Wilson's

Tales of the Borders

AND OF SCOTLAND.

HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.

ALEXANDER LEIGHTON,

CONTENTS

WILSON'S

TALES OF THE BORDERS

AND OF SCOTLAND.

THOMAS OF CHARTRES.

One morning, early in the spring of 1298, a small Scottish vessel lay becalmed in the middle of the Irish Channel, about fifteen leagues to the south of the Isle of Man. During the whole of the previous night, she had been borne steadily southward, by a light breeze from off the fast receding island; but it had sunk as the sun rose, and she was now heaving slowly to the swell, which still continued to roll onward, in long glassy ridges from the north. A thick fog had risen as the wind fell—one of those low sea fogs which, leaving the central heavens comparatively clear, hangs its dense, impervious volumes around the horizon; and the little vessel lay as if imprisoned within a circular wall of darkness, while the sun, reddened by the haze, looked down cheerily upon her from above. She was a small and very rude-looking vessel, furnished with two lug-sails of dark brown, much in the manner of a modern Dutch lugger; with a poop and forecastle singularly high, compared with her height in the waist; and with sides which, attaining their full breadth scarcely a foot over the water, sloped abruptly inwards, towards the deck, like the wall of a mole or pier. The parapet-like bulwarks of both poop and forecastle were cut into deep embrasures, and ran, like those of a tower, all around the areas they enclosed, looking down nearly as loftily on the midships as on the water. The sides were black as pitch could render them—the sails scarcely less dark; but, as if to shew man's love of the ornamental in even the rudest stage of art, a huge misshapen lion flared in vermillion on the prow, and over the stern hung the blue flag of Scotland, with the silver cross of St Andrew stretching from corner to corner.

From eight to ten seamen lounged about the decks. They were uncouth-looking men, heavily attired in jerkins and caps of blue woollen, with long, thick beards, and strongly-marked features. The master, a man considerably advanced in life—for, though his eye seemed as bright as ever, his hair and beard had become white as snow—was rather better dressed. He wore above his jerkin a short cloak of blue which confessed, in its finer texture, the superiority of the looms of Flanders over those of his own country; and a slender cord of silver ran round a cap of the same material. His nether garments, however, were coarse and rude as those of his seamen; and the shoes he wore were fashioned, like theirs, of the undressed skin of the deer, with the hair still attached; giving to the foot that brush-like appearance which had acquired to his countrymen of the age, from their more polished neighbours, the appellation of rough-footed Scots. Neither the number, nor the appearance of the crew, singular and wild as the latter was, gave the vessel aught of a warlike aspect; and yet there were appearances that might have led one to doubt whether she was quite so unprepared for attack or defence as at the first view might be premised. There ran round the butt of each mast a rack filled with spears, of more knightly appearance than could have belonged to a few rude seamen—for of some of these the handles were chased with silver, and to some there were strips of pennon attached; and a rich crimson cloak, with several pieces of mail, were spread out to the morning sun, on one of the shrouds.

The crew, we have said, were lounging about the deck, unemployed in the calm, when a strong, iron-studded door opened in the poop, and a young and very handsome man stepped forward.

"Has my unfortunate cloak escaped stain?" he said to the master. "Your sea-water is no brightener of colour."

"It will not yet much ashame you, Clelland," said the master, "even amid the gallants of France; but, were it worse, there is little fear, with these eyes of yours, of being overlooked by the ladies."

"Nay, now, Brichan, that's but a light compliment from so grave a man as you," said Clelland. "You forget how small a chance I shall have beside my cousin."

"Not jealous of the Governor, Clelland, I hope?" said the old man, gaily. "Nay, trust me, you are in little danger. Sir William is perhaps quite as handsome a man as you, and taller by the head and shoulders; but, trust me, no one will ever think of him as a pretty fellow. He stands too much alone for that. Has he risen yet?"

"Risen!—he has been with the chaplain for I know not how long. Their Latin broke in upon my dreams two hours ago. But what have we yonder, on the edge of that bank of fog! Is it one of the mermaidens you were telling me of yesterday?"

"Nay," said the master, "it is but a poor seal, risen to take the air. But what have we beyond it? By heavens I see the dim outline of a large vessel, through the fog! and yonder, not half a bow-shot beyond, there is another! Saints forbid that it be not the English fleet, or the ships of Thomas of Chartres! Clelland, good Clelland, do call up the Governor and his company!"

Clelland stepped up to the door in the poop, and shouted hastily to his companions within—"Strange sails in sight!—supposed enemies—it were well to don your armours." And then turning to a seaman. "Assist me, good fellow," he said, "in bracing on mine."

"Thomas of Chartres, to a certainty!" exclaimed the master—"and not a breath to bear us away! Would to heavens that I were dead and buried, or had never been born!"

"Why all this ado, Brichan?" said Clelland, who, assisted by the sailor, was coolly buckling on his mail. "It was never your wont before, to be thus annoyed by danger."

"It is not for myself I fear, noble Clelland," said the master, "if the Governor were but away and safe. But, oh, to think that the pride and stay of Scotland should fall into the merciless hands of a pirate dog! Would that my own life, and the lives of all my crew, could but purchase his safety!"

"Take heart, old man," said Clelland, with dignity. "Heaven watches over the fortunes of the Governor of Scotland; nor will it suffer him to fall obscurely by the hands of a mere plunderer of merchants and seamen.—Rax me my long spear."

As he spoke, the Governor himself stepped forward from the door in the poop, enveloped from head to foot in complete armour. He was a man of more than kingly presence—taller, by nearly a foot, than even the tallest man on deck, and broader across the shoulders by full six inches; but so admirably was his frame moulded, that, though his stature rose to the gigantic, no one could think of him as a giant. His visor was up, and exhibited a set of high handsome features, and two of the finest blue eyes that ever served as indexes to the feelings of a human soul. His chin and upper lip were thickly covered with hair of that golden colour so often sung by the elder poets; and a few curling locks of rather darker shade escaped from under his helmet. A man of middle stature and grave saturnine aspect, who wore a monk's frock over a coat of mail, came up behind him.

"What is to befall us now, cousin Clelland?" said the Governor. "Does not the truce extend over the channel, think you?"

"Ah, these are not English enemies, noble sir," replied the master. "We have fallen on the fleet of the infamous Thomas of Chartres."

"And who is Thomas of Chartres?" asked the Governor.

"A cruel and bloodthirsty pirate—the terror of these seas for the last sixteen years. Wo is me!—we have neither force enough to fight, nor wind to bear us away!"

"Two large vessels," said the Governor, stepping up to the side, "full of armed men, too; but we muster fifty, besides the sailors; and, if they attempt boarding us, it must be by boat. Is it not so, master? The calm which fixes us here, must prevent them from laying alongside and overmastering us."

"Ah, yes, noble sir," said the master; "but we see only a part of the fleet."

"Were there ten fleets," exclaimed Clelland, impatiently, "I have met with as great odds ashore—and here comes Crawford."

The door in the poop was again thrown open, and from forty to fifty warriors, in complete armour, headed by a tall and powerful-looking man, came crowding out, and then thronged around the masts, to disengage their spears. They were all robust and hardy-looking men—the flower apparently of a country side; and the coolness and promptitude with which they ranged themselves round their leader, to wait his commands, shewed that it was not now for the first time they had been called on to prepare for battle. They were, in truth, tried veterans of the long and bloody struggle which their country had maintained with Edward—men who, ere they had united under a leader worthy to command them, had resisted the enemy individually, and preserved, amid their woods and fastnesses, at least their personal independence. Such a party of such men, however great the odds opposed to them, could not, in any circumstances, be deemed other than formidable.

"We are not born for peace, countryman," said the Governor—"war follows us even here. Meanwhile, lie down, that the enemy mark not our numbers. That foremost vessel is lowering her boat, and yonder tall man in scarlet, who takes his seat in the bows, seems to be a leader."

"It is Thomas of Chartres, himself," said the master. "I know him well. Some five-and-twenty years ago, we sailed together from Palestine."

"And what," asked the Governor, "could have brought a false pirate there?"

"He was no false pirate then," replied the master, "but a true Christian knight; and bravely did he fight for the sepulchre. But, on his return to France, where he had been pledged to meet with his lady-love, he fell under the displeasure of the King, his master; and, ever since, he has been a wanderer and a pirate. You will see, as he approaches, the scallop in his basnet; and be sure he will be the first man to board us."

"Excellent," exclaimed the Governor, gaily; "we shall hold him hostage for the good behaviour of his fleet. Mark me, cousin Crawford. His barge shoves off, and the men bend to their oars. He will be here in a twinkling. Do you stand by our good Ancient—would there were but wind enough to unfurl it!—and the instant he bids us strike, why, lower it to the deck; but be as sure you hoist it again when you see him fairly aboard. And you, dear Clelland, do you take your stand here on the deck beside me, and see to it, when I am dealing with the pirate, that you keep your long spear between us and his crew. It will be strange if he boast of his victory this bout."

The men, at the command of their leader, had prostrated themselves on the deck, while his two brethren in arms, Crawford and Clelland, stationed themselves at his bidding—the one on the vessel's poop, directly under the pennon, the other at his side in the midships. The pirate's barge, glittering to the sun with arms and armour, and crowded with men, rowed lustily towards them; but, while yet a full hundred yards away, a sudden breeze from the west began to murmur through the shrouds, and the bellying sails swelled slowly over the side.

"Heaven's mercy be praised!" exclaimed the master, "we shall escape them yet. Lay her easy to the wind, good Crawford—lay her easy to the wind, and we shall bear out through them all."

"Nay, cousin, nay," said the Governor, his eyes flashing with eagerness, "the pirate must not escape us so. Lay the vessel to. Turn her head full to the wind. And you, captain, draw off your men to the hold. We must not lose our good sailors; and these woollens of yours will scarcely turn a French arrow. Nay, 'tis I who am master now"—for the old man seemed disposed to linger. "I may resign my charge, perhaps, by and by; but you must obey me now."

The master and his sailors left the deck. The barge of the pirate came sweeping onward till within two spears' length of the vessel, and then hailed her with no courtly summons of surrender. "Strike, dogs, strike! or you shall fare the worse!" It was the pirate himself who spoke, and Crawford, at his bidding, pulled down the Ancient. The barge dashed alongside. Thomas of Chartres, a very tall and very powerful man, seized hold of the bulwark rail with one hand, and bearing a naked sword in the other, leaped fearlessly aboard, within half a yard of where the Governor stood, half-concealed by the shrouds and the bulwarks. In a moment the sword was struck down, and the intruder locked in the tremendous grasp of the first champion of his time. Crawford hoisted the Ancient, yard-high, to the new-risen breeze; while Clelland struck his long spear against the pirate who had leaped on the gunwale to follow his leader, with such hearty good-will that the steel passed through targe and corselet, and he fell back a dead man into the boat. In an instant the concealed party had sprung from the deck, and fifty Scottish spears bristled over the gunwale, interposing their impenetrable hedge between the pirate crew and their leader. For a moment, the latter had striven to move his antagonist; but, powerful and sinewy as he was, he might as well have attempted to uproot an oak of an hundred summers. While yet every muscle was strained in the exertion, the Governor swung him from off his feet, suspended him at arm's length for full half a moment in the air, and then dashed him violently against the deck. A stream of blood gushed from mouth and nostril, and he lay stunned and senseless where he fell. Meanwhile, the crew of the barge, taken by surprise, and outnumbered, shoved off a boat's length beyond reach of the spears, and then rested on their oars.

"He revives," said the warrior in the monk's frock, going up to the fallen pirate. "Reiver though he be, he has fought for the holy sepulchre, and has worn golden spurs."

"I will deal with him right knightly," said the Governor. "Yield thee, Sir Thomas of Chartres," he continued, bending over the prisoner, and holding up a dagger to his face—"yield thee true hostage for the good conduct of thy fleet—or shall I call the confessor?"

"I yield me true hostage," said the fallen man. "But who art thou, terrible warrior, that o'ermasterest De Longoville of France as if he were a stripling of twelve summers? Art Wallace, the Scottish Champion!"

"Thou yieldest, De Longoville," said the Governor, "to Sir William Wallace of Elderslie. But how is it that I meet, in the infamous Thomas of Chartres, that true soldier of the Cross, De Longoville? I have heard minstrels sing of thy deeds against the Saracen, Sir Knight, while I was yet a boy; and yet here art thou now, the dread of the wandering sailor and the merchant—a chief among thieves and pirates."

"Alas! noble Wallace, thou sayest too truly," said Sir Thomas; "but yet wouldst thou deem me as worthy of pity as of censure, didst thou but know all, and the remorse I even now endure. For a full year have I determined to quit this wild, unknightly mode of life, and go a pilgrim as of old; not to fight for the sepulchre—for the battles of the Cross are over—not to fight, but to die for it. But I accept, noble champion, this my first defeat on sea, as a message from heaven. Accept of me as true soldier under thee, and I will fight for thee in thy country's quarrel, to the death."

"Most willingly, brave De Longoville," said the Governor, as he raised him from the deck; "Scotland needs sorely the use of such swords as thine."

"And deem not her cause less holy," said the monk—for monk he was, the well-known Chaplain Blair—"deem not her cause less holy than that of the sepulchre itself; nor think that thou shalt eradicate the stain of past dishonour less surely in her battles. The cause of justice, De Longoville, is the cause of God, contend for it where we may."

Wallace returned to De Longoville the sword of which he had so lately disarmed him; and the pirate admiral, on learning that the champion was bound for Rochelle, issued orders to his fleet, which, now that the mist rose, was found to consist of six large vessels, to follow close in their wake. The breeze blew steadily from the north-west, and the ships went careering along, each in her own long furrow of white, towards the port of their destination; the pirate vessels keeping aloof full two bowshots from the Scotsman—for so De Longoville had ordered, to prevent suspicion of treachery. He had set aside his armour, and now appeared to his new associates as a man of noble and knightly bearing, tall and stalwart as any warrior aboard, save the Governor; and, though his hair was blanched around his temples, and indicated the approach of age, the light step and quick sparkling eye gave evidence that his vigour of frame still remained undiminished. He sat apart, with the Governor and his two kinsmen, Clelland and Crawford, in the cabin under the poop. It was a rude, unornamented apartment, as might be expected, from the general appearance of the vessel; but the profusion of arms and pieces of armour which hung from the sides, glittering to the light that found entrance through a casement in the deck, bestowed on the place an air of higher pretension. A table with food and wine was placed before the warriors.

"It is now twenty-six years, or thereby," said De Longoville, "since I quitted Palestine for France, with the good Louis. I had fought by his side on the disastrous field of Massouna, and did all that a man of mould might to rescue him from the Saracens, when he fell into their hands, exhausted by his wounds and his sore sickness. But that day was written a day of defeat and disaster to the soldiers of the Cross. Nor need I say how I took my stand, with the best of my countrymen, on the walls of Damietta, and maintained them for the good cause, despite of the assembled forces of the Moslem, until we had bought back our king from captivity, by yielding up the city we defended for his ransom. It is enough for a disgraced man and a captive to say that my services were not overlooked by those whose notice was most an honour; and that, ere I embarked for France, I received the badge of knighthood from the hand of the good Louis himself.

"You all know of how different a character Charles of Anjou was from his brother the king. I had returned from the crusade rich, only in honour, and found the lady of my affections under close thrall by her parents, who had resolved that she should marry Loithaire, Lord of Languedoc. I knew that her heart was all my own; but I knew, besides, that I must become wealthy ere I could hope to compete for her with a rival such as Loithaire; and the good Pope Nicholas having made over the crown of the Two Sicilies to Charles of Anjou, in an evil hour I entered the army with which Charles was to wrest it from the bastard Manfred—having certain assurance, from the tyrant himself, that, if he succeeded, I should become one of the nobles of Sicily. We encountered Manfred at Beneventura, and the bastard was defeated and slain. But I must blush, as a knight, for the honour of knighthood—as a Frenchman, for the fair fame of my country—when I think of the cruelties which followed. Not the worst tyrants of old Rome could have surpassed Charles of Anjou in his butcheries. The blood plashed under the hoofs of his charger as he passed through the cities of his future kingdom; and, when he had borne down all opposition, 'twould seem as if, in his eagerness to destroy all who might resist, he had also determined to extirpate all who could obey. But his policy proved as unsound as 'twas cruel and unjust, as the terrible Eve of the Vespers has since shown. The Princes of Germany, headed by the chivalrous Conradine of Swabia, united against us in the cause of the people. But the arms of France were again triumphant; the confederacy was broken, and the gallant Conradine fell into the hands of Charles. It was I, warriors of Scotland! to whom he surrendered; and I had granted him, as became a knight, an assurance of knightly protection. But would that my arms had been hewn off at the shoulders when I first beat down his sword, and intercepted his retreat! The infamous Charles treated my knightly assurance with scorn; and—can you credit such baseness, noble Wallace!—he ordered Conradine of Swabia—a true knight, and an independent prince—for instant execution, as if he were a common malefactor. My blood boils, even now, when I recall that terrible scene of injustice and cruelty. The soldiers of France crowded round the scaffold; and I was among them, burning with shame and rage. Ere Conradine bent him to the executioner, he took off his glove, and throwing it amongst us, adjured us, if we were not all as dead to honour as our leader, to bear it to some of his kinsmen, who would receive it as a pledge of investiture in his rights, and as beqeathing the obligation to revenge his death. Will you blame me, noble Wallace! that, Frenchman as I was, I seized the glove of Conradine, and fled the army of Charles; and that, ere I returned to France, I delivered it up to Pedro of Arragon, the near kinsman of the last Prince of Swabia?

"My king and friend, the good Louis, had sailed from France for Palestine, on his last hapless voyage, ere I had executed my mission. On my return to France, however, I found a galley of Toulon on the eve of quitting port, to join with his fleet, then on the coast of Africa, and, snatching a hurried interview with the lady of my affections, maugre the vigilance of her relatives, I embarked to fight under Louis, as of old, for the blessed sepulchre. We landed near Tunis, and saw the tents of France glittering to the sun. But all was silent as midnight, and the royal standard hung reversed over the pavilion of the good Louis. He had died that morning of the plague; and his base and cruel brother, the false Charles of Anjou, sat beside the corpse. I felt that I had fallen among my enemies; for though the young King was there, he was weak and inexperienced, and open to the influence of his uncle. The first knight I met, as I entered the camp, was Loithaire of Languedoc—now the wily friend and counsellor of Charles. There were lying witnesses suborned against me, who accused me of the most incredible and unheard-of practices; and of these Loithaire was the chief. 'Twas in vain I demanded the combat, as a test of my innocence. The combat was denied me; my sword was broken before the assembled chivalry of France; my shield reversed; and sentence was passed that I should be burnt at a stake, and my ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven. But it was not written that I should perish so. Scarce an hour before the opening of the day appointed for my execution, I broke from prison, assisted by a brother soldier, whose life I had saved in Palestine, and escaped to France.

"I was a broken and ruined man. But how wondrous the force of true affection! My Agnes knew this; and yet, knowing all, she contrived to elude her guardians, and fled with me to the sea-shore, where we embarked, in a ship of Normandy, for the south of Ireland. From that hour De Longoville has fought under no banner but his own. I renounced, in my anger, my allegiance to my country-nay, declared war with the sovereign who had so injured me. The years passed, and desperate and dishonoured men like myself came flocking to me as their leader, till not Philip himself, or my old enemy Charles, had more kingly authority on land than De Longoville on the sea. But let no man again deceive himself as I have done. I had reasoned on the lax morality and doubtful honour of kings, and asked myself why I might not, as the admiral and prince of my fleet, achieve a less guilty, though not less splendid glory than the bastard William of Normandy, or Edward of England, or my old enemy Charles of Anjou. But I have long since been taught that what were high achievements and honourable conquest in the admiral of a hundred vessels, is but sheer piracy in the captain of six. I can trust, however, that the last days of De Longoville may yet be deemed equal to the first; and that the middle term of his life may be forgiven him for its beginning and its close. Not a month since, I carried my wife and daughter to France, and took final leave of them, with the purpose of setting out on my pilgrimage to Palestine. That intention, noble Wallace! is now altered; and I must again seek them out, that they may accompany me to Scotland."

"The foul stain of treason, brave Longoville, must be removed," said the Governor. "Charles of Anjou has long since gone to his account: does the Lord of Languedoc still survive!"

"He still lives," replied the admiral; "his years do not outnumber my own."

"Then must he either retract the vile calumny, or grant you the combat. The young Philip has pledged his knightly word, when he solicited the visit I am now voyaging to pay him, that he would grant me the first boon I craved in person, should it involve the alienation of his fairest province. That boon, brave De Longoville, will, at least, present you with the means of regaining your fair fame."

De Longoville knelt on the cabin floor, and kissed the hand of the Governor. The conversation glided imperceptibly to other and lighter matters; time passed gaily in the recital of stories of chivalrous endurance or exploit; and the gale, which still blew steadily from the north-west, promised a speedy accomplishment of their voyage. For four days they sailed without shifting back or lowering sail; and, on the morning of the fifth, cast anchor in the harbour of Rochelle.

On the evening of the second day after their arrival, a single knight was pricking his steed through one of the glades of the immense forest which, at this period, covered the greater part of the province of Poitiers. He had been passing, ever since morning, through what seemed an interminable wilderness of wood—here clustered into almost impenetrable thickets shagged with an undergrowth of thorn, there opening into long bosky glades and avenues that seemed, however, only to lead into recesses still more solitary and remote than those that darkened around him. During the early part of the day, the sun had looked down gaily among the trees, checkering the sward below with a carpeting of alternate light and shadow; and the knight, a lover of falconry and the chase, had rode jocundly on through the peopled solitude; ever and anon grasping his spear, with the eager spirit of the huntsman, as the fawn started up beside his courser, and shot like a meteor across the avenue, or the wild boar or wolf rustled in the neighbouring brake. Towards evening, however, the eternal sameness of the landscape had begun to fatigue him; the sun, too, had disappeared, long before his setting, in a veil of impenetrable vapour, mottled with grey, ponderous clouds, betokening an approaching storm; and the horseman pressed eagerly onward, in the hope of reaching, ere its bursting, the hostelry in which he had purposed to pass the evening. He had either, however, mistaken his way or miscalculated his distance; for after passing dell and dingle, glade and thicket, in monotonous succession, for hours on hours, the forest still seemed as dense and unending, and the hostelry as distant as ever. A brown and sleepy horror seemed to settle over the trees as the evening darkened; the thunder began to bellow in long peals, far to the south, and a few heavy drops to patter from time to time on the leaves, giving indication of the approaching deluge. The knight had just resigned himself to encounter all the horrors of the storm, when, on descending into a little bosky hollow, through which there passed a minute streamlet, he found himself in front of a deserted hermitage. It was a cell, opening, like an Egyptian tomb, in the face of a low precipice. A rude stone-cross, tapestried with ivy, rose immediately over the narrow door-way.

"The saints be praised!" exclaimed the knight, leaping lightly from his horse. "I shall e'en avail myself of the good shelter they have provided. But thou, poor Biscay," he continued, patting his steed, "wouldst that thou wert with thy master, mine host of the Three Fleurs de Lis!—there is scant stabling for thee here. This way, however, good Biscay—this way. Thou must bide the storm as thou best may'st in yonder hollow of the rock." And, leading the animal to the hollow, he fastened him to the stem of a huge ivy, and then entered the hermitage.

It consisted of one small rude apartment, hewn, apparently with immense labour, in the living rock. A seat and bed of stone occupied the opposite sides; and in the extreme end, fronting the door, there was a rude image of the Virgin, with a small altar of mouldering stone, placed before it. The evening was oppressively sultry, and, taking his seat on the bedside, the knight unlaced and set aside his helmet, exhibiting to the fast-dying light, the brown curling hair and handsome features of our old acquaintance Clelland—for it was no other than he. The thunder began to roll in louder and longer peals, and the lightning to illumine, at brief intervals, every glade and dingle without, and every minute object within; when a loud scream of dismay and terror, blent with the infuriated howl of some wild animal, rose from the upper part of the dell, and Clelland had but snatched up his spear and leaped out into the storm, when a young female, closely pursued by an enormous wolf, came rushing down the declivity, in the direction of the hermitage; but, in crossing the little stream, overcome apparently by fatigue and terror, she stumbled and fell. To interpose his person between the poor girl and her ravenous pursuer was with Clelland the work of one moment; to make such prompt and efficient use of his spear that the steel head passed through and through the monster, and then buried itself in the earth beneath, was his employment in the next. The black blood came spouting out along the shaft, crimsoning both his hands to the wrists; and the transfixed savage, writhing itself round on the wood in its mortal agony, and gnashing its immense fangs, just uttered one tremendous howl that could be heard even above the pealing of the thunder, and then belched out his life at his feet. He raised the fallen girl, who seemed for a moment to have sunk into a state of partial swoon, and, disengaging his good weapon from the bleeding carcass, he supported her to the hermitage in the rock.

She was attired in the garb of a common peasant of the age and country; but there was even yet light enough to shew that her beauty was of a more dignified expression than is almost ever to be found in a cottage—exquisite in colour and form as that which we meet with in the latter, may often be. There was a subdued elegance, too, in her few brief, but earnest expressions of gratitude to her deliverer, that consorted equally ill with her attire. On entering the hermitage, she knelt before the altar, and prayed in silence; while Clelland took his seat on the stone couch where he had before placed his helmet, leaving to his new companion the settle on the opposite side. Meanwhile the storm without had increased tenfold. The thunder rolled overhead, peal after peal, without break or pause; so that the outbursting of every fresh clap was mingled with the echoes in which the wide-spread forest had replied to the last. At times, the opposite acclivity, with all its thickets, seemed as if enveloped in an atmosphere of fire—at times one immense seam of forked lightning came ploughing the pitchy gloom of the heavens, from the centre to the horizon. The wild beasts of the forest were abroad. Clelland could hear their fierce howlings mingled with the terrific bellowings of the heavens. The dead sultry calm was suddenly broken. A hurricane went raging through the woods. There was a creaking, crackling, rushing sound among the trees, as they strained and quivered to the blast; and a roaring, like that of some huge cataract, showed that a waterspout had burst in the upper part of the dell, and that the little stream was coming down in thunder—a wide and impetuous torrent. Clelland's fair companion still remained kneeling before the altar. 'Twould seem as her prayer of thanks for her great deliverance had changed into an earnest and oft-reiterated petition for still further protection.

In a pause of the storm, the frightful howlings of a flock of wolves were heard rising from over the hermitage, as if hundreds had assembled on its roof of rock. Clelland sprung from his seat, and, grasping his spear, stood in the doorway.

"We shall have to bide siege," he said to his companion. "I knew not that these fierce creatures mustered so thickly here."

"Heaven be our protection!" said the maiden. "They fill every recess of the forest. I had left my mother's this evening for but an instant—'twas in quest of a tame fawn—when the monster from whose murderous fangs you delivered me, started up between me and my home; and I had to fly from instant destruction into the thick of the forest."

"And so your place of residence is quite at hand?" said Clelland. "In the course of a long day's journey, I have not met with a single human habitation."

"The hermitage," replied the maiden, "is but a short half-mile from my mother's—would that we were but safe there!"

As she spoke, the howling of the wolves burst out again, in frightful chorus, from above, and at least a score of the ravenous animals came leaping down over the rock, brushing in their descent the ivy and the underwood. Clelland couched his spear, so that nothing could enter by the narrow doorway without encountering its sharp point. But the wolves came not to the attack; and their yells and howlings from the hollow of the rock, blent with the terrified snortings and pawings of poor Biscay, shewed that they were bent on an easier conquest, and bulkier, though less noble prey. The animal, in his first struggle, broke loose from his fastenings, and went galloping madly past; and an intensely bright flash of lightning, that illumined the whole scene of terror without, shewed him in the act of straining up the opposite bank, with a huge wolf fastened to his lacerated back, and closely pursued by full twenty more.

It was, in truth, a night of dread and terror. Towards morning, however, the storm gradually sunk into a calm as dead as that which had preceded it, and a clear, starry sky looked down on the again silent forest. The maiden, now that there was less of danger, was rendered thoroughly unhappy by thoughts of her mother. She had left her, she said, but for an instant—left her solitary in her dwelling; and how must she have passed so terrible a night! Clelland strove to quiet her fears. There was a little cloud in the east, he said, already reddening on its lower edge; in an hour longer, it would be broad day, and he could then conduct her to her mother's.

"You have not always worn such a dress as that which you now wear," he continued; "nor have you spent all your days on the edge of the forest. Does your father still live?"

There was a pause for a moment.

"I am a native of France," she at length said; "but I have passed most of my time in other countries. My father, in fulfilment of a vow, is now bound on a pilgrimage to Palestine."

"And may I not crave your name?" asked Clelland.

"My name," she replied, "is Bertha de Longoville. Brave and courtly warrior, but for whose generous and knightly daring I would have found yester-evening a horrid tomb in the ravenous maw of the wolf, do not, I pray you, ask me more. A vow binds me to secrecy for the time."

"Nay, fear not, gentle maiden," said Clelland, "that what you but wish to keep secret, I shall once urge you to reveal. But hear me, lady, and then judge how far I am to be trusted. You are the only daughter of Sir Thomas de Longoville, once a true soldier of the blessed Cross, but, in his latter days, less fortunate in his quarrels. Your father is now in France, and in two weeks hence will be in Paris."

"Saints and angels!" exclaimed the maiden, "he has fallen into the hands of his enemies!"

"Not so, lady; he is among his best friends. The knightly word of Sir William Wallace of Elderslie, who never broke faith with friend or enemy, is pledged for his safe-keeping. With my kinsman, he is secure of at least safety—perhaps even of grace and pardon. But the day has broken, maiden; suffer me to conduct you to your mother's."

They left the hermitage together, and ascended the side of the dell. As they passed the hollow in the rock, a bright patch of blood caught the eye of Clelland.

"Ah, poor Biscay!" he exclaimed; "there is all that now remains of him; and how to procure another steed in this wild district, I know not. My kinsman will be at Paris long ere his herald gets there. Well, there have been greater mishaps. Yonder is the carcass of the wolf I slew yester-evening, half eaten by his savage companions."

The morning, we have said, was calm and still; but the storm of the preceding night had left behind it no doubtful vestiges of its fury. The stream had fallen to its old level, and went tinkling along its channel, with a murmur that only served to shew how complete was the silence; but the banks were torn and hollowed by the recent torrent, and tangled wreaths of brushwood and foliage lay high on the sides of the dell. The broken and ragged appearance of the forest gave evidence of the force of the hurricane. The fallen trees lay thick on the sides of the more exposed acclivities—some reclining like spears, half bent to the charge, athwart the spreading boughs of such of their neighbours as the storm had spared; others lay as if levelled by the woodman, save that their long flexile roots had thrown up vast fragments of turf, resembling the broken ruins of cottages. And, in an opening of the wood, a gigantic oak, the slow growth of centuries, lay scattered over the soil, in raw and splintery fragments, that gave strange evidence of the irresistible force of the agent employed in its destruction. The trees opened as they advanced, and they emerged from the forest as the first beams of the sun had begun to glitter on the topmost boughs. A low, moory plain, walled in by a range of distant hills, and mottled with a few patches of corn, and a few miserable cottages, lay before them. A grey detached tower, somewhat resembling that of an English village church, rose on the forest edge, scarce a hundred yards away.

"Yonder tower, Sir Knight," said the maiden, "is the dwelling of my mother. Alas! what must she not have endured during the protracted horrors of the night!"

"There is, at least, joy waiting her now," said Clelland; "and all will soon be well."

They approached the tower. It was a small and very picturesque erection, of three low stories in height, with projecting turrets at the front corners, connected by a hanging bartizan, over which there rose a sharp serrated gable, to the height of about two stories more. A row of circular shot-holes, and a low, narrow door-way, were the only openings in the lower storey—the few windows in the upper, long and narrow, and scarce equal in size to a Norman shield, were thickly barred with iron. The building had altogether a dilapidated and deserted appearance; for the turrets were broken-edged and mouldering, and some of the large square flags had slidden from off the stone roof, and lay in the moat, which, from a reservoir, had degenerated into a quagmire, mantled over with aquatic plants, and with, here and there, a bush of willow springing out from the sides. A single plank afforded a rather doubtful passage across; and the iron-studded door of the fortalice lay wide open. Clelland hung back as the maiden entered.

"My daughter! my Bertha!" exclaimed a female voice from within; "and do you yet live! and are you again restored to me!"

The Knight entered, and found the maiden in the embrace of her mother.

"That I still live," said Bertha, "I owe it to this brave and courtly knight. But for his generous daring, your daughter would have found strange burial in the ravenous maw of a wolf."

The mother turned round to Clelland, and grasped his mailed hand in both hers.

"The saints be your blessing and reward!" she exclaimed; "for I cannot repay you. God himself be your reward!—for earth bears no price adequate to the benefit. You have restored to the lonely and the broken in spirit her only stay and comfort."

"Nay, madam," said Clelland, "I would have done as much for the meanest serf; for Bertha de Longoville I could have laid down my life."

The mother again grasped his hand. She was a tall and a still beautiful woman, though considerably turned of forty, and though she yet bore impressed on her countenance no unequivocal traces of the distress of the night. She told them of her sufferings; and was made acquainted in turn with the frightful adventure in the hermitage, and, more startling still, with the resolution of her husband to confront his calumniators at the court of France.

"We must set out instantly on our journey to Paris, Bertha," said the matron; "your father, in his imminent peril, must not lack some one, at least to comfort, if not to assist him."

"Nay," said Clelland, "ere your setting out, you must first take rest enough, to recover the fatigues and watching of the night. And, besides, how could two unprotected females travel through such a country as this? Hear me, lady: I was hastening to Paris in advance of my party; but now that I have missed my way and lost my good steed, they will be all there before me. It matters but little. My kinsman can well afford wanting a herald. I shall cast myself on your hospitality for the day; and, to-morrow, should you feel yourself fully recovered, you shall set out for Paris, under such convoy as I can afford you."

Both ladies expressed their warmest gratitude for the kind and generous offer; and there was that in the thanks of the younger which Clelland would have deemed price sufficient for a service much less redolent of pleasure than that he had just tendered. She was in truth one of the loveliest women he had ever seen; tall and graceful, and with a countenance exquisite in form and colour. But, with all of the bodily and the material that constitutes beauty, it was mainly to expression, that index of the soul, that she owed her power. There was a steady light in the dark hazel eye, joined to an air of quiet, unobtrusive self-possession, which seemed to sit on the polished and finely formed forehead, that gave evidence of a strong and equable mind; while the sweet smile that seemed to lurk about the mouth, and the air of softness spread over the lower part of the face, shewed that there mingled with the stronger traits of her character the feminine gentleness and sweetness of disposition, so fascinating in the sex. A little girl from one of the distant cottages entered the building with a milking pail in her hands.

"Ah, my good Annette," said the matron, "you left me by much too soon yester-evening; but it matters not now. You must busy yourself in getting breakfast for us—meanwhile, good Sir Knight, this way. The tower is a wild ruin, but all its apartments are not equally ruinous."

They ascended, by a stair hollowed in the thickness of the wall, to an upper story. There was but one apartment on each floor; so that the entire building consisted but of four, and the two closet-like recesses in the turrets. The apartment they now entered was lined with dark oak; a massy table of the same material occupied the centre; and a row of ponderous stools, like those which Cowper describes in his "Task," ran along the wall. An immense chimney, supported by two rude pillars of stone, and piled with half-charred billets of wood, projected over the floor; the lintel, an oblong tablet about three feet in height, was roughened by uncouth heraldic sculptures of merwomen playing on harps, and two knights in complete armour fronting each other as in the tilt-yard. The windows were small and dark, and barred with iron; and through one of these that opened to the east, the morning sun, now risen half a spear's length over the forest, found entrance, in a square slanting rule of yellow light, which fell on the floor under a square recess in the opposite wall. The little girl entered immediately after the ladies and Clelland, bearing fire and fuel; a cheerful blaze soon roared in the chimney; and, as the morning felt keen and chill after the recent storm, they seated themselves before it. An hour passed in courtly and animated dialogue, and then breakfast was served up.

The younger lady would fain have prolonged the conversation—for it had turned on the struggles of the Scots, and the wonderful exploits of Wallace—had not her mother reminded her that they stood much in need of rest to strengthen them for their approaching journey. They both, therefore, retired to their sleeping apartments in the turrets; while the knight, providing himself with a bow and a few arrows, sallied out into the forest. The practice in woodcraft, which he had acquired under his kinsman, who, in his reverses, could levy on only the woods and moors, stood him in so good stead, that, when dinner-time came round, a noble haunch of venison and two plump pheasants smoked on the board. But Bertha alone made her appearance. Her mother, she said, still felt fatigued, and slightly indisposed; but she trusted to be able to join them in the course of the evening.

There was nothing Clelland had so anxiously wished for, when spending the earlier part of the day in the wood, as some such opportunity of passing a few hours with Bertha. And yet, now that the opportunity had occurred, he scarce knew how to employ it. The radiant smile of the maiden—her light, elegant form, and lovely features—had haunted him all the morning; and he wisely enough thought there could be but little harm in frankly telling her so. But, now that the fair occasion had offered, he found that all his usual frankness had left him, and that he could scarce say anything, even on matters more indifferent. And, what seemed not a little strange, too, the maiden was scarcely more at her ease than himself, and could find not a great deal more to say. Dinner passed almost in silence; and Bertha, rising to the square recess in the wall, drew from it a flagon filled with wine, which she placed before her guest and a vellum volume, bound in velvet and gold.

"This," she said, "is a wonderful romaunt, written by a countryman of yours, of whom I have heard the strangest stories. Can you tell me aught regarding him?"

"Ah!" said the knight, taking up the volume, "the book of Tristram. I am not too young, lady, to have seen the writer—the good Thomas of Erceldoune."

"Seen Thomas of Erceldoune! Thomas the Rhymer!" exclaimed the lady. "And is it sooth that his prophecies never fail, and that he now lives in Elf-land?"

"Nay, lady, the good Thomas sleeps in Lauderdale, with his fathers. But we trust much to his prophecies. They have given us heart and hope amid our darkest reverses. He predicted the years of oppression and suffering which, through the death of our good Alexander, have wasted our country; but he prophesied, also, our deliverance through my kinsman, Sir William of Elderslie. We have already seen much of the evil he foresaw, and much, also, of the good. Scotland, though still threatened by the power of Edward, is at this moment free."

"I have long wished," said Bertha, "to see those warriors of Scotland whose fame is filling all Europe. And now that wish is gratified—nay, more than gratified."

"You see but one of her minor warriors," said Clelland; "but at Paris you shall meet with the Governor himself. Your father, Bertha, should he succeed in clearing his fair fame—and I know he will—sets out with us for Scotland. Will not you and the lady your mother also accompany us?"

"I had deemed my father bound on a pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre," said Bertha.

"But he has since thought," said Clelland, "how much better it were to live gloriously fighting in a just quarrel beside the first warrior of the world, than to perish obscurely in some loathsome pesthouse of the Far East. I myself heard him tender his services to my kinsman."

"Then be sure," said Bertha, "my mother and I will not be separated from him. Might one find in Scotland, Sir Knight, some such quiet tower as this, where two defenceless women may bide the issue of the contest?"

"Why defenceless, lady? There are many gallant swords in Scotland that would needs be beaten down ere you could come to harm. And why not now accept of Clelland's? Scotland has greater warriors and better swords; but, trust me, lady, she cannot boast of a truer heart. Accept of me, lady, as your bounden knight."

A rich flush of crimson suffused the face and neck of the maiden, as she held out her hand to Clelland, who raised it respectfully to his lips.

"I accept of thee, noble warrior," she said, "as true and faithful knight, seeing that thy own generous tender of service doth but second what Heaven had purposed, when, in my imminent peril in the wood, it sent thee to my rescue. Trust me, warrior, never yet had lady knight whom she respected more."

Clelland again raised her hand to his lips.

"I have a sister, lady," he said, "whose years do not outnumber your own. She lives lonely, since the death of my mother, in the home of my fathers—a tower roomier and stronger than this, and on the edge of a forest nearly as widely spread. You will be her companion, lady, and her friend; and your mother will be mistress of the mansion. On the morrow, we set out for Paris."

The style in which the party travelled was sufficiently humble. Four small and very shaggy palfreys were provided from the neighbouring cottages: the ladies and Clelland were mounted on three of these; and the fourth, led by a hind, carried the luggage of the party. Before setting out, the lady had entrusted to the charge of the knight, a small, but very ponderous casket of ebony.

"It needs, in these unsettled times," she said, "some such person to care for it; and Bertha and I would fare all the worse for wanting it."

The journey was long and tedious, and the daily stages of the party necessarily short. Their route lay through a wild, half-cultivated country, which seemed to owe much to the hand of nature, but little to that of man. There was an ever-recurring succession, day after day, of dreary, wide-spreading forests, with comparatively narrow spaces between, which, from the imperfect and doubtful traces of industry which they exhibited, seemed as if but lately reclaimed from a state of nature. Groups of miserable serfs, bound to the soil even more rigidly than their fellow-slaves the cattle, were plying their unskilful and unproductive labours in the fields. They passed scattered assemblages of dingy hovels, with here and there a grim feudal tower rising in the midst—giving evidence, by the strength of its defences, of the insecurity and turbulence of the time. The travellers they met with were but few. Occasionally a strolling troubadour or harper accompanied them part of the way, on his journey from one baronial castle to another. At times, they met with armed parties of travelling merchants, bound for some distant fair; at times with disbanded artisans, wandering about in quest of employment; soldiers in search of a master; or pilgrims newly returned from Palestine, attired in cloaks of grey, and bearing the scallop in their caps. The hind, their attendant, bore in his scrip, from stage to stage, their provisions for the day; and their evenings were passed in some rude hostelry by the way-side. The third week had passed, ere, one evening on the edge of twilight, they alighted at the hostel of St Denis, and ascertained, from mine host, that they were now within half a stage of Paris.

The hostel was crowded with travellers; and the ladies and Clelland, for the early part of the evening, were fain to take their places in the common room beside the fire. A young and handsome troubadour, whose jemmy jerkin, and cap of green, edged with silver, shewed that he was either one of the more wealthy of his class, or under the patronage of some rich nobleman, and who had courteously risen to yield place to Bertha, had succeeded in reseating himself beside the knight.

"The hostel swarms with company," said Clelland, addressing him—"pray, good minstrel, canst tell me the occasion? Is there a fair holds to-morrow?"

"Ah, Sir Knight," said the minstrel, "I should rather ask of thee, seeing thy tongue shews thee to be a Scot. Dost not know that thy countryman, the brave Wallace of Elderslie, is at court, and that all who can, in any wise, leave their homes for a season, are leaving them, to see him? It is not once in a lifetime that such a knight may be looked at. And, besides, have you not heard that the combat comes on to-morrow?"

"I have heard of nothing," said Clelland; "my route has lain, of late, through the remoter parts of the country. What combat?"

"Sir Thomas de Longoville, so long a true soldier of the cross—so long, too, a wandering pirate—has defied to mortal combat, Loithaire of Languedoc; and our fair Philip, through the intercession of Wallace, has granted him the lists."

Both the ladies started at the intelligence; and the elder, wrapping up her face in her mantle, bent her head well nigh to her knee.

"And how, good minstrel," said Bertha, in a voice tremulous from anxiety, "how is it thought the combat will go?"

"That rests with Heaven, fair lady," said the minstrel. "Loithaire is known far and wide, as a striker in the lists; but who has not also heard of De Longoville, and his wars with the fierce Saracen? Many seem to think, too, that he has been foully injured by Loithaire. That soul of knightly honour, the good Lord Jonville, has already renewed his friendship with him, as his friend and comrade in the battles of Palestine, and will attend him to-morrow in the lists."

"May all the saints reward him!" ejaculated the elder lady.

"And at what hour, Sir Minstrel," asked the knight, "does the combat come on?"

"At the turn of noon," replied the minstrel, "when the shadow first veers to the east. I go to Paris, to find new theme for a ballad, and to see the good Wallace, who is himself the theme of so many."

The travellers were early on the road. With all their haste and anxiety, however, they saw the sun climbing towards the middle heavens, while the city was yet several miles distant. They spurred on their jaded palfreys, and entered the suburbs about noon. What was properly the city of Paris in this age, occupied one of the larger islands of the Seine, and was surrounded by a high wall, flanked at the angles by massy towers, and strengthened by rows of thickly-set buttresses; but, on either side the river, there were immense assemblages of the dirtiest and meanest hovels that the necessities of man had ever huddled together. The travellers, however, found but little time for remark in passing through. All Paris had poured out her inhabitants, to witness the combat, and they now crowded an upper island of the Seine, which the chivalry of the age had appropriated as a scene of games, tournaments, and duels. Clelland and the ladies had but reached the opposite bank, when a flourish of trumpets told them that the combatants had taken their places in the lists, and were waiting the signal to engage.

"No further, ladies, no further," said the knight, "or we shall entangle ourselves in the outer skirts of the crowd, and see nothing. This way; let us ascend this eminence, and the scene, though somewhat distant, will be all before us."

They ascended a smooth green knoll, the burial mound of some chieftain of the olden time, that overlooked the river. The island lay but a short furlong away. They could look over the heads of the congregated thousands into the open lists, and see the brilliant assemblage of the beauty and gallantry of France, which the fame of De Longoville and his opponent, and the singular nature of their quarrel, had drawn together. The sun glanced gaily on arms and armour, on many a robe of rich embroidery and many a costly jewel, and high over the whole, the oriflame of France, so famous in story, waved its flames of crimson and gold to the breeze. Knights and squires traversed the area, in gay and glittering confusion; and at either end there sat a warrior on horseback, as still and motionless as if sculptured in bronze. The champion at the northern end was cased from head to foot in sable armour, and beside him, under the blue pennon of Scotland, there stood a group of knights, who, though tall and stately as any in the lists, seemed lessened almost to boys in the presence of a gigantic warrior in bright mail, who, like Saul among the people, raised his head and shoulders over the proud crests of the assembled chivalry of France.

"Yonder, ladies—yonder is my kinsman," exclaimed Clelland; "yonder is Wallace of Elderslie; and the champion beside him is Sir Thomas de Longoville."

There was a second flourish of trumpets. Bertha flung herself on her knees on the sward, and raised her hands to her eyes. Her mother almost fainted outright.

"Nay," said Clelland, "that is but the signal to clear the lists; the knights hurry behind the palisades, and the champions are left alone. Fear not, dearest Bertha!—there is a God in heaven, and——Ah, there is the third flourish! The champions strike their spurs deep into their chargers; and see how they rush forward, like thunder clouds before a hurricane! They close!—they close!—hark to the crash!—their steeds are thrown back on their haunches! Look up, Bertha! look up!—your father has won—he has won! Loithaire is flung from his saddle, the spear of De Longoville has passed through hauberk and corslet; I saw the steel head glitter red at the felon's back. Look up, ladies! look up!—De Longoville is safe; nay, more—restored to the honour and fair fame of his early manhood. Let us hasten and join him, that we may add our congratulations to those of his friends."

Why dwell longer on the story of Thomas de Longoville? No Scotsman acquainted with Blind Harry need be told how frequent and honourable the mention of his name occurs in the latter pages of that historian. Scotland became his adopted country, and well and chivalrously did he fight in her battles; till, at length, when well nigh worn out by the fatigues and hardships of a long and active life, the decisive victory at Bannockburn gave him to enjoy an old age of peace and leisure, in the society of his lady, on the lands of his son-in-law. Need we add it was the gallant Clelland who stood in this relation to him? The chosen knight of Bertha had become her favoured lover, and the favoured lover a fond and devoted husband. Of the Governor more anon. There was a time, at least, when Scotsmen did not soon weary of stories of the Wight Wallace.

THE FUGITIVE.

CHAPTER I.

When Prince Charles Edward, at the head of his hardy Highlanders, took up his head-quarters in Edinburgh, issuing proclamations and holding levees, amongst those who attended the latter was a young Englishman, named Henry Blackett, then a student at the university, and the son of a Sir John Blackett of Winburn Priory, in Cheshire. His mother had been a Miss Cameron, a native of Inverness-shire, and the daughter of a poor but proud military officer. From her he had imbibed principles or prejudices in favour of the house of Stuart; and when he had been introduced to the young adventurer at Holyrood, and witnessed the zeal of his army, his enthusiasm was kindled—there was a romance in the undertaking which pleased his love of enterprise, and he resolved to offer his sword to the Prince, and hazard his fortunes with him. The offer was at once graciously and gratefully accepted, and Henry Blackett was enrolled as an officer in the rebel army.

He followed the Prince through prosperity and adversity, and when Charles became a fugitive in the land of his fathers, Henry Blackett was one of the last to forsake him. He, too, was hunted from one hiding-place to another; like him whom he had served, he was a fugitive, and a price was set upon his head.

As has been stated, he imbibed his principles in favour of the house of Stuart from his mother; but she had been dead for several years. His father was a weak man—one of whom it may be said that he had no principles at all; but being knighted by King George, on the occasion of his performing some civic duty, he became a violent defender of the house of Brunswick, and he vowed that, if the law did not, he would disinherit his son for having taken up arras in defence of Charles. But what chiefly strengthened him in this resolution, was not so much his devotion for the reigning family, as his attachment to one Miss Norton, the daughter of a Squire Norton of Norton Hall. She was a young lady of much beauty, and mistress of what are called accomplishments; but, in saying this much, I have recorded all her virtues. Her father's character might be summed up in one brief sentence—he was a deep, designing, needy villain. He was a gambler—a gentleman by birth—a knave in practice. He had long been on terms of familiarity with Sir John Blackett—he knew his weakness, and he knew his wealth, and he rejoiced in the attachment which he saw him manifesting for his daughter, in the hope that it would be the means of bringing his estates within his control. But the property of Sir John being entailed, it consequently would devolve on Henry as his only surviving son. He, therefore, was an obstacle to the accomplishment of the schemes on which Norton brooded; and when the latter found that he had joined the army of the young Chevalier, he was chiefly instrumental in having his name included in the list of those for whose apprehension rewards were offered; and he privately, and at his own expense, employed spies to go in quest of him. He also endeavoured to excite his father more bitterly against him. Nor did his designs rest here—but, as he beheld the fondness of the knight for his daughter increase, he, with the cunning of a demon, proposed to him to break the entail; and when the other inquired how it could be done, he replied—"Nothing is more simple; deny him to be your heir—pronounce him illegitimate. There is no living witness of your marriage with his mother. The only document to prove it is some thumbed leaf in the register of an obscure parish church in the Highlands of Scotland; and we can secure it."

To this most unnatural proposal the weak and wicked old man consented; and I shall now describe the means employed by Norton to become possessed of the parish register referred to.

Squire Norton had a son who was in all respects worthy of such a father—he was the image of his mind and person. In short, he was one of the things who, in those days, resembled those who in our own call themselves men of the world, forsooth! and who, under that name, infest and corrupt society—making a boast of their worthlessness—poisoning innocence—triumphing in their work of ruin—and laughing, like spirits of desolation, over the daughter's misery and disgrace, the father's anguish, the wretched mother's tears, and the shame of a family, which they have accomplished. There are such creatures, who disgrace both the soul and the shape of man, who are mere shreds and patches of debauchery—sweepings from the shops of the tailor, the milliner, and the hair-dresser—who live upon the plunder obtained under false pretences from the industrious—who giggle, ogle, pat a snuff-box, or affect to nod in a church, to be thought sceptics or fine gentlemen. One of such was young Norton; and he was sent down to Scotland to destroy the only proof which Henry Blackett, in the event of his being pardoned, could bring forward in support of his legitimacy.

He arrived at a lonely village in Inverness-shire, near which the cottage formerly occupied by Major Cameron, the grandfather of Henry, was situated; and of whom he found that few of the inhabitants remembered more than that "there lived a man." Finding the only inn that was in the village much more cleanly and comfortable than he had anticipated, he resolved to make it his hotel during his residence, and inquired of the landlady if there were any one in the village with whom a gentleman could spend an evening, and obtain information respecting the neighbourhood.

"Fu' shurely! fu' shurely, sir!" replied his Highland hostess—"there pe te auld tominie."

"Who?" inquired he, not exactly comprehending her Celtic accent.

"Wha put te auld tominie?" returned she; "an' a tiscreet, goot shentleman he pe as in a' te toun."

"The dominie?—the dominie?" he repeated, in a tone of perplexity.

"Oigh! oigh! te tominie," added she, "tat teaches te pits o' pairns, an' raises te psalm in te kirk."

He now comprehended her meaning; and from her coupling the dominie's name with the kirk, believed that he might be of use to him in the accomplishment of his object, and desired that he might be sent for.

"Oigh!" returned she, smiling, "an' he no pe lang, for he like te trappie unco weel."

Within five minutes, Dugald Mackay, precentor, teacher, and parish-clerk of Glencleugh, entered the parlour of Mrs Macnab. Never was a more striking contrast exhibited in castle or in cottage. Here stood young Norton, bedecked with all the foppery of an exquisite of his day; and there stood Dugald Mackay, his thick bushy grey hair falling on his shoulders, holding in his hand a hat not half the size of his head, which had neither been made nor bought for him, and which had become brown with service, and was now stitched in many places, to keep it together. Round it was wrapped a narrow stripe of crape browner than itself, and over all winded several yards of gut and hair-line, with hooks attached, betokening his angling propensities. Dugald was a thickset old man, with a face blooming like his native heather. His feet were thrust into immense brogues, as brown as his hat, and their formidable patches shewed that their wearer could use the lingle and elshun, although his profession was to "teach the young idea how to shoot." He wore tartan hose—black breeches, fastened at the knees by silver gilt buckles, and much the worse for the wear, while, from the accumulation of ink and dust, they might have stood upright. His vest was huge and double-breasted, its colour not recognised by painters; and his shoulders were covered by a very small tartan coat, the tails of which hardly reached his waist. Such was Dugald Mackay; and the youth, plying him with the bottle, endeavoured to ascertain how far he could render him subservient to his purpose.

"You appear fond of angling," said Norton.

"Fond o' fishing?" returned the man of letters; "ou ay; ou ay!—hur hae mony time filt te creel o' te shentlemen frae Inverness, for te sixpence, and te shilling, and te pig crown, not to let tem gaun pack wi' te empty pasket. And hur will teach your honour, or tress your honour's hooks, should you be stopping to fish. Here pe goot sport to your honour," continued he, raising a bumper to his lips.

The other, glad to assign a plausible pretext for his visit, said that he had come a few days for the sake of fishing, and inquired how long his guest had been in the neighbourhood.

"Hur peen schulemaister and parish-clerk in Glencleugh for forty year," replied Dugald.

"Parish-clerk!" said Norton, eagerly, and checking himself, continued—"that is—in the church you mean, you raise the tunes?"

"Ou ay, hur nainsel' pe precenter too," answered Dugald; "put hur be schulemaister and parish-clerk into te pargain."

"And what are your duties as parish-clerk?" inquired the other, in a tone of indifference.

"Ou, it pe to keep te pooks wi' te marriages, te christenings, and te deaths. Here pe to your honour's very goot luck again," said he, swallowing another bumper.

Thus the holder of the birch and parish chronicler began to help himself to one glass after another, until the candles began to dance reels and strathspeys before him. At length the angler, expressing a wish to see such a curiosity as the matrimonial and baptismal register of a hamlet so remote, out sallied Dugald, describing curved lines as he went, and shortly returned, bearing the eventful quartos under his arm. Norton looked through them, laughing, jesting, and professing to be amused, and his eye quickly fell upon the page which he sought. Dugald laughed, drank, and talked, until his rough head sank upon his breast, and certain nasal sounds gave notice that the schoolmaster was abroad. In a moment, Norton transferred the leaf which contained the certificate of Lady Blackett's marriage, from the volume to his pocket. His father had ordered him to destroy it; but the son, vicious as the father, determined to keep it, and to hold it over him as an instrument of terror to extort money. The dominie being roused to take one glass more by way of a night-cap, was led home, as usual, by Mrs Macnab's servant-of-all-work, who carried the volumes.

Shortly after this, the marriage between Sir John Blackett and Miss Norton took place; her father rejoiced in the success of his schemes, and Henry was disinherited and disowned.

CHAPTER II.

While the latter events which we have recorded in the last chapter were taking place, Henry Blackett, the rebel soldier, was a fugitive, flying from hiding-place to hiding-place, seeking concealment in the mountains and in the glens, in the forest and crowded city, assuming every disguise, and hunted from covert to covert. A reward was not offered for his apprehension, in particular by government, but he was included amongst those whom loyal subjects were forbidden to conceal; and two emissaries, sent out by Norton, sought him continually, to deliver him up. Ignorant of his father's marriage, or of the villain's part he had acted towards him, though conscious of his anger at his having joined Prince Charles, he was wandering in Dumfries-shire, by the shores of the Solway, disguised as a sailor, and watching an opportunity to return home, when the hunters after his life suddenly sprang upon him, exclaiming—"Ha! Blackett, the traitor!—the five hundred pounds are ours!"

Armed only with the branch of a tree, which he carried partly for defence, and as a walking-stick, he repelled them with the desperate fierceness of a man whose life is at stake. One he disabled, and the other being unable to contend against him singly, permitted him to escape. He rushed at his utmost speed across the fields for many miles, avoiding the highways and public paths, until he sank panting and exhausted on the ground. He had not lain long in this situation when he was discovered by a wealthy farmer, who was known in the neighbourhood by the appellation of "canny Willie Galloway."

"Puir young chield," said Willie, casting on him a look of compassion, "ye seem sadly distressed. Do ye think I could be o' ony service to ye? From yer appearance, ye wadna be the waur o' a nicht's lodging, and I can only say that ye are heartily welcome to't."

Henry had been so long the object of pursuit and persecution, that he regarded every one with suspicion; and starting to his feet and grasping the branch firmer in his hand, he said—"Know you what you say?—or would you betray the wretched?"

"It is o' nae manner o' use gripping your stick," said Willie, calmly, "for I'm allooed to be a first-rate cudgel-player—the best atween Stranraer and Dumfries. But, as to kennin' what I said, I was offerin' ye a nicht's lodgings; and as to betrayin' the wretched, I wadna see a hawk strike doon a sparrow, not a spider a midge, if I could prevent it."

"You seem honest," said Henry; "I am miserable, and will trust you."

"Be thankit," answered the other; "I dare to say I'm as honest as my neebors; and, as ye seem in distress, I will be very happy to serve ye, if I can do't in a creditable way."

Willie Galloway was a bachelor of five and forty, and his house was kept by an old woman, a distant relative, called Janet White. Henry accompanied him home, and communicated to him his story. Willie took a liking for him, and vowed that he would not only shelter him, while he had a roof over his head, but that he would defend him against every enemy, while he had a hand that he could lift; and, the better to ensure his concealment, he proposed that he should pass as his sister's son, and not even write to his father to intimate where he was, until the persecution against those who had "been out with poor Charlie," was past.

In the neighbourhood of Willie's farm, there resided an elderly gentleman, named Laird Howison. He was an eccentric but most kind-hearted man, of whom many believed and said that his imagination was stronger then his reason; and in so saying, it was probable that they were not far from the truth. But of that the reader will determine as he sees more of the laird. There resided with him a beautiful orphan girl, named Helen Marshall, the daughter of the late parish clergyman, and to whom he had been left guardian from her childhood. But, as she grew up in loveliness before him, she became as a dream of futurity that soothed and cheered his existence; and, although he was already on the wrong side of fifty, he resolved that, as soon as she was twenty-one, he would offer her his hand and fortune. Janet White, the housekeeper and relative of Willie Galloway, had nursed Helen in infancy; and the lovely maiden was, therefore, a frequent visitor at his house. She there met Henry, and neither saw nor listened to him with indifference; and her beauty, sense, and gentleness, made a like impression upon him. Willie, though a bachelor, had penetration enough to perceive that when they met there was meaning in their eyes; and he began to rally Henry—saying, "Now, there would be a match for ye!—when the storm has blawn owre your head, just tak ye that bonny Scotch lassie hame to England wi' ye as yer wife, and ye will find her a treasure, such as ye may wander the world round and no find her marrow."

As their intimacy and affection increased, Henry communicated to Helen the secret of his birth and situation; and, like a true woman, she loved him the more for the dangers to which he was exposed. He had remained more than eight months with his friend and protector; and, imagining that the persecution against himself, and others who had acted in the same cause, was now abated in its fury, he forwarded a letter to his father, at Winburn Priory, announcing his intention of venturing home in a few days, and begging his forgiveness and protection, until his pardon could be procured. He, however, intimated to Willie Galloway, his desire to secure the hand of Helen before he left.

"Weel, if she be agreeable," said Willie "—and I hae every reason to believe she is—I wadna blame ye for taking that step ava; for her auld gowk o' a guardian, Laird Howison, (though a very worthy man in some respecks), vows that he is determined to marry her himsel, as soon as she is ane and twenty; and, as he is up aboot London at present, ye couldna hae a better opportunity. Therefore, only ye and Helen say the word, and I'll arrange the business for ye in less than nae time."

The fair maiden consented; a clergyman had joined their hands, and pronounced the benediction over them—the ceremony was concluded, but it was only concluded, when the two ruffians, who have been already mentioned as hired by Norton to search for him and secure his apprehension, and who before had met him by the side of the Solway, followed by two soldiers, burst into the apartment, crying—"Secure the traitor! It is he!—Harry Blackett!"

Helen screamed aloud and clasped her hands.

"Ye lie! ye lie!" cried Willie—"it is my sister's son—meddle wi' him wha daur, and us twa will fecht you four, even in the presence o' the minister."

So saying, he seized hold of a chair, and raised it to repel them. Henry followed his example. The soldiers threateningly raised their fire-arms. Willie suddenly swang round the chair with his utmost strength, and dashed down their arms. Henry hastily kissed the brow of his fair bride, and, rushing through the midst of them, darted from the house, while Willie, as rapidly following him, closed the door behind him, and holding it fast, cried—"Run, Harry, my lad!—run for bare life, and I'll keep them fast here!"

For several days, the soldiers searched the neighbourhood for the fugitive; but they found him not, and no one knew where he had fled. Within a week, Helen disappeared from Primrose Hall, the seat of her guardian, Laird Howison; and the general belief was, that she had set out for Cheshire, to the father of her bridegroom, to intercede with him to use his influence in his son's behalf. "And," said Willie, "if she doesna move him to forgie his son, and do his duty towards him, then I say that he has a heart harder than a whin-rock."

But no one knew the object of her departure, nor whither she had gone. Laird Howison had not returned; and, after several weeks had passed, and Willie Galloway was unable to hear ought of either Helen or Henry, he resolved to proceed to Cheshire, to make inquiries after them; and for this purpose purchased an entire suit of new and fashionable raiment.

CHAPTER III.

On a beautiful summer morning, an old man, slightly stooping in his gait, was slowly walking down a green lane which led in the direction from Warrington to Winburn Priory. Behind him, at a rapid pace, followed a younger man, of a muscular frame, exceedingly well-dressed, and carrying over his arm a thick chequered plaid, like those worn in the pastoral districts of Scotland. He overtook the elder pedestrian, and accosted him, saying—

"Here's a bonny morning, freend."

"Sir?" said the old man inquiringly, slightly lifting his hat, and not exactly comprehending his companion.

"Losh, but he's a mannerly auld body that," thought the other; "I see the siller upon this suit o' claes has been weel-wared;" and added aloud, "I was observing it's a delightful morning, sir, and as delightful a country-side; it wad be a paradise, were it no sae flat."

"Ah, sir!" replied the old man; "but I fear as how the country looks like a paradise without its innocence."

"Ye talk very rationally, honest man," said the other, whom the reader will have recognised to be Willie Galloway; "and, if I am no mistaen, ye maun hae some cause to mak the remark. But, dear me, sir, only look round ye, and see the trees in a' their glory, the flowers in a' their innocence; or just look at the rowing burn there, wimplin alang by oor side, like refined silver, beneath a sun only less glorious than the Hand that made it; and see hoo the bits o' fish are whittering round, wagging their tails, and whisking back and forrit, as happy as kings! Look at the lovely and the cheerfu' face o' a' Nature—or just listen to the music o' thae sinless creatures in the hedges, and in the blue lift—and ye will say that, but for the inventions and deceitfulness o' man's heart, this earth wad be a paradise still. But I tell ye what, freend—I believe that were an irreligious man just to get up before sunrise at a season like this, and gang into the fields and listen to the laverock, and look around on the earth, and on the majesty o' the heavens rising, he wadna stand for half-an-hoor until, if naebody were seeing him, he would drap doun on his knees and pray."

Much of Willie's sermon was lost on the old man; he, however, comprehended a part, and said, "Why, sir, I know as how I always find my mind more in tune for the service of the church, by a walk in the fields, and the singing of the birds, than by all the instruments of the orchestra."

"Orchestra!" said Willie, "what do ye mean?—that's a strange place to gather devotion frae!"

"The orchestra of the church," returned the other.

"The orchestra o' the church!" said Willie, in surprise—"what's that? I never heard o't before. There's the poopit, and the precentor's desk, the pews and the square seats, and doun stairs and the gallery—but ye nonplus me about the orchestra."

"Why, our lord of the manor," continued the old man, "is one who cares for nothing that's good, and he will give nothing; and as we are not rich enough to buy an organ, we have only a bass viol, two tenors, and a flute."

"Fiddles and a flute in a place o' worship!" exclaimed Willie.

"Yes, sir," replied the other, marvelling at his manner.

"Weel," returned Willie, standing suddenly still, and striking his staff upon the ground, "that beats a'! And will ye tell me, sir, hoo it is possible to worship yer Creator by scraping catgut, or blawing wind through a hollow stick?"

"Why, master," said the old man, "the use of instruments in worship is as old as the times of the prophets, and I can't see why it should be given up. But dost thou think, now, that thou couldst go into Chester cathedral at twilight, while the organ filled all round about thee with its deep music, without feeling in thy heart that thou wast in a house of praise. Why, sir, at such a time thou couldst not commit a wicked action. The very sound, while it lifted up thy soul with delight, would awe thee."

When their controversy had ended, Willie inquired—"Do ye ken a family o' the name o' Blackett, that lives aboot this neeborhood?"

"I should," answered the old man; "forty years did I eat of their bread."

"Then, after sic lang service, ye'll just be like ane o' the family?" replied Willie.

"Alas!" said the other, shaking his head.

"Ye dinna mean to say," resumed Willie, in a tone of surprise, "that they hae turned ye aff, in your auld age, as some heartless wretch wad sell the noble animal that had carried him when a callant, to a cadger, because it had grown howe-backet, and lost its speed o' foot. But I hope that young Mr Henry had nae hand in it?"

"Henry!—no! no!" cried the old man eagerly—"bless him! Did you know Mr Henry, your honour?"

"I did," said Willie; "and I hae come from Scotland ance errand to see him."

"But, sir," inquired the old man, tremulously, "do you know where to find him?"

"I expect to find him, by this time, at his father's house."

"Alas!" answered the old domestic, "there has been no one at the priory for more than twelve months. I don't know where the old knight is. Henry has not been here since he went to Edinburgh, and that is nigh to five years gone now."

"Ye dumfounder me, auld man," exclaimed Willie; "but where, in the name o' guidness, where's the wife?—where's Mrs Blackett?"

"You will mean your countrywoman, I suppose," said the other.

"To be sure I mean her," said Willie—"wha else could I mean?"

"Ah! wo is me!" sighed his companion, and he burst into tears as he spoke, "dost see the churchyard, just before us?—and they have raised no stone to mark the spot."

"Dead!" ejaculated Willie, becoming pale with horror, and fixing upon his fellow-pedestrian a look of agony—"Ye dinna say—dead!"

"Even so!—even so!" said the old domestic, sobbing aloud.

"And hoo was it?" cried Willie; "was it a fair strae death—or just grief, puir thing—just grief?"

"Why, I can't say how it was," answered his informant; "but I wish I durst tell all I think."

"Say it!—say it!" exclaimed Willie, vehemently, "what do you mean by, if you durst say all you think? If there be the shadow o' foul play, I will sift it to the bottom, though it cost me a thousand pounds; and there is anither that will gie mair."

"Ah, sir, I am but a friendless old man," replied the other, "that could not stand the weight of a stronger arm."

"Plague take their arms!" cried Willie, handling his cudgel, as if to shew the strength of his own—"tell what ye think, and they'll have strong arms that dare touch a hair o' yer head."

"Well, master," was the reply, "I don't like to say too much to strangers, but if thou makest any stay in these parts, I may tell thee something; and I fear that wherever poor Henry is, he is in need of friends. But perhaps your honour would wish to see her grave?"

"Her grave!" ejaculated Willie—"yes! yes! yes!—her grave!—O misery! have I come frae Dumfries-shire to see a sicht like this?"

The old man led the way over the stile, hanging his head and sighing as he went. Willie followed him, drawing his sleeve across his eyes, as was his custom when his heart was touched, and forgetting the dress of the gentleman which he wore, in the feelings of the man.

"The family vault is in yonder corner," said his conductor, as they turned across the churchyard.

"Save us, friend!" exclaimed Willie, looking towards the spot, "saw ye ever the like o' yon?—a poor miserable dementit creature, wringing his hands as though his heart would break!"

"Tis he! 'tis he!" shouted the old man, springing forward with the alacrity of youth, "my child!—my dear young master!"

"Oh! conscience o' man!" exclaimed Willie, "what sort o' a dream is this? It canna be possible! Her dead, and him, oot o' his judgment, mourning owre her grave in the garb o' a beggar!"

"Ha! discovered again!" cried Henry fiercely, and starting round as he spoke; but immediately recognising the old domestic, on whom time had not wrought such a metamorphosis as dress had upon Willie Galloway—"Ha, Jonathan! old Jonathan Holditch!" he added, "do I again see the face of a friend!" and instantly discovering Willie, he sprang forward and grasped his extended hand in both of his.

The old man sat down upon the grave and wept.

"Don't weep, Jonathan," said Henry, "I trust that we shall soon have cause to rejoice."

"I wish a' may be richt yet," thought Willie; "I took him to be rather dementit at the first glance, and rejoice is rather a strange word to use owre a young wife's grave. Puir fellow!"

"Yes, Master Henry," said Jonathan, "I do rejoice that the worst is past; but I must weep too, for there be many things in all this that I do not understand."

"Nor me either," said Willie; "but ye say ye think more than ye dare tell."

"Why is it, Jonathan," continued Henry, "that there is no stone to mark my mother's grave? There is room enough in our burial place. Why is there nothing to her memory?" he continued, bending his eyes upon her sepulchre. "Her memory!" he added; "cold, cruel grave; and is memory all that is left me of such a parent? Is the dumb dust, beneath this unlettered stone—all!—all! that I can now call mother? Has she no monument but the tears of her only surviving child?"

"A' about his mother," muttered Willie, "who has been dead for four years, and no a word aboot puir Helen! As sure as I'm a living man this is beyont my comprehension—I dinna think he can be a'thegither there!"

Henry turned towards him and said, "I have much to ask, my dear friend, but my heart is so filled with griefs and forebodings already, that the words I would utter tremble on my tongue; but what of my Helen—tell me, what of her?"

"She—she's—weel," gasped Willie, bewildered; "that is—I—I hope—I trust—that—oh, losh, Mr Blackett, I dinna ken whare I am, nor what I am saying, for my brain is as daized as a body's that is driven owre wi' a drift, and rowed amang the snaw! Has there been onybody buried here lately?"

"Mr Galloway!—Mr Galloway!" exclaimed Henry, half-choked with agitation, and wringing his hand in his, while the perspiration burst upon his brow—"in the name of wretchedness—what—what do you mean?"

"Oh, dinna speak to me!" said Willie, waving his hand; "ask that auld man."

"Jonathan?" exclaimed Henry.

"I don't know what the gentleman means," said the old man; "but no one has been buried here since your honoured mother, and that is four years ago."

"And whase grave—whase grave did ye bring me to look at?" inquired Willie, eagerly.

"My lady's," answered he.

"Yer leddy's!" returned Willie—"do you mean Mr Blackett's mother?"

"Whom else could I mean?" asked old Jonathan, in a tone of wonder.

"Wha else could you mean!" repeated Willie; "then, be thankit! she's no dead!—ye say she's no dead!" and he literally leapt for joy.

"Who dead?" inquired the old man, with increased astonishment.

"Wha dead, ye stupid auld body!—did I no say his wife, as plain as I could speak?"

"Whose wife?" inquired Jonathan, looking from Willie to his master in bewilderment.

"Whose wife!" reiterated Willie, weeping, laughing, and twirling his stick; "shame fa' ye—ye may ask that noo, after knocking my heart oot o' the place o't wi' yer palaver. Whase wife do ye say?—ask Mr Henry."

"Mr Galloway!" interrupted Henry, "am I to understand that you believed this to be the grave of my beloved Helen?—or, how could you suppose it? Has she left Primrose Hall?—or, has our marriage——Tell me all you know, for I wist not what I would ask."

Willie then related to him what the reader already knows—namely, that she had left Dumfries-shire, and was supposed to have gone to his father's.

"Blessings on the day that these eyes beheld the dear lady, then," exclaimed old Jonathan; "for I could vow that she is under my roof now."

"Under your roof!" cried Henry.

"Was ye doited, auld man, that ye didna tell me that before?" said Willie.

"I knew no more of my young master's marriage, until just now, than these gravestones do," said Jonathan; "the dear lady who is with us told nothing to me. Only my wife told me that she knew she loved our young master."

"But why is she lodging with you, Jonathan? I have learned that my father is abroad, and is it that he is soon expected home?"

"A fever caused her to be an inmate of my poor roof," answered Jonathan, "after she had been rudely driven from the gate as a common beggar. But I am no longer thy father's servant—and I wish, for thy sake, I could forget he was thy father; for he has done that which might make the blessed bones beneath our feet start from their grave. And there is no one about the Priory now, but the creatures of the villain Norton."

Henry entreated that the old man would not speak harshly of his father, though he had so treated them; and he briefly informed them, that, on flying from Scotland to escape his pursuers even at his father's lodge, he again met one of the individuals who had hunted him as "Blackett, the traitor," and who had attempted to seize him in the hour of his marriage—and that even there the cry was again raised against him; and a band, thirsting for his blood-money, joined in the pursuit. He had fled to the churchyard, and found concealment in the family vault, where he had remained until they then discovered him, as, in the early morning, he had ventured out.

Willie counselled that there was now small vengeance to be apprehended from the persecution of the government; and when Jonathan stated that Sir John had married the daughter of Norton, and disinherited Henry by denying his marriage with his mother, Willie exclaimed—"I see it a', Mr Henry, just as clear as the A, B, C. This rascal, ye ca' Norton, or your faither, (forgie me for saying sae,) has employed the villains wha hunted for yer life; it has been mair them than the government that has been to blame. Therefore, my advice is, let us go and drive the thieves out o' the house by force."

Henry, who was speechless with grief, horror, and disgust, agreed to the proposition of his friend, and they proceeded to the Priory by a shorter road than the lodge.

Henry knocked loudly at the door, which was opened by a man-servant, who attempted to shut it in his face; but, in a moment the door was driven back upon its hinges, and the menial lay extended along the lobby; and Henry, with his sturdy ally, and old Jonathan, rushed in. Alarmed by the sound, the other servants, male and female, hurried to the spot; and epithets, too opprobrious to be written, were the mildest they applied to the young heir, as he demanded admission.

"Then let us gie them club-law for it," cried Willie, "if they will have it; and they shall have it to their heart's content, if I ance begin it."

Armed with such weapons as they could seize at the moment, the servants menacingly opposed their entrance; but Henry, dashing through them, rushed towards the stairs, where he was followed by four men-servants, two armed with swords, and the others with kitchen utensils.

But Willie, following at their heels, cried—"Come back!" and, bringing his cudgel round his head, with one tremendous swoop caused it to rattle across the unprotected legs of the two last of the pursuers, and, almost at the same instant, before their comrades had ascended five steps from the ground, they, from the same cause, descended backwards, rolling and roaring over their companions. Within three seconds, all four were conquered, disarmed, and unable to rise. As the discomfited garrison of the Priory gathered themselves together, (much in the attitude of Turks or tailors,) groaning, writhing, and ruefully rubbing their stockings, Willie, with the composed look of a philosopher, addressed to them this consoling and important information—"Noo, sirs, I hope ye are a' sensibly convinced, what guid service a bit hazel may do in a willing hand; and if ony o' yer banes are broken, I would recommend ye to send for the doctor before the swelling gets stiff about them. But ye couldna hae broken banes at a cannier place on a' the leg than just where I gied ye the bits o' clinks; they were hearty licks, and would gie them a clean snap, so that, in the matter o' six weeks, ye may be on your feet again."

Old Jonathan had already followed Henry up stairs; and Willie having finished his exhortation, proceeded in quest of them. Henry succeeded in obtaining a change of raiment; and having sent for one who had been long a tenant upon the estate, he left the house in charge to him, with orders that he should immediately turn from it all the creatures of Norton, and engage other servants; and he and his friend, Willie, proceeded to the house of old Jonathan, where, as the latter supposed, a lady that he believed to be the wife of his young master, then was.

CHAPTER IV.

Mrs Holditch (the wife of old Jonathan) was wandering up the lane in quest of her husband, wondering at the length of his absence, and fretting for his return; for "the sweet lady," as she termed Helen, "would not take breakfast without them." She had proceeded about half a mile from the cottage, when she was met by none other than Laird Howison of Primrose Hall, and the following dialogue took place:—

"Will ye hae the kindness to inform me, ma'am, if the person that used to keep the gate of Sir John Blackett lives ony way aboot here?"

"He does, sir," replied she, with low obeisance.

"And, oh!" interrupted he, earnestly, "know ye if there be a young leddy frae Scotland stopping there at present—for I have heard that there is? Ye'll no think me inquisitive, ma'am; for really if ye kenned what motive I hae for asking, ye would think it motive enough."

"There be, your honour," returned she, "and a dear excellent young lady she is."

"Oh! if it be her that I mean," said he, "that she is dear, indeed, I have owre guid reason to ken, and her excellence is written on every line o' her beautiful countenance. But, if I'm no detaining ye, ma'am, may I just ask her name?"

"She bade us call her Helen, sir," replied she; "we know no other."

"Yes! yes!" cried he, "it's just Helen!—Helen, and nothing else to me! Mony a time has that name been offered up wi' my prayers. But I thought, ma'am, ye said she bade you call her Helen."

"Yes, your honour," said she; "I be the wife of old Jonathan Holditch, and she be staying with us now."

"Bless you!" he exclaimed, "for the shelter which yer roof has afforded to the head o' an orphan. But, oh! what like is your Helen? Is her neck whiter than the drifted snaw? Does her hair fa' in gowden ringlets, like the clouds that curl round the brows o' the setting sun? Is her form delicate as the willow, but stately as the young pine? Is her countenance beautiful as the light o' laughing day, when it chases sickness and darkness together from the chamber o' the invalid? If she isna a' this—if her voice isna sweeter than the sough o' music on a river—dear and excellent she may be, and they may call her Helen—but, oh! she isna my Helen!—for there is none in the world like unto mine. But, no! no!—she is not mine now! O Helen, woman! did I expect this? Excuse me, ma'am, ye'll think my conduct strange; but, when my poor seared-up heart thinks o' past enjoyment, it makes me forget mysel'. Do you think your Helen is the same that I hae come to seek?"

"A sweeter and a lovelier lady," said she, "never called Christian man father. She had business at Winburn Priory; but my husband says she was driven away from the gate like a dog."

"It is her!" exclaimed he, "and she's no been at the Priory, then?"

"No, sir," returned she.

"Nor seen ony o' the Blackett family?" added he, eagerly.

"No, sir; for there be none of them in the neighbourhood," answered she.

"What's this I hear!" cried he:—"Gracious! if I may again hope!—and why for no? But how is it that she is stopping wi' you?—wherefore did she not return to the home where she has been cherished from infancy, and where she will aye be welcome. Has Helen forgot me a'thegither?"

"Alas, sir!" said she; "it was partly grief, I believe, that brought on a bad fever, and I had fears the sweet, patient creature would have died in my hands. I sat by her bedside, watching night after night; and, oh! sir, I daresay as how it was about you that she sometimes talked, and wept, and laughed, and talked again, poor thing."

"And did ye," he inquired, fumbling with, a pocket book; "did ye watch owre her? I'm your debtor for that. And ye think she spoke about me—my name's Howison, ma'am—Thomas Howison of Primrose Hall, in the county o' Dumfries. She would, maybe, call me Thomas!"

"Mr Howison!" replied the old woman: "yes, your honour, she often mentioned such a name—very often."

"Did she really," added he; "did she mention me?—and often spoke about me—often? Then she's no forgotten me a'thegither!"

He thrust a bank-note into the hands of Mrs Holditch, which she refused to accept, saying that "the dear lady had more than paid her for all that she had done already." But, while she spoke, they had arrived within sight of the cottage, and he suddenly bounded forward, exclaiming—"Oh! haud my heart!" as he beheld Helen, sitting looking from the window—"yonder she is! yonder she is! O Helen! Helen!" he cried, rushing towards the door—"wherefore did ye leave me?—why hae ye forsaken me? But, joy o' my heart, I winna upbraid ye; for I hae found ye again."

With an agitated step, she advanced to meet him—she extended her hand towards him—she faltered—"My kind, kind benefactor."

He heard the words she uttered—with a glance he beheld the marriage-ring upon her finger—he stood still in the midst of his transport—his outstretched arms fell motionless by his side—"O Helen, woman!" he cried in agony, "do ye really say benefactor?—that isna the word I wish to hear frae ye. Ye never ca'ed me benefactor before!"

The few words spoken by the old woman had called up his buried hopes; but the word benefactor had again whelmed him in despair.

"Oh!" he continued, dashing away the tears from his eyes, "my poor mind is flung away upon a whirlwind, and my brain is the sport o' every shadow! O Helen! I thought ye had forgotten me!"

"Forgotten you, my kind dear friend!" said she; "I have not, I will not, I cannot forget you; and wherefore would you forget that I can only remember you as a friend?"

"Poor, miserable, and deluded being that I am," added he; "I expected, from what the mistress o' this house told me, that I wouldna be welcomed by the cauldrife names o' friend or benefactor. Do ye mind since ye used to call me Thomas?"

"Mr Howison," answered she, "I know this visit has been made in kindness—let me believe in parental anxiety. You have not now to learn that I am a wife, and you can have heard nothing here to lead you to think otherwise. I will not pretend to misunderstand your language. But by what name can I call you save that of friend?—it was the first and the only one by which I have ever known you."