pistols in his belt, and swore frightfully, both by St. George and the Dragon, that he would cut off the ears of the first rebel who dared to violate the sanctity of the county of Wilts. Had he lived farther northward, there must have been bloody noses between Mr. Stephen Bethel and the Jacobites. As it was, his anger exhausted itself in words; a fortunate event for the heroes in philibegs and tartans, and not altogether unlucky, perhaps, for my greatgrandfather. During the absence of Campbell his daughter lived in the house of Mr. Bethel. My grandfather being at that time absent on his travels, there was no objection to this arrangement on her part; and the young lady being a Protestant (the religion of her deceased mother), Mr. Bethel felt no apprehension that his sober family could be tainted by the scarlet principles of the woman of Babylon. When Mary Campbell rejected the hand of my grandfather, he was, as I have said, some sixteen years of age, and she herself being as old within six months, looked down, naturally enough, upon the pretensions of so young a lover. Two years, however, spent in studying books at home (during which time he forbore to see her), and more than two years devoted to the study of man abroad, converted Mr. Walter Bethel into a promising cavalier, and made wonderful alterations in the opinions of the lady. At the time of my grandfather's return, Mary Campbell was a resident in his father's house; and when the old gentleman, after embracing his son, led him up to his fair guest, with "You remember my son Walter, my dear Miss Campbell?" Miss Campbell was ready to sink with confusion. A little time, however, sufficed for her recovery, and she received my grandfather's courtesies as gracefully as anybody could be expected to do who had "never seen the Louvre." Walter Bethel felt this. He saw a distinction-a shade, indeed, between his former favourite and the pretty Madame la Comtesse de Frontac and la belle Marquise de Vaudrecour; but, on the whole, he was well satisfied, and, it must be added, not a little surprised also. For time, which had been so busy in lavishing accomplishments on the head of Mr. Walter Bethel, having had a little time to spare from that agreeable occupation, had employed it very advantageously in improving the mind and person of Mary Campbell. Perhaps this might be for the purpose of once more entrapping her lover's heart. Perhaps but it is not easy to speak as to this. The result of her improveinent, however, was very speedily seen. My grandfather fell over head and ears again in love, and this time he was destined to be a conqueror. He had not been four-and-twenty hours at home before his "Miss Campbell" expanded into "My dear Miss Campbell." This, in a week, dwindled into "Mary," which in its turn blossomed out into half-a-dozen little tender titles (such as are to be found in any page of Cupid's calendar), with very expressive epithets appended to them. I have heard him tell the story of his offering his hand and heart to my grandmother, while the good old lady sat with smiling, shining eyes at his side, listening to his rhapsodies, as pleased, I verily believe, as she could have been when the offer was actually made to her forty or fifty years before. My grandfather had been returned about three months from his travels, and was absolutely basking in the sunshine of Mary's eyes, when Campbell, who had been long absent, returned suddenly and unexpectedly from Scotland. He had formerly been a tall, ruddy, athletic man; but he came back worn to the bone, pale, attenuated, and drooping. He had never given up the idea that one day or other the house of Stuart would be restored to what he called "its rights;" and when the invasion of the Pretender, which had excited such mad expectations, ended in the utter discomfiture of himself and his adherents, Campbell could scarcely bear up against his disappointment. It was asserted, and not contradicted, that his journey to Scotland had been a mere pretext; that he had been actually in the thick of the fights of Falkirk and Preston, and had been forced to flee for his life, and to hide in caves, and brakes, and desert places, from the insatiable fury of the English troopers. He escaped at last, however, and arrived at Calne; not free from molestation, indeed, for within four-and-twenty hours of his return, news also arrived of the approach of a detachment, sent, as it was said, to scour the country of rebels, and charged with particular instructions to seize upon our unhappy Jacobite. "Well, Walter, my boy," said Mr. Stephen Bethel, "what is to be done?" -?" Mr. Stephen Bethel was lashing himself up with words as the lion does with his tail; and there was no knowing how long he would have gone on with his "do you thinks?" or, in fact, whether he ever would have stopped, had not my grandfather very naturally, and at the same time a little ingeniously, exclaimed, "Poor Mary! what will she not suffer?" Mr. Stephen Bethel was calm in a moment. We have heard how a cannon-ball will suddenly put an end to the most violent discussion; how the ducking-stool will at once quell the else untamable tongue of the scold; but "Poor Mary!"-it was oil upon the ocean of his wrath. He was conquered and quiet in an instant. "To be sure," said he, faltering, "poor Mary!-poor girl!" added he, "'tis a pity that such a creature should suffer for the errors of her father. As to him a foolish, obstinate, headstrong Jacobite! But King George is at his heels-King George or King George's men; and now we shall hear whether he'll sing The Cammels are coming; or cry, King James and Proud Preston again!" And so the old gentleman veered about from pity to wrath, from loyalty to friendship, and back again. Friendship, however, got the better at last, and he set about helping Campbell in good earnest. Walter was allowed to convey to Campbell an intimation of his danger; not that the father desired this in so many words, but as he did not absolutely prohibit it, his son interpreted his silence to his own purposes, and proceeded to the house of the unlucky Jacobite. "Tell me where?" said my grandfather hastily. "I cannot-I must not!" said she. "He charged me to keep his secret, and I must do so-even from you." "He will be found," replied Walter in distress. He will be hunted by these rascals, and found. Let him trust himself to me. I know a place where he may hide for a time, and our well-known principles will assure his final safety. If the storm be once blown over, my father and uncle shall exert their interest with the duke, and all will be well. So take heart, my dearest, and tell me, without more ado, where your father is. Tell me, as you value his life." And she told; and she did well to tell; for, besides that Campbell's hiding-place was speedily searched, and that nothing short of the character of the Bethels would have been sufficient to ward off the strict inquiries that were elsewhere made, it was well that the honesty of love should not be rewarded with distrust. Mary Campbell confided in her lover—not only her heart, but her father's life; and well was the confidence repaid. I must now give up the task of historian, and let my grandfather tell you the rest of the story himself. It was one of his thousand and one anecdotes, and it was in these words that he was accustomed to tell it: The day," he used to begin, "on which the soldiers came on their man-hunt to Calne was memorable for many a year. Both men and the elements seemed quarrelling with each other. The scornful loyalist, the desperate Jacobite, stood front to front, in flaming open defiance. The thunder muttered, the wind went raving about, and the rains, which had been falling heavily all night and glittering in the lightning, now came tumbling down in cataracts and sheets of water. The little runnels had grown into brooks; the brooks were formidable rivers. The Marden itself, usually so unimportant, had swollen and panted long "Of the Pretender?" said Walter inquir- in its narrow bounds, till at last it burst over ingly. The first object that struck his sight on entering Campbell's house was Mary herself, evidently in deep distress. My dearest Mary!" said he, putting his arm gently round her waist. "Oh, Walter!" replied she, sobbing-"my father! my poor father! That unfortunate expedition of the prince its banks, and went flooding the country round. Notwithstanding all this, the hunters prepared to pursue their prey. "It is a fearful thing to chase even a beast that flies for its life, but to hunt the great animal, man, must surely thrill and strike an alarm into the heart of his pursuer. What!he whom we have smiled upon, whose hand we have clutched, whose cheer we have enjoyed! Shall we-if he do a desperate deed which some law forbid-strip our hearts at once of all sympathy, and track him from spot to spot, through woods, and lanes, and hollows, and lonely places, till he fall into the toil? and then go home and be content with the abstract principle of justice, and forget that we have lost a friend for ever! "I had got the start of the red-coats by almost a quarter of an hour; but I found that I had to encounter impediments that I had not foreseen. I had set off with scarcely any determined idea but that of saving Campbell at all events. I took the ordinary road to the brake, where I knew that he lay concealed; striding onwards at my best pace, sometimes running, sometimes toiling up slippery ascents, sometimes plunging along the plashy meadows, till my breath grew short and painful from excess of exertion. I still kept on my course, however, and had contrived to attain a lofty ridge of land, not very distant from the place of refuge, when all at once my eyes fell upon a broad waste of water, a vast turbid stream running at random over the country, and above which nothing appeared but an occasional tree, and the long narrow slip of wood and copse which crowned the elevated land, and in which, as I concluded, my friend was hid. "If ever I felt real despair it was at that moment. I stopped for an instant (a dreadful instant) to think-I could not be said strictly to deliberate. Ithought quickly, intensely, with a pain piercing the very centre of my heart. In three or four seconds of time I had, with the rapidity which fear produced, considered half-a-dozen methods of passing the water. At last I recollected a sheep-path, traversing a narrow neck of high land, on the opposite of the inundation, which, although apparently quite covered by the floods, might nevertheless still enable me to reach the wood; but to arrive at this path it was necessary to retrace three parts of the space which I had already travelled. I turned my steps backward instantly, and with great efforts arrived at the bridge, on the skirts of the town, just in time to hear the roll of the drum hard by, which called the soldiers to duty. I fancied that I could almost hear the click of their firelocks as they examined them, previously to their setting out in pursuit of Campbell. 'Twas then I forgot everything. My legs were no longer cramped; my breath, pent up and labouring in my breast, seemed suddenly relieved, and I ran forwards with increased speed for almost a mile, when the footsteps of a person, about the size of Campbell, which had made deep impressions on a piece of soft soil, arrested my attention. I saw from the direction that this person must have VOL. IV. left the highroad at that spot, and taken to the fields. I erased the marks as well as I could. Thrusting the spike of my leaping-pole into the gravel of the road, I cleared the hedge at a bound, without leaving a single trace of my course, and took my way across the fields in pursuit of Campbell. "For some time no steps were discernible, for my route lay over grass on which the rain was still incessantly falling. At last indications of a footmark encouraged me, and I continued to track it, sometimes readily, sometimes with difficulty, for it frequently disappeared, until it led me to the very edge of the flood. The man, whoever he was, must have plunged right through the waters. Perhaps he had been carried away. But there was no time for guessing; so feeling my way with my pole, I took to the water myself. To my surprise it was shallow enough for awhile, scarcely reaching above my knees. I got on, therefore, readily enough till I had arrived within a few yards of the wood, the object of my labours, when the land suddenly dipped, and I found myself in upwards of four feet water. A few more steps would, I knew, place me on dry ground: so I strained onwards across the current, which now ran with considerable force, and after a struggle or two reached the skirts of the wood in safety. "I had just caught hold of some long grass to secure my footing, when my attention was arrested by a noise at some distance. I threw myself on the bank for a single minute's rest, and heard distinctly the withered leaves and brambles crackling under a heavy tread, and the hoarse thick breathing of some creature apparently in the last stage of exhaustion. The horrid guttural sounds which it gave out in its pain (I heard them at the distance of a hundred yards) ring in my ears to this moment. I remembered to have heard that in Indian or African hunts the enormous beasts which they pursue will sometimes thus breathe out their distress before they stand at bay and die. But no such creature could be here-so I determined to follow. After a few steps I called out, 'Who goes?' All was still in an instant. My way now lay across the middle of the wood to the dingle, where I hoped to find my friend. In my course I had to pass by a deep hollow, which was usually filled with water, and which was the haunt of the water-rat, the lizard, and the frog, who kept their court among the flags and rushes there. I had reached this place, and was passing on, when a slight noise induced me to turn my head. The sound was like the cocking of a pistol; so 78 I made haste to proclaim myself. 'It is I leaves, which quickly followed, reduced us to 'tis Walter Bethel!' called I out lustily. The instant silence. Without uttering a syllable I words were scarcely out of my mouth when pulled Campbell down beside me, amongst the uprose, from amidst the rushes and the green fern and rank grass that grew all about, and stagnant water, a phantom more hideous than there lay for two or three dreadful minutes, Triton or Nereus in his most terrible mood. till our enemy had passed onwards. I had Covered to the chin with the green mantle of flung Campbell so completely prostrate that, the pool, his clothes soaked and saturated with he averred, he was obliged to make no inconwater, arose with a cocked pistol in each siderable meal of fern and dock leaves before hand, and a mouth wide open and gasping for he could breathe with comfort. However this breath-my father-in-law, Campbell! He was, we soon rose up, as soon as prudently we stared like a man bewildered. could do so-contrived to drop a fragment of "Well?' said he at last: 'twas all he could Campbell's dress on the Chippenham road, and say. "I am come to save you,' replied I; 'the soldiers will be here in a few minutes. Come along with me.' "No,' replied the other; 'I'll go no farther. I can go no farther. I may as well die here.' "By Heaven!' said I, 'you shall not die. Rebel or not, you are Mary Campbell's father, and while I have a sinew left, you shall not be taken.' "With that I took him upon my back (for I was a lusty fellow then), and carried him-I know not how, but by several efforts I believe -to the extreme side of the wood. I was just congratulating myself on my success, when suddenly I heard the measured tramp of soldiers coming along a lane which wound round the skirts of the copse. I had mistaken the I stopped immediately, and heard the word 'Halt!' uttered in a tone that struck to my heart. way. They are upon us,' whispered Campbell, and the only thing is to die boldly! Go, therefore, my dear Walter; and may God bless you! Tell poor Mary-,' but here his voice faltered, and he could only sigh out deeply, 'God bless my dear child!' "There was no time for talking, as you will imagine. I therefore motioned him to silence, and drew him, with the least possible noise, away from the point of danger. He was now able to walk slowly; and that was fortunately sufficient, for the soldiers had stopped to deliberate. We kept on at a steady quiet pace along a sharp angle of the wood, which terminated at a point near the Bath road. Behind us, the voices of the soldiers were occasionally heard; and once the report of a musket-shot a little disturbed our tranquillity. We succeeded, however, in attaining the extreme point of the wood, and were just about to emerge into the road, when a heavy plunge was heard near us, like that of a person jumping from an eminence, and the whistle of a pistol-bullet through the after seeing our pursuers take the bait and proceed southwards, we turned our backs upon danger and the detachment, and reached Hilmarton in safety." To take up the conclusion of the tale, the latter part of which has been told in the words of Walter Bethel. Campbell was saved. A little time sufficed. as my grandfather had predicted, to put an end to the hanging of the Jacobites. General Bethel, a firm and loyal friend of the existing government, was won over, after some entreaty, to petition for the pardon of Campbell; for he was one who had been excepted out of the list of those forgiven. "He is a flaming, furious Jacobite," said General Bethel to his favourite, Walter, in reply to his request; "a troublesome fellow is he, Walter, and deserves to suffer." "He is Mary's father, my dear uncle," said my grandfather, insinuatingly. You are a fool, Walter," replied the general tartly. "At your age you ought to be marching at the head of a file of grenadiers, instead of toying and making love, and-Pshaw! I am ashamed of you." "But, my dear uncle-," Walter was proceeding in extenuation. "Why don't you come up to town, sir?" inquired the general, with some sternness; “I have no doubt but that I can get you a commission in a couple of months, and a company before you deserve one.' "My dear general," said his nephew once more, calmly, "I thank you for the interest that you take in me; but my ambition is for the toga-the gown! I am for civil, while you are for military fame. In the former, perhaps, I may become the first of my house; but in the latter I must for ever remain eclipsed by your greater reputation." You are a goose, Walter," replied his uncle, laughing, and pinched his ear; and Walter laughed merrily too, for by that compliment Campbell obtained his pardon. KILMENY. Some [James Hogg, "The Ettrick Shepherd," born in Ettrick Forest, 25th January, 1772 (the date given in his autobiography); died at Altrive, on the Yarrow, 21st November, 1835. He was the son of a shepherd, and his early years were spent in farm-service. of his songs having attracted the attention of Scott and others, he was encouraged to study and to write. His first important publication was The Mountain Bard, and about the same time he issued An Essay on Sheep. The profits derived from the two works enabled him to rent a farm; but he did not thrive in it, and he resigned his lease. He now determined to support himself entirely by his pen, and he started a weekly journal called The Spy: but it did not succeed. Soon afterwards he published The Queen's Wake, a legendary poem, which made and maintains his fame as a poet. By the kindness of the Buccleugh family, he was granted a farm at a nominal rent; but he was again unfortunate in his agricultural speculations. His nature was too enthusiastic and too generous to be guided by prudence, and although favoured by many circumstances, and always working hard, he ended his days almost as poor in worldly wealth as when he began, but rich in the affection of all who knew him. Twenty years after his death, government granted a pension to his widow. Blackie & Son publish a complete edition of his works, of which-besides those mentioned above-the most notable are: Pilgrims of the Sun, The Hunting of Badlewe; The Poetic Mirror -imitations of the most popular bards then living; The Jacobite Relics of Scotland-many of the songs in this collection are original; Miscellaneous Poems: The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and other Tales; The Three Perils of Man: The Three Perils of Woman; The Shepherd's Calendar; &c. &c. Professor Wilson in the Noctes, with which Hogg is intimately identified as "The Shepherd," said: "The Queen's Wake is a garland of fair forest flowers, bound with a band of rushes from the moor. . . . Some of the ballads are very beautiful; one or two even splendid; most of them spirited. 'Kilmeny' alone ⚫ places our (ay, our) Shepherd among the Undying Ones." Lord Jeffrey felt justified by "Kilmeny" in assuring the author that he was "a poet in the highest acceptation of the name."] Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen; But it wasna to meet Duneira's men, Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see, For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. It was only to hear the Yorlin sing, And pu' the cress-flower round the spring; The scarlet hypp and the hindberrye, And the nut that hung frae the hazel-tree; For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. But lang may her minny look o'er the wa', And lang may she seek i' the greenwood shaw; Lang the laird of Duneira blame, And lang, lang greet, or Kilmeny come hame! When many lang day had come and fled, When grief grew calm, and hope was dead, When mess for Kilmeny's soul had been sung, When the bedes-man had prayed, and the dead-bell rung: Late, late in a gloamin when all was still, "Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been? Lang hae we sought baith holt and dean; By linn, by ford, and green-wood tree, Yet you are halesome and fair to see. Where gat you that joup o' the lily sheen? That bonny snood o' the birk sae green? And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen?Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?" Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace, But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny's face; As still was her look, and as still was her ee, As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea, Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea. For Kilmeny had been she kenn'd not where, And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare; Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew, Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew. But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung, And the airs of heaven played round her tongue, When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen, And a land where sin had never been; A land of love, and a land of light, Withouten sun, or moon, or night; Where the river swa'd a living stream, And the light a pure and cloudless beam; The land of vision it would seem, A still, an everlasting dream. In yon green wood there is a waik, And in that waik there is a wene, And in that wene there is a maike, That neither has flesh, nor blood, nor bane; In that green wene Kilmeny lay, Her bosom happed wi' flowerets gay; But the air was soft and the silence deep, And bonny Kilmeny fell sound asleep. She kenn'd nae mair, nor opened her ee, Till waked by the hymns of a far countrye. She woke on a couch of the silk sae slim, All striped wi' the bars of the rainbow's rim; And lovely beings round were rife, Who erst had travelled mortal life; And aye they smiled, and 'gan to speer, "What spirit has brought this mortal here?" "Lang have I ranged the world wide," A meek and reverend fere replied; "Baith night and day I have watched the fair, Eident a thousand years and mair. |