“It is impossible in prose; but you shall have her very picture in a verse of one of my own songs.”

“Nay, mine host, I beseech you to spare me. This is no time for quavering,” said the guest. “However, I am proud of your approbation, my old friend; for this young lady do I intend to take to wife. What think you of the plan?”

Hugh Crombie gazed into his companion's face for the space of a moment, in silence. There was nothing in its expression that looked like a jest. It still retained the same hard, cold look, that, except when Hugh had alluded to his home and family, it had worn through their whole conversation.

“On my word, comrade!” he at length replied, “my advice is, that you give over your application to the quart pot, and refresh your brain by a short nap. And yet your eye is cool and steady. What is the meaning of this?”

“Listen, and you shall know,” said the guest. “The old man, her father, is in his grave.”

“Not a bloody grave, I trust,” interrupted the landlord, starting, and looking fearfully into his comrade's face.

“No, a watery one,” he replied calmly. “You see, Hugh, I am a better man than you took me for. The old man's blood is not on my head, though my wrongs are on his. Now listen: he had no heir but this only daughter; and to her, and to the man she marries, all his wealth will belong. She shall marry me. Think you her father will rest easy in the ocean, Hugh Crombie, when I am his son-in-law?”

“No, he will rise up to prevent it, if need be,” answered the landlord.

“But the dead need not interpose to frustrate so wild a scheme.”

“I understand you,” said his comrade. “You are of opinion that the young lady's consent may not be so soon won as asked. Fear not for that, mine host. I have a winning way with me, when opportunity serves; and it shall serve with Ellen Langton. I will have no rivals in my wooing.”

“Your intention, if I take it rightly, is to get this poor girl into your power, and then to force her into a marriage,” said Hugh Crombie.

“It is; and I think I possess the means of doing it,” replied his comrade.

“But methinks, friend Hugh, my enterprise has not your good wishes.”

“No; and I pray you to give it over,” said Hugh Crombie, very earnestly. “The girl is young, lovely, and as good as she is fair. I cannot aid in her ruin. Nay, more: I must prevent it.”

“Prevent it!” exclaimed the traveller, with a darkening countenance. “Think twice before you stir in this matter, I advise you. Ruin, do you say? Does a girl call it ruin to be made an honest wedded wife? No, no, mine host! nor does a widow either, else have you much to answer for.”

“I gave the Widow Hutchins fair play, at least, which is more than poor Ellen is like to get,” observed the landlord. “My old comrade, will you not give up this scheme?”

“My old comrade, I will not give up this scheme,” returned the other, composedly. “Why, Hugh, what has come over you since we last met? Have we not done twenty worse deeds of a morning, and laughed over them at night?”

“He is right there,” said Hugh Crombie, in a meditative tone. “Of a certainty, my conscience has grown unreasonably tender within the last two years. This one small sin, if I were to aid in it, would add but a trifle to the sum of mine. But then the poor girl!”

His companion overheard him thus communing with himself, and having had much former experience of his infirmity of purpose, doubted not that he should bend him to his will. In fact, his arguments were so effectual, that Hugh at length, though reluctantly, promised his cooperation. It was necessary that their motions should be speedy; for on the second day thereafter, the arrival of the post would bring intelligence of the shipwreck by which Mr.