by accident, into a deep pool in the North Loch, that sheet of water
which contained as many secrets in its bosom as that more romantic one
in Italy, not far removed from a certain pious nunnery. Even here there
was the difficulty of getting Jenny out at night, and down Cranstoun's
Close, and to west of the foot thereof, where the said deep pool was,
for no other ostensible purpose in the world than to see the moon
shedding her beams on the surface of the water--an object not half so
beautiful to her as the clear tin pan made by her own Tammas, and in
which she made her porridge every morning. But the adage about the will
and the way is of such wondrous universality, that one successful effort
seems as nothing in the diversity of man's inventions; and so it turned
out to be comparatively easy to get Janet out one evening for the reason
that her husband did not feel very well, and would like his supper the
better for a walk along the edge of the loch, in which, if it was her
pleasure, she would not refuse to accompany him. So pleasant a way of
putting the thing harmonized with Janet's love of rule, and she agreed
upon the condition she made with herself, by means of the eternal
soliloquy, that she would put on the stew to be progressing towards
unctuousness and tenderness before they went. Was that to be Janet's
last act of her darling hussyskep? It would not be consistent with our
art were we to tell you; but this much is certain, that Janet Dodds went
down Cranstoun's Close along with her beloved Tammas, that shortly after
she was plunged by him into the said deep hole of the loch, and cruelly
left there to sink or swim, while he hastened back to tell his new love,
Mrs. Blyth, how desperately he had done her bidding. But sometimes
running away has a bad look; and it happened that as Thomas was hurrying
up the dark close, he met a neighbour brother of the craft, who cried to
him, "What, ho! Tammas Dodds; whaur frae and whaur tae, man?" To which,
seeing how the act of running away would look in the Justiciary Court,
he replied with wonderful invention for the moment, that Janet had