Page:Dreams and apparitions (2).pdf/22

22 a Tuesday night; and a whole week passed over, and still Mrs Forret had no word from her husband, which kept her very uneasy as their whole fortune, being, and subsistence, now depended on the issue of the great law-suit, and she suspected that the case still continued dubious, or was found to be going against him.

But, behold, on the arrival of the Edinburgh papers next week, the whole case so important to farmers, was detailed and it was there stated, that the great farmer and improver, Mr Forret of Drumlochie, had not only forfeited his whole fortune by improper husbandry and manifest breaches of the conditions on which he held lease, but that criminal letters had been sued against him for attempts to pervert justice, and rewards offered for his detention or seizure This was terrible news for the family at Drumlochie, but there still sanguine hopes entertained that circumstances were mistated, or at all events that the husband and father would make his escape; and as there was no word from him day after day, this latter sentiment began to be cherished by the whole family as their only remaining and forlorn hope.

But one day, as poor Tibby Hyslop