the cart was overturned and
broken in such a manner as to render the assistance of the smith
necessary before it could be again used. Duncan Cowpet, who,
notwithstanding his unlucky name, had escaped unhurt, volunteered his
services for this expedition, and went off, with the cart and one of the
horses, to the smithy. When he reached Nettlebank, on his return from
the smithy, he had nearly driven his cart over Nancy Black, who,
whitened by the falling snow, was leaning against the garden wall, and
appeared to have been shedding tears. On discovering him, she
endeavoured to assume an air of cheerfulness, and asked if he would stop
for a short time, as she would have a message for him. Being answered in
the affirmative, she hurried into the house, and in a few minutes
returned with a piece of folded paper, which she requested him to give
to his master's son. "But stay," said she, as he was putting it into his
pocket--"it is not closed--I had forgot;" and then, after a short pause,
she added--"but perhaps you do not read _write_?"

"Na," said Duncan, speaking in an accent much broader than the
provincial dialect--"na, my faither was owre puir for giein me ony buke
lear." This seemed to satisfy the damsel, and she intrusted him with the
letter in its unclosed state, only enjoining him to show it to nobody,
and give it into the hands of George Chrighton.

After nightfall, George said that "he must go to the smithy for some
things which had been forgotten in the forenoon," and wished to see
Duncan, to give him some orders about foddering the remaining horses.
But Duncan was nowhere to be found; and, after performing the task
himself--the evening being now well advanced--he took the road for the
smithy. It seemed, however, that he had business elsewhere; for, on
reaching Nettlebank, he climbed over the garden wall, and, tapping
gently at a low window, he was answered by a sigh from within. The door
was immediately opened without noise, and a female form stood by his
side. He placed her arm in his, and they passed silently to the barn,
where they both stood without speaking for some time, and both sighed
deeply. At last--

"George," said Nancy Black--for it was she--"I have done wrong in
requesting you to meet me to-night; but I have been so much agitated
with what I have heard of late that I could not do otherwise."

"What have you heard, my love?" inquired the other, in a tone of the
deepest tenderness--"only tell me, an