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tunes. She addressed them: "La! ladies, cross your hand." It was answered by Villejuive, “ Well, suppose I do give you one shilling, and have mine crossed too?" and he held out his hand instantly.

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"Jesu sir! your fortune is easily told"; you will be" "What will I be?"—" La, sir! you do not vont me tell you?". "But I do."-" Then you shall be said the wench in considerable agitation, and ceased. The ladies on his right and left looked oddly at him and then at the gipsy, but he turned it off with a joke.

"You do mean that Cupid with his bow-string will drag me to the altar of Hymen again?"

But Villejuive could not erase the impressions the half sentence of this gipsy made on his mind; there they remained, not to be effaced by time

or dissipation. The young ladies on his right and left arm were respectively told, the one that she had been dishonoured and disappointed, and the other, that she would be deceived in her expectation of a gentleman, who had done a deed as foul as death, on one he called his friend.

Whether Whiggans had got into the company of this gipsy girl, and taught her how to act the part of an astrologer, is not known, but it was afterwards discovered that the elder of these two sisters enjoyed, as the fruits of her lost honour, to Villejuive, the title of mother to a still-born child, and the younger, whom he had well nigh debauched under the promise of marriage, swallowed a quantity of arsenic on the Sunday following, before going to church, and died before St. Clyde and Whiggans got any intimation of Lerwick.

On the afternoon of the third day after their arrival, St. Clyde's servant was walking on a by-road that skirted the grounds adjacent to the house Villejuive lodged in; he met a man whom he did not know: this man questioned him whether he belonged to the country; for the dress of the servant was not sufficiently Highland to indicate a mountaineer, nor were the plump cheeks of the southern valet like the lank chops and high cheekbones of the kilted native. And he was again asked where he came from? what brought him into that quarter? whether he came on his own business? who his master was? if there was any body with him? what the object of their visit was? and, finding he could not worm any thing out of the servant, the inquisitive stranger hied across the ground, and accosted a Highlander: St. Clyde's servant saw

him then make his way for Villejuive's abode, and came to the inn to his ma

ster. St. Clyde was at home, and Whiggans was with him; Watson related to them the interview he had had with the stranger whom he described.

There remained now no doubt on Whiggans's mind that this man was Lerwick, and off he started to the house where Villejuive was. He could not gain admittance: Villejuive's footman would not let Whiggans pass the threshold; the outlaw hastened to the inn for St. Clyde and Watson; they. returned, and demanded admittance. The confusion of Villejuive was too great to be smothered by the artifices of etiquette, and his surprise was perfectly indescribable at seeing St. Clyde, whose presence struck him with the death-knell. Whiggans bounded from his mask, rushed past the side of Villejuive, and brandished in his hand a

dirk; "Follow who will-I go—I'll search the house," were all the words that Whiggans used.

"You shall not search de house dere be not one man nor one ting in it dat you shall want;" said Villejuive, as he pursued and seized Whiggans by the arms. Whiggans threw Villejuive in an instant; and, standing over him with his naked dirk, "Vengeance I'll repay upon your head, if you attempt to stop me in my search; death sits on the blade of my dirk, and shall drink thy blood, if we are hindered in our search by you. Come, St. Clyde, -come Watson-your arms, your pistols-and if you see any man attempt to escape, fire; shoot him; or I'll run you through."

The stern look, the commanding tone, the determined resolution of Whiggans appalled Villejuive, and inspired both St. Clyde and his servant.

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