pleasing pointed style, "43 feet long, 18 broad, and 18 high. At its west end was a tower 19 feet square, and about 40 feet high." A Hermitage, once attached to it, but now demolished, was described, in 1752, to have been in length " 16 feet 8 inches, in breadth 12 feet 8, and in height 11 feet." Much more of the chapel existed at the time of the tale, than now exists.

Near these objects courageous Jeanie Deans encountered the stranger. He assured her that Effie's child was murdered, but not with Effie's knowledge or assent; but that Jeanie alone could save her sister, and by giving false testimony at the approaching trial. He even urged Jeanie so strenuously to commit perjury, that he threatened to shoot her if she refused. At this critical moment he was interrupted by the approach of police. The city authorities had, it appeared, arrested and examined a half-crazed gypsy girl, Madge Wildfire; and her evidence and that of Butler had induced them to attempt the arrest of the stranger, at this place of rendezvous. The result of attempting, however, was, that he escaped among the ruins of the Chapel, and down the hill, and that Jeanie fled home.

The sad story of the trial of Effie Deans, so powerfully described in the novel, and so effectively presented, at its catastrophe, in the well-known painting, by Mr. Lauder, need not be sketched here. The world knows the fortitude of Jeanie Deans in resisting the strongest temptation to commit what she felt a crime, by testifying the untruth that Effie had in any manner apprised her respecting the child, although a few false words would save her sister's life. The trial consequently ended in the condemnation of Effie to death, under a harsh law. The far more cruel trial of principle and affection that Jeanie endured was succeeded, as the world also well knows, by her noble and devoted efforts and her worthy triumph, in accomplishing by honor the liberation that she would not secure by criminality. One of Scott's most exquisite passages in prose is his description of the interview in prison between the two sisters. Immediately after it, Jeanie was provided by Butler with credentials to the Duke of Argyle; and by the jailer (an old thief), with a pass for use among outlaws who then infested the roads; and, by Dumbiedikes, with "siller" (and a less opportune and appropriate offer of marriage). She then set out courageously to walk to London, and to procure there from the Queen, a pardon for her doomed sister.

Great mystery surrounded the history of Effie's child. The father

was scarcely identified. The fate of the child itself could not yet be ascertained. But an incident occurred to Jeanie, on the road, that assisted to dispel many uncertainties. She had reached the vicinity of "Gunnerby Hill about three miles from Grantham," in southern Lincolnshire. In this then wild spot, of which she had been warned, she was almost overtaken by night, and actually and startlingly by two highwaymen, who pitilessly obliged her to leave the main road, and who took her to their haunt. At this latter place she was enabled to hear much of their talk, and that of two strange gypsy women, who, it appeared, were Madge Wildfire and her mother Meg. Jeanie, feigning sleep, listened, and discovered that these persons not only knew her name, but the object of her mission to London, which, to Jeanie's distress, the old woman was determined to stop. The reason for interposing thus was that Madge was a victim of the same man to whom Effie Deans owed her ruin. "And he'll marry this jail-bird if ever she gets her foot loose," said the hag; "and she'll hold my daughter's place, and Madge crazed, and I a beggar, and all along of him." So strongly indeed was the hag's jealousy excited, that all Jeanie's great courage was required to avoid a fatal interruption to her mission. But she listened most anxiously to an allusion made to a child of Madge's, and to another, of which one of the robbers said:

"So Madge, in her daffin' threw it into the Nor'-lock, I trow." "Indeed, mother," replied she, "that's a great lie, for I did nae sic thing."

And this hint was all that Jeanie could learn then, but it was very suggestive. On the next day, a Sunday, Jeanie, willing to encounter any reasonable risk to escape from this den, where it appeared she was to be kept, consented to accompany Madge, and, secretly take a walk. Thus she was led to a Parish church, into which she and her companion entered during service, — the latter to show a fantastic assortment of old finery that she crazily wore, and Jeanie to effect release from such companionship. Jeanie was the more successful; for Madge was taken in charge by the Beadle, while she was conducted by the rector, Mr. Staunton, to his home. The church mentioned is in the vale of Belvoir, on the borders of Nottinghamshire, and is a handsome structure dedicated to St. Mary. The rectory may be supposed to have been Staunton Hall, a large and handsome house upon an old estate long held by a family bearing its name. There Jeanie was curiously summoned to a

private interview by the rector's son, George Staunton, an invalid in his chamber. During this interview he confessed that he had caused Effie's ruin. Jeanie soon left Grantham, with a guide to Stamford, and at length safely reached London, where she abode with a friend and relative, Mrs. Glass, a tobacconist at the sign of the Thistle, in the Strand. She soon found her way to Argyle House, residence of John, the great Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, so distinguished in his time, and whose monument is now prominent in the South Transept of Westminster Abbey. Argyle House, of which little or nothing remains, is said to have been a plain structure that stood across the present Argyle Street, near where it enters Regent Street. There Jeanie obtained a satisfactory interview with her exalted countryman, who afterwards took her to the garden of the Lodge, in the Great Park at Richmond, where she had an audience with Caroline, Queen Consort of George II., — Scott's narration of which, in the thirty-seventh chapter of the novel, cannot well be abridged. This Lodge has been taken down and the grounds are changed, but the surrounding park contains forest and rural scenery seldom surpassed in beauty; and commands that celebrated panoramic prospect over the Thames vale, known as the view from Richmond Hill, one of the most lovely simply rural landscapes in the world. The result of these audiences, with Queen and Peer, was that Jeanie in due time received assurance from the Duke himself, that Effie's pardon had been transmitted to Edinburgh. Thither she herself was despatched, in company with certain of his servants, and there she witnessed the execution of the old gypsy woman Meg; and, in a hospital, had an interview with Madge, who died soon afterwards, but without giving any additional clew to the fate of Effie's child.

If one's position, while reviewing the scenes of this novel, is still supposed to be upon Salisbury Crags, one may there, after following in imagination the route of Jeanie to London, also recall the remaining scenery of the story, since it is so scattered, that all of it cannot well be visited connectedly. Effie, liberated by the pardon, revisited her father's house, but soon disappeared from it. Butler became ordained minister of Knocktarlitie, at the head of Gare Loch, - one of the beautiful and picturesque salt-water lochs easily accessible down the Clyde from Glasgow. At Knocktarlitie he married Jeanie Deans, and there they lived and were visited by the Duke of Argyle, one of whose family seats, Roseneath, was, and

own son,

-

is, upon the shore of the loch. The Duke then incidentally spoke of a Lady Staunton, in London, as "the ruling belle-the blazing star- the universal toast of the winter." Afterward, Jeanie met with a confession, by old Meg, declaring that Effie's son was not killed. Sending the confession to her sister, she received a visit from this same brilliant Lady Staunton, and Sir George Staunton, persons who proved to be her sister, and the father of her sister's child. He had married Effie, and, changing from a wild, dissipated, and even outlaw-life, had taken a position of high respectability, that he had inherited, and to which he had thus raised his wife. The continued mystery of the still lost child was soon cleared. During an excursion near the manse, Butler and Sir George were waylaid by robbers, and the latter was shot by a fierce, gypsy-like boy, called "the Whistler," who proved to be his an outcast from birth among the companions of old Meg and similar characters. In such a course of life as that in which he had been placed, he had recently become allied with a band of robbers. With them he had been attracted by report of the presence of a rich Englishman at Knocktarlitie, and with them had made this fatal attempt upon one unknown to him, - his own father. The wretched boy was arrested; but, through assistance of Jeanie, he escaped execution, only ultimately to meet a death as wild as his life. His widowed mother returned to London society, and, "after blazing nearly ten years in the fashionable world, and hiding, like many of her compeers, an aching heart with a gay demeanor, after declining repeated offers of the most respectable kind, for a second matrimonial engagement," retired to severe penance and seclusion in a Continental Convent. "Meanwhile," Jeanie and her husband, "happy in each other, in the prosperity of their family, and the love and honor of all who knew them," "lived beloved, and died lamented."

And Sir Walter closes his masterly composition, with this reflection: "Reader, this tale will not be told in vain, if it shall be found to illustrate the great truth, that guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness; that the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, for ever haunt the steps of the malefactor; and that the paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace."

There are several places named in the story, and associated with subordinate particulars of it, that have not been described here. These are the West Bow and Grassmarket, scenes of the execution of Porteous; the old Ports, or gates, secured by the rioters at that time, but now not existing; Parliament Square, where Effie Dean's trial was; Portobello, where she disappeared three days after her pardon; Libberton, earlier residence of Reuben Butler; Peffer Mill, three or four miles south of Edinburgh, the supposed residence of Dumbiedikes (to be distinguished from a real place thus named in the lower part of the old town); York, Newark (with its Castle), and other places passed by Jeanie during her London journey; and some quiet little scenes around the Gare Loch, where the latter portion of the action of the novel occurred.

The route of this tour, southward from Edinburgh, may be first to North Berwick, and scenery of "Marmion," near there; and then, from Cockburnspath station, to Fast Castle, on the sea-shore, -the "Wolf's Crag," and chief reputed locality of the "Bride of Lammermuir," described in chapter thirty-sixth. If this route is taken, the places described in the next two chapters must be visited during an excursion from Edinburgh. Travellers, by whatever route they reach the Eastern Border of Scotland, should (and probably will), however, of all regions, select for a visit the one most attractive in the lands of Scott, the one most abounding in associations with him and with his works, situated about forty miles south from Edinburgh, and including Melrose and Abbotsford. This region, sometimes called distinctively "The Land of Scott," is described in chapters xxxiv. and xxxv. be conveniently reached during an expedition to scenery of two novels sketched in the next two chapters, and of a region famous in minstrelsy, forming the subject of the thirty-third chapter. The end of this expedition may be at Edinburgh, and thence the route may be to England by the coast as already suggested.

It may