he heard the smith and gauger on
one side, the miller and schoolmaster on the other, as junior and senior
counsel. Edie's mind, however, was fully made up on the subject before
the pleading began; like that of many a judge, who must nevertheless go
through all the forms, and endure in its full extent the eloquence and
argumentation of the Bar. For when all had been said on both sides,
and much of it said over oftener than once, our senior, being well and
ripely advised, pronounced the moderate and healing judgment, that the
disputed cast was a drawn one, and should therefore count to neither
party. This judicious decision restored concord to the field of
players; they began anew to arrange their match and their bets, with the
clamorous mirth usual on such occasions of village sport, and the more
eager were already stripping their jackets, and committing them,
with their coloured handkerchiefs, to the care of wives, sisters, and
mistresses. But their mirth was singularly interrupted.

On the outside of the group of players began to arise sounds of a
description very different from those of sport--that sort of suppressed
sigh and exclamation, with which the first news of calamity is received
by the hearers, began to be heard indistinctly. A buzz went about among
the women of "Eh, sirs! sae young and sae suddenly summoned!"--It then
extended itself among the men, and silenced the sounds of sportive
mirth.

All understood at once that some disaster had happened in the country,
and each inquired the cause at his neighbour, who knew as little as the
querist. At length the rumour reached, in a distinct shape, the ears of
Edie Ochiltree, who was in the very centre of the assembly. The boat of
Mucklebackit, the fisherman whom we have so often mentioned, had been
swamped at sea, and four men had perished, it was affirmed, including
Mucklebackit and his son. Rumour had in this, however, as in other
cases, gone beyond the truth. The boat had indeed been overset; but
Stephen, or, as he was called, Steenie Mucklebackit, was the only man
who had been drowned. Although the place of his residence and his mode
of life removed the young man from the society of the country folks, yet
they failed not to pause in their rustic mirth to pay that tribute to
sudden calamity which it seldom fails to receive in cases of infrequent
occurrence. To Ochiltree, in particular, the news came like a knell, the
rather that he had so lately engaged this y