that their mother wore an air of embarassment and indecision, (which was very unusual with her, for she was at all times accustomed promptly to decide, and vigorously, to pursue,) when she entered the room.

"Well, Eliza," said Mrs. Belcour, "are you not obliged to me for waiting four days, to give you an opportunity of seeing Norborne Lodge ?"

"I have no particular desire, my dear mother," said Eliza, "to see Norborne Lodge."

Mrs. Belcour compressed her lips, as if there was something on her mind which she would fain express, but deemed it not advisable to utter; for a few moments she employed herself in arranging some articles of dress, and then resumed,-

George Berkley, you find, girls, from what Lord Umberdale said, is certainly returned.”

"And is as certainly," said Eliza, with more quickness than the occasion would seem to have justified, "totally unworthy of notice now that he is come. Did you remark, mamma, the expressions of old Mrs. Berkley ?"

"And did not you remark," said Mrs. Belcour, "the expressions of Lord Umberdale in reply ?”

"I did," said Eliza, carelessly: "they carried no weight with them. His Lordship, I perceive, is wonderfully given to say civil things, and I thought him a pleasing young man until he acknowledged an intimacy with George Berkley."

"Only a pleasing young man ?" said Maria.

"Oh yes!" said Eliza, “I think him a great deal more he is a Lord!"

Mrs. Belcour reddened with vexation.

"Those

Methodists and Quakers," she exclaimed, "have ab

solutely made you as vulgar as they are themselves.

You pretend to think lightly of the most elegant, accomplished man you have ever beheld, because he is a nobleman."

"No, my dear mother," said Eliza, "I am content only not to think more highly of him on that account.'

It was evident the discrepancy of opinion between these three ladies was so great, that discussions of no very pleasant nature were likely to ensue, and, as this was no time for argument, the conversation ceased, and they severally busied themselves in preparing again to enter on the scene of action.

And now it is high time that we revert to the commission of Mr. Scott, and follow the fortunes of Percy,

CHAPTER XII.

THE JAIL.

Yet e'en in dreams the impression will remain,—
He hears the sentence, and he feels the chain;
He sees the judge and jury, when he shakes,
And starting, cries, "Not guilty!" and awakes.

Crabbe.

WHATEVER was the nature of the commission with which Mr. Scott was intrusted by Mrs. Belcour, it led him to the village in which was the jail where Percy was confined. The night was far advanced when he arrived at the inn, and the family of the landlord had retired to bed, though he himself was sitting in an open porch before his door, enjoying, as it seemed, the freshness of the night air. Calling up a negro boy, to whom Dunmore was delivered for safe keeping, the landlord lit a candle, and led the way into his bar, with some of the restoratives of which he concluded his guest would forthwith recruit his spirits after his journey; but seeing, as Mr. Scott approached the light, that his dress and appearance bespoke him a clergyman, he withdrew the key from the door, and accosting him with rustic civility, desired to know if the gentleman was not a parson.

Being answered in the affirmative, after many excuses for the liberty he was taking, he informed Mr.

Scott that he had just come from the jail, where," said he, “an old customer of mine is dying; and tho'f he wont hear talk of sich things, his sitiation is pretty bodish to my thinking, any way; but many a good dollar he's bin in my way, keeping people up a playing of cards for a week together. And then, you know, as the old saying goes, when wine's in wit's out,' and nobody made more by that than old Cog-and to be sure, he used to be calling for the stuff from morning to night, and from night till morning, but never a drop went down his own throat, only a little chicken water or so. And so says I to Betsey, not half an hour ago -says I, if there was a parson in ten miles, I'd try to git him-And says Betsey says she, if old Cog is'nt got that on him I wou'd'nt have for half the county, I wish I may never see to-morrow. And so, sir, it just looks like a godsend-like, that you should come this time of night, for he'll not live till morning I'll take my affidavit."

Though Mr. Scott spent too much time in learned leisure, for a man whose calling required that he should be up and doing, yet he was prompt to every call of duty when it was actually made, and he desired to be instantly conducted to the dying man.

On their way to the jail, Mr. Scott learnt of the landlord that Cogwell and his fellow-prisoners, Percy and Blaney, had been brought from the place of their apprehension during the night; their arrest taking place, as we have seen, late in the evening. On their arrival at the jail, Cogwell had been seized with a shivering fit, succeeded by one of those violent fevers to which that district of country was subject. No medical aid could be, or at least was procured; the symptoms had continued to increase; and he was now, according to

the landlord's account, reduced to extremities. Arrived at the jail door, Mr. Scott expressed his fears that they should not be admitted, as not a ray of light was visible in the miserable gloomy mansion, except a faint, twinkling glare from the few panes of a window of an upper apartment, showing the iron bars, and the squalid rags which were substituted for the glass which was broken.

"Not a bit of fear of not gitting in," said the landlord. "Ben Lock is sitting up himself with the old Odds, Ben would give something clever an he could get old Cog on his feet again: he's bin a good customer of Ben's in more ways than one."

man.

A rap at the door, accompanied by the voice of the landlord, brought Mr. Lock, the custodier of this place of "durance vile," (for such it most truly might be termed) from the room of the sick man.

Mr. Lock exercised the twofold profession of jailer and blacksmith; and whilst the one had hardened and distorted his features with habitual suspicion and distrust, the other had begrimed them with smoke, soot, and dirt, so that when he opened the door, and presented his large and gaunt person, dressed in his blacksmith's apron, his yellow flannel jacket, which, from the heat of the weather, being open, displayed the bosom of a shirt of that colour which Ovid intends when

he says,

-"Qui color albus erat, nunc est contrarius albo." Mr. Scott actually started back in affright. Some few spots on his face, which the streams of perspiration had deprived of soot, gleamed red and fiery from the effects of the liquor, with which he was liberally supplied, as an earnest of the reward which he was to receive for his civility to the dying prisoner. In short, his whole apVOL. I.

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