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I held out my hand to him, and asked him to my house.

It may gratify the reader to learn that he is now in a highly respectable situation, without the least reason to apprehend that he will be ever obliged to submit to the drudgery of manual labour to earn a subsistence.

194

THE CHIEFTAIN AND HIS VASSAL.

A TALE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

It will be admitted by all who are acquainted with Scottish history, that there is no era in the annals of Scotland so replete with those marvellous incidents which constitute the romance of real life, as the period during which Feudalism reigned in all its glory. The power and influence which the Chieftain exercised over his vassals, were altogether unbounded. His will was, in almost every instance, their law: they had no higher views of the purposes for which they were called into being, than in so far as these were associated with the promotion of his plans. However great the sacrifices to which they thereby subjected themselves, those sacrifices were cheerfully borne. The heroic deeds they performed on their Chieftain's account, were not prompted by slavish fear,

but proceeded from a mingled feeling of veneration and affectionate attachment to his

person.

Love, however, when genuine, invariably reigns paramount in the soul. It has done so in every age and in every country. Its dominion is alike acknowledged by the savage and the sage. It forcibly bursts through every restraint that intervenes betwixt it and its object, utterly regardless of individual consequences.

Innes (the Chief of a clan was distinguished by no other appellation than the general name of his clan), Innes was universally acknowledged during the middle of the thirteenth century, to be one of the most illustrious and powerful Chieftains in Scotland,-whether in regard to personal courage, the number of his retainers, or the deeds of prowess the latter had achieved. Residing principally, indeed almost exclusively, in his lordly castle in Morayshire,—ever rounded by those whose highest gratification centred in the ready performance of his pleasure, the almost adored Chieftain eventually became so haughty and ambitious, that he conceived him

sur

self the only individual in the country worthy of being the friend of his sovereign.

A wide field soon opened up to the ambitious aspirations of Innes, who at this time had only attained the age of twenty-four. In the year 1249, Alexander the Second discharged what the poet designates the debt of nature; and as the successor of that monarch was yet but in his nonage, the friends of Innes urgently advised him to repair to the Scottish Court, where they doubted not he would virtually acquire all the power and receive all the honour of a monarch, until the young king should attain the years of maturity recognized by the constitution of the country.

This advice, it is unnecessary to remark, was quite congenial to the mind of the young Chieftain,-in consequence, as has just been observed, of the wide scope it promised to his ambitious views. Most willingly would he have acted in accordance with the counsel which his more respectable vassals had thus tendered to him, but for a cause which bound him to his home-he was in love; in love, too, with Alber

tina, the only daughter of one of his own superior retainers.

teens was on the

This young lady was possessed of a combination of mental and personal attractions which can scarcely be expected to be witnessed above once in an age. She was, too, at that interesting epoch of her life, when the period of her eve of its expiration. The charms of Albertina had operated like a spell on the mind of the young Chieftain: a violent struggle ensued in his breast between love and pride. He thought of his illustrious birth and present glory and power; he ruminated on the long line and wide-spread reputation of his ancestors-and his haughty mind brooked not the idea of marrying the daughter of one of his own vassals. The united influence of pride and ambition obtained a temporary triumph over his love; and by a desperate effort he quitted his baronial mansion, and repaired to Edinburgh, in the fond hope that, by witnessing the splendour and mingling in the gay amusements of the Scottish Court, he should be able to banish from his mind the image of Albertina.