CHAMBERS'S

POCKET MISCELLANY.

A STORY OF THE FORTY-FIVE.'

THE little lonely Inn of Crook, near the source of the Tweed, is a spot well known to travellers and tourists, and withal one much admired by them, being, as it were, an oasis in the desert, a place of rest and refreshment in a cold and mountainous wilderness. This place, or rather its neighbourhood, was the scene of a strange adventure, many years ago, which we propose to narrate to the reader in a more complete form than it has hitherto appeared.

One misty morning, in the autumn of 1746, George Black, the landlord of the Crook Inn, stood at the door of his isolated dwelling, eyeing attentively the heavens above him, and the mountains around him, for want, it may be, of anything better to do. Confoun' these mists!' muttered he; they'll no clear up the hail day, I doot. Gin this weather gang on muckle langer, we may shut our doors when we like. No ae leevin' thing,' continued he, stepping out to the middle of the road that passed his house, and looking first up and then down the narrow vale—' no ae leevin' thing to be seen either to the richt or to the left. But there's aye ae comfort in this rouky

weather, at onyrate; for if it be the same in the Highlands as it is here, the puir bits o' bodies that's skulkin' aboot the hill-taps winna be sae easily ta'en by the sodgers.' The landlord's observations were suddenly cut short. His eye caught sight of a party of soldiers, the very persons he had been speaking of; and he hurried in to prepare for their anticipated visit.

Meanwhile, the little party of soldiers which had caught his eye, marched slowly up the vale, along the soft and plashy road that ran nearly parallel with the Tweed. Such detachments were no uncommon visitors of the Crook, for this little hostel lay on the direct road from the Highlands towards Carlisle, whither the northern rebels were at this time regularly sent, as taken, in order that they might be tried at a cool distance from all partial influences, and where, at this particular time, scarcely a week passed without seeing numbers of them executed according to the approved style dictated by the English law of high-treason. The well-armed party now advancing to the Crook, was bound on such an errand. They were six or seven in number, with a lieutenant at their head, and in the midst of them walked a tall and finely formed young Highlander, with his right arm pinned for security to his side. Though on his way to certain death, and though his soiled tartans and thin cheek spoke of suffering and privation, the prisoner moved with as firm a tread as his captors, and, but for his bonds, might have been taken as their chief. Of a very different opinion, however, was Lieutenant Howison, the actual leader of the band, a pompous middle-aged man, of low stature, and thickset, rolling figure, which was rendered somewhat ludicrous to look at, by its possessor having bent it into a crescent-the convex side foremost-through longcontinued attempts to acquire a dignified military attitude. Everything which this personage did or said was 'in the king's name. This was indeed Lieutenant Howison's tower of strength. It was even alleged, that when he ran away from the battle of Prestonpans, he did it in the king's name.'

Such was the person who halted, on the morning alluded to, to refresh himself and men at the Inn of Crook, having marched some five or six miles since daybreak. After commanding his soldiers to go with the prisoner into one room, and take some bread and cheese, the lieutenant himself retired to another apartment, there to refresh himself with something of a more savoury nature, if it was to be had. Geordie, in person, waited on the officer, and supplied him with the best the house contained. When this duty had been performed, the landlord then turned his attention to the soldiers, being, in fact, anxious to get a glimpse of the 'puir chield' that had fallen into their hands. In this object he was at first disappointed, the Highlander's face being averted from the rest of the party, and steadily directed towards the window. At last one of the soldiers, with more kindness than any of the others seemed disposed to shew, exclaimed: 'Come, my lad, here's a share of my bit and sup! I shan't see a poor fellow starved neither, rebel though he has been.' The prisoner seemingly was touched by the man's good-nature, and turned partly round to benefit by the offer. Geordie Black, on the instant that he got a glimpse of the Highlander's face, was overwhelmed with alarm and vexation. His heart failed him, and it was with a feeling of fainting that he shrunk from the apartment.

It was not until the soldiers were fairly out of sight, that the heart-stricken landlord dared to give vent to his feelings. O Peggy, Peggy, woman!' said he when alone with his wife, 'whae do ye think has faun into their murdering clutches but Neil Maclaren ! What will become o' Ailie noo, wandering, maybe, by this time frae door to door, without a house to put her head in, or a bit to put in her mouth, or as likely to be dead and gane, since we have na heard from her about this unlucky business. O what could tempt him to gang out, and him a married man wi' a family!' To Geordie's tirade, his wife could only reply by sorrowful exclamations of My puir dochter, my puir Ailie!' The forenoon, it may well

be conceived, was spent by the honest couple in the most unpleasant state of mind, for Maclaren, as the reader will have surmised, was their son-in-law. One thing surprised the landlord much, which was, that he should have remained so long ignorant of Maclaren's joining Prince Charles. But the truth was, that Neil had only joined him a short time before the battle of Culloden, being drawn, at last, from his home, by the spectacle of an invading enemy in his native country.

Let us now leave for awhile the landlord of Crook, to whom this was destined to be an eventful day, and follow the party of soldiers in their slow march up the Vale of Tweed. As Geordie Black had predicted, the mists did not clear up as the day grew older. Other parts of the country, indeed, might have been free of fog, but at every step the soldiers were moving higher and higher, and the white drizzling fleeces on the hillsides became thicker and thicker. It is to be questioned, if there is in all the Lowlands of Scotland a more elevated piece of table-land than that lying some ten miles above Crook, from which spring the fountains of the three great rivers, the Clyde, the Annan, and the Tweed. The road traversed by Maclaren and his captors crosses this obtusely-pyramidal height for so it is shewn to be, on a great scale, by the descent of these riversat a spot called Errick-Stane-Brae.

After the height of the country has been passed, it proceeds for some way along the brink of a profound green hollow, in which the Annan takes its rise, and which is usually termed the Devil's, but sometimes also the Marquis of Annandale's, Beef-Tub, from some resemblance it bears to that domestic utensil, and because the reivers of the great Border house of Johnston used of old to conceal their stolen cattle in it. As implied by the appellation, the sides of this hollow are nearly perpendicular all round, the bottom being so deep, that, in clear weather, a traveller looking down into it from the road, sees bullocks diminished to the size of sheep, and sheep to the magnitude of hares, On the present

occasion, however, it was filled to the brim by the dense fog which pervaded the atmosphere, so that the road winding along the top appeared like the shore of a deep bay of the sea, to step from which would have been to plunge into an abyss, and be lost for ever.

The soldiers, though the country was to them entirely new, passed along the high and perilous road with feelings little impressed by it. The dreariness and monotony of their day's march had rendered their minds dull and inattentive, and instead of keeping in a close circle round their prisoner, they straggled along in a line, in which he was sometimes near the front, and sometimes near the rear. Very different was the mental condition of Maclaren, who, from his having frequently passed this way with cattle, as many Highland gentlemen of superior rank to himself were accustomed to do, was acquainted with every foot of the way, and had long meditated a particular design of escape, which he was now to put into execution. How great was the astonishment of the soldiery, when Maclaren, who at one moment was pacing quietly along in the dreary march, was the next seen to start, as if instinct with a new life, from their line, towards the edge of the precipice, over which he plunged head foremost, and was in a moment lost to sight! To rush after him was but the work of another moment; yet so quick had been his movements, that he was already absorbed in the sea of mist which filled the Beef-Tub. With his head firmly clenched between his knees, and holding his feet in his hands, he had formed himself as nearly as possible into a round form, and allowed himself freely to roll heels over head down the steep side of the hollow, the surface of which he knew presented at this place no obstructions capable of injuring him. In their ignorance of the ground, no soldier durst follow him. The brave lieutenant could only, as soon as he recovered breath, exclaim with an oath: 'Stop, sir-I arrest you in the king's name!' while the soldiers fired their muskets at random into the misty gulf, or ran a little way round its edges, in the hope of finding a less