At length the sun shone forth in all his glory upon the smoking ruins--our drooping spirits were partly revived, and we crept to the edge of the bushes, and timidly looked around--no human being was to be seen, and, after some time, we ventured to rise to our feet. The Indians appeared to have retired to the forest with their booty, and we ventured forth. A sight the most appalling soon met our eyes--there, close by each other, the old man and two of his sons lay mangled and scalped; the other had been consumed in the house, having doubtless been shot from without, and unable to leave it with the others. Soon the nearest proprietors began to ride up to the scene of murder and desolation, armed to the teeth, but too late to give any assistance. The bodies of the two convicts were not found; many believed they had either gone off or been carried off by the Indians. Being heartily sick of America, I returned to Baltimore, where I did labouring work for a few months, until I had got myself well clothed; then agreed with the captain of a Greenock vessel to work my passage to Scotland, where I arrived, after an absence of two years and three months. Such is an instance of the nefarious system of which I was a victim."
After the lapse of about thirty years, I lately paid a visit to what had once been my father's fireside. It was in the month of October that I visited the manse of Kirkhall. My father had been minister of that parish; and I received a kindly welcome from his worthy successor--one of the warmest-hearted and most learned men in the Church of Scotland, whom I have long known and esteemed as a brother. I found myself again seated beside the hearth in the little parlour which was once gladdened with a mother's smile--which was once cheered with the childish sports of brothers and sisters--which was hallowed by the prayers and presiding virtues of an affectionate father. They are all departed to the land of spirits!
Yet, on looking round me, every object seemed to assure me that they were still near--for almost everything else was unchanged. On looking through the window from the elbow-chair in which I sat, the old and magnificent lime tree, which, in the days of my youth, spread its branches and foliage in wide luxuriance over the court, and gave assurance of shade and shelter, was still unscathed. Its sweet-scented flowers were indeed faded--for the breath of approaching winter had touched its verdure; but its variegated green and yellow leaves were the same as when I had seen them, and attempted, with boyish hands, to imitate, nearly half a century ago. A little farther off, the "decent church" peered from among the majestic ash, elm, and chestnut trees, with which it was surrounded--the growth of centuries--casting a deep and solemn shadow over the place of graves. The humble offices, and the corn-yard in which I had rejoiced to mingle in rural occupations and frolic, were near; and nothing was wanted to realize the scenes of my youth, save the presence of the venerable patriarch and my mother, and their little ones grouping around their knees, or at the frugal board.