ain could the
happiness be his to live once more in the dearly loved Border land; for
how could he face home when that terrible fate awaited his landing at
Portsmouth. "Oh! _why_ had he been guilty of folly so great? Why had he
thus made a shipwreck of life's voyage almost at its very outset?"

Yet at last there came a morning when the cloud of depression began to
lift from his mind. An English packet had arrived, bearing despatches
for the Admiral, and, as Watty languidly turned the pages of a late
Steel's List, ambition once more awoke on finding his name amongst the
promotions. Braced in mind, and roused from his apathy by this
unlooked-for good fortune, he turned to other papers brought out by the
packet, and waded steadily through the news sheets. There was little at
first that interested him. But presently, as he picked up a little
Portsmouth journal, a paragraph that caught his eye fetched from him a
shout that roused the house and brought his host flying to the verandah.

"What the deuce ails you? Confound it, the boy's off his head again!" he
cried.

"Heaven be thanked! My wife's hanged!" shouted Watty.

"Oh! mad as a March hare!" fussed his host, running into the house.
"Mad, sure enough. Must send off a boy for the doctor."

But Watty's news was true. The paragraph which had caught his eye as he
picked up the Portsmouth paper was, in effect, the continuation and
conclusion of that other announcement which he had seen at Halifax, and
was indeed an account of the execution for robbery and murder of certain
persons, amongst whom, as "accessory before the fact," was the landlady
of the "Goat's Head" Tavern.

It is uncertain if Lieutenant Walter Scott ever returned to settle in
the Border; but he was a cousin of Sir Walter, who gave to Captain Basil
Hall, R.N., some outline of such a story as is here told.

SHEEP-STEALING IN TWEEDDALE

"The cattle thereof shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves."
(Josh. viii. 2.)

"The men are shepherds, for their trade hath been to feed cattle."
(Gen. xlvi. 32.)

In days even earlier than those of the early Israelites, to a certain
class of persons the flocks and herds of a neighbour have been an
irresistible temptation. The inhabitants of few, if indeed of any, lands
have been quite free from the tendency to "lift" their neighbour's
live-stock (though probably it has not been given to many, in times
either ancient or modern, to emulate th