“ And how can ye get them but through the fire of the law, and the waters of the gospel? Where are you living?"
"Why should I conceal from you, Christian?" said he, thoughtfully. "No—at the White Horse in the Canongate, under the name of Douglas."
"Her name! Then look ye to it; for there will be human voices where none have been for twenty years, and cries o' wonder, and tears o' pity. Yes, yes, the long sleep is ended, for the charm is broken. Good night."
And hurrying away, she mounted the stair, leaving the man even more amazed than he was heart-broken and miserable. ”

“ Marjory obeyed her; and as she looked forth, the moon was rising over the tops of the trees, as if to chase away the envious shades, ready to follow the departure of twilight. There was solace in her soft splendour for the melancholy of the youthful girl, which might be ameliorated by a turn of fortune, as well as for the sadness of her aged friend, which was not only beyond the influence of worldly change, but so like the forecast gloom of the grave, as if the inexorable tyrant, long disappointed, was already rejoicing in his victim. ”

“ And does Marjory Bower counsel it? Then Marjory Bower hates Hector Ogilvy!"
"Nay," replied she calmly, "I only love your honour. Night and day I will pray for a blessing on your marriage, and that God, who made the heart of my sister, may change it into love and goodness."
A repressed spasmodic laugh shook the frame of the youth. "What a hope," he said, "on which to found the happiness of a life, and for which to barter such a creature as you! But, Marjory, you have roused the pride of my honour, while you have appeased my remorse; and I will marry Isobel because you have said that I should. ”

“ Ay, such a mime is man when he is a mome, that he even smiled as he felt his pulse,—how cool was his blood, how regular the vibrations! And so the mummery went on: the flowered-red vest, the braided coat of sky-blue, the cravat, the ruffles, the wrist-bands scolloped and stiff, the indispensable ruff, concealed behind by the long locks of auburn, so beautiful in Isobel's eyes, that flowed over his broad shoulders.
The work was finished; Ogilvy was dressed—his body in all the colours of the arc of hope—his mind in the dark midnight weeds of a concealed misery, concealed even from himself. ”

“ But what were all these, and the fairest and the proudest there, to Isobel Bower, as, arrayed in her long white veil, she sailed about, heedless of all decorum, showering her triumph upon envious damsels, as if she would blight all their fond hopes to make a rich soil for the flowering of her own! If others sat and looked for being looked at, and others stood for being admired, she walked and moved for worship, as if she claimed the peripatetic honour of the entire round of adoration. ”

“ There are, indeed, moments of sadness and of joy, to which poetry can bring neither alleviation nor zest; but these, when compared with the more softening shadings, are but rare; and when the intensity of grief or of delight has yielded, or is in the act of yielding, to time or reflection, it is then, in the gloaming or the twilight, as darkness passes into light, or light into darkness, that the soothing and softening notes of poesy come over the soul like the blessed south. ”

“ Then Marjory stepped out on the bartisan, not to listen, for her spirit was superior to artifice; and, leaning over the bartisan, she soon recognised the voices of Isobel and Ogilvy; nor could she escape the words—
"I loved her for her own sake," said he, "before I loved you, Isobel; and now I love her as your sister. But I shall have no peace in my wedded life with you, save on the condition that you love her also; for my conscience tells me I have not done by Sweet Marjory what is deemed according to the honour of man. You see what your power has been, Isobel. ”

“ There was a head on the pillow, partly covered by the coverlet, partly by a round-eared mutch—once, no doubt, white as snow, now brown as a Norway rat's back; yet Geordie would peer, and peer, till he saw an orbless socket of pure white bone, and a portion of two rows of white teeth clenched. An undoing of the clothes would have shown him—how much more? But his shaking was now a palsy of the brain, and he could not undo the suspected horror. He turned suddenly; and, as the green curtain fell with a flap, the dip lost its flame, and a black reek vied with that heavy cadaverousness. ”

“ A half-hour's dreamy consciousness, an hour's vision of returning images, rest and unrest, haunting scenes woven by some secret power, so varied, so ephialtic, so monstrous, yet all, somehow or another, however unlike the reality, still vindicating a connection. Why should Sweet Marjory be in the deep recesses of the pine wood, resting by his foaming steed, with his mother sitting and breathing hope's accents in her ear, and ever and again calling on him in sobbing vocables to return from his pursuit of another? ”

“ The spirit of his honour, which had been so fragile a thing when opposed by the advent of a new love, had been breathed upon and increased to a flame by her he had deserted; and he for the moment felt he could face the mild reproof of a mother whom he loved. What a versatile, incomprehensible creature is man, even in those inspired moments, when, with the nerve trembling under the tension of purpose, he appears to himself and others in his highest position! In a few minutes more he was in the presence of his mother. ”

“ All is still again, and there is rest, only to be alternated by the recurring visions always assuming new forms, changing and disappearing, flaring up again, and then the deep breast-riding oppression, and those hollow moans, which never can be imitated by the waking sense, as if Nature preserved this domain of the spirit as an evidence, in the night of the soul, that there is another world where the limbo of agony is not less certain than the heaven which is simulated by sweet dreams. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Show me the hoary-headed preacher, who carries sincerity in his very look and in his very tones, who is animated because faith inspires him, and out of the fulness of his own heart his mouth speaketh, and there is the man from whose tongue truth floweth as from the lips of an apostle; and the small still voice of conscience echoes to his words, while hope burns, and the judgment becomes convinced. Where faith is not in the preacher, none will be produced in the hearer. Such a man was the father of Richard Storie. ”

“ Geordie knew nothing of the old notion, that time fills secret and vacant recesses with terrified ghosts, frightened away from the haunts of men; yet he had strange misgivings, which, being the instinctive suggestions of a rude mind, had a better chance for being true to nature. Perhaps the cold night air, to which his shirt offered small impediment, helped his tremulousness; and that was not diminished when, on seizing the padlock, a scream from some drunken unfortunate in the Wynd struck on his ear and died away in the midnight silence. ”

“ The charm of her sweet voice is felt to be irresistible; yet it is resisted. And though he looks [Pg 197] back only to see her by the flaught of the lightning that plays among the trees, his steps are forward, where Devil Isobel charms him with a song, in comparison of which the magic of the sirens is but the rustle of the reed as it swerves in the blast. He struggles, and seizes the stems of the pines to hold him from his progress and keep him steady; and he writhes as he finds he cannot obey the maternal appeal to a son's love. ”

“ And to better hands than those of Sir Robert Lindsay, who was a man of bold and determined character, the welfare of the city and the safety of the citizens could not have been entrusted.
In return for the honour conferred on him, and the confidence reposed in him, he watched over the interests of the city with the utmost vigilance. But it was not to the general interest alone that he confined the benefits of his guardianship. Individuals, also, who were wronged, or threatened to be wronged, found in him a ready and efficient protector, let the oppressor or wrongdoer be whom he might. ”

“ Often, when he fondly gazed in her eyes, where affection beamed, the hope of immortality would flash through his bosom; for one so good, so made of all that renders virtue dear, but to be born to die and to be no more, he deemed impossible. They had been married about nine years, and Agnes had become the mother of five fair children, when in one day death entered their dwelling, and robbed them of two of their little ones. The neighbours had gathered together to comfort them, and the mother in silent anguish wept over her babes ”

“ She whispered to Mess John—most unseemly; but was she not the Devil Isobel? Ogilvy, even as a statue, was hers, and could not get away. Then the bridesmaids sought each other, by the clustering sympathy of their gay wreaths and their office, and the bridesman stood in readiness. Mess John was at the altar; and the bell was to ring the celebrating peal after the ceremony was ended, and the guests should fall to their knives and forks; and the retainers on the lawn, where the fire blazed wild to roast the ox and honour the bride, should sit down to their marriage feast. ”

“ Henderson, however, expressed some surprise at the abruptness of his departure, and still more at the wild and desperate speed with which he had ridden away, regardless of the darkness of the night and of all obstacles that might be in the way.
It was what he himself, a good horseman, and who knew every inch of the ground, would not have done for a thousand merks; and a great marvel he held it, that the reckless rider had got a hundred yards without horse and man coming down, to the utter destruction of both. ”

“ He knew that misfortune breaks up the bonds of etiquette, even among the virtuous; and that the honour among themselves, of which thieves boast, and a portion of mankind, for some strange reason, secretly approve, becomes weak in proportion to the danger of retributive justice. Not much given to speculate, he yet sometimes wondered why it was that one should be despised and treated harshly because he comes forward to serve the ends of justice and benefit society; but a less acute mind may feel no difficulty in accounting for the anomaly. ”

“ Then Marjory heard Devil Isobel reply; and she knew by the voice that she was in anger, though she cunningly repressed her passion.
"Believe them not," said Isobel. "By the pale face of yonder moon, and all those bright stars that are coming out one by one to add honour upon honour to [Pg 179] this evening, the last of my maiden life, I love sweet Marjory Bower; and I swear by Him who made all these heavenly orbs, that I shall love her as a sister ought."
"It pleases me much to hear my Isobel speak thus," said Ogilvy. ”

“ What motives impel you to wed a woman with whom you must be miserable, and have that misery enhanced by seeing every day her who would have rendered you happy?"
"My honour pledged to the world, which must condemn and laugh at a breach of faith, not to be justified except at the expense of Isobel."
"A false reason," continued the mother. "Is there more honour in adhering to a breach of honour than in returning to the honour that was broken?"
"There is another reason, mother," said Ogilvy, as he carried his hand over his sorrowful face. ”

“ I lay now altogether invisible to mortal eye, amidst the mighty movements of the elements—a thing of nought, endeavouring to crawl into nonentity—a tiny percipient amidst the blind urgency of nature. I lay in all the prostration of a bruised and subdued spirit, praying fervently and loudly unto God that He might be pleased to cover me with his hand till his wrath was overpast. ”

“ Doing this, we shall find the mysterious stranger seated beside a clear sparkling fountain, situated a little way within the grove, that, first forming itself into a little pellucid lake in the midst of the greensward, afterwards glided away down a mossy channel bedecked with primroses.
All alone by this fountain sat the young lady, looking, in her surpassing features and the exquisite symmetry of her light and graceful form, the very nymph of the crystal waters of the spring—the goddess of the grove. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Out of my unhappiness may come the happiness of others. Though I may not live to see it, I may die in the hope that Isobel Bower may, in your keeping, come to deserve a name better than that terrible one she has earned, and which just now sounded so terrible from your lips. ”

“ Of all hypochondriacs, to me the unbeliever seems the most absurd. For can matter think? can it reason, can it doubt? Is it not the thing that doubts which distrusts its own being? Often when he so wandered, the last words of his father—"Seek, and ye shall find"—were whispered in his heart, as though the spirit of the departed breathed them over him. Then would he raise his hands in agony, and his prayer rose from the solitude of the woods.
After acting about two years as tutor, he returned to Edinburgh and completed his studies. ”

“ Was there ever such a night before the day, of all days auspicious to mortals, of the culminating joy of human life! Could he not find refuge in sleep, where the miserable so often seek to escape from the vibrations of the leaping, palpitating nerve, inflamed by the fever of life? ”

“ The members acted as chairman of the society in rotation, and, in his turn, the office fell upon Eichard Storie. For the first time, he seemed to feel conscious of the darkness in which his spirit was enveloped; conscience haunted him as a hound followeth its prey; and still its small still voice whispered,
"Who sitteth in the scorner's chair." ”