ing an account of what had befallen Latimer, and of the present uncertainty of his condition, to Mr. Samuel Griffiths, through whose hands the remittances for his friend's service had been regularly made, desiring he would instantly acquaint him with such parts of his history as might direct him in the search which he was about to institute through the border counties, and which he pledged himself not to give up until he had obtained news of his friend, alive or dead. The young lawyer's mind felt easier when he had despatched this letter. He could not conceive any reason why his friend's life should be aimed at; he knew Darsie had done nothing by which his liberty could be legally affected; and although, even of late years, there had been singular histories of men, and women also, who had been trepanned, and concealed in solitudes and distant islands, in order to serve some temporary purpose, such violences had been chiefly practised by the rich on the poor, and by the strong on the feeble; whereas, in the present case, this Mr. Herries or Redgauntlet, being amenable, for more reasons than one, to the censure of the law, must be the weakest in any struggle in which it could be appealed to. It is true, that his friendly anxiety whispered, that the very cause which rendered this oppressor less formidable, might make him more desperate. Still, recalling his language, so strikingly that of the gentleman, and even of the man of honour, Alan Fairford concluded, that though, in his feudal pride, Redgauntlet might venture on the deeds of violence exercised by the aristocracy in other times, he could not be capable of any action of deliberate atrocity. And in these convictions he went to dine with Provost Crosbie, with a heart more at ease than might have been expected.3 CHAPTER IV. NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD CONTINUED. FIVE minutes had elapsed after the town-clock struck two, before Alan Fairford, who had made a small detour to put his letter into the post-house, reached the mansion of Mr. Provost Crosbie, and was at once greeted by the voice of that civic dignitary, and the rural dignitary his visiter, as by the voices of men impatient for their dinner. "Come away, Mr. Fairford-the Edinburgh time is later than ours," said the Provost. "And come away, young gentleman," said the Laird ; "I remember your father weel, at the Cross, thirty years ago I reckon you are as late in Edinburgh as at London, four o'clock hours-eh ?” "Not quite so degenerate," replied Fairford; " but certainly many Edinburgh people are so ill-advised as to postpone their dinner till three, that they may have full time to answer their London correspondents." "London correspondents!" said Mr. Maxwell;" and, pray, what the devil have the people of Auld Reekie to do with London correspondents ?" "The tradesmen must have their goods," said Fairford. "Can they not buy our own Scottish manufactures, and pick their customers' pockets in a more patriotic manner ?" But "Then the ladies must have fashions," said Fairford. "Can they not busk the plaid over their heads, as their mothers did? A tartan screen, and once a-year a new cockernony from Paris, should serve a countess. ye have not many of them left, I think-Mareschal, Airley, Winton, Wemyss, Balmerino, all passed and gone -ay, ay, the countesses and ladies of quality will scarce 4* VOL. II. take up too much of your ball-room floor with their quality hoops now-a-days.". "There is no want of crowding, however, sir," said Fairford; "they begin to talk of a new Assembly-Room." "A new Assembly-Room!" said the old Jacobite Laird Umph-I mind quartering three hundred men in the old Assembly-Room 5 But come, come I'll ask no more questions-the answers all smell of new lords new lands, and do but spoil my appetite, which were a pity, since here comes Mrs. Crosbie to say our mutton's ready." It was even so. Mrs. Crosbie had been absent, like Eve "on hospitable cares intent," a duty which she did not conceive herself exempted from, either by the dignity of her husband's rank in the municipality, or the splendour of her Brussels silk gown, or even by the more highly prized lustre of her birth; for she was born a Maxwell, and allied, as her husband often informed his friends, to several of the first families in the county. She had been handsome, and was still a portly good-looking woman of her years; and though her peep into the kitchen had somewhat heightened lier complexion, it was no more than a modest touch of rouge might have done. The Provost was certainly proud of his lady, nay, some said he was afraid of her; for, of the females of the Redgauntlet family there went a rumour, that, ally where they would, their was a grey mare as surely in the stables of their husbands, as there is a white horse in Wouvermans' pictures. The good dame, too, was supposed to have brought a spice of politics into Mr. Crosbie's household along with her; and the Provost's enemies at the Council-table of the burgh used to observe, that he uttered there many a bold harangue against the Pretender, and in favour of King George and government, of which he dared not have pronounced a syllable in his own bed-chamber; and that, in fact, his wife's predominating influence had now and then occasioned his acting, or forbearing to act, in a manner very different from his general professions of zeal for Revolution principles. If this was in any respect true, it was certain, on the other hand, that Mrs. Crosbie, in all ex ternal points, seemed to acknowledge the "lawful sway and right supremacy" of the head of the house, and if she did not in truth reverence her husband, she at least seemed to do so. This stately dame received Mr. Maxwell (a cousin of course) with cordiality, and Fairford with civility; answering, at the same time, with respect, to the magisterial complaints of the Provost, that dinner was just coming up. "But since you changed poor Peter MacAlpin, that used to take care of the town-clock, my dear, it has never gone well a single day.' "Peter MacAlpin, my dear," said the Provost, "made himself too busy for a person in office, and drunk healths, and so forth, which it became no man to drink or to pledge, far less one that is in point of office a servant of the public. I understand that he lost the music-bells in Edinburgh, for playing Ower the water to Charlie,' upon the tenth of June. He is a black sheep, and deserves no encouragement." "Not a bad tune though, after all," said Summertrees; and, turning to the window, he half hummed, half whistled, the air in question, then sang the last verse aloud: "Oh I lo'e weel my Charlie's name, Though some there be that abhor him; But oh to see the deil gang hame Wi' a' the Whigs before him! And over the water to Charlie; Come weal, come woc, we'll gather and go, Mrs. Crosbie smiled furtively on the Laird, wearing an aspect at the same time of deep submission; while the Provost, not choosing to hear his visiter's ditty, took a turn through the room, in unquestioned dignity and independence of authority. "Aweel, aweel, my dear," said the lady, with a quiet smile of submission, "ye ken these matters best, and you will do your pleasure-they are far above my hand only, I doubt if ever the town-clock will go right, or your meals be got up so regular as I should wish, till Peter MacAlpin gets his office back again. The body's auld, and can neither work nor want, but he is the only hand to set a clock." It may be noticed in passing, that, notwithstanding this prediction, which, probably, the fair Cassandra had the full means of accomplishing, it was not till the second council-day thereafter, that the misdemeanours of the Jacobite clock-keeper were passed over, and he was once more restored to his occupation of fixing the town's time, and the Provost's dinner-hour. Upon the present occasion the dinner passed pleasantly away. Summertrees talked and jested, with the easy indifference of a man who holds himself superior to his company. He was indeed an important person, as was testified by his portly appearance; his hat laced with point d'Espagne; his coat and waistcoat once richly embroidered, though now almost threadbare; the splendour of his solitaire, and laced ruffles, though the first was sorely creased, and the other sullied; not to forget the length of his silver-hilted rapier. His wit, or rather humour, bordered on the sarcastic, and intimated a discontented man; and although he showed no displeasure when the Provost attempted a repartee, yet it seemed that he permitted it upon mere sufferance, as a fencing-master, engaged with a pupil, will sometimes permit the tyro to hit him, solely by way of encouragement. The Laird's own jests, in the meanwhile, were eminently successful, not only with the Provost and his lady, but with the red-cheeked and red-ribanded servant-maid who waited at table, and who could scarce perform her duty with propriety, so effectual were the explosions of Summertrees. Alan Fairford alone was unmoved among all this mirth; which was the less wonderful, that, besides the important subject which occupied his thoughts, most of the Laird's good things consisted in sly allusions to little parochial or family incidents, with which the Edinburgh visiter was totally unac quainted; so that the laughter of the party sounded in his |