BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.



No. CCCXXXV. SEPTEMBER, 1843. VOL. LIV.

* * * * *


"WE ARE ALL LOW PEOPLE THERE."

A TALE OF THE ASSIZES.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.


Some time ago, business of an important character carried me to the
beautiful and populous city of ----. I remember to have visited it when I
was a child, in the company of a doating mother, who breathed her last
there; and the place, associated with that circumstance, had ever
afterwards been the gloomiest spot in the county of my birth. A calamity
such as that to which I have alluded leaves no _half_ impressions. It
stamps itself deep, deep in the human heart; and a change, scarcely less
than organic, for good or ill, is wrought there. Agreeably with this
fact, the scene itself of the event becomes at once, to the survivor,
either hallowed and beloved, or hated and avoided. Not that natural