of 
 Miss Peaston's five pieces on the piano, Mark 
 could, at all events, recognize the " Legacy," 
 and the "Woodpecker tapping;" but as to 
 
 Mysie's melodious efforts upon the new 
 Edinburgh instrument, and her pea-hen 
 screechings ! mortifying as it was to him 
 to own it, Mark fairly gave them up. 
 
 Rossini's music and as probationer for 
 the Belle Retiro Establishment, Miss Luke 
 was, at this time, allowed to look at nothing 
 else, sounded to Mark Luke, grocer, exactly 
 as it did to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, 
 like nonsense verses ; and for the same reason, 
 which was, that their fashionable friends 
 decided that neither had more ear than a post. 
 Mark defied his wife's sentence, by proud 
 reference to his own capitally sung Bums' 
 songs, and Tannahill's to boot as Coleridge 
 might, by citing the exquisite harmony, the 
 breathing music of his verses ; but Mrs. 
 Luke would have eluded this by the supple- 
 mentary declaration, " No ear for really 
 good -that is for fashionable music, Mr. 
 Luke." 
 
 Meanwhile the Belle Retiro Establishment 
 was rising in reputation every day. It had 
 been conducted from the first, Mrs. Luke 
 assured her husband, with the greatest tact : 
 all the governesses were Swiss, the domes- 
 tics English, and they were held at such 
 a distance ! Miss Maria herself was just 
 returned from France. There was an im- 
 penetrable mystery in the management of 
 the seminary, with " the strictest discipline, 
 and the most rigid observance of etiquette." 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke was willing to forget all 
 early injuries and insults, for the sake of her 
 daughter. " It was always allowed," she 
 remarked, " that Madame Mere, which she 
 understood was Mrs. Duncan Smith's style 
 in the school, was quite the lady too much 
 so indeed, poor woman ! in former days 
 but now this was of great advantage in form- 
 ing the minds, and moulding the manners of 
 young ladies ! The discipline, Mrs. Luke 
 understood, was so admirable, that every 
 time she entered the school-rooms, every 
 pupil, however engaged, rose, and dropt a 
 low curtsy ; then the regimen was so well 
 regulated, and the young ladies were, from 
 the practice of Calisthenics, so remarkable 
 for their fine carriage ! True, the terms were 
 high ; but then the pupils were so select, and 
 Miss Maria was so accomplished, and Miss 
 Smith so Intellectual ! " 
 
 All this was poured into the unmusical 
 ears of Mr. Luke with a rapidity which 
 gave him no opportunity either for question 
 or remark, much as he admired and wondered ; 
 and deeply as, on account of Mysie, he was 
 interested.
 
 278 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 As for Mrs. Smith, or " Madame Mere," 
 he knew her of old to have been a sense- 
 less, proud, extravagant woman, who had 
 ruined her husband, and brought up her 
 children to be only too like herself. Miss 
 Maria had been, whatever she now was, a 
 saucy, satirical little cuttie ; who had often 
 laughed at his simple goodwife, in face of 
 the whole kirk ; and Miss Smith a vain, con- 
 ceited fool. In this elementary way did 
 Mark Luke silently reason upon these great 
 characters. Calisthenics, he presumed, was 
 some puppy of a French dancing master ; and 
 as to accomplishments, he surely understood 
 them quite well, for his own wife had been 
 accomplished, and Miss Betty Bogle had in 
 her day been very accomplished, many of his 
 female friends were very accomplished, whom 
 Mark thought useless tawpies for all that. 
 But he nevertheless yielded to the necessity 
 of his Mysie, when she had finished her 
 English, and writing, and arithmetic, and 
 geography, and dancing, being made neibour- 
 like and accomplished though he absolutely 
 boggled at intellectual. Could Miss Smith 
 preach like Dr. Chalmers, or lecture like 
 Professor Sandford, or write politics and 
 political economy, like the Editor of the 
 Glasgow Herald ; and was she to impart all 
 this intellectuality to his little Mysie? 
 Allowing she were capable of imparting these 
 goodly gifts to which, however, Mark de- 
 murred, he could not all at once perceive 
 what the better his " wee Mysie" was to be 
 for such, rare and novel acquirements. 
 Might they not prove a mote in the lassie's 
 marriage ? Men Mark now judged from 
 experience did not always like those mar- 
 vellously clever speechifying ladies ; so he 
 puzzled on for another five minutes, and 
 economically scraped his cheese, before he 
 ventured to ask ; " But what is Intellectual, 
 goodwife ? or what mean ye by it ?" 
 
 " Huts, tuts, Mr. Luke, with your good- 
 wifes surely ye may leave that low 
 epithet for Bailie Jervie's Mattie, and the 
 Salt Market now ; and as for intellectual 
 every educated person, Mr. Luke, every 
 individual among the educated classes, or of 
 ordinary accomplishments, Mr. Luke 
 
 Really I am ashamed of the inquiry : and 
 what signifies explaining about it] It is 
 enough at present that Miss Luke becomes 
 an inmate of the Belle Retiro Establishment." 
 Mr. Mark Luke emitted something between 
 a consenting grunt, and a regretful sigh ; 
 but the matter, once fixed, he began, like a 
 man of sense as he was, to view it on the 
 
 bright side, " His own Mysie accomplished 
 and intellectual but, above all, so near him 
 as to come home every Saturday, though 
 bred through the week with the daughters of 
 the wealthiest merchants in the west of Scot- 
 land, forbye the Lennox and Argyle lairds. 
 And good easy soul that she was ! his con- 
 sent made the goodwife so happy ! " 
 
 Thus, at the worst, the affair presented 
 many consolatory points ; the Smiths would 
 surely be kind to his bairn : " They owed 
 him a day in harvest from the date of his 
 trustee-ship." 
 
 With what joyful alacrity did Mrs. Mark 
 Luke proceed next morning to purchase the 
 fashionable equipments of her daughter, 
 whose embroidered trousers and silk hose 
 were ordered upon a scale which might better 
 have suited a grown-up young lady fitting 
 out for the Bengal or Calcutta matrimonial 
 bazaar, and pretty sure of an early market, 
 than a little girl going to school ! There 
 were few genteel tea-tables in the Trongate 
 where, in two days afterwards, the high 
 destinies of Miss Luke were not known and 
 discussed, and the vanity of her parents 
 treated with proper reprobation ; yet it is 
 singular that the catastrophe which befell 
 the ambitious Lukes, for we must call it by 
 that imposing name, was not anticipated in a 
 single quarter. 
 
 The last of the plain frocks and night- 
 gowns of Robina, as her mother now chose 
 to name her, were brought home ; and as to 
 the more conspicuous fashionable attire, there 
 was good reason for delay. Her mamma re- 
 served that till she had an opportunity of re- 
 connoitring the dresses of the Sauchie Hall 
 young ladies, and consulting, as she would 
 then be well entitled to do, with Miss Maria ; 
 whose sojourn in France entitled her to pre- 
 side, and pronounce in all affairs of the 
 toilet. 
 
 There were indeed in certain Glasgow 
 coteries, whispers of some mysterious corsette, 
 and classic sandal, which was to give to the 
 Sauchie Hall pupils the shapes of Venuses 
 and nymphs, with the ankles of Vestris. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke had not mentioned this 
 advantage to Mark, for she knew whereabouts 
 to throw her pearls ; but the circumstance 
 had no mean effect on her own maternal 
 judgment. 
 
 To do the thing handsomely, and in good 
 style, Mrs. Mark ordered a Tontine chaise 
 one morning, and making herself and her 
 daughter Jenny, looking after her, said 
 "as fine as hands could make them," fur-
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 279 
 
 rushed herself with a supply of her newly 
 engraved visiting cards, and repaired to the 
 Sauchie-Hall Road Establishment. Her spirits, 
 if not quite so ebullient, were at least as much 
 fluttered as those of her daughter, as her 
 anticipations of, for the first time, finding 
 herself in the same room with the Exclusive 
 Smithy the objects of her imitation, envy, 
 and admiration, for so many years, were not 
 wholly pleasing. 
 
 As the walls of " the Establishment " were 
 discerned among the trees, a sudden faint-ness 
 struck to her bold heart ; but what will not 
 a dutiful and affectionate mother encounter 
 for her only child, and that child rich, and 
 moreover a girl, and one too, whatever flat- 
 terers might affirm, whose substantial frame, 
 as her mother perceived, would require the 
 united force of the mysterious cestus, the 
 sandal, and the calisthenics of Belle Retire, 
 to be moulded at sixteen, into that of a Grace. 
 
 A drive of a half hour had been interrupted 
 only by the numerous gay and eager inquiries 
 of blithe restless Mysie, rejoicing equally in 
 her new grand school and her glossy pink 
 sash, and such habitual and unconscious 
 maternal admonitions delivered every three 
 minutes, as " Hold up your head, Robina I 
 Mind your carriage, Miss Luke. Take your 
 fingers from your mouth,child. Your French 
 kid gloves will not be fit to be seen before we 
 reach the Establishment." 
 
 But before the lustre of Miss Luke's French 
 kids was wholly gone, the chaise had wheeled 
 within the gate of the seminary, and the 
 fatal bell was rung ! It will not do for 
 ladies, whose business it is to teach morals 
 with manners, to tell many direct fibs. Mrs. 
 Smith was " at home," and Mrs. Luke and 
 her daughter were ushered into an empty 
 drawing-room, and left for a half hour to 
 admire the harp, and couches, and conversa- 
 tion-stools, and apology-tables, and cabinets, 
 and the painted paste-board ornaments, 
 elegancies, and utilities, quite at their leisure, 
 while a family council was holding above 
 stairs. 
 
 " By the greatest good-fortune in the world, 
 I had a glance of the triple-bordered Paisley 
 shawl of the grocer's lady of three-tails," said 
 Miss Maria. 
 
 " There can be no doubt about the business 
 of the embassy," rejoined Miss Smith. 
 
 " We have several vacancies, Bell," said 
 Madame Mere, thoughtfully. 
 
 "None, madam, for Mark Luke's daughter," 
 returned Bella, the true head of the Estab- 
 lishment, in a tone of ineffable decision. 
 
 Many ideas passed with rapidity through 
 the brain of Mrs. Smith. " Mark Luke, Esq., 
 Dr. to Mrs. Smith and daughters, for the 
 board and education of Miss Luks," &c. was 
 in particular, an inviting set-off, to a long 
 bill for the tea, sugar, and soap, required for 
 the uses of the Establishment. She gave 
 her thoughts oblique speech. 
 
 " Our family has been obliged by the 
 consideration shown by Mark Luke, at that 
 very unpleasant time when Mr. Smith's 
 affairs became deranged." 
 
 " Ma'am, is it your wish to ruin the 
 seminary ? " cried Miss Smith, addressing her 
 mother in a tone of asperity. " Receive 
 Luke's daughter: have her vulgar bustling 
 mother going about the town proclaiming 
 that her Miss is with us, and lock up your 
 doors. Could ever the Higgins, or the 
 Dempsters, or the Haigs send, or recommend 
 another pupil to you ? I put the cass to 
 yourself, ma'am, would you have sentj^r 
 own daughters to a school where a grocer's 
 child was placed ? " 
 
 " That was in other days, Bell ; and I " 
 
 " Stay, madam ; has not the main cause 
 of our success been that we are so very select, 
 known to be so particular about whom 
 we receive, so rigid in our rule of excluding 
 all suspicious characters, that no taint of 
 vulgarity, no pupil with improper local con- 
 nexions is admitted within our doors. What 
 else, pray, makes even this Mrs. Mark Luke 
 besiege them ? It is very possible that many 
 useful branches, and even the accomplish- 
 ments, may be taught in the common schools 
 of Glasgow, almost as well as in our semi- 
 nary ; but here is our grand and marked dis- 
 tinction, from which if we once deviate " 
 
 " This child will be very rich," interrupted 
 Mrs. Smith ; who was, we fear, incapable 
 of taking so comprehensive a view of any 
 subject as her intellectual eldest daughter. 
 She could squabble about pews and caps, but 
 she failed to comprehend the grand resources 
 which are afforded by the principles of 
 Exclusivism in British society, throughout 
 all its grades. 
 
 " Rich, my dear mother ! " retorted Bella, 
 spitefully ; " and what is her wealth to us ? 
 There are rich girls enough about Glasgow 
 and Paisley, I dare say ; but what is that 
 to the purpose of vulgarizing the Establish- 
 ment by admitting such a candidate as 
 this?" 
 
 Mrs. Smith began to see the affair in the 
 proper light ; but she would not at once 
 yield. " You are not always so very select,
 
 280 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 Miss Smith," she returned. " There was the 
 Belfast girl, not a whit more genteel than 
 little Luke, and the Campbelton girl, and 
 that sallow creature from Manchester." 
 
 " Une batarde, " put in Maria, who, 
 though she meant to vote with her sister for the 
 exclusion of Mysie, chose to speak against her. 
 
 " No, you were not always so very select, 
 Miss Smith," repeated the piqued Madame 
 Mere. 
 
 There was so much at stake that Miss 
 Smith resolved not to sacrifice the family 
 interests, her own included, to her own temper, 
 nor yet to her mother's silliness. Meanwhile, 
 time was pressing, for the candidate waited 
 below. 
 
 " I am astonished, mother, how you, with 
 your excellent sense and knowledge of life, 
 can take so narrow a view of this affair. I 
 am certain your kind heart betrays your 
 head : Mark Luke's attention to my father's 
 affairs I am not disposed to forget any more 
 than you, and if there were any way of 
 obliging the man save this. Have you forgot 
 the Kilmarnock carpet-maker's girl, who 
 nearly ruined the school ? " 
 
 " She was a very pretty, clever, sweet 
 child : I have not forgot her," said Mrs. 
 Smith, in a natural tone. 
 
 " Granted, ma'am ; but what is that to 
 us ? It is hard that we should suffer by 
 other people's misfortunes. There are plenty 
 of excellent schools for the children of the 
 low rich." 
 
 " Ten vacancies in my establishment at 
 present, Miss Smith." 
 
 " Were there twenty, madam, I will never 
 depart from the principle. You know well 
 the cause of your thin house this year. 
 Those few drops of black blood which I 
 detected at first glance in. the Greenock girl, 
 and warned you of " 
 
 " My gracious ! " cried Mrs. Smith, in a 
 very natural manner ; " she was two removes 
 from the Hindoo on the one side, and four 
 on the other an heiress and a lawful child 
 and that malicious, prating woman " 
 
 " No matter, ma'am. It is quite super- 
 fluous to tell me of the babbling propensities, 
 and the love of gossip and scandal, either 
 among West-country ladies, or East-country 
 ladies. But since our success depends no little 
 upon their tongues, we must keep out of their 
 reach. The fewer Glasgow damsels we receive 
 the better. I never desire to see a St. Mungo's 
 Miss within our doors. The prying and tittle- 
 tattle of the Betty Bogles and Penny Parlanes 
 are absolutely ruinous to the low schools ; and 
 
 the more distant the townspeople are held, 
 even by us, the better for the seminary. A 
 small degree of mystery is necessary in every 
 professional undertaking. Let the people of 
 the small schools parade their reverend patrons 
 and public examinations, and placard their 
 marvellous systems : Ezclusiveness, depend 
 upon it, is the true foundation of our select 
 society. If we once give way, if we deviate 
 from the exact line of demarcation to be 
 maintained between birth and fashion and 
 the mere mob dung-hill wealth lying at our 
 door, depend upon it, ma'am " 
 
 "Well, well, take your own way, Miss 
 Smith," said Madame Mere, quite convinced, 
 but far from satisfied ; and the Swiss gover- 
 ness, Mademoiselle Curchod, whose depart- 
 ment it was, besides teaching the French 
 language and embroidery, to tell lies polite 
 for her board and her salary of 30, was 
 deputed to dismiss Mrs. Mark Luke with all 
 imaginable civility. This office, the young 
 lady, (who, by the way, was said in Glasgow 
 to be a cousin of Madame de Stael's, by the 
 mother's side,) performed with such good 
 grace, that Mrs. Mark Luke invited her to 
 tea, and half believed it must be impossible 
 for Mrs. Smith, or her daughters, to see a 
 visiter at this hour ; and that they exceed- 
 ingly regretted their inability to receive her. 
 It was, however, with some failing of heart 
 that Mrs. Luke seated herself in her chaise, 
 musing on Mademoiselle's announcement of 
 the applications, ten deep, for every vacancy 
 occurring in the " Society." 
 
 The visit was not wholly thrown away. 
 Mysie, on the alert about her future school- 
 mates, had caught a peep of some of the 
 peeping Misses. They all, from six to six- 
 teen, wore a sort of conventual costume, as 
 ugly and un-English as possible. " Mamma," 
 said Mysie, " why have the Misses their hair 
 tied up that ugly way, as if they were going 
 to wash their faces?" 
 
 " Robina, love, hold up your head ! how 
 do you think Mrs. Smith will receive a slouch- 
 ing, awkward Miss ? That is the present 
 fashion of young ladies in France, which 
 Miss Maria has introduced. Miss Fanny 
 Ayton, and Miss Fanny Kemble, wear their 
 hair in that style." 
 
 And when Mr. Luke marvelled at his 
 daughter, disguised and uglified, from her 
 hair being dragged into a net, and her little 
 person invested with a Swiss apron, he was 
 informed that the one was favourable to her 
 eyes and her studies, and the other to her 
 habits of tidiness.
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 281 
 
 For two weeks, and finally for ever, these 
 improvements remained the sole advantages 
 mother or daughter derived from the Belle 
 Retiro Establishment. Mrs. Mark Luke once 
 more left her card, and waited the leisure of 
 the presiding genius of the Society one Satur- 
 day and another. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke had now every where 
 announced the high destination of her daugh- 
 ter ; and this protracted silence made her so 
 anxious and unhappy, that she took courage, 
 and despatched an unexceptionable note, 
 on rose-tinted paper, and smelling horribly 
 of musk, simply simple woman ! an- 
 nouncing her own, and her husband's inten- 
 tion of placing Miss Luke at Sauchie Hall, 
 for the benefit of the invaluable instructions 
 in morals and manners of Mrs. Smith and 
 her accomplished daughters. It went against 
 her pride to be thus urgent she whom poor 
 but excellent teachers of all sorts had so long 
 humbly and diligently solicited ; but what 
 will not a fashionable mother do for her only 
 child that child a girl, and of " consider- 
 able expectations?" 
 
 Anxiously did Mrs. Mark Luke await the 
 response, which came one morning just as 
 she returned from a round of calls, in which 
 Miss Luke had accompanied her, to take 
 leave of her friends preparatory to going to 
 school. The paper, of the first quality, was, 
 in this case, neither tinted nor perfumed ; 
 but so long-tailed and conglomerated were 
 the characters traced on it, that what with 
 the e added to the tail of the Smith, and the 
 i changed to ay it cost Mrs. Mark Luke 
 considerable trouble to make out " how very 
 much Mrs. D. Smyths regretted that there 
 was no present vacancy in the select number 
 of young ladies received into her Society, and 
 no probability of any one occurring which 
 warranted Mrs. S. in entertaining the hope 
 of ever having the pleasure of seeing Miss 
 Luke a most interesting charge ! a mem- 
 ber of her family." 
 
 The Smythes had changed their tone in 
 latter days. The Exclusives upon calcula- 
 tion, were no longer haughty and insolent in 
 manner. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke understood the case or 
 guessed at it ; but she was rather mortified 
 at her own condition than angry with them. 
 How Miss Betty Bogle would sneer, and 
 Penny Parlane exult over her ! " It is all 
 along, Mr. Luke, of your having no place of 
 our own. If I could have left my card at 
 the seminary as Mrs. Mark Luke of Halcyon 
 Bank, you would have seen another sort of 
 
 answer to my application for our Robina : 
 and there it is for ever in the papers ! It is 
 a marvel to me such a gem, and such a nig, 
 is not nipped up long ago. There is young 
 John Cowan, the drysalter, and some of the 
 Jamaica Street knobs, I am told, are after it. 
 But far would it be from me, Mr. Luke, to 
 wish that you should hurt your pecuniary 
 circumstances by the purchase. I am con- 
 tent to leave that charming place to those 
 who can better afford it than my husband." 
 
 Cunning Mrs. Mark Luke ! Mark was 
 fairly piqued at last ; in his purse-pride, and 
 in his paternal and conjugal affection ; while 
 his prudence was largely propitiated by an- 
 other " Upset Price still Farther Reduced." 
 
 In a month Halcyon Bank was his own, 
 and in the first delirium of her vanity and 
 exultation, Mrs. Mark Luke's naturally kind 
 heart had expanded far beyond the narrow 
 boundaries of cold Exclusivism ; and, between 
 good-nature and social vanity, she had so far 
 forgotten strict propriety, as to invite all the 
 world country cousins, and vulgar old ac- 
 quaintances included to her Marine villa. 
 She had been excluded from pews, boxes, 
 burial-grounds, and boarding-schools ; but 
 now she was to be happy perfectly happy ! 
 
 0, Seged, King of Ethiopia ! if thou, in 
 the plenitude of imperial potency, with all 
 appliances and means, could not command 
 felicity for a single day, what envious, mock- 
 ing fiend tempted to betray our Mrs. Mark 
 Luke, with those brilliant, illusive jock-o- 
 lanterns, which, in all ages of the world, have 
 dazzled to bewilder the daughters of men, 
 and to drag them on through bog and morass, 
 only to land them kqee-deep in the mire at 
 last ? Yet were not all her hopes illusive ; 
 for happy was the little hour in which she 
 first ran over the garden, and then explored, 
 as its mistress, every garret and doghole of 
 Halcyon Bank. In that state of flutter and 
 beatitude, we shall for a time leave Mrs. 
 Mark Luke to the sympathy of our indulgent 
 readers. They will not grudge one little hour 
 of bliss without alloy to a woman before 
 whom lies the task of finishing and marry- 
 ing a daughter upon the Exclusive system 
 of the middle ranks in Great Britain. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WE left our ambitious and indefatigible 
 heroine, Mrs. MARK LUKE, fluttering upon 
 the verge of a new and brilliant existence, 
 which was to be all felicity, because all was 
 to be elegance, taste, style, fashion, refine-
 
 282 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 ment, high life, " Shakspere, and the musical 
 glasses." She was now the undoubted 
 mistress of " the beautiful Marine villa of 
 Halcyon Bank, on the Ayrshire coast, lately 
 erected by Malcolm Gengebre, Esq., of Ber- 
 bice," and about to celebrate the opening of 
 this the second decade of her fashionable 
 career, by what she was pleased to term a 
 fete. She had, indeed, obtained her husband's 
 approval of a house-heating, as the old- 
 fashioned Glasgow folk continued to call 
 such solemnities ; while male guests, still in 
 media as to manners and refinement, named 
 such banquets &feed; or, if persons of fervid 
 imagination, a glorious feed. 
 
 It became a question of some importance 
 among certain orders on 'Change, who was 
 to have the felicity of being of the number 
 of the feeders on the approaching Saturday. 
 But Mrs. Mark was upon her guard Glasgow- 
 ward. In passing the first turnpike, on her 
 way to her coast villa, she had secretly 
 thanked her stars that she was done of the 
 Trongate, in her own peculiar; and the 
 sooner Mr. Luke cut the concern, and com- 
 menced country gentleman, it was just so 
 much the better. Like the long imprisoned 
 chrysalis, she had, in the fulness of time, 
 wriggled out of the husk of early low con- 
 nexions ; and was, at last, about to expand 
 her gold-bedropt wings to the sun of fashion, 
 waiting only for an auspicious hour to take 
 her first flight in her new state. But to the 
 complete and satisfactory fulfilment of her 
 soaring designs, there were still impediments. 
 To be consistently exclusive, it is necessary 
 to possess a cold narrow heart, as well as a 
 haughty temper, and the capacity of insolent 
 manners when an object is to be gained by 
 their exhibition. This does not, however, in 
 the least impeach the other requisites of 
 suppleness, flattery, meanness, and gross in- 
 sincerity. To be rigidly exclusive, it is, 
 above all, necessary to subdue the social feel- 
 ings and vanities to the subservience of less 
 immediate gratifications to be, in short, 
 strictly self-denied, as wall as aspiring. Now, 
 our Mrs. Mark Luke had a considerable 
 share of cordial good-nature in her original 
 composition, and no small quantity of a 
 rather kindly, social vanity, which often 
 threw her off her guard. Thus, by giving 
 way to a single impulse of natural feeling, 
 or to the desire of astonishing her old friends 
 with her superfluities and superlatives, she 
 sometimes was driven, in a single day, from 
 the high ground which it had cost her six 
 months to gain. This, as we have said above, 
 
 was fatally visible at the grand epoch of 
 entering on possession of her villa. The 
 pride of place had so wanned and expanded 
 her heart, that, in running about to make 
 purchases, her kindness had overflowed upon 
 every creature she met ; and old vulgar ac- 
 quaintances, of all degrees and conditions, 
 had been most thoughtlessly and promis- 
 cuously invited to occupy the " spare-bed," 
 " the French bed," and " the barrack-room," 
 fitted up to accommodate the juvenile branches 
 of that great East-country house, the Len- 
 noxes, into which Mr. Gengebre had the 
 honour to have intermarried. 
 
 Had Mr. Luke been about to stand candi- 
 date for the Lord Provostship of Glasgow, 
 his lady could not have been more lavish 
 and indiscriminating in her offers of hospi- 
 tality to whomsoever should visit the Largs 
 that season. This was but an impulse of 
 excited vanity. The sober calculations of 
 Mrs. Mark Luke, once set down in her new 
 neighbourhood, showed a very different re- 
 sult. While hospitality supposed no com- 
 promise of gentility, or cost nothing save 
 words, which might be sincere for the moment, 
 it was all very well ; but, in Mrs. Mark's 
 original circles, words still stood for things ; 
 and an earnest invitation to spend a week 
 might be very fairly construed, by Miss 
 Parlane or Miss Bogle, into one for at least 
 two days. Among the higher orders of 
 fashionable intelligences, powers, and do- 
 minions, the conventional language of invita- 
 tion, like that of compliment, possesses as 
 many shades of meaning as certain Chinese 
 characters, which are, however, all perfectly 
 well understood at first sight by the erudite 
 and initiated, but our ancient maidens were 
 unversed in this science. 
 
 This capital blunder, committed at the 
 outset, cost Mrs. Mark Luke considerable 
 trouble and manoauvring. One and another 
 old friend dropped in upon her on the coast, 
 even before her preparations were completed 
 before she was ready to dazzle and astonish 
 them with the wonders of her Great Babylon ! 
 One blunder brought its own excuse, if it was 
 not made upon calculation. In the same 
 parish, there was a family of decayed gentry, 
 chiefly supported in their ancient dilapidated 
 mansion of Hawgreen, by sons in India. 
 Mrs. Mark Luke had set her heart upon 
 making their acquaintance. It might prove 
 to her a diploma of fashion a passport to 
 
 other and greater houses: perhaps to 
 
 but no her mind allowed itself no such 
 flight as the provincial baronetage. She
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 283 
 
 merely admired the exterior of the adjoining 
 
 seat of , and craved liberty of the factor 
 
 to be in raptures with the grounds. Now, 
 it chanced that Miss Penny Parlane was a 
 cousin, not above four times removed, of the 
 house of Hawgreen ; wherefore, &c. Q.E.D. 
 So Miss Penny obeyed the signal, and in 
 due time moved to Halcyon Bank. 
 
 The Hawgreen family, though undeniably 
 gentry, were found much more accessible and 
 affable than the Smythes. During Miss 
 Penny's visit, the first mutual morning calls 
 and tea-drinkings were happily accomplished ; 
 so that respectable sexagenary maiden was, 
 consequently, quite at liberty to return to the 
 Trongate as soon as ever she pleased. This 
 she did, loaded with peace-offerings, in the 
 shape of the fruits, flowers, and dairy pro- 
 duce of Halcyon Bank ; cucumbers, which 
 the ungrateful guest laughingly described 
 as " liker Jcale-custocs and fusionless straw- 
 berries, which it cost her more trouble and 
 expense to bring home, than the worth of the 
 triple of them in Glasgow market." Such, 
 we fear, are but too often the thanks which 
 the ungrateful inhabitants of luxurious cities 
 give to their rural friends, in exchange for 
 the produce of their vineries and pineries, 
 and mushroom beds and cucumber frames. 
 
 Miss Betty Bogle had desperately resented 
 her friend, Miss Parlane, being preferred to 
 herself in priority of invitation; but she 
 shrewdly suspected the motive. Miss Penny 
 was at this time a tea in her debt as shown 
 by the mental ledger kept by both parties 
 and an invitation being sent through the lass 
 the evening following her mistress's return, 
 Miss Betty vindicated her dignity by first 
 declining, and then gratified her curiosity 
 by, in a few hours, accepting the call. Miss 
 Parlane had, indeed, softened the affair by 
 requesting the assistance of her friend in 
 concocting currant jelly of the coast fruits, 
 and by sending her a full share of the horti- 
 cultural bounty of Mrs. Luke. So, precisely 
 as the handle of the Ram's-horn Kirk clock 
 indicated five, Miss Betty placed her work- 
 apron in her black silk reticule, and, trysting 
 her lass to come for her at "preceese nine," 
 took her way to her appointment. 
 
 These ladies had co-operated in the currant- 
 jelly manufacture for about thirty summers. 
 Within the same period, they had had as 
 many feuds ; but mutual interest still drew 
 them together. They agreed like a Yankee 
 mess. 
 
 Great now was the mutual joy of the 
 jarring inseparables in meeting after a separa- 
 
 tion of nearly ten days. Whether the one 
 was first to unlock the Glasgow budget, or 
 the other to open the coast despatches, be- 
 came the difficulty. There was a compro- 
 mise ; and questions and answers were alter- 
 nated with breathless haste. " So ye found 
 the Pig- wife in all her glory ! " said Miss 
 Bogle, girding up her loins with her checked 
 apron, and beginning to pick blackberries as 
 if for dear life. " And I hope ye was able, 
 mem, to do the job, and get her introduced 
 to the Hawgreen family ? But siller makes 
 itself sib, novv-a-days, a' gaits. As Bob Pir- 
 givie said to me the other day in the Gallow- 
 gate, 'Call ye him Mark Luke now, I call 
 him Mark Luck, Miss Betty.' He is a queer 
 hand, Bob. But when is that wonderful 
 house-heating to take place? or it would 
 be ower, it's like, mem, before Mrs. Luke 
 let you hame ? " 
 
 Miss Parlane took no notice of this spiteful 
 observation. She was, indeed, still quite in 
 the dark as to the impending festival, but 
 did not choose to confess as much. 
 
 " The Hawgreen leddies have, on my in- 
 troduction, condescended to countenance Mrs. 
 Luke as a stranger in the place, so far as 
 'Fair good-e'en' and ' Fair good-day.' It's 
 neither to be thought nor wished they can 
 put themselves upon a footing of equality 
 with Peter Peaston's dochter." 
 
 " I 'm glad to hear there was some sma' 
 remittance last month from Major David 
 he is the third son, I 'm thinking ? " drawled 
 Miss Betty, spitefully. " I dare say it did 
 not come before it was needed. ' Lord help 
 the gentles ! ' as the by- word gangs ; ' puir 
 
 folk can beg.' But I beg your pardon, 
 
 Miss Penny. It does my heart good to see a 
 real auld family, like your cousins, the Haw- 
 green folk, getting its head aboon water, 
 now-a-days, that sae muckle o' the scum o' 
 the cog has come up. But is it true, mem, 
 that Mrs. Luke has furnished her drawing- 
 room splender-new with yellow silk damas 
 from Edinburgh; and that lovely buff chintz, 
 lined with blue, not up three year till come 
 next October, and never was washed yet, 
 and glazed, I believe " 
 
 "Just as true as ye are picking black- 
 berries, mem ; and that's but a flea-bite to 
 Bauby Peaston's grandery. Is't possible, 
 think ye, mem, that Mark Luke can stand 
 such on-goings ? They say he sells dear 
 and no wonder he sells dear : there 's aye, 
 Miss Betty, a wherefore for a because. That 
 sugar before ye, mem, cost me 8|d. strings 
 and blue paper into the bargain ready
 
 284 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 money, over Mark Luke's counter ; and I 
 could have bought as good for g^d. in twenty 
 shops in Glasgow. It's no' on fractions 
 Bauby Peaston's state is kept up ; but I do 
 not like to go past Mark with my change, 
 were it but for decent, worthy, auld Mrs. 
 Luke his mother's sake. I hope ye will call 
 on her with me the morn : I promised to 
 visit the auld lady on my return, and take 
 her a share o' the cucum'ers." 
 
 These maiden friends often went their 
 morning rounds of visitation in a leash, and 
 did so now. Old Mrs. Luke was rejoiced to 
 hear of her darling Mysie's health, of the 
 flourishing condition of the onion crop in 
 her son Mark's new garden, and that Hawkie 
 gave eleven Scots pints of milk per diem. She 
 therefore distributed her currant wine and 
 quality cakes to her maiden guests with the 
 most hospitable profusion ; blessing the "good 
 son," who let her want for nothing, and the 
 attentive daughter-in-law who had sent her 
 the cucum'ers, which, though rather teuch for 
 auld teeth, were, as she remarked, "grand 
 things to them that liked them." 
 
 " Indeed, mem," roared Miss Betty Bogle, 
 in consideration of the old lady being a very 
 little deaf, " a bottle of her good fresh cream, 
 or a pound of her new-kimed butter, would 
 have been as acceptable to townsfolk." 
 
 " But they wouldna have been so genteel, 
 ye ken," put in Miss Penny, in a mood 
 between a laugh and a sneer. The prudent 
 old lady made no reply, though she also was 
 moved to inquire when Mrs. Mark was to 
 have the house-heating, and once more 
 arranged, at great length, for a seat in the 
 post-chaise with the two friendly maidens 
 and their respective bandboxes. 
 
 Many things fall out between the cup and 
 the lip : and so it was here. Nothing was 
 now farther from the intention of Mrs. Mark 
 Luke than that any one of the three should, 
 by their old-fashioned manners and past-date 
 gowns, disgrace her fete. She was now 
 tolerably sure of at least a part of the Haw- 
 green family. Providence had sent a revenue 
 cutter to that part of the coast, with officers, 
 of course though Mrs. Luke afterwards 
 found that respecting these officers she had 
 made a capital blunder and also a Port- 
 Glasgow family of distinction, in search, 
 probably, of bitterer salt water than they 
 found at home. And, to crown all, Mr. 
 Ewins, the travelled gentleman, who had 
 been bred to the church, had just obtained a 
 living in that part of the country ; and had 
 a baronet, a former pupil, on a visit to him, 
 
 a share of whose society he had particular 
 reasons for grudging to nobody who would 
 accept of the compliment. 
 
 The said baronet was rather under a cloud 
 at this time. He was newly out of the 
 Sanctuary of Holyrood, very gracefully 
 bearing the opprobrium of having, in five 
 years, run through his large fortune on the 
 Turf, as well as the very small fortunes of 
 his sisters. But he was not the less Sir 
 Ogilvy Fletcher ; nothing could untitle him ; 
 and Mrs. Mark Luke was disposed to be 
 very indulgent to the first specimen of 
 chivalry she had ever had the honour to 
 receive under her humble roof. With such 
 elevated prospects, she resolved to exclude, 
 in toto, the whole horde of Mark's vulgar 
 relatives. With her own, she stood on no 
 sort of ceremony. The blood of the Peas- 
 toiis was at this time no more regarded than 
 so much Paisley red puddle, which had dyed 
 some thousands of pullicat handkerchiefs. 
 Indeed, had it been possible to efface every 
 trace of her birthplace in that very ungenteel 
 town, Mrs. Mark Luke would have been 
 highly gratified by the obliteration. To have 
 been born in Dunbarton or Renfrew might 
 have been tolerable : they were ancient and 
 feudal, and had castles a-piece. 
 
 As the great day drew near, Mrs. Luke 
 began to intimate her fears that the weather 
 was still but blue on the coast ; and, by and 
 by, she came to apprehend it would not be 
 safe for grannie (her nom de caresse for her 
 mother-in-law) to venture from Balmanno 
 Street till the cauld July winds were past. 
 " The old lady would, besides, very naturally 
 wish to meet her Saltcoats grandchildren, 
 the Sprots, and that would be the very time 
 to have all the relations together. If Miss 
 Parlane and Miss Bogle could agree with one 
 bedroom between them, it would be altogether 
 a nice Glasgow party of auld friends to enjoy 
 their auld cracks." Thus, with a coaxing 
 mixture of her vernacular speech, which our 
 heroine always used when she had a point 
 to carry, did Mrs. Mark Luke address her 
 husband. 
 
 " Oh, but grannie must come, mamma, to 
 the dance," cried little Mysie, throwing her 
 arms round her father's neck. "I'm weary- 
 ing, sair, sair, to see grannie, and to show 
 Jamie Wilson my wee bantams." 
 
 " Don't be pert, Miss Luke ! Sair, sair ! 
 where did you learn to say sair, Miss, with 
 your broad Glasgow twang ? " 
 
 " Sair is a very gude Scotch word, gude- 
 wife," said Mark, quickly " better than
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 285 
 
 your sore, I'm sure which puts one in mind 
 of wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores ; 
 while sair, sair, bespeaks the crushed waefu' 
 heart in a metaphorical sense only." And 
 to this philological remark, probably the first 
 and last he ever made, Mark added, " It is 
 but natural for Mysie to long to see her own 
 grandmother, who was aye so kind to her. 
 My mother will be fourscore next month 
 a lang age, gudewife ; and it is but short time 
 we can look to have her among us. I would 
 even rejoice to see my mother at the last 
 house-heating I am ever like to ha'e, and 
 the last she is ever likely to enjoy, as the 
 sang says 
 
 Wi' her bairns and her oes a' around her, O." 
 
 No resource was left for our elegant Mrs. 
 Mark Luke, save her cambric pocket hand- 
 kerchief' that friend in need to ladies of 
 extreme sensibility. She was quite over- 
 whelmed by the gloomy images Mr. Luke 
 had conjured up. 
 
 " Oh, mamma, dinna cry ! " exclaimed 
 little Mysie, springing from her father into 
 her mother's arms, with the trustful affection 
 which proved that, whatever vanities filled a 
 large portion of the mother's breast, there 
 was also room there for sweeter feelings. 
 " Dinna cry, mamma grannie winna dee 
 
 dinna let mamma greet, papa." There is 
 
 some use in children at all ages : they are 
 admirable conductors of natural sympathies 
 the best makers-up of domestic feuds. 
 
 " I'm sure I meant not to grieve ye, gude- 
 wife," said Mark, in the proper deprecatory 
 tone of conjugality. " Manage your house- 
 heating, and your housekeeping both, as best 
 pleases ye ; only let me warn you, Miss 
 Bogle called at the shop yesterday to inquire 
 when it was to be ; and if she be not asked, 
 I can tell ye, there will be news of it in 
 Glasgow ! " 
 
 " As she has got her blonde lace mutch 
 cleaned, and a new back breadth to her black 
 satin gown, for the occasion," cried Mrs. 
 Luke, bursting into a rather violent laugh, 
 which somewhat grated on Mark's feelings, 
 so recently attuned to the melting mood. 
 " But if I defied the lash of Betty Bogle's 
 tongue, and her clishmaclaver, when I was a 
 single, unprotected woman, I defy her and 
 her likes, ten times more now, when the 
 interests and prospects of my child require 
 that I should move in a sphere widely dif- 
 ferent from that of the clashing auld maids 
 of the Trongate of Glasgow. To be sure, I 
 may, in an overly way, have asked Miss 
 Bogle to look in upon us if she came to this 
 
 part of the country ; but upon my since- 
 rity " 
 
 " That's no' just the fit oath for the occa- 
 sion, gudewife," said Mark, with some 
 humour. 
 
 " Well, well, Mr. Luke. But, I am sure, 
 you know how I detest that eternal, vulgar 
 gudewife of yours." 
 
 " Shall I call ye ill-wife, then ? " 
 
 " To be done with this nonsense, Mr. 
 Luke : I think between ourselves, Miss Par- 
 lane and Miss Bogle, at their time of life, 
 and with their narrow means, might find 
 better uses for their siller than jaunting 
 about the country in post-chaises ; starving 
 their women servants at home, on three-and- 
 sixpence a-week of board wages, and the 
 coals locked up." 
 
 To part of this statement Mark tacitly 
 subscribed ; but as his wife, in his own hear- 
 ing, had urged these ancient friends to visit 
 her in her new domicile, and, above all, to 
 assist at the house-warming, he could 
 neither in heart nor conscience approve this 
 cool cutting. No such thing was intended 
 by Mrs. Mark as a complete cutting. She 
 had, at bottom, considerable regard for her 
 ancient friends ; and, at all events, it was 
 as essential that they should witness her 
 splendour at the proper season, and report 
 accordingly, as that they should not dim, by 
 their presence, the lustre of her first grand 
 initiatory fete. 
 
 " To make all right and easy, I had cast 
 about in my own mind that the retour chaise 
 which takes up the Hawgreen ladies to Glas- 
 gow next week, may bring back the Trongate 
 friends and my motbter-in-law at small cost, 
 by speaking a judicious word to the driver 
 yourself, Mr. Luke ; and sparing the ladies' 
 purses." 
 
 Mr. Luke looked all acquiescence and ap- 
 proval, and admiration of his wife's sagacity. 
 
 " And James Wilson can sit with the post- 
 boy," said Mysie, not without forecast in her 
 own small concerns. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Robina," cried the 
 mother " and remember that your father's 
 apprentice is no companion for you a great 
 boy, too ! For shame, Miss ! " 
 
 Poor Mysie blushed scarlet, and hung 
 down her abashed head. The boy alluded 
 to was the son of that Dr. Wilson, the notice 
 of whose lady at children's balls and school 
 exhibitions had, a few years before, been 
 considered so gracious an attention by the 
 grateful Mrs. Mark Luke, who, upon such 
 occasions, poured whole bags of sweetmeats
 
 286 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 upon her daughter's partner in the dance. 
 She had also, in spite of his father, presented 
 him with a very handsome Shetland pony, 
 sent, for this express purpose, to Mr. Luke, 
 by a commercial correspondent in the Shet- 
 land islands. These days were past : Dr. 
 Wilson had died of a fever, caught in attend- 
 ing a poor patient, and had left a widow and 
 a numerous family in very straitened cir- 
 cumstances. Mr. Mark Luke was one of the 
 trustees of a subscription for their relief, 
 which his wife, to do her justice, promoted 
 to the utmost of her power. She also made 
 her husband receive the eldest lad, her for- 
 mer favourite, as an apprentice. The boy, 
 who had early set his heart upon his father's 
 profession, gave a reluctant consent ; and his 
 sorrowful and subdued mother was even 
 thankful that one of her seven children was 
 decently, though humbly, provided for as 
 Mark remarked, that he had no son of his 
 own, and if James behaved well, he should 
 never want a friend. A remembered con- 
 versation, which took place shortly after the 
 boy came to the shop, still rankled in the 
 aspiring mind of Mrs. Mark Luke. 
 
 At fourscore, Grannie Luke took a true 
 grandmother's delight in arranging matches 
 for her descendants ; and, accordingly, one 
 evening at tea, she sagaciously remarked, 
 " I cannot see what better ye could do, Mark, 
 my man, if the mistress is agreeable, and if 
 they be spared, puir things, than to buckle 
 our wee Mysie and Jamie Wilson. But let 
 him be out o' his 'prenticeship first. Ye'll 
 ha'e him o' your ain up-bringing, and he can 
 carry on the shop when ye tire o' it and gang 
 to Halshie Bank for gude and a'. It's no 
 likely my good-dochter will fash ye with 
 
 mair o' a family now, after a rest of 
 
 how auld are ye, Mysie, hinnie ? " Mysie 
 knew she was past ten, which she, accord- 
 ingly, told to a day. She also knew that 
 ten and seven make seventeen, and that 
 young Mrs. Dudgeon, whom she had lately 
 visited with her mamma on that young 
 lady's marriage, was just seventeen and five 
 months ; but this fact she did not feel called 
 upon to mention. " It was a divert, Mark, 
 my man," maundered on the grandmother, 
 " to see the wark the bits o' young things 
 had Avith ane anither, when, I am sure, our 
 Mysie was no owergane seven summers. 
 * Wha are ye for marrying the day, Mysie, 
 my doo ? ' I would speer. ' Is it Bailie Pir- 
 givie ? ' and she would prim \ip her bit mouth, 
 and say, ' Wha but the little doctor, grannie?' 
 'That's if mamma let ye, Mysie,' I would 
 
 observe, just to try the bairn. 'I'll marry 
 Jamie Wilson whether mamma let me or 
 no' ; ' and, troth, she would gar me laugh, 
 fit to choke." And the old lady laughed at 
 the recollection till in danger of such a 
 catastrophe. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke was fired with indigna- 
 tion at such maundering. Was there ever 
 so absurd, so indelicate an old woman ? She 
 was quite enough of herself to vulgarize her 
 grandchild's manners and corrupt her accent. 
 If the boy and girl were to grow up together, 
 there was, moreover, no saying what disas- 
 trous consequences might attend such non- 
 sensical gossip. Thank Heaven, she was 
 leaving Glasgow ! And longer to receive the 
 familiar visits of her husband's apprentice, 
 and permit him to continue the playmate of 
 her daughter, was a thing not to be thought 
 of. If Robina, or, more correctly, " her 
 child," was not to soar far above sugar tubs 
 and crates of crockery and china, to little 
 purpose, indeed, had her maternal cares been 
 lavished. 
 
 Checked by her mother, as above noticed, 
 the abashed girl had not another word to 
 say ; but her father came, as usual, to her 
 assistance : " We must have one of my 
 Mysie's joes. If ye will not have little 
 Jamie, then I must bring ye down her auld 
 jo to cheer her a bit; but, indeed, we 
 must have the Bailie at any rate." 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke was nearly petrified by 
 the horrid image called up before her. 
 
 " Ye cannot mean Bailie Pirgivie ? " 
 
 " But I do, though, just mean your auld 
 friend, Bob Pirgivie, who was best-man at 
 your bridal, mem ; and made the punch at 
 your dochter's christening. What the de'il 
 has come ower the woman ! " 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke was far past crying. 
 After gulping her chagrin for a few seconds, 
 she remarked, with dignity, " Then, Mr. 
 Luke, if you introduce a person so totally 
 unfit for the society which I expect to receive 
 at your table to-morrow, you may just look 
 out for some one else to take the head of it 
 that's all, sir. I never can sanction such 
 an insult to my friends as introducing im- 
 proper company to them in my own house." 
 
 " Bob can take the head," replied Mark, 
 doggedly ; " he makes a famous blowzy 
 landlady ; especially when he puts on a 
 mutch and a shawl, before he draws the 
 punch-bowl to him." 
 
 Mrs. Luke saw there was no 'wisdom in 
 widening the breach. Though not an "inter- 
 fering" husband, there was, she well knew,
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 287 
 
 a point beyond which, if Mark was unwisely 
 urged, he became as stiff-necked as any 
 Israelite. The hereditary dourness of the 
 Lukes, as husbands, was, indeed, notorious 
 over all the West. 
 
 " You know how much I was wont to 
 enjoy Mr. Pirg-ivie's company at a homely 
 family dinner, my dear ; or in an evening, 
 when he took a tumbler of toddy with you ; 
 but, believe me, Mr. Luke, it would put all 
 parties sadly out of their way to bring him 
 into the same dinner-party with young ladies 
 and none so much as himself. He would 
 be entirely a fish out of the water." 
 
 " Fient-a-fears ! Bob can aye swim where 
 there 's a full punch-bowl, Bauby." 
 
 " He could neither tell his stories nor sing 
 his favourite songs with a clergyman present." 
 
 " He has sung at fifty Presbytery dinners, 
 and fifty Thanksgiving-Monday feasts to 
 boot, long before now, and been the cock of 
 the company. Ye do not mean to say that 
 Bailie Pirgivie sings what is either profane 
 or indecent ? " 
 
 " Far from that only only vul old- 
 fashioned. And Sir Ogilvy, Mr. Luke " 
 
 "And Sir De'il, Mrs. Luke! If Sir 
 Ogilvy cannot eat his slice of beef at the 
 lee-side of Bob Pirgivie, he 'd better stay at 
 the manse ; where, I dare say, they are tired 
 enough, by this time, o' the broken ne'er- 
 do-weel." 
 
 It is not altogether surprising that Mr. 
 Luke was offended. Bob who, by this time, 
 was none of your light-Bobs was his oldest 
 and most confidential friend, his chosen coun- 
 sellor in all his commercial speculations, and 
 one whose shresvd advice had, as Mark truly 
 averred, stood him in thousands of pounds. 
 This was but one thing ; and, more to the 
 present point it was, that, at a feast or a feed, 
 there were, in Mark's eyes, but three grand 
 essentials, the beef, the punch, and Bob 
 Pirgivie. In Glasgow, this gentleman had 
 never been interdicted by Mrs. Mark, even in 
 her most palmy and exclusive days. But, 
 in that city, he was considered a regular part 
 of all table lumber a corner-dish, gener- 
 ally and warmly welcomed, and always 
 tolerated. He was one of those originals to 
 be found in most commercial communities, 
 which, like certain wines and fruits, require 
 to be used on the spot, to be perfectly enjoyed 
 as, in removal, much of the race, or pecu- 
 liar flavour of the soil, is sure to ba lost. 
 Thsre was, however, no reason to apprehend 
 that Mr. Pirgivie's specific qualities would 
 evaporate in so short a journey, or voyage, 
 
 as from Glasgow to Largs. By trade he 
 was a cotton manufacturer, and, by attention, 
 a prosperous one ; but, by social distinction, 
 a diner, or, rather, a supper-out, a bon-vivant, 
 a teller of good Westland stories, a singer of 
 capital Scotch songs of a certain class, a 
 humorist, the shaking of whose double-chin, 
 and the sly twinkle of whose gray eye, told 
 half the joke before he had opened his lips 
 a bachelor, of coiirse, or he had not been 
 Bob Pirgivie. Besides many original good 
 local stories and anecdotes, Mr. Pirgivie had 
 a happy knack at localizing, and adapting 
 resuscitated Joe Millers to present circum- 
 stances. Until he had become so much of a 
 Stout Gentleman, Mr. Pirgivie was reckoned 
 the best curler in the Lower Ward. At con- 
 cocting Glasgow punch now that D and 
 
 S had died off he was allowed to be 
 
 superlative and unapproachable the mon- 
 arch of the bowl ! Such was Mrs. Mark 
 Luke's present aversion. In her eyes, he was 
 irredeemably blemished, for he had been put 
 to the ban by the Smythes. His knee- 
 breeches, speckled stockings, and amber wig, 
 were deformities invincible : she had reasoned 
 with him upon them all. His dialect sounded 
 broader, in her refined ears, every day. She, 
 moreover, suspected, that he slily insinuated 
 mischief, if not rebellion, into the head of her 
 lord ; and, what was worse, that his excess of 
 mock reverence, his odd tones and grimaces, 
 and awkward scrapes to herself he who 
 had never before either bowed or scraped 
 in his life were what is vulgarly termed 
 quizzing. The mantling smiles of his rubi- 
 cund face, the sly glance round, as he paid 
 her his high-flown compliments, and made 
 his extraordinary legs, looked, it must be 
 owned, something like this. He had another 
 provoking trick of incidentally, as it were, 
 calling her attention to some anecdote of their 
 early life, particularly if very fine people were 
 present such as to their curds-and-cream 
 ploy to Ruglen, or their veal-pie pic-nic to 
 Kelvin Grove, where Miss Barbara Peaston, 
 a bride-elect, with the said pie in her lap, 
 had sung the favourite amatory song appro- 
 priate to that locality. In short, the face- 
 tious Bob Pirgivie was, to Mrs. Mark Luke, 
 become the most boring of all bores a 
 thoroughly disagreeable person at all times, 
 but at her fete intolerable ! She ruminated 
 for a time. 
 
 " Leave the room, Robina, my love." She 
 was obeyed. " As it is, after all, mainly for 
 our daughter's sake, Mr. Luke, [emphatically,'} 
 that we give this welcoming party to our
 
 288 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 new neighbours, I dare say a larger mixture 
 of young creatures, and, perhaps, a hall, 
 would best do the thing." 
 
 " Very like, Bauby : all young things are 
 fond of dancing." 
 
 " Then, I think, we shall postpond the 
 dinner to an indefinite day, and give the hall 
 first and to-morrow : so you may announce 
 the change of plan to our Glasgow friends." 
 
 " And bring down Bob Pirgivie, and little 
 James Wilson to Mysie's dance ? with all 
 my heart, gudewife." 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke threw back her head. 
 " It appears to be your dearest pleasure to 
 torment me, Mr. Luke." 
 
 " Far from that, dearie. Am I not bring- 
 ing you a box of champagne glasses, which, 
 I am sure, you need about as much as a cart 
 does a third wheel ? However, it's all good 
 for trade." 
 
 Mrs. Luke now took it into her head that 
 her husband should not leave home that day 
 at all. He had, indeed, been complaining. 
 She became tenderly alarmed at the fatigue of 
 going up the one day to Glasgow and return- 
 ing the next ; but there was a meeting of 
 Bank Directors, or of the Steam-boat Com- 
 pany, or something of the kind, and Mark 
 would go ; and, to say the truth, save for 
 dread of Bob, Mrs. Mark could, at this time, 
 on many accounts, well spare him. She was 
 cumbered with many things ; up early and 
 down late. 
 
 The important day dawned at last ; and, 
 after six weeks of preparation, she kept the 
 field to the very last hour, fagged enough, 
 when fairly inducted into her new Pomona 
 green satin dress, "fashionable colour for 
 July," and her turban properly set. Had 
 it not been for the forward temper of Jean 
 Sprot, a spanking, comely lass of some nine- 
 teen or twenty, she would at this time have 
 brought her from Saltcoats as an aide-de- 
 camp ; but Miss Jean, as Mr. Luke's niece, 
 would certainly expect to be introduced to 
 the company, and dine at table ; and rather 
 than submit to such degradation, such en- 
 croachments on the prerogative, Mrs. Mark 
 was content, until her daughter was qualified 
 to assist her, to work double tides, and enjoy 
 undivided glory. 
 
 She was now alone in the drawing-room 
 with her daughter, putting Mysie for the last 
 time, through the manual of good manners, 
 and furtively casting an eye upon the road 
 by which Mark's chaise, with that worthy 
 host and, not less important, the box of rich 
 cut glass, the hamper of some rarer kind of 
 
 wine, ordered from Leith, and the turbot from 
 an Edinburgh fishmonger were momentarily 
 expected. She did not allow herself to think 
 of the dire Pirgivie, till he loomed over the 
 brae, seated for air beside the driver, with 
 a face like the rising full Michaelmas moon 
 as Mrs. Mark indignantly remarked. 
 There was no help for it. 
 
 " Servant, Ma dame," said Bob, bowing 
 low, with one of his leering looks up to the 
 window, as the carriage wheeled round to 
 the door. The open bay window of the din- 
 ing-room showed the table and side-board 
 laid out with elaborate elegance. 
 
 "Whew!" whistled Mr. Bob Pirgivie, 
 " there's to be a snack of dinner, after all, 
 Mark. As best-man at your bridal, Mrs. 
 Luke, and assistant at every Handsel-Mon- 
 day feast sinsyne, though something past 
 my dancing days, and fashed with a twinge 
 of what, in a gentleman, might be jaloused 
 the gout, I vowed, when Mark told me the 
 dinner was to be changed to a ball, not to 
 baulk ye, but lead ye off 
 
 Upon the licht fantastic toe, 
 at least to the best of my present ability. 
 Though I have seen the day, Bauby Mrs. 
 Luke, I mean, we could have both footed 
 it heel and toe more featly, some ay, it will 
 be five-and-twenty good years since at Mr. 
 Macskipsey's in the Sheddon Raw ; but ye'll 
 no mind, I dare say?" 
 
 " I am certainly obliged by your kind in- 
 tentions," returned Mrs. Mark, half amused, 
 in spite of herself, at the idea of Bob Pirgivie 
 opening a ball, and also compelled to make 
 a virtue of necessity ; " will you choose to 
 take any refreshment after your long drive ? 
 There are wines on the side-table, with lemon- 
 ade, raspberry vinegar, and iced water." 
 
 " Ginger beer was the grand tipple of the 
 young leddies at our Paisley balls, ye'll 
 remember, Mrs. Luke, with baiks for the 
 solids ; and I'm not very sure but I relished 
 that as weel as the genteel modern refresh- 
 ments ; but certainly, upon your recommen- 
 dation, Ma dame, I shall try a glass of 
 lemonade it should be very cooling and 
 suitable for a man of my taste and mould 
 after a longish, hot, dusty journey." 
 
 Mrs. Luke perceived that she was already 
 quizzed, and anticipated worse usage. She 
 laid strong control over herself, and protested 
 she had only meant those harmless beverages 
 as one constituent of the draught recom- 
 mended ; and Mr. Bob was somewhat conci- 
 liated by the large rummer mingled for him, 
 as a drink-offering, by her own French-
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 28!J 
 
 kidded fair hand, and presented on a silver 
 tray by Mysie. 
 
 " And how's a' wi' my Maiden Mysie 1 
 Am I not to get my kiss the day ? Whether 
 is it to be me or Jamie Wilson ye are to 
 marry now '( Let's be off or on ?" He drew 
 his hand fondly over her curls. 
 
 " Robina is growing a great girl, Mr. 
 Pirgivie, and must put away childish things. 
 Will you hold your head for one moment 
 in the same position, child ? You will toss 
 your hair about till it looks like a young 
 colt's mane. You will see if the Miss 
 Stronas go on romping like great tomboys, 
 in that fashion. We expect the pleasure of 
 seeing the Stronas of Port-Glasgow here to- 
 day, Mr. Pirgivie : you are probably ac- 
 quainted with the family you must at least 
 have heard of them : three very elegant 
 girls, and two fine young men one of 
 them, Mr. Charles, in the Company's service, 
 home on a three years' leave." 
 
 " The who's, Ma dame ? " cried Bob, 
 cocking his ear. 
 
 " The Stronas, sir, of Port-Glasgow." 
 
 "The Stronas! I thought I kenned a'maist 
 all the Port folk, but I never heard of the 
 Stronas before. Are they safe folk, are ye 
 sure, mem ? There 's a hantle rips come 
 down here about the saut-water." 
 
 " The Stronacls, Mr. Pirgivie you must 
 surely have heard of them. Mrs. Stronack 
 was a Deimison." 
 
 " The Stron acks ? no, no, I ken nae- 
 thing about the Stronacks either." 
 
 "The Stron achs, then, ye droll, pro- 
 voking sorrow ! " bawled Mrs. Mark Luke, 
 with a native strength of gutturals which 
 proved, that, besides conquering High Ger- 
 man and Low Dutch, she needed not to 
 despair of mastering the Erse or Arabic, the 
 roots of which, we believe, lie even more 
 deeply in the bowels of the land. 
 
 The first laugh they had enjoyed together 
 for months, or perhaps for years, went far to 
 reconcile these old friends. Mr. Bob, in 
 particular, enjoyed his laugh and his triumph 
 to that moderate extent which restored his 
 good humour with Mrs. Luke ; and he ac- 
 cordingly sipped his rummer of brandy- 
 qualified lemonade with great complacency, 
 and, much to the relief of his hostess, 
 declared he would keep his place where he 
 was, and not frighten her " leddies up stairs, 
 until they got used to him by degrees, across 
 the table." 
 
 But to this arrangement " senseless Mark" 
 would not submit. " He would be master of 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 his own house, if a' the Hawgreens, and 
 Stronachs, and Sir Ogilvy Fletchers in Ayr- 
 shire, and Port-Glasgow on the back of it, 
 dined with his wife ; and his trusty fere, Bob 
 Pirgivie, should have the warmest neuk at 
 his fireside." 
 
 Something very extraordinary had come 
 over the man within these few days. He 
 had never been so obstreperous in his whole 
 married life. Mrs. Mark Luke understood 
 it all afterwards. Mark was fey. 
 
 Bob, accordingly, having put on his 
 speckled silk hose, and, for the first time in 
 his life, mounted a shirt collar, which made 
 him look as if in the jougs,* was niched per 
 force into a corner of the drawing-room before 
 the first carriage had deposited its load ; and 
 there he continued to sit, a mute observer, 
 (his amber wig covered with the rich yellow 
 drapery of the window curtains,) most in- 
 dustriously twirling his thumbs, and taking 
 sly note of the airs and graces of hospitality 
 which marked the kind and courteous recep- 
 tion given by Mrs. Mark to her several 
 gradations of guests to the landed and the 
 commercial interests, and to Mr. Ewins, who 
 might be understood to represent the church 
 and the learned professions. Bob's sober con- 
 clusion was, that Bauby Peaston performed 
 her part quite as well as if she had been the 
 Duchess of Hamilton, or a real play-actress. 
 She even astonished Mark himself, by the 
 volubility of her softly-lisped compliments, 
 and the elegance of her deportment. 
 
 Every one expected, and probably more 
 than were wished for, had now arrived, save 
 the gentlemen from the cutter. They were 
 at last announced ; add at their back what 
 a start! what a mere vulgar natural start of 
 surprise was betrayed by Mrs. Mark Luke, 
 when who should present himself but Mr. 
 Robert Smythe ! " He had taken the great 
 liberty, as an old friend, of waiting upon Mrs. 
 Luke as his friends from the cutter, with 
 whom he was going round to Oban, were, he 
 found, engaged to her." She was so gratified, 
 so delighted, so tenderly hopeful, that Mrs. 
 Smythe, and Miss Smythe, and Miss Maria 
 Smythe, were in perfect health so proud to 
 see Mr. Robert Smythe in her house ! 
 
 Bob Pirgivie now tweedled his thumbs in 
 double quick time, and rapidly sent around 
 queer horizontal glances under his shaggy 
 brows. 
 
 Just at this instant, Mysie whispered her 
 mother, " Mamma, Jean is come." 
 
 * The Scottish i>illoiy. 
 
 TS'n.
 
 290 
 
 MRS. .MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 "Who, child?" 
 
 " Cousin Jean Jean Sprot ;" and the pre- 
 viously well-drilled maid-servant sonorously 
 announced " Miss Jean Sprot ! " and in 
 bounced a good-looking, showy young wo- 
 man, flaunting (at small cost) in the staple 
 of the country, who intrepidly advanced to 
 shake hands with her sinking, fainting, ele- 
 gant aunt, then with her uncle, next with 
 shy Mysie, and finally with her old acquain- 
 tance, Mr. Bob Pirgivie, who received her 
 with great gallantry, and made room for her 
 beside himself. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke made no movement to 
 introduce the bold intruder to any one. Her 
 evident displeasure and awkwardness in- 
 stantly spread over at least the female part 
 of the company, to whom one young woman 
 of equivocal rank was a greater bugbear and 
 annoyance than fifty vulgar humorists like 
 the privileged Bob Pirgivie. 
 
 If Mrs. Mark Luke's black eyes had pos- 
 sessed the fabled property of those of the 
 basilisk, this would, beyond doubt, have been 
 the last hour of the audacious Jean Sprot, 
 who actually dared to talk and laugh aloud 
 in her aunt's house, as if among her equals. 
 She even ventured to address Mr. Robert 
 Smythe the advocate, himself, and to remind 
 him that she had once met him at a Glasgow 
 concert, where she had been with her " Aunt 
 Luke." 
 
 " I must have been a mere boy, then," re- 
 turned the affected barrister, whom a few 
 years had ripened from a senseless puppy into 
 an insolent coxcomb. "A precioxis Jot is 
 always to be met with at such places." 
 
 "At such places, indeed ! " chorused Mrs. 
 Mark Luke. 
 
 " At what places, please, Ma dame ? " 
 inquired Bob Pirgivie, rising and stumping 
 forward, with one of his low, ridiculous bows, 
 to the lady of the house. 
 
 " Glasgow concerts, to be sure," replied 
 Mr. Robert Smythe, tucking up his shirt- 
 collar far above his ears. 
 
 This was more than pure Glasgow flesh 
 and blood could be expected to endure. The 
 honour of the whole city seemed to rest for 
 the time upon the square shoulders of Bailie 
 Pirgivie. He laughed at the ridicule which 
 the Exclusives attempted to cast upon his own 
 manners, and repaid them, as he said, cent, 
 per cent. ; but even Mr. Pirgivie could not 
 submit to calumnies cast upon the refinement 
 of the Empress of the West ; and an explo- 
 sion would have been inevitable, had not the 
 good stars of Mrs. Mark Luke sent the sum- 
 
 mons to dinner at this critical moment. She 
 had been ruminating uneasily for some time, 
 about who was to conduct her to the dining- 
 room. Was it to be Sir Ogilvy Fletcher, in 
 right of his rank ; Hawgreen, in respect of 
 his old standing in the neighbourhood ; Mr. 
 Stronach of Port-Glasgow, as representative 
 of the commercial respectability of the com- 
 pany ; or that horrid Bob Pirgivie, the 
 ancient friend of the house? Him she re- 
 solved to baulk, at all events. 
 
 " Do me the honour," said Mr. Robert 
 Smythe, starting forward and he was 
 honoured by the fluttering, gratified, and yet 
 alarmed Mrs. Mark Luke ! for Mr. Stronach 
 looked as if cheated of his right, and a loser 
 while the baronet smiled sarcastically, and 
 gave his arm to Mrs. Ewins. 
 
 " That 's Edinboro' mainners," cried Bob 
 Pirgivie " at least the Smythe edition o' 
 them ; tak' ye my arm, Miss Jean : ye 
 have had a long walk, lassie, from Saltcoats, 
 the day, to your auntie's ploy \ " Miss Jean 
 herself gave him no thanks for this audible 
 remark. 
 
 And now behold Mrs. Mark Luke as near 
 as possible to the pinnacle of human felicity ! 
 On her right hand the representative of the 
 house of Smythe, the object of her admiration 
 and envy for twenty years, and a real live 
 Edinburgh advocate into the bargain. At 
 her left, the nonchalant Sir Ogilvy Fletcher, 
 looking as if he could not help it. She 
 only wished that she had had four more elbows 
 to accommodate four more unexceptionable 
 guests. True it was, Bailie Pirgivie's red 
 round face already loomed large through the 
 savoury haze of a tureen of soup, over which 
 he flourished a preparatory ladle, and Miss 
 Jean Sprot's eighteen-penny gaudy gauze 
 tippet brushed that part of Captain Rogers' 
 shoulders, where an epaulette should have 
 been. Nothing human is without alloy ; 
 yet, at this springtide of exultation, pleasure 
 greatly predominated checked, but not 
 materially subdued, by the incorrigible vul- 
 garity of the incorrigible Bob, and the stately 
 gravity of the titular Laird of Hawgreen. 
 
 Indeed, Mrs. Mark Luke had no leisure to 
 note every thing, or one-half of what passed 
 at her table. 
 
 Modern fashionable ladies give themselves 
 no trouble about how people dine at their 
 tables. It is enough that they may dine 
 sumptuously if they choose. This was not 
 yet her maxim. She would have insisted 
 upon it and, moreover, have seen the thing 
 done, but that it is impossible to accomplish
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 291 
 
 every thing at once. The wants of Sir 
 Ogilvy and Mr. Robert Smythe were at least 
 carefully attended to, and she had leisure to 
 feel a little disappointment or mortification 
 that the Hawgreen ladies did not seem to 
 know that the turtle was real turtle not 
 mock ; but, in compensation, Mrs. Stronach 
 was helped twice. The gentlemen, in general, 
 were better informed ; though none of them, 
 save young Mr. Smythe, appeared to discover 
 that the hock, the champagne, and eke the 
 claret, had been procured from a celebrated 
 Leith wine-merchant, belonging to the aris- 
 tocracy of the country " quality binding," 
 which must consequently improve the bouquet. 
 Indeed, nothing like it was to be obtained 
 in the western latitudes. Mr. Stronach him- 
 self resented this as stoutly as did Bailie Pir- 
 givie ; while the other gentlemen more civilly 
 signified their dissent, by sticking to Mark's 
 Madeira in preference. Mark 
 
 Lest folks should say that he -was proud 
 did not like to proclaim how largely he had 
 purchased from the stocking of the cellars of 
 the late proprietor of Halcyon Bank. But, 
 when Mr. Stronach launched forth in praise 
 of Gengebre's capital East India Madeira, and 
 the many " famous dinners " he had partaken 
 of in that same room, while Gengebre was a 
 bachelor, Mrs. Mark Luke could not refrain 
 from hinting, that " such things had been," 
 and "were most dear : " that her husband's 
 wine, in short, could be nothing inferior to 
 that of his distinguished predecessor, unless 
 age was a crime whether in wood or bottle. 
 
 There was both pleasure and regret to Mrs. 
 Luke in perceiving that the three courses 
 were fairly got through, and with credit ; 
 and the dessert, including the finest West 
 India preserves, (a present to Mark, by the 
 way, from an old 'prentice, now a planter in 
 Jamaica,) was handsomely laid out in the 
 beautiful new set : preserved limes, pre- 
 served green ginger, preserved pine apple, and 
 the preserved melons of Halcyon Bank. 
 
 " Preserve us a' ! " cried Bob Pirgivie, 
 turning up his eyes, as Mrs. Luke named and 
 recommended the exotic delicacies. Mark was 
 thrown into a most vulgarian fit of laughter 
 by the Bailie's joke, in which several joined. 
 
 "And now, Ma dame," continued the 
 Bailie, " that ye have exhousted the luxuries 
 of the tropics, what would ye think of drawing 
 next upon the empire of Chinee ? " Mark 
 was again in a convulsion of laughter at 
 this joke, and Miss Jean Sprot was fairly 
 under the necessity of stuffing her mouth with 
 her pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 " Bring in the China punch-bowl, lass," 
 cried Mark. And a very large and handsome 
 one was placed before " the Emperor of 
 China," who knowingly rung it with the 
 long-handled ladle, which he twirled dexter- 
 ously about, and wielded as a sceptre of 
 command. 
 
 " I am afraid the claret is not to your 
 liking, gentlemen," said the alarmed Mrs. 
 Mark Luke, who, above all things, dreaded 
 the early invocation of the genius of the 
 bowl. 
 
 " Oh, oh, oh ! " burst from all quarters of 
 the table in manly tones " superb claret ! " 
 
 " Glasgow punch who pleases I stick by 
 the ladies and the Chateau Margaut," cried 
 Mr. Robert Smythe aloud ; and, having first 
 carelessly offered the preserved pine near 
 him to the ladies on each hand, and been 
 refused, he emptied nearly the whole glass 
 dish into his plate, with the free and easy 
 air of a buck of the first head, to the utter 
 horror of the old-fashioned Scottish good- 
 breeding of Bailie Pirgivie. 
 
 " There 's anither swatch o' Edinboro' 
 mainners," said he. 
 
 " Saw ye ever such impidence ? " whispered 
 Miss Jean Sprot. " The pine apple, that has 
 been an honesty to aunty at all her parties 
 for six months, as it was aye potted up again, 
 with a drib of fresh syrup." Fortunately, 
 Mrs. Mark Luke could not hear what it 
 was that so much amused the young ladies 
 of Hawgreen, two pleasant, unaffected girls, 
 who tried to look demure, yet began to enter 
 into the humour of the scene, and of the 
 characters ; especially when the ci-devant 
 Glasgow magistrate tllus looked high disdain 
 upon the ill-mannered, effeminate Edinburgh 
 lawyer, gobbling up the tabooed luxuries in 
 presence of the ladies. 
 
 The delicate limes, the fresh and fragrant 
 lemons, the triple-refined and pounded sugar, 
 and the genuine old pine-apple rum, which, 
 Bailie Pirgivie remarked, " smelt like a clow 
 giliflower, and perfumed the whole room," 
 were now all placed in order before him. 
 The gentlemen, as they sipped their claret, 
 began to eye and feel interest in his opera- 
 tions. Mr. Stronach would have presumed 
 to direct ; but him Bob Pirgivie regarded 
 with the cool, silent contempt which became 
 a man who had made and drank hogsheads 
 of Glasgow punch, before the other had left 
 off petticoats. Mr. Pirgivie was getting 
 more and more into his natural element ; 
 and he was rising as rapidly with all the 
 party, save the hostess, her henchman, and
 
 2.') 2 
 
 MRS. MARK LTTKK ; OH, 
 
 Miss Stronach ; until the- opinions of the 
 latter were changed by the Baronet whispering 
 her, that " Pirgivie was more funny and 
 comical than Listen himself." 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke, at a loss upon this what 
 to think, endeavoured to preserve her equa- 
 nimity and composure, under the deliberate 
 concoction of that fatal bowl, from which 
 were to issue, by the dozen, vulgar toasts, 
 and songs and choruses enough to swamp 
 her beyond recovery. She resolved to carry 
 off the ladies before Bob could, in common 
 decency, toast, " The outward bound" or, " The 
 ladies that left us" 
 
 One infliction it was impossible to escape. 
 Mr. Robert Smythe had usurped the honour 
 of handing her down stairs ; but Bob, she 
 feared, would yield to no man living not 
 even to the Port-Glasgow refiner, and cer- 
 tainly much less to the broken Baronet the 
 appropriate toast of the day "TiiE ROOFTREE 
 OF MR. MARK LUKE, AND LONG LIFE, HEALTH, 
 AND HAPPINESS TO A' ABOUT AND BENEATH IT ! " 
 If fashion had not absolutely vitrified the heart 
 of Mrs. Luke, she must have been affected 
 by the genial spirit in which the stanch old 
 friend of the house, standing up on his 
 chair, and perspiring at every pore, uttered 
 this social prayer. Mark himself was almost 
 in tears ; and so loud a shout of Hip-hip- 
 hurrahs arose, that the ladies were fairly 
 driven off. 
 
 " He is the funniest creature that, in the 
 whole world," said Mrs. Luke, making the 
 best of it, as, arm in arm, she ascended the 
 stairs with Mrs. Stronach. "Vastly like 
 Liston, indeed don't you think so, ma'am? 
 as Sir Ogilvy remarked." 
 
 "Hark singing!" cried Miss Isabella, 
 the second daughter of the landed landless 
 family, pausing in the general progress to 
 the drawing-room ; as, both loud and clear, 
 arose 
 
 My aiii Fireside 
 
 from the mellifluous throat of Bailie Pirgivie. 
 In the halt, Mrs. Mark Luke was in a deadly 
 swither whether to execrate the vulgarity of 
 Bailie Pirgivie, or suffer the outbreak to 
 pass. Miss Stronach seemed to curl her nose 
 at the vulgar melody ; but, on the other side, 
 Isabella, the second daughter of Hawgreen, 
 caught up the chorus, and warbled as they 
 proceeded 
 
 My ain fireside, my ain fireside 
 Oh, sweet's the bonny blink o' my ain fireside ! 
 
 Notwithstanding her anxious and long 
 study of precedents, Mrs. Luke was fre- 
 quently, as upon the present occasion, at 
 
 fault. Isabella was a gentlewoman by birth 
 and education ; but then Miss Stronach had 
 been finished at Boulogne. Mrs. Luke 
 remained in a state of philosophic doubt as 
 to whether Bob's lyric was the thing or not. 
 Deeper doubts were that day to distract her 
 mind. As the sole daughter of the house, 
 Mysie came in for some share of civil atten- 
 tion from the ladies. Her drawings were 
 examined, and her lessons on the piano-forte 
 listened tu without much visible yawning. 
 It is, however, not difficult to perceive when 
 people yawn internally. 
 
 " I have an old promise from Mrs. Smythe 
 to receive my daughter on her very first 
 vacancy," observed Mysie's mother ; " it is 
 so great a favour. I mean to be very bold 
 with her, though ; and actually to remind 
 her again, through Mr. Robert, of her pro- 
 mise. What a very nice young man he is !" 
 
 " I wonder what all the world sees about 
 that woman's school," said Miss Stronach, 
 decidedly. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke bolted upright on her 
 couch. THAT WOMAN ! Was this epithet 
 meant to describe Mrs. Smythe, the head of 
 the Belle Retiro Establishment 'I 
 
 " The world of the West, I suppose, you 
 mean, Nelly, for I should not imagine any 
 less favoured region knows much about the 
 Smythes, or their wonderful school," said the 
 younger sister. Mrs. Luke stared with 
 amazement ; the orbits of her eyes distended. 
 
 "One might fancy some people hold a 
 patent from nature to instruct," observed 
 Mrs. Stronach, " to be used only when they 
 can do nothing better. What advantages of 
 education could an Edinburgh W.S.'s daugh- 
 ter have had forty years since? Such, I 
 believe, was Mrs. Smythe' s original status ; 
 and her daughters never had a teacher beyond 
 the West of Scotland, save the younger girl, 
 who was a few months in some petty French 
 school." 
 
 Could such things be ! Mrs. Mark Luke 
 was nearly petrified. " I fancied, ma'am, 
 your young ladies had enjoyed the advan- 
 tages had been educated at I mean in 
 the Belle Retiro Establishment." 
 
 " To my sorrow, ma' am, Flora was there 
 a few months ; and I assure you, when we 
 went abroad to proper schools, the pain of 
 unlearning all she had acquired was found a 
 formidable affair. Her Swiss pronunciation 
 of the French, Madame Didot found almost 
 insurmountable. The Smythes had a Swiss 
 governess" 
 
 [Well did Mrs. Luke know that : the
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 293 
 
 polite, poor, woeful Mademoiselle Curchod 
 the cousin of Madame de Stael. What an 
 escape had Mrs. Mark Luke had for her 
 llobina !] 
 
 "A Swiss girl, as a sort of governess, 
 ma'am, with such vicious habits " 
 
 " Gracious goodness ! " exclaimed Mrs. 
 Luke, throwing up her hands at the hidden 
 wickedness, thus half discovered. 
 
 " of English prosody, ma'am. I know 
 nothing against the morals of the young 
 woman." 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke was not quite certain 
 about this prosody aforesaid. Had it been 
 syntax or grammar or, as she called it, 
 when ultra-fine in her pronunciation, 
 gramber she would have known. How- 
 ever, " vicious habits of English prosody" 
 were, beyond all doubt, something to alarm 
 careful mothers, and of very dangerous 
 example in educating young ladies. 
 
 " There is always something wrong about 
 those foreigners," observed Mrs. Mark 
 Luke. 
 
 " Are they vitiated by the air of England?" 
 said Mr. Ewins, the clergyman, who had 
 glided in. " It is odd enough that British 
 mothers should so eagerly run abroad to 
 place their daughters wholly under the care 
 of foreign instructors ; and British society, 
 at the same time, remain so distrustful of 
 the few specimens who are domesticated 
 among us." 
 
 " I wish to goodness I knew how best to 
 place my daughter," sighed Mrs. Luke. " I 
 am aware that Scotland, and, it would seem, 
 
 England, are so far behind in in" She 
 
 hesitated 
 
 " In the cosmetic discipline, Mrs. Luke is 
 that it?" said the clergyman, smiling. "In 
 education it would not be difficult, I believe, 
 to construct tables for the guidance of 
 mothers, at least upon the present principles. 
 The guiding maxim is, that every one shall 
 run away from home, and the farther the 
 better. If you have daughters at John o' 
 Groat's, send them on to Aberdeen ; if at 
 Aberdeen, then off with them to Edinburgh ; 
 if in this latitude, then to London or Bath ; 
 while all London, with its multitudinous 
 environs, rush over to schools on the French 
 coast, or farther on, to Paris and its neigh- 
 bourhood." 
 
 Mrs. Luke's duties, as a tender, dutiful, and, 
 moreover, fashionable mother, became, at 
 every advancing step, more heavy and com- 
 plicated. She was, however, disposed to 
 place more confidence in the taste and ex- 
 
 perience of Mrs. Strouach, than in the j udg- 
 ment of Mr. Ewins, travelled as he was. 
 
 " You could not, then, iu conscience, re- 
 commend the Belle Retiro Establishment for 
 my girl ? " she whispered, drawing her new 
 acquaintance to a window. 
 
 " It is a very delicate subject, indeed, 
 ma'am," replied Mrs. Stronach. " I have 
 indicated my opinion. But, as a friend, I 
 may mention, that what I considered alto- 
 gether intolerable, was the untidiness the 
 Smythes allow in their pupils. My Elora 
 yonder, for example, was allowed to loll 
 about without stays, or with very ill-made 
 ones, till the poor child grew out of all shape. 
 Indeed, she has hardly yet recovered that 
 six months of gross neglect." 
 
 " Shocking ! " exclaimed Mrs. Mark Luke, 
 throwing, the proper degree of horror into her 
 face ; but as she looked at Miss Flora, still 
 as plump as a partridge, bursting from her 
 stays, and her fat, fair, round shoulders 
 disdaining all straps and ligatures, she men- 
 tally concluded that there might be a certain 
 order of fine forms, which required more 
 powerful restraints than the classic cestus 
 and mysterious sandal of the Belle Retiro ; 
 and that, however it were with the taste of 
 the Smythes, their judgment had, for once, 
 been at fault. 
 
 " The Smythes lay down the law in edu- 
 cation to you ladies of the West" said Miss 
 Stronach, with vivacity ; " but I imagine 
 they would soon have their pretensions pulled 
 to pieces in France or England. Conceive 
 Maria Smythe schooling my sister on our 
 style on the harp ! " 
 
 " My goodness !" cried Mrs. Luke whc 
 was shrewd enough, however, to perceive 
 " the cat leap out of the bag," and sufficiently 
 patriotic to resent the "you ladies of the 
 West." Advanced as she was, the younger 
 branches of the Stronachs had careered far 
 before her. They seemed to despise the 
 whole province as commercial, and vulgar, 
 manufacturing, and impracticable to the 
 refinements and graces of life. They had 
 little more reverence for the poor provincial 
 gentry, than for the purse-proud mercantiles. 
 Edinburgh itself, the very modern Athens, 
 was despised, with all its architectural, liter- 
 ary, and aristocratic pride and splendour. 
 Mrs. Mark Luke was overcome with amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " What is Edinburgh, after all, but a pro- 
 vincial town, where the Scottish law courts 
 sit," said Miss Stronach " with all the 
 formality, and more than the conceit of such
 
 294 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 kind of places ? Even your city of Glasgow, 
 ma'am, is, in some respects, superior to that 
 town of poor cousins, with its stiff profes- 
 sional air and ridiculous pretensions." 
 
 " Nay, the Edinburgh folk were aye up- 
 setting enough," cried Mrs. Luke, who, 
 though she usually affected to yield the palm 
 to the City of Palaces, as a proof of her own 
 refinement, was, as became her, at heart 
 sound and unfaltering in her allegiance to 
 her native district. Still she did not relish 
 " your city of Glasgow," though Glasgow 
 was a good place enough in its own way. 
 In short, poor Mrs. Luke, vacillating between 
 opinions and systems, did not, we apprehend, 
 well know what she would be at ; and the 
 appearance of Mr. Robert Smythe, it is to 
 be feared, would once more have turned the 
 scale in favour of the East-country, had not 
 Miss Stronach entered the lists for London, 
 Bath, and Brighton, if people were con- 
 demned to live in Great Britain at all. 
 
 While dazzled and bewildered by these 
 cross lights, and endeavouring to be of every- 
 body's opinion on matters of such vast con- 
 cernment to her, Mrs. Luke was startled by 
 the sudden creaking of wheels on the gravel, 
 and the exclamation of her daughter, who 
 stood at a window amid a cluster of junior 
 branches. " Mamma ! Mamma ! it's Mrs. 
 Furnishins and a' the bairns in a cart, with 
 straw and blankets ! Oh ! there is little 
 Jenny laughing up to me ;" and Mysie took 
 French leave of the party, and rushed down 
 to her former pew-mates, with whom she 
 had sometimes contrived to have a little sly 
 play in even sermon tune. Mrs. Luke's ears 
 rung her skin tingled her heart failed ; 
 she was truly " in a sad taking." Bob Pir- 
 givie was nothing to this. A tailor's wife 
 and all her brats ! Furnishius, too, the well- 
 known tailor of the Trongate a name that 
 would not hide, although Miss Luke had not 
 proclaimed it for which involuntary crime 
 of poor Mysie, birch have mercy upon her ! 
 
 The ladies were too well-bred to see, hear, 
 or understand, while their agonized hostess 
 became all manner of colours ; her com- 
 plexion varying, like the shades of her mind, 
 to pale, sanguine, black, and blue. She was, 
 however, a woman of considerable spirit, 
 presence of mind, and resource. Desperate 
 cases require desperate remedies ; and she 
 screamed out, " Oh, Mr. Robert Smythe, for 
 tiie love of goodness, stop my daughter she 
 is rushing upon contagion ! " Mr Smythe 
 flew gallantly to the rescue of the young 
 heiress presumptive ; and the mother follow- 
 
 ed, and was followed in turn by Miss Jean 
 Sprot, muttering, " Such impidence in Fur- 
 nishins, the tailor's wife, to come to see aunty 
 when she has genteel company ! " 
 
 " Robina ! Misa Luke ! " screamed the 
 mother, louder than before. " For heaven's 
 sake, Mr. Smythe, shut the hall door in the 
 face of those people." 
 
 " Good-day, mem ! " cried Mrs. Furnishing 
 now fairly alighted on her feet. " Siccan a 
 paradise as ye have got here, Mrs. Luke ! 
 \Ve have been at the saut-water for a week 
 back ; and I just thought, as ye pressed us 
 the last time I met ye in the kirk, the bairns 
 and me would hire a cart, and drive up the 
 coast, and take an airing and our four-hours 
 wi' Miss Mysie and Mrs. Luke, and see that 
 wonderfu' Halshie Bank we have a' heard so 
 much o'." 
 
 " For all the sakes on earth, go away, 
 woman, or I shall die on the spot ! " exclaimed 
 Mrs. Luke, keeping Mrs. Furnishins at arms- 
 length. " You have hooping-cough among 
 you, I hear. My precious child ! " And 
 now she seized Miss Mysie, who had flung 
 off Mr. Robert Smythe, and gave her a 
 tolerably smart admonitory pinch " Here, 
 gardener, do drive this load of pestilence 
 from my door. How could you, woman, be 
 so thoughtless was there not the back en- 
 trance 1 " And with this the glass door was 
 fairly slammed in the face of the inconsiderate 
 visitant, who remounted her car with her 
 progeny, muttering mischief and vengeance, 
 and " Woman, indeed ! Wha does she wo- 
 man ! Set her up ! " 
 
 " Was there ever such impidence ! " again 
 ejaculated Miss Sprot. It was the first sen- 
 sible or acceptable word her aunt had heard 
 her speak that day, and the very first she 
 addressed to her was, " Take Robina up 
 stairs, Jean," and as, leaning on the sup- 
 porting arm of Mr. Smythe, she came within 
 ear-shot of the drawing-room, she said more 
 audibly " and change her clothes and fumi- 
 gate her well nor dare either of you to enter 
 the drawing-room this evening. Such a 
 fright I have got ! Oh, ladies, such a catas- 
 trophe ! I have to beg ten thousand pardons. 
 But, I trust in mercy, Miss Flora Stronach 
 has had the chincough ? " 
 
 The tittering Miss Stronachs had gone 
 out into the balcony to " enjoy the prospect 
 before the house," a literal fact, which Mrs. 
 Luke could not doubt. They came in, try- 
 ing, with more politeness than success, to 
 compose their features. " We shall be sorry 
 if we have frightened away your friends,
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 295 
 
 ina'aui," said Miss Stronach. "All my 
 sisters have had hooping-cough. I was seized 
 myself at Versailles when at school." 
 
 " That person is the wife of one of Mr. 
 Luke's tenants in Glasgow," observed Mrs. 
 Mark Luke, with recovered dignity "decent, 
 substantial people in their way ; but not 
 particularly well acquainted, as you may 
 perceive, with the usages of society. In the 
 country, of a morning, one is bound to re- 
 ceive every body ; but one's evenings should, 
 surely, be one's own. Even you, ladies, 
 could, I dare say, have forgiven the ignorance 
 of the poor woman, with her ill-timed visit ; 
 but to bring infection to my house is utterly 
 unpardonable." 
 
 The most practised individual present had 
 reason to admire the dexterity with which 
 Mrs. Luke had manoeuvred ; and that, with- 
 out driving matters to a very preposterous 
 length, or outraging all probability by her 
 inventions, she had got tolerably well out of 
 the scrape. Tea appeared as a relief. The 
 previous coffee Miss Stronach had pronounced 
 equal in strength to Madame Didot's : in 
 
 flavour but it was idle in Scotland to 
 
 desire impossibilities. 
 
 The qualifications of that lady as an in- 
 structress, now formed the theme of Mrs. 
 Stronach. Her daughters joined in the chorus 
 of praise to their last teacher the last of 
 many. Madame Didot, who had finished 
 them, and still corresponded with them, was 
 an Englishwoman by birth and hence her 
 exalted state in morals and in the Protestant 
 religion ; but a Frenchwoman by marriage 
 and residence and hence all that was ad- 
 mirable and enviable in manners and personal 
 accomplishments. Miss Stronach read a few 
 extracts from her letters. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the Laird of Hawgreen 
 came up stairs with his cousin, the baronet. 
 The landed interest appeared disposed to 
 stand by their order at one end of the room, 
 while the commercial and fashionable section 
 took their station at another. Mrs. Mark 
 Luke vibrated between them, so ill at ease, 
 what with the frigid hauteur of the landless 
 laird, the insolent nonchalance of the titled 
 man, and the saucy or defying airs of the 
 Stronachs, that she almost rejoiced when 
 Hawgreen gave his daughters the word to 
 move. In the meantime, the mirth and fun 
 in the dining-room below was growing "fast 
 and furious," under the combined influences 
 of Bob Pirgivie's chansons a boire, and his 
 thrice replenished bowl. Mr. Robert Smythe, 
 listening to those sounds of conviviality, 
 
 almost wished, albeit their vulgarity, that his 
 retreat had been less precipitate, especially as 
 Hawgreen stiffly declined his offered escort 
 to the ladies. Mrs. Luke and Mrs. Stronach 
 were overcome with surprise at the Hawgreen 
 ladies proposing to walk home, a plan so 
 full of danger and difficulty in a July even- 
 ing of uncommon beauty! The ladies pleaded 
 the beauty of the weather, the delightful 
 path, lying for a mile or two along the shore, 
 or through plantations, and commanding, at 
 so many openings, enchanting views of the 
 airy, expansive Firth of Clyde and its islands, 
 with the sweeping sky-line of the mountains 
 of Arran and Argyleshire, and its indented 
 or deeply-embayed coast. Mrs. Mark looked 
 from the balcony of her marine villa, over 
 sea and land, with the pride of a proprietress, 
 and not without some feeling of the natural 
 beauty of the prospect, and began to guess 
 that it may sometimes be quite as genteel to 
 walk two miles, as to go in the gig, particu- 
 larly in a lovely summer evening. 
 
 And now the rural ladies were shawled 
 and shod, and fairly under weigh on the 
 lawn, while she curtseyed her thir4 leave- 
 taking from above, not quite satisfied as to 
 the point of etiquette of descending to the 
 hall with the landed interest, and thus seem- 
 ing to neglect the guests of the other order, 
 who were equally tenacious of privilege, and 
 far more exacting in attention. She com- 
 pounded by her appearance on the balcony ; 
 and well it was that she was unaccompanied. 
 
 " What vulgar family is that above, Sir 
 Ogilvy, with the mother in the blue gown 1" 
 Hawgreen was heard to inquire. 
 
 Vulgar family ! blue gown ! there was 
 but one such dress in the party Mrs. 
 Stronach's lovely Lyons figured satin. 
 Such impudence ! thought Mrs. Mark Luke. 
 " There is no getting the better of the beggar- 
 pride of the gentles itr. Stronach, that could 
 buy him, and sell him, and all his generation ! 
 Set him up ! " 
 
 While Hawgreen buttoned up his coat, 
 and the ladies stepped on, there was leisure 
 for a few more observations. 
 
 " What heraldic monstrosity have we got 
 here, Sir Ogilvy?" This was said in refer- 
 ence to a lobby chair blazoned with the 
 presumed armorial bearings of Mr. Mark 
 Luke ; which, having been lifted out to aid 
 the unlucky descent of Mrs. Furnishins from 
 her cart, still remained on the gravel. Sir 
 Ogilvy, not wholly unconscious, perhaps, 
 that there was an observer overhead, delibe- 
 rately examined the extraordinary monsters
 
 20G 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 through his eye-glass, and burst into an 
 immoderate lit of laughter. 
 
 " This is a matter for the surveillance of 
 the Lyon King," he said, at last. " Such a 
 confounding of all the laws, principles, and 
 rules of heraldry amounts to nothing less 
 than misprision of treason against his sove- 
 reignty. Have persons bearing the appella- 
 tion of Luke anus at all, or any title to bear 
 them? Allow me to help you with that 
 button, Hawgreen " 
 
 " Very good arms, with clutching, scramb- 
 ling-up sort of fingers at the end of them ; 
 of more account in Scotland, in these times, 
 Sir Ogilvy, than any obtained by grace of 
 William the Lion himself." The gentlemen 
 proceeded arm in arm ; the mortified Mrs. 
 Luke heard no more, and retreated from the 
 balcony with a heightened complexion and 
 as much dignity and composure as she could 
 summon up. 
 
 The ladies now fell into closer ranks, and 
 engaged in a serious discussion upon educa- 
 tion, manners, taste, fashion, and fashion- 
 ables, and the cosmetic discipline ; ending 
 with a parallel between Mrs. Smythe and 
 Madame Didot, not exactly in the manner of 
 Plutarch, but sufficient to convince Mrs. 
 Luke that her daughter would be ruined for 
 ever unless she was finished at the Boulogne 
 seminary. Mrs. Stronach, therefore, agreed 
 to support her in attacking Mr. Mark Luke 
 upon the absolute necessity of expatriating 
 his only child for several years, and those the 
 most important of her life. 
 
 In the meanwhile, in expectation of the 
 gentlemen, coffee was hot and coffee was 
 cold a half-dozen times. No fresh man came, 
 and Mr. Robert Smythe had stolen away. 
 There was not a single gentleman left to 
 mount guard upon the piano-forte, or to listen 
 to the tinkling of the guitar, which, at the 
 earnest request of Mrs. Luke, had been 
 brought by the Stronachs in their vehicle. 
 Their mother began a discourse on tempe- 
 rance, or rather on the vulgarity of deep and 
 long-continued potations, and instituted an- 
 other comparison between East-country and 
 West-country manners. Hard drinking and 
 the abandonment of the Graces were, accord- 
 ing to Mrs. Stronach, disappearing entirely 
 in the upper regions. A better style had 
 descended even the length of Edinburgh, 
 where, in families of the best fashion, very 
 little wine was drunk by the young men, 
 and no punch. 
 
 " There may be reasons for that, ma'am," 
 observed Mrs. Mark "Wine is a heavy 
 
 fatem in a pinched income. The ladies of 
 Edinburgh, I hear, are mighty admirers of 
 such gentlemen as spare the garde de mn. 
 There's a great deal of outside work in certain 
 quarters, I am given to understand. Thank 
 our stars, though Mr. Luke is no glass- 
 breaker, he can both afford to give his friends 
 a bottle of claret, and has the heart to make 
 them welcome to it. They do seem to be 
 enjoying themselves down stairs." 
 
 Mrs. Mark rejoiced to think that so much 
 good wine and old Jamaica rum was in 
 course of consumption at her entertainment. 
 Refining into mere shadows and vapour was 
 not at all to her substantial taste, ambitious 
 of elegance as she was become. 
 
 The rich and glowing July evening deep- 
 ened into that witching hour 
 
 T-ween the gloamin and the mirk 
 so soothing to sense, and so promotive of 
 reverie. The blackbirds flitted about in the 
 dew-besprent shrubberies of Halcyon Bank, 
 uttering those jets and gushes of song in 
 which they delight at eventide ; and while 
 Bailie Pirgivie, and his friend, Mark, chir- 
 ruped " Auld Langsyne " below, odours of 
 rum-punch and eglantine, of tobacco and 
 bean-blossom, came blended on the breeze, 
 floating upwards to the ladies leaning in the 
 balcony, and looking sentimentally over the 
 shimmering sea. The gentle ripple of the 
 tide, as wave after wave kissed the pebbled 
 strand and died away, was listened to in the 
 pauses of the reiterated " Hip ! hip ! hip ! 
 hurra /" poured from the obstreperous throats 
 of the compotators, and in especial as the 
 glasses rung to the health of the young heiress 
 of Halcyon .Bank ! 
 
 " I'll underwrite her for 30,000, and no' 
 hurt her mother's settlement. D'ye hear 
 that, Bob, my boy?" said Bailie Pirgivie, 
 now " pretty well on," freely slapping the 
 accomplished Mr. Robert Symthe at least 
 so Mrs. Mark hoped and believed, though she 
 had rather raised her views for Robina, on the 
 present afternoon. Edinburgh had fallen in 
 her scale in nearly the same proportion as the 
 Belle Retiro School. Mrs. Stronach pricked 
 up her matronly ears. She had four daugh- 
 ters ; but she had also a Bob, and a John, 
 and a James, and a few more of the same 
 kind, still unbearded ; and she fancied it 
 enough that the Edinburgh barristers drained 
 the pockets of the Western magnets in law- 
 suits, without stealing their heiresses. Her 
 manner to her new friend, Mrs. Luke, be- 
 came more cordial her interest more lively 
 Luke enjoying the same advantages
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 297 
 
 of education as her own daughters, under the 
 care of Madame Didot. 
 
 While the mothers conferred in low con- 
 fidential tones, the young ladies were hum- 
 ming songs, waltzing with each other, and, 
 in short, if such a thing durst be surmised 
 of the pupils of Madame Didot, laughing 
 loudly, and romping in a very natural 
 manner. Twilight, like undress, wears off 
 restraint ; and nature will, at some time or 
 other, vindicate her own rights ay, in spite 
 of all the six months' educational systems 
 in the world. She did so now in the natural 
 movements of mind and body of these young 
 women ; who, released from the task-work 
 of exhibition, and none of the other sex being 
 present to excite their vanity and coquetry, 
 had forgotten the assumed part, and relapsed 
 into something as agreeable as the freshness 
 of youth and youthful spirits, when allowed 
 fair play, will generally make at least nineteen 
 girls out of every twenty. In the midst of 
 their gaiety, a bustle and an opening of doors 
 and windows was heard below, which, on the 
 instant, drove them back within the intrench- 
 meuts of affectation and artificial manners. 
 The gentlemen were assuredly coming at 
 last. 
 
 " Gi'e him air ! gi'e him air, for the Lord's 
 sake ! " was the exclamation of Bailie Pir- 
 givie. " Unloose his cravat. Oh, Mark Luke 
 my aoild comrade ! my trusty friend ! is 
 this to be the end o't ? Cast down frae the 
 very dizzy pinnacle of warldly prosperity ! 
 Och, sirs, but we are frail creatures tak' 
 awa' that fu' bowl, lass erring mortals at 
 the best." 
 
 Natural feeling was no more extinguished 
 in the bosom of Mrs. Luke, than utterly so- 
 phisticated in the hearts of the Miss Stronachs. 
 We shall, however, pass over her grief for 
 the sudden loss of her rich husband, which 
 was sufficiently conspicuous, as Miss Parlane 
 and Miss Bogle afterwards alleged, in the 
 triple breadth of her mourning hems, and 
 the profound depth of her sables. 
 
 In short, Mrs. Mark Luke set into her 
 widowhood with that good wet grief which 
 affords a rational hope to surrounding friends 
 of speedy comfort. It was now she had full 
 tune to ruminate upon the ominous change 
 of manners which Mr. Luke had exhibited 
 while his fate, in the last three days, was 
 upon him. There had, indeed, been more in 
 it than she had surmised ; and her indignation 
 was extreme, to find that not Mr. Ewins alone, 
 but Bailie Pirgivie, and her old mother-in- 
 law, were associated with herself in the 
 
 guardianship of her daughter, by a will dated 
 only two days before his death. Into the 
 minute particulars of that will, neither Miss 
 Parlane nor Miss Bogle were able, at this 
 stage, to dive ; but this was so far good, as 
 it afforded the wider scope for conjecture. 
 
 " I can get no satisfaction out o' auld 
 Luckie Luke," said Miss Betty, who had been 
 out as a scout as far as Balmanno Street, one 
 day. " She's a close, preceese kind o' body ; 
 only ' Her dear son was aye a sensible man, 
 and had made, nae doubt, a judicious settle- 
 ment.' She is well provided for, and there's 
 something to the Sprots, and a thirty pounds 
 a-year, for three years, to help to keep James 
 Wilson at the College, if he incline. Mark 
 Luke might have made it the even hunder, 
 I think. As for the great Madam herself, 
 there is no telling her power over the gear, 
 or what she is to have ; but I wish she may 
 do justice to the bit lassie, her daughter." 
 
 " Ay, Miss Bogle," said her friend, laugh- 
 ing ; " and wha do ye think Bauby is like 
 to ware her widowhood upon? But ye are 
 but lame and behind in your news, Mem. 
 Mark has made a settlement that will please 
 the auld leddy o' Balmanno Street better 
 than the mistress o' Halshie Bank, as I can 
 understand. However, that had not just 
 spunked out at first, and down goes Madam 
 Smythe, as a friend of the family no less, in 
 a post-chaise, to bring away Mrs. Luke and 
 her daughter from the scene of their woes, 
 up to the Belle Retiro school, till after the 
 burial for that, it seems, is all the fashion 
 now and got the hire to pay for her pains ; 
 for Bauby, in truth. ' was ower sick and 
 sorrowful to see strangers, and could riot part 
 with her dear daughter.' There was a change 
 o' market days, I trow, Mem ! The Smythes 
 have room enough to spare in their Establish- 
 ment, as they call it, now, for both Mrs. 
 Luke and Miss Mysie. But was it no' a 
 judgment-like thing to see Mark Luke 
 strucken down, as if by a visible hand, at 
 that Belshazzar Feast of theirs? But it's 
 no' the greatest sinner that is aye first called 
 to account." 
 
 " And that's as true," returned Miss 
 Bogle ; " it was evident there was something 
 before that family. Even Mark himself, 
 though a douce sensible man, was exalting 
 his horn. Hech, sirs ! to see a house-heating 
 turned into a dregy ! If Bauby Peaston has 
 any sense of decency or religion about her, 
 she will rather lay the judgment to heart 
 than be raising marble monuments with 
 rhymes on them to her gudeman's memory,
 
 298 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 keeping a' Glasgow laughing at them 
 baith." 
 
 " His memory ! It 's little ye ken about 
 it. They tell me, that should ken, that she 
 was near tearing Bailie Pirgivie's een out 
 when the Will came to be read. As Mark 
 was neither at kirk nor market after the 
 testament was made, and the forty-and-one 
 days not out, it's thought it winna stand by 
 the auld statute laws of Scotland ; so the 
 widow and weel it sets her J has con- 
 sulted Bob Smythe, the Edinboro' advocate, 
 upon it ; and is advised to raise a plea with 
 Mysie's other guardians, Mr. Ewins and 
 Bailie Pirgivie, to reduce Mark's settlement, 
 and come in for the widow's tierce, which 
 would make her a prize yet to some needy 
 vagabond in foreign parts, that could blaw 
 in her lug, and pretend to make a lady o' 
 her." 
 
 Beyond the quality of her crape and. bom- 
 bazeen, and the freshness of her complexion, 
 which bore testimony to the old adage em- 
 ployed on the occasion by Miss Parlane, of 
 " A fat sorrow being a gude sorrow," nothing 
 transpired for three months, which could 
 afford the spinsters and their industrious 
 circle any exact information as to the ulti- 
 mate views of Mrs. Mark Luke. At the 
 end of that period the beautiful Marine 
 Villa, and the Goodwill of that long-estab- 
 lished shop in the Trongate, were advertised 
 Apply to Bailie Pirgivie. One Concern. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Luke and her 
 daughter went to France, under the escort 
 of Mr. Charles Stronach. It was impossible 
 to mould an immediate marriage out of this 
 journey. 
 
 " I can make nothing more of it," said 
 the discomfited Miss Bogle, when the friends 
 next compared notes ; "though she gives 
 herself airs as if she were Lady Ogilvy 
 Fletcher already." 
 
 " Lady Ogilvy Fletcher ! No, no : 
 ne'er-do-weel dyvour as he is, he has not 
 fallen just that far," exclaimed Miss Parlane, 
 who, as a fourth cousin of the house of 
 Hawgreen, had more correct ideas of aristo- 
 cratic feeling than her friend, whose con- 
 nexions were wholly gutter-blood. 
 
 " What was she after, then ? No house 
 in Glasgow good enough for her to put up 
 in but the George, the three days she staid, 
 driving about leave-taking. I'm glad she 
 did not darken my door, as I do not think I 
 could have observed discretion to such a 
 
 woman. But there will be news of Bauby 
 
 Peaston yet, or I'm mistaken." And the 
 
 sagacity of our spinster was not at fault. 
 There was news " of her ; " but that must 
 be reserved for another chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HIGH and low, east and west, Mrs. Luke 
 had vowed a residence of four years upon 
 the Continent to finish Robina, and she 
 heroically devoted herself to the same length 
 of exile. Poor lady, she little guessed what 
 she so rashly undertook. It was with great 
 difficulty she obtained the consent of the 
 other guardians to take her daughter abroad ; 
 but Mr. Ewins first yielded to importunity, 
 and, next, Bob Pirgivie, whose peculiar de- 
 partment was looking after the pecuniary 
 concerns of the heiress. 
 
 For two years there was much less intelli- 
 gence of the travellers than their female 
 friends at home could have wished. During 
 this period, Mrs. Mark Luke had remained 
 near her daughter at Boulogne, at Ver- 
 sailles, at Tours, and latterly in Paris. 
 Sometimes she was really seen by persons 
 from the west of Scotland ; but, much more 
 frequently, Mrs. Luke was imagined to have 
 been met with under very extraordinary 
 circumstances. Her marriage was reported 
 in her native circles at least once in every 
 three months. 
 
 In the meantime, old Mrs. Luke died one 
 afternoon, and had her repositories effectually 
 ransacked by her attendant gossips our 
 now venerable, but still active spinsters of 
 the Trongate; Several letters were found 
 addressed by Mysie to her " dear grand- 
 mother," which threw some faint light upon 
 the motions of the absentees. The first was 
 dated Boulogne. We shall give but one 
 extract : " After unpacking our trunks to 
 get out our new London mourning, we dressed, 
 and drove out to the chateau, which means a 
 castle, but not one like Dumbarton, nor 
 Inverary, nor yet Loudon, or Cassillis House. 
 I was so afraid and so was mamma herself 
 a little to meet this grand Madame Didot 
 we had heard so much about ! But, dear 
 grannie, only guess who she was ! I give 
 you and Grizzy, your lass, nine guesses. 
 Who but our own old Miss Dedham, become 
 very like a painted French lady ! Mamma 
 found her out at once ; and so did I, and 
 was very glad to see her ; but she could not 
 recollect us at first at all, nor speak any 
 English to us. Mamma was so mad at the 
 Stronachs for sending us to her ! But, dear 
 grannie, you must not say one word of this
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 299 
 
 to Miss Parlane or Miss Betty Bogle for 
 mamma says they are such horrid, vulgar 
 gossips ; and she does not wish any one, not 
 even the Stronachs, to know that Madame 
 Didot was formerly the Smythes' nursery- 
 governess, and ours, as it might hurt their 
 feelings." 
 
 " The impertinent little cuttie ! like 
 mother like dochter ! " exclaimed Miss Par- 
 lane. " Miss Betty Bogle, indeed ! But 
 go on, mem fine doings, truly ! " 
 
 " Sir Ogilvy Fletcher, who is here, and 
 many other grand gentlefolks, told mamma 
 that Mons. Didot (Mons. means Mr.) was 
 formerly his valet dc place at Paris. You 
 don't know what that is ; but it is very like 
 a flunkie with you. I have already been at 
 three different schools here, and mamma in 
 five French boarding-houses. Though there 
 is very genteel society, and many officer 
 gentlemen and their ladies in them, mamma 
 does so long for a comfortable house of her 
 own again ! There is no breakfast, and no 
 comfort, mamma says, and she hates French 
 gibberish. The weather is terribly cold, and 
 no carpets or good fires, and very ugly 
 dining-rooms. I have had chilblains all 
 winter ; and yesterday, when I went to visit 
 mamma, her face was swelled, and her nose 
 so blue. ' O Mysie/ says she, I wish we 
 were within twenty miles of the Monklaud 
 Canal, and we should have one rousing coal 
 fire.' Dear Grannie, I wish that too for 
 then I would see you." 
 
 Miss Bogle kept silent so long as the rela- 
 tion of foreign grievances proceeded ; but 
 when the reader ceased, she also burst out 
 " Impertinent little gipsy, indeed, mem ! 
 ' Gossips,' quoth she ! My truly, I 'm mis- 
 taken if both mother and dochter do not 
 give the world plenty room for gossip. But 
 what are ye come to next ? " 
 
 " I 'm glad these papers of our friend, 
 that's gone to a better place, has fallen into 
 friendly hands like yours. These letters are 
 not just for the eye of the fremmit, I'm 
 jalousing." 
 
 The next letter, some years later, was 
 dated Versailles. In it, " dear grannie " was 
 informed " Mamma took me away in great 
 haste from Mademoiselle Seraphine's school. 
 One day mamma gave a grand party. Sir 
 Ogilvy was there, and several English gentle- 
 men and ladies, with Mademoiselle and myself, 
 and two of the boarders whose grandfather 
 was a Count that is like a lord with you. 
 Well, next morning, one of the gentlemen 
 sent mamma a very polite letter, saying 
 
 Mademoiselle had been an opera-dancer, and 
 he remembered her as such at Lyons, that 
 is, a playactress, and a very naughty woman. 
 My mother was so shocked, and cried her 
 eyes out, and talked of coming home from 
 such wicked people, if Miss Parlane and the 
 Glasgow gossips would not laugh at us. So 
 off we came here. I liked that school very 
 well myself. Mademoiselle was very good- 
 natured, and a beautiful dancer, and did not 
 wish to make the young ladies Papists, like 
 the cross old governess in another school I 
 was at. 
 
 " Mamma took me from the school before 
 that, because the pupils got nothing but cold 
 French beans to breakfast, and sometimes a 
 cup of chiccory, which is something very 
 like the coffee you give Girzy, for her break- 
 fast, after you are done yourself, and pour 
 more water upon the grounds for her. It is 
 not so nice, to be sure, as Hawkie's milk, 
 which I got at Halcyon Bank, but it is very 
 well. Mamma talks of the Bank to our 
 friends here very often ; and there is a tall 
 gentleman, whom we knew at Boulogne, 
 who wishes to buy it from her at any price ; 
 but I hope mamma won't give it to him, as 
 it was my father's place ; and I heard Bailie 
 Pirgivie one day say it was mine, as I was 
 an heiress." 
 
 " My word ! " cried Miss Bogle, when the 
 epistle was at this stage ; " but Mysie Luke 
 is mother's dochter ! She's a sharp miss. 
 Ye'll see a stramash about the gear yet. But 
 go on, mem." 
 
 " The tall gentleman is called Colonel 
 Rigby Blake ; and he is either an Englishman 
 or an Irishman, and not our countryman. 
 He is very attentive to mamma when she 
 walks out, and interprets for her, and counts 
 French money, which is not like our money ; 
 but I cannot say I like him, he stares so 
 terribly. He teaches mamma and some 
 other ladies short whist ; and me tricks on 
 the cards, when I visit my mother. Short 
 whist is something like Catch Honours, which 
 mamma used to play at long ago, but more 
 genteel ; for people lose more money by it. 
 Dear grannie, do you remember when James 
 Wilson and I used to play at lirky upon 
 your whamled mahogany tea-board in dear 
 Glasgow ? You see I do not forget my Scotch 
 mamma calls it my Doric, which is a 
 Greek tongue ; and I don't think she is so 
 angry at my vulgar words now, as she used 
 to be at home. We heard from Mr. Ewins 
 that James Wilson is learning to be a doctor 
 at Edinburgh College, that he may get a
 
 300 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 post in India ; but he should not go there, 
 for my geography says, the climate is so hot 
 that people get sick and die. Perhaps you 
 will tell him that, grannie, when he calls for 
 you." 
 
 We cannot longer follow the juvenilities of 
 this epistle ; the most important part of which 
 was a marginal note, in the sturdy, stumpy, 
 hand-writing of Bailie Pirgivie, which Miss 
 Parlane immediately identified : " N.B. 
 To let Mounseer Colonel Rigby Blake two 
 words into the mysteiy, which will requite 
 him for his instruction of my Avard in tricks 
 on the cards." 
 
 " The mystery, Miss Bogle ! What can it 
 be ? There is something under this colonel I 
 cannot fathom ! " 
 
 " Colonel, Miss Betty ! Just such a colo- 
 nel, I dare say, as the chield was, they called 
 a captain in the cutter, whom Mrs. Luke had 
 the impudence to introduce to my cousins, 
 the Hawgreens, as a navy officer, at their 
 grand banquet some years since, though he 
 turned out nothing better than a kind of 
 saut- water gauger, and has last week married 
 Nelly Stronach." 
 
 " But no' slighted Miss Isabella o' Haw- 
 green I hope," said the other, with a gentle 
 sneer ; " young ladies of family cannot aye 
 afford to be so nice nowadays as wealthy 
 merchants' dochters : but here's a parcel 
 more of Miss Liike's letters in this drawer, 
 tied up with a black ribbon. The date is 
 only last year. It is marked private, too 
 what can they be about ? It may be no' just 
 fair to read them, Miss Penny." 
 
 " No' just fair ! What does the woman 
 mean ? Do you think that I, or my father's 
 bairn, would do a dirty thing, as if we were 
 come o' huxtery folk?" This was meant 
 for a hard hit. " To be sure, there is no 
 written testament found yet, authorizing us 
 to act, so far as we have rummaged ; but 
 were not her last words to me, said in your 
 hearing, mem, ' Tak hame the six Apostle 
 spoons and the siller posset-pot, Miss Penny, 
 upon my blessing ; and letna Jean Sprot get 
 her lang fingers ower them are they 
 no' a' for my dear son's bairn, my darlin' 
 Mysie?' Is not that a legal warrandice to 
 search for papers, given by word of mouth, 
 if not by deed o' settlement under hand and 
 seal?" 
 
 " Certainly, mem," returned the less in- 
 structed Miss Bogle; and she continued "I 
 have heard of the Apostle spoons and the 
 posset-pot, and should like weel to see them. 
 It is said they have been amang the Lukes 
 
 since the spulyieing o' Blantyre Priory in 
 the Reformation times, when their namely 
 forbear a Mark Luke, too commonly 
 called the Monk's Miller, helped himsel*. 
 And they are all for Miss Mysie ? Well, 
 them that ha'e muckle aye get mair ' a 
 body creeshes the fat sow's tail,' as the 
 vulgar by-word gangs ; but I aye thought, 
 the posset-pot was to be yours, mem, for 
 like a compliment and memorandum." 
 
 Miss Penny w^s all unheeding even this 
 disappointment of her reasonable expecta- 
 tions. She had poked into a secret drawer 
 of the old-fashioned escrutoire, and found a 
 voluminous letter, nor yet very old in date, 
 and that date Paris. She read a few lines, 
 and the skinny fingers of the self-appointed 
 executrix trembled with eagerness ; the specta- 
 cles vibrated upon her sharp and semi-trans- 
 parent nose. It commenced thus : 
 
 " My dearest grandmother I have such 
 a story to tell you ! But you must not 
 speak one word about it to any body in the 
 world, save Bailie Pirgivie ; and send for 
 him and tell him as fast as ever you can. 
 But pray don't tell your lass, Girzy for I 
 know you love to chat with her nor cousin 
 Jean, nor any body, lest it come to the ears 
 of those spiteful old witches in the Trongate, 
 who rejoice so to get anything against poor 
 mamma." " Wha can the young cutty 
 mean?" cried the indignant reader, laying 
 the epistle on her lap. " Let me see : 
 there's Miss Jenny Catanach, in the Tron- 
 gate, and Miss Christy Cammell, and Miss 
 Rachel Rattray, and Mrs. Saunders, the 
 
 widow " 
 
 "We'll reserve that point, if ye please, 
 mem," rejoined Miss Bogle, drily. " It's 
 no doubt some one of those respectable ladies 
 that's meant. Fine manners, upon my word, 
 young ladies learn in France ! Spiteful auld 
 witches ! the misleared little limmer ! But 
 Mysie Luke will turn out Bauby Peaston's 
 daughter ; and that ye'll see, Miss Penny, if 
 ye live lang and say then I said it. But 
 go on, mem." 
 
 " Go on ! my certy, here is a going-on ! 
 Bauby Peaston has kytlied at last," she 
 said, skimming over the pages, as if keeping 
 a look-out for breakers a-head, and desirous 
 not to run foul of them in the dark a second 
 time. Her gray-green eyes twinkled with 
 mirthful malice. " It's surely something 
 unco gude that ye keep it all to yourself, 
 Miss Penny," said her companion pettishly ; 
 but a quick, creaking footfall was heard 
 and, puffing, Bob Pirgivie now, like
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 301 
 
 Hamlet, become " fat and scant of breath" 
 suddenly opened the door and fairly caught 
 both ladies in the manner. 
 
 " Ye needna lay wyte on me, Bailie Pir- 
 givie," whimpered the serving-maid of the 
 deceased, following him into the room, her 
 apron at her eyes : " I sent the lassie to 
 warn ye the blessed minute the breath gacd 
 out of my auld mistress's body. I wat she 
 had nae sair warsle she slipped away like 
 the bairn fa'ing asleep at the mother's breast ; 
 and was scarce decently streeked when Miss 
 Bogle, there where she sits, riped her pouch, 
 that aye lay below her bowster through her 
 lang sickness, for the keys, and opened the 
 'scrutoire, let me do or say " 
 
 " Me ! ye audaucious quean ! T refer to 
 Miss Parlane there " 
 
 "Never mind, ladies," said the Bailie, 
 coolly whipping up the letters scattered 
 about " ye wanted to help me in sealing up 
 Mrs. Luke senior's effects, I make no doubt 
 so let us set about it. I'll thank ye for 
 that paper you are sitting upon, by accident, 
 Miss Betty." 
 
 " And is there such a person as Mrs. Luke 
 junior, in the world, Bailie, any longer?" 
 inquired the best informed, though still but 
 half informed, Miss Parlane. 
 
 " Oh, fie, ladies ! ye would not have Mrs. 
 Luke get two husbands for her ain share, 
 before other honest lasses like you get ane 
 ava," said the facetious bachelor. Devoted as 
 both the spinsters were to showing a decent 
 respect to the memory and remains of their 
 ancient friend, abandoned in her age by her 
 own flesh and blood, they resented his ill- 
 breeding so far, that he was obliged to make 
 humble apologies before they would agree to 
 attend the chesting, as the doleful and humi- 
 liating ceremony of placing the corpse in the 
 coffin is named. They were, however, some- 
 what conciliated by being legally constituted 
 interim custodiers of the posset-pot and the 
 Apostle spoons, and promised a keepsake 
 when the spoils were divided upon the return 
 of the Lukes. 
 
 The glimpse which one lady had obtained of 
 the wanderings, and aberrations of the heart 
 of Mrs. Mark Luke, had only served to whet 
 the curiosity of both. Miss Bogle, who was 
 still strong, and always the more active of 
 the two, wore out three pairs of heel-taps 
 in this " Pursuit of Knowledge under Diffi- 
 culties. " Once the scent lay very strong 
 after a young woman, the daughter of a 
 lodging-house landlady at Largs, who had 
 gone to France as the waiting-maid of Mrs. 
 
 Geugebre, and had in this capacity crossed 
 Mrs. and Miss Luke several times, both on 
 the Continent, at Cheltenham, and in London. 
 But just as she was heard of, and matters put 
 in fair train, the foolish girl, upon one-half 
 day's courting, married an American sailor, 
 and went off with him to Greenock, unmind- 
 ful of the tea to which Miss Parlane had 
 condescended to invite her nominally, in 
 respect of her mother having been a nurse in 
 the Hawgreen family, but, in reality, on 
 account of her superior continental intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 If so simple a relation of the adventures 
 of Mrs. Luke, as that which we have power 
 to give, would have satisfied her former 
 friends and acquaintances, it might have 
 been obtained with much less trouble than 
 the vague and contradictory account gathered 
 by Miss Parlane and Miss Bogle, though, 
 haply, much less romantic and extraordi- 
 nary. 
 
 Mrs. Luke had, in fact, conceived herself 
 exceedingly ill-used by her husband's settle- 
 ment ; but she prudently, and upon reflection, 
 wished the affair kept altogether as quiet as 
 possible. She was, at the same time, seized 
 with one of those fits of restlessness, or fid- 
 geting, which is so frequently a symptom of 
 the excitement consequent upon any total 
 or important revolution in our social condi- 
 tion. One clause of Mark's testament, 
 reducing her jointure from .500 to 200, 
 contingent upon her marrying again, had 
 excited her especial displeasure. It was an 
 outrage to her conjugal affection, an insult 
 to her delicacy and prudence, matronly dig- 
 nity, and maternal tenderness. 
 
 "Icannot surely be suspected of having coun- 
 selled any thing that must militate so directly 
 against any sma' hope I might, at the end of 
 year-and-day, have decently ventured to in- 
 dulge for myself," said the provoking Bailie 
 Pirgivie, to the ten days' old widow, winking, 
 at the same time, to his brother-executor, as 
 she swept through the chamber in full sables, 
 her cambric at her eyes, in the first burst of 
 resentment at this Herodian clause. True, 
 this post-mortem jealousy only doomed her, 
 under a penalty, to the " vowed and dedicate" 
 condition that she had voluntarily affirmed 
 three times before the seals were broken, 
 should be hers for life ; but no merely mortal 
 widow can endure such insulting impositions 
 and restraints upon personal liberty, and in 
 a point so important. " I warned Mark 
 against this clause," whispered the Bailie to 
 Mr. Ewins : " Tie up a woman in her will,
 
 302 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 and ye set her red-wude upon what 's for- 
 bidden it's in the nature o' them, from Eve 
 downwards there will be nothing but marry- 
 ing and giving in marriage in Mrs. Luke's 
 head, from this hour forth, and it 's weel if 
 she escape matrimonial mischief." 
 
 Mr. Pirgivie's logic was not wholly false. 
 The new-made widow, to whom such ideas 
 might not so early, or ever, have occurred, 
 was haunted day and night by curiosity to 
 know who, of all their unmarried acquain- 
 tance, her husband could possibly have had in 
 his eye, when he subjected her, at her age, to 
 
 such conditions. Could it be , or could 
 
 it be ? We must not give name to the 
 
 showy images of a certain baronet, and a 
 young advocate, which flitted, like members 
 of the line of Banquo, across Mrs. Luke's 
 fancy. 
 
 Not only was this yoke fixed upon her ; 
 but, after an insulting preamble, praising 
 her many virtues as a wife, it was stated, 
 that, as Mark's " dear spouse, Mrs. Barbara 
 Peaston, otherwise Luke," was to enjoy sole 
 and uncontrolled power over the whole for- 
 tune, effects, and heritages of her late brother, 
 Robert Peaston, Esq. planter, St. Kitt's, it 
 was considered unnecessary to give her power 
 over any part of her husband's fortune, which 
 was to accumulate during the minority of her 
 daughter, under certain restrictions and con- 
 ditions " hereinafter enumerated." In brief, 
 Mr. Luke's will, honest man as he was, 
 displayed something of the sordid jealousy of 
 a narrow-minded individual, who was fully 
 better acquainted with the value of money 
 to himself in trade, than of its best uses for 
 his daughter. 
 
 " Power over my brother's heritage ! and 
 that is just nothing ! " exclaimed the indig- 
 nant widow. " Well, I deserved this at Mark 
 Luke's hands ! The wife I made to him and 
 the thanks I have gotten ! " And a weeping 
 was heard. 
 
 " Pardon, ma dame," cried Mr. Bob 
 " every page of the testament shows the great 
 regard of our late friend for his ' dear and 
 loving spouse ; ' and as you have sworn 
 against marriage which, however, at eight- 
 and-forty, is rather a rash vow ,500 a-year, 
 the liferent of Halcyon Bank, and all the 
 
 furniture, is, permit me to say " 
 
 " No more about it, if you please, sir," 
 interrupted the widow, hastily, but with 
 dignity. " Thank God, nothing can deprive 
 me of the approbation of my own conscience, 
 and the affection of my dear child." 
 
 That rich, independent child, was already 
 
 become more important in her mother's 
 eyes. 
 
 " Or of a good liberal allowance for the 
 board and education of the heiress," said Mr. 
 Ewins, as a peace-maker ; " my friend here 
 will agree with me in that ? " 
 
 "Beyond all peradventure," cried the 
 hearty Pirgivie, the more readily, that he 
 had previously been made to perceive that 
 his friend's testament was so contrived as 
 to endanger sowing the bitter seeds of envy 
 and jealoiisy between the mother and hr 
 only child. " It must be an unreasonable 
 sum that I'll think it my duty as a curator 
 to object to." 
 
 This looked better ; and Mrs. Lnke was 
 finally enabled to grumble to the tune of 
 1000 a-year, of which her frugal fellow- 
 executor, the Bailie, assured her she might 
 save one-half. 
 
 This was one point gained ; but a greater 
 difficulty remained. Her daughter, according 
 to Mrs. Luke's ambitious wishes, must not 
 only be educated abroad, but remain at such a 
 distance as would leave the matrimonial dis- 
 position of the heiress entirely with her 
 mother ; and, as a commencement, a reluc- 
 tant leave was obtained for one year to be 
 passed at Boulogne, as has already been 
 mentioned. 
 
 At the end of that period, and of another 
 of double the length, Mr. Bob threatened to 
 withhold the supplies, unless the absentees 
 returned to Britain ; but Mr. Ewins would 
 not consent to this extreme measure, and the 
 time wore on until the heiress had reached 
 the critical age of sixteen. 
 
 During those probationary years, the path 
 of Mrs. Mark Luke had not lain on prim- 
 roses. A woman of a less resolute spirit 
 would have succumbed long before. Some 
 of her manifold mortifications on the Con- 
 tinent were of a kind which, though ludi- 
 crous, were too mean and humiliating to bear 
 recital. Suffice it that Napoleon himself, 
 with his family, (as it is now the fashion to 
 call a general's staff,) never maintained a 
 bitterer or more incessant skirmishing with 
 Sir Hudson Lowe about household grievances, 
 than did our Mrs. Luke with the ladies con- 
 ducting the different pensions she had tried ; 
 regularly finding every one worse than an- 
 other, until driven to the unavoidable conclu- 
 sion, that, in her native country, now triply 
 endeared by distance, she could have enjoyed 
 more real comfort for 80 a-year, than in 
 France for 3000 livres. The question of real 
 comfort is, however, one upon which French
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 303 
 
 and English people never will agree ; and, 
 though a philosopher of the former nation 
 has asserted that the only difference between 
 one mode of living and another, and even 
 between such extremes as Crockford's table 
 and that of the parish work-hoiise, is but 
 three months, full three years had not con- 
 vinced Mrs. Luke of this great dietetical fact, 
 even to the limited extent of the difference 
 existing between comfort at home, and good 
 fashion abroad. The consequence was, that, 
 though, with the fortitude of a martyr, she 
 affirmed her satisfaction and delight with all 
 she saw abroad to natives of her own country, 
 she had, in reality, squabbled and higgled 
 with, suspected and denounced, almost every 
 foreignerwith whom she had come into contact 
 for three years, and was only becoming some- 
 what reconciled to the sinful, reprehensible, 
 and strange habitudes of the country, when 
 about to leave it. 
 
 At her first going to France, all was be- 
 wilderment and disappointment. Next came 
 blame and abuse. The national religion was 
 a crime, the language an offence, the cookery 
 odious, the wooden fuel beggarly, the house- 
 hold management insufferable, and female 
 morals deplorable indeed ! There was no 
 fathoming the iniquitous depths of their 
 white and red paint, or the falsity of their 
 dyed hair and Avigs. 
 
 In short, Mrs. Mark Luke had taken abroad 
 a notion, far from peculiar to her, that France 
 is one vast hotel or watering-place, got up 
 for the accommodation and amusement of the 
 rich English, and maintained by, and for 
 them ; and that, such being the case, great 
 ignorance and perverseness were displayed in 
 the keepers not rendering their dwellings, 
 tables, and usages, more consonant and agree- 
 able to British tastes and customs. Even 
 French laces, toys, silks, and perfumes, here 
 where they might be freely and openly pur- 
 chased, became deteriorated in her eyes, 
 lacking the dear delights of a smuggle. 
 Smelfungus could not be more discontented 
 than was Mrs. Mark Luke, who secretly grum- 
 bled from Calais on to Tours, in her long 
 pilgrimage in a country which knew not of 
 the glories of Halcyon Bank ; and openly 
 railed over the same ground back again to 
 Boulogne ; nor did she ever discover how 
 charming a land was that in which she had 
 sojourned, until fairly settled in another. 
 
 And, during this long expatriation, what 
 of the fashionable world had Mrs. Mark 
 Luke not seen ! Her vulgar husband, poor 
 man ! rich as he was, had gone to his grave 
 
 in such total ignorance of fashionable life, 
 that the marvel was how he could rest in it. 
 
 She had now got so far before the Smythes 
 and Stronachs, that she became doubtful if 
 the world of France had any thing more to 
 show ; and if she might not now sit down 
 for the remainder of her days, reposing with 
 dignity under the laurels of Halcyon Bank, 
 and talking her neighbours into amazed 
 silence with Paris and Versailles, " the Alps, 
 the Appenine, and the river Po," Colonel 
 Rigby Blake, the Count di Gambade, and 
 Lady Di Corscaden, the daughter of an 
 English Peer, and the widow of an Irish 
 Baronet. 
 
 For her original introduction to this high 
 society she was indebted to Sir Ogilvy 
 Fletcher, whom she had had the good fortune 
 to be " able to oblige " at Boulogne ; and, 
 perhaps, some little to the attraction of her 
 tea parties, where small play was introduced 
 and to the convenience of trifling loans, 
 frankly advanced, when English and Irish 
 remittances proved less punctual than those 
 regularly supplied to the day by Bailie 
 Pirgivie. 
 
 This initiation certainly cost a few extra 
 fees ; but the grand principle of life is com- 
 pensation. In giving teas, making small 
 presents, lending occasional sums, and study- 
 ing short whist under Colonel Rigby Blake 
 and Lady Di Corscaden, the time had past as 
 pleasantly at Boulogne, as French landladies 
 and French-English housekeeping would per- 
 mit, until a slight alarm was felt by cash 
 running short, and so very much spent ! 
 Above .700 in one six months ! and Miss 
 Luke's pension in arrea*r ! besides other debts. 
 It was astonishing how the money could have 
 all gone. 
 
 " If Mark Luke could look up from his 
 grave," sighed Mrs. Mark, as, pensively seated 
 before her desk, she gazed and pondered upon 
 Lady Di's receipt for .45 lent, and another 
 from Colonel Rigby Blake for a larger sum, 
 the price of a handsome lady's pony he had 
 had the good fortune to secure for Miss Luke, 
 far under value, when his friend Sir Ogilvy 
 went to Paris. A random thought did dart 
 across Mrs. Luke's mind that the handsome 
 pony was a dear enough purchase, small as 
 was her skill in horse-flesh ; and that there 
 was just a bare possibility that the Colonel 
 might have touched a little in his character 
 of negotiator ; but she dismissed the unworthy 
 suspicion, as ungenerous towards so gentle- 
 manly and good-looking a person, and one so 
 politely attentive to unprotected women so
 
 304 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 marked, indeed, in his attentions to herself, 
 that his friend, Lady Di, had rallied her 
 upon it. 
 
 Bailie Pirgivie showed true masculine 
 sagacity, when he prophesied that the pro- 
 hibitory clause in Mark's will would put 
 mischief into his widow's head. Mrs. Colonel 
 Righy Blake ! It did not sound amiss. 
 But then the Colonel (we believe Captain 
 was the home title) was Irish, on militia 
 half-pay, and that forestalled, addicted to 
 exchanging and buying racers and ponies, 
 and to more formidable games than short 
 whist. Mrs. Luke wanted not for shrewd- 
 ness and observation. She knew the value 
 of her present independent, unhusbanded 
 condition ; and, though vanity might betray 
 her into a flagrant flirtation on an evening, 
 a night of reflection was, at any time, suffi- 
 cient to restore the habitual caution of her 
 country, and to divide empire between ambi- 
 tion and prudence. Still she was but a 
 woman and a tied-up widow ! 
 
 At the same hour that Mrs. Luke was 
 musing, as above, over her paper securities, 
 Colonel Rigby Blake had, as was his wont, 
 carried Galignani and the Dublin Evening 
 Post to Lady Di's lodgings. 
 
 " Your Ladyship did not honour Mrs. 
 Lxike's tay-table last night ? " followed the 
 compliments of the morning. 
 
 " No, indeed ; I was lazy, and comforted 
 myself with a Colburn, and nursed my 
 megrim and Psyche. My angel ! keep 
 down, will ye." Her Ladyship caressed her 
 fat poodle. " I hope you spent a pleasant 
 evening. Who rose victor ? but I need not 
 ask that." 
 
 " You surely forget, Lady Di, that there 
 were only school girls, besides Mademoiselle 
 Seraphine, and an eternal dance," said the 
 Colonel, reproachfully. 
 
 " So I did ! " cried the lady, laughing ; 
 " and that you must, of course, dance atten- 
 dance. Well, if gentlemen enjoy exclusive 
 privileges, they must be content to suffer 
 penalties too : but I hope it won't he for 
 nothing." 
 
 " Well, seriously now, Lady Di, I wish to 
 take your opinion, this morning, of all 
 mornings, about that same affair. You take 
 me 1 " 
 
 " It is the Scots widow must take you," 
 returned the lady, gaily breaking the ice. 
 
 " You 're a wag any way, Lady Di, and 
 always was, ma'am ; but your opinion now, 
 as a friend." 
 
 " Oh, she is as rich as a Jewess ; and, for 
 
 a Scots woman, not very oh, I have 
 
 met much worse-mannered, broader-brogued 
 Scots ladies, and of high rank, too." 
 
 " For my own part, I think Mrs. Luke a 
 rather clever, intelligent, and well-informed 
 woman, like all the Scots." 
 
 " And so do I vastly clever, and intelli- 
 gent, and well-informed with a clear thousand 
 a-year, ' one fair daughter and no more,' 
 and she an heiress." 
 
 Colonel Blake's chops literally watered, 
 while his eyes sparkled. 
 
 " Oh, d n the thousand, if it were ten of 
 
 them ! What I look to, is a handsome, 
 
 well-bred, presentable, good-tempered sort of 
 dashing woman a good gig figure and 
 one who keeps the step, as if to beat of 
 drum." 
 
 " Nay, it is hopeless ! " exclaimed the lady, 
 throwing herself back in a convulsion of 
 laughter, in which the gallant lover joined, 
 more, however, from sympathy than appro- 
 bation. "I see you are over head and ears 
 furiously in love ! Ten thousand pardons, 
 though, for my impertinence," she continued, 
 recovering her position and gravity. " I am 
 the giddiest, most inconsequent creature in 
 the world ; but, as I see you are really 
 serious " 
 
 "Serious as life and death, LadyDi. " 
 
 " I may assure you, that I entirely agree 
 in your opinion of my friend, Mrs. Luke : 
 she really is a charming woman, and the 
 most obliging good creature, and so grateful 
 for every small attention ! " 
 
 " The girl is the only drawback ; but, as 
 she is provided for, and the mother has that 
 thrifle of independent pin-money " 
 
 "Trifle, do you call it, Colonel Rigby 
 Blake ! Upon my honour, sir " 
 
 " A thousand, your Ladyship named it : 
 now I have heard that 500 is the outside 
 of it." 
 
 " A clear thousand, I assure you ; I have, 
 indeed, seen Mrs. Luke receive her quarterly 
 drafts ; and there is some great West India 
 fortune or other in expectation, or reversion, 
 or something of that sort. I shall he so 
 rejoiced to see my new friend, Mrs. Luke, 
 ' gentle her condition,' and my old friend. 
 Colonel Rigby, wive well. There is but one 
 stipulation I must make " 
 
 " Name it, my lady ! " said the Colonel, 
 rubbing his hands ; too generous to object 
 to a lady doing some little thing for herself, 
 who had the power of effectually serving 
 him. "Sure, what in life is the use of gold, 
 but to purchase pleasure ! and what pleasure
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 30o 
 
 on earth so great as making a compliment 
 to one's friends ! " 
 
 Lady Di had been too long, during her 
 husband's lifetime, in quarters in Ireland, 
 not to know the exact Irish meaning of the 
 word compliment ; but, extravagant and 
 thoughtless as she habitually was ready 
 to borrow on all hands, and rapacious at the 
 card-table she could not just make a cool 
 bargain of her new friend, Mrs. Luke, though 
 she was good-naturedly willing to help her 
 older friend to a good match, which might 
 have its conveniences to herself. 
 
 " Nay, I shall let you off asy" said she, ap- 
 prehending all her advantage, and despising, 
 without morally reprobating, the offer of the 
 jackal's share of the prey to herself. " My 
 only stipulation is, that you make Mrs. Luke 
 purchase that delight of a Swiss carriage 
 which the Thorntons are going to dispose of. 
 All the world has left Boulogne, and the 
 rest of it is grown so stingy, that one can no 
 more command a friend's carriage than main- 
 tain one ; but Mrs. Luke, good soul, is so 
 obliging, that hers, I am sure, would be a 
 Diligence for the use of her friends." 
 
 " Say no more it shall be done, my 
 Lady only put in a good word for your 
 humble servant. Sure, my carriage or 
 my wife's carriage, which is the same thing 
 ought, in nature and duty, to be at the com- 
 mand of my late commanding officer's lady, 
 by night or by day, fair weather or foul." 
 
 The words were not well said, when a 
 note was brought, addressed by Mrs. Luke 
 to Lady Di, which that lady perused with a 
 look of pettish vexation, and handed to 
 Colonel Rigby, saying " You know this 
 person asks what is quite impossible, Rigby ; 
 here is the mischief of accepting of any 
 obligation from those sort of cent-per-cent 
 people. What can she be after by this 
 quick march ? But it is just, I dare say, 
 a pitiful excuse for dunning." 
 
 What could she be after, indeed ? places 
 taken out for Paris, and for next morning ! 
 Colonel Rigby's basket of Galway eggs 
 seemed fairly overset, long before the chickens 
 were hatched ; and he looked so comically 
 perplexed, so mirthfully rueful, so perfectly 
 Irish, as Lady Di said, that she was seized 
 with another of those fits of laughter, which 
 might have been fancied the height of rude- 
 ness in Mrs. Luke, or any lower-born woman, 
 but which only became her. 
 
 But this was the time for action, not for 
 reflection and the Colonel took his hasty 
 way to Mrs. Mark Luke's. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 The widow was denied ; but the Colonel, 
 sending up his card, with a message that he 
 came direct from Lady Di Corscaden, was 
 finally admitted into the separate parloir 
 retained by her. It was deserted at this 
 moment ; but, on a work-table, lay a letter 
 just begun, with a few other scattered writ- 
 ings, and Mrs. Luke's private memorandum- 
 book. Colonel Rigby Blake was a man of 
 honour every soldier is so, and he had been 
 a soldier for thirty years but he was also a 
 man of liberal curiosity, especially where his 
 affections were concerned ; and his eye-glass 
 dangled over the table, as he stooped, so 
 opportunely and temptingly, that the words, 
 as it were, seemed transcribed on his brain 
 without the intervention of his visual faculties 
 or their optical helps. The burning words were 
 "Dear Bailie Pirgivie, We are on the 
 wing for Paris, where I must have an imme- 
 diate credit for .300 this ensuing quarter 
 50 to be deducted from the next payment ; 
 as, owing to some little advances, I have 
 exceeded my usual quarterly allowance of 
 250 I say my allowance, not my income; 
 for, I trust, so vigilant a steward as Mr. 
 Pirgivie has a great deal to send me as arrears 
 of the rent of Halcyon Bank and the grounds. 
 As a friend of mine here, Lady Diana Cors- 
 caden, relict of Sir Dermot Corscaden, of 
 Castle Corscaden, barony of Tirrykeeranvey, 
 observed to me, the other night, ' The soil of 
 France is a sponge for English gold it 
 swallows our guineas, and sends us up truffles 
 instead.' " 
 
 At this point, a faint feminine rustle of 
 silks was heard by jthe conscious ears of 
 Colonel Rigby Blake, who, wheeling, whist- 
 ling round, was caught by the fixed gray 
 eye of a miniature painting on the chimney 
 piece, which conscience whispered was that 
 of his predecessor in that high place in the 
 affections of Mrs. Mark Luke which he now 
 ambitioned. The miniature was flanked on 
 the right by one of Mrs. Mark Luke herself, 
 in grand costume ; and, on the left, by that 
 of her daughter. Mrs. Luke was not, like 
 some widows, ostentatious of her husband's 
 miniature, but she had, this morning, placed 
 it there when arranging her more precious 
 luggage for her speedy decampment. The 
 Colonel could just fix the devotion of his gaze 
 upon the picture on the right, with a very 
 respectable, though somewhat overblown at- 
 tempt at a sigh, when the fair original stood 
 before him ! 
 
 Solomon has given a catalogue of mysteries 
 which lay beyond the reach of his celebrated 
 
 No. 20.
 
 306 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 wisdom and powers of penetration, as " The 
 way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and 
 the way of a man with a maid." But we 
 opine that the way of a gallant and expe- 
 rienced Irish officer of militia with a widow, 
 well-jointured, might have equally set his 
 royal sagacity at defiance. We, therefore, 
 who are no Solomons, at once give it up. 
 Suffice it that Mrs. Mark Luke, albeit the 
 guardian miniature on the chimney-piece, 
 was surprised in a not inauspicious mood :; 
 a helpless, unprotected woman, in a strange 
 land ! exceedingly shocked and alarmed at 
 having just learned the suspicious character of 
 the person with whom, on the recommendation 
 of Lady Di, (who, by the way, not unjustly 
 accused herself of being the giddiest creature 
 in the world,) she had placed her daughter. 
 She durst not affront her fashionable patro- 
 ness, the friend of Colonel Rigby Blake, by 
 complaining of the equivocal Mademoiselle 
 Seraphine ; and she was still so much under 
 the influence of vulgar prejudice, as really 
 to feel much of the horror which the Colonel, 
 not unnaturally imagined might be in part 
 exhibited to operate upon his gallantry and 
 sensibility. Her own pride also was mortified 
 at having committed so capital a mistake, 
 which, she feared, might, through the envious 
 Madame Didot, take wind, and even reach 
 Glasgow ; and she saw no safety but in in- 
 stant flight to Paris. In this perplexing 
 condition, the Colonel found Mrs. Mark 
 Luke. 
 
 We are all beings of mixed motives and 
 varying impulses ; and though it is next to 
 impossible that the distress of any unjointured 
 Mrs. Luke in the whole world could have 
 long or deeply affected the gallant soldier, 
 her emotion and evident pleasure in seeing a 
 hero by her side in this turn of evil fortune, 
 were not without effect. The Colonel was 
 the first person who had addressed her in her 
 sorrow, in kindly English speech or some- 
 thing as near it as a rich, genial, Galway 
 brogue can attain. The Colonel became so 
 much interested, that, had Mademoiselle 
 Seraphine been of the fightable sex, he would 
 at once have called her out. As it was, he 
 heartily volunteered to be the military escort 
 of his " Dear Mrs. Luke and her pretty little 
 daughter," to Paris, or wherever they pleased ; 
 in the warmth of his temporary feelings, 
 forgetting entirely the ways and means neces- 
 sary to achieve so chivalrous an enterprise. 
 But, " Let war support itself, " was his 
 maxim. 
 
 " ' A friend in need is a friend indeed,' " 
 
 replied Mrs. Luke, tearfully, to the frank, 
 hearty offer, so gallantly tendered to a lone 
 woman, in a strange land, with the precious 
 charge of an heir 
 
 Mrs. Luke was, in short, at this crisis, 
 "comforted marvellous much" by the address, 
 politeness, and zealous friendship of Colonel 
 Rigby Blake. She had never seen the supe- 
 riority of military gentlemen, as advisers and 
 protectors, in so conspicuous a light as at this 
 trying juncture, aud she vowed she nevei 
 could forget it. 
 
 It was Colonel Rigby Blake who brought 
 Mysie, and her goods and chattels, from the 
 seminary of the screeching Mademoiselle 
 Seraphine, vi et armis, and that with very 
 little ceremony. It was Colonel Rigby 
 Blake who forcibly beat down the jabbering 
 lady-mistress of the pension, 500 franks of 
 her extras, and who finally sold the beautiful 
 lady's pony for 15, which he had so lately 
 purchased for .55 but then there was no 
 time to look about for a proper purchaser. 
 The same haste, Mrs. Luke fancied, must 
 have made him forget to give her even that 
 .15 ; hut all would be in good time when 
 they got on the road. 
 
 Fairly on the way, Mrs. Luke seated be- 
 tween her daughter aud her brave deliverer, 
 felt quite serene and grateful under gentle- 
 manly protection ; yet it was very odd, too, 
 that, stage after stage, when the Colonel, her 
 purse in his hand, settled for them at the 
 inns, he never once remembered the price of 
 the pony, on which ,40 had been lost in 
 three months. It may seem as odd to the 
 reader, that Mrs. Luke should have been 
 musing upon the propriety of matrimony 
 with a person who troubled her with such 
 doubts, and whom, if in Scotland, and in her 
 husband's lifetime, she would inevitably, in 
 similar circumstances, have set down as a 
 swindler. But, do we not every day see the 
 advertisers for suitable partners for life, add- 
 ing an N.B., " All letters to be post-paid " 
 twopence being too much to put in jeopardy 
 if haply the negociation should not succeed ; 
 and in ,15 there are many twopences. 
 
 Colonel Rigby Blake was no swindler, 
 properly so called. Wealthy widows were 
 his lawful prey ; and, if he prevailed with 
 himself to sacrifice his liberty, his free un- 
 housed condition, all was in honour ; and 
 he would have fought any man who presumed 
 to think, say, hint, or wink any thing else 
 hair- triggers, and across the table. It was, 
 indeed, in his own estimation, no small con- 
 descension to prudence and creditors which
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 307 
 
 enabled him to waive strong personal objec- 
 tions in respect of age, family, and nation, 
 and of his predecessor, the grocer. 
 
 But let the world say what it might, the 
 gallant Colonel was ready to proceed to the altar 
 with the honest and entire conviction that 
 Fortune, in this unequal contest, had given 
 Mi's. Luke greatly the advantage of him, and 
 by far the best bargain, when it laid at her 
 feet the five feet ten inches length of the gallant 
 Denis Rigby, " lord of that presence, and no 
 land beside." It is, therefore, unfair to set 
 the Colonel down, as Bailie Pirgivie rashly 
 did, the moment he had read Mysie's letter 
 to her grandmother, as a swindling fortune- 
 hunter, and rascally Irishman, who would, 
 however, probably cease his devoirs the 
 moment he knew how pecuniary matters 
 stood ; unless he was all a lie together, and 
 the pittance remaining to the infatuated 
 woman, if she should marry, an object to 
 his necessity or cupidity. 
 
 In his opposition to her projected union, 
 Mr. Bob Pirgivie was perfectly disinterested. 
 He thought no more of Mrs. Luke for him- 
 self, than if she had been the eldest daughter 
 of the Sultan nor, indeed, of any of her 
 kind ; but he could not bear " that Bauby 
 Peaston, his old friend, and the widow of his 
 friend, Mark Luke, should make a fool of 
 herself, and, perhaps, a wretch ; vex little 
 Mysie, and bring disgrace upon the 'spon- 
 sible memory of the worthy grocer." The 
 Bailie was troubled with restlessness and 
 nightmare that whole night ; which he set 
 wholly down to the account of Colonel 
 Rigby Blake, though some degree of the 
 affliction might be fairly attributable to 
 supping heartily on Glasgow tripe, to which 
 favourite viand he had treated a certain 
 Lieutenant Kennedy of his acquaintance, in 
 order slily to fish among the veteran's Pen- 
 insular recollections for some trace of the 
 hero in question. 
 
 The Lieutenant recollected Blakes of all 
 degrees, among the Connaught Rangers, the 
 Kerry Boys, the Enniskillens, and other regi- 
 ments ; but no Colonel Rigby of that name. 
 Bob suspected there was no such true man ; 
 and hesitated whether he should set off on 
 the top of the Carlisle mail next day, on his 
 way to France, or try the effect of manoeu- 
 vring, by an anonymous letter, ma Ham- 
 burgh, sent through his correspondent there, 
 to the gallant officer, filled with solemn 
 warnings as to the real amount of Mrs. 
 Luke's jointure, in the event of her second 
 marriage. 
 
 " I wish to the pigs," soliloquized the 
 Bailie, as, with some feeling of annoyance 
 and self-mortification, he folded up this cun- 
 ning epistle " I wish to the pigs, Mark Luke 
 had lived to look after his women-folk him- 
 self. It's hard that a peaceable man like 
 me, who, for weel on to threescore years, have 
 kept clear o' the kind, should get his hands 
 full o' them when he is wearing up in life, 
 and needing quiet and rest. It is hard to 
 have the fash o' the sex, without ever know- 
 ing what the haverel poets call their ' angelic 
 ministrations' though in what these may 
 preceesely consist " But here the scep- 
 tical Bailie pressed his seal energetically upon 
 the wax, making a corresponding impressive 
 face, and abruptly broke off his soliloquy. 
 His initials, R. P., with his blazon of two 
 hands cordially dove-tailed by ten fingers, 
 stared upon him, and he burst into a laugh 
 of the mixed mood. 
 
 "It's clear, nature never intended honest 
 Bob Pirgivie for an anonymous letter writer. 
 If the woman cannot be saved otherwise, she 
 must e'en take her chance " and saying this 
 he jerked his elaborate epistle into the fire, 
 and retired to consult his pillow. 
 
 In the meantime, afar off in Paris, Mrs. 
 Mark Luke had first doubted " but that 
 not much " whether it became her at forty- 
 nine (she was determined to halt at forty -nine) 
 to marry at all ; next, whether Colonel 
 Rigby Blake, to whom, however, she owed 
 so very much, should not be the happy man ; 
 and, lastly and most important, whether it 
 was strictly decorous, at her mature years, 
 to assume the virgin oostume of white and 
 orange flowers, admitting, for a moment, that 
 the above minor points were settled. Nature, 
 or vanity, which satirists of the bearded sex 
 pretend is, in woman, second nature, speedily 
 solved the first doubt; the happy audacity 
 of the gallant Galwayman who practically 
 knew 
 
 That woman, born to be controlled, 
 Stoops to the forward and the bold 
 
 the second ; while nature or vanity, again, 
 through the lips of Madame Fontange, a 
 Parisian priestess, who, in 1819, ministered 
 to many "mi ladis," determined the third, 
 entirely to the internal satisfaction of Mrs. 
 Luke, by covering the white silk with 
 Brussel's lace, and mingling immortelles with 
 the wreaths of orange blossoms, though this 
 floral admixture was, we fear, scarcely 
 comme ilfaut, or classical. 
 
 Still Mrs. Mark Luke was troubled with 
 doubts and misgivings. What would be
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 said in the Trongate to her marrying an 
 Irishman ? What would the Smythes think ? 
 What influence would her marriage have 
 upon her daughter's prospects? Might not 
 Mr. Ewins, who was prejudiced on some 
 points, or Bailie Pirgivie, vulgar and obsti- 
 nate upon all, object to Mysie remaining -with 
 her after her marriage, and thus a diminu- 
 tion of income accompany the loss of her 
 daughter's society and guardianship ? Ought 
 she not to consult her fellow-executors, and 
 represent to them the advantages which must 
 result to their ward from the projected union ? 
 Still she could not get rid of the apprehen- 
 sion that they might not see the affair in the 
 same light with herself, and procrastinated, 
 like so many elderly, and also young ladies, 
 until Destiny takes the form of a not un- 
 favoured lover, and determines for them. 
 
 While in this state of suspense, one of those 
 seemingly trifling incidents upon which some- 
 times so much depends, determined the ques- 
 tion, and bent up each stubborn faculty to 
 the terrible feat. Lady Di Corscaden arrived 
 in Paris, settled in the same hotel, and fell 
 into her former habits of intimacy with Mrs. 
 Luke, whom, to all her friends, she laugh- 
 ingly declared to be the most obliging, good 
 sort of useful creature she had ever known 
 one whose kindness it was impossible to 
 weary out, tax it as one might. 
 
 Her ladyship enjoyed a tolerably exten- 
 sive acquaintance among a certain class of 
 the English and Irish in Paris, and did won- 
 ders for her friend in the way of introductions 
 which led to nothing. And why? Be- 
 cause Mrs. Mark Luke had no stattts. Mrs. 
 Colonel Rigby Blake might, without the pos- 
 sibility of objection, appear at the parties of 
 the ambassador's lady ; but, in order to do so, 
 she must first appear at the ambassador's 
 chapel, and there obtain the requisite cre- 
 dentials ; and this proud distinction itself 
 was only to be obtained by the friendly offices 
 of Lady Di, who had a near relation an 
 attache and a favourite with his Excellency. 
 How would it read in the Glasgow news- 
 papers some morning " Married, at the 
 Hotel of the British Ambassador, Paris" or, 
 at all events, " at the British Ambassador's 
 chapel" for it might run either way, though 
 the first was preferable ? 
 
 Every doubt vanished ; and Lady Di her- 
 self volunteered to be present with several 
 military men among the English. As many 
 of the French noblesse might be procured as 
 the Colonel chose to select for a marriage 
 garland, from among those he usually met 
 
 in the mornings at the coffee-houses, and in 
 the evenings at the theatres and gaming- 
 tables. 
 
 The snowy robes and orange-flower chap- 
 lets were finally laid out in their freshness 
 and beauty upon the bed, for next morning's 
 happy consummation. Sempstresses and mil- 
 liners were, in the meanwhile, continually 
 sending in small parcels and very long bills, 
 and the Colonel's remittances, through his 
 Dublin agent, had come, as usual, so exceed- 
 ingly tardily, and he had been so often, of late, 
 ashamed of "bothering his dear Mrs. Luke 
 for a few more gold pieces," that her tremours 
 and migraine became serious ; especially when 
 she watched the tears silently stealing down 
 the cheeks of her daughter on the prelimi- 
 nary morning. 
 
 Miss Luke had been brought to Paris 
 from school, upon this joyous occasion. Her 
 share of bridal finery was ample, and her 
 mother, in purchasing a new watch for her- 
 self, (chosen by the Colonel,) had endeavoured 
 to make the young girl happy with her old 
 one and other trinkets. The young heiress, 
 wounded at heart, resented this attempt at 
 bribing her judgment and gaining her ap- 
 proval. Though the mother was unable to 
 look with indifference upon the distress of 
 her only, her affectionate and sensible child, 
 she found it necessary to dissemble. 
 
 " Get yourself ready to go out, Robina, 
 love ; the Colonel and Lady Di will be here 
 immediately to take us to the Garden of 
 Plants. You know this party is made up 
 chiefly for your gratification, as the Colonel 
 has no partiality for Natural History. You 
 shall afterwards dine with us and a small 
 select party of friends at Tortonfs. This is 
 an indulgence the Colonel has requested for 
 his daughter you know how very fond he 
 has always been of you." Mysie sullenly 
 hitched round her stool, and replied not. 
 "You must get over your childish Scottish 
 notions, Robina, and learn to treat the Colo- 
 nel with becoming respect, as your papa 
 the husband of your mother." 
 
 Poor Mysie now r sobbed outright, and covered 
 her face with her hands. 
 
 " What is the matter, child ? How can 
 you behave so absurdly?" cried the really 
 distressed bride. 
 
 " Oh ! dear mother, don't ask me! but, in- 
 deed, indeed, I do wish I was at home again 
 with my father's friends in Glasgow." 
 
 " Your father's friends in Glasgow ! You 
 poor-spirited creature ! with all I have 
 done for you, to make a gentlewoman of you,
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 309 
 
 Miss Luke, and get you properly educated 
 and introduced into society ! And this is uiy 
 thanks for all my cares and sacrifices, un- 
 grateful girl as you are !" 
 
 " Mother, I am not ungrateful. I love you 
 as much and more than I ever did, and that 
 now makes me miserable and breaks my 
 heart. When we were at home, you wont 
 to say sometimes that I had an affectionate 
 disposition." 
 
 " Show it now, then, my love, by proper 
 conduct," said the mother, caressing her. 
 " In the step I am about to take, your hap- 
 piness, Robina, has been a first-rate object 
 with me. To give you that protection and 
 status in society which belongs to the daugh- 
 ter of Colonel Rigby Blake, to lift you out of 
 the mire of low " 
 
 " I am not the daughter of Colonel Rigby 
 Blake," retorted the girl, with spirit and 
 firmness that at once astonished and made 
 her mother uneasy ; and she rose and with- 
 drew herself from her mother's arms "I 
 am my own poor father's child, and your 
 child ; but I do not like I hate, and I owe 
 no duty to Colonel Blake I will never 
 call him father ! " Her eyes glowed with 
 passion. 
 
 This was the dourness of the Luke race 
 unexpectedly developed in a child, and in a 
 very extraordinary manner. Mrs. Luke 
 could scarcely believe her own eyes and ears. 
 For the moment, she was effectually cowed ; 
 and a feather would, at this time, have turned 
 the scale, if the daughter had known how to 
 cast it in. But the docility and reverence of 
 a child, and the habit of unquestioning sub- 
 mission, which had given way in a moment 
 of passionate feeling, when the dawning spirit 
 of the woman had flashed out, resumed their 
 power ; so poor Mysie began to cry ; and the 
 harder, though not the stronger, not the 
 really firmer, temper of age regained its as- 
 cendency over inexperienced and affectionate 
 docility. 
 
 " Beware, Robina, how you provoke me 
 too far remember I am still your mother. 
 I might at this moment send you back to 
 your school to learn your duty to me and to 
 your future father" 
 
 " He never shall be my father," said Mysie, 
 now pettishly, and in a tone much less firm, 
 and lower in moral pitch, than that which 
 nature had so lately prompted her to adopt 
 when singing the same tune. " Never, never 
 I hate him ! and so do Lisette and all 
 our young ladies that come here to visit with 
 me." 
 
 The colour of the bride-elect deepened 
 several shades through her rouge rouge, we 
 say ; for, alas ! so much for Scottish frailty 
 and Parisian immorality and temptation 
 Mrs. Mark Luke, under the open glaring 
 example of Lady Di Corscaden, and some 
 other British ladies, had become so utterly 
 abandoned so completely the thing that 
 had once filled her with virtuous horror and 
 indignation as to use red paint ! 
 
 " Lisette, child ! " she faltered" my fille 
 
 de chambre \ " 
 
 " Yes, mamma ! " and the young girl, 
 blushing and trembling, the consciousness 
 of the woman's feelings heightening the 
 shamefacedness of the child, cast down her 
 abashed eyes before her mother, while she 
 said, with pettish affectation, meant to dis- 
 guise those feelings " He is so rude 
 always teasing ?, and trying to salute us, as 
 if we were babies ! " And Mysie pouted 
 her lip, in resentment and offended delicacy 
 "We all hate him." 
 
 The girl's eye caught her mother's, and 
 remained as if fascinated by the rapid and 
 remarkable changes which the troubled 
 countenance before her underwent. It re- 
 vealed far more than poor Mysie had ever 
 before dreamed of, horror, jealousy, morti- 
 fication, shame, and a hundred conflicting 
 emotions, were momentarily visible in its 
 
 workings. A little more dignity in the 
 
 persons and situation might have made the 
 scene highly tragic. As it was, it bordered 
 on the tragi-comic, if not on the ludicrous. 
 All the blood had forsaken the face of the 
 bride-elect, and her rouge was boldly outlined 
 by the clammy livid white that seemed to 
 surround it. Mysie became frightened at 
 her mother's ghastly aspect, and sensible that 
 she had done some deadly mischief. 
 
 "Dear mamma, are you ill?" she ex- 
 claimed, seizing her mother's hands. " Oh ! 
 how I wish we were at home ! You were 
 always so well at Halcyon Bank. There 
 were no Lady Di's to laugh at us there." 
 
 " Laugh at me, child !" 
 
 " Yes, yes, mamma ask Lisette." 
 
 " Lisette, again ! You are a strange, bold 
 girl, Robina. Get out of my presence, and 
 prepare to return to school instantly. In- 
 stantly, I say ! " And the lady stamped 
 with her foot, probably unconscious of what 
 she did, or why she thus acted. 
 
 " I shall any way be happier at school 
 than seeing you make a fool of yourself, 
 ma'am," cried Mysie, darting out of the 
 room, and almost into the arms of her future
 
 310 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 papa, 'who gallantly caught her and forced 
 her back, while she struggled to be free. 
 The discomposure of both ladies, and the 
 excessive agitation of the elder one, pro- 
 claimed a recent fracas, and the Colonel 
 fancied it most prudent to suffer the one to 
 escape before he brought the other to con- 
 fession. Even then he was hot urgent for 
 explanation, thinking it wisest to allow "the 
 little tiff between mother and daughter to 
 expend itself unnoticed." 
 
 In a half-hour, Mrs. Luke, more composed 
 in her spirits, sought her daughter, whom 
 she found in tears. 
 
 " Robina," she said, " on the solicitation 
 of Colonel Blake, I am ready to forgive your 
 extraordinary and undutiful conduct and 
 language of this morning. Prepare to attend 
 me ; " and, as Mysie looked latent rebellion, 
 she added, in a louder tone, " Upon your 
 duty, I command you to conic down stairs, 
 and conduct yourself with propriety : and 
 I -will be obeyed." 
 
 " I will attend you to-day, mother ; but I 
 sha'n't to-morrow morning. Pray, do not lie 
 so cruel as to require me." And Mysie wept 
 afresh and bitterly. 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke was provoked beyond 
 measure ; but she was pierced to the heart 
 also. Cruelty ! to be compelled to witness 
 her married in the Ambassador's chapel, 
 dressed in white silk, Brussels lace, and 
 chaplets of orange-flowers ; to a man, too, 
 of the status that was become a favourite 
 word of Colonel Rigby Blake ! Her own 
 doubts and fears momentarily gave way to in- 
 dignation at the perverseness of her daughter, 
 for whose sake half the perilous adventure 
 was made so at least she chose to believe. 
 
 It is one of the pithy sayings of Miss 
 Luke's native land, that " One man may lead 
 a horse to the water, but ten will not make 
 him drink." Poor Mysie got into the 
 carriage in waiting, at the word of command, 
 and was paraded through the Garden of 
 Plants, suspended from the one arm of the 
 gallant colonel, while her mother leaned, in 
 bride-fashion, upon the other ; but nothing 
 could overcome Mysie's sullenness as the 
 mother wished to consider the deep grief and 
 shame of the child-woman nor animate her 
 to the semblance of cheerfulness. Colonel 
 Rigby Blake, though complexionally what 
 is denominated a fine, hearty, good-humoured, 
 off-hand fellow, became almost angry Avith 
 the perverse damsel ; while Mrs. Luke felt 
 more distress than she chose to discover ; 
 again faltered in her purpose of wedlock, and 
 
 almost wished that there was still room for 
 graceful retreat even from the Ambassador's 
 chapel. 
 
 Lady Di Corscaden, and the French gentle- 
 man who attended her ladyship, made nearly 
 the whole expense of the conversation and 
 gaiety. Colonel Rigby was already a well- 
 known, probably the word is, a notorious, 
 character among the Irish and English at 
 Paris. His fame had preceded him ; and 
 the circumstances in which he appeared a 
 notorious fortune-hunter, upon the eve of 
 realizing his projects, and running down his 
 quarry, after a hunt of nearly twenty years, 
 through all the covers of county-balls, races, 
 and watering-places drew attention and 
 remark to the group. There were several 
 English parties in the gardens, who stared 
 and used their eye-glasses, as they passed, in 
 a style which rather disconcerted Mrs. Luke, 
 accustomed as she was become to the public 
 gaze, and completely overwhelmed her daugh- 
 ter. Which of the two was the most shocked 
 to understand, by the passing whispers, that 
 the younger lady was generally mistaken for 
 the bride, it is not easy to say ; but the 
 blunder seemed to afford more amusement to 
 the gay Irishman, seven years her junior, 
 than the real lady of his love altogether 
 relished. 
 
 Once mistaken for her husband's mother- 
 in-law, the error might be repeated ; and she 
 turiled to her daughter, grown tall, and sud- 
 denly, as it seemed, womanly in her figure 
 and demeanour at least on this morning, 
 when her calm and determined, and rather 
 comely Caledonian countenance, reflected a 
 burden of grave thought seemingly incom- 
 patible with her green years. The state of 
 Miss Luke's feelings had communicated a 
 degree of reserve and stateliness to her de- 
 meanour, which added an inch to her stature, 
 and two or three years to her age. Mother 
 and daughter so fashion had ruled were 
 dressed exactly alike ; but the youthful and 
 more flexible figure of Mysie, though natu- 
 rally of substantial mould, had taken more 
 of the peculiar tournure of France, that envy 
 and aim of all female Europe, than her 
 zealous mother had been able to attain. 
 
 On this important day of parade, the desire 
 of displaying extreme elegance and a youth- 
 ful air had converted the ambitious widow 
 into that most ridiculous of all overdressed 
 oddities a Brummagem Frenchwoman, an 
 absurd counterfeit, to be detected all over the 
 world with half an eye. Her elaborate toilet 
 had probably drawn an increased measure of
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 311 
 
 public attention to Mrs. Mark Luke and her 
 party ; and the ever-laughing when she was 
 not crying Lady Di, protested they would 
 be mobbed, and begged the Colonel to walk 
 his ladies in quicker time. 
 
 From the midst of a mixed group of stu- 
 dents, French, American, and English; who 
 seemed to have been just dismissed from a 
 lecture, two individuals broke hastily away, 
 and directly confronted our promenaders. 
 One was a slim, elegant youth, whose dress 
 and complexion bespoke him a Briton, and 
 the other but he shall speak for him- 
 self : 
 
 " It's no possible, Mr. James, that painted 
 Delilah can be the widow of your auld maister, 
 and my leal friend, Mark Luke ; " and Bailie 
 Pirgivie, this aside delivered, peered curiously 
 under the denii-veil of the Scoto-French- 
 woman, the elder lady ; while the eyes of 
 Miss Luke were riveted upon the youth, and 
 her face kindled and glowed with the full 
 consciousness of the delightful recognition 
 of her countryman and early companion. 
 
 The Colonel felt the sudden nervous tre- 
 mour communicated to his fair charge by 
 the apparition of the strangers, even before 
 Mysie had drawn her arm from his, and 
 plunged her united hands into those of 
 Bailie Pirgivie, exclaiming, at the same time, 
 " Mamma, don't you know James Wilson ? 
 I am sure it is he." 
 
 '' Sure and certain," cried the astonished 
 Bailie, while the young man paid his respects, 
 and with a very good grace, to Mrs. Luke 
 " Sure and certain it is James ; but can it be 
 Mysie Luke I am looking at ? " And the 
 worthy man shook hands with his fair ward 
 over and over again, blessing himself in 
 wonder at the change which had come over 
 her in the four years between twelve and 
 sixteen, and at the obvious improvement 
 which had been effected in her appearance, 
 even in France. Here was the miracle, the 
 mystery, to Mr. Pirgivie. At a s'econd glance 
 there was, to be sure, something outlandish 
 about her air and step, and the cut of her 
 bonnet ; but, as she clung to his arm in a 
 transport of joy, voice, and manner, and 
 look, were all as kindly, if not as couthie, 
 as Mr. Bob's honest and warm Scottish heart 
 could desire ; and then the twinkling and 
 almost roguish smile of his dear old friend 
 Mark was visible through all, and completely 
 overpowered him. 
 
 " France has not altogether changed you, 
 Mysie," he said, with some slight tremour of 
 voice and moisture of the eyes ; " ye are still 
 
 my ain Mysie Luke, my auld friend's dear 
 and only child." 
 
 " Still your wee ' four-neuked Mysie,' " 
 cried the momentarily happy girl; in merry 
 recollection of the Bailie's former description 
 of her roll-about childish proportions ; and 
 she glanced towards James Wilson, not with- 
 out some consciousness of not having degene- 
 rated in personal advantages since they last 
 met, far as she fell short of him. 
 
 "Ye are a tighter, more strapping lass 
 than I e'er thought to see ye. But I'm come 
 to take ye home, Miss Luke. Ye are become 
 a serious charge to Mr. Ewins and me. 
 Such is our determination, and I trust ye 
 will not object." 
 
 " It is the happiest news I have heard for 
 many a day," cried the girl, with vivacity ; 
 and she looked from her mother to her old 
 friend Janles Wilson, who was still answer- 
 ing the incoherent, rapid questions of the 
 agitated bride, to whom the Bailie now ad- 
 vanced, and made his reverence. 
 
 " Serviteur, ma-dame ! " and he flourished 
 his hat, and scraped in the manner which 
 had so often in former years proVoked the 
 wrath of Mrs. Luke. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, who is this original?" 
 cried the ever-laughing Lady Di Corscaden, 
 who had now joined the group: "some of 
 your Scottish cousins is it, my dear Mrs. 
 Luke ? Do, pray, introduce me." The Bailie 
 eyed the elegant suitor for the honour of his 
 acquaintance with a kind of comical appre- 
 hension, as if he feared her dangerous, but 
 disdained the unmanliness of flight before the 
 fair face of a lady. 
 
 " We stop the path;* cried Mysie, walking 
 him smartly off, to the infinite relief of her 
 mother, while Lady Di again exclaimed, 
 "Who is pray, who is that extraordinary 
 personage so like one's notion of a character 
 walked out of Gait's books ? I do dote upon 
 originals you must make us acquainted 
 perhaps he would join our dinner-party at 
 Tortoni's. I am sure he would heighten its 
 gout. Perhaps he comes for to-morrow's 
 ceremony ?" 
 
 " Exactly one of Gait's vulgar, outrt 
 characters," returned Mrs. Luke, flurried, and 
 altogether much alarmed at the proposal 
 made by a lady who valued her own amuse- 
 ment before all the proprieties and decorums 
 in the world, and who for the feelings of 
 others entertained no more consideration than 
 became her privileged birth and high-toned 
 manners. 
 
 " I know you detest vulgarity," rejoined
 
 312 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 Lady Di ; " but we enjoy it of all things or 
 a spice of it, now and then : and Gait " 
 
 " Don't name him, Lady Di. I assure 
 you his broad vulgarity and caricature is 
 abominated in Scotland, in any thing approach- 
 ing good society." 
 
 " Chaque un a son gout, my dear ma'am," 
 said Lady Di, shrugging her shoulders ; 
 " there is a certain Girzy Hippie that almost 
 killed me with laughing, and whom Byron 
 absolutely adored." 
 
 " Byron ! Lord Byron !" cried the amazed 
 Mrs. Luke. It was altogether beyond her 
 comprehension that Mrs. Walkinshaw, that 
 vulgarest of all vulgar characters, should be 
 relished by Lord Byron. 
 
 " Had you ever the felicity of meeting the 
 original, my dear Mrs. Luke ? I should have 
 gone a thousand miles to see her." 
 
 Mrs. Luke was fairly posed whether to plead 
 guilty to the ignorance, or to deny the vul- 
 gar contamination. Her answer was equi- 
 vocal : " I have seen abundant oddities and 
 vulgar people in Scotland ; in manners you 
 are aware, Lady Di, our home-bred people 
 are terribly behind." 
 
 " dear ! and so they are ; but I have a 
 fancy for vulgarians now, I know you can't 
 abide them so much for difference of taste. 
 You remember Goldsmith's showman, 
 Rigby ?" The Colonel was startled from a 
 long fit of rumination, a most unusual ob- 
 servance of taciturnity. 
 
 "No, 'pon honour, I don't, Lady Di just 
 at this moment, at any rate." 
 
 "A most unwonted and supererogatory 
 degree of candour in an Irishman, who knows 
 every thing, and at all times. But what has 
 come over you ? Goldsmith's showman, you 
 remember, detested every thing low, and never 
 allowed his bear to dance to any but the 
 genteelest of tunes, as ' Water parted? or 
 the ' Minuet in Ariadne' " 
 
 Mrs. Luke, feeling the palpable insult, 
 could not even attempt to join in the loud 
 laugh which the Colonel forced up. 
 
 " I declare I am glad to see you can still 
 laugh," continued the lively, impertinent, 
 and privileged woman of fashion " I fancied 
 this new Scottish cousin had been of the line 
 of Banquo, from his ghastly influence upon 
 the spirits of both of you on such a day ! " 
 
 "No cousin of mine, Lady Di," returned 
 Mrs. Luke, with a swelling heart, and gulping 
 down her chagrin. " That person is one of 
 my daughter's guardians ; and, I presume, 
 has business which may have brought him 
 to Paris at this particular time perhaps 
 
 with me," she faltered forth, glad, in this 
 incidental manner, to announce to the gentle- 
 man the catastrophe she dreaded. 
 
 " To conduct Miss Luke home, I think 
 he said ? " 
 
 " That he shan't. We won't part with 
 our daughter shall we, ma'am?" inquired 
 the Colonel. " Surely, if ever the mother's 
 care be needful to a pretty girl, it is at .Miss 
 Luke's age." 
 
 "Especially one with a fortune," added 
 Lady Di, smiling, and with malicious em- 
 phasis. Mrs. Luke made no reply. If truth 
 must be owned, she wished herself a thousand 
 miles off, and Lady Di double the distance. 
 Another English party came forward ; and 
 she made a little movement of surprise, and 
 as if to greet an old friend. The gentleman, 
 advancing between two young ladies, abruptly 
 drew them on, while one of them was heard 
 to protest, " The lady was so very like, and 
 yet so very unlike their old neighbour, .Mrs. 
 Luke ! " " You must be mistaken, Isabella, 
 or else your old neighbour, if a respectable 
 Scotswoman, has fallen among thieves." 
 The speaker might or might not have been 
 overheard by Mrs. Luke's companions ; but 
 it suited no one to notice him. Lady Di had 
 probably heard nothing ; for not even aristo- 
 cratic nerves, and powers of face that had 
 been acquired in the college of the Maids of 
 Honour, could have remained in tranquil 
 survey of the group, which she halted to 
 examine at her leisure. " You seem to know 
 these young people, Mrs. Luke I " 
 
 " They are the two elder daughters, and, 
 I believe, the eldest son of the Hawgreen 
 family old neighbours of mine in Scot- 
 land." 
 
 " And they have forgotten you : of the 
 class of old gentry I should presume ? " 
 
 " It is a very old family." 
 
 " I should have known it. There is, indeed, 
 no mistaking persons of a certain grade, 
 whatever their country ; though but gentry, 
 and Scottish gentry too. There is a difference 
 now ; don't you think so, Rigby ? Ha ! 
 they are turning ; you must challenge them, 
 and introduce us. I do long to see one real 
 Scots gentlewoman in the course of my life. 
 I have known many gentlemen of your nation, 
 in the army and otherwise. Scottish and 
 Irish ladies of rank live so much among us 
 now, in England, that the dear delightful 
 oddities of my girlhood are no longer to be 
 met with any where." 
 
 Beyond a painful and confused perception 
 that something insolent was said, and some-
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 313 
 
 thing awful impending, poor Mrs. Luke 
 retained no consciousness ; yet, as the 
 Hawgreen party again advanced, she met 
 them with a vacant simper and an attempt 
 at recognition ; and, while the ladies hastily 
 turned away their heads, was dead cut by the 
 gentleman, who drew them quickly on. 
 
 " Your Scottish friends don't seem to know 
 you, ma'am," said the Lady Di, in a tone 
 which gave tenfold insolence to her words. 
 
 Female blood and bile could endure no 
 longer ; and had Mrs. Mark Luke, for her 
 rashness, been condemned, for ever afterwards, 
 to no better society than that of decent trades- 
 men's wives, she could not have restrained 
 the impulse of indignation which restored 
 her to self-possession, and prompted the 
 retort : 
 
 " No wonder, madam, considering the 
 society in which I am found." 
 
 The still brilliant eyes of the Lady Diana 
 shot a momentary glance upon the grocer's 
 rich widow, in which were blended the fires 
 of the noble house from which she was sprung, 
 and the ancient one with which she had been 
 allied. A cutting, an annihilating reply was 
 at the tip of her tongue retort, which must 
 for ever have struck dumb and down the 
 audacious widow of the tradesman the 
 paltry Scottish tradesman a London trader 
 could have outweighed his wealth ten times 
 told ; but pride restrained her ; and the 
 same haughty feeling which makes the hero 
 spare the ignoble foe unworthy of his sword, 
 led her to turn away, and say, with calm 
 imperiousness, to her husband's former ad- 
 jutant, " Find the carriage for me, Rigby." 
 She walked forward. 
 
 The unfortunate Colonel had never been 
 in such a dilemma in his whole life. Half- 
 a-dozen affairs of honour, originating at mess, 
 or in billiard rooms, were nothing to this 
 rumpus between his patroness, Lady Di, and 
 his " dear Mrs. Luke," within twenty hours 
 of becoming his dearer Mrs. Blake. His per- 
 plexity was heightened by shrewdly guessing 
 at, but not knowing the exact tenor of the 
 mission of the Glasgow magistrate. There 
 was danger of losing both ladies, in the 
 attempt to secure one ; and it was become a 
 question whether the old friend or the new 
 mistress was best worth securing ; yet he 
 attempted a compromise. 
 
 " The carriage ? to be sure, Lady Di. 
 It is waiting without there to take us all, a 
 merry friendly party, to Tortoni's." 
 
 " I don't go to Tortoni's," cried Lady Di, 
 resentfully. 
 
 " I must return home directly," rejoined 
 Mrs. Luke, poutingly. 
 
 " Devil a one of ye ! " cried the gallant 
 Colonel, with happy audacity, seizing an arm 
 of each lady, and holding them fast. " Am 
 I to be chated of my last hours of freedom ? 
 I '11 make ye kiss arid be friends, ladies. 
 Sure, when there is the common enemy 
 a-head, friends should stick together." This 
 expostulation and exhortation was not with- 
 out effect. " There is that little fat Scottish 
 fellow waiting us, with Miss Luke and the 
 young lad, as if he had something to say. 
 Let me see you shake hands, ladies, and put 
 you into the carriage, and leave me to deal 
 with him, my dear Mrs. Luke." 
 
 Mrs. Luke was really unable to answer. 
 The Colonel joined their hands across his 
 own person, in forced alliance ; and Lady Di, 
 forgetting her recent feelings, burst into one of 
 her fits of un-lady-like laughter, exclaiming, 
 " O Gemini, Rigby ! and will you have to 
 fight for it? to challenge yonder redoubtable 
 short Scottish gentleman ? " 
 
 Mrs. Luke grasped the arm of the brave 
 Colonel, and became pale. 
 
 " Do not be uneasy, my dear ma'am," said 
 the forgiving Lady Di. " Rigby has had fifty 
 such affairs on hand in his time, and got safe 
 through them." 
 
 " For any sake, Colonel Blake for my 
 sake ! " exclaimed Mrs. Mark Luke. 
 
 " For your sake, jewel ? " interrupted the 
 Colonel, gallantly raising her hand to his 
 lips ; " any thing for your sake, my angel." 
 " Now, that is what I call barefaced 
 enough," said Bailie Pjrgivie, who had taken 
 his station, with Mysie, waiting the exit of 
 Mrs. Luke from the gardens. Poor Mysie 
 bent her reddening face. Daughters are 
 seldom delighted with their mothers' con- 
 quests. 
 
 " Pardonnez, ma dame," continued the 
 Bailie, addressing Mrs. Luke. " I am sorry 
 to interrupt good fellowship ; but it is needful 
 we should have two minutes of a private 
 crack, and that as soon, too, as convenient. 
 As for my ward here, I am resolved not to 
 part with her on such short notice." 
 
 " I hope mamma will allow me, at least, 
 to go home with Mr. Pirgivie," said Miss 
 Luke. " He has come far to see us from 
 kindness to us." 
 
 " I have, I am sorry, a very particular en- 
 gagement this afternoon," faltered Mrs. Luke. 
 
 " And another, still more particular, to- 
 morrow morning," added Lady Di, smiling 
 meaningly.
 
 314 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 " Engagement here, engagement there, 
 ma dame, I have two private words to say 
 to you ; and the sooner said, let me warn ye, 
 it may be the better for ye." 
 
 Mysie and James Wilson appeared ready 
 to sink into the ground. Mrs. Luke became 
 of all hues, and looked deprecatingly to the 
 sturdy magistrate, in whose hands her fate 
 seemed to rest for the present ; while her 
 soldier-lover, as in duty bound, swelled and 
 stormed. 
 
 " Zounds, sir, do you mean to affront this 
 lady ? a lady under my protection ? Make 
 way there. Miss Luke, my dear, attend 
 your mother." And the passive bride was 
 dragged forward, while her daughter steadily 
 kept her ground. 
 
 " Affront her, sir \ No, I mean no affront, 
 and no wrong to her or hers ; and I wish 
 every man could say as much for himself," 
 said the Bailie, sturdily, to the champion of 
 the fair. 
 
 " It is all a mistake my dear Colonel 
 for Heaven's sake ! " cried the agitated bride, 
 now standing still. 
 
 " Her dear Colonel ! humph ay, ay, 
 I see it is all ower true we heard, Mr. James ; 
 but ye shall not quit my wing, Mysie dear ; 
 And I tell you what, mem, marry when ye 
 like and whom ye like " 
 
 " Oh, for any sake ! " cried Mysie in an 
 agony, pressing his arm, while James Wilson 
 placed his hand over the wide outspoken 
 mouth of the Bailie. 
 
 " Weel, weel, my dear, I'll reserve what 
 I have to say to Mrs. Luke for a quieter 
 moment. That, I grant, may be as discreet." 
 
 " If you have got any thing to say to this 
 lady, sir, the footing upon which I have the 
 honour to stand with her entitles me to 
 mention, that it may as well be said to me 
 to me, Colonel Rigby Blake." 
 
 " I am not just so clear o' that, Cornel, 
 since that 's your title : what if ye should 
 may be no' like just that weel to hear what 
 I had to say? The thing is just possible, 
 ye '11 allow." 
 
 " If the presence of these ladies were not 
 your protection, I should call you roundly 
 to account, sir, for this insolence." 
 
 The Colonel was fumbling about his waist- 
 coat pocket, apparently for his card. 
 
 " O Lady Di, will you permit this ? will 
 you not interfere ? " implored Mrs. Luke. 
 
 "Points of honour are delicate points, 
 ma'am," returned the mischief-loving lady ; 
 " yet a fracas at this crisis a duel between 
 a cousin and a bridegroom does look ugly." 
 
 " Gi'e yourself no manner o' trouble, 
 mem," said the Bailie, drily, to the lady of 
 quality. " The brave Cornel will wait 
 lang for an antagonist, before he get me to 
 the field." 
 
 " What, sir ! not give a gentleman the satis- 
 faction of a gentleman when he demands it ? " 
 
 " Satisfaction of a gentleman, quo' she ? 
 Satisfaction of a guse ! A bonnv-like satis- 
 faction ! " 
 
 " Why, sir, you would be act posted for 
 a coward:" 
 
 " And what the worse would I be of that ?" 
 said the Bailie, laughing disdainfully. " Post- 
 ed for a coward, indeed ! because I have the 
 sense and courage to refuse making a fool o' 
 myself, and fleeing in the face of my Maker's 
 commands." 
 
 " A coward does not risk his own life by 
 plunging into the Clyde to save the life of a 
 child," said James Wilson, who, with a 
 natural youthful feeling, rebutted for his 
 associate the term so unendurable to the ears 
 of men and boys, and who opportunely remem- 
 bered this trait in the history of the Bailie. 
 
 " Once when my mother was a girl, Mr. 
 Pirgivie saved her in the Duke of Hamilton's 
 Park from a mad bull, or one of the wild 
 white cattle, " said Mysie, who had often 
 heard this tale of Bailie Pirgivie's gallantry 
 and prowess, in the days of other years. 
 
 "And I would save her from worse mis- 
 chief now, if she would but let me," said 
 the Bailie, turning with some re-kindling of 
 old regard to his former friend, as Mysie's 
 anecdote recalled their earlier days. 
 
 " If I thought, sir, that this innuendo, sir, 
 was levelled at me," thundered the Colonel. 
 
 " Ay, weel, and what would ye do, an' if 
 it were ?" retorted the imperturbable Scot. 
 " Say it were you, for connexion's sake and 
 what then ? " 
 
 Colonel Rigby Blake had rarely been more 
 at fault in his life. He was rescued by the 
 presence of mind of Lady Di, who vowed, 
 while she laughed immoderately, that, if 
 another word on this absurd affair passed, 
 she would summon the police, and recommend 
 both belligerents to its attention. Neither of 
 them wished to carry matters to this extreme 
 point, and the gentlemen exchanged cards, 
 though certainly with no hostile intention on 
 the part of the Bailie. His object was merely 
 to facilitate an amicable conference. They 
 then separated several ways, each trium- 
 phantly marching his lady off the field. 
 
 " You are willing to leave me, then, 
 Robina?" said her mother, looking back,
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 315 
 
 strong emotion working in her face, her 
 usual courage quite quelled "me, your 
 mother ? " 
 
 " No, no, mamma no, no, indeed ! I will 
 not leave you," and the girl rushed, weep- 
 ing, into her mother's arms. 
 
 " Here is quite a scene, I declare," cried 
 Lady Di. "Won't you, Mr. Pirdidie, go 
 with us, like a good, obliging gentleman, to 
 Tortoni's and, since you won't fight him, 
 eat, drink, or talk it out with my friend, 
 Colonel Blake, like a good-humoured, sen- 
 sible man, as I am sure you are." 
 
 This was taking the Bailie in the right 
 key; and, although he had some doubts 
 about that " sharp-eyed madam " who made 
 so free with a strange man almost at first 
 sight, and hesitated, as he sharply and curi- 
 ously eyed her, Mysie's whispered entreaty, 
 " Oh, do not let us leave mamma ! " turned 
 the scale ; and, with some appearance of 
 better understanding, the gentlemen, so 
 strangely thrown together, growlingly agreed 
 to dine in company with the ladies, and see 
 Life in Paris, instead of facing Death in the 
 Wood of Boulogne. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WE left our party making way from the 
 Jardin des Plantes to Tortoni's, in two or 
 three cabriolets and a citadine. The human 
 contents of these vehicles, Lady Di, as peace- 
 maker-general, had coupled together as best 
 suited her own caprice, amusement, and con- 
 venience. Her arrangements had probably 
 met with the secret approbation of at least 
 one pair. Miss Luke did, indeed, hesitate 
 for one second, and look to her mother for 
 sanction, in scampering off with her old play- 
 mate, James Wilson, now a tall young man ; 
 but the encouraging smirk and wink of her 
 guardian, Bailie Pirgivie, led her, in the next, 
 gracefully to submit to the fate Lady Di had 
 good-naturedly assigned her. 
 
 It cannot have escaped the recollection of 
 the " courteous reader," that this party con- 
 sisted of Mrs. Mark Luke, bride-elect ; 
 Colonel Rigby Blake, bridegroom ditto ; 
 Lady Diana Corscaden, relict of that Sir 
 Dermot Corscaden, whose territorial titles 
 once tripped so glibly Over the tongue 
 of Mrs. Luke ; the great Western heiress, 
 MissMysie Luke ; her guardian, the Glasgow 
 Magistrate ; Mr. James Wilson, student of 
 medicine ; and a few stray French Avalking 
 gentlemen, in nominal attendance upon Lady 
 Di, but devoted to all the ladies present, and 
 
 also very civil to the Scottish strangers. In 
 respect for the King's Peace, the humorous 
 mortification of her particular friend, Colonel 
 Rigby, and her own amusement, Lady Di 
 had secured Mrs. Luke, Bob Pirgivie, and 
 the best vehicle, to her own share. 
 
 " How delightful such fortuitous meetings 
 of old friends ! " exclaimed her ladyship, 
 settling herself much at large between the 
 bride and the Glasgow ex-Magistrate, and 
 occupying the full space in the crowded 
 vehicle, to which she might be entitled from 
 her rank, though much less would have 
 sufficed for her personal accommodation. " I 
 am certain, sir, that you have come to Paris, 
 after all, on purpose to give our friend, Mrs. 
 Luke, away, to-morrow morning." This 
 was said in an affected whisper. 
 
 " Fling her away, ye mean, madam," re- 
 plied the Bailie with much vivacity. " But, 
 no on my word, I still think mair o' her 
 whatever she may do o' hersel*. Bawby, 
 woman ! " but here the honest man, recol- 
 lecting how vulgar and out of order he was, 
 continued his adjurations in rather purer 
 English, while, with more earnestness than 
 good-breeding, he leant past the intervening 
 lady, with a look and voice so deprecating 
 and regretful, and a little pathetic shake of 
 the head, which, taken altogether, found a 
 way to the agitated heart of our heroine. At 
 that moment, she would willingly have given 
 half her dower, and all her bridal laces, and 
 orange-flowers, and hopes from the Ambassa- 
 dor's chapel, to be once again safe in Ayrshire, 
 and in the modest privacy of her proper home. 
 High as her spirit vnas, she was unable, at 
 the moment, to resent this public remon- 
 strance or lecture from her old friend. The 
 whole morning had been to her a series of 
 mortifications and provoking accidents. The 
 distress and shame of her woman-grown 
 daughter ; her own quick and very painful 
 feeling of the loud, obstreperous, indelicate 
 laugh with which her bridegroom had greeted 
 the public mistake of her daughter for his 
 bride ; the reproachful, and yet pitying looks 
 and tones of one of her truest and oldest 
 friends, vulgar and under-bred as he unhap- 
 pily was ; the heartless persiflage of her noble 
 and high-bred patroness, Lady Di, were, 
 taken together, overwhelming enough, with- 
 out the inexplicable and insulting conduct 
 of the " Hawgreen family." Cut by them so 
 openly, even in her sitper-refined and subli- 
 mated state ; graced by fashionable society, 
 and accomplished by travel ; the mother, too, 
 of a considerable heiress ; and here in Paris
 
 316 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 in a condition to repay the former conde- ' 
 scendingkindnesses of those provincial gentry, 
 by the patronage and countenance which Mrs. 
 Colonel Rigby Blake had now the power of 
 extending to the former acquaintances of Mrs. 
 Mark Luke ; this, though her mind w;vs 
 filled with many doubts, sorrows, and per- 
 plexities, was perhaps the subject that pressed 
 the heaviest upon her thoughts. Then, there 
 was not merely the caprices and aristocratic 
 hauteur with which Lady Di was seized by 
 fits and starts, but her actual insolent con- 
 tempt to be endured, as on this morning : 
 And all for what ? Reason, making its calm 
 authoritative voice heard in this pause of 
 mortified self-love, prompted such answers 
 to this interrogatory as made the lady turn 
 her eyes from time to time for an instant 
 upon her old friend the living representative 
 of so many recollections, that, in spite of her, 
 could not be indifferent to her heart ; of a 
 mode of living which, though much less dis- 
 tinguished, (even now she confessed that,) 
 was probably as happy certainly more 
 safe. 
 
 Those disturbed wandering looks could not 
 be misconstrued. Yet the worthy Bailie was 
 doubtful, as he listened in distraction to the 
 voluble chat of Lady Di, whether he read 
 them aright. Squeezed up into a corner of 
 the carriage, her demi-veil gathered in thick 
 folds over her care-worn, if well-rouged face, 
 it was but too evident that Mrs. Luke was 
 unhappy, and the Bailie ventured at last to 
 assign her distracted and anxious glances to 
 the true motive the desire of extricating 
 herself from her dangerous and ridiculous 
 position, if she possessed sufficient magnani- 
 mity and candour to own a folly, and the 
 moral courage requisite to burst from her 
 thraldom. To gain, by any means, a little 
 longer time, appeared the first thing needful ; 
 and, as Mrs. Luke had taken no share in the 
 general conversation, he threw out a hint, in 
 talking aside with her companion " If the 
 gallant Colonel would defer his happiness, 
 were it but for a day, to allow a body time 
 to get a decent shoot," (suit,) said the Bailie, 
 " one might attend him." 
 
 " So you are thinking of going out, after 
 all ! " cried the lady, between surprise and 
 amusement " like Blake himself as ready 
 for war as for love. But are you not a faith- 
 less man, to harbour such sanguinary designs, 
 after I had bound you over ?" 
 
 Comprehending the mistake, at which poor 
 Mrs. Luke forced a ghastly grin, the Bailie 
 laughed heartily, crying, " Faithful as steel, 
 
 my leddy ; but I must have my shoot first, 
 for all that." 
 
 " A shot at Rigby before attending his 
 bride to the altar ! " Mrs. Luke writhed. 
 " In a wild Irishman one might understand 
 this ; but in you, sir, a staid, sensible native 
 of a staid, sensible nation ! Have you learned 
 any thing to the disparagement of Blake ? 
 What say you to this freak, Mrs. Luke ? We 
 cannot permit it ; it would be the talk of all 
 Paris." 
 
 " I have nothing to say to it," returned 
 Mrs. Luke, with peevish impatience ; " I have 
 no taste at any time for jokes, and must 
 beg to be driven home the heat of this day 
 has given me a torturing headache." 
 
 " The heat, and perhaps the dust of the 
 day," said her ladyship, emphatically ; " but 
 I never yet saw a bride without a threatening, 
 at least, of headache 'tis better than qualms 
 and heartache." Her ladyship deluged the 
 temples of her suffering friend with Eau de 
 Cologne, " You remember our sporting en- 
 gagement of this morning? Tortoni's is still 
 four good hours off." 
 
 " Sporting engagement ! " muttered the 
 rude Glasgow man. 
 
 " Pray don't apply that name, bride, to me 
 again, Lady Diana," said Mrs. Luke, rallying ; 
 " I detest a word so unsuitable to my age 
 so discordant with all my present feelings." 
 Lady Di stared ; Bailie Pirgivie chuckled, 
 and took a triumphant pinch of rappee 
 
 " Our friend is a little nervous to-day," 
 said Lady Di. "I see how it is but we 
 must support her spirits." 
 
 " It must be a dowie bridal that does not 
 find spirits to support itself, my lady ; though 
 I can well understand that a woman come 
 to the years of discretion, upon the eve of, to 
 her, so awful a change, may wish to commune 
 with her ain heart, and consult her pillow 
 in her secret chamber, instead of gallanting 
 about: so, I think we would show real 
 friendship by leaving Mrs. Luke to herself 
 this afternoon ;" and he turned to that lady, 
 whispering, " Better rue sit as rue flit, 
 Ma dame ; Marry in haste, and repent at 
 leisure ; Tie you nae knot wi' the tongue ye 
 canna loose wi' the teeth ;" all of which 
 warnings fell like so much of the Esquimaux 
 or Mohawk language upon the ear of Lady 
 Diana. " But I'm sworn no to quat your 
 leddyship, however," continued he briskly ; 
 " as ye bound me, ye are obligated to loose 
 me go we to Mounsheer Tortoni's, or 
 wherever else." This was said with Bob 
 Pirgivie's most gallant air.
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 317 
 
 " Quat me ! you most droll, diverting per- 
 son ; pray, what does quat mean ? My dear 
 Mrs. Luke, will you interpret?" 
 
 " Nothing really nothing," cried the dis- 
 tracted bride-elect, more and more over- 
 powered by the exigencies of her condition, 
 and now haunted by the idea that the Haw- 
 greens had learned something very bad 
 something, indeed, like the shapings of her 
 own indistinct fears about her future hus- 
 band, or her own conduct ; and, in a sort of 
 desperation, she cried out -"At what a 
 snail's pace that fellow drives ! What on 
 earth, Mr. Pirgivie, has brought such quiet 
 people as the Hawgreens to Paris, at this 
 time ?" 
 
 "Cannot be just preceese, ma dame ; 
 perhaps to look for husbands to the young 
 leddies, as that appears a plentier commodity 
 in Paris than Scotland that is, taking quan- 
 tity for quality." 
 
 Mrs. Luke reddened through her rouge. 
 " That was the Indian brother, the officer 
 brother, we saw with them was it not? I 
 was sure he was English, Lady Di, when we 
 saw him last night in the Square." 
 
 " He is a rather distinguished looking per- 
 son," said Lady Di, languidly. 
 
 " Ye were quite correct," put in the Bailie ; 
 "though I thought he must have been mis- 
 taken when he told us that's James Wilson 
 and myself, who breakfasted with the Haw- 
 green ladies this morning that he had seen 
 Mrs. Mark Luke in such a place." 
 
 Breakfasted with the Hawgreens ! A vulgar 
 third-rate manufacturer, and a poor student, 
 admitted to the intimate, the social family- 
 meal and, by those who cut her ! her ! 
 
 "Where did the gentleman imagine he 
 saw me ? for I had not the honour of being 
 personally acquainted with him, while on a 
 footing of very friendly intimacy with his 
 family." 
 
 This remark was, no doubt, partly levelled 
 at Lady Di. It is not in one day that the 
 demon of ambitious vanity is to 1)6 exorcised 
 from woman's bosom. This spirit is of the 
 kind which goeth not forth save by repeated 
 and bitter mortifications. 
 
 " Ay, but he has seen you, though and 
 to good advantage for it was at our last 
 Largs Regatta, that took place before the 
 death of poor Mark, he said ye were the 
 handsomest woman that's of your years 
 present on that day, gentle or simple, from 
 the three co\inties, forby Argyle." 
 
 Mrs. Luke drew up, and blushed with 
 gratified feeling. " Of her years" that, to 
 
 he sure, was an awkward expression, and, 
 therefore, more like to be the Bailie's own 
 conscientious qualifier, than the phrase of a 
 gallant soldier. Her feelings took a new, 
 though very natural direction. She would, 
 at the moment, have gladly foregone all 
 her personal expectations, to have seen her- 
 self the mother-in-law of young Hawgreen ! 
 
 " The young gentleman has a very polite 
 memory," she said, with affected humility, 
 " at so long a distance of time." 
 
 " I denied altogether its being you, 
 ma dame, who was seen at untimeous hours 
 with, as he alleged, that runagate scamp, 
 Sir Ogilvy Fletcher, and some other notorious 
 
 card-player or dicer ; and but we'll say 
 
 no more about it. It must have been all 
 mistake ; though, it seems, about that Paw- 
 lace-Royal ye may see leddies no just meikle 
 better than they should be, along with others 
 who may have, perhaps, more character left 
 than sense to guide it, a' helter-skelter 
 through-other ; good, bad, and indifferent." 
 Mrs. Luke looked abashed, and, indeed, 
 extremely uneasy ; while Lady Di, from 
 threatening anger, passed at once to scoffing 
 mirth. 
 
 " I should have imagined a young man of 
 this gentleman's appearance not so perfectly 
 infantine ! " she cried. " Does he imagine 
 that women of reputation in this gay city, 
 are to shut themselves out from public amuse- 
 ments, because persons of equivocal character 
 may share in them? Are there to be no 
 more cakes and ices in the Square of the 
 Palais-Royal, because the Scots and English 
 are such moral nations, forsooth ? " 
 
 " Ye may say that, ma dame," returned 
 the complaisant Bailie ; " I, for my ain share, 
 am for letting every land keep its ain lauch ; 
 but young Hawgreen, having a charge of 
 young leddies, like Mrs. Luke here, may be 
 a wee nicer." 
 
 " Mercy upon me ! " exclaimed Mrs. Luke, 
 somewhat vulgarly, and very truly distressed ; 
 " they cannot they dare not imagine that, 
 though improper female persons may mingle 
 with us in the public amusements, they are 
 permitted to join our private society ! " 
 
 " Why, ma dame, as to what constitutes 
 female association, and yet keeps free of 
 female society, I leave sic kittle points to the 
 professors ; but, if what Hawgreen said of the 
 fashions here be all true, such would be 
 thought but queer doings in Glasgow." Mrs. 
 Luke again writhed. That ancient world 
 was something to her still something to her 
 moral feelings.
 
 318 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 ** I am glad to see, from your recovered 
 spirits, that your headache is better," said 
 Lady Di, wishing to change the subject. 
 ' We will be long behind our party ; and I 
 fear it was very giddy of me to trust Miss 
 Luke to the care of so young a gentleman, 
 though a countryman and very un- French." 
 
 Mrs. Luke did not appear at all uneasy at 
 this indecorum. 
 
 Mysie is in very safe hands," returned 
 the Bailie. " It's another of your droll 
 French fashions, for the auld dames and the 
 married women to keep flisking about them- 
 selves, while they half lock up the bits o' 
 young lassies, puir things. It's real cunnin' 
 o' the auld limmers. If I were a demoiselle, 
 now, I would rebel against that ; it's against 
 the order of natur a perfect mawtronly 
 tyranny and conspiracy." 
 
 Both ladies smiled. They were now at 
 the hotel, in which both had apartments. 
 " Thank Heaven, we are at home !" cried the 
 relieved bride ; and Lady Di, exhorting her 
 to change her dress as quickly as possible, 
 ran in to arrange her own, leaving the old 
 West-country friends together in embarrassed 
 silence. 
 
 " Hech ! but it does sound strange to me, 
 to hear you, whom I've seen in so many 
 comfortable homes, call this house by the dear 
 name of home, Mrs. Luke," sighed Bob Pir- 
 givie. " The French houses, even the best o' 
 them, for a' their gilding and bits of looking- 
 glass, have a cauldrife, hungry, thread-bare 
 look, somehow. But, to come to more serious 
 matters, ma dame : As ye are so very near 
 changing TOUT name and condition, and as 
 the interests of my ward, Miss Luke, and 
 the wishes of my excellent fellow-executor, 
 the Rev. John Ewins, regarding her settle- 
 ment, (in all of which I heartily concur,) 
 make it necessary for me to take the freedom 
 to inquire if this is to be still your hame ; for, 
 in that case, and, indeed, in any case " 
 
 ** I cannot tell where my future home is 
 to be ! " interrupted Mrs. Luke, in a tone of 
 vehement grief, and covering her face with 
 her hand. 
 
 " Then, let me tell ye ! " cried the Bailie, 
 springing alertly from the blue silk and gilt 
 chair, which had creaked under his sixteen 
 stone tron : and, seating himself close by the 
 side of the lady, and seizing her unoccupied 
 hand, he proceeded : " Let me tell ye ! 
 me ! your auldest, and, though I say it, one 
 of your surest freends your own f reend, 
 and your faither's freend. Oh, mind that 
 word, Bawby ! ' Thine own friend, and 
 
 thy father's, forsake not.' And where should 
 your home be ? Your comfortable, respect- 
 able, weel-plenished, mensefu', couthie hame, 
 but in the house with which your affection- 
 ate husband dowered ye \ where, but with 
 your own child a joy and a pride to you, 
 as you to her blooming like a rose under 
 your ain ee, till, in Providence's good time, 
 ye bestowed her in as kind and safe keeping? 
 where, but in your ain land, and among 
 your ain kith and kin, and auld freends a 
 blessing and a praise to rich and poor, and 
 to a' connected with you ? 0, Mrs. Mark 
 Luke ! take a fool's advice for aince. What 
 support, after a', is there to be found at the 
 pinch, in empty pride and vain-glory ? What, 
 against bitter, gnawing repentance, and a 
 sair heart ? Gi'e yourself but time to reflect. 
 I'm by a dozen years your senior, and should 
 have a rough notion of mankind ; and, since 
 the death of Mark Luke, I have fancied 
 myself as if in the place o' a brother to ye, 
 and a father to his bairn ; and, to see ye 
 now hurrying down the broad road this gait, 
 I could a'maist rather a hem ! " 
 
 The prudent, if warm-hearted Bailie caught 
 himself just in the nick of time. He had 
 never been so nearly committed in the whole 
 cautious course of his bachelor flirtations. 
 He certainly had no idea that Mrs. Luke 
 would catch at his offer. Still, it was safer, 
 and more according to rule, to be on his 
 guard. 
 
 A stranger might have been amused with 
 the sudden contrast between his late burst of 
 eloquence, and his habitual wariness and 
 temporary embarrassment. Fortunately for 
 the Bailie, poor Mrs. Luke was too much 
 pre-occupied to perceive the scrape into which 
 his gallantry and sensibility had hurried him ; 
 or though without any idea of taking ad- 
 vantage of his precipitance she might have 
 felt something of every woman's enjoyment 
 in seeing a shy trout bite. Her sole thought 
 was the possibility of still receding grace- 
 fully if possible but drawing back at all 
 events. Affection for her betrothed presented 
 no obstacle whatever ; for, to do her justice, 
 habit made her regard Bob Pirgivie himself 
 with rather more cordiality, and her know- 
 ledge of his principles and understanding, 
 with far more reliance and confidence than 
 she could, even at the last hour, entertain for 
 her gallant bridegroom. But what would the 
 world say ? What was to be done with the 
 orange-flowers and the Brussels lace-veil 1 
 The very wedding-cake had come home be- 
 fore her ; and now stood in the saloon,
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 319 
 
 enshrined under a huge glass, with all its 
 garnishings of rosy sugar-cupids, cooing 
 turtles, frisking lambs, and French mottoes, 
 all about I' amour. As she glanced malig- 
 nantly upon it, she wished the kennel wpuld 
 swallow up its ten golden Napoleons' worth of 
 solid substance and sentimental shadow. For- 
 tunately, most people are married but once 
 in their lives. It is no everyday luxury to 
 die or be married in civilized society. 
 
 As she furtively threw her shawl over the 
 plateau on which this auspicious symbol 
 was raised, Bob Pirgivie had the delicacy to 
 blink the sight, and bite in the joke which 
 danced on the very tip of his Scottish tongue. 
 This apparition fairly shrouded, Mrs. Luke 
 sunk into a fit of musing, from which she 
 recovered to say, " I hope my Robina may 
 see the Hawgreen girls, now that she 
 always so great a favourite with them is 
 old enough to appreciate their many amiable 
 qualities. I confess I do think Isabella 
 Hawgreen the very model for a young lady, 
 had she just that indescribable something* of 
 the manic-re, the tournure, which foreign edu- 
 cation and travel alone can give." 
 
 " Humph ! " ejaculated the Bailie. "Such 
 as Leddy Di, for example. She is a bftnny- 
 die, as the children say at home." 
 
 " Not exactly that lady. Indeed, I fear, 
 my dear Bailie entre nous that my up- 
 thinking simplicity and goodness of heart 
 have once more made me their dupe." 
 
 " Her simplicity, quotha ! " thought the 
 Bailie, hitching on his chair "her senseless 
 ambition and restless vanity ! 'Od, I wish 
 I cpuld but let her feel her ain weight i' the 
 ' fashionable world,' weighed wanting Mark 
 Luke's siller i' the scale ; " but this he pru- 
 dently gulped, and said aloud "But not, 
 ma dame, with a woman of your high 
 spirit, beyond retrieval, surely ? " 
 
 " If it were indeed still possible to retreat, 
 gracefully." 
 
 " Gracefully ! and is not all that a weel- 
 bred leddy does graceful? Possible is it? ay, 
 and probable and certain. What has blenched 
 ye ? Where 's the spirit I have so often 
 admired at, which made a certain leddy, 
 langsyne, carry whatever point she set her 
 heart upon, right ower the hard head of a 
 worthy friend that's gone." 
 
 Mrs. Luke smiled unaffectedly at this 
 opportune recollection of former contests 
 and victories, and observed, in a low deter- 
 mined voice " If it be, as I have heard 
 whispered, that the real status of the the 
 gentleman, is none other than that of captain 
 
 in the Gal way militia the Galway militia, 
 sir and that the soi-disant title of colonel 
 is only held from the Hungarian service, or 
 that of the King of Sardinia, I should imagine 
 that so palpable a deception justified every 
 extremity." 
 
 " Certainly, ma dame," replied the Bailie, 
 laughing in his sleeve at this turn of affairs, 
 and at the geographical or political coupling 
 of Hungary and Sardinia ; " and were he a 
 cornel of the Pope, or the Grand Turk himself, 
 even that tells for but little in our namely, 
 far-awa country, in point of rank ; and I '11 
 no promise the pay is great things either, 
 ma dame. " This last was added in an 
 uuder-voice, and with a very significant nod. 
 
 " I certainly never had any intention of 
 settling abroad finally" continued Mrs. Mark 
 Luke, insensibly, however, relapsing into her 
 grand manner. " There is a certain duty, 
 Mr. Pirgivie, which every one owes to one's 
 native country. If an eligible investment 
 in land could be obtained for my daughter's 
 fortune, I should conceive it a duty, an 
 absolute duty, Bailie Pirgivie, for us to reside, 
 for at least a part of every year, on her 
 own estate." 
 
 " Investment by marriage or purchase, 
 ma dame?" 
 
 " That as might be," replied the mother of 
 the heiress, with dignity. " I must also 
 frankly own that I see much to disapprove 
 of in foreign manners female manners in 
 particular : not manierc, you will please to 
 observe ; that is all proper : and Robina is 
 still such a mere child " 
 
 "Seventeen come September not just 
 such a child and as tall as her mamma," 
 put in the Bailie. 
 
 "Such a child, sir; and has been 
 
 kept so close at her studies, that, hitherto, 
 these matters were of less consequence : but, 
 now that her manners and religious senti- 
 ments, as an Englishwoman, are to be formed, 
 and her intellect developed, I believe London 
 or Bath would be the most advantageous 
 locality for us for a few years. I am led to 
 understand that the society there is every 
 thing that can be wished for all right in 
 the morale ; you comprehend me ? and, in 
 refinement and propriety of manners, quite 
 unexceptionable." 
 
 "What the deevil is she after now?" 
 grumbled the Bailie in his throat, as he 
 vehemently tweedled his thumbs, and fixed 
 his intelligent and searching gray eyes upon 
 the speaker ; " no fairly out o' the frying- 
 pan, than she maun plunge i' the fire ;
 
 320 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 naething less than a veesible judgment will 
 drive the mischief out of that woman's natur ; 
 it were as good a deed as drink to let her 
 marry that rip of an Irishman, and I warrant 
 me he baste her bones. I '11 no say either, 
 but, countrywoman as she is mine, he 'd get 
 the warst bargain. If it werena for the sake 
 of Mysie, young Jamie Wilson, who deserves 
 better than a fulc for a mother-in-law, and 
 the memory o' Mark Luke, she should, I 
 trow, take her swing for me. But I must 
 keep down my corruption, and gi'e her rope 
 the day ; and, whether it shall prove her 
 tether-safe, or her hanging-tow, I wash my 
 hands o' her." 
 
 Acting in the spirit of this manly and 
 considerate resolution, the Bailie said aloud, 
 " I heartily approve, ma dame, of your 
 leaving France to-morrow, by the scriech o' 
 dawn, if yc like ; or if ye could pass the 
 barriers the night yet, a' that the better ; and 
 I 'm your man for passports and portmanties. 
 There is young James Wilson, who came to 
 this town to finish his medical studies, and 
 young Hawgreen, and indeed every country- 
 man ye have, will stand by you, if ye stand 
 by yourself, and help you out at this pinch. 
 But only gi'e your consent, and leave to us 
 the ways and means. Faith, I wouldna care 
 to run awa wi' ye mysel' frae that confounded 
 Irish chap ! How they do put their glamour 
 ower the women folk ! " 
 
 At this critical stage of the conversation, 
 Lady Di re-entered, gaily equipped for the 
 " sporting engagement ; " and Mrs. Luke 
 could only reply by a significant, and what 
 the Bailie rejoiced to believe, a gladly con- 
 senting look. 
 
 " I declare this too fascinating Bailie Pir- 
 didie has made you forget your engagement 
 with Colonel Rigby, and Miss Luke, and 
 every body," said the lady, gaily : " what 
 can you have been laying your heads to- 
 gether about ? " 
 
 " Talking of life and manners, madam," 
 replied Mrs. Luke, in her grand style. 
 
 "Dear! that must have been so good!" 
 cried Lady Di, faintly giggling. " Life and 
 manners, discussed in Paris by my friend 
 Mrs. Mark Luke and Bailie Pirdidie of Glas- 
 gow : will you be so very good as enlighten 
 poor me on those topics?" 
 
 "I was talking wiA. my daughter's guar- 
 dian, Lady Di, of r.y present idea of finish- 
 ing her education ' in England, she would 
 have added. But the Bailie, who by no 
 means approved of the " sharp-eyed madam," 
 as he called the relict of Sir Dermot Cor- 
 
 scaden, of Castle Corscaden, barony of 
 Tirrykeeranvey, &c. &c. being let into their 
 scheme, abruptly broke in. 
 
 " How much more finishing do ye think 
 Mysie needs ? I have seen as trig and win- 
 some a lass finished " 
 
 " Trig and winsome ! " interrupted Lady 
 Di ; "I do dote on that dear Doric. Do you 
 know, I once perpetrated a Scottish ballad?" 
 
 " As trig and winsome a lass as ever 
 
 stood in Miss Luke's slippers," continued 
 the Bailie, nodding familiarly to the woman 
 of quality " ay, though they be of silks and 
 satins finished handsomely off, heel and toe, 
 and high dances, by one winter session at 
 auld Mr. Macskipsey's school. But ye'll no 
 guess who that might be, ma dame?" And 
 honest Bob determined, for one eventful 
 day, to go all fair lengths in flattering and 
 wheedling, that might advance his main 
 object now glanced, smirking blandly, and 
 nodded knowingly to the other lady. 
 
 " How can I tell ? How am I to spell 
 your hums and ha's, Bailie Pirgivie ?" re- 
 turned Mrs. Luke, smiling. " Many very 
 genteel young women were placed under 
 the finishing care of that artiste ; who had, 
 in his time, seen the original Vestris the 
 Vestris Le Dieu de la Danse, Lady Di." 
 
 The Bailie forgave even this highly em- 
 bellished portrait of the poor little grand Mr. 
 Macskipsey who still, in his merry moods, 
 haunted his fancy, attended by many ludi- 
 crous images of the shabby genteel ; and he 
 went on, peering funnily into the lady's face, 
 " Ye'll have no remembrance, I dare say, 
 of a certain Miss Barbara Peaston, a standing 
 toast at every curling-club dinner, mason- 
 lodge meeting, and wherever good fellows 
 congregated, for ten miles round Paisley? 
 Na, na, ye'll have nae mind o' her, I'se war- 
 rant me." 
 
 There was a time when Mrs. Mark Luke 
 would have been overpowered and disgusted 
 by this style of compliment. Now, smiling, 
 she demurely answered, " Such nonsense, 
 Bailie ! " And the few words were said with 
 that original little air of Westland, or more 
 properly, womanly and natiiral coquetry, 
 which, having once sat with an engaging 
 rustic grace upon the youthful Miss Barbara 
 Peaston, did not yet wholly mis-beseem the 
 comely Mrs. Mark Luke, in her tenth lustre. 
 The very adoption of the homely yet im- 
 posing title of Bailie, instead of the formal 
 Sir, or the cold Mister, augured favourably. 
 Lady Di congratulated her friend upon the 
 improvement of her spirits, and urged her to
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 321 
 
 be expeditious. " All the English in Paris," 
 she said, " are by this time assembled in the 
 Champs Eli/sees, on the tiptoe of expectation. 
 Though the millionaires and our friend Mrs. 
 Luke can afford to throw away their money, 
 poor I must look well after my dear fifteen 
 Louis." 
 
 This was all mystery to the Scottish magis- 
 trate, who requested explanation. " Our bets, 
 sir," said the Lady Di ; " your countryman, 
 Sir Ogilvy Fletcher, runs his bay mare, 
 Cuttie Sark, against some famous brute be- 
 longing to Mr. Phipps Mason. Mrs. Luke 
 has fifty Louis, and I my poor dear fifteen, 
 depending ; so, you perceive, we must be off 
 to see fair play." 
 
 " Fifty Louis upon Cuttie Snrk ! Mark 
 Luke's widow!" vociferated the Bailie, throw- 
 ing up his hands in utter consternation and 
 horror, and rolling his eyes round upon the 
 guilty lady. 
 
 Lady Di, screaming with laughter, seemed 
 about to fall into fits ; while Mrs. Luke 
 looked as if desirous that she could sink, and 
 for ever disappear through the well-waxed 
 boards. 
 
 " This dings a' ! this dings a' ! " continued 
 the Bailie. " What is this world to come to? 
 What has it come to?" He strode about 
 the apartment. 
 
 "My good sir, now that I am able to speak," 
 said Lady Di, pulling his sleeve, and trying 
 to keep grave "you certainly could not 
 seriously imagine I meant to say that Cuttie 
 Sark, Sir Ogilvy Fletcher's famous mare, was 
 Mr. Mark Luke's " 
 
 " This is enough, madam too, too much!" 
 broke in Mrs. Mark Luke her eyes spark- 
 ling and her brow glowing with the passion 
 which seemed to distend her figure, as she 
 came forward, shivering with anger. " But 
 I have courted such insult, meanly courted 
 it, and well deserve to bear this and worse 
 indignity : and for this one this last day 
 it shall be borne ! " 
 
 " I do not pretend to understand these 
 humours, madam," said the Lady Di, with 
 constrained calmness, and dropping her eyes 
 disdainfully. " For my own part, I should 
 hold it beneath me to address any thing to 
 the most inferior person in the world, that I 
 should not think fit to say to Mrs. Colonel 
 Rigby Blake ay, even in presence of 
 her lord. But I cannot spare another 
 minute," and she looked at her watch. 
 " I am, indeed, no adept in vulgar alterca- 
 tion, and have no taste for it." She proceeded 
 hastily to the door. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 "Bear with me for this one this last day," 
 cried our heroine, now seizing the locked 
 hands of the disconcerted Bailie " my oldest, 
 my truest, my almost sole friend ; and let 
 me still, for this one day, have my way my 
 revenge ; I have had my bitter, bitter punish- 
 ment already." 
 
 " Lady Di " was announced by an English 
 footman as in the carriage, and impatient ; 
 and Mrs. Luke took the arm of the Bailie, 
 and descended ; and offering as many apolo- 
 gies to her friend for detaining her, as if no 
 fracas had happened, took her place by that 
 lady's side. 
 
 " We must give the lady her own way of 
 it," observed the Bailie, endeavouring to re- 
 cover himself. " Honour the bride on her 
 bridal day ! is a saying of our country." 
 Lady Di bowed graciously, and forced a 
 smile ; he began a course of moral rumina- 
 tion, while the ladies chatted together. 
 
 " Which of these women now," thought 
 Bob, " is the most ttva-faced ? I'll no swear 
 but that Bawby beats the real lady ; though 
 policy, and a ready knack at dissimulation, 
 is the accomplishment the most cultivated 
 among her kind, it's alleged. It's not so 
 much, after a', the rank and station that 
 makes double-dealers and dissemblers, as the 
 mean necessities, real and imaginary, belong- 
 ing to them. There is myself, now, an in- 
 dependent man, in humble rank, with nothing 
 to seek, and nothing to be ashamed of who 
 carena a fig for stars and garters : I would 
 be worse than a fool to be twa-faced, like a 
 needy courtier, or a creeping, ambitious 
 politician ; and there is Mrs. Luke " but 
 his musings were interrupted. 
 
 To beguile the time, and look like the time, 
 Mrs. Luke inquired after some of her old 
 friends and neighbours in Scotland. She 
 had casually heard that " her favourite," 
 Miss Maria Smythe poor thing ! was 
 married to a Doctor Somebody, and settled 
 in Bath : an excellent match, she understood, 
 and she was so glad ! " Now, sir," continued 
 Mrs. Luke, " how much ,of this is true ? " 
 
 " All that, and more," replied the Bailie, 
 with meaning looks. " The Smythes, your 
 freends, had aye a genius for grandeur, and 
 a vocation that way. Mrs. Dr. Somebody 
 for neither do I, though it is often enough in 
 the papers, remember her new name drove 
 into Glasgow in her coach and four, the other 
 week, with outriders ! " 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke looked astonished and 
 not so " very glad " either, as might have 
 been expected, at the worldly prosperity of 
 
 No. 21.
 
 322 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OR, 
 
 " her favourite." What a wizard was that 
 Rochefoucault ! 
 
 " Is the gentleman an estated man ? " she 
 inquired ; " or is it a commercial fortune ? " 
 
 " Nothing hut the turf aboon her head will 
 cure the affectation of that woman bray a 
 fule in a mortar," thought the Bailie ; but 
 he replied, with a touch of humour " Vested 
 interest, ma dame held by right of his 
 Majesty's patent : an estate, which, though 
 moveable, will endure as long as ignorance 
 and credulity on one side, and impudence 
 and humbug on the other, shall last among 
 the upper and the lower ranks. The gentle- 
 man is what long ago used to be called a 
 German, or quack Doctor ; but the age has 
 advanced since then, and what was an am- 
 bulatory village stage has grown into palaces 
 and mansions so thriving an art is medical 
 humbug : and the spiritual has its uses too. 
 Intellectual education has gone clean out of 
 fashion among us in the West, since your 
 time ; and Mrs. Smythe, and her eldest 
 daughter, Miss Smythe who was ' renewed,' 
 and it was about time removed their estab- 
 lishment from the Belle Retiro, to somewhere 
 near London. It is a 'decidedly pious' 
 seminary, now ; most eligible for all such 
 select young ladies, whose fathers can afford 
 ;300 a-year for their education. There are 
 two carriages, a visiting chaplain, and two 
 serious footmen attached : so they tell me 
 at least." 
 
 "How very intelligent! with a vein for 
 satire too," whispered Lady I)i, in a voice 
 meant to be heard. 
 
 " Poor Maria Smythe ! poor thing ! so to 
 throw herself away upon a quack ! My 
 excellent friend, Mrs. Smythe, must have 
 been so shocked ! so immoral, too ! " cried 
 the incorrigible Mrs. Luke. 
 
 " Oh, faith, for that of it, if the pills are 
 harmless pills, and only sold to rich fools, I 
 hold quacking in medicine to be one of the 
 most innocent branches of the general art of 
 humbug : but, of course, the spiritual part 
 of the concern must, in the meantime, disown 
 Maria, and her coach, and her pill-box 
 palace ; until she and her husband are rich 
 enough to repent, and retire to live a new 
 life upon the gathered fruits of the old 
 one." 
 
 The Bailie was launching out into a sober 
 right-earnest discourse upon self-delusion, 
 imposture, hypocrisy, and vanity, when his 
 vein was checked by perceiving Colonel 
 Rigby Blake, still at some distance, but 
 galloping up to the open hired vehicle alas, 
 
 it was only hired! Lady Di had got hardened 
 to such trials ; but Mrs. Luke felt them still. 
 She was apprehensive, too, that Lady Di 
 might be displeased at being attended in 
 public by "a figure," and whispered an 
 apology. 
 
 Her ladyship, who, when nothing crossed 
 her humour, was far from being ill-natured, 
 made quite light of this awful dispensation : 
 "Don't mention it I rejoice in him I shall 
 make my own of him. Luckily his full 
 black-brownish suit favours my project. 
 I'll swear he is a Scottish savan Leslie, or 
 Dugald Stewart. I have seen many English 
 philosophers odder-looking fish. I shall not 
 despair of making him a member of the In- 
 stitute." 
 
 It was now about three hours past noon, 
 on a day of broad, brilliant, sunniness ; and 
 how gay the scene that met the undazzled 
 eyes of the Glasgow ex-magistrate upon the 
 Boulevard, which the party entered ! Nume- 
 rous groups of the fashionable English resi- 
 dents, dressed exactly as if the Champs Elysecs 
 had been " the Park," were intermingled with 
 Frenchmen and ladies, airily attired in rich, 
 gay, parti-coloured costumes. Germans, 
 Americans, and Russians natives, indeed, 
 of every civilized country might be seen 
 here, and to the best advantage. The fine 
 horses and dogs, and handsome equipages of 
 the English, and the pretty young English 
 and French girls, in charge of the lovely 
 children running about, or grouped beneath 
 the trees, all helped to enrich the living 
 picture. 
 
 " As fine as Glasgow Green, Bailie ? " 
 whispered Mrs. Luke, while her restless, and 
 now practised eye, ran over and threaded the 
 gay crowd, in search of fashionable friends 
 and acquaintances. 
 
 " I'll no just say, ma dame," returned 
 the patriotic Scot. " It's no a' gowd that 
 glitters." 
 
 Mrs. Luke had already, in one group, 
 traced her daughter and Mr. James Wilson, 
 with "the Hawgreen family." The sight 
 was more than gratifying to her vanity : it 
 was soothing to her maternal feelings ; forti- 
 fying to the secret purpose she revolved. 
 She determined not to press her own society 
 upon them at such a time, and attended as 
 she was ; for the gallant bridegroom was 
 already in waiting. After honouring the 
 Bailie, seated very much at his ease between 
 the ladies, with an involuntary scrutinizing 
 glance, the Colonel paid his tender obeisances 
 where they were principally due. " Sir
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 323 
 
 Ogilvy Avas despairing of yon, ladies," he 
 said. 
 
 " And Colonel Rigby Blake 
 
 Sighing his soul towards the Grecian camp," 
 said Lady Di, bending towards him confiden- 
 tially. " I assure you, you will need to look 
 about you, though, Blake ; " and she lowered 
 her voice to an earnest whisper, as Mrs. Luke 
 (her ears in her neck) affected to point out 
 some one in the crowd to Mr. Pirgivie. "It was 
 with some difficulty I was able to break off 
 an animated and, I suspect business tete- 
 a-tete between the lady and her sagacious 
 countryman, and persuade her to keep her 
 
 engagement. Take care she don't " and 
 
 a significant gesture told the rest. 
 " Don't what, ma'am ? " 
 " Why, what your horse seems thinking 
 
 about shy back bolt " 
 
 " Poh !" ejaculated the gentleman, patting 
 the neck, and dexterously yet gently reining 
 in his restive steed. 
 
 " Well, with such a master of the manege, 
 and of the military seat, too, there is little 
 room for apprehension ; " and the lady con- 
 tinued aloud, as if playfully giving orders to 
 the rider " Steady there light hand 
 mind your balance play light ! I see I 
 have not quite forgot the slang of the riding- 
 school. Your tit, though not quite thorough- 
 bred, nor longer a filly, has high spirit, I find, 
 and a delicate mouth impatient of a rough 
 curb must be managed ." These equi- 
 voques had the usual fortune of being per- 
 fectly well \mderstbod by the person intended 
 to be kept in the dark. Mrs. Luke, how- 
 ever, looking all unconsciousness, inquired if 
 the Colonel had seen her daughter, probably 
 for the pleasure of having the young lady's 
 companions pointed out. " There was Miss 
 Luke, not twenty yards off! and with the 
 English party we saw in the Garden of Plants 
 this morning." 
 
 " So I declare," said Mrs. Luke, raising 
 her eye-glass ; " how stupid ! not to know 
 my own child, and so many old friends ! 
 I don't wish to waste time on recognitions 
 here, though, with so much business before 
 us. Let us move forward, pray, and pass 
 them ;" and, waving her hand to the pro- 
 menaders, the carriage swept past at the nod 
 of the attendant horseman ; while the Bailie, 
 smiling graciously to the group, shouted 
 " All's right ! we'll meet ye, belyve, young 
 folks ! Haud ye merry !" 
 
 " Well, the Hawgreen girls are distingue, 
 even here," cried the now delighted widow 
 " and such an assemblage of fashionable 
 
 English ! You are in high luck to-day, Mr. 
 Pirgivie." 
 
 " Ay, and of Scots and Irish, I dare say; 
 but our poor nations go for nothing, Colonel. 
 John Bull, when he goes a-travelling, quite 
 over-tops Paddy and Sawney. But can you 
 tell me who is that chap, dressed like a 
 mountebank, in tartans, plaided and plumed, 
 and coming this way, strutting, with a well- 
 dressed mob at his heels?" 
 
 " Oh, next to the full-tatooed New Zea- 
 lander, our greatest lion," cried Lady Di ; 
 " L'Ecossois, L'Ecossois, Le brave Ecossois ! 
 
 a Mr. Macrasgal, or something like that 
 
 a Highland gentleman, known to grouse- 
 shooters as Glencladdach." 
 
 " Whom you must know very well, Bailie," 
 rejoined Mrs. Luke. 
 
 "And for little glide for little gude," 
 sputtered the Bailie. " Here is a muster o' 
 the representatives of the Scots Estates in the 
 capital of France ! Chiefs, Lairds, and 
 Commons pack o' ne'er-do-weels! West 
 Country Exclusives ! " 
 
 "Hush! hush, my dear sir!" cried Mrs. 
 Luke, laying her hand upon the sleeve of 
 the angry speaker. " Desire the man to 
 draw up, Colonel Sir Ogilvy Fletcher is 
 riding this way ; and the CHIEF coming to- 
 wards us too." Our heroine was in greater 
 frustration than became her now thorough 
 breeding. 
 
 " Baith cleared out ! baith dished ! " mut- 
 tered the Bailie, in angry soliloquy ; " and 
 young Shanklie, the Writer to the Signet, 
 auld Shanklie's son, at their tail ; och, 
 och, och, I can understand it a' now : a some- 
 thing to be negotiated some trifle mair o' 
 Mark Luke's hainings, obteened upon the 
 ower-burdened acres ; ay, ay ye may be 
 prepared, ma dame, for I'll ensure you o' a 
 hat the day from Sir Ogilvy." 
 
 " A hat /" cried Lady Di, laughing ; " of 
 all things, a hat ! Now, were he the chap- 
 lain that took to-morrow's office " 
 
 " A bow he means," whispered the agitated 
 Mrs. Luke, as the gentlemen surrounded the 
 carriage on her side. 
 
 "Shocking bad hat!" whispered Colonel 
 Rigby, as Mr. Shanklie made his reverences. 
 " Pray, who is that person?" 
 
 " Shanklie, an Edinbro' W.S., my lady," 
 said the restless Bailie ; " a chap that holds 
 the pair o' them, Celt and Saxon, Lowland 
 baronet and Highland chieftain, in ae leash 
 and that made out o' lang slips o' mouldy 
 parchment. Oh, the degenerate mongrels ! 
 That Sir Ogilvy has, I declare, lost both
 
 324 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE ; OH, 
 
 flesh and favour, and the look o' the horn 
 gentleman, which once sat on him weel ; 
 broken down into half jockey and half black- 
 leg his very cleidin' looks scourie and 
 threadbare, for a' its pretence. It's both a 
 pleasure to witness his punishment, and a 
 pain to think on his folly. Infatuate beast ! 
 There 's what comes of an ancient baronet of 
 three clear thousand a-year, coping and vicing 
 with a neighbour Earl of fifteen : and but a 
 puir Earl, they say, for a'. Weel, weel, let 
 them take their ain way o't ; but, as for Mysie 
 Luke or her tocher hem." 
 
 " You seem disturbed, sir," said Lady Di, 
 as her companion, Mrs. Luke, continued en- 
 gaged in animated talk with the gentlemen. 
 
 " Disturbed, ma'am ! If ye but kenned 
 the history o' that pair o' youths ! As for 
 young Glencladdach there, to be sure he 
 was long a minor, had a fool for a mother, 
 and was bred at an English school ; and wha, 
 among the wealthy Saxon churls, was to pre- 
 sume to eclipse one of the Clanna Gael, for- 
 sooth ! ancient as the hills, the waters, and 
 the woods ? Weel do I kn the natur o' the 
 vain beasts ! Wlia was to ding the chief, 
 either on the turf or in the clubs and the 
 hells? And there they are ; gentle beggars 
 here, should be lords at hame ; cap-in-hand 
 for a w T ell-interested loan o' a pickle o' Mark 
 Luke the grocer's siller wha, to be sure, 
 had sense enough to buy and sell them baith 
 in a market." 
 
 Lady Diana Corscaden, relict of Sir Der- 
 mot Corscaden, of Castle Corscaden, &c. &c. 
 &c. now stared even more broadly at the 
 eloquent Scot than that gentleman had at 
 first sight done at herself. What strange 
 talk ! could it be meant at her ! There 
 was little time for reflection. Sir Ogilvy ac- 
 costed her ; while Mr. Shanklie, W.S., 
 economically including his client and Mr. 
 Pirgivie in one short conversation, or (is. 8d. 
 worth, exclaimed " The very man we were 
 looking for." 
 
 " Ha I Bailie Pirgivie ! By all that's honest, 
 but your father's son is welcome to Paris ! " 
 And the young Chief for he was not yet 
 twenty-five covered the affectation of this 
 accost by a vehement shaking of hands. " 1 
 say, Lady Di, we shall have him introduced 
 to Charles Dix." 
 
 " Yes, as an Edinburgh Professor, who, in 
 Holyrood, bowed to fallen royalty, long, long 
 before you were born." 
 
 " No, no as a non-juring Scotch bishop 
 next, in the good love of his Majesty, to a 
 true Jesuit. Well do I remember you, sir, 
 
 coming to Glencladdach, when I was a little- 
 boy, to buy my father's kelp. Why don't 
 you give us such prime prices, you Glasgow 
 men, for our kelp now?" 
 
 " Ay, five pound, or les?, in place of fifteen 
 or twenty, makes a difference on the rent- 
 roll at the year's end as Mr. Sbanklie 
 there, who is a braw accountant, will ken ; 
 but the sheep, the woo', and the big farms 
 will make up for it." The chieftain felt 
 this observation so unpleasant that he heard 
 it not. 
 
 As Mr. Pirgivie afterwards remarked, 
 Glencladdach could still boast all the state 
 and trappings of the feudal chief, save the 
 following save the leal vassals, the affec- 
 tionate kinsmen, the devoted fosterers, for 
 countless generations knit to their head, 
 the representative of their blood and name, 
 by ties which nothing could have dissevered 
 but the Chiefs resolute determination "of 
 doing what he would with his own." It was 
 with strong contempt that our shrewd com- 
 mercial man saw the chieftain strutting here, 
 plaided and plumed ; a painted pageant, from 
 which heart and soul had departed ; " a Chief 
 of the Black-faced and the Cheviots," as the 
 Bailie jeeringly called him ; neither a plain, 
 sensible, intelligent, modern improver of his 
 property, nor yet a generous feudal superior 
 of the olden time ; vain and extravagant, and 
 thence needy his very profusion stimulating 
 his rapacity, and Mr. Shanklie still minister- 
 ing to all his follies and ruinous projects, as 
 obsequiously as he had done to the general 
 clearing of the estates. 
 
 While that heartless process was going 
 forward, the young Chief and his mother had 
 remained in England. The poor clansmen 
 were all gone beyond the western seas 
 wailing, as they went, that Ranz des Vaches 
 of the Highland mountains, 
 
 Farewell farewell farewell ! 
 AVe return no more for ever ! 
 
 But their clan head could still, at a distance, 
 play the part of a Chief. The plume, the 
 dirk, the piper, the clan-tartan, and the clan- 
 ensign, were better understood and more 
 prized than ever. The gathering cry was 
 still Olach an Claddach ! and prettily would 
 the young ladies in London and Paris draw- 
 ing-rooms startle and scream when Mr. 
 Macrusgal raised it ; but, in Glencladdach 
 itself Glencladdach, desolate! "the daugh- 
 ter of the voice in the hollow rock" alone 
 repeated that slogan. 
 
 " That young man is quite a passion in 
 Paris at present," said Lady Di, " with his
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 figure, and his piper, and, above all, his 
 sword exercise." 
 
 " The lad has done greater feats than any 
 ye have heard of yet," said the Bailie, whose 
 gorge rose at the swelling, thriftless squan- 
 derer. " In one morning, that young chap, 
 in Highland phrase, ' put out fifty smokes' 
 smothered the warm ashes on fifty hearths, 
 coeval with his fathers' in his glen, and by 
 the side of his ancestral stream and loch. 
 Heartless puppet ! And he'll strut there in 
 his tartan array ! the puller down of roof- 
 trees the extinguisher of household smokes ! 
 But he reeks and fumes bravely himsel* ; and 
 indeed, it's the natur o' them. Weel, ven- 
 geance is swift." 
 
 The party were now awaiting the arrival 
 of the celebrated Cuttie Sark, on whom, this 
 day, so many hopes and fears hung, and of 
 her no less illustrious rival, Dandizette Se- 
 cunda. Both fair ones were now seen slowly 
 approaching, still in their body-clothes, and 
 led by smart English grooms. A crowd of 
 gentlemen, and amateurs of the Turf of all 
 ranks, were gathered about the horses, and 
 accompanying the procession. Sir Ogilvy, 
 impatient of the slowness of the approach, 
 rode off to meet them ; and the party in 
 the carriage were left with the Chief and 
 Shanklie, who now, with the piper, was his 
 sole tail. 
 
 " I understand you have been nrand the 
 coast and among the Isles lately, in the 
 steamers," said the Chief, addressing Mr. 
 Pirgivie. " I hope you did not forget Clen- 
 claddach did you mark how my timber 
 thrives ?" 
 
 " I'll no soon forget Glencladdach 
 either as I saw it first or last and I saw it 
 first lang before the days of steamers. It 
 was then a very region of beauty and peace. 
 And now but I maun own ye manage 
 every thing weel, Mr. Shanklie : there's a 
 rich English rector has the shooting and 
 the castle ; an English company the bark 
 and the thinnings of the woods ; and another 
 the sawmont fishing. The very nut-braes, 
 hanging ower the loch, and the bits o' juni- 
 per bushes are rented, they say ; so that a 
 callant or a lassie durstna take a pouch-fu'. 
 Conscience ! ye maun be as rich as Jews, 
 you Chiefs ! Ye maun be coining money 
 for the laird, Mr. Shanklie : a' thing turned 
 to account yonder. You landed folks, Mr. 
 Macrusgal, are fairly beating us bits o' spin- 
 ning-jenny bodies about Glasgow in economics, 
 When they began at the Mains to sell Sir 
 Ogilvy Fletcher's skim-milk and orra cab- 
 
 bage-stocks, it was a speech to the country 
 this new-fashioned thrift. ' He'll surely 
 make a fortune now,' was every auld wife's 
 word : but, in economy, the Highland Chiefs 
 beat the Lowland Lairds yet when they 
 draw rent for the very nuts. But I'm a great 
 admirer o' thrift mysel'." 
 
 Mrs. Mark Luke was upon thorns at this 
 ill-bred side-talk, and the young Chief not 
 altogether at his ease ; but nothing daunted 
 the " austere composure " of Mr. Shanklie. 
 
 " You hear, Shanklie, what the Bailie 
 says of the income you are realizing from 
 my estates," cried the young Chieftain, 
 covering his wincing with the air of bravado. 
 
 " Income ! na, it's no wonder ye dash, 
 you Highland Chiefs and Lowland Lairds. 
 Your rent-rolls, what wi' the shooting, and 
 the nuts, and the fishing, must be tripled or 
 quadrupled upon your grandfathers'. To 
 be sure there is a change on the face o' the 
 country. How many able-bodied followers 
 could the Macrusgals muster now, if they a' 
 turned out in Glencladdach?" 
 
 There was no reply to this home question. 
 
 " Weel, the men and the merles are not to 
 be both got. Then there was the bits of 
 scattery lhalies and touns, the sma' farms 
 and cot-houses, with the potato-fields, and 
 the kye at e'en, and the blue reeks climbing 
 in the calm gloaming sunset 
 
 Like little wee cluds in the world their lane, 
 as Jamie Hogg sings. These are all gone, 
 to be sure ; and the Highland lasses and the 
 Highland lilts, and a' the happy" looks and 
 cheerfu' voices o' yon Westland glen. I'm 
 amaist thinking you Highland Lairds are 
 now constructed upon the new principle of 
 consuming your ain reek yourscls never a 
 smoke to be seen now for ten and twenty 
 miles around ye ; but ye must be getting 
 monstrous rich, and that's a great consola- 
 tion." 
 
 The young Chief, though half-offended, 
 laughed off the affair, by again calling Mr. 
 Shanklie to listen to this consolation ; but 
 that functionary was closely occupied with 
 Mrs. Luke, who was chattering eagerly at 
 hand, and eyeing Cuttie Sark pacing grace- 
 fully in the distance. 
 
 "And rich ye would be, Glencladdach, 
 mur vhiodh ma na phoit ach Macheoc's n liadh.* 
 I suppose you have a little Gaelic?" 
 
 The young chieftain coloured and laughed 
 "So you understand Gaelic, too!" he cried. 
 
 * Were no one about the kail-pot but Maceoch and 
 the ladle i. e. no foreign drains.
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 " Peckan peckan," returned the Bailie. 
 " A little of ' the wisdom of your ancestors,' 
 as this " and, looking full at the Doer, he 
 emphatically repeated "'An lon-dubh, an 
 lon-dubh spagach ! thug, mise dha choille-fhasga 
 fheurach; 's thug esan domhsa am monadh dubh 
 
 fdisaich.' Wi' so mony strange tongues, 
 
 spoken everywhere among ye, I may say my 
 say in Erse, surely." 
 
 "Oh, do, do translate, Mr. Macrusgal!" 
 cried Lady Di. " I vow, those are the very 
 gutturals of dear old Blucher ! " 
 
 "And may," said the young Chief, "be 
 very well translated by the memorable ex- 
 clamation of that veteran when viewing 
 London from the top of St. Paul's 
 
 What for a plunder ! 
 
 You are better versed in our clan legends 
 than I had supposed strangers, sir. That is, 
 by tradition at least, the speech made by 
 my ancestor Rusgal to a Scandinavian in- 
 vader of his insular territory ; other accounts 
 say it was spoken of an encroaching Bishop 
 of Moray, w r ho juggled us out of some of our 
 fairest lands, in name of the Church." 
 
 " I understood it was said by your great- 
 grandfather, to his fair-seeming law-agent, 
 after the '45 when, under pretence o' secur- 
 ing his property, deeds were exchanged." 
 
 " But, in the name of the King's English, 
 tell us what it means," interrupted Lady Di, 
 with great vivacity. 
 
 "'The ousel the cloven-footed ousel I 
 gave him the sheltered woody pasturage, and 
 he returned me the black, sterile heath :' 
 a very common bargain now-a-days in the 
 Highlands, my leddy, where the great beast 
 is devouring the little beast, and the least 
 fending as it can. That's anither of your 
 Erse proverbs, I think, Glencladdach." 
 
 " You are a very Sancho Panza, Bailie, in 
 Gaelic sayings ; but, having got my dittay, 
 a little broad salutary Scotch in the ear of 
 Fletcher there, might not be amiss. There 
 he comes ! " 
 
 Fuming he came ! " Those d d im- 
 pudent rascals, the French police, had inter- 
 fered to prevent the racing match from taking 
 place on the Boulevard !" 
 
 Where, then, could it be held ? Or, was 
 there still time to fix upon another course ? 
 Mrs. Mark Luke thought not there was just 
 time to dress before Tortoni's hour ; and a 
 dinner ordered at sixty livres a-head deserved 
 a dress toilet. 
 
 "Sixty livres a-head!" exclaimed Mr. 
 Pirgivie. 
 
 "And very moderate, too, sir," said the 
 
 Chief. " If you have seen the carte., you 
 would say so ; and the judgment and taste 
 Sir Ogilvy exercised in ordering this after 
 all paltry sort of cit dinner. The ladies 
 patronize Twtoni, as he is great in patisserie, 
 and this of to-day is a lady's affair ; though, 
 in my humble opinion, the Cafe- Anglais, 
 Lointier's, or even Grignon's, if a man wants 
 to really dine, or a stranger to see genuine 
 French cookery, would have been the better 
 choice ; but you may, after all, see tolerable 
 pales aux huitrcs ! " 
 
 " I should wish Mr. Pirgivie to partake of 
 one recherche dinner in Paris," said Mrs. 
 Mark Luke with emphasis, and better French 
 than usual. 
 
 " Can the Ethiopian change his colour ? " 
 groaned the Bailie, in secret ; but he said 
 aloud, and with the appearance of good- 
 humour "A sixty livres' worth at one sitting 
 will content me, ma dame, and astonish the 
 natives at home for the rest of my life. Sixty 
 livres' worth shovelled down a man's throat 
 at one sitting ! " 
 
 His imagined ignorant surprise excited a 
 general smile ; and Colonel Rigby Blake 
 rejoined, " Why, sir, I made one, and Sir 
 Ogilvy another, at the time the allies were 
 in Paris, of fifteen gentlemen, who dined at 
 Very's, (then a name,) at twelve Napoleons 
 a-head ; but then the Chambertin was 
 superb." 
 
 " Pitiful doings those, too," said Sir Ogilvy. 
 " London, after all, for a dinner or, at least, 
 for a bill : Glencladdach and self once partook 
 of the works of Francatelli, when he first 
 
 came over, ordered by Sir George , and 
 
 to the tune of twenty-five guineas a-man." 
 
 " Faith, it would take to sell the skim-milk 
 at the Mains for a while, and rent out the 
 nut-braes, to stand thae doings," said Bob 
 Pirgivie : " that is, and leave ony thing in 
 the sporran after clearin' the lawin'." 
 
 " Abominable extravagance ! " said the 
 young Chief, half affecting repentance ; " and 
 not, after all, to be compared to a dinner of 
 the venison of my own hills, the grouse of 
 my own moors, and the fish of my own lochs." 
 The young man did now look as if, between 
 vanity and grief, he felt, and deeply. 
 
 " Which yon fat English rector is feasting 
 upon ; while you brave lairds are a' running 
 off to France, or " 
 
 " No more of it, my dear sir," whispered 
 
 Mrs. Luke. "As Robina, which is quite 
 
 natural at her age, cannot endure formal 
 dinners, I shall send her home to dine, at any 
 rate."
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 G27 
 
 " And, as James Wilson can't afford them, 
 suppose lie keep her company, and give her 
 Glasgow news 1 " said the Bailie. 
 
 "With all my heart I" and as if to receive 
 her orders, the young pair came hastily up, 
 Miss Luke, all in a glow, exclaiming, 
 " Mamma, we have been looking for you 
 everywhere. The Hawgreen ladies and Mr. 
 James had so much to tell me about poor 
 Halcyon Bank : The lauristinus hedge we 
 planted long ago has flourished so ; and the 
 arbutuses are quite lovely : how I long to 
 see them ! " This important intelligence 
 was very well received ; and the earnest 
 whispers of her mother, at which Mysie 
 smiled and coloured, sent off the young lady 
 hastily with her companion, in spite of the 
 remonstrances of Colonel Blake, who loudly 
 insisted upon Miss Luke being included in 
 the dinner-party, long after she had tripped 
 out of hearing. 
 
 " Allow me, Colonel, to have my own way 
 with my daughter to- day : to-morrow she 
 may be under a different commander," said 
 Mrs. Luke, with dignity ; and the Bailie 
 looked all admiration, or " fidging-fain." 
 
 " Whose study will be the sweet creature's 
 happiness every hour of my life," said the 
 Colonel, bowing ; " I'll be hanged as high 
 as Hainan, if I know, Lady Di, which of 
 them two ladies I love best." 
 
 " Fi done ! to doubt that to-day ! " 
 
 Mrs. Luke now expressed her anxious 
 desire that the running-match should be 
 instantly decided one way or other. The 
 wishes of a bride were gallantly declared 
 imperative; and, indeed, all the gentlemen 
 owned that this disappointment would greatly 
 abstract from the pleasure of their last dinner 
 with Rigby, the non-Benedict. Though tlie 
 match had been prohibited upon the spot, by 
 the impertinent interference of the police, 
 there were other places not far off; and it 
 might, with clever jockeyship, be all over 
 before a second mandate could be issued. 
 Besides, the English were wilful as the diable, 
 and would have their way. Happily, Cuttie 
 Sark and her beautiful chestnut rival were 
 still at hand, with their liveried attendants, 
 and the different betters and amateur jockeys. 
 Lady Di had already hooked in Bob Pirgivie 
 to hedge her small bet to the extent of five 
 Louis farther he would not move ; though, 
 on this day, he had resolved to stick at no- 
 thing in the accomplishment of one object. 
 As he truly alleged that he had little skill of 
 racers, he proposed to go with young Haw- 
 green, to deliver letters to some of his 
 
 Excellency's household, from Mr. Ewins, 
 but engaged to join the party, with his com- 
 panion, at Tortoni's. His low, earnest, 
 hurried whispers with Mrs. Luke at parting, 
 were satisfactorily explained by the note- 
 case conveyed to her, with the emphatically 
 pronounced words, " Remember your pac- 
 tion ! " and, as the sinews pf action, whether 
 in love, war, or the turf, were thus left, he 
 was seen to climb a passing empty cabriolet, 
 without much regret by the sporting party. 
 Sir Ogilvy, indeed, greeted his departure with 
 a volley of curses, concluding with " Old 
 
 miserly hunks ! let him go, and be d d 
 
 would not sport a piece upon my mare for 
 the honour of Ayrshire ! Shanklie sneaking 
 after him, too ! all the better ! " 
 
 As we feel fully more interest in the 
 mission of Bob Pirgivie, than even in that 
 famous match though but a little-go 
 between Mr. Phipps Mason's Dandizetlc, 
 Secunda,, and Sir Ogilvy Fletcher's celebrated 
 Cuttie Sark, which had once carried the 
 Oaks, and been second for the Derby of 
 which " famous match," so important to all 
 the retrenching, refugee, or volanting English 
 in Paris, Galignani was kind enough to ac- 
 quaint all Europe we shall take leave to 
 follow the Scottish ex-magistrate to the 
 hotel where the Hawgreen family had their 
 temporary residence. 
 
 After explaining at some length, and really 
 with remarkable delicacy, the particulars 
 with which, we hope, the " gentle reader " 
 has done us the honour to get acquainted, 
 and privately soliciting the friendly co-opera- 
 tion of young Hawgre'en, the Bailie, in full 
 saloon, continued " To be sure, it would be 
 far wiser-like they waited a while, and were 
 married in their ain parish, after a contract 
 properly drawn up by her late father's Doer. 
 But, as better mayna be, and to break the 
 fa' o' the mother's pride, I hope Mr. Ewins 
 will have no reflections. We cannot, in this 
 hurry, get a' thing so right and tight, as if 
 we were in Glasgow; but ye'll just, Mr. 
 Shanklie, since the job has fallen to you, 
 draw up twa or three words o' a minute, 
 frae the bits o' heads and jottings I have 
 made here. We '11 get James and Mysie to 
 sign it abundance o' the law does not break 
 the law and I'll take the responsibility o' 
 a' the rest on my ain head." 
 
 Mr. Shanklie expressed his zeal and will- 
 ingness to officiate. 
 
 " I have no doubt o' you making a sicker 
 bargain, as, luckily, the siller is a' on our side ; 
 and, as we are no marrying into an estated
 
 328 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 family, it will be the easier managed. The 
 hairi'.s o' Margery Robina Luke, by this 
 marriage, to get the gear divided among 
 them in equal portions. Primogeniture is 
 for the grandees, and Mrs. Mark Luke has 
 had, I'm thinking, just enough of fashion to 
 last all her days. Failing heirs of this mar- 
 riage, then the courtesy to James, no for- 
 getting an augmentation of the mother's 
 settlement, should her child go first, and re- 
 mainder to the Sprots o' Saltcoats : and, 
 by the by, I forgot to tell her aunty, that 
 Jean has married the skipper of a Liverpool 
 steamer, and ta'en up house in Greenock; 
 and a capital managing wife she makes ! 
 the Sprots of Saltcoats, and the other nephews 
 and nieces of Mrs. Barbara Peaston and 
 Mark Luke, Esq. of Halcyon Bank gi'e 
 him a' his titles, I beg of you, for Mark 
 showed pride enough, though no in the wife's 
 line : his was pride of wealth, honest man, 
 in which there is some sense but hers ; 
 the Exclusives they are bom idiots a'the- 
 gither !" 
 
 After a necessary visit to his temporary 
 banker, Mr. Bob made another to Mrs. 
 Luke's apartments, into which, before him, 
 in spite of the screaming and jabbering of 
 the porteress, Mr. James Wilson had found 
 his way to the young lady. They were dis- 
 covered by the Baih'e at a game of mutual 
 instruction, puzzling over a chess-board, 
 James gravely studying a fifth move, under 
 the counsels of Mysie. 
 
 " Ay, ay will ye get through that game 
 before your mother and me come home, my 
 dear ? see to draw it out till then ; in the 
 meantime, Mr. James, here's a bit study for 
 you, and you can tell my Mysie a' about it, 
 by word o' mouth, or just ony way ye like." 
 And, giving the young man a note explana- 
 tory, and a scroll of the contract aforesaid, 
 the Bailie, with Hawgreen and Shanklie, set 
 off to the far-famed Tortoni's, though with 
 some apprehension on the part of honest Bob. 
 
 " I'm no nice o' my gab," said he, after 
 pondering a while ; " I carena inuckle what 
 I eat ; and I wudna like to affront the 
 Frenchman, by scunnerin' at his dainties ; 
 but I hope he'll no pushion us wi' puddocks 
 I couldna stand them." 
 
 And the Bailie, who moderately loved 
 comfortable eating, and plain British cookery, 
 made a wry mouth, as if already half- 
 poisoned, while young Hawgreen laughed 
 heartily. 
 
 " Grenouilhs f rites or en papillote ? I 
 dare say we shall have them dressed both 
 
 ways," he said ; and the Bail!?, who saw no 
 point in the joke, gave his head a knowing 
 SW.-IL;-, a> it' protesting in liiiiine against all 
 suspicious French fare. 
 
 Enthroned in the place of honour, sup- 
 ported by the Chief and the happy Colonel, 
 Mrs. Murk Luke, splendidly dressed and re- 
 rouged, so well sustained her character as a 
 fashionable, that no one would have suspect- 
 ed she had been a considerable loser by the 
 failure of Cuttie Sari; and had just paid her 
 losses with the best grace in the world ; still 
 less could the bold stroke she meditated be 
 surmised. 
 
 The banquet proceeded ; young Hawgreen 
 highly diverted with the suspicious looks 
 which Bob Pirgivie, affecting perfect \mcon- 
 cern, cast upon the different delicacies re- 
 commended to his attention by Mrs. Luke or 
 Lady Di, and refusing whatever he could not 
 understand. That was, indeed, nearly six 
 dishes out of every seven that appeared. 
 Precedent or example was, in this case, no 
 rule ; for he shrewdly suspected that his 
 fashionable friends would swallow any soss, 
 as he named the different entrcmfts and 
 entrees, provided it was in vogue. But 
 Hawgreen was a safer fugleman at this table : 
 so he tacitly constituted him his taster, eating 
 freely of whatever that young gentleman 
 first partook. 
 
 Indeed, Bob, ever afterwards, eulogized 
 dinde aux truffles, and jamfton glact", and even 
 made Mrs. Luke write down their proper 
 names in his note-book, beside his observa- 
 tions on Notre Dame, c. &c. that he also 
 might be able to tell his convivial friends in 
 the West, of his proficiency in a branch of 
 science so zealously cultivated by English 
 travellers. Of the wines, reserving his opin- 
 ion of their quality, he partook with entire 
 freedom ; and the most choice, or at least, 
 the most expensive in Tortoni's cellars, wore 
 produced to toast the health of the bride. 
 Scots, English, Irish, and French, did equal 
 justice to bumper pledges, drained to her 
 future connubial felicity ; and the facetious 
 and jovial Mr. Bob Pirgivie was soon almost 
 as much admired here, and became nearly as 
 much at home as if the French capital had 
 been his own city of Saint Mungo. Both 
 Hawgreen and the Chief knew enough of 
 Scottish social manners to be able to draw 
 him out : and his old songs once again came 
 tingling over the ears of Mrs. Luke, not now 
 vulgar, but like the rushing of her native 
 " Cart rinnin' rowin' to the sea." They 
 brought a rush of warm tears to her eves.
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 The -only drawback upon the pleasure of 
 the evening was Sir Ogilvy Fletcher, who 
 soon became half tipsy, and wholly sullen, 
 and who, ever and anon, sulkily eyed the 
 gay Irish soldier, and muttered that " The 
 rapparee" (who, by the way, had large un- 
 hedged bets upon Dandizetie) " had doctored 
 Cuttie, and would jockey his own mother, if 
 there was such an old woman." 
 
 The harmonies of Bob Pirgivie were never 
 more needed to keep peace than now ; and he 
 did not spare them. Lady Di Corscaden did 
 lum the honour to encore his brilliant 
 
 Contented wi 1 little and canty wi' mair ; 
 which the French gentlemen present de- 
 clared to be worthy of Beranger. 
 
 " Where was ever ony o' your Berangers 
 equal to ROBERT BURNS?" cried the convi- 
 vial Scot, becoming quite enthusiastic 
 warming, as it were, in his own fires. " But 
 I'll give you anither, gentlemen and it's 
 just new aff the irons. It's by a Glasgow 
 man, too and that is SANDY RODGER ; but I 
 must have something by way of a punch 
 ladle in my hand, for I cannot get on with- 
 out that." Hawgreen handed him a meers- 
 chaum, which formed, at least, a very good 
 substitute, while he sang 
 
 SANCT MUNGO. 
 
 Sanct Mungo was ane famous sar.ct, 
 
 And a cautie carle was he; 
 lie drank o' the Mokndinar Hnrnr, 
 
 Quliau better couldna be. 
 Zit, when he could get stronger clieere, 
 
 He ne'er was water dry, 
 But drank o' the stream o 1 the wimplin ii-orm 
 
 And let the burne run by. 
 
 Even Sir Ogilvy Fletcher hiccuped in chorus 
 to this chanson a boire, the first stanza of which 
 brought off the howl of the pipe, and raised 
 Mrs. Luke to her feet, to go off, only to he 
 gently pulled back to her seat by the encir- 
 cling arm of the gay bridegroom, while Bob 
 continued to chant 
 
 Sanct Mungo was ane godlie sanct, 
 
 Far-famed for godlie deeds; 
 And great delight he daily took 
 
 In counting ower his beads. 
 Zit I, Sanct Mungo 's youngest sonne, 
 
 Can count as well as he ; 
 But the beads whilk I like best to count, 
 
 Are the beads o' the barley-bree. 
 
 "LET GLASGOW FLOURISH!" shouted the 
 Bailie, rising, and flourishing his substitute 
 for the habitual ladle ; " where did ever ony 
 De Beranger make a song like that ? But, 
 as the leddies insist on deoch-an-dhoris, and 
 as our friend Mrs. Luke has a deal of busi- 
 ness before her " 
 
 " ' Hath,' like Juliet, ' need of many 
 
 orisons ! ' " sighed Lady Diana, looking, with 
 mock meaning, to her friend, the bride, unable 
 wholly to control the aristocratic supercili- 
 ousness which so often beset her manners, 
 even in the most delicate circumstances. 
 
 Probably Mrs. Luke required this gentle 
 fillip to her resolution. She had been too 
 elevated in her surroundings for the last four 
 hours, or too feebly reminded of her real 
 status, as she delighted to call it ; and that 
 it was by money, or money's worth, and 
 sufferance alone, that she held even her 
 present brevet rank in the skirmishing corps 
 of the aristocracy. She did not possess any 
 one of those brilliant, or even of those frivolous 
 talents, which, by amusing or throwing 
 reflected lustre over aristocratic circles, make 
 their way for a time. She was neither an 
 eminent singer, nor a skilful musician. She 
 could neither recite nor personate. Her 
 only language was Anglo-Scottish and bad 
 French. She had never written a novel, nor 
 yet a volume of poems ; she neither was a 
 distinguished sinner, nor yet a celebrated 
 devotee. She was no dexterous flatterer, 
 though she had often done her best. In the 
 arts of toadyism, she was a poor proficient ; 
 and her quickness and naturally high spirit 
 made her often restive in the only capacity 
 in which the fashionables could disinterestedly 
 have deigned to use her namely, as an 
 object of indignity or impertinent ridicule, 
 as a butt for the exercise of their small wits. 
 Princes and grandees the whole higher 
 order of aristocracy in former ages enter- 
 tained, for their dignified amusement, dwarfs, 
 monsters, and crack-brained persons. We 
 believe that there are dwarfs and other pitiable 
 abortions of nature to be found in some 
 northern courts still : Dr. Clarke found them 
 in Russia. But their substitutes, in our 
 more refined society, are now butts and oddities, 
 and, more deservedly, the aspiring "vulgar" 
 like our Mrs. Mark Luke. For the vulgar 
 rich, neither their money nor servility, and 
 scarce the " extreme obligingness " of " the 
 good sort of creatures," can purchase the 
 immunities of aristocracy. With great 
 difficulty it is that they can even buy them- 
 selves up a step ; as when the son of a 
 wealthy manufacturer or loan-contractor 
 obtains, by special favour, the third or fourth 
 daughter of a pauper-peer, upon condition of 
 an ample jointure, and as little connexion as 
 possible with his low relations. Vigilantly 
 guarded as the frontiers of the great world 
 are, it is scarce possible for an interloper like 
 Mrs. Luke to make way even into the outer
 
 330 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 circumvallation. The great Lady Diana 
 Corscaden herself, had partly lost caste, since 
 she had married an Irish baronet, and become 
 a poor widow. Neglected herself, what could 
 she do to give a lift to a friend in the worse 
 circumstances of Mrs. Mark Luke ? This 
 was a consideration that had frequently of 
 late forced itself upon the attention of that 
 lady, who began to think seriously that she 
 had been paying too dear for the whistle, if 
 her calculations had not been formed alto- 
 gether on wrong data : for there was vulgar 
 Bob Pirgivie on intimate terms with the 
 Hawgreens ; and actually, as they drove 
 home, talking as if the society in which he 
 had spent the afternoon was beneath him ! 
 In intelligence, in solid worth, in the good 
 and useful, if not the highest purposes of 
 life, and in rational and steady principles of 
 conduct, feeling his superiority to those 
 exalted personages, Bob had no false shame 
 in avowing it. Perhaps, after all, it was as 
 needy spendthrifts, and thence mean and 
 shuffling, that the independent ex-magistrate, 
 who was just rich and right-thinking enough 
 to fear no man's feud, and value no man's 
 favour, most heartily despised the beggar- 
 pride of the Sir Ogilvy Fletchers and Glen- 
 claddachs. Their high-flown notions of 
 their immense personal consequence, and the 
 privileges of their rank, were, unaffectedly, 
 so much mere " leather or prunella " to him, 
 that he could have only a glimmering under- 
 standing of them ; and though he perfectly 
 comprehended the nature of Mrs. Luke's 
 admiration of those things, it was impossible 
 that either the haughtiness, the really inso- 
 lent, condescending familiarity, or the more 
 tolerable caprice of those great personages, 
 could have affected him as they did that 
 ambitious, imitative, and sensitive lady. 
 
 So quietly and unconsciously did Mr. Bob 
 set himself above all that sort of " fudge," 
 that it seemed as if he could not even perceive 
 the fun of it ; or how, like Mrs. Luke's lofty 
 aspirations, it might be converted into the 
 amusement of the middle order his own 
 respectable and respected order, so long as 
 they choose to respect themselves. 
 
 It was in vain that Mrs. Luke vindicated 
 the objects of her admiration, upon the score 
 of what she, with curious felicity, persisted 
 in calling maniere ; though she certainly 
 meant demeanour, or graceful carriage, if 
 not good manners. Their elegance, their 
 polish, their refinement, were such, and so 
 great ! 
 
 " Weel, weel ! " cried the Bailie, with some 
 
 impatience ; "let them keep a' that the 
 carving on the outside of the cup and platter 
 and you leddies may take on as reasonable 
 a quantity of it as ye see fit ; but let us not 
 put the cart before the horse not forget the 
 weightier matters of the great law of life 
 judgment, and justice, and mercy ; which 
 are sometimes at a low pass in high places." 
 
 This sober, or rather dull conversation, 
 brought them to Mrs. Luke's apartments : it 
 had taken place immediately after they had 
 set down Lady Di at some soiree, to which 
 she was engaged, and after she had, with the 
 charm of manner which she could assume at 
 pleasure, taken leave of Mrs. Luke, until 
 they should meet in the Ambassador's Chapel 
 next morning ! The adieus of the Colonel, 
 if not quite so graceful, were, of course, more 
 animated. Mrs. Luke preserved her dignity 
 and presence of mind in a way that made 
 Mr. Pirgivie fancy her even too good an 
 actress ; but that was all laid aside as she 
 entered the saloon, where the young lovers 
 for, we suppose, we may now so name them 
 awaited the arrival of their seniors, probably 
 with no great impatience ; but, so soon as 
 the carriage wheels were heard, with some 
 trepidation, visible especially in the maiden. 
 
 In all her lunes, Mrs. Luke had retained, un- 
 impaired, the warm affections of her sensible 
 child. The preservation of her mother from 
 degradation and misery, was, to the affec- 
 tionate girl, as true a source of happiness as 
 her own prospects. After a moment of con- 
 fusion, she first hurried to the table where 
 the chess-board stood, and where she ought 
 to have been found, and next to her mother's 
 arms, with the simple and yet all-compre- 
 hensive exclamation of " mamma ! " 
 
 The young lady was directed to carry her 
 mother's shawl to her chamber, and that, in 
 a voice so different from the imperious com- 
 mands of the same morning, that, with the 
 fresh roses of her cheeks glowing through 
 grateful, through rapture-risen tears, Mysie 
 hastened off. Her absence gave the more 
 freedom to the conference which took place. 
 The young man, though he could very truly 
 have declared that he had loved Mysie Luke 
 all his life, and now more than ever, was 
 compelled to avow that she had not been 
 explicit with him ; that she would not believe 
 her mother and her guardian sanctioned such 
 an impromptu marriage ; that, in short, he 
 had not been a successful wooer. 
 
 " My Robina has conducted herself exactly 
 with the delicacy paid propriety of a young 
 lady, upon whose education such pains have
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 been taken : referred herself to her mother !" 
 said Mrs. Luke, with matronly dignity, and 
 sailing off. " I must interpret between her 
 delicacy and her feelings ; and I flatter my- 
 self that, under my influence, they will not 
 be found unfavourable to so valued and so 
 long and well-known a parti" 
 
 Bob Pirgivie made a face as she left the 
 room, roguishly repeating "parti," and then 
 turned to the chess-board. 
 
 " Still in the fifth move of the game ? 
 'Deed, Mr. James, I fear ye are but a young 
 hand at it ; I'm sure I gave you time." The 
 young man, perfectly understanding the 
 double meaning, protested, with spirit, that 
 he had made very good use of his time. 
 
 " I wager, now, your main difficulty lay in 
 persuading Mysie that this was not ower 
 good news to be true. I must try my hand 
 with her. We must sti'ike while the iron is 
 hot. The mother wants to make Mysie the 
 scapegoat of her own idiotic matrimonial 
 project ; but I am sure that she, no more 
 than myself, would bestow her daughter un- 
 safely or unworthily ; and so, young gentle- 
 man, you are not to take haste, as to time, 
 for precipitance of judgment. And there 's 
 Mr. Ewins has just as deep a veneration for 
 high connexion as becomes the humility of a 
 Christian minister ! and Mrs. Luke herself is 
 not to be trusted a day without danger of a 
 relapse into gentility ; so the sooner the 
 wedding's ower " 
 
 But, at this stage, Lisette the nimble and 
 present-everywhere Lisette won by the good 
 mien of the young Scotsman, threw open the 
 door of the adjoining room of the suite, as if 
 by accident ; beyond which, in a farther 
 room, might be seen Mrs. Luke fitting her 
 own intended bridal robes upon her daughter, 
 and turning Mysie round and round admir- 
 
 ingty- 
 
 Bob Pirgivie, perceiving that his office of 
 pleader was likely to become a sinecure, took 
 the privilege of old friendship to advance 
 briskly into the chamber. Mrs. Mark Luke 
 had been certain that considerable shortening 
 would be required in the robe ; and Lisette, 
 that Mademoiselle required every straw- 
 breadth of the length, with, perhaps, a little 
 tightening across the bust, and a lowering of 
 the corsage ; all of which improvements were 
 accomplished with a dexterity which none 
 but a French waiting-maid can hope to 
 attain in such matters. These hurried alter- 
 ations were a happy diversion to the feelings 
 of our heroine ; and though, in her secret 
 quailing heart, she wished it were to-morrow 
 
 night, and all well ! she actually began to 
 concoct the paragraph of announcement 
 which was to enlighten and astonish the 
 West of Scotland, and hastily to write nume- 
 rous notes, still to be despatched, late as the 
 night wore. Those that were of invitation 
 were managed by Mr. Bob Pirgivie ; but it 
 was Mrs. Luke herself who wrote the digni- 
 fied epistle, containing in its bulky envelope 
 various I. 0. U.'s and receipts, all of which 
 Colonel Rigby Blake found on his dressing- 
 table when he woke about eleven o'clock 
 next morning, and remembered that it was 
 long past his marriage hour ! 
 
 He dressed in some haste, and inquired if 
 any one had called for him. " No one." No 
 message come to him ? None, save that laid 
 on his table. Colonel Rigby Blake, whether 
 of the Sardinian or Hungarian service, as he 
 drew on his boots a business of some diffi- 
 culty danced round the room, and cursed, 
 by his gods! the whole Scottish nation. 
 He was certain that there had been a pre- 
 concerted plan among the Scots to intoxicate 
 him ; not, after all, that this was a catas- 
 trophe so extremely rare, or so difficult to 
 accomplish, as to require the stratagem im- 
 puted to Bailie Pirgivie and young Hawgreen. 
 As he reflected farther, he came to the con- 
 fused recollection of having given a challenge 
 to Sir Ogilvy Fletcher, who had not only 
 imputed foul play to him in the racing-match, 
 but told him Lady Di had once said " he was 
 of the family of those Blakes of Kerry, who 
 are first cousins to Paddy Blake's Echo." 
 
 All this night-work now appeared a dream. 
 There was but one tking of which he had a 
 pleasing certainty. He had gained above 
 three hundred Napoleons by the breaking 
 down of Cuttie Sark fifty of them from Mrs. 
 Luke. There lay Mrs. Luke's rejection, to 
 be sure ; but in the same envelope was con- 
 solation a discharge in full of all his debts 
 to her a larger sum than ever Bob Pirgivie 
 could be brought to confess even to Mr. James 
 Wilson, though he had advised the discharge. 
 Things looked brighter. The disappointed 
 bridegroom swallowed a tumbler of soda 
 water, with a corrective admixture of eau de 
 vie, and, striding about the room, regarded 
 his own reflected image with returning com- 
 placency, till he finally broke out 
 
 " By the La' Harry J but you're a devilish 
 hicky fellow, Dennis Rigby, my boy there 
 where you stand to have jilted that cursed 
 old Scots widow ! " and he bowed to his 
 reflected figure in the looking-glass. " The 
 Edinburgh attorney says, the utmost farthing
 
 33-2 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, 
 
 of her jointure is hut 200, and the sly 
 Glasgow fellow will take care no one shall 
 touch a tester belonging to the girl. Health 
 to you, Dennis, again ! " And, as the hrave 
 Colonel swallowed the rest of his tumbler, 
 his rather handsome face mantled with the 
 bright flash of the idea which a full mouth 
 would not allow him to express. Out it 
 came the Irish are the must soliloquizing 
 people on earth: "By Jove, I'll swear to 
 Lady Di, I got royal last night, on purpose 
 to have a gentlemanly excuse for jilting the 
 owld girl this morning ! " Applying to the 
 sugar basin for the means of giving his 
 moustache an additional and fiercer " upward 
 swirl," and once more counting his yesterday's 
 gains, the Colonel sallied forth, and, in ten 
 minutes, set the military Irish and English 
 who frequented his cafe into fits of laughter, 
 with the comical history of his jilting the 
 dashing Glasgow widow. 
 
 At the door of the house to which he was 
 going, (the lodgings of Lady Di,) sat that 
 widow in an open travelling carriage, stuffed 
 with trunks and boxes. She was flanked by 
 Bob Pirgivie and young Hawgreen. 
 
 " Ah, ma'am, sure now, you were not going 
 to take French leave of your old friends ? " 
 And the Colonel spoke so blandly and cheer- 
 fully, and looked so perfectly disengaged and 
 happy, that the quailing heart of Mrs. Luke 
 beat more freely. "Rejoiced that I am just 
 in time to wish ye a good journey, and 
 return you my best thanks for many kind- 
 nesses but for that of this morning the most 
 of all." Raising himself up on the step of 
 the carnage, the bold Irishman swayed past 
 the Bailie, and, by way of leave-taking, 
 suddenly saluted our astonished and angry 
 heroine very fairly. 
 
 "Weel, sorrow the like o' that saw I ever!" 
 said Mr. Pirgivie, very much relieved, how- 
 ever ; though, in the next second, half sus- 
 picious of some trick. Mrs. Mark Luke indig- 
 nantly rubbed her violated lips, and young 
 Hawgreen struggled with choking laughter. 
 
 " Carry my blessing to my daughter that 
 should have been," continued Blake. " I 
 would have made her a most loving father." 
 
 Our heroine made a desperate rally. " My 
 daughter set off for Scotland, with my son- 
 in-law, from his Excellency's, about two 
 hours ago, and immediately after her mar- 
 riage. Drive on." 
 
 The gallant Colonel did look a little blank 
 at this intelligence ; but it was only for a 
 second. 
 
 " Then, ma'am, with your leave, I must 
 
 send by you my remembrances to the bride." 
 And a second sudden and intrepid salute left 
 poor Mrs. Mark Luke in the condition of " a 
 woman killed with kindness," and bursting 
 with rage. Bob Pirgivie, slily winking, 
 pulled down young Hawgreen, who was about 
 to vindicate the lady's quarrel. 
 
 " Poh, nia dame ! why take offence at an 
 old friend's freedom and at parting, too? 
 Ye mind our famous auld sang," and Bob 
 half warbled 
 
 "O Jamie, ye liae moiiie ta'en, 
 
 Aiul I will ne ver stand for ane " 
 
 Mrs. Luke almost frantically interrupted the 
 stave, which, she doubted not, was very well 
 understood by Lady Di, now bending almost 
 over the carriage from her open window, and 
 retiring anon to give way to her immoderate 
 laughter at Blake's consummate impudence, 
 and the ludicrous distress of our heroine. 
 Meanwhile, the undaunted Irishman had so 
 far gained the good graces of Bailie Pii-^ivio, 
 that they shook hands heartily the Bailie 
 going, in the warmth of the moment, the 
 length of saying "And, if ever ye come to 
 the West-country, I hope ye'll spend an 
 afternoon wi' me : ony body about the Ex- 
 change Rooms will be able to tell ye where 
 Bob Pirgivie lungs out. 'Od, we'se get 
 Davie Bell, and twa or three other gude 
 chields, and mak' a night o't." 
 
 While this was passing, Mrs. Luke so far 
 recovered herself, as once more to kiss her 
 hand, and bend gracefully to her fair friend 
 leaning above. 
 
 " A dieu, Lady Di ! If you ever visit 
 the West of Scotland, I shall hope for the 
 honour of entertaining you so long as I and 
 my family can make your residence agree- 
 able, at my poor place of Halcyon Bank, 
 near Largs : we can boast, at least, charm- 
 ing sea-views." Cards of address were once 
 more proffered, in spite of the Bailie's nudg- 
 ing admonitions of the elbow, and conveyed 
 through Colonel Blake. The postilion yelled 
 "Ailles done, coquins" the horses neighed, 
 the whip cracked, and the wheels flashed and 
 rattled along, wbile Mrs. Mark Luke, throw- 
 ing herself back in the carriage, exclaimed, 
 in a very natural tone " Thank my stars !" 
 
 It was arranged that they were to stop for 
 a day or two at some intermediate stage, that 
 Mrs. Luke might pause from the manifold 
 fatigues of the last trying thirty hours ; and 
 then they were to join the young pair at 
 Rouen which manufacturing city the Bailie 
 wished to visit on matters connected with his 
 business. Beyond the barrier, they lost their
 
 WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 333 
 
 escort, young Hawgreen ; the Bailie, after 
 what he had seen, no longer dreading- a 
 forcible abduction by the Irishman, whom, 
 when now fairly rid of him, he pronounced 
 " No a bad sort o' chield, had he been brought 
 up to some decent industrious calling, and no 
 kept swaggerin' and bullyraggin' a' his days 
 in the army, which is certain ruin to a man's 
 principles." 
 
 Exactly seven days after this, all the 
 church bells in Glasgow were busily swinging 
 and jowing upon the morning of a Fast-day, 
 preliminary to a Sacramental occasion. At 
 all such solemn times, a more than ordinary 
 degree of sanctity screwed up the virgin vis- 
 agesof these well-known spinsters of theTron- 
 gate, Miss Penelope Parlane and Miss Betty 
 Bogle. When the attentive grocer (the suc- 
 cessor of Mr. Mark Luke) sent the former 
 lady the usual gratis reading of the Chronicle 
 upon that morning, just as she was going off 
 to the Ram's-horn Kirk, she marvelled at 
 the audacious profanity of the man. 
 
 " But, mem, mem ! there's great news 
 in't," cried the grocer's eager lass. 
 
 " News ! and what's worldly news on a 
 morning like this ? Go back, my woman, 
 to your master, and tell him from me, that, 
 prent them wha like, I'll read no prents on 
 the Fast-day." 
 
 " But, mem ! it's a' about Mrs. Mark 
 Luke's marriage ! " 
 
 The strongly excited Miss Penny now 
 hesitated for a moment sat down undid 
 the strings of her lappet took the paper in 
 her hand got out her spectacles. 
 
 " That makes a difference that may be 
 considered in the nature of a private com- 
 munication and no what's called public 
 news. Ye may leave the room, my woman: 
 my compliments to your master. And a 
 letter too on a Fast-day morning, and the 
 Paris post-mark ! " 
 
 " What can have come ower Miss Penny 
 this morning?" thought our other fair friend, 
 Miss Bogle, all through the singing of the 
 first psalm and a good part of the first prayer, 
 as she sklented to the church-door. " I wish 
 she may be in her ordinar' health sac 
 regular a kirk-keeper, especially on Fast- 
 days." But, before the prayer was finished, 
 the tardy lady slid on tiptoe into the pew ; 
 and, at the conclusion of the service, was 
 duly interrogated : 
 
 " I was sure ye were ailing, mem ; and a' 
 through the sermon and a great discourse 
 
 it has been ! yc seemed wanrestfu', and 
 fidgety-like." 
 
 "Now, mem I must confess, mem, I 
 found the Doctor rather driech and dry this 
 morning, mem but have ye heard the 
 news?" This was whispered, while every 
 fibre of the speaker's spare frame vibrated 
 from intense interest. Yet it pleased Miss 
 Parlane, to tantalize the startled Miss Bogle 
 all along the fine street fronting the Ram's- 
 horn Kirk, and down the Trongate, to the 
 lodging of the latter, where, taking out the 
 sinful Fast-day Chronicle, and putting on 
 her spectacles, without one warning word, she 
 read as follows : 
 
 " MARRIAGE IN FASHIONABLE LIFE. Mar- 
 ried, at the Chapel of the British Embassy in 
 Paris, James Wilson, Esq. eldest son of the 
 late Doctor Wilson of Glasgow, F.R.C.P., to 
 the beautiful and accomplished Margery 
 Robina, sole heiress of the late Mark Luke, 
 Esq. of Halcyon Bank, Ayrshire. The 
 ceremony, which was in the Presbyterian 
 form, was performed by the Rev. Doctor 
 Draunt. The fair bride, who has just entered 
 her seventeenth year, was splendidly attired 
 in a robe of beautiful Brussels lace, with ,1 
 rich white satin under-dress ; head-dress, 
 pearls, and wreaths of orange flowers, under 
 a deep bride's veil of exquisite Brussels lace. 
 Robert Pirgivie, Esq. of Glasgow, the guar- 
 dian of the bride, had the honour to give her 
 away. 
 
 " Among the company present, we observed 
 Mrs. Mark Luke, the mother of the bride ; 
 Lady Diana Corscadeh, relict of Sir Dermot 
 Corscaden, of Castle Corscaden, barony of 
 Tirrykeeranvey, County Donegal ; and many 
 of the English fashionables at present in Paris. 
 The lovely daughters of Ilawgreen of that 
 Ilk officiated as bride's-maids upon this 
 happy occasion. Immediately after the 
 ceremony, the happy pair set out in a car- 
 riage and four, to spend the honeymoon at 
 the seat of the bride's mother in Scotland." 
 From Galignani's Messenger. 
 
 " Wecl done, Bawby!" exclaimed Miss 
 Bogle ; " but it's Bob Pirgivie has saved her, 
 after all ; for I had it from a sure hand, that 
 had it from the gardener's daughter at Haw- 
 green, to whom Miss Isabella's maid wrote 
 hame, that Mrs. Mark Luke was making 
 hersel' the clash of a' France, from her on- 
 goings wi' a tearing Irish sergeant o' dra- 
 goons, whom she was on the point o' running 
 off wi', when Bailie Pirgivie arrived, and got
 
 334 
 
 MRS. MARK LUKE; OR, WEST COUNTRY EXCLUSIVES. 
 
 out a letter-de-catch-her from the King of 
 France, through the interest of our ain Pro- 
 vost Ewing, who wrote to the French King, 
 by the Bailie, Avith his own hand." 
 
 "Weel, weel, mem," interrupted Miss 
 Penny, tossing her lappets, (a lady who, it 
 may be remembered, had some remote affi- 
 nity to the ancient landed aristocracy of the 
 West, while Miss Betty was of thrum de- 
 scent,) " no doubt ye'll be best informed ; 
 but Mrs. Mark Luke has done a prudent, 
 wise-like, motherly thing, in bestowing her 
 daughter upon James Wilson, though they 
 might have waited a year or two. I believe 
 the Lukes are now, by this marriage, some- 
 thing sib to myseP either through the Lock- 
 harts, or the Baillies o' the Upper Ward ; 
 and here is a letter in Mrs. Luke's own hand, 
 franked by the Ambassador, hoping, for 
 auld langsyne, we will that's you and me, 
 mem receive the young folks and her at 
 Halcyon Bank on the 23d. Jean Sprot is 
 to put a' in order ; and there is some bit suit 
 or two o' Valenciennes lace, wi' the gloves 
 and bride's cake, but they wudna be safe in 
 a letter." 
 
 Miss Bogle raised and spread abroad her 
 black silk mittens. 
 
 " Mem ! mem ! the like o' that ! But she 
 was aye a by-ordinar' woman for spirit, that 
 Mrs. Mark Luke. Auld Mrs. Luke's gear 
 will surely be divided now : but you'll have 
 
 to take down the Apostle spoons, and the 
 silver posset pot, and give up, and surrender, 
 
 Miss Penny Hech ! but this will be 
 
 news to Glasgow ! " 
 
 We do give our heroine credit for this last 
 stroke of diplomacy. It was, to be sure, at 
 the end of the day, mortifying enough to 
 close just where she had begun, with Mr. 
 Bob Pirgivie, Miss Betty Bogle, Miss Penny 
 Parlane, and Jean Sprot, at the bridal ban- 
 quet, but there was no help for it ; and, 
 without propitiating these influential ladies, 
 she never could have fairly recovered from 
 her last stumble, and been enabled to talk to 
 the end of her life, of her " friend" Lady Di 
 Corscaden, lately become the lady of her 
 other old friend, Colonel Rigby Blake, but, 
 by courtesy, retaining her title ; nor yet have 
 told a thousand anecdotes of her foreign 
 travels and quality connexions ; waxing 
 especially eloquent when neither her daugh- 
 ter, her son-in-law, nor yet Bob Pirgivie, was 
 present to check her vein. 
 
 We must not conclude our history with- 
 out a moral ; and we shall give one from an 
 old dramatist, that is equally applicable to 
 all our Scottish personages Sir Ogilvy 
 Fletcher, Macrusgal of Glencladdach, Mrs. 
 Mark Luke, and the Stronas : 
 
 Let all men know, 
 
 That tree shall long time keep a stead}- foot 
 Whose branches spread no wider than'the root. 
 
 THE FRESHWATER FISHERMAN. 
 
 BY MISS MITFORD. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THIS pretty Berkshire of ours, renowned for 
 its pastoral villages, and its picturesque in- 
 terchange of common and woodland, and 
 small enclosures divided by deep lanes, to 
 which thick borders of hedgerow timber give 
 a character of deep and forest-like richness, 
 seldom seen in countries of more ambitious 
 pretension ; this beautiful Berkshire is for 
 nothing more distinguished than for the 
 number and variety of its rivers. I do not 
 mean, in this catalogue, to include the large 
 proportion of bright, shallow,trouting streams, 
 for the most part unchristened and unregis- 
 tered even by a parish historian, or the com- 
 piler of a county map, and known only as 
 " the brook " by the very people whose 
 meadows they dance through. To confine 
 myself to rivers of state and name, we have, 
 
 first of all, the rapid, changeful, beautiful 
 Loddon, a frisky, tricksy water-sprite, much 
 addicted to wandering out of bounds, and as 
 different from the timid, fearful, nymph 
 Lodona, whom Pope, in a metamorphosing 
 strain, was pleased to assign as the source of 
 those clear waters, as any thing well can be. 
 Next we have the Kennet "the Kennet 
 swift, for silver eels renowned," according to 
 the same author, and which, in our part at 
 least, has, generally speaking, a fine pastoral 
 character, now sweeping along through broad 
 valleys of meadow-land, rich and green, and 
 finely dappled by trees, chiefly oak and elm, 
 in park-like groups ; now confined within a 
 narrower channel, and spanned by some lofty 
 bridge as it passes the quiet village or small 
 country-town, enlivening every scene which 
 it approaches by the pleasant flow of its clear
 
 THE FRESHWATER FISHERMAN. 
 
 335 
 
 waters, cool and glittering as a moonbeam. 
 Lastly and chiefly, we possess, for the whole 
 length of the county, and for the most part 
 forming its sinuous boundary, the deep ma- 
 jestic Thames, gliding in tranquil grandeur, 
 with a motion so slow, as to be almost im- 
 perceptible ; reflecting as a mirror, in un- 
 broken shadow, every tree and shrub that 
 fringes its banks, and exhibiting, during all 
 its meanders, a lake-like character of stillness 
 and repose a silent fulness a calm and 
 gentle dignity, which is, perhaps, in all things, 
 from the human mind to the mighty river, 
 the surest and highest symbol of power. It 
 is singular, that even the small streamlet near 
 Cirencester, where, under the almost equally 
 celebrated name of Isis, the Thames takes 
 its rise, is distinguished by the same unruffled 
 serenity, (the calmness of the infant Hercules,) 
 for which its subsequent course is so remark- 
 able. And what a course it is ! The classic 
 domes of Oxford ; the sunny plains of Berk- 
 shire ; the Buckinghamshire beechwoods ; 
 Windsor, with its royal towers ; Richmond, 
 and its world of gardens ; then London 
 mighty London ; and then the sea its only 
 rival in riches and in fame. Half the bards 
 of England have sung of their great river ; 
 but never, I think, has it been more finely 
 praised than in two sonnets, which I will 
 venture to transcribe from the manuscript 
 which is open before me, though I may not 
 dare to name their author : * a man too emi- 
 nent in the broad highway of life to care to 
 be seen loitering in the flowery paths of 
 poesy. They have a local propriety, since 
 the writer, of whose birth-place Berkshire 
 may well be proud, passed his early youth in 
 this neighbourhood, and it is in remembrance 
 of those days that they were written. 
 
 TO THE THAMES AT WESTMINSTER, IN RECOLLECTION 
 OF THE SAME RIVER BELOW CAVERSHA.M. 
 
 With no cold admiration do I gaze 
 
 Upon thy pomp of waters, matchless stream ! 
 
 For home-sick fancy kindles with the beam 
 
 That on thy lucid bosom coyly plays, 
 
 And glides delighted through thy crystal ways, 
 
 Till on her eye those wave-fed poplars gleam 
 
 Beneath whose shade her first and loveliest maze 
 
 She fashioned ; where she traced in richest dream 
 
 Thy mirror'd course of wood-enshrined repose 
 
 Bespread with hordes of spirits fair and bright, 
 
 And widening on till at her vision's close 
 
 Great London, only then a name of might, 
 
 To crown thy full-swoln majesty arose, 
 
 A rock-throned city clad in heavenly light. 
 
 * We violate no confidence, and commit no impro- 
 priety, in now stating that the name is that of a gen- 
 tleman whose genius and literary accomplishments add 
 lustre to the English Bar Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, 
 C. J. J., 1845. 
 
 TO THE SAME RIVER. 
 
 I may not emulate their lofty aim 
 Who, in divine imagination bold, 
 With mighty hills and streams communion hold 
 As living friends ; and scarce I dare to claim 
 Acquaintance with thee in thy scenes of fame, 
 Wealthiest of rivers ! though in days of old 
 I loved thee where thy waters sylvan roll'd, 
 And still would fancy thee in part the same 
 As love perversely clings to some old mate 
 Estranged by fortune ; in his very pride 
 Seems lifted ; waxes in his greatness great ; 
 And silent hails the lot it prophesied : 
 Content to think in manhood's palmy state 
 Some ling'ring traces of the child abide. 
 
 Our business, however, is not with the 
 mighty Thames the " wealthiest of rivers " 
 but with the pleasant and pastoral Kennet. 
 
 One of the most romantic spots that it 
 touches in its progress is a fisherman's cot- 
 tage, on the estate of my friend Colonel Tal- 
 bot, who, amongst his large manorial property 
 possesses a right of fishery for some mile or 
 two up the river a right which, like other 
 manorial possessions, combines a good deal 
 of trouble with its pleasure and its dignity, 
 and obliges the colonel to keep up a sort of 
 river police for the defence of his watery 
 demesnes. This police consists of Adam 
 Stokes, the fisherman, of his follower, Gilbert, 
 and his boy Ned Gilbert, who is, after all, 
 but semi-aquatic, and belongs in " division 
 tripartite" to the park-keeper, the game- 
 keeper, and the fisherman, waging fierce war 
 with the poachers in each of his vocations, 
 one night in defence of the deer, the next of 
 the pheasants, and the third of the pike. 
 Gilbert, who in right of his terrene avoca- 
 tions wears a green livery and a gold-laced 
 hat, is by no means a'regular inhabitant of 
 the cottage by the Kennet side, but may be 
 found quite as frequently up at the park, 
 sometimes at the dog-kennel, sometimes in 
 the servants' hall, leaving the river to the 
 efficient watchfulness of its amphibious guar- 
 dians, Adam Stokes, the boy Ned, and their 
 dog Neptune, who, excepting when Adam 
 was attracted by the charms of a stronger 
 liquid to the tap-room of the Four Horseshoes, 
 were seldom seen half a furlong from their 
 proper element. 
 
 Adam was a man fit to encounter poachers 
 by land or by water a giant of a man witli 
 more than a giant's strength, and without 
 the gentleness which so often accompanies 
 conscious power : he knew his full force, and 
 delighted in its exhibition. The unwieldy 
 boat was in his brawny hands a child's toy, 
 and the heavy oar a bulrush. Bold was the 
 poacher that dared to encounter Adam Stokes ! 
 His very voice, loud as that of a boatswain,
 
 33G 
 
 THE FRESHWATER FISHERMAN. 
 
 was sufficient to awe any common ruffian, I 
 and the bold, blufF, weather-beaten visage, 
 keen eye, and fearless bearing, were in excel- 
 lent keeping with tones that seemed at their 
 quietest as if issuing from a speaking-trumpet. 
 His dress beseemed his person and his occupa- 
 tion boots that might bid defiance to mud 
 or water, a blue jacket that had borne many 
 a storm, and an old sealskin cap, surmount- 
 ing his shaggy black hair, formed his general 
 equipment. Add a quid of tobacco rolling 
 from side to side of a capacious mouth, a 
 beard of a fortnight's growth, a knowing 
 wink, and an uncouth but good-humoured 
 grin, and you will have a tolerable notion of 
 the outer man of Master Adam. 
 
 His inward qualities were pretty much 
 what might be expected from such an exte- 
 rior rude, rough, and coarse, but faithful, 
 bold, and honest, and not without a certain 
 touch of fun and good fellowship, and blunt 
 kindness, that rendered him no small favour- 
 ite with his cronies of the Four Horseshoes, 
 amongst whom his waterman's songs, and 
 sailor's stories, (yarns, as he called them,) 
 were deservedly popular. His early history 
 was rather a puzzle in the good village of 
 Aberleigh. He had been brought by Colonel 
 Talbot to his present situation about ten 
 years back, a stranger in the neighbourhood ; 
 and little as in general Adam affected con- 
 cealment, he appeared to have some amuse- 
 ment in mystifying his neighbours on this 
 point. Never were opinions more various. 
 Some held that he had been a London water- 
 man, and quoted his songs, his dexterity at 
 the oar, and his familiarity with the slang 
 peculiar to the great river, as irrefragable 
 proofs that such had been his vocation. 
 Others asserted that he was an old man-of- 
 war's man, citing his long yarns, his profi- 
 ciency in making and drinking grog, his 
 boldness in battle, and his hatred of the Mon- 
 sieurs, as convincing testimony in their favour. 
 Others again (but they were his maligners) 
 hinted that well as he liked grog, a drop of 
 neat Cogniac was still more welcome, and 
 insinuated that some of the yarns had about 
 them a great air of smuggling ; whilst an- 
 other party, more malevolent still, asserted 
 that boldness might belong to other trades as 
 well as to a sailor, and that his skill as a 
 fisherman, and such a subtlety in detecting 
 nets and lines, as had never before been met 
 with in these parts, savoured strongly of his 
 having at some time or other followed the 
 poaching business himself. This last, in 
 particular, was the observation of his next 
 
 neighbour, Nanny Sims, a washerwoman, 
 and gossip of high repute, who being a thriv- 
 ing widow of some forty, or belike forty-five, 
 had 011 his first arrival set her cap, as the 
 phrase is, at Adam, and, in affront at his 
 neglect of her charms, was in a small way 
 as comfortably his enemy as heart could 
 desire. 
 
 Little recked he of her love or her enmity. 
 On he lived, a bold, bluff, burly bachelor, 
 with his boy Ned, and his dog Neptune, each, 
 after his several way, as burly and shaggy as 
 himself, the terror of water-thieves, and the 
 prime favourite of his master, who, a thorough 
 sportsman, and altogether one of the most 
 complete and admirable specimens that I 
 have ever known of an English country 
 gentleman, refined by education and travel, 
 set the highest value on his skill as a fisher, 
 and his good management in preserving the 
 fishery. A first-rate favourite was Adam 
 Stokes. 
 
 His habitation was, as I have said, beau- 
 tifully situated at a point of the Kennet 
 where, winding suddenly round an abrupt 
 hill, it flowed beneath a bank so high and 
 precipitous, that but for its verdure it might 
 have passed for a cliff, leaving just room on 
 the bank for a small white cottage, the 
 chimneys of which were greatly over-topped 
 by the woody ridge behind them, while the 
 garden on one side sloped in natural terraces 
 from the hill to the river, and a narrow 
 orchard on the other was planted ledge above 
 ledge, like a vineyard on the Rhine. Fish- 
 ing-nets drying on the fine smooth turf, and 
 the boat fastened to a post and swaying in 
 the water, completed the picture. 
 
 An unfrequented country road on the other 
 side of the river was my nearest way to 
 Talbot Park, and one day last March, driving 
 thither in my little pony-phaeton, I stopped 
 to observe Adam, who had just caught an 
 enormous pike, weighing, as we afterwards 
 found, above twenty pounds, and after land- 
 ing it on one side of the water, was busied 
 in repairing a part of his tackle which the 
 struggles of the creature had broken. It was 
 still full of life as it lay on the grass, and 
 appeared to me such a load, that after com- 
 plimenting Adam (who was of my acquain- 
 tance) on the luck that had sent, and the 
 skill that had caught, such a fish, I offered 
 to take it for him to the Park. 
 
 " Lord bless you, ma'am ! " responded 
 Master Stokes, eyeing my slight equipage, and 
 pretty pony, as well as the small lad who 
 was driving me, with some slyness, " Lord
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 337 
 
 help you, ma'am, you've no notion how ob- 
 stropulous these great fishes be. He'd splash 
 your silk gown all over, and mayhap over- 
 set you into the bargain. No, no I've 
 catched him, and I must manage him 
 besides, I want to speak to madam. Here, 
 lad," added he, calling to his boy, who, with 
 Neptune, was standing on the opposite side 
 of the river, watching our colloquy, " gather 
 them violets on the bank ; they're always 
 the first in the country ; and bring the basket 
 over in the boat to take this fellow to the 
 great house mind how you pick the flowers, 
 you lubber, I want 'em for madam." 
 
 Somewhat amused by seeing how my fair 
 friend's passion for flowers was understood 
 and humoured, even by the roughest of her 
 dependents, I pursued my way to the house, 
 passed the pretty lodge and the magnificent 
 garden, with its hothouses, greenhouses, and 
 conservatories, its fountains and its basins, 
 its broad walks and shady alleys ; drove 
 through the noble park, with its grand 
 masses of old forest-trees oak, and beech, 
 and elm, and tree-like thorns, the growth of 
 centuries ; thridded the scattered clumps, 
 about which the dappled deer were lying ; 
 skirted the clear lakelet, where water-fowl of 
 all sorts were mingled with stately swans ; 
 and finally gained the house, a superb man- 
 sion, worthy of its grounds, at the door of 
 which I met the colonel, who, pheasant- 
 shooting, and hunting, and coursing, being 
 fairly over, intended to solace himself with 
 shooting rabbits, and was sallying forth with 
 his gun in his hand, and a train of long- 
 bodied, crooked-legged, very outlandish-look- 
 ing dogs at his heels, of a sort called the 
 rabbit-beagle, reckoned very handsome I find 
 in their way, but in my mind pre-eminently 
 ugly. I did not, however, affront my kind 
 host, a person whom every body likes, in 
 right of his frank, open, amiable character, 
 and his delightful manners ; I did not insult 
 him by abusing his dogs, but passing with a 
 gracious salutation, we parted he to his 
 sport, and I to my visit. 
 
 If Colonel Talbot be a delightful man, 
 Mrs. Talbot is a thrice delightful woman. 
 To say nothing of the higher qualities for 
 which she is deservedly eminent, I have sel- 
 dom met with any one who contrives to be 
 at the same time so charming and so witty. 
 She is very handsome, too, and combining 
 her own full-blown and magnificent beauty 
 with her love of that full-blown and beauti- 
 ful flower, I call her the Queen of the 
 Dahlias, a nickname which she submits to 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 the more readily, as her collection of that 
 superb plant is nearly unrivalled. In March, 
 however, even she, great forcer though she 
 be, can hardly force a dahlia, so that I found 
 her in her drawing-room without her favou- 
 rite flower, but surrounded by stands of 
 rhododendrons, azaleas, daphnes, pinks, 
 lilies of the valley, and roses without end ; 
 and after first admiring and then deprecating 
 her display of forced plants, as forestalling 
 their natural blossoming, and deadening the 
 summer pleasure, quoting to the same effect 
 Shakspere's fine lines in the Love's Labour 
 Lost 
 
 At Christmas I no more desire a rose 
 
 Than look for snow in May's newfangled shows, 
 
 But like of each thing that in season grows.* 
 
 After a little battle on this, an old subject of 
 dispute between us, we fell into talk on 
 other topics, and I soon perceived that my 
 charming hostess was not in her usual spirits. 
 
 " But what's the matter, my dear Mrs. 
 Talbot? You say that all friends are well ; 
 and I see that the flowers are prosperous in 
 spite of my lecture ; and the pets, pussy 
 purring on the sofa, the swans sailing on the 
 water, and the pied peacock tapping the 
 window at this very moment ; the pets 
 are flourishing like the flowers. What can 
 have happened to vex you ? " 
 
 " Enough to have disturbed the patience 
 of Grisildis herself, if Grisildis had ever 
 known the comfort of a favourite waiting- 
 maid. Laurette has given me warning." 
 
 " Laurette ! Is it possible ! The paragon 
 otfilles de chambre ! the princess of milliners ! 
 the very queen of the toilet ! Laurette, so 
 dexterous, so handy, she that could do not 
 only all that was possible to waiting-women, 
 but all that was impossible ! and so attached 
 too ! what can be the cause ? who can have 
 stolen her from you?" 
 
 " She's going to be married ! " 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 " Heaven knows ! she would not tell me 
 his name, but described him as * un brave 
 garcon.' Somebody in the village, I fancy ! 
 some lout of a farmer, or bumpkin of a car- 
 penter. She that cannot speak three words 
 of English, and is as unfit for a farmer's 
 wife as I am. To think of my losing Lau- 
 rette." 
 
 * Perhaps in this argument Mrs. Talbot is right and 
 I am wrong ; for we can hardly have too many roses. 
 But those parents and instructors who force the deli- 
 cate plants called children into precocious blossoming, 
 cannot enough study the deep wisdom of the concluding 
 line. 
 
 No, 22.
 
 338 
 
 THE FRESHWATER FISHERMAN. 
 
 At this point of our dialogue, Master Adam 
 Stokes was announced, and we adjourned 
 into the hall to admire the fish and talk to 
 the fisherman. There stood Adam, cap in 
 hand, more shaggy and ragged than ever, 
 exulting over his enormous fish, and hacked 
 by his adherents, Ned and Neptune, whilst 
 the airy Frenchwoman, tricked out as usual 
 in her silk gown, her embroidered apron, her 
 high comb, and her large earrings, stood 
 against a marble table arranging the violets 
 which Ned had brought in a small China 
 cup. I must go to her own language for 
 words to describe the favourite French maid 
 gentille et jolie seem expressly made for 
 her, and as she stood with an air of con- 
 sciousness quite unusual to her manner, 
 placing the violets topsy-turvey in her con- 
 fusion, I thought that I had never seen Lau- 
 rette half so attractive. Her lady took no 
 notice of her, but remained in gracious col- 
 loquy with the fisherman. At last she 
 turned towards the drawing-room. 
 
 " If you please, ma'am," said Adam, " I'd 
 be greatly obliged to you, if you'd speak a 
 good word for me to his honour." And 
 there he stopped. 
 
 "What about, Adam?" inquired Mrs. 
 Talbot, returning to the middle of the hall. 
 
 " About my marrying, ma'am ; if so be 
 the Colonel has no objection ;" continued 
 Adam, twirling his cap. 
 
 " Marrying !" rejoined Mrs. Talbot, " all 
 the world seems thinking of marrying ! who 
 is the fair lady, Adam? Nanny Sims?" 
 
 " Nanny Sims ! not she, indeed, ma'am," 
 resumed Master Stokes. " I don't know who 
 would trouble their heads about such an old 
 hulk, when they might be master of such a 
 tight-made vessel as this ! " quoth the fisher- 
 man, grinning and jerking his head, and 
 clutching the gown of the pretty French- 
 woman, whilst his faithful adherents, Ned 
 and Neptune, grinned, and jerked, and wagged 
 head and tail in unison. 
 
 " Laurette ! do you mean Laurette ! you 
 who hate the French, and she who can't 
 speak English?" 
 
 " A fig for her lingo, ma'am. Look what 
 a tight little frigate 'tis ! A fig for her 
 lingo !" 
 
 "Et toi, Laurette ! es tu folle?" 
 
 " Ah de grace, madanie ! c'est un si brave 
 garon ! " And outrageous as the union 
 seemed, as incongruous as a match between 
 Caliban and Ariel, the lovers persevered, and 
 the lady, half-provoked and half-amused, 
 consented ; and at the month's end they 
 
 were married, with as fair a prospect of hap- 
 piness as any couple in the parish. 
 
 PART II. 
 . ADAM STOKES IN HIS MARRIED STATE. 
 
 WHEN last I had seen Master Stokes the 
 fisherman, in his bachelor condition, it was 
 in the week when February ends and March 
 begins, when the weather was as bluff and 
 boisterous as his own bluff and boisterous 
 self ; when the velvet buds were just sprout- 
 ing on the sallow, the tufted tassels hanging 
 from the hazel, and the early violet and 
 " rathe primrose" peeping timidly forth from 
 sunny banks and sheltered crevices, as if 
 still half afraid to brave the stormy sky. 
 
 The next time that I passed by the banks 
 of the Kennet was in the lovely season which 
 just precedes the merry month of May. The 
 weather was soft and balmy, the sky bright 
 above, the earth fair below ; the turf by the 
 road-side was powdered with daisies, the 
 budding hedgerows gay with the white ochil, 
 the pansy, and the wild geranium ; the 
 orchards hung with their own garlands of 
 fruit- blossoms, waving over seas of golden 
 daffodils ; the coppices tapestried with pan- 
 sies, ground-ivy, and wood-anemone, whilst 
 patches of the delicate wood-sorrel were 
 springing under the holly brake and from the 
 roots of old beech-trees ; and the meadows 
 were literally painted with cowslips, orchises, 
 the brilliant flowers of the water-ranunculus, 
 the chequered fritillary, and the enamelled 
 wild hyacinth. The river went dancing and 
 sparkling along, giving back in all its fresh- 
 ness the tender green of the landscape, and 
 the bright and sunny sky ; birds were sing- 
 ing in every bush ; bees and butterflies were 
 on the wing, and myriads of water-insects 
 added their pleasant sound to the general 
 harmony of nature. It was Spring in all its 
 loveliness, and never is Spring more lovely 
 than in our Kennet meadows. 
 
 The Fisherman's hut did not disgrace the 
 beauty of the picture. The white cottage, 
 nested in the green bank, with its hanging 
 garden full of stocks and wall-flowers, its 
 blooming orchard, and its thin wreath of 
 gray smoke sailing up the precipitous hill, 
 and lost amid the overhanging trees, looked 
 like the very emblem of peace and comfort. 
 Adam and his dog Neptune were standing 
 in the boat, which Master Stokes's stout 
 arm was pushing from shore with a long 
 pole, nodding a farewell to his wife, and 
 roaring at the top of his stentorian voice his
 
 THE FRESHWATER FISHERMAN. 
 
 339 
 
 favourite stave of " Rule Britannia ;" Lau- 
 rette, on her part, was seated at the open 
 door of the cottage, trim as a bride, with her 
 silk gown, her large earrings, her high comb, 
 and her pretty apron, her dress contrasting 
 strangely with her employment, which was no 
 other than darning her husband's ponderous 
 and unwieldy hose, but with a face radiant 
 with happiness and gaiety, as her light and 
 airy voice sung the light and airy burden of 
 a song in high favour among the sotiforettes of 
 Paris. 
 
 C'est 1'amour, 1'amour, 1'amour, 
 Qui fait le monde a la ronde ; 
 Et chaque jour, a son tour, 
 Le monde fait 1'amour. 
 
 " C'est 1'amour, 1'amour, 1'amour," came 
 ringing across the water in every pause of 
 her husband's mighty and patriotic chant, 
 mingled with the shrill notes of Ned, who 
 was bird's-nesting on the hill-side, peeping 
 into every furze-bush for the five-speckled 
 eggs of the gray linnet, and whistling " Oh 
 no, we never mention her," with all his 
 might. 
 
 It was a curious combination, certainly, 
 and yet one that seemed to me to give token 
 of much happiness ; and on questioning my 
 friend Mrs. Talbot, the charming Queen of 
 the Dahlias * frankly admitted, that however 
 it might turn out eventually, Laurette's 
 match did at present appear to have pro- 
 duced more comfort to both parties than 
 could have been anticipated from so pre- 
 posterous a union. " Adam adores her," 
 pursued Mrs. Talbot, " spends all the money 
 he can come by in sailor- like finery, red 
 ribbons, and yellow gowns, which Laurette 
 has too good a wardrobe to need, and too 
 much taste to wear ; can't pass within a 
 yard of her without a loving pinch of her 
 pretty round cheek, and swears by every 
 seaman's oath that ever was invented, that 
 she's the neatest-built vessel, with the come- 
 liest figure-head that ever was launched. 
 And, incredible as it seems, Laurette loves 
 him ; delights in his rough kindness, his 
 boldness, and his honesty ; calls him still tin 
 brave gar^on; enters into his humour ; studies 
 his comfort ; has learnt more English during 
 her six weeks' marriage than in six years 
 that she lived with me ; and has even 
 advanced so far as to approach, as nearly 
 as a French tongue may do, to the pronun- 
 ciation of her own name, Stokes a terrible 
 
 * She has fairly taken to the title, as witness a note 
 which I have received from her, signed, " Dahlia 
 Regina." 
 
 trial to Gallic organs. In short," continued 
 Mrs. Talbot, " of a very foolish thing, it has 
 turned out better than might have been 
 expected ; Adam's adherents, Ned and Nep- 
 tune, fairly idolize their new mistress ; poor 
 thing, her kindness, and good-nature, and 
 gaiety, were always most delightful ; and 
 Ned is, she assures me, a very handy boy in 
 the house, does all the dirty work, dusts and 
 scrubs, and washes, and cooks, and trots 
 about in a pair of high pattens and a checked 
 apron, just exactly like a maid of all- work. 
 I send Gilbert to her almost every day with 
 one trifle or another, some times a basket of pro- 
 visions, sometimes my reversionary flowers, 
 (for Laurette can't live without flowers,) and, 
 on the whole, I really think she will do very 
 well." 
 
 This account was most satisfactory; but 
 happening again to pass Laurette's cottage 
 in the bowery month of June, I saw cause 
 to fear that a change had passed over the 
 pretty Frenchwoman's prospects. Outwardly 
 the picture was as bright, or brighter, than 
 ever. It was summer gay, smiling summer. 
 The hawthorn-buds in the hedgerows were 
 exchanged for the full-blown blossoms of 
 the wayfaring-tree,t whose double circle of 
 white stars, regular as if cut with a stamp, 
 forms so beautiful a cluster of flowerets, and 
 contrasts so gaily with the deep pink of the 
 wild rose, and the pale, but graceful garlands 
 of the woodbine ; the meadows had, indeed, 
 lost their flowery glory, and were covered 
 partly with rich swathes of new-cut grass, 
 and partly with large haycocks, dappling the 
 foreground with such depth and variety of 
 light and shadow ; but the river's edge was 
 gay as a garden with flags and water-lilies, 
 and the pendent bunches of the delicate 
 snowflake, the most elegant of aquatic plants ; 
 and Laurette's garden itself, one bright bed 
 of pinks, and roses, and honeysuckles, and 
 berry- bushes, with their rich transparent 
 fruit, might almost have vied in colour and 
 fragrance with that of her mistress. The 
 change was not in the place, but in the in- 
 habitants. 
 
 Adam was employed in landing a net full 
 of fish, perch, roach, and dace, such a haul 
 as ought to have put any fisherman into 
 
 f For some charming stanzas to the Wayfaring-tree 
 (remarkable also for its dark, currant-shaped leaf, with 
 a pale cottony lining, -which produces a singular effect 
 when turned up by the wind) for some admirably 
 verses to this elegant wild shrub, see Mr. Hewitt's 
 Book of the Seasons, one of the most interesting and 
 delightful works on natural history that has appeared 
 since White's Selborue,
 
 340 
 
 THE FRESHWATER FISHERMAN. 
 
 good humour, but which certainly had had 
 no such effect on the present occasion. He 
 looked as black as a thunder-cloud, swore 
 at the poor fish as he tossed them on the bank, 
 called Ned a lubber, and when, in a fit of 
 absence, he from mere habit resumed his 
 patriotic ditty, shouted, " Britons never will 
 be slaves," with such a scowl at his poor 
 foreign wife, that it could only be interpreted 
 into a note of defiance. She, on her side, 
 was still working at her cottage-door, or 
 rather sitting there listlessly with her work 
 (a checked shirt of her churlish husband's) 
 in her lap, her head drooping, and the gay 
 air of " C'est 1'amour," exchanged for a 
 plaintive romance, which ran, as well as I 
 could catch it, something in this fashion : 
 
 Celui qui sut toucher mon coeur, 
 Jurait d'aimer toute la vie, 
 Mais, helas ! c'etait un tronipeur, 
 Celui qui sut toucher mon cceur. 
 
 S'il ahjurait cruelle erreur, 
 S'il revenait a son amie, 
 Ah ! toujours il serait vainqueur, 
 S'il abjurait cruelle erreur. 
 
 And when the romance was done, which 
 might have touched Adam's heart, if he could 
 but have understood it, poor Laurette sighed 
 amain, took up the checked shirt, and seemed 
 likely to cry ; Neptune looked ttoleful, as 
 one who comprehended that something was 
 the matter, but could not rightly understand 
 what ; and Ned was in the dumps. A dreary 
 change had come over the whole family, of 
 which the cause was not known to me for 
 some time afterwards : Adam was jealous. 
 
 The cause of this jealousy was no other 
 than the quondam candidate for the fisher- 
 man's favour, his prime aversion, Nanny 
 Sims. 
 
 This Nanny Sims was, as I have said, a 
 washerwoman, and Adam's next neighbour, 
 she tenanting a cottage and orchard on the 
 same side of the river, but concealed from 
 observation by the romantic and precipitous 
 bank which formed so picturesque a back- 
 ground to Laurette's pretty dwelling. In 
 person, Nanny was as strong a contrast to 
 the light and graceful Frenchwoman as could 
 well be imagined ; she being short and stout, 
 and blowsy and frowsy, realizing exactly, 
 as to form, Lord Byron's expression, " a 
 dumpy woman," and accompanying it with 
 all the dowdiness and slovenliness proper to 
 her station. Never was even washerwoman 
 more untidy. A cap all rags, from which 
 the hair came straggling in elf-locks over a 
 face which generally looked red-hot, sur- 
 mounted by an old bonnet, originally black, 
 
 now rusty, and so twisted into crooks and 
 bends that its pristine shape was unguessable ; 
 a coloured cotton handkerchief pinned over 
 a short-sleeved, open, stuff gown, and three 
 or four aprons, each wet through, tied one 
 above another, black stockings, men's shoes, 
 and pattens higher and noisier than ever 
 pattens were, completed her apparel. 
 
 Her habits were such as suited her attire 
 and her condition. An industrious woman, 
 it must be confessed, was Nanny Sims. 
 Give her green tea, and strong beer, and gin 
 at discretion, and she would wash the four- 
 and-twenty hours round, only abstracting an 
 hour apiece for her two breakfasts, ditto 
 ditto for her two luncheons, two hours for 
 her dinner, one for her afternoon's tea, and 
 another for supper. And then she would 
 begin again, and dry, and starch, and mangle, 
 and iron, without let or pause, save those 
 demanded by the above-mentioned refections. 
 Give her gin enough, and she never seemed 
 to require the gentle refreshment called 
 sleep. Sancho's fine ejaculation, " Blessed is 
 the man that invented sleep ! " with which 
 most mortals have so entire a sympathy, 
 would have been thrown away upon Nanny 
 Sims. The discoverer of the still would 
 have been the fitter object of her benedic- 
 tion. Gin, sheer gin, was to her what ale 
 was to Boniface ; and she throve upon it. 
 Never was woman so invulnerable to disease. 
 Hot water was her element, and she would 
 go seething and steaming from the wash-tub, 
 reeking and dripping from top to toe, into 
 the keenest north-east wind, without taking 
 more harm than the wet sheets and table- 
 cloths which went through her hands. They 
 dried, and so did she ; and to all feeling of 
 inconvenience that parboiled and soddened 
 flesh seemed as inaccessible as the linen. 
 
 A hardworking woman was Nanny but 
 the part of her that worked hardest was her 
 tongue. Benedick's speech to Beatrice, " I 
 would my horse had the speed of your tongue, 
 and so good a continuer," gives but a faint 
 notion of the activity of that member in the 
 mouth of our laundress. If ever mechanical 
 contrivance had approached half so nearly to 
 the perpetual motion, the inventor would 
 have considered the problem as solved, and 
 would have proclaimed the discovery accord- 
 ingly. It was one incessant wag. Of course, 
 the tongue was a washerwoman's tongue, 
 and the chatter such as might suit the ac- 
 companiments of the wash-tub and the gin- 
 bottle, not forgetting that important accessory 
 to scandal in higher walks of life, the tea-
 
 THE FRESHWATER FISHERMAN. 
 
 341 
 
 table. The pendulum vibrated through every 
 degree and point of gossiping, from the most 
 innocent matter-of-fact, to the most malicious 
 slander, and was the more mischievous, as, 
 being employed to assist the laundry-maid in 
 several families, as well as taking in washing 
 at home, her powers of collecting and diffus- 
 ing false reports were by no means incon- 
 siderable. She was the general tale-bearer 
 of the parish, and scattered dissension as the 
 wind scatters the thistle-down, sowing the 
 evil seed in all directions. What added to 
 the danger of her lies was, that they were 
 generally interwoven with some slender and 
 trivial thread of truth, which gave something 
 like the colour of fact to her narrative, and 
 that her legends were generally delivered in 
 a careless undesigning style, as if she spoke 
 from the pure love of talking, and did not 
 care whether you believed her or not, which 
 had a strong, but unconscious effect on the 
 credulity of her auditors. Perhaps, to a 
 certain extent, she might be innocent of ill- 
 intention, and might not, on common occa- 
 sions, mean to do harm by her evil- 
 speaking ; but, in the case of Laurette, I 
 can hardly acquit her of malice. She hated 
 her for all manner of causes : as her next 
 neighbour ; as a Frenchwoman ; as pretty ; 
 as young ; as fine ; as the favourite of Mrs. 
 Talbot ; and last, and worst, as the wife of 
 Adam Stokes ; and she omitted no oppor- 
 tunity of giving vent to her spite. 
 
 First, she said that she was idle ; then, 
 that she was proud ; then, that she was 
 sluttish ; then, that she was extravagant ; 
 then, that she was vain ; then, that she 
 rouged ; then, that she wore a wig ; then, 
 that she was by no means so young as she 
 wished to be thought ; and then, that she 
 was ugly. These shafts fell wide of the 
 mark. People had only to look at the pretty, 
 smiling Laurette, and at her neat cottage, 
 and they were disproved at a glance. At 
 last, Nanny, over the wash-tub at the Park, 
 gave out that Laurette was coquettish ; and 
 that she would have Master Adam look about 
 him ; that honest English husbands who 
 married French wives, and young wives, and 
 pretty wives into the bargain, had need to 
 look about them ; that she, for her part, was 
 very sorry for her worthy neighbour but, 
 that folks who lived near, saw more than 
 other folks thought for, and then Nanny 
 sighed and held her tongue. Nanny's hold- 
 ing her tongue produced a wonderful sensa- 
 tion in the Park laundry ; such an event 
 had never occurred there before ; it was 
 
 thought that the cause of her speechlessness 
 must be something most portentous and 
 strange, and questions were rained upon her 
 from all quarters. 
 
 For an incredible space of time (at least 
 two minutes) Nanny maintained a resolute 
 silence, shook her head, and said nothing. 
 At last, in pure confidence, she disclosed to 
 five women, the laundry-maid, the dairy- 
 maid, two house-maids, and another char- 
 woman, the important fact, that it was not 
 for nothing that Gilbert carried a basket 
 every day from Mrs. Talbot to Laurette ; that 
 her husband, poor man, had not found it out 
 yet, but that, doubtless, his eyes would be 
 opened some day or other ; that she did not 
 blame Gilbert so much, poor fellow, the chief 
 advances being made by the foreign madam, 
 who had said to her, in her jargon, that she 
 should be dead if the basket did not come 
 every day, meaning, no doubt, if he did not 
 bring the basket ; and that all the world 
 would see what would come of it. Then, 
 recommending secrecy, which all parties pro- 
 mised, Nanny put on her shawl, and her 
 pattens, and trudged home ; and before night 
 the whole house knew of it, and before the 
 next day, the whole parish the only excep- 
 tions being, perhaps, Laurette herself, and 
 Colonel and Mrs. Talbot, who were, as great 
 people generally are, happily ignorant of the 
 nonsense talked in their own kitchen. 
 
 Two persons, at all events, heard the story, 
 with as many circumstantial additions as the 
 tale of the three black crows and those two 
 were Adam Stokes, whom it made as jealous 
 as Othello, upon sonlewhat the same course 
 of reasoning, and Gilbert himself, who, some- 
 thing of a rural coxcomb, although no prac- 
 tised seducer, began at last to believe that 
 what every body said must be partly true, 
 that though he himself were perfectly guilt- 
 less of love, the fair lady might have had the 
 misfortune to be smitten with his personal 
 good gifts, (for Gilbert was a well-looking, 
 ruddy swain, of some nineteen or twenty, 
 the very age when young lads confide in the 
 power of their own attractions,) and to make 
 up his mind to fall in love with her out of 
 gratitude. 
 
 Accordingly, he began to court Laurette at 
 every opportunity ; and Laurette, who, in 
 spite of her French education, had no notion 
 that an Englishman's wife could be courted 
 by any body but her husband, and whose 
 comprehension of the language was still too 
 vague to enable her to understand him tho- 
 roughly, continued to treat him with her
 
 THE FRESHWATER FISHERMAN. 
 
 usual friendly kindness, the less inclined to 
 make any observation on his conduct, since 
 she was altogether engrossed by the moodi- 
 ness of her husband, who had suddenly 
 changed from the most loving to the most 
 surly of mortals. Laurette tried to sooth 
 and pacify him, but the more she strove 
 against his ill-humour, the worse it grew, 
 and the poor young Frenchwoman at last 
 took to singing melancholy songs, and sigh- 
 ing, and drooping, and hanging her head 
 like a bereaved turtledove. It was in this 
 state that I saw her. 
 
 Matters were now advancing towards a 
 crisis. Gilbert saw Laurette's dejection, and, 
 imputing it to a hopeless passion for himself, 
 ventured to send her a billet-doux, written by 
 Colonel Talbot's valet, (for although he had 
 learnt to w r rite at a national school, he had 
 already contrived to forget his unpractised 
 lesson,) which, in terms fine enough for a 
 valet himself, requested her to honour him 
 with a private interview at the stile, by the 
 towing-path, at nine in the evening, when 
 Adam would be away. 
 
 This English, which was too fine to be 
 good that is to say, to be idiomatic, proved 
 more intelligible to Laurette than his pre- 
 vious declarations, although aided by all the 
 eloquence of eyes. She, however, resolved 
 to take further advice on the occasion, and 
 showed the epistle to Ned. 
 
 " What is this writing here ? " said Lau- 
 rette. " What will it say ? " 
 
 "It is a love-letter, Mrs. Stokes," answered 
 Ned. 
 
 " What does it want ? " questioned Mrs. 
 Stokes ; "me to give a rendezvous at de stile?" 
 
 " Yes," rejoined Ned ; " you to go to the 
 stile." 
 
 " De people is mad ! " exclaimed poor 
 Laurette. " Dere's your masterre " 
 
 " Master's jealous ! " cried Ned. 
 
 " And dis wicked man ? " 
 
 " He's in love ! " 
 
 " De people is fools ! " exclaimed poor 
 
 Laurette. " De people is mad ! But I'll 
 go to de stile and Nede, you and Nepe 
 shall go too." And so it was settled. , 
 
 Nine o'clock came, and the party set off. 
 And about five minutes past nine Nanny 
 Sims met Adam near the towing-path. 
 
 " Do you want your wife, Master Stokes?" 
 quoth the crone. " Are you looking for 
 Gilbert ? I saw them both but now, one a 
 little way on this side of the stile, the other 
 a little beyond. They '11 have met by this 
 time." And without pausing for an answer, 
 on she went. 
 
 Adam pursued his walk with furious 
 strides, and paused as he came within sight 
 of the place, considering in which way he 
 had best announce his presence. The sup- 
 posed lovers had not yet met ; but in an 
 instant Gilbert jumped over the stile, and 
 caught hold of Laurette ; and in another 
 instant the active Frenchwoman escaped 
 from his arms, gave him a box on the ear 
 that almost upset him, called to "Nede" 
 and "Nepe," both which trusty adherents 
 lay in ambush by the way side, and poured 
 forth such a flood of scolding in French and 
 broken English, mingled with occasional 
 cuffs, the dog barking and Ned laughing the 
 whilst, that the discomfited gallant fairly 
 took to his heels, and fled. In his way, 
 however, he encountered Adam, who, without 
 wasting a word upon the matter, took him 
 up in one hand and flung him into the 
 Kennet. 
 
 " A ducking 'ill do him no harm," quoth 
 Adam : "he can swim like a fish and if I 
 catch Nanny Sims, I'll give her a taste of 
 cold water, too," added the fisherman, hug- 
 ging his pretty wife, who was now sobbing 
 on his bosom ; " and I deserve to be ducked 
 myself for mistrusting of thee, like a land- 
 lubber ; but if ever I sarve thee so again," 
 continued he, straining her to his honest 
 bosom " if ever I sarve thee so again, may 
 I have a round dozen the next minute, and 
 be spliced to Nanny Sims into the baigain." 
 
 BY MRS. CROWE, AUTHOR OP " SUSAN HOPLEY," &C. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT was nearly midnight, and Martha 
 Guinnis began to think that John, her hus- 
 band, who had gone that morning to the 
 races at D , was going to do what he very 
 
 seldom did, namely, spend the night from 
 home. She had for some time felt extremely 
 sleepy, and ever and anon her head nodded 
 over the large family Bible that lay open 
 before her. She had a mind to go to bed ; 
 but, as her room was not on the same side
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 343 
 
 of the house as the door, she was afraid she 
 might not hear John if he did come home, 
 and her son and the maid had both been long 
 in bed. So she resolved to wait till half past 
 twelve, but, before the half hour had expired, 
 she was fast asleep ; and it was one o'clock 
 when the sound of her husband's heavy stick 
 upon the door roused her with a start from 
 her nap. 
 
 " My ! John, how late you are," said she, 
 with a yawn, as she opened the door ; "why, 
 I thought you were not coming at all ! " 
 
 "And I'd like not to have come at all 
 either," said John, in a sharp, quick tone, 
 that denoted dissatisfaction with himself or 
 somebody else. 
 
 " Why, what 's the matter ? " said Martha, 
 taking the alarm ; " you haven't been robbed, 
 I hope ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have," returned John. " Dang 
 it ! " added he, striking the table with his 
 fist, " that ever I should be such an ass ! " 
 
 " Why, what have you done ? You 
 haven't been losing your money, have you?" 
 
 " Yes, I have," answered John, sulkily. 
 
 " There, now ! " exclaimed Martha ; 
 " didn't I tell you so ? Wasn't I as sure as 
 
 eggs are eggs, that if you went to D you 
 
 wouldn't be able to keep from betting ? and 
 you know very well, John, you are no more 
 judge of a horse than I am." 
 
 "Aren't I ?" said John, in a tone of irri- 
 tation, for this is an impeachment no man 
 can endure with patience. 
 
 " No, to be sure you 're not," replied the 
 wife ; " didn't you give ten pounds for Collier's 
 old mare, that had got the glanders, and 
 wasn't worth ten shillings ? " 
 
 " It 's very lucky for you I did, I 'm sure," 
 said John, sharply, "for it's helped you to 
 something to fling in my teeth ever since." 
 
 " Well, and isn't it enough to make one," 
 answered Martha ; " to see a man such a 
 fool, meddling with what he knows nothing 
 about ? And, pray, how much have you 
 lost?" 
 
 " It isn't so much what I 've lost though 
 that 's bad enough, to be sure as the way I 
 lost it," returned Guinnis ; " dang it ! that 
 I should be such a Johnny Raw ! " 
 
 " Why, whose horse did you bet on ? " 
 asked Martha. 
 
 " On the Duke's colt," answered John. 
 
 " My ! what a fool to bet on that young 
 thing that had never run before ! But it's 
 just like you. And which won ? " 
 
 "Why, the colt won," answered John, 
 doggedly. 
 
 " The colt won ! Then how could you 
 lose ? " asked Martha. 
 
 "I didn't lose; I won the bet," replied 
 John ; "but I was bit by a rascal one of 
 them Lunnun chaps there was three or 
 four of 'em there, with a parcel of flash notes 
 in their pockets " 
 
 "What! you weren't such a fool as to 
 take one of their notes, were you?" ex- 
 claimed Martha. 
 
 " Yes, I was," returned John ; " and to 
 give change for it too. I knew fast enough 
 the colt was to win I heard it in the 
 Duke's stables as I went along so when a 
 swell looking chap came up and offered me 
 two guineas to one against him, I was down 
 upon it at once 'Done !' says I ; but he was 
 deeper than I was." 
 
 "And what did you give him?" asked 
 Martha, her cheek flushing with vexation. 
 
 " Three guineas," said John ; " and that 
 
 rag 's all I got for it ; " and so saying 
 
 he drew a very good-looking five pound note 
 from his pocket, and threw it on the table. 
 
 " Are you sure it 's a bad one ? " inquired 
 Martha. " It looks very good." 
 
 "Of course, I'm sure," answered John. 
 " Wasn't I like to be taken up at Blake's 
 for offering it in payment ? Blake was 
 away at the races, and the young man in 
 the shop didn't know me ; and when he 
 saw the note was a bad one, he took me for 
 a swindler, and was as near as possible 
 sending for the constable ; only that luckily 
 Blake's sister came in and stopt him." 
 
 " But how did he know it was bad," asked 
 Martha, curiously examining the note. 
 
 " Because some of the same sort had been 
 passed upon the course yesterday," replied 
 John ; "and Blake had shown one to the lad 
 to put him on his guard." 
 
 " How unlucky ! " said Martha. 
 
 "What?" said John, sharply. 
 
 " Well, I 'm sure Blake could afford to 
 lose it better than we could," answered 
 Martha. 
 
 " Fie, woman ! " said John ; " you wouldn't 
 have me pass bad money, would you ? " 
 
 " But if you hadn't known it, nobody 
 could have blamed you, you know." 
 
 " I must pay for my own folly," answered 
 John ; " there 's no reason any body else 
 should pay for it that I know of." 
 
 " Three guineas ! " said Martha, " and 
 two that you won there's five guineas gone 
 through your stupidity. Didn't you try to 
 find the fellow that cheated you ? " 
 
 " To be sure I did. That's what kept me
 
 344 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 so late. I went back to the course, and 
 searched for him in every direction ; and 
 then, when evening came, I went to all the 
 
 inns and public-houses in D , but devil a 
 
 bit could I see of him ! " 
 
 " How provoking ! " exclaimed Martha, 
 still fingering the note. 
 
 " Put it in the fire ! put it in the fire ! " 
 said John. " It 's the only place it 'a fit 
 for ! " 
 
 " I can't think how any body could tell 
 it was bad," observed Martha. " I 'in sure 
 I shouldn't know it." 
 
 " Then you can't blame me for not know- 
 ing it," said John. 
 
 "That's a different thing," said Martha. 
 " If a man will bet with people he knows 
 nothing about on a race-course, he should 
 look to what he takes from them. If this 
 wasn't the last day of the races, you might, 
 perhaps, have caught him to-morrow." 
 
 " But it is the last day," replied John, 
 rising and preparing to go to bed. 
 
 " Well," said Martha, rising also, and 
 approaching the fire, " I can hardly find in 
 my heart to burn what looks so like a good 
 five pounds." 
 
 "Put it in the fire!" said John, "and 
 let's go to bed. It's two o'clock, and I 
 must have my breakfast at seven, for I 've got 
 to be at the Grange by eight, about the hay." 
 
 "Will Squire Walter buy all the crop ?" 
 inquired Martha. 
 
 " I hope he will ; he said as much yester- 
 day," answered John, as he left the room, 
 again bidding his wife put the note in the 
 fire, and come to bed. 
 
 The door closed on the luisband ; the wife 
 stood on the hearth, with the note in her 
 hand : she looked at the fire, and she looked 
 at the note. Clearly, it was her duty to burn 
 it ; but then, as she said, it did look so like 
 a good five pounds, and the day might come 
 that five pounds would be so useful to her ; 
 and really she did not see how any body, 
 unless their siispicions were on the alert, 
 could possibly know this to be a bad one ; 
 and, as these ideas floated through her mind, 
 she slowly smoothed out the note, and then 
 she folded it ; and, finally, she deposited it 
 between the leaves of the Bible, which still 
 lay open on the table ; resolving that there 
 was no necessity for being in a hurry about 
 it ; and that it would be quite time enough 
 to burn it on the following morning. But 
 the following morning brought its usual 
 occupations ; and although, as she passed to 
 and fro in the exercise of her household cares, 
 
 her eye involuntarily glanced to where the 
 Bible lay, on a small round table in the cor- 
 ner, she persuaded herself that she was too 
 busy just then to attend to the matter, and 
 that the evening would be time enough. But 
 the day happened to be Saturday, and as she 
 had a great deal to do, it was ten o'clock at 
 night before she had leisure to take her usual 
 seat by the fire-side. When she did so, 
 John was sitting half asleep on the other 
 side of the hearth. 
 
 " Come, old woman," said he, lifting up 
 his head, " give us a chapter, and let's go to 
 bed ! " for it had been a custom, ever since 
 they were married, for Martha to read a 
 chapter, the last thing before they retired. 
 So she rose and fetched the Bible ; and, as 
 she turned over the leaves, she saw the note. 
 Her eye glanced p at John ; but, weary 
 with the fatigues of the day, and the late 
 hours of the preceding one, his eyelids were 
 drooping, and his head hanging on his breast : 
 so she turned on to the lessons of the day, 
 and lifted up her voice and read. 
 
 On that night, after her husband had re- 
 tired to bed, Martha withdrew the note from 
 between the leaves of the Bible, and deposited 
 it where it was never likely to meet any eye 
 but her own ; namely, in an antique silver 
 tea-pot, which had been left her by an aunt ; 
 and which had reposed, in unseen dignity, 
 at the bottom of an old bureau, ever since it 
 came into her possession ; and, from that 
 time, Martha Guinnis persuaded herself that 
 she forgot the note. It was true, indeed, that 
 she never deliberately indulged herself with 
 reflections on the subject of its existence ; 
 but, for all that, she knew it was there ; and, 
 for a long time, she never went to the bureau 
 without recollecting it. There it was a felt, 
 rather than an acknowledged resource, in 
 case of emergency. Gradually, however, the 
 idea became less vivid, the emergency did 
 not arise ; and, at length, it lived only in 
 her unawakened memory, sleeping till some 
 unexpected event, or association of ideas, 
 should recal it. 
 
 Five years had elapsed, and John Guinnis 
 waxed old and infirm ; he had been a hard 
 working man, and his age told upon him ; 
 and it now became a question between the 
 husband and wife, whether it would not be 
 advisable to bring home their only son, 
 William, to manage their little farm for them. 
 This darling of the mother's heart, and indeed 
 of the father's too, had been sent away to 
 learn his business elsewhere ; because he was 
 too wild to be kept at home, where his mother
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 34.5 
 
 spoilt him, and his father could not manage 
 him. He had betrayed no particular dispo- 
 sition to vice ; but he was thoughtless, self- 
 willed, and fond of pleasure ; and needed 
 what is called a tight hand to keep him in. 
 So they sent him to a tolerably flourishing 
 farmer, of the name of Edmunds, whose 
 rigour, with respect to his own children, was 
 looked upon as exemplary ; and there he had 
 been for three years, conforming pretty well 
 to the rules set up by the head of the estab- 
 lishment ; without however losing his char- 
 acter for irregularity. Martha, who had 
 unequivocally regretted his departure, and 
 but slowly acquiesced in it, now argued eagerly 
 in favour of his return. John said, " If I were 
 but sure he 'd be steady," and wished him to 
 stay away a couple of years longer ; but 
 Martha urged that he was now two-and- 
 twenty, and that besides their own great need 
 of him, it was not fair to leave their only boy, 
 " and such a fine young fellow as William 
 too," to be tyrannized over by Edmunds : 
 if Edmunds was a tyrant to his own flesh and 
 blood, what would he be to theirs ; besides, 
 he 'd be falling in love with one of Edmunds's 
 daughters, if he staid there much longer : 
 and whilst it was quite certain Edmunds 
 would never consent to the match, it would 
 disappoint their hopes of marrying him to 
 his cousin Helen, who had a nice little for- 
 tune of five hundred pounds ready for his 
 acceptance ; for Helen had liked William 
 from her childhood. This last argument was 
 decisive, and William was sent for. 
 
 In spite of his misgivings, John Guinnis 
 felt very happy to see his son at home again, 
 and felt very proud of him too ; for he was, 
 indeed, as Martha said, a very fine young 
 fellow ; and cousin Helen, who was there to 
 meet him, showed her heart in her eyes, and 
 flung blushing roses into her fair young cheeks 
 to welcome him. A close observer might 
 have thought William less joyous than the 
 rest of the party ; but he smiled gently, 
 showing the finest set of teeth in the world, 
 which fascinated Helen ; his mother was 
 bewitched with the manly form, and dark 
 curling whiskers, which nature had elaborated 
 since she had last seen him ; whilst the 
 anxious John was delighted by the low voice 
 and subdued demeanour, which he looked 
 upon as indications of a thorough reform. 
 He arrived on the Saturday evening ; and, 
 on Sunday morning, Helen leant upon his 
 ann as she trod the accustomed path to 
 church ; blushing and smiling, and looking 
 eagerly up in his face, as if the better to 
 
 understand Avhat he Avas saying ; but, in fact, 
 to drink in deep draughts of love from his 
 eyes not from his lips, for they spoke no 
 syllable of love ; but his eyes were of that 
 dangerous quality, that they could not look 
 into a woman's without melting into softness. 
 
 William now took the management of the 
 farm, at least the active duties of it, under 
 his father ; whilst John reserved to himself 
 the financial department, and indulged his 
 increasing infirmities with a larger share of 
 repose. Martha was proud and happy ; and 
 Helen, who was encouraged by the old people 
 to be much at the house, grew daily more 
 and more in love ; whilst, gradually, the 
 young man's lips, as well as eyes, began to 
 testify, that his heart was not insensible to 
 her merits and affection. 
 
 Thus some months passed away without 
 any remarkable occurrence, when one even- 
 ing, William asked his father to allow him 
 to spend the next day from home. He said 
 he had a letter informing him, that some of 
 
 the young Edmundses were to be at N , 
 
 the county town, and that he wanted to go 
 over and meet them. After a little demur 
 at the loss of time, the old man consented ; 
 and, on the following morning, with the 
 dawn of day, the young man started on foot. 
 The distance he had to walk was about fifteen 
 miles, but his mind was so engrossed, and he 
 strode over the ground so unconsciously, that 
 he found himself entering the suburbs of 
 
 N , before he was aware that he had gone 
 
 over half the space. But now, seeing where 
 he was, he roused himself from his abstrac- 
 tion, and striking on right through the main 
 street, and over a bridge that crossed a river 
 at the other extremity of the town, he con- 
 tinued his way along the high road, until he 
 reached a small public-house by the way-side, 
 into the passage of which he turned, whilst 
 at the same moment, the door of the little 
 parlour on the right was opened by a young 
 girl, who, being seated at the window, had 
 seen him pass. 
 
 " Fanny ! Fanny ! " exclaimed he, as he 
 entered ; " what could have induced you to 
 do this ? " 
 
 " Oh, William ! " cried the girl, flinging 
 herself into his arms, " what is to become of 
 me?" 
 
 " Why, what's the matter ?" cried William. 
 
 " Oh," said she, " can't you guess ? " and 
 as she spoke, poor Fanny blushed, and threw 
 down her eyes. William guessed but too well. 
 
 "Oh, Fanny!" exclaimed he, again, "what 
 is to be done ? "
 
 34G 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNJS AND HER SON. 
 
 " Oh, what indeed? Oh, what indeed ?" 
 cried the young girl, wringing her hands in 
 despair. 
 
 " Does your father know it ? " asked he. 
 
 " No," replied she ; " nobody knows it ; 
 not even my sister." 
 
 " How, then, did you get away ? What 
 will your father say to your leaving home ?" 
 asked William, in a tone of alarm. 
 
 " My father saw I was very ill," replied 
 the girl, " though he little guessed the cause ; 
 and he gave me leave to come to my aunt's 
 for a month for change of air. And Heaven 
 knows I am ill, for I never sleep ; and though 
 I am obliged to keep up through the day, I 
 cry all night." 
 
 " And what do you mean to do?" asked he. 
 
 " What could I do but come to you ? " re- 
 plied she. " Who can I look to for help but 
 you?" 
 
 " But how can I help you ?" asked William. 
 
 " I don 't know," answered Fanny, in a 
 low, humble voice ; and casting down her 
 eyes " I thought I thought you would do 
 something for me." 
 
 William's heart smote him for the question 
 he had asked. He was indeed bound to do 
 something for her : honour and feeling com- 
 manded him to marry her but, alas ! he no 
 longer loved her, and he adored Helen ; and 
 the want of control over his inclinations, 
 which formed the great defect of his charac- 
 ter, and was the source of his errors, rendered 
 the idea of marrying the one and losing the 
 other utterly insupportable. There was 
 another thing, however, he was bound to do, 
 and which admitted of no delay ; and this was 
 to provide a place of refuge and proper at- 
 tendance for the unfortunate girl during the 
 period that was approaching ; so, affecting 
 to misunderstand her allusion, he answered, 
 that he would endeavour to procure a lodg- 
 ing immediately ; adding that, if her father 
 did not discover her absence from her aunt's, 
 possibly the whole thing might be managed, 
 and she return home again without having 
 awakened any suspicion of the truth. Fanny 
 sighed at this intimation, but she was too 
 humble and depressed in her own esteem to 
 expostulate. So they went out together ; and 
 having found a lodging in an obscure street 
 of the suburbs, the owner of which engaged 
 to recommend a nurse, the young girl estab- 
 lished herself in it without delay ; and Wil- 
 liam, with a cold embrace, took his leave, 
 promising to send her some money on the 
 following day, and to come over and see her 
 whenever he could get away from home. 
 
 Poor Fanny ! had their previous interview 
 left a single hope in blossom, that cold em- 
 brace would have blighted it. It was too 
 evident the transient passion she had ex- 
 cited had passed away, and there was no 
 home in his heart for her scarcely even 
 pity. She was a burden to him, and he 
 meant to shake her off the moment he could ; 
 and yet, agonizing -as was the alternative of 
 accepting his cold charity, she had no other. 
 There was not a friend in the world to whom 
 she could apply in her emergency. Her 
 brother and aunt were as hard and inflexible 
 as her father, whilst her sister was as help- 
 less and dependent as herself. In the anguish 
 of her heart she looked at the river, which, 
 after leaving the city, could be distinguished 
 from the window of the attic she inhabited, 
 flowing far over the country, through green 
 meadows and smiling pastures, and she 
 longed for the rest those waters of oblivion 
 could bring her. But Fanny was only seven- 
 teen, and her young soul shrank from the 
 image of death ; besides, though she had 
 erred through love and opportunity, and 
 from the temptations to seek, wherever she 
 could find them, that affection and sympathy 
 which the harshness of her natural con- 
 nexions denied her, she was yet a pious and 
 God-believing child, and she did not dare 
 rashly to fling away the life that had been 
 given her for she knew not what purpose. 
 
 In the mean time, with heavy steps and 
 slow, the young man retraced his weary way. 
 He had anticipated nothing so bad as this in 
 the morning. He had gone unwillingly to 
 meet her, in consequence of a few lines 
 urgently requesting an interview ; which in- 
 terview, he expected, was planned with a 
 view of inducing him to marry her a scheme 
 he was resolved to defeat. He was now a 
 great deal more in love with Helen than he 
 had ever been with Fanny ; and on his union 
 with the former every thing smiled, whilst a 
 union with the latter, even had he liked her, 
 would have been surrounded by difficulties. 
 To be sure, the case might now be altered. 
 Probably, if old Edmunds discovered his 
 daughter's situation, he would insist upon 
 the match. But this did not make it a whit 
 the more agreeable it was only an addi- 
 tional motive for endeavouring to conceal 
 the misfortune, and get her home again un- 
 suspected. But there was one fearful obstacle 
 in the way of accomplishing this feat suc- 
 cessfully, which was, that William had no 
 money. He did not know any thing of his 
 father's circumstances, for it was part of the
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 old man's system, and not the wisest part of 
 it, to maintain his son in ignorance of his 
 pecuniary affairs, and to keep him with an 
 empty purse. He looked upon money as 
 mischief in the hands of a young man, con- 
 scious that it sometimes led to mischief in 
 those of an old one, for at a fair or a 
 race John was very apt to be guilty of a 
 little imprudence. William felt therefore 
 assured, that his father would not give him 
 enough of money to be of the least avail in his 
 present dilemma, unless he were to confide 
 to him the use he intended to make of it. 
 Then, perhaps, he might, if he had it, for 
 John Guinnis was a just man ; but the very 
 consequence of this sense of justice would 
 be, that he would immediately inform old 
 Edmunds of what had happened, and propose 
 the only reparation that could be offered for 
 the injury. Then, what if he made a con- 
 fidant of his mother, and besought her to aid 
 him ? It was possible that she would, if she 
 had the means, since she doated on him to 
 excess ; but the misfortune was, that she 
 was a very hasty and passionate woman, 
 governed by impulse and not by reason, who, 
 in the first moments of anger, always did 
 exactly the thing, whether right or wrong, 
 which she would not have done had she 
 taken time to consider. Thus he was certain, 
 that in the ebullition of her rage, she would 
 blurt out the whole story to Helen and his 
 father ; and who could tell ? perhaps even 
 before she had cooled down to the temperature 
 of reflection, actually write to Edmunds him- 
 self ! " And then I should lose Helen, and 
 be obliged to marry Fanny, and I had rather 
 be buried alive than marry her ! " was the 
 vehement expression of his passionate love 
 on the one side, and of his self-will, and we 
 fear almost passionate hate on the other. 
 
 It was late when he arrived at home, and 
 his father and mother having retired to bed, 
 he sat down by the fire to think over his 
 plans ; or at least to try to form some. 
 Martha, with the thoughtful mother's love, 
 had left some supper on the table for him ; 
 but although he had walked thirty miles, 
 and had taken nothing all day, his throbbing 
 temples and his parched tongue made food 
 unwelcome ; but he felt he should like to 
 drink drink drink not only till he had 
 quenched his thirst but his memory. He 
 wanted beer wine spirits and there was 
 only water on the table. This irritated him ; 
 for a man that is angry with himself is easily 
 made angry with " inferior tilings ;" and he 
 felt himself ill used. Then evil thoughts 
 
 crept in and gathered themselves about him. 
 He wondered where his father kept his 
 money; and he wished he had the key of the 
 cupboard, where he knew his mother kept 
 her stores, for then at least he could have 
 got some liquor; and so he wavered from 
 wickedness to weakness, and back again. 
 Suddenly a thought struck him. He re- 
 membered that his mother had an old- 
 fashioned, heavy silver tea-pot, whih she 
 had often threatened to sell; although the 
 regard she entertained for it as an heir-loom 
 had hitherto deterred her. It was an article 
 never used, and that, therefore, would not be 
 easily missed ; and if he could only contrive 
 to get possession of it, it might help him to a 
 few pounds for the present emergency ; and 
 there was just a possibility of his being able 
 to replace it, before its absence was discovered. 
 But where was it ? He looked at the cup- 
 board, but that was a receptacle devoted to 
 tea and sugar, spirits, quince-jam, and other 
 luxuries : it was not likely to be there. Then 
 there was the old bureau, that stood at the 
 end of the parlour. The upper depart- 
 ment of it formed a book-case ; below that 
 was a desk for writing, with several small 
 drawers ; and below that again was a row of 
 shelves enclosed by doors, where it was not 
 unlikely to be. But how was he to procure 
 the key? It was probably hanging on his 
 mother's bunch, and that she invariably 
 earned up stairs with her when she went to 
 bed. After some reflection, he resolved to go 
 to her room, and try if he could find the 
 keys. If his parents were asleep, he might 
 accomplish his object without being dis- 
 covered ; and if they were awake, he could 
 easily invent an excuse for his visit. So he 
 took off his shoes, and creeping up stairs 
 with his candle, gently laid his hand upon 
 the latch of the door. It was the conscious- 
 ness of his errand that unnerved him ; for, 
 apart from that, there was nothing in the 
 simple act of a son's entering the chamber 
 of his parents, even though it were long after 
 midnight, that need have done so. 
 
 " William," said Martha, whose anxious 
 ears had been listening for his return ; " is 
 that you ?" 
 
 " Yes, mother," answered he ; " would you 
 lend me your keys to get a glass of spirits ? 
 I feel rather ill." 
 
 " What's the matter, my dear ?" said 
 Martha, anxiously, and making a movement 
 to rise ; " I'll get up and give you some- 
 thing ?" 
 
 " Oh, no, no, don't !" answered William ;
 
 348 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 " it's merely from fasting too long. A glass 
 of spirits will set me quite right, and then I 
 shall be able to eat some supper." 
 
 " I hope that's all," said Martha. " The 
 keys are in my pocket here," and drawing 
 the said pocket from under her pillow, she 
 handed him the bunch, bidding him bring 
 them back when he had taken what he 
 wanted ; and adding, that he would find an 
 open bottle in the left hand corner of the 
 closet. The young man grasped the keys, 
 and hastened out of the room. 
 
 On a shelf in the lower compartment of 
 the bureau, wrapt in a green baize bag, stood 
 the tea-pot. He drew it from its covering ; it 
 was heavy, and, he thought, must bring a 
 good deal of money ; but as he was dread- 
 fully afraid that his mother's anxiety might 
 bring her down stairs to see how he was, he 
 felt the necessity of despatch, and eagerly 
 looked about for something that he might 
 stuff into the bag to fill it out, so as to dis- 
 guise the absence of its proper inmate. But 
 there being nothing he could safely appro- 
 priate, he hastened to his own room, where 
 he procured some articles suitable to his pur- 
 pose ; and having stuffed out the bag, and 
 replaced it in its former position, he locked 
 the bureau, and ascended again with the keys 
 to his mother ; having first taken care to 
 provide himself with the much desired bottle 
 of liquor ; and then, somewhat relieved, he 
 sat down by the fire to repose his spirits and 
 take a little refreshment. The grand diffi- 
 culty that now remained was, how to convey 
 the tea-pot to Fanny, for he had no means 
 of selling it where he was. His only plan 
 seemed to be, to forward it by the coach that 
 passed through the neighbouring village, 
 writing at the same time to advertise her of 
 its approach. So, having in some degree 
 disposed of his embarrassment, he tried to 
 turn his thoughts in a more pleasing direc- 
 tion. He summoned the image of the fair, 
 kind, and gentle Helen, to aid him in banish- 
 ing poor Fanny from his mind ; but Helen 
 seemed to shrink from the rivalry, and to 
 elude his grasp. His imagination could no 
 longer realize the prospects of bliss in which 
 he had so freely indulged, since he had shaken 
 off the visionary chain that, on his first re- 
 turn home, had bound him to Fanny. He 
 had fallen from his own respect, and he asked 
 himself if he could ever offer a hand stained 
 by dishonesty to one so innocent, guileless, 
 and pure. He felt that the rose of their 
 innocent love must droop and fade before the 
 burning conscience and blushing cheeks of 
 
 guilt. He wished he had not taken the tea- 
 pot, and he had half a mind to restore it and 
 confess all to his mother ; and had it not 
 been for the dread of being forced into a 
 marriage with Fanny, he would have braved 
 the rest, and done so, trusting to Helen's 
 gentle heart to forgive him. But that one 
 fear withheld him ; before it his better genius 
 quailed ; so, resolving to adhere to his plan, 
 he wrote a few lines to Fanny, saying that 
 he sent her what he hoped would relieve her 
 difficulties, and promising to call and see her 
 
 whenever he could get as far as N . The 
 
 letter he sent by the post, and the parcel by 
 the coach ; and having thus, as he hoped, 
 baffled fate, and eluded fortune, he endea- 
 voured to forget Fanny and her troubles, and 
 regain his previous cheerfulness and equa- 
 nimity. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON the following evening the letter reached 
 Fanny, and in due time the tea-pot arrived 
 at the coach office, where, in compliance 
 with William's directions, she went to re- 
 ceive it. 
 
 As the lines announcing its approach had 
 been cold and few, she hoped that the parcel 
 would bring her something more consoling ; 
 and, with a palpitating heart and trembling 
 hands, she untied the papers, but no letter 
 appeared. Perhaps there was one inside ; 
 and, almost afraid to look, lest this last 
 chance should fail her too, she lifted the lid. 
 There was something at the bottom, though 
 it did not look like a letter she put in her 
 hand and drew it out ; it was a folded piece 
 of dirty paper ; she opened it and found it 
 was a five pound note : so, between that and 
 the tea-pot, all apprehension of pecuniary 
 distress was for the present removed. But 
 although this was a great relief, for William 
 had not concealed the difficulties he expected 
 to encounter in supplying her necessities, 
 she was yet so grieved and wounded by his 
 coldness, that she could scarcely look upon 
 the contents of the parcel with eyes of thank- 
 fulness. She replaced the note where she 
 found it, and having hidden the tea-pot lest 
 the sight of so massive a piece of plate might 
 awaken the curiosity or cupidity of her 
 hostess, she threw herself on her bed, and 
 wept through a great part of the night. 
 
 After a few hours of disturbed and uneasy 
 sleep, she awoke in the morning to the recol- 
 lection that she had no time to lose in 
 making provision for the approaching event ;
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 049 
 
 so, having taken a cup of tea, she set out on 
 her expedition. Not knowing very well how 
 to dispose of the plate, she was at first about 
 to leave it behind and make use of the note ; 
 but it occurred to her on reflection, that, as 
 she had nobody near her she could intrust 
 with the tea-pot, she had better sell it herself 
 whilst she was able to move about, and 
 reserve the note, which would be equally 
 available under any circumstances. 
 
 The first thing she needed was some baby- 
 linen; and, having selected what she wanted 
 at a shop recommended by her hostess, she 
 blushingly drew the tea-pot from under her 
 shawl, and begged to know what they would 
 give her for it. 
 
 " We can't give you any thing," replied 
 the shopwoman ; " you must go to the silver- 
 smith's if you want to dispose of that. You 
 must have it weighed, and then he'll tell 
 you what it 's worth." 
 
 "Is there a silversmith near here ?" asked 
 Fanny. 
 
 " In the next street," replied the woman. 
 " It 's the third door on the right, his name 
 is Chapman ; " so Fanny quitted the shop 
 to seek the silversmith's, leaving, as Sir 
 Peter Teazle says, " her character behind 
 her," an oversight of which the Baby-linen- 
 warehouse-lady did not fail to take due 
 advantage. 
 
 If the deepest humility and most sensitive 
 shyness could have commended forbearance, 
 Fanny might have walked not only through 
 
 the town of N but through all England 
 
 and Ireland to boot, as secure and unques- 
 tioned as did the fair lady with the white 
 cross, immortalized in the song ; but, so far 
 from these qualities availing her in the pre- 
 sent instance, the more she blushed and looked 
 abashed, the more confident did the above- 
 mentioned lady feel that she was " no better 
 than she should be. Besides, it was quite 
 evident that she did not know what she 
 wanted, and was as unacquainted with the 
 requirements of babies as if she had been a 
 baby herself. There was something very 
 suspicious, too, about the tea-pot ; and the 
 chances were, that she was a lady's maid, or 
 something of that sort, and had stolen it 
 from her mistress. However, it would be 
 Mr. Chapman's affair to look after that." 
 And indeed Mr. Chapman was not without 
 his suspicions either. There was certainly 
 nothing very strange in selling an old piece 
 of plate ; but Fanny's blushes and downcast 
 eyes, and dread of being seen by any body 
 that might recognise her, were not unnoticed 
 
 by the old man, who looked at her over his 
 spectacles, whilst he was weighing the silver, 
 with considerable curiosity. She was evi- 
 dently full of sorrow, and care, and anxiety ; 
 and this, combined with her extreme youth, 
 and a countenance which, if not regularly 
 pretty, was extremely interesting, somewhat 
 touched the silversmith's heart, in spite of 
 his suspicions. He made some remarks upon 
 the tea-pot, saying, that doubtless, from its 
 antiquity, those to whom it belonged must 
 have set great value upon it ; but Fanny 
 said it had only been given to her the day 
 before, and she knew nothing of those it 
 belonged to. Whereupon Mr. Chapman 
 made up his mind that she was not the 
 thief, but probably the unconscious receiver 
 of stolen goods ; and he volunteered some 
 hints, and a little advice as to the necessity 
 of caution, and knowing where things came 
 from. But Fanny, who knew nothing of 
 such matters, and had not the least suspicion 
 that William had come dishonestly by what 
 he sent her, did not comprehend his insinua- 
 tions ; and, having received her money, she 
 bade him good morning, and forthwith re- 
 turned to the linen warehouse, to discharge 
 her debt and carry away her purchases. 
 
 There had, indeed, been no time to lose 
 three days afterwards poor Fanny waa a 
 mother. Sad was her heart, and bitter were 
 the tears she dropt upon the innocent face of 
 her infant, as it lay upon a pillow beside her. 
 
 " Dear heart ! pretty cretur ! " said the 
 nurse, " where be its father ? Surely he '11 
 be coming to see it soon ! " 
 
 " Alas ! when ? " thought Fanny, for there 
 were no more letters nor any tidings of him 
 whatever, and Fanny saw clearly that she 
 was deserted. So she did not even write to 
 tell him of the birth of his child what cared 
 he ? But her grief and anxiety retarded her 
 recovery, and time was pressing for her return 
 home, ere she was well able to move. But 
 she dragged herself from her bed, for there 
 was a matter to settle before she could leave 
 
 N that was very near her heart, and 
 
 that was, to find some one to take care of 
 her baby. Two or three women had offered 
 their services, and, after visiting them all, 
 she selected the one she thought least objec- 
 tionable, and agreed with her, for a few 
 shillings a-week, to take charge of the child 
 till she could reclaim it ; for Fanny, with 
 her youth and inexperience, had built a little 
 castle in the air about reclaiming it, which 
 was not very likely to be realized. Her 
 father was subject to periodical fits of indis-
 
 350 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 position, at which times Fanny's services 
 were in great request and estimation. No 
 one knew so well how to nurse him, or was 
 so handy about his bedside ; and, through 
 the softening of hia heart towards her on 
 these occasions, she had obtained many little 
 indulgences, that it would have been hopeless 
 to ask for under other circumstances. It 
 was by this means she had accomplished the 
 supposed visit to her aunt ; and by the same 
 she hoped, of at least formed a project of 
 attempting for we can scarcely say hoped 
 to induce her father to give her a little 
 money, and allow her to depart from his 
 doors for ever. To live at home, when once 
 her shame was discovered, she well knew 
 was impossible, her father would not per- 
 mit it. His very first movement, indeed, 
 she was aware, would be to turn her out of 
 doors ; and, even were he disposed to let her 
 remain, she understood too well the sort of 
 life she might expect, to think of it as a 
 practicable expedient. The only difference, 
 therefore, between the success and failure of 
 her project, consisted hi the pecuniary part 
 of the transaction ; and this single point she 
 hoped to gain by a dexterous use of her 
 temporary favour, in the course of his next 
 attack. It is true, there was a third alter- 
 native, which was keeping the whole thing 
 secret ; but, (not to mention that the success 
 of this was very uncertain, her absence from 
 her aunt's during the period of her pretended 
 visit there, being liable to be discovered by 
 a thousand accidents,) her mind recoiled 
 from the deception. Fanny had erred from 
 too much loving, but she was essentially true, 
 honest, and virtuous ; and she could not 
 endure the idea of living a constant life of 
 imposture ; the difficulty of which would 
 be increased by the unremitting attentions of 
 a young farmer of the neighbourhood, who 
 was her devoted suitor. When to these 
 motives was added the tender feeling of 
 maternity that had sprung up in her heart, 
 it is easy to conceive that all her hopes were 
 centered in the project of spending her life 
 away from home ; but without a little money 
 this was impracticable. She thought that 
 she should be able to make a living by her 
 needle, for she had a natural turn for that 
 sort of thing, and was farther initiated into 
 the mysteries of dressmaking than might 
 have been supposed ; but it would be impos- 
 sible for her to establish herself in a respect- 
 able lodging without her father's assistance ; 
 and to obtain this was now the only aim 
 and hope that supported her. 
 
 The tea-pot had brought her BO much 
 money, that it had sufficed for all the 
 expenses of her confinement, with enough 
 remaining for her journey home ; so that 
 she had her five pounds unbroken to devote 
 to the maintenance of her child. "Pray 
 take care of my baby, and be kind to it," 
 said she to the woman, giving her the note ; 
 "that will last you till I can come back, 
 and then you shall have some more if I find 
 him well." Surprised at such a liberal 
 mode of dealing, the nurse spared no assu- 
 rances ; concluding in her secret soul that 
 Fanny must certainly be some great lady 
 in disguise. Unwillingly the yoimg mother 
 tore herself away, and on the following 
 evening she reached home ; where it was 
 universally agreed that her journey had done 
 her no good for that she looked worse than 
 she had done before she went away. 
 
 In order that she might not remain in utter 
 ignorance of her cliild's health, during her 
 absence from him, Fanny had given the 
 woman, who had the charge of it, directions 
 to send her a line occasionally by the post, 
 addressed to " F. E. post office, Weatherby, 
 to be left till called for;" and she had been 
 at home three months, and had already re- 
 ceived two or three such despatches, assuring 
 her of her boy's welfare, and inspiring her 
 with an earnest desire to obtain her liberty 
 and fly to him ; when, one day, as she was 
 inquiring at the window of the little post- 
 office, if there were a letter for F. E. she re- 
 marked a man, who, with his eye fixed upon 
 her, seemed to be attentively listening to what 
 she said. When the post-mistress handed 
 her a letter, he drew so near as to look over 
 her shoulder at the address, which, by a sud- 
 den and involuntary movement, she sought 
 to conceal ; and, when she turned away and 
 proceeded homeward, she perceived, to her 
 great alarm, that he followed her. 
 
 Under any circumstances, a proceeding of 
 this sort would be annoying ; but, in poor 
 Fanny's critical position, with her fearful 
 secret on her soul, it was terrific. What his 
 object was she could not imagine ; but it was 
 quite clear that he was not acting without 
 design, and that that design, whatever it 
 might be, was connected with her. On she 
 went, through lane and through field, with 
 her letter in her pocket ; for, eagerly as she 
 desired to read it, she had not dared to do so 
 with the stranger's eye upon her ; on she 
 went, with her cheeks flushed and her heart 
 beating, and not knowing whether to go 
 straight home, at the risk of the man follow-
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 351 
 
 ing her thither ; or, whether to turn off to- 
 wards a neighbour's house, for the chance of 
 shaking him off. "But no," thought Fanny ; 
 " what would be the use of that ? If it is 
 somebody who has found out about William 
 and my baby, and that he is come to tell my 
 father, he will easily find where I live, 
 whether I go home or not ; so I may as well 
 meet my fate at first as at last, and go at once." 
 The house, with a garden round it, stood 
 in a field ; and, as she passed through this 
 field, she observed that the stranger turned 
 aside from the path, and addressed some 
 words to a man who was carting turnips. 
 The man lifted up his head, paused in his 
 work, evidently looked after her, and ap- 
 peared to answer the question. Then there 
 seemed to be further inquiries : the farm 
 servant pointed to the house, and the stranger 
 nodded his head significantly. Fanny's 
 heart sank within her : her knees trembled, 
 her step faltered, her hand shook so much, 
 that she could not turn the handle of the 
 door. The man quitted the labourer, and 
 pursued the path to the house. She tried 
 again to open the door, that she might get in 
 and escape to her bedroom. Suddenly some 
 one, from the inside, turned the handle 
 hastily, and flung it wide ; and the shock, 
 combined with her previous agitation, over- 
 coming her wholly, her limbs failed her, and 
 she fell forwards into the passage. 
 
 "Fanny! Fanny! what's the matter?" 
 cried her father, for it was he ; and, although 
 he was a very austere and arbitrary man, he 
 lifted her with great tenderness from the 
 ground, and carried her into the parlour ; for 
 Fanny was his favourite daughter, and his 
 tender nurse in sickness ; and he was really 
 fonder of her than he himself was aware of, 
 and much more so than she suspected. She 
 was laid on a sofa, her sister and the maid sum- 
 moned to attend her ; and, as she appeared 
 to be quite insensible, they had recourse to 
 cold water and hartshorn, to restore her. 
 
 In the meantime, however, the stranger 
 had reached the house ; and, as he was knock- 
 ing with a large stick he held in his hand 
 against the door, Mr. Edmunds again went 
 out to inquire what he wanted ; for it was 
 the having observed him from the window 
 that had brought him so suddenly to the door 
 in the first instance. 
 
 "What is your business?" said he to the 
 stranger ; " do you want any body here ?" 
 
 "My business is with that 'ere young 'oman 
 as is just gone in," replied the man. " Be 
 you Master Edmunds?" 
 
 " My name is Edmunds," replied the farmer 
 coldly ; for, being of a haughty temper, he 
 was not very well pleased at the man's 
 address ; " what do you want with my 
 daughter?" 
 
 ''Why, it's rather an unpleasant sort of a 
 business," replied the man ; " and perhaps 
 you'd better let me step in a bit, while we 
 talk it over. May be you 've heard of me 
 my name's Joe Smith I'm a constable at 
 N ." 
 
 "A constable at N !" exclaimed Mr. 
 
 Edmunds, looking at him with considerable 
 indignation ; " you must be under some mis- 
 take ; you can have nothing to say to my 
 daughter ! " 
 
 " Hold a bit," answered the man ; "may 
 be she's not to blame ; but I am sent here 
 after her, to find out where she got a five 
 pound note that she paid away to a woman 
 in N about three months since." 
 
 "In N three months since !" exclaimed 
 
 Mr. Edmunds ; " my daughter Fanny was 
 never there in her life." 
 
 " Then I've been very much misinformed," 
 replied Smith. " Where was she at the time 
 I speak of? was she here ?" 
 
 " Perhaps she was not here," replied Mr. 
 Edmunds ; " but she was certainly not there. 
 I tell you, she was never there in her life." 
 
 " You had better let me walk in," returned 
 Smith, who seemed to have no disposition to 
 be uncivil ; " mayhap I know more about 
 that than you do : young folks have their 
 secrets, you know, sir ; and the old 'tins are 
 not always let into 'ein,. Now, may I be so 
 bold as to ax if the young 'oman is married?" 
 
 " No, she is not married," replied the father, 
 preceding the man into a small room appro- 
 priated to his own use ; and, beginning to 
 feel somewhat uncomfortable, as the recol- 
 lection of Fanny's evident depression, wan 
 cheeks, and faded form, presented themselves 
 to his mind. " Why do you ask such a 
 question ? " 
 
 " Why, because, sir, I hope she is married ; 
 for, sure enough, if she isn't, she ought to be." 
 " What do you mean ? Explain yourself ! " 
 returned Mr. Edmunds, angrily. "Depend 
 upon it, here's some mistake, and you have 
 come to a wrong house." 
 
 " No. sir, no such thing," answered Smith ; 
 " that 'ere young 'oman as came into your 
 house just now, I know it's the same from 
 the description on her that I've got in my 
 pocket-book besides, didn't I see her get a 
 letter from the post-office this morning, 
 directed to ' F. E. to be left till called for?'
 
 352 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 she's got it about her now ; that is, if she 
 ha'u't disposed of it since she came in, for 
 she never opened it whilst I had my eye upon 
 her : I say, sir, that 'ere young 'oman was 
 
 at N last October, a-lodging at one Mrs. 
 
 Gates's, in Thomas Street, where she had a 
 baby " 
 
 " Stay ! " cried Edmunds, suddenly arrest- 
 ing the flow of his discourse, and rushing 
 out of the room, for the confident assertions 
 of the man, together with certain peculiarities 
 in Fanny's late demeanour, which had never 
 struck him before in the same light, were 
 beginning to suggest the possibility that the 
 tale was too true " I'll fetch my daughter ! " 
 
 Pale, and just restored to consciousness, 
 Fanny still lay stretched upon the sofa ; and 
 as her father hastily entered the room, she 
 lifted her eyes to his face, and read her fate. 
 
 " Fanny," said he, sternly, " give me the 
 letter you received just now at the post- 
 office ; " and the trembling hand withdrew 
 it from her pocket, and delivered her con- 
 demnation to her judge. He glanced his eye 
 over it, and then bade her follow him ; but, 
 when she attempted to rise, her knees bent 
 under her, and she would have fallen, had 
 not her sister supported her. 
 
 " Fanny can't walk, father, " said the 
 latter. 
 
 " Yes, I can," feebly whispered Fanny. 
 " Lead me, Lizzy ; let me get it over, and 
 die ! " And, by the aid of Lizzy and the 
 maid, she was conducted to the next apart- 
 ment, and placed in a chair. The two girls 
 then left the room. 
 
 " Don't be frightened, Miss," said the man, 
 mistaking the cause of her agitation ; "maybe 
 you 're no ways to blame in the business ; 
 and if you 're not, there 's no cause for fear 
 whatsomever. The law only punishes them 
 as deserves it." 
 
 The allusion to the law surprised Fanny, 
 and for the first time she raised her eyes 
 to the face of the stranger. It was a 
 rude, good-natured, honest countenance, that 
 she saw clearly bespoke no enmity to her. 
 It cou-ld not then be William's father, as she 
 had at first concluded. Who, then, could he 
 be ? and what had she to do with the law ? 
 These things she thought, but she said no- 
 thing, for her father's angry brow was before 
 her. 
 
 " The law," continued Joe Smith, " pre- 
 sumes every man to be innocent till he is 
 proved guilty ; and far be it from me to sup- 
 pose a young 'oman like you would have 
 any thing to do with a business like this 
 
 here, if you could help it. I dare to say, when 
 you gave it to Mrs. Lang, you didn't know 
 what a bad 'un it was ? " Here Fanny, who 
 had forgotten all about the note, and was think- 
 ing only of her child, again raised her eyes. 
 " It 's an accident," continued Smith, " that 
 might happen to any of us ! " This was 
 still more inexplicable. 
 
 " Speak, girl ! " said Edmunds, " where 
 did you get the note 1 and did you know it 
 was a bad one when you passed it ? " 
 
 " What note ? " inquired Fanny. 
 
 " That 'ere five pound note as you gived 
 to Mrs. Lang when you took the baby to 
 her," responded Smith. 
 
 " A bad one ! " said Fanny, with the blood 
 rushing to her cheeks, only to leave them 
 again paler than before. 
 
 " Ay, it was a flash note," replied Smith, 
 " and you must tell me who you got it 
 from." 
 
 " I don't recollect," faltered out Fanny. 
 
 " That is false," said her father, sternly ; 
 " you must know very well where you got 
 it. You had no such thing when you went 
 from here. Who gave it you ? " 
 
 Fanny was silent, for she was already 
 ashamed of the cowardly subterfuge of n>jt 
 recollecting too well she remembered. 
 
 " We 've traced it to you, " continued 
 Smith ; " and if you can't tell where you 
 got it from, the crime 'ill rest with you, and 
 you'll be had up for it." 
 
 " And be taken to jail, tried, and trans- 
 ported," added her father, drily. 
 
 Fanny buried her face in her handkerchief, 
 and wept, but spoke not. 
 
 " Speak ! " cried he, striking the table 
 vehemently with his fist. " I command you 
 to speak." 
 
 Another burst of tears, and the breast 
 heaved violently ; but still no word. 
 
 "Haven't you disgraced us enough by 
 your conduct ? " said the father. " Will you 
 bring us to more shame ? will you let the 
 neighbours see you dragged from the house 
 a prisoner ? " 
 
 "I cannot cannot tell," sobbed out 
 Fanny. 
 
 " If you don't, I '11 leave you to your 
 fate ! " cried Edmunds. " I '11 not stretch 
 out a finger to save you ! " 
 
 "She will tell, she will tell, sir," interposed 
 Joe Smith, who was extremely soft-hearted 
 for a constable. " Do, Miss, do tell who you 
 got the note from, and I won't give you no 
 more trouble about the business." 
 
 "I can't I can't!" sobbed Fanny, again.
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 353 
 
 " I dare say it was from her sweetheart, 
 sir," suggested Joe. 
 
 "Fanny!" said the father, "am I to stand 
 here, entreating you to save yourself and me, 
 and your whole family, from infamy, and 
 you refuse to speak ? " 
 
 " Do, Miss, do speak ! " said Joe. 
 
 Fanny shook her head. 
 
 "Am I to understand, then," said Mr. 
 Edmunds, " that in order to screen the 
 scoundrel that has seduced you, you intend 
 to accompany this man to the city, and 
 allow yourself to be carried to jail ? " 
 
 "Oh, let me die! let me die!" cried 
 Fanny, falling on her knees, and clasping 
 her hands in anguish. " Let me die ; hut I 
 cannot cannot tell ! " 
 
 " Die, then ! " exclaimed her father, in a 
 passion, rushing out of the room, and bidding 
 the constable do his duty. 
 
 When left alone with her, Joe Smith, who 
 was really affected, used every argument he 
 could think of to persuade her to reveal the 
 secret, but without success. Her resolution 
 was immovable ; and so continued when 
 she was examined before a magistrate ; and 
 the consequence of her inflexibility was, that 
 she was committed to jail to take her trial 
 at the assizes, unless she could be induced, 
 in the interim, to give the information that 
 was required of her. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHEN William had despatched the letter 
 and tea-pot to Fanny, he did his utmost to 
 banish the whole affair from his mind. As 
 it gave him infinite pain to witness her dis- 
 tress, he resolved not to witness it ; and as, 
 when he was in her company, his conscience 
 reproached him bitterly for not treating her 
 with more consideration, and offering her the 
 only reparation in his power, he determined 
 to avoid the inconvenience by keeping out of 
 her way. But, as he found this process of 
 dismissing intrusive thoughts rather arduous, 
 and indeed not always practicable, he had 
 recourse to Helen to help him to fight the 
 battle. Seeing that she loved him, and know- 
 ing that she was destined for him, he had 
 loved her with a calm and assured affection, 
 his passion meeting with none of those checks 
 or obstacles which are apt to occasion an 
 overflow. But, from the natural contradic- 
 tion of human nature man's nature espe- 
 cially poor Fanny's humble hopes and 
 melancholy claims, all unacknowledged as 
 they were, gave a spur to the even tenor of 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 the courtship. He discovered that he loved 
 Helen more intensely than he had been aware 
 of; and he found no remedy so entirely 
 specific for the pain of thinking of Fanny, as 
 making love to her rival ; whilst Helen, little 
 guessing the cause of the sudden accession of 
 attachment, too gladly lent her aid to the 
 cure. Martha was delighted, and John no 
 less ; they really loved Helen as their own 
 child, and her five hundred pounds formed a 
 very important addition to her general merits. 
 To all appearance, never was there a case in 
 which the course of true love seemed less 
 likely to be disturbed by those accidents to 
 which it is proverbially subject; and the 
 most experienced gambler would not have 
 hesitated to stake the odds, not only that the 
 match would come off in due time without 
 let or hinderance, but that the honeymoon 
 would be as sweet and as bright a moon as 
 ever shone upon two young hearts. 
 
 In spite, however, of the general success 
 of William's efforts to forget Fanny and her 
 tearful face, yet, as time advanced, he could 
 not help sometimes wondering that she did 
 not write to communicate the issue of her 
 confinement. It must be all over, and she 
 must have returned home ; unless, indeed, 
 she were ill, or and the idea would some- 
 times obtrude itself dead. If the former, 
 what would her family think of her absence ? 
 surely it would lead to inquiry and search ; 
 and then, what discoveries might be made ! 
 If the latter, it would certainly be a great 
 care and uneasiness off his mind ; but how 
 perplexed her friends would be at her disap- 
 pearance ! However,' the people at the 
 lodging house knew nothing of him ; and he 
 did not think there was any fear of their 
 being able to trace him, if they tried. Be- 
 tween these two hypotheses his doubts and 
 fears fluctuated, for the possibility of her 
 having resolution to suffer and be silent, his 
 mind could scarcely admit. But time crept 
 on, and there were no tidings of her, and 
 probably never would be any. She had 
 returned home, or she was dead ; and in 
 either case it was not likely he would be 
 troubled more on the subject ; and so the 
 oblivion, at first so courted and so coy, 
 flooded his memory, and washed out poor 
 Fanny's name and image from its tablets. 
 
 As for Helen, she had a fine intellect and 
 an admirable character ; but she was in love, 
 and she did not see, or, if she saw, she would 
 not allow herself to acknowledge, the inferi- 
 ority of her lover to herself in both respects. 
 He was verv handsome, with most singularly 
 
 No. 2.1.
 
 354 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AKD HER SON. 
 
 dangerous eyes ; and his manners, demeanour, 
 and conversation, were much more polished 
 and pleasing, than was commonly the case 
 with young men in his condition. He was 
 fond of women ; and, young as he was, in- 
 stinctively possessed the art of making him- 
 self agreeable to them ; so that he shone forth 
 the Adonis of the hamlet that was happy 
 enough to call him its own ; and there was 
 scarcely a young maid in it, who would not 
 have been glad to change placos with Helen 
 Glover. 
 
 And now William began to press for what 
 is called an early day ; he wanted to be mar- 
 ried, and his father and mother, after some 
 representations about his youth, yielded to 
 his wishes. Martha first gave way, and 
 then won over John, by iteration of the old 
 proverb on the dangers of delay. So the day 
 was fixed, and great preparations set v on foot 
 for celebration and festivity. The wedding 
 was to take place at the village church ; and 
 then, in compliance with the wishes of Helen, 
 the young couple were to spend a few days 
 at N . This latter part of the arrange- 
 ment was not altogether satisfactory to 
 William. That was a place he would have 
 preferred avoiding it was connected with 
 disagreeable recollections ; and even when he 
 had been over for a day, to purchase a few 
 articles of dress and furniture for the ap- 
 proaching occasion, he had felt very uncom- 
 fortable, and had slunk through the streets 
 with the awkward consciousness, that he 
 deserved the contempt and execration of 
 every body he met, for his heartless and 
 unfeeling conduct ; and that it was not im- 
 possible he might somewhere come into contact 
 with Mrs. Gates, who, for what he knew, 
 might think proper to tell him so. Certainly, 
 this was not very probable ; but conscience 
 is an ill calculator of probabilities. He had 
 remained in town till evening, expressly for the 
 purpose of walking through Thomas Street 
 when it was dusk, and taking a look at the 
 house where he had left the unfortunate 
 Fanny. There, under the cloak of night, he 
 Stood upon the opposite pavement, and sur- 
 veyed the walls, and examined the windows 
 of the room she had inhabited ; and, if the 
 bricks could have answered him, he might 
 have learnt something of her fate : but he 
 did not dare to approach the door, nor to make 
 any inquiries ; and he quitted the city, as 
 ignorant of what had happened to her, as he 
 entered it. However, he had no reasonable 
 excuse to oppose to Helen's wishes, who, hav- 
 ing a much loved sister married to a Mr. 
 
 Davis, and settled there, was bent upon the 
 plan ; so he acceded to it, and the sister was 
 advertised of their intentions, and prepared 
 to receive them. 
 
 In the meantime, Martha was very busy 
 at home, preparing for the wedding. Store 
 of good things was laid in ; the furniture 
 was rubbed, and scrubbed, and polished ; all 
 the best things were dragged from their re- 
 pose to figure in the pageant, and, amongst 
 other treasures, Martha bethought herself of 
 her old family tea-pot. That, too, she resolved 
 should play its part in the representation ; 
 and, as it might require a good deal of brush- 
 ing up, she opened the bureau to take it out ; 
 but, great was her astonishment, when she 
 laid her hand on the baize cover, to feel it 
 yield beneath her fingers ; and still more was 
 she amazed at its lightness, when she at- 
 tempted to lift it. It actually dropt from 
 her hand silently it touched the board it 
 was clear there was no metal there ! Burn- 
 ing with indignation, and with vows of ven- 
 geance against the thief, she tore open the 
 bag but what did she see ? an old shirt and 
 waistcoat of her son's ; and, as they met her 
 eyes, the truth flashed upon her William 
 was the thief. 
 
 The first movement of Martha's mind, 
 upon this most unexpected discovery, was to 
 anger ; and her first feeling was of the wrong 
 done to herself, and the imposition that had 
 been practised upon her. To this succeeded 
 a certain degree of dismay that her well-be- 
 loved son should have been guilty of such an 
 act ; but this sentiment was not so strong or 
 engrossing as it would have been in a more 
 entirely upright mind. Then came the 
 anticipation of what would be his father's 
 feelings on the occasion his grief, his anger, 
 his indignation : for John Guinnis was a 
 thoroughly conscientious man, and went 
 commonly by the name of honest John. And 
 Helen what would she say and do? Might 
 not such a disclosure put an end to the 
 match ? Who could blame her if she refused 
 to fulfil her engagement with a man she 
 could not respect, and in whose principles 
 she could place no confidence ? This idea so 
 terrified Martha that it absolutely quelled 
 her passion ; and she resolved to keep the 
 secret both from the father and the bride, and 
 only to acquaint William with the discovery 
 she had made ; and this she did, reproaching 
 him vehemently with his dishonesty, and the 
 artifice by which he had concealed it. But 
 William was not much in awe of his mother's 
 principles ; and all fear of Fanny's affair
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 355 
 
 being detected having now subsided, he en- 
 countered her reproofs with considerable 
 philosophy ; turned the thing off with a jest, 
 promising to be a good boy for the future, 
 and never to do any thing so naughty 
 again. 
 
 " You know I shall be steady when I am 
 married, mother ; besides I shall not be with- 
 out a shilling in my pocket, as I used to be. 
 If my father had not kept me so short of 
 money, I shouldn't have been obliged to make 
 free with your tea-pot." 
 
 " And, pray, what did you want the money 
 for?" inquired Martha ; " for I am sure that 
 tea-pot must have brought a great deal." 
 
 " It was of considerable use to me, I assure 
 you ; and saved me from a great deal of 
 distress." 
 
 " Distress ! " echoed Martha ; " what dis- 
 tress could you be in ? I hope, William, you 
 haven't been gaming!" 
 
 " Suppose I did bet a little the day I was 
 at the races," answered William, willing to 
 confess to what he had not done, in order to 
 avoid the suspicion of what he had : " you 
 know it's no more than my father did before 
 me. I've often heard you reproach him with 
 his love of betting, mother." 
 
 " O r William ! " exclaimed Martha, turning 
 suddenly pale as the recollection stole over 
 her, " what did you do with the note ? " 
 
 "Note ! what note?" asked William. 
 
 " The note that was in the tea-pot," re- 
 plied Martha. 
 
 " I saw no note I never opened the tea- 
 pot that I recollect," said William. " What 
 note was in it ?" 
 
 " A bad five pound note that your father 
 took at the races some time ago," answered 
 Martha. " I ought to have burned it, but I 
 didn't ; and, now I think of it, I am sure it 
 was in the tea-pot." 
 
 " I never saw it," answei'ed William, "and 
 it is very lucky I did not ; for if I had at- 
 tempted to pass it, which I probably should, 
 I might have been taken up and found my- 
 self in jail." 
 
 " God be praised you did not find it!" said 
 Martha. " But whoever you sold the tea- 
 pot to must have found it. Who was it ?" 
 
 " The truth is," replied William, "I did 
 not sell the tea-pot myself. I gave it to a 
 person I owed some money to ; and I suppose 
 they sold it at least, I never heard any 
 more about it." 
 
 This fright about the note, together with 
 the self-reproach it occasioned her, and her 
 subsequent satisfaction at finding William 
 
 had incurred no danger from her criminal 
 neglect, had a magical effect in appeasing 
 Martha's anger. Indeed, she could hardly 
 be very severe with her son, when she felt 
 in her secret heart that her own act, all 
 circumstances taken into consideration, was 
 worse than his : so she recovered her equa- 
 nimity, patted him on the cheek, and bidding 
 him be a better boy for the future, promised 
 she would say nothing about it to Helen or 
 his father; "and so," thought William, 
 " there ends the affair of the tea-pot ! " and 
 shortly afterwards, under circumstances ap- 
 parently the most propitious, Helen became 
 his wife, and the young couple repaired to 
 the city to spend a week with their relations 
 Mr. and Mrs. Davis. 
 
 " If I hadn't been superstitious about 
 putting off weddings," said Mrs. Davis to 
 her visiters, " I should have asked you to 
 put yours off for a week or two, for we could 
 have made you much more comfortable at 
 any other time." 
 
 " Why ? " inquired Helen. 
 
 " Oh, because we 've got lodgers in the 
 house," answered Mrs. Davis. " This is 
 assize time, you know ; and the place is 
 crowded with strangers, and we've got a 
 couple of lawyers from London in our first 
 floor." 
 
 " We didn't know you had lodgers," re- 
 joined William ; " for the truth is, I proposed 
 this week because I thought it would be 
 gayer for Helen. She wanted to see a play, 
 and I suppose the actors are here, aren't they?" 
 " Oh, yes," replied Mrs. Davis, " there 
 are actors, and singers, and all sorts of amuse- 
 ments ; and you can go to the court some day, 
 if you like, and hear the trials. Our lodgers 
 have offered to get us into a good place." 
 
 "I don't think I should like it," said 
 Helen, " it must be so distressing." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! " said William, " I should 
 like it very much. All trials are not dis- 
 tressing besides, the more distressing the 
 more interesting, you know. You must go, 
 Helen," said he, kissing his young wife's 
 cheeks, " and Charlotte will get us places." 
 
 " Certainly, I '11 go if you wish it, dear," 
 answered Helen ; " probably it 's a mere idea 
 of mine that I shouldn't like it." 
 
 " I dare say it arises from the story my 
 mother used to tell you about the gipsy, 
 Helen," said Mrs. Davis. 
 
 " Oh, no," returned Helen, " I 'd forgotten 
 that." 
 
 " What was the story about the gipsy ? " 
 inquired William.
 
 356 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GU1NNIS AND HER SOX. 
 
 " Oh, there was an old woman came to 
 my mother's house once," answered Helen, 
 " and insisted on telling our fortunes ; and, 
 when it came to my turn, all she said was, 
 that I was to ' beware and keep out of the 
 Sessions House,' and they always used to 
 laugh at me at home about it, as if she 
 meant that I was to be taken there as a 
 criminal." 
 
 " To be sure she did," said Mrs. Davis. 
 
 " What else could she mean ? " said 
 William. 
 
 "I dare say she didn't know what she 
 meant herself," said Helen ; and, as this 
 seemed the most probable solution of the 
 mystery, the subject was dropt, and the con- 
 versation took another channel. 
 
 That night they went to the theatre, with 
 which Helen was so delighted, that they 
 went again and again ; and, between this 
 resource for the evenings, and the amuse- 
 ment they derived from the crowded streets 
 and gay shops in the mornings, the week 
 allotted for their holidays was passing so 
 rapidly away, that the visit to the court was 
 nearly forgotten ; but William was unwilling 
 to leave the city without seeing this sight 
 too ; so he requested Mrs. Davis to remind 
 her lodgers of their promise ; and, in com- 
 pliance with his wishes, the day before that 
 appointed for their return home was fixed 
 upon for the purpose. 
 
 CHAPTKK IV. 
 
 " THIS way," said Mr. Lister, their legal 
 friend, who had desired them to send in for 
 him when they arrived; "the court is not 
 much filled yet, and I shall be able to give 
 you a capital place." 
 
 " Is there any thing interesting coining on 
 to-day ? " inquired Mrs. Davis. 
 
 " Why, there 's nothing very interesting 
 at present," answered the barrister ; " but if 
 you are not tired out before, there may very 
 likely be something towards the afternoon. 
 There 's a girl to be tried for passing " 
 
 " You 're waited for, Mr. Lister," said one 
 of the ushers of the court. 
 
 " Oh, I '11 come directly," answered the 
 gentleman, and away he hurried, crying to 
 the party he had accommodated, " You '11 
 do very well there ; but I 'm afraid you '11 
 find it rather dull work for some time." 
 
 However, at first, the novelty of the scene 
 supplied amusement enough, though the trials 
 were not very interesting ; but, as the day 
 wore on, they did grow a little weary, Helen 
 
 especially, who repeatedly proposed going 
 away ; but William urged the hint they had 
 received that there was something more ex- 
 citing in petto ; and as his wife, like his 
 mother, was in the habit of submitting her 
 own wishes to his, he carried the day, and 
 they staid. 
 
 It was afternoon before the expected trial 
 came on. " I dare say this is it," said Wil- 
 liam, " there 's a woman in the dock ; and, 
 by her figure, she seems young. I wish we 
 could get a glimpse of her face." But as 
 they were opposite the bench, the back of 
 the prisoner was towards them ; and she 
 spoke so low, that whether she pleaded guilty 
 or not guilty they could not hear. They 
 asked their neighbours if they had heard 
 better, but they had not ; and, the curiosity 
 on the subject amongst the audience being 
 pretty general, there was a murmur of voices 
 raised in the court that for some minutes 
 prevented their hearing any thing that was 
 going on ; till, at length, the noise called 
 forth an observation from one of the judges, 
 and a threat that if it continued the court 
 should be cleared. This menace produced 
 silence, and gradually they began to distinguish 
 the words of the prosecuting counsel. " On 
 the same evening," said he, " the man went 
 away and was seen no more. We next find 
 her purchasing baby-linen in a warehouse 
 in Fore Street, where she tried to dispose of 
 a silver tea-pot." As these words reached 
 William's ears, a strange sensation shot 
 through his breast, the air of the place 
 became intolerably oppressive, his hands grew 
 clammy, a mist swam before his eyes, and, 
 for a few minutes, he was incapable of fol- 
 lowing the discourse of the speaker. But 
 he made an effort to collect himself, and 
 presently the voice and the words again 
 struck upon his senses. 
 
 " Shortly after having disposed of the 
 tea-pot," continued the counsel, " her confine- 
 ment took place ; and, by the account of the 
 nurse and the woman of the house, she had 
 plenty of money for all purposes ; but the 
 sum she obtained for the tea-pot may account 
 for that. During this period nobody visited 
 her nor inquired for her ; and, as soon as 
 she was well enough to move, she quitted 
 the lodging and returned home, having first 
 committed her child to the care of a woman 
 named Lang ; and it was to this person she 
 gave the five pound note as payment in 
 advance. For some time the child prospered, 
 but it at length fell ill and died. In the 
 mean time, however, the woman, Lang, had
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 357 
 
 payed away the note, and it was not long 
 before it fell into the hands of a person who 
 detected it, and traced it up to her without 
 difficulty. This happened exactly at the 
 time the child was lying in the house dead ; 
 and the same mail that bore the news to the 
 mother, conveyed the officer in pursuit of 
 her, to the village it was addressed to." 
 
 At these words the prisoner's head drooped 
 still lower than it had drooped before ; she 
 buried her face in her handkerchief, trying 
 to stifle the expression of the anguish that 
 rent her breast ; but, in spite of her efforts, 
 two or three such sobs broke from her bosom 
 as shook every mother's heart in the court, 
 and moved to pity even those most hardened 
 by custom. As for William, he wept so 
 violently, and the heavingsof his breast were 
 so convulsive, that Helen became alarmed, 
 and, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Davis, entreated 
 him to go away ; and, sensible of his utter ina- 
 bility to control his feelings, he would have 
 done so ; but, to penetrate the crowd that the 
 interest of the trial had now assembled, re- 
 quired an effort of which he felt -himself so 
 wholly incapable, that he preferred the pain 
 of remaining where he was ; added to which, 
 the apprehension of drawing the eyes of 
 others upon him, by any unusual stir, was 
 a very powerful incentive to him to keep 
 quiet. 
 
 When next able to listen, he found that 
 Mr. Wynyard was dilating on the singular 
 obstinacy of the prisoner ; who, not denying 
 that she knew, still pertinaciously refused to 
 confess from whom she had received the note. 
 Not only representations of the punishment 
 she would incur by her silence, but persua- 
 sion, and promises of protection and kind- 
 ness, had been tried in vain. Doubtless she 
 had got it from the man who had accompa- 
 nied her to the lodging her lover or her 
 husband, whichever he might be, ; but whether 
 when she passed it, she knew it to be bad, 
 was a question that remained for the jury to 
 decide. One thing, he must say, formed a 
 strong presumption against her and that 
 was the affair of the tea-pot. How that 
 came into her possession did not appear, nor 
 had she accounted for it ; but it was difficult 
 to believe that there was not some mystery 
 attached to it. If she had not come by it 
 dishonestly herself, she must have shrewdly 
 guessed that those who gave it her, did. If 
 not, why not avow where she got it ? Hav- 
 ing expatiated some time longer on this view 
 of the subject, the witnesses were called 
 the people belonging to the linen warehouse, 
 
 the silversmith, the midwife, and nurse, and 
 Mrs. Gates, and Mrs. Lang. They could give 
 no information with respect to the subject in 
 question ; but the situation of William may 
 be conceived, when Mrs. Gates was called 
 upon to describe the man who had accompa- 
 nied the prisoner when she took the lodging. 
 " He was a good-looking lad," she said 
 " quite young did not seem much above 
 twenty he had dark hair and dark whiskers 
 rather pale he had an anxious, vexed 
 kind of look, but she thought that was occa- 
 sioned by the young woman's situation he 
 seemed impatient like she did not think 
 he was the husband of the prisoner she 
 was not quite sure whether she should know 
 him again if she met him in the street she 
 had never seen him but that once she 
 thought she should know him by a mark on 
 his temple it was as if he had had a cut 
 there." Helen involuntarily turned her eyes 
 toward her husband ; but he was leaning for- 
 ward with his forehead resting on his arms, 
 which were supported by the back of the 
 seat in front of them, and his face was con- 
 cealed. 
 
 The counsel for the defence dwelt chiefly 
 on the probable motive of her silence. 
 Doubtless, he said, "it was to screen the 
 father of her child from danger most likely 
 he was her husband if not, he ought to 
 have been, and at all events his disappearance 
 and apparent desertion of his wife, or his 
 victim, was a strong presumption against 
 him. That he knew the note was a bad one, 
 there could be little doubt, but that he had 
 communicated that knowledge to her was 
 extremely unlikely. As for the tea-pot, as 
 no one complained of the loss of it, there was 
 no reason for supposing it was stolen ; and 
 with respect to her silence, although certainly 
 indefensible, as impeding the course of justice, 
 still the evident motive of it, the exalted 
 generosity that had already suffered disgrace, 
 imprisonment, and exposure in a public court, 
 and was ready to suffer still greater penalties, 
 rather than betray the probably unworthy 
 father of her child to his merited fate, was 
 not likely to dwell in the same mind with 
 fraud and dishonesty." 
 
 This last argument touched many hearts, 
 and when the jury retired, there was a strong 
 feeling amongst the audience in favour of 
 the prisoner. 
 
 This being the last cause to be called that 
 day, there was a general move in the court 
 as soon as it was over ; the judges withdrew, 
 the counsellors and clerks gathered up their
 
 358 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 papers and shuffled out, all eager to get to 
 their lodgings and prepare for the dinner 
 parties to which they were severally engaged : 
 the strangers also arose ; hut, owing to the 
 throng, it was some time before those in 
 front could move from their seats. 
 
 " William ! " said Helen, touching him on 
 the shoulder, for he had for some time been 
 so silent and motionless that she almost 
 fancied his feelings had exhausted him and 
 he had fallen asleep ; but when he lifted up 
 his head she could scarcely forbear uttering 
 a cry of alarm ; for if an age of sorrow and 
 sickness had passed over that young face, it 
 could scarcely have altered it more, the 
 drawn features, the livid complexion, the 
 pallid lips, the hollow eyes, the hair matted 
 on the damp brow, all showed that he had 
 passed through an agony inexpressible, a 
 conflict of the soul, pangs worse than 
 death ! 
 
 "Come, dear William!" said Helen, in a 
 low voice, and giving him her arm as a sup- 
 port. " You are ill, I see it is the heat 
 that has overcome you ;" and placing his 
 hat low upon his brow, and holding his 
 handkerchief to his face, he allowed her to 
 conduct him out. 
 
 " Let us avoid the crowd," whispered he 
 as they stept into the street. 
 
 " We will," said she ; " we'll go by the 
 back way ;" and bidding Mr. and Mrs. Davis 
 go forward alone, they turned into a side 
 street that led in an opposite direction. 
 
 William crawled on, attracting many eyes 
 from his languid gait and ghastly features, 
 which in spite of the handkerchief that was 
 held to his face and the hat that was drawn 
 over his brows, were very perceptible. 
 
 " He's ill," said a woman, as they passed, 
 " look at him." 
 
 " Well he may be," answered the person 
 she spoke to, " nobody can be surprised at 
 that." 
 
 How the culprit's heart quailed at this ob- 
 servation ! It was evident he was recognised ; 
 he would be hooted through the streets, and 
 perhaps arrested before he could reach Mrs. 
 Davis's door. He was so faint that his limbs 
 were scarcely able to support him ; but Helen, 
 who felt how his arm shook, summoned all 
 the courage of her brave heart, and bore him 
 strongly up. He did not hear the rest of the 
 conversation. "No, indeed," was the an- 
 swer. " I saw the crowd that came out, and 
 I heard 'em saying, how dreadful hot it was, 
 and how they were squeezed no wonder the 
 poor young man should be taken faint." But 
 
 the softest word may be a dagger to a guilty 
 heart. 
 
 " I wish we were at home," whispered 
 William. 
 
 " We shall soon be there," answered Helen. 
 " We are away from the crowd now ; and if 
 you would breathe the air, you would lie 
 better." But so imminent appeared to him the 
 danger of meeting Mrs. Gates, or somebody 
 that might recognise him, that he had not 
 courage to uncover his face. At length they 
 reached the house. 
 
 " Goodness ! how long you have been com- 
 ing ! " cried Mrs. Davis ; " and we are wait- 
 ing dinner for you." 
 
 " The heat of the court has so overcome 
 William," answered Helen, " that he has not 
 yet recovered it, and he is going to lie down." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense !" said Mrs. Davis ; "his 
 dinner will do him a great deal more good. 
 I dare say it is the want of it that is making 
 him ill. I didn't think it so very hot." 
 
 " It was that trial that knocked up 
 William," said Mr. Davis ; "I saw he 
 couldn't hold up his head, he was so much 
 affected by it." 
 
 "It is a dreadful story to be sure!" said 
 Mrs. Davis ; " but I am so angry with the 
 girl for not telling ! why should she sacrifice 
 herself to spare such a wretch as that ? If 
 he had a spark of goodness in him, he'd come 
 forward at once and avow his own guilt." 
 
 " Let us go, Kate," said Helen to her sister, 
 who was endeavouring to lead them into the 
 parlour, where the maid was just placing the 
 dinner on the table. " We neither of us can 
 eat ; sit down and take your own dinners, 
 and never mind us." 
 
 " How very provoking !" exclaimed Mrs. 
 Davis, " and I've got the most beautiful loin 
 of veal you ever saw in your life. I got it 
 on purpose for William as a treat for the last 
 day, because he said he was so fond of it." 
 
 " It is provoking," answered Helen ; " but 
 if you will let us go and lie down for a little 
 while, we shall be better by and by ;" and 
 so saying, she led William away. 
 
 When William had taken off his coat and 
 thrown himself upon the bed, Helen told him 
 she would leave him to get a little sleep ; 
 and, softly closing the door, she retired into 
 her sister's bedroom, where, whilst the dinner 
 lasted, she was pretty sure of not being inter- 
 rupted. Here she threw herself on her knees, 
 and ventured to relieve her heart by tears. 
 She had penetrated the secret : the mark on 
 the forehead had drawn her attention to her 
 husband, without however raising her sus-
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 3.*.'* 
 
 picions it was a thing that might be com- 
 mon to many. But his subsequent agitation 
 and distress were far beyond any thing that 
 could be attributed to sympathy ; and when, 
 for a moment, he uncovered his face, the 
 hue of guilt was too plainly upon it, to admit 
 of the possibility of mistake. What then 
 became her duty to do? she was his wedded 
 wife ; and, however great might be the claims 
 of the unhappy prisoner, she could not yield 
 to them. Criminal as he was, her fate was 
 bound up with his for good and for ill ; and 
 to lose time in calculating the evil that pro- 
 bably awaited herself, would have been use- 
 less, had she been inclined ; which indeed 
 she was not ; for love, which dies under a 
 series of petty injuries, or the constant ex- 
 hibition of mean defects, will often survive 
 the shock of a heavy blow, or the sudden 
 disclosure of crime. She fell on her knees, 
 and asked Heaven for counsel. Assuredly, 
 the girl must be justified ; the blame must fall 
 where it was due ; her husband must avow 
 his guilt ; he must submit to disgrace and 
 infamy ; he must appear as a criminal at the 
 bar ; and would probably pass the rest of 
 his days, or a considerable portion of them, 
 an exile from his country. But would 
 William consent to the avowal ? She hoped, 
 from the evident suffering of his conscience, 
 and self-reproach, that he would ; and she 
 resolved, the moment she saw him able to 
 bear it, to spare him the pain of a confession, 
 and broach the subject herself; and as so 
 imperative a duty, as exonerating the inno- 
 cent, could not be performed too soon, she 
 returned to the room, to see if he were more 
 composed : but, to her surprise, he seemed to 
 be asleep ; so she sat quietly down beside 
 him, to await his awakening. But he slept 
 on ; and, by and by, her sister knocked at 
 the door, to inquire if they would not go 
 down to tea. Helen, who felt exhausted and 
 weak, and required some refreshment, ac- 
 cepted the invitation ; not liking to arouse 
 observation by so unusual a proceeding, as 
 taking her tea up stairs. For a moment, she 
 hung over the bed, and listened to his breath- 
 ing it was calm ; but his face was hidden 
 by the sheet, and she could not see its expres- 
 sion ; so she gently closed the door, and left 
 him. 
 
 She was no sooner gone, than William 
 first raised his head, and then, sitting up in 
 bed, he listened to her footsteps as she de- 
 scended the stairs ; then he got out of bed, 
 and going to the door, gently opened it, and 
 stood with it in his hand till he had heard 
 
 the closing of the parlour door below. Satis- 
 fied that he was alone for the present, he next 
 prepared to go out, tying a handkerchief 
 round his throat that hid the lower part of 
 his face ; and, with his hat over his brows 
 as before, after again listening for a moment, 
 he softly descended the stairs, stept lightly 
 through the passage, noiselessly lifted the 
 latch of the street door, and found himself in 
 the street. He then took the first turning he 
 came to, lest he should be pursued ; and, by 
 a circuitous road, at length reached the 
 prison ; where having rang at the bell, and 
 announced himself as the brother of Frances 
 Edmunds, he was admitted to see her. 
 
 "I suppose you know she's acquitted," 
 said the jailor, as he conducted him across 
 the court. 
 
 " Is she ? " said William, eagerly. " Does 
 she know it herself?" 
 
 " Oh yes," replied the man ; " she might 
 be out by this, if she had liked it, but she said 
 she had no place to go to, and begged leave 
 to stay here till to-morrow ; so she's in the 
 matron's room." 
 
 "Couldn't I see her alone?" inquired 
 William. 
 
 "Oh, yes," replied the man. "Step in 
 here and I '11 call her out ; " and having in- 
 troduced the visiter into an empty cell, he 
 left him, and presently afterwards the door 
 opened, and Fanny entered. 
 
 " Oh, William ! " she cried, clasping her 
 hands when she saw who it was. " I thought 
 it was my brother." 
 
 " No, Fanny," replied William, " it 's me. 
 Isn't it the least I can do to come and see 
 you when it is I that have brought you here. 
 But perhaps you did not think I had feeling 
 enough to come and see you ? " 
 
 " I did not suppose you knew I was here," 
 returned she. "But I am acquitted, Wil- 
 liam." 
 
 "So I hear," replied he ; "but I did n't 
 know that till the jailor told me of it. If 
 you had not been acquitted I intended to 
 give myself up at once, and say that I sent 
 you the note though you may believe me 
 or not but I knew nothing of it. I have 
 since heard that there was such a thing in 
 the tea-pot my mother told me ; but I had 
 taken the tea-pot unknown to her, and I 
 never looked into it." 
 
 "I am glad, very glad," sobbed Fanny, 
 putting her hands before her face to stifle 
 her emotion, " so glad oh, so glad that 
 you did not know it ! " 
 
 " I am bad enough," answered William ;
 
 300 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 " but not so bad as that either. But I can't 
 wonder at your thinking I was. But now, 
 Fanny, time presses I have not long to 
 stay, for I must see my mother before many 
 hours are over my head. What are you 
 going to do ? " 
 
 " To stay here to-night," answered Fanny. 
 
 " But afterwards ? I suppose you '11 not 
 think of going home again ? " 
 
 " Oh, never, never ! " answered Fanny, 
 again covering her face with her hands. " I 'd 
 rather die than see my father." 
 
 " Well, then, Fanny, will you go with me?" 
 asked William. " This country is no home 
 for either you or me, now. I mean to leave 
 it, and I '11 take you with me if you will 
 go." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, William ! Thank you," 
 said Fanny, for she never doubted that she 
 was to go as his wife. " Oh, if my poor 
 baby had but lived, I should have been al- 
 most happy now. And you would have loved 
 him so, William ; I'm sure you would he 
 was so pretty ! " 
 
 *' I wish he had," said William, who felt 
 that, in breaking all the ties that were dear 
 to him, and casting himself on the broad 
 waters, he needed something to cling to. " I 
 wish he had ; but it's no use wishing that 
 now. I must be gone. You '11 leave this 
 to-morrow, I suppose?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Fanny, " I was just 
 asking the matron if she could be so good as 
 get me some employment." 
 
 " Well, you won't want any now, in this 
 country at least. But what you must do is 
 this. Stay here to-morrow as long as you 
 can till the afternoon if they'll let you 
 and then when you get out, go at once to 
 that house where I met you the first day you 
 came to N . You remember ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, the White Horse," answered 
 Fanny. 
 
 " There I will meet you to-morrow night," 
 continued he. " You '11 stay, at all events, 
 till I come." 
 
 " Very well," replied she ; " but will they 
 let me, for I have no money." 
 
 William gave her a few shillings ; and 
 having renewed his injunctions, he took 
 leave of her ; and having quitted the prison, 
 he started immediately on the road to Clay- 
 ton, which was the name of his father's farm. 
 He might have travelled by the coach ; but 
 as he sought solitude and concealment, it 
 suited him better to go on foot, besides that 
 the exercise afforded some relief to the rest- 
 lessness and agitation of his mind. 
 
 In the mean time, Helen having finished 
 her tea, she returned to her room with the 
 intention of asking "William if he would take 
 any. She opened the door and put in her 
 head all was silent, so she stept lightly 
 forward to the bed, but nothing stirred, he 
 must be still asleep. It was evening ; the 
 curtains of the bed, as well as those of the 
 window, were drawn ; and William had 
 pulled up the coverings when he left the bed, 
 in the hope that if she returned sooner than 
 he expected, she might not perceive his ab- 
 sence. Neither did she ; and believing him 
 to be still asleep, it occurred to her that per- 
 haps this was the best time she could choose 
 for executing the project she had formed, of 
 paying a visit to the prisoner. If Fanny 
 were acquitted and left the jail, she might 
 not so easily find her ; besides, it was cruel 
 to leave her all night ignorant of the justifi- 
 cation that awaited her. Added to this shall 
 we own it? there was a little alloy of curio.si- 
 ty, mingled with a great deal of pity ; then she 
 too was restless and miserable, sitting still 
 with her own wretched thoughts was insup- 
 portable. To see and converse with the 
 unhappy girl was both doing good and re- 
 lieving herself. So, now anxious not to 
 disturb the sleeper, she softly drew forth her 
 bonnet and shawl, crept out of the room and 
 down the stairs, and succeeded in getting 
 out of the house, and reaching her destina- 
 tion without interruption, where her appear- 
 ance immediately obtained her admittance. 
 
 Fanny was still sitting where William 
 had left her, with her arms crossed, and her 
 eyes on the ground, pondering on the future. 
 Her fate, after all, seemed likely to turn out 
 better than she had expected. She was to 
 leave the country, and go God knew 
 whither ; but forsaken by her family as she 
 was, that was little it was even a benefit, 
 for she dreaded nothing so much as seeing 
 either her father or her brother again. Then 
 she was to be William's wife ; and although 
 she could not reasonably expect a great deal of 
 comfort in a marriage made under such circum- 
 stances, yet it was much not to be absolutely 
 alone in the world, to have somebody to cling 
 to. Besides, in spite of all his worthless and 
 unfeeling conduct, he was still the only love 
 of her young heart she blamed herself and 
 excused him, arguing that he was justified 
 in the neglect he had shown her ; it was no 
 more than men generally did in the like 
 cases the matron had told her so : they 
 promised marriage, but their object gained, 
 their promises went to the winds, and the
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 30 1 
 
 weak believing fool was cast off and for- 
 gotten ; she had met with no more than her 
 deserts. Then she formed good resolutions 
 for the time to come. She would make him 
 a good wife, and force him to respect her ; 
 and she felt how much she might, by her 
 conduct and industry, contribute to his future 
 happiness and prosperity. Yes ! however 
 wretched he seemed now, she hoped the time 
 might yet arrive when she should see him 
 happy and contented ; and the thought was 
 so cheering, that it brought a smile to poor 
 Fanny's lips, the first that had beamed there 
 for many a day. She had just reached this 
 stage of her reflections, when the door opened, 
 and a lady entered the cell. 
 
 It was by this time getting dark, and 
 although each could see the outline of the 
 other's figure, the features were undistinguish- 
 able. At the words of the jailor, " Here 's 
 a lady asking for you," Fanny rose from her 
 seat. 
 
 "Excuse me ! " said Helen, with a trembling 
 voice, for though she had wrought herself up 
 to the interview, now that the crisis had 
 arrived she shook with agitation and scarcely 
 knew how to begin. 
 
 " I am come to tell you," said she, after 
 clearing her throat, "that yo\i will be justified. 
 There are those who know you are not to 
 blame about the note the person who sent 
 it you will come forward and avow it and 
 then you will be set free." 
 
 " I am free, thank you, ma'am," answered 
 Fanny ; "they have acquitted me." 
 
 " I am glad of it," replied Helen ; " but 
 still you must be cleared of it altogether. It 
 is not just that you should remain under any 
 suspicion." 
 
 " I don't mind the suspicion, ma'am," 
 answered Fanny ; " the person who sent the 
 note to me did not know it was bad, and I 
 don't wish to bring him into trouble." 
 
 "But to say nothing about it would be a 
 great injustice to you, I am afraid," returned 
 Plelen, who, however, began to see that if 
 Fanny was already acquitted, and really did 
 not desire any farther justification, there might 
 be no necessity for the dreadful exposure. 
 
 " I 'm going away out of the country 
 directly, ma'am," answered Fanny, " and I 
 should be very sorry there was any more 
 stir made about it." 
 
 " Out of the country ! " repeated Helen, 
 much relieved. " Indeed, and have you any 
 friend to go with ? " 
 
 " I shall go with my husband, ma'am," 
 answered Fanny. 
 
 "Your husband ! " said Helen. "Are you 
 married, then ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am, but I shall be before we set 
 off." 
 
 " Really ? " said Helen, rather surprised, 
 and feeling somewhat delicate about asking 
 for more information, although, at the same 
 time, her sympathy for Fanny's misfortunes 
 was considerably diminished. " I confess," 
 she added, after a pause, " I fancied your 
 persevering silence must have been the result 
 of strong attachment to the person that sent 
 you the note." 
 
 " So it was, ma'am," replied Fanny. " I 
 never loved any body else and don't now. 
 In spite of the trouble he has brought me 
 
 into, I love Wil that is, him that sent 
 
 me the note, I mean, better than " 
 
 " Stop ! " answered Helen ; " it is not fair 
 that I should sit here listening to your 
 secrets without telling you who I am I am 
 William's wife. I should not, perhaps, have 
 told you this, as it may give you pain ; but, 
 as you are on the point of being married to 
 another person, it is better that I should tell 
 you it is right you should know that he 
 is married, as the conviction may help to 
 cure you of your unfortunate attachment, 
 which, you know, will be doubly wrong 
 when you have a husband of your own." 
 
 " Here 's a candle I 've brought you," said 
 the jailor, entering and placing one on the 
 table. " I thought you 'd be in the dark ;" 
 and, as he closed the door, the two young 
 women beheld each other's features. Helen's 
 face handsome andregular, with blue eyes 
 and light brown hair was flushed with the 
 excitement and agitation of the scene, and 
 with her hasty walk; Fanny with ^ less 
 regular features, hazle eyes and dark hair 
 was pale as marble, and, for some moments, 
 as motionless. Helen's last words had trans- 
 fixed her ; till, suddenly laying her hand on 
 the arm of her visiter, and grasping it as 
 with the gripe of the death agony, she uttered, 
 in a low, but firm and distinct voice, " Are 
 you William Guinnis's wife ?" 
 
 " I am," answered Helen, whose heart 
 Avas somewhat hardened towards her by her 
 avowal of love for one man, at the same time 
 that she confessed her intention of marrying 
 another. " We were married last Thursday 
 at Clayton." 
 
 " Then what brought you here ? " asked 
 Fanny, fiercely. 
 
 " I came to assure you that you would be 
 justified, and that William would not allow 
 you to pay the penalty of Ms fault."
 
 362 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 " Thank you," answered Fanny, sarcasti- 
 cally ; and then, as the expression of her 
 face changed, and the tone of her voice 
 softened, she added, "but why should I be 
 savage with you ? Who have I to blame 
 but myself?" 
 
 " You have no doubt been very much to 
 blame," replied Helen ; " but you have also 
 suffered severely for a fault you did not 
 commit ; and, if you conduct yourself pru- 
 dently for the future, you may yet regain the 
 world's esteem, and recover your peace of 
 mind. As you do not desire any farther 
 justification, tell me if there is any thing 
 else I can do for you. I assure you, I shall 
 be very glad to be of service to you, if I can. 
 Have you any money ? " 
 
 " Plenty, plenty," answered Fanny. " I 
 want nothing whatever, thank you." 
 
 " Well, then, if I can do nothing for you, 
 I '11 leave you," said Helen, rising. 
 
 "Do do " said Fanny, abstractedly. 
 "Yes there is one thing you can do for 
 me, though one thing will you do it?" 
 
 " Yes, I will, if I can," answered Helen. 
 
 " Well, here's a ring that William Guinnis 
 gave me when first he courted me, and I 
 thought / was to be what you are now 
 give it to him, will you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I will, certainly." 
 
 " Tell him, I shall be a bride this night, 
 and sleep in my husband's arms ; and bid 
 him, when he lays his head on his pillow, 
 think how I shall rest on mine." 
 
 " Good evening ! " said Helen, disliking 
 her words, and beginning to think that there 
 was more apology for William's conduct than 
 she had supposed. 
 
 " Good evening," said Fanny, drily, " re- 
 member my message." 
 
 " What strange levity ! " thought Helen, 
 as she quitted the room. " That girl must 
 have needed little persuasion to go wrong at 
 any time." 
 
 CHAPTER v. 
 
 IT was near morning when William reached 
 Clayton ; and weary and worn, he laid 
 himself down to rest in a dry ditch, within 
 sight of his father's house. He would have 
 been glad to get a little sleep, and he did fall 
 occasionally into an uneasy slumber ; but a 
 certain strange feeling within the breast still 
 started him awake again not thought 
 not recollection it was no motion of the 
 brain that woke him but a voice from the 
 inner man from that nervous centre where, 
 
 according to the German psychologists, dwells 
 the inner life. Who that has known sorrow 
 has not been awakened by it ? There, too, 
 must be the home of conscience and the 
 dwelling of remorse there it drags and 
 gnaws its prey, ever and anon arousing the 
 slumbering brain, that starting into vigilance, 
 asks, " What woke me ? " for sleep had 
 steeped it in forgetfulness ; and then memory 
 awakens, and the recollection of the sorrow 
 or the crime steals over it and we know 
 that we are wretched. 
 
 So slumbered and so woke William, till it 
 was broad morning. What a change had 
 the last twenty-four hours made in his fate. 
 Could this be the same sun that had peeped 
 into his chamber window the morning before, 
 witnessed his peaceful sleep, and shone on 
 the fair face of his lovely and innocent wife 
 as she lay beside him ? He recalled the 
 words she said to him when she awoke 
 how she had thanked God for their good 
 rest, and all the blessings he had bestowed 
 on them ; contrasting their happy fate with 
 that of the poor criminals they were going 
 that day to see. And now, who amongst 
 them could be more wretched than he was ? 
 and where was her happiness now ? Wrecked 
 wrecked for ever ! She had embarked 
 her fortunes in a doomed ship a vessel 
 freighted with crime and with it they 
 must sink and perish. Bitter, bitter thought ! 
 
 Thus he lay for some time, the joyous 
 birds chanting their matins over his head, 
 and the busy insects buzzing their glad 
 welcome to the sun, when by degrees the 
 human world began to stir. The industrious 
 farmer led his team a-field, the ploughman 
 " whistled o'er the lea ;" he heard the 
 rattling of the milkmaid's pails, and the 
 echo of her cheery voice summoning her 
 milky charge to fill them ; and the tramp of 
 the labourer's heavy foot resounded close on 
 the path above him. By and by the shutters 
 of his father's house were opened, the window 
 of his mother's room was thrown up, and she 
 looked out. Ah, wretched mother ! how 
 much more wretched than you know ! The 
 maid came to the door, and looked out, and 
 shook the hearth-nig, and swept the door- 
 stone ; and then his father came out, bare- 
 headed, with his gray hair floating in the 
 breeze, and stood some time upon the step, 
 looking up to the sky, scanning the weather 
 and surveying the fields. After this, William 
 knew they would go to breakfast, and that 
 done, that his father would leave the house 
 for some hours. Accordingly, in about
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 363 
 
 half-an-hour the old man appeared with hi, 
 hat and stick, and trudged cheerily away 
 upon his morning's business. Then William 
 rose out of the ditch and stole towards the 
 house. 
 
 Martha was very busy that day, for she 
 expected the bride and bridegroom home, 
 and she was preparing for their reception. 
 She had been preparing, indeed, all the week, 
 but still she fancied she had a great deal to 
 do. She was so pleased and so proud, in 
 short, that she must still be doing and 
 calling to the maid to ask if she had dusted 
 out the new chest of drawers, and where she 
 had put the new bed-side carpet, and whether 
 she had stuffed the goose with potatoes, and 
 what was become of the mustard-pot ; and 
 then she went to look out of the window in 
 order to congratulate herself on the beautiful 
 day the young couple would have for their 
 journey. But who is that approaching the 
 door? what soiled, dusty, haggard-looking 
 traveller with the air of William, too, and 
 with William's walk ? It 's impossible, 
 surely ! at this hour ! Some accident must 
 have happened Helen ill coach over- 
 turned what could it be ? To think these 
 things and to rush down stairs to the door 
 was the affair of a moment, " 0, William ! 
 is that you ? What 's the matter ? " 
 " Let me come in and I '11 tell you." 
 " Why, you 're as white as the tablecloth, 
 and you 're all over dust surely you never 
 thought of coming by the night coach ! 
 Where in the world is Helen ? " 
 
 " Give me a cup of tea, will you I 'm 
 choking with thirst." 
 
 " But surely you can tell me in a word 
 what has brought you here in this way 
 where is Helen ? Is she safe ? " 
 
 "Quite safe she's at her sister's. Get 
 the tea and make haste, for I have not half- 
 an-hour to stop ; and when I have moistened 
 my throat, I '11 tell you every thing." So 
 Martha bustled about the tea, which was 
 soon ready ; and then she poured him out a 
 cup, which he drank off and another 
 and another. " No, thank you I can't eat 
 Heaven knows when I shall eat again. 
 You remember that five pound note you said 
 was in the tea-pot ? " 
 
 " The five pound note ! Oh, yes!" 
 " Well, I sent the tea-pot to Fanny Ed- 
 munds, the day I went over to N . 
 
 When I told you I was going to meet some 
 of the Edmundses, it was to meet her. She 
 
 was with child " 
 
 "By you?" 
 
 "Yes, by me and she got away from 
 
 home and came to N , to ask me to help 
 
 her out of the scrape ; so, as I had no money, 
 I sent her the tea-pot." 
 
 " Oh, William, why didn't you tell me of 
 the difficulty you were in, and see if I could 
 not have helped you?" 
 
 "Never mind why I didn't, now you 
 know you'd have gone into a passion and 
 told my father, and told Helen, and most 
 likely old Edmunds too, and there'd have 
 been the devil to pay however, I didn't, 
 that's enough ; it's too late to talk of why, 
 now. Well, she found the note, and passed 
 it ; and yesterday when I, and Helen, and 
 the Davises, went to hear the prisoners tried, 
 what should I see but Fanny Edmunds at 
 the bar, brought up for passing a bad five 
 pound note." 
 
 " Oh, mercy ! And did she say you had 
 sent it to her?" 
 
 "No; she didn't, and she wouldn't, al- 
 though she had been in prison three months 
 for it," 
 
 " And what have they done to her?" 
 " Nothing : she's acquitted." 
 " Well ; that is lucky, to be sure ! Then 
 nobody suspects you?" 
 
 " Nobody but Helen Helen knows it. I 
 couldn't conceal it from her ; and, in short, 
 I didn't wish to conceal it from her I 
 couldn't try." 
 
 " And what does she say ? how does she 
 take it?" 
 
 " She lias said nothing yet, and I don't 
 mean to wait till she^ does. I couldn't, and 
 I wouldn't live with any woman who had 
 such a thing to throw in my teeth and I 
 never mean to see Helen again ;" and al- 
 though he endeavoured to command his voice 
 and to speak with calm determination, the 
 trembling lip, and the glistening eye betrayed 
 the anguish the resolution cost him. 
 
 "But that's madness, William! that's 
 running in the face of misery, when there's 
 no need for it ! You know very well that 
 Helen has too much sense to reproach you 
 with any thing of the sort ; and if the girl's 
 acquitted, why need any thing be said about 
 it?" 
 
 " I dare say that is your view of the case, 
 but it is not mine ; and as my mind is made 
 up, it's no use losing time in talking. What 
 [ want you to do for me, is, to give me a 
 ittle money ; have you any ?" 
 
 " Perhaps I have ; but what are you going 
 to do with it, William ?" 
 
 " I'm going abroad, if you must know."
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GULNX1S AM) HKR SOX. 
 
 " Abroad ! where, in the name of Heaven 1 
 and to leave Helen behind?" 
 
 " Certainly, Helen will live at home, as 
 she did before ; or with you, if she likes it 
 better. She 's got her money safe I've never 
 touched a halfpenny of it, nor ever shall," 
 and again the under lip quivered. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! " cried Martha, wringing 
 her hands ; " and is this what it's all come 
 to?" 
 
 " Yes, mother," answered William ; " this 
 is what folly, and crime, and such sinful 
 conduct always does come to, I suppose ; only 
 people don't believe it till they've tried it. 
 But it's no use talking of that now ; what I 
 want to know is, if you can give me any 
 money?" 
 
 " Money ! no to be sure ! " exclaimed Martha 
 with violence ; " why should I give you 
 money to play the fool with, and make things 
 worse than they are now? Do you think I'll 
 help you to desert your wife, and go out of 
 the country, and ruin yourself ? Not I indeed ; 
 that you may rely on." 
 
 " Very well, mother, then I must go with- 
 out money," said William, rising and taking 
 up his hat ; " only, when I am gone, remem- 
 ber this it was my own fault that I seduced 
 Fanny Edmunds, and that I took the tea-pot 
 but when I seduced her, I liked her, and 
 I meant to marry her some time or other ; for 
 I had forgotten Helen then I was a fickle 
 fool, and out of sight out of mind. But I 
 say, remember, mother, that it was your fault 
 that there was a bad note in the tea-pot. I 
 never could guess that, you know ; and since 
 we're going to part, it's as well to have it all 
 out : perhaps, if you had been a different 
 mother to me, things might have been dif- 
 ferent now. I knew in my heart you were 
 wrong, and that my father was right, many 
 a time when you countenanced me in doing 
 things I shouldn't have done. Perhaps, I 
 should never have taken your tea-pot, if I 
 hadn't seen you take money out of his drawer 
 sometimes when you bade me not tell him of 
 it. There were other things beside : example 's 
 never lost upon children, depend on it. How- 
 ever it's no use going on in this way ; will 
 you give me some money?" 
 
 Silently, with her features rigid and her 
 cheeks as pale as death, Martha turned away, 
 and opening a small corner drawer of the old 
 bureau, where she kept her lamb's wool and 
 worsteds for knitting, she thrust her hand to 
 the back, and drew from underneath every 
 thing else a purse, containing fifteen guineas 
 in gold. Silently she placed it in her son's 
 
 hand, her eyes the while glaring in his face 
 with an expression that at once terrified and 
 affected him. 
 
 "Mother!" he said, arresting the hand 
 that transferred the purse, and grasping it 
 between both his own " Mother, forgive me ! 
 It was cruel very cruel but I'm mad and 
 desperate ; forgive me before I go ! we shall 
 never meet again." 
 
 " My child ! my son ! my only one ! my 
 all upon the earth !" screamed Martha. " My 
 all that I have lived for worked for 
 breathed for My William ! my William ! 
 my baby, that sat upon my knee, and turned 
 up his innocent face and called me mother 
 my pride and my glory my handsome young 
 man ! and I've ruined him undone him 
 brought him to shame and to misery ! You 're 
 right, right, right it is all mv doing: all, 
 all, all!" 
 
 "Oh mother! mother!" cried William, 
 "don't be too hard upon yourself. I knew 
 very well I was doing wrong, and I shouldn't 
 have done it ; but I was weak and foolish, 
 I didn't mean to be wicked but it's no use 
 making ourselves more miserable than we 
 are by reproaches. Let us part friends. 
 God bless you, mother ! take care of Helen 
 comfort her, and tell her, for all she may 
 think, I love her dearly but I could never 
 look in her face again. I always knew I 
 was not worthy of her ; she was too high 
 too upright and lofty for such a one as I 
 no, no, I could never look in her face again. 
 One thing you must promise me ; don't let 
 my father follow me ; it would be of no use ; 
 he could never find me ; nobody '11 ever 
 know what is become of me, nor what port 
 I shall embark at. Perhaps, some day I'll 
 write to you ; but I don't promise ; may be 
 it's better not ; it will only renew your grief. 
 And now, mother, good-bye! Hush! hush! 
 yoxi'll be heard. My poor father ! give my 
 love to him. God bless yon both! God bless 
 you ! God bless you 1" 
 
 The door closed on him, and the mother 
 fell upon her face to the ground. 
 
 About the same hour that this scene passed 
 in the farm-house at Clayton, a well-dressed, 
 respectable-looking young man, with a natu- 
 rally austere countenance, on which the 
 traces of much immediate annoyance were 
 very legible, descended from the Weatherby 
 coach, at the door of the White Horse that 
 small inn which, at the period we refer to, 
 stood at the extreme end of the city on that side. 
 When he handed his gratuity to the coach- 
 man, he bade him call for him there the next
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 365 
 
 day, on his return ; after which he entered 
 the house, asked for the morning's paper 
 and something to eat; and having sought 
 and found what concerned him in the 
 former, and despatched the latter, he took up 
 his hat and departed ; saying that, as he in- 
 tended returning by the coach on the follow- 
 ing day, he would take a bed there. He then 
 proceeded with a rapid pace towards the jail, 
 and, ringing at the gate, inquired for Fanny 
 Edmunds. "Has she left?" inquired he; 
 " and if not, can I see her V 
 
 " You're too late," said the man who had 
 opened the gate, looking at him with some 
 curiosity. " Be you the person that came 
 here to see her last night?" 
 
 "No," replied the stranger, "I have not 
 been here before. But is she gone ?" 
 
 " She's gone," answered the man, "gone 
 out of the world, poor cretur." 
 " Dead ! " exclaimed the stranger. 
 "Ay," said the man ; "if you're one be- 
 longing to her, you may come and see her, 
 if you like." 
 
 " She was alive yesterday ; she was in the 
 court, wasn't she ?" inquired the stranger. 
 
 " Ay, she was," answered the man. But 
 after she was acquitted, there came a young 
 man here last night: he said he was her 
 
 brother " 
 
 "Her brother!" 
 
 "He said so but I doubt he told a lie. 
 However, he was some time with her ; and 
 before he was well gone, there came a young 
 lady to visit her, and, poor thing, I was glad 
 to see she'd got friends. For the whole 
 blessed time she'd been here afore the trial, 
 not a soul had ever so much as axed if she 
 was alive or dead." 
 
 The stranger here clapt his hand to his 
 brow, as if some painful thought had crossed 
 him. 
 
 " She was a gentle cretur," said the man, 
 "and as patient as a lamb; though she'd 
 a bold spirit too, for she'd never let on 
 who gave her the note : my mind misgives 
 me it was that 'ere chap as was here last 
 night." 
 
 " But how came she to die ? What caused 
 her death?" inquired the visiter. 
 
 "Herself!" answered the man ; "the in- 
 quest's going to sit upon the body presently." 
 "But didn't she know she was acquitted?" 
 inquired the stranger. 
 
 " Oh yes, she did," said the man. " She 
 knew it very well ; but, somehow, I think 
 this here business lias to do with that 'ere 
 young man I spoke of. There was something 
 
 about him I didn't like, with his chin tied 
 up, and his hat over his eyes ; but, to be 
 sure, I thought at the time that it might 
 be pride, that he didn't like to show his face, 
 coming to see his sister in such a place." 
 
 " Did she seem in any particular distress 
 then when he left her?" asked the stranger. 
 " Why, when the matron heard this morn- 
 ing what had happened, it struck her that 
 there was something wild and strange about 
 her. She questioned her very much about 
 what she was going to do when she got out, 
 and if she had any friends that would be 
 kind to her ; but she said she didn't want any 
 friends; and she didn't mean to trouble them; 
 and she should provide for herself ; and so 
 forth poor cretur! she meant death, I 
 s'pose, as perwides for all on us." 
 
 The stranger then visited the body, and 
 having obtained an interview with the gover- 
 nor, and made very particular inquiries with 
 respect to the air, dress, and appearance of 
 the suspicious visiter of the preceding evening, 
 he departed. His next visit was to the chief 
 magistrate of the city; and after holding 
 conferences with him and other official and 
 influential persons, in which the day was 
 consumed, he again turned his steps towards 
 the White Horse, where he took his tea, and 
 went to bed, desiring to be called at five 
 o'clock. 
 
 About two hours afterwards it was mid- 
 night, and the inmates of the little inn had 
 already retired to bed a knocking was 
 heard upon the door, and a voice called 
 "House!" whereupon, the unwilling host 
 got out of bed, wrapt himself in a great-coat, 
 thrust his feet into his shoes, and descending 
 the stairs, inquired " Who was there ? " 
 
 " A traveller," answered one from without. 
 " Open the door I want a bed." 
 
 A weary, way-worn traveller, indeed, this 
 disturber of their rest appeared, when having 
 shown him into a parlour the host struck a 
 light and held it to his face. 
 
 " I want a glass of beer and a bed," said 
 he. 
 
 " We've only one bed in the house," said 
 the host, "and that's in a double-bedded room, 
 and I don't know how far the gentleman 
 that's sleeping there may like your company;" 
 not a very complimentary speech for a host 
 but there was a strange, wild, reckless 
 look about the stranger, and this, together 
 with the state of his attire, which, though 
 very good, appeared to be in an extraordinary 
 state of neglect, involuntarily suggested the 
 idea of a fugitive from a mad-house.
 
 366 
 
 THE STORY OF MARTHA GUINNIS AND HER SON. 
 
 " He will have no cause to object to me," 
 answered the traveller. " If he doesn't dis- 
 turb me, I shall not interfere with him. I 
 am too tired to interfere with any one. Pray, 
 is there a young woman here 1 " 
 
 " What young woman ?" inquired the host. 
 " There 's the maid." 
 
 " It 's my wife I mean," replied the tra- 
 veller. " I appointed her to nreet me here 
 to-day." 
 
 "She's not come, then," answered the 
 host, forming a better opinion of his lodger, 
 and somewhat relieved from his apprehen- 
 sions. 
 
 "That's strange !" answered the traveller. 
 " However, I must go to bed, for I am too 
 tired to keep up any longer." So the land- 
 lord lighted him to his room, and left him 
 the candle. " You need not disturb me, un- 
 less the young woman I spoke of should 
 come," said he, calling after the host as he 
 descended the stairs. " I am very much in 
 want of rest, and will take my sleep out." 
 
 "Hush!" said the landlord, "you'll dis- 
 turb your fellow-lodger." 
 
 The traveller closed the door. The host, who 
 slept below, turned into bed, and was asleep 
 again in a minute ; but presently he opened 
 his eyes with a start, " What's that ? An- 
 other traveller calling ' House ! ' Surely there 
 was a voice a cry ? No, all is quiet it 
 was fancy a dream of some uneasy sleeper, 
 or his own disturbed brain rehearsing the just 
 acted scene, it must be;" so he laid his 
 head upon the pillow, and slept till morning. 
 
 "It's five o'clock, sir," cried the Boots, 
 knocking at the door of the traveller. A 
 voice seemed to answer from within ; and the 
 worthy functionary, satisfied that he had 
 done what he was ordered, went below, and 
 with brush and blacking commenced his 
 day's business. 
 
 " Does that 'ere gentleman as is going by 
 the coach want any breakfast afore he goes, 
 Jem?" said the sleepy bar-maid, thrusting 
 her head out of the nook she slept in. " I 
 wish you'd go up and ax him. There 's no 
 need for me to get up if he doesn't, you 
 know." So Jem went up stall's, and having 
 knocked at the door, proposed the question. 
 Again there was a sound from within, but as 
 he could not distinguish the words, he took 
 leave to open the door. All was dim the 
 window curtain was not undrawn the 
 gentleman could not be up " He'll never 
 
 go by this day's coach," thought Jem. Then 
 there was a sound something strange be- 
 tween a sob and a groan ; and as his eyes 
 became gradually accustomed to the imper- 
 fect light, he distinguished a figure sitting on 
 the bed nearest the door. 
 
 " You '11 be too late, sir,'' said he ; " the 
 coach will be up directly." 
 
 No answer the gentleman must have 
 
 been taken ill. So Jem stept across the room 
 and undrew the window curtain, that he might 
 see what was the matter. Then he perceived 
 that the figure on the bed-side was strange to 
 him. Jem did not sleep in the house, and had 
 not heard of the late traveller. He would 
 have been strange to any body indeed, his 
 own mother would not have known him 
 half undressed, with dishevelled hair and 
 distorted features his eyes bleared with 
 tears, his face livid, his shirt stained with 
 blood there sat William Guinnis, a living 
 and breathing impersonation of misery and 
 remorse, whilst ever and anon a sob burst 
 from his labouring breast, that seemed as if 
 it would rend it asunder. On the ground 
 lay the other traveller, dead murdered, as 
 it seemed ; but William declared, and it was 
 believed, that he had done it in self-defence, 
 not knowing, at first, who he was struggling 
 with. Henry Edmunds, Fanny's brother, 
 who was sleeping in the other bed, had been 
 awakened by William's arrival, and recog- 
 nised his voice ; and his morning's inquiries 
 having satisfied him that he was the cause 
 of his sister's destruction, he had attacked 
 him with all the violence of exasperation and 
 revenge. 
 
 William Guinnis was tried for the murder, 
 but the jury returned a verdict of culpable 
 homicide. For the other offence of which 
 he was suspected circulating the note he 
 did not live to be tried. He died in prison, 
 during his previous incarceration, of a 
 broken, and we think we may say, a contrite 
 heart. If suffering and sorrow could expiate 
 his faults, we may hope they were forgiven 
 him. 
 
 His young widow spent the rest of her 
 days at Clayton farm ; but his unhappy 
 mother did not long survive him ; she wept 
 away her life in bitter tears, that she had 
 not wisely corrected his early deviations 
 from honesty and truth, and taught him 
 from the beginning, to love virtue above all 
 things.
 
 367 
 
 THE DEFORMED. 
 
 BY M. FRA3ER TYTLER. 
 AUTHOR OF " TALES OF GOOD AND GREAT KINGS," " TALES OF THE GREAT AND BRAVE," &C. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I MIGHT, did my vanity lie in that direc- 
 tion, trace my descent through a long line of 
 ancestry ; but that not being the case, I will 
 go no farther back in the genealogical tree 
 than to my grandfather, Ewan Macgarrow, 
 whose death, in his hundred and first year, 
 took place but a few days before that on 
 which I was born. He, my grandfather, 
 was the youngest son of the Laird of Auch- 
 navarloch, and at the age of forty, after 
 following his five brethren, and his sorrow- 
 stricken parent, to the grave, succeeded, as 
 he then believed, to a small, but comfortable 
 fortune, as well as to an estate, which had 
 for centuries been in his family. Little, 
 however, save the empty title, was now left, 
 for, slip after slip of land having been ex- 
 changed in payment of debt, there remained 
 in possession of the survivor but the few 
 acres of miserable soil that surrounded the 
 dilapidated mansion. Of an easy temper, 
 amounting almost to indifference, the circum- 
 stance occasioned my grandfather but little 
 sorrow. He had been at constant variance with 
 his whole family, and, bound to it by no ties of 
 affection, no recollection of a happy boyhood, 
 he parted with the few remaining acres to 
 the highest bidder, rented a small cottage 
 upon the estate, and thus placed himself 
 contentedly down within eyesight of the 
 home of his fathers. 
 
 In the course of another year he married ; 
 and the lady, who was daughter to the 
 clergyman of the parish, possessed every 
 recommendation, save that of which her 
 husband stood most in need. She was 
 cheerful in prosperity, patient in adversity ; 
 she was kind, gentle, and affectionate ; but 
 she was penniless. 
 
 Years rolled on, and while the small wreck 
 preserved of my grandfather's fortune had 
 been totally dispersed, lie found himself 
 surrounded by that never failing attendant 
 on poverty a numerous family. Want, 
 starvation, and wretchedness, were familiar 
 to them from their cradle ; and one by one, 
 as they progressed towards manhood, the 
 
 scions of the house of Auchnavarloch quitted 
 the paternal roof to work or beg, as prompted 
 by their different dispositions. It would be 
 unavailing, even were it possible, to follow 
 each in their varied degrees of fortune ; I 
 will speak, therefore, only of my father. 
 He was quick, persevering, and intelligent, 
 and, by a stern, plodding, and cautious 
 disposition, seemed not unsuited, sooner or 
 later, to reinstate the sinking honours of 
 the family. Such, at least, was the fond 
 expectation of his parent ; but misfortune 
 was yet unwearied in her efforts to depress 
 them. Every attempt to raise himself 
 to his former level proved abortive. And 
 at the death of his mother, my father con- 
 sidered himself fortunate in being able to 
 offer an asylum to his remaining parent, in 
 a small cottage where he held the situation 
 of steward, upon the property which should 
 have been his own. 
 
 Although in a humbler walk in life than 
 that he had first aspired to, my father now 
 seemed about to prosper in the world. In 
 the course of time he married. His wife, 
 who was the daughter of a rich farmer, 
 brought him some money. Years, unmarked 
 by any extent of misfortune, ensued ; and 
 the first break up in the household was 
 occasioned by the death of my grandfather. 
 It was followed by a keener blow, one 
 that time could not soften, that death alone 
 could bury in obli vion, it was followed by 
 my birth. My birth ! Yes ! and the very 
 elements smiled in vain mockery and derision 
 upon the being they were about to behold : 
 for calm, and still, and beautiful, I have been 
 told, was the hour in which I was cast upon 
 the world, an object of disgust and aversion, 
 ay, of loathing, to the very authors of my 
 miserable existence. The first feeling of 
 which I was conscious, was a desire to conceal 
 myself from every passer-by ; the next, an 
 indescribable longing for what I hardly 
 knew, for as yet I was scarcely aware that 
 I was an alien from my father's heart, mi 
 outcast from a parent's love. That con- 
 fiding blindness, the innocent delusion of 
 childhood, was of brief duration ; and speedily
 
 368 
 
 THE DEFORMED. 
 
 I awakened to a sense of that misfortune 
 which, instead of exciting the sympathy, 
 had secured for me the horror of mankind, 
 placing me, as it were, beyond the pale of 
 communion with God or man. 
 
 But had I in reality, then, been sent upon 
 the earth debased in mind as in body ? Oh, 
 no ! my bleeding heart within told but too 
 truly how I clung to the species that dis- 
 owned me, to the kindred that cast me off. 
 My mother, I could have bowed down to 
 worship her. My father, I could have 
 placed my neck beneath his foot I My 
 brethren, I have licked the earth whereon 
 they trode. And, for one recognising look, 
 one acknowledging glance, to own that I 
 was of them, I could have blessed their name, 
 and died. But it could not be; there was an 
 utter annihilation of existence between us, 
 an impassable desert of darkness ; silence 
 and desolation was around me ; and, while 
 I thus lay in the depths and the shadow of 
 death, afar far off they seemed to stand upon 
 a track of light, beings of life and gladness. 
 
 The curse of Cain was upon my brow, ami 
 it sunk deep deep into my miserable heart. 
 At the age of eight years, 1 had known 
 sorrow, deep unalleviated sorrow. I had no 
 longer the feelings of a child. There was a 
 void in my heart, a blank that was unfilled, 
 for there was none to love me, none on whom 
 I could bestow the overflowing of my affec- 
 tions. Unquestioned and uncared for, hour 
 after hour I wandered in the least frequented 
 parts of the stately woods nearest to the 
 dwelling of my father, till their wide expanse, 
 the beauty of their lordly stems, the lulling 
 music of their streams, stood to me in lieu 
 of that which was denied 
 
 Of objects all inanimate I made 
 
 Idols, and out of wild and lovely flower?, 
 
 And rocks whereby they grew, a paradise. 
 
 To me to have been "chid for wandering" 
 would have been a mitigation of suffering, 
 since it would have proved a consciousness 
 of my existence. No blessing was nightly 
 called upon my head, and no lips had 
 taught mine the voice of prayer. 'Tis 
 true that, through the irregular partition, I 
 could discover the forms of my brothers, as 
 one by one, their little hands clasped in 
 supplication, they knelt at a parent's knee ; 
 and, by scarcely venturing to breathe, lest a 
 word should escape me, I could hear the 
 sentences they uttered till they were im- 
 pressed upon my memory. I had heard, too, 
 of the house of God. I had seen, as I passed 
 out to my solitary wanderings, the gayer 
 
 dress of my brothers regularly laid out on 
 that day ; and, from my hiding place, 
 my own family, to the youngest born, sur- 
 rounded by groups from every direction, 
 hastening forward to the house of worship. 
 But I knew no more. And was I thus to 
 pass through life ? Should I never dare to 
 ask a parent to solve the mystery, to seek 
 the explanation I so thirsted for, from a 
 brother? Was the question, Who is, what 
 is, God ? that seemed burned into my brain, 
 so restless and intense was the agony it 
 occasioned, to be for ever unanswered ? 
 
 I will not go back upon the difficulties that 
 attended my first great project. That it was 
 successful, is still a marvel to myself ; but to 
 acquire the power of reading was necessary 
 to my happiness and it was acquired. 
 Week after week, month after month, I 
 struggled on in my unassisted task, supported 
 through every difficulty by the one thought, 
 that then, independent of my fellow-creatures, 
 I should reap knowledge from every page ; 
 and the one-engrossing thought, the haunting 
 dream of my life, the question, Who is, 
 what is God ? would be answered. 
 
 To forward my purpose, I had purloined 
 the discarded spelling-book of one of my 
 more fortunate brothers. The next volume 
 which, in like manner, came into my pos- 
 session, was entitled, " The Child's First 
 Catechism." I pondered what that word 
 could mean, and if it was likely to promote 
 the search to which all my labours tended. 
 With much difficulty I mastered the first 
 sentence, " Can you tell me, child, who made 
 you ? " This, then, was not what I wanted ; 
 this would tell me nothing of God. I was 
 disheartened ; but continued. '' The great 
 God who made heaven and earth ! " I burst 
 into tears. The earth, the glorious earth, 
 was the work of God ! The wondrous 
 heavens they, too, had been formed by his 
 hands ! Was he capable of this ? And 
 should I, neglected, despised, cast forth from 
 the society of my fellow-creatures, should I 
 learn to know, to love, to serve him ? There 
 was not at that moment a shade of sorrow 
 discernible in my lot. Every feeling was 
 that of happiness, of gratitude. Yes ! I then 
 first knew the meaning of that word I was 
 grateful. Much that had hitherto been dark, 
 flashed at once upon my new-awakened 
 sense. The bent knee, the clasped hands of 
 my young brothers, was explained. That 
 attitude was not adapted, as I had fancied, 
 to an earthly father : it was to the " great 
 God who made heaven and earth" that they
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 369 
 
 addressed their prayers, that they returned 
 thanks for hlessings received. Had they, 
 then, been his gift ? and if so, might he not 
 also have the power of hestowing them on 
 those perhaps hitherto unremembered. This 
 was at that time the thought of rapture, 
 this the idea that wholly engrossed my mind ; 
 and recalling the look, the tone of my bro- 
 thers when they prayed, I flung myself upon 
 my knees, but when I would have pro- 
 nounced the words I had learned from their 
 lips, my heart grew sick and giddy. Were 
 they such as / could utter ? Could I thank 
 Heaven for the love of parents? could I 
 weary his throne with gratitude for the 
 health and strength bestowed, for the un- 
 merited happiness of my lot? Could I do 
 this ? It seemed like very mockery of my 
 own misery. 
 
 The knowledge I had so thirsted for was 
 obtained ; and from that time, for the space 
 of several years, I struggled in a deeper 
 gloom, a more fearful darkness than before. 
 The very loveliness of nature, the appreciation 
 of which had formerly been the one redeeming 
 point in my character, the one solitary ray, 
 brightening by its influence my otherwise 
 darkened existence, was now robed in ten- 
 fold bitterness. The light of the glorious 
 sun was hateful to me. The pale moon, 
 with her placid, peaceful light, poured poison 
 upon my heart ; and as I took a fiend-like 
 pleasure in obliterating every trace of God's 
 loveliest creation, the wild flowers that again 
 and again unbidden would spring up around 
 me, Avords of blasphemy have been wrung 
 from my miserable heart, and I dared to 
 accuse of injustice that hand which, having 
 formed them into beauty, had made me what 
 I was. Years ran on ; and of the delicacy 
 and suffering which accompanied my infancy 
 there now remained no trace ; save in the 
 proportion to which they had assisted in 
 reducing my form. There was also some 
 faint alleviation in my misery ; for, though 
 carefully avoiding all books upon sacred 
 subjects, lest, as in my first attempt, they 
 should tend only to aggravate my sufferings, 
 I had at intervals pursued my studies, and 
 could now, with an ease that astonished my- 
 self, peruse any of those volumes to be found 
 in the narrow compass of my father's library. 
 This had, indeed, now become my cliief 
 occupation, necessary to me as the air 1 
 breathed. 
 
 I was thus engaged upon one evening, 
 when a discussion between my father and 
 mother arrested my attention. Thev had 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 mentioned the expected return of our land- 
 lord, and as they spoke of rejoicing and 
 mirtb, my blood ran colder in my veins, for 
 I had always looked forward to this event as 
 one to be feared and dreaded. My thoughts 
 were not, however, long allowed to dwell 
 upon this subject, engrossing as it was. I 
 found that another return was looked for- 
 ward to, another arrival expected, arid hear- 
 ing it I forgot all but the one hope to which, 
 through long years of misery, when all else 
 had deserted me, I had continued to cling. 
 A brother, the eldest of the family, had, since 
 the year previous to my birth, been absent 
 in America, whither he had gone to push his 
 fortune ; and he it was who now, on the eve 
 of his return, I learned, for the first time, 
 was hourly expected. 
 
 I had, through my half-closed door, fre- 
 quently heard the letters addressed by him to 
 my father read aloud, and in each my name 
 had been mentioned with that of my other bro- 
 thers. That mention was enough ; and tipon 
 that feeble foundation had I raised up an 
 idol in my heart. Yes ! one being existed, 
 for whose sake I repressed the sweeping 
 curse, which often in my agony I would, 
 but for him, have poured upon mankind. I 
 had dreamed of him, till dreams became a 
 reality. I had pictured him to my own 
 heart, till it grew familiar with his image. 
 I had listened to his voice, I had seen him. 
 My dreams were now to be realized. He 
 would be my guide, my protector. Some of 
 my earlier and better feelings came back 
 upon my heart. He would look upon me 
 with pity, he would a*llow me to love him. 
 Day and night I had thought of him, day 
 and night I woiild serve him. I should have 
 something to love, to live for : I should be 
 happy. That night I passed in a state of 
 fevered anxiety ; and from the preparations 
 so early set a-foot on the morrow, concluded 
 that upon that day the return of my brother 
 was expected. 
 
 I was right in my conjecture ; and, un- 
 willing to leave the house, had remained 
 in my lonely room, when the outer door 
 unclosed. A half shout, half laugh, and the 
 " dear father, dearest mother," that followed, 
 thrilled through my heart. It was his voice, 
 the voice I had heard in my dreams ; and 
 worlds, had they been mine, would I have 
 given at that moment, to have been among 
 the group as he went on, " Is this Frank, 
 and this John, and this Harry ! what fine 
 fellows you have all grown. But where is 
 George? George!" he called aloud, laugh- 
 No. 24.
 
 370 
 
 THI; 
 
 ing again in the very gladness of his heart. 
 I could not resist that call, I could not 
 hesitate. I had purposed that our meeting 
 should take place without observers to hlast 
 the ecstasy of that moment, to hlight, with 
 withering looks, that pity and tenderness, 
 on the hope of which my life hung ; but 
 now, when all doubt had vanished, when 
 certainty of his love alone existed, forgetful 
 of, or indifferent to their presence, I rushed 
 towards him, when, starting from me so as 
 to avoid my touch, he gazed at me for a 
 single moment, with oh, such a look of 
 horror ! and then, clasping his hands upon 
 his forehead, he uttered, " Great God ! " 
 
 I heard no more, saw nothing further. 
 The sudden revulsion of feeling had over- 
 powered me. I became insensible ; and, for 
 days after, raved in all the wildness of fevered 
 delirium. 
 
 I woke at length, woke to a perfect 
 frenzy of loathing of mankind, of all the 
 world, animate and inanimate. I was in a 
 delirium of agony, as I had been of fever. 
 I woke at length, and it was in very reck- 
 lessness of what might still be in store for 
 me, that on the first days of my recovery I 
 fled to the woods. " The lord of all these is 
 returned," I exclaimed. "I shall soon be 
 thrust forth, lest the eye of his lordly heir, 
 or his haughty bride, should, in their ramb- 
 ling, chance to rest upon any thing so loath- 
 some as I am." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SUCH as I have described them, were the 
 first years of my life ; and shortly after the 
 period to which I last alluded, it was that a 
 new state of existence was opened to me. 
 In the recklessness of despair I had, I have 
 said, resumed my former way of life, and 
 even after becoming aware of the return of 
 the family, spent my entire time in the woods 
 of Glenullen. 
 
 As time passed on, my mind grew more 
 tranquil, for the security of being undis- 
 turbed was gradually restored ; and it was 
 not for some months after the return of Lord 
 and Lady Lindsay, that I, one evening 
 while keeping my solitary watch in a dark, 
 lonely cell, the sombre light and complete 
 seclusion of which, had rendered it my con- 
 stant resort, was startled by that sound, 
 (the sound of the human voice,) which above 
 all others filled me with dread. With a 
 foreboding of evil, I glanced fearfully out, and 
 ceiiain that the advancing party could be 
 
 none other than the dreaded inmates of thf 
 Castle, I felt that my fate was sealed. 
 
 The speakers were still distant, and I 
 might have fled ; but, paralyzed by horror, my 
 whole frame grew rigid as iron, and the gaze 
 of the basilisk is not more fixed than was 
 mine, though I drank in torture at every 
 glance, and writhed in agony over that scene 
 which rises now on my recollection, in so 
 calm, and pure, and beautiful a litcht. 
 
 The party, by whose approach I had been 
 thus spell-bound, had halted by the side of a 
 small trout stream, not many yards from the 
 spot on which I lay. It consisted of a lady, 
 and a little boy and girl ; and, had I not been 
 blinded by the dread which so long had 
 haunted me, I might perhaps even then have 
 felt, that in the appearance of these three 
 beings there was little to warrant the dread 
 and dismay with which my fevered fancy 
 had oppressed me. 
 
 From the young heir of Lindsay, rich in 
 his dower of boyish strength and beauty, I 
 might indeed have turned with that sicken- 
 ing sense of envy, which ever assailed me 
 most when I looked upon beings of my own 
 sex and age. But there also was the lady 
 of Glenullen, with her gentle movements, her 
 low voice, her look of maternal pride ; and 
 gazing alternately on either face, another, 
 a more fair and fairy-like being eye never 
 rested upon, it was the little Lucy Lindsay 
 of the Castle, who, sole rival of her brother 
 in the heart of their parents, was looked upon 
 by each member of her family with an al- 
 most equal degree of protecting fondness ; for 
 while he, the young Evan Lindsay, was in 
 his tenth year, she but smiled and prattled 
 through the fifth summer of her baby life. 
 She was still busily engaged in decorating, 
 with faded wild flowers, the prostrate fishing- 
 rod of her brother, when the lady, summon- 
 ing her to her side, kissed the brow of her 
 son, and reiterating, as it seemed to me, in- 
 junctions of carefulness and of a speedy re- 
 turn, left him to pursue his sport. 
 
 The boy stood for a moment looking after 
 them, the parting smile still curling his beau- 
 tiful lip ; then " Good-by, Lucy," he shouted. 
 And liberating the hand of her mother, she 
 bounded back to Avhere he stood, and extend- 
 ing her little arms, clasped them laughingly 
 round his neck ; then, half amused, half fear- 
 ful of being thus lifted from the ground, she 
 clung the closer to him, till, encircling hex 
 with his arm, he gave at once the support 
 and embrace she had looked for. 
 
 I watched that scene, the kiss at intervals
 
 THE DEFORMED. 
 
 371 
 
 pressed upon her lips to stay the burst 
 of merry laughter, the unclasping of the 
 small rounded arm, the placing her again 
 \ipon the groxmd, the smiling return to a 
 smiling parent, I watched it all, and sink- 
 ing with my face upon the ground, tears 
 coursed each other, at first slowly down my 
 cheeks, till feelings of regret, envy, and utter 
 desolation, crowding on my mind, I gradu- 
 ally gave way to one of those paroxysms of 
 agony, then so frequent in their recurrence. 
 
 To my distorted imagination, that scene of 
 happiness seemed to have been acted before 
 me only to increase the consciousness of my 
 misery. 
 
 I have said my face rested on the ground : 
 buried as I was among the long grass, and 
 occupied bymy own feelings, I had not observed 
 an approaching step ; and the first informa- 
 tion I had, therefore, of being in the presence 
 of another, was the not ungentle grasp of a 
 hand upon my own. I darted from my re- 
 cumbent posture, and, with a wild yell of 
 abhorrence, would have fled from the spot ; 
 but, blinded by agony, my foot striking upon 
 the root of a tree, I was hurled headlong to 
 the ground. 
 
 The grasp was again renewed, but this 
 time with even more of gentleness than before. 
 A hand, too, I thought was lightly pressed 
 upon my forehead, and the whole air around 
 seemed to me suddenly impregnated with 
 music ; for a voice uttered words, few in 
 number, but so full of pity, commiseration, 
 and gentleness, that, but in my turn I feared 
 to alarm the speaker, I should again have 
 started from the ground, not to fly, but to 
 prostrate myself before what I concluded 
 must be a visitant from another world I 
 had indulged in such dreams and sue to be 
 spoken to again, but once again, in that tone 
 of almost interest. My eyes unclosed, and I 
 shrunk again into myself, for they had rested 
 on the heir of Glenullen, on the young Evan 
 Lindsay of the Castle. He spoke again, and 
 it was the same heart-reaching voice, "You 
 are hurt," he said ; " and I fear it was I who 
 frightened yon ; but you were crying so much. 
 Poor boy ! what can make you so very un- 
 happy?" 
 
 Years have intervened since then, yet 
 vivid as ever is the recollection of the inten- 
 sity of feeling with which these words over- 
 powered me. Great Heaven ! was there in- 
 deed upon earth one being who could so 
 speak to me ? 
 
 It were long to tell how, from that hour, 
 the young but noble mind of that gra- 
 
 cious creature was bent upon relieving my 
 misery. It were long to tell by what slow 
 degrees he won me to him ; how, again and 
 again, with unwearying care, he patiently 
 pursued the same path, even when my thank- 
 less and ungrateful heart cased itself in the 
 armour of distrust and hatred, conscious, as 
 it were, that all its hardened animosity must 
 be called into array, to resist the pleading 
 look, the earnest tone, the magical words of 
 that young child, who was, through God's 
 mercy, destined to be the means of rescuing 
 me from myself, and from the bitter misery 
 with which I was environed. 
 
 Never shall I forget the first hour in which, 
 roused by his entreaty, to cast my burden 
 upon God, to lay me down humbly and 
 meekly at his footstool, I poured forth a 
 confession of my utter ignorance, and, kind- 
 ling under his look of pity, reviled myself, 
 mankind, ay, and the very God of whom 
 he had spoken with bowed head, and in whis- 
 pered words. 
 
 The look of horror, the sudden recoiling 
 from my side, the withdrawal of the hand 
 which had been laid in the earnestness of 
 entreaty upon mine, all struck a cold terri- 
 fying chill to my heart ; but it was only for 
 a moment, for a sudden light seemed then 
 struck in upon my brain, revealing, in deeper 
 shades, the darkness that had reigned there. 
 And, though I knew not who or what I 
 had blasphemed, I felt that I had spoken 
 blasphemy. I knew not what holiness I had 
 profaned ; but I felt that I had trampled 
 upon a holy thing. The soul of that child, 
 fresh from God, and still a temple for the 
 Spirit of God, had thrown a portion of its 
 divinity around me ; and, without words, 
 had, by the shrinking horror that oppressed 
 him, revealed not only the daring sinfulness 
 of my own nature, but the surpassing purity 
 of that I had reviled. 
 
 Yes, I had indeed shed horror upon that 
 young mind, for I had given it its first dread 
 insight into a soul that knew not God ; into 
 a being striving with its maker ; and, for a 
 moment, he had recoiled from the dreadful 
 spectacle, outraged and dismayed. 
 
 I saw, I felt what I had done ; and bow- 
 ing down before him in a sense of shame, 
 bewilderment, and terror, that there are no 
 words to picture, "Pity me, pity me," I 
 exclaimed ; " I feel that you are good ; I know 
 that there is goodness somewhere, but where? 
 I cannot grasp it. I do not know what is 
 good, or who, or what is God. Oh, tell me, 
 for I am miserable. I am perishing in dark-
 
 372 
 
 Till) DKFOR.MKI). 
 
 ness, lost, lost for ever ! " And, my whole 
 soul dissolving within me, I wept that first 
 gracious flood of repentant tears which God 
 had, in mercy, sent to wear away the stone 
 of a time-wearied heart, and to bring me, a 
 sorrowing and yet rejoicing sinner, to the 
 footstool of that cross, where tears, not of 
 water but of blood, had been poured out 
 abundantly for me. 
 
 Those tears, that had spoken the soften- 
 ing of my own heart, had overcome at once 
 the gentleness of the child ; for, throwing 
 himself upon the grass beside mo, and look- 
 ing up in my face with the most touching 
 sweetness of expression, " Do not, do not 
 cry so," he said ; " and oh, put away that fear- 
 ful, that miserable look ! God will show you 
 goodness, we will all show you goodness." 
 
 " Oh my poor poor boy," he exclaimed, 
 tears of the most earnest pity filling his 
 beautiful eyes as he spoke, " where have you 
 lived what have you been, to speak in this 
 dreadful way, to say that you do not know 
 God. God is our Father, our Father in 
 Heaven. He keeps us, he cares for us ! 
 Without him we could not live, no, not for a 
 single moment. He made heaven and earth, 
 every thing that is beautiful, every thing that 
 is delightful. He made you and me, that 
 we might live happily as his children in this 
 beautiful world below ; and that he may 
 make us a thousand times happier, as his 
 children, in the glorious world above." 
 
 " Mamma reads to us, from His own book, 
 beautiful things of that beaiitiful w r orld ; but 
 none that I love better than, ' Eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered 
 into the heart of man to conceive, the things 
 which God hath prepared for them that love 
 him ; ' " and, kindling into the solemnity, the 
 beauty of holiness, he stood wrapt and in- 
 spired before me. 
 
 I was awestruck, and gazed, as if in a dream, 
 on the incomprehensible vision. An unseen 
 power was around, a glorious consciousness 
 opening upon me, a new life expanding 
 within ; for I had heard things that were 
 iinearthly, words that seemed sounding from 
 another sphere ! God, the Creator, the maker 
 of all things, he was then our Father we 
 his children. There was another home for 
 us than this. A home of rest for the weary, 
 of love for the unloved. A home for me, 
 even for me outcast, hated, forsaken. 
 
 Oh the gush of indescribable, incompre- 
 hensible emotion, that then opened in life- 
 tides upon my soul. Truly, it was the death 
 of the old man, the birth of the new, in my 
 
 heart. Wonder, adoration, gratitude, and 
 love, instincts that had lain dead or dormant 
 within me, now burst into life, becoming at 
 once the law and the religion of my being. 
 What was my present despised and miserable 
 state my soul no longer dwelt in darkness ; 
 it had seen, it had caught the light of life ! 
 God was my spirit's father. I felt myself 
 His child ! What was a world's wonder, a 
 world's contempt, death would shelter me 
 from all, and I should be with God ! 
 
 The stars in their silent courses, the sun 
 in his burning track, the sea in its restless 
 motion, the winds in their soft whispers, or 
 in the mighty roar of their angry voices, had 
 not all of these long spoken to my soul of 
 mysterious agencies to be worshipped 
 of might and majesty that swayed the uni- 
 verse. But now that which a blind, a dim 
 instinct had dictated, became tome a glorious 
 revelation from on high. The creature 
 acknowledged the Creator ; and " the spirit " 
 in its allegiance " returned to the God who 
 gave it." 
 
 I scarcely know in what words to describe 
 the increase of peace and joy, that now witli 
 each new day flowed in, in broader and yet 
 broader waves, upon my regenerated soul. 
 And the mighty means employed, to work 
 the unlooked-for revolution, what were 
 they? The pleading look, the earnest word?, 
 of a young child. Truly, " out of the mouths 
 of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained 
 strength." 
 
 Day after day, that rai'e creature, ap- 
 pointed to be the human saviour of my 
 soul, wearied not to seek my side. To 
 my own kindred, my own blood, I was an 
 object of aversion. To every casual passer- 
 by, one of dread, even of terror. But he, 
 cradled in the lap of luxury, nursed among 
 objects of softness and beauty, he who 
 might too naturally have shrunk in horror, 
 or stood aghast at the wretched spectacle be- 
 fore him, he it was who, armed with a holy 
 pity, flew like a minstering angel to my side ; 
 and shedding upon my heart the first sweet 
 drops of human sympathy it had ever known, 
 restored me to my lost place among created 
 things, by pouring into my soul a knowledge 
 of its Creator. 
 
 Day by day, led by the divine gentleness 
 and pity that animated him, for what but a 
 divine impulse could have brought a creature 
 so buoyant with youth and happiness to 
 seek out the companionship of such as I ? 
 day by day, I have said, he wearied not to 
 seek my side ; and then came the crowning
 
 THE DEFORMED. 
 
 of my earthly happiness, for he grew to love me', 
 and with his love a passion sprung up in my 
 soul, so intense, so overpowering in its nature, 
 that, but for the God he had taught me to 
 worship, it had been idolatry. 
 
 Well might I sit, and look, and long for the 
 appointed hour that daily brought him to 
 the rocky nook we had selected for the place 
 of meeting ; well might I watch with an 
 intensity that amounted to pain, the first 
 sound of his coming step ; for with him seemed 
 to come all that was bright and beautiful in 
 nature. If my heart drooped, for in spite 
 of the glorious life that had lighted up within 
 me, an overwhelming sense of my long dark- 
 ness and rebellion would at times bear me to 
 the ground, in the full tide of his warm 
 pity, he was there to comfort me with 
 his rejoicing presence, and uphold me with 
 the child-like brightness of his faith. If, 
 overpowered by a sense of earth's desertion, I 
 wept the bitter irrepressible tears of a soul 
 smitten within me, of a heart that was 
 withered like the grass, in the gushing 
 tenderness of his ardent nature he would 
 come to pour out his grief with mine, and 
 to prove, by every bright and precious tear 
 that mingled with my own, that I was not 
 alone ; that even in this world there was 
 one to love me, one whom I might dare to 
 love. 
 
 How strangely, how darkly must those 
 revelations that in our hours of companion- 
 ship I have poured into his heart, have 
 sounded in the ears of that innocent child. 
 And yet, ignorant as his young life was of 
 sorrow and suffering, there were depths in 
 that heart which responded to every feeling 
 of my own, and to my most agonizing ex- 
 pressions gave back the throb of sympathy. 
 
 Then, too, how he would while away the 
 hours, with the glad and careless prattle of all 
 his thoughts, occupations, and amusements; 
 and how he would look forward to those hours 
 (for in the joyousness of his heart all things 
 seemed possible) when I was to share with 
 him in all. 
 
 "If you have none to love you," he would 
 say ; " if your father and mother care not for 
 you ; if your brothers shun you, because you ai - e 
 unable to join in their sports ; if you are 
 unhappy at home, why not come with me, 
 live with me ? I shall make you so happy ! 
 papa and mamma are so good, so very good." 
 
 Once only it was that he alluded to this 
 subject ; for the burst of agony that followed 
 the proposal, the harsh refusal, the almost 
 frantic entreaty that he would never asr.iin 
 
 hint at what must ever be so repugnant to 
 my feelings, sealed the lips of the gentle boy : 
 he wept to have made me weep, and the 
 subject was never again alluded to between 
 us. 
 
 "George," said he one evening, approaching 
 upon tiptoe, " George, I have brought Lucy 
 with me ; I have left her hiding in the thicket 
 close by. Do but let me bring her this one 
 night : I will never trouble you any more, 
 but just this once." 
 
 She came ; and never again did I tremble 
 at her approach. There was such a clinging 
 fondness in her voice and manner as she 
 spoke to, or looked upon her brother ; there 
 was such timid kindness, such, child as she 
 was, such anxiety to conceal, as she turned 
 to me, the pity she could not but feel, and 
 which while it soothed, half pained me. But 
 it wore away, and shortly her little hand 
 was extended to meet mine, as readily as was 
 that of her brother. She came with smiles ; 
 she parted with the promise of return, and I 
 was happy. Poor, dependent, wretched as I 
 was, I had no means of proving the gratitude 
 I felt towards the young Evan Lindsay. He 
 whose beauty and gracefulness w<m every 
 heart, whose very will was law to those 
 around him, how could I, save in words 
 only, hope to express the feelings that over- 
 powered me. But with Lucy it was diffe- 
 rent. I could seek the remotest parts of the 
 wood for her favourite flowers ; I could 
 gather the first wild strawberries from their 
 grassy bed ; I could tame the young roe, to 
 answer to her call ; of I could rescue the 
 unfledged and screaming inhabitants of some 
 tiny nest from a truant school-boy, imbold- 
 ened by the certainty of thus gratifying a 
 heart at once so child-like and benevolent. 
 
 I could linger long, and dwell for ever 
 upon every minute incident that occurred, 
 during the four succeeding years, for they 
 were among the most blissful of my exis- 
 tence. 
 
 I had formed a realm of my own, a world 
 inhabited by two beings alone. Innocence, 
 holiness, meekness, love, beauty, belonged to 
 my world. Hardness of heart, selfishness, 
 unkindly feeling, found no resting-place 
 there. 
 
 How strange a situation! and how myste- 
 rious are the workings of Providence. I was 
 an outcast, exiled from my fellow-creatures ; 
 and yet, reposing securely on the confiding 
 disinterested love of two such beings as Evan 
 and Lucy Lindsay, I had been left to live 
 and die in ignorance worse than death ! in
 
 374 
 
 Till-; DEFORMED. 
 
 ignorance of my God, of my redemption ; in 
 ignorance of that cross, where the blood of 
 the Lamb had been poured out for me. 
 
 For me ! Ay, there is the exulting thought, 
 there the hope, that, lifting up my soul from 
 the surrounding billows, has enabled me to 
 ride calmly upon the waters, a thing of 
 beauty and of glory in itself, though linked 
 for a while to that miserable body, whose 
 meetest destiny is food for worms ; and 
 which, disfigured and defaced as He saw fit to 
 make it, will yet resolve itself as well into 
 the dust of death, as the fairest or noblest 
 form that ever enriched humanity. 
 
 It was one morning towards the close of 
 the fourth summer, when I had been looking 
 out for the coming of those steps that ever 
 brought gladness to my heart, that I was 
 startled by the sudden appearance of Lucy 
 Lindsay alone, and so pale, so terror-stricken 
 in her aspect, that my heart died within 
 me. 
 
 " Speak to me, for the love of Heaven," I 
 exclaimed. " Your brother, oh, in pity 
 speak to me, tell me " 
 
 " Evan is ill," she murmured : " he sent 
 me to you : he is hurt ;" then clasping her 
 small hands, and with a burst of agonizing 
 tears, " Oh, so much hurt ; he will die, 
 George, he will die." 
 
 I know not how those who have many 
 loved objects to cling to in this world, may 
 listen to such an announcement. On me it 
 struck like the thunderbolt of God's avenging 
 wrath, and sense and reason seemed failing 
 beneath the blow. 
 
 I have no further recollection of what 
 passed ; perhaps I tried to speak the comfort 
 I could not feel to the weeping child, as she 
 stood wringing her hands and looking up in 
 my face with that expression of agony with 
 which her blanched lips had uttered, " He 
 will die, George, he will die." Or perhaps 
 I heeded her not, wrapt in my own grief, 
 and forgetful that she, with all the unselfish 
 beauty of her nature, had left the side of her 
 perhaps dying brother to seek me out, to 
 make me a partaker in their grief. It may 
 be that I darted from her side. I cannot 
 say ; but through wood and field I must 
 have hurried on, every feeling so lost in the 
 one overwhelming dread, that even when I 
 entered the Castle, and sped along deserted 
 corridors, and long endless passages, no 
 thought of my strange intrusion occurred, 
 until suddenly, as if awakening from a 
 dream, I felt that I stood in the presence 
 of Lord Lindsay. 
 
 For one moment only I remained trims- 
 fixed to the spot. The next, flinging myself 
 at his feet, " Pardon mo, pardon me ! " I 
 exclaimed, in a voice, hoarse from suppressed 
 agony. " Only tell me that he lives, and I 
 will go, never to return. I will never see 
 him more ; oh, never, never ! " 
 
 He was still silent, his face was deadly 
 pale, and as he made a faint effort to raise 
 me, I clung with more frantic eagerness to 
 his knees. " Do not cast me off. Bear 
 with me one moment only one moment. 
 Answer me ! tell me ! does he live ? Oh, 
 for the sake of Heaven, for his sake, for the 
 sake of your boy, in pity, in mercy, tell me ! " 
 The strong frame of Lord Lindsay trembled 
 in my grasp ; he bent towards me, and in a 
 whisper that, faint as it was, thrilled through 
 my heart's core, " He lives," he said ; " rise, 
 my poor boy, rise, I will tell you all." He 
 led me into another room, and seating me 
 by his side, laid his hand kindly upon 
 mine. I was alone with him. Alone, and 
 by the side of that dreaded being ; but I felt 
 no terror. Self seemed annihilated within 
 me ; and, while my eye was fixed stead- 
 fastly upon his, he went on, " I know your 
 history, I have long learned it from him, 
 from Evan ; but compose yourself, my poor 
 boy. All may yet be well; the injury" 
 and at the word a shudder ran through the 
 frame of the father "the injury may not 
 be so great, so fatal, as we have supposed. 
 With God's mercy, he may yet be restored 
 to us." 
 
 " It was by his desire," he continued, 
 " that Lucy went in search of you. From 
 her you know, I conclude, that, riding with 
 me this morning, his horse reared, it fell 
 back with him ; and, from the long insensi- 
 bility that followed, we fear the head has 
 been injured. We have sent for the best 
 medical advice, but till that arrives, must, 
 with God's help, endure the suspense." 
 
 Lord Lindsay had hurried one sentence 
 after another with a nervous anxiety to 
 complete the task he had undertaken. Then, 
 turning a look full of pity upon the mise- 
 rable being by his side, and struck with the 
 intensity of suffering with which I drank in 
 the words he uttered, " Poor boy," he said, 
 " you suffer with us : God bless you God 
 comfort you ; remain where you are for the 
 present. I will see you again or will send 
 but must leave you now ;" and, rising from 
 my side, and wringing my hand in his, "Pray 
 for him," he said, his voice choked with 
 emotion.
 
 THE DEFORMED. 
 
 When left alone, alone with my own 
 miserable thoughts, the last words of Lord 
 Lindsay seemed still in every hideous sound 
 and tone ringing round me their ominous 
 foreboding of evil. Pray for her ! for him, 
 for myself. Yes, what else was left me, but 
 to pray ? What was left, but to fling myself 
 before the God of mercy, as I did, pouring 
 out my soul's anguish at His footstool, till 
 exhausted at length, I lay curled up like a 
 withered leaf, a blasted thing, a hideous 
 speck, among the rich cushions of the carved 
 and damasked sofa, on which I had sunk." 
 
 The change of scene, the luxuriance of 
 comfort, the gilded mirrors, the stately shelves, 
 so richly stored that even their massy pro- 
 portions seemed bending under the weight of 
 volumes they contained, these all were there, 
 but I saw them not. Hour after hour passed 
 on, and there I lay, still, motionless, without 
 thought. Mind and body seemed alike petri- 
 fied into stone. 
 
 Evening was now rapidly approaching, 
 the lengthening shadows were throwing a 
 sombre light over the objects without, and 
 darker still they fell through the deep 
 embrasured windows and stained glass of 
 that stately room. 
 
 There was always, even in my happiest 
 hours, something in twilight more consonant 
 with my feelings than the bright light of 
 the glorious sun, and now it seemed infusing 
 a holy balm upon my worn spirit. So much 
 of consciousness had returned, that I raised 
 my head and looked forth ; but with the 
 effort, the tide of suffering seemed ebbing 
 back upon my miserable heart, and I was 
 yielding to another burst of irrepressible 
 agony, when I was startled by a quick, light, 
 hurried step. It seemed to me passing swiftly 
 through the corridor, by which I had entered 
 the library, and I started to my feet, but 
 giddy, weak, enfeebled, by those hours of 
 suffering, sunk again upon the sofa. 
 
 The door unclosed, and the faint light 
 shone upon the slight, childish figure of Lucy 
 Lindsay. She stopped for a moment, looked 
 hurriedly, almost wildly round the room, 
 then, "George," she exclaimed, and, bounding 
 forwards, she clasped my hand in hers, 
 essayed to speak, but, gasping for breath, 
 sank upon her knees, and bursting into 
 tears, sobbed aloud. Yes, sob followed sob, 
 rising from the young heart that seemed 
 suffocating under its excess of feeling, whilst 
 tears seemed literally to gush over the fair 
 smooth cheek. But how different were these 
 tears, how different the whole look and air 
 
 of the weeping child from what it had been, 
 when, with that agonized expression, (so 
 doubly fearful on the small, beautiful features 
 of childhood,) with which she had uttered, 
 " He will die, George, he will die." 
 
 She had not spoken, but I felt, I knew 
 that there was hope. Without a word uttered, 
 without even light sufficient to read the 
 glance of rekindling happiness in those meek 
 eyes, the feelings of her soul were borne in 
 upon mine. 
 
 " Yes ! " she exclaimed, at length finding 
 utterance ; " yes, George, God has had mercy ; 
 he will live, he will live ! Oh, my Evan, 
 he will be well again, quite well. How 
 dark the world would have been without 
 him, had you thought of that, George ? what 
 would mamma have done without him ? 
 what should / have done ? what could you 
 have done, poor George ? " and with a quick 
 motion she sprang from her knees, raised her 
 small graceful arms, twined them round my 
 neck, and laid that soft beautiful cheek, still 
 wet with tears, trustingly, confidingly upon 
 mine. 
 
 How often, in my first years of suffering, 
 I had longed, yearned for a sister ; and how 
 often, in later years of increasing agony, I 
 had thanked God that this pang had been 
 spared me. She could not have loved, could 
 not have felt for me. I should have seen 
 her, too, shrink from me with disgust. It 
 would but have added misery to misery. 
 And now, great God, the gentle being by 
 my side, the radiant child, all angel-like 
 in her surpassing loveliness as she looked at 
 that moment, she Had twined her arms 
 round the miserable boy, she had laid her 
 cheek lovingly on mine, she poured words 
 of innocent comfort on my ear ; and, for 
 a moment yielding to the overpowering 
 impulse, with a feeling of unutterable love, 
 adoration, and worship, I clasped her in my 
 arms ; then, seizing the small baby hands 
 in mine, pressed them convulsively to my lips. 
 
 " You are like me, dear George," she said, 
 smilingly, " you cry because you are 
 happy. How strange to cry because I am 
 happy ! " and again there gushed forth a 
 flood of tears. " But rise," she added, " rise, 
 dear George ; " for I was still cowering upon 
 my knees by her side. " Do, rise. Sit down 
 .beside me here, and let me tell you every 
 thing. Do you know that it Avas all a 
 mistake, a dreadful mistake ? " she repeated, 
 shuddering. " He is not so very, very much 
 hurt. Papa sent for a wise old man, oh, 
 such a dear, good, kind, wise old man !
 
 THK DEFORMED. 
 
 and he was long of coining, very, very long ; 
 but he did come at last ; and he went to see 
 Evan, and took all the bandages off his poor 
 head. And I crept in, and staid so quiet in 
 a corner ; and poor mamma was standing 
 there, looking so pale ; and papa and nurse 
 were there ; and Mr. Morton was at the 
 door, and so was Madame Dumas, it was 
 she let me creep in, she knew I would be so 
 quiet. And poor old Gray was there, too, 
 poor old man, he cried more than any of us ; 
 and we all stood still, and then the Doctor 
 looked up at papa and smiled, oh, that 
 beautiful smile, dear, dear old man ! and 
 he spoke quite out loud, and said, ' Pray, 
 my Lord, what has frightened you all so 
 sadly? There is nothing here, I do assure 
 you, there is nothing here but a pretty 
 severe cut. I see worse ten times a-day, 
 and no one to look so pale about it as you 
 were all doing now.' Then he shook hands 
 with mamma, the dear, kind old man, 
 and looked so happy, so glad, to know that 
 Evan would not die ; and then he saw me 
 peeping from behind the curtain, and called 
 me little pale face, and said I had more need 
 of a doctor than Evan had ; for that if we 
 cut off some of his beautiful curls, and kept 
 him quiet, quite quiet, only for a week, that 
 he would soon be well again. Oh, what 
 happy, happy words ! And when I saw that 
 papa and mamma really believed them, and 
 did not look so pale any longer, then I 
 remembered you ; and I ran away, for I 
 thought how unkind it was to have left you 
 alone all the long, long day, for papa had 
 told me you were here. But I could think 
 of nothing oh, of nothing in all the wide 
 world but Evan, I was so afraid he would 
 die. What should we have done, George, 
 what do you think we should have done, if 
 Evan had died ?" 
 
 How deep, how fervent was the feeling 
 with which I had listened to her words ! 
 With what an overpowering sense of grati- 
 tude, when she had left me to revisit her 
 brother, did I sink upon my knees and pour 
 out praise to the Giver of all mercies. But 
 I was not now left long to my own feelings, 
 for, once more bounding into the room, Lucy 
 Lindsay was by my side. 
 
 " Poor Evan wanted so much to see you," 
 she said. " But he must not, not to-night : 
 it would not be good for him, they say. And 
 so then he sent me to you to say what do 
 you think, George, it was to say ? I know 
 you will grant it. You would not have the 
 heart to refuse him now, would you ? It was 
 
 to say, that if you love him the least little 
 bit in the world, you will stay here to-night, 
 and not go back to your own home any 
 more, but stay here and live with us. Will 
 you, dear George?" laying her hand per- 
 suasively upon mine. " May not 1 go back 
 to tell Evan you will stay ? lie will sleep 
 so well if I may, for his heart is so bent 
 upon it, that papa says it will make him 
 get better if you will only say, yes. Papa 
 was coming here himself to ask you if you 
 would ; but Evan thought you would rather 
 not see him to-night, though he is so kind, 
 oh, you do not know how very kind ! So 
 then he sent me, because we are old friends, 
 you know ; so do let me say you will stay, 
 at least to-night." 
 
 To-night ! " I exclaimed. " Oh, yes, 
 to-night, and for ever. I will devote my 
 whole life to him, I will be his slave, his 
 servant, any thing, every thing he likes." 
 
 " Then he likes you to be his friend, dear 
 George ; and I shall go and tell him. Oh, 
 he will be so happy ! " and she darted from 
 the room ; but before I had recovered the 
 whirl of excitement my own words had 
 raised within me, she was again there ! 
 Bright, beautiful child ! how my eye fol- 
 lowed each graceful movement, as lightly 
 and noiselessly as a bird, she flitted round me ! 
 What living music there was in the glad 
 tones of her young voice ! With what 
 beautiful child as she was with what 
 beautiful, womanly tenderness did she busy 
 herself about my comforts, acting, with all 
 her pretty ways, the part of hostess to her 
 strange guest. " You have eaten nothing 
 to-day," she said ; " how hungry you must 
 be ! but Gray shall bring you food, poor, 
 old Gray, he looks so happy now, so dif- 
 ferent from a little time ago. He used to 
 carry us about when we were babies, you 
 know ; and that is the reason he is so 
 fond of Evan. But who would not love 
 Evan I " 
 
 Then again "I am so glad you have 
 chosen this room for yourself. You can 
 come and sit here very often ; and then you 
 will have all those dusty volumes, that you 
 and Evan are so fond of, about you, without 
 the trouble of carrying them to that rocky 
 nook of ours in the wood." And then, 
 prattling on in the gaiety of her heart, she 
 told me many things that, though from time 
 to time they had occurred to me before, I 
 had always cast back as impossibilities. 
 
 The visits of Evan, even of the little Lucy 
 Lindsay, had, I found, from the very first,
 
 THE DEFORMED. 
 
 01 I 
 
 met not only with the sanction but approval 
 of the Lord and Lady Lindsay. The choice 
 of books brought to me were not, as I con- 
 cluded, the selection of Evan alone, but of 
 his father. The sentiments he expressed, 
 the arguments he used, to accustom me to 
 my situation, were at the instigation of 
 another. And the entreaties that I should 
 take up my residence at the Castle, though 
 in the first instance the impulse of his own 
 feelings, and proposed by himself, were now, 
 as I had seen, renewed by their desire. 
 
 And the Lord Lindsay, he had seen me, 
 he had seen the miserably-distorted being to 
 whom he offered protection ; the homeless 
 wretch, to whom he offered a home ; the 
 friendless creature, to whom he was willing 
 to be a friend. And this was the world in 
 which I had said there was no good thing, 
 these were the beings at whose very name my 
 inmost soul had once trembled ! 
 
 Upon the morning following that which 
 had seen me so unexpectedly installed in the 
 Castle, I was led by the little Lucy to the door 
 of her brother's room. " We must be quite 
 quiet," she said, in a whisper, and pressing 
 her pretty finger on her lips, " we must 
 speak low." She unclosed the door as she 
 uttered the last words ; and, advancing a 
 few steps, I stood by the side of my friend 
 and benefactor. 
 
 I had schooled my feelings, and thought 
 I had mastered them ; but the sight of his 
 pale and suffering countenance overcame me, 
 and I sank upon my knees, clasping in mine 
 the hand that feebly and with evident pain 
 he had extended towards me. 
 
 " Thank you, dear George," he said in a 
 low voice ; " how kind in you to grant my 
 request ; but we shall make you happy, in- 
 deed we shall." 
 
 I heard no more, for at that moment a 
 soft hand was laid gently on my shoulder, 
 and a voice, that seemed like the breath of 
 the wild flowers I loved, so soft, so low, so 
 shadowy was the sound, repeated the words 
 of Evan, " Yes, we shall make you happy. 
 Rise, my poor boy, look up, I have a right 
 to welcome you to your new home, as well 
 as my son." 
 
 This was again a new era, another and 
 total change in my way of life ; and more 
 opposite states of existence than my past and 
 present can surely scarcely be imagined. 
 Then, despairing, lost; now with a song of joy- 
 fulness ever in my heart, a hymn of praise 
 for God's mercies, a well-spring of happiness, 
 round whose blessed margin floated those 
 
 best portions of our nature, love and grati- 
 tude gratitude to God and man. 
 
 Evan Lyndsay rapidly recovered, and my 
 post in the sick room was now exchanged 
 for his companionship in the study, the 
 library, or in those long strolls which we 
 still continued to indulge. 
 
 I shared with my friend in the judicious 
 tuition of Mr. Morton ; I drank in wisdom 
 from the benevolent lips of Lord Lindsay ; 
 I dwelt in a perpetual sunshine of kindly 
 feeling ; and it is no wonder if the depressed 
 and miserable spirit of the boy, wanning 
 under that influence, bounded within him ; 
 and that he felt, as he pogressed to man- 
 hood, that whatever was his outward form, 
 there was that within, which, by a whole 
 life's devotion, an unwearying, undying effort, 
 might at last in some degree repay the debt 
 of gratitude he owed his benefactors. 
 
 During the first two years of my sojourn 
 at the Castle, there was but one drawback 
 to my happiness. It was the thought of 
 those who, in my hours of agony having 
 cast me off, were now, (when my better 
 fortunes they might think rendered me in- 
 dependent of them,) restrained, perhaps, by 
 pride from accepting those overtures to 
 which, in my increasing happiness, my heart 
 day by day more strongly urged me ; and 
 the bitter pang of knowing that, without one 
 farewell, one parting blessing, the first I 
 should ever have received, perhaps the last 
 I ever might receive from the lips of a 
 parent, they had left me, quitting home 
 and country for a distant land, long darkened 
 my spirit with some of its former anguish. 
 The yearning for the love of parents closed 
 for a time my heart against the count- 
 less blessings around me ; but at length the 
 one poisoned drop in the cup of life, bitter as 
 it was, faded into indistinctness : the void in 
 my heart was filled ; the love of the stranger 
 became sacred to me, as that of my own 
 blood ; the voice of my benefactors as the 
 voice of parents ; and he ! Evan ! was not he 
 still like a bright ray of glory, ever circling 
 round my heart ! 
 
 In the occasional and brief absences of the 
 family from the Castle, I was not alone. 
 Under the superintendence of Evan Lindsay, 
 small rooms in the most ancient part of the 
 building had been fitted up with every atten- 
 tion to my peculiar comfort ; and here, sur- 
 rounded by each favourite pursuit, encom- 
 passed by pleasant memories, I passed my 
 time. And then those blissful reunions, the 
 long-looked for hour of return, that came at
 
 378 
 
 TIIK DKFOR.MKI). 
 
 length, and brought with it so much of peace, 
 and joy, and gladness. The springing step, 
 the graceful carriage of the boyisli figure, the 
 laughing softness of the dark lustrous eyes, 
 the whole beaming beauty of the speaking 
 countenance, when Evan Lindsay, flying to 
 my distant tower, and bursting upon me 
 with his ringing laugh, would upbraid me 
 with indifference, coldness, carelessness, of 
 their return, I who, he well knew, panted 
 to be the first to welcome them ; whom he 
 feigned not to see, was gasping for breath, 
 sinking under the intensity of feelings, all 
 gratitude, all joy, at their return. 
 
 Year after year had now passed on, and 
 they had brought with them an increase of 
 peace and joy to the being rescued from per- 
 dition, an increase of Heaven's blessings 
 and Earth's prosperity to his rescuers. Yes ! 
 an angel of peace and gladness surely hovered 
 over that blessed family. 
 
 Evan Lindsay had, by his own request, 
 during the two years previous to his coming 
 of age, been accompanied by his family to 
 the Continent. It was now the eve of their 
 return ; and it was hailed with all that eager- 
 ness and delight which our Scottish peasantry 
 know so enthusiastically how to feel, and to 
 express, towards a gracious and respected 
 landlord. 
 
 The village-bells rang gaily out ; the long 
 avenues were lined with the multitude of 
 hearts that showered blessings on their path ; 
 and shouts long and loud, and hearty cheers, 
 with cries of, " Long life to him ! long life to 
 the young heir! long life to our young 
 master ! may he prove as good a landlord as 
 his father ; we cannot wish a better," an- 
 nounced to those at the Castle, that the car- 
 riages, having entered the gate, were winding 
 swiftly through the happy, noisy group. 
 
 " This is well, George ! this is as it ought 
 to be," exclaimed Evan Lindsay, springing 
 from the low britska, that a little in ad- 
 vance of the other carriage had whirled 
 rapidly to the door. " This is as it ought to 
 be ! I thought you would be here ; not 
 crouching in that solitary tower of your.?." 
 And, every feature sparkling with happiness, 
 he wrung my hand in his. 
 
 I had indeed not been able to resist the 
 impulse of welcoming upon their own thres- 
 hold, the return of my benefactors ; but the 
 excitement of the scene had nearly over- 
 powered me and the ringing laugh, the 
 joyous accents of my first best friend were 
 changed, for the eager, hurried inquiry of 
 whether all was well, all happy with me 1 
 
 Before collecting my ideas, I convinced myself, 
 that though the boy I had so loved was lost 
 to me that he, Evan, as he stood before me, 
 in all the graceful beauty of early manhood, 
 was still my Evan, still the open-hearted, 
 loving, trusting, generous Evan of my child- 
 hood. 
 
 " Here they are, here they come at last," 
 he exclaimed, joyfully bounding from my 
 side, as the next carriage stopped under the 
 lofty portico. " Now, Lucy, we shall make 
 our old walls resound with the joy we feel 
 on re-entering them. Welcome, my dear 
 father, welcome, dearest mother, to your own 
 walls. Mine was the first foot to touch the 
 soil of my bonny Castle Dower, and therefore 
 it is I do the honours upon the occasion. But 
 here is George, who has a better right still, 
 for he has never quitted the dear old roof, 
 while we have been wandering under the 
 sunny skies, and through the sunny plains 
 of Italy." And while the Lord and Lady 
 Lindsay, with kindly looks, and lips quiver- 
 ing with emotion, called up by the demon- 
 strations of gladness at their return, greeted 
 me with an almost parental blessing, I felt 
 my hand clasped in the soft small hands of 
 Lucy Lindsay. Two years ago she had 
 quitted the Castle, a child, she was now but 
 fifteen, and she stood before me, with all the 
 gentle dignity, all the reserved kindliness of 
 a woman's manner. 
 
 How beautiful she 'was, beautiful from 
 the extreme regularity of feature, beautiful 
 from the mind and soul that shone in her 
 lovely countenance, beautiful, too, in the 
 child-like innocency of every thought and 
 word. 
 
 Often as I have gazed upon her, or listened 
 to the words of interest and kindness falling 
 so gently from her lips, I have felt in my 
 inmost soul that she resembled a being of 
 another world, rather than an inhabitant of 
 this, one sent to soothe rather than to dazzle, 
 to be looked upon at a holy distance rather 
 than worshipped with an earthly love. Yet 
 already was Lucy Lindsay the object of such 
 worship ; and often as, hour after hour, I 
 have from my turret window watched her 
 graceful, bird-like movements, so sedulously 
 attended by her young companion, I have 
 prayed that no blight, no canker of unhappy 
 love, such as I had read of, might ever have 
 power to wither that young flower. 
 
 Upon the evening when the whole party 
 had returned from the Continent, in the en- 
 grossing feeling of the moment, I had not 
 remarked Evan Lindsay's companion ; nor
 
 THE DEFORMED. 
 
 even when introduced to me by name as the 
 young Earl of Walmer, an orphan, and dis- 
 tant relation of the Lady Lindsay, did I at 
 first recognise in him the manly, proud, and 
 petulant boy, who had some years ago ac- 
 companied Evan, during one of his vacations, 
 to Castle Dower. 
 
 Even at that time, proud, vindictive, un- 
 manageable as he was, the little Lucy Lindsay 
 already possessed a power over him. And 
 the mixture of feeling and reserve with which 
 he reminded me of one circumstance of his 
 former visit, proved that power still existing. 
 It had indeed escaped my memory ; for I 
 considered myself at the time but too severely 
 avenged, by the chastisment inflicted by Evan, 
 as the young earl, with thoughtlessness, per- 
 haps heartlessness, scoffed at my appearance. 
 
 What the indignant reproaches of Evan 
 could not achieve, the silent tears of Lucy at 
 once accomplished ; and it was at her sug- 
 gestion, that, hastening towards me, no apo- 
 logy seemed too humble, no promise of future 
 amendment in himself, no future advance- 
 ment to me through his interest, sufficient to 
 blot out the memory of his boyish insult. 
 " How gentle she looks," he went 011 with 
 emotion, " one would scarcely imagine such 
 a creature likely to tame a spirit so opposite 
 to her own, and yet she has done so; the 
 little good that is in me, I owe to her." 
 
 Shut out I was for ever from all love but 
 that which grew from pity and commisera- 
 tion. The precious ties of blood, the human 
 love and loveliness that hangs round the 
 name of parent, and a thousand other of 
 life's purest, holiest, loftiest emotions, these 
 were debarred me ; these were the heritage 
 of human joy, in which I had, and could 
 have no portion. But once more I formed 
 myself an ideal world ; and, feeling with 
 them, living as it were in and for them, I 
 basked in the sunshine and the happy love 
 of those two beings ; while, hour by hour, 
 that passion, which was to sway their afterlife, 
 grew and strengthened in their young hearts. 
 
 His very life seemed but her spirit's will, 
 and she loved him with all the fervent affec- 
 tion, the clinging, trusting devotedness of 
 
 woman's love. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Long years have passed since then, and time 
 has worked its change upon all time has sil- 
 vered over the hair of the narrator. Time has 
 laid one reverend head in the dust. Time 
 has borne one of the gentlest beings, the 
 meekest of Christ's followers, to her home of 
 glory, there to reap the reward of that seed 
 
 which she had sown on earth. Yes, lovely 
 were they in their lives, and the hand of 
 death did not long divide them. Her hair 
 silvered, her benign countenance still bearing 
 the beauty of expression and feeling on the 
 wasted features, the Lady Lindsay had sunk 
 to sleep. And the partner of her life's 
 happiness, he was also her partner through 
 " the valley of the shadow of death." She 
 slept first; but the calm smile of the old 
 man, as turning from the weeping group, and 
 fixing the last long gaze of affection on the 
 placid features of the dead, he whispered, 
 " Thou hast first won thy crown of glory ; 
 but I mil follow thee soon," seemed to 
 speak of a spirit already winging its flight. 
 And so it was he passed away. 
 
 Much of gladness, much much beyond the 
 usual portion of gladness granted in this 
 world, had been theirs in life. Those beings 
 in whose happiness their happiness was bound 
 up, had not they grown in worth and loveli- 
 ness under their eyes ? had not they, year by 
 year, seen them crowned with all earth's 
 choicest blessings ? and from that day, when 
 the walls of the little village church, decked 
 by the zealous care of many a grateful 
 dependant, had witnessed the double union 
 of their children, was not the place of their 
 own gentle Lucy scarcely felt to be vacant, 
 so lovingly was it filled by another ? 
 
 The chosen bride, the beloved wife of 
 Evan, was scarcely less dear to the hearts of 
 the parents. It was the rich melodious voice 
 of Susan Lindsay that now, like a glad bird, 
 carolled blithely through every hill and dale 
 of Glenullen ; it was she, who, with all a 
 daughter's love, hung upon the footsteps of 
 Lady Lindsay, learning from her to dispense 
 sunshine and gladness as she went ; and she 
 it was, who at nightfall, crouching at the 
 feet of Lord Lindsay, would, with his hand 
 clasped in hers, and those soft eyes raised 
 lovingly to his face, prattle on of her day's 
 labours, all that she and Evan had done or 
 meant to do. And Lucy, too ! how often 
 would she come, gladdening their hearts with 
 a consciousness of her secured happiness, 
 and the certainty that she lay in the heart 
 of her husband, like the jewel on which his 
 whole existence hung. 
 
 Ah, these were blessed meetings, when 
 every change that passed over those who in 
 that circle were all in all to each other, seemed 
 but to add new grace and loveliness to the 
 happy band. 
 
 The childhood of Evan and Lucy Lindsay 
 was re-acted in the childhood of their children ;
 
 3SO 
 
 THE DEFORM HI). 
 
 and the young fair faces of the two brides 
 gradually assumed the less brilliant, not less 
 lovely look of the happy matrons. 
 
 Then there was the springing up to boy- 
 hood and manhood of the second Evan the 
 child of that child who had been my pre- 
 server. The growing loveliness of those 
 two peerless beings, Susan and Lucy Lindsay ! 
 Such, such has been the rich requital of 
 Heaven for works of mercy to one, the 
 lowliest of his children '. Such the blessings 
 that have begirt my path with brightness. 
 
 And now the evening of my day is drawing 
 on, and the shadows have not lengthened, 
 nor the sun gone down. The cheerlessness 
 of age affects me not ; the body is enfeebled, 
 but the spirit waxes stronger as the frame 
 decays. I feel my immortality, my glorious 
 heritage on high, drawing nearer and nearer; 
 the light shines stronger, the hope burns 
 brighter within me. Yes, my old age is glad 
 and tranquil, not merely in the absence of 
 disquietude, but in the abiding spirit of pc-ace 
 and hope. 
 
 THE WHITE FAWN. 
 
 A SKETCH OF A DOMESTIC INCIDENT, OCCURRING IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE GENESKH. 
 BY COLONEL JuIIXSO.N. 
 
 A NEW country, which receives a constant 
 influx of emigration from most other parts of 
 the earth, and of which the pioneer settlers are 
 
 i essentially enterprising, furnishes specimens 
 of improvement and advance, at once so sudden 
 and extensive, as to excite the greatest as- 
 tonishment on a second visit after a few years' 
 interval. 
 
 Such a country is the United States of 
 America ; and we have witnessed such rapid 
 transitions from a wild to a cultivated con- 
 dition as almost overwhelm the imagination. 
 A statement of facts which have fallen under 
 our own observation, in reference to this 
 matter, would, to an European unacquainted 
 with the subject, be deemed quite apocryphal. 
 For instance, when young, we threaded the 
 windings of Indian trails, without other high- 
 Avays, through all that garden of America, 
 now known as Western New York, when the 
 country, through its length and breadth, was 
 
 a solitary forest : its silence never having 
 been broken, save by the yells of savage 
 tribes, and the bowlings of beasts of prey. 
 
 At the present time, the same country 
 presents a high state of cultivation : its fields 
 wave with corn, and are covered by flocks 
 and herds ; canals and railways chequer the 
 land ; mills, factories, and divers machinery 
 moved by wheels, mingle their clangour with 
 the sound of the waterfalls ; cities, villages, 
 towns, boroughs, and hamlets have sprung 
 up as if by enchantment ; and the eye of the 
 traveller, as he now takes his way over that 
 fruitful region, will be delighted as he beholds 
 on every hand, villas, terraces, and sun-lit 
 spires, which beautify the vales, and gild the 
 mountains of that enchanting country. We 
 
 have stood upon the spot now occupied by 
 the city of Rochester, when wolves, and owls, 
 and panthers were its only inhabitants ; and 
 when the dark forest-trees hung over, and 
 half concealed the waters of the Genesee, 
 which irrigate the city. The place now has 
 forty thousand inhabitants, and is called the 
 Birmingham of America. 
 
 The country of which we first spoke, is 
 bounded on the north by Lake Ontario ; cast 
 by the Oneida country ; south by the spurs 
 of the Alleghany ; and west by Lake Erie 
 and the Niagara river ; containing about 
 thirty large counties, or seven hundred town- 
 ships of six miles square, through the centre 
 of which flows the Genesee river. This 
 stream rises on the summit-level of the 
 Alleghanies, and, after scooping out frightful 
 caverns in the rocky mountains, it flows in a 
 north-east direction through a most luxuriant 
 and enchanting vale, for a hundred miles ; 
 and passing through Mount-Morris, Geneseo, 
 Avon, and Rochester, empties itself into Lake 
 Ontario. 
 
 It was in the valley of this river that the 
 new settlements of Western New-York com- 
 menced ; and some of the incidents connected 
 with the settlers' intercourse with the savage 
 tribes bordering on that river, are well worth 
 a place in the history of the New World. 
 
 Shall we be indulged in relating a domestic 
 incident, which came to our knowledge in 
 our early acquaintance with that country, 
 and through the very parties who bore the 
 most prominent part in the occurrence ? 
 
 Some time after the Revolutionary war, 
 an English company purchased a large tract 
 of land on the east side of the Genesee river,
 
 THE WHITE FAWN. 
 
 381 
 
 and in 1708, sent out their agent, Major 
 Williamson, to survey, and make sale of 
 the said land. The Major was a Scottish 
 gentleman of the old school, broad in his 
 dialect, precise and rigid in his manners, 
 stubborn and inexorable in his disposition, 
 and a severe disciplinarian in his family and 
 among his dependants. 
 
 It was well for the Major that he had no 
 patriot neighbours, (for neighbours had he 
 none of any sort,) so soon after the Revolu- 
 tionary struggle ; for, whatever of good nature 
 and kindness might be manifested by a 
 Yankee population, in other respects, at that 
 period, they could not treat a "British Tory" 
 with the least toleration. 
 
 The Major's family consisted of his wife 
 and three daughters, the eldest of whom, 
 Mary by name, was an enthusiastic, lively, 
 and beautiful girl, of seventeen years of age. 
 The life tints to her portraiture cannot 
 better be given, than by antithesis or con- 
 trast with her father : while he was sordid, 
 morose, and severe, Mary was generous, 
 bland, and full of youthful glee ; and yet, 
 with all this contrast, Mary Williamson was 
 the idol of her father. With the above excep- 
 tion, it was not known that the Scottish agent 
 had other attachment, unless pertinacity to 
 his own way in every thing, an overweening 
 nationality, and a bigoted reverence for the 
 Presbyterian faith, may be called attachment. 
 This much, at all events, was true concerning 
 him, that his surveyors, clerks, and servants 
 feared and trembled in his presence, and 
 hated him ; while all the Indian tiibes in the 
 surrounding country detested him. Indians, 
 of course, do not obtain their knowledge of 
 men and things from books or from the 
 schools ; they may not be enabled to con- 
 jugate Greek verbs, or give you the major or 
 the minor proposition of an argument ; or to 
 tell you whether they have arrived at their 
 conclusions by induction, ova priori ; perhaps 
 they cannot always tell the why or the 
 wherefore of their preferences and dislikes ; 
 yet, they manifest an instinctive acumen in 
 their perception of human character, which 
 makes it always safe to place confidence where 
 they do so, and vice versa. 
 
 It is never good policy in a land-agent, 
 acting in a country where savage tribes 
 still linger around the graves of their fore- 
 fathers, to be too magisterial in asserting the 
 strict allodial rights of domain, until those 
 | tribes shall have melted away under the pro- 
 gress of civilisation, and the actual occupancy 
 by white settlers. 
 
 In neglecting this precaution, the Major 
 had incurred the resentment of his red neigh- 
 bours, who regarded him as an intruder upon 
 their ancient rights of fishing and hunting, 
 which they alleged had been guaranteed to 
 them by the Great Spirit himself. Among 
 other aggressions, the agent had burned the 
 wigwams of the hunters in his vicinity, dese- 
 crated the Indian graves, forbidden hunting 
 over the mountains, and fishing in the streams 
 which fell within the boundaries of the Pult- 
 ney and Hornby estates ; the persons of those 
 names being the principals for whom Major 
 Williamson was agent. In regard to the 
 wigwams, forests, and brooks, perhaps, had 
 these been alone concerned, the Indians might 
 have surrendered them without contest ; but 
 when the palings of their fathers' graves had 
 been broken down, and their consecrated 
 grounds devoted to profane use, forbearance 
 was no longer a virtue. It is an ancient 
 custom with the Indians to bury their dead 
 in a sitting posture, with their warlike and 
 hunting implements by their side ; each 
 is furnished wit-'i a pot of parched corn, to 
 provision him on his way to the land of 
 the celestial rangers ; and when the body is 
 thus interred, the tribe to which he belonged 
 build over the grave a tumulus of enduring 
 wood, on which is carved and painted various 
 devices and hieroglyphics, emblematical of 
 the character and supposed destiny of the 
 deceased. The grave thus completed, is en- 
 closed by a wooden paling, which is preserved 
 by tar and Indian paints, from generation to 
 generation, and the spot is for ever deemed 
 sacred from intrusion or secular use. The 
 wandering tribes themselves pass by these 
 hallowed receptacles in solemn silence, unless 
 they pause for devotion ; and wo be to the 
 pioneer who profanes these sacred mansions 
 of the dead ! 
 
 On one occasion, Major Williamson, meet- 
 ing with a small hunting party of natives, 
 and being aided by his surveyors, violently 
 took from the Indians a slaughtered buck 
 and a string of trout, which he alleged had 
 been unlawfully taken on the grounds and 
 from the streams belonging to the great land- 
 owners across the waters. The Indians made 
 no words, nor offered any resistance ; but as 
 they saw the fruits of their chase and angling 
 disappear, they exchanged significant looks 
 among themselves, and involuntarily emitted 
 the well-known guttural exclamation Ugh ! 
 
 Mary Williamson, on the contrary, and as 
 an exception to the whole family, was a 
 special favourite with the natives. She
 
 382 
 
 THE WHITE FAWN. 
 
 seized the occasions of her father's absence to 
 visit their wigwams, and make presents to 
 their females of milk, bread, needles, and 
 those little tilings which they deemed highly 
 valuable. Indians bestow names upon 
 pioneers, which, in their own native dialect, 
 are most expressive of looks, qualities, and 
 traits of character. They called Mary Wil- 
 liamson A wei-natau, which, by interpretation, 
 signifies " WHITE FAWN ;" and her sweet 
 and amiable deportment towards them had so 
 won them over to her, that they would go 
 on foot, and even barefoot, by night and by 
 day, to gratify her wishes, and to serve her 
 in any thing she desired. 
 
 It occurred on an afternoon of a summer's 
 day, that while the Agent and his family 
 were at tea, they were visited by a person at 
 whose appearance they were not a little sur- 
 prised. His dress was that of an Indian 
 chieftain, such as we have often seen, while 
 those heroes of the forest were in their native 
 glory, before they had become subdued and 
 crest-fallen by their intercommunion with 
 the vulgar vices of white men. 
 
 We now aver, that when we have seen 
 fifty chiefs and warriors in company, clad 
 as Indian hunters, and riding in a single line 
 along their native trails, with their dress and 
 armour sparkling in the sunbeams, they have 
 presented a more imposing and formidable 
 appearance than any other troops we ever 
 saw, the Turkish cavalry not excepted. 
 
 Well, a young man, habited as an Indian, 
 stood in the midst of Major Williamson's 
 family, while they were assembled in the prin- 
 cipal parlour. But what made the stranger an 
 object of surprise in particular was, that his 
 age did not exceed twenty -five years ; besides, 
 his complexion, hair, and eyes determined 
 him to be other than a native Indian. Now, 
 Indians never become chieftains of their re- 
 spective tribes, until they are some forty 
 years of age ; and the fact was then unknown 
 to the agent, that any white man ever at- 
 tained to that distinction. The youth bore 
 the searching scrutiny of the present company 
 without the least embarrassment ; and al- 
 though no seat was offered to him, his 
 majestic and noble bearing could not fail to 
 impose deferential respect upon ail who 
 gazed upon him. 
 
 " What has brocht ye here, my man, at 
 sic a time o' day ?" inquired the imperious 
 agent, as he half arose from his seat beside 
 the tea-table. 
 
 " I am here," said the stranger, answering 
 in imperfect English, though with a voice 
 
 and manner accustomed to command, " to 
 request Major Williamson to respect the 
 rights of the aborigines, more than he has 
 been wont to do of late." 
 
 " Hoot, man ! and wha are ye, to mak 
 yersel sae deevilish busy in a matter that's 
 naething to you?" replied the testy Scot. 
 
 "But, sir, it is much to me," rejoined the 
 youth ; " my relation to these scattered tribes 
 makes it my duty to redress their wrongs, 
 and to protect them in their ancient privi- 
 leges." By this time Mary had arisen from 
 her seat, and placed a chair beside the 
 stranger ; and though she spoke not, to in- 
 terrupt her father, her eyes and attitude 
 directed the young chief to a seat. 
 
 " An whaurfore suld yc make a soor mooth, 
 at ma gangings on to thae pagan infidel ne'er- 
 doweels, wham ye specify ? " inquired the 
 agent. 
 
 "I have this reason," said the stranger, 
 " that in all our treaties with the government, 
 wherein we have ceded to them our prescrip- 
 tive right to lands, we have reserved the use 
 of unoccupied forests and rivers, for the pur- 
 poses of our game and fish ; and have espe- 
 cially provided for the repose of our sleeping 
 dead, that their bones should not be turned 
 up by the white man's plough, and left to 
 crumble upon the surface, and bleach in the 
 sun-beams. Besides, sir, we need not the 
 authority of treaties to establish our right to 
 the game and fish taken on our own reser- 
 vations ; and I caution you, in respect to 
 your own safety, that you restore to my 
 hunting men the buck and fish of which you 
 forcibly deprived them, and hereafter leave the 
 graves of the ancient warriors unmolested." 
 
 The Major ill concealed his ire at this 
 bold lecture from the mouth of a stranger, 
 coming in " so questionable a shape ;" yet he 
 perceived by the attitude, the eye, the voice, 
 and the undaunted carriage of the speaker, 
 that he was not to be trifled with. The 
 agent therefore waved the present subject of 
 conversation, and inquired of the youth, how 
 it occurred that his lot had been cast among 
 these savage tribes, as it was quite apparent 
 that his blood was unmixed European ? 
 The stranger answered in short, that, when at 
 twelve years of age, he had been taken prisoner 
 in Pennsylvania, by the puissant Brandt, on 
 his return from the well known massacre 
 at Wyoming he ran the Indian gauntlet 
 at that early age ; by which he not only 
 saved his life, but won the admiration of his 
 savage captors, who procured his adoption 
 into the family of the Seneca chief, whom he
 
 THE WHITE FAWN. 
 
 383 
 
 now succeeded in command, and to a chief- 
 tain's honours. 
 
 But," replied the Scot, " oh, man ! 
 hut ye maun hae been powerfully inclined to 
 evil, even as the sparks flee upwards, for a 
 spunkie like you to hae confabbled sae young 
 wi' sic a posse o' rampin, riotous, red-hot 
 rebels. What say ye to that, man ?" 
 
 " I say," replied the youth, " that my 
 father, who was with me when I was cap- 
 tured, lived a patriot, and died a martyr in 
 his country's cause, engaged against the 
 aggressions of Great Britain." 
 
 " A martyr ! deil rin awa wi' siccan 
 martyrs in whause cause? Oo ay, the 
 said deil, ye'r faither's. Aggressions too ! 
 there's impidince. Could his Majesty mak 
 aggressions intil his ain ? I'll tell ye what 
 he suld hae strapped up the thievin' blag- 
 gairds that said sae, like a wheen tykes, a' 
 bitten wi' the same madness !" 
 
 " He must have caiight us first," replied 
 the stranger, with great complacency ; " but 
 we put our trust in God, who delivered us 
 out of the king's hand." 
 
 " Ower true, man, ower true ; ye put yeer 
 trust in yeer God, and he delivered ye in his 
 auld fashion, frae the pains an' penalties o' 
 your injured king and offended Maker for 
 u while, till, but there's nae matter." 
 
 The Scotsman's ire arose with his elo- 
 quence ; and, rising from his seat, he motioned 
 toward the door, and too plainly indicated by 
 his gestures, what in words would read 
 " Begone from my house." 
 
 The youth walked away with the dignity 
 of a commanding general on a retreat ; but 
 not till he had bestowed two glances of a most 
 opposite character ; the one was on the Major, 
 and it was that of supreme and withering 
 contempt ; the other was on Mary William- 
 son, and it was full of kindness and courteous 
 benignity. 
 
 On the morning of the fourth day after 
 the above-mentioned interview, a spectacle of 
 a singular character was witnessed not thirty 
 rods from the agent's dwelling ; the body of 
 a large animal Avas seen hanging up by the 
 gambrels, in the manner of hanging up a 
 slaughtered bullock ; it was eviscerated and 
 well dressed ; but it appeared much larger 
 than a buck, and was the subject of so much 
 wonder to the men, that the Major himself 
 was called upon to inspect the affair. On 
 coming to the spot, the agent well nigh burst 
 with rage and astonishment on discovering it 
 to be his favourite saddle-horse, which he had 
 imported from the old world, in consideration 
 
 of its supposed good qualities. On looking at 
 the large forest trees standing around the spot, 
 the agent perceived, carved on one of them an 
 Indian, with his rifle and fishing-rod ; on an- 
 other, a slaughtered buck : and on a third, a 
 string offish. This had been done by the toma- 
 hawk on the bark of the trees. The allusion 
 was too direct to escape the Major's appre- 
 hension. It said, as plainly as hieroglyphics 
 could say ; " Remember how you robbed us of 
 venison and fish : This is Indian revenge." 
 But the favourite horse the Major felt the 
 retaliation disproportioned to the provocation. 
 It grieved him to the very heart ; and no 
 doubt, had this dispensation remained singly 
 on the mind of the Scot, he would have 
 brooded over it for weeks and months together. 
 But in the evening of the same day, the whole 
 Williamson family met with a disaster which 
 overwhelmed them all in insupportable 
 anguish, and obliterated the remembrance of 
 the horse entirely from their minds. Mary 
 had been noticed on that afternoon, as was 
 frequently her wont, to stroll out into the 
 contiguous forest, with her needle-work in 
 her hand, followed by her father's favourite 
 dog. No notice would have been taken of 
 the occurrence, had she returned in her usual 
 time ; but tea hour arrived, and no eldest 
 daughter to grace the board at that social 
 and blissful domestic treat ; twilight ap- 
 proached, and still the flower of Williamsville 
 came not. Now the Major, though generally 
 ignorant of woodland scenes, had experienced 
 enough in the bush to know that it was an 
 easy thing to get bewildered and lost in an 
 interminable forest, such as surrounded his 
 dwelling-place ; yet he had confidence in his 
 dog, which by instinct had proved himself a 
 safe conductor in all that part of the country 
 over which he had followed the game. 
 
 The whole family becoming thus con- 
 cerned and alarmed at the absence of Mary, 
 without providing lights, or making other 
 preparations to go forth into the wilderness, 
 rushed out in various directions from the 
 house, ringing bells, blowing horns, and 
 calling aloud on the name of their favourite. 
 The female domestics, and ladies of the family, 
 however, took good care not to lose sight of 
 the house, lest their own condition should be- 
 come as desperate as that of the lost Mary's. 
 The men, more heroic, taking the direction 
 pursued by the young lady, penetrated into 
 the wilds for two hundred rods ; where, coming 
 near to a spring of water, which Mary had 
 been known to visit on previous occasions, 
 their alarm was much increased, by their
 
 384 
 
 Tin; wntTi: FAWN. 
 
 finding the dead body of the Major's dog, 
 stuck up upon a pole, twenty feet above the 
 ground. Further search proving fruitless, 
 and a dark night settling down in solitude 
 upon the boundless forests, the party suspended 
 the search, and returned to the house, in order 
 to hold a consultation, and resolve on what 
 next should be done to recover the lost. 
 
 It need not be said, that the house of the 
 agent was a scene of distress for the whole of 
 that night a distress which agitated every 
 bosom, pierced every heart, and shook even 
 the faith of the worthy Scot himself in the 
 righteousness of this dispensation a dis- 
 pensation not only inscrutable, but unendur- 
 able. In his evening prayers, which were 
 offered up with a faltering voice, and when 
 the devotee made an effort to reconcile him- 
 self to this severe rebuke of the Divine hand, 
 he quoted from Job, " The Lord gave, and 
 the Lord hath taken away ;" but, coming 
 to a sudden pause, and without repeating 
 " blessed be the name of the Lord," as in the 
 text, he added, in sudden transition, " restore 
 unto us our lost inheritance, and the joys of 
 thy salvation." 
 
 By morning light all hands were out in 
 search for the lost treasure ; yet nothing but 
 the sacrificed dog could be found, to give a 
 clue to Mary's fate. For six succeeding 
 days was this fruitless search continued, till 
 the heart sickened over the thought of poor 
 Mary's fate ; and when inquiry was made of 
 hunting parties of Indians, with which the 
 searchers frequently met, they got for answer, 
 " We don't know" " What does Pale-face 
 want ?" till at length, wearied out by their 
 hopeless endeavours, the bereft and agonixed 
 family gave over in despair. 
 
 We must now leave Williamsville for the 
 present, to look after the safety of The White 
 Fawn. Let the reader imagine to himself 
 a mad river, bursting through interposing 
 mountains, and towering quarries of granite, 
 reared into frowning and fantastic forms, 
 ploughing for itself a deep channel, and by 
 its ceaseless eddies scooping out subterranean 
 caverns and shelving caves on either side of 
 its current, and he will have a true picture 
 of the upper section of Genesee river, in its 
 eternal warfare with the Alleghany moun- 
 tains. Imagine at an offset of rock, about 
 midway between the surface of the upper 
 bank, and the present face of the boiling 
 stream, a natural cave, formed by the whirl- 
 ing eddies of the river, some thousands of 
 years since, before the channel was cut so 
 deep ; the cave being left high and dry, by 
 
 the water's rare ding, us the 1 bed of the stream 
 had become lowered by the wearing away 
 of the subaqueous rocks. Imagine this rocky 
 room completed by Indian art, and covered 
 by bears' skins, and containing a bed of 
 buffalo robes, and you have a drawing of 
 the present abode of Mary Williamson. But, 
 alas for poor Mary ! the agitations of her 
 mind occasioned by her captivity, operating ] 
 with other predisposing causes of disease, had 
 thrown her into a violent fever, in which ^h? 
 lay upon the fur bed above described, in a 
 state of intermitting delirium. Now the 
 Indians attribute all disease and sickness to 
 the agency of evil spirits, which, at war with 
 the Great Good Spirit, are ever busy in mar- 
 ring His beauteous works, and afflicting His 
 earthly creatures ; and although their skil- 
 ful old women administer to the afflicted 
 sufferer decoctions of curative herbs, whose 
 virtues are best known to themselves ; yet 
 the chief reliance of their wise men for a cure, 
 is on certain charms and incantations, in 
 which their prophets and astrologers bear a 
 conspicuous part ; they repeating ejacu- 
 lations of exorcism, while their people are 
 singing the wizard chant, and dancing around 
 a boiling caldron of mystic compounds. 
 As The White Fawn was an especial 
 favourite with the natives, the whole tribe 
 was put in requisition to collect materials, 
 and prepare ingredients for this solemn cere- 
 mony. Nightshade was gathered in the 
 moonlight ; digitalis and dragonteeth were 
 cut up by a wild boar's tusk ; the entrails of 
 the checkered adder, hearts of frogs, and eyes 
 of lizards, with many other cabalistic ingre- 
 dients, were procured to make up the com- 
 pound of the mystic caldron. 
 
 And now, all being assembled around the 
 spot, and as many as could be accommodated 
 in the cave having entered there, the ceremony 
 commenced by the monotonous sound of their 
 tiiiiiffntins; which was followed by the wizard 
 dance, into which the performers threw the 
 most wild and fantastic gesticulations, dis- 
 torting their faces with unearthly writhings 
 and demoniac contortions. The caldron 
 bubbled and smoked within the wizard ring, 
 and the charm was working to admiration, 
 as the prophets alleged, when their devout 
 work was suddenly arrested, and the enchant- 
 ment broken by an alarm from without, 
 occasioned by the approach of an armed and 
 hostile force. It must here be recorded 
 that Major Williamson, after the long fruit- 
 less search for his daughter above recited, 
 had become convinced that she had been
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 385 
 
 captured and carried off a prisoner by the 
 Indians ; and in his haste, and reckoning 
 without his host, he had adopted the danger- 
 ous expedient of effecting her rescue m et 
 armis. For this purpose, he had placed 
 firearms in the hands of all his surveyors, 
 clerks, and other dependants ; and buckling 
 on his military armour, which whilom had 
 begirt his testy body as Major of a Caledonian 
 regiment, he sallied forth, en militaire, to 
 carry terror, and, if need be, destruction, into 
 the Indian camp. The arrival of this puis- 
 sant and warlike cavalcade near the scene of 
 exorcism, arrested progress in the sacred 
 rite, and broke the hallowed charm. The 
 intruders were met at a short distance from 
 the spot by a wily savage, who had learned 
 a few words of the English language, and 
 who, accosting the Major, said, " What want 
 Pale-face here?" 
 
 " My daughter, my daughter ! " was the 
 passionate reply. 
 
 " Follow me, then," said the native ; and 
 taking his course up-stream, he conducted 
 the party by a sinuous way, some forty rods 
 distant from the first-mentioned cave, and 
 descending a flight of natural stone steps, he 
 came to an aperture from which issued a 
 flickering light. " You must place your 
 arms here before you go in," said the Indian, 
 which direction was instantly obeyed by 
 the men of arms, without reflection ; so en- 
 grossing and all-absorbing had become the 
 anxiety of the father to gain the presence of 
 his beloved daughter. 
 
 The party descended, and soon found them- 
 selves in a large rocky room ; but the light 
 reflected only the dim outlines of the place, 
 without giving distinctness to any surround- 
 ing object. In a moment the wily conductor 
 disappeared from the view of the party, and 
 the ponderous rocky door by which they 
 came in was heard to jar against the con- 
 tiguous rocks, as it shut them in, closing up 
 the aperture by which they had entered. 
 The party made an effort to find a way out, 
 by rushing towards the entering place; when 
 suddenly a new light filled the cavern, dis- 
 covering to their astonished gaze, standing 
 or crouching on niches of rock, which rose 
 on all sides like an amphitheatre, an hun- 
 dred wild animals of the most frightful kind, 
 among which were wolves, bears, catamounts, 
 and panthers, glaring their fiery eyeballs 
 terrifically, and showing their murderous 
 teeth, as if about to spring upon them. The 
 panic-stricken party instinctively huddled 
 close together, in the centre of the room, like 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 so many frightened sheep ; but turning their 
 eyes upward, whence the light streamed 
 upon them, a new cause of horror shook 
 every limb, and brought most of the com- 
 pany prostrate upon their faces. The light 
 which they at first supposed to be a flam- 
 beau, or a pot of burning pitch, they now 
 perceived to be the blazing face of what ap- 
 peared to them some infernal demon, with 
 eyes of flame, teeth of burning coals, and 
 tongue of livid carbon. Never was a body 
 of troops who sallied forth in the morning, 
 heroically bent on deeds of noble daring, and 
 already flushed with anticipated victory, so 
 completely foiled, vanquished, and crest- 
 fallen, as was the Major's posse in their pre- 
 sent forlorn condition, and all this without 
 loss of life or ammunition. Men in a state 
 of terror rarely reason ; hence they are in no 
 condition to attend to surrounding circum- 
 stances, and sift things to the bottom. Had 
 the Major and his troops divested themselves 
 of fear, and gone boldly forth, placing their 
 hands on what appeared so terrific and ap- 
 palling around them, they would have found 
 nothing but stuffed skins of wild beasts, with 
 painted isinglass eyes ; and had they ex- 
 amined the awful light which so overwhelmed 
 and prostrated them, they would have found 
 it but burning tar placed within the cavity 
 of a pumpkin, which had been scooped out, 
 and its rind cut in such a manner, that the 
 light shining through the carved interstices, 
 presented the frightful appearance above des- 
 cribed ; in short, they would have found 
 themselves comfortably situated within an 
 Indian museum, wlu'ch was lighted in a 
 manner not uncommon among the savage 
 tribes. The light gradually declined, and 
 finally went out, leaving the party still sur- 
 rounded by the frightful beasts, and in total 
 darkness, where they remained without sleep 
 until dawn of day. But, alas ! no day dawned 
 on the Major and his men. Pent up in the 
 bowels of the earth, they had spent a fearful 
 night ; and now the rising sun, which shines 
 on the evil and the good, was no sun to 
 them ; its rays could not pierce the super- 
 incumbent mass which formed an adamantine 
 ceiling above and around them. At this 
 juncture, a new cause of alarm, of a more 
 tangible nature, threatened them with total 
 destruction. They heard gurgling through 
 the clefts of the rock a volume of water, as 
 if a sluice-way had been opened, and a pond 
 of water was let loose upon them ; and in a 
 moment the cavern in which they were, began 
 to be filled with water. It rose up to their 
 
 No. 25.
 
 386 
 
 THE WHITE FAWN. 
 
 knees, and was still rising, when the misera- 
 ble men, cooped up in an adamantine tomb, 
 as they were, and feeling the cold waters about 
 to settle over them, relinquished all hopes of 
 life, and in an agonizing prayer, offered up by 
 the puritanic Major, in behalf of the whole 
 troop, commended their souls to God. At 
 this awful juncture, the ponderous door of 
 the cave was thrown open ; and the well- 
 known features of their crafty guide, who 
 had conducted them to that spot, wrinkled 
 by an ironical smile, were presented before 
 them. 
 
 "Hope Pale-face had good sleep," face- 
 tiously exclaimed the guide. " Come, now ; 
 sun he look out and say, time to go ! Joggo 
 Kagenau ! " 
 
 The party needed no urging ; they waded 
 to the aperture in trembling anxiety to escape 
 the peril, and were soon in the upper air ; 
 but their arms had disappeared ! 
 
 When the Major, in awkward abashment, 
 ventured to ask for the guns which his troops 
 had left at the mouth of the cave, the Indian 
 archly replied, " No have 'em rifle no good 
 for white man he no good to shoot he 
 careless sometimes he kill good Indian with 
 rifle then I be very sorry. I say now, go; 
 joggo ! " 
 
 The party took up their return march as 
 much crest-fallen and in as sorry plight as 
 were the valorous Don Quixotte and his 
 trusty squire after their encounter with the 
 windmill. 
 
 To understand this water-scene, the reader 
 must be told that an aqueduct had been con- 
 structed to convey the water, from the falls 
 of the river, which were but a few rods up- 
 stream from this Indian museum, into the 
 caves below, for the purpose of purifying and 
 cooling them in the heat of summer ; and by 
 means of a wear, or gate, the water was shut 
 out or let in at pleasure. 
 
 In order more effectually to terrify the 
 besiegers, their arch conductor had in this 
 instance stopped up the out-let, raised the 
 said sluice-way, and thus effected the sub- 
 mersion above noted. 
 
 While the scenes above recorded were 
 enacting in one cave, the curative charm 
 was resumed and repeated in the other, with- 
 out farther interruption, for the restor- 
 ation of The White Fawn; who, being 
 the darling of the tribe, nothing was left 
 unessayed to expel the naughty demon from 
 her, and bring the roses again upon her 
 cheeks ; and whether owing to the roots and 
 herbs of the old women, the wizard enchant- 
 
 ments of the astrologers and prophets, a 
 vigorous constitution, or the blessing of God, 
 Miss Williamson found herself much relieved 
 on the following day. 
 
 It was toward evening of the same day, 
 while the patient was sitting up in her bed, 
 an unexpected visitant stood before her. A 
 youth of graceful form and manly and noble 
 bearing made his obeisance, as he entered 
 the room, and greeted the damsel in English, 
 offering the following apology, "I regret, 
 Miss Williamson, that in my absence to Buf- 
 falo, from which place I have just returned, 
 my men should have committed so wanton 
 an outrage upon your family and person. 
 You must know that these savage tribes 
 never practise the virtue of forgiveness. 
 Though they are constant in their attach- 
 ments, and untiring in the service of their 
 friends, yet it is woven into their nature, 
 and incorporated with their religion, to return 
 wrong for wrong. They thought your father 
 had injured them, and in retaliation they 
 had resolved to burn his house this very 
 night. Your forcible abduction from your 
 home, which you deemed barbarous and 
 cruel, was meant by these sons of the forest 
 as an act of the greatest beneficence, viz. 
 they intended by it the saving of your own 
 life from a fatal catastrophe which they had 
 meditated against your father and his family. 
 My unexpected return has prevented that 
 catastrophe ; and my authority over these 
 tribes will prevent farther injury to Major 
 Williamson ; unless, by his own continued 
 aggressions upon Indian rights, he exasperate 
 them beyond the power of man to control 
 them. I have now only to inquire how I 
 may best serve Miss Williamson in this 
 emergency ? " 
 
 It need scarcely be said, that the speaker 
 was no other than the handsome white chief, 
 to whom Mary Williamson had offered a seat 
 at her father's house, as before stated. " I 
 desire," responded the young lady, with deep 
 emotion, " to return to my father." 
 
 " I fear you are too weak at present for 
 such an effort," said the chief ; " but if your 
 opinion be otherwise, nothing shall be want- 
 ing on my part to obtain the accomplishment 
 of your wishes." 
 
 Mary's anxiety to relieve the apprehensions 
 of her friends at home was so great, that it 
 would brook no delay ; so it was arranged 
 that she should set off on the following 
 morning. Arranged for this service was a 
 wicker sedan, covered with the richest skins 
 and softest furs which a wide-spread forest
 
 THE WHITE FAWN. 
 
 387 
 
 and Indian skill could supply ; a relay 
 of eight young natives was selected as 
 bearers ; and three or four old nurses fol- 
 lowed in the train, well furnished with 
 febrifuges and cordials. 
 
 The party set off in the morning ; but 
 made short stages, lingering along the way, 
 to give rest and refreshment to their favoured 
 patient, so that Mary no more felt fatigue in 
 the transit, than she would have done had 
 she been lying at home in her own bedroom. 
 Besides, the young lady was most agreeably 
 surprised to find, that all the stopping-places 
 on the journey were selected as being the 
 most beautiful and enchanting spots in 
 the forest ; and were generally near some 
 spring of pure water, where a fire had been 
 recently kindled and left burning, over which 
 her little sick-bed comforts could be readily 
 dressed to her hand. She knew by this that 
 a party must have preceded her, in order to 
 prepare the way ; and she felt that in the 
 refinement and delicacy of the arrangements, 
 the presence of a noble mind, and the hand 
 of a master were manifest ; and she could 
 not abstract her thoughts from that captivat- 
 ing and generous young gentleman who pro- 
 mised her safe-conduct, but whom she had 
 not seen on the journey. Ay, while on that 
 very sedan, as The White Fawn in after 
 life confessed to the writer of this nar- 
 rative, her thoughts were to the following 
 effect : " Whatever may have been the for- 
 tunes of that generous and high-minded 
 white chief, by which he became associated 
 with the savage tribes ; yet in every move- 
 ment of his limbs, in every word that drops 
 from his lips, in every generous and dignified 
 expression of his eyes and countenance, and 
 from every high-born emotion that beats in 
 the pulse of his heart, it is manifest that he 
 is one of nature's noblemen ; and I know 
 not, if it were required, that my heart would 
 be refused in requital to him for the obliga- 
 tions he has laid me under." 
 
 Such were the frank acknowledgments of 
 The White Fawn, after the storms of forty 
 winters, from the time referred to, had 
 blanched her auburn locks, and the subli- 
 mated passion of the youthful maiden had 
 given place to the staid sentiments of the 
 elderly matron. But to resume. The leisure 
 with which they travelled during the day, 
 detained them on their journey until a late 
 hour in the night; but just at evening's 
 close, the old nurses, following previous in- 
 structions, administered to their patient a 
 strong decoction of poppies, which unexpect- 
 
 edly to herself, and without her knowing the 
 cause, threw the damsel into a profound 
 sleep. 
 
 While the young lady remained in this 
 condition, the party arrived at Williamsville, 
 and set down the sedan at Major Williamson's 
 door, long after his family had retired. All 
 of them were now in profound sleep, unless, 
 perchance, some frightful dreams were har- 
 assing their imaginations, of their beloved 
 and lost one. 
 
 In a still and stealthy manner these light- 
 footed runners conducted the sleeping virgin 
 through the window of her lodging-room, by 
 removing the casements, and laid her upon 
 her own bed, ornamented and adorned as she 
 was found in the morning ; then fastening up 
 the window as they found it, left all quiet, 
 and vanished into the forests. 
 
 On the next morning, after a formal break- 
 fast, partaken by the heart-stricken family 
 without appetite, and in silent sadness ; and 
 after the chastened and mourning father had 
 tried once more, but in vain, to bring their 
 forlorn case before the throne of Heavenly 
 Mercy, in their morning devotions ; he took 
 his way, instinctively shall we say, toward 
 the bed-room of his adored one. 
 
 A view of her garments hanging around the 
 room, and her handiwork in the fine arts, dis- 
 played in paintings, and embossed and fretted 
 ornaments which adorned the walls of this 
 little chamber, and which the fond father saw 
 through the half-open door, had already filled 
 his eyes with tears ; when, in a moment after, 
 Major Williamson fell suddenly, as if in a 
 fit of apoplexy, insensible upon the floor ! 
 On the family running to know the cause of 
 this loud fall, their eyes were fixed in aston- 
 ishment upon an object whose face appeared 
 to be that of Mary Williamson. She still 
 lay in a profound though calm slumber ; 
 and in addition to her usual attire, which 
 appeared to have been just washed and neatly 
 done up, was a profusion of silver brooches, 
 amulets, and medals, covering her neck and 
 breast. A mantle of the richest ottr skin 
 covered her shoulders, and other costly furs 
 were spread under and around her ; a coronal 
 of wild flowers was fastened in a head-band, 
 composed of scarlet silk, interwoven with 
 painted beads and wampum, and surmounted 
 with rows of pearls. On her feet was a 
 brilliant pair of moccasins, such as we have 
 elsewhere described ; and, indeed, her whole 
 appearance not only reflected high credit on 
 the ingenuity of the native females, who 
 wrought the trinkets, but would have well
 
 388 
 
 THE WHITE FAWN. 
 
 become a fairy queen, or the lady of an 
 enchanted castle. The arms of her mother 
 thrown around her neck, and the tears of 
 maternal love fast falling on her face, awoke 
 the maiden ; whose mingled emotions of sur- 
 prise, joy, rapture, on finding herself thus 
 surrounded by her friends, and in the arms 
 of her mother, must be left to the reader's 
 imagination. But the Major still remained 
 upon the floor, where he had fallen. A phial 
 of hartshorn, however, and a glass of cold 
 water dashed into his face, aroused the too 
 sensitive father from his swoon caused by 
 fright ; for it must be recorded that the 
 Major, not less superstitious than he was 
 obstinate, verily supposed that the object he 
 beheld stretched on Mary's bed, was no other 
 than her apparition appearing unto him. 
 As he recovered, however, the mystery was 
 explained ; and the whole family group, 
 arranged in Mary's bed-room, would have 
 furnished a fine subject for the pencil of a 
 skilful artist; but no artist being there, and 
 we being no painters ourselves, the scene must 
 be left, together with the exclamations, tears, 
 kisses, congratulations, and ecstasies, to be 
 filled up according to the reader's own fancy. 
 
 A few days after this event, Major Wil- 
 liamson's family received the accession of a 
 divine just arrived " frae the land o' cakes," 
 a man more distinguished by sectarian zeal 
 and skill in polemics than by knowledge of 
 the common affairs of life. 
 
 This reverend dignitary had come over the 
 high seas, at the especial invitation of the 
 Major, who had two objects to accomplish 
 in his importation, namely, first, to establish 
 what he believed the true scriptural faith in all 
 the new settlements of the Genesee country ; 
 and, secondly, to provide a proper lord and 
 husband for Miss Williamson. 
 
 The divine was about forty years of age, 
 morose and sour in his disposition, cold and 
 forbidding in his manners, a stranger to the 
 warm impulses of the heart, and it took him 
 but about two days to establish in the mind 
 of his intended, who had pretty well recovered 
 from her illness, a dislike to his person, and 
 disgust at his pretensions. 
 
 Now it fell out a few weeks afterwards, 
 that Williamsville was visited by one of those 
 terrible demonstrations of God's power and 
 awfulness, known as an American thunder- 
 storm, of which an untravelled European can 
 form no adequate conception from the minia- 
 ture specimens of the like phenomena in his 
 own country. The storm came on after 
 night- fall, at Avhich hour a number of native 
 
 Indians presented themselves at the agent's 
 door, asking for shelter from the rain. The 
 Major, still sore from a recollection of his 
 military vanquishment, refused admittance 
 to them, and churlishly drove the poor fel- 
 lows from his door ; and they were obliged 
 to hide themselves from the violence of the 
 storm, under some tall oaks in the adjacent 
 forest. But the storm increased in its fury ; 
 the rain descended in torrents ; the lightnings 
 gleamed in frightful corruscations through 
 the dark forests ; and the Almighty's presence 
 was revealed by awful demonstration, in the 
 voice of his terrible thunder, which jarred 
 the habitation of the agent, and shook the 
 foundation of the surrounding hills ! In a 
 moment, an electric shaft parted the roof of 
 the mansion-house, scattered the shingles to 
 the winds, split the rafters and beams, and 
 set the chambers in a blaze of fire. The 
 violent shock prostrated every inmate of the 
 house to the ground ; and Mary, Avho was 
 alone in an upper bed-room, was struck 
 insensible to the floor. The other members 
 of the family rallied from the stunning shock, 
 and were soon out of the house. 
 
 The Indians having looked out from the 
 forest, and beheld the fated mansion in a 
 blaze, were by this time gathered around the 
 spot, and were active in carrying out the 
 furniture and valuables from the consuming 
 dwelling, to a place of safety ; which aroused 
 the Major to perceive that his house was 
 inevitably devoted to destruction. 
 
 Intent on rescuing his family, he nervously 
 looked around the group to count up their 
 numbers, and assure himself of their safety, 
 when he was heard to exclaim " My daughter ! 
 my daughter is still within the house ! My 
 God ! who can rescue her from the flames ?" 
 
 At that moment a youth from among the 
 natives sprang with the rapidity of thought 
 to the consuming walls, and dashing holes in 
 the wooden side walls of the house by means 
 of his tomahawk, formed steps by which he 
 ascended to the window of the room where 
 the young lady had fallen ; and, bursting 
 throiigh the window, though met by wreath- 
 ing flames of fire, and enveloped in a folding 
 cloud of smoke, he seized the insensible Mary, 
 and shrouding her in his blanket, which 
 fortunately was saturated with rain, descended 
 by the same steps, which had been already 
 half-burned, and in this way reached the 
 ground. But the effort was beyond human 
 endurance ; either by means of the suffocating 
 smoke, or by some sudden wrench, an internal 
 blood-vessel had become ruptured in the
 
 THE WHITE FAWN. 
 
 389 
 
 young man ; who, after falling to the ground 
 with his precious burden, discharged copious 
 quantities of blood from his mouth. In this 
 condition the rescuer and the rescued lay 
 on the ground together, when the before 
 agonized, but now enraptured family came 
 up to receive their restored member into their 
 arms ; who, though yet insensible, was not 
 essentially injured either by the lightning's 
 stroke, or by the fire that followed. But, 
 considering the awful peril in which she had 
 been placed, and that a few moments more 
 must have proved fatal, Mary Williamson 
 was indeed "a brand plucked out of the 
 fire." 
 
 The Indians continued to remove the goods 
 from the raging element, enacting feats of 
 daring and agility surprising to the Europeans; 
 by which vigilance all the papers and books, 
 and most of the valuable furniture of the 
 house, were saved. Meanwhile, Mary's gener- 
 ous deliverer had remained unattended, until, 
 by loss of blood, he lay in a state of syncope, 
 a breathing image of death. 
 
 The chastened family found temporary 
 shelter in the Major's office, it being a separate 
 building from the house ; to which, by the 
 kindness of Madam Williamson, the faint- 
 ing deliverer of her daughter was removed, 
 and laid upon a couch, where, though the 
 rooms afforded but scanty accommodation for 
 the family, he was permitted to remain, not- 
 withstanding the Major had recognised in his 
 guest the person of the white chief, who had 
 so boldly lectured him in his own house. 
 
 The loss of blood had been so excessive, 
 that nature seemed to have given over her 
 efforts to rally ; and after two days, all hopes 
 of the youth's recovery were relinquished by 
 his attendants. Among those attendants 
 were Mr. M'Caul, the divine above mentioned, 
 and Mary Williamson, the latter of whom 
 having pretty well recovered from her electric 
 shock, was a most interested and unremitting 
 attendant. When it was announced by 
 Mr. M'Caul, who administered as well for 
 the body as the soul, (there being no physi- 
 cians then in the country,) that the case of 
 the young man was hopeless, the " White 
 Fawn " suddenly became a "stricken deer :" 
 she refused to be comforted. While these 
 two attendants were together with their 
 patient, the former observed very pragmati- 
 cally that it would ill comport with his sacred 
 functions, to permit the stranger to exchange 
 worlds, which he appeared about to do, with- 
 out furnishing him with the means for his 
 passage ; and laying the phials and gallypots 
 
 aside, and taking the Holy Bible in his hand, 
 he approached the bedside of the patient. 
 
 The ministrations of Mr. M'Caul had the 
 happy effect of lulling the patient asleep, and 
 the preacher, not quite satisfied with the 
 fruits of his spiritual labour, left the room a 
 little miffed ; and did not return until the 
 following day, when he found the young 
 man quite recovered. In short, a crisis had 
 taken place in his disease, and the energies 
 of a vigorous constitution had been aroused 
 to throw off morbid action, and restore the 
 system to health. As the youth became 
 convalescent, he grew more and more inter- 
 ested in his female nurse ; protracting his stay 
 for a fortnight, during which time, in addi- 
 tion to what Mary had learned previously 
 of the young chief, she now heard from his 
 own lips, that his name was Horatio Jones, 
 who, young as he was, and still retaining the 
 Indian costume, was known throughout the 
 State as Major-General Jones, he having re- 
 ceived that high commission from the govern- 
 ment, in consideration of some heroic acts per- 
 formed while yet a boy, in the late war, and the 
 unbounded control he now exercised over all 
 the Indian tribes of the West : also that he 
 had been enriched by Indian munificence, to 
 an extent not exceeded by any capitalist of 
 the New World. In short, The White 
 Fawn exulted in having won the bravest 
 heart, and in soon having the power to control 
 the longest purse in all Western New York. 
 In justice to the young lady's disinterested- 
 ness it should be recorded, that these facti- 
 tious superiorities were not the motive which 
 inclined her toward the young General ; for 
 with her characteristic sincerity, she was 
 often heard to declare, in after life, that the 
 heroic sacrifices which the young chief had 
 made in her behalf, had so won her heart, 
 before she knew his rank, that with no other 
 possessions than his tomahawk and rifle, she 
 would have become the partner of his toils. 
 Before the General departed to rejoin his 
 faithful tribes, the true lovers, though un- 
 known to the agent and to the rest of his 
 family, had exchanged vows, plighted their 
 troth, and ratified it by affection's kiss. 
 
 Soon after the General's departure the 
 following scene occurred in the Major's 
 family circle. 
 
 " Mary, my daughter," said the Scot, " ye 
 are surely a special object o' Almichty grace 
 an' favour this day, to be letten hear the 
 news I hae for ye. That reverend and holy 
 man, Mr. M'Caul, has been sent dootless by 
 Him who watcheth o'er his ain, all the way
 
 390 
 
 THE WHITE FAWN. 
 
 across the wide sea, from Monteith, to offer 
 ye his hand, to make ye his ain to lead ye 
 throo' the green pastures, and beside the still 
 waters ; and to conduct ye at last to the 
 house of many mansions." 
 
 Mary, who had never been consulted by 
 her parent in this holy purpose, and who, as 
 before stated, had no inclination for the 
 Preacher as her husband, could scarcely re- 
 strain herself at so abrupt and unwelcome 
 an announcement ; but suppressing her feel- 
 ings, she calmly replied, " that she could 
 never aspire to the honour of such a con- 
 nexion." 
 
 " But the connexion is made ;" said the 
 Scot ; " the contract signed and sealed." 
 
 " Never, never !" said the maid, rising in 
 womanly pride, and indignant at what had 
 been done in her name, and without her 
 consent " never shall any man receive my 
 hand, but he who has my heart. You, as a 
 father, may command me in all other things ; 
 and I as a daughter, under a full sense of 
 filial obligations, shall feel bound to obey ; 
 but my affections are my own, the gift of 
 the Almighty, and I have bestowed them on 
 one who shall receive my hand also in God's 
 own good time." 
 
 At this passionate declaration the Scot and 
 his minister started from their seats in great 
 surprise. 
 
 " Bestowed on one ! " cried the father. 
 "Who can he be?" 
 
 "On one whom you have treated as a 
 savage foe," replied the daughter ; " but one 
 who has been your guardian angel, as well 
 as mine. One who, though his fortune, even 
 in tender years, made him an orphan and a 
 captive, shutting him out from the advan- 
 tages of civilized life, must have inherited 
 the virtues of a worthy ancestry ; he now ex- 
 emplifying those noble traits which none but 
 those made in the image of God, and in whom 
 that image has not been defaced, by associa- 
 tion with evil, can display. One whose fame 
 is echoed throughout the land ; who has 
 attained the highest military command in 
 the power of a grateful country to bestow. 
 One who has covered you and yours as with 
 a shield, jeoparding his own life to save your 
 
 property, your life, and the lives of your 
 whole family from premeditated destruction. 
 My heart and my hand belong to Major- 
 General Jones, by solemn contract, formed 
 on earth, and ratified in heaven, and it shall 
 never be bestowed on another." 
 
 The Scot was struck dumb ; for he had 
 just been reading in the " Canandarque [since 
 Canandaigua] Gazette," the only newsprint 
 then published in that vast region where 
 three hundred are now published, a short 
 memoir of Major-General Jones, wherein his 
 heroic virtues, his unbounded wealth, his 
 elevated rank, and his wide-spread influence 
 were duly recorded ; little thinking at the 
 time that the white chief, whom he had 
 scornfully driven from his door, and the 
 famous Major- General were one and the same 
 individual. The agent, though much addicted 
 to having his own way, yet, perceiving how 
 much more eligible would be the match wliich 
 the parties themselves had contracted than 
 the one he had designed, permitted for once 
 his Scotch prudence to prevail over his pa- 
 rental authority ; and turning to the minister, 
 said, " Well-a-day, man, what is to be, 
 can't be resisted. The lassie and her lad hae 
 ovA-generaPd us, and made the first covenant, 
 which maun stand, for a' we have done." 
 
 When the General made his next visit to 
 the agent's, the Major himself graciously arose 
 to give him a seat ; and the minister, though 
 rather awkwardly, performed for the parties 
 concerned the office which made them one. 
 
 And now, let the reader stand upon the 
 elevated banks of the Genesee, as the writer 
 of this has frequently stood, and cast his eyes 
 over the enchanting domains known as Jones' 
 Manor, where the country for miles around, 
 blooming like the garden of God, belongs to 
 one estate ; let him be introduced to the Gene- 
 ral's intellectual sons, hear the music and ad- 
 mire the drawings of his accomplished and 
 charming daughters, who adorn the highest 
 circles of society ; let him sit down by the 
 old General's side, as we have often done, for 
 hours together, and listen to the anecdotes of 
 the early settlements ; and he will learn more 
 than our pen can record of the early history 
 of THE WHITE FA\VX.
 
 391 
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 BY WILLIAM IIOWITT. 
 
 IT must have been remarked by the readers 
 of "The Nooks of the World," in Tait's 
 Magazine, and in my "Rural Life oi 
 England," that the people of the Midland 
 Counties, particularly of Derbyshire and 
 Nottinghamshire, have a singular practice of 
 calling almost every body by diminutives of 
 their Christian names, and seldom the plain, 
 plump diminution of Tom, Jack, Jem, but 
 Tommy, Jacky, Jemmy, and so on, generally 
 ornamented with the prefix of Old, a word 
 which in such use does not in the least de- 
 note age, for it is applied to youth, both in 
 men and animals too, just as much as to age, 
 and indicates only a familiar mode of expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Thinking it as well to notice this peculia- 
 rity as belonging to the people from amongst 
 whom these sketches are drawn before I in- 
 troduced another character with such an 
 appellation, I will now also preface the in- 
 troduction of Johnny Darby shire with a few 
 other remarks which may give a clear idea 
 of his character, and of similar ones as we 
 go along. 
 
 I have repeatedly alluded to and explained 
 the perfect freedom of life, and the other 
 concurring causes which go to produce such 
 an extraordinary variety of character, and of 
 most eccentric character in the Rural Nooks 
 of England. In this truly patriarchal life 
 the heads of families by their unlimited sway 
 acquire often a most unlimited authority. 
 They have no law but their own will, in the 
 house, and scarcely any out of it. They, 
 therefore, grow often not only most eccentric, 
 but most wilful, arbritary, overbearing, and 
 humorsorue. Of this class Johnny Darby- 
 shire is a complete specimen. 
 
 John Darbyshire, or, according to the regu- 
 lar custom of the country, Johnny Darby- 
 shire, was a farmer living in one of the most 
 obscure parts of the country, on the borders 
 of the Peak of Derbyshire. His fathers 
 before him had occupied the same farm for 
 generations ; and as they had been Quakers 
 From the days of George Fox, who preached 
 there and converted them, Johnny also was a 
 Quaker. That is, he was, as many others 
 were, and no doubt are, habitually a Quaker. 
 He was a Quaker in dress, in language, in 
 
 attendance of their meetings, and above all, 
 in the unmitigated contempt which he felt 
 and expressed for eveiy thing like fashion, 
 for the practices of the world, for the Church, 
 and for music and amusements. There 
 never was a man, from the first to the present 
 day of the society, who so thoroughly em- 
 bodied and exhibited that quality attributed 
 to the Quaker, in the rhyming nursery 
 alphabet,- "Q was a Quaker, and would 
 not bow down." 
 
 No, Johnny Darbyshire would not have 
 bowed down to any mortal power. He 
 would have marched into the presence of the 
 king with his hat on, and would have ad- 
 dressed him with just the same unembarrassed 
 freedom as " The old chap out of the West 
 Countrie," is made to do in the song. As to 
 any of the more humble and conceding 
 qualities usually attributed to the peaceful 
 Quaker, Johnny had not an atom of those 
 about him. Never was there a more pig- 
 headed, arbitrary, positive, pugnacious fellow. 
 He would argue any body out of their opinions 
 by the hour ; he would " threep them down," as 
 he called it, that is, point blank and with a loud 
 voice insist on his own possession of the right, 
 and of the sound cominonsense of the matter ; 
 and if he could not convince them, would at 
 least confound them with his obstreperous 
 din and violence of action. That was what 
 he called clearing the field, and not leaving 
 his antagonist a leg to stand on. Having thus 
 fairly overwhelmed, dumfoundered, and tired 
 out some one with his noise, he would go off* 
 in triumph, and say to the bystanders as he 
 went, " There, lads, you see he hadn't a 
 word to say for himself ;" and truly a clever 
 fellow must he have been who could have 
 got a word in edgeways when Johnny had 
 once fairly got his steam up, and was shriek- 
 ing and storming like a cat-o'-mountain. 
 
 Yet had any body told Johnny that he was 
 no Quaker, he would have " threeped them 
 down" that they did not know what a Quaker 
 meant. What ! were not his father, and his 
 jrandfather, and his great-grandfather be- 
 fore him all Quakers ? Was not he born in 
 the Society, brought up in it ? Hadn't he 
 attended first-day, week-day, preparative, 
 monthly, quarterly, and sometimes yearly
 
 392 
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 meetings too, all his life ? Had not he 
 regularly and handsomely subscribed to the 
 monthly, and the national, and the Ackworth 
 School Stocks? Had he not been on all 
 sorts of appointments ; to visit new members, 
 new comers into the meeting ; to warn 
 disorderly walkers ; nay, had he not sate even 
 on committees in London at yearly meetings? 
 Had he not received and travelled with 
 ministers when they came on religious visits 
 into these parts? Had he not taken them 
 in his tax-cart to the next place, and been 
 once upset in a deep and dirty lane with a 
 weighty ministering friend, and dislocated his 
 collar-bone ? 
 
 What ? He not a Quaker ! Was George 
 Fox one, did they think ; or William Penn, 
 or Robert Barclay indeed ? 
 
 Johnny Darbyshire was a Quaker. He 
 had the dress, and address, and all the out- 
 ward testimonies and marks of a Quaker ; 
 nay, he was more ; he was an overseer of the 
 meeting, and broke up the meetings. Yes, 
 and he would have them to know that he 
 executed his office well. Ay, well indeed ; 
 without clock to look at, or without pulling 
 out his watch, or being within hearing of any 
 bell, or any other thing that could guide him, 
 he would sit on the front seat of his meeting 
 where not a word was spoken, exactly for 
 an hour and three quarters to a minute, 
 and then break it up by shaking hands with 
 the Friend who sate next to him. Was not 
 that an evidence of a religious tact and 
 practice? And had not the Friends once 
 when he was away, just like people in a ship 
 which had lost both rudder and compass, 
 gone drifting in unconsciousness from ten in 
 the morning till three in the afternoon, and 
 would not then have known that it was time 
 to break up the meeting, but that somebody's 
 servant was sent to see what had happened, 
 and why they did not come home to dinner? 
 
 Johnny could see a sleeper as soon as any, 
 were he ensconced in the remotest and ob- 
 scurest corner of the meeting, and let him 
 hold up his head and sleep as cleverly as he 
 might from long habit. And did not he 
 once give a most notable piece of advice to a 
 rich Friend who was a shocking sleeper? 
 Was not this Friend very ill, and didn't 
 Johnny go to see him ; and didn't he, when 
 the Friend complained that he could get no 
 sleep, and that not all the physic, the strong- 
 est opium even of the doctor's shop, could 
 make him, didn't Johnny Darbyshire say 
 right slap-bang out, which not another of the 
 plainest-spoken Friends dare have done to a 
 
 rich man like that, "Stuff and nonsense ; 
 and a fig for opium and doctor's stuff, send, 
 man, send for the meeting-house bench, and 
 lie thee down on that, and I'll be bound 
 thou'lt sleep like one of the seven sleepers." 
 
 Undoubtedly Johnny was a Quaker ; a 
 right slap-dash Quaker of the old Foxite 
 school ; and had any body come smiling to 
 him in the hope of getting any thing out of 
 him, he would have said to him as George 
 Fox said to Colonel Hackett, "Beware of 
 hypocrisy and a rotten heart ! " True, had 
 you questioned him as to his particular reli- 
 gious doctrines or articles of faith, he would 
 not have been very clear, or very ready to 
 give you any explanation at all, for the very 
 best of reasons, he was not so superstitious 
 as to have a creed. A creed ! that was a 
 rag of the old woman of Babylon. No, 
 if you wanted to know all about doctrines 
 and disputations, why, you might look into 
 Barclay's Apology. There was a book big 
 enough for you, he should think. For himself, 
 like most of his cloth, he would confine himself 
 to his feelings. He would employ a variety 
 of choice and unique phrases ; such as, " If 
 a man want to know what religion is, he 
 must not go running after parsons, and 
 bishops, and all that sort of man-made minis- 
 ters, blind leaders of the blind, who can 
 talk by the hour, but about what neither 
 man, woman, nor child, for the life of them, 
 can tell, except when they come for their 
 tithes, or their Easter dues, and then they speak 
 plain enough with a vengeance. One of 
 these Common-Prayer priests," said he, "once 
 came to advise me about the lawfulness of 
 paying Church-rates, and instead of walking 
 into my parlour, he walked through the next 
 door, and nearly broke his neck, into the 
 cellar. A terrible stramash of a lumber, and 
 a plunging and a groaning we heard some- 
 where ; and rushing out, lo and behold ! it 
 was no other than Diggory Dyson, the 
 parish priest, who had gone headlong to the 
 bottom of the cellar steps, and had he not 
 cut his temples against the brass tap of a 
 beer-barrel and bled freely, he might have 
 died on the spot. And that was a man set 
 up to guide the multitude ! Had he been 
 only led and guided by the Spirit of God, as 
 a true minister should be, he would never 
 have gone neck-foremost down my cellar 
 steps. That 's your blind leader of the 
 blind ! " 
 
 But if Johnny Darbyshire thought the 
 "Common-Prayer priests" obscure, they must 
 have thought him seven-fold so. Instead of
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 393 
 
 doctrines and such pagan things, he talked 
 solemnly of " centring down ; " " being 
 renewedly made sensible ; " "having his mind 
 drawn to this and that thing ; " " feeling 
 himself dipped into deep baptism ; " " feeling 
 a sense of duty ;" and of " seeing, or not 
 seeing his way clear " into this or that 
 matter. But his master phrase was " living 
 near to the truth ; " and often, when other 
 people thought him particularly provoking 
 and insulting, it was only " because he hated 
 a lie and the father of lies." Johnny thought 
 that he lived so near to the truth, that you 
 would have thought Truth was his next-door 
 neighbour, or his lodger, and not living down 
 at the bottom of her well as she long has 
 been. 
 
 Truly was that religious world in which 
 Johnny Darbyshire lived, a most singular one. 
 In that part of the country, George Fox had 
 been particularly zealous and well received. 
 A simple country people was just the people to 
 be affected by his warm eloquence and strong 
 manly sense. He settled many meetings 
 there, which, however, William Penn may 
 be said to have unsettled by his planting of 
 Pennsylvania. These Friends flocked over 
 thither with, or after him, and left a mere 
 remnant behind them. This remnant, and 
 it was like the remnant in a draper's shop, a 
 very old-fashioned one, continued still to keep 
 up their meetings, and carry on their affairs 
 as steadily and gravely as Fox and his 
 contemporaries did, if not so extensively and 
 successfully. They had a meeting at Codnor 
 Breach, at Monny-Ash in the Peak, at Pent- 
 ridge, at Toad-hole Furnace, at Chesterfield, 
 &c. Most of these places were thoroughly 
 country places, some of them standing nearly 
 alone in the distant fields ; and the few 
 members belonging to them might be seen 
 on Sundays, mounted on strong horses, a 
 man and his wife often on one, on saddle and 
 pillion, or in strong tax-carts ; and others, 
 generally the young, proceeding on foot over 
 fields and through woods, to these meetings. 
 They were truly an old-world race, clad in 
 very old-world garments. Arrived at their 
 meeting, they sate generally an hour and 
 three-quarters in profound silence, for none 
 of them had a minister in them, and then 
 returned again. In winter they generally 
 had a good fire in a chamber, and sate com- 
 fortably round it. 
 
 Once a-month, they jogged off in similar 
 style to one of these meetings in particular, 
 to what they called their monthly meeting, 
 where they paid in their subscriptions for 
 
 the poor, and other needs of the society, and 
 read over and made answers to a set of queries 
 on the moral and religious state of their 
 meetings. One would have thought that 
 this business must be so very small that it 
 would be readily despatched, but not so. 
 Small enough, Heaven knows ! it was ; but 
 then they made a religious duty of its trans- 
 action, and went through it as solemnly and 
 deliberately as if the very salvation of the 
 kingdom depended on it. Oh what a mighty 
 balancing of straws was there ! In answering 
 the query, whether their meetings were pretty 
 regularly kept up and attended, though 
 perhaps there was but half-a-dozen members 
 to one meeting, yet would it be weighed and 
 weighed again whether the phrase should be, 
 that it was " pretty well attended," or " in- 
 differently attended," or "attended, with some 
 exceptions." This stupendous business hav- 
 ing, however, at length been got through, 
 then all the men adjourned to the room where 
 the women had, for the time, been just as 
 laboriously and gravely engaged ; and a table 
 was soon spread by a person agreed with, 
 with a good substantial dinner of roast-beef 
 and plum-pudding ; and the good people grew 
 right sociable, chatty, and even merry in their 
 way ; while, all the time in the adjoining 
 stable, or, as in one case, in the stable under 
 them, their steeds, often rough, wild creatures, 
 thrust perhaps twenty into a stable without 
 dividing stalls, were kicking, squealing, and 
 rioting in a manner that obliged some of the 
 good people occasionally to rise from their 
 dinners, and endeavour to diffuse a little of 
 their own quietness among them. Or in 
 summer their horses would be all loose in 
 the grave-yard before the meeting, rearing, 
 kicking, and screaming in a most furious 
 manner ; which, however, only rarely seemed 
 to disturb the meditations of their masters 
 and mistresses. 
 
 And to these monthly meetings over what 
 long and dreary roads, on what dreadfully 
 wet and wintry days, through what mud 
 and water, did these simple and pious crea- 
 tures, wrapped in great-coats and thick cloaks, 
 and defended with oil-skin hoods, travel all 
 their lives longl Not a soul was more 
 punctual in attendance than Johnny Darby- 
 shire. He was a little man wearing a Quaker 
 suit of drab, his coat long, his hat not 
 cocked but slouched, aud his boots well worn 
 and well greased. 
 
 Peaceful as he sate in these meetings, yet 
 out of them, as I have remarked, he was a 
 very Tartar, and he often set himself to
 
 394 
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 execute what lie deemed justice in a very 
 dogged and original style. We may, as a 
 specimen, take this instance. On his way 
 to his regular meeting he had to pass through 
 a toll-bar ; and being on Sundays exempt by 
 law from paying at it, it may be supposed 
 that the bar-keeper did not iling open the 
 gate often with the best grace. One 
 Sunday evening, however, Johnny Darby- 
 shire had, from some cause or other, stayed 
 late with his friends after afternoon meeting. 
 When he passed through the toll-gate he 
 gave liis usual nod to the keeper, and was 
 passing on ; but the man called out to 
 demand the toll, declaring that it was no 
 longer Sunday night, but Monday morning, 
 being past twelve o'clock. 
 
 " Nay, friend, thou art wrong," said Johnny, 
 pulling out his watch : " see, it yet wants a 
 quarter." 
 
 " No, I tell you," replied the keeper, 
 gruffly, "it is past twelve. Look, there is 
 my clock." 
 
 " Ay, friend, but thy clock like thyself 
 doesn't speak the truth. Like its master, it 
 is a little too hasty. I assure thee my watch 
 is right, for I just now compared it by the 
 steeple-house clock in the town." 
 
 " I tell you," replied the keeper, angrily, 
 " I 've nothing to do with your watch : I go 
 by my clock, and there it is." 
 
 " Well, I think thou art too exact with 
 me, my friend." 
 
 " Will you pay me or not ? " roared the 
 keeper ; " you go through often enough in 
 the devil's name without paying." 
 
 " Gently, gently, my friend, " replied 
 Johnny ; " there is the money : and it's really 
 after twelve o'clock, thou says ? " 
 
 To be sure." 
 
 "Well, very well : then for the next twenty- 
 four hours I can go through again without 
 paying?" 
 
 " To be sure ; every body knows that." 
 
 "Very well, then I now bid thee farewell." 
 And with that, Johnny Darbyshire jogged 
 on. The gate-keeper chuckling at having at 
 last extorted a double toll from the shrewd 
 Quaker, went to bed, not on that quiet road 
 expecting farther disturbance till towards 
 daylight ; but, just as he was about to pop 
 into bed, he heard some one ride up and cry, 
 "Gate!" 
 
 Internally cursing the late traveller, he 
 threw on his things and descended to open 
 the gate, when he was astonished to see the 
 Quaker returned. 
 
 "Thou says it really is past twelve, friend ?" 
 
 " To be sure." 
 
 " Then open the gate : I have occasion to 
 ride back again." 
 
 The gate flew open, Johnny Darbyshire 
 trotted back towards the town, and the man, 
 with double curses in his mind, returned up 
 stairs. This time he was not so sure of 
 exemption from interruption, for he expected 
 the Quaker would in a while be coming 
 back homewards again. And he was quite 
 right. Just as he was about to put out his 
 candle, there was a cry of " Gate." He de- 
 scended, and behold the Quaker once more 
 presented himself. 
 
 " It really is past twelve, thou says ? " 
 
 " Uniph ! " grunted the fellow. 
 
 " Then, of course, I have nothing more to 
 pay. I would not, however, advise thee to 
 go to bed to-night, for it is so particularly 
 fine that I propose to enjoy it by riding to 
 and fro here a few hours." 
 
 The fellow, who now saw Johnny Durby- 
 shire's full drift, exclaimed, " Here, for God's 
 sake, sir, take your money back, and let me 
 get a wink of sleep." 
 
 But Johnny refused to receive the money, 
 observing, " If it was after twelve, then the 
 money is justly thine ; but I advise thee 
 another time not to be too exact," and with 
 that he rode off. 
 
 Such was his shrewd, restless, domineering 
 character, that his old friend, the neighbour- 
 ing miller, a shrewd fellow too, thought there 
 must be something in Quakerism which con- 
 tributed to this, and was therefore anxious 
 to attend their meetings, and see what it was. 
 How great, however, was his astonishment, 
 on accompanying Johnny, to find about half 
 a dozen people all sitting with their hats on 
 for a couple of hours in profound silence ; 
 except a few shufflings of feet, and blowing of 
 noses ; and then all start up, shake hands, 
 and hurry off. 
 
 " Why, Master Darbyshire, " said the 
 dry old miller ; " how is this ? Do you sit 
 without parson or clerk, and expect to learn 
 religion by looking at your shoe toes ? By 
 Leddy ! this warn't th' way George Fox 
 went on. He was a very talking man, or 
 he wouldna ha' got such a heap of folks to- 
 gether, as he did. You've clearly gotten o' 
 th' wrong side o' th' post, Johnny, depend 
 on 't ; an' I dunna wonder now that you've 
 dwindled awce so." 
 
 But if Johnny was as still as a fish at the 
 Quaker meetings, he had enough to say at 
 home, and at the parish meetings. He had such 
 a spice of the tyrant in him, that he could not
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 395 
 
 even entertain the idea of marrying, without 
 it must be a sort of shift for the mastery. 
 He, therefore, not only cast his eye on one of 
 the most high-spirited women that he knew 
 in his own society, but actually one on the 
 largest scale of physical dimensions. If he 
 had one hero of his admiration more than 
 another, it was a little dwarf at Mansfield, 
 who used to wear a soldier's jacket, and who 
 had taken it into his head to marry a very 
 tall woman, whom he had reduced to such 
 perfect subjection, that he used from time to 
 time to evince his mastery by mounting a 
 round table and making the wife walk round 
 it while he belaboured her lustily with a 
 strap. 
 
 Johnny, having taken his resolve, made 
 no circumbendibus in his addresses ; but one 
 day, as he was alone in the company of the 
 lady, by name Lizzy Lorimer, "Lizzy," 
 said he, "I'll tell thee what I have been 
 thinking about. I think thou'd make me a 
 very good wife." 
 
 " Well," replied Lizzy ; " sure isn't that 
 extraordinary ? I was just thinking the 
 very same thing." 
 
 " That's right ! Well done, my wench, 
 now that's what I call hitting the nail on the 
 head, like a right sensible woman ! " cried 
 Johnny, fetching her a slap on the shoulder, 
 and laughing heartily. " That's doing the 
 thing now to some tune. I'm for none of 
 your dilly-dally ways. I once knew a young 
 fellow that was desperately smitten by a 
 young woman, and though he could pluck 
 up courage enough to go and see her, he 
 couldn't summon courage enough to speak 
 out his mind when he got there ; and so he 
 and the damsel sate opposite one another 
 before the fire. She knew well enough all 
 the while, you're sharp enough, you women, 
 what he was after ; and there they sate 
 and sate, and at last he picked up a cinder 
 off the hearth, and looking very foolish, said, 
 ' I've a good mind to fling a cowk at thee ! ' 
 At which the brave wench, in great contempt, 
 cried, 'I'll soon fling one at thee, if thou 
 artn't off ! ' That's just as thou'd ha' done, 
 Lizzy, and as I shouldn't," said Johnny, 
 gaily, and laughing more heartily than 
 before. 
 
 That was the sum and substance of Johnny 
 Darbyshire's courtship. All the world said 
 the trouble would come afterwards ; but if it 
 did come, it was not to Johnny. Never was 
 chanticleer so crouse on his own dung-hill, 
 as Johnny Darbyshire was in his own house. 
 He was lord and master there to a certainty. 
 
 In doors and out, he shouted, hurried, ran 
 to and fro, and made men, maids, and Lizzy 
 herself, fly at his approach, as if he had got 
 a whole cargo of Mercury's wings, and put 
 them on their feet. It was the same in 
 parish affairs ; and the fame of Johnny's 
 eloquence at vestries is loud to this day. On 
 one occasion there was a most hot debate on 
 the voting of a church-rate, which should 
 embrace a new pulpit. Johnny had hurt 
 his foot with a stub of wood as he was hur- 
 rying on his men at work in thinning a 
 plantation. It had festered and inflamed his 
 leg to a terrible size ; but, spite of that, he 
 ordered out his cart with a bed laid in it, 
 and came up to the door of the vestry-room, 
 where he caused himself to be carried in on 
 the bed, and set on the vestry-room floor, 
 not very distant from the clergyman. Here 
 he waited, listening first to one speaker and 
 then another, till the debate had grown very 
 loud, when he gave a great hem ; and all 
 were silent, for every one knew that Johnny 
 was going to speak. 
 
 "Now, I'll tell you what, lads," said 
 Johnny; "you've made noise enough to 
 frighten all the jackdaws out of the steeple, 
 and there they are flying all about with a 
 pretty cawarring. You've spun a yarn as 
 long as all the posts and rails round my seven 
 acres, and I dunna see as you've yet hedged in 
 so much as th' owd wise men o' Gotham did, 
 and that's a cuckoo. I've heard just one 
 sensible word, and that was to recommend a 
 cast-iron pulpit, in preference to a wooden 
 'un. As to a church-rate to repair th' owd 
 steeple-house, why, my advice is to pull th' 
 owd thing down, stick and stone, and mend 
 your roads with it. It's a capital heap o' 
 stone in it, that one must allow, and your 
 roads are pestilent bad. Down with the old 
 daw-house, I say, and mend th' roads wi't, 
 and set th' parson here up for a guide-post. 
 Oh ! it's a rare 'un he'd make ; for he 's 
 always pointing th' way to the folks, but I 
 never see that he moves one inch himself." 
 
 " Mr. Darbyshire," exclaimed the clergy- 
 man, in high resentment, " that is very un- 
 civil in my presence, to say the least of it." 
 
 " Civil or uncivil," returned Johnny ; " it's 
 the truth, lad, and thou can take it just as 
 thou likes. I did not come here to bandy 
 compliments ; so I may as well be hanged 
 for an old sheep as for a lamb we'll not 
 make two mouthfuls of a cherry ; my advice 
 is then to have a cast-iron pulpit, by all 
 means, and while you are about it, a cast- 
 iron parson, too. It will do just as well as
 
 396 
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 our neighbour Diggory Dyson here, and a 
 plaguy deal cheaper, for it will require 
 neither tithes, glebe, Easter-dues, nor church- 
 rates ! " 
 
 Having delivered himself of this remarkable 
 oration, to the great amusement of his fellow- 
 parishioners, and the equal exasperation of 
 the clergyman, Johnny ordered himself to be 
 again hoisted into his cart, and rode home in 
 great glory, boasting that he had knocked 
 all the wind out of the parson, and if he got 
 enough again to preach his sermon on Sun- 
 day, it would be all. 
 
 It was only on such occasions as these that 
 Johnny Darbyshire ever appeared under the 
 church roof. Once, on the occasion of the 
 funeral of an old neighbour, which, for a 
 wonder, he attended, he presented himself 
 there, but with as little satisfaction to the 
 clergyman, and less to himself. 
 
 He just marched into the church with his 
 hat on, which, being removed by the clergy- 
 man's orders, Johnny declared that he had a 
 good mind to walk out of that well of a place, 
 and would do so only out of respect to his old 
 neighbour. With looks of great wrath he 
 seated himself at a good distance from the 
 clergyman ; and as this gentleman was pro- 
 ceeding, in none of the clearest tones cer- 
 tainly, to read the appropriate service, Johnny 
 suddenly shouted out, " Speak up, man, speak 
 up ! What art mumbling at there, man? We 
 canna hear what thou says here ! " 
 
 " Who is that?" demanded the clergyman, 
 solemnly, and looking much as if he did not 
 clearly perceive who it was. " Who is that 
 who interrupts the service ? I will not pro- 
 ceed till he be removed." 
 
 The beadle approached Johnny, and begged 
 that he would withdraw. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Johnny, aloud, so as to be 
 heard through all the church, " I'll sit i' th' 
 porch. I'd much rather. What 's the use 
 sitting here where one can hear nothing but 
 a buzzing like a bee in a blossom ? " 
 
 Johnny accordingly withdrew to the porch, 
 where some of his neighbours, hurrying to 
 him when the funeral was about to proceed 
 from the church to the grave, said, "Mr. 
 Darbyshire, what have you done ? You'll as 
 surely be put into th' spiritual court, as 
 you're a living man. You'd better ax the 
 parson's pardon, and as soon as you can." 
 
 Accordingly, as soon as the funeral was 
 over, and the clergyman was about to with- 
 draw, up marched Johnny to him, and said, 
 " What, I reckon I've affronted thee with 
 bidding thee speak up. But thou should 
 
 speak up, man ; thou should speak up, or 
 what art perched up aloft there for. But, 
 however, as you scollards are rayther testy, I 
 know, in being taken up before folks, I 
 mun beg thy pardon for 't'arno." * 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Darbyshire," said the clergy- 
 man, with much dignity, " that will not do, 
 I assure you. I cannot pass over such con- 
 duct in such a manner. I shall take another 
 course with you." 
 
 "Oh, just as tha' woot. I've axed thy 
 pardon, haven't I? and if that wunna do, 
 why thou mun please thysen ! " 
 
 Johnny actually appeared very likely to 
 get a proper castigation this time ; but, 
 however it was, he certainly escaped. The 
 parishioners advised the clergyman to take 
 no notice of the offence, every body, they 
 said, knew Johnny, and if he called him into 
 the spiritual court, he would be just as bold 
 and saucy, and might raise a good deal of 
 public scandal. The clergyman, who, un- 
 fortunately, was but like too many country 
 clergymen of the time, addicted to a merry glass 
 in the village public-house, thought perhaps 
 that this was only too likely, and so the 
 matter dropped. 
 
 For twenty years did Johnny Darbyshire 
 thus give free scope to tongue and hand in 
 his parish. He ruled paramount over wife, 
 children, house, servants, parish, and every 
 body. He made work go on like the flying 
 clouds of March ; and at fair and market, 
 at meeting and vestry, he had his fling and 
 his banter at the expense of his neighbours, 
 as if the world was all his own, and would 
 never come to an end. But now came an 
 event, arising, as so often is the case, out of 
 the merest trifle, that more than all ex- 
 hibited the indomitable stiffness and obsti- 
 nacy of his character. 
 
 Johnny Darbyshire had some fine, rich 
 meadow land, on the banks of the river Der- 
 went, where he took in cattle and horses to 
 graze during the summer. Hither a gentle- 
 man had sent a favourite and valuable blood 
 mare to run a few months with her foal. 
 He had stipulated that the greatest care 
 should be taken of both mare and foal, and 
 that no one, on any pretence whatever, should 
 mount the former. All this Johnny Darby- 
 shire had most fully promised. " Nay, he was 
 as fond of a good bit of horse-flesh as any 
 man alive, and he would use mare and foal 
 just as if they were his own." 
 
 This assurance, which sounded very well 
 
 * For what I know.
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 397 
 
 indeed, was kept by Johnny, as it proved, 
 much more to the letter than the gentleman 
 intended. To his great astonishment, it was 
 not long before he one day saw Johnny 
 Darbyshire come riding on a little shaggy 
 horse down the village where he lived, lead- 
 ing the foal in a halter. 
 
 He hurried out to inquire the cause of 
 this, too well auguring some sad mischief, 
 when Johnny, shaking his head, said " 111 
 luck, my friend, never comes alone ; it's an 
 old saying, that it never rains but it pours ; 
 and so it's been with me. T'other day I'd 
 a son drowned, as fine a lad as ever walked 
 in shoe-leather ; and in hurrying to th' doctor, 
 how should luck have it, but down comes 
 th' mare with her foot in a hole, breaks her 
 leg, and was obligated to be killed ; and here's 
 th' poor innocent foal. It's a bad job, a 
 very bad job ; but I've the worst on't, and it 
 canna be helped ; so, prithee, say as little as 
 thou can about it, here's the foal, poor, 
 dumb thing, at all events." 
 
 " But what business," cried the gentleman, 
 enraged, and caring, in his wrath, not a but- 
 ton for Johnny Darbyshire' s drowned son, in 
 the exasperation of his own loss, " but 
 what business had you riding to the doctor, 
 or the devil, on my mare ? Did not I en- 
 join you, did you not solemnly promise me, 
 that nobody should cross the mare's back 1 " 
 
 Johnny shook his head. He had indeed 
 promised " to use her as his own," and he 
 had done it to some purpose ; but that was 
 little likely to throw cold water on the gen- 
 tleman's fire. It was in vain that Johnny 
 tried the pathetic of the drowning boy ; it 
 was lost on the man who had lost his favourite 
 mare, and who declared that he would rather 
 have lost a thousand pounds a hundred was 
 exactly her value and he vowed all sorts of 
 vengeance and of law. 
 
 And he kept his word, too. Johnny was 
 deaf to paying for the mare. He had lost 
 his boy, and his summer's run of the mare 
 and foal, and that he thought enough for a 
 poor man like him, as he pleased to call him- 
 self. An action was commenced against 
 him, of which he took not the slightest notice 
 till it came into court. These lawyers, he 
 said, were dear chaps, he'd have nothing to 
 do with them. But the lawyers were deter- 
 mined to have to do with him, for they ima- 
 gined that the Quaker had a deep purse, 
 and they longed to be poking their long, 
 jewelled fingers to the bottom of it. 
 
 The cause actually came into court at the 
 assizes, and the counsel for the plaintiff got 
 
 up and stated the case, offering to call his 
 evidence, but first submitted that he could 
 not find that any one was retained on behalf 
 of the defendant, and that, therefore, he pro- 
 bably meant to suffer the cause to go by 
 default. The court inquired whether any 
 counsel at the bar was instructed to appear 
 for Darbyshire, in the case Shiffnal v. Dar- 
 byshire, but there was no reply ; and learned 
 gentlemen looked at one another, and all 
 shook their learned wigs ; and the judge was 
 about to declare that the cause was forfeited 
 by the defendant, John Darbyshire, by non- 
 appearance at the place of trial, when there 
 was seen a bustle near the box of the clerk 
 of the court ; there was a hasty plucking off 
 of a large hat, which somebody had appa- 
 rently walked into court with on ; and the 
 moment afterwards a short man, in a Quaker 
 dress, with his grizzled hair hanging in long 
 locks on his shoulders, and smoothed close 
 down on the forehead, stepped, with a peculiar 
 air of confidence and cunning, up to the bar. 
 His tawny, sun-burnt features, and small 
 dark eyes, twinkling with an expression of 
 much country subtlety, proclaimed him at 
 once a character. At once a score of voices 
 murmured " There's Johnny Darbyshire 
 himself!" 
 
 He glanced, with a quick and peculiar 
 look, at the counsel, sitting at their table 
 with their papers before them, who, on their 
 part, did not fail to return his survey with a 
 stare of mixed wonder and amazement. You 
 could see it as plainly as possible written on 
 their faces, "Who have we got here? 
 There is some fun brewing here to a cer- 
 tainty." 
 
 But Johnny raised his eyes from them to 
 the bench, where sat the judge, and sent them 
 rapidly thence to the jury-box, where they 
 seemed to rest with a considerable satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 "Is this a witness?" inquired the judge. 
 " If so, what is he doing there, or why does 
 he appear at all, till we know whether the 
 cause is to be defended?" 
 
 "Ay, Lord Judge, as they call thee, I 
 reckon I am a witness, and the best witness 
 too that can be had in the case, for I'm the 
 man himself ; I'm John Darbyshire. I 
 didn't mean to have any thing to do with 
 these chaps i' their wigs and gowns, with 
 their long, dangling sleeves ; and I dunna yet 
 mean to have ony thing to do wi' 'em. But 
 I just heard one of 'em tell thee, that this 
 cause was not going to be defended ; and that 
 put my monkey up, and so, thinks I, I'll
 
 398 
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 e'en up and tell 'em that it will be defended 
 though ; ay, and I reckon it will too ; Johnny 
 Derbyshire was never yet afraid of the face 
 of any man, or any set of men." 
 
 " If you are what you say, good man," 
 said the judge, " defendant in this case, you 
 had better appoint counsel to state it for you." 
 
 " Nay, nay, Lord Judge, as they call thee, 
 hold a bit ; I know better than that. 
 Catch Johnny Derbyshire at flinging his 
 money into a lawyer's bag ! No, no. I know 
 them chaps wi' wigs well enough. They've 
 tongues as long as a besom steal, and fingers 
 as long to poke after 'em. Nay, nay, I don't 
 get my money so easily as to let them scrape 
 it up by armfuls. I've worked early and late, 
 in heat and cold, for my bit o' money, and 
 long enough too, before these smart chaps had 
 left their mother's apron-strings ; and let them 
 catch a coin of it, if they can. No ! I know 
 this case better than any other man can, and 
 for why ? Because I was in it. It was me 
 that had the mare to Bummer ; it was me that 
 rode her to the doctor ; I was in at th' break- 
 ing of th' leg, and, for that reason, I can tell 
 you exactly how it all happened. And what's 
 any of those counsellors, sharp, and fine, and 
 knowing as they look, with their tails and 
 their powder, what are they to know about 
 the matter, except what somebody 'd have to 
 tell 'em first ? I tell you, I saw it, I did it, 
 and so there needs no twice telling of the 
 story." 
 
 " But are you going to produce evidence ?" 
 inquired the counsel for the other side. 
 
 " Evidence ? to be sure I am. What does 
 the chap meanl Evidence? why, I'm de- 
 fender and evidence and all ! " 
 
 There was a good deal of merriment in the 
 court, and at the bar, in which the judge 
 himself joined. 
 
 " There wants no evidence besides me ; for, 
 as I tell you, I did it, and I'm not going to 
 deny it." 
 
 "Stop!" cried the judge, "this is singular. 
 If Mr. Derbyshire means to plead his own 
 cause, and to include in it his evidence, he 
 must be sworn. Let the oath be administered 
 to him." 
 
 " Nay, I reckon thoti need put none of thy 
 oaths to me ! My father never brought me 
 up to cursing and swearing, and such like 
 wickedness. He left that to th' ragamuffins 
 and rapscallions i' th' street. I'm no swearer, 
 nor liar neither, thou may take my word 
 safe enough." 
 
 " Let him take his affirmation, if he be a 
 member of the Society of Friends." 
 
 " Ay, now thou speaks sense, Lord Judge. 
 Ay, I'm a member, I warrant me." 
 
 The clerk of the court here took his affirma- 
 tion, and then Johnny proceeded. 
 
 " Well, I don't feel myself any better, or 
 any honester now for making that affirmation. 
 I was just going to tell the plain truth before, 
 and I can only tell th' same now. And, as I 
 said, I'm not going to deny what I've done. 
 No ! Johnny DaTbyshire's not the man that 
 ever did a thing and then denied it. Can any 
 of these chaps i' th' wigs say as much ? Ay, 
 now I reckon," added he, shaking his head 
 archly at the gentlemen of the bar, "now I 
 reckon you'd like, a good many on you there, 
 to be denying this thing stoutly for me ? 
 You'd soon persuade a good many simple 
 folks here that I never did ride the mare, 
 never broke her leg, nay, never saw her that 
 day at all. Wouldn't you, now? wouldn't 
 
 you 
 
 V". 
 
 Here the laughter, on all sides, was loudly 
 renewed. 
 
 " But I'll take precious good care ye dunna! 
 No, no ! that's the very thing that I've 
 stepped up here for. It's to keep your con- 
 sciences clear of a few more additional lies. 
 Oh dear ! I'm quite grieved for you, when I 
 think what falsities and deceit you'll one day 
 have to answer for, as it is." 
 
 The gentlemen, thus complimented, ap- 
 peared to enjoy the satire of Johnny Darby- 
 shire ; and still more was it relished in the 
 body of the court. 
 
 But again remarked the judge, " Mr. 
 Derbyshire, I advise you to leave the counsel 
 for the plaintiff to prove his case against you." 
 
 " I'st niver oss ! " exclaimed Johnny, with 
 indignation. 
 
 "I'st niver oss!" repeated the judge. 
 ''What does he mean? I don't understand 
 him," and he looked inquiringly at the bar. 
 
 "He means, my lord," said a young counsel, 
 " that he shall never offer, never attempt to 
 do so." 
 
 " That's a Derbyshire chap now," said 
 Johnny, turning confidentially towards the 
 jury-box, where he saw some of his county 
 farmers. " He understands good English." 
 
 " But good neighbours there," added he, 
 addressing the jury, " for I reckon it's you 
 that I must talk to on this business ; I'm 
 glad to see that you are, a good many on you, 
 farmers like myself, and so up to these things. 
 To make a short matter of it then, I had the 
 mare and foal to summer ; and the gentleman 
 laid it down,strong and fast, that she shouldn't 
 be ridden by any body. And I promised him
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 399 
 
 that I would do my best, that nobody should 
 ride her. I told him that I would use her 
 just as if she was my own, and I meant it. 
 I meant to do the handsome by her and her 
 master too ; for I needn't tell you, that I'm 
 too fond of a bit of good blood to see it will- 
 ingly come to any harm. Nay, nay, that 
 never was the way of Johnny Darbyshire. 
 And there she was, the pretty creature, with 
 her handsome foal, cantering and capering 
 round her in the meadow ; it was a pleasure 
 to see it, it was indeed ! And often have I 
 stood and leaned over the gate and watched 
 them, till I felt a'most as fond of them as of 
 my own children ; and never would leg have 
 crossed her while she was in my possession 
 had that not happened that may happen to 
 any man, when he least expects it. 
 
 " My wife had been ill, very ill. My poor 
 Lizzy, I thought I should ha' certainly lost 
 her. The doctors said she must be kept 
 quiet in bed ; if she stirred for five days she 
 was a lost woman. Well, one afternoon as 
 I was cutting a bit of grass at th' bottom o' 
 th' orchard for the osses, again they came 
 from ploughing the fallows ; I heard a shriek 
 that went through me like a baggonet. Down 
 I flings th' scythe. ' That's Lizzy, and no 
 other ! ' I shouted to myself. ' She's out of 
 bed, and, goodness ! what can it be ? She's 
 ten to one gone mad with a brain fever ! ' 
 There seemed to have fallen ten thousand 
 millstones on my heart. I tried to run, but 
 I couldn't. I was as cold as ice. I was as 
 fast rooted to the ground as a tree. There 
 was another shriek more piercing than before 
 and I was off like an arrow from a bow 
 I was loose then. I was all on fire. I ran 
 like a madman till I came within sight of th' 
 house ; and there I saw Lizzy in her night- 
 gown with half her body out of the Avindow, 
 shrieking and wringing her hands like any 
 crazed body. 
 
 " ' Stop ! stop ! ' I cried, ' Lizzy ! Lizzy ! 
 back ! back ! for heaven's sake ! ' 
 
 " ' There ! there ! ' screamed she, pointing 
 with staring eyes and ghastly face down into 
 the Darrant that runs under the windows. 
 
 "'Oh God!' I exclaimed, ' she'll drown 
 herself ! she's crazed, she means to fling her- 
 self in ' groaning as I ran, and trying to 
 keep crying to her, but my voice was dead 
 in my throat. 
 
 " When I reached her chamber, I found 
 her fallen on the floor she was as white as 
 a ghost, and sure enough I thought she was 
 one. I lifted her upon the bed, and screamed 
 amain for the nurse, for the maid, but not a 
 
 soul came. I rubbed Lizzy's hands ; clapped 
 them ; tried her smelling-bottle. At length 
 she came to herself with a dreadful groan, 
 flashed open her eyes wide on me, and cried 
 ' Didst see him ? Didst save him ? Where 
 is he? Where is he?' 
 
 "'Merciful Providence !' I exclaimed. 
 ' She's gone only too sure ! It's all over 
 with her!' 
 
 " ' Where is he ? Where's my dear Sam ? 
 Thou didn't let him drown?' 
 
 " ' Drown ? Sam ? What ?' I cried. What 
 dost mean, Lizzy ? ' 
 
 " ' Ob, John ! Sammy ! he was drowning 
 i' th' Darrant oh ! ' 
 
 " She fainted away again, and a dreadful 
 truth flashed on my mind. She had seen 
 our little Sammy drowning ; she had heard 
 his screams, and sprung out of bed, forgetful 
 of herself, and looking out, saw our precious 
 boy in the water. He was sinking! He 
 cried for help ! there was nobody near, and 
 there Lizzy stood and saw him going, going, 
 going down ! There was not a soul in the 
 house. The maid was gone to see her mother 
 that was dying in the next village ; the nurse 
 had been suddenly obliged to run off to the 
 doctor's for some physic ; Lizzy had promised 
 to lie still till I came in, and, in the mean- 
 time this happens. When I understood her 
 I flew down stairs, and towards the part of 
 the river she had pointed to. I gazed here 
 and there, and at length caught sight of the 
 poor boy's coat floating, and with a rake I 
 caught hold of it, and dragged him to land. 
 But it was too late ! Frantic, however, as I 
 was, I flew down to the meadow with a bridle 
 in my hand, mounted the blood-mare, she 
 was the fleetest in the field by half, and away 
 to the doctor. We went like the wind. I 
 took a short cut for better speed, but it was 
 a hobbly road. Just as I came in sight of 
 the doctor's house there was a slough that 
 had been mended with stones and fagots 
 and any thing that came to hand. I pushed 
 her over, but her foot caught in a hole amongst 
 the sticks, and crack ! it was over in a 
 moment. 
 
 " Neighbours, neighbours ! think of my 
 situation ? Think of my feelings. Oh ! I 
 was all one great groan ! My wife ! my 
 boy ! the mare ! it seemed as if Job's devil 
 was really sent out against me. But there 
 was no time to think ; I could only feel, and 
 I could do that running. I sprang over the 
 hedge. I was across the fields, and at the 
 doctor's ; ay, long before I could find breath 
 to tell him what was amiss. But he thought
 
 400 
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER, 
 
 it was my wife that was dreadfully worse. 
 'I expected as much,' said he, and that 
 instant we were in the gig that stood at the 
 door, and we were going like fire back again. 
 But " 
 
 Here Johnny Darbyshire paused ; the 
 words stuck in his throat, his lips trembled, 
 his face gradually grew pale, and livid, as 
 if he were going to give up the ghost. The 
 court was extremely moved : there was a 
 deep silence, and there were heard sobs from 
 the throng behind. The judge sate with his 
 eyes fixed on his book of minutes, and not a 
 voice even said " Go on." 
 
 Johnny Darbysliire meantime, overcome by 
 his feelings, had sate down t the bar, a glass 
 of water was handed to him, he wiped his 
 forehead with his handkerchief several times, 
 heaved a heavy convulsive sigh or two from 
 his labouring chest, and again arose. 
 
 " Judge, then," said he, again addressing the 
 jury, " what a taking I was in. My boy 
 but no I canna touch on that, he was 
 gone !" said he in a husky voice that seemed 
 to require all his physical force to send it 
 from the bottom of his chest. "My wife 
 was for weeks worse than dead, and never 
 has been, and never will be herself again. 
 When I inquired after the mare, you can 
 guess when was a broken leg of a horse 
 successfully set again ? They had been 
 obliged to kill her ! 
 
 "Now, neighbours, I deny nothing. I 
 wunna ! but I'll put it to any of you, if 
 you were in like case, and a fleet mare stood 
 ready at hand, would you have weighed any 
 thing but her speed against a wife, and a 
 child ? No, had she been my own, I should 
 have taken her, and that was all I had pro- 
 mised ! But there, neighbours, you have the 
 whole business, and so do just as you like, 
 I leave it wi' you." 
 
 Johnny Darbyshire stepped down from 
 the bar, and disappeared in the crowd. 
 There was a deep silence in the court, and 
 the very jury .were seen dashing some drops 
 from their eyes. They appeared to look up 
 to the judge as if they were ready to give in 
 at once their verdict, and nobody could doubt 
 for which party ; but at tliis moment the 
 counsel for the plaintiff arose, and said : 
 
 " Gentlemen of the Jury, you know 
 the old saying ' He that pleads his own 
 cause has a fool for his client.' We cannot 
 say that the proverb has held good in this 
 case. The defendant has proved himself no 
 fool. Never in my life have I listened to 
 the pleadings of an opponent with deeper 
 
 anxiety. Nature and the awful chances of 
 life have made the defendant in this case 
 more than eloquent. For a moment I actu- 
 ally trembled for the cause of my client, 
 but it was for a moment only. I should 
 have been something less than human if I 
 had not, like every person in this court, been 
 strangely affected by the singular appeal of 
 the singular man who has just addressed you ; 
 but I should have been something less than 
 a good lawyer if I did not again revert con- 
 fidently to those facts which were in the pos- 
 session of my witnesses now waiting to be 
 heard. Had this been the only instance in 
 which the defendant had broken his engage- 
 ment, and mounted this mare, I should in my 
 own mind have flung off all hope of a verdict 
 from you. God and nature would have been 
 too strong for me in your hearts ; but, fortu- 
 nately for my client, it is not so. I will 
 show you on the most unquestionable evidence 
 that it was not the first nor the second time 
 that Mr. Darbyshire had mounted this pro- 
 hibited but tempting steed. He had been 
 seen, as one of the witnesses expresses it, 
 'frisking about' on this beautiful animal, 
 and asking his neighbours what they thought 
 of such a bit of blood as that. He had on one 
 occasion been as far as Crich fair with her, and 
 had allowed her to be cheapened by several 
 dealers as if she were his own, and then 
 proudly rode off, saying ' Nay, nay, it was 
 not money that would purchase pretty 
 Nancy,' as he called her." Here the counsel 
 called several respectable fanners who amply 
 corroborated these statements ; and he then 
 proceeded. " Gentlemen, there I rest my 
 case. You will forget the wife and the child, 
 and call to mind the ' frisking,' and Crich 
 fair. But to put the matter beyond a doubt 
 we will call the defendant again, and put a 
 few questions to him." 
 
 The court crier called, but it was in vain. 
 Johnny Darbyshire was no longer there. 
 As he had said, " he had left it wi'em," and 
 was gone. The weight of evidence prevailed ; 
 the jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff 
 one hundred pounds. 
 
 The verdict was given, but the money was 
 not yet got. When called on for payment, 
 Johnny Darbyshire took no further notice of 
 the demand than he had done of the action. 
 An execution was issued against his goods ; 
 but when it was served, it was found that he 
 had no goods. A brother stepped in with a 
 clear title to all on Johnny's farm by a deed 
 dated six years before, on plea of moneys ad- 
 vanced, and Johnny stood only as manager.
 
 THE EDINBURGH TALES. 
 
 401 
 
 The plaintiff was so enraged at this bare- 
 faced scheme to bar his just claim, Johnny's 
 bail sureties being found equally unsubstan- 
 tial, that he resolved to arrest Johnny's 
 person. The officers arrived at Johnny's 
 house to serve the writ, and found him sitting 
 at his luncheon alone. It was a fine sum- 
 mer's day, every body was out in the fields 
 at the hay. Door and window stood open, 
 and Johnny, who had been out on some 
 business, was refreshing himself before going 
 to the field too. The officers entering de- 
 clared him their prisoner. " Well," said 
 Johnny, " I know that very well. Don't I 
 know a bum-baily when I see him? But 
 sit down and take something ; I'm hungry if 
 you ar'na, at all events." 
 
 The men gladly sate down to a fine piece 
 of cold beef, and Johnny said " Come, fill 
 your glasses, I'll fetch another jug of ale. 
 I reckon you'll not give me a glass of ale like 
 this where we are going." 
 
 He took a candle, descended the cellar, one 
 of the officers peeping after him to see that 
 all was right, and again sitting down to the 
 beef and beer. Both of them found the beef 
 splendid ; but beginning to find the ale rather 
 long in making its appearance, they descended 
 the cellar, and found Johnny Darbyshire had 
 gone quietly off at a back door. 
 
 Loud was the laughter of the country round 
 at Johnny Darbyshire's outwitting of the 
 bailiffs, and desperate was their quest after 
 him. It was many a day, however, before 
 they again got sight of him. When they 
 did, it was on his own hearth, just as they 
 had done at first. Not a soul was visible 
 but himself. The officers declared now that 
 they would make sure of him, and yet drink 
 with him too. 
 
 " With all my heart," said Johnny ; " and 
 draw it yourselves, too, if you will." 
 
 " Nay, I will go down with you," said one ; 
 " my comrade shall wait here above." 
 " Good," said Johnny, lighting a candle. 
 "Now, mind, young man," added he, 
 going hastily forwards towards the cellar 
 steps, " mind, I say, some of these steps are 
 bad. It's a dark road, and nay, here ! 
 this way follow me exactly." 
 
 But the man was too eager not to let Johnny 
 go too far before him ; he did not observe 
 that Johnny went some distance round before 
 he turned down the steps. There was no 
 hand-rail to this dark flight of steps, and he 
 walked straight over into the opening. 
 
 " Hold ! hold ! Heavens ! the man's 
 
 gone didn't I tell him ! " 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 A heavy plunge and a groan announced 
 the man's descent into the cellar. 
 
 "Help! help!" cried Johnny Darby- 
 shire, rushing wildly into the room above. 
 " The man, like a madman, has walked over 
 the landing into the cellar. If he isn't 
 killed, it's a mercy. Help ! " snatching an- 
 other candle ;" but hold take heed! take 
 heed ! or thou 'It go over after him ! " 
 
 With good lighting, and careful examina- 
 tion of the way, the officer followed. They 
 found the other man lying on his back, 
 bleeding profusely from his head, and in- 
 sensible. 
 
 " We must have help ! there's no time to 
 lose ! " cried Johnny Darbyshire, springing 
 up stairs. 
 
 " Stop ! " cried the distracted officer, left 
 with his bleeding fellow, and springing up 
 the steps after Johnny. But he found a door 
 already bolted in his face ; and cursing 
 Johnny for a treacherous and murderous 
 scoundrel, he began vainly denouncing his 
 barbarity in leaving his comrade thus to 
 perish, and kicked and thundered lustily at 
 the door. 
 
 But he did Johnny Darbyshire injustice. 
 Johnny had no wish to hurt a hair of any 
 man's head. The officer had been eager and 
 confident, and occasioned his own fall ; and 
 even now Johnny had not deserted him. He 
 appeared on horseback at the barn where 
 threshers were at work ; told them what had 
 happened ; gave them the key of the cellar 
 door, bade them off and help all they could ; 
 and said he was riding x for the doctor. The 
 doctor indeed soon came, and pronounced the 
 man's life in no danger, though he was 
 greatly scratched and bruised. Johnny him- 
 self was again become invisible. 
 
 From this time for nine months the pursuit 
 of Johnny Darbyshire was a perfect cam- 
 paign, full of stratagems, busy marchings, 
 and expectations, but of no surprises. House, 
 barns, fields, and woods, were successively 
 ferretted through, as report whispered that 
 he was in one or the other. But it was to 
 no purpose ; not a glimpse of him was ever 
 caught ; and fame now loudly declared that 
 he had safely transferred himself to America. 
 Unfortunately for the truth of this report, 
 which had become as well received as the 
 soundest piece of history, Johnny Darbyshire 
 was one fine moonlight night encountered 
 full face to face, by some poachers crossing 
 the fields near his house. The search became 
 again more active than ever, and the ruins 
 of Wingfield Manor, which stood on a hill 
 
 No. 26.
 
 402 
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSIIIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 not far from his dwelling, were speedily 
 suspected to be haunted by him. These 
 were hunted over and over, but no trace of 
 Johnny Darbyshire, or any sufficient hiding- 
 place for him, could be found, till, one fine 
 summer evening, the officers were lucky 
 enough to hit on a set of steps which de- 
 scended amongst bushes into the lower parts 
 of the ruins. Here, going on, they found 
 themselves, to their astonishment, in an 
 ample old kitchen, with a fire of charcoal in 
 the grate, and Johnny Darbyshire with a 
 friend or two sitting most cozily over their 
 tea. Before they could recover from their 
 surprise, Johnny, however, had vanished by 
 some door or window, they could not tell 
 exactly where, for there were sundry door- 
 ways issuing into dark places of which former 
 experience bade them beware. Rushing up 
 again, therefore, to the light, they soon posted 
 some of their number around the ruins, and, 
 with other assistance sent for from the village, 
 they descended again, and commenced a vigi- 
 lant search. This had been patiently waited 
 for a good while by those posted without, 
 when suddenly, as rats are seen to issue from 
 a rick when the ferret is in it, Johnny Darby- 
 shire was seen ascending hurriedly a broken 
 staircase, that was partly exposed to the 
 open day by the progress of dilapidation, and 
 terminated abruptly above. 
 
 Here, at this abrupt and dizzy termination, 
 for the space of half a minute, stood Johnny 
 Darbyshire, looking round, as if calmly 
 surveying the landscape, which lay, with all 
 its greenness and ascending smokes of cottage 
 chimneys, in the gleam of the setting sun. 
 Another instant, and an officer of the law 
 was seen cautiously scrambling up the same 
 ruinous path ; but, when he had reached 
 within about half a dozen yards or so of 
 Johnny, he paused, gazed upwards and 
 downwards, and then remained stationary. 
 Johnny, taking one serious look at him, now 
 waved his hand as bidding him adieu, and 
 disappeared in a mass of ivy. 
 
 The astonished officer on the ruined stair now 
 hastily retreated downwards ; the watchers 
 on the open place around, ran to the side of 
 the building where Johnny Darbyshire had 
 thus disappeared, but had scarcely reached 
 the next corner, when they heard a loud 
 descent of stones and rubbish, and, springing 
 forward, saw these rushing to the ground at 
 the foot of the old Manor, and some of them 
 springing and bounding down the hill below. 
 What was most noticeable, however, was 
 Johnny Darbyshire himself, lying stretched, 
 
 apparently lifeless, on the greensward at some 
 little distance. 
 
 On examining afterwards the place, they 
 found that Johnny had descended between a 
 double wall, a way, no doubt, well known 
 to him, and thence had endeavoured to let 
 himself down the wall by the ivy which grew 
 enormously strong there ; but the decayed 
 state of the stones had caused the hold of the 
 ivy to give way, and Johnny had been pre- 
 cipitated, probably from a considerable height. 
 He still held quantities of leaves and ivy 
 twigs in his hands. 
 
 He was conveyed as speedily as possible on 
 a door to his own house, where it was ascer- 
 tained by the surgeon that life was sound in 
 him, but that besides plenty of severe con- 
 tusions, he had broken a thigh. When this 
 news reached his persecutor, though Johnny 
 was declared to have rendered himself, by 
 his resistance to the officers of the law, liable 
 to outlawry, this gentleman declared that he 
 was quite satisfied ; that Johnny was punished 
 enough, especially as he had been visited with 
 the very mischief he had occasioned to the 
 mare. He declined to proceed any farther 
 against him, paid all charges and costs, and 
 the court itself thought fit to take no farther 
 cognizance of the matter. 
 
 Johnny was, indeed, severely punished. 
 For nearly twelve months he was confined to 
 the house, and never did his indomitable and 
 masterful spirit exhibit itself so strongly and 
 characteristically as during this time. He 
 was a most troublesome subject in the house. 
 As he sate in his bed, he ordered, scolded, and 
 ruled with a rod of iron all the women, 
 including his wife and daughter, so that they 
 would have thought the leg and the confine- 
 ment nothing to what they had to suffer. 
 
 He at length had himself conveyed to the 
 sitting-room or the kitchen, as he pleased, 
 in a great easy chair ; but as he did not 
 satisfy himself that he was sufficiently obeyed, 
 he one day sent the servant-girl to fetch him 
 the longest scarlet bean-stick that she could 
 find in the garden. Armed with this, he 
 now declared that he would have his own 
 way, lie could reach them now ! And, 
 accordingly, there he sate, ordering and 
 scolding, and if not promptly obeyed, in his 
 most extravagant commands, not sparing to 
 inflict substantial knocks with his pea-prick, 
 as he called it. This succeeded so well that 
 he would next have his chair carried to the 
 door, and survey the state of things without. 
 
 " Ay, he knew they were going on prettily. 
 There was fine management, he was sure,
 
 JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE, A PRIMITIVE QUAKER. 
 
 403 
 
 vhen he was thus laid up. He should be 
 ruined, that was certain. Oh, if he could 
 but see the ploughing and the crops, to see 
 how they were going on, would make the 
 heart of a stone ache, he expected." 
 
 His sou was a steady young fellow, and 
 it must be known, was all the while farming, 
 and carrying on the business much better 
 than he himself had ever done. 
 
 " But he would be with them one of these 
 days, and for the present he would see his 
 stock at all events." 
 
 He accordingly ordered the whole of his 
 stock, his horses, his cows, his bullocks, his 
 sheep, his calves, his pigs, and poultry, to be 
 all, every head of them, driven past as he 
 sate at the door. It was like another naming 
 of the beasts by Adam, or another going up 
 into the Ark. There he sate, swaying his 
 long stick ; now talking to this horse and 
 that cow. To the old bull he addressed a 
 long speech ; and every now and then he 
 broke off to rate the farm-servants for their 
 neglect of things. "What a bag of bones 
 was this heifer ; what a skeleton was that 
 horse ! Why, they must have been fairly 
 starved on purpose ; nay, they must have 
 been in the pinfold all the time he had been 
 laid up. But he would teach the lazy rogues 
 a different lesson as soon as he could get 
 about." 
 
 And the next thing was to get about in 
 his cart with his bed laid in it. In this he 
 rode over his farm- ; and it would have made 
 a fine scene for Fielding or Goldsmith, to have 
 seen all his proceedings, and heard all his 
 exclamations and remarks, as he surveyed 
 field after field. 
 
 " What ploughing ! what sowing ! Why, 
 they must have had a crooked plough, and a 
 set of bandy-legged horses to plough such 
 ploughing. There was no more straightness 
 in their furrows than in a dog's hind leg. 
 And then where had the man flung the seed 
 to ? Here was a bit come up, and there never 
 a bit. It was his belief that they must go 
 to Jericho to find half of his corn that had 
 been flung away. What ! had they picked 
 the windiest day of all the year to scatter 
 his corn on the air in ? And then the drains 
 were all stopped ; the land was drowning, 
 was starving to death ; and where were the 
 hedges all gone to ? Hedges he left, but now 
 he only saw gaps ! " 
 
 So he went round the farm, and for many 
 a day did it furnish him with a theme of 
 scolding in the house. 
 
 Such was Johnny Darbyshire ; and thus 
 he lived for many years. We sketch no 
 imaginary character, we relate no invented 
 story. Perhaps a more perfect specimen of 
 the shrewd and clever man converted into 
 the local and domestic tyrant, by having too 
 much of his own humour, never was beheld ; 
 but the genus to which Johnny Darbyshire 
 belonged is far from extinct. In the nooks 
 of England there are not few of them yet to 
 be found in all their froward glory ; and in the 
 most busy cities, though the great promi- 
 nences of their eccentricities are rubbed off 
 by daily concussion with men as hard-headed 
 as themselves, we see glimpses beneath the 
 polished surface of what they would be in 
 ruder and custom-freer* scenes. The Johnny 
 Darbyshires may be said to be instances of 
 English independence run to seed. 
 
 STORY OF FARQUHARSON OF INVEREY. 
 
 BY SIB THOMAS DICK LAUDER, BART. 
 
 THE ruins of the house of Inverey stand 
 in the level bottom of the great valley of 
 Braemar, not far from the point of junction 
 between the little river Ey and the Dee, and 
 immediately at the base of the southern hills, 
 there rising with abrupt faces, partially but 
 picturesquely wooded with birches and ancient 
 firs. A few old ashes and some other trees 
 that still grow around the walls, and some 
 remains of garden enclosures, are now the 
 only existing features calculated to lead the 
 mind back to some conception of what may 
 have been its state in former days ; and the 
 wretched hamlet of huts which have clustered 
 
 in course of time to suffocation around it, now 
 most naturally suggests the idea of some 
 mighty oak choked, exhausted, and killed 
 by the overgrowth of its parasitical plants. 
 But, although these miserable dwellings 
 appear as if they were now vegetating upon 
 the nourishment afforded by the ruins of the 
 hotise of Inverey, the ancestors of their present 
 inmates were its stoutest props during the 
 many generations in which it flourished ; for 
 many, I trow, were the bold hearts and tren- 
 chant blades, that issued from beneath such 
 lowly roofs as these, to muster in its defence, 
 whilst it was yet entire, whilst its hearth was
 
 404 
 
 STORY OF FARQUHARSON OF INVEREY. 
 
 yet warm, and whilst its hospitalities were 
 dispensed by its last brave master to all who 
 approached it in friendly guise. 
 
 He of whom I would speak was the gallant 
 Colonel Farquharson of Inverey, one of those 
 concerned in the Earl of Mar's rising in the 
 year 1715. The grand assemblage of clans 
 which then took place in Braemar, under the 
 specious pretext of a great hunting meeting, 
 is sufficiently well known as a historical fact. 
 Perhaps the magnificent scenery of that 
 always exhilarating highland country, was 
 never beheld under circumstances more truly 
 enlivening than when it was thus peopled 
 for a time by glittering nobles, and proud 
 chieftains, in all the glory of their array, each 
 surrounded by his own train of followers in 
 numbers corresponding to his rank, and each 
 vying with his fellows in the display of every 
 thing that could add to his importance and 
 magnificence. Although the real object of 
 this their congregation afterwards proved to 
 have been something of a much more serious 
 nature than mere hunting, yet the semblance 
 of the sport at least was kept up, the better to 
 cloak their deeper designs. Regular tinchcls 
 took place, in which some thousands of high- 
 landers, by forming a circuit of many miles 
 on the mountain ridges of the forest, and by 
 gradually moving towards a centre, hallooing 
 as they went, drove the numerous herds of 
 deer into one dense and unsettled mass, 
 whence appeared a wood of moving antlers, 
 the restlessness of which sufficiently betrayed 
 the doubts and fears of the noble animals that 
 bore them ; until, by pressing closer upon them, 
 they at length compelled the whole leather- 
 coated phalanx to burst away down some 
 narrow pass, where the sportsmen were placed 
 in ambush at different points, prepared to 
 select and to shoot at the largest and fattest 
 harts the eye could catch, as they swept by 
 them with the rapidity of a whirlwind. The 
 splendour, as well as the intense interest of 
 such a spectacle as this, exhibited as it was 
 amidst rocky rivers and roaring waterfalls, 
 where an apparently endless forest of enor- 
 mous untamed pine-trees filled all the tribu- 
 tary glens, and climbed up the slopes of the 
 mountains, where the echoes had rarely if 
 ever been awakened by the woodman's axe, 
 may be imagined but cannot well be described. 
 The various tints of the tartans of the different 
 clansmen ; the eagle-plumed bonnets of the 
 chiefs ; the glittering of the gold and silver 
 ornaments in which their persons shone ; the 
 manifestly more than hunting arms which 
 were borne by their followers ; the distant 
 
 shouts that came from every part of the 
 surrounding forest, softened by its muffling 
 foliage, though multiplied into myriads of 
 voices by the rocks that rang with them, and 
 growing upon the ear as they drew nearer ; 
 the onward rush of the countless multitude 
 of deer, bounding furiously forward ; the 
 instantaneous flashes and the rapid clang of 
 the fire-arms ; the wild death shrieks which 
 followed, mingled with the exulting notes of 
 bugles ; the crowding together of the various 
 groups ; and, finally, the homeward march 
 of this army of hunters to the triumphant 
 strains of the bagpipe, afforded a romance of 
 life which fair Scotland, prosperous as she 
 may be, can never again hope to furnish. 
 
 It is well known, that Farquharson the 
 chief of Invercauld, though secretly attached 
 to that standard which the Earl of Mar's 
 private wrongs had thus hastily led him to 
 rear, was yet most unwilling to declare him- 
 self openly upon this occasion ; for though he 
 was brave as a lion, he was doubtful of the 
 wisdom of an enterprise where the hopes of 
 success were so extremely problematical, 
 and where the abilities of the leaders were so 
 very questionable. 
 
 So determined was he, indeed, to avoid im- 
 portunity on the part of Lord Mar, that he 
 went under some pretence to Aberdeen to 
 escape his solicitations. His clansman, Far- 
 quharson of Inverey, fully participated in his 
 doubts and hesitation. It might have been 
 well for their cause, if the other chiefs had 
 exhibited the same degree of prudence and 
 caution. But Mar's oily eloquence, operating 
 on men whose spirits were previously thrown 
 into a state of emulation with each other, 
 soon brought them all into those engagements 
 which tenninated so fatally with most of 
 them. As for Inverey, although he man- 
 aged to keep aloof from the toils for a 
 time, yet when he was brought at length 
 by circumstances into the matter, and 
 found that the die was cast, he staked his 
 life and fortunes with the rest in the most 
 cluvalric manner, and determined to conquer 
 or die in support of that, which he had all 
 along conscientiously held to be the right- 
 ful cause of his legitimate prince. The cir- 
 cumstances which ultimately led to this his 
 resolution, were curious and accidental. 
 
 He was one evening returning from a 
 solitary deer-stalking expedition, attended 
 by two highland followers only, and he had 
 already almost reached that wild and romantic 
 spot, the Lynn of Dee, on his way home- 
 wards, when, at the door of a both}', the
 
 STORY OF FARQJJHARSON OF INVEREY. 
 
 40.1 
 
 wooden roof of which sent up a wreathing 
 smoke, that half hid the columnar stems of 
 the tall pines surrounding it, he observed a 
 ring of men intensely engaged with some 
 exciting spectacle, within the small circle 
 they formed. The place, he knew, was oc- 
 cupied by some of the Earl of Mar's English 
 attendants, who there waited for the return 
 of their master from the hunting ; but al- 
 though Inverey had hitherto contrived to 
 avoid meeting that nobleman, and was still 
 so anxious to keep out of his reach, that he 
 did not wish to risk being recognised even 
 by his domestics, yet the loud screams of 
 distress which came from among them, which 
 were heard above all the brutal merriment 
 they seemed to excite, urged him to approach 
 at all hazards. As he drew nearer, he dis- 
 covered that the cries proceeded from a poor, 
 half naked crazy woman, whom these bar- 
 barous lacqueys were compelling to dance 
 violently, by stimulating her with the points 
 of their naked swords whenever she at- 
 tempted to relax her exertions ; and this they 
 brutally continued, even although she was 
 about to faint from extreme exhaustion. 
 The natural humanity that was lodged in 
 the bosom of Inverey, would have sufficiently 
 disposed him to have interfered on such an 
 occasion as this, even if the wretched sufferer 
 had been entirely a stranger to him. But he 
 at once recognised her as a poor creature, 
 who, born upon his property, had been all 
 her life fed from his kitchen, except at such 
 times as her fancy had led her to wander 
 through the country in search of more pre- 
 carious alms. He considered himself bound 
 as her natural protector, to effect her rescue. 
 But though boiling with indignation, he re- 
 strained his ire ; and addressing himself 
 mildly to one who seemed to be the principal 
 person among her persecutors " Sir," said 
 he, " I beseech you to let that poor crazy 
 creature go. There is but little manliness 
 in taking such cruel sport out of one, whom 
 it has pleased God to deprive of most of those 
 blessings which he has so liberally bestowed 
 upon us." 
 
 "And who are you, sir," demanded the 
 haughty pampered domestic, as he contemp- 
 tuously surveyed Inverey, whose plain high- 
 land hunting dress bespoke him as but little 
 better than the two gillies who followed him. 
 "Who are you who dare thus to intrude on the 
 sports of the Earl of Mar's gentlemen ? By 
 St. George, if you don't take yourself out of 
 sight directly, you may chance to leave your 
 ears behind you." 
 
 " Oh, help poor Maggy Veck MacErchar ! " 
 cried the poor sufferer, availing herself of the 
 momentary pause that was produced by In- 
 verey's appeal, to take one gasp of breath 
 and to sue for his friendly aid. 
 
 " Dance, ye witch I " cried some of the 
 fellows, again cruelly pricking her with the 
 points of their swords, till she set up a shriek 
 that was piteous to hear. 
 
 " Come come, gentlemen ! " said Inverey, 
 patiently but firmly, " this cannot be ; ye 
 are not God's creatures if ye persist in this 
 cruel sport : I pr'ythee, let the poor woman 
 go!" 
 
 " By Heaven, master, but thou shalt be her 
 partner, an' we have any more of your preach- 
 ing," exclaimed the same man again. 
 
 " Toss him into the ring ! " cried another 
 fellow ; and " Toss him into the ring ! " was 
 instantly re-echoed from the rest. 
 
 " Tearloch and Ian, stick to your master !" 
 cried Inverey, in Gaelic, to his two followers., 
 and drawing back a step or two as if for the 
 purpose of retreat, but in reality to gaiu 
 greater space and accumulated force, he sud- 
 denly threAv himself forward with so tremen- 
 dous an impetus on the ring, that he fractured 
 its continuity, overthrew one half of the men 
 that composed it, and, snatching up the poor 
 object of their persecution within his left 
 arm, he burst his way through those on the 
 opposite side, and, unsheathing his claymore, 
 he rushed on, followed by his two attendants, 
 to the single pine tree which then afforded a 
 precarious passage across that yawning ravine 
 between the rocks, through which the river 
 Dee boils furiously along in a series of cata- 
 racts and rapids. It must have been a 
 fearful sight to have beheld him bearing his 
 burden along that rude log, rendered slippery, 
 as it always was, by the moisture deposited 
 on it from the continual mist arising from 
 the agitated water below ; but he carried his 
 burden firmly, and he soon set the poor crea- 
 ture safely down on the farther bank ; and 
 confiding her to the care of his two attendants, 
 whom he humanely ordered to hurry home 
 with her, he snatched his rifle from the hand 
 of Tearloch, and planted himself behind the 
 huge trunk of an old tree, in a position that 
 perfectly commanded the alpine bridge. 
 When the whole of the cowardly route of 
 lacqueys who pursued him, came up and 
 saw how he had posted himself, and that one 
 only could cross the perilous bridge at a time, 
 they halted, deliberated, and darted many an 
 angry glance across to him whom they would 
 have fain assaulted with their overwhelming
 
 406 
 
 STORY OF FARQUHARSON OF INTER MY. 
 
 numbers ; but no single man chose to be the 
 first to hazard being shot in attempting the 
 passage ; whilst Inverey, on his part, was 
 compelled to keep within the shelter of his 
 sylvan fortress, from conviction of the certain 
 death that awaited him from their fire-amis 
 if he moved from it but a hair's breadth. 
 
 Whilst they were thus standing in doubt 
 how to act on either side, bugles and bagpipes 
 were heard at some distance echoing through 
 the forest, and as the sound drew nearer, the 
 gorgeous but irregular array of the hunters 
 appeared winding among the tall bare pine 
 stems like some procession moving under the 
 aisles of a cathedral. At their head was the 
 Earl of Mar, gallantly attired, and surrounded 
 by many of the nobility and chieftains of 
 Scotland. Inverey would have fain with- 
 drawn himself, had it not been for the 
 menacing attitude of his opponents, and the 
 numerous long-barrelled pieces which they 
 kept pointed towards the tree that covered 
 him. Unwilling as he was, therefore, to 
 meet with the Earl, he now saw that he 
 must make up his mind to that alternative, 
 for his lordship had already observed the 
 strange position which he occupied, and was 
 surprised to see the cat-like watch that his 
 own people held over him. 
 
 " Laurence," said the Earl, addressing the 
 principal person among them, and who was the 
 same peison who had treated Inverey with so 
 much insolence, " how comes it that ye 
 stand here thus in such hostile guise? and 
 who may yonder Highlander be who seems 
 posted as if he were determined to use his 
 rifle against any one who may dare to at- 
 tempt the passage ? What ! nay, if I have 
 ought of shrewdness in me, it is mine old 
 friend Inverey. What, ho ! Inverey ! " 
 shouted he. " Well met ! for hostile though 
 your air be, methinks I can answer for you 
 that you will fire no deadly shot at Mar, or 
 any one in Mar's company." 
 
 "You do me no more than justice, my 
 lord," cried Inverey, quitting his shelter, and 
 coming across to meet the Earl ; " trust me, 
 I will never level deadly tube at thee, nor at 
 any friend of thine ; but I was compelled to 
 plant myself yonder to protect me from the 
 attack of a scoundrel knot of your English 
 lacqueys, who, learning nothing from their 
 noble master's habitual courtesy, have proved 
 to me how they can misconduct themselves 
 when his eye is not on them." 
 
 " Shame, shame, knaves ! " cried the Earl, 
 much moved. "Pray, tell me, Inverey, 
 which of them were most in fault, and, by 
 
 Heaven, I will forthwith punish them as 
 they deserve." 
 
 " Nay, I entreat you, my lord," said In- 
 verey, "clemency often does more in curing 
 such faults than severity. Leave them to 
 me, I beseech you, and I think I shall easily 
 convince them that it were wiser for thorn 
 to take less upon them whilst they are here 
 in Braemar than they have hitherto thought 
 it meet to do, and above all things," con- 
 tinued he, sinking his voice so as to be heard 
 by the abashed culprits alone, " it were well 
 for some of them to recollect, that God, who 
 sees all human actions, is often pleased to 
 pour out his divine vengeance, even in this 
 world, on the devoted heads of those who 
 cruelly afflict the poor and the weak in body, 
 and particularly the weak in mind, for the 
 care of whom He is supposed to exert His 
 especial providence. And now, my lord," 
 added he, raising his voice again, " let the 
 matter pass from your lordship's mind, I 
 pray you." 
 
 "Well, Inverey," replied the Earl, "I 
 leave the knaves entirely in your generous 
 hands ; and, in truth, we have something else 
 to look to at present than the chastisement of 
 such varlets. I have much to say to you, and 
 much to hope from your advice in momentous 
 matters on which I have been anxiously but 
 vainly looking for an opportunity of consult- 
 ing you ; and now that I have found you, 
 trust me I will not part with you again. 
 You must with us to partake of these our 
 festivities." 
 
 " My lord," said Inverey, " this garb, which 
 I doubt not was the chief cause of these 
 honest gentlemen's incivility, is apology 
 enoxigh for my declining your kindness." 
 
 " Nay," replied the Earl, " no such apology 
 as that will serve. There is enough of day 
 yet left for you to go to your own house to fit 
 yourself for the feast, with such apparel as 
 may be becoming the distinguished rank you 
 hold in the brave clan Farquharson ; so haste 
 thee home that you may come and join our 
 revels. I have many noble and dear friends 
 here whom yoxi must know, and to whom I 
 have longed to make your virtues known." 
 
 Inverey was inwardly vexed that all his 
 precautions to avoid the Earl had thus been 
 frustrated by the accident of a moment ; but 
 making a virtue of necessity, he courteously 
 acceded to his hospitable request. 
 
 If the hunting pageant of the day had 
 appeared glorious and rich, that which the 
 evening banquet presented, was still more 
 gorgeous, when so many gallant nobles
 
 STORY OF FARQUHARSON OF INVEREY. 
 
 407 
 
 crowded towards the festive circle, dressed 
 in all their grandeur, and when their every 
 nod and beck was attended to by shoals of 
 gaily dressed menials, whilst the board 
 glittered with antique plate, and groaned 
 beneath the load of inviting meats and drinks, 
 to so great a degree of profusion, that any 
 one might have imagined that Mar had 
 resolved to stake his all upon the desperate 
 game he had to play, and had determined to 
 begin it by the utter bewilderment of those 
 whom he wished to gain over to his great 
 enterprise. It was not luxurious feeding, or 
 deep drinking, that gained over the Far- 
 quharson or his kinsman the brave Inverey. 
 But, seeing that their influence could not arrest 
 the rashness which so unseasonably hurried 
 on the Earl and his friends, they at length 
 resolved to give their best aid to that cause 
 which they so much cherished, even although 
 they were sufficiently sensible of the apparent 
 absence of all reasonable chance of success, 
 arising from the deficiency of their present 
 means of action. 
 
 When Inverey put himself at the head of 
 his branch of the Farquharsons, to march 
 off to join the Earl of Mar's army, in which 
 he had received the rank of Colonel, poor 
 Maggy Veck MacErchar, who had been 
 away on one of her wandering excursions, 
 suddenly appeared, and coming running up 
 to him, and seizing him by the plaid, "Where 
 are all these bonny men going?" said she to 
 him, earnestly, in Gaelic, " and where are you 
 going to, Inverey ? It's not to the hunting, 
 I'm thinking ? but, wherever it be, Maggy 
 Veck shall go with ye." 
 
 " Nay, Maggy," said Inverey, smiling, 
 "you can't go with me." 
 
 " Ay, but I will, though," replied Maggy, 
 "for I trow there's something more than 
 hunting in your head ; and of all these bonny 
 men who hold their heads so high, who knows 
 how many of them may ever see Braemar 
 again, or who can tell where their last beds 
 may be made. It's not hunting ye're upon, 
 Inverey." 
 
 " Whatever it may be, it concerns not you, 
 Maggy," replied Inverey, kindly putting her 
 aside. "You must stay in the kitchen here, 
 and take care of the castle till I come back." 
 
 " Talk to me not," said Maggy, pressing 
 forward again, and seizing his wrist with 
 unusual energy, " tell me not that I shall 
 not go. I must never leave you again. I 
 was sleeping at the ferry of Cambusmey yester- 
 e'en, when methought your mother's spirit ap- 
 peared to me, and warned me that it was my 
 
 wierd to save your life at the forfeit of my 
 own. Full gladly should I pay the price, I 
 trow, even if I had never owed you more than 
 I do for snatching me from the cruel fangs of 
 those devils incarnate, at the Lynn of Dee. 
 But where should Maggy Veck have been if 
 the house of Inverey had not been her sup- 
 port in sickness and in health, in weakness 
 of body and in wanderings of mind, ever 
 since she entered on this weary world ? and is 
 not her wretched life itself all too little for 
 what she owes to you and yours ? " 
 
 " All that may be very well, Maggy," said 
 Inverey, endeavouring to force a laugh to 
 hide those tears with which the poor crea- 
 ture's strong professions of attachment were 
 rapidly filling his eyes, "all that you say 
 may be well enough, and I feel very grateful 
 to you for your self-devoted protection, but 
 trust me the time is not come yet." 
 
 " But I will go ! " said Maggy clinging to 
 him, whilst her eyes began to roll in one of 
 those temporary paroxysms of insanity into 
 which she was sometimes thrown by strongly 
 excited emotions, and she continued to shriek 
 out, " I will go ! I will work out my 
 wierd ! I will go ! " 
 
 Seeing that he had no other alternative, 
 Colonel Farquharson was at last compelled 
 to treat her with gentle constraint, and she 
 was finally placed under the care of an old 
 man and his wife who formed all the garrison 
 that was left to guard the house of Inverey. 
 As Maggy was not liberated from confinement 
 until some clays afterwards, all chance of her 
 successfully following the party was cut off. 
 But it was very remarkable that she never 
 attempted this ; nay she went on no rambling 
 excursion as she was so frequently wont to 
 do, but continued to loiter listlessly about the 
 old house of Inverey, maintaining a moody 
 silence with all who attempted to provoke 
 her to speak, and apparently altogether un- 
 excited by any event however important, 
 and seeming not to hear or to see aught, save 
 when the dogs barked, or footsteps approached, 
 when she would run to the door as if to ascer- 
 tain whether it might not be him, in her care 
 for whose safety her whole thoughts seemed 
 to be wrapped up. 
 
 It is far beyond the extent of my present 
 purpose to go into the history of that unfor- 
 tunate enterprise, which, chiefly owing to 
 the irresolution and unfitness of its leader, 
 fell to the ground, more from its own intrin- 
 sic weakness than from any greatness in 
 those efforts which were made against, it. 
 Suffice it to say, that Colonel Farquharson of
 
 403 
 
 STORY OF FARQUHARSON OF INVEREY. 
 
 Inverey found his gloomy forebodings suffi- 
 ciently verified, and he was glad to escape in 
 safety to his native valley, where, trusting to 
 its extremely remote situation, he ventured one 
 evening, in company with a single friend, the 
 partner of his flight, both faint with hunger 
 and overcome with fatigue, to approach his 
 own house under the shade of night. That he 
 might not run the risk of being recognised by 
 any one but the old couple who had the charge 
 of it, he remained hid in some bushes at no 
 great distance till his friend, who was a 
 stranger, advanced and knocked at the door. 
 The old couple appeared, and to them the gen- 
 tleman presented a certain token which satis- 
 fied them that their beloved master was at 
 hand, and they in their turn assured him that 
 all was safe. He was about to return to relieve 
 Inverey's anxiety, whilst the old man and 
 his wife were thinking of some plausible pre- 
 text for sending Maggy out of the way, lest 
 she might by some accident be the innocent 
 cause of betraying her best benefactor, when 
 suddenly, and as if actuated by some strange 
 supernatural influence, she sprang towards 
 the door from her lair in the kitchen, 
 turned the gentleman round looked ear- 
 nestly in his face pushed him rudely aside 
 and then, by some instinct which it is im- 
 possible to account for, or from some symptom 
 of which no one else was aware, she rushed 
 out and ran directly towards the thicket where 
 Inverey was concealed. Hearing footsteps 
 rapidly approaching, Inverey became alarmed, 
 and feeling his knees abruptly seized by 
 some one with a violence that almost threw 
 him down, he thought of nothing but 
 treachery ; and, drawing his dirk, he was on 
 the point of plunging it into the body of the 
 person who embraced them, when the well 
 known voice of Maggy Veck MacErchar 
 saluted his ears, arrested his hand, and 
 allayed his alarm. 
 
 " And do I clasp you once more, Inverey ? " 
 cried she in her native language, and sobbing 
 with excitement. "Bird of my heart 
 Och hone ! Och hone ! Blessings on thee ! 
 blessings on thee ! my visions told me of 
 this, and they are come true, and now, 
 Maggy Veck's wierd must be won ! " 
 
 The Colonel answered the poor creature's 
 joyous and vociferous welcomes with his 
 wonted kindness ; but being conscious that 
 he required the closest concealment, he was 
 far from being well satisfied that she should 
 have so soon made the discovery of his re- 
 turn. But all he could now do was to caution 
 her not to mention his name to any human 
 
 being, and above all things not to give the 
 slightest hint to any one that he had returned 
 home, for that his life was sought for by the 
 king's troops, parties of whom were scouring 
 the country in all directions, eagerly seeking 
 to apprehend the various leaders of the in- 
 surrection. One security for his safety 
 Inverey was particularly anxious to have 
 from her, and that was that she should re- 
 main constantly at home; and to his injunc- 
 tions in this respect he had hoped that her 
 recent very wonderful steadiness in this par- 
 ticular would be a sufficient security for her 
 future submission. But here he was mis- 
 taken ; for whatever had been her conduct 
 previously, she now betrayed a very extra- 
 ordinary degree of restlessness that was 
 altogether unaccountable. Inverey ordered 
 his two old domestics to watch her motions 
 narrowly; but in spite of all their care and 
 attention, Maggy suddenly disappeared, to the 
 no small dismay and apprehension of those 
 whom she left behind her. 
 
 Inverey and his friend had hitherto kept 
 themselves carefully concealed in the old 
 mansion, never venturing abroad, even to 
 take the air, except under the cloud of night ; 
 but now their care and vigilance were re- 
 doubled, for they felt the strongest appre- 
 hensions that poor Maggy Veck might in 
 some way or other innocently betray their 
 secret. But so far as she was concerned their 
 fears were without foundation. 
 
 Those who are acquainted with the wild 
 scenery of the Braemar country, must be 
 aware that it is closed in by the pass of 
 Cambusmey, immediately above that bleak 
 moor on which the celebrated battle of Cul- 
 blane was fought. It happened that poor 
 Maggy Veck, who had been wandering about 
 from house to house with her meal-wallet, 
 until it had been nearly filled by the little 
 contributions which she had received from 
 those who knew her, had sat down one 
 evening to rest herself by the side of a pure 
 spring, under the shade of the oaks, every- 
 where covering the ground immediately 
 within the pass. Having taken some crusts 
 and broken meat from the innermost recesses 
 of her bag, she was in the act of satisfying 
 her hunger by devouring them, when she was 
 suddenly scared from the spot she had chosen 
 by the heavy sound of the trampling of a 
 body of horse coming over the knoll that 
 blocked the entrance to this part of the val- 
 ley. Filled with alarm, she started up hastily, 
 and darting into a neighbouring thicket at a 
 few paces distant, she squatted herself down
 
 STORY OF FARQUHARSON OF INVEREY. 
 
 409 
 
 in the midst of it, and lay there concealed by 
 the overhanging boughs of some hazle copse. 
 She had hardly thus secreted herself, when 
 she beheld a numerous party of dragoons 
 filing into the pass. As they drew nearer, 
 she observed a man in a plain dress riding 
 on a pony immediately behind the officer who 
 seemed to command the party; and her flesh 
 trembled, and her blood ran cold to her heart, 
 when she discovered that it was that very 
 Laurence who had been the cruel inventor of 
 her torments at the Lynn of Dee, and who 
 had instigated his wicked companions to 
 carry them into effect. From the manner in 
 which he was addressed by the captain of the 
 troop, it was evident that he was acting as 
 guide. 
 
 " How far may we now be from the house 
 of Inverey ? " demanded the Captain. 
 
 " Something about fifteen miles or so, if I 
 remember right," replied the other ; " but 
 these Highland miles are confounded long." 
 
 "So much?" said the officer. "Then, 
 methinks, we must needs halt here for a brief 
 space of time, to let both horse and man have 
 rest and refreshment." 
 
 " It may be as well, captain," replied 
 Laurence. 
 
 " I wish we could catch some Highland 
 peasant, who could tell us whether this rebel 
 Colonel Farquharson be really likely to be 
 found in his own house," said the captain. 
 
 " I am assured he is there," replied the 
 other ; " if I had not been so, I should not 
 have been the means of leading you all this 
 long way ; and if after a hasty meal you will 
 but ride on to Inverey without drawing 
 bridle, you cannot fail to find him in his 
 bed ; and then shall he be paid off, I trow, for 
 the long sermon his worship gave me at the 
 Lynn of Dee, for making that witch dance 
 for our fun. If we can but catch her, by 
 all the fiends she shall caper till she 
 dies." 
 
 " Dismount, then, my lads ! " said the 
 captain of the party, giving the word of 
 command to his men, " make haste to picquet 
 your horses where the best patches of grass 
 may be found, and then you may eat your 
 rations beneath the shade of these trees, and 
 let every man of you make good use of his 
 time, for it will be but short." 
 
 It may be guessed how much poor Maggy 
 Veck must have quaked when she beheld the 
 captain of the party and two of his officers, 
 attended by the villainous Laurence, ap- 
 proaching the very spring where she had 
 been so lately sitting, and so close to which 
 
 she now lay, and this for the purpose of taking 
 their meal there. 
 
 " Here is a green bank and a pure spring, 
 gentlemen, where you may rest and eat com- 
 fortably," said Laurence, as he led them 
 thither. 
 
 " What have we here ? " said one of the 
 subalterns, kicking with his foot at one of 
 Maggy's half gnawed bones which she had 
 dropped in her hurry. 
 
 "Some one has been making an inn of 
 this place very lately," said the captain. 
 
 Maggy's breath seemed to leave her body 
 for a moment as she beheld Laurence throwing 
 his eyes keenly about, and even taking a step 
 or two towards the thicket where she lay, as 
 if disposed to look for the last occupant of 
 the spot ; but her fears were somewhat relieved 
 when she beheld him proceed to open a 
 havresack, and prepare to lay its contents on 
 the grass before the officers, who had by this 
 time seated themselves ; and no sooner did 
 she see him thus employed than she bolted 
 out from the opposite side of the bush to that 
 where they were seated, and sprang into the 
 thickest part of the adjacent oak wood. 
 
 " It was a fat hind, I warrant me," said 
 Laurence, " there be many of them here- 
 abouts." 
 
 " I wish we had a slice of her," replied 
 the leader of the party. 
 
 These words reached the terrified ears of 
 Maggy as she fled, but they were all she 
 staid to hear ; for, throwing away her meal 
 wallets, she threaded through the stems of 
 the trees, and the tangled brakes ; dashed 
 through the mountain streams that hurried 
 downwards to the Dee across her way ; and 
 scoured up the glen with a swiftness little 
 short of that which a hind herself could have 
 exerted. On she rushed through the romantic 
 Pass of Ballater, without ever halting to draw 
 breath. Ever and anon as the breeze came 
 sweeping up the glen behind her, she thought 
 it bore with it the sound of the tramp of the 
 troop, and, breathless as she was, she urged 
 her speed with double force. Grasping a 
 rugged bough which lay by the river's bank, 
 she groped her way safely through the ford 
 of the Dee below Castleton, and the water 
 was cooling to her burning feet and flagging 
 limbs. But hardly was she safe on the 
 southern bank, on her way towards the 
 ancient bridge over the Clugny, near the 
 remains of Malcolm Canmore's castle, than 
 she heard but too certainly the sullen 
 though distant sound of the inarch of the 
 troop horses echoing from the abrupt face of
 
 STORY OF FARQUIIARSON OF INVEREY. 
 
 the Craig of Clugny behind her. She had 
 yet some four or five miles to run, and nature 
 was almost about to give way under the 
 superhuman exertions she was making. She 
 stopped for one moment to take a single gulp 
 of water from a rill that poured itself across 
 the way ; and having thus gathered a tempo- 
 rary accession of strength, she rushed on 
 again with inconceivable velocity. As she 
 flew, the distant sound of the troop was for 
 some time heard only at intervals as the 
 windings of the path happened to be more 
 or less favourable for its conveyance, being 
 ever and anon lost in the more powerful rush 
 of the Dee as she chanced to approach nearer 
 to its stream. But the night was now ex- 
 tremely still, and as from time to time she 
 happened to recede from the river, the 
 echoing pace of the dragoon horses was heard 
 more frequently and more distinctly, until 
 by degrees it became nearly continuous, and 
 this whilst she was yet nearly two miles from 
 Inverey. Poor Maggy's head began to spin 
 round with absolute faintness ; her temples 
 throbbed, and her heart beat as if it would 
 have burst through her side. She staggered 
 to a rill that fell in a tiny cascade over a 
 little rock in the bank on her left hand, and, 
 taking a deep but hasty draught, she again 
 urged on her desperate race. But nature 
 now refused her the speed to which her 
 anxiously excited spirit would have impelled 
 her. The tramp of the troop was manifestly 
 gaining on her ; the voices of the men began 
 now and then to be heard. But still she 
 toiled on, until gasping at last, she tottered 
 towards some bushes of juniper that grew by 
 the way side, and sank down among them in 
 the dark shade which was thrown over them by 
 a mingled group of pines and birches. There 
 poor Maggy lay in a kind of waking swoon 
 of fear and exhaustion, and with her heart 
 beating as if it would have burst from her 
 breast. She had hardly been there for a 
 minute when in the intense obscurity of the 
 night, the whole troop filed past her without 
 perceiving her. 
 
 They were now within a quarter of a mile 
 of Inverey. All seemed to be lost, when she 
 was again roused by hearing the captain of 
 the dragoons suddenly order his troop to 
 halt. His object in so doing was to caution 
 his men to keep silence, and to make each 
 individual fully aware of the manner in 
 which the surprise was to be effected. But 
 poor Maggy was only aware of the simple 
 circumstance that they had halted, and she 
 stopped not to inquire wherefore. Starting 
 
 again to her feet, she dived and ducked 
 through the brushwood till she had made 
 her Way beyond them ; and then summoning 
 all her remaining strength into one last effort, 
 she flew onwards with a speed which was, 
 if possible, greater than any that she had 
 yet exerted, and she gained the old house of 
 Inverey before the troopers were again in 
 motion. But the door was fast. She 
 thundered at it with the rugged branch which 
 she had still kept firmly grasped in her 
 hand. " The Saxon soldiers ! the Saxon 
 soldiers ! " cried she in Gaelic ; " Inverey ! 
 Inverey ! the Saxon soldiers ! Open ! open 
 the door and flee ! and Maggy Veek Mac- 
 Erchar's wierd is won ! " 
 
 The door was opened by the old woman, 
 and poor Maggy Veck immediately dropped 
 down in the threshold. 
 
 Inverey and his friend had started up at 
 her well-known voice, and they had hastily 
 thrown on what clothes and arms they had 
 at hand, for they had ever kept themselves 
 fully prepared for surprise. Hurrying out 
 the old man and his wife, Inverey made 
 them carry off poor Maggy Veck to the 
 shelter of a cottage at some distance from the 
 house, whither he ordered them to carry her 
 with care, and on no account to leave her ; 
 and then, turning to his friend, he urged him 
 to make the best of his way up the face of 
 the hill rising to the south. " I will but 
 down into the cellar to pouch a bottle or t\vo 
 of good old wine," said he, " to keep us warm 
 on the hill-side, and then I will follow you 
 in a trice." 
 
 " Wine ! " exclaimed his friend in asto- 
 nishment, " how can you think of wine at 
 a moment like this? do you not hear the 
 tramp of the troop horses ? " 
 
 " I cannot help that," said Inverey coolly, 
 " we must have some comfort with us," and 
 so saying, he disappeared in a moment in 
 the direction of the cellar. 
 
 His friend rushed out in front of the house. 
 So far as he could guess by his ear, the 
 troopers seemed to be then about two hun- 
 dred yards off, and to be approaching slowly 
 and cautiously. He listened anxiously but 
 the sound had suddenly ceased, as if they had 
 halted, and immediately afterwards it was 
 renewed, but it was now so subdivided in 
 different directions as to leave not a doubt 
 on his mind that they were filing off singly 
 to surround the mansion. He gave his friend 
 Inverey up for lost, and whilst he bewailed 
 his fate, he secretly cursed his folly which 
 had thus produced his own certain destruc-
 
 STORY OF FARQUHARSON OF INVEREY. 
 
 411 
 
 tion, if not that of both. The only hope of 
 his own escape now lay in the extreme dark- 
 ness of the night, but how to proceed, he did 
 not very well know. At length he was 
 somewhat cheered by hearing his friend's 
 voice whispering near him. 
 
 " This way," said Inverey. " Stay halt a 
 moment beside this bush ; here comes a 
 trooper." 
 
 The man passed close to them without 
 observing them, and lie had no sooner gone 
 by, than the two fugitives again moved for- 
 ward, stealing foot after foot without the 
 slightest noise, until they were certain that 
 they had got beyond the circle of horsemen, 
 who were slowly closing in around the build- 
 ing : then it was that they made the best use 
 of their limbs to reach the hill face, and 
 scrambled high up its front until they were 
 fairly seated under an enormous fir tree on 
 the very brow of the steep acclivity, whence 
 they could hear enough to convince them 
 that the house of Inverey was already 
 entered. 
 
 " The nests are warm, but the birds are 
 flown," said Inverey. " They will find little 
 to gratify their greedy thirst for plunder, 
 for, as you know, I was well prepared for 
 this." 
 
 " I wish they may not fire the house in 
 revenge for their disappointment," said his 
 friend. 
 
 " With all my heart," said Inverey, laugh- 
 ing ; " the night is rather airish, and a bonfire 
 will be comfortable. Meanwhile, let us drink 
 confusion to them and to the master they 
 serve." 
 
 " How can you possibly take this matter 
 so lightly, Inverey?" demanded his friend: 
 " your levity confounds me." 
 
 " You will see anon," replied he laughing 
 again, and at the same time uncorking a bottle : 
 " meanwhile, until they are pleased to give 
 us more light, do you hold this silver cuach, 
 and keep your finger in such a position, that 
 you may feel so as to tell me certainly when the 
 liquor touches the brim ; for, mark me, the 
 wine is too good to be wasted. How like ye 
 that, I pr'ythee?" 
 
 " 'Tis excellent," replied his friend, " but 
 would we could have drank it under happier 
 circumstances." 
 
 "Nay! look yonder!" said Inverey, after 
 he had swallowed a bumper. " By Saint 
 Andrew but you have guessed well ! See 
 how the windows begin to be lighted up ha, 
 ha, ha ! See, see the joists are already on 
 fire. See how the lurid smoke bursts its way 
 
 through the roof and now the flames follow 
 ha, ha, ha ! We shall soon have sport." 
 
 " What trumpet call was that?" exclaimed 
 his companion. 
 
 " By heaven, they are mounting in haste," 
 said Inverey, starting to his feet. " See yonder 
 where the light is strong, what a bustle they 
 are in." 
 
 " Some sudden alarm seems to have reached 
 them," said his friend. 
 
 " Now, now, now ! " cried Inverey, spring- 
 ing from the ground with excitement, and 
 rubbing his hands with extreme eagerness 
 and anxiety of countenance, which was now 
 strongly illuminated by the glare of light 
 thrown on him from below " Now, now, 
 now ! By all that is good they gallop 
 off." 
 
 Inverey threw himself down on the bank 
 as if overwhelmed with disappointment. The 
 blaze was now so brilliant, that every motion 
 of the troop, every glance of their arms was 
 distinctly seen as they mounted within the 
 illuminated space ; but they were no sooner 
 in their saddles, than the word was given to 
 march, and they swept away like a legion of 
 spirits into the deep and impenetrable shade 
 of the night, their reality being alone proved 
 by the loud clattering of the heels of the re- 
 treating troop-horses. In an instant the 
 whole building seemed as if it were lifted up- 
 wards a sudden and instantaneous sheet of 
 flame burst forth a tremendous explosion 
 rent the air ; and, whilst its appalling roar 
 was running the whole circuit of all the 
 thousand echoes of the valley, numerous 
 fragments of stones fell around them on the 
 face of the hill, and great part of the solid 
 walls crumbled down like the descent of an 
 avalanche, and a dense opaque cloud of smoke 
 and dust arose to mingle itself with the murky 
 vault of heaven. The conflagration seemed 
 to be at once extinguished by the falling 
 ruins, and only showed itself now and then 
 by partial kindlings among the smouldering 
 ashes. 
 
 "They have had more luck than they 
 deserved," said Inverey ; " but since it has 
 pleased God to spare them, it is not for a 
 Christian to murmur that he has not had his 
 revenge ; and my conscience at least is free 
 from the after-thought of their carnage. But 
 I did think it no harm to prepare for them a 
 self-inflicted penalty depending on their own 
 base and cowardly action in burning my 
 house and home. And now, my friend, 
 since these rascals have put it out of my 
 power to provide you with better fare or
 
 412 
 
 STORY OF FARQUHARSON OF INVEREY. 
 
 quarters, you must e'en take another tasse, 
 and make the best you can of this hill-side 
 for a chamber, till day-break may tell us 
 whether all be safe below. Here ! drink 
 this bumper to a good riddance to the glen 
 of all such guests ! " 
 
 After having spent the night in the best 
 manner they could, and the sun had arisen 
 to assure them that their enemies had de- 
 parted, Inverey and his friend slowly des- 
 cended the hill, and cautiously approached 
 the ruins. The walls were black, the neigh- 
 bouring trees were scathed, and the embers 
 of the conflagration still smoked and smoul- 
 dered. As they approached them, and 
 when they had got within thirty or forty 
 yards of them, they observed the dead corpse 
 of a man. He lay on his breast, with a long 
 heavy lintel stone laid across his back so as to 
 have crushed that part of his body to an 
 absolute jelly. His legs and arms were ex- 
 tended, and his face was unnaturally twisted 
 round ; so that the torture of his violent 
 death was horribly read in the contorted fix- 
 ture of the features, the gaping mouth, wide 
 stretched eyes, and protruding eye-balls. It 
 was the corpse of the traitor Laurence who 
 had guided the troopers to the spot. Con- 
 gratulating himself that he was not under 
 military command, he had remained behind 
 eagerly searching for plunder : but finding 
 nothing that he could carry off", and the flames 
 becoming^ rather dangerous, he was in the act 
 
 of making a hasty retreat, when he was over- 
 taken by this awful but just retribution. The 
 enormous stone having been thrown into the 
 air by the explosion, had crushed him to the 
 earth like a toad, and he was the only man 
 who had suffered. 
 
 Colonel Farquharson's first inquiry was 
 after poor Maggy Veck MacErchar, the 
 saviour of his life. Hastening to the cottage 
 where she lay, he found her stretched on a 
 pallet bed. She was pale and motionless, 
 and her soul seemed to have just quitted its 
 earthly tenement. He approached with 
 anxious tenderness and awe to ascertain the 
 truth. As if his presence had called back 
 her flitting spirit, the previously inanimate 
 frame suddenly erected itself, the glazed eye 
 shot forth a strange unearthly fire. It gazed 
 for a moment on Colonel Farquharson. She 
 threw up her hands, and clasped them ener- 
 getically together, and in a clear but subdued 
 voice, she cried in her native Gaelic : 
 
 " Inverey ! blessed be God that I have 
 saved Inverey ! Ay, beckon, my lady I 
 come, I come ! for now now I have won 
 my wierd ! " 
 
 Her spirit took flight, and left the lifeless 
 clay to fall back in the bed. Inverey was 
 deeply affected by the scene, and few obse- 
 quies were ever more honoured, or had more 
 sincere or more manly tears bestowed upon 
 them, than those which w r ere given to poor 
 Maggy Veck MacErchar, by her sad master. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 Printed by WILLIAM TAIT, 107, Prince's Street.



 
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