Chapter X: Part 10

I took the brief from his hand, glanced my eyes upon the back of it, and read the words--"_Taylor_ against _Mortimer_."

"Taylor against Mortimer!" I exclaimed, starting from my seat; "what Taylor?--what Mortimer? Not Jessy--my Jessy? Not the villain, Esau?--the supplanter----the----"

"Hold, hold," said the solicitor, in surprise; "such are, indeed, the names of the parties; but, if you are in an ecstasy already, I must take the brief to one who will read it soberly."

"No!" I cried, grasping the brief in my hand--"take back your fee--I will plead this cause for love."

"Keep the money--keep the money," said he, dryly; "it will be of as much service to you in the meantime as love. But let me know the cause of this enthusiasm."

I unbosomed my soul to him. I did not see Miss Mortimer until the day of trial, in the court; and, when I rose to plead for her, she started, the word "Roderic!" escaped from her lips, and tears gushed into her bright eyes. It was at the same moment that Esau Taylor saw and recognised me--his eyes quailed beneath my gaze; his guilt gushed to his face. I commenced my address to the jury--I drew the picture of a fiend. Taylor trembled. Every individual in the court was already convinced of his guilt. He endeavoured to escape amidst the crowd. I called upon the officers to seize him. I gained the cause, and with it, also, won the hand of Jessy Mortimer, to obtain which, from boy-hood I had persevered. Taylor was committed to prison, to stand his trial for the forgeries; but, before the day of trial came, he was buried within the prison walls, with disgrace for his epitaph.

THE IRISH REAPER.

Some years ago, I was proceeding from Runcorn to Manchester, in one of the passage-boats which ply upon the Duke of Bridgewater's canal. There could not be less than a hundred passengers, and they were of as motley a description as the imagination of man could conceive even in a dream. The boats exactly resemble a long, low, flat-roofed wooden house; but sufficiently lofty for a middle-sized person to stand erect between the floor and the roof, or rather the deck. At one end sat about a dozen Primitive Methodists, alternately reading passages of Scripture, or bursting forth, at the extreme pitch of their voice, into a squall of music, singing hymn upon hymn, till my very ears ached, and the timbers of the boat might have started. Near them sat a number of young, rosy-cheeked Welsh women, staring at the vocalists with a look of wondering vacancy, that the goats on their own mountains could not have surpassed. There were, also, manufacturers' wives and children returning from a seven days' visit to Runcorn, for the benefit of a salt-water dip in the Mersey; and six or eight prim, sober, sleek, silent, well-dressed Quakers; with a more than sprinkling of the boys of the Emerald Isle. The loud laugh of one of them was ever and anon heard above the shrill music of the Ranters. He was about five feet seven inches high, and exceedingly strong and well made. He wore an old greatcoat, of a yellowish blanket colour, and a hat, the crown of which had fallen in with service, and its brim was equally turned up before and behind, and on both sides. His feet were thrust into a pair of brogues of true Irish manufacture, which, with a pair of coarse blue worsted stockings and corduroy inexpressibles, completed his outward man. He carried an apparently empty sack under his arm, and was surrounded by about a dozen of his countrymen, who seemed to regard him as an oracle, heartily echoing back his boisterous laughter, and exclaiming, "Well done, Mister M'Carthy!--faith, and it's you that's your mother's own son, at any rate."

O'Connell had sailed from Liverpool on the previous day, and his countrymen were discussing his political merits.

"Why, bad luck to ye," exclaimed our hero with the greatcoat, in answer to one who had held forth in praise of the counsellor; "and it is you, Mick Behan, that says every man in Ireland should pay the O'Connell rint?--but I'll tell you a bit of a parable, as Father O'Shee says, and a parable, too, of my own natural mother's making. 'Larry,' says she to me--'Larry M'Carthy, don't be after planting those big potaties for seed; for they've a hole in their heart a little Christian might slape in?"

"You're no better thin a Sassenach, Larry," interrupted the aforesaid Mick; "can't you spake your maneing like a man, if you have any maneing at all, at all."

This was like to have ended in an Irish row in reality; though the majority evidently sided with Mister Larry M'Carthy, not because they agreed with him in opinion, but because, as afterwards appeared, he was their master or employer. The disputants paused for a moment, and a loud groan, as if from one in great bodily pain, mingled with the wailings of a woman, was heard from the farther corner of the boat. Larry turned round, to use his own expression, "like a flash of lightning," and the next moment he stood by the side of the sufferer, who was a tall, bony-looking figure; but, save the skin that covered them, there was little of his mortal man but the bones left. It was only necessary to look on his features, wasted as they were, to tell that he, too, was an Irishman. A young wife sat beside him, whose countenance resembled beauty personifying sorrow; she had a child at her breast, and two others, the eldest not more than five years of age, stood by her knee Larry looked upon the group, and his heart was touched.

"Och! and what may be ailing ye, countryman?" said he; "sure and ye wouldn't be after dying among friends would ye?"

"Ohon! and is it a friend that would be asking after my own Patrick!" replied the poor wife. "Sure, then, and he is ill, and we're all ill togidder; and it is six blessed months since he earned the bridth of tinpinny. Oh, blackness on the day that the rheumatiz came on him----"

"Shure now, and is that all?" interrupted Larry; "and, belike, the doctors have been chating you; for I tell you, honey, and you, too, Patrick, those 'natomy chaps know no more about the rheumatiz than holy Solomon knew about stameboats. But, belike, I'm the lad that disn't know neither; but maybe your chating yoursilf if ye think so. I'll tell ye what it is: the rheumatiz is a wandering wind between the flesh and the bone; and, more than that, there is no way to cure it but to squaze it out at the ends of the fingers or toes."

"Oh, my childer's sorrow on it, thin!" replied the suffering man's wife; "but, more and above the rheumatiz, Patrick got his leg broke last Fibruary----"

"Ay, splintered, honey," added the husband; "and the doctors--bad luck be wid them!--can't make nothing on't; and I am now goin to the great Salford bone-doctor."

"And maybe he won't be curing the bit bone without the money?" said Larry, with an expression of sympathy.

The sufferer shook his head, and was silent; his wife burst into tears.

"I will work, I will beg, I will die, for my Patrick," she exclaimed, and pressed the child closer to her breast.

"You had better be barring the dying, honey," returned Larry; "and wouldn't a raffle, think ye, among friends, be more gintale thin begging among strangers?"

"Ohon! and is it _friends_ you say?" replied she.

"Yes, shure, and it is _friends_ that I say," answered Larry; "and a raffle is what no gintleman need be ashamed on."

The boat at this moment stopped opposite an inn at the side of the canal; Larry borrowed a quart measure from the skipper, and sprang ashore. In a few minutes he returned with a quantity of rum, and, handing it first to the wife, and then to her lame husband, said, "Come, warm up thy ould bones with a drop of the cratur." He called the rest of his countrymen around him, and handed the liquor to each. When gathered together, there might be about sixteen or eighteen of them in all.

"Arrah, now, and these are all my men," said Mister Larry M'Carthy, with a look of comical consequence, to his infirm countryman; "and where would you be finding better? We are goin up to a bit of work in Lancashire; for the Inglish are no better than born childer at _our_ work;[8] and," raising the liquor to his head, he added, "here's the Holy Virgin be with us, countryman, and better luck to your bad leg; and, should it ever be mended at all--though you mayn't be good for much at _hood-work_ iny more, you have still a stout bone for a _barrow_--and you won't be forgetting to ask for Larry M'Carthy. And, now, boys," continued he, turning to his workmen, "here is this poor man, and more than this, I'm saying, our own lawful countryman, with the rheumatiz and a broken leg, and his wife, too, as you see, and those three little cherubims, all starving, to be sure, and he going to the doctor's without a penny! Sure you won't disgrace Ould Ireland--just look at the childer--and I say that a raffle is the gintale way of doing the thing."

[Footnote 8: Larry and his countrymen were all _navigators_, as they are called, or rather excavators, employed in digging canals, railways, docks, &c.]

So saying, he thrust his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a small canvas bag well filled with silver, and tied round the mouth with a strong cord. He took off his indescribable brown hat; he threw in a piece or two of silver, and went round, shaking it among his countrymen. Each took out a bag similar to Larry's, and threw his mite into the hat. He then, without counting them, emptied its contents into the lap of the poor woman; and I should think, from their appearance, they must have amounted to thirty or forty shillings. She burst into tears. The lame man grasped his hand, and endeavoured to thank him.

"Don't be after spakeing," said Larry; "did you think we warn't Christians?"

Such was the Irish raffle. Larry instantly resumed his jokes, his jests, and his arguments; but I could do nothing during the rest of the passage but think of the good Samaritan, and admire Mister Larry M'Carthy.

* * * * *

In the September of 1834, I was wandering by the side of a country churchyard, situated near the banks of the Tyne. The sun had gone down, and the twilight was falling grey upon the graves. I saw a poor-looking man, whose garments fluttered in tatters with the evening breeze, and who, by his appearance, seemed to be an Irish reaper, rise from among the tombs. He repeatedly drew the sleeve of his coat across his eyes, and I could hear him sobbing heavily, as though his heart would burst. As we approached each other, I discovered that he was my old canal-boat companion, the then merry and kind-hearted Larry M'Carthy; but no more like the Larry I had then seen him than a funeral to a bridal.

His frame was wasted to a skeleton, and hunger and misery glistened in his eyes together.

"Ha!" said I, accosting him, "is it possible that sorrow can have laid its heavy hand upon the light heart of Larry M'Carthy?"

"Shure," said he, drying away the tears that ran down his wan and wantworn cheeks, "and it is true, and too true, and heavy is the hand, shure enough; but not so heavy as it should be, or it would be weighing me into that grave." He pointed to the grave I had seen him leave, and added, "But how do you know me, sir--and who tould ye my name?--as I don't know yours--for, shure, and mine is Larry M'Carthy, as my father and mother, and his rivirence, wid my natarel sponsors, to boot, all, every one of thim, say and affirm."

I reminded him of the canal-boat and the raffle, and inquired the cause of his distress, and his visit to the grave.

"Arrah, master," said he, "and you touch a sore place when you ask me to tell it. Perhaps you don't know--for how should you--that, not long after the time you spake of in the canal-boat, I came down to what ye call the Borders here, to a bit o' navigating work that was to be a long job. I lodged wid a widow--a dacent ould woman, that had a daughter they called Mary--and, och! you may be thinking that ever Mary had an equal, but it's wrong that ye are, if ye think so. Her eyes were like drops of dew upon the shamrock; and, although she was not Irish but Scotch, it was all one; for, ye know, the Scotch and Irish are one man's childer. But, at any rate, she had a true Irish heart; and, but for the sae or the Channel, as they call it, she would have been Irish as well as me. The more I saw of Mary, I loved her the more--better than a bird loves the green tree. She loved me, too; and we were married. The ould woman died a few weeks before Mary presented me with two little Larrys. I might have called them both Larry; for they were as like each other as your two eyes, and both of them as like me, too, as any two stars in the blessed firmament are like each other, where nobody can see a difference.

"Mary made the best wife in Christendom; and, when our little cherubs began to run about our knees, and to lisp and spake to us, a thousand times have I clasped Mary to my breast, and blessed her as though my heart would burst with joy. 'Sure,' I used to say, 'what would my own mother have said, had her ould eyes been witness to the happiness of her son, Larry M'Carthy?'

"But often the thought came staleing over me, that my happiness was too like a drame to last long; and sure and it was a drame, and a short one, too. A cruel, mortal fever came to the village, and who should it seize upon but my little darlints. It was hard to see them dying together, and my Mary wept her bright eyes blind over them. But bad luck was upon me.

The 'pothecary tould us as how our lovely childer would die; and on the very day that he said so, the wife that was dearer to me than Ould Ireland to Saint Patrick, lay down on the bed beside them--and och, sir! before another sun looked in at our window, a dying mother lay between her dead childer. I wished that I might die, too; and, within three days, I followed my wife and my little ones together to the same grave. It was this arm that lowered them into the cold earth--into the narrow house--and, sure, it has been weak as a child's since. My strength is buried in their grave. I have wrought but little since; for I cannot. I have no home now; and I take a light job anywhere when it comes in my way. Every year, at reaping time, I visit their grave, and bring with me a bit of shamrock to place over it, and that it may be a mark where to bury me, should I die here, as I hope I will."

Within ten days after this, I beheld the body of the once lively and generous-hearted Larry M'Carthy consigned to the grave, by the side of his wife and children.

GRACE CAMERON.

In the centre of a remote glen or strath, in the West Highlands of Scotland, stands the old mansion-house of the family of Duntruskin. At the time of the rebellion of 1745-6, this house was the residence of Ewan Cameron, Esq., a gentleman of considerable landed property and extensive influence in the country. Mr Cameron was, at the period of our story, a widower, with an only child. This child was Grace Cameron, a fine, blooming girl of nineteen, with a bosom filled with all the romance and high-souled sentiment of her mountain birth and education. In the commotions of the unhappy period above alluded to, Mr Cameron, although warmly attached to the cause of the Pretender, took personally no active part; but he assisted in its promotion by secret supplies of money, proportioned in amount to his means. In the result of the struggle--which, although he was not yet aware of it, had already arrived at a consummation on Culloden Muir--neither he nor his daughter had anything to fear for themselves; but this did not by any means relieve them from all anxiety on the momentous occasion. The father had to fear for many dear and intimate friends, and the daughter for the fate of a lover, who were in the ranks of the rebel army. This lover was Malcolm M'Gregor of Strontian--a warmhearted, high-spirited young man, the son of a neighbouring tacksman, to whom Grace had been long attached, and by whom she was most sincerely and tenderly loved in return. M'Gregor at this period held a captain's commission in the service of the Prince, and had distinguished himself by his bravery in the various contests with the royal troops that had occurred during the rebellion.

Having given this brief preliminary sketch, and advising the reader that the precise period at which our tale opens is on the second day after the battle of Culloden, and the locality a certain little parlour in Duntruskin House, we proceed with our story. Seated in this little parlour, on the day in question, Grace Cameron--occasionally employing her needle, but more frequently pausing to muse on the absent, to reflect on the past, or to anticipate the future--awaited, with intense anxiety, some intelligence regarding the movements and fortunes of the rebel army, with whose fate she deemed her own connected, since it was shared by one who was dearer to her than all the earth besides.

Grace did not expect any special communication on this important subject; but she knew that common fame would soon bring a rumour of every occurrence of consequence which should take place at this interesting crisis. With this expectation, she anxiously watched from her window the approach of every stranger to the house; and, when one appeared, was the first to meet and to question him regarding the events of the day. At length a report reached her, in which all agreed--for her informers had differed widely in others--that a great event had taken place, that a sanguinary battle had been fought; but, this admitted, the usual discrepancies and contradictions followed. Some declared that the Prince's army was defeated, and that a number of his leading men had been killed and taken prisoners; others, with equal confidence, asserted that the rebels were victorious, and that the king's troops were flying in all directions. Elated and depressed by turns by these conflicting rumours, Grace awaited, in dreadful anxiety, some certain intelligence regarding what had taken place. It was while in this state of mind, and while gazing listlessly, and almost unconsciously, from her little parlour window on the wide prospect which it commanded, that her eye was suddenly riveted on one particular spot. This was an abrupt turn in the great road leading to Inverness, which passed Duntruskin House at the distance of about half-a-mile, and from which, at this moment, the sun's rays were suddenly reflected, in bright, brief, and frequent flashes, as if from many surfaces of polished steel. Grace's heart beat violently; for she instantly and rightly conjectured that the dark body which now gradually, but rapidly, came in sight, and from which the coruscations which had first attracted her attention emanated, was composed of armed men; but whether they were rebels or king's troops, the distance prevented her from ascertaining. In this state of doubt, however, she did not long remain. Their rapid approach soon showed her that they were a party of royalist dragoons--a circumstance which threw her into the utmost terror. Nor was this feeling lessened by her perceiving them leave the highway, and make directly for the house. On seeing this, Grace, in the greatest alarm, hastened to seek out her father, whom she found busily engaged in writing, and utterly unconscious of the threatened visit. When informed of it, his countenance became pale, and his whole frame agitated; for he dreaded that his secret connection with the rebels had been discovered, and that he was now about to be apprehended; and these were also the fears of his daughter. Without saying a word, however, in reply to what had just been communicated to him, Mr Cameron threw down his pen, started hastily to his feet, and hurried to the window, beneath which, so rapid had been their motions, the troopers were already drawn up. The commander of the party--for there was only one officer--was a little thickset man, about forty-two years of age, with a red, florid, vulgar countenance, expressive at once of gross sensuality, much indulgence in the bottle, and a total absence of all feeling. In the manner of his dress he evidently affected the military dandy: his shirt neck reached nearly to the point of his nose; his gloves were of the purest white; a showy silk handkerchief was carelessly thrust into his breast, with just enough left projecting to indicate its presence. Notwithstanding this display of finery, however, and in despite of a splendid uniform made after the smartest military fashion of the time, Captain Stubbs was still exceedingly unlike a gentleman, and still more unlike a soldier. The first he was not, either by birth or education; the latter he had neither talents nor energy of character sufficient ever to become. The absence, however, of these qualities in Captain Stubbs was amply supplied by others. He was vain, irascible, conceited, and cruel; brutal and overbearing in his manners; and coarse and utterly regardless of the feelings of others in his language. He was, moreover, both an epicure and a glutton; and, to complete his very amiable character, a most egregious coward.

Having drawn up his party in front of the house as already mentioned, Captain Stubbs, before dismounting, threw a scrutinising glance at several of the windows of the building, as if to ascertain what sort of quarters he might expect--a point with him of the last importance. In the course of this brief survey, his eye alighted on that occupied by Mr Cameron and his daughter, whom he saluted with an insolent and familiar nod. In the next instant he was at the door, where he was met by Mr Cameron himself, with a countenance strongly expressive of the alarm and uncertainty which he felt, and could not conceal, regarding the issue of the interview now about to take place.

On their meeting--"Ha," said Stubbs, addressing the latter, "you are, I presume, Mr--Mr----Hang me, I forget your name, sir! Mine, sir, is Captain Stubbs, of the ---- regiment of dragoons. I find your name is in my list of--of"--here the captain (who had by this time been conducted to the dining-room), perfectly indifferent as to the particular of finishing his sentence, began to pull off his gloves, and to detach his spurs from his boots, with the air of one who is determined to be quite at home--"of--of," he continued to repeat, with the utmost disregard of ordinary politeness, and with the most profound contempt for the feelings of his host, who, taking alarm at the ominous hiatus, which he fully expected would be filled up by his being ranked amongst the proscribed, waited patiently and meekly the conveniency of Captain Stubbs--"of--of," repeated the captain slowly, after having divested himself of his accoutrements, and otherwise prepared himself for an hour or two's enjoyment--"of the friends of the government," he at length said; and the words instantly relieved both his host and his daughter from the most dreadful apprehensions. "So I have just beat you up," continued Captain Stubbs, "_en passant_, as 'twere, to tell you of the total defeat of the rebels, at a place called Culloden, and to have a morsel of dinner--eh, old boy?--and an hour or two's quarters for the men and horses."

"Much obliged for the honour," replied Mr Cameron, ironically, and accompanying the expression with a polite and formal bow; but, at the same time, cautiously guarding against any expression of his real feelings on this occasion, amongst which was a strong inclination to kick the redoubted Captain Stubbs to the door. His prudence, however, prevented him embroiling himself in this or any other way with a visiter who had the means of retaliation so much in his power.

Immediately after making the announcement above recorded, Captain Stubbs added, "And now, Mr--A--a----Pray, what the devil's your name, sir?"

"My name, sir," replied the party interrogated, "is Cameron--Ewan Cameron."

"Ah! Cameron--ay, Cameron," repeated Captain Stubbs, knitting his brows, and endeavouring to look very dignified. "Why, then, sir, I want some brandy and water; and pray, see that some of your fellows look after my horses." Having been provided with, and having swallowed a very handsome modicum of the beverage he had called for, Captain Stubbs went on--"I say, Cameron, can any of your brutes, your Hottentots, prepare me a fowl, _a la Conde_?"

"Why, Captain Stubbs," replied Mr Cameron, whose anxiety to keep well with the government and all connected with it induced him to suppress the resentment which the amazing insolence of his guest was so well calculated to excite--"our cookery is in general of a very plain sort."

"Ay, oh! boiled beef and cabbage, I suppose," interrupted Captain Stubbs, with a sneer.

"But my daughter," continued Mr Cameron, without noticing the impertinent interruption, "has, I believe, some little skill in these matters, and will be happy, I doubt not, to make some attempt to produce the dish you speak of; I will not, however, answer for her success."

"Your daughter, Mr A--a--a; ay, your daughter," said Captain Stubbs; "why, let me see--yes, let her try it; but, zounds, if she spoil it, it shall be at her peril. No, no," he added, after a moment's thought--"I'll tell you what, Mr Cameron--as it would be a devil of a business to have the thing botched, I suppose I must give instructions about it myself: so, pray, order every one out of your kitchen but your cook, and I shall go down-stairs presently, and see the thing properly done. In the meantime, Mr Thingumbob, call in your daughter, that I may have some conversation with her on the subject, that I may learn how far she may be trusted in this affair."

Mr Cameron immediately rung the bell, and desired the servant who obeyed the summons to inform his daughter that he wished to see her immediately. "And, that she may not be altogether unprepared," he added, "say to her that I wish to introduce her to Captain Stubbs."

"Ah!" ejaculated the latter, with a supercilious nod, in acknowledgment of his acquiescence in the terms of the message. In a few minutes, Miss Cameron entered the apartment. "Ah! Miss Cameron, I presume," said the captain, with a haughty inclination of his head, but without moving from his seat. "Your father, madam," he continued, "tells me that you know something of _le grand cuisine_. Now, pray, madam, how do you compound your sauce for a fowl, _a la Conde_? Eh, ma'am? Answer me that, if you please. Do you use chopped veal or not? If you don't, you spoil the dish--that's all. I've seen mutton used, but it's downright abomination."

"Why, sir," replied Miss Cameron, haughtily, shocked and disgusted with the insolence and gross epicureanism of the brute, "I am not accustomed to be catechised on these subjects, or on any other, in the very peculiar manner which you seem to have adopted."

"No!" exclaimed the gallant captain, starting up to a sitting posture, and at the same time seizing his shirt-collars with finger and thumb, and tugging them up at least another inch higher on his face. "I say, you are uncivil, and confoundedly unpolite, madam. I am a king's officer, madam--and a soldier, madam--and, by heavens, neither man nor woman shall insult Captain Stubbs with impunity!"

"Nobly said, captain!" replied Miss Cameron, with an air of the mock heroic; "draw your sword, sir, and lay your insulter dead at your feet; or, if you are not altogether so sanguinary, you may send me a challenge by my waiting-maid, who, I daresay, will have no objection to act as my second in any little affair of honour--such as this is likely to be."

"Miss Cameron, madam--Mr Cameron," stuttered and sputtered out Captain Stubbs, starting to his feet, his face reddening with rage, and every feature exhibiting symptoms of the high indignation which he felt--"Mr Cameron, sir, I command you, sir, in the king's name, to turn your daughter out of this apartment, otherwise I shall order up half-a-dozen of my fellows, with pistol and sabre, to drive her from my presence; and it is not improbable, sir, that I may have her apprehended, and tried, and shot as a rebel, sir."

Whilst delivering himself of this appalling speech, Captain Stubbs strutted up and down the apartment, chafing with rage; at one time impatiently tugging on his gloves, at another buttoning up his coat with an air of determination, which he thought, no doubt, would strike terror into the breasts of his auditors.

Mr Cameron, unwilling that matters should be carried any farther, and still desirous to keep up appearances with his guest, now approached his daughter; and, taking her gently by the hand, and at the same time leading her towards the door--

"Grace," he said, "I think you had better retire. You do not appear disposed," he added--smiling in his daughter's face as he spoke, but taking care to conceal this expression of his real feelings from the enraged captain--"to make yourself agreeable to-day; and therefore it may be as well that you carry your temper to some other quarter."

"Oh, certainly, sir, since it is your pleasure," replied Miss Cameron, tripping towards the door, where she stood for an instant--looked full at the captain--said she would expect to hear from him at his convenience, as to time, place, and weapons--made him a stately curtsey, and left the apartment.

When she had gone--"Don't think I am _afraid_ of her, Mr Cameron," said Captain Stubbs. "I am a man, sir, and a soldier, sir," he continued, still pacing the room, in great indignation at the treatment he had received from his fair antagonist, "and not to be frightened with trifles; but I say, Mr A--a--," he added, in a more subdued tone, "as I am not a man to permit such small occurrences as this to direct my attention from any important object I may have in view, I beg to know distinctly what you have for dinner, and I insist upon you, at the same time, recollecting, sir, that I am a king's officer, sir, and have a right to civil treatment."

"What sort of dinner you are to have, Captain Stubbs," replied Mr Cameron, "I really do not exactly know; but you may rest assured that, in so far as it lies with me, you shall have civil treatment; and I request of you to point out to me in what way I may contribute to your comfort."

"Ah! well--very well," replied Captain Stubbs. "Am I, then, or am I not, to have a fowl _a la Conde_, sir--eh?"

"Surely, sir," said his host; "if any of my people can prepare such a dish as you speak of, you shall have it."

"What the devil, then!" exclaimed Stubbs, passionately; "and am I to lose my dinner if your Hottentots shouldn't happen to know how to cook it? No! hang me, sir, I'll superintend the thing myself. I'll do it with my own hands, if you will show me the way to your kitchen."

With this request Mr Cameron immediately complied, by marshalling the captain to the scene of his proposed labours. On arriving in the kitchen, he forthwith prepared himself for the work he was about to undertake, by throwing off his regimental coat, rolling up his shirt-sleeves to his shoulders, and seizing on a large carving-knife which happened to be lying within his reach. Thus prepared, Captain Stubbs, after having been provided, by his own special orders, with a pair of choice fowls, lemon juice, bacon, parsley, thyme, bay-leaf, cloves, &c. &c., commenced operations; and, forgetting his dignity in his devotion to good living, he might now be seen smeared, from finger-ends to elbows, with grease and offal, earnestly engaged in disembowelling, with his own hands, the fowls on which he meant to exercise his gastronomic skill.

Leaving Captain Stubbs, of his majesty's ---- regiment of horse, thus becomingly employed, we shall return to a personage who, we should suppose, will be fully more interesting to the reader. This is Grace Cameron. That lady, on leaving the presence of her father, and him of the fowl _a la Conde_, returned to her own apartment, when, recollecting that the dragoons were still in front of the house, she walked up to the window, to gratify her curiosity by taking another peep at the warlike display; and it was while thus employed that Miss Cameron, for the first time, perceived that there was a prisoner amongst the soldiers. The prisoner was a boy of about thirteen or fourteen years of age. He was mounted behind one of the dragoons, to whom he was secured by a cord, which was passed round the bodies of both. Grace thought she perceived that the boy looked up at the windows of the house with more earnestness and anxiety than curiosity; and, when his eye at length rested on that she occupied, he threw a peculiar intelligence into his look, accompanied by certain expressive but almost imperceptible signs, that convinced her that he was desirous of holding some communication with her. Satisfied of this, Grace raised the window at which she stood, and beckoned to the serjeant of the troop to approach nearer. He rode up to within a few yards of the house.

"Is that poor boy a prisoner, sir?" inquired Miss Cameron.

"Yes, ma'am," replied the serjeant, touching his hat.

"For what has he been taken up? What has he done?"

"Done, ma'am! Lord love you, ma'am--excuse me--he has done nothing as I knows of; but our captain suspects him of being a rebel."

"Where did you fall in with him?"

"Why, ma'am, we picked him up on the road as we came along this morning. Captain saw him skulking behind a hedge. 'There's a blackguard-looking rascal, serjeant,' says he. 'He has the rebel cut about him as perfect as a picture. Pick him up, and strap him to one of the fellows, and we'll see what the cat-o'-nine-tails will bring out of him.'"

"Gracious heaven!" exclaimed Grace, shocked at this instance of military despotism, "is it possible that such a state of things exists--that you can apprehend and punish whomsoever you please, without a shadow of crime being established against them? You cannot have such a power, serjeant. It is impossible."

"Oh, bless you, ma'am, but we have, though," replied the serjeant. "Captain may hang or shoot a dozen every day, if he has a mind, without ever axing them a question. We could never get through our work otherwise; and, as to this young rogue's being a rebel, there's no doubt of it. He's all in rags; and, as captain says, every poor-looking ragged rascal is sure to be a rebel."

"Pretty grounds, truly, on which to subject a man to the treatment of a felon!" said Miss Cameron. "However," she continued, "will it be any dereliction of your duty, serjeant, to permit me to speak for a moment with the unfortunate lad?"

"By no means, ma'am," replied the serjeant. "Provided he's kept fast till captain's pleasure is known regarding him, I don't see it signifies a pinch of gunpowder who speaks to him."

Availing herself of the permission granted her, Grace was in an instant afterwards beside the prisoner, whose looks brightened up with an expression of extreme delight as she approached him. After asking the lad a few trivial questions, she observed him cautiously stealing something forth from a concealment in his dress. It was a letter. Watching an opportunity, he slipped this document unperceived into her hand.

Trembling with agitation, although she knew not well for what, Grace crammed the letter into her bosom, and saying to its bearer that she would speak with him again, she hurried into the house, and sought a retired apartment, when, pulling it from her bosom, she discovered, from the handwriting of the address, that it was from Malcolm M'Gregor. With a beating heart and trembling hand, she opened it, and read--

"DEAREST GRACE,--All is lost. The Prince's army is defeated and
dispersed, and I am now a wandering fugitive in my native land,
with the axe of the executioner suspended over my neck. This is
a dreadful reverse, and carries with it destruction to all our
hopes--to mine, individually, utter annihilation. I have only
time to add, dearest Grace, that, if I can escape the
bloodhounds that are in pursuit of us, I must seek safety in a
foreign land. I will, however, endeavour to see you before I
go. I _must_ see you, Grace, and shall do so at all hazards. I
have hitherto escaped unhurt. God bless you," &c. &c.

With mingled feelings of joy and grief--joy to find that her lover still lived, and had escaped the dangers of the battle-field, and grief for the unfortunate position in which he was now placed--Grace returned the letter to her bosom, and hastily left the apartment, when she was met by her father, who insisted upon her joining Captain Stubbs and himself at dinner; requesting her, at the same time, to conduct herself in a conciliatory way to the captain, and thus to endeavour to make her peace with him, as he was such a man, he said, as might occasion them trouble, if allowed to leave the house with any feelings of irritation towards them.

Obedient to her father's commands, Grace joined the party, and not only avoided giving Stubbs any farther offence, but got so far into his good graces that she actually prevailed on him to order the release of the boy who had been the bearer of Malcolm's letter--an order which Grace took care to see immediately fulfilled; nay, Captain Stubbs not only did this, but began, after dinner, when his temper had been mollified by the good things of which he had partaken, to play the gallant--and in this character he was standing at a window with Miss Cameron, when, suddenly dropping the awkward badinage which he had been attempting--

"But who the devil have we got here?" he exclaimed, his eye having caught a man in a mean dress, who, on discovering the dragoons as he approached the house, suddenly stopped short, and, in evident surprise and alarm, sprung to one side of the road, and endeavoured to conceal himself behind a low and rather thin hedge that ran parallel to the house, and directly in front of it. Stubbs pointed him out to Miss Cameron; she started, and turned pale; for, meanly dressed as he was, she at once recognised in the stranger her lover, Malcolm M'Gregor. He had come, she doubted not, in this disguise, to pay the visit which his letter had promised. In the meantime, Stubbs, flushed with the wine he had drunk, and desirous of showing Miss Cameron his promptitude and energy on sudden emergencies, threw up the window violently, and called out to the soldiers to pursue the fugitive, and to fire upon him, if he did not surrender himself. It was in vain that Miss Cameron--at this trying moment forgetting the additional danger to which the warm and earnest expressions of her interest in the fate of her lover would subject him--implored Captain Stubbs to allow him to escape.

"For Heaven's sake," she exclaimed, in the agony of her feelings, and seizing him almost convulsively by the hand as she spoke, "do not commit murder! Do not send the soldiers after him, captain. I will do anything for you--I will go on my bended knees to you," said the distracted girl, "if you will call your men back, and allow him to escape." To this appeal Stubbs made no other reply than by repeating, with additional vehemence, his orders to the soldiers; half-a-dozen of whom, with the serjeant at their head, now galloped furiously off in the direction which he pointed out. Then, turning round to Miss Cameron, with a look of mingled triumph and self-complacency--

"Why, madam," he said, "we must do our duty. We soldiers mustn't stand on trifles. The fellow must be shot; and, if he isn't shot, he must be hanged--that's all; so there's but two ways of it--eh? Tight work that, madam, isn't it--eh?"

At this instant, the report of a carbine was heard, and immediately after, another and another.

"Oh heavens! they have killed him, they have killed him!" exclaimed Miss Cameron, covering her face with her hands, and throwing herself into a seat, in an agony of horror and despair. "They have murdered him, the ruthless savages. Oh Malcolm, my beloved Malcolm! that you had never loved me, that you had never looked on this fatal face!--for it is I, and I alone, that have been the cause of your cruel and untimely death." And here the violence of her feelings choked her utterance, and she burst into a flood of tears.

Fortunately Captain Stubbs was too intently occupied in watching the proceedings of the party who were in pursuit of the fugitive, to hear all that Miss Cameron had permitted to escape her in her agony; or, indeed, to notice her distress at all. Quizzing-glass in hand, he was employed in looking at the chase, and ever and anon giving utterance to the various feelings which its various turns excited.

"Ha, you've pinned him at last, serjeant," muttered the captain, in his own peculiar and elegant phraseology, on perceiving the fugitive stumble and fall, immediately after a carbine had been discharged at him by the officer just named.

"No, you blind rascal," again muttered Stubbs, on seeing the fallen man taking once more to his feet, and clearing hedges and ditches with an activity that sufficiently showed he had sustained, at any rate, no serious injury. "You haven't touched him. I'll have you back to the ranks again for that, you scoundrel, or my name's not Stubbs." And, after a moment's pause--"Ay, ay, you villain," he added, "he's off, he's off; you'll never get within shot of him again. Hang me, if I don't get every man of you flogged to death for this!"

When Captain Stubbs said the fugitive had escaped, he was right. The nature of the ground had been all along greatly in his favour, being so interspersed and encumbered with hedges, ditches, walls, and trees, that the dragoons had little or no chance of ever being able to overtake him, should he escape their carbines; and these had hitherto been discharged at him without effect.

The last effort of the fugitive--that which secured his final escape, and which had called forth the expressions of Captain Stubbs' displeasure--was his plunging into a thick plantation that grew on the face of a steep and rocky hill, where it was impossible for the troopers to pursue him. The latter finding this, two or three shots were discharged at random into the wood; a volley of oaths followed, and the pursuit was abandoned.

The dragoons turned their horses' heads towards Duntruskin House, where they soon after rejoined their comrades.

During the pursuit, Miss Cameron awaited its result in deep but silent wretchedness, till, aroused by the delightful intelligence communicated involuntarily by Stubbs, that the fugitive yet lived--

"He is not killed, then!" she exclaimed, in a paroxysm of rapture, starting from her seat, her face flushed with joy, and her soft dark eye beaming with inexpressible happiness. "He is not killed, then!" she said, rushing wildly to the window. "Oh, thank God, thank God for his mercies!" she exclaimed, on perceiving that the fugitive appeared to be still unhurt, and that he was continuing his exertions to escape, with unabated energy.

Unable, however, to look longer upon the doubtful and critical struggle between the pursuers and the pursued, she had again retired from the window, and again her fears for the eventual safety of her lover had returned. These, however, Captain Stubbs' latter exclamations had once more removed.

"Off! is he off?" she wildly repeated, taking up the words in which the joyful event had been communicated; and she again flew to the window. "Dear Captain Stubbs," she exclaimed--forgetting in the excitation of the moment all former feelings and antipathies regarding him she addressed--"is he indeed off? Has--has"--and she was about to pronounce the name of M'Gregor, when a sudden recollection of the imprudence of doing so struck her, and she merely added, "has the man really escaped?" Having quickly satisfied herself that it was so, Miss Cameron, unable longer to control the warm and overflowing sense of gratitude which she felt towards the Omnipotent Being who had protected the beloved object of her affections in the moment of peril, clasped her hands together, looked upwards with a countenance strongly expressive of thankfulness and joy, and breathed a short but fervent prayer of thanksgiving.

The scene was one which Stubbs could not comprehend. He thought it very odd, but he said nothing. In a few seconds after, Grace left the apartment--a step to which she was urged by two motives. Captain Stubbs had threatened that he would instantly go himself, with his whole troop, on foot, to search the wood in which the fugitive had concealed himself--a measure which, if executed, would almost certainly secure the capture of M'Gregor, or, at least, render it a very probable event. The other motive, proceeding from this circumstance, was, to see whether she could not fall on any means of preventing the threatened expedition.

On leaving the apartment, Grace met the serjeant on his way to Captain Stubbs, to make his report of the proceeding in which he had just been engaged. Without well knowing for what precise purpose, but with some general idea that she might prevail on him, by some means or other, to second her views in defeating the object of Stubbs' proposed search, she stopped him, and hurriedly conducted him into an unoccupied apartment.

"Oh, serjeant!" she exclaimed, in great agitation, and scarcely knowing what she said, "will you--will you do me a favour--a great favour, serjeant? For God's sake, do not refuse me!"

The man looked at her in utter amazement.

"Your captain," continued Grace, "proposes renewing the pursuit of the person that has just escaped you. I am interested in that person. Now, serjeant, will you do what you can to prevent this search taking place, or to render it unavailing if it does?" And with these last words she put a purse, containing ten guineas, into the serjeant's hand.

The man looked from the gift to the giver, and again from the latter to the former, in silent astonishment, for several seconds. At length--

"Why, miss," he said, "since you _are_ in such a taking about this matter, and as I don't mind a poor fellow's escaping now and then, I _will_ do what I can to serve you in the case." And he put the purse into his pocket.

"Oh, thank you, serjeant, thank you!--God bless you for these words!" said Grace, in a rapture of joy. "But how--how, serjeant, will you manage it?"

"Oh, leave me alone for that, miss," replied the latter; "I knows how to manage it, and I'll do it effectually, I warrant you. I can send captain in any direction I please on the shortest notice. He don't like the smell of gunpowder, though he be a soldier; and, when he can, always follows the wind that brings it."

In a few minutes after, Serjeant Higginbotham was in the presence of the pink of chivalry, Captain Stubbs. Having informed the latter briefly of the result of the pursuit, he added, that, when he was out, he had seen "something suspicious."

"What was it?" inquired Stubbs, in a tone and with a look of alarm.

"Why, sir," responded the serjeant, "a crowd of people assembled on the face of the hill where the fellow escaped us."

"The devil! Are they rebels, think you, serjeant?" said the captain, with increased perturbation.

"And, please your honour, I think as how there is no doubt of it," replied Higginbotham.

"In great force, you say, serjeant?" added Stubbs; "in overwhelming force--madness to attack them--you can depone on oath before a court-martial?"

"To be sure I can, sir," rejoined the former.

"That's a good fellow; order my horse to the door instantly, and let the men fall in."

These orders were immediately obeyed; and in the next instant Captain Stubbs appeared at the door.

"In what direction are these rascals?" he said, addressing the serjeant, as he was about to mount his charger.

"In that direction, your honour," replied the latter, pointing towards the place of M'Gregor's concealment.

"Ah!" ejaculated Captain Stubbs; and, in a moment after, he was in full gallop, followed by his whole troop, in the opposite direction.

We should certainly fail, were we to attempt to describe the joy of Grace Cameron when she beheld the departure of the dragoons. That joy, as will readily be believed, was extreme.

For some time after the troopers had left the house, Grace continued to keep her eye on the spot where M'Gregor had disappeared, in the hope that he would again show himself. Nor was she mistaken. Malcolm appeared also to have been able to see from his hiding-place the departure of the soldiers; for they had not been more than a quarter-of-an-hour gone, when he again appeared at the skirts of the wood where he had been concealed, and made towards the house. On recognising him, Grace hastened out to meet him.

This meeting we need not describe, as it very much resembled all other meetings of a similar kind--only that it was, perhaps, a little more interesting, from the peculiar situation of the parties. The lovers had much to say to each other, and much was said in a very small space of time. Amongst other things, Malcolm informed Grace that it was his intention to request her father for an asylum for three or four days, when, he said, it was his intention to proceed to the coast, and to endeavour to effect his escape from thence to France.

The asylum that Malcolm requested was readily granted by Mr Cameron, and a place of concealment was found for him, which promised every security--and there was need that it should; for, on the following day, the surrounding country was filled with soldiers, who were everywhere making the strictest search for the fugitive insurgents; and of these several parties had already paid domiciliary visits to Duntruskin House.

The constant state of terror and alarm for the safety of her lover, in which these visits kept Grace Cameron, and the imminent risk he ran of being discovered, at length suggested to the romantic girl an undertaking which well accorded with her strong affection and noble spirit; but which certainly, had it been known, must have appeared to all but herself as utterly hopeless.

On the second day after the occurrence just related, Grace, seizing such an opportunity as she thought favourable for her purpose, suddenly flung her arms around her father's neck, and said, smiling affectionately in his face as she spoke--

"Father, I am going to ask you a favour."

"Well, Grace, my dear," replied he, "I tell you, before you ask it, that, if it be reasonable in itself, and within my power, I shall grant it."

"Thank you, my dear father," said Grace; "but I am afraid you will _not_ think it reasonable. Nevertheless, you must grant it."

"Nay, Grace, that's more than I bargain for," rejoined Mr Cameron, laughing. "But let me know what it is you want, and I shall then be better able to judge of its propriety."

"Well, then, father," replied Grace, "will you allow me to go from home for two days, to take my pony with me--for I mean to travel--and allow Macpherson to accompany me?"

"Where do you propose going to, Grace?" inquired her father, rather gravely.

"That's a question, father," said his daughter, "that relates to a part of the bargain I mean to drive with you which I have not yet arrived at, and which will seem to you the most unreasonable of the whole, I daresay. You must not ask me where I am going to, nor what I'm going to do. On my return, you shall know all."