Wilsons Tales of the Borders and Scotland, Vol. XXIII. | Page 6

replied she, smiling, "it would just seem that even the haggis
has not pleased you, Mr. Dallas;" and, putting her hand into a big
side-pocket, that might have served a gaberlunzie for a wallet, she
extracted a small piece of paper. She continued: "But ye see a guid,
honest Scotchwoman's no to be suspected of being shabby at her own
table; so read ye that, which you may take for the bread-pudding."
And the writer, having taken the paper, and held it before his face for
so long a time that it might have suggested the suspicion that the words
therein written stuck in his eyes, and would not submit to that strange
process whereby, unknown to ourselves, we transfer written vocables to
the ear before we can understand them, turned a look upon the woman
of dark suspicion--
"Where, in God's name, got you this?" he said.
"Just read it out first," replied she. "Ye read yer ain paper, and why no
mine?"
And the writer read, perhaps more easily than he could understand, the
strange words:
"This child, born of my wife, and yet neither of my blood nor my
lineage, I repudiate, and, unable to push it back into the dark world of
nothing from which it came, I leave it with a scowl to the mercy which
countervaileth the terrible decree whereby the sins of the parent shall be
visited on the child. This I do on the 15th of June 17--. JOHN NAPIER
of Eastleys, in the county of Mid-Lothian."
After reading this extraordinary denunciation, Mr. Dallas sat and
considered, as if at a loss what to say; but whether it was that
scepticism was at the root of his thoughts, or that he assumed it as a

mask to conceal misgivings to which he did not like to confess, he put a
question:
"Where got you this notable piece of evidence?"
"Ay," replied Mrs. Hislop, "you are getting reasonable on the last dish.
That bit of paper, which to me and my dear Henney is werth the haill
estate of Eastleys, was found by me carefully pinned to the flannel in
which the child was wrapt."
"Wonderful enough surely," repeated he, "_if true_"--the latter words
being pronounced with emphasis which made the rough liquid letter
sound like a hurling stone; "but," he continued, "the whole document,
in its terms of crimination and exposure, and not less the wild manner
of its application, is so unlike the act of a man not absolutely frantic,
that I cannot believe it to be genuine."
"But you know, Mr. Dallas," replied she, "that Mr. John Napier was a
man who, if he threw a stone, cared little whether it struck the kirk
window or the mill door."
"That is so far true; but, passionate and unforgiving as he was, he was
not so reckless as to be regardless whether the stone did not come back
on his own head."
"And it's no genuine!" she resumed, as, disregarding his latter words,
she relapsed into her more familiar dialect. "The Lord help ye! canna
ye look at first the ae paper and then the ither? and if they're no alike,
mustna the ither be the forgery?"
An example of the conditional syllogism which might have amused
even a writer to the signet, if he had not been at the very moment busy
in the examination of the handwriting of the funeral letter and that of
the paper of repudiation and malison--the resemblance, or rather the
identity of which was so striking, as to reduce all his theories to
confusion.
"By all that's good in heaven, the same," he muttered to himself; and
then addressing his visitor, "I confess, Mrs. Hislop," said he, "that this
paper has driven me somewhat off my point of confidence; but I
suppose you will see that, if the child was actually, as the letter
indicates, buried with its mother, Henrietta's rights are at an end. It is
just possible, however, I fairly admit, that Mr. Napier, who was a very
eccentric man, may have so worded the letter as to induce the world to
believe that the so-considered illegitimate child had been dead-born,

while he gratified--privately he might verily think--his vengeance by
writing this terrible curse. Still I think you are wrong; but as this
wonderful paper gives you a plausible plea, I would recommend you to
Mr. White, in Mill's Court, who will see to the young woman's rights.
He will be the flint, and I the steel; and between our friendly opposition
we will produce a spark which will light up the candle of truth."
"Ay," replied she; "only as the spark of fire comes from the steel, we'll
just suppose you are the flint--and by my troth you're hard enough; but,
come as it