and is not himself on the look-out for a
third wife.

At last, Charles Harburn got to the foot of
the avenue; and, on closing the swing-gate
behind him, and entering on the high-road,
he gave vent to the exuberance of his spirits
by touching the courser's flank with his whip,
and dashing off at a gallop on the narrow
grass border that bounded the public way.
I am ready to depose, that at the same time,
he gave utterance to certain words which
sounded very like these—"Nancy Cleghorn
is the nicest girl in the world,—the best, the
loveliest, the most accomplished, the kindest;
aud I wish her father had broken his neck,
or been drowned in the Falder, with all my
heart." Now, to look at him, you would not
suppose that such murderous sentiments
could find room in the heart of so radiant a
youth. Yet he distinctly wished poor old
George Cleghorn, of Falder, to meet, or
rather to have met, at some previous date,
with an untimely end. So little can one
judge, from countenance, of the depravity of
the human mind! Perhaps Thurtell smiled
joyously, in the course of his drive, in that
dreadful gig, with Mr.Weare. Listen, a little
farther, to what this horrid Charles Harburn
is saying to himself—"If the antiquated
ruffian would say 'No' at once, I could bear
his opposition, and know how to behave; but
now, with his talks about Dumbarton being
of rock, and Ailsa Craig of granite, while I
and Nancy are only flesh and blood,—who
can make head or tail of what he means? If
I am Dumbarton, he says, for seven years,
and Nancy, for the same period, is Ailsa
Craig, he will not refuse his consent. I can't
see, for my part, how Ailsa Craig and
Dumbarton are ever to come together, if all the
fathers in Scotland approve the banns; and
as to being flesh and blood, of course we are,
and not tanned leather and fiddle-strings, like
himself! I will marry Nancy Cleghorn as
soon as I can, and let the aged pump——
Hallo! little boy!" he cried out, interrupting
his soliloquy, and pulling up the black steed,
which snorted with the excitement, and pawed
the ground with impatience to proceed.
"What's the matter, my wee man? Has
anybody hurt you, that you're greetin' so loud?"

A little boy of ten years old was sitting on
the fence at the side of the road, and crying
as if his heart would break. Before him lay
the fragments of a small wooden tray, and a
torn old red cotton handkerchief wrapt round
a pair of very clouted shoes. He had never
taken the trouble to pick up a few rolls of
cotton thread and a broken-toothed comb,
which lay mixed with other articles of the
same kind in the mud of the narrow footpath.

"Do you hear?" said Charles. "What has
happened to you? and why are you in such
grief?"

The little boy took the backs of his hands
from his eyes, which he had apparently been
trying to push deeper into his head with the
knuckles, and presented a countenance of
utter despair mixed with a good deal of dirt,
and, at first, a little alarm.

"Twa men," he sobbed out, "have robbed
me, and run awa' with my stock-in-trade."

"It couldn't be very large," said Charles,
"and maybe you will find friends who will
set you up again."

"I have no friends," said the boy, whose
face, when undisturbed by spasms of grief,
was very clear and honest. "I never had
any friends, and I am thinking I never will
have any friends."

"Oh yes, you will—never fear. Tell me
all about it, and perhaps something may be
done."

"I started from Glasgow," said the boy,
"three days since, with my pack."

"How did you get your pack, and what
was in it?"

"I got the pack by saving. I was an
orphan,—a fundling they call it, because I
was left in a field on a farmer's ground at
Partick; and when I grew to working age"—

"When might that be?" asked Charles.

"When I was four year auld, I left the
byre, where I lived with the calves, and gaed
out to frighten craws wi' a rattle. I got
threepence a week, and a feed o' sowans
every day; and so, ye see, I began to lay by
a little siller. The farmer's name was
Douglas; and there was a mark on my arm of an
anchor and a sinking boat, which they called
a brand,—so my name was Douglas Brand;
forbye that the minister that christened me
said I was plucked from the burning, and
put half-a-crown into a wooden box with a
slit at the top, to set an example to charitable
friends; and when I got to be ten year old—
last month, sir—I thought it time to go out
into the world and seek my fortune. I can
read and write, and ken a' the New Testament
by heart, beside the Shorter Catechism
and a half o' the Pilgrim's Progress; so with
the help of the minister, and the saved-up
siller in the box, I bought a stock of knives,
and combs, and reels of cotton, and thimbles
and shears, and needle-cases and boxes o' pins,
and pincushions and writing-paper, and sticks
o' wax and pocket-books, and tape and twine.
It cost four pound, fourteen, and four-pence,
and it's a' gane! Twa shearers, wi' heuks in
their hands, asked to see my stock, and when
I showed it, they took everything I had,—
five knives and sixteen thimbles, and twenty
reels of thread. It's a' gone—clean awa'—
and I've naithing left but the broken tray
and the auld trapkin wi' my Sabbath-day
shoon." And at the contemplation of his great
losses, he again lifted up his voice and wept.

"And how much would it take to replace
you as you were before the rascals robbed
you?" said Charles.

"Do you mean cost price?" said the boy,
his eye brightening up with the spirit of
mercantile enterprise, "or what it would be
worth if it was a' sold?"