Wilsons Tales of the Borders and Scotland, Vol. XXIII. | Page 5

very Charles who is now thinking he will heir Eastleys by
pushing aside poor Henney? And then the poison, like the old apple,
was so fair and tempting; for Mr. Napier had been married ten years,
and enjoyed the love that is so bonnie a 'little while when it is new,' and
yet had no children, till this one came so exactly nine months after the
captain's visit to Scotland, that Satan had little more to do than hold up
the temptation. You see, sir, how things come round; but still,
according to the old fashion, after a long, weary, dreary turn. Mrs.
Napier died next day after the birth; Mr. Napier lived a miserable man;
Henney was brought up in poverty, and sometimes distress, but now I
hope she has come to her kingdom."
Here Mrs. Hislop stopped; and as there could be no better winding-up
of a romance than by bringing her heroine to her kingdom at last, she
felt so well pleased with her conclusion, that she could afford to wait
longer for her expected applause than the fair story-tellers in the
brigata under Queen Pampinea; and it was as well that she was thus
fortified, for the writer, in place of declaring his satisfaction, with her
proofs, seemed, as he lay back in his chair in a deep reverie, to be
occupied once more in hunting for flaws. At length, raising himself on

his chair, and fixing his eyes upon her with that look of scepticism
which a writer assumes when he addresses a would-be new client who
wants to push out an old one with a better right--
"Mrs. Hislop," said he, "if it had not been that I have always taken you
for an honest woman, I would say that you are art and part in
fabricating a story without a particle of foundation. There may possibly
be some mystery about the birth and parentage of the young girl. You
may have got her out of the house of Meggat's Land in the Canongate
from a man--not Mr. Napier, you admit--who may have been the father
of it by some mother residing in the house; and Mrs. Kemp may have
been actuated, by some unknown means, to remove the paternity from
the right to the wrong person. All this is possible; but that the child
could be that one which Mrs. Napier bore is impossible, for this
reason--and I beg of you to listen to it--that Mrs. Napier's child _was
dead-born, and was, according to good evidence, buried in the same
coffin with the mother_."
A statement this, which, delivered in the solemn manner of an attorney
who was really honest, and who knew much of this history, appeared to
Mrs. Hislop so strange that her tongue was paralyzed; an effect which
had never before been produced by any one of all the five causes of the
metaphysicians. Even her eyes seemed to have lost their power of
movement; and as for her wits, they had, like those of the renowned
Astolpho, surely left, and taken refuge in the moon.
"If you are not satisfied with my words," continued the writer (no doubt
ironically, for where could he have found better evidence of the effect
of his statement?), "I will give you writing for the truth of what I have
said to you."
And rising and going towards a green tin box, he opened the same, and
taking therefrom a piece of paper, he resumed his seat.
"Now listen," said he, as he unfolded an old yellow-coloured sheet of
paper, and then he read these words: "'Your presence is requested at the
funeral of Henrietta Preston, my wife, and of a child still-born, from
my house, Meggat's Land, Canongate, to the burying-ground at St.
Cuthberts, on Friday the 19th of this month June, at one o'clock;' and
the name at this letter," continued Mr. Dallas, "is that of 'John Napier of
Eastleys.' Will that satisfy you?"
And the "doer" for Mr. Charles Napier, conceiving that he had at last

effectually "done" his client's opponent, seemed well pleased to sit and
witness the further effect of his evidence on the bewildered woman; but
we are to remember that a second stroke sometimes only takes away
the pain of the former, and a repetition of blows will quicken the
reaction which slumbered under the first. Whether this was so or not in
our present instance, or whether Mrs. Hislop had recovered her wits by
a process far shorter than that followed by the foresaid Astolpho, we
know not; but certain it is, that she recovered the powers of both her
eyes and her tongue in much less time than the writer expected, and in a
manner, too, very different from that for which he was probably
prepared.
"Weel,"