Chapter VI (2)

The brave fellows silently knelt by the guns, glowing with impatience for the command to be given to open their fire upon the enemy. The Americans seemed nothing loath to meet them half-way. Like winged engines of death rushing to shower destruction on each other, the proud vessels came within gunshot. The American opened the first fire upon the frigate. Several shot had passed over her, and some of the crew were already wounded. Still no word escaped from the lips of the British commander. At length he spoke a word in the ear of the man at the helm, and the next moment the frigate was brought across the bow of the enemy. "Now, my lads," cried the captain, "now give them it." An earthquake seemed to burst at his words--the American was raked fore and aft, and the dead and dying, and limbs of the wounded, strewed her deck. The enemy quickly brought their vessel round--then followed the random gun, and anon the heavy broadsides were poured into each other. For an hour the action had continued, but victory or death seemed the determination of both parties. Both ships were crippled, and had become almost unmanageable, and in each, equal courage and seamanship were displayed. It was drawing towards nightfall, they became entangled, and the word "to board!" was given by the commander of the frigate. Peter Paterson was the first man who, cutlass in hand, sprang upon the deck of the American. He seemed to possess a lion's strength, and more than a lion's ferocity. In a few minutes, four of the enemy had sunk beneath his weapon. "On, my hearties!--follow Paterson!" cried an officer; "Peter's a hero!" Fifty Englishmen were engaged hand to hand with the crew of the American; and for a time they gained ground; but they were opposed with a determination equal to their own, and, overpowered by a superiority of numbers, they were driven back and compelled to leap again into the frigate. At the moment his comrades were repulsed, Peter was engaged with the first lieutenant of the American--"Stop a minute!" shouted Peter, as he beheld them driven back; "keep your ground till I finish this fellow!" His request was made in vain, and he was left alone on the enemy's deck; but Peter could turn his back upon no man. "It lies between you and me now, friend," said he to his antagonist. He had shivered the sword of the lieutenant by the hilt, when a Yankee seaman, armed with a crowbar, felled Peter to the deck.

Darkness came on, and the vessels separated. The Americans were flinging their dead into the sea--they lifted the body of Peter. His hands moved--the supposed dead man groaned. They again placed him on the deck. He at length looked round in bewilderment. He raised himself on his side. "I say, neighbours," said he to the group around him, "is this _our_ ship or _yours_?" The Americans made merry at Peter's question. "Well," continued he, "if it be yours, I can only tell you it was foul play that did it. It was a low, cowardly action, to fell a man behind his back; but come face to face, and twa at a time if ye like, and I'll clear the decks o' the whole ship's crew o' you."

"You are a noble fellow," said the lieutenant whom he had encountered, "and if you will join our service, I guess your merit shan't be long without promotion."

"What!" cried Peter, "raise my right hand against my ain country! Gude gracious, sir! I wud sooner eat it as my next meal!"

In a few weeks the vessel put into Boston for repairs; and, on her arrival, it was ascertained that peace had been concluded between the two countries. Peter found himself once more at liberty; but with liberty he found himself in a strange land, without a sixpence in his pocket. This was no enviable situation to be placed in, even in America, renowned as it is as the paradise of the unfortunate; and he was standing, on the second morning after his being put on shore, counting the picturesque islands which stud Boston harbour, for his breakfast, poor fellow, when a person accosted him--"Well, my lad, how is the new world using you?" Peter started round--it was his old adversary the lieutenant.

"A weel-filled pocket, sir," returned Peter, "will mak either the new warld or the auld use you weel; and without that, I reckon your usage in either the ane or the ither wad be naething to mak a sang about."

The lieutenant pulled out his purse--"I am not rich, Paterson," said he; "but, perhaps, I can assist a brave man in need." Peter was prevailed upon to accept a few dollars. He knew that to return to Berwickshire was again to throw himself into the power of his persecutor, and he communed with himself what to do. He could plough--he could manage a farm--he was master of all field-work; and, within a week, he engaged himself as a farm-servant to a proprietor in the neighbourhood of Charleston. He had small reason, however, to be in love with his new employment. Peter was proud and high-minded, (in the English, not the American acceptation of the word,) and he found his master an imperious, avaricious, republican tyrant. The man's conduct ill-accorded with his professions of universal liberty. His wish seemed to be, to level all down to his own standard, that he might the more easily trample on all beneath him. His incessant cry, from the rising of the sun until its setting, was, "Work! work!" and with an oath he again called upon his servants to "work!" He treated them as beasts of burden. "Work! hang ye, work!" and a few oaths, seemed to be the principal words in the man's vocabulary. Peter had not been overwrought in the frigate--he had been his own master at Foxlaw--and, when doing his utmost, he hated to hear those words everlastingly rung in his ear. But he had another cause for abhorring his employment; his master had a number of slaves, on whom he wreaked the full measure of his cruelty. There was one, an old man, in particular, on whom he almost every day gratified his savageness. Peter had beheld the brutal treatment of the old negro till he could stand it no longer; and one day, when he was vainly imploring the man who called himself the owner of his flesh for mercy, Peter rushed forward, he seized the savage by the breast, and exclaimed--"Confound ye, sir, if I see ye strike that poor auld black creature again, I'll cleave ye to the chin."

The slave-owner trembled with rage. "What!" said he--"it's a fine thing, indeed, if we've wollopped the English for liberty, and after all, a man an't to have the liberty of wollopping his own neeger!"

He drew out his purse, and flung Peter's wages contemptuously on the ground. Peter, stooping, placed the money in his pocket, and, turning towards Charleston, proceeded along the bridge to Boston. He had seen enough of tilling another man's fields in America, and resolved to try his fortune in some other way, but was at a loss how to begin. I have already told you how Peter's mother praised his delivery in his debate with the schoolmaster; and Peter himself thought that he could deliver a passage from Shakspeare in a manner that would make the fortune of any hero of the sock and buskin; and he was passing along the Mall, counting the number of trees on every row, much in the same manner, and for the same reason, as he had formerly counted the islands in the harbour, when the thought struck him that the Americans were fond of theatricals; and he resolved to try the stage. He called at the lodgings of the manager in Franklin Place. He gave a specimen of his abilities; and, at a salary of eighteen dollars a-week, Peter Paterson was engaged as leader of the "heavy business" of the Boston _corps dramatique_. The tidings would have killed his mother. Lear was chosen as the part in which he was to make his first appearance. The curtain was drawn up. "Peter, what would your mother say?" whispered his conscience, as he looked in the glass, just as the bell rung and the prompter called him; and what, indeed, would Betty Paterson have said to have seen her own son Peter, with a red cloak, a painted face, a grey wig, and a white beard falling on his breast! Lear--Peter--entered. He looked above, below, and around him. The audience clapped their hands, shouted, and clapped their hands again. It was to cheer the new performer. Peter thought they would bring down the theatre. The lights dazzled his eyes. The gallery began to swim--the pit moved--the boxes appeared to wave backward and forward. Peter became pale through the very rouge that bedaubed his face, and sweat, cold as icicles, rained down his temples. The shouting and the clapping of hands was resumed--he felt a trembling about his limbs--he endeavoured to look upon the audience--he could discern only a confused mass. The noise again ceased.

"Attend----France----Burgundy----hem!----Gloster!" faltered out poor Peter. The laughter became louder than the clapping of hands had been before. The manager led Peter off the stage, paid him the half of his week's salary, and wished him good-by. It is unnecessary to tell you how Peter, after this disappointment, laid out eight dollars in the purchase of a pack, and how, as pedlar, he travelled for two years among the Indians and back-settlers of Canada, and how he made money in his new calling. He had written to his parents and to Ann Graham; but, in his unsettled way of life, it is no wonder that he had not received an answer. He had written again to say, that, in the course of four months, he would have to be in New York _in the way of business_--for Peter's pride would not permit him to acknowledge that he carried a pack--and if they addressed their letters to him at the Post-office there, he would receive them. He had been some weeks in New York, and called every day, with an anxious heart, at the Post-office. But his time was not lost; he had obtained many rare and valuable skins from the Indians, and, with his shop upon his back, he was doing more business than the most fashionable store-keeper in the Broadway. At length, a letter arrived. Peter hastily opened the seal, which bore the impress of his mother's thimble, and read:--"My dear bairn,--This comes to inform ye that baith your faither and me are weel--thanks to the Giver o' a' good--and hoping to find ye the same. O Peter, hinny, could ye only come hame--did you only ken what sleepless nights I spend on your account, ye wad leave America as soon as ye get my letter. I wonder that ye no ken that Ann, poor woman, an' her faither an her mother, an' the family, a' gaed to about America mair than a year and a half syne, and I'm surprised ye haena seen them."

"Ann in America!" cried Peter. He was unable to read the remainder of his mother's letter. He again flung his pack upon his shoulder, but not so much to barter and to sell, as to seek his betrothed bride. He visited almost every city in the States, and in the provinces of British America. He advertised for her in more than fifty newspapers; but his search was fruitless--it was "Love's labour lost." Yet, during his search, the world prospered with Peter. His pack had made him rich. He opened a store in New York. He became also a shareholder in canals, and a proprietor of steam-boats; in short he was looked upon as one of the most prosperous men in the city. But his heart yearned for his native land; and Peter Paterson, Esq., turned his property into cash, and embarked for Liverpool.

Ten long years had passed since the eyes of Betty Paterson had looked upon her son; and she was busied, on a winter day, feeding her poultry in the barn-yard, when she observed a post-chaise drive through the village, and begin to ascend the hill towards Foxlaw.

"Preserve us, Robin!" she cried, as she bustled into the house, "there's a coach comin' here--what can folk in a coach want wi' the like o' us? Haud awa out an' see what they want, till I fling on a clean mutch an' an apron, an' mak mysel wiselike."

"I watna wha it can be," said Robin, as he rose and went towards the door.

The chaise drew up--a tall genteel-looking man alighted from it--at the first glance he seemed nearly forty years of age, but he was much younger. As he approached Robin started back--his heart sprang to his throat--his tongue faltered.

"Pe--Pe--Peter!" he exclaimed. The stranger leaped forward, and fell upon the old man's neck.

Betty heard the word _Peter!_--the clean cap fell from her hand, she uttered a scream of joy, and rushed to the door, her grey hairs falling over her face; and the next moment her arms encircled her son.

I need not tell you of the thousand anxious questions of the fond mother, and how she wept as he hinted at the misfortunes he had encountered, and smiled, and wept, and grasped his hand again, as he dwelt upon his prosperity.

"Did I no aye say," exclaimed she, "that I would live to see my Peter a gentleman?"

"Yet, mother," said Peter, "riches cannot bring happiness--at least not to me, while I can hear nothing of poor Ann. Can no one tell to what part of America her father went?--for I have sought them everywhere."

"Oh, forgie me, hinny," cried Betty, bitterly; "it was a mistake o' yer mother's a'thegither. I understand, now, it wasna Ameri_ca_, they gaed to; but it was Jamai_ca_, or some _ca_, and we hear they're back again."

"Not America," said Peter: "and back again!--then, where--where shall I find her?"

"When we wrote to you, that, after leaving here, they had gaen to America," said Robin, "it was understood they had gaen there--at ony rate, they went abroad someway--and we never heard, till the other week, that they were back to this country, and are now about Liverpool, where I'm very sorry to hear they are very ill off; for the warld, they say, has gaen a' wrang wi' the auld man."

This was the only information Peter could obtain. They were bitter tidings; but they brought hope with them.

"Ye were saying that ye was in Liverpool the other day," added his mother; "I wonder ye didna see some o' them!"

Peter's spirit was sad, yet he almost smiled at the simplicity of his parent; and he resolved to set out in quest of his betrothed on the following day.

Leaving Foxlaw, we shall introduce the reader to Sparling Street, in Liverpool. Amongst the miserable cellars where the poor are crowded together, and where they are almost without light and without air, one near the foot of the street was distinguished by its outward cleanliness; and in the window was a ticket with the words--"_A Girl's School kept here, by_ A. GRAHAM." Over this humble cellar was a boarding-house, from which, ever and anon, the loud laugh of jolly seamen rang boisterous as on their own element. By a feeble fire in the comfortless cellar, sat an emaciated, and apparently dying man; near him sat his wife, engaged in making such articles of apparel as the slop-dealers send to the West Indies, and near the window was a pale but beautiful young woman, instructing a few children in needle-work and the rudiments of education. The children being dismissed, she began to assist her mother; and, addressing her father, said--

"Come, cheer up, dear father--do not give way to despondency--we shall see better times. Come, smile now, and I will sing your favourite song."

"Heaven bless thee, my own sweet child!" said the old man, while the tears trickled down his cheeks. "Thou wilt sing to cheer me, wilt thou?--bless thee!--bless thee! It is enough that, in my old age, I eat thy bread, my child!--sing not!--sing not!--there is no music now for thy father's heart."

"Oh, speak not--think not thus," she cried, tenderly; "you make me sad, too."

"I would not make thee sad, love," returned he, "but it is hard--it is very hard--that, after cruising till I had made a fortune, as I may say, and after being anchored in safety, to be tempted to make another voyage, where my all was wrecked--and not only all wrecked, but my little ones too--thy brothers and thy sisters, Ann--to see them struck down one after another, and I hardly left wherewith to bury them--it is hard to bear, child!--and, worse than all, to be knocked up like a useless hulk, and see thee and thy mother toiling and killing themselves for me--it is more than a father's heart can stand, Ann."

"Nay, repine not, father," said she: "He who tempereth the wind to the shorn lamb, will not permit adversity to press on us more hardly than he gives us strength to endure it. Though we suffer poverty, our exertions keep us above want."

The old woman turned aside her head and wept.

"True, dear," added he, "thy exertions keep us from charity; but those exertions, my child, will not long be able to make--I see it--I feel it? And, oh, Ann, shall I see thee and thy mother inmates of a workhouse--shall I hear men call thy father, Bill Graham, the old pauper?"

The sweat broke upon the old man's brow from his excitement; his daughter strove to soothe him, and, with an assumed playfulness, commenced singing Skinner's beautiful old man's song, beginning--

"Oh, why should old age so much wound us!"

Now, Peter Paterson had been several days in Liverpool anxiously inquiring for Captain Graham, but without obtaining any information of him or of his daughter, or where they dwelt. Again and again he had wandered along the docks; and he was disconsolately passing up Sparling Street, when the loud revelry of the seamen in the boarding-house attracted his attention. It reminded him of old associations; he paused for a moment, and glanced upon the house and, as the pealing laughter ceased, a low, sweet voice, pouring forth a simple Scottish air, reached his ear. Peter now stood still. He listened--"That voice!" he exclaimed audibly, and he shook as he spoke. He looked down towards the cellar--the ticket in the window caught his eye. He read the words, "_A Girl's School kept here, by_ A. GRAHAM." "I have found her!" he cried, clasping his hands together. He rushed down the few steps, he stood in the midst of them--"I have found her!" he repeated, as he entered. His voice fell like a sunbeam on the cheerless heart of the fair vocalist. "Peter!--My own"----she exclaimed, starting to her feet. She could not utter more; she would have fallen to the ground, but Peter caught her in his arms.

I need not describe the scene that followed: that night they left the hovel which had served as a grave for their misfortunes. Within a week they had arrived at Foxlaw, and within a week old and young in the village danced at a joyful wedding. I may only add, that, a few weeks after his marriage, Peter read in the papers an advertisement, headed--"UPSET PRICE GREATLY REDUCED.--_Desirable Property in the neighbourhood of Foxlaw, &c._" It was the very farm now offered for sale of which Peter was to have become a tenant some twelve years before, and was the remnant of the estates of the hopeful Laird Horslie; and Peter became the purchaser. The old skipper regained his wonted health and cheerfulness; and Betty Paterson lived to tell her grandchildren, "she aye said their faither wad be a gentleman, and her words cam true." Even the old schoolmaster, who had styled him "Ne'er-do-weel Peter," said, he "had aye predicted o' Mr Paterson, even when a callant, that he would turn out an extraordinary man."

THE HEROINE.

A LEGEND OF THE CANONGATE.

After it became known that the wily Sir Robert Carey had hurried away from the deathbed of Queen Elizabeth, to announce to the delighted monarch of Scotland his succession to the crown of England, a great many English noblemen and gentlemen came north on much the same errand that brings so many of them at this day--viz., to hunt; the game, in the one case, being place and favour, and in the other, blackcock and grouse. Among the rest, was one Sir Willoughby Somerset, of Somerset-Hall, in Devonshire, a knight of gay and chivalric manners, excellently set off by an exterior on which nature and art had expended their best favours, but exhibiting, at same time, in his total want of true honour and mental acquirements, that tendency to a fair distribution, which nature, in all her departments, delights to display--suggesting, as it did, to an ancient philosopher, that the _pulchrum_ and the _utile_ are dealt out in equal portions under a whimsical law against their union in one person.

Having arrived, with his gay suit of servants and splendid equipage, at the palace of Holyrood, Sir Willoughby was informed that there were no apartments close to the palace which could be given to him for his accommodation, in consequence of the great influx of noble visiters who had come from all parts of Scotland and England to testify their allegiance, and express their satisfaction, whether real or assumed, on the occasion of King James' succession. Sir Willoughby, therefore, took up his abode in a house in the Canongate, which was pulled down more than a hundred years ago--at that time known by the name of the House of Gordon, in consequence, it is supposed, of having at one time been occupied by the ducal family of that name. It was situated on the south side of the street, and nearly opposite to the close called Big Loch-end Close, which possessed at that time a very different appearance from what it does at present; for the double row of low Flemish-looking huts which lined the narrow entry, have given place to modern buildings, which do not look half so well as their more humble predecessors.

Now, in one of these little huts there lived, at that time--unconscious, doubtless, that their names would thus become of historical interest centuries after they were gathered to their fathers--a man called Adam Hunter, and his wife, Janet, both of some importance in the small sphere of their own little gossiping world; but, if these humble individuals had been all that their lowly mansion contained, the chronicler would scarcely have stooped to notice either it or its inhabitants. There was a third inmate in that house--an orphan girl, called Margaret Williamson--a young, slender, azure-eyed creature, about seventeen years of age, of bewitching beauty, and of a simplicity, kindness, and meekness of disposition, that endeared her to thousands. Producing that kind of interest and sensation in her own limited circle, which is so often found to be the effect of the mysterious power of beauty, though allied to poverty, which, indeed, sometimes enhances it, Margaret seemed as unconscious of the magic influence of her charms, as she was of the singular fate that awaited her. She had been heard of where she was not seen; and, innocent and harmless as she was, she had not been passed unheeded by the "wise women" of her day, who, in spite of fire and King James' wrath, provided her, according to their love or their spite, with a prison or a palace, as her lot upon earth. As already hinted, Margaret was represented as being an orphan, brought up by the gratuitous kindness of Adam Hunter and his wife, though there were not wanting some who thought that her parentage was not of the equivocal kind that was represented.

Scotland was not, at that time, so far behind in the love and practice of gossiping, as that there should be any want of the usual kind and number of remarks on the new-comers to the house of Gordon; and the family of Adam Hunter were not behind their neighbours in their curiosity.

"He's a braw knight that wha has come to the House o' Gordon," said Janet Hunter, one night when they were sitting round the fire.

"Ken ye wha, or what, or whence he is," inquired Adam, "atour the mere title an' form o' his knighthood?"

"I ken naething aboot him," replied Janet, "save that his name is Sir Willoughby Somerset, and that he has a great number o' servitors, wham he treats like princes. They say he is gallant and weel-favoured, and Elspet Craig, the wise woman o' the Watergate, says, in her fashion o' speech, that he is a rock whereon the happiness, and peace o' mind, and honour o' mony a bonny maiden may perish, like the silly boats that trust to the smiles o' an autumn day. But, if I'm no cheated, Peggy Williamson can tell mair aboot the knight than a' the 'wise women' frae the Watergate to St. Mary's."

"An' if she can," said Adam, "it may be waur for her than if she were as deep learned as Elspet Craig in the mysteries o' that art, whereby she works sae meikle mischief to her faes, and may, peradventure, bring upon her head the vengeance o' the law. I houp better things o' Peggy."

"I ken naething aboot the Knight o' the White Feather," said Margaret, with a deep sigh; "and wherefore should I?--he's far abune my degree."

"But ye ken, at least," rejoined Adam, "that he wears a white feather, my bonny bird--and feathered creatures are flichtie, especially when they're far frae their ain countrie. Even our ain robin, wha condescends to come and eat our crumbs, when the snaw is on the hill, leaves us in summer; and, mair than a' that, he's a bird o' prey, and doesna hesitate, when he has a guid opportunity, to soil his bonny red breast wi' the blood o' his companions."

It was apparent that both Adam Hunter and Janet were suspicious of Margaret's limited knowledge of the knight, and they had good reason to be so; for Janet had been told that, one night, when Margaret had said she was going to meet a person of the name of Simon Frazer--a tradesman who had been making honourable proposals to her, along with many others who were proud to be called her suitors--she had been seen walking with a gentleman wrapped up in a Spanish cloak, supposed to be Sir Willoughby, in the glen of St Arthur's Seat, called the Hunter's Bog. On another occasion, she had been followed by Simon Frazer to a trysting place, known by the name of the Hunter's Rest--a large boulder of basalt lying on the side of the bog, and remarkable to geologists by its unaccountable position. On this stone Margaret had sat till the moon had concealed her horns behind the top of St Arthur's, and the glen had gradually become enveloped in the shade of the hill. Simon Frazer took advantage of the gloom, and concealed himself near to the spot where Margaret sat; and, amidst the silence which reigned in this secluded place, he could distinctly hear the sighs of the maiden, as the hope of seeing the person she had come to meet became fainter and fainter.

"Wae's my puir, deluded heart!" she said, in a desponding and tremulous voice; "what is it that drives me, like a charmed bird or a dementit thing, into the power o' this braw knight, in spite o' the warnings o' Elspet Craig, the admonition o' Adam Hunter, and, what's abune a', the fearsome visions o' my ain wild dreams? Can it be that I, wha hae seen, and may still see, sae mony bended knees o' lovers o' my ain country supplicating my favours as if their condition here and in anither warld depended on a blink o' these worthless een, sit here, even noo, at the Hunter's Rest, a mile frae my ain hame, and when naething but spirits are in the glen, to meet a lover frae a strange land, wha speaks a strange language, and mak's love in a strange fashion? But it is even sae. My heart is nae langer my ain. He has ta'en it into his ain keeping, and he may, in his ain pleasure, as easily break it as he may crush the bonny blue bells that flower there i' the glen."

At the termination of Margaret's simple soliloquy, the sound of footsteps was heard, and there soon followed the greeting of lovers. Margaret's spirits soon revived, and, having taken Sir Willoughby's arm, she said, playfully, as she looked up into his face--"The faithless moon has been truer this nicht than ye hae been; for she left the tap o' the hill half an hour syne, and ye are only here noo."

"Upbraid me not, my fair Margaret," answered Sir Willoughby; "for I was scared at the Friar's Path by some person who seemed inclined to follow me, and I was obliged to change my road; but thou knowest that love is fed by hindrances, and its course is none of the straightest."

"I didna think," answered the simple maiden, "that true love stood in need o' onything else in this warld, than the company and kindness o' the twa lovers to ane anither."

"By my feather, Margaret, that is a true maiden's speech! But I do not think that St Arthur, who must surely be the lover's saint, will thank us for an argument, instead of a love-token, on such a beautiful night as this. Observe these gleams of Cynthian glory, falling like streaks of silver on the tops of the crags, investing the darkness of this glen with a mystery in which love delights, and thou wilt forget thy argument, in the sweets of our accustomed dalliance."

"That is a licht aith, Sir Willoughby, that ye hae sworn," answered the maiden; "but every land, as the sang says, has its ain laugh, and it may also hae its ain aith; and I may weel forgie ye that, for the bonny words ye hae now spoken. Foreign lands hae finer words than puir Scotland; but dinna think that I canna enjoy the beauty o' these silvery rocks and that mirky glen, because my silly heart can find nae utterance to its feelings, but by its ain unmeaning thrabs."

"And that is nature's best and most beautiful language, my sweet bird," said Sir Willoughby, kissing the yielding maiden; "nor would I give one throb of thy fair bosom for all the eloquence of poetry."

Holding such conversation, the lovers passed deeper into the shades of the hill, and disappeared; but the death-like silence of the place discovered, to the disappointed Simon Frazer, many sighs and protestations which otherwise would have been sacred to the happy pair.

Well, many such meetings had Sir Willoughby and Margaret. Their walks became more frequent, and of longer duration; and it was often a late hour before Margaret returned to her home. It could not be that such a change in the habits of the girl could escape the keen eye of public curiosity, and far less the suspicious guardianship of Adam Hunter. Wide spread, and generally known, as was the beauty of the maiden, so, in proportion, was the voice of scandal heard over the town, whispering the strange tidings, that Peggy Williamson had been seduced by the great knight who lived in the House of Gordon.

The circumstance, indeed, very soon became apparent, from the appearance of the unhappy girl, who could no longer conceal her condition. She was, in consequence, sorely beset by Adam Hunter, and interrogated whether she had received any promise of marriage, or any pledge whereon she could found any expectation or hope that the knight's intentions towards her were of an honourable nature. On this subject, no satisfaction could be got from Margaret, who persisted in a dogged silence, whenever any question was put to her, tending to implicate, in any way, the man who, to all appearance, had ruined her. But chance brought to light what Margaret had been so anxious to conceal; for one evening, Janet Hunter discovered in Margaret's sleeping apartment a small scented paper, curiously folded up, which she instantly carried to her husband. Adam took the paper to a learned clerk, in Blackfriars' Hospital--(for few persons, at that day, could either write, or read writing)--who read it to him; and he was surprised to find that it contained a promise, on the faith of a knight, that Sir Willoughby Somerset would make, when time and circumstances afforded opportunity, Margaret Williamson his wedded wife. The paper was again returned to the place from which it was taken.

This paper, combined with Margaret's condition, having satisfied Adam Hunter of the truth of the general report and his own suspicions, he lost no time in waiting upon the knight. Being a man of hasty and even furious temper, he taxed Sir Willoughby, in unmeasured terms, with the seduction of his ward, and demanded, with a stern determination, satisfaction to the maiden and to himself. Touched to the quick, and wounded in his pride by the pertinacious manner of Adam Hunter, Sir Willoughby lost in turn his temper, and seizing a baton which lay near him, he struck the choleric Scot a heavy blow on the head, and, with the aid of his servants, kicked him out of the house. One of Sir Willoughby's servants, who aided in this ejection and outrage, was Richard Foster; the person who, it was supposed, first procured a meeting between his master and Margaret. He was possessed of his master's secrets, in this and many other dishonourable amours; and, though he now, by his master's orders, assisted in the expulsion of Adam Hunter, he hated him in his heart, in consequence of a blow which he had some time before received from him, on which occasion he had threatened to report his master's practices to Sir Robert Carey, who would not have failed to communicate them to King James, whereby Sir Willoughby's status at Court would have been lost, and his ruin accomplished. The knight wished, therefore, to get quit of Richard; but to part with him living was to part with his secrets; and he had accordingly made up his mind to get him disposed of in such a manner as that he could tell no tales. An opportunity for this occurred sooner than might have been expected.

Stung with an ungovernable rage, Adam Hunter, on passing the threshold of the house of Gordon, threw himself on his knees, and vowed to Almighty God that he would take the first opportunity that fortune afforded him of depriving his enemy of life. This dreadful purpose, thus definitively and impiously settled, calmed Adam Hunter's rage; for he felt, as if by anticipation, that he was revenged. He walked deliberately home, and without hinting anything of his deadly intention to his wife, sent for Simon Frazer, Margaret's rejected suitor, communicated to him his design, and requested his co-operation. Frazer entered into the scheme with all the spirit of his clan, and all the rage of a disappointed lover towards his successful rival. They resolved to fix the manner of accomplishing their purpose that evening, after Janet and Margaret had retired to rest.

In the evening, when Adam Hunter and Simon Frazer met, Margaret had just retired to bed, but not to sleep. Her mind was occupied with the thoughts of her situation. She had now become suspicious of Sir Willoughby's intentions. In her late interviews with him, he had been distant and shy; and he had even refused, on one occasion, to meet her, alleging, as an excuse, that he was engaged to go to an evening entertainment, to which it was ascertained he never went. He had, besides, endeavoured to get back from her the letter, which, in an unguarded moment, when intoxicated with love and wine, he had given to her. All these circumstances satisfied the unhappy maiden that she was about to become, or rather had already become, the dupe of a heartless villain. She now considered herself standing on the very verge of ruin; about to become, as Elspet Craig had foreboded, the victim of a passion insidiously introduced into her young heart; and left to the scorn of an unfeeling world, or the unavailing pity of a conceited and unfruitful philanthropy. These reflections were passing through her mind, when she heard Simon Frazer come into the house; for her bed was so situated that she could hear everything that occurred in the adjoining apartment. She soon ascertained the object of this late meeting of the two friends; and with feelings that shook her whole frame, she heard it fixed that, on the following evening, when Sir Willoughby was expected to go to an evening entertainment at the palace, Adam Hunter should gain the staircase window of Widow Hutchison, fire upon his enemy, and, upon seeing him fall, make his escape, along with his friend, by a back passage that led to the North Back of the Canongate. This resolved upon, the two friends parted.

The agitation which the knowledge of this fierce and bloody purpose produced in the mind of Margaret, was proportioned to the love which she still bore to her seducer, and to the gentle character of the maiden, who shrunk from the very thought of violence. Her nerves had, moreover, been severely affected by the train of sorrowful thoughts which, at the moment when she heard the fatal resolution, were passing through her mind. But a new feeling soon arose. She was now called upon to act, and the urgency of the case requiring the most prompt communication to Sir Willoughby, assuaged, in some degree, her nervous excitement, by forcing her ideas into a train calculated to the contrivance of some method of meeting him in the morning.

At daybreak, Margaret rose from her sleepless pillow, wrapt herself up in her plaid, and went and secreted herself behind a large tree, which stood in the garden at the back of the House of Gordon, from which she could observe the bedroom window of Sir Willoughby. It was a cold raw morning; the rain was pouring in torrents, and bursts of distant thunder shook the heavens. In this situation, Margaret sat for two hours, wet, wearied, and disconsolate. Her attention was, in some degree, arrested by a new equipage that stood in the court-yard, apparently newly arrived from a distance; and she concluded that Sir Willoughby had visitors--a prediction which she had good reason to verify. Her eye sought continually the casement of the knight's sleeping apartment, which was at last opened, and to her surprise and mortification, she saw standing behind the dressing-glass, the form of a gay and fashionable lady, with Sir Willoughby standing behind her--his head leaning on her left shoulder, and his right hand patting, with playful fondness, her cheek, and arranging her ringlets with the sportive gaiety and confidence of a professed libertine.

Overcome by this apparition, which so completely justified Margaret's suspicions of the character of her lover, and wearied and wasted as she was by the scene of the previous night, the fevered vigil which succeeded, and the cold and wet position she had so long occupied on this morning, she became faint; and, being unable longer to stand, leant herself, in a stooping posture, against the stem of the tree under which she stood. Sir Willoughby now entered the garden; he had observed her from the window, and came with marked displeasure in his countenance.

"Why this early visit, young maiden?" he said, with a querulous tone of voice, and without making any effort to assist her to rise.

"I dinna come here this morning, Sir Willoughby Somerset," replied Margaret, with the warmth of offended pride, and standing up, nerved by her feelings, which were roused as far as the gentleness of her nature permitted--"I dinna come here this morning on my ain account, though maybe I hae as meikle reason to do that as the braw leddie wha sits, even noo, in your sleepin chamber, and whose braw hair ye were pleased, in a fashion of merriment, to put in disorder. Oh, that it had pleased heaven that ye had deranged nae mair o' me than my worthless locks, I might this morning hae been the blithe, thochtless, and innocent Peggy Williamson, that I was when my stray wits left me to mysel' at the Hunter's Rest! Na, Sir Willoughby, I dinna come to tell ye o' your broken troth, and my lost love, and the ruin o' a puir lassie, wha wad gladly hae laid down her worthless life to save yours. These things--though, by our memories, whilk are but as the quicksand to the finger-marks of the drowning sailor, they may ance be forgotten--are recorded, doubtless, whar' they shall remain, ay, as the graving on adamant. Yet, though these things, in this world at least, concern only me, wha am, doubtless, o' sma concernment to ony living mortal; and though they may cost me _my_ life, may be o' sma avail, they are o' less importance to me at this time than what I cam' to tell ye, being naething less than how to save your ain. Adam Hunter has resolved to slay ye this night, as ye gang to Holyrood. Tak' anither road than the Canongate; or, what is better, stay at hame, and save a life that is dearer to Peggy Williamson than her ain.--Fareweel, fareweel!" And before Sir Willoughby could reply, she had left him, waving her hand to him as she went. But, on looking back, as she opened the wicket, she saw the same lady--whom she afterwards ascertained to be lady Arabella Winford, a person of bad repute, with whom Sir Willoughby had resided for some time on the continent--enter the garden, and greet him in a manner very different from the modest custom of Scotland at that day.

After the departure of Margaret, Sir Willoughby, instead of being in any degree affected by gratitude for the preservation of his life, or by compassion for the kind maiden who had been instrumental in doing him that service, projected, from her information, a scheme marked by cowardice and cruelty, whereby he might get rid of his servant Richard Forster, and put an end to him and the secrets with which he had entrusted him, at the same moment. He resolved, and true to the character he bore--a combination of cruelty and frivolity--he resolved, amidst the blandishments of meretricious affection, and the imbecile badinage and persiflage of a strumpet's conversation, to send Richard down the Canongate in the evening, wrapped up in his cloak, and wearing his hat and white plume, by which he had become so remarkable. The project was executed as it was planned; and a deed was done with which Edinburgh, and indeed Scotland, rang for many a day. Richard Forster, wearing the cloak and plumed hat of his master, was shot dead in the Canongate, opposite the house of the widow Hutchison, by the unerring hand of Adam Hunter, who, seeing his supposed victim fall, flew in the direction of the Calton Hill, leaving the gun, with which he had done the deed, lying in a hedge, which at that time skirted a part of the north back of the Canongate.

A hue and cry was soon raised against Adam Hunter who, about a week after the crime was committed, was laid hold of by the officers of the law, and lodged in prison. Sufficient evidence having, in the opinion of the crown authorities, been procured for a conviction, the unfortunate man was, in due course of time, brought to trial before the High Court of Justiciary. The court met on the 15th day of November; and Adam Hunter, guarded on each side by members of the City Guard, sat, with the stoical indifference which marked his character, to hear the evidence to be brought forward against him, and, in all probability, to receive sentence of death. The august appearance of the judges, sitting in their silk robes, the venerable and even dignified aspect of the unfortunate culprit, and the strange and mysterious crime with which he stood charged, joined with the fate of the well-known Canongate beauty, with which that crime was unaccountably associated, produced a sensation in the Justiciary Court which had not been experienced for many years. The deepest silence prevailed when the indictment was read; and the Lord Justice-Clerk, having put the ordinary question to the pannel of guilty or not guilty, Adam Hunter rose with firmness, and calmly and respectfully answered--"Not guilty, my Lord, of the murder of Richard Forster." The trial proceeded, and the crown advocate spoke:--

"My Lords, and gentlemen of the jury, this is a case of murder, whereto, so far as I can see, no defence or plea of justification, or even palliation, can be set up by the prisoner at the bar, unless it be that which is indeed an aggravation, that he did intend to kill one man against whom he entertained _malice prepense_, and slew another against whom he had no cause of quarrel. On the day preceding the commission of this murder, the prisoner at the bar was, in consequence of his outrageous and brutal conduct in the House of Gordon, occupied at present by Sir Willoughby Somerset, kicked by that honourable knight out of doors, whereby, being fiercely enraged, he impiously vowed a desperate revenge, the which, though he had taken it instanter and killed his enemy, _percitus rixa_, would still, by the just laws of this land, which make no distinction between forethought felony, and _chaude melee_, have been murder, and sufficient to subject the prisoner to the penal consequences of that heinous crime. But, my Lords, the prisoner cannot even plead _homicidium in rixa_; for he went home and meditated upon his crime; settled deliberately the _modus trucidandi_ in cool blood--or, as we say, _sanguine frigida_; and, on the following day, watched, _sanguinem sitiens_, for his victim; and more like a bloodhound, _canis vestigator_, than a human being, deprived him, whom he supposed to be his victim, of life. But revenge is known to be blind, and, instead of his enemy, the prisoner murdered, by shooting him through the body, a person who was not in any degree guilty of having offended him; but who was going about his private affairs, as any of us might have been, unconscious of meriting, standing in no fear of receiving, and knowing no reason for expecting such an awful fate as that which awaited him. This, I say, is an aggravation of the crime of murder, in so far as, while in the ordinary case there may, in man's estimation, be some palliation in consequence of the infliction of an injury--in this there can be none."

The witnesses for the crown were then called. The death of Richard Forster, caused by a shot from a gun, was proved. It was also proved, that the gun found in the hedge was Adam Hunter's. The quarrel with Sir Willoughby Somerset was next established, as also the fact that the deceased wore, on that evening, the dress of his master. The macer of court then called out the name of the next witness, which was that of Margaret Williamson; but, before she had time to make her appearance, Adam Hunter rose from his seat and addressed the court in the following terms:--

"My Lords, it doesna appear to me, that, in the eye o' God, or even in that o' man, it can abide the twitch o' natural reason that a puir bairn should, in ignorance o' the relation she bears to him against whom she is to swear, be entrapped by cunning men o' the law, to gie evidence against the life o' him wha gave her life. The veins o' Margaret Williamson are filled wi' my bluid, albeit her heart mayna beat wi' the ordinary feelings o' a bairn to a father; for she, puir thing, has nae knowledge that Adam Hunter is her parent, whom she is bound to love and respect, and therefore she may this day, in that unseemly ignorance which I and my wife Janet have imposed upon her, say what at some future time she may repent wi' tears o' bitterness, whilk winna recall to her the parent she has slain. I canna think, therefore, my Lords, that ye can consider it unreasonable in a parent--a character maybe some o' yourselves bear, and, if ye do, oh, think what it is to be doomed by your ain bairn!--that this puir lassie be tauld, before she be examined, that she is bane o' the bane, and flesh o' the flesh, o' him whom she is about to arraign o' murder."

As soon as Adam Hunter had finished his speech, which, delivered with much emphasis, produced a great sensation in all the persons present, who never understood that Margaret Williamson was in any way related to him, the crown counsel stood up and said--

"My Lords, this is an ingenious device, on the part of the prisoner at the bar, to deprive the law of its evidence. This girl, who is about to be brought forward as a witness, has been held out to the world as an orphan--a fact that may be testified by hundreds of persons, and is, indeed, admitted by the culprit himself. The story now fabricated by the prisoner is, indeed, improbable--as what father would deny his child? I cannot, therefore, consent to allow any communication to be made to the witness, whereby the fountain of evidence may be contaminated by prejudice, and truth itself sacrificed to the false feelings and hysterical emotions of a relationship which, in my opinion, has no foundation in fact."

The judges, having disbelieved the statement of Adam Hunter, refused to comply with his request. Margaret Williamson was, accordingly, brought in and placed in the witnesses' box. Upon being examined, she gave, in evidence, the substance of the conversation which took place between Adam Hunter and Simon Frazer on that night when the death of Sir Willoughby Somerset was resolved upon. She was then asked whether she had, between that period and the death of Richard Forster, any communication with Sir Willoughby; but to this question she refused to give any answer, or rather she, by the effect of her simplicity--in this instance, however, made subservient to something approaching to cunning--so completely baffled the men of law that they were obliged to give up the question in despair.

On the part of Adam Hunter, an attempt was made to prove an alibi; but that having failed, the jury, upon the charge of the judge, who considered the crime proved, returned a verdict of guilty, and Adam Hunter received sentence of death.

The speech which Adam Hunter had made on the occasion of his trial, as already said, excited much sensation, and the truth of the fact stated by him was subjected to investigation. It was found to be perfectly true, though no notice is taken of it in the books of adjournal. Margaret Williamson was the illegitimate child of Adam Hunter, by the daughter of Elspet Craig, who died in giving birth to the infant; and it was to gratify the prejudices of Janet Hunter, who refused to bring up the child on any other condition, that the parentage had been so industriously concealed.

The unfortunate Adam Hunter was executed according to his sentence. At the time of his execution, considerable uproar was observed among the populace, who, displaying the usual shrewdness of the lower orders in Scotland, perceived that, although Adam could not be justified, he was only one of the actors in the tragedy; and that, while their unfortunate countryman was expiating his crime by an ignominious death, the English knight, whose enmity towards Richard Forster, and shameful conduct towards Adam's daughter, were now generally known, was allowed to escape.

The rumours thus circulated by the crowd at the execution of Adam Hunter were not unknown to the crown officers, who felt the force of the extraordinary circumstance, that Richard Forster should, on that fatal night, have worn the clothes of his master. That fact was, moreover, in a considerable degree, explained by another, which had been elicited from one of Sir Willoughby's servants, of the name of William Evans, viz., that Sir Willoughby and Richard had had a quarrel, which produced high words between the parties, and some threats on the part of the knight. The crown officers were, besides, moved by the curious circumstance, that Margaret Williamson had so artfully evaded the question put to her on the occasion of the trial of Adam Hunter; while it was almost impossible to believe that she would not have communicated to Sir Willoughby the plot that was laid for his life, notwithstanding of the injury she had received by being made the victim of his seduction.