into which I have been hurried, render it necessary that I commence another sheet. Fortunately, my pigmy characters comprehend a great many words within a small space of paper.

CHAPTER IV.

DARSIE LATIMER'S JOURNAL IN CONTINUATION.

THE morning was dawning, and Mr. Geddes and I myself were still sleeping soundly, when the alarm was given by my canine bed-fellow, who first growled deeply at intervals, and at length bore more decided testimony to the approach of some enemy. I opened the door of the cottage, and perceived, at the distance of about two hundred yards, a small but close column of men, which I would have taken for a dark hedge, but that I could perceive it was advancing rapidly and in silence.

The dog flew towards them, but instantly ran howling back to me, having probably been chastised by a stick or a stone. Uncertain as to the plan of tactics or of treaty which Mr. Geddes might think proper to adopt, I was about to retire into the cottage, when he suddenly joined me at the door, and, slipping his arm through mine, said, "Let us go to meet them manfully; we have done nothing to be ashamed of.-Friends," he said, raising his voice as we approached them," who and what are you, and with what purpose are you here on my property

A loud cheer was the answer returned, and a brace of fiddlers who occupied the front of the march immediately struck up the insulting air, the words of which begin,

"Merrily danced the Quaker's wife,

And merrily danced the Quaker."

Even at that moment of alarm, I think I recognized the tones of the blind fiddler, known by the name of

Wandering Willie, from his itinerant habits. They continued to advance swiftly and in great order, in their front Ab.t. § 1. .. "The fiery fiddlers playing martial airs ;"

when, coming close up they surrounded us by a single movement, and there was a universal cry, " Whoop, Quaker-whoop, Quaker! here have we them both, the wet Quaker and the dry one."

"Hang up the wet Quaker to dry, and wet the dry one with a ducking," answered another voice.

"Where is the sea-otter, John Davies, that destroyed more fish than any sealch upon Ailsay Craig ?" exclaimed a third voice. "I have an old crow to pluck with him, and a pock to put the feathers in."

We stood perfectly passive; for, to have attempted 'resistance against more than a hundred men, armed with guns, fish-spears, iron-crows, spades, and bludgeons, would have been an act of utter insanity. Mr. Geddes, with his strong sonorous voice, answered the question about the superintendent, in a manner, the manly indifference of which compelled them to attend to him.

"John Davies," he said, "will I trust soon be at Dumfries"

"To fetch down red-coats and dragoons against us, you canting old villain !"

A blow was at the same time levelled at my friend, which I parried by interposing the stick I had in my hand. I was instantly struck down, and have a faint recollection of hearing some crying, " Kill the young spy!" and others as I thought interposing on my behalf. But a second blow on the head, received in the scuffle, soon deprived me of sense and consciousness, and threw me into a state of insensibility, from which I did not recover immediately. When I did come to myself, I was lying on the bed from which I had just risen before the fray, and my poor companion, the Newfoundland puppy, its courage entirely cowed by the tumult of the riot, had crept as close to me as it could, and lay trembling and whining, as if under 18 VOL. I.

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the most dreadful terror. I doubted at first whether I had not dreamed of the tumult, until, as I attempted to rise, a feeling of pain and dizziness assured me that the injury I had sustained was but too real. I gathered together my senses listened and heard at a distance the shouts of the rioters, busy, doubtless, in their work of devastation. I made a second effort to rise, or at least to turn myself, for I lay with my face to the wall of the cottage, but I found that my limbs were secured, and my motions effectually prevented-not indeed by cords, but by linen or cloth bandages swathed around my ankles, and securing my arms to my sides. Aware of my utterly captive condition, I groaned betwixt bodily pain and mental distress.

A voice by my bedside whispered, in a whining tone, "Whisht a-ye, hinny-whisht a-ye; haud your tongue, like a gude bairn-ye have cost us dear aneugh already. My hinny's clean gane now.'

Knowing, as I thought, the phraseology of the wife of the itinerant musician, I asked her where her husband was, and whether he had been hurt.

66

Broken," answered the dame, "all broken to pieces; fit for nought but to be made spunks of the best blood that was in Scotland."

"Broken ?-blood?—is your husband wounded? has there been bloodshed-broken limbs ?"

"Broken limbs ?-I wish," answered the beldame, "that my hinny had broken the best bane in his body, before he had broken his fiddle, that was the best blood in Scotland-it was a cremony, for aught that I ken." "Pshaw-only his fiddle ?" said I.

"I dinna ken what waur your honour could have wished him to do, unless he had broken his neck; and this is muckle the same to my hinny Willie, and me. Chaw, indeed! It is easy to say, chaw, but wha is to gie us onything to chaw?-the bread-winner's gane, and we may e'en sit down and starve."

"No, no," I said, "I will pay you for twenty such

fiddles."

"Twenty such! is that a' ye ken about it? the country hadna the like o't. But if your honour were to pay us, as nae doubt wad be to your credit here and hereafter, where are ye to get the siller?"

“I have enough of money," said I, attempting to reach my hand towards my side-pocket; "unloose these bandages, and I will pay you on the spot."

This hint appeared to move her, and she was approaching the bed-side, as I hoped, to liberate me from my bonds, when a nearer and more desperate shout was heard, as if the rioters were close by the hut.

"I daurna-I daurna," said the poor woman," they would murder me and my hinny Willie baith, and they have misguided us aneugh already ;—but if there is anything worldly I could do for your honour, leave out loosing ye?"

What she said recalled me to my bodily suffering. Agitation, and the effects of the usage I had received, had produced a burning thirst. I asked for a drink of water.

"Heaven Almighty forbid that Epps Ainslie should gie ony sick gentleman cauld well-water, and him in a fever. Na, na, hinny, let me alane, I'll do better for ye than the like of that."

"Give me what you will," I replied; "let it but be liquid and cool."

The woman gave me a large horn accordingly, filled with spirits and water, which, without minute inquiry concerning the nature of its contents, I drained at a draught. Either the spirits, taken in such a manner, acted more suddenly than usual on my brain, or else there was some drug mixed with the beverage. I remember little after drinking it off, only that the appearance of things around me became indistinct; that the woman's form seemed to multiply itself, and to flit in various figures around me, bearing the same lineaments as she herself did. I remember also that the discordant noises and cries of those without the cottage seemed to die away in a hum, like that with which a nurse hushes her babe, At length I

fell into a deep sound sleep, or rather, a state of absolute insensibility.

I have reason to think this species of trance lasted for many hours; indeed, for the whole subsequent day and part of the night. It was not uniformly so profound, for my recollection of it is chequered with many dreams, all of a painful nature, but too faint and too indistinct to be remembered. At length the moment of waking came, and my sensations were horrible.

A deep sound, which, in the confusion of my senses, I identified with the cries of the rioters, was the first thing of which I was sensible; next, I became conscious that I was carried violently forward in some conveyance, with an unequal motion, which gave me much pain. My position was horizontal, and when I attempted to stretch my hands in order to find some mode of securing myself against this species of suffering, I found I was bound as before; and the horrible reality rushed on my mind, that I was in the hands of those who had lately committed a great outrage on property, and were now about to kidnap, if not to murder me. I opened my eyes -it was to no purpose-all around me was dark, for a day had passed over during my captivity. A dispiriting sickness oppressed my head-my heart seemed on fire, while my feet and hands were chilled and benumbed with want of circulation. It was with the utmost difficulty that I at length, and gradually, recovered in a sufficient degree the power of observing external sounds and circumstances; and when I did so they presented nothing consolatory.

Groping with my hands, as far as the bandages would permit, and receiving the assistance of some occasional glances of the moonlight, I became aware that the carriage in which I was transported was one of the light carts of the country, called tumblers, and that a little attention had been paid to my accommodation, as I was laid upon some sacks covered with matting, and filled with straw. Without these, my condition would have been still more intolerable, for the vehicle, sinking now on one side