Chapter II: Part 2

The moment that Agnes saw that I had got it, she came running out of the house, across the road, to hear as usual, the list of the killed and wounded read, and my neighbours gathered round about me. There had been, I ought to tell ye, a severe battle, and both the French and our army claimed the victory; from which we may infer, that there was no great triumph on either side. But, agreeably to my wife's request, I first read over the list of the killed, wounded, and _missing_. I got over the two first mentioned; but, oh! at the very sight of the first name upon the missing list, I clasped my hands together, and the paper dropped upon the ground.

"O Robie! my son! my son!" I cried aloud.

Agnes uttered a piercing scream, and cried, "O my bairn--what has happened my bairn? Is he dead! Tell me, is my Robie dead?"

Our neighbours gathered about her, and tried to comfort her; but she was insensible to all that they could say. The first name on the missing list was that of my gallant son. When the first shock was over, and I had composed myself a little, I also strove to console Agnes; but it was with great difficulty that we could convince her that Robin was not dead, and that the papers did not say he was wounded.

"Oh, then!" she cried, "what do they say about him. Tell me at once. Roger Goldie! how can ye, as the faither o' my bairn, keep me in suspense."

"O, dear Agnes," said I, "endeavour, if it be possible, to moderate your grief; I am sure ye know that I would not keep ye in suspense if I could avoid it. The papers only say that Robin is _amissing_."

"And what mean they by that?" she cried.

"Why," said I to her, "they mean that he, perhaps, pursued the enemy too far--or possibly that he may have fallen into their hands, and be a prisoner--but that he had not cast up when the accounts came away."

"Yes! yes!" she exclaimed with great bitterness, "and it perhaps means that his body is lying dead upon the field, but hasna been found."

And she burst out into louder lamentations, and all our endeavours to comfort her were in vain; though, in fact, my sufferings were almost as great as hers.

We waited in the deepest anxiety for several days, always hoping that we would hear some tidings concerning him, but none came. I therefore wrote to the War-Office, and I wrote also to his Colonel. From the War-Office I received a letter from a clerk, saying that he was commanded to inform me, that they could give me no information relative to Lieutenant Goldie, beyond what was contained in the public prints. The whole letter did not exceed three lines. You would have said that the writer had been employed to write a certain number of letters in a day, at so much a day, and the sooner he got through his work the better. I set it down in my mind that he had never had a son amissing on the field of battle, or he never would have written an anxious and sorrowing father such a cold scrawl. He did not even say that, if they got any tidings concerning my son, they would make me acquainted with them. He was only commanded to tell me that they did not know what I was, beyond every thing on earth, desirous to ascertain. Though perhaps, I ought to admit that, in a time of war, the clerks in the War-Office had something else to do than enter particularly into the feelings of every father that had a son in the army, and to answer all his queries.

From the Colonel, however, I received a long, and a very kind letter. He said many flattering things in praise of my gallant laddie, and assured me that the whole regiment deplored his being separated from them. He, however, had no doubt but that he had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and that, in some exchange of prisoners, or in the event of a peace, he would be restored to his parents and country again.

This letter gave us some consolation. It encouraged us to cherish the hope of pressing our beloved son again to our breasts, and of looking on his features, weeping and wondering at the alterations which time, war, and imprisonment had wrought upon them. But more than three years passed away, and not a syllable did we hear concerning him, that could throw the least light upon where he was, or whether he was dead or living. Anxiety preyed sadly upon his mother's health as well as upon her spirits, and I could not drive away a settled melancholy.

About that time a brother of mine, who was a bachelor, died in the East Indies, and left me four thousand pounds. This was a great addition to our fortune, and we hardly knew what to do with it. I may say that it made us more unhappy, for we thought that we had nobody to leave it to; and he who ought to have inherited it, and whom it would have made independent, we knew not whether he was in the land of the living, or a strange corpse in a foreign grave. Yet I resolved that, for his sake, I would not spend one farthing of it, but let it lie at interest; and I even provided in a will which I made, that unless he cast up, and claimed it, no one should derive any benefit from either principal or interest until fifty years after my death.

I have said, that the health of Agnes had broken down beneath her weight of sadness, and as she had a relation, who was a gentleman of much respectability, that then resided in the neighbourhood of Kelso, it was agreed that we should spend a few weeks in the summer at his house. I entertained the hope that society, and the beautiful scenery around Kelso, with the white chalky braes[A] overhung with trees, and the bonny islands in the Tweed, with mansions, palaces, and ruins, all embosomed in a paradise as fair and fertile as ever land could boast of, would have a tendency to cheer her spirits, and ease, if not remove, the one heavy and continuing sorrow, which lay like an everlasting nightmare upon her heart, weighing her to the grave.

Her relation was a well-educated man, and he had been an officer in the army in his youth, and had seen foreign parts. He was also quite independent in his worldly circumstances, and as hospitable as he was independent. There were at that period a number of French officers, prisoners, at Kelso, and several of them, who were upon their parole, were visiters at the house of my wife's relation.

There was one amongst them, a fine, though stern-looking man of middle age, and who was addressed by the appellation of Count Berthe. He spoke our language almost as well as if he had been a native. He appeared to be interested when he heard that my name was Goldie, and one day after dinner, when the cloth was withdrawn, and my wife's relation had ordered the punch upon the table--"Ha! Goldie! Goldie!" said the Count, repeating my name--"I can tell one story--which concerns me much--concerning, one Monsieur Goldie. When I was governor of the castle La----, (he called it by some foreign name, which I cannot repeat to you), there was brought to me, (he added), to be placed under my charge, a young British officer, whose name was Goldie. I do not recollect the number of his regiment, for he was not in uniform when brought to me. He was a handsome man, but represented as a terrible one, who had made a violent attempt to escape after being taken prisoner, and his desperate bravery in the field was also recorded. I was requested to treat him with the respect due to a brave man, but, at the same time, to keep a strict watch over him, and to allow him even less liberty than I might do to an ordinary prisoner. His being a captive did not humble him; he treated his keepers and his guards with as much contempt as though he had been their conqueror on the field. We had confined his body, but there was no humbling of his spirit. I heard so much of him, that I took an interest in the haughty Briton. But he treated me with the same sullen disdain that he showed towards my inferiors. I had a daughter, who was as dear to me as life itself, for she had had five brothers, and they had all fallen in the cause of the great emperor, with the tricolor on their brow, and the wing of the eagle over them. She was beautiful--beautiful as her sainted mother, than whom Italy boasted not a fairer daughter, (for she was a native of Rome.) Hers was not a beauty that you may see every day amongst a thousand in the regions of the north--hers was the rare beauty amongst ten thousand of the daughters of the sunny south, with a face beaming with as bright a loveliness, and I would say divinity, as the Medici. Of all the children which that fair being bore unto me, I had but one, a daughter, left--beautiful as I have said--beautiful as her mother. I had a garden beneath the castle, and over it was a terrace, in which the British prisoner, Goldie, was allowed to walk. They saw each other. They became acquainted with each other. He had despised all who approached; he had even treated me, who had his life in my hand, as a dog. But he did not so treat my daughter. I afterwards learned, when it was too late, that they had been seen exchanging looks, words, and signs with each other. He had been eighteen months my prisoner; and one morning when I awoke, I was told that my daughter was not to be found, and that the English prisoner, Lieutenant Goldie, also had escaped. I cursed both in my heart; for they had robbed me of my happiness--he had robbed me of my child; though she only could have accomplished it. Shortly after this, (and perhaps because of it,) I was again called into active service, where, in my first engagement, it was my lot to be made a prisoner, and sent here; and since then I have heard nothing of my daughter--my one, dear child--the image of her mother; and nothing of him--the villain who seduced her from me."

"Oh, sir," exclaimed I, "do not call him a villain, for if it be he that I hope it was, who escaped through the intrumentality of your daughter, and took her with him, he has not a drop of villain's blood in his whole body. Sir! sir! I have a son--a Lieutenant Goldie; and he has (as I hope) been a French prisoner from the time ye speak of. Therefore, tell me, I implore ye, what was he like. Was he six inches taller than his father, with light complexion, yellowish hair, an aqualine nose; full blue eyes, a mole upon his right cheek, and, at the time ye saw him, apparently, perhaps, from two-and-twenty to three-and-twenty years of age? Oh, sir--Count, or whatever they call ye--if it be my son that your daughter has liberated and gone away with, she has fallen upon her feet; she has married a good, a kind, and a brave lad; and, though I should be the last to say it, the son of an honest man, who will leave him from five to six thousand pounds, beside his commission."

By the description which he gave me, I had no doubt but that my poor Robie, and the laddie who had run away with his daughter, (or, I might say, the laddie with whom his daughter had run away,) were one and the same person.

I ran into the next room, crying, "Agnes! Agnes! hear, woman! I have got news of Robie!"

"News o' my bairn!" she cried, before she saw me. "Speak, Roger! speak!"

I could hardly tell her all that the French Count had told me, and I could hardly get her to believe what she heard. But I took her into the room to him, and he told her everything over again. A hundred questions were asked backward and forward upon both sides, and there was not the smallest doubt, on either of our parts, but that it was my Robie that his daughter had liberated from the prison, and run off with.

"But oh, sir," said Agnes, "where are they now--baith o my bairns--as you say I have twa? Where shall I find them?"

He said that he had but little doubt that they were safe, for his daughter had powerful friends in France, and that as soon as a peace took place, (which he hoped would not be long,) we should all see them again.

Well, the long-wished-for peace came at last--and in both countries the captives were released from the places of their imprisonment. I have already twice mentioned the infirm state of my wife's health; and we were residing at Spittal, for the benefit of the sea air and bathing, and the Spa Well, (though it had not then gained its present fashionable popularity,) when a post-chaise drove to the door of our lodgings. An elderly gentleman stepped off from the dicky beside the driver, and out of the chaise came a young lady, a gentleman, and two bonny bairns. In a moment I discovered the elderly gentleman to be my old friend the French Count. But, oh! how--how shall I tell you the rest! I had hardly looked upon the face of the younger stranger, when I saw my own features in the countenance of my long lost Robie! The lady was his wife--the Count's bonny daughter; and the bairns were their bairns. It is in vain for me to describe to you the feelings of Agnes; she was at first speechless and senseless, and then she threw her arms round Robie, and she threw them round his wife, and she took his bairns on her knee--and, oh! but she was proud at seeing herself a grandmother! We have all lived together in happiness from that day to this; and the more I see of Robie's wife, the more I think she is like an angel; and so thinks his mother. I have only to inform you that bold Jonathan Barlowman was forced to leave the country-side shortly after his valiant display of courage, and since then nobody in Dunse has heard whether he be dead or living and nobody cares. This is all I have to tell ye respecting the _false alarm_, and I hope ye are satisfied.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] It is evidently from the beautiful chalk cliff near Ednam House (though now not a very prominent object) that Kelso derives its name--as is proved by the ancient spelling.

HOGMANAY;

OR, THE LADY OF BALLOCHGRAY.

The last fifty years of mortal regeneration and improvement have effected more changes in the old fasts, and feasts, and merrymakings of Scotland, than twice and twice over that time of any other period since it became a nation. Every year we see the good old customs dying out, or strangled by the Protaean imp Fashion, who, in the grand march of improvement of which we are so proud, in the perking conceit of heirs-apparent of the millennium, seems to be the only creature that derives benefit from the eternal changes that, by-and-by, we fear, will turn our heads, and make us look _back_ for the true period of happiness and wisdom. But what enrageth us the more is, that, while all our fun of Beltane, Halloween, Hogmanay, Hanselmonday, and all our old merrymakings, are gone with our absentee lords and thanes--

"Wha will their tenants pyke and squeize,
And purse up all their rent;
Syne wallop it to far courts, and bleize
Till riggs and schaws are spent"--

and to whose contempt of our old customs we attribute a great part of their decay--we, in the very midst of the glorious improvement that has succeeded, are still cheated, belied, robbed, and plundered on all hands by political adventurers, private jobbers, and saintly hypocrites, in an artful, clean-fingered, and beautiful style of the trade, a thousand times more provoking than the clumsy, old-fashioned, _honest_ kind of roguery that used to be in fashion, when folk were not too large for innocent mirth, and not too wise for enjoying what was liked by their ancestors. The people cry improvement--so do we; but we cherish a theory that has no charm, in these days of absolute faith in politics and parliament for the regeneration of man, that the true good of society--that is, the improvement of the heart and morals of a great country--lies in a sphere far humbler than the gorgeous recesses of Westminster--the fireside; a place that in former days, was revered, and honoured, and cherished, not only as the cradle of morals, but the abode of soul-stirring joys, and the scene of the celebration of many old and sacred amusements which humanized the young heart, and moulded and prepared it for the reception of those feelings which are interwoven with the very principle of social good. A political wrangle is a poor substitute for the old moral tales of the winter evenings of old Scotland. Even our legends of superstitious fear carried in them the boon of heartfelt obligation, which, when the subject was changed for the duties of life, still retained its strength, and wrought for good. These things are all gone; and, dissatisfied as we are with the bold substitutes of modern wisdom, let us use that which they cannot take from us, our books of "auld lear," and refresh ourselves with a peep at Leslie, in the Hogmanay of 16--. Who has not heard of "Christ's Kirk" in the kingdom of Fife, that place so celebrated by King James, in his incomparable "Christ's Kirk on the Green," for the frolics of wooers and "kittys washen clean," and "damsels bright," and "maidens mild?" That celebrated town was no other than our modern Leslie; and, though we cannot say that that once favoured haunt of the satyrs of merrymaking has escaped the dull blight that comes from the sleepy eye of the owl of modern wisdom, we have good authority for asserting that long after James celebrated the place for its unrivalled festivities, the character of the inhabitants was kept for many an after-day; and Hogmanay was a choice outlet for the exuberant spirits of the votaries of Momus.

The day we find chronicled as remarkable for an exhibition of the true spirit of the Leslieans, went off as all days that precede a glorious jubilee at night generally do. The ordinary work of the "yape" expectants was, no doubt, apparently going on; but the looking of "twa ways" for gloaming was, necessarily, exclusive of much interest in the work of the day. The sober matrons, as they sat at the door on the "stane settle," little inclined to work, considered themselves entitled to a _feast_ of gossip; and even the guidman did not feel himself entitled to curb the glib tongue of his dame, or close up her ears with prudential maxims against the bad effects of darling, heart-stirring, soul-inspiring scandal. On that day there was no excise of the commodities of character. They might be bought or sold at a wanworth, or handed or banded about in any way that suited the tempers of the people. The bottle and the bicker had already, even in the forenoon, been, to a certain extent, employed as a kind of outscouts of the array that was to appear at night, and the gossipers were in that blessed state, between partial possession and full expectation, that makes every part of the body languid and lazy except the tongue. Around them the younkers, "hasty hensures" and "wanton winklots," were busy preparing the habiliments of the guysers--whose modes of masking and disguising were often regulated by the characters they were to assume, or the songs they had learned to chant for the occasion. Nor were these mimes limited to the urchin caste; for, in these days, wisdom had not got so conceited as to be ashamed of innocent mirth; and gaucy queens and stalwarth chiels exhibited their superiority only in acting a higher mask, and singing a loftier strain. The gossips did not hesitate to suspend the honeyed topic, to give sage counsel on the subject of the masking "bulziements;" and anon they turned a side look at the minor actors, the imps of devilry, who passed along with their smoking horns often made of the stem or "runt" of a winter cabbage, wherewith that night they would inevitably smoke out of "house and hauld" every devil's lamb of every gossip that did not open her hand and "deal her bread" to the guysers. Both parties, gossips and urchins, understood each other--like two belligerent powers asserting mutual rights, and contemplating each other with that look of half-concealed contention and defiance, which only tended to make the attack more inevitable.

The evening set in, and the witching hour--the keystone of night's black arch, twelve o'clock--was approaching. To go to bed on such an occasion, would have been held no better than for a jolly toper to shirk his bicker, a lover to eschew the trysting thorn, or a warrior to fly the scene of his country's glory; neither would it have been safe, for no good guyser of the old school would take the excuse of being in bed in lieu of the buttered pease-bannock--the true hogmanay cake, to which he was entitled, by "the auld use and wont" of Scotland; and far better breathe the smoke of the "smeikin horn" on foot, and with the means of self-defence at command, than lie choked in bed, and "deaved" by the stock and horn, the squalling bagpipe, and the eternal--

"Hery, Hary, Hubblischow,
See ye not quha is come now!"

ringing in one's ears during the whole night. The young were out; the old were in; but all were equally up and doing the honours of the occasion. At auld Wat Wabster's door, one minstrel company were singing--"Great is my sorrow;" and Marion, his daughter, with

"Her glitterand hair, that was sae gowden,"

dealt out, with leal hand, the guyser's bannock. At the very next door, Meg Johnston was in the act of being "smecked oot" by a covey of twelve devils, who had inserted into every cranny a horn, and were blowing, with puffed cheeks, a choking death in every blast. One kept watch, to give the concerted signal when Meg should appear with her stick. On which occasion they were off in an instant; but only to return when Meg had let out the smoke, and satisfied herself that she would be no more tormented that night, to blow her up and out again, with greater vigour and a denser smoke than before. Farther on, Gib Dempster's dame, Kate, is at her door, with the bottle in her hand, to give another menyie of maskers their "hogmanay," in the form of a dram; and Gib is at her back, eyeing her with a squint, to count how many interlusive applications of the cordial she will make to her own throat before she renounce her _opportunity_. In the middle of the street, Gossip Simson is hurrying along, with the necessaries in her lap, to treat her "cusin," Christy Lowrie, with a bit and a drop; and ever and anon she says, "a guid e'en" to this one, and "a guid e'en" to that; and, between the parties, her head is ever thrown back, as if she were counting the stars; and, every time the act is repeated, the bottle undergoes a perceptible diminution of its contents, till, by the time she reaches her "luving cusin's" door, it is empty; and honest John Simson, at her return, greets her with--"My feth, Jenny, ye've been at mony a hoose in Christ's Kirk this nicht, if ane may judge by yer bottle." At the same instant,

"Oh, leddy, help yer prisoneer
This last nicht o' the passing year,"

is struck up at the door; the stock and horn sounds lustily in the ears of her whose bottle is empty; and, obliged to send them away without either cake or sup, she hears sounding in her confused ears--

"The day will come when ye'll be dead.
An' ye'll neither care for meal nor bread;"

and, in a short time after, "Jamie the wight," an impling, with a tail of half-a-dozen minor and subordinate angels, begin blowing their smoking horns in at both door and window, till honest John is fairly smoked out, crying, as he hastens to the door--"This comes, Jenny, o' yer lavish kindness to yer cusins, that we hae naethin left in oor bottle, either to keep oot thae deevils' breath or wash't oot o' oor choking craigs." He is no sooner at the door than Geordie Jamieson accosts him in the usual style, and says he has come for his "hogmanay;" but John, knowing the state of the bottle, begins a loud cough, in the midst of the smoke, and cries, as he runs away from his house and visitor, (whom he pretends not to see for the smoke.) "It's a deevil o' a hardship to be smeeked oot o' ane's ain hoose."

"Now," mutters Jenny, as she hears him run away, "I'll no see his face till mornin; an' he'll come in as blind's a bat." And out she flies to catch him; but, in her hurry, she overturns Geordie, just as his lips are manufacturing the ordinary "Guid e'en to ye, Jenny!"

"The same to ye, Geordie," says she; and, with that boon, leaves him on her flight.

The truth was, that John had the same instinctive antipathy against a house where there was an empty bottle as rats have against deserted granaries. But, if honest John Simson's house was deserted because Jenny had made too free with the bottle, Wat Webster's was full, from a reason precisely the very opposite; for the fair Marion--who had

"Brankit fast and made her bonny"--

was, in the midst of a company, distributing the cakes and bannocks with maidenly grace; and many a swain that night was glad, while

"He quhissilit and he pypit baith,
To mak her blyth that meeting--
My hony heart, how says the sang,
There sall be mirth at oor greeting."

And among the rest might now be seen John Simson and his helpmate, and also Meg Johnston, who had been--either in reality, or, at least, with semblance sufficient to form their apology for calling where there was plenty of drink--smoked out of their own houses, amidst the cheers of the fire-imps. About this time, twelve o'clock was chimed from a rough-voiced bell of the Franciscan Monastery; and, some time after, in came Christy Lowrie, puffing and blowing, as if she too had experienced the effects of the thick breath of the fire-imps; and it might have been a fair presumption that her throat, like that of some of her predecessors, had been dried from pre-perceived gusts of Wat Webster's whisky rather than the smoke of the fire-angels, had it not been made quickly apparent, from other symptoms, that a horripilant terror had seized her heart and limbs, and inspired her tongue with the dry rattle of fearful intelligence. Never stopping till she got forward into the very heart of the company, seated round a blazing ingle, she sank upon a chair, and held up her hands to heaven, as if calling down from that quarter some supernatural agency to help in her difficulty. Every one turned and looked at her with wonder, mixed with sympathetic fear.

"What, in God's name, is this, Christy? Is he come?" cried Wat Webster.

"Oh! he's come again--he's come again!" she replied, in the midst of an effort to catch a spittle to wet her parched throat. "He's been at Will Pearson's, and Widow Lindsay's, and Rob Paterson's--he's gaun his auld rounds--and dootless he'll be here too. O Marion! Marion! gie me a spark to weet my throat."

The door was again opened, and in came Widow Lindsay in great haste and terror,

"I've seen him again!" cried she fearfully, and threw herself down in a corner of the lang settle.

"Are ye sure it's him, dame?" inquired Meg Johnston, who seemed perfectly to understand these extraordinary proceedings.

"Sure!" ejaculated the widow. "Hae I no tasted his _red whisky_; and has it no burned my throat till I maun ask Marion there to quench the fire wi' a spark o' human-liquor?"

The fire in the two terror-struck women's throats was soon extinguished by the "spark" they demanded; and a conversation, composed of twenty voices at once, commenced, the essence of which was, that, on the occasion of the last Hogmanay, a man dressed in a peculiar manner, with a green doublet, and hose of the same colour, a cravat, and a blue bonnet, had, just as twelve o'clock pealed from the monastery clock, made his appearance in the town, and conducted himself in such a manner as to excite much wonder among the inhabitants. Everything about him was mysterious; no person in that quarter had ever seen him before; there was nobody along with him; he came exactly at twelve; his face was so much shaded by a peculiar manner of wearing his bonnet and cravat that no one could say he had ever got a proper view of his features; he carried with him a bottle of liquor, which the people, from ignorance of its character, denominated _red whisky_, and which he distributed freely to all and sundry, without his stock ever running out, or being exhausted: his manners were free, boisterous, and hilarious; and he possessed the extraordinary power of making people love him _ad libitum_. He came as he went, without any one knowing more of him than that he was the very prince of good fellows; so exquisite a tosspot, that he seemed equal to the task (perhaps no difficult one) of making the whole town of Christ's Kirk drunk by the extraordinary spirit of his example; and so spirit-stirring a conjurer of odd thoughts and unrivalled humour, that melancholy itself laughed a gaunt laugh at his jokes; and gizzened gammers and giddy hizzies were equally delighted with his devilry and his drink. Arriving in the midst of frolic as high as ordinary mortal spirits might be supposed able to sublime human exultation, he effected such an increase of the corrybantic power of the laughing and singing genius of Hogmanay, that

"Never in Scotland had been seen
Sic dancing nor deray;
Nowther at Falkland on the green,
Nor Peebles at the play."

But, coming like a fire-flaught, like a fire-flaught he and his red whisky had departed; and it was not until he had gone, and one tosspot met another tosspot, and gossip another gossip, and compared notes, and exchanged shrewd guesses, eloquent winks, and pregnant vibrations of wondering noddles, that the mysterious stranger was invested with all the attributes to which he was, by virtue of his super-human powers, so clearly entitled. He was immediately elevated to the place which, in those days, was reserved in every cranium for the throne of the genius of superstition; yea he of the red cravat and red liquor was the never-ending subject of conversation, investigation, speculation, and consternation of the good folks of the town of Christ's Kirk. While the terror he had inspired was still fresh on the minds of the people, he returned at the exact hour of twelve on the subsequent Halloween. He brought again his bottle of red liquor, was dressed in the same style, wore the same red cravat, and was invested with the same sublimating powers of extravagant merriment. He went his old rounds; cracked nuts with the kittys; ducked for the apple, which never escaped his mouth; threw the weight in the barn; spaed fortunes with the Mauses; drank with the tosspots--

"If you can be blest the day,
Ne'er defer it till the morn--
Peril still attends delay;
As the fools will find, when they
Have their happy hour forborne;"

and, by means of his wild humour and exhilarating drink, set all the scene of his former exploits in an uproar of mixed terror, jollity, superstition, and amazement. Every one, not possessed of fear, scrutinized him; those (and they were many) who were stricken with terror, avoided him as if he had in reality been the gentleman in black, as indeed many at that time alleged he was; some who had heard of him, watched to catch a passing glimpse of him; but, wonderful as it may seem, the jolly stranger again disappeared, and no one, even those who had got royally drunk with him, could say aught more of him than was said on the prior occasion; viz., that he was the very prince of good fellows, if he should be the "very big-horned Deil himsel." On his second disappearance, the point was no longer a moot one, "Who the devil he could be?" for the very question, as put, decided the question before it was answered. The point was just as lucid as ever was the spring of St Anthony, and no one could be gravelled, where there was not a grain of sand to interrupt the vision. There was not in the limits of the guid toun a dame or damsel, greybeard, or no-beard, that possessed within the boundaries of their cerebral dominions a single peg on which they could hang a veritable or plausible doubt of the true character, origin, and destination of this twelve-o'clock visiter of the good old town of "Christ's Kirk on the Green."

Such was the state and condition of public opinion in the town of Leslie on this most important and engrossing subject, on the breaking of the day with which our history begins--this eventful Hogmanay. As the evening approached, every one trembled; but the inspiration of incipient drams had had the effect of so far throwing off the incubus as to enable some of the inhabitants, and, in particular, those we have mentioned, to go about the forms of the festival with decent freedom; while the guysers and "reekers," after the manner of buoyant youth, had been flirting with their terrors, and singing and blowing to "keep their spirits up," in the execution of what they conceived to be a national duty, as well as very good individual fun. But there was little real sport in the case; and we would give it as a stanch, and an unflinching opinion, were it put to us, that the terror of the stranger, and not a love of the liquor she carried, was the true cause of Jenny Simson's having emptied the bottle before she arrived at the residence of Christy Lowrie. Nay, more, we might safely allege--and there is no affidavit in the case--that there might have been more than smoke in the cause of the rapid flight of John Simson and Meg Johnston from their own houses to that of Wat Webster; and more than the roses in the cheeks of the fair Marion, or Wat Webster's pith of anecdote, that produced the congregation of individuals round his "blazing ingle," at the approach of the eerie hour of twelve, when it was probable the mysterious stranger would again appear. Be all this as it may--and we have no wish to overstate a case in which it is scarcely possible to carry language too far--there cannot be a doubt that the bells of the Franciscan monastery, as they tolled, in reverberating sounds, the termination of the old year and the beginning of the new, on that eventful night, struck a panic into the boldest Heich Hutcheon that ever figured in "Christ's Kirk on the Green."

The statement of Christy Lowrie was perfectly true. Just as the bell tolled, the identical personage, with the red cravat, was seen hurrying forward with his ordinary agility--taking immense strides, and, at times, laughing with the exuberance of his buoyant spirits, on the eve of being gratified by his darling fun--by the east end of the town. The moon threw a faint beam on him as he passed, and exhibited him first to a company of guysers who were chanting at the door of Will Pearson--

"O lusty Maye, with Flora queen."

The song was cut by a severed breath, and, uttering a loud scream, the whole party darted off at full speed, and, as they flew, spread the dreadful intelligence, that he of the red cravat was hurrying into the town from the east. The news was just what was expected; hundreds were waiting _aperto ore_ to receive it; and the moment they did receive it, they fled to communicate the intelligence to others. Guysers, reekers, gossips, and tosspots, laid down their songs, their horns, their scandal, and their stoups, and acknowledged their Hogmanay occupation gone. The startling words--"He's come, he's come!" passed from mouth to mouth. Some shut up their houses, to prevent him from coming into them; and many who were solitary, sought refuge in the houses of their neighbours. Some went out of the town entirely, and sought protection from the abbot of the monastery; and many stood about the corners of the passages and the ends of houses, consulting what should be done in this emergency they had so long looked for, and were so poorly provided against. In every quarter, fear reigned with absolute sway; and if, in any instances, there was exhibited any portion of courage, it was either derived from the protecting power of a crucifix, or assumed in spite of the collapsing heart of real terror.

But all this did not prevent the stranger from going through his wonted routine. His long strides, and extreme eagerness to get again into the heart of his former extravagant jollity, brought him very soon to the threshold of his old tosspot, Will Pearson, who, with his wife Betty, was sitting at the fire, engaged in a low-toned conversation, on the very subject of him of the red cravat. The door was burst open--the stranger entered with a loud laugh and boisterous salutation.

"A good new year to thee," said he, "Will Pearson!" And he took, at the same time, out of a side-pocket, the identical bottle, with a long neck, and a thin waist, and containing the same red whisky he had been so lavish of on former occasions, and set it upon the table with a loud knock that rang throughout the small cottage.

Will Pearson and his wife Betty were riveted to the langsettle on which they sat. Neither of them could move, otherwise they would have either gone out at the back window, or endeavoured to get past the stranger, and hurried out of the door. The quietness of the street told them eloquently that there was no one near to give them assistance; and such was the enchantment (they said) thrown over them by the extraordinary personage, that they were fixed to their seats as firmly as if they had been tied by cords.

"A good new year to thee!" said the stranger again; and he reached forth his hand, and seized two flasks that lay on a side table, and which they had been using in the convivialities of the day. These he placed upon the table with a loud clank; and, laying hold of a three-footed creepy, he sat down right opposite the trembling pair, and proceeded to empty out the red liquor into the flasks, which he did in the most flourishing and noble style of valiant topers.

"Here, my good old tosspot, Will Pearson!" said he, as he handed to him one of the flasks. "I love thee, man, and have called on thee the first of all the inhabitants of Christ's Kirk. Ha! by the holy rude, what a jolly cruise I shall have!--I have looked forward for it since the last time thou and I reduced the consistency of our corporations to the texture of souls, through which the moon might have shone, by the power of this inimitable liquor. Ho, man, had not we a jolly time of it last time we met? Drink, man!"

And he emptied his flask, and flung it down upon the table, with a bold and reckless air, as if he did not care whether its continuity might be maintained against the force of the bang with which he disposed of it.

Will Pearson was unable to speak a single syllable; and the flask that had been filled for him stood upon the table untouched. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the stranger, and his skin as pale as a corpse. Betty was in the same state of immovable terror. Every word that fell from his lips was a death-knell--every drop of his red drink was as much liquid fire--and every look was a flame.

"Why won't drink, Will Pearson, mine good old crony?" said he again, with the same boisterous manner. "What grieves thee, man? and Betty too?--what loss hast thou sustained? Cuffed by fortune? Broken on her wheel? Ha! ha! I despise the old gammer, and will laugh out my furlough, though my lungs should crack in throwing off the burden.

"'This warld does ever flight and wary,
Fortune sae fast her wheel does cary,
Na time but turn can ever rest;
For nae false charge suld ane be sary,
And to be merry, I think it best.'

Pull up thy jaws, Will Pearson, and pull into them this flask, and thou shalt be again my merry tosspot."

Will and his wife were still under the influence of their fear, and stared at him in amazement.

"Well, and thou wilt not," he cried, rising hastily, "may the Devil take on for't! My time is counted, and I must stuff as much fun into the compass of an hour as may serve me for the coming year. Will Pearson, thou and I might have had a right jolly time of it. I warrant the gallant Rob Paterson will welcome me in a different manner. The sight of this is enough for Rob," (taking up the bottle;) "and as for this--ha! ha! what goodness getteth not the fire claims."

And throwing the liquor into the ingle, which blazed up a large and fearful flame by the strength of the spirit, he sallied out, and at the same moment a loud scream--coming from some bolder investigators, who had ventured near the house, and seen the sudden conflagration, followed by the exit of the stranger--rung in echoes all around. But the stranger heeded not these trifling indications of the effect of his visit. Resuming his long strides and pushing-on activity of manner, he soon arrived at the house of Rob Paterson, who was at the very moment addressing a figure of the Virgin.

"A good new year to thee, Rob Paterson!" cried the stranger, as he sat down upon a kind of chair by the side of the table, and, taking out his strange-fashioned bottle of red spirits, banged it down with a noise that made Rob start and shake all over.

"Here again, thou seest, Rob Paterson," continued he. "We must have another jolly bout. Thou knowest my time is short. Let us begin, for my body feels the weight of its own clay. Before the Virgin, Rob? Ha! ha! man, art going to die? Come, man--

"When grim Death is looking for us,
We are toping at our bowls;
Bacchus joins us in the chorus--
Death, begone!--here's none but souls."

Drink, Rob Paterson, and thou'lt pray the better to the Virgin."

And he held out the bottle to Rob, after having put it bodily to his mouth, and taking a long draught as an example to the latter, who was known to despise flasks. Rob turned up his eyes to the Virgin, and got from her some confidence, if not courage. He looked at the tempting bottle, beautiful in its fulness and total freedom from the contaminating society of flasks or tankards; then he turned a fearful eye on its laughing, rioting possessor, and anon sought again the face of the saint.

"Hast lost thine ancient spirit, Rob Paterson?" said the stranger. What hath that spare figure, made of dry wood, to do with the mellow fuddling of our noses? Come, man--Time flies; let us wet his wings, and keep him fluttering a while over our heads.

"'With an O and an I,
Now are we furder found,
Drink thou to me, and I to thee,
And let the cup go round.'"

"But wha, in the Devil's name, are ye?" now said Rob Paterson, after many an ineffectual effort to put the question.

"Ha! ha!" answered the stranger, "does Rob Paterson ask a man who is introduced by this friend of noble red-blood, who he is? Why, man, I am Rob Paterson's tosspot. Isn't that enough?"

"No quite," answered Rob, drawing nearer the Virgin. "Satan himself might use the same words; and I crave the liberty to say in your presence, that I hae nae wish to be on drinking terms wi' his Majesty."

And Rob eyed him fearfully as he thus alluded to the subject of the town's fears, and again sought the face of the saint.

"Ah, Rob Paterson, my once cherished toper," replied the stranger, "I sorrow for thy change. Thine ancient spirit has left thee, and thou hast taken up with wooden idols, in place of the well-filled jolly bottle of thy and my former love. Well, may the Devil take on for't!--I care not. Thou mayst repent of thy folly when I am gone.

"'Robene thou has hard soung and say,
In gesties and stories auld--
The man that will not quhen he may,
Sall haif nocht quhen he wald.'"

Never mair, Rob Paterson, shalt thou have offer of spirit of wine. It shall go there first!"

And, taking a mouthful of the red liquor, the stranger squirted it in the fire, and raised a mighty flame that flared out into the very middle of the street, and produced another echoing cry or scream from the terrified inhabitants. He departed in an instant, and left Rob in a state of agitation he had never felt before at the departure of a guest with a well-filled bottle of good liquor.

The stranger passed out at the door with his usual bold precipitude, and again plied his long limbs in making huge strides along the street, for the house of another crony. He took no notice of the extraordinary demeanour of the inhabitants, who were seen flying away from corners and angles where they had nestled, for the purpose of seeing him come out in a flame of fire from Rob Paterson's, as he had done from Will Pearson's. He strode on, neither looking to the right nor to the left, till he came to Widow Lindsay's.

"A good new year to thee, Dame Lindsay!" said he, as he entered the house by opening the door, which the widow thought she had barred when she shoved the bolt beyond the staple, and found her sitting by the fire counting her rosary, and muttering prayers, with eyes upturned to heaven.

"Holy Mary, save me!" she muttered, as she heard him enter by the supposed locked door. "He's come at last." And she retreated to a corner of the room, and prayed fervently for deliverance.

"Thy throat has doubtless good memory of me and mine," continued the stranger, as he placed on the table the same extraordinary bottle, the shape and dimensions of which were as vivid in the mind of Dame Lindsay as was the colour of the red cravat. "My male tosspots have forgot the taste of my red liquor," he continued; "but what wet gossip's throat ever forgot what nipped it. Come, dame, and let us have a right hearty jorum of this inimitable drink." And, for want of better measure, he seized lustily a bicker that lay near him, and dashed a quantity of the liquor into it. "Ha! I forgot. Get thee for Meg Johnston thy gossip, dame, and let us be merry together. Meg is a woman of a thousand. What a lusty hold she takes of a brimming bicker, and how her eye lightens and brightens as she surveys the swimming heaven under her nose! Come, dame--what ails?"

The only reply he got was a groan, and the rustle of Dame Lindsay's quivering habiliments.

"By my own saint, this town of Christ's Kirk has a change upon it!" he continued. "Last time I was here, it was as merry as King James when he sang of it. The young and the old hailed me as the prince of good fellows, and the wenches and wives--ha! ha!

"'To dans thir damysells them dight,
Thir lasses light of laits;
They were sae skych when I them nicht,
They squeild like ony gaits.'"

Dame Lindsay, I perceive what thou wantest, to melt thee into thy former jollity. Thou'rt coquetting in the corner there for a kiss; and, by the holy rude, thou shalt not want it for the space of the twinkling of thine eye."

He rose for the purpose of applying the emollient he had threatened; but a loud scream evinced that a woman, however much she may worship his Satanic Majesty, cares not for his familiarities. The widow fainted; and what may be supposed her feelings, when she found, on coming to herself, that that identical and terrific red liquor had had a share in her recovery! Again she screamed; but no kindly neighbour came to rescue her from her perilous situation. Those who heard her cries, had many strange thoughts as to what species of punishment she was undergoing, for her sins. The conjectures were endless. "What could he be doing to Widow Lindsay?" was the universal question. Some supposed that she was in the act of being carried off, and was struggling to get out of his talons; some looked for the passing flame, in the midst of which, the poor widow, clasped in his arms, would be seen on her luminous journey to the lower world; and there were not few who pretended to find, in the past life of the wretched victim, a very good legitimate cause for the visit of the stranger, and the severity he was clearly exercising towards her.

"Thou'lt be the better for thy faint, Widow Lindsay," said the stranger, as she recovered, "seeing that what blood it has sent from thy heart, will be returned with the addition of that liquor which is truly the water of life. Dost forget, good widow, that, when I was last here, thou and Meg Johnston would have fought for a can of it, if I had not made the can two? Come now, and let us fuddle our noses till they be as red as the liquor itself, and thy spectacles shew thee two noses, before they melt with the heat of their ruby supporter.

"'However this world do change and vary,
Oh, let us in heart never more be sary.'"

"Avaunt ye! in the name o' the five holy wounds!" muttered the widow, as she held up the Sathanifuge crow in his face.

"Well, and if thou wilt not, here goes!" replied he, as he threw the contents of the bicker in the fire, which blazed up till the house seemed, to those waiting fearfully in the distance, to be in flames.

Many an eye was now directed to the door and windows, to see Widow Lindsay take her pyromantic flight through the flaming fields of ether; and they continued their gaze till they saw him of the red cravat sally forth, when fear closed up the vision, and they saw no more. Meanwhile he strode on, singing all the way--

"Full oft I muse, and be's in thocht;
How this false world is aye on flocht,"

till he came to the door of Meg Johnston's cottage. He found it deserted; and then stalked on to honest John Simson's, which was in like manner empty.

"What can this mean?" he said to himself, as he bent his long steps to Wat Webster's, where fearful messengers, as we have seen, had already preceded him. "My person has lost its charm, my converse its interest, and my drink its spirit-stirring power. But we shall see what Wat Webster and his Dame Kitty, and the fair Marion, say to the residue of my authority. Ah, Marion, as I think of thee--

"'How heises and bleizes
My heart wi' sic a fyre,
As raises these praises
That do to heaven aspire.'"

"Ha! ha! I will there outdevil all my devilries. My fire-chariots have as yet flown off without a passenger; but this night I shall not go home alone."

And he continued striding onwards in the deserted and silent passage, till he came to Wat Webster's, where the collected inmates were all huddled together round the fire, in that state of alarm produced by the intelligence of Christy Lowry and Widow Lindsay, and already partly set forth by us heretofore. Bang up went the door.