This was the mistress of the house, a stout, pleasant-looking woman, about fifty years of age. I rose, and followed her to the adjoining chamber. On a bed, near the window, lay a small, pale child, with a book in his hand, which he laid aside as I entered. It seemed that he only lay upon the bed to make up for the want of a couch in the sitting-room, for he was already dressed for the day. "Have you been long ill, my child?" I asked, as I took a seat beside him. "Not very long,” replied the boy; "only since we have been in this place." "And how long may that be?" "Mrs. Graham has been in London about two years, sir," interrupted the landlady, who yet remained standing near the door; "it may be a little more or a little less, but it's near upon two years. She's been in my house a year and a half. The little gentleman has never been well since he's breathed our smoky air, sir. They came from foreign parts, and he finds the climate different." The child turned eagerly towards me. "Please don't say so to mamma, sir!" he cried; "she would fret to think she brought me. She often says now that it is her fault, and then she cries; but it is not her fault at all! She couldn't know I should be ill, could she, sir?" His earnestness touched my very heart. "Do not fear, Edgar," I said, kindly, "I will say nothing that can pain mamma. But you must go into the country, or I cannot cure you. Now let me sound your chest." I applied the stethescope to his breast and back; I tested his lungs in every way; I questioned him closely about all his symptoms. "Well, sir," he said, timidly, when I desisted, "do you think I shall get well again ?” "I have no doubt of it, Edgar, if you do all that I shall desire. You are more weak than ill, my child; and you must go into some quiet country place and get quite strong. Do you like my medicine ?” "I am glad that I shall get well," said the boy, with an expression of languid pleasure; "because mamma will be so happy when she hears it." Holding the little, wasted hand in mine, and looking down upon the meaning face, a sudden pang, which was neither apprehension nor regret, and yet which seemed to be compounded of both, thrilled through me, and I shuddered. What was that fleeting look in his blue eyes, what was there in the contour of his head that should so trouble me? "Good-bye, Edgar," I said, bending down and kissing him upon the forehead; "I will come again to see you in a few days." I went back into the sitting-room and drawing a chair to the table, proceeded to write a prescription. There came a rapid knock at the street door, and the landlady, for the first time, left me and went downstairs. I heard her say, "Yes, ma'am, he's in the drawing room." Then a light foot ran swiftly up the stairs-there was the rustle of a dress-a lady entered the room. "I beg a thousand pardons, sir," she said, hurriedly: "but I was compelled to leave home this morning, and I have been unexpectedly detained-I trust you have not waited for me." "By no means, madam," I replied, rising and bowing almost before I looked at her. "I have seen your little son, and have written this prescription for him. He needs strengthening diet and country air-that is all. "Then he will live?" "Most assuredly." "Thank God!" she said, fervently, as she sank into a chair. The joy and the relief of mind seemed quite to have overcome her. She removed her bonnet, and the thick black veil which had hitherto concealed her features from me. She could scarcely speak for agitation. It was well that I had already resumed my seat, or I must have fallen, struck down by the sight of that pale, sad face. Yes, the mists of twelve years rolled away as I looked upon her-upon Isabel-Isabel De l'Isle ! Oh, heaven! was it real or a dream? No, it was surely real, for the low sound of her voice fell confusedly upon my ears. I sat quite still and tranced, gazing at her till my sight grew dimmed; her words, but not their sense, vibrated on the air; I could not speak, or stir, or even think. She was thanking me, it seemed, for my She laid her hand timidly upon my arm. The light touch ran all through my frame, and I trembled like a leaf. "Is it possil le," I murmured, in a broken voice, "is it possible that I am quite forgotten? Do you-do you not know me?" "Know you!" she repeated, in a low, shuddering tone, pressing her hand upon her heart. "Know you! Alas! who is it that remembers me?" I looked up, and my eyes encountered the reflection of my own countenance in the looking-glass. That sight restored my selfpossession: I drew myself to my full height, and pointing towards it "I have no right, madam," I said, bitterly, "to charge as a fault upon your memory an error which is the result more of sorrow than of time! Look in yonder mirror, and see if it will give you back a feature of that face which was once the face of Walter Elliot!" She uttered a quick cry, turned deathly pale, and dropped into a chair. Heeding nothing, and carried away by the earnestness of my own words, I went on "Yes, Walter Elliot-Walter Elliot who so loved you, madam, twelve long years ago! who for love for hopeless love—of you, has wandered a restless, broken-hearted man, from place to place, seeking vainly that peace of mind which he has never since regained !—Walter Elliot, whose youth, whose happiness was wrecked by your most fatal beauty who is thus prematurely aged and worn and grey, so that your eyes (your eyes, which have so haunted him by night and 66 day!) can no longer recognize the man he was! Nay," I continued, seeing her turn aside, and cover her face with both her hands, nay, madam, then your pride is wounded, that one so humble should have looked so high! I rejoice that I did so that I do so still. Proud lady! the meanest slave might love, yet not dishonour you by loving. "Tis true, I had no earldom for your acceptance, no coronet for your brow; yet my heart was rich in a wealth of passion But I crave your pardon, madam; I transgress the bounds of reverence. By a strong effort, I curbed the burning words that were rising to my lips, and stood quite fixed and silent, looking on her. There was a long pause; then, slowly and timidly, but still without uncovering her face, she spoke 66 'You became rich, did you not?" "I did; and Heaven knows I only rejoiced in the possession of riches because I— because I hoped that they might somewhat lessen the distance between us." "Yet, the moment you knew of the good fortune which had befallen you, you left Maplewood-and-and without one farewell word!" An involuntary groan broke from my lips at the remembrance of that day, but I said nothing. She spoke again, and this time her voice faltered. "Why did you not come once more?" "Why did I not come once more, Isabel? I did come; and what was it my fate to learn by that visit? What would I not give that I had never gone that morning to your house! Alas! I did come happy, happy as I have never been since-joyous, hopeful, and eager to tell you how I worshipped you! I did come; and I learnt that your love was given to another! I saw you I saw you from the window, Isabel. You were standing by the fountain down below, with your -your future husband by your side. I watched you with the keen eye of a lover; I saw him urge his suit; I saw you place your hand in his; I saw the kiss which sealed your mutual vows, the kiss which I would have died to print upon that hand! Oh, that you had but refused me with your pitying smile, Isabel! Oh, that I had not seen that confirmation of my life's wretched ness!" "And-so you went away?" "And so I went away-away from home, friends, country-away, I knew not, cared not whither !" The hands trembled before her face, and I saw the tear-drops trickling through her fingers. I sprang forward. "Do you, then, pity me?" I cried eagerly. "Do you pardon me, pity me, weep for me?" "Alas, my poor friend!" she said, "why did you judge me so hastily? How could you be sure that I had accepted him ?" I turned cold; a mist came before my eyes; I trembled. "But-but you did accept him! You married him !" "Not till I had been persuaded that you cared for me no longer-that you had never cared for me! Not till they told me that you sought me for my wealth alone-that when you no longer needed it you left me! On that day- -on that day, in the garden-I refused the earl !" I staggered back; I stretched my hands wildly forward "And you loved me, me, Isabel !" She lifted up her face all wet with tears, and smiling on me like an angel "I always loved you, Walter," she said, gently. It was on the evening of our marriageday. I had brought her down to Maplewood, where we first met and loved, there to spend our honeymoon. My purchase of her old home was to be inaugurated by this crowning happiness of my life by her presence as my wife! With what delight had she learnt that Maplewood, dear, sylvan Maplewood, was all our own. With what joy had she recognized each well known hill and spire; each winding of the road; each tree of the forest ! Walking that evening in the park, we conversed of all that had taken place within those long twelve years. The child played with the dogs in and out the trees, while we walked and sat alternately beneath their shade. Then I told her the history of my wanderings and of my despair, and she unfolded to me those dark pages of her lifehistory which had been read since our last parting. Dark pages, indeed! written over with records of a disappointed hope; of a hardly-won, reluctant consent; of a marriage cold, loveless, and uncongenial. Pages telling of reverses; of sickness; of death; of utter poverty and loneliness; of bitter privations; of literary struggles, and of partial success; of long wearisome days, and nights of brain-work; of energies outworn; of that hope deferred, which maketh the heart sick; of the protracted weakness of her only child-in short, of many and long trials, before which my mental sufferings seemed unworthy of compassion! Alas, my darling Isabel! had I been less hasty of belief, all this endurance might have been spared to thee and me! The dusk came o'er the sky, and we went in. Edgar still running on before, with the flush of health and childish pleasure on his cheek, led the way to the old library; and in the very window where I had watched her long ago, we sat, looking into each others eyes, and talking softly of our happiness. Night came gently on-night and the stars. "Look, mama," said the boy, "look how dark the trees are now, and how the shadows deepen in the park!” I was lying at her feet with my head resting on her lap. She bent down over me, and putting back the hair from my brow, gently kissed it, saying "Our shadows are all vanished now, Walter-now and for ever!" "My sunlight is here," I murmured fondly, "my sunlight is here!" THE BASS ROCK. WE presume that the majority of strangers, who for the first time visit the romantic and beautiful city of Edinburgh, speedily find their way to its Calton Hill, whence they will obtain, not merely a striking view of the Old and New Town, but also will behold -more especially if they ascend to the summit of Nelson's monument-an indescribably magnificent panoramic view of the surrounding country for many miles, includ ing towns and villages, mountains and valleys, sea and islands. In the words of Sir Walter Scott "Yonder the shores of Fife you saw; Like emeralds chased in gold." To our mind, even yet more graphically, do the following lines of the amiable and lamented Dr. Moir, of Musselburg (the Delta of Blackwood's Magazine), describe the marvellously grand and varied prospect: "Traced like a map, the landscape lies In cultured beauty, stretching wide; There ocean, with its azure tide,- A distant giant range, are seen, — It is the truly remarkable, and historically interesting island, or rock, of Bass, that is the subject of this paper. How vividly do we remember our first glimpse of the Bass! We were on board a Scotch schooner bound for Leith, having left France with a view to seek the restoration of our shattered health (for we had been brought to the very edge of the grave by the cholera at Paris) by imbibing the pure breezes of old Caledonia. It was in the early part of the month of July, when at eventide the schooner was off St. Abb's Head, and consequently a few hours' sailing would bring us to the entrance of the Firth of Forth. We had oft read of the wonderful rock at that entrance, and ere retiring to our berth, requested to be roused when the vessel came abreast of it. Accordingly, at midnight, we were summoned on deck, and a never-to-be-forgotten scene welcomed us! The schooner was steadily cleaving the waters at a fair speed, yet so silently, that but for the soft dashing of spray against her bows, and the occasional creak of a yard or boom, or sheet or brace, she might have been deemed a phantom vessel gliding to some unhallowed rendezvous ! The air was clear, and the dark azure vault o'erhead glittered with countless stars, whilst the moonlight silvered the dancing crests of the wavelets. Broad on the beam, and at only a few hundred yards distance, rose a gigantic spectre! It was the Bass: a mighty solitary rock, placed, as it were, a silent, unchanging sentinel of Nature at the entrance of the Firth. High did it uprear its stern old northern front, and at this midnight hour, its immense bulk loomed to a size far beyond its noonday proportions. One side of it was in shade, and the shadow of the rock itself was prolonged to an enormous length over the surface of the sea. The other side, and part of the front, were white as, snow. "Birds, sir;" said our friend the captain, "all that you see gleaming so whitely in the moonshine are the wings of birds, resting and sleeping on the clefts and sides of the rock." It was even so; and the dark streaks and patches, which here and there intervened, were simply the bare surfaces of the rock where no birds clung. Onward swept the schooner, and the Bass soon faded away in the distance, but from our memory will never fade the profoundly romantic impression it created, for this vision of the Patmos of the North, seemed to us something eerie, almost unearthly, and yet well did we know that all was real, and that the morrow's sun would beam ruddily on the solid rock we now beheld gleaming so ghost-like in the moonlight. Twice, subsequently, did we sail past the Bass, and each time also, as it happened, about midnight, and by moonlight. Since then we have seen the Bass by daylight many a time, and a wonderful and deeply interesting spectacle it is at any time, and from any point of view. We once stood on the beach at North Berwick, when a brilliant sun lighted up one side of the Bass with marvellous effect. A stranger would, inevitably, have fancied that much of the rock was of some white material, or that a recent snow-storm had thickly coated it. Indeed, a lady with us, persisted that she beheld strata of chalk, and could hardly be convinced that the snowy masses were clusters of birds, and that the great rock was not less than three miles distant, for to the unaccustomed eye, it did not seem more than half-a-mile off. We may add that we have seen, in a remote country, a rock which bears a surprising resemblance to the Bass. It is situated at the entrance of the bay of Hammerfest, in Finmark, and is called Haajen. The Bass is, as we have said, a solitary rock, less than a mile in circumference, which springs like an isolated tower from the sea, at about two miles distance from the nearest part of the coast. At the highest point it is upwards of four hundred feet above the level of the sea, and its sides are nearly perpendicular all round, but their height is by no means uniform, for the surface or top of the rock slopes steeply downwards to the southward. A great, natural cavern or passage runs entirely through the Bass, and can occasionally be explored at low water. This wonderful perforation is nowhere less than a score of feet in height, and its length is above five hundred feet, which will give the reader a good idea of the size of the rock. There are only one or two spots where a landing can possibly be effected, and even at them it is not practicable to land, unless with great risk, except the weather is favourable and the tide at a convenient height. Having effected a landing, the visitor beholds the ruins of a fortress, concerning which we shall have more. to say by-and-bye. Half way up the slope are some ruins of a very different character, being the mouldering walls of a very old chapel. Much of the early history of the Bass Rock is more or less conjectural, but the researches of antiquarians and historians, in connection with it, actually extend twelve centuries backward. They tell us there existed a hermitage on the Bass at the end of the sixth century, and quote marvellous legends of the alleged miracles the recluse performed. Nothing very authentic is, however, known of the history of the rock until nigh a thousand years subsequent to the apocryphal era of the hermitage, and its occupier, Saint Baldred. As to the chapel, or religious edifice, of which the ruins yet remain, the date of its erection is unknown, but is supposed to have been in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. That the Bass was a fortified place, or stronghold, from a much earlier period, is undoubted. It is naturally adapted for such a purpose, and before the invention of cannon it must have been, if well defended, literally impregnable, except by the the slow and sure assaults of famine, if closely and perseveringly blockaded. It possessed a castle, at least, three hundred years ago, as mentioned by contemporary chroniclers. We recently read in a curious and valuable old book, entitled "A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain" (published above a century ago, and usually attributed to the celebrated author De Foe), a brief, but interesting and trustworthy, description of the Bass, as it was upwards of a century ago; and concerning the proprietorship the following statement-which other autho rities substantially confirm-occurs :-" It (the Bass) was formerly the possession, and sometimes the seat, of the ancient family of Lawder, who a long time refused to sell it, though often solicited to it by several kings. King James VI. (in 1581) told the then Laird, 'He would give him whatever he pleased to ask for it; whereby that gentleman had a fine opportunity of making a good bargain; but after he had told His Majesty, that he would sell it on these terms, and the King desiring to know what he would ask, he answered, 'Your Majesty must e'en resign it me, for I'll have the auld Craig (i. e. Rock) back again.' However, the family at last coming to decay, it was purchased by Charles II." So far De Foe; but certain important events in the interval between James VI. offering to buy the Bass, and Charles II. actually acquiring possession of it, require a passing word of notice. When Cromwell turned his conquering arms to Scotland the official records of the Church of Scotland, were sent for safety to the Bass, but that stronghold was compelled to surrender, and the documents were transmitted to London. A score of years later the Bass was sold and resold two or three times, finally being purchased by the government of Charles II., and a lamentable use did they put it to! What saith our old friend, the author of the "Tour through Great Britain ?" "In the times of the late King Charles and his brother, King James VII. (James II. of England), it was made a state prison, where the western people, called in those days Cameronians, were confined for being in arms against the king." Now this sentence of De Foe, presuming he was author of the "Tour," although penned, as we do not doubt it was, in an honest spirit, is yet calculated to convey a most erroneous idea of the prisoners of the Bass. The "western people, called in those days Cameronians," to whom he alludes as being imprisoned "for being in arms against the king," were none other than ministers of the Covenanters of Scotland; godly men, who were not "in arms against the king," but were victims to a deplorable system of persecution, and are to this day reverently spoken of in their own country as the "Martyrs of the Covenant." It were needless for us to enter into any details here concerning the history of the Covenant and the persecutions and sufferings it entailed on its adherents, but we may remark that, of all the |