Chapter V: Part 5

The secure one, however, does not appear ever to suppose that the ladies have a veto in proposals of marriage. He looks upon them all as a class so eager on capturing and entrapping men, that it never enters into his head that there is such a thing as a rejected offer. The man he considers to be the passive and accepting party; the lady is the besieging enemy, and he is the fortress; the marriage takes place only if _he_ chooses. It may be supposed, then, what would be the state of a secure one’s mind, if he were to relent some fine day in a fit of generosity (a thing only to be supposed in the event of his becoming _fey_), and in a liberal, candid, honourable manner, offer his hand to a young lady of little fortune, whom he was disposed to think suitable on the score of personal merit alone, but who having some prior attachment to a man one-half as old, and twice as generous, was under the necessity of only thanking him for the honour. The cook or any thing after that! And how the whole sex would rejoice in his calamity!! “A fellow, forsooth, that has been a living insult to the tribe of womankind all his days. He is well served.”

There is another kind of secure one, considerably different in circumstances from the above—a married man about sixty, with a large family, in which there are several grown daughters. These girls are constantly under his eye. At church he puts them into a pew, and sits down at the door himself, as if he were a kind of serpent guarding the Hesperian fruit. To the eyes of hundreds of young men under twenty, who are not yet considered to be sufficiently settled in the world to marry, these young ladies seem unapproachable as the top of the steeple. They look as if they were absolutely walled round with jealous and _secure_ paternity. One after another they are taken off by middle-aged cousins and other distant relations, about whose “respectability” there can be no doubt; and the young men in the back pew sigh to see that the family is determined upon being self-contained. For it is one of those families, perhaps, who enjoy the credit of a great deal of vague, and not very strictly apportioned wealth, under the clause, “There’s plenty o’ siller amang them;” and who seem as if they would consider the admission of a stranger into the circle as a thing of some danger, however “respectable” he might appear.

TO SCOTLAND.

Scotland! the land of all I love,
The land of all that love me;
Land, whose green sod my youth has trod,
Whose sod shall lie above me!
Hail! country of the brave and good,
Hail! land of song and story;
Land of the uncorrupted heart,
Of ancient faith and glory!

Like mother’s bosom o’er her child,
Thy sky is glowing o’er me;
Like mother’s ever-smiling face,
Thy land lies bright before me.
Land of my home, my father’s land,
Land where my soul was nourished;
Land of anticipated joy,
And all by memory cherish’d!

Oh, Scotland, through thy wide domain,
What hill, or vale, or river,
But in this fond enthusiast heart
Has found a place for ever?
Nay, hast thou but a glen or shaw,
To shelter farm or shieling,
That is not garner’d fondly up
Within its depths of feeling?

Adown thy hills run countless rills,
With noisy, ceaseless motion;
Their waters join the rivers broad,
Those rivers join the ocean:
And many a sunny, flowery brae,
Where childhood plays and ponders,
Is freshen’d by the lightsome flood,
As wimpling on it wanders.

Within thy long-descending vales,
And on the lonely mountain,
How many wild spontaneous flowers
Hang o’er each flood and fountain!
The glowing furze—the “bonny broom,
The thistle and the heather;
The bluebell, and the gowan fair,
Which childhood loves to gather.

Oh, for that pipe of silver sound,
On which the shepherd lover,
In ancient days, breathed out his soul,
Beneath the mountain’s cover!
Oh, for that Great Lost Power of Song,
So soft and melancholy,
To make thy every hill and dale
Poetically holy!

And not alone each hill and dale,
Fair as they are by nature,
But every town and tower of thine,
And every lesser feature;
For where is there the spot of earth,
Within my contemplation,
But from some noble deed or thing
Has taken consecration?

First, I could sing how brave thy sons,
How pious and true-hearted,
Who saved a bloody heritage
For us in times departed;
Who, through a thousand years of wrong,
Oppress’d and disrespected,
Ever the generous, righteous cause
Religiously protected.

I’d sing of that old early time,
When came the victor Roman,
And, for the first time, found in them
Uncompromising foemen;
When that proud bird, which never stoop’d
To foe, however fiery,
Met eagles of a sterner brood
In this our northern eyry.

Next, of that better glorious time,
When thy own patriot Wallace
Repell’d and smote the myriad foe
Which storm’d thy mountain palace;
When on the sward of Bannockburn
De Bruce his standard planted,
And drove the proud Plantagenet
Before him, pale and daunted.

Next, how, through ages of despair,
Thou brav’dst the English banner,
Fighting like one who hopes to save
No valued thing but honour.
How thy own young and knightly kings,
And their fair hapless daughter,
Left but a tale of broken hearts
To vary that of slaughter.

How, in a later, darker time,
When wicked men were reigning,
Thy sons went to the wilderness,
All but their God disdaining;
There, hopeful only of the grave,
To stand through morn and even,
Where all on earth was black despair,
And nothing bright but heaven.

And, later still, when times were changed,
And tend’rer thoughts came o’er thee,
When abject, suppliant, and poor,
Thy injurer came before thee.
How thou did’st freely all forgive,
Thy heart and sword presented,
Although thou knew’st the deed must be
In tears of blood repented.

Scotland! the land of all I love,
The land of all that love me;
Land, whose green sod my youth has trod,
Whose sod shall lie above me!
Hail! country of the brave and good,
Hail! land of song and story;
Land of the uncorrupted heart,
Of ancient faith and glory!

R. C.

STORY OF MRS MACFARLANE.

——“Let them say I am romantic—so is every one said to be, that either admires a fine thing or does one. On my conscience, as the world goes, ’tis hardly worth any body’s while to do one for the honour of it. Glory, the only pay of generous actions, is now as ill paid as other great debts; and neither Mrs Macfarlane, for immolating her lover, nor you for constancy to your lord, must ever hope to be compared to Lucretia or Portia.”—_Pope, to Lady M. W. Montague._

It was formerly the fashion in Scotland for every father of a family to take all the people under his care along with him to church, leaving the house locked up till his return. No servant was left to cook the dinner, for it was then judged improper to take a dinner which required cooking. Neither, except in the case of a mere suckling, was it considered necessary to leave any of the children; every brat about the house was taken to church also; if they did not understand what was said by the minister, they at least did not prevent the attendance of those who did; and moreover—and this was always a great consideration—they were out of harm’s way. One Sunday, in autumn 1719, Sir John Swinton of Swinton, in Berwickshire, was obliged to omit his little daughter Margaret from the flock which usually followed him to church. The child was indisposed with some trifling ailment, which, however, only rendered it necessary that she should keep her room. It was not considered requisite that a servant should be left behind to take charge of her, for she was too sagacious a child to require any such guardianship; and Sir John and Lady Swinton naturally grudged, with the scruples of the age, that the devotions of any adult member of their household should be prevented on such an account. The child, then, was left by herself in one of the upper bed-rooms of the old baronial mansion of Swinton, no other measure being taken for her protection than that of locking the outer door.

For a girl of ten years of age, Margaret Swinton was possessed of much good sense and solidity of character. She heard herself doomed to a solitary confinement of six hours without shrinking; or thought, at least, that she would have no difficulty in beguiling the time by means of her new book—the Pilgrim’s Progress. So long as the steps and voices of her kindred were heard about the house, she felt quite at her ease. But, in reality, the trial was too severe for the nerves of a child of her tender age. When she heard the outer door locked by the last person that left the house, she felt the sound as a knell. The shot of the bolt echoed through the long passages of the empty house with a supernatural loudness; and, next moment after, succeeded that perceptible audible quiet, the breath-like voice of an untenanted mansion, which, like the hum of the vacant shell, seems still as if it were charged with sounds of life. There was no serious occasion for fear, seeing that nothing like real danger could be apprehended; nor was this the proper time for the appearance of supernatural beings: yet the very loneliness of her situation, and the speaking stillness of all around her, insensibly overspread her mind with that vague negative sensation which is described by the native word _eeriness_. From her window nothing was visible but the cold blue sky, which was not enlivened by even the occasional transit of a cloud. By and by the desolating wind of autumn began to break upon the moody silence of the hour. It rose in low melancholy gusts, and, whistling monotonously through every chink, spoke to the mind of this little child, of withering woods, and the lengthened excursions of hosts of leaves, hurried on from the scene of their summer pride into the dens and hollows where they were to decay. The sound gradually became more fitful and impetuous, and at last appeared to her imagination as if it were the voice of an enemy who was running round and round the house, in quest of admission—now and then going away as if disappointed and foiled, and anon returning to the attack, and breathing his rage and vexation in at every aperture. She soon found her mind possessed by a numerous train of fantastic fancies and fearful associations, drawn from the store of nursery legends and ballads which she was in the habit of hearing night after night, at the fireside in the hall, and which were infinitely more dreadful than the refined superstitions of modern children. She thought of the black bull of Norway, which went about the world destroying whatever of human life came within its reach; of the weary well at the World’s End, which formed the entrance into new regions, from whence no traveller ever returned; and of the fairies or _good neighbours_, a small green-coated race of supernatural creatures, who often came to the dwellings of mortals, and did them many good and evil turns. She had been told of persons yet alive, who in their childhood had been led away by these fays into the woods, and fed for weeks with wild berries and the milk of nuts, till at length, by the _po’orfu’_ preaching of some great country divine, they were reclaimed to their parents, being in such cases generally found sitting under a tree near their own homes. She had heard of a queen of these people—the Queen of Elfinland—who occasionally took a fancy for fair young maidens, and endeavoured to wile them into her service; and the thought occurred to her, that, as the fairies could enter through the smallest aperture, the house might be full of them at this moment.

For several hours the poor child suffered under these varied apprehensions, till at last she became in some measure desperate, and resolved at least to remove to another part of the house. The parlour below stairs commanded from its window a view of the avenue by which the house was approached; and she conceived that, by planting herself in the embrasure of one of those windows, she would be at the very border of the _eerie_ region within doors, and as near as possible to the scene without, the familiarity of which was in itself calculated to dispel her fears. From that point, also, she would catch the first glimpse of the family returning from church, after which she would no longer be in solitude. Trying, therefore, to think of a merry border tune, she opened her own door, walked along the passage—making as much noise as she could—and tramped sturdily and distinctly down stairs. The room of which she intended to take possession was at the end of a long passage leading from the back to the front of the house. This she traversed slowly—not without fear of being caught from behind by some unimaginable creature of horror; an idea which, on her reaching the chamber door, so far operated upon her, that, yielding to her imaginary terrors, and yet relying for safety upon getting into the parlour, she in the same moment uttered a slight scream and burst half joyfully into the room. Both of these actions scarcely took up more than the space of a single moment, and in another instant she had the door closed and bolted behind her. But what was her astonishment, her terror, and her awe, when, on glancing round the room, she saw distinctly before her, and relieved against the light of the window, the figure of a lady, in splendid apparel, supernaturally tall, and upon whose countenance was depicted a surprise not less than her own! The girl stood fixed to the spot, her breath suspended, and her eyes wide open, surveying the glorious apparition, whose beauty and fine attire, unlike aught earthly she had ever seen, made her believe it to be an _enchanted queen_—an imaginary being, of which the idea was suggested to her by one of the nursery tales already alluded to. Fortunately, the associations connected with this personage were rather of a pathetic than an alarming character; and though she still trembled at the idea of being in the presence of a supernatural object, yet as it was essentially beautiful and pleasing, and supposed to be rather in a condition of suffering than in the capacity of an injurer, Margaret Swinton did not experience the extremity of terror, but stood for a few seconds in innocent surprise, till at length the vision completely assured her of its gentle and pacific character, by smiling upon her, and, in a tone of the most winning sweetness, bidding her approach. She then went forward, with timid and slow steps; and becoming convinced that her enchanted queen was neither more nor less than a real lady of this world, soon ceased to regard her with any other sentiment than that of admiration. The lady took her hand, and addressed her by name—at first asking a few unimportant questions, and concluding by telling her that she might speak to her mother of what she had seen, but by no means to say a word upon the subject to any other person, and that under pain of her mother’s certain and severe displeasure. Margaret promised to obey this injunction, and was then desired by the lady to go to the window, to see if the family were yet returning from church. She did so, and found that they were not as yet in sight; when, turning round to give that information to the stranger, she found the room empty, and the lady gone. Her fears then returned in full force, and she would certainly have fainted, if she had not been all at once relieved by the appearance of the family at the head of the avenue, along which the dogs—as regular church-goers as their master—ran barking towards the house, gratifying her with what she afterwards declared to have been the most welcome sounds that ever saluted her ear.

Miss Swinton, being found out of her own room, was sharply reprimanded by her mother, and taken up stairs to be again confined to the sick-chamber. But before being left there, she found an opportunity of whispering into her mother’s ear, that she had seen a lady in the low parlour. Lady Swinton was arrested by the words, and, immediately dismissing the servant, asked Margaret, in a kindly and confidential tone, what she meant. The child repeated, that in the low parlour she had seen a beautiful lady—an enchanted queen—who had afterwards vanished, but not before having exacted from her a promise that she would say nothing of what she had seen, except to her mother. “Margaret,” said Lady Swinton, “I see you have been a very good girl; and since you are so prudent, I will let you know a little more about this enchanted queen, though her whole story cannot properly be disclosed to you at present.” She then conducted Margaret back to the parlour, pushed aside a sliding panel, and entered a secret chamber, in which the child again saw the tall and beautiful woman, who was now sitting at a table with a large prayer-book open before her. Lady Swinton informed the stranger, that, as Margaret had kept her secret so far according to her desire, she now brought her to learn more of it. “My dear,” said her ladyship, “this lady is unfortunate—her life is sought by certain men; and if you were to tell any of your companions that you have seen her, it might perhaps be the cause of bringing her to a violent death. You could not wish that the enchanted queen should suffer from so silly an error on your part.” Margaret protested, with tears, that she would speak to none of what she had seen; and after some farther conversation, she and her mother retired.

Margaret Swinton never again saw this apparition; but some years afterwards, when she had grown up, and all fears respecting the unfortunate lady were at an end, she learned the particulars of her story. She was the Mrs Macfarlane alluded to in the motto to this paper; a person whose fatal history made a noise at the time over all Britain, and interested alike the intelligent and the ignorant, the noble and the mean.

Mrs Macfarlane was the only daughter of a gentleman of Roxburghshire, who had perished in the insurrection of 1715. An attempt was made by his surviving friends to save the estate from forfeiture, so that it might have been enjoyed by his orphan daughter, then just emerged into womanhood. But almost all hope of that consummation was soon closed, and, in the meantime, the unfortunate young lady remained in a destitute situation. The only arrangement that could be devised by the generosity of her friends, was to permit her to reside periodically for a certain time in each of their houses—a mode of subsistence from which her spirit recoiled, but to which, for a little while, she was obliged to submit. It was while experiencing all the bitter pangs of a dependent situation, encountered for the first time, and altogether unexpectedly, that Mr Macfarlane, a respectable and elderly law agent, who had been employed by her father, came forward and made an offer of his hand. Glad to escape from the immediate pain of dependency, even at the hazard of permanent unhappiness, she accepted the proposal, although her relations did every thing they could to dissuade her from a match so much beneath her rank. The proud spirit of Elizabeth Ker swelled almost to bursting, when she entered the dwelling of her low-born husband; and the humble marriage-feast which was there placed before her, seemed in her eyes as the first wages of her degradation. But her own reflections might have been endured, and in time subdued, if they had not been kept awake by the ungenerous treatment which she received from all her former friends. The pride of caste was at this period unbroken in Scotland, and it rigorously demanded the exclusion of “the doer’s wife” from all the circles in which she had previously moved. The stars made a conspiracy to banish the sun. If Mrs Macfarlane had been educated properly, she would have been able to repel scorn with scorn, and, in these tergiversations of the narrow-spirited great, would have only seen their degradation, not her own. But under her deceased mother, a scion of a better house than even her father’s, she had grown up in the full participation of all the ridiculous notions as to caste, and of course was herself deeply sensible of the advantages she had forfeited. Rendered irritable in the highest degree by consciousness of her own loss, she received every slight thrown upon her by society into her innermost heart, where it festered and fed upon her very vitals. She found that she had fallen, that the step was irretrievable; and as factitious degradation, imposed by the forms of society, always in a short time becomes real, her character suffered a material deterioration. She took refuge from offended self-love in a spirit of hatred and contempt for her fellow-matrons, and began to entertain feelings from which, in earlier and happier years, she would have shrunk as from actual crime.

There was at least one branch of the better sort of Edinburgh society which never manifested any disinclination to her acquaintance. This was the class of loose young men of good birth, who daily paraded at the Cross with flowing periwigs and glancing canes, and nightly drowned their senses in a vulgar debauch, from which they occasionally awoke in the morning with the duty of settling scores by a rencontre in St Ann’s Yards, or at St Leonard’s Crags. This set of brawlers, the proper successors of those drunken cavaliers who disgraced a preceding age, subsisted in a state of pure antagonism to the stayed and decorous habits of the general community; many of them were literally the children of cavaliers, and indebted in a great measure for their idle way of life to the circumstances of the government, which dictated an exclusive distribution of its patronage among its own adherents, and of course left the poor Jacobites exposed to all the temptations of idleness. Dicing and golfing were the employments of their forenoons; in the evening they would stagger from table into Heriot’s Green, or Lady Murray’s garden in the Canongate, where they would make a point of staring out of countenance such sober citizens and their daughters as ventured to frequent those fashionable promenades. According to a Presbyterian writer of the day, they sent to London regularly for the last fashions and the newest oaths; but perhaps the latter part of the report is only a scandal. If such personages were to revive now-a-days, and appear some forenoon among the modern _beaux esprits_ of Prince’s Street, they would be looked upon, with their long wide-skirted coats, and buckles, and cravats, as a set of the most solemn looking gentlemen; but in their own time, there were no ideas associated with them but those of reckless, hot-headed youth, and daily habits the most opposite to those of decency and virtue.

Mrs Macfarlane, while she sunk from the society of gentlewomen of her own rank, still retained such acquaintance as she had ever happened to possess, of their wild sons and brothers. With them, she was in her turn an object of great interest, on account of her transcendant beauty, or rather its fame—for the fame with such persons is of far more importance than the reality. It was not disagreeable to Mrs Macfarlane, when she walked with her husband on the Castle Hill, and found herself passed with dry recognition by persons of her own sex, to be made up to by some long-waisted Sir Harry Wildair, who, in language borrowed from Congreve or Farquhar, protested that the sun was much aided in his efforts to illuminate the world by the light of her eyes. A rattle of the fan was the least favour that could be dispensed in reward for such a compliment; and then would ensue a conversation, perhaps only interrupted by a declaration from Mr Macfarlane, that he felt the air getting rather cold, and was afraid to stay out any longer on account of his rheumatism. The society of these fops was never farther encouraged by Mrs Macfarlane; indeed, it was only agreeable to her in public places, where it consoled her a little for the ungenerous slights of more respectable persons. Yet it had some effect upon her reputation, and was partly the cause of all her misfortunes.

About two years after the insurrection of 1715, the host of Edinburgh fops received an important accession in Mr George Cayley, a young English gentleman, who was sent down as one of the commissioners upon the forfeited estates. Cayley brought with him a considerable stock of cash, an oath of recent coinage, said to be very fashionable in Pall Mall, and a vest of peculiar cut, which he had lately got copied at Paris from an original belonging to the Regent Orleans. As he also brought a full complement of the most dissolute personal habits, he might be considered as recommended in the strongest manner to the friendship of the native beaux; if, indeed, his accomplishments were not apt rather to produce displeasure from their superiority. Some days after his arrival, he was introduced to Mrs Macfarlane, to whom he was an object of some interest on account of his concern in the disposal of her father’s estate. If she felt an interest in him on this account, he was not the less struck by her surpassing beauty and elegant manners, which appeared to him alike thrown away upon her husband, and the city in which she dwelt. He rushed home from the first interview in a state of mind scarcely to be imagined. That such a glorious creature should squander her light upon the humble house of an attorney, when she seemed equally fit to illuminate the halls of a palace, was in his eyes a perversion of the designs of nature. He wished that it was in his power to fly with her away—away from all the scenes where either was known, to some place far over this world’s wilderness, where every consciousness might be lost, except that of mutual love. Over and over again he deplored the artificial bonds imposed by human laws, and protected by the virtuous part of the human race, by which hearts the most devoted to each other were often condemned to eternal separation. His heart, he found, was possessed by sensations such as had never before moved it. It worshipped its object as a kind of idol, instead of, as formerly, regarding it as a toy. He flung himself in idea before the shrine of her splendour, in breathless, boundless, despairing passion.

It is probable that if Cayley had been fortunate enough to meet Mrs Macfarlane before she was married, he might have been inspired with an attachment equally devoted, and which, being indulged innocently, might have had the effect of purifying him from all his degrading vices, and raising him into a worthy member of society. As it was, the passion which, in proper circumstances, is apt to refine and humanise, only lent a frantic earnestness to his usual folly. He made it his endeavour to obtain as much of her society as possible—an object in which he was greatly favoured by his official character, which caused him to be treated with much less coolness by Mr Macfarlane than was otherwise to have been expected. That individual had not altogether lost hope of regaining the property to which his wife was entitled, and he therefore met Mr Cayley’s advances with more than corresponding warmth, every other sentiment being for the time subordinate to this important object. The young Englishman, in order to cultivate this delightful intimacy with the greater convenience, removed from his former lodgings to a house directly opposite to Mrs Macfarlane’s, in the High Street, where, at such times as a visit was out of the question, he would sit for hours watching patiently for the slightest glimpse of her through the windows, and judging even a momentary gleam of her figure within the dim glass as an ample compensation for his pains. He now became much less lively than before—forsook, in some measure, the company of his gay contemporaries—and seemed, in short, the complete _beau ideal_ of the melancholy, abstracted lover. It was his custom to spend most of his evenings in Mrs Macfarlane’s house; and, except during those too quickly flying hours, time was to him the greatest misery. Existence was only existence in that loved presence; the rest was a state of dormancy or watchfulness only to be spent in pain. If he applied at all to the business for which he was commissioned by the government, it was only to that part of it which related to the inheritance of Mrs Macfarlane, in order that he might every night have an excuse for calling upon that lady, to inform her of the progress he was making in her cause. His attachment in that quarter was soon whispered abroad in society; and while it served as a grateful theme for the tongues of Mrs Macfarlane’s former compeers, the favour with which he seemed to be received was equally the subject of envy to the young men, few of whom had ever found much countenance in her house, for want of something to recommend them equally to her husband.

Scarcely any thing is calculated to have so deteriorating an effect upon the mind as the constant fret of an unlawful passion. In every one of the clandestine and stealthy operations by which it is sought to be gratified, a step is gained in the downward descent towards destruction. Cayley, who was not naturally a man of wicked dispositions, and who might have been reclaimed by this passion, had it been virtuous, from all his trivial follies, gradually became prepared, by the emotions which convulsed his bosom, for an attempt involving the honour of his adored mistress, and, consequently, her whole happiness in life, as well as that of many innocent individuals with whom she was connected. This he now only waited for an opportunity of carrying into effect, and it was not long ere it was afforded.

Called by the urgent request of a Highland client, Mr Macfarlane had left town somewhat suddenly, and was not expected to return for upwards of a week. During his absence, Mrs Macfarlane endeavoured to repress the attentions of Mr Cayley as much as possible, from a sense of propriety, and contented herself with a kind of society—dumb, yet eloquent—which she felt to be much more fit for her situation—the society of her infant child. One evening, however, as she sat with her tender charge hushed to sleep upon her bosom, Mr Cayley was unexpectedly ushered in, notwithstanding that she had given directions for his exclusion after a certain hour, now past. To add to her distress, he appeared a little excited, as she thought, by liquor, but, in reality, by nothing but the burning and madly imprudent passion which had taken possession of him. He sat down, and gazed at her for a few moments without speaking, while she remonstrated against this unseasonable intrusion. She then rung her bell, in order to chide her servant for disobedience of her orders; but Mr Cayley tranquilly told her, that he had taken the liberty of sending the girl away upon an errand.

“In the name of heaven,” said the lady, “what do you mean?”

“I mean, my dear Madam,” answered he, “to have a little conversation with you upon a subject of great importance to us both, and which I should like to discuss without the possibility of interruption. Know, Madam, that, ever since I first saw you, I have fondly, madly loved you. You are become indispensable to my existence; and it depends upon you whether I shall hereafter be the most happy or the most miserable of men.”

“Mr Cayley,” cried the lady, “what foolery is this? You are not in your senses—you have indulged too much in liquor. For heaven’s sake, go home; and to-morrow you will have forgot that such ideas ever possessed your brain.”

“No, never, my angel!” cried he, “can I forget that I have seen and loved you. I might sleep for ages; and, if I awakened at all, it would be with your image imprinted as strongly as ever upon my heart. You now see a man prepared for the most desperate courses in order to obtain you. Listen for a moment. In the neighbourhood, a coach stands ready to carry us far from every scene where you have hitherto been known. Consent, and I procure for you (which is now within my power) a reversal of your father’s attainder. You shall again possess the domains where your fathers for ages back have been held in almost regal veneration, and where you spent the pleasant years of your own youth. Deny me, and to-morrow your reputation is blasted for ever. The least plausible tale, you well know, would be received and believed by society, if told respecting Mrs Macfarlane.”

“Profligate wretch!” exclaimed the unfortunate lady; “can I believe my ears when they tell me that such wickedness exists in a human bosom? Look, Sir, at this infant—were there no principles of virtue within me to dictate a contemptuous rejection of your proposals, do you think that I could leave this innocent to pine and die under the cold neglect of strangers, or to survive to a less blessed life with the stigma of a disgraced mother fixed for ever upon her? Were I the basest woman that ever lived, as you seem to think me, would nature permit so awful a violation of her laws? Could I leave my child, and not next moment be struck dead by fire from heaven for my crime? The alternative, indeed, is awful. Well you know the point upon which I am most easily affected. Base, however, as you avow yourself, I cannot yet suppose that you could be guilty of a trick so worthy of the devil himself, as to blast the reputation, where you could not fix the real cause of infamy.”

“Do not flatter yourself too much on that score,” rejoined Cayley; “you do not now see a man actuated by ordinary principles. I am tortured and confounded by an impetuous passion, which you have excited. If you take from me all hope of a consent to my first proposal, I must endeavour to bring you into my power by the second. To-morrow, did I say? Nay, I will go this night, and tell every man I know that you are the slave of my passion. Not a lady in Edinburgh but will know of it to-morrow before she has left her pillow. You will _then_, I think, see the necessity of consenting to the scheme of flight which I now put into your power.”

He pronounced these words in such a disordered and violent manner, that the unhappy lady sat for some time unable to reply. She hardly recovered her senses till she heard the outer door clang behind him, as he went upon the demoniac purpose which he had threatened.

The first place that Mr Cayley went to was John’s Coffeehouse, a fashionable tavern in the Parliament Square, where he found a large group of his dissolute young friends, drinking claret out of silver stoups. The company was in an advanced stage of intoxication and riot, very much to the annoyance, apparently, of a few smaller knots of decent citizens, who were indulging in some more moderate potations after the fatigues of the day, and endeavouring to understand as much as they could of the London Intelligencer, the Flying Post, and other little sheets of news which lay upon the various tables. “Well, Cayley,” cried one of the young roisterers, “come and tell us how you are getting on now with the fair lady over the way—husband not at home—must be making great advances, I suppose?” “Make yourself quite at ease on that subject; I _am_ so, I assure you.” This he said in so significant a tone, that it was at once understood. A flood of raillery, however, was immediately opened upon him; no one would believe what he said, or rather implied; and thus, as they designed, he was drawn to make much more explicit declarations of his supposed triumph. No attempt was made by himself or others to conceal the subject of their conversation from the rest of the individuals present. It was understood distinctly by the sober citizens above mentioned, some of whom shrugged their shoulders, knocked their cocked hats firmly down upon their heads, took staff in hand, and strode consequentially and indignantly out of the room. As Cayley had predicted, the whole affair was blazoned abroad before next morning.

Mrs Macfarlane, as might be supposed, enjoyed little sleep after the agitations of the preceding evening. She could hardly believe that anything so wicked as what had been threatened by Mr Cayley could be perpetrated by a being in human shape; but yet, recollecting the extraordinary state in which he seemed to be, she could not altogether assure herself of the contrary. In the forenoon she went to pay a visit in a distant part of the town; and she could not help remarking, that while she seemed to have become an object of additional interest to the male sex, the ladies, even those with whom she had formerly been on terms of civil recognition, averted their eyes from her, with an expression, as she thought, of contempt.

The lady upon whom she called received her in the coldest manner, and, on an explanation being asked, did not hesitate to mention what she had heard as the town’s talk that morning, namely, that Mr Cayley professed himself to be her favoured lover. The unfortunate lady burst into a passion of tears and lamentations at this intelligence, protested her innocence a thousand times, and declared herself to be only the victim of a profligate; but still she saw that she did not produce an entirely exculpatory effect upon the mind of her friend. She went home in a state of distress bordering on despair. Her early misfortunes through the severity of the government; her dependent situation in the houses of her kinsfolk; her unhappy marriage to a man she could never love; and, finally, the cruel coldness with which she had been treated by her former friends in the days of her depression, all recurred upon her mind, and united with the more awful grief which had now overtaken her, prepared her mind for the most desperate resolutions.

Early in the afternoon she sent a note to Mr Cayley, requesting, in the usual terms, the favour of his company. The receipt of her billet threw him into transports of joy, for he believed that his scheme had already taken effect, and that she was now prepared to accede to his proposals. He therefore dressed himself in his best style, and at the proper hour (he felt too secure of his prey to go sooner) walked across the street to his appointment. He was shown into a room at the back of the house, where he had never before been, and where there was little furniture besides a picture of Mrs Macfarlane, painted by Sir John Medina, an Italian artist who long practised his trade at the Scottish capital. This portrait, which he began to gaze upon with all the enthusiasm of a lover, represented his mistress in a style and manner strikingly beautiful. The utmost serenity, united with the utmost innocence, shone in those sweetly noble features. The fair open brow glowed like the summer sky, calmly and cloudlessly beautiful. The eyes shone with the lustre of gladness and intelligence, and the whole expression was resolved into an exquisite and killing smile. The lover stood in a sort of transport before this image of all he held dear on earth, as if he were yielding to an idolatrous contemplation of its extraordinary loveliness, when the door was opened—and behold the original! Instead of the voluptuous smile which shone on the canvass of Medina, a Beautiful Fury stood before him—a Hecate not yet grown old. He started with horror; for not only did she bear in her countenance the most threatening ensigns of passion, but she carried in her hand two large pistols, one of which she held extended to him, while with the other hand she locked the door behind her, at the same time keeping a watchful and glaring eye upon her victim.

“Wretch,” she said, “you have ruined one who never did you wrong. You have destroyed me as completely as if you had stretched me lifeless beneath your hand. More than this, you have rendered others who are dear to me unhappy for ever. My child—you have deprived her of the nurture of a mother; you have fixed upon her name a stain which will never be washed out. And yet for all this, society, cruel as it is to the victims, provides no punishment—hardly even any censure—to the criminal. Were it now my will to permit you, you might walk away scatheless from the fair scene you have ravaged, with nothing to disturb your triumph, but the lamentations of so many broken hearts. You shall not, however, enjoy this triumph—for here you shall die!”

Cayley had stood for a few moments, gazing alternately at her face and at the weapon she held extended towards him. He heard her address as if he had heard it not. But at the last word, he recovered a little of his presence of mind, and made an effort to approach her. She at that moment fired, but without effect. The effort of drawing the trigger had depressed the muzzle of the weapon, and the ball entered the floor at his feet. She lost not an instant to present and fire the other, the shot of which penetrated his breast, and he fell next moment before her, with but one indistinct murmur of agony—and then all was still.

One brief embrace to her child—a moment at the toilet to arrange her travelling dress, which she had previously prepared, and the beautiful murderess was ready to fly. She instantly left town for the south, and, as already mentioned, received shelter and concealment in the house of her distant kinsman, Sir John Swinton. How long she was there protected, is not known, but it was probably as long as the search of justice continued to be in the least eager. It was always understood, by those aged persons who knew her story, and from whom the preceding facts have chiefly been derived, that she ultimately escaped to some remote continental state, where she was supported by contributions from her relations. So closes one of the most tragical tales that stain the domestic annals of Scotland during the last century.

THE DOWNDRAUGHT.

Side by side with _victims_, might be placed the kindred species _downdraughts_, who are only different from the accident of their having friends who will rather be _weighed down_ by them to the very earth—to the grave itself—than permit them to sink by themselves. The downdraught is in reality a victim, and one of the darkest shade, being generally a person totally worthless in character, and abandoned in habits; but then he has not altogether cut the cables which bound him to his native grade in society—he has not all forgot himself to disgrace—he is still domesticated with his friends—he has a mother, or a wife, or a brother, or a sister, or perhaps an old aunt, who will try to keep him in food and clean linen, and, having lost all hope of his ever being actively good, will do anything for him, if he will only preserve a neutrality, and not be positively evil. He is a victim in appearance (always excepting the clean shirt), but he enjoys the happy superiority over that class, of having an open door to fly to when he pleases, and either a kind relation, who considers him “only a little wild in the meantime,” or else one who, for the sake of decent appearances, will endeavour to patch up all his peccadiloes, and even be tyrannised over by him, rather than shock society by an open rupture. The personal tendencies of a downdraught to victimization are strong as the currents of the great deep, but he is withheld from it by others. He has always some anchorage or other upon decent life, to keep him back from the gulf to which he would otherwise hurry on. In many cases, the very kindness and indulgence of friends was the original cause of his becoming a downdraught. He had every thing held to his head. He was encouraged in his pretences of headaches as an excuse for staying away from school. When afterwards an apprentice, he was permitted to break off, on the score of being compelled to put on fires and sweep out the shop. Or, perhaps, it was from none of those causes. Possibly, he was just one of those persons who seem to be totally destitute of all perception of the terms upon which men are permitted to exist in this world; that is, that they are either to be so fortunate as to have “their fathers born before them,” so that they may accede to wealth without exertion, or must else do something to induce their fellow-creatures to accord them the means of livelihood without beggary. That many persons are really born without this great leading faculty, is unfortunately but too indisputable; and, assuredly, they are as proper inmates for a lunatic asylum as more frantic madmen; for what is the use of reason, or even of talent, without the desire of exerting it, either in one’s own behalf, or in behalf of mankind? The terms of existence we allude to are expressed in the text of Scripture, “By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt earn thy bread;” so that the man must be considered a kind of heretic, as well as a fool, who will not, or can not, understand them. Yet the fact is so, that many men arrive at maturity with either a sense of these conditions of life, more or less imperfect, or no sense of them at all. They perhaps conceive themselves to be born to keep down the pavement of Prince’s Street with boots one inch and a half deep in the heel, or to fumigate the air of that elegant street with cigars at three shillings per dozen; but that is the utmost extent to which their notions of the purposes of life ever extend. These men, of course, are predestined downdraughts. We see them already with our mind’s eye, exhausting the kindness and patience of a brother, or a wife, yea almost of a mother, with their idle and dissolute habits—dragging those relations slowly but surely down into misery and disgrace—and only in the meantime saved from being kicked out of doors, as they deserve, not by any regard for merits of their own, for they have none, but by the tenderness of those relations for their own reputation.

A decent citizen, of the name of Farney, retired about five-and-twenty years ago from active life, and, planting himself in a neat villa a little way beyond the southern suburbs of Edinburgh, resolved to do nothing all the rest of his life but enjoy the ten or twelve thousand pounds which he had made by business. He was a placid, inoffensive old man, only somewhat easy in his disposition, and, therefore, too much under the control of his wife, who unfortunately was a person of a vulgarly ambitious character. The pair had but one child—a daughter, Eliza Farney—the toast of all the apprentices in the South Bridge, and really an elegant, and not unaccomplished young lady. The only object which Mr and Mrs Farney now had in life, besides that of enjoying all its comforts, was the disposal of this young lady in marriage. Whenever there is such a thing as ten thousand pounds connected with the name of a young lady, there is generally a great deal more fuss made about it than when the sum is said to exist in any other shape or circumstances. It is important in the eyes of all the young men who think themselves within shot of it. It is important in the eyes of all the young women who have to lament that they do not possess similar advantages. It is important in the eyes of all the fathers and mothers of sons, who think themselves within range of it. And, lastly, it is important, immensely important indeed, in the eyes of parties, young lady, mother and father, sister or brother, who have anything to say in the disposal of it. Money in this shape, one would almost think, is of a different value from money in any other: the exchange it bears against cash in business, or cash in the prospect of him who knows he can win it, is prodigious. At the very lowest computation, a thousand pounds in the purse of a young lady is worth ten thousand in the stock of a man of trade. Nay, it is astonishing what airs we have known a few hundred pounds of this kind put on in respect, or rather disrespect, of decent people, who were almost winning as much in the year. In fact, the fiddle-faddle about the disposal of an heiress is a great farce, and never fails to put either the parties concerned in the disposal, or else the candidates for the acquisition, into a thousand shabby and selfish attitudes. It is hard to say if the young lady herself is the better for it all. The only _certain_ effect of her possessing a fortune, is, that it deprives her of ever having the pleasing assurance, given to most other women, that she is married for her own sake alone. Sincere love is apt to retire from such a competition, through the pure force of modesty, its natural accompaniment; and the man most apt to be successful is he who, looking upon the affair as only a mercantile adventure, pursues it as such, and only hopes to be able to fall in love after marriage.

It happened that Eliza Farney was loved, truly and tenderly loved, by a young man of the name of Russell, whose parents had been acquainted with the Farneys in their earlier and less prosperous days, but were now left a little behind them. Young Russell had been the playmate of Eliza in their days of childhood; he had read books with her, and taught her to draw, in their riper youth; and all the neighbours said, that, but for the brilliant prospects of Miss Farney, she could not have found a more eligible match. Russell, however, was still but the son of a poor man. He was himself struggling in the commencement of a business, which he had begun with slender means, in order to sustain the declining fortunes of his parents. His walk in life was much beneath the scope of his abilities, much beneath his moral deserts; but, under a strong impulse of duty, he had narrowed his mind to the path allotted to him, instead of attempting to do justice to his talents by entering upon any higher and more perilous pursuit. Thus, as often happens, an intellect and character, which might have brightened the highest destinies, were doomed to a sphere all unmeet for them, where they were in a manner worse than lost, as they only led to a suspicion which was apt to be unfavourable to the prospects of their possessor, namely, that he was likely to be led, by his superior tastes, into pursuits to which his fortune was inadequate, or into habits which would shipwreck it altogether. Russell looked upon Eliza Farney, and despaired. He saw her, as she advanced into womanhood, recede gradually from his sphere in society, and enter into one more suitable to her father’s improving fortunes, into which it was not for him to intrude. Eliza had, perhaps, entertained at one time a girlish fondness for him; but it was not of so strong a character as to resist the ambitious maxims of her mother, and the sense of her own importance and prospects, which began to act upon her in her riper years.

“Amongst the rest young Edwin sighed,
But never talked of love.”