Chapter VI: Part 6

Grant (a little nettled).--And what reason have you to suppose that this is not the true and authentic statement of the facts of John Macpherson's history as they really occurred? I gave them as I got them from another. You do not suppose that I altered or invented them?

Stranger (with an obsequious inclination of his body).--Howt away, no, no. No such-an-a-thing. If you got them from another I have no manner of doot but you have rehearsed them simply as ye had them, without adding, or eiking, or paring, or changing one whit. But, nevertheless, the real facks have been sorely and most grievously tampered with by some one.

Grant.--Indeed. And how came you to know anything about this Macpherson story? and what is your authority for saying that the facts have been tampered with?

Stranger (with oracular gravity).--Firstly, or, in the first place, I beg to premeese, that I am a schoolmaster; and therefore it is that I am greatly given to accurate and parteeklar inquiry. Secondly, or, in the second place, having daily practeesed myself into a habit of correcting the errors of my scholars, it is not very easy for me to pass silently by the blunders of other folk. And, thirdly, or, in the third place, and to conclude, I am a Macpherson myself; and as it is natural that I should on that account be all the more earnest and punctilious in expiscating the facks connected with the history of that great clan, so is it also to be presumed that I may have had greater opportunity for conducking such an investigation. And so, having premeesed this much, I may add, by way of an impruvment on the subject, that I shall be just as well pleased to correct your version of this history as I should be to correct the theme of any of my own boys.

Grant (smiling).--I am truly obliged to you for this gratuitous offer of your tuition.

Stranger (whom I shall now call Dominie Macpherson).--Not in the very least obliged to me, sir. The greatest pleasure of my life is to instruct the ignorant; and in yespecial I deem it a vurra high honour and delight to me to have this opportunity of instructing such a gentleman as you. Proud truly may I be of my scholar.

Clifford (with mock gravity).--The master and the scholar, methinks, are quite worthy of each other.

Dominie (with a bow to the speaker).--I am greatly obligated to you for the compliment, sir (then turning to Grant with a more confident and self-satisfied air than he had hitherto ventured to assume).--Firstly, or in the first place, then, sir, you must be pleased to know that John Macpherson of Invereshie did not espoose a south country woman; for his wife was a Shaw of Dalnabhert, on Spey-side there. Secondly, or in the second place, the leddy never had any such extraordinar fascination over him as you have described her to have; for she was in reality so ill-natured a woman, that she and her goodman were continually discording and squabbling together. In the third place, or, as I should say, thirdly,--and it being one of the few conditions in which your tale in some sort agrees with the true history,--she was undoottedly so great a spendthrift, that many was the bitter quarrel that arose 'twixt her goodman and her, because of her extravagances. But, fourthly, or in the fourth place, the worthy John Macpherson did not throw the lady into the Feshie; and this is a fack which I would in yespecial crave you to correct in any future edition, seeing that it brings an evil and scandalous report upon the said John, and would seem to smell of murder, when the true parteeklars of the history, known to me from the time I was a babe, are as follows, to wit:--It happened one day that the dispute between them ran to a higher pitch than common, and the lady left the house with the intention of fleeing to her father at Dalnabhert. There was neither bridge nor boat upon Feshie at that same time; but the woman was so demented with rage that she plunged into the water with the determination of wading through. Well, she had not gone three steps into the ford when she was carried off her legs entirely; but her body being buoyed up by reason of her petticoats, of which it is said that she was used to wear not less than four (my grandmother, honest woman, did the same), she floated down the stream into the deep water, until being brought by the swirl of an eddy near to a jutting out rock, she caught at a twig or branch that grew near the edge, and held by it like grim death. And here I must admit that, fifthly, or in the fifth place, Macpherson did of a surety apply the edge of his skian dhu to the bit twiggy she had a grip of. But, then, most people charitably believe that it was nothing else but pure courtesy that induced him to do so to the lady; for, as appearances most naturally caused him to believe that she had taken to the water with the full intent of making away with herself by drowning, he thought that the least that he as her husband could in common civility do, was to render to her what small help he could towards the effecting of her purpose. And then, as to his parting with her in these memorable words--which, to the great edification of all the wives of Badenoch, have since become a proverb in that country, to wit, "you have already taken much from me, you may take that with you too," it must strike you as being most evident, gentlemen, that if Macpherson was to part with his lady at all, he could not have parted with her in terms more truly obliging, or with words more generously liberal. But the most extraordinary and most important deviation from fack, of which the author of your romance has been guilty, yet remains to be noticed; for, in the sixth place, or sixthly, Macpherson, who seems in the whole matter to have had no other intention than that his lady should get a good dookie (as we say, Scottice) in the Feshie, whereby to extinguish the fire of her rage, did not only most gallantly jump into the water to try to save her life, but he actually did save it, or at least the lady's life was saved somehow or other, seeing that she was afterwards the mother of Æneas Macpherson of Invereshie, the direct ancestor of the present worthy Laird of Invereshie and Ballindalloch.

The modest yet dignified air of triumph which the schoolmaster gradually assumed, as he thus went on unfolding fact after fact, and which was considerably augmented as he approached the conclusion of this his critical oration, very much amused us all.

Grant (with an assumed gravity).--I see that I have not only to do with a gentleman of liberal classical acquirement, with one, too, who, blessed with great acumen, has made the art of criticism an especial study, but with a person who is also great as an authority touching the particular historical point which is now in question. And yet, daring as it may be in one of my inexperience to enter the arena with an opponent so powerful, I may perhaps be permitted to observe, in defence of that version of this piece of history of which I have been possessed, that the apparent discrepancy between it and that which you are disposed to consider as the true statement, is, in truth, little or nothing in importance, and may, after all, be very easily reconciled. For, if we attend to the circumstances, we shall find, firstly, or in the first place, that there is nothing before us that may render it impossible for us to believe that Miss Shaw of Dalnabhert might not have received a boarding school education at Edinburgh, as many young ladies of Badenoch unquestionably do, yea, and an education, too, which might have well enough fitted her to have mingled in the gaieties of a court. Secondly, or in the second place, as to the discordings which you say took place between her and her husband, I think you must do me the justice to recollect that these were alluded to in my narrative, though they were delicately touched on, as you will allow that all such family quarrels should be. But even if you do not admit the propriety of this, you must at least grant that if I fell into an error at all in this respect, it was less an error of fact than of deeree. In the third place, or thirdly, the evidence of both authorities is agreed as to the fact of the lady's extravagance, as well as in the important circumstance that her extravagance was the cause which ultimately led the parties to the brink of the river Feshie. Fourthly, or in the fourth place, the conflicting statements in the two several reports regarding the mode in which the lady first got into the water will appear to be of little or no moment when we give to them a due consideration. We are nowhere informed that any one was present but Macpherson and his wife; and when we reflect that these two individuals must have been at the time in a state of excitement and agitation so very great as altogether to deprive them of the power of judging distinctly of anything, it would be quite vain for us to look to either of them for any accurate statement as to how the matter occurred. All accounts, however, are agreed as to the use made by Macpherson of the skian dhu. As to your sixthly, or in the sixth place, I think you will be disposed candidly to admit, that as my informant saw fit to carry his narrative only to a certain point of time, so as to break off at the black cloud and the despair, it is not only perfectly possible, but extremely probable, that he meant to tell, in his second chapter, of the happy recovery of the lady from the waters of the Feshie,--of the perfect reconcilement of the pair,--of her reformation in all respects,--of the retrenchment of her expenditure,--of the disappearance of all dandies with plumed hats and piked shoes,--of the happy birth of the young Æneas,--and of his merry christening, with many other matters which the historian has now left us darkly to guess at.

The astonished critic was utterly confounded by our friend's reply, so solemnly and seriously uttered as it was; and after one or two "hums" and "has!" and a "very true!" or two, he fell back some footsteps in rear of us; and notwithstanding divers malicious attempts made on the part of Clifford to bring him once more into the fight, he relapsed into an humble and attentive listener.

Author.--Your tale, Grant, brings to my recollection a circumstance which, as tradition tells us, happened after the celebrated Raid of Killychrist.

Grant.--I am not aware that I ever heard of the Raid of Killychrist, celebrated though you call it.

Author.--I believe the outline of the story of that raid has been given somewhere or other in print by a literary friend of mine, though, to tell you the truth, I have never as yet had the good fortune to see it. But I will cheerfully give you my edition of it, such as it is, if you are willing to listen to it.

Clifford.--But stop for one moment; and, ere you begin your story, tell me, if you can, what that strange scarecrow looking figure is, which we see standing in yonder green marshy islet near the edge of the small lake immediately before us?

Author.--That figure has excited much speculation. It for some time greatly puzzled myself. I passed by this way more than once in the belief, from the cursory view I had of it, that it was a solitary heron. But my curiosity was excited at last, by observing that it was invariably and immovably in the same spot in the islet, whilst I discovered to my no small wonder, that the islet itself was never found by me twice successively in the same part of the little lake, being sometimes stationed in the middle of it and at other times somewhere towards either end, or near to either of the sides.

Clifford.--Come, come! ha! ha! ha! you are coming magic over us now. You don't expect that we are to believe any such crammer as this!

Author.--I assure you that what I state is strictly and literally true, though I must admit that you have some reason for doubt until you have a further explanation; and I am glad that I have it in my power to give it to you as it was given to myself by an intelligent man who lives in this neighbourhood. What you see is in reality a floating island.

Clifford.--A floating island! I know that you Scots are said to be fond of migration; but I had no idea that any part of your soil was in the habit of making voyages either for profit or pleasure.

Author.--Nay, nor does a Scot himself often move from any station where he finds himself comfortable, except it may be for the purpose of migrating into some other which may hold out yet greater advantages than that which he possesses. But this whimsical islet shifts its position without reason, exactly like an idle Englishman, who, without any fixed object, moves from one spot of Europe to another, he cannot himself tell why, and merely as the breezes of caprice may blow him about.

Grant.--A Roland for your Oliver, Master Clifford! But (addressing Author) tell us how you account for this strange phenomenon?

Author.--The mass, as you see, is not very large. Its extent is only a few yards each way. It is composed of a light, fibrous, peaty soil, which was probably originally torn from its connecting foundation by the influx of some sudden flood, aided by a contemporaneous and tempestuous wind. Being once fairly turned adrift in the lake, we can easily conceive that its specific gravity must have been every succeeding day lessened by the growth of the matted roots of the numerous aquatic plants that grew on it, till it rose more and more out of the water, and became at length so very buoyant as to be transported about by every change of the wind.

Clifford.--Bravo! You have lectured to us like a geologist; and I must confess, with as much show of reason in your theory as those of many of these antediluvian philosophers can pretend to. But you have yet to play the part of the zoologist, and to give us some account of that strange animal, human being or beast, alive or stuffed, as it may be, that so strangely stands sentry yonder in the midst of it. One might almost fancy it to be one of Macbeth's weird sisters.

Grant.--It has indeed a most uncouth and ghostly appearance when seen at this distance. It looks so much like some withered human figure, where we cannot easily reconcile it to reason that any human figure could possibly be.

Author.--Yes; and when we think what its effect must be when it is seen by a stranger, sailing slowly over the surface of the little lake, impelled by a whistling wind, at that hour when spirits of all kinds are supposed to have power to burst their cerements, when the moon may give sufficient light to display enough of its wasted and wizard looking form to beget fearful conceptions, without affording such an illumination as might be sufficient to explain its nature, we may easily believe that many are the rustic hearts that sink with dread, and many are the clodpate heads of hair that bristle up "like quills upon the fretful porcupine," whilst whips and spurs are employed with all manner of good will on the unfortunate hides of such unlucky animals as may chance to be carrying lated travellers past this enchanted lake towards their distant place of repose.

Clifford.--I can well enough conceive all this. But you have yet to tell us what the figure really is.

Author.--Notwithstanding its imposing appearance, it is nothing more, after all, than a figure made of rushes and rags carelessly tied about a pole by some of the simple shepherds of these wilds. It is comparatively of recent creation; but I understand that the islet is by no means of modern origin, though I am led to believe that, like other more extensive pieces of earth, it has undergone many changes since its first creation. It must have been liable to be increased and diminished by various natural causes at different periods of its history.

Dominie Macpherson (half advancing into the group, with a chastened air, and more obsequious inclination of his body than he had ever yet used.)--If I may make so bold as to put in my word--ha--hum. If I might be permitted to make so bold as to speak, I can assure you, gentlemen, that the bit island yonder has long existed. I have known these parts for many a long year; and I can testify to the fack, from my own observation, added to and eiked out by that of men who were old when I was born. Superstitious people call it the witches' island, and believe that the weird sisterhood hold it under their yespecial control and governance.

Clifford.--Much better sailing in it than in a sieve. But have you gathered none of the adventures of the Beldams to whom you say it belongs?

Dominie.--God forbid, sir, that I should say it belongs to such uncanny people! But truly there is a very strange story connected with it.

Clifford.--A story, Mr. Macpherson, pray let's have your story without delay, if you please, that we may forthwith judge whether you are to rank higher in the world of letters as an historian or as a critic. "Perge Domine!"

Grant.--You will gratify us much, sir.

Dominie.--I shall willingly try my hand, sir; and if you find not the sweetness of Homer or Maro in my narrative, at least you shall be sure of that accuracy as to fack which so much distinguished the elegant author of the Commentaries.

Clifford (with mock gravity).--Doth the narrative touch your own adventures, my friend? Are you, like Cæsar, the historian of your own deeds?

Dominie.--Not so, sir; but I had all the facks from my father, who knew the hero and heroine, and all the persons whose names are mentioned in it.

Clifford.--Ha! you have a hero, then, and a heroine too? Why that, methinks, looks somewhat more like romance than history.

Grant (smiling).--Be quiet, Clifford! You forget that you are all this while keeping us from our story. Pray, sir, have the goodness to begin.

The schoolmaster bowed; and taking a central place in the line of march, he proceeded with his narrative in language so mingled with quaint and original expressions, that I cannot hope, and therefore do not always pretend, to render it with the same raciness with which it was uttered.

LEGEND OF THE FLOATING ISLET.

I must honestly tell you, gentlemen, that my story hath much the air of a romance, as well as much of love in it, and many of the other ingredients of such like vain and frivolous compositions; but you shall have the facks as told me by my much honoured father, who, being a well-employed blacksmith, not many miles from the spot where we now are, may be said to have been the chronicler of the passing yevents of his day.

Awell, you see, it happened that a well-grown, handsome, proper looking young shepherd lad, called Robin Stuart, had possessed himself of the young affections of a bonny lassie, the daughter of Donald Rose, one of the better sort of tenants of these parts. Their love for one another had grown up with them, they could not well say how. Its origin was lost in the innocent forgetfulness of their childhood, as the origin of a nation is buried in the fabulous history of its infancy; but, however born, this they both felt, that it had grown in strength and vigour every day of their lives, until with Robin it began to ripen into that honest and ardent attachment natural to a manly young heart, which was responded to on the part of bonny Mary Rose by all the delicacy and softness that ought to characterise the modest young maiden's return of a first love. But however natural it was for the tender heart of the daughter to beat in unison, or, as I may say, to swing in equal arcs with that of her lover, just as if they had been two pendulums of like proportions and construction, it was equally selon les règles, as the modern men of Gaul would say, that the churlish and sordid old tyke of a father, who had been accustomed to estimate merit more by the rule of proportion than anything else, exactly perhaps as he would have valued one of his own muttons according to the number of its pounds, should have stormed like a fury when he actually deteckit the callant Robin Stuart in the very ack of making love to his daughter in his own house!

A desperate feud of some years' standing had made Donald the declared enemy of Robin's father, old Harry the herd of the Limekilns, a cognomen which he had from the circumstance of his cottage being placed on the side of yonder hill of that name, so called from a prevailing tradition that the lime used in the building of the Castle of Loch-an-Dorbe was brought in the state of stone in creels on horses' backs from the quarries near to Grantown, and burned there. Old Harry was a poor man and a herd, whilst Donald Rose was wealthy, and especially prided himself on being a Duniwassel, or small gentleman, so that there thus existed three most active awgents, to wit, enmity, avarice, and pride, which combined to compel him to put an instantaneous stop to all such proceedings between Robin Stuart and his daughter Mary. Without one moment's delay, he thrust the young shepherd, head and shoulders, violently forth from his door, and smacking the palm of his hand significantly and with great force and birr on his dirk sheath, so as to cause the weepon to ring again--

"I'll tell ye what it is, my young birkie," said he, in a voice like thunder, "gif I catch ye again within haulf a mile o' my dochter, ye sall ha'e a taste o' sweetlips here! An' as for you, Mary, an' ye daur to let siccan a beggarly chield as that come within a penny stane cast o' ye, by my saul but I'll turn ye out ower my door hauld wi' as leetle ceremony as I ha'e done the same thing to Rab himsell yonder!"

But, as one of the ancient heathen poets hath it, love is a fire which no storm can extinguish; it feeds itself with hope, and only burns the brighter the more it is blown against by adverse blasts. You know, gentlemen, how Pyramus and Thisbe contrived to hold secret converse together. Though Robin and Mary had no crack in a wall through which to pour the stream of their mutual love,--nay, although their respective dwellings were some mile or two separate from each other, yet many were the private meetings which the youth and maiden contrived to obtain, during which they employed their time in fostering their mutual hopes, and in strengthening their belief that better and happier days were yet in store for them. And happy indeed would have been those days of their anticipation, if they could have proved happier than were those stolen hours which they thus occasionally enjoyed together.

Now, it happened one beautiful day, in the beginning of summer, that Donald Rose rode off from his door to go to a distant market, whence there was no chance of his returning till late at night. The old saying hath it, that when the cat is away the mice will play. This was too favourable an opportunity to be lost by a pair of young lovers so quick-sighted as Robin and Mary. It had been marked by both of them for some weeks before it came; and the farmer's long-tailed rough grey garron had no sooner borne his master's bulky body in safety along the ticklish and treacherous path that went by a short cut through the long moss, and over the distant rising ground, than Robin Stuart, true to his tryst, appeared to escort his bonny lassie on a ramble of love. No one was at home to spy out their intentions but old Mysie Morrison, the good-natured hireling woman of all work; and she was too much taken up with her household affairs to trouble her head about watching the young lad and lass. Indeed, if she had thoughts of them at all, she was too much attached to her young mistress, and too well acquainted with her secret, and too shrewd to betray her either by design or by accident.

As you may see, gentlemen, there was no great choice of pleasure walks in this bleak destrick, but the two young creatures were so taken up with each other, and so full of joy in each other's company, that the dreariest spot of it was as a rich and blooming garden in their delighted eyes. They tripped along merrily together, and bounded like roe deer over the heathery knolls, scarcely knowing, and not in the least caring, which way they went, until they found themselves by the side of the little lochan which we have but just left behind us. It was then the season when the wilderness of this upland country was clad in a mantle of wild flowers, and thereabouts especially they grew in so great variety and profusion that it seemed as if the goddess Flora had resolved to hold her court in that place. There, then, they resolved to rest a while; and Robin, producing the simple contents of a little wallet which he carried under his plaid, they sat down together and feasted luxuriously.

When they had finished their meal the lovers began to waste the hours in idle but innocent sport. They roamed about here and there, gathering the gaudy flowering plants that grew around them; and after filling their arms with these wildling treasures, they again seated themselves side by side, to employ their hands in arranging and plaiting them into rustic ornaments. Whilst thus occupied they were too happy and too much taken up with their own pleasing prattle to think of the progress of the sun, who was all this time most industriously urging his ceaseless journey over their heads, without exciting any of their attention, except in so far as his beams might have lent a livelier hue to the gay garlands they were weaving for each other, or yielded a fresher glow to the cheeks, or a brighter sparkle to the eyes, of those who were to wear them.

Whilst they were thus so happily and so harmlessly occupied, they went on, with all the innocent simplicity of rustic life, repeating over and over again to each other their solemn vows of eternal love and fidelity, as if they could never have been tired of these their sweet and sooth-fast asseverations, whilst, at the same time, they uttered them with a copiousness of phraseology and a variety of dialogue truly marvellous in such a muirland pair as they were. It would have absolutely astonished all your writers of novelles to have overheard them, and it would have puzzled any of these fiction-mongers to have invented the like.

"Oh that your father was but as poor and as humble as mine, Mary!" exclaimed the youth at last, "or, rich and proud as he is, that you could leave him and content yoursel' wi' bein' a poor man's wife!"

"Na, Robin!" replied she, shaking her head gravely, and then laying her hand upon his arm, and looking up wistfully into his eyes, "you would never ask me, my father's ae bairn, to leave him noo that he has grown auld, and that my dear mother has left us baith and gane to heeven! Gif, indeed, he could be but brought to look wi' a kind ee on you--then--then"--continued she, with a faultering tongue, whilst she blushed deeply, and threw her eyes down amidst the heap of flowers that lay at her feet,--"then, indeed, we might baith be his bairns."

"Oh! I wish again that he were but a poor man!" cried Robin enthusiastically, "for then might thir twa arms o' mine mak' me as gude a match in his een as a' the bit tocher he could gie might warrant him to look for. Weel and stoutly wad I work for sic a prize as you, Mary!"

"An' weel wad I be pleased that ye should ha'e it, Robin, little worth as it is!" said Mary, with an expression of undisguised fondness. "Though I could na gie up my father, I could gie up a' my father's gowd, gif it wad but bring you hame to help him. And gif it warna for him," added she, with a tear trembling in her eye, "I trow I could gang wi' you to the warld's end, an' I war never to see anither human face!"

"O Mary!" exclaimed Robin, in a transport, "I could live wi' you in a desert. I could live wi' you in some wee uninhabited spot in the midds o' the muckle ocean, aye, though it war nae bigger than the bit witches' island there afore ye, aye, and as fond o' flittin' as it is too, and that we sould never leave its wee bit bouns."

There was something so absurdly extravagant in the very idea of two people being confined together to a space of a few yards square, to live the sport of every varying breeze that might blow over the surface of the deep, that Mary's gravity was fairly overcome, notwithstanding the high pitch of devoted feeling to which she had been wound up at the moment. She could not control herself; and she gave way to loud peals of laughter, in which her lover as heartily joined her. "See!" cried she, the moment she could get her breath, whilst she pointed sportively to the little floating islet which was at that moment lying motionless, and almost in contact with the shore near to the spot where they were sitting, "see, see, Robby, how our wee bit fairy kingdom is waitin' yonder to bid us welcome!"

"Come, then, my queen, let us take possession o 't then in baith our names!" cried Robin, in the same tone, and gaily and gallantly seizing her hand at the same time, he, with great pretended pomp and ceremony, led her, half laughing, and half afraid, towards the place where the island rested.

At the time my story speaks of the borders of the loch were less encroached upon by weeds and rushes than you have seen that they now are, and the island lay, as if it had been moored, as mariners would say, in deep water close to the shore. It was, therefore, but a short step to reach it, and Robin easily handed the trembling Mary into it with as much natural grace, I'll warrant me, as the pious Æneas himself could have handed Queen Dido. The lassie's light foot hardly made its grassy surface quiver as it reached it; but, full of his own frolic, and altogether forgetful for that moment of the precarious and kittle nature of the ground he had to deal with, he sprang in after her with a degree of force which was far from being required to effect his purpose, and so great was the impetus which he thus communicated to the floating islet, that it was at once pushed several yards away from the shore. With one joint exclamation of terror both stood appalled, and they silently beheld the small fragment of ground that supported them moving, almost insensibly, yet farther and farther towards the middle of the loch, so long as any of the force which Robin had so unfortunately applied to it remained, and then it settled on the motionless bosom of the deep and black looking waters, at such a distance even from the bank which they had just left as to forbid all hope of escape to those who could not swim.

Fled indeed, gentlemen, was now all the mirth of this unlucky pair. Poor Mary was at once possessed by a thousand fears; and even the firmer mind of her companion, though sufficiently occupied with its anxiety for her, was not without its full share of those individual superstitious apprehensions naturally produced by the place where they were, and which secretly affected both of them. Neither of them could resist the belief that supernatural interference had had some share in producing their present distress. But whatever Robin's private thoughts may have been, he was too manly to allow them to become apparent to Mary. Plucking up some long grass and sedges, therefore, and making them into a large bundle, he took off his jacket, threw it over it, and by this means made a dry seat for her in the very middle of the quivering and spongy surface of the islet. Then casting his red plaid over his shoulder, he stood beside her, now bending over her to whisper words of comfort and encouragement into her ear, and by and by stretching his neck erect, that his eyes might have the better vantage to sweep around the whole circuit of the dull and monotonous surface of the surrounding wastes. How mixed, yet how antagonist to each other were the ideas which now passed rapidly through his mind! At one moment he felt a strange and indescribable rapture as the mere thought crossed him that this small floating spot of earth did indeed contain no other human being but himself and her whom he would wish to sever from all the world besides, that she might be the more perfectly dependent on himself alone, and therefore the more indissolubly bound to him; and then would he utter some endearing words to Mary. Then, again, the shivering conviction would strike him, that although there was no human being but themselves there, there might yet be other unknown and unseen beings in their company that neither of them wist of, and he looked fearfully around him, scanning with suspicious eye, not only the whole surface of the lake, but every little nook and crevice of the shore. And then bethinking him of night, he lifted up his eyes with anxious solicitude from time to time, to note the position of the sun, whose progress he and his fair companion had previously so much disregarded; and great was his internal vexation when he perceived how rapidly his car was now rolling downwards, not, as the auncient poets would say, in his haste to lay himself in the lap of Thetis, but as if he had been eager to escape behind yon great lump of a muirland hill yonder to the westward.

But a yet more trying discovery soon began to force itself upon his attention. The islet on which they stood seemed, as he narrowly measured it with his eye, to have sunk some inches into the water! Already in idea he felt its bubbling wavelets closing over his own head and the dear head of her whom he so much loved! His heart grew sick at the very thought. Summoning up courage, however, he contrived to allow no outward sign to betray his feelings to Mary; and taking certain marks with his eye, he set himself to watch them with an anxiety so intense, and with a look so fixed, that he was unable rationally to reply, either by word or sign, to anything that the poor lassie said to him, so that she began at length to entertain new apprehensions at the wild expression which his countenance exhibited. By degrees, however, she became more assured, for, after long and accurate observation had led him to believe that at least no very rapid change was taking place, his features gradually relaxed, and hers were for the time relieved by that very sympathy which had so enchained them.

And now the sun was fast approaching the horizon, and Robin's eyes were eagerly employed in endeavouring to penetrate even the most distant shadows that were rapidly settling down upon the hills, behind which he was about to disappear, whence they began to spread themselves over the wide extent of brown moors and black mosses that stretched everywhere around them. As the light passed away, his glances flew more hastily in every direction, in the vain search for some human being. Above all, he earnestly surveyed the road where he for some time sanguinely hoped that he might discover some one returning from the market, who might yet lend them an aid, though he felt that it quite defied him to form any rational conception as to what the nature of that aid could be. Again, he would most inconsistently shrink back, and instinctively shut his eyes, as if that could have concealed his person, from very dread that Donald Rose might come home that way and discover them in this their distressing and dangerous situation, for he was fully aware that he had but little chance of rising in the old man's estimation by having thus had the misfortune to bring the life of his only child into so great peril. As he thus ruminated, he remembered that although this was not old Donald's shortest way home, yet it was that which he was most likely to take towards night, as being the best. And he moreover distinctly perceived, that if he did come that way before it was dark, he could not fail to discover them. For as the rugged and irregular muirland road wound round nearly one-third of the whole margin of the little loch, by reason of its having to cross the bit brook that issues from its western extremity, it was self-evident that no one could travel that way without having his eyes intently fixed, for a considerable time, in a direction that must compel him to survey the whole surface of the sheet of water, so that not a duck or a dab-chick could yescape them. And what if the farmer did not come? Might they not be discovered by some other hard-hearted person, who, instead of assisting them, might be so wicked as to carry the news of their situation directly to old Rose, whose rage, he felt persuaded, would be enough to burn up the waters of the loch. Such a finis to the adventure was the least misfortune they could look for from the malice of those evil spirits of the islet, by whom he believed that he and Mary had been thus entrapped. Anxious as he had at first been to descry some one, he now longed for night to fall down on them and render them invisible. Then the utter hopelessness of eventual concealment occurred to him, for he reflected that the farmer must return home at some hour during the night; that when he did so return, he must find his daughter absent, and that his ungovernable fury would not be diminished by the tormenting suspense in which he would be kept regarding her until next day, when they should certainly be discovered. Robin's mind was tossed to and fro among such unpleasant thoughts as these, till they were all put to flight by the overwhelming force of that superstitious dread which taught him to believe that night would soon give an uncontrolled power to those evil beings who had thus so cruelly used them.

"Oh, for a breeze of wind!" cried poor Robin in his agony, as a thousand formidable and ghastly shapes began to dance before his disturbed fancy. And--

"Oh, for a breeze!" sighed the soft and tremulous voice of Mary Rose, whose mind had all this while been silently following the same irregular train of thought, and sympathetically participating in the distressing emotions which had been agitating her lover.

And now the sun went down in a blaze of glory beyond the western hills, and his last beams took leave of the surface of the water, after having shed a radiance over it, as well as a cheerful glow over the countenances of the two lovers, that but ill assorted with the misery of soul which they were enduring. By degrees a soft summer exhalation began to arise from the bosom of the loch, as well as from all the neighbouring pools, peatpots, and marshes. But balmy, and cheering, and invigorating as it was to all the parched offspring of nature that grew in this desert, which opened their bosoms to receive it, and gratefully exhaled their richest perfumes, it chilled the very hearts of the lovers, as night fell darkly and dismally around them.

"Robin," said Mary in a voice that quivered from the effects of the chilling damp, combined with those secret terrors which were every instant taking more and more powerful possession of her, in spite of all her reason and resolution to resist them. "Robin, put on your jacket, you will starve."

"Mair need for me, Mary, to gie ye this plaid o' mine," replied he in a tender tone. "Here, tak' it about ye, my dearest lassie, and keep up a gude heart."

"Na, I'll no tak' nae mair aff ye," said Mary gently, refusing to allow him to throw the plaid over her.

"Let me--let me gie ye haulf o't then," said he, with a modest hesitation.

After some little further discussion, the matter was at last arranged, for Mary stood up by Robin's side, and the ample plaid having been thrown over both of them, somewhat in the manner of a tent, the edges of it were held together by her lover's nervous arm, so as in a great measure to exclude the cold damp air. If it was not altogether shut out, Robin at least for some time felt none of its influence, for, finding himself thus the sole protector of his beloved Mary, his heart burned within him with love and pride, and all thoughts of evil spirits were banished for a time.

Things had not been long accommodated in this manner, when Mary complained that her feet began to grow cold and wet, and the change in Robin's thoughts may be conceived when he too became convinced that the water was certainly somehow or other gaining upon them. The darkness was now such as to render it impossible for him to make any such minute observation as he had done before. He could only now guess vaguely, and his whole frame shivered with horror as the suspicion crossed him, that the unusual weight which the islet now bore having pressed it downwards, the upper and more porous parts of it, which were formerly comparatively dry, had imbibed a greater quantity of water than usual, and the specific gravity of the whole being thus increased, it was gradually sinking, and must soon be altogether submerged. I say not that the poor lad reasoned thus upon pheelosophical principles, but, nevertheless, he did come to the conclusion that this treacherous bit of ground was sinking fast. How long or how short a time it might possibly take before the awful catastrophe should arrive, was more than he had any means of determining. He had nothing now left but to nerve himself with resolution to enable him to conceal his fears and his horrors from Mary, though, at the same time, he could not help clinging to her with an earnestness and a wildness of manner that did anything but allay her terrors. Dark as the night was, all those superstitious fancies which had disturbed their minds were banished by the overpowering conviction of speedily approaching dissolution which individually possessed them in secret. The black gulf by which they were environed seemed, in the mind's eye of each of them, to be yawning to swallow them up; and the thought that they should die in each other's arms, was the only consolation that visited their afflicted souls in that awful moment.

"Let us pray to the Lord!" said Mary solemnly, "for our death-hour is come!"

Robert, who would now have deemed it to be a sinful ack to speak to her of hope, which he had himself so utterly abandoned, immediately obeyed her command. You know, gentlemen, that it is the glorious preevilege of our Scottish peasantry to receive education from the pious and well conducked teachers of our parochial schools. Even the youngest men are thereby exerceesed in prayer, so that it becomes so much of a habit with them, that they are at all times prepared to pour out their souls in extemporaneous offerings to the Deevine Being. You can easily understand, therefore, that at such a moment when convinced that he himself, and she whom he loved beyond all yearthly things, were about to be summoned to the footstool of their Creator, his prayer was solemn, yearnest, simple, and sublime. So certain did the sealing of their doom now appear, that he put up few petitions for present help in this world. The whole force of his supplication was directed to their salvation through the merits of a Saviour, in that on which they were so soon to enter, and Mary clung closer to him as he spoke, and continued to follow all his expressions, now internally and now audibly, with a fervour that sufficiently proved the intensity of her faith and hope.

Whilst the poor creatures were thus employed a dim gleam of light from the eastern horizon seemed as if struggling through the dense fog that hung over the loch, and soon afterwards a gentle passing breath of air was distinctly felt by both of them. It murmured around them, and fanned them, as it were, for a moment, and found its way even within the hollow of the plaid. Its voice was to them as the voice of their guardian angel, and it refreshed their drooping souls, although they knew not very well how it did so. In a very few minutes afterwards, however, the mist being broken up by the influence of a full moon that had just risen, began to collect itself into distinct spiral columns, which dissipated themselves one after another, as if they had been so many spirits melting into air. The long wished-for breeze then at length came singing most musically as it skimmed over the surface of the perfumed heath. And it had not long curled the hitherto still surface of the loch, till Robin and Mary began to perceive that the half-drowned island was sensibly increasing its distance from the shore whence they had taken their departure. There was something very fearful in this, and the poor lassie clung closer to her lover. But with all their fears it now seemed as if Hope was sitting beckoning to them on the opposite shore, towards which the breeze was so evidently, though so slowly, propelling them.

The moon now shone forth in full radiance, and speedily dissipated the broken fragments of the fog that yet remained. One mass only, denser than the rest, still hung poised over their heads, naturally maintained in that position by the attraction of the damp floating earth they stood on. To their great joy they perceived that the breeze was increasing, and that their motion was gradually accelerating.

"Mary, my dear," cried Robin, "keep a gude heart; I'm thinking that we'll maybe mak out yet. Let's hoize up the plaid till it catches mair o' the wund."

And, accordingly, they raised their arms and kept the plaid high over their heads, till it was bellied out by the breeze like the lugsail of a herring buss, and their velocity was tripled.

They were thus moving gallantly onwards, in anxious expectation that a very few minutes more would moor them in safety to the shore, so that there might yet be time for Mary to hurry home before her father should arrive to question her absence, when they suddenly perceived a horseman riding along the road which sweep't around the end of the loch they were now nearing so fast. What think ye, gentlemen, was the astonishment, dread, and mortification of the poor lassie and her lad when they beheld the moonbeams reflecked from a face as broad and as pale as the disc of the luminary from which they had been last projected? It was Donald Rose himself! As their supporting bit of earth drifted onwards with them, they stood together for a moment petrified with surprise and fear, whilst they beheld him check his horse, and turn his head towards the loch, as if to gaze at them; and then, with one shriek from Mary and a deep groan from Robin, which might have made a good treble and bass for the psalmody of the martyrs, both the two of them, by one simultaneous movement, sank down together among the rank grass and water-weeds in which they were standing, and the folds of the plaid collapsing around them, both were completely shrouded beneath it. There they lay, abandoning themselves to their perverse fate, and fearing to move or speak, until, in a very few seconds, they were drifted to the very spot where they too well knew that the enraged farmer must be already standing like a roaring lion ready to devour them; and they were thus prostrated, as it were, at the very feet of him whose ungovernable rage they had so much reason to wish to have avoided.

The floating island had touched the terra firma for some seconds, but still the conscious pair dared not to peep from beneath the covering that enveloped them. They lay, as I might say, as quiet as two mice in a bag of meal. They uttered not a word. They hardly even dared to breathe. But tremblingly in need of support under circumstances so very trying, the poor lassie Mary clasped her Robin about the waist with an energy equal to the terror she was moved by. It was the feeling of this her utter dependence upon him for support and defence that first subdued Robert's own fears, and awakened him to a sense of his own dignity as a man.

"An' ye'll hae but a thoughty o' patience, Maister Rose, I'll tell ye a' aboot it," said he, commencing his peroration from beneath the plaid, somewhat sotto voce, as the degenerate modern Romans would say. But gaining greater boldness as he heard the sound of his own voice, and that his words remained as yet unanswered, he went on to speak, gradually raising his tone as he did so, and at the same time erecting his person by slow degrees from his abject attitude, though without unveiling himself.

"Ye may think as ye like, Maister Rose, but I canna help lovin' Miss Mary; I maun love her spite o' mysell, an' gin ye wad hae me no to love her nae mair, ye maun just dirk me here at aince. But for the sake o' a' that's good!" continued he, blubbering from very emotion, "dinna offer to hurt ae hair o' her bonny head, for by my troth an' ye do, Maister Rose!"----

These last words were uttered in so loud and impassioned a key, that it sufficiently indicated the nature as well as the resolute determination of the threat that was intended to follow, even if the furious action of the uplifted arm and clenched fist had not left it quite unequivocal. So violent was the effect, that the plaid which had risen along with the speaker, and which had up to this point continued to muffle his head and eyes, was suddenly thrown off.

"Gude keep hus a' he's gane!" cried Robin with a stare of horror. "As I'm a leevin' man!--as I houp and believe I am"--continued he, pinching his own arms and thighs as he said so, to convince himself of the fack that he really was alive, "it was your father's wraith we saw, Mary!"

Half fainting from the effect of the complication of terrors which had surrounded her, Mary Rose was hardly conscious of what Robin had said, and he for his part having gained that self-command of which the sudden nature of his alarm had for a moment deprived him, now bit his lip and studiously avoided uttering one word that might convey to her the least inkling of that conviction which had just then flashed upon him, or that might distress her mind with any share of that superstitious dread which at this moment so completely filled his own.

"He's gane indeed, dear Mary," said he as he gently assisted her to rise; "let's be thankful that we're safe on dry land, and let me help you hame to your ain house as fast as I can, and may the Lord be aboot us!"