“Stay at hame, Will, and we’ll live and dee thegither.”

“No,” replied Will; “but, like the genteel lover I have read of, I will swear on your Bible that I will return to you within the year, and marry you at the Tron Kirk, and throw my guineas into the lap of your marriage-gown, and live with you until I die.”

For all which and some more we may draw upon our fancy; but certain it is, as the strange story goes, that Will did actually then and there—­for Mary had been at the Tron Kirk, and had her Bible in her pocket (an article, the want of which is not well supplied by the scent-bottle of our modern Maries)—­swear to do all he had said, whereupon Mary was so far satisfied that she gave up murmuring—­perhaps no more than that.  Certain also it is, that before the month was done, Will, with his living, kicking charges, and after more of these said tears from Mary than either of them had arithmetic enough to enable them to count, embarked at Leith for Richmond, at which place the sugar-planter had undertaken to meet him.

We need say nothing of the voyage across the Atlantic, somewhat arduous at that period, nor need we pick up Will again till we find him in Richmond, with his horses all safe, and as fat and sleek as if they had been fed by Neptune’s wife, and had drawn her across in place of her own steeds.  There he found directions waiting from Mr. Dreghorn, to the effect that he was to proceed with the horses to Peach Grove, his plantation, a place far into the heart of the country.  But Will was content; for had he not time and to spare within the year, and he would see some more of the new world, which, so far as his experience yet went, seemed to him to be a good place for a freeman to live in?  So off he went, putting up at inns by the way, as well supplied with food and fodder as Mr. Peter Ramsay’s, in St. Mary’s Wynd, and showing off his nags to the planters, who wondered at their bone and muscle, the more by reason they had never seen Scotch horses before.  As he progressed, the country seemed to Will more and more beautiful, and by the time he reached Peach Grove he had come to the unpatriotic conclusion that all it needed was Mary Brown, with her roses, and ringlets, and eyes, passing like an angel—­lovers will be poets—­among these ebon beauties, to make it the finest country in the world.

Nor when the Scotsman reached Peach Grove did the rosy side of matters recede into the shady; for he was received in a great house by Mr. Dreghorn with so much kindness, that, if the horses rejoiced in maize and oats, Will found himself, as the saying goes, in five-bladed clover.  But more awaited him, even thus much more, that the planter, and his fine lady of a wife as well, urged him to remain on the plantation, where he would be well paid and well fed; and when Will pleaded his engagement to return to Scotland within the year, the answer was ready, that he might spend eight months in Virginia at least, which would enable him to take home more money,—­an answer that seemed so very reasonable, if not prudent, that “Sawny” saw the advantage thereof and agreed.  But we need hardly say that this was conceded upon the condition made with himself, that he would write to Mary all the particulars, and also upon the condition, acceded to by Mr. Dreghorn, that he would take the charge of getting the letter sent to Scotland.