persons he had been speaking of; and he hurried in to prepare for their anticipated visit.

Meanwhile the little military party whom he had espied marched slowly up the vale, along the soft and plashy road that ran nearly parallel with the Tweed. Such detachments were no uncommon visitors of the Crook; for this little hostel lay on the direct road from the Highlands towards Carlisle, whither the northern rebels were at this time regularly sent, as taken, in order that they might be tried at a cool distance from all partial influences, and where, at this particular time, scarcely a week passed without seeing numbers of them executed according to the approved style dictated by the English law of high-treason. The well-armed party now advancing to the Crook were bound on such an errand. They were six or seven in number, with a lieutenant at their head, and in the midst of them walked a tall and finely-formed young Highlander, with his right arm pinned, for security, to his side. Though on his way to certain death, and though his soiled tartans and thin cheek spoke of suffering and privation, the prisoner moved with as firm a tread as his captors, and, but for his bonds, might have been taken for their chief. Of a very different opinion, however, was Lieutenant Howison, the actual leader of the band, a pontpous middle-aged man, of low stature, and thick-set, rolling figure, which was rendered somewhat ludicrous to look at, by its possessor having bent it into a crescent-the convex side foremost-through long-continued attempts to acquire a dignified military attitude. Everything which this personage did or said was "in the king's name. This was indeed Lieutenant Howison's tower of strength. It was even alleged, that when he ran away from the battle of Prestonpans, he did it "in the king's name."

Such was the person who halted, on the morning alluded to, to refresh himself and men at the inn of Crook, having marched some five or six miles since daybreak. After commanding his soldiers to go with the prisoner into one room, and take some bread and cheese, the lieutenant himself retired to another apartment, there to refresh himself with something of a more savoury nature, if it was to be had. Geordie in person waited on the officer, and supplied him with the best the house contained. When this duty had been performed, the landlord then turned his attention to the soldiers, being, in fact, anxious to get a glimpse of the "puir chield" who had fallen into their hands. In this object he was at first disappointed, the Highlander's face being averted from the rest of the party, and steadily directed towards the window. At last one of the soldiers, with more kindness than any of the others seemed disposed to show, exclaimed, "Come, my lad, here's a share of my bit and sup. I shan't see a poor fellow starved neither, rebel though he has been." The prisoner seemingly was touched by the man's good-nature, and turned partly round to benefit by the offer. Geordie Black,

the moment that he got a glimpse of the Highlander's face, was overwhelmed with alarm and vexation. His heart failed him, and it was with a feeling of faintness that he shrunk from the apartment.

It was not until the soldiers were fairly out of sight that the heart-stricken landlord dared to give vent to his feelings. "Oh, Peggy, Peggy, woman," said he when alone with his wife; "whae do ye think has faun into their murdering clutches but Neil Maclaren! What will become o' Ailie noo, wandering, maybe, by this time frae door to door, without a house to put her head in, or a bit to put in her mouth; or as likely to be dead and gane, since we haena heard from her about this unlucky business. Oh, what could tempt him to gang out, and him a married man wi' a family!" To Geordie's tirade his wife could only reply by sorrowful exclamations of, "My puir dochter-my puir Ailie!" The forenoon, it may well be conceived, was spent by the honest couple in the most unpleasant state of mind; for Maclaren, as the reader will have surmised, was their son-in-law. One thing surprised the landlord much; which was, that he should have remained so long ignorant of Maclaren's joining Prince Charles. But the truth was, that Neil had only joined him a short time before the battle of Culloden, being drawn at last from his home by the spectacle of an invading enemy in his native country.

Let us now leave for a while the landlord of the Crook, to whom this was destined to be an eventful day, and follow the party of soldiers in their slow march up the vale of Tweed. As Geordie Black had predicted, the mists did not clear up as the day grew older. Other parts of the country, indeed, might have been free of fog, but at every step the soldiers were moving higher and higher, and the white drizzling fleeces on the hill-sides became thicker and thicker. It is to be questioned if there is in all the Lowlands of Scotland a more elevated piece of table-land than that lying some ten miles above Crook, from which spring the fountains of the three great rivers-the Clyde, the Annan, and the Tweed. The road traversed by Maclaren and his captors crosses this obtusely-pyramidal height (for so it is shown to be, on a great scale, by the descent of these rivers) at a spot called Errick-Stane-Brae.

After the height of the country has been passed, it proceeds for some way along the brink of a profound green hollow, in which the Annan takes its rise, and which is usually termed the Devil's, but sometimes also the Marquis of Annandale's, Beef-Tub, from some resemblance it bears to that domestic utensil, and because the reivers of the great Border house of Johnstone used of old to conceal their stolen cattle in it. As implied by the appellation, the sides of this hollow are nearly perpendicular all round, the bottom being so deep, that, in clear weather, a traveller looking down into it from the road sees bullocks diminished to the size

of sheep, and sheep to that of hares. On the present occasion, however, it was filled to the brim by the dense fog which pervaded the atmosphere, so that the road winding along the top appeared like the shore of a deep bay of the sea, to step from which would have been to plunge into an abyss, and be lost for ever.

The soldiers, though the country was entirely new to them, passed along the high and perilous road with feelings little impressed by it. The dreariness and monotony of their day's march had rendered their minds dull and inattentive, and instead of keeping in a close circle round their prisoner, they straggled along in a line, in which he was sometimes near the front, and sometimes near the rear. Very different was the mental condition of Maclaren, who, from his having frequently passed this way with cattle, as many Highland gentlemen of superior rank to himself were accustomed to do, was acquainted with every foot of the way, and had long meditated a particular mode of escape, which he was now to put into execution. How great was the astonishment of the soldiery when Maclaren, who at one moment was pacing quietly along in the dreary march, was the next seen to start, as if instinct with new life, from their line, towards the edge of the precipice, over which he plunged head foremost, and was instantly out of sight! To rush after him was but the work of a moment; yet so quick had been his movements, that he was already absorbed in the sea of mist which filled the Beef-Tub. With his head firmly clenched between his knees, and holding his feet in his hands, he had formed his body as nearly as possible into a round form, and allowed himself freely to roll heels over head down the steep side of the hollow, the surface of which he knew presented at this place no obstructions capable of injuring him. In their ignorance of the ground, no one durst follow him. The brave lieutenant could only, as soon as he recovered breath, exclaim with an oath, "Stop, sir-I arrest you in the king's name!" while the soldiers fired their muskets at random into the misty gulf, or ran a little way round its edges in the hope of finding a less perilous descent to the bottom. It was all in vain; and, after once more gathering, they could only console themselves with the undoubting assurance that the rascal must have broken his neck in the descent, and so relieved the king of the duty of punishing his rebellion.

At the moment when the lieutenant uttered his characteristic exclamation, Neil Maclaren could have stopped his career neither for king nor kaisar. He arrived, however, at the bottom of the Beef-Tub without the slightest injury; and the moment that he did so, he commenced his ascent of the opposite side with the speed of one who hears behind him the bloodhound's bay. When he reached the top, being well acquainted with the ground, he set off at full speed in the direction of his father-in-law's house,

following, not the road by which he had come, but the hill-sides, where he was not likely to be seen by any one. He took this route, in the hope that in some of the many corner-holes about the Crook he might easily lie concealed until the hue-and-cry was blown over. Nor was he wrong in his anticipations.

After the departure of the soldiers with their prisoner, Geordie Black was surprised by the arrival of visitors that were near and dear to him—namely, his daughter Ailie, with her infant child. The poor young creature knew of her husband's capture, and was on her way to Carlisle to beg his life, or to die with him. Her parents persuaded, or rather compelled her to stay a night with them, in order to take that rest of which she stood in so much need; but it may be imagined that they could offer her no other consolation. Consolation, however, was not far off, though they then saw it not. After night had set in, Geordie, with the view of excluding as much as possible all spectators of his daughter's grief, went out in person to bring a supply of fuel for the parlour fire from the peat-stalk. While in the act of lifting these combustibles, a voice whispered his name, and finding, by the terrified "Gudesake! what's that!" that it was his father-inlaw, Maclaren revealed himself, and told the story of his marvellous escape. It would be hard to say whether joy or alarm was predominant in the old man's mind on hearing it, for he feared the return of the soldiers. He had, nevertheless, no thought for an instant of abandoning Neil. Going into the house for a lantern, he led his son-in-law to an unoccupied and well-concealed corner of his premises, and then, having prepared both of them for the joyful and most unexpected interview, he conducted the wife to her husband's arms. They were strongly attached to each other, and their feelings on meeting are not to be described.

Lieutenant Howison and two of his men reached the Crook during the night, the rest having gone, according to command, in various directions in search of the fugitive. In anticipation of such a visit, Maclaren had been carefully and securely secreted; and the servants of the household being put upon their guard, were too faithful not to avoid all mention of Maclaren's wife's name. The lieutenant, indeed, never entertained the slightest suspicion of the landlord, but on the contrary condescended, as if sure of the sympathies of his auditor, to repeat to Geordie many emphatic denunciations of the scoundrel who kept "tumbling and rolling" down the Devil's Beef-Tub, though called upon to halt "in the king's name." The unwelcome military visitants departed from the Crook on the following day.

Neil Maclaren, the hero of this remarkable escape, contrived, with the aid of his friends, to keep himself concealed, sometimes in one way, and sometimes in another, until the act of indemnity was passed by the government. He then returned with his wife to the Braes of Balquhidder, in which district he was a dunie

wassal, or small proprietor. Like Rob Roy; he had not disdained to seek the improvement of his fortunes by sending cattle to England, and these expeditions he sometimes guided in person. While on one of these journeys, he had seen and loved, wooed and won, Ailie Black. After claiming and obtaining the immunity alluded to, he recovered (chiefly by the help of Geordie Black's well-saved pose) the greater part of his former heritage, and lived in peace for the rest of his days in the bosom of his family.

THE FIRST EARL OF TRAQUAIR.

IN the lower part of Peeblesshire, on the south bank of the Tweed, stands Traquair House, the seat of the Earls of Traquair, of one of whom tradition has preserved some particulars which throw a light on the manners of a bygone age.

Sir John Stewart, created Earl of Traquair by Charles I. in 1628, was also raised by that monarch to the dignity of Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, in which office he acted a conspicuous part in the history of that stirring period. Circumstances having on one occasion led the earl to visit Jedburgh, he there learned that a person of whom he had some knowledge, Willie Armstrong, of Gilnockie, was in confinement for cattle-stealingan offence far from uncommon in these times. Interested in the fate of the Borderer, the earl exerted his influence, and succeeded in releasing Willie from bondage.

Some time afterwards, a lawsuit of importance to Lord Traquair was to be decided in the Court of Session, and there was every reason to believe that the judgment would turn upon the voice of the presiding judge, who has a casting vote in case of an equal division among his brethren. The opinion of the president was unfavourable to Lord Traquair, and the point was, therefore, to keep him out of the way when the question should be tried. In this dilemma the earl had recourse to Willie Armstrong, who at once offered his services to kidnap the president.

On due inquiry, the unscrupulous Borderer found that it was the judge's practice frequently to take the air on horseback on the sands of Leith without an attendant. In one of these excursions, Willie, who had long watched his opportunity, ventured to accost the president, and engage him in conversation. His address and language were so amusing, that he decoyed the president into an unfrequented and furzy common, called the Figgate Whins, where, riding suddenly up to him, he pulled him from his horse, muffled him in a large cloak which he had provided, and rode off with the luckless judge trussed up behind him. Will crossed the country with great expedition, by paths known only to persons of his description, and deposited his weary and terrified burden in an old castle in Annandale, called the