much more dreadful, to violate a law, which God
himself has implanted within our nature, and writ-on sud
ten, as it were, in the table of our hearts, to which
every thrill of our nerves is responsive."
"And what is the law you speak of?" said the
stranger, in a hollow and somewhat disturbed accent.
"Thou shalt do no MURDER," said Butler, with a
deep and solemn voice.

The young man visibly started, and looked considerably appalled. Butler perceived he had made a favourable impression, and resolved to follow it up, Think," he said, "young man," laying his hand kindly upon the stranger's shoulder, "what an awful alternative you voluntarily choose for yourself, to kill or be killed. Think what it is to rush uncalled into the presence of an offended Deity, your heart fermenting with evil passions, your hand hot from the steel you had been urging, with your best skill and malice, against the breast of a fellow-creature. Or, suppose yourself the scarce less wretched survivor, with the guilt of Cain, the first murderer, in your heart, with his stamp upon your brow-that stamp, which struck all who gazed on him with unutterable horror, and by which the murderer is made manifest to all who look upon him. Think".

The stranger covered his face with his hand, as if on sudden reflection, and then turned away, but stopped when he had walked a few paces; and seeing Butler follow him with his eyes, called out in a stern yet suppressed tone, just as if he had exactly calcu lated that his accents should not be heard a yard beyond the spot on which Butler stood. Go your way, and do mine errand. Do not look after me. I will neither descend through the bowels of these rocks, nor vanish in a flash of fire; and yet the eye that seeks to trace my motions shall have reason to curse it was ever shrouded by eyelid or eyelash. Be gone, and look not behind you. Tell Jeanie Deans, that when the moon rises I shall expect to meet her at Nicol Muschat's Cairn, beneath Saint Anthony's Chapel."

As he uttered these words, he turned and took the road against the hill, with a haste that seemed as peremptory as his tone of authority.

Dreading he knew not what of additional misery to a lot which seemed little capable of receiving augmentation, and desperate at the idea that any living man should dare to send so extraordinary a request, couched in terms so imperious, to the half-betrothed object of his early and only affection, Butler strode hastily towards the cottage, in order to ascertain how far this daring and rude gallant was actually entitled to press on Jeanie Deans a request, which no prudent, and scarce any modest young woman, was likely to comply with.

The stranger gradually withdrew himself from under the hand of his monitor; and, pulling his hat over his brows, thus interrupted him. "Your meaning, sir, I dare say, is excellent, but you are throwing your advice away. I am not in this place with violent intentions against any one. I may be bad enough Butler was by nature neither jealous nor superyou priests say all men are so-but I am here for stitious; yet the feelings which lead to those moods the purpose of saving life, not of taking it away. If of the mind were rooted in his heart, as a portion you wish to spend your time rather in doing a good derived from the common stock of humanity. It action than in talking about you know not what, I was maddening to think that a profligate gallant will give you an opportunity. Do you see yonder such as the manner and tone of the stranger evinced crag to the right, over which appears the chimney of him to be, should have it in his power to command alone house? Go thither, inquire for one Jeanie forth his future bride and plighted true love, at a place Deans, the daughter of the goodman; let her know so improper, and an hour so unseasonable. Yet the that he she wots of remained here from daybreak till tone in which the stranger spoke had nothing of the this hour, expecting to see her, and that he can abide soft half-breathed yoice proper to the seducer who no longer. Tell her, she must meet me at the Hun- solicits an assignation; it was bold, fierce, and imter's Bog to-night, as the moon rises behind St. An-perative, and had less of love in it than of menace and thony's Hill, or that she will make a desperate man intimidation. of me. The suggestions of superstition seemed more plan "Who, or what are you" replied Butler, exceeding-sible, had Butler's mind been very accessible to them ly and most unpleasantly surprised, "who charge me with such an errand ?"

"I am the devil!"-answered the young man hastily.

Butler stepped instinctively back, and commended himself internally to Heaven; for, though a wise and strong-minded man, he was neither wiser nor more strong-minded than those of his age and education, with whom, to disbelieve witchcraft or spectres was held an undeniable proof of atheism.

The stranger went on without observing his emotion. "Yes! call me Apollyon, Abaddon, whatever name you shall choose, as a clergyman acquainted with the upper and lower circles of spiritual denomination, to call me by, you shall not find an appellation more odious to him that bears it, than is mine own."

Was this indeed the Roaring Lion, who goeth about seeking whom he may devour? This was a question which pressed itself on Butler's mind with an earnestness that cannot be conceived by those who liva in the present day. The fiery eye, the abrupt demea nour, the occasionally harsh, yet studiously subdued tone of voice,-the features, handsome, but now clouded with pride, now disturbed by suspicion, now inflamed with passion-those dark hazel eyes which he sometimes shaded with his cap, as if he were averse to have them seen while they were occupied with keenly observing the motions and bearing of others those eyes that were now turbid with melancholy, now gleaming with scorn, and now sparkling with fury-was it the passions of a mere mortal they expressed, or the emotions of a fiend, who seeks, and seeks in vain, to conceal his fiendish designs under the borrowed mask of manly beauty? The whole partook of the mien, language, and port of the ruined archangel; and, imperfectly as we have been able to describe it, the effect of the interview upon Butler's nerves, shaken as they were at the time by the horrors of the preceding night, were greater than his understanding warranted, or his pride cared to submit to. The very place where he had met this singular person was desecrated, as it were, and unhallowed owing to many violent deaths, both in duels and by suicide, which had in former times taken place there; and the place which he had named as a rendezvous "Butler," answered the person to whom this ab-at so late an hour, was held in general to be accursed, rupt question was addressed, surprised into answering it by the sudden and fierce manner of the querist Reuben Butler, a preacher of the gospel." At this answer, the stranger again plucked more deep over his brows the hat which he had thrown back in his former agitation. "Butler!" he repeated, "the assistant of the schoolmaster at Libberton ?" "The same." answered Butler, composedly.

This sentence was spoken with the bitterness of self-upbraiding, and a contortion of visage absolutely demoniacal. Butler, though a man brave by principle, if not by constitution, was overawed; for intensity of mental distress has in it a sort of sublimity which repels and overawes all men, but especially those of kind and sympathetic dispositions. The stranger turned abruptly from Butler as he spoke, but instantly returned, and, coming up to him closely and boldly, said, in a fierce, determined tone, "I have told you who and what I am-who, and what are you? What is your name?"

from a frightful and cruel murder which had been there committed by the wretch from whom the place took its name, upon the person of his own wife. It

Nichol Muschat, a debauched and profligate wretch, having conceived a hatred against his wife, entered into a conspiracy with another brutal libertine and gambler, named Campbell of

Burubank, (repeatedly mentioned in Pennycuick's satirical
Doems of the time,) by which Campbell undertook to destroy the

plicity. "Is it not ten long years since we spoke to- | you not let me be your assistant-your protector, or gether in this way?"

"Ten years?" said Butler. "It's a long timesufficient perhaps for a woman to weary". "To weary of her auld gown," said Jeanie, "and to wish for a new ane, if she likes to be brave, but not long enough to weary of a friend-The eye may wish change, but the heart never."

Never said Reuben," that's a bold promise." "But not more bauld than true," said Jeanie, with the same quiet simplicity which attended her manner in joy and grief, in ordinary affairs, and in those which most interested her feelings.

at least your adviser?"

"Just because I cannot, and I dare not," answered Jeanie." But hark, what's that? Surely my father is no weel?"

In fact, the voices in the next room became obstreperously loud of a sudden, the cause of which vociferation it is necessary to explain before we go further. When Jeanie and Butler retired, Mr. Saddletree entered upon the business which chiefly interested the family. In the commencement of their conver sation he found old Deans, who, in his usual state of mind, was no granter of propositions, so much subdued by a deep sense of his daughter's danger and disgrace, that he heard without replying to, or perhaps without understanding, one or two learned disquisitions on the nature of the crime imputed to her "It is from a stranger," said Butler, affecting to charge, and on the steps which ought to be taken in speak with an indifference which his voice belied-consequence. His only answer at each pause was "A young man whom I met this morning in the Park."

Butler paused, and looking at her fixedly-"I am charged," he said, "with a message to you, Jeanie." Indeed! From whom? Or what can ony ane have to say to me?"

"Mercy!" said Jeanie, eagerly; "and what did he

say?"

That he did not see you at the hour he expected, but required you should meet him alone at Muschat's Cairn this night, so soon as the moon rises." "Tell him," said Jeanie, hastily, "I shall certainly come."

May I ask," said Butler, his suspicions increasing at the ready alacrity of the answer, "who this man is to whom you are so willing to give the meeting at a place and hour so uncommon?"

Folk maun do muckle they have little will to do, in this world," replied Jeanie.

"I am no misdoubting that you wuss us weel-your
wife's our far-awa cousin."
"

Encouraged by these symptoms of acquiescence. Saddletree, who, as an amateur of the law, had & supreme deference for all constituted authorities, again recurred to his other topic of interest, the mur der, namely, of Porteous, and pronounced a severe censure on the parties concerned.

"These are kittle times-kittle times, Mr. Deans, when the people take the power of life and death out of the hands of the rightful magistrate into their ain rough grip. I am of opinion, and so I believe will Mr. Crossmyloof and the Privy-Council, that this rising in effeir of war, to take away the life of a reprieved man, will prove little better than perduellion."

"If I hadna that on my mind whilk is ill to bear, Mr. Saddletree," said Deans, "I wad make bold to dispute that point wi' you."

"Granted," said her lover; "but what compels you to this?-who is this person? What I saw of him was not very favourable-who, or what is he?" "I do not know!" replied Jeanie, composedly. How could ye dispute what's plain law, man?" "You do not know?" said Butler, stepping impa- said Saddletree, somewhat contemptuously; "there's tiently through the apartment-" You purpose to meet no a callant that e'er carried a pock wi' a process a young man whom you do not know, at such a time, in't, but will tell you that perduellion is the wairst and in a place so lonely-you say you are compelled and maist virulent kind of treason, being an open to do this and yet you say you do not know the per- convocating of the king's lieges against his authoson who exercises such an influence over you!-rity, (mair especially in arms, and by touk of drum, Jeanie, what am I to think of this?" to baith whilk accessories my een and lugs bore witness,) and muckle worse than lese-majesty, or the concealment of a treasonable purpose-It winna bear a dispute, neighbour."

"Think only, Reuben, that I speak truth, as if I were to answer at the last day. I do not ken this man-I do not even ken that I ever saw him; and yet I must give him the meeting he asks-there's life and death upon it.".

"Will you not tell your father, or take him with you?" said Butler.

"I cannot," said Jeanie; "I have no permission." "Will you let me go with you? I will wait in the Park till nightfall, and join you when you set out.' "It is impossible," said Jeanie; "there maunna be mortal creature within hearing of our conference." "Have you considered well the nature of what you are going to do ?-the time-the place-an unknown and suspicious character ?-Why, if he had asked to see you in this house, your father sitting in the next room, and within call, at such an hour, you should have refused to see him."

"But it will, though," retorted Douce Davie Deans; "I tell ye it will bear a dispute-I never like your cauld, legal, formal doctrines, neighbour Saddletree. I haud unco little by the Parliament House, since the awfu' downfall of the hopes of honest folk that followed the Revolution.".

"But what wad ye hae had, Mr. Deans ?" said Saddletree, impatiently; "dinna ye get baith liberty and conscience made fast, and settled by tailzie on you and your heirs for ever?"

"Mr. Saddletree," retorted Deans, "I ken ye are one of those that are wise after the manner of this world, and that ye haud your part, and cast in your portion, wi' the lang-heads and lang gowns, and keep with the smart witty-pated lawyers of this our land "My weird maun be fulfilled, Mr. Butler; my life-Weary on the dark and dolefu' cast that they hae and my safety are in God's hands, but I'll not spare to risk either of them on the errand I am gaun to do." "Then, Jeanie," said Butler, much displeased, "we must indeed break short off, and bid farewell. When there can be no confidence betwixt a man anu us plighted wife on such a momentous topic, it is a sign that she has no longer the regard for him that makes their engagement safe and suitable."

Jeanie looked at him and sighed. "I thought," she said, "that I had brought myself 10 hear this parting-but-but-I did not ken that we were to part in unkindness. But I am a woman and you are a man-it may be different wi' you-if your mind is made easier by thinking sae hardly of me, I would not ask you to think otherwise."

"You are," said Butler, "what you have always been-wiser, better, and less selfish in your native feelings, than I can be, with all the helps philosophy can give to a Christian.-But why-why will you persevero in an undertaking so desperate? Why will

gien this unhappy kingdom, when their black hands of defection were clasped in the red hands of our sworn murtherers: when those who had numbered the towers of our Zion, and marked the bulwarks of our Reformation, saw their hope turn into a snare ana eir rejoicing into weeping."

"I canna understand this, neighbour, answered Saddletree. "I am an honest presbyterian of the Kirk of Scotland, and stand by her and the General Assembly, and the due administration of justice by the fifteen Lords o' Session and the five Lords o' Justiciary."

Out upon ye, Mr. Saddletree!" exclaimed David, who, in an opportunity of giving his testimony on the offences and backslidings of the land, forgot for a moment his own domestic calamity-"out upon your General Assembly, and the back o' my hand to your Court o' Session!-What is the tane but a waefu' bunch o' cauldrife professors and ministers, that sate bien and warm when the persecuted remnant

were warstling wi' hunger, and could, and fear of death, and danger of fire and sword, upon wet braesides, peat-haggs, and flow-mosses, and that now creep out of their holes, like blue-bottle flees in a blink of sunshine, to take the pu'pits and places of better folk of them that witnessed, and testified, and fought, and endured pit, prison-house, and transportation beyona seas?-A bonny bike there's o' them!-And for your Court o' Session"

66

"Ye may say what ye will o' the General Assembly," said Saddletree, interrupting him, and let them clear them that kens them; but as for the Lords o' Session, forby that they are my next door neighbours, I would have ye ken, for your ain regulation, that to raise scandal anent them, whilk is termed, to murmur again them, is a crime sui generis sui generis, Mr. Deans-ken ye what that amounts to ?"

"I ken little o' the language of Antichrist," said Deans; "and I care less than little what carnal courts may call the speeches of honest men. And as to murmur again them, it's what a' the folk that loses their pleas, and nine tenths o' them that win them, will be gay sure to be guilty in. Sae I wad hae ye ken that I haud a' your gleg-tongued advocates, that sell their knowledge for pieces of silver, and your worldly-wise judges, that will gie three days of hearing in presence to a debate about the peeling of an ingan, and no ze haif-hour to the gospel testimony, as legalists and formalists, countenancing, by sentences, and quirks, and cunning terms of law, the late begun courses of national defections -union, toleration, patronages, and Yerastian prelatic oaths. As for the soul and body-killing Court o' Justiciary"

The habit of considering his life as dedicated to bear testimony in behalf of what he deemed the suffering and deserted cause of true religion, had swept honest David along with it thus far; but with the mention of the criminal court, the recollection of the disastrous condition of his daughter rushed at once on his mind; he stopped short in the midst of his triumphant declamation, pressed his hands against his forehead, and remained silent.

let him tell me what a plough-gate of land is, and I'll tell him if I have one or no. Surely the pursuer is bound to understand his own libel, and his own statute that he founds upon. Titius pursues Mavius for recovery of ane black horse lent to Mævius surely he shall have judgment; but if Titius pur sue Mævius for ane scarlet or crimson horse, doubtless he shall be bound to show that there is sic ane animal in rerum natura. No man can be bound to plead to nonsense-that is to say, to a charge which cannot be explained or understood,'-(he's wrang there-the better the pleadings the fewer understand them,) and so the reference unto this undefined and unintelligible measure of land is, as if a penalty was inflicted by statute for any man who suld hunt or hawk, or use lying-dogs, and wearing a sky-blue pair of breeches, without having"- -But I am wea. rying you, Mr. Deans, we'll pass to your ain business,

though this case of Marsport against Lackland has made an unco din in the Outer-house. Weel, here's the dittay against puir Effie: Whereas it is humbly meant and shown to us,' &c. (they are words of mere style,) that where, by the laws of this and every other well-regulated realm, the murder of any one, more especially of an infant child, is a crime of ane high nature, and severely punishable: And whereas, without prejudice to the foresaid generality, it was, by ane act made in the second session of the First Parliament of our most High and Dread Soveraigns William and Mary, especially enacted, that ane woman who shall have concealed her condition, and shall not be able to show that she hath called for help at the birth, in case that the child shall be found dead or amissing, shall be deemed and held guilty of the murder thereof; and the said facts of concealment, and pregnancy being found proven or confessed, shall sustain the pains of law accordingly; yet, nevertheless, you Effie, or Euphemia Deans'

"Read no further!" said Deans, raising his head up; "I would rather ye thrust a sword into my heart than read a word further!"

"Weel, neighbour," said Saddletree, "I thought it wad hae comforted ye to ken the best and the warst o't. But the question is, what's to be dune?"

་་

Nothing," answered Deans firmly, "but to abide the dispensation that the Lord sees meet to send us. O, if it had been His will to take the gray head to rest before this awful visitation on my house and name! But His will be done. I can say that yet, though I can say little mair."

But, neighbour," said Saddletree, "ye'll retain advocates for the puir lassie? it's a thing maun needs be thought of."

"If there was ae man of them," answered Deans, "that held fast his integrity-but I ken them weel they are a' carnal, crafty, and warld-hunting selfseekers, Yerastians, and Arminians, every ane o' them."

"Hout tout, neighbour, ye maunna take the warld at its word," said Saddletree; "the very deil is no sae ill as he's ca'd; and I ken mair than ae advocate that may be said to hae some integrity as weel as their neighbours; that is, after a sort o' fashion o' their ain."

Saddletree was somewhat moved, but apparently not so much so as to induce him to relinquish the privilege of prosing in his turn, afforded him by David's sudden silence. "Nae doubt, neighbour," he said, "it's a sair thing to hae to do wi' courts o' law, unless it be to improve ane's knowledge and practique, by waiting on as a hearer; and touching this unhappy affair of Effie-ye'll hae seen the dittay, doubtless?" He dragged out of his pocket a bundle of papers, and began to turn them over. "This is no it-this is the information of Mungo Marsport, of that ilk, against Captain Lackland, for coming on his lands of Marsport with hawks, hounds, lyingdogs, nets, guns, cross-bows, hagbuts of found, or other engines more or less for destruction of game, sic as red-deer, fallow-deer, cappercailzies, gray-fowl, moor-fowl, paitricks, herons, and sic like; he the said defender not being ane qualified person, in terms of the statute sixteen hundred and twenty-ane; that is, not having ane plough-gate of land. Now, the defences proponed say, that non constat at this present what is a plough-gate of land, whilk uncertainty is sufficient to elide the conclusions of the libel. But then the answers to the defences, (they are signed by Mr. Crossmyloof, but Mr. Younglad drew them,) they propone, that it signifies naething, in hoc statu, what or how muckle a plough-gate of land may be, in respect the defender has nae lands whatsoe'er, less or mair. 'Sae grant a plough-gate'" (here Saddletree read from the paper in his hand) to be less than the nineteenth part of a guse's grass,'-(I trow Mr. Crossmyloof put in that-I ken his style,of a guse's grass, what the better will the defender be, seeing he hasna a divot-cast of land "It's Tishius," interrupted Saddletree, "and no Tiin Scotland?-Advocatus for Lackland duplies, that tus. Mr. Crossmyloof cares as little about Titus or the nihil interest de possessione, the pursuer must put Latin learning as ye do.-But it's a case of necessity his case under the statute'-(now, this is worth your-she maun hae counsel. Now, I could speak to Mr. notice, neighbour,)-and must show, formaliter et Crossmyloof-he's weel kend for a round-spun Presspecialiter, as well as generaliter, what is the quali- byterian, and a ruling elder to boot." fication that defender Lackland does not possess→

It is indeed but a fashion of integrity that ye will find amang them," replied David Deans, "and a fashion of wisdom, and fashion of carnal learninggazing, glancing-glasses they are, fit only to fling the glaiks ir folk's een, wi' their pawky policy, and earthly ingine, their flights and refinements, and periods of eloquence, frae heathen emperors and popish canons. They canna, in that daft trash ye were reading to me, sae muckle as ca' men that are sae ill-starred as to be amang their hands, by ony name o' the dispensation o' grace, but maun new baptize them by the names of the accursed Titus, wha was made the instrument of burning the holy Temple, and other sic like heathens."

"He's a rank Yerastian," replied Deans; "one a