Chapter IX: An Apparition (8)

A faint smile trembled over her features as she replied—“HE who sheltereth the lamb from the storm! HE who provideth the ravens with food!”

“But,” added he, “are not we already almost without money?—And, until I am free, until——”

“Come, love,” said she tenderly, “do not afflict yourself with idle fears. The sparrow chirps not the less joyfully in the farm-yard because the last sheaf is given to the flail; but day after day finds the little flutterer happy and contented as when it nestled in profusion. You bade me come smiling, and you only are sad. Come, love—give me one smile—fear not for me; with my needle I may be enabled to provide for myself, and to assist you.”

“Isabella!” he exclaimed, starting with agitation, and smiting his hand upon his brow.

“Nay, love,” she added, “start not at shadows; when real deprivations are to be averted, yield not to those of pride and imagination. Adversity is a stern master, but it relaxes its brow before a cheerful pupil. Come,” she added, “let us rather speak of what I can do for my prisoner.”

She endeavoured to pronounce the last word playfully; but the attempt failed, and she turned aside her head to conceal a tear.

“Nay, sweetest,” said he, affectionately drawing her hand from her face, “do not weep—I will not be unhappy—for the sake of my Isabella I will not.”

But the day of trial came; Alexander was placed before his judges, and his faithful wife stood near his side. The clerk of the court rose, and, holding the indictment, said, “Alexander Hamilton, you are charged with committing an unprovoked and outrageous assault, with intent to murder, upon the person of the Honourable Edward Stafford, in Hyde Park. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?”

“Not guilty,” said the prisoner, firmly.

The counsel for the prosecution then rose—“Gentlemen of the jury,” said he, “I confess I am at a loss to find words to express the deadliness of purpose, and the desperate character of the assault with which the prisoner is charged. A deed more reckless, more atrocious and criminal in its character, never was attempted. Its aim was blood!—murder at noonday, in the Park, and in the midst of hundreds. After this, where is safety to be found? Were the prisoner to go unpunished, madmen might be set at large, and assassins crowd our streets with impunity. The ferocity of a savage of the woods, when fired by victory and inflamed with the war-whoop, is tame, compared with the brutal violence which was manifested by the prisoner. With a disregard of all personal consequences, his object was _murder_! I repeat the word—murder was his object; and he has failed in accomplishing it only through the prompt assistance of the medical gentleman to whose care my client was intrusted. I do not say this from a desire to influence you against the prisoner; but from a regard for truth, for our common safety, and the public welfare. I shall prove to you that this is not a solitary case of the prisoner’s outrage; but that, on the same day on which he attempted the life of the prosecutor, he was guilty of a scarcely less daring assault upon an honourable member of the House of Commons—that on former occasions he has forced his way into the house of Mr Stafford, and endeavoured to extort money by violence. In short, the evidence is such as will leave no doubt upon your mind of the prisoner’s guilt and desperate character, and assures me of what will be your verdict. What plea he will set up, I know not; but he who could attempt the life of a fellow-man in broad day, will not be nice as to the expedients to which he resorts. Should temporary insanity be urged, I need not tell you that you will not consider whether it be lawful for a person subject to such fits of lunacy to be left to go at large amongst mankind; and that, if such a plea be offered, you will duly examine that it be established.”

During this harangue, not a muscle of Alexander’s face moved; but he stood with his eyes bent upon the speaker, manifesting throughout the same calm and proud look of conscious innocence. Isabella exhibited almost the same calmness as her husband; but at times the glow of indignation and impatience flushed her cheek, and she threw upon the accuser a glance of scorn.

I will not enter into the evidence. Several of the witnesses were gentlemen of rank, who, having been spectators of the assault in the Park, gave an unprejudiced statement of what they had seen, and their testimony tended to prepare the minds of the court to give credence to the evidence of less respectable witnesses; for they confirmed the desperate character of the attack and the injury received by the prosecutor. A herd of others were suborned to aggravate the charges, and to controvert whatever evidence the prisoner might bring forward. The case for the prosecution closed, and every hope of acquittal was destroyed. Still he maintained the same firmness; and, for a few seconds, not a sound was heard throughout the court. To the ear of Isabella, the breathless silence was as sudden thunder; hitherto, while listening to the accumulated perjuries with which her husband’s ruin was sought, notwithstanding her hopelessness and agony, her eye had not wandered from him; but she now turned, with a wild and imploring look, towards the jury, at once to read on their countenances the impression which the evidence had made, and to conjure them in speechless agony to believe it not. But she, shuddering, turned away from the appalling scene, and a groan burst from her bosom. She beheld in their features the cold, fixed expression of men who knew no feeling but justice; and she saw their eyes turned to her husband, but in sternness rather than in compassion.

“Prisoner,” said the judge, “you have heard the charges which have been preferred against you; if you have any witnesses on your behalf let them be brought forward; or, if you have aught to say in your defence why judgment ought not to be pronounced against you, speak now.”

“My lord,” said Alexander, “I crave your indulgence. Trusting to innocence, I have employed no counsel, and I hoped to need none. If, therefore, in the few words which I shall speak, I depart from the rules and usages of this court, I beg your protection and direction. Gentlemen of the jury,” he added “much of the evidence which has this day been given before you has not impressed upon you a firmer conviction of my wickedness than it has filled me with horror at the baseness and the perjury of which men can be found capable.”

“My lord,” interrupted the prosecutor’s counsel, “such language is not to be borne.”

“The prisoner has claimed my protection,” said the judge, “and he shall have it. Proceed,” added he, addressing Alexander, “but remember that unsubstantiated charges against others will only aggravate the proofs already given, and militate against you.”

Alexander bowed, and continued—“Gentlemen, that you believe me the guilty being that I have been described, I cannot for a moment doubt; nor do I hope that I shall be able to shake that conviction, and prove to you between myself and the prosecutor, who is, indeed, the guilty party. I know well that words spoken by one situated as I now am come in a questionable form and produce but a slight impression, yet, as truth is stronger than falsehood, I would hope that what I do say may not be altogether ineffectual. That I did make an attack upon the prosecutor in the Park, is _true_; that my manner was as enraged as has been described, I admit; and that my language might be of a threatening character, I do not deny; but that my intentions were criminal, that I sought his life, is false.”

He then stated the nature of his acquaintance with Stafford—his having forced his way into his house to request payment of a part of the debt which he owed him. But when he spoke of the indignities which he had offered to his wife, and of the calumnies he had whispered in the ear of him who was to procure him an appointment under government, his soul flashed truth from his eyes, every glance told a tale of scorn and wrongs. Stafford, who was present, quailed as the tide of his eloquent indignation rolled on; and could the astonished listeners have turned their eyes from the speaker to him of whom he spoke, they would have read guilt and confusion on his pale cheeks. Even the judge laid down his notes, and gazed upon the prisoner with a look of wonder. Isabella’s fears passed away as she listened to the torrent of indignant eloquence which he poured forth; and, while she participated in the admiration of the crowd, she felt also the affection and the pride of a wife, and, starting from a seat with which she had for some time been accommodated, she pressed closer to his side, her bosom heaving, her cheeks glowing, and her beaming eyes declaring that, where he then stood as a criminal, she was proud to call him husband.

“Could any man,” he exclaimed, in conclusion, “bear more than I did and not resent it? Would any of you, gentlemen—yea, would his lordship, under the same provocations, have acted otherwise than I did? If the attack was furious, was it not provoked? Or could human nature endure more and attempt less? If I am culpable, it is because I have the feelings of a man—because I am not more or because I am not less than man: and, if I am guilty, is my prosecutor innocent?”

The counsel for the prosecution again rose, and added—“Gentlemen of the jury, I presume it is now unnecessary for me to remind you that the prisoner having attempted murder on one of his Majesty’s subjects, it is altogether unnecessary for him to perform it now upon his Majesty’s English. If rhetorical froth were proof, and sound received as evidence, the case of the prisoner might be different from what it is. But it unfortunately happens for his oratory, that froth is not proof, and that noise is not evidence. I will not insult your good sense by adverting for a moment to his shallow calumnies and malicious assertions. You will place them to the spirit of hardened wickedness that invented them. But, gentlemen, we shall now see what evidence he has to bring forward in support of his oratory, and in substantiation of his malicious and frail subterfuges.”

No witnesses being likely to appear in behalf of the prisoner, the governor of the gaol voluntarily came forward and bore testimony to the excellence of Alexander’s conduct while under confinement, and also to the exemplary affection and modesty manifested by his wife.

He left the witness-box, and another pause ensued, when Isabella sprang forward, stretching out her arms towards the jury, and exclaimed—“Hear me! hear me!—only for a moment—as you are men—as you are fathers—as you are Christians, hear me! Do not tear my Alexander from me—he is innocent! Yes! yes! he is innocent of the guilt attributed towards him by the wicked man who seeks his life!—innocent as your babes that may smile at their mother’s breast! Save, then, my husband, and heaven will reward you! He is all that is dear to me—will you tear us asunder? If ye have hearts within you, you will not. Look on his countenance—is there guilt there? Look upon his prosecutor, upon his enemy who sits before you, and oh! can you find innocence where dissipation has left its furrows, and hatred its shadows? If ye _will_ do what may seem to you justice—remember to love mercy! Draw not upon your heads the misery or the blood of a human being through the guilt of a false witness! Save, I implore you, save my husband, for he is innocent!”

The judge summed up the evidence, and more than once he paused and wiped away a tear that did not disgrace his office. “Go,” he concluded, addressing the jury—“the prisoner is in your hands; and if there be a doubt upon your minds as to whether you should pronounce him guilty, give the prisoner the benefit of that doubt.”

“Merciful heaven!” exclaimed Isabella, “deliver my husband—make known his innocence to these men!” She stretched her hand towards him, and cried aloud, “O my Alexander—in death—even in death, I will be yours! They shall not part us!”

And, as she wept, he bent over the dock and threw his arms upon her neck, exclaiming—“Loved one, weep not. The Avenger of the oppressed will not forsake us.”

The jury were rising to withdraw, every eye was moistened with Isabella’s distress—while all felt conscious of her husband’s doom—when a humming noise arose amidst the spectators, and, “Let the jury stop!—let the jury stop!” cried many voices from the door.

The skipper of the vessel in which Isabella had come to London pressed into the court; and, being sworn—

“Weel, sir,” said he, “it isn’t much that the like o’ me has got to say; only, ye see, Mr Hamilton here, that ye ca’ a prisoner, is an auld owner’s son o’ mine. I have known him since he was the height o’ my knee, and he was always a guid and a cannie laddie; and I venture to say, had his father not been ower honest a man, and paid twenty shillings in the pound to every body, he wouldna hae been in his grave to-day. As for _the thing_ that is carrying on the prosecution against Mr Hamilton, I knaw something o’ him tae; and he may think himself weel off that it wasna a wife o’ mine that he shewed his blackguardism to, for had I been my auld maister’s son, hang me! after the insults I saw him offer to this bonny lady here, when they were both passengers on board o’ my ship, Jemmy Johnson, take me! if I wudna hae twisted his neck off his shoulders in a moment!”

The counsel for the prosecution had risen to ridicule the evidence of the prisoner, when he was interrupted by a negro servant of the Honourable Edward Stafford, who had been touched by the fiery eloquence of Alexander and the distress of his wife, and who rose and exclaimed, while others attempted to keep him down—“Me will speak!—Massa be de grand villain! Me be black, but you won’t make me one black heart. De prisoner be innocent! Massa do owe him von hundred pound, for me carried it to massa, and massa did try to steal de wife ob Massa Hamilton; which, be bad—berry bad! Prisoner be de injured man, like de poor African!”

This involuntary testimony on the part of the negro arrested the attention of both judge and jury, and they were requesting that he should be placed in the witness-box, when two gentlemen hurriedly entered the court, and pressed forward, requesting to be heard. The one stated himself to be a Mr Fulton, a broker in Cornhill. With him Alexander’s father had long had extensive dealings. He has already been mentioned in the course of this narrative. Alexander had requested that his wife should address her letters to him to his counting-house. But he was abroad when Alexander reached London, and he only arrived on the evening before his trial. He knew the services which his friend, the elder Hamilton, and his son also, had conferred upon the member of parliament of whom we have spoken, and calling upon him, and hearing the accusations that were preferred against Alexander by Stafford, he demanded that they should be probed to the bottom. They did investigate into them, and they discovered them to be wholly false and without foundation. And the patron now came forward to express his contrition for the act of injustice into which he had been betrayed, and to bear his testimony against the character and malignity of the prosecutor. A change came over the countenances of the jury. The judge seemed perplexed, and was rising to sum up the evidence, when they rose as one man, and exclaimed—“_Not guilty_.”

“Not guilty, my lord,” repeated the foreman of the jury; “but it would give us pleasure to see the accuser stand where the accused has this day stood.”

The spectators burst into a shout, and the Honourable Edward Stafford endeavoured to escape from the court. All that is necessary to add is, that Alexander Hamilton became the clerk of Mr Fulton, in a few years his partner, and eventually his successor, and his latter days were more prosperous than any that his father had known, while the worth of his wife and her affection increased with age. One word respecting the Honourable Edward Stafford, and I have done. In a few years he became a titled beggar, and twenty years afterwards, when Alexander Hamilton, with his wife and family came to reside in Northumberland, where they had been born and brought up, they heard of a poor gentleman at an inn in the next village, who seemed to be in great distress. They went to visit him—it was the Honourable Edward Stafford. He wept as he recognised them. In the words of holy writ—they heaped coals of fire upon his head—and with his hand in Alexander’s he breathed his last, and at their own expense they buried him with his fathers. Such are a few Leaves from the Life of Alexander Hamilton.

THE SPORTSMAN OF OUTFIELDHAUGH.

The old property of Eyrymount—belonging to a sept of the Græmes that had at a former period emigrated to that locality, not far from the Borders of Scotland, and possessed, at the time we speak of, by Hugo Græme, a man somewhat advanced in years—was (for it has latterly been broken down into small portions) one of the finest small possessions of a commoner that could be seen in the fairest part of Scotland. Compact, and divided into two portions—one of the richest arable soil, and another, where the mansion-house stood, of planted ground, adorned by green trees and flowering shrubs—it was just that kind of property which, filling the purse and pleasing the eye, a man of sense and a lover of nature would choose to occupy and draw the rents of. The proprietor of this fine retreat—Hugo, of the fourth generation of these Græmes—was the very worst kind of man that could have been placed upon such an estate; for he held that kind of middle station between the exclusive great and the not exclusive, which, producing discontentment with what is in one’s power, and generating an ambition seldom realized, neutralizes all the advantages of independence, and changes the gifts of Providence into gilded evils. The property was too small to enable him to cope with those whom he wished to associate with, while it was too extensive to admit of its proprietor being classed with many of the neighbouring lairds. Yet his pride struggled with the physical impossibilities with which the limited nature of Eyrymount surrounded him; and his life for many years had been occupied by a series of efforts to make up, by art and diplomacy, what could not be wrung from his patrimonial inheritance. His wife, Madam Græme—as she was styled by the neighbours, from her possession of a pride equal to, if not transcending that of her husband—was the daughter of a rich banker, who, after her marriage, lost his wealth, and, of course, the charm which procured for him the enviable title of father-in-law to Hugo Græme of Eyrymount, the fourth lineal heir of the southern sept of the Græmes. The pride which had been generated in the bosom of the young lady by expectation, was not relinquished with her hope of succeeding to a fortune that had taken to itself “the wings of the morning.” Bringing in this way no riches to her husband, she did not leave behind her the evils which generally attend them and often survive them; and the hundred thousand pounds she expected to succeed to, though now in the pockets of other people, and feeding a pride of a more legitimate kind in the bosoms of the possessors, founded that kind of claim to honour which a ragged heir of a thousand acres which have been out of his family for fifty years, thinks he has a right to assume, from the mere circumstance of his grandfather having been the laird. The pride of the master and mistress of Eyrymount, strong in the original stems, was strengthened, but not, like the forest crab-apple, improved, by the mutual ingrafture of connubial sympathy; and they strained and pulled together, in their efforts to stretch the income of Eyrymount into the means of supporting a state to which it was inadequate.

An only child—a female, of considerable pretensions to beauty, simple and humble, and highly interesting in her manners, and called, after her mother, Dione, a title of which Madam Græme was very proud—added considerably to the pride of the haughty couple. They expected “to turn her to account,” and had already fixed their eyes on an old rich nabob, called Benjamin Rice, who had taken up his residence at Pansey Lodge, in the neighbourhood, as a very suitable and easy kind of person, who would likely have no objection to enter without much struggle into the matrimonial noose. They never thought of consulting Dione on the subject; for, though they did not dispute that she had “some interest” in the affair, they took for granted that, as one of the family, she was solicitous for the enhancement of its fortunes, and would at once sell herself for the good of the Græmes of Eyrymount. The nabob was not averse, at least in the first instance, to partake of the fine dinners, served up as a costly kind of bait at Eyrymount House. The dyspepsia, which, along with his rupees, he had caught in India, made him nice in the selection of his food and wine; and no cost was spared by the fortune-hunting Amphytrions, to procure for him whatever might please his palate. Neither had the nabob any disinclination to feast his eyes on the fair face of Dione, who received his looks and attentions very much in the way that children do that emetic Indian shrub, called ipecacuanha. The tyranny of her proud mother, however, prevented her from shewing symptoms of displeasure, when she felt herself subjected to his scrutiny; and, as yet, no hint had been given that he was selected as the man who was to make her “happy for life.”

Next to the getting off of the fair Dione in a carriage and four, and repairing his fortunes with the fortune of her husband, Hugo Græme had long sighed for getting back the merk-land of Outfieldhaugh, formerly a part of Eyrymount, and very foolishly, as he thought, given off from the estate, by his grandfather, Murdoch Græme, to a favourite friend, at a small yearly feu of only a pound sterling. This property was now a very pretty place; having been, by the first feuar, embellished by plantations and fanciful shrubs, which, in the course of time, had grown up and covered the high parts with an umbrageous clothing of variegated hues, glittering in the setting sun with a splendour which could too well be seen from the windows of Eyrymount. The envied place had been taken from the main estate in the most awkward and provoking manner possible; for, in place of being, what its name implied, an outfield, it lay in the very bosom of Eyrymount, and was composed of the best land of the property, besides enjoying the finest prospect on any part of the estate. Beyond all, it was for ever in the eye of the gazer from the casements of the old house; and the original feeling of regret was embittered by a daily accession of displeasure, as strangers at Eyrymount pointed out to the laird the beautiful spot, and asked whether it formed part of the old domain.

The fault committed by Murdoch Græme, had been attempted to be cured by Hector Græme, the father of Hugo, who did everything in his power to prevail upon the proprietor of Outfieldhaugh to dispose of it again to him, whereby the integration of the old estate would be effected, while another property could easily be procured to the satisfaction of the seller, who had no family feelings or prejudices to gratify, by clinging to his possession. These efforts, however, had proved vain; for the proprietor of Outfieldhaugh was just as fond of his merk-land as Græme was of his larger possessions; and did not hesitate to get angry, as he was well entitled to do, when solicited to part with his property, to gratify a family pride he despised, because, perhaps, he had no family of his own of which he could be otherwise than ashamed. The wish which had actuated Hector Græme through life was transmitted to his son on his deathbed; particular directions having been given in his will that his heir should be upon the watch, night and day, to pounce upon Outfieldhaugh, and reincorporate it with the main estate, and a hint added, that there was no occasion for being over-scrupulous as to the mode by which that great object should be accomplished. This hint was only the advice which Hector himself had followed.

“Honesty has nothing to do with the getting back of what should never have been given away,” said the dying man to Hugo, who sat by his bedside after the clergyman had departed. “I have examined all the rights, charters, infeftments, retours, and what not, and held them up to the light, to see if I could detect what the lawyers call ‘erasures;’ but, though I never could see daylight through them, your quicker eyes may be more successful. There’s a clause in them, binding the heirs of Outfieldhaugh to lend the charters to us as the superiors. I forced a loan of the title-deeds upon that clause, and had a good fire in my library, which I looked at often, and then at the charter again, and then at the fire again; but—but—but——” And with these words on his tongue, old Hector Græme, who was called the honest laird of Eyrymount, expired.

The recommendation of old Hector was not lost upon Hugo, who recollected, particularly, the hint about the library fire; but a slight legal education he had received in his youth taught him that, as the charters had been registered at Edinburgh, the library fire could not aid him in getting back Outfieldhaugh. After he became satisfied of this, but not before, he “disdained,” as he said, “to reacquire the property in the manner recommended by old Hector, who knew nothing about the act 1617; besides, how could he get the titles, without an obligation to redeliver them ’within a reasonable time and under a suitable penalty?’” He resolved upon another plan; but whether it was less dishonest than the speedy mode recommended by old Hector, and affected to be despised by him, may be safely left to the judgment of the world. This much may be said for Hector’s project—that he had the merit of philosophizing; for, though the qualities of phlogiston had already been pretty well ascertained, the effects of its application to the rights of another person’s property had not often been examined, except by the anti-philosophical fifteen who sit in the Parliament House of Edinburgh, and who foolishly allowed themselves to be led by musty acts of parliament and old precedents. The mode adopted by Hugo, again, was purely empirical, and, besides, suggested to him by a change having taken place in the proprietorship of Outfieldhaugh.

Some time previous to our historical era, the proprietor of the envied property died, without children, and without any settlement. His heir-at-law was a poor hind, called Nashon Heatherton—a name given to him by his father, who believed that a scripture appellation, taken _ad aperturam bibliorum_, or chance opening of the Bible, would be attended with luck—a belief well justified by the result. Nashon had got little or no education, and, though a remarkably good-looking, stalworth countryman, was accounted shy, if not simple—an idea, however, derived merely from his appearance, which denoted no great mental vigour, though the truth was, that he had more wit than his neighbours, being only “shy of using it,” and having a perverse pleasure in leading people astray, while he enjoyed the unprofitable errors that were continually made, in imputing to him a facility of being imposed upon. The intelligence that the hind, Nashon Heatherton, had succeeded to Outfieldhaugh, produced, apparently, greatly more effect upon the public, who were not to benefit by it to the extent of a farthing, than upon the “fortunate youth” himself; who, when the attorney told him of his luck, replied, with a smile, that “he had nae faith in lawyers, an’ wad be cautious in takin possession o’ an estate, till he was satisfied he was the true heir.” Nashon had no intention of being very difficult to be satisfied on the point of right; but some who did not understand the vein of his humour, said he was an idiot who could not distinguish good from evil.

When Nashon Heatherton took possession of Outfieldhaugh—a step he adopted without the necessity of the application of force, contrary to the ideas entertained by his neighbours—he was waited upon by his superior, Hugo Græme, who went for the express purpose of taking the dimensions and properties of the new proprietor, with a view to his ulterior schemes, which he had been remodelling from the instant he heard of the devolution of the envied right on an obscure, illiterate, and simple hind.

“I am come, sir,” said Hugo, as he entered the hall of Outfieldhaugh, and accosted Nashon, who was sitting in the finely furnished apartment, occupied in “glowrin frae him—I am come to wish you joy of a possession which has come to you without expectation; and, therefore, must yield you pleasure, greater and of a different kind, than acquisitions of property generally do, even to heirs.”

“I haena felt it yet,” replied Nashon, looking up to Græme with a curious, arch expression of face. “The auld hoosekeeper, Esther Maclean, has been cryin a’ day aboot the beauties o’ the place; but she says there’s nae conies on’t, sae there can be little amusement either for me or Birsey, wha sits growlin there because he’s no at his auld quarters at Conybarns.”

“We have more foxes than conies in these quarters,” replied Græme, struck with the cause of complaint stated _in limine_ by the new proprietor.

“I suppose sae,” replied Nashon, eyeing Græme expressively; “there’s nae want o’ them in ony quarter; but they’re easily got quit o’; for, whar there’s nae _fules_, there’s nae foxes. We had nane o’ them at Conybarns.”

“You seem to have a grateful recollection of that place,” said Græme. “Old Langbane, the laird of it, would, I understand, sell it. You should purchase it.”

“I hae aneugh o’ property,” replied Nashon; “when I hae Outfieldhaugh—maybe owre muckle.”

“You do not understand me,” said Græme. “I mean that you should sell Outfieldhaugh, and buy Conybarns with the price.”

“That wadna be ill to do,” said Nashon; “for they say the laird of Eyrymount has a keen ee to the place; but dinna ye think I should just be doin wi’t? There’s owre muckle wood on’t, but that can be easily mended wi’ a guid axe; an’ I can get a breed o’ conies frae Conybarns.”

“Useful improvements,” said Græme, staring at Nashon, and unable to ascertain whether he was an idiot or a wag.

“I hae ither changes i’ my head,” replied Nashon, “if I could be at the trouble o’ bringin them oot. I like a stir aboot a place. There’s some fine waterfa’s i’ the dell yonder; but what’s a waterfa withoot a mill? Folk rin after thae things, an’ seem to like the noise o’ the dashin waters; but hoo muckle mair noise wad there be if there was a guid birlin spinnin mill alangside o’ them? Besides, there’s some life aboot a mill—the swearin o’ the men spinners, the screighin o’ the hizzies, their love-makins i’ the green haughs, their penny waddins i’ the ale-houses. It’s thae things that mak a country place lichtsome. I wonder that Eyrymount hasna mair sense than to keep his place sae quiet. I’ll shew him an example.”

“That may not suit his taste,” replied Græme, at a loss what to say; for he had some suspicions that Nashon knew him; and the introduction of himself was now made a difficult matter.

“It is impossible, sir,” said Nashon: “would it no suit his taste to mak siller? They say he spends weel; and, while his waters are rinnin to the sea, withoot ca’in a single mill, he may rin dry—unless, indeed, Benjamin Rice marries his bonny dochter, Dione.”

“I am thinking Esther Maclean has been giving you the news of the place,” said Græme, trying to smile, but unable to get beyond a grin.

“Ou ay, the cratur has been trying to amuse me,” said Nashon; “for she couldna bear, she said, to see me sittin i’ the middle o’ this big ha’, lookin frae me, an’ thinkin o’ the huntin o’ the conies o’ Conybarns; but when the mills are set agaun, we’ll hae something to keep us out o’ langer. I may, peradventure, think too o’ some tanneries. It’s a pity to lose sae muckle oak bark; and Jamie Skinner, the leather merchant o’ Peebles, says he could sell as mony skins as I could gie him.”

“But you forget, Mr. Heatherton,” said Græme, beginning to lose temper, “that you have only a servitude to a limited extent over the Well Burn, and will not be entitled to destroy the purity of the water.”

“But water doesna rin up the brae, sir,” replied Nashon. “I’m below Eyrymount, an’ my neebours below me winna object. But, after a’, I think o’ mony things I never execute.”

“I hope you will think twice about these things,” said Græme. “I merely called in, as a neighbour, to wish you joy. Good morning!”

“Guid mornin, sir!” replied Nashon, without rising from his chair. “That’s Eyrymount himsel,” he continued, after Græme had departed, “if Esther’s account o’ him be correct. Isna that the laird o’ Eyrymount, Esther?” said he to Esther Maclean, as she entered.

“The very man,” replied Esther. “Was he wantin to buy Outfieldhaugh frae ye?”

“Ou, ay,” replied Nashon; “but I tauld him I intended to build spinnin mills an’ tannaries on the Well Burn.”

“An’ do ye intend to spoil yer estate in that way?” said Esther.

“It’s no very likely,” replied Nashon. “The value o Outfieldhaugh lies in its woods an’ waterfa’s; an’, though I pretended to like the whin muirs o’ Conybarns better, it was only to bring the laird oot, an’ see if ye were richt in what ye tauld me. I think ye’re nearly as wise as mysel.”

While Nashon and Esther Maclean were thus comparing notes, Hugo Græme returned to Eyrymount, and had a conference with his lady on the character of the new proprietor of Outfieldhaugh.

“What kind of a boor have you found this new proprietor of your old estate?” said the lady, as he entered. “Is he simple enough to sell, or wild enough to dissipate it by incurring debt?”

“He is either the most arch rogue or the greatest fool I ever met in my life,” replied Græme. “I intended to introduce myself after the first salutation; but the idiot began talking about Eyrymount as if he thought I were some one else, and said such things as entirely prevented me from making the declaration. His housekeeper is old Esther Maclean, whom he has retained; and she, who bears us no good feeling, has told him everything he requires to know to put him on his guard against us—that is, I mean, if he has wit enough to take advantage of it; for I doubt yet if he is not a born idiot. He talked about hunting conies, and building spinning-mills on the Well Burn, like a madman; yet, if he knew whom he was talking to, there was a sense in his madness which I do not much like.”

“Did you ask him if he would sell Outfieldhaugh?” inquired the lady.

“I did,” answered Græme; “and his answer was a question—‘Dinna ye think I should just be doing wi’t?’ What could you make of a person who could return such an answer to a plain question?”

“But you say he talked of hunting,” said the lady. “That is a very good way, as you well know, of getting into debt.”

“Yes, but it depends on the game,” replied Græme—“cony-hunting, with an old hairy terrier he calls Birsey, will not ruin him, even if he found any conies on Outfieldhaugh, which I defy him to do.”

“But the spirit of Nimrod,” replied the lady, “extends to every kind of game, whether real statutory game, conies, or pigeons. Give him a smack of reynard, and the despicable cony will soon be left to its burrow.”

“If he has wit enough to distinguish between a fox and a rabbit,” said Græme—“which, however, I doubt. Every effort must, no doubt, be tried. Outfieldhaugh must be got by force or stealth. It must be Dione’s dowry, when she is wedded to Benjamin Rice; and when he dies, as he must soon do, if one can have any faith in his gamboge-coloured skin, we shall have our patrimonial estate entire; and his large fortune to dash away with in successful competition with Sir James Featherstone of Cockairney, Sir George Beckett of Turf Hall, and all our sporting neighbours, who at present outstrip us in the race of pleasure, and excel us in the court of fashion. The question is—How is this to be accomplished? ‘He that dares well fares well,’ as the saying is; and I think we cannot do better than try to innoculate this piece of untenanted spiritless flesh with a little of the blood of Nimrod and Pollux. Hunting and horse-racing comprehend within themselves all sorts of expensive dissipation. If he joins our Soho Club, he will require money. I will lend it, if I should borrow it for that purpose; and I know the nature of an adjudication.”

“The project sounds well,” said the lady; “but I must see the cony-hunter myself, for women are better judges of men, than men are of their neighbours. I will give him a dinner, if you will give him a present of a hunter. We must blow the soap-bell before it flies and bursts.”

“If you are to make a _belle_ of him, you must indeed prepare plenty of soap,” said Græme, smiling at the cleverness of a vile pun. “But, without a joke, he is a good-looking boor, were he washed. A cake of soap, with your invitation card, might be of some importance. It is the _alpha_ of the education of a gentleman, and we must begin at the beginning.”

This conversation was overheard by the gentle Dione, who was, in no small degree, interested in the affair propounded by her parents. She now knew, for certain, their intentions in regard to the disposal of her hand; and, while her judgment disapproved of their scheme, which was unfair towards the simple-minded (so she termed him) Heatherton, and cruel to herself, her feelings rebelled against a union with the gamboge-coloured old Indian, who had already ogled her into a sympathetic jaundice. The process of her thoughts was extremely favourable to calling forth a strong interest in favour of Nashon, whom she had never seen, but whom she figured to herself as a plain, good-looking man (as indeed he was), whose simplicity was about to be taken advantage of, for her sake, by his property being unjustly wrested from him and given to her, as a dowry, on the occasion of her marriage with a man she hated. Simple as she herself was, she felt inclined to counteract these ambitious and unjustifiable intentions; and, if Nashon Heatherton had been known to her, and in any way worthy of her affections, she would (so she theorised) have thrown herself into the arms of the new laird of Outfieldhaugh, saved him from ruin, and herself from an interminable grief.

The intensity of her feelings, called up by what she had overheard, and inflamed by the workings of her own mind, drove her into the surrounding woods of Eyrymount, where she might weep unobserved; and the excited state of her feelings sought relief by the natural means of speaking out her thoughts. She was overheard by Nashon. They spoke. An explanation took place, and that sympathy which follows often on mutual knowledge, led the way to love. He learned from her her own unhappy position, and the intentions of her father to ruin him, for the purpose of securing Outfieldhaugh. Proceeding homewards, he thus monologized:—

“An’ sae Eyrymount wants to ride me to the devil that he may get Outfieldhaugh! He maun be ignorant o’ the siller I got as the auld laird’s executor, besides the estate as his heir. Let him remain in his ignorance, an’ we’ll see wha will ride langest an’ wha’ll keep strongest. My neck has as mony liths in’t as Eyrymount’s craig; an’ if he canna get Oldfieldhaugh except by stretchin mine, I’ll no’ get his dochter Dione without gien his a thraw. Can onybody blame me? Am I no fechtin him wi’ his ain weapons? and, besides, are we no strugglin for the same object—the junction o’ the twa estates that hae been owre lang separated?”

Continuing his train of thought farther than we think it necessary to record it, Nashon arrived at Outfieldhaugh House, at the door of which he met Esther Maclean, who presented to him a face so full of expression, that the ideas seemed to be struggling in all parts of it to get down to her mouth for vent. It was clear that something pertaining to the Eyrymount family had occurred during the few hours’ absence of her master; for few other subjects could have produced such a mute loquacity as her moving wrinkles exhibited when Nashon entered.

“Your threat to big spinnin mills on the Well Burn has biggit your respectability, guid sir,” she exclaimed. “Read that, and then tak a turn into the stable.”

Esther handed to Nashon, as she spoke, a letter from Madame Græme, finely perfumed, the sight and smell of which produced a convulsion in the old simple frame of mind of the quandam hind, which he did not care about exhibiting even to Esther. The application of his large coarse fingers to the _single drop_ of scented green wax with which the note was sealed, produced a mysterious kind of feeling of awe without a visible cause, which was entirely new to him; and the great array of Cupids and roses stamped on the margin of the fine hot-pressed paper, completed the effect of this mute Ariel from the regions of high life. The note was as follows:—

“Mr. and Mrs. Græme, of Eyrymount, present their respects to Mr. Nashon Heatherton, and request the honour of his company to dinner at Eyrymount, on Wednesday se’enight, the 15th instant, at five o’clock.”

On the other side of the note were a few lines, in another and a bolder hand, to this effect.—

“Mr. Græme, who has had already the honour of conversing with Mr. Heatherton, presumes upon his character of feudal superior of Outfieldhaugh, to mark the introduction of a new vassal by some trifling consideration; and therefore, and as the Soho Club meet for the purpose of paying their respects to Mr. Reynard to-morrow at the Shaking Bridge over the Hazel Burn, he requests Mr. Heatherton’s acceptance of his favourite hunter, Springall, and the pleasure of his company at the chase.”

“My auld maister wad hae tauld me what was in the letter,” said Esther, turning up her eyes expressively into the face of Nashon.

“An’ yer new ane winna refuse ye the pleasure,” answered Nashon. “The braw folk o’ Eyrymount have invited me to dinner on Wednesday se’enight, and sent me a hunter for the chase, the morn, at the Shakin Bridge.”

“An’ will ye gang?” said Esther.

“Surely,” replied Nashon—“ordinary politeness seems to demand it; but what will I do for a huntin dress?”

“Yer ancestor’s scarlet coat winna disgrace his heir,” replied Esther. “It’s up i’ the leather kist, i’ the blue parlour yonder; an’ I’ll mak oot to get a len’ o’ a pair o’ boots frae Squire Hawthorn’s butler, wha’ll never let on the thing to his maister.”

Nashon smiled at the idea of borrowing a pair of boots; but pride had not yet in him attained that height which enables its votaries to look down with contempt on the obligation of a loan, and he chose to sport Squire Hawthorn’s boots and Squire Græme’s horse in the meantime, to gratify an object which would require still greater sacrifices. Next day, accordingly, he appeared at the rendezvous, where he in a short time was accosted by Eyrymount, who was accompanied by the proprietor of the under part of the neophyte’s habiliments.

“You will find this sport better than cony-hunting, Mr Heatherton,” said Eyrymount, laughing.

“Ou ay,” replied Nashon; “but I fear it’s mair expensive. I may become owre fond o’t, an’ the rents of Outfieldhaugh may scarcely haud agen the expense.”

“You cannot complain yet,” said Eyrymount, looking significantly at Springall.

“I should think not,” said Squire Hawthorn, looking as significantly at the boots.

“No,” replied Nashon, drawing up his leg a little, but immediately throwing it down again, with a jerk of the stirrup—“but I ken my weakness. I had nae less than nine terriers, ance, at Conybarns—a perfect pack; an’ I wadna wonder to see me hae as mony fox-hounds—ay, an’ maybe as mony hunters. I fear, Eyrymount, I maun lay a’ that cost at your door.”

“There’s no sound on earth like the tally-ho!” cried Eyrymount, delighted with Nashon’s views, which seemed to coincide so well with his own. “You will be a true son of Nimrod, an’ may carry away the gree of the hunting-cup of the southern sept of the Græmes.”

“I like baith the drinkin-horn an’ the tootin-horn,” said Nashon; “an’ will empty the ane an’ fill the other as weel’s ony fox-hunter i’ the kingdom.”

“Bravo! I have not been mistaken in you,” cried Græme.

“The grey lark flees highest o’ a’ the singin’ tribe,” replied Nashon; “an’ the bright gooldie the lowest. Ye canna ken a man frae his coat, ony mair than ye can tell whether a cat is a guid hunter frae the colour o’ her skin.”

“You are right,” said Squire Hawthorn; “neither can you know a man from his boots.”

“If they’re borrowed, ye can say that he’s a cautious, savin chiel wha wears them,” replied Nashon; “but, if they’re bought an’ no paid,” with a significant look at Hawthorn, who was known to be deep in debt, “ye can say he’s an ass. Is the horn no sounded yet? I’m keen to set aff. My bluid’s getting warm wi’ the thought a’ the throw aff an’ the hark on. Ho! he! ho! tantivy! tantivy!”

And Nashon cracked his whip as he thus emulated, by a loud bellow, the spirit of the huntsman.

The chase began, and was continued with great spirit. Reynard displayed his usual tact; and the hounds, Squire Hawthorn’s pack, were in fine blood. Nashon’s tally-ho was heard ringing loudest in the woods; his horse was the finest of the company; and he scoured on like the wind, heedless of the laugh that was attempted to be raised against him by Hawthorn, who had told several of his friends, that Springall, which once belonged to him, knew the touch of the heel of his old boots, and, if they did not take care, would carry the clown in at the death, and shame the whole Soho Club. This sportive sally was successful in more ways than one; for while its humour was well-calculated to produce cachination, there was a ratiocination in it which was calculated to produce a lugubrious reaction for, to the surprise and discomfiture of all the huntsmen, Nashon Heatherton was the individual who was in at the death—a feat, doubtless, as much owing to the speed of Springall as to the dauntlessness of the rider, who, however, displayed great power of horsemanship and surprising presence of mind, on grounds of great difficulty and danger.

In the evening the club enjoyed the hospitality of the proprietor of Nashon’s underfittings, and, although the borrower had, during the day, suffered the gibes of the young fox-hunter, he did not think that either these or the relation in which that part of his dress stood to the lender, disqualified him from eating his meat or drinking his wine. That he would be dubbed the butt of the company, he knew before he went; but he felt himself under the obligations of a peculiar humour, that ruled him with a power paramount to other considerations; and, in the present instance, that humour was itself subservient to objects of ambition of high import—motives that led him to overlook the temporary buzz of an innocuous raillery on the part of men who were fast going to a destruction which he was taking active means to avoid. He, therefore, put on the appearance of enjoying the fox-hunters’ peculiar mode of draining the cup of pleasure to the dregs, laughed, sang, drank, and even essayed, on one or two occasions, a sturdy oath. His strength, robust health, and unsubdued constitution, enabled him to cope with the strongest of these Tricongii in their own element, wine; and when the _great cup_ was brought in—which was generally when all parties were in that intermediate state between sense and forgetfulness which demanded in charity a total finisher, to send them to entire oblivion and rest—he was as sober as a judge. A quarter of an hour after the emptying of that fearful goblet, the fox-hunters around him, who had been high in their humour of drawing “rises” out of him, according to the slang of aquatic sportsmen, or “baiting the badger,” in their more appropriate dialect, fell at his feet, singing as they descended, “with a hey ho chevy!” and all groaning in rough chorus. He alone sat immoveable, laughing at the sleeping pack who had been, during the night, following him with their deep mouths, and boying forth their humour. Where were they now? Their game had become their whipper-in, though they were unconscious of his whip. He took Græme’s hand as he slept, and shook it as that of his father-in-law to be, and wished him joy of Outfieldhaugh. He then mounted Springall, and sought his home and his bed.

On the day appointed, Nashon, dressed and scented in great style, dined at Eyrymount. There were present several fox-hunters, Benjamin Rice, and others of the neighbours—none of whom came up to Nashon in brilliancy or scent. They seemed all delighted and amused with the grotesque figure, excepting Dione, who stared at him in sorrow and disappointment; for she could not conceive how so sudden a transformation from simplicity to gaudy glitter and bad taste, could have taken place on one who appeared to be gifted with prudence and good sense. She feared the hunter had turned his brain, and that her father and mother were in a fair way of seeing their scheme accomplished. Her pride was, moreover, hurt, when she saw the man whom she had begun to love, made a laughing-stock to a whole company, including the hated Benjamin Rice, who was himself exquisitely fitted for filling the high office so unaccountably occupied by the plain and cautious Nashon Heatherton. Nor was she better pleased with his conversation, which, while his old Scotch was retained by necessity, was directed towards subjects which she thought he despised—the interminable hunt, the turf, the dog-kennel, and the wassail chamber.

“I am told, Mr. Heatherton,” said Benjamin Rice, “that you were in at the death at the last hunt, and that you stood the great cup better than any one of the company.”

“Ou ay,” replied Nashon—“I hae turned a great sportsman, thanks to Eyrymount! an’ no bad hand at the bottle. I’m at present on terms wi’ Gib Cowper, the horse-jockey, for twa famous hunters, as guid, I think, as Springall. They’re baith by Bellerophon, real bluids; but he asks twa hundred guineas for them, an’ that I think is ower muckle; I offered him a hunder and ninety.”

“Where are they to be seen?” inquired Græme.

“I dinna ken,” replied Nashon. “He brought them to Outfieldhaugh; but wadna leave them in my stable till we bargained. He said he would ca’ again. I hae been offered Lord Luxmore’s pack, too, at four hunder guineas, fifty head, that is about four guineas a dog—owre muekle, dinna ye think, Eyrymount?”

“I don’t think so,” said Eyrymount—“I’ll run halves with you.”

“I’ll consider o’t,” said Nashon. “His lordship said he wad see me again. We’ll better no seem owre anxious—we may mak a better bargain, especially as they say he needs money.”