expected that on his recovery he would throw
some light upon this dark story, and eagerly pressed him with inquiries,
which for some time he evaded under pretext of weakness. When, however,
he had been transported to his own house, and was considered in a state
of convalescence, he assembled those persons, both male and female, who
had considered themselves as entitled to press him on this subject, and
returned them thanks for the interest they had exhibited in his behalf,
and their offers of adherence and support. "I wish you all," he said,
"my friends, to understand, however, that I have neither story to tell
nor injuries to avenge. If a lady shall question me henceforward upon
the incident of that unhappy night, I shall remain silent, and in future
consider her as one who has shown herself desirous to break of her
friendship with me; in a word, I will never speak to her again. But if a
gentleman shall ask me the same question, I shall regard the incivility
as equivalent to an invitation to meet him in the Duke's Walk, and I
expect that he will rule himself accordingly."

A declaration so decisive admitted no commentary; and it was soon after
seen that Bucklaw had arisen from the bed of sickness a sadder and a
wiser man than he had hitherto shown himself. He dismissed Craigengelt
from his society, but not without such a provision as, if well employed,
might secure him against indigence and against temptation. Bucklaw
afterwards went abroad, and never returned to Scotland; nor was he known
ever to hint at the circumstances attending his fatal marriage. By many
readers this may be deemed overstrained, romantic, and composed by
the wild imagination of an author desirous of gratifying the popular
appetite for the horrible; but those who are read in the private family
history of Scotland during the period in which the scene is laid, will
readily discover, through the disguise of borrowed names and added
incidents, the leading particulars of AN OWER TRUE TALE.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Whose mind's so marbled, and his heart so hard,
That would not, when this huge mishap was heard,
To th' utmost note of sorrow set their song,
To see a gallant, with so great a grace,
So suddenly unthought on, so o'erthrown,
And so to perish, in so poor a place,
By too rash riding in a ground unknown!

POEM, IN NISBET'S Heraldry, vol. ii.

WE have anticipated the course of time to mention Bucklaw's rec