The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-03-15
CHAPTER !.
LIFE AND DEATH OF MRS. WEIR

The lord justice clerk was a stranger
in that part of the country; but his
lady wife was known there from a
child, as her race had been before her.
The old riding Rutherfords of Hermis-
ton, of whom she was the last des-
cendant, had been famous men of yore
Ill neighbors. i'll subjects and i'll hus-
bands to their wives, though not their
properties. Tales of them were rife in
20 miles about; and their name was
even printed in the page of our Scots
histories, not always to their credit
One bit the dust at F'lodden: one was
hanged at his peel door by James the
Fifth; another fell dead in a carouse
with Tom Dalyell: while a fourth (and
that was Jeans own father died pre-
siding at a Hell-Fire club, OF which he
was the founder. There were many
heads shaken in Crossmichael at that
Judgment; the more so as the man had
villainous reputation among high and
low, and both with the godly and the
worldly. At that very hour of his de-
mise, he had 10 going places before the
session, eight of them oppressive And
the same doom extended even to his
agents; his grieve, that had been his
right hand in many a left-hand bust
ness, being cast from his horse one
night and drowned I'm a peat-hag on
the Kyeskairs; and his very doer (al-
though lawyers have long spoons) sur
viving him not long. and diving on a
sudden in a bloody fuN
In all these generations, while a male
rutherford was in the saddle with his
lads, or brawling I'm a change house.
there would be always a white-faced
wife immured at home in the old peel
or the later mansion house. Ii seemed
this succession of martyrs bided long
but took their vengeance in the end
and that was i'm the person of the last
descendant. Jean. She bore the name
OF the Rutherfords. but she was the
daughter of their trembling wives. Al
the first she was not wholly without
charm. Neighbors recalled in her. as a |
child, strain of elfn wilfulness gentle |
little mutinies, sad little gaities. even |
a morning CLEAN Of beauty that was |
not TO be fulfilled. She withered i'm the |
growing ana whether IL was the sins |
OF her sires or the SORROWS OF her |
mothers) came to her maturity de- |
pressed, and. as IL were. defaced; no |
blood OF life in her. no grasp or gayety. |
pious, anxious. tender. fearful and in /
competent.
II was wonder to many that she |
had notwithstanding so wholly of the |
stuff that makes old maids. But chance |
cast her I'm the path of Adam Weir
then the new lord advocate. a recog- |
nized, risen man, the conquerer of /
many obstacles, and thus late in the /
day beginning to think upon a wife 1
He was one who looked rather 10 obe-
dience than beauty, yet il would seem
he was struck with her at the first
look. "Wha's she?" he said. turning TO /
his host; and, when he had been told.
Ay,' says he, she looks mensefuI
She minds me-" and then after a
pause (Which some have been daring
enough 10 set down TO sentimental re-
rs she releegious?" he
asked and was shortly after. al his
own request, presented. The acduafnt-
ance. which IL seems profane to call a
was pursed with Mr. Weir's
accustomed industry, and was long a
egend. or rather a source Of legends
n the Parliament house. He was de-
lcribed coming, rosy with much port.