be conceived, was spent by the honest couple in the most unpleasant state of mind, for Maclaren, as the reader will have surmised, was their son-in-law. One thing surprised the landlord much, which was, that he should have remained so long ignorant of Maclaren's joining Prince Charles. But the truth was, that Neil had only joined him a short time before the battle of Culloden, being drawn, at last, from his home, by the spectacle of an invading enemy in his native country.

Let us now leave for awhile the landlord of Crook, to whom this was destined to be an eventful day, and follow the party of soldiers in their slow march up the Vale of Tweed. As Geordie Black had predicted, the mists did not clear up as the day grew older. Other parts of the country, indeed, might have been free of fog, but at every step the soldiers were moving higher and higher, and the white drizzling fleeces on the hillsides became thicker and thicker. It is to be questioned, if there is in all the Lowlands of Scotland a more elevated piece of table-land than that lying some ten miles above Crook, from which spring the fountains of the three great rivers, the Clyde, the Annan, and the Tweed. The road traversed by Maclaren and his captors crosses this obtusely-pyramidal height-for so it is shewn to be, on a great scale, by the descent of these riversat a spot called Errick-Stane-Brae.

After the height of the country has been passed, it proceeds for some way along the brink of a profound green hollow, in which the Annan takes its rise, and which is usually termed the Devil's, but sometimes also the Marquis of Annandale's, Beef-Tub, from some resemblance it bears to that domestic utensil, and because the reivers of the great Border house of Johnston used of old to conceal their stolen cattle in it. As implied by the appellation, the sides of this hollow are nearly perpendicular all round, the bottom being so deep, that, in clear weather, a traveller looking down into it from the road, sees bullocks diminished to the size of sheep, and sheep to the magnitude of hares, On the present

occasion, however, it was filled to the brim by the dense fog which pervaded the atmosphere, so that the road winding along the top appeared like the shore of a deep bay of the sea, to step from which would have been to plunge into an abyss, and be lost for ever.

The soldiers, though the country was to them entirely new, passed along the high and perilous road with feelings little impressed by it. The dreariness and monotony of their day's march had rendered their minds dull and inattentive, and instead of keeping in a close circle round their prisoner, they straggled along in a line, in which he was sometimes near the front, and sometimes near the rear. Very different was the mental condition of Maclaren, who, from his having frequently passed this way with cattle, as many Highland gentlemen of superior rank to himself were accustomed to do, was acquainted with every foot of the way, and had long meditated a particular design of escape, which he was now to put into execution. How great was the astonishment of the soldiery, when Maclaren, who at one moment was pacing quietly along in the dreary march, was the next seen to start, as if instinct with a new life, from their line, towards the edge of the precipice, over which he plunged head foremost, and was in a moment lost to sight! To rush after him was but the work of another moment; yet so quick had been his movements, that he was already absorbed in the sea of mist which filled the Beef-Tub. With his head firmly clenched between his knees, and holding his feet in his hands, he had formed himself as nearly as possible into a round form, and allowed himself freely to roll heels over head down the steep side of the hollow, the surface of which he knew presented at this place no obstructions capable of injuring him. In their ignorance of the ground, no soldier durst follow him. The brave lieutenant could only, as soon as he recovered breath, exclaim with an oath: 'Stop, sirI arrest you in the king's name!' while the soldiers fired their muskets at random into the misty gulf, or ran a little way round its edges, in the hope of finding a less

perilous access to the bottom. It was all in vain, and, after once more gathering, they could only console themselves with the undoubting assurance, that the rascal must have broken his neck in the descent, and so relieved the king of the duty of punishing his rebellion.

At the moment when the lieutenant uttered his characteristic exclamation, Neil Maclaren could have stopped his career neither for king nor kaiser. He arrived, however, at the bottom of the Beef-Stand without the slightest injury, and on the instant that he did so, he commenced his ascent of the opposite side with the speed of one who hears behind him the bloodhound's bay. When he reached the top, being well acquainted with the ground, he set off at full speed in the direction of his father-in-law's house, following, not the road by which he had come, but the hillsides, where he was not likely to be seen by any one. He took this route, in the hope that in some of the many corner-holes about the Crook, he might easily lie concealed until the hue-and-cry was blown over. Nor was he wrong in his anticipations.

After the departure of the soldiers with their prisoner, Geordie Black was surprised by the arrival of visitors that were near and dear to him-namely, his daughter Ailie with her infant child. The poor young creature knew of her husband's capture, and was on her way to Carlisle to beg his life, or to die with him. Her parents persuaded or rather compelled her to stay for a night with them, in order to take that rest of which she stood in so much need; but it may be imagined, that they could offer her no other consolation. Consolation, however, was not far off, though they then saw it not. After night had set in, Geordie, with the view of excluding as much as possible all spectators of his daughter's grief, went out in person to bring a supply of fuel for the parlour fire, from the peat-stack. While in the act of lifting these combustibles, a voice whispered his name, and, finding by the terrified Gudesake! what's that?" that it was his father-in-law, Maclaren revealed himself,

and told the story of his marvellous escape. It would be hard to say whether joy or alarm was predominant in the old man's mind on hearing it, for he feared the return of the soldiers. He had, nevertheless, no thought for an instant of abandoning Neil. Going into the house for a lantern, he led his son-in-law to an unoccupied and well-concealed corner of his premises; and then having prepared both of them for the joyful and most unexpected interview, he conducted the wife to her husband's arms. They were strongly attached to each other, and their feelings on meeting are not to be described.

Lieutenant Howison and two of his men reached Crook during the night, the rest having gone, according to command, in various directions in search of the fugitive. In anticipation of such a visit, Maclaren had been carefully and securely secreted, and the servants of the household, being put upon their guard, were too faithful not to avoid all mention of Maclaren's wife's name. The lieutenant, indeed, never entertained the slightest suspicion of the landlord, but on the contrary condescended, as if sure of the sympathies of his auditor, to repeat to Geordie many emphatic denunciations of the scoundrel who kept tumbling and rolling' down the Devil's Beef-Stand, though called upon to halt in the king's name? unwelcome military visitants departed from the Crook on the following day.

The

Neil Maclaren, the hero of this remarkable escape, contrived, with the aid of his friends, to keep himself concealed, sometimes in one way and sometimes in another, until the act of indemnity was passed by the government. He then returned with his wife to the braes of Balquhidder, in which district he was a duniewassal, or small proprietor. Like Rob Roy, he had not disdained to seek the improvement of his fortunes by sending cattle to England, and these expeditions he sometimes guided in person. While on one of these journeys, he had seen and loved, wooed and won, Ailie Black. After claiming and obtaining the immunity alluded to, he recovered-chiefly by the help of Geordie Black's well

saved pose-the greater part of his former heritage, and lived in peace, for the rest of his days, in the bosom of his family.

A FAIR IN INDIA.

ONE of the chief fairs, or assemblages of the people, in India, takes place at Hurdwar, a town in the province of Delhi, situated on the banks of the Ganges, at the spot in which the sacred river, having forced its passage through a rocky barrier, rushes from the Himalaya Mountains into the adjacent plains. This celebrated place of meeting occupies rather a circumscribed space of ground between the river and a dense forest, still unreclaimed, which nearly meets the western extremity of the town; steep wooded hills form the background; and the place is altogether so full of grand and picturesque beauties, that it is impossible to contemplate it without experiencing sentiments of wonder and delight. In consequence of the exceeding sanctity supposed to be attached to the waters of the Ganges at this place, immense multitudes of pilgrims from every part of India flock to Hurdwar for the purpose of bathing in the holy stream; and the most propitious period being the month of April, sometimes as many as a million of persons are assembled, though, upon ordinary occasions, the visitors do not exceed 300,000. Only a portion of this number consists of Hindoo devotees, the remainder being composed of people of all religions, who resort to the fair held at the same time, by way of mingling worldly with spiritual interests.

The number of Europeans present generally averages about 300; a part of these are brought to the fair upon duty in their civil and military capacities, to keep the peace; others are employed by government for the purchase of horses for the service; and the remainder are attracted by pure curiosity. Many rich Mussulmans