know your own Tom? Father,
mother, don't you know me? Have you really forgot your own son? If
twelve years have made some change on his face, his heart is sound as
ever."

His father, his mother, and his brothers, clung around him, weeping,
smiling, and mingling a hundred questions together. He threw his arms
around the neck of each, and in answer to their inquiries,
replied--"Well! well! there is time enough to answer questions, but not
to-day--not to-day!"

"No, my bairn," said his mother, "we'll ask you no questions--nobody
shall ask you any! But how--how were ye torn away from us, my love? And,
O hinny! where--where hae you been?"

"It's a long story, mother," said he, "and would take a week to tell it.
But, howsoever, to make a long story short, you remember when the
smugglers were pursued, and wished to conceal their brandy in our house,
my father prevented them; they left muttering revenge--and they have
been revenged. This day twelve years, I went out with the intention of
meeting Elizabeth and her father, when I came upon a party of the gang
concealed in Hell's Hole. In a moment half a dozen pistols were held to
my breast, and, tying my hands to my sides, they dragged me into the
cavern. Here I had not been long their prisoner, when the snow, rolling
down the mountains, almost totally blocked up its mouth. On the second
night they cut through the snow, and, hurrying me along with them, I was
bound to a horse between two, and, before daylight, found myself stowed,
like a piece of old junk, in the hold of a smuggling lugger. Within a
week I was shipped on board a Dutch man-of-war, and for six years was
kept dodging about on different stations, till our old yawning hulk
received orders to join the fleet, which was to fight against the
gallant Duncan at Camperdown. To think of fighting against my own
countrymen, my own flesh and blood, was worse than to be cut to pieces
by a cat-o'-nine tails; and, under cover of the smoke of the first
broadside, I sprang upon the gunwale, plunged into the sea, and swam for
the English fleet. Never, never shall I forget the moment that my feet
first trode upon the deck of a British frigate! My nerves felt as firm
as her oak, and my heart, free as the pennant that waved defiance from
her masthead! I was as active as any one during the battle; and when it
was over, and I found myself again among my own countrymen, and all
speaking my own language, I fancied--nay, hang it! I almos