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Show IffisfdricI Crimes I dfld Mysteries WaltMasoix I I AEwiMPta jy-& Jj HOW BALFOUR MISSED THE MAIDEN. ALEXANDER BALFOUR was born at the seat of his father, Lord Burleigh, Bur-leigh, near Kinross, in the year 16S7, and in all Scotland there was no infant with fairer prospects. His father was a great man, there were great people among his uncles and cousins and aunts. Among his distinguished and powerful relative were the duke of Argyle and the earl of Stair. So Alexander, Al-exander, as he grew up, a braw gallant, gal-lant, dreamed dreams of glory. In the fullness of time he went to the University of St. Andrew, where he distinguished himself for intelligence intelli-gence and zeal. His teachers admired him so much they predicted great things for him, and said he would have been destined to greatness, even had be been born a plebeian. Then one day the university shut down for a brief season, and Aleck went home for a vacation. And, having reached his ancestral hall, the first thing he did was to fall in love with Anne Robertson, Rob-ertson, the governess of his little sisters. sis-ters. The chroniclers say that Anne was passing fair, and as wise as a serpent. ser-pent. She tried to discourage Aleck's infatuation. She handed him the ice tongs in every way she could, but the young man was determined to marry her. Then his father, old Lord Burleivh, got wise to what was going on ar.d put in his oar. He discharged Miss Robertson and told his son to pack up his traps and take a tour abroad, staying away until summoned home. This was a standard antidote for love-sickness love-sickness in those days. Foreign travel was a cure fur many ills which now are reached by patent medicines. Alexander Al-exander went away, imagining himself him-self broken hearted. But he wrote a The maiden was the ancel Cf tha ; guillotine. The inventor of th1 latter, I whose name has become immortal, ! was a mere plagicrist. Every r-alient j feature cf his machine was embodied ! in the maiden. This admirable con-i con-i trivance was introduced in Scotland ' by the regent Morton, who encouraged labor-saving devices of every kind. Morton, who was the most unpopular man in his kingdom, had the satisfac-I satisfac-I tion of being beheaded by the machine he so greatly admired. The maiden consisted of two uprights up-rights with grooves down the inside. In these grooves there slid a heavy ax, weighted with lead. There was a cross-bar four feet from the ground, and upon this the patient laid his head at the direction of the executioner. Then another crossbar descended upon his head and held it down. Everything Ev-erything being in readiness for the operation, op-eration, the executioner requested the patient to look pleasant, please, pulled a cord, and the ax descended. There never was any botched work with this machine, as often happened when the headsman swung an ax by hand. The maiden was largely used in the agricultural agri-cultural districts, where the stealing of live stock was a popular diversion. When the thieves were convicted and brought to execution, a touch of poetic po-etic justice made their end seem more pleasant. If the condemned had stolen stol-en a horse, the cord which released the ax was pulled by that animal ; if a cow or a sheep, a cow or a sheep sent him into eternity. It was upon this ghastly machine that Alexander Balfour was looking when the sun went down, and there was despair in his face when he turned away from the window and confronted his sister Jennie. She had her finger on her lips, warning him to be silent. She whispered that she had come to save him. They were much of a size, and in a little vfhiU Alexander Alexan-der was wearing his sister's dress and bonnet, and she was blushing in his unaccustomed raiment. The Burleigh pull was of no avail in Alexander's emergency, but it seems probable that the Burleigh money was not so futile. For everything moved like greased clockwork. The sister remained re-mained in the dungeon, and the brother broth-er walked out of the prison, turnkeys and jailors paying no attention to him whatever. In a bosky dell not far away he found a fleet horse, all saddled sad-dled and bridled, with money and weapons convenient to his hand. So he sped away, and gained a foreign shore. Even at this distance of time one must sympathize with the unfortunate executioner when he arrived on the knoll next morning and found there was nobody to execute. He had looked forward to this affair as the crowning achievement of his career. Perhaps he figured on taking the lecture platform plat-form or making a tour of the Chau-tauquas, Chau-tauquas, and all his hopes were shattered shat-tered at one blow. So he had to take his little old maiden away and maybe he used it for slicing turnips for the cows. Lord Burleigh and the various dukes and lairds and other great relatives of the escaped murderer never wearied wear-ied of working for a pardon for Alexander, Alex-ander, and when Queen Anne came to the throne she was induced to extend ex-tend clemency to him, and he returned to his ancestral halls and lived there in opulence and honor for 50 years. His story is a familiar tale throughout Scotland, but nobody seems to know what became of poor widowed Anne Robertson Syme. ; i-v ? -;--:.: .K',- j l.:'K---"r-v. .-.'-v wwyw-jjjvv - I IT V1 M r, ji ! f I 7i ; u "Very Calmly Alexander Balfour Aimed a Pistol and Fired." letter to Miss Robertson, telling her not to marry before his return. If she did so, he would make it his business to kill her husband. Then the young man sailed away to foreign parts, and the months rolled on, and eventually u Mr. Syme came wooing Miss Robertson, Robert-son, and found favor in her eyes. She went with him to the altar, and the twain settled d-wn to live happy ever after. Alexander's threat caused no uneasiness in Anne's gentle bosom. Doubtless the young man had forgotten forgot-ten her by this time. The threats of lovelorn springalds are as idle as the winds. So the months kept rolling along, and it came to pass that one day Anne was seated by a window nursing her first-born, and a shadow fell upon her. Looking up, she found herself face to face with Alexander Balfour. There was murder in his eyes. She read his fell intention at a glance, and shrieked. Her husband, who was in a back room, rushed to her side to see what distressed her. Very calmly, Alexander Balfour aimed a pistol and fired, and Syme ft-11 dead. Then was Balfour taken to a jail, and shortly afterwards he was tried, and sentenced to doiith. All the power pow-er and pull of his. influential relatives could not avail him in this evil case. There came an evening when he knew that the next sunrise would lie the last he'd ever see. From the barred window of his dungeon he could see the instrument of death, the maiden, which had been erected tluit afternoon by whistling workmen. It stood upon a knoll, so that the plain people would be able to see every detail cf his execution. |