“ Yet, why do I ask knowledge that must sit for ever on my heart, and engender visions that in the hours of night must torture my soul, to the end of my pilgrimage in this dark world?"
I hesitated to say more; the orbless socket—the torn stump of the arm—the limpets that clung to her skin—the bosom pierced by Vanderhoek's mattock, were all before me, and shook my soul. But why should I have added an artificial misery to wretchedness like his? I would not dwell on the subject. The stranger imputed my disinclination to satisfy his morbid desire for information to its true cause. ”

“ It was only these sounds, the dodging of the pale-green corpse, the touches of its cold skin, the light of its glazed eye, the dark figures of my two companions, and the general gloom of the bell, relieved slightly by the greenish-hued yolks of glass, that I was sensible of perceiving. The internal workings of my mind seemed to have ceased. I had scarcely any consciousness of a conception—the whole cerebral functions concerned in thought and feeling being limited to undefined sensation, that had only some connection with the power of external perception. ”

“ As the air-pump ceased for short intervals, and absolute silence reigned around, a clang, unlike any sounds of earth, came upon the ear—
"As if the ocean's heart were stirred
With inward life, a sound is heard."
It was a signal from those in the bell; it seemed as if the sea trembled, and old Ocean spoke from the deeper recesses of his soul. The sound struck the ear as something unnatural, or what might be conceived to issue from a sepulchre when the spirits of the dead hold converse in the still night. ”

“ This shall be ended—by the faith of Scotland's king it shall! 'Habit and repute,' is good evidence by our old law against common thieves; and I ask my nobles, too good a jury for such caitiffs, what a common thief deserves?"
"To be strung up to the buttress," replied several voices, in deep hollow sounds, that rung fearfully round the recesses of the ballium, and reached the ear of Marjory.
"Parys Cockburn of Henderland," cried James, "hath, by a jury of our nobles, been deemed worthy to die the death of a thief, and a rebel against our authority. ”

“ Andrew bowed before the monarch, then raised his head and looked around, with an expression on his countenance which showed that, although he expected death, he feared it not.
"How now, ye traitor knave!" said the king, sternly; "do ye deny that ye raised your hand against our royal person?"
"No!" was the brief and bold reply of the dauntless fisherman.
"Ye have heard, kinsmen," continued the monarch, "his confession of his guiltiness from his own lips—what punishment do ye award him?"
"Death! the traitor's doom!" replied the nobles. ”

“ Grief seemed to seek expression in redoubled rage—again their swords clashed against each other, and gleamed in the sunbeams, rapid as the fitful lightning. After a long and sore contention, in which both had given and received wounds, they fell upon the ground together; [Pg 36] but Moor received his death-wound on the ground, and he fell to rise no more.
"I die!" he gasped, still grasping his antagonist by the breast—"I die, Cunningham—with my children, whom I have led to death, I die! But, remember, there is one left to avenge our deaths, and she will avenge them seven-fold!" ”

“ We see something of the same kind in the physical economy—moments of strength in the most exhausted weakness—bright glows of the taper of life in the socket of death—a collected unity of power in moments of dissolution, as if the spirit made a last struggle to assert its lost authority over the great archangel. I can speak at least to their effects—a wretched boon of nature to miserable man, where he can say no more than that he feels—that the boasted energies of the soul seem to be all rolled up in one sensation of undescribable pain. ”

“ The faint shade of light in the eastern heavens, which gave tokens of the approaching dawn, might be a precursor of the king and his retinue; and as her eye fell upon it, she listened again for the coming tread. A very faint sound was now heard, and it was too evident that it came not from Tushielaw; it was from the direction of Peebles, and it sounded as if it were the tread of a horse. It must be, she instantly thought, the scout of the king's cavalcade; for, in her painful anxiety, she had forgotten her own messenger. ”

“ When he joined them, those who knew him, said—"The day is ours—Andrew is a host in himsel."
The marshals gave the signal for the onset; and a deadly, a savage onset it was. Swords were shivered to the hilt. Men, who had done each other no wrong, who had never met before, grasped each other by the throat—the Highland dirk and the Border knife were drawn. Men plunged them into each other—they fell together—they rolled, the one over the other, in the struggles and the agonies of death. The wounded strewed the ground—they strove to crawl from the strife of their comrades. ”

“ At this moment she heard a voice commanding some one to seize and confine the wife of the culprit; and, getting more confused by the occurrence of new and more harrowing incidents—the cries of her children sounding from the window—the noise of those forwarding the execution, if not at that very time, binding her husband to the gallows, filling all the air with a confused buzz—and the coming of the men to seize and secure her—she sprang forward out of a postern, and, with the rapid step of flying despair, endeavoured to get beyond the dreadful sounds which haunted her ear. ”

“ These are the appearances presented now; but, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Henderland was a close retreat, surrounded by wood and water. The family castle stood in the midst of a dense wood of firs, mixed, in those parts where the soil supported the king of the forest, with large oaks. The Megget, rolling along its brattling stream, to St. Mary's, was, when in its calm moods, made available for the ends of picturesque beauty; and, when swollen by the mountain rills, served as a defence to the grounds and residence. ”

“ Though she might place her hands over her eyes, the sound of his death would reach her ear—the jerk of the fatal cord, the struggle of the choking breath, the last sigh of her beloved Parys, would come to her, and reason might remain to bear it. If she could close up both eyes and ears, her fancy would exaggerate the acts performing around her, and fill her mind with shapes and forms, if possible more hideous than the dread spectres of the waking sense. ”

“ I have an accumulation of proofs against you, and can read it even in your countenance. Do you love me, Parys?—say if you have any love for your Marjory—say if your affection is changed towards those dear pledges of our happiness, who, enjoying the sports of their age, are unconscious that their father is meditating that which may, ere the morn's sun gild those woods, render them fatherless, and bring sorrow o'er the house of Henderland? ”

“ A flash of vivid lightning now flared in her eyes, and left her for a moment in suspense whether she had not been blinded by the bright fluid; then on came the peal of thunder, which reverberating among the mountains like discharges of artillery, filled her [Pg 179] with that peculiar awe which the speaking clouds throw over the hearts of mortals. The rain came down in torrents, and had scarcely begun to pour, when the speat-rills of the high lands were heard dashing down like angry spirits to swell the Henderland Burn and the Megget, and raise the fury of these mountain streams. ”

“ The interior of Henderland Castle, at this time, was graced by the presence of one of the fairest of women, and the most dutiful and affectionate of wives. The lot of Marjory Scott, the wife of Cockburn, was, indeed, in all respects, save in the possession of a husband she loved devotedly, unfortunately cast; because, in person, mind, and heart, she was formed for gracing the polished drawing-room of refined and civilized life, and imparting to the nursery the charm of a soft, kind, and doting mother, whose love of strict moral discipline was only one phase of her maternal affection. ”

“ Many of the higher cliffs, which rise beyond the influence of the spray, are tapestried with ivy; we may see the heron watching on the ledges beside her bundle of withered twigs, or the blue hawk darting from her cell; there is life on every side of us—life in even the wild tumbling of the waves, and in the stream of pure water which, rushing from the higher edge of the precipice in a long white cord, gradually untwists itself by the way, and spatters ceaselessly among the stones over the entrance of one of the caves. ”

“ Light would bring the king and the executioner; and she prayed that she might have an opportunity of seeing her husband before the arrival of the royal cavalcade, that she might fall on her knees, and implore his instant flight into England; but her ears caught no sounds in the direction of Tushielaw, save the thunder and the rain, and, at intervals, the scream of the drenched owl or frightened hawk, or the wheep of the restless lapwing, driven from the morass by the overwhelming torrent. ”

“ These doings had occupied as much time as allowed the glimmer of early dawn to pass into a grey light, that, while it did not render the torches unnecessary, exhibited in strange and grotesque shades the group of dark figures, their changing faces, moving heads, and inauspicious gestures, on which the gleams of the torches flickered faintly, in struggles with the rising morn. Above them, the dangling noose claimed her averted eye, and sent through her nerves shivers that seemed to make the blood run back in the veins, and stagnate about the heart. ”

“ Fair ladies, in their gayest attire, hung upon the arms of brave knights. An immense amphitheatre, where the great tourneyings and combats of the day were to take place, was seated round; and at one part of it was a richly canopied dais, where the young king, with his blooming queen, and the chief peers and ladies of both countries, were to sit, and witness the spectacle. Merry music reverbed in every direction, and the rocks and the glens re-echoed it; and ever and anon, as it pealed around, the assembled thousands shouted—"Long live our guid king James, and his bonny bride." ”

“ As they passed along, Cockburn still cast a wistful eye to the skies, which wore a threatening aspect—the sun having been surrounded in his setting with large folds of clouds, whose bellying forms came dipping near the mountains; while the pale form of the moon, scarcely distinguishable in the falling gloaming, seemed to be sailing through broken masses of vapour, like a labouring bark in a stormy sea; and, now and then, a deep hollow moan among the woods came on the ear, like the far echo of dying thunder. ”

“ The bell still ascended, and the buoying power of the water kept him swimming, and made him obey my slightest impulse. The submersion and the contact into which he had come with the corpse had manifestly removed the effects of the liquor, and his imploring eye was eloquent in its appeal to me to continue my grasp. This I did while the bell continued to ascend; the light began to increase in the yolks of glass; and the voices of the men in the lighter greeted my ear. ”

“ I once thought that the highest of human enjoyments was a victory lost and won, with a hundred head of cattle driven before the returning host, in triumph, [Pg 173] to Henderland; but, in yon withdrawing-room in the west wing, in which your cunning hands have placed the seductive couch, where one may lie and see roses blooming so near that he may smell their odours, and hear witching strains stealing from these musical things of wood and wire, the charm of the foray is broken, and the riever's spirit overcome. ”

“ Is there not enough provided for the eagles' and the ravens' banquet, without their bonny blue een to peck at? Bide at hame, and, with my bairns, plough up the green fields, that the earth may provide us with food, as a fond mother, from its bosom. But go ye to the wars, and your destiny is written—your doom is sealed. The blackness of lonely midnight hangs owre me as my widow's hood, and, like Rachel, I shall be left to weep for my children, for they will not be! ”

“ Become the wife of a Border chief from the force of an irresistible early passion, she was as much the domesticated lover of in-door enjoyments, the cultivator of the social affections, and the admirer of love and tranquillity, as if she had occupied a retreat in Arcadia. ”