d the purchaser down to payment without
dispute. He contented himself only with such a note from the old man as
ought he asserted to be quite sufficient, and it was utterly useless for
Shanty to expostulate. The Laird had got on his high horse and was
prancing and capering beyond all the controul of his honest friend,
whilst Mr. Salmon, no doubt, laughed in his sleeve, and only lamented
that he had not known Dymock better from the first, for in that case he
would have used his cunning to have obtained a better bargain of the
castle and lands. It was not one nor two visits to Hexham which
completed these arrangements; however Mr. Dymock, after the first
visit, no longer refused to permit Shanty to open out every thing to his
aunt, and to prepare her to descend into a cottage, on an income of
forty or fifty pounds a year.

Mrs. Margaret bore the information better than Shanty had expected; she
had long anticipated some such blow, and her piety enabled her to bear
it with cheerfulness. "I now," she said, "know the worst, and I see not
wherefore, though I am a Dymock, I should not be happy in a cottage, I
am only sorry for Tamar; poor Tamar! what will become of her?"

"Oh mother! dear mother!" said Tamar weeping, "why are you sorry for me,
cannot I go with you? surely you would not part from me;" and she fell
weeping on Mrs. Margaret's bosom.

"Never before! oh, never before," cried Mrs. Margaret, "did I feel my
poverty as I do now."

"Mother dear! oh mother dear! had I thousands of pounds, I would devote
them all to you, and to my dear protector."

"God helping you, or God working in you Tamar," said Shanty, rubbing his
rough hand across his eyes, "but never boast of what you will do, dear
child; boasting does not suit the condition of humanity."

"Oh! that I could now find my father," she replied, "and if I could find
him a rich man, what a comfort it would be; what would I give now," she
added, "to find a rich father!"

Mrs. Margaret kissed her child, and wept with her, calling her a dear,
affectionate, grateful creature; but Shanty made no remark respecting
Tamar's gratitude; he had it in his mind to speak to her when alone, and
he very soon found the opportunity he wished.

It was on the next Sunday that he met Tamar walking on the moor, and it
was then that he thus addressed her, "I was sorry damsel," he said, "to
hear you speak as you did to Mrs. Margaret the other day, making a
profession of what you would