Chapter II (4)

But Charles, with his eyes intently fixed on some object in the street, gazed as if some horrible apparition had met his sight. Alternately flushed and pale, he continued as if entranced, and then, deeply sighing, sunk senseless on the floor.

“Rory, Rory!” screamed the laird—“ugh, ugh! oh, that I could get at the bell! Cheer up, Chairlie. Fire! fire! ugh, ugh!—the lad will be dead before a soul comes near him. Rory, Rory!”

And luckily the ancient henchman, Rory MacTaggart, made his appearance in time to save his master from choking through fear and surprise. Charlie was soon recovered, and, when left again alone with the laird, he said—

“As I hope to live, I saw her from this very window, just as we were speaking of her. Even her face I saw! Oh, so changed and pale! But her walk—no _two_ can have such a graceful carriage!”

“Seen wha?” said the laird. “Mrs Carmichael? For it was her we were speaking o’—ay, she’s sair changed; and her walk is weel kent; only I thocht she was a wee stiffer frae the rheumatism last year. But whaur is she?”

“It was Miss Mowbray I saw. She went into that house opposite.”

“What! the house wi’ the brass knocker, green door—the verandah with the flower-pots, an’ twa dead geraniums?”

“Yes.”

“Then just ring the bell, and tell that English cratur to pu’ me in the wee whirligig across the street.”

“Impossible, my dear laird! recollect your gout.”

“Deil hae the gout and the cough too! Order the chair; I’ll see if it’s her in five minutes.”

And away, in spite of all objections and remonstrances, went the laird to pay his visit. Now, if any one should doubt of the success of his negotiations, I—the writer of this story—Charles Melville, late major, —th regiment, shall be happy to convince him of it, if he will drop in on me any day at Mowbray Hall, by my own evidence, and also that of my happy and still beautiful Madeline, though she is the mother of three rosy children, who at this moment are making such an intolerable noise that I cannot understand a sentence I am writing. I may just mention, that the laird attended the wedding, and that his cough entirely left him. He does not suffer an attack of the gout more than once a year. He has adopted my second boy, and every autumn we spend three months with him at Strath Lugas. Oh, that all match-makers were as innocent and disinterested as jolly old Simon Kirkton!—_Blackwood’s Magazine._

EZRA PEDEN.

BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

I sat and watched while all men slept, and lo!
Between the green earth and the deep green sea
I saw bright spirits pass, pure as the touch
Of May’s first finger on the eastern hill.
Behind them followed fast a little cloud;
And from the cloud an evil spirit came—
A damnèd shape—one who in the dark pit
Held sovereign sway; and power to him was given
To chase the blessèd spirits from the earth,
And rule it for a season.
Soon he shed
His hellish slough, and many a subtle wile
Was his to seem a heavenly spirit to man.
First he a hermit, sore subdued in flesh,
O’er a cold cruse of water and a crust,
Poured out meek prayers abundant. Then he changed
Into a maid when she first dreams of man,
And from beneath two silken eyelids sent
The sidelong light of two such wondrous eyes,
That all the saints grew sinners. He subdued
Those wanton smiles, and grew a reverend dame,
With wintry ringlets, and grave lips, which dropt
Proverbial honey in her grandson’s ear.
Then a professor of God’s Word he seemed,
And o’er a multitude of upturned eyes
Showered blessed dews, and made the pitchy path,
Down which howl damnèd spirits, seem the bright
Thrice-hallowed way to heaven. Yet grimly through
The glorious veil of those seducing shapes
Frowned out the fearful spirit.