"
An opinion which S----th feared was too well founded. Nearly at their
wits' end, they stood all three for a little quite silent, till the
sound of a horse's clattering feet sounded as if coming from Davidson's
Mains. All under the conviction of crime, they became alarmed; and as
the rider approached, they concealed themselves behind the dyke, which
ran by the side of the road. At that moment a man came as if from
Edinburgh, and they could hear the rider, who did not, from his voice,
appear to be the man who had been robbed, inquiring if he had met a
young man with a gun in his hand. The man answered no, and off set the
rider towards town at the rate of a hard trot. The few hopeful moments
when anything could have been done effectually as a palinode and
expiation were past; and S----th, releaping the dyke, was again upon
the road in the depth of despair, and his companions scarcely less so.
All his and their escapades had hitherto been at least within the bounds
of the law; and though his heart had often misgiven him, when called
upon for the nourishment of his wild humours, as he thought of his
widowed mother at home, without the comfort of the son she loved in
spite of his errors, he had not ever yet felt the pangs of deep regret
as they came preluding amendment. A terrible influx of feelings, which
had been accumulating almost unknown to him during months and
months--for his father had been dead only for a year and a half--pushed
up against all the strainings of a wild natural temperament, and seemed
ready to choke him, depriving him of utterance, and making him appear
the very coward he had been depicting so sharply an hour before.
Pages:
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239