"L I B R.AFLY 
 
 OF THE 
 UN IVERSITY 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 H\58
 
 THE 
 
 HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. 1. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCLX.
 
 ?^3 
 
 1;. 
 
 I 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. — Too late for the Coach 1 
 
 II.— The Morning Walk to Church .... 19 
 
 III. — Logan is summoned to the Convention— Meets 
 an old Acquaintance in Princes-street, who 
 endeavours to dissuade him from going near — 
 His Appointment to the Pastorship of Hallow 37 
 IV.— The Voyage . . . . . . • C7 
 
 v.— They land at Kirkwal— Interview with a wealthy 
 Kirkwal Merchant— Logan's first Impressions 
 of the Orcadian Metropolis not favourable . 88 
 VI. — Sailing for Hallow they are benighted in Oyster 
 
 Sound 108 
 
 VII. — Logan undertaking to instruct his Fellow-Pas- 
 sengers in the Law of Storms, is disagreeably 
 
 interrupted 140 
 
 VIII. — Hallow House : a Description of the Family and 
 
 Pireside 157 
 
 IX. — The Parson at Home— Preparations for his first 
 Sermon — Interview of the Master with his 
 Kinsman, the Priest of Stifbakness . . . 177
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGB 
 
 X.— Logan renews his Acquaintauce with Mr. Balph 
 Ruddock— He meets in the Island of Venture- 
 fair Mr. Daidle's Townswoman, the long-lost 
 Sallj Baron 194 
 
 XI.— Logan preaches his first Sermon — A Twilight 
 Sketch at the Old Parish Church — With some 
 account of Effie's two first Lovers . . . 226 
 
 XII.— Death of the old Laird 246 
 
 XTII. — TheEuneral — With some after-burial Reflections 
 
 and Illustrations 261 
 
 XIV. — Crawtaes asserts his Right to preach the Laird's 
 Funeral Sermon, and gives notice of his Inten- 
 tion to that Effect 270 
 
 XV. — Crawtaes preaches his Euneral Sermon, and after- 
 wards dines at the House — Old Associations, 
 though disapproved, not easily obliterated . 290
 
 THE 
 
 HALLOW ISLE TMGEDY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TOO LATE rOR THE COACH. 
 
 Most of our readers, the very juvenile 
 excepted, must still have a tolerably fresh 
 recollection of the extraordinary move- 
 ment which, commencing with Church 
 extension in a crusade against the volun- 
 taries, led to division among the Scottish 
 clergy themselves (partly, it would seem, 
 hy imbuing them with a taste for some of 
 their voluntary neighbours' opinions), gave 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 a shake to patronage, and brought on the 
 famous non-intrusion war, and eventually 
 met its apotheosis at Auchterarder and 
 Strathbogie in the defeat of the Church 
 and the retreat of the dominant party. 
 
 The retreat, which, it must be owned, 
 embraced a large proportion of the talent, 
 and, it was said at the time, nearly all the 
 sincerity and piety in the Church (though 
 there might be some exaggeration here), 
 was conducted on the rigid old covenant- 
 ing model. Their ancient incubus, the 
 carnal government, was thrown off once 
 more, under protest, however, of a new 
 and ingenious tenet professing to demon- 
 strate the right to State pay without State 
 interference. The battle was lost, but the 
 tenet was set up ; and full, apparently, of 
 confidence in the new world they were 
 bound for, the devoted adventurers for 
 conscience' sake left the old world of
 
 TOO LATE FOR THE COACH. 3 
 
 kirk and manse, taking with them " the 
 heysy 
 
 What a picture was that old spiritual 
 world shut up at the disruption! The 
 Bjcsiduaries, as the remnant was termed 
 who refused to come out of the shattered 
 and blackened ruin, half ashamed of them- 
 selves, and wholly ashamed of the thing — 
 amazed, but still endeavouring to console 
 themselves with the old drone of their 
 duty — moving about uneasily, almost 
 afraid to show their heads or to be seen 
 of men, peering out anxiously on the 
 altered state of things. Alas, poor bat- 
 tered monkery ! around them the smoke 
 of the late cannonade, social eclipse, and 
 stumbling at every step — no prospect — ■ 
 irremediable blight, alienation, and heart- 
 eating gloom! Beyond their unhappy 
 walls, Cromwell and his Ironsides, and the 
 whole host, with banner and trumpet, 
 
 b2
 
 4 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 filling the blue vault of heaven with the 
 sound of their jubilant retreat ! 
 
 It was a time of excitement, a time of 
 much figure of speech; the symbolical 
 vocabulary was enlarged, and many new 
 expressions were added. What occasional 
 hearer does not still remember his astonish- 
 ment at much of the language of the new 
 pulpits in and for some time after that 
 memorable 1843, or heard without saying 
 to himself, 
 
 "This is very extraordinary ! this profu- 
 sion of metaphor, this unlimited fervency 
 of language — this exalted reprobation of 
 the old leaven, the horrid old Residuary 
 period past ! I cannot doubt its sincerity, 
 but is it quite rational ? — nay, is it in the 
 right direction? Does it point to some 
 higher and better state of meaning beyond 
 these disturbed times — 
 
 To tliat deep azure of the settled mind, 
 Calm looking down and permanent ?
 
 TOO LATE FOR THE COACH. 5 
 
 or will it continue thus labouring up for 
 years, clouds of words driving before the 
 wind, with only glimpses of rest between, 
 casting a distant glory, so to speak, over 
 the desired haven of peace on earth and 
 good will to men ?" 
 
 Such were the sort of questions asked 
 by many persons among the on-looking 
 dissenting bodies, men of sound sense and 
 undoubted piety, who wished well to the 
 movement. Eor there really was some- 
 thing grand about it. It seemed like a 
 rekindling of the national ashes — a revival 
 of the old beau ideal belief in a perfect 
 ^National Church, for which Scotland had 
 so long struggled. 
 
 It is not our business here to inquire 
 how far the movement has kept its pro- 
 mise. That there have been short-comings 
 is admitted, though no candid person will 
 believe the number so great as stated in
 
 b THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Doctor Dom. Jejustso of New Cuthberts 
 his book, because such tables must ob- 
 viously, in the nature of things, be of 
 doubtful composition. Look in, for ex- 
 ample, any day you are passing, on the 
 reverend and new-made doctor, by this 
 time somedele corpulent and waxing in 
 the wane — see him gratefully fatigued, 
 returning from his parochial rounds to 
 the novelty of a plentiful table, the ac- 
 tual realisation of many a youthful, long- 
 forgotten dream; how natural for the 
 doctor, after dinner, to sit down and write 
 such good accounts of the Churchy founded 
 on little hearsay stories picked up among 
 his people in the course of the day's calls. 
 Here a deserter returned to the fold; there 
 a whole family ! Every man, unless he 
 were wholly given over to apathy and in- 
 dolence, felt bound to defend his own body 
 according to what was in him.
 
 TOO LATE FOR THE COACH. 7 
 
 But, leaving the doctor to his statistics, 
 a more affecting consideration, I submit, 
 to the reader, may be traced in the deep 
 disappointment that overtook some, and 
 not the least earnest, who, at the outset, 
 were as the sons and daughters of the 
 morning. The Hallow Isle Tragedy, the 
 story of which we are now to relate, oc- 
 curred in a remote locality, and had but a 
 slender and imperfect connexion with the 
 great movement just spoken of ; it might 
 have happened equally under any other 
 form of secession — nay, in the bosom of 
 the Church itself — had it been '^ laid upon" 
 the lady who plays the principal part in 
 the story to rout her family on the old 
 ground. 
 
 It was, then, on a chilly evening 
 in May, during the Assembly week of 
 1843, that a young man, with a parcel 
 under his arm, might have been seen has-
 
 8 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 tening eastward along Princes-street ; his 
 watcli, it appeared by the West Kirk clock, 
 had deceived him five minutes, and he was 
 afraid of losing the last coach to Lasswade, 
 in which direction his journey lay. 
 
 The traveller's black dress and white 
 neckcloth bespoke him a clergyman; his 
 youth, haste, unusually grave face, and 
 awkwardness at his parcel, so different 
 from the experienced Presbyter's manner 
 of dandling Ms city purchases as he strode 
 along the same street, all betrayed the 
 embryo pastor in his probationary stage of 
 dominiehood. He had the air of poverty, 
 too, so long inseparable from the black 
 coat : his figure, which was of the middle 
 height, it is impossible to say much about 
 at present without reference to a better 
 tailor : as rendered by the village artist, 
 whose board was next door to the school- 
 house where the young man laboured, it
 
 TOO LATE FOR THE COACH. 9 
 
 struck you as being a little too sliort in 
 the legs, or, as the bucks would say, 
 queer. 
 
 Still there was an interesting look about 
 the young man — an interest difficult to 
 define. His face would have been hand- 
 some, but that in the thoughtful earnest- 
 ness of the expression there seemed to lurk 
 a tinge of discontent ; and the chin a little 
 too long, though nothing to Dr. Oates's, 
 seemed to intimate the same undue fear 
 and hatred of popery, or rather the ten- 
 dency that way; for as yet the feature, 
 thanks to the natural modesty and grace 
 of youth, had not acquired that degree of 
 prominence. 
 
 To conclude our brief sketch, poor Logan 
 Morland thought himself good-looking. 
 
 He arrived at the coach-stand; the 
 coach was gone. It is needless to say how 
 bitter were his feelings. The unfortunate
 
 10 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 little chronometer (an heirloom descended 
 from his great-grandfather) was produced 
 and convicted l3y the Register clocks ; his 
 look of unutterable agony will suggest it- 
 self at once to every good-natured reader, 
 when he thus found himself, after wander- 
 ing the streets of Edinburgh all day, re- 
 duced to a still further walk of some ten 
 or eleven miles ere he could reach his pre- 
 sent home in the Chapel hills beyond 
 Eoslyn. 
 
 But there was no choice to one whose 
 poverty barely enabled him to maintain 
 the coat on his back ; he could not afford 
 to pay for a night's board and lodging in 
 town ; besides, to say the truth, he was in 
 no mood to tolerate the capital by night 
 with its Babylonish glare and noise, its 
 filled taverns and theatres, its streets tra- 
 versed by smoking puppies, three, four, 
 and five abreast, and swarming with har-
 
 TOO LATE FOR THE COACH. 11 
 
 lots. So, having recruited the wearied 
 energies of nature with a sKght refresh- 
 ment at a moderate eating-house near the 
 college, Logan Morland set out on his long 
 walk home. 
 
 And that too in the blindness and agony 
 of one who had just had the cherished 
 hope of his life extinguished — his very 
 eyes, so to speak, put out. It would be 
 no easy matter to give a correct picture of 
 his reflections. A stunning sense of fatigue, 
 and horrible disappointment combined, 
 prompted him ever and anon to mend his 
 pace (people stared to see a person of his 
 cloth walking apparently for a wager), and 
 in the more solitary turns of the road, when 
 he could do so unobserved, to break out 
 into a short run. Mingled, too, with the 
 subject at present on his mind, and tower- 
 ing at times over all, rose the contrast of 
 the late paternal home. In the sublime
 
 12 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 figure of Ossian, the young man might 
 have said, " My father's ghost appeared to 
 me on the hill; the stars dim twinkled 
 through his form." 
 
 The memory of his late parent, the stern 
 old Cameronian merchant of the Salt- 
 market, seemed to follow him in the dark- 
 ening twilight, while the chill wind gave, 
 as it were, voice and utterance to the re- 
 monstrating Shade. " Son, why this un- 
 seemly haste ? is this thy Christian forti- 
 tude ere I am twelve months cold in the 
 grave ?" And the tears started to the 
 young man's eyes ; but no tear fell, for he 
 was not of that kind. Poor fellow, no 
 wonder he was deeply moved. That morn- 
 ing he had walked into town to claim 
 his recommendation to the vacant parish 
 
 of , of which he had the promise from 
 
 his spiritual chief; he had seen his chief, 
 and his chief had told him he was not to
 
 TOO LATE FOR THE COACH. 13 
 
 have it ; his chief had told him he was to 
 COME OUT. An appalling sentence to poor 
 Logan Morland. 
 
 Although possessed of fair average ahi- 
 litieSj our young preacher's was not a mind 
 to grapple with such a crisis as was then 
 pending. He had paid hut little attention 
 to the controversy in its preliminary stages; 
 he had thought it but a passing flaw. 
 What else could it appear to him, toiling 
 away out there at his preparatory school 
 drudgery ? And now it hurst upon him 
 wholly unprepared. He was somehow not 
 in the secret on either side ; it came like 
 the intimation of the Deluge of old : Be- 
 hold the fountains of the deep were break- 
 ing up, and he was left out of the ark. 
 It never, for example, occurred to him to 
 beguile the pain and weariness of his walk 
 home with the reflection that by-and-by 
 there would be kirks going, snug vacancies
 
 14 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 • 
 
 over whicli his chief had no control. Had 
 such a reflection occurred distinctly to him, 
 it would probably have altered in an in- 
 stant the whole colour of the young man's 
 career ; had his foresight, I say, been able 
 to perceive the lights which time has since 
 rekindled over that dark and troubled 
 body, Logan was just the man to have sat 
 down among the Residuaries. When it did 
 occur to him, as will be seen further on, 
 he was too deeply compromised to follow 
 his own inclination in disobedience to the 
 stern rebuke of his chief: ''What, sir! 
 would you take your place among a dis- 
 graced and inferior priesthood, made up of 
 the refuse of a corrupt Church, and the 
 leavings of our parish schools ?" Able 
 men these chiefs. With arguments like 
 that, addressed to the piety of the old and 
 the vanity of the young, no wonder they 
 drew so many after them.
 
 TOO LATE FOR THE COACH. 15 
 
 It was past ten o'clock, and all but quite 
 dark, when our wearied pedestrian sighted 
 his home in that small chain of hills lying 
 to the south of Eoslyn. Indescribable 
 was the pang at once of pleasure and of 
 pain when his eye first caught the light in 
 the window of their cottage. A cold east 
 wind whistled through the few and still 
 half-naked patches of plantation, ringing 
 yet sharper against the hills as the school- 
 master neared his abode, a solitary cottage 
 standing pretty high up the ridge. A 
 single light, as I have just said, shone in 
 its small casement. Logan sighed, lifted 
 the latch, and entered. 
 
 His sister rose to meet him. '* Oh, 
 Logan, what has kept you so late ?" She 
 looked anxiously in his face : "It is, then, 
 as I feared — you are not to get it ?*' 
 
 " Yes,'* returned he, peevishly, " it is as 
 you were always ready enough to prophesy
 
 16 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 — I am not to have it — actually not to 
 have it. Some prophecies, they say, have 
 a tendency to fulfil themselves.'' 
 
 A few ill-concealed tears were the only 
 refutation of the ahsurd and groundless 
 charge ;. hut, after all, the disappointment 
 was a heavy one, and there was some 
 excuse for his being a little ahsurd and 
 unreasonable. 
 
 ''Did you see Doctor Standish?'' in- 
 quired his sister, drying her eyes. 
 
 ^' Yes, I saw them both — ^both Standish 
 and Konigdom." 
 
 A momentary but scared smile appeared 
 in the sister's eyes at his peevish way of 
 mentioning these mighty names : Standish, 
 a pillar and a flaming sword ; Konigdom, 
 a kingdom of a man, burly and massive, 
 the nucleus of a host. 
 
 He was silent, and did not seem in-
 
 TOO LATE FOR THE COACH. 17 
 
 clined to enter into further particulars that 
 night. 
 
 " Shall I get you something to eat, 
 Logan ? You must," said the sister, " he 
 both tired and hungry." 
 
 "I should think sol" said our friend, 
 taking off his shoes. " I was too late for 
 the coach, and had to walk the whole way. 
 Where are my slippers ?" 
 
 ''Walk the whole way!" echoed Effie. 
 " Cruel ! and you so unused to walk — 
 after you had walked in to have to walk 
 out again ! Shall I make you a little 
 warm negus ?" 
 
 "Gruel you must mean," replied Logan ; 
 " they make negus with wine." 
 
 Poor Effie burst into tears at this awk- 
 ward and ill-timed blunder. Wine was of 
 course a luxury unknown to the house- 
 keeping of the poor teacher, and this was 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 the first time since their father's death that 
 she had tripped, and forgot for the moment 
 they had no longer the comforts of the 
 old home. The bitter fountain, once set 
 a flowing, would not be stayed. 
 
 " Effie," said the young preacher, in a 
 tone of more affectionate solemnity, " how 
 often must I have to check you for these 
 sinful and unavailing outbursts ? Do you 
 think, you foolish girl, that I really care 
 about wine ? A morsel of bread and milk, 
 or any trifle you have in the house, will 
 suffice. I am too tired to give you the par- 
 ticulars of this most unfortunate journey 
 of mine to-night, but you shall hear all to- 
 morrow." 
 
 His sister observed that to-morrow was 
 Sunday; our wearied friend said he was 
 aware of that, and, desiring her to go to 
 bed, he was left alone to his frugal supper.
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 k 
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 
 
 Effie, who was rather a pretty brunette, 
 differed as widely from her brother in 
 temper and disposition as in outward ap- 
 pearance ; he was at once talkative or re- 
 served, according to his company, variable 
 and inclined to despondency, but some- 
 what sturdy withal; she was of a more 
 even and cheerful temper, with something 
 of a cast of humour inclining to take to 
 her humble lot if better might not be. In 
 their common struggle against poverty she 
 
 c2
 
 20 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 failed altogether to come up to Logan's 
 standard. Not all his seven college years' 
 apprenticeship to the acquirement of a 
 pure English pronunciation could cure 
 Effie of her native Doric ; day after day, 
 though knowing hetter, she persisted in 
 saying shrewd things in the mother tongue, 
 so that our parson, who did indeed admit 
 that his sister possessed the rudiments of 
 a lady, was daily provoked with her 
 agaceries. Devout, or, at all events, 
 strictly correct in his sentiments, he was 
 so close, it was difficult to say what pre- 
 cisely Logan's piety was ; while poor Effie 
 had to undergo many a fraternal lecture 
 on her neglect of form, and her indiffer- 
 ence to the higher mysteries, and her na- 
 tural goodness of heart, which our friend 
 said was carnal. While Logan, in short, 
 took after the old Salt-market merchant 
 their father, a rigid true blue Covenanter,
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 21 
 
 Effie was wholly her poor mother's, who 
 had so little sense of her danger as a sin- 
 ner, that nothing (the senior Morland was 
 wont to affirm to his children) short of the 
 last trumpet would awaken her to it. Effie 
 probably thought this a hard sentence of 
 the old gentleman's. **Who could bear 
 it ?" And from a very early age she had 
 sagacity enough to perceive that, to all 
 practical intents and purposes, her mother 
 was as good a woman as the old gentle-^ 
 man was a man. But this opinion she mo- 
 dified in after years : their father, with his 
 amount of austere self-denial, was a cha- 
 racter that no child could comprehend. 
 
 Thus was the difference of the parents 
 reproduced in the children, but softened 
 by transmission and the influence of that 
 stroke which sent them abroad on the 
 world mutually dependent upon each other 
 for bread and a home. The frivolity which,
 
 22 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 in the somewhat worldly Glasgow dame, 
 was so distasteful to the good man of the 
 Salt-market, was in the penniless sister of 
 the poor preacher pretty well kept under 
 the rod ; and there was this further differ- 
 ence, that, whereas the ancient Saunders 
 was to some extent set at nought by his 
 light better-half, Effie was wholly devoted 
 to her brother, and the more so, that he 
 had his faults. This, by the way, was 
 rather a sore point with our parson (I call 
 him so now, because he was found in every- 
 thing fitting to sustain the character, save 
 a kirk) : he had a secret nibbhng sus* 
 picion that his sister, in her estimate of 
 him, dared to stop short of perfection. 
 She certainly did so. His dogmatism and 
 turn for polemics might be highly ac- 
 counted of as a virtue entitling him to a 
 place in the host then assembled at Edin- 
 burgh, but at home Effie called it by its
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 23 
 
 right name, without, however, abating a 
 jot of her sisterly regard. And Logan, on 
 his part, had inherited, along with the 
 sterner attributes of his father, a slight 
 tincture of the maternal vacillation which, 
 if it did not make him more tolerant in 
 his opinions, certainly rendered him much 
 less of a despot in practice than the old 
 Salt-market merchant, who had stalked 
 through life as if he still smelt the gun- 
 powder of Bothwell Brig. So also in the 
 matter of personal appearance ; while 
 Logan retaiaed to some slight extent the 
 peaked and uplifted chin of his sire, he in- 
 herited, in common with Effie, the milder 
 eyes of their poor mother. There was but 
 one exception to the parallel in the matter 
 of stature, Efiie's slender, graceful figure 
 having attained to the perfect height of 
 girlhood, tall, but not too tall, whereas 
 our parson inclined to the short and
 
 24 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 sturdy. With this preliminary sketch of 
 our hero and heroine, we leave the mi- 
 nuter shades of character to he gathered 
 from the narrative. 
 
 Sunday morning came, and, hehold ! the 
 wind was no longer singing with chill and 
 sterile croon at Effie's small casement 
 which looked into the east ; it was away 
 round to the west — a lovely May morning, 
 with just one flock of white clouds in the 
 heavens' " delicious blue" — such a morn- 
 ing as made my old friend, Dr. Malagrub, 
 who was something crazed with study, 
 poor man, exclaim *' he could run stark 
 naked in for joy." 
 
 Brother and sister set out on their ac- 
 customed walk to church. But the sound 
 of the church-going bell, and the putting 
 forth of bud and herbage, and the quiet 
 dewy hills, and the tearful beauty of every- 
 thing, more clearly brought out by the day
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 25 
 
 of rest, were in great measure thrown 
 away on our parson, whose natural taste 
 for such things was at no time exuberant, 
 and at present his mind was engrossed 
 with other thoughts. They walked for some 
 time in silence, the distance to church 
 being considerable. Effie made no allu- 
 sion to his yesterday's journey, not from 
 any lack of curiosity to hear the particu- 
 lars, but she was averse to introduce a 
 discussion of so painful a nature, havin-g 
 every reason to believe that her brother 
 was far from being in a frame to speak 
 temperately of his disappointment. On a 
 text of that kind he was apt to speak 
 louder than quite befitted the morning 
 walk to church, with echo on the outlook 
 to catch up every sound, and the fields 
 and footpaths, to use the poet's expression, 
 sprinkled with church-going company. At 
 length Logan introduced it himself — ^not
 
 26 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY 
 
 beginning at the beginning, but at the 
 point he had previously reached in his re- 
 flections. 
 
 " The more I think of it," he said, " the 
 more I am at a loss to find any excuse for 
 this unaccountable treatment of me by 
 Standish and Konigdom. After buoying 
 
 me up with the hope of , to turn 
 
 round all at once and say I am not to 
 have it !" 
 
 " The impending change in the Church, 
 perhaps," suggested Effie. 
 
 Effie was careful to avoid the agaceries 
 on Sunday, and spoke nearly as pure a 
 style as the parson himself. 
 
 " Whose fault is that ? — not mine," he 
 continued. "What, I say, has my per- 
 sonal and individual usefulness to do with 
 this outbreak ? If, a year ago, Standish 
 thought me an eligible successor to the 
 second charge at , where's the mighty
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 27 
 
 difference now? There's none ethically, 
 that I can see." 
 
 "Nor I," said Effie. "It is hard to 
 give up all thought of a pretty, retired 
 
 place, like , that we have so long 
 
 looked forward to." (Logan smiled at 
 Effie's notion of the ethics of the case.) 
 " Oh, brother, you will never think of 
 going abroad ! Promise me that you will 
 not turn a missionary. I read such a 
 miserable account the other day in a letter 
 to Mary Eletcher from her brother." 
 
 " What should put that in your head ?" 
 said Logan, a little sharply. " That cer- 
 tainly will be the last thing I'll think of. 
 I hope, my good sister, it has not quite 
 come to that with me yet ; it must be a 
 small bushel at home I would not prefer 
 to that. But, in the mean time, my good 
 Effie, can you tell me what I am to do 
 to get myself and you bread ? I'll teach
 
 28 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 no longer, that I am determined ; neither, 
 it appears to me, will my staying at home 
 mend their hreach of faith ; it won't give 
 me ." 
 
 " Indeed that is true," Effie admitted. 
 '^ But surely, Logan — think of our father I 
 There must be some independent course, 
 let people say what they will. Either you 
 belong to this change, or you do not ; and 
 surely there must be some good reason for 
 so many good men going out with such 
 preachers as Dr. Standish and Dr. Konig- 
 dom, and many others at their head." 
 
 *' I don't know that," said our friend, 
 moodily ; *' small thing often stirs the mul- 
 titude, and the poor are too often the 
 readiest to follow ; I say, sister, it is their 
 very numbers that makes me suspicious of 
 them. And must come out too ! not, will 
 you come ? I must say it sounds odd to
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 29 
 
 tell a man he must come out who has never 
 been in." 
 
 The epigrammatic quibble imposed upon 
 Effie, and she admitted it was odd. 
 
 " They might, at least," continued Lo- 
 gan, " have given me some premonition or 
 warning beforehand of all this, if they ex- 
 pected to carry me along with them. Did 
 they suppose that while I was attending 
 to their school drudgery out here I was 
 keeping pace with themselves?" 
 
 " Perhaps they might," said Effie. " So 
 much now-a-days is left to the news- 
 papers " 
 
 " The newspapers !" cried the parson, 
 indignantly ; " those pernicious incen- 
 diaries, who never can see a smoke any- 
 where but they must take the bellows to 
 blow it into a flame." 
 
 " Eor mercy's sake, speak lower, Logan."
 
 30 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 ''What," moderating his tone, "were 
 the newspapers, without a sufficient motive 
 to interest me in the question? and be- 
 sides, I don't care for newspaper reading. 
 All very well for those who have anything 
 to lose to read the newspapers — I don't 
 wonder at their feeling anxious." 
 
 " IN'o, indeed, poor creatures ! I hear," 
 said Effie, " that a great many of them are 
 preparing to leave their kirks. That can- 
 not be for nothing, Logan. If you are so 
 set upon a place you never had, what must 
 be their feelings to leave a place where 
 they have grown old ?" 
 
 "It was doubtless a very great hard- 
 ship," our friend said, " but he did not see 
 what that had to do with the question. If 
 they felt the command to go out to be so 
 imperative, they were right to go, but in 
 what respect was their going out binding 
 upon him ?"
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 31 
 
 " Surely in no respect, unless it were 
 the natural desire to share in the affiction, 
 and go where so many good men were 
 going," Effie said. 
 
 "Effie," said the brother, seriously, 
 " you speak at times like a mere senseless 
 fool. I do not apply the taunt to you, but 
 I know that there are many to whom that 
 same sharing in other people's affiction is 
 their greatest luxury : the question is its 
 utility. What could my sharing in their 
 afB.iction do ? The Master will judge by 
 the masters' work, and it is no infallible 
 proof that it is work because it is set about 
 weeping. Understand. I trust I know 
 how to make a sacrifice as well as an- 
 other ; but I say that the unknown desti- 
 nation of an uncertain movement holds 
 out to my individual usefulness a poor ex- 
 change for a known and ascertained sphere. 
 That is the gist I complain of. Had they
 
 32 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 taken things more coolly. But now they 
 have brought the Church to such a pass 
 that it has become a very nice question, 
 and there are many, I believe, who, like 
 myself, feel that they can neither, so to 
 speak, go out nor remain in." 
 
 " Is there any real disgrace in remaining 
 in ?" asked Effie. 
 
 " Why, as to that, Effie," said the parson 
 — Logan sometimes condescended to droll 
 a little — "not having a kirk myself I can- 
 not exactly say. I believe there is a sort 
 of general impression to that effect; but 
 I think I know one, that if he were in, 
 would make it go hard with them to prove 
 the disgrace of remaining." 
 
 '' But you are in," said the simple Effie, 
 " unless, indeed, you passed your word to 
 them yesterday in Edinburgh?" 
 
 " Catch me ! They would fain have 
 brought me to that, but I gave them to
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 33 
 
 understand they had no such simpleton to 
 deal with. Bland, indeed, was little short 
 of disgusting."* 
 
 '' Then why distress yourself, brother — 
 why go out ? If you do not feel it to be 
 your duty, you are not bound to do what 
 Mr. Eland bids you, or Dr. Standish 
 either." 
 
 '' My simple sister, how little you know 
 of the matter ! Have you forgotten that 
 my sole patronage is derived through 
 Standish? You don't suppose, do you, 
 that the doctor will appoint me to the 
 choice of their vacant pulpits the moment 
 they flee to the hills ?" 
 
 * There was but too much of this. A wortliy, thougli 
 rather weak mau, minister of the second charge in an inland 
 parish, being "persuaded" to take the pledge, his wife sent 
 the beadle next day, with their nine children, to say that 
 
 Mr. , on his return home, ''had been better advised" 
 
 So tlie story went. The conjugal sentence was commuted 
 next morning to the minister's being instructed to write 
 to that effect — threatening them with the beadle, &c. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 "No !" replied Effie, witli some spirit ; 
 "but neither, I suppose, will the doctor 
 fly off with the patronage of all the yacant 
 pulpits in his pocket." 
 
 "Ha!" said Logan, "you touch the 
 matter there — there's something in that, 
 Effie. And yet," relapsing into the boding 
 tone, " I don't know — there will be such a 
 rabble of applicants." 
 
 Their proximity to the church cut short 
 a discussion which certainly did not pro- 
 mise to be of much profit ; and Logan 
 took his seat with the tacit resolution of 
 being guided, in some measure, by the 
 
 views of Mr. , who, it was generally 
 
 understood, would that day feel called 
 upon to declare himself to his congrega- 
 tion. 
 
 But Mr. did not preach ; he was 
 
 still detained in Edinburgh at head-quar-
 
 THE MORNING WALK TO CHURCH. 35 
 
 ters, and a stranger mounted the pulpit. 
 He was a young man full of zeal in the 
 cause, sent out for the purpose of sounding 
 the congregation — one of those ardent 
 youths of the period, whose fluent, unhe- 
 sitating oratory told upon the country 
 flocks. 
 
 Now Logan Morland was not fluent : he 
 was a hesitating speaker ; and had it de- 
 pended on the weight he attached to that 
 lad's exhortations, he most assuredly would 
 not have come out. On their way home 
 he criticised the sermon sharply to Effie^ 
 and did not scruple to call his youthful 
 contemporary (Effie rather admired him) 
 a ranting, democratic puppy, and spoiled 
 sub-editor of a provincial journal, full of 
 sound and fury, signifying nothing. " But 
 when the deep floods are up," added he, 
 *' we must expect the froth to fly in our 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 face now and then" — thereby giving the 
 first dim intimation of his intention of 
 going out, or rather, perhaps, of his 
 foreboding that he would be obliged 
 to go.
 
 NIGHT BEFORE THE MARCH. 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LOGAN IS SUMMONED TO THE CONVENTION — MEETS AN OLD 
 ACQUAINTANCE IN PRINCES-STREET, WHO ENDEAVOURS TO 
 DISSUADE HIM FROM GOING NEAR — HIS APPOINTMENT TO 
 THE PASTORSHIP OF HALLOW. 
 
 But time was pressing on the great 
 event, and that in turn drawing upon all 
 its resources. A summons from his chief 
 put an end to my friend's unprofitable in- 
 decision, and mounting an early evening 
 coach at the nearest stage of Lasswade, 
 Logan was again set down in the busy 
 city. 
 
 It was the night before the march to
 
 38 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Cannon Mills. As he hurried along 
 Princes-street, gay and crowded as usual 
 with the varied population of the metro- 
 polis, all at once, at the corner of 
 
 street, an odd-looking, peremptory Doubt 
 or Shape of shabby appearance, stopped 
 him with the suddenness of a footpad 
 leaping out of a ditch. ^* This movement," 
 it said, '' is it the great thing they fancy ? 
 or a distinction without a difference ? I 
 perceive, sir, you don't at this moment 
 recollect me. I am Professor ! Per- 
 mit me, my young friend, to take you by 
 the elbow. What," asks the Shadow, 
 pointing its plausible horns with the great 
 life stream (chiefly westward in the even- 
 ing) — ''what is this elect composition in 
 the pound you are going to — what to that 
 gaily-dressed crowd of people who, I will 
 lay you a wager, are at this moment all 
 joking and laughing at it ?"
 
 NIGHT BEFORE THE MAECH. 39 
 
 Eut here my friend, clearly perceiving 
 the cloven foot, had the sense and resolu- 
 tion at once to break off so dangerous a 
 conference ; as poor almost as himself, he 
 saw what the devil would be at. Still, 
 like most inexperienced young men of 
 stoical temper and orthodox opinions, who 
 look chiefly to the surface of society, Mor- 
 land's views of the religious element were 
 very limited, and so mixed up with school 
 drudgery, it was scarcely possible for hipi 
 to think of the one without the other. Of 
 its specific gravity and moral qualities as 
 an element I suspect my friend knew very 
 little, if, indeed, anything at all — nothing 
 of its depth and buoyancy, nothing of the 
 countless human hearts (sin bubbles) wan- 
 dering in it for ever and ever. He could 
 count the complacent few sitting in their 
 creeds on the surface, and that was all. 
 
 At the meeting of Council, to which he
 
 40 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 had been invited, lie heard the speeches of 
 the leaders ; and cold and dubious though 
 he was, he could not altogether resist the 
 fervour and animation of these extraor- 
 dinary men. He began to feel his own 
 superficiality. When the meeting broke 
 up, and his chief, at parting, pressed his 
 hand and said, '' Well ?'' — significant mo- 
 nosyllable! — Logan, more frankly than 
 belonged to his character, replied, *'Ah, 
 doctor ! with a little of your eloquence I 
 would not care where I went. I — I'll take 
 another night to think of it." 
 
 But here let me record a conversation 
 which led more immediately to the adop- 
 tion of our hero. The scene is a smaller 
 meeting, assembled in a handsome draw- 
 ing-room in the new town, in the house 
 of a wealthy and distinguished citizen of 
 Edinburgh. The company are chiefly 
 clergymen. In the group to which the
 
 NIGHT BEFORE THE MARCH. 41 
 
 reader's attention is invited a certain per- 
 suasive clergyman of the city (Mr. Bland) 
 has been employed to talk over an influen- 
 tial but wavering Boanerges (Mr. Band) 
 from the far north. 
 
 Pursuing his inquiries how they were all 
 in Sutherland-—" And when," says Mr. 
 Bland, '' did you see our Hallow Isle 
 friends? Do they intend sending the 
 younger lads south to college, do you 
 know ?" 
 
 Mr. Band, with just a tinge of north 
 country accent, said, in reply : "I know 
 nothing of the lads' movements. But I 
 hear the old man, the laird, is in a very 
 poorly way, and not like to live long." 
 
 " So I was exceedingly sorry to hear," 
 returned he of Edinburgh. " Good old 
 man ! the last conversation I had with 
 him when he was south he was decidedly 
 with us — I fear we may not hope as much
 
 42 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 from his son, the young laird : Ms college 
 education, by the way, did him no good. 
 Melethor Deerness, I am told, has turned 
 out as proud and conceited as might have 
 been prognosticated from his barbarous 
 and. absurd Christian name. If he sides 
 with any at all, it will be with the "Volun- 
 taries of Kirkwal and the mainland; or, 
 what is just as likely, he may make a 
 stand on the Residuary side, and join his 
 stiff-necked cousin, Caldwel Gilchrist.'* 
 
 " Hold you there," whispers E^and ; 
 ** there may go two words to that bargain. 
 The mother, I am informed, has declared 
 on our side (in the event, that is, of my 
 taking on with you), and she is one in 
 earnest, I can tell you. Between ourselves, 
 the Lady of Hallow is a powerful woman ; 
 she is like the rock in the desert that was 
 smitten by the wand of the prophet — stop
 
 NIGHT BEFORE THE MARCH. 43 
 
 the gush who can ! I doubt if we should 
 have touched her." 
 
 *' Explain yourself, my dear sir," says 
 the other, inclining his head gently. 
 
 '' I told you," said Mr. Eand, " the old 
 laird's removal is looked for daily at the 
 ingle-cheek. They say he has that upon 
 his mind which it is ill to keep and harder 
 still to part with ; and who can tell how 
 the old man's decease may affect her ? I 
 say it is just possible, when you think to 
 get in your hand, and graft your consola- 
 tion upon that, a sudden change of mind 
 or delutch of grief might sweep the whole 
 deputation God kens whar !" 
 
 " Hush!" says Mr. B., a little alarmed 
 at this robust language. " I know — I am 
 aware — that our friend is a woman of 
 warm and impulsive feelings. But you 
 used an expression a little ago which sur-
 
 44 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 prised me. My dear sir, what do you 
 mean by something on the old man's 
 7nind z'" 
 
 E;aiid, it should be stated here, had 
 through Mrs. Eand a small estate in Ork- 
 ney, and was therefore an Orkney laird ; 
 he made no claim, indeed, to rank with the 
 larger proprietors, and being a clergyman 
 of the Church of Scotland in an overlook- 
 ing aristocratic county, there was no need 
 that he should do so; but he still, long 
 after the romance had worn off his acquire- 
 ment of Pinnigand, continued to feel and 
 to cherish a warm side towards his insular 
 neighbours across the Prith. Socially, 
 therefore, he was much better acquainted 
 with the Orkney families, includiug this of 
 Hallow, than Bland was, that gentleman's 
 connexion being, as the northern divine 
 conceived, of rather a flimsy description. 
 
 In reply to his question concerning the
 
 NIGHT BEFORE THE MARCH. 45 
 
 dying old laird, the reverend member for 
 » 
 
 Sutherland answered with reluctance, his 
 hard-favoured visage exhibiting in its cen- 
 tral feature the true Celtic horn : 
 
 *^ Egh ! uigh ! umph !" he grunted, " I 
 should not have mentioned that ; because, 
 upon the whole, the facts are not very well 
 known, and out of respect to the family 
 the subject is seldom or never spoken of — 
 never at least among the educat' class ; if 
 it is kept alive at all it's over the peat fires 
 of the small tenantry and the yattering 
 natives of the isles themselves. It's just 
 an old gousty tradition." 
 
 *' Of which, however," said Mr. Bland, 
 " you can give me an outline. I take a 
 deep interest in the family." 
 
 The young laird boarded with Bland 
 when at college, and the younger lads were 
 expected ; that was about the extent and 
 depth of his interest, so far as Mr. Band
 
 46 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 was aware. Mr. Eand : " Since you are 
 importunate, sir ; but recollect, it can only 
 be an outline. 
 
 '' There are two versions, then, my goot 
 sir, which pretend to give an account of 
 why and wherefore it is that this dying 
 old laird sits hanging his head in the chim- 
 ley-cheek rather than take to his bed. 
 The first is, that his wife, this same Mrs. 
 Deerness, that's called Lady of Hallow, 
 occupees the shoes of another woman !" 
 
 " What 1" cries Mr. Bland, " bigamy ! 
 Do you mean that Mr. Deerness, of Hal- 
 low " 
 
 " No, no, no, no !" cries Highland Rand, 
 in his turn ; " you fly away so fast, my 
 tear sir ! I did not say that, nor did ever 
 the tradition : the meaning is that he was 
 engaged, and under the bonds of natur', to 
 another woman when he married this 
 one."
 
 NIGHT BEFORE THE lilARCH. 47 
 
 Bland's fine countenance fell a little at 
 this piece of information, but he made no 
 comment. 
 
 " The other version," proceeded Mr. 
 E/and, '*is hardly worth mentioning, it 
 goes so far back into the mists of by-past 
 generations, when the family was first 
 founded in these isles ; although, as an an- 
 tiquarian, I know more of this fama do- 
 l07vsa than I do of the other. But it must 
 be all nonsense — an idle, fanciful legend, 
 made up after the old monkish pattern, 
 that would pretend to divide this same 
 Hallow estate and give half to the kirk ! 
 In times so modern as these I doubt, Mr. 
 Bland, that day of miracle's past !" 
 
 " Do not think so, my dear sir," says 
 the enthusiastic Bland. " Say rather that 
 that day is returning with signs and 
 with " 
 
 Band, dryly : '^ If you think so — and
 
 48 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 can take an old battered legent as confir- 
 mation current of your prospects in the 
 north, I shall not, my dear sir, withhold 
 from you the sconce to scour. This that 
 we are now speaking of is considerably 
 more than a hundred years old. You 
 must know that these Deernesses of Hallow 
 were not at one time the sole lords of the 
 manor. Though come of the same stock, 
 originally there were two proprietors in 
 the island, until one by maistery, or by 
 cunning and lending of siller — at all events 
 in some way or other — got the upper hand 
 of his weaker neighbour, and made a 
 sheeled peascod of him, which, as the story 
 goes, procured for the denuded laird the 
 euphonious cognomen of Lugs. Well, sir, 
 this Lugs was not so deficient of insight as 
 they thought, for he prophesied before he 
 died that a day would come when this 
 family suld be smitten for the iniquity of
 
 NIGHT BEFORE THE ]HARCH. 49 
 
 their forebear, and tlie ill-gotten gear gang 
 the old road — videlicet, scattered to the 
 winds, or else be given to the kirk !" 
 
 " I see you laugh at this as an idle 
 legend," said Mr. Bland; *'but what if I 
 happen to know something of this Lugs' 
 prophecy, and can show you its probable 
 interpretation !" 
 
 E^and : *' Oh ! you refer, I suppose, to 
 the poplar belief that the weird is to be 
 fulfilled in this present man's time. I am 
 aware there is a prevalent opinion that old 
 Hallow (who, between ourselves, is much 
 such another as Lugs of the tradition) in- 
 tends, contrar both to the wish of his wife 
 and of his man of business, to split the 
 property and to set up, in the abstracted 
 moiety thus restored, his second son and 
 namesake the lad Weatherby, notwith- 
 standing that the young man is little 
 better than a gomeril. But this, I suspect, 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 is all imagination — all the fond conceit 
 and superstition of a small ignorant te- 
 nantry sitting yattering to one another by 
 the ingle-lowe over their departing laird's 
 state of his worldly affairs and settle- 
 ments." 
 
 " Is this young man Weatherby so de- 
 ficient ?" 
 
 " There is plenty of him," said Rand ; 
 " the lad is of goodly stature, but he is 
 not such as I would look out for a daughter 
 of mine, supposing my Iambics were come 
 that length." 
 
 Mr. Bland coughed and coloured ; did 
 the Highland catamountain know that Miss 
 Bland was eighteen ? 
 
 They were here joined by other reverend 
 acquaintances, and the conversation on the 
 subject of Hallow Isle became more ge- 
 neral. One wished to know whether it 
 was true that the incoming laird — the
 
 NIGHT BEFOEE THE MARCH. 51 
 
 Master of Hallow, as they conceitedly af- 
 fected to call him in Kirkwal — had taken 
 to free thinking ? bluntly answered by 
 E/and in the negative '^ No !" Another 
 feared there was no chance of carrying 
 their minister, old Calthrop, of Corbys- 
 holm cum Hallow. The Doctor was at 
 him this morning, but " he seems utterly 
 insensible and determined to stick to his 
 island." Mr. Eand did not much wonder 
 at that. "Crawtaes has been too lona^ 
 there to change. The truth is, they are 
 but a kind of half salvages yet, these men 
 of the isles. You haf no conception of 
 their ignorance ; you would think, to hear 
 them yatter, that the very winds of heafen, 
 which, to say the truth, beat for ever on 
 their coasts, had blown the poor creatures 
 doited. But it is getting late, and I must 
 go before the shops shut, as I haf some 
 purchases to make." 
 
 E 2 
 
 finv Of lamois
 
 52 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 And the Doctor looking in upon them 
 in the course of the evening, Mr. Bland 
 took the opportunity of laying the case 
 before the chief. 
 
 " Certainly, Mr. Bland," was the reply, 
 '' everybody and every place is of import- 
 ance just now ; if possible, not the remotest 
 pendicle should be overlooked. I think, 
 however, you should avoid discussing re- 
 mote points with Rand, he is not the 
 man ; in his present undecided mood they 
 are too dangerously suggestive." And here 
 the Doctor, after the fatigues of the day, 
 indulged a little. '' You have heard that 
 absurd story he tells of his cousin Peter, 
 who ran away the night before Waterloo, 
 solely and accidentally, as Peter on his un- 
 locked for appearance at home stated, 
 from his happening to hear a drummer- 
 boy singing at a little distance the " Blue- 
 bells of Scotland." We must have a care
 
 NIGHT BEFORE THE MARCH. 53 
 
 Rand does not imitate Ms cousin's amor 
 "patrice. In your ear, my dear Bland, this 
 is the greatest fear I have. Our Suther- 
 land friend is not the only E^and in our 
 ranks. I much fear when it comes to it 
 we have a few who will hear the drummer- 
 boy sing by night, who will not wait to 
 hear him beat the drum in the morning. 
 How often, alas, does the courage in small 
 bulk put to shame our larger men ! Peter 
 Longlegs is on his way home to his mother, 
 and the little drummer-boy lies dead on 
 Waterloo. But in this of Hallow Isle the 
 chief difficulty is where to get a man to 
 send." 
 
 '' There are still," suggested Bland, " a 
 number of our young men on the unap- 
 pointed list." 
 
 '* Oh, I am aware of that," said the Doc- 
 tor, '' but the young man that we send to 
 Hallow must have something in him —
 
 54 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 some wear, some endurance. Ah ! I have 
 it ! there's my young friend Logan Mor- 
 land, out at Chapel-end, is just the very 
 man." 
 
 And so Logan's destiny was settled. In 
 vain he started objections, raised stipula- 
 tions ; his impatient chief heard him to an 
 end, a feat for which, to say the truth, the 
 great Doctor was not at all times remark- 
 able ; but, like a skilful angler with his 
 ttout, he was determined to land Morland, 
 and he landed him. He was to sail for 
 Orkney in September. And Mr. Bland, in 
 the mean time, was empowered and re- 
 quested to see to the necessary negotia- 
 tions with the Lady of Hallow. 
 
 Logan Morland became at once an ac- 
 tive, zealous, and even keen free church- 
 man. Small wits may find matter to scoff 
 at in this, but they are quite mistaken. A 
 young preacher, with hitherto no fixed
 
 ADIEUS. 55 
 
 creed in cliureh politics, might have been 
 excused for taking any side; it was to 
 Logan's credit that he took what in his 
 heart he thought the right side, the side 
 his rigid old father would have taken, had 
 he been alive. 
 
 There was much in the destined scene 
 of his labours calculated to impress the 
 fancy of Morland ; with his constitutional 
 tendency to the sombre side of things, the 
 remoteness of these islands and their semi- 
 barbarous condition went a long way: 
 they implied power to the civiliser, and 
 Logan loved power. His interim medita- 
 tions, therefore, partook unusually of the 
 delectable, and much pre-uplifted was he 
 with the great things to be done among 
 the benighted descendants of ancient 
 Thule. 
 
 It was natural, too, that he should wish 
 to learn something respecting the family
 
 56 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 who formed the chief society of the island. 
 And on this point his curiosity received 
 rather an unexpected fillip. 
 
 One Saturday, heing in town, he was in 
 Daidle the bookseller's shop. Daidle's was 
 the pet lounge, a sort oi popina sacerdo- 
 talis ^ where you were always sure to meet 
 with some of them if you wished to hear 
 the news, or to take a sniff at the last new 
 books. But much depended on the hour. 
 It was the stilly, or clerical dinner hour, 
 when our friend called to make his pur- 
 chases, and there was nobody in the shop 
 but the venerable bibliopolist himself. His 
 parcel of stationery made up, Logan na- 
 turally spoke of his appointment to Hallow, 
 when Mr. Daidle, his venerable white heaji 
 gently oscillating, looked him fixedly in the 
 face for several moments, and then said to 
 him, with an air of much sweetness and 
 solemnity,
 
 ADIEUS. 57 
 
 '' Perhaps I could tell you something of 
 the family at Hallow that would surprise 
 you, Mr. Morland." 
 
 Logan of course said, " Indeed ?" 
 " Yes," continued Mr. Daidle. Mr. Dai- 
 dle's voice was singularly sonorous and 
 well adapted to such legends ; it had a sort 
 of far-off, plaintive sound, that reminded 
 you of the cooing of wood-pigeons in a 
 wood. '* There was once," said Mr. Daidle, 
 " in the large provincial town I come from, 
 
 • 
 
 a wealthy merchant, Harry Gordon Baron. 
 He was a man, as far as money and money's 
 command went, perfect before the world, just 
 and punctual in his dealings, but an utter 
 ultra, you must understand, sir, in all other 
 respects ; high and haughty of temper, no 
 society was good enough for him. This 
 Harry Gordon Baron had a numerous fa- 
 mily of daughters, who, as the saying went, 
 failed their papa nothing, for no man was
 
 58 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 good enough, for them ; and even so hefel 
 them, Mr. Morland — Harry Gordon Baron 
 died bankrupt, and the poor things were 
 scattered to the world. Alicia, or Sally, 
 
 the youngest " 
 
 In short, Mr. Daidle told him the whole 
 story of poor Sally Baron, which will be 
 found further on in its proper place ; how 
 she went as a governess to Orkney in the 
 family of Mr. Gilbert Greenlaw, of Green- 
 law, and should have been married to Mr. 
 Deerness, but his friends put him past her 
 with a falsely concocted report of insanity 
 in the Gordon Baron family ; and how the 
 cruel usage and disappointment did drive 
 the poor thing a little light-headed, so 
 that she was still to this day a fugitive and 
 a wanderer in a weary world. Moreover, 
 how it was said that the good-natured 
 laird, wlien he found out the trick they 
 had played him, swore an oath by his
 
 ADIEUS. 59 
 
 Maker that he would give " some of their 
 hearts a thraw for that yet." 
 
 " I have not," said Mr. Daidle, in con- 
 clusion, " the honour to know much of the 
 lady that fills my poor townswoman's place : 
 I may say I have seen her, and that's all ; 
 but" — Mr. Daidle here paused with a pe- 
 culiarly solemn oscillation of the head, and 
 then said — " I thought I would tell you." 
 
 " And the corollary you would have me 
 draw from this narrative, Mr. Daidlej^" 
 inquired Logan. 
 
 But Mr. Daidle did not deal in corolla- 
 ries ; with something of a foolish look, if 
 one may say so of so venerable-looking a 
 man, he merely repeated what he had al- 
 ready said : "I thought it might be inte- 
 resting to you to know something of the 
 family." 
 
 Logan had not quite so very high an 
 opinion of Mr. Daidle as some of his more
 
 60 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 advanced brethren had; but, upon the 
 whole, he concluded the narrative was in- 
 tended as a friendly hint to him not to 
 expect the path in his present contem- 
 plated outgoings to be entirely strewed 
 with roses. He was content to accept the 
 hint. So far as that went, Logan Morland, 
 at four-and-twenty, had done with the 
 roses; what he now desired and wanted 
 was a change of the thorns. 
 
 His mind made up to go, he was sur- 
 prised to find how little he had to lose by 
 the change. At Chapel-end he had scarcely 
 an acquaintance ; no attachments, no pro- 
 spects, no friends to part with; nothing 
 but that noisy hovel where he kept school, 
 next door to Wauch the tailor, a descendant 
 of the celebrated Mansie of Dalkeith, a 
 pestilent fellow, and more given to argu- 
 ment than his grandfather. Just fancy
 
 ADIEUS. 61 
 
 the tailor before eleven o'clock in the fore- 
 noon, half naked from his shopboard, 
 sauntering into the school-house, openly- 
 defying the unhappy teacher to impugn 
 some new thesis or theory, the production 
 of his persevering noddle, and from pre- 
 mise to conclusion as absurd and unfitting 
 as the garments he made ! No wonder 
 Logan was glad of any change which pro- 
 mised to remove him from the visitations 
 of so horrible a spectre. 
 
 But it was otherwise with Effie, who 
 had formed attachments of one kind and 
 another not a few. It was the last day of 
 August when Logan, having at length 
 fully made up his mind, told her that they 
 were to go. Effie heard, and fled with the 
 disastrous intelligence to her dear friend 
 Mary Eletcher. 
 
 " Oh, Mary, woman, what have I to tell
 
 62 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 you! My brother's ordered to Orkney: 
 we are to sail in September, and the morn's 
 the first." 
 
 " To Orkney !" cried Effie's friend, 
 " that's far." And the two girls sat down 
 and cried, and talked themselves round as 
 best they could. Effie then proposed a 
 walk. 
 
 " But put on your bonnet, Mary. I 
 maun hae a walk wi' you — it may be the 
 last we'll have — there's no security that 
 Logan does not take it into his head to be 
 off to-morrow." 
 
 '^ It's like a dream," said the farmer's 
 buxom daughter, throwing on an old bon- 
 grace of a bonnet that lay at hand — " like 
 a dream," she repeated, and sauntered out 
 with her friend without having once con- 
 sulted the glass. And still, even when 
 they were out of doors in the brilliant
 
 ADIEUS. 63 
 
 harvest weather, Mary Pletcher spoke like 
 a person in a dream. 
 
 " Which way shall we go, up or down ? 
 But what does it signify? I see them 
 shearing barley in the haugh.*' 
 
 " Up," said Effie. " I want to see Ben- 
 Lomond and — and them all, and there's 
 less chance of meeting anybody. I would 
 not like it to be kenned just yet that we are 
 going away." 
 
 " That's true," said Mary ^Fletcher. 
 '^ It*s no as if you were going to London 
 on a jaunt." 
 
 C( 
 
 Oh, no, no !" said Effie. 
 
 Effie had one other dear friend to part 
 with, an old bookseller who kept a small 
 shop and circulating library in the next 
 market village. Poor old Mr. John David- 
 son, or, as the children now called him,
 
 64 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Johnny — had once seen better days. He 
 was originally a clergyman, seated in a 
 living from which he was cruelly ejected 
 on a frivolous charge of appearing tipsy in 
 a friend's pulpit. The proof was second- 
 hand, and totally insufficient. In those days 
 it was enough to depose him, however, and 
 John Davidson never drank a drop again. 
 If it really was the case that he had lifted 
 the cup which cost him so dear, like the 
 dying king of ancient Thule, he cast it 
 from him for ever. He turned bookseller 
 in his native village. But now a rival 
 and more showy establishment had drawn 
 the public away from him, and Davidson 
 sat in his deserted cell reading any dusty 
 circulating volume that came to hand, cir- 
 culating, alas ! no longer ; often the most 
 important variation in his daily life being 
 a child's purchase of a halfpenny picture-
 
 ADIEUS. Q5 
 
 book. He liad in these dark days one or 
 two friends still on his shelves, and among 
 them our Effie. He was much affected 
 when Effie, entering the shop with the 
 " Mysteries of Udolpho," told him she was 
 going away. Tears filled the old man's 
 eyes. *' I'll miss you, my dear Miss Effie," 
 said Mr. Davidson, '' hut I reckon it canna 
 be helped, and changes, they say, are light- 
 some to young folk. I wish you weel, but 
 you'll come and see me once more befoi^e 
 you go. I would like to look out some- 
 thing, some little keepsake, and at present 
 my head is sorely confused." 
 
 A few days afterwards, Effie called to 
 see him again for the last time. He pre- 
 sented his keepsake, a small writing-desk, 
 and took farewell of her in these simple, 
 encouraging words : " It's no doubt a 
 bare country that Orkney that you are 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 66 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 , going to, Miss Effie, but there's a hantle 
 lairds about it, and who knows but we'll 
 next be hearing that you have picked up 
 one !"
 
 GRMTON TO KIRKWAL. 67 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 THE VOYAGE. 
 
 " SoREOW springeth up in the night, but 
 joy comethin the morning," is a truth as 
 profound as it is beautiful. On that night 
 of our travellers' removal into Edinburgh, 
 after parting with so many friends, had any 
 one told the parson's sister she would be 
 quite well again in the morning, Effie 
 would probably have rejected the consola- 
 tion as being either a flattering or most 
 satirical fib. And yet, to her surprise, 
 she awoke early next morning in a strange 
 
 f2
 
 68 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 and silent hotel, and found it was the ease. 
 Logan, who was up betimes and out for a 
 coach, returned rattling along the chilly 
 morning street with the needful vehicle. 
 Effie knew instinctively, by the clatter it 
 made, it could be none other ; and in rather 
 less than an hour thereafter he found him- 
 self with his sister, his books, and the rest 
 of the parsonic baggage, on board the Kirk- 
 wal steamer lying at Granton Pier. 
 
 It was a fine, clear September morning ; 
 the water, green and undulating in the 
 harbour outside, mirrored in the Prith 
 sail and sea-fowl, and, above all, each 
 cloud beheld its skyey image perfect. Six 
 or seven miles across lay the opposite coast, 
 with its scattered towns (the ancient cities 
 of Pife), historic remains, beautiful in the 
 distance, beautiful and most marvellously 
 distinct : and there were lots of passengers. 
 Everything smiled on the journey of the
 
 GRANTON TO KIRKWAL. 69 
 
 young travellers, and combined to raise 
 their spirits. In the first place our envoy 
 had to see to his luggage, to its proper de- 
 positation and stowing away, a treat of itself 
 to the reverend mind. Then he had to run 
 up-stairs and down about a hundred little 
 matters; to acquaint himself with the 
 capabilities of the cabin; to admire the 
 handsome mirrors, and possibly, for a 
 passing moment, the reflexion therein ; to 
 settle Effie's berth with the stewardess 
 with a brotherly solicitude that quite 
 charmed the matron of the main ; to con- 
 sult the steward about his own, and to 
 inform him that he was the E-everend 
 Logan Morland, going to Hallow Isle — a 
 piece of information which truth compels 
 me to say seemed to make but little im- 
 pression on the smoke-dried chamberlain 
 of the steamer ; the man was either stupid 
 and did not understand, or else he was sunk
 
 70 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 in utter indifference, but, as lie had a woolly 
 head, it was of the less consequence ; so 
 Logan bounced up to deck again to see 
 that his luggage had not been tampered 
 with in his absence, to take a critical in- 
 spection of his fellow-passengers, to ask 
 Effie if she was not getting sick yet, and 
 so on, until the widening gap between the 
 crowded pier and the crowded deck and 
 the boom of the engine-boilers apprised 
 him that they were off. 
 
 OfP ! "What a thrilling importance is often 
 in that little fact. Now our friend was 
 relieved of a certain sensation of insecurity 
 that had beset him up to his last moment 
 on terra firma^ a sensation of its being 
 just possible that even yet he might draw 
 back, but now he was safe — a material 
 link in the great chain that girds and binds 
 up this world for eternity. Clerically, 
 Logan saw few greater men on deck than
 
 GRA^^TON TO KIRKWAL. 71 
 
 himself; and secularly, with, all respect for 
 the ladies, barring puppies, and there were 
 a few on board, he was as pretty a piece 
 of flesh as anv in Messina. Heaven forbid 
 we should ever cease to sympathise with 
 the boundless vanity of youth ; it is honest 
 and in the right direction, on the way to 
 greater things. To have judged from our 
 friend's gait on deck that morning, an ob- 
 server might have thought him endowed 
 with the lion's heart and brain, or that he 
 fancied he was actually in person the great 
 chief himself. 
 
 Effie enjoyed the sail as only youngsters 
 enjoy such things — pure sensation undis- 
 turbed by a thought of self; or like some 
 older acquaintance of ours, the E/casoners 
 in a circle, quite content and happy to be 
 there, poor souls, she enjoyed the splendid 
 combination of sky and water and land 
 around her, and never asked where the
 
 72 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 reverie was to end. Transcendently beau- 
 tiful was the run along the Pife coast. It 
 was only when they were far enough out 
 to look back on the Chapel hills, or what 
 she took for them, that a temporary shade 
 came over Effie's handsome sunburnt face, 
 and she felt a swelling at the heart, occa- 
 sioned by the thought of how lonely they 
 must now be to Mary Pletcher : would 
 she ever see Mary again ? 
 
 How curiously different in different per- 
 sons is the modus operandi of the affec- 
 tions. Our friend, too, looked back : when 
 I referred to the old tailor next door, and 
 said that Logan had formed no ties, I 
 rather overstated his peculiar idiosyncrasy ; 
 friendship was certainly not his ruling 
 passion, still he had a few shares in that 
 romantic illusion (if I may call it so) 
 which gives life such a relish. There was 
 his brother pedagogue, Alfred Semple,
 
 GRANTON TO KIRKWAL. 73 
 
 now the Eeverend Alfred, just about to 
 step into a neighbouring vacated living ; 
 often had the two young men taken sweet 
 counsel together in the days of their domi- 
 niehood ; but now, when the sentimental 
 whiff came over Logan, and he too looked 
 back, behold! the Eeverend Alfred had 
 already ceased to miss him. Did not 
 Logan see him dibbling leaks in his garden 
 with the absorbed selfishness of a ten- 
 year incumbent ! • 
 Our envoy then felt saddened at the 
 short-coming of his friend. The only cure 
 for this lay in a vigorous application to his 
 present position and company. But, al- 
 though he had the traveller's turn for ask- 
 ing questions, and was wholly free from 
 bashfulness, he was somehow deficient in 
 the initiative grace, and it took him long 
 to make the acquaintance of strangers ; 
 he was a little fastidious too — it was not
 
 74 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 every one lie took to ; moreover, it was not 
 every one who would take to him ; and in 
 fine, like most young travellers, he had the 
 exclusive whim (at present a little shar- 
 pened by the defection of the aforesaid 
 Alfred) of running up an intimacy with 
 some particular individual to the neglect 
 of every other person on board, which 
 would have been abominable were the 
 favoured party some great man. But your 
 green traveller is not at all nice in his 
 choice; like your lover, he rather delight eth 
 to let you see what he can do, and such a 
 treasure our friend was at length so happy 
 as to find. With this gentleman he was fast 
 becoming intimate, when at once the whole 
 tenor and complexion of the voyage was 
 changed. 
 
 They were entering that dreadful bay 
 of St. Andrew's ! Logan, who was unaware 
 of its ill name, had just commenced a dis-
 
 GRANTON TO KIRKWAL. 75 
 
 sertation to his new friend on the ancient 
 seat of Scottish learning, when, in the 
 first place, the sight of a man in sailor's 
 clothes, bearing a marvellous resemblance 
 toPletcher (Effie's friend's brother), whom 
 he believed at that moment to be in Ja- 
 maica, threw him out of his discourse, 
 and the rather that the man seemed to 
 avoid his eye, skulking away the moment 
 he saw him among the steerage passengers 
 forward;* and in the next place, ere he 
 had well time to reflect on this incident, 
 he was arrested by a change of motion in 
 the vessel itself, and his whole soul (so to 
 speak) curdled up in the unaccountable 
 phenomena. There was no apparent wind. 
 Merciful Providence ! was the steamer pos- 
 
 * It seems not improbable, as the reader will see a few 
 chapters hence, that this may have been Eletcher himself. I 
 make the interesting note from the fact that Mr. Gideon was 
 an old flame of Effie's, and his supposed reappearance here in 
 sailor's clothes is quite in the romantic school.
 
 76 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 sessed — was she going down ? His new ac- 
 quaintance, a grave sort of person, assured 
 him it was nothing : *' She was a first-rate 
 sea poat, and only making a little harm- 
 less sport, goot lass, with the old saint in his 
 bay, what the crew called tumbling her 
 lundies ; but young beginners would be at 
 the bucket their first voyage, and their 
 betterest in that case was to go below." 
 The advice of this northern oracle, though 
 rather obscurelv worded, seemed not un- 
 sound, and accordingly our envoy disap- 
 pears for a season. 
 
 Effie stood it out bravely ; she escaped 
 with a little miflp, not very urgent, just as 
 they were swirling round the farther horn 
 of the bay and regaining still water. After 
 that succeeded a long delicious reverie, of 
 which every one on deck seemed to partici- 
 pate less or more as they steamed away 
 before the strong September sun. It was.
 
 ' GRANTON TO KIRKWAL. 77 
 
 of course, harvest time, and Effie, who 
 liked to sail as near the land as possible, 
 enjoyed it most when she could make out 
 the faces of the " shearers" as thev stood 
 at gaze admiring the splendid new crea- 
 ture of the deep. And then would come 
 stripes of solitary green, old pasture braes, 
 with only a narrow fringe of grej shore, 
 on which for miles no sign of man or hu- 
 man habitation was to be seen. 
 
 A passenger walking the deck by him- 
 self, who had much the air of a gentleman, 
 observing that Effie was a young traveller, 
 and apparently alone, paid her some atten- 
 tion: he told her the names of places, 
 villages, towns, when they occurred, coun- 
 try seats, manses, kirks, remarkable head- 
 lands, old castles, hills in the distance. 
 He spoke with the tongue of a proprietor, 
 and was obviously far above Effie in sta- 
 tion, yet was* his voice pleasant in Effie's
 
 78 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 ear. And but for this same attentive 
 gentleman (though, he looked as proud 
 and absent at times as Lucifer) our poor 
 pilgrim would have dined but sparingly, 
 that is to say, got no dinner at all. He 
 brought her, before sitting down to table 
 himself, some sandwich and a glass of 
 sherry, which, between ourselves, when 
 the donor was gone, Effie enjoyed very 
 much, regretting only that Logan was not 
 by to share ; but the envoy was still 
 afraid to re- venture upon deck in case of 
 a relapse. 
 
 Before evening ©f the first day's sail the 
 company was somewhat thinned by dis- 
 embarkations along the coast. Most of 
 the ladies had gone below for the night ; a 
 few, however, still remained, and the gen- 
 tlemen were smoking their cigars in ani- 
 mated discussion ; among them Effie' s 
 friend. (" How handsome and clever he
 
 GRANTON TO KIRKWAL. 79 
 
 is ! " thought Effie ; " he must be something 
 more or less than a mere proprietor.") 
 The shore, though near, was gradually 
 growing dimmer with the advance of even- 
 ing, and there was a small, delicious Sep- 
 tembral chill blowing off the land. The 
 steamer was going on as swift and as steady 
 and still as a humming-top asleep. And our 
 hero, tempted by the stillness of the hour 
 and the smooth water, without current or 
 wimple, prevailing under the shadow of 
 the land, came again upon deck. 
 
 Among the few Logan made acquaint- 
 ance with we were about to notice one in 
 particular — the fidns Achates of the voyage 
 — when we were interrupted in St. An- 
 drew's Bay. Effie could not conceive what 
 attracted her brother to this man, unless 
 it were his uncouth and most extraor- 
 dinary personal appearance and dress. 
 He was coarsely clad in the extreme of
 
 80 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 the tourist mode, with, an eye, apparently, 
 to make a youthful appearance, but he 
 was obviously rather ancient ; moreover, 
 he was more robust than buck beseems ; 
 and he wore the beard, a yellow one, like 
 Hudibras's, of which it was impossible to 
 conjecture whether he was proud or 
 ashamed, as, despite his singularities of 
 outward man, he looked melancholy and 
 depressed, at times unconsciously so, as if 
 the grisly ornament had been imposed 
 upon him by way of penance. In a word, 
 there was an expression of solicitude about 
 the man's face that would have defied a 
 physiognomist to say whether he wished or 
 did not wish to draw the gazer's eye. 
 
 Curious to know what so odd a wight 
 could have to say, Efiie endeavoured to 
 pick up something of their conversation as 
 they passed and repassed her, pacing the 
 deck. And first, it was evident they were
 
 GRANTON TO KIRKWAL. 81 
 
 in close confab about nothing — Beardie's 
 part in the dialogue being quite up to his 
 tout ensemble. He spoke the high Eng- 
 lish of the insular north — that is to say, 
 with the assumption of a person of consi- 
 deration, but whose schooling in early 
 youth had, from some unlucky cause, been 
 neglected. The blunders he made were 
 painful, and, what made it worse, the poor 
 man himself seemed to be haunted by a 
 vague suspicion of his deficiency and tl\e 
 hope of its passing unnoticed. '' Some 
 country schoolmaster returning home from 
 the vacation," thought Effie. " I am so 
 glad to see Logan paying the poor thing a 
 little attention ;" and probably such would 
 have been the general impression from the 
 man's high English. 
 
 Why, you simple Effie ! Are you aware 
 that this supposed pedagogue from the far 
 north is the descendant of a long line of 
 
 VOL. I. a
 
 82 THE HALLOW LSLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Norse heroes ages ago extinct, laird in his 
 own person of an independent island still, 
 and, what is more, destined, at no very 
 distant date, to come down in that most 
 modern form of the dens ex machind, a 
 suitor to yourself. Well prophesied your 
 poor old friend Mr. John Davidson. 
 
 Something in the ahove style would 
 have been the fraternal correction of Effie's 
 mistake had Logan been aware of it ; but, 
 to do him justice, he was not in the least 
 aware of the weight of his new acquaint- 
 ance. He never thought of asking himself 
 what the man was. His mission concerned 
 men, not what were they. Humanity, then, 
 and a touch, perhaps, of fellow feeling, 
 made up his whole motive : it struck him 
 there was an objection to the poor man on 
 account of his yellow beard, just as some 
 fastidious people objected to the length of
 
 GRANTON TO KIRKWAL. 83 
 
 his own chin ; he seemed to be generally- 
 avoided; and this it was which induced 
 Logan to make up to the hirsute solitary. 
 Beardie was abundantly grateful for the 
 notice, and in return gave his reverend 
 young acquaintance to know that he was 
 in company of Mr. Balph liluddock, of Eair 
 Hall, in Yenturefair, a fact which Mr. 
 Buddock assured Logan was perfectly well 
 known on board, notwithstanding the ge- 
 neral appearance to the contrary. " I 
 come of the old stock, sir," said Mr. Bud- 
 dock; '' and it seems to be a part of their 
 college-bred learning and modern airs and 
 graces now-a-days, to prefer the breeding 
 to the breed." "Was this a witticism ? 
 Logan was certainly startled. 
 
 Your neglected man is done for the mo- 
 ment he opens his mouth to complain; 
 from that moment our envoy's eyes were 
 
 g2
 
 84 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 opened : he discovered that Mr. Euddock, 
 poor man, was a very tiresome twaddler, 
 one of those dreary talking, endless wights, 
 shut up, as it were, and tormented for ever 
 in their own obscurity, whose conversation 
 the light of meaning never visits, and from 
 whom it is hopeless to think of extracting 
 the commonest piece of information re- 
 lative to what is going on about them. 
 When asked about the Hallow family, al- 
 though he was their next-door neighbour, 
 his budget amounted to this : " Oh — ah — 
 yes — in a way, in a way ; a very nice 
 family hy this time I doan't doubt — and 
 as the crow flies good company — at home 
 they doan't somehow know people. We 
 heard the owd man's dying, but I couldn't 
 just say for certain — he's a very owd 
 man whatever — twenty years, I should 
 say, owder than she is — and that's just
 
 GRANTON TO KIRKWAL. 85 
 
 the tangle, that's where the downdie is, 
 bless you, ay !'* This profound piece of 
 social criticism can only be explained in a 
 note.* 
 
 But it was weeks, some two or three 
 afterwards, before Logan discovered that 
 this Orcadian Solomon, on whose very vitals 
 an incurable melancholy was preying, had 
 nevertheless considerable pretensions to be 
 thought a wit : it was only when he made 
 the acquaintance of his brother, Mr. Petrie 
 E^uddock, that that gentleman let the cat 
 out of the bag — it was a family one — the 
 E/uddocks were all wits. On the great 
 question, of the day it is scarcely necessary 
 
 * In case any reader should have the curiosity to see Mr. 
 Ptuddock's joke interpreted, downdie is the name given in 
 Orkney to a kind of sickly cod that haunts the tangle or sea- 
 ware in-shore, until it becomes more and more wormeaten 
 and dies. Hence the dying laird twenty years older (owder) 
 than his wife seems to have struck Mr. Balph's dreary ima- 
 gination in the light of a downdie.
 
 86 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 to add here that poor Mr. Ruddock was 
 deplorably ignorant, though in his way a 
 sort of well-wisher. He seemed a pious 
 man, but his piety appeared to be that of a 
 hermit disappointed in the world, and as- 
 piring only to bread-and- water and a cell. 
 These are all the particulars, and I hope 
 I have not been tedious in the account of 
 this voyage. It seldom happens that the 
 second day's sail is equal to the first : the 
 weather, ten to one, is not so fine ; but at 
 any rate, in the case of persons unused to 
 sea travelling, there comes a lassitude both 
 of body and mind after the first fresh im- 
 pression wears off. Passing John o' Groat's 
 and the Land's-end, nothing more was for 
 some time to be seen ; all was blank ; a 
 cold mist concealed the Orkneys. Our 
 young travellers were, therefore, upon tlie 
 whole, glad when the steamer arrived in
 
 GRANTON TO KIPwKWAL. 87 
 
 the roadstead at Kirkwal. And yet it came, 
 as it were, suddenly. How our envoy was 
 stunned by the booming complicated roar 
 called by the stokers and other ministering 
 gnomes of the engine-room " letting off the 
 steam !"
 
 88 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY, 
 
 CHAPTEU V. 
 
 THEY LAND AT KIUKWAL — INTERVIEW WITH A WEALTHY 
 KIRKWAL MEIICHANT— Logan's FIUST IMPRESSIONS OE THE 
 ORCADIAN METROPOLIS NOT EAVOURABLE. 
 
 The happiness attending the conclusion 
 of a Yoyage differs from that of its com- 
 mencement in nothing so much as in the 
 matter of seeing to the luggage. Then it 
 is that a poor stranger (unless he be an old 
 hand) has no chance with the natives, and 
 must undergo with what patience he may 
 the misery and delay of getting at his own 
 in the horrid selfish scuffle. 
 
 Our envoy was no exception to the com-
 
 KIEKWAL. 89 
 
 mon lot. "With the anxious Effie looking 
 on and assisting him, Logan was made to 
 feel his situation acutely, ere, with his hag- 
 gage collected on the quay of Kirkwal, he 
 was at leisure to look around him and ask 
 whither next ? Por further direction in 
 the prosecution of his voyage, he was re- 
 ferred to a Mr. Duncan R-apness, a shop- 
 keeper of some note, to whom he had a 
 letter of introduction from Bland. Having 
 with some difficulty, and the loss of an old 
 hat-case, got his chattels to the inn, it was 
 not so difficult to find out Mr. Rapness. 
 
 He found Mr. Duncan Rapness in his 
 shop — or rather store, for it appeared to be 
 an omnium gatherum of every species of 
 merchandise — an elderly man of slow and 
 serious deportment of the Daidle type, but 
 not so clerical, not nearly so prepossessing 
 in his appearance as the worthy bibliopolist 
 of street. He was a short, corpulent
 
 90 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 man, with, a mellow* face, but a severe e je, 
 an elder in the United Secession Churcli, 
 and worth twenty thousand pounds — 
 rather a trying judge of our friend's pre- 
 tensions and mission. Moreover, Mr. 
 Duncan E^apness had a fashionable wife, 
 and was to some extent himself a man of 
 society. 
 
 The look with which he took the letter 
 of introduction was quite enough for Logan; 
 had that been insufficient, the cough that 
 called attention to his reading it, would 
 have more than filled up the measure of 
 our hero's opinion of Mr. Duncan B^apness. 
 So easy is it from the merest trifles to con- 
 ceive a prejudice. '' I could tell from that 
 man's talk," said Logan, ''that he was 
 bred to filling barrels !" This, you must 
 know, was in reference to the outpouring 
 of Mr. Duncan's reception of our hero. 
 
 " You have just arrived, sir, I find, from
 
 KIRKWAL. 91 
 
 my friend Mr. Bland. And how is Mr.B. — 
 well, I hope ? And you have had a com- 
 fortable passage, of course? Kith, run 
 down to your father, and ask him when 
 the Tom Tub sails. That's the family mar- 
 ket-boat, sir, I am requested to see you 
 forwarded by ; she came in for provisions 
 this morning. Skeely ! ' ' (addressing another 
 lint-topped youngster), " what are you 
 standing gaping at there, doing nothing? 
 See what that wean's wanting. These are 
 serious times, Mr. Macmorlan ; it must be 
 owned there was great need for such a lift 
 among you. I hope and trust it will pro- 
 sper ; and that now, having left the flesh- 
 pots of Egypt, you will by-and-by be all of 
 one accord and mind to cast your spoons 
 and fling the ladle behind you also." 
 
 " If you refer, sir," interposed Logan, 
 *' to our unsettled claims upon the 
 State "
 
 92 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 '^ By no means," continued Mr. Duncan 
 Ptapness. "There will, doubtless, be the 
 proper referees, whose business it is. I 
 was merely going to say, that so report and 
 the newspapers speak of you." 
 
 A young lady of fashionable appearance 
 entered the shop. 
 
 " How do you do, Miss Rachel, and how 
 is mamma ? None the worse for being at 
 the concert the other night, I hope? I 
 observed that she had a slight thoughty of 
 a cold. This is Mr. Macmorlan, of the new 
 station at Hallow, Miss Eachel." (A gra- 
 ciously stiff bow from Miss Rachel.) '' I 
 thought I saw some of the young gentle- 
 men in town to-day," &c. &c. 
 
 Between them, they kept him waiting a 
 full quarter of an hour, until he was quite 
 sick at heart of their idle talk. Logan 
 thought the girl's vanity bad enough, but 
 the old parasite was intolerable. At length.
 
 RIRKWAL. 93 
 
 with a gracious good- day to Mr. Eapness, 
 a rather stinted inclination to our friend, 
 and a sharp glance at Effie, who was 
 standing in the doorway, the Orcadian 
 damsel left the shop. 
 
 The sequel was a little more palatable. 
 
 '* One of our Kirkwal young ladies ; a 
 great belle, sir, I assure you ; much run 
 after ; indeed, word goes that the Master 
 of Hallow and Miss Rachel Shore are, or 
 if not just yet, about to he ; in respect of 
 which report, there are others, again, who 
 think the Master is not a person to 
 pauge with" (" pauge," tamper with). " Eut 
 these are all matters by the way to you, 
 sir, as yet. Skeely, run down and see 
 what's keeping Kith. As I said before, 
 Mr. Macmorlan, you have my best wishes, 
 and I hope soon to hear of your usefulness 
 out-by." 
 
 '' And now, sir," said Logan, '^ may I
 
 94 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 request the favour of a little private con- 
 versation with you ?" 
 
 Mr. Duncan Bapness looked a little sur- 
 prised at the request, but motioning him 
 to follow, he led the way into his private 
 counting-room behind the shop; whither 
 we need not accompany them, as Mr. E^ap- 
 ness was extremely cautious in his replies, 
 and nothing of any importance was elicited 
 by the queries which Logan deemed it in- 
 cumbent upon him to put, just to let Mr. 
 Duncan Rapness know who he was. 
 
 " Effie," said Logan, as he passed her on 
 his way to the inner shrine of Mammon, '* I 
 shall probably be half an hour here yet ; 
 you had better, dear, go and see the ca- 
 thedral and amuse yourself, but don't go 
 far away." 
 
 So Effie went and saw the cathedral. 
 The day was such as to show it to advan- 
 tage : it was windy and cloudy, but with
 
 KIRKWAL. 95 
 
 abundance of flying sunshine between 
 showers. The cathedral — ^first, greatest, 
 and most imposing sight — what a vision it 
 was ! A wavering mass of sunshine and 
 gloom, wavering upward from the ground ! 
 All seemed straining, and as it were in 
 motion, from the massive pillars of the 
 lofty interior seen flashing through the 
 windows between the buttresses of solid 
 masonry, to the battlement of the tower 
 and to the creaking cock on the spire ! 
 
 As Effie stood and listened to the boom- 
 ing of the huge edifice, thoughts of Glas- 
 gow Minster and its associations crowded 
 on her mind, and she said, as the tears 
 flowed down her cheeks, '* If there 
 was a bit running water of ony kind 
 that ane could tak for the Molindinar 
 Burn, and if that street was only langer 
 and higher, it might pass for the Salt- 
 market !"
 
 96 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 To spare the purse, she had taken no 
 breakfast that morning, and it was now 
 three in the afternoon. Hungry and 
 anxious, and really very temptingly pretty, 
 more than one of the Kirkwal youths won- 
 dered who the deuce she was. 
 
 On her return, Mr. E^apness, without his 
 hat, and his pen behind his ear, was bowing 
 Logan off the premises. So much for the 
 letter of introduction. 
 
 Thanking the old shopkeeper for his good 
 wishes, he repaired, under guidance of a 
 young counter-jumper, to the little half- 
 decked vessel in which the remainder of 
 his journey was to be performed. And 
 here he was still further shocked at the 
 ignorance and indifference of the people ; 
 when informed who he was, and desired to 
 see about getting his luggage down from 
 the hotel, the boatmen absolutely refused
 
 KIRKWAL. 97 
 
 to obey the word of command, and in a 
 dialect or idiom the most uncouth con- 
 ceivable. 
 
 '* Nyah ! they dreedna do that — they 
 had orders on na account to grund." (They 
 had orders not to let the vessel ground.) 
 And when asked when they were to sail, 
 *' It would be a peri while yet." What a 
 peri while might be, Logan, of course, 
 could not conjecture, nor did it much 
 matter, as their hyperborean notions of a 
 little while would probably have differed 
 considerably from his. Peri is a word of 
 frequent occurrence in the Orkney dialect, 
 and means " little." Altogether, his recep- 
 tion began to put our envoy out of temper. 
 
 " Look ye, my men," said he, "I have 
 told you that I am a clergyman, but it 
 would appear that you do not know what 
 that is ; when I add that I am the bearer 
 of letters to Mrs. Deerness, does it not 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 occur to you as possible that you may rue 
 this yet ?" 
 
 The menace had some effect. The men 
 began to converse in whispers, directing 
 an occasional furtive glance at their pale 
 and peremptory passenger. 
 
 "What think, men ?" said he who was 
 called Captain Kith. "Poroddin, sirs, if 
 I like's looks !* There is a sough out-by 
 amang the quinies (young women) about 
 the Aid Woman and this new evangel ; if 
 this should be the who-ca'd that they say 
 she's expecting, it's like to skirl up a blast 
 about our lugs — the kelp kilns drowned out 
 will be nothing til't. Dreed and keep us in 
 that terrible day o' the Aid Woman ! Annie 
 Gate'us (Gatehouse) tell'd my wife." 
 
 '' Also and for certain," observed another 
 
 * Toroddiu — probably Eore Odin, and equivalent to onr 
 English Pore God. I don't think the expression is common, 
 having never heard it used except by Captain Kith.
 
 KIRRWAL. 99 
 
 old fellow, who answered to the name of 
 Hoolie, " the said Annie Gate'us telFdmine 
 that the last preachin^ aid Crawtaes was 
 across she forbad him the grund — warned 
 him aff — the like sic a carfuffle between the 
 twa was never heard. But the laird he 
 said nou't." 
 
 " Ye hear that — ye hear what Hoolie 
 says ?" resumed Captain Kith. " I wad 
 now there was a man of some lair amang 
 us, for it fickles me what to do. "What say, 
 Smith ? You are a man that deals in 
 hammerin' het iron cald — what say ?" 
 
 '' Calm ye. Kith, I'm nae the fule," re- 
 plied the Yulcan of Hallow. " I say as 
 the laird says, nou't ; only this here, let 
 me out-by, and I ken fase door will be new 
 shod furthwith."* 
 
 * The liorse-shoe nailed on the door, originally against 
 witchcraft, and latterly as a prevention of calamity generally, 
 is still practised in these islands. 
 
 h2
 
 100 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 '* You hear, men and boys," said Captain 
 Kith, " an it be come so near the doors as 
 that we maun all have our shoes turned. 
 Hoolie, man, gang up to Mother Shore's 
 (Miss Rachel's mamma) and ask a word 
 o' Mr. Weatherby." 
 
 *' The ne'er a fut o' me," said Hoolie. 
 '^ An there maun be a fule amang us, gang 
 yourseF, Kith." 
 
 Hoolie's reputation as an oracle and de- 
 liverer of dark sayings was high. Distin- 
 guished even in early youth for his sombre 
 parts, he had stood the blast of some fifty 
 winters, predicted disease among cattle and 
 geese, and foundered many a goodly boat, 
 so that Captain Kith was really very much 
 perplexed how to act. On the whole, how- 
 ever, the fear of the unknown prevailed, 
 and he stepped on shore, intimating by 
 a mute signal to Logan to follow him.
 
 KIRKWAL. 101 
 
 EoUowing his guide up the town, and being 
 desired to wait at the corner of the street, 
 he saw the skipper at the door of a house 
 in the west end, apparently stating the ease 
 to a fashionably dressed young man, whose 
 appearance reminded him vastly of the 
 youth of Princes-street. Presently the 
 fellow returned, and said : " It was all right 
 now; they had Mr. Weatherby's orders to 
 tak 's luggage on board, and tell the gentle- 
 man they were not to sail before seven 
 o'clock, whatever later." 
 
 *' Stay,'' said Logan ; " I have a question 
 to ask you, Mr. Captain. Do you mean to 
 tell me, my good fellow, that you seriously 
 thought me not admissible to an audience 
 with this Mr. Weatherby, a younger bro- 
 ther ?" 
 
 But the captain did not understand the 
 words of action. He made a motion, how-
 
 102 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 ever, of humbling himself, and chattered 
 out something that sounded like begging 
 pardon. 
 
 The interval he spent in visiting the 
 ruins of the palaces and the old cathedral 
 of St. Magnus. Effie was again much im- 
 pressed with the latter, but Logan was 
 disappointed ; it was too large for the place. 
 How came it there at all ? There was 
 an almost antediluvian look about it ; the 
 expression was painful ; it reminded him of 
 some vast and crumbling image of dust 
 that would be far better away. His busi- 
 ness there was with the living pomps and 
 vanities, not with the architectural mum- 
 meries of a bygone age. 
 
 It was not the cathedral alone — he was 
 disappointed altogether. At every step it 
 was becoming more and more apparent that 
 Orkney was not the field he took it for ; 
 that, opposed to the ignorance of the
 
 KIRKWAL. 103 
 
 common people, it had its gentry, its capi- 
 tal, and a society and civilisation of its 
 own ; and to Moiiand, whose virtues in- 
 clined a little to the morose side at any 
 rate, such discoveries were especially un- 
 palatable after the tossing of a sea voyage. 
 He had no patience with the amount of 
 dandyism they encountered. " Did you 
 ever," said he, *' see such puppies ?" 
 
 '^ "Where?" said Effie. "Oh! these 
 young men away past. What's the matter 
 with them ?" 
 
 '^ I mean to say," continued the angry 
 envoy, "that Princes-street airs are su- 
 premely ridiculous here, and the swell out 
 of all proportion to the narrowness of the 
 streets. Streets ! Why they are hardly 
 even lanes, appearing not to have been 
 laid down to any plan, but to have been 
 picked out afterwards as chance or caprice 
 directed."
 
 104 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 '' It was a pity," Effie said, " that they 
 had not thought of making them a little 
 wider." 
 
 " I am not complaining of the streets, 
 you simpleton, but of the discrepancy be- 
 tween them and the people! The frivo- 
 lities of fashion are insufferable enough 
 anywhere, but to meet with such antics 
 here, it is an insult to all the dead Picts, 
 more properly Peghs, whose habitations 
 are said to abound in these islands. Did 
 you remark that great lump of a girl who 
 came into what's his name's shop when I 
 was there ?" 
 
 " She was rather tall if anything, but 
 otherwise not bad-looking, I thought." 
 
 " Pshaw ! I tell you," said the envoy, 
 " if ever I saw folly in the flesh it was 
 that gawk. Dido was nothing to her !" 
 
 Most welcome was the change to our 
 weary Effie when, after wandering about
 
 KIRKWAL. 105 
 
 the whole chill afternoon, and a so-so 
 dinner at the inn embittered by the 
 envoy's grumblings, evening at length 
 brought the hour to sail. 
 
 It appeared they were going to have 
 some fellow - passengers. There were 
 about half a dozen poor people belonging 
 to Hallow on board, and Captain Kith, 
 ready to put to sea, was waiting for the 
 young gentlemen. Pive — ten minutes, 
 and no appearance of them. Night, mean^ 
 while, closed round, and our envoy took 
 his seat. Prom the sound of the wind in 
 the vessel's rigging he began to have some 
 not over-pleasant anticipations of what it 
 would be out at sea, and he said to him- 
 self, " How would Bland, if he were in my 
 shoes, like this ?" 
 
 A gentleman stepped on board. 
 
 " Are not these boys come yet ? Peter 
 Hreaver, go up and tell them that if they
 
 106 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 do not come immediately we sail without 
 them." It was the Master. His tone 
 struck Logan as peremptory. 
 
 '' Pusht ! I think I hear them coming," 
 said the captain, who had a long ear to the 
 convivial; and down they came, great, 
 blooming, boisterous youths, and all very 
 merry. They sprang into the half-deck, 
 where, according to custom, they fell in a 
 body upon Captain Kith and half worried 
 him. This performance ended, they lit up 
 their pipes, sitting like ducks in a row on 
 the half- deck rail, while the captain, a 
 special favourite, as appeared from this 
 rough caress, set about his work. The 
 sails were hoisted, and they sKpped out of 
 the harbour and across the bay of Kirkwal 
 before a light breeze — so light, indeed, that 
 it took my friend by surprise ; but he was 
 impatient, off his proper poise, and every 
 way in the exaggerating mood.
 
 KIRKWAL. 107 
 
 Effie would have thought the vessel 
 quite stationary, from the gurgling under- 
 sound of the water, had not the diminish- 
 ing lights of Kirkwal assured her that 
 they were already some distance on their 
 watery way ; and by-and-by their progress 
 became more distinctly traceable as they 
 glided close in shore past a large low- 
 lying island. Effie had no doubt it must 
 be beautifully green, from the dewy fra- 
 grance of the grass. At times she fancied 
 she could have put out her hand and 
 touched the margin, but they were not so 
 very near as she imagined, and in a little 
 it faded and disappeared.
 
 108 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SAILING FOR HALLOW THEY ACE BENIGHTED IN OYSTER 
 
 SOUND. 
 
 An hour — they could hear it strike from 
 the distant steeple of St. Magnus — and 
 not a word addressed to him by the Master. 
 As for the younger lads, sitting smoking 
 forward, they kept up an incessant chatter 
 with Captain Kith, hut the precise subject 
 of their conversation my friend could not 
 make out. Logan began to think it high 
 time to pluck up his clerical character.
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 109 
 
 and accordingly he set off with an observa- 
 tion on the weather. 
 
 '' I am afraid sir," said he, addressing 
 the principal person on board, "we are 
 going to have a tedious passage to-night." 
 
 *' It looks like it," he replied, in a tone 
 of civil indifference (Effie thought she had 
 heard the voice before) ; and then added, 
 addressing Captain Kith, who was at the 
 helm, ** Where is the wind to-night, Kith 
 — on the land or on the water ?" 
 
 '' I'm doubtin' she's on the land," re- 
 plied the captain ; " will we shaw her the 
 oar, sir ?" 
 
 The Orkney boatmen abound in these 
 quaint allegorical phrases, remnants, no 
 doubt, of the old Scandinavian mythology. 
 This of showing the oar is a favourite and 
 frequent, for, though a boisterous climate, 
 it is extremely variable, and they are as 
 subject to calms as to storms. It means.
 
 110 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 in plain terms, holding up the oar and 
 threatening to pull if the lubber wind won't 
 get up. 
 
 " Look at the light through Blower- 
 ness," said the Master, still addressing 
 Captain Kith ; " I rather think she's 
 bedded on the water to-night. I expect 
 a puff when we get a little further out." 
 
 " If I was to gie my opinion," said the old 
 man whom they called Hoolie, " I wad be 
 mair fearder we'se gan to get a blash o' 
 rain." 
 
 " The devil, Hoolie ! what puts rain in 
 your head?" 
 
 " I kenna, sir," replied Hoolie, " but I'm 
 amaist for certain we'se gan to get a blash 
 o' something ere lang." 
 
 " Do you see any appearance of rain, 
 sir?" inquired Logan. 
 
 "Not the least," he replied; "but we 
 are sure to have rain if Hoolie says it. He
 
 OYSTER SOUND. Ill 
 
 sleeps a good deal, and hears at a great 
 distance in his sleep. His brain seems to be 
 a kind of fungus, and to require rain, and 
 he is always sure to awaken before it 
 comes on." 
 
 Logan was at a loss to determine whe- 
 ther he was bantering him or gravely de- 
 scribing Hoolie as a natural curiosity. 
 "Are we far yet from Hallow?" he in- 
 quired ; and this, still politely enough, was 
 answered by the counter-question, ^ 
 
 " Are you going, sir, to Hallow ?" 
 
 " I believe I am, sir, going there (he- 
 he-hem !)," replied my friend, a little net- 
 tled at his own hesitation, and his being 
 forced to disguise it under that paren- 
 thetical cough. 
 
 The Master was silent for about half a 
 minute ; at length he spoke : 
 
 "May I take the liberty, sir, to ask 
 your name ?"
 
 112 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 " Morland — the Eeverend Logan Mor- 
 land." 
 
 " Of the Pree Church/' said the Master, 
 and was again silent. 
 
 '^ You are acquainted with the name of 
 Bland, sir, I think ?" suggested Logan. 
 
 '^ Look out forward there ; is that wind 
 coming?" 
 
 *' There's something coming," returned 
 his brethren, with a grunting laugh ; and 
 Logan followed to the fore-deck rail, where 
 they all stood listening. 
 
 " The rain's on !" roared Captain Kith 
 from the stern-sheets. 
 
 *' I tald ye sae," quoth Hoolie. 
 
 And down it poured in torrents. In the 
 bustle and tumbling about that followed, 
 the envoy had perforce to sit mute. 
 
 It was now resolved, with all hands at 
 the oars, to make for the nearest island of 
 Scapaway, but in the darkness accompany-
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 113 
 
 ing the rain, the question was which way 
 to pull for it. At length, after groping 
 ahout for nearly half an hour, Captain 
 Kith's oar brought up a tangle; and 
 at the same moment a stentorian voice 
 shouted from the shore, '' Is that you, 
 Melethor?" 
 
 " It's Markus !" cried the younger lads ; 
 " whatever in all the world can he he 
 doing there!" The question being put by 
 the Master to the party on shore, it was 
 immediately answered by an overture on 
 the bagpipes so uncouth, loud and louder 
 swelling, as if it would rend the very dark- 
 ness, that our envoy, in the strangeness of 
 the scene, could have almost fancied for a 
 moment that the piper must be Satan 
 himself. 
 
 " I ken fat it's like now," observed Cap- 
 tain Kith; "we'll be in Oyster Sound, at 
 Mr. Skeldar's new oyster-beds, and that's 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 him s el' ; he'll hae gard big a hoos yell 
 find." The pibroch ceased, and the piper, 
 again uplifting his voice, shouted, " Here's 
 to you all ! aren't you coming ashore ?" 
 The invitation was accepted in a similar 
 strain with a volley of laughter ; they ran 
 the yacht in, and the young men having 
 disembarked, the little vessel was again 
 pulled out of grounding as the tide was 
 ebb, and anchored in six fathoms water, 
 about haK a stone's cast from the beach. 
 
 It was still raining heavily, but not 
 quite so dark. Effie could just dimly see 
 the beach. And now Captain Kith, the gen- 
 tlemen having gone to royster it on shore 
 with the enterprising projector of the new 
 oyster-beds, proceeded in like manner to 
 make as merry and comfortable as things 
 admitted of on board. Having cleared 
 the hold under the half- deck of a portion 
 of its miscellaneous cargo, he stowed in
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 115 
 
 all the poor people ; then, with the aid of 
 a spirit-lamp which the young men always 
 took care to carry with them on their 
 voyages, he converted a pan of water into 
 good hot punch ; and finally, in as cour- 
 teous phrase as he could muster, he in- 
 vited the envoy to partake. 
 
 There is nothing like a good sound 
 ducking to make a man succumb to the 
 creature comforts of food, drink, and shel- 
 ter, in however humble a guise presented ; 
 and our friend, though a little disgusted at 
 not having been asked on shore, made no 
 scruple to accept of the captain's hos- 
 pitality. 
 
 At this symposium, Effie behaving with 
 a cheerfulness that won the hearts of 
 the boatmen, drank their healths in a 
 moderate sip of the can, to the infinite 
 admiration of old Hoolie, who scratched 
 his weather-gage, i. e, his head, and ob- 
 
 i2
 
 116 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 served that he thought " it was gan to 
 fair." 
 
 " Here's til her ! she's a brave lass what- 
 ever," said Captain Kith, staring with 
 might and main at his compeers. 
 
 Logan, too, made an attempt to enter 
 into the humour of his whimsical situa- 
 tion, but failed — chiefly from their exces- 
 sive use of new or obsolete words ; these 
 were constantly throwing gaps in his way, 
 which took him so long to get over, that 
 in a very little time he found himself in- 
 volved in a conversation that, with lights 
 of meaning here and there, felt, the further 
 he proceeded, like a gloomy and intermi- 
 nable morass ; and this was the more an- 
 noying, as, in the main, their dialect, 
 though spoken with an odd twang, ap- 
 peared to be intelligible enough. Thus 
 the night wore away, the boatmen telling 
 long, dreary stories about nothing, and the
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 117 
 
 envoy making desperate efforts to get a 
 little sleep. He succeeded at last. 
 
 ** The rain's ower," said Hoolie; and he 
 fell asleep too. 
 
 Effie had no inclination to sleep ; she 
 crept out, and, wrapping herself in a boat- 
 cloak, sat down to wait for morning. All 
 was silent — the sweet and solemn silence 
 after the rain. Captain Kith and his 
 crew, poor souls, were all asleep over their 
 empty can, but occasionally a wild bujst 
 of revelry fell upon the water from the 
 party who were keeping it up on shore. 
 These convivial shells ceased in their turn, 
 and Effie was left to herself. At length 
 she fell into a kind of trance, feeling con- 
 scious that she was awake, but all the while 
 dreaming as much and as fast as if she had 
 been asleep. In vain she endeavoured to 
 take a steady review of their Orkney pro- 
 spects. Eancy her dismay, when looking
 
 118 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 forward to see Logan useful and respected 
 at his own Jireside, she saw him carica- 
 tured in a manner the most ridiculous 
 and irreverend, put up in such a tableau 
 vivant as this : throned, and holding forth 
 to the drinking party on shore at Mr. 
 Skeldar's, with the bagpipes at his feet, 
 uttering ever and anon of their own ac- 
 cord a wild expiring drone, which, being 
 interpreted, was understood to mean the 
 image of Satan under foot ; presently, to 
 this succeeded a dance on the top of 
 the table, the pipes playing of their 
 own accord, and who lighter of foot than 
 her brother Logan, who was no dancer, 
 and highly disapproved of the practice? 
 But the last was the severest, for lo ! a 
 hand was stretched over the revellers — a 
 well-remembered hand (old Sanders's of 
 the Salt-market) — and Logan was igno- 
 miniously carried off and laid down on his
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 119 
 
 bed at lioine. He was very ill ; Sanders 
 said it was the measles, and Effie was set 
 to watch by the bedside just as she had 
 done when they were children. And so 
 on until daybreak awoke her. 
 
 She was not at first very sure whether 
 the tremulous motion on the water was 
 really the da\vn, or merely some trick of 
 the night; by-and-by, however, objects 
 became more distinct, and the clouds 
 moving about in their grey and proper 
 forms assured Eifie it was morning. 
 
 Oyster Sound is one of the finest points 
 in the Orcadian archipelago. Land-locked 
 all round, it has the appearance of a se- 
 cluded lake ; and to Eflie Morland these 
 solitary green islands, as she beheld them 
 in the dawn of morning, with their handful 
 of poor houses, some with none, and ap- 
 parently uninhabited, presented a scene as 
 novel as it was affecting. Beauty is al-
 
 120 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 ways more difficult to analyse in propor- 
 tion as it recedes from its compound to its 
 simpler forms. We see situations appa- 
 rently with scarcely a single attraction, 
 according to our established notions of 
 fine scenery, which yet subdue us in a 
 manner that we never felt before the 
 finest celebrities of the grand route. 
 
 On the other hand, Logan's first impres- 
 sion was more complex, not nearly so 
 natural, and perhaps what now befel him 
 had some antagonistic affinity with the 
 preceding dream of his sister. The same 
 scene that Effie beheld with her waking 
 eyes was presented to his slumbering sense. 
 He beheld in a dream these same green 
 islands from shore to summit literally 
 covered with a swarm of the ancient Pict- 
 ish aborigines, like so many imps broken 
 loose from the pit of darkness, every one 
 more eager than another to get at him,
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 121 
 
 making faces at him, mocking his person 
 and his mission. One put out his leg, 
 and grew by that member till he almost 
 touched the slumberer, but, stepping short, 
 fell into the sea; another grew by the 
 chin, holding up a looking-glass ; another, 
 by the nose : across the water it shot, nearer 
 and nearer, tipped with two fiery, prying 
 eyes — preposterous sight ! Logan started 
 back in affright, and awoke. 
 
 Considered in reference to his prospects, 
 this vision troubled him very much at the 
 time, but in his subsequent interpretation 
 it was made all right to him. In the first 
 place, there would be no end to the igno- 
 rance and opposition he might expect to 
 encounter ; still it would be all of a petty 
 kind. The leg was obviously indicative of 
 some faction destined to come to nothiQg — 
 to fall into the sea. The chin, it was pretty 
 plain to what that pointed ; were Adonis
 
 122 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 himself to reappear in orders, there would 
 he women and fools enough to spy faults. 
 The nose, there could he as little doubt 
 about that — that was typical of the old 
 Residuary who predominated in the neigh- 
 bouring isle ; his jurisdiction extended to 
 Hallow, and it was hardly to be expected 
 that courtesy would prevent him from 
 taking an occasional sniff at the new 
 pastor and his proceedings . 
 
 Eut all this was the fruit of after study ; 
 and starting up from his dream, cold, 
 scared, and hardly knowing where he was, 
 in the grey dead of the morning, Logan, it 
 may be supposed, was not in the mood to 
 approve of Effie's happy face. 
 
 "You seem vastly pleased with the 
 politeness of these people," he observed. 
 Efhe was intent upon the nearest white 
 strip of sand — there were foot-prints on it 
 sufficient to indicate it as the landing-
 
 OYSTER SOimD. 123 
 
 place of the preceding night. " My esti- 
 mate of them is somewhat different from 
 yours; I would not have you think me 
 carping, Effie, but I must say it, I begin 
 to despair of your spiritual insight — you 
 are far too much taken up with these 
 youths " 
 
 " I was only thinking of that funny 
 man, the captain," said Effie ; which, in- 
 deed, was the case. 
 
 *'To the neglect, I was about to say," 
 continued Logan, " of higher considera- 
 tions. I am captain here. The report of 
 the night I have passed will rather asto- 
 nish them at head- quarters, I fancy. In the 
 mean time, are we ever to get out of this, I 
 wonder ? If these bacchanals do not make 
 their appearance very soon, I shall cer- 
 tainly order the men to sail without them." 
 The latter sentence he pronounced with 
 marked emphasis, looking his sister stea-
 
 124 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 dily in the face, to see whether she would 
 dare to smile. Par from smiling, the true- 
 hearted, simple Effie pleaded with him as 
 if he had had no more ado than to give 
 the word : " Por mercy's sake, do not, 
 brother ! it would be sure to give offence, 
 and might lead to no end of quarrels." 
 And Logan turned away with an internal 
 chuckle, satisfied that his power to influ- 
 ence C' to will and to do," was his favourite 
 phrase) was not altogether a myth. 
 
 EflB.e was not quite so sure about Mr. 
 Skeldar, or that she could entirely approve 
 of the young men's intimacy with that 
 gentleman; they were fine, handsome 
 young fellows, she knew by their laugh, 
 whereas he must be pot-bellied and red- 
 nosed, and it was a pity they should devote 
 themselves to such a leader. That never- 
 to-be-forgotten prelude on the bagpipes
 
 OYSTEB SOUND. 125 
 
 seemed to argue a debauch a little too 
 much after the ancient Norse fashion, 
 when the men were all most foaming 
 drinkers ; hut as the thing was in a mea- 
 sure, accidental, it was to be hoped such 
 orgies were not of frequent occurrence : 
 most probably it was his house-heating — 
 the boatmen seemed to speak of his having 
 been building lately. Accordingly, as the 
 morning clouds rolled away from ofp the 
 nearer island, EfS.e expected every moment 
 they would disclose a handsome new man- 
 sion, or if not that, an old one, to justify 
 her charitable conjectures. But no such 
 house appeared ; all was one solitary mass 
 of green, the craggy summits still seething 
 in the morning mist, and as far as the eye 
 could reach not a vestige of human habi- 
 tation was to be seen, with the exception 
 of a shingle shed appearing over the neigh-
 
 126 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 bouring point that formed tlie termination 
 of the small slip of sandy beach off which 
 they lay anchored. 
 
 That same shingle shed, such as it was, 
 had the honour to be the seat, for the 
 present, of the wandering and eccentric 
 Markus Skeldar of Long-annot. 
 
 About seven o'clock, Captain Kith got 
 ready some breakfast — coffee and bread — 
 which he served out to the poorer pas- 
 sengers first; he apologised to the Mor- 
 lands for having nothing better to offer 
 them, and chiefly and especially for hig 
 having no butter, which Captain Kith 
 esteemed the greatest luxury and prime 
 lubricator of life ; and truly so it is when 
 folks have to eat oaten cakes six days out 
 of the seven. The captain observed " that 
 there was a grand cabin in the Master's 
 own yacht, and plenty of butter and every'
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 127 
 
 tiling^ but the To7n Tub was just the pro- 
 vision boat for gan to market in/' &c. 
 
 Effie, having finished her coffee, looked 
 again to the slip of sand ; two men were 
 walking on its grassy margin. In the 
 almost gigantic figure of one she had no 
 doubt that she beheld Mr. Skeldar ; in the 
 other she recognised not only the Master 
 of Hallow, but by a smart, peculiar kind 
 of grace in his walk, her civil friend on 
 board the steamer, who told her the names 
 of the places along the coast. 
 
 The envoy also perceiving them, in an 
 instant he was at his sister's side. He 
 stared angrily for nearly a minute at the 
 two gentlemen, and then said, " They take 
 it coolly, I must say ! They appear to be 
 in close conversation ; what on earth can 
 they find here of so very absorbing a 
 nature ?" Effie made no reply ; instinc-
 
 128 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 tively she felt that they themselves were 
 the subject of conversation, and that the 
 conversation was serious. 
 
 It is rather a stale story-teller's trick, 
 but we must e'en put up with it ; let us 
 hear what the Master and Mr. Skeldar are 
 saying. 
 
 " But I say, Melethor," quoth Markus, 
 who was some nine-and-twenty or thirty, 
 and four or five years the Master's senior, 
 '' how comes this to put up your back so ? 
 you were used to be reckoned a cool enough 
 hand at the pretensions of haly kirk." 
 
 "So far as I myself am concerned," re- 
 plied the Master, " I might manage to 
 make shift and even to hold my tongue, 
 but that is not the question. Take it home 
 to yourself, Markus, my boy ! You like 
 your smoke, you like your beer, you like to 
 come to Hallow, and you cannot budge a 
 foot without the pipes. Very well. Sup-
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 129 
 
 pose this reverend new comer should take 
 it into his head to say to you some day, 
 * Give me that noisy anti- christian bag of 
 wind till I put my foot in it, you cannot 
 be allowed to make a noise with it here ; 
 your pipe and your tobacco-box, smoking 
 is not allowed ; your solemn vow not to 
 drink, to learn your catechism, say your 
 prayers, and go to bed sober — it is a shame 
 to see such a great fat man.' How do 
 you think would our stout friend relish 
 such a proposal?*' 
 
 " Oh, bosh!" returned Markus Skeldar, 
 " the beggar can't be so bad as all that. 
 Why, in the old time of the Rump they 
 never turned out a fellow to such an extent 
 as that. Give up the pipes ! Stop my 
 grog !" 
 
 " Yes, strip you of pipes and everything, 
 and leave you without a sin to your back, 
 man ! I don't say that this lad, though I 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 won't warrant him, would actually have the 
 hardihood to address you in such terms to 
 your face, hut don't you see, if my mother 
 takes on with these people (and I am afraid 
 she will), then everything I have said 
 follows as a matter of course, and we will 
 precious seldom see Markus Skeldar at 
 Hallow after that." 
 
 '* But what the deil are they, man, these 
 people ?" cried Markus, in considerahle 
 perplexity; ''they must surely he a stiff 
 sect to take up ground like that. But one 
 thing is clear, they'll never do for Orkney ! 
 Is there no possihility of keeping them out ? 
 Why let them get footing at all ? Will 
 not your father interfere ?'* 
 
 " Alas ! no, Markus. My father, I 
 douht, will soon he where it is all over hoth 
 with sects and sinners," said the Master, 
 sorrowfully.
 
 OYSTER SOUNP. 131 
 
 *' Is he so ill ?" inquired Skeldar. *^ He's 
 not been worse, has he ?" 
 
 " No, not particularly worse, but the 
 old man's wearing away." 
 
 "Well," observed his friend, after a 
 thoughtful pause, *' the blast that bears 
 the news that auld Hallow is gane 'will 
 gie a shake to niaist of the ingles in 
 Orkney !" 
 
 " It will, Markus," said the Master. 
 " My father is a good old man. I wi^h 
 I were like him." 
 
 There was another short pause, which 
 Markus Skeldar devoted to reflection. 
 Eyeing his companion askance, 
 
 " Curse me," thought the burly Norse- 
 man, '* if he is not going to catch the in- 
 fection himself! he'll be as mad as his 
 mother before all's done with this same 
 new reformation." He resumed their con- 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 versation. "But you have not told me 
 your news from the south yet ; I suppose 
 this new light is making a mighty stir 
 down thereaway ?" 
 
 " Pho ! you don't suppose I went to 
 Edinburgh about that ? I had something 
 else to look after. I have got my father's 
 settlements revised ; Eolloekson says they 
 are all right. He's to be down as soon as 
 the court rises. As to this new light, as 
 you call it, the men, I suppose, are in 
 earnest, and as far as I understand their 
 quarrel, it seems a perfectly fair one ; what 
 I resent is their cool assurance in clapping 
 themselves down here. In the first place, 
 I cannot very well see what motive they 
 can have for it ; and in the next, I can see 
 most clearly it is to be productive of family 
 quarrels, not to mention a daily theolo- 
 gical addition to all that vulgar bickering
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 133 
 
 which I detest. Jerrold, if you noticed, 
 has caught some of the slang already, and 
 seems more than half disposed to enter 
 the lists as their bottle-holder." 
 
 ''So I noticed," said Skeldar, "hut he 
 was very groggy, and he'll come round 
 again. A thought strikes me. How would 
 it do to clap their missionary in limbo for 
 a while ? they'll think he has been drowned 
 on the passage, or run away, and so may 
 not be at the trouble to send another. Til 
 undertake to keep him here in Craigery, 
 where never man will hear the cheep of 
 him till he has the sense to turn his neb 
 anither gate." 
 
 The other, with equal gravity, replied : 
 "I had some thought of that myself, 
 but kidnapping's rather a dangerous 
 thing to try ; and besides, he is not 
 alone, there's a young woman with him —
 
 134 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 his wife or sister — a pretty, modest-looking 
 girl enough ; and so you see I couldn't 
 think of using the poor things so. They 
 have come a long way, and I dare say the 
 young chap (for he's but a lad) thinks 
 it's for our good, for so think they all." 
 
 '^ Young is he ? Upon my soul, it's too 
 bad ! But you say he's young ? In that 
 case, and if he has the sense to be guided 
 by them that ken where the best pasture 
 lies, the case may not be so bad after all." 
 
 " And Markus Skeldar come off with 
 flying pipes and all the rest of it ! Dream 
 not of it, my dear Mark. "We have 
 brought this upon ourselves: I told old 
 Calthrop and Caldwel Gilchrist as much 
 years ago. I wonder what my reverend 
 cousin Caldwel will say to it now—the 
 man whom the women call perfect, the 
 courtier and the Chiistian, who would not
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 135 
 
 stoop to do a mean thing — nor a useful 
 thing either — the dignified, do-nothing, 
 proud Churchman ! "Well, for the pleasure 
 of seeing him in a clerical funk, I could 
 almost be an onlooker. But the boys I 
 hear are up, and it's time to be off." 
 
 " I'm saying, Melethor" — the burly 
 Markus spoke what he had now to say 
 with some hesitation — '' I once mentioned 
 the thing to you before, but you mustn't 
 take it amiss — it positively is a fact : there'§ 
 a growing report that half the estate is 
 Weatherby's." 
 
 " The old story about my father's wish- 
 ing to leave him Bletherentlet and Hurlit 
 Valley. Is that clash not laid yet? I 
 asked Bollockson, who tells me there never 
 was any such intention. A propagation, 
 man, of the parasites, who would fain have 
 the eating of him up — that, and partly
 
 136 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Weatherby's own cockle-brained conceit. 
 I suppose they think it a fine joke to fill 
 the silly fellow's head ; nay, I'm told they 
 have got the facetious length of calling 
 him Bletherentlet. When are you to be 
 out ?" 
 
 " Soon : to-morrow or next day. I have 
 to run over to see Kipperness about his 
 new steading ; after that I am yours. I 
 suppose I may bring the pipes and every- 
 thing as formerly for this turn yet ?" 
 
 The young men, laughing after their 
 grave, far-seeing Norse fashion, turned 
 their faces seaward from the brow of the 
 little cape to which they had ascended. 
 Beneath, on their left, lay Oyster Sound, 
 pale and still, with the Tom Tub and 
 Captain Kith and his people at breakfast ; 
 on their right the open sea, the cool air of 
 which felt potent and refreshing after the
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 137 
 
 nigM's carouse. But scarce have the 
 loving eyes saluted the expanse ere Markus 
 Skeldar — unhonneted the gigantic hero 
 stands, enjoying his brow-bath — suddenly 
 utters a loud exclamation : 
 
 " Hallo ! what's yon over Scapaway 
 Head? I say, Melethor, you had better 
 let that blast out before you sail." 
 
 " Hush, Markus ! I see it. I mean to 
 give our new friend a taste of it ; he 
 was complaining last night of the calm. 
 The fact is," said the Master, '*I want 
 to see what stuff he is made of. If he 
 takes his ducking and his fright like a 
 man, why there may be some hope of him 
 yet." 
 
 Markus objected that the proposed test 
 was irrelevant, inasmuch as a ducking was 
 what no black-coat of any denomination 
 could stand. Melethor begged his pardon ;
 
 138 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 he knew more than one good fellow belong- 
 ing to the cloth who could. Caldwel 
 Gilchrist himself could; and his sense of 
 comfort, and what was due to him from 
 the clerk of the weather, was not far short 
 of a prelate's. 
 
 They descended to the house. He sum- 
 moned his brethren, and shaking hands 
 with their friend they again embarked and 
 set sail, the young men being still too 
 much absorbed in their last night's cups 
 to notice the threatening appearance of 
 the weather outside. Markus Skeldar, 
 whose huge Norse brain no amount of 
 liquor could bedim, followed them round 
 the shore, not exactly apprehensive, but 
 certainly interested to see how they got 
 through the approaching squall. With a 
 clergyman on board — of a new and purer 
 breed too — Markus calculated they would
 
 OYSTER SOUND. 139 
 
 have a tussle for it with old Daddy Shordo 
 — a boon name for the clerk. 
 
 What could Logan Morland ever hope 
 to know of these men ? How break down 
 their social and class exclusivism, or work 
 to any profit an old worn-out ground 
 so strewn with the dust and bones of the 
 primitive superstition ? "
 
 140 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LOGAN UNDERTAKING TO INSTRUCT HIS FELLOW-PASSENGERS 
 IN THE LAW OF STORMS, IS DISAGREEABLY INTERRUPTED. 
 
 The Master saluted his passengers with a 
 brief *^ Good morning !" and the young men 
 nodded a more friendly '' How are you ?" 
 Meanwhile, the sails were hoisted, and 
 they slid out of Oyster Sound before the 
 light matin breeze, Captain Kith in the 
 stern-sheets chattering to the poorer pas- 
 sengers, who seemed all as happy as pos- 
 sible in the prospect of soon being home.
 
 A MORNING BLAST. 141 
 
 They had a pleasant run in the cool glit- 
 tering sunrise, during which my friend 
 commented on the fine morning, and made 
 such advances as he thought incumhent 
 on him to the principal personage on 
 board; but his overtures were coldly re- 
 ceived. In about a quarter of an hour 
 they had run through Blowerness. As 
 they opened the northern main, with the 
 tremendous cliffs of Scapaway and Red- 
 craigs, sometimes called the Blawarts, 
 confronting them, oh ! then 
 
 '' Turn ! turn back 1" shouted Markus 
 
 Skeldar from the shore. But they were 
 
 too far out by the time he reached the 
 
 point where he hoped to intercept them, 
 
 and his powerful voice, exerted to the 
 
 utmost, fell short in a hundred fathoms 
 water. 
 
 Jerrold, surnamed by his brethren the 
 
 JoUyboat, on account of his jovial con-
 
 142 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 dition and argumentative propensity to 
 carry all along with hini, was the first to 
 observe their danger.* " Gude be here, 
 lads," cried the young fellow, starting up ; 
 " do you see what a state Scapaway's in ? 
 and it's past to turn now, the tide will be 
 here in no time." 
 
 " In every stitch of canvas, and rig the 
 storm-jib 1 Look alive, men. It's worse 
 than I thought," said the Master- 
 In an instant all v/as bustle, confusion, 
 and dismay. Our parson, however, did 
 not immediately catch the alarm. There 
 was nothing, it seemed to him, in the ap- 
 pearance quoted to justify so much appre- 
 hension ; he saw at a distance of a mile 
 
 or two a range of high cliffs, and a huge 
 
 » 
 
 * I put iu a note here to say tliat Jerrold, poor fellow, 
 with, all his exuberance — the JoUyboat as we used to call him 
 — is now where there are neither stories nor story-tellers ; he 
 died young.
 
 A MORNING BLAST. 143 
 
 lump of a hill, with, a quantity of hlackish 
 vapour streaming at its summit — aU the 
 rest of the sky being perfectly clear ; and 
 Logan in his heart set them down — Master 
 and men — as gasconading poltroons; an 
 opinion which had been gaining upon him 
 for several hours. There might be a bit 
 of a breeze by-and-by off the cliffs, which 
 were of a dark-red colour, and certainly 
 looked grim and lowering : they were fast 
 approaching them ; and as this appeared 
 to be a good opportunity of instriicting his 
 ignorant islanders in the laws and pheno- 
 mena of storms, he said, still addressing 
 himself to the Master, " Do you think 
 the danger so imminent, sir ? I see none : 
 the sky is quite healthy : these spiral- 
 looking fogs at the top of that hill are 
 purely local, the evaporation of last night's 
 rain."
 
 144 THE HALLOW ISLE GRAGEDY. 
 
 " Look here," said the Master ; '' do you 
 see that white rent on the water out 
 yonder ?" 
 
 " I see something white — a sort of 
 ripple " 
 
 " It will be here immediately. That 
 ripple goes by the name of the tide with 
 us, and the last night's rain (you are 
 perfectly correct there, sir) has drawn 
 up on Redcraigs to give it battle. You 
 are in luck, Mr. Morland. In a couple 
 of minutes' time you will get the finest 
 dandling you have had since you were in 
 the nurse's arms 1" 
 
 Eut to the last our parson sturdily abode 
 by his own opinion. 
 
 Effie, more observant if less learned 
 than her brother, formed a correcter esti- 
 mate of their position. In the anxious 
 faces of all on board she saw that no light 
 thing was going to happen. Just as the
 
 A MORNING BLAST. 145 
 
 storm was about to burst on them, the 
 Master asked her if she would like to see 
 it, or whether she had not better lie down 
 with the rest of the women : his manner, 
 in the excitement of the crisis, was stern, 
 though he did not mean it, and Effie took 
 the hint and crept out of the way as well 
 as she could. 
 
 It was just at hand. ^' Will you steer. 
 Kith ? or shall I ?" said the Master. 
 
 " You had better let me," said Jerrold* 
 the Jollyboat, springing from his perch on 
 the half- deck. 
 
 His brother put him down. Captain 
 Kith, looking very pale but firm, replied^ 
 " I never flinched yet. I'll steer if you 
 think I should, Mr. Melethor, but I would 
 sooner trust the helm to yourself than any 
 of us ; not but what Mr. Jerrold's a very 
 good hand at the helm too, but this" — 
 the captain paused, and in a low voice 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 added — '' this will need a', baith land and 
 lair, to bring us througb." 
 
 Logan describes the meeting between 
 wind and tide as beyond description 
 terrific. He got a glimpse of the latter 
 charging at full gallop a little way astern, 
 and E^edcraigs and Scapaway u.p in front 
 blackening all that quarter of the heayens, 
 and for a time he was in a kind of ecstasy 
 or trance, whether of terror or of heroism 
 he could never afterwards determine ; but 
 this he always maintained, that his senses 
 never for an instant forsook him. 
 
 In these hurricanes everything depends 
 on the man at the helm — a false turn of 
 the rudder may consign all to the bottom ; 
 and for half an hour, while the gale was 
 at worst, not a word was spoken. The 
 men stood at their posts, watching the 
 trim of the boat ; the poor people, chiefly 
 women, were stowed away under the half-
 
 A MORNING BLAST. 147 
 
 deck, and occasionally a haggard face 
 might be seen looking out, and as quickly 
 withdrawn, as again and again the vessel, 
 in the agony of convulsion, rose foaming 
 at the prow. There was one very old 
 woman who sometimes muttered audibly, 
 " Oh, sirs ! oh, sirs ! God pity her — all 
 her pretty young menl" And Captain 
 Kith and the Master in the stern-sheets 
 kept an eye to every wave. Terrible eyes 
 they were to Effie, who saw them all the- 
 while. Twice she thought they were down ; 
 indeed, my friend assures me it was touch- 
 and-go with them. 
 
 At length, however, the more imminent 
 peril was past, and the boat, extricated 
 from the crash of the tide (Captain Kith 
 called it jabble), had now only the wind 
 to contend with. Still it required some 
 courage to look these tremendous cliffs in 
 the face — they were now very near — as 
 
 l2
 
 148 TPIE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 under storm-jib and mainsail they bore 
 past them, rising sheer and shoreless, all 
 shattered and blood-red to the height of 
 several hundred feet, while the sun, just 
 dipping from under the receding blast, 
 threw over them a fitful illumination that 
 gave to their aspect a still more portentous 
 glare. 
 
 At this crisis the brandy-bottle did the 
 state some service. Jerrold the Jollyboat 
 candidly confessed he had not got such a 
 fright since he was baptised, and regretted 
 it had not occurred to him sooner to take 
 a little Dutch courage. " Here's to us, 
 lads !" He strongly recommended his tall 
 and handsome brother Weatherby, by 
 the title of Lord London, to confess and 
 take a little drop too ; but lack of courage 
 in any shape was <x thing Mr. Weatherby 
 would never hear of — having but too good 
 cause, some of his friends thought. He
 
 CLEARING UP. 149 
 
 had, however, no objections to the brandy ; 
 so he tossed off his glass, and retorting 
 the imputation cast upon his courage, was 
 very witty on the Jollyboat's white nose, 
 appealing to all round whether they had 
 not seen it go white. Captain Kith, a 
 judicious person in such squabbles, could 
 not say that he had. 
 
 "White!" cried the Jollyboat himself, 
 " of course it did ; such a screed as that 
 away past was enough to take the dye out. 
 of old Dropogrog's nose, let alone the 
 natural colour of a young beginner's 1" 
 
 The cup was proffered to Morland in his 
 turn ; and our friend had the good sense to 
 profit so much by his dram as to enjoy the 
 remainder of the voyage — with here and 
 there an exceptional twinge, perhaps, 
 when the boat, under the a£9.atus that 
 bore her along, was laid a little — a very 
 little — too near the gunwale's edge.
 
 150 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 There is nnquestionably an excitement 
 in tearing along in three hundred fathoms 
 water past these enormous red cliffs that 
 front to the North Sea ; but for myself I 
 must frankly otvti with friend Logan I 
 would dispense with again experiencing 
 the grand emotion. Such tempests are 
 frequent in the Orkney Islands ; they ge- 
 nerally cease as suddenly as they arise, in 
 some instances embracing a circuit of only 
 a very few miles, and lasting no longer 
 than till the foul fog that engendered 
 them is spent. The sun was again shining 
 out, and, all talk and animation, they bore 
 up for Hallow. Captain Kith having let 
 out the women, sat chattering to them 
 like an ape; and even the envoy forgot 
 that he was a stranger. 
 
 Not so Effie. She sat up with the rest, 
 but the joy of escape was dashed by the 
 humiliating conviction that they were un-
 
 CLEARING UP. 151 
 
 welcome intruders. This appeared not 
 only in the guarded aversion of the Master, 
 but at times still more cuttingly in the 
 careless observations of the younger lads. 
 And so this was Hallow — dear Hallow, as 
 Mr. Bland would have it that evening he 
 came out expressly and drank tea with 
 them at Chapel-end (unrecorded) — the pa- 
 radise which that tender and imaginative 
 divine had extolled to the skies, where the 
 people were so simple, so kind, so affcQ- 
 tionate ? Had he wilfully deceived them, 
 or was the man merely rhapsodising at his 
 ease from the force of habit ? This was a 
 wicked thought, but it was perfectly na- 
 tural, and Effie could not help it. The 
 heart will use strong, nay, coarse, expres- 
 sions at times, and never trouble the 
 tongue to utter them : in her heart Effie 
 called Bland a humbug ! The novelty of 
 the scene, however (for now she under-
 
 152 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 stood they were approaching their desti- 
 nation), soon chased away those evil ima- 
 ginations. 
 
 They landed at the village of Sandyhaven, 
 the capital of Hallow Isle. Mrs. Deerness, 
 accompanied by half the population of the 
 place, was waiting to receive them. Her 
 countenance expressed feelings of gratitude 
 too deep for utterance. She stood on the 
 pier until the boat touched shallow water 
 — it broke out then : '' Oh, boys, I am so 
 thankful to have you all safe back!" and 
 she kissed them one after another as they 
 jumped on shore. 
 
 '• By my sowl, and so you may, mamma !" 
 cried the Jollyboat. 
 
 Effie, an anxious onlooker — for what 
 else but the women of the family had she 
 to put hope in ? — Effie, I say, was pleased 
 with her reply to the bluff caress. " Down, 
 and don't tear my gown, you great, big "
 
 CLEARING UP. 153 
 
 she said, affectionately pushing the exube- 
 rant cub away to make room for others — 
 Captain Kith and crew, and the humbler 
 sharers of their escape. It is difficult to 
 find an exact term for the kind of fascina- 
 tion which seemed to be the special en- 
 dowment of this extraordinary woman, but 
 what is meant will appear more clearly as 
 we go on. 
 
 Her family and numerous dependents 
 disposed of, the Lady of Hallow received 
 the envoy of the Church with the courtesy 
 to which his credentials entitled him, but 
 with none of the empressement which at 
 that time characterised the greetings be- 
 tween the evangelical pastor and the weal- 
 thier subjects of his flock. She asked more 
 questions, indeed, respecting the move- 
 ment than Logan could fully answer ; but 
 they sounded to him as put rather in a 
 spirit of carping inquiry than of zealous
 
 154 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 attachment to the cause. In this, how- 
 ever, his ear exaggerated a little ; he was 
 jaded after his long journey, and, besides, 
 he overlooked the fact that, in a remote 
 situation, there is no more natural feeling 
 than this sort of curiosity respecting trivial 
 details. 
 
 In the mean time, Effie surveyed the 
 adopted isle. Hallow is rather a pretty 
 island. It rises gradually towards the 
 middle, and is crowned by a natural tu- 
 mulus, somewhat resembling in shape one 
 of those artificial earthen mounds, the 
 justice hills of ancient litigation. The 
 harvest was begun in scattered patches, 
 and extending as far back as the bare stony 
 girdle round the tumulus on the summit, 
 had a most pleasing effect to the eye, 
 which was enhanced by the little home- 
 steads shining in the sun. 
 
 She was still more pleased with Hallow
 
 HALLOW HOUSE. 155 
 
 House. Effie feared to see some grand 
 piece of modern architecture, offensive to 
 her brother's Whiggish pride, and was glad 
 to find an antique jumble upwards of two 
 hundred years old, bearing date 1607. The 
 house is backed by mighty barns, generally 
 open to the breeze of summer, but round 
 which the excluded winter winds whistle 
 and rave, or gurgle in rainy weather with 
 yet more impressive sough. The kitchen- 
 chimney, a huge tunnel of red and grey 
 stone, towers over all the others. A low, 
 circular-arched gateway at the end of the 
 little street admits into the feudal domain ; 
 passing from the haven through this por- 
 tal, it is about as far again to the front 
 door of the house. The grass is close 
 cropped and beautifully green, and not far 
 from the door stands a doddered old thorn, 
 the only tree in the island. After a while 
 the absence of trees is less felt in this mass
 
 156 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 of solitary green all around, as drawing up 
 beside the rugged hospitable mansion you 
 face the broad Atlantic, and look out on 
 its expanse, with the village of Sandy- 
 haven lying at your feet.
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT HALLOW. 157 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 HALLOW HOUSE: A DESCRIPTION OF THE FAMILY AND 
 
 FIRESIDE. 
 
 Logan would have preferred stepping at 
 once into his own parsonage had that been 
 possible; but as matters stood, he was 
 constrained to accept the lady's invitation 
 to be their inmate for a day or two. 
 
 OldMr.DeernesSjtoo ill to sit at table, but 
 still taking his single glass of wine by the 
 fireside, did much to reconcile my friend to 
 his temporary residence in the great house.
 
 158 THE HALLOW ISLE TEAGEDY. 
 
 The hospitable dying old man asked him 
 such flattering questions as occurred to 
 him concerning the new Church. Eihe 
 was much affected by his goodness, over- 
 clouded as he appeared to be by some secret 
 sorrow ; it was painful to her at times to 
 see the wandering, and, as it were, lost ex- 
 pression of his face. Like his sons, he had 
 been handsome in his youth. 
 
 The conversation at table was cheerful, 
 though subdued, in respect to the old gen- 
 tleman at the fireside ; it became even ani- 
 mated when Mr. Deerness, his hospitable 
 spirits rising, drank a second glass of wine 
 in honour of the envoy, saying he felt so 
 much better to-day. As he made the re- 
 mark, mother and sons exchanged a look 
 of sad affection. He did not appear to Mor- 
 land to distinguish one above another — 
 Mr. Weatherby, who was his namesake, 
 more than his brethren. He had an old-
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT HALLOW. 159 
 
 fashioned custom of drinking to their 
 healths separately as he sipped his wine. 
 
 Respecting the grand question, Logan 
 saw that his new friends had much to 
 learn. This was to he expected of the lads. 
 But, in the conversation of Mrs. Deerness 
 herself, he was surprised to find an amount 
 of ignorance wholly inconsistent with her 
 repute at head-quarters, and ahsolutely at 
 variance with Bland's refined gold. Igno- 
 rance, too, of a complicated and peculiar 
 kind, some of her mistakes obviously 
 arising from the newspapers, those delu- 
 ders, as he would have it, of the public 
 mind, though that did not account for all. 
 Often she was misinformed, wrong in her 
 facts, or, if right in her facts, wrong in her 
 
 deductions ; sometimes wrong altogether ; 
 denying the law of patronage in one sen- 
 tence, asserting it obliquely in the next ; 
 now blaming government, now the Church;
 
 160 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 full of this man's speech, douhting and re- 
 jecting that other's, and the latter, perhaps, 
 the greater gun of the two. And so of the 
 leading articles : some of Messieurs the 
 Editors caught it ! but Logan had no ob- 
 jection to that. Now conforming to the 
 principles of the E^etreat as they were be- 
 ginning to be practically acted upon ; anon 
 facing about on the Residuaries, she pro- 
 posed to return and rout the whole car- 
 nality, to drive out the old wretches since 
 they would not come out. In short, to 
 make root and branch work whilst they 
 were about it, annihilate the ****** 
 (naming a leading influential journal), 
 excommunicate the government, and burn 
 the lords ordinary, those wicked wizards 
 on the corrupt side of the Church ! 
 
 Upon the whole, all this rather astonished 
 our friend. After the circulation of a mo- 
 derate glass, the boys would have him out
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT HALLOW. 161 
 
 to see the island ; and in the interim, EfB.e 
 was shown all over the house by Mrs. 
 Deerness. A fine, rambling collection it 
 was, abounding in little old bedrooms on 
 diiferent levels, long passages and galleries, 
 and no fewer than three staircases — just 
 the sort of house for children to scamper 
 up and down in of a rainy day, and for 
 young people come to more reflective years 
 to traverse at eve, and enjoy the setting in 
 of the autumn chill. In this manner was 
 Effie following her hostess from room to 
 room, taking the saddened but really ex- 
 quisite pleasure one feels in a scene entirely 
 new, when she was startled, and, truth to 
 say, very much frightened, by an unexpected 
 ebullition of feeling. Nothing hitherto 
 could exceed the kindness of Mrs.Deerness, 
 or the simple, grand urbanityof her manner. 
 What might have been the immediate cause 
 Effie could not conceive ; but all at once, 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 thje Imp of Mischief, who goes about in 
 the twilight, jingled at the lady's ear that 
 same mystical bunch of missing keys. 
 
 Some of the effects of this aggressive 
 form of the religious melancholy are so 
 
 fully brought out by Markus Skeldar in 
 
 * 
 
 his table conversation, that I again take 
 leave to quote that benighted worthy: 
 
 " I'll tell you what it is, sir," Markus, 
 tabling his huge fist, would say, "they may 
 call it by this kirk or that kirk, but the 
 thing in a very short time will be a per- 
 sonal feud with her with every man, 
 woman, and child she comes across. A 
 year or two ago, before this sect appeared, 
 a more splendid woman never sat at the 
 head of a table. But now ! To hear her 
 now ! I defy you to sit and hear her on 
 these old beggars of Residuaries, as they 
 call them, without feeling that all the time 
 you are getting your Eesiduary skelps
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT HALLOW. 163 
 
 yourself. One hates to be deboshed in 
 that way. Hang it, can't she speak plain 
 out to a fellow's face !" 
 
 Effie, a nicer judge than Mr. Skeldar, 
 thought that the attack was of the nature 
 of fits — the hysterica passio of Lear — a 
 morbid and somewhat overstrained sense 
 of man's ingratitude, similar to that which 
 made the old king break out upon his 
 thankless daughters. The first of which 
 she was a witness was thus described by 
 EfS.e to her brother : 
 
 " We were a little tired after wanderings 
 all over the house, and were standing at 
 one of the windows, looking out on the sea, 
 when I noticed that her attention seemed 
 suddenly startled by something, and then 
 the fit seized her. Thinking that I must 
 have somehow given offence, I cannot tell 
 you what I felt. It is really impossible to 
 repeat all she said — the numbers she sent 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY 
 
 to the ill place. T never heard anything 
 in or out of the pulpit like it. The fit 
 lasted five or six minutes, perhaps, and left 
 her just as suddenly as it came on." 
 
 " Describe her appearance at the ter- 
 mination of the fit, as you call it," said the 
 parson. 
 
 '^ She just stopped speaking," said Effie. 
 " When I looked up, her eye was fixed 
 calmly on the setting sun ; there was but 
 a small bit of the red disc above water; 
 and I saw that the fit was over. She said 
 to me with a smile, like a person exhausted, 
 ' But what nonsense all this must be to you, 
 Miss M., after your long journey.' After 
 that," added Effie, '' I could not describe 
 her kindness — asking all about us, about our 
 father and mother — and how long it was 
 since we lost them. God help her, Logan 1 
 She may be capricious and changeable, and 
 may be at times more outspoken than you
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT HALLOW. 165 
 
 could wish, but I canna help thinking it's 
 all along of that dying auld man in the 
 chimney corner." 
 
 " Possibly, Effie, I think in that idea 
 you may not be far wrong," replied the 
 parson. 
 
 But this was not all : already there were 
 things which prudence forbade Effie to 
 speak of even to her brother. Effie had 
 not seen much of the world, but she had 
 seen enough to know that a mark of con: 
 fidence is not always necessarily a mark of 
 favour. A mark, then, of confidence, con- 
 sidering that she was an entire stranger 
 to Mrs. Deerness, surprised Effie very 
 much, and was further illustrative of the 
 impulsive character of the Lady of Hallow. 
 
 She spoke as freely of her own private 
 affairs as she had been frank and cordial 
 in her inquiries about her young guest's 
 by-past days; of Mr. Deerness being in
 
 166 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 dying circumstances ; that he was a good 
 man, hut heing naturally so, she was at 
 times oppressed with the uncertainty of 
 whether he was in a state of grace, and 
 that often, very often, she had it in her 
 heart to speak to him on the suhject, hut 
 as yet she had never heen ahle to find 
 words to do it. This to a stranger was 
 going pretty far, but the Lady of Hallow 
 went further. 
 
 " You would observe. Miss Morland, the 
 remarkable likeness of my second son to 
 his father." (Miss Morland intimated 
 that she had.) "And perhaps you also 
 noticed that Mr. Deerness has at times a 
 more overcast and thinking look than you 
 would ascribe to a person in his condition, 
 as if he were brooding over some past sor- 
 row?" (Eifie said she thought it might 
 be bodily pain.) '' No, my dear ! Mr. 
 Deerness has but little bodily pain, but he
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT HALLOW. 167 
 
 has a sorrow that will never quit him till 
 he leaves this world — a sorrow, to use the 
 language of this world, God knows lightly- 
 incurred — a sorrow unknown to my oldest 
 son — known only to himself and me. It 
 originated many years ago. It was at a 
 friend's house : they were dining, and Mr. 
 Deerness took a little too much ; as for 
 the others, they were every one more in- 
 toxicated than another. My hushand 
 made no distinction between any of the 
 boys ; hut he had a work with his name- 
 sake — the little fellow was so like him — 
 poor Raby ! A quarrel arose among them 
 at table — a lairds' quarrel about the land 
 — when Mr. Trigilgas of Kipperness, who 
 had a sneering, provoking tongue, said 
 something that irritated Mr. Deerness, and 
 in the passion of the moment he vowed a 
 solemn vow that he would split Hallow, 
 and leave his second son a better laird
 
 168 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 than would ever stand in the shoes of the 
 Cock of Kipperness — for so in sport the 
 oldest, and indeed the only, son of Kipper- 
 ness was named. It was hut an incon- 
 siderate vaunt, made at a drunken meet- 
 ing, and yet it has heen an unceasing 
 sorrow to Mr. Deerness. He mentioned 
 the circumstance to me when he came 
 home, saying he regretted it very much ; 
 however, we hoth agreed that it would he 
 forgotten. But it was not forgotten — such 
 things are not forgotten — and Mr. Deer- 
 ness eventually gave up going into society. 
 It will now he six or seven years ago that 
 he told me he intended going no more out. 
 Old Kipperness was dead, and young Kip 
 in his place, though he would he forty 
 when he succeeded to the property : ' The 
 Cock of Kipperness could crow now ; when 
 might they expect the Cock of Bletherent- 
 let to crow hack to him ?' Mr. Deerness
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT HALLOW. 169 
 
 was not a man to put up with their vulgar 
 gibes. But society was the spring of his 
 life. None of his sons, Miss Morland, can 
 give you an adequate idea of him. Mele- 
 thor is much cleverer — at least his talents 
 have been more cultivated — but he has not 
 the hearty simplicity of his father; and, 
 from the day he took to the fireside, I 
 observed the declining change upon Mr. 
 Deerness," &c., &c. 
 
 Your country lady, like your country 
 laird, has no doubt the privilege of being 
 a discursive talker, but Efiie was certainly 
 surprised that such a communication 
 should have been made to her. Why was 
 it made ? Prom the pure love of serious 
 gossip ? In some of the more natural 
 strokes it seemed so, but still there seemed 
 something behind — it had the air of a half- 
 communication, and half-communications 
 are always suspicious. Por instance, the
 
 170 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 frequent reference to her second son, the 
 handsome Weatherby, was generally in 
 such terms that Effie, for the life of her, 
 could not make out whether Weatherby 
 was a favourite with his mother or not. 
 At first sight the family likeness was strong 
 in all, yet there was great diversity of 
 character. 
 
 The following table will perhaps be of 
 some help here : 
 
 1. Melethor, commonly called the Mas- 
 ter. The young laird. 
 
 2. Weatherby, familiarly Mr. Eaby. 
 Profession not known. Nicknames, Lord 
 London and Lugs' Heir. 
 
 3. William, surnamed the Institute. 
 The Scotch Bar. 
 
 4. Jerrold, surnamed the JoUyboat. 
 Commerce. An extensive merchant. 
 
 5. Harriet, Miss Deerness. 
 
 6. Eric, surnamed the Grouse. The
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT PIALLOW. 171 
 
 Navy. Grouse was but a little chap of 
 fifteen, short and squat, but a very comical, 
 lovable little fellow, who promised to be 
 every inch a sailor. 
 
 Miss Deerness was from home on a 
 visit ; of her, more in another place. 
 
 The next three in succession, upwards, 
 were tall, handsome youths, rejoicing in 
 locks of jet, and that kind of figure which, 
 promises to become a little ducal in after 
 years. Jerrold was already corpulent. 
 His florid, handsome, open countenance 
 renders any comment on his particular 
 character unnecessary. 
 
 William, who was destined to be a 
 lawyer, was the quietest of the lot, but 
 possessed talents more nearly up to the 
 mark than any of the others, Melethor 
 alone excepted. He had a good deal of 
 quiet humour, a keen sense of the ludi- 
 crous, and, lawyer-like, had already the
 
 172 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 knack of setting his two right and left 
 hand brethren at comic loggerheads. 
 
 Weatherby, in stature, approached the 
 colossal; his complexion was the perfec- 
 tion of pale, and so far as symmetry of fea- 
 tures constitutes beauty, the fellow was 
 undoubtedly very handsome. In cha- 
 racter he was more complex than a ravelled 
 skein of thread. He was a coxcomb, and 
 yet not a coxcomb — he could forget that 
 he was handsome for days together. He 
 had popular manners — when he chose — 
 but even in that matter he was unequal. 
 He affected cleverness, and sometimes 
 said a smart thing enough. Some people 
 thought him really clever — others an ass. 
 In short, people differed in their opinions 
 of him, as much as the three travellers 
 about the chameleon, and probably from a 
 similar cause — the young man's external 
 susceptibility of change : properly, Wea-
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT HALLOW. 173 
 
 therby had no character at all but the na- 
 ture or the knack of reflecting in a great 
 measure the kind of opinion that was 
 brought to bear upon him. He was a 
 great puzzle to our parson, as we shall 
 by-and-by have occasion to see. 
 
 Melethor, again, was a different being 
 altogether in appearance, as in temper, 
 talents, and education. He was not so 
 tall as his three brethren, though above 
 the middle height — a spare, handsome, 
 smart figure of a man, straight-backed, 
 and well made: the raven locks of the 
 mother had in his case a tawny wave, and 
 the Norse blue predominated in his eye, 
 and the shrewd hardy face had a beauty 
 of its own, though not of the voluptuous 
 cast. In Melethor the personal attraction 
 was originality ; he did not care a farthing 
 to know whether or not he was thought 
 handsome, but he would have fought^ the
 
 174 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 devil, had the father of lies said he did not 
 look like a gentleman. 
 
 And here, while we are on the suhjeet 
 of these Hallow youths, it may be proper 
 to notice a little difference of opinion be- 
 tween Effle and her brother. The third 
 or fourth evening, as they were taking a 
 walk by themselves, Logan, who probably 
 through Bland had got hold of the po- 
 pular notion respecting the division of the 
 property, and the restoration of the second 
 branch, expressed higher opinions of Mr. 
 "Weatherby than, as will be found, he was 
 afterwards disposed to maintain. 
 
 "To-day," he said, ''he and I had a 
 long walk together. How little should 
 we judge by externals 1 "With a good deal 
 of the fop in his manners, and certainly 
 very much in his appearance, I found him 
 really an agreeable young man, of ami- 
 able sentiments and remarkably orthodox
 
 THE FIRESIDE AT HALLOW. 175 
 
 views. A great comfort to tlie mother, 
 poor lady ! for if I am not very much mis- 
 taken, I plainly foresee that the others will 
 not be long with her ; it seems pretty clear 
 to me that that old leaven kinsman Cald- 
 wel Gilchrist they speak of has the making 
 up of their minds as certainly as a baker 
 the baking of his penny baps. I was as 
 much struck as pleased with the young 
 man's concern about his soul." 
 
 " Don't talk such horrid nonsense, Lo- 
 gan," said Effie, in a low, scared voice ; 
 "I'm not saying the young man's a hypo- 
 crite — I dare say he may be in a fright 
 about his soul — but what I mean is, for 
 mercy's sake do not encourage Mrs. Deer- 
 ness to place her happiness in him parti- 
 cularly. Did ever you hear such a laugh 
 as he has ? He reminds me of the whale 
 we saw on the passage from the steamer's 
 deck, seldom coming to the surface but
 
 176 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 when he has to hlow. So unlike the rest 
 of his brothers in all his ways, depend upon 
 it, though he were to pray seven times in 
 the day, he's not to be trusted." 
 
 Logan replied more angrily than I care 
 to set down against poor dear Effie ; and 
 yet before many days his opinions of Mr. 
 Weatherby Deerness were pretty nearly 
 identical with hers.
 
 THE PARSON AT HOME. 177 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PARSON AT HOME — PREPARATIONS FOR HIS FIRST SERMON 
 — INTERVIEW OF THE MASTER WITH HIS KINSMAN, THE 
 PRIEST OF STIFBAKNESS. * 
 
 The third succeeding day saw the Mor- 
 lands settled in their own humble abode, 
 a paradise to Effie had it been in any 
 sense their own ; but the furniture — every- 
 thing, the very chau' she sat on crying — 
 had all come from the great house. Eoolish 
 tears, Logan said — ungrateful, selfish, 
 sinful. What absurd — he might almost 
 call it insane — kind of carnal importance 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 was it she attached to the necessity of 
 things heing their own ? Considerations 
 of this kind certainly did not disturb our 
 friend — that is to sav, when mounted on 
 his hobby; afoot, he was a sturdy, in- 
 dependent fellow enough. 
 
 The cottage was new, having been built 
 for the bailiff, or land steward, whom it 
 was thus put past, not a little, by the way, 
 to that gentleman's disgust. It was com- 
 modious for its size — Mr. Bailiff had seen 
 to that — and very prettily situated on the 
 margin of a winding fresh-water lake, 
 with one or two other cottages in sight. 
 The " braes" were covered with rabbits, 
 and nothing could be prettier than to see 
 them in the early morning capering about 
 or sitting washing their faces. There was 
 a mill-wheel within hearing, evidently, 
 from its deliberate and subdued click-clack, 
 fed by no very lavish stream ; the plash of
 
 THE PARSON AT HOME. 179 
 
 it could be seen just round the point op- 
 posite to the manse door. 
 
 However, if the furniture was not de 
 facto their own, the parson's upholstering 
 genius, by arranging and rearranging, 
 speedily gave things a more feasible aspect, 
 even in Eifie's eyes. The greatest difficulty 
 she had was with their maid-servant Char- 
 lotte Kith, a daughter of the captain's. 
 
 Tsliarlotte^ as the captain pronounced 
 the name, had been entered at Hallo^j'- 
 House; but as her first twelvemonths' 
 term did not expire till Martinmas, the girl 
 had not seen much ; indeed, it was doubt- 
 ful whether another term would have 
 much improved her — she was something 
 deficient in personal comeliness to take 
 heartily to service. In short, it was plain 
 to Effie that her colleague Charlotte was 
 no witch. Erom her manner of going 
 about things, it was really difficult to de- 
 
 N 2
 
 180 THE HALLOW ISLE TEAGEDY. 
 
 termine whether she was asleep or awake ; 
 the thing seemed a dream to her ; and on 
 some points, such as singing or laughing 
 at improper times, the difference between 
 mistress and maid, her understanding 
 appeared to he hopelessly clouded ; the 
 ignorant neophyte, dazzled by the light of 
 the new doctrines, went singing and 
 dreaming about the house, as if she were 
 in love with her mistress, or mistook her 
 for a veritable angel. And thus, in place 
 of a servant, Effie had a partisan. Then 
 again, the girl's untutored questions re- 
 specting the new dynasty were sometimes 
 difficult enough to answer — as, for ex- 
 ample, " Was it the millennium in the aid 
 prophets, the lang thousand years ?" 
 
 Nor when the parson came home in the 
 evening (after his first day's pastoral 
 round), did the presence of her master, 
 imposing as that ought to have been.
 
 THE PARSON AT HOME. 181 
 
 work the miracles Effie expected, as the 
 following instance will amply suffice to 
 prove. Brother and sister were sat down 
 for the evening ; Effie was writing to her 
 friend Mary Eletcher, and Logan wa^ deep 
 in the composition of his first sermon, 
 when suddenly the silence of the parlour 
 was broken by a strange, wheezing, un- 
 couth laugh of exultation at his back, that 
 reminded him of friend Leatherbreeches 
 in Princes- street, and caused him to feel 
 for the moment as if he had been caught 
 up by the hair of the head : it was Kith, 
 overlooking the progress of the good work ! 
 '' I wish Sabbath was the morn T' said the 
 odd girl, and retreated as stealthily as she 
 had come in.* 
 
 Next day, in the course of his goings out 
 and in, Logan took occasion to state his 
 
 * An instance of the attachment of tlie peasantry to their 
 ancient mode of observing the Sabbath. — ^Ed.
 
 182 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 mind more definitively on the subject. 
 " Effie," said he, " you will have to get 
 rid of that girl, she's mad. I tell you she's 
 perfectly deranged." 
 
 ''Not she," said Effie; "she's only a 
 little odd." 
 
 '' Well, as you will," rejoined Logan ; 
 " the girl is more in your department than 
 mine. But recollect I told you. And at 
 all events," he added, " if you must or will 
 keep her, tell her she is not to grin and 
 laugh in my face every time she meets 
 
 me." 
 
 a 
 
 She can't help it," said Effie. 
 
 " How ! what I" cried the parson. 
 
 " I mean," explained Effie, " that it's an 
 hysterical affection, and she can't help it. 
 She's the same to me." 
 
 " Umph !" And the subject was dropped 
 for the present. 
 
 The prevalence of this seemingly dubi-
 
 THE PARSON AT HOME. 183 
 
 ous kind of sanity among his parishioners 
 was a great grief to the young parson. At 
 length he learned that there was a crazy 
 fanatic of a hedge-preacher in the island, 
 of the name of Ingles, who ought to be 
 put down, as a fosterer of this dwarfed and 
 distorted sort of intellect ; but the fellow, 
 he informed Effie, was as cunning as a fox, 
 and he had not yet obtained a sight of 
 him. '^ He goes," added Logan, *' by the 
 name of Rob of the Bog." • 
 
 Another on his list of Rob's proselytes 
 was Weatherby D,eerness. " I don't un- 
 derstand that young fellow at all," said 
 the parson. " There unquestionably is a 
 want about him : forward in his manner, 
 and yet not frank ; given to ramble, yet 
 a listless idler at home ; a fop in his dress, 
 yet moody as the melancholy Jacques ; 
 a loud laugher, louder than his brethren, 
 but it does not ring out : how different
 
 184 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 from the prolonged bellow of Jerrold, 
 whom they call the JoUyboat ! To-day, 
 I questioned the three younger lads why 
 they called him Lugs' Heir, when Jerrold, 
 more suo, replied, 'By my feth, parson, 
 you had best not call him that to his face!' 
 William, a quiet, sensible lad, told me 
 aside that Lugs was the name given to an 
 old family ghost, and — and, in short, they 
 did not like to hear it spoken of." 
 
 Meanwhile, Mrs. Deerness was not idle. 
 A barn, suitable for the purpose, having 
 been selected, the wrights were busy fitting 
 it up as a temporary church. Care was 
 taken never to omit the word temporary^ 
 thus clearly implying the intention of 
 building a more permanent edifice. During 
 these preparatory movements, there was 
 one topic of frequent recurrence in the 
 speculations of the lady and the envoy — 
 how, namely, would their neighbour across
 
 ANOTHER PARSON AT HOME. 185 
 
 the water be feeling ? what saying to their 
 doings? or would the matter have yet 
 reached the ears of the old gentleman ? 
 Very likely not. 
 
 The ancient E;esiduaryj however, was not 
 quite so dormant as they fancied. He was 
 surveying the ground and taking counsel 
 with himself. In the mean time, a reve- 
 rend brother, in a mainland parish, under- 
 took to sound the Master. 
 
 This gentleman, the Eeverend Caldwql 
 Gilchrist, was nearly related to the Hallow 
 family. He was a churchman of the 
 Church, a gentlemanly man of the world 
 that is to say ; of moderate abilities, prim 
 manners, a cold temper, and, as a matter 
 of course, an ignorer of dissent in all its 
 forms. Hearing that his kinsman was to 
 be over in the neighbourhood shooting, he 
 invited him to dinner : they dined, and 
 had some conversation afterwards, when
 
 18*6 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Mr. Gilclirist was considerably disap- 
 pointed to &n.d the young laird less deci- 
 dedly on their side than he had hoped. 
 
 "I should not," he said, "expect your 
 father, considering the state of his health, 
 to be at the trouble to interfere. But I 
 must own, my dear Melethor, I am sur- 
 prised — I may say more than surprised — 
 at ^oitr submission " 
 
 " Why, look you here," said the Master, 
 " I am neither theologian nor Church 
 politician, and what, perhaps, concerns 
 the matter more, I am not laird. You 
 alluded to my father. I may tell you 
 flatly and frankly, Mr. Gilchrist, I won't 
 have my father's last days embittered by 
 your Church squabbles." 
 
 "There might be a worse preparation 
 for his change," observed Mr. Gilchrist, a 
 little tartly, "than his taking part with 
 the Church of his forefathers, deserted and
 
 ANOTHER PARSON AT HOME. 187 
 
 maligned as it is by a set of half-mad, 
 half-liypocritieal visionaries. But, waving 
 that," he added, more temperately, and 
 changing the ground, "I don't see the 
 application of your objection. Why should 
 your interference cause any annoyance to 
 your father ? He need never hear of it." 
 
 " You forget my mother," was the Mas- 
 ter's significant reply. 
 
 " It is true, then, that she is as strong 
 on that side as report says ?" 
 
 Melethor gave no direct answer to this 
 question. "You may thank yourselves 
 for all this," he said. 
 
 "Drink your wine, my dear Melethor," 
 said his reverend cousin. " You are in an 
 ill humour." 
 
 " I am not in a very good one," said 
 Melethor. " I repeat it — you have your- 
 selves to thank. I don't refer to your 
 Church corruption — whether it was so
 
 188 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 great as they say, and all that : I dare say 
 there was a good deal of vulgar exaggera- 
 tion; but, had the thing been taken in 
 time, with a little common sense, and a 
 little common exertion, this explosion 
 might have been avoided." 
 
 " Well," said the other ; "we need not 
 discuss so wide and general a question as 
 that. But, in common courtesy to your 
 minister, I think you ought to take up 
 more decided ground." 
 
 ''Do you call that vulgar old wretch my 
 minister?" answered the Master. ''If 
 Calthrop can't be at the trouble to look 
 after his own affairs, he'll find himself in a 
 mistake if he fancies it's because I am 
 looking after them for him. The wonder 
 in his case is that we have not had an 
 interloper long ago. Did not Bland, that 
 time he was down on his exploring mis-
 
 ANOTHER PARSON AT HOME. 189 
 
 sion, this time two years, tell my mother 
 that he had nowhere in the whole course 
 of his tour met with anything like it ? that 
 there was no ignorance like the ignorance 
 of Hallow ? And was not the sufficient 
 reason this, that Calthrop was not over 
 once in six weeks to preach to them ?" 
 
 '' That fellow Bland," observed Mr. Gil- 
 christ, " is a peevish, punctilious puritan. 
 Did he expect to find poor people in 
 Orkney as glib at reply to his whining 
 questions as their town flocks in the 
 south ? They are no worse in Hallow than 
 their neighbours. And, if I recollect 
 aright, your mother gave Mr. Bland but 
 small thanks for his information." 
 
 The Master laughed, and said, jocularly, 
 '' Ay, marry was there something of that 
 kind ! I forget now the exact terms she 
 used, but I recollect that the Edinburgh
 
 190 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 divine had to cougli and give in. I never 
 saw a man make a cleaner pair of heels 
 out of an argument." 
 
 " I can conceive it — served Mm right/* 
 said Caldwel. " But I am the more sur- 
 prised she should take on with these 
 people now, or attach so much weight to 
 their representations." 
 
 '^ I am not at all surprised," said his 
 blunt kinsman. " "Why, look you, sir, it 
 is the fact that the ignorance in Hallow is 
 deplorable, and it is the fact that Calthrop 
 seldom looks near them. Half a dozen 
 sermons a year is rather short allowance." 
 
 '' Then, what on earth," exclaimed the 
 priest of Stifbakness, fairly losing his 
 temper, " could make Markus Skeldar 
 give me such an account of your senti- 
 ments as he did this morning ? The sub- 
 ject is out of his way, perhaps, but he must 
 be a greater monster of stupidity than
 
 ANOTHER PARSON AT HOME. 191 
 
 ever I took him for ; he told me that you 
 were decidedly opposed to these people — 
 ' bitter' was the word." 
 
 *' Bitter — ^but not at them in particular. 
 My friend Markus, as you observe, is no 
 great theological carrier. The fact is, I 
 hate religious discord, and I foresee that 
 we are to have a fine time of it." 
 
 '' Surely," said Mr. Gilchrist, " I know 
 nothing so vulgar, so deplorable. But 
 should not that be a prime motive for 
 keeping these people at a distance?" 
 
 " No, Mr. Gilchrist," said the other ; 
 "had Calthrop done his duty I might 
 have had some pretext, but as it is, I have 
 none. If you will have the truth, I am 
 ashamed of the island. Things must take 
 their course." 
 
 Very unsavoury conclusion this — anti- 
 parochial, as Mr. Bumble has it." Says 
 the dignified but distressed Caldwel, *^I
 
 192 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 will speak to the Presbytery, to Calthrop 
 himself; I will undertake that in future 
 he does duty more regularly." 
 
 " As you please," replied his kinsman. 
 
 '' How, sir ! am I to understand that if 
 there is service in the parish church you 
 will not attend ?" 
 
 " I may or I may not. I won't pledge 
 myself." 
 
 '' Or, if need be, compel your people to 
 go ?" said Caldwel Gilchrist, in rising in- 
 dignation. 
 
 " Most certainly not," replied the 
 Master. 
 
 ti Very well, my dear Melethor — veri/ 
 well, please yourself. I'm sorry for you. 
 You will by-and-by have a fine hotbed of 
 fanaticism upon your hands. And what is 
 more, sir " 
 
 " I am aware of all that, my dear 
 Caldwel, but I must be going."
 
 ANOTHER PARSON AT HOME. 193 
 
 " Won't you stay and take a cup of tea 
 and a hand ? Eliza expects you." 
 
 " Well, I cannot. I have to see Cults, 
 and must he in Kirkwal to-night ; so shake 
 hands.'* 
 
 And so ended his visit to the priest of 
 Stifbakness. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LOGAN RENEWS HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH MR. BALPH RUDDOCK 
 —HE MEETS IN THE ISLAND OF YENTUllEFAIR MR. DAIDLE's 
 TOWNSWOMAN, THE LONG-LOST SALLY BARON. 
 
 On the Saturday before Commencement 
 Sunday Effie met Miss Deerness for the 
 first time. 
 
 Harriet was a blooming girl of sixteen, 
 frank, open, and conyersable. Eresh from 
 a boarding-school, there was nothing 
 missyish about her ; there was an earnest 
 womanliness in her manner for one so 
 young ; no affectation, no attempt to say
 
 A DAY'S ADA^ENTURES. 195 
 
 clever things, plain, cheerful talk and 
 plenty of it ; everything, in short, to be 
 desired in a companion. Had Efiie been 
 at all read in the great bard (prohibited 
 by Logan), she would at once have recog- 
 nised in her new friend the Miranda of the 
 isle. 
 
 But when they came to talk of the great 
 theme, Effie could not avoid perceiving 
 that Miss Deerness was a little deficient. 
 Her notion of the difference between the 
 old state of things and the new appeared 
 to be all summed up in the laughing reply 
 she made to a question from Effie respect- 
 ins^ the venerable incumbent across the 
 water. Effie, picturing to herself a vene- 
 rable, though mistaken, old man, was 
 anxious to compute the time when these 
 unhappy differences should cease and her 
 brother enjoy that clerical companionship 
 without which his lot was, in the mean 
 
 o2
 
 196 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 while, imperfect ; so she asked what sort of 
 person he was, and this was Miranda's 
 description of him : 
 
 " You never saw such an ugly old man. 
 He's always joking and showing his yellow 
 teeth. And he eats sweeties while he's 
 preaching, and that sets the hoys a laugh- 
 ing in church when they see the stragglers 
 falling over on old Jemmy Poster, the pre- 
 centor, and Jemmy pretending to duck 
 down his head, hut all the while wetting 
 his finger and picking them up as fast as 
 he can." 
 
 Effie laughed at the anecdote. *'But 
 how," she asked, jokingly, " are the swee- 
 ties first got into the ministerial mill ?" 
 
 " Oh, very simply. He makes up his 
 camhric pocket-handkerchief in his hand — 
 so — and when he has occasion to cough, 
 the sweeties are there." 
 
 It was a hurning, brilliant harvest day.
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 197 
 
 afid in a saunter round the lake, that 
 Effie thus made the acquaintance of Miss 
 Deerness. In the mean time we are called 
 by the parson's more important discoveries 
 in the neighbouring island of Venture- 
 fair. 
 
 Having employed Captain Kith to row 
 him over, they were leisurely approaching 
 that gem of the Orkneys. One half of the 
 island consists of burnt rock without any 
 shore — in the language of the country, a 
 mool ; but round the mool the other side 
 is fair and fertile. They were in a small 
 punt, only himself and the captain, and as 
 the day was very fine and the parson in a 
 beneficent humour. Captain Kith found 
 him exceedingly chatty and agreeable. 
 How deeply, too, was the captain im- 
 pressed as he paddled along in front of the 
 fire-blasted isle, with the pale, gleaming- 
 eyed ecclesiastic intently inspecting every
 
 198 THE HALLOW ISLE TEAGEDY. 
 
 fissure and pore of the burnt rock ! But 
 when Logan, with uplifted forefinger 
 desiring him to rest on his oars, gave him 
 its whole geological history from be- 
 ginning to end, the captain fairly thought 
 himself bewitched. During the recital 
 his colour went and came as if at every 
 undulation of the deep still water he 
 fancied it was another eruption beginning 
 to boil up from below — as I make no doubt 
 the captain did — for Logan possessed that 
 minute and, as it were, professional faculty 
 of describing the action of fire which, 
 without his intending it, held his auditor's 
 attention until the gallant captain literally 
 grinned with agony. Most heartily glad, 
 therefore, was Captain Kith when, quitting 
 the terrors of the mool, they landed on the 
 fertile side of the island in a beautiful bay, 
 containing two or three houses. 
 
 " Is there anything to be had — can we
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 199 
 
 get any refreshment here?" inquired the 
 parson. 
 
 " There was used/' said the captain, '' to 
 be a puhlic-hoos, but that was a long time 
 ago, when it was a station" (for herring 
 curing). " However, I'll not say but fat it 
 may be there yet. They was used to keep 
 ale — peri weak stuff to be sure, and little 
 sib to fat it suld be — ^but malt's aye thicker 
 than water," quoth the captain, " and it'll 
 not tak 's long to mak a ca'." • 
 
 Readers will understand from this 
 speech of Captain Kith's that they brewed 
 famous strong ale at the Hall House in 
 Hallow. 
 
 A short walk along the beach brought 
 them to the public-house, which was still 
 there. But the name on the signboard 
 over the door had a repellant effect on 
 Captain Kith, not less instantaneous than 
 had the handwriting that appeared on the
 
 200 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 wall to King Belshazzar : he drew back 
 with an aghast expression, while the par- 
 son, thinking it some piece of supersti- 
 tious idolatry, asked him sharply what he 
 meant by exhibiting such slavish terror at 
 sight of a common signboard over a house 
 of public entertainment. 
 
 "It's the lost favourite — her as was called 
 Sally Baron," said the captain, speaking 
 very rapidly and in a low voice ; " once in 
 a weel-to-do way about the hoos owerby, 
 and muckle thought o' she was — a braw 
 besom she was — she was childer-maid and 
 had charge o' the childer. But the leddy 
 and her quarrelled, and Madam Sally got 
 the pack — and pack she did- — some said on 
 a broomstick ; but I don't think so much 
 about that as the curse o' an angry woman, 
 and to all appearance of a starving woman, 
 forby, for her name was prohibit from that 
 day furth, and now here it's on a public-
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 201 
 
 hoos as white 's a leper, this twenty year 
 kenned for poverty without and poverty 
 within. Safe and keep us, minister, if I like 
 this ava ! Turn your back, sir,'' added 
 the captain, hastily suiting the action to 
 the word in his own person ; ''I see the 
 face glowerin at 's through the dirty win- 
 nock !" 
 
 Logan, in fact, did perceive the outline 
 of a human countenance at one window on 
 the ground-floor of the tenement while he 
 was surveying the dilapidated exterior, and 
 wondering by what capricious turn of for- 
 tune it had attained to the wretchedness 
 of a second story : as for the other houses, 
 they appeared to have no inhabitants at 
 all, and the whole place had a look of evil 
 omen, the more depressing from its ex- 
 hibiting the marks of former trade, such 
 as iron rings and mooring-posts, and there 
 was a kind of fishy smell.
 
 202 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 It was to this the parson paid the na- 
 tural tribute of a sigh, not to the captain's 
 legend, though it had old Daidle's story to 
 back it. 
 
 " You are superstitious, my dear cap- 
 tain," said he ; " the poor malice of a dis- 
 carded servant is not likely to have sur- 
 vived so long, even should this woman be 
 the same you refer to. Enter and ascer- 
 tain whether we can have any refresh- 
 ment." 
 
 They entered accordingly. The landlady, 
 an odd-looking woman, very meanly clad, 
 but with some grey ringlets escaping from 
 under a coif that might have seen better 
 days, merely stared in answer to the chat- 
 tering captain's civil " How's a' wi' us the 
 day, mistress ?" And the ale was as little 
 akin to that genial beverage as the captain 
 had predicted. With regard to the woman 
 herself, he was obliged to confess he could
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 203 
 
 not be absolutely certain whether she was 
 the person or not. Now, nothing annoyed 
 Logan more than this sort of wavering 
 weakness. Captain Kith, however, replied 
 appositely enough, " That, as far as the 
 short look he got of her gaed, he thought 
 she was the same, but ye maun mind, 
 minister, its twenty year syne, and that 
 and the bra elaes maks a difference." 
 
 " Do they call this ale?" said the par- 
 son, indignantly. " I cannot perceive that 
 it has the most distant resemblance to ale. 
 Is there no other house — nothing better to 
 be had than this wretched trash ?" 
 
 The captain was afraid not. '^ Except 
 your Eeverence was to gie the laird a ca' 
 and bid him draw 's bottle on 's." 
 
 " The laird? — the proprietor of the island, 
 you mean : who is he ?" 
 
 " Ou, deed, sir, no very muckle fan a' 's 
 done," replied Captain Kith ; " deest that
 
 204 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 weary peri body, Balph Unddock. There's 
 other two proprietors forby, but they don't 
 live in the island, and so Balph's like king 
 o' the whole." 
 
 " Aha !" cried Logan, " I am then in 
 the country of my friend Mr. Euddock. 
 And that I suppose is his house on the 
 other side of the creek ?" 
 
 " That's his hoos round the voe ; they 
 call it the Hall," said the captain ; " and 
 so, since your E/Cverence kens Balph, he'll 
 canna help himsel' — he must draw 's bottle 
 on s. 
 
 But, either disregarding or not observ- 
 ing that the captain spoke in the plural, 
 Logan left him to finish the jug, while he 
 himself posted round the little bay to call 
 on his friend Mr. Euddock, whose seat, 
 situated near the mouth of a small rivulet, 
 was snugly secluded from all winds save
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 205 
 
 the south. There seemed to be a garden 
 of some sort behind. 
 
 The parson, taking his stick to it, gave 
 a good hearty, cheerful knock at the door. 
 It was opened by a small elderly man in a 
 dock-tail-coat and pantaloons — the crab- 
 apples in his cheeks might denote indif- 
 ferent health, and perhaps a spice of iras- 
 cibility. No ordinary penetration could 
 have divined for a moment that this vras 
 Balph's brother, Mr. Petrie. Logan, sup- 
 posing him to be the butler, asked if his 
 master was at home, and received for an- 
 swer a loud "No!" 
 
 So loud, indeed, as to make our friend 
 start : he begged pardon : " Is Mr. Hud- 
 dock at home ?" 
 
 " I believe I am all that's for him just 
 at present," replied Mr. Petrie. '* I be- 
 lieve I am at home, but can't just say for
 
 206 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 certain — any letters ? any peri testifieate ? 
 Name, if you please." 
 
 "Morland: tlie Eeverend Logan Mor- 
 land." 
 
 " Did you want anything, sir ? We 
 stick to our own persuasion !" added Mr. 
 Petrie, hastily, the crab-apples in his 
 cheeks giying out a brighter flush of 
 nervous alarm. 
 
 '' The poor man must be insane," thought 
 Logan, and was about to turn away, when 
 Mr. Petrie, ashamed of his stingy weak- 
 ness, threw wide the hospitable door. 
 
 " Step in, sir — step in; both glad to see 
 you." 
 
 So saying, he ushered the visitor into a 
 little dark parlour, he himself disappearing 
 in a closet off it, from which, after some 
 groping and jingling, he at length produced 
 the Hall bottle, and having poured out a 
 couple of glasses, Mr. Petrie proceeded
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 207 
 
 further to enact the hospitable landlord. 
 He ran on : 
 
 "Your very good health, sir; we are 
 happy to see you at Pair Hall. Your name, 
 I think you said, was Kirkland." 
 
 " Morland, sir," corrected the envoy. 
 
 " Jfordand — very good — the modern 
 style of it ; Kirkland, the ancient, origin- 
 ally plain Kirh, afterwards changed to 
 more by the figure habeas — you'll find the 
 whisky very good. One .'" (Mr. Petrie had 
 a whimsical custom of counting his jokes, 
 one, two, three, and so on, as they oc- 
 curred.) " They tell a good story of one 
 to the norrit of this, who, thinking to do 
 honour to a gentleman of your cloth, en- 
 tertained the ganger unawares. Two I I 
 don't perceive that you carry a poke — 
 don't be alarmed, it's only to put the joke 
 in. Three .'" 
 
 " Sir !" said my friend, haughtily, by no
 
 208 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 means relishing Mr. Petrie's pleasantries, 
 or sure of what hidden satiric meaning 
 might lurk under that last periphrasis of 
 the poke. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha !'* laughed Mr. 
 Petrie, heartily, " I thought I would he 
 too much for you, Mr. Morland. I gene- 
 rally am for most people at first — know 
 me better by-and-by. All wit, sir, pure 
 wit, and nothing else. Lord bless you ! 
 we couldn't live without it here. I wonder 
 Balph hasn't smoked us — again, you see ! 
 he's smoking his pipe in the garden. Not 
 like Balph — nor the bottle either! Pop 
 again. You see, sir, it can't be helped, and 
 will out." 
 
 After their glass of tipple, he pro- 
 posed that they should join his brother in 
 the garden. " Balph," he observed, " some- 
 times falls asleep out of doors — at his age 
 and habit of body not a good thing."
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 209 
 
 With the fraternal remark, much more to 
 the purpose than his jokes, Logan thought, 
 Mr. Petrie lifted the hack door latch and 
 stepped softly into the garden. , 
 
 As he anticipated, it was a mere jungle 
 of the stunted undergrowth of the climate, 
 the same that mantled the small rivulet 
 winding along the garden foot, and at the 
 further end of what purported to he a walk 
 they found Mr. Balph, seated in a sort of 
 arhour, smoking his meerschaum. He 
 was half asleep. Awaking at the sound of 
 his hrother's voice, he looked up, recog- 
 nised at once his late fellow-passenger, 
 shook hands with Logan, and, making 
 room for him on the seat, resumed the con- 
 versation exactly where they had left off 
 on hoard the steamer. Logan noticed this 
 the more particularly, as it was on the sub- 
 ject of parish schools. Mr. Petrie, who 
 required hut little sitting room, contrived 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 to edge himself in also. And before he 
 began his discourse, Logan being seated 
 between the two brothers, facetiously com- 
 pared himself to the device in the coat of 
 arms over the front door, which, from the 
 cursory glance he had time to take of 
 it while in treaty with Mr. Petrie, ap- 
 peared to be, in the centre, a tower, having 
 for supporters an owl on the right and 
 a lapwing on the left — emblems, the one 
 of the sapientia pair ice, and the other of 
 the winnowed sterility of its soil. 
 
 But after all, Parson Logan was not, 
 perhaps, the man to sit in judgment here ; 
 the bent of his genius disqualified him for 
 exploring the inner life of so singular a 
 pair. Nay, their outer life was a mystery 
 to him ; what they found to do he could 
 not imagine. The chief occupation of the 
 elder brother seemed to be smoking to-
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 211 
 
 bacco in the willows, and the younger to 
 inhabit the ancestral den. Of this latter 
 he had an instance. Just as he was fairly 
 getting into his subject, Mr. Petrie inter- 
 rupted him with a sudden exclamation of 
 alarm : " We've been lang enough out 
 whatever. I must go and see what's gan 
 on in the house ?" Now this, unless it 
 was another joke, which it could hardly be, 
 must have referred to the proceedings of 
 a certain politic convocation of mice, who 
 were believed to have a fine time of it in 
 the parlour closet when they had the house 
 to themselves. 
 
 Of Captain Kith's old acquaintance 
 Balph appeared to know absolutely no- 
 thing beyond the bare fact that such a 
 woman was his tenant, and that she had 
 paid her first half-year s rent at Lammas, 
 and although Petrie, indeed, appeared to 
 
 p2
 
 212 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 be mucli fuller on the subject, his budget 
 was conveyed with so many knowing 
 winks, and inuendoes, and jocular and other 
 vocabular obscurities, as defied all Logan's 
 efforts to bring what the poor man said 
 within anything like the bounds of reliable 
 information. 
 
 To put the finishing touch to a lost day 
 (for such my friend began to consider it), 
 the Ruddocks were early people ; dinner 
 was over at the Hall, and the parson had to 
 put up with bread-and- cheese ; and as he 
 had a person to see in the island about 
 some other matter of business, he made no 
 scruple of taking a somewhat abrupt leave. 
 I did not know at the time, but I ascer- 
 tained afterwards what Logan's business in 
 Yenturefair was. Effie having been made 
 a present of a cow by Mrs. Deerness, he 
 was over to see a man who was a famous 
 maker of churns, milk bowies, and other
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 213 
 
 sucli dairy gear. In short, his call at the 
 Hall and his dairy purchases consumed 
 fully a couple of hours, and it was nearly 
 three o'clock in the afternoon when he re- 
 turned to the public-house where he had 
 left Captain Kith. 
 
 He saw the same woman who appeared 
 to he landlady. She smiled in answer to 
 his inquiries after the captain, and said 
 she believed he was hiding somewhere 
 about. , 
 
 " I fancy I must have frightened the 
 silly man away." And therewithal, fixing 
 her dark melancholy eyes on the parson, 
 she added, with another smile, '* Your man, 
 sir, and I are old acquaintances ; you, I 
 presume to conjecture, are the new clergy- 
 man lately come to Hallow ?" 
 
 A dry ''Yes" from the parson. 
 
 *' And the lady and you are as chief as 
 may be, I suppose ?"
 
 214 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 " Yes, we are on very good terms, or 
 cliief, as you call it." 
 
 The woman's face, as she still looked 
 fixedly at him, seemed to fill with some 
 strange and indescribable emotion. 
 
 " Tell her," she said, " tell the Lady of 
 Hallow, when next you have speech of 
 her, that you saw and spoke to Sally 
 Baron." 
 
 *' Your language is mysterious, my good 
 woman," said Logan, " and would seem, if 
 my ear does not deceive me, to intimate a 
 grudge against an estimable lady and her 
 family. What mean you ?" 
 
 " The story is too long to tell, sir. Don*t 
 let me detain you from the worthy cap- 
 tain." 
 
 *' You seem to be in poor circum- 
 stances," observed Logan. 
 
 "Yes, sir, I am very poor. There's but
 
 A DAY'S ADYENTURES. 215 
 
 little money to be got in keeping a house 
 like this." 
 
 " I was about to observe/' continued 
 my friend, " that you seem, in addition to 
 your poverty, to be cherishing a frame and 
 temper of mind that, believe me, are the 
 worst seasoning ever was tried to improve 
 a sorry lot." 
 
 " What you say, sir, is very true," re- 
 plied the woman. '^ Poverty and the tem- 
 per are two of the most difficult things to 
 cure that I know." 
 
 " You appear, moreover, to have received 
 a tolerably good education." 
 
 She interrupted him with a smile (if 
 it was not dissembled) of much sweet- 
 ness. 
 
 '* You are young, sir, and romantic — 
 pardon the freedom of the remark — but 
 you must not go away with the idea that
 
 216 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 you have discovered here to-day an in- 
 digent and reduced gentlewoman. I was 
 educated at a charity hospital, and as you 
 see, sir, I have not yet done with my 
 lessons." 
 
 Our parson, his compassion moved, said 
 here, with a kind of jocose earnestness, 
 " I warrant now, Miss Sally, were I to 
 offer you sixpence, you would fling it in 
 my face." 
 
 Logan put a shilling into her hand. 
 
 " Bless you, young man !" she said, with 
 some emotion. "Well, I am not what I 
 appear ; once I was in very, very different 
 circumstances, but not now can I relate 
 my sad history. It may he that we shall 
 meet again, when perhaps you may hear my 
 story. Parewell, sir, for the present. You 
 will find Kith waiting for you down in 
 yonder shed on the shore." 
 
 It was even so. Directing his steps to-
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 217 
 
 wards the shed pointed out, he found Cap- 
 tain Kith beguiling the time after the 
 American fashion, with his knife and a 
 
 a 
 
 piece of wood. The captain's expressive 
 countenance wore in an unwonted de- 
 gree the pale cast of thought. He liked 
 the captain, and was fond of drolling on 
 him. 
 
 *' I have seen our landlady again, cap- 
 tain," said Logan, '^ and from all that I can 
 gather, she must have frightened you 
 wholly out of the house, and half out of 
 your wits." 
 
 *' And time," said the captain, "with 
 her grusome questions, the upstart, tyran- 
 nical, and now forlorn castawa' besom! My 
 very flesh creepit, minister, to hear her at 
 her high English again, and her threaps 
 and her threats. It's an aid back story 
 now,'* continued the captain; "but when 
 she was in power across the way, and in
 
 218 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 higli favour with the leddy, there wasn't 
 a man, woman, or wean could call the 
 very duds that covered them their ain ; 
 the very quinies durstna wear anew ribbon 
 at the kirk without Madam Sal's permis- 
 sion. Howanever, sir, you know, better 
 than I can tell you, the wicked shall not 
 be, and their place shall be cut off. Sae 
 the upshot was that Madam Sal was 
 found out at last. And I had a hand in 
 that same^^ concluded the captain, some- 
 what emphatically, as well as abruptly. 
 He started up and led the way to their 
 boat, for once taking precedence of his 
 Reverence, a circumstance significant of 
 some passing mental disturbance in a man 
 so habitually observant of his proper 
 place. 
 
 Launching the punt, they put off on 
 their return passage. Lustily the captain 
 pulled out for the first half-mile or so, ere
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 219 
 
 he raised his oars to take breath and look 
 about him, in the clear burning Septem- 
 ber afternoon ; while the parson's gaze, 
 directed backwards, was fixed on the de- 
 serted station and its miserable inn. 
 
 " I know not how it is, captain," said 
 the parson, " but this woman, this Sally 
 Baron, interests me. I cannot, as you 
 would say, get her out of my head. Are 
 you quite sure, my good friend, that there 
 are not two sides to the story — that she. 
 had no provocation, no indifferent usage 
 among you ?" 
 
 " I will not say that she had not," re- 
 plied Captain Kith. '* I ken few folk 
 that ever suffered in this world — unless, 
 with submission to your Reverence, it 
 be the deil himself — but what could 
 put in that plea. It's not," said the 
 captain, growing positively oracular — 
 "it's not the provocation, but the pride
 
 220 THE, HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 that coraes of it, that pruvs fattle" (proves 
 fatal). " This woman she was not of this 
 country or degree, but came into it to 
 pooss her fortune, as was thought ; she 
 would then be a gilpin of two or three and 
 twenty. Her first beginning was with a 
 family in Corby sholme as a who-ca'd, a 
 better kind of bairn-maid." 
 
 '^ Governess," suggested Logan. 
 
 " That same," continued the captain. 
 " Our present maister, that's now aid 
 Hallow, was not then married, but a visit- 
 ing bacheleer at most houses round about. 
 In course, minister, I would tell this to no- 
 body but yourser. Aweel, sir, the story went 
 — be'd true be'd a leasing — that Hallow 
 was gan to marry the governess. Whether 
 there ever was anything in it, God kens ; 
 some said that there was, and that he let 
 them laugh him out of her, and a freend*s
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 221 
 
 jeer is whiles hard to bide, as your reve- 
 rence knows. Anyway, she was a vain, 
 good-looking, hameless gilpin; and the 
 master being, as I said afore, a bacheleer 
 friend o' the house, he put nonsense in her 
 head — that much was allowed on all hands 
 — and the nobody-novice that she was, she 
 expected to be made Leddy Hallow : she 
 might as weel have expected to be Queen 
 of Sheba ! Ere lang, the maister married 
 in his own sephere a wife, that's to say, 
 our present honoured mistress ; andMadam 
 Sally, she gangs down to Dirdum and taks 
 the first offer that cam to hand in her own 
 sephere, a skipper and part owner of a 
 trading brig to Leith, and the ports in the 
 Purth of Perth. But fortune winna thraw, 
 minister. Before the twelvemonth cam 
 round, the proud besom's makshift mar- 
 riage was coos' en up to her ; she married
 
 222 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 a plain seafaring man that she knew could 
 hardly sign his name, so the Lord sent a 
 storm, and man and vessel were never 
 more heard of. Not very long after that, 
 the laird heard of her as a widow, child- 
 less, and in very poorly circumstances; 
 and the leddy being like to tak the teeth 
 fever of Mr. Weatherby, the family doctor, 
 the same that's still in power, aid Brechin, 
 advised them to this woman for a nurse. 
 And that's how she cam amang us. But 
 I confess, your Beverence, it iickles me to 
 spell the fancy the leddy took to this 
 woman, this Sal Baron ; howanever, beyond 
 dispute, a friendship it was, and it grew 
 great and strong, beyond all common 
 friendship in height, till the woman's head 
 was as high as Jack on the beanstalk, or 
 the gourd, your Beverence, of the prophet 
 Joppa 1" 
 
 " Jonah, you would say, captain."
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTUEES. 223 
 
 *' The same, the same," quoth the cap- 
 tain ; ''he was on 's way down to Joppa, 
 and I confounded the twa names. How- 
 anever, that's nought to the story o' the 
 woman. The aid story was not that so 
 forgotten, your Reverence, but it whiles 
 coost up ower the punch-bowl. Aweel, 
 sir, if they had their joke, the laird had 
 his answer. He just laughed and said, 
 'May none of them ever have a waur 
 passing fancy at their board ends.' But it 
 bred mischief in the end, your Reverence, 
 and I canna help thinking was at the 
 bottom of the hale dirdum. Great was her 
 favour, but as great her downcome, and 
 bitter and black, your Eeverence, was the 
 outcast between the leddy and her. But 
 there was no particulars, not likely," con- 
 cluded the captain; " ilka ane just shapet 
 the story to their ain mind. She has not 
 been heard of for many years, and a man I
 
 224 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 asked at, tells me she has been here about 
 six months. Sae guess ye, minister, fat a 
 carfuffle I gat at sight o' the name on that 
 forlorn public-hoos. I wad it had looked 
 in any airt but Hallow ; it has a waesome 
 glower." 
 
 ' " Once more, my dear captain, you are 
 superstitious," said the parson. " You 
 have told me the story of the downfal of 
 an imperious favourite, and they are far 
 from being few in this world. I will make 
 inquiry into the poor creature's circum- 
 stances, and see what can be done for her." 
 And so ended the adventure of the day, 
 the parson arriving at his own home in 
 the evening in time for a cup of tea with 
 Effie. Of Miss Sally Baron he judged it 
 prudent to say nothing in the mean time. 
 Eut he did Mr. Petrie Euddock less than 
 justice when he described his conversation 
 as from beginning to end absolutely unin-
 
 A DAY'S ADVENTURES. 225 
 
 telligible— a mere glimmer and rush of 
 words — a kind of hospitable convulsion. 
 He did not say he expected, but it was pos- 
 sible that the other brother, Balph, who 
 appeared to be the laird, might return his 
 call. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 LOGAN PREACHES HIS TIRST SEEMON — A TWILIGHT SKETCH AT 
 THE OLD PARISH CHURCH — WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF EFEIE's 
 TWO FIRST LOVERS. 
 
 Sunday brouglit a change of weather. 
 When Effie looked out in the morning 
 everything was shrouded in grey^ and a 
 chill wind moaning on the sea. 
 
 The absence of sunshine was considered 
 rather a boon, however, by the principal 
 personage of the day. To Mrs. Deerness, 
 with her religious tendency to asceticism, 
 the leaden solemnity of the atmosphere
 
 PULLIC WORSHIP RESUMED. 227 
 
 was pleasing and appropriate ; it was, as it 
 were, put on: and it was really with, a 
 heart full of maternal satisfaction that she 
 said, " Now, boys, you are all to go to 
 church." 
 
 A previous similar order had been issued 
 to the inhabitants generally ; but it needed 
 not the feudal command to ensure a good 
 muster among poor people to whom a ser- 
 mon was become a double treat from its 
 rarity. They came from the farthest parts* 
 of the island, and Logan had the satisfac- 
 tion, supreme and dearest to the parsonic 
 heart, of preaching to an overflowing au- 
 dience. The text was, ^' I have brought you 
 out of darkness into light." Yerily this 
 first sermon of our friend's was a shower 
 in season after a long drought. The poor 
 emptied hearts were filled again with 
 something to talk about when they got 
 home. If the preacher erred at all, it was 
 
 q2
 
 228 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 towards the conclusion of his discourse, 
 just before the final peroration, when he 
 glanced more severely at the sin of 
 Sabbath-breaking than the case at all 
 warranted, or than he would have done on 
 a wider acquaintance with their insular 
 necessities. 
 
 They were asked to dine after at the 
 house. Everything was in keeping ; there 
 was social enjoyment without that excess 
 which sometimes disfigures the day of 
 rest ; and evening came clothed in the 
 old conventional form (not the worst, 
 perhaps), when those who had to go 
 home went home, and all sat down to 
 their books. 
 
 Logan having some sick calls to make 
 at the Black Moss, Effie took the oppor- 
 tunity of indulging a fancy she had to see 
 the old parish church, the gable and belfry 
 of which, in the red twilight, reminded 
 her of something she had seen very like it
 
 THE OLD PARISH CHURCH. 229 
 
 in a collection of sombre-coloured prints 
 belonging to their father when they were 
 children : this print haunted Effie's me- 
 mory still, and often and regretfully had 
 she endeavoured to trace back what had 
 become of it. 
 
 The kirk of Hallow stands on the sea- 
 ward verge of some high-lying downs, 
 which, a little beyond, drop suddenly to the 
 shore. Off this rocky coast there is good 
 fishing, and when it begins to grow dark 
 the natives may be seen in their small 
 punts, each containing, generally, an old 
 man and a boy ; in some cases you may 
 find the little fellow alone, but rarely the 
 old one, the climate and exposure to the 
 weather rendering them more than usually 
 torpid with years ; and as it is their prin- 
 cipal means of subsistence, they fish the 
 whole or greater part of the night. 
 
 Observing these specks in the darkening 
 twilight, Effie could not at first make out
 
 230 TflE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 what they were ; and to say the truth, she 
 was a little shocked when she discovered, 
 by watching attentively the nearest, that 
 they were human beings, sitting in what 
 could hardly be called boats, but a preca- 
 rious kind of cobble, that looked as if it 
 would fill and go down at every ripple. 
 Nevertheless, Effie felt a keen interest in 
 the poor creatures sitting out thus all 
 night in the whistling wind, with perhaps 
 a hundred fathoms water under them. 
 On the whole, it did not continue to 
 strike her that they were Sabbath-break- 
 ing, though that was one of the forms of 
 the sin denounced in the day's sermon. 
 
 But the church. It was a small, plain 
 Gothic building, with little to distinguish 
 it from a common barn, except its single 
 transept, lancet-headed windows, and bel- 
 fry on the east gable. The windows were 
 broken, the door was wide open, and the
 
 THE OLD PARISH CHURCH. 231 
 
 sea-breeze wMstled througli it, mingled 
 with, occasional dirge-like sounds as of 
 singing, that seemed to come from the 
 brood of cobbles below in the bay. But 
 this, Effie thought, must be illusion ; they 
 could not be actual human tones which 
 she heard — more likely they came from 
 the bell being off the chain and swaying^ 
 in the wind. Pulpit and pews of the 
 rudest construction were overrun with 
 fungus. "You never saw anything like 
 it, Mary," wrote Efhe; "the puddock- 
 stools were growing on the very pulpit 
 and book-boards, and some of the Bibles 
 were lying about, just as they had been 
 left since the last time it was preached 
 in." 
 
 Shameful, shameful to see such a ruin ! 
 "While EflB.e stood painfully entranced at 
 the sight, suddenly she heard voices speak- 
 ing outside, and, drawing back in some
 
 232 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 alarm, she was greatly surprised to see old 
 Mr. Deerness enter the churchyard, ac- 
 companied by his eldest son, and followed 
 by a third person, a stranger to them, 
 apparently. The man appeared to be beg- 
 ging : so at least Effie inferred, from the 
 sharp, suppressed tone in which the 
 younger Deerness told him to go about 
 his business, and the elder's amendment 
 to give him sixpence put the matter be- 
 yond a doubt. The man got his sixpence 
 and disappeared, and she heard the Mas- 
 ter, as if still chafing at the interruption, 
 say he was drunk, and the old man reply, 
 '' Like enough." 
 
 Pather and son walked round to the 
 side of the church fronting to the sea, and 
 Effie, without much thinking of the pro- 
 priety or impropriety of the action, took a 
 peep at them from one of the windows. 
 They seemed to be looking for some par-
 
 HlC JACET. 233 
 
 ticular gravestone. After considering the 
 ground attentively, old Mr. Deerness, in- 
 dicating two furrows with his staff, said, 
 *' It should be here, or hereabout." The 
 Master then knelt down, and cleared 
 away the grass from both : at the second 
 he rose, and mechanically touched his 
 cap. 
 
 " You're sure ?" said the father. 
 
 ''Quite," replied the son. "The initials 
 and crest are plain enough." 
 
 *' Then, so far we're at rest," said the old 
 laird ; ''I was in some doubts whether 
 the stone could be found, but I knew there 
 was one. Something else I had to say 
 to you, Melethor, for I plainly foresee 
 that when I am removed there is to be 
 strife between your mother and you, and 
 Eaby " 
 
 But here Effie caught herself, and got 
 as quietly out of the church as she could.
 
 234 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 The incidents of the night were not yet 
 ended. Kith, at the door, anxiously look- 
 ing for them coming home, said there was 
 a man in the parlour, " seekin to see mi- 
 nister, and she was dreed feared he was 
 sair the warr o' drink !" 
 
 " Drink 1" said Effie. " Oh, surely no." 
 
 " As sure as this is the Lord's night," 
 said Kith. 
 
 Her mistress desired her to run for Miller 
 Bisset, their neighbour, who, being luckily 
 at home, was soon procured ; then swiftly 
 an d silently returning with the miller they 
 put him into the parlour. Now, the jolly 
 miller was a soft-spoken young man of 
 seventeen stone weight. 
 
 '' That's a bonny afternoon been, freend," 
 they heard the miller say ; and again, no 
 notice being taken of his first salutation, 
 ''If it's a fair question, wha or what may
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S RETURN. 235 
 
 you be, freend ? Are you aware that this 
 is Sabbath night ?" 
 
 The man replied in hollow rub-a-dub, 
 evidently tipsy, 
 
 " Tell your master or your mistress my 
 name's Pleteher — do you hear ? — Gideon 
 Fletcher." 
 
 Gracious Heaven, Mary's brother ! 
 
 Now, although Effie never greatly liked 
 this Mr. Gideon, still, having been an ad- 
 mirer when they first came to Chapel-end, 
 he was a sort of old flame, and such a shock 
 (coming tipsy on a Sunday night), after an 
 eighteen months' separation, was very, 
 very dreadful. She ran at once for Lo- 
 gan. 
 
 But it was impossible to fortel what 
 view Logan would take of almost anything. 
 He came to the door of the house where 
 he was visiting — it was the last on his
 
 236 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 list home — came out and heard Effie's 
 panting tale. 
 
 " You must be exaggerating, Effie," he 
 said; ''you have been taken by surprise, 
 that's all. It is impossible Eletcher can 
 be so altered, nor is it the least likely he 
 would have come to me had he been so 
 very much in drink — that part of it is 
 clearly an illusion of your own and your 
 messan Kith ; drink is always the first 
 thing women suspect. But come in — I 
 shall soon have done here.'* 
 
 Nearly an hour, however, was thus lost, 
 and when our parson reached his home for 
 the night Mr. Eletcher had been gone for 
 some time. Bitter were Logan's reproaches 
 on her cowardice, which had thus driven 
 " an old friend and brother in the ministry 
 to seek a night's lodging in the first hovel 
 that offered him the common rites of hos- 
 pitality;" while Eiffie, a little nettled by so
 
 OUT AT ELBOWS. 237 
 
 much fine speaking at her expense, " dare- 
 say' d he would cast up in the morning." 
 My friend looked as if he had a thrilling 
 inclination to darr*aign some further hattle 
 with her upon that speech, but he forbore, 
 out of respect to the night. 
 
 The gentleman did cast up in the morn- 
 ing. He looked very shabby and very 
 sober, however that latter matter might 
 have been; and if kindness could have 
 atoned for a late panic, even the parson 
 must have been satisfied with the recep- 
 tion accorded to his friend. But in truth 
 it seemed very doubtful whether so droop- 
 ing a plant could much benefit by any 
 amount of watering, or how far natural 
 gladness to see him could cheer so dull a 
 guest. Pletcher was always a heavy fel- 
 low. What an account he gave of his mis- 
 sionary sufferings and doings ! — labours he 
 called them, but it was difficult to see their
 
 238 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 title to that designation ; however, as Lo- 
 gan was in want of a helper — or fancied he 
 was, which came to the same thing — ^the 
 result was that he struck a bargain with 
 Eletcher for a month. 
 
 The first day and the second passed off 
 tolerably well — the new inmate accom- 
 panied Logan on his rounds ; but the third 
 day Mr. Gideon was ill and not able to go 
 out; the fourth the same. Again Effie 
 had to listen to the lachrymose story of 
 his sufferings abroad. All day he talked 
 of the ague, and kept up such a drone of 
 that and his other climatic complaints, 
 that, had he not been Mary's brother, Effie 
 would have felt strongly tempted to ask 
 him, " Man, man, are they all like you ? 
 for what a strange pit of dulness it must 
 be !" In conclusion, he regretted his pre- 
 sent impaired usefulness, and asked Effie
 
 THE CONVALESCENT. 239 
 
 to give him a glass of whisky. A whole 
 day to ask a dram ! 
 
 Logan heard her report with disappro- 
 bation. " What ! a clergyman, an invalid, 
 and their guest, after all he had suffered 
 for the spread of the Gospel, did she 
 grudge the cheering stimulus of a glass of 
 spirits in so clear a case of necessity?" He 
 would not accuse her of positive insensi- 
 bility — nervous tremors, the parson said 
 — and pooh-poohed all her objections as 
 foolish^ frivolous, and worldly. " She had, 
 moreover," he observed, '* let slip the 
 epithet ' ugly man,' as a further objection 
 to his friend — and Pletcher was certainly 
 no Adonis — but never let him hear such a 
 word come out of her mouth again !" 
 
 The daily dram being thus carried by 
 prescription, Effie heard less of the ague, 
 and more and more of old times, of Roslyn
 
 240 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 and Hawtliornden, and sister Moll — in a 
 word, Gideon Pletcher did begin to show 
 symptoms of convalescence. Like a de- 
 cayed, but not altogether dead, shrub in 
 spring, there was even a feeble appearance 
 of blossom ; and it was then that Effie's 
 other " braw wooer" appeared. I have only 
 to name Mr. Ruddock of Yenturefair. 
 
 The parson was mightily pleased to see 
 his good friend Mr. Huddock, and the 
 more so that Balph accompanied his first 
 visit by the gallant declaration that, '' had 
 he known his good friend the parson had 
 such attractions to his peri ingle, he should 
 have been over long before now — by his 
 poat, he should !" 
 
 I need not say that Fletcher and he 
 fought like cats ; and that Effie, if she was 
 not absolutely convicted of the fact, was 
 strongly suspected by the parson of giving
 
 THE RIVALS. 241 
 
 them abundance of that species of encou- 
 ragement when his back was turned. 
 
 This, though an approximation, is not 
 quite a fair statement of the case. But if 
 they would fight, Effie could not help 
 laughing. How could she? One day 
 Balph departed the levee rather abruptly, 
 with something like a distinct threat of 
 formally calling his rival out. '' If per- 
 sons," he said, " would put themselves in 
 opposition to gentlemen, they must take 
 the consequences ; he could see no reason 
 why their cloth should protect them more 
 as others. And by his poat he would not 
 be long of being back again 1" 
 
 Not long, indeed. Scarcely had he left 
 the beach when Ej6S.e, who stood at the 
 window watching her angry lover's re- 
 treating skiff, observed that he had put 
 about and was paddling back to shore with 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 strokes of the utmost swiftness and fury. 
 Now, slie knew, there was to be a battle ; 
 and Effie retreated to the kitchen, where, 
 with Kith, she could watch it at safe dis- 
 tance — unless they should shut the parlour 
 door to it; which, however, they very 
 seldom did. 
 
 Balph re-entering the parlour, resumed 
 his seat in silence ; he first knit his brows 
 on missing Efiie, but instantly after looked 
 mightily pleased — it was a good sign find- 
 ing his rival alone. Eletcher had taken 
 up a book; he continued to read on in 
 squalid and utter indifference to the pre- 
 sence of the Orcadian magnate; while 
 Balph E^uddock on his side directed a bale- 
 ful and searching glance at his irrespective 
 competitor. " Confound the fellow," said 
 Mr. Euddock to himself, ^' he takes my 
 return tamt coolly !" 
 
 A new and alarming light began to
 
 THE RIVALS. 243 
 
 strike the bearded solitary. What if the 
 man was a cousin, or something of that 
 advanced sort ? At length he asked him. 
 
 '' Ahem!" said Balph, "if I might teek 
 such a liberty as to — a — pree, sir, are you 
 any reletion to the house ?" 
 
 " None," answered the bookworm. 
 
 " Then what, pree," quoth Balph, '' in 
 the name of common civility ? Don't you 
 know it is not that book you are gnawing 
 at, but my — my heart ! Man of sighs, I 
 charge you to declare yourself ! What is 
 to be the end of all this ?" 
 
 Fletcher raised his dull, yellow eyes for a 
 moment, surveyed his lairdly rival, blew a 
 sigh in his face, and fell again to his book. 
 It was the one solitary advantage Eietcher 
 had over him, and poor Mr. Ruddock's 
 want of 'Hhe lair," as it has been em- 
 phatically termed, shot through his heart 
 with a pang unutterable. 
 
 n2
 
 244 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Still he was^ Euddock of Venturefair. 
 
 " Perhaps,'* said Balph, highly nettled, 
 " as you seem to be the downdie here (the 
 reader must not forget what a downdie 
 is) — perhaps you will have the civility to 
 carry a mess'ge to the young leedy, and 
 tell her that I am " 
 
 Eletcher rose with a yawn, and walked 
 out. 
 
 '^Herel" shouted Balph after him, 
 " the unmannerly, tamt, miserable beast, 
 he does not know common civility ! Surely, 
 to Heaven's goodness, she will never take 
 such a sluggard as that. But she's a 
 pratty girl, and I am determined. Yes, 
 I am determined to give Petrie the sur- 
 prise I was preparing for the best of 
 brothers." 
 
 There are a great many worthy and de- 
 serving men in the world, who are not to 
 be despised because they happen to be a
 
 THE RIVALS. 245 
 
 little ridiculous ; Mr. K-uddock was one of 
 them. Why should not Effie hecome Mrs. 
 Balph Ruddock ? 
 
 In the mean time, an invitation from 
 Mrs. Deerness to spend a week at the 
 House, gave her a short respite from both 
 her admirers.
 
 246 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DEATH OF THE OLD LAISD. 
 
 None of the family, not even Mrs. Deer- 
 ness herself, seemed to have any apprehen- 
 sion that the event was so near. The night 
 he died (the second or third of EflB.e's visit), 
 an incident occurred that struck her after- 
 wards as in some sort a precursor of the 
 event. It was early in the evening before 
 tea ; the boys were in the schoolroom 
 opposite the parlour, or what had been the 
 schoolroom before their tutor was paid off. 
 It was used as a smoking and billiard
 
 SIGNS. 247 
 
 room now, and hitherto there had been no 
 interdict on the run of amusements and 
 their meeting in it as usual ; the old man 
 at the fireside was accustomed to hear 
 them knocking the balls about — it was part 
 of his evening as well as theirs — and Mrs. 
 Deerness, with all her ideas of propriety 
 and impropriety, was loth (how loth !) to 
 proclaim silence just yet. 
 
 Like lads of their age they had their 
 occasional bits of squabbles. Mr. Wea-t 
 therby and Mr. Jerrold in particular were 
 noted for carrying on the braggadocial 
 war, and out of that arose the incident 
 referred to. In general this single-stick 
 wit was confined to the limits and rules of 
 the game, but on this occasion some heat 
 appeared to have been engendered, and 
 the altercation was not exclusively limited 
 to words ; there was a scuffle, as near an 
 approximation to blows as might be be-
 
 248 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 tween brothers, and Mr. Jerrold, his voice 
 angry, sharp, and raised, and sufficiently- 
 audible in the parlour, called Mr. Eaby 
 «^ Lugs' Heir." 
 
 Effie had once or twice heard her bro- 
 ther speculating on what might be the 
 import of this mysterious title : that it 
 was offensive she understood, and of this 
 there was present proof; in an instant 
 Mrs. Deerness was in the schoolroom, 
 quelling her turbulent brood, and if they 
 were not greatly mistaken in the sounds 
 that reached the ear, they were bound to 
 conclude that the offender was under- 
 going something like a cuffing at the 
 maternal hand for having used this for- 
 bidden epithet. Miss Deerness blushed 
 scarlet. But what Effie chiefly noticed 
 was the eflPect on the old man at the fire- 
 side ; he answered any little question that 
 was put to him, but never voluntarily
 
 THE SADDENED FIRESIDE. 249 
 
 spoke from the occurrence of the above 
 incident to his going to bed. At his usual 
 hour of nine o'clock he rose and walked 
 up- stairs. 
 
 His departure was rather felt than ob- 
 served ; at the vingt-et-un table there was 
 a general pause, and Mrs. Deerness, who 
 was reading the Witness^ laid aside her 
 paper. 
 
 '' I don't think your father's so well to- 
 night, boys," she said, coming forward to 
 the card-table. 
 
 And the Master remarked that he had 
 forgot to say good night. " I think, mo- 
 ther," he added, '' that you should send for 
 the doctor." 
 
 She answered, '^ Oh no, he's not so ill as 
 that, Melethor ! You surely don't think 
 him so ill as that ?" 
 
 "I do. My father is very ill," said the 
 Master.
 
 250 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 *'Eiit it is such a night," she still 
 urged ; " it is impossible to send. I don't 
 think you could get anybody to go." 
 
 The doctor lived in Corbysholm. There 
 was some talk among the boys of going for 
 him notwithstanding, but the long, loud 
 roll of the night without silenced them. 
 The Master walked up-stairs to his father's 
 room, and on his return said he thought 
 him looking a little better. 
 
 At eleven they went to bed. Effie slept 
 with Harriet. The young girl, who had 
 been running about all day, was soon 
 asleep, and so was spared the pang till all 
 was over. Efhe, anxious and apprehen- 
 sive, was still sitting up when the cry 
 arose ; and such a cry ! it rang through 
 the whole house. '' Melethor, come here ! 
 come here ! Oh, boys !" Effie ran to the 
 room. In such a summons all seemed to 
 be included.
 
 THE DOCTOR SENT FOR. 251 
 
 Mr. Deerness, partly undressed, ap- 
 peared to have fallen from his chair while 
 sitting talking to Mrs. Deerness. His son 
 was lifting him up — at the same time as 
 if keeping off his mother. Her *' Oh ! 
 he's not gone !" was heartrending. The 
 rest of his sons came rushing in, and they 
 laid the old man on his hed ; the servants, 
 too, were hy this time in the room, and 
 the first thing cried for was the doctor. 
 The clatter down stairs for the doctor was 
 the most appalling sound of its kind EflGie 
 had ever heard. 
 
 The women only now remaining, Mrs. 
 Deerness, said : " Oh, will none of you 
 run for Annie Gatehouse till the doctor 
 comes ?" Annie Gatehouse, the old wo- 
 man at the lodge, long a servant in the 
 house, was usually consulted on occasions 
 of distress. They ran accordingly for 
 Annie. " Annie," said Mrs. Deerness, as
 
 252 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 if eager to take the first word, " your 
 master has had a fainting-fit, and we have 
 sent for the doctor. I expect him every 
 moment." 
 
 Annie Gatehouse went straight to the 
 bed, put her hand on the brow, tried the 
 dropped jaw, and then said aside to the 
 women, " Get her oot o' here ; a doctor's 
 of nae use here." 
 
 " What's that you say, Annie ? Oh 
 no, he's not gone; it canna be — he was 
 speaking to me as well as ever he was in 
 
 his life when " She seized the hand of 
 
 the corpse and kissed it passionately, and 
 then she looked at the face : they had co- 
 vered it with a linen cloth : she tore it off. 
 
 But this was not all — the doctor ? They 
 were now as afraid to pronounce the name 
 as they had been clamorous before. There 
 were lights running to and fro down at 
 the haven, all the boatmen of the place
 
 GOING FOR THE DOCTOE. 253 
 
 were on the quay, and the Master and 
 his brethren. Melethor said, '^This is a 
 terrible night to ask you to put out in, 
 men, but which of you will go for the doc- 
 tor to my father ? P^ent free,*' he added ; 
 that is, whoever went should have their 
 small farms rent free for life. The men 
 all protested their willingness to go if the 
 thing were possible, but no boat, they said, 
 could have a chance in such a night. Again 
 the Master spoke : " It is quite clear that 
 we" (referring to his brothers) '^ cannot all 
 go. Which of you will go with me for the 
 doctor?" Of the boatmen only Captain 
 Kith and old Hoolie volunteered ; of his 
 brethren, William Institute was the first, 
 and him he took. The boat was launched 
 amid a clamour of dissuasion, and they 
 were gone. 
 
 Meanwhile Efiie, as soon as she could 
 get away, taking one of the servants with
 
 254 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 her, hastened down to the haven, hoping 
 that she might yet be in time to prevent 
 their putting to sea. But the lapse of 
 time was greater than she supposed ; they 
 had been gone half an hour ; and Effie and 
 her companion, Lizzie Scale, sat down on 
 the log seat under the kelp shed wall, 
 afraid to return to the house. 
 
 A beacon fire had been kindled on the 
 point of the pier ; its reflexion flared out 
 on either side of the foaming waves, leaving 
 all in front black as the darkest cavern, 
 and to the two crouching women seemingly 
 as stony still ; Effie felt as if the howling 
 of the wind were confined to the point of 
 the pier where the people were assembled, 
 hovering in and out about the ^e. Eut 
 little intelligence could be gleaned from 
 their gestures ; in general the counte- 
 nances of the men expressed deep and ter- 
 rible, but not hopeless, anxiety.
 
 THE BEACON FIRE. 255 
 
 Effie dreaded how it would be. A loud 
 gust of wind roared over tlie Louse, and 
 the writhing woman sat up and listened 
 for a second or two ; all restraint was now 
 snapped like a thread. Mrs. Deerness be- 
 came quite unmanageable ; she broke loose 
 from the dead old man and the terrified 
 women. Her first exclamation as she swept 
 past, the flutter of her dress in the wind 
 striking Effie sharply on the face, was, 
 " Oh, boys, are you all here 1" When the 
 truth was made known to her, she struck 
 herself with both hands on the face. The 
 scene is not to be described. 
 
 At that moment of distraction one of 
 the men stationed on the outlook reported 
 that he saw a light ; he was confirmed by 
 another ; and Effie herself, shaded by the 
 wall from the flare of the beacon fire, dis- 
 tinctly saw it for a moment like a red 
 spark. But was it not merely a spark
 
 256 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 from the fire ? No. The man reported it 
 again. Eut in the black distance it was 
 impossible to say how far the light might 
 be out. 
 
 At this crisis Effie was almost startled 
 (if anything could have startled one in 
 such a scene) by a most extraordinary de- 
 monstration of filial tenderness and fra- 
 ternal energy on the part of Mr. Wea- 
 therby : himself in all human probability 
 now the laird, he implored his mother 
 (how odd the term mamma sounded in 
 such a coil) to allow him to launch 
 another boat to the rescue — and, indeed, 
 he did seem to make some attempt — his 
 voice was heard above all the Babel of 
 tongues. But somehow it came to no- 
 thing. The man on the look-out reported 
 the light again, and instantly the clamour 
 was stilled. As before, it was seen only 
 for a moment, but this time, from the in-
 
 THE DOCTOR. 257 
 
 creased size as well as ray of the light, it 
 was visibly much nearer — inside the deep 
 water line — within, as it were, their very 
 grasp almost, men and women, mistress 
 and dependents, all huddled together at 
 the brink. 
 
 Now was the time for old Pan Whittet, 
 the smuggling old landlord of the Haven 
 public-house, to relieve the agony of sus- 
 pense by a sage remark. " If she swamps 
 with them now," said Whittet, a pedantic 
 old man-of-war's-man, " they can swim it ! 
 All — unless it be the doctor ; and perhaps 
 he may pike up an oar." 
 
 At length Jerrold the Jollyboat, witli 
 a loud bellow that sounded almost like 
 laughter, cried out, '* There they're!" and 
 Effie sprang forward just in time to see the 
 sight. The light of the beacon fell upon 
 the backs of the rowers, stripped to their 
 shirts and stretching to their oars, and on 
 
 VOL. I. s ,
 
 258 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 the thin, bent figure of the old doctor in the 
 stern-sheets steering, with the lantern be- 
 tween his knees. One stroke of the oars 
 gave them thus to view, each individually- 
 distinct, the Master pulling the bow oar, 
 Captain Kith and old Hoolie the two 
 middle, and "William Institute the after ; 
 and the next flung them upon the beach, 
 the boat half full of w^ater. As they 
 jumped out, the bystanders gave one shout 
 of acclamation for the living laird, and 
 almost before he could ask the question, 
 " My father ?" all again was silence for 
 the old one that night departed. 
 
 The heroism of her two sons melted Mrs. 
 Deerness, and now she wept freely and 
 naturally, with none of the overstrained 
 and terrible agony of grief she had before 
 exhibited. But the young men themselves 
 turned their backs on their fruitless feat 
 with a cold indifference amounting almost
 
 THE DOCTOR'S PREDECESSOR. 259 
 
 to thanldessness for their escape— -with a 
 slight exception, if it could be called such, 
 a little peevish explosion of temper on the 
 part of William Institute. "Too late," 
 said he, " it's hard, whatever !"* 
 
 " I knew we would be," said the Master 
 — '^ I knew it all along." 
 
 And this was the fact. Prom the mo- 
 ment he lifted up the old man, Melethor 
 Deerness knew that his father was dead, 
 but he acted on the first and last impulse 
 of the moment, the bare possibility, namely, 
 that it might be a case of suspended anima- 
 tion. He merely added, grasping the old 
 physician's hand, " I am sorry, doctor, we 
 have given you so much trouble;" and 
 the mournful procession which closed one 
 dynasty of the house of Hallow and opened 
 a new left the haven. 
 
 * " Whatever" for " liowe'ver" is a peculiar idiom in Ork- 
 ney not altogether confined to the uneducated. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 As for our poor Effie, all of her heart 
 that was left unbroken by the death of old 
 Mr. Deerness, to whom she was much 
 attached, was given to the four who had 
 braved such a night to recover him,. to the 
 Master and William Institute, Captain 
 Kith and old Hoolie ; and it took a time to 
 recover her ordinary calm tone of mind, 
 undisturbed by the recollection of the four 
 stretched to their oars. The symmetry of 
 the young men, contrasted with the burly 
 forms of the older boatmen, awoke in Effie 
 all the hitherto dormant springs of ro- 
 mance. It was well for her that she had 
 some good sense to fall back upon.
 
 THE FUNERAL. 261 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE FUNERAL— WITH SOME AFTER-BUKIAL BEFLECTIONS ,.AND 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The sort of burial service wliieli the 
 practice of many of our Scottish clergy has 
 substituted for the solemn ritual which the 
 Church of England has appointed for the 
 rendering of dust to dust, varies according 
 to circumstances, the wishes of parties, or 
 the will and opinions of the clergyman 
 officiating. The most common-place form 
 is to read a chapter and pray before a small, 
 select, and specially invited company in the
 
 262 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 house ; comparatively few think of praying 
 at the grave, and, indeed, where this is 
 left to extempore inspiration, there are 
 many cases in which it had better be pre- 
 termitted, at least there ; and there are 
 still a good many who, adhering to the 
 rigid model of no service at all, hold solemn 
 silence to be the best ritual. 
 
 The funeral was large — the largest Effie 
 had ever seen. From the neighbouring 
 islands, as well as from the more distant 
 mainland, parties came to pay the last 
 tribute to the old laird. Caldwel Gil- 
 christ was there, not without an eye to the 
 shaken supremacy of the Church on an 
 occasion calling for ghostly comfort to 
 aiSicted relatives. So, also, was Mr. Cal- 
 throp (old Crawtaes) ; it is not said 
 whether he was invited. Logan, who here 
 saw his reverend antagonist for the first 
 time, thought he looked incog., and, at the
 
 THE FUNERAL. 263 
 
 same time, anxious to get in liis hand. 
 There was a restlessness and a flushed look 
 of nervous anxiety about him, Logan said ; 
 his shabby black gloves were out at the 
 fingers, his black suit was dirty and worn 
 to an extreme that might have argued 
 actual poverty ; altogether there was a 
 general expression of moral indigence. 
 And his physiognomy, so far as he could 
 judge, was that of a man sullen and resent- 
 ful, and watching his opportunity. 
 
 Por anything that is known to the con-* 
 trary, there might be some truth in this 
 theory of Logan's. The old E;esiduary, 
 numbered with the common crowd at the 
 grave, very likely did feel something shorn 
 of his former respect ; as regards his gloves 
 and garb, generally, these were only part 
 and parcel of the man. I forget whether 
 Professor Teufelsdroch touches precisely 
 upon the point or not, but this is one of
 
 264 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 the commonest freaks in the whole history 
 of clothes, namely, that while it is the gay 
 nature of the majority to cast them, there 
 are always here and there some who, out 
 of a deep-rooted slovenliness or sullen 
 sorrow, can no more part with their old 
 clothes than they can give up their old 
 hahits. 
 
 The whole thing, however, was simply a 
 conjecture of my friend's. No unseemly 
 altercation occurred to disturb the sad and 
 solemn rite of rendering dust to dust, which 
 generally suspends party animosities for 
 the time, and, were it a little more deeply 
 considered, would go far to suspend them 
 altogether. If both reverend gentlemen 
 came, as it is just possible they did, ex- 
 pecting the preference, they were disap- 
 pointed — neither of them was asked to 
 pray either in the house or at the grave : 
 they were observed, Avhen it came to that,
 
 THE FUNERAL. 265 
 
 to ruffle up and to press nearer to the 
 Master ; but there was something dan- 
 gerous in his eye that told them a quarrel 
 over his father's remains would not be 
 tolerated. And thus, in the presence of 
 his people and of the women and children 
 at every door within sight, standing at the 
 doors in the sun, was the old laird en- 
 tombed without a prayer, by the vast and 
 silent multitude inwardly conning to 
 themselves his great hospitality, his rough 
 old-world sensibility and goodness, and 
 many other great departed merits. It is 
 said that Markus Skeldar blubbered; but 
 this wants confirmation. 
 
 "How soon are the dead forgotten!" 
 has long been a favourite complaint. In 
 general it means nothing ; a morbid ex- 
 pression not intended to have any mean- 
 ing : one of those bottom bubbles in our 
 nature that burst when they rise to the
 
 266 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 surface. Sometimes, however, you hear 
 the sentence spoken in the way of graver 
 accusation by the advocates of the worth- 
 less supremacy. In this shape it is one of 
 those convenient parasites to the doctrine 
 of man's supreme and utter degradation : 
 indeed, it would be idle to expect these 
 gentlemen not to make the most of so 
 capital a case against us as our notoriou.sly 
 proven readiness to desert the dead. They 
 have discovered our weak side here ; they 
 have discovered that the act of burial is 
 attended with a sensible though secret 
 feeling of relief to surviving relatives — to 
 all present, indeed. They have discovered 
 this sweet little secret of nature : no won- 
 der that we return so soon to the vanities 
 and enjoyments of life as if nothing had 
 happened! They have discovered — well, 
 the truth is, we are careless sinners — 
 nothing will stop, nothing arrest us ; and
 
 NIGHTFALL. 267 
 
 the gentlemen's notions of the dead, to 
 say nothing of the living, are a credit to 
 them. 
 
 At dinner, Caldwel Gilchrist talked of 
 their bereavement like a man inspired, 
 clearly and fully, and, as he believed, to 
 the entire conviction of the young men, 
 deducing from their sire's departure the 
 saving doctrine of conformity, and their 
 duty to their parent Church, at present 
 also in circumstances of mourning and 
 affliction. At dinner, Markus Skeldar 
 talked lugubriously, like a half-drowned 
 sinner, of his oyster-beds and other sus- 
 pended worldly amusements and occupa- 
 tions. Which of these two had the old 
 man most in remembrance ? 
 
 At the manse, as there was no dinner in 
 respect of the occasion, the minister had 
 to get his tea a little earlier. I know 
 not what wandering white cloud it was
 
 268 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 that came over Effie — came up sailing out 
 of the far back past. In the very midst of 
 their meal, in the midst of her brother's 
 brooding, she suddenly gave way to a most 
 unauthorised fit of light-hearted reminis- 
 cence, respecting a certain jaunt (to take 
 tea at their Aunty May's) which they had 
 performed when they were children, under 
 the auspices of old Saunders of the Salt- 
 market and his laughter-loving dame, in 
 which the parent pair were so happily con- 
 trasted to the life ; Saunders stalking along 
 in the covenant, his features relaxed into 
 a smile of grim approbation ; their mother 
 Nelly gathering flowers and butterflies for 
 them, the very type of worldly vanity. All 
 this, I say, Efiie poured out with such a 
 sudden sunny life-likeness, that Logan, 
 startled out of his theological train of 
 thought, amazed and horrified, thought
 
 NIGHTFALL. 269 
 
 Effie must certainly be possessed by the 
 devil. 
 
 ^' Effie," said he, when he had in some 
 degree recovered from his astonishment, 
 '* if that is all the respect you have for the 
 memory of your own parents, you might, 
 at least, pay some to a day so solemn in 
 the annals of these islands." 
 
 Which of these two was most at one 
 with the deceased laird ? their sire Saun- 
 ders, and their mother Nelly ? ,
 
 270 THE HALjLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIY. 
 
 CRAWTAES ASSEBTS HIS EIGHT TO PEEACH THE LAIED's EU- 
 NEEAL SEEMON, AND GIVES NOTICE OP HIS INTENTION TO 
 THAT EFFECT. 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose that 
 Mr. Caltlirop was all this while sitting 
 callously at his ease, joking as heretofore 
 to his beadle, John Gilbroddie. Par from 
 it. B^estless, tossed about from one course 
 to another, with a character in reyerend 
 rags, so to speak, assailed by the remem- 
 brance of past derelictions and a stigma 
 put upon his name, no hope, no mercy,
 
 PAPER WAE. 271 
 
 from either private or public opinion, tlie 
 death of Mr. Deerness decided the question 
 at a blow, and recovered the old !Residuary 
 to his duty. He went home from the fu- 
 neral, and wrote as follows to the um- 
 quhile Master, now the laird : 
 
 " Deah SiE, — I beg to intimate that it 
 is my intention, D.V., and weather per- 
 mitting, to preach in Hallow next Lord's- 
 day, in connexion with the present mourn- 
 ful occasion, the decease, namely, of your 
 respected and lamented father. In making 
 this intimation, I may also take leave to 
 express my regret that, owing to the 
 recent unhappy divisions in the Church, 
 such intimation is more formally necessary 
 now than it was used to be. I will not 
 deny that I may have been something 
 remiss — age and infirmity seldom mend 
 the natural indisposition to contend with
 
 272 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 the elements — but in future, weather at all 
 permitting, I shall be across every alter- 
 nate Sabbath, when I trust to have the 
 pleasure of seeing yourself and people as 
 usual. Accept of my sincere condolence 
 in the present family bereavement, and 
 believe me 
 
 *' Yours sincerely, 
 
 " Egbert Calthrop." 
 
 To this the Master, as he was still oc- 
 casionally called, returned the following 
 answer : 
 
 '^ Dear Sir, — I have received your 
 note, and beg to thank you for the tribute 
 of respect you would pay to your friend 
 m.j late father's memory. Excuse me if I 
 take the liberty to observe that the custom 
 of preaching what are called funeral ser- 
 mons has always appeared to me one that
 
 PAPER WAR. 273 
 
 would be more honoured in the breach 
 than the observance. Theologically, my 
 father was not a subject for pulpit eulogy, 
 and, to be perfectly frank with you, I 
 really don't see what you could make of 
 it. "We all know that he was a good man, 
 but it is painful to the delicacy of friends 
 and relatives to be told so publicly. 
 
 " "With regard to your resuming your 
 ministrations here, while nothing would 
 have given me greater pleasure, I must* 
 frankly again tell you there are insuperable 
 objections in the way. The new section 
 of the Church has established here a resi- 
 dent pastor ; my mother, my sister, and I 
 believe I may add, my brothers, have all 
 given in their adherence, and, so far as I 
 can judge, the people are pleased ; so that, 
 all things considered, the outlying field 
 and domestic objections, I hope you will 
 see it to be more for the dignity of your 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 character to abstain from a course which 
 can be productive of little good, and must 
 give rise to no end of dissension. What 
 the ultimate result of this movement may 
 be is another question ; what I would en- 
 treat of you to see in the mean time is, 
 that the observance of the Sabbath being 
 provided for, your attendance is not neces- 
 sary, and any interference at present would 
 be impolitic until the ferment is over. 
 '^ Believe me to remain, dear sir, 
 " EaithfuUy yours, 
 
 '' Melethou Deekness." 
 
 This drew the following rejoinder from 
 the old gentleman : 
 
 "Deah Sir, — Many thanks for your 
 advice to me to play the part of Blind 
 Hookie with a view to the dignity of my 
 character ! As a means to an end, I can
 
 PAPER WAR. 275 
 
 only say that I diflPer with you. In the 
 remarks with which you have been at the 
 trouble to favour me, it is obvious that 
 you start from the common point of view, 
 namely, that, as a body, we have somehow 
 forfeited all ecclesiastical status and title 
 to respect ; and, moreover, that so long as 
 our temporals are safe, that is all we care 
 for. Permit me to say, a more vulgar mis- 
 take was never entertained — a more mali- 
 cious aspersion was never propagated by 
 men calling themselves brethren. I have 
 been minister of Hallow a long time now, 
 nearly forty years before these fanatics 
 were ever heard of, and I shall certainly 
 continue to do my duty without the 
 slightest regard to them or their arrange- 
 ments. But I should for ever sincerely 
 regret should a little dereliction on the one 
 hand, arising, as before said, from age and 
 infirmity, and a brush of windy zeal on the 
 
 t2
 
 276 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 other, be tlie means of driving your re- 
 spected family from the house of God to 
 worship in this temple made with hands ; 
 as I shall no less also sincerely deplore 
 should any domestic dissensions arise there- 
 from. In the mean time, my duty is clear ; 
 there are many of the humbler members of 
 my flock who I know will be glad to see 
 me again. Repeating my former intima- 
 tion, that I shall, D.Y., preach at the usual 
 hour on Sabbath next, I have to request 
 that you will cause promulgation of the 
 same to be made according to the use and 
 wont practice of the combined parish of 
 Corbysholm cum Hallow. And I remain, 
 '' Dear sir, yours sincerely, 
 
 " Egbert Caltheop." 
 
 Caldwel Gilchrist was still at Hallow 
 when this conclusion of the correspondence 
 came to hand. It was rowed across the
 
 CRIMINIS CLERI GRATIA. 277 
 
 Erith by Mr. Calthrop's beadle, and de- 
 livered to the young laird as he was taking 
 a turn along the beach with his reverend 
 kinsman. He read, and then handed the 
 letter to Caldwel with a bitter laugh. Mr. 
 Gilchrist coloured a little; he read the 
 note, however, with his habitual com- 
 posure, and then observed, somewhat 
 austerely, " I see nothing in it to laugh 
 at." 
 
 '^ You don't ?" said Melethor ; " why, it 
 is enough to make the ***** laugh ! 
 You don't mean to say you believe that 
 the sudden revival of this wrong-headed 
 old original has been effected by a sense 
 of duty, as he chooses to put it — a man 
 who for forty years has habitually neg- 
 lected his duty ?" 
 
 " Indeed do I, my dear Melethor," re- 
 plied the calm and imperturbable church- 
 man. " In the language of a zealot, and ad-
 
 278 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 / dressed to a zealot, the case, as you put it, 
 might, indeed, appear overwhelming ; but 
 add a drop or two of common sense to lay 
 the froth, and let us see what it really 
 comes to." 
 
 Admire, gentle reader, this distinguished 
 and reverend chemist, with the cup of the 
 case in one hand, and the bottle of common 
 sense in the other. Take a clear view of 
 him, adding the precise number of drops 
 required to lay the froth. It is unneces- 
 sary to quote the speech at full length. 
 The reverend gentleman observed, in con- 
 clusion : 
 
 '' There is no essential difference, then, 
 between the E^esiduaries, as thev affect to 
 stigmatise us, and these excited, and, as 
 they fancy themselves, triumphant deser- 
 ters, unless it be in their present arrogant 
 pretensions. To come, then, to the case. 
 Calthrop, I admit, is not the most model
 
 CEMINIS CLEEI GEATIA. 279 
 
 man in our Church ; he has some habits 
 which it would be desirable to see modi- 
 fied, but of that there is no hope — he is of 
 the old school. Still, he is a good man in 
 the main ; he has been, as he reminds you, 
 forty years minister here; and he is attached 
 to your family, the more, perhaps, that, 
 being an old bachelor, he has no ties of 
 his own. Can you wonder, then, at his 
 making the present stand? I know nothing 
 of the young man on the other side, but I 
 
 • 
 
 question whether he has the talents and 
 general good sense and piety of our poor 
 old friend. And do not you, my dear sir, 
 be misled by the vulgar notion that the 
 Church of Scotland is extinct, because a 
 sudden explosion of domineering and de- 
 feated ecclesiastical ambition has drawn off 
 half her numbers. On these grounds I 
 say, and say it emphatically, give Calthrop 
 another chance."
 
 280 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Meletlior readily assented to this mode- 
 rated view of the old gentleman's short- 
 comings. "Nay, more," he added, "so 
 far as I am personally concerned, I have 
 no hesitation in owning that I am with 
 you at heart." 
 
 '' Now God bless you for that word, my 
 dear Melethor," interjected Caldwel Gil- 
 christ, warmly. 
 
 " YeSj" continued the other, "it is not 
 difficult to see what will be one notable 
 point in the new constitution, addressed, as 
 they phrase it, to the hearts and con- 
 sciences of men. I have no notion of 
 surrendering my right of private judgment 
 to any religious association whatever. 
 Look you, Caldwel, that has been always, 
 less or more, the clutch of you all : wrig- 
 gle in that like; I will sit down in the 
 way of fellowship with any body of pro- 
 fessing Christians, but to the tyrannical
 
 CEIMINIS CLERI GRATIA. 281 
 
 combination of any who must have our 
 minds all of one brand, as they mark 
 sheep, I will not submit." 
 
 " Surely," observed Mr. Gilchrist, a 
 little ruefully, however, '' perhaps it is to 
 be lamented that a popular creed and the 
 right of private judgment have never yet 
 been reconciled. Dealing in conflicting 
 mysteries as we do (of course this is 
 strictly confidential), I have sometimes 
 had dawning visions of the possibility of 
 such a state of things. But I think ive^ 
 come nearest it as matters at present 
 stand." 
 
 " You do. You can appeal to time as 
 an ecclesiastical government, let the other 
 side take fright, call you the valley of dry 
 bones, and run and rant at you till they 
 are tired. Your despotism was not a pry- 
 ing despotism; old, it was friendly to 
 meditation and private thought. Thus
 
 282 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 your shade was felt to be grateful, and 
 some piety was found growing under it. 
 But there was not enough of it, I suppose, 
 or the peace of the religious world had 
 lasted too long ; or, at any rate, by hook 
 or by crook, they must go to war. In 
 their own phrase, they groaned to be de- 
 livered. One man talked to another, and 
 the notion of coming to a stand with the 
 state spread as rapidly as a strike among 
 the mill hands of Manchester. At last 
 'Empty' was pronounced upon you, and 
 in at the rent the gust came, leaving the 
 Church a ruin, only not entirely deserted. 
 Whether it may not eventually be the 
 better for the blast, remains to be seen. 
 In the mean time, we have got this reli- 
 gious republic ushered in with joy and 
 rejoicing, and gladness on every side ; with 
 spiritual freedom for its motto, and a code
 
 CRIMmiS CLERI GRATll. 283 
 
 that practically comes to this : large 
 donations, large observance, the hundred 
 points of orthodoxy; and that all these 
 may he rigidly enforced, and freedom, full, 
 perfect, and complete, secured, universal 
 tyranny over the right of individual 
 opinion. This will, no doubt, produce a 
 good deal of piety of a kind; but the 
 piety which is chiefly remarkable for its 
 vulgar abundance, and is notoriously 
 known to chuckle over its spread ; that 
 makes men neither better nor wiser, nor 
 more thinking than they were before — for 
 thinking according to prescription is no 
 thinking at all; that contributes nothiBg 
 to the general improvement of social 
 morality but the old suspicion of good 
 works, and leaves good taste, and not un- 
 frequently charity, to shift for themselves, 
 and all this depending on the Mammonish
 
 284 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 impetus of money contributionSj may turn 
 up a happier and a better world by-and- 
 by, but it is not just at present. I 
 don't, therefore, blame Calthrop for fol- 
 lowing his instincts — sense of duty he 
 calls it. What I find fault with is his 
 wrong-headed obstinacy, that will not 
 yield to the clear necessity of a particular 
 case. Had Hallow been his only field, I 
 could have excused him, but with Corbys- 
 holm to recover the lost ground in (and 
 it is more than he can overtake), what 
 but sheer perversity should bring him 
 across here when I have told him (and he 
 knows) the discord that will be the con- 
 sequence ?" 
 
 " Stay," said Mr. Gilchrist, introducing 
 the pause persuasive, at the skilful use of 
 which, in argument, few could match him ; 
 *' are you sure, my dear Melethor, that the 
 premise of your argument is quite sound ?
 
 CRIMINIS CLERI GRATIA. 285 
 
 This discord hypothesis of yours, is it not 
 merely a manifestation of your own pecu- 
 liar idiosyncrasy — a chimera, in short ? I 
 have long noticed this to be a tenet peculiar 
 to your mind. You set out with the fore- 
 gone conclusion that all theological at- 
 tempts to settle the differences of the 
 religious world must necessarily end in 
 failure and discord. A grievous error, 
 believe me. Without a theological basis 
 there can be no religion ; take away that, 
 and religion would evaporate in senti- 
 ment, a sort of marsh mist arising from 
 the minds of the fanciful and sensitive 
 few." 
 
 " Had we time," said the new laird, dog- 
 gedly, " or could it serve any good, I would 
 make bold to dispute that proposition, 
 Caldwel, my boy." 
 
 " Of course you would, my dear Mele- 
 thor, and disprove it too ; but do not, in a
 
 286 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 serious conversation like this, call me 
 * Caldwel, my boy.' " 
 
 «« Very well, then, I won't, Mr. Gilchrist. 
 A theological basis of religion is one thing, 
 and an everlasting theological contention 
 and defiance of everything like basis, of 
 the very idea of basis, in another. Have 
 you not the Bible ? Is it not written, Love 
 God and your neighbour? Why this 
 enormous and complicated web for ever 
 spinning and never done, as if that were 
 necessary to catch the minds of men ? I 
 don't care one farthing, Mr. Gilchrist, for 
 your horrified looks. I tell you the blind 
 assent, the piety you sow and are content 
 to reap, is not religion, nor anything like 
 it. You cast your eyes proudly to heaven, 
 as if you would say, Looh yonder, have we 
 not filled it ! I see only an enormous and 
 far spun out intervention of theology, 
 filled, indeed, with human minds, or what
 
 CRIMINJS CLERI GRATll. 287 
 
 once were human minds ; and I see other 
 shadows creeping about that have some 
 resemblance to yourselves, the spinners, to 
 whom it has become a second nature. But, 
 unless it be yourselves, can you point in 
 these days to a single living instance worth 
 the catching, those struggling to get out 
 of it not counting? And why all this? 
 Shall I tell you my notion of the reason 
 why?" 
 
 " Do," said the priest of Stifbakness. 
 " I find, Melethor, that I am ignorance 
 itself in your hands. Do. I mightily 
 long to be informed." 
 
 '' Nay, now you are angry, Caldwel. 
 Eut you are not to run away with the idea 
 that I am an infidel because I stick up for 
 my reason. There are mysteries I do not 
 comprehend, but they do not shock me as 
 I find them in the Bible ; they only shock 
 me when a body, professing to be teachers
 
 288 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 of the Eook, according to their tradition- 
 ary and clerical conceptions of the whole, 
 manufacture them into downright contra- 
 dictions, and for the evident purpose of 
 laying on a nonsense-tax to keep the upper 
 hand of my mind. I'll stick to the Bible 
 as I'll stand to my life, the two are all we 
 have ; but I'm not to be told that this 
 means that and that this." 
 
 The churchman, however, was deter- 
 mined to win. "The old story, my dear 
 Melethor — the old story of priestcraft. 
 Your theory of a simplified creed in which 
 there shall be no complexity, no subject- 
 ing of the individual mind to the mass^ no 
 abasement of self, no trial of the faith, no 
 wrangling, and in one word no suffering, is 
 simply a Utopian dream, an amiable infi- 
 delity of which you will see the unsound- 
 ness when you have lived a little longer." 
 
 *' Will I ?" said Melethor, interrupting
 
 CRIMINIS CLERI GRATIA. 289 
 
 the avalanche for a moment. ^' I know 
 the mass better. Your Protestant predi- 
 lections have carried you rather too papal 
 lengths there, Mr. Gilchrist !" 
 
 It cost the descending churchman a 
 tremendous effort to proceed, but he suc- 
 ceeded, and thus went on : 
 
 " I am astonished that you do not even 
 now perceive the radical defect in your 
 argument. Your notion of simplifying 
 the Incomprehensible in preference to sym- 
 bolising as ive humbly endeavour to do, is^ 
 'prima facie a logical impossibility, carrying 
 absurdity in the face of it, because it pre- 
 supposes a religious spontaneity or power 
 in the human mind which does not exist." 
 
 '* So you tell the old wives. — But here 
 comes "Whittet with a bargain of fish.'* 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 CHAPTEH XV. 
 
 CRAWTAES PREACHES HIS FUNERAL SERMON, AND AFTERWARDS 
 DINES AT THE HOUSE — OLD ASSOCIATIONS, THOUGH DISAP- 
 PROVED, NOT EASILY OBLITERATED. 
 
 Having some doubts of the new laird's 
 complying with his edict, Mr. Calthrop 
 sent over John Gilbroddie, his beadle, to 
 see it enforced, and to make proclamation 
 in his name. " And see, buddo,'** said 
 the old gentleman, "that thou dinna spare 
 
 * Buddo is an Orkney expression of endearment, somewliat 
 equivalent to the Shetland jarto.
 
 THE FUNERAL SERMON. 291 
 
 the bell this time. I nominate and com- 
 missionate and send thee forth, buddo, 
 even as the Boroughstown bellman on the 
 mainland is sent out by the magistrates to 
 cry fresh fish." 
 
 The proclamation that there would be 
 sermon as usual in the old place of wor- 
 ship occasioned a very general dilemma. 
 On Saturday, Captain Kith came with a 
 petition to the Master — for so he was still 
 more frequently called. It seemed to be ^ 
 point of delicacy towards Mrs. Deerness to 
 continue the subordinate title until the 
 expiration of the period of mourning. 
 
 *' It was just," said the captain, " these 
 peri anxious bodies, sir, about the morn ; 
 they're in grit distress, more specially 
 the aid carles. They was minded, sir, to 
 see yoursel' about it if you would gang 
 and speak to them." 
 
 " Surely, Kith ; where are they ?" 
 
 u2
 
 292 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 '' You're sure, sir, you'll na be angry," 
 said the ambassador. " They're dreed ill, 
 and there's mair nor a pickle o' them — a 
 hunder, maybe, or thereawa. They're 
 down, aid and young, wi' their best Sab- 
 bath-day's claes on, at the Dead Pool o' 
 Drapness." 
 
 The spot selected by the islanders for a 
 meeting with their young laird was one of 
 those fissures peculiar to these rocky, iso- 
 lated coasts. They do not in general pe- 
 netrate very far, but this of Drapness in 
 Hallow is of considerable extent, — a 
 narrow rent, enclosing between black 
 rocks a deep, dismal gulf fringed with just 
 a strip of shore of the same sable hue. I 
 take the more notice of this, that subse- 
 quent events in the story have given an 
 additional interest to the locality. 
 
 It was here, then, in this " cleft of the
 
 THE FUNERAL SERMON. 293 
 
 rock," that the people met their landlord, 
 and expressed their desire of going to 
 church in the use and wont place in ho- 
 nour of the deceased master ; the petition 
 concluded with a hope that the young 
 laird would stand between them and the 
 consequences. Melethor bit his lip at this 
 sufficiently broad though covered allusion 
 to his mother, but he felt it would have 
 been a sin against fellow-feeling to take 
 offence. He replied, in a short speech, 
 that there could be no consequences in a 
 matter so entirely at their own disposal. 
 All were at liberty, he said, to indulge 
 the sentiment who felt it ; still, it was but 
 recalling a shadow according to an old 
 custom, the use or good of which might be 
 doubted ; therefore, others were equally at 
 liberty to adhere to the new communion 
 who thought proper. And having thus far
 
 294 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 hinted his mind on their common dilemma, 
 he left the quotum to be adjusted by Cap- 
 tain " Kith, devoutly hoping our friend 
 Logan would not have to preach to empty 
 pews. 
 
 On the Sunday morning, when she un- 
 derstood that her son was going to hear old 
 Crawtaes (as a duty he owed to his father's 
 memory), Mrs. Deerness had one of her 
 fits— so Effie called them, and perhaps the 
 name is as significant as any other we 
 could find. *' What 1" she exclaimed, " do 
 you call an Erastian hash from a perjured 
 stipendiary of a perjured state divine ser- 
 yice ? — a sermon according to the Gospel of 
 Christ ? — an honour to your father's me- 
 mory ? Do you call a disgrace and a pro- 
 fanation -" 
 
 Without greatly diminishing the num- 
 bers at Logan's, there was a tolerable at-
 
 THE FUNERAL SERMON. 295 
 
 * 
 
 tendance at the old parish church; and 
 when the reverend delinquent took his seat 
 in the pulpit he did not behold altogether 
 without emotion so many of the old familiar 
 faces. 
 
 The reader must already have formed 
 some idea of this gentleman. Robert 
 Calthrop of Corby sholm (better known as 
 Crawtaes) was one among the knots of 
 reverend topers who in that day, when 
 they got together, were absolutely scan- 
 dalous, and whose orgies alone, had there 
 been no other cause, were enough to have 
 alarmed the sober, and to have led to a 
 general reformation. It is curious to ob- 
 serve this characteristic distinction still 
 between the abstemious pastors of the new 
 denominations and the moderated pota- 
 tions of the worthies of the old. The 
 original drunkards have died out ; it was
 
 296 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 necessary that they should ; I doubt 
 whether one of them (genuine) could be 
 found in all Scotland now, but in 1843 
 there were not a few still alive who suf- 
 fered all the horrors of that revolution.* 
 
 On this category was E;obert Calthrop, 
 the toper and wit of a by-past generation, 
 left with nobody to joke with but his 
 beadle, or to get mellow with at all ; all 
 gone but himself. Calthrop was an old 
 bachelor. A man of considerable though 
 uncultivated powers and unbounded vulgar 
 humour; possessing more natural eloquence 
 and real ability than for example the 
 polished Caldwel Gilchrist, and a better 
 preacher than our friend, though Logan 
 
 * I remember, when I was a lad, of being present with my 
 father at a funeral symposium, or " dirgie," w^liere the com- 
 pany, except ourselves, were all clergymen, five in number. 
 I have seen some jolly drinking bouts since, but nothing com- 
 parable to til at.
 
 THE FUNERAL SERMON. 297 
 
 had made all the best modern models his 
 study. 
 
 The old man's homely colloquial style 
 was well adapted to his subject. His text 
 was from the Psalms. ^' Thou carriest 
 them away as with a flood ; they are as a 
 sleep : in the morning, they are like grass 
 which groweth up. In the morning it 
 flourisheth, and groweth up ; in the even- 
 ing it is cut down, and withereth." 
 
 There is a common opinion that this sout 
 of thing does not require much capacity ; 
 any young preacher with a little warmth 
 of feeling can do it ; and undoubtedly so 
 any young preacher can after his kind ; 
 his stock of imagery and vacant pictures 
 of the undiscovered bourne are rather 
 soothing, to women particularly, and soft- 
 hearted youths, and can never fail to 
 please, except in the scarce supposable
 
 298 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 case of a congregation composed entirely 
 of critics. 
 
 But then it is all mere sound; your 
 graceful young preacher's prelection has 
 not the least savour of reality. A very 
 different thing is the digging grave and 
 the rugged shovelling Doric of an old 
 sinner like Crawtaes, who has sat out the 
 best part of two generations and seen all 
 his contemporaries laid in the dust. In 
 his peroration the concluding allusion to 
 himself was touching from its homely 
 truth. 
 
 " I have had a pretty long life of it, my 
 friends, one way and another — when I look 
 back, I sometimes doubt if I am the same 
 person. When I look back through the 
 storms and drookin mists with which these 
 isles have now become associated in my 
 mind, what a length of time does it seem !
 
 THE FUNERAL SERMON. 299 
 
 what an effort to the dehilitated and all 
 but forleetit fancy to win back to the day 
 when I first came among you ! Tongue of 
 man cannot utter it ! Then the sweet 
 youth was in love ! And oh ! if it were as 
 lang a look forward to the day when this 
 skulking earthly tabernacle shall be dis- 
 solved, life would seem a wearisome length 
 indeed. But it is not so. If the morning 
 of life be too bright for our auld eyes to 
 look back upon, the evening that is to 
 close them cometh apace. Yet a little 
 while — and how short that may be He 
 only knows in whose hands we all are — 
 yet a little while, and I too shall be at rest 
 with him whom we have lost, mine ancient 
 friend and patron. Amen." 
 
 At the conclusion of the service pastor 
 and laird met in the vestry, where it was 
 impossible for the latter to avoid shaking
 
 300 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 hands with the old man with the friendly 
 feeling of former days. 
 
 A more difficult point to decide was, 
 whether or not he should ask Mr. Calthrop 
 to dinner, according to the custom of the 
 aforesaid gracious days of yore. The 
 many great objections would probably 
 have carried it in the negative, had the 
 day been fine; but it was now far on in 
 October, and it was blowing and drizzling 
 in the Prith, the wind contrary, Corbys- 
 holni shrouded in fog, the fire across the 
 way in all probability out, and nothing 
 cooking ; in short, Melethor could not find 
 it in his heart to let the old man go with- 
 out his dinner, be the consequences what 
 they might. He trusted that the restraint 
 imposed by his father's recent decease 
 would prevent any very unseemly out- 
 break on either side. And on this occa-
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 301 
 
 sion his hospitable trust was not disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 The Lady of Hallow, it is true, was 
 beyond measure astonished and indignant 
 both at her son and the recusant priest 
 when she found herself obliged to receive 
 the latter in the unexpected quality of a 
 Sunday guest ; but she was too much a 
 lady to give direct utterance to these feel- 
 ings. She marked her sense of the old 
 gentleman's short-comings by a reserved^ 
 yet studious politeness ; at which, if the 
 truth must be told, Crawtaes laughed im- 
 moderately in his sleeve, quite content to 
 recover his seat at the laird's table on 
 terms so very easy. 
 
 But how did friend Logan comport him- 
 self in this trying conjuncture ? Admirably 
 — with a dignified self-coUectedness and 
 command of countenance beyond his years.
 
 302 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Witliout feeling that he had precisely any 
 title to be either offended or annoyed, he 
 had a pleasing longing that way on finding 
 that he was cutting so small a figure at 
 table compared with the ancient Resi- 
 duary, who, though coldly looked upon by 
 the lady of the house, kept respectably 
 talking on, and was greatly my friend's 
 over-match in that sort of colloquy : ac- 
 cordingly, Logan restricted his attentions 
 to the number of glasses the old gentle- 
 man drank, and other such improving ob- 
 servations. 
 
 There is a very good portrait of Orawtaes 
 in a letter of Effie's to her friend Miss 
 Pletcher : 
 
 '' Yesterday at dinner we met the esta- 
 blished minister for the first time. He is 
 a little fat old man and never was married, 
 with the half-merry, half-sad eye of a hard
 
 PORTRAIT OF MR. CALTHROP. 303 
 
 drinker, as Logan tells me lie has been all 
 Ills life. They had very little conversa- 
 tion. It struck me that Mr. Calthrop 
 (which is his rather comical name) was 
 disposed to be on friendly terms, but of 
 course you know it would not have done 
 for Logan to encourage the advances of 
 such a character. The real truth is, I 
 was sorry for the poor old man, who be- 
 haved very well upon the whole, though it 
 must be confessed some of his jokes were 
 not altogether right. Por instance, on 
 Logan's passing the bottle, he appeared to 
 think this was meant at Mm, and said, 
 ^ Ye dinna seem to ken the Latin for guse 
 yet, my young brither — tak a dram if 
 you're wise.' At this I saw the young 
 men smiling to themselves, but fortunately 
 the Master, as they call the eldest, took 
 up the conversation. He is a very clever
 
 304 THE HALLOW ISLE TRAGEDY. 
 
 man, but not so frank as some of the 
 others. Mrs. Deerness kept her temper 
 wonderfully, but we heard that after we 
 were away she had a fit." 
 
 END OP VOL. I. 
 
 C. WHITING, BEAUrORT HOUSE, STKAND.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 30 
 
 112 046417801 
 
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