toplih From Fraser's Magazine. A WOOING AND WEDDING OF 17-. BY THE AUTHOR OF "MEG OF ELIBANK."

DEBROOT CHAPTER I.

"A BONNY bride's sune buskit; eh, Nanny Swinton?"

"But ye're no bonny, Miss Nelly; na, na, ye canna fill the shoon o' yer leddy mother yer snod; and ye may shake yer tails at the Assembly, but ye're far ahint Lady Carnegie."

"An I've but to dance my set with young Berwickshire Home, I care not though I bide at home after all."

knot and top-knot, was admired, as odd people will choose what is irregular, strange, and racy, in preference to what is harmonious, orderly, and insipid.

Nelly had a cavalier to walk by her sedan and her link-boy, as her mother and she traversed the rough streets, and to hand her out at the old Assembly door, although she flung away his hand, and followed her mother alone within the dignified precincts, leaving a gloom and a storm on a lowering brow, unshaded by the cocked hat, then carried under the wearer's arm.

The old Assembly Rooms where potent Jacky Murray presided, where urbane Duncan Forbes won hearts, where a gentle laird wooed in sweet numbers and in vain the Annie Laurie whose

But Nelly Carnegie would have little liked that resource, though she now flung the powder out of her nut-brown hair, and tapped her little mirror with her fan. In a low, dark closet, up a steep stair, in a nar-brow was like the snaw drift, Her throat was like the swan." row, confined, dark-browed house in the Canongate, one of the belles of 17- made Much has gone in company with its wigs her toilette; and her chamber woman, in and ruffles, its patches and snuff; the grace her curch and her tartan screen, was old may remain, and the refinement be thorough nurse and sole domestic of the high-headed, where it was superficial, but the courtliness strong-minded, stately widow of a wild of conscious superiority, the picturesque north country laird, whose son now ruled contrarieties and broken natural land that alone in the rugged family mansion among lay below the heaths ond craters, exist but the grand, misty mountains of Lochaber. as the black gloom and red glare of the Nelly Carnegie was no beauty; not fair as a past. red-and-white rose, like Lady Eglinton, or There the grave, responsible Lord of Sesany one of her six daughters; not dainty, sion, sober in mien as Scotchmen are wont like poor imprisoned Lady Lovat; she was to be, at midnight roaring over his claret in more like desperate Lady Primrose, flying the mad orgies of the Hell-fire Club; here shrieking from her mad husband's sword and the pawky, penetrating lawyer, shrewd both pistols, or fierce Lady Grange, swearing her from calling and character, playing the reckbootless revenge on the wily, treacherous, less game of a correspondence with the stage scared Lord of Session; she was wild, witty Court of St. Germains; yonder mettle Nelly Carnegie, whom no precise, stern beauty sailing along on her high-heeled shoes mother could tame, no hard life at her to finish the night's triumph at an oyster embroidery or her spinnet long hours, supper in a den behind the Sunkenbooths. plain fare, scanty ease, comfort, or luxury- Again, an imperial dowager, who still spun could subdue. Gay, gallant Nelly Carnegie, her own linen and struck her serving-man brown as a gipsy, skin, eyes, and hair-the with her ivory cane. Truly the old Edinlast a rich ruddy chesnut brown-with burgh Assembly Rooms had their secrets and nothing to distinguish her figure but its contained more exciting elements under diminutiveness and the nimblness of the their formal French polish than the repose shapely hands and feet; while Lady Carne- that among moderns gie's lace lappets were higher by half a foot Stamps the caste of Vere de Vere." than many a manikin on whom she looked The stated balls at the Assembly Rooms down, and the back that never bent or leant were eras in Nelly Carnegie's life, yet she for a second on rail or cushion, was straight met always the same company; every face as an arrrow, as well as long. But Nelly, and name she knew, and what was worse, in her absurd, magnificent brocade, and her danced nightly with the same partner. The hoop that made her small figure like a little select society was constituted at the comrusset cask, with her busk and her breast-mencement of the season, and when once

the individual fan was drawn from the "I dinna ken; if I did not fear a living, cocked hat of fate, there was no respite no sorry I would dare a dead ane," Nelly proroom for change. Young Home of Stane- tested, with a shade of scorn in her levity; holme had knowledge of the filagree circle" and ye can bide in the house on the soft through which Nelly was wont to insert her summer nights: the Lady of Auchtershiel restless fingers, and Lady Carneigie fur- need not daunder by the burn side; she can thered his advances; so although Nelly be counten her house purse in the still hated him as she did the gloom of Nor-loch, room; but if I were she, I would rather beg she received his escort to and from the As- my bread." sembly Rooms, and walked with him her single minuette as inevitably as she lilted Allan Ramsay's songs, or scalded her mouth with her morning's porridge.

Nelly's suitor was not ill to look upon as far as flesh and blood went; he was a well made, robust fellow, whose laced coat and deep vest showed the comely, vigorous proportions of youth; the face was manly too, in spite of its beardless one-and-twenty, but the broad eyebrows sunk, either in study or sullenness, and the jaw was hard and fixed. Yet too see how Nelly strained her bonds, how she gecked and flouted and looked above him, and curtsied past him, and dropped his hand as if it were a live coal, while the heavy brow grew darker, until it showed like a thunder-storm over the burning red of the passion-flushed cheek.

"Take tent, Nelly," whispered a sensible companion, sensible, cautious, and canny, whose flaxen hair over its roll, had the dead grayness of age, though the face below was round and dimpled ; 66 young Staneholme drew his sword last night on the President's son because he speered as if he had skill to tame a gosshawk."

"Tak tent yerself, Janet Erskine," Nelly responded, wrathfully; "think twice, or you would wed auld Auchtershiel."

Janet shrank, and her light blue eye blinked uneasily, but no additional color came into her cheek, nor did her voice shake, though it fell. "It must be, Nelly; I darena deny my father, and mony mair drink forby Auchtershiel; and if he cursed his last wife out and in, and drove her son across the sea, they were thrawn and cankered, and he was their head. I'll speak him fair, and his green haughs are a braw jointure. But Nelly, do ye believe that the auld Laird, the auld ane before Auchtershiel himself, he that shot the Covenanter as he hung by the saugh over the Spinkie-water, and blasphemed when he prayed, walks at night on the burn bank?

"Whisht, for shame, Nelly Carnegie," was returned with a shrillness in the measured tones; "you would not, and ye'll learn yer own task, and say yes to sour, dour Staneholme."

"I never will; I'll let myself be starved to death, I'll throttle myself with my own hands first," cried Nelly Carneigie, fire flashing in her large eyes and on her dark cheeks; and looking up in her defiance she met the glow for glow of Staneholme's stare. Time-serving Janet Erskine moved off in unconcealed trepidation, and Nelly stood her ground alone, stamping her foot upon the boards, and struggling in vain against the cruel influence she could not control and would not bend to.

"He need not gloom and look at me, the hearkener that could not hear good of himself," Nelly thought, with passionate vehemence; but her sparkling eyes fell slowly, and her proud panting heart quailed with a long throb.

CHAPTER II.

THE next time Nelly saw Adam Home was by the landing in the Canongate, in whose shelter lay the draw-well, wherein the proud, gently-born laird's daughter dipped every afternoon the Dutch porcelain jug which carried the fresh spring-water with which to infuse her mother's cherished, tiny cup of tea. Young Home was passing, and he stepped aside, and offered to take the little vessel from her hand, and stoop and fill it, with a silent salutation and a glance that, retaining its wonted downward aim, yet suddenly lightened as if it loved to rest upon the little girlish figure, in its homely tucked-up gown, with black mittens on the round arms, and a velvet band about the swelling throat, and a crimson hood drawn over the chestnut hair, that turned back in a crisp wave from the bold, frank, innccent face-but she waved him off, and balancing her foot upon the edge-stone, saw herself reflected in the steel-like water. Then he

begged with rare softness in a voice that | death with the same unblenching front, and was rough and gruff, unless it deepened had disowned her only son because in what with strong feeling

"I'll work my fingers to the bone, mother; "Your providing is not to buy," contin- my brother Hugh will not see me want.”ania ued the mistress of the aristocratic house- "Eat bite or sup of his victuals, mint a hold, whose attendance was so scanty, and Carnegie's working to me again, Nelly Cartheir wants so ill supplied, that even in nec-negie, and never see my face more." essaries they were sometimes pinched; and Lady Carnegie had lapsed into grim wrath, who in her own person had looked upon that burned a white heat on her wrinkled

CHAPTER MI.

brow, and was doubly formidable because | Nelly, she's yer leddy mother; neither man expressed by no hasty word or gesture. nor God will acquit you; your burden may "Leave my presence, and learn your duty be lichter than ye trow." "And Nelly was belyve, for before the turn of the moon weary, and had sinful, mad thoughts of livStaneholme's wife ye sall be." baning to punish her enemies more by the fulfilDo not think that Nellie Carnegie was thus ment of their desire than by the terrors of beaten, although she uttered no further re- her early death; and the next time her monstrance where there was stone; although mother tapped on the panel with her unshe did not sob and beg and pray, beyond a daunted, unwearied "Ay or no, Nelly Carfew minutes, she opposed to the tyrannical negie; gin the bridal be not this week, I'll mandate that disposed of her so summarily bid him tarry another, and gin he weary the dead weight of passive resistance. She and ride awa', I'll keep ye steekit here till would give no token of submission; she I'm carried out a corp before ye, and I'll would make no preparation; she would leave ye my curse to be coal and candle, and neither stir hand nor foot in the matter; sops and wine, for the lave o' yer ill days.' she remained in ominous inaction. But a Nelly gasped out a husky, wailing “Ay," hundred years ago the head of a family was and her probation was at an end. paramount, and household discipline wielded without mercy. Lady Carnegie acted like a sovereign; she wasted no time on arguments, threats, or entreaties; she locked her wilful obarge into her dark sleeping-closet, and fed her on bread and water until she should consent to her fate. And sometimes Nelly shook the door until its hinges cracked, and sometimes she flung back the bread, the prisoner's fare, doled out to her; and then her mother came with her firm, slow step, and in her hard, haughty manner commanded her to cease, or she would tie her hand and foot, and pour meat and drink down her throat in spite of her, and so cowed her passion, as a strong, restrained, native force will quell an impulse, however wild. And then Nelly lay down on the rough boards, and stretched out her hands as if to push the world from her and die in her despair; but the young life was fresh and strong within her, and she The evening was raw and rainy; elderly panted for one breath of the breeze that gentlemen would have needed their lass blew round craggy Arthur's Seat, and one with a lantern" to escort them from their drink of St. Anthony's Well, and another chambers. The old city guard sputtered look, if it were the last, of the golden sun- their Gaelic, and stamped up and down for shine, no beams of which could penetrate warmth; the chairmen drank their last fee her high, little window; and she would fain to keep out the cold, and in and out the low again go up the busy street and watch the doorways moved middle-aged women in ourch crowds of passengers, and listen to the bust-and short gown, and bare feet, who, when ling traffic, and greet lightly her friends and snooded maidens, had gazed on the white acquaintances. Silence and solitude, and cockade, and the march of Prince Charlie the dim light soon eclipsed, and the close air Stewart and his Highlandmen. Down the that oppressed her, were things very foreign narrow way, in the drizzly dusk, ran a to her nature; and in the dark night, when slight figure, muffled entirely in one of her distempered imagination conjured up those screens that shrouded the luckless vishorrible dreams, Nanny Swinton stole to her itors of the Italian doctor-the bewildered door, and bemoaned her bird, her lamb, and horror-struck gazers into his misty mirror. whispered hoarsely, "Do her biddin', Miss Fleet of foot was the runner, but her very

THERE was brief space now for Nelly's buying pearlins and pinners and sacques and mantles, and all a young matron's bravery, or for decorating a guest chamber for the ceremony; but Lady Carnegie was not to be balked for trifles, and Nanny Swinton stitched night and day, with the salt tears from aged eyes, rarely wet, moistening her thread; and Nelly did not swerve from her compact, acting mechanically with the others, as she was told. With a strange pallor on the olive of her cheek, and swollen, burning lids drooping over sunk violet lines, and cold, trembling hands, she bore Staneholme's stated presence in these long, cold March afternoons. He never addressed her particularly, although he took many a long, sore look. Few and formal were the lover's devoirs expected or permitted then.

speed was her defeat; she held her course | dowf gallant; but who would have thought blindly, for twice she came in contact with that Nelly Carnegie in the white brocade intervening obstacles-water-stoups on a threshold, gay ribands fluttering from a booth. Flying from worse than death, with dim projects of begging her way to the North, to the brother she had parted from a child; ghastly suggestions, like lightning flashes, of seizing a knife from the first butcher's block and ending her misery. She had never heard the fate of the young Roman girl looking into her father's ruthless eyes, but she knew

"Bonny Bawbie Livingstone
Playin' at her ba',

She's met wi' Lord Linlyon
Who's stown her awa'."

And she could have lifted up her hands to high Heaven, and shrieked out the malison"Now woe to you Linlyon

An ill death may ye dee."

that was her grandmother's the day that made her sib to Rothes-Nelly Carnegie who flouted at love and lovers, and sported a free, light, brave heart, would have made so dowie a bride? But the company consisted only of Lady Carnegie's starched cousins, with their husbands and their daughters, who yet hoped to out-rival Nelly with her gloomy Lauderdale Laird.

The hurried ceremony excused the customary festivities; and the family party could keep counsel, and preserve a discreet blindness when the ring dropped from the bride's fingers, and the wine stood untasted before her, while Lady Carnegie did the honors as if lonely age and narrow circumstamces did not exist.

CHAPTER IV.

rattling each casement.

THE March sun shone clear and cold on Hasty steps treading fast upon her track-gray Staneholme, standing on the verge of a she distinguished them with morbid acuteness wide moor, with the troubled German Ocean through the speed of her own flight. Min- for a background, and the piping east wind gled steps, a feeble, hurrying foot-fall, and an iron tread; she threaded a group of bystanders, and, weak, helpless girl, prepared to dive into a mirk close. Not this black opening, Nelly Carnegie, it is doomed to bear for generations a foul stain-the scene of a mystery no Scottish law-court could clearthe Begbie murder. But it was no seafaring man, with Cain's red right hand, that rushed after trembling, fainting Nelly Carnegie; it was the tender arms where she had lain as an infant that first clutched her dress, it was a kindly tongue that faltered its faithful, distressed petition

"Come back, come back, Miss Nelly, afore the Leddy finds out; ye hae nae refuge, an' yer traced already by mair than me.

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Strong hands were upon her, holding her like a fluttering moth, or, a wild panting leveret, or a lapwing beating its wings; doing her no violence-as who would brush off the down, or tear the soft fur, or break the ruffled feathers?-but against which she struggled so frantically that poor old Nanny interposed"Na, sir; let her be; she'll gae hame wi' me, her ain born serving-women. And O, Staneholme, be not hard, it's her last nicht." That was Nelly Carnegie's marriage eve. On the morrow the marriage was cele brated. The bridegroom might pass in his manly prime and his scarlet coat, although a

There was haste and hurry in Staneholme, from the Laird's mother down through her merry buxom daughters, to the bareheaded servant-lasses, and the substitutes for groom and lacquey, in coarse home-spun and honest, broad, blue bonnets. There was bustle in the little dining-room, with its high windows which the sea-foam sometimes dimmed-with its spindle-legged chairs and smoked pictures; blythe work in the cheerful hall, in whose broad chimney great sea-coal fires blazed-at whose humming wheels the young Mays of Staneholme, as well as its dependents, still took their morning turn: willing toil in the sleeping-rooms, with their black cabinets and heavy worsted curtains; a thronged mêlée in the court formed by the outhouses, over whose walls the small-leaved ivy of the coast clustered untreasured. Staneholme's favor. ite horse was rubbing down; Staneholme's dogs were airing in couples; even the tenantry of the never-failing pigeon-house at the corner of the old garden were in turmoil, for half a score of their number had been transferred to the kitchen this morning, to fill the goodly pasties which were to anticipate the blackberry tarts and sweet puddings, freezing in rich cream. But the sun had sunk behind the moor, where the broom was only budding, and the last sea