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Tower of Graham. The judge's horse being found, it was concluded he had thrown his rider into the sea: his friends went into mourning, and a successor was appointed to his office.

Meanwhile the poor president spent a heavy time in the vault of the castle. He was imprisoned, and solitary; receiving his food through an aperture in the wall, and never hearing the sound of a human voice, save when a shepherd called his dog by the name of Batty, and when a female domestic called upon Madge the cat. These, he concluded, were invocations of spirits; for he held himself to be in the dungeon of a sorcerer. At length, after three months had elapsed, the lawsuit was decided in favour of Lord Traquair, and Will was directed to set his prisoner at liberty. Accordingly, he entered the vault at the dead of night, seized the president, muffled him once more into the cloak, without speaking a single word; and using the same mode of transportation, conveyed him to Leith sands, and set down the astonished judge on the very spot where he had taken him up.

The joy of his friends, and the less agreeable surprise of his successor, may be easily conceived, when the president appeared in court to reclaim his office and honours. All embraced his own persuasion that he had been spirited away by witchcraft; nor could he himself be convinced of the contrary; until, many years afterwards, happening to travel in Annandale, his ears were saluted once more with the sounds of Madge and Batty, the only notes which had solaced his long confinement. This led to a discovery of the whole story; but in these disorderly times it was only laughed at as a fair ruse. Wild and strange as this tradition may seem, there is little doubt of its foundation in fact. The judge upon whose person this extraordinary stratagem was practised was Sir Alexander Gibson, Lord Durie, who died in July 1646.

Lord Traquair does not appear to have been benefited by the unlawful exploit of the Border freebooter. From a high position in the state, he made a fall as great as was ever known in the vicissitudes of court favour: from being a wealthy and influential nobleman, he actually sunk to the condition of a beggar in the street. The cause of this extraordinary decline of fortune is to be found partly in the political troubles and changes in the reign of Charles I., and partly in private misfortune. For some reason, now unknown, the earl resigned his whole estates to his son, and like most others who, during their lives, have abandoned their entire means to their children, he was left by his ungrateful descendant to pine and die in misery, an object of commiseration to strangers. In a history of the Family of Fraser, by the Rev. James Fraser, minister of Kirkhill, on the Beauly Firth, the writer mentions the following circumstances of this unfortunate earl, under the date 1668:

"A remarkable death this year was that of John Stewart, the old Earl of Traquair, time, place, and manner considered. This

man was King James VI.'s cousin and courtier. Charles I. sent him as High Commissioner down to Scotland, and he sat as viceroy in the parliament, June 1639. He was early at court, the haven of happiness for all aspiring spirits; and this broke him at last-he became the tennis-ball of fortune. What power and sway, place and preferment, he had then, I need not mention; only this, keeping then with the revered bishops, and tampering under board with the Covenanters, he acknowledged to be his bane; but whether then by his own misconduct, or by paction and resignation of his interest to his son, or the immediate hand of God upon him, I search not, but he proved a true emblem of the vanity of the world-a very meteor. I saw him, in 1661, begging in the streets of Edinburgh. He was in an antiqué garb, and wore a broad old hat, short cloak, and pannier breeches; and I contributed, in my quarters in the Canongate, towards his relief. We gave him a noble, he standing with his hat off. The Master of Lovat, Calbockie, Glenmoriston, and myself, were there, and he received the piece of money from my hand as humbly and thankfully as the poorest supplicant. It is said that at a time he had not wherewithal] to pay cobbling his boots, and died in a poor cobbler's house."

ALLAN SCOTT.

On the bank of a small mountain rivulet which dashes down towards the Tweed, about the centre of the county, stands a neat though humble cot, the residence not many years ago of Allan Scott, a youth whose early fate excited considerable interest in the district.

The father of Allan was an exemplification of a truth most honourable to human nature. He evinced in his own person how much respect and esteem can be attained by sobriety and good conduct, even in the midst of poverty and distress. Everybody loved the old man, who was a hard-working tradesman, and when sorrow fell upon him, there was no one in our little town who did not sympathise with him. Allan was an only son, and was about thirteen years of age when his mother died, and the first blow was given to his father's happiness. The old man's health became broken, and it was only at intervals that he was able to work, and to teach his son his own trade. Hence, willing and diligent as Allan was, his want of skill rendered him barely able to maintain his father and himself during those attacks of illness which fell more severely upon the old man the oftener they were repeated. It was an affecting sight at these times to see the son, in the short moments of evening relaxation, supporting and tending his infirm parent, as they crept slowly along the river-bank-the walk which the old man loved most, having been that which he had often trod with his departed partner

by his side, and that dutiful son, then a playful child, gambolling around them. Allan, too, loved the Tweed, in whose clear pools he had learned, in his happy schooldays, to be a bold and adroit swimmer. But little leisure was now left him for such amusements. His nights, after returning from the customary walk, were spent in the same incessant watching over his father's comforts. Their solitary little dwelling was seldom intruded upon, except by the kind inquiries, and sometimes kinder offers, of a friendly neighbour. For the former the inmates were always grateful, and the latter were always civilly declined. In truth, Allan struggled to do all and everything that was necessary. The old man had through life preserved a manly spirit of independence in his bosom, and the son strove, with perhaps an overnice filial tenderness, that his father should in his weakness and age feel dependence on none but him. But for some consciousness of this, many might have offered a little assistance; for many pitied, and all respected the humble pair. This very respect, however, rendered it a delicate matter to obtrude charity on those who, if they did feel pinching poverty, bore it meekly and uncomplainingly.

And in reality Allan and his father were in distress, which was put beyond a doubt by the step taken by them to relieve it. We say them, because, though the son was the true and only actor in the matter, yet the consent and blessing of the old man went with him in his honest endeavour. After a severe and protracted attack of his father's complaint, during which Allan's attendance had been so much required as to trench deeply on his earnings, the humble pair found that they would be totally unable to meet the approaching rent-day. This was a source of grievous anxiety to them; for though they had often met the same demand with difficulty, they never before had been so totally unprovided. The old man had recovered so far as to resume his work, and the first idea of a remedy for their need suggested itself to him. How reluctantly this idea was admitted into his mind, may be conceived when we inform the reader that the plan was, to permit his son to offer himself as a militia substitute, the bounty for which would relieve them altogether. The country was at this period at war, and the demand for substitutes was so considerable, that there would be no difficulty in putting the plan in execution. Yet, even with the prospect of losing his son only for a short time, strong must have been the honourable determination to owe no man anything, which could bring over the feelings of a father to the adoption of a scheme like this. Well did the old man know the dutiful character of him on whom he depended. Allan had long meditated upon the plan in question, and had only refrained from stating it, from the disinclination to leave his father for the time which it would render imperative. And now that he saw his father, with health for the time re-established, turn to the scheme with some degree of cheerfulness and hope, he con

sented to embrace it at once. Being now a firmly-knit, though slender lad of nineteen, his offer of himself speedily found an acceptor in a wealthy merchant who had had the bad luck to be selected to serve his majesty by the indiscriminating ballot, which has no regard of persons. The bounty which Allan received was not only sufficient to discharge the rent of their humble dwelling, but was also large enough to support his father during his expected absence.

On the morning of the day preceding that fixed for his departure with his fellow-substitutes for Dumfries, the head-quarters of the corps to which he was to be attached, Allan went to make some necessary preparations with his comrades. After these were accomplished-having all, like himself, given up their occupations for the time-they took a short walk together to chat over their coming campaign. They were all light-hearted lads; and many of their parents, on hearing of Allan Scott's engagement, had recommended them to follow his conduct as a model. On this occasion they turned their stroll, at his request, to the side of the river, that they might take leave, as he said, of its clear stream for a time. The day was warm and fine, being in the beginning of summer, and on arriving in their walk at the pool where they had all dipped when schoolboys, the fatal proposition to bathe was made by one of them. Allan, who was fond of the exercise, and a good swimmer, was not the last to consent. Not one of them, as it unhappily fell out, was so fearless and practised as he, and the most of them contented themselves with bathing in the shallower water. Allan plunged at once into the deepest quarter, and two of his companions, who did not join in the amusement, sat upon the rocky bank, gazing upon his free movements with pleasure. Suddenly they heard him give an agonized cry, and saw him attempt to make for the bank. attention of all was now drawn to him, and they beheld him, after two or three severe struggles, sink below the surface, and in a moment the waters closed above him!

The

His companions looked on for an instant in stupefaction and dismay. But the boldest of them-for the cry made them aware that something was wrong-speedily came to the spot, and attempted to dive into the depths of the pool. None of them was capable of it, and the most forward got into serious danger himself. At last one of those who had not bathed cried, "We are losing time; I will run for assistance." This he accordingly did on the instant; but he had to go to the town before he got what he sought. When he returned, several men were with him, one of whom, an experienced diver, brought up the body of poor Allan Scott. A surgeon whom they had warned was not long in following them, and by him several unsuccessful endeavours were made on the spot to restore the breath which had departed. On seeing the fruitlessness of this, he ordered them to convey the body as fast as possible to the town, where warmth

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and other remedies might be applied; and the men, for this purpose, took up their melancholy burden..

The church and its session-house stands in the centre of the town, and to the latter building they conveyed the body of Allan, as all decided that it would be exceedingly improper to take it to the old man's house. In the session-house, warmth, friction, and every means was used that the surgeon could suggest or apply for the recovery of the young man; but all was in vain; and at the end of more than an hour, actively employed, all hope was given up, with pain and reluctance, by those around. And now arose a thought of deeper sorrow and anxiety, if deeper there could be, than that excited by the fate of a youth so beloved and respected. Who could tell the tale to him who, all unconscious of his bereavement, sat in his lonely dwelling, waiting for that beloved and dutiful son's return? The task, melancholy as it was, behoved to be discharged; and the surgeon, seeing that the undertaking of this sad duty was expected from him, prepared to execute it. Unwilling to leave the body of the unfortunate youth exposed to the gaze of the crowd now attracted to the place, before departing, he desired all present to leave the apartment. The people at once complied with the request, one only of them remaining, at the wish of the surgeon, beside the corpse. The medical man then slowly and sadly turned towards the old man's abode, where we cannot follow him; for we should consider it as little less than sacrilegious to attempt to describe the effect of the awful tidings which he bore.

Is not this, reader, a melancholy event, and one likely to be long remembered by one who knew the history, and saw the bier-borne body, of that unhappy youth? Yet the tale is not done the catastrophe is not unfolded-the harrowing circumstance which interwove Allan Scott's name and fate with the deepest tendrils of memory is yet, strange as it may appear, to be narrated; and were it not a truth to which many yet can bear witness, we should think it too sad a one for these pages. But it is a truth, and from it a lesson of deep warning may be drawn.

When the surgeon, after being absent for a considerable time, returned to the session-house to make arrangements for bearing the unfortunate Allan's body to the home of his father, he found the person whom he had left behind standing outside the door of the chamber where the body lay. The truth was, the man had begun to feel disagreeably lonely and "eerie" in the room, and, unconscious of any bad result being possible from the step, had risen and taken his station outside, locking the door behind him. But a circumstance had occurred while he was in this position which imprinted alarm and anxiety so visibly on his features, that the surgeon, on coming up to him, observed his discomposure at once; and before turning the key in the lock, the medical gentleman inquired if anything had happened. The answer made

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