1830.] The Pressed Man : a Tale of the Coast. 543 



mutiny, desertion, and treason, was silent ; and when the ships arrived 

 at St. John's, to which their crippled state obliged them to repair, a car-, 

 tel carried the maimed fisherman to his supposed country. 



Peace had been long restored : the captain, still attended by the faith- 

 ful Kit, lingered out a miserable and too prolonged existence. He had 

 sought out the widowed Fanny, and made her situation as comfortable 

 as money could render a breaking heart. His first and only great crime 

 atoned for, to the best of his power, he awaited, with the calmness of 

 resignation, his release from suffering. 



It was on a stormy autumnal night that chance led Kit Missen 

 through the very lime-row where he and I met at the commencement of 

 this tale. A strange figure wrapped in a seaman's cloak, and evidently 

 anxious to avoid observation, passed limpingly by him, but a sudden and 

 bright moon-gleam betrayed to his old companion the figure and linea- 

 ments of Needham. At once following and arresting his attempted 

 flight, he exclaimed, 



" Needham ! Nay, it is you ! What madness has brought you where 

 one word would hang you ?" 



" Madness ? Ay, it is madness, but it is vengeance too ! Twice my 

 aim has baulked me : a third time " 



" Nay, then, you are dangerous, as well as mad help, here !" 



And he said truly the last dread affliction of humbled humanity was 

 even then asserting its power over the unhappy man, and it required all 

 the force of Kit, and two or three countrymen who joined him, to con- 

 vey the now raving maniac to the house of the village surgeon, in which 

 Kit's influence immediately secured him medical aid and secrecy. 



After weeks and months of mental aberration, a moment of returning 

 sanity permitted his attendants to explain to Needham the real state of 

 affairs, and his cure from that time proceeded so favourably, that he was 

 soon permitted to see and embrace his dearly loved and long severed 

 bride. Their meeting but no ! some other pen must describe such 

 scenes. Mine shrinks appalled from a task that only he, the mighty 

 magician of the north, he who has chronicled, to the life, the deep 

 resignation of Flora M'lvor ; the remorse for nameless transgression of 

 Lord Glenallan ; or the maniac desperation of the Bride of Lammermuir, 

 might venture to cope with. 



" I forgive him," at length said Needham, " but I cannot accept his 

 bounty. In another country I still possess enough for my wants, and 

 where my injuries drove me, there shall the short and painful remainder 

 of my days be spent." 



But Providence ordained otherwise. Heart-break had long been si- 

 lently conducting Fanny to the last bourne ; and though, for a few short 

 weeks, the restoration of her husband, such as war had left him, seemed 

 to inspire her with new health and vigour, continual returns of illness 

 stopped each projected plan of emigration, till in less than a twelvemonth 

 from their reunion, one day, almost one hour, summoned her husband 

 and the captain, the injurer and the injured, to the tomb. 



The funeral rites which I had witnessed were in strict obedience to 

 the captain's own wishes, and he had by his will made ample provision, 

 not only for Kit, but for a yet unborn pledge, which poor Fanny was 

 likely to present to her husband, of their faithful though ill-starred love. 



Who was the female that formed one of the funeral groupe I need not 

 say. Next morning I rambled up to the old hall, and the undertaker's 



