PRESCRIPTION;

OR, THE 29TH OF SEPTEMBER.

The serene calmness and holy inspiration of some of our cottage retreats in Scotland are often the envy of the town-poet or philosopher, who looks upon the sequestered spots as possessing all the beauty and repose of the beatific Beulah, where the feet of the pilgrim found repose, and his spirit rest. The desire arises out of that discontent which, less or more, is the inheritance of man in this sphere; it is the residuum of the worldly feelings which, like the clay that, in inspired hands, gave the power of sight to the blind, opens the eyes to immortality. The wish for retirement belongs to good, if it is not a part of the great principle that inclines us to look far away to purer regions for the rest which is never disturbed, and the joy that knows no abatement. Yet how vain are often our thoughts as we survey the white-washed hut in the valley, covered with honeysuckle and white roses; the plot before the door; the croonin dame on her tripod; the lass with the lint-white locks, singing, in snatches of Nature's own language, her purest feelings, like the swelling of a mountain spring! The heart is not still there, any more than in the crowded mart. The birds whistle, but they die too; the rose blooms, but it is eaten in the heart by the palmer worm; the sun shines, but there is a shade at his back. Alas for mortal aspirations—there is nothing here of one side. Like the two parties who fought for the truth of the two pleas—that the statue was white, or that it was black—we find, after all our labour lost, that one side is of the one colour, and the other of the opposite. These thoughts arise in us at this moment, as we recollect the little cottage of Homestead, situated in a collateral valley on the Borders. We were born at a stone-cast from it; and, even in the dream of age, see issuing from it, or entering it, a creature who might have stood for Wordsworth's Highland Girl—a slender, gracile thing, retiring and modest; as delicate in her feelings as in the hue of her complexion; her thoughts of her glen and waterfall only natural to her—all others, fearful even to herself, glenting forth through a flushed medium, which equally betrayed the workings of the blood in the transparent veins—a being of young life, elasticity, and sensitiveness, such as, like some modest flower, we find only in certain recesses of the valleys in mountain-lands. Such were you, Alice Scott, when you first darted across our path on the hills. We have said that we see you now through the dream of age; and, holding to the parallel, there is a change o'er the mood of our vision, for we see you again in a form like that of "The Ladye Geraldine"—your mountain russets off; the bandeau that bound the flying locks laid aside; the irritability and flush of the young spirit abated; and, instead of these, the gown of silk, the coif of satin, and the slow and dignified step of conscious worth and superiority. And whence this change?

The young female we have thus apostrophised, was the daughter of Adam Scott, a cottar, who occupied the small cottage of Homestead, under the proprietor of Whitecraigs—a fine property, lying to the south of the cottage; and the mansion of which is yet to be seen by the traveller who seeks the Tweed by the windings of the river Lyne. Old Adam died, and left his widow and daughter to the protection of his superior, Mr. Hayston, who, recollecting the services and stanch qualities of his tenant, did not despise the charge. The small bield was allowed to the mother and daughter, rent free; and some assistance, in addition to the produce of their hands, enabled them to live as thousands in this country live, whose capability of supporting life might be deemed a problem difficult of solution by those whose only care is how to destroy God's gifts. Nature is as curious in her disposal of qualities as the great genius of chance or convention is of the distribution of means. Literature has worn out the characteristic and gloomy lines of the description of the fair and the good; and the impatience of the mind of the nineteenth century—a mind greedy of caricature, and regardless of written sentiment—may warn us from the portrayment of what people now like better to see than to read or hear of. Away, then, with the usual terms, and let old Dame Scott and her daughter be deemed as of those beings who have interested you in the quiet recesses of humble poverty, where Nature, as if in sport or satire, loves to play fantastic tricks. If you have no living models to go by, call up some of the pages of the thousand volumes that have been multiplied on a subject which has been more spoiled by poetical imagery, than benefited by sober observation.

Within about five years of the death of the husband and father, old Hayston died, and left Whitecraigs to his only son, Hector, who was kind enough to continue the gift of the father to the inmates of Homestead; but he loaded them with a condition, unspoken, yet implied. The young laird and the pretty cottage maiden had foregathered often amidst the romantic scenes on the Lyne; and that which Nature probably intended as a guard and a mean of segregation—the shrinking timidity of her own mountain child, when looked upon by the eye of, to her, aristocracy—only tended to an opposite effect. A poet has compared love to an Eastern bird, which loses all its beauty when it flies, and it is as true as it is a pretty conceit; but if there was any feathered creature whose wings, reflecting, from its monaul tints, the sun in greater splendour, when on the wing, it would supply as applicable and not less poetical an emblem of the object of the little god's heart-stirrings; and so it seemed to the young laird of Whitecraigs, that, as Alice Scott bounded away over the green hills, or down by the Lyne banks, at his approach, her flight added to the interest which she had already inspired when she had no means of escape. But, as the wildest doe may be caught and tamed, so was she, who was as a white one removed from the herd. The young man possessed attractions beside those of imputed wealth and station; and probably, though we mean not to be severe upon the sex, the process by which his affection had been increased was reversed in its effects upon her, to whom assiduous seeking was as the assiduous retreating had been to him.

Yet all was, we believe, honourable in the intentions of young Hayston; and, as for Alice, she was in the primeval condition of a total unconsciousness of evil. The "one blossom on earth's tree," as the poet has it, was by her yet unplucked, nor knew she how many thousands have had cause to sing—

Her former timidity was the à priori proof of the strength of the feeling that followed, when the sensitiveness of fear gave way to confidence. Town loves are a thing of sorry account: the best of them are a mere preference of the one to the many; and he who is fortunate enough to outshine his rivals, may pride himself in the possession of some superior recommendations which have achieved a triumph. Were he to look better to it, he might detect something, too, in the force of resources. At best, a few hundred pounds will turn the scale; for he is by all that a better man; and the trained eye of town beauties has a strange responsive twinkle in the glare of the one thing needful. In the remote and beautiful parts of a romantic country, things are otherwise ordered: affection there, is as the mountain flower to the gallipot rose; and it is a mockery to tell us that the difference is only perceptible to those who are weak enough to be romantic. A doughty warrior would recognise and acknowledge the difference, and fight a great deal better too, after he had blubbered over a mountain or glen born love for a creature who would look upon him as the soul of the retreat, and hang on his breast in the outpourings of Nature's feelings. That young Whitecraigs appreciated the triumph he had secured, there can be no reason to doubt. He had been within the drying atmosphere of towns, and had sung and waltzed, probably, with a round hundred of creatures who understood the passion, much as Audrey understood poetry—deeming it honest enough, but yet a composition made up of the elements of side glances, arias, smorzando-sighs, and quadrilles. With Alice Scott on his bosom, the quiet glen as their retreat, the green umbrageous woods their defence, its birds as their musicians, and the wimpling Lyne as the speaking Naiad, he forgot, if he did not despise, the scenes he had left. She flew from him now no longer. The fowler had succeeded to captivate, not intentionally to kill.

Two years passed over in this intercourse. There was no secret about it. The dame was well apprised of their proceeding; and the open frankness of the youth dispelled all the fears of wrong which the innocence of the daughter, undefended by experience, might have scarcely guaranteed to one who, at least, had heard something of the ways of the world. The income from Whitecraigs, somewhere about seven hundred a-year, was more than sufficient for the expenditure of the older Haystons; and Hector, at this time, did not seem inclined to alter the line of life followed by his fathers. He had not spoken of marriage to the mother; but he had not hesitated to breathe into the ear of Alice all that was necessary to lead her to the conclusion, to which her heart jumped, that she was to be the lady of the stately white mansion that, at one time, had appeared to her as a great temple where humble worshippers of the glen and the wood might not lay their sandals at the doorway. She had entered the vestibule only as an alms-seeker, and trembled to think she might have been observed throwing a side glance into the interior, where pier-glasses might have reflected the form of the russet-clad child of the valley and hill. The tale has been told a thousand times, and the world is not mended by it. The young master pressed her to his bosom, imprinted a kiss, and was away into the mazes of life in the metropolis, whither some affairs, left unsettled by his father, carried him. Six months passed away, and the rents of the succeeding term were collected by Mr. Pringle, the agent of the family, in Peebles. There was no word for poor Alice, though the small allowance was handed in by the agent, who, ignorant of the state of matters between the young couple, informed the mother that the master of Whitecraigs was on the eve of being married to a young lady of some wealth in the metropolis. The statement was heard by the daughter; and what henceforth but that of Thekla's song:—

Alice Scott was changed; yet, who shall tell what that change was? If the slow and even progress of the spirit may defy the eye of the metaphysician, who may describe its moods of disturbance? Poetry is familiar with these things, and we have fair rhymes to tell us of the wanderings, and the lonely musings by mountain streams, and the eye that looks and sees not, and the wasting form, and the words that come like the sounds from deep caves; yet, after all, they tell us but little, and that little is but to tickle us with the resonance of spoken sentiment, leaving the sad truth as little understood as before. True it was, that Alice Scott did all these things, and more too: the charm of the hills and the water banks was gone: the light spirit that carried her along, as if borne on the winds, was quenched; the songs by which she gladdened the ears of her mother, as she plied her portable handwork on the green, was no more heard mingling its notes with the music of the Lyne; and the face that shone transparently, like painted alabaster, as if part of the light came from within, was as the poet says—

Nor did additional time seem to possess any power save that of increasing the pain of the heart-stroke. Most of the griefs of mortals have their appointed modes of alleviation—some are complaining griefs, some are talkative, and some sorrows are sociable for selfishness. But the heart-wound of her who has only those scenes of nature which were associated with the image of the unkind one, to wear off the impressions of which, under other hues, they form a part, is a silent mourner. There is enough of a painful eloquence around her, and her voice would be only the small whisper that is lost in the wailings of the storm in the glen. Yet painful as the language is, she courts it in silence, even while it mixes and blends with the poison which consumes her. It was in vain that her mother, who saw with a parental eye the malady which is the best understood by those of her class and age, urged her with kindness to betake herself to her household duties. She was seldom to be prevailed upon to remain within doors; the hill-side, or the bosom of the glen, or the back of the willows by the water-side, were her choice. Ordinary meal times were forgotten or unheeded, where Nature had renounced her cravings, or given all her energies to the heart.

The next intelligence received at Homestead was that of the marriage of Hector Hayston, and his departure for France. The servants at Whitecraigs were discharged, as if there had been no expectation, for a long period, of the return of the young laird. The supply to the two females was increased, and paid by Mr. Pringle, who, now probably aware of the situation of Alice, delicately avoided any allusion to his employer. Report, however, was busy with her tales; and the absence of the youth was attributed to the workings of conscience or of shame. There was little truth in the report. The object of his first affections might easily have been banished from Whitecraigs, and he who had been guilty of leaving her maybe supposed capable of removing her from scenes which could only add to her sorrow. A true solution of his conduct might have been found in the fact, that Hayston was now following his pleasures in the society of his wife's friends—a gay and lavish circle—and did not wish to detract from his enjoyment by adding banishment and destitution to a wrong now irremediable. Little more was heard of him for some time, with the exception of a floating report, that he had borrowed, through his agent, the sum of ten thousand pounds from a Mr. Colville, a neighbouring proprietor, and pledged to him Whitecraigs in security. The circumstance interested greatly the neighbouring proprietors, who shook their heads in significant augury of the probable fate of their young neighbour in the whirlpool of continental life. Yet the allowance to Dame Scott at the next term was regularly paid; and if there was a tear in her eye, as she looked, first at the money, and then at the thin, pallid creature who sat silent at the window, it was not that she dreaded its discontinuance from the result of the extravagance of the giver. The effect of the act of payment of the money had, on a former occasion, been noticed by Pringle on the conduct of Alice: it was on this occasion repeated. She rose from her seat, looked steadfastly for a moment at the gift as it lay on the table, placed her hand on her forehead, and flitted out of the room. The eye of the agent followed her from the window: her step was hurried, without an object of impulse. She might go—but whither? probably she knew not herself; yet on she sped till she was lost among the trees on the edge of the glen.

Thus longer time passed, but there seemed no change to Alice, save in the continual decrease of the frame, under the pressure of a mind that communed with the past, and only looked to the future as containing some day that would witness the termination of her sorrows. The anglers on the Lyne became familiar with her figure, for they had seen it on the heights, with her garments floating in the breeze, and had come up to her as she sat by the waterside, but they passed on. At the worst she could be but one whose spirit was not settled enough to admit of her according with the ways of honest maidens; and they might regret that the beauty that still lurked amidst the ravages of the disease of the heart, had not been turned to better account. It is thus that one part of mankind surveys another: they form their theory of a condition whose secret nature is only known to its possessor; draw their moral from false premises, formed as a compliment to their own conduct and situation, and pass on to their pleasure.

Yet there occurred an important exception to these remarks:—One day Alice had taken up her seat on the banks of a small pond in front of the house of Whitecraigs. She sat opposite to the front of the dwelling, and seemed to survey its closed windows and deserted appearance, with the long grass growing up through the gravel of the walks—the broken pailings and decayed out-houses; a scene that might be supposed to harmonize with the feelings of a mind broken and desolate. There might seem even a consanguinity in the causes of the condition of both. The scene might have suited the genius of a Danby. There was no living creature to disturb the silence. The house of faded white, among the dark trees, cheerless and forsaken; the face of Alice Scott emaciated and pale, with the lustre of the loch, shining in the sun, reflected on it, directed towards the habitation of which she should have been mistress; her eyes, which had forgotten the relief of tears, fixed on the scene so pregnant with unavailing reminiscences—with these we would aid the artist.

But the charm was gone, as a voice sounded behind her. She started, and, according to her custom, would have fled as the hare that remembers the snare; but she was detained. A man, advanced in years, poorly clad, with hair well smitten with snow tints, and a staff in his hand, stood beside her, holding her by the skirt of the gown.

"I am weary," said he; "I have walked from Moffat, and would sit here for a time, if you would speak to me of the scenes and people of these parts." And the application of his hand again to her gown secured a compliance, dictated more by fear than inclination. She sat, while she trembled. "You are fair," continued he; "but my experience of sorrow tells me that grief has been busier with your young heart than years. I will not pry into your secrets. To whom does Whitecraigs now belong?"

The name had not been breathed by her to mortal since that day she had heard of the intended marriage. She made an effort to pronounce it, failed, and fixed her eyes on the pond. The stranger gazed on her, waiting for her reply.

"Hector Hayston," she at length muttered.

"And why has he left so fair a retreat to the desolation that has overtaken it?" rejoined he again. The question was still more unfortunate. She had no power to reply. Her face was turned from him, and repressed breathings heaved her bosom. "You may tell me, then, if one Dame Scott lives in these parts?" he said again, as he marked her strange manner, and probably augured that his prior question was fraught with pain.

"Yes—yes," she replied, with a sudden start, as if relieved from pain, while she regained her feet; "yonder lives my mother."

The stranger stood with his eyes fixed upon her, as if in deep scrutiny of the inexplicable features of her character and appearance; but he added not a word, till he saw her move as if she wished to be gone.

"You will go with me?" he said.

But the words were scarcely uttered, when she was away through the woods, leaving him to seek his way to the house of her mother, whither, accordingly, he directed his steps, from some prior knowledge he possessed of the locality about which he had been making inquiries. As he went along, he seemed wrapt in meditation—again and again looking back, to endeavour to get another sight of the girl, who was now seated on the edge of the stream, and again seized by some engrossing thought that claimed all the energies of his spirit. On coming up to the door of the cottage, he tapped gently with his long staff; and, upon being required by the dame to enter, he passed into the middle of the floor, and stood and surveyed the house and its inmate.

"I have nothing for you," said the latter; "so you must pass on to those whom God has ordained as the distributors of what the needy require. Alas! I am myself but a beggar."

The words seemed to have been wrung out of her by the meditative mood in which the stranger had found her, and, whether it was that the interest which had been excited in him by the appearance of the daughter had been increased by the confession of the mother, or that there was some secret cause working in his mind, he passed his hand over his eyes, and for a moment turned away his head.

"I have been both a beggar and a giver in my day," he replied, as he laid down his hat and staff, and took a chair opposite to the dame; "and I am weary of the one character and of the other. I have got with a curse; and I have given for ingratitude. But I may here give, and you may receive, without either. There is an unoccupied bed; I am weary of wandering, and have enough to pay for rest."

"That is better than charity," rejoined the dame—"ay, even the charity of the stranger."

"And why of the stranger, dame?" added he. "I have hitherto thought that the charity of friends was that which might be most easily borne. And who may be your benefactor?"

"Hector Hayston of Whitecraigs," replied she, hanging her head, and drawing a deep breath.

The stranger detected the same symptoms of pain in the mother as those he had observed in the daughter.

"Then forgets he not his cottars in his absence," he added. "But why has he left a retreat fairer than any I have yet seen throughout a long pilgrimage over many lands?"

"We will not speak of that," she replied, rising slowly, and going to the window, where she stood for a time in silence.

"You have a daughter, dame," resumed the man, as he watched the indications of movement in the heart of the mother. "I saw her sitting looking at the mansion of Whitecraigs. I fear she can lend you small aid; yet, if her powers of mind and body were equal to the beauty that has too clearly faded from her cheeks, methinks you would have had small need to have taken the charity of either friends or strangers."

"Ay, poor Alice! poor Alice!" rejoined the mother, turning suddenly, and applying her hand to something which required not her care at that time—"Ay, poor Alice!" she added.

"Is it a bargain, then," said he, wishing to retreat from a subject that so evidently pained her, "that I may remain here for a time, on your own terms of remuneration?"

"It may be as you say," replied she, again taking her seat; "but only on a condition."

"What is it?" inquired he.

"That you never mention the name of Hector Hayston, or of Whitecraigs, while Alice is by. She harms no one; and I would not see her harmed."

"I perceive," said he, muttering to himself, "that I am not the only one in the world who carries in his bosom a secret. But," he continued, in a louder tone, "your condition, dame, shall be fulfilled; and now I may hold myself to be your lodger." And he proceeded to take from the stuffed pockets of his coat some night-clothes of a homely character, and handed them to the dame. "And now," he said, "you may be, now or after, wondering who he may be who has thus come, like a weary bird from the waste that seeks refuge among the sere leaves, to live in the habitation of sorrow. But you must question me not; and farther than my name, which is Wallace, you may know nothing of me till after the 29th day of September—ay, ay," he continued, as if calculating, "the 29th day of September."

The dame started as she heard the mention of the day, looked steadfastly at him, and was silent.

"Yes," he continued, "that day past, and I will once more draw my breath freely in the land of my fathers; and my foot, which has only bowed the head of the heather-bell in the valley, may yet collect energy enough from my unstrung nerves to press fearlessly the sod of the mountain. How long is it since your husband died?"

"Seven years," replied she.

"Well, short as our acquaintance has yet been," said he, "our words have been only of unpleasant things. Now, I require refreshment; and here is some small pay in advance, to remove the ordinary prejudice against strangers. We shall be better acquainted by times. I will take, now, what is readiest in the house; for you may guess, from my attire, that I have been accustomed to that fare by which the poor contrive to spin out the weary term of their pilgrimage."

So much being arranged, the dame set about preparing a meal; and Mr. Wallace, as he had called himself, proceeded to transform his staff into a fishing-rod, and arrange his other small matters connected with his future residence. When the humble dish was prepared, the dame went out, and, taking her position on a green tumulus that rose between the cottage and the Lyne, stood, and, placing her hands over her eyes, looked down the water. Her eye, accustomed to the search, detected the form of her daughter far down the stream, and, waving her hand to her, she beckoned her home. But she came not; and the two inmates sat down to their repast.

"This shall be for my poor Alice," said the mother, as she laid aside a portion of the frugal fare; "but she will take it at her own time, or perhaps not at all."

"And yet how much she needs it," added the stranger, "her wasted form and pale face too plainly show."

"There is a sad change there, sir," rejoined she. "There was not a fairer or more gentle creature from Tweedscross to Tweedmouth than Alice Scott; nor did ever the foot of light-hearted innocence pass swifter over the hill or down the glen. You have seen her to-day where she is often to be seen—by the pond opposite the closed-up house of Whitecraigs—and may wonder to hear how one so wasted may still reach the hill-heads; yet there, too, she is sometimes seen. I have struggled sore to make her what she once was; but in vain. She will wander and wander, and return and wander again; nor will this cease till I some day find her dead body among the seggs of the Lyne, or in the lirk of the hill. When I know you better, I may tell you more. At present, I am eating the bread of one who is more connected with this sad subject than I may now confess; and I have never been accounted ungrateful."

The stranger was moved, and ate his meal in meditative silence. In an hour afterwards, Alice returned to the house, and, as she entered, started as her eye met that of him who had, by his questions, stirred to greater activity the feelings that were already too busy with her heart; but her fears were removed, by his avoidance of the subject which had pained her; and a few hours seemed to have rendered him as indifferent to her as seemed the other objects around her. Some days passed, and the widow would have been as well satisfied with her lodger as he was with her, had it not been that he enjoined secrecy as to his residence in the house—retiring to the spence when any one entered; and if at any time he went along the Lyne in the morning, he avoided those whom he met; and betook himself to private acts in the inner apartment during the day. At times he left the cottage in the evening, and did not return for two days; but whither he went, the inmates knew not. The dame conjectured he had been as far as Peebles; but her reason was merely that he brought newspapers with him, and intelligence of matters transacting there. The secrecy was not suited to the open and simple manners to which she had been accustomed; but she recollected his words, that on the 29th of September, she would know all concerning him. Now these words were connected by a chain of associations that startled her. The 29th of September had been set apart by her deceased husband as a day of prayer. He had never allowed it to pass without an offering of the contrite heart to God; this practice he had continued till his death, and she had witnessed the act repeated for fifteen years. She was no more superstitious than the rest of her class; she was, indeed, probably less so; and her theories, formed for an adequate explanation of the startling coincidence, were probably as philosophical as if they had been formed by reason acting under the astute direction of scepticism. Yet where is the mind, untutored or learned, that can throw away at all times, at all hours—when the heart is in the sunshine of the cheerful day of worldly intercourse, or in the deep shadow of the wing of eternity—all thoughts of all powers save those of natural causes, which are themselves a mystery? We may sport with the subject; but it comes again back on the heart, and we sigh in whispering words of fear, that in the hands of God we are nothing.

One day Mr. Wallace was seated at breakfast; he had been away for two nights; Alice was sitting by the side of the fire, looking into the heart of the red embers, and the mother was superintending the breakfast; he took out a newspaper from his pocket, and, without a word of premonition, read a paragraph in a deep, solemn voice.

"Died at —— Street, London, Maria Knight, wife of Hector Hayston, Esq., of Whitecraigs, in the county of Peebles, in Scotland."

A peculiar sound struggled in the throat of Alice; but it passed, and she was silent. The mother sat and looked Wallace in the face, to ascertain what construction to put upon the occurrence which he had thus read with an emphasis betokening a greater interest than it might demand from one, as yet, all but ignorant, as she thought, of the true circumstances of the condition of her daughter. He made no commentary on what he had read; but looking again at the paper, and turning it over, as if searching for some other news, he fixed his eyes on an advertisement in the fourth page. He then read—

"On the 1st day of October next, there will be exposed to public roup and sale, within the Town-Hall of Peebles, by virtue of the powers of sale contained in a mortgage granted by Hector Hayston, Esq., of Whitecraigs, in favour of George Colville of Haughton, all and hail the lands and estate of Whitecraigs, situated in the parish of——, and shire of Peebles, with the mansion-house, offices, &c."

He then laid down the paper, and, looking the widow full in the face—

"The day of sale of Whitecraigs," said he, "is the second day after the 29th of September. It would have been too much had it been on that day itself."

No reply was made to his remark. The announcement called up in the mind of the dame more than she could express; but that which concerned more closely herself, was too apparently veiled with no mystery. The sale of Whitecraigs was the ejection of herself and daughter from Homestead; and she knew not whither she and her daughter were now to be driven, to seek refuge and sustenance from a world from which she had been so long estranged.

"All things come to a termination," she said. "For many years I have lived here, wife and widow; and if I have felt sorrow, I have also enjoyed. The world is wide; and if I may be obliged to ask and to receive charity, the God who moves the hand to give it, may not again—now that His purpose may be served by my contrition—select that of the destroyer of my child. But there is another that must be taken from these haunts;" and, turning to Alice, whose face was still directed to the fire, she gazed on her hapless daughter, while the tear stole down her cheeks.

Wallace's eye was fixed on the couple. He seemed to understand the allusion of the mother, which indicated plainly enough, that though the hills and glens of Whitecraigs had been the scene of the ruin of her daughter's peace, she anticipated still more fatal consequences from taking her away from them. Meanwhile, Alice, who had listened to and understood all, arose from her seat.

"I will never leave Whitecraigs, mother," she said; and bent her steps towards the door.

"Let her follow her fancy," said Wallace. Then relapsing into a fit of musing, he added—"the 29th of September of this year will soon be of the time that is. For twenty years I have looked forward to that day—under a burning sun, far from my native land, I have sighed for it—in the midnight hour I have counted the years and days that were between. Every anniversary was devoted to the God who has chastened the heart of the sinner; and there was need, when that heart was full of the thoughts inspired by that day, and penitence came on the wings of terror. Now it approaches; and I have not miscalculated the benefits it may pour on other heads than mine."

"Alas!" said the widow, as she cast her eye through the window after her daughter, "there is no appointed day for the termination of the sorrows of that poor creature. To the broken-hearted, one day as another, sunshine or shower, is the same. But what hand shall bear Alice Scott from Whitecraigs?"

"Perhaps none," replied Wallace, as, taking up the newspaper, he retired to an inner apartment, where he usually spent the day. Some hours passed; and, in the afternoon, Mr. Pringle, while passing, took occasion to call at Homestead, and informed the widow that it would be her duty to look out for another habitation, as Whitecraigs was to be sold by the creditor, Mr. Colville, whose object in granting the loan was, if possible, to take advantage of the difficulties into which extravagance had plunged the young proprietor, and to bring the property into the market, that he might purchase it as an appanage of the old estate of Haughton, from which it had been disjoined. He represented it as a cruel proceeding, and that its cruelty was enhanced by the circumstance of the sale being advertised in the same paper which contained the intelligence of the death of Hector's young wife. Another listener might have replied that God's ways are just; but Dame Scott, if she thought at the time of her daughter, considered also that Hayston had supported her for many years.

"Good dame," added the agent, "it might have been well for my young friend if he had remained at Whitecraigs. I never saw the wife he married, and has just lost in the bloom of youth; but she must have been fair indeed, if she was fairer than she whom he left. Yet Hector's better principles did not, I am satisfied, entirely forsake him. The disinclination he has shown to visit his paternal property, was the result of a clinging remembrance of her he left mourning in the midst of its glens; nor do I wonder at it, for even I have turned aside to avoid the sight of Alice Scott. Misfortunes, however, are sometimes mercies; and the change of residence you will be now driven to, may aid in the cure of a disease that is only fed by these scenes of Whitecraigs."

He here paused, and, putting his hand in his pocket, took out some money.

"This may be the last gift," he said, as he presented it to her, "that Hector Hayston may ever send you. These are his words. His fortunes are ruined, his wife is dead, and, worse than all, his peace of mind is fled."

"Heaven have mercy on him!" replied the widow. "One word of reproach has never escaped the lips of me or my daughter. I have suffered in this cottage without murmuring, and the glens and hollows of Whitecraigs have alone heard the complainings of Alice Scott. She will cling to these places to the last; but were the windows of the deserted house again opened, with strange faces there, and maybe the lights of the entertainments of the happy shining through them, she might feel less pleasure in sitting by the pond from which she now so often surveys the deserted mansion. This last gift, sir, moves my tears—yea, for all I and mine have suffered from Hector Hayston."

The agent had performed his duty, and departed with the promise that he would, of his own accord, endeavour to prevail upon some of his employers to grant her a cottage, if the purchaser of Whitecraigs should resist an appeal for her to remain. He had no sooner gone, than the stranger Wallace, who had heard the conversation, entered. He asked her how much money Hector had sent as his last gift; and, on being informed—

"That young man," he said, "has fallen a victim to the allurements of a town life. The story of your daughter has been known to me; but I have avoided the mention of the name of Hayston, which could only have yielded pain without an amelioration of its cause. That gift speaks to me volumes. Even fashion has not sterilized the heart of that young man. He has erred—he may have transgressed—but for all, all, there is a 29th of September!"

The allusion he thus made was as inscrutable as ever. Again she reflected upon her husband's conduct upon that day of the year; and again, as she had done a hundred times, searched the face of the speaker. But she abstained from question; and the day passed, and others came, till the eventful morning was ushered in by sunshine. Wallace was up by times; and his prayers were heard directed to the Throne of Mercy, in thanks and heart-expressed contrition. In the forenoon he went forth with freedom, climbed the hills, and conversed with the anglers he met on the Lyne. He seemed as if relieved from some weighty burden; and the dame, who had carefully watched his motions, waited anxiously for the secret. He had not, however, pledged himself to reveal it on that day. He had only said that all would be made known some time after the day had passed; and, accordingly, he made no declaration. Yet, at bedtime, he was again engaged in prayers, and even during the night he was heard muttering expressions of thanksgiving to the Author of the day, and what the day bringeth.

On the following morning, he announced his intention of going to Peebles, whither he was supposed to have gone before; but now his manner of going was changed. He purposed taking the coach, which, as it passed within some miles of Whitecraigs, he intended to wait for, and on departing—

"You will not hear of me till to-morrow night," he said. "I can now face man; would that I could with the same confidence hold up my countenance to God. Alice Scott," he continued, as he looked to the girl, "I will not forget you in my absence. Your day of sorrow has been long; but there may yet be a 29th of September even to you."

And, taking the maiden kindly in his arms, he whispered some words in her ear, in which the magic syllables of a name she trembled to hear were mixed. Her eyes exhibited a momentary brightness, a deep sigh heaved her bosom, and again her head declined, with a whisper on her lips—"Never, O never!" In a moment after, he was gone; and the widow was left to ascertain from Alice what he had said, to bring again, even for a moment, the blood to her cheek.

On the day after, there was a crowd of people in the Town-Hall of Peebles, and the auctioneer was reading aloud the articles of roup of the lands of Whitecraigs. Mr. Colville was there in high hopes; but there were others too, who seemed inclined to disappoint them. The property was set up at the price of fifteen thousand pounds, and that sum was soon offered by the holder of the mortgage. Other bodes quickly followed, and a competition commenced, which soon raised the price to eighteen thousand, at which it seemed to be destined to be given to Haughton. The other competitors appeared timid; and several declared themselves done, one by one, until no one was expected to advance a pound higher. All was silence, save for the voice of the auctioneer; and he had already begun his ominous once, twice, when a voice which had not yet been heard, cried—"Eighteen thousand two hundred." The hammer was suspended, and all eyes turned to view the doughty assailant, who would, at the end of the day, vanquish the champion who had as yet retained the field. Those eyes recognised in the bidder a man poorly clothed, and more like an alms-seeker than the purchaser of an estate—no other was that man than Mr. Wallace. The auctioneer looked at him; others looked and wondered; and Haughton gloomed, as he advanced another hundred; and that was soon followed by a hundred more, which led to a competition that seemed to be embittered on the one part by pride and contempt, and on the other by determination. Hundred upon hundred followed in rapid succession, till Haughton gave up in despair, and a shout rung through the hall as the hammer fell, and the estate was declared the property of the humble stranger, whom no one knew, and whom no one would have considered worth more than the clothes he carried on his back. A certificate of a banker at Peebles—that he held in his hands funds, belonging to the purchaser, of greater amount than the price—satisfied the judge of the roup; and the party were divided in circles, conversing on the strange turn which had been given to the sale of Whitecraigs.

On the same night, Wallace returned to Homestead, and sat down composedly to the humble meal that had been prepared for him by the widow. Alice was in her usual seat; and the placidity of manner which distinguished them from ordinary sufferers, spoke their usual obedience to the Divine will.

"This day the property of Whitecraigs has changed masters!" said he.

"And who has purchased it?" inquired the mother.

"He who is now sitting before you!" replied he.

Alice turned her head to look at him; the mother sat mute with surprise; while he rose and fastened the door.

"It is even so," he continued, as he again sat down; "David Scott, the brother of your husband, and the uncle of Alice, has this day purchased Whitecraigs."

A faint scream from the mother followed this announcement, and, recovering herself, she again fixed her eyes on the stranger.

"It is true," continued he; "I am the brother of your deceased husband. For two years after you were married to Adam, you would, doubtless, hear him speak of me, as then engaged in a calling of which I may now be ashamed, for I was one of the most daring smugglers on the Solway. The 29th of September, 17—, dawned upon me, yet with hands unsullied in the blood of man; but the sun of that day set upon me as proscribed by God and my country. My name was read on the house walls, and execration followed my steps, as I flew from cave to cave. Yet who could have told that that day in which my evil spirit wrought its greatest triumph over good, was that whose evening shades closed upon a repentant soul!"

He paused, and placed his hand on his brow.

"These things are to me as an old dream," replied the widow, looking round her, as if in search of memorials of stationary space. "My husband never afterwards mentioned your name, save to inform me that you had died in the West Indies; yet now I see the import of his devotion, in the coming round of the day that shamed the honest family to whom he belonged."

"And it was to save that shame, and to secure my safety under my assumed name, that, after I flew to the islands of the west, I got intelligence of my death sent to Scotland. What other than the issue of this day must have been in the view of the great Disposer of events, when, in addition to the grace He poured on the heart of the sinner, He invested the arm that had been lifted against His creatures with the prosperity that filled my coffers! But, alas! though I may have reason to trust to the forgiveness of Heaven, that of man I may never expect."

"And punishment still awaits you?" rejoined she.

"No, no!" he cried, as he rose and placed his foot firmly on the floor. "I am free—the heart may hate me, the tongue may scorn me, the hand may point at me, but it dare not strike. On the 29th of September I was no longer amenable to the laws for the crime which drove me to foreign lands: twenty years free the culprit from the vengeance of man; the last day of that period was the 29th of September—it is past; and now God is my only judge." He again paused. "But I must live still as David Wallace. The name of Scott shall not be sullied by me. As David Wallace I have made my fortune, and as David Wallace made my supplications to Heaven. By the same name I have bought Whitecraigs, and by that name I shall make it over to one who may yet retrieve the honour of our humble house—to Alice, who should, through other means, have been mistress. Come to your natural protector, Alice, and tell him if you will consent to be the lady of Whitecraigs."

The girl, on whom the ordinary occurrences of life now seldom made any impression, had listened attentively to the extraordinary facts and intentions thus evolved; and, at his bidding, rose and stood by his side. He took her hand, and looked into her face.

"I knew," said he, "that I was pledged not to mention a certain name while you were by; and I kept my word, with the exception of the whisper I stole into your ear on the day I set out for Peebles. But things are now changed. The rights of Whitecraigs are now in the act of being made out in your name. Within a month you will be mistress of that mansion, and of those green dells and hills you have loved to wander among in joy and in sorrow. Now, will you answer me a question?"

"I will!" she replied.

"What would be your answer to Hector Hayston—who is now no longer a husband, and no longer rich—were he to come to Whitecraigs and make amends for all that is by and gone? Would you receive him kindly, or turn him from the door of the house of his fathers?"

The question was too sudden, or too touchingly devised. She looked for a moment in his face, burst into tears, and hid her face in his breast.

"Try her poor heart not thus!" cried the mother. "Time, that as yet has done nothing but made ravages, may now, when things are so changed, work miracles. Do not press the question. A woman and a mother knows better than you can do what are now her feelings. The answer is not asked—Alice, your uncle has taken back his question!"

"I have—I have!" replied he, as he pressed her to his breast. "Look up, my dear Alice. I have, in my pride and power, been hasty, and thought I could rule the heart of woman as I have done my own, even in its rebellion against God. I have yet all to learn of those secret workings of the spirit, in all save repentance. I never myself knew what it was to love, far less what it is to love and be forsaken. No more—no more. I will not again touch those strings."

And, rising hurriedly, he consigned the maid to her mother, and went out, to afford her time to collect again her thoughts. During the following week the furniture of Whitecraigs was disposed of by Mr. Pringle, for behoof of the other creditors of Hayston, and purchased by the uncle, who took another journey to Peebles, for the purpose of negotiating the sale, and making further preparations for obtaining entry. In a fortnight after, the keys were sent to Homestead by a messenger, while the making up of the titles was in the course of progress. It was no part of the intention of Wallace to reside in the mansion-house: his object was still secrecy; and, though the form and character of the transaction might lead ultimately to a discovery, he cared not. By the prescription of the crime he had committed, he was free from punishment; while, by retaining his name, and living ostensibly in a humble condition, he had a chance of escaping a detection of his true character, at the same time that he might, by humility and good services, render himself more acceptable to that Great Power whose servant he now considered himself to be.

On the twenty-first day of October, the house of Whitecraigs was again open. Servants had been procured from Peebles; the fires were again burning; the wreaths of smoke again ascended from among the trees; and life and living action were taking the place of desertedness. On the forenoon of that day, Wallace took the two females from Homestead, and conducted them, hanging on his arms, to their new place of residence. To speak of feelings, where a change comprehended an entire revolution of a life of habit, thought, and sentiment, would be as vain as unintelligible. From that day, when the uncle had put the trying question to his niece, a change might have been detected working a gradual influence on her appearance and conduct. Might we say that hope had again lighted her taper within the recesses where all had been so long dreary darkness! The change would not authorize an affirmative—it would have startled the ear that might have feared and yet loved the sounds. One not less versed in human nature might be safer in the construction derived from the new objects, new duties, new desires, new thoughts, from all the thousand things that act on the mind in this wonderful scene of man's existence; but would he be truer to the nature of the heart that has once loved? We may be contented with a mean, where extremes shoot into the darkness of our mysterious nature. Alice Scott took in gradually the interests of her new sphere; did not despise the apparel suited to it; did not reject the manners that adorned it; did not turn a deaf ear or a dead eye to the eloquent ministers that lay around amidst the beauties of Whitecraigs and hailed her as mistress, where she was once a servant, if not a beggar.

Meanwhile the house of Homestead was enlarged, to fit it as a residence for the uncle. Mr. Pringle was continued agent for the proprietress of Whitecraigs; and, while many, doubtless, speculated on a thousand theories as to these strange occurrences, we may not deny to Hector Hayston, wherever he was, or in whatever circumstances, some interest in what concerned him so nearly as the disposal of his estate, and the fortune of her by whom his first affections had been awakened. Neither shall we say that Wallace and Pringle had not, too, their secret views and understandings, and that the latter was not silent where the interests of his old employer called for confidence. In all which we may be justified by the fact that, one day, the agent of Whitecraigs introduced to the bachelor of Homestead a young man: it was the former proprietor of Whitecraigs.

"It is natural, Mr. Wallace," said Mr. Pringle, "that one should wish to revisit the scenes of his youth—especially," he added, with a smile, "when these have been one's own property, come from prior generations, and lost by the thoughtlessness of youth."

"It is," replied Wallace, renouncing his usual gravity, "even though there should be no one there who might claim the hand of old friendship. But this young man has only, as yet, seen the hill-tops of his father's lands; and these claim no seclusion from the eye of the traveller. He might wish, with greater ardency, to see the bed where his mother lay when she bore him, or the cradle (which may still be in the house) where she rocked him to sleep."

"God be merciful to me!" replied the youth, as he turned away his head. "This man touches strings whose vibrations harrow me. Sir," he added, "were you ever yourself in the situation of him whose feelings you have thus, from good motives, quickened so painfully?"

"What Whitecraigs and she who lives now in the house yonder were or are to you, Scotland and my kindred were to me; but the house where I was born knows me not, and the bed and the cradle do not own me. But Alice Scott recognised me as a fellow-creature, whatever more I say not; and even that, from one so good, and, even yet, so beautiful—is something to live for. No more. I know all. Will you risk a meeting?"

"Mr. Pringle will answer for me," replied he, as he turned, with a full heart, to the window.

"And I will answer for Mr. Pringle," said Wallace.

"But who will answer for her?" rejoined the other.

"Stay there," said Wallace. "I will return in a few minutes."

And, bending his steps to Whitecraigs House, he was, for a time, engaged with Alice and her mother. He again returned to Homestead; and, in a few minutes after, the three were walking towards the mansion. The eye of the young man glanced furtively from side to side, as if to catch glimpses of old features which had become strange to him; but in the direction of the house he seemed to have no power to look—lagging behind, and displaying an anxiety to be concealed, by the bodies of the others, from the view of the windows. On arriving at the house, Wallace and Pringle went into an apartment where the mother was seated. Hector stood in the passage: he feared that Alice was there, and would not enter.

"Think you," whispered Wallace, quickly returning to him, "that I, whom you accused of touching tender chords, am so little acquainted with human nature as to admit of witnesses to your meeting with Alice Scott? There, the green parlour in the west wing," he continued, pointing up the inside stair to a room well known to the youth. "If you cannot effect it, who may try? Go—go!"

"I cannot—I cannot!" he replied, in deep tones. "My feet will not carry me. That room was my mother's favourite parlour. A thousand associations are busy with me. And now, who sits there?"

"Come, come!" said Pringle, as he came forth, in consequence of hearing Hayston's irresolution. "What did you expect on coming here? Alice to come and fly to you with open arms?"

"No, sir; to reject me with a wave of disdain!" replied the youth. "I am smitten from within, and confidence has left me. Let me see her mother first. My cruelty to her has been mixed with kindness, and she may give me some heart."

And he turned to the apartment where the mother sat.

"Your confidence will not be restored by anything the mother can say!" rejoined Pringle, who was getting alarmed for the success of his efforts. "Alice is now mistress here, and must be won by contrition, and a prayer for forgiveness."

"Ho!" interjected Wallace. "To what tends this mummery? Must I take you by the hand, and lead you to one who, for years, has seen you in every flitting shade of the hills, and heard you in every note of the sighing winds of the valley?"

"To hate me as I deserve to be hated!" replied Hayston, still irresolute. "None of you can give me any ground for hope, and seem to push me on to experience a rejection which may seal my misery for ever!"

Wallace smiled in silence, beckoned Pringle into the room beside the mother, and taking Hayston by the arm, with a show of humour that accorded but indifferently with the real anguish of doubt and dismay by which the young man's mind was occupied, forced him on to the first step of the inside stair.

"You are now fairly committed!" said he, smiling; "to retreat, is ruin; to advance, happiness, and love, and peace."

And he retreated to the room where Pringle was, leaving the youth to the strength or weakness of his own resolution. His tread was now heard, slow and hesitating, on the stair. Some time elapsed before the sound of the opening door was heard; and that it remained for a time open, held by the doubtful hand, might also have been observed. At last it was shut; and quick steps on the floor indicated that the first look had not been fraught with rejection.

The party below were, meanwhile, speculating on the result of the meeting. Even the mother was not certain that it would, at first, be attended with success. Alice had yielded no consent; and it was only from the mother's construction of her looks, that she had given her authority for the interview.

"All is now decided, for good or evil," said Wallace. "Go up stairs, and bring us a report of the state of affairs."

The mother obeyed; and, after a considerable time, returned, with her eyes swimming in tears.

"Is it so?" said her friend. "Is it really so? Has all my labour been fruitless?"

"No," replied she; "but I could not stand the sight. I found her lying on the breast of Hector, sobbing out the sorrows of years. Her eyes have been long dry. The heart is at last opened."

"Too good a sight for me to lose," replied her friend. "For twenty years I have only known the tears of penitence: I will now experience those that flow from the happiness of others."

And, with these words, he hurried up stairs. We would follow, but that we are aware of the danger of treading ground almost forbidden to inspiration. Within two hours afterwards, Hector Hayston and Alice Scott were again among the glens of Whitecraigs, seeking out those places where, before, they used to breathe the accents of a first affection. The one had been true to the end; and the other had been false only to learn the beauty of truth. We have given these details from a true record, and have derived pleasure from the recollections they have awakened; but we fairly admit, that we would yield one half of what we have experienced of the good, to have marked that day the workings of the retrieved spirit in the eyes, and speech, and manners of Alice Scott. These are nature's true magic. The drooping flower that is all but dead in the dry, parched soil, raises its head, takes on fresh colours, and gives forth fresh odours, as the spring showers fall on its withered leaves. Oh! there is a magic there that escapes not even the eye of dull labour, retiring home sick of all but the repose he needs. But the process in the frame that is the temple of beauty, worth, intelligence, sensibility, rearing all in loveliness afresh, out of what was deemed the ruins only of what is the greatest and best of God's works—to see this, and to feel it, is to rejoice that we are placed in a world that, with all its elements of vice and sorrow, is yet a place where the good and the virtuous may find something analogous to that for which the spirit pants in other worlds.

Yet, though we saw it not, we have enough of the conception, through fancy, to be thankful for the gift even of the ideal of the good; and here we are satisfied that we have more. Hector Hayston and Alice Scott were married. David Wallace's history was long concealed, but curiosity finally triumphed; yet with no effect calculated to impair the equanimity of a mind which repentance, and a reliance on God's grace, had long rendered independent of the opinions of men. He had wrought for evil, and good came of it; and he lived long to see, in the house of Whitecraigs, its master, mistress, and children, the benefits of the prescription which the 29th of September effected—a principle of the law of Scotland that was long deemed inconsistent with the good of the land, but now more properly considered as being no less in unison with the feelings of man than it is with divine mercy.