RINITY,
_March_, 1857.

WILSON'S

TALES OF THE BORDERS,

AND OF SCOTLAND.

THE VACANT CHAIR.[1]

[1] Our commencement with "The Vacant Chair"--the first written of the
Tales of the Borders--is not inconsistent with our principle of
selection in this edition, which is to distribute the contributions of
the authors, so as to secure variety without any view to an early
exhaustion of the best of the Tales.--_Ed._

You have all heard of the Cheviot mountains. They are a rough, rugged,
majestic chain of hills, which a poet might term the Roman wall of
nature; crowned with snow, belted with storms, surrounded by pastures
and fruitful fields, and still dividing the northern portion of Great
Britain from the southern. With their proud summits piercing the clouds,
and their dark rocky declivities frowning upon the glens below, they
appear symbolical of the wild and untamable spirits of the Borderers who
once inhabited their sides. We say, you have all heard of the Cheviots,
and know them to be very high hills, like a huge clasp riveting England
and Scotland together; but we are not aware that you may have heard of
Marchlaw, an old, gray-looking farm-house, substantial as a modern
fortress, recently, and, for aught we know to the contrary, still
inhabited by Peter Elliot, the proprietor of some five hundred
surrounding acres. The boundaries of Peter's farm, indeed, were defined
neither by fields, hedges, nor stone walls. A wooden stake here, and a
stone there, at considerable distances from each other, were the general
landmarks; but neither Peter nor his neighbours considered a few acres
worth quarrelling about; and their sheep frequently visited each other's
pastures in a friendly way, harmoniously sharing a family dinner, in the
same spirit as their masters made themselves free at each other's
tables.

Peter was placed in very unpleasant circumstances, owing to the
situation of Marchlaw House, which, unfortunately, was built immediately
across the "ideal line," dividing the two kingdoms; and his misfortune
was, that, being born within it, he knew not whether he was an
Englishman or a Scotchman. He could trace his ancestral line no farther
back than his great-grandfather, who, it appeared from the family Bible,
had, together with his grandfather and father, claimed Marchlaw as their
birth-place. They, however, were not i