“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 Marys,)--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.