SAINT ANTHONY'S CHAPEL-SALISBURY CRAGS.

"Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves

Shall never tremble.".

Macbeth, Act III.

[Tales of My Landlord, 2d Series, (Heart of Midlothian,) Vol. II. p. 8.

"As our heroine (Jeanie Deans) approached this ominous and unhallowed spot, she paused and looked to the moon, now rising broad on the north-west, and shedding a more distinct light than it had afforded during her walk thither. Eyeing the planet for a moment, she then slowly and fearfully turned her head towards the cairn,* from which it was at first averted. She was at first disappointed--nothing was visible beside the little pile of stones, which shone grey in the moonlight. A multitude of confused suggestions rushed on her mind. Had her correspondent deceived her, and broken his appointment? had some strange turn of fate prevented him from appearing? or, if he were an unearthly being, as her secret apprehension suggested, was it his object to delude her with false hopes, as she had learned was according to the nature of those wandering demons? or did he purpose to blast her with the sudden horrors of his presence, when she had come close to the place of rendezvous? These anxious reflections did not prevent her approaching to the cairn with a pace that, though slow, was determined.

"When she was within two yards of the heap of stones, a figure rose suddenly up from behind it, and Jeanie scarce forebore to scream aloud at what seemed the realization of the most frightful of her anticipations: she constrained herself to silence, however, and, making a dead pause, suffered the figure to open the conversation, which he did, by asking in a voice which agitation rendered tremulous and hollow, "Are you the sister of that ill-fated young woman? - "I am-I am the sister of Effie Deans!" exclaimed Jeanie, "and, as ever you hope God will hear you at your need, tell me, if you can tell, what can be done to save her!"-"I do not hope God will hear me at my need," was the singular answer, "I do not deserve-I do not expect he will:-you see before

you

Muschat's cairn. Maschat, a young surgeon, while studying at Edinburgh, made an unsuitable match with a person in humble life, named Margaret Hall; repenting of the step, he attempted to divorce, forsake, and even poison her; but, failing in these, he at last formed the desperate resolution, to relieve himself of the incumbrance by cutting her throat. The day previous to the enactment of the horrid tragedy, he feigned a return of his first affection, and persuaded his victim to accompany him on an evening walk to Duddingston; when nearly at the end of the "Duke's Walk," he threw her on the ground, and, after a violent struggle, effected her death, under circumstances of the most appalling character. He was executed in the Grassmarket, and hung in chains on the Gallowlee, sometime in the year 1720. A cairn of stones marks the exact spot where the murder was committed.

P