Page:Life memoirs & pedigree of Thomas Hamilton Dickson.pdf/31

 from the vent, and left the inmates at liberty to do what they chose, while we skulked in the yard amongst the stacks, and it was never known who was concerned in the proceedings of that night. I remember of running through the stack-yard, and got myself covered in a bed of greens, where I lay as flat as a flounder, quaking for fear I would be found out. While I was in this position a number of voices as sailed my ears: "Hang them, whare are they? Confound their rotten sides. If we had them that stekit the door and stappit the lum, we would briz their heads till they were as saft as gelly." "O, but they'll no' be gotten," replied another voice. They ran down through the stack-yard, but they did not find me; and had they come through the greens, I was sure to have been taken. I never knew what became of my companions, how they made their escape.

Emma was the flower of that country-side, according to the opinion of the peasantry. She was cheerful, and treated every subject with a degree of levity that showed that her heart had not been wounded with previous sorrow, the canker-worm of all our joys. Much, in my opinion, have we to enjoy in this world, but much more to endure: sad experience tells me so. Never till this blessed hour have I been doomed to enjoy the girl of my fond affection. It is said that the course of true love never runs smooth:" my poor heart knows the melancholy fact―doomed but to behold the object of its fond regard in the