It would be wearisome to descant at any greater length on my weakliness, or of how the neighbours lamented that such a spunk o’ geni, as they spoke of me in their cracks, should remain an object for life. Some proposed one kind of infallible, and some another; and the minister's wife was every summer vehement in her prescriptions of the salt water at Fisherraw. But season after season came and passed;—the bud biggent and the blossom bloomed; the summer-nymph, with her growan een, walked away in the sunshine of the mountains; blithesome harvest laid down her apronful of sheaves at the barn-door; and the gaberloony winter arose from the chumly-lug, and hirpled o’er the hill;—but still no change came to me.

At last, one morning, a gang of tinklers, with smiddy bellows, and other implements for making horn-spoons, came to town; and there was among them a decent, gausy, conversible carlin, that could turn coats and shape gumashins, for which faculty she was feed to do a day's darg in my father's house. In this, which came out of a necessity on his part, there was a visible manifestation of Providence towards me. For Lucky A’things, as she was called, happened to cast a pitiful eye on me, as I was sitting by the fire-side, making a whistle of a willow-wand, and she began to discourse with my father concerning my complaints.

Well may I remember what she said, for she spoke with great rationality, and in a manner that was more like a graduate than a granny. I had not, indeed, until that time, heard or seen any sort of womankind possessed of such insight. Among the old women of the clachen, there were not wanting two or three who had gleaned in their time a few ears of experience.

Mrs. Musket, the widow of a serjeant who was slain at her side in the battle of Minden, was one of those, and it was allowed that her skill in bruises, visible hurts, and the cutted fingers of the shearers, would have made the fortune of an Edinbro’ doctor.

The tribulation into which I had thus brought myself gave my father a sore heart; and a ship, the Providence of New York,—happy name!—being then lying at Leith, taking passengers, he, to get me and my brother out of harm's way, paid for our passage by her, and after arranging with our bailsmen, sent us off to espouse our fortunes in America.

She was a very small vessel, and having on board above a hundred persons, crew and passengers, to describe all that befell us during the voyage, would, without other matter, fill a big book.

Before this time I had never been twenty miles from the house in which I was born, and save the summer I spent on the hills recovering my health, I had not been three nights from home. Here, in my twentieth year, was I, without having experienced or seen aught that could be said to be of the world, set as it were on my feet, close jammed in a crowd, from whom there was no retreating, whose ends, motives, and dispositions were as various as their faces. But even in this discomfort there was matter for thankfulness; our situation was such, that we could not indulge in reflection; our attention was distracted by the bustle around us; and I saw the hills of my home passing away without having time to breathe a sigh towards them.

It was a maxim and a saying of my worthy father, that young people ought to earn money before they begin to spend: and accordingly the outfit of my brother and myself, though we were well provided with necessaries, was yet, in the way of money, both of us thought, rather stinted.

After laying in for us a large chest (which had been an heir-loom for near a century) well filled with clothing, and a reasonable stock of such provisions as the ship did not furnish to steerage passengers, the old man with his parting benediction gave us twenty shillings for contingent expenses, after we might land in New York, and to support us until we should get into employment.

When we had finished our meal, the night being warm and close, I proposed that we should adjourn to the stoop—for by this time I had so far complied with the fashion, as to have a stoop or viranda along the front of my house. Mr. Hoskins, having lighted his cigar, joined us, dragging out the rocking-chair behind him, for he preferred it on all occasions while smoking in the stoop. The bailie took his seat on the bench beside me; and as soon as we were composedly arranged for conversation, he bent slightly forward, and laying his left hand on my right knee, he turned towards Mr. Hoskins, who was swinging on the chair a little in front, and said,—

“Gentlemen, I have a notion that in this contract with Mr. Bell, some o’ us have not had our wits so well gathered as was to have been desired on an occasion of such solemnity; in short, gentlemen, I have a doubt.”

“There can be no doubt of that,” replied I, jocularly; at the same time, by a glance he gave me, which I saw by the moonlight, I was persuaded he had something to ettle at me. “But what's this doubt about, bailie?”

“Ye see, gentlemen,” he resumed, “I’m no blaming you Mr. Hoskins, and every body knows well that Mr. Todd's never in the wrong.”

“Hem!” exclaimed the old man, whiffing out a long wreath of smoke, and spitting with an emphasis far beyond the railing of the stoop.

“I hope no offence,” continued the plague, “but really, Mr. Todd, you must just let a friend use a friend's freedom; I think we have been all fey in this affair. Ye see, Mr. Todd, I dinna give you all the wyte o’t, I take part of the blame to myself: I confess and allow that I am art and part.”

“I think, Mr. Waft,” said I, slightly disturbed, and wondering what was to be the upshot of such a preface—“I think, Mr. Waft, if you would tell us what ye mean first, we would then better know on whose shoulders the blame, if blame there be, should be laid. Can you, Mr. Hoskins, understand what he means?”

From the day of my marriage with Mrs. Greenknowe, whose name was Martha, all things went on comfortably. We left Chucky Stanes as soon as the ceremony was over, without regret on my part, but my wife shed a few natural tears. We travelled at our ease to London, sometimes taking a post-chaise, and sometimes a stage-coach; stopping where aught curious was to be seen, making a very pleasant jaunt of it.

In London we abode upwards of a month, and were so tired of seeing grand sights and fine things, that we both were glad when we left it. We then, being joined by my son, went to Liverpool, where we took our places in a packet-ship to New York, which for elegance cannot be described; and our voyage was as agreeable as it is possible for a voyage to be, by persons who were sea-sick nearly the whole way. I wonder how it happened, that although this was my third passage across the Atlantic, I was yet much worse than when I went the first time.

On our arrival at New York, I judged it prudent, on my son's account, to make our sojourn there as short as possible. Accordingly, as soon as Mrs. Todd had rested herself, and seen the curiosities, among which I showed her all my old places of abode, and where her predecessor Rebecca and I first fell in, we proceeded by the steam-boat to Albany, and thence, in the usual manner, to Utica, where I hired an extra to Judiville, to which a regular stage-coach, much to my delight, had been established during the summer.

Having written by post from New York on our arrival to Mr. Hoskins, Mr. Herbert, and my son Charles, when they might expect us; and having also sent forward Robin from Olympus, where we were obliged by fatigue to stop the last night; we found, next day, at Judiville, every thing had been prepared in good order for our reception; and greatly indeed was I surprised to see the progress which the town had made during the eight months of my absence.

In the mean time, the necessary preparations were going on for laying the foundation of Judiville, and roads were planned to open the tract assigned to me for settlement. The store was prospering exceedingly, so far beyond expectation, that both Mr. Hoskins and I had great reason to rejoice and be thankful; but I observed a curious change come upon his character, or rather a remarkable breaking out of nature, when he reflected at leisure on the advantageous bargain I had made with the agent for the twenty thousand acres.

I have told enough about the old man to show he was far from being avaricious, and certainly not envious; on the contrary, I have known few more disposed to help a friend; but he was jealous of being outdone in business, and when any apprehension of that sort came across his mind, he was apt to become obstinate and insensible to reasonable remonstrance. Thus, it so happened that he took it into his head I had schemed the agreement with the agent from the time he had told me of his design of locating a town between the two great water privileges of the river, and was making his speculation subservient to my own.

Nothing could be more unjust than this suspicion; for it was not until after he had agreed for the purchase of his land, that the agent made me the proposal to act as his sub at Babelmandel; and it was not until the proposal had been discussed at some length that the thought of contracting for the land entered my head. Moreover, it was not until at least ten days after our return home, when I happened to suggest that a bridle-path through the forest from the road leading to Olympus into his purchase would be beneficial to his speculation, that the idea took possession of his own fancy that I was making him an instrument for my own particular profit. It is true, the path would have laid open a considerable portion of my own pre-emption, and I should have been benefited in consequence, but I declare, on my conscience, I had no such view in offering the suggestion.

True to her promise in the advertisement by which I had been enticed to become her tenant, Miss Beeny Needles lost no opportunity of procuring me hospitable attentions from the higher class of the inhabitants. On the Monday morning after the adventure of the amatory rustics, a card was brought from the Provost, inviting my son and me to dine with him on the Monday following. Before I had time to answer it, for I received it while at breakfast, Miss Beeny herself came to advise what should be done on the occasion. She did not tell me that such was the object of her visit: the pretext was, that in consequence of not seeing me at church in the afternoon, she was apprehensive I had taken cold; but the end of the errand came out before she retired.

Observing the card of invitation on the table, she said, “So, you have at last received one: well, better late than never. But such procrastination! I told Mrs. Badge, as we were coming last night from the evening rites, that it was a duty in all men of authority to make themselves attentive to strangers; and that it was thought you had not been treated with the circumspection and solicitude due to the fortune you had imported, and with which you might be conciliated to enliven the town. She has taken the hint, and the Provost has made at last an honourable capitulation. I hope you will accept their condescension; for I do assure you, that it is not every new incomer who is deemed amenable to be a receptacle of Provost Badge's hospitable assiduities.”

“Monday is far off,” replied I hesitatingly; “and three o’clock is not an hour for me to dine at;” meaning that it was later than my custom.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Miss Beeny, “it is not consistent either with their own station or the progress of knowledge, that you should be invited to dine at such a preternatural hour.

It is not necessary to inform the patient reader, who has proceeded so far with me, that up to the period of my visit to Scotland, I had but few opportunities of learning the etiquettes that make life genteel. He need not, therefore, be surprised to hear, that I felt myself often in an ill-fitted coat among the society to whom I had the honour of being introduced at Chucky Stanes by Miss Beeny Needles. In sooth to say, I was not fashioned, nor educated, nor connected for associating with fine folk; but my son being graceful, spirited, and gallant in his bearing, I considered it my duty to submit to many fasheries on his account, especially as, in the course of nature, he would come to a creditable inheritance.

But although I had not the advantages of dancing-school breeding, I had yet an eye in my head both for remark and comparison; by which I was enabled to discern, that banqueting was not the element of the gentry of that royal borough. The first assurance I had of this, was on the occasion of supping with Miss Beeny on the trouts, dressed as trouts of the Tweed should be.

She had every thing most genteel; fine white paper roses round the two tall candles, a stiffly starched tablecloth, glittering like satin, and rustling like silk;—and she proved better than her promise; for, in addition to the trouts, she had received in the course of the afternoon a brace of grouse, which emboldened her to invite two strangers to be of the party. This was a touch of the superior indeed! Four gentlemen all at once at supper, was a handling, the like of which Miss Beeny had not been engaged in since the death of her father, past Provost Needles.

Few days of my life have been fuller of vexation than the day of that hobbleshow in Chucky Stanes: I have ever since, in memory of what I suffered, called it the Black Wednesday.

On my return to the Hillocks, after the precognition at the provost’s, I felt myself much out of spirits, fatigued, and an all-overishness about me, as if I had been unwell; so I went and threw myself down on the sofa, the scene of the outrage, incapable of guiding my own thoughts.

I would have sent for my son, and explained to him the much ado about nothing; but, upon reflection, I thought it a subject he had better hear of from another. Sometimes my mind was inclined to abandon Chucky Stanes and Mrs. Greenknowe at once; then I recollected my two forlorn daughters, and how well that lady was calculated to be of the greatest service to them; and that, though on the near side of thirty, as concerned me, she was still a handsome young woman. Thus, my thoughts rising and falling like the sea-waves chafing a sandy shore, I lay ruminating for some time; at last I fell asleep.

When I was roused for dinner, there was a note from my son on the table, telling me he had gone to Kelso races with another young man; and that he would not be back before Saturday, when he hoped to find me well and comfortable. I had but little appetite, and this letter did not sharpen it: at first I was vexed that he had not told me of his intended excursion; but when I considered what had happened, I was obliged to acknowledge he had certainly acted judiciously in getting out of the way, and I wished I could have done the same. It showed me, however, what I had not thought of before, that the time was drawing near when he would probably be quitting his father's house altogether. This led me on to think that my other children, one after another, would be doing the same; and that the day was not very distant when I might find myself a lonely old man, in want of some such worthy companion as Mrs. Greenknowe, who, being younger, was the better able to take care of my old age.

As we had no minister at Babelmandel, I need not tell the courteous reader we had no church; but when we were visited by a preacher, we contrived to make a temporary place of worship, in one of the buildings which the speculators were erecting for a tavern. On the occasion of Mr. Bell's preaching, the weather being calm and bright, a pulpit was raised in the open air, under a large tree—the elm under which my sweet baby's sad wake was held, and the settlers assembled around him from all parts of the settlement well on to the number of a thousand persons, old and young,—the greatest congregation we had yet collected. I missed, however, Mr. Waft from the crowd; an extraordinary thing, considering the business of the day; it being understood, that if Mr. Bell gave satisfaction, we were to engage him for three months.

At first, I imagined something had surely happened to the bodie, and I was angry with myself that any thought about him should interfere with my attention to the sermon, which was really worthy of all I could bestow on it, being not only sound and orthodox, but delivered with a force and style of language far above common. Towards the conclusion, I however discovered him walking at some distance among the trees behind the pulpit, as if keeping aloof from the congregation, yet curious to see what was going on. By and by he drew nearer and nearer, till he caught my eye; which he had no sooner done, than he shook his head in a significant manner, and gave a queer distrustful smile, as much as to say. This is poor stuff, and will never do;—I was both vexed and surprised.

It would not be easy to describe what I suffered at witnessing such irreverence, being totally incapable of understanding what it meant, for the matter and the manner of the preacher were both most excellent; so I resolved, as soon as the service should be over, to interrogate the motives of such indecorum; but at the conclusion, the molester was nowhere to be seen.

The Provost's lady had scarcely composed herself from her agitation of merriment, to tell us what Miss Beeny had said, when the minister of the parish, the Rev. Dr. Glasham, attended by one of his elders, was shown into the room. It was clear to be seen they came to examine into the fact; at the same time, I saw plainly by the Rev. Gentleman's countenance, that he, as well as the whole community, had no very solemn ideas on the subject.

Dr. Glasham, of Chucky Stanes, was, indeed, no ordinary member of the Church of Scotland, both by reputation, and by what, of my own knowledge, I came to understand of him. He was such, merely as a man, that we seldom meet with. Not only was he unaffectedly pious in his sentiments, kindly and Christian at all points, and learned beyond many of his cloth; but he was of a jocose humour, and would carry a joke as far as any man I ever met with. Truly, he was a facetious brother; while austere towards every kind of dissoluteness, he was yet lenient in his judgment of many transactions, that men of less practical virtue would have treated with inexorable severity.

When he was first informed of the unspeakable outrage which it was alleged had actually been perpetrated, he thought there must be some exaggeration in the story; and he had come in gentle charity to try, however the case might be, to get the blaspheming tongue of the public stopped, by procuring the owning of a fault between Miss Beeny and me. To own a fault where no harm had been done, I was not likely to do; and, moreover, marriage was tied to the tail of it, to which I was determined, for less than the halter, never to assent.

After some general discourse, not of a very deep tint, which convinced me that all present were little disposed to countenance such a case as Miss Beeny pretended to set forth, Dr. Glasham proposed that she should he called in, and a precognition taken by him, before any charge should be laid before the magistrates.

On reaching Mrs. Cockspur's villa, I was shown into the parlour, where I found her alone, in great good-humour. She had just received a severe lecture on marriage in old age, from Miss Volumnia, and was longing to see me.

“I had observed,” said she, “for some days, the mutinous looks of the young men, without being able to divine the cause; and Volumnia has told me, that they are all determined I shall not marry you.”

Before I could make any answer, the young lady came in, and with her Marianne, my eldest daughter. The plot of the comedy was thickening. To hasten on the upshot, I expressed my delight at seeing them so lovingly sister-like.

“We shall never be sisters,” exclaimed the two indignant misses, in one voice, and in a tone so piercing and so wild, that it threw the old lady and myself into an immoderate fit of laughter, which provoked Miss Volumnia to a great degree; for she immediately cried, with rather more pith than was genteel,—

“If my mother will marry, it shall be Mr. Herbert.”

“That, my dear child,” replied I coolly, winking to her mother, “does not depend upon you: ‘shall’ is a naughty word for a dutiful daughter to use towards her parent. But, if there is to be a wedding, your mother has a right to please herself. Come, come, Voly——”

“None of your familiarities, sir!” was the tart rejoinder. “Voly, indeed! Oh! has it come to that?” And she sat down in a torrent of tears.

“You are a foolish girl,” said Mrs. Cockspur, quite unable to preserve her gravity, yet, from the gentleness of her disposition, inclined not to afflict the poor maiden too severely—“you are a foolish girl; I’m sure Mr. Todd has always proved himself exceedingly kind to you;—had he been your own father, he could not have been more kind. I cannot think what makes you hate him so.”

“I don't hate him, if he would let you alone. Oh, he will be such an ugly step-father!”

Mr. Hoskins, after the purchase I had made from Mr. Nackets, became less anxious to return home. He saw, as he often said, “the settlement was a-going to do,” and his intention of moving to it from Vermont when he could get his farm there sold, was, every time we conversed on the subject, more and more strengthened. We agreed, however, not to open store regularly before the spring, when we should have a proper place constructed, and a right assortment of goods laid in; at the same time we thought it would be as well, not absolutely to abstain from supplying the settlers who could pay ready money for such articles as we then had. Thus it came to pass, that he stayed with us till the snow fell, with the first of which he set out in a sleigh to bring Mrs. Hoskins, and to dispose of his land and betterments. He had no children, and about this time he began to speak of leaving the bulk of his property to my family, if they should happen to survive himself and wife.

He had not, however, left us above three or four days, when symptoms of a change began to appear in the settlement;—so long as the public works, roads, clearings, &c. undertaken by the speculators had continued to give employment and wages to the settlers, every thing went on prosperously, and even for some time after the seasonable suspension, no visible diminution of their contentment and industry was discernible. But the savings of their wages were at last exhausted; the severity of the winter caused a greater outlay among them for clothes than the most provident were prepared for; and so general was the distress in consequence, that the agent grew seriously alarmed, lest the settlement should be broken up.

In this crisis, one day, when the agent came to see how we were getting on, he entered my house, and familiarly taking a stool by the fire, spoke to me of his anxieties, pointing out how detrimental any considerable desertion would be to the speculation, especially following so close upon the heels of the failure at Olympus.

After some conversation with Mr. Herbert, with reference to the change which the banking arrangement promised to his ostensible circumstances, I urged him seriously to renew his acquaintance with Mrs. Cockspur.

“No,” said he; “I mastered my passion when young, respected, and amidst the assurances of good fortune;—can I now, an old man, bent beneath the burden of many disappointments, with a withered heart and a shaking hand, claim more than pity even from affection?”

Seeing him in this mood (I wonder what it is that makes men of superiority so inaccessible to judicious counsel?) I said nothing, but I formed a plan of my own, and, as delays are dangerous, I lost no time in carrying it into effect. Accordingly, on the morning after the departure of the bankers, I went to Judiville, partly to see how the buildings for the house and store were coming on, but chiefly to have a few rational words in a corner with Mrs. Cockspur.

It may be thought, that in taking up this business, I was too much, like John Waft, troubling myself with matters that did not appertain to me; but I could not help it. I was much taken with the appeased character of Mr. Herbert: he was so evidently by nature an heir to a rich inheritance of fortune and honour, that I could not but regret so noble a spirit should be so far out of its proper sphere. It was this charity that prompted me; an up-looking charity that finds its best reward in self-approval. But I must not forget a resolution made in early life never to praise myself; so, without more ado, I shall now rehearse what I did at Judiville with the worthy old lady.

I have already mentioned how I was obliged to Mr. Bradshaw Cockspur for the plan of the house and store, and how the business concerning the same led to an intimacy with the family. This intimacy allowed me the freedom of paying my respects at all times to Mrs. Cockspur; and accordingly, at a period of the day when the young gentlemen, I knew, were abroad, I went to her.

Such is the life of man—toil and disappointment. The day is too short; our strength insufficient to satisfy the greed of avarice. Our doom is labour, our earnings dust; the fruit cultivated with so much care contains but ashes. All is vanity!

Such was the substance of the cloud of sad thoughts which rose upon me as I stood by the corpse of my father. Rich and prosperous, and untarnished in my integrity, I had come to receive his last blessing. Gladness and generosity glowed in my bosom. With more than the hopes of my youth realised, I had returned to the scenes of my childhood; the anticipations of ambition were in blossom, and the fruit of many was set. There was but one in all the earth whom the munificent tale of Providence could have awakened to disinterested thankfulness, and there he lay, apparelled for the tomb. It was then that I first felt the truth of Mr. Herbert's opinions on old age; and I trembled to think that, by the course of nature, I now myself stood next to the grave.

To meet contemptuous Death instead of my father, who had so kindly loved me, was truly a stunning blow. It shattered, as it were, my whole mind, and my thoughts were as fragments. I could determine nothing; I scarcely even recollected that I had seen my contrite son at the door. Poor lad! he ascribed to resentment that absence with which I was visited, and my seeming indifference to him, and he retired to the garden to deplore my displeasure. I saw him not again that night, for I spent it alone with the dead.

Early in the morning, before sunrise, the afflicted youth, unable longer to endure the thought of being cast off from my affection, came into the room. At the sight of him, I reproached myself for having so slightly heeded him; but before I could speak, he took my hand, and looking for a moment on the still remains on the bed, he said, with an intreating voice, “Oh, my father!”

Now my wife was one of those quiet, nocturnal women, who never talk after they have laid their heads on the pillow, but compose themselves for the embraces of Morpheus. On this night, however, it happened that the events of the day, and particularly the dreadful danger we had escaped, took wakeful possession of her serene faculties, and she was wonderfully disposed to be conversational; whereas, I had much to think of, and was not inclined to be communicative. There was, however, one short question which she put to me, that I could not but answer.

“What,” said she, “can my uncle mean by bringing us to these forlorn and wilderness parts? His wife, my aunt, cannot dive into his intents; and yet it is a moral certainty, that he would never have been at the expense of this voyage of discovery, had he not a makingof- money purpose in view.”

The only answer I could give, was what I gave: I acknowledged myself of her opinion, adding, “But as he has made no explanation of his intents, I am not in a condition to satisfy your curiosity; no doubt I, however, shall, for you and Charles, with Mrs. Hoskins, are to go by one of the teams to-morrow homeward by Olympus, whilst the old gentleman and I thread back the mazes of the wood.”

“You may do, Lawrie Todd, as you think fit; but from this house I will never stir, until I know the meaning of such mystical meanderings,” was her reply.

I reasoned with her against this unreasonableness, and spoke soft and persuasive language, doing every thing I could besides to subdue her to that moderation and common sense which were the graces of her character; but she was not to be so converted—so I turned my face to the other side of the bed, and gave no farther heed to her colloquies.

We rose before the sun: it was a sharp, purple morning, as if the cold air had given Aurora the complexion of a dairy-maid abroad too early. In so far, to me, it was not disagreeable, for the toil of walking in the woods has ever been great to my loose, shuffling feet; and the clambering over prostrate trees and cradle-heaps, with my brief legs, is always warm work. The behaviour of John Waft was not, however, satisfactory; he walked a little off on the one side from Robin and me, and was not, it seemed, in a conversable humour. But I was resolved not to have my trouble for nothing, so I began to jeer him for taking us a gowk's errand, and to make light of the mare's nest he was conducting us to see. He, however, took no heed of what I said, but plodded on straight-forward with his compass in his hand, so that, what with his sullen silence, and the rising wind, and the rough, untrodden road, our morning's journey was not much calculated to soften the austerity of my reflections. In short, before we had been out two hours, during which we did not travel quite four miles, I was growing testy and fretful: but for plain shame, I would have returned.

When we had come to the sixth mile blaize, a boundary mark on a pine, we halted to take some refreshment, near a fine spring that came hopping and leaping, as it were with gladness, out of a rock. This was in a part of the forest where I had never been, and it was a place that seemed to have been made on purpose for travellers to rest at. Here we tarried some time; and the bailie being, for so long, relieved of his care in tracing the road, resumed his wonted pleasing looks and quaint pawkrie, by which he, in a great measure, restored my comfort. The day, however, was evidently overcast; the thickly interwoven basketing of the arborous vaults above us, prevented the sky from being seen; but we knew by the deepened gloom around, and by seeing no shadows among the boughs, that the sun was obscured.

The day being fixed for the ceremony of cutting down the first tree in the market-place-to-be of Judiville, Mr. Hoskins took upon himself to make every kind of befitting and proper preparation. He communicated with nobody as to his intentions, but went about from morning to night, sometimes with the carpenters, sometimes with the blacksmith. Robin alone was in his confidence; and for two days we saw but little of him, so busy was he too about the preparations.

I cannot deny that I was in the mean time as curious to know what they were doing as Bailie Waft himself, who had never got such a job in hand from the hour of his birth. He did nothing all day long but wander from Dan to Beersheba, and speak of the doing that was to be done to every body he met, enquiring what it could possibly be that kept Mr. Hoskins so constantly afoot: at last he happened to get a glimpse behind the curtain, and came primed and proud with his discovery to the store, where I was longing for information.

“Do you know, Mr. Todd,” said he, “what they can have propounded by yon great iron hoops that the blacksmith is making; for he, like the rest, is as unanswering as his own bellows; what can they be for? and then the big log that the carpenters are boring, and which I thought, and I dare say every body thought, was for a pump: they never put their wumble farther into it than a foot or so, and then they sawed off the bored piece, and began to bore again, till they have made seven curiosities out of it, which I do not understand.”

“I’ll lay my lugs, Mr. Waft,” was my reply, “they are cannon, and the iron hoops are to keep them from bursting.”

Sure enough it proved so, and Robin was busy making cartridges out of a keg of powder for them.

After the vexations rehearsed in the preceding chapter, the light for some time was under my eyes, a glare and strange dazzle disturbed the forms and the colours of every object, and I had a sense of bewilderment which caused me to suffer both from fear and distrust. I was as a man who hath a malady upon him, and cannot tell in what way he is affected.

I rose with the dawn of day and walked abroad alone, though the winter was drawing her chains closer, and driving home her bars. I thought of what my wife had said about changing our residence, and sometimes I was inclined to yield to that suggestion, and then speculated as to where we should go. In the evening twilight I also rambled by myself, and often did not return until the moon was up, and the leading star of the night was muffling its lustre in the western mists and amidst the top boughs of the forest.

I was almost dejected, and my mind was saddened with dismay; I could give no sound reason, as things go with mortal man, for this alienation from all the interests in which I took so lively a part. I had but one truly consoling reflection—I was not obliged to abide at Judiville longer than suited my own purposes.

One afternoon I went forth by myself in the mood I have described, the complexion of my thoughts as pale as sickliness, and the condition of my spirits nervous and shaken. I turned my step towards the Falls, to which a tolerable path through the forest was by this time trodden out; and as I walked along, and heard the faroff roar of the cataract swelling through the stillness of the evening air, it seemed to me as if there was a solemn composure in Nature which I had never observed before; the calm and clear iciness of the air, had, as it were, a crystalline crispness in it; a something of winter felt but unseen.

The royal borough of Chucky Stanes, like every other town of the kind, enjoys an undue proportion of ladies in a state of single blessedness. The house I rented there belonged to Miss Beeny Needles, a venerable damsel of that description. Her father, far back in the last century, had held the dignity of Provost. In the plenitude of his magisterial pomp, he erected the edifice, where Miss Beeny, with her niece Mrs. Greenknowe, the widow of a much respected surgeon, held court, or, more properly, sat in expectation of being courted.

The husband of Mrs. Greenknowe had died, as Miss Beeny herself told me, much and justly regretted, about twelve months before; and having left his wife, though without incumbrance, in very narrow circumstances, Miss Beeny received her as an inmate and companion; the widow, luckily, at that time having let her own house furnished to an English family, who came for a few months, to enjoy the romantic scenery of the Tweed. It happened, however, that this family, not meeting with society quite so elegant in Chucky Stanes as they had been led to expect, soon after their arrival gave up the house, and moved to another part of the country. Thus it came to pass, that the two ladies agreed to move for the summer into the house of Mrs. Greenknowe, which was in the borough, and that Miss Beeny's house—the Hillocks on the skirts of the town—invited tenants for the season, and was rented by me.

Of the house, I need say but little; it was a plain, comfortable, manselike dwelling, standing on the top of a bank which sloped steeply to the river. The garden did not altogether equal the description; but, upon the whole, I was content with my bargain, especially as the maiden servant left in charge was an obliging, thorough-going quean, and needed but few directions in her duty. She was neat and economical in her management.