Hinc illa lachrymæ ! thought Alan Fairford to himself; but the hint presently determined him to proceed by soft means, and with caution. "I beg you to understand," said Fairford, "that in the investigation which I am about to make, I design no harm to Mr. Herries, or Redgauntlet-call him what you will. All I wish is, to ascertain the safety of my friend. I know that he was rather foolish in once going upon a mere frolic, in disguise, to the neighbourhood of this same gentleman's house. In his circumstances, Mr. Redgauntlet may have misinterpreted the motives, and considered Darsie Latimer as a spy. His influence, I believe, is great among the disor derly people you spoke of but now ?"

The Provost answered with another sagacious shake of his head, that would have done honour to Lord Burleigh in the Critic.

"Well, then," continued Fairford," is it not possible that, in the mistaken belief that Mr. Latimer was a spy, he may, upon such suspicion, have caused him to be carried off and confined somewhere?-Such things are done at elections, and on occasions less pressing than when men think their lives are in danger from an informer."

Mr. Fairford," said the Provost, very earnestly, "I scarce think such a mistake possible; or if, by any extraordinary chance, it should have taken place, Redgauntlet, whom I cannot but know well, being, as I have said, my wife's first cousin, (fourth cousin I should say,) is altogether incapable of doing anything harsh to the young gentleman-he might send him ower to Ailsay for a night or two, or maybe land him on the north coast of Ireland, or in Islay, or some of the Hebrides; but depend upon it, he is incapable of harming a hair of his head."

"I am determined not to trust to that, Provost," answered Fairford, firmly; " and I am a good deal surprised at your way of talking so lightly of such an aggres sion on the liberty of the subject. You are to consider; and Mr. Herries or Mr. Redgauntlet's friends would do very well also to consider, how it will sound in the ears of an English Secretary of State, that an attainted traitor

(for such is this gentleman) has not only ventured to take up his abode in this realm-against the king of which he has been in arms-but is suspected of having proceeded, by open force and violence, against the person of one of the lieges, a young man, who is neither without friends nor property to secure his being righted."

The Provost looked at the young counsellor with a face in which distrust, alarm, and vexation, seemed mingled. "A fashious job," he said at last, "a fashious job; and “A it will be dangerous meddling with it. I should like ill to see your father's son turn informer against an unfortunate gentleman.”

"Neither do I mean it,” answered Allan, "provided. that unfortunate gentleman and his friends give me a quiet opportunity of securing my friend's safety. If I could speak with Mr. Redgauntlet, and hear his own explanation, I should probably be satisfied. If I am forced to denounce him to government, it will be in his new capacity of a kidnapper. I may not be able, nor is it my business, to prevent his being recognized in his former character of an attainted person, excepted from the general pardon.' "Master Fairford," said the Provost, "would ye ruin the poor innocent gentleman on an idle suspicion ?"

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Say no more of it, Mr. Crosbie; my line of conduct is determined-unless that suspicion is removed."

"Weel, sir," said the Provost, "since so it be, and since you say that you do not seek to harm Redgauntlet personally, I'll ask a man to dine with us to-day that kens as much about his matters as most folk. You must think, Mr. Alan Fairford, though Redgauntlet be my wife's near relative, and though, doubtless, I wish him weel, yet I am not the person who is like to be intrusted with his in-comings and out-goings. I am not a man for that-I keep the kirk, and I abhor Popery.-I have stood up for the house of Hanover, and for liberty and property -I carried arms, sir, against the Pretender, when three of the Highlandmen's baggage-carts were stopped at Ecclefechan; and I had an especial loss of a hundred pounds

"Scots or English, it was too much for me to lose,' said the Provost ; ·66 so you see I am not a person to pack or peal with Jacobites, and such unfreemen as poor Redgauntlet."

"Granted, granted, Mr. Crosbie; and what then ?" said Alan Fairford.

"Why, then, it follows, that if I am to help you at this pinch, it cannot be by and through my ain personal knowledge, but through some fitting agent or third person." "Granted again," said Fairford. "And pray who may this third person be ?"

"Wha but Pate Maxwell of Summertrees-him they call Pate-in-Peril."

“An old Forty-five man, of course?" said Fairford. "Ye may swear that," replied the Provost-" as · black a Jacobite as the auld leaven can make him ; but a sonsy, merry companion, that none of us think it worth while to break wi' for all his brags and his clavers. You would have thought, if he had had but his own way at Derby, he would have marched Charlie Stuart through between Wade and the Duke, as a thread goes through the needle's ee, and seated him in Saint James's before you could have said-Haud your hand. But though he is a windy body when he gets on his auld-warld stories, he has mair gumption in him than maist people knows business, Mr. Alan, being bred to the law; but never took the gown, because of the oaths, which kept more folk out then than they do now-the more's the pity."

"What are you sorry, Provost, that Jacobitism is upon the decline?" said Fairford.

"

"No, no," answered the Provost-" I am only sorry for folks losing the tenderness of conscience which they used to have. I have a son breeding to the bar, Mr. Fairford; and, no doubt, considering my services and sufferings, I might have looked for some bit postie to him ; but if the muckle tikes come in-I mean a' these Maxwells, and Johnstones, and great lairds, that the oaths

CHAPTER III.

NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD.

THE reader ought, by this time, to have formed some idea of the character of Alan Fairford. He had a warmth of heart which the study of the law and of the world could not chill, and talents which they had rendered unusually acute. Deprived of the personal patronage enjoyed by most of his contemporaries, who assumed the gownunder the protection of their aristocratic alliances and descents, he early saw that he should have that to achieve for himself which fell to them as a right of birth. He laboured hard in silence and solitude, and his labours were crowned with success. But Alan doted on his friend Darsie, even more than he loved his profession, and, as we have seen, threw every thing aside when he thought Latimer in danger; forgetting fame and fortune, and hazarding even the serious displeasure of his father, to rescue him whom he loved with an elder brother's affection. Darsie, though his parts were more quick and brilliant than those of his friend, seemed always to the latter a being under his peculiar charge, whom he was called upon to cherish and protect, in cases where the youth's own experience was unequal to the exigency; and now, when the fate of Latimer seemed worse than doubtful, and Alan's whole prudence and energy were to be exerted in his behalf, an adventure which might have seemed perilous to most youths of his age, had no terrors for him. He was well acquainted with the laws of his country, and knew how to appeal to them; and, besides his professional confidence, his natural disposition was steady, sedate, persevering, and undaunted. With these requisites, he undertook a quest which, at that time, was not unattended with actual danger, and had much in it to appal a more timid disposition.

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Fairford's first inquiry concerning his friend was of the chief magistrate of Dumfries, Provost Crosbie, who had sent the information of Darsie's disappearance. On his first application, he thought he discerned in the honest dignitary, a desire to get rid of the subject. The Provost spoke of the riot at the fishing station as an outbreak among those lawless loons the fishermen, which concerned the Sheriff," he said, 66 more than us poor Town-Council bodies, that have enough to do to keep peace within burgh, amongst such a set of commoners as the town are plagued with."

"But this is not all, Provost Crosbie," said Mr. Alan Fairford; "a young gentleman of rank and fortune has disappeared amongst their hands—you know him. My father gave him a letter to you-Mr. Darsie Latimer."

"Lack-a-day, yes! lack-a-day, yes!" said the Provost; "Mr. Darsie Latimer-he dined at my house-I hope he is well?”

"I hope so too," said Alan, rather indignantly; "but I desire more certainty on that point. You yourself wrote my father that he had disappeared.”

"Troth, yes, and that is true," said the Provost. "But did he not go back to his friends in Scotland ? it was not natural to think he would stay here."

"Not unless he is under restraint," said Fairford, surprised at the coolness with which the Provost seemed to take up the matter."

"Rely on it, sir," said Mr. Crosbie," that if he has not returned to his friends in Scotland, he must have gone to his friends in England."

"I will rely on no such thing," said Alan; "if there is law or justice in Scotland, I will have the thing cleared very bottom."

to the

"Reasonable, reasonable," said the Provost, "so far as is possible; but you know I have no power beyond the ports of the burgh."

"But you are in the commission besides, Mr. Crosbie; a Justice of Peace for the county."

3* VOL. II.