THE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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 YSTERIOUS LEGENDS 
 
 OF 
 
 EDINBURGH
 
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 MYSTERIOUS LEGENDS 
 
 OF 
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 NOW FOR THE FIRSl' TIME TOLD IN PRINT. 
 
 B\ 
 
 ALEXANDER LEIGHTON, 
 
 AVTB(>R 09 "curious STUSiSr TtiAZ^ITlONS," BTC, STC. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 
 WILLIAM P. NIMMO. 
 
 1864.
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 N presenting to those readers who are fond of a 
 story, this book, — in the preparation of which, 
 happily, there has been small expense of either 
 the oil of Demosthenes, the wine of Anacreon, or 
 the opium of Coleridge, — the author has a few words to say 
 as to the class to which it belongs ; and these have been 
 suggested by a descriptive epithet bestowed by an influential 
 journal on his prior work of " Storied Traditions." These have 
 been baptized "annalistic fiction," — a term not altogether happy, 
 insomuch as, according to the authority of Sir Walter Scott's 
 euphuistic knight of the sheers, it may, and, if sound, ought to 
 stand the test of being reversed, so that we would have, as the 
 characteristic of the book, " feigned annals." This would 
 certainly be untrue, for the annals, however meagre, and, so 
 far as regards quantity, like another knight's ration of bread, 
 are, nevertheless, not fiction, any more than the said bread 
 was spiced sack. 
 
 If it were to be objected, that while he has generally indi- 
 cated his sources, he has not stated the amount of matter 
 derived from them, it may be a very good answer to say, that 
 his object was merely to tell a story which might be invested 
 with so much more of that verisimilitude derived from an 
 imitation of nature as would result from truth being at the 
 bottom of the superstructure. Belief is still the enigma of 
 
 969546
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 the metaphysician. Without going into nominalistic subtle- 
 ties, we are all aware, at least we ought to be, that belief in a 
 narrative of bygone events is influenced by the words being 
 taken for the things they represent, much in the same way as 
 retinal images are taken for the objects that impress them. 
 A\'e neither hear the past events, nor do we see the present 
 oljjects, and hence it is that our affections are called up by a 
 good imitation, as well as by the reality. Even where there is 
 nothing in nature for the words to represent, they still work 
 their effect by something we might call "verbal perception;" 
 the truth being, as Malebranche has shewn us long ago, that 
 what we call our beliefs — often nothing more than verbal im- 
 l^ressions sealed by authority— are intended primarily to prompt 
 our affections, and instigate us to action ; any other use of 
 them being apparently destined to lead us by exhaustive defini- 
 tions into doubts and perplexities. It may, indeed, be ques- 
 tioned whether the stanchest belief entertained by an adult 
 could be stronger than the child's conviction of the truth of 
 "Goody Two-stiocs.'' Yet withal there are ctgnrs in this 
 working : there must be in words so much, at least, of a 
 representative power as to recommend them to the reason ; 
 and the author hopes the reader will find this much in these 
 Mysterious Legends. 
 
 York Lodge, Trinity, Maj' 1864.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LORD KAMES's PUZZLE, . 
 
 MRS Corbet's amputated toe, 
 
 THE BROWNIE OF THE WEST BOW, 
 
 THE ANCIENT BUREAU, . 
 
 A LEGEND OF HALKERSTON's WYND, 
 
 LANG SANDY WOOD'S WATCH, 
 
 DEACON MACGILLIVRAY'S DISAPPEARANCE, 
 
 LORD BRAXFIELD's CASE OF THE RED NIGHTCAP, 
 
 THE STRANGE STORY OF SARAH GOWANLOCK, 
 
 JOHN CAMERON'S LIFE POLICY, . 
 
 PACK 
 I 
 
 30 
 
 57 
 
 S3 
 
 119 
 
 145 
 16S 
 191 
 216 
 
 242
 
 MYSTERIOUS LEGENDS 
 
 OP 
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 fN looking over some Session papers which had 
 belonged to Lord Karnes, with the object, I con- 
 fess, of getting hold of some facts — those entities 
 called by Quintilian the bones of truth, the more 
 by token, I fancy, that they so often stick in the throat — 
 which might contribute to my legends, I came to some sheets 
 whereon his lordship had written some hasty remarks, to the 
 effect that the case Napier 7'ersus Napier was the most curious 
 puzzle that ever he had witnessed since he had taken his seat 
 on the bench. The papers were fragmentary, consisting of 
 parts of a Reclaiming Petition and some portion of a Proof 
 that had been led in support of a brieve of service; but I got 
 enough to enable me to give the story, which I shall do in 
 such a connected manner as to take the reader along with 
 me, I hope pleasantly, and without any inclination to choke 
 upon the foresaid bones. 
 
 Without being very particular about the year, which really I 
 do not know with further precision than that it was within the 
 first five years of Lord Karnes's senatorship, I request the
 
 2 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 reader to fancy himself in a small domicile in Toddrick's 
 Wynd, in the old city of Edinburgh ; and I request this the 
 more readily that, as we all know, nature does not exclude 
 very humble places from the regions of romance, neither does 
 she deny to very humble personages the characters oi neroes 
 and heroines. Not tliat I have much to say in the first 
 instance either of the place or the persons, the former being no 
 more than a solitary room and a bed-closet, — where yet tlic 
 throb of life was as strong and quick as in the mansions of the 
 great, — and tlie latter composed of two persons: one, a decent, 
 hard-working woman called Mrs Hislop, wliose duty in this 
 ■world was to keep her employers clean in their clothes; wherein 
 she stood next to the minister, insomuch as cleanliness is next 
 to godliness — in other words, she was a washerwoman ; the 
 other being a young girl, verging upon sixteen, called Henrietta, 
 ■whose qualities, both of mind and body, might be comprised 
 in the homely eulogy, " as blithe as bonny." So it may be 
 that if you are alarmed at the humility of the occupation ot 
 the one — even with your remembrance that Sir Isaac Newton 
 experimented upon soap-bubbles — as being so intractable in the 
 plastic-work of romance, you may be apjieased by the qualities 
 of the other ; for has it not been our delight to sing for a 
 thousand years, yea, in a thousand .songs too, the praises of 
 young damsels, whether under the names of Jenny or Peggy, 
 or those of Clarinda or Florabella, or whether engaged in herd- 
 ing flocks by I,ogan Waters, or dispensing knights' favours 
 under the peacock % But we cannot afford to dispose of our 
 young heroine in this curt way, for her looks fumed parts of 
 the lines of a strange history, and so we must be permitted tlie 
 privilege of narrating that, while Mrs Hislop's protegee did not 
 come within that charmed circle which contains — according to 
 the poets — so many angels without wings, she was probably as 
 fair every whit as Dowsabell. Yet, after all, we are not here 
 concerned with beauty, wliich, as a specialty in one to one, and
 
 Lord Karnes s Puzzle. 3 
 
 as a universality in all to all, is beyond the power of written 
 description. We have here to do simply with some traits which, 
 being hereditary — not derived from Mrs Hislop — have a bear- 
 ing upon our strange legend : the very slightest cast in the eyes, 
 which in its picjuancy belied a fme genial nature in the said 
 Henney ; and a classic nose, which, partaking of the old Roman 
 type, and indicating pride, was equally untrue to a generosity 
 of feeling which made friends of all who saw her — except one. 
 A strange exception this ne : for who, even in this bad world, 
 could be an enemy to a creature who conciliated sympathy as 
 a love, and defied antipathy as an impossibility? Who could 
 lu be ? or rather who could she be % for man seems to be ex- 
 cluded by the very instincts of his nature. The question may 
 be answered by the evolution of facts ; than which what othei 
 have we even amidst the dark gropings into the mystery of our 
 wonderful being % 
 
 Mrs Hislop's head was over the skeil, wherein lay one of the 
 linen sheets of Mr Dallas, the writer to the signet; which, with 
 her broad hands, she was busy twisting into the form of a ser- 
 pent, and no doubt there were indications of her efforts in 
 the drops of perspiration which stood upon her good-humoured, 
 gaucy face, so suggestive of dewdrops ('bating the poetry) on 
 the leaves of a big blush peony. In this work she was inter- 
 rupted by the entrance of Henney, who came rushing in as if 
 under the influence of some emotion which had taken her 
 young heart by surprise. 
 
 "What think ye, minny?" she cried, as she held up her 
 hands. 
 
 "The deil has risen again from the grave where he was 
 buried in Kirkcaldy," was the reply, with a laugh, 
 
 "No, that's no it," continued the girl. 
 
 "Then wliat is it?" was the question. 
 
 " He 's dead," replied Henney 
 
 " Who is dead ?" again asked Mrs Hislop.
 
 4 Mysterious Legends of EdinbiLrgh. 
 
 " The strange man," replied the girl. 
 
 And a reply, too, which brought the busy worker to a pause 
 in her work, for she understood who the he was, arc'' Tne infor- 
 mation went direct through the ear to the heait; b«A Henney, 
 supposing that she was not understood, added — 
 
 " The man who used to look at me with yon terrible eyes." 
 
 "Yes, yes, dear, I understand you," said the woman, as she 
 let the coil fall, and sat down upon a chair, under the influence 
 of strong emotion. " But who told you 1" 
 
 " Jean Graham," replied the girl. 
 
 An answer which seemed, for certain reasons known to her- 
 self, to satisfy the woman, for the never another word she said, 
 any more than if her tongue had been paralysed by the in- 
 creased action of her heart ; but, as we usually find that when 
 that organ in woman is quiet more useful powers come into 
 action, so the sensible dame began to exercise her judgment. 
 A few minutes sufficed for forming a resolution, nor was it 
 sooner fomied than it was begun to be put into action, yet 
 not before the excited girl was away, no doubt to tell some 
 of her companions of her relief from the bugbear of the man 
 with the tenible eyes. The formation of a purpose might have 
 been observed in her puckered lips and the speculation in her 
 gray eyes. The spirit of romance had visited the small house 
 in Toddrick's Wynd, where for fifteen years the domestic la7'es 
 had sat quietly surveying the economy of ])overty. She rose 
 composedly from the chair into which the effect of Henney's 
 exclamation had tlirown her, went to the blue chest which 
 contained her holiday suit, took out, one after another, the 
 chintz gown, the mankie petticoat, the curcli, the red plaid;, 
 and, after washing from her face the perspiration-drops, she 
 began to put on her humble finery — all the operation having 
 been gone through with that quiet action wliich belongs to 
 strong minds where resolution has settled the quivering chords 
 of doubt.
 
 Lord Karnes s Puzzle^ 5 
 
 Following the dressed dame up the High Street, we next 
 find her in the writing-booth of Mr James Dallas, Avriter to 
 Her Majest>''s signet. The gentleman was, after the manner 
 of his tribe, minutely scanning some papers — that is, he was 
 looking into them so shaiply that you would have inferred 
 that he was engaged in hunting for "flaws;" a species of game 
 that is both a prey and a reward — rZ/r^rc/^? ct premium, as an 
 old proverb says. Nor shall we say he was altogether pleased 
 when he found his inquiry, whatever it might be, interrupted 
 by the entrance of Mrs Margaret Hislop of Toddrick's Wynd ; 
 notwithstanding that to this personage he and Mrs Dallas, 
 and all the Dallast-s, were indebted for the whiteness of their 
 linen. No doul)t she would l)e wanting payment of her 
 account ; yet wliy apply to him, and not to Mrs Dallas? And, 
 besides, it needled only one glance of the writer"s eye to shew 
 that his visitor had something more of the look of a client than 
 a cleaner of linen — a conclusion which was destined to be 
 confirmed, when the woman, taking up one of the high-b.-^.cked 
 chairs in the room, placed it right opposite to the man of law, 
 and, hitching her round body into something like stiff dignity, 
 seated herself Nor was this change from her usual deportment 
 the only one she underwent ; for, as soon appeared, her style 
 of speech was to pass from broad Scotch, not altogether into 
 the " Inglis" of the upper ranks, but into a mixture of the two 
 tongues — a feat which she performed very well, and for which 
 she had been qualified by having lived in the service of the 
 great. 
 
 " And so Mr Napier of Eastleys is dead ? '" she began. 
 
 "Yes," answered the writer, perhaps with a jjortion of cheer- 
 fulness, seeing he was that gentleman's agent, or " doer," as it 
 was then called — a word far more expressive, as many clients 
 can testify, at least after they are " done ;" and seeing also 
 that a dead client is not finally "done" until his aftairs are 
 wound-up and consigned to the green bjx.
 
 6 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 "And wha is his heir, think yel" continued his questioner. 
 
 "Why, Charles Napier, his nephew," answered the writer, 
 somewhat carelessly. 
 
 " I 'm no just a'thegither sure of that, Mr Dallas,'' said she? 
 with another effort at dignity, which was unfortunately qualified 
 by a knowing wink. 
 
 " The deil "s in tlie woman," was the sharp retort, as the 
 writer opened his eyes wider than he had done since he laid 
 down his parchments. 
 
 " The deil 's in me or no in me," sa^id she ; " but this I 'm 
 sure of, that Henrietta Hislop, — that 's our Henney, ye ken, — 
 the brawest and bonniest lass in Toddrick's Wynd, (and that 's 
 no saying little,) is the lawful heiress of Mr John Napier of 
 Eastlevs, and was called Henrietta after her mother." 
 
 " The honest woman s red wud," said the writer, laugliing. 
 "Why, Mrs Hislop, I always took you for a shrewd, sensible 
 woman. Do you really think that, because you bore a child 
 to Mr John Napier, that therefore Henney Hislop is the 
 heiress of her reputed father]'' 
 
 " J/i" bear a bairn to Mr Napier!" cried the offended client. 
 "Wha ever said I was the mother of Henney Hislop"?" 
 
 " Everybody,"' replied he. " We never doubted it, though I 
 admit she has none of your features." 
 
 " Everybody is a leear then," rejoined the woman, tartly. 
 "There's no a drap of blood in the lassie's body can claim 
 kindred with me or mine,, though, if it were so, it would be no 
 dishonour, for the Hislops were lairds of Highslaps in Ayrshire 
 at the time of Malcolm Mucklehead." 
 
 "And whose daughter, by the mother's side, is she then"?" 
 asked he, as his curiosity began to wax stronger. 
 
 " Ay, you have now your hand on the cocked egg," replied 
 she, with a look of mystery. " The other was a wind ane, and 
 you 've just to sit a little and you '11 see the chick." 
 
 The writer settled himself into attention, and the good dame
 
 Lord Karnes's Puzzle. 7 
 
 thought it proper, hke some preachers who pause two or three 
 mhiutes (the best part of their discourse) after they have given 
 out the text, to raise a wonder how long they intend to hold 
 their tongue, and thereby produce attention, retained her 
 speech until she had attained the due solemnity. 
 
 "It is now," she began, in a low mysterious voice, "just 
 sixteen years come June, — and if ye want the day, it will be the 
 15th, — and if ye want the hour, we may say eleven o'clock at 
 night, when I was making ready for my bed, — I heard a knock 
 at my door, and the words of a woman, 'Oh, Mrs Hislop, Mrs 
 Kislop!' So I ran and opened the door ; and wha think ye I 
 saw but Jean Graham, Mr Napier's cook, with een like twa 
 candles, and her mouth as wide as if she had been to swallow 
 the biggest sup of porridge that ever crossed plougliman's 
 craig ?" 
 
 "'What's ado, woman?' said I, for I thought something 
 fearful had happened. 
 
 '• ' Oh,' cried she, ' my lady 's lighter, and ye 're to come to 
 Meggat's Land, even noo, this minute, and bide nae man's 
 hindrance.' 
 
 " 'And so I will,' said I, as I threw my red plaid ower my 
 head; tlien I blew out my cruse, and out we came, jol ing each 
 other in the dark passage through sheer hurry and confusion — 
 down the Canongate, till we came to Meggat's Land, in at 
 the kitchen door, ben a dark passage, up a stair, then ben 
 another passage, till we came to a back-room, the door of 
 which was opened by somebody inside. I was l.iewildered, the 
 light in the room made my een reel ; but 1 soon came to 
 myself, when I saw a man and Mrs Ken^.p, the howdie, busy 
 rowing something in flannel. 
 
 "'Get along,' said the man to Jean, 'you're not wanted 
 here.' 
 
 " And as Jean made off, Mrs Kemp turned to me — 
 
 " ' Come here, Mrs Hislop,' said she.
 
 8 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 " So I slipt forward ; birt the never a word more was said 
 for ten minutes, they were so intent on getting the bairn all right, 
 — for, ye ken, sir, it was a new-born babe they were busy with, 
 • — they were as silent as the grave, and, indeed, everything 
 was so still that I heard their breathing like a rushing of wind, 
 though they breathed just as they were wont to do. And 
 when they had finished — 
 
 " ' Mrs Hislop,' said the man, as he turned to me, 'you're 
 to take this child and bring it up as your own, or anybody 
 else's you like, except Mr Napier's, and you 're never to say 
 v.-hen or how you got it, for it is a banned creature, with the 
 curse upon it of a malison for the sins of him who begot it 
 and of her who bore it. Swear to it,' and he held up his 
 hand. 
 
 " And I swore ; but I thought I would just take the advice 
 of the Lord how far my words would bind me to do evil, or 
 leave me to do guid when the time came. So I took the bairn 
 into my arms. 
 
 " ' And wha will pay for the wet nurse V said I ; 'for ye ken 
 I am as dry as a yeld crummie ; but there is a woman in 
 Toddrick's Wynd wha lost her bairn yestreen — she is threat- 
 ened with a milk-fever, and by my troth this little stranger will 
 cure her — but, besides the nourice-fee, there is my trouble.' 
 
 " ' I was coming to that,' said he, ' if your supple tongue 
 had left you power to hear mine. In this leathern purse there 
 are twenty gowden guineas — a goodly sum — but, whether 
 goodly or no, you must be content ; yea, the never a penny 
 more you may exi)cct, for all connexion between this child and 
 this house, or its master, is to be from this moment finished for 
 ever.' 
 
 " And a guid quittance it was I thought, with a bonny bairn 
 and twenty guineas on my side, and nothing on the other but 
 maybe a father's anger and salt tears, besides the wrath of God 
 against those who forsake their children. So with thankful-
 
 Lord Karnes s Puzzle. 9 
 
 ness enough I carried away my bundle ; and ye '11 guess that 
 Henney Hislop is now the young woman of fifteen who was 
 then that child of a day." 
 
 " And is this all the evidence," said the writer, " you have to 
 prove that Henrietta Hislop is the daughter of ISIr and Mrs 
 Napier ?" 
 
 " Maybe no," replied she ; " if ye weren't so like the English 
 stranger wha curst the Scotch kail because he did not see on 
 the table the beef that was coming from the kitchen, besides 
 the haggis and the bread-pudding. You 've only as yet got the 
 broth, and, for the rest, I will give you Mrs Kemp, wha told 
 me, as a secret, that the child was brought into the world by 
 her own hands from the living body of Mrs Napier. Will that 
 satisfy you ? ' 
 
 " No," replied Mr Dallas, who had got deeper and deeper 
 into a study. " Mr Napier, I know, was at home that evening 
 when his wife bore a child ; that child never could have been 
 given away without his consent ; and as for the consent itself, 
 it is a still greater improbability, seeing that he was always 
 anxious for an heir to Eastleys." 
 
 " And so maybe he was," replied she ; " but I see you are 
 only at the beef yet, and you may be better pleased when you 
 have got the haggis, let alone the pudding. Yea, it is even 
 likely Mr Napier wanted an heir ; and, what is more, he got 
 one, at least an heiress ; but sometimes God gives and the 
 devil misgives, and so it was here, for Mr Napier took it into 
 his head that the child was not his, and, in place of being 
 pleased with an heir, he thought himself cursed with a bastard, 
 begotten on his wife by no other than Captain Preston, his 
 lady's cousin. And where did the devil find that poison grow- 
 ing but in the heart of Isabel Napier, the sister of that very 
 Charles who is now thinking he will heir Eastleys by pushing 
 aside poor Henney ? And then the poison, like the old apple, 
 was so fair and tempting; for ^Nlr Napier had been married ten
 
 lO Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 years, and enjoyed the love that is so bonny 'a little while 
 when it is new,' and yet had no children, till this one came so 
 exactly nine months after tlie captain's visit to Scotland that 
 Satan had little more to do than hold up the temptation. You 
 see, sir, how things come round ; but still, according to the 
 old fashion, after a long weary, dreary turn. Mrs Napier died 
 next day after the birth ; Mr Napier lived a miserable man ; 
 Henney was brought up in poverty and sometimes distress, 
 but now I hope she has come to her kinL,dom." 
 
 Here Mrs Hislop stopt, and as there could be no better 
 winding-up of a romance than by bringing her heroine to her 
 kingdom at last, she felt so well pleased with her conclusion 
 that she could afford to wait longer for her expected applause 
 than the fair story-tellers in the briyafa under Queen Pam- 
 pinea; and it was as well that she was thus fortified, for the 
 writer, in place of declaring his satisfaction with her proofs, 
 seemed, as he lay back in his chair in a deep reverie, to be 
 occupied once more in hunting for flaws. At length raising 
 himself on his chair, and fixing his eyes upon her with that 
 look of scepticism which a writer assumes wlien he addresses 
 a would-be new client who wants to push out an old one with 
 a better right : — 
 
 " Mrs Hislop," .said he, " if it had not been that I have 
 always taken you for an honest woman, I would say that you 
 are art and part in fabricating a story without a particle of 
 foundation. There may possibly be some mystery about the 
 birth and parentage of the young giri. You may have got 
 her out of the house of Meggat's Land in the Canongate from 
 a man, — not Mr Napier, you admit, — who may have been the 
 father of it by some mother residing in the house ; and Mrs 
 Kemp may have been actuated by some unknown means to 
 remove the paternity from the right to the wrong person. All 
 this is possible ; but that the child could be that one which 
 Mrs Napier bore is impossible, for tliis reason, and I beg of
 
 Lord Karnes s Puzzle. 
 
 II 
 
 you to listen to it, that Mrs Napier's child was dead-horn^ and 
 7e'as, according to good evidence, buried in the same coffin with the 
 mother." 
 
 A statement this which, delivered in the solemn manner 
 of an attorney who was really honest, and who knew much of 
 this history, appeared to Mrs Hislop so strange that her 
 tongue was paralysed — an effect which had never before been 
 produced by any one of all the five causes of the metaphy- 
 sicians. Even her eyes seemed to have lost their power of 
 movement, and as for her wits, they had, like those of the re- 
 nowned Astolpho, surely left her and taken refuge in the moon. 
 
 " If you are not satisfied with my words," continued the 
 writer, (no doubt ironically, for where could he have found 
 better evidence of the effect of his statement 1) " I will give 
 you writing for the truth of what I have said to you." 
 
 And rising and going towards a green tin box, he opened the 
 same, and taking therefrom a piece of paper, he resumed his 
 seat. 
 
 " Now listen," said he, as he unfolded an old yellow-coloured 
 sheet of paper, and then he read these words : — " ' Your pre- 
 sence is requested at the funeral of Henrietta Preston, my 
 wife, and of a child still-born, from my house, Meggat's Land, 
 Canongate, to the burying-ground at St Cuthbert's, on Friday 
 the 19th of this month June, at one o'clock ;' and the name at 
 this letter," continued Mr Dallas, "is that of 'John Napier of 
 Eastleys.' Will that satisfy youl" 
 
 And the " doer " for Mr Charles Napier, conceiving that he 
 had at last effectually " done " his client's opponent, seemed 
 well pleased to sit and witness the further effect of his evidence 
 on the bewildered woman ; but we are to remember that a 
 second stroke sometimes only takes away the pain of the 
 former, and a repetition of blows will quicken the reaction 
 which slumbered under the first. Whetlier this was so or not 
 m our present instance, or whether Mrs Hislop l:ad recovered
 
 r,2 Mysterious Legends of Edinhirgh. 
 
 her wits by a process far shorter than that followed by the 
 foresaid Astolpho, we know not, but certain it is that she 
 recovered the powers of both her eyes and her tongue in much 
 less time than the writer expected, and in a manner, too, very 
 different from that for which he was probably prepared. 
 
 " Weel," replied she, smiling, " it would just seem that even 
 the haggis has not pleased you, Mr Dallas;" and, putting 
 her hand into a big side-pocket, that might have served a 
 gaberlunzie for a wallet, she extracted a small piece of paper. 
 She continued : " But ye see a guid, honest Scotchwoman 's no 
 to be suspected of being sliabby at lier own table ; so read ye 
 that, which you may take for the bread-pudding." 
 
 And the writer, having taken the pa[)er and held it before 
 his face for so long a time that it might have suggested the 
 suspicion that the words therein written stuck in his eyes and 
 would not submit to that strange process wliereby, unknown 
 to ourselves, we transfer written vocables to the car before we 
 can understand them, turned a look upon the woman of dark 
 suspicion : — 
 
 " Where, in God's name, got you this ?" he said. 
 
 ** Just read it out first," replied she. " Ye read yer ain 
 paper, and why no mine ?" 
 
 And the writer read, perhaps more easily than he could 
 understand, the strange words : — 
 
 " This child, born of my wife, and yet neither of my blood 
 nor my lineage, I repudiate, and, unable to })ush it back into 
 the dark world of nothing from which it came, I leave it with 
 a scowl to the mercy which countervaileth the terrible decree 
 whereby the sins of the parent shall be visited on the child. 
 This I do on the 15th of June 17 — . John Napier, of East- 
 leys, in the county of Mid Lothian." 
 
 After reading this extraordinary denunciation, Mr Dallas sat 
 and considered, as if at a loss what to say ; but whether it 
 was that scepticism was at the root of his thouglus, or that he
 
 Lo7'd Kmncss Fttzzle. 15 
 
 assumed it as a mask to conceal misgivings to which he did 
 not like to confess, he put a question :— 
 
 " Where got you this notable piece of evidence "?" 
 
 "Ay," replied Mrs Hislop, "you are getting reasonable on 
 the last dish. That bit of paper, which to me and my dear 
 Henney is worth the haill estate of Eastleys, was found by me 
 carefully pinned to the flannel in which the child was wrapt." 
 
 "Wonderful enough surely," repeated he, '■'■if true" — the 
 latter words being pronounced with emphasis which made the 
 rough liquid letter sound like a hurling stone ; " but," he con- 
 tinued, "the whole document, in its terms of crimination and 
 exposure, and not less the wild manner of its application, is so 
 unlike the act of a man not absolutely frantic, that I cannot 
 believe it to be genuine." 
 
 " But you know, Mr Dallas," replied she, " that Mr John 
 Napier was a man who, if he threw a stone, cared little whether 
 it struck the kirk window or the mill door." 
 
 "That is so far true ; but, passionate and unforgiving as he 
 was, he was not so reckless as to be regardless whether the 
 stone did not come back on his own head." 
 
 " And it 's no genuine," she resumed, as, disregarding his 
 latter words, she relapsed into her more familiar dialect. " The 
 Lord help ye ! canna ye look at first tlie ae paper and then 
 the ither 1 and if they 're no alike, mustna the ither be the for- 
 gery?" 
 
 An example of the conditional syllogism which might have 
 amused even a writer to the signet, if he had not been at the 
 ver)^ moment busy in the examination of the handwriting of 
 the funeral letter and that of the paper of repudiation and 
 malison — the resemblance, or rather the identity, of which 
 was so striking as to reduce all his theories to confusion. 
 
 "By all that's good in heaven, the same," he muttered to 
 himself; and then, addressing his visitor, "I confess, Mrs 
 Hislop," said he, " that this paper has driven me somewhat otf
 
 14 Mysterious Legends of Edinbiirgh. 
 
 my point of confidence ; but I suppose you will see that, if the 
 child was actually, as the letter indicates, buried with its mother, 
 Henriettas rights are at an end. It is just possible, however, 
 I fairly admit, that Air Napier, who was a very eccentric man, 
 may have so worded the letter as to induce the world to believe 
 that the so-considered illegitimate child had been dead-born, 
 while he gratified — privately he might verily think — his ven- 
 geaice by writing this terrible curse. vStill, I think you are 
 wrong ; but as this wonderful paper gives you a plausible plea, 
 I would recommend you to Mr White, in Mill's Court, who 
 will see to the young woman's rights. He will be the flint 
 and 1 the steel ; and between our friendly opposition, we will 
 produce a spark which will light up the candle of truth." 
 
 " Ay," replied she ; "only, as the spark of fire comes from the 
 steel, we '11 just suppose you are the flint : and, by my troth, 
 yju're hard enough; but, come as it may, it will light the 
 lantern that will shew Henney Napier to the bonny haughs of 
 Eastleys." 
 
 Mrs Hislop, having got back her paper from Mr Dallas, 
 left the writer's chambers, and directed her steps to Mill's 
 Court, where she found Mr White, even as she had Mr 
 Dallas, busy poring over law papers. She was, as we have 
 ieen, one of those people who can make their own intro- 
 duction acceptable, and, moreover, one of those women, few 
 as they are, who can tell a story with the continuity and 
 fitting emphasis necessary to secure the attention of a busy 
 1 -.tener. So Mr White heard her narrative not only with 
 interest, but even a touch of the pervading sympathy of the 
 spirit of romance ; and so he might, for who doesn't see 
 that the charm of mystery can be enhanced by the hope of 
 turning it to account of money \ Then he was so much of a 
 practical man as to know that while every string has two ends, 
 the true way to get hold of both is to make sure in the first 
 place of one. Wherefore he began to interrogate his client
 
 Lord Kavics s Puzzle. 1 5 
 
 as to who could speak to the doings in the housp in Meggat's 
 Land on that eventful night when the child was born; and hav- 
 ing taken notes of the answers to his questions, he paused a 
 little, as if to consider what was the first step he ought to take 
 into the region of doubt, and perhaps of intrigue, where at 
 least there must be lies floating about like films in the clear 
 atmosphere of truth. Nor had he meditated many minutes till 
 he rose, and taking up his square hat and his gold-headed 
 cane, he said — 
 
 " Come, we will try what we can discover in a quarter where 
 an end of the ravelled string ought to be found, whether com- 
 plicated into a knot by the twisting power of self-interest or 
 no." 
 
 And, leading the way, he proceeded with his client down the 
 High Street, where, along under the glimmering lamps, were 
 the usual crowds of loungers, composed of canny Saxon and 
 fiery Celt, which have always made this picturesque thorough- 
 fare so remarkable. Not one of all these had any interest for 
 our two searchers, but it was otherwise when they came to- 
 ward the Canongate Tolbooth, where, out from a dark entry 
 sprang a young woman, and bounding forward seized our good 
 dame round the neck. This was no other than Henney 
 Hislop herself, who, having been alarmed at the long absence 
 of her " mother," as she called her, and of course believed her 
 to be, was so delighted to find her that she sobbed out her 
 joy in such an artless way, that even the writer owned it was 
 interesting to behold. Nor was the picture without other traits 
 calculated to engage attention ; for the girl whose fortunes had 
 been so strange, and were perhaps destined to be still more 
 strange, was dressed in the humblest garb, — t!ie short gown and 
 the skirt peculiar to the time, — but then, every tint was so bright 
 with pure cleanliness, the ear-rings set off so fine a skin, the in- 
 dispensable strip of purple round the head imparted so much 
 of the grace of the old classic wreath ; and, beyond all this,
 
 1 6 JMystcrious Legends of Edinbiirgh. 
 
 which might be said to be extraneous, her features — if you 
 abated the foresaid cast or shght squint in the eyes, which im- 
 parted a piquancy — were so regular, if not handsome, that you 
 could not have denied that she deserved to be a Napier, if she 
 was not a very Napier in reality. A few words whispered in 
 Airs Hislop's ear, and the gjrl was off, leaving our couple 
 to proceed on their way. Even this incident had its use; for 
 Mr White, who had known Mr Napier, and had faith (as 
 who has not?) in the hereditary descent of bodily aspects, 
 could not restrain himself from the remark, however much it 
 might inflame the hopes of his client : — 
 
 " The curse has left no blight there," said he. " That is the 
 very face of Mr Napier, — the high nose especially, — and as 
 for the eyes, with that unmistakeable cast, why, I have seen 
 their foretypes in the head of John Napier a hundred 
 times." 
 
 An observation so congenial to Mrs Hislop, that she could 
 not hell) being a little humorous, even in the depth of an 
 anxiety which had kept her silent for the full space of ten 
 minutes : — 
 
 " Nose, sir ! there wasn't a man frae the Castle yett to 
 Holyrood wha could have produced that nose except John 
 Napier." 
 
 And without further interruption than her own laugh, they 
 proceeded till they came to the entry called Big Lochend 
 Close, up which they went some forty or fifty steps, till they 
 came to an outer door, which led by a short dark passage to 
 two or three inner doors in succession, all leading to separate 
 rooms occupied by sei)arate people. No sooner had they 
 turned into this passage than they encountered a woman in 
 a plaid and with a lantern in her hand, who had just left the 
 third or innermost room, and whose face, as it peereil through 
 the thick folds of her head-covering, was illuminated by a gleam 
 from the light she carried. She gave them little opportunity
 
 Lord Kaviess Puzzle. 17 
 
 for examination, having hurried away as if she had been afraid 
 of being searched for stolen property. 
 
 " Isbel Napier," whispered Mrs Hislop : " she wha first 
 brought evil into the house of the Napiers, with all its woe. " 
 
 " And who bodes us small hope here," said he, " if she has 
 been with the nurse." 
 
 And entering the room from which the ill-omening woman 
 had issued, they found another, even her of whom they were 
 in search, sitting by the fire, torpid and corpulent, to a degree 
 which indicated that as it had been her trade to nurse others, 
 she had not forgotten herself in her ministrations. 
 
 " Mrs Temple, ' said Mr White, who saw the policy of 
 speaking fair the woman who had been so recently in the 
 company of an evil genius, " I am glad to find you .so stout 
 and hearty." 
 
 "Neither o' the twa, sir," replied she; "for I am rather 
 weak and heartless. Many ane I hae nursed into health and 
 strength, but a' nursing comes hame in the end." 
 
 ''■ .\nd some, no doubt, have died under your care," con- 
 tinued the writer, with a view to introduce his subject ; " and 
 therefore you should be giateful for the life that is still sj^ared 
 to you. You could not save the life of Mrs Napier." 
 
 "That's an auld story and a waefu' ane," she replied, with 
 a side look at Mrs Hislop ; " and 1 hae nae heart to mind it. 
 Some said the lady wasna innocent, and doubtless Mr Napier 
 thought sae, for he took high dealings wi' her, and looked at 
 her wi' a scorn that would have scathed whinstanes. Sae it 
 was better she was taen awa ; ay, and her baby wi' her, for if 
 it had lived it would have dree'd the revenge o' that stern 
 man." 
 
 "The child!" said Mr White, "did it die too?" 
 
 " Dee \ ye may rather ask if it ever lived ; for it never virew 
 breath, in this world at least." 
 
 A statement so strange that it brought the ey^\s of the two 
 
 B
 
 1 8 Mysterious L egends of Edmbu rgh. 
 
 visitors to each other, and no doubt both of them recurred in 
 memory to the statement in the funeral letter, which, whatever 
 may have been the case with the assertion now made by the 
 nurse, never could have been dictated by her they had met in 
 the passage; and no doubt, also, they both remembered the 
 statement made by Mr Dallas, to the effect that both tlie mother 
 and child were buried together. 
 
 " Never drew breath, you say, nurse ! " resumed Mr White, 
 with an air of astonishment; "why, I have been given to 
 understand, not only that the child was born alive, but that it 
 is actually living now." 
 
 " Weel," replied the nurse, " maybe St Cuthbert has wrought 
 a miracle, and brought the child out o' the grave by the West 
 Church; but he has wrought nae miracle on me to mak' me 
 forget what my een saw, and my hands did, that day when I 
 helped to place the dead body o' the innocent on the breast o' 
 its dead mother; ay, and bent her stiff arms sae as to bring 
 them ower her baim, just as if she had been faulding it to her 
 bosom. And sae in this fashion were they buried." 
 
 "And you would swear to that, Mrs Temple]" said the 
 writer. 
 
 " Ay, upon fifty Bibles, ane after anither," was the reply, in 
 something like a tone of triumph. 
 
 Nor could the woman be induced to swerve from these 
 assertions, notwithstanding repeated interrogations; and the 
 writer was left to tlie conclusion — which he preferred, rather 
 than place any confidence in the funeral letter — that the nurse's 
 statement was in some mysterious way connected with the visit 
 of Isobel Napier; and yet, not so very mysterious after all, 
 when we are to consider that her brother was preparing to 
 claim Eastleys, as well as the valuable furniture of the house 
 in Meggat's Land, as the nearest lawful heir of his deceased 
 uncle. The salvo was at least comfortable to both Mr White 
 and his client, and no doubt it helped ta lighten their sieps as.
 
 Lord Karnes's Fuzzie. 
 
 bidding adieu to the " hard witness," they left her to the nurs- 
 ing which comes "aye han\e in the end." 
 
 But their inquiries were not finished; and, retracing their 
 steps up the Canongate, they landed in the Fountain Close, 
 where, under the leading of Mrs Hislop, the writer was pro- 
 cured another witness, with a name already familiar to him 
 through the communication of his client, and this was no 
 other than that same Jean Graham, who was sent to Tod- 
 drick's Wynd on that eventful night fifteen years before, to 
 bring Mrs Hislop to the house in Meggat's Land; one of 
 those simple souls — we wish there were more of them in the 
 world — who look upon a lie as rather an operose aftair, and 
 who seem to be truthful from sheer laziness. There was, 
 accordingly, no difficulty here ; for the woman rolled off her 
 story just as if it had been coiled up in her mind for all that 
 length of time. 
 
 "There was a terrible stir in the house that night," she 
 began. " The nurse, wha is yet living in Lochend Close, and 
 Mrs Kemp, the howdie, wha is dead, were wi' my lady; and 
 John Cowie, the butler, was busy attending our master, who 
 had been the haill day in ane o' his dark fits, for we heard him 
 calling for Cowie in a fierce voice ever and again; and his step 
 sounded ower our heads upon the floor as he walked back and 
 fore in his wrath. Then I Mas sent for you, and brought 
 you, and you'll mind how Cowie bade me go along; but I 
 had mair sense, for I listened at the door and heard what the 
 butler said to ye when he gae ye the bairn ; and think ye I 
 didna see ye carry it along the passage as ye left] Sae far 
 I could understand ; but when I heard nurse say the bairn was 
 dead, Mrs Kemp say the bairn was still-born, and Cowie de- 
 clare it was better it was dead and awa, I couldna comprehend 
 this ava: nor do I weel yet, but we just thought that as there 
 was something wrang between master and my lady, he wanted 
 us to believe that the bairn was dead, for very shame o' being
 
 20 Mysterious Legends of Edhibiwgh, 
 
 thought the father, when maybe he wasna. And then he was 
 so guid to me and my neighbour Anne Dickson, — ye mind o' 
 her — puir soul, she 's dead too, — that we couldna, for the very 
 heart o' us, say a word o' what we knew. But now when Mr 
 Napier is dead, and the brother o' that wicked Jezebel, Isbel 
 Napier, may try to take the property frae Henney, wha I aye 
 kenned as a Napier, with the very nose and een o' the father, 
 I have spoken out; and may the Lord gie the right to whom 
 the right is due!" 
 
 " It's all right," said the writer, after he had jotted with a 
 pencil the evidence of Jean, as well as that of the nurse, "and 
 if we could find this John Cowie we might so fortify the 
 orphan's rights, as to defy Miss Napier and her brother, and 
 Mr Dallas, and all the witnesses they can bring." 
 
 " Ay," continued the woman, " but I doubt if you '11 catch 
 him. He left Mr Napier's service about ten years ago, and I 
 never heard mair o' him." 
 
 " Nor I either," said Mrs Hislop. 
 
 "Well, we must search for him," added Mr White; "for 
 that man alone, so far as I can see, is he who will unravel 
 this strange business." 
 
 And thus the day's work finished. The writer parted for 
 Mill's Court, and Mrs Hislop, filled with doubts, hopes, and 
 anxieties, sought her humble dwelling in Toddrick's Wynd, 
 where Henney waited for her with all the solicitude of a 
 daughter; but a word did not escape her lips that might carry 
 to the girl's mind a suspicion that the golden cord of their sup- 
 posed relationship ran a risk of being severed, even with the 
 eventual condition that one, if not both of the divisions, would 
 be transn.uted into a string of diamonds. 
 
 Meanwhile tlie agent was in his own house revolving all the 
 points of a puzzle more curious than any that had yet come 
 within the scope of his experience. Sometimes he felt confid- 
 ence, and at other times desj^air ; and of course he had the
 
 Lord Kamcss Puzzle. 21 
 
 consolation which belongs to all litigants, that the opposite 
 party was undergoing the same process of oscillation. It was 
 clear enough that Cowie was the required OEdipus ; and if it 
 should turn out that he was dead, or could not be found, the 
 advantage was, with a slight declination, on the part of 
 Charles Napier ; insomuch as, while he was indisputably the 
 nephew of the deceased, the orphan, Henrietta, was under the 
 necessity of proving her birth and pedigree. And so, as it 
 appeared, Mr Dallas was of that opinion, for the very next day 
 he applied to Chancery for a brieve to get Charles Napier 
 served nearest and lawful heir to his uncle; and as in legal 
 warfare, where the judges are cognisant only of patent claims, 
 there is small room for retiring tactics, Mr White felt himself 
 obliged, however anxious he was to gain time, to follow his 
 opponent's example by taking out a competing brieve in 
 favour of Henrietta. 
 
 The parties were now face to face in court, and the battle 
 behoved to be fought out ; but as in all legal cases, where the 
 circumstances are strange or peculiar, the story soon gets 
 wind, so here the Meggat's Land romance was by and by all 
 over the city. Nor did it take less fantastic forms than usual, 
 where sympathies and antipathies are strong in proportion to 
 the paucity of the facts on which they are fed. It was a 
 favourite opinion of some, that the case could only be cleared 
 by supposing that a dead stranger child had been surreptiti- 
 ously passed oft", and even coffined, as the true one: while 
 others, equally skilled in the art of divining, maintained that 
 the child given to Mrs Hislop by Cowie was a bastard of his 
 oum, by the terrible woman, Isobel Napier, who was thus, 
 according to the ordinary working of public prejudice, raised 
 to a height of crime sufficient to justify the hatred of the 
 people : on which presumption, it behoved to be assumed that 
 the paper containing the curse was a forgery by Cowie and 
 Ills associate in crime, and that the money paid to Mrs
 
 2 2 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 Hislop was furnished by the lady — all which suppositions, and 
 others not less incredible, were greedily accepted, for the very 
 reason that it required something prodigious to explain an 
 enigma which exhausted the ordinary' sources of man's in- 
 genuity ; just as we find in many religions, where miracles — 
 the more absurd, the more acceptable — are resorted to to ex- 
 plain the mystery of man's relation to God, a secret which no 
 natural light can illuminate. 
 
 But all these suppositions were destined to undergo refrac- 
 tions through the medium of a new fact. The case, by technical 
 processes, came before the Court of Session, where the diversity 
 of opinion was, proportionably to the number of the judges^ as 
 great as among the quidnuncs outside. The only clear idea 
 in the heads of the robed and wigged wiseacres was, that the 
 case, Napier versits Napier, was a puzzle which no man could 
 read or solve. It seemed fated to be as famous as tlie old 
 Sphinx, the insoluble Mcenander, or the tortuous labyrinth, or 
 the intricate key of Hercules — nc Ap llo qnidem inicUigat ; and, 
 if it had not happened that Lord Karnes suggested d'ie possi- 
 bility of getting an additional piece of evidence through the 
 examination of the coffin wherein Mrs Napier was buried, tlie 
 court might have been sitting over the famous case even in 
 this year of the nineteenth century. Tlie notion was worthy of 
 his lordship's ingenuity, and accordingly a commission was 
 issued to one of the Faculty to proceed to the West Church 
 burying-ground, and there cause to be laid open and examined 
 the coffin of the said Mrs Henrietta Preston or Napier, with 
 the view to ascertain whether or not the body of a child had 
 been placed therein along with the coq^se of the mother. 
 
 This commission was accordingly executed, and the report 
 bore, that "he, the commissioner, had proceeded to the bury- 
 ing-ground of the parish of St Cuthbert's, and there caused 
 David Scott, the sexton, to lay open the grave of the said 
 Henrietta Preston or Napier, and to open the coffin therein
 
 Lord Karnes s Puzzle. 23 
 
 contained ; which having accordingly been done by the said 
 David Scott and his assistants, the commissioner, upon a 
 faithful examination, aided by the experience of the said 
 David Scott, did find the skeletons of two bodies in the said 
 coffin identified as that of the said lady, one whereof was that 
 of a woman apparently of middle age, and the other that of a 
 babe, which lay upon the chest of the larger skeleton in such 
 a way or manner as to be retained or held in that position by 
 the arms of the same being laid across it. That having satis- 
 fied himself of these facts, the commissioner caused the coftin 
 to be again closed and the grave covered with all decency and 
 care, and he accordingly made this report to their lordships." 
 
 The fact thus ascertained, in opposition to the expectation of 
 those who favoured the orphan, was viewed by the court as de- 
 priving, to a great extent, the case of that aspect of a riddle by 
 which it had been so unfortunately distinguished ; and, as the 
 case had been hung up even beyond the time generally occu- 
 pied by cases at that period, when, as it was sometimes re- 
 marked, lawsuits were as often settled by the old rule, Roinanus 
 sedendo v'uicit — b}' the death of one or other of the parties — 
 as by a judgnient, the case was again put to the roll for a 
 hearing on the eftect of the new evidence. It was contended 
 for the nejjhew by Mr Wight that the question was now vir- 
 tuallv seltled, insomuch that the court was not bound to solve 
 riddles, but to find to whom pertained a certain right of inher- 
 itance. The birth of the child had been sworn to by the nurse, 
 as well as its death, and the final placing of it in the coftin ; 
 and now the court had as it were ocular demonstration of these 
 facts by the body having been seen by their own commissioner, 
 placed on the breast of the mother in that very peculiar way 
 described by Mrs Temple. All claim on the part of the girl 
 was thus virtually excluded, for the proceedings which took 
 place that evening in another room, under circumstances of 
 suspicion, were sworn to only by Mrs Hislop herself, an inter-
 
 24 Mysierio7is Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 ested witness, and were only partially confirmed by an eaves- 
 dropper, who, as eavesdroppers generally do, (except when 
 their own characters are concerned,) perhaps heard according 
 as foregone prejudices induced her to wish. These suspicious 
 proceedings might be explained by as many h)'potheses as 
 had been devised by the wise judges of the taverns, among 
 which was the theory of the living child being Cowie's own by 
 Isobel Napier, and palmed off as Mrs Na])ier's to hide the 
 shame of the true mother — all unlikely enough, no doubt, but 
 not so impossible as that the coffined child should now be 
 alive and awaiting the issue of this case, in the expectation of 
 being Lady of Eastleys. 
 
 On the other side, Mr Andrews, counsel for Henrietta, main- 
 tained that while his learned brother assumed the one half of 
 the case as proved, and repudiated the other as a lie or a 
 myth, he had a right to embrace the other half, and pro- 
 nounce the first a stratagem or trick. The proceedings in 
 the back-room into which Jean Graham introduced Mrs Hislop 
 were more completely substantiated than those in the bedroom 
 where Mrs Napier lay ; for while the one were sworn toby Mrs 
 Hislop herself, a soothfast witness, and confirmed in all points 
 by the woman Graliam, the other were attempted to be proven 
 by the solitary testimony of the nurse Temple. The paper con- 
 taining the curse was as indisputably in the handwriting of Mr 
 Napier as was the funeral letter. The money paid was proved 
 by the fact that the orphan had been kept and educated for 
 fifteen years. The name Henrietta was not likely to have 
 been a mere coincidence, and it was still more unlikely that 
 a respectable woman such as Mrs Hislop would invent a story 
 of affiliation so strangely in hamiony with the secrets of the 
 house in Meggat's Land, and fortify it by a forged document. 
 Then Mrs Hislop was unable to write, and no attempt had 
 been made on the other side to prove that Henrietta had a 
 father other than he who was pointed out by the paper of the
 
 Lord Kamcss Puzzle. 25 
 
 curse. So he (the counsel) might follow the example of his 
 brother, and hold the other half of the case to be unexplain- 
 able by h}TDOtheses, however ridiculous. The child having 
 been disposed of to Mrs Hislop — a fact thus proved — what 
 was to prevent him (the counsel) from going also to the haunts 
 of the tahcrnian Solons, or anywhere else in the regions of 
 fancy, for the theory that Mr Napier, or some plotter for him 
 in the shape of Mrs Kemp or John Cowie, substituted the dead 
 child of a ; trarger for the living one of his wife, and bribed the 
 nurse Temple to tell the tale she had told \ to which she would 
 be the more ready by the golden promptings of the woman 
 Isobel Napier, the niece, whose brother would, in the event of 
 the stratagem being concealed, succeed to the estate of East- 
 leys. 
 
 At the conclusion of these pleadings, the judges were in- 
 clined to be even more humorous than they had been previous 
 to the issuing of the commission, for they had thought they 
 saw their way to a judgment against the orphan. The pre- 
 sident, (Braxfield,) it is said, indulged in a joke, to the effect 
 that he had read s ^mewheix — it was not for so religious a man 
 to say where — of a child having been claimed by two mo- 
 thers ; he would like to see two fathers at that work, at least 
 he would not be one ; but here the claim was set up by Death 
 on the one side, and Life (if a personification could be alloweJ) 
 on the other, and they could not follow the old precedent, 
 because he suspected none of their lordships would like to 
 see the grim claimant at the bar to receive his half And 
 so they chuckled, as judges sometimes do, at their own jokes 
 — generally very bad — altogether oblivious of the fable of the 
 frogs who could see no fun in a game which was death to 
 them ; for, as we have indicated, the opinion of a great ma- 
 jority was against the claim of the young woman, nor would the 
 decision have been suspended that day had not Mr Andrews 
 risen and made a statement — perhaps as fictitious as a coun-
 
 26 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 sel's conscience would permit— to the effect that the agent (Mr 
 White) had procured some trace of the butler Cowie, who 
 could throw more light on the case than Death had done, and 
 that if some time were accorded to complete the inquiry, some- 
 thing might turn up which would alter the complexion even of 
 this Protean mystery. The request was granted. 
 
 But, in truth, Mr Andrews's suggestion was simply a bit of 
 ingenuity, intended to ward off an unfavourable judgment, and 
 allow a development of the chapter of accidents ; — a wise 
 l)olicy, for, as the womb of Time is never empty, so Fate 
 writes in the morning a chapter of every man's life of a day, 
 at which in the evening he is sometimes a little surprised. No 
 trace had yet been got of Cowie — it was not even known 
 whjther he was alive, tut if we throw some fourteen days 
 into the wallet-bag of Saturn, we may come to a day whereupon 
 a certain person, in an inn far down in a valley of Westmore- 
 land, and m the little town called Kirby Lonsdale, was busy 
 reading the Caledonian Mercury — for it was not n:ore easy to 
 say where the winged Mercury of that time would not go, than 
 it is to tell where a certain insect without wings, "which aye 
 travels south," might not be found in Kngland as an immi- 
 grant. It was at least no wonder that that paper should con- 
 tain an account of the romance wrayiped up in the case Napier 
 versus Napier ; and certainly, if we could have judged from 
 the face of the individual, we would have set him down as one 
 given to the reading of riddles ; for, after he had perused the 
 jnragraph, he looked as if he knew more about that case than 
 all the fifteen, with the macers to boot. Nor was he con- 
 tented with an indication of a mere look of wisdom, he 
 actually burst out into a laugh — an expression wondrously 
 unsuited to the gravity of the subject. You who read this will 
 no doubt suspect that we are merely shading this man for 
 the sake of effect \ and this is true, but you are to remember 
 that, while we are chroniclers of things mysterious, we work
 
 Lord Kamcss Ptizzlc. 27 
 
 for the advantage to you of putting into your power to 
 venture a shrewd guess : in making which you are only work- 
 in.g in the destined vocation of man, for the wcrld is only 
 guesswork all over, and you }'ourself are only guesswork as 
 a part of it. The reader of the Metrurv was verily Mr John 
 Cowie, whilom butler to Mr John Napier, and now waiter 
 in the Lonsdale Arms of the obscure Kirby,— a place like 
 Peebles, where, if you wanted to deposit a secret, you could do 
 so by crying it out at the market-cross, — and, moreover, he was 
 verily in possession of the key to the Napier mystery. 
 
 Accordingly, Mr White of Mill's Court in two days after- 
 wards received a letter, informing him that John Cowie was 
 the writer of the same, and that, if a reasonable consideration 
 were held out to him, he would proceed to the northern 
 metropolis, and there settle for ever a case which apparently 
 had kept the newsmongers of Edinburgh in aliment for a length 
 of tmie much exceeding the normal nine days. Opportune 
 and happily come in the veiy nick of time as the latter was — 
 for the delay allowed by the court had all but expired — Mr 
 WHiite saw the danger of promising anything which could be 
 construed into a reward ; but he could use other means of 
 decoying the shy bird into his meshes, and these he used in 
 his answer with such effect, that the man who could solve the 
 my.stery was in Edinburgh at the end of a week. Nor was 
 Mr White unprepared to receive him, for he had i)reviously 
 got a commission to examine him and take his deposition ; 
 but then an agent likes to know what a witness will say be- 
 fore he cites him, and the canny Scotchman, of all men in the 
 world, is the most uncanny if brought to swear without some 
 hope of being benefited by his oath. There was therefore 
 need of tact as well as delicacy ; and Mr White contrived m 
 the first place to get his man to take up his quarters in the 
 house in IMill's Court. A good supper and chambers formed 
 the first demulcent — we do not say bribe, because, by a legal
 
 28 JMystcrioits Legends of Edinbitj'gh. 
 
 fiction, all eating and drinking is set down to the score of 
 hospitality. A Scotch breakfast followed in the morning, at 
 which wer«* present Mrs ^Vhite and Mrs Hislop, and our 
 favourite Henney — the last of whom, spite of all the efforts of 
 her putative mother to keep from her the secret of her birth 
 and prospects, had caught the infection of the general topic of 
 the city, and wondered at her strange fortune, much as the 
 paladin in the " Orlando" did when he got into the moon. No 
 man can precognosce like a woman, and here were three ; 
 but perhaps they might have all failed, had it not been for the 
 natural art of Henney, who, out of pure goodness and grati- 
 tude, was so delighted with the man who had rolled her in a 
 blanket and sent her to her beloved mother, as she still called 
 her, that she promised to make him butler at Eastleys, and 
 keep hini comfortable all his days. 
 
 " Now," said the cautious agent, " this promise of Henney's 
 is not made in consideration of your giving evidence for her 
 before the commissioner." 
 
 "I'm thinking of nothing but her face," said John. "I 
 could swear to it out of a thousand ; and Heaven bless her! 
 for I think I am again in the once happy house in Meggat's 
 Land." 
 
 And John pretended he was wiping a morsel of egg from 
 his mouth, while the handkerchief was extended as far as the 
 eye. 
 
 "A terrible night that was," he continued. "Mrs Napier 
 had been in labour all day ; and when Mrs Kemp told 
 me to tell my master tliat my lady had been delivered of 
 TWINS " 
 
 " Twins!" cried they all, as if moved by some sympathetic 
 chord which ran from heart to heart. 
 
 " Ay, twins," he repeated ; " one dead, and another living 
 — even you yourself, Henney, who are as like your father as 
 if there never had been a Captain Preston in the world"
 
 Lord Karnes's Puzzle. 29 
 
 And thus was John Cowie precognosced. We need not 
 say that he was that very day examined before the commis- 
 sioner. He gave an account of all the proceedings of the 
 house in Meggat's Land on the eventful night to which we 
 have referred. The case was no longer a puzzle ; and, 
 accordingly, a decision was given in favour of Henrietta, 
 whereby we have one other example of truth and right 
 emerging from darkness into light. Some time afterwards, 
 the heiress, with Mrs Hislop alongside, and John Cowie on 
 the driver's box, proceeded to Eastleys and took possession; 
 where Henrietta acted the part of a generous lady, Mrs His- 
 lop that of a kind of dowager, and John was once more 
 butler in the house of the Napiers. We stop here. Those 
 who feel interest enough in the fortunes of Henney to inquire 
 when and whom she married, and what were the subsequent 
 fortunes of a life so strangely begun, will do well to go to East 
 leys.
 
 [HE authority I have for venturing so far on the 
 domain of behef, which every one g lards with so 
 much care, even while he permits most suspicious- 
 looking squatters thereon, as to claim attention 
 to the all but unbelievable story I am here to relate, was the 
 late Professor John Lizars, who related it, in the outline, to 
 me some years before his death. I do not deny that, even 
 like as I am to the credulous Mylus, — onuiia audiens, — I 
 might, during the recital, have looked like Pyrrho, — credens 
 iii/iil, — but it is just as likely that I might have allowed my 
 look of incredulity to compose itself among the gravities that 
 hang about the lower part of the face when he assured me he 
 had seen the object itself in the room where it was said to be — 
 moreover, that he had got some of his anatomical knowledge 
 from it. However all that may be, it is certain that Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Corbet, an officer who had been in India, lived in 
 Hyndford's Close for a good many years, and along with him 
 Mrs Corbet, a beauty whom he had picked up in Bombay. 
 Like other peoi)le who have passed a pretty long time in the 
 East, they did not — as the author of the "Castes of Edin- 
 burgh" says of our Lulian refugees in general — fit in very well 
 with our people, insomuch as while they remembered the dark 
 slaves they ruled in India, they could never exactly forget that 
 the folks hereaway are generally white; while those whom they 
 could not but admit to be of that hue were apt to view the 
 somewhat dignified couple as being tinged with the colour of
 
 Mrs Co7'bet''s A^npiitatcd Toe. 31 
 
 gold, in other words, with that of a bad hver. Yet withal they 
 lived in good society — and, what was of more importance, they 
 were — so far as testified to by the wise who know more of the 
 insides of other people's houses than the fools do who live in 
 them — very happy; a state of matters which generally excludes 
 the wry-mouthed genius of scandal. 
 
 But, as our story does not hang by the domestic happiness 
 of the Colonel and his wife, we may be excused from dwelling 
 on the beauties of conjugal love ; the more by reason that, as 
 the thing is fashionable, there is more of pretension to it than 
 of reality. Nor blessed and perfect as conjugal happiness may 
 be, is it, alas! exclusive of visits from the angry gods, who, as 
 Plutarch tells us, have woolly, that is, soft feet; and the softer, 
 one would think, the less they are expected. And so in the 
 case of our happy couple. Somehow or other, our Colonel, 
 like most others whose livers are not so sound as that rulinsr 
 organ of the human body ought to be, was most ingenious in 
 devising remedies for ailments ; and, what is really not more 
 wonderful, he was equally expert at finding out those ailments, 
 whether they existed or not. To give you an instance : he 
 carried about with him, as regularly as a man does a snuft-box, 
 out of which he generously supplies his friends, a nostrum that 
 the most of the ailments of mankind arise from crudities in the 
 blood, which again are the consequence of an over-accumula- 
 tion of muscular force ; so that if people had just the sense, 
 which is possessed by engine-men when they let otf their super- 
 abundant steam, to work off that energy, they would seldom 
 or ever be out of sorts. Being of the tribe of theorists, it was 
 of no account to tell him that the hard-working people had 
 ailments as well as the lazy or slothful. He was not bound to 
 believe what he had no wish to believe ; and, therefore, he 
 stuck to his therapeutic remedy of exercising himself ever)' 
 forenoon with a pair of dumb-bells, each weighing some five 
 or six pounds avoirdupois. If he had not been a theorist,
 
 32 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 the difficulty he had in working these heavy weights might 
 have told him that he had not much overflowing energy to 
 work off. It was enough that he thought he had, and so he 
 toiled for a whole hour at a time, more like a pentathlete of 
 old than a modern gentleman who enjoyed the privilege of 
 living at his ease. Nor was it of any avail that his wife, 
 who saw in his spare body, indexed by a saffron-coloured 
 face, that he had no strength to throw away, remonstrated 
 with him on the absurdity of weakening, with the view of 
 strengthening himself What has reason to do with theor}''? 
 and don't theorists know that reason is a mole-eyed baggage, 
 who cannot see an inch beyond the narrow line of a poor 
 limited experience] 
 
 So the affair went on ; and we go on so far with it as to say 
 that no man could have told how far it would have gone, had 
 it not been for an accident — so called by mortals, for there are 
 no accidents in nature, even where the woolly-footed powers 
 seem to break in and play the deuce. And how innocently it 
 occurred! Simply by Mrs Corbet trying, in a good-humoured 
 way, and after a little badinage, to take one of the weights out 
 of her husband's hand. A most unfortunate effort, the weiorht 
 of lead fell with a crash on the ladys toes, and a scream from 
 the sufferer resounded through the whole house. The servants 
 rushed in, and Mrs Corbet was laid upon the arm-chair, in a 
 condition approaching to a faint. On taking off the stocking, 
 it was found that the injury was inflicted on the small toe of 
 the left foot, which was crushed so seriously as to render it 
 doubtful whether the bone was not broken. Probably if a 
 doctor had been there at the moment, and before the .small 
 member began to swell, he might have decided the point ; but 
 it was not till three hours afterwards that Dr James Russel 
 called, and by that time the injured part had become so swollen 
 and imtable, that skilly as the doctor was, he could not make 
 himself sure on the point; so that, with a little to])-dressing,
 
 IlTi's Corbet's Aiupiitatcd Toe. i^^ 
 
 the toe was left to develop itself according to its own temper, 
 or ratlier that of the old leech, the 7'is mcdicatrix. MeanA\hilc 
 the swelling diminished the pain; a result to which a littlti 
 brandy contributed so much — that being always something 
 more than its real virtue would seem to warrant. 
 
 Apparently there was nothing to fear from an accident of so 
 common a character ; that is to say if tlie interesting patient — 
 who by the way carried the blood of a (jeorgian mother in 
 veins which, in their pale blue lines, could not be concealed by 
 the fair silken skin of that famous people — had been in her 
 constitution perfectly normal ; but there are diathetic condi- 
 tions which no doctor is bound to know, for the simple reason 
 that he has seldom any means of knowing them till they are 
 evolved, and then it is generally too late. Days passed, but 
 without bringing those pathological changes which are looked 
 fo." or expected in consequence of nature's comparative unifor 
 mity. On the contrarj^, the entire foot became swollen to 
 nearly the double of its natural size, and as further time passed 
 Dr Russel waxed more certain in his early suspicion that the 
 bone had been broken at the joint ; an opinion which, when 
 communicated to the Colonel, produced an effect as divergent 
 from the normal as the consequences of the injury themsehes 
 threatened to be. Nor was the reason here so recondite as the 
 peccant secret of the obdurate toe, for he had from the begin- 
 ning blamed himself as being the cause of the accident; and 
 this would not have been very formidable to him if his feelings 
 had allowed him — as they never do in such cases — to make 
 the rational distinction between acts that are voluntary and 
 those that are not. So he murmured and tormented himself, 
 with the usual result of an increase of his ])ain ; unless we aie 
 to take into account the anxious duty of a continual attend- 
 ance on the patient, whose ever)^ look and sign he watched, 
 as if his fate in the place of punishment depended upon the 
 
 vibration of a nerve in her pale but beautiful face. Then, even 
 
 c
 
 34 j\[ystermis Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 if he had had the power of making the proper distinction, and 
 thus saving him from the self-imputation of any designed harm 
 to one so inexpressibly dear to him, he was met by the subtlety 
 of his own creation, that the angry power who had imposed the 
 misfortune had purposely selected him as the medium of the 
 infliction, for the reason that he was in some secret way 
 obnoxious to Heaven. 
 
 So far perhaps in anticipation, yet necessary in order to 
 enable us to understand the effects produced upon one so 
 formed by the condition of the invalid, who shewed no signs of 
 improvement. On the contrary, she became daily worse, till 
 at length the doctor was alarmed by a dark spot, which gave 
 indications of gangrene. 1 here was now no time to be lost in 
 speculation about the condition of the bone, whether fractured 
 or not. The toe was amputated ; but the remedy came too 
 late. That dreaded power, deadness or mortification; which 
 we are so apt to view as a negative, was to shew its stern acti- 
 vities in its antagonism of darkness to light, of silence to 
 sound, of stillness to motion, of ugliness to beauty, of coldness 
 to heat, of death to life. The insidious enemy had got beyond 
 the line of amputation, and had gathered its energies for the 
 reduction of that fair form to base matter. As yet, no com- 
 munication of the danger was made to her ; and, as we all 
 know tliat mortification generally involves a relief from pain, 
 we are not to wonder that the patient viewed the change as a 
 token of convalescence. We are sometimes led to think that 
 Nature, usually so beneficent to man, often wears the Myrtean 
 crown of the tyrant, insoi>uch as she is often crudest, even by 
 v.'ay of refinement, when she appears most kindly. And here 
 the husband was the victim. In the forenoon, he had got 
 the intelligence of the fatal change ; and the self-imputed con- 
 viction that he was the cause of the calamity wrought on his 
 heart at the very moment when, sitting by the bed and holding 
 her hand, he was obligetl to encounter the liglit of the false
 
 Mrs Corbefs Amputated Toe. 35 
 
 hope which shone in her eye. The day passed amidst the 
 quietude of a solemnity in which all participated, except her 
 on whom all attention was fixed ; for the silence which destroys 
 many friendships is not that silence which is enforced by the 
 hovering presence of "the shadow feared of man." The night 
 wore on till nearly twelve. The wax-taper had been renewed, 
 so as to last till the first beam should come with the prean 
 of the opening morn, wherein Nature would a^ain give evi- 
 dence of her refined mode of torturing poor mortals. The 
 small light, meanwhile, glimmered on the pale but beautiful 
 face of the victim, as that was presented to the anxious eye of 
 the husband. That look of peace, if not pleasure, would 
 have been to him as a im/ieii fai/sti < ;;//;//>, replete with all joy, 
 had he been ignorant of the fatal secret. As it was, it scathed 
 him even more than he could have experienced from an ex- 
 pression of the greatest pain. Nor was even this all : he was 
 fated to hear the words of playfulness breaking the silence of 
 the chamber of death. As he held her hand in his, she 
 said — 
 
 " George, do you know what I was thinking last night?" 
 
 " No," replied he sorrowfully, as he met the happy look. 
 
 " Of course not," she proceeded. " I was afraid to tell you 
 at the time ; for I may now admit to you, that I was under a 
 fear I was to die : but, when I am free from all pain, and hope 
 to be soon well again, I may state it to you now for our amuse- 
 ment, especially as in this gloom and silence we require some- 
 thing to cheer us." 
 
 '■ Well V groaned the Colonel 
 
 " You know," continued the invalid, " that Edinburgh has 
 always been famous for stories of dead bodies being taken out 
 of the graves." 
 
 " I do not believe one half of them, Isabella," replied he. 
 
 " But I believe them all," said she. " When I was under 
 the fear of death, (how glad I am that that fear is gone ! ) a
 
 36 ]\fysteri07is Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 thought haunted me that my body might be stolen ; and, do 
 you know, I was so frightened that I intended to request of 
 you as a great favour, that you would provide means for 
 watching my grave ? I can smile now at my intention, but 
 wasn't it a strange whim T 
 
 And a faint laugh twittered on the vocal chords, irrespective 
 of the approach of the dark foe, which was gradually i)roceed- 
 ing from the point of its first triumph in the left foot, and 
 would soon silence those chords for ever. 
 
 " And I am not done yet," she continued in the same strain ; 
 " for, as I thought that as it was from one of those horrid 
 dumb-bells with which you were killing yourself that I received 
 my misfortune, I was to tell you, that if you allowed my body 
 to be stolen, I would, in my disembodied spirit, appear to 
 you during the nights of your watchfulness, — ay, and even 
 during the day,- — and scowl upon you just in the way that owls 
 and goblins used to do in the old houses." 
 
 The Colonel could yet find no words to reply, and he shrunk 
 from the cheerful expression of her face. 
 
 " Nor am I done yet," she continued ; "for I was to tell you 
 also that my spirit, when it ai)peared to you, would point 
 down to my left foot, just as if it said, ' You will know my 
 body amidst a hundred by the want of the toe.''" 
 
 And the laugh was even a little stronger. 
 
 '* But do not look so sorrowful, my dear," she continued ; 
 " for you know all my danger is over now : ay, and I may yet 
 live to dance one of your Scotch reels wdth that same foot, to 
 the music of some of your beautiful tunes." 
 
 These strange words were the last the Colonel heard ; and 
 this strange play of light in the face he had worshipped, as 
 well for its Eastern beauty as for its indicial manifestations of 
 the love which really existed in her heart towards him, — so 
 like, that light, to the phosphorescence which gleams at night 
 from decaying organisms, with still beauty on the surface, —
 
 Mrs Corhefs Amputated Toe. 37 
 
 was the last symptom he witnessed of her naturally buoyant 
 spirit. He was exhausted ; and the nurse came to take his 
 place, with that impassable calmness which befits her kind 
 for scenes sufficient to drive husbands and wives mad, yea, 
 and would have that effect if mortals were not mad already ; 
 and sure it is, that some may even modulate a groan and a 
 laugh into the paradox, that if man were not mad, he could 
 not live. He rose, and retired to his bedroom ; there pro- 
 bably to wring his hands, or go through some of the other 
 contortions whereby wretched man tries to repress the agonies 
 of the spirit. 
 
 Meanwhile, the patient, after that strange manifestation of a 
 deluded hope, was fast undergoing "the unleavening process/' 
 and with all that regularity, too, which is shewn in the circula- 
 tion of the blood — every drop of which, as U left the infected 
 part, carried to the heart the means of stilling it for ever. 
 True as it is that the nunc Jiuens with all of us is ever in 
 continual progress towards the nunc peruianevs of eternity : her 
 moments were charged as it were with the periods of years ; 
 and we thus see the difference bet^'een the process of taking 
 down from that of building up — how slowly the threads are 
 added one after another to the mysterious texture of life, yet 
 how rapidly unwinded. Before the next midnight, Mrs Corbet 
 was dead ; and, in a few days more, this chilrl of the sunny 
 regions of the East lay under the cold turf in the churchyard 
 of the Cano-igate. Of such things in their external aspect 
 we have an amount of knowledge, but of the effects which are 
 produced by them on the inner lives of those who are left 
 behind we know comparatively nothing. Man may weave 
 poetry, and think he is expressing his feelings, so that others 
 may know the workings of his spirit ; but he produces only a 
 specimen of art, where the words form a picture, and where 
 the words too are taken for the things they cannot represent ; 
 so that to those who never experienced such a condition of
 
 2,S MystcrioiLS Legends of EdiiibiLrgh. 
 
 the mind as that to which the bereaved husband was reduced, 
 a description would effect no more than an endeavour to 
 convey to one who never saw a tree the form of the blasted 
 oak by shewing a few of its withered leaves. 
 
 Nor for the space of a month could Colonel Corbet have 
 any precise knowledge of the state of his own mind, where 
 every energy was resolved into images of the past, leaving 
 the external senses dead or inoperative. Among the ancients, 
 as Cicero tells us, it was held to be ominous to speak of the 
 (lead ; a maxim which modern experience would induce us 
 to reverse, insomuch as we have no better sign of a coming 
 recovery from grief than is afforded by a disposition to speak 
 of the departed. It would seem that we ease the heart by 
 transferring its energy to the tongue. It is the unspoken brood- 
 ing thought that makes ravage of the heart ; yet, in the case of 
 our bereaved husband, it might be said, all this dark brooding 
 was for the time foregone only die normal condition of ordi- 
 nary mortal grief But there was to be a change. We will say 
 nothing as yet of a certain peculiarity of his mind existing 
 theretofore, whereby that change could be explained according 
 to well-authenticated princii)les of psychology, or rather we 
 should say, physiology, if the matter does not lie between the 
 two j but we may state, what will doubtless produce surprise, 
 tha% amidst all his thoughts, he had never recurred to the 
 extraordinary statement made by his wife on the evening of 
 the day preceding her death. We may account for this on 
 the supposition that, whatever impression these words of hers 
 had made upon him at the moment, the effect was due to the 
 false hope in which she had indulged when evidently dying, 
 rather than to the weak words she so lightly uttered. We 
 have said that his grief was normal ; nor do we need to qualify 
 our expression more than by stating that the aggravation pro- 
 duced by the conviction that he was the means through which 
 she had met her death, was more a temporary triumph when
 
 Mrs Corbet's Amputated Toe. 39 
 
 the reason was taken captive by the feelings than a haunting 
 produced by the conscience. 
 
 There was to be a change ; and that was ushered in by a 
 strange phenomenon. One morning, when lying in bed, his 
 eye sought the window, where the breaking light of the early 
 dawn was briiiging out faintly the green of j:he curtain, which 
 had been drawn on the previous evening. The look was 
 only a listless one, as if he wished to augur the time of the 
 morning ; nor, indeed, could he see much even of what the 
 room contained, for the partial light seemed to be drunk up 
 by the curtains, leaving the apartment itself nearly as dark as 
 it was before. While his eye was so occupied, it seemed as 
 if some nebulous object had come between him and the 
 drapery ; and of this he could be the more apprised by the 
 apparent darkening of the illuminated damask to an extent 
 co-ordinate with the interrupting medium, whatever it might 
 be. Even yet, his look was listless ; for, with all his fanciful 
 conviction of having been the cause of his wife's death, he 
 was not a superstitious man, if he was not more independent 
 of a belief in supernatural than most people even with sound 
 livers. Lut that listlessness began to give way to a sharpening 
 of the eye, as he saw the face of Mrs Corbet slowly evolving 
 from the vapoury medium. At first he could observe only 
 the general contour ; but gradually, and as it were line by 
 line, the features became more and more distinct ; and, indeed, 
 so apparently ijalpable, that the seer (for we think the word 
 appropriate) actually made an exclamation, and held out his 
 hand to touch it. This distinct condition of the object lasted 
 only for a moment or two, and seemed to depend somewhat 
 upon a sympathy with the action of the eye ; for as he began 
 to strain that organ, in order to make himself more sure of the 
 reality of his vision, the face seemed to respond in a diminution 
 of its distinctness — recovering again its fonner marked line 
 and angles as he rela.Kcd the intensity of his gaze. A moment
 
 40 MysterioiLS Legends of Edinbiirgk. 
 
 or two more, and the green curtain, embued with the dawn 
 light, recovered its apparency where that had been excluded. 
 The figure was gone, and had left the Colonel opening and 
 shutting his eyes, as if he would test by an experiment what 
 he considered to be an illusion. 
 
 On throwing himself again back on the pillow from which 
 he had partially raised himself, he began to think whether he 
 had not been inter res coniinentitias et frivolas qumius qiunn 
 sunt — 
 
 " Things unreal, and phantoms ■vain. 
 Which morbid minds spew forth as fumes 
 That circling rise, and take on lying forms ;" 
 
 and he would have been well contented if he could have 
 rested on this conclusion \ but even while he was making the 
 effort, the words of his wife flashed across his mind with a 
 rapidity and vivacity as if derived from a reaction of the force 
 by which they had been so long excluded : "//" you alkno my 
 body to be stolen, I will, in viy disembodied spirit, appear t > yoic 
 during the nights of your -icatch/ulness." He repeated them 
 with trembling lips, over and over again, as if he now felt it a 
 duty to remember them. And did she not further say, that 
 her spirit would scowl upon him as the cause of her death ? 
 This, too, he remembered, but he did not forget that the 
 words were said in playfulness ; and then there was the fact 
 that the said spirit, if spirit it was, did not look angry at him; 
 so that, after all, it might be that a troubled mind and a 
 coincidence casual, however strange, had more to do with the 
 affair than any supernatural agency. 
 
 This conclusion, upon which he latterly came to lean, was 
 at least philosophical, and perhaps he might have remained 
 satisfied if he could have assured himself that there would be 
 no recurrence of the vision. This, of course, he could not 
 do, and having fallen asleep he awoke to a nervousness, if 
 not unqualified misjry, which hung about him throughout the
 
 Mrs Corbet'' s Amputated Toe. 41 
 
 whole day. He could not assure himself that he was not the 
 object of an unfavourable attention on the part of some 
 superior power. He did not know that even the sturdiest 
 sceptic, when he comes to deliberate on the great question 
 of special interpositions from above, is lost ; for reason is only 
 a temporary friend, who leaves you when the mind becomes 
 clouded by adversity, while the instinct, which is always point- 
 ing to occult powers, clings to you for ever, even as a quality 
 of the spirit. Yea, proud and supercilious philosophy is forced 
 to admit, that where there are so many blanks in the links 
 of the chain of secondary causes, there is room and verge 
 enough for more than the subtle finger of a Deity. Of these 
 considjrations the Colonel knew nothing — he had simply an 
 experience to deal with ; and so it is with a great part of man- 
 kind — they have an inner life, the workings of which are 
 exclusive of postulates, and premises, and formulas, and make 
 them recusants to philosophy. Yet, withal, if there had been 
 no repetition of his vision, our seer would have in time again 
 lapsed into the rational mourner over the beloved dead. Nor 
 was the test very long delayed. In the evening, after he had 
 lain down on the S' fa, and just before the bringing in of the 
 candles, w hen the twilight hung between the light of day and 
 the darkness of night, the vision repeated itself in the distinct 
 form and features of his wife. There could be no mistake : 
 even the changed conditions of the apparition (a word as 
 philosophical as it is superstitious) imparted certainty, if assur- 
 ance had been wanted. On the former occasion it had ap- 
 peared as if against the light which faintly tinted the green 
 hangings of the bedroom window ] now it seemed invested 
 with a light of its own, only a little stronger than the crepuscle 
 which lingered in the dining-room— representing, as near as 
 possible, the appearance of her face at that midnight hour 
 when, in the light of the wax taper, she made the remarkable, 
 however frivolous, communication to him. There was another
 
 42 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 difference which he had time and power to mark as he lay as 
 it were enchanted, with his eye fixed and his mouth open : the 
 face was not of that placid character which it had exhibited 
 before — it was stern and severe, relaxing gradually into soft- 
 ness, only to assume again the more enduring expression ; 
 but, withal, there was again the apparent tendency to appear 
 the less distinct the more he strained his eyes. 
 
 Entranced as he was, this latter peculiarity was not passed 
 unnoticed by the Colonel, though he had neither power nor 
 inclination to try to account for it ; nor could he tell, as he 
 suddenly rose from the couch, whether he did so with a view 
 to test further the endurance of the vision under a changed 
 condition of his own nerves, or to try to escape from what 
 truly terrified him. Having got to his feet, he stepped into 
 the middle of the room, and bracing himself, as a military man, 
 of course not without even yet a remnant of courage forcing 
 itself through his superstition, he began to walk from the side 
 board to the window. He even affected not to look for it, 
 but to cast his eye in various directions ; yet his efforts were 
 unavailing : somehow or other the organ would steady itself, 
 and then it was further steadied, even to being riveted, by 
 the vision, which thus seemed to accompany him. That by 
 moving his arms and waving them to and fro, he satisfied him- 
 self that it was impalpable and intangible, afibrded him but 
 small relief, for it only assured him that he could not by any 
 physical energy drive it away, besides proving the si)iritual 
 character of his visitant. At this moment the servant brought 
 in the candles ; and whether it was that ghosts do not like the 
 light and make off at its approach, or that they have not points 
 of reflection whereby they can appear by borrowed rays, sure 
 it is that the vision was no more seen that evening. 
 
 Notwithstanding of this interruption, the Colonel continued 
 his walk along the room. He was disturbed, anxious, and 
 tremulous. The prior arguments he had used for the purpose
 
 Mrs Corbet's Amputated Toe. 4 
 
 -» 
 
 of satisfying himself that there was no mysterious final cause 
 in the phenomenon were discharged. The conviction settled 
 deeper and firmer that he was obnoxious to powers who had 
 taken his wife under their protection, and his failure of duty in 
 not taking means to watch her grave added its remorse to 
 the self imputation that he had caused her death. He was, 
 in short, under the influence of that feeling of awe — sufficient 
 to make the boldest of us quake — that he was a particular 
 object selected by divine power for a particular retribution. 
 Like him who slept below the tripod of Apollo, he knew that 
 he had the gods for his masters, and was able by their inspira- 
 tion to divine his own ruin. Yet, could he not ward off" his 
 impending fate by a late repentance and an obedience to the 
 angry spirit who had visited him. While still engaged in these 
 thoughts the door opened, and there entered a young man, 
 who, as a student-assistant to Dr Russel, was present at the 
 amputation of the toe. His name was Davidson, and the 
 object of his visit now was to bring some medicines which the 
 doctor had prescribed for his widower patient. The presence 
 of the student presented an opportunity, suggested by the 
 thoughts which had been passing through his mind. 
 
 " Stop," he said, as the young man was about to depart, 
 after laying down the parcel ; " you may do me more good 
 than these drugs, which, alas ! cannot minister to the mind." 
 
 " Whatever I can,' replied Davidson, in something like 
 wonder at being thus selected as a doctor on moral ailments, 
 of which he had but small experience during the time he had 
 been in the world. 
 
 " Is it true," said the Colonel, as he fixed his somewhat 
 nervous eye on the student's face, " that dead bodies are 
 stolen from the churchyards in this country ?" 
 
 " I am not just the person you should ask," replied David- 
 son. " You know I study anatomy myself, and we must get 
 our knowledge somehow ; besides, I am afraid to alarm you."
 
 44 Mysterio7is Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 " Alarm me !" cried the Colonel. " What do you mean ? 
 Have you any reason to suspect anything in regard to Mrs 
 Corbet V 
 
 '* Not particularly," was the answer, in a tone which indi- 
 cated that the interrogated had no particular desire to set 
 the Colonel's suspicions to rest. 
 
 "Not particularly !" rejoined the questioner, as he laid his 
 hand on the student's arm. " The words are not satisfactory. 
 Have you any reason," he continued, in a voice which betrayed 
 emotion, " for your halting answer ] Have you ever seen the 
 body in any of the rooms ?" 
 
 " One cannot say," replied the youth, with the same calm 
 pertinacity ; " they are so changed you know." 
 
 " Yes," said the Colonel, as he tried to keep down his 
 voice ; "but there is an unmistakeable mark in the case we are 
 speaking of. You were present at the amputation f 
 
 "The small toe of the left foot — I mean the want of it," 
 rejoined the student, " would be a good mark if one went for 
 the purpose of identification ; but, you know, we don't go to 
 identify subjects, and then the small toe is so very small an 
 affair, that one is apt to overlook it." 
 
 " At least," cried the Colonel, somewhat impatiently, " you 
 have met no such body T 
 
 "I think not," was the reply, but with a smile, Avhich the 
 Colonel no doubt thought very inopportune. " If there had 
 been six toes in place of four, one might have been more 
 certain ; and I need not say that if there had been seven, one 
 would have been more certain still, and " 
 
 But the Colonel, suspecting the student was proceeding 
 to the eight, which probably he had no intention of, stopped 
 him, with a request to the effect that if he should meet with 
 any body which appeared to be that of Mrs Corbet, he would 
 lose no time in communicating to him the fact. 
 
 " That would be as nearly as possible a matter of course,"
 
 Mrs Corlet's Amputated Toe. 45 
 
 replied Davidson, with still more of a smile on his sinister face ; 
 " but, in the meantime, you should keep an eye upon the green 
 tumulus in the Canongate, and if you find that the turf, espe- 
 cially about the head of the grave, has been disturbed, we 
 might be led to expect something in the rooms." 
 
 " I intend to visit the spot to-morrow," said the Colonel ; 
 and, with a deep heaving of the breast, " I have delayed that 
 duty too long" 
 
 "You had better pay a visit to that quarter to-night," added 
 the youth. 
 
 " There is no moon," rejoined the Colonel. " I could 
 see nothing in the dark." 
 
 " There is such a thing as a lantern," was the quick reply ; 
 " and, after all, it is perhaps as well if you can avoid the 
 sexton. These gentry are our best friends." 
 
 " I will perform the duty," said the Colonel, speaking per- 
 haps as much to himself as to the student. " It is impera- 
 tive." 
 
 "At what hourl" asked the youth — a question a little more 
 particular than the answers he had given to the Colonel's in- 
 terrogation , but the Colonel, concerned with deeper thoughts, 
 did not mark the difterence. 
 
 " About ten," he repHed ; " but how am I to get entry V 
 
 " Over the low north wall," was the reply. 
 
 And the youth, having thus so far satisfied the Colonel, and 
 perhaps to some extent himself, went away, leaving the solitary 
 occupant of the room under the fear that that sohtude would 
 be interfered with by the same bodiless companion who had 
 taken the trouble of visiting him twice that day ; but whether 
 it was that, as he lay on the sofa, he gazed with more earnest- 
 ness into the empty space about him than was consistent with 
 the modesty of these susceptible creatures, or that now he 
 had resolved on conciliating the angry spirit by obedience, 
 certain it is that he did not see the image again that night.
 
 46 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 The intermediate hours were solemn and heavy, nor had he 
 any wish even to try to lighten them, for he was in that 
 selfishness of misery which throws its gloom over all thoughts 
 that are happy, so as to assimilate them to its own condition. 
 So at half-past nine he made ready his lantern, — an article 
 then much in use, — and wrapping himself up in a large cloak, 
 proceeded to the burying-ground, which he had not visited 
 since that day — known to many of earth's mourners as the true 
 dies ires which engulphs the happiness of a life — on which he 
 committed his wife's body to the earth. Nor was he long in 
 getting to the side of the " little hillock," which has in its 
 bosom a stor)' more wonderful than that which might be told 
 by the mountains "earthquake-born." Having made sure of 
 the object, which he knew from the relation it held to a white 
 marble headstone of another grave by the .side, he sat down 
 on a tablet covered with green mould, and began to direct the 
 light of the lantern to the tumulus. The beam was made to 
 traverse the joining of the sods, in order that he might discover 
 whether any crevice gave indication of e.Ktemal disturbance. 
 And thus amid the darkness and silence, with bent head and 
 peering eyes he was engaged in this piety of grief for the 
 best part of a quarter of an hour. Regaining his upright 
 position, he got into meditation. He was in the midst of the 
 dead — many of them in their new shroud.s, those marriage 
 dresses of death's brides not yet soiled. Even his wife would 
 yet have undergone little change, and thus he conjured up to 
 the eye of his fancy all those children of mortality, who, a little 
 time before, were, as he himself was now, instinct with life, 
 lying extended in their small habitations silent and motion- 
 less ; yet the consciousness of the presence of these was as 
 nothing to the awe which overshadcd him as he thought that 
 the place and the hour were propitious to another visit from 
 his spiritual monitor. He felt unnerved, and even took the 
 precaution of turning the light of the lantern upon his own
 
 Mrs Corbet's xAiuputated Toe. 47 
 
 face, as if thereby he might shut out the lesser Hght of the 
 apparition ; but the moment his face shone amid the darkness, 
 he was startled by the sound of a voice, which behoved to be 
 sepulchral among so many graves. The sound was distinctly 
 articulate, and the words, " Colonel Corbet." 
 
 When a man hears his name pronounced as a salutation, 
 he will naturally doubtless turn his eye to the source of the 
 sound ; and so would the Colonel on the instant, if it had not 
 been that he was doing his best by holding the lantern to his 
 face to keep away the object of his dread, and somehow or 
 other he confusedly mixed up the party, whoever it might be, 
 that had pronounced the words and the apparition of his wife. 
 A very little power of thinking would have satisfied him that if 
 Mrs Corbet's spirit chose to address her husband, she would 
 have used the same kind of voice which was her natural and 
 peculiar gift when alive, and that the voice he had heard was 
 not at all in that key, if indeed it did not very clearly come 
 from a man ; but then it just happened that he had not the 
 power of comparison, and then, we all know, the effect of fear 
 in the transmutation of a[)pearances is not more than in that of 
 sounds. So he felt himself in that most unsoldier-like attitude 
 of being irresolute — inclined to turn the lantern, yet terrified 
 that by so domg he would reveal the apparition he so much 
 dreaded. Even as he thus stood in a position sufficiently 
 ridiculous, he was soon resolved. 
 
 "Colonel Corbet," repeated the voice, "your wife's no 
 aneath thae sods." 
 
 Mrs Corbet did not speak Scotch, and so the lantern was 
 turned on the object — no other than a man standing on the 
 other side of the grave. The light brought him out in all his 
 perfections — a raw-boned cadaverous-looking fellow, who could 
 hardly have had a more grim and death-like look if he had 
 at that time come out of the grave on which he stood. He 
 had a peculiar squint, too, which gave him a leering look,
 
 48 Mysteriotts Legends of Ediiib2irgh. 
 
 even when, as at present, he intended to be very serious ; but 
 if he had been as villainous-looking as a solitar}' ghoul, who 
 invites no one to his feasts of dead bodies, he was at least 
 a being with real flesh and bones ; and therefore the Colonel 
 was no longer afraid, however stunned he might have been 
 by the ominous announcement. 
 
 " Who are you, and what do you mean T was accordingly 
 the somewhat firm question. 
 
 " As to wha I am," rejjlied the man \ '' ye may ken that when 
 we 're better acquaint; and as to what I mean, what, in the 
 name o' a' that 's gude and holy, can be plainer than the 
 words I hae spoken — ay, just ^hae words — Mrs Corbet's no 
 aneath thae sods ]" 
 
 "Where is she then T was the natural question. 
 
 " I 'm no just inclined to answer that question," was the 
 reply, accompanied by a kind of laugh, which could have 
 sounded better nowhere than among tliese graves. " But, 
 hooly, sir, I dinna mean to say that the secret is so dead close 
 as never by ony means to be revealed ; but I am modest, and 
 if you havena' forgotten your Latin, you might understand me 
 Avhen I say, Edince venalia stint omnia." 
 
 "You mean," said the Colonel, "that I may know where the 
 body of my wife is if I will pay for the information?" 
 
 " Weel, you have helped my bashfulness,' said the man; 
 " and if you will meet me at che Tron the morn's night at 
 nine o'clock, you will hear what you will hear, and see what 
 you will see." 
 
 And with these words the man disappeared, no doubt to 
 find his way out as quickly as possible. 
 
 Some little time elapsed before the Colonel could recover 
 himself from his confusion, and he seemed to be rejected of 
 heaven not to be accepted on earth, with only the proble- 
 matical relief that if the body was actually stolen, he might, 
 by redeeming it, appease the angry manes of his wife ; and
 
 Mrs Corbet's Amputated Toe. 49 
 
 with some thoughts of this kind passing through his mind, he 
 turned his steps homewards — lighting his path over the gi-aves 
 by his lantern, the glimmering of Avhich would no doubt be 
 noticed by some sly ghosts shading themselves behind the 
 head-stones ; nor when he got home could he banish from 
 his mind the augur}^ that, according to the old Greek saying, 
 he was doomed either to act a tragedy or go mad. The 
 discovery he seemed to have made satisfied him that the 
 visions he had seen were not only veritable but justified, inso- 
 much as he had not only caused the death of his wife, but, by 
 his supineness and disregard of her injunctions, allowed her 
 body to be taken out of tlie grave — the circumstance of all 
 others which had filled her with the greatest apprehension. 
 Nor had he been able to shake himself free from these 
 thoughts up to the time when he went to bed; and as foi 
 accomplishing such a feat there, he had no great chance, even 
 though he tossed himself in his own blankets, as if he wanted 
 to inflict upon Jiimself a punishment more usually conferred 
 by others without the special consent of the culprit. It is 
 not unlikely that he thus did himself some service, for he left 
 himself little leisure, and certainly he had no inclination, for 
 witne.ssing a vision in the dead hours of the night. 
 ■ The next day was passed in similar ner\-ousness and appre- 
 hension — feelings which were by no means allayed by the non- 
 appearance of his expected monitor. At nine he was at his 
 post at tlie Tron. The night was again dark, and the ghmmer- 
 ing lamps at the heads of the timber posts looked as if a httle 
 of the wood at the tops had been charred and ignited into 
 dull embers. The people were passing and repassing like 
 shadows in -Hades— that is to say, they presented that appear- 
 ance to the gloomy mind of the Colonel, Avho now saw eveiy- 
 thing through tlie clouded medium of his own mind. Pre- 
 sently, as he stood in the middle of the street, some one whis- 
 pered in his ear, " Follow me, but see that nane follow ye."
 
 50 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 And the Colonel forthwith put himself in motion, following 
 in the rear of the whisperer, who, as he could easily see, was 
 his amiable friend of the churchyard. Their course was first 
 up the High Street, next down Libberton's Wynd, then across 
 the Cowgate, thence far up another close leading to Brown 
 Square, and, lastly, up a kind of entry towards a house stand- 
 ing by itself As yet there was no conversation, nor even 
 when the man mounted two or three steps which led to the 
 door of that house did he utter a word. It seemed to be 
 understood that the Colonel was to follow whithersoever he 
 was led. The door was opened by the man by means of a key 
 which he took from his \ ocket, and, proceeding inwards, he 
 was followed by the Colonel. The man, without yet opening 
 his mouth, put his hand on the shoulder of his companion 
 as a sign for him to stand, and then proceeded to lock the 
 door inside ; after which act of apparent precaution, he opened 
 an inner door and entered, the Colonel following — not by 
 sight, for it was pitch dark, but simply by the ear as it con- 
 veyed to him the motions of his leader. They were now in a 
 room, at least so the Colonel thought, and taking a step for- 
 ward he came against some object which seemed to be sus- 
 pended from the roof, for it moved, and seemed to oscillate 
 backward and forward, giving forth at same time a crepitation 
 of dry bones rattling in chains. 
 
 '* Never mind that," said his leader ; " stand steddy till I 
 strike a licht." 
 
 And by and by the sound was heard of the flint upon the 
 steel: rasp — rasp — a spark — phroo, phroo — whew-w — "The 
 deil's in the tinder" — phroo — "There noo." 
 
 And a blue light from the sulphur at the end of the spunk 
 flashed through the room, shewing to the Colonel a small 
 apartment with two prepared skeletons suspended from the 
 roof, one of which — that impinged upon by the Colonel in the 
 dark — being still in motion, and crepitating during its oscil-
 
 Mrs Corbet* s Amputated Toe. 5 1 
 
 lation. Not a word passed yet from the man who was busy 
 getting the hght from the match transferred to a candle, which, 
 having with some difhculty got it ignited, he placed in a 
 candlestick, which again he placed in the sole of the window. 
 All thi-s time the Colonel was no doubt in great amazement. 
 He was, moreover, shocked by the sight of the suspended 
 objects, each of which seemed from its empty sockets to look 
 down upon him in grim dissatisfaction ; yet he was under the 
 conviction that this was a mere ante-room, from which he 
 would be led to another, where the body he was doubtless 
 brought to see would be presented him — to stun and terrify 
 him, yea, to horrify him ! 
 
 So far he was mistaken. The man, after deliberately putting 
 away the tinder-box m a press in the wall, proceeded to take 
 up the candle, and coming round to where the Colonel stood, 
 he took hold of one of the suspended forms, and twirling it 
 round so that its face might confront them, he pointed to the 
 J^ntcHa or knee-pan. 
 
 "Read ye thae words there," said he, "and see if ye ken 
 wha t/iat is." 
 
 And hie essayed pretty successfully a laugh. 
 
 The Colonel's eye was meanwhile fixed on the spot, where he 
 read, in ])retty legible letters, "Mrs Col. Corbet, died 9th 
 Sept. 18—." 
 
 It was sometime before he seemed to gather up thought 
 enough to enable him to understand the meaning of the words, 
 and, as he bent his body and gazed with staring eyes, the man 
 seemed inclined to question his perception. 
 
 " An auld friend wi' a new face 1 " said he dravlingly. 
 
 But the addition was not needed. The perceptive power 
 had vindicated itself — the Colonel staggered as if he would 
 have fallen ; and it is more than likely he would, if there had 
 not been a long seat behind upon which he sank under the 
 jnfluence of a spasnx He clutched the empty space about
 
 52 Mysteriotis Legends of Edinbttrgh. 
 
 him, breathed laboriously, and turned more than once a hare- 
 brained look at the object, averting again his eyes and tremb- 
 ling violently. All which indications of rpisery had no more 
 effect upon " the broken student," as he afterwards turned 
 out to be, than the crackle of the suspended bones. 
 
 "And you see the sma' tae o' the left foot is awanting." 
 
 Words the truth of which he pointed out by taking hold 
 of the left foot of the figure, and which again threw the 
 Colonel into another fit of laborious breathing — a condition, 
 however engrossing, not now incompatible with an effort to 
 fix his eye on that part pointed out by the man. 
 
 "Good God!" he at length exclaimed. " Is all that true? 
 Is it possible that that is my Isabella T 
 
 " Your Isabella ! " replied the man. *' No ; she belongs 
 
 now to Mr M , the proprietor of the dissecting-rooms ; 
 
 and valuable property she is, for there 's no a finer specimen 
 of the genus /lomo in Edinburgh." 
 
 "But you are a Christian," cried the Colonel, as he awak- 
 ened more completely to the reality of his extraordinary posi- 
 tion. " And since you have brought me here to witness this 
 terrible spectacle, you can surely put me on some way and 
 means to get possession of these bones, and get them buried." 
 And as these words did not seem to remove the apathy of the 
 man, (probably more affected than real,) he clutched him by 
 the neck of the coat. " I demand of you," he cried, more 
 loudly than the man relished, " to know whether you have 
 authority to give me up the bones of my wife." 
 
 " Canny, sir," was the reply ; " ye '11 mak naething by anger, 
 and I will befriend you if I can ; but," in a low voice, " there 
 maun be money — money :" and whether it was that the broken 
 student thought that some words of Latin would help a scene 
 which was more like an incantation than a mercantile bargain, 
 or that the reduced man was proud of the learning that had 
 done him no good, he added what, certainly, the Colonel did
 
 Mrs Corbef s Ampittatcd Toe. 53 
 
 not understand, Tu inidierem amabas, missa est. Ego pccimiam 
 dcdisti:' 
 
 " Money ! " rejoined the Colonel ; " I will give any money." 
 
 " Then, it 's a' richt," said the man. " She 's worth fifty 
 guineas, and, if you agree, she shall be at your house within, 
 say, twenty-four hours." 
 
 " Ten o'clock to-morrow night," said the Colonel. 
 
 " Exactly — settled — completed — dune," drawled the man ; 
 " and I can assure you, sir, she 's a gude bargain at the 
 money." 
 
 With these words this extraordinary meeting terminated. 
 The Colonel, as if anxious to get out of sight of the object of 
 his purchase, hurried out as fast as a nervous groping would 
 permit, and in a short time was in his own house extended 
 upon the sofa, and in a state of mind which, with so few ex- 
 amples of an analogous kind to help our sympathies, it is 
 almost impossible to conceive. To assure himself that he 
 had so far gained his point was, in reality, next to nothing, 
 for he was conscious that the horror entertained by his wife of 
 being exhumed was no doubt founded on the desecration of tl:^ 
 body, and that had been accomplished in a way which had 
 probably never occurred to her ; yet, even in the worsl: cases 
 of crime or culpable negligence, there is a grain of ccmfort 
 in duty done, even at the eleventh hour , and with this small 
 amelioration of his racked feelings he retired to bed. 
 
 Next night, precisely at ten o'clock, a knock, probably ex- 
 pected by at least one individual of the fanily, va.s heard at 
 the door of the house in Hyndford Cose; nor was it I'^n; 
 in being responded to. The door was opened by the Colonel 
 himself, and there stood the broken sti dent wit.i a large box 
 on his shoulders, which, ha\ing carried ii, to a dark room, he 
 deposited upon the floor. There were ver)- few words spoken. 
 
 Probably they were not needed, whcrj the occasion neither 
 required the solemnity of set sentences, nor sulied the expres-
 
 54 Mysterious Lege^ids of Edinbiirgh. 
 
 sion of light thoughts. The money was promptly paid, and 
 the recipient having wished the Colonel joy of his bargain, 
 departed with as much rapidity as probably the Colonel 
 wanted. So far all was as favourable as the Colonel could 
 wish ; and seeing that there is, at least, one skeleton in every 
 house, and that one is generally considered to be enough, 
 it behoved him to get the supernumerary disposed of in the 
 only one way suited to our customs and our individual feelings. 
 Next day, accordingly, he bent his steps to the house of the 
 sexton of the churchyard from which the body had been taken. 
 Having found the redoubted Andrew Cemmel in, he recounted 
 to him, with appropriate solemnity, his story, beginning with 
 that part where he first encountered the broken student. Dur- 
 ing the recital, lie watched the face of the sexton, where he 
 found solemnity the ruHng expression up to the end of the 
 narrative ; but why, at tliat i)oint, Andrew should have per- 
 mitted that most grave of all faces to gather itself into a smile, 
 was one mystery more addjd to a story which was mystery all 
 over. 
 
 "And now, sir," said Andrew, "I will finish your stOry for 
 you, (or I see it wants an end. 
 
 And calling his man, he asked the Colonel to accompany 
 hir_i to the burying-ground. Nor did he say another word 
 until th^y came to the desecrated grave, where, having given 
 the necessary' commands to his assistant, the two began to 
 take off the turf, and thereafter to remove the earth. The 
 grave was not a deep one, and a very short time only was 
 ] equired to get down to the coffin. This was laid bare, and 
 Andrew having applied his screw-driver with all the tact of a 
 joiner, the lid was taken off The covering of the face was 
 next removed, and there, with the Colonel looking down with 
 staring eyes, lay Mrs Corbet in all the calmness and placidity 
 of death. 
 
 " Now, sir," said Andrew, " there is the end of your story."
 
 M7's Corbet's Amputated Toe. 55 
 
 The Colonel might now see somewhat more into the mys- 
 tery, but he was entranced by the object which, in its still 
 unsullied whiteness, lay in the dark hole before and beneath 
 him. Old Chaos was busy tugging at those Caucasian lines 
 of beauty, so like what the fading moonbeams shew on the 
 sculptured face of Parian stone which genius has made instinct 
 with life. It is vain to talk of thought in such situations. 
 The charm wrought by the gieat wizard Nature is complete 
 without more of incantation than a look. Yet this fixedness of 
 anguish must obey the eternal law of motion : " Man must 
 think;" and so recovering himself, as from a fearful dream, 
 he started, and put the question to Andrew, so replete again 
 with the grotesque bizarre; ie of life — 
 
 "And what am I to do with the bo.x of bones?" 
 
 " Just return them to Sandy Mackay," was the answer ; 
 "but as for your getting back your ^50, you may as well try 
 to make calf'sfoot jelly out of your purch.ase." 
 
 And so, too, the Colonel probably thought, but tlie loss rf 
 J50 was nothing in an accc-unt of debit and credit agaiiist the 
 other world, or at least one spirit therein, ar.d that account 
 was fated to undergo a further diminution of balance against 
 him ; for in the evening he was visited by Dr Russel, who, on 
 hearing the detail of all these strange circumstances, assured 
 his patient that the vision he had seen was merely the con- 
 sequence of a deranged stomach. Nay, the Colonel himself 
 recollected that when he was in India he was troubled with 
 viiisccB V lifa/ifcs, — a symptom very often indicati\'e of a ten- 
 dency to that projection into space of images on the retina, 
 which generally goes under the name of moii i/iaiiia, and is 
 supposed, by Hibbert, to be the ground-work of most of our 
 stories of apparitions. 
 
 The events of this day were not yet finished. About nine 
 o'clock, two young men met in tlie tavern kept hy Mrs Gowans 
 in the High Street. One of them was no other than t]ie
 
 56 MystcrwiLS Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 student Davidson, the other Sandy Mackay ; who, to account 
 for his learning and no less his squalidness, we may as well 
 say had been a student at the Edinburgh University, from 
 which he had been expelled, or, as they call it, broken, for 
 some grievous misdemeanour, — a consummation which neces- 
 sitated his becoming a kind of scuUion-assistant at the dissect- 
 ing-rooms in the place called "Society," with a pittance which 
 lie tried to eke out by occasionally procuring a subject. The 
 two were clearly bent on a jollification, for they had before 
 them each a large jug of ale, into which they had just dipt 
 w'^tw Davidson began a certain count and reckoning: — 
 
 " I '11 thank you, Sandy, for the £25," said Davidson, as he 
 stretched forth his hand. 
 
 " Na," replied Sandy ; " you forget tlie £5 I paid to Begbie 
 for the auld frame of Luckie Corner, the woman who murdered 
 Bell Gellatly. Besides, ye 're importunate. It 's partitio non 
 pmfocatio. I will divide fairly ; £22, los. is just your share." 
 
 " Well, I'm content," said the other. 
 
 And Sandy began to count the money, laughing the while, 
 and punning on the old maxim of the Stoics — Quod utile 
 hoiu'stuui. 
 
 " Can you tell me," said he, " why this is honestly won 1" 
 
 " Because it is utile," was the reply. 
 
 Whereat Sandy laughed again, adding thereafter, with a sigh 
 and a smile, " But it will do me nae gude, — mcndici pera nun- 
 (juam impletur. Hiere 's nae keeping fou o' a beggar's wallet. 
 There 's your half" 
 
 "And you've made the skeleton all right at the rooms'?" 
 said Davidson, as he pocketed the cash. 
 
 " Ou ay," was the answer ; "I Ve joined the tae, and rubbed 
 out the letters on the knee-pan. Here 's to ye."
 
 ®Ij£ grotonti; at iljc Witd |ofo. 
 
 CANNOT say so much for the authenticity of the 
 legend I am now to relate, as I have been able to 
 do for some of the others in this collection ; but 
 tliat is no reason, I hope, for its failing to interest 
 the reader, who makes it a necessary condition of his accept- 
 ance that a legend shall keep within the bounds of human 
 nature : not that any of us can say what these bounds are, for 
 every day of our experience is extending them in both the inner 
 and outer worlds ; and we never can be very sure whether the 
 things which rise upon the distant horizon of our nocturnal 
 visions are less unstable and uncertain than those that exist 
 under our noses. True it is, at any rate, that the legend was 
 narrated to me in a meagre form by a lady, sufficiently ancient 
 to be supposed to be a lover of strange stories, and not im- 
 aginative or wicked enough to concoct them. 
 
 That part of Eihnburgh called the West Bow was, at the 
 date of our legend, the tinsmiths' quarter ; a fact which no one 
 who chanced to walk down that way could have doubted, 
 unless indeed he was deaf. Among the fraternity, there was 
 one destined to live in annals even with more posthumous 
 notoriety than he of the same place and craft who long got the 
 credit of being the author of the " Land o' the Leal." His 
 name was Thomas, or, according to the Scottish way of pro- 
 nouncing it, Tammas Dodds ; who, with a wife going under 
 the domestic euphuism of Jenny, occupied as a dwelling-house 
 a small flat of three rooms, in the near neighbourhood of
 
 58 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 his workshop. This couple had lived together five years, 
 without having had any children procreated of their bodies, 
 or any quarrel bom of their spirits , and thus they might have 
 lived to the end of their lives, if a malign influence, born of 
 the devil, had not got possession of the husband's heart. 
 
 This influence, which we may be permitted by good Cal- 
 vinists to call diabolical, was, as a consequence, not only in 
 its origin, but also in its medium, altogether extraneous to our 
 couple. For so far as regards Mrs Jenny Dodds, she was, as 
 much as a good wife could be, free from any great defects of 
 conduct; and, as for the tinsmith himself, he had hitherto lived 
 so sober and douce a life, that we cannot avoid the notion, 
 that if he had not been subject to 'aihhns a great temptation," 
 he would not have become the victim of the arch-enemy. 
 Thus much we say of the dispositions of the two parties , and 
 were it not that certain peculiarities belonged to Jenny, which, 
 as reappearing in an after-part of our story, it is necessar}' to 
 know, we would not have gone further into mere character-— an 
 element which has little to do generrJly with legends, except 
 in so far as it either produces the incidents, or may be de- 
 veloped through them. The first of these peculiarities was a 
 settled conviction that she had as good a right to rule Tammas 
 Dodds, as being her property, as if she had drunk of the waters 
 of St Kevin. Nor was this conviction merely natural to her , 
 for she could lay her finger on that particular part of Sacred 
 Writ which is the foundation of the generally-recei^■ed maxim, 
 "One may do what one likes with ones own.'' No doubt, she 
 knew another passage in the same volume with a very different 
 meaning , but then Mrs Dodds did not luish to remember 
 that, or to obey it when she did remember it ; and we are 
 to consider, without going back to that crazy school of which 
 a certain Aristippus was the dommie, that wishing or not 
 wishing has a considerable influence upon the aspects of moral 
 truth, if it does not exercise over them a kind of legerdemaun
 
 The Brownie of the West Bow. 59 
 
 of which we are unconscious, whereby it changes one of these 
 aspects into another, even when these are respectively to each 
 other as white is to black. This "claim of right" does not 
 generally look peaceful. No more it should ; for it is clearly 
 enough against nature ; and one seldom kicks at her without 
 getting sore toes. True enough, there do appear cases where 
 it seems to work pretty well ; but when they are inquired into, 
 it is generally found either that the husband is a simpleton, 
 submitting by mere inanity, or a man who has resisted to the 
 uttermost, and is at last crumpled up by pure "Caudlish" 
 iteration and perseverance. How Tammas took it may yet 
 appear. In the meantime, we proceed with the peculiarities : 
 another of which was, that Mrs Dodds, like her of Auchter- 
 muchty, or Mrs Grumlie, carried domesticity to devotion, 
 scarcely anything m the world having any interest to her soul, 
 save what was contained in the house, from Tammas, the 
 chief article of furniture, down, through the mahogany table, 
 to the porridge pot ; cloudng, mending, darning, cleaning, 
 scouring, washing, scraping, wringing, drying, roasting, boiling, 
 stewing, being ail of them done with such duty, love, and 
 intensity of purjjose, that they were veritable sacrifices to 
 the laics. This was doubtless a virtue; and as doubtless it 
 was a vice, msomuch as, if we believe another old Greek 
 pedagogue of the name of Aristotle, " All virtues are medial 
 vices, and all vices extreme virtues." How Thomas viewed 
 this question may also appear. But we may proceed to state, 
 that Mrs Janet Dodds was not content with doing all those 
 things with such severity of love or duty. She was always 
 telling herself wliat she intended to do, either at the moment 
 or afterwards. " This pan needs to be scoured." " Thae 
 stockings maun be darned." '' This sark is as black as the 
 lum', and maun be plotted." " The floor needs scrubbing." 
 *' Tammas's coat is crying, ' A steek in time saves nine,' and 
 by my faith it says true ;" and so on. Nor did it signify much
 
 6o Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 whether Thomas or any other person was in the house at the 
 tune — the words were not intended for anybody but herself; 
 and to herself she persisted in telling them with a steadfastness 
 which only the ears of a whitesmith could tolerate ; even with 
 the consideration that he was not, as so many are, deaved with 
 scandal — a delectation which Janet despised, if she did not 
 care as little for what was going on domestically within the 
 house on the top of the same stair, as she did for the in-door 
 affairs of Japan or Tobolsk. We may mention, also, that she 
 persevered in reading the same chapter of the Bible, and in 
 singing the same psalm, every Sunday morning. In addition 
 to these characteristics, Janet made it a point never to change 
 the form or colour of her dress ; so that if all the women in 
 Edinburgh had been of her taste and mode of thinking, all the 
 colours by which they are diversfied and made interesting 
 would have been reduced to the dead level of hodden-gray ; 
 the occupation of the imp Fashion would have been gone ; 
 nay, the angels, for fear of offending mortals, would have 
 eschewed the nymph Iris, from whom the poets say they steal 
 tints, and dipt their wings in a gray cloud, before appearing in 
 the presence of the douce daughters of men. 
 
 With all these imperfections. — and how many husbands 
 would term some of them perfections 1 — the married life of 
 Thomas and Janet Dodds mi^^ht have gone on for another five 
 years, and five to that, if it had not been that Thomas, in a 
 weary hour, cast a glance with a scarlet ray in it on a certain 
 Maiy Blyth, who lived in the Grassmarket, — a woman of whom 
 our legend says no more than that she was a widow, besides 
 being fair to the eye, and pleasant to the ear. We could wish 
 that we had it not to say, but as truth is more valuable than 
 gold, yea, refined gold, we are under the necessity of admitting 
 that that red ray betokened love, if an affection of that kind 
 could be called by a name so hallowed by the benedictions 
 of poets and the songs of angels. You must take it in your
 
 The Brownie of the West Bow. 6 1 
 
 own way, and with your own construction ; but however that 
 may be, we must all mourn for the fearful capabilities within 
 us, and the not less awful potentialities in the powers without 
 — the one hidden from us up to the moment when the others 
 appear, and all wrestling with the enemy prevented by what is 
 often nothing less than a fatal charm. From that moment, 
 Thomas Dodds was changed after the manner of action of 
 moral poisons, for we are to remeniber that while the physical 
 kill, the other only transmute, and the transmutation Diay be 
 from any good below grace to any evil above the devil. 
 
 This change in the mind of the husband included his man- 
 ner of viewing those peculiarities in the mental constitution 
 of Janet to which we have alluded. Her desire to rule him 
 was now rebellion, her devotion to "hussyskep" was nothing 
 better than mercenary grubbing, her adhesion to her hodden- 
 gray was vulgar affectation, and as to her monologues, they 
 were evidence of insanity. Such changes in reLrence to other 
 objects happen to every one of us every day in the year, only 
 we don't look at and examine them, nor if we did, could we 
 reconcile them to any theory of the mind — all that we can say 
 being, that if we love a certain ol)ject, we hate any other 
 which comes between us and our gratification, and thus just 
 as Mr Thomas IJodds loved Mrs Mary lj!}-th, so in an ecjual 
 ratio he hated his good helpmate, Jenny. And then began 
 that other wonderful process called reconciliation, whereby the 
 wish gradually overcomes scruples through the cunning mean 
 of falsifying their aspects. A\'hcreuiito, again, the new mistress 
 contributed in the adroit way uf all such wretches — instilling 
 into his ear the moral poison which deadened the apperception 
 of these scruples at the same time that it brought out the 
 advantages of disregarding them. 'J"he result of all which was, 
 that Jenny's husband, of whom she had made a slave, for his 
 own good and benefit, as she though.t, and not without reason, 
 arrived, by small degrees, and by relaj^s of new motives, one
 
 62 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 after another, at the conclusion of actually removing her from 
 this big world, and of course also from that little one to her 
 so dear, even that of her household empire. 
 
 A resolution this, which, terrible and revolting as it may 
 appear to those who are happily beyond the influence of " the 
 wish," was far more easily formed than executed, for nature — 
 although improvident herself of her children— swallowing them 
 ap in thousands by earthquakes, tearing them by machinery, 
 and drowning them in the sea by shiploads — is very careful to 
 defend one of them against another. Every scheme the hus- 
 band could think of was surrounded with difliculties, and one 
 by one was laid aside, till he came to that of precipitating his 
 faithful Jenny, as if by accident, into a deep pool in the North 
 Loch, that sheet of water wliich contained as many secrets 
 in its bosom as that more romantic one in Italy, not far re- 
 moved from a certain pious nunnery. P^en here there was 
 t'le difliculty of getting Jenny out at night, and down Cran- 
 stoun's Close, and to west of the foot thereof, where the said 
 deep pool was, for no other ostensible purpose in the world 
 than to see the moon shedding her beams on the surface of 
 the water — an object not half so beautiful to her as the clear 
 tin pan made by the hands of her own Tammas, and in which 
 she made her itorridge every morning. But the adage about 
 the will and the way is of such wondrous uni\ersality, that one 
 successful effort seems as nothing in the diversity of man's 
 inventions, and so it turned out to be comparatively easy to 
 get Janet out one evening for the reason, that her husband 
 did not feel very well, and would like his supper the better for 
 a walk along the edge of the loch, in which, if it was her 
 pleasure, she would not refuse to accompany him. So pleasant 
 a way of putting the thing harmonised with Janet's love of rule, 
 and she agreed upon the condition she made with herself by 
 means of the eternal soliloquy that she would put on the stew 
 to be progressing towards unctuousness and tenderness before
 
 The Brownie of the West Bow. 6 
 
 they went. ^Vas that to be Janet's last act of her darUng 
 hussyskep \ It would not be consistent with our art were we 
 to tell you ; but this much is certain, that Janet Dodds went 
 down Cranstoun's Close along with her beloved Tammas, that 
 shortly after she was plunged by him into the said deep hole 
 of the loch, and cruelly left there to sink or swim, while he 
 hastened back to tell his new love, Mrs Blyth, how desperately 
 he had done her bidding. But sometimes running away has 
 a bad look ; and it happened that as Thomas was hurrying up 
 the dark close, he met a neighbour brother of the craft, who 
 cried to him, " What, ho 1 I'ammas Dodds ; whaur frae and 
 whaur tae, man'/" To which, seeing how the act of running 
 away would look in the Justiciary Court, he replied with won- 
 derful invention for the moment, that Janet had fallen into the 
 deep pool of the loch, and that thougli he had endeavoured 
 to get her out, he had failed by reason of his not being able 
 to swim, and that he was running to get some one to help to 
 save her, whereupon he entreated his brother craftsman to go 
 with him to the spot, and help him to rescue his beloved wife, 
 if she weren't yet dead. So away they went, in a great hurr}-, 
 but to no purpose, for when they came to the said pool, no 
 vestige of a creature being therein could they see, except some 
 air-bubbles reflecting the moonbeams, and containing, no 
 doubt, the living breath of the drowned woman. 
 
 Nor when the terrible news was spread through the city, 
 and a boat and drags were made to do their uttermost, under 
 the most willing hands could the body be found. It was 
 known that the bank there was pretty steep in declivity, and 
 the presumption was that the body had rolled down into the 
 middle of the loch, where, in conseciuence of the muddiness 
 of the waters, it would be difficult to find it. The efforts were 
 continued next morning, and day by day, for a week, with no 
 better success, till at last it was re.solved to wait for " the 
 bursting of the gall-bladder,' when no doubt Mrs Janet Doddss
 
 6.4 Mysterious Legends of Edinbttrgh. 
 
 body would rise and swim on the top of the waters. An event 
 this which did not occur till about three weeks had passed, at 
 the end of which time a crowd of people appeared at Mr 
 Dodds's door, bearing a corpse in a white sheet. It was 
 received by the disconsolate Thomas with becoming resigna- 
 tion, and laid on the bed; even the marriage-bed, reahsing 
 that strange meeting of two ends which equalises pain and 
 ])leasure, and reduces the j,.)roduct to ////. Nor were many 
 liours allowed to pass when, decayed and defaced as it was, 
 it was consigned to a cofiin without Mr Dodds being able to 
 bring his resolution to the sticicing point of trying to recognise 
 in the confused mass of muscle and bone, forming what was 
 once a face, the lineaments of lier wlio had been once his 
 l)ride, and now, by his own act, had become his sliame and 
 condemnation in the sight of Heaven. Next day, she was 
 consigned to the tomb, in so solemn a manner, that, if man ' 
 were not man, one would ha\e had a difficulty in recognising 
 in that gentle hand that held the head-cord, and dropped 
 it so softly on the coffin, the same member which drove the 
 innocent victim into the deep waters. 
 
 There is a continuous progress in all things — a fact which we 
 know only after we get hola of the clue. And so, when Mrs 
 Mary Blyth appeared as Mrs Mary Dodds. in room of the 
 domesticated Jenny, it was in perfect accordance with ihe law 
 of cause and effect. No doubt, the} din their best to be 
 happy, as all creatures do. even the devil's children, only in a 
 wrong shaft ; but they had made that fearful miscalculation, 
 which is the wages of sin, when they counted upon conscience 
 as a pimp to their pleasures, in place of a king's evidence 
 agamst them, that king being the Lord of heaven and earth. 
 And so it turned out in the course of several years, that, as 
 their love lost its fervour, their respective monitors acquired 
 greater power in pleading the cause of her who was dead, and 
 convincing them against their Avill; (for the all-powerful wish
 
 The Brownie of the West Bow. 65 
 
 i<as no virtue here,) that they had done a cruel thing, for which 
 they were amenable to an avenging guardian of the everlasting 
 element of good in nature's dualism. Yet, strange enough, 
 each of the two ke])t his and her own secret. Their hearts 
 burned, even as the fire which consumes the wicked, under 
 the smother of a forced silence — itself a torment and an agony 
 — yea, neither of the two would mention the name of Jenny 
 Dodds for the entire world. And there was more than a 
 mutual fear that one should know what the other thought. 
 Each was under a process of exculpation and inculpation — a 
 mutual blaming of each other in their hearts, without ever 
 yet a word said to indicate their thoughts. It was the quarrel 
 of devils, who make t'le lesser crime a foil to shew the greater, 
 and call it a virtue for the reason that they would rather be the 
 counterfeits of good than the base metal of evil ; yet, with 
 no advantage, for hypocrisy, is only the glow which conceals 
 the worm in its retreat within it. The plea of the wife was, 
 that she was courted by the man, and that, although she miglit 
 have wished Jenny out of the way, and hinted as much, she 
 never meant actual murder ; while his, again, was the old 
 Barnwell charge, that his better nature had been corrupted by 
 the woman, and that he did it at her suggestion, and under 
 the influence of her siren power. They thus got gradually 
 into that state of feeling by which the runaway convicts from a 
 [lenal settlement were actuated, when, toiling away througli 
 endless brakes and swamps where neither meat nor drink 
 could be jjrGCured, they were so maddened by hunger, that 
 each, with a coi cealed knife under his sleeve, watched his 
 neighbour for an opportunity to strike, nor could one dare 
 to fall behind without the suspicion bemg raised in the mii.di 
 of his companions that he was to execute his purpose Avhen 
 they were off their guard. So like, in other respects too, for 
 these men, afraid to speak their thoughts of each otlm-, jour- 
 neyed on in deep silence, and each was ready to immolate 
 
 E
 
 66 Mysterious Legends of Ediiiburgh. 
 
 his friend at the altar of selfishness, changed into a blood- 
 thirsty Dagon by the fiends Hunger and Thirst. 
 
 The years were now to be counted as seven since Janet 
 Dodds was plunged into the deep pool of the North Loch, and 
 the state of mind of the married criminals, which we have tried 
 to describe, had been growing and growing, for two of these 
 years, as if it threatened to get stronger the older they grew, 
 and the nearer the period of judgment. One morning when 
 they were in bed, for even yet while they concealed their 
 thoughts from each other and the name of Jenny Dodds 
 was a condemned word in their vocabulary, even as the sacred 
 name among the Romans, they had evinced no spoken enmity 
 to each other, they heard a tirl at the door. The hour was 
 early, and the douce genius of the gray dawn was deliberating 
 with herself whether it was time to give place to her advancing 
 sister, the morning. Mrs Mary Dodds rose to answer the 
 knock, and Thomas listened with natural curiosity to know 
 who the early visitor was, and what Avas wanted. He heard a 
 suppressed scream of fear from hi.s wife, and the next moment 
 she came rushing into the rooni ; yet the never a word she 
 uttered, and her lips were so wh.ite and dry that you might 
 have supposed that her silence was the result of organic in- 
 ability. Nor even when she got into bed again, and tried to 
 hide her head with the bed-clothes, did her terror diminish, 
 or her lips become more obedient to the feeling within, so 
 that Thomas knew not what to think, except it was that she 
 had seen a ghost — not an unnatural supposition at, a time 
 when occult causes and spiritual ai)pearances were as un- 
 doubted as the phenomena of the electric telegraph are in 
 our day. But he was not destined to be left m.any minutes 
 more in ignorance of the cause of Mrs Mary Dodds's terror, 
 for, upon listening, he heard some one come into the kitchen, 
 and bolt the door on the inside — so much for his ears ; then 
 he turned his eyes to the kitchen^ into which he could^ as well
 
 TJic Brownie of the West Bow. 67 
 
 as the light of the gray dawn would permit, see from where he 
 I.'", and what did he seel 
 
 " How comes it ? whence this mimic shape? 
 In look and lineament so like our kind. 
 You might accost the spectral thing, and say, 
 'Good e'en t'ye.'" 
 
 No other than the figure of T^Irs Janet Dodds herself Yes, 
 there she was in her old gray dress, busy taking off that 
 plaid which Thomas knew so well, and hanging the same 
 upon the peg, where she had hung it so often for five long 
 years. Thomas was now as completely deprived of the 
 power of speech as she who lay, equally criminal as himself, 
 alongside of him ; but able at least to look, or rather, unable 
 to shut their eyes, they watched the doings of the strange 
 ir.orning visitor. They saw that she was moving about as if 
 s'le were intent upon domestic work ; and, by and by, there 
 she was busy with coals and sticks brought from their respec- 
 tive places, putting on the fire, which she lighted with the 
 indispensable spunk applied to the spark in the tinder-box. 
 Next, she undertook the sweeping of the floor, saying to her- 
 self— and they heard the words — " It looks as if it hadna been 
 swept for seven years." Next she washed the dishes, which 
 had been left on the table, indulging in the appropriate mono- 
 logue im;)lying the necessity of the work. Thereafter it 
 appeared as if she was dissatisfied with the progress of the 
 fire, for she was presently engaged in using the bellows, every 
 blast of which was heard by the quaking couple in bed, and 
 between the blasts the v/ords came, " Ower late for Tammas's 
 breakfast." So the blowing continued, till it was apparent 
 enough, from the reilcction of the flame on the w^all, that she 
 was succeeding in her efforts. Then, having made herself sure 
 of the fire, she went to the ])roper place for the porridge goblet, 
 took the same and put a sufficient quantity of water therein, 
 placed it on the fire, and began to blow again with the same
 
 68 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 assiduity as before, with still interjected sentences expressive of 
 her confidence that she would overcome the obstinacy of the 
 coals. And overcome it she did, as appeared from the entire 
 lighting up of the kitchen. Was ever Border brownie so indus- 
 trious ! Some time now elapsed as if she were sitting with due 
 patience till the water should boil. Thereafter she rose, and 
 they saw her cross the kitchen to the lobby, where the meal 
 was kept, then return with a bowl containing what she no 
 doubt considered a sufficient quantity. The stirring utensil 
 called a "theedle" had also been got in its proper place, and, 
 by and by, they heard the sound of the same as it beat upon 
 the bottom and sides, guided by an experienced hand, and, 
 every now and then, the sweltering and tottling of the pot. 
 This process was now interrupted by the getting of the gray 
 basin into which the porridge behoved to be poured ; and 
 poured it was, the process being followed by the sound of " the 
 clauting o' the laggan," so familiar to Scutch ears. "Now it's 
 ready for him," said the figure, as it moved across the kitchen 
 again, to get the spoon and the bowl of milk, both of whicli 
 they saw her place beside the basin. 
 
 All things being thus completed according to the intention 
 of the industrious worker, a period of silence intervened, as if 
 she had been taking a rest in the chair which stood by the fire. 
 A most ominous interlude, for every moment the couple in 
 bed expected that she would enter the bedroom, were it for 
 nothing else than to " intimate breakfast "■ — an intimation 
 which, if one could have judged by their erect hair and the 
 sweat that stood in big drops on their brows, they were by no 
 means prepared for. They were not to be subjected to this 
 fearful trial, for the figure (so we must persist in calling it) was 
 seen again to cross the kitchen, take down the plaid, and 
 adjust it over the head according to the manner of the times. 
 They then heard her draw the bolt, open the door, and shi t 
 the same again after her as she departed. She was gone.
 
 The Brownie of the West Bow. 69 
 
 Mr Thomas Dodds and his wife now began to be able to 
 breathe more freely. The hair resumed its flexibility, and the 
 sweat disappeared ; but, strange as it may seem, they never 
 exchanged a word witli each other as to who the visitor was, 
 nor as to the morning's work she had so industriously and 
 silently (with the exception of her monologues) executed. Too 
 certain in their convictions as to the identity, whether in spirit 
 or body, of the figure with that of her they had so cruelly put 
 out of the way, they seemed to think it needless to question 
 each other ; and, independently of this, the old terror of the 
 conscience was sufficient to seal their lips now, as it had done 
 for a period before. Each of them supposed that the visitor 
 was sent for the special purpose of some particular avengement 
 of the crime upon the other; the appearance in so peaceful a 
 way, in the meantime, being merely a premonition to shew 
 them that their consciences were not working in vain : and if 
 Thomas was the greater sinner, which he no doubt suspected 
 in spite of himself, he might place against that conviction the 
 fict that the inscrutable visitor had shewn him the kindness 
 at least of preparing his breakfast, and entirely overlooking 
 the morning requirements of his spouse. Under these thoughts 
 they rose and rej)aired with faltering step and fearful eyes to 
 the kitchen. There everything was in the order they had 
 anticipated from what they had seen and heard. Each looked 
 with a shudder at the basin of porridge as if it had been in- 
 vested with some terrible charm — nay, might it not have been 
 poisoned? — a thought which rushed instantaneously into the 
 head of Thom.as, and entirely put to flight the prior hypo- 
 thesis that he had been favoured by this special gift of cookery. 
 The basin was accordingly laid aside by hands that trembled 
 to touch it, and fear was a sufficient breakfast for both of 
 them on that most eventful morning. 
 
 This occurrence, as may readily be supposed, was kept a 
 profound secret. They both saw that it might be the fore-
 
 70 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 runner of Divine means to bring their evil deeds to light ; 
 and, under this apprehension, their taciturnity and mutual 
 discontent, if not growing hatred, continued broken only by 
 occasional growls and curses, and the ejaculations forced out 
 by the inevitable circumstances of their connexion. The effect 
 of the morning visit was meanwhile most apparent upon the 
 man who committed the terrible act. He could not remain 
 in the house, which, even in their happiest condition, was 
 slovenly kept, shewing everywhere the want of the skilled 
 hands of that queen of housewives, Mrs Janet Dodds — so ill 
 requited for her devotion to her husband. Nay, he felt all this 
 as a reproof to him, and sorely and bitterly lamented the fatal 
 act whereby he had deprived of life the best of wives, and 
 the most honest and peaceful of womankind. Then the awe 
 of Divine vengeance deepened these shadows of the soul till 
 he became moody and melancholy, walking hither and thither 
 without an object, and in secluded places, looking fearfully 
 around him as if he expected every moment the spectre visitor 
 of the morning to appear before him. Nor was he less miser- 
 able at home, where the growing hatred made matters worse 
 and worse every hour, and where, when the gray dawn came, 
 he expected another visit and another scene of the same 
 description as the last. 
 
 Nearly a week had thus passed, and it was Sabbath morning. 
 The tinsmiths' hammers were silent, the noisy games of the 
 urchins were hushed, the street of the Bow resounded only 
 occasionally to the sound of a foot ; — all Edinburgh was, in 
 short, under the solemnity enjoined by the Calvinism so much 
 beloved by the people, and surely the day might have been 
 supposed to be held in such veneration by ministering spirits, 
 sent down to earth to execute the purposes of Heaven, that 
 no visit of the feared shadow would disturb even the broken 
 rest of the wicked. So perhaps thought our couple ; but their 
 tlioughts belied them, for just again as the dawn broke over
 
 The Brow7iie of the West Bow. 7 1 
 
 the tops of the high houses, the well-known tirl was heard at 
 the door. V.'ho was to open it % For days the mind of the 
 wife had been made up. She would not face that figure again; 
 no, if all the powers of the world were there to compel her ; 
 and as for Thomas, conscience had reduced the firmness of a 
 man who once upon a time could kill to a condition of fear 
 and trembling. Yet terrified as he was, he considered that 
 he was here under the obligation to obey powers even higher 
 than his conscience, and disobedience might bring upon him 
 some evil greater than that under which he groaned. So up 
 he got trembling in every limb, and proceeding to the door, 
 opened the same. What he saw may be surmised, but what 
 he felt no one ever knew, for the one reason that he had never 
 the courage to tell it, and for the other that no man or woman 
 was ever placed in circumstances from which they could draw 
 any conclusion which could mipart even a distant analogy. 
 'I'his much, however, wa*^ known : Thomas retreated instantl) 
 to bed, and the visitor, in the same suit of hoddengray, again 
 entered, passed the bolt, took off her plaid, hung it up, and 
 Ijegan the duties which she thought were suited to the day and 
 the hour. So much being thus alike, the couple in the bed- 
 room no doubt augured a repetition of the old process. They 
 were right, and they were wrong. Their eyes were fixed upon 
 her, and watched her movements ; but the watch was that of 
 the charmed eye whicli is said to be without motive. They 
 saw her once more go deliberately and tentily through the old 
 process of putting on th.e fire, and they heard again the appli- 
 cation of the bellows, every blast succeeding another with the 
 regularity of a clock, until the kitchen was illuminated by the 
 rising flame. This was all that could be called a repetition ; 
 for in place of going for the porridge goblet, she went direct 
 for the tea-kettle, into which she poured a sufficient quantity of 
 water, saying the while to herself, "Tammas maun hae his tea 
 breakfast on Sabbath morning " — words which Thomas, as he
 
 72 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 now lay quaking in bed, knew very well he had heard before 
 many a time and oft. Nor were the subsequent acts less in 
 accordance with the old custom of the dwelling. There was 
 no sweeping of the floor or scouring of pans on the sacred 
 morning — in place of all which she had something else to do, 
 for surely we must suppose that this gentle visitor was a good 
 Calvinist, and would perform only the acts of necessity and 
 mercy. These she had done in so far as regarded necessity, 
 and now they saw her go to the shelf on which the Bible was 
 deposited — a book which, alas ! for seven years had not been 
 opened by either of the guilty pair. Having got what she 
 wanted, she sat down by the table, opened the volume at a 
 place well thumbed, and began to read aloud a chapter in the 
 Corinthians, which Thomas Dcd.ls, the more by reason that 
 he had heard it read two huiulred and fifty times, knew by 
 heart. This being finished she turned up a psalm, yea, that 
 very psalm which Janet Dodds had sung every Sunday morn- 
 ing ; and, presently, the kitchen was resonant with the rising 
 notes of the Bangor, as they came from a throat trembling with 
 devotion — 
 
 " I waited on the Lord my God, 
 And patiently did bear ; 
 At lengtli to me he did incHne 
 My voice and cry to hear. 
 
 •' He took me trom a fearful pit, 
 And from the miry clay, 
 And on a rock he set my feet. 
 Establishing my way." 
 
 The service finished, thev saw her replace the book where she 
 had found it, and by this time the kettle was spewing from 
 the mouth thereof a volume of steam, as if it were calling to 
 its old mistress to relieve it from the heat of the fire ; nor was 
 she long in paying due obedience. The tea-pot was got where 
 she seemed to know it would be found, so also the tea-canister.
 
 The Brownie of the West Bow. 73 
 
 The quantity to be put in was a foregone conclusion and 
 steadily measured with the spoon. The water was poured in 
 and the utensil placed on the cheek of the chimney in order 
 to the indispensable infusion. Next, the cup and saucer were 
 placed on the table, then followed the bread and butter and 
 the sugar and the milk, all being finished by the words to 
 herself, " There's nae egg in the house." Having thus finished 
 her work she took down her plaid, adjusted it carefully, opened 
 the door, and departed. 
 
 The effect produced by this second spectral appearance 
 could scarcely be exaggerated, }'et we su.spect you will not 
 find it of that kind which is most in harmony with human 
 nature, except in the case of Mrs Dodds the second, who 
 lay, as on the former occasion, sweating and trembling. It 
 was now different with the husband, ou wliom apparently had 
 fallen some of the seeds of the Word, as the) were scattered 
 by the lips of the strange visitor, and conscience had prepared 
 the soil. The constitutional strength of character which had 
 enabled him to perpetrate a terrible deed of evil, was ready 
 as a power to achieve his emancipation and work in the direc- 
 tion of good. So, without saying a word of all that had been 
 acted that morning, he rose and dressed himself, and going 
 into the kitchen he sat down without the fear of poison and 
 partook of the breakfast which had been so strangely prepared 
 for him, nor was he satisxled till he read the chapter and psalm 
 with which he had been so long familiar. He then returned to 
 the bedroom, and addressing his wife — 
 
 "You now see," said he, "that Heaven has found us out. 
 That visitor is nae ither than Mrs Janet Dodds returned frae 
 the grave, and sure it is that nane are permitted to leave that 
 place o' rest except for a purpose. No, it"s no for naething 
 that Janet Dodds comes back to her auld hame. What the 
 purpose may be, the Lord only knows, but this seems to me to 
 be clear enough — that } ou and I maun prart. You see that
 
 74 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 nae breakfast has been laid for you. I have taen mine and 
 nae harm has come o't, a clear sign that though we are baith 
 great criminals, you are considered to be the warst o' the twa. 
 It was you wha put poison into my ear and cast glamour ower 
 my een ; it was you wha egged me on, for ' The lips of a 
 strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her words are 
 smoother than oil ; but her feet take hold of hell' That I am 
 guilty I know, and ' though hand join in hand, the wicked 
 shall not go unpunished.' I will dree my doom whatever it 
 may be, and so maun you yours ; but there may be a difter- 
 mce, and so far as mortal can 3'et see, } ours will be waur to 
 bear than mine. But, however a' that may be, the time is 
 come when you maun leave this house. ' Cast out the strange 
 woman, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach 
 shall cease ;' but ' Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou 
 know not what to do in the end, when thy neighbour hath 
 put thee to shame.' Keep your secret frae a' save the Lord, 
 and may He hae mercy on your soul."' 
 
 With which words, savouring as they did of the objurgations 
 of the black-pot to the kettle, Mr Thomas Dodds left his 
 house, no doubt in the exp'Xtation that Mrs Dodds sccitnda 
 would move her camp and betake herself once more to her 
 old place of residence in the Grassmarket. Where he went 
 that day no man ever knew, further han that he was seen in 
 the afternoon in St Gxiless Church, where, no doubt, he did 
 his best to make a cheap purchase of immunity to his soul 
 and body in consideration of a repentance brought on by pure 
 fear, produced by a spectre ; and who knows but that that 
 was a final cause of the spectre's appearance. We have seen 
 that it was a kindly spirit, preparing porridge and tea for him 
 at the same time that it made his hair stand on end and big 
 drops of sweat settle upon his brow or roll down therefrom — 
 a conjunction this of the tawse and the jelly-pot, whereby kind 
 and loving parents try to redeem naughty boys. Nor let it
 
 The Brownie of the West Bow. 75 
 
 be said that this kindly dealing with a murderer is contrary 
 to the ways of Heaven; for, amidst a thousand other examples, 
 did not Joshua, after the wall of Jericho lay flat at the blast 
 of a trumpet, save that vile woman Rahab at the same time 
 that he slew the young and the old, nay, the very infants, with 
 the edge of the sword ? All which, though we are not by token 
 of our sins able to see the reason thereof, is doubtless con- 
 sonant to a higher justice — altogedier unlike our goddess, who 
 is represented as blind, merely because she is supposed not 
 to see a bribe when offered to her by a litigant. So, the 
 penitence of Mr Thomas Dodds might be a very dear affair 
 after all, in so much as terror is a condition of the soul which, 
 of all we are doomed to experience, is the most difficult to 
 bear, especially if it is a terror of Divine wrath. On his return 
 to his house in the evening he found that Mrs Mary had taken 
 him at his word and decamped, but not without providing 
 herself with as good a share of the " goods in communion " 
 as she could, perhaps, at two or three returns, carry off. So 
 was she like Zebulun in all save her righteousness, for she 
 "rejoiced in her going out," nay, she had some reason, for she 
 had discovered that in a secret drawer of an old cabinet there 
 was a pose of gold collected by the industrious hands of Mrs 
 Janet, and unknown to her husband, every piece of whicii 
 she carried off in spite of all fear of the spectre, which, if a 
 sensible one, might have been supposed to be more irritated 
 at this heedless spohation than at all the Jezebel had yet done, 
 with the exception of the counselling her death in the deep 
 hole of the North Loch. On seeing all this robbery Mr 
 Dodds became more and more aware of the bad exchange he 
 had made by killing his good spouse to enable him to take 
 another, who had merely found more, favour in his eyes by 
 reason of her good looks, and we may augur how much deeper 
 his feeling of regret would have been had he known the secret 
 pose, so frugally and prudently laid up, perhaps for his sake.
 
 76 Mysterious Leg-ends 0/ Edinburgh. 
 
 at least for the sake of both, when disease or old age might 
 overtake them, in a world where good and evil, pleasure and 
 pain, appear to be fixed quantities, only shoved from one to 
 another by wisdom and prudence, yet sometimes refusing to 
 be moved even by these means. 
 
 After satisfying himself of the full extent of the robbery, 
 which, after all, he had brought upon himself, and very richly 
 deserved, he sat down upon a chair and began to morahse 
 after the manner of those late penitents who have found t'lem- 
 selves out to be either rogues or fools — the number of whom 
 comprehends, perhaps, all mankind. He had certainly good 
 reason to be contrite. The angel in the house had become a 
 spectre, and she who was no argel either in the house or out 
 of it, had carried off almost everything of any value he pos- 
 sessed ; nor did he stop at mere unspoken contrition — he 
 bewailed in solemn tones his destiny, and then began to cast 
 up all the perfections of good Janet, the more perfect and 
 beautiful these seeming in proportion as he felt the fear of 
 her reai)pearance, i)erhay)S, next time in pbce of making his 
 breakfast to run away with him to the dire i)lace of four letters. 
 .All her peculiarities were now virtues- nay, the very things 
 which had appeared to liim the most indefensible took on 
 the aspect of angelic endowments. While her careful house- 
 wifery was all iritcnded for his bodily health and comfort, 
 her perseverance in adhering to the one chapter and the one 
 ijsalm was due to that love of iteration which inspires those 
 who are never weary of well-doing. And what was more ex- 
 traordinary, one verse of the psalm — that which we have 
 
 quoted had special reference to the manner of her death, 
 
 and her deliverance from condemnation in the world to come. 
 No doubt the man who meditates upon his own crime or folly 
 at the very moment when he is suffering from its sharp recal- 
 citrations, is just about as miserable a wretch as the reforma- 
 tory of the world can present ; but wlien to the effects upon 
 
 I
 
 The Brownie of the West Bow. jj 
 
 hiniS'ilf he is comiielled to think of the cruelty he has exercised 
 towards others — and those perhaps found out to be his best 
 friends — we doubt if there are any words beyond the vocabu- 
 lary of the condemned that are sufficient to express his anguish. 
 Even this, did not comprehend all the suffering of Mr Dodds, 
 for was he not under doom without knowing what form it 
 was to assume, whether the spectre (whose cookery might be 
 a sham) would choke him, burn him, or run away with him. 
 
 Deeply steeped in this remorseful contemplation, duriiv,' 
 which the figure of his ill-used wife flitted b:;fore the eye of 
 his fancy with scarcely less of substantial reality th:.n she ha 1 
 shewn in her spectral f^rm, he found tliat he had lost all r :i 
 to time. The night was fast setting in, the s'lauu..., of the 
 tall houses were falling deeper and deeper on the room, antl 
 the Sabbath stillness was a solemn contiast to the perturba- 
 tions inside the chamber of his soul, where "the serpents ai d 
 the cockatrices would not be charmed." Still, everything 
 within and without was dreary, and the spoliation of his means 
 did not tend to enliven the outer scene or impart a charm 
 to the owner. While in this state of depression, Tamma; 
 heard a knock at the door. It was not, as on the former 
 occasions, what is called a tirl. It might be a neighbour, or 
 it might be an old crony, and he stood in need of some one 
 to raise his spirits, so he went to the door and opened it ; but 
 what was his horror when he saw enter a female figure, in all 
 respects so like his feared visitor that he concluded m the 
 instant that she was the same , nor could all his penitence 
 afford him resolution enough to make a pro[)er examination • 
 besides, it was gray dark, and even a pair of better eyes than 
 he could boast of might, under the circumstances soon to 
 appear, have been deceived. Retreating into the kitchen, he 
 was followed by this dubious, and yet not dubious visitor, who, 
 as he threw himself upon a ciiair, took a scat right opposite 
 to him.
 
 78 Mysterious Legends of Edinbii^"^h. 
 
 " Ye '11 no ken me, Tammas Dcdds ?" said she. 
 Whereupon Tammas looked and looked again, and still 
 t!ie likeness he dreaded was so impressive that, in place of 
 moving his tongue, he moved, that is, he shuddered all over. 
 
 u;vhat — eh?" at length he stuttered; "ken ye; wha in 
 •Clod's name are ye ? No surely Mrs Janet Dodds in the like- 
 ness of the flesh 1" 
 
 "No, but her sister, Mrs Paterson," replied the other. 
 " And is it possible ye can bae forgotten tlie only woman who 
 was jjrfsent at your first marriage V 
 
 '.Ay, ay," replied ''"ammas, as he began to come to a 
 proper condition of perceiving and tliinking ; "and it was you, 
 then, wha was here this morning T' 
 
 "No, no," replied she, "I have not been here for seven 
 long years, even since that terrible night when you pushed 
 Janet into the North Loch." 
 
 "And may Heaven and its angels hae mercy upon me'." 
 ejaculated he. 
 
 " Aiblins they may," said she, " for your purpose was de- 
 feated ; yea, even by that Heaven and thae angels." 
 
 "What mean you, woman T' cried the astonished man. 
 " What, in the name o' a that 's gude on eartli and holy in 
 heaven, do ye mean?" 
 
 " fust that Janet Dodds is at this hour a leevin" woman," 
 was the reply. 
 
 "The Lord be thanked!" cried Tammas, again, "for 'He 
 preserveth all them that love Llim.' " 
 
 " But all the wicked He will destroy," returned she; "and 
 surely it was wicked to try to drown sae faithful a wife and sae 
 gude a Christian." 
 
 "Wicked!" rejoined he, in rising agony. "Let the right- 
 eous smite me, it shall be a kindness ; and let them reprove 
 rae, it shall, as Solomon says, be an excellent oil." 
 
 " I am glad," continued the woman, " to find you with a 
 
 i
 
 The Bmwnic of the West Bow. 79 
 
 turned heart ; but whaur is the Jezebel ye took in her 
 place ?" 
 
 " Awa this day," replied he. " I have found her out, and 
 never mair is she wife o' mine." 
 
 " Sae far weel and better," said she. 
 
 " Ay, but speak to me o' Janet," cried he, earnestly. 
 " Come, tell me how she escaped, whaur she is, and how she 
 is — for now I think there is light breaking through the fearfu' 
 cloud." 
 
 " Light indeed," continued Mrs Paterson ; " and now listen 
 to a strange tale, mair wonderfu' than man s brain ever cok- 
 ccived. When ye thought ye had drowned her, and caret 1 
 uaething doubtless, for 3-e see I maun s])eak pi in, wliethcr her 
 spirit went to the ae place or the ither, ay, and ran awa to add 
 to murder a lee, she struggled out o' the deep, yea — 
 
 * He took her from the fearfu' pit, 
 And from the miry clay.' 
 
 And Avhen she got to the bank, she ran as for the little life that 
 was in her, imtil she came to the foot o' Halkerstone's Wynd, 
 where she crossed to the other side of the loch. When she 
 thought hersel' safe, she took the road to Glasgow, where I 
 was then living wi' my husband, wha is since dead. The night 
 was dark ; but self-preservation maks nae gobs at dangers, 
 so on she went, till in the gray morning she made up to the 
 Glasgow carrier, wha agreed to gie her a cast even to the end 
 o' his journey. It was the next night when she arrived at my 
 door, cold and hungry, and, what was waur, sair and sick at 
 heart. She told me the hail story as weel as she could for 
 sobs and greeting j for the thought ay rugged at her heart that 
 the man she had liked sae weel, and had toiled for night and 
 day, should hae turned out to be the murderer o' his ain wife." 
 "And weel it mi^dit hae rui^c^^ed and rugged," ejaculated 
 Tammas.
 
 So Mysterw7is Legends of Edinbtirgh. 
 
 " I got aflf her wet clothes," continued she, " and gave 
 some strong drink to warm her, and then we considered wha 
 was to be dune. My husband was for aff to Edinburgh to 
 inform on ye, even if there should hae been a drawing o' the 
 neck on 't; but Janet cried, and entreated baith him and me to 
 keep the thing quiet. She said she couldna gae back to you, 
 and as for getting you punislied, slie couldna l)ear the thought 
 o't. And then we a' thought what a disgrace it would be 
 to our family if it were thought that my sister had been 
 attempted to be murdered by her husljand. We knew weel 
 enou,d-i ye would say s!ie had fallen in bv accident; and when 
 afterwards we heard that ye had buried a body that had been 
 found in the loch, we made up our minds as to what we would 
 do. We just agreed to keep Janet under her maiden name. 
 Nane in Cilasgow had ever seen her before, and her ain sorrows 
 kept her within door.i, so that the secret wasna ill to keep. 
 Years afterAvards, my husband was ta'en from me, and Janet 
 and I came about twa months syne to live at Juniper Green 
 wi" John Paterson, my husband's brother, wha had offered us 
 a hame." 
 
 " .\nd is Janet there now '\ '' cried Tammas, impa- 
 ti.'ntly. 
 
 " Ay," continued Mrs Paterson ; " but, alas : she 's no what 
 ^he was. She gets at times out o her reason, and will be that 
 way for days thegether The doctor iias a name for it ower 
 lang for my tongue; but it tells naething but what we ken ower 
 weel. When in thae fits she thinks she is here in the Bow and 
 living with you, and working and moiling in the house just as 
 she used to do langsyne. Mairower, and that troubles us 
 maist ava, she will be out when the reason 's no in, so that 
 we are obliged to watch her. Five days s}-ne, she was aff 
 in the morning before daylight, and even so late as this morn- 
 ing she played us the same trick , whaur she gaed we couldna 
 tell, but I had some suspicion she was here."
 
 The Brownie of the West Bow. 8 1 
 
 " Ay," replied Mr Dodds, as he opened his eyes very wide ; 
 " she was here wi' a vengeance." 
 
 Thus Mrs Paterson's story was finished ; and our legend 
 of the Brownie, more veritable, we opine, than that of Bods- 
 beck, is also drawing to a conclusion. Tammas, after a 
 period of meditation, more like one of Janet's hallucinations 
 than a fit of rational thinking, asked his sister-in-law whether 
 she thought that Janet, in the event of her getting quit of 
 her day-dreams, would consent to live with him again. To 
 which question she answered that she was not certain ; for 
 that Janet, when in her usual state of mind, was still wroth 
 against him for the attempt to take away her life ; but she 
 added that she had no objection, seeing he was penitent, to 
 give him an opportunity to plead for himself. She even went 
 further, and agreed to use her influence to bring about a recon- 
 ciliation. It was therefore agreed between them that the sister 
 should call again when Janet had got quit of her temporary 
 derangement, and Thomas might follow up this intimation 
 with a visit. About four days thereafter, accordingly, Mrs 
 Paterson kept her word, and next day Mr Dodds repaired 
 to Juniper Green. At first Janet refused to see him; but upon 
 Mrs Paterson's representations of his penitence and suffering, 
 she became reconciled to an mterview. We may venture to 
 say, without attemptmg a description of a meeting unparal- 
 leled in history, that if Janet Dodds had not been a veritable 
 Calvinist, no good could have come of all Mr Dodds's profes- 
 sions ; but she knew that the Master cast out the dumb spirit 
 which tore the possessed, and that that spirit attempted mur- 
 der not less than Tammas. Wherefore might not his dumb . 
 spirit be cast out as well by that grace which aboundeth in 
 the bosom of the Saviour? We do not say that a return of 
 her old love helped this deduction, because we do not wish to 
 mix up profane with sacred things. Enough, if we can certify 
 that a very happy conclusion was the result. The doctor did 
 
 E
 
 82 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 his duty, and Janet having been declared compos mentis, 
 returned to her old home. Her first duty was to look for " the 
 pose." It was gone in the manner we have set forth ; but 
 Janet could collect another, and no doubt in due time did, 
 nor did she fail of any of her old peculiarities, all of which 
 became endeared to Thomas by reason of their being veritable 
 sacrifices to his domestic comfort.
 
 HE sources of legends are not often found in old ser- 
 mons ; and yet it will be admitted that there are 
 few remarkable events in man's history, which, if 
 inquired into, will not be found to embrace the 
 elements of veiy impressive pulpit discourses. Even in cases 
 which seem to disprove a special, if not a general Providence, 
 there will always be found in the account between earth and 
 heaven some " desperate debt," mayhap an " accommodation 
 bill,' which justifies the ways of God to man. It may even be 
 said that the fact of our being generally able to find that item 
 is a proof of the wonderful adaptability of Christianity to the 
 fortunes and hopes of our race. That ministers avoid the 
 special topics of peculiar destinies may easily be accounted for 
 otherwise than by supposing that they cannot explain them so 
 as to vindicate God's justice ; but if ever there was a case 
 where that difficulty would seem to the eye of mere reason to 
 culminate in impossibility, it is that which I have gleaned 
 from a veritable pulpit lecture. I have the sermon in my pos- 
 session, but from the want of the title-page, I am unable to 
 ascertain the author. The date at the end is 1793, and the 
 text is, " Inscrutable are His judgments." 
 
 Inscrutable indeed in the case to which the words were 
 applied — no other than an instance of death by starvation, 
 which occurred in Edinburgh in the year we have just men- 
 tioned. In that retreat of poverty called Middleton's Entrj^-, 
 which joins the dark street called the Potterrow and Bristo
 
 84 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 Street, the inhabitants were roused into surprise, if not a 
 feehng approaching to horror, by the discovery that a woman, 
 who had Hved for a period of fifteen years in a sohtary room 
 at the top of one of the tenements, had been found in bed 
 dead. A doctor was called, but before he came it was con- 
 cluded by those who had assembled in the small room that 
 she had died from want of food, and such was the fact. The 
 body — that of one not yet much past the middle of life, and 
 with fair complexion and comely features — was so emaciated, 
 that you might have counted the ribs merely by the eye ; and 
 all those parts where the bones are naturally near the surface 
 exhibited a sharpness which suggested the fancy, that as you 
 may see a phosphorescent skeleton through the glow, you 
 beheld the form of the grim figure of death under the thin 
 covering of the bones. She realised, in short, the description 
 which doctors give of the a])pearance of those unfortunate 
 beings who die of what is technically called atnf/iia faniili- 
 conwt — that Nemesis of civilisation which points scornfully 
 to the victim of want, and then looks round on God's bountiful 
 table, set for the meanest of His creatures. So ve may indite ; 
 but rhetoric, which is useless where the images cannot rise to 
 the dignity or descend to the humiliation of the visible fact, 
 must always come short of the effect of the plain words that a 
 human creature — perhaps good and amiable and delicate to 
 that shyness which cannot complain— has died in the very 
 midst of a proclaimed philanthropy, and within the limits of 
 a space comprehending smoking tables covered with luxuries, 
 and surrounded by Christian men and women filled with meat 
 and drink to repletion and satiety. 
 
 Some such thoughts might have been passing through the 
 minds of the assembled neighbours ; and they could not be 
 said to be the less true that a shrunk and partially-withered 
 right arm shewed that the doom of the woman had been so 
 far precipitated by the still remaining effects of an old stroke
 
 The Ancient Bureati. 85 
 
 of palsy. And the gossip confirmed this, going also into 
 particulars of observation — how she had kept herself so to 
 herself as if she wished to avoid the neighbours — a fact which 
 to an extent justified their imputed want of attention ; how 
 almost the only individual who had visited her was a peculiar 
 being, in the shape of a very little man, with a slight Hmp and 
 thin pleasant features, illuminated by a pair of dark, pene- 
 trating eyes. For years and years had he been seen, always 
 about the same hour of the day, ascending her stair, and carry- 
 ing a flagon, supposed to contain articles of food. Then the 
 gossiping embraced the furniture and other articles in the 
 room, which, however they might have been unnoticed before, 
 had now assumed the usual interest when seen in the blue light 
 of the acted tragedy : the small mahogany table and the two 
 chairs — how strange that they should be of mahogany ! — and 
 some of the few marrowless plates in the rack over the fire- 
 place, why, they were absolute china ! but above all, the exqui- 
 site littli bureau of French manufacture, with its drawers, its 
 desk, and pigeon holes, and cunning slides — what on earth was 
 it doing in that room, when its value even to a broker would 
 have kept the woman alive for months 1 Questions these put 
 by a roused curiosity, and perhaps not worth answer. Was 
 not she a woman, and was not that enough ? 
 
 Not enough ; for legendary details cluster round startling 
 events, and often carry a moral which may prevent a repetition 
 of these ; and so had it not been for this apparently inexplic- 
 able death by starvation, our wonderful story might never have 
 gathered listeners round the evening fire. We must go back 
 some twenty years before the date of the said sermon to find 
 a certain merchant-burgess of the city of Edinburgh, David 
 Grierson, occupy'ng a portion of a front land situated in the 
 Canongate, a little to the east of Leith Wynd. It would be 
 sheer affectation in us to pretend that this merchant-burgess 
 had any m ntal or physical characteristic about him to justify
 
 86 Mysterious Legends of Edinbzcrgh. 
 
 his appearance in a romance, if we except the power he had 
 shewn of amassing wealth, of which he had so n-^uch that lie 
 could boast the possession of more than twenty goodly tene- 
 ments, some of wood and some of stoiie, besicies shares of 
 ships and bank stock. And no doubt this exception might 
 stand for the thing excepted from, for money, though com- 
 monly said to be extraneous, is often so far in its hifluences 
 intraneous, that it changes the feelings and motives, and 
 enables them to work. And then don't we know that it 
 is by extraneous things we are mostly led % But, however all 
 that may be, certain it is that our merchant-burgess was a great 
 man in his own house in tl"ie Canongate, where his family 
 consisted of Rachel Grierson, his natural daughter, by a 
 woman who had been long dead, and Walter Grierson, his 
 legitimate nephew, who had been left an oq^han in his early 
 years, and who was his nearest lawful heir. Two servants 
 completed the household ; and surely in this rather curious 
 combination there might be, if only circumstances were favour- 
 able to their development, elements which might mipart 
 interest to a story. 
 
 So long as the shadow of the dark angel was, as Time 
 counted, far away from him. Burgess David was comparatively 
 happy ; but as he got old and older, he began to realise the 
 condition of the poet — 
 
 "Now p]east7re will no longer please. 
 
 And all the joys of life are gone ; 
 I ask no more on earth but case. 
 
 To be at peace, and Ix; alone : 
 I ask in vain the winged powers 
 
 That weave man's destiny on high ; 
 In vain I ask the golden hours 
 
 That o'er my head for ever fly." 
 
 Then he waxed more and more anxious as to Av'iat he was 
 to do with his money. He tried to put away the thought ; but
 
 The Ancient Bureau. 87 
 
 the terrible tjia^istra necessitas went round and round him with 
 ever-diminishing circles, clearly indicating a conflict in which 
 he must succumb. He must make a will, an act which it is 
 said no man is ever in a hearty condition to perform, unless 
 mayhap he is angry, and wishes to cut off an ungrateful dog 
 with a shilling ; and besides the general disincUnation to sign 
 the disposal of so much wealth, of which he was more than 
 ordinarily fond, and to give away, as it were, omnia prceter 
 animam, in the very view of giving away the soul too, he was 
 in a great perplexity as to how to divide his means. Nor 
 could he reconcile Iiimself to a division at all, preferring, as 
 the greatly lesser evil, the alternative of destinating his fortune 
 all of a lump, with some hope of its being kept together. As 
 for Walter, though he had some affection for him, he had not 
 much confidence in him, for he had seen that he was hare- 
 brained as regarded things which suited his fancy, and pig- 
 brained as respected those which solicited and required sound 
 judgment; while Rachel, again, was everything which, among 
 the lower angels, could be comprehended under the delightful 
 title of " dear soul," an amiable and devoted creature, as stead- 
 fast in her affections as she was wise in the selection of their 
 objects. So by revolving in his mind all the beauties of the 
 character of her who, however disqualified by law, was still of 
 his flesh and blood, yea, of his very nature, as he complacently 
 thought in comphment to himself, he became more and more 
 reconciled to his intention, if the very thought of making a 
 will, which had been horrible to him, did not become even 
 a pleasing kind of meditation. So is it — when nature imposes 
 an inevitable duty, she gives man tlie power of inventing a 
 pleasing reason for his obedience ; nay, so much of a self- 
 dissembler is he that he even cheats himself into the belief 
 that his obedience is an act of his own will. In all which 
 he at least proved the value of one of the arguments in favour 
 of m"n-'"irej for trite i*^ "'" *'0 say a bachelor bears to no one a
 
 88 Mysterious Legends of E €11715117^/1. 
 
 love which reconciles him to will-making, while a father, in 
 leaving his means to his children, feels as if he were giving to 
 himself But this plan of our merchant-burgess had in addition 
 a spice of ingenuity in it which still more pleased him — he 
 would so contrive matters that the daughter and the nephew 
 would become, after his death, man and wife. He had only 
 some doul.-ts Itow fir tlieir tastes agreed, probably an absurd 
 condition, in so much as we all know that love is often struck 
 out by opposition, and that there is a pleasant suitaliility in a 
 husband preferring the head of a herring and the wife the 
 tail. 
 
 Having thus arrived at a sense of his duty by the pleasant 
 path of his affection, Mr David (irierson seized the first oppor- 
 tunity which presented itself of sounding the heart of R chel, 
 in order to know in what direction her atiections ran. Sitting 
 in his big chair, all so comfortably cushioned by tlie hands 
 of the said Rachel herself and with a good fire alongside, 
 due also to her unremitting care, he called her to him, am! 
 placing his arm round her waist, as he was often in the habit 
 of doing, said to her — 
 
 " Rachel, dear, I feel day by day my strength leaving me, 
 and it may be, nay, will be, that 1 will not be very much longer 
 with you." 
 
 Rachel looked at him for a little, but said nothing, for, as 
 the saying loes, her heart came to her mouth, and she could 
 not have spoken even if she would ; but the father understood 
 all this, and preferred the mute expression of a real grief to a 
 hysterical burst — of which, indeed, her calm genial nature was 
 incapable. 
 
 " Forgive me, dear," continued he, " for I would not will- 
 ingly cause you sorrow, but I have a reason for speaking in this 
 grave way. Who is to fill the old arm-chair when I cannot 
 occupy it?" 
 
 And he smiled somewhat grimly as he sought her eye, in
 
 The Ancient Bureau. 89 
 
 which he could observe the most real of all nature's evidences 
 of emotion. 
 
 "What mean you, father?" she replied, with sometliing like 
 an effort to respond to his humour. 
 
 " Why, then, Rachel," he said, " to be out with it, I want to 
 know whether you have fixed your heart on any one." 
 
 " Only upon you, dear father," she replied, with a smile 
 which struggled against her seriousness. 
 
 *' Nay, Rachel," continued he. " It is no Ught matter, and I 
 must have an answer. I intend to leave you my whole fortune, 
 but upon one condition, which is, that if Walter Gricrson shall 
 sue for your hand you will consent to marry him." 
 
 To this there was a reply given with an alacrity which 
 shewed how her heart j)ointed — "Yes:" then, adding that 
 wonderful little word, " but," which makes such havoc among 
 our resolutions, she paused, while her eyes sought the 
 ground. 
 
 '• What ' but ' can be here ?" interjected the old man. 
 " Surely you do not mean to doubt whether he would con- 
 sent?" 
 
 "And yet that is just my doubt," she replied, as if she felt 
 humiliated by the admission. 
 
 " Doubt I" cried the father, in rising wrath , "doubt — doubt 
 if a beggar would consent to be made rich by marrying yoti! 
 Why, Rachel, dear, if the fellow were to breathe a sigh of 
 hesitation, he would deserve to be a beggar with more holes 
 than wholes in his gabardine, and too poor even to possess a 
 wallet to carry his bones and crumbs. Have you any reason 
 for your strange statement ? ' 
 
 " No," replied the girl, with a sigh. " It is only my heart 
 that speaks." 
 
 " And the heart never lies," said he, sharply ; " but I shall 
 see," he muttered to himself, " whether a certain tongue in a 
 certain head shall speak in the same way."
 
 90 jMystcrioiLS Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 " But \vo']!d it not bring me down," said she, " were he to 
 iliink that he was forced by a promise f 
 
 " A pi omise," rejoined he : " why, so it would, my dear. 
 ! see you are right." But then he thought he could sound 
 him without putting any o'.jKgation upon him. "And a prjtty 
 obhgation it would be," he continued, ''for a young felluw >jat 
 off with a shiUing to bind hi.nself to consent to be the acccpior 
 of two such gifts as a fine girl and a fortune." 
 
 -\nd ikirgess David tried to laugh, but the effort was still 
 that of a hea\7 heart, and, reclining his head upon the back of 
 the chair, he relapsed into those thoughts which, as age 
 advances to the tenn where Hope throws down her lamp, 
 press in an.d in upon the spirit. Rachel glided away quietly, 
 perhaps to think, and certainly she had something to thhik 
 about. 
 
 So, too, doubtless had Mr David Grierson, who, after 
 indulging in his reverie, wherein the subJL-ct of will-making 
 sLi'^rested a match between himself and a certain bridegroom 
 \\\vo never says nay, awoke to the interest of his scheme of 
 match-making in this world. So far he had accomplished his 
 object, for he could rely upon his faithful Rachel's performance 
 of her promise , and if the two should be married, he knew 
 how to take care to give her tlie power of the money, and 
 keep a youth \\\ whose prudence he had no great faith in 
 proper check. Next he had to sound the nephew. Nor was 
 it long before he had an opportunity- -even that same after- 
 noon. 
 
 " Walter,''' he began with an abruptness, for which probably 
 the young man was scarcely prepared, " I am getting old, and 
 must now think of arranging my affairs so as to endeavour to 
 make my fortune serve the purpose of rendering those happy in 
 whom I have a natural interest. So I have some interest also 
 as well as, I suspect, some right to put the question to yoL. 
 whether you ever thought of Rachel Grierson for your wife?"
 
 The Ancient Bureau. 9 1 
 
 " Upon my word," replied the nephew, ^\-ith just as litde 
 mauvais ho?ite as suited his nature, "I never thought of aspiring 
 to the hon iir." 
 
 A word this last which grated on the ear of the rich mer- 
 chant-burgess, inasmuch as it suggested a suspicion of the 
 figure of speech called irony, seeing that Rachel Grierson was 
 a bastard, and the youth carried the legitimate blood of the 
 Griersons in his veins. 
 
 " Honour or no honour," replied he, sharply, and perhaps 
 contrary to his original intention, " Rachel Grierson is to in- 
 herit my fortune, ay, ever)- penny thereof 
 
 " Every penny thereof," echoed the youth, as if his mind 
 had flown away with the words, and dropt them in despair as 
 it flew. 
 
 "Yes," rejoined the angr}- uncle, "lands, tenements, heredi- 
 taments, shares, dividends, stock, furniture, beii and table 
 linen." 
 
 " And table linen," echoed the entranced nephew. 
 
 " Yes ; everything," continued the uncle, and, calming down 
 as he saw the white lips and blank despair of the youth, he 
 added — -"And to you I will leave and bequeath my natural- 
 born daughter, Rachel Grierson." 
 
 And as he uttered these significant words, he watched care- 
 fully the face of the youth, where, however, all indications 
 defied his perspicacity, inasmuch as blank astonishment was 
 still the prevailing expression. But after some minutes, the 
 young man stuttered out — 
 
 " A legacy worthy of a nobleman." 
 
 Words that sounded beautifully, because they were true as 
 regarded Rachel, whatever they might be as respected his 
 secret intention ; yet, as tlie children vaticinate from the 
 examination of each others' tongues, if the uncle had examined 
 that organ, he might have discovered some of those blue lines 
 which produce an exclamation from the youni-- augurs
 
 92 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 " IVords worthy, too, of a nobleman," cried the old man, 
 in a trembling voice ; and holding out his hand, which shook 
 tinder his emotion of delight at hearing his beloved Rachel 
 so praised, he seized that of his nephew — 
 
 " Yes, Walter," he added, " you have by these words re- 
 deemed yourself, and I will take them as an ofiFering of your 
 willingness to accept my legacy ; but, remember, I extort no 
 promise, which might reduce the value of a young woman's 
 affection, — a gift to be accepted for its own sake. 
 
 " I am content,'' said Walter. 
 
 "And I am satisfied," added the uncle. " But here is wine 
 on the table," he continued, as he turned his eye in the direc- 
 tion of a decanter of good claret, just as if Rachel had, by 
 her art of love, anticipated what he wished at this moment. 
 " Ah, Walter, if she sliall watch your wants as she has done 
 mii;e, you will live to feel that you cannot want he?-, and live ; 
 so, fill up a glass for me, and one for yourself, that we may 
 drink to the happiness of the dear girl when, after I am dead, 
 she shall become your wedded wife." 
 
 " With all and sundr};- lands, tenements, hereditaments, and 
 so forth," cried Walter, with a laugh which might pass as 
 genuine, and which was responded to by a chuckle from the 
 dry throat of the uncle, which certainly was so. 
 
 So the pledge was taken, and Walter Grierson went away, 
 leaving the old merchani-burgess as happy as any poor mortal 
 creature can be when so near the term of his departure. 
 Such is our way of speaking, and yet we are forced to admit, 
 that at no period of life, however near the ultimate, abating 
 the advent of the great illumination which breaks, like a new 
 dawn, upon the internal sense of a favoured few, can you 
 say that the hold of this world upon the spirit is ever re- 
 nounced. Whether the young man was as happy, we may 
 not venture to say , but this we might surmise, even at this 
 stage of our story, and in reference to the classical proverb,
 
 The Aficient Bureau. 93 
 
 that the bastard might be the beautiful Nisa, and the lawful 
 heir the ill-favoured Mopsus. 
 
 These things we may leave to development ; and with a 
 caution to the reader not to be over-suspicious, we will follow 
 our Nisa, Rachel Grierson, as she proceeds from the hou.^e 
 of the merchant-burgess up the High Street, at a period of 
 the evening of the same day when the shadows of the tall 
 lands wrapped the crowds of loiterers and passengers almost 
 in utter darkness ; not that she chose this time for any pur- 
 pose of secrecy, — for she had no secret, except that solitary 
 one which every young woman has, and holds, up to the 
 minute of conviction, that she is engaged, after which it 
 becomes a fame blown by her cwn breath, but simply because 
 it suited the routine of her duties. Her night-cloak kept her 
 from the cold, and the panoply of her virtue secured her from 
 insult \ so, threading her way amidst the throng, she arrived 
 at the head of the old winding street called the West Bow, 
 where, at a projection a little to the north of Major Weirs 
 entry, she mounted a narrow stair. On arriving at a door 
 on the third landing-place, she tapped gently, and, in obedi- 
 ence to a shrill voice, which cried " Come in," she lifted the 
 latch, and entered a small room, where, at a bench, sat a very 
 peculiar personage. This was no other than the famous Paul 
 Bennett, an artist in jewellery, who, at that time, excelled all 
 his compeers for beauty of design and exquisite refinement 
 of minute elaboration. And this, jjerhajis, a good judge of 
 mankind might have augured of him ; for while his body was 
 far below the middle size, his long, thin fingers, tapering to 
 a point, seemed to be suitable instruments intended to serve 
 a pair of dark eyes, so lustrous and sharp that nothing within 
 the point of the beginning of mfinitesimals might seem to 
 escape them. Nor was his pale face less suggestive of his 
 peculiar faculties \ for it was made up of fine, delicate features, 
 harmonised into regularity, and so expressive, that it seemed
 
 94 Mysterious Legends of Edmburgh. 
 
 to change with every feeling of the moment, even as the flitting 
 moonbeams play on the face of a statue. In addition to these 
 peculiarities, his appearance was rendered the more striking, 
 that, working as he did under a strong reflected light, cast 
 down immediately before his face by a dark shade, the upper 
 part of his person, and a circle on the bench, were in bright 
 relief, wliile the other parts of the room were comparatively 
 dark. 
 
 " Still at work, Paul," said Rachel, as she entered ; " how 
 long do you intend to work to night V 
 
 "Till the idea becomes dim, and the sense waxes thick," 
 replied he, as he turned his eyes upon her. 
 
 " I have something to tell you," she continued, as she sat 
 down on a chair between him and the fire, if that could be 
 called such which consisted of some red cinders. 
 
 "Some other wonder," replied he; "another cropping out 
 of the workings of fate." 
 
 Words these, as coming from our little artist, which require 
 some explanation, to the effect that Paul was a philosopher, 
 too, in his own way. Early misfortunes, v/hich mocked the 
 resolutions of a will never very strong, had played into a habit 
 of thinking, and brought him to the conviction that every 
 movement or change in the moral world, not less than in the 
 physical, is the result of a cause which runs back through 
 endless generations to tlie first man, and even beyond him. 
 Paul was, in short, a fatalist ; not of that kind which romance 
 writers feign in order to make the character work through a 
 gloomy presentiment of his own destiny, but merely a believer 
 in a universal original decree, the workings of which we never 
 know until the effects are seen. A fatalist of this kind almost 
 every man is, less or more, in some mood or another ; only to 
 save hims.Mf from being a puppet, moved by springs or drawn 
 by strings, he generally contrives to except his ^oill from the 
 scheme of tiic iron-bound necessity. But Paul would permit
 
 The Ancient Bttreart. 95 
 
 of no such exception. The will, with him, was merely the 
 motive in action; and as he compelled you to admit that no 
 thought is, in man's experience, ever called into being, onlv 
 developed from prior conditions, and that, even as to an idea, 
 the doctrine. Nihil nisi ex ovo, is true, and therefore that no 
 man can manufacture a motive, so he took a short way with 
 the maintainers of a moral liberty. This doctrine, so gloomv, 
 so grand, yet so terrible, was, to Paul, a conviction, which he 
 almost made practical; nay, he, seemed to realise a kind of 
 poetic pleasure from reveries, which represented to him the 
 universe, with the sun and the stars, and all living creatures 
 — walking, flying, swimming, or crawling — going through their 
 parts in the great melodrama of destiny, no one knowing how, 
 or why, or wherefore, yet every human being believing that he 
 is master of his actions, at the very moment that he might 
 be conscious that his belief is only a part of the great law of 
 necessity. Then it seemed as if this delusion in which men 
 indulge, and are forced to indulge, was an element of the farce 
 introduced into the play, so as to relieve the mind from the 
 heavy burden of contemi)lating so temble a theor)\ 
 
 " Something to tell me, Rachel," continued he, " and what 
 may that be ''' 
 
 *' My father has told me to-day," replied she, " that he is to 
 leave me all his fortune, and, however grieved I may be at the 
 thought of losing him, I am glad to think that it may be in my 
 power to be of service to you, Paul, as my only relative on my 
 mother's side." 
 
 " Service," muttered Paul to himself, while he looked into 
 her face as wistfully as a lover, which indeed he was, though 
 in secret; "and what is to become of Walter Grierson I" he 
 asked. 
 
 *' When he finds that the entire fortune is mine," replied she, 
 " he will propose to maiTy me ; and this is what my father 
 wishes to bring about by putting the fortune in my j^owcr."
 
 96 Mysterious Legends of Edinbitrgh. 
 
 " So the events crop out from the long chain of causes," 
 thought Paul; "but who shall tell the final issue? Look here, 
 Rachel," he continued, as he laid his hand on a golden locket 
 which lay betore him of the shape of a heart ; " I have made 
 this to order," and as he spoke he touched a spring, whereupon 
 a lid opened, and up flew a pair of tiny doves, which, with 
 fluttering wings of gold and azure, immediately saluted each 
 other with their long bills, and piped a few notes in imitation 
 of the cushat. The touch of another spring immediately con- 
 signed them a2;ain to tlie cavity of the heart, — a conceit alto- 
 gether of such refined manufacture and ingenuity of design, 
 as to remind us of the saying of Cicero, that there is an 
 exquisiteness in art which nevtr can be known till it is seen 
 fresh from the hand of genius. 
 
 "And who ordered that beautiful thing?" inquired Rachel. 
 
 " Walter Grierson," replied Paul, fixing his eyes upon her 
 sorrowfully, as if he felt ojjpressed by that gloomy theory of 
 his. 
 
 Nor did he fail to perceive the eftect his few words had pro- 
 duced upon the heart of his cousin, where there was a fluttering 
 very difi'crent from that of cooing turtles ; for the fate of her 
 happiness seemed to her to be suspended on the answer to a 
 question, and that question she was afraid to put. 
 
 " Be patient, and learn to hear," continued the little philo- 
 sopher. " Ere yet Cheops built the Pyramids, or Joshua com- 
 manded the sun to stand still; yea, before the first sensation 
 tingled in the first nerve made out of the dust, the beginnings 
 were laid of these events of this day and hour, and, in par- 
 ticular, of that one which may well astonish you and grieve 
 you, — viz., that the locket is intended for and inscribed to 
 Agnes Ainslie." 
 
 "Agnes Ainslie!" repeated Rachel, with parched lips and 
 trembling voice, "the daughter of Mr John Ainslie, my father's 
 agent, to whom I am even now going, by Mr Grierson's com-
 
 The Aiicient Bureau. 97 
 
 mand, to request him to call to-morrow for the purpose of 
 preparing the settlement." 
 
 " A strange perplexity of events," said Paul ; " but what is 
 this mingling of threads to the great web of the universe, 
 which is eternally being woven and unwoven, unaffected by the 
 will of mani and then these small issues, the loss of a fortune 
 by a man, and that of a lover by a woman, how mighty they 
 are to the individual hearts and aftections ! " 
 
 " Mighty indeed," sobbed Rachel, who had loved Walter so 
 long, and rejoiced to have it in her power to bestowa fortune 
 upon him, and now found all her hopes dissolved into the 
 ashes of grief and disappointment. " Mighty indeed ; and 
 these thoughts of yours are so dreary, how can one beheve in 
 them and live ! " 
 
 " We are compelled to live," replied he, " even by that 
 same decree which binds us to the infinite chain. Were it not 
 so, man would imitate the day-flies, and die at sun-down, that 
 he might escape the dark night which reveals to him the mys- 
 tery of his being, whereat he trembles and sobs; and all this is 
 also in the decree." 
 
 " But if all these things are so," said Rachel, " what do you 
 say of happiness ? Is there no joy in the world % — are not the 
 birds happy, when, in the morning, the woods resound with 
 their song, and so, too, every animal after its kind % Are not 
 children joyful when the house rings with their mirth? and 
 have not men and women their pleasures of a thousand kinds? 
 nay, might not I myself have been one of the happiest of 
 bemgs if, with the fortune which is to be left to me, that 
 locket had been engraved with the name of Rachel Grierson 
 in place of Agnes Ainslie ?" 
 
 " Yes," replied he, " happiness is in the decree as well ; 
 "and," he added, with a smile, "it is always cropping out 
 around us ; but no one can manufacture the article. If you 
 wait for it, you may feel it — if you run after it, you will most
 
 98 Mysterious Legends of Edinbttrgh. 
 
 probably not find it, because it is not ready by those eternal 
 laws which, at their beginning, involved its coming up at a 
 certain moment of long after years. Then, at the best, plea- 
 sure and pain are mere oscillations ; but the first movement 
 is downwards — for we cry when we come into the world ; and 
 the last is also downwards — for we groan when we go out of 
 it. It is the old rhyme — 
 
 ' We scream when we 're bom, 
 
 We groan when we 're dying ; 
 And all that's between 
 
 Is but laughing and cr)'ing.' " 
 
 A parade of philosophy all this which at another time might 
 have had but a small eft'ect upon a youthful mind ; but Rache? 
 was in the meantime occupied by looking at the inscription 
 on the fatal toy, and we all knoAv that the feeling of the 
 dominant idea of the moment assimilates to its own hue the 
 light or shade of all other ideas of a cognate kind ; and there 
 is in this process also a se ection and rejection whereby all 
 melancholy ideas cluster in the gloomy atmosphere, if we may 
 so term it, of the prevailing depression, and all jo3rful ones 
 come together by the attraction of a joyful thought ; and so 
 Rachel was impressed by views which, if they had been modi- 
 fied by the comforting doctrines of Christianity, might have 
 enabled her at once to bear and to hope. Even when Paul 
 had finished, she was still gazing on the locket. A moment or 
 two more, and she laid it down with a deep sigh, saying, 
 almost involuntarily, "If my name had been there, I would not 
 have repined at the loss of all my expected fortune." Then 
 shaking hands with this peculiar being, whom she could not 
 but respect for his ingenuity, as well as for a kindliness and 
 sympathy which lay at the bottom of all his abstract theories, 
 she left him to his work, at which he would continue til! 
 drowsiness made, as he said, the idea dim and the nerve 
 tliick.
 
 The Ancient Bureau. 99 
 
 Retracing her steps down the long dark stair, not a very effi- 
 cient medium for the removal of impressions so unlike the re- 
 sults of our natural consciousness, Rachel Grierson found her- 
 self again among the bustling crowds of the High Street. Nor 
 could she view these busy people in the light by which she 
 saw them before entering the little dark room of the philo- 
 sopher. Though she did not know the classical word, she 
 looked upon them as so many automata; and the long chain 
 of causes came into her mind so vividly, that she found her- 
 self repeating the very words of Paul. Then there was the ref- 
 erence to her own individual fate — and was it not through 
 the self-medium she saw all these people in so strange a light \ 
 — with Hope's lamp dashed down at her feet, and extinguished 
 at the very moment when, by the communication of her father, 
 she thought she had the means of recruiting it with a store of 
 oil never to be exhausted till possession was accomplished. 
 Still under these impressions, she came to the door of Mr 
 Ainslie's house. There were sounds of mirth and music com- 
 ing from within, and so plastic is the mind when under a deep 
 and engrossing feeling, that she found no difficulty in concen- 
 trating and modifying these sounds into joyful articulations 
 from the very mouths of Walter Grierson and Agnes Ainslie 
 themselves. Such are the moral echoes which respond to, be- 
 cause they are formed by the suspicions of, disappomted love. 
 No longer for the moment were Paul's thoughts true. These 
 happy beings inside were happy because they had the hearts 
 and the wills to enjoy; but she could draw no conclusion that 
 she herself could dispose her mind for the acceptance of the 
 world's pleasures also when her gloom should be away among 
 the shadows, and nature's innumerable enjoyments placed within 
 her power. Yet, withal, she could execute her commission, 
 and upon the door being opened, she could enter in the very 
 face of that mirth of which she fancied herself the victim. 
 On being shewn into a parlour, she was presently waited
 
 lOO Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 upon by Mr Ainslie, who seemed to her to have come from the 
 scene of enjoyment in the drawing-room. She could even 
 fancy that he eyed her as in some way standing in the patli of 
 his daughter's expectations through Walter — a fancy which c/f 
 course would gain strength from the some^Ahat excited manner 
 in which he received the words of her commission, to the effect 
 that he would repair the next forenoon to the house of the 
 merchant-burgess, for the purpose of preparing his last will and 
 testament. The notary agreed to attend, and thus, still con- 
 struing appearances according to the assimilating bent of her 
 mind, she departed for home. After going through the routine 
 of her domestic duties, and caring for her invalid father, she 
 retired to bed — that place of so-called rest, where mortals 
 chew the cud of the thoughts of the day, or of years; and how 
 unlike the two processes, the physical and the mental ; in the 
 one is brought up for a second enjoyment the green grass of 
 nature, still fresh and palatable and nutritious ; in the other, 
 the seared leaves of memory, feeding unavailing regrets, and 
 fining the microcosm with phantoms and dire shapes of evil, 
 the types whereof never had an existence in the outer world. 
 Walter Grierson was lost to her for ever, and the dire energies 
 of fate, as described by the artist-philosopher, seemed to hang 
 over her, claiming, in' harsh tones, her will as a mere instru- 
 ment in the working out of her own destiny. 
 
 Next day Mr Ainslie called, and was for along time closeted 
 with Mr Grierson ; but so careless was she now of the fortune 
 about being left to her, and which she was satisfied would not 
 now be a means of shewing her affection for Walter, that she 
 felt little interest in an affair which otherwise might have ap- 
 peared of so much importance to h-er. Her attention was not- 
 withstanding claimed by an incident. After the interview, the 
 notary visited Walter Grierson in his room, where -the young 
 man seemed to have been waiting for him. Irt-ordinary cir- 
 cumstances it might have appeared strange that a man of
 
 TJie Ancient Bureau. loi 
 
 business, bound to secrecy, would div'ulge the terms of a will 
 to any one, but far more that he should take means for ap- 
 prising a nephew that he was deprived of any share of his 
 uncle's means. Nor could she account for this interview on any 
 other supposition than that Mr Ainslie knew of the intentions 
 of Walter towards his daughter, and that he took this early op- 
 portunity of intimating that a disinherited young man, of the 
 grade of a merchant's clerk, would not, as a son-in-law, suit the 
 expectation of an ambitious writer. Yet out of this interview 
 there came to, xi not drawn by, her fancy a glimmer of hope, 
 insomuch as, if the young man were rejected by the notary in 
 consequence of the ban of disinheritance, he would be left to , 
 the attractions of her wealth; but this supposition involved the 
 assumption that her triumph would be over a mind that was 
 mercenary, and not over a heart predisposed to love ; nay, 
 her generosity revolted at the thought of gratifying her long- 
 concealed passion at the expense of the sacrificed love of 
 another.' "That other, too, had a better right to the object than 
 she herself, in so far that Agnes AinsHe's love had been 
 returned, while hers had not But these speculations were to 
 be brought to the test by words and actions. 
 
 No sooner had Mr Ainslie left than Rachel was visited in 
 her private parlour by Walter Grierson himself. He had seldom 
 taken that liberty before, for her secret passion had been ruled 
 by a stern virtue. A natural shyness, remote from coyness, de- 
 manded the conciliation of respect, though ready at a moment 
 to pass into the generosity of confidence where she was certain 
 of a return \ but his presence before her might have been 
 accounted for by his appearance, which was that of one whose 
 excitement was only attempted to be overborne by an effort — 
 "a result more mechanical than spiritual. His manner, not less 
 than his countenance, composed to gravity, was belied by the 
 tremulous light of his eye ; and, as he seized her hand and 
 pressed it fervently, she could feel that his trembled more than
 
 102 Mysterious Legends of Edinbtirgk. 
 
 her own. Her manner was also embarrassed, as it well might 
 be, where so many conflicting feelings, some revived from old 
 memories, and some produced by the singular events of tht- 
 day and hour, agitated her frame. 
 
 " I am going to surprise you, cousin," he said, while he fixed 
 his eye i\pon her, as if to watch the effect of his -words. 
 
 Rachel forgot for a moment the philosophy of Paul — \{\\y 
 should one be surpiised when the thing that is to be is a result 
 of a change in something else as old as Aldebaran, let alone 
 "the sun and the seven stars." She was indeed prepared for 
 a surprise. 
 
 " It is just the old story of the heart," he resumed. "Our 
 intercourse began so early, and partook so much of that of 
 mere relations, that I never could tell when the Tn^j^ social 
 feeling gave place to another which I need not mention. You 
 know, Rachel, what I mean." 
 
 She was silent, because she was distrustful, yet her heart 
 beat bravely in spite of her efforts ; for was not this man the 
 object of her love, and is not love moved with an eloquence 
 which makes reason ashamed of her poor figures and modes ? 
 
 "Yes," he went on, "I take it for granted thst you know I 
 am only labouring towards a confession. Yes., dear heart, for 
 years I have considered you as the one sole object in all this 
 world of fair visions formed to make me happy. You see I 
 cannot get out of the ordinary mode of speech. The lover is 
 fated to adjure, to praise, and to petition always in the same 
 set form of words — yet is not the confession enough?" 
 
 "So far," said slie; "but 1 have never seen any evidence of 
 all this," as if she wanted more in the same strain — sweet to 
 the ear, though distrusted by the reason. 
 
 " No more you have," he continued, " yet you know that 
 love is often suspicious of itself I have watched with my eye 
 your movements and attitudes when you thought I was not 
 observing you. My ear has followed your voice tlirough
 
 The Aiuient Bureau. 103 
 
 adjoining rooms when you thought I was listening to other 
 sounds. I have admired your words without venturing the 
 response of admiration. Often I have wished to fold you in 
 my arms when you dreamt nothing of my inward thoughts. 
 In short, Rachel, I have loved you for years ! yes, I have 
 enjoyed, or suffered, this gloating, yea, delightful misery of the 
 heart when it feeds upon its own secret treasures, and trembles 
 at the test which might dissolve the dream." 
 
 " And why this suppression and secrecy, Walter V she 
 asked. " How could you know," she continued, as she held 
 down her head, " that I would be adverse to your wishes ; 
 nay, that I was not even in the same condition as yourself T' 
 
 "Surely you do not mean to say that?" he cried, with some- 
 thing like the rapture of one relieved by pleasure from pain. 
 " I am not worthy even of the suspicion that you speak accord- 
 ing to the bidding of your heart Have I not watched your 
 looks, and penetrated into your eyes, to ascertain whether I 
 might venture to know my fate, and yet never could discover 
 even the symptom of a return ; and then was I not under a 
 conviction that your affections were engaged elsewhere V 
 
 " Where ?" asked Rachel, with a look of surprise. 
 
 "We are apparently drifting into confessions," responded 
 he. " I may say that I never could construe your visits to 
 Paul, the ingenious artist, merely as dictated by admiration of 
 his wonderful genius." 
 
 " You do not know that Paul is the son of my mother's 
 sister," replied she. " Your uncle knows ; but there may be 
 reasons why you don't" 
 
 " Then I am relieved," was the lover's ejaculation, in a tone 
 as if he had got quit of a great burden. 
 
 "Yes, that is the truth," continued she; "but I also confess 
 that I have been attracted to his small dark workshop by the 
 exquisite curiosities of art on which he is so often engaged, 
 and which, by occupying so much of his time, keep him poor.
 
 _ji04 Mysterious Legends of Ediiibttrgh. 
 
 It was only yesterday I saw on his bench a locket which 
 seems to transcend all his prior efforts." 
 
 The yovmg man smiled and nodded. What could he mean 1 
 Why was he not dumbfounderedl 
 
 " It is in the shape of a heart," she continued ; " and upon 
 touching a spring there fly up two tinj figures, which, with 
 fluttering wings, seem to devour each other mth kisses." 
 
 Words which forced themselves out of her in spite o^ her 
 shyness; but which she could not follow up by more than a 
 side-look at her admirer. 
 
 "And upon which," said he, still smiling, " there is engraven 
 the inscription, ' From Walter Grierson to x^gnes Ainslie.' " 
 
 " Yes," sighed Rachel, " the very words. I read them 
 again and again, and could scarcely believe my eyes." 
 
 " And well you might not," said he ; " but your simple 
 heart has never yet informed jou that love finds cot strange 
 inventions. I have been guilt}' of a rrise tfam •ur, for which I 
 beg your pardon. Knowing that you were in the habit of visit- 
 ing Paul's workroom, and seeing all the work of his cunning 
 fingers, I got him to make the locket out of a piece of gold I 
 got from my uncle, and the inscription was" — and here he 
 paused as if to watch her expression ; " yes, dcsigiied to 
 quicken your affection for me by awakening jealousy. I con- 
 fess it. Agnes Ainslie v/as and is nothing to me; and I used 
 her name merely because I thought that you would view her 
 as a likely rival." 
 
 "Can all this be true?" muttered Rachel to herself, as the 
 wish to believe was pursued by the doubt which revolted against 
 a departure from all natural and rational actions. 
 
 Perhaps she was not vei-sed in the waj^s of the world ; but 
 whether so or not, the difference in effect would have been 
 small ; for what man, beloved by a woman, CA'er yet pled his 
 cause before his mistress without otlier than a wise man for his 
 client?
 
 The Ancient Bicreau. 105 
 
 " And if it is your wish, my dear Rachel," he continued, " the 
 inscription shall be erased, and replaced by the name of Rachel 
 Grierson^ — what say you?" 
 
 His hand was held out for that acceptance which betokened 
 consent It was accepted, yes, and more. His arms were 
 next moment round her waist ; the heart of the )nelding girl 
 beat rarely ; tlie wistful face was tumed up as even courtir^; 
 his eyes ; the kiss was impressed — why, more, Rachel Grierson 
 was surely Walter Grierson's, and he was hers — and surely to 
 be for ever in this world. 
 
 Rachel was now in that state of mind when the pleasantness 
 of a contemplated object excludes any inquiry whether it is 
 true or false, good or evil ; and, in spite of I'aurs fatalism, she 
 was satisfied that it was with Walter's OAvn free will that he had 
 done what he had done, and said what he had said. The 
 changed inscription on the locket, and the dehvery of that 
 pledge to her, would complete the vowing of the troth whereby 
 she was to become his wife. Entirely ignorant of what had 
 taken place between the nephew and the uncle, by means cf 
 which she might have been able to anal3'se his conduct, she 
 had only the closeting of Mr Ainslie and Walter to suggest to 
 her that the young man's sudden declaration was the result of 
 his knowledge that she was to be sole heiress. TUe heart tliat 
 is under the influence of love, as we have hinted, is too credu- 
 lous to the tongue of the lover to doubt the sincerit)- of his 
 professions. So all appeared well. The motives in action 
 were adequate to the Avill of the parties who used them ; and, 
 as she felt that her love was in the jjosver of herself, so she 
 could not doubt that AValter's affection Avas the result of his 
 approval of her good qualities. Paul was now no longer an 
 oracle. She would be pleased to have an opportunity of 
 shewing him that his genius lay more in his fingers than in his 
 head. She had now, however, something else to do; she went 
 to her fathers room. He. was in one of those reveries to
 
 io6 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh, 
 
 which, as we have said, all the thinking of the extremely agerl 
 is reduced — when the world and its figures of men and women, 
 its strange oscillations, and changes, its passions, pleasures, 
 and pains, seem as made remote by the intervention of a long 
 space — dim, shadowy, and ghost-like. It is one of the stages 
 through which the long-li>/ing must pass, and, like all the other 
 experiences of life, it is true only to one's-self — it cannot be 
 commu'ucated Iw words. " Old memories are spectres that 
 do seem to chase the soul out of the world," — an old quotation, 
 which may be admitted v\ithout embracing the metaphysical 
 paradox, that " subjective thought is the poison of life," or 
 conceding the sharp sneer of the cynic — 
 
 " K5io'i\', ye who for your pleasures gape, 
 ATan's life at best is bi\t a scrajie." 
 
 But the entry of his dau ;hter brought the old man back to the 
 margin of real living existences. He held out his hand to her, 
 and smiled in the face that was dear to him, as if for a moment 
 he rejoiced in the experience of a feeling which connected him 
 with breathing flesh and blood. The object of her visit was 
 soon explained. Whispering in his ear, as if she were afraid 
 of the sound of her own words, she told him that Walter had 
 jjromised her a love-token, and that she wished to give him 
 one in return, for which purpose she desired that she might be 
 permitted to use one or two old "Spanish ounces" that lay in 
 the old bureau. 
 
 " Yes, yes, dear child,"' said he. " Get a golden heart made 
 of them. It will be an emblem of the true heart you have to 
 give him, and a pledge to boot" Then, falling into one of 
 his reveries, in which his mind seemed occupied by some 
 strong feeling, " I am thus reminded," he continued, " of the 
 old song you used to sing. There is a verse which I hope will 
 never be applicable to you as it was to me. I wish to hear it 
 for the last time," he added, with a languid smile, " in consider- 
 ation of the ounces."
 
 The Ancient Biirean. 107 
 
 Rachel knew the verse, because she had formerly noticed 
 that it moved some chord in his memory connected with an 
 old love affair in which his heart had been scathed ; but she 
 hesitated, for the meaning it conveyed was dowie and ominous. 
 "Come, come," said he, " the fate will never be yours." 
 She complied, yet it was with a trembling voice. The tune 
 is at best but a sweet wail, and there was a misgiving of the 
 heart which imparted the thrilling effect of a gipsy's farewell — 
 
 "If I had wist ere 1 had kLsst, 
 That tnie love was so ill to win, 
 I'd have lock'd my heart in some secret part. 
 And bound it wi h a silver pin." 
 
 " Now you may take the ounces," said he, with a sigh. " The 
 verse has more meaning to me than you wot of, and surely I 
 hope less to you." 
 
 And having thus gratified his whim — if that could be called 
 a whim which was a desire to have repeated to him a sentiment 
 once to him, as he hinted, a reality connected \^^th the young 
 heart when it was lusty, and his pulse strong and thick with the 
 blood of young hfe — she went to the bureau, and, taking three of 
 the ounces, she left the room. In the gloaming, slie was again 
 on her way to Pauls workshop, where she found the artist, as 
 usual, with his head bent over the bright desk on the bench, 
 engaged in some of his fanciful creations. Having seated her- 
 self in the chair where she had so often sat, she commenced 
 her story of the circumstances of the day — how IVglter Grierson 
 had acted and spoken to her ; how he had accounted for the 
 locket and inscription ; how he inle .ded to change the latter, 
 and substitute her name for that of Agnes Ainslie ; how he had 
 sought her love, and succeeded in his seeking ; how she was 
 satisfied that he was sincere in his professions; and how she 
 had got the ounces from her father to make a love-token, to be 
 given in exchange for Walter" s. All which Paul listened to 
 with deep attention, now aj.id tlien a faint smile passing over
 
 io8 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 his delicate face, and followed by the old pensive expression 
 which was peculiar to one so deeply imbued with the convic- 
 tion that he uas an organism in nature's plan, acted upon to 
 fulfd a f„:e of wliich he could know nothing. 
 
 " And so the powers work," said he, as he looked in the 
 liopeful face of his friend. " You are now hap^,y, ^Rachel, 
 becau.'-e you believe what Walter has said to you, and you have 
 no po».cr over your beLef. But," he continued, after a moment 
 or two's silence, "1 may have power over you, but not over 
 myself \Vaker Giierson has told you a falsehood, and his 
 motive for it is adequate to his nature. Since he gave me the 
 order for the locket, he iias learnt that you are to inherit the 
 whole fortune of your father, on the condition that you are to 
 marry him ; and his love for Agnes has been overborne by 
 another feeling — the desire to possess your wealth. Neither 
 the one nor the oti;er Oi these feelings could he manufacture or 
 even modify, any more than he could charm the winds into 
 silerce, or send Jove's bolt back to its thundcr-oloud ; and now, 
 look you, his game is this^ — if }0u succeed to the money, he 
 will marry without loving you- If not, he will marry the 
 woman he loves, Agnes .\inslie." 
 
 " You alanii me, Paul," said she, invo'untarily holding forth 
 her arms, as if she would have stopped his speech. 
 
 " And you cannot help your alarm,' said he, calmly ; " neither 
 can I help nvt being alarmed by your alarm." 
 
 "Oh, you trifle with my feehngs,' she cried, with a kind of 
 waiL " What have all these strange thoughts to do with this 
 situation in which I am placed '\ Even though all things are 
 preordained, neither you nor I is absolved from doing our 
 duty to God and ourselves." 
 
 "Absolved!" echoed Paul "Why, Rachel, look you, we 
 are forced to do it, or not to do it, precisely as the motive 
 culminates into action, but we are not sensible of the com- 
 pulsion ; and so am I under the necessity to tell you that
 
 The Ancieiit Bureau. 109 
 
 Walter Grierson is playing false with you, according to the 
 inexorable law of his nature. It is not an hour yet since Agnes 
 Ainslie called here with some old trinkets, and requested me 
 to make a ring out of them ; nor was I left without the means 
 of understanding that it was to be given in exchange for the 
 locket." 
 
 " Is it possible !" cried she. " And can it be that I am d^-- 
 ceived, and that secret powers are working my ruin 1" 
 
 " Not necessarily your ruin," said he; " no mortal knows thj 
 birth of the next moment. The womb of fate is never empty ; 
 but no man shall dare to say what is in it till the issue of every 
 moment proves itself Nor does all this take away hope, fur 
 hope is in the ancient decree, like all the other evolutions of 
 time, including that hope's being deferred till the heart grows 
 sick ; and," he added, as he looked sorrowfully into her face, 
 " that is the fate of mme, for, know you, Rachel (kierson, I 
 have long loved you, and have now seen that the riches you 
 are to inherit put you beyond the sphere of my ambition. I 
 have often wished — pardon me, Rachel — yes, I have often 
 wished you might be left a beggar, tliat 1 might have the 
 privilege of using the invention witii wiiich I am gifted to 
 astonish the world by my handiwork, and bring wealth to 
 her I loved." 
 
 " I am surrounded on all sides by difficulties," sighed the 
 young woman, as she seemed to find herself in the mazes of an 
 unseen destiny. As she looked at her cousin, she thought that 
 one of her evils was that the capture of her affections so early 
 by Walter had prevented her from viewing Paul in any other 
 light than that of an ingenious artist, and a man of kmdiy 
 sympathies, however nmch he was separated from mankind by 
 a theory of the world too esoteric for ordinary thought, and 
 which yet at some time of man's life forces its \\ ay amidst pal- 
 pitations of fear to every heart. 
 
 On reaching home sue met there the notarj-, Mr Ainslie, who
 
 TTO Mystcj^ioiis Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 informed her,probablyat the request of her father (for information 
 of that kind is seldom given gratuitously) that the will had been 
 signed, and left in the possession of the old man. Even this com. 
 munica.ion, so calculated to shake from the heart so many of the 
 sorrows of life, had no greater effect upon her generous nature 
 than to increase the responsibility of fulfilling the condition 
 upon which the inheritance was to be received and held. If 
 she had not been under the effect of an early prepossession in 
 flivour of Walter, she might have doubted the sincerity of his 
 statement, as it came from his own mouth. Suspicion attached 
 to every word of it ; but after the communication made by Paul, 
 it was scarcely pos.sible for her to resist the conclusion, that he 
 had told her a falsehood, and that he was aiming at the fortune, 
 without the power or the inclination to give her in return his 
 love ; nay, that he was heartlessly sacrif.cing to his passion for 
 gold two parties — the object of his real love, and that of his 
 feigned. Yet she did not resist that conclusion, and so good 
 an analyst was she of her own mind, that even when in the very 
 act of throwing away these suspicions of his honesty, she knew 
 in her soul that her love was in successful conflict with an array 
 of evidence establishing the fact which she disregarded. Then 
 the consciousness of this inability to cease loving tlie man whom 
 she could hardly doubt to be a liar, as well as heartless and 
 mercenary, brought up to her the strange theory of Paul. The 
 motive which no man or woman could make or even modify, 
 was the prime spring as well as ruler of the will, cropping out, 
 to use his own words, from moral, if not also physical, causes 
 laid when God said, " Let there be light, and there was light." 
 A deeper thinker than most of her sex, she felt " the sublimity 
 in terror" of this view of God's ways with man. If she could 
 not resist the resolution to love Walter, how could he resist 
 the love he bore to another? The thought shook her to the 
 heart ; nor was she less pained when she reflected on the hap- 
 less Paul, with his long-concealed affection, so pure from the
 
 The Ancient Bureatt. 1 1 1 
 
 sordidness of a desire for money, that he would have toiled for 
 her under the flame of the midnight lamp, continued into the 
 light of the rising sun. 
 
 During the night the persistency of her resolution to remain 
 by her past affection was maintained ; yet, as it was still merely 
 a persistency implying the continuance of a foe ready to assert 
 the old rights, she was so far unhappy that she wanted thct 
 composure of mind which consists in the absence of conflict 
 among one's own thoughts. 
 
 In the morning she found the locket lying on her parlour table, 
 with the inscription changed from Agnes Ainslie to Rachel 
 Grierson. She took it up and fixed her eyes upon it. At one 
 time she would have given the world for it, now it attracted 
 her and repelled her. It came from the only man she loved; 
 but another name had been on it, which ought, fur aught shu 
 could be sure of, to have been on it still. It might be the 
 pledge of affection, but it might also be the evidence of false- 
 hood to her and unfaithfulness to another. And then, as she 
 traced the lines of her name, she thou^lit she could discover 
 the signs of a tremulousness in the hand tliat traced them. 
 Amidst all these thoughts and conflicting feeimgs, she could 
 not help recurring to the circumstance that he had not pre- 
 sented the locket with his own hands. She was unwilling to 
 indulge in an unfavourable construction ; and perhaps the more 
 so that it so far pleased her as relieving her from the dilemma 
 of accepting it with more coldness than her love warranted, or 
 more warmth than her reason allowed. Nay, though she 
 gloated over his image when she was alone, she felt an unde- 
 fined fear of meeting him. Might he not be precipitated into 
 some further defence or confession, which might fortify suspi- 
 cions still battling against her prepossessions, and diminish her 
 love ] Nor was this disinclination towards personal interviews 
 confined to this day — it continued; and it seemed as if he also 
 wished his conne.\ion with her to stand in the meantime upon
 
 I T 2 Mystc7'ioiis Legends of Edinbiirgh. 
 
 the pledges and confessions already made. This she could 
 also notice, but as for rendering a true reason for it, she 
 couldn't, even with the great ability she possessed in constru- 
 ing conduct and character. 
 
 But meanwhile time was accumulating antagonistic forces 
 ■which would explode in a consummation. Her thoughts were 
 to be occupied by another, who claimed her affections and care 
 by an appeal as powerful as it was without guile. Her father 
 was seized with paralysis. He was laid speechless on the bed 
 where she sat, a watchful and affectionate nurse, ready to sacri- 
 fice sleep, and peace, and rest, to the wants of him who, all 
 through her life, had been her friend and benefactor, and who 
 1 ad provided for her future days at the expense of hopes en- 
 tertained by his legitimate heirs. For three days he had lain 
 without speaking a word, and Rachel could only guess his wants 
 by mute signs. During all this time her thoughts had scarcely 
 glanced at Walter. He seemed anxious about the condition 
 of his uncle, calling repeatedly at the bedroom door, and going 
 away without entering. Tut his manner indicated no affection, 
 if it did not rather seem that he considered the old man had 
 done his worst against him, and that sorrow was not due from 
 one he had disinherited. Her affections were too much en- 
 grossed by her patient to permit her thinking of what was being 
 transacted in the outside world. Yet, when she looked upon 
 the face of the invalid, so pale and motionless, where so long the 
 shades of grief and the lights of joy had chased each other, by 
 the old decree of human destiny, the words of Paul would occur 
 to her. Was the death that was there impending the result of 
 a more necessary law than that which had ruled every other 
 condition of body or mind which had ever been experienced 
 by the patient sufferer? Then there came the question. Could 
 Walter Grierson so regulate his heart as to force it to love her 
 in preference to Agnes Ainslie % Could she, Rachel nerself, so 
 rule her feelings as to cease loving the man she still suspected
 
 The A 7icient Bureau. 113 
 
 of falsehood and treachery % It was even while she was thus 
 ruminating over thoughts that made her tremble, that she 
 observed, on the third night, a change in her patient. He 
 seemed to start by the advent of some recollection. His body 
 became restless, and he waved his hand wildly, as if he wanted 
 her to bend over him, to hear what he might struggle to say. 
 She immediately obeyed the sign. He fixed his eyes upon her, 
 made efforts to articulate, which resulted only in a thick, broken 
 gibberish. She could only catch one or two indistinct words, 
 from which it seemed that he wished to tell her where she would 
 find the will; but the precise phrase whereby he wished to in- 
 dicate the deposit was pronounced in such an imperfect man- 
 ner that she could not make it out. Strangely enough, yet still 
 consistently with the generosity of her character, she did not 
 like to pain him by indicating that she did not understand him. 
 Nay, she nodded pleasantly, as if she wanted him to be easy, 
 under the satisfaction that he had succeeded in his efforts to 
 articulate. Yet so far was she from thinking of the importance 
 vf the communication to herself, that she flattered him into the 
 .elief that, as he could now speak so as to be understood, he 
 vvas in the way of improving. Alas for the goodness which is 
 evil to the heart that produces it ! 
 
 ' ' There are of plants 
 That die of too much generosity — 
 Exhaling their sweet life in essences." 
 
 Paul would have said that this, too, was a cropping out of the 
 
 old causal strata. In two hours more, David Grierson was dead, 
 
 and Rachel was left to mourn for her parent and benefactor. 
 
 Now the issues were accumulating. A very short time 
 
 only was allowed to elapse before Mr Ainslie, accompanied 
 
 by Walter, came to seal up the repositories, an operation 
 
 which was gone through in a manner which indicated that 
 
 both of them thought they were locking up and making 
 
 H
 
 114 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 secure that which would destroy their hopes. They seemed 
 under the conviction that the will was in the bureau ; and if 
 they had been men otherwise than merely what, as the world ' 
 goes, are called honest, they miglit have abstracted the docu. 
 ment j for the generous Rachel never even looked at their 
 proceedings, grieved as she was at the death of her father. 
 They were, at least, above that. 
 
 In a few days David Grierson was consigned to the earth, 
 and, after the funeral, Mr Ainslie, accompanied by Walter, 
 again attended to open the repositories and read the testa- 
 ment. Rachel agreed to be present. When the seals were 
 removed, she was asked by the notary if she knew where the 
 document was deposited. She now felt the consequence of 
 the easy manner in which she had let slip the opportunity so 
 dearly offered by her father, of knowing the locale of a writ in 
 all respects so important ; for it cannot be doubted that, if she 
 had persevered, she might have succeeded in drawing out of him 
 the word, articulated so as that she might have comprehended 
 it. She accordingly, yet without any anticipation of danger, 
 answered in the negative, whereupon the notary and nephew, 
 who seemed to be on the most friendly terms, set about a 
 search. Rachel remained. A whole hour was passed in the 
 search, the will was not yet found. Every drawer of the 
 bureau was examined, — the presses, the cabinets, the table- 
 drawers, the trunks. And so another hour passed — no will. 
 Rachel began to get alarmed, and, perhaps, the more, that she 
 saw upon the faces of the searchers an expression which she 
 could not comprehend. Their spirits seemed to have become 
 elated as hers became depressed ; yet why should that have 
 been, if Walter Grierson was to be "true to his troth?" 
 
 '* We need search no more," said Mr Ainslie. " The will is 
 not in the house. I should say it is not in existence, and that 
 Mr Grierson, having changed his mind, had destroyed it." 
 
 " Not so," replied Rachel, "for a few minutes before his
 
 The Ancient Bureau. 115 
 
 death he tried to tell me where it was, but the name of the 
 place died away upon his tongue, and I could not catch it." 
 
 " Neither can we catch the deed," said Walter, with a laugh 
 which had a spice of irony in it. 
 
 And so the search was given up. The two searchers left the 
 house, apparently in close conversation. Rachel sought her 
 room and threw herself on a sofa, oppressed by doubts and 
 fears which she could not very well explain. The manner of 
 Walter appeared to her not to be that of one who was pledged 
 to marry her. Her mind ran rapidly back over doubtful remi- 
 niscences which yielded no comfort to the heart ; nay, she 
 felt that he had never been as a lover to her ; and far less, that 
 day when, as it appeared, he was to be master of his uncle's 
 wealth. Yet again comes the thought. Was he pledged to her % 
 Ay, that was certain enough ; and then she was so little versed 
 in the subtle ways of the world, that she could not doubt of 
 his being "true to his troth." 
 
 As soon as she recovered from her meditation she sought 
 again the work-room of the artist, to whom she told the issue 
 of the search for the will; Paul looked at first greatly struck, 
 but under his strange philosophy he recovered that calmness 
 which belongs to those of his way of thinking. 
 
 " Have I not often preached to you, Rachel," said he, as he 
 lay back on his chair, " that all these things were fixed ere 
 Sirius was born 1 Yea," he added, as a smile played amid the 
 seriousness of his face, " ere yet there was space for the dog- 
 star to wag his tail. The croppings out will now come thick, 
 and you will know whether you are to be a lady or a beggar." 
 
 Rachel might have known that the consolation offered by 
 fatalists is only the recommendation of a resignation which, as 
 fated itself, is gloomy, if not awful, for it amounts to an anni- 
 hilation of self, with all hopes, energies, and resolutions. She 
 heard his words, and forgave him, if she did not believe him, 
 for she knew that he was true in his friendship, and benevolent
 
 ii6 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 in his feelings — parts these, too, as he would have said, of 
 the decree. She left him in a condition of sadness for which 
 she could not yet account, and the hues of her mind seemed 
 to be projected on all objects around her. She retired to 
 rest ; but she could not banish from her mind that the realities 
 of her condition required to be read by the blue light of Paul's 
 philosophy. It was far in the morning before she fell asleep, 
 and when nine came she felt unrested. The servant came in 
 to her and told her the hour. The breakfast was ready, but 
 Walter, who had not returned on the prior night, was not as 
 usual waiting for her. The announcement was ominously in 
 harmony with the thoughts she had tried to banish. She 
 scarcely touched the breakfast, and the day passed m expec- 
 tation of Walter. Night came, but it did not bring him. The 
 next day passed in the same way. People called to condole 
 without knowing how much she stood in need of condolence ; 
 but still no Walter to redeem the pledge of his love. Yet still 
 she hoped ; nor till an entire month had gone over her head 
 did she renounce her confidence that he would be " true to his 
 troth." 
 
 At the end of this period Paul advised her to take counsel. 
 He told her that the law had remedies for losses of deeds ; and 
 she accordingly consulted a legal gentleman of the name of 
 Cleghorn. The result was not favourable. It appeared that 
 Mr Ainslie denied that there was any copy, or scroll, of the 
 will, through the means of which it might have been " set up," 
 by what is called a proving of the tenor. There was no hope 
 here, and by and by she saw advertised in the Caledonian 
 Mercury that the furniture of the house was to be sold within a 
 week. She was there on mere tolerance ; and now she had 
 got a clear intimation to flit. As for money or effects, she had 
 none, except her wardrobe, for she never thought of providing 
 for an exigency which she was satisfied never would occur. 
 Again she applied to Paul, who, with her consent, went and
 
 The Ancie7it Bureau. 117 
 
 took for her a solitary room in the close we have already men- 
 tioned. It was her intention to acquire a livelihood by means 
 of her needle, at that time almost the only resource for genteel 
 poverty. Some articles of furniture were got, principally by 
 Paul; and there, two days before the sale, she took up her resi- 
 dence. Nor did the kindness of Paul stop here. He attended 
 the sale, and considerately judging that some articles belong- 
 ing to her father would be acceptable to her, he purchased, for 
 a small sum, the old bureau of which we have already spoken. 
 The article was removed to Rachel's room. 
 
 For a period of fifteen years did Rachel Grierson live in that 
 room plying her needle to obtain for her a subsistence. Her 
 story, which came to be known, procured her plenty of work ; 
 and the ten fingers, which were sufiiciently employed, sufficed 
 for the wants of the stomach — small these wants, probably, in 
 her who had heard of the marriage of Walter with Agnes 
 Ainslie ; yea, she who could bear to hear that intelligence 
 might claim a right to be a pupil of Paul's school of philosophy. 
 Paul she indeed loved as a fi'iend, but she never could bring 
 herself to the resolution of marrying the little artist There 
 was a train of evils ; the " croppings out" of her fate, as Paul 
 called it, were thick enough and to spare ; for she fell into bad 
 health, which was the precursor of a fit of palsy, depriving her 
 for ever of the power of working for herself. Then it was that 
 Paul's affection was shewn more clearly than ever. Day by day 
 he brought her all the food sne required ; but at length he 
 himself was taken ill, and his absence was fatal. Pride pre- 
 vented her from making her necessity known to the neighbours, 
 with whom she had but little intercourse. We have told how 
 she was found dead ; and when we say that Paul recovered to 
 be present at her funeral, we have only one fact more to state. 
 It is this— Paul took the old bureau home to his own little 
 room to keep as a memorial of the only woman he ever loved. 
 One day, when repairing the internal drawers, he found in a
 
 ii8 Mysterious Legends of Edmbw'gh. 
 
 hollow perpendicular slip, which looked like a broad beading, 
 a document which was thus entituled on the back : — 
 
 LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID GRIERSON, 
 
 IN FAVOUR OF 
 
 RACHEL GRIERSON.
 
 % f tgcnir d pallicrstnn s Mgnir. 
 
 |T has often occurred to me that if we were, by the 
 loan of some divine gift for a short time, to get to 
 know how many truths are disbeheved and how 
 many fictions are accepted as veritabihties, we 
 would come to be as sceptical as those peculiar people called 
 Pyrrhoneans, who believe in nothing, and of whom it is said by 
 Cicero that there is always a stock kept up, as if the truth of 
 no truth were a truth that Nature was unwilling to let die out. 
 Among her stage properties she always retains a number of 
 masks, to enable her to keep up the play of life. It even 
 happens often that many veritabilities pass through the mind 
 without leaving any trace whereby we can know whether they 
 have been there or no, just as many kinds of food do not 
 fatten us a whit, and may just as well have remained outside, 
 so hke in this respect are our minds and bodies. These deli- 
 cate and fastidious httle agents called the absorbents often 
 won't nibble at very fair chyme, and the still smaller nerve fila- 
 ments, which are the absorbents of the mind, shew often a most 
 whimsical distaste to very beautiful moral and physical truths. 
 Hence I suspect the different fates of legends not depending 
 on the degrees of their truthfulness, but on some affection of 
 the mind itself, as difficult to account for as any other of the 
 secrets which Nature keeps to herself So it may be with 
 respect to a story which I had utterly forgotten for years, but 
 which must have been pretty favourably received by those said 
 fastidious door-keeping sprites j for upon the occasion of my
 
 I20 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 sitting down, not long ago, to read a certain famous trial, with 
 a woodcut of the hero, (a faithful copy of which illustrates our 
 legend), the whole wonderful affair came into my memory just 
 as if it had been coiled up as a panorama in some recondite 
 part of my brain, and unfolded by quick machinery. 
 
 And so pictorially too ! I actually seemed to myself to be 
 in Widow Buchan's house, in the second flat, entering by the 
 second door on the right hand as you go down Halkerston's 
 Wynd. And, no doubt, if one fond of the chiaro-oscuro wished 
 to select a very suitable place for the locale of a domestic 
 romance, where would he succeed better than in that dark, 
 narrow close, — I mean as it stood at the time of the said trial, 
 for it is very much altered now? Still there is the lofty land, 
 of five or six storeys, dark and dingy ; and if you examine the 
 entrance to the spiral stair, and tiy to make your way up, you 
 would fancy that the architect had some philanthropic notion 
 in his head, that the goers up and down might, from some 
 unsteadiness of the brain connected as effect with the price 
 of claret — at that time sixpence a bottle — require to have 
 a hand on each side. Certain it is, at least, that he never 
 troubled himself about the difficulty of getting down a heavy 
 coffin. But then it is just as undoubted that about a year 
 before — a certain night very memorable to the widow — a sonsy 
 corpse, in the shape of John Buchan, had been carried down 
 from the second landing-place or flat of that long spiral stair, 
 on its way to the Canongate churchyard. 
 
 Yes ; so wonderful are the v/ays of God that tlie quietest and 
 most reposeful hour is often the prelude to an occurrence which 
 is to be as a mystery among the common, every-day things of 
 life. The winged spirits that muffle the occult causes, and 
 work effects as miracles to us poor purblind wretches, take 
 spiteful occasion of heart- t^uiet, serene moments. It was 
 eleven o'clock by the clan?- of St Giles'. The five-fliglit stair 
 resounded to no unsteady step ; and though it had,, the good
 
 A Legend of Halkerstons Wynd. 1 2 1 
 
 widow would not have heard it, for she had something else to 
 think of. Grief — that selfish passion, which man forgives in 
 his neighbour if he does not hold it very sacred, for the reason, 
 perhaps, that he is pretty sure to have a tasting of it himself, 
 and also because sympathy takes no money from him — ensconces 
 itself within closed doors. The little flat of three rooms hat! 
 become a temple, where the deity was a souvenir and the offer- 
 ing tears. Yes, the shrine was empty — no other than the arm- 
 chair, where no one dared to sit, except, perhaps, bawdrons, 
 purring her threnody, so well heard where all was silence. 
 Yet not empty in that deeper, more mysterious sense which 
 recognises all our knowledge as resolvable into signs of things. 
 Surely though we see everything we see nothing. Our visions 
 are merely more palpable conditions of the mind-matter ; the 
 images projected as they are, are really beings in the world of 
 spirits ; nay, sometimes they take on forms, and stand or flit 
 before us, making us rub our eyes, as if we could thereby rub 
 out the world of real realities which lie be\ond the merely 
 visible. 
 
 Of all which notwithstanding, I am, I hope, as hardened a 
 sinner in my unbelief of a si)irit-worId existing around us, in 
 the sense of ancient or modern visionaries, as ever laughed at 
 the Swedenborgian notion that a warming-pan has a spiritual 
 counterpart, only we can't see it for the warming-pan itself; or 
 the spirit-rapping miiacles of mediumism, where, like lightning- 
 conductors, Mr Home and other thin and meagre peojjle 
 (easily seen through) convey spiritual intelligences between 
 the two w^orlds ; or the Catholic miracle of Father Geronimo, 
 who, though very fat, could raise himself by the ins]Mred afflatus 
 of the Holy Spirit some feet from the ground, and remain 
 there until the faith waned — the greater miracle being why he 
 did not mount at once up to heaven. But what then % It 
 would be a pretty world to live in if a man's unbelief were any 
 reason for the non-existence of the thing not believed. And,
 
 122 My stations Legends of Edinbiwgh. 
 
 thei-efore, wlien Mrs Margaret Buchan did not at that hour so 
 near the witching one see under the dim hght of her cruse the 
 figure of honest John, was that any reason wliy she should not 
 have been deceived on the previous night when she saw him 
 standing by the side of her bed in that very square hat, and 
 broad-tailed coat with crown buttons, he used to wear of a 
 Sunday when he went to hear his minister at the Tron % Verily, 
 those scant-brains who deny ghosts may be excused their fun 
 when they ask why don't these fitful creatures come and pull 
 our noses, and thus pinch us into belief, for the very reason of 
 our advantage over them when we reduce them to the scrape 
 of assertmg their real meaning that spirits are nowhere. Yea, 
 it is not a question of an alibi, but of a nilibi. 
 
 And so it was not to keep honest John out that Margaret 
 went and carefully examined the door to see that the lock was 
 bolted. She took especial care, too, to take the key out, as 
 John used to do, and hang the same on the nail at the back of 
 the door — a proceeding perfectly consistent with her notions of 
 bodiless beings, for she had sense enough to know that a 
 spirit such as that of John Buchan never could descend to such 
 meanness as to take advantage of a key-hole to get into his 
 widov.'s house. But she had another reason independent of 
 security in thus withdrawing the key : her only son George — 
 we beg pardon, " Geordie " — who, as she thought, had gone for 
 the night to his uncle's at Dalkeith, carried a duplicate, whereby 
 he could always enter, when he chose to come home, after his 
 mother had gone to bed. Next she looked through the three 
 small rooms, and even glanced in under Geordie's bed and her 
 own, — not that she expected to find anybody there, far less a 
 spirit, but just that it was a custom derived from her father's 
 house, where once upon a time, when she \\as a pretty bloom- 
 ing maid, a thief of no less valuable a commodity than her own 
 heart was detected by her father, and very heartily thrashed 
 out of the house as one who had intended to rob it of material
 
 A Legend of Halkcrstoii s Wynd. 123 
 
 things, which thief — no other tlian John Buchan — afterwards 
 repaid that drubbing so well by marrying the fair Peggy. At 
 the instant, the incident which had been the origin of the cus- 
 tom glanced across her mind, and brought a deep sigh as she 
 thought that that once sportive lover now lay under another 
 bed — even one of turf; and shall we say that there are many 
 customs better justified by their beginnings'? 
 
 So all was right ; and that awe which is the offspring of 
 silence and solitude at the very hour of twelve was busy with 
 her soul as she undressed, so that she was involuntarily re- 
 hearsing the prayer that was to come in set words. It is at 
 these moments when the bereaved spirit is sad, and yet hope- 
 ful, that religion is felt as a necessity and a solace. How true 
 is it — to speak with the wisdom of folly — when we say it is an 
 instinct, and thus get quit of all the subtleties of philosophy ! 
 Then came the sobbing adjuration, as she knelt at the side of 
 the bed where she had lain on the night of the day on which 
 she was a bride, and where, thirty years after, she had seen her 
 husband extended as a corpse, — " l^ord, remember me in my 
 sorrow as Thou didst in my joy ! and even now, when the 
 greatest of human grief is heavy on me, teach me to know that 
 behind thy providence, which sometimes frowns, there is a face 
 which for ever smiles in love to Thy creatures ! Give me this 
 night rest to my body, and sanctify my liope for eternal rest to 
 the spirit, even for Christ's sake ! Amen." And with this best of 
 sleeping draughts, Margaret Buchan was in less than a quarter 
 of an hour dead asleep. 
 
 But somehow or other, the temporal portion of the widow's 
 prayer was not answered, though everything boded at first well 
 for rest. She had slept soundly for two hours ; nor even in a 
 dream did honest John Buchan, with the said square hat, and 
 broad coat with crown buttons, api)ear to her. At the end of 
 that time she was awakened, yet without knowing what had 
 disturbed her — little it might be, no doul)t, for the sleep of the
 
 124 Mysterious Legends of Edlnbuigh. 
 
 aged is a kind of somnolent vigil. The clock in the kitchen 
 strikes one, and again another one — it was two o'clock ; but 
 strange as the sound of that old wooden time-piece always was 
 — more resembling a scream of some weird creature in agony 
 — each toll accomplished, too, with a straining as if the diffi- 
 culty of striking increased by every effort, than any merely arti- 
 ficial note — there was something about it now which terrified 
 her. The first knell seemed subdued and distant \ the other, 
 loud, sharp, screechy, and dolorous. At any other time this 
 might have been easy of explanation. The door between the 
 kitchen where the clock stood and the room where Margaret 
 lay must have been opened between the first stroke and the 
 second. But then there was no other human creature in the 
 house — bavvdrons required only small apertures, and ghosts 
 none ; yet it appeared certain to her that that door had been 
 opened. 
 
 Under this impression she lay for a minute or two. The 
 whole energies of her spirit seemed collected and concentrated 
 in her ear, wherein the sense became so painfully acute that 
 she could detect even the low breathing of some one in the 
 room. She strained her eyes in the direction of the sound, 
 and even in the darkness of the apartment she thought she 
 discovered a moving body, but so indistinctly that she could 
 assign to it no form. But there was httle time given to her for 
 speculation, even if she had been able to exercise any thinking 
 faculty of her mind. There were two distinct footfalls in the 
 direction of the bed. Again a breathing, so well heard that 
 she could even be certain that the body was within a few feet 
 of where she lay. Yet not a word was spoken ; and so over- 
 come was honest Peggy with mysterious fear, that she could 
 not even turn her thoughts in the direction of Heaven, whereto 
 it had been her constant habit to look in all emergencies. It 
 was with no aid of her will, properly called, that her eyes were 
 fixed on the supposed spot of the intruding body or spirit.
 
 A Legend of Halkerston s Wynd. 125 
 
 The act was a charmed effect, over wliich she could exercise 
 DO more control than she could over the motionless limbs 
 that lay as if palsied ; and palsied for the time they were. 
 While the orbs were thus strained looking into darkness, a 
 gleam of light was suddenly thrown into her face. Tlie eyes 
 shrunk ; the lids quivered, so that for an instant she was un- 
 conscious of aught save that tlie light glared upon her; nor 
 even when she again so iar recovered herself could she ob- 
 serve any object behind the gleam, v.'hich seemed to be re- 
 flected from the burnished back of a lantern, the slide of 
 which had been drawn up. There was still no speech or 
 sound of any kind, as if the pause was the conse(;uence of 
 irresolution, though it might have been to give time for 
 examination. 
 
 The power of the charm had now reached its utmost, when, 
 either from some unsteadiness of the hand or an effort to 
 change the direction of the gleam, the lantern was moved so 
 that the top of it was turned back, and she could new see the 
 face and the upper portion of the figure of a nian. Who was 
 he? It was not the figure of John Buchan ; and though a 
 modern reader may think that it would have been a strange 
 thing if it had, he is to remember that his widow, with tlie 
 notions of the time, thought it a very strange tiling that it was 
 not. The gleam had not only shewn her that the figure was 
 very unlike that of her husband, but, having glanced on John's 
 picture on the wall, brought out by the ligiit, the contrast was 
 vividly apparent. These deep-seated eyes were shaded by 
 bushy eyebrows ; the cold, stern look of the bronzed face was 
 not that of her husband. But if sh.e had required time for 
 comparison, that was not aftbrded, for the words rang out 
 rough and surly — 
 
 " Do you know me?" 
 
 The widow paused. 
 
 '' Come, i insist upon an answer," ne concmuea. " My tate,
 
 126 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 death, and something after, depend upon it. Speak ! speak ! 
 I demand, do you know me?" 
 
 " Ay, weel do I ken ye," rephed the widow fearfully ; " yea, 
 though ye tak' o.i mony a strange shape." 
 
 "And will you hold my secret then?" continued he, not 
 understanding the allusion she had made to a certain personage 
 who has dominion among us, and who, if our actions were 
 properly construed, would seem to have the upper hand in 
 the affairs of ou^ world. 
 
 " Ay, if you dinna harm me," replied she. 
 
 " I won't harm you," continued the man. " But," and he 
 now spoke threateningly, " you must swear before Heaven." 
 
 "Heaven!" ejaculated she; "and do yoii hae faith in 
 Heaven 1" 
 
 " I have," responded he, as he put his hand on "the Book," 
 which lay on the top of the old chest of drawers. " Swear that 
 you will never reveal that you saw me here." 
 
 " I swear," echoed the widow. 
 
 " And I now reward you," said he, as he laid his hand again 
 on the Bible, and deposited something thereon. " If you fail 
 of your oath," he continued, with a stern look, " you may 
 repent it through time and eternity." 
 
 The light was then turned, as the figure wheeled slowly 
 round. It made again for the door, which she heard creak, 
 and was shut after him. She watched the other retreating 
 sounds — the step, the opening of the outer door, the locking 
 of it ; all was again silent. 
 
 Somewhat relieved of her terror, the widow rose from her 
 bed, and, with limbs scarcely yet obedient to her will, sought 
 the kitchen, struck a light, and went to examine the outer door. 
 Sne lound it locked, and her own key still suspended from 
 the nail whereon she had hung it. She had heard the bolt 
 move, and she knew of such things as picking locks, and re- 
 turningf the bolt by the same art. So far appearances were
 
 A Legend of Halkersto7i^s Wynd. iij 
 
 against the miraculous, even to her who had the beUef of the 
 time ; but in the view of there being nothing supernatural, the 
 difficulty was to know the object of the strange intruder, who, 
 in place of robbing the house, had even spoken of a reward. 
 Nor was this difficulty lessened when, upon returning to her 
 room, and looking about with her cruse, she observed upon the 
 top of the Bible a little bit of paper. On examining it through 
 her spectacles, she discovered tliat it was a JJritish Linen Coni- 
 ])any's one-pound note. Curiosity made her turn it over to 
 see whether there were not some devil-singed mark upon it ; 
 and there, on the back, was something which she could no 
 more decipher than she could understand the language (said 
 to be Hebrew) in VN^hich the devil spoke when he first rebelled. 
 Then she got into vapours a little, and shook, as she thought 
 the writing was a charm intended to work evil upon her. What 
 was she to do with it I " There," said she, as she inserted it 
 between the leaves of that sacred volume, so great a disinfecter 
 of earthly things, if not of things under the earth ; and having 
 thus made herself safe from an evil charm, she betook herselt 
 to bed, not to sleep, until the exhaustion she had suffered should 
 lapse into forgetfulness, and nature vindicate her remedy. 
 
 But there was an outside to all the mystery. It used to be 
 said that it was one thing to dance within the charmed ring of 
 the chorus and another to walk in the light of day. The thick- 
 ness of a door divides faiths, and, what is even ir ore, characters. 
 Leaving Dalkeith at half-past twelve, George Buchan arrived 
 at the foot of the stair in Halkerston's \Vynd much about the 
 time when these strange things were being enacted up in the 
 small flat. It was dark, and George groped his w^ay up the 
 spiral entrance. On getting to the hmding-place, he observed, 
 by the dull light of the st lir window, the door of the house 
 open ; and starting up a couple of stej^s on the next ascent, he 
 watched for what should occur. There was at least no decep- 
 tion in George's vision. He saw a man issue from the house,
 
 128 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 very deliberately pull the door after him, and, after having 
 groped in his pocket for a key, or some other instrmiient, apply 
 it to the key-hole, and, after one or two apparently adroit efforts, 
 turn and fix the lock. People act differently in identical posi- 
 tions. Another young fellow might, and in all likelihood would, 
 liave sprung at the man and seized him. But George was usually 
 in the habit of acting after consideration • and consideration, 
 till completed, is irresolution, and irresolution in emergencies 
 gets into nervousness. So George stood and saw all this going 
 on without a movement ; and if it had not been that the man 
 turned round, and having seen some one ensconced in the 
 corner, got in his turn nervous, and dropt the instrument 
 whereby he had locked the door, he might have been off with- 
 out leaving outside the house any trace of having been there 
 or having done those things, except the impressions made on 
 the senses of George himself Then fear is sometimes nature's 
 prudence. The man took no time to search for that wliich he 
 had lost, but hurrying down the stair, left George to take pos- 
 session of the instrument. This he accordingly did ; and 
 having deposited it in his pocket, he bethought himself of the 
 propriety of giving chase. There is no great courage required 
 to run after a man if there is no chance of the pursued turning 
 back and running after you ; so George Buchan began his 
 pursuit. But the man having the whole stair between him and 
 his follower, had so managed to be at the head of the wynd 
 when George had turned his head at the stair-foot to get at 
 least a glimpse of him whom he sought, and yet perhaps was 
 afraid to find. On arriving at the head of the wynd, the man 
 was out of sight. 
 
 With some kind of a notion, so comfortable to those who 
 make tentative efforts, that he had done his duty as far as he 
 could, and without analysing the " could," he returned to the 
 house, examining as he proceeded the instrument he had so 
 strangely got possession of, and every now and then shuddering
 
 A Legend of Halkerstons Wynd. 129 
 
 at the thought that his mother had been murdered. \^liy was 
 there no sign within the house % Why was not her voice heard 
 calUng for assistance] — not even an involuntary shriek of fear? 
 Then came the imprints of images representing her as extended 
 a mangled corpse, imbedded in her own blood. So overcome 
 was he by these terrible thoughts that when he arrived at the 
 door he could scarcely apply the key, (his own duplicate,) and 
 something like a spasm helped the almost impotent effort. The 
 door was opened, and what was his surprise to find his muthers 
 cruse shining from her bedroom into the kitchen I It cheered 
 him, and terrified him. Pausing for a moment, he listened for 
 some sounds oi life, and was even more surprised when he 
 heard her groaning and articulating. 
 
 "Come again!" she said ; " may the Lord have mercy on 
 me!" 
 
 "Come again!" repeated George to himself. "Then she 
 must have seen him, and the light burning too." 
 
 But Margaret Buchan was surely beyond the suspicion of 
 being visited by midnight lovers, and would explain all. 
 
 " Mother," cried George, as he entered her room, " why do 
 you groan \ Who has been here ?" 
 
 " No body" replied Margaret, laying some stress on the word, 
 to save her conscience by a piece of Jesuitry. 
 
 To which George could have said in the instant that he had 
 seen a man issuing from the house, but the words stuck in his 
 throat — fixed there by the wonder of his mother's denial; for of 
 the mental reservation implying the distinction between body 
 and spirit he never thought. Then he sat and looked wistfully 
 in the face of his mother, praying internally that she would 
 make some explanation of this inexplicable mystery ; but she 
 would not utter a word for very fear of that visitor who had ex- 
 torted from her an oath of silence. To question farther was a 
 liberty he could not take, for Mrs Buchan was a stern, though 
 a good mother ; and, besides, he knew that she had committed
 
 130 Mysterious Legends of Edinbtirgh. 
 
 herself to an answer, and that was irrevocable. He had even 
 looked in her face too long for her patience; and observing the 
 lowering indications of displeasure — 
 
 " I will go to bed," he said ; " but first I will read my 
 chapter." 
 
 And laying his hand on the Bible, he was about to open it, 
 when Margaret, stretching forth her hand, clutched the volume 
 nervously, snatching it from his hold, and laying it open in her 
 spasmodic effort so far that the bank note fell out upon the 
 floor. George took up the paper, and holding it before his 
 eyes, looked, and looked, as if he could not wonder enough, for 
 he knew there was no money in the house when he left — nay, 
 it was for money he had gone to his uncle's. 
 
 " How did this come here, mother ?'^ said the lad, fearfully. 
 
 " Perhaps the back of it will tell you," said she, with some 
 difficulty of utterance. 
 
 And George turning round the note, observed some lines of 
 writing, probably inscribed, according to a custom which pre- 
 vailed when bank notes were few, for the purpose of inducing 
 the custodier to turn the root of evil to good account. The idle 
 words were read by George witli some difiiculty : — 
 
 " I buy pleasure, I buy pain ; 
 Take your choice — or loss or gain ; 
 Good and evil, none refuse me> 
 Fiend or angel, as you ase me." 
 
 " A good maxim," said the lad. 
 
 " Of the devil's inditing," groaned Mrs Margaret Bochan. 
 
 And George's eyes, wide and curious, were again fixed on 
 the writhing face of his mother. 
 
 " George Buchan," she cried, after a pause, " you must burn 
 that paper. I will not eat o' the bread, or drink o' the drink it 
 buys, nor shall you. Bum it at the cruse that he may smell 
 the reek." 
 
 A request which, however passionately expressed, tl^e lad
 
 A Legend of Halkerston s Wynd. 131 
 
 felt no great inclination to comply with, but the wits of very- 
 simple people are sometimes quick, and George, rising and 
 turning his back to the bed, set fire to a bit of paper which he 
 had adroitly taken from his pocket. It flared up and was gone. 
 
 "So may burn all charms," said Margaret; "yea, surely it is 
 better that the gifts that come from the evil one should be 
 consumed in a moment than that the soul which comes from 
 the Lord should be burnt for ever." 
 
 Ge'orge rejoined Amen ; but even in the midst of his increasing 
 wonder what all this could mean, and not even contented with 
 the blessing, he sat down and read his chapter with as much 
 unction — such is the facile duplicity of the human heart — as if, 
 in place of putting into his pocket, as he had done, the said 
 note, he had deposited there a leaf of the Bible. 
 
 The young man, with this deceit in his heart, and the note in 
 his pocket, went to bed. He heard his mother muttering 
 words which he could not comprehend, and by and by sounded 
 that scream of tlie clock which, in spite of all knowledge that 
 it was a mere inanimate thing of man's making, produced the 
 effect usually consequent on an expression of suffering. Nor 
 was there more of unisoft in his soul. Simple-minded as he 
 was, he could not fail to be deeply moved by what he had wit- 
 nessed. Who was that man, and whence came the money 
 so opportunely to one who required it, and yet rejected it with 
 fear? Retried all theories, while he tumbled from one side to 
 another as if he would' thereby leave some thought that pained 
 or confused him. The man could not be a robber, for he had 
 stolen nothing, — on the contrary, he had, according to the lad's 
 suspicion, left something, and then the silence of the mother 
 was inconsistent with that theory. Neither could he be a 
 friend, for friends do not enter neighbour's houses with skele- 
 ton keys ; and what motive, again, could his mother have had for 
 concealing a friendly visit, unless, indeed, she were wicked ? 
 Peggy Buchan wicked ! Does religion breed the vices whicli
 
 132 My sicrious Legends of Edinbitrgh. ' 
 
 it was sent to prevent or scare away ? What then? Spirits do 
 not carry picklocks to get into the living, any more than they 
 use pickaxes to return to the dead. How many turns from 
 right to left, and from left to right, with intermediate reclina- 
 tions on his back, were required to eliminate or get quit of 
 these thoughts and fancies will never be known. 
 
 Nor were these the whole of his cogitations^ The rasping 
 wail of the clock, still as lamenting the passing of time, gave 
 forth four, and, worn-out with Iiis brain-fancies, he felt heavy at 
 his heart the weight of his first sin. He bad deceived his 
 mother, whose kindness to him as her only child was to be 
 measured alone by the care she took of imbuing all the feelings 
 of his heart with the doctrines and hopes of that blessed book 
 which he had misused. The thouglit forced groans from him, 
 which, striking on the ear of his parent, brought again the mut- 
 terings of the half-awakened spirit, and those mutterings were 
 like the responses of vengeance to his self-impeachment. But 
 the heart-throes worked themselves into weakness. Then came 
 symptoms of pleading for himself He took refuge in the very 
 words which he threw on his own ear, that it was still for that 
 mother's sake that he had preserved the note. And what will 
 a son not venture for her at whose breast he has huna- 1 
 
 " The day will wag, the world will wane, 
 Friends change like April weather ; 
 Light loves you may hae mony a ane. 
 But minnie ne'er anither." 
 
 And so there Avas the old devil's logic about means and the 
 end whereunto they lead — that end a good reflected back on 
 him who projects it. He got easier as the unction stuck, and 
 even waxed ingenious as he meditated exchanging the note for 
 silver, and pretending to his mother — the while he applied it 
 to her comfort — that he had got it from his hard uncle at Dal- 
 keith. The subtlety pleased him. In the softTiess of love he 
 forgot the stern virtues; in the luxury of pride he lost the sense
 
 A Legend of Halkerston s Wynd. 133 
 
 of his sin, and in this frame of mind he gradually fell over into 
 sleep. 
 
 One might think that the avenging angel would smile as 
 he looks at sleeping mortals and reads the decree which is 
 recorded, even as they sleep and dream of bliss shining 
 through sin. Margaret Buchan was early up, to prepare from her 
 scanty means the breakfast of her son and her own ; but her 
 first act was prayer, even the prayer of the somewhat morose 
 Calvinist. Yea, it is only to the world the Calvinist is morose ; 
 and, however unseemly that may be to the Arminian, it may 
 be doubted whether that moroseness is not as often the sign 
 of a sturdy habit of virtue, as the more pleasing levity is the 
 unwitting exponent of a lax morality. At least Peggy Buchan's 
 adjuration was that morning contrite, soft, and unctuous ; yet 
 surely she had offended Heaven, for as she looked down on 
 the floor when in the act of rising up, she saw the cinder of 
 the burnt paper, with a small circle of white at the end, and 
 unfolding it curiously, she observed a few words of common 
 print George Buchan, your deceit is exposed, your sin laid 
 open, and you must awake from your dream of a son's affec- 
 tion to the reality of a mother's reproach. Perhaps not 
 Peggy staggered to a chair and meditated. The prior night's 
 adventure gave way to the poignancy of sorrow and to the 
 exactions of duty. If she put George on trial by questions, he 
 might confess or deny : she knew all the advantages of the 
 one, and dreaded the evils of the other — nay, hopeful as she 
 was of him, she shuddered as she contemplated the possibility 
 of his takmg a stand upon a falsehood ; for while she knew the 
 proneness of the impeached spirit to harden under the impeach- 
 ment, she knew also that that hardness is confirmed by denial. 
 
 On going into the kitchen she discovered two things. In 
 the first place, there was scarcely any article in the house to 
 make up a morning's meal to herself and her son ; and, in the 
 second place, George Jiad not only been before hand with her
 
 134 Mysterious Legeitds of Edinburgh. 
 
 in getting up, but be had gone out ; whereupon she began, as 
 she moved about in the operation of putting on the fire, to 
 meditate upon the question, what might be his object; nor was 
 this mere curiosity, for she was oppressed by a suspicion which 
 she was almost afraid to utter to her own ear. Meanwjle, the 
 fire having been lighted, she put on the kettle for tea, albeit 
 there was no tea in the bouse ; but then at the tail of her said 
 suspicion their lurked a hope that George might have suc- 
 ceeded in his mission to his uncle, and brought home some 
 money, (not of the devil's coining,) wherewith he might pur- 
 chase the necessary articles for not only their breakfast that 
 day, but their meals for some time to come, and until George 
 should get work. Othenvise all around her betokened peace 
 and rest. The kettle by and by began to sing, as if it was 
 conscious that it had a part to play in the domestic economy, 
 and the cat purred in philosophic composure, as if perfectly- 
 aware that Madame Muet had left for an individual of her race 
 a yearly pension, with a servant to wait upon the favoured 
 Grimalkin, The only unrest was in the spirit of the mistress, 
 which was not to be alleviated even if her son should return 
 with what was necessary for the requirements of the mere body ; 
 — and return he did about nine o'clock, wearing a cheerful 
 countenance, whether assumed for the puq^ose of keeping up 
 the spirits of his mother, whom, in spite of the deceit imputed 
 to him, he loved beyond all human creatures, or worn as tlie 
 liver)' of a successful purveyor. 
 
 Of that success he very soon brought forth evidence, as he 
 laid upon the table a pound of ham, half-a-dozen of eggs, a 
 pound of sugar, half a pound of tea, and bread to serve, at 
 least, for the day ; on all which the widow cast an eye of sus- 
 picion, even while she feared to test his honesty by puttmg it 
 to him in her usual unflinching way, whether these tilings were 
 got by the mysterious note, or by tlie means of a sum given 
 by the uncle. That George understood her look might have
 
 A Legend of Halkerstons Wynd. 135 
 
 appeared from a shadow that passed over his face, but he 
 quickly resumed his cheerful manner, and in a little further 
 time there was only to be heard the bubble and squeak from 
 the fr}'ing-pan, — a sound sufficient at least to disperse all those 
 vapours that came from an empty stomach, whatever influence 
 it might have over the feelings of a burdened heart The 
 breakfast was now prepared, and when they had taken their 
 places, the mother hfted her hands, " We offer our humble 
 thanks to Thee, O Lord, for what Thou hast provided for us 
 out of Thy bountiful providence, and may the means whereby 
 it has been brought to this house be such as to deserve Thy 
 blessing, for the sake of Thy Son. Amen." The grace in this 
 form was an extension of that which she usually said, and 
 George felt the reproof so sharply that he forgot any resolution 
 he might have formed to keep silence as to the source of the 
 money. 
 
 " It is honestly come by, dear mother," said he, assuringly. 
 " Eat and be happy." 
 
 The charm was broken. 
 
 " Na, na," she exclaimed. "There is food for the body, and 
 there is food for the soul, but that which is good for the flesh 
 may be the death of the spirit. George Buchan," she con- 
 tinued, " I have wi' sair travail brought ye up in the fear and 
 admonition oi the Lord, and I look for the fruit that comes o' 
 the sowing to the spirit, and of the sowing to the flesh. 
 Whaur got ye the money for thae things ? Was it from your 
 uncle \" 
 
 " No," replied the youth. " I used the pound-note which 
 you told me to burn, and I did not burn. I was tempted. I 
 knew there was no meat in the house ; and you know that if 
 * any one provide not for his own, and especially for those of 
 his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an 
 infidel ;' and who was she of my own house but the mother 
 who bore me?"
 
 136 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh, 
 
 " Ky" replied she; "but you are not told to provide even 
 for your mother by unholy means. I have sworn to keep the 
 secret o' him who left that note, and I will keep it. Albeit my 
 oath was forced ; but, George, you deceived me. A bit o' the 
 paper you burned was left by the flame as a witness against 
 you. I will not eat or drink o' what that money has bought, 
 for it is twice cursed — first, by the hand that left it ; and, second, 
 by the hand that concealed it. Yea, ' shall not the conscience 
 of him only which is weak be emboldened to eat those things 
 that are offered to idols V " 
 
 " It was only a slight deception, and for your good," replied 
 George, sorrowfully, as he looked at the Avell-supplied table, and 
 thought of the firmness of his Cameronian mother. 
 
 "Slight!" rejoined she. "If the man v*'ho deceiveth his 
 neighbour is called by holy writ mad, casting fire-brands, ar- 
 rows, and death, what is he who deceiveth the mother who 
 bore him? And it was for my good, you say? I would 
 rather have dreed starvation than that you had done this 
 thing ;" and rising up, till she became as rigid as a statue of 
 one of the old lights, she said, with a deep emphasis of com- 
 mand, " Nor shall you eat ; I forbid it, in the name .of Him 
 who fasted and was hungry for forty days, and said unto the 
 tempter, ' Man doth not live by bread alone" 
 
 With which words she left him, retreating into her bed-room, 
 where she betook herself to spiritual food, in place of that 
 which her son had provided for her. Meanwhile, George sat 
 silent and sorroAvful. He felt hungry, so that he could have 
 devoured two men's rneals ; but the injunction of the mother 
 he loved lay heavy on him, made heavier by his consciousness 
 of having deceived the best of parents, and, in addition, he 
 was sorely perplexed by the mystery of the previous night, 
 rendered darker by her statement that she had been obliged to 
 swear secrecy by some one, he knew not who, or for what end
 
 A Legend of Halkerstoii s Wynd. 
 
 I 
 
 O I 
 
 or purpose. There was thus a conflict within him — one power 
 suggesting the gratification of his stomach, another contrition 
 of the heart. Again and again he stretched forth his hand as 
 the bodily want increased to pain, and agrJn he withdraw it, 
 even as if these good things had been poison. 
 
 In this comfortless, if not painful, condition, the widow and 
 her son remained till it was near twelve o'clock, at which time 
 a pretty loud knock was heard at tlie door. George started 
 from the reverie in which he had been as one in a cor, fused" 
 and painful dream, and proceeded to open tlie door. What- 
 ever there was within to render him unhapjjy, he had no fear 
 from without ; for he was not conscious of having offended 
 the laws of his country. It was therefore with no little sur- 
 prise, yet -Still without dismay, that he saw two men enter and 
 shut the door behind them. 
 
 "You are George Buchan?" asked one of them. 
 
 " I am," replied George, fearlessly. 
 
 At the same moment, his mother appeared before them. 
 She knew the professional character of the men, and looked 
 at them with that calmness of resignation peculiar to a class of 
 religionists (not so common now) who viewed all the doings 
 in this world as mere direct effects of a working of certain 
 machinery' above. 
 
 " We are come upon a business which is as unpleasant to us 
 as to you," said the man. " It is to apprehend you on a charge 
 of housebreaking and robbery." 
 
 " When, and where 1" inquired George. 
 
 " Last night," rejoined the officer ; " and in the house of 
 George Carruthers, in Niddry's Wynd." 
 
 George tried to laugh in the exultation of innocence. 
 
 " And we are authorised to search you," again said the 
 officer. " Please to turn out your pockets." 
 
 Nor did George hesitate to obey ; for he still relied upon
 
 138 Mysterious Legeiids of Edinhirgh. 
 
 his innocence. He first laid on the table fifieen shillings and 
 fouqience in silver and coppers. The officer proceeded to 
 count them carefully. 
 
 " You paid four-and-eiglitpence to Mr Menelaws this morn- 
 ing?" said the man. 
 
 " Yes," was George s reply. " I gave him a pound, and that 
 is the change." 
 
 " Ver}^ correct," rejoined the man, as he took up the money. 
 " What more ?" 
 
 And George's hand, as he groped in his coat-pocket, laid 
 hold of the skeleton key which had been dropt by the midnight 
 visitor, and taken up by him. He pulled it fearlessly out. 
 
 "That is a skeleton key," said he, "which I found on the 
 stair last night, when I returned home from Dalkeith." 
 
 "A skddon key, indeed," echoed the officer. "I am sorry 
 to see it, and still more soiry to be obliged to take it with me. 
 Any more ?" 
 
 "No more," said George. 
 
 "Except yourself," responded the officer. "You will now go 
 with us." 
 
 "I am ready," was the reply. 
 
 And so he was at the moment ; for, so long as his mind was 
 engrossed by his obedience to the officers, he was as firm, if 
 not cheerful, as a conviction of innocence could make him; but 
 the feeling which is for the time in the ascendant is the dic- 
 tator of the soul. When he turned to his mother, that ascend- 
 ency was changed. A new feeling became the master, and, 
 bursting into tears, he flung his arms round her neck; then, as 
 if ashamed of a strength which is called weakness — 
 
 "There is not judge or juryman in broad Scotland," said he, 
 "who can touch a hair of my head for any fault, if it be not 
 that I am poor, and loved my mother so well that I appro- 
 priated for her good what Heaven seemed to have sent us in 
 oiu- extremity. I am ready."
 
 A Legend of Halkcrstons Wynd. 139 
 
 And without more preparation he went away in the custody 
 of the officers. 
 
 It was now that the widow came to see more clearly the 
 history of this strange affair. She sat do-v\Ti in John Buchans 
 chair — made by its former occupant sacred to strong sense and 
 stern morality — and meditated upon this inscrutahle visitation 
 of Divine wrath. The soft mother struggled against the rigid 
 Covenanter; and tears were the evidence of the triunijjh of 
 nature against a creed, to some extent, it may be feared, con- 
 ventional. His deception was the instinct of a son's love, and 
 now seemed to carr}^ small proportions when contrasted with 
 the crime with which he was now charged. She was even 
 sorry that she had made so much of it; for she was bound to 
 acknowledge, that if duty has its obligations so has love its 
 pri\ileges, and though a qualm came over her heart when she 
 thought of the skeleton key, it was followed by the assurance, 
 that the young man had spoken the truth, the evidence of 
 which lay, in the first place, in the fact that all the mysterious 
 pound was accounted for, even to a penny; and, secondly, in a 
 dim recollection she had of having heard the clink of an iron 
 instrument on the stair, all which considerations brought her a 
 new light, whereby she could read more clearly the historj- of 
 the night. The visitor, whom she had viewed as an emissar}' 
 of the author of evil, sent, according to her view of the economy 
 of Heaven, to tempt her and test her — no matter whether she 
 required the extraordinar}' touch-stone or not— was now, in her 
 more earthly, and certainly less irrational view, a midnighl rob- 
 ber, who, having calculated thai no one was in the house, had, 
 upon finding himself mistaken, left the bribe for the soke of 
 screening himself fiom discovery and punishment Tlie note 
 which constituted the bribe had been extracted from Carruther's 
 house, and tiaced to George through Mr Menelaws, the 
 grocer, with all which George's statement in reference to the 
 finding of the key completely tallied. Nor did her quick sense
 
 [40 Mysterious Legends of Edinbiwgh. 
 
 lail to shew her the danger of her only boy. Nay, it seemed 
 to her that he was doomed beyond the influence of any earthly 
 power to save liim. But vv-as there no hope in Heaven % 
 
 "Yes," she exclaimed, "the Lord knowetli how to deUver 
 the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto 
 the dav of judgment to be ])unished." 
 
 And just as if this devotional exclamation was to be confirmed 
 through the working of her own mind, she began to bring before 
 the eye of her memory the exact form and expression of that 
 face which she had seen so vividly by the upturned light of the 
 lantern. Formal images become bright and sharp through the 
 light, if we may use the expression, of feeling and emotion. She 
 saw the face before her, even as if it had been part of the living 
 body, but only the face, for of the other parts of the person she 
 had seen nothing, by reaso'i of their hiaving been in the shade; 
 and what was still more strange, she was certain she had seen it 
 befjre, nay, that she actually knew the man, only she could not 
 identify him either by name, profession, residence, or acquaint- 
 ance : — an illumination this in perfect harmony with natural, 
 though in exceptional workings, but the mind divines for itself 
 according to its desires. It is its own mystagogue, as well as 
 hierophant. Mrs Buchan saw Heaven's agency in the resusci- 
 tation of this bright image; and it was a sign to herald her to 
 the discovery of the man who had been the means of bringing 
 her son into the strong clutches of the law, from which, if she 
 did not make an effort in obedience to what she deemed a 
 message from the God of mercy, he might not be able to escape 
 with life. However vain might appear to be a search in a city 
 like Edinburgh for one solitary individual, whom she could 
 recognise only by an image of his face impressed upon her 
 memory, she was determined to find him if she should wander 
 from day to day, and from night to night, cold and hungry, and 
 peer into every face she met. The hope was wild; but we are to 
 remember she was a Christian and a mother, and who is igno-
 
 A Legend of Halkcrstoiis Wynd. 141 
 
 rant of the achievements of either against obstructions whicli 
 have been deemed unsurmountable. 
 
 The untouched breakfast was still upon the table. She 
 looked upon the eatables Avith horror, even though nature's 
 craving was upon her. Ever>' article was laid aside, but the 
 kindness of a ruling Providence runs zig-zag in every direction 
 through the variegated web of human destiny. You see it 
 where you do not expect it. The blue hair on the head of the 
 king of the Megarenses was the token of his strength, and liis 
 daughter Scylla cut it away; but even Atropos of the shears 
 cannot take away that thread of light which is seen on the 
 cloud of virtue under trial. About two o'clock the uncle from 
 Dalkeith entered, and having heard the story, blamed himself 
 for leaving George to the temptation under which he had suc- 
 cumbed. He left her money, and promised to interest himself 
 in the fate ol her son ; at the same time, that he secretly felt 
 that any prospect of success was gloomy, if not desperate. 
 
 She could get no access to George that day. He was 
 firmly immured in the Old Tolbooth, where so many innocent 
 prisoners had been kept, and from which so many gxiilty had 
 escaped. In the latter part of the afternoon she put on her 
 plaid to go forth in the execution of that strange and hopeless 
 purpose upon which she had invoked the blessing of Him 
 whose ears are ever open to the prayers of the just. It has 
 been said, that if you wish to know love — what it is and what 
 it worketh — look to your mother. We all know the yearning 
 of the woman of Canaan. And so she commenced her pil- 
 grimage. Was it not for a lost son'? and would she be dis- 
 mayed so long as her heart beat hope? There was once a 
 search for an honest miin, but no account has been left as to 
 the success attending the enteiprise, and we are left to laugh 
 at what we call an orthodox paradox. How easy her task 
 would have been if tlie object of her inquiry had been lor a 
 merely dishonest one, an indlviduum quod^ if she might not
 
 142 Myste7^io7is Legends of Edinhwgh, 
 
 have laid hold of the first man she met, whose natural wants 
 were in the inverse ratio to his guineas. She could be satisfied 
 only with one — with a face whose image had been, as it were, 
 burned into her soul with the red light of a lantern. That one 
 s!ie no where saw, though s'le looked and peered into every face 
 she met. Nor did she give up hope where she had, as it were, 
 only begun : she continued h -r wanderings next day, and the 
 day after, and the day after that without success, and yet with- 
 out even a diminution of an ardour which derived its strength 
 from the heart, even from the blood of the coronaries themselves. 
 Meanwhile, the authorities were busy in their search, making 
 all fast, that the grim god at the head of IJberton's Wynd, 
 more bloody than Dagon, or Chemosh, or Moloch, might have 
 his Uving victim. They had the pound note with the written 
 doggrel on the back thereof, sworn to by Carruthers, v.^ho, in 
 accordance with a singular practice of the times, had written 
 the same as a specimen of h.is poetical morality. They had 
 tlie skeleton key, whereby tliey satisfied themselves by the 
 experiment of a smith, the doors of the house in Niddry's 
 Wynd, and that in Halkerston's Wynd, might be opened. They 
 had, further, the testimony of two witnesses to the effect, that 
 George had been seen to go up Niddry's Wynd at a late hour, 
 but not to the effect that he was then only continuing his road 
 from Dalkeith. And if all this was not sufficient to hang a 
 man in those days, when hanging was a species of pastime to 
 both the hangers-up and the hangers-on, then no man that 
 had ever been executed had been condemned upon sufficient 
 evidence. But well might the men in authority be zealous in 
 their prosecution of George Buchan, for at that time all Edin- 
 burgh began to ring with the news of a strange, if not romantic 
 event. There are people yet alive who can remember it. 
 Numbers of the inhabitants were daily applying to the authori- 
 ties with complaints that their houses and shops had been 
 entered during the night in a manner which shewed that these
 
 A Legend of Halkcrstoiis IVynd. 14 
 
 J 
 
 burglaries were all effected by one man. It appeared, too, 
 that the work was performed so adroitly that, unless for the 
 articles that were taken away, you could not have known tliat 
 any entry had been made ; but what seemed most extraordinary, 
 was the fact that the ingenious burglar was as much a pliilo- 
 sopher, who liked to dive into the inside of things for mere 
 curiosity's sake, as a thief who liked to carry those things ofi 
 for, according to all the accounts of the time, he went, by the 
 help of his universal key, into many houses and warehouses 
 without taking anything away — a fact the more to be wondered 
 at, tliat there were in these places plenty of valuable articles 
 which he might have abstracted without difficulty \ nay, more 
 strange things were said of him, such as that one night he went 
 in upon a lady who was so much occupied in writing a letter 
 that she never knew he was at her back till she saw his face in 
 a mirror opposite to her — when she turned round he was gone. 
 It was no great wonder, then, that the men whose duty it 
 is to guard the lieges should have looked upon George Euchan 
 as a prize. Meanwhile, the widow, engaged in her peregrina- 
 tions, which she continued from day to day, heard also of tliis 
 extraordinary person, and though at first she was staggered at 
 the recollection of the skeleton key, she recovered the stead- 
 fastness of the conviction of his innocence by her knowledge 
 of his habit of being home at good hours — a circumstance 
 amounting to an alibi. Nay, the intelligence yielded her hope, 
 for she could clearly enough see that her midnight \-isitor Avas 
 the ver}' man who thus occupied the tongue of the public. All 
 her wanderings and wanderings up and down did not enable 
 her to find that face. What would she not have given for a 
 glimpse of it! No opening ray of hope to the dying could 
 matcli the joy of a reflected beam from that countenance which 
 haunted her, and yet eluded her watchful eye. Nor did she of 
 high lineage in Palestine, who, according to the beautiful story, 
 wandered to England, with no more knowledge of English than
 
 144 Mysterious Legaids of Ediiibiirgh. 
 
 the name of him she scucrht, sidi more ardentlv to meet her 
 lover than this loving mother did to meet her enemy. 
 
 More days passed, and still all was vain. She had seen 
 r.eorije since the news of the midnic^ht buri^lar had broken on 
 the city, and she would go to the Tolbooth to cheer him with 
 what seemed to be an explanatioii of the mystery as connected 
 with him. She got admittance at once, and was introduced 
 iiito that place which so well merited the short name with 
 which it was honoured. The night had set in, and the dingy 
 lamps inside threw their light on the bloated faces of those 
 prisoners who occupied the largest room, wliere they were 
 allowed to mix, and drink, and swear, according to the lax 
 discipline of the time. Her boy had been among these — he 
 whom she had so zealously guarded from the example of the 
 wicked, but he had been put, the jailer told her, into one of 
 the small rooms up stairs, set apart for special criminals. In 
 going along an obscure passage, with some cells on each side, 
 she came to a grating through which a light shone. She stopt 
 to look in. There was a man there sitting at a table poring 
 over a book, which she supposed to be the Bible. The light 
 of a lamp shone on his face, she gave an involuntary scream, 
 and sunk on the floor. That face was the very one of her 
 midnight visitor. 7 he famous Deacon Brodie had been appre- 
 hended that day. 
 
 This circumstance was made known to the authorities in due 
 time by the uncle, and was at once seen by them to fit in, not 
 only with George's examination, but with the history of the 
 deacon. Another circumstance tended in the same direction. 
 The skeleton key was compared with others taken from 
 I'rodie, and was found to be of the same make, only longer in 
 the hook, as if intended to reach deeper guards. Every one 
 knows the fate of the deacon, who was hanged for his curio- 
 sity ; but few know of the hairbreadth escape of George Buchan, 
 \:hose adventure we have thus related.
 
 fang Saiibg mhon's Mutt^. 
 
 jjF the many stories and anecdotes told of the cele- 
 brated Dr Alexander Wood, otherwise known by 
 the familiar name of Lang Sandy Wood, I do not 
 know i{ the curious legend connected with his 
 watch has ever been put in a proper storied form ; but whether 
 so or not, having succeeded in hunting up some of the more 
 recondite facts connected with the law case in which the vir- 
 tues of the chronometer figured so prominently, I hope to be 
 able to impart some new interest to the subject. Before enter- 
 ing upon the strange history, I may, at the risk of repeating 
 what may be very well known, set forth that the great doctor 
 had, if we may so term it, a kind of friendship for his gold 
 repeater — a feeling which, if we examine into the nature of our 
 social friendships generally, may appear not so irrational as 
 many may think. We know that objects not much removed 
 from the mere inanimate have shared strangely the affections 
 of both men and women. The classical reader will recollect 
 the sparrow of Lesbia, the cat of Madame de Gournay, Melior's 
 paroquet, Stella's dove, Madame de Houlier's spaniel. Lady 
 Eglintoun's rats, the lamprey of Hortensius, and so forth ; and 
 if he chooses to acknowledge, with Descartes, that these crea- 
 tions are mere machines, he will be at no loss to account for 
 an affection entertained bj' a man for so beautiful and useful a 
 piece of mechanism as a watch ; nay, if we go to the ultimate 
 of the nature of friendship among our superior race, we doubt 
 if it would not be found that our amities are not very different
 
 146 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 from our predilections, which are often no better than whims, 
 and only to be accounted for by qualities sought out by us 
 after we are caught. A response of sympathy forms the 
 whole affair ; and what return to an inquiry as to how time is 
 passing with you could be made with more precision and less 
 fuss than by a good timepiece? The doctor's watch was, in 
 short, punctual to time, and he was punctual to it. We wish 
 we could say the same to the credit of that sense of obligation 
 which remains in our day of civilisation. 
 
 It might be about the period when the doctor usually rolled 
 up his mute monitor, not far from midnight, and when he was 
 sitting in his librar}'^ thinking of some difficult case wliich had 
 interested him during the day, that a servant brought him the 
 message that he was wanted at the house of Mr James GiUesijie, 
 writer, in Advocates' Close. He had called there in the fore- 
 noon, and knew that the case — that of the young wife, Mrs 
 Gillespie — was a hopeless one. " I can do her nae gude," he 
 muttered to himself, in his broad way ; " a decided case of 
 marasmus. The deil a lacteal in a' her body will si]> ane o' its 
 ain mouthfuls, if you should tempt it wi' nectar." And putting 
 on his wig and square hat, and taking up the indispensable long 
 cane, he sallied forth for the house of the patient. A few of 
 his long strides soon brought him to the sick-room, where he 
 found Mr Gillespie himself, and the sick-nurse, hanging over 
 the patient, and a young woman, her sister, sitting on a chair 
 by the bedside. A single glance told the doctor how matters 
 were progressing with the invalid ; and if he took the chair 
 vacated for him by the sister, and began to feel the pulse of 
 the dying woman, it was rather to measure how near she was 
 to that point where the silver cord breaks, than with any desire 
 to ascertain any particular pathological condition. In going 
 through which mechanical process, Dr Wood, of all men, be- 
 hoved to have in his hand that gold repeater ; not that that 
 cunning bit of mechanism could, at the moment, be of any ser-
 
 Lang Sandy Wood's Watch. 147 
 
 vice to one who could, by a few throbs, ascertain all that he 
 wanted to know, but that, in the then janty style of the craft, it 
 was held to be an indispensable part of the process to count by 
 the watch — if, indeed, the friends of the patient could be got 
 to think the examination complete without it. We have in our 
 days changed all this ; and by trying to become more simple in 
 the sign, we have become more complex in the thought, with- 
 out being more certain of the thing. However all that may be, 
 we are to know that Dr "Wood, having held the watch in his 
 hand for a minute or two, observed some change cotae over 
 the face of the patient ; and with a view to examine more nearly 
 the nature of that change, he rose from the chair, laying down, 
 as he did so, the watch on a side-table, whereon were placed 
 the empty phials and boxes — the virtues of whose contents, no 
 doubt, lay more in the Latin names than in the nature of the 
 essences. In addition to this minuteness of detail, we may 
 state that Mr Gillespie, the husband, was, at the moment when 
 the doctor laid down his watch, standing so close by the side- 
 table that, if he had chosen, he might have taken up the article 
 and examined it ; but we cannot say that he did so ; nay, we 
 would rather incline to the opinion that, with his whole soul 
 engrossed with the fate of his young wife, not even the fame of 
 the doctor's repeater would have moved him to an act partak- 
 ing so much of the mere by-play of the melodrama of life. 
 But then, on the other hand, we are told that the most strange 
 things in the world are done during lapses or intervals of the 
 great play, when the minds of the actors are off their guard, 
 even by the very interest of the plot they are working out, per- 
 haps more as puppets than we can well be aware of 
 
 But, leaving all dubieties, we get again among verities, 
 where we proceed to narrate that the doctor hung over 
 the changing face of the dying woman for the period of five 
 or six minutes, a portion of time measured by the faint and 
 fainter breathings of receding life. All was now over. The
 
 148 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh, 
 
 spirit had taken flight, even at that moment when the pupil of 
 the eye was turned in the direction of the husband, and the 
 doctor, seizing between his thumb and fore-finger the upper 
 lids, pulled them down over the stark fixed balls. " There," 
 said he, as he raised his head, " it is ended ; and may the hope 
 of the good fructify in that better Eden where sin dauma enter ;" 
 and, amidst a sudden burst of grief from the two women, turned 
 to the side-table and took up his watch. The doctor had 
 acted his part, and now the husband had to perform his — even 
 that pantomimic part of fixing his gaze upon tlie face of a dead 
 young wife ; feeling within his brain that shock of the mind as 
 it were revolting against itself, with the fiightened ideas shoot- 
 ing forth out of the natural channels of thought, and placing 
 his hand upon his brow as if he would restrain the mad-like 
 energies. 
 
 The doctor, meanwhile, was prepaiing to dej>art, the more 
 willingly, no doubt, tliat, like the rest of his profession, he was 
 morbidly averse to witnessing scenes among relatives, where 
 the realities of suffering patients are sufficient for the bearing 
 of even those whom practice is supposed to render callous. 
 He had got to the door of the death-chamber, and was in the 
 act of opening it, when Mr Gillespie, starting suddenly out of 
 his trance of grief, proceeded to follow him. 
 
 "Just one moment, doctor," said he, as he came up to the 
 rather impatient physician, when the latter was taking up his 
 hat and cane. " Come here !" 
 
 And he led the doctor into a parlour where there was a 
 candle burning on the table, with paper, pen, and ink, duly laid, 
 as if for the occasion. 
 
 " I want from you, doctor," said the writer, " a certificate of 
 the hour of the death of my beloved wife." 
 
 "The first time I was ever asked for such a document," 
 replied the doctor. " Has the death driven you mad, man ; or, 
 rather, has there no been enough o' misery within this hour.
 
 Lang Sandy Wood's Watch. 149 
 
 that you want it written down upon paper to harrow up your 
 soul in after-time, when you would be better employed in at- 
 tending to the interests o' your clients ?" 
 
 "I have a better reason for it," rejoined the writer; "and 
 which I will explain to you after the funeral." 
 
 " Weel, weel," was the characteristic reply, " you lawyers 
 have your ain secrets, just as ministers have theirs, when 
 they- frighten tlie deil wi' prayers ; or we doctors, when we pre- 
 tend to terrify death by Latin names written on bottles and pill 
 boxes." 
 
 And taking up a pen, he wrote on a clean sheet of paper — ■ 
 " I hereby certify, on soul and conscience, that Mrs Isabella 
 Gillespie departed this hfe at" — (" I-et me see," as he pulled out 
 his watch,) — '-half-past twelve o'clock, on this the 29th day of 
 April,"— 
 
 "The 30th," interjected the wiiter ; "you know this is 
 morning." 
 
 " Quite right," proceeded the doctor ; " I am a day nearer 
 the grave than 1 thought ;" — " this 30th day of April, in the year 
 of grace" (" Precious little o't in our day — except before meat,") 
 "17 — ." "There it is," he continued; " and if any mortal man 
 daur to question it, tell him that Dr Wood's watch will guaran- 
 tee it in the face o' the sun — a timepiece that may gae wrang, 
 but his never." 
 
 And with this speech, which, for a certain reason yet to ap- 
 pear, might have produced a smile on the writer's face, if his 
 wife had not been lying in the next room dead, the doctor 
 departed ; nor did his watch progress another half-hour till it 
 was wound up for the night, and he was stretched out in bed, 
 snoring lustily away the effects of the day's multifarious labours. 
 
 Next morning he was duly admonished by his familiar under 
 his pillow of the time to get up ; but whether it was that he 
 did not consider himself very well rested, or that he had got 
 into the middle of a difficult diagnosis, certain it is, that he
 
 150 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 took some quarter of an hour of bed more than he was in 
 the habit of doing. No great matter, at worst, to a man so 
 active that he could put himself right by a tug at time's fore- 
 lock at any juncture \ but though he had sacrificed this quarter 
 of an hour to his ease, that was no reason why he should not 
 have got his breakfast at nine o'clock as he used to do. Clear 
 enough that yet there was no breakfast served at that hour, nor 
 indeed for three-quarters of an hour afterwards, a circumstance, 
 no doubt, due to the laziness of the domestics, ivho had too 
 clearly followed the example o{ their master, and honoured it 
 by adding two quarters to his one. But, as we all know, Lans: 
 Sandy was excessively good-natured and long-suffering, qualified 
 only at times by sudden bursts, which were over in a moment ; 
 and if we are bound to say that there were some long strides, 
 as if he intended to stalk out at the window, and some groAvls 
 as if he would have bitten something else than his mornin<y 
 roll, we are forced to admit a justification, when a doctor's 
 visits were to be thrown out of joint for an entire day. At 
 length he was gratified ; and if he ate quickly, and snarled at the 
 time, the servants could only wonder at the unreasonablene.ss 
 of their excellent master, who was fed that morning with all 
 the regularity enjoyed by the inmates of a menagery whose 
 feeding-time has been advertised by special bill. 
 
 So out he went, and if his long lank figure was always re- 
 markable to the good burgesses of Edinburgh, it was now more 
 so than usual, for he took longer strides than he was wont, 
 and brandished his gold-headed cane as if he would use the 
 same to force his way through the crowds o{ people — more 
 than he usually saw at ten o'clock ; nay, he could not under- 
 stand the economy of the streets that morning at all, for the 
 people seemed all to be hurrying to breakfast, in ])lace of re- 
 turnmg from it ; and the agents and advocates with their blue 
 bags, so ominous of a colour likely to overtake the faces of their 
 clients, were all hurrying to the Parliament House, as if they
 
 Lang Sandy Wood's Watch. 151 
 
 had been more anxious that morning than usual to bring their 
 proteges to the happiness that awaits them in that elysium; 
 all which might very well be for some occult reason or other, 
 into which he had no time to inquire ; but reason here or 
 reason there, there could be no sufficient reason (maugre 
 Leibnitz) why he should doubt the dictum of his repeater, 
 which had never deceived him for twenty years, but had always 
 given him the true point of time with as much certainty as 
 could be imparted by the great archangel when he declares to 
 the spirit the truth of eternity. 
 
 Nor was the conviction that he was rather too late than an 
 hour too soon upon his rounds affected by certain ejaculations 
 which met him at the opening of certain doors, such as, " You 
 are early, doctor!" " Bless me! is it that time already?" and 
 the like — all of which were verified by the condition of the 
 patients' bed-rooms, where, in some instances, he even found 
 the breakfast apparatus not yet removed. The error, indeed, 
 seemed to run through the whole route ; and no doubt it was 
 the more easily observable as our yEsculapius was so regular 
 that you could not have found the scales in the classic repre- 
 sentation of the god more uniform. Several small collateral 
 tests are sometimes more convincing than a great experiment; 
 but even something of this latter kind awaited him, as, when 
 he got to the shop of Bridges, the auctioneer, who was that 
 day to shew some medical books of the very kind wanted by 
 the doctor, the shop was not even open ; but then it was 
 well known that the auctioneer was not so regular as men of 
 his public character ought to be, and generally are. And this, 
 again, explained why the work-people were not yet on their 
 move to dinner. Yet these were, in comparison of another, only 
 small tests. Did not St Cliles's only shew "one," and Bridges's 
 bill shewed " two." There could be no doubt that the saint's 
 hands did so indicate; but, then, how often had the doctor seen 
 these hands pointing to wrong figures — nay, so dogmatically
 
 152 Mysterious Legends of Edinhirgh. 
 
 perverse, that they would stick to some beloved arithmetical 
 signs for a whole day ; nor could less be expected of a saint 
 who, according to the old chronicle of him, said he would die 
 at a certain hour of a certain day, and yet lived and ate and 
 drank for a year after — assigning as a reason, that he had got 
 a reprieve for the puq>ose of taking to heaven with hiixi a great 
 sinner, so loaded with crimes that it took all that time for him 
 to repent. There was no faith to be placed in a criterion so 
 changeable. No more is the revolving wheel tumed by the fly 
 that sits upon it, than is the sun regulateil by such wooden 
 hands of a crazy machine ; and so, the doctor, taking out his 
 watch, was so daring, that he absolutely laughed in tlie face of 
 the saint, repeating to himself the while the words of Horace— 
 
 " Nocturn^ versate manu, versate diiim/i ; " 
 
 after which he put the repeater into his fob, and continued his 
 rounds, with the belief that though the sun once went out of 
 his way under the hand of the son of Clymene, and once 
 stood stock-still under the command of the son of Nun, his 
 watch was void of all such erratic whims. In all this, Dr 
 Alexander Wood just acted upon a kind of instinct, which, less 
 or more, all mankind obey — and that is, the habit of following 
 the intuition of an old conviction ; and, indeed, this is one of 
 the modes whereby nature gets us to go through all the wind- 
 ings of this dreary world ; for if we were under the necessity 
 of doubting, and inquiring into the truth of everything we en- 
 counter, we would never get through our work at all. Even 
 the libertarians, who shudder at the doctrines of necessity, will 
 so far admit that each of us is just the fly upon tlie wheel, 
 that thinks it has a considerable capacity for turning ; and we 
 ourselves are only by this observation playing the part of a small 
 metaphysician, who makes a hole in the canvas, through which 
 he may see the true secret of the painted figures on the picture. 
 So the sun condescended to move more and more that day, 
 under the tutelage of Sand}'^s regulator, till came " the hour of
 
 Lang Sandy Wood's Watch. 1 5 
 
 r J 
 
 dine;" and it happened that he was engaged to be one of a 
 large parly pledged to attend at the hospitable board of Dr 
 James Hamilton, even that famous man, we suppose, who was 
 called the expurgator, for the reason that he wrote a book to 
 prove that all mankind stood in need of drastics. The hour 
 of meeting was four — that is, by St Giles's ; but the adoption of 
 that unsafe criterion was no reason why Dr Alexander Wood's 
 watch should be considered a false reckoner ; and so, for a 
 certainty, he was at the house precisely at tlie proper sun time, 
 or rather a kind of " mean time," for he would allow the party 
 to assemble before he made his appearance ; but we need not 
 try to describe his wonderment Avhen he found that not a single 
 soul was in the ante-room, notwithstanding that lie bad con- 
 ceded live or ten minutes to their most unpunctual habits. 
 " Why,'' he muttered to himself, as he sat down and seized, in 
 desperation, a book, " it would seem that a' the watches in 
 Edinburgh are mad the day ;" and apparently he had a good 
 right to make that observation, for even his host, one of the 
 most punctual men of his generation, was not yet come in 
 from his rounds ; then every one knew how janty the bachelor 
 had to make himself, with his breast-ruClcs and wrist-mflles, 
 his knee-buckles, and shoe-buckles, his Avig, and the pov,^der 
 thereon, and the tie thereof, let alone various scents to Avhich 
 he was addicted. " And he has been led by the nose by St 
 Giles's, too," said the impatient doctor again, as he lifted his 
 eyes from the book, which had got only as yet a small hold of 
 a head surmounting, yet governed by, an empty stomach. 
 Whereupon, as a refuge from his impatience, he bored his 
 eyes again into the page, until he got his thoughts to follow the 
 author — a feat which made him so far independent that, with 
 the exception of a growl or two, he did not hear his own voice 
 again till some of the company began to assemble. Yet any 
 one might have observed that the hearty doctor was not alto- 
 gether himself; but^ then, that any one would not have been
 
 154 Mysteriotis Legends of Edinbtn^gh. 
 
 entitled to wonder if he had known that the worthy physician 
 had been doomed to wait there more than three-quarters of an 
 hour for a parcel of slow-goes and loungers who had not had the 
 courage to take an old crazy saint by the beard and turn his 
 head round a full revolution. In short, Dr Wood was im- 
 plicitly satisfied that the clock in the High Street had cheated 
 not only his friends, but the whole town j and this conviction 
 was so much of the nature of an instinct, that he despised to 
 allude to the circumstance, just after the fashion of certain 
 wiseacres, who thmk it beneath them to try to instruct a pig- 
 headed generation by imparting to them the subject of their 
 own huUucinations. 
 
 This contretemps notwithstanding, our doctor, after being 
 seated for some time at the table, became very obediently, if 
 not cheerfully, amenable to the suavities of a good dinner, 
 and the best claret which the cellars of Leith could send forth, 
 under the influence of the money talisman. At a time when 
 scandal and metaphysics formed the staples of all genteel con- 
 versation, and good wine was helped by the one and needed 
 by the other, the hour came when they arrived at that point 
 at which the truth is said to be in a man, for the reason that 
 drink is not out of him ; and as Sandy conscientiously believed 
 that Edinburgh had been, in a chronological sense, all wrong 
 that day, he did not hesitate to say so, even in his own rough 
 way — viz., that " Auld St Giles's had led them a' by the nose," 
 whereupon he was set down as being deeper in Bacchus's wine- 
 tub than he really was, and accordingly a hearty response of 
 mirth greeted the announcement. No one ever thought of 
 sending out to see how the saint's hands were pointed, for the 
 good reasons — first, that these hands could not be seen in the 
 dark ; and, secondly, because they were satisfied that the 
 doctor was either funning, or under a delusion ; but in the 
 midst of the uproar Dr Hamilton bethought him of testing 
 the affair by the doctor's watch itself, the which Sandy handed
 
 Lang Sandy Wood's Watch. 1 5 5 
 
 over to the expurgator without deigning to look at it. What 
 the host did to the repeater was not seen by the company, and, 
 by the rules of our art, we are not at liberty to say , but the 
 watch having been returned to its owner, and safely deposited 
 in its proper place, the experimenter proceeded to favour his 
 guests by joining them in their humour, which was no other 
 than that of chiming in with Sandy, and declaring that they 
 had all been deceived by the saint, some saying they were too 
 soon for their work by an hour ; others that they had quar- 
 relled with their wives about the time of the day • some that 
 they could not get their shirts and ruffles ready for the time of 
 dressing for dinner and so forth. It was now time for their 
 host to betake himself to his legs, not very stead)', by reason 
 of their strict allegiance to their master, the head. 
 
 " Why, gentlemen," said he, '"the thing may be demonstrated. 
 Let us see ; Dr Wood declared — and who ever doubted Lang 
 Sandy Wood] — that he this day compared his watch with the 
 clock of St Giles's, and found the saint's hands pointing an 
 hour behind the said watch. That is, as you must know, 
 behind the sun. That being granted, I may ask you the 
 question. Did any of you set your watches by St Giles's this 
 day?" 
 
 " No," replied one, who, in speaking truth, did not require to 
 be chief priest of Momus; and "No," said another and another, 
 till the round table was exhausted. 
 
 " Then," contmued the host, " it behoves that your watches 
 will all point to the same hour as Dr Wood's." 
 
 " Most certainly," cried Sandy, as he in his fum betook 
 himself to his legs ; " and ye will allow me to .say that ye 
 behoved cither to have had very bad timepieces or very in- 
 different headpieces if ye could have allowed yourselves to 
 be led by a crazy clock ; the which clock I hae seen st:inding 
 for a haill day pointing to the same hour wi' a' the dogmatism 
 of a philosopher ; yea, nae farther than yesterday week, I saw
 
 156 Mystermis Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 a countryman, wha, after staring at the dial-plate for full two 
 minutes, held up his hands to heaven, gave a wild shriek, and 
 fled to Jamieson's coach-office, whaur he was an hour ower 
 sune. Now for the test, gentlemen," he continued, as he 
 drew out his famous regulator; " I pronounce that it is now 
 exactly five minutes and two seconds past nine." 
 
 On hearing which every one took out his watch, and all 
 declared the time properly announced, there being no more 
 difference than the occasional discrepancies so common among 
 horologes. 
 
 " There it is, ye see," continued the doctor, when he heard 
 the verdict ; " I am right, and St Ciiles's is wrong." 
 
 And Dr Wood was again applauded. Yet it is doubtful 
 whether any one of the company understood how this harmony 
 of chronometers was brought about except the host himself, 
 who retained his secret with much gravity ; nor, when the 
 party broke up at the announced hour of twelve, was our 
 possessor of the unfailing timepiece left without greater 
 gratification at his triumph, for in going home he heard St 
 Ciiles's chime the very hour at which they had parted; and 
 even the watchmen seemed anxious to impress his ear with the 
 welcome sounds; all of which indicated that the High-Street 
 authorities, who had the charge of the time of the city, had 
 come to find they had been an hour wrong during the day, and 
 had taken the trouble to move the saint's hands an hour for- 
 ward. Accordingly, next morning everything as regards time 
 was brought into harmony. The doctor's breakfast was not 
 too late, nor his visits too soon ; the working people went and 
 came at the right time, and the gentlemen with the bags of 
 papers began their professional labours at the proper hour. 
 Nor did this happy condition of things undergo any change up 
 to the time of Mrs Gillespie's funeral, at which the doctor was, 
 as a matter of course, present, and at which the chief mourner, 
 Mr Gillespie himself, roused again his suspicion of being still
 
 Lang Sandy Wood' s Watch. 1 5 7 
 
 held in the wrong, by asking him the exact time. Then, to 
 make matters no better, the writer seemed, even in the depth 
 of his grief and the length of his crape, to be pleased to 
 find that the doctor's time tallied so well with the town 
 clock, just as if he had rejoiced at the doctor's having got out 
 of a scrape, — not that he hinted at any discrepancy having ever 
 existed, but that the doctor so constnied his looks, as if he 
 had been sure that the writer pitied him for having been in the 
 false position of a man out ot time. 
 
 An incident so simple could doubtless have had no effect on 
 any mind not predisposed to taking offence by reason of sus- 
 picions verging on monomania; but, then, the doctor was at 
 the very least touchy upon this particular point, and unfortu- 
 nately, too, Mr Gillespie's conduct was only a beginning. No 
 sooner had the doctor left the burying-gi-ound, and proceeded 
 a short distance on his way homeward, than up comes Mr 
 James Arnot, a leather-merchant, and one of the trustees under 
 Mrs Gillespie's father's settlement, who, actuated by Heaven 
 knows what motive, put the question to him, how his watch had 
 been going for the last two or three days. The trustee was a 
 serious man certainly, not given to practical joking, otherwise 
 the doctor would have resented on the instant a question 
 which seemed to have some view to make him ridiculous. As 
 it was, he was inclined to be humorous. 
 
 " Tell a' your friends, Mr Arnot," said he, " that Dr Wood's 
 watch is just going on as well as can be expected." 
 
 And witli these words he brushed past his inteiTogator ; but 
 the latter had no wish to be left by so great a man under the 
 suspicion of tomfooling him, and therefore he kept trotting 
 after the Anak, and trying to assure him that he put the 
 question as a matter of business connected with the trustee- 
 ship, all which seemed to our doctor to make the matter 
 worse, inasmuch as it was an attempted justification of im- 
 pudence.
 
 158 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 For a man with such legs it was no difficult matter to get 
 (luit of this importunate joker, and seeing that as yet only two 
 questioners had appeared on the field, the danger of being made 
 a butt of w^as not great : so far there was consolation, but the 
 (h:)ctor had not got far away from Mr Arnot when he was 
 saluted by another, a Mr David Edgar, a tea-merchant, who 
 was, as he himself admitted, also connected with the trust, 
 and who, with a kind of apology, came slap out with the 
 question, whether, on the morning of the 30th of the last month, 
 the doctor had found his watch an hour too fast. The 
 question produced a stare of perfect amazement, for we may 
 as well let it be known now, that however genial the doctor 
 was, he had an utter horror at being made an object of banter, 
 and as this third attack was a clear proof of a conspiracy to 
 make public game out of that innocent foible of his — a perhaps 
 undue love for his watch — he required to resent it, and so to 
 be sure he did. 
 
 " No," replied he, even louder than he was in the habit of 
 speaking ; " my watch hasna deceived me for twenty years ; but 
 I '11 tell you what, Mr Edgar, you have <v//deceived me even 
 this minute, for I aye took ye for a serious man, at least far 
 abune a fule." 
 
 And again the doctor strode on, probably a little appeased 
 by the consciousness of having put an end for ever to a con- 
 spiracy ; but as it is in the way of Providence that we are 
 nearest danger when we think ourselves farthest away from it, 
 so the doctor had no sooner got to the door of his house than 
 Mr Scott the writer accosted him blandly, with the intelligence 
 that he had a itw questions to ask him, his apology for putting 
 which lay in his professional capacity. 
 
 "What anent?" replied the doctor, now thoroughly roused 
 against interrogatories. 
 
 " Wliy, sir," replied the agent, "just your watch, which we all 
 know is famous for being the best within the sound of St Giles's."
 
 Lang Sandy Wood's Watch. 159 
 
 "My watch again!" echoed the doctor. 
 
 "You have been questioned before, then?" continued the 
 WTiter; "so much the better, as it shews I am not on a sohiaiy 
 fool's errand." 
 
 "Gude heavens !" cried the doctor, "are ye in the plot tool" 
 
 " I know of no plot," said Mr Scott. " It is a fair question, 
 whether you remember that your watch was an hour before the 
 time on Thursday lastf 
 
 "Ay, just the auld sang," replied the doctor ; " but, by my 
 faith, ye '11 get nae chorus out o' me." 
 
 " I want no chorus," said Mr Scott, perfectly amazed at the 
 conduct of a man so generally respected for bonhomie and 
 politeness of a rough kind. "Will you not, Dr Wood," con- 
 tinued he, " allow yourself to be precognosced V 
 
 " Ay," shouted the doctor, who had by this time got the 
 door in his hand, within whicli he partly siood, — " Ay, but no 
 r^^-nosced." 
 
 Whereupon he banged the door in the face of the astonished 
 writer, who was thus forced to depart with a clean sheet of 
 paper and wondering eyes. 
 
 It is comfortable for us to have to say that for that evening 
 and night Dr Wood was free from any further questions on 
 this now, to him, sore point ; and we wish we could add that 
 he was equally free from questions put to himself by himself. 
 This we cannot do, for it is of verity that he precognosced 
 himself with an asperity to which his generous spirit was little 
 accustomed, to the eftect of ascertaining whether it could be 
 possible that a man of his repute could be set up by the people 
 of Edinburgh, to whom he had done so much good in a pro- 
 fessional way, as a laughing-stock or public nierry-andrew, for 
 people to pomt their finger at and say, "There goes Lang Sandy 
 Wood, and his watch that was never wrong." It might, he said 
 to himself, be deemed a very small matter that the tail of his 
 wig should be pulled by a few roistering friends; but he knew
 
 1 69 Mystei^ioiis Legends of Edinbuigh. 
 
 I u:nin nature too well not to be certain that dignity, nay, even. 
 I'espectability, is utterly incompatible with public laughter, if 
 indeed it is not so fine and brittle an article that the slightest 
 touch of ridicule will begin the process of its destruction. 
 Even in the morning he was impressed with these feelings, all 
 tending to an apprehension that even his professional success 
 and utility might be endangered by a decay of public respect. 
 He could only hope that the new ^■\y would bring immunity 
 from an evil wliich he probably exaggerated, and with this 
 expectation he went forth again to his duties. 
 
 As a veritable chronicler, we are here in some difficulty, or 
 rather fear, lest we may be subjected to the suspicion of having 
 recourse to the rhetorical figure of accumulation ; but we can- 
 not help the danger, and must therefore aver that Sandy had 
 not been on the street for a full quarter of an hour, when one 
 of the gentlemen who had been present at the expurgator's 
 dinner party came up to him and said, in a laughing way, — 
 
 '' I hope, doctor, the trick played upon you by Hamilton 
 did not put jom out of time in paying your visits yesterday]" 
 
 " Again, and aince mair," muttered Sandy. " Really, really^ 
 this is ower inuckle. What can be the meaning o' a' this?" 
 
 And so overcome was he that he did not even condescend 
 to give his old friend, a very respectable man, a word in reply. 
 On again he strode, a process which easily enough carried him 
 away from one man, especially as that man was thunderstruck, 
 and therefore unable to follow for an explanation ; but we are 
 to remember that Edinburgh at that time v/as more like a 
 \-illage, where every one knows the story of the hour within 
 that hour, than a city vt^ith dimensions offering physical ob- 
 structions to the spread of petty scandal — the reason whereof 
 being, that it was one long street, where every one might be 
 seen at some hour or other of the twenty-four, and there is 
 therefore nothing strange in the fact we dare to aver, that in 
 half an hour afterwards another of the dinner party came in
 
 Lang Sandy Wood's Watch. i6i 
 
 contact with our doctor, but with this difference, that Sandy- 
 accosted him with the question how he had got home that 
 night, the said question being connected in the doctor's mind 
 with a certain inability to walk straight exhibited by the jolly 
 diner-out. 
 
 " Pretty well, after some surging and rocking," replied he ; 
 " but, O man," he added, " it was a pity Hamilton put your 
 watch an hour back, (I knew you had purposely put it for- 
 ward to get home early,) for I would have escaped sober, and 
 got to bed an hour sooner. I fancy you would discover the 
 trick next morning ?" 
 
 " I discovered nae sic thing," cried Sandy, in a. loud voice ; 
 "for the gude reason, that my watch next morning was just as 
 correct as my head ; and, sir, if you have naething to do but play 
 the part of a confederate in a general plot to make me ridicu- 
 lous, you had better have kept your bed and sent for me to 
 physic you." 
 
 So, growling like an angry bear, away again he stalked, leav- 
 ing his friend much in the same state of mind as the prior one, 
 that is, utter bewilderment. Nor had he got well away from 
 this tormentor when he began muttering to himself, " This is 
 indeed awfu' ;" and a little afterwards, " Did ony mortal man 
 ever think that I, after raising myself to the very tap of my 
 profession, should have a pan tied to my tail amidst the laugh- 
 ter of a town full of idiots ?" What more of monolcgue he in- 
 dulged in we cannot say ; but certain it is, if he had been 
 judged by the hanging head and dejected look and moving 
 lips, a great many more thoughts on this very subject passed 
 through his mind than he was ever willing to admit. For two 
 hours or more he fortunately met no more of the bons vivaris, 
 and "he was gradually recovering himself— certainly it must be 
 admitted without great reason, inasmuch as it is almost un- 
 doubted that if he had encountered any others of them he 
 would have been thrown back into that very despondency 
 
 L
 
 t62 Mysterious Legends of Edhiburgh. 
 
 from which he was getting free. A slap on his shoulder about 
 the end of this time justifies our remark. Tlie slap was frorra 
 the ruffled hand of no less a personage than Dr James Hamil- 
 ton, who, always brusque, attacked him instantly. 
 
 " Ah, Sandy," said he, laughing, " you are clever, and your 
 watch carries authority." 
 
 " The muckle deil's in Auld Reekie," muttered Sandy. 
 "What, in God's name, man, do ye a' mean? Is it tlie inten- 
 tion o' my best friends to drive me mad ?" 
 
 "Mad!" ejaculated his friend. " \Vliat doj'/?«mean? If 
 you had allowed me to finish my sentence, I would have said, 
 as I now do, that though you are a clever fellow, and wished 
 to send us all home an hour too soon, you would find in the 
 morning that we were too much for you. Wasn't your watch 
 quite right when you got up ?" 
 
 " Weel," replied Sandy, " that may be a' very gude. You 
 are just taking a roundabout way to get to the auld subject ; 
 but I'll tell you what, Jamie — it 's my opinion that you are in 
 the plot too. Now I gie ye fair warning, to this effect, that 
 the first man who insults me again on this subject will kiss the 
 causeway, by the mere pith of this right arm and this stick." 
 
 And he brandished the weapon with such force, rolling 
 meanwhile such fiery eyes, that his friend became afraid and 
 made off, with some sad thoughts in his mind, tliat his good 
 and jolly companion was on the verge of insanity. 
 
 Even during that day a strange " sough " was going through 
 Edinburgh, involving a story of some mystery connected with 
 the time of night at which Mrs Gillespie had departed tliis life. 
 The rumour had not reached the ears of Dr Wood, and we 
 mention it at present only to shew that when Mr Scott, with 
 Mr David Williamson the advocate by his side, knocked at 
 Dr Wood's door next forenoon at lunching-time, he had some 
 reason for an act which otherwise might be taken for a deter- 
 mined purpose of driving things to an extremity. On being
 
 Lang Smidy Wood's Watch. 163 
 
 admitted and introduced to the doctor, who at the time was 
 chewing the bitter cud of resentment against an ungrateful 
 pubUc, they were received with that desperate coolness which 
 can be assumed by certain people, even when the heart is 
 leaping under the influence of fury. We do not say that Sandy 
 was in that state, but it is certain that he was greatly moved, 
 and there was consequently an irony in his politeness, which 
 could not fail to be observed by the cautious, if not appre- 
 hensive, visitors. 
 
 " Be seated, gentlemen," he said, with a bow, which, taking 
 into account the length of his person and his desperation, was 
 equal at least to two common obeisances. 
 
 "I believe," said Mr Williamson, "that Mr Scott called 
 upon you before, doctor." 
 
 " He did, and wi' a vengeance, to my certain knowledge," 
 was the reply. 
 
 " And I believe there is some mistake," continued the advo* 
 cate, " beci use I understand that when, probably too abruptly, 
 he introduced a certain subject" — 
 
 "Certain subject," muttered Sandy. 
 
 " A certain subject," resumed Mr Williamson, " you would 
 not, for some reason that I am ignorant of, give him any 
 answer." 
 
 " No answer," again muttered the doctor between his teeth, 
 set for grinding something harder than muffins. 
 
 " Yet," continued the advocate, " I assure you that it was only 
 for the ends of justice that Mr Scott called upon you and " — 
 
 " You 're no in the secret ? " said Sandy grbiily, interrupting 
 the speaker. " You are brought here only as a cat's-paw to 
 work the plot, because Mr Scott hasna courage to work it 
 farther himself; but, Mr David, I'm prepared for you." 
 
 " Prepared for resenting a simple question, whether on a 
 certain day you found a discrepancy between your watch and 
 the clock of St Giles's?"
 
 164 Mysterious Legends of Edinbitrgh. 
 
 " Ay, even for that," roared the doctor, — " even for that 
 
 seemingly simple question, which I '11 be d d if I answer to 
 
 you or the best advocate that ever added twenty lees to a brief 
 where there were twenty already." 
 
 " Why, my dear doctor," said the law}^er, in some wonder, 
 " you have lost your temper." 
 
 "Na," rejoined Sandy, "it's you wha have lost your de- 
 corum. I'll tell you what, David, — ^just turn your batteiy 
 against Mr Scott after ye are outwith my house, and if ye 
 canna extract from him that he is in the plot of a parcel of 
 vagabonds, who are determined to make me ridiculous, you 
 needna wonder ye can make naething of me. I winna hear 
 another word." 
 
 And, rising, he opened the door. 
 
 " There," he continued, bowmg again with the humility of 
 desperation ; " gude morning." 
 
 The gentlemen were thus genteelly turned out, leaving Sandy 
 in greater astonishment than he had yet been, the proof of 
 which might have been found in the fact that, although it was 
 time for him to resume his professional rounds, he lay back 
 upon his chair in serious and solemn reverie. "It's getting 
 beyond a' bounds," he said to himself " It maun be stopt, 
 ay, even by the strong arm of the law. There's such a thing 
 in Scotland as a law-borrows, and, by the powers above, as 
 weel as below, a law-borrows I'll swear, or my name's no 
 Sandy Wood." 
 
 What farther communings took place between the doctor's 
 tongue and his ear, the records from which we draw do not 
 shew, neither can we tell how further he comforted himself on 
 that day, while still under the conviction that eveiy urchin 
 upon the street was ready to salute his ear as a common ken- 
 speckle, with the cry of " Lang Sandy Wood's watch !" We 
 have more authority for continuing our statement in regard to 
 the report about the death of Mr Gillespie's wife. It appears
 
 Lang Sandy Wood's Watch. 165 
 
 that this gentleman had married a young lady of the name of 
 Gneme, with a tocher of some four or five thousand pounds. 
 Though a writer, the husband had taken no precaution to have 
 a marriage-contract, or rather he was precluded from having 
 recourse to that mode of fixing conjugal rights, which the law 
 could, on a certain event, annul, by having been under the 
 necessity of making a runaway match, by reason of some dis- 
 inclination to the marriage on the part of Mr Arnot and Mr 
 Edgar, her trustees. A rather strange consequence was the result 
 — no other, in short, than that if the marriage came to an end 
 by the death of the wife within a year and a day of the cere- 
 mony, without a child (who had been heard to cv^) having 
 been born of the same, the money brought by the wife reverted 
 to her relations, and the husband was left precisely, as to 
 funds, in the condition which he occupied before the union 
 took place. Such is the law of Scotland j and however 
 strange or irrational it may appear, there will be found, upon 
 examination, strong reasons for its justification, arising out of 
 the view which the law takes of the nature and intention of 
 wedlock, if it may not be said that almost all our old legal 
 maxims and rules derived from the Roman jurisprudence 
 have at their foundation a principle of justice and equity 
 which, to the superficial thinker, may almost be said to be en- 
 tirely concealed. Against this law Mr Gillespie could do 
 nothing to defend himself; and, as fate would have it, there 
 was not only no child, but Mrs Gillespie came to be i?i artkulo 
 mortis on the very last evening of the year and the day, so 
 that if before twelve o'clock at midnight of the 29th of April 
 she died, the husband would lose the tocher. 
 
 So far the stor}- was clear enough ; no one disputed these 
 facts, the mystery, if any such existed, surrounded the actual 
 period of the lady's death. It was alleged, on the part of the 
 trustees, that the time of the death was half-past eleven, and 
 not half past twelve, as set forth in the certificate which Mr
 
 1 66 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 Gillespie got Dr Wood to sign ; and the evidence of this con- 
 sisted of the testimony of the sister, Miss Gr^me, and that of 
 tlie nurse, both of whom declared that immediately after Mrs 
 Gillespie's breath was out they heard the watchman call half- 
 past eleven. In addition to this, one of the servants declared 
 that having looked at the house clock immediately before Dr 
 Wood's entry, and immediately again after his departure, she 
 found, to her astonishment, that the hands had been put for- 
 ward by some one an entire hour, while next morning they 
 were in perfect harmony with St Giles's. To add to all this, 
 there was the admitted fact that Dr Wood's watch was laid 
 upon the side-table in the bed-room while he was occupied in 
 hanging over the dying patient. On the other side, Mr Gilles- 
 pie stoutly denied that he touched the hands of the famous 
 repeater. 
 
 This extraordinary story very soon found its way to tlie ears 
 of Dr Wood, and nearly as soon opened his eyes to the con- 
 solatory fact that the supposed persecution to which he had 
 been exposed had had its foundation in motives very far from an 
 intention to make him ridiculous. It explained even the attacks 
 on the part of the parties present at Dr Hamilton's dinner, as 
 well as the trick of the host, and the motive of that transac- 
 tion ; nor did his satisfaction end with the mere conviction that 
 he was free from the suspicion of having been made public 
 game of, for he had upon the occasion a dinner pajty himself, 
 to which he invited every one of the innocent individuals 
 whom he had in his wrath snubbed so unmercifully, and where, 
 as we may well fancy, no little fun commemorated the instal- 
 lation of the host into his old position of respectability and 
 public affection. Sometime afterwards an actioii of declarator, 
 at the suit of the trustees, was brought against Mr Gillespie, to 
 have it declared that he had feloniously altered the doctor's 
 watch, by putting the hands an hour forward, that the true 
 period of the death was half-past eleven, and that the tocher
 
 Laiig Sandy Wood's Watch. 167 
 
 reverted to Mrs Gillespie's relatives. In the proof which was 
 led the doctor was himself examined, an occasion which 
 brought out the peculiarity of his character. He stoutly 
 denied that his watch had ever been wrong, and as there was no 
 witness to say that either he or she saw Mr Gillespie forward 
 the hands of the repeater, the evidence would have been 
 scrimp enough. But the adroitness of David Williamson 
 saved the pursuers' case. He pretended to sympathise with 
 the doctor m. his worship of his watch, and by getting him in 
 good humour, extracted from him the admission that on the 
 30th of the month his watch was an hour before St Giles's. 
 There was no necessity for proving whether the saint was right 
 or wrong. The judges assumed that the town clock was the 
 best, and so Sandy's watch was put out of court as a testimony 
 that had been tampered with. The pursuers gained the day, 
 and Mr Gillespie lost both the tocher and his cliaracter.
 
 STRANGE book might be made out of tliose con- 
 curring events called coincidences. We generally 
 find them set forth in connexion with circumstan- 
 tial evidence; but thousands of them, and perhaps 
 the most striking, are lost, much to the regret of those vdio are 
 fond of direct interpositions of Providence. As the pegs upon 
 which superstition hangs her J>sezu^o-/faxia, we n>ight expect they 
 would have been better preserved, at least in those cases where 
 they point, as they often do, to the preservation of life. A 
 curious example was told me by a Mr Robie, who stood in the 
 relation to me of gerund-grinder, and who used to relieve tlie 
 burden of his dry work by telling me and tliie others who were 
 taught by him at the same time, portions of his experience. 
 In the example I am about to offer, I shall adhere as nearly as 
 possible to his own words. 
 
 Many years ago, said he, that is, when I first caine to Edin- 
 burgh, and was attending the university, I became acquainted 
 with the family of Mr Duncan Macgiliivi-ay, Avho lived in Borth- 
 wick's Close. He occupied the dignified position in those days 
 of a deacon, his craft being that of tlie hammermen, and there- 
 fore may be supposed to have been pretty well to do in the 
 world, — a fact of some importance to me, who was steeped in 
 the blessings of a ten pound -bursary, supplemented by an 
 occasional bag of meal and a junket of salt beef, not the very 
 best kind of food for the muses, then worshipped by me. So 
 it was that I had a great love for Mrs Macgillivray's tea-table,
 
 Deacon Macgillivrays Disappearance. 169 
 
 and by consequence, a respect for the mistress herself, who 
 with much good sense repaid the honour by suiting plentifully 
 the supply to the demand, in consideration of whi( h I fed tlie 
 two elder boys with the food of the mind, with this difference, 
 that the demand was not suited to the supply. This comfort- 
 able state of the domestic elysium in Eorthwick's Close was 
 destined to be interrupted by that law of the gods, whereby ail 
 mundane things undergo change, as if — so I have often thought 
 — variety in any form, and at any expense, were "^laramount to 
 all other counsels in Olympucs. One afternoon, when' I resorted 
 to my old haunt, expecting to find the hearth gods all in good 
 humour as usual, I was surprised to meet Mrs Macgillivray in 
 the lobby, with a face wherefrom the accustomed smile was 
 totally banished, and its place occujjied by pale fear. I could 
 read it as I could have done a penny broadsheet of the time, 
 with a dreadful wood-engiaving drawn in confomiity with the 
 equally dreadful letter-press. 
 
 *' What has happened V inquired I, as I took her trembling 
 hand. 
 
 " Oh, have you not heard V replied she. 
 
 " Nothing," added I widi increased apprehension. 
 
 " I have neither seen nor heard o' the deacon since yester- 
 day morning after breakfast," was the announcement. 
 
 " A mere case of absence," said I, with an effort at cheerful- 
 ness ; " it is not a case of missing." 
 
 " Ye may gie it ony name ye please," said she, " but the 
 like has never happened since the day o' our marriage, and ye 
 know that the deacon was aye punctual, aye to a very mii^ute." 
 
 I was forced to admit that that was tiue, yet I could see no 
 great reason for fear, and proceeding with her to the parlour, 
 I took a seat alongside of her, with a view to get .some 
 further information. I saw that as a friend of the family I had 
 something to do, and my first effort was to procure all the in- 
 formation she could give me, preparatory to my undertakiiig u
 
 I 70 Mysterious Lege7ids of Edinburgh. 
 
 search for so important a personage as the deacon of the ham- 
 mermen of Edinburgh. There was, however, wonderfully little 
 to be got. She could tell me of no reason for his absence ; 
 there was no journey he had intended to undertake ; he had 
 no habits of intemperance which might have laid him up in a 
 tavern : nor any loose inclinations that could have wiled him 
 into any of the dens of the dissolute ; neither, so far as she 
 could say, had he any money upon him, to tempt the robber 
 and the murderer. Then, inquiries had already been made in 
 almost every quarter wiiere he was known to frequent, so that 
 if [ had started upon the instant, I might have found it difficult 
 to know in what direction to turn myself: our conversation 
 was getting exhausted, as every suggestion fell away, leaving 
 only an addition to the prevailing gloom, when I started, more 
 by chance than good guidance, the question whether the 
 deacon had any enemies. 
 
 To this I got an answer which surprised me; for of all the 
 men in the world, the deacon might have been supposed to 
 possess an immunity from the incursions of revenge. 
 
 " I had forgotten," said she, as she seemed to revert to some 
 idea which startled her ; " yes, there is one man I fear: strange 
 I never thought of it till ye put the question ; yes, his own 
 brother, o' the same blood, bom o' the same mother — Angus 
 Macgillivray, flesher in the Fleshmarket Close ; that man has 
 been the very curse o' our family ; he was a sweetheart o' mine 
 before I got acquamted with the deacon, but 1 never liked 
 him so that I could have married him, or rather I aye feared 
 him for his passions, let alone his trade o' killing lambs ; he 
 never forgave our marriage, and I'm no sure if he didna hate 
 me as much as he did his brother ; he never came to see 
 us, though the deacon often invited him, prayed him to let 
 byganes be byganes, nor even after he married a wife o' his 
 ain did he forget and forgive, just as if he felt dissatisfied that 
 he hadna got some revenge; and then, to make things waur, the
 
 Deacon Macgillivi^ay s DisappcaTance. i 7 ] 
 
 deacon got rich as he got poor, a change that never could be 
 forgiven ; so things went on for years, nae reconciHation, l>ut 
 as their ways lay different and they seldom met, there were few 
 opportunities for quarrels. Now a' thae things come up ujjon 
 me ; and mair, for it is only about six months syne that Angus, 
 having met the deacon in a tavern, got into wrath, and made 
 threats which forced the deacon to swear a lawbonows against 
 him." 
 
 These words, uttered in the peculiar tone of grief and fear, 
 made an impression upon me which I tried to conceal, and it 
 was aggravated by that involuncary action of the nerves which 
 doctors call " working up," — an effect consequent upon a jiro- 
 cess of reasoning where all the ideas are led by the feelings. 
 I sat for some time without speaking, lor 1 felt that it would 
 have made matters worse to admit what 1 thought, and an 
 effort to cheer does not do much good unless it is backed by 
 some indisputable fact of a favourable kind. 1 did not even 
 know what to suggest in aid of further in([uiry, but I en- 
 deavoured to ascertain whether any one had called at Angus's 
 flesh-booth, to know whether he was at home, and having got 
 something like a negative from her, I resolved within my own 
 mind to find out what I could in this direction. It was now 
 about six o'clock in the evening, and so great had been the 
 solicitude, or I should rather say fear, that there had been no 
 thought of the stated meals. It seemed to be my ])resence, 
 which bringing up the instincts of hospitality, suggested what 
 otherwise was so regular to the household, so true it is that 
 amid all trials, not excluding the final one, we are still in some 
 way bound to the duties of hfe. She urged me to stop; but 1 
 had got so interested in this extraordinary case of absence, and 
 was so especially occupied by the thoughts and expedients 
 which were revolving in my mind, that I declined to tax a 
 kindness when selfishness was a virtue. 
 
 I accordingly left her with some words calculated to assure
 
 172 Mysierio2ts Legends of Edinbiwgh. 
 
 her, and bending my steps to the Fleshmarket, I met several 
 friends of the well-known deacon, all of whom had heard of 
 his unaccountable disappearance without being able to suggest 
 any mode of accounting for him. On arriving at the market, 
 I made at once for Angus Macgillivray's booth. He was not 
 tliere, and a boy vvho served the customers answered to my 
 inqjiry, that he had not seen his master since the morning of 
 the previous daJ^ This was, no doubt, very strange intelli- 
 gence, insomuch as it conveyed one of these phenomena 
 called coincidences, which play such tricks in questions of 
 evidence. I tried to view it philosophically ; but as there are 
 stales of mind wliere one little fact outweighs a bushel of 
 reasons, so I felt m)'self under a still stronger obligation to 
 trace the steps of the flesher. I got accordingly from the boy 
 the place of his master's residence, and though in the chance 
 of finding him there I might have hesitated as to the propriety 
 of a direct call, what I resolved was to see his wife in his (by 
 me) supposed absence. Angus, I found, lived at the corner 
 of the turn which the Cowgate naakes into the Grassmarket, 
 and tl ither I bent ray steps ; nor was it many minutes before 
 I was in the presence of Mrs Angus Macgillivray ; but what 
 was my wonderment to hud this woman very much in the 
 same condition as that m which I found the wife of the deacon. 
 Her husband bad left the house the previous day after break- 
 fast without saying a word that he was to be otherwise engaged 
 than at his stall ; and as it was his invariable habit to tell her 
 when he was to go to the country (which he often did) for 
 cattle, she could not account for his absence in any way. So 
 far there was a difference between the conditions of tlie sisters- 
 in-law, that Mrs Angus Macgillivray did not entertain any 
 apprehension that any violence had overtaken her husband , 
 yet it was clear enough, even from the suspicious eye she cast 
 upon me while maku)g my inquiries, that she was not free from 
 the fear of some untoward accident. She even questioned me
 
 Deacon MacgilUvray s Disappearance. i 73 
 
 as to my motive for calling, as if she thought 1 had something 
 to tell, and was afraid to tell it ; and I had some uifliciiUy in 
 satisfying her that my object was not in any way connected 
 with the circumstance of his disappearance. At all hazards, 
 it was my especial care to avoid any reference to the deacon, 
 and especially his absence ; for as she doubtless knew that 
 the enmity was all on one side, that of her husband, she 
 might have drawn, with very different feelings, the same con- 
 clusion to which her sister-in-law had arrived. 
 
 Having left this woman also in a very unhappy condition, 
 I wandered about without there being any special direction 
 claiming my steps, but rather from a disinclination to go home 
 without making further effort in a case which, even in its 
 beginning, was so mysterious. Meanwhile my mind began to 
 work upon the coincidence. So fertile is the mind of sus- 
 picions, that one would be inchned to think that as there is 
 apparently a stock of pleasurable and painful feeling in us 
 from which any paramount idea draws to make itself, as it 
 were, bright or dark, so also is there ever ready the pabulum 
 of suspicion ready to be appropriated by excited curiosity. 
 It seemed that it had fallen upon me to clear up a mystery ; 
 and as the mind relucts against a state of suspended doubt, I 
 found myself ready to rush to the conclusion that Angus 
 MacgilUvray had murdered his brother, and run olT for fear of 
 capture. The non-discovery of the body did not appear to me 
 to militate against the notion, as the power of secretion, in 
 cases of this kind, is not of difficult execution, at least for a 
 time. The longer I pondered the more paramount the idea 
 became till — such is the effect of brooding — I came to l)e 
 certain that such would be found to be the real cause of the 
 absence of the two men. In ray goings to and fro, I met a 
 good many people, who put the same question, *' Has Deacon 
 MacgilUvray cast up yet?'' but no one seemed to be aware of 
 the absence of the brother, otherwise, so I thought, they fimst
 
 1/4 Mysterious Legends of Edinbiirgh. 
 
 have adopted the same supposition, seeing they all knew what 
 was indeed all but notorious, though I was strangely an ex- 
 ception, that the hammerman had sworn a lawborrows against 
 the flesher. None of these people, however, viewed the affair 
 in the serious light in which it appeared to me; if it was not, 
 indeed, that they tried to make light of it, as one of those 
 seemingly inexplicable knots which, resisting the fingers for a 
 time, come all out, as it were, at once when the proper turn 
 is given to one of the involutions. All this was without effect 
 upon rae, who knew what I thought the fatal circumstance of 
 the absence of Angus. So I stept up to the bailies' office and 
 inquired there whether any search had been made by any of 
 the officers or constables ; but here again I was met by the 
 remark, that a day-and-a-half's absence did not form even a 
 ground for such a fear of any occurrence, either disastrous or 
 fatal, as would authorise any search by the authorities of the 
 city. I had my reason for a different conclusion, but I was 
 necessarily restrained from telling my stor}"^, from a fear of 
 throwing suspicion upon a man vindictive enough to take 
 revenge upon me. 
 
 On going towards Borthwick's Close, with the intention of 
 again seeing the deaconess — for so these great dignitaries were 
 sometimes called at that time when corporations were a species 
 of dominions or powers — I met Andrew Girvan, her brother, 
 a currier, who lived in Niddry's VVynd. A sensible man, not 
 prone to fancies, he took a v^ery different view. 
 
 " I have been everywhere I could think of," said he, " but I 
 can find no trace." 
 
 " Everywhere but the house of his brother," said I, fixing 
 my eyes on him. 
 
 " The house of his brother ! " rejoined he ; " what on earth 
 would take me there — the place of all others he would avoid?" 
 
 " Very true ; but what would you think were you to find 
 that Angus is also amissing, having left his house about the
 
 Deacon Mac(^illivrays Disappearance. ly^ 
 
 same time?" said I, with a view to sound him, and thereby 
 test my own suspicions. 
 
 "Think!" replied he, "why, was not I present at Glennie's 
 tavern that night when the villain drew his knife against his 
 own brother, and I hurried the deacon away ; and was it not I 
 who recommended the lawborrowsl Think, why if I were to 
 find it true that Angus Macgillivray was away, I would con- 
 clu.le at the instant that he had repaid the lawborrows by a 
 secret stab." 
 
 " Yes ; but there are difficulties," said 1, with that strain- 
 ing for evidence of a conviction which is so natural to us. 
 " Where could such stab have been given in broad day ; and it 
 roust have been in the forenoon, seeing the deacon did not 
 come home to dinner. Then any secret den or out-of-the-way 
 place is scarcely to be thought of, insomuch as the deacon 
 could not have been wiled there by one whom he feared." 
 
 "Nothing in all that," replied he; "for we all know that 
 the deacon's business led him down dark closes and out-of-the- 
 way places, where there are dens for all customers, dead or 
 alive. And besides, he was so simple and generous a man, 
 that if Angus had met him and proftered the op>ea hand of 
 reconciliation, he might have led him anywhere." 
 
 " Well," said I, getting more confident, " J may tell you, as 
 his brother-in-law, that I have ascertained from .A.n rus's wife 
 herself that he too has been amissing for the same tiiue." 
 
 " Then by all that is good," cried he, as his eye flashed, 
 from the suddenness of the impression upon the ear of these 
 words, " the mystery is all but cleared up. The villain has 
 murdered his own brother, and run the countr)'." 
 
 Nor was I much astonished at this ejaculation, for the ori- 
 ginal suspicion had gradually been becoming a conviction 
 with me, and my mind was almost eager to have any remaining 
 doubts removed. 
 
 " But," said 1, "what is to be done?"
 
 176 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 ■' Co to the city authorities," repUed he on the instant, "and 
 get chem to issue a warrant for the apprehension of Angus 
 Macgillivray." 
 
 " I have been at the baiUes' office," said I, " and found 
 that the officers there do not consider the affair as sufficiently 
 alarming to induce even an official search." 
 
 " Because," replied he, " they don't know the facts," — adding 
 satirically, " It is generally believed that those who are blind 
 don't see." 
 
 " But even if they were put in possession of the facts, no war- 
 rant would be issued without a signed information ; and would 
 you take that responsibility I" was my question. 
 
 " No," replied he ; " but you might, because you have made 
 the proper inquiry, and found Angus fled." 
 
 " I would not like to take that responsibility either," re- 
 joined I. " Besides, the time is not far enough gone for any 
 very serious apprehension. We must wait another day. 
 There is an old saying something to the effect, ' that if you 
 want to keep your friends, don't prolong your visit beyond 
 three days ; and if you want to be thought not dead, don't be 
 unaccountably absent frorn home beyond three nights.' " 
 
 To this Mr Girvan agreed, and both of us saw the propriety 
 of visiting the deaconess, who was hour by hour losing hope. 
 We found her in the same position in which I had left her. I 
 noticed that as we entered she turned a wistful eye upon us, 
 with an expression that seemed to speak and say, Is he not 
 with you ? and there followed that blank look in which the orb 
 seems dead. Tliere was silence everywhere, as if Angerona 
 had there set up her temple, and the votaries were mute. The 
 children, ignorant of the cause of change in the mother, had 
 been put to bed. The servant whom we saw as we passed 
 the kitchen sat at the fireside hanging her head, as if she 
 mourned the death of a kind master, and no neighbours dared 
 to intrude where they could carry no comfort — a species of
 
 Deacon Macgillivrays Disappcarame. 177 
 
 kindness this in the people of Scotland which results fron-> a 
 delicacy they get small credit for from those who judge from 
 a rude speech and homely, if not coarse, manners. We sat 
 down quietly and gravely — a clear enough indication to ncr 
 that we brought no hopeful intelligence ; nor had we sat many 
 minutes when we came to understand what was the dirct tion 
 of the current of her thoughts. They had been all running 
 towards the conclusion that Angus Macgillivray was in some 
 way connected with the mysterious affair. 
 
 " Have ye inquired," she asked, as she cast her eye over us, 
 " if Angus has been at hame syn yesterday. I could wad my 
 marriage ring he 's awa, and nae suner than he should be. 
 Will ye no answer?" she continued, in a wailing way. " Is he 
 in Edinburgh \ when was he seen \ Can naebody tell?" 
 
 I looked to Girvan — for I could not answer without false- 
 hood — and he understood me. 
 
 "I have made no inquiiy, Margaret," said he; "nor did I 
 think it necessary to go there — the suspicion seems so un- 
 natural, so unlikely. Besides, are you not taking on too 
 heavily? This is only the second day." 
 
 "The second day!" she burst forth, "and Deacon Macgil- 
 livray hasna seen his wife or his bairns, nor sent a letter or a 
 message to tell whaur he is. The second day !" she continued 
 in the same wailing strain. " When was it that he was half an 
 hour behind his dinner? And this has taen place in Edin- 
 burgh, which is just a lang street, whaur everybody kens 
 everything about everybody." 
 
 " Many a longer absence has had as happy an explanation," 
 replied her brother. " We have only as yet one fact, and it will 
 just look as you view it. You know peats will build the side 
 of a house as well as make a fire that will burn you." 
 
 " But there 's nae use buttering peats," cried she impatiently. 
 " I tell you Deacon Macgillivray is dead, and Angus is the 
 man who has made me a widow, and my bairns fatherless."
 
 178 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 And then came a fit of hysterical sobbing, which we had no 
 means of alleviating. While I looked at her, and of course 
 pitied her, I could not help thinking how completely her 
 suspicion was confirmed by the information I had got, and 
 which I dared not communicate to her. There was enough 
 of sorrow for the hour. And as we saw we could be of no 
 further service that night, we left her to that kind of consola- 
 tion which the heart seeks for itself, and sometimes the more 
 readily and successfully that it is left to itself and to Him who 
 is master of the heart and the issues thereof 
 
 Next forenoon I repaired to Girvan's, as arranged between 
 us, in order that together we might make a more thorough 
 search to the effect at least of ascertaining whether the missing 
 man had been seen, and when and where, during the forenoon 
 of his disappearance. On going along I found that the affair 
 had spread, insomuch, indeed, that the question, " What has 
 become of Deacon MacgillivrayT' belonged now to the public. 
 Every one put it to another with just the usual amount of suc- 
 cess, and as usual in all such cases, the ingenious took advan- 
 tage of the general curiosity to interpolate the proper amount 
 of romance. The lawborrows was without hesitation a part of the 
 terrible tragedy, no less than the cruel murder of one brother 
 by another, perpetrated in Angus Macgillivray's shambles, 
 and no doubt was entertained that if the clay floor of that 
 place were turned up the body would be found. Both Girvan 
 and myself entertained as much suspicion as the circumstances 
 warranted. We had, moreover, the power of regulating it so 
 as to keep us from the infection of a belief due to the proclivity 
 towards the horrible, and that accelerated by sympathy, we 
 had therefore before us a process of sifting. AVe traced reports 
 to the supposed authors, and always found the origin of the 
 black crow. The story about the shambles soon vanished, 
 and others equally extravagant came in the end to nothing. 
 The inexplicable fact of the absence of the two brotners at the
 
 Deacon Macgillivray s Disappearance. 1 79 
 
 same time of course remained — dark enough and ominous, even 
 to the satisfaction of the sensation quidnuncs — and at the bot- 
 tom of the heap of chaff which lay ov^er it, Lhere was only one 
 solitary grain. It ai)peared that a person of the name of Peter 
 M'Glashan, a labourer, who resided in the Cowgate, and whom 
 we saw and interrogated, had been the involuntary cause of 
 some of the theories, but all that could be extracted from him 
 anxjunted to this, that he had seen Deacon Macgillivray that 
 forenoon hurrying up the High Street, and that, having occasion 
 to return, he had met, about ten minutes after. A' ;us Mac- 
 gillivray coming up the Bow, the top of which he doubled as 
 if he were going down the High Street ; one or two others 
 spoke to liaving seen the brothers respectively on the same 
 route. 
 
 Such was the result of our investigations continued through- 
 out the entire day. It confirmed so far the original suspicion, 
 and it must be confessed that, after abstracting the superinduced 
 fiction, the mystery was a very gootl one as it stood. Only 
 one thing was to be regretted by the pliilosophers who have so 
 much to regret in the doings of mankind — that the public will 
 not let good alone. Enjoying a dark story as all men do, even 
 in the midst of their pity for those who are the victims, we 
 might wonder that they do not prolong the pleasure by retard- 
 ing the denouement; but then we are to recollect that the 
 fruition which ends enjoyment is the necessary step from which 
 commences another turn in the play of life, and to this fruition 
 impatient nature is continually driving her children with such 
 hurry that they try to anticipate it by mock representations. 
 All this we found very well illustrated by our day's search. 
 Towards evening the ferment had increased ; politics were sus- 
 pended in the taverns ; even scandal, always a great personage 
 in Edinburgh, lost her charms. The tragic fate, in whatever 
 form, the more hazy and indefinite the better, of the deacon of 
 the hammermen, was the universal theme of conversation ; a
 
 i8o Mysterious Legends of Edinhiirgh. 
 
 tribute to that wonderful power by which the fate of one man, 
 however obscure, if involved in her folds, demands more of 
 human interest than is accomplished by the incidents of a 
 battle where thousands lie slain or wounded on either side. 
 
 And so it was with minds very ill prepared for a meeting 
 with the deaconess, tliat we betook ourselves about eight 
 o'clock in the evening to Borthwick's Close : we found the 
 same house of gloom, with the shadows increased in the dark- 
 ness of these hours, and all appearances betokening utter 
 hopelessness. Even on the previous day, Mrs Macgillivray 
 had all but renounced the pleadings of the goddess of the 
 lamp, and the brooding night with its abnormal figures and 
 frowning shapes was not favourable to any return in the morn- 
 ing to a more rational mode of consideration. It cannot be 
 said that she was more miserable wlien we entered than she 
 had been at our last meeting ; probably even less, in so far as 
 her grief had arrived at that state where, from diminishing the 
 action of the heart, and consequently, as the doctors say, the 
 circulation in the small vessels of the brain, the nerves of 
 thought lose their irritability and become torpid. Yet as we 
 entered she opened her half-shut eyelids with a start, as if some 
 association between the creak of the door and the usual incom- 
 ing of her husband had vindicated a power over the apathy of 
 despair; a glance satisfied her that we had no favourable intel- 
 ligence for her, and it seemed vain to us to have recourse to 
 expedients for removing a depression which might, in God's 
 kindly providence, be a preparation for the final intimation. 
 We therefore fairly admitted that the mystery remained as 
 dark as ever, but that we ourselves had not given up all hope 
 of an agreeable surprise. Even these words sufficiently indi- 
 cated the low condition of our hopes, and the return was 
 accordingly merely a shake of the head ; thenceforth the meet- 
 ing became every moment more painful : the long periods of 
 silence seemed to have a weight in them, our looks were sym-
 
 Deacon Macgillivray s Disappearance. r8i 
 
 pathetic, carrying a moral gloom in the physical light of the 
 eye ; no one was at the trouble to remove the long charred 
 wick of the candle : we sat with bent heads, and seemed to be 
 afraid to allow to the body its ordinary movements, as if we 
 considered all natural action as a desecration of an occasion 
 where God's hand lay heavy on the wife and the mother. 
 
 Nor did we think it pro;)er to put an end to this scene by 
 parting : we felt that there would be something cruel in leaving 
 the stricken sufferer to thoughts that were all but unbearable, 
 and this at the very time we were conscious we could yield her 
 no comfort ; so the hours passed without any better reckon- 
 ing than the increasing silence in the street, and the gathering 
 gloom of the unsnuffed candle, till it might be about eleven, 
 when a slight knock was heard at the door. Mrs Macgillivray 
 again started, and we were not less surprised ; nay, I have no 
 doubt that all of us had some notion that the visitor might be 
 no other than the deacon himself; the door was opened by 
 the servant, we listened to the ste]) on the passage — tramp — 
 tramp — so like one well known, that Girvan ejaculated with a 
 kind of spasm, " It's the deacon !" The word.s were electric, we 
 started uj), and even Mrs Macgillivray sat upright in her chair 
 gazing at the door : it opened, and before us stood one of the 
 town officers with the red neck on his blue coat. 
 
 "Here is a bit of paper," said he, "which was brought up to 
 the office about an hour ago." 
 
 And Girvan taking it out of his hand, fixed his eyes upon it 
 as if he were charmed, yet he did not seem to comprehend 
 what he was reading; for although I asked him what it con- 
 tained, he could not utter a word. Mrs Macgillivray's eye was 
 fixed upon him; and I myself sat with open moutli, a'ondering 
 what ailed the man. 
 
 "Can ye no read?" said the officer. 
 
 "Read," addeil I, impatiently. 
 
 And the same word trembled on the lips of the deaconess.
 
 1 82 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 Out it came at length; and the effect was certainly propor- 
 tioned to the cause. I took the paper out of his hand, and 
 read for myself the following words, disposed in lines in this 
 manner — 
 
 " Deacon Macgillivray, 
 
 Borthvvick's Close, Edinburgh, 
 Killed on the 19th." 
 
 The paper was much crumpled, as if it had met with rough 
 usage; and what added to the effect of the direful words, it 
 was besmeared with blood to such an extent that some of the 
 letters were scarcely legible. I would willingly have kept it 
 from the eyes of the deaconess, but she held out her hand 
 tremblingly to get possession of it, and it was too late to 
 attempt concealment. She read it. at a glance; and, as if it 
 had been on fire, threw it from her, unable to utter a word. 
 
 "Stay a little," said Girvan, as he rose and took his hat. "I 
 will be back in ten minutes." 
 
 He hurriedly left the room. And I, taking up the paper, 
 began to question the officer as to the person who left it at the 
 bailies' office. I ascertained that his name was Hugh M'Pher- 
 son, a cobbler, who resided in the Cowgate; and that his ac- 
 count of the manner of obtaming it was, that he found it among 
 some straw on the street right opposite to the coach-office in 
 the High Street, from which the coach to Galashiels started 
 twice a week. It was further stated by M'Pherson, that his 
 opinion was, that the paper had fallen from the coach along 
 with the straw among which it was found. 
 
 Before I had time to form any opinion as to the real purport 
 and meaning of this sibylline scrap, Girvan came again hurriedly 
 into the room, breathing hard, as if he had been running — an 
 effect, no doubt, due more to his excitement than to his bodily 
 exertion. Laying down his hat, he resumed his seat, and put 
 ting his hand into his pocket, he drew out another paper some 
 thing like an account.
 
 Deacon Macgillivrays Disappcai'ance. 183 
 
 "Look at that," said he, as he handed it to nie. 
 
 Glancing over it, I found it to be an account for skins, due 
 by Girvan to Angus Macgillivray, duly discharged. 
 
 "What of this?' said I, utterly at a loss to know the meaning 
 of it all. 
 
 "Examine the handwriting of the two papers," said he. 
 
 I did so, and immediately ejaculated, "Why, that blood- 
 stained scrap is written by Angus Macgillivray." 
 
 "No doubt of it," said Girvan. "I knew it the moment I 
 saw it, but 1 wanted to make sure work." 
 
 "And sure enough it is," replied I; "but what conclusion 
 do you draw from it?" 
 
 "I am afraid to mention it," was the reply. 
 
 "But I'm no," cried the deaconess in a wild way. "It is 
 just as I thought," she continued, as she moved her arms as if 
 to enable her to utter the words, "Angus Macgillivray has mur- 
 dered my husband." 
 
 "But why should he publish the act in his own handwriting?"' 
 I rejoined. 
 
 "Because the awfu' man glories in his revenge," she cried 
 again hysterically. 
 
 "That hardly squares with human nature," said Girvan. 
 
 To this I assented, adding that "Angus was not so mad as 
 not only to write his own condemnation, but give the officers of 
 the law a direction to go in pursuit of him." 
 
 With all these qualifications, it was impossible to get rid of 
 the direct effect of the words of the paper clearly enough indi- 
 cating that the deacon had been killed by some one, whether 
 Angus or not. The officer himself seemed to have no doubt; 
 and as for Mrs Macgillivray, her former conclusion was only 
 rendered more certain, and the calmness into which she quickly 
 relapsed appeared to be the consequence of resignation to the 
 will of God. 
 
 Meanwhile, the officer had intimated that the paper was to
 
 184 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 be preserved and taken up to the office in the morning, with 
 any explanations that could be given of it. He then went 
 away; and late as the hour was, we resolved upon seeking out 
 M'Pherson, to ascertain from his own mouth the true circum- 
 stances connected with the finding of the extraordinary paper. 
 We accordingly went to the Cowgate, and having found the 
 man, who was on the eve of going to bed, proceeded with our 
 examination. He adhered strictly to what he had stated in 
 the bailies' office, nor had he any more to communicate; but 
 we derived thus much from our visit, that we became satisfied 
 the man was honest, and was not accessory to any trick or 
 deception whereby some one might have been supposed to 
 have taken advantage of the public fermentation to infuse 
 a new interest into what was already sufficiently engrossing. 
 Girvan took the paper home with him; and we parted with the 
 hope of getting some more light next day. 
 
 That light certainly did not come; but there was now more 
 official inquiry as well as energy. Girvan, at an early hour of 
 the forenoon, took the blood-stained paper to the bailies' office, 
 and found that the assessor was so much impressed with the 
 strangeness of the whole story, tliat he had resolved upon 
 handing it over to the fiscal. Nor did he fail in this, as soon 
 appeared by a wall-bill which, about one o'clock, glared in 
 various parts of the city, to the effect that, whereas, a paper, 
 on which was written the following words, (quoted,) had been 
 found on the High Street of Edinburgh, a reward of £,^ would 
 be given to the person who had written the contents of 
 the said paper, (assuming it doubtful whether Angus Macgilli- 
 vray was the man,) if he would come forward and give testi- 
 mony as to the object or meaning thereof; or to any person 
 who would give information tending to shew where the person 
 of Duncan Macgillivray, deacon of the hammermen, could be 
 found, whether dead or alive. Nor did the fiscal limit his 
 official duties by this proclamation; for about two o'clock he
 
 Deacon Macgillivrays Disappcara^icc. 185 
 
 commenced a precognition of all parties who knew anything 
 regarding the afifair, among whom were the deaconess, (who 
 was, in consequence of her weakness, taken to the office in a 
 sedan cliair,) Mrs Angus Macgillivray, M'Pherson, Girvan, my- 
 self, and the individuals who had seen the missing men on the 
 day of their disappearance. 
 
 These precognitions were, according to the custom of the 
 office, kept a secret, a circumstance in itself of no great import- 
 ance, as the public were pretty well aw are that no very import- 
 ant information had really been communicated in addition to 
 that which they already knew. I'he new interest in the minds 
 of the people was concentrated on the blood-stained paper, the 
 real history whereof they were no more able to comprehend 
 than they could translate as many words of Greek. The fact 
 set forth, that Duncan Macgillivray had been murdered, was 
 not doubted except by a i^w wiseacres, who saw further than 
 other people ; but after this was conceded, there remained a 
 field for the ingenious cjuidnuncs and mystery-mongers suffi- 
 cient to keep them in delightful operation for a week. The 
 questions, Who wrote it ^ Tne murderer himself or another? 
 Why was it written? How did it come to be where it was 
 found? and so forth, were in all mouths, and all these mouths 
 were ready with answers, every one of which was as certainly 
 true as sacred Writ, and yet scarcely two of them could be 
 found to agree in all points. As for the wiseacres, few in num- 
 ber, and (as usual) with brains quantitivcly and qualitively in 
 the inverse ratio of their conceit, they looked upon the paper 
 as a hoax; but when asked to explain the absence of the dea- 
 con, their wisdom receded into a direct ratio of the said brains. 
 
 But busy as the lady of many tongues was, nothing came out 
 of the bill or the precogniiions tending towards any theory 
 sufficient to stay the mind, or induce belief, if we except a state- 
 ment made by a young man, a clerk in the coach-office, opposite 
 which the bloodstained proper had been found. He went for-
 
 1 86 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 ward in the afternoon, and was precognosced by the fiscal, to 
 the effect that on the day of the disappearance he saw two men, 
 whom he did not know, mount the coacli just when it had be- 
 gun to move, and without having time to pay their fares, which 
 they probably calculated upon settling at the other end of their 
 journey. One of the men, who was stouter and fatter than the 
 other, got inside, and the other immediately, upon perceiving 
 the movement, sprang up behind. He observed no concert 
 between the two, yet he felt satisfied that the one had resolved 
 to go after he saw the other about to take his seat. It was 
 only after he heard a description of the two Macgillivrays that 
 he began to think they were the men whom he had observed. 
 When this story came to be known, it was conveniently found 
 to agree in some respects with the history of the paper. As- 
 suming that the men seen by the clerk were really the two 
 brothers, it seemed probable that the deacon was he who went 
 inside, probably called upon to undertake the journey on short 
 notice by some business emergency, and that Angus, who was 
 Ijrowling about, and had seen his brother in the act of entering 
 the coach, had suddenly formed a resolution to dog him into 
 the country, and there wreak his revenge at a distance from 
 Edinburgh. This sudden purpose seemed probable, because if 
 there had been any concert between the two to travel together, 
 Angus would have gone inside also, where, according to the 
 clerk's statement, there was plenty of room for him. So far 
 ingenious, and certainly in the circumstances not improbable. 
 Then as to the paper, what more likely than that it should have 
 come with the returned coach, having been sent by Angus when 
 upon the eve of his flight after committing the deed, and bear- 
 ing the marks of his bloody fingers. As for the motive for thus 
 proclaiming his own villany, the most difficult element in the 
 whole story, it might have been (What might not be when the 
 mind is predisposed to find that it />.?) the wild act of a bravado, 
 glorying, as Mrs Macgillivray herself expressed it, in his revenge
 
 Deacon MacgiUivray s Disappearance. 187 
 
 at a time when he knew he would be far away before the paper 
 reached its destination. 
 
 With this last and, by consequence, the newest view of the 
 subject which obtained anything like a wide assent, the people 
 went to bed, probably to rise in the morning and find the 
 many-tongued goddess blowing word-bubbles of an entirely 
 different hue, aftei which they would run with renewed alacrity, 
 to find them end in a little liberated air, as all the others had 
 done. Another day dawned, bringing with it of course further 
 confirmation in the mere passage of time, of the universal con- 
 viction that whatever might be the speculations as to the when, 
 how, or wherefore, there could be little doubt of the fate of 
 Deacon MacgiUivray. And with the same increase of effect 
 the day passed. I had not been at Borthwick's Close for a 
 considerable time ; indeed, I found that with no power of be- 
 ing of any service, I was subjected to the severe necessity of 
 being a silent witness of irremediable miser3\ Yet I found a 
 pressure upon me, partly from the charge 1 made against my- 
 self of hiconsistcncy, if not ingratitude ; and taking Girvan along 
 with me, I called at the house a out five o'clock. We found 
 there Mrs Girvan, and another, of all in the world the most 
 unexpected, the wife of Angus MacgiUivray herself Nor was 
 this woman's visit without a cause, and one, too, calculated to 
 give a new turn altogether to our speculations. She had, of 
 course, heard of the charge against her husband, and after over- 
 coming much reluctance, in consecpicnce of the alienation of 
 the two families, had determined to vindicate her husband, even 
 in the presence of the widow of the murdered deacon. Her 
 story was extraordinary enough. She said that ever since the 
 taking out of the lawborrows, Angus MacgiUivray had been a 
 changed man. He read his Bible m the morning, and shewed 
 other indications of penitence for the enmity he had entertained 
 towards his brother; "And now," continued the woman, as she 
 took from her pocket a Bible, which she had probably brought
 
 i88 Mysteriotis Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 with her for the very purpose ; " I swear by this holy book, 
 which I hope to be the means of the salvation of my soul and that 
 of my husband, that Angus Macgillivray, on that morning when 
 lie so strangely disappeared, stated to me, ay, with tears in his 
 eyes, that he mourned continually over the separation of him- 
 self and his brother; that he was determined to throw himself in 
 his way, to confess his contrition and sorrow for what had 
 ])assed, to offer him his hand, and swear a renewed friendship, 
 which he would keep true to the day of his death." 
 
 This remarkable statement, which was confirmed by the man- 
 ner as well as the honest character of the woman, was, I think, 
 believed by all of us excepting the deaconess, who had been 
 so completely wedded to the old theory of the murder by 
 Angus, that it seemed as mipossible to move her from this 
 conviction as it was to raise her out of the great depth of her 
 sorrows. 
 
 " The news has been lang o' coming, woman," said she 
 " I will believe it v.'hen Angus proves himsel' to be innocent 
 o' a brother's bluid." 
 
 " But you forget, sister," said the other, "that I have nothing 
 to expect from coming here and telling you a lie. I am here 
 for your comfort ; to satisfy you that whatever has become of 
 your husband, he has received no injury from the hands of 
 mine." 
 
 '"That looks like reason," said I; "and I think I now see 
 some light breaking through all tliis darkness." 
 
 " Whaur?" ejaculated Mrs Macgillivray. "There is nae light 
 to me except the light of heaven. Nae earthly light will ever 
 shew me again the living face o' Duncan Macgillivray. He is 
 dead— dead!" 
 
 " And I may say the same of my husband," said the brother's 
 wife. " Is he not amissing as well as Duncan? and who has a 
 rigiit to say that the one killed the other, or that other the 
 one!"
 
 Deacon Macgillivray s Disappearance. 189 
 
 I was struck with the reasoning of the woman, who was 
 better educated than the deaconess, and with a greater power 
 of penetration, and the mystery was about ^o take another turn. 
 I was about to enlarge upon what had been last said, when 
 Mrs Girvan laid her hand on ray arm and said, "Hush!" We 
 had no notion of what she meant. Every one looked at her 
 now. I saw plainly that she was busy listening. 
 
 " I hear Deacon Macgillivray's voice on the stair," she 
 said. 
 
 And the words were scarcely spoken when a confused shuf- 
 fling of footsteps was heard in tlie loljby. The door opened, 
 and in there came the deacon and his brother Angus. 
 
 " What is the meaning o' a' this?" cried the cast-uj) dignitary. 
 " A dozen of people have met me, and told me I have been 
 dead and buried for five days." 
 
 "And that I murdered my ain brother,"' cried Angus. 
 
 "And surely I am dead," added the deacon, with a laugli, 
 "for my ain wife is feared at nij. and winna even offer me her 
 hand. Peggy, woman," he continued, as he went round and 
 took his wife in his arms, " what ails ye V 
 
 During all which the deaconess was in a vertigo, with no- 
 thing in her brain fixed except the iniage of her husband, 
 received through a j^air of staring eyes 
 
 "And Johnny Gow didna tell you?" continued he, as he 
 looked round upon us all siill in amazement. 
 
 " No," responded the Vvife, as she began to recover herself. 
 "What had he to tell?" 
 
 " Just that Angus and I had gane down to Blackha' to see our 
 brother Andrew," said he; " but I see now how it is. Johnny 
 was half drunk when I gave him the message, and the six- 
 pence had helped him to mair drink, and the drink had driven 
 him stupid." 
 
 " Why, deacon," said I, " it has been a serious affair. The 
 whole city has been in the belief that you were nmrdered, and
 
 190 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 Angus was suspected of the deed. Nor is it to be wondered 
 at, for even yet we want explanations." 
 
 " Explanations! " replied the deacon. "What mair do ye need 
 than just that as I was going up the High Street I met Angus, 
 who came up to me and said he was a changed man, that he 
 wanted the past to be forgotten, and that he would gie the 
 Avorld to be friends wi' me. I couldna refuse the offered hand 
 of a brother ; and, after a', I was as anxious to be friends again 
 as he. So maybe our hearts got big, and there might have 
 been something in baith our een that belangs mair to women 
 than men. When we were in this saft mood, the coach for 
 Galashiels was on the very i)oint of starting, and Angus said 
 that he had intended to go to Blackha' to buy sheep the next 
 forenoon, but that if I were agreeable, he would take his trip 
 that day, and we might go together. I have no objections, 
 said I, but we maun send notice to our wives. I beckoned 
 Gow, because I thought I could trust him, gave him a sixpence, 
 and got a promise. Next moment we were on the coach, and 
 by my troth I never enjoyed a jaunt better in my life. Andrew 
 was delighted to see us friends again, and maybe there was a 
 sowther o' kind that gaes mair to the heart than words. But 
 what though the cadie deceived us, didna ye get," he con- 
 tinued, as he looked into the face of the deaconess, '■'■ did?ia 
 ye get the salmon that Angus scut yon on the day it was killed, 
 the \c)th .?" 
 
 The secret was all but out. What was wanting was after- 
 wards ascertained. The driver had appropriated the fish be- 
 cause he saw no ticket of address upon it ; that ticket was 
 found by Hugh MTherson. And thus was explained a mystery 
 which occupied the metropolis of Scotland for nearly a week ; 
 in other words, which are less or more applicable to most mys- 
 teries, the worsted was rolled off — and, behold, the cork !
 
 fm-t( VM-iuficI^'s Cast of tijc Jictr 
 
 lligbtrnp. 
 
 
 OWEVER true it is that nothing is absolutely lost 
 in the world either of matter or mind, it is just as 
 true that much is lost to the memory of the short- 
 lived creature man. Nor is this inconsistent with 
 very evident final caus..; insomuch as every generation has 
 enough to do with itself, its anguish and pleasure, without 
 going back to the actions of those who have performed their 
 parts in the old tragedy or farce of life. Every year of increas- 
 ing civihsation helps this oblivion, in proportion to the increased 
 and increasing bodily and mental activities of the age ; and 
 while many think we are laying up stores of books, which will 
 by and by be incalculable, it is certain that the papier-mache 
 manufacturers swallow up more than we dream of These 
 observations are suggested by the fact that the story I am 
 about to relate derives its foundation from what I found set 
 forth in a Session paper (TurnbuU v. Gemmel) which was on 
 its way through Mr Adcock's paper-rooms, direct to be made 
 part of a tea-tray. In which circumstance you may trace a 
 fanciful retribution, in that my story may contribute to the 
 enjoyment cf some circle of very pious ladies, seated round a 
 beautiful specimen of the said art, composed, it may be, of the 
 literary remains of Thomas Payne and Bishop Colenso. 
 
 In exchange for opening up to you, my reader, so curious a 
 chapter of human life, I ask no more than that you should, for
 
 192 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 a minute or two, fancy yourself in Blackfriars' Wynd some time 
 about the end of last century. You will ascend a stair on the 
 east side, which leads to several flats, occupied by different 
 tenants, the first of those being the only one claiming our 
 attention. It is divided by a long lobby, with doors on each 
 side ; and though at one time it was occupied by one family, 
 a part, consisting of two rooms nearest the outer door, is occu- 
 pied by John Grant, a house-painter, his wife and daughter; 
 the rest, consisting of several rooms further ben, being the resi- 
 dence of David TurnbuU and a certain Mrs Gemmel, who 
 stood in relation to him as a servant, yet using an authority 
 which does not often belong to menials. On a certain night, 
 — I cannot even give the year, far less the month, but the 
 night is not the less certain for all that, — the painter and his 
 family are engaged taking their "four hours" — that is, simply 
 their tea. All is very quiet in that small parlour, by reason, it 
 would seem, of some soLnnnity throwing a shadow over minds 
 otherwise healthy and cheerful ; and if we were curious about 
 the cause, which we really are, we would find it in some way 
 connected with the state of the domestic /ares in the other end, 
 where a dark angel is dealing sternly and unrelentingly with 
 honest David — even that power 
 
 " Whose short five-letter'd name 
 Is but a syllable, yet carries fear 
 When whisper'd stealthily from man to man, 
 And makes him shudder, and cry out, Alas! 
 Whence do I come, and whither do I go ?" 
 
 Yes, 30 it was ; and Mrs Grant, breaking the silence, only 
 added to the gloom. 
 
 "It's nearly ower wi' him," said she. "A look o' death is 
 ill to bide in ony case, but I never saw a deathbed like 
 David's, so gruesome. Mrs Gemmel never mentions a word 
 o' religion, and nae friend is allowed to come near him. His 
 face, which is a' ye see o' him, is by a' the warld just as if ye
 
 Braxfi eld's Case of the Red Nighteap. 193 
 
 had brought a whitening-brush owre it ; and the only other 
 thing ye can see is a fiery red nightcaj) on his bald head." 
 
 A description which, in otlier circumstances, might have 
 produced a smile, but Mrs Grant's face was long and serious. 
 
 "It signifies little for the nightcap," said Jolm, "if his sins 
 are no red as weel." 
 
 " True," replied the wife " And if they were as red 'aa 
 scarlet, they may be made even as the driven snaw ; but Mrs 
 Gemmel allows nae minister to come near him, only ii.c; 
 doctor, who comes but seldom, where he sees no hope, ana 
 the writer, who comes often, because he thinks there is mucn. 
 The twa ho])es, ye see, have different things to look at." 
 
 "I havo n't heard the doctor's foot to-da)'," rejoined the 
 husband. 
 
 " Nor I," added the wife ; "but Wilson has been twice in, 
 by token, nae doubt, that liis nose is as sharp as a blue-bottle's; 
 but here will be Mrs Gemmel," she added, as a gentle knock 
 sounded on the door. 
 
 This reinnrk soon proved to be wrong, as the daughter, a fine 
 young woman of eighteen, rose and opened the door, and let 
 in a youth of somewhere about twenty. 
 
 " William Turnbull," cried the mistress, " what hole o' the 
 earth ha\-e you come out o' at the very time your father's 
 brother is preparing to enter ane .'" 
 
 " It is just because my uncle is going in that direction that 
 I am come in." This was the reply. 
 
 "Ay," continued she, " you have heard the corbies cawing 
 round the sick heifer, and ye 're come to fleg them a"wa, but I 
 fear ye canna." 
 
 " I know I c:innot," said he, "nor do I much care. He made 
 his money by his own industry, and if he chooses fairly and 
 legally to leave it to Mrs (}emrael and her daughter, we have 
 no right to complain : but it is our duty to inquire after so near 
 a relative, ;ind seeing we and his other relatives have been so
 
 194 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 long banished from his presence, I have come to you to know 
 how he is." 
 
 "Just as Mrs Gemmel would wish, I fancy," repUed she. 
 " The old man is posting to death ; I fear the deed is done, — I 
 mean the will is made, — and what can you do ?" 
 
 "Perhaps nothing," said William ; "but the law has a lean- 
 ing to relatives, and when it is in their favour they are not in 
 the habit of casting it over their shoulder. We can, at least, see 
 that the will is all right ; and with that view, I have a favour to 
 beg of you, which you will the more readily grant, that" (turning 
 to the daughter) " you know that Maggy and I have been long 
 friends, and may, with God's blessing and your consent, be 
 more than that." 
 
 A reference which changed the colour of Margaret's face 
 more mto that of David's red nightcap, than that of the face 
 which it partly covered. 
 
 " That is right, Margaret," said the mother. " There 's nae use 
 for blushing, lass, except it be to tell you 're willing before 
 you 're asked ; and, mairower, there 's naething wrang, merely 
 because death is next door ; for death and marriage have aye 
 been gude friends, if the ane doesna live by the other : but 
 what 's the favour ye ask, William ?" 
 
 " Just this," replied he ; " if any turn takes place ben tiie 
 house, you '11 send over to Mr Allan the notary, who will comj 
 and lock up repositories. He can do this in spite oi Iviis 
 Gemmel, Wilson the writer, and all the other corbies." 
 
 " Wha '11 no care a bodle," said the shrewd wife; " for dimva 
 ye see that Mr Allan would just be taking care o' the will 
 that 's to cut you out." 
 
 " We may have two words about that," rejoined he, " at 
 least we cannot be worse by being prepared. Then Margaret 
 will perhaps take a ride to Musselburgh, to tell me when the 
 change takes place." 
 
 " He 's a willing horse whose head is turned to his ain farm-
 
 Braxfield' s Case of the Red Nightcap. 195 
 
 yard," said she, laughing. " Margaret says naething ; but I '11 
 answer for this, that the breath is nae sooner out o' his body, 
 than she is out o' this house, and on her way to Musselburgh." 
 
 " Then all is right," added he, as he rose and shook hands; 
 "I will trust you." 
 
 And the young man departed, leaving Mrs Grant to execute a 
 commission, not in itself perhaps very easy, insomuch as the 
 said Mrs Gemmel, though not in the proper sense a z'ir-ago, — 
 one \\'ho can play the ]jart of a rough man, — was one not easily 
 turned or jjut oft her purjjose ; resembhng, perhaps, the tiger's 
 paw when the talons are retracted, soft as velvet, but ready on 
 the instant to become a formidable weapon. But then Mrs 
 Grant knjw her, and she had the greater heart for performing 
 her promise, tiiat her daughter stood in a relation to th& 
 nephew, which made the business somewhat her own ; for if it 
 should happen that David Turn bull's property should by any 
 chance escape the hands of the schemers, and come to William, 
 it might go down in the line of her own flesh and blood. 
 During the evening, accordingly, she paid particular attention 
 to any footfalls in the passage, as indicating visitors ; for oc- 
 casionally cronies of Mrs Cjemmel were heard to pass, no 
 doubt to ascertain how her hopes pointed, and perhaps with 
 the distant view of some secondary benefit to themselves, if it 
 should amount to no more than the never-failing "dram" — 
 that wonderful agent in the economy of low life, which, however 
 apparently insignificant, works greater wonders on hearts and 
 livers and tongues than we wot of. All was very quiet that 
 evening, not even the doctor's foot had been heard, and 
 David's cough, which might sometimes be heard in more than 
 ordinary stillness, was, as it came now and then, the only 
 sound of li\-ing action thereben, and even that did not seem so 
 strong as it used to be. 
 
 So at the hour of nine, Mrs Grant, more intent upon per- 
 sonal interest now than influenced by sympathy, though per-
 
 196 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 haps she had just as much of that as sick-bed visitors often 
 have, ventured to tirl at the door of her neighbour. It was 
 ahnost instantly opened, and by the help of a lamp which was 
 in her hand, the face of Mrs Gemmel herself appeared. She 
 was serious, of course, as became the nurse of a patient so very 
 ill, but there was a hopefulness about her which was pleasant 
 to see, if not a kind of satisfaction wliich could come of nothing 
 else than a change in honest David for "the better" — leaving 
 these words to be construed according to her own view of what 
 was good, and to whom it was good. But, indeed, she did not 
 wish to leave that doubtful, for she immediately saluted Mrs 
 Grant with the intelligence that David had got a turn. 
 
 "A turn," echoed the visitor, in a dry tone, as if she did not 
 understand exactly whether the turn was backward or for- 
 ward. 
 
 "Ay, even a turn," continued the soft nurse. "He has 
 supped a bowl o' strong beef-tea ; and, Heaven be mercifu', 
 woman, you would almost think the blood was coming to his 
 face again." 
 
 " Which it has muckle need to do," replied A^rs Grant, in 
 the same dty way, as no doubt she thought of the gruesome 
 contrast between that foce and the red nightcap. 
 
 And the two women having by this time got into the bed- 
 room, the nurse resumed her half whispers. 
 
 " We maun speak low ye see, Mrs Grant, as you may hear by 
 his snoring that he is sleeping." 
 
 "Snoring," echoed the other, all but involuntarily, for some- 
 how or another the thought came into her head that the sound 
 was the death-rattle. 
 
 And whether she had very foolishly allowed her lips to move 
 so that Mrs Gemmel might "read"' them, certain it is that the 
 latter immediately rejoined - - 
 
 "Dinna be feared, woman; it's no the death-rattle." 
 
 " I didna say it was," rejoined the other, as if she felt that
 
 BraxfichVs Case of the Red AUgJitcap. 1 9 7 
 
 she had committed herself; " I never heard o't coming so soon 
 after a hale bowl of beef-tea." 
 
 A remark this wliich brought a grim smile over the face of 
 Mrs Gemmel. 
 
 " Ay, and a pipe," added she, with an increase of the pleas- 
 ant expression. 
 
 "A pipe!" echoed Mrs Grant again. 
 
 " Tust a pipe, cummer," repeated the other. " He had nae 
 sooner ta'en the beef- ea, than he asked for a whiff, and ye 
 may be sure he wouldna want it lang, for I was ower happy to 
 think that he could take it." 
 
 "And so ye might," said the astonished Mrs Grant ; "for 
 yesterday, when I saw him, I thought him as far from a pipe as 
 he was from a bowl o' punch." 
 
 "Ay, but where there's life there's hope," was the reply. 
 " We ken little about the spirit ; it comes and it gangs, and it 
 comes again, when ye would think it was awa on its journey to 
 heaven. Woman, I wouldna wonder to see David TurnbuU 
 sitting again in his easy-chair, with " (and she almost laughed) 
 " the tail o' his red nightcap hanging ower the back o' 't ; 
 wouldna that be a gay sight 1" 
 
 "And sure it would," said Mrs Grant; "but, Mrs Gemmel, 
 are ye serious, Avoman V she added, as the gurgling sound still 
 came from the bed. 
 
 "'Deed and I am," replied the nurse; "and I just wonder 
 what makes ye ask it." 
 
 " There 's nae harm anyhow," said Mrs Grant 
 
 And here the conversation for the time ended. Mrs Grant 
 returned to her parlour, where she related to her husband the 
 import of what she had heard and what she had seen. Neither 
 the one nor the other could reconcile the aj)parent contradic- 
 tion, and there was even a wonderment expressed by both as 
 to what could have induced so shrewd a woman as Mrs 
 Gemmel was known to be to assert what, especially as re-
 
 1 98 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 garded the tobacco, not a trace of which was in the room, 
 appeared to be utterly ridiculous, if not impossible. And 
 then the matter appeared the more perplexing, that all along 
 during the illness of the invalid she had generally expressed 
 her absolute hopelessness that he would ever rise from the bed 
 again ; the change in her words, her manner, and her looks 
 having come on in the course of a day, and being, moreover, 
 in full contradiction to the actual state of the patient. There 
 was clearly something to be exi)lained, and that something 
 they could not get at. At one moment they thought Mrs 
 Gemmel was belymg her true sentiments, with a view to keep 
 off a suspicion that she expected soon to be the mistress of 
 certain tenements; at another they glided into the more chari- 
 table construction, that the woman's hopes had become a little 
 hysterical from the sympathy of an old love which had revived 
 in its cinders from the influence of a conviction that their long 
 connexion was on the eve of being ended. But no solution 
 would suit the conditions of the case, and rather than be 
 ungenerous they left the secret, if secret there was, to the 
 development of the passing hours, knowing, as they both did, 
 that Time is a great babbler. 
 
 Notwithstanding of this somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion, 
 Mrs Grant was as fully determined as ever to attend to the 
 interests of the man whom she had begun to think of as a son- 
 in-law. Vague suspicions haunted her — as vague as those 
 generally are which arise from some con\'iction tliat the con- 
 nexion between appearances and what ought to be realities will 
 not hold the two together. She would, being a woman, and 
 therefore by instinct an eavesdropper, have listened at tlie 
 door ; but being in some respects an exception from the normal 
 character of her sex, she considered that mode of getting at a 
 secret to a certain extent unseemly, and therefore she con- 
 tented herself with listening a-bed — perceiving a clear difference 
 between the two acts by means of her conscience, which is, as
 
 BraxficlcTs Case of the Red Nightcap. 199 
 
 we all know, endowed with a microscopical refinement un- 
 known even to mathematicians, who admit they cannot see 
 infinitesimals. Nor was this safe and honourable eavesdrop- 
 ping, awa}'' fi-om the eaves altogether, without ft-uits. Some- 
 thing was going on thereben, and something was not going on. 
 The cough of honest David, for instance, had not been heard 
 even in the sound of that " kigh,"' as we call it, in contradiction 
 to the " hoast," even as the latter is distinguished by an irreve- 
 verent writer from "the Lord of hoasts "' — the whoop; and 
 Mrs Grant suspected that it had passed into the rattle. Then 
 she heard, about two in the morning, some footfalls, as like 
 those of Mrs Gemmel's as it was necessary for them to be to 
 suit her watcliful ear; they were those of a person going out 
 and in. About half an hour afterwards there were steps in the 
 lobby, as if two persons had come in ; nay, she could hear 
 that the door was opened stealtliily, and shut again in the same 
 furtive manner. What could all this mean ] Was David dead, 
 and had Mrs Gemmel gone and brought Wilson the writer to 
 lielp her to lay him out >■. or Iiad he grown worse, in spite of the 
 beaf-tea and the pipe, and she had gone for Dr Henderson to 
 administer to him .' In either supposition, why had the woman 
 not called her, Mrs Grant, who had often before been applied 
 to in David's domestic emergencies ? She was puzzled, as all 
 people wlio Stllogise upon suspicions generally are, but still 
 the preponderance of her favour was extended to the first 
 theory, insomuch as it harmonised best with the stealthy 
 operation of opening and shutting the door; and so she 
 veritably came to the conclusion that David was dead. Mean- 
 while her husband was busy snoring by her side, and as that 
 peculiar sound oi the vocal chords is often not less catching 
 than yawning, she acknowledged the power and straightway 
 fell sound asleep. 
 
 In the morning she consulted her husband as to what she 
 ought to do, in reference principally to sending or not send-
 
 200 Mysterious Legends of EdinbiLrgh, 
 
 ing for Mr Allan ; but Mr Grant not being under the fer- 
 vour of suspicion, made short work of the question by stating 
 that it was impossible that the old man could be dead and 
 no intimation made to the nearest neighbour — a fair enough 
 statement, no doubt, yet no better than a supposition after all. 
 On one point they both agreed — viz., that they ought to wait 
 and see what sign should be made by Mrs Gemmel. If she 
 did not make some intimation by ten o'clock, then Mrs Grant 
 would go ben and judge from wliat she saw ; but all this wis- 
 dom was rendered vain by the entrance of Margaret Grant, 
 who, having set the breakfost, had gone out for some eatables, 
 and thus encountered her father and mother for the first time 
 this morning. She had something to say on the mysterious 
 subject, and, what is more to be noted, that which she had to 
 say was rather to add to the mystery than throw light upon it. 
 Her information was to the effect that, wanting a light, she 
 had gone ben to get one from Mrs Gemmel. In passing 
 David's bedroom to get to the kitchen, she looked in and saw 
 the bed with nobody in it. Wondering at this, she took 
 another glance in commg out, and saw David himself, with his 
 bright-coloured Kilmarnock, sitting as he used to do in his old 
 armchair by the fireside ; but, strange to say, there was no fire 
 in the grate, and she got so alarmed by what she thouglit was an 
 utter impossibility in nature, that she had no power to put any 
 question to Mrs Gemmel, hurrying away as fast as she could. 
 In giving this narrative, the girl appeared excited in no ordi- 
 nary degree ; and, as might have been expected, the father and 
 mother look on from sympathy. Yet this effect, in so far as 
 regarded Mrs Grant, was short-lived. 
 
 " Margaret Grant," said she, as she began to recover herself, 
 " I have brought ye up in the fear o' God and a reverence for 
 truth, and now ye tell me what is impossible and against 
 common sense. The man has been confined to his bed for 
 months ; I have seen him from day to day, getting every day
 
 Braxjield' s Case of the Red Nightcap. io\ 
 
 waur and waur, till his flesh is worn aff his banes, the colour 
 gane frae his cheeks, at last, even yestreen, the death-rattle was 
 in his throat, and now he is sitting by the fire ; I canna, I 
 winna believe it 1" 
 
 " I cannot help that," replied ^Margaret, gently ; " I have told 
 you what I saw, and you can go ben and judge for yourself." 
 
 "And that I will, Margaret," cried the mother, "even for 
 your sake ; that if ye are right, I may like you the better ; but 
 that if wrang, I will ken what kind o' a dochter I have." 
 
 And under the inCuence of a roused motive, very different 
 from that which was actuating her towards the same object, 
 she hurried out of the room. The tap on the door was soon 
 answered. Mrs Grant entered, and e\en as before she was 
 met by the same hopeful if not smiling countenance. 
 
 " Did I no tell you," said Mrs Gemmel, before any question 
 was put to her, " that David had gotten the turn, and you 
 was na very willing to believe me? Just look you in there." 
 
 And as she edged up the bedroom door, Mrs Grant put in 
 her face, with a pair oi eyes sufficiently determined to judge 
 for themselves ; at least they did their part in looking, what- 
 ever her reason might afterwards do in any opposition offered 
 to the report of these soothsaying witnesses. There was the 
 bed, just as Margaret had said, quite empty, but with the appear- 
 ance of having been vacated by the tenant who had occupied 
 it so long. The fire was now lighted, antl by it stood the old 
 armchair, wherein was, of a certainty, the good old man, David 
 — his arm leaning on the left side of it, his left leg extended, 
 the top of the well-known nightcap appearing o\er the back ; 
 all vividly enough visible, in spite of the gloomy atmosphere of 
 the room, caused by a dark green window-blind, through which 
 the light could scarcely penetrate. 
 
 " You see how it is," said Mrs Gemmel, as she drew the 
 door to her. " I am just making his breakfast ; you see where 
 there 's Hfe there 's hope."
 
 202 j\Iysterio2is Legends of Edinbtirgh. 
 
 " A turn indeed," ejaculated the other, after she had re- 
 covered herself; "and the cough he has had for years" 
 
 '■' " Clean gone." 
 
 " And the — the rattle ]" 
 
 " You mean the snoring," was the answer. " You forget he 
 is wide awake, and, though you dinna see his face, with a pair 
 o' een as gleg as a hawk's. L>ut," continued Mrs Gemmel, "I'll 
 no keep you, for I fancy you have na got breakfast, and as for 
 David, I am thinking he 's as hungry as you." 
 
 And Mrs Grant, able to take a hint even in the midst of her 
 confusion and amazement, returned to her room, where she re- 
 ported what she had seen without a ray of glamour having 
 been thrown over her eyes ; nor did any scepticism on the part 
 of her husband diminish either his amazement or the expression 
 of it, for he had the testimony of Margaret in addition to that 
 of his wife, and he could recur, for a justification of her won- 
 derment, to his own experience of only two or three days old, 
 w^hen he saw David lying in tb.e bed, as one worn out with 
 years and disease, as near death as any one could be with any 
 life in him at all. It might be all very well to wonder at what 
 looked so like a miracle; but wonder expiscates no truth, it 
 only leaves, after it has abated, a desire to bring the laws of 
 nature again into the harmony of consistent experience; and so 
 Mrs Grant had misgivings which she could not justify, and no 
 less a desire for further insight, which she did not know very 
 well how to gratify. She knew tliat in Mrs Gemmel she 
 Jiad the soft tiger's claw to manage, and she had to fear the 
 extension of the talons ; yet slie felt that she would encounter 
 some risk, just to ascertain the real circumstances of David's 
 recovery and the exact state of his health, — not that she wanted 
 him dead for the sake of her daughter, but simply that, woman- 
 like, she had a craving of curiosity requiring to be fed. 
 
 The affair had, indeed, become something like a romance to 
 her, and so she continued during the day to watch all the pro-
 
 Bi'axfidd' s Case of the Red Nightcap. 20 
 
 o 
 
 ceedings that came within earshot. She noticed that the 
 doctor did not call as he was wont ; but, what was also unusual, 
 she ascertained that one or two of the neighbours, who had 
 scarcely ever entered within the limits of Mrs Gemmel's sacred 
 charge, had actually been invited ben to witness the great and 
 marvellous recovery. These individuals Mrs Grant took special 
 occasion to see and sjjeak to, and no doubt thev all concurred 
 in the conclusion that the affair was very marvellous, but then 
 they knew that God's arm is never shortened ; and were there 
 not examples of people having been brought back from death 
 to life, yea, of buried corpses having turned in their coffins, no 
 doubt from a desire to lie more easily on one side than another^ 
 All this was verv consonant to womjn's wavs of accounting for 
 marvels, but Mi-s Grant ventured little till she knew more. So 
 in the evenmg, again, she made a call at a time when David 
 ought to be in his bed, and sure enough she found he was ; but 
 then, again, he was unfortunately dead asleep, and could not 
 be approached ; while as regarded the snoring, the cough, or 
 the rattle, they could not be heaid bv reason of their havini: 
 been "clean gane," or at least sopited in sweet slumber. His 
 face was to the wall, and all she could see was that redoubted 
 red Kilmarnock, and the shape of the body under the clothes. 
 But was not all that sufficient for any one not a very Pyrrhon- 
 ianl It might seem so, but what can a woman do with a cra\e 
 when curiosity is a-hungered \ We all know the answer, and ac- 
 cordingly we will not be suri)nsed to learn that next day Margaret 
 Grant was commissioned to call and sec what she could see ; but 
 the result only tended to stimulate what it was intended to satisfy. 
 David was agnn snugly seated by the fire, nay, she was given 
 to understand that he had been indulging in a jjipe of tobacco, 
 the fumes of which were perceptible- enough^mdre so indeed 
 than the objects, for the room was as dark and dismal looking 
 as ever, just as if all movement had been stilled by enchant- 
 ment, and all sound frozen in the ver»- midst oi the v\arm atmo-
 
 204 Mystei^ious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 sphere, a phenomenon only known to Sancho Panza and the 
 spasmodic poets. So also in the evening again the usual 
 change took place, and though Mrs Grant exhibited a sym- 
 jjathetic desire to see the restored colour on the face of the 
 invalid, which was becoming in a Christian, yet somehow or 
 other she could succeed in her praiseworthy effort no better 
 than before. If she was kind, Mrs Gemmel was more so, and 
 David could not in any event be disturbed. Nor did the next 
 day change this fine re^;ular programme in the sick-room, if 
 that term could now be ajiplied to one so far convalescent as 
 to be able to take a bowlful of beef-tea and smoke a pipe after 
 the same. 
 
 Yet, witlial, this most unreasonable woman, Mrs Grant, 
 would still be on the watch ; and what would she not have 
 given just for " a handling " of her old friend David, and a few 
 words from a throat where the death-rattle had been rumbling 
 (as she thought) so short a time before ? Patience has her 
 triumphs, because she is often so like wisdom ; nor does even 
 grimalkin sit all day, and sometimes all night to boot, at a hole, 
 without having had recourse to an argument — that if a mouse 
 has entered there, so it is likely it will some time or other come 
 out again. Then Mrs Grant's ])atience was the more wonder- 
 ful, that everything tended to strengthen the very enemy of that 
 virtue. The doctor had given up calling, and the writer had 
 more interviews with Mrs Gemmel than ever. An abnormal 
 condition of matters reigned everywhere ; nay, on the fifth 
 night, what could induce Mrs Gemmel to go out and lock her 
 door at the hour of eleven at night % Mrs Grant did not even 
 try to answer. She was at the moment lying quietly in bed, 
 with her husband asleep alongside of her, and no better oppor- 
 tunity could offer itself for rewarding her patience and satisfy- 
 ing her crave at the same time ; she accordingly rose as quietly 
 as possible, for fear of awakening her husband, who she was 
 sure would set his face against her project, and striking a light
 
 Braxfield' s Case of the Red Nightcap. 205 
 
 in the lobby, she took from her own door the key, — an act to 
 which she was directed by a remembrance that Mr Grant had 
 long before remarked how singular it was that all the locks on 
 the flat were of the same make ; — that key she ap[)l ed to David 
 Turnbull's door, and that door opened with due obedience. 
 So far she was bold ; but when the way was clear before 
 her into the house of which, and its inmates and strange wa3''s, 
 she had been dreaming night and day for so long a time, her 
 foot faltered, the candle shook in lier hand, and she hesitated ; 
 she stood for a moment, with her ear sharpened byfear, to hjar 
 if there were any sounds. David might be awake, and see lier ; 
 Mrs Gemmel might in the meantime return, and thus she ran 
 a risk of being caught in the act of entering an honest burgess's 
 house with a false key, and no doubt with the object of plun- 
 der. But, O Curiosity ! tliou 
 
 " Who erst did disregard 
 Divine conimaud, and though forewarn'd 
 Tliat knowledge hath two sides, or good or ill, 
 Didst yet, midst flaming swords of seraphim, 
 Elect to hiOTV," 
 
 we find thee not yet unleavened of the old leaven. Even 
 though the nerves of the eye twittered behind the candle, the 
 balls looked forward, and the tremuious limb was no hindrance 
 to the step. She saw tlie Hght of the kitchen cruise, but it was 
 not in that direction the object of her curiosity lay. It was to 
 David's bedroom she directed herself, the shut door of which 
 only tempted her the more ; nor even when she perceived that 
 all was dark there, was she moved otherwise than to push for- 
 ward her small light, that she might drive the shadows that 
 came between her and what slie wanted to know from the 
 remote corners. First, the bed. Was he there ? No. She 
 even passed her hand over it, lest her eye might escape some 
 shrunken body under the clothes. Tlie old armchair next. 
 "Was he there? Most sureb' not. It was truly the empty
 
 2o6 ]\Iystcrious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 chair so much made of by poetic fancies. In the room any- 
 where 1 No. Her eye flvshed round and round, as the Hght 
 tlirevv its beam obedient to her trenibUng hand, but no David 
 Turnbull could be seen. Thus discomfited, or rather more 
 and more awakened by the increasing mystery, she was about to 
 depart, when she thought of the darlc pantry, where Mrs Gem- 
 mcl used to stow away trunks and clothes, and thereto she 
 directed herself, pulling open tlie door Iiurriedly, for she was 
 getting more and more nervous by the additional fear of the 
 return of Mrs Gemniel. lUit what was that, or any other fear, 
 to that wliich shot through her entire body, making her " very 
 een reel," when she saw honest David hanging, with his face to 
 the wall, from a cleik in the roof! She could be under no 
 error of vision, for the light of the candle discovered the object 
 to her eye, with the tails of his old coat she had seen him wear, 
 the red nightcap in full crimson, and all the rest of the habili- 
 ments that go to make up the covering of man's body. Of a 
 kindly spirit as she was, she would have rushed forward and 
 tried to bring him down ; but where w'ould have been the use, 
 when the man was clearly dead and motionless, and then, 
 moreover, time was pressing her. Yet all this did not prevent 
 her from calling out, by way of hv sterical effort, " David! David 
 Turnbull !" words to which David made no reply, for a reason 
 which is much too evident to mention. Her curiosity was so 
 far satisfied, though not in the way she had expected, and 
 wishing to remove any sign of her having been there, she 
 threw the door of the closet to in its old position — a disastrous 
 act in this her monodrame, for the wind of the movement blew 
 out her weak light ; and, oh strange coincidence ! she heard at 
 the same moment a rap irom within the clo.set, as if the sup- 
 posed dead man had at length made a sign ! 
 
 Even if the state of her nerves had enabled her to respond 
 to that knock, with vvhatever intention made, the want of a 
 light was enough in itself to have prevented her; and the fear
 
 Braxfield' s Case of ike Red Nightcap. 207 
 
 of Mrs Gemmel returned upon her in the dark with so much 
 force that she immediately resolved upon a retreat. But this, 
 in her state of mind, became a difficult affair ; for having made 
 a mistake in her first turn, she lost her topography, and went 
 groping about, trying to identify wh itever object she encoun- 
 tered ; nor was even this difficulty left with its own entangle- 
 ments. She heard the sound of a foot, and by and by some 
 one moving in the room ; nay, she even heard a mortal breath- 
 ing not far from her very side. Her first thought was — and 
 surely it could not be said to have been unnatural in the cir- 
 cumstances \ — that the closet door had been opened, and that 
 it was David Turnl:)ull in person who had disengaged himself, 
 and come forth ; nor was this a mere suspicion. It became, 
 as she still kept groping with spasmodic efforts, a conviction ; 
 and now she had not only the door to seek, but this resusci- 
 tated being to avoid. Neither the one object nor the other 
 could she accomplish. She had gone two or three times round 
 the room, and how many more tunes she might have gone, 
 with David trying to follow her, no one, however versed in 
 windings in the dark, might say, if it had not been that she felt 
 a hand upon her shoulder. The melodrama was now to be 
 completed, by the required scream ; and scream she did, with 
 so shrill a sound that David, even from his suspended position, 
 if he still maintained it, and was not verily the owner o." that 
 im^josed hand, might have been recalled to consciousness by 
 it. At the same moment she retreated, but with no improved 
 sense of her local position, till, having found the bed, she got 
 upon the right track. 
 
 Confused as she was, she had, on getting out of the bedroom, 
 enough of thought and prudence lel't to her to enable her to 
 shut the door as she had found it. It was comparatively easy 
 for her to get to the outer door — that, too, she closed and 
 locked, and hurrying along the passage, she got at last into 
 her own room, and then to bed. Her husband, she suspected,
 
 2oS Alystcrioiis Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 was awake, and she wondered why he did not put a question 
 to her, where and what she had been about. Tf so put to it, 
 in all likelihood she woul;! have told the extraordinary circum- 
 stances of her midni^^^ht adventure ; but knowing that he was 
 a man who would have condemned strongly the mode she had 
 adopted of satisfying her curiosity, she rather inclined to hold- 
 ing her secret. Meanwhile her chief thought regarded the 
 pjrson who had been in the bedroom with her. When now 
 somewhat composed, she would rather have recurred to the 
 suspicion that it was Mrs Oemmel herself, than en.tertained the 
 extravagant opinion that David could, after a period of suspen- 
 sion by the neck, have been able to move about in the manner 
 she had clearly experienced ; but this alternative, to which the 
 ijuestion seemed to be limited, was soon deprived of one of 
 its terms, by the fact that as she lay in this meditation she 
 heard Mrs Gemmel come stealthily in, open her door by her 
 key, shut it after her, and relock it from the inside. She had 
 now, therefore, no second theory as to the identity of the living 
 being who had been along with her in the bedroom, — unless, 
 indeed, she might have conceived that Wilson the writer, so 
 clearly in league with the housekeeper, and who, it was even 
 whispered, intended to marry her after the spoil to come by 
 the will had been realised, had been in the house. But then 
 \\ilson w^as not the kind of man — a pettifogger and savage 
 i)oinder of the poor — to have been contented with such mute, 
 if not pantomimic action ; and, above all, she was deeply im- 
 pressed by the conviction that the noise she heard from the 
 inside of the closet came from the same person who had 
 moved alongside of her, had breathed near her, and who had 
 his hand upon her shoulder. 
 
 The excitement which keeps off sleej) precipitates it in the 
 er.d, l)y the exhaustion which itself undergoes. So Mrs Grant 
 fell over when the time came ; nor did she awake till it was 
 pretty far gone in the morning, nay, till the breakfast, by the
 
 Braxjieid's Case of the Red Nightcap. 209 
 
 early ministrations of Margaret, was upon the table, and the 
 husband returned from his morning's work. On sitting down 
 to the morning meal, it seemed clear to each of them that 
 there was something to be said by one to another ; and it is 
 not unlikely that each thought his or her own story the most 
 interesting — that is, assuming that Mrs Grant could be induced 
 to get over the fear of her husband's condemnation, for the 
 Sake of easing her heart of what she thought a terrible secret, 
 involving attempted suicide or murder. The mysteiy of the 
 prior night's evolutions had culminated without yielding a 
 hope of a revelation \ and we may fancy Mrs Grant's astonish- 
 ment to hear Margaret declare, that having been ben again for 
 a light at a pretty early hour, she had seen David again in his 
 bed. 
 
 " In his bed !" echoed Mrs Grant. 
 
 "In his bed!'' ejaculated Mr Grant. " Wliy, I have been 
 waiting till we all sat down, so that we might help each other 
 to some rational explanation, to tell you that David Turnbull 
 is lying in the back bedroom dead, and streeked upon the 
 bed, where, for aught I know, he has lain for days. I tell you 
 this from my own observation. About eight o'clock I was up 
 putting a first coat of paint upon the windows of the third flat, 
 and on coming down the ladder I saw the corpse. Nor was it 
 a slight look of it I took — I stood and gazed at it for several 
 minutes ; I could even recognise the features, for there was 
 nothing over it, nor anything on the head, not even the red 
 nightcap about which you have spoken so much." 
 
 "Eight o'clock!" rejoined the daughter. "That was just 
 half an hour after the time I saw him lying in the other bed- 
 room. So," added the simple Margaret, " Mrs Gemmel had 
 just removed the body from the one room to the other in th« 
 meantime." 
 
 " Weel," cried Mrs Grant, holding the while her hands up, 
 
 as a very inadequate expression of her admiration, " the 
 
 o
 
 2IO Mysterious Legends of Edmburgk. 
 
 murder 's out at last ! T saw last night, at eleven o clocK, 
 David TurnbuU hanging by the neck in the dark closet off the 
 bedroom ; and now, when ye tell me that he is lying dead it 
 must have been his spirit seeking for vengeance that laid its 
 hand " 
 
 " Laid its hand !" interrupted the husband. "Why, woman, 
 ghosts have no weight in their forms, so that the laying of a 
 hand could be felt by a mortal. Besides," he added, with a 
 smile playing through the gravity demanded from the terrible 
 story of his wife, " it was a hand you have felt before." 
 
 " Sae, sae ; and it was your ownl" rejoined she. 
 
 " I admit nothing," was the reply. " You were deceiving 
 me when you opened another man's door by what may be 
 called a false key, and I had a right to deceive you ; but we 
 have something else to do than to account for small decep- 
 tions. If you saw the dead body suspended from the roof, 
 then you saw what we are bound to communicate to the autho- 
 rities of the law. We have to look to the interests, also, of 
 William Turnbull, the nephew." 
 
 There thus seemed to be something certain and fixed amidst 
 all these fleeting appearances and contradictions, but the words 
 of Mr (-rant's wisdom had no sooner fallen where they might 
 germinate into conviction and action, than the door opened, 
 and who should make her appearance but Mrs Gemmel herself 
 
 " The bearer o' guid news is aye welcome," said she. " I 
 am happy to tell ye that Mr Turnbull is still improving. I 
 have just left liim at the fire, taking his smoke after his break- 
 fast." 
 
 A communication this which was surely calculated to re- 
 duce all tliese certainties to the old doubt. Every one looked 
 to another, but no one seemed to have the power to speak, and 
 Mrs Gemmel, having added a few words to break the painful 
 silence, left and returned to her own house. 
 
 "What is the meaning o' a' this"?" was the first ejaculation
 
 Braxfield' s Case of the Red Nightcap. 2 1 1 
 
 from Mrs Grant. " I have heard o' folk being deceived by 
 glamour thrown ower their een ; has ony o' the devil's agents 
 been busy \vi' mine 1 I 'm at my wits' end." 
 
 " And what if I have been deceived too ?" added the husband. 
 " It is certainly possible that David might have been laid in 
 the bed where I saw him merely to rest a little. You say that 
 the last time you saw him his face was as white as if a whiten- 
 ing-brush had been brought over it, and I confess I have had 
 but little experience of the dead." 
 
 And, strange as it may seem, so tortuous, contradictory, 
 mutable, and ridiculous were the circumstances of the whole 
 story, that they could not refrain from a laugh — a phenomenon 
 which, to a student of human nature, might appear as inexpli- 
 cable as any of the appearances in this extraordinary play. 
 Yet, amidst all these apparent contradictions, — absurdities we 
 cannot call them, for the reason that they were sufficient to 
 produce convictions and emotions in the human heart, — there 
 appeared to Mrs Grant quite, and more than enough to require 
 inquiry and investigation. If David TurnbuU was not dead, 
 either as a consequence of the wearing out of the silver chord, 
 or the breaking of the same by a hempen, it was clear that he 
 was the victim of some mercenary motive, dictated by Wilson 
 and acted upon by Mrs Gemmel ; and so the painter took up 
 his hat with the intention of going to Mr Allan. Nor was it 
 long before he found that gentleman. The story, with all its 
 changing aspects, took some time and pains to tell ; but the 
 narrator was repaid by the intelligence of the writer, who in- 
 formed him tliat, by some means he was not at liberty to 
 declare, he suspected where the key would be found that 
 would pass all the complicated guards of the operose lock, 
 constructed though it was by one of the shrewdest pettifogging 
 heads in the city, — a remark which he chose to accompany by 
 a laugh. The first thing to be done was to see the doctor, to 
 whose residence accordingly they bent their way. From him
 
 2 12 Mysterious Lege7ids of Edinburgh. 
 
 they learned that he had attended David up to a period when 
 it might be expected he would not Hve another day, and that 
 then, to his surprise, he was told by Mrs Gemmel that he need 
 not take the trouble of calling again, — a hint he had acted 
 upon, with a due regard to the honour of his profession. This 
 information confirmed Mr Allan in the view he had taken of 
 the key to the mystery; and thereupon, with Mr Grant still 
 accompanying him, he proceeded to the office of the pro- 
 curator-fiscal for the city. To that gentleman Mr Gram 
 again told his story, at hearing which, the man of prosecutions, 
 j>ains, and penalties shook his head, though it may be easily 
 conceived he saw no further into the mystery than an owl does 
 into sunshine. There was indeed too much light or too little 
 concentration, and it required Mr Allan to collect the rays and 
 direct them to a point ; so the two conversed apart, and as 
 til ey say that thj duller the brain the greater is the joy of an 
 idea, so it ap;)care 1 that as the fiscal commenced to comprehend 
 Mr Allans view he began to laugh, so boisterously too, that 
 the painter wondered how so serious an affair, involving the 
 mortal fate of a fellow-being, could ever be enlivened by so 
 m'lch hilarit}-, forgetting, no doubt, at the moment, that he and 
 his wife had l)e^n foiced, by the ridiculous incidents of the 
 j:lory, to do something of the same kind themselves. 
 
 Xotwithst.inding of all this hilarity, the affair was serious 
 enough to require instant action, as appeared from the fiscal 
 calling for an offijer and a concurrent to accompany him to 
 tb.e scene of the operations to be. So all being prepared, they 
 proceeded in a boJy down the High Street towards Blackfriars' 
 ^Vyncl, on their arrival whereat they ascended the stair, and 
 no V they are all at the door of David Turnbull. A knock from 
 the fiscal's cane was responded to by a man's voice requiring 
 to know the object of the visit, to which the fiscal replied that 
 he was there by authority to seek for the body of the said 
 David, who was said to have been hanged by some person or
 
 BraxfichV s Case of the Red Nightcap, 213 
 
 persons resident within. Upon hearing this, Wilson (for it 
 was he) set up an ironical laugh ; but he refused still to open, 
 upon the ground that the figcal had no right to enter the house 
 of a citizen without exhibiting a written information from some 
 respectable burgher ; at all which the officer laughed in his 
 turn, nor did he deign further reply than to take the key from 
 Mrs Grant"s hand and apply it to the lock. The party there- 
 upon entered, and, amidst the growling of the writer and Mrs 
 Gemmel, proceeded to David's room, where the key of the 
 .secret, whatever it might be, was no doubt to be found. The 
 room was, as usual, darkened by the means of the drawn-down 
 blind, but there was light enough and to spare to enable them 
 to see, in the first place, that the bed was empty. They next 
 went to the armchair, where they were more successful, for 
 there sat David TurnbuU, all dressed, even to the red nitrht- 
 cap, the tail of which was carefully hung over the back of 
 his seat ; his corporation made up of dried hay, yet so well 
 stuffed that, if you had not been too inquisitive about the face, 
 you would have taken the figure for the genuine David. There 
 was here a partial clearing up, and to make the edaircisseinent 
 more evident, the fiscal, who had an official humour of his 
 own, took up the figure, and, proceeding to the pantry, hung it 
 up by the neck-cloth to the cleik in the roof, whereat Mrs 
 Grant at least was so moved that she got into a fit of hysterical 
 laughter ; nor did this suffice for the humour of the party, for 
 Mr Grant having set the figure on the swing, shut the door, 
 and Mrs Grant was again gratified by hearing, from the im- 
 pulse of the pendulous legs upon the back of the door, the 
 very same sound which had so tenified her on the former 
 occasion. Mr Grant now led the way to the other bedroom 
 where he had seen the corpse, and tliere of a surety they found 
 the dead body of David stretched out on the bed, and of suci 
 a colour as might have led any one to the conclusion that he 
 bad been dead for a weeL
 
 214 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 All these acts were just parts of the winding up of a dark 
 story, and what followed contained the denouement. Next day 
 the corpse was interred, William Turnbull acting as chief 
 mourner. After the funeral, the repositories, which had, we 
 forgot to say, been sealed up by Mr Allan, were opened. No 
 will was found, but to make amends for this want, Wilson came 
 forward, and, with a look of triumph, read a settlement, exe- 
 cuted by David exactly fifty-seven days before, conveying all his 
 houses and property to Mrs Gemmel. On hearing the date, Mr 
 Allan indulged in that same kind of laugh he had been moved 
 by on that day when Mr Grant narrated to him the story, for 
 he had been told of the date by one of the witnesses, and his 
 shrewd mind at once pointed to Wilson's device, aided by Mrs 
 Gemmel, to make it appear that David had lived out the full 
 sixty days required by the law to make the will good. Wilson 
 stoutly asserted that David had been dead only for a day, or 
 at most two, but that same afternoon two doctors certified, 
 from having seen the body, that he must have been dead six 
 or seven days before the discovery. It afterwards turned out 
 that Wilson's project was not to trust to David outliving the 
 sixty days, but to get him to " kirk and market," as the law 
 language goes, whereby the will would have been saved from 
 challenge, but this was found impossible, in consequence of the 
 increasing feebleness of the invalid, and the next scheme was 
 resorted to of apparendy prolonging the old man's life. 
 
 However clear all this, it was not possible to get Wilson 
 and Mrs Gemmel to give in, so that the law-plea of Turnbull 
 V. Gemmel, to which we have alluded, was the consequence. 
 The scheme of the stuffed effigy made a great noise in the 
 Parliament-house at the time, but the difficulty lay in the 
 question when David actually died. The doctors' certificate 
 went so far, and was supplemented by witnesses who could 
 speak to the beginning of the deception. Nor was the mere 
 act of the deception itself without its weight, so that the issue
 
 Bi'axfichVs Case of the Red Nightcap. 2 1 5 
 
 was in favour of the heir-at-law. Legal justice was thus 
 triumphant, and there was also something like poetical justice, 
 for \\'iUiam took Margaret for his wife, and from that day the 
 family of the Grants rose in the world. We may add, that 
 David lurnbuU's ghost was long a by-word in the Wynd, 
 as an ironical allusion to doubtful speeches. We have given 
 the title which is at the top of our story in consequence of an 
 incident in court. One of the lawyers, on some time afterwards 
 referring to the case of Turnbull against Gemmel, happened to 
 say that the court would " recollect the case." Whereupon 
 cried Braxfield, " Wha could ever forget the case o' the red 
 nightcap, mani"
 
 Cljt strange Stom of Saralj 
 Cotoanlorli. 
 
 MONGST the various definitions of man, we think 
 there might have been placed this one — viz., that 
 man is a credulous animal ; at least we are pretty 
 safe in hazarding the opinion, that no faculty or 
 quality of our nature sets us apart from the lower animals with 
 a broader line of demarcation than our tendencies towards 
 belief in things merely imagined ; nay, we might almost say, 
 that the lower tribes are so true to their instincts, that they 
 are the only " positivists" in the very sense of Comptd ; and 
 surely it was among them that the Frenchman ought to have 
 looked for his happy condition of animated beings. At any 
 rate, it must be admitted that if our fancies add to our plea- 
 sures, they also add to our pains. And, alas, for the old truth, 
 that our very mean of knowing and relishing the pleasant, 
 consists in our experience of the painful ; so that without the 
 one the other cannot be. An old Court of Session summons, 
 now in our hands, suggests the reflection we have here made. 
 The case never went further than the summons, because the 
 counsel saw that there were no grounds of action ; but the nar- 
 rative is altogether so curious, and, like all our legends, so 
 extraordinary, that we think it proper to put it in a storied 
 form for the benefit of our readers. 
 
 The pursuer's name was Sarah Gowanlock, the daughter of 
 a leather-merchant in the High Street, who, dying long after
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Goiuanlock. iij 
 
 his wife, left his only child, the said Sarah, the heiress of all he 
 had contrived to make out of a calling — to him a goodly proof 
 that there is " nothing like leather." In truth, John Gowan- 
 lock had had his victims skinned to some purpose, for good- 
 ness knows the thousands of merks he had realised thereby; 
 and Sarah, the heiress of the whole, lived in Laurie's Land at 
 the top of the Canongate ; all, too, by herself, (with the excep- 
 tion of honest Maudge, her maid-of-all-work;) a spinster not 
 under any necessity to spin, but extremely desirous of being 
 the cause of that spinning, which is in another, and no other, 
 than Clotho, that lady who weaves the destinies of all of us, 
 and particularly the destiny of those who want to be married. 
 And surely in thus premising, we might assume, even had we 
 not the veritable fact, that these two females, living thus to- 
 gether from one year's end to another, knew each other's 
 thoughts and sentiments pretty well ; and sure enough also, 
 if there was one thought or sentiment on the part of Sarah 
 which was 7iot known to Maudge, it was not one on the subject 
 of love, for the young lady was so exuberantly confidential lo 
 her handmaiden on the engrossing affairs of her heart, that 
 there was not a throb in that organ that was not made as 
 patent to the favourite servant as if a piece of crown glass had 
 been the only medium between it and Maudge's eye. Nor 
 less surely was that eye not unobservant, if it was not true that, 
 having given up all hope herself, Maudge, like all other women 
 in her condition, felt so much interest in the love aftairs of her 
 young mistress, that it almost seemed as if she realised, by 
 proxy, her own old flames. 
 
 But coming to particulars, we find from the said vvrit that on 
 a certain Sunday Sarah and her maid resorted, according to 
 their custom, — for Maudge, although with her hook-nose, from 
 the sides of which shone a pair of most " speculative eyes," 
 betokened more of the witch to be than a sanctified child of 
 grace, made great pretensions to holiness, — to the good old
 
 2i8 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 church of the Tron. They had got into their seat, and had 
 sung the psalm and heard the prayer, and got the text and 
 coughed, the usual herald of silence, when Sarah observed that 
 a young man, in a seat very convenient for the purpose, was 
 very busy fixing his eyes upon her, not in that stealthy way 
 liad recourse to by bashful lovers, but with a determination 
 indicating that he had made his calculations to follow the 
 Diogenian rule of staring a woman into love. Conduct this, 
 appearing to the simple-minded Sarah very strange, but merely 
 because she was simple-minded ; for if she had had the worldly 
 wisdom of old Maudge, she might have knov/n that the number 
 of merks of which she was possessed were, or at least ought 
 to have been, in the consideration of all true-minded Scots- 
 men, so many marks of matrimonial excellence ; and that that 
 number was so great, that it was almost impossible to suppose 
 that any prudent young man could contemplate them without 
 loving their fair mistress and custodier to absolute distraction. 
 Of which iTiotives being perfec ly ignorant, Sarah contented 
 lierself with blushing — the very result, probably, the young 
 man wanted to produce ; but one cannot blush for hours, 
 neither can one hold the neck awry for more time than nature 
 permits, and so she was in the end obliged to give in, and 
 bear the searching look in the best way she could. 
 
 If we keep in view the modest character of Miss Sarah 
 (lowanlock, we will be forced to the conclusion that she had 
 not repeated her look at ///;// after she had fairly satisfied her- 
 self that she had become the object of his attention ; but how- 
 ever this might have been, we are certiorated of the fact, that 
 his countenance was so vividly imprinted on the retma of her 
 eye, that she carried it home with hci, even as ir it had been a 
 physical mark, with this difference, that there was something 
 in the image that enabled it to intensify itself; and so, to be 
 sure, it did, and that so effectually, that even if she had wished 
 to banish it from her mind, or attenuate its lines, the effort
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Goivantock. 219 
 
 would have resulted (as such eflForts generally do) in adding, 
 as the dyers say, a mordaunt to bite in the lineaments. But 
 there was even more appertaining to this apparently simple, if 
 not frivolous affair, for in the evening it became the subject of 
 conversation between her and Maudge, in such a form as to 
 evolve consequences not at all proportioned to the ostensible 
 cause. The question was put by Sarah, whether Maudge had 
 observed the youth. The answer was in the affirmative, with 
 the anticipative addition that she, the said Maudge, did not 
 know who he was ; but the old woman was not content with 
 this, for she made the subject a peg whereon to hang such 
 weirdly rags as were sufficient to make a " bogie " for such 
 grown-up children as our poor Sarah Gowanlock. All which 
 was done, too, with such great apparent innocence on the part 
 of honest Maudge, that Sarah's ear was taken as if by a grip. 
 " Be the young man who he may. Miss Sarah," said she, "ye 11 
 no get past him if he is to be yours." Words delivered wid; 
 such a solemn shake of the head, and its trolloping gear, the 
 low deep voice, and all the rest of the accidents of mystery, 
 that they struck Sarah much in the way of a conviction of des- 
 tiny, and all the more that the night was that of Sunday, and 
 the hour near midnight, when the candle was within an inch uf 
 its termination. Nor was honest Maudge satisfied with one 
 form of her oracular saying, for she repeated it in other set 
 terms, " Ay, Miss Sarah, it is true. Nae woman can escape 
 her ain ;" with an effect directly proportioned to Sarah's credu- 
 lity; the capabilities of which, perha])s, Maudge knew very 
 well from the experience she had had of her impressible 
 mistress. 
 
 So the parties separated to go to bed; and while they are 
 taking off their clothes, we may remark, to help the modern 
 reader, that this notion about a destiny peculiarly appertaining 
 to marriage, was then very much more a conviction than it is 
 in our day, especially among the common people, of whom
 
 220 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 the existing form of religion made a kind of coarse homespun 
 metaphysicians. Yet the notion is only a part of a great 
 scheme of philosophy w'lich attracts those puzzle-pates who 
 are much given to the unfortunate habit of ultimate thinking. 
 Nor, perhaps, is that sciieme more true than another which 
 asserts that a great portion of our religion, with all our ideal 
 poetry, is composed of a web, the working whereof is effected 
 by the waft being mere sentiment, straining after images, and 
 the warp mere words, and which woof is the unavoidable drapery 
 of the human spirit, just as woven wool, cotton, or silk, go to 
 form the covering of the body. None of all which speculations 
 could have helped our hen-ess of the many merks, as after 
 lying down in her bed she thought of the words of Maudge. 
 Another young woman would have, perhaps, made the bed 
 posts quiver under a repressed shaking of the diaphragm, but 
 then, as we have indicated, Sarah Gowanlock was under bona— 
 (and who is out of bond to some unseen powerl) first, to the 
 susceptibility of a credulous nature ; and, secondly, to the dic- 
 tates of an old woman, perhaps though not a witch in times 
 when witches were, yet certiinly not a whit better than she 
 should have been. So Sarah could not by any means at all 
 shake the thought away that Patrick Ruthven, her own true 
 lover, might not, after all, be the man "she couldna get past;" 
 a thought that seemed terrible to the poor soul, and the more 
 that it brought along with it the image of the church-worship- 
 per who had been so strangely associated with the dictum of 
 necessity so ominously enunciated by the sybil. A very vain 
 thing we consider it to be to try to account for motives — these 
 subtle agents that draw the very marrow of their power from 
 unseen things belonging to both worlds, as we see plants 
 living, apparently, upon nothing, and winged creatures, with 
 beautiful wings, arise out of worms which feed on substances 
 destitute of a particle of sap. So we will be wiser if we take 
 the fact for granted, that Miss Sarah Gowanlock was kept
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Go'wa7ilock. 221 
 
 awake for hours meditating upon the question, whether she 
 could escape '■' her 07vn^' and trembhng at the thought of some 
 unseen power having in its hands the destiny of her condition, 
 so far that, perhaps, she had not yet seen the man who was to 
 make her happy or miserable. 
 
 Nor did some supervening days free her from the disturbing 
 thoughts ; nay, they were busy with her even on the following 
 Thursday, when Patrick Ruthven came to visit her — a great 
 occasion those visits, for Sarah loved the young man with all 
 the ardour of an ardent, confiding, and guileless heart ; and 
 Patrick was not unworthy of her, honest and true, as he was 
 well-favoured and manly, and every way calculated to make a 
 young woman happy, barring those accidents which the hope 
 of the virgin reduces to impossibilities, and the experience of 
 the married elevates into unavoidabilities. Even the ardour 
 of their meeting was calculated to bring out Sarah's bit of 
 philosophy ; so she told Patrick, not with a smile, but a real 
 serious expression of countenance, how she had been troubled 
 with the thought that no one can get past " her own." 
 
 " No more she can, my dear girl," said Patrick with a laugh, 
 " and I am glad of it, for it proves that you cannot get past 
 me; for," he added, as he took her kindly in his arms and 
 kissed her modestly, "am not 1 your o'W?i V 
 
 And so he tried to shake her out of her notion; and, per- 
 haps, the more that he saw these indications of seriousness, for 
 which he could not very well account, on the mere adoption 
 on her part of a common sentiment, at which even the utterers 
 of it generally laughed. But the whole truth had not been told 
 to him ; and, no doubt, if he had known of the church-starer 
 and the authority of honest Maudge, his good sense would have 
 enabled him to do battle against the prejudice otherwise than 
 in the jocular way he had adopted. As it was, Patrick had 
 little doubt when he left her, that he had banished the preju- 
 dice, nor did he expect to hear of it again.
 
 2 22 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 But Sunday came round, and Miss Gowanlock was not to be 
 scared from the Tron by her unknown admirer any more than 
 others of her sex would have resolved to stay at home for the 
 same reason. So she and Maudge were, at the proper time, in 
 their seats ; and no sooner had they gone through those 
 peculiar preliminaries resorted to by the sex, and the sex alone 
 — not unlike the turns and wheelings of a certain mute crea- 
 ture before he Hes down — of rising and sitting, and rising only 
 to sit again, than they beheld their old friend of the prior 
 Sunday, all ready, as it seemed, to resume the old process ; 
 but what was Miss Sarah's astonishment to find, sitting along- 
 side of him, her own sweetheart, Patrick Ruthven, who, no 
 doubt, was supremely ignorant of the secret thoughts and 
 intentions of his friend and companion. It was just to be 
 polite, and a little more perhaps, that Sarah nodded graciously 
 to Patrick ; and he returned the compliment so graciously that 
 she was placed in a state of comfort for the whole of the 
 service; the more, too, that she could, with what is called 
 "the tail of her eye," discover that the unknown youth now 
 purposely, as she thought, avoided looking at her — a circum- 
 stance this latter which satisfied her that Maudge's wisdom 
 was not to be justified by any such upturn as finding her 
 destined " own " in any otlier individual than her own dear 
 Patrick. Nor did matters even rest here, for upon the skailing 
 of the church Patrick introduced to her the said youth, by the 
 Welsh name of Mr Tobias Jones, in that free and easy way 
 which satisfied her that he had no fears of a rival to prove t\rJi 
 "her own" in present and prospective love was to be super- 
 seded by another in future destiny. 
 
 All things waxed thus again pleasant for Sarah ; yea, so far 
 that she wondered why she had been troubled by the image of 
 one who was as nothing to her, merely because it had been 
 associated in her mind with a foolish old saw. But perhaps 
 Sarah had yet to learn that earthly wonders any more than
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Goiuanlock. 223 
 
 miracles have no ultimate or final climax. Honest Maudge 
 was, as usual, creeping abbut, saying little or nothing, till the 
 time came when the Bible was to be read — a duty pleasant to 
 Sarah, who was a good soul for other reasons than that she was 
 a devout one, and ve;y pleasant to Maudge also, though she 
 was not a good soul to any one for any reason, even that reason 
 of reasons that she was superlatively holy. The only exception 
 was Sarah herself, who looked upon the old woman as a saint, 
 merely because, having an exuberance of goodness mixed with 
 her simplicity, she was able to allow a surplus as a covering to 
 her domestic : in which fashion we work every day without 
 knowing it ; yea, every one of us. And so, as Maudge pro- 
 ceeded with her reading, she was merely projecting upon 
 Sarah the goodness she had got from her mistress, and which 
 the latter thought belonged to her maid. But, as the saying 
 is, you may dress the devil in the white robe of the saint, but, 
 as saints do not wear high-crowned hats, what are you to make 
 of the horns ? No sooner had the Bible been shut than the 
 devout Maudge suggested to her young mistress that she should 
 have her "lot" cast by the holy Book. Now, Miss Sarah 
 Gowanlock became curious to know the meaning of this, 
 whereupon the devout Maudge laughed, of course in a holy 
 way. 
 
 "Ken ye na the lot by the Bible, Miss Sarah 1" said she. 
 "Why ye see, my dear young lady, you just do as the gude- 
 man who wrote that holy book, ' The Life of God in the Soul 
 of Man,' did when he was at sair loss what kind of fortune he 
 should dree : open the Bible, even as the seals were opened, 
 and read the first words your look rests on." 
 
 "Oh, I would be afraid!" said the simple Sarah. 
 
 "Of what?" rejoined Maudge. "Have ye forgot that ye 
 canna pass by your ain?" 
 
 Words which again struck the ear of Sarah like hot needles, 
 though she could not have told why, even for the value of all
 
 224 Mysterious Legefids of Edinburgh. 
 
 her merles. Then a dreary feehng came over her as if she felt 
 conscious that she was to be called upon to part with her will 
 and motives of action. She would read the lot, and she 
 wouldn't; curiosity suggested compliance, and hope backed 
 curiosity, but fear whispered of something to interfere with her 
 love. All which signs seemed only the opportunity of the 
 devout sortileger, who put her hand upon the Bible even as 
 Sarah repeated, "Oh, I'm so terrified!" 
 
 " We put the Book on its back, in this way, ye see," con- 
 tinued Maudge, so like a Sybil, " and let the twa sides fa', and 
 when it is open the lot is the first thing ye read." 
 
 All which Maudge acted as she was speaking, while Sarah 
 was looking fearfully on, her cheeks pale, her eye fugitive and 
 nervous, and a shiver running over her from the head to the 
 heel. Yet, as if charmed, she could not resist the temptation 
 to see into the future. And surely it is no less than a charm in 
 the very wisest of us, for are we not for ever divining, building 
 up imaginary elysiums on earth and above the earth, with 
 ministering creatures formed for no otlier purpose than to feed 
 us with nectared sweets ; yea, all the time that perhaps the 
 sordid flesh of our wretched bodies, so exquisitely capable of 
 anguish, is quivering under lancinating pains] No! Sarah could 
 not resist the instinctive impulse, and her eye following, with- 
 out being conscious of the leading of the long wrinkled finger, 
 fell upon a passage. She glanced hurriedly at it. Her own 
 name was there, and another's as well ; they burned into the 
 very texture of her brain. Yet she o/t'///^/ read, even without the 
 power of gathering up the words into meaning ; but Maudge 
 took up the task, and with her cracked screechy voice, she 
 read : — 
 
 " Then he called his daughter Sarah, and she came to her 
 father ; and he took her by the hand and gave her to be wife 
 to Tobias, saying: Behold, take her after the law of Moses, 
 and lead her away to thy father ; and he blessed them."
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Gowanlock. 225 
 
 "A false lot," said Maudge, "and tells naething, unless the 
 young man's name is Tobias, and we have few Tobys in 
 our day." 
 
 " But his name is Tobias," cried Sarah, with a gasping effort 
 to articulate. 
 
 A communication apparently so entirely new to Maudge, 
 that she could not have been more surpriied if she had read, 
 ad ape/ill ram Bihlurum, that at her years — not much younger 
 than another Sarah — she was to bear a child, to be called 
 Toby. Meanwhile, as regards our Sarah, it might be pro- 
 nounced impossible to describe the effect of the words upon 
 one who was facile enough, in obedience to a vulgar opinion, 
 to look upon them not only as divine, but as divinely intended 
 to shadow forth her earthly fortunes. What was she to think, 
 if she had not the knowledge or the energy to baffle those 
 subtle things called mysteries? Nay, even if she had been 
 possessed of logical acumen beyond the generality of her sex, 
 what could she make of such questions \ Why did that young 
 man's face impress itself so strongly upon her brain ? how did 
 it happen that the image of that face became so strangely 
 associated with the metaphysical or supernatural notion of a 
 prevision of matrimonial matches ? but above all, how did it 
 come that the cast of the Bible lot brought up her name and 
 that of the young man as linked together in the relation of 
 marriage ? Was she such an adept in the doctrine of chances 
 as to be able to discard the whole affair as a series of effects 
 in the chain of natural wishings ] Wiser heads than that of 
 poor Sarah have been baffled by such strange occurrences ; 
 nay, in reference to the Bible part of the illusion, how could 
 she hold fast by the faith of a thousand miraculous violations 
 of nature's laws, recorded in the holy Book, and let go one, 
 even tliat of the lot, not more wonderful or impossible than 
 the others? 
 
 How vain all these things, yet not vain, as regards us poc
 
 2 26 Mystei^iotis Legends of Edinbtirph. 
 
 creatures who, tossed between faith and reason, hold by the 
 one as the other gives way, till, often engulfed by despair, 
 many die in a relapse of suUenness, at war with God and 
 themselves; yet not vain as regards our happiness or unhappi- 
 ness, as we may well declare of Sarah, who that night again 
 retired to her bed to be as miserable as one whose love is, by 
 inevitable signs, crossed by the decrees of God. Nor, in the 
 morning, was she to be relieved from her misery, for about 
 eleven o'clock of the forenoon she was visited by Patrick 
 Ruthven, who was accompanied by no other of all men in the 
 world than the said wonderful being, that very individual with 
 the Bible name, of whom she had been in terror all the prior 
 night, and whose face scared her eye as if it had been flared 
 upon by the light of a spectre. Tlien, to add to her confusion, 
 if not dismay, Patrick told her that his father (a merchant, 
 with shipping connexion in Leith) had resolved upon sending 
 him as supercargo of the brig Diana, on a voyage to the West 
 Indies. The communication in any circumstances would have 
 been ill to bear by the young woman, but it was aggravated by 
 the strange position in which he stood, and more by the state- 
 ment that while he was absent he would commit her to the 
 care of his companion. 
 
 "Jones will give you my letters, Sarah," said he, "and any 
 that you may wish to send me — and I know you will lose no 
 opportunity — will be forwarded by him to me." 
 
 "And are you to be so long away, Patrick?" said she, with 
 a despairing look. 
 
 " I am not sure what may be my destiny," replied he. " If 
 we take the vessel to South America, of which we have some 
 intention, it may be a considerable time before I return, but 
 cheer up, ' my bonny may,' as the old song says," and singing 
 cheerfully the three other lines, he took her in his arms. 
 
 All which time Sarah imagined that the eye of Jones was 
 fixed upon her, though as far testing the truth of her convic-
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Gowanlock. 227 
 
 tion by looking him straight in the face, she had no more 
 power than she would have had to peer into the visage of the 
 ghost of her mother. And so the young men departed, leaving 
 Sarah in one of those states of mind of which almost all have 
 some experience when the thoughts, unwilling to concentrate 
 themselves into a motive, career through the brain as moral 
 meteors, lighting up dark recesses and burning wherever they 
 flash — all the while the individual feels himself the slave of a 
 power which he can neither overrule nor comprehend. If any 
 reasoning could find room amidst these automatic thoughts, 
 she might wonder, in the midst of so many wonders, how it 
 should come about that the absence of Patrick should be, as 
 an event apparently so well fitting in with the others, that it 
 seemed a part of the scheme so mysteriously illustrated by the 
 Bible lot. So that there was really, after all, a little more than 
 the mere waft and warp of feeling and words — some facts 
 entered into the texture of her thoughts, but these facts were 
 as mysterious as her very fancies, and thus she was bewildered, 
 even as a traveller seeking his home in a night of darkness and 
 storm, wherein fitful flashes of light only tell him that he is 
 now in a place that he does not know, and then that he is in 
 another which, he has reason to fear, is one of danger. 
 
 Nor did the days that passed bring any amelioration. Jones 
 was left as a solace — the very man she shuddered to look at! 
 And he came, as in duty bound. Nor could any one have 
 said, that he did not act the part of a lover's proxy, for if he 
 had known the old song, which describes the feelings of the 
 mistress for him who comes to her to praise her absent lover — 
 
 "He spoke such pretty words of love 
 Of him she loved so true and dear, 
 That she loved him because he spoke 
 The pretty words she loved to hear" — 
 
 he could not have been more true to the nature of woman ; nor 
 did a look pass Irom his eyes, a word from his lips, to indi-
 
 2 28 Mysterious Legends of EdinbuTgh. 
 
 cate that he had any mission to discharge but that confided 
 to him by the absent friend. So far Sarah could find no 
 offence ; nay, the offence was in her own mind, for really there 
 appeared nothing about Jones's conduct, with the exception, 
 perhaps, of the somewhat ardent gaze on the eventful Sunday, 
 the beginning of the divination, if we should call it so, which 
 could be construed into a notion that he was included in the 
 fate of a sortilege. Yet his visits were repeated oftener than 
 his commission required, and, what escaped the eye of Sarah, 
 it became clear that honest Maudge, whether actuated by the 
 sortilege or not, looked upon the visitor as having some better 
 rieht to visit the heiress than that which he derived from 
 Patrick Ruthven ; nay, might we not venture a suspicion that 
 Maudge considered that his right was derived from heaven? 
 So far, at least, we may be certain that Sarah, though still 
 remaining under the awe of that cloud of mystery, was begin- 
 ning to think that, even in the event of the sortilege being to 
 be reahsed by some new turn in her destiny, such as the death 
 of her lover, to prepare her for it, she would not consider the 
 result so terrible as at an earlier period she thought. 
 
 But he who looks into individual natures will find that no 
 general laws will prepare him for developments which mark 
 the individual by the workings of that more general law which 
 insists upon variety. We might suppose that the terror which 
 resulted from the gambling with fate would have scared her from 
 the very mention of the prior circumstances. Yet it was not 
 so, and neither was Maudge averse from the old topic ; nay, 
 the desire to look into futurity seemed so far like the passion 
 of the gambler, it fed and increased upon its losses. The con- 
 versations between the two were still engrossed with the 
 wonderful topic, and so consistent with female nature when 
 acted upon by curiosity was the result, that if they had not 
 thought it inconsistent with the reverence due to what they 
 reckoned the words ol divinity, they would have cast up
 
 The Sh-ange Story of Sarah Gozuajilock. 229 
 
 another lot to see how far it agreed with or diftered from the 
 other ; but even amidst the workings of the credulity of both, 
 or at least one of them, they could not but see that it was a 
 tempting of the Divine wrath to make a dice-box of the Bible, 
 whereby they might set one oracle from its sacred leaves 
 against another, and thereby render the divination a thing of 
 no faith, or rather a subject of ridicule. 
 
 But was there no other mode of ascertaining the intentions 
 of Heaven? Yes, there was. The old temples were in ruins, 
 and the priests and priestesses dead ; the gods and goddesses, 
 wlio served as mediums between Jove and man, were gone, oi 
 course to Olympus ; but for all that, human beings were not 
 consigned to the darkness of secondary causes. Besides the 
 Bible lot, which was in the power of all, was there not famous 
 (}irzel Jeffrey in the Cowgate, who for a fee of a shiUing was 
 a!)Ie and willing to draw the slide be: ween the two worlds, and 
 give the disconsolate maidjns of the time an opportunity of 
 peering into the future, even so far as to be able to know who 
 were to be their husbands? Of this modern Dodona, Sarah 
 (iowanlock knew — as who did not in Edinburgh at that time? 
 — and as for Maudge, she not only knew the priestess, she 
 was even so far favoured that she was permitted to speak to 
 Iier, if not to sit upon the very tripod. So there was nothing 
 extraordinary in the f.ict that she who had suggested the Bible 
 sortilege should recommend to her mistress another attempt 
 to penetrate the vail, were it for no other object than to con- 
 firm the Bible lot ; for as to reducing its authority by a contrary 
 oracle, that could not be supposed possible so long as the holy 
 Book was looked upon as divine, and its soothsaying by tlie 
 chance opening viewed as certain and irrefragable. The re- 
 commendation was listened to by Sarah with a shudder of fear, 
 yet with no diminution of curiosity, which, indeed, as we all 
 very well know, waxes even stronger in proportion to the perils 
 through which it is gratified. We now treat these vulgar oracles
 
 230 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 lightly, at the very hour when we are substituting for the old 
 hags refined ladies and gentlemen, whose gentility does not 
 unfit them for communication with spirits, and whose educa- 
 tion does not enable them to resist the delusion. So it is ; 
 tlie faith of one age is the mockery of the next, and ours may 
 be subjected to the contempt which we throw upon that which 
 Jias gone before us. Yet, is not every feeling true for the 
 moment'? Yes, true insomuch as it is the most real of all 
 things, because next the heart, and the mistress of our motives ; 
 and yet, too, the most unreal, as being furthest from the head, 
 and the very slave of our reason. 
 
 Accordingly our Sarah and her maid were ready for the 
 strange adventure by the hour of nine, when all was dark ; for 
 Miss Sarah Gowanlock would not for the world have been seen 
 going into a witch's cave for the purpose of getting her fortune 
 read, — a fear on her part not at all inconsistent with another 
 fear which darkened her spirit, even that superstitious one which 
 makes the believing diviner hold her breath. They hurried 
 along, threading their way among the crowd of street-loiterers, 
 and secure by their muffling cloaks from any recognition, 
 till they came to the close, which at its foot opened upon that 
 part of the Cowgate where " the wise woman " held her levees. 
 Even in the short space they had to pass over after issuing 
 from the dark entry, Maudge had some part to play which 
 separated her from her mistress for a minute or two, her ex- 
 cuse being that she had made a detour to avoid some one 
 whom she knew, and who might possibly follow her to the 
 door ; but though Maudge was perhaps as inexplicable a being 
 as Girzy Jeffrey herself, that was no reason why Sarah should 
 not believe her when she explicated herself. And so without 
 further impediment daey got, by a gentle rap, into the very 
 adytum of mysteries. 
 
 And who need be told now of what kind of place that was, 
 and what kind of being occupied it] The little dark room.
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Gowanlock. 231 
 
 with a few old sticks of furniture, the cruse on the wall giving 
 forth the merest glimmer, whicli, if not helped by the con. 
 venient adaptation of the residenter's eye, could scarcely shew 
 her the faces of her votaries— the four or five upright ribs of 
 iron built in for a grate ; and she, the priestess of Fate, a 
 smoke-dried old beldame, in a crazy chair, with her eye twink- 
 ling ill the internal light of her own cunning, her scraggy palm 
 Itching for the fee, and her tongue not less " yeuky " for " the 
 fiery nectar by damned devils brewed." But familiar as these- 
 characteristics of the place, of an old trade, and of its mistress 
 may be, there was something exceptional in what might have 
 been taken for a small looking-glass, which hung on the parti- 
 tion wall dividing the room from either the lobby or the 
 adjoining room of another lodger. We require to be particu- 
 lar about this ornamental bit of furniture, so little in keeping 
 with the other plenishing of the dingy cave, for we have mis- 
 givings in using the word room ; and we have further to say 
 of it, that being placed on the same wall where the cruse was 
 hung, it could scarcely be observed, except when a flicker 
 from the red embers was sent from the fire to the opposite 
 side. So much for the place and the residenter ; as for the 
 visitors, Sarah and Maudge, they behoved to occupy a couple 
 of stools placed 0])j)osite (iirzy, so that from the multa in medio 
 she might catch the hints whereof she manufactured her truly 
 wind-woven oracles. Nor were they seated for a minute, when 
 the inspiration began to work. 
 
 " The auld story, I fancy," said she. 
 
 " Yes," replied Sarah, as she placed twice the ordinary fee 
 in the outstretched hand. " I have at present very particular 
 
 reasons" And she hesitated from pure fear to proceed, 
 
 as if she thought she was like her of old, even Aglaonice, who 
 prayed the moon to come down, courting her own ruin. 
 
 Whereat the wrinkled creature laughed within her chest, aS 
 if she thought the laugh sat more pleasantly there than up
 
 232 MysteiHous Legends of Edmbtn^gh. 
 
 among the vocal chords ; and as she laughed, she vocabulised 
 something to this effect : — 
 
 " Particular ! Miss ; and was there ever a young heart here 
 that hadna very, ay, just very particular reasons to ken some- 
 thing? But maybe ye will see as weel as hear, though I'm no 
 in the custom o' that." 
 
 " But that is just what we want," said Maudge. " We want 
 to see the shadow o' the man wha is to be the husband of my 
 mistress." 
 
 "Shadow!" muttered Sarah, as a gruing (to use an old 
 Scotch word) produced that effect upon her so like the shiver 
 of an accession of cold, yet the curiosity deepened upon her, 
 according to the primeval law of the female mind. 
 
 Whereupon our mistress of incantations began to enact her 
 antics and weird motions, all in the usual way of her kind ; 
 for these strange beings that work upon the credulity of man- 
 kind have ever, since the days of Apollo, kept up their stage- 
 tricks, not from any inheritance of knowledge, but rather from 
 an intuitive consciousness that the miraculous must be im- 
 pressed by gibberish and forms, whicli are as complete a viola- 
 tion of all usual laws of human intercourse, as it itself is a 
 violation of the laws of nature ; and that the sorceress did 
 not undervalue her efforts might have been apparent from the 
 pale face of the charmed votary who sat fearing lest the sight 
 she was to see was something other than the form of Patrick 
 Ruthven. Whereupon the incantations began to take effect 
 in reversing of all natural phenomena ; for although there was 
 no light from the cruse, and far less from the red embers of 
 the fire sufficient for the optical illusion, there — most wonderful 
 no doubt to behold !— the mirror on the partition wall, with 
 its gilded frame, was lighted up so vividly that it seemed even 
 to cast a glare through the dark room. Even Sarah, simple as 
 she was, and certainly not versed in optics, wondered mightily 
 where the light could come from, for she had never seen or
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Gowanlock. 233 
 
 heard — no more she could — of a mere looking-glass possess- 
 ing the power of illuminating itself; and as for Maudge, she 
 looked wonderment too, only qualified by a devout smile, 
 which seemed to correspond with a similar impression on th: 
 face of the old "she incarnate." 
 
 "Now he will come," said the old witch. " Him thou 'It see 
 will be thy husband, will ye or nill ye." 
 
 Words surely sufficient to fix Sar::h"s eyes on the glass still 
 more intensely, as to be sure they did. Nay, it would have 
 formed a subject for an artist of the chiaro-oscuro school, that 
 poor simple soul, with tlie hood of her cloak thrown back, her 
 sweet yet pensive face looking out of the head-folds, her eyes 
 fixed on the glass even as by a strain of the muscles of the 
 orbs, her mouth open, even to the extent of shewing the most 
 beautiful teeth in the world, and the whole body fixed immov- 
 ably, as if rigid by a general spasm, standing between these 
 women, who might seem as incarnations of evil on either side 
 of the personification of goodness and virtue. Nor had this 
 attitude lasted longer than a minute, or perhaps two — the hght 
 from the mirror being still as bright as ever — when there 
 appeared in the glass, surrounded, and made vividly apparent 
 by that light, the very face of that man which Sarah knew so 
 well, yet trembled to behold, even him of the Bible sortilege, 
 Toby Jones himself. Yes, and the face remained there until 
 a scream from S irah shewed more than sufticiently that the 
 charm had wrought its worst or best. Then the light in the 
 mirror disappeared, and with it the face, and nothing was to be 
 seen but the glass as flickered on externally by the glimmerings 
 of the fire. 
 
 No sooner was all tliis accomplished than Maudge took the 
 torpid Sarah by the arm, and having drawn over her head the 
 hood of the cloak, led her out. and the two were soon again 
 threading their way among the people of the Cowgate, as mute 
 as the fourth person in the old comedies. Not a word was
 
 2 34 Mystcidoiis Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 spoken by either, the more by reason, we fnncy, that the one 
 was unable to utter a syllable, and the other was unwilling. 
 Upon arriving at home, Sarah, even in the very absence of all 
 practical thoughts, looked to the locking of the door as if she 
 felt that some power menaced her from without ; a suspicion 
 •or conviction common to all mankind, with the exception of a 
 few who, defying the power of external circumstances, contrive 
 to knock their brains out in the great cause of the nobility of 
 the human soul. Of these few no woman could surely ever be 
 included ; at least our Sarah proved herself as being signally 
 one of the many, for from that night she was so entirely 
 changed from the happy, hopeful soul, rejoicing in love, and 
 the sun the most beautiful and cheering respectively of inter- 
 nal and external things, that she was thenceforth — alas 1 how 
 long to be % — a creature oppressed with a grief which she could 
 scarcely tell to God, because He had set His face against, and 
 doomed her to one of the cruelest of decrees. Seldom going 
 out, solitude increased the gloom of her spirit, while within 
 her, appetite for melancholy was fed by the woman who had, 
 whether wilfully or not, led her into all this evil. Meanwhile, 
 as quadrating with all tiiese circumstances, Jones"s visits were 
 unremitting ; and what was viewed by her as a working out of 
 the will of Heaven, he began to bear upon her thoughts and 
 try to wear them away from her first and only lover, even him 
 who was now away. At first she recoiled, like a victim from 
 the sacrificial blow, but the recoil was brought up by the sharp 
 strain of the fatal rope that bound her. Even when her face 
 was turned fearfully from him, she listened to his words as if 
 she had been bound to hear them, nay, to admit their truth- 
 even to consent to the sentiments they conveyed, not yet of 
 love, but something as nearly approaching to it as he found 
 courage or occasion to utter. Nor when he departed was she 
 restored to peace, for Maudge had begun to harp on the merit.s 
 of Jones as a lover superior to those of Patrick Ruthven.
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Gowanlock. 235 
 
 Alas ! for the religion and philosophy of our enlightened days, 
 involving us in a darkness unknown to the ancient world, 
 where the plays of Fate were founded on the crime of the vic- 
 tim. We have in our domestic story the inevitable coils of the 
 serpent ; but in place of the priest of the Thymbraean Apollo 
 we have a young and innocent maiden, whose only crime was 
 a pure love, the very essence of the virtues of Olympus. 
 
 Nor v/ere the coils of the serpent exhausted by mere tor- 
 tuous windings. There were energies within ready to add 
 their forces to those without. Our Sarah came to be arrayed 
 in conflict against herself. Some duty she owed to the autho- 
 rity of Heaven came to be opposed to that love which first 
 emanated from the founlain of love, so that she felt the be- 
 ginnings of a conviction that her love to Patrick was neither 
 less nor more than a sin; and as our sentiments are at best but 
 feelings of pain or pleasure wound round objects, or words re- 
 jjresenting objects, his image came to partake of the darker 
 hues connected with her notions of r. bellion against superior 
 decrees. Here, also, the natural laws, so far as merely retri- 
 butive, were at work ; for the feelings which hung round the 
 notions of obedience clustered about the image of the rival 
 Jones, and even clung to his words. The indications were, 
 indeed, soon too apparent to escape the new lover himself, 
 wlio, taking advantage of the growing favour — not ultraneous 
 love, but mere obedience simulating it — made his court with 
 such effect as even to be a wonder unto himself The case 
 we here portray bears no analogy to tliose instances where 
 the stern commands of parents come in opposition to the dic- 
 tates of the heart ; in these there may be cbadience without 
 the effort to love, if, indeed, there be any such that ever suc- 
 ceed, and custom may take the place of instinct ; but here the 
 duty was so far higher that it was associated with devotion, 
 and a religious leelmg was transferred to the object which it 
 lavoured.
 
 236 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh, 
 
 That the sense of calamity is ameliorated by custom is not 
 so true as Homer with his assuetudo inalorum would have us to 
 suppose, but we cannot refuse to go along with the ancients, 
 when they speak of that strange conduplication of evil which is 
 observed in the mysteries of Providence. Nay, it would seem as 
 if some calamitous event were first postulated in fate, and tlien 
 wrought out by forces expressly called up— at least, twisted out 
 of their natural direction, in order to bring about the foregone 
 conclusion. Mark the occasion of our reflection : No other 
 than that Jones called one day, and, with a face lengthened by 
 the weight of grief, told Sarah that Patrick's father had got in- 
 telligence that the Diana was wrecked, and his son lost in a 
 fearful storm. This intelligence at another and foregone time 
 would have struck a moral paralysis through her entire frame ; nor 
 even now could she bear it without a cold shiver; but tlie mind, 
 when under the supernatural cloud, which reflects sometimes the 
 hues of the many-coloured arc, sees everything as tinged by its 
 shadow. The strange reflection occurred to her that Heaven 
 had thus taken away her lover — that the sortilege and incanta 
 tion might be fulfilled with less pain to her than otherwise it 
 could have been. So it is. Heaven is always viewed as kindly 
 by man in adversity, merely because things might have been 
 worse, and we shudder to ask why that worse should ever have 
 been made possible. Then if grief for the afflicted is not love in 
 tears, it is at least its opportunity ; and surely no love could be 
 supposed more acceptable than that which is conveyed through 
 the medium of sympathy. .\11 which was apparently known to 
 the Heaven-favoured suitor, for he straightway acted as if he 
 had been an adept in the knowledge of the female heart. Yet 
 we do not say that that love of his was accepted ; it was only 
 borne for the sake of the duty she owed to the Author of the 
 inevitable decree. But then again it was borne as a t!'iin^j; to 
 be tolerated, and it was tolerated as a thing which had a pre-
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Gow.inlock. 237 
 
 paration made for it even in the heart which was being, by the 
 mind, moulded into love as a duty. 
 
 Thus, in conflict with herself, she turned to the devout 
 ISIaudge ; but as well might an old Greek devotee have ap- 
 plied to the priestess for reasons to disprove the delivered 
 oracle. Maudge Avas true to her craft, and denounced the 
 hesitatmg obedience of her mistress to the will of Heaven as a 
 rebellion which could only stave off the inevitable marriage 
 with him who was decreed as " her ain,' and whom she could 
 not get past. 
 
 " Ye see how it works," said the oracle, pointing her finger 
 up, whereas, perhaps, it should have been down ; " Patrick 
 Ruthven was swallowed up in the storm, because it was neces- 
 sary he should be ta'en out o' the way." 
 
 The very idea that had occurred to Sarah herself; and she 
 shook as she heard a response, as it were, to her own question- 
 ings. 
 
 " But what although," she said, " if my heart cannot love 
 Mr Jones %" 
 
 Whereupon Maudge laughed in a screechy way, just as if 
 she had wanted to shake that heart ; but the meaning whereof 
 Sarah could not for the life of her understand, nor did her 
 words which followed her laugh make it more plain. 
 
 " Ye may argue," said she ; " but }-ou canna argue yoursel' 
 out o' the loops, nae mair than the bird can whistle itsel' out 
 o' the net o' the fowler." 
 
 "But still if I cannot love him," repeated Sarah, "how can 
 I marry him ?" 
 
 "Just by lettin' the minister say the words," replied Maudge. 
 *' And as for what the warld ca's love, it will come when it 
 canna help itsel'. You 've to learn, Miss Sarah — and ye will 
 learn whether ye will or winna — that the love which marriage 
 makes is better than the love that makes marriage."
 
 238 j\Iysterio2is Legends of EdinbiLrgh, 
 
 " And is there such a thing, Maudge V inquired the simple 
 maiden. 
 
 " I trow there be," was the answer ; and with another laugh 
 which was to be a prelude surely to an adequate idea. And 
 so it was : " If marriage, as the Bible says, makes o' man and 
 woman one flesh, may it no' make o' them as weel one spirit? 
 Ye will come to love him as he loves you ; and surely never 
 man loved a woman as Mr Jones loves you." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Sarah ; " that 's true !" 
 
 " And see ye no the holy wark there too?" added the devout 
 Maudge. " How could the lot hae been wrought but through 
 Ins love? Even the dead paper leaf o' the Bible, wi' letters 
 jjrinted in it by the hands o' man, sees better than you." 
 
 " Yes, but it is so strange '" added Sarah. 
 
 "Strange to be married to your ain I'' continued Maudge. 
 " Then strange, and mair strange, it would be to be married to 
 ain who is anither's." 
 
 And Maudge laughed again, so that Sarah could make no- 
 thing of the oracle, except it was that she fcit that the old 
 woman was simply backing tlie judgment of Heaven. All 
 leiKLil to the foregone conclusion ; and meanwhile Jones con- 
 tmued his suit — a fict itself in liarmony with the facts, appar- 
 ently unknown to hini, which had so clearly shewn the inten- 
 tion of Providence. Then we are to reniember that strange 
 law of moral forces, whereby persistiveness draws, as it were, a 
 l)0wer from the wearing out of resistiveness. We know it in 
 the daily triumphs of perseverance. But Sarah was not able 
 for this kind of reflection. She only felt herself under the in- 
 fluence of a devotional obedience on the one side, and sub- 
 jected to the allurements of good looks, youth, an elocjuent 
 t(jngue, and ardent solicitations on the other, — all which in 
 time produced their natural effects. Yes, as our summons sets 
 forth, Sarah Gowanlock, spinster, was not long after verily mar- 
 ried to lobias Jones by the minister of the Tron, who, if he
 
 The Strange Story of Sarah Gowanlock. 239 
 
 had known the history of this strange wooing, might have 
 thought there was more dust to be brought out of the Bible by 
 very devout people than he could accomplish even by the 
 pretty forceful application of his palms on a Sunday. 
 
 And now comes the pity of our too true story. This Tobias 
 Jones soon began to shew that poor Sarah Gowanlock's merks 
 w^ere in his eyes more beautiful than her personal or mental 
 qualities, though these were enough to have made her a para- 
 gon of a wife. He began early to get her money into his 
 hands — an article exquisitely suited to his dissolute habits ; 
 and the gentle remonstrances of the young wife raised quarrels, 
 which, if there had been love on his side, would soon have been 
 quelled, but which, in the absence of that most wonderful of all 
 conciliators, became every day worse. Nor could the devout 
 Maudge reconcile this strange denouement with the Bible lot ; 
 far less could she console her unfortunate mistress l)y telling 
 her still that he was " her own," which she could not by any 
 means have got past. Sarah only sighed, and applied the 
 handkerchief, often enough now too wet, to her red eyes ; and 
 even in all this suffering she could see nothing but the fulfil- 
 ment of the intentions of Heaven, though what she had in the 
 wide world done to merit such a punishment she could no more 
 see than could a dogmatic theologian perceive the secret of the 
 covenant of redemption. But wliy dwell on what Homer calls 
 the domestic evil \ for does he not tell us that it is so irre- 
 mediable — nay, so mucli of a despair to tliose outside the place 
 of the Lares, whose mother is Mania — that it must be hushed 
 up as a thing which concerns none but the sufferers themselves] 
 Yet, uniform in its \vorkin[ s as it is, there was one extraordinary 
 event in this domestic tragedy which we cannot but mention. 
 One night Sarah, left to the intensity of her grief, was sobbing 
 out her sorrows to herself Jones had been upon the ramble 
 for days, at the end to return and renew the scenes of internal 
 strife ; even the inevitable Maudge was not present with her
 
 240 Mysterious Legends of Eciiubiirgh. 
 
 peculiar comforts. The hour was comparatively late, and the 
 quietness in the streets suggested the contrast between the 
 peace without and the grief within. All the issues of her 
 mind, which were once the outgoings of the spirit, charmed 
 with the attractive power of one she truly loved, were now the 
 sighs and sobs of unavailing, irremediable Avoe. In this state of 
 moral stupor she was roused to listening by a movement of the 
 outer door, as if by one who had been accustomed to o^jen it ; 
 then it did not aj^pear to be the act of Jones, whose return was 
 usual])' announced by the noisy demonstrations of the drunkard. 
 There was a foot in the room adjoining, which opened into 
 that where she sat. She thought she knew that sound, and her 
 heart trembled, yet only with the recollection of what had been, 
 and what would be no more for ever. Her eye was fixed on 
 t!ie door, which she expected every moment to be opened ; 
 and it was opened, but by whom \ Patrick Ruthven stood 
 before her. 
 
 " Whence come ye? Wliat Xejitunian power 
 Hath oped the sea and spued thee into air?' 
 
 Not that Sarah put such a f]iiestion, for she was speechless ; nor 
 less he ; and the two looked at each other as two statues so 
 formed that the eyes only si)oke by the light which seemed 
 to have the motive ent."rgy of turning the orbs of the one 
 upon those of the otlier. I'ut these fixed eyes spoke more 
 than the mere fixedness of a charm. Sarah's were filled with 
 sorrow ; his with pity, as if he had known the story of her 
 misery before he came. \\'e suspect the scene in the old 
 ballad was not so true to history as that which we here relate ; 
 but we would only overstrain our efforts, and weaken the effect 
 l)y that very overstraint, were we to try to put into description 
 what is claimed by fancy as something to be treated in her 
 own fine way. 
 
 Let it work on, and when it has finished, we may be per-
 
 The Sirajige Story of Sarah Gozvanlock. 241 
 
 mitted to state that after nature had gone through her part of 
 the scene, there was enough to justify us in saying that the two 
 came to understand each other. Saiah explained the strange 
 manner whereby she had come to be the wife of Jones — an 
 explanation whicli struck Patrick mute by the very force of a 
 conviction that there had been some devil's work in all the 
 affair from the beginning. He remembered how Jones had 
 sought his company, and almost forced him to introduce him 
 to her. By and by he discovered that Jones was the nephew 
 of Maudge, a fact w hich the latter had kept a secret. Nay, by 
 visiting Girzel Jeffrey, he got at the secret of the mirror, which 
 was only a pane of glass in a partition, behind which Jones 
 had secreted himself with a light which shewed his face. I'he 
 whole scheme, including the Bible sortilege, had been the pro- 
 duct of the brain of the devout Maudge, aided by the cunning 
 of her relatives. 
 
 We have spoke of a summons, and the facts were these. It 
 was thought by good lawyers at that time that the acts of 
 witchcraft were not only a crime for which the party might with 
 the Bible's licence, or rather command, be punished, but that 
 whatever might be caused by them was illegal ; and so it came 
 to be a question whether Sarah Gowanlock's marriage was good 
 in law. A summons of reduction of the voluntary contract was 
 accordingly written out by Mr Lawson, Sarah's agent ; but wlien 
 it came to be known that the supposed witchcraft was mere 
 chicane, the aspect of the case undenvent a change ; for it had 
 long been fixed law that a marriage brought about by deceit 
 was still good, except in the case where the person was changed 
 so that, while the party thought she or he was marrying a 
 certain individual, another was superinduced by stealth. So 
 the summons was given up, and the evil remained,: — how long 
 we have no means of knowing. Jnsperabilis vita /
 
 |T is not often in these palmy days of ours, when 
 drawing-rooms, pianos, Italian music, illustrated 
 albums, and parties, form a goodly portion of the 
 domestic economy of well-to-do tradesmen, that 
 we read or hear much of a certain class of people who, not so 
 very long ago yet, had a hearty contempt for what they called 
 the seductions of Satan. Nay, we are not sure if the latter 
 great personage has not a good right to charge us with ingrati- 
 tude, insomuch as, although we owe him a great deal for the 
 "sweet sins" he bestows upon civilised people — and the more, 
 we fear, the more advanced the civilisation — we have almost 
 pushed him out of our Christian mythology. Nor is the 
 reason very far to seek, for while not very long ago yet we 
 were proud of being much infected by sin, if not altogether 
 ex capite ad caket?t, unclean and con'upt, we have got into the 
 civilised notion that we are not so very bad after all; if we 
 have not as much free will about us as to enable us to choose 
 to be very fine ladies and gentlemen, as clean outside as 
 the Bavarian princess, and as pure within as a new-born 
 Wesleyan. 
 
 A great contrast all this to the views and feelings of even 
 many who lived only half a century ago. The genuine Came- 
 ronian of the north is now nearly an extinct species, to be 
 recognised only in books ; and the few individuals who may, 
 perchance, linger in some of the out-o'-the-way places, do not 
 appear to be of the proper type. They have degenerated
 
 John Cameron s Life Policy. 243 
 
 from the historical picture. The blue bonnet and plaid, the 
 rigg-and-fur stockings, the snuff-mull and spoon, have given 
 way before the inroads of modern fashion ; and as for their 
 religion, especially those grand and yet terrible ideas of the 
 covenants, including that of redemption, with the wonderful 
 "election," and that myotic scroll of the unhappy rep-obates, 
 (in which no genuine Canieronian lamb could be included ;) 
 these deep convictions, too, and the stern and honest preju- 
 dices that would hold no parley with sin though arrayed in 
 silk, and smelling of mi/IeJIeurs, all which made them the pride 
 of Scotland, the boast of Calvinism, and the terror of the 
 English cavaliers, they have all suffered equally from the polite 
 conformity, and, we fear, slip-shod religion of our modern days. 
 Yet, withal, it is not long since we had, even in these parts, 
 some fine examples of the more ancient type; and one of these 
 in the person of a certain John Cameron, a worthy whom, with 
 some curious incidents in his life and conversation, we are 
 anxious to bring to the acquaintanceship of the readers of our 
 legends. 
 
 Now, this special John Cameron of ours resided in the 
 Fountain Close of Edinburgh, — a circumstance to be carefully 
 remembered, for the reason that the numbers of the name are 
 so many, albeit their remaining characteristics be so few, that 
 otherwise we would run a risk of an inconvenient identification. 
 And with this worthy son of worthy sires lived his wife Janet, 
 a Cameronian as well; yea, as true-blue a specimen of the hard- 
 featured yet noble-hearted sect as honest John himself Nor 
 were these two, though the Lord had denied to them children, 
 the solitary occupants of the dwelling in the said close of the 
 Fountain ; for there was still another residenter who, in some 
 respects, bore a closer relation to the heads of the house than 
 even children themselves sometimes, especially in our day of 
 governors and hopefuls, do to their parents. This was Jenny 
 Cameron, who rejoiced in the character of half-companion,
 
 244 Mysterio2is Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 half-servant; and whose name, though the diminutive of that of 
 her mistress, will sufficiently distinguish her for our purpose. 
 
 But speaking of Cameronians, with their broad lines of 
 demarcation, we need hardly say, that Jenny was well supplied 
 with other marks of distinction besides her name ; nay, she 
 was as peculiar as her master or mistress ; the chief peculiarity 
 being an all but worshipful feeling of respect for, if not a down- 
 right adoration of, John Cameron, whom she consideied to be 
 not only a perfect man, but, to speak more correctly, a perfect 
 Cameronian ; for it behoves us to keep in view, that in Jenny's 
 estimation, as well as in that of all the privileged sect, a 
 Cameronian was considerably greater and better than a man. 
 So strong, indeed, was this feeling on the part of Jenny, that 
 it was of very small importance what John Cameron said or 
 what John Cameron did, the saying or deed was not only not 
 wrong — it could not by any actual potentiality under heaven 
 be wrong. Yea, if John Cameron had worn a mortar-hat, like 
 the old Pharisees, or stood for a week singing psalms on the 
 top of the Fountain well at the head of the close, or put out the 
 life-candle in a new-light saint, or said a prayer with Laud's 
 service in the one hand and Clavers' sword in the other, or 
 anything else wonderful or ouirc in the estimation of ordinary 
 people, Jenny Cameron would have approved it and upheld it, 
 not only as right, but something worthy of being imitated by 
 all men who had a grain of sense in their brains. And may 
 we not say with some regret that the race of Jenny Camerons 
 is pretty nearly extinct? but whether to the advantage or dis- 
 advantage of masters and mistresses, we leave to the decision 
 of those aged judges whose period of life having comprehended 
 the real Jenny and the modern Abigail, may be able to form an 
 estimate. 
 
 Meanwhile it is necessary, in obedience to the requirements 
 of history, that we should inform the reader that John Cameron 
 enjoyed only a very small portion of the good things of this
 
 JoJui dmieroris Life Policy. 245 
 
 life, and that portion came to him in a peculiar way, insomuch 
 as, having been a small trader, and laid past a small sum of 
 money, he had, as he saw years coming upon him, laid his 
 earnings out on an annuity which was barely sufficient, with 
 the blessing of Heaven, to keep up even a household of three 
 Cameronians — making all due allowance for the economy of 
 certain Scotch dishes, not w^ell qualified by their names to 
 bring water to the mouth of an Englishman, but at the cooking 
 whereof Jenny was an adept, and thus securing verge for a 
 -small joint or savoury stew on very set days. 
 
 No doubt, to very scrupulous people it may be matter of 
 surprise why a man so grave and sensible, and so fond of his 
 helpmate, as John Cameron was everywhere acknowledged to 
 be, should have thought of limiting his small annuity to the 
 period of his own earthly pilgrimage in this wearyful world of 
 accidents, mishaps, and all manner of misfortunes, and not 
 extending the same to Janet as well, who, independently of 
 being in the fold of the lambs, could eat and drink (of course, 
 after a suitable grace) just as copiously, and with as much of 
 the zest of the flesh in that corrupt corporation of hers, as John 
 himself Nor is this wonder at all unnatural ; but, neverthe- 
 less, like all other wonders beyond the sphere of miracles, it 
 will shrink at the touch of its own sufficient reason, or, we 
 should rather say, reasons ; whereof the first was, that John 
 Cameron was much the younger of the two partners, and 
 though he knew very well, independently of the Northampton 
 Tables, that women, and especially Cameronian women, wear 
 better, and live longer than men, he was not dead to the 
 suspicion that his beloved helpmate had so much of a tendency 
 to dropsy, or, to sacrifice to the ruling euphuism, aqueous- 
 ness, as to indicate serious uncertainty of life, even to the 
 extent of tapping itself, which he considered to be nothing 
 better than a death-warrant. Yet, to do him perfect justice, 
 as he lived to see those symptoms wear off, he was delighted.
 
 246 ]\Iystermis Legends of Edinbiirgh. 
 
 as became a Christian, a Cameronian, and a loving husband — 
 yea, even at the same time, so nicely are woven the threads of 
 good and evil, that he felt serious apprehensions of the conse- 
 quences of Janet's good health enabling her to outlive him ; 
 for no man was less selfish than John Cameron, in saying 
 which we intend no more than to mention that, even the best 
 Cameronian that ever sent a bullet through the heart of a 
 Clavers' lamb for a noble cause, was not an angel. But the 
 second of John Cameron's reasons for so limiting his annuity 
 was, if possible, still more curious, if it did not smack (to 
 appearance) of that very vice of selfishness of which we have, 
 even at this moment, exonerated him. A far-seeing man as 
 he was, and well versed in the lore of human nature, he knew 
 that annuitants, upon whom others depend for their subsist- 
 ence, are the most loveable, the best beloved, and the most 
 daintily cared for of all the people in the world ; so much so, 
 indeed, that a policy (exquisitely named in this respect) has 
 been known to do that which some ill-natured people deem 
 impossible, videlicet, to change a woman's temper. Yea, as 
 the old saying goes, to transform " a shrew into a doo," or, as 
 a certain quaint punster said, a "wo-man into a woo-man." 
 Vulgar and well known as this may be now — and yet how 
 seldom insurance offices take notice of so charming a reason 
 for stimulating their customers! — it was the great merit of John 
 Cameron that he knew it early, and not only knew it, but 
 acted upon it ; yet not selfishly, as we take upon ourselves to 
 declare, only prudentially : in the first place to provide against 
 certain changes which, without any observable cause, are known 
 often to make temble inroads upon the domestic happiness of 
 married people after the first love, (usually fugacious,) if not, 
 perhaps, a second, (always feeble,) has died out, and requires to 
 be replaced by another sentiment — not always so ready as it 
 should be to take its place ; and, secondly, to benefit Jane^
 
 yohn Cameron s Life Policy. 247 
 
 herself by that curious chemistry of the feelings, whereby our 
 love for others becomes a happiness to ourselves. 
 
 " The hearts of those we love are but as banks, 
 Wherein we treasure up our loves, and draw 
 Our happiness as interest." 
 
 Ver}' good reasons these at one time; but then, unfortu- 
 nately, such is the mutability of the human heart, and head 
 too, just as if we changed morally, as we do physically, every 
 seven years, no opinion or motive will suit every period of a 
 man's life, and everv position of his circumstances. So John 
 Cameron, as he came by and by to see Janet getting into 
 excellent health, began to take blame to himself for not ex- 
 tending the annuity to the two, and the longest liver; and 
 what in his case made his regret the more ingeniously severe, 
 tlie affliction fed and got stronger upon the very means adopted 
 lor reducing it ; insomuch as the love and attention of Janet, 
 all quickened by sympathy for his secret sorrow, just went to 
 increase his remorse the more, and he felt, and groaned as he 
 felt, that the Lord was laying His hand upon him for his back- 
 .slidings from the virtue of his forbears, who wrapped their 
 .shivering wives with their plaids, when hunted on the hills and 
 exposed to the mountain storm. 
 
 But, bad as all this was, matters grew worse from another cause, 
 which was in some degree extraordinary, — no other than the 
 fact, that John began to have a presentiment strongly and pain- 
 fully borne in upon him that he w^as soon to die. Not that there 
 was any disease about him, for no pathological symptom, nor 
 any premonitory .signs of any kind importing a bodily change 
 as impending over him, could be discovered even by himself. 
 " The spirit sometimes previseth death before the body feels 
 any premonition of his being near ; " so writes an old wiseacre. 
 Certain it is, at least, that even Jenny's keen eye could detect
 
 248 Mysterious Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 nothing to cause any apprehension that her saintly master was 
 in any degree changed, except in being older, from what he 
 was. His appetite was still adequate to the big cog, filled by 
 Jenny's own hands, nay, as "yape" as ever it had been. He 
 could walk as well and as far as formerly ; and as for his 
 spiritual exercises, formidable as they were in his wrestlings 
 with the Evil one, they evinced no want of fervour, unction, 
 intonation, or action. Neither could he himself attribute the 
 presentiment to the regret he felt in having taken advantage of 
 his wife in the matter of the policy, for he could trace no con- 
 nexion between a moral feeling, even with so good a cause for 
 it, and any threatening of a physical change in his bodily 
 economy, naturally tending to suggest any such extraordinary 
 notion as that he would not be long an inhabitant of this sin- 
 ful world. 
 
 Yet so it was ; he felt this connexion, yea, his selfish act was, 
 he thought — no doubt superstitiously, but still not the less 
 really — about to fructify far sooner than at one time he had 
 any fear of, and that, too, in a manner secret and mysterious, 
 without bodily sign or note. Is it not true that there are 
 secret retributions that work within us, and are known only to 
 ourselves? Certain at least it is, that John kept all this to 
 himself; not wrestling with the enemy as his forefathers did 
 with Satan, but rather giving in to the conviction, as if it were 
 a punishment imposed by God which he was doomed to bear 
 all the while, that the thought of leaving Janet oenniless was 
 terrible to him. 
 
 But, as all of us who have any experience know, there is 
 often a something in the affairs of life that turns up for our weal 
 or woe in the very heart of occurrences apparently altogether 
 independent of these occurrences, and which we might justly 
 call a phenomenon. And so it was here ; in explanation whereof 
 we require to state that the house occupied by our Cameronian 
 family consisted of three rooms — one for die master and mis-
 
 yohn Cavicivns Life Policy. 249 
 
 tress, one for Jenny, and a kitchen. Now, it so happened that 
 the last of these apartments and the second stood in the rela- 
 tion to each other of many couples in the world — the one of 
 which having more light, and tlie other less, than is needed. 
 In wliich cases in the moral world nature provides an accommo- 
 dation whereby the less illuminated party gets some light from 
 the other ; and the builder of this domicile, following the good 
 example, had made a partition window whereby Jenny's room 
 got a portion of what it so much required from the kitchen, 
 where the worthy trio more generally sat. All which being 
 understood, we go on to say that on a certain evening Jenny 
 had gone out — not, we are authorised to say, on the errand of 
 another old-light Jenny, known in song, to bring home a 
 " strapping youth " — only to purchase some of that simple fare, 
 at the time called " friends of the people," for the supper of the 
 homely, and, but for the state of John's conscience, happy 
 family. Meanwhile Mrs Janet Cameron was in Jenny's room, 
 with a candle, having of course, m John's hearing, carefully 
 shut the door when she entered. To all this John had paid 
 wonderfully little attention, the more by reason that he was at 
 the time trying, with all his powers of dialectic subtlety, to 
 elaborate and bring forth a conclusion whether Jenny Cleddes or 
 Clavers was the greater warrior ; and feeling inclined to put a 
 question to Mrs Cameron on the subject, he naturally recurred 
 to the sound of the closing door as an impediment to the 
 gratification of his purpose. So he turned naturally enough 
 round to the partition window — hiii ! (jiiantajn Jenestram ad 
 nequitiam pat.fcceris — and looking through, saw Mrs Cameron 
 on her knees before the mucklc kist, busy counting what John 
 could easily see were real gowden guineas. Acute man as 
 John Cameion was, he could not fail to detect that Janet kept 
 a little bank, that is, a purse, made, according to the fashion of 
 saving housewives of the tmie, out of the leg of an old stocking, 
 deprived of the foot and tied at both ends with a garter — a
 
 250 Jllysfcrioiis Legends of Bdindiirgk. 
 
 peculiar form of hoarding or laying up for an evil day much in 
 favour in Scotland, and so far, we are bound to say, different 
 from the act of the miser, that it has been known many a time 
 to be the means of rescuing a poor family from the ruin 
 brought on by paternal improvidence. Nor is the custom, so 
 creditable to the economical prevision and provision of our 
 good Scotch dames, done away, for it is only the form diat is 
 changed, the modern savings banks being well known to be 
 more resorted to by wives and mothers than by husbands and 
 fathers. 
 
 Struck, as he well might be, by so strange an apparition, 
 John sat for a time with his brain at a dead stand; but no 
 sooner did his thoughts begin to work than he felt himself 
 precipitated into a monologue : — "She tliat is married careth 
 for the things of the world, but verily, had she been a Philis- 
 tine, she couldna mair effectually have been delivered into 
 my hands.'' Beyond which words the stern Cameronian said 
 nothing ; nay, to have seen him afterwards when Janet and 
 Jenny fell to settling the change, one would have been assured 
 that he had not an idea in his head in addition to the one or 
 two that usually found so much space in that capacious organ 
 to swell into the enthusiasm of religious metaphysics. Enough, 
 surely, for the time, that he saw it was his concern to inquire 
 into how this secret affair stood — for was not the money his 
 own Jure mariti ( (the only bit of Roman law that ever, in 
 Roman words, got down into the understandings of the com- 
 mon people.) And however well pleased he might be to think 
 that Janet had been so considerate as to take care of herself, 
 he could not view with any satisfaction the idolatry, in his own 
 house, of a Cameronian Rachel sitting upon the images — 
 reflections which, however sincere, did not by any means 
 interfere with his resolution to see those images with his own 
 eyes, to handle the same, yea, to count their number. 
 
 Nor was it long before he procured for himself satisfaction
 
 yohn Cameron s Life Policy. 251 
 
 on this point, for Janet one day left her keys by mistake on 
 the mantel-piece of their own room, and Jenny having been 
 fortunately at the same time out, he got access to the little 
 bank, and counted with his own hands no fewer than fifty-eight 
 of these golden pieces. That he looked at theai both "amazed 
 and curious " we need not doubt . nor if we had said that he 
 actually "glowered," would we have used a word unfitting the 
 extraordinary state of feeling in which he found himself But 
 we are to keep in view that Mr Cameron was not the kind of 
 man to be satisfied with the mere sight of a glittering bawble, 
 or with the satisfaction which gold contrives to vindicate 
 amidst the religious reflections of vanity. He could, like other 
 good Christians, hold a Bible in the one hand and a purse of 
 gold in the other ; and why not, if that other hand is otherwise 
 unoccupied? and if nature did not intend that a man miglit 
 hold by two things at the same moment, why should he have 
 two hands'? Good enough logic, as the world goes ; and so it 
 was felt by John Cameron to be necessary as well as decorous 
 to turn this wonderful discovery to some practical account, 
 connected with the prevailing tendency of his thoughts and 
 feelings. In reference to which latter, we are to remember 
 that he was, at the very moment, under the presentiment that 
 he was soon to die — an idea or feeling which had become a 
 ruler in the kingdom of his mind, conducting all its workings, 
 and regulating all its desires, even as an engrossing passion 
 which absorbs and tu-ns into its element every mental act and 
 aspiration. Nor could he get quit of that as part of the con- 
 templated event, which shewed him, every hour more painfully, 
 the situation in which he had pla; cd his v/ife, to whom he 
 stood as a debtor, unable to pay even a penny in the pound. 
 And then the contemplated years of her jirivations when he 
 was gone ! why, they were perfect agonies to him. Against all 
 which thoughts it mattered but little that Mrs Cameron stood to 
 him also in the relation of debtor, even in the said fifty-eight
 
 252 MystcrioiLs Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 guineas, constituting the hoard she had laid up for an evil day. 
 No doubt that money was his ; but who knew that Janet did 
 not intend it for him in the event of her predecease? — a thought 
 that went sharp to his heart and aggravated his remorse for 
 the manner in which he had treated her in the matter of the 
 annuity. 
 
 But man's ingenuity is never so good as when he is under an 
 obligation to ameliorate his pains ; and so, amidst his medita- 
 tions, it occurred to him that he might appropriate the hoarded 
 sum and apply it as a premium for an insurance on his own 
 life, (so soon, according to his presjntiment, to clos ^ ) wht-reby 
 he might leave his beloved Janet six hundred pounds, or even 
 eight hundred pounds, to support her and Jenny after he was 
 gone. No sooner had he examined the merits of this expedient 
 than he brought his hand down upon his knee with a slap, 
 which implied a Cameron ian purpose. Difficulties there were, 
 no cloul)t, in the way ; nay, one of the most formidaljle that 
 could be conceived, — no other, indeed, than a stern, ingrained 
 hatred on the part of Janet Cameron herself against all forms 
 of life assurance — a sul)ject on which the two had had arcu- 
 ments only a week before, and wliich may be supposed was 
 rendered desperate when it is known that Janets objections 
 were affiliated to religion. 
 
 " Man's life," as Mrs Cameron said, " is the gift of the Lord. 
 He gives it as an awfu' mystery, and He taks it again as nae 
 less a fearfu' thing. The dry bones lay in the valley, but even 
 the prophet couldna blaw into them the breath of life. And 
 will man," she said, " chaffer and huckster and bargain with 
 his fellow-creature, as if his life were his ain, and he could settle 
 it just as if it were a bit of auld furniture % " 
 
 To which strange speech Mr Cameron replied — 
 
 " They dinna chaffer about men's lives," said he. " They 
 say only that if it should be the will of the Lord to remove us 
 out of this evil world, men will, for a consideration, help to re-
 
 yohii Cameron s Life Policy. 253 
 
 Heve the sorrows of the bereaved, be they widows or be they 
 orphans." 
 
 " Ay," rejoined Janet, briskly, " but it plays right into the 
 hands o' the auld enemy the deevil. It is a temptation, John, 
 to the unbelieving spirit, which is ever ready to jump at the 
 clink o' siller. But," she continued, " it's mair than even that, 
 for it is a mistrusting o' God's providence and mercies, as if 
 you should say to me, I have nae faith in His providence, and 
 can provide for my widow better than lie can." 
 
 And Janet paused to see what effect s!ie had produced; and 
 finding John's eye a little more vivacious than it should have been 
 in so serious an affair, she resumed with increased fervour: — 
 
 "Did Methuselah insure his life, think ye? or Mahalaleel, or 
 Enoch, or Lameth? Ay did they, but it was in the office o' 
 God's mercy, and the only premium they paid was faith." Then 
 getting a little screamy, " Were there ony insurance offices 
 mentioned in the covciiant o" works? I trow no; and whaur 
 in this wicked world vli ve find a real saving assurance but 
 in the covenant o" grace?" 
 
 At which stage Janet seemed to have got so deep that she 
 could not drag out her foot for another step, and so she 
 paused while John sat meditating a reply. In the meantime 
 Jenny, who had heard the argument, evidently wished to have 
 a share, but then it was only to i ring out her no small wonder- 
 ment tha^ there were no women mentioned in the Bible as 
 having liv 1 a thousand years or so. Whereupon John, who was 
 somewha* "^ttled at being beaten in dogmatic orthodoxy by a 
 woman, muttered, in reply to Jenny, that a woman's tongue 
 could not, unless it had been made of iron, have held out for 
 a thousand years; whereby he got quit of that old question of 
 the matriarchs, which has gravelled pretty deep thinkers. An 
 interlud' this which enabled Janet to resume the argument. 
 
 "Besides, it's a lottery," said she; "and lotteries are the 
 temptations o' Satan.''
 
 2 54 Jl/ysterions Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 " The Israelites divided the land of Moab by lot," cried 
 John, with an inward chuckle of triumph at finding Janet at 
 fault in her Bible knowledge. 
 
 All which John remembered ; but he was satisfied that 
 though he got a partial advantage he did not conquer, and he 
 behoved to have recourse to some other reason to justify the 
 scheme he had propounded to himself Nor was he here 
 under any difficulty, because nature, being as prolific of reasons 
 as of maggots, was not slow to help him, and that too by a 
 weapon taken out of Janet's own armoury. Why, was it not 
 plain, from Mrs Cameron's own tied stocking, that she was in 
 favour of assurances, insomuch as that very article was an 
 insurance in a small way \ And so Mr Cameron might surely 
 have no great difficulty at least in the propriety of domg that 
 very kindly thing for Janet, to the extent of six or eight hun- 
 dred pounds, that she had done for herself or him, to the 
 extent of fifty-eight guineas. 
 
 The main objections, viz., Janet's scriptu-al scruples, were 
 thus easily disposed of; and as for the right of appropriating 
 the hoard, he felt no difficulty whatever, because it was his 
 own by fact and law ; and then, to crown all, was he not to 
 lay it out for her advantage afcer his presentiment had 
 wrought out the proplietic feeling by his death? All which 
 sounded with the true ring of honesty and benevolence. But 
 there remained the fact of this very presentiment as a decep- 
 tion if he concealed it from the office, and a barrier if he made 
 it known. Why, was not jolm Cameron an honest man? To 
 be sure he was, and so away he went on a certain day to Mr 
 Henderson, the agent of the only insurance company in the 
 city at that period. 
 
 " I am come on business," said he to that gentleman as he 
 entered the office. 
 
 " It 's not pay day, Mr Cameron," replied Mr Henderson. 
 
 " I know that, sir," rejoined Mr Cameron. " You are in
 
 yohn Cameron s Life Policy. 255 
 
 the habit o' paying me for living, but I am come to bargain 
 with you to pay me for deeing. In short, sir, I want to get my 
 life insured for the sake o' Mrs Cameron." 
 
 "And Httle objection there can be to that," rephed the 
 agent. " You are hale in constitution, and that is all we look 
 to. But are you sure you can manage the premium, which, at 
 your age, will be heavy?" 
 
 " I dinna intend to pay it lang," was the dry answer. 
 
 Whereat the agent opened very widely his eyes, and seem.ed 
 as much puzzled as ever he had been by a calculation of 
 chances. 
 
 "Yes, for I'm an honest man," resumed John; " and I tell 
 ye right plain and down-plump that though I am as hale and 
 healthy as ever I was in my life, I feel a strong presentiment 
 that I am no to be lang on this side o' Jordan. Yea, sir, it is 
 as true in this case as it is in the other — ' He that believeth 
 hath the witness within himself And what's mair, sir," he 
 added, " this is the very reason o' my being here this day." 
 
 Whereat, to John's great wonderment, the agent laughed 
 right heartily the while he looked at the square-built son of the 
 old hillmen, who disdained deception even in the midst of 
 their sore persecutions. And having finished his laugh — 
 
 "We put no value on presentiments," said he, "unless the 
 doctors can trace them to disease of the liver or hypochondria, 
 and I see nothing of that kind about you. But you will be 
 examined by the medical men, and unless they can see more 
 than I can, I have little doubt you will pass muster." 
 
 "Very well," replied John; and having appointed a day 
 whereon to undergo an examination, he returned home, rumi- 
 nating as he went as to what might be the consequences of all 
 this rebellion against the authority of his wife. 
 
 But as ruminations, whether physical or moral, generally 
 end in the detrition of what- is objected to them, so John's 
 resulted in his being more stanch than ever in his purpose
 
 250 Mysterious Legends of Echnbnrgh. 
 
 Thereafter, at his examination, he persisted doggedly in adher- 
 ing to liis statement of the presentiment, and was again sur- 
 prised to find, as in the case of the agent, the doctors were not 
 moved by it, if, indeed, they were not very much pleased, both 
 with the robust state of his health and the equally robust con- 
 stitution of his honesty. 
 
 " W'eel, weel," said Mr Cameron, still determined to make 
 sure work, "ye may pass me if ye please; but I just tell you 
 again, as I told Mr Henderson, that I hae little chance o' 
 paying the company mair than a premium or twa at the 
 furthest. At the same time, I offer ye my heartiest assurance 
 that I will live as lang as I can, yea, I will remain on this side 
 o' the vail as long as the shevvbread of Janet's we.kly stews 
 will enable me to cling to life and the comforts o' the bodily 
 tabernacle." 
 
 " But you may eat too much, Mr Cameron," rejoined one of 
 the doctors, laughing, " and that would be as bad as eating too 
 little." 
 
 " ' For meat tliou shalt not destroy the work o' the Lord,' " 
 replied John: "yea, 'all things are pure, but it is evil in that 
 man who eateth with offence.'" 
 
 And with these assurances Mr Caineron was passed. All 
 easy enough; but the next step of his progress, to carry off the 
 contents of the stocking, did not seem so very easy, if it was 
 not extremely formidable, for he had scarcely ever before 
 known Janet leave the keys of her treasure behind her. In- 
 deed, to all appearance, it was vain to think of waiting for any 
 such chance as he had enjoyed on the former occasion; and as 
 for forcing the kist, it was one of those old sturdy safes which 
 seemed to have been made and clasped to defy the fingers of 
 Clavers and his troopers. 
 
 It is surely good to know the worst of a thing before you 
 measure your resolution; and John, taking the advantage of 
 the c nsUiuin in jiock, even when he was lying alongside of the
 
 yohn Cameron s Life Policy. '>57 
 
 unconscious [anet, came to the conclusion that he must fail ia 
 his grand enterprise altogether unless he could stealthily ex- 
 tract the keys from under the pillow of his wife, and furtively 
 entering the room where Jenny slept, might trust to the chance 
 of escaping her observation, or, in the event of being discov- 
 ered, bind the neophyte over to religious secresy. So, resolved 
 at last on this only alternative, Mr Cameron waited for a 
 moonlight night, as ever did the Border children of Laverna in 
 the good old times of black-mail and quey-harrying. And the 
 silvery queen, so propitious to love and theft, having come 
 round to that part of the heavens wherefrom she could send a 
 beam into the window that sui)i)lied light at second-hand, as 
 we have said, to the room where Jenny slept, John got up 
 quietly, albeit it was in the dead of the night, leaving Janet in 
 all the luxury of a snore, as deep (if not so musical) as if she 
 had been engaged in singing the "Auld Hunder," secretly 
 removed the keys, groped out of the room — hstening atten- 
 tively as he moved; and at length, and after some false turns^ 
 got to the kist, which stood nearly oi)posite Jenny's bed. He 
 then listened to catch the deep breathing of the other sleeper, 
 and having satisfied himself that she was as sound as her mis- 
 tress, he applied the key, opened the chest, abstracted the 
 gold, and — fatal backsliding! — stuffed an old napkin into the 
 stocking to give it the appearance of being unrifled. But, ah! 
 John Cameron, " the security of the wicked is even as a reed 
 that breaketh under the hand." No sooner had he finished 
 his operations by locking the chest, than a voice saluted his 
 anxious ear. 
 
 "Is that you, IMaister Cameron?" 
 
 " Ay, Jenny lass," replied he, in something of a loud whis- 
 per, "ken ye onythrngf 
 
 " Brawly, maister," said Jenny, clearly enough indicating 
 that she had been awake all the time, and that her deep 
 
 B
 
 2$S Mystermis Legends of Edinbin^gh. 
 
 breathing had not been exclusive either of deep hearing or 
 deep thinking. 
 
 "Weel, then," said John, " tak ye that," (putting one of the 
 guineas into Jenny's hand,) " and say ye naething, lass, but just 
 think o' the text, ' Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
 earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
 break through and steal.'" 
 
 " Amen," replied Jenny. 
 
 " Hush, nae mair," rejoined John. " Read the morn the 
 chapter on the eight talents." 
 
 " There 's nae fear o' me," replied Jenny. 
 
 And thus certified, Mr Cameron sought his bed, deposited 
 the gold in a safe pocket of his clothes that lay on the chair, 
 replaced the keys below the pillow of his wife, lay down, and 
 long before he fell asleep began (we are sorry to say) to snore 
 so immoderately that Janet awakened in a fright, which, on 
 going off", left her well pleased to think that her dear and well 
 beloved John was not going to forfeit his annuity by a fit of 
 apoplexy. 
 
 Thus far successful in his " nefarious virtue," Mr Cameron 
 on the subsequent day, but not before he had studied Jenny's 
 face, and found the muscles delicately poised into exquisite 
 negativeness — even into that expression of seriousness which, 
 with the exception of those necessary cases where defensive 
 virtue must resist the aggressions of unjust suspicions, is, vve 
 fear, the great sham of our present world — repaired soberly 
 and resolutely to the office of Mr Henderson, paid down in 
 Janet's gold the first premium of an insurance for the sum of 
 six hundred pounds upon his life, presentunent notwithstand- 
 ing, got his policy, and laid it past in an old cabinet of which 
 he kept the key, and where his bond of annuity had been for 
 a good many years. — All which thou, John Cameron, hast 
 done from a royal sense of what is honest, just, and prudent; 
 but thou shouldst have known that the right which is just
 
 yolm Ca77teron s Life Policy. 259 
 
 demands more than the motive which is honest — more than 
 the uprightness of the action, even the manner of action, in the 
 face of man, that nothmg shall be hidden, nothing secret, 
 nothing to take the good by surprise, nothing to gift the wiciced 
 with an opportunity. 
 
 But John Cameron did not so apostrophise, however useful 
 it might have been for him, while as yet there was good time 
 and to spare for him to have redeemed the sterling honour of 
 his sect. Then, as we all very well know, the want of sun- 
 illumined openness is the very opportunity of fear — that power 
 which has made more than gods, insomuch as it has made 
 self-tormenting devils. And so our Cameronian began to take 
 on painful apprehensions more and more as the days passed, 
 till it became, hour by hour, and minute by minute, more 
 probable that Janet Cameron would wish to delight her eyes 
 with a look of that ''treasure upon earth" which she had so 
 industriously and with so much self-denial laid up, not for the 
 moth and the rust, not surely for such a thief as her own hus- 
 band, but for the evil day wliich comes to the improvident. 
 So it came to be that he was engaged every moment in watch- 
 ing the faces bo'h of Janet and Jenny, in the latter of which 
 there was a gravity approaching to terror, in the former the 
 calm repose of a conscience " void of offence to God and 
 man." Yet all this watching was mere supererogation, and 
 none know this better than they who are under fear, for the 
 discovery he so much dreaded would assuredly be known by 
 signs and tokens requiring more for their adequate conveyance 
 than the motion of eyes or the evolution of looks. But, how- 
 ever all this may be, certam it is that his restlessness increased 
 to such a degree, that, in order to procure for himself some 
 temporary refuge and relief from this insufferable condition of 
 anxiety and apprehension, he resolved on a visit to a brother 
 Cameronian who lived at some distance in the country, and to 
 whom so devout a man as John Cameron could not fail to be
 
 26o Mysterious Legends of Edinbui'gh. 
 
 agreeable, were it for nothing else than the opportunity it 
 afforded him of satisfying himself by the test of so genuine a 
 Lydian stone that all the Cameronians were in the scroll of 
 the Approbates. Nor could this be a lesser luxury to our 
 member of the limited fraternity, whose still prevailing senti- 
 ment whispered to him that he was not far from heaven, while 
 his fears told him he was not far from earth. And in so far as 
 he might thus escape the first sounds of the great thunder- 
 burst, it was assuredly well for him that he had formed and 
 executed his purpose; for no sooner had he put it into execu- 
 tion than Janet Cameron made the terrible discovery that her 
 money was gone. 
 
 Yet we doubt if we have here used a proper expression , for 
 of bursts in the ordinary sense of human passion Janet Cameron 
 was altogether incapable, for the reason that her surprise ran 
 right on into stern prudential energy. No doubt she was robbed ; 
 but she was not, nay, she could not, have been robbed by her 
 husband; for how was it possible to suppose that John 
 Cameron, a great shining light in a world of darkness, could 
 snuff out his own candle, even though it had been a farthing 
 one? But where was Jenny] Alas! poor Jenny, having 
 heard the fearful sound of the keys, and the still more ominous 
 creaking of the lid of the big kist, had fled into a neighbour's 
 house to escape from the wrath to come. But was there not 
 her own trunk at the side of her bed ? an object which came 
 as naturally into the red and searching eye of Janet as the 
 image of its possessor did into her mind. Then it so hap- 
 pened that that trunk was open; for such innocence as Jenny's 
 — even taking into account the small taint of resetting — feels 
 only that fear which shudders before unjust reproof And 
 Janet, after a short search, found the very guinea which John 
 had given to his handmaid. Yes, that guinea was laid neatly 
 in a corner beneath a sacramental token, which, though made 
 of lead, was more valuable to Jenny than even the guinea
 
 yohn Camel-oil's Life Policy. 261 
 
 whicli was made of gold. But this superposition was in Janet's 
 opinion a terrible aggravation, insomuch as the symbol of grace 
 was made the cover of the wages of sin : and Janet, having 
 made this discovery, sat down upon the trunk in stern medita- 
 tion. 
 
 " At length," she monologised, " the evil day o' the house o' 
 John Cameron has come, when our handmaiden has done evil 
 in the sight o' the Lord. Yea, she whom I trusted even as I 
 would have put faith in the offspring o' my ain loins, has proved 
 a Jezebel in the house o' her master. I will deliver her into 
 the hands o' Midian seven years." 
 
 Which gravely delivered words were simply the expression 
 of a relentless nature hardened by a peculiar theology, better 
 understood in its threats than in its promises, in its punish- 
 ments than in its mercies ; and, in place of relieving the heart 
 of the utterer, they rather added to a firmness of purpose which 
 was one of the characteristics of her race. Deliberately, if not 
 slowly, she rose from her seat, put the fatal coin mto her side- 
 pocket, dressed herself m her mankey gown and red plaid, all 
 as carefully, if not solemnly, as if she had been going to her 
 special tabernacle. Thereafter she set out for the oftice of Mr 
 John Gibson, the procurator-fiscal for the city. That gentle- 
 man she saw, and the consequence was, that on that same night 
 Jenny Cameron was lodged in jail on a warrant which charged 
 her with abstracting theftuously and feloniously a sum of money 
 from a locked chest belonging to Mrs Janet Cameron, her 
 mistress. We need hardly say that the news spread wherever 
 there was one of the sect, for they were all well known to each 
 otner, and the espionage they exercised among themselves was 
 more a lear of being touched in their tender part than a wish 
 to detect an offender. But the case was such as to rouse 
 peculiar tears where the prosecutor was the wife of a shining 
 light in their congregation, besides being herself one of the 
 special elect, aiid the supposed culprit was, m her humble
 
 262 Mysterioiii, Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 way, a privileged daughter of the sanctuary, as much beyond 
 the suspicion of evil as any spotless lamb of them all. One 
 thing was at least certain in the minds of all of them — that an 
 impossibility had been set up even by the Evil one himself, as 
 a thing that was not only possible, but real, and it behoved 
 them to gird up their loins and take up the sv/ord of Gideon 
 •"O defend themselves against the machinations of the enemy ; 
 the consequence of all which again was, that the sympathy for 
 the innocent prisoner was more a selfishness in themselves 
 than a generosity towards their unfortunate sister. 
 
 All which could not stop the course of justice. On the fol- 
 lowing day Jenny Cameron was put under examination, but, as 
 might have been expected from a Cameronian maiden, all the 
 ingenuity of the fiscal could extract nothing from the prisoner 
 which could tend — not of course to criminate herself, for she 
 had committed no crime, r.Oi' to implicate her master, for he 
 was nearly as guiltless — but even to elicit the real circum- 
 stances of the transaction, or in any way to clear up what 
 seemed to be a mystery. She refused steadfastly to tell how- 
 she came to have the guinea in her trunk, denying firmly that 
 she had taken it out of the chest belonging to her mistress. 
 That trunk, she declared, she had never opened. The prose- 
 cutor, as may easily be supposed, was not satisfied ; no more, 
 as we may as easily conjecture, was Mrs Janet Cameron ; and 
 the culprit, as she was so fairly, even by her so determined 
 resistance to question, and her refusal to tell what she must to 
 a certain extent have known, presumed to be, was remanded 
 for further examination. 
 
 In the meantime, John Cameron himself had been sent for 
 by Janet to come to town instantly, for the purpose of vindi- 
 cating the rights of his spouse, who had, as she said, been 
 robbed of a large sum of money by no other than the saintly 
 Jenny. Nor did she fail to take especial care to let her hus- 
 band know how she had accumulated the pose — how she ha^'
 
 yp/iii Cameron s Life Policy. 263 
 
 t;uar«.ie(,l it all for his sake and her own — and how slie had 
 i)eeii so cruelly deprive<i of it. All which would, in all likeli- 
 liuod. have brought a smile mto the face of honest John, if he 
 had not by Gods grace been a Cameronian ; but as it was, the 
 result behoved to be very different. The affair, so much 
 dreaded by him, had taken a turn even more critical, formid- 
 able, fearful than he had in his most apprehensive moments 
 anticipated. He had committed himself; and even the self- 
 imputed righteousness of the man rendering it irhpossible for 
 him to make a clean breast of what, in the eyes of the world, 
 even in those of his coigregation, and surely in those of his 
 wife, must have appeared rather a virtue than a crime, called 
 up all the doggedness of his nature, and contirmed him in the 
 historical obstinacy of his peculiar race. The climax to which 
 matters had aixived claimed precedence over his apprehen- 
 sions, and he came to town determined to fight out the cause 
 which he had, for the sake of a consistency in religious charac- 
 ter, espoused, even to the death. \Ve are here describing a 
 particular case, which is but a sample of a class consisting of 
 many w'here a recedence of two steps back would save many 
 successive plungings into pitfalls, nay, eventual destruction, 
 and where a candid confession, with nothing to be ashamed of 
 but a little inconsistency, would render impossible a complica- 
 tion of toils in which the victim perishes 
 
 At the second examination rf Jenny the master of the 
 house accordingly appeared, and again Jenny displayed the 
 same resolution to save the man whom she considered to be the 
 chief of God's chosen ones of the earth. .Ml which was just 
 what Janet had reason to expect, and which, too, she could 
 bear so long as she thought — and how could she doubt? — 
 that her husband stood by her in defence of her rights and his 
 own, yea, of God's justice and Cameronian purity ; but when 
 she observed that John's manner, words, and looks were all in 
 favour of Jenny, she began to fear that he was in a secret and
 
 264 Mysterious Legends of EdinbiLrgh. 
 
 unholy league with her servant, — a conclusion which seemed 
 all but confirmed by the conversational eye of Jenny herself, 
 as she looked at her master with all the confidence and kindli- 
 ness due to a friend and protector. The consequence of all 
 this would soon become apparent, nay, it emerged almost on 
 the instant when the suspicion flashed through her mind ; 
 whereupon the unrelenting spirit which had prompted the 
 harsh step whereby Jenny was laid hold of, and which might 
 have been softened and ameliorated by a due and mediatorial 
 participation taken by her natural protector in her defence, 
 drew aliment and strength from the apparent concert. Her 
 increased persistence was exhibited in the additional grimness 
 of her hard, iron-bound countenance and grating voice, while 
 terrible looks flared on the face of the male reprobate. On 
 the other hand, John resisted, with the solemn gravity of his 
 natural character, far as he was from any thoughts of retalia- 
 tion, for he was conscious that Janet had a fair plea, and it is 
 not improbable that he pitied lier while he still loved her. 
 But, alas ! he had elected his course ; and when was it that 
 a true Cameronian made an acknowledgment that he had 
 diverged a hair's-breadth from the direct path of duty \ Mean- 
 while, Jenny was as impregnable as ever ; and when the fiscal 
 seemed weary of his efforts, John stood up. 
 
 " I have borne this ower lang," said he. " I am master o' 
 my house ; and, so far as law gaes, the money in that house is 
 mine, and nane but mine. I needna tell ye that Janet 
 Cameron's rights extend nae further than her weel-thumbed 
 Bible, and her paraphernalia ; and that, therefore, she has nae 
 lawful presence in this room as a prosecutor of this innocent 
 young woman, nae mair than slie has to jjrosecute mc, her law- 
 ful husband and protector. I now, therefore, solemnly avow, 
 by all the pledges o' a standing covenant, that Jenny Cameron 
 is as innocent o' this crime as was the bairn under the ju.'gment 
 o' Solomon o' the lee o' its false mother. I bring nae charge
 
 yohn Cameron s Life Policy. 265 
 
 against her; and I now demand, in the name o' eternal jus- 
 tice, that she be dehvered frae her enemy." 
 
 " But the law must be satisfied," said the fiscal. " We have 
 some evidence here, and some jjrcsumptions ; money has been 
 stolen, and a part of it has been found in the trunk of the 
 prisoner." 
 
 Now was Janet's time, or, rather, her time had passed 
 already, yet she .iiiewed no precipitation as she rose solemnly 
 from her chair. 
 
 " Presumptions, ipdeed," said she, in very grave and deep 
 accents. "John Cameron, wha has lived with me for thirty 
 years, and wha now pleads the cause o' my servant against his 
 lawful wife, maun shew how Jenny Cameron came to possess 
 this guinea, which I can prove to have been amang my money 
 in that kist." 
 
 " And you luill be satisfied," replied the husband, in words 
 equally grave. " It was I, John Cameron, wha gave Jenny 
 that guinea." 
 
 "And was it one of those in the woollen purse I" asked the 
 fiscal, as he now begun to thmk that the ice was broken, and 
 some clear, though very cold water was about to come. 
 
 " That nae man m this kingdom has a right to ask," replied 
 John; " and to nae man will I answer, ay, were he as great and 
 powerful as ane o' the judges of Israel." 
 
 Whereupon the light in Janet's eye, which had been increas- 
 ing in intensity, flared more strongly than ever in the face of 
 her husband, who, as he sat down, met the fiery gaze — well 
 qualified to scorch and harden — with one equally stern, as if 
 he had made up his mind to the last result, irrespective of the 
 love that yearned in his heart. Tut, meanwhile, the fiscal was 
 still after his duty. 
 
 " Your statement, Mr Cameron," said he, " is quite sufficient 
 for us. Until you explained how the guinea came to be in the 
 young woman's trunk, the lavv had its rights no less than Mrs
 
 2 66 ]\Iysterioits Legends of Edinbiirgh. 
 
 Cimeron ; but you have explained the only available pre- 
 sumption which appeared against the girl, and we, as a matter 
 of course, are bound to discharge her." 
 
 "And I," said Janet, as she again stood up, and again 
 looked at her husband with the same expression of severe 
 gravity — "and I discharge her too, and that for ever. For 
 what communion is there between righteousness and unright- 
 eousness, yea, the Spirit o' the Lord and the spirit o' Satan'? 
 From this time forth I declare that Jenny Cameron is nae 
 servant o' mine." 
 
 "The which ye have nae power to do," added John, "nor 
 will ye, sae lang as I have the rule o' mv ain house. Janet 
 Cameron," he continued, as the gloom gathered on his face, 
 Ijetokening an intention to rivet what he had to say with the 
 hammer of Scripture, "you forget in what case Jenny Cameron 
 stands. She has been taken up on suspicion o' a crime by the 
 men o' the law, and she has Ijeen absolved. We maun abide 
 the judgment. 'This is the covenant I will make with the 
 house of Israel. I will put the laws into their mind, and write 
 them in their hearts.' Were we denying the spirit o' mercy 
 of which we ourselves stand so muckle in need, to cast off our 
 handmaiden in this the hour o' her great need and utmost 
 extremity, yea, even as if we had judged her and found her 
 awanting, it would be imputed as a sin unto us, and, mairower, 
 it would ruin the puir orphan for ever in this world. That 
 canna be — that vvinna be. Jenny Cameron," he added, as he 
 looked kindly, and you mi' ht almost say with the smallest 
 portion of the moisture of pity suffusing his gray eyes, "ye 
 gae hame with us, even as one who has regained her honest 
 repute and guid name, and will keep it pure and unspotted, 
 ay, as the snow that lay in the valley o' Salmon." 
 
 A screed this which seemed to make considerable inroads 
 on the patience of the officials, by this time anxious to get
 
 yohn Cameron s Life Policy. 267 
 
 quit of a case apparently of domestic disagreement ; and so 
 the fiscal interfered. 
 
 " You will settle this better yourselves," said he, " when you 
 get home.'"' 
 
 A remark which ran right against the grain of Mrs Cameron's 
 resolution. 
 
 " It will never be settled tliere, sir," said she, without the 
 slightest abatement of her sternn^jss. " When Jenny Cameron 
 gaes hame again to my house, at that same moment I leave it, 
 never to return." 
 
 And thus the old hilhand-glen spirit was roused once again 
 in the breasts of this once happy couple. So certainly as Mr 
 Cameron had committed himself to the first false step, so 
 truly was he now caught by the elastic cleft stick of his dogged 
 obstinacy; nor from this did he seem to have any power to 
 deliver himself It seemed as if the sword of Clavers had 
 been replaced by the shari)er tongue of Janet Cameron, and 
 while he was fortified by her opposition, so she was confirmed 
 bv his, even with bitterness. 
 
 " Come with me, Jenny," said he. " Mrs Cameron can 
 come o' her ain motive, yea, when her ain deil bids her ; ye 
 canna." 
 
 Then leading Jenny out by the hand, he departed. And, to 
 our great sorrow, we have to say that Mrs Cameron, equally de- 
 termined, took the direction of a friend's house at the far end 
 o." the city. Now, for the first time during thirty years were 
 these two godly people separated— it might be for ever in this 
 world. 
 
 And surely so strange an occurrerce may excuse a remark, 
 however little inclined we are to moralise in a general way in 
 a story which should tell its own moral. We all know how 
 often it happens that a transaction is to be regretted the more 
 in its results that the alternative by which these might have
 
 268 .Mysterious Lei^xuds of Edinburgh. 
 
 been avoided comes to he considered as comparatively easy. 
 Yet the explanation is not hy any means difficult, for that 
 which is done in passion might have been left undone in 
 reason, and as reason sees, while passion is blind, s'le can 
 tasily discover the means whereby hosts of evils might have 
 been avoided. But what use can we make of the observation 
 so Ions as it is the law of our nature that the fountam of our 
 emotions is the source of our actions, and while it is playing 
 the reason seated above is darkened by the spray] There is 
 no better definition of man than that which represents him as 
 a regretful and remorseful animal, for no traces of these feel- 
 ings can be found in the lower creatures, by reason that they 
 have no reason. But it may be said that John Cameron did 
 what he did in calm reason, and never could have been said 
 to be blinded by passion. The remark is not, we suspect, very 
 ])hilosophical, insomuch as obstinacy is so far an emotion that 
 it has been called by a ([uaint writer, and we think not im- 
 ])roperly, a passion frozen /// situ. 
 
 Speculations these which have drawn us away from our 
 story at that point of the separation of the worthy couple, 
 when Mr (_"ameron had the best oi)portanity yet remaining to 
 him to have made the easy confession, whereby all Wviuld have 
 been mended, and happiness and love and confidence been 
 restored where these Heaven's blessings had so loiig l)een. 
 But, unfortunately, even then, and when he had the set-olT 
 against T'T-"et of her having, as it were, stolen his money, and 
 been guilty of the deceit of concealing that she had it, he was 
 still, in addition to his natural obstinacy, so deadly ashamed 
 of the mean and furtive manner whereby he had eft'ected his 
 ])urpose — yea, even that of benefiting the wife of his affections 
 — that he felt he could suffer all, nay, renounce life, rather 
 than make the di.sclosure. So he let Mrs Cameron depart, 
 without so much as a farewell, or even a kindly look, sug- 
 gested as that was by the love which still reigned in his
 
 yohn Cameron'' s Life Policy. 269 
 
 bosom, but which for the time was overlaid by the demon of 
 his nature. 
 
 In which very unfortunate position, that is, a total separa- 
 tion between husband and wife, the domestic affairs of this 
 couple now stood, without any interference on the part of 
 friends being, even to a small extent, effectual. Nay, so 
 strangely do misfortunes, when the unfavourable powers get 
 fairly the advantage, drift into all imaginable aggravations, even 
 such as cannot be predicated of them by any mortal prevision, 
 that this interference was deemed unseemly, for the strange 
 reason that the goddess of the many tongues sent it belling 
 abroad that the true and secret cause of all this discord amon'^ 
 the very darhngs of heaven consisted in the fact that Jenny 
 Cameron had superseded Janet in the affections of the holy 
 man. So that 't came to be considered a desecration of 
 friendly offices to attempt a reconciliation where all was rotten 
 at the heart. Nor could the church friends of the parties be 
 blamed for this, seeing that Janet herself had taken up the 
 notion. And who. agam, could say that she was unjustified in a 
 suspicion, the causes of which stood out in such relief as everi 
 to take you by the skirts of the coat, yea, as briers in the way \ 
 Surely a strange bizarrerie this in a world not yet, we hope, 
 removed from under the icindly faces of the providences, where 
 all the three parties were really good people and stanch Chris- 
 tians. But can we deny that such cases occur every day? or 
 rather, are we not bound — notwithstanding that the harp of our 
 mind seems strung in pre-accord to the symphony of eternal 
 justice — to admit them, not only as possibilities, but realities, 
 as a sure sign of rewards and retributions awaiting us else- 
 where, to equalise the unmerited lots of blind mortals? 
 
 But even the fact we have here stated did not terminate the 
 ruck of evils. It has been said that insurance offices, in 
 accepting the lives of married men advanced in years, would 
 do well to examine at the same time the health of the wives.
 
 270 Mysterious Legends of Edinbiirgh. 
 
 for the cuance of the husbands living depends greatly on the 
 lives of the helpmates. And no doubt it seems to be more 
 common tor old men to die soon after their wives, than for 
 (vives to succumb to the loss of their partners. We generally 
 attribute the disposing cause to grief, but this is only a general 
 and easy way of explaining a mysterious process of moral dis- 
 memberment whereby the physical system comes to be affected 
 even unto death. Whether John Cameron felt consequences 
 similar to those following on separation by death, we cannot 
 take upon us to say. Neither do we know that his strange 
 jjresentiment had any connexion with a premonitory feeling of 
 t-ternal decay. Yet certain it is, that at the end of nine months 
 after the fatal separation from his helpmate, our worthy Came- 
 ronian was found one morning lying in his bed dead, his coun 
 tenaiice bearing no signs of his having suffered pain, nor his 
 body any tokens of muscular struggle — all was placid, as if the 
 spirit, in its ascent to heaven, had reflected back on the inani- 
 mate body some of the 'ight which shone before it. Thus, as 
 the brethren said, was taken into the membership of the New 
 Jerusalem a very peculiar man, whose virtues were of that cast 
 whi( h, borrowing their steadfastness from constitutional firm- 
 ness rather than from an educated and enlightened conviction, 
 are so apt to make exceptional escapades among tlie weak- 
 nesses, if not the vices, of our nature. 
 
 As soon as Mrs Cameron heard the intelli'j-ence, she re- 
 Aisited her old home, yet, according to her character, firmly 
 and sedately, as one on whom even Death in his assaults had 
 no power to call up regret for conduct wherein she still con- 
 sidered herself justified. Yea, in such mood stood that im- 
 moveable being before the clay-coloured face of that man with 
 whom she had lived for thirty years. No tears came, — )io 
 response of a sigh to memories which usually move those 
 who, in the ordinary business of life, have shewn no tokens 
 of that sympathy which binds together creatures of the same
 
 yohn Came7'07i's Life Policy. 271 
 
 kind. But the character of no one is known until the end, 
 because the'potentiahties of his nature have not till then been 
 exhausted by the still recurring evolution of causes. 
 
 As yet, Jenny was still under the ban. If the look of the 
 dead body could not move the stern advocate of retribution, 
 it was not likely that she would be affected by the attentions 
 of one who had been the cause of such terrible evils. Yea, 
 she repulsed her as one whose name was on the dark scroll, 
 and therefore far removed from the circle of the sympathies of 
 the elect; and, strange as it may appear, Jenny shewed no 
 inclination to explain, now when John was dead, the un.*"avour- 
 able appearances which so powerfully operated against her ; 
 wherein she was as true to her nature as her mistress was to 
 hers, or her master had been to his. 
 
 And thus passed the first night in this strange house of mis- 
 fortune and death. Next day introduced Mrs Cameron to the 
 evils of the former, with, in addition, a stronger conviction of 
 the helpless condition in which she was left. She was a 
 beggar, — John's annuity was ended ; and the money which 
 she had laid past by pennies, even for that very day of evil 
 which had now overtaken her, had been stolen from her by 
 the very man (for the examination had proved to her that 
 Jenny was a mere accomplice) who was bound by the laws of 
 heaven and earth to have provided for her in the latter days of 
 her pilgrimage. In this condition of mind she thought she 
 would open John's little cabinet to see if there was anything 
 there to promise rehef to her destitution. 
 
 Thereupon she took the key out of Mr Cameron's pocket, 
 and proceeded solemnly to the rcj^ository ; opened it : took 
 out John's policy of annuity, alas ! now wrought out by death; 
 and then her hand fell upon the document whereby she had 
 been secured in six hundred pounds. At that moment Mr 
 Henderson called, and explained to her, even wher. she held 
 the paper in her hand, the fact of her husband having effected
 
 2/2 Alystej^iotts Legends of Edinburgh. 
 
 it for her benefit ; and how he had paid the only premium that 
 time had permitted. Whereupoii the woman, with an inquiring, 
 anxious look, put a question. 
 
 "Was that premium paid in guineas, Mr Henderson!" 
 inquired she. 
 
 "Yes," was the answer; "every shilling of it." 
 
 Thereafter, on Mr Henderson's departure, Jenny was called 
 by her mistress. She now admitted all that she knew. Could 
 anything be plainer? Did not the full extent of John Came- 
 ron's love and aftection for her, Janet, shew itself out of ashes 
 and corruption \ 
 
 Janet now, in these changed circumstances, looked again on 
 the pale face of the dead Cam'rouiar The fountains burst 
 by the pressure of a new-born se.^ti'nent. Yes; tears fell on 
 the face of the dead. Jenny wa.*^ present, and witnessed this 
 scene of the triumph of nature over conventional hardness. 
 Then Janet turned to her, and throwing her arms round the 
 neck of her faithful and sorely-tried servant, cried and sobbed 
 in the midst of very pitiful ejaculations. And now, in con- 
 clusion, we may state that Mrs Cameron's objection to life 
 policies did not stand in the way of her accepting of the six 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printtd by John Noble, Invenitss. 
 
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