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cupied at Woodend He was no sooner, however, seated, than with an unusual exertion of his powers of conversation, he added, "Jeanie-I say, Jeanie, woman"-here he extended his hand towards her shoulder with all the fingers spread out as if to clutch it but in so bashful and awkward a manner, that when she whisked herself beyond its reach, the paw remained suspended in the air with the palm open, like the claw of a heraldic griffin-"Jeanie," continued the swain, in this moment of inspiration,-"I say, Jeanie, it's a braw day out-by, and the roads are no that ill for boot-hose.""

The lads of the neighbouring suburb, who held their evening rendezvous for putting the stone, casting the hammer, playing at long bowls, and other athletic exercises, watched the motions of Effie Deans, and contended with each other which should have the good fortune to attract her attention. Even the rigid presbyterians of ber father's persuasion, who held each indulgence of the eye and sense to be a snare at least, if not a crime, were surprised into a moment's delight while gazing on a creature so exquisite,-instantly checked by a sigh, reproaching at once their own weakness, and mourning that a creature so fair "The deil's in the daidling body," muttered Jeanie should share in the common and hereditary guilt an between her teeth; "wha wad hae thought o' his imperfection of our nature. She was currently enti daikering out this length?" And she afterwards con- tled the Lily of St. Leonard's, a name which she fessed that she threw a little of this ungracious sen-deserved as much by her guileless purity of thought timent into her accent and manner; for her father speech, and action, as by her uncommon loveliness being abroad, and the "body" as she irreverently of face and person. termed the landed proprietor, "looking unco gleg and canty, she didna ken what he might be coming out wi' next."

Her frowns, however, acted as a complete sedative, and the Laird relapsed from that day into his former taciturn habits, visiting the cow-feeder's cottage three or four times every week, when the weather permitted, with apparently no other purpose than to stare at Jeanie Deans, while Douce Davie poured forth his eloquence upon the controversies and testimonies of the day.

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THE visits of the Laird thus again sunk into matters of ordinary course, from which nothing was to be expected or apprehended. If a lover could have gained a fair one as a snake is said to fascinate a bird, by pertinaciously gazing on her with great stupid greenish eyes, which began now to be occasionally aided by spectacles, unquestionably Dumbiedikes would have been the person to perform the feat. But the art of fascination seems among the artes perdita, and I cannot learn that this most pertinacious of starers produced any effect by his attentions beyond an occasional yawn.

In the meanwhile, the object of his gaze was gradually attaining the verge of youth, and approaching to what is called in females the middle age, which is impolitely held to begin a few years earlier with their more fragile sex than with men. Many people would have been of opinion, that the Laird would have done better to have transferred his glances to an object possessed of far superior charms to Jeanie's, even when Jeanie's were in their bloom, who began now to be distinguished by all who visited the cottage at St. Leonard's Crags.

Yet there were points in Effie's character, which gave rise not only to strange doubt and anxiety on the part of Douce David Deans, whose ideas were rigid, as may easily be supposed, upon the subject of youthful amusements, but even of serious apprehension to her more indulgent sister. The children of the Scotch of the inferior classes are usually spoiled by the early indulgence of their parents; how, wherefore, and to what degree, the lively and instructive narrative of the amiable and accomplished authoress of "Glenburnie" has saved me and all future scribblers the trouble of recording. Effie had had a double share of this inconsiderate and misjudged kindness. Even the strictness of her father's principles could not condemn the sports of infancy and childhood; and to the good old man, his younger daughter, the child of his old age, seened a child for some years after she attained the years of womanhood, was still called the "bit lassie" and "little Effie," and was permitted to run up and down uncontrolled, unless upon the Sabbath, or at the times of family worship. Her sister, with all the love and care of a mother, could not be supposed to possess the same authoritative influence; and that which she had hitherto exercised became gradually limited and diminished as Effie's advancing years entitled her, in her own couceit at least, to the right of independence and free agency. With all the innocence and goodness of disposition, therefore, which we have described, the Lily of St. Leonard's possessed a little fund of selfconceit and obstinacy, and some warmth and irritability of temper, partly natural perhaps, but certainly much increased by the unrestrained freedom of her childhood. Her character will be best illustrated by a cottage evening scene.

The careful father was absent in his well-stocked byre, foddering those useful and patient animals on whose produce his living depended, and the summer evening was beginning to close in, when Jeanie Deans began to be very anxious for the appearance of her sister, and to fear that she would not reach Effie Deans, under the tender and affectionate care home before her father returned from the labour of of her sister, had now shot up into a beautiful and the evening, when it was his custom to have "family blooming girl. Her Grecian-shaped head was pro- exercise," and when she knew that Effie's absence fusely rich in waving ringlets of brown hair, which, would give him the most serious displeasure. These confined by a blue snood of silk, and shading a laugh-apprehensions hung heavier upon her mind, because, ing Hebe countenance, seemed the picture of health, for several preceding evenings, Effie had disappeared pleasure, and contentment. Her brown russet short- about the same time, and her stay, at first so brief as gown set off a shape, which time, perhaps, might be scarce to be noticed, had been gradually protracted expected to render too robust, the frequent objection to half an hour, and an hour, and on the present octo Scottish beauty, but which, in her present early casion had considerably exceeded even this last limit, age, was slender and taper, with that graceful and And now, Jeanie stood at the door, with her hand easy sweep of outline which at once indicates health before her eyes to avoid the rays of the level sun, and and beautiful proportion of parts. looked alternately along the various tracks which led towards their dwelling, to see if she could descry the nymph-like form of her sister. There was a wall and style which separated the royal domain, or King's Park, as it is called, from the public road; to this pass she frequently directed her attention, when she saw two persons appear there somewhat suddenly, as if they had walked close by the side of the wall to screen themselves from observation. One of them, a man, drew back hastily; the other, a female. crossed the stile, and advanced towards her-It was Effie. She met her sister with that affected liveli * Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton, now no more-Editor

These growing charms, in all their juvenile profusion, had no power to shake the steadfast mind, or divert the fixed gaze, of the constant Laird of Dum-a biedikes. But there was scarce another eye that could behold this living picture of health and beauty, without pausing on it with pleasure. The traveller stopped his weary horse on the eve of catering the city which was the end of his journey, to gaze at the sylph-like form that tripped by him, with her milkpail poised on her head, bearing herself so erect, and stepping so light and free under her burden, that it seemed rather an ornament than an encumbrance.

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ness of manner, which, in her rank, and sometimes in those above it, females occasionally assume to hide surprise or confusion; and she carolled as she came"The elfin knight sate on the brae,

The broom grows bonny, the broom grows fair; And by there came lilting a lady so gay,

And we daurna gang down to the broom nae mair." "Whisht, Effe," said her sister; "our father's coming out o' the byre."-The damsel stinted in her song." Whare hae ye been sae late at e'en ?"

"It's no late, lass," answered Effie.

"It's chappit eight on every clock o' the town, and the sun's gaun down ahint the Corstorphine hills Whare can ye hae been sae late ?"

"Nae gate," answered Effie.

"And wha was that parted wi' you at the stile ?" "Naebody," replied Effie, once more. "Nae gate?-Naebody?-I wish it may be a right gate, and a right body, that keeps folk out sae late at e'en, Effie."

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"What needs ye be aye speering then at folk?" retorted Effie. I'm sure, if ye'll ask nae questions, I'll tell ye nae lees. I never ask what brings the Laird of Dumbiedikes glowering here like a wull-cat, (only his een's greener, and no sae gleg,) day after day, till we are a' like to gaunt our chafts aff."

Because ye ken very weel he comes to see our father," said Jeanie, in answer to this pert remark. "And Dominie Butler-Does he come to see our father, that's sae taen wi' his Latin words?" said Effie, delighted to find that, by carrying the war into the enemy's country, she could divert the threatened attack upon herself, and with the petulance of youth she pursued her triumph over her prudent elder sister. She looked at her with a sly air, in which there was something like irony, as she chanted, in a low but marked tone, a scrap of an old Scotch song

"Through the kirkyard

I met wi' the Laird,

The silly puir body he said me nao harm ;
But just ere 'twas dark,

I met wi' the clerk"

Here the songstress stopped, looked full at her sister, and, observing the tear gather in her eyes, she suddenly flung her arms round her neck, and kissed them away. Jeanie, though hurt and displeased, was unable to resist the caresses of this untaught child of nature, whose good and evil seemed to flow rather from impulse than from reflection. But as she returned the sisterly kiss, in token of perfect reconciliation, she could not suppress the gentle reproof" Effie, if ye will learn fule sangs, ye might make a kinder use of them."

"And so I might, Jeanie," continued the girl, elinging to her sister's neck;" and I wish I had never learned ane o' them-and I wish we had never come here-and I wish my tongue had been blistered or I had vexed ye."

"Never mind that, Effie," replied the affectionate sister; "I caunna be muckle vexed wi' ony thing ye say to me-but O dinna vex our father!"

"I will not-I will not," replied Effie; "and if there were as mony dances the morn's night as there are merry dancers in the north firmament on a frosty e'en, I winna budge an inch to gang near ane o' them." "Dance?" echoed Jeanie Deans in astonishment. "Q, Effie, what could take ye to a dance?"

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and absurd purpose, or for that of dramatic represen
tations, as one of the most flagrant proofs of defec
tion and causes of wrath. The pronouncing of the
word dance by his own daughters, and at his own
door, now drove him beyond the verge of patience.
'Dance!" he exclaimed. "Dance?-dance, said ye?
I daur ye limmers that ye are, to name sic a word at
my door-cl-eek' It's a dissolute profane pastime,
practised by the Israelites only at their base and bru
tal worship of the Golden Calf at Bethel, and by the
unhappy lass wha danced aff the head of John the
Baptist, upon whilk chapter I will exercise this night
for your further instruction, since ye need it sac
muckle, nothing doubting that she has cause to rue the
day, lang or this time, that e'er she suld hae shook a
limb on sic an errand. Better for her to hae been born
a cripple, and carried frae door to door, like auld Bes-
sie Bowie, begging bawbees, than to be a king's
daughter, fiddling and flinging the gate she did. I
hae often wondered that ony ane that ever bent a
knee for the right purpose, should ever daur to crook
a hough to fyke and fling at piper's wind and fiddler's
squealing. And I bless God, (with that singular
worthy, Peter Walker the packman at Bristo-Port,*)

*This personage, whom it would be base ingratitude in the author to pass over without some notice, was by far the most zealous and faithful collector and recorder of the actions and opinions of the Cameronians. He resided, while stationary, af chant or pedler, which profession he seems to have exercised in the Bristo Port of Edinburgh, but was by trade an itinerant merIreland as well as Britain. He composed biographical notices of Alexander Peden, John Semple, John Welwood, and Richard Cameron, all ministers of the Cameronian persuasion, to which

the last mentioned member gave the name.

It is from such tracts as these, written in the sense, feeling, and spirit of the sect, and not from the sophisticated narratives of a later period, that the real character of the persecuted class times slides into the burlesque, and sometimes attains a tone of is to be gathered. Walker writes with a simplicity which some simple pathos, but always expressing the most daring confidence in his own correctness of creed and sentiments, sometimes with narrow-minded and disgusting bigotry. His turn for the mar vellous was that of his time and sect; but there is little roo to doubt his veracity concerning whatever he quotes on his own knowledge. His small tracts now bring a very high price, espe cially the earlier and authentic editions.

as intimated in the text, partly borrowed from Peter Walker. The tirade against dancing, pronounced by David Deans, is, He notices, as a foul reproach upon the name of Richard Cameron, that his memory was vituperated "by pipers and fiddlers playing the Cameronian march-carnal vain springs, which too the professors of Christianity to dance to any spring, but somemany professors of religion dance to; a practice unbecoming what more to this. Whatever," he proceeds, "be the many foul blots recorded of the saints in Scripture, none of them is practised by the wicked and profane, as the dancing at that bru charged with this regular fit of distraction. We find it has been tish, base action of the calf-making; and it had been good for that unhappy lass, who danced off the head of John the Baptist, that she had been born a cripple, and never drawn n limb to her. some time thereafter was dancing upon the ice, and it broke, Historians say, that her sin was written upon her judgment, who and snapt her head off her; her head danced above, and her feet beneath. There is ground to think and conclude, that when the world's wickedness was great, dancing at their marriages was practised; but when the heavens above, and the earth beneath, were let loose upon them with that overflowing flood, their mirth was soon staid; and when the Lord in holy justice rained fire and brimstone from heaven upon that wicked people and city Sodom, enjoying fulness of bread and idleness, their fiddlestrings and hands went all in a flame; and the whole people in thirty miles of length, and ten of breadth, as historians say, were all made to fry in their skins; and at the end, whoever are giving in marriages and dancing when all will go in a flame, they will quickly change their note.

"I have often wondered thorow my life, how any that ever knew what it was to bow a knee in earnest to pray, durst crook a hough to fyke and fling at a piper's and fiddler's springs. I bless the Lord that ordered my lot so in my dancing days, that made the fear of the bloody rope and bullets to my neck and head, the pain of boots, thumikens, and irons, cold and hunger, wetness and weariness, to stop the lightness of my head, and the wantonness of my feet. What the never-to-be-forgotten Man of God, John Knox, said to Queen Mary, when she gave him that sharp challenge, which would strike our mean-spirited, tongue-tacked ministers dumb, for his giving public faithful warning of the danger of the church and nation, through her marrying the Dauphine of France, when he left her bubbling and were fyking and dancing, he said, 'O brave ladies, a brave world, if it would last, and heaven at the hinder end! But fye upon the knave Death, that will seize upon those bodies of yours; and where will all your fiddling and flinging be then? Dancing being such a common evil, especially amongst young professors, that all the lovers of the Lord should hate, has caused me t insist the more upon it, especially that foolish spring the Camoroman march Life and Death of three Famous Worthies, &-c. by Peter Walker, 12m10. p. 59.

It is very possible, that, in the communicative mood into which the Lily of St. Leonard's was now surprised, she might have given her sister her unreserved confidence, and saved me the pain of telling a melancholy tale; but at the moment the word dance was uttered, it reached the ear of old David Deans, who had turned the corner of the house, and came upon his daughters ere they were aware of his pre-greeting, and came to an outer court, where her Lady Mariea sence. The word prelate, or even the word pope, could hardly have produced so appalling an effect upon David's ear; for, of all exercises, that of dancing, which he termed a voluntary and regular fit of distraction, he deemed most destructive of serious thoughts, and the readiest inlet to all sort of licentiousness; and he accounted the encouraging, and even permitting, assemblies or meetings, whether among those of high or low degree, for this fantastic

It may be here observed, that some of the milder class of Ca meronians made a distinction between the two sexes darcins

that ordered my lot in my dancing days, so that fear | David,-there was bed, board, and bountith-it was of my head and throat, dread of bloody rope and swift bullet, and trenchant swords and pain of boots and thumkins, cauld and hunger, wetness and weariness, stopped the lightness of my head, and the wantonness of my feet. And now, if I hear ye, quean lassies, sae muckle as name dancing, or think there's sic a thing in this warld as flinging to fiddler's sounds and piper's springs, as sure as my father's spirit is with the just, ye shall be no more either charge or concern of mine! Gang in, then-gang in, then, hinnies," he added, in a softer tone, for the tears of both daughters, but especially those of Effie, began to flow very fast," Gang in, dears, and we'll seek grace to preserve us frae all manner of profane folly, whilk causeth to sin, and promoteth the kingdom of dark-which his daughter was to hear, he was nothing disness, warring with the kingdom of light."

The objurgation of David Deans, however well meant, was unhappily timed. It created a division of feelings in Effie's bosom, and deterred her from her intended confidence in her sister. "She wad haud me nae better than the dirt below her feet," said Effie to herself, "were I to confess I hae danced wi' him four times on the green down by, and ance at Maggie Macqueen's; and she'll maybe hing it ower my head that she'll tell my father, and then she wad be mistress and mair. But I'll no gang back there again. I'm resolved I'll no gang back. I'll lay in a leaf of my Bible, and that's very near as if I had made an aith, that I winna gang back." And she kept her vow for a week, during which she was unusually cross and fretful, blemishes which had never before been observed in her temper, except during a moment of contradiction.

a decent situation-the lassie would be under Mrs. Saddletree's eye, who had an upright walk, and lived close by the Tolbooth Kirk, in which might still be heard the comforting doctrines of one of those few ministers of the Kirk of Scotland who had not bent the knee unto Baal, according to David's expression, or become accessary to the course of national defections,-union, toleration, patronages, and a bundle of prelatical Erastian oaths which had been imposed on the church since the Revolution, and particularly in the reign of "the late woman,' (as he called Queen Anne,) the last of that unhappy race of Stewarts. In the good man's security concerning the soundness of the theological doctrine turbed on account of the snares of a different kind, to which a creature so beautiful, young, and wilful, might be exposed in the centre of a populous and corrupted city. The fact is, that he thought with so much horror on all approaches to irregularities of the nature most to be dreaded in such cases, that he would as soon have suspected and guarded against Effie's being induced to become guilty of the crime of murder. He only regretted that she should live under the same roof with such a worldly-wise man as Bartoline Saddletree, whom David never suspected of being an ass as he was, but considered as one really endowed with all the legal knowledge to which he made pretension, and only liked him the worse for possessing it. The lawyers, especially those amongst them who sate as ruling elders in the General Assembly of the Kirk, had been forward in promoting the measures of patronage, of the abjuration oath, There was something in all this so mysterious as and others, which, in the opinion of David Deans, considerably to alarm the prudent and affectionate were a breaking down of the carved work of the Jeanie, the more so as she judged it unkind to her sanctuary, and an intrusion upon the liberties of the sister to mention to their father grounds of anxiety kirk. Upon the dangers of listening to the doctrines which might arise from her own imagination. Be- of a legalized formalist, such as Saddletree, David sides, her respect for the good old man did not pre-gave his daughter many lectures; so much so, that vent her from being aware that he was both hot- he had time to touch but slightly on the dangers of tempered and positive, and she sometimes suspected chambering, company-keeping, and promiscuous dan that he carried his dislike to youthful amusements cing, to which, at her time of life, most people would beyond the verge that religion and reason demanded. have thought Effie more exposed, than to the risk of Jeanie had sense enough to see that a sudden and theoretical error in her religious faith. severe curb upon her sister's hitherto unrestrained freedom might be rather productive of harm than good, and that Effie, in the headstrong wilfulness of youth, was likely to make what might be overstrained in her father's precepts an excuse to herself for neglecting them altogether. In the higher classes, a damsel, however giddy, is still under the dominion of etiquette, and subject to the surveillance of mammas and chaperons; but the country girl, who snatches her moment of gayety during the intervals of labour, is under no such guardianship or restraint, and her amusement becomes so much the more hazardous. Jeanie saw ali this with much distress of mind, when a circumstance occurred which appeared calculated to relieve her anxiety.

Jeanie parted from her sister, with a mixed feeling of regret, and apprehension, and hope. She could not be so confident concerning Effie's prudence as her father, for she had observed her more narrowly, had more sympathy with her feelings, and could better estimate the temptations to which she was exposed. On the other hand, Mrs. Saddletree was an observing, shrewd, notable woman, entitled to exercise over Effie the full authority of a mistress, and likely to do so strictly, yet with kindness. Her removal to Saddletree's, it was most probable, would also serve to break off some idle acquaintances, which Jeanie suspected her sister to have formed in the neighbouring suburb. Upon the whole, then, she viewed her departure from Saint Leonard's with pleasure, and it was not until Mrs. Saddletree, with whom our readers have al- the very moment of their parting for the first time ready been made acquainted, chanced to be a distant in their lives, that she felt the full force of sisterly relation of Douce David Deans, and as she was a sorrow. While they repeatedly kissed each other's woman orderly in her life and conversation, and, cheeks, and wrung each other's hands, Jeanie took moreover, of good substance, a sort of acquaintance that moment of affectionate sympathy, to press upon was formally kept up between the families. Now, her sister the necessity of the utmost caution in her this careful dame, about a year and a half before our conduct while residing in Edinburgh. Effie listened, story commences, chanced to need, in the line of her without once raising her large dark eyelashes, from profession, a better sort of servant, or rather shop- which the drops fell so fast as almost to resemble a woman. "Mr. Saddletree," she said, "was never in fountain. At the conclusion she sobbed again, kissthe shop when he could get his nose within the Par-ed her sister, promised to recollect all the good counliament House, and it was an awkward thing for a woman-body to be standing among bundles o' barkened leather her lane, selling saddles and bridles; and she had cast her eyes upon her far-awa cousin Effie Deans, as just the very sort of lassie she would want to keep her in countenance on such occasions."

In this proposal there was much that pleased old separately, and allowed of it as a healthy and not unlawful ex. ercise; but when men and women mingled in sport, it was then called promiscuous dancing, and considered as a scandalous enormity.

This custom, of making a mark by folding a leaf in the par'Bible when a solems resolution is formed, is still held to in some sense, an appeal to Heaven for his or aer sincerity.

sel she had given her, and they parted.

During the first few weeks, Effie was all that her kinswoman expected, and even more. But with time there came a relaxation of that early zeal which she manifested in Mrs. Saddletree's service. To bor row once again from the poet, who so correctly and beautifully describes living manners,—

"Something there was,-what, none presumed to say,Clouds lightly passing on a summer's day; Whispers and hints, which went from ear to ear and mix'd reports no judge on earth could clear" During this interval, Mrs. Saddletree was sometimes displeased by Effie's lingering when she was sent

upon errands about the shop business, and sometimes by a little degree of impatience which she manifested at being rebuked on such occasions. But she good-naturedly allowed, that the first was very natural to a girl to whom every thing in Edinburgh was new, and the other was only the petulance of a spoiled child, when subjected to the yoke of domestic discipline for the first time. Attention and submission could not be learned at oncee-Holy-Rood was not built in a day-use would make perfect.

It seemed as if the considerate old lady had presaged truly. Ere many months had passed, Effie became almost wedded to her duties, though she no longer discharged them with the laughing cheek and light step, which at first had attracted every customer. Her mistress sometimes observed her in tears, but they were signs of secret sorrow, which she concealed as often as she saw them attract notice. Time wore on, her cheek grew pale, and her step heavy. The cause of these changes could not have escaped the matronly eye of Mrs. Saddletree, but she was chiefly confined by indisposition to her bedroom for a considerable time during the latter part of Effie's service. This interval was marked by symptoms of anguish almost amounting to despair. The utmost efforts of the poor girl to command her fits of hysterical agony were often totally unavailing, and the mistakes which she made in the shop the while were so numerous and so provoking, that Bartoline Saddletree, who, during his wife's illness, was obliged to take closer charge of the business than consisted with his study of the weightier matters of the law, lost all patience with the girl, who, in his law Latin, and without much respect to gender, he declared ought to be cognosced by inquest of a jury, as fatuus, furiosus, and naturaliter idiota. Neighbours, also, and fellow-servants, remarked, with malicious curiosity or degrading pity, the disfigured shape, loose dress, and pale checks, of the once beautiful and still interesting girl. But to no one would she grant her confidence, answering all taunts with bitter sarcasm, and all serious expostulation with sullen denial, or with floods of tears.

At length, when Mrs. Saddletree's recovery was like ly to permit her wonted attention to the regulation of her household, Effie Deans, as if unwilling to face an investigation made by the authority of her mistress, asked permission of Bartoline to go home for a week or two, assigning indisposition, and the wish of trying the benefit of repose and the change of air, as the motives of her request. Sharp-eyed as a lynx (or conceiving himself to be so) in the nice sharp quillits of legal discussion, Bartoline was as dull at drawing inferences from the occurrences of common life as any Dutch professor of mathematics. He suffered Effie to depart without much suspicion, and without any inquiry.

and the fate of the being to whom her fall had given birth, Effie remained mute as the grave, to which she seemed hastening; and indeed the least allusion to either seemed to drive her to distraction. Her sister, in distress and in despair, was about to repair to Mrs. Saddletree to consult her experience, and at the same time to obtain what lights she could upon this most unhappy affair, when she was saved that trouble by a new stroke of fate, which seemed to carry misfortune to the uttermost.

David Deans had been alarmed at the state of health in which his daughter had returned to her pa ternal residence; but Jeanie had contrived to divert him from particular and specific inquiry. It was, therefore, like a clap of thunder to the poor old man, when, just as the hour of noon had brought the visit of the Laird of Dumbiedikes as usual, other and sterner, as well as most unexpected guests, arrived at the cottage of St. Leonard's. These were the officers of justice, with a warrant of justiciary to search for and apprehend Euphemia, or Effie Deans, accused of the crime of child-murder. The stunning weight of a blow so totally unexpected bore down the old man, who had in his early youth resisted the brow of military and civil tyranny, though backed with swords and guns, tortures and gibbets. He fell extended and senseless upon his own hearth; and the men, happy to escape from the scene of his awakening, raised, with rude humanity, the object of their warrant from her bed, and placed her in a coach, which they had brought with them. The hasty reme dies which Jeanie had applied to bring back her fa ther's senses were scarce begun to operate, when the noise of the wheels in motion recalled her attention to her miserable sister. To run shrieking after the carriage was the first vain effort of her distraction, but she was stopped by one or two female neighbours, assembled by the extraordinary appearance of a coach in that sequestered place, who almost forced her back to her father's house. The deep and sympathetic affliction of these poor people, by whom the little family at St. Leonard's were held in high regard, filled the house with lamentation. Even Dumbie dikes was moved from his wonted apathy, and, groping for his purse as he spoke, ejaculated, "Jeanie, woman!-Jeanie, woman! dinna greet-it's sad wark, but siller will help it;" and he drew out his purse as he spoke.

The old man had now raised himself from the ground, and, looking about him as if he missed something, seemed gradually to recover the sense of his wretchedness. Where," he said, with a voice that made the roof ring, "where is the vile harlot, that has disgraced the blood of an honest man?Where is she, that has no place among us, but has come foul with her sins, like the Evil One, among the children of God?-Where is she, Jeanic ?-Bring her before me, that I may kill her with a word and a look!"

All hastened around him with their appropriate sources of consolation-the Laird with his purse Jeanie with burnt feathers and strong waters, and the women with their exhortations. "O neighbourO Mr. Deans, it's a sair trial, doubtless--but think of the Rock of Ages, neighbour-think of the promise!"

It was afterwards found that the period of a week intervened betwixt her leaving her master's house and arriving at St. Leonard's. She made her appearance before her sister in a state rather resembling the spectre than the living substance of the gay and beautiful girl, who had left her father's cottage for the first time scarce seventeen months before. The lingering illness of her mistress had, for the last few months, given her a plea for confining herself en- "And I do think of it, neighbours-and I bless tirely to the dusky precincts of the shop in the Lawn- God that I can think of it, even in the wrack and market, and Jeanie was so much occupied, during ruin of a' that's nearest and dearest to me-But to the same period, with the concerns of her father's be the father of a cast-away-a profligate-a bloody household, that she had rarely found leisure for a Zipporah-a mere murderess!-0, how will the walk into the city, and a brief and hurried visit to wicked exult in the high places of their wickedness! her sister. The young women, therefore, had scarcely the prelatists, and the latitudinarians, and the handseen each other for several months, nor had a single scandalous surmise reached the ears of the secluded inhabitants of the cottage at St. Leonard's. Jeanie, therefore, terrified to death at her sister's appearance, at first overwhelmed her with inquiries, to which the unfortunate young woman returned for a ime incoherent and rambling answers, and finally fell into a hysterical fit. Rendered too certain of her sister's misfortune, Jeanie had now the dreadful alternative of communicating her ruin to her father, or of endeavouring to conceal it from him. To all questions concerning the name or rank of her seducer,

waled murderers, whose hands are hard as horn wi' hauding the slaughter-weapons-they will push out the lip, and say that we are even such as themselves. Sair, sair, I am grieved, neighbours, for the poor castaway-for the child of mine old age-but sairer for the stumbling-block and scandal it will be to all tender and honest souls!"

"Davie-winna siller do't?" insinuated the Laird, still proffering his green purse, which was full of guineas.

"I tei ye, Dumbiedikes," said Deans, "that if telling down my haill substance could hae saved her

frae this black snare, I wad hae walked out wi' nae- may, I shall feel them the lighter, if they divert me not thing but my bonnet and my staff to beg an awmous from the prosecution of my duty. for God's sake, and ca'd mysell an happy man-But if a dollar, or a plack, or the nineteenth part of a boddle, wad save her open guilt and open shame frae open punishment, that purchase wad David Deans never make!-Na, na; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, life for life, blood for blood-it's the law of man, and it's the law of God.-Leave me, sirs-leave me-I maun warstle wi' this trial in privacy and on my knees."

Jeanie, now in some degree restored to the power of thought, joined in the same request. The next day found the father and daughter still in the depth of affliction, but the father sternly supporting his load of ill through a proud sense of religious duty, and the daughter anxiously suppressing her own feel ings to avoid again awakening his. Thus was it with the afflicted family until the morning after Porteous's death, a period at which we are now arrived,

CHAPTER XI.

Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us-Oh! and is ali forgot?

Midsummer Night's Dream.

Thus thinking and feeling, he quitted the ordinary path, and advanced nearer the object he had noticed. The man at first directed his course towards the hill, in order, as it appeared, to avoid him; but when he saw that Butler seemed disposed to follow him, he adjusted his hat fiercely, turned round, and came forward, as if to meet and defy scrutiny.

Butler had an opportunity of accurately studying his features as they advanced slowly to meet each other. The stranger seemed about twenty-five years old. His dress was of a kind which could hardly be said to indicate his rank with certainty, for it was such as young gentlemen sometimes wore while on active exercise in the morning, and which, therefore. was imitated by those of the inferior ranks, as young clerks and tradesmen, because its cheapness rendered it attainable, while it approached more nearly to the apparel of youths of fashion than any other which the manners of the times permitted them to wear. If his air and manner could be trusted, however, this person seemed rather to be dressed under than above his rank; for his carriage was bold and somewhat supercilious, his step easy and free, his manner daring and unconstrained. His stature was of the middle size, or rather above it, his limbs well-proportioned, yet not so strong as to infer the reproach of clumsiness. His features were uncommonly handsome and all about him would have been interesting and prepossessing, but for that indescribable expression which habitual dissipation gives to the countenance, joined with a certain audacity in look and manner, of that kind which is often assumed as a mask for confusion and apprehension.

We have been a long while in conducting Butler to the door of the cottage at St. Leonard's; yet the space which we have occupied in the preceding narrative does not exceed in length that which he actually spent on Salisbury Crags on the morning which succeeded the execution done upon Porteous by the rioters. For this delay he had his own motives. He wished to collect his thoughts, strangely agitated as Butler and the stranger met-surveyed each other they were, first by the melancholy news of Effie-when, as the latter, slightly touching his hat, was Deans's situation, and afterwards by the frightful about to pass by him, Butler, while he returned the scene which he had witnessed. In the situation also salutation, observed, "A fine morning, sir-You are in which he stood with respect to Jeanie and her on the hill early." father, some ceremony, at least some choice of fitting time and season, was necessary to wait upon them. Eight in the morning was then the ordinary hour for breakfast, and he resolved that it should arrive before he made his appearance in their cottage.

"I have business here," said the young man, in a tone meant to repress further inquiry.

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I do not doubt it, sir," said Butler. "I trust you will forgive my hoping that it is of a lawful kind?" Sir," said the other, with marked surprise, "I never forgive impertinence, nor can I conceive what title you have to hope any thing about what no way concerns you."

"I am a soldier, sir," said Butler, "and have a charge to arrest evil-doers in the name of my Master."

A soldier?" said the young man, stepping back, and fiercely laying his hand on his sword-"A soldier, and arrest me? Did you reckon what your life was worth, before you took the commission upon you?"

"A minister!" said the stranger, carelessly, and with an expression approaching to scorn. "I know the gentlemen of your cloth in Scotland claim a strange right of intermeddling with men's private affairs. But I have been abroad, and know better than to be priest-ridden."

Never did hours pass so heavily. Butler shifted his place and enlarged his circle to while away the time, and heard the huge bell of St. Giles's toll each successive hour in swelling tones, which were instantly attested by those of the other steeples in succession. He had heard seven struck in this manner, when he began to think he might venture to approach nearer to St. Leonard's, from which he was still a mile distant. Accordingly he descended from his lofty station as low as the bottom of the valley which divides Salis- "You mistake me, sir," said Butler gravely; "neibury Crags from those small rocks which take their ther my warfare nor my warrant are of this world. I name from Saint Leonard. It is, as many of my am a preacher of the gospel, and have power, in my readers may know, a deep, wild, grassy valley, scat-Master's name, to command the peace upon earth and tered with huge rocks and fragments which have good-will towards men, which was proclaimed with descended from the cliffs and steep ascent to the east. the gospel." This sequestered dell, as well as other places of the open pasturage of the King's Park, was, about this time, often the resort of the gallants of the time who had affairs of honour to discuss with the sword. Duels were then very common in Scotland, for the gentry were at once idle, haughty, fierce, divided by faction, and addicted to intemperance, so that there lacked neither provocation, nor inclination to resent it when given; and the sword, which was part of every gentleman's dress, was the only weapon used for the decision of such differences. When, therefore, Butler observed a young man, skulking, apparently to avoid observation, among the scattered rocks at some distance from the footpath, he was naturally led to suppose that he had sought this lonely spot apon that evil errand. He was so strongly impressed with this, that, notwithstanding his own distress of mind, he could not, according to his sense of duty as a clergyman pass this person without speaking to him. There are times, thought he to himself, when the slightest interference may avert a great calamitywhen a word spoken in season may do more for prevention than the eloquence of Tully could do for remedying evil-And for my own griefs, be they as they VOL III

Sir, if it be true that any of my cloth, or, it might be more decently said, of my calling, interfere with men's private affairs, for the gratification either of idle curiosity, or for worse motives, you cannot have learned a better lesson abroad than to contemn such practices. But, in my Master's work, I am called to be busy in season and out of season; and, conscious as I am of a pure motive, it were better for me to in cur your contempt for speaking, than the correction of my own conscience for being silent"

"In the name of the devil!" said the young man impatiently," say what you have to say, then; though whom you take me for, or what earthly concern you can have with me, a stranger to you, or with my ac tions and motives, of which you can know nothing, I cannot conjecture for an instant,"

"You are about," said Butler, "to violate one of your country's wisest laws-you are about, which in

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