but, as the figure turned from her, and made no answer, she was uncertain if it were the gypsy, or her wraith, and was afraid to go nearer to one who was reckoned, in the vulgar phrase, no canny. This vague story received some corroboration from the circumstance of a fire being that evening found in the gypsy's deserted cottage. To this fact Ellangowan and his gardener bore evidence. Yet it seemed extravagant to suppose, that, had this, woman been accessory to such a dreadful crime, she would have returned that very evening on which it was committed, to the place, of all others, where she was most likely to be sought after..

Meg Merrilies was, however, apprehended and examined. She denied strongly having been either at Derncleugh or in the wood of Warroch upon the day of Kennedy's death; and several of her tribe, made oath in her behalf, that she had never quitted their encampment, which, was in a glen about ten miles distant from

Ellangowan. Their oaths were indeed litthe to be trusted to; but what other evidence could be had in the circumstances? There was one remarkable fact, and only one, which arose from her examination. Her arm appeared to be slightly wounded by the cut of a sharp weapon, and was tied up with a handkerchief of Harry Bertram's. But the chief of the horde acknowledged he had "corrected her" that day with his whinger-she herself, and others, gave the same account of her hurt; and, for the handkerchief, the quantity of linen stolen from Ellangowan during the last months of their residence on the estate easily accounted for it, without charging Meg with a more heinous crime.

It was observed upon her examination, that she treated the questions respecting the death of Kennedy, or "the gauger, as she called him, with indifference; but expressed great and emphatic scorn and indignation at being supposed capable of injuring little Harry Bertram. She was

long confined in jail, under the hope that something might yet be discovered to throw light upon this dark and bloody transaction. Nothing, however, occurred; and Meg was at length liberated, but under sentence of banishment from the county, as a vagrant, common thief, and disorderly person. No traces of the boy could ever be discovered; and, at length, the story, after making much. noise, was gradually given up as altogether inexplicable, and only perpetuated by the name of "The Gauger's Loup," which was generally bestowed on the cliff from which the unfortunate man had fallen or been precipitated.

CHAPTER XI.

Enter Time, as Chorus.

I-that please some, try all; both joy and terror
Of good and bad; that make and unfold error----
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime

To me, or my swift passage, that I slide

O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried

Of that wide gap.

WINTER'S TALE.

OUR narration is now about to make a large stride, and omit a space of nearly seventeen years; during which nothing occurred of any particular consequence with respect to the story we have undertaken to tell. The gap is a wide one; yet if the reader's experience in life enables him to look back on so many years, the space will scarce appear longer in his recollection, than the time consumed in turning these pages.

It was, then, in the month of November, about seventeen years after the catas

trophe related in the last chapter, that, during a cold and stormy night, a social group had closed around the kitchen fire of the Gordons' Arms at Kippletringan, a small but comfortable inn, kept by Mrs. Mac-Candlish in that village. The conversation which passed among them will save me the trouble of telling the few events occurring during this chasm in our history, with which it is necessary that the reader should be acquainted.

Mrs Mac-Candlish, throned in a comfortable easy chair lined with black leather, was regaling herself, and a neighbouring gossip or two, with a cup of comfortable tea, and at the same time keeping a sharp eye upon her domestics, as they went and came in prosecution of their various duties and commissions. The clerk and precentor of the parish enjoyed at a little distance his Saturday night's pipe, and aided its bland fumigation by an occasional sip of brandy and water. Deacon Bearcliff, a man of great importance in the village, combined the indulgence of both