gone to a village at three miles distance; some whispered they might have been on board the lugger, a few planks and beams of which the tide now drifted ashore.

At this instant, a shout was heard from the beach, so loud, so shrill, so piercing, so different from every sound which the woods that day had rung to, that nobody hesitated a moment to believe that it conveyed tidings, and tidings of dreadful import. All hurried to the place, and, venturing without scruple upon paths which at another time they would have shuddered to look at, descended towards a cleft of the rock, where one boat's crew was already landed. "Here, sirs!—here!—this way, for God's sake-this way! this way!" was the reiterated cry.— Ellangowan broke through the throng which had already assembled at the fatal spot, and beheld the object of their terror. It was the dead body of Kennedy. At first sight he seemed to have perished by a fall from the rocks, which rose above the spot on which he lay, in a perpendicular precipice of a hundred feet above the beach. The corpse was lying half in, half out of the water; the advancing tide, raising the arm and stirring the clothes, had given it at some distance the appearance of motion, so that those who first discovered the body thought that life remained. But every spark had been long extinguished. "My bairn! my bairn!" cried the distracted father, "where can he be?"-A dozen mouths were open to communicate hopes which no one felt. Some one at length mentioned-the gipsies! In a moment Ellangowan had reascended the cliffs, flung himself upon the first horse he met, and rode furiously to the huts at Derncleugh. All was there dark and desolate; and, as he dismounted to make more minute search, he stumbled over fragments of furniture which had been thrown out

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of the cottages, and the broken wood and thatch which had been pulled down by his orders. At that moment the prophecy or anathema of Meg Merrilies fell'heavy on "You have stripped the thatch from seven cottages, see that the roof-tree of your own house stand the surer!"

his mind.

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"Restore," he cried, restore my bairn! bring me back my son, and all shall be forgot and forgiven!" As he uttered these words in a sort of frenzy, his eye caught a glimmering of light in one of the dismantled cottagesit was that in which Meg Merrilies formerly resided. The light, which seemed to proceed from fire, glimmered not only through the window, but also through the rafters of the hut where the roofing had been torn off.

He flew to the place; the entrance was bolted; despair gave the miserable father the strength of ten men: he rushed against the door with such violence, that it gave. way before the momentum of his weight and force. The cottage was empty, but bore marks of recent habitation: there was fire on the hearth, a kettle, and some preparation for food. As he eagerly gazed round for something that might confirm his hope that his child yet lived, although in the power of those strange people, a man entered the hut.

It was his old gardener. "Oh sir!" said the old man, "such a night as this I trusted never to live to see!-ye maun come to the Place directly!"

"Is my boy found?-is he alive?—have ye found Harry Bertram ?—Andrew, have ye found Harry Bertram ?"

"No, sir; but ".

“Then he is kidnapped! I am sure of it, Andrew— as sure as that I tread upon earth! She has stolen him

—and I will never stir from this place till I have tidings of my bairn!"

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O, but ye maun come hame, sir! ye maun come hame! we have sent for the Sheriff, and we'll set a watch here a' night, in case the gipsies return; but you— ye maun come hame, sir,for my lady's in the deadthraw."*

Bertram turned a stupefied and unmeaning eye on the messenger who uttered this calamitous news; and, repeating the words "in the dead-thraw!" as if he could not comprehend their meaning, suffered the old man to drag him towards his horse. During the ride home, he only said, "Wife and bairn, baith-mother and son, baith-Sair, sair to abide!"

It is needless to dwell upon the new scene of agony which awaited him. The news of Kennedy's fate had been eagerly and incautiously communicated at Ellangowan, with the gratuitous addition, that, doubtless, "he had drawn the young Laird over the craig with him, though the tide had swept away the child's body-he was light, puir thing! and would flee farther into the surf."

Mrs. Bertram heard the tidings; she was far advanced in her pregnancy; she fell into the pains of premature labour, and ere Ellangowan had recovered his agitated faculties, so as to comprehend the full distress of his situation, he was the father of a female infant, and a widower.

* Death-agony.

CHAPTER X.

But see, his face is black, and full of blood;
His eye-balls farther out than when he lived,
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;

His hair upreared, his nostrils stretched with struggling,
His hands abroad displayed, as one that gasped

And tugged for life, and was by strength subdued.

HENRY IV. Part First.

THE Sheriff-depute of the county arrived at Ellangowan next morning by daybreak. To this provincial magistrate the law of Scotland assigns judicial powers of considerable extent, and the task of inquiring into all crimes committed within his jurisdiction, the apprehension and commitment of suspected persons, and so forth.*

The gentleman who held the office in the shire of at the time of this catastrophe, was well born and well educated; and, though somewhat pedantic and professional in his habits, he enjoyed general respect as an active and intelligent magistrate. His first employment was to examine all witnesses whose evidence could throw light upon this mysterious event, and make up the written report, procès verbal, or precognition, as it is technically called, which the practice of Scotland has substituted for a coroner's inquest. Under the Sheriff's minute and skilful inquiry, many circumstances appeared which

*The Scottish Sheriff discharges, on such occasions as that now mentioned, pretty much the same duty as a Coroner.

seemed incompatible with the original opinion that Kennedy had accidentally fallen from the cliff. We shall briefly detail some of these.

The body had been deposited in a neighbouring fisherhut, but without altering the condition in which it was found. This was the first object of the Sheriff's examination. Though fearfully crushed and mangled by the fall from such a height, the corpse was found to exhibit a deep cut in the head, which, in the opinion of a skilful surgeon, must have been inflicted by a broadsword, or cutlass. The experience of this gentleman discovered other suspicious indications. The face was much blackened, the eyes distorted, and the veins of the neck swelled. A coloured handkerchief, which the unfortunate man wore round his neck, did not present the usual appearance, but was much loosened, and the knot displaced and dragged extremely tight: the folds were also compressed, as if it had been used as a means of grappling the deceased, and dragging him perhaps to the precipice.

On the other hand, poor Kennedy's purse was found untouched; and what seemed yet more extraordinary, the pistols which he usually carried when about to encounter any hazardous adventure, were found in his pockets loaded. This appeared particularly strange, for he was known and dreaded by the contraband traders as a man equally fearless and dexterous in the use of his weapons, of which he had given many signal proofs. The Sheriff inquired, whether Kennedy was not in the practice of carrying any other arms. Most of Mr. Bertram's servants recollected that he generally had a couteau de chasse, or short hanger, but none such was found upon the dead body; nor could those who had seen him on the morning of the fatal day, take it