Chapter II: Part 2

"Humph! for picking a lock," said the blacksmith. "The deil put my left fingers between my hammer and the stiddy when I meddle again wi' rusty padlocks."

"There's naething dune on earth but what is seen," said the man, as with something like a smile on his left cheek, the other retaining its gravity, he held up his finger as if pointing to heaven.

"Ay, ay, there's an e'e there."

"And to break open a house," continued the officer, "is death en the wuddy up yonder at the 'Auld Heart.'"

"But wha, in God's name, is the witness against me?"

"Guidwife Christian," said the officer again, seriously enough at least for Geordie's belief of his sincerity.

"And the woman has turned against her husband! This is the warst blow ava. But, Lord, man, I stowe naething."

"Thieves are no generally at the trouble of picking locks, rummaging a house, and going away empty-handed, as if out o' a kirk. But come, you can tell the Lord Advocate's deputy a' that."

And George Gourlay was taken away, muttering to himself, as he went, "This explains a'. Nae wonder she wadna speak to the man she intended to hang. Woman, woman, verily from the beginning hae ye been we to man, and will be to the end."

Led up the High Street, yet in such a way as to avoid any suspicion that he was in the hands of an officer, George Gourlay was placed safely in the room of Mr. B----, the procurator-fiscal of that time, for reasons unknown to us, in the Old Tolbooth. The entry through the thick iron-knobbed door to the inside of this dark and dreary pile, which borrowed its light only through openings left by the irregularities of the high masses of St. Giles, and the parallel rows of overshadowing houses, flanked by the booths and the Crames, was enough to vanquish the heart of the strongest and the most innocent. Nor was it the darkness and the squalor alone that were so formidable. Thick air, loaded with the breath and exhalations from unhealthiness and disease itself, had made livid faces and bloodshot eyes; drunken, uproarious voices, and bacchanalian songs, oaths, denunciations, and peals of laughter, mixed with groans. Only awanting that inscription seen by the Hermet shadow who led the Florentine. Up a stair--through the midst of these children of evil or victims of misfortune, the innocent rendered guilty by infection, the condemned to death made drearily jolly by despair, imitating the recklessness of mirth,--and now the unfortunate George Gourlay is before his examinator.

"Mr. Gourlay," said the officer.

"Sit down, sir," said Mr. B----, "and wait till the others come. We cannot want Mrs. Gourlay, though no doubt you can swear to the man. In the meantime, hold your peace, lest you commit yourself. Say nothing till you are asked. Most strange affair."

Thus at once doomed to silence, George sat and listened to the mixed buzz of this misery become ludibund. Nor was his unhappiness thus limited: a fearful conviction seized him, that long before he was hanged he would take on the likeness of the wretches he had passed through;--he would become sleazy; his eyes would be red, fiery, or bleared with tears, dried up in the heat of his fevered blood; his cheeks would be pale-yellow or blue, his voice husky, and his nose red; he would sing, swear, dance--ay, douce Geordie would sing even as they. Better be hanged at once than sent hence thus deteriorated,--an unpleasant customer in the other world. Nay, one half of them had greasy, furzy, red nightcaps; and the chance was therefore a half that he would be thrown off in one of these, to the eternal disgrace of the Gourlays of Gersholm, from whom he was descended.

A full hour passed, bringing no comfort on its heavy wings. At length another red-necked official entered, and introduced guidwife Christian herself, and--Patrick Guthrie.

When these parties entered, Geordie's eyes and mouth had relapsed into that condition they presented on that occasion when he saw the wraith by the bed with the green curtains.

"Mrs. Gourlay," said Mr. B----, "you are the wife of George Gourlay, blacksmith?"

"Ay, and have been for nine years, come the time, the day, and the hour."

"Please throw your mind back twenty years."

"It ower aften gaes back to that time o' its ain accord, sir."

"Well, tell us where you lived, and what you did about that time."

"I was servant to Mr. Patrick Guthrie,--this gentleman sitting at my right hand."

"Was Mr. Guthrie a married man?"

"Ay, sir, he was married to a young lady, whose maiden name was Henrietta Douglas, ane o' the Brigstons, as I hae heard."

"What kind of woman was she?"

"Bonny, sir, as ony that ever walked the High Street or the Canongate; and the mair wae, sir. Cheerfu', too, and light-hearted and merry as the lavrock when it rises in the morning; ay, and the mair wae!"

"Why do you add these words?" continued Mr. B----. "What do you mean?"

"Because thae things brought gay gallants about the house when master was awa' in Angus, whaur he had a property near Gaigie; but he was nane, I think, o' the four Guthries."

"Then you knew that they came without the knowledge and against the wishes of your master?"

"Ower weel, sir, for my peace these twenty years bygane."

"Then you think there was more than indiscretion in Mrs. Guthrie?"

"Muckle mair, I doubt."

"Do you recollect the names of any of these gay gallants?"

"There was Lord Spynie, a wild dare-the-deil; but sae merry, and jovial, and pleasant, that his very een were nets to catch women's hearts."

"Do you remember anything happening when Lord Spynie was in the house in Bell's Wynd?"

"Ay; on the last day o' my service, yea, the last day o' my leddie's life. My maister had gane to Gaigie, as I thought; but I aye doubted if he had been farther than the White Horse. He wouldna return for a week, not he; and so my leddie thought, for the next day she ordered me to get a goose, and roast it on the spit; and weel I kenned wha the goose was for. But I didna like the business, for I had my pirns to finish--no, gude forgie me, that I was against this deception o' my master. The goose was bought, and plucket, and singed, and put to the fire. The dinner was to be at twa o'clock, and Lord Spynie was there by ane. In half an hour after, wha comes rushing in but my master? And the moment he saw Spynie, he drew his sword, and so did his lordship his. My mistress screamed, and ran between them; and oh! sir, the sword that was thrust at Spynie gaed clean through my mistress's fair body. She was dead. Then Lord Spynie lost a' his courage, and flew out o' the house; and just as he was passing through the door, my master thrust at him, and his bluidy sword snapt and was broken clean through. He came back and looked on my leddy, and kissed her, ay, and grat like a bairn; but oh! he was composed too. 'Christy,' said he, 'lay your mistress on the green bed.' And so I did, and streeked her, and drew the coverlet over her, and put a mutch upon her head. Oh how fair she was in death! 'Christy,' said master, 'come hither.' I obeyed. 'Get the Bible,' he said. I got it. 'Get on your knees,' he said. I knelt. 'Here,' said he, 'is twenty gowden guineas; and now swear upon the Laws and the Prophets, and the four Gospels, that you will never, by word, or look, or pen, reveal to man, or woman, or wean what has been done--in this house this day.' I swore. 'Now go,' said he; 'for I am to lock up the house, and go far away, where no man can know me.' So I took my little trunk, and went away sobbing. Nor was he a moment after me. I saw him shut the shutters and lock the door, and walk quickly away. Nor was he ever heard of more till yesterday; and there he is."

"Is all this true, Mr. Guthrie?"

"All true as God's word."

"And all this happened twenty years ago?"

"Yes."

"Then by the law of Scotland you are a free man, even were this murder or homicide; for twenty years is the period of our prescription. You may all go."

Then they rose to depart.

"Mr. Guthrie," cried Mr. B----, "bury your wife. And, hark ye, the goose has been at the fire for twenty years, and must now, I think, be roasted."

THE PRODIGAL SON.

The early sun was melting away the coronets of grey clouds on the brows of the mountains, and the lark, as if proud of its plumage, and surveying itself in an illuminated mirror, carolled over the bright water of Keswick, when two strangers met upon the side of the lofty Skiddaw. Each carried a small bag and a hammer, betokening that their common errand was to search for objects of geological interest. The one appeared about fifty, the other some twenty years younger. There is something in the solitude of the everlasting hills, which makes men who are strangers to each other despise the ceremonious introductions of the drawing-room. So it was with our geologists--their place of meeting, their common pursuit, produced an instantaneous familiarity. They spent the day, and dined on the mountain-side together. They shared the contents of their flasks with each other; and, ere they began to descend the hill, they felt, the one towards the other, as though they had been old friends. They had begun to take the road towards Keswick, when the elder said to the younger, "My meeting with you to-day recalls to my recollection a singular meeting which took place between a friend of mine and a stranger, about seven years ago, upon the same mountain. But, sir, I will relate to you the circumstances connected with it; and they might be called the History of the Prodigal Son."

He paused for a few moments, and proceeded:--About thirty years ago a Mr. Fen-wick was possessed of property in Bamboroughshire worth about three hundred per annum. He had married while young, and seven fair children cheered the hearth of a glad father and a happy mother. Many years of joy and of peace had flown over them, when Death visited their domestic circle, and passed his icy hand over the cheek of the first-born; and, for five successive years, as their children opened into manhood and womanhood, the unwelcome visitor entered their dwelling, till of their little flock there was but one, the youngest, left. And O, sir, in the leaving of that one, lay the cruelty of Death--to have taken him, too, would have been an act of mercy. His name was Edward; and the love, the fondness, and the care which his parents had borne for all their children, were concentrated on him. His father, whose soul was stricken with affliction, yielded to his every wish; and his poor mother

"Would not permit
The winds of heaven to visit his cheek too roughly."

But you shall hear how cruelly he repaid their love--how murderously he returned their kindness. He was headstrong and wayward; and though the small still voice of affection was never wholly silent in his breast, it was stifled by the storm of his passions and propensities. His first manifestation of open viciousness was a delight in the brutal practice of cock-fighting; and he became a constant attender at every "_main_" that took place at Northumberland. He was a habitual "_bettor_," and his losses were frequent; but hitherto his father, partly through fear, and partly from a too tender affection, had supplied him with money. A "main" was to take place in the neighbourhood of Morpeth, and he was present. Two noble birds were disfigured, the savage instruments of death were fixed upon them, and they were pitted against each other. "A hundred to one on the Felton Grey!" shouted Fen-wick. "Done! for guineas!" replied another. "Done! for guineas!--done!" repeated the prodigal--and the next moment the Felton Grey lay dead on the ground, pierced through the skull with the spur of the other. He rushed out of the cockpit--"I shall expect payment to-morrow, Fen-wick," cried the other. The prodigal mounted his horse, and rode homeward with the fury of a madman. Kind as his father was, and had been, he feared to meet him or tell him the amount of his loss. His mother perceived his agony, and strove to soothe him.

"What is't that troubles thee, my bird?" inquired she. "Come, tell thy mother, darling."

With an oath he cursed the mention of birds, and threatened to destroy himself.

"O Edward, love! thou wilt kill thy poor mother. What can I do for thee?"

"Do for me!" he exclaimed, wildly tearing his hair as he spoke--"do for me, mother. Get me a hundred pounds, or my heart's blood shall flow at your feet."

"Child! child!" said she, "thou hast been at thy black trade of betting again. Thou wilt ruin thy father, Edward, and break thy mother's heart. But give me thy hand on't, dear, that thou'lt bet no more, and I'll get thy father to give thee the money."

"My father must not know," he exclaimed; "I will die rather."

"Love! love!" replied she; "but, without asking thy father, where could I get thee a hundred pounds?"

"You have some money, mother," added he; "and you have trinkets--jewellery!" he gasped, and hid his face as he spoke.

"Thou shalt have them!--thou shalt have them, child!" said she, "and all the money thy mother has--only say thou wilt bet no more. Dost thou promise, Edward--oh, dost thou promise thy poor mother this?"

"Yes, yes!" he cried. And he burst into tears as he spoke.

He received the money, and the trinkets, which his mother had not worn for thirty years, and hurried from the house, and with them discharged a portion of his dishonourable debt.

He, however, did bet again; and I might tell you how he became a horse-racer also; but you shall hear that too. He was now about two-and-twenty, and for several years he had been acquainted with Eleanor Robinson--a fair being, made up of gentleness and love, if ever woman was. She was an orphan, and had a fortune at her own disposal of three thousand pounds. Her friends had often warned her against the dangerous habits of Edward Fen-wick. But she had given him her young heart--to him she had plighted her first vow--and, though she beheld his follies, she trusted that time and affection would wean him from them; and, with a heart full of hope and love, she bestowed on him her hand and fortune. Poor Eleanor! her hopes were vain, her love unworthily bestowed. Marriage produced no change on the habits of the prodigal son and thoughtless husband. For weeks he was absent from his own house, betting and carousing with his companions of the turf; while one vice led the way to another, and, by almost imperceptible degrees, he unconsciously sunk into all the habits of a profligate.

It was about four years after his marriage, when, according to his custom, he took leave of his wife for a few days, to attend the meeting at Doncaster.

"Good-bye, Eleanor, dear," he said gaily, as he rose to depart, and kissed her cheek; "I shall be back within five days."

"Well, Edward," said she, tenderly, "if you will go, you must; but think of me, and think of these our little ones." And, with a tear in her eye, she desired a lovely boy and girl to kiss their father. "Now, think of us, Edward," she added; "and do not bet, dearest, do not bet!"

"Nonsense, duck! nonsense!" said he; "did you ever see me lose?--do you suppose that Ned Fen-wick is not 'wide awake?' I know my horse, and its rider too--Barrymore's Highlander can distance everything. But, if it could not, I have it from a sure hand--the other horses are all '_safe_.' Do you understand that--eh?"

"No, I do not understand it, Edward, nor do I wish to understand it," added she; "but, dearest, as you love me--as you love our children--risk nothing."

"Love you, little gipsy! you know I'd die for you," said he--and, with all his sins, the prodigal spoke the truth. "Come, Nell, kiss me again, my dear--no long faces--don't take a leaf out of my old mother's book; you know the saying, 'Never venture, never win--faint heart never won fair ladye!' Good-bye, love--'bye, Ned--good-bye, mother's darling," said he, addressing the children as he left the house.

He reached Doncaster; he had paid his guinea for admission to the betting-rooms; he had whispered with, and slipped a fee to all the shrivelled, skin-and-bone, half-melted little manikins, called jockeys, to ascertain the secrets of their horses. "All's safe!" said the prodigal to himself, rejoicing in his heart. The great day of the festival--the important St. Leger--arrived. Hundreds were ready to back Highlander against the field: amongst them was Edward Fen-wick; he would take any odds--he did take them--he staked his all. "A thousand to five hundred on Highlander against the field," he cried, as he stood near a betting-post. "Done!" shouted a mustachioed peer of the realm, in a barouche by his side. "Done!" cried Fen-wick, "for the double, if you like, my lord." "Done!" added the peer; "and I'll treble it if you dare!" "Done!" rejoined the prodigal, in the confidence and excitement of the moment--"Done! my lord." The eventful hour arrived. There was not a false start. The horses took the ground beautifully. Highlander led the way at his ease; and his rider, in a tartan jacket and mazarine cap, looked confident. Fen-wick stood near the winning-post, grasping the rails with his hands; he was still confident, but he could not chase the admonition of his wife from his mind. The horses were not to be seen. His very soul became like a solid and sharp-edged substance within his breast. Of the twenty horses that started, four again appeared in sight. "The tartan yet! the tartan yet!" shouted the crowd. Fen-wick raised his eyes--he was blind with anxiety--he could not discern them; still he heard the cry of "The tartan! the tartan!" and his heart sprang to his mouth. "Well done, orange!--the orange will have it!" was the next cry. He again looked up, but he was more blind than before.

"Beautiful!--beautiful! Go it, tartan! Well done, orange!" shouted the spectators; "a noble race!--neck and neck; six to five on the orange!" He became almost deaf as well as blind. "Now for it!--now for it!--it won't do, tartan!--hurrah!--hurrah!--orange has it!"

"Liar!" exclaimed Fen-wick, starting as if from a trance, and grasping the spectator who stood next him by the throat--"I am not ruined!"--In a moment he dropped his hands by his side, he leaned over the railing, and gazed vacantly on the ground. His flesh writhed, and his soul groaned in agony. "Eleanor!--my poor Eleanor!" cried the prodigal. The crowd hurried towards the winning-post--he was left alone. The peer with whom he had betted, came behind him; he touched him on the shoulder with his whip--"Well, my covey," said the nobleman, "you have lost it."

Fen-wick gazed on him with a look of fury and despair, and repeated--"Lost it!--I am ruined--soul and body!--wife and children ruined!"

"Well, Mr. Fen-wick," said the sporting peer, "I suppose, if that be the case, you won't come to Doncaster again in a hurry. But my settling day is to-morrow--you know I keep sharp accounts; and if you have not the '_ready_' at hand, I shall expect an equivalent--you understand me."

So saying, he rode off, leaving the prodigal to commit suicide if he chose. It is enough for me to tell you that, in his madness and his misery, and from the influence of what he called his sense of honour, he gave the winner a bill for the money--payable at sight. My feelings will not permit me to tell you how the poor infatuated madman more than once made attempts upon his own life; but the latent love of his wife and of his children prevailed over the rash thought, and, in a state bordering on insanity, he presented himself before the beings he had so deeply injured.

I might describe to you how poor Eleanor was sitting in their little parlour, with her boy upon a stool by her side, and her little girl on her knee, telling them fondly that their father would be home soon, and anon singing to them the simple nursery rhyme--

"Hush, my babe, baby bunting,
Your father's at the hunting," etc.;

when the door opened, and the guilty father entered, his hair clotted, his eyes rolling with the wildness of despair, and the cold sweat running down his pale cheeks.

"Eleanor! Eleanor!" he cried, as he flung himself upon a sofa.

She placed her little daughter on the floor--she flew towards him--"My Edward!--oh my Edward!" she cried--"what is it, love?--something troubles you."

"Curse me, Eleanor!" exclaimed the wretched prodigal, turning his face from her. "I have ruined you I--I have ruined my children!--I am lost for ever!"

"No, my husband!" exclaimed the best of wives; "your Eleanor will not curse you. Tell me the worst, and I will bear it--cheerfully bear it, for my Edward's sake."

"You will not--you cannot," cried he; "I have sinned against you as never man sinned against woman. Oh! if you would spit upon the very ground where I tread, I would feel it as an alleviation of my sufferings; but your sympathy, your affection, makes my very soul destroy itself! Eleanor!--Eleanor-!--if you have mercy, hate me--tell me--show me that you do!"

"O Edward!" said she, imploringly, "was it thus when your Eleanor spurned every offer for your sake, when you pledged to her everlasting love? She has none but you, and can you speak thus? O husband! if you will forsake _me_, forsake not my poor children--tell me! only tell me the worst--and I will rejoice to endure it with my Edward!"

"Then," cried Fen-wick, "if you will add to my misery by professing to love a wretch like me--know you are a beggar!--and I have made you one! Now, can you share beggary with me?"

She repeated the word "Beggary!"--she clasped her hands together--for a few moments she stood in silent anguish--her bosom heaved--the tears gushed forth--she flung her arms around her husband's neck--"Yes!" she cried, "I can meet even beggary with my Edward!"

"O Heaven!" cried the prodigal, "would that the earth would swallow me! I cannot stand this!"

I will not dwell upon the endeavours of the fond, forgiving wife, to soothe and to comfort her unworthy husband; nor yet will I describe to you the anguish of the prodigal's father and of his mother, when they heard the extent of his folly and of his guilt. Already he had cost the old man much, and, with a heavy and sorrowful heart, he proceeded to his son's house to comfort his daughter-in-law. When he entered, she was endeavouring to cheer her husband with a tune upon the harpsichord--though, Heaven knows, there was no music in her breast, save that of love--enduring love!

"Well, Edward," said the old man, as he took a seat, "what is this that thou hast done now?"

The prodigal was silent.

"Edward," continued the grey-haired parent, "I have had deaths in my family--many deaths, and thou knowest it--but I never had to blush for a child but thee! I have felt sorrow, but thou hast added shame to sorrow--"

"O father!" cried Eleanor, imploringly, "do not upbraid my poor husband."

The old man wept--he pressed her hand, and, with a groan, said, "I am ashamed that thou shouldst call me father, sweetest; but if thou canst forgive him, I should. He is all that is left to me--all that the hand of death has spared me in this world! Yet, Eleanor, his conduct is a living death to me--it is worse than all that I have suffered. When affliction pressed heavily upon me, and, year after year, I followed my dear children to the grave, my neighbours sympathized with me--they mingled their tears with mine; but now, child--oh, now, I am ashamed to hold up my head amongst them! O Edward, man! if thou hast no regard for thy father or thy heart-broken mother, hast thou no affection for thy poor wife?--canst thou bring her and thy helpless children to ruin? But that, I may say, thou hast done already! Son! son! if thou wilt murder thy parents, hast thou no mercy for thine own flesh and blood?--wilt thou destroy thine own offspring? O Edward! if there be any sin that I will repent upon my death-bed, it will be that I have been a too indulgent father to thee--that I am the author of thy crimes!"

"No, father! no!" cried the prodigal; "my sins are my own! I am their author, and my soul carries its own punishment! Spurn me! cast me off!--disown me for ever!--it is all I ask of you! You despise me--hate me too, and I will be less miserable!"

"O Edward!" said the old man, "thou art a father, but little dost thou know a father's heart! Disown thee! Cast thee off, sayest thou! As soon could the graves of thy brothers give up their dead! Never, Edward! never! O son, wouldst thou but reform thy ways--wouldst thou but become a husband worthy of our dear Eleanor; and, after all the suffering thou hast brought upon her, and the shame thou hast brought upon thy family, I would part with my last shilling for thee, Edward, though I should go into the workhouse myself."

You are affected, sir--I will not harrow up your feelings by further describing the interview between the father and his son. The misery of the prodigal was remorse, not penitence. It is sufficient for me to say, that the old man took a heavy mortgage on his property, and Edward Fen-wick commenced business as a wine and spirit merchant in Newcastle. But, sir, he did not attend upon business; and I need not tell you that such being the case, business was too proud a customer to attend upon him. Neither did he forsake his old habits, and, within two years, he became involved--deeply involved. Already, to sustain his tottering credit, his father had been brought to the verge of ruin. During his residence in Bamboroughshire, he had become acquainted with many individuals carrying on a contraband trade with Holland. To amend his desperate fortunes, he recklessly embarked in it. In order to obtain a part in the ownership of a lugger, he _used his father's name_! This was the crowning evil in the prodigal's drama. He made the voyage himself. They were pursued and overtaken when attempting to effect a landing near the Coquet. He escaped. But the papers of the vessel bespoke her as being chiefly the property of his father. Need I tell you that this was a finishing blow to the old man?

Edward Fen-wick had ruined his wife and family--he had brought ruin upon his father, and was himself a fugitive. He was pursued by the law; he fled from them; and he would have fled from their remembrance if he could. It was now, sir, that the wrath of Heaven was showered upon the head, and began to touch the heart of the prodigal: Like Cain, he was a fugitive and a vagabond on the face of the earth. For many months he wandered in a distant part of the country; his body was emaciated and clothed with rags, and hunger preyed upon his very heart-strings. It is a vulgar thing, sir, to talk of hunger; but they who have never felt it know not what it means. He was fainting by the wayside, his teeth were grating together, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. "The servants of my father's house," he cried, "have bread enough and to spare, while I perish with hunger;" and continuing the language of the prodigal in the Scriptures, he said, "I will arise and go unto my father, and say, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight."

With a slow and tottering step, he arose to proceed on his journey to his father's house. A month had passed--for every day he made less progress--ere the home of his infancy appeared in sight. It was noon, and, when he saw it, he sat down in a little wood by a hill-side and wept, until it had become dusk; for he was ashamed of his rags. He drew near the house, but none came forth to welcome him. With a timid hand he rapped at the door, but none answered him. A stranger came from one of the outhouses and inquired, "What dost thou want, man?"

"Mr Fen-wick," feebly answered the prodigal.

"Why, naebody lives there," said the other; "and auld Fen-wick died in Morpeth jail mair than three months sin'!"

"Died in Morpeth jail!" groaned the miserable being, and fell against the door of the house that had been his father's.

"I tell ye, ye cannot get in there," continued the other.

"Sir," replied Edward, "pity me; and, oh, tell me is Mrs Fen-wick here--or her daughter-in-law?"

"I know nought about them," said the stranger. "I'm put in charge here by the trustees."

Want and misery kindled all their fires in the breast of the fugitive. He groaned, and, partly from exhaustion, partly from agony, sank upon the ground. The other lifted him to a shed, where cattle were wont to be fed. His lips were parched, his languid eyes rolled vacantly. "Water! give me water!" he muttered in a feeble voice; and a cup of water was brought to him. He gazed wistfully in the face of the person who stood over him--he would have asked for bread; but, in the midst of his sufferings, pride was yet strong in his heart, and he could not. The stranger, however, was not wholly destitute of humanity.

"Poor wretch!" said he, "ye look very fatigued; dow ye think ye cud eat a bit bread, if I were gi'en it to thee?"

Tears gathered in the lustreless eyes of the prodigal; but he could not speak. The stranger left him, and returning, placed a piece of coarse bread in his hand. He ate a morsel; but his very soul was sick, and his heart loathed to receive the food for lack of which he was perishing.

Vain, sir, were the inquiries after his wife, his children, and his mother; all that he could learn was, that they had kept their sorrow and their shame to themselves, and had left Northumberland together, but where, none knew. He also learned that it was understood amongst his acquaintances that he had put a period to his existence, and that this belief was entertained by his family. Months of wretchedness followed, and Fen-wick, in despair, enlisted into a foot regiment, which, within twelve months, was ordered to embark for Egypt. At that period the British were anxious to hide the remembrance of their unsuccessful attack upon Cadiz, and resolved to wrench the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs from the grasp of the proud armies of Napoleon. The Cabinet, therefore, on the surrender of Malta, having seconded the views of Sir Ralph Abercrombie, several transports were fitted out to join the squadron under Lord Keith. In one of those transports the penitent prodigal embarked. You are too young to remember it, sir; but at that period a love of country was more widely than ever becoming the ruling passion of every man in Britain; and, with all his sins, his follies, and his miseries, such a feeling glowed in the breast of Edward Fen-wick. He was weary of existence, and he longed to listen to the neighing of the war-horse, and the shout of its rider, and as they might rush on the invulnerable phalanx, and its breastwork of bayonets, to mingle in the rank of heroes; and, rather than pine in inglorious grief, to sell his life for the welfare of his country; or, like the gallant Graham, amidst the din of war, and the confusion of glory, to forget his sorrows. The regiment to which he belonged joined the main army off the Bay of Marmorice, and was the first that, with the gallant Moore at its head, on the memorable seventh of March, raised the shout of victory on the shores of Aboukir.

In the moment of victory, Fen-wick fell wounded on the field, and his comrades, in their triumph, passed over him. He had some skill in surgery, and he was enabled to bind up his wound. He was fainting upon the burning sand, and he was creeping amongst the bodies of the slain, for a drop of moisture to cool his parched tongue, when he perceived a small bottle in the hands of a dead officer. It was half-filled with wine--he eagerly raised it to his lips--"Englishman!" cried a feeble voice, "for the love of Heaven! give me one drop--only one!--or I die!" He looked around--a French officer, apparently in the agonies of death, was vainly endeavouring to raise himself on his side, and stretching his hand towards him. "Why should I live?" cried the wretched prodigal; "take it, take it, and live, if you desire life!" He raised the wounded Frenchman's head from the sand--he placed the bottle to his lips--he untied his sash, and bound up his wounds. The other pressed his hand in gratitude. They were conveyed from the field together. Fen-wick was unable to follow the army, and he was disabled from continuing in the service. The French officer recovered, and he was grateful for the poor service that had been rendered to him; and, previous to his being sent off with other prisoners, he gave a present of a thousand francs to the joyless being whom he called his deliverer.

I have told you that Fen-wick had some skill in surgery; he had studied some years for the medical profession, but abandoned it for the turf and its vices. He proceeded to Alexandria, where he began to practise as a surgeon, and, amongst an ignorant people, gained reputation. Many years passed, and he had acquired, if not riches, at least an independency. Repentance also had penetrated his soul. He had inquired long and anxiously after his family. He had but few other relatives; and to all of them he had anxiously written, imploring them to acquaint him with the residence of the beings whom he had brought to ruin, but whom he still loved. Some returned no answer to his applications, and others only said that they knew nothing of his wife, or his mother, or of his children, nor whether they yet lived; all they knew was, that they had endeavoured to hide the shame he had brought upon them from the world. These words were daggers to his bruised spirit; but he knew he deserved them, and he prayed that Heaven would grant him the consolation and the mercy that were denied him on earth.

Somewhat more than seven years ago he returned to his native country, and he was wandering on the very mountain where, to-day, I met you, when he entered into conversation with a youth apparently about three or four and twenty years of age; and they spent the day together as we have done. Fen-wick was lodging in Keswick, and as, towards evening, they proceeded along the road together, they were overtaken by a storm. "You must accompany me home," said the young man, "until the storm be passed; my mother's house is at hand,"--and he conducted him to yonder lonely cottage, whose white walls you perceive peering through the trees by the water-side. It was dusk when the youth ushered him into a little parlour where two ladies sat; the one appeared about forty, the other threescore and ten. They welcomed the stranger graciously. He ascertained that they let out the rooms of their cottage to visitors to the lakes during the summer season. He expressed a wish to become their lodger, and made some observations on the beauty of the situation.

"Yes, sir," said the younger lady, "the situation is indeed beautiful; but I have seen it when the water, and the mountains around it, could impart no charm to its dwellers. Providence has, indeed, been kind to us, and our lodgings have seldom been empty; but, sir, when we entered it, it was a sad house indeed. My poor mother-in-law and myself had experienced many sorrows; yet my poor fatherless children--for I might call them fatherless"--and she wept as she spoke--"with their innocent prattle, soothed our affliction. But my little Eleanor, who was loved by every one, began to droop day by day. It was a winter night--the snow was on the ground--I heard my little darling give a deep sigh upon my bosom. I started up. I called to my poor mother. She brought a light to the bedside--and I found my sweet child dead upon my breast. It was a long and sad night, as we sat by the dead body of my Eleanor, with no one near us; and after she =was= buried, my poor Edward there, as he sat by our side at night, would draw forward to his knee the stool on which his sister sat--while his grandmother would glance at him fondly, and push aside the stool with her foot, that I might not see it;--but I saw it all."

The twilight had deepened in the little parlour, and its inmates could not perfectly distinguish the features of each other; but as the lady spoke, the soul of Edward Fen-wick glowed within him--his heart throbbed--his breathing became thick--the sweat burst upon his brow. "Pardon me, lady!" he cried, in agony; "but, oh! tell me your name?"

"Fen-wick, sir," replied she.

"Eleanor! my injured Eleanor!" he exclaimed, flinging himself at her feet. "I am Edward, your guilty husband! Mother! can you forgive me? My son! my son! intercede for your guilty father!"

Ah, sir, there needed no intercession--their arms were around his neck--the prodigal was forgiven! "Behold," continued the narrator, "yonder from the cottage comes the mother, the wife, and the son of whom I have spoken! I will introduce you to them--you shall witness the happiness and the penitence of the prodigal--you must stop with me to-night. Start not, sir--I am Edward Fen-wick the Prodigal Son!"

THE LAWYER'S TALES.

THE WOMAN WITH THE WHITE MICE.

Many have, doubtless, both heard and read of the case of murder in which Jeffrey performed his greatest feat of oratory and power over a jury, and in which, while engaged in his grand speech of more than six hours, he caught, from an open window, the aphony which threatened to close up his voice for ever afterwards. I have had occasion to notice the wants in reported cases tried before courts; and in reference to the one I have now mentioned, I have reason, from my inquiries, to know that the most curious details of the transaction are not only not to be found in the report, but not even suggested, if they do not, in some particulars, appear to be opposed to the public testimony. The agent of the panel sits behind the counsel, delivering to him sometimes very crude materials for the defence, and the counsel sifts that matter; sometimes taking a handful of the chaff to blind a juryman or a judge, but more often casting it away as either useless or dangerous. In that unused chaff there are often pickles not of the kind put into the sack, and again laid as an offering before the blind goddess, but of a different kind of grain--nor often less pleasant, or, if applied, less acceptable to justice.

In a certain month in the year 18--, a writer in Dundee, of the name of David M----, was busy in his office, in a dark street off the High Street--busy, no doubt, in discharging the functions of that office represented by AEsop as occupied by a monkey, holding the scales between the litigating cats. He heard a horse stop at his office door, as if brought suddenly up by a jerk of the rein.

"There is haste here," he thought; "what is up?"

And presently the door opened, and there came, or rather rushed, in a man, of the appearance of a country farmer, greatly more excited than these douce men generally are--except, perhaps, in the midst of a plentiful harvest-home--splashed up with mud to the back of the neck, and breathing as hard as, no doubt, the horse was that carried him.

"What is it, Mr. S----?" inquired the writer, as he looked at his client.

"A dreadful business!" replied he; and he turned, went back to the door, shut it, and tested the hold of the lock; then laying down his hat and whip, and pulling off his big-coat, he drew a chair so near the writer, that the man of law, _brusque_ and even jolly as he was, instinctively withdrew his, as if he feared an appeal for money.

"What is the business?" again asked the writer, as he saw the man in a spasmodic difficulty to begin.

"We are all ruined at D----!" he at length said; "Mrs. S----is in your jail, hard by, on a charge of murder."

"Mrs. S----! of all the women in the world!" ejaculated the writer in unfeigned amazement: "murder of whom?"

"Of a servant at D----," replied Mr. S----; "one of our own women."

"And what could be the motive?"

"The young woman," continued S----, "had been observed to be pregnant, and the report was got up that my son was the party responsible and blameable. Then the charge is, that my wife gave the girl poison, either to procure abortion, or to take away her life. The woman is dead and buried; but, I believe, her body has been taken up out of the grave and examined, and poison found in the stomach."

"An ugly account," said the writer. "I mean not ugly as regards the evidence, of which, as yet, I have heard nothing. I could say beforehand that I don't believe the authorities will be able to bring home an act of this kind to so rational and respectable a woman, as I have known Mrs. S----to be; but if you wish me to get her off, you must allow me to look at the case as if she were guilty."

"Guilty!" echoed the man, with a shudder.

"Yes. Were I to go fumbling about in an affair of this kind, acting upon a notion--whatever I may think or feel--that Mrs. S----, though your wife, _could not_ possibly do an act of that kind, I would neither hound up, as I ought, the investigations of the prosecutor, nor get up proper evidence--not to meet their proofs only, but to overturn them."

"I would have thought you would have been keener to get off an innocent person--a wife, and the mother of a family, too--than a guilty one," said S----.

"We cannot get you people to understand these things," replied the writer; "but so it is, at least with me, and I rather think a good number of my brethren. We have a pride in getting off a guilty person; whereas we have only a spice of satisfaction in saving an innocent one. Perhaps I have an object, for your own sake, in speaking thus frankly to you; and I tell you at once, that if you intend to help me to get off your wife, you must, as soon as you can--even here, at this moment--renounce all blind confidence in her innocence."

"Terrible condition!" said the farmer.

"Not pleasant, but useful. How, in God's name, am I to know how to doctor, purge, or scarify, or anoint a testimony against you, unless I know that it exists, and where to find it?"

"Very true," rejoined the farmer, trying to follow the clever "limb."

"Don't hesitate. I will have more pleasure, and not, maybe, much less hope, in hearing you detail all the grounds of your suspicion against your wife, than in listening to your nasaling and canting about her innocence. All this is for your good, my dear sir, take it as you will."

"I believe it," said the farmer, "and will try to act up to what you say; but I cannot, of my own knowledge, say much, as yet. These things are done privately, within the house, and a farmer is mostly out of doors."

"Well, away, get access to your wife, ferret everything out of her, as well for her as against her. If she bought poison, where she bought it, what rats were to be poisoned, how it was applied, how she communicated with the girl, and where, and all, and everything you can gather. Question your servants all they saw or heard; your son, what he has to say; ascertain who came about the house, how affected towards the girl, whether there were more lovers than your son, whether the girl was melancholy, or hopeful, and likely to do the thing or not; but, above all, keep it ever in view that your wife is in prison, and suspected, and let me know every item you can bring against her. Away, and lose no time, for I see it's a matter of neck and neck between her and the prosecutor, and, consequently, neck and noose, or neck and no noose, between her and the hangman."

Utterly confounded by this array of instructions, the poor farmer sat and looked blank. It was impossible he could remember all he had been requested to do; and the duty of finding out facts to criminate the wife who had lived with him so long in love and confidence, bore down upon him with a weight he could hardly sustain.

"I will do what I can," he said.

"You must do _more_ than you can," said the writer; "but, again I say, let me know every, the smallest item you can discover against your wife."

And, thus charged, Mr. S----mounted his horse, and rode home to a miserable house with a miserable heart.

Extraordinary as the case was, it was entrusted to the charge of an extraordinary man, well remembered yet throughout that county, and much beyond it. In personal respects he was strong, broad, and muscular, with a florid countenance never out of humour, and an eye that flashed in so many different directions, that it was impossible to arrest it for two moments at a time. All action, nothing resisted him; all impulse and sensibility, nothing escaped his observation; yet no one could say that any subject retained his mind for more time than would have sufficed another merely to glance at it. He could speak to a hundred men in a day upon a hundred topics, and sit down and run off twenty pages of a paper without an hour of previous meditation; break off at a pronoun, at a call to the further end of the town; drink as much in a few minutes' conversation with a client as would have taken another an hour to enjoy, and return and finish his paper in less time than another would take to think of it. Always, to appearance, off his guard, he was always master of his position, nor could any obstacle make him stand and calculate its dimensions--it must be surmounted or broken, if his head or the laws should be broken with it; always pressing, he never seemed to be impressed, and the gain or loss of a case was equally indifferent to him. His passion was action, his desire money; but the money went as it came--made without effort and spent without reason. Yet no man hated him; most loved him; few admired him; and even those he might injure by his apparent recklessness could not resist the good nature by which he warded off every attack.

He saw at once, after he had dismissed S----, that he had got hold of a desperate case, and also that he behoved to have recourse to desperate means; but it seemed to take no grip of his mind for more than a few minutes, by the end of which he was full swing in some other matter of business, to be followed with the same rapidity by something else, and, probably, after that, pleasure till three in the morning, when he would be carried home to an elegant house in a certain species of carriage with one wheel. Nor had even that consummation any effect on to-morrow's avocations, for which he would be ready at the earliest hour; and in this case he _was_ ready. He set about his inquiries, first proceeded to D----to get a view of the premises--the room where the young woman lay, where the son slept, and the bedroom of the mother--and ascertain whether the premises permitted of intercourse with the servants unknown to the farmer and his wife. He next began his precognition of those connected with the house, and, on returning to town, procured access to Mrs. S----.

The jail of Dundee was at that time over the courthouse, a miserable den of a few dark rooms, presenting the appearance of displenished garrets, with small grated windows and a few benches. Here the woman sat revolving, no doubt, in her mind all the events of a life of comfort and respectability, and now under the risk of being brought to a termination by her body being suspended in the front of that building where she had seen before this terrible consummation of justice enacted with the familiar and dismal forms of the tragedy of the gallows. We write of these things as parrots gabble, we read of them as monkeys ogle the, to them, strange actions of human beings; but what is all that comes by the eye or the ear of the experiences of an exterior spirit to the workings of that spirit in its own interior world, where thought follows thought with endless ramifications, weaving and interweaving scenes of love and joy and pain, contrasting and mixing, dissolving and remixing--bright lights and dark shadows--all seen through the blue-tinged and distorting lens of present shame? We cannot realize these things, nor did the writer try. He had only the practical work to do--if possible, to get this woman's neck kept out of a kench; nor did it signify much to him how that was effected; but effected it would be, if the invention of one man could do it, and if that failed, and the woman was suspended, it would trouble him no more than would the loss of a small-debt case.

"Sorry to see you in this infernal place, Mrs. S----," he said, as he threw himself upon a bench. "I must get you out, that's certain; but I can promise you that certainty only upon the condition of making a clean breast--only to me, you know."

"I know only that I never poisoned the woman," replied she.

"Do you want to be hanged?" said he, with the reckless abruptness so peculiar a feature of his character, at the same time taking a rapid glance of her demeanour. He knew all about the firmness derived from the confidence of innocence, of which a certain class of rhapsodists make so much in a heroic way, and yet he had always entertained the heterodoxical notion that guilt is a firmer and often more composed condition than innocence, inasmuch as his experience led him to know that the latter is shaky, anxious, and sensitive, and the former stern and imperturbable. Nor did his quick mind want reasons for showing that such ought, by natural laws, to be the case; for it is never to be lost sight of, that, in so far as regards murder, which requires for its perpetration a peculiar form of mind and a most unnatural condition of the feelings, the same hardness of nerve which enables a man or woman to do the deed, serves equally well the purpose of helping them to stand up against the shame, while the innocent person, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand--the probable proportion of those who _cannot_ kill--has not the fortitude to withstand the ignominy, simply because he wants the power to slay. So without in his heart prejudging the woman, he drew his conclusions, true or false, from the impassibility of her demeanour. Her answer was ready----

"How could they hang an innocent woman?"

"But they _do_ hang hundreds, who say just what you say," replied he. "What are you to make of that riddle? Come, did you ever buy any poison?--please leave out the rats."

"No; neither for rats nor servants," was the composed reply.

"And you never gave the woman a dose?"

"Yes; I have given her medicine more than once."