you

of

sure, « I presume, if you were my counsel, would not advise me to answer upou the spur the moment to a charge which the basest of mankind seem ready to establish by perjury.»

«

My advice would be regulated by my opinion of your innocence or guilt. In your case I believe take the wisest course; you aware you must stand committed?»

but you are

« What, sir? Upon a charge of murder?» << No; only as art and part of kidnapping the child.»

« That is a bailable offence. >>

<< Pardon me," said Pleydell, « it is plagium, and plagium is felony.»

"

Forgive me, Mr Pleydell; there is only one case upon record, Torrence and Waldie. They were, you remember, resurrection-women, who had promised to procure a child's body for some young surgeons. Being upon honour to their employer, rather than disappoint the evening lecture of the students, they stole a live child, murdered it, and sold the body for three shillings and sixpence, They were hanged, but for the murder, not for the plagium. Your civil law has carried you a little too far.»

«< Well, sir, but in the meantime we must commit you to the county jail, in case this young man repeats the same story.-Officers, remove Mr Glossin and Hatteraick, and guard them in different apartments."

Gabriel, the gypsey, was then introduced, and gave a distinct account of his deserting from Cap

tain Pritchard's vessel and joining the smugglers in the action, and how Dirk Hatteraick set fire to his ship when he found her disabled, and under cover of the smoke escaped with his crew, and as much goods as they could save, into the cavern, where they proposed to lie till night-fall. Hatteraick himself, his mate Vanbeest Brown, and three others, of whom the declarant was one, went into the neighbouring woods to communicate with some of their friends in the neighbourhood. They fell in with Kennedy unexpectedly, and Hatteraick and Brown, aware that he was the occasion of their disasters, resolved to murder him. He stated, that after the deed, they regained the cavern by different routes, and Dirk Hatteraick was giving an account how he had pushed a huge crag over, as Kennedy lay groaning on the beach, when Glossin suddenly appeared among them. To the whole transaction by which Hatteraick purchased his secrecy he was witness. Respecting young Bertram he could give a distinct account till he went to India, after which he had lost sight of him until he unexpectedly saw him in Liddesdale. He stated, that he instantly sent notice to his aunt, Meg Merrilies, as well as to Hatteraick, who he knew was then upon the coast, but that he had incurred his aunt's highest displeasure upon the latter account. He concluded, that his aunt had immediately declared that she would do all that lay in her power to help young Ellangowan to his right, even if it should be by informing against Dirk Hatteraick,

and that many of her people assisted her besides himself, from a belief that she was gifted with supernatural inspirations. With the same purpose, he understood, his aunt had given to Bertram the treasure of the tribe, of which she had. the custody. Three or four gypseys mingled in the crowd when the Custom-House was attacked, for the purpose of liberating Bertram, which he had himself effected. He said, that in obeying Meg's dictates they did not pretend to estimate their propriety or rationality, the respect in which she was held by her tribe precluding all such subjects of speculation. Upon farther interrogation he added, that his aunt had always said that Harry Bertram carried that around his neck which would ascertain his birth. It was a spell, she said, that an Oxford scholar had made for him, and she possessed the smugglers with an opinion, that to deprive him of it would occasion the loss of the vessel,

Bertram here produced a small velvet bag, which he said he had worn round his neck from his earliest infancy, and which he had preserv ed, first, from superstitious reverence, and, latterly, from the hope that it might serve one day to aid in the discovery of his birth. The bag being opened, was found to contain a blue silk case, from which was drawn a scheme of nativity. Upon inspecting this paper, Colonel Mannering instantly admitted it was his own composition, and afforded the strongest and most satisfactory evidence that the possessor of it must

necessarily be the young heir of Ellangowan, by avowing his having first appeared in that country in the character of an astrologer.

<< And now," said Pleydell, « make out warrants of commitment for Hatteraick and Glossin until liberated in due course of law. I am sorry for Glossin.>>

"

Now, I think," said Mannering, « he's incomparably the least deserving of pity of the two. The other's a bold fellow, though as hard as flint. »

<< Very natural, Colonel, that you should be interested in the ruffian and I in the knave-that's all professional taste-but I can tell you Glossin would have been a pretty lawyer, had he not had such a turn for the roguish part of the profession,>>

<< Scandal would say, he might not be the worse lawyer for that."

“

« Scandal would tell a lie, then, as she usually does. Law's like laudanum; it's much more easy to use it as a quack does, than to learn to apply it like a physician,>

CHAPTER XVIII.

Unfit to live or die-O marble heart!

After him, fellows, drag him to the block.

Measure for Measure.

THE jail at the county town of the shire of was one of those old-fashioned dungeons

which disgraced Scotland until of late years. When the prisoners and their guard arrived there, Hatteraick, whose violence and strength were well known, was secured in what was called the condemned ward. This was a large apartment near the top of the prison. A round bar of iron, about the thickness of a man's arm above the elbow, crossed the apartment horizontally at the height of about six inches from the floor, and was built into the wall at either end. Hatteraick's ancles were secured within shackles, which were connected by a chain at the distance of about four feet, with a large iron ring which travelled upon the bar we have described. Thus a prisoner might shuffle along the length of the bar from one side of the room to another, but could not rest farther from it in any other direction than the length of the chain admitted. When