Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/405

Rh distinct from such contests, and we believe the orchestra proper was never used as an arena for the latter purposes. Both these buildings were of Roman construction; and, speaking generally, the ruins and inscriptions indicated a period of great splendor in ancient Ephesus from the time of Augustus to that of Marcus Aurelius.

We have been compelled to omit the notice of many important details, but we have said enough to justify a prediction that Mr. Wood's "Discoveries" will occupy a place in archaeological lore which will hand down both his name and his fame to posterity.

 

   

Mr. Crathie heard of the outrage the people of Scaurnose had committed upon the surveyors, he vowed he would empty every house in the place at Michaelmas. His wife warned him that such a wholesale proceeding must put him in the wrong with the country, seeing they could not all have been guilty. He replied it would be impossible, the rascals hung so together, to find out the ringleaders even. She returned that they all deserved it, and that a correct discrimination was of no consequence: it would be enough to the purpose if he made a difference. People would then say he had done his best to distinguish. The factor was persuaded, and made out a list of those who were to leave, in which he took care to include all the principal men, to whom he gave warning forthwith to quit their houses at Michaelmas. I do not know whether the notice was in law sufficient, but exception was not taken on that score.

Scaurnose, on the receipt of the papers, all at the same time, by the hand of the bellman of Portlossie, was like a hive about to swarm. Endless and complicated were the comings and goings between the houses, the dialogues, confabulations and consultations, in the one street and its many closes. In the middle of it, in front of the little public-house, stood, all that day and the next, a group of men and women, for no five minutes in its component parts the same, but, like a cloud, ever slow-dissolving and as continuously re-forming, some dropping away, others falling to. Such nid-nodding, such uplifting and fanning of palms among the women, such semi-revolving side-shakes of the head, such demonstration of fists and such cursing among the men, had never before been seen and heard in Scaurnose. The result was a conclusion to make common cause with the first victim of the factor's tyranny — namely, Blue Peter — whose expulsion would arrive three months before theirs, and was unquestionably head and front of the same cruel scheme for putting down the fisher-folk altogether.

Three of them, therefore, repaired to Joseph's house, commissioned with the following proposal and condition of compact: that Joseph should defy the notice given him to quit, they pledging themselves that he should not be expelled. Whether he agreed or not, they were equally determined, they said, when their turn came, to defend the village; but if he would cast in his lot with them, they would, in defending him, gain the advantage of having the question settled three months sooner for themselves. Blue Peter sought to dissuade them, specially insisting on the danger of bloodshed. They laughed. They had anticipated objection, but being of the youngest and roughest in the place, the idea of a scrimmage was, neither in itself nor in its probable consequences, at all repulsive to them. They answered that a little bloodletting would do nobody any harm; neither would there be much of that, for they scorned to use any weapon sharper than their fists or a good thick rung: the women and children would take stones of course. Nobody would be killed, but every meddlesome authority taught to let Scaurnose and fishers alone. Peter objected that their enemies could easily starve them out. Dubs rejoined that if they took care to keep the sea-door open, their friends at Portlossie would not let them starve. Grosert said he made no doubt the factor would have the Seaton to fight as well as Scaurnose, for they must see plainly enough that their turn would come next. Joseph said the factor would apply to the magistrates, and they would call out the militia. "An' we'll call out Buckie," answered Dubs.

"Man," said Fite Folp, the eldest of the three, "the haill shore, frae the Brough to Fort George, 'ill be up in a jiffie, an' a' the cuintray, frae John o' Groats to Berwick, 'ill hear hoo the fisherfowk 's misguidit; an' at last it 'll come to 