. The
pastime was general throughout Scotland; and David Maxwell's children
only followed an example which has been repeated for five hundred years.
"Christiecleek!--Christiecleek!" What Scotchman has not heard the
dreaded words? Time rolled on, and the Misses Maxwell resigned their
childish pastime for the duties of women. Their father had become a very
old man; and the attentions which their mother could not bestow, were
willingly yielded by the young women, who were remarked as being very
beautiful, as well as very good. They loved their father dearly, and
looked upon their filial duties as willing tributes of affection. After
they became intrusted with the secret, they substituted for the cry of
their youth, which had given their father so much pain, pity for the
brother of the victim of the execrated fiend.

At last David Maxwell came to die; and, as he lay on his bed, surrounded
by his wife and daughters, he seemed to be wrestling with some dreadful
thought which allowed him no rest, but wrung from him, incessantly,
heavy groans and muttered prayers. His wife pressed him to open his
heart to her, or, if he was disinclined to repose that confidence in her
when dying, which he had awarded to her so liberally during a long
union, he should, she recommended, send for Father John of the Monastery
of St Agnes, and be shrived. The daughters wept as they heard these
melancholy statements, and the old man sympathised in their sorrow,
which seemed to give him additional pain. At last he seemed inclined to
be communicative, and, after a struggle, said to his wife--

"Wha is to tak care o' my dochters when I am consigned to that cauld
habitation whar a faither's love and an enemy's anger are alike unfelt
and unknown? My effects will be sufficient for the support o' my
household; but money, without a guardian, is only a temptation to
destroyers and deceivers. If I could get this point settled to my
satisfaction, I micht die in peace."

"You never tauld me o' yer freens, David," said his wife--"a
circumstance that has often grieved me. The hundreds o' Maxwells in the
Stewartry and in Dumfries-shire surely contain among them some relation,
however distant; but my uncle will act as guardian to our dochters, and
ye hae tried his honesty."

"Yet I dinna want relations," groaned the dying man. "I hae a
_brither_."

"A brither," ejaculated the mother and daughter in astonishment; "was he
no killed by the monster, Christiecleek,