mself, he
shot his man right through the head. He was tried and acquitted. He was
the challenged, not the challenger; he might have given the provocation,
but no blame was suffered to attach to him. His antagonist, with a
foreboding of his fate, or by way of clearing his conscience, as the
knights used to confess of a morning before combat, had exonerated
Mr. Crawfurd before he came upon the ground. The Court was strongly
in his favour, and he was sent back to his family and property without
anything more severe than commiseration; but that could never reach his
deep sore.

How was this gentle, nervous, humorous Laird to look out upon the world,
from which he had sent the soul of a companion who had never even harmed
him? The widow, whom he had admired as a gay young matron, dwelt not a
mile from him in her darkened dwelling; the fatherless boy would
constantly cross the path of his well-protected, well-cared-for
children. How bear the thousand little memories--the trifling dates,
acts, words, pricking him with anguish? They say the man grew sick at
the mere sight of the corn-cockle, which, though not plentiful on other
moors, chanced to abound on this uncultivated tract, and bestowed on it
its name; and he shivered as with an ague fit, morning after morning,
when the clock struck the hour at which he had left his house. He did in
some measure overcome this weakness, for he was a man of ordinary
courage and extraordinary reserve, but it is possible that he endured
the worst of his punishment when he made no sign.

The Laird was a man of delicate organism, crushed by a blow from which
he could not recover. Had he lived a hundred years earlier, or been a
soldier on active service, or a student walking the hospitals, he might
have been more hardened to bloodshed. Had his fate been different, he
might have borne the brunt of the offence as well as his betters; but
the very crime which he was least calculated to commit and survive
encountered him in the colours he had worn before the eventful day.

Yet there was nothing romantic about Crawfurd of the Ewes, or about
the details of his deed, with one singular exception, and this was
connected with his daughter Joanna. The rest of the family were
commonplace, prosperous young people, honest enough hearts, but too
shallow to be affected by the father's misfortune. The father's sour
grapes had not set these children's teeth on edge. Joanna--Jack, or
Joe, as they called her in