The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1870-02-19

stance Of its being composed Of earth,
might have almost been termed precipice
and here, if the passenger should miss b
footing, It would be nearly impossible fc
him to stop himself till be reached the bot
tom. in which a turbulent stream brawl
and foams over rocks and stones, disturb
ing the silence and the solitude Of the plac
with sounds which have q tendency to in
spire feelings of superstitious fears. Th
scene from its nature and situation, ap
pears to be well suited for those transaction
which, according to popular brief, "sur
pass Natures law" and it has been re
garded as the favorite haunt Of scttches
fdiySes, ghosts, and other mysterious beings
from time immemorial Numbers Of tb
inhabitants Of the village below bad beer
scared. in tier nocturnal rambleA by th'
orgies Of these luncouth neighbors many
belsted traveller had seen strange sights
and heard stranger sounds, in this hauntet
dell many q luckless lad, in jeurneyint
through il, to zee the mistress Of bis heart
had met sach adventures Us to drive lov,
nearly out Of his head for whole weeks d
come and even maids, upon whom the sur
went down in the dangerous pass, bad seer
things at the mention Of which they shook
their hesds, and seemed unable to speak
Nor were there avanting instances Of in
dividuAls who, 10 returning at the /" witch
ing time Of night" from delightful inter
view, in the course Of which the marriage
day was settled, had been so terrified thai
they forgot every word Of what had been
said and, when tie minister and. the mar
riage guests arrived, behold they vsre found
in the barn or in the field, or, what was
worse, they had gone upOI q journey. and
were not to be found at all. Those Of the
villagers who had not seen and heard Of
these unearthly doing for themselves, had
been told of them by their mothers and
grandmothers and thus enc generation
after another went forth into the world CON-
pletely armed against skeptics and unbe-
levers of all sorts. If any one rentured
to doubt the verscity Of these statements,
or to call in question the cogency of the ar
guments BY which they supported them,
they had only to appeal to the testimony Of
their fathers and grandfathers, their mothers
and grandmOthers, and the most sKeptical
we're convinced at once. No man burst
venture to cast the shadow Of doubt upon
such incontrovertible evidence, because to
have done 80 would have been to implicate
their relations in the charge Of speaking be-
side the truth, and these, they said, were
decent, respectable folk, and never kenned
for lee'rs in their lives"
In this metropolis, and near the scene Of
these memorable events, Nelly KlgOur was
born-the exact date of her birth we do
not pretend to determine, though it must
have been some time in the eighteenth CEN
tury-and had lived, running about, going
to school, and serving sundry Of the lieges
who were indweIlers thereof till she bad ar
rived at years of discretiOn-in other
words, till she had seen three-and-thirty
=" summers" as a poet would say, and
nearly the same number Of winters, as our
reader may guess. 1t has been said that
there are three distinct questions which
woman naturally puts to herself at three
different periods of her life. The first is
" Who will | take pa most important
question no doubt and we may reasonably
suppose that it occurs about the time when
the attentions of the other sex first awaken
her to a sense of her own charms, and she
is thus ready to look upon every one who
smiles on her as lover, and every young
fellow who contemplates her face while talk.
ing to her as anxious to- become her hus-
band. The second question. which is
scarcely less important, is" Who will l
get ?" and this, we may again suppose, be-
gins to be repeated seriously, after she has
seen the same individual smile upon halfa-
dozen dsmsels on the same day, and after
she has learned that it is impossible for an
unmarried man to contemplate her own fair
face with the deepest interest, and converse
with her on the most interesting subjects on
Monday morning, and then 60 and do the
same to another on Tuesday evening. But
the last, and perhapa the most important, as
/ it certainly is the most perplexing Of these
questions, is" WWI get ot.ybody ara -
and this, there can he little doubt, begins
to force itself upon her attention, after the
smiles Of her admirers have become so faint
that they are no longer able to climb over
ttbe nose; when, instead Of talking Of love,
they begin to yawn, and speak about the
weather in short, after she becomes con-
scious that her charms are at discount,
and that those who are coming up behind
her are every day stealing away her swee.
hearts
Through the whole Of the previous stages
Nelly Kilgour had passed and she had
now arrived at this important question,
which, as has been Just said, ID the last a
woman can put herself She had seen her
admirers, one after another, come and look
in her fa-e, and conti9Ue their visits, their
smiles, and their convers alton for season,
and then 60 away and leave ber, as if they
had got nothing else to do. She had spent
considerable portion Of ber life, as has
been already observed, in serving the lieges
in and about the place of her nativity-to
no purpose, as it appeared /; at least. in SO
Ear as the getting of the husband was con-
cerned, nothing had been, effected. The
proper season for securing this desideratum
Of The female world was fast wearing away
something, she saw, must Of necessity be
done; and, thinking that women, ike some
other commodities, might sell better at a
distance than at home, she engaged herself
as a servant on the little farm Of Ho,cdy
crGigs-a place situated among that portion
Of the Ochils already noticed.
i When she entered upon this engage
ment, which was to last for a year, she wa
spoken of as ga weel reikit lass"-th'
meaning Of which phrase is, that she hat
already provided what was considered
woman's part Of the furnishing of bouse
and some of the sober matrons wondered
what had come owre a. the lads noo," an'
said, "they were sure Nelly Kilgour wat
, max better wife than ony O. thae youn;
Al II.