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1811.

The Spy.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 3.

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DUNCAN CAMPBELL came from the Highlands, when six years of age, to live with an old maiden aunt in Edinburgh, and attend the school. His mother was dead; but his father had supplied her place, by marrying his housekeeper. Duncan did not trouble himself about these matters, nor indeed about any other matters, save a black foal of his father's, and a large sagacious colley, named Oscar, which belonged to one of the shepherds. There being no other boy save Duncan about the house, Oscar and he were constant companions, with his garter tied round Oscar's neck, and a piece of dale tied to his big bushy tail, Duncan would often lead him about the green, pleased with the idea that he was conducting a horse and cart. Oscar submitted to all this with great cheerfulness, but whenever Duncan mounted in order to

When

ride on him, he found means instantly
to unhorse him, either by galloping, or
rolling himself on the green.
Duncan threatened him, he looked sub-
missive and licked his face and hands,
when he corrected him with the whip,
he cowered at his feet ;-matters were
Oscar would lodge no
soon made up.
where during the night but at the door
of the room where his young friend

No. 49.

slept, and woe be to the man or wo-
man who ventured to enter it at un-
timely hours.

When Duncan left his native home
he thought not of his father, nor any
of the servants. He was fond of the
ride, and some supposed that he even
scarcely thought of the black foal; but
when he saw Oscar standing looking
him ruefully in the face, the tears im-
mediately blinded both his eyes. He
caught him around the neck, hugged
and kissed him,-good-bye Oscar said
he blubbering;-good-bye, God bless
you my bonny Oscar. Duncan mounted
before a servant, and rode away,-Os-
car still followed at a distance, until he
reached the top of the hill, he then sat
down and howled;-Duncan cried till
his little heart was like to burst.-What
ails you? said the servant. I will never
see, my poor honest Oscar again said
Duncan.

Duncan staid a-year in Edinburgh, but he did not make great progress in learning. He did not approve highly of attending the school, and his aunt was too indulgent to compell his attendance. She grew extremely ill one day, the maids attended her closely, and never regarded Duncan. He was an additional charge to them; and they never loved him, but used him harshly. It was now with great difficulty, that he could obtain either meat or drink.

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In a few days after, his aunt was taken ill, she died. All was in confusion, and .poor Duncan was like to perish with hunger; he could find no person in the house, but hearing a noise in his aunt's chamber he went in; and beheld them dressing the corpse of his kind relation;—it was enough,-Duncan was horrified beyond what mortal breast was able to endure ;-he hasted down the stair, and ran along the High Street, and South Bridge, as fast as his feet could carry him, crying incessantly all the way. He would not have entered that house again if the world had been offered him as a reward. Some people stopped him, in order to ask what was the matter; but he could only answer them by exclaiming, O! dear! O! dear! and struggling till he got free, held on his course ; careless whither he went, provided he got far enough from the horrid scene he had so lately witnessed. Some have supposed, and I believe Duncan has been heard to confess, that he then imagined, he was Eunning straight for the Highlands, but mistook the direction. However, that was, he continued his course until he Icame to a place where two ways met, a little south of Grange-Toll. Here he sat down, and his frenzied passion subsided into a soft melancholy; he cried no more, but sighed excessively ; : fixed his eyes on the ground, and made some strokes in the dust with his finger. gaidosight just then appeared, which then appeared, which somewhat cheered, or at least interested his heavy and forlorn heart,it was La large drove of Highland cattle. They -were the only acquaintances that Duntean had seen for a twelvemonth, and a ftehdar feeling ofjoy, mixed with regret,

thrilled his heart at the sight of their white horns and broad dew-laps. As the van passed him, he thought their looks were particularly gruff and sullen ; he soon perceived the cause,-they were all in the hands of Englishmen ;-poor exiles like himself;-going far away to be killed and eaten, and would never see the Highland hills again!

When they were all gone bye, Duncan looked after them and wept anew; but his attention was suddenly called away to something that softly touched his feet; he looked hastily about it was a poor, hungry, lame dog, squatted on the ground, licking his feet, and manifesting the most extravagant joy,gracious, heaven ! it, was his own beloved and faithful Oscar! starved, emaciated, and so crippled that he was scarcely able to walls! he was now doomed to be the slave of a York-shire peasant, (who it seems, I had either bought or stolen him at Falkirk,) the generosity and benevolence of whose feelings, were as inferior to those of Oscar, as Oscar was inferior to him in strength and power. It is impossible to conceive a more tender meeting than this was, but Duncan soon observed that hunger and misery were painted in his friend's looks, which again pierced his heart with feelings unfelt before. I have not a crumb to give you my poor Oscar! said he, I have not a crumb to myself, but I am not so ill as you The peasant, whistled - aloud, Oscar well knew the sound, and clinging to the boy's bosom, leaned his head upon his thigh, and looked in his face, as if saying, “O Duncan ! protect me from yon ruffian." The whistle was repeated, accompanied by a loud and

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surly call; Oscar trembled, but fearing to disobey, he limped away reluctantly after his unfeeling master, who observing him to linger and look back, imagined he wanted to effect his escape, and came running back to meet him. Oscar cowered to the earth in the most submissive and imploring manner, but the peasant laid hold of him by the ear, and, uttering many imprecations, struck him with a thick staff till he lay senseless at his feet.

Every possible circumstance seemed combined to wound the feelings of poor Duncan, but this unmerited barbarity shocked him most of all, he hasted to the scene of action, weeping bitterly, and telling the man that he was a cruel brute; and that if ever he himself grew a big man he would certainly kill him. He held up his favourite's head that he might recover his breath, and the man, knowing that he could do little without his dog; waited patiently to see what would be the issue. The animal recovered, and stammered away at the heels of his tyrant without daring to look behind him. Duncan stood still, but kept his eyes eagerly fixed upon Oscar, and the farther he went from him, the more strong his desire grew to follow him. He looked the other way, but all there was to him a blank, he had no desire to stand where he was, (so he followed Oscar and the drove of cattle.co

The cattle were weary and went slowly, and Duncan, getting a little goad in his hand, assisted the men greatly in driving them. One of the drivers gave him a penny, another gave him twopence; and the lad who had the charge of the drove, observing how

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active and pliable he was, and how far he had accompanied him on the way, gave him sixpence; this was a treasure to Duncan, who, being extremely hungry, bought three penny rolls as he passed through a town; one of these he ate himself, another he gave to Oscar, and the third he carried below his arm in case of farther necessity. He drove on all the day, and at night the cattle rested upon a height, which, by his de scription, seems to have been that between Gala Water and Middleton. Duncan went off at a side, in company. with Oscar, to eat his roll, and taking shelter behind an old earthen wall, they shared their dry meal most lov ingly between them. Ere it was quite finished, Duncan, being fatigued, dropped into a profound sleep, out of which he did not awake until the next morning was far advanced,-Englishmen, cattle, and Oscar, all were gone! Duncan found himself alone on a wild height, in what country or kingdom he knew not. He sat for some time in a callous stupor, rubbing his eyes and scratching his head; but quite irreso lute what was farther necessary for him to do, until he was agreeably surprised: by the arrival of Oscar, who (though he had gone at his master's call in the morning), had found means to escape and seek the retreat of his young friend and benefactor. Duncan, without reflecting on the consequences, rejoiced in the event, and thought of nothing else than furthering his escape from the ruthless tyrant who now claimed him. For this purpose he conceived it would be best to leave the road, and accordingly he crossed it, in order to go over a waste moor to the westward. He had

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not got forty paces from the road, until he beheld the enraged Englishman running towards him without his coat, and having his staff heaved over his shoulder, Duncan's heart fainted within him, knowing it was all over with Oscar, and most likely with himself. peasant seemed not to have observed them, as he was running, and rather looking the other way; and as Duncan quickly lost sight of him in a hollow place that lay between them, he crept into a bush of heath and took Oscar in his bosom ;-the heath was so long, that it almost closed above them;the man had observed from whence the dog started in the morning, and hasted to the place, expecting to find him with the sleeping boy beyond the old earthen dike, he found the nest but the birds were flown; he called aloud,-Oscar trembled and clung to Duncan's breast. Duncan peeped from his purple covert like a heath cock on his native waste, and again beheld the ruffian coming straight towards them, with his staff still heaved, and fury in his looks; when he came within a few yards he stood still and bellowed out; " Oscar, yho, yho!" Oscar quaked, and crept still closer to Duncan's breast, Duncan almost sunk in the earth;-D--n him said the Englishman, if I had a hold of him I should make both him and the little thievish rascal dear at a small price, they cannot be far gone,-I think I hear them;--he then stood listening, but at that instant a farmer came up on horseback, and having heard him call, asked if he had lost his dog? the peasant answered in the affirmative, and added, that a blackguard boy had stolen him; the farmer said that he met a boy with

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a dog about a mile forward;-during this dialogue the farmer's dog came up to Duncan's den,-smelled upon him, then upon Oscar,-cocked his tail,walked round them growling, and then behaved in a very improper and uncivil manner to Duncan, who took all patiently, uncertain whether he was yet discovered. But so intent was the fellow upon the farmer's intelligence that he took no notice of the discovery made by the dog, but ran off without looking over his shoulder.

Duncan felt this a deliverance so great that all his other distresses vanished; and as soon as the man was out of his sight, he arose from his covert, and ran over the moor, and ere it was long came to a shepherd's house, where he got some whey and bread for his breakfast, which he thought the best meat he had ever tasted, yet shared it with Oscar.

Though I had his history from his own mouth, yet there is a space here which it is impossible to relate with any degree of distinctness or interest. He was a vagabond boy, without any fixed habitation, and wandered about Herriot moor, from one farm house to another, for the space of a year; staying from one to twenty nights in each house according as he found the people kind to him. He seldom resented any indig nity offered to himself, but whoever insulted Oscar, or offered any observations on the impropriety of their friendship, lost Duncan's company the next morning. He staid several months at a place called Dewar, which he said was haunted by the ghost of a piper ;—that piper had been murdered there many years before, in a manner somewhat

mysterious, or at least unaccountable; and there was scarcely a night on which he was not supposed either to be seen or heard about the house.-Duncan slept in the cow-house, and was terribly harrassed by the piper;-he often heard him scratching about the rafters, and sometimes he would groan like a man dying, or a cow that was choaked in the band; but at length he saw him at his side one night, which so discomposed him that he was obliged to leave the place, after being ill for many days. I shall give this story in Duncan's own words, which I have often heard him repeat without any variation.

"I had been driving some young cattle to the heights of Willenslee,-it grew late before I got home;—I was thinking, and thinking, how cruel it was to kill the poor piper! to cut out his tongue, and stab him in the back! I thought it was no wonder that his ghost took it extremely ill; when all on a sudden I perceived a light before me -I thought the wand in my hand was all on fire, and threw it away, but I perceived the light glide slowly by my right foot, and burn behind me;—I was nothing afraid, and turned about to look at the light, and there I saw the piper, who was standing hard at my back, and when I turned round he looked me in the face; "What was he like Duncan ?" He was like a dead body! but I got a short view of him; for that moment all grew dark around me as a pit ;-I tried to run, but sunk powerless to the earth, and lay in a kind of dream, I do not know how long, when I came to myself, I got up, and endeavoured to run, but fell to the ground every two steps.-1 was not a

hundred yards from the house, and I am sure I fell upwards of an hundred times. Next day I was in a high fever,-the servants made me a little bed in the kitchen, to which I was confined by illness many days, during which time I suffered the most dreadful agonies by night, always imagining the piper to be standing over me on the one side or the other; as soon as I was able to walk I left Dewar, and for a long time durst neither sleep alone during the night, nor stay by myself in the daytime."

The superstitious ideas impressed up. on Duncan's mind by this unfortunate encounter with the ghost of the piper, seems never to have been eradicated; a strong instance of the power of early impressions; and a warning how much caution is necessary in modelling the conceptions of the young and tender mind, for of all men I ever knew, he is the most afraid of meeting with apparitions. So deeply is his imagination tainted with this startling illusion, that even the calm disquisitions of reason have proved quite inadequate to the task of dispelling it. Whenever it wears late, he is always upon the look-out for these ideal beings, keeping a jealous eye upon every bush and brake, in case they should be lurking behind them, ready to fly out and surprise him every moment; and the approach of a person in the dark, or any sudden noise, always puts him past speaking for some tin.e.

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After leaving Dewar he again wandered about for a few weeks, and it appears that his youth, beauty, and peculiarly destitute situation, together with his friendship for his faithful Oscar, had interested the most part of the country

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