for that very purpose.”--“Then,” said Hamilton, “you, Mr. O’Rourke, withdraw, until my uncle and I determine how to proceed.” This command he very submissively and expeditiously obeyed. Having learned the details of O’Rourke’s conduct, our hero asked his uncle, whether he did not think a separation would be the wisest measure? “I think so,” said the laird, “but I am afraid Susan will not altogether agree; for she has still a great hankering after the fellow.” Mrs. O’Rourke now came to pay her compliments to her cousin, bringing with her her little boy, whom she introduced to William, who bestowed great encomiums on his young relation. The lady answered with a sigh, that he already appeared to have the look and shape of his father. Hamilton, as they farther conversed, easily discovered that an entire separation was not to the lady’s mind. Of course it would be totally inexpedient to propose such a measure. She expressed her hopes, that he might be reclaimed, and earnestly conjured Hamilton to devise some means for making the experiment. While they were deliberating, a servant entering in hurry and agitation, informed them, that there were king’s messengers[4] below, and that they were in pursuit of Mr. O’Rourke. Hamilton, having inquired into the circumstances of the case, found that they were writs against the preacher, for sums amounting to five hundred pounds, for debts incurred during his former residence in that country, and that other prosecutions were threatened from places which he had since visited, in the course of his methodistical mission or other adventures. Hamilton advised his uncle not to interfere immediately, but to suffer him to undergo, for a time, the punishment of his vices, and afterwards to relieve him conditionally, according to his future conduct. Etterick agreeing to this advice, O’Rourke was, for the present, taken to the county gaol. Hamilton, in a day or two, sent the steward to see the prisoner, and endeavour to learn from himself the amount of his incumbrances. O’Rourke, abject in adversity, humbled himself before this agent, whom, in the insolence of fancied prosperity, he had formerly treated with imperious rudeness; in the most supplicatory terms entreated his interposition, acknowledged his own unworthiness, and confessed that his debts were not much less than a thousand pounds. He wrote letters to his wife, father-in-law, and our hero, reproaching himself and praying forgiveness. These humiliations wrought upon the feelings of Mrs. O’Rourke, and at her earnest entreaties it was agreed that the laird should privately guarantee a loan for the liquidation of the debts, but that the land-steward, who was to be the ostensible lender, should take O’Rourke’s bond, to be held _in terrorem_, with a threat of execution if he repeated any of his former misconduct. Hamilton both before and after the release spent much time in exhorting the husband of his cousin to act as became the