Chapter IX: An Apparition (4)

Having said this, the kind-hearted shepherd conducted Gordon to his house, which was close at hand, and gave him all the entertainment he had so generously promised. Here Gordon remained all night; and, on the following morning, prepared for his departure, having now resolved to return to his old friends, the gipsies.

Previous to his setting out, his kind host suggested that he should strip himself of everything about his apparel that might discover the side to which he had belonged—a suggestion with which Gordon immediately complied; when his entertainer supplied the deficiencies thus occasioned, by presenting him with a shepherd’s plaid and bonnet, to which he added a small sum of money.

Thus provided, refreshed, and, we may add, disguised, Gordon took the road, and on the third day thereafter, arrived in safety at the encampment of his old friends, which, knowing their haunts, he had no difficulty in finding.

The joy of the whole gang, and particularly of Jean and her daughter, on seeing him so soon again, was excessive. Jean hugged him to her bosom, and in a rapture of delight, poured out upon him a torrent of the most endearing epithets; while her daughter, though not less overjoyed, sought, with maidenly modesty, to conceal the happiness she felt. But it would not hide. The smile and the tear which she could not suppress, betrayed the secret of her feelings. This excitement over on all sides, Gordon gradually fell into his former position in the little community, and resumed the habits and wandering life which his short, but eventful military career had interrupted; and in this way time ran on until other three or four years had elapsed.

About the end of this period, as Gordon, with two or three more of his associates, was one day passing through Jedburgh, where there was, at the time, a recruiting party stationed, two soldiers, after looking earnestly at him for some minutes, suddenly made up to him, and asked if his name was not Gordon, and if he had not once belonged to the —— Regiment of Foot. To both of these questions Gordon at once replied in the affirmative, not being aware that he had any reason to do otherwise; for it had never occurred to him that, by not rejoining his regiment after the battle of Sheriffmuir, he had rendered himself liable to a charge of desertion; still less did he think that he had actually been all this time a deserter. But so it certainly was; and so he now found it to be.

“Then,” said one of the soldiers, on his acknowledging both circumstances, “you come along with, us, my lad; you are our prisoner.” And both the men drew their side-arms to make good their capture.

Gordon was now carried to the quarters of the commanding officer of the recruiting party, and by him was immediately sent off, escorted by three soldiers, to Edinburgh Castle, to stand trial for desertion from his Majesty’s service.

In a few days after his arrival there, a court-martial was summoned, when Gordon’s identity, and the facts of his enlistment and desertion having been proven, he was condemned to be shot—the utmost penalty of military law having been adjudged him, as the desertion had taken place in time of war, and at a period when fidelity was most especially required.

Thus was poor Gordon twice exposed to the horrors of a violent death by judicial sentence; but still his natural courage did not fail him. He again boldly prepared to meet the fate which seemed determined to overtake him, and which now certainly seemed quite inevitable, as there was not the slightest chance of any circumstance occurring in this case to avert it.

The place selected for the impending tragedy was the Portobello Sands; and thither the unfortunate culprit, accompanied by the whole garrison, was conveyed on the day appointed for his execution.

Amongst the official persons of note who were present on this melancholy occasion was the Duke of Argyle, who had arrived in Edinburgh on the preceding day; and who, as commander-in-chief of the King’s forces in Scotland, conceived it his duty to attend the execution of the criminal. All the ceremonies usual on occasions of this kind having been gone through, and the regiment formed into three sides of a square, the unfortunate prisoner was conducted to the spot, marked by his coffin being placed on it, where he was to receive his death. The execution party, consisting of twelve men, placed in three rows of four each, were advanced within a few paces of their object, when the front rank knelt down, the second stooped, and the third stood upright, that thus three several fires might be delivered, and the destruction of the victim be secured.

Gordon had now also knelt down, and there was only the signal wanting—of which the prisoner had, as is usual in such cases, the control—to complete the tragedy, when, just as the unhappy man was about to make that signal, the Duke of Argyle, who had been eyeing him attentively for some time, suddenly left those with whom he had been conversing, and waving to the execution party to withhold their fire, galloped up to the culprit, whom he thus abruptly addressed:—

“Young man, were you at the battle of Sherriffmuir?”

To this question, so unexpectedly put, it was some time before Gordon could make any reply; his mind being wholly absorbed by thoughts appropriate to his awful situation. When first put to him, therefore, he merely looked at the querist with a vacant stare, as if wholly unconscious of the purport of what had been said to him. In a few seconds, however, he recollected himself, and, with a firm voice, replied that he was at that battle.

“Did you see me,” continued the Duke, on his making this answer, “in any situation of particular peril on that day!”

Gordon now in his turn looked at the Duke with a scrutinizing eye, and thought that he recognised a face which he had seen before. He began, in short, to imagine that there was a resemblance, though he did not think it by any means so strong as to warrant him in saying so, between the person who now addressed him, and the officer whose life he had saved at Sheriffmuir.

“I do not know, sir,” said Gordon in reply to the last question put to him, “that I saw _you_ in any situation of particular peril on that day; but I saw an officer of our army in such a situation, and I believe I helped a little to bring him out of the scrape.”

“You ran the fellow who was about to slay that officer through the body with your bayonet, did you not?” exclaimed the Duke, with eager rapidity.

“I did, sir,” said Gordon, who yet knew nothing of the quality of the person who addressed him.

“Exactly,” replied Argyle. “Well, sir,” he continued, “the life you saved was mine, and I shall now try to repay the debt by saving yours, if I can.”

Having said this, the Duke turned round and waved to the officer who was in command of the troops present to come to him.

On his approach—“Colonel,” he said, “I wish this execution delayed. Do you, therefore, sir, if you please, order the firing party to retire, and let the regiment be marched back to its quarters. I, of course, take the whole responsibility of this proceeding on myself, Colonel.”

The officer to whom this was addressed bowed and retired to execute the orders given him; and in a few minutes thereafter, the regiment, in the centre of which Gordon was placed, marched off the ground to the sound of cheerful music.

On reaching the Castle, the Duke desired Gordon to be brought before him, when he proceeded to examine minutely into the particulars of his case, with the view, evidently, of eliciting as many favourable and extenuating circumstances as possible; and he evinced great satisfaction in finding that there were a good many of these. There was the youth and inexperience of the prisoner; the fact of his having been only a day or two enlisted; of his having received no bounty (which was the case); the evidence that his crime had proceeded from ignorance of military law, and not from design; and, above all, there was to be taken into account his treatment by the insurgents—considerations, all of which were crowned by the fact of his having saved the life of the commander-in-chief.

On the conclusion of this examination, Gordon was placed again in confinement; and for an entire week he heard nothing more of the proceedings regarding him. Early one morning, however, at the end of this period, the Duke of Argyle, entered his apartment, when, pulling out a paper from his pocket—

“Gordon,” he said, “your life is saved. His Majesty’s clemency has been extended to you, in consideration of the extenuating circumstances in your case; and here is your pardon. Here, also,” he continued, producing another paper, which he handed to the prisoner, “is your discharge. And here again,” he said, placing a purse of money in Gordon’s hand, and smiling as he spoke, “is a passport. And now, my good fellow,” he added, “take my advice, and return to your friends as soon as possible.”

We will not take up the reader’s time by attempting to describe Gordon’s feelings on this occasion. Suffice it to say, that they were as wild, and tumultuous, and joyful as such a singular and unexpected change in his situation can be supposed to have been capable of exciting. These feelings, however, did not distract him so much as to prevent him following the Duke’s counsel, which exactly jumped with his own inclinations.

After thanking his benefactor in the most grateful language he could command, he instantly quitted the apartment in which he had been confined, and hurried out of the castle, neither looking to the right nor to the left, till he had reached the heart of the city, when he stopped for a moment to breathe and to reflect on his happiness, which was so great, however, that he had some difficulty in believing in its reality.

In an hour afterwards, Gordon once more set out to join his old friends, whose encampment he reached on the following day, and again resumed his old habits and station in the erratic community. Again, too, three or four additional years passed away; but they did not pass now without bringing some of the changes which are interwoven with the lot of mankind, and which fall to the share equally of gipsy and prince. During these three or four years, Jean Gordon’s husband, and her two brothers, had been gathered to their fathers, her daughter had attained the stature and the years of womanhood, and she herself was beginning to feel the weakened energies of age. Another change in this little community, during these three or four years, was the elevation of Gordon to the chief place in it—a situation to which he was unanimously elected on the death of Jean’s husband, who had hitherto been looked up to as the head of the fraternity.

It was about this period, and as the gang were one day strolling up the banks of the Tweed, near a place called Upsetlington, under the conduct of Gordon, who was leading them on one of their usual wandering expeditions, a salmon cobble, in which were two persons, were seen sweeping down the river, which, being swollen to an unusual height with nearly an entire week’s heavy and incessant rain, was at this moment tearing along with the most dreadful fury. The day, besides, was widely tempestuous; and, as the wind was blowing directly in the teeth of the current, there was a roughness in the middle of the stream which would have endangered the safety of a much better sea-boat than a salmon-cobble—a truth this, which was but too evident on the present occasion.

The cobble, which was now being borne down by the stream, seemed to have completely freed itself from the control of those on board of it, and was careering along with an impetuosity and total want of direction, which left no doubt on the minds of those who beheld it that a catastrophe was at hand. It was evident, in short, that the boat must very soon be swamped and overset; and in this opinion the persons on board of her seemed themselves to concur, as they made no other effort to save themselves than waving their hands, from time to time, to those on the banks, to intimate their distress, and to invite their assistance.

But, although these unfortunate persons had been willing to make any effort to extricate themselves from their perilous situation, they could not; for their oars had been swept away by the current, and they were thus left perfectly helpless.

Gordon marked the desperate situation of the unwilling voyagers, and on the instant determined on making an effort to save them.

Near the spot where he stood looking on this appalling scene, there happened to be another cobble lying, which its owner had drawn high up on the bank, to keep it out of the reach of the current; and its two oars were still in it.

Gordon eyed the boat for a moment, and in that moment his resolution was taken. He seized the cobble with both hands, and being a remarkably powerful man, with one effort hurled it into the stream. This done, he leapt into it, grasped the oars, in the use of which he was singularly expert, and dashed headlong after the runaway bark, which, at the imminent risk of his own life, and with great exertion, he succeeded in capturing and bringing safely to shore.

The persons thus saved, by the gallantry of Gordon, from inevitable death, proved to be the owner of the cobble, and a Mr Riddell, from Hawick, a respectable elderly man, and reputed to be extremely wealthy, whom the former had been endeavouring to ferry across the river.

When the party had fairly landed, Mr Riddel took Gordon by the hand, and, pressing it warmly, thanked him, in the most grateful terms, for the important service he had rendered him. “But, young man,” he added, “I do not mean to pay you with thanks alone. It is my intention to give you a much more substantial proof of my gratitude than mere words. Thank God, I am able to do so; and the will is not wanting. You shall go with me to Hawick, my young friend, and I will then see in what way I can best shew my sense of the obligation I owe you. In the meantime, take this,” he said, handing Gordon a purse, “as an earnest for the future. But you must come to Hawick with me. This you must do—I will take no denial. I am childless, man,” he added, smiling, “although I was not always so; and there’s no saying, if ye quit this wandering life of yours, and betake ye to an honest calling, what good fortune may arise to you out of this day’s occurrences.”

“Nae sayin, indeed,” here chimed in Jean Gordon, who had been listening to what Mr Riddel said with intense interest, and with a degree of agitation which it would have been very difficult for a mere onlooker to have accounted for.

“Nae sayin, indeed, what guid fortune may arise to the lad oot o’ what has happened this day. To Hawick wi’ ye he maun gang, Mr Riddel,” continued Jean, who know every individual in the country for fifty miles round; “an’ he couldna gang wi’ a nearer freen, tak my word for that.”

“He could not go with one who would be more willing to be his friend, at any rate, Jean,” said Mr Riddel, who also knew the gipsy well, both by sight and name, and smiling as he spoke.

“An’ guid richt he has to your friendship, Mr Riddel,” replied Jean.

“That he has, Jean,” said the former. “The man who has saved my life has indeed a good right to my friendship; and he shall have it.”

“He has maybe ither claims on ye forbye that, though, Mr Riddel.”

“Indeed! Well, he may; although that is surely enough. But what other claims do you allude to, Jean? I shall be glad to know what they are, that I may discharge them all at once.”

“Then you shall know, Mr Riddel,” replied Jean, with a sudden determination of manner. “They’re noo awa that micht tak ony scaith frae what I’ll noo tell ye; an’, forbye, it’s a thing I hae lang resolved upon, an’ sae I’ll e’en tak this opportunity o’ doin’t. Come aside wi’ me, here, a wee bit, Mr Riddel,” added Jean; “an’ you, too, Gordon,” she said; “come, till I speak to ye baith.” And she led the way to a little distance from the other persons who were present on the occasion, and who had hitherto been auditors of all that passed.

“Mr Riddel,” now said Jean, “do ye mind the Hawick Spate?”

“Mind it!” replied the person addressed—“to be sure I do, Jean; I have but too much reason to mind it.” And here Mr Riddel’s voice became tremulous with emotion. “It deprived me of my only child—of the only child I ever had. This you doubtless know, Jean,” he continued; “as everybody in Hawick, and for many miles round it, who recollects the spate, knows that my child—and a fine little fellow he was—was swept away in his cradle, by the stream, and never afterwards heard tell of. The cradle was, indeed, found,” added Mr Riddel, in a melancholy tone, “but not the infant. But why do ye ask this question, Jean?”

“Just to bring to yer recollection the very circumstance ye hae mentioned, Mr Riddel,” replied the gipsy. “Noo, sir,” she went on, “tak a look o’ that lad, [pointing to Gordon,] an’ tell me if ye wad ken him to be yer ain son. And you, Gordon,” she said, “look at that gentleman, an’ see if ye wad tak him to be yer faither; for, as God’s in heaven,” she continued, “that’s the relationship in which ye twa staun to are anither!”

“Woman! what do you mean?” exclaimed Mr. Riddel in an angry tone. “Are you deranged? What absurd nonsense is this you talk? I never had any son but the child that was drowned.”

“I didna say ye had, Mr. Riddel,” replied Jean; “but that’s yer son, nevertheless. This I swear, by a’ my hopes o’ a hereafter!”

“Gracious God!—explain, woman! explain!” exclaimed Mr. Riddel, now greatly agitated—a glimmering of the possibility of what had actually occurred suddenly bursting on his mind. “Tell me, I beseech you, what you mean at once, and without further evasion.”

Thus entreated, Jean Gordon proceeded to detail the whole of the circumstances connected with the saving of the child (whom, we presume, we need not inform the reader in more explicit terms, was, indeed, the son of the person to whose paternity Jean ascribed him) from the Hawick flood.

When she had concluded—

“Extraordinary! most extraordinary!” exclaimed Mr. Riddel, now overwhelmed with a variety of new and strange feelings. “Can it be possible? O God! thy ways are inscrutable. But what proof have I of the truth of your story, Jean?” said the agitated father, gazing on his son.

“Proof!” exclaimed the gipsy; “look at the lad, Mr. Riddel—look at him, closely; an’ if ye dinna find proof enough in that face, ye’ll be hard to convince. Is he no your very counterpart?”

This part of Jean’s evidence was, indeed, of the most irrefragable kind; for the resemblance was remarkably striking.

“An’ if that’ll no satisfy ye,” she went on, “is there no half-a-dozen an’ mair o’ oor folk, that saw the hail affair, an’ that’ll swear to the truth o’ a’ that I’ve said?—an’ ye may tak them up, ane by ane, this minute, if ye like, an’ examine them a’ separately on the subject; an’ if ye find ane o’ them contradick me in the sma’est particular, dinna believe ae word o’ what I hae said. An’, if that’ll no convince ye yet, Mr Riddell,” she continued, “ye shall hae mair proof still. Come here, Gordon,” she said, addressing the young man, who, in silent amazement, was listening to this extraordinary _denouement_—“sit down.” He obeyed; and she pulled off the shoe and stocking from his left leg. Then holding up the lad’s naked foot, “Do ye ken thae twa taes, then, Mr Riddell?” she inquired, pointing, at the same time, to the little toe and the one adjoining to which the former was united.

“He is my son! he is my son! I can no longer doubt it,” exclaimed Mr Riddel, in a rapture of joy, on seeing this proof of his identity. And he rushed towards Gordon, and folded him in his arms.

“Oh! cruel woman!” he said, after the first burst of emotion had so far subsided as to allow him to speak—“to keep my boy so long from me, and to cause me so many weary nights and days, and long years of sorrow and mourning on his account! But I forgive you,” he immediately added; “I forgive you, in consideration of the happiness which you have this day conferred on me, late though it be.”

“You may forgie me, Mr Riddel,” said the now repentant gipsy; “but I canna forgie mysel. I hae made some amends, noo, hooever,” she continued; “an’ that’s a relief to my conscience. But I hae still another score o’ the same kind to pay off in another quarter; and it shall be dune at a’ hazards—but o’ this, mair hereafter. I hae dune ye a great wrang, Mr Riddel,” continued Jean; “but I was aye kind to yer bairn. I hae been a mother to him ever since I first took him in my arms, as I daur say he will, sae far as he recollects, bear witness. He’ll say that muckle for me, I’m sure.”

“That I will, Jean,” said Gordon, taking her kindly by the hand; “an’ may I be forgotten by Him that’s aboon when I forget you, or yer motherly kindness to and care owre me!”

“Enough, enough, Francis Riddel,” said his father—“for that was the name, my son, I intended to have given you, and it is the name by which I shall now and henceforth designate you—I forgive her. Nay, I not only forgive her, man, but, if she will quit this wandering life of hers, I will see to her future subsistence and comfort as long as she lives.”

“Many thanks, Mr Riddel, for your goodness,” said Jean, “but I’m no just yet prepared for that step. But, when I am, which will maybe be very sune, I’ll no fail to seek the shelter ye sae kindly offer me.”

It is, perhaps, full time, now, that we should say what were the feelings of Francis—as we, too, must now call him—in the singular circumstances in which he thus so suddenly and unexpectedly found himself placed. These were of a mingled kind. He felt all the joy natural on such an impressive occasion as that of having a lost—or, at least, an unknown—parent restored. He felt, too, a satisfaction in the promotion which his personal interests would now certainly experience, and with the idea of the respectable footing on which he would now be placed with the world. But there were two circumstances in particular that weighed against these, and tended to lessen the effect they would otherwise have had. One of these was his attachment to the wandering life to which he had been accustomed, and which he saw, with regret, he must now abandon. The other, and by far the most distressing one to him—was the probability that he would now also be called upon to renounce his beloved Rosie. On this point, however, he determined to remain obstinate, and rather to forfeit his father’s favour, with all the advantages that might accrue from it, than to abandon her to whom he already considered himself bound by the most sacred ties. On this subject, however, Francis prudently resolved to say nothing, in the meantime, but just to allow matters to take their course, till proper time and place should present themselves for announcing his resolution, and carrying that resolution into effect.

Mr Riddel now again repeated his proposal, that his son should instantly accompany him home; and, with this proposal, Francis complied, although he certainly did not do so without much secret reluctance and regret, for the reasons which have been already explained.

After bidding, then, a kind adieu to his former associates—a most affectionate one to Jean, whom he bound, by a solemn promise, to call upon him, in a few days, at Hawick—and whispering two or three words of consolation into Rosie’s ear—Francis set off with his father; and, in due time, both arrived in safety at Mr. Riddel’s residence, in the town above named, where the former was quickly installed in all the rights and privileges of a son and heir, and as such was recognised by all his father’s friends and acquaintances; his mother having been by this time many years dead.

In about four weeks after the occurrence of the circumstances just related, the gipsy gang to which Francis Riddel had belonged, appeared one evening, about dusk, at their old station in the vicinity of Hawick. It was the precise spot where Francis had been rescued from the flood some seven and twenty years before, and was a favourite locality of the wandering tribes.

Delighted with the intelligence of their arrival, which soon reached him, Francis, carefully however concealing his intention from his father, stole down to the gipsy encampment, where, as he expected, he found his beloved Rosie, to see whom, indeed, was the chief, if not the sole object of his visit. The joy of the lovers at meeting—for they had not seen or heard of each other since they parted on the day of the adventure on the Tweed—need not be dwelt upon, as it was exactly what is usual in such cases; but other circumstances arose from this interview which it may be more worth while to record.

“My father,” said Francis, addressing Rosie, as they sat together on a green bank, at a little distance from the gipsy encampment, “has set his face against our marriage. He has said that in nothing will he oppose me, but in that. But that, if I disobey him there, well as he loves me, he will disinherit me, and leave me penniless. ‘Marry a gipsy girl,’ he said, ‘and bring disgrace upon your connections! Never, never, with my consent.’ Ha! ha!” exclaimed Francis, contemptuously, “little does he know, honest man, what a trifle all his wealth and all his possessions are, and would be, were they ten times greater, when put into the scale against such love as mine for thee, Rosie. He may keep his wealth, for I _will_ marry——”

“The Laird o’ Upha’s dochter,” suddenly struck in Jean Gordon, who had now approached the lovers, unperceived. “Ay, the Laird o’ Upha’s dochter,” she repeated. “She’ll be yer wife, Francis. Winna she?”

“No, indeed, Jean, not her, whoever she be,” said Francis, laughingly, and flinging his arms affectionately around Rosie’s neck. “Not her, but my own sweet, dark-eyed gipsy girl here—_your_ daughter, Jean.”

“The Laird o’ Upha’s dochter, I tell ye, ye’ll marry, nevertheless, Francis. Not mine; for I hae nane. Yer faither ’ll then hae nae objection to yer linkin to, I’m thinkin; for a weel-tochered lass she’ll be—an’ o’ gentle bluid has she come.”

From this point, the little that now remains of our story will be best conducted to its termination, by plain and concise narrative. Francis and Rosie now learned, with, overwhelming amazement, that the latter was indeed a daughter of Maitland of Uphall’s, an old and highly respectable family, and not of Jean Gordon’s; and that she had been stolen in her infancy by the gang with which she was now associated. Jean, also, now informed them that she had already announced at Uphall that their daughter still lived, and had accompanied this announcement by a promise to restore her within three days to her parents.

The circumstance of Rosie’s real parentage, Francis lost no time in communicating to his father, who heard it at first with incredulity; but promised that, if the facts were found to be as stated, he would not only withdraw his objections to their marriage, but would do all in his power to promote it.

To this, we have only to add, that the identity of Rosie having been proven to Uphall’s entire satisfaction, he acknowledged her as his child, and soon after gave his consent to her union to Francis Riddel, who had been equally expeditious, as in the case of his own father, in informing him of his claims on his daughter.

The lovers were accordingly married, and lived many happy years together, filling a highly respectable station in society, and esteemed by all who knew them for the strict propriety of their conduct in all the relations of life.

They left sons and daughters, who inherited their wealth, which was very considerable, but none of whom ever experienced, so far as ever we heard, any of their vicissitudes.

THE AVENGER;

OR,

THE LEGEND OF MARY LEE.

An old legend describeth to us “The Castle,” a large residence, which, some centuries ago, graced, with its high towers, the banks of the river Annan, perhaps one of the finest of the Scotch rivers if all the elements of beauty are taken into account. “The Castle” stood towards the Solway, and was the seat of a family that had risen to some distinction as commoners, from the possession of considerable wealth, acquired by an ancestor, who had got possession of some lucrative monopolies from the first of the Jameses. The family name was Ashley, of English origin, but the more early members having intermarried with daughters of Scotland, and their fortunes having flourished, for the first time, on her then poor uncultivated soil, they gradually came to lose every quality and mark of the country from which they originated except the name.

Robert Ashley, the proprietor of this residence at the time our story commences, was a widower, having an only son alive, the heir-expectant of his father, and the proprietor, in anticipation, of all the rights of the property. The young man, whose name was also Robert, was possessed of high feelings of love and poetry; but, as is often the case, he allowed these to outstep the bounds of morals—living a luxurious life of pleasure, suited to his strong susceptibilities, but altogether unsanctified by a single restraint, which the greatest libertines often offer, as a sacrifice to offended virtue. He had been a follower of gipsies, and got from them the gipsy name of Robin Ary, pronounced Robin-a-Ree. The only palliation his most partial friend could offer for his extravagant conduct, was, that his amours, of which he had many, were not the result of a grovelling propensity of lust, cultivated for its own sake, and unredeemed by any concomitant affections of the heart. His intrigues, though all ending in gratifications of gross passion, began in the excitement of love; not that love, the influence of which tends to elevate and refine the other sentiments; but still a love which, in the world, very often passes for its more pure ally—using the same language, exhibiting the same external marks, and, unfortunately, so completely personating it, as to deceive the confiding hearts of the objects to whom it is directed. The easily lighted, fickle, heartless, and seducing passion, was the bane of the young man—springing up, with sudden violence, on the first contemplation of beauty—rendering him uneasy till it was communicated and miserable till it was gratified—too often by the ruin of his victim. A fine form and expressive countenance, a command of the language of the heart, and riches, rendered him one of the most dangerous companions of the fair sex of his time; yet paradoxical as it may be, his character for success in rendering miserable that sex whose happiness ought to be the pride and satisfaction of him who has arrogated to himself the title of lord of the creation, instead of keeping victims out of his way, seemed to lure them into his power; at least, there could be no doubt that the gentleman gipsy Robin-a-Ree had always more admirers than any other young man on the north of the Solway. So it seems to be, that vice is sometimes ordained to be fed to repletion, producing in the end the ruin of its powers and properties, which, otherwise, might be exercised for greater evil.

On the lands pertaining to “The Castle,” there was the little port, which we must disguise under the name of Fairhaven, where resided Gilbert Lee, a fisherman, whose boat was often required by Robin for pleasure excursions on the Solway. Gilbert had a daughter, Mary, whose youth, being eight years younger than Ashley, had, for a time, protected her from the dangerous attention of the young laird. This Mary Lee was a peculiar girl; she was accounted the handsomest in Fairhaven; and her father had only one fault to impute to her—a most unforgiving spirit. Kind and affectionate to all who exhibited those qualities to her, Mary seldom forgot or forgave an injury or an insult; and so strongly marked was her character in this respect, that her school antipathies remained with her, and increased as she grew up—no kindness or conciliation having the effect of modifying or mollifying the determination and bitterness of her hatreds. So says our chronicle, and so is it often in the world, that the most opposite feelings and passions—like the nerves of the human system, which, operating equally on the gall-bladder and the heart, are bound up in the same sheath—may be found in the same individual, acting with equal and antagonist forces, and realizing a species of manichæism which has perplexed optimist moralists from the beginning of the world. As the good is strong, so often is the evil, in the same individual; and it would have been hard to say whether Mary Lee’s loves were stronger or weaker than her hatreds.

“O Mary,” her father would say, “he will be a happy or a miserable man wha gets ye for his lot on earth; he will get either the sweet honey o’ yer young and loving heart, or the sting which, as in the bee, receives its poison from that very honey itsel’: so do we see a’ sweet things mair productive o’ sourness than the bitters which we avoid, and darkness is ne’er so visible as when licht is its nearest neibor, and hauds the candle to its ill favoured face.”

Now, Mary understood, perhaps, but little of her father’s quaint remarks, and little did she know of the possession of qualities which were destined to stand out in such prominent and startling relief from the mellowed hues of our Christian faith. Has God, for his own purposes, hid us from ourselves, that our sense of free agency should remain unimpaired by the knowledge of the connate bent of our apparently fated inclinations? Poor Mary Lee acted from her impulses; nor did she see danger. There is the “mid-deep,” which the sailors of the Solway point out to the passenger who looks on the fallacious calm, as it hovers o’er the graves of many a drowned mariner. There is a moral mid-deep in the paths of most of us, but which we never see till we are engulphed.

As Mary Lee grew up, she came necessarily under the view of young Ashley, who, as he called for the boat, noticed the young maiden sitting on the beach, throwing the glances of her blue eye on the mirror of the silvery Solway; a fair type of her own nature, though she was unconscious of the similitude—beautiful in its soft and playful undulations, but terrible in its rage.

“Have we got a mermaid sitting here?” said Robin, on a day, to a companion. “How like she is to the pictured fancy of that creature of imagination! She has only to let her hair fall over her shoulders, and send forth one of those plaintive; seductive cries which, like the singing of the Sicilian virgins mentioned by Ovid, tempt poor passengers ashore to their destruction, to realize the type in its greatest perfection. Well, by the way, I think I would have risked myself in the arms of those famous sirens, who are represented to have been so cruel as to kill their lovers—at least I would trust myself with that fair one. What thinkest thou of my courage?”

“Indeed, Robin,” replied his friend, George Henley, a neighbouring laird’s son, “I fear the danger which Ovid represents as being all on the side of the sailors, who listened to these virgins, would, in your case, be transferred to the charmer; and yet they say that Mary Lee, with all her beauty and apparent mildness, has all the siren about her but the fledged tail; and, if the feathers are there awanting, I fear the deficiency is supplied by a sting.”

The hint thrown out by Henley increased the desire of Robin to get acquainted with Mary; for such is the fate of those who are consigned to the intoxications of vice, that they indulge in morbid desires, which, as in the case of the gourmand, produce in their gratifications all the effects of poison. “A fury for a lover!” he ejaculated. “Good! I have had too many soft, breaking hearts. Their very softness has palled upon my appetite; and, as the lover of gourmandize requires stimulants to whip up the jaded powers of his overwrought stomach, my wearied heart longs for a spice of piquant amativeness, to resuscitate its flagging energies.”

Such reflections are but too common with the young rakes of all times; Robin-a-Ree acted upon them, and he was not long in producing an effect upon Mary Lee. He spoke to her at first merely as the daughter of the fisherman; putting questions to her, which he could himself have answered—but, while he was apparently a careless interrogator, he did all in his power, by the shew of his properties, to become a querist of a heart which had hitherto been left to question itself, and to answer its own questions. How few young women can withstand the graces of a handsome youth—and how often is the poison drunk by the heart, before the mind is conscious of the draught! Mary Lee thought, as she looked upon the youthful Ashley, that the young fishermen of Fairhaven were surely not made of the same flesh and blood. Ashley knew the force of his natural endowments, and he brought in aid of those the flatteries of the deceiver. What more is required to complete the work of love? A good regard of the flatterer, followed by a good regard of the flattered, is, alas! often all that is necessary in the composition of female devotion.

The frequent meetings which Robin had with Mary produced the usual effects. Her heart was what every woman’s ought to be—that is, if there were no bad men in the world—it loved at once and for ever. Every pulse of life acknowledged the power which had come like a spirit and thrown a charm over her existence; the world was now centred in one object; her father and her home lost their magic influences of early associations; even the shade of her mother, which was enshrined in her imagination as a part of the mind itself, faded into a thinner existence than even that of a vision, as she revelled in the first enthusiastic enjoyment of maiden affection. Ashley saw with delight, mixed with some misgivings as to the responsibility of such a devotion, the absolute resignation of a full and bursting heart to the dissembled schemes of a professed libertine. Proud of his victory, he paused, like the cruel lord of the jungle, to play with the victim destined to a protracted immolation; and she, deluded creature! received, with panting eagerness, the caresses which she considered the fruit of a love equal to her own. As she hung upon his bosom and fed his eyes with the soft beams of a first love, shining through tears of kindness and devotion, who could have observed, in that light, more danger than belongs to so innocent a thing as a woman’s smile? Robert Ashley had known by experience, that a woman’s eye that does not shine on her seducer, generally shines not at all, unless it be in the phosphorescent brightness of the corruption of the grave. Mary Lee was, like other women, an object to be possessed, not feared; Ashley enjoyed her present devotion in the exultation of pride, and her subsequent ruin in a certain hope of reality.

Wandering through the thick woods of “The Castle,” Mary Lee drank deeper of the intoxicating draught, as her appetite was increased by the inspiring influences of romantic scenes.

“How is it, Robin,” she said, with the familiarity which love begets on innocence—“how is it that now the woods of the Castle are to me so dear, and I ever think that every mavis and blackbird in the thick groves are to me little messengers o’ guid news. Before you spoke to me, I was fond o’ the rippling waves that come as if they were sent by the corpses in the ‘dead deep,’ to tell their griefs to us on land. But now my thoughts are aff the sea, and the Castle, wi’ a’ its braw trees and flowers, is aye present to me, as used to be the shade o’ my mither.”

“Thou art fond of reasons, my gentle Mary,” replied Robin, “and perhaps canst say why thou wast formerly so fond of the sea. Perhaps some young fisherman had then a part of the heart which now I hope is all my own.”

“An’ weel, Robin, may ye say its a’ yer ain,” said Mary; “for, sleepin’ or waukin’, I think only o’ you, an’ the foes that wad tak you an’ mak you the lover o’ anither. Catherine Hamilton o’ Castlegreen kenned naething o’ my heart yesterday, when, as ye left the village, she saw me looking at her as she looked at you. The lady ca’ed the fisherman’s dochter ‘wretch,’ but she heard no answer fra me. At that time you looked back to her and smiled, and she forgot me, but I will mind her to the day I dee. I could have forgiven her if she hadna been so bonny, and if ye hadna given her the glance that should have come to me. But it’s only in the thick woods that Robin-a-Ree kens the fisherman’s dochter o’ Fairhaven.”

“Come, now, my Mary, none of thy reproofs. Thou knowest that I was a favourite of Catherine Hamilton’s before I knew thee, and it would not have been courteous to shake off an old acquaintance because my Mary was present and requested all my attention.”

“Weel, weel, ye ken I forgive ye,” answered Mary, “and my forgiveness is as real as my love, but I have ae request to mak, and that is—that, if ye dinna choose to ken me in Fairhaven when Catherine is in the village, ye will keep within the bounds o’ the Castle lands. That leddie lies far out o’ my way, if she crossna your path when I am near; but the blasts that blew owre the Mull o’ Galloway are nae sterner to the boatmen o’ the Solway than will be my scorn if she come atween me and my love.”

And, as she concluded, she evinced a degree of determination in her voice and manner, which caught the attention of Ashley. But he saw nothing in it, except a little jealousy, which only measured by its intensity the strength of her love; and his pride was inflamed by the demonstration, while the ardour of his purpose was increased. Throwing his arms around the waist of the still somewhat excited maiden, he removed her jealousy by blandishments, and vowed that he had no affection for Catherine Hamilton, who could never stand in a nearer or dearer relation to him than that of acquaintanceship.

Thereafter for a long period the groves of “The Castle,” were frequented by the lovers. The affection of Mary engrossed all her thoughts and feelings, and lent an eloquence to her words and looks, which, to Robin, seemed different from any demonstrations of affection he had yet witnessed. His feelings became interested to a degree beyond what he could have expected as the result of a few meetings with a fisherman’s daughter; and he felt it as a reproach to his true and genuine character of libertinism, that he was in this instance more in earnest, and more sincere in his love, than he had been in any former instance. The feeling was increased by the apparent determination of Mary to defend the fortress of her virtue. The gipsy fancier had been so fortunate in his former amours, that success had made him domineering and impatient of restraint, while a firm opposition hurt his pride, and increased his desire of victory. In this instance, his love—bastard in its nature as it still was—became increased by Mary’s firmness, and he was compelled to have recourse to expedients which implicated his honour in a greater degree than the ordinary schemes of the seducer, bad as they are, generally do. Finding all his endeavours to overcome her virtue unavailing, he had recourse to promises of _honourable intentions_—those fatal sappers of female innocence, which, directed only where there is strength, are relied upon as the last resources of insidious assailants.

The heart of Mary, occupied as it was with one of the strongest affections of human nature—in her instance, all-engrossing and resistless—did not so far act the traitress to her understanding, as to induce her to resign her honour, without a condition. Her youth and innocence, rendering her unacquainted with the arts of the world and its vices, suggested, as the only result of a mutual attachment, a union of the parties in holy wedlock; and, when Ashley spoke of marriage, as a thing to take place between them, after the death of his father, she only felt surprised at the ceremony being postponed. That these expectations of Mary did not please Ashley, is not unlikely; but the only other effect produced by them, was to make him promise more fervently, and with stronger protestations, that he would abide by his word, as he was a gentleman and a man of honour. Alas! the love of woman is credulous, as well as blind; and if we did not believe those who are dearest to us of all the world, who is there in it to whom faith should be given? Mary believed; and, like millions who have had the same faith, and the same apparently irrefragable grounds whereon to build it, she was undone. He who takes the honey sometimes gets the sting; the little insect which supplies the figure of speech fulfils a purpose in nature, when, after its support, during the period when no flowers exist, from which to get a supply, has been taken from it, and it is consigned to want and death, it throws away in its vengeance on the spoiler, the life which is only of use to dart the sting, and leave its spark of vitality along with the poison in the wound.

As time waned, the ruined Mary felt her passion increase and saw her lover’s decay. He came now no longer to the grove where the sweet dalliance of a new passion ruffled the silence with the music of muffled sighs. She went at the accustomed hour, and at the hour not accustomed, and she returned without bringing with her a token that the hope of the morning had found a resting-place at even. The willow where they had met retained its charm, and, long after she had given up hopes of his coming, she sat under it, and wept bitterly for a loss which no power on earth could make up to her. But her tears flowed in vain—for Robin-a-Ree came not; and her groans only awakened the dull and drowsy ear of the hind, who, driving his cattle from the field, thought it strange that a woman should weep, and whistled his tune, which her sobbing had interrupted for a moment. The breaking heart of love has no consolation, unless when its sorrowful indications imitate the vulgar hues of bodily disease, and then it can command a prescription; yet sometimes it finds for itself, and in its own recesses, a poison, which has more virtue in it than all the simples of the leech.

Now a considerable time had passed without any intelligence of Ashley, when, one day, as Mary sat under the tree, she saw a gentleman approach, whom she recognised as Ashley’s friend, George Henley. He accosted her in a bold and familiar style; and told her that her friend and lover had gone to Edinburgh, in the company of Miss Catherine Hamilton, and had commissioned him to yield her what consolation was in his power, in the shape of supplying his place as a new and fresh lover—a commission which he could have no inclination to disobey, when he contemplated her beauty, and recollected the favours she had bestowed on his fortunate friend. The salutation struck the unhappy girl dumb, and Henley mistook the benumbing effects of incipient despair as a passive acquiescence in his ribald sentiments—a consent to his unhallowed purposes. Under this impression, he was about to clasp his arms round her waist, when the enraged and frantic girl struck him a blow, concentrating in its force the collected strength of her frenzied energies, and stunned him beyond what could have been conceived to be the effect of a woman’s uplifted arm. But injured virtue—and poor Mary Lee’s feelings had still a virtue in them—has a power which proud man has been often brought to acknowledge and to feel. The cowardly braggart, only brave in pseudo love, was so tamed by the blow, and so humiliated by the noble attitude of the asserter of her dearest rights, that he slunk away as if he had been caught in an act of larceny, or stung by a serpent.

“Go,” cried she, “an’ tell him wha commissioned ye, how weel ye have done your duty, an’ how I have performed mine. Think, as ye look on the earth—for ye canna face heaven—that there is the connach worm crawlin’ amang yer feet, claimin’ the kindred o’ ane wha wasna formed to look in the face o’ a woman! Shun, as the screech-owl does, the licht o’ day, yon eagle that perches on the trystin’ oak, for the gleam o’ its bright e’e will, as the sun puts out the humble peat-moss ingle, blind the dastardly wretch, wha canna abide the look o’ the woman he has insulted. If Robin-a-Ree sent ye to me, tell him that I have sent ye to him, to say that Mary Lee has, in the wreck o’ her feelin’s, enough left to fire the house an’ hearth o’ his new affections.”

A strange speech, and delivered with the impassioned mien and voice of the Pythoness. A new and hitherto unfelt power and energy had seized the frame of this strange girl, the instinctive enthusiasm of a deep revenge had come upon her like an inspiration. She turned her eyes from the direction in which Henley had gone, and, with downcast look and a brooding melancholy, sought her home.

Thereafter, it was currently reported in the village that Robert Ashley was about to be married to Catherine Hamilton. From that period, the whole character of Mary underwent a change: she was never seen to smile, yet she never wept. Her griefs had left the heart, where they operate to soften or to break, and seized the brain, where they generate dreams of revenge, and frenzied illusions of the fancy. Her blue eye now burnt with a sterner fire than even in her former fits of anger she had ever exhibited; her demeanour, shewing fits and starts, and a general disturbance of all her feelings, told, to the most careless observer, that the change which had come over her extended to the fountain of her feelings, and the springs of her hope. Her usual sympathies seemed to be dried up, and nothing was left but the simoom of a stern and deadly hatred, which shewed itself in sudden exclamations, clenching of the hands, and wild looks. The report was soon circulated, that Mary Lee was mad; but those who knew her better, saw, in her strange conduct and demeanour, only the workings, on a larger scale, of the same spirit which had been noticed by her father at a very early period.