h there was no chance of being fulfilled; but he
knew as a Scotchman that a man who trusts himself to a "strae rape" in
the hope of its breaking, may possibly hang himself; and so it happened
that the very next day a summons was served upon George Balgarnie, to
have it found and declared by the Lords of Session that he had promised
to marry Mysie Craig, whereupon a child had been born by her; or, in
fault of that, he was bound to sustain the said child. Thereupon,
without the ordinary law's delay, certain proceedings went on, in the
course of which Mysie herself was examined as the mother to afford what
the lawyers call a _semiplena probatio_, or half proof, to be
supplemented otherwise, and thereafter George Balgarnie stood before the
august fifteen. He denied stoutly all intercourse with Mysie, except an
occasional walk in the Hunter's Bog; and this he would have denied also,
but he knew that he had been seen, and that it would be sworn to by
others. And then came the last question, which Mr. Greerson, Mysie's
advocate, put in utter hopelessness. Nay, so futile did it seem to try
to catch a Scotchman by advising him to put his head in a noose on the
pretence of seeing how it fitted his neck, that he smiled even as the
words came out of his mouth--

"Did you ever promise to marry Mysie Craig?"

Was prudence, the chief of the four cardinal virtues, ever yet
consistent with vice? Balgarnie waxed clever--a dangerous trick in a
witness. He stroked his beard with a smile on his face, and answered--

"_Yes, once--when I was drunk_!"

Words which were immediately followed by the crack of a single word in
the dry mouth of one of the advocates--the word "NICKED."

And nicked he was; for the presiding judge, addressing the witness,
said--

"The drunkenness may be good enough in its own way, sir; but it does not
take away the effect of your promise; nay, it is even an aggravation,
insomuch as having enjoyed the drink, you wanted to enjoy with impunity
what you could make of the promise also."

If Balgarnie had been a reader, he might have remembered Waller's
verse--

"That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which on the shaft that made him die
Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high."

So Mysie gained her plea, and the marriage with Anabella, for whom she
had embroidered the marriage gown, was dissolved. How matters progressed
afterwards for a time, we know not; but the Scotch know that