nder the Rowan tree in" ----, his spirit departed, and the sentence
was left forever unfinished.

Years passed before Archie returned again to his home, and when he did
return there Lanark estate had been partially laid waste by English
soldiers. Rowan trees there were in plenty, but some had newly sprung
up, and many old ones had been laid low, so that where in all those
broad lands the iron box lay concealed, it was impossible to determine.

Diligent search was made for it, from time to time, but without
success; and when that generation had passed away the tradition came to
be regarded as doubtful, if not fabulous.

But old Mrs. Cameron, who, although not born at the time of the battle
of Culloden, had heard the story in her childhood from her grandfather,
who was no other than Archie himself, believed it as she believed the
truths of Holy Writ.

But then the "auld gudewife" believed in many other things which her
posterity had grown wise enough to reject,--such as wraiths, witches,
spunkies, and the like; and if rallied on the subject she would reply,
indignantly, "And did na I my ain sel', see the fairies dancing in the
briken-shaw, one Halloween?"

Moreover, Mrs. Cameron held fast to the Jacobite principles of her
ancestors, for one of whom she claimed the honor of having once
sheltered the young chevalier in the days of his perilous and weary
wanderings. In acknowledgment of the act the prince had given him a
gold buckle from his hat, and promised to bestow upon him the order of
knighthood, whenever he should come to the throne. The order, of
course, was never received, but the buckle was still carefully
preserved.

So Davie gave no more heed to her family traditions and wild border
tales than to her stories of witches and fairies, but just classed them
all together, and when she said to him, as he was going to his daily
labor on the laird's land,--

"Ah, Davie, but there's a mickle treasure hid there, and wha kens but
you'll be the lucky finder?" he replied, with a laugh,--

"Nae doubt, nae doubt, a mickle treasure o' kale and potatoes, and who
so likely to find it as the laird's gardener?" and then he shouldered
his spade and went off whistling:

"Contented wi' little, and canty wi' mair."

But one day, long to be remembered, as he was hard at work, without a
thought of grandmother and her legends, his spade struck against
something hard, which proved to be the root of a tree.

"You're an auld