"John Scott!" said the son, in a firm and terrible tone, grasping his parent meantime convulsively round the neck--"John Scott of Auchincleuch, _I am thy son_!"
Tho conscience-stricken culprit, being taken by surprise, and almost imagining this a supernatural intimation from heaven, exclaimed, in trembling accents--
"But who are you that makes this averment?"
"I am thy son, father--oh, I am thy son!"
Will could no more; for his heart was full, and his tears dropped hot and heavy on a father's face.
"Yes," replied the parent, after a convulsive solemn sob--(O Heaven! thou art just!)--"yes, thou _art_ indeed my son--my long-denied and ill-used boy--whom the fear of the world's scorn has tempted me, against all the yearnings of my better nature, to use so unjustly. But come to my bosom--to a father's bosom _now_, for I know that voice too well to distrust thee."
In a few months after this interesting disclosure, John Scott was numbered with his fathers, and Will Scott (no longer Mather) became Laird of Auchincleuch.
Poor Nancy was at first somewhat distressed at this discovery, which put her betrothed in a position to expect a higher or genteeler match. But there was no cause of alarm. Will was true to the back-bone, and would as soon have burned his Bible as have sacrificed his future bride. After much pressing for an early day on the part of the lover, it was agreed, at last, that the marriage should take place at "Peat-casting Time," and that Nancy should, for the last turn, assist at the casting of her mother's peats.
I wish I could stop here, or at least proceed to give you an account of the happy nuptials of Will Scott and Nancy Morrison, the handsomest couple in the parish of Closeburn. But it may not be! These eyes, which are still filled (though it is forty-eight years since) with tears, and this pen, which trembles as I proceed, must attest and record the catastrophe.
Nancy, the beautiful bride, and I (for I was now on the point of leaving school for college) agreed to have a jump for the last time (often had we jumped before) from a suitable moss-brow.
"My frolicsome days will sune be owre," she cried, laughing; "the guidwife of Auchincleuch will hae something else to do than jump frae the moss-brow; and, while my name is Nancy Morrison, I'll hail the dules, or jump wi' the best o' my auld playmates."