made in the letter from which I have quoted. But when she promised to wait for him, and when he looked forward to returning in a few years with the means of placing her in a more comfortable position than he could hope to do if he remained, his resolution was taken, and he went. He went not, however, without communicating the state of his affections, not only to his own father, but to the father of the object of them; neither of whom discountenanced his hopes, though the latter required a promise from him, that during his absence, long as it might be, no correspondence was to be carried on by the lovers. These parted with many tears and mutual vows-they parted, never to meet again in this world; the 'home, home, home' that Adam, far away, had ever in his longing heart, was to know him no more for ever, nor was he ever to lay in his loving bosom 'the bonniest flower in a' the bonnie Clydesdale.' For, a very short time after receiving the letter above given in part, Meyrick received one from a stranger, a colonial friend of Thomson's, briefly announcing that our poor friend was dead. He had been carried off by fever. The letter enclosed another to Meyrick from Thomson himself, penned by a feeble hand, written in the near prospect of death. It bade Meyrick farewell in very affecting language; it spoke solemnly; it meekly expressed his entire resignation to the Divine will; it charged him to forward to its address an accompanying packet, which was for the woman he had so truly and faithfully loved, and whom he hoped, after a few short years, to meet again in heaven, whither his parents and hers had already gone before. Then a few words of caution to Meyrick as to his failings - he would not be angry at the friendly counsel of a dying man. All this in few words. And so again, farewell, and tell her that my last thoughts of earthly things will be about the happy days of auld.' Why Thomson had charged him with this last commission, instead of charging some one of his own family with it, Frank did not stay to inquire, but immediately set off to Scotland, in order to execute it in person. How he did so, the following copy of his letter to me on the subject will explain : 'GLASGOW, 2d September 1844. 'MY DEAR EDWARD,-The day before yesterday I went up the Clyde towards Lanark, riding a tolerable hack, and after some little difficulty I found the person to whom poor Thomson's packet was addressed. I was almost reconciled to his death on finding that she was-married. "For our friend has thus been saved a great sorrow. She is now a matronlike woman, stout and rather comely still, has been pretty, is gentle and amiable-looking; that is all I have to say for her. Of course, he always painted her to himself as being the bonnie and trusting and loving lassie he had left her. That is one comfort. 'I gave her the packet, merely saying, From Mr. Adam Thomson, late of Springbank in Australia." She trembled and hesitated, and at last stammered out, "I daurna tak' itmy gudeman-I'm married, sir." I was on the point of saying, "Oh, you may take it safely enough; Adam Thomson is dead." But I restrained myself, and now I am glad I did. Who knows what that poor woman may have had to bear and to contend Auld with? The old Scottish song, Robin Gray," occurred to me. broke the painful news gently. She wept much. Then I thought the packet would explain itself, and so left her, giving her, however, my name and address. So I 'I start from this to-morrow for the Hall, where I hope to find the rest all well and happy, and to see you next week.-Yours ever affectionately, 'FRANCIS MEYRICK.' I return to the garret in Ardrossan. Ah!' said Barry, drawing a long breath and replacing his tumbler (after a hearty and exhaustive pull at it) on the chair beside his bed: Ah! it's not a bad notion of whisky they have in this country at all, at all. Well, that's all I know about Malcolm; but stop a little, I'll tell ye something more concerning that bridge, and Father Cogan! Oh, he is a merry priest our Father Cogan. Ye see, the next time I saw him I told him all about it, and how mortally frightened the villains had been when I terrified them. He enjoyed the joke, and chuckled at it; but he said no more respecting it till I was going away, and then he said, 'When will ye be back again? Don't come on Tuesday or Thursday, for I have a convoi on the one and nopces et festins on the other, so I shan't be at home. Come on Wednesday at four precisely; there will be a bit of salmon, only that's for myself, as it is a fish-day with me--and oh! ye don't fast as ye ought, Laurence Barry-but there'll be some pork for you, and a ponche, as the French say. Mind Wednesday, and at four preciselyheure militaire. You should know what that is, as you were a soldier yourself once, not to say that you are a sort of an officer even now. At four precisely, and don't keep me waiting,' says he. It seemed to me as I rode away that there was something odd in his four precisely,' especially as I thought I had seen him laughing in his sleeve, and, moreover, because we were always playing each other pranks, and I remembered that he was owing me one. So on the Wednesday I went, but purposely an hour and a half too late, and more. What do you think? As I crossed that bridge, I heard the most tremendous and inhuman shriek below me that ever man, or horse either, ever heard in his born days; my mare bolted as it was. ( 'Ho, ho!' says I to myself, for I came to myself at once, 'you're a fool, Spitfire,' that's my mare; for it's only either Father Cogan or somebody else that did it; may his Holiness forgive them both, as I do!' So I galloped on. As I expected, Father Cogan was not at home when I got there. In a little he came in, puffing like a quackdoctor. 'Glad to see you,' says I, and I hope I didn't keep your riverence waiting too long? Is it a cold that you have got, since you look so out of breath and hot? Is it the asthmatics you have caught? Or is it the mathematics you've been trying? May be you've been sticking these two hours at the fifth-the pons asinorum, you know.' 'Ugh! ugh!' said he, for he saw he was discovered, 'ye may say that,' and that was all he could say. So we dined at last, and then when the hot water came, I began again. Father Cogan,' said I in a very grave tone, I have something to consult you about. I am much afraid that I am possessed by an evil spirit.' 'Likely enough,' says he, 'I thought as much myself.' Not possessed,' returned I, 'haunted it is, I mean. I fear that the steward and his scoundrels that night were thinking I was the--' 'Don't mention his name here interrupted he; nevertheless, very likely they were not far wrong after all,' says he. Well,' says I, taking no notice of this, be that as it may, I'm afraid I'm to be punished for making believe at all events. What d'ye think, Father Cogan? As I was coming by the bridge to-night, in a great hurry, for I didn't like to keep you waiting, you know, I heard such a screech!' It's more than likely,' says he again. 'Well,' says I, 'you may fancy how I was horrified. But worse followed. The screecher-I won't call him by his real name since ye don't like it--the screecher came right up through the floor of the bridge, and stood before me with a smell of brimstone, and then flew away singing "St. Patrick's Day in the morning," over the trees, in the direction of this, and he was dressed exactly like-like-you, Father Cogan!' 'That's the biggest-the biggestthe very biggest-but I suppose I must believe ye,' said the priest rubbing his nose. Though, after all, it's a queer story, and very like a-an invention, only it's more so. My advice to ye, for your own sake, is to say nothing about it to anybody.' I laughed, and altogether I laughed a great deal at him that night, and kept him in a bad humour; and the next time I saw him, I put him in a worse, for when he said, as he did, Well, Mr. Barry, have you seen thescreecher again? No,' says I, 'not since I saw you, Father Cogan.' So I knew he would try to pay me off, and he did, but I won't tell ye how, for I afterwards promised him I wouldn't, seeing he was ashamed of himself, because it wasn't a clerical thing to do; though there was no great harm in it after all, only it made me very angry, and at first I would never forgive him. But in the end I made up my mind to forget it; so I went to play him a trick in return. One night that I knew he was to be from home, I went to his house, and found nobody but his housekeeper, so I said I would wait for him. I sat half an hour or thereabouts in the parlour, and then I went into the kitchen, where, as I expected-for I knew her ways-I found Mrs. Byrne asleep in her arm-chair, with her arms hanging down. So I blackened her face with a burnt cork. What a shame, d'ye say? Not a shame in the least, for she had helped her master against me when he that last time, you know. Besides, she was really a good woman, and liked a bit of fun as much as anybody, and, moreover, I didn't blacken her face entirely, only tatooing her, so to speak, with streaks this way and that way; quite elegant she was, especially after I had stuck two peacock feathers in her hair. Then I took a handful of flour, and went out to the stable, and got up into the rack, where I mixed a little hay-seed with my flour, so that it might feel more genuine when the time came to let it fall. Then I waited. I waited till I was nearly as tired as Father Cogan himself must have been when he lay in wait for me under the arch; but at last he came, and led in his pony; he never used a lantern, as I knew. Well, he unbridled the nag, and tied him up, and then he began to pull at the hay in the rack for him. This was the moment I had prepared for; my flour descended gently on him. What a lot of dust there must be in the loft,' says he; I'll have it swept out some day soon.' And then I heard him brushing himself with his hands, and spluttering too, which showed he had got it on his visage, as I intended, and of course I knew that the more he brushed and wiped his face, the more the flour wouldn't go. At last he left, and then I got down and followed him, and he went into the kitchen, and then there was a scene and a row to be sure! Hey! cries he, as soon as he saw his housekeeper; what's this now? And, 'Hey! cries she, when she wakened and saw him. O Father Cogan, dear,' says she, and it is a Whiteboy you've gone and become?' 'You're a Whiteboy yourself, woman, with that black face, and out of your senses besides, Mrs. Byrne,' says he. Only go and look at yourself in the glass, will ye? And then ye may tell me, if ye please, what your face and your feathers are like, for I'm sure I don't know. That scamp Laurence Barry has been here, and no mistake,' says he; but the first time I catch him, maybe it won't be sorrow he'll get without the asking! By this time, I thought it as well to be off before he saw me, especially as I was afraid of bursting with laughter; so I stole away. I heard Mrs. Byrne scream, though, before I passed the outer door; she had seen her reflection it's to be supposed. And did the priest murder you, when you met again?' asked Meyrick. 'No,' replied Barry, 'quite the reverse.' We had a laugh together, and then we agreed to conclude a peace, and not to play each other any tricks for the future, and so we have had no fun ever since. But it's time for me to be going my rounds again, so if any ov ye wants hot water, let him be so bold as to say so. I have hitherto said almost nothing about our friend Hamilton: the fact is that he was not a remarkable character, and had very little to say for himself. As, however, I shall have to speak of him afterwards, I shall here sketch his history up to the time when Meyrick and I met him again in the College green; it will not take long to do so. Charles Hamilton was a very gentlemanly man, and a very insipid. He was rather silly, rather vain, and rather good-natured too. Five or six years older than on an average were the rest of the Jolly Dogs, he had actually been at Oxford before he came to Glasgow. At Oxford the facility of his disposition had made him a victim; for after having easily allowed himself to be led by more knowing associates into participating with them in several and sundry crimes 326 What befel my Companions; or, Memorials of the Jolly Dogs. made such by University law, he as easily allowed himself to be selected as their scape-goat; till at last he received a significant, though, as it was reckoned, an indulgent hint from the powers that were, took his name off the boards, and went as he came, an under-graduate. On this his former guardians (Charles was an orphan, with a very small fortune) advised him to migrate to Glasgow, though for what precise reason, or with what view they did so, they themselves probably knew as little as he did; and when the docile man finally left College, and again by their counsel went out to India, they and he seem to have been equally innocent of projecting any specific career for him. That, they left to the decision of an uncle he had in Calcutta, who had long been estranged from all his connexions, but to whose care, nevertheless, Charles was consigned, so to speak, without any notice of his shipment being previously made; the fact being that it was feared the old gentleman might order the article not to be sent out on any account, to him at least, if he were apprised in sufficient time to decline receiving it. The speculation, however, turned out a very fortunate one for Charles: his uncle was rich, unmarried, eccentric; hot-tempered, imperious, exacting, and at war with all the world. Now to a man of this stamp our friend was invaluable; he was just the thing that was wanted; his pliable nature accommodated itself in a wonderfully short time to all the sinuosities of the old man's character; his handsome and gentlemanly appearance became a source of pride to his yellow, wrinkled, shrivelled up, and insignificantlooking relation his imperturbable equanimity won upon the crabbed temper which till then had never been able to retain a friendship for a month; and the consequence was that when the uncle died, as he had the kindness to do a very few years after Charles joined him, the nephew returned to England, with much treasure, as his sole legatee. One single condition was imposed by the will, namely, that Charles, who by the way was not the heir-at-law, was to recover the ancestral seat and estate of the Hamiltons: these had passed out of the family : two generations before, in consequence of a Hamilton's extravagance; they were to come back to a Hamilton even if he should have to offer the extravagant price of forty-five years' purchase for them; and then they were to be entailed. So the testament decreed. The estate and mansion were acquired, through the good management of the agent employed, at a price which, though rather beyond their value, was very much less than that to which the old Indian had willed that his nephew should go if necessary. Our friend was consequently now a country gentleman; his was thus a position which, in some respects, he was well qualified to adorn; and for his own part, Charles Hamilton, Esquire of Linwood, in the county of Selkirk, found, to his great satisfaction, that his style and title represented the very state of existence which, if he had been allowed to choose, he would have chosen. The above, briefly, had been the history of Charles Hamilton: part of it I knew before, or learned subsequently from other sources; the rest was related to us that night in our Ardrossan garret. 'What!' exclaimed Meyrick, as our friend rather languidly finished his short account of himself: 'in Selkirkshire did you say? Why, it is in that county that John Smith's parish is. is the name of it.' was 'Indeed,' returned Hamilton with some animation: 'how very odd and delightful! To think that honest Smith is established so near to me, without my knowing of it! I knew of course that the minister of a Mr. Smith, for it is the next parish to the one Linwood is in. But I had no idea,-for Smith, you know, is such a common name. As soon as I get home I shall go and call on him; upon my word I will. And he married the daughter of a General Scott, you said -Bengal army; how strange! Probably it is the same Scott I have heard of in Calcutta. It will be charming to talk to her of India. And she is pretty, Peterkin told you? In the meantime, however, I feel tired, and shall bid you all good-night. Don't let me interfere with your conversation, however; you will not disturb me." 'Don't be afraid,' said Barry. 'I am more than ready for the arms of Murphy myself. So if you want any more hot water, Poyntz, or you either, Meyrick, say so at once. And then the last that goes to sleep must put the candle out." The candle was extinguished a few minutes afterwards, and the weary Palmer at least, was conscious of nothing more till in broad daylight he was roused by Laurence Barry crowing like a cock at Meyrick's still unawakened ear. PROPOSAL FOR A COUNTRY-TOWN NEWSPAPER. We all know that whenever or whereever a newspaper is started, it is in order to meet the increasing wants of the age, to keep pace with the progress of intelligence, to supply a deficiency, in short, which has long been felt by a large and important portion of the population, &c. &c. &c. This being the case, I marvel much that no enterprising philanthropist of the class that delights in establishing newspapers for the good of its fellowmen, has never brought his beneficent intellect to bear upon the scheme which I am about to propose-has never stepped upon the hitherto untrodden ground whereon I at this moment place my right foot fore most. For we have newspapers, daily and weekly, and bi-monthly, to supply the demands for information of (I catalogue them alphabetically) agriculturists, authors, bankers, children, dissenters, milliners, railway directors, and young ladies. But I invite the attention of all England to the thrilling fact, that though the eager desire for information is NOWHERE so intense and absorbing as among the class whose interests I now represent, there exists not a single newspaper, not a solitary source of intelligence of the kind most looked for and most needed by the inhabitants of small country towns. Except for private benevolence and the neighbourly kindness with which they are always ready to share amongst one another the little store which falls to the lot of each-except for that generosity so honourable to our human nature, this unfortunate section of the intelligent masses would literally be reduced to a condition of intellectual starvation. I, as an inhabitant of a provincial town with a population of somewhere between two and three thousand souls, may be allowed to speak feelingly on this subject. I will bring forward my native Slowington as a fair example of the desolation that is so prevalent everywhere. There are countless towns resembling it scattered over our beautiful and free country; there are, I scruple not to say, millions of human beings in this favoured land having the same wants, and desires, and yearnings, as we have. At the cry of famine a nation rises, as with one heart, eager to pity and to save. Shall it not be so now? Are the cravings of the mind less worthy of consideration than those of the body? I ponder these things till my soul swells within me, and I resolve to do or die. I feel that I am the destined benefactor of my fellow-townspeople, and that I shall bring out the first great model of the country - town newspaper, which shall lead the way for others all over the length and breadth of the land, till every borough shall have its Gazette, and every corporate town its Intelligencer. I have even thought of the prospectus which shall announce its first appearance. This, I believe, is the correct kind of thing. On such a day of such a month, will appear the first number of a new weekly paper, to be called "THE SLOWINGTON OBSERVER.' It will be published at a price placing it within the reach of all classes. It will profess neither to be literary, political, commercial, nor agricultural, but may occasionally touch on all those subjects provided that they come within the general scope of that local intelligence which it will be the undi |