WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS

AND OF SCOTLAND.

HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.

WITH A GLOSSARY.

REVISED BY

ALEXANDER LEIGHTON

ONE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS.

VOL. IV.

LONDON:

WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE

AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

1885.

CONTENTS.

[The Solitary of the Cave, (John Mackay Wilson)]
[The Maiden Feast of Cairnkibbie, (Alexander Leighton)]
[The Professor's Tales, (Professor Thomas Gillespie)]
[Early Recollections of a Son of the Hills]
[The Suicide's Grave]
[The Salmon-Fisher of Udoll, (Hugh Miller)]
[The Linton Lairds, or Exclusives and Inclusives, (Alexander Leighton)]
[Bon Gualtier's Tales, (Theodore Martin)]
[Country Quarters]
[The Monk of St. Anthony, (Alexander Campbell)]
[The Story of Clara Douglas, (Walter Logan)]
[The Fair, (John Mackay Wilson)]
[The Slave, (John Howell)]
[The Katheran, (Alexander Campbell)]
[The Monks of Dryburgh, (Alexander Campbell)]

WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.

THE SOLITARY OF THE CAVE.

On the banks of the Tweed, and about half a mile above where the Whitadder flows into it on the opposite side, there is a small and singular cave. It is evidently not an excavation formed by nature, but the work of man's hands. To the best of my recollection, it is about ten feet square, and in the midst of it is a pillar or column, hewn out of the old mass, and reaching from the floor to the roof. It is an apartment cut out of the solid rock, and must have been a work of great labour. In the neighbourhood, it is generally known by the name of the King's Cove, and the tradition runs, that it was once the hiding-place of a Scottish king. Formerly, it was ascended from the level of the water by a flight of steps, also hewn out of the rock; but the mouldering touch of time, the storms of winter, and the undermining action of the river, which continually appears to press southward, (as though nature aided in enlarging the Scottish boundary,) has long since swept them away, though part of them were entire within the memory of living men. What king used it as a hiding-place, tradition sayeth not: but it also whispers that it was used for a like purpose by the "great patriot hero," Sir William Wallace. These things may have been; but certainly it never was formed to be a mere place of concealment for a king, though such is the popular belief. Immediately above the bank where it is situated, are the remains of a Roman camp; and it is more than probable that the cave is coeval with the camp, and may have been used for religious purposes—or, perchance, as a prison.

But our story has reference to more modern times. Almost ninety years have fallen as drops into the vast ocean of eternity, since a strange and solitary man took up his residence in the cave. He appeared a melancholy being—he was seldom seen, and there were few with whom he would hold converse. How he lived no one could tell, nor would he allow any one to approach his singular habitation. It was generally supposed that he had been "out," as the phrase went, with Prince Charles, who, after being hunted as a wild beast upon the mountains, escaped to France only a few months before the appearance of the Solitary on Tweedside. This, however, was merely a conjecture. The history and character of the stranger were a mystery; and the more ignorant of the people believed him to be a wizard or wicked man, who, while he avoided all manner of intercourse with his fellow-mortals, had power over and was familiar with the spirits of the air; for, at that period, the idle belief in witchcraft was still general. His garments were as singular as his habits, and a large coarse cloak or coat, of a brown colour, fastened around him with a leathern girdle, covered his person; while on his head he wore a long, conical cap, composed of fox-skins, somewhat resembling those worn now-a-days by some of our regiments of dragoons. His beard, which was black, was also permitted to grow. But there was a dignity in his step, as he was occasionally observed walking upon the banks over his hermitage, and an expression of pride upon his countenance and in the glance of his eyes, which spoke him to have been a person of some note.

For three years he continued the inhabitant of the cave; and, throughout that period, he permitted no one to enter it. But, on its appearing to be deserted for several days, some fishermen, apprehending that the recluse might be dying, or perchance dead, within it, ascended the flight of steps, and, removing a rude door which merely rested against the rock and blocked up the aperture, they perceived that the cave was tenantless. On the farther side of the pillar, two boards, slightly raised as an inclined plane, and covered with dried rushes, marked what had been the bed of the Solitary. A low stool, a small and rude table, with two or three simple cooking utensils, completed the furniture of the apartment. The fishermen were about to withdraw, when one of them picked up a small parcel of manuscripts near the door of the cave, as though the hermit had dropped them by accident at his departure. They appeared to be intended as letters to a friend, and were entitled—

"MY HISTORY."

Dear Lewis, (they began,) when death shall have sealed up the eyes, and perchance some stranger dug a grave for your early friend, Edward Fleming, then the words which he now writes for your perusal may meet your eye. You believe me dead—and would to Heaven that I had died, ere my hands became red with guilt, and my conscience a living fire which preys upon and tortures me, but will not consume me! You remember—for you were with me—the first time I met Catherine Forrester. It was when her father invited us to his house in Nithsdale, and our hearts, like the season, were young. She came upon my eyes as a dream of beauty, a being more of heaven than of earth. You, Lewis, must admit that she was all that fancy can paint of loveliness. Her face, her form, her auburn ringlets, falling over a neck of alabaster!—where might man find their equal? She became the sole object of my waking thoughts, the vision that haunted my sleep. And was she not good as beautiful? Oh! the glance of her eyes was mild as a summer morning breaking on the earth, when the first rays of the sun shoot like streaks of gold across the sea. Her smile, too—you cannot have forgotten its sweetness! never did I behold it, but I thought an angel was in my presence, shedding influence over me. There was a soul, too, in every word she uttered. Affectation she had none; but the outpourings of her mind flowed forth as a river, and her wit played like the ripple which the gentle breeze makes to sport upon its bosom. You may think that I am about to write you a maudlin tale of love, such as would draw tears from a maiden in her teens, while those of more sober age turned away from it, and cried—'Pshaw!' But fear not—there is more of misery and madness than of love in my history. And yet, why should we turn with affected disgust from a tale of the heart's first, best, purest, and dearest affections? It is affectation, Lewis—the affectation of a cynic, who cries out, 'vanity of vanities, all is vanity,' when the delicacy of young affection has perished in his own breast. Who is there bearing the human form that looks not back upon those days of tenderness and bliss, with a feeling akin to that which our first parents might have experienced, when they looked back upon the Eden from which they had been expelled? Whatever may be your feelings, forgive me, while, for a few moments, I indulge in the remembrance of this one bright spot in my history, even although you are already in part acquainted with it.

We had been inmates beneath the roof of Sir William Forrester for somewhat more than two months, waiting to receive intelligence regarding the designs of his Excellency, or the landing of the Prince. It was during the Easter holidays, and you had gone to Edinburgh for a few days, to ascertain the feelings and the preparations of the friends of the cause there. I remained almost forgetful of our errand, dreaming beneath the eyes of Catherine. It was on the second day after your departure, Sir William sat brooding over the possible results of the contemplated expedition, now speaking of the feeling of the people, the power of the house of Hanover, the resources of Prince Charles, and the extent of the assistance he was likely to receive from France—drowning, at the same time, every desponding thought that arose in an additional glass of claret, and calling on me to follow his example. But my thoughts were of other matters. Catherine sat beside me, arranging Easter gifts for the poor; and I, though awkwardly, attempted to assist her. Twilight was drawing on, and the day was stormy for the season, for the snow fell, and the wind whirled round the drift in fantastic columns; but with us, the fire blazed blithely, mingling its light with the fading day, and though the storm raged without, and Sir William seemed ready to sink into melancholy, I was happy—more than happy. But attend, Lewis, for I never told you this; at the very moment when my happiness seemed tranquil as the rays of a summer moon at midnight, showering them on a mountain and casting its deep, silent shadow on a lake, as though it revealed beneath the waters a bronzed and a silent world, the trampling of a horse's feet was heard at the gate. I looked towards the narrow window. A blackish-brown, shaggy animal attempted to trot towards the door. It had rough hanging ears, a round form, and hollow back; and a tall lathy-looking figure, dismounting from it, gave the bridle to Sir William's groom, and uttered his orders respecting it, notwithstanding of the storm, with the slowness and solemnity of a judge. And, fearful that, although so delivered, they might not be obeyed to the letter—

'A merciful man regardeth the life of his beast,' said he, and stalked to the stable behind them.

'There go a brace of originals,' thought I; and, with difficulty, I suppressed a laugh.

But Catherine smiled not, and her father left the room to welcome the vistant.

The tall, thin man now entered. I call him tall, for his stature exceeded six feet; and I say thin, for nature had been abundantly liberal with bones and muscle, but wofully niggard in clothing them with flesh. His limbs, however, were lengthy enough for a giant of seven feet; and it would be difficult for me to say, whether his swinging arms, which seemed suspended from his shoulders, appeared more of use or of incumbrance. His countenance was a thoughtful blank, if you will allow me such an expression. He had large, grey, fixture-like, unmeaning eyes; and his hair was carefully combed back and plaited behind, to show his brow to the best advantage. He gave two familiar stalks across the floor, and he either did not see me, or he cared not for seeing me.

'A good Easter to ye, Catherine, my love!' said he. 'Still employed wi' works o' love an' charity? How have ye been, dear?' And he lifted her fair hand to his long blue lips.

Catherine was silent—she became pale, deadly pale. I believe her hand grew cold at his touch, and that she would have looked to me; but she could not—she dared not. Something forbade it. But with me the spell was broken—the chain that bound me to her father's house, that withheld me from accompanying you to Edinburgh, was revealed. The uncouth stranger tore the veil from my eyes—he showed me the first glance of love in the mirror of jealousy. My teeth grated together—my eyes flashed—drops of sweat stood upon my forehead. My first impulse was to dash the intruder to the ground; but, to hide my feelings, I rose from my seat, and was about to leave the room.

'Sir, I ask your pardon,' said he—'I did not observe that ye was a stranger; but that accounts for the uncommon dryness o' my Katie. Yet, sir, ye mustna think that, though she is as modest as a bit daisy peeping out frae beneath a clod to get a blink o' the sun, but that we can hae our ain crack by our twa sels for a' that.'

'Sir Peter Blakely,' said Catherine, rising with a look expressive of indignation and confusion, 'what mean ye?'

'Oh, no offence, Miss Catherine—none in the world,' he was beginning to say, when, fortunately, her father entered, as I found that I had advanced a step towards the stranger, with I scarce know what intention; but it was not friendly.

'Sir Peter,' said Sir William, 'allow me to introduce you to my young friend, Mr. Fleming; he is one of us—a supporter of the good cause.'

He introduced me in like manner. I bowed—trembled—bowed again.

'I am very happy to see you, Mr. Fleming,' said Sir Peter—'very happy, indeed.' And he stretched out his huge collection of fingers to shake hands with me.

My eyes glared on his, and I felt them burn as I gazed on him. He evidently quailed, and would have stepped back; but I grasped his hand, and scarce knowing what I did, I grasped it as though a vice had held it. The blood sprang to his thin fingers, and his glazed orbs started farther from their sockets.

'Save us a'! friend! friend! Mr Fleming! or what do they ca' ye?' he exclaimed in agony; 'is that the way you shake hands in your country? I would hae ye to mind my fingers arena made o' cauld iron.

The cold and the snow had done half the work with his fingers before, and the grasp I gave them squeezed them into torture; and he stood shaking and rattling them in the air, applying them to his lips and again to the fire and, finally, dancing round the room, swinging his tormented hand, and exclaiming—

'Sorrow take ye! for I dinna ken whether my fingers be off or on!'

Sir William strove to assure him it was merely the effect of cold, and that I could not intend to injure him, while, with difficulty, he kept gravity at the grotesque contortions and stupendous strides of his intended son-in-law. Even Catherine's countenance relapsed into a languid smile, and I, in spite of my feelings, laughed outright, while the object of our amusement at once wept and laughed to keep us company.

You will remember that I slept in an apartment separated only by a thin partition from the breakfast parlour. In the partition which divided my chamber from the parlour was a door that led to it, one half of which was of glass, and in the form of a window, and over the glass fell a piece of drapery. It was not the door by which I passed from or entered my sleeping room, but through the drapery I could discover (if so minded) whatever took place in the adjoining apartment.

Throughout the night I had not retired to rest; my soul was filled with anxious and uneasy thoughts; and they chased sleep from me. I felt how deeply, shall I say how madly, I loved my Catherine; and, in Sir Peter Blakely, I beheld a rival who had forestalled me in soliciting her hand; and I hated him. My spirit was exhausted with its own bitter and conflicting feelings; and I sat down as a man over whom agony of soul has brought a stupor, with my eyes vacantly fixed upon the curtain which screened me from the breakfast parlour. Sir Peter entered it, and the sound of his footsteps broke my reverie. I could perceive him approach the fire, draw forward a chair, and place his feet on each side of the grate. He took out his tobacco-box, and began to enjoy the comforts of his morning pipe in front of a 'green fire;' shivering—for the morning was cold—and edging forward his chair, until his knees almost came in conjunction with the mantelpiece. His pipe was finished, and he was preparing to fill it a second time. He struck it over his finger, to shake out the dust which remained after his last whiff; he struck it a second time, (he had been half dreaming, like myself,) and it broke in two and fell among his feet. He was left without a companion. He arose and began to walk across the room; his countenance bespoke anxiety and restlessness. I heard him mutter the words—

'I will marry her!—yea, I will!—my sweet Catherine!'

Every muttered word he uttered was a dagger driven into my bosom. At that moment, Sir William entered the parlour.

'Sir,' said Sir Peter, after their morning salutations, 'I have been thinking it is a long way for me to come over from Roxburgh to here'—and he paused, took out his snuff-box, opened the lid, and added—'Yes, sir, it is a long way'—he took a pinch of snuff, and continued—'Now, Sir William, I have been thinking that it would be as well, indeed a great deal better, for you to come over to my lodge at a time like this.' Here he paused, and placed the snuff-box in his pocket.

'I can appreciate your kind intentions,' said Sir William, 'but'——

'There can be no buts about it,' returned the other—'I perceive ye dinna understand me, Sir William. What I mean is this'—but here he seemed at a loss to explain his meaning; and, after standing with a look of confusion for a few moments, he took out his tobacco-box, and added—'I would thank you, sir, to order me a pipe.' The pipe was brought—he put it in the fire, and added—'I have been thinking, Sir William, very seriously have I been thinking, on a change of life. I am no great bairn in the world now; and, I am sure, sir, none knows better than you (who for ten years was my guardian), that I never had such a degree of thoughtlessness about me as to render it possible to suppose that I would make a bad husband to any woman that was disposed to be happy.' Once more he became silent, and taking his pipe from the fire, after a few thoughtful whiffs, he resumed—'Servants will have their own way without a mistress owre them; and I am sure it would be a pity to see onything going wrong about my place, for every body will say, that has seen it, that the sun doesna wauken the birds to throw the soul of music owre a lovelier spot, in a' his journey round the globe. Now, Sir William,' he added, 'it is needless for me to say it, for every person within twenty miles round is aware that I am just as fond o' Miss Catherine as the laverock is o' the blue lift; and it is equally sure and evident to me, that she cares for naebody but mysel.'

Lewis! imagine my feelings when I heard him utter this! There was a word that I may not write, which filled my soul, and almost burst from my tongue. I felt agony and indignation burn over my face. Again, I heard him add—'When I was over in the middle o' harvest last, ye remember that, in your presence, I put the question fairly to her; and, although she hung down her head and said nothing, yet that, sir, in my opinion, is just the way a virtuous woman ought to consent. I conceive that it shewed true affection, and sterling modesty; and, sir, what I am now thinking is this—Catherine is very little short of one-and-twenty, and I, not so young as I have been, am every day drawing nearer to my sere and yellow leaf; and I conceive it would be great foolishness—ye will think so yourself—to be putting off time.'

'My worthy friend,' said Sir William, 'you are aware that the union you speak of is one from which my consent has never been withheld; and I am conscious that, in complying with your wishes, I shall bestow my daughter's hand upon one whose heart is as worthy of her affections as his actions and principles are of her esteem.'

Sir Peter gave a skip (if I may call a stride of eight feet by such a name) across the room, he threw the pipe in the grate, and, seizing the hand of Sir William, exclaimed—

'Oh, joy supreme! oh, bliss beyond compare!
My cup runs owre—Heaven's bounty can nae mair!'

'Excuse the quotation from a profane author,' he added, 'upon such a solemn occasion; but he expresses exactly my feelings at this moment; for, oh, could you feel what I feel here!'—And he laid his hand upon his breast. 'Whatever be my faults, whatever my weakness, I am strong in gratitude.'

You will despise me for having played the part of a mean listener. Be it so, Lewis—I despise, I hate myself. I heard it proposed that the wedding-day should take place within a month: but the consent of Catherine was not yet obtained. I perceived her enter the apartment; I witnessed her agony when her father communicated to her the proposal of his friend, and his wish that it should be agreed to. Shall I tell it you, my friend, that the agony I perceived on her countenance kindled a glow of joy upon mine? Yes, I rejoiced in it, for it filled my soul with hope, it raised my heart as from the grave.

Two days after this, and I wandered forth among the woods, to nourish hope in solitude. Every trace of the recent storm had passed away, the young buds were wooing the sunbeams, and the viewless cuckoo lifted up its voice from afar. All that fell upon the ear, and all that met the eye, contributed to melt the soul to tenderness. My thoughts were of Catherine, and I now thought how I should unbosom before her my whole heart; or, I fancied her by my side, her fair face beaming smiles on mine, her lips whispering music. My spirit became entranced—it was filled with her image. With my arms folded upon my bosom, I was wandering thus unconsciously along a footpath in the wood, when I was aroused by the exclamation—

'Edward!'

It was my Catherine. I started as though a disembodied spirit had met me on my path. Her agitation was not less than mine. I stepped forward—I would have clasped her to my bosom—but resolution forsook me—her presence awed me—I hesitated and faltered—

'Miss Forrester!'

I had never called her by any other name; but, as she afterwards told me, the word then went to her heart, and she thought, 'He cares not for me, and I am lost!' Would to Heaven that such had ever remained her thoughts, and your friend would have been less guilty and less wretched than he this day is!

I offered her my arm, and we walked onward together; but we spoke not to each other—we could not speak. Each had a thousand things to say, but they were all unutterable. A stifled sigh escaped from her bosom, and mine responded to it. We had approached within a quarter of a mile of her father's house. Still we were both silent. I trembled—I stood suddenly still.

'Catherine!' I exclaimed, and my eyes remained fixed upon the ground—my bosom laboured in agony—I struggled for words, and, at length, added, 'I cannot return to your father's—Catherine, I cannot!'

'Edward!' she cried, 'whither—whither would you go?—you would not leave me thus? What means this?'

'Means! Catherine!' returned I—'are ye not to be another's? Would that I had died before I had looked upon thy face, and my soul was lighted with a fleeting joy, only that the midnight of misery might sit down on it for ever!'

'Oh, speak not thus!' she cried, and her gentle form shook as a blighted leaf in an autumnal breeze; 'speak not language unfit for you to utter or me to hear. Come, dear Edward!'

'Dear Edward!' I exclaimed, and my arms fell upon her neck—'that word has recalled me to myself! Dear Edward!—repeat those words again!—let the night-breeze whisper them, and bear them on its wings for ever! Tell me, Catherine, am I indeed dear to you?'

She burst into tears, and hid her face upon my bosom.

'Edward!' she sobbed, 'let us leave this place—I have said too much—let us return home.'

'No, loved one!' resumed I; 'if you have said too much, we part now, and eternity may not unite us! Farewell, Catherine!—be happy! Bear my thanks to your father, and say—but, no, no!—say nothing,—let not the wretch he has honoured with his friendship blast his declining years! Farewell, love!' I pressed my lips upon her snowy brow, and again I cried—'Farewell!'

'You must not—shall not leave me!' she said, and trembled; while her fair hands grasped my arm.

'Catherine,' added I, 'can I see you another's? The thought chokes me! Would you have me behold it?—shall my eyes be withered by the sight? Never, never! Forgive me!—Catherine, forgive me! I have acted rashly, perhaps cruelly; but I would not have spoken as I have done—I would have fled from your presence—I would not have given one pang to your gentle bosom—your father should not have said that he sheltered a scorpion that turned and stung him; but, meeting you as I have done to-day, I could no longer suppress the tumultuous feelings that struggled in my bosom. But it is past. Forgive me—forget me!'

Still memory hears her sighs, as her tears fell upon my bosom, and, wringing her hands in bitterness, she cried—

'Say not, forget you! If, in compliance with my father's will, I must give my hand to another, and if to him my vows must be plighted, I will keep them sacred—yet my heart is yours!'

Lewis! I was delirious with joy, as I listened to this confession from her lips. The ecstasy of years was compressed into a moment of deep, speechless, almost painful luxury. We mingled our tears together, and our vows went up to heaven a sacrifice pure as the first that ascended, when the young earth offered up its incense from paradise to the new-born sun.

I remained beneath her father's roof until within three days of the time fixed for her becoming the bride of Sir Peter Blakely. Day by day, I beheld my Catherine move to and fro like a walking corpse—pale, speechless, her eyes fixed and lacking their lustre. Even I seemed unnoticed by her. She neither sighed nor wept. A trance had come over her faculties. She made no arrangements for her bridal; and when I at times whispered to her that she should be mine! O Lewis! she would then smile—but it was a smile where the light of the soul was not—more dismal, more vacant than the laugh of idiotcy! Think, then, how unlike they were to the rainbows of the soul which I had seen radiate the countenance of my Catherine!

Sir Peter Blakely had gone into Roxburghshire, to make preparations for taking home his bride, and her father had joined you in Edinburgh, relative to the affairs of Prince Charles, in consequence of a letter which he had received from you, and the contents of which might not even be communicated to me. At any other time, and this lack of confidence would have provoked my resentment; but my thoughts were then of other things, and I heeded it not. Catherine and I were ever together; and for hour succeeding hour we sat silent, gazing on each other. O my friend! could your imagination conjure up our feelings and our thoughts in this hour of trial, you would start, shudder, and think no more. The glance of each was as a pestilence, consuming the other. As the period of her father's return approached, a thousand resolutions crowded within my bosom—some of magnanimity, some of rashness. But I was a coward—morally, I was a coward. Though I feared not the drawn sword nor the field of danger more than another man, yet misery compels me to confess what I was. Every hour, every moment, the sacrifice of parting from her became more painful. Oh! a mother might have torn her infant from her breast, dashed it on the earth, trampled on its outstretched hands, and laughed at its dying screams, rather than that I now could have lived to behold my Catherine another's.

Suddenly, the long, the melancholy charm of my silence broke. I fell upon my knee, and, clenching my hands together, exclaimed—

'Gracious Heaven!—if I be within the pale of thy mercy, spare me this sight! Let me be crushed as an atom—but let not mine eyes see the day when a tongue speaks it, nor mine ears hear the sound that calls her another's.'

I started to my feet, I grasped her hands in frenzy, I exclaimed—'You shall be mine!' I took her hand. 'Catherine!' I added, 'you will not—you SHALL not give your hand to another! It is mine, and from mine it shall not part! And I pressed it to my breast as a mother would her child from the knife of a destroyer.

'It SHALL be yours!' she replied wildly; and the feeling of life and consciousness again gushed through her heart. But she sank on my breast, and sobbed—

'My father! O my father!'

'Your father is Sir Peter Blakely's friend,' replied I, 'and he will not break the pledge he has given him. With his return, Catherine, my hopes and life perish together. Now only can you save yourself—now only can you save me. Fly with me!—be mine, and your father's blessing will not be withheld. Hesitate now, and farewell happiness.'

She hastily raised her head from my breast, she stood proudly before me, and, casting her bright blue eyes upon mine, with a look of piercing inquiry, said—

'Edward! what would you have me to do? Deep as my love for you is—and I blush not to confess it—would you have me to fly with you accompanied by the tears of blighted reputation—followed by the groans and lamentations of a heart-broken father—pointed at by the finger of the world as an outcast of human frailty? Would you have me to break the last cord that binds to existence the only being to whom I am related on earth—for whom have I but my father? My hand I shall never give to another; but I cannot, I will not leave my father's house. If Catherine Forrester has gained your love, she shall not forfeit your esteem. I may droop in secret, Edward, as a bud broken on its stem, but I will not be trampled on in public as a worthless weed.'

'Nay, my beloved, mistake me not,' returned I—'when the lamb has changed natures with the wolf, then, but not till then, could I breathe a thought, a word in your presence, that I would blush to utter at the gate of Heaven. Within two days, your father and his intended son-in-law will return, and the father's threats and tears will subdue the daughter's purpose. Catherine will be a wife!—Edward a——

'Speak not impiously,' she cried, imploringly—'what—what can we do?'

'The present moment only is left us,' replied I. 'To-night, become the wife of Edward Fleming, and happiness will be ours.'

Her pulse stood still; the blood rushed into her face and back to her heart, while her bosom heaved, and her cheeks glowed with the agony of incertitude, as she resolved and re-resolved.

But wherefore should I tire you with a recital of what you already know. That night, my Catherine became my wife. For a few months her father disowned us; but when the fortunes of the Prince began to ripen, through his instrumentality we were again received into his favour. Yet I was grieved to hear, that, in consequence of our marriage, Sir Peter Blakely's mind had become affected; for, while I detested him as a rival, I was compelled to esteem him as a man.

But now, Lewis, comes the misery of my story. You are aware that, before I saw my Catherine, I was a ruined man. Youthful indiscretions—but why call them indiscretions?—rather let me say my headlong sins—before I had well attained the age of manhood, contributed to undermine my estate, and the unhappy political contest in which we were engaged had wrecked it still more. I had ventured all that my follies had left me upon the fortunes of Prince Charles. You know that I bought arms, I kept men ready for the field, I made voyages to France, I assisted others in their distress; and, in doing all this, I anticipated nothing less than an earldom, when the Stuarts should again sit on the throne of their fathers. You had more sagacity, more of this world's wisdom; and you told me I was wrong—that I was involving myself in a labyrinth from which I might never escape. But I thought myself wiser than you. I knew the loyalty and the integrity of my own actions, and with me, at all times, to feel was to act. I had dragged ruin around me, indulging in a vague dream of hope; and now I had obtained the hand of my Catherine, and I had not the courage to inform her that she had wed that of a ruined man.

It was when you and I were at the University together, that the spirit of gambling threw its deceitful net around me, and my estate was sunk to half its value ere I was of age to enjoy it; the other half I had wrecked in idle schemes for the restoration of the Stuarts. When, therefore, a few weeks after our marriage, I removed with my Catherine to London, I was a beggar, a bankrupt, living in fashionable misery. I became a universal borrower, making new creditors to pacify the clamours of the old, and to hide from my wife the wretchedness of which I had made her a partner. And, O Lewis! the thought that she should discover our poverty, was to me a perpetual agony. It came over the fondest throbbings of my soul like the echo of a funeral bell, for ever pealing its sepulchral boom through the music of bridal joy. I cared not for suffering as it might affect myself; but I could not behold her suffer, and suffer for my sake. I heard words of tenderness fall from her tongue, in accents sweeter than the melody of the lark's evening song, as it chirming descends to fold its wings for the night by the side of its anxious mate. I beheld her smiling to beguile my care, and fondly watching every expression of my countenance, as a mother watches over her sick child; and the half-concealed tear following the smile when her efforts proved unavailing; and my heart smote me that she should weep for me, while her tears, her smiles, and her tenderness, added to my anguish, and I was unable to say in my heart, 'Be comforted.' It could not be affection which made me desirous of concealing our situation from her, but a weakness which makes us unwilling to appear before each other as we really are.

For twelve months I concealed, or thought that I had concealed, the bankruptcy which overwhelmed me as a helmless vessel on a tempestuous sea. But the Prince landed in Scotland, and the war began. I was employed in preparing the way for him in England, and, for a season, wild hopes, that made my brain giddy, rendered me forgetful of the misery that had hung over and haunted me. But the brilliant and desperate game was soon over; our cause was lost, and with it my hopes perished; remorse entered my breast, and I trembled in the grasp of ruin. Sir William Forrester effected his escape to France, but his estates were confiscated, and my Catherine was robbed of the inheritance that would have descended to her. With this came another pang, more bitter than the loss of her father's fortune; for he, now a fugitive in a strange land, and unconscious of my condition, had a right to expect assistance from me. The thought dried up my very heart's blood, and made it burn within me—and I fancied I heard my Catherine soliciting me to extend the means of life to her father, which I was no longer able to bestow upon herself: for, with the ruin of our cause, my schemes of borrowing, and of allaying the clamour of creditors, perished.

But it is said that evils come not singly—nor did they so with me; they came as a legion, each more cruel than that which preceded it. Within three weeks after the confiscation of the estates of Sir William Forrester, the individual who held the mortgage upon mine died, and his property passed into the hands—of whom?—heaven and earth! Lewis, I can hardly write it. His property, including the mortgage on my estate, passed into the hands of—Sir Peter Blakely! I could have died a thousand deaths rather than have listened to the tidings. My estate was sunk beyond its value, and now I was at the mercy of the man I had injured—of him I hated. I could not doubt but that, now that I was in his power, he would wring from me his 'pound o' flesh' to the last grain—and he has done it!—the monster has done it! But to proceed with my history.

My Catherine was now a mother, and longer to conceal from her the wretchedness that surrounded us, and was now ready to overwhelm us, was impossible; yet I lacked the courage, the manliness to acquaint her with it, or prepare her for the coming storm.

But she had penetrated my soul—she had read our condition; and, while I sat by her side buried in gloom, and my soul groaning in agony, she took my hand in hers, and said—

'Come, dear Edward, conceal nothing from me. If I cannot remove your sorrows, let me share them. I have borne much, but, for you, I can bear more.'

'What mean ye, Catherine?' I inquired, in a tone of petulance.

'My dear husband,' replied she, with her wonted affection, 'think not I am ignorant of the sorrow that preys upon your heart. But brood not on poverty as an affliction. You may regain affluence, or you may not; it can neither add to nor diminish my happiness but as it affects you. Only smile upon me, and I will welcome penury. Why think of degradation or of suffering? Nothing is degrading that is virtuous and honest; and where honesty and virtue are, there alone is true nobility, though their owner be a hewer of wood. Believe not that poverty is the foe of affection. The assertion is the oft-repeated, but idle falsehood of those who never loved. I have seen mutual love, joined with content, within the clay walls of humble cotters, rendering their scanty and coarse morsel sweeter than the savoury dainties of the rich; and affection increased, and esteem rose, from the knowledge that they endured privation together, and for each other. No, Edward,' she added, hiding her face upon my shoulder, 'think not of suffering. We are young, the world is wide, and Heaven is bountiful. Leave riches to those who envy them, and affection will render the morsel of our industry delicious.'

My first impulse was to press her to my bosom; but pride and shame mastered me, and, with a troubled voice, I exclaimed—'Catherine!'

'O Edward!' she continued, and her tears burst forth, 'let us study to understand each other—if I am worthy of being your wife, I am worthy of your confidence.'

I could not reply. I was dumb in admiration, in reverence of virtue and affection of which I felt myself unworthy. A load seemed to fall from my heart, I pressed her lips to mine.

'Cannot Edward be as happy as his Catherine,' she continued; 'we have, at least, enough for the present, and, with frugality, we have enough for years. Come, love, wherefore will you be unhappy? Be you our purser.' And, endeavouring to smile, she gently placed her purse in my hands.

'Good Heavens!' I exclaimed, striking my forehead, and the purse dropped upon the floor; 'am I reduced to this? Never, Catherine!—never! Let me perish in my penury; but crush me not beneath the weight of my own meanness! Death!—what must you think of me?'

'Think of you?' she replied, with a smile, in which affection, playfulness, and sorrow met—'I did not think that you would refuse to be your poor wife's banker.'

'Ah, Catherine!' cried I, 'would that I had half your virtue—half your generosity.'

'The half?' she answered laughingly—'have you not the whole? Did I not give you hand and heart—faults and virtues?—and you, cruel man, have lost the half already! Ungenerous Edward!'

'Oh!' exclaimed I, 'may Heaven render me worthy of such a wife!'

'Come, then,' returned she, 'smile upon your Catherine—it is all over now.'

'What is all over, love?' inquired I.

'Oh, nothing, nothing,' continued she, smiling—'merely the difficulty a young husband has in making his wife acquainted with the state of the firm in which she has become a partner.'

'And,' added I, bitterly, 'you find it bankrupt.'

'Nay, nay,' rejoined she, cheerfully, 'not bankrupt; rather say, beginning the world with a small capital. Come, now, dearest, smile, and say you will be cashier to the firm of Fleming & Co.'

'Catherine!—O Catherine!' I exclaimed, and tears filled my eyes.

'Edward!—O Edward!' returned she, laughing, and mimicking my emotion; 'good by, dear—good by!' And, picking up the purse, she dropped it on my knee, and tripped out of the room, adding gaily—

'For still the house affairs would call her hence.'

Fondly as I imagined that I loved Catherine, I had never felt its intensity until now, nor been aware of how deeply she deserved my affection. My indiscretions and misfortunes had taught me the use of money—they had made me to know that it was an indispensable agent in our dealings with the world; but they had not taught me economy. And I do not believe that a course of misery, continued and increasing throughout life, would ever teach this useful and prudent lesson to one of a warm-hearted and sanguine temperament; nor would any power on earth, or in years, enable him to put it in practice, save the daily and endearing example of an affectionate and virtuous wife. I do not mean the influence which all women possess during the oftentimes morbid admiration of what is called a honeymoon; but the deeper and holier power which grows with years, and departs not with grey hairs—in our boyish fancies being embodied, and our young feelings being made tangible, in the never-changing smile of her who was the sun of our early hopes, the spirit of our dreams—and who, now, as the partner of our fate, ever smiles on us, and, by a thousand attentions, a thousand kindnesses and acts of love, becomes every day dearer and more dear to the heart where it is her only ambition to reign and sit secure in her sovereignty—while her chains are soft as her own bosom, and she spreads her virtues around us, till they become a part of our own being, like an angel stretching his wings over innocence. Such is the power and influence of every woman who is as studious to reform and delight the husband as to secure the lover.

Such was the influence which, I believed, I now felt over my spirit, and which would save me from future folly and from utter ruin. But I was wrong, I was deceived—yes, most wickedly I was deceived. But you shall hear. On examining the purse, I found that it contained between four and five hundred pounds in gold and bills.

'This,' thought I, 'is the wedding present of her father to my poor Catherine, and she has kept it until now! Bless her! Heaven bless her.'

I wandered to and fro across the room, in admiration of her excellence, and my bosom was troubled with a painful sense of my own unworthiness. I had often, when my heart was full, attempted to soothe its feelings by pouring them forth in rhyme. There were writing materials upon the table before me. I sat down—I could think of nothing but my Catherine, and I wrote the following verses

TO MY WIFE.

Call woman—angel, goddess, what you will—
With all that fancy breathes at passion's call,
With all that rapture fondly raves—and still
That one word—Wife—outvies—contains them all.
It is a word of music which can fill
The soul with melody, when sorrows fall
Round us, like darkness, and her heart alone
Is all that fate has left to call our own.

Her bosom is a fount of love that swells,
Widens, and deepens with its own outpouring,
And, as a desert stream, for ever wells
Around her husband's heart, when cares devouring,
Dry up its very blood, and man rebels
Against his being!—When despair is lowering,
And ills sweep round him, like an angry river,
She is his star, his rock of hope for ever.

Yes; woman only knows what 'tis to mourn
She only feels how slow the moments glide
Ere those her young heart loved in joy return
And breathe affection, smiling by her side.
Hers only are the tears that waste and burn—
The anxious watchings, and affection's tide
That never, never ebbs!—hers are the cares
No ear hath heard, and which no bosom shares

Cares, like her spirit, delicate as light
Trembling at early dawn from morning stars,
Cares, all unknown to feeling and to sight
Of rougher man, whose stormy bosom wars
With each fierce passion in its fiery might;
Nor deems how look unkind, or absence, jars
Affection's silver cords by woman wove,
Whose soul, whose business, and whose life is—Love.

I left the verses upon the table, that she might find them when she entered, and that they might whisper to her that I at least appreciated her excellence, however little I might have merited it.

Lewis, even in my solitary cell, I feel the blush upon my cheek, when I think upon the next part of my history. My hand trembles to write it, and I cannot now. Methinks that even the cold rocks that surround me laugh at me derision, and I feel myself the vilest of human things. But I cannot describe it to-day—I have gone too far already, and I find that my brain burns. I have conjured up the past, and I would hide myself from its remembrance. Another day, when my brain is cool, when my hand trembles not, I may tell you all; but, in the shame of my own debasement, my reason is shaken from its throne.

Here ended the first part of the Hermit's manuscript; and on another, which ran thus, he had written the words—

"MY HISTORY CONTINUED."

I told you, Lewis, where I last broke off my history, that I left the verses on the table for the eye of my Catherine. I doubted not that I would devise some plan of matchless wisdom, and that, with the money so unexpectedly come into my possession, I would redeem my broken fortunes. I went out into the streets, taking the purse with me, scarce knowing what I did, but musing on what to do. I met one who had been a fellow-gambler with me, when at the University.

'Ha! Fleming!' he exclaimed, 'is such a man alive! I expected that you and your Prince would have crossed the water together, or that you would have exhibited at Carlisle or Tower Hill.'

He spoke of the run of good fortune he had had on the previous night—(for he was a gambler still.) 'Five thousand!' said he, rubbing his hands, 'were mine within five minutes.'

'Five thousand!' I repeated. I took my Catherine's purse in my hand.

Lewis! some demon entered my soul, and extinguished reason. 'Five thousand!' I repeated again; 'it would rescue my Catherine and my child from penury.' I thought of the joy I should feel in placing the money and her purse again in her hands. I accompanied him to the table of destruction. For a time fortune, that it might mock my misery, and not dash the cup from my lips until they were parched, seemed to smile on me. But I will not dwell on particulars; my friend 'laughed to see the madness rise' within me. I became desperate—nay, I was insane—and all that my wife had put into my hands, to the last coin, was lost. Never, until that moment, did I experience how terrible was the torture of self-reproach, or how fathomless the abyss of human wretchedness. I would have raised my hand against my own life; but, vile and contemptible as I was, I had not enough of the coward within me to accomplish the act. I thought of my mother. She had long disowned me, partly from my follies, and partly that she adhered to the house of Hanover. But, though I had squandered the estates which my father had left me, I knew that she was still rich, and that she intended to bestow her wealth upon my sister; for there were but two of us. Yet I remembered how fondly she had loved me, and I did not think that there was a feeling in a mother's breast that could spurn from her a penitent son—for nature, at the slightest spark, bursteth into a flame. I resolved, therefore, to go as the prodigal in the Scriptures, and to throw myself at her feet, and confess that I had sinned against Heaven, and in her sight.

I wrote a note to my injured Catherine, stating that I was suddenly called away, and that I would not see her again perhaps for some weeks. Almost without a coin in my pocket, I took my journey from London to Cumberland, where my mother dwelt.

Night was gathering around me when I left London, on the road leading to St. Alban's. But I will not go through the stages of my tedious journey; it is sufficient to say, that I allowed myself but little time for sleep or rest, and, on the eighth day after my leaving London, I found myself, after an absence of eighteen years, again upon the grounds of my ancestors. Foot-sore, fatigued, and broken down, my appearance bespoke way-worn dejection. I rather halted than walked along, turning my face aside from every passenger, and blushing at the thought of recognition. It was mid-day when I reached an eminence, covered with elm trees, and skirted by a hedge of hawthorn. It commanded a view of what was called the Priory, the house in which I was born, and which was situated within a mile from where I stood. The village church, surrounded by a clump of dreary yews, lay immediately at the foot of the hill to my right, and the road leading from thence to the Priory crossed before me. It was a raw and dismal day; the birds sat shivering on the leafless branches, and the cold, black clouds, seemed wedged together in a solid mass, ready to fall upon the earth and crush it; and the wind moaned over the bare fields. Yet, disconsolate as the scene appeared, it was the soil of childhood on which I trod. The fields, the woods, the river, the mountains, the home of infancy, were before me; and I felt their remembered sunshine rekindling in my bosom the feelings that make a patriot. A thousand recollections flashed before me. Already did fancy hear the congratulations of my mother's voice, welcoming her prodigal—feel the warm pressure of her hand, and her joyous tears falling on my cheek. But again I hesitated, and feared that I might be received as an outcast. The wind howled around me—I felt impatient and benumbed—and, as I stood irresolute, with a moaning chime the church bell knelled upon my ear. A trembling and foreboding fell upon my heart; and, before the first echo of the dull sound died in the distance, a muffled peal from the tower of the Priory answered back the invitation of the house of death, announcing that the earth would receive its sacrifice. A veil came over my eyes, the ground swam beneath my feet; and again and again did the church bell issue forth its slow, funeral tone, and again was it answered from the Priory.

Emerging from the thick elms that spread around the Priory and stretched to the gate, appeared a long and melancholy cavalcade. My eyes became dim with a presentiment of dread, and they were strained to torture. Slowly and silently the sable retinue approached. The waving plumes of the hearse became visible. Every joint in my body trembled with agony, as though agony had become a thing of life. I turned aside to watch it as it passed, and concealed myself behind the hedge. The measured and grating sound of the carriages, the cautious trampling of the horses' feet, and the solemn pace of the poorer followers, became more and more audible on my ear. The air of heaven felt substantial in my throat, and the breathing I endeavoured to suppress became audible, while the cold sweat dropt as icicles from my brow. Sadly, with faces of grief, unlike the expression of hired sorrow, passed the solitary mutes; and, in the countenance of each, I recognised one of our tenantry. Onward moved the hearse and its dismal pageantry. My heart fell, as with a blow, within my bosom. For a moment I would have fancied it a dream; but the train of carriages passed on, their grating roused me from my insensibility, and, rushing from the hedge towards one who for forty years had been a servant in our house—

'Robert!—Robert!' I exclaimed, 'whose funeral is this?'

'Alack! Master Edward!' he cried, 'is it you? It is the funeral of my good lady—your mother!'

The earth swam round with me—the funeral procession, with a sailing motion, seemed to circle me—and I fell with my face upon the ground.

Dejected, way-worn as I was, I accompanied the body of my mother to its last resting-place. I wept over her grave, and returned with the chief mourners to the house of my birth; and there I was all but denied admission. I heard the will read, and in it my name was not once mentioned. I rushed from the house—I knew not, and I cared not where I ran—misery was before, behind, and around me. I thought of my Catherine and my child, and groaned with the tortures of a lost spirit.

But, as I best could, I returned to London, to fling myself at the feet of my wife, to confess my sins and my follies, to beg her forgiveness, yea, to labour for her with my hands. I approached my own door as a criminal. I shrank from the very gaze of the servant that ushered me in, and I imagined that he looked on me with contempt. But now, Lewis, I come to the last act of my drama, and my hand trembles that it cannot write—my soul is convulsed within me. I thought my Catherine pure, sinless as a spirit of heaven—you thought so—all who beheld her must have thought as I did. But, oh! friend of my youth! mark what follows. I reached her chamber. I entered it—silently I entered it, as one who has guilt following his footsteps. And there, the first object that met my sight—that blasted it—was the man I hated, my former rival, he who held my fortunes in his hand—Sir Peter Blakely! My wife, my Catherine, my spotless Catherine, held him by the arm. O heaven! I heard him say—'Dear Catherine!' and she answered him, 'Stay!—stay, my best, my only friend—do not leave me!'

Lewis! I could see, I could hear no more.

'Wretch!—villain!' I exclaimed. They started at my voice. My sword, that had done service in other lands, I still carried with me.

'Draw! miscreant!' I cried, almost unconscious of what I said or what I did. He spoke to me, but I heard him not. I sprang upon him, and plunged my sword in his body. My wife rushed towards me. She screamed. I heard the words—'Dear Edward!' but I dashed her from me as an unclean thing, and fled from the house.

Every tie that had bound me to existence was severed asunder. Catherine had snapped in twain the last cord that linked me with happiness. I sought the solitude of the wilderness, and there shouted her name, and now blessed her, and again——but I will go no farther. I long wandered a fugitive throughout the land, and, at length perceiving an apartment in a rock, the base of which Tweed washes with its waters, in it I resolved to bury myself from the world. In it I still am, and mankind fear me.

Here abruptly ended the manuscript of the Solitary.

A few years after the manuscript had been found, a party, consisting of three gentlemen, a lady, and two children, came to visit the King's Cove, and to them the individual who had found the papers related the story of the hermit.

"But your manuscript is imperfect," said one of them, "and I shall supply its deficiency. The Solitary mentions having found Sir Peter Blakely in the presence of his wife, and he speaks of words that passed between them. But you shall hear all:—"

The wife of Edward Fleming was sitting weeping for his absence, when Sir Peter Blakely was announced. He shook as he entered. She started as she beheld him. She bent her head to conceal her tears, and sorrowfully extended her hand to welcome him.

'Catherine,' said he—and he paused, as though he would have called her by the name of her husband—'I have come to speak with you respecting your father's estate. I was brought up upon it; and there is not a tree, a bush, or a brae within miles, but to me has a tale of happiness and langsyne printed upon it, in the heart's own alphabet. But now the charm that gave music to their whispers is changed. Forgive me, Catherine, but it was you that, as the spirit of the scene, converted everything into a paradise where ye trod, that made it dear to me. It was the hope, the prayer, and the joy of many years, that I should call you mine—it was this that made the breath of Heaven sweet, and caused sleep to fall upon my eyelids as honey on the lips. But the thought has perished. I was wrong to think that the primrose would flourish on the harvest-field. But, Catherine, your father was my guardian—I was deeply in his debt, for he was to me as a father, and for his sake, and your sake, I have redeemed his property, and it shall be—it is yours.'

Lost in wonder, Catherine was for a few moments silent; but she at length said—

'Generous man, it must not—it shall not be. Bury me not—crush me not beneath a weight of generosity which from you I have been the last to deserve. I could not love, but I have ever esteemed you. I still do. But let not your feelings hurry you into an act of rashness. Time will heal, if it do not efface the wounds which now bleed; and you may still find a heart more worthy of your own, with whom to share the fortune of which you would deprive yourself.'

'Never! never!' cried he; 'little do you understand me. Your image and yours only was stamped where the pulse of life throbs in my heart. The dream that I once cherished is dead now—my grey hairs have awoke me from it. But I shall still be your friend—yea, I will be your husband's friend; and, in memory of the past, your children shall be as my children. Your husband's property is encumbered—throw these in the fire and it is again his.' And, as he spoke, he placed the deeds of the mortgage on a table before her.

'Hear me, noblest and best of friends!' cried Catherine—'hear me as in the presence of our Great Judge. Think not that I feel the less grateful for your generosity, that I solemnly refuse your offers, and adjure you to mention them not in my presence. As the wife of Edward Fleming, I will not accept what he would spurn. Rather would I toil with the sweat of my brow for the bare crust that furnished us with a scanty meal; and if I thought that, rather than share it with me, he would sigh after the luxuries he has lost, I would say unto him—'Go, you are free!' and, hiding myself from the world, weary Heaven with prayers for his prosperity.'

'Ye talk in vain—as I have said, so it is and shall be,' added he. 'And now, farewell, dear Catherine.'

'Stay! stay!—leave me not thus!' she exclaimed, and grasped his arm. At that moment her husband returned and entered the room—and you know the rest. But, Sir Peter Blakely was not mortally wounded, as the Solitary believed. In a few months he recovered, and what he had promised to do he accomplished.

"That is something new," said the fisherman who had found the manuscript; "and who told ye, or how do ye know?—if it be a fair question."

"I," replied he who had spoken, "am the Lewis to whom the paper was addressed."

"You! you!" exclaimed the fisherman; "well, that beats a'—the like o' that I never heard before."

"And I," said another, "am Sir Peter Blakely—the grey-haired dreamer—who expected the April lily to bloom beneath an October sun." And he put a crown into the hand of the fisherman.

"And I," added the third, "am the Solitary himself—this my Catherine, and these my children. He whom I thought dead—dead by my own hand—the man whom I had wronged—sought for me for years, and in this my hermitage that was, he at length found me. It was the grey dawn when I beheld him, and I thought that the ghost of the murdered stood before me. But he spoke—he uttered words that entered my soul. I trembled in his presence. The load of my guiltiness fell as a weight upon me. I was unable to speak, almost to move. He took my hand and led me forth as a child. In my confusion the papers which you found were left behind me. And now, when happiness has shed its light around me, I have come with my benefactor, my friend, my Catherine, and my children, to view the cell of my penitence."

THE MAIDEN FEAST OF CAIRNKIBBIE.

He who has been present at a real Maiden, or Scotch feast of harvest-home, if it should happen that he belongs to the caste that makes the light fantastic toe the fulcrum of the elegant motions of the quadrille, and Hogarth's line of beauty the test of the evolutions of modern grace, might wish that the three sisters had long ago resigned their patronage of the art of dancing, and left the limbs of man, and their motions, to the sole power of the spirit of fun and good humour. Centuries have passed away since first the Maiden called forth the salient energies of the harvest-weary hinds and rosy-cheeked damsels of Scotland. We have only now amongst us the ghost of the old spirit-stirring genius of "the farmer's ha'." The modern vintage feast is only a shadow of the old Cerealia—the festival of festivals, as it has been called—at which the young and the old of ancient Greece and Rome resigned themselves to the power of the rosy god, and the nil placet sine fructu was seen in every bright eye, heard in every glad voice, and listened to in every tripping measure. The Scotch Maiden was once what the vintage feasts of the Continent were, and still are. The hinds and maids of one "town" were present at the harvest-home of another; reciprocal visits kept up the spirit of the enjoyment; the fields and farmers' ha's resounded with the merry pipe; the whirling reel mixed up the dancers in its "uniform confusion," the flowing bicker was "filled and kept fou;" kisses, "long and loud," vindicated a place in the world of musical sound; and the Genius of Pleasure ran away with heart and soul to her happy regions—declaring that, for one solitary night in the year, the power of sorrow should have no authority over mournful man. The Maiden of Cairnkibbie, a farm on the property of Faulden—too long ago for the mention of a specific period, but while Maidens (to descend to a pun) were still in the height of their beauty and bloom—was one of the most joyous scenes that ever graced the green, or made the rafters of the barn ring with "hey and how rohumbelow." The farmer, William Hume—some far-off friend of the Paxton family—was rich, as things went in those days; and a gaucy dame, and a fair daughter, Lilly, blessed him with affection and duty. No lass ever graced a Maiden like Lilly Hume; and no free farmer's wife ever extended so hearty a patronage to the feast of fun as did the sleek and comfortable guidwife of Cairnkibbie. The pretty "damysell" was as jimp as "gillie"—

"As ony rose her rude was red,
Her lire was like the lillie."

and far and near she defied all manner of bold competition in those charms that go to deck the blooming maids of Scotland. Natural affection made her the pride of her parents; and a simplicity that did not seem to have art enough to tell her of her own beauty, endeared her to those who might have been expected to have been smitten with envy, or crossed with a hopeless passion.

There was many a lass "as myld as meid" at the Maiden of Cairnkibbie, and many a Jock, and Steenie, and Robyne, as braw as yellow locks brushed bolt upright in the face of heaven could make any of God's creatures. But many of the merry-makers did not trust to such ornaments of nature: for Steenie Thornton, from the town of Kelton, the gay lover of Jess Swan from the same town, had his locks tied behind with a yellow ribbon got from her fair hand, and his "pumps" boasted the same decoration; the sprightly Will Aitken, the best hand at a morris-dance in all the Merse, had his jacket "browden" with "fowth o' roses" stuck into the button-holes by Jean Gillies from Westertown; the fiercest wrestler of the Borders, Jock Hedderick, who cherished Bess Gibson, pushed forward his bold breast, to exhibit to the goggle eyes of wondering admiration a vest sewed by her delicate fingers at intervals stolen from cheese-making; and Pat Birrel, the noted scaumer, who was accounted more than "twa hen clokkis" by Kirsty Glen the henwife's daughter of Earlston, lifted his feet high in mid-air, to shew the gushets in his hose wrought by her lily hands. Nor did the screechin gilpies lack ornaments to set off their fair persons. Some had bright yellow gloves of "raffal right;" and many, with kirtles of "Lincome light, weel prest wi' mony plaits," pulled the trains in most menacing bundles through the pocket-holes, to shew at once how bright were their colours, and how many a "breid" was wasted in their amplitude. Many had ornaments that tongue could not describe—because they were the first of their kind, and required a new vocabulary to do justice to their beauties. But, ornamented or plain, the revellers were all alike filled with the spirit of the Maiden; and, if their "Tam Lutar," the piper, did not skirl them up to the point of enjoyment to which they all struggled, and danced, and drank, and screamed to get, sure it was that no fault was attributable to the merry-makers themselves: nor was the guidman's daughter, Lilly Hume, less joyous than the merriest. Although at her father's harvest-feast she was accounted a lady, she was the humblest of the "hail menyie;" and never refused to draw up through her pocket-holes the ends of her falling yellow kirtle, as a preparation for another reel, at the supplicatory bend or bow of the humblest hind, albeit he was adorned with neither bright crimson nor ochre yellow.

The "Tam Lutar" of the feast—a blind piper, who began to play when he first felt the incipient effects of the first bicker, blew stronger as the fumes of the potations rose higher, declined as the liquid impulse fell, and even stopped when the drink entirely sunk—was well supplied with the "piper's coig," a girded vessel of jolly good ale, that lay beside him, and was ever and anon filled, as the dancers felt the music beginning to lag in spirit. Away they flew, to the airs of "Gillquhisker," "Brum on tul," "Tortee Solee Lemendow," and other good old tunes, now forgotten, though their names are mentioned by Sir James Ingles; the resilent heels spurned the earth; the fore part of the foot, where the spring lies, dealt out those tremendous thuds on the suffering floor which heretofore were reckoned the true and legitimate soul of dancing, and now, alas! displaced by the sickly slip of the French grace; the "dancing whoop" rung around, inspired every soul, and lightened every heel; Jock Splaefut "bobbit up wi' bends;" and Jenny set to him, and "beckit," and set again, and turned, and away glided through the mazes of the reel—

"For reeling there micht nae wench rest;"

and came back, and set and "beckit" again; till, "forfochtin faynt" with pure dancing toil, the reelers gave place to the country dancers, who toiled and swat in the same degree for the period of their sweet labours. Then was the breathing time in the far corners appropriated to the cooling tankard, the dew of which left on the panting lips ran a considerable risk of being dried up by the heat of love, elicited from the kiss that smacked of love and ale.

At a corner in the end of the room, a crowd had collected; and some high words were passing between Will Aitken and Jock Hedderick, on a question that seemed to interest the dancers. Those standing about were washing down large mouthfuls of bannocks by draughts of strong beer, while they wiped the sweat from their brows, and listened to the subject in dispute. At intervals some one was heard at the door, playing and singing.

"He played sae schill, an' sang sae sweet,"

that Lilly Hume felt interested in the musician. He was a beggar, who boldly claimed admittance to the Maiden, by what he called the "auld rights o' the gaberlunzies of Scotland," who were declared entitled to enter into the feast of the harvest home, to dance thereat, and drink thereat, and kiss the "damysells" thereat, with as much freedom as the gayest guest. This demand was resisted by Jock Hedderick, who besides disputed the authority of the ancient custom; which, on the other hand, was upheld by Will Aitken, whose supple tongue was so powerful over his opponents that

"He muddelt them down like ony mice;"

and, notwithstanding the terror of the scaumer's arm, prevailed upon the guidman and the company to hold sacred the rights of hospitality of the land, and admit the "pauky auld carle," with his pipes and his wallets. As soon as the decision was given, Lilly ran to the door, and, taking the gaberlunzie by the hand, brought him in. A loud laugh resounded throughout the room, to the profit of the proud and merry dancers, and at the expense of the jolly beggar, who, young and stalwart, and borne down by sundry appendages, containing doubtless meal and bread, "cauk and keil," "spindles and quhorles," and all the et-ceteras of the wallet, stood before them, and raised in return such a ranting, roaring laugh, as well apparently at himself as his company, that, by that one effort of his lungs, he made more friends than many a laughter-loving pot companion might make in a year. Then in an instant he struck this merry-maker on the back, and slapped that on the shoulder, and kissed the skirling kitties with such a jolly and hearty spirit of free salutation, that he even added flame to the already burning passion of frolic, and raised again the rafter-shaking laugh, till it drowned all the energies of Lutar himself, albeit his coig had that instant been filled.

But this was only vanity, while the stomach of the jolly gaberlunzie was as yet empty. A large stoup was brought to him by Will Carr, a good-looking young man of gentle demeanour, the only person who in that pairing assembly seemed to want his "dow." A shade of melancholy was on his cheek, and, as he offered the gaberlunzie the stoup, he cast an eye on Lilly, the meaning of which seemed to be read in an instant by the beggar.

"Ha! ha!" cried the latter; "ye are the true welcomer, my braw youth. Thae wild chiels an' their glaiket hizzies wad fill the beggar wi' the sound o' his ain laugh, as if he were a pair o' walking bagpipes. But, ho, man, this is sour yill.

The bridegroom brought a pint of ale,
And bade the piper drink it.
'Drink it?' quoth he, 'and it so staile;
Ashrew me, if I think it!'

Ye've anither barrel in the corner yonder—awa!—the beggar maun hae the best.

This Maiden nicht it is his right,
And, faith he winna blink it."

And so he cadgily ranted and sang, swearing that the best ale and the prettiest lips in the whole house should that night be at his command.

While Will Carr brought him ale out of another cask, Lilly Hume took away his wallets, and laid them in a window-sole at his back. Having taken a waught of the ale so long that the bystanders looked on with fear, lest he might never recover his breath again, he returned the stoup empty to Will, telling him to fill it again, as he intended to assist the legitimate Lutar in blowing up the spirits of the company—a work which would require "fowth o' yill." Without farther preface, he blew up his bags with a skirl that seemed to shake the house, and, dashing fearlessly into the time, poured so much joyous sound into the thick air of the heated apartment, that the weary-limbed dancers threw off their languor, and fell to it again with a spirit that equalled that of their first off-set. But his musical occupation did not prevent his attention to the looks and actions of Lilly Hume and Will Carr.

"How dinna ye dance, hinny?" said he, in a low voice to Lilly. "How dinna ye dance, man?" he repeated, as he turned his head to Will. "Think ye yer sittin there's a compliment to me, wha am blawing awa my lungs here, for the very purpose o' makin ye dance?"

The two young people looked at each other, and then at the guidman, who sat at a little distance.

"Tell me the reason, my bonny hinny," he added; and, as he blew again, leant his ear to hear the answer. "Eh! come now, my white lily," he persisted. "I'm a safe carle, and can spae fortunes as well as blaw up thae green bags wi' thriftless wind. I may tell ye o' a braw lot, if ye'll only open yer lips and gie me some o' yer secrets."

"My faither winna let me dance wi' Will Carr," at last replied Lilly, blushing from ear to ear.

"How! how!" answered the gaberlunzie, taking the pipes suddenly frae his mouth—"no let ye dance wi' a decent callant, the bonniest hensure o' the hail menyie! What crime has he committed, hinny? Eh?"

"He's puir," answered Lilly, innocently.

"Ha! a red crime that, Lilly," answered he; "if he had killed a score o' God's creatures in a Border raid, he micht hae been forgi'en; but wha forgies poverty? But do ye like Will Carr, hinny?"

"My faither and mither say sae," answered Lilly.

"Ay, ay,—I see whar the wind blaws," said the gaberlunzie. "But ye will dance wi' him. I, as a beggar, hae a richt to the fairest hand o' the maiden—yer faither daurna refuse ye to me; an' let Will tak yon quean wi' the yellow ribbons in her wimple, an' we'll a' mix in ae reel. Will, man, awa an' ask yon bloomin hizzy wi' the rose rude to dance wi' ye."

Will obeyed; and the beggar, having brought the tune to a termination, stepped boldly up into the middle of the floor, holding by the hand the fair Lilly Hume; while Will, with his blushing quean, Bess Gordon, took their stations opposite.

"Up wi' the 'Hunts o' Cheviot,' Tam," cried the beggar; "an blaw as if ye wad blaw yer last. Gie him yill there, an' I'll play for him a hail hour, if he gars the roof-tree o' Cairnkibbie dirl to the gaberlunzie's dance."

The expectation of a merry bout brought others to the floor, and even the guidman and guidwife of Cairnkibbie, themselves, rose and "buckled to the wark," as cleverly as the youngest gipsy of the whole assembly. Then up blew the "Hunts o' Cheviot," in the quickest of Tam's ale-inspired manner, and away banged the jolly gaberlunzie, as if the spirit of Cybele's priests had seized his heart; "and like a lyon lap," as if he would have foreleeted Lightfute himself, and "counterfeited Frans." He clapped his hands, till the echoes came back from the roof; and the exhilarating hoogh! hoogh! which can only be given forth by the throat of a Scotchman, when good liquor has wet it and fired the brain that moves it, was heard by every ear, and felt by every heart. The very piper was delighted with the ranting chield, and ever, as his clap and hoogh! hoogh! resounded through the barn, the yells of the pipes seemed to rise higher and higher, and echoes of the same sounds came from the imitative spirits of the dancers.

"Hurra for the gaberlunzie!" shouted Will Aitken.

"The jolly beggar, for ever!" cried Steenie Thornton; and the smiles of the hizzies, and occasional slaps on the back, administered to the jolly roisterer, as they met and passed him in the midst of the reel, testified their most perfect satisfaction with the king of his tribe.

"Here, Will, here man," whispered the beggar, as he rioted in his wild humour, and twirled Will Carr about to face Lilly, while he left her for Bess Gordon. "Set to her, man, and dinna spare a kiss and a good squeeze o' her hand, as ye see the auld anes' backs to ye."

And then he drowned his remark with his hoogh! hoogh! sprung up yard high, and clapped his knees opposite the blooming Bess, who would not have given her jolly new partner for a' the Will Carrs in Scotland.

"Change the measure, Tam," cried the beggar, as he foresaw the termination of "The Hunts of Cheviot." "Up wi' 'King William's Note,' man. Fill his coig, ye lazy loons! Noo, Tam!—hoogh! hoogh!—there up yet, higher and higher, man—hoogh, hoogh!"

The piper felt the inspiration, up mounted the notes to the highest and liveliest measure, and away again flew the merry dancers under all the impulse of the new tune. The clap on the beggar's knee ever and anon run along, and still he twirled round Will Carr to face Lilly—though not before he had taken her round the fair neck, and kissed her, "nothing loath"—and again presented himself to the welcome face of Bess, whose rosy lips he "prec'd" as often as his many laborious evolutions, hooghs, claps, and cries to the piper would permit. He even made tacks to the side reels, and, laying hold of the damsels of his neighbours, kissed them from lug to lug, and then came back with a roar of laughter behind him, to greet of new Bess Gordon, to whom he seemed more welcome for his gallantry. The guidwife of Cairnkibbie herself was violently laid hold of round the neck and saluted with a loud smack, which, sounding in the ears of the guidman, produced a hearty laugh at the boldness, which was excused by the reckless jollity of the extraordinary gaberlunzie. Nor did he yet allow them to flag.

"Keep at it, Will!" he cried to the young man. "Ye'll hae aneuch o' Lilly for ae nicht, or my name's no Wat Wilson. Aneuch o' 'King William's Note,' Tam. Come awa wi' anither—'In Simmer I mawed my meadow,' wi' double quick time. Look to his bicker there, ye culroun knaves, wha'll neither dance, drink, nor mak drink!"

The piper heard the appeal, and struck up the new tune with great glee—

"Gude Lord, how he did lans!"

And again the inspiring strain, coming in a new measure, filled the dancers with new energies. There never had been such a reel since ever reels were danced. Heaven knows how long it had lasted, and yet the performers felt no weariness, all through the inspiring devilry, as they termed it, of the gaberlunzie, whose war-cry was as loud and uproarious as ever, and his leaps in the air as high as they had been at the first off-go. He now played off a new trick. He twirled round the partner of the next reel, and made him take his place before Bess Gordon, while he, ambitious of a new face, took the place of his neighbour, and continued the sport in his new locality and company. Bess regretted her change; but his new position was soon changed, for he played the same trick with the next reeling party, and so on through the whole four—for such was the number up at once; and he continued to "prec the mou's" of every young maiden on the floor, and, returning with many a hoogh, and clap, and leap to his old position, he seemed inclined to keep up the sport till the elder dancers should drop to the ground with sheer fatigue. It seemed to the guidman of Cairnkibbie that there was no remedy but a nod to Piper Tam, who, himself almost blown out, observed with pleasure the master's indication, and stopped the music even in the very midst of the leaping joy of the interminable gaberlunzie, who would have danced apparently till next moon, if he could have got any one strong enough and willing enough to dance with him.

He was now a universal favourite; all flocked round him as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and declared they had never seen such a spirited dancer before. His name, Wat Wilson, flew through the barn, and every one wondered how they had never seen such a jolly beggar in those parts before. But Wat said nothing of his unde, his ubi, or his quo; he only drank to the crowd around him; and, with Lilly on one side of him, and Will Carr on the other, he seized again his own pipes, and, forcing Tam to his feet, and crying to a new party to start, struck up one of the liveliest airs that the folks of the Merse had ever heard. In an instant again the barn was resounding with mirth; his strains were irresistible.

"Then all the wenches te he they playit,
And loud as Will Aitken leuche;
But nane cried, Gossip, hyn your gaits,
For we have dansit aneugh."

At least none cried they had danced enough while the beggar played; for the very heels seemed to obey the influence of his spirit, as if they had been gifted with some power of sympathy, independently of the bodies to which they were attached. The dance was kept up till the dancers tired—for the beggar's lungs were as tough as his feet; and when all had, for a time, tired of dancing, they assembled round their guest, who, of his own accord, struck up many a ranting song, and, by his humour, made the laugh resound through the barn. So fond grew they of his song and his jokes, that they felt no inclination, for a time, to resume again the dance. They drank and laughed, and screamed at every new sally of his wit, and every humorous turn of his song; and no one knows how long this scene might have lasted—for the gaberlunzie seemed inexhaustible—when a sound of horses' feet at the door claimed the attention of the revellers, and some one cried out that a party of horsemen were come to demand the body of a thief, who had that day, at Dunse, stolen the silver mace of King James, and was suspected to be at this Maiden, under the assumed dress of a wandering piper.

"That is the man," cried a belted knight, as, having dismounted, he trod forward into the middle of the barn, and pointed to the happy gaberlunzie, who had that instant finished his song.

"Ye lee," answered the beggar, in an instant, as he stood up, surrounded by his friends.

"Ha, sirrah!" answered the stranger, "this boldness will avail thee nothing. I know thee; and these, thy new-made friends, will not save thee from the execution of our orders. There are witnesses against thee, who saw thee steal the silver mace. Forward, ye sooth-saying men!"

Two men entered, dressed nearly in the same style as the first, and bearing all the marks and insignia of the grade of Knights.

"Is not this the thief?" inquired the first.

"It is—we will swear to him. He snatched the mace from the royal mace-bearer, in the streets of Dunse, and made off with it amidst the hue and cry of the populace, whose speed he outran as he would that of the greyhound."

"Guid faith," replied the guidman of Cairnkibbie, "if our friend ran as cleverly as he has danced this nicht, a' the greyhounds o' the Merse wadna hae catched him."

"Will ye gie me up to the beadles, freends," cried the beggar, "or will ye stand by him wha has sought yer protection, and partaken o' yer hospitality?"

"Gie ye up!" ejaculated the spirited old farmer; "in faith, na. If King Jamie war the Cham o' Tartary, or had three kings' heads on his shouthers in place o' ane, we'll defend ye while there's a flail in the barn o' Cairnkibbie."

A shout of approbation followed the speech of the old farmer. The maidens, whose chins still smarted from the rub of his jolly beard, flew for flail, and rung, and "hissil ryss," and in an instant every willing hand held a weapon.

"We'll defend him to the last drap o' oor bluid," cried Will Carr, as he manfully stood forward, and brandished a huge hazel rung.

"And, by my saul," cried the scaumer, Jock Hedderick; "if we fecht as he'll fecht, whether for auld feid or new, noytit pows and broken banes will tell the fortune o' the nicht, lang before the play's played."

"Ha, ha! guidmen, and true guidmen, and true!" cried the beggar, undaunted and laughing; "thank ye, my hinny, Lilly, for this green kevel! By the haly rude, come on now, ye silver-necklaced bull-dogs o' royalty:—

'The beggar was o' manly mak,
To meet him was nae mows,
There darena ten come him to tak,
Sae noyt will he their pows.'

Ye should ken that sang, if ye hae lear aneugh in your steel-bound noddles. Come on, ye calroun caitiffs!"

"Search his wallet," cried the foremost of the strangers; and six or seven men rushed into the barn, and made direct for the window-sole pointed to by the chief; but Will Swan and Will Carr, with half a dozen more stout hensures, flew forward and anticipated the searchers.

"Give me my meal-pocks," cried the gaberlunzie; and, having got hold of his wallet, he slung it over his shoulders, and, to the surprise of every one, took out the mace said to have been stolen, and, holding it in his left hand as a badge of his authority, continued, laughing like a cadger, to gibe the strangers—

"Beggars hae a king as weel as belted bannerets," he cried: "see ye my badge? Ken ye wha ye seek? Heard ye ne'er o' Wat Wilson the king o' the beggars, crowned on Hogmanay, on the Warlock's Hill near Dunse, in presence o' a' the tribe o' kaukers and keelars, collected from Berwick to Lerwick. This is the beggar's badge. Tak it if ye dare. By ae wag o't, yer bairns will be kidnapped, your kye yeld, and your mithers' banes stricken wi' the black sickness."

"Guidman of Cairnkibbie," said the foremost knight, "thou hast now evidence in that bold beggar's own hand, that he hath stolen a part of the king's regalia—an act of high treason, incurring death to him and all that give him shelter. Take the badge, examine it, and thou'lt find on it the royal arms. See to thy predicament. If I report a rescue, thou'rt ruined. James will punish thee as a resetter. These misguided men will fall in thy ruin, and sorely wilt thou repent having harboured and defended a thief and a vagabond. Wilt thou give him up, or must we take him at the expense of our blood and thine?"

"A' fair words," answered the guidman; "but this beggar is our guest. He says the badge is his ain, and truly I am bound to say that King Jamie himsel is nae mair like the king o' this auld land, than this jolly gaberlunzie is like the king o' his tribe. Every inch o'm's a king. He sings like a king, dances like a king, drinks like a king, and kisses the lasses like a king—and, king as he is, feth we'll be his loyal subjects. What say ye, guid hearts?"

"The same, the same," cried many voices; and a brandishing of flails and kevels showed that they were determined to act up to their pledge of defending the jolly gaberlunzie to the end. Matters now assumed a serious aspect.

"Thy ruin be on thine own heads!" cried the chief of the strangers. "Draw for the rights of King James, claim our prisoner, and take him through the blood of rebels who dispute the authority of their king!"

The men from without now began to rush into the barn with drawn swords; and seemed to expect that, when the steel was made apparent, no serious resistance would be offered. Their expectation, however, was vain; for the hinds did not seem to fear the naked swords, and several of them had already aimed blows at the heads of the enemy. The beggar was moving to the right and to the left with great rapidity; brandishing his huge kevel, and whispering something into the ears of his friends. The guidman was busy getting the women removed by a back door; and, in the midst of all the uproar, there seemed some scheme in operation on the part of the defenders, which would either co-operate with their warlike defence, or render the shedding of blood unnecessary. The assailants clearly did not wish to use the glittering thirsty blades; and continued to ward off the blows of the hinds, and to push them back, with a view to get hold of him who was the object of their search. He, in the meantime, was directing some secret operation with great adroitness and spirit. The confusion increased; the size of the barn, and the pressure of the assailants forward, apparently with a view to take away the power of the long sticks, prevented in a great measure the full play of the hinds' arms, and some of the king's men were engaged in a powerful wrestle, with the intention of disarming the hinds, and thus achieving a victory without loss of blood; but their efforts in this respect would have been attended with small success, if the tactics of the beggar had been a deadly contest. The assailants still pushed on, and it seemed that their opponents were fast receding, while the clanging of sticks on the swords, and the hard breathing and cries of those engaged, seemed to indicate a severe and equally contested strife. The defendants were latterly pushed up to the very farthest end of the apartment, and it seemed apparent that, if they did not make a great effort to redeem their position, and acquire room for the circle of their staves, they must resign the contest. But an extraordinary evolution was now performed. The back door was opened; in an instant, every hind disappeared from the faces of their foes; the door was locked and bolted; and the king's men turned to retrace their steps and seek the enemy outside. That turn exposed their position, and the trick of the gaberlunzie. The front door was also shut, locked, and riveted. On every side they were shut in, confined in a dark barn, and all means of escape entirely cut off. It was in vain that they roared through the key-holes of the doors. The gaberlunzie, who regulated all the motions of the successful party, responded to them in words of cutting irony, and even set agoing the swelling notes of his pipes, to celebrate his triumph by a pœan in the form of a pibroch.

"Ye may tell yer king," he cried, loud enough for them to hear—"that is, when ye get out, if ye ever experience that blessed fortune—that he is not the only king in these realms. And surely Scotland is wide enough for twa. I hae my subjects, he has his; an' Wat Wilson's no the potentate that wad ever interfere wi' Jamie Stuart, if Jamie Stuart will let alane Wat Wilson. If I happen to pass Dunse on the morn, I shanna fail to report favourably o' yer prowess; an', abune a', I shall tell him o' the condition o' his belted knichts—how

'There was not ane o' them that day
Could do ane ither's bidden,
And there lie three and thretty knights
Thrunland in ane midden.'

Come now, my friends, we'll adjourn the feast to the ha', an' let the knights tak their nicht's rest in the barn, after a' the toil o' their desperate battle."

A loud shout responded to the spirited speech of the gaberlunzie; and the feelings of the kidnapped and discomfited men-at-arms, on hearing the triumph of the beggar, who had out-manœuvred them, may be conceived, but could not well be expressed by an ordinary goose-quill. The guidman of Cairnkibbie took as hearty a laugh as the rest, at the trick thus successfully played off upon the king's men, and his laugh was nothing the less for the quantity of good ale he had drank before the fray began, and without which potation, perhaps, he would not have patronised an act which might bring him into trouble. There was one thing that, even through the fumes of the ale, struck him as very remarkable—the confined knights made scarcely any noise. There was no blustering or swearing of vengeance, nor threat of the king's displeasure, nor endeavours to break the doors. They submitted to their durance like lambs in a sheepfold, and seemed to have lost their spirits as well as courage, when they found themselves completely within the power of their enemy. What could this mean? There was a mystery in it, which the farmer, who was an arch old fox, could not explain; and when he put a question to the gaberlunzie, the answer increased his difficulty, for the beggar laughed, and attributed the quietness and meekness of the foes to the terror of his prowess, and the awe which his name inspired throughout a great part of Scotland.

"This is the most extraordinary deevil," said the farmer to himself, "that it has been my fortune to meet. His dancing, roaring, rioting, drinking, piping, singing, joking, fechting, seem a' on a par; an' nane o' them are beat by his power o' winning the hearts o' young an' auld. He has forced me to like him, will I or nill I; an' my dochter Lilly, an' my guidwife Jean, are nae less fond o' him than I am. Here, noo, is our Maiden broken up, my barn made a warhold, mysel a seneschal o' the king's troops, my head in a loop, an' my fortunes hanging in the wind o' the royal displeasure—a' brocht aboot by a wanderin beggar, wha forced himsel into oor happy meeting at the very point o' the bauldest tongue that ever hung in man's head; an' yet sae supple that it has won the very hearts o' the men that strove to keep him oot, an' brocht me into the hardest scrape I ever was in my life."

Cogitating in this prudential way, the guidman was fast coming to the conclusion that he was in a position of great danger; and that it was necessary that he should take the proper steps for freeing himself from the consequences of his imprudence as soon as it was possible. He turned round to look for the gaberlunzie, that he might commune with him on the prudence of letting the king's men free. The greater number of the men and women had gone into the house; and some of them stood at a distance, their forms revealed by a glimpse of the moon, which, freed from a cloud, began to illumine the holms of Cairnkibbie.

"Where is the beggar?" inquired the farmer at Will Carr.

"Where is the beggar?" cried Will Carr to his neighbour.

"Where is the gaberlunzie?" shouted several voices at once.

The gaberlunzie was gone. Steenie Thornton said he saw a person mount one of the troopers' horses that stood at the door of the barn, and, turning round the corner of the steading, gallop off at the top of his speed. He thought it was one of the hinds, who was trying the mettle of the king's horses, and would return instantly, after he had indulged himself with a ride. Now it was apparent to all that it was the strange gaberlunzie himself. He had crowned all his extraordinary actions of the evening by stealing one of the horses of the king, or his knights, and, with meal-pocks, wallet, pipes, and stolen mace, was "owre the Borders and awa," and might never be seen or heard of again; while the farmer, who now saw the extent of his danger, must stand the brunt of the king's vengeance, and be tried for forcing the king's messengers in the execution of their duty, for shutting them up in his barn, and stealing (for he would be charged with it) one of the horses, the property of his sovereign. The whole company now assembled around the farmer, whose position was apparent to the bluntest hind that ever danced at a Maiden. Some proposed to follow the beggar, and bring him back again; but he had already exhibited such a power of locomotive energy and daring spirit in the former adventures of the evening, that it seemed vain to attempt to overtake him with the quickest steed that was at their command. The difficulty was great, and, apparently, insuperable; and the whole scene enacted by the gaberlunzie appeared like a dream. The farmer swore against him mighty oaths, and directed against himself a part of the objurgatory declamation. But how was he to get out of the scrape? If the doors were opened, and the armed knights let loose, the whole company might be slaughtered, in the fury of the enraged men-at-arms, who would attribute to the farmer and his men their discomfiture, the loss of the thief, their confinement, and the loss of the horse. To keep them confined was, also a fearful resource; for they must be let out some time, and every minute of their confinement would add fuel to the flame of their resentment. Many opinions were given. Some were for getting assistance to enable them to stand on the defensive, against the expected attack, on the knights being let free. Some again were for striking a bargain "wi' the fou hand," as the saying goes, and letting the pursuers free, upon their word of a knight that they would not molest them. This latter plan seemed the best; and a good addendum was made by the greatest simpleton of the whole meeting—viz., that they should include in this act of amnesty the loss of the horse. The farmer proceeded to act upon this resolution.

"We are friendly inclined to ye," said he, in a tone of voice that might reach the prisoners. "Your enemy was that accursed gaberlunzie, wha maun be the very deevil himsel; for he it was wha blew us up against ye, and made us, a parcel o' quiet men, fecht against the servants o' our lawfu king. The cunning rogue's awa, and left us to bear the dirdum o' his feint or folly; and, a' ungeared as we are for war, we wish, withoot either dewyss or devilry, to ken the condition upon which ye will get yer liberty."

A loud laugh from within was the reply to this speech. What next could this mean? The farmer was confounded, the hinds stared, and every one looked at another. Here were men who five minutes before were fighting like fiends, who had been deceived and confined, struck and ill-used, indulging in a good jolly laugh at the broaching of a question concerning their liberty. The mystery was increased, the affair was more extraordinary, the development more difficult and distant.

"Ay, ay," continued the farmer, "ye may laugh; but, maybe, the laugh may be on the ither side when ye get oot. This may be an assumed guid nature, to blind us. I'm as far ben as ye, though no in the barn. Come, come. It is a serious affair. Will ye pledge the honour o' a knight, that, if I draw the bolts, ye'll let alane for let alane?"

"Surely, surely," was the ready reply, and another laugh accompanied the condition.

"Right merry prisoners, by my saul!" continued the farmer. "Will they laugh at the loss o' their horse, I wonder?" (To his friends.)

"That's a' very weel," he continued, in a higher voice. "I hae witnesses here to the pledge; but I'm sorry to inform ye that that deevil o' a beggar, wha stole yer king's mace, is aff and awa, the Lord kens whaur, wi' the best horse o' a' yer cavalcade. Will ye forgie this to the boot?"

Another burst of laughter responded from the barn, mixed with cries of—

"Ay, ay; never mind the horse. Let him go with the mace. The king of the beggars deserveth a steed."

"Weel, these are the maist pleasant faes I ever saw," said the farmer; "but I hae a' my fears there's a decoy duck i' the pond. Haud firm yer kevels, friends, in case a' this guid nature may, like the blink o' an autumn sun, be followed by the fire-flaughts o' their revenge."

The men stood prepared to fight, if necessary; the bolts were withdrawn, and out came the knights, as merry as larks, making the air resound with their laughter. The farmer and his friends were still more amazed, as, for their very souls, they could see nothing in discomfiture and imprisonment to make any man laugh. But the fact was now certain, that the prisoners were right glad and hearty; and the sincerity of their good humour was to be tested in a manner that seemed as extraordinary as anything that had yet been witnessed on this eventful evening. Not one of them ever mentioned the beggar or the loss of the horse—a circumstance remarkable enough; and, not contented with this scrupulous regard of the treaty, the chief of them, slapping the farmer on the back, proposed that, as they had so unceremoniously broken up the sports of the evening, they should not depart till they saw the dancing again commenced, and till they each and every man of them should dance a reel with the blooming maidens they had seen on their entry. This request, though as remarkable as the former proceedings, was received with loud applause. The parties were again collected; Tam the piper again took his seat; the ale flowed in its former abundance; and in a short time the brave knights were seen tripping it gaily through the mazes of the merry dance. This was another change of the moral peristrephic panorama of that extraordinary evening; and, as the farmer looked at the merry knights with their surtouts of green, and their buff baldricks and clanging swords, busy dancing in that very barn where they had, a few minutes before, been fighting like Turks, he held up his hands in wonder, and would have moralised on the chances and changes of life, if a barn had been a proper place, a Maiden a proper occasion, and the hour of relief from a great evil a proper time for the indulgence of such fancies.

The knights danced only for a very short time; and there can be no doubt that they did their best to please themselves, and to exhibit to their host and his friends the greatest triumphs of the gay art; but all their efforts only tended to bring into higher contrast their best and most intricate evolutions, their highest and most joyous humours, their pleasantest and merriest tricks, with the devil-daring, jumping, roaring, laughing, kissing, and hugging of the jolly gaberlunzie, who outran all competitors in the production of fun, as much as ever did an Arab steed the plough-nag at a fair gallop. There was not a knight among them that could, as the saying goeth, "hold the candle to him;" and as for the private opinions of the "damysells," the very best judges of the properties of man, they would not have given one hair in the beard of the jolly gaberlunzie for all the short crops of the chins of all the knights put together. His thefts and vagaries were lost, like spots on the sun, in the blaze of his convivial splendour; and, coming and flying off like a comet, as he had done, he had left them in a darkness which all the tiny lights of the good-natured crew of bannerets could not illumine beyond the twinkle that only served to exhibit more clearly their gloom. Sic transit gloria mundi!—they might never see his like again.

The knights, after enjoying themselves in the manner we have mentioned, mounted their horses, (the one whose steed was stolen, having borrowed one from the farmer,) and having been supplied with a good stirrup-cup, galloped away, without ever having said one word, either of good or evil, of the mysterious gaberlunzie of whom they came in search. The Maiden was finished soon after, and the guidman of Cairnkibbie retired with his guidwife to rest, and in their waking moments to wonder at the strange events of the day. The fears of evil, resulting from his own conduct, had in a great measure ceased; but, alas! they ceased only to be revived in the morning, and increased to a degree that made him still lament having forced the king's messengers, and harboured a thief. About eleven o'clock of the succeeding day, a horseman, booted and spurred, arrived in great haste at the door of the farm-house of Cairnkibbie, and requested to see the guidman.

"What's your will, sir?" said the farmer to the messenger, as he went to the door.

"I bear his Highness the King's schedule, to be delivered to William Hume, the tenant of Cairnkibbie."

"The King's schedule!" answered William, as he took the paper out of the messenger's hands—"what hae I dune to offend the king?"

"Read it," said the messenger; and William complied.

"These are to show our high will and pleasor, that whereas ane gaberlunzie, of the name of Wat Wilson, or at least ane wandering vagabond to whom that denomination does by common use or courtesie effeir, did, in our guid toun of Dunse, on Wednesday last past, of this current month of October, when our servitors and officers marching rank-on-raw, before and behint our person, reft frae the hands o' our mace-bearer, our mace of authority, fabricat of real siller, and embossed with dewysses of goold, whar-with he did flee trayterly to the protection and refuge of thee, William Hume, tenant of Cairnkibbie, wha, with thy tenants, domestics, and retainers, and others, did harbour him, even against our officers of justice, wham thou didst pummel, and lik, and abuse in a maist shameful manner, and thereafter didst confine in ane auld barn the whyle thou didst let off the said gaberlunzie, and steal ane o' the very choicest horses o' our knights; for all the whylk thou (and eke thy aiders and abettors) shalt answer at our present ambulatory Court, at our auld burgh of Dunse, wharto thou art summonit by this schedule, to attend on the day after thou receivest this, at 12 of the forenoon; whylk, if thou disregardest, thou shalt dree the punishment o' our righteous vengeance. Given at Dunse, this——day of October 15—. James R."

"The Lord hae mercy on the house o' Cairnkibbie!" ejaculated the farmer, as he read this fulmination of an incensed king's wrath. "What am I to do? How can I face the king after abusing his officers, and harbouring the thief wha stole the royal mace, as weel as the horse o' his officer? Can ye no intercede for me, sir, or at least gie me some advice how I am to act in this fearfu business?"

And the farmer stamped on the ground, and paced backwards and forwards in great distress. The officer who brought the schedule seemed to sympathise with the unhappy man; but, looking over to the door of the farm house, and seeing Lilly standing on the landing-place, combing her fair locks, he smiled as if some hope for the unfortunate farmer had broken in on his mind.

"Is that your daughter?" said he.

"It is," answered the farmer; "but that question has sma' concern with this present misery that has overtaken the house o' her father."

"More than thou thinkest, mayhap," answered the horseman. "Bring her with thee, man, to Court. The king cannot resist the appeal of beauty. If that fair wench will but hold up that face of hers, while thou settest forth thy defence, I'll guarantee thy liberation for a score o' placks. But see thou attendest; otherwise, messengers will be sent to force thy presence."

Saying these words, the messenger clapped spurs to his horse, and was out of sight in an instant, leaving the poor farmer in a state of unabated terror. He went into the house, and reported the direful issue of last night's adventure to his wife and daughter. The sympathetic communications of their mutual fears increased their sorrow and apprehension, till the females burst into tears, and the guidman himself groaned, at the prospect of his inevitable ruin. During the day and the night, the subject formed the continual theme of their conversation; and the terror of meeting the sovereign, the weakness of the defence, and the fear of ruinous consequences, alternated their influence over their clouded minds, without a moment's intermission of ease. The guidwife was determined she would not leave her husband in the hands of his enemies; Lilly agreed to accompany them, at the request of her father; and Will Carr, with one or two of the farm-servants, were to go as exculpatory witnesses. The farmer had in his grief resolved upon a candid defence. The truth, he was satisfied, might bring him off, while any attempt at concealment or falsification could not fail to hasten and increase the punishment he dreaded. At an early hour next day, the party were all on their way to Dunse; the farmer dressed in his long blue coat and blue bonnet, his wife with her manky kirtle and high-crowned mutch, bedizened with large bows of red ribbons; and Lilly, with her "Lincolme gown" and wimple-bound hair, looking like the Queen of May herself. On their entry into the town of Dunse, they were met by two men having the appearance of officers, who claimed them in the king's name as criminals, and conducted them to a small castle at the end of the town, at that time used as a garrison for the king's troops. After passing through a long passage (their hearts palpitating with terror and awe), they came to a room of a large and stately appearance, hung round, as they could see by their side glances—for they were terrified to look up—with loose hangings of rich cloth, whereon were many curious figures, that seemed to stand out apart from that on which they were set forth. About the middle of the room—so far as they could guess by their oblique investigation—they were seated on a species of "lang settle;" and when they found themselves seated, they began (after drawing nearer and nearer to each other) to look up and around.

There was a considerable number of individuals in the hall, some standing and some sitting, and all dressed in the most gorgeous style. On an elevated seat, covered by a temporary canopy of velvet, sat the august monarch of Scotland, the Fifth James; and at his feet were three or four individuals in the habiliments of barons. All this was little suited to calming the beating hearts of the simple individuals who were so strangely situated. There was not (and the circumstance seemed strange) an ordinary individual present. Those who acted as officers were clearly knights, or high gentlemen in the confidence of the king. All was silence for a few minutes, when a loud voice called out the name of "William Hume."

"Here," answered William, with a choking voice, while his wife and daughter shook till their very clothes rustled.

"Stand up, sir," cried the same fearful voice again.

William obeyed; and now, unimaginable awe! the voice of Majesty itself sounded through the hall.

"Read the indictment, Dempster," said the King.

The indictment was accordingly read.

"Is it true, sir," began his Majesty, "that thou didst harbour this man called Wat Wilson, knowing him to have stolen our mace, and thereafter didst beat and confine our messengers who were sent to apprehend him?"

Like many other timid witnesses, William Hume, regained his self-possession the moment he was fairly committed to giving evidence by a plain question being put to him.

"I cam here this day," replied William, looking up and around him with increasing confidence, "to tell your Highness God's truth. I canna deny the charge."

"Knowest thou the punishment of deforcing the king's messengers?" rejoined the King.

"No, yer Highness," replied William; "but my fears tell me it's no sma'."

"Hast thou anything to say in palliation of thy crime?"

"Owre muckle, I fear, yer Highness," answered William. "I say owre muckle; for now, when I look back upon the dementit proceedings o' that nicht, I have almost come to the conclusion that that gaberlunzie wha has brought me into a' this trouble, was neither mair nor less than his august Majesty wha"——

"Who, who?" cried the King impatiently; while several of the lords began to laugh, and whisper, "He knows him, he knows him."

"—Than his august Majesty," continued William, "wha haulds his court there—there"—(pointing his finger downwards.) "To be plain, yer Highness, I do on my saul believe he was the Deevil himsel!"

The king laughed a loud laugh, and all the barons burst fair out into a hearty "guffaw;" while some of them muttered, "A compliment—a compliment, in good faith, to the King"—a whisper which, if William Hume had heard, he might have construed into a hint that the gaberlunzie was no other that the king himself; but, luckily for the naiveté of William's testimony, he remained in his ignorance.

"What, man!" exclaimed the King, when he had again arranged his jaws into something like gravity—"Dost thou believe he was the Devil?"

"Troth do I," replied William, now getting bolder by the laughter that had rung in his ears; "and the mair I think o' him and his wild and wonderfu' feiks and freits, the mair satisfied am I o't."

William's adherence to his position produced another burst of merriment.

"What did he do," continued the King, "to entitle him to that character? It would ill become us to punish a subject for the acts of the Evil One."

"What did he no do, your Highness?" ejaculated the farmer—"he did everything the enemy could do, and man couldna. We were hauldin our Maiden when he cam to the door, and were determined no to let him in; but he turned a' oor hearts in an instant, and the enemies o' his entrance becam the freends o' his presence. Then began he to act his part: he played as nae man ever played; drank as nae man ever drank; danced, and made ithers dance, langer and blyther than ever man did on the face o' this earth; caught men's hearts like bullfinches wi' his sangs, the women's by the rub o' his beard; and sent through a' and owre a' sic a glamour and witchery o' fun, and frolic, and enjoyment—ay, and luve o' himsel—that nae mortal cratur was ever seen to hae sic power since the days o' Adam."

William drew breath, and the king and lords again laughed heartily.

"But a' that was naething," continued William; "I'm a plain man, as ye may see—and wha, looking at me, would say that a mortal gaberlunzie could twist me round his finger as easily as he could do a packthread? Yet this beggar did that. Your Highness' troops cam to seize him—and wha before ever saw the guidman o' Cairnkibbie harbour a thief? The Deevil had thrown owre me and the hail menyie the charm o' his cantraps. We swore we would defend him—ay, even though we saw the stowen mace in his hand; we did defend him, and he had nae mair to do than to blaw in oor lugs, when clap went the barn-doors, and a' yer Highness' knights were imprisoned as if by magic. Could a beggar o' ordinar flesh and blude hae dune a' that, yer Highness?"

William again drew breath, and again the hall resounded with the laugh of the king and his lords.

"But even a' that was little or naething," continued William again; "for to pay us for a' the guid we had dune him, he made himsel invisible, and rode aff like a fire-flaught on ane o' the knight's horses; and frae that eventfu hour to this, we hae ne'er seen his face."

"Art satisfied, my Lord of Ross?" said the King in a whisper, to a lord that sat beside him. "Is our wager won? Have we, as we essayed, succeeded in our undertaking? Have we in the form of a beggar, so wrought upon the hearts of the members of a Maiden feast, as to gain their love to the extent of making them defend the gaberlunzie against the king's knights, inspiring them to fight, and win the day in a fought battle, and latterly riding home on one of the enemy's horses? Ha! ha! we opine we have—what say our judges?"

"The game is up," replied the Lord of Ross. "I acknowledge myself beat. Your Highness has won the day."

Another laugh sealed the triumph of the king, and William Hume stared in amazement at the extraordinary mummery that was acted around him.

"William Hume," said the King, "this is an artifice on thy part to escape our vengeance. I go to put on the black cap, and to return to pronounce thy fate. Thou hast admitted the crime; and to lay it on the devil's back, is only the common way of the wicked."

Lilly, on hearing the mention of the black cap, screamed, the mother cried for mercy, and the thunderstruck farmer waited to receive his doom. The king went out, and returned in a short time in the cap of Wat Wilson, holding in his hand the stolen mace. A new light broke in upon the mind of the criminal—he perceived at once the identity of the king and the beggar; and the fears of all were in a moment dispelled.

"Stand up, Lilly Hume and Will Carr," said the monarch.

The voice of royalty sounded like a death-knell in the ears of the maiden. Her mind ran back to that eventful hour when she told the beggar the secret of her love; and she felt even yet the hug of the king, and the royal kiss burning on her lips. She blushed to the temples, and could scarcely stand without the support of her father, who now, when he saw how the land lay, had recovered all his fortitude, with a portion of well-founded hope that the services he performed to the beggar-king would meet with their reward.

"So your faither, Lilly, will not allow you to marry Will Carr," resumed James, "because he is puir?"

"Guid Lord!" muttered William to himsel—"hoo comes he to ken that too?—a family secret that I could scarcely breathe in my ain lug for its injustice, and now I see to be punished as it deserves."

Lilly hung her head. She could not open her lips. The mention of her humble love by a king and in the presence of nobles, was so far beyond the ordinary experience of her obscure life, and held such a contrast to the secret breathings of her affection in her stolen meetings with her lover among the broom knowes of Cairnkibbie, that she thought the world itself was undergoing some extraordinary convulsion. Turning round, she caught the eye of Will Carr, who, having more courage, infused some portion of his confidence into the blushing girl.

"Is that true, William Hume?" rejoined James, who despaired of getting an answer from Lilly.

"Deed, an' it's owre true, yer Highness," answered the farmer; "but I thought there wasna a mortal on earth knew the circumstance but mysel and my wife; for, begging your Highness' pardon, I was ashamed to tell it to the lassie hersel, for fear she might hae communicated it to Will's freends, wha are decent people, and canna help their poverty."