THE WATER TOWER:

A STORY OF THE FIRST ROYAL LANCASHIRE MILITIA.

BY MRS. HIBBERT WARE,

Authoress of "Dr. Harcourt's Assistant," "The Hunlock Title Deeds," &c

CHAPTER LII. (Continued)

A DRIZZLING rain was falling, and the rugged paving stones of West Port were coated with more than their usual complement of greasy mud, and the layer of black slime, on which the foot was apt to slip, together with the steepness of the ascent from the Grassmarket rendered walking perilous and unpleasant to the pedestrian unaccustomed to tread that dreary and poverty-stricken region.

With slow and careful steps, a lady, wearing a long grey cloak, with her face closely veiled, was seen making her way up the West Port from the Grass-market. On reaching the entrance to Tanner's Close she halted, looked down the dark, obscure entry, made a step or two in advance, as if with the intention of going down it, and then drew back, seemingly irresolute what to do. Burke and Hare had just been committed to jail. From the time Mrs. Gray, their lodger, had laid that information, which, like the firing of the train, was destined to blow up into atoms the whole structure of their diabolical conspiracy, many had been the visitors to Tanner's Close. Hundreds were impelled by idle curiosity, or by a morbid longing to gaze upon the sordid habitation in which such horrors had been perpetrated; some few in terror and sickening apprehension, to make inquiries in the Close, dreading to have their fears confirmed, and yet wishful to know the worst, to ascertain if the description they should give of dear missing relatives tallied with that of any of those persons who had been seen to enter that fatal house.

Had this lady come with such an intent? But surely, if so, her fears were misplaced, for her attire did not denote poverty, and relatives of hers would scarcely have been amongst the victims in Log's Lodging House, for these were the poorest and most destitute of the inhabitants of that great city.

Still irresolute, Teresa Ayleworth, for she it was stood at the entrance to the Close, now looking with a shuddering feeling of dread down the dark murky entry, and then turning her gaze upon West Port, a spot little less gloomy in the yellowish haze that seemed

to envelope the whole place on that wet, dreary morning. Ruinous old houses, of irregular heights, tottering to decay, line either side of the poor crowded thoroughfare, swarming with half-naked, squalid, wretched-looking little children; ragged clothes suspended on poles flutter from the small deep-recessed windows, that admit. only scanty rays of light to the decayed and dismal rooms within, and the stone-work and façades of the ancient tenements are black, crumbling, and rotten.

At length appearing to make up her mind, Teresa was about to plunge into the gloomy recesses of the Close, when a gentleman, suddenly emerging from it, stumbled against her; the apology he had begun to utter died away on his lips, and he exclaimed, in a tone of mingled surprise and apprehension, "Teresa! what can have brought you to this place?"

Without waiting for her answer, Robert Norris laid his hand on his cousin's arm, and gently drew her away from the entrance to the Close.

After a painful silence of a few moments, Norris said, in a tone of great emotion, "You have not answered my question, dear Teresa; but I can tell on what dreadful errand you were bent in coming to Tanner's Close. You have conceived the same terrible fear which has haunted me, day and night, since the first whisper of the many victims done to death in that horrible Close. cousin, may not my poor boy have been one of the number?"

Oh !

"No, Robert," exclaimed Teresa earnestly, "dismiss the awful thought from your mind. mind. Dear Donald was well clothed, his very appearance would betoken his position; it was not against such as he that these bloodthirsty monsters waged war, but against the poor, the friendless, and the destitute, against those who often knew not where they should lay their head at night, who, when they disappeared from this great city, were no more sought for than the yellow leaf, which is whirled from the tree in these autumn gales."

"You try to comfort me, cousin ; but why did you come here to-day?" said Norris sadly. "You have been pursued by the same nightmare which has brooded over me."

"I will admit," replied Teresa, "that the awful thought had entered my head, and, by a curious coincidence, we came on the same day to make inquiries in the Close, which, thank God! have led to nothing; for you would have told me immediately had you received the slightest intelligence which could connect our poor lost Donald with any of Burke's ill-fated victims. Believe me, Robert, the thought is against sober sense, and I will never admit it again myself. I must come back to our original idea, that

Donald ran away to sea, though I am still convinced that Walter had no hand in it.”

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Perhaps not-I hope not," replied Norris, " for I wish to think well of your brother, Teresa. Nay, I have been sorry, since that I did not send for him before he had to join his ship, as he may be away for a long while; but still, perhaps, all was for the best. I do not, my dear cousin, really disapprove of his attachment to Flora, for I could not wish her a better husband, I believe, as far as qualities of the mind and heart go. But she is very young, and I can give her no fortune. Walter must make way in his profession, and then, in a few years, if they are both constant, we will see what can be done, and I must try meanwhile what I can do, by thrift and economy, that she may not be a penniless bride."

"You have a kind heart, Robert," said Teresa, warmly, "and your decision is perfectly just and right, and I am sure Walter would deem it so, equally with myself.'

"Come home with me to Georges Square, Teresa," said Norris, as they walked through the Grass-market, " Mrs. Norris has been very ailing lately, and your visits always cheer her."

"I will come very willingly," replied Teresa; "being an old maid," she added with a smile, "and no longer obliged to work for my living, my time is at my own disposal."

Through the Grass-market the two went on their way; and a passer-by might well be excused, if he turned to gaze back at them: Teresa tall and slender, and Norris tall also and gaunt, taking long strides and every now and then jerking forward his chin, as was his habit, looked, one might say, an oddity, though evidently a gentleman; his attire was slovenly as usualnay, even shabby; he wore a hat with the rim at the back broken and turned up, a long black surtout, and shepherd's-plaid trousers, singed brown from below the knees, shrunk short from the effects of the washing-tub, but very wide, so as to flap from side to side over his Blucher boots at every step he took. Thus the two proceeded along the pavement of that spacious quadrangle, surrounded, as it is, by tall, old houses, some of them irregular in their architecture, but picturesque with their high antique corbie-stepped gables and long rows of transom and mullion windows. The shadow of the Castle, from the summit of the rugged and precipitous rock on which it stands, falls upon the Grass-market on one side, while on the other the greensward, the drooping willows, and the clustering towers of Heriot's Hospital, look down on the busy scene far beneath.

Busy, indeed, and bustling was the Grass-market, and it looked even cheerful, spite of the drizzling rain and leaden sky above; for its broad expanse, on this market-day, was covered with carts

piled with hay or straw, throngs of country people crowded the pathways, the shops were full of cus tomers from village and farmhouse, and though it was now rather late in the morning, groups of poverty-stricken women and children from the dark closes on each side of the Grass-market, and from the West Bow and the Cowgate, still clustered round the old, quaint-looking conduit, called the Bow-foot Well, waiting their turn, with cans in their hands, to draw water for the day.

West Port had become awfully notorious in it recently-enacted scenes of horror; but those old houses, which Norris and his cousin are now passing, at the foot of the West Bow, also witnessed a fearful tragedy; for here, long years ago, by the red torchlight, and in sight of a sea of upturned, wild, and savage faces, Captain George Porteous met his fate at the hands of the mob, after they had dragged him from the Tolbooth, and here, till broad, daylight his body swung from the dyer's pole.

Passing up the steep ascent of Candle-maker Row, and under the dusky, time-stained walls of Greyfriars Church, the the two cousins entered Bristo Port, and from thence Georges Square.

Teresa was very warmly welcomed by Mrs. Norris, who looked ill, jaded, and careworn.

"Your

Flora handed her father a letter, saying as she did so, correspondent writes a horrible hand, papa; and just look at the coarse blue paper, and the clumsy way the missive is wrapped up, and the wafer has been put on with dirty fingers, and stamped with a thimble. It bears the London post-mark.'

Norris opened the letter, and as he glanced at the first few lines, he exclaimed, in a tone of deep thankfulness, "God be praised! here is news, at last, of Donald !"`

CHAPTER LIII.

NIXON'S LODGING HOUSE.

AMIDST the vast concourse of vessels of every size and kind, lining the Thames within a near approach of London, the Monarch, a steamer which plied between Leith and the great metropolis, was slowly steaming along, one murky day in November. Early in the morning there had been a fog, which was now partially clearing off as the sun broke through the dense yellowish clouds of vapour, that had shrouded, for many hours, the river and its banks, and the rooftops and houses.

Now the grey walls of the Tower came in sight, and then again, as the fog floated upwards from the river, the old fortress,

whose stones have witnessed feasts and pageantry, deeds of blood, and every phase of human joy and human woe, was hidden from sight, and became absorbed in the thick yellow mist.

Amongst the passengers gathered together on deck was Teresa Ayleworth. She had come from Leith to London in search of poor runaway Donald; either to bring him home, or, if she deemed it. more expedient, to accomplish the boy's darling wish, and make arrangements for his going to sea.

Perhaps Teresa had never conferred a greater boon on her cousin. than when she proposed to go to London and meet Donald. The father would willingly have gone himself, or at least have accompanied her, but a grave reason deterred him. The information

they had received in the half illegible, ill-written, and ill-spelt letter, which had found its way to Georges Square, was very scant and meagre; but this much they learned from it, that Donald was lurking somewhere amongst the net-work of courts and alleys, well-remembered by Teresa, from her visits in past years to the Belgian Chapel, which lies between the London Road and the Borough Road.

Now, Donald could not fail to be certain that his flight and absence would have caused great distress at home, and Norris himself admitted that if his wayward son suspected his father to be on his track, and in pursuit of him, he would instantly make off, prompted by fear of his parent's well-deserved anger, and thus they would lose all clue again. Every precaution was, therefore, evidently necessary to prevent Donald taking the alarm; for the woman who had written the letter stated, that she wrote without the boy's knowledge; that she had found out by chance who he belonged to; that he had hitherto kept himself, but that haviug become ill, he could do so no longer, and that he had been indebted to her for board and lodging for some weeks past, and hence her application.

Norris felt that kindness and forbearance must alone be used in dealing with Donald, in spite of his strange and undutiful conduct. The best person to go in search of him was one whom he knew, and yet one whom he had no cause to fear and no motive to shun. Who better than Teresa, whom the boy had known from infancy, and for whom he had always had very great affection?

Norris raised some faint objections against his cousin's undertaking such a journey, and especially as the winter was now com. mencing; but Teresa overruled them. Then he would have had her go by land, take Chester on her way, and rest there; and he alluded, as a further inducement, to the pleasure she would feel at seeing her native place, after a lapse of so many years, and revisiting, briefly at least, her dear old haunt, the Water Tower. The words