“The seeds by nature planted
Take a deep root in the soil, and though
for a time
The trenchant share and tearing harrow
may
Sweep all appearance of them from the
surface,
Yet with the first warm rains of spring
they’ll shoot,
And with their rankness smother the good
grain.
Heaven grant, it mayn’t be so with
him.”
Riches.
The scene of this tale must now be changed to the
little inn, which at that period, as at the present,
was situated in the vicinity of Harley College.
The site of the modern establishment is the same with
that of the ancient; but everything of the latter
that had been built by hands has gone to decay and
been removed, and only the earth beneath and around
it remains the same. The modern building, a house
of two stories, after a lapse of twenty years, is
yet unfinished. On this account, it has retained
the appellation of the “New Inn,” though,
like many who have frequented it, it has grown old
ere its maturity. Its dingy whiteness, and its
apparent superfluity of windows (many of them being
closed with rough boards), give it somewhat of a dreary
look, especially in a wet day.
The ancient inn was a house, of which the eaves approached
within about seven feet of the ground; while the roof,
sloping gradually upward, formed an angle at several
times that height. It was a comfortable and pleasant
abode to the weary traveller, both in summer and winter;
for the frost never ventured within the sphere of
its huge hearths; and it was protected from the heat
of the sultry season by three large elms that swept
the roof with their long branches, and seemed to create
a breeze where there was not one. The device
upon the sign, suspended from one of these trees, was
a hand holding a long-necked bottle, and was much more
appropriate than the present unmeaning representation
of a black eagle. But it is necessary to speak
rather more at length of the landlord than of the house
over which he presided.
Hugh Crombie was one for whom most of the wise men,
who considered the course of his early years, had
predicted the gallows as an end before he should arrive
at middle age. That these prophets of ill had
been deceived was evident from the fact that the doomed
man had now passed the fortieth year, and was in more
prosperous circumstances than most of those who had
wagged their tongues against him. Yet the failure
of their forebodings was more remarkable than their
fulfilment would have been.
He had been distinguished, almost from his earliest
infancy, by those precocious accomplishments, which,
because they consist in an imitation of the vices
and follies of maturity, render a boy the favorite
plaything of men. He seemed to have received
from nature the convivial talents, which, whether
natural or acquired, are a most dangerous possession;
and, before his twelfth year, he was the welcome associate
