e
Revolution now put it in the power of Sergeant Wilson to return with his
young and interesting family to the farm of Barjarg, and to purchase the
property on which the old house stood, it being now in the market; to refit
the old burnt tower; to rebuild the old castle, and to live there along
with old Adam for several years, not only in comfort, but in splendour.
When engaged over a bottle, of which he became ultimately rather more fond
than was good for his health, he used to amuse his friends with the above
narrative, adding always at the end--"The burning o' me has been the making
o' me." The property has long passed into other hands, and is now in the
family of Hunter; but such was its destination for at least fifty years,
during the life of the sergeant, and the greater part of the life of the
son, who, being a spendthrift, spent and sold it.

XI.--HELEN PALMER.

Helen Palmer was originally from Cumberland; her parents were English, but
her father had removed with Helen, an only daughter, whilst yet a child, to
the neighbourhood of Closeburn Castle, to a small village which still goes
by the name of Croalchapel. There the husband and father had been employed
originally as forester on the estate of Closeburn, belonging to Sir Roger
Kirkpatrick, and had afterwards become chamberlain or factor on the same
property. Peter Palmer was a superior man. He had been well educated for
the time in which he lived, and had been employed in Cumberland in keeping
accounts for a mining establishment. The death, however, in child-birth, of
his beloved and well-born wife, (she had married below her station,) had,
for some time, disgusted him with life, and his intellects had nearly given
way. Having committed several acts of insanity, so as to make himself
spoken of in the neighbourhood, he took a moonlight flitting, with his
child and a faithful nurse, and, wandering north and north, at last fixed
his residence in the locality already mentioned, where he was soon noticed
as a superior person by the Laird of Closeburn, and advanced as has been
stated.

Helen Palmer was the apple of her father's eye; he would permit no one but
the nurse to approach her person, and he himself was her only instructor;
he taught her to read, to write, and to calculate accounts; in short, every
spare hour he had was spent with little Helen. There you might see him,
after dinner, with Helen on his knee, his forest dog sleeping before him,
and a tumbl