THE
SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.

BY JAMES HOGG,

AUTHOR OF "THE QUEEN'S WAKE," &c. &c.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH;
AND T. CADELL, LONDON.
MDCCCXXIX.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The greater number of the Tales contained in these volumes appeared originally in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. They have been revised with care; and to complete the Collection, several Tales hitherto unpublished have been added.

CONTENTS OF VOL I.

THE

SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.

CHAPTER I.

ROB DODDS.

It was on the 13th of February 1823, on a cold stormy day, the snow lying from one to ten feet deep on the hills, and nearly as hard as ice, when an extensive store-farmer in the outer limits of the county of Peebles went up to one of his led farms, to see how his old shepherd was coming on with his flocks. A partial thaw had blackened some spots here and there on the brows of the mountains, and over these the half-starving flocks were scattered, picking up a scanty sustenance, while all the hollow parts, and whole sides of mountains that lay sheltered from the winds on the preceding week, when the great drifts blew, were heaped and over-heaped with immense loads of snow, so that every hill appeared to the farmer to have changed its form. There was a thick white haze on the sky, corresponding exactly with the wan frigid colour of the high mountains, so that in casting one's eye up to the heights, it was not apparent where the limits of the earth ended, and the heavens began. There was no horizon—no blink of the sun looking through the pale and impervious mist of heaven; but there, in that elevated and sequestered hope, the old shepherd and his flock seemed to be left out of nature and all its sympathies, and embosomed in one interminable chamber of waste desolation.—So his master thought; and any stranger beholding the scene, would have been still more deeply impressed that the case was so in reality.

But the old shepherd thought and felt otherwise. He saw God in the clouds, and watched his arm in the direction of the storm. He perceived, or thought he perceived, one man's flocks suffering on account of their owner's transgression; and though he bewailed the hardships to which the poor harmless creatures were reduced, he yet acknowledged in his heart the justness of the punishment. "These temporal scourges are laid upon sinners in mercy," said he, "and it will be well for them if they get so away. It will teach them in future how to drink and carouse, and speak profane things of the name of Him in whose hand are the issues of life, and to regard his servants as the dogs of their flock."

Again, he beheld from his heights, when the days were clear, the flocks of others more favourably situated, which he interpreted as a reward for their acts of charity and benevolence; for this old man believed that all temporal benefits are sent to men as a reward for good works; and all temporal deprivations as a scourge for evil ones.

"I hae been a herd in this hope, callant and man, for these fifty years now, Janet," said he to his old wife, "and I think I never saw the face o' the country look waur."

"Hout, gudeman, it is but a clud o' the despondency o' auld age come ower your een; for I hae seen waur storms than this, or else my sight deceives me. This time seven and thirty years, when you and I were married, there was a deeper, and a harder snaw baith, than this. There was mony a burn dammed up wi' dead hogs that year! And what say ye to this time nine years, gudeman?"

"Ay, ay, Janet, these were hard times when they were present. But I think there's something in our corrupt nature that gars us aye trow the present burden is the heaviest. However, it is either my strength failing, that I canna won sae weel through the snaw, or I never saw it lying sae deep before. I canna steer the poor creatures frae ae knowe-head to another, without rowing them ower the body. And sometimes when they wad spraughle away, then I stick firm and fast mysell, and the mair I fight to get out, I gang aye the deeper. This same day, nae farther gane, at ae step up in the Gait Cleuch, I slumpit in to the neck. Peace be wi' us, quo' I to myself, where am I now? If my auld wife wad but look up the hill, she wad see nae mair o' her poor man but the bannet. Ah! Janet, Janet, I'm rather feared that our Maker has a craw to pook wi' us even now!"

"I hope no, Andrew; we're in good hands; and if he should e'en see meet to pook a craw wi' us, he'll maybe fling us baith the bouk and the feathers at the end. Ye shouldna repine, gudeman. Ye're something ill for thrawing your mou' at Providence now and then."

"Na, na, Janet; far be't frae me to grumble at Providence. I ken ower weel that the warst we get is far aboon our merits. But it's no for the season that I'm sae feared,—that's ruled by Ane that canna err; only, I dread that there's something rotten in the government or the religion of the country, that lays it under His curse. There's my fear, Janet. The scourge of a land often fa's on its meanest creatures first, and advances by degrees, to gie the boonmost orders o' society warning and time to repent. There, for instance, in the saxteen and seventeen, the scourge fell on our flocks and our herds. Then, in aughteen and nineteen, it fell on the weavers,—they're the neist class, ye ken; then our merchants,—they're the neist again; and last of a' it has fallen on the farmers and the shepherds,—they're the first and maist sterling class of a country. Na, ye needna smudge and laugh, Janet; for it's true. They are the boonmost, and hae aye been the boonmost sin' the days o' Abel; and that's nae date o' yesterday. And ye'll observe, Janet, that whenever they began to fa' low, they gat aye another lift to keep up their respect. But I see our downfa' coming on us wi' rapid strides.—There's a heartlessness and apathy croppen in amang the sheep-farmers, that shows their warldly hopes to be nearly extinct. The maist o' them seem no to care a bodle whether their sheep die or live. There's our master, for instance, when times were gaun weel, I hae seen him up ilka third day at the farthest in the time of a storm, to see how the sheep were doing; and this winter I hae never seen his face sin' it came on. He seems to hae forgotten that there are sic creatures existing in this wilderness as the sheep and me.—His presence be about us, gin there be nae the very man come by the window!"

Janet sprung to her feet, swept the hearth, set a chair on the cleanest side, and wiped it with her check apron, all ere one could well look about him.

"Come away, master; come in by to the fire here; lang-lookit-for comes at length."

"How are you, Janet?—still living, I see. It is a pity that you had not popped off before this great storm came on."

"Dear, what for, master?"

"Because if you should take it into your head to coup the creels just now, you know it would be out of the power of man to get you to a Christian burial. We would be obliged to huddle you up in the nook of the kail-yard."

"Ah, master, what's that you're saying to my auld wife? Aye the auld man yet, I hear! a great deal o' the leaven o' corrupt nature aye sprouting out now and then. I wonder you're no fear'd to speak in that regardless manner in these judgment-looking times!"

"And you are still the old man too, Andrew; a great deal of cant and hypocrisy sprouting out at times. But tell me, you old sinner, how has your Maker been serving you this storm? I have been right terrified about your sheep; for I know you will have been very impertinent with him of evenings."

"Hear to that now! There's no hope, I see! I thought to find you humbled wi' a' thir trials and warldly losses; but I see the heart is hardened like Pharaoh's, and you will not let the multitude of your sins go. As to the storm, I can tell you, my sheep are just at ane mae wi't. I am waur than ony o' my neighbours, as I lie higher on the hills; but I may hae been as it chanced, for you; for ye hae never lookit near me mair than you had had no concern in the creatures."

"Indeed, Andrew, it is because neither you nor the creatures are much worth looking after now-a-days. If it hadna been the fear I was in for some mishap coming over the stock, on account of these hypocritical prayers of yours, I would not have come to look after you so soon."

"Ah, there's nae mense to be had o' you! It's a good thing I ken the heart's better than the tongue, or ane wad hae little face to pray either for you, or aught that belangs t'ye. But I hope ye hae been nae the waur o' auld Andrew's prayers as yet. An some didna pray for ye, it wad maybe be the waur for ye. I prayed for ye when ye couldna pray for yoursell, and had hopes that, when I turned auld and doited, you might say a kind word for me; but I'm fear'd that warld's wealth and warld's pleasures hae been leading you ower lang in their train, and that ye hae been trusting to that which will soon take wings and flee away."

"If you mean riches, Andrew, or warld's wealth, as you call it, you never said a truer word in your life; for the little that my forbears and I have made, is actually, under the influence of these long prayers of yours, melting away from among my hands faster than ever the snow did from the dike."

"It is perfectly true, what you're saying, master. I ken the extent o' your bits o' sales weel enough, and I ken your rents; and weel I ken you're telling me nae lee. And it's e'en a hard case. But I'll tell you what I would do—I would throw their tacks in their teeth, and let them mak aught o' them they likit."

"Why, that would be ruin at once, Andrew, with a vengeance. Don't you see that stocks of sheep are fallen so low, that if they were put to sale, they would not pay more than the rents, and some few arrears that every one of us have got into; and thus, by throwing up our farms, we would throw ourselves out beggars? We are all willing to put off the evil day as long as we can, and rather trust to long prayers for a while."

"Ah! you're there again, are you?—canna let alane profanity! It's hard to gar a wicked cout leave off flinging. But I can tell you, master mine—An you farmers had made your hay when the sun shone, ye might a' hae sitten independent o' your screwing lairds, wha are maistly sair out at elbows; and ye ken, sir, a hungry louse bites wicked sair. But this is but a just judgment come on you for your behaviour. Ye had the gaun days o' prosperity for twenty years! But instead o' laying by a little for a sair leg, or making provision for an evil day, ye gaed on like madmen. Ye biggit houses, and ye plantit vineyards, and threw away money as ye had been sawing sklate-stanes. Ye drank wine, and ye drank punch; and ye roared and ye sang, and spake unseemly things. And did ye never think there was an ear that heard, and an ee that saw, a' thae things? And did ye never think that they wad be visited on your heads some day when ye couldna play paw to help yoursells? If ye didna think sae then, ye'll think sae soon. And ye'll maybe see the day when the like o' auld Andrew, wi' his darned hose, and his cloutit shoon; his braid bannet, instead of a baiver; his drink out o' the clear spring, instead o' the punch bowl; and his good steeve aitmeal parritch and his horn spoon, instead o' the draps o' tea, that costs sae muckle—I say, that sic a man wi' a' thae, and his worthless prayers to boot, will maybe keep the crown o' the causeway langer than some that carried their heads higher."

"Hout fie, Andrew!" quoth old Janet; "Gudeness be my help, an I dinna think shame o' you! Our master may weel think ye'll be impudent wi' your Maker; for troth you're very impudent wi' himsell. Dinna ye see that ye hae made the douce sonsy lad that he disna ken where to look?"

"Ay, Janet, your husband may weel crack. He kens he has feathered his nest off my father and me. He is independent, let the world wag as it will."

"It's a' fairly come by, master, and the maist part o't came through your ain hands. But my bairns are a' doing for themsells, in the same way that I did; and if twa or three hunder pounds can beet a mister for you in a strait, ye sanna want it, come of a' what will."

"It is weel said of you, Andrew, and I am obliged to you. There is no class of men in this kingdom so independent as you shepherds. You have your sheep, your cow, your meal and potatoes; a regular income of from sixteen to thirty pounds yearly, without a farthing of expenditure, except for shoes; for your clothes are all made at home. If you would even wish to spend it, you cannot get an opportunity, and every one of you is rich, who has not lost money by lending it. It is therefore my humble opinion, that all the farms over this country will soon change occupants; and that the shepherds must ultimately become the store-farmers."

"I hope in God I'll never live to see that, master, for the sake of them that I and mine hae won our bread frae, as weel as some others that I hae a great respect for. But that's no a thing that hasna happened afore this day. It is little mair than a hundred and forty years, sin' a' the land i' this country changed masters already; sin' every farmer in it was reduced, and the farms were a' ta'en by common people and strangers at half naething. The Welshes came here then, out o' a place they ca' Wales, in England; the Andersons came frae a place they ca' Rannoch, some gate i' the north; and your ain family came first to this country then frae some bit lairdship near Glasgow. There were a set o' MacGregors and MacDougals, said to have been great thieves, came into Yarrow then, and changed their names to Scotts; but they didna thrive; for they warna likit, and the hinderend o' them were in the Catslackburn. They ca'd them aye the Pinolys, frae the place they came frae; but I dinna ken where it was. The Ballantynes came frae Galloway; and for as flourishing folks as they are now, the first o' them came out at the Birkhill-path, riding on a haltered pony, wi' a goat-skin aneath him for a saddle. The Cunninghams, likewise, began to spread their wings at the same time; they came a' frae a little fat curate that came out o' Glencairn to Ettrick. But that's nae disparagement to ony o' thae families; for an there be merit at a' inherent in man as to warldly things, it is certainly in raising himsell frae naething to respect. There is nae very ancient name amang a' our farmers now, but the Tweedies and the Murrays; I mean of them that anciently belanged to this district. The Tweedies are very auld, and took the name frae the water. They were lairds o' Drummelzier hunders o' years afore the Hays got it, and hae some o' the best blood o' the land in their veins; and sae also have the Murrays; but the maist part o' the rest are upstarts and come-o'-wills. Now ye see, for as far out-bye as I live, I can tell ye some things that ye dinna hear amang your drinking cronies."

"It is when you begin to these old traditions that I like to listen to you, Andrew. Can you tell me what was the cause of such a complete overthrow of the farmers of that age?"

"Oh, I canna tell, sir—I canna tell; some overturn o' affairs, like the present, I fancy. The farmers had outher lost a' their sheep, or a' their siller, as they are like to do now; but I canna tell how it was; for the general change had ta'en place, for the maist part, afore the Revolution. My ain grandfather, who was the son of a great farmer, hired himsell for a shepherd at that time to young Tam Linton; and mony ane was wae for the downcome. But, speaking o' that, of a' the downcomes that ever a country kenn'd in a farming name, there has never been ought like that o' the Lintons. When my grandfather was a young man, and ane o' their herds, they had a' the principal store-farms o' Ettrick Forest, and a part in this shire. They had, when the great Mr Boston came to Ettrick, the farms o' Blackhouse, Dryhope, Henderland, Chapelhope, Scabcleuch, Shorthope, Midgehope, Meggatknowes, Buecleuch, and Gilmanscleuch, that I ken of, and likely as mony mae; and now there's no a man o' the name in a' the bounds aboon the rank of a cow-herd. Thomas Linton rode to kirk and market, wi' a liveryman at his back; but where is a' that pride now?—a' buried in the mools wi' the bearers o't! and the last representative o' that great overgrown family, that laid house to house, and field to field, is now sair gane on a wee, wee farm o' the Duke o' Buecleuch's. The ancient curse had lighted on these men, if ever it lighted on men in this world. And yet they were reckoned good men, and kind men, in their day; for the good Mr Boston wrote an epitaph on Thomas, in metre, when he died; and though I have read it a hunder times in St Mary's kirk-yard, where it is to be seen to this day, I canna say it ower. But it says that he was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame, and that the Lord would requite him in a day to come, or something to that purpose. Now that said a great deal for him, master, although Providence has seen meet to strip his race of a' their worldly possessions. But take an auld fool's advice, and never lay farm to farm, even though a fair opportunity should offer; for, as sure as He lives who pronounced that curse, it will take effect. I'm an auld man, and I hae seen mony a dash made that way; but I never saw ane o' them come to good! There was first Murray of Glenrath; why, it was untelling what land that man possessed. Now his family has not a furr in the twa counties. Then there was his neighbour Simpson of Posso: I hae seen the day that Simpson had two-and-twenty farms, the best o' the twa counties, and a' stockit wi' good sheep. Now there's no a drap o' his blood has a furr in the twa counties. Then there was Grieve of Willenslee; ane wad hae thought that body was gaun to take the haill kingdom. He was said to have had ten thousand sheep, a' on good farms, at ae time. Where are they a' now? Neither him nor his hae a furr in the twa counties. Let me tell ye, master—for ye're but a young man, and I wad aye fain have ye to see things in a right light—that ye may blame the wars; ye may blame the Government; and ye may blame the Parliamenters: but there's a hand that rules higher than a' these; and gin ye dinna look to that, ye'll never look to the right source either o' your prosperity or adversity. And I sairly doubt that the pride o' the farmers has been raised to ower great a pitch, that Providence has been brewing a day of humiliation for them, and that there will be a change o' hands aince mair, as there was about this time hunder and forty years."

"Then I suppose you shepherds expect to have century about with us, or so? Well, I don't see any thing very unfair in it."

"Ay, but I fear we will be as far aneath the right medium for a while, as ye are startit aboon it. We'll make a fine hand doing the honours o' the grand mansion-houses that ye hae biggit for us; the cavalry exercises; the guns and the pointers; the wine and the punch drinking; and the singing o' the deboshed sangs! But we'll just come to the right set again in a generation or twa; and then, as soon as we get ower hee, we'll get a downcome in our turn.—But, master, I say, how will you grand gentlemen tak wi' a shepherd's life? How will ye like to be turned into reeky holes like this, where ye can hardly see your fingers afore ye, and be reduced to the parritch and the horn spoon?"

"I cannot tell, Andrew. I suppose it will have some advantages—It will teach us to say long prayers to put off the time; and if we should have the misfortune afterwards to pass into the bad place that you shepherds are all so terrified about, why, we will scarcely know any difference. I account that a great advantage in dwelling in such a place as this. We'll scarcely know the one place from the other."

"Ay, but oh what a surprise ye will get when ye step out o' ane o' your grand palaces into hell! And gin ye dinna repent in time, ye'll maybe get a little experiment o' that sort. Ye think ye hae said a very witty thing there: but a' profane wit is sinfu'; and whatever is sinfu' is shamefu'; and therefore it never suits to be said either afore God or man. Ye are just a good standing sample o' the young tenantry o' Scotland at this time. Ye're ower genteel to be devout, and ye look ower high, and depend ower muckle on the arm o' flesh, to regard the rod and Him that hath appointed it. But it will fa' wi' the mair weight for that! A blow that is seen coming may be wardit off; but if ane's sae proud as no to regard it, it's the less scaith that he suffer."

"I see not how any man can ward off this blow, Andrew. It has gathered its overwhelming force in springs over which we have no control, and is of that nature that no industry of man can avail against it—exertion is no more than a drop in the bucket: and I greatly fear that this grievous storm is come to lay the axe to the root of the tree."

"I'm glad to hear, however, that ye hae some Scripture phrases at your tongue-roots. I never heard you use ane in a serious mode before; and I hope there will be a reformation yet. If adversity hae that effect, I shall willingly submit to my share o' the loss if the storm should lie still for a while, and cut off a wheen o' the creatures, that ye aince made eedals o', and now dow hardly bide to see. But that's the gate wi' a things that ane sets up for warldly worship in place o' the true object; they turn a' out curses and causes o' shame and disgrace. As for warding off the blow, master, I see no resource but throwing up the farms ilk ane, and trying to save a remnant out o' the fire. The lairds want naething better than for ye to rin in arrears; then they will get a' your stocks for neist to naething, and have the land stockit themsells as they had lang-syne; and you will be their keepers, or vassals, the same as we are to you at present. As to hinging on at the present rents, it is madness—the very extremity of madness. I hae been a herd here for fifty years, and I ken as weel what the ground will pay at every price of sheep as you do, and I daresay a great deal better. When I came here first, your father paid less than the third of the rent that you are bound to pay; sheep of every description were dearer, lambs, ewes, and wedders; and I ken weel he was making no money of it, honest man, but merely working his way, with some years a little over, and some naething. And how is it possible that you can pay three times the rent at lower prices of sheep? I say the very presumption of the thing is sheer madness. And it is not only this farm, but you may take it as an average of all the farms in the country, that before the French war began, the sheep were dearer than they are now—the farms were not above one-third of the rents at an average, and the farmers were not making any money. They have lost their summer day during the French war, which will never return to them; and the only resource they have, that I can see, is to abandon their farms in time, and try to save a remnant. Things will come to their true level presently, but not afore the auld stock o' farmers are crushed past rising again. And then I little wat what's to come o' ye; for an we herds get the land, we winna employ you as our shepherds,—that you may depend on."

"Well, Andrew, these are curious facts that you tell me about the land having all changed occupiers about a certain period. I wish you could have stated the causes with certainty. Was there not a great loss on this farm once, when it was said the burn was so dammed up with dead carcasses that it changed its course?"

"Ay, but that's quite a late story. It happened in my own day, and I believe mostly through mischance. That was the year Rob Dodds was lost in the Earney Cleuch. I remember it, but cannot tell what year it was, for I was but a little bilsh of a callant then."

"Who was Rob Dodds? I never heard of the incident before."

"Ay, but your father remembered it weel; for he sent a' his men mony a day to look for the corpse, but a' to nae purpose. I'll never forget it; for it made an impression on me sae deep that I couldna get rest i' my bed for months and days. He was a young handsome bonny lad, an honest man's only son, and was herd wi' Tam Linton in the Birkhill. The Lintons were sair come down then; for this Tam was a herd, and had Rob hired as his assistant. Weel, it sae happened that Tam's wife had occasion to cross the wild heights atween the Birkhill and Tweedsmuir, to see her mother, or sister, on some express; and Tam sent the young man wi' her to see her ower Donald's Cleuch Edge. It was in the middle o' winter, and, if I mind right, this time sixty years. At the time they set out, the morning was calm, frosty, and threatening snaw, but the ground clear of it. Rob had orders to set his mistress to the height, and return home; but by the time they had got to the height, the snaw had come on, so the good lad went all the way through Guemshope with her, and in sight of the water o' Fruid. He crossed all the wildest o' the heights on his return in safety; and on the Middle-End, west of Loch-Skene, he met with Robin Laidlaw, that went to the Highlands and grew a great farmer after that. Robin was gathering the Polmoody ewes; and as they were neighbours, and both herding to ae master, Laidlaw testified some anxiety lest the young man should not find his way hame; for the blast had then come on very severe. Dodds leugh at him, and said, 'he was nae mair feared for finding the gate hame, than he was for finding the gate to his mouth when he was hungry.'—'Weel, weel,' quo' Robin, 'keep the band o' the hill a' the way, for I hae seen as clever a fellow waured on sic a day; and be sure to hund the ewes out o' the Brand Law Scores as ye gang by.'—'Tammy charged me to bring a backfu' o' peats wi' me,' said he; 'but I think I'll no gang near the peat stack the day.'—'Na,' quo' Robin, 'I think ye'll no be sae mad!'—'But, O man,' quo' the lad, 'hae ye ony bit bread about your pouches; for I'm unco hungry? The wife was in sic a hurry that I had to come away without getting ony breakfast, and I had sae far to gang wi' her, that I'm grown unco toom i' the inside.'—'The fient ae inch hae I, Robie, my man, or ye should hae had it,' quo' Laidlaw.—'But an that be the case, gang straight hame, and never heed the ewes, come o' them what will.'—'O there's nae fear!' said he, 'I'll turn the ewes, and be hame in good time too.' And with that he left Laidlaw, and went down the Middle-Craig-End, jumping and playing in a frolicsome way ower his stick. He had a large lang nibbit staff in his hand, which Laidlaw took particular notice of, thinking it would be a good help for the young man in the rough way he had to gang.

"There was never another word about the matter till that day eight days. The storm having increased to a terrible drift, the snaw had grown very deep, and the herds, wha lived about three miles sindry, hadna met for a' that time. But that day Tam Linton and Robin Laidlaw met at the Tail Burn; and after cracking a lang time thegither, Tam says to the tither, just as it war by chance, 'Saw ye naething o' our young dinnagood this day eight days, Robin? He gaed awa that morning to set our gudewife ower the height, and has never sin' that time lookit near me, the careless rascal!'

"'Tam Linton, what's that you're saying? what's that I hear ye saying, Tam Linton?' quo' Robin, wha was dung clean stupid wi' horror. 'Hae ye never seen Rob Dodds sin' that morning he gaed away wi' your wife?'

"'Na, never,' quo' the tither.

"'Why then, sir, let me tell ye, you'll never see him again in this world alive,' quo' Robin; 'for he left me on the Middle-End on his way hame that day at eleven o'clock, just as the day was coming to the warst.—But, Tam Linton, what was't ye war saying? Ye're telling me what canna be true—Do ye say that ye haena seen Rob Dodds sin' that day?'

"'Haena I tauld ye that I hae never seen his face sinsyne?' quo' Linton.

"'Sae I hear ye saying,' quo' Robin again. 'But ye're telling me a downright made lee. The thing's no possible; for ye hae the very staff i' your hand that he had in his, when he left me in the drift that day.'

"'I ken naething about sticks or staves, Robin Laidlaw,' says Tam, looking rather like ane catched in an ill turn. 'The staff wasna likely to come hame without the owner; and I can only say, I hae seen nae mair o' Rob Dodds sin' that morning; and I had thoughts that, as the day grew sae ill, he had hadden forrit a' the length wi' our wife, and was biding wi' her folks a' this time to bring her hame again when the storm had settled.'

"'Na, na, Tam, ye needna get into ony o' thae lang-windit stories wi' me,' quo' Robin. 'For I tell ye, that's the staff Rob Dodds had in his hand when I last saw him; so ye have either seen him dead or living—I'll gie my oath to that.'

"'Ye had better take care what ye say, Robin Laidlaw,' says Tam, very fiercely, 'or I'll maybe make ye blithe to eat in your words again.'

"'What I hae said, I'll stand to, Tam Linton,' says Robin.—'And mair than that,' says he, 'if that young man has come to an untimely end, I'll see his blood required at your hand.'

"Then there was word sent away to the Hopehouse to his parents, and ye may weel ken, master, what heavy news it was to them, for Rob was their only son; they had gien him a good education, and muckle muckle they thought o' him; but naething wad serve him but he wad be a shepherd. His father came wi' the maist pairt o' Ettrick parish at his back; and mony sharp and threatening words past atween him and Linton; but what could they make o't? The lad was lost, and nae law, nor nae revenge, could restore him again; sae they had naething for't, but to spread athwart a' the hills looking for the corpse. The haill country rase for ten miles round, on ane or twa good days that happened; but the snaw was still lying, and a' their looking was in vain. Tam Linton wad look nane. He took the dorts, and never heeded the folk mair than they hadna been there. A' that height atween Loch-Skene and the Birkhill was just moving wi' folk for the space o' three weeks; for the twa auld folk, the lad's parents, couldna get ony rest, and folk sympathized unco muckle wi' them. At length the snaw gaed maistly away, and the weather turned fine, and I gaed out ane o' the days wi' my father to look for the body. But, aih wow! I was a feared wight! whenever I saw a bit sod, or a knowe, or a grey stane, I stood still and trembled for fear it was the dead man, and no ae step durst I steer farther, till my father gaed up to a' thae things. I gaed nae mair back to look for the corpse; for I'm sure if we had found the body I wad hae gane out o' my judgment.

"At length every body tired o' looking, but the auld man himsell. He travelled day after day, ill weather and good weather, without intermission. They said it was the waesomest thing ever was seen, to see that auld grey-headed man gaun sae lang by himsell, looking for the corpse o' his only son! The maist part o' his friends advised him at length to give up the search, as the finding o' the body seemed a thing a'thegither hopeless. But he declared he wad look for his son till the day o' his death; and if he could but find his bones, he would carry them away from the wild moors, and lay them in the grave where he was to lie himsell. Tam Linton was apprehended, and examined afore the Sheriff; but nae proof could be led against him, and he wan off. He swore that, as far as he remembered, he got the staff standing at the mouth o' the peat stack; and that he conceived that either the lad or himsell had left it there some day when bringing away a burden of peats. The shepherds' peats had not been led home that year, and the stack stood on a hill-head, half a mile frae the house, and the herds were obliged to carry them home as they needed them.

"But a mystery hung ower that lad's death that was never cleared up, nor ever will a'thegither. Every man was convinced, in his own mind, that Linton knew where the body was a' the time; and also, that the young man had not come by his death fairly. It was proved that the lad's dog had come hame several times, and that Tam Linton had been seen kicking it frae about his house; and as the dog could be nowhere all that time, but waiting on the body, if that had no been concealed in some more than ordinary way, the dog would at least have been seen. At length, it was suggested to the old man, that dead-lights always hovered over a corpse by night, if the body was left exposed to the air; and it was a fact that two drowned men had been found in a field of whins, where the water had left the bodies, by means of the dead-lights, a very short while before. On the first calm night, therefore, the old desolate man went to the Merk-Side-Edge, to the top of a high hill that overlooked all the ground where there was ony likelihood that the body would be lying. He watched there the lee-lang night, keeping his eye constantly roaming ower the broken wastes before him; but he never noticed the least glimmer of the dead-lights. About midnight, however, he heard a dog barking; it likewise gae twa or three melancholy yowls, and then ceased. Robin Dodds was convinced it was his son's dog; but it was at such a distance, being about twa miles off, that he couldna be sure where it was, or which o' the hills on the opposite side of the glen it was on. The second night he kept watch on the Path Know, a hill which he supposed the howling o' the dog cam frae. But that hill being all surrounded to the west and north by tremendous ravines and cataracts, he heard nothing o' the dog. In the course of the night, however, he saw, or fancied he saw, a momentary glimmer o' light, in the depth of the great gulf immediately below where he sat; and that at three different times, always in the same place. He now became convinced that the remains o' his son were in the bottom of the linn, a place which he conceived inaccessible to man; it being so deep from the summit where he stood, that the roar o' the waterfall only reached his ears now and then wi' a loud whush! as if it had been a sound wandering across the hills by itsell. But sae intent was Robin on this Willie-an-the-wisp light, that he took landmarks frae the ae summit to the other, to make sure o' the place; and as soon as daylight came, he set about finding a passage down to the bottom of the linn. He effected this by coming to the foot of the linn, and tracing its course backward, sometimes wading in water, and sometimes clambering over rocks, till at length, with a beating heart, he reached the very spot where he had seen the light; and in the grey o' the morning, he perceived something lying there that differed in colour from the iron-hued stones, and rocks, of which the linn was composed. He was in great astonishment what this could be; for, as he came closer on it, he saw it had no likeness to the dead body of a man, but rather appeared to be a heap o' bed-clothes. And what think you it turned out to be? for I see ye're glowring as your een were gaun to loup out—Just neither more nor less than a strong mineral well; or what the doctors ca' a callybit spring, a' boustered about wi' heaps o' soapy, limy kind o' stuff, that it seems had thrown out fiery vapours i' the nighttime.

"However, Robin, being unable to do ony mair in the way o' searching, had now nae hope left but in finding his dead son by some kind o' supernatural means. Sae he determined to watch a third night, and that at the very identical peat stack where it had been said his son's staff was found. He did sae; and about midnight, ere ever he wist, the dog set up a howl close beside him. He called on him by his name, and the dog came, and fawned on his old acquaintance, and whimpered, and whinged, and made sic a wark, as could hardly hae been trowed. Robin keepit haud o' him a' the night, and fed him wi' pieces o' bread, and then as soon as the sun rose, he let him gang; and the poor affectionate creature went straight to his dead master, who, after all, was lying in a little green spritty hollow, not above a musket-shot from the peat stack. This rendered the whole affair more mysterious than ever; for Robin Dodds himself, and above twenty men beside, could all have made oath that they had looked into that place again and again, so minutely, that a dead bird could not have been there without their having seen it. However, there the body of the youth was gotten, after having been lost for the long space of ten weeks; and not in a state of great decay neither, for it rather appeared swollen, as if it had been lying among water.

"Conjecture was now driven to great extremities in accounting for all these circumstances. It was manifest to every one, that the body had not been all the time in that place. But then, where had it been? or what could have been the reasons for concealing it? These were the puzzling considerations. There were a hunder different things suspectit; and mony o' them, I dare say, a hunder miles frae the truth; but on the whole, Linton was sair lookit down on, and almaist perfectly abhorred by the country; for it was weel kenn'd that he had been particularly churlish and severe on the young man at a' times, and seemed to have a peculiar dislike to him. An it hadna been the wife, wha was a kind considerate sort of a body, if Tam had gotten his will, it was reckoned he wad hae hungered the lad to dead. After that, Linton left the place, and gaed away, I watna where; and the country, I believe, came gayan near to the truth o' the story at last:

"There was a girl in the Birkhill house at the time, whether a daughter o' Tam's, or no, I hae forgot, though I think otherwise. However, she durstna for her life tell a' she kenn'd as lang as the investigation was gaun on; but it at last spunkit out that Rob Dodds had got hame safe eneugh; and that Tam got into a great rage at him, because he had not brought a burden o' peats, there being none in the house. The youth excused himself on the score of fatigue and hunger; but Tam swore at him, and said, 'The deil be in your teeth, gin they shall break bread, till ye gang back out to the hill-head and bring a burden o' peats!' Dodds refused; on which Tam struck him, and forced him away; and he went crying and greeting out at the door, but never came back. She also told, that after poor Rob was lost, Tam tried several times to get at his dog to fell it with a stick; but the creature was terrified for him, and made its escape. It was therefore thought, and indeed there was little doubt, that Rob, through fatigue and hunger, and reckless of death from the way he had been guidit, went out to the hill, and died at the peat stack, the mouth of which was a shelter from the drift-wind; and that his cruel master, conscious o' the way in which he had used him, and dreading skaith, had trailed away the body, and sunk it in some pool in these unfathomable linns, or otherwise concealed it, wi' the intention, that the world might never ken whether the lad was actually dead, or had absconded. If it had not been for the dog, from which it appears he had been unable to conceal it, and the old man's perseverance, to whose search there appeared to be no end, it is probable he would never have laid the body in a place where it could have been found. But if he had allowed it to remain in the first place of concealment, it might have been discovered by means of the dog, and the intentional concealment of the corpse would then have been obvious; so that Linton all that time could not be quite at his ease, and it was no wonder he attempted to fell the dog. But where the body could have been deposited, that the faithful animal was never discovered by the searchers, during the day, for the space of ten weeks, baffled a' the conjectures that ever could be made.

"The two old people, the lad's father and mother, never got over their loss. They never held up their heads again, nor joined in society ony mair, except in attending divine worship. It might be truly said o' them, that they spent the few years that they survived their son in constant prayer and humiliation; but they soon died, short while after ane anither. As for Tam Linton, he left this part of the country, as I told you; but it was said there was a curse hung ower him and his a' his life, and that he never mair did weel.—That was the year, master, on which our burn was dammed wi' the dead sheep; and in fixing the date, you see, I hae been led into a lang story, and am just nae farther wi' the main point than when I began."

"I wish from my heart, Andrew, that you would try to fix a great many old dates in the same manner; for I confess I am more interested in your lang stories, than in either your lang prayers, or your lang sermons about repentance and amendment. But pray, you were talking of the judgments that overtook Tam Linton—Was that the same Tam Linton that was precipitated from the Brand Law by the break of a snaw-wreath, and he and all his sheep jammed into the hideous gulf, called the Grey Mare's Tail?"

"The very same, sir; and that might be accountit ane o' the first judgments that befell him; for there were many of his ain sheep in the flock. Tam asserted all his life, that he went into the linn along with his hirsel, but no man ever believed him; for there was not one of the sheep came out alive, and how it was possible for the carl to have come safe out, naebody could see. It was, indeed, quite impossible; for it had been such a break of snaw as had scarcely ever been seen. The gulf was crammed sae fu', that ane could hae gane ower it like a pendit brig; and no a single sheep could be gotten out, either dead or living. When the thaw came, the burn wrought a passage for itself below the snaw, but the arch stood till summer. I have heard my father oft describe the appearance of that vault as he saw it on his way from Moffat fair. Ane hadna gane far into it, he said, till it turned darkish, like an ill-hued twilight; and sic a like arch o' carnage he never saw! There were limbs o' sheep hinging in a' directions, the snaw was wedged sae firm. Some entire carcasses hung by the neck, some by a spauld; then there was a haill forest o' legs sticking out in ae place, and horns in another, terribly mangled and broken; and it was a'thegither sic a frightsome-looking place, that he was blithe to get out o't again."

After looking at the sheep, tasting old Janet's best kebbuck, and oatmeal cakes, and preeing the whisky bottle, the young farmer again set out through the deep snow, on his way home. But Andrew made him promise, that if the weather did not amend, he would come back in a few days and see how the poor sheep were coming on; and, as an inducement, promised to tell him a great many old anecdotes of the shepherd's life.

CHAPTER II.

MR ADAMSON OF LAVERHOPE.

One of those events that have made the deepest impression on the shepherds' minds for a century bygone, seems to have been the fate of Mr Adamson, who was tenant in Laverhope for the space of twenty-seven years. It stands in their calendar as an era from which to date summer floods, water spouts, hail and thunder-storms, &c.; and appears from tradition to have been attended with some awful circumstances, expressive of divine vengeance. This Adamson is represented, as having been a man of an ungovernable temper—of irritability so extreme, that no person could be for a moment certain to what excesses he might be hurried. He was otherwise accounted a good and upright man, and a sincere Christian; but in these outbreakings of temper he often committed acts of cruelty and injustice, for which any good man ought to have been ashamed. Among other qualities, he had an obliging disposition, there being few to whom a poor man would sooner have applied in a strait. Accordingly, he had been in the habit of assisting a less wealthy neighbour of his with a little credit for many years. This man's name was Irvine, and though he had a number of rich relations, he was never out of difficulties. Adamson, from some whim or caprice, sued this poor farmer for a few hundred merks, taking legal steps against him, even to the very last measures short of poinding and imprisonment. Irvine paid little attention to this, taking it for granted that his neighbour took these steps only for the purpose of inducing his debtor's friends to come forward and support him.

It happened one day about this period, that a thoughtless boy, belonging to Irvine's farm, hunted Adamson's cattle in a way that gave great offence to their owner, on which the two farmers differed, and some hard words passed between them. The next day Irvine was seized and thrown into jail; and shortly after, his effects were poinded, and sold by auction for ready money. They were consequently thrown away, as the neighbours, not having been forewarned, were wholly unprovided with ready money, and unable to purchase at any price. Mrs Irvine came to the enraged creditor with a child in her arms, and implored him to put off the sale for a month, that she might try what could be done amongst her friends to prevent a wreck so irretrievable. He was at one time on the very point of yielding; but some bitter recollections coming over his mind at the moment, stimulated his spleen against her husband, and he resolved that the sale should go on. William Carruders of Grindiston heard the following dialogue between them; and he said that his heart almost trembled within him; for Mrs Irvine was a violent woman, and her eloquence did more harm than good.

"Are ye really gaun to act the part of a devil, the day, Mr Adamson, and turn me and thae bairns out to the bare high-road, helpless as we are? Oh, man, if your bowels binna seared in hell-fire already, take some compassion; for an ye dinna, they will be seared afore baith men and angels yet, till that hard and cruel heart o' yours be nealed to an izle."

"I'm gaun to act nae part of a devil, Mrs Irvine; I'm only gaun to take my ain in the only way I can get it. I'm no baith gaun to tine my siller, and hae my beasts abused into the bargain."

"Ye sall neither lose plack nor bawbee o' your siller, man, if ye will gie me but a month to make a shift for it—I swear to you, ye sall neither lose, nor rue the deed. But if ye winna grant me that wee wee while, when the bread of a haill family depends on it, ye're waur than ony deil that's yammering and cursing i' the bottomless pit."

"Keep your ravings to yoursell, Mrs Irvine, for I hae made up my mind what I'm to do; and I'll do it; sae it's needless for ye to pit yoursell into a bleeze; for the surest promisers are aye the slackest payers. It isna likely that your bad language will gar me alter my purpose."

"If that be your purpose, Mr Adamson, and if you put that purpose in execution, I wadna change conditions wi' you the day for ten thousand times a' the gear ye are worth. Ye're gaun to do the thing that ye'll repent only aince—for a' the time that ye hae to exist baith in this world and the neist, and that's a lang lang look forrit and ayond. Ye have assisted a poor honest family for the purpose of taking them at a disadvantage, and crushing them to beggars; and when ane thinks o' that, what a heart you must hae! Ye hae first put my poor man in prison, a place where he little thought, and less deserved, ever to be; and now ye are reaving his sackless family out o' their last bit o' bread. Look at this bit bonny innocent thing in my arms, how it is smiling on ye! Look at a' the rest standing leaning against the wa's, ilka ane wi' his een fixed on you by way o' imploring your pity! If ye reject thae looks, ye'll see them again in some trying moments, that will bring this ane back to your mind; ye will see them i' your dreams; ye will see them on your death-bed, and ye will think ye see them gleaming on ye through the reek o' hell,—but it winna be them."

"Haud your tongue, woman, for ye make me feared to hear ye."

"Ay, but better be feared in time, than torfelled for ever! Better conquess your bad humour for aince, than be conquessed for it through sae mony lang ages. Ye pretend to be a religious man, Mr Adamson, and a great deal mair sae than your neighbours—do you think that religion teaches you acts o' cruelty like this? Will ye hae the face to kneel afore your Maker the night, and pray for a blessing on you and yours, and that He will forgive you your debts as you forgive your debtors? I hae nae doubt but ye will. But aih! how sic an appeal will heap the coals o' divine vengeance on your head, and tighten the belts o' burning yettlin ower your hard heart! Come forrit, bairns, and speak for yoursells, ilk ane o' ye."

"O, Maister Adamson, ye maunna turn my father and mother out o' their house and their farm; or what think ye is to come o' us?" said Thomas.

No consideration, however, was strong enough to turn Adamson from his purpose. The sale went on; and still, on the calling off of every favourite animal, Mrs Irvine renewed her anathemas.

"Gentlemen, this is the mistress's favourite cow, and gives thirteen pints of milk every day. She is valued in my roup-roll at fifteen pounds; but we shall begin her at ten. Does any body say ten pounds for this excellent cow? ten pounds—ten pounds? Nobody says ten pounds? Gentlemen, this is extraordinary! Money is surely a scarce article here to-day. Well, then, does any gentleman say five pounds to begin this excellent cow that gives twelve pints of milk daily? Five pounds—only five pounds!—Nobody bids five pounds? Well, the stock must positively be sold without reserve. Ten shillings for the cow—ten shillings—ten shillings—Will nobody bid ten shillings to set the sale a-going?"

"I'll gie five-and-twenty shillings for her," cried Adamson.

"Thank you, sir. One pound five—one pound five, and just a-going. Once—twice—thrice. Mr Adamson, one pound five."

Mrs Irvine came forward, drowned in tears, with the babe in her arms, and patting the cow, she said, "Ah, poor lady Bell, this is my last sight o' you, and the last time I'll clap your honest side! And hae we really been deprived o' your support for the miserable sum o' five-and-twenty shillings?—my curse light on the head o' him that has done it! In the name of my destitute bairns I curse him; and does he think that a mother's curse will sink fizzenless to the ground? Na, na! I see an ee that's looking down here in pity and in anger; and I see a hand that's gathering the bolts o' Heaven thegither, for some purpose that I could divine, but daurna utter. But that hand is unerring, and where it throws the bolt, there it will strike. Fareweel, poor beast! ye hae supplied us wi' mony a meal, but ye will never supply us wi' another."

This sale at Kirkheugh was on the 11th of July. On the day following, Mr Adamson went up to the folds in the hope, to shear his sheep, with no fewer than twenty-five attendants, consisting of all his own servants and cottars, and about as many neighbouring shepherds whom he had collected; it being customary for the farmers to assist one another reciprocally on these occasions. Adamson continued more than usually capricious and unreasonable all that forenoon. He was discontented with himself; and when a man is ill pleased with himself, he is seldom well pleased with others. He seemed altogether left to the influences of the Wicked One, running about in a rage, finding fault with every thing, and every person, and at times cursing bitterly, a practice to which he was not addicted; so that the sheep-shearing, that used to be a scene of hilarity among so many young and old shepherds, lads, lasses, wives, and callants, was that day turned into one of gloom and dissatisfaction.

After a number of other provoking outrages, Adamson at length, with the buisting-iron which he held in his hand, struck a dog belonging to one of his own shepherd boys, till the poor animal fell senseless on the ground, and lay sprawling as in the last extremity. This brought matters to a point which threatened nothing but anarchy and confusion; for every shepherd's blood boiled with indignation, and each almost wished in his heart that the dog had been his own, that he might have retaliated on the tyrant. At the time the blow was struck, the boy was tending one of the fold-doors, and perceiving the plight of his faithful animal, he ran to its assistance, lifted it in his arms, and holding it up to recover its breath, he wept and lamented over it most piteously. "My poor little Nimble!" he cried; "I am feared that mad body has killed ye, and then what am I to do wanting ye? I wad ten times rather he had strucken mysell!"

He had scarce said the words ere his master caught him by the hair of the head with the one hand, and began to drag him about, while with the other he struck him most unmercifully. When the boy left the fold-door, the unshorn sheep broke out, and got away to the hill among the lambs and the clippies; and the farmer being in one of his "mad tantrums," as the servants called them, the mischance had almost put him beside himself; and that boy, or man either, is in a ticklish case who is in the hands of an enraged person far above him in strength.

The sheep-shearers paused, and the girls screamed, when they saw their master lay hold of the boy. But Robert Johnston, a shepherd from an adjoining farm, flung the sheep from his knee, made the shears ring against the fold-dike, and in an instant had the farmer by both wrists, and these he held with such a grasp, that he took the power out of his arms; for Johnston was as far above the farmer in might, as the latter was above the boy.

"Mr Adamson, what are ye about?" he cried; "hae ye tint your reason a'thegither, that ye are gaun on rampauging like a madman that gate? Ye hae done the thing, sir, in your ill-timed rage, that ye ought to be ashamed of baith afore God and man."

"Are ye for fighting, Rob Johnston?" said the farmer, struggling to free himself. "Do ye want to hae a fight, lad? Because if ye do, I'll maybe gie you enough o' that."

"Na, sir, I dinna want to fight; but I winna let you fight either, unless wi' ane that's your equal; sae gie ower spraughling, and stand still till I speak to ye; for au ye winna stand to hear reason, I'll gar ye lie till ye hear it. Do ye consider what ye hae been doing even now? Do ye consider that ye hae been striking a poor orphan callant, wha has neither father nor mother to protect him, or to right his wrangs? and a' for naething, but a bit start o' natural affection? How wad ye like sir, an ony body were to guide a bairn o' yours that gate? and ye as little ken what they are to come to afore their deaths, as that boy's parents did when they were rearing and fondling ower him. Fie for shame, Mr Adamson! fie for shame! Ye first strak his poor dumb brute, which was a greater sin than the tither, for it didna ken what ye were striking it for; and then, because the callant ran to assist the only creature he has on the earth, and I'm feared the only true and faithfu' friend beside, ye claught him by the hair o' the head, and fell to the dadding him as he war your slave! Od, sir, my blood rises at sic an act o' cruelty and injustice; and gin I thought ye worth my while, I wad tan ye like a pellet for it."

The farmer struggled and fought so viciously, that Johnston was obliged to throw him down twice over, somewhat roughly, and hold him by main force. But on laying him down the second time, Johnston said, "Now, sir, I just tell ye, that ye deserve to hae your banes weel throoshen; but ye're nae match for me, and I'll scorn to lay a tip on ye. I'll leave ye to Him who has declared himself the stay and shield of the orphan; and gin some visible testimony o' his displeasure dinna come ower ye for the abusing of his ward, I am right sair mista'en."

Adamson, finding himself fairly mastered, and that no one seemed disposed to take his part, was obliged to give in, and went sullenly away to tend the hirsel that stood beside the fold. In the meantime the sheep-shearing went on as before, with a little more of hilarity and glee. It is the business of the lasses to take the ewes, and carry them from the fold to the clippers; and now might be seen every young shepherd's sweetheart, or favourite, waiting beside him, helping him to clip, or holding the ewes by the hind legs to make them lie easy, a great matter for the furtherance of the operator. Others again, who thought themselves slighted, or loved a joke, would continue to act in a different manner, and plague the youths by bringing them such sheep as it was next to impossible to clip.

"Aih, Jock lad, I hae brought you a grand ane this time! Ye will clank the shears ower her, and be the first done o' them a'!"

"My truly, Jessy, but ye hae gi'en me ane! I declare the beast is woo to the cloots and the een holes; and afore I get the fleece broken up, the rest will be done. Ah, Jessy, Jessy! ye're working for a mischief the day; and ye'll maybe get it."

"She's a braw sonsie sheep, Jock. I ken ye like to hae your arms weel filled. She'll amaist fill them as weel as Tibby Tod."

"There's for it now! there's for it! What care I for Tibby Tod, dame? Ye are the most jealous elf, Jessy, that ever drew coat ower head. But wha was't that sat half a night at the side of a grey stane wi' a crazy cooper? And wha was't that gae the poor precentor the whiskings, and reduced a' his sharps to downright flats? An ye cast up Tibby Tod ony mair to me, I'll tell something that will gar thae wild een reel i' your head, Mistress Jessy."

"Wow, Jock, but I'm unco wae for ye now. Poor fellow! It's really very hard usage! If ye canna clip the ewe, man, gie me her, and I'll tak her to anither; for I canna bide to see ye sae sair put about. I winna bring ye anither Tibby Tod the day, take my word on it. The neist shall be a real May Henderson o' Firthhope-cleuch—ane, ye ken, wi' lang legs, and a good lamb at her fit."

"Gudesake, lassie, haud your tongue, and dinna affront baith yoursell and me. Ye are fit to gar ane's cheek burn to the bane. I'm fairly quashed, and daurna say anither word. Let us therefore hae let-a-be for let-a-be, which is good bairns's greement, till after the close o' the day sky; and then I'll tell ye my mind."

"Ay, but whilk o' your minds will ye tell me, Jock? For ye will be in five or six different anes afore that time. Ane, to ken your mind, wad need to be tauld it every hour o' the day, and then cast up the account at the year's end. But how wad she settle it then, Jock? I fancy she wad hae to multiply ilk year's minds by dozens, and divide by four, and then we a' ken what wad be the quotient."

"Aih wow, sirs! heard ever ony o' ye the like o' that? For three things the sheep-fauld is disquieted, and there are four which it cannot bear."

"And what are they, Jock?"

"A witty wench, a woughing dog, a waukit-woo'd wedder, and a pair o' shambling shears."

After this manner did the gleesome chat go on, now that the surly goodman had withdrawn from the scene. But this was but one couple; every pair being engaged according to their biasses, and after their kind—some settling the knotty points of divinity; others telling auld-warld stories about persecutions, forays, and fairy raids; and some whispering, in half sentences, the soft breathings of pastoral love.

But the farmer's bad humour, in the meanwhile was only smothered, not extinguished; and, like a flame that is kept down by an overpowering weight of fuel, wanted but a breath to rekindle it; or like a barrel of gunpowder, that the smallest spark will set in a blaze. That spark unfortunately fell upon it too soon. It came in the form of an old beggar, ycleped Patie Maxwell, a well-known, and generally a welcome guest, over all that district. He came to the folds for his annual present of a fleece of wool, which had never before been denied him; and the farmer being the first person he came to, he approached him, as in respect bound, accosting him in his wonted obsequious way.

"Weel, gudeman, how's a' wi' ye the day?"—(No answer.)—"This will be a thrang day w'ye? How are ye getting on wi' the clipping?"

"Nae the better o' you, or the like o' you. Gang away back the gate ye came. What are ye coming doiting up through amang the sheep that gate for, putting them a' tersyversy?"

"Tut, gudeman, what does the sheep mind an auld creeping body like me? I hae done nae ill to your pickle sheep; and as for ganging back the road I cam, I'll do that whan I like, and no till than."

"But I'll make you blithe to turn back, auld vagabond! Do ye imagine I'm gaun to hae a' my clippers and grippers, buisters and binders, laid half idle, gaffing and giggling wi' you?"

"Why, then, speak like a reasonable man, and a courteous Christian, as ye used to do, and I'se crack wi' yoursell, and no gang near them."

"I'll keep my Christian cracks for others than auld Papist dogs, I trow."

"Wha do ye ca' auld Papist dogs, Mr Adamson?—Wha is it that ye mean to denominate by that fine-sounding title?"

"Just you, and the like o' ye, Pate. It is weel kenn'd that ye are as rank a Papist as ever kissed a crosier, and that ye were out in the very fore-end o' the unnatural Rebellion, in order to subvert our religion, and place a Popish tyrant on the throne. It is a shame for a Protestant parish like this to support ye, and gie you as liberal awmosses as ye were a Christian saint. For me, I can tell you, ye'll get nae mae at my hand; nor nae rebel Papist loun amang ye."

"Dear sir, ye're surely no yoursell the day? Ye hae kenn'd I professed the Catholic religion these thretty years—it was the faith I was brought up in, and that in which I shall dee; and ye kenn'd a' that time that I was out in the Forty-Five wi' Prince Charles, and yet ye never made mention o' the facts, nor refused me my awmos, till the day. But as I hae been obliged t'ye, I'll haud my tongue; only, I wad advise ye as a friend, whenever ye hae occasion to speak of ony community of brother Christians, that ye will in future hardly make use o' siccan harsh terms. Or, if ye will do't, tak care wha ye use them afore, and let it no be to the face o' an auld veteran."

"What, ye auld profane wafer-eater, and worshipper of graven images, dare ye heave your pikit kent at me?"

"I hae heaved baith sword and spear against mony a better man; and, in the cause o' my religion, I'll do it again."

He was proceeding, but Adamson's choler rising to an ungovernable height, he drew a race, and, running against the gaberlunzie with his whole force, made him fly heels-over-head down the hill. The old man's bonnet flew off, his meal-pocks were scattered about, and his mantle, with two or three small fleeces of wool in it, rolled down into the burn.

The servants observed what had been done, and one elderly shepherd said, "In troth, sirs, our master is no himsell the day. He maun really be looked to. It appears to me, that sin' he roupit out yon poor family yesterday, the Lord has ta'en his guiding arm frae about him. Rob Johnston, ye'll be obliged to rin to the assistance of the auld man."

"I'll trust the auld Jacobite for another shake wi' him yet," said Rob, "afore I steer my fit; for it strikes me, if he hadna been ta'en unawares, he wad hardly hae been sae easily coupit."

The gaberlunzie was considerably astounded and stupified when he first got up his head; but finding all his bones whole, and his old frame disencumbered of every superfluous load, he sprung to his feet, shook his grey burly locks, and cursed the aggressor in the name of the Holy Trinity, the Mother of our Lord, and all the blessed Saints above. Then approaching him with his cudgel heaved, he warned him to be on his guard, or make out of his reach, else he would send him to eternity in the twinkling of an eye. The farmer held up his staff across, to defend his head against the descent of old Patie's piked kent, and, at the same time, made a break in, with intent to close with his assailant; but, in so doing, he held down his head for a moment, on which the gaberlunzie made a swing to one side, and lent Adamson such a blow over the neck, or back part of the head, that he fell violently on his face, after running two or three steps precipitately forward. The beggar, whose eyes gleamed with wild fury, while his grey locks floated over them like a winter cloud over two meteors of the night, was about to follow up his blow with another more efficient one on his prostrate foe; but the farmer, perceiving these unequivocal symptoms of danger, wisely judged that there was no time to lose in providing for his own safety, and, rolling himself rapidly two or three times over, he got to his feet, and made his escape, though not before Patie had hit him what he called "a stiff lounder across the rumple."

The farmer fled along the brae, and the gaberlunzie pursued, while the people at the fold were convulsed with laughter. The scene was highly picturesque, for the beggar could run none, and still the faster that he essayed to run, he made the less speed. But ever and anon he stood still, and cursed Adamson in the name of one or other of the Saints or Apostles, brandishing his cudgel, and stamping with his foot. The other, keeping still at a small distance, pretended to laugh at him, and at the same time uttered such bitter abuse against the Papists in general, and old Patie in particular, that, after the latter had cursed himself into a proper pitch of indignation, he always broke at him again, making vain efforts to reach him one more blow. At length, after chasing him by these starts about half a mile, the beggar returned, gathered up the scattered implements and fruits of his occupation, and came to the fold to the busy group.

Patie's general character was that of a patient, jocular, sarcastic old man, whom people liked, but dared not much to contradict; but that day his manner and mien had become so much altered, in consequence of the altercation and conflict which had just taken place, that the people were almost frightened to look at him; and as for social converse, there was none to be had with him. His countenance was grim, haughty, and had something Satanic in its lines and deep wrinkles; and ever and anon, as he stood leaning against the fold, he uttered a kind of hollow growl, with a broken interrupted sound, like a war-horse neighing in his sleep, and then muttered curses on the farmer.

The old shepherd before-mentioned, ventured, at length, to caution him against such profanity, saying, "Dear Patie, man, dinna sin away your soul, venting siccan curses as these. They will a' turn back on your ain head; for what harm can the curses of a poor sinfu' worm do to our master?"

"My curse, sir, has blasted the hopes of better men than either you or him," said the gaberlunzie, in an earthquake voice, and shivering with vehemence as he spoke. "Ye may think the like o' me can hae nae power wi' Heaven; but an I hae power wi' hell, it is sufficient to cow ony that's here. I sanna brag what effect my curse will have, but I shall say this, that either your master, or ony o' his men, had as good have auld Patie Maxwell's blessing as his curse ony time, Jacobite and Roman Catholic though he be."

It now became necessary to bring into the fold the sheep that the farmer was tending; and they were the last hirsel that was to shear that day. The farmer's face was reddened with ill-nature; but yet he now appeared to be somewhat humbled, by reflecting on the ridiculous figure he had made. Patie sat on the top of the fold-dike, and from the bold and hardy asseverations that he made, he seemed disposed to provoke a dispute with any one present who chose to take up the cudgels. While the shepherds, under fire of the gaberlunzie's bitter speeches, were sharping their shears, a thick black cloud began to rear itself over the height to the southward, the front of which seemed to be boiling—both its outsides rolling rapidly forward, and again wheeling in toward the centre. I have heard old Robin Johnston, the stout young man mentioned above, but who was a very old man when I knew him, describe the appearance of the cloud as greatly resembling a whirlpool made by the eddy of a rapid tide, or flooded river; and he declared, to his dying day, that he never saw aught in nature have a more ominous appearance. The gaberlunzie was the first to notice it, and drew the attention of the rest towards that point of the heavens by the following singular and profane remark:—"Aha, lads! see what's coming yonder. Yonder's Patie Maxwell's curse coming rowing and reeling on ye already; and what will ye say an the curse of God be coming backing it?"

"Gudesake, haud your tongue, ye profane body; ye mak me feared to hear ye," said one.—"It's a strange delusion to think that a Papish can hae ony influence wi' the Almighty, either to bring down his blessing or his curse."

"Ye speak ye ken nae what, man," answered Pate; "ye hae learned some rhames frae your poor cauldrife Protestant Whigs about Papists, and Antichrist, and children of perdition; yet it is plain that ye haena ae spark o' the life or power o' religion in your whole frame, and dinna ken either what's truth or what's falsehood.—Ah! yonder it is coming, grim and gurly! Now I hae called for it, and it is coming, let me see if a' the Protestants that are of ye can order it back, or pray it away again! Down on your knees, ye dogs, and set your mou's up against it, like as many spiritual cannon, and let me see if you have influence to turn aside ane o' the hailstanes that the deils are playing at chucks wi' in yon dark chamber!"

"I wadna wonder if our clipping were cuttit short," said one.

"Na, but I wadna wonder if something else were cuttit short," said Patie; "What will ye say an some o' your weazons be cuttit short? Hurraw! yonder it comes! Now, there will be sic a hurly-burly in Laverhope as never was sin' the creation o' man!"

The folds of Laverhope were situated on a gently sloping plain, in what is called "the forkings of a burn." Laver-burn runs to the eastward, and Widehope-burn runs north, meeting the other at a right angle, a little below the folds. It was around the head of this Widehope that the cloud first made its appearance, and there its vortex seemed to be impending. It descended lower and lower, with uncommon celerity, for the elements were in a turmoil. The cloud laid first hold of one height, then of another, till at length it closed over and around the pastoral group, and the dark hope had the appearance of a huge chamber hung with sackcloth. The big clear drops of rain soon began to descend, on which the shepherds covered up the wool with blankets, then huddled together under their plaids at the side of the fold, to eschew the speat, which they saw was going to be a terrible one. Patie still kept undauntedly to the top of the dike, and Mr Adamson stood cowering at the side of it, with his plaid over his head, at a little distance from the rest. The hail and rain mingled, now began to descend in a way that had been seldom witnessed; but it was apparent to them all that the tempest raged with much greater fury in Widehope-head to the southward.—Anon a whole volume of lightning burst from the bosom of the darkness, and quivered through the gloom, dazzling the eyes of every beholder;—even old Maxwell clapped both his hands on his eyes for a space; a crash of thunder followed the flash, that made all the mountains chatter, and shook the firmament so, that the density of the cloud was broken up; for, on the instant that the thunder ceased, a rushing sound began in Widehope, that soon increased to a loudness equal to the thunder itself; but it resembled the noise made by the sea in a storm. "Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Patie Maxwell, "What is this? What is this? I declare we're a' ower lang here, for the dams of heaven are broken up;" and with that he flung himself from the dike, and fled toward the top of a rising ground. He knew that the sound proceeded from the descent of a tremendous water-spout; but the rest, not conceiving what it was, remained where they were. The storm increased every minute, and in less than a quarter of an hour after the retreat of the gaberlunzie, they heard him calling out with the utmost earnestness; and when they eyed him, he was jumping like a madman on the top of the hillock, waving his bonnet, and screaming out, "Run, ye deil's buckies! Run for your bare lives!" One of the shepherds, jumping up on the dike, to see what was the matter, beheld the burn of Widehope coming down in a manner that could be compared to nothing but an ocean, whose boundaries had given way, descending into the abyss. It came with a cataract front more than twenty feet deep, as was afterwards ascertained by measurement; for it left sufficient marks to enable men to do this with precision. The shepherd called for assistance, and leaped into the fold to drive out the sheep; and just as he got the foremost of them to take the door, the flood came upon the head of the fold, on which he threw himself over the side-wall, and escaped in safety, as did all the rest of the people.

Not so Mr Adamson's ewes; the greater part of the hirsel being involved in this mighty current. The large fold nearest the burn was levelled with the earth in one second. Stones, ewes, and sheep-house, all were carried before it, and all seemed to bear the same weight. It must have been a dismal sight, to see so many fine animals tumbling and rolling in one irresistible mass. They were strong, however, and a few plunged out, and made their escape to the eastward; a greater number were carried headlong down, and thrown out on the other side of Laver-burn, upon the side of a dry hill, to which they all escaped, some of them considerably maimed; but the greatest number of all were lost, being overwhelmed among the rubbish of the fold, and entangled so among the falling dikes, and the torrent wheeling and boiling amongst them, that escape was impossible. The wool was totally swept away, and all either lost, or so much spoiled, that, when afterwards recovered, it was unsaleable.

When first the flood broke in among the sheep, and the women began to run screaming to the hills, and the despairing shepherds to fly about, unable to do any thing, Patie began a-laughing with a loud and hellish guffaw, and in that he continued to indulge till quite exhausted. "Ha, ha, ha, ha! what think ye o' the auld beggar's curse now? Ha, ha, ha, ha! I think it has been backit wi' Heaven's and the deil's baith. Ha, ha, ha, ha!" And then he mimicked the thunder with the most outrageous and ludicrous jabberings, turning occasionally up to the cloud streaming with lightning and hail, and calling out,—"Louder yet, deils! louder yet! Kindle up your crackers, and yerk away! Rap, rap, rap, rap—Ro-ro, ro, ro—Roo—Whush."

"I daresay that body's the vera deevil himsell in the shape o' the auld Papish beggar!" said one, not thinking that Patie could hear at such a distance.

"Na, na, lad, I'm no the deil," cried he in answer; "but an I war, I wad let ye see a stramash! It is a sublime thing to be a Roman Catholic amang sae mony weak apostates; but it is a sublimer thing still to be a deil—a master-spirit in a forge like yon. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Take care o' your heads, ye cock-chickens o' Calvin—take care o' the auld Coppersmith o' the Black Cludd!"

From the moment that the first thunder-bolt shot from the cloud, the countenance of the farmer was changed. He was manifestly alarmed in no ordinary degree; and when the flood came rushing from the dry mountains, and took away his sheep and his folds before his eyes, he became as a dead man, making no effort to save his store, or to give directions how it might be done. He ran away in a cowering posture, as he had been standing, and took shelter in a little green hollow, out of his servants' view.

The thunder came nearer and nearer the place where the astonished hinds were, till at length they perceived the bolts of flame striking the earth around them, in every direction; at one time tearing up its bosom, and at another splintering the rocks. Robin Johnston, in describing it, said, that "the thunnerbolts came shimmering out o' the cludd sae thick, that they appeared to be linkit thegither, and fleeing in a' directions. There war some o' them blue, some o' them red, and some o' them like the colour o' the lowe of a candle; some o' them diving into the earth, and some o' them springing up out o' the earth and darting into the heaven." I cannot vouch for the truth of this, but I am sure my informer thought it true, or he would not have told it; and he said farther, that when old Maxwell saw it, he cried—"Fie, tak care, cubs o' hell! fie, tak care! cower laigh, and sit sicker; for your auld dam is aboon ye, and aneath ye, and a' round about ye. O for a good wat nurse to spean ye, like John Adamson's lambs! Ha, ha, ha!"—The lambs, it must be observed, had been turned out of the fold at first, and none of them perished with their dams.

But just when the storm was at the height, and apparently passing the bounds ever witnessed in these northern climes; when the embroiled elements were in the state of hottest convulsion, and when our little pastoral group were every moment expecting the next to be their last, all at once a lovely "blue bore," fringed with downy gold, opened in the cloud behind, and in five minutes more the sun again appeared, and all was beauty and serenity. What a contrast to the scene so lately witnessed!

The most remarkable circumstance of the whole was perhaps the contrast between the two burns. The burn of Laverhope never changed its colour, but continued pure, limpid, and so shallow, that a boy might have stepped over it dry-shod, all the while that the other burn was coming in upon it like an ocean broken loose, and carrying all before it. In mountainous districts, however, instances of the same kind are not infrequent in times of summer speats. Some other circumstances connected with this storm, were also described to me: The storm coming from the south, over a low-lying, wooded, and populous district, the whole of the crows inhabiting it posted away up the glen of Laverhope to avoid the fire and fury of the tempest. "There were thoosands and thoosands came up by us," said Robin, "a' laying theirsells out as they had been mad. And then, whanever the bright bolt played flash through the darkness, ilk ane o' them made a dive and a wheel to avoid the shot: For I was persuaded that they thought a' the artillery and musketry o' the haill coontry were loosed on them, and that it was time for them to tak the gate. There were likewise several colly dogs came by us in great extremity, binging out their tongues, and looking aye ower their shouthers, rinning straight on they kenn'dna where; and amang other things, there was a black Highland cow came roaring up the glen, wi' her stake hanging at her neck."

When the gush of waters subsided, all the group, men and women, were soon employed in pulling out dead sheep from among rubbish of stones, banks of gravel, and pools of the burn; and many a row of carcasses was laid out, which at that season were of no use whatever, and of course utterly lost. But all the time they were so engaged, Mr Adamson came not near them; at which they wondered, and some of them remarked, that "they thought their master was fey the day, mae ways than ane."

"Ay, never mind him," said the old shepherd, "he'll come when he thinks it his ain time; he's a right sair humbled man the day, and I hope by this time he has been brought to see his errors in a right light. But the gaberlunzie is lost too. I think he be sandit in the yird, for I hae never seen him sin' the last great crash o' thunner."

"He'll be gane into the howe to wring his duds," said Robert Johnston, "or maybe to make up matters wi' your master. Gude sauf us, what a profane wretch the auld creature is! I didna think the muckle horned deil himsell could hae set up his mou' to the heaven, and braggit and blasphemed in sic a way. He gart my heart a' grue within me, and dirle as it had been bored wi' reid-het elsins."

"Oh, what can ye expect else of a Papish?" said the old shepherd, with a deep sigh. "They're a' deil's bairns ilk ane, and a' employed in carrying on their father's wark. It is needless to expect gude branches frae sic a stock, or gude fruit frae siccan branches."

"There's ae wee bit text that folks should never lose sight o'," said Robin, "and it's this,—'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' I think," remarked Robin, when he told the story, "I think that steekit their gabs!"

The evening at length drew on; the women had gone away home, and the neighbouring shepherds had scattered here and there to look after their own flocks. Mr Adamson's men alone remained, lingering about the brook and the folds, waiting for their master. They had seen him go into the little green hollow, and they knew he was gone to his prayers, and were unwilling to disturb him. But they at length began to think it extraordinary that he should continue at his prayers the whole afternoon. As for the beggar, though acknowledged to be a man of strong sense and sound judgment, he had never been known to say prayers all his life, except in the way of cursing and swearing a little sometimes; and none of them could conjecture what was become of him. Some of the rest, as it grew late, applied to the old shepherd before oft mentioned, whose name I have forgot, but he had herded with Adamson twenty years—some of the rest, I say, applied to him to go and bring their master away home, thinking that perhaps he was taken ill.

"O, I'm unco laith to disturb him," said the old man; "he sees that the hand o' the Lord has fa'en heavy on him the day, and he's humbling himsell afore him in great bitterness o' spirit, I daresay. I count it a sin to brik in on sic devotions as thae."

"Na, I carena if he should lie and pray yonder till the morn," said a young lad, "only I wadna like to gang hame and leave him lying on the hill, if he should hae chanced to turn no weel. Sae, if nane o' ye will gang and bring him, or see what ails him, I'll e'en gang mysell;" and away he went, the rest standing still to await the issue.

When the lad went first to the brink of the little slack where Adamson lay, he stood a few moments, as if gazing or listening, and then turned his back and fled. The rest, who were standing watching his motions, wondered at this; and they said, one to another, that their master was angry at being disturbed, and had been threatening the lad so rudely, that it had caused him to take to his heels. But what they thought most strange was, that the lad did not fly towards them, but straight to the hill; nor did he ever so much as cast his eyes in their direction; so deeply did he seem to be impressed with what had passed between him and his master. Indeed, it rather appeared that he did not know what he was doing; for, after running a space with great violence, he stood and looked back, and then broke to the hill again—always looking first over the one shoulder, and then over the other. Then he stopped a second time, and returned cautiously towards the spot where his master reclined; and all the while he never so much as once turned his eyes in the direction of his neighbours, or seemed to remember that they were there. His motions were strikingly erratic; for all the way, as he returned to the spot where his master was, he continued to advance by a zigzag course, like a vessel beating up by short tacks; and several times he stood still, as on the very point of retreating. At length he vanished from their sight in the little hollow.

It was not long till the lad again made his appearance, shouting and waving his cap for them to come likewise; on which they all went away to him as fast as they could, in great amazement what could be the matter. When they came to the green hollow, a shocking spectacle presented itself: There lay the body of their master, who had been struck dead by the lightning; and, his right side having been torn open, his bowels had gushed out, and were lying beside the body. The earth was rutted and ploughed close to his side, and at his feet there was a hole scooped out, a full yard in depth, and very much resembling a grave. He had been cut off in the act of prayer, and the body was still lying in the position of a man praying in the field. He had been on his knees, with his elbows leaning on the brae, and his brow laid on his folded hands; his plaid was drawn over his head, and his hat below his arm; and this affecting circumstance proved a great source of comfort to his widow afterwards, when the extremity of her suffering had somewhat abated.

No such awful visitation of Providence had ever been witnessed, or handed down to our hinds on the ample records of tradition, and the impression which it made, and the interest it excited, were also without a parallel. Thousands visited the spot, to view the devastations made by the flood, and the furrows formed by the electrical matter; and the smallest circumstances were inquired into with the most minute curiosity: above all, the still and drowsy embers of superstition were rekindled by it into a flame, than which none had ever burnt brighter, not even in the darkest days of ignorance; and by the help of it a theory was made out and believed, that for horror is absolutely unequalled. But as it was credited in its fullest latitude by my informant, and always added by him at the conclusion of the tale, I am bound to mention the circumstances, though far from vouching them to be authentic.

It was asserted, and pretended to have been proved, that old Peter Maxwell was not in the glen of Laverhope that day, but at a great distance in a different county, and that it was the devil who attended the folds in his likeness. It was farther believed by all the people at the folds, that it was the last explosion of the whole that had slain Mr Adamson; for they had at that time observed the side of the brae, where the little green slack was situated, covered with a sheet of flame for a moment. And it so happened, that thereafter the profane gaberlunzie had been no more seen; and therefore they said—and here was the most horrible part of the story—there was no doubt of his being the devil, waiting for his prey, and that he fled away in that sheet of flame, carrying the soul of John Adamson along with him.

I never saw old Pate Maxwell,—for I believe he died before I was born; but Robin Johnston said, that to his dying day, he denied having been within forty miles of the folds of Laverhope on the day of the thunder-storm, and was exceedingly angry when any one pretended to doubt the assertion. It was likewise reported, that at six o'clock afternoon a stranger had called on Mrs Irvine, and told her, that John Adamson, and a great part of his stock, had been destroyed by the lightning and the hail. Mrs Irvine's house was five miles distant from the folds; and more than that, the farmer's death was not so much as known of by mortal man until two hours after Mrs Irvine received this information. The storm exceeded any thing remembered, either for its violence or consequences, and these mysterious circumstances having been bruited abroad, gave it a hold on the minds of the populace, never to be erased but by the erasure of existence. It fell out on the 12th of July, 1753.

The death of Mr Copland of Minnigapp, in Annandale, forms another era of the same sort. It happened, if I mistake not, on the 18th of July, 1804. It was one of those days by which all succeeding thunder-storms have been estimated, and from which they are dated, both as having taken place so many years before, and so long after.

Adam Copland, Esquire, of Minnigapp, was a gentleman esteemed by all who knew him. Handsome in his person, and elegant in his manners, he was the ornament of rural society, and the delight of his family and friends; and his loss was felt as no common misfortune. As he occupied a pastoral farm of considerable extent, his own property, he chanced likewise to be out at his folds on the day above-mentioned, with his own servants, and some neighbours, weaning a part of his lambs, and shearing a few sheep. About mid-day the thunder, lightning, and hail, came on, and deranged their operations entirely; and, among other things, a part of the lambs broke away from the folds, and being in great fright, they continued to run on. Mr Copland and a shepherd of his, named Thomas Scott, pursued them, and, at the distance of about half a mile from the folds, they turned them, mastered them, after some running, and were bringing them back to the fold, when the dreadful catastrophe happened. Thomas Scott was the only person present, of course; and though he was within a few steps of his master at the time, he could give no account of any thing. I am well acquainted with Scott, and have questioned him about the particulars fifty times; but he could not so much as tell me how he got back to the fold; whether he brought the lambs with him or not; how long the storm continued; nor, indeed, any thing after the time that his master and he turned the lambs. That circumstance he remembered perfectly, but thenceforward his mind seemed to have become a blank. I should likewise have mentioned, as an instance of the same kind of deprivation of consciousness, that when the young lad who went first to the body of Adamson was questioned why he fled from the body at first, he denied that ever he fled; he was not conscious of having fled a foot, and never would have believed it, if he had not been seen by four eye-witnesses. The only things of which Thomas Scott had any impressions were these: that, when the lightning struck his master, he sprung a great height into the air, much higher, he thought, than it was possible for any man to leap by his own exertion. He also thinks, that the place where he fell dead was at a considerable distance from that on which he was struck and leaped from the ground; but when I inquired if he judged that it would be twenty yards or ten yards, he could give no answer—he could not tell. He only had an impression that he saw his master spring into the air, all on fire; and, on running up to him, he found him quite dead. If Scott was correct in this, (and he being a man of plain good sense, truth, and integrity, there can scarce be a reason for doubting him,) the circumstance would argue that the electric matter by which Mr Copland was killed issued out of the earth. He was speaking to Scott with his very last breath; but all that the survivor could do, he could never remember what he was saying. Some melted drops of silver were standing on the case of his watch, as well as on some of the buttons of his coat, and the body never stiffened like other corpses, but remained as supple as if every bone had been softened to jelly. He was a married man, scarcely at the prime of life, and left a young widow and only son to lament his loss. On the spot where he fell there is now an obelisk erected to his memory, with a warning text on it, relating to the shortness and uncertainty of human life.

CHAPTER III.

THE PRODIGAL SON.

"Bring me my pike-staff, daughter Matilda,—the one with the head turned round like crummy's horn; I find it easiest for my hand. And do you hear, Matty?—Stop, I say; you are always in such a hurry.—Bring me likewise my best cloak,—not the tartan one, but the grey marled one, lined with green flannel. I go over to Shepherd Gawin's to-day, to see that poor young man who is said to be dying."

"I would not go, father, were I you. He is a great reprobate, and will laugh at every good precept; and, more than that, you will heat yourself with the walk, get cold, and be confined again with your old complaint."

"What was it you said, daughter Matilda? Ah, you said that which was very wrong. God only knows who are reprobates, and who are not. We can judge from nought but external evidence, which is a false ground to build calculations upon; but He knows the heart, with all our motives of action, and judges very differently from us. You said very wrong, daughter. But women will always be speaking unadvisedly. Always rash! always rash!—Bring me my cloak, daughter, for as to my being injured by my walk, I am going on my Master's business; my life and health are in his hands, and let him do with me as seemeth good in his sight; I will devote all to his service the little while I have to sojourn here."

"But this young man, father, is not only wicked himself, but he delights in the wickedness of others. He has ruined all his associates, and often not without toiling for it with earnest application. Never did your own heart yearn more over the gaining of an immortal soul to God and goodness, than this same young profligate's bosom has yearned over the destruction of one."

"Ah! it is a dismal picture, indeed! but not, perhaps, so bad as you say. Women are always disposed to exaggerate, and often let their tongues outrun their judgments. Bring me my cloak and my staff, daughter Mat. Though God withdraw his protecting arm from a fellow-creature for a time, are we to give all up for lost? Do you not know that his grace aboundeth to the chief of sinners?"

"I know more of this youth than you do, my dear father; would to Heaven I knew less! and I advise you to stay at home, and leave him to the mercy of that God whom he has offended. Old age and decrepitude are his derision, and he will mock at and laugh you to scorn, and add still more pangs to the hearts of his disconsolate parents. It was he, who, after much travail, overturned the principles of your beloved grandson, which has cost us all so much grief, and so many tears."

"That is indeed a bitter consideration; nevertheless it shall be got over. I will not say, The Lord reward him according to his works, although the words almost brooded on my tongue; but I will say, in the sincerity of a Christian disposition, May the Lord of mercy forgive him, and open his eyes to his undone state before it be too late, and the doors of forgiveness be eternally shut! Thanks to my Maker, I now feel as I ought! Go bring me my cloak, daughter Matilda; not that tartan one, with the gaudy spangles, but my comfortable grey marled one, with the green flannel lining."

"Stay till I tell you one thing more, father."

"Well, what is it? Say on, daughter, I'll hear you. Surely you are not desirous that this young man's soul should perish? Women's prejudices are always too strong, either one way or another. But I will hear you, daughter—I will hear you. What is it?"

"You knew formerly somewhat of the evil this profligate youth did to your grandson, but you do not know that he has most basely betrayed his sister, your darling Euphemia."

Old Isaac's head sunk down, while some tears involuntarily dropped on his knee; and to conceal his emotion, he remained silent, save that he uttered a few stifled groans. Natural affection and duty were at strife within him, and for a time neither of them would yield. His daughter perceived the struggle, and contented herself with watching its effects.

"Where is my cloak, daughter Matilda?" said he, at length, without raising his head.

"It is hanging on one of the wooden knags in the garret, sir," said she.

"Ay. Then you may let it hang on the knag where it is all day. It is a weary world this! and we are all guilty creatures! I fear I cannot converse and pray with the ruthless seducer of both my children."

"Your resolution is prudent, sir. All efforts to regain such a one are vain. He is not only a reprobate, and an outcast from his Maker, but a determined and avowed enemy to his laws and government."

"You do not know what you say, daughter," said old Isaac, starting to his feet, and looking her sternly in the face. "If I again hear you presume to prejudge any accountable and immortal being in such a manner, I shall be more afraid of your own state than of his. While life remains, we are in a land where repentance is to be had and hoped for, and I will not hear the mercy of God arraigned. Bring me my cloak and my staff instantly, without another word. When I think of the country beyond the grave, and of the eternal fate that awaits this hapless prodigal, all my injuries vanish, and my trust in the Lord is strengthened anew. I shall at least pray with him, and for him; if he will not hear me, my Father who is in heaven may hear me, and haply He will open the victim's eyes to the hope that is set before him; for the hearts of all the children of men are in his hands, and as the rivers of water He turneth them whithersoever He pleaseth."

So old Isaac got his staff in his hand that had the head turned round like the horn of a cow, and also his cloak round his shoulders, not the tartan one with its gaudy spangles, but the grey marled one lined with green flannel. Well might old Isaac be partial to that cloak, for it was made for him by a beloved daughter who had been removed from him and from her family at the age of twenty-three. She was the mother of his two darlings, Isaac and Euphemia, mentioned before; and the feelings with which he put on the mantle that day can only be conceived by those who have learned to count all things but loss save Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and how few are the number who attain this sublime and sacred height!

"The blessing of him that is ready to perish shall light on the head of my father," said Matilda, as she followed with her eye the bent figure of the old man hasting with tottering steps over the moor, on the road that led to Shepherd Gawin's; and when he vanished from her view on the height, she wiped her eyes, drew the window screen, and applied herself to her work.

Isaac lost sight of his own home, and came in view of Shepherd Gawin's at the same instant; but he only gave a slight glance back to his own, for the concern that lay before him dwelt on his heart. It was a concern of life and death, not only of a temporal, but of a spiritual and eternal nature; and where the mortal concerns are centred, on that place, or towards that place, will the natural eye be turned. Isaac looked only at the dwelling before him: All wore a solemn stillness about the place that had so often resounded with rustic mirth; the cock crowed not at the door as was his wont, nor strutted on the top of his old dunghill, that had been accumulating there for ages, and had the appearance of a small green mountain; but he sat on the kail-yard dike, at the head of his mates, with his feathers ruffled, and every now and then his one eye turned up to the sky, as if watching some appearance there of which he stood in dread. The blithesome collies came not down the green to bark and frolic half in kindness and half in jealousy; they lay coiled up on the shelf of the hay-stack, and as the stranger approached, lifted up their heads and viewed him with a sullen and sleepy eye, then, uttering a low and stifled growl, muffled their heads again between their hind feet, and shrouded their social natures in the very depth of sullenness.

"This is either the abode of death, or deep mourning, or perhaps both," said old Isaac to himself, as he approached the house; "and all the domestic animals are affected by it, and join in the general dismay. If this young man has departed with the eyes of his understanding blinded, I have not been in the way of my duty. It is a hard case that a blemished lamb should be cast out of the flock, and no endeavour made by the shepherd to heal or recall it; that the poor stray thing should be left to perish, and lost to its Master's fold. It behoveth not a faithful shepherd to suffer this; and yet—Isaac, thou art the man! May the Lord pardon his servant in this thing!"

The scene continued precisely the same until Isaac reached the solitary dwelling. There was no one passing in or out by the door, nor any human creature to be seen stirring, save a little girl, one of the family, who had been away meeting the carrier to procure some medicines, and who approached the house by a different path. Isaac was first at the door, and on reaching it he heard a confused noise within, like the sounds of weeping and praying commingled. Unwilling to break in upon them, ignorant as he was how matters stood with the family, he paused, and then with a soft step retreated to meet the little girl that approached, and make some inquiries of her. She tried to elude him by running past him at a little distance, but he asked her to stop and tell him how all was within. She did not hear what he said, but guessing the purport of his inquiry, answered, "He's nae better, sir."—"Ah me! still in the same state of suffering?"—"Aih no,—no ae grain,—I tell ye he's nae better ava." And with that she stepped into the house, Isaac following close behind her, so that he entered without being either seen or announced. The first sounds that he could distinguish were the words of the dying youth; they had a hoarse whistling sound, but they were the words of wrath and indignation. As he crossed the hallan he perceived the sick man's brother, the next to him in age, sitting at the window with his elbow leaning on the table, and his head on his closed fist, while the tints of sorrow and anger seemed mingled on his blunt countenance. Farther on stood his mother and elder sister leaning on each other, and their eyes shaded with their hands, and close by the sick youth's bedside; beyond these kneeled old Gawin the shepherd, his fond and too indulgent father. He held the shrivelled hand of his son in his, and with the other that of a damsel who stood by his side: And Isaac heard him conjuring his son in the name of the God of heaven. Here old Isaac's voice interrupted the affecting scene. "Peace be to this house,—may the peace of the Almighty be within its walls," said he, with an audible voice. The two women uttered a stifled shriek, and the dying man a "Poh! poh!" of abhorrence. Old Gawin, though he did not rise from his knees, gazed round with amazement in his face; and looking first at his dying son, and then at old Isaac, he drew a full breath, and said, with a quivering voice, "Surely the hand of the Almighty is in this!"

There was still another object in the apartment well worthy of the attention of him who entered—it was the damsel who stood at the bedside; but then she stood with her back to Isaac, so that he could not see her face, and at the sound of his voice, she drew her cloak over her head, and retired behind the bed, sobbing so, that her bosom seemed like to rend. The cloak was similar to the one worn that day by old Isaac, for, be it remembered, he had not the gaudy tartan one about him, but the russet grey plaid made to him by his beloved daughter. Isaac saw the young woman retiring behind the bed, and heard her weeping; but a stroke like that of electricity seemed to have affected the nerves of all the rest of the family on the entrance of the good old man, so that his attention was attracted by those immediately under his eye. The mother and daughter whispered to each other in great perplexity. Old Gawin rose from his knees; and not knowing well what to say or do, he diligently wiped the dust from the knee-caps of his corduroy breeches, even descending to the minutiæ of scraping away some specks more adhesive than the rest, with the nail of his mid finger. No one welcomed the old man, and the dying youth in the bed grumbled these bitter words, "I see now on what errand Ellen was sent! Confound your officiousness!"

"No, Graham, you are mistaken. The child was at T——r to meet the carrier for your drogs," said old Gawin.

"Poh! poh! all of a piece with the rest of the stuff you have told me. Come hither, Ellen, and let me see what the doctor has sent."—The girl came near, and gave some vials with a sealed direction.

"So you got these at T——r, did you?"

"Yes, I got them from Jessy Clapperton; the carrier was away."

"Lying imp! who told you to say that? Answer me!"—The child was mute and looked frightened.—"Oh! I see how it is! You have done very well, my dear, very cleverly, you give very fair promise. Get me some clothes, pray—I will try if I can leave this house."

"Alas, my good friends, what is this?" said Isaac; "the young man's reason, I fear, is wavering. Good Gawin, why do you not give me your hand? I am extremely sorry for your son's great bodily sufferings, and for what you and your family must suffer mentally on his account. How are you?"

"Right weel, sir—as weel as may be expected," said Gawin, taking old Isaac's hand, but not once lifting his eyes from the ground to look the good man in the face.

"And how are you, good dame?" continued Isaac, shaking hands with the old woman.

"Right weel, thanks t'ye, sir. It is a cauld day this. Ye'll be cauld?"

"Oh no, I rather feel warm."

"Ay, ye have a comfortable plaid for a day like this; a good plaid it is."

"I like to hear you say so, Agnes, for that plaid was a Christmas present to me, from one who has now been several years in the cold grave. It was made to me by my kind and beloved daughter Euphy. But enough of this—I see you have some mantles in the house of the very same kind."

"No; not the same. We have none of the same here."

"Well, the same or nearly so,—it is all one. My sight often deceives me now."—The family all looked at one another.—"But enough of this," continued old Isaac, "I came not thus far to discuss such matters. The sick young man, from what I heard, I fear, is incapable of spiritual conversation?"

"Yes, I am," said he, from the bed, with a squeaking voice; "and I would this moment that I were dead! Why don't you give me my clothes? Sure never was a poor unfortunate being tormented as I am! Won't you have pity on me, and let me have a little peace for a short time? It is not long I will trouble you. Is it not mean and dastardly in you all to combine against an object that cannot defend himself?"

"Alack, alack!" said old Isaac, "the calmness of reason is departed for the present. I came to converse a little with him on that which concerns his peace here, and his happiness hereafter: to hold the mirror up to his conscience, and point out an object to him, of which, if he take not hold, all his hope is a wreck."

"I knew it! I knew it!" vociferated the sick man. "A strong and great combination: but I'll defeat it,—ha, ha, ha! I tell you, Father Confessor, I have no right or part in the object you talk of. I will have no farther concern with her. She shall have no more of me than you shall have. If the devil should have all, that is absolute—Will that suffice?"

"Alas! he is not himself," said old Isaac, "and has nearly been guilty of blasphemy. We must not irritate him farther. All that we can do is to join in prayer that the Lord will lay no more upon him than he is able to bear, that he will heal his wounded spirit, and restore him to the use of reason; and that, in the midst of his wanderings, should he blaspheme, the sin may not be laid to his charge."

Gawin was about to speak, and explain something that apparently affected him; the dying youth had likewise raised himself on his elbow, and, with an angry countenance, was going to reply; but when the old man took off his broad-brimmed hat, and discovered the wrinkled forehead and the thin snowy hair waving around it, the sight was so impressive that silence was imposed on every tongue. He sung two stanzas of a psalm, read a chapter of the New Testament, and then kneeling by the bedside, prayed for about half an hour, with such fervency of devotion, that all the family were deeply affected. It was no common-place prayer, nor one so general that it suited any case of distress; every sentence of it spoke home to the heart, and alluded particularly to the very state of him for whom the petitions were addressed to heaven. Old Gawin gave two or three short sighs, which his wife hearing, she wiped her eyes with her apron. Their fair daughter made the same sort of noise that one does who takes snuff, and the innocent youth, their second son, who leaned forward on the table instead of kneeling, let two tears fall on the board, which he formed with his fore-finger into the initials of his name; the little girl looked from one to another, and wondered what ailed them all, then casting down her eyes, she tried to look devout, but they would not be restrained. The dying youth, who at the beginning testified the utmost impatience, by degrees became the most affected of all. His features first grew composed, then rueful, and finally he turned himself on his face in humble prostration. Isaac pleaded fervently with the Almighty that the sufferer's days might be lengthened, and that he might not be cut off in the bloom of youth, and exuberance of levity—at that season when man is more apt to speak than calculate, and to act than consider, even though speech should be crime, and action irretrievable ruin. "Spare and recover him, O merciful Father, yet for a little while," said be, "that he may have his eyes opened to see his ruined state both by nature and by wicked works; for who among us liveth and sinneth not, and what changes may be made in his dispositions in a few years or a few months by thy forbearance? Thou takest no pleasure in the death of sinners, but rather that all should repent, and turn unto thee, and live; therefore, for his immortal soul's sake, and for the sake of what thy Son hath suffered for ruined man, spare him till he have time and space to repent. Should his youthful mind have been tainted with the prevailing vice of infidelity, so that he hath been tempted to lift up his voice against the most sacred truths; and should he, like all the profane, have been following his inclinations rather than his judgment, how is he now prepared to abide the final result? or to be ushered into the very midst of those glorious realities which he hath hitherto treated as a fiction? And how shall he stand before thee, when he discovers, too late, that there is indeed a God, whose being and attributes he hath doubted, a Saviour whom he hath despised, a heaven into which he cannot enter, and a hell which he can never escape? Perhaps he hath been instrumental in unhinging the principles of others, and of misleading some unwary being from the paths of truth and holiness; and in the flush of reckless depravity, may even have deprived some innocent, loving, and trusting being of virtue, and left her a prey to sorrow and despair; and with these and more grievous crimes on his head,—all unrepented and unatoned,—how shall he appear before thee?"

At this part of the prayer, the sobs behind the bed became so audible, that it made the old man pause in the midst of his fervent supplications; and the dying youth was heard to weep in suppressed breathings. Isaac went on, and prayed still for the sufferer as one insensible to all that passed; but he prayed so earnestly for his forgiveness, for the restoration of his right reason, and for health and space for repentance and amendment, that the sincerity of his heart was apparent in every word and every tone.

When he rose from his knees there was a deep silence; no one knew what to say, or to whom to address himself; for the impression made on all their minds was peculiarly strong. The only motion made for a good while was by the soft young man at the table, who put on his bonnet as he was wont to do after prayers; but remembering that the Minister was present, he slipped it off again by the ear, as if he had been stealing it from his own head. At that instant the dying youth stretched out his hand. Isaac saw it, and looking to his mother, said he wanted something. "It is yours—your hand that I want," said the youth, in a kind and expressive tone. Isaac started, he had judged him to be in a state of delirium, and his surprise may be conceived when he heard him speak with calmness and composure. He gave him his hand, but from what he had heard fall from his lips before, knew not how to address him. "You are a good man," said the youth, "God in heaven reward you!"

"What is this I hear?" cried Isaac, breathless with astonishment. "Have the disordered senses been rallied in one moment? Have our unworthy prayers indeed been heard at the throne of Omnipotence, and answered so suddenly? Let us bow ourselves with gratitude and adoration. And for thee, my dear young friend, be of good cheer; for there are better things intended towards thee. Thou shalt yet live to repent of thy sins, and to become a chosen vessel of mercy in the house of him that saved thee."

"If I am spared in life for a little while," said the youth, "I shall make atonement for some of my transgressions, for the enormity of which I am smitten to the heart."

"Trust to no atonement you can make of yourself," cried Isaac fervently. "It is a bruised reed, to which, if you lean, it will go into your hand and pierce it; a shelter that will not break the blast. You must trust to a higher atonement, else your repentance shall be as stubble, or as chaff that the wind carrieth away."

"So disinterested!" exclaimed the youth. "Is it my wellbeing alone over which your soul yearns? This is more than I expected to meet with in humanity! Good father, I am unable to speak more to you to-day, but give me your hand, and promise to come back to see me on Friday. If I am spared in life, you shall find me all that you wish, and shall never more have to charge me with ingratitude."

In the zeal of his devotion, Isaac had quite forgot all personal injuries; he did not even remember that there were such beings as his grandchildren in existence at that time; but when the young man said, that "he should find him all that he wished, and that he would no more be ungrateful," the sobs and weeping behind the bed grew so audible, that all farther exchange of sentiments was interrupted. The youth grasped old Isaac's hand, and motioned for him to go away; and he was about to comply, out of respect for the feelings of the sufferer, but before he could withdraw his hand from the bed, or rise from the seat on which he had just sat down, the weeping fair one burst from behind the bed; and falling on his knees with her face, she seized his hand with both hers, kissed it an hundred times, and bathed it all over with her tears. Isaac's heart was at all times soft, and at that particular time he was in a mood to be melted quite; he tried to soothe the damsel, though he himself was as much affected as she was—but as her mantle was still over her head, how could he know her? His old dim eyes were, moreover, so much suffused with tears, that he did not perceive that mantle to be the very same with his own, and that one hand must have been the maker of both. "Be comforted," said old Isaac; "he will mend—He will mend, and be yet a stay to you and to them all—be of good comfort, dear love."

When he had said this, he wiped his eyes hastily and impatiently with the lap of his plaid, seized his old pike-staff; and as he tottered across the floor, drawing up his plaid around his waist, its purple rustic colours caught his eye, dim as it was; and he perceived that it was not his tartan one with the gaudy spangles, but the grey marled one that was made to him by his beloved daughter. Who can trace the links of association in the human mind? The chain is more angled, more oblique, than the course marked out by the bolt of heaven—as momentarily formed, and as quickly lost. In all cases, they are indefinable, but on the mind of old age, they glance like dreams and visions of something that have been, and are for ever gone. The instant that Isaac's eye fell on his mantle, he looked hastily and involuntarily around him, first on the one side and then on the other, his visage manifesting trepidation and uncertainty. "Pray what have you lost, sir?" said the kind and officious dame. "I cannot tell what it was that I missed," said old Isaac, "but methought I felt as if I had left something behind me that was mine." Isaac went away, but left not a dry eye in the dwelling which he quitted.

On leaving the cottage he was accompanied part of the way by Gawin, in whose manner there still remained an unaccountable degree of embarrassment. His conversation laboured under a certain restraint, insomuch that Isaac, who was an observer of human nature, could not help taking notice of it; but those who have never witnessed, in the same predicament, a home-bred, honest countryman, accustomed to speak his thoughts freely at all times, can form no conception of the appearance that Gawin made. From the time that the worthy old man first entered his cot, till the time they parted again on the height, Gawin's lips were curled, the one up, and the other down, leaving an inordinate extent of teeth and gums displayed between them; whenever his eyes met those of his companion, they were that instant withdrawn, and, with an involuntary motion, fixed on the summit of some of the adjacent hills; and when they stopped to converse, Gawin was always laying on the ground with his staff, or beating some unfortunate thistle all to pieces. The one family had suffered an injury from the other, of a nature so flagrant in Gawin's eyes, that his honest heart could not brook it; and yet so delicate was the subject, that when he essayed to mention it, his tongue refused the office. "There has a sair misfortune happened," said he once, "that ye aiblins dinna ken o'.—But it's nae matter ava!" And with that he fell on and beat a thistle, or some other opposing shrub, most unmercifully.

There was, however, one subject on which he spoke with energy, and that was the only one in which old Isaac was for the time interested. It was his son's religious state of mind. He told Isaac, that he had formed a correct opinion of the youth, and that he was indeed a scoffer at religion, because it had become fashionable in certain college classes, where religion was never mentioned but with ridicule; but that his infidelity sprung from a perverse and tainted inclination, in opposition to his better judgment, and that if he could have been brought at all to think or reason on the subject, he would have thought and reasoned aright; this, however, he had avoided by every means, seeming horrified at the very mention of the subject, and glad to escape from the tormenting ideas that it brought in its train.—"Even the sight of your face to-day," continued Gawin, "drove him into a fit of temporary derangement. But from the unwonted docility he afterwards manifested, I have high hopes that this visit of yours will be accompanied by the blessing of Heaven. He has been a dear lad to me; for the sake of getting him forret in his lair, I hae pinched baith mysell and a' my family, and sitten down wi' them to mony a poor and scrimpit meal. But I never grudged that, only I hae whiles been grieved that the rest o' my family hae gotten sae little justice in their schooling. And yet, puir things, there has never ane o' them grieved my heart,—which he has done aftener than I like to speak o'. It has pleased Heaven to punish me for my partiality to him; but I hae naething for it but submission.—Ha! do ye ken, sir, that that day I first saw him mount a poopit, and heard him begin a discourse to a croudit congregation, I thought a' my pains and a' my pinching poverty overpaid. For the first quarter of an hour I was sae upliftit, that I hardly kenn'd whether I was sitting, standing, or flying in the air, or whether the kirk was standing still, or rinning round about. But, alake! afore the end o' his twa discourses, my heart turned as cauld as lead, and it has never again hett in my breast sinsyne. They were twa o' thae cauldrife moral harangues, that tend to uplift poor wrecked, degenerate human nature, and rin down divine grace. There was nae dependence to be heard tell o' there, beyond the weak arm o' sinfu' flesh; and oh, I thought to mysell, that will afford sma' comfort, my man, to either you or me, at our dying day!"

Here the old shepherd became so much overpowered, that he could not proceed, and old Isaac took up the discourse, and administered comfort to the sorrowing father: then shaking him kindly by the hand, he proceeded on his way, while Gawin returned slowly homeward, still waging war with every intrusive and superfluous shrub in his path. He was dissatisfied with himself because he had not spoken his mind to a person who so well deserved his confidence, on a subject that most of all preyed on his heart.

Matilda, who sat watching the path by which her father was to return home, beheld him as soon as he came in view, and continued to watch him all the way with that tender solicitude which is only prompted by the most sincere and disinterested love.—"With what agility he walks!" exclaimed she to herself; "bless me, sirs, he is running! He is coming pacing down yon green sward as if he were not out of his teens yet. I hope he has been successful in his mission, and prevailed with that abandoned profligate to make some amends to my hapless niece."

How different are the views of different persons! and how various the objects of their pursuit! Isaac thought of no such thing. He rejoiced only in the goodness and mercy of his Maker, and had high hopes that he would make him (unworthy as he was) instrumental in gaining over an immortal soul to Heaven and happiness. He sung praises to Heaven in his heart, and the words of gratitude and thankfulness hung upon his tongue. His daughter never took her eye from him, in his approach to his little mansion. Her whole dependence was on her father—her whole affection was centred in him: she had been taught from her infancy to regard him as the first and best of men; and though she had now lived with him forty years, he had never in one instance done an action to lessen that esteem, or deface that pure image of uprightness and sincerity, which her affectionate heart had framed. When he came in, her watchful kindness assailed him in a multitude of ways—every thing was wrong; she would have it that his feet were damp, although he assured her of the contrary—his right-hand sleeve was wringing wet; and there was even a dampness between his shoulders, which was exceedingly dangerous, as it was so nearly opposite the heart. In short, old Isaac's whole apparel had to be shifted piecemeal, though not without some strong remonstrances on his part, and the good-natured quotation, several times repeated, from the old song:

"Nought's to be won at woman's hand,
Unless ye gie her a' the plea."

When she had got him all made comfortable to her mind, and his feet placed in slippers well-toasted before the fire, she then began her inquiries. "How did you find all at Gawin's to-day, now when I have gotten time to speir?"

"Why, daughter Matty, poorly enough, very poorly. But, thanks be to God, I think I left them somewhat better than I found them."

"I am so glad to hear that! I hope you have taken Graham over the coals about Phemy?"

"Eh! about Phemy?"

"You know what I told you before you went away? You were not so unnatural as to forget your own flesh and blood, in communing with the man who has wronged her?"

"I did not think more of the matter; and if I had, there would have been no propriety in mentioning it, as none of the family spoke of it to me. And how was I assured that there was no mis-statement? Women are always so rash-spoken, and so fond of exaggeration, that I am afraid to trust them at the first word; and besides, my dear Matty, you know they are apt to see things double sometimes."

"Well, my dear father, I must say that your wit, or raillery, is very ill timed, considering whom it relates to. Your grand-daughter has been most basely deceived, under a pretence of marriage; and yet you will break your jokes on the subject!"

"You know, Matty, I never broke a joke on such a subject in my life. It was you whom I was joking; for your news cannot always be depended on. If I were to take up every amour in the parish, upon the faith of your first hints, and to take the delinquents over the coals, as you recommend, I should often commit myself sadly."

Matilda was silenced. She asked for no instances, in order to deny the insinuation; but she murmured some broken sentences, like one who has been fairly beat in an argument, but is loath to yield. It was rather a hard subject for the good lady; for ever since she had bidden adieu to her thirtieth year, she had become exceedingly jealous of the conduct of the younger portion of her sex. But Isaac was too kind-hearted to exult in a severe joke; he instantly added, as a palliative, "But I should hold my tongue. You have many means of hearing, and coming to the truth of such matters, that I have not."

"I wish this were false, however," said Matilda, turning away her face from the fire, lest the flame should scorch her cheek; "but I shall say no more about it, and neither, I suppose, will you, till it be out of time. Perhaps it may not be true, for I heard, since you went away, that she was to be there to-day, by appointment of his parents, to learn his final determination, which may be as much without foundation as the other part of the story. If she had been there, you must have seen her, you know."

"Eh?" said Isaac, after biting his lip, and making a long pause; "What did you say, daughter Matty? Did you say my Phemy was to have been there to-day?"

"I heard such a report, which must have been untrue, because, had she been there, you would have met with her."

"There was a lass yonder," said Isaac. "How many daughters has Gawin?"

"Only one who is come the length of woman, and whom you see in the kirk every day capering with her bobbs of crimson ribbons, and looking at Will Ferguson."

"It is a pity women are always so censorious," said Isaac—"always construing small matters the wrong way. It is to be hoped these little constitutional failings will not be laid to their charge.—So Gawin has but one daughter?"

"I said, one that is a grown-up woman. He has, besides, little Ellen; a pert idle creature, who has an eye in her head that will tell tales some day."

"Then there was indeed another damsel," said old Isaac, "whom I did not know, but took her for one of the family. Alake, and wo is me! Could I think it was my own dear child hanging over the couch of a dying man! The girl that I saw was in tears, and deeply affected. She even seized my hand, and bathed it with tears. What could she think of me, who neither named nor kissed her, but that I had cast her off and renounced her? But no, no, I can never do that; I will forgive her as heartily as I would beg for her forgiveness at the throne of mercy. We are all fallible and offending creatures; and a young maid, that grows up as a willow by the water-courses, and who is in the flush of youth and beauty, ere ever she has had a moment's time for serious reflection, or one trial of worldly experience—that such a one should fall a victim to practised guilt, is a consequence so natural, that, however deeply to be regretted, it is not matter of astonishment. Poor misguided Phemy! Did you indeed kneel at my knee, and bathe my hand with your affectionate tears, without my once deigning to acknowledge you? And yet how powerful are the workings of nature! They are indeed the workings of the Deity himself: for when I arose, all unconscious of the presence of my child, and left her weeping, I felt as if I had left a part of my body and blood behind me."

"So she was indeed there, whining and whimpering over her honourable lover?" said Matilda. "I wish I had been there, to have told her a piece of my mind! The silly, inconsiderate being, to allow herself to be deprived of fair fame and character by such a worthless profligate, bringing disgrace on all connected with her! And then to go whimpering over his sick-bed!—O dear love, you must marry me, or I am undone! I have loved you with all my heart, you know, and you must make me your wife. I am content to beg my bread with you, now that I have loved you so dearly! only you must marry me. Oh dear! Oh dear! what shall become of me else!"

"Dear daughter Matilda, where is the presumptuous being of the fallen race of Adam who can say, Here will I stand in my own strength? What will the best of us do, if left to ourselves, better than the erring, inexperienced being, whose turning aside you so bitterly censure? It is better that we lament the sins and failings of our relatives, my dear Matty, than rail against them, putting ourselves into sinful passion, and thereby adding one iniquity to another."

The argument was kept up all that evening, and all next day, with the same effect; and if either of the disputants had been asked what it was about, neither could have told very precisely: the one attached a blame, which the other did not deny; only there were different ways of speaking about it. On the third day, which was Friday, old Isaac appeared at breakfast in his Sunday clothes, giving thus an intimation of a second intended visit to the house of Gawin the shepherd. The first cup of tea was scarcely poured out, till the old subject was renewed, and the debate seasoned with a little more salt than was customary between the two amiable disputants. Matilda disapproved of the visit, and tried, by all the eloquence she was mistress of, to make it appear indecorous. Isaac defended it on the score of disinterestedness and purity of intention; but finding himself hard pressed, he brought forward his promise, and the impropriety of breaking it. Matty would not give up her point; she persisted in it, till she spoiled her father's breakfast, made his hand shake so, that he could scarcely put the cup to his head, and, after all, staggered his resolution so much, that at last he sat in silence, and Matty got all to say herself. She now accounted the conquest certain, and valuing herself on the influence she possessed, she began to overburden her old father with all manner of kindness and teasing officiousness. Would he not take this, and refrain from that, and wear one part of dress in preference to another that he had on? There was no end of controversy with Isaac, however kind might be the intent. All that he said at that time was, "Let me alone, dear Matty; let me have some peace. Women are always overwise—always contrary."

When matters were at this pass, the maid-servant came into the room, and announced that a little girl of shepherd Gawin's wanted to speak with the Minister. "Alas, I fear the young man will be at his rest!" said Isaac. Matilda grew pale, and looked exceedingly alarmed, and only said, "she hoped not." Isaac inquired of the maid, but she said the girl refused to tell her any thing, and said she had orders not to tell a word of aught that had happened about the house.

"Then something has happened," said Isaac. "It must be as I feared! Send the little girl ben."

Ellen came into the parlour with a beck as quick and as low as that made by the water ouzel, when standing on a stone in the middle of the water; and, without waiting for any inquiries, began her speech on the instant, with, "Sir—hem—heh—my father sent me, sir—hem—to tell ye that ye warna to forget your promise to come ower the day, for that there's muckle need for yer helping hand yonder—sir; that's a', sir."

"You may tell your father," said Isaac, "that I will come as soon as I am able. I will be there by twelve o'clock, God willing."

"Are you wise enough, my dear father, to send such a message?" remonstrated Matilda. "You are not able to go a journey to-day. I thought I had said enough about that before.—You may tell your father," continued she, turning to Ellen, "that my father cannot come the length of his house to-day."

"I'll tell my father what the Minister bade me," replied the girl. "I'll say, sir, that ye'll be there by twall o'clock;—will I, sir?"

"Yes, by twelve o'clock," said Isaac.

Ellen had no sooner made her abrupt curtsey, and left the room, than Matilda, with the desperation of a general who sees himself on the point of being driven from a position which it had cost him much exertion to gain, again opened the fire of her eloquence upon her father. "Were I you," said she, "I would scorn to enter their door, after the manner in which the profligate villain has behaved: first, to make an acquaintance with your grandson at the College—pervert all his ideas of rectitude and truth—then go home with him to his father's house, during the vacation, and there live at heck and manger, no lady being in the house save your simple and unsuspecting Phemy, who now is reduced to the necessity of going to a shepherd's cottage, and begging to be admitted to the alliance of a family, the best of whom is far beneath her, to say nothing of the unhappy individual in question. Wo is me, that I have seen the day!"

"If the picture be correctly drawn, it is indeed very bad; but I hope the recent sufferings of the young man will have the effect of restoring him to the principles in which he was bred, and to a better sense of his heinous offences. I must go and see how the family fares, as in duty and promise bound. Content yourself, dear daughter. It may be that the unfortunate youth has already appeared at that bar from which there is no appeal."

This consideration, as it again astounded, so it put to silence the offended dame, who suffered her father to depart on his mission of humanity without farther opposition; and old Isaac again set out, meditating as he went, and often conversing with himself, on the sinfulness of man, and the great goodness of God. So deeply was he wrapt in contemplation, that he scarcely cast an eye over the wild mountain scenery by which he was surrounded, but plodded on his way, with eyes fixed on the ground, till he approached the cottage. He was there aroused from his reverie, by the bustle that appeared about the door. The scene was changed indeed from that to which he introduced himself two days before. The collies came yelping and wagging their tails to meet him, while the inmates of the dwelling were peeping out at the door, and as quickly vanishing again into the interior. There were also a pair or two of neighbouring shepherds sauntering about the side of the kail-yard dike, all dressed in their Sunday apparel, and every thing bespeaking some "occasion," as any uncommon occurrence is generally denominated.

"What can it be that is astir here to-day?" said Isaac to himself.—"Am I brought here to a funeral or corpse-chesting, without being apprised of the event? It must be so. What else can cause such a bustle about a house where trouble has so long prevailed? Ah! there is also old Robinson, my session-clerk and precentor. He is the true emblem of mortality: then it is indeed all over with the poor young man!"

Now Robinson had been at so many funerals all over the country, and was so punctual in his attendance on all within his reach, that to see him pass, with his staff, and black coat without the collar, was the very same thing as if a coffin had gone by. A burial was always a good excuse for giving the boys the play, for a refreshing walk into the country, and was, besides, a fit opportunity for moral contemplation, not to say any thing of hearing the country news. But there was also another motive, which some thought was the most powerful inducement of any with the old Dominie. It arose from that longing desire after preeminence which reigns in every human breast, and which no man fails to improve, however small the circle may be in which it can be manifested. At every funeral, in the absence of the Minister, Robinson was called on to say grace; and when they were both present, whenever the Parson took up his station in one apartment, the Dominie took up his in another, and thus had an equal chance, for the time, with his superior. It was always shrewdly suspected, that the Clerk tried to outdo the Minister on such occasions, and certainly made up in length what he wanted in energy. The general remarks on this important point amounted to this, "that the Dominie was langer than the Minister, and though he was hardly just sae conceese, yet he meant as weel;" and that, "for the maist part, he was stronger on the grave." Suffice it, that the appearance of old Robinson, in the present case, confirmed Isaac in the belief of the solemnity of the scene awaiting him; and as his mind was humbled to acquiesce in the Divine will, his mild and reverend features were correspondent therewith. He thought of the disappointment and sufferings of the family, and had already begun in his heart to intercede for them at the throne of Mercy.

When he came near to the house, out came old Gawin himself. He had likewise his black coat on, and his Sunday bonnet, and a hand in each coat-pocket; but for all his misfortune and heavy trials, he strode to the end of the house with a firm and undismayed step.—Ay, he is quite right, thought Isaac to himself; that man has his trust where it should be, fixed on the Rock of Ages; and he has this assurance, that the Power on whom he trusts can do nothing wrong. Such a man can look death in the face, undismayed, in all his steps and inroads.

Gawin spoke to some of his homely guests, then turned round, and came to meet Isaac, whom he saluted, by taking off his bonnet, and shaking him heartily by the hand.—The bond of restraint had now been removed from Gawin's lips, and his eye met the Minister's with the same frankness it was wont. The face of affairs was changed since they had last parted.

"How's a' w'ye the day, sir?—How's a' w'ye?—I'm unco blythe to see ye," said Gawin.

"Oh, quite well, thank you. How are you yourself? And how are all within?"

"As weel as can be expectit, sir—as weel as can be expectit."

"I am at a little loss, Gawin—Has any change taken place in family circumstances since I was here?"

"Oh, yes; there has indeed, sir; a material change—I hope for the better."

Gawin now led the way, without further words, into the house, desiring the Minister to follow him, and "tak' care o' his head and the bauks, and no fa' ower the bit stirk, for it was sure to be lying i' the dark."

When Isaac went in, there was no one there but the goodwife, neatly dressed in her black stuff gown, and check apron, with a close 'kerchief on her head, well crimped in the border, and tied round the crown and below the chin with a broad black ribbon. She also saluted the Minister with uncommon frankness—"Come away, sir, come away. Dear, dear, how are ye the day? It's but a slaitery kind o' day this, as I was saying to my man, there; Dear, dear, Gawin, says I, I wish the Minister may be nae the waur o' coming ower the muir the day. That was joost what I said. And dear, dear, sir, how's Miss Matty, sir? Oh, it is lang sin' I hae seen her. I like aye to see Miss Matty, ye ken, to get a rattle frae her about the folk, ye ken, and a' our neighbours, that fa' into sinfu' gates; for there's muckle sin gangs on i' the parish. Ah, ay! I wat weel that's very true, Miss Matty, says I. But what can folk help it? ye ken, folk are no a' made o' the same metal, as the airn tangs,—like you——"

—"Bless me with patience!" said Isaac in his heart; "this poor woman's misfortunes have crazed her! What a salutation for the house of mourning!" Isaac looked to the bed, at the side of which he had so lately kneeled in devotion, and he looked with a reverent dread, but the corpse was not there! It was neatly spread with a clean coverlid.—It is best to conceal the pale and ghostly features of mortality from the gazer's eye, thought Isaac. It is wisely done, for there is nothing to be seen in them but what is fitted for corruption.

"Gawin, can nae ye tak' the Minister ben the house, or the rest o' the clanjamphery come in?" said the talkative dame.—"Hout, ay, sir, step your ways ben the house. We hae a ben end and a but end the day, as weel as the best o' them. And ye're ane o' our ain folk, ye ken. Ah, ay! I wat weel that's very true! As I said to my man, Gawin, quo' I, whenever I see our Minister's face, I think I see the face of a friend."

"Gudewife, I hae but just ae word to say, by way o' remark," said Gawin; "folk wha count afore the change-keeper, hae often to count twice, and sae has the herd, wha counts his hogs afore Beltan.—Come this way, sir; follow me, and tak' care o' your head and the bauks."

Isaac followed into the rustic parlour, where he was introduced to one he little expected to see sitting there. This was no other than the shepherd's son, who had so long been attended on as a dying person, and with whom Isaac had so lately prayed, in the most fervent devotion, as with one of whose life little hope was entertained. There he sat, with legs like two poles, hands like the hands of a skeleton; yet his emaciated features were lighted up with a smile of serenity and joy. Isaac was petrified. He stood still on the spot, even though the young man rose up to receive him. He deemed he had come there to see his lifeless form laid in the coffin, and to speak words of comfort to the survivors. He was taken by surprise, and his heart thrilled with unexpected joy.

"My dear young friend, do I indeed see you thus?" he said, taking him kindly and gently by the hand. "God has been merciful to you, above others of your race. I hope, in the mercy that has saved you from the gates of death, that you feel grateful for your deliverance; for, trust me, it behoves you to do so, in no ordinary degree."

"I shall never be able to feel as I ought, either to my deliverer or to yourself," said he. "Till once I heard the words of truth and seriousness from your mouth, I have not dared, for these many years, to think my own thoughts, speak my own words, or perform the actions to which my soul inclined. I have been a truant from the school of truth; but have now returned, with all humility, to my Master, for I feel that I have been like a wayward boy, groping in the dark, to find my way, though a path splendidly lighted up lay open for me. But of these things I long exceedingly to converse with you, at full length and full leisure. In the meantime, let me introduce you to other friends who are longing for some little notice. This is my sister, sir; and—shake hands with the Minister, Jane—And do you know this young lady, sir, with the mantle about her, who seems to expect a word from you, acknowledging old acquaintance?"

"My eyes are grown so dim now," said old Isaac, "that it is with difficulty I can distinguish young people from one another, unless they speak to me. But she will not look up. Is this my dear young friend, Miss Mary Sibbet?"

"Nay, sir, it is not she. But I think, as you two approach one another, your plaids appear very nearly the same."

"Phemy! My own child Phemy! Is it yourself? Why did you not speak?—But you have been an alien of late, and a stranger to me. Ah, Phemy! Phemy! I have been hearing bad news of you. But I did not believe them—no, I would not believe them."

Euphemia for a while uttered not a word, but keeping fast hold of her grandfather's hand, she drew it under her mantle, and crept imperceptibly a degree nearer to his breast. The old man waited for some reply, standing as in the act of listening; till at length, in a trembling whisper, scarcely audible, she repeated these sacred words—"Father, forgive me, for I knew not what I did!" The expression had the effect desired on Isaac's mind. It brought to his remembrance that gracious petition, the most fully fraught with mercy and forgiveness that ever was uttered on earth, and bowed his whole soul at once to follow the pattern of his great Master. His eye beamed with exultation in his Redeemer's goodness, and he answered, "Yes, my child, yes. He whose words you have unworthily taken, will not refuse the petition of any of his repentant children, however great their enormities may have been; and why should such a creature as I am presume to pretend indignation and offence, at aught further than his high example warrants? May the Almighty forgive you as I do!"

"May Heaven bless and reward you!" said the young man. "But she is blameless—blameless as the babe on the knee. I alone am the guilty person, who infringed the rights of hospitality, and had nearly broken the bonds of confidence and love. But I am here to-day to make, or offer at least, what amends is in my power—to offer her my hand in wedlock; that whether I live or die, she may live without dishonour. But, reverend sir, all depends on your fiat. Without your approbation she will consent to nothing; saying, that she had offended deeply by taking her own will once, but nought should ever induce her to take it unadvisedly again. It was for this purpose that we sent for you so expressly to-day, namely, that I might entreat your consent to our union. I could not be removed from home, so that we could not all meet, to know one another's mind, in any other place. We therefore await your approbation with earnest anxiety, as that on which our future happiness depends."

After some mild and impressive reprehensions, Isaac's consent was given in the most unqualified manner, and the names were given in to the old Dominie's hand, with proper vouchers, for the publication of the bans. The whole party dined together at old Gawin's. I was there among the rest, and thought to enjoy the party exceedingly; but the party was too formal, and too much on the reserve before the Minister. I noted down, when I went home, all the conversation, as far as I could remember it, but it is not worth copying. I see that Gawin's remarks are all measured and pompous, and, moreover, delivered in a sort of bastard English, a language which I detest. He considered himself as now to be nearly connected with the Manse Family, and looking forward to an eldership in the church, deemed it incumbent on him to talk in a most sage and instructive manner. The young shepherd, and an associate of his, talked of dogs, Cheviot tups, and some remarkably bonny lasses that sat in the west gallery of the church. John Grierson of the Hope recited what they called "lang skelps o' metre," a sort of homely rhymes, that some of them pronounced to be "far ayont Burns's fit." And the goodwife ran bustling about; but whenever she could get a little leisure, she gave her tongue free vent, without regard either to Minister or Dominie. She was too well trained in the old homely Scotch, to attempt any of the flights, which to Gawin, who was more sparing in his speech, were more easy to be accomplished. "Dear, dear, sirs, can nae ye eat away? Ye hae nae the stamacks o' as mony cats. Dear, dear, I'm sure an the flesh be nae good, it sude be good, for it never saw either braxy or breakwind, bleer-ee nor Beltan pock, but was the cantiest crock o' the Kaim-law. Dear, dear, Johnie Grierson, tak' another rive o't, and set a good example; as I said to my man there, Gawin, says I, it's weel kenn'd ye're nae flae-bitten about the gab; and I said very true too."

Many such rants did she indulge in, always reminding her guests that "it was a names-gieing-in, whilk was, o' a' ither things, the ane neist to a wedding," and often hinting at their new and honourable alliance, scarcely even able to keep down the way in which it was brought about; for she once went so far as to say, "As I said to my gudeman, Gawin, says I, for a' the fy-gae-to ye hae made, it's weel kenn'd faint heart never wan fair lady. Ay, weel I wat, that's very true, says I; a bird in the hand is worth twa on the bush.—Won a' to and fill yoursells, sirs; there's routh o' mair where that came frae. It's no aye the fattest foddering that mak's the fu'est aumry—and that's nae lee."

Miss Matilda, the Minister's maiden daughter, was in towering indignation about the marriage, and the connexion with a shepherd's family; and it was rumoured over all the parish that she would never countenance her niece any more. How matters went at first it is perhaps as well for Miss Matilda's reputation, in point of good-nature, that I am not able to say; but the last time I was at the Manse, the once profligate and freethinking student had become Helper to old Isaac, and was beloved and revered by all the parish, for the warmth of his devotion, and soundness of his principles. His amiable wife Euphemia had two sons, and their aunt Matty was nursing them with a fondness and love beyond that which she bore to life itself.

In conclusion, I have only further to remark, that I have always considered the prayers of that good old man as having been peculiarly instrumental in saving a wretched victim, not only from immediate death, but from despair of endless duration.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SCHOOL OF MISFORTUNE.

The various ways in which misfortunes affect different minds, are often so opposite, that in contemplating them, we may well be led to suppose the human soul animated and directed in some persons by corporeal functions, formed after a different manner from those of others—persons of the same family frequently differing most widely in this respect.

It will appear, on a philosophic scrutiny of human feelings, that the extremes of laughing and crying are more nearly allied than is sometimes believed. With children, the one frequently dwindles, or breaks out into the other. I once happened to sit beside a negro, in the pit of the Edinburgh theatre, while the tragedy of Douglas was performing. As the dialogue between Old Norval and Lady Randolph proceeded, he grew more and more attentive; his eyes grew very large, and seemed set immovably in one direction; the tears started from them; his features went gradually awry; his under-lip curled and turned to one side; and just when I expected that he was going to cry outright, he burst into the most violent fit of laughter.

I have a female friend, on whom unfortunate accidents have the singular effect of causing violent laughter, which, with her, is much better proportioned to the calamity, than crying is with many others of the sex. I have seen the losing of a rubber at whist, when there was every probability that her party would gain it, cause her to laugh till her eyes streamed with tears. The breaking of a tureen, or set of valuable china, would quite convulse her. Danger always makes her sing, and misfortunes laugh. If we hear her in any apartment of the farm-house, or the offices, singing very loud, and very quick, we are sure something is on the point of going wrong with her; but if we hear her burst out a-laughing, we know that it is past redemption. Her memory is extremely defective; indeed she scarcely seems to retain any perfect recollection of past events; but her manners are gentle, easy, and engaging; her temper good, and her humour inexhaustible; and, with all her singularities, she certainly enjoys a greater share of happiness than her chequered fortune could possibly have bestowed on a mind differently constituted.

I have another near relation, who, besides being possessed of an extensive knowledge in literature, and a refined taste, is endowed with every qualification requisite to constitute the valuable friend, the tender parent, and the indulgent husband; yet his feelings, and his powers of conception, are so constructed, as to render him a constant prey to corroding care. No man can remain many days in his company without saying, in his heart, "that man was made to be unhappy." What others view as slight misfortunes, affect him deeply; and in the event of any such happening to himself, or those that are dear to him, he will groan from his inmost soul, perhaps for a whole evening after it first comes to his knowledge, and occasionally, for many days afterwards, as the idea recurs to him. Indeed, he never wants something to make him miserable; for, on being made acquainted with any favourable turn of fortune, the only mark of joy that it produces is an involuntary motion of the one hand to scratch the other elbow; and his fancy almost instantaneously presents to him such a number of difficulties, dangers, and bad consequences attending it, that though I have often hoped to awake him to joy by my tidings, I always left him more miserable than I found him.

I have another acquaintance whom we denominate "the Knight," who falls upon a method totally different to overcome misfortunes. In the event of any cross accident, or vexatious circumstance, happening to him, he makes straight towards his easy chair—sits calmly down upon it—clenches his right hand, with the exception of his fore-finger, which is suffered to continue straight—strikes his fist violently against his left shoulder—keeps it in that position, with his eyes fixed on one particular point, till he has cursed the event and all connected with it most heartily,—then, with a countenance of perfect good-humour, he indulges in a pleasant laugh, and if it is possible to draw a comical or ridiculous inference from the whole, or any part of the affair, he is sure to do it, that the laugh may be kept up. If he fails in effecting this, he again resumes his former posture, and consigns all connected with the vexatious circumstance to the devil; then takes another good hearty laugh; and in a few minutes the affair is no more heard or thought of.

John Leggat is a lad about fifteen, a character of great singularity, whom nature seems to have formed in one of her whims. He is not an entire idiot, for he can perform many offices about his master's house—herd the cows, and run errands too, provided there be no dead horses on the road, nor any thing extremely ugly; for, if there be, the time of his return is very uncertain. Among other anomalies in his character, the way that misfortunes affect him is not the least striking. He once became warmly attached to a young hound, which was likewise very fond of him, paying him all the grateful respect so often exhibited by that faithful animal. John loved him above all earthly things—some even thought that he loved him better than his own flesh and blood. The hound one day came to an untimely end. John never got such sport in his life; he was convulsed with laughter when he contemplated the features of his dead friend. When about his ordinary business, he was extremely melancholy; but whenever he came and looked at the carcass, he was transported with delight, and expressed it by the most extravagant raptures. He next attached himself to a turkey-cock, which he trained to come at his call, and pursue and attack such people as he pointed out for that purpose. John was very fond of this amusement; but it proved fatal to his favourite—an irritated passenger knocked it dead at a stroke. This proved another source of unbounded merriment to John; the stiff half-spread wing, the one leg stretched forward, and the other back, were infinitely amusing; but the abrupt crook in his neck—his turned-up eye and open bill were quite irresistible—John laughed at them till he was quite exhausted. Few ever loved their friends better than John did while they were alive; no man was ever so much delighted with them after they were dead.

The most judicious way of encountering misfortunes of every kind, is to take up a firm resolution never to shrink from them when they cannot be avoided, nor yet be tamely overcome by them, or add to our anguish by useless repining, but, by a steady and cheerful perseverance, endeavour to make the best of whatever untoward event occurs. To do so, still remains in our power; and it is a grievous loss indeed, with regard to fortune or favour, that perseverance will not, sooner or later, overcome. I do not recommend a stupid insensible apathy with regard to the affairs of life, nor yet that listless inactive resignation which persuades a man to put his hands in his bosom, and saying, It is the will of Heaven, sink under embarrassments without a struggle. The contempt which is his due will infallibly overtake such a man, and poverty and wretchedness will press hard upon his declining years.

I had an old and valued friend in the country, who, on any cross accident happening that vexed his associates, made always the following observations: "There are just two kinds of misfortunes, gentlemen, at which it is folly either to be grieved or angry; and these are, things that can be remedied, and things that cannot be remedied." He then proved, by plain demonstration, that the case under consideration belonged to one or other of these classes, and showed how vain and unprofitable it was to be grieved or angry at it. This maxim of my friend's may be rather too comprehensive; but it is nevertheless a good one; for a resolution to that effect cannot fail of leading a man to the proper mode of action. It indeed comprehends all things whatsoever, and is as much as to say, that a man should never suffer himself to grow angry at all; and, upon the whole, I think, if the matter be candidly weighed, it will appear, that the man who suffers himself to be transported with anger, or teased by regret, is commonly, if not always, the principal sufferer by it, either immediately, or in future. Rage is unlicensed, and runs without a curb. It lessens a man's respectability among his contemporaries; grieves and hurts the feelings of those connected with him; harrows his own soul; and transforms a rational and accountable creature into the image of a fiend.

Impatience under misfortunes is certainly one of the failings of our nature, which contributes more than any other to imbitter the cup of life, and has been the immediate cause of more acts of desperate depravity than any passion of the human soul. The loss of fortune or favour is particularly apt to give birth to this tormenting sensation; for, as neither the one nor the other occurs frequently without some imprudence or neglect of our own having been the primary cause, so the reflection on that always furnishes the gloomy retrospect with its principal sting.

So much is this the case that I hold it to be a position almost incontrovertible, that out of every twenty worldly misfortunes, nineteen occur in consequence of our own imprudence. Many will tell you, it was owing to such and such a friend's imprudence that they sustained all their losses. No such thing. Whose imprudence or want of foresight was it that trusted such a friend, and put it in his power to ruin them, and reduce the families that depended on them for support, from a state of affluence to one of penury and bitter regret? If the above position is admitted, then there is, as I have already remarked, but one right and proper way in which misfortunes ought to affect us; namely, by stirring us up to greater circumspection and perseverance. Perseverance is a noble and inestimable virtue! There is scarcely any difficulty or danger that it will not surmount. Whoever observes a man bearing up under worldly misfortunes, with undaunted resolution, will rarely fail to see that man ultimately successful. And it may be depended on, that circumspection in business is a quality so absolutely necessary, that without it the success of any one will only be temporary.

The present Laird of J—s—y, better known by the appellation of Old Sandy Singlebeard, was once a common hired shepherd, but he became master of the virtues above recommended, for he had picked them up in the severe school of misfortune. I have heard him relate the circumstances myself, oftener than once. "My father had bought me a stock of sheep," said he, "and fitted me out as a shepherd; and from the profits of these, I had plenty of money to spend, and lay out on good clothes; so that I was accounted a thriving lad, and rather a dashing blade among the lasses. Chancing to change my master at a term, I sold my sheep to the man who came in my place, and bought those of the shepherd that went from the flock to which I was engaged. But when the day of payment came, the man who bought my sheep could not pay them, and without that money, I had not wherewith to pay mine own. He put me off from week to week, until the matter grew quite distressing; for, as the price of shepherds' stock goes straight onward from one hand to another, probably twenty, or perhaps forty people, were all kept out of their right by this backwardness of my debtor. I craved him for the money every two or three days, grumbled, and threatened a prosecution, till at last my own stock was poinded. Thinking I should be disgraced beyond recovery, I exerted what little credit I had, and borrowed as much as relieved my stock; and then, being a good deal exasperated, resorted immediately to legal measures, as they are called, in order to recover the debt due to me, the non-payment of which had alone occasioned my own difficulties. Notwithstanding every exertion, however, I could never draw a farthing from my debtor, and only got deeper and deeper into expenses to no purpose. Many a day it kept me bare and busy before I could clear my feet, and make myself as free and independent as I was before. This was the beginning of my misfortunes, but it was but the beginning; year after year I lost and lost, until my little all was as good as three times sold off at the ground; and at last I was so reduced, that I could not say the clothes I wore were my own.

"This will never do, thought I; they shall crack well that persuade me to sell at random again.—Accordingly, I thenceforth took good care of all my sales that came to any amount. My rule was, to sell my little things, such as wool, lambs, and fat sheep, worth the money; and not to part with them till I got the price in my hand. This plan I never rued; and people finding how the case stood, I had always plenty of merchants; so that I would recommend it to every man who depends for procuring the means of living on business such as mine. What does it signify to sell your stock at a great price, merely for a boast, if you never get the money for it? It will be long ere that make any one rich or independent! This did all very well, but still I found, on looking over my accounts at the end of the year, that there were a great many items in which I was regularly taken in. My shoemaker charged me half-a-crown more for every pair of shoes than I could have bought them for in a market for ready money; the smith, threepence more for shoeing them. My haberdasher's and tailor's accounts were scandalous. In shirts, stockings, knives, razors, and even in shirt-neck buttons, I found myself taken in to a certain amount. But I was never so astonished, as to find out, by the plain rules of addition and subtraction, assisted now and then by the best of all practical rules—(I mean the one that says, 'if such a thing will bring such a thing, what will such and such a number bring?')—to find, I say, that the losses and profits in small things actually come to more at the long-run, than any casual great slump loss, or profit, that usually chances to a man in the course of business. Wo to the man who is not aware of this! He is labouring for that which will not profit him. By a course of strict economy, I at length not only succeeded in clearing off the debt I had incurred, but saved as much money as stocked the farm of Windlestrae-knowe. That proved a fair bargain; so, when the lease was out, I took Doddysdamms in with it; and now I am, as you see me, the Laird of J—s—y, and farmer of both these besides. My success has been wholly owing to this:—misfortune made me cautious—caution taught me a lesson which is not obvious to every one, namely the mighty importance of the two right-hand columns in addition. The two left-hand ones, those of pounds and shillings, every one knows the value of. With a man of any common abilities, those will take care of themselves; but he that neglects the pence and farthings is a goose!"—

Any one who reads this will set down old Singlebeard as a miser; but I scarcely know a man less deserving the character. If one is present to hear him settling an account with another, he cannot help thinking him niggardly, owing to his extraordinary avidity in small matters; but there is no man whom customers like better to deal with, owing to his high honour and punctuality. He will not pocket a farthing that is the right of any man living, and he is always on the watch lest some designing fellow overreach him in these minute particulars. For all this, he has assisted many of his poor relations with money and credit, when he thought them deserving it, or judged that it could be of any benefit to them; but always with the strictest injunctions of secrecy, and an assurance, that, if ever they hinted the transaction to any one, they forfeited all chance of farther assistance from him. The consequence of this has always been, that while he was doing a great deal of good to others by his credit, he was railing against the system of giving credit all the while; so that those who knew him not, took him for a selfish, contracted, churlish old rascal.

He was once applied to in behalf of a nephew, who had some fair prospects of setting up in business. He thought the stake too high, and declined it; for it was a rule with him, never to credit any one so far as to put it in his power to distress him, or drive him into any embarrassment. A few months afterwards, he consented to become bound for one half of the sum required, and the other half was made up by some less wealthy relations in conjunction. The bonds at last became due, and I chanced to be present on a visit to my old friend Singlebeard, when the young man came to request his uncle's quota of the money required. I knew nothing of the matter, but I could not help noticing the change in old Sandy's look, the moment that his nephew made his appearance. I suppose he thought him too foppish to be entirely dependent on the credit of others, and perhaps judged his success in business, on that account, rather doubtful. At all events, the old Laird had a certain quizzical, dissatisfied look, that I never observed before; and all his remarks were in conformity with it. In addressing the young man, too, he used a degree of familiarity which might be warranted by his seniority and relationship, and the circumstances in which his nephew stood to him as an obliged party; but it was intended to be as provoking as possible, and obviously did not fail to excite a good deal of uneasy feeling.

"That's surely a very fine horse of yours, Jock?" said the Laird.—"Hech, man, but he is a sleek ane! How much corn does he eat in a year, this hunter of yours, Jock?"