years. Ellen had beheld him moving, a gay
and welcome visitant, in noble halls; her hand had met his in the
dance, in exchange with those of countesses and duchesses; she had
heard his praise echoed from house to house, and from mouth to mouth;
she was now alone in the country, with nothing but ignorant or coarse
men around her: let it not seem wonderful that she, though the only
daughter of a wealthy landholder, should bestow her love on the poor,
handsome, manly, eloquent pastor of Mosskirk. And if this does not
seem wonderful, it will surely not appear singular that the proud,
haughty, bigoted, and ignorant father of Ellen should forbid the
match, and should threaten with his vengeance the usurper of his
daughter's love.

His vengeance! How weak a word to such a being as William! Not that he
would not have rejoiced, for Ellen's sake, and for the sake of
decorum, to have had the old gentleman's approval; not that he would
not have used every possible means, consistent with honour and the
dignity of his own character, to have gained the good opinion of the
father of his beloved; but the laird was a man of the world, of acres,
and of hundreds; his litany lay in pounds, shillings, and pence; his
affections were wrapped up in rents and lordships; and that a poor
parson, however God had chosen to ennoble him by genius and generous
sentiments--that a poor parson should have dared to look upon a child
of his with the eyes of affection, upon the child who was the natural
heir of all those riches which he had laboured for half-a-century to
amass, smote him as a personal insult, as an indignity which nothing
but blood could wipe out. The mother of Ellen had all along thought
differently; and from the first moment in which she had perceived the
affection that existed between them (and oh, how much quicker women
are than men in discovering these things!) she had encouraged their
intimacy.

William Riddell, the minister of Mosskirk, was out of the canons of
the duello, and the laird, therefore, instead of calling him out, was
compelled to be satisfied with disinheriting Ellen, who, under
circumstances which fully exonerated her from her father's tyrannical
wishes, became William's wife.

My friend William had always been one of those persons who abhorred
the usual terms on which wives are sought and husbands achieved.
"Keeping a wife," was a phrase of blasphemy to him, or at least it
seemed desecrating women to the level of a