 had
been shown to her among other articles of preparation for the wedding.
    The friends of Bucklaw expected that on his recovery he would throw some
light upon this dark story, and eagerly pressed him with inquiries, which for
some time he evaded under pretext of weakness. When, however, he had been
transported to his own house, and was considered as in a state of convalescence,
he assembled those persons, both male and female, who had considered themselves
as entitled to press him on this subject, and returned them thanks for the
interest they had exhibited in his behalf, and their offers of adherence and
support. »I wish you all,« he said, »my friends, to understand, however, that I
have neither story to tell, nor injuries to avenge. If a lady shall question me
henceforward upon the incidents of that unhappy night, I shall remain silent,
and in future consider her as one who has shown herself desirous to break off
her friendship with me; in a word, I will never speak to her again. But if a
gentleman shall ask me the same question, I shall regard the incivility as
equivalent to an invitation to meet him in the Duke's Walk,29 and I expect that
he will rule himself accordingly.«
    A declaration so decisive admitted no commentary; and it was soon after seen
that Bucklaw had arisen from the bed of sickness a sadder and a wiser man than
he had hitherto shown himself. He dismissed Craigengelt from his society, but
not without such a provision as, if well employed, might secure him against
indigence, and against temptation.
    Bucklaw afterwards went abroad and never returned to Scotland; nor was he
known ever to hint at the circumstances attending his fatal marriage. By many
readers this may be deemed overstrained, romantic, and composed by the wild
imagination of an author, desirous of gratifying the popular appetite for the
horrible; but those who are read in the private family history of Scotland
during the period in which the scene is laid, will readily discover, through the
disguise of borrowed names and added incidents, the leading particulars of AN
OWER TRUE TALE.
 

                             Chapter Thirty-Fourth

 Whose mind's so marbled, and his heart so hard,
 That would not, when this huge mishap was heard,
 To th' utmost note of sorrow set their song,
 To see a gallant with so great a grace,
 So suddenly unthought on, so o'erthrown,
 And so to perish, in so poor a place,
 By too rash riding in a ground unknown!
                                            Poem, in Nisbet's Heraldry, Vol
