| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
STORIES OP
book-learned if they could make out the Scrip-tures in their mother-tongue. Writing was entirely out of the line of female education. At that period the most of our young men of family sought of fortune, or found a grave, in France. Cromleck, when he went abroad to the war, was obliged to leave the management of his correspondence with his mistress Helen to a lay brother of the monastery of Dumblain, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cromleck, and near Ardoch. This man, unfortunately, was deeply sensible of Helen's charms. He artfully prepossessed her with stories to the disadvantage of wCromleck, and by misinter-preting, or keeping back the letters and messages intrusted to his care, he entirely irritated both. All connection was broken off between them; Helen was inconsolable; and Cromleck has left behind him, in the ballad called ' Cromlet's Lilt/ a proof of the elegance of his genius, as well as the steadiness of his love. When the artful monk thought time had sufficiently soft-ened Helen's sorrow, he proposed himself as a lover. Helen was obdurate; but, at last, overcome by the persuasions of her brother, with whom she lived, and who, having a family of thirty-one children, was probably very well pleased to get her off his hands, she submitted,
128 |
||