Wilsons Tales of the Borders and Scotland, Vol. XXIII. | Page 9

the
Canongate, they landed in the Fountain Close, where, under the leading
of Mrs. Hislop, the writer was procured another witness, with a name
already familiar to him through the communication of his client; and
this was no other than that same Jean Graham, who was sent to

Toddrick's Wynd on that eventful night, fifteen years before, to bring
Mrs. Hislop to the house in Meggat's Land;--one of those simple
souls--we wish there were more of them in the world--who look upon a
lie as rather an operose affair, and who seem to be truthful from sheer
laziness. There was, accordingly, no difficulty here; for the woman
rolled off her story just as if it had been coiled up in her mind for all
that length of time.
"There was a terrible stir in the house that night," she began. "The
nurse, wha is yet living in Lochend Close, and Mrs. Kemp the howdie,
wha is dead, were wi' my lady; and John Cowie, the butler, was busy
attending our master, who had been the haill day in ane o' his dark fits,
for we heard him calling for Cowie in a fierce voice ever and again;
and his step sounded ower our heads upon the floor as he walked back
and fore in his wrath. Then I was sent for you, and brought you, and
you'll mind how Cowie bade me go along; but I had mair sense, for I
listened at the door, and heard what the butler said to ye when he gied
ye the bairn; and think ye I didna see ye carry it along the passage as ye
left? Sae far I could understand; but when I heard nurse say the bairn
was dead, Mrs. Kemp say the bairn was still-born, and Cowie declare it
was better it was dead and awa, I couldna comprehend this ava; nor do
I weel yet; but we just thought that as there was something wrang
between master and my lady, he wanted us to believe that the bairn was
dead, for very shame o' being thought the father, when maybe he wasna.
And then he was so guid to me and my neighbour Anne Dickson,--ye
mind o' her--puir soul, she's dead too,--that we couldna, for the very
heart o' us, say a word o' what we knew. But now when Mr. Napier is
dead, and the brother o' that wicked Jezebel, Isbel Napier, may try to
take the property frae Henney, wha I aye kenned as a Napier, with the
very nose and een o' the father, I have spoken out; and may the Lord
gie the right to whom the right is due!"
"It's all right," said the writer, after he had jotted with a pencil the
evidence of Jean, as well as that of the nurse; "and if we could find this
John Cowie, we might so fortify the orphan's rights, as to defy Miss
Napier and her brother, and Mr. Dallas, and all the witnesses they can
bring."
"Ay," continued the woman, "but I doubt if you'll catch him. He left Mr.
Napier's service about ten years ago, and I never heard mair o' him."

"Nor I either," said Mrs. Hislop.
"Well, we must search for him," added Mr. White; "for that man alone,
so far as I can see, is he who will unravel this strange business."
And thus the day's work finished. The writer parted for Mill's Court,
and Mrs. Hislop, filled with doubts, hopes, and anxieties, sought her
humble dwelling in Toddrick's Wynd, where Henney waited for her
with all the solicitude of a daughter; but a word did not escape her lips
that might carry to the girl's mind a suspicion that the golden cord of
their supposed relationship ran a risk of being severed, even with the
eventual condition that one, if not both of the divisions, would be
transmuted into a string of diamonds.
Meanwhile the agent was in his own house, revolving all the points of a
puzzle more curious than any that had yet come within the scope of his
experience. Sometimes he felt confidence, and at other times despair;
and of course he had the consolation, which belongs to all litigants, that
the opposite party was undergoing the same process of oscillation. It
was clear enough that Cowie was the required Oedipus; and if it should
turn out that he was dead, or could not be found, the advantage was,
with a slight declination, on the part of Charles Napier; insomuch as,
while he was indisputably the nephew of the deceased, the orphan,
Henrietta, was under the necessity of proving her birth and pedigree.
And so, as it appeared, Mr. Dallas was of that opinion, for the very next
day he applied to Chancery for a brieve to