s supplied by a small grating,
and with a small supply of meat, only sufficient to allay at first the
pangs of hunger. Will having thus executed his commission, sat down and
wrote on a scrap of paper these expressive words--"The brock's in the
pock!" and sent it with one of his friends to Traquair House. The moment
the Earl read the scrawl, he knew that Will had performed his promise,
and took a hearty laugh at the extraordinary scheme he had resorted to
for gaining his plea. It was not yet, however, his time to commence
his proceedings; but, in a short while after the imprisonment of the
President, he set off for Edinburgh, which town he found in a state of
wonder and ferment at the mysterious disappearance of the illustrious
Durie. Every individual he met had something to say on the subject; but
the prevailing opinion was, that the unhappy President had ventured
upon that part of the sands near Leith where the incoming tide usually
encloses, with great rapidity, large sand-banks, and often overwhelms
helpless strangers who are unacquainted with the manner in which the
tide there flows. Numbers of people had exerted themselves in searching
all the surrounding parts, and some had traversed the whole coast from
Musselburgh to Cramond, in the expectation of finding the body upon the
sea-shore. But all was in vain: no President was found; and a month of
vain search and expectation having passed, the original opinion settled
down into a conviction that he had been drowned. His wife, Lady Durie,
after the first emotions of intense grief, went, with her whole family,
into mourning; and young and old lamented the fate of one of the most
learned judges and best men that ever sat on the judgment-seat of
Scotland.

There was nothing now to prevent Traquair from reaping the fruits of his
enterprise. He pressed hard for a judgment in his case; and pled that
the fourteen judges having been equally divided, he was entitled to a
decision in his favour as _defender_. This plea was not at that time
sustained; but a new president having been appointed, who was favourable
to his side of the question, the case was again to be brought before the
court, and the Earl expected to carry his point, and reap all the
benefit of Will's courage and ingenuity.

Meantime, the dead-alive President was closely confined in the old tower
of Graeme, and had never recovered from the feelings of superstition
which held the sovereign power of his mind at the