of that venerable biographer, whose trade had not taught him by experience, that an inch was as good as an ell. He," (Francis Gordon,)" got a shot in his head out of a pocket-pistol, rather fit for diverting a boy than killing such a furious, mad, brisk man, which notwithstanding killed him dead!"

Upon the extensive foundation which the history of the kirk afforded, during its short-lived triumph and long tribulation, David, with length of breath and of narration, which would have astounded any one but a lover of his daughter, proceeded to lay down his own rules for guiding the conscience of his friend, as an aspirant to serve in the ministry. Upon this subject, the good man went through such a variety of nice and casuistical problems, supposed so many extreme cases, made the distinctions so critical and nice betwixt the right hand and the left hand-betwixt compliance and defection-holding back and stepping aside slipping and stumbling-snares and errors-that at length, after having limited the path of truth to a mathematical line, he was brought to the broad admission, that each man's conscience, after he had gained a certain view of the difficult navigation which he was to encounter, would be the best guide for his pilotage. He stated the examples and arguments for and against the acceptance of a kirk on the present revolution model, with much more impartiality to Butler than he had been able to place them before his own view. And he concluded, that he ought to think upon these things, and be guided by the voice of his own conscience, whether he could take such an awful trust as the charge of souls, without doing injury to his own internal conviction of what is right or wrong.

When David had concluded his very long harangue, which was only interrupted by monosyllables, or little more, on the part of Butler, the orator himself was greatly astonished to find that the conclusion, at which he very naturally wished to arrive, seemed much less decisively attained than when he had argued the case in his own mind.

In this particular, David's current of thinking and speaking only illustrated the very important and general proposition concerning the excellence of the publicity of debate. For, under the influence of any partial feeling, it is certain, that most men can much more easily reconcile themselves to any favourite measure, when agitating it in their own mind, than when obliged to expose its merits to a third party, when the necessity of seeming impartial procures for the opposite arguments a much more fair statement than that which he affords it in tacit meditation. Having finishted what he had to say, David thought himself obliged to be more explicit, and to explain that this was no hypothetical case, but one on which, (by his own influence and that of the duke of Argyle,) Reuben Butler would soon be called to decide.

It was even with something like apprehension that David Deans heard Butler announce, in return to this communication, that he would take that night to consider on what he had said with such kind intentions, and return him an answer the next morning. The feelings of the father mastered David on this occasion. He pressed Butler to spend the evening with him-He produced, most unusual at his meals, one, nay, two bottles of aged strong ale.-He spoke of his daughter of her merits-her housewifery-her thrift -her affection. He led Butler so decidedly up to a declaration of his feelings towards Jeanie, that, before night-fall, it was distinctly understood she was to be the bride of Reuben Butler; and if they thought it indelicate to abridge the period of deliberation which Reuben had stipulated, it seemed to be sufficiently understood betwixt them, that there was a strong probability of his becoming minister of Knocktarlitie, providing the congregation were as willing to accept of him, as the duke to grant him the presentation. The matter of the oaths, they agreed, it was time enough to dispute about, whenever the shibboleth should be tendered,

Many arrangements were adopted that evening, which were afterwards ripened by correspondence with the duke of Argyle's man of business, who intrusted Deans and Butler with the benevolent wish of his principal, that they should all meet with Jeanie, on her return from England, at the duke's huntinglodge in Roseneath.

This retrospect, so far as the placid loves of Jeanie Deans and Reuben Butler are concerned, forms a full explanation of the preceding narrative up to their meeting on the island as already mentioned.

i

THE meeting of Jeanie and Butler, under circumstances promising to crown an affection so long delayed, was rather affecting from its simple sincerity than from its uncommon vehemence of feeling. David Deans, whose practice was sometimes a little different from his theory, appalled them at first, by giving them the opinion of sundry of the suffering preachers and champions of his younger days, that marriage, though honourable by the laws of Scripture, was yet a state over-rashly coveted by professors, and specially by young ministers, whose desire, he said, was at whiles too inordinate for kirks, stipends, and wives, which had frequently occasioned over-ready compliance with the general defections of the times. He made them aware also, that hasty wedlock had been the bane of many a savoury professor-that the unbelieving wife had too often revenged the text, and perverted the believing husband-that when the famous Donald Cargill, being then hiding in Lee-Wood, in Lanarkshire, it being killing-time, did, upon importunity, marry Robert Marshal of Starry Shaw, he had thus expressed himself: What hath induced Robert to marry this woman? her ill will overcome his good-he will not keep the way long-his thriving days are done." To the sad accomplishment of which prophecy David said he was himself a living witness, for Robert Marshal having fallen into foul compliances with the enemy, went home and heard the curates, declined into other steps of defection, and became lightly esteemed. Indeed he observed, that the great upholders of the standard, Cargill, Peden, Cameron, and Renwick,

had less delight in tying the bonds of matrimony than in any other piece of their ministerial work; and although they would neither dissuade nor refuse their office, they considered the being called to it as an evidence of indifference on the part of those between whom it was solemnized to the many grievous things of the day. Notwithstanding, however, that marriage was a snare unto many, David was of opinion (as, indeed, he had shown in his practice,) that it was in itself honourable, especially if times were such that honest men could be sucure against being shot, hanged, or banished, and had ane competent livelihood to maintain themselves, and those that might come after them. "And therefore," as he concluded something abruptly, addressing Jeanie and Butler, who, with faces as high-coloured as crimson, had been listening to his lengthened argument for and against the truly state of matrimony, "I will leave ye to your ain cracks."

As their private conversation, however interesting to themselves, might probably be very little so to the reader, so far as it respected their present feelings and future prospects, we shall pass it over, and only mention the information which Jeanie received from Butler concerning her sister's elopement, which contained many particulars that she had been unable to extract from her father.

Jeanie learned, therefore, that, for three days after her pardon had arrived, Effie had been the inmate of her father's house at St. Leonard's-that the interviews betwixt David and his erring child, which had taken place before she was liberated from prison, had been touching in the extreme; but Butler could not suppress his opinion, that, when he was freed from the apprehension of losing her in a manner so horrible, her father had tightened the bands of discipline, so as, in some degree, to gall the feelings and aggravate the irritability of a spirit naturally impatient and petulant, and now doubly so from the sense of merited disgrace.