and shrivelled- -a piece of parchment | oot o' their sma' wits. O man, but he's or vellum, tough and yellow as leather, a lousy apostle. Aff goes the queen, and -his legs in his tight-fitting gaiters, when I'll mak' you a present o' the castle. But, he mounted his grey mare, being the as I was sayin', Davie whiles gaed wrang, merest spindle-shanks. He was a famous aboot Mary Stewart, and miracles, and chess-player, a famous whist-player, a particular providences, and the standard fine scholar, a man who had spent many o' taste. What could he ken aboot mirayears on the Continent, and could speak cles mair than the rest o' us, and to say French and Italian like a native, a bon that nae weight o' evidence could pervivant, a gallant among ladies, especially suade him that Lazarus rose from the the great ladies at Pitfour and Slains dead was maist unphilosophical. Deed, Jean, Duchess of Gordon, loved him my lord, you're getting into deep water dearly he played a rubber with her that king o' yours is close pressed as Saul every night when she was drinking the at Mount Gilboa, or poor King Jamie on waters); but among his people he affected the field o' Flodden. Not that I wud say the bluff and homespun farmer, and was a word against David Hume, with whom indeed a hard hand at a bargain. He I had much pleasant converse at Paris would as soon have parted with a tooth when I took the grand tour wi' my Lord without value as with a shilling, and he Tillywhilly in the saxty-five- before I never sold the oats or "sma' corn" off was transported to this blessed Boeotia. the glebe, except during the famine years To think o' that body Warburton settin' when wheat was at 100s. the quarter. He himsel' up to refute him as he pretendit: took his snuff with the grace of a cour- he micht as well hae refuted the Bass tier. He rapped out his clear, sharp, sen- Rock. Ye wudna daur say check to the tentious retorts like pistol-shots. He king? Faith, provost, I hae you noo. handled his rapier with the dexterity of a What's your next move? As sure as practised dialectician, as became the gospel that's a groat into my pocketfriend of David Hume and Voltaire. He we're playing for groats, mind. Fritz was as wiry and vigorous at seventy as himsel' could not have pued his men thehe had been at seven-and-twenty, there gither after sic an unspeakable and 'unacwas nothing about that spare body of coontable blunder. There are mair things which death or disease could lay hold. in heaven and earth in the way o' perfec' Bright, alert, and rapid in the intercourse unreasonableness than the unassisted inof society, he was dull and tedious in the tellect is capable o' conceiving. Never pulpit, and a deadly bore in the General lose your temper, laird; it's neither dulce Assembly to which, however, he was nor decorum to fa' into a fit. Put on the sent regularly once a year by his less pieces, and I'll gie you a knight. A active brethren. knight, and we'll mak it saxpence this time. But you maun look sharper after your queen-you had a keen eye ance for the queans, provost, if a' tales be true-Gratia solutis zonis, as the poet says. O the little rogues!-there were some remarkably fine women at Paris in the saxty-five! And to think how many o' my auld acquaintance are dead! Whist! whist! my lord. We have nae confession in the Kirk o' Knox, at least between auld haverels like you and me, and a minister of the gospel is bound to walk warily. Surely that's Corbie and the captain in the street. Lord, how it blows! there's mair than the east wind lowse this nicht! Bring up the haddies, Maillie, and I'll look oot the Glendronoch - Dissipat Euius curas edaces — it's a fine speerit, Glendronoch (tho' it needs mixing), and as the auld abbé used to say to me when uphauding purgatory, 'Ye may gang farer and fair waur." This was the man who was now indulging in a sort of monologue while he moved his pieces or watched his adver sary's moves. The doctor's tongue was "aye waggin'," even the solemnity of whist could not silence his vivacious commentary, and of course chess with a much inferior foe was mere child's play. "Ha! ha! provost, what say you to that? Queen in check, and impossible to relieve her. Mary Stewart or Marie Antoinette? What precious scamps these French fellows are to be sure-as bad as Geordie Buchanan when he defamed his mistress, or Murray when he sold his sister. You pit the pawn forrit -what's the gude o' a pawn? My leddy's page wi' his bit pasteboard sword against Cœur de Lion. But, provost, I never could understand how Davie Hume cared to row in the same boat wi' Geordie Buchanan. I would as soon lie heads and thraws wi' that hairy John the Baptist, who is deevin' the Whinnyfold lads "And here's the buiks," says the provost, bringing out a well-thumbed pack of 44 THE CROOKIT MEG: cards, as Corbie and the captain enter the | in your ear. room. "I say with Jack Cade," the doctor exclaims cheerily, as he clears the table, "the first thing we do let's kill all the lawyers." "We'll finish the rubber first, if you please," says the provost, with a chuckle, as they cut for partners. So they sat down; and for two or three hours the game proceeded with varying luck amid comparative silence. The wind had risen during the evening, and now it was blowing a gale. There was no sound in the streets, except the rattling of the windows and the distant roll of the surf-the town's people, for the most part, were safe abed. Early to bed and early to rise made us healthy, wealthy, and wise in the year one. The second rubber had newly begun, when there was a modest rap at the street door, and Maillie entering, announced"It's Watty Troup Watty was the burgh idiot-"speerin' for sneeshin'." But that was hours ago, and they were preparing to lay aside the cards and gather round the blazing peats for the final tumbler and the penultimate "eke," when a louder and more peremptory knock arrested the players. "Here's Alister Ross," said Maillie, opening the door, "wants to see the captain." "Bring him ben," quoth the provost. A remarkably handsome young fellow in the uniform of the coastguard, carrying a cutlass of the old-fashioned pattern, and with a pistol in his belt, entered the room. "What's up, Alister?" said the captain huskily to his subordinate. "What's up? What an infernal din the wind is making! Speak oot, man." "I don't think it will last, sir; it is taking round to the land, and the fog is rising. But I've just heard that the 'Crookit Meg' was seen aff Rattray Head this morning." "D-n the 'Crookit Meg.' She's the curse o' the coast," sputtered the captain. "But they can't land a keg to-night,Skipper Dick himself couldn't make the Bloody Hole in this fog, and the wind blowing dead in shore. There'll be a heavy sea aff Dunbuy: he'll not risk it." "That's true, sir; but they might run round to the Ward, and if I'm not wrong, it will be clear before daylight. I'd better warn our men at Whinnyfold." "Ay, ay, my lad, aff wi' you the 'Crookit Meg' and them on boord o' her are kittle cattle. And-Alistera word I'm an auld man and ye're a young ane. Dinna lippen to that little quean, Eppie Holdfast - there's mair maidens than mawkins in this country, and mony a strappin' lass is thinkin' lang for a stoot lad. ́ ́Hoot awa', man, dinnă glower; that hizzie is no to be trusted. She'll beguile you if she can. Her brither's on boord the lugger, and it's my opinion Harry Hacket kens mair o' baith the cutties than he wud care to tell at the town-cross." So Alister went out into the darkness, and the captain returned to his cronies, who were gathered cosily round the fire. The captain was a well-known figure in Peelboro'- -a short, stout man, with a face like a harvest moon- a face beaming with whisky and fun- but without any neck to speak of; so that when he became hilarious towards the end of the evening he would go off every now and again into a sort of apoplectic fit, from which he would emerge out of breath, and with the tears running out of his honest eyes-testifying to the violence of the process of recovery. His friends were used to these paroxysms of choking, and allowed him to take his own time in coming to. What between spitting, and sputtering, and stuttering, he was not what is called a ready speaker; but, on the other hand, he had a vast command of "nautical" language, and a very vivid and prolific fancy in short, he swore like a trooper and lied like Munchausen. But he was a general favorite, and he was specially popular with his men; for he had a kind heart (that universal solvent), an open hand, and an unquenchable thirst for "news." "Ha ha! captain, this breeze will bring the woodcock across the water; we must have a day on the Ardlaw. That's the cover for a cock." "The cover for a cock!" sputtered the captain, attempting to relight his pipe, which had a chronic habit of going out. "There's not a decent cover on this side o' Benachie. Give me the Loch o' Skene for cocks, ay! and for jacks too. Why, doctor, when I used to shoot there wi' auld Pitfoddels, we could have walked across the loch on their backs!" Noo, captain, that's a lee," said Corbie, who as the night advanced was apt to grow pugnacious and opinionative. The captain began to spit and stutter, but before he could bring his guns into position to open fire on the enemy, the agile doctor interposed. Hoots, captain, dinna mind him. We a'ken Corbie. His bark's waur than his | were not to be considered as the mere bite. And Pitfoddels was that rara avis," fruit o' the soil, or classified wi' calves he went on, trying to create a diversion and watermelons-enim absurdum vide"that rara avis, an honest lawyer. batur, hominem in fructu esse; cum Ha! ha!, Corbie, what say you to that, omnes fructus rerum natura gratia homimy man?" nis comparaverit; whilk 1 “Much good it did them!" said the doctor. "Whilk," Corbie continued, disregard "There's mair honest lawyers than honest ministers, doctor. That's what I say. The canon law compared with the ceevil is superficial, unphilosophical, and ing the interruption, "was an implied sophistical.' acknowledgment of the natural leeberty The civil law!" the doctor retorted. o' the subject, whereof your Maryland "Why, the men who made it-if my democraw is not capable. Ye may ca' it friend Gibbon is right-were some of the greatest scoundrels unhung.” By this time Corbie had talked himself into high good humor and comparative sobriety, and when shortly afterwards the party broke up, he took the commodore under his wing, and saw him safely housed. a fictio juris if it pleases you; but whar will you find a fiction like that which The lawyer was fairly roused. "Ye exempted the father o' the son wha died ken little of the Roman law, my freen, of in battle from the burden o' tutelage which whilk in its main features the Scots is a attached to him wha had na bairns? He verra reasonable imitation. The Romans was not childless, for his bairn still lived. were a great people, and their law is a Hi enim, qui pro republica ceciderunt, in maist remarkable system o' jurisprudence. perpetuam per gloriam vivere intelliThey had a perfec' respect for fac's-ay, guntur!" captain, a perfec' respect for fac'. For what says theCorpus Juris'? Nam plus valet quod in veritate est, quam quod in opinione. That's the main distinction, doctor, between the lawyer and the minister, the lawyer seeks diligently for facts which he can verify, the minister blethers aboot a hash o' doctrines which are incapable of identification. Nor did Justinian if ye like to ca' the haill body o' laws after the ruler in whose reign they were codified haud wi' your Whig freens on this side, or your French freens on the tither side o' the water. Dootless we have made changes in oor laws, says he, but why?-quod non innovationem induximus, sed quoniam æquius erat." "He had mighty peculiar views about the liberty of the subject, one has heard," the doctor (who was suspected of occasionally drinking Fox's health in the retirement of his back parlor) remarked as he emptied his glass; "and he was always braggin' about the morality of his timenice morality indeed!" "It's impossible to dispute," the lawyer went on gravely, "that the institution of slavery, to which I presume you allude, was an institution of the Roman State recognized and protected by the ceevil law. The slave, nae doobt, and ilka article he possessed, belanged to his owner. Ipse enim servus, qui in potestate alterius est, nihil suum habere potest. Perfectly true, doctor, and in the revolted colonies o' the king, ca'ing themselves a republic -which may the Lord confound!-the same inequality, as ye ken weel, obtains. But then it was verra notably provided by the ceeveelians that the children of slaves "The maut's aboon the meal wi Corbie," the doctor said to himself, as he strolled towards the manse; "but what a lawyer's lost because he canna drink in moderation!" IV. THE streets were wet with mist when the young coastguardsman opened the provost's door. An occasional oil-lamp shone with a sort of nebulous radiance into the thick fog; but a good deal of circumspection was needed to avoid the pitfalls on either side of the narrow footway. He met no one except one solitary woman with a child in her arms, who came towards him as he quitted the town. The wind had driven her long hair into her eyes, and she looked, as far as he could judge in the uncertain light, poverty-stricken and dishevelled. a nicht for the likes o' you to be oot, my lass," he said to her kindly, as a fierce blast nearly tore the rags from her back, and the infant out of her arms. likes o' me!" she replied, with a hoarse, hysterical sob, as she disappeared into the darkness. It's no "The Alister had now left all the streets behind him; but a single light still burned ahead. The house from which it proceeded stood on the very margin of the sea-between the sea and the roadway. The outer door was partially open, and pausing for a moment before he entered, Alister gazed into the room from which the light came. It was an ordinary cottage interior a but and a ben; in what appeared to be the kitchen a bed was let into the wall, and at the bedside there was a shelf for books, on which some half-dozen volumes were deposited. A very old man sat on a three-legged stool before the fire- -an old, spare, and wizened man, in a homespun suit of corduroys, with a square leather apron fastened close up to his chin, and a pair of horn spectacles upon his nose. The spectacles appeared to be more for ornament than use, -the wearer looked over them, not through them. Shrewd, sagacious eyes planted in a face which must always have been strongly marked, and which was now deeply lined by ruts which time and care had worn. Shrewd grey eyes, yet with that dreamy light in them that denotes the passion of the student or the abstraction of the mystic. The lamp was hung on the wall, and the light fell full upon the volume which lay on his knee a folio volume printed in picturesque old-fashioned type, and held together by quaintly-worked clasps of brass or tarnished silver-the sort of book which used to lie about many an English farmhouse, and now at Christie's or Sotheby's is worth its weight in gold. This was the cottage which Adam Meldrum had occupied for many years. Alister paused a moment, and then pushing back the door entered the room. A pleasant, cordial warmth came into the old man's face, as he laid aside his book. "Dinna move, Uncle Ned, I canna bide. I'm awa' to the Ward, where it's like enough the 'Crookit Meg' will be afore me. But it's a wild nicht, I wonder you left the door aff the sneck." "I forgot it," said the old man simply. There was a wonderful gentleness and sweetness in the voice. "I see how it is -you have been at the auld plays again. I wish I could stay, Uncle Ned, for a screed of 'Hamlet' or Henry V.;' but I just lookit in to say that you might bar the door, for I canna be back before morning. Only I had best tak' the lantern wi' me-the mist's verra thick, and the road across the Saddle Hill is no' fit for a Christian-even in daylicht." Alister lighted his dark lantern, and the old man went with him to the door. "The mist's rising," he said, looking round the sky; "and the moon will be up by one. I promised to get a tarrock's wing for Eppie. It's a sin to kill the pu birds, but she's a wilfu' lass, and win her way wi' maist o' us. Look round b Pothead as you are passing the morn' morn, and you'll maybe find me at Cha lie's Howff. Gude nicht, my lad - Go bless you." "Gude nicht, daddy, gude nicht.” There is something always strangel impressive in passing out of the noise an bustle of a crowded city into the darknes in exchanging the light and warmth c human life for the vast spaces of th night, and the solemn company of the stars. You become at once a citizen c an altogether different world, and inver at a step your relationships. The r terests of the streets out of which yo have passed cease to be engrossing; thes are the self-same stars under which th ships of Ulysses sailed; that is th Greater Bear, that the Lesser, and tha the belt of Orion. And if, as on thi evening, a thick, wet mist hides the stars and disturbs in a portentous way th proportions of the objects on the roadwa or by the roadside, the effect is hardl less striking. As Alister with the oc casional aid of his dark lantern felt hi way through the darkness, he could hea the roll of the surf at his feet muffled b the mist, and the occasional plaint of plover as it rose from the beach and wen past him on the wind to the inland mosses From Bowness, where the fisher-peopl stay-Bowness itself being blotted ou by the mist-the old road leaves the shore and mounts the hillside, thus cut ting off that extremest angle of the lane from whence the lighthouse flashes it welcomes and its warnings across deep. At the summit of the Saddle Hil there is the Alehouse tavern · a hostelr well known in the old posting days whei this was the sole road to the south Alister did not meet a living creature only when near the summit, looking in : break of the fog across the peat-hags, ho saw that lights were flitting about the mansion-house of Yokieshill where "auld Laird Hacket " lived. the On reaching the hostelry he found the house still open, and men and women or the move. A horse, steaming in the mist stood saddled at the door. "What's up, my man?" he said to th ostler; "you're late to-night." "It's young Hacket," Jock the ostle replied, pointing with his thumb acros his shoulder. "He's speakin' a word wi the mistress. They say the auld laird's i the dead thraws. God save us - it's uir wild nicht for flittin'. Yokieshill is sair | away to the south. Tim went down to to pairt wi' his gear; he wunna dee, he Collieston to see the captain; it's no posins swears, till he sees his liar, and Harry's sible they can land this side o' Newburgh. by awa to the Broch to fetch Corbie. There was a bleeze on the Hill o' Gask n's There's been some queer splores up the after dark, but it might have been the lads narglen if a' the folk says is true at Achnagatt firin' the whins." God "Stand out of the way, you lout," said A bright peat fire was blazing within. a deep voice at his elbow, and throwing Alister threw himself upon the unoccuhimself on his horse, young Hacket gal-pied bed in the guard-room, telling Colin gelloped off into the mist. to waken him if the wind went down. But there was no word of the "Crookit Meg" that night. Jock shook his fist at the vanishing es figure. "If he disna keep a ceevil tongue in his ugly head, the unhangt thief," he the muttered, as he retreated to his den in the the loft among the straw. ese the his light. V. DR. CALDCAIL was an early riser, and when he looked out next morning from his bedroom window, the wind had fallen, the sparrows were chirping cheerily among the boor-tree bushes, and the October sea was sparkling in the October Alister resumed his march. He had by this time passed the crest of the hill, and had begun the descent to the low-lying ou lands of the Ward. On this side the fog had lifted. The vast expanse of a boundless ocean was dimly visible in the star- sunshine. The manse was built just outHe passed Fontainbleau lying side the burgh the Peel-burn separating high and cold among its rocks; and his it from the Kirkton -on a pleasant emiheart beat more rapidly as he noticed that nence above the beach. Adam Meldrum's a light was still burning in an upper room cottage stood on the other side of the the of the lofty farmhouse. "It's Eppie's high road, closer to the sea, and thus the room," he whispered softly to himself. minister and the old boat-builder and The surf was thundering up the beach at bird-stuffer were next-door neighbors. Longhaven; the spray that came from the The alliance between these curiously ashis Bloody Hole wetted his face. At this sorted friends was very close and cordial. moment a shrill whistle roused him from "Uncle Ned" never went to church; but his dreams. He paused abruptly, laying the doctor, with a twinkle in his eye, his hand on the pistol in his belt. The good-humoredly accepted the situation. whistle was thrice repeated, a whistle that" I make no man's creed but my own," he to a less attentive ear might have passed said with Swift; and to him the Dean of for the cry of a startled whaup. Then a St. Patrick's, after David Hume, was the dim figure cautiously approached, and a first of men. Neither Adam nor the low voice said: "Is that you, Harry doctor was an unbeliever; but both were Hacket? They're waitin' for you at old men who had seen much of life; and Hell's Lum." Then the speaker paused while most of the doctor's convictions had for a second, and then with a startled by wear and tear grown thin and tentative oath, "By the Lord, it's the gauger," and provisional, Adam had drifted away disappeared as swiftly and noiselessly as into a theology of his own-a theology extracted mainly from the Old Testament, the plays of Shakespeare, the " Religio Medici," and Edwards's "Ornithology." Uncle Ned had as much contempt for the doctor's sermons as the doctor himself could possibly have had; preaching was the process by which his friend "gat that trash aff his stamach," the absence of which made him a honester and wholesomer companion. ar by es. he had come. Alister hurried on. "It's impossible they can land to-night," he muttered as he beard the surf boiling among the fissures along the coast. But he hurried on until he had reached the Hawklaw, a vast mound of sand that rises among the bents of the Ward. From thence he could see the whole Bay of Slains. The bay was white with foam. The waves were rolling up whitely upon the sand. Then he went on to the station, where he found one of the men standing at the door with his pipe in his mouth. “Well, Colin, anything up?" he asked. "Tim noticed a smart craft in the ong just before sundown. It had the aking masts of the 'Crookit Meg,' but they must have changed the rig. It bore Adam, as I have said, was partly boatbuilder and partly bird-stuffer; this morning, seated on a three-legged stool, he was hammering away at an old boat. It was placed on a slip which he had constructed close to his cottage, so that in either capacity he had his tools at hand. The doctor, strolling down to the beach in his slippers after his early breakfast, greeted |