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CHAPTER V.

Some strange commotion

Is in his brain; he bites his lip and starts;
Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground,
Then lays his finger on his temple; straight
Springs out into fast gait, then stops again;
Strikes his breast hard, and then anon he casts
His
eye against the moon. In most strange postures
We've seen him set himself.

SHAKSPEARE.

MONSIEUR Villejuive wished Miss Ellen would come and live at his house. This proposition the comptroller objected to, as Monsieur Villejuive was a widower; and baillie Ilan Dou thought the best place Miss St. Clyde could be at, was the Rev. Mr. Thornhill's. length Monsieur Villejuive with much

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reluctance, agreed to this; but insisted that the minister would allow her to

come occasionally to stay a few days

at his house. Every one said, "cer-, tainly; there was no intention to separate entirely the young lady from her uncle's house;" on the contrary, the minister thought nothing would tend more to exhilarate her spirits and save her from melancholy. But the estate of St. Clyde was mortgaged.

The tragic scenes this little isle had just witnessed were now spread from Duncansby Head to Cape Wrath and round by Blomel Sound; from the Butt of Lewis the report had been again wafted south to Barra Isle and Col, from Col to Tirree, from Tirree to Mull, from Mull to Colonsa, Jura, and Isla; Cantire and Arran had heard of it before; and the smugglers had spread it as far as to the Burrowhead, from whence it travelled across the country to Holy Island, and thence straight north to Peterhead.

The laird of St. Clyde's son never

heard of since he led on his men on the heights of Abraham, the laird murdered and cast into a loch, his wife and daughter's tragic deaths, needed not the aid of Mercury to spread the catastrophe. The winged son of Maia was content and pleased to see the Erinnyes, with grim and frightful aspect, clothed in their black and bloody garments, and serpents wreathing round their heads, announcing by their pursuit, with lighted torch and whip of scorpions, that they were sent from Pluto's throne, as the ministers of his vengeance, to inflict punishment on the guilty.

But it came to the ears of the pedler Lerwick that he was the object of their pursuit, and accordingly he hastened to baillie Ilan Dou, declaring his innocence. The drover also, even in Carrick Fergus, heard of a warrant being out against him, and he hastened to appear before the tribunal of justice, and very

satisfactorily proved an alibi; as the day on which the murder had been committed, he had rode straight to Ettrick Bay, but had come across the country to Kames, and from Kames he had gone to Cowal, and thence to Ireland, with the intention of bringing beasts for the southern markets. When the pedler's case came to be investigated, he could prove that he slept that night at the Garroch Head; and Monsieur Villejuive, who sat in council, insisted that Lerwick's proofs of an alibi in the afternoon of the eventful day had not been established. But there were some persons who said they could swear, if it were necessary, that "Peter Lerwick was in the south end of the isle lang afore the gloamin: the laird had gone out on the forenoon of the day he was missed. At or about two o'clock Donald Orr saw him on the road between the lochs; it was a short

December's day at the gloamin Lerwick was in the south end of the isle." "Therefore the council would judge," said Monsieur Villejuive," whether Peter Lerwick had done this bloody deed." And though he could not give proofs satisfactory enough to every mind, yet the cord corresponded with nothing in his pack, and nobody ever knew him to have dealt in fishing lines.

After many days investigation before the chief men of the island, he was acquitted, and was as busy in lamenting the death of the laird, and vowing vengeance on the murder, as other people.

His trade he resumed; but his business fell off; nobody would deal with him; and Sandy Glass remarked that the pedler never passed the loch where the Laird St. Clyde was found.

Sandy was every where on the island in one week; for he was a tall, well

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