cted of having played off such a foolish and wicked
jest at the expense of the minister, even if any motive for doing so had
existed. The minister, therefore, hastened up stairs to change his coat,
leaving the Bible containing the document from the dead on the table;
while his sister, finding her niece better, left her to see that her
brother's best hat and gloves were ready.

We wonder what Barbara is about meanwhile.

Presently Mr. Comyn returned to the parlor, and putting the Bible in his
pocket, (for he dared not again look at the horrible piece of writing,)
set off at a quick pace for the town. Nor, as he hurried on, did he give
a passing glance at the track which diverged from the highroad toward
the Nut-tree-hole. The magistrate was at home, and great indeed was his
amazement when he heard the minister's story; but lo! when Mr. Comyn,
reverently taking the Bible from his pocket, opened it to show Mr.
Craigie the note, written as he declared in the peculiar handwriting of
his friend, he found nothing where he had deposited it but a piece of
blank paper, folded up in the same form, but utterly void. And then in
truth the worthy magistrate waxed somewhat wroth; at first accusing Mr.
Comyn of being credulously duped by some pawkie servant who owed him a
grudge, and ending by setting him down as "clean daft, doited, and dazed
by too mickle study," (and in his ire he had very nearly added, "too
much toddy.") But, as in no amicable frame of temper the gentlemen were
about to quarrel downright, the magistrate asking the minister what
proof he could adduce of Mr. Bruce's not being alive and merry, a
seasonable and loud knocking at the street-door interrupted them; and
presently a servant entered to announce that a drowned man had been
found in the Dee, and that his body had been brought to the door!

With shaking limbs the minister followed Mr. Craigie down stairs to the
lobby, now full of people. It appeared that some men employed in the
salmon fisheries had, within the last hour, dragged their nets, in which
they had discovered the corpse of a man whose skull had been literally
smashed in twain by a violent blow.

It was, in fact, the body of Mr. Bruce. Here, indeed, was confirmation
strange of the statement which the mysterious and missing document had
contained; and both Mr. Craigie and the minister, exchanging looks that
expressed their mutual dismay, were sorely perplexed in their own minds
how to account for the