They were to have been wedded, but during the interval between the betrothal and the marriage there came to her a figure, which was that of an angel of the Lord, saying to her that a son would be born to her the paternity of which would be supernatural, and that this son would be the Messiah told of in Jewish prophecy.

Without being unduly imaginative, we may suppose that in 1803 there were heroes who preferred being 'carried off' to defend their country afloat to meeting the liabilities of putative paternity in their native villages.

You may have got her out of the house of Meggat's Land in the Canongate from a mannot Mr. Napier, you admitwho may have been the father of it by some mother residing in the house; and Mrs. Kemp may have been actuated, by some unknown means, to remove the paternity from the right to the wrong person.