REDGAUNTLET, 
 
 A TALE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF " WAVERLEY." 
 
 Master, go on ; and I will follow thee, 
 To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. 
 
 As You Like it. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 
 PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. EDINBURGH ; 
 
 AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 1824.
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 PRINTED BV JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO.
 
 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 VOL. I. A 
 
 2208977
 
 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 DARSIE LATIMEH TO ALAN FAIRFORD. 
 
 Dumfries. 
 
 CUR me exanimas querelis tuis ? In plain Eng- 
 lish, Why do you deafen me with your croaking ? 
 The disconsolate tone in which you bade me 
 farewell at Noble-House, and mounted your mi- 
 serable hack to return to your law-drudgery, still 
 sounds in my ears. It seemed to say, " Happy 
 dog ! you can ramble at pleasure over hill and 
 dale, pursue every object of curiosity that pre* 
 sents itself, and relinquish the chase when it loses 
 interest ; while I, your senior and your better, 
 must, in this brilliant season, return to my nar- 
 row chamber and my musty books."
 
 * LATIMER TO FA1RFORD. 
 
 Such was the import of the reflections with 
 which you saddened our parting bottle of claret, 
 and thus I must needs interpret the terms of your 
 melancholy adieu. 
 
 And why should this be so, Alan ? Why the 
 deuce should you not be sitting precisely oppo- 
 site to me at this moment, in the same comfort- 
 able George-Inn ; thy heels on the fender, and 
 thy juridical brow expanding its plications as a 
 pun rose in your fancy ? Above all, why, when 
 I fill this very glass of wine, cannot I push the 
 bottle to you, and say, " Fairford, you are 
 chased !" Why, I say, should not all this be, ex- 
 cepting because Alan Fairford has not the same 
 true sense of friendship with Darsie Latimer, and 
 will not regard our purses as common, as well as 
 our sentiments ? 
 
 I am alone in the world ; my only guardian 
 writes to me of a large fortune, which will be mine 
 when I reach the age of twenty-five complete ; 
 my present income is, thou knowest, more than 
 sufficient for all my wants ; and yet thou traitor 
 as thou art to the cause of friendship doest de- 
 prive me of the pleasure of thy society, and sub-
 
 LATIMKR TO FAIftFORD 
 
 mittest, besides, to self-denial on thine own part, 
 rather than my wanderings should cost me a few 
 guineas more ! Is this regard for my purse, or 
 for thine own pride ? Is it not equally absurd and 
 unreasonable, whichever source it springs from ? 
 For myself, I tell thee, I have, and shall have, 
 more than enough for both. This same methodi- 
 cal Samuel Griffiths, of Ironmonger-Lane) Guild- 
 hall, London, whose letter arrives as duly as quar- 
 ter-day, has sent me, as I told thee, double allow- 
 ance for this my twenty-first birth-day, and an as- 
 surance, in his brief fashion, that it will be again 
 doubled for the succeeding years, until I enter 
 into possession of my own property. Still I am 
 to refrain from visiting England until my twenty- 
 fifth year expires; and it is recommended that I 
 shall forbear all inquiries concerning my family, 
 and so forth, for the present. 
 
 Were it not that I recollect my poor mother 
 in her deep widow's weeds, with a countenance 
 that never smiled but when she looked on me 
 and then, in such wan and woeful sort, as the 
 sun when he glances through an April cloud, 
 were it not, I say, that her mild and matron-like
 
 6 LATIMER TO FAIKFOBD. 
 
 form and countenance forbid such a suspicion, 
 I might think myself the son of some Indian di- 
 rector, or rich citizen, who had more wealth than 
 grace, and a handful of hypocrisy to boot, and 
 who was breeding up privately, and obscurely 
 enriching, one of whose existence he had some 
 reason to be ashamed. But, as I said before, I 
 think on my mother, and am convinced as much 
 as of the existence of my own soul, that no touch 
 of shame could arise from aught in which she was 
 implicated. Meantime, I am wealthy, and I am 
 alone, and why does my only friend scruple to 
 share my wealth ? 
 
 Are you not my only friend ? and have you 
 not acquired right to share my wealth ? Answer 
 me that, Alan Fairford. When I was brought 
 from the solitude of my mother's dwelling into the 
 tumult of the Gaits'" Class at the High School^ 
 when I was mocked for my English accent salt- 
 ed with snow as an English pig rolled in the 
 gutter for a Saxon pock-pudding, who, with 
 stout arguments, and stouter blows, stood forth 
 my defender ? why, Alan Fairford. Who beat 
 me soundly when I brought the arrogance of an
 
 LATIMEIt TO FAIRFORD. 7 
 
 only son, and of course a spoiled urchin, to the 
 forms of the little republic ? why, Alan. And 
 who taught me to pin a losen, head a bicker, and 
 hold the bannets ? Alan once more. If I became 
 the pride of the Yards, and the dread of the 
 hucksters in the High-School wynd, it was under 
 thy patronage; and, but for thee, I had been 
 contented with humbly passing through the Cow- 
 gate Port, without climbing over the top of it, 
 and had never seen the Kittle nine-steps * nearer 
 than from Bareford's Parks. You taught me to 
 keep my fingers off the weak, and to clench my 
 fist against the strong, to carry no tales out of 
 school to stand forth like a true man obey the 
 stern order of a Pande manum, and endure my 
 
 * A pass on the very brink of the Castle-rock, by which it is just 
 possible for a goat, or a High-School boy, to turn the corner of 
 the building where it rises from the edge of the precipice. This 
 was so favourite a feat with the " hell and neck boys" of the 
 higher classes, that at one time sentinels were posted to prevent 
 its repetition. The manning the Cowgate Port, especially in 
 snow-ball time, was also a choice amusement, as it offered an in- 
 accessible station for the boys who used these missiles to the an * 
 noyance of the passengers. The gateway is now down ; and proba- 
 bly most of its garrison lie as low as the fortress,
 
 O LATIMEK TO FAIRFOKD. 
 
 pawmies without wincing, like one that is deter- 
 mined not to be the better for them. In a word, 
 before I knew thee, I knew nothing. 
 
 At College it was the same. When I was in- 
 corrigibly idle, your example and encouragement 
 roused me to mental exertion, and shewed me the 
 way to intellectual enjoyment. You made me an 
 historian, a metaphysician, (invita Minerva,) 
 nay, by heaven ! you had almost made an advo- 
 cate of me as well as of yourself. Yes, rather 
 than part with you, Alan, I attended a weary 
 season at the Scotch Law Class ; a wearier at the 
 Civil; and with what excellent advantage, my 
 note-book filled with caricatures of the professors 
 and my fellow-students, is it not yet extant to 
 testify ? 
 
 Thus far havs I held on with thee untired ; 
 
 and, to say truth, purely and solely that I might 
 travel the same road with thee. But it will not 
 do, Alan. By my faith, man, I could as soon 
 think of being one of those ingenious traders who 
 cheat little Master Jackies on the outside of the 
 partition with tops, balls, batts. and battledores,
 
 LATIMlili TO FAlltFOlU) 9 
 
 as a member of the long-robed fraternity within, 
 who impose on grown country gentlemen with 
 bouncing brocards of law.* Now, don't you read 
 this to your worthy father, Alan he loves me 
 well enough, I know, of a Saturday night ; but he 
 thinks me but idle company for any other day of 
 the week. And here, I suspect, lies your real ob- 
 jection to taking a ramble with me through the 
 southern counties in this delicious weather. I 
 know the good gentleman has hard thoughts of me 
 for being so unsettled as to leave Edinburgh be- 
 fore the Session rises ; perhaps, too, he quarrels a 
 little I will not say, with my want of ancestry, 
 but with my wdlit of connections. He reckons me 
 a lone thing in this world, Alan, and so, in good 
 truth, I am ; and it seems a reason to him why 
 
 The Hall of the Parliament House of Edinburgh was, in 
 former days, divided into two unequal portions by a partition, 
 the inner side of which was consecrated to the use of the gentle- 
 men of the law ; while the outer division was occupied by the 
 stalls of stationers, toymen, and the like, as in a modern bazaar. 
 From the old play of the Plain Dealer, it seems such was for- 
 merly the case with Westminster-Hall. Minos lias now purified 
 his courts in both cities from all traffick but his own.
 
 10 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 you should not attach yourself to me, that I can 
 claim no interest in the general herd. 
 
 Do not suppose I forget what I owe him, for 
 permitting me to shelter for four years under his 
 roof : My obligations to him are not the less, but 
 the greater, if he never heartily loved me. He 
 is angry, too, that I will not, or cannot, be a law- 
 yer, and, with reference to you, considers my 
 disinclination that way as pessimi exempli, as he 
 might say. 
 
 But he need not be afraid that a lad of your stea- 
 diness will be influenced by such a reed shaken by 
 the winds as I am. You will go on doubting with 
 Dirleton, and resolving these doubts with Stew- 
 art, until the cramp speech has been spoken more 
 solito from the corner of the bench, and with co- 
 vered head until you have sworn to defend the 
 liberties and privileges of the College of Justice 
 until the black gown is hung on your shoulders, 
 and you are free as any of the Faculty to sue or 
 defend. Then will I step forth, Alan, and in a 
 character, which even your father will allow may 
 be more useful to you than had I shared this 
 splendid termination of your legal studies. In a
 
 LATIMEH TO FAIKFORD. 11 
 
 word, if I cannot be a counsel, I am determined 
 to be a client a sort of person without whom a 
 lawsuit would be as dull as a supposed case. Yes, 
 I am determined to give you your first fee. One 
 can easily, I am assured, get into a lawsuit it is 
 only the getting out which is sometimes found 
 troublesome ; and, with your kind father for an 
 agent, and you for my counsel learned in the 
 law, and the worshipful Master Samuel Griffiths 
 to back me, a few sessions shall not tire my pa- 
 tience. In short, I will make my way into Court, 
 even if it should cost me the committing a delict, 
 or at least a quasi delict. You see all is not lost 
 of what Erskine wrote, and Wallace taught. 
 
 Thus far I have fooled it off well enough ; and 
 yet, Alan, all is not at ease within me. I am af- 
 fected with a sense of loneliness, the more depress- 
 ing that it seems to me to be a solitude peculiarly 
 my own. In a country where all the world have a 
 circle of consanguinity, extending to sixth cousins 
 at least, I am a solitary individual, having only 
 one kind heart to throb in unison with my own. 
 If I were condemned to labour for my bread, 
 methinks J should less regard this peculiar spe-
 
 LATIMKR TO FAIHFOKI). 
 
 cies of deprivation. The necessary communica- 
 tion of master and servant would be at least a tie 
 which would attach me to the rest of my kind- 
 as it is, my very independence seems to enhance 
 the peculiarity of my situation. I am in the world 
 as a stranger in the crowded coffee-house, where 
 he enters, calls for what refreshments he wants, 
 pays his bill, and is forgotten so soon as the wait- 
 er's mouth has pronounced his " Thank ye, sir." 
 I know your good father would term this Sin- 
 ning my mercies, and ask how I should feel if, 
 instead of being able to throw down my reckon- 
 ing, I were obliged to deprecate the resentment 
 of the landlord for consuming that which I could 
 not pay for. I cannot tell how it is ; but, though 
 this very reasonable reflection comes across me, 
 and though I do confess that four hundred a-year 
 in possession, eight hundred in near prospect, 
 and the L d knows how many hundreds more 
 in the distance, are very pretty and comfortable 
 things, yet I would freely give one half of them 
 to call your father^/a^r, though he should scold 
 me for my idleness every hour of the day, and to 
 call you brother, though a brother whose merits
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFOP.D. 13 
 
 would throw my own so completely into the 
 shade. 
 
 The faint, yet not improbable belief often has 
 come across me, that your father knows something 
 more about my birth and natural condition than 
 he is willing to communicate ; it is so unlikely 
 that I should have been left in Edinburgh at six 
 years old, without any other recommendation than 
 tiie regular payment of my board to old M 
 of the High School. Before that time, as I have 
 often told you, I have but a recollection of un- 
 bounded indulgence on my mothers part, and 
 the most tyrannical exertion of caprice on my 
 own. I remember still how bitterly she sighed, 
 how vainly she strove to soothe me, while, in the 
 full energy of despotism, I roared like ten bull- 
 calves, for something which it was impossible to 
 procure for me. She is dead, that kind, that ill- 
 rewarded mother ! I remember the long faces- 
 the darkened room the black hangings the 
 mysterious impression made upon my mind by 
 the hearse and mourning coaches, and the diffi- 
 culty which I had to reconcile all this to the dis- 
 appearance of my mother. I do not think I had
 
 14 LATIMKR TO FAIRFOIU), 
 
 before this event formed any idea of death, or 
 that I had even heard of that finalconsummation 
 of all that lives. The first acquaintance which I 
 formed with it deprived me of my only relation. 
 
 A clergyman of venerable appearance, our only 
 visitor, was my guide and companion in a journey 
 of considerable length ; and in the charge of an- 
 other elderly man, substituted in his place, I know 
 not how or why, I completed my journey to Scot- 
 landand this is all I recollect. 
 
 I repeat the little history now, as I have a 
 hundred times done before, merely because I 
 would wring some sense out of it. Turn, then, 
 thy sharp, wire-drawing, lawyer-like ingenuity 
 to the same task make up my history as though 
 thou wert shaping the blundering allegations of 
 some blue-bonnetted, hard-headed client, into a 
 condescendence of facts and circumstances, and 
 thou shalt be, not my Apollo quid tibi cum 
 lyra ? but my Lord Stair. Meanwhile, I have 
 written myself out of my melancholy and blue 
 devils, merely by prosing about them ; so I will 
 now converse half an hour with Roan Robin 
 in his stallthe rascal knows me already, and
 
 LATTMEU TO FAlHFoRD. 15 
 
 snickers whenever I cross the threshold of the 
 stable. 
 
 The black which you bestrode yesterday morn- 
 ing, promises to be an admirable roadster, and 
 ambled as easily with Sam and the portmanteau, 
 as with you and your load of law-learning. Sam 
 promises to be steady, and has hitherto been 
 so. No long trial, you will say. He lays the 
 blame of former inaccuracies on evil company 
 the people who were at the livery-stable were too 
 seductive, I suppose he denies he ever did the 
 horse injustice would rather have wanted his 
 own dinner, he says. In this I believe him, as 
 Roan Robin's ribs and coat shew no marks of 
 contradiction. However, as he will meet with 
 no saints in the inns we frequent, and as oats are 
 sometimes as speedily converted into ale as John 
 Barleycorn himself, I shall keep a look out after 
 Master Sam. Stupid fellow ! had he not abused 
 my good nature, I might have chatted to him to 
 keep my tongue in exercise ; whereas now, I must 
 keep him at a distance. 
 
 Do you remember what Mr Fairford said to 
 me on this subject, it did not become my fa- 
 ll
 
 16 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 ther's son to speak in that manner to Sam's fa- 
 ther's son ? I asked you what your father could 
 possibly know of mine ; and you answered, " As 
 much, you supposed, as he knew of Sam's it was 
 a proverbial expression." This did not quite sa- 
 tisfy me ; though, I am sure, I cannot tell why 
 it should not. But I am returning to a fruitless 
 and exhausted subject. Do not be afraid that I 
 shall come back on this well-trodden yet pathless 
 field of conjecture. I know nothing so useless, so 
 utterly feeble and contemptible, as the groaning 
 forth one's helpless lamentations into the ears of 
 our friends. 
 
 I would fain promise you, that my letters shall 
 be as entertaining, as I am determined they shall 
 be regular and well filled. We have an advantage 
 over the dear friends of old, every pair of them. 
 Neither David and Jonathan, nor Orestes and 
 Pylades, nor Damon and Pythias although, in 
 the latter case particularly, a letter by post would 
 have been very acceptable ever corresponded 
 together ; for they probably could not write, and 
 certainly had neither post nor franks to speed 
 their effusions to each other ; whereas yours, which
 
 LATIMER TO FAI11FO1LB. 17 
 
 you had from the old peer, being handled gent- 
 ly, and opened with precaution, may be return- 
 ed to me again, and serve to make us free of his 
 Majesty's post-office, during the whole time of 
 my proposed tour. Mercy upon us, Alan ! what 
 letters I shall have to send you, with an account 
 of all that I can collect, of pleasant or rare, in 
 this wild-goose jaunt of mine ! All I stipulate is, 
 that you do not communicate them to the Scots 
 Magazine ; for though you used, in a left-handed 
 way, to compliment me on my attainments in the 
 lighter branches of literature, at the expense of 
 my deficiency in the weightier matters of the law, 
 I am not yet audacious enough to enter the portal 
 which the learned Ruddiman so kindly opened 
 for the acolytes of the Muses. Vale, sis memor 
 mei. 
 
 D. L. 
 
 P.S. Direct to the Post-Office here. 1 shall 
 leave orders to forward your letters wherever I 
 may travel. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 ALAN FAIRFO11D TO DARSIE LATIMER. 
 
 NEGATUR, my dear Darsie you have logic 
 and law enough to understand the word of de- 
 nial. I deny your conclusion. The premises I 
 admit, namely, that when I mounted on that in- 
 fernal hack, I might utter what seemed a sigh, 
 although I deemed it lost amid the puffs and 
 groans of the broken-winded brute, matchless in 
 the complication of her complaints by any save 
 she, the poor man's mare, renowned in song, that 
 
 died 
 
 " A mile aboon Dundee." 
 
 But credit me, Darsie, the sigh which escaped 
 me, concerned thee more than myself, and re- 
 garded neither the superior mettle of your caval- 
 ry, nor your greater command 'of the means of tra-
 
 FAIRFOHB TO LATIMEK. 19 
 
 veiling. I could certainly have cheerfully ridden, 
 on with you for a few days ; and assure yourself 
 I would not have hesitated to tax your better- 
 iilled purse for our joint expenses. But you 
 know my father considers every moment taken 
 from the law as a step down hill ; and I owe much 
 to his anxiety on my account, although its effects 
 are sometimes troublesome. For example. 
 
 I found, on my arrival at the shop in Brown's 
 Square, that the old gentleman had returned that 
 very evening, impatient, it seems, of remaining a 
 night out of the guardianship of the domestic 
 Lares. Having this information from James, 
 whose brow wore rather an anxious look on the 
 occasion, I dispatched a Highland chairman to 
 the livery stable with my Bucephalus, and slunk, 
 with as little noise as might be, into my own den, 
 where I began to mumble certain half-gnawed 
 and not half-digested doctrines of our municipal 
 code. I was not long seated, when my father's 
 visage was thrust, in a peering sort of way, 
 through the half-opened door ; and withdrawn, 
 on seeing my occupation, with a half-articulated 
 humph ! which seemed to convey a doubt of the
 
 20 FAIRFORD TO LATIMEK. 
 
 seriousness of my application. If it were so, I 
 cannot condemn him ; for recollection of thee oc- 
 cupied me so entirely during an hour's reading, 
 that although Stair lay before me, and notwith- 
 standing that I turned over three or four pages, 
 the sense of his lordship's clear and perspicuous 
 style so far escaped me, that I had the mortifica- 
 tion to find my labour was utterly in vain. 
 
 Ere I had brought up my lee-way, James 
 appeared with his summons to our frugal sup- 
 per radishes, cheese, and a bottle of the old 
 ale only two plates though and no chair set 
 for Mr Darsie, by the attentive James Wil- 
 kinson. Said James, with his long face, lank 
 hair, and very long pig-tail in its leathern strap, 
 was placed, as usual, at the back of my father's 
 chair, upright as a wooden sentinel at the door 
 of a puppet-show. " You may go down, James," 
 said my father ; and exit Wilkinson. What is 
 to come next ? thought I ; for the weather is not 
 clear on the paternal brow. 
 
 My boots encountered his first glance of dis- 
 pleasure, and he asked me, with a sneer, which 
 way I had been riding. He expected me to an-
 
 FAIRFOIli) TO LATIMKK. 21 
 
 swer, " Nowhere," and would then have been at 
 me with his usual sarcasm, touching the humour 
 of walking in shoes at twenty shillings a pair. But 
 I answered with composure, that I had ridden out 
 to dinner as far as Noble-House. He started, 
 (you know his way,) as if I had said that I had 
 dined at Jericho ; and as I did not choose to 
 seem to observe his surprise, but continued 
 munching my radishes in tranquillity, he broke 
 forth in ire. 
 
 " To Noble-House, sir ! and what had you to 
 do at Noble-House, sir ? Do you remember you 
 are studying law, sir ? that your Scots law trials 
 are coming on, sir ? that every moment of your 
 time just now is worth hours at another time? 
 and have you leisure to go to Noble-House, 
 sir ? and to throw your books behind you for so 
 many hours ? Had it been a turn in the Mea- 
 dows, or even a game at golf but Noble-House, 
 sirT 
 
 " I went so far with Darsie Latimer, sir, to see 
 him begin his journey."" 
 
 " Darsie Latimer ?" he replied, in a softened 
 tone " Humph ! Well, I do not blame you 
 for being kind to Darsie Latimer ; but it would
 
 FAIRFOJtD TO LATIMEJt. 
 
 have done as much good if you had walked with 
 him as far as the toll-bar, and then made your 
 farewells it would have saved horse-hire- and 
 your reckoning, too, at dinner." 
 
 " Latimer paid that, sir," I replied, thinking to 
 soften the matter ; but I had much better have 
 left it unspoken. 
 
 " The reckoning, sir ! And did you sponge up- 
 on any man for a reckoning ? Sir, no man should 
 enter the door of a public-house without paying 
 his lawing." 
 
 " I admit the general rule, sir," I replied; 
 " but this was a parting-cup between Darsie and 
 me ; and I should conceive it fell under the ex- 
 ception of DocJian dorroch? 
 
 " You think yourself a wit," said my father, 
 with as near an approach to a smile, as ever he 
 permits to gild the solemnity of his features; "But 
 I reckon you did not eat your dinner standing, 
 like the Jews at their Passover ? and it was de- 
 cided in a case before the town-bailies of Cupar- 
 Angus, when Luckie Simpson's cow had drunk 
 up Luckie Jamieson's browst of ale, while it stood 
 in the door to cool, that there' was no damage to
 
 FAIHFORD TO LATIMEll. 23 
 
 pay, because the crummie drank without sitting 
 down ; such being the very circumstance constitu- 
 ting Dochan dorroch, which is a standing drink, 
 for which no reckoning is paid. Ha, sir ! what says 
 youradvocateship (Jieri) to that? Exceptiojirmat 
 regulam But come, fill your glass, Alan ; I am 
 not sorry ye have shewn this attention, to Darsie 
 Latimer, who is a good lad, as times go; and 
 having new lived under my roof since he left the 
 school, why there is really no great matter in 
 coming under this small obligation to him." 
 
 As I saw my father's scruples were much soft- 
 ened by the consciousness of his own superiority 
 in the legal argument, I took care to accept my 
 pardon as a matter of grace, rather than of jus- 
 tice ; and only replied, we should feel ourselves 
 duller of an evening, now that you were absent. 
 I will give you my father's exact words in reply, 
 Darsie. You know him so well, that they will 
 not offend you ; and you are also aware, that 
 there mingles with the good man's preciseness 
 and formality, a fund of shrewd observation and 
 practical good sense. 
 
 " It is very true," he said ; " Darsie was a
 
 24 FAIUFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 pleasant companion but over waggish, over 
 waggish, Alan, and somewhat scatter-brained. 
 By the way , Wilkinson must get our ale bottled 
 in English pints now, for a quart bottle is too 
 much, night after night, for you and me without 
 his assistance. But Darsie, as I was saying, is 
 an arch lad, and somewhat light in the upper 
 story I wish him well through the world ; but 
 he has little solidity, Alan, little solidity." 
 
 I scorn to desert an absent friend, Darsie, so I 
 said for you a little more than my conscience war- 
 ranted ; but your defection from your legal stu- 
 dies had driven you far to leeward in my father's 
 good opinion. 
 
 " Unstable as water, he shall not excel," said 
 my father ; " or, as the Septuagint hath it, Effusa 
 est sicut aqua non crescat. He goeth to dancing- 
 houses, and readeth novels sat est" 
 
 I endeavoured to parry these texts by obser- 
 ving, that the dancing-houses amounted only to 
 one night at La Piquets ball the novels (so far 
 as matter of notoriety, Darsie,) to an odd volume 
 of Tom Jones. 
 
 " But he danced from night to morning,'" re-
 
 VAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 25 
 
 plied my father, " and he read the idle trash, 
 which the author should have been scourged for, 
 at least twenty times over. It was never out of his 
 hand." 
 
 I then hinted that, in all probability, your for- 
 tune was now so easy as to dispense with your 
 prosecuting the law any farther than you had 
 done ; and therefore you might think you had 
 some title to amuse yourself. This was least pa- 
 latable of all. 
 
 " If he cannot amuse himself with the law," 
 said my father, snappishly, " it is the worse for 
 him. If he needs not law to teach him to make 
 a fortune, I am sure he needs it to teach him how 
 to keep one ; and it would better become him to 
 be learning this, than to be scouring the country 
 like a land-louper going he knows not where, 
 to see he knows not what, and giving treats at 
 Noble-House to fools like himself (an angry 
 glance at poor me.) Noble-House, indeed !" he 
 repeated, with elevated voice and sneering tone, as 
 if there was something offensive to him in the very 
 name, though I will venture to say that any place
 
 26 FAIKFOKD TO LAX1MJCK. 
 
 in which you had been extravagant enough to 
 spend five shillings, would have stood as deep in 
 reprobation. 
 
 Mindful of your idea, that my father knows 
 more of your real situation than he thinks proper 
 to mention, I thought I would hazard a fishing 
 observation. " I did not see," I said, " how the 
 Scottish law would be useful to a young gentle- 
 man whose fortune would seem to be vested in 
 England." I really thought my father would 
 have beat me. 
 
 " D'ye mean to come round me, sir, per am- 
 bages, as Counsellor Pest says ? What is it to 
 you where Darsie Larimer's fortune is vested, or 
 whether he hath any fortune, ay or no ? And 
 what ill would the Scottish law do to him, though 
 he had as much of it as either Stair or Bankton, 
 sir ? Is not the foundation of our municipal law 
 the ancient code of the Roman Empire, devised 
 at a time when it was so much renowned for its 
 civil polity, sir, and wisdom? Go to your bed, sir, 
 after your expedition to Noble-House, and see 
 that your lamp be burning and your book before
 
 FAIUFOKD TO LATIMEU. 27 
 
 you before the sun peeps. Ars longa, vita brevis, 
 were it not a sin to call the divine science of 
 the law by the inferior name of art." 
 
 So my lamp did burn, dear Darsie, the next 
 morning, though the owner took the risk of a do- 
 miciliary visitation, and lay snug in bed, trusting 
 its glimmer might, without further inquiry, be 
 received as sufficient evidence of his vigilance. 
 And now, upon this the third morning after your 
 departure, things are but little better ; for though 
 the lamp burns in my den ? and Voet on the Pan- 
 dects hath his wisdom spread open before me, yet 
 as I only use him as a reading-desk on which to 
 scribble this sheet of nonsense to Darsie Latimer, 
 it is probable the vicinity will be of little further- 
 ance to my studies. 
 
 And now, methinks, I hear thee call me an af- 
 fected hypocritical varlet, who, living under such 
 a system of distrust and restraint as my father 
 chooses to govern by, nevertheless pretends not 
 to envy you your freedom and independence. 
 
 Latimer, I will tell you no lies. I wish my 
 father would allow me a little more exercise of 
 my free will, were it but that I might feel the
 
 28 FAIKFOIID TO LATIMER. 
 
 pleasure of doing what would please him of my 
 own accord. A little more spare time, and a little 
 more money to enjoy it, would, besides, neither 
 misbecome my age nor my condition ; and it is, I 
 own, provoking to see so many in the same situa- 
 tion winging the air at freedom, while I sit here, 
 caged up like a cobbler's linnet, to chaunt the same 
 unvaried lesson from sunrise to sunset, not to 
 mention the listening to as many lectures against 
 idleness, as if I enjoyed or was making use of the 
 means of amusement ! But then I cannot at heart 
 blame either the motive or the object of this se- 
 verity. For the motive, it is and can only be my 
 father's anxious, devoted, and unremitting affec- 
 tion and -zeal for my improvement, with a laud- 
 able sense of the honour of the profession to 
 which he has trained me. 
 
 As we have no near relations, the tie betwixt 
 us is of even unusual closeness, though in itself 
 one of the strongest which nature can form. I 
 am, and have all along been, the exclusive object 
 of my father's anxious hopes, and his still more 
 anxious and engrossing fears; so what title have 
 I to complain, although now and then these fears
 
 FAIKFOKD TO LATIM^ll. 29 
 
 and hopes lead him to take a troublesome and 
 incessant charge of all my motions ? Besides, I 
 ought to recollect, and, Darsie, I do recollect, 
 that my father, upon various important occasions, 
 has shewn that he can be indulgent as well as 
 strict. The leaving his old apartments in the 
 Luckenbooths was to him like divorcing the soul 
 
 from the body ; yet Dr R did but hint that 
 
 the better air of this new district was more fa- 
 vourable to my health, as I was then suffering 
 under the penalties of too rapid a growth, when 
 he exchanged his old and beloved quarters, ad- 
 jacent to the very Heart of Mid-Lothian, for one 
 of those new tenements ^entire within themselves^] 
 which modern taste has so lately introduced. In- 
 stance also the inestimable favour which he confer- 
 red on me by receiving you into his house, when 
 you had only the unpleasant alternative of re- 
 maining, though a grown-up lad, in the society 
 of mere boys. This was a thing so contrary to all 
 my father's ideas of seclusion, of economy, and 
 of the safety to my morals and industry, which 
 he wished to attain, by preserving me from the 
 society of other young people, that, upon my
 
 3 FAIRFOttD TO LATIMER. 
 
 word, I am always rather astonished how I should 
 have had the impudence to make the request, 
 than that he should have complied with it. 
 
 Then for the object of his solicitude Do not 
 laugh, or hold up your hands, my good Darsie ; 
 but upon my word I like the profession to which 
 I am in the course of being educated, and am 
 serious in prosecuting the preliminary studies. 
 The law is my vocation in an especial, and, I 
 may say, in a hereditary way, my vocation ; for 
 although I have not the honour to belong to any 
 of the great families who form in Scotland, as in 
 France, the noblesse of the robe ; and with us, at 
 least, carry their heads as high, or rather higher, 
 than the noblesse of the sword, for the former 
 consist more frequently of the " first-born of 
 Egypt,'" 1 - yet my grandfather, who, I dare say, 
 was a most excellent person, had the honour to 
 sign a bitter protest against the Union, in the re- 
 spectable character of town-clerk to the ancient 
 Borough of Birlthegroat ; and there is some rea- 
 son shall I say to hope, or to suspect ? that he 
 may have been a natural son of a first cousin of 
 the then Fairford of that Ilk, who has been long
 
 FAIRFORD TO I.ATIMER. SI 
 
 numbered among the minor barons. Now my fa- 
 ther mounted a step higher on the ladder of legal 
 promotion, being, as you know as well as I do, an 
 eminent and respected Writer to his Majesty's 
 Signet ; and I myself am destined to mount a round 
 higher still, and wear the honoured robe which is 
 sometimes supposed, like Charity, to cover a 
 multitude of sins. I have, therefore, no choice but 
 to climb upwards, since we have mounted thus 
 high, or else to fall down at the imminent risk of 
 my neck. So that I reconcile myself to my des- 
 tiny ; and while you are looking from mountain 
 peaks at distant lakes and friths, I am, de apici- 
 bus Juris f consoling myself with visions of crim- 
 son and scarlet gowns with the appendages of 
 handsome cowls, well lined with salary. 
 
 You smile, Darsie, more tuo, and seem to say it 
 is little worth while to cozen one's self with such 
 vulgar dreams ; yours being, on the contrary, of 
 a high and heroic character, bearing the same re- 
 semblance to mine, that a bench, covered with 
 purple cloth, and plentifully loaded with session 
 papers, bears to some Gothic throne, rough with 
 Barbaric pearl and gold. But what would you
 
 J'AIRFOHD TO LATIMEK. 
 
 have ? Sua quamque trahit voluptas. And my 
 visions of preferment, though they may be as un- 
 substantial at present, are nevertheless more ca- 
 pable of being realized, than your aspirations af- 
 ter the Lord knows what. What says my fa- 
 ther's proverb ? " Look to a gown of gold, and 
 you will at least get a sleeve of it." Such is my 
 pursuit ; but what dost thou look to ? The chance 
 that the mystery, as you call it, which at present 
 overclouds your birth and connections, will clear 
 up into something inexpressibly and inconceiva- 
 bly brilliant ; and this without any effort or exer- 
 tion of your own, but purely by the good will of 
 Fortune. I know the pride and naughtiness of 
 thy heart, and sincerely do I wish that thou 
 hadst more beatings to thank me for, than those 
 which thou dost acknowledge so gratefully. Then 
 had I thumped these Quixotical expectations out 
 of thee, and thou hadst not, as now, conceived 
 thyself to be the hero of some romantic history, 
 and converted, in thy vain imagination, honest 
 Griffiths, citizen and broker, who never bestows 
 more than the needful upon his quarterly epis- 
 tles, into some wise Alcander or sage Alquife, 
 
 8
 
 FAIJIFORD TO LATIMEll. 83 
 
 the mystical and magical protector of thy destiny. 
 But I know not how it was, thy skull got harder, 
 I think, and my knuckles became softer ; not to 
 mention that at length thou didst begin to shew 
 about thee a spark of something dangerous, 
 which I was bound to respect at least, if I did 
 not fear it. 
 
 And while I speak of this, it is not much amiss 
 to advise thee to correct a little this cock-a-hoop 
 courage of thine. I fear much that, like a hot- 
 mettled horse, it will carry the owner into some 
 scrape, out of which he will find it difficult to ex- 
 tricate himself, especially if the daring spirit which 
 bore dice thither should chance to fail thee at a 
 pinch. Remember, Darsie, thou art not natu- 
 rally courageous ; on the contrary, we have long 
 since agreed, that, quiet as I am, I have the ad- 
 vantage in this important particular. My cou- 
 rage consists, I think, in strength of nerves and 
 constitutional indifference to danger ; which, 
 though it never pushes me on adventure, secures 
 me in full use of my recollection, and tolera- 
 bly complete self-possession, when danger actual- 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 34 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 ly arrives. Now, thine seems more what may be 
 called intellectual courage ; highness of spirit, and 
 desire of distinction ; impulses which render thee 
 alive to the love of fame, and deaf to the apprehen- 
 sion of danger, until it forces itself suddenly upon 
 thee. I own, that whether it is from my having 
 caught my father's apprehensions, or that I have 
 reason to entertain doubts of my own, I often 
 think that this wild-fire chase, of romantic situa- 
 tion and adventure, may lead thee into some 
 mischief; and then what would become of Alan 
 Fairford ? They might make whom they pleased 
 Lord-Advocate or Solicitor-General, I should 
 never have the heart to strive for it. All my ex- 
 ertions are intended to vindicate myself one day 
 in your eyes ; and I think I should not care a 
 farthing for the embroidered silk gown, more than 
 for an old woman's apron, unless I had hopes that 
 thou shouldst be walking the boards to admire, 
 and perhaps to envy me. 
 
 That this may be the case, I prithee beware ! 
 See not a Dulcinea in every slip-shod girl, who, 
 with blue eyes, fair hair, a tattered plaid, and a 
 willow-wand in her gripe, drives out the village
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 35 
 
 cows to the loaning. Do not think you will meet 
 a gallant Valentine in every English rider, or an 
 Orson in every Highland drover. View things 
 as they are, and not as they may be magnified 
 through thy teeming fancy. I have seen thee 
 look at an old gravel pit, till thou madest out 
 capes, and bays, and inlets, crags and preci- 
 pices, and the whole stupendous scenery of the 
 Isle of Feroe, in what was, to all ordinary eyes, 
 a mere horse-pond. Besides, did I not once find 
 thee gazing with respect at a lizard, in the at- 
 titude of one who looks upon a crocodile ? Now 
 this is, doubtless, so far a harmless exercise of 
 your imagination, for the puddle cannot drown 
 you, nor the Lilliputian alligator eat you up. But 
 it is different in society, where you cannot mistake 
 the character of those you converse with, or suf- 
 fer your fancy to exaggerate their qualities, good 
 or bad, without exposing yourself not only to 
 ridicule, but to great and serious inconvenien- 
 cies. Keep guard, therefore, on your imagina- 
 tion, my dear Darsie ; and let your old friend as- 
 sure you, it is the point of your character most 
 pregnant with peril to its good and generous
 
 36 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 owner. Adieu ! let not the franks of the worthy 
 peer remain unemployed ; above all, Sis memor 
 mei. 
 
 A. F.
 
 I 57 ] 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 DAUSIE LAT1MER TO ALAN FA1RFORD. 
 
 Shepherd's Bush. 
 
 I HAVE received thine absurd and most con- 
 ceited epistle. It is well for thee that, Lovelace 
 and Belford like, we came under a convention 
 to pardon every species of liberty which we may 
 take with each other ; since, upon my word, there 
 are some reflections in your last, which would 
 otherwise have obliged me to return forthwith to 
 Edinburgh, merely to shew you I was not what 
 you took me for. 
 
 Why, what a pair of prigs hast thou made 
 of us ! I plunging into scrapes, without having 
 courage to get out of them thy sagacious self, 
 afraid to put one foot before the other, lest it
 
 30 LATIMEH TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 should run away from its companion ; and so 
 standing still like a post, out of mere faintness 
 and coldness of heart, while all the world were 
 driving full speed past thee. Thou a portrait- 
 painter ! I tell thee, Alan, I have seen a better 
 seated on the fourth round of a ladder, and paint- 
 ing a bare-breeched Highlander, holding a pint- 
 stoup as big as himself, and a booted Lowlander, 
 in a bob- wig, supporting a glass of like dimen- 
 sions ; the whole being designed to represent the 
 sign of the Salutation. 
 
 How hadst thou the heart to represent thine 
 own individual self, with all thy motions, like 
 those of a great Dutch doll, depending on the 
 pressure of certain springs, as Duty, Reflection, 
 and the like ; without the impulse of which, thou 
 wouldst doubtless have me believe thou wouldst 
 not budge an inch ? But have I not seen Gravity 
 out of his bed at midnight ? and must I, in plain 
 terms, remind thee of certain mad pranks ? Thou 
 hadst ever, with the gravest sentiments in thy 
 mouth, and the most starched reserve in thy man- 
 ner, a kind of lumbering proclivity towards mis- 
 chief, although with more inclination to set it a-
 
 LATIMEK TO FAIKFORD. 39 
 
 going, than address to carry it through ; and I 
 cannot but chuckle internally, when I think of 
 having seen my most venerable monitor, the fu- 
 ture President of some high Scottish Court, puff- 
 ing, blowing, and floundering, like a clumsy 
 cart-horse in a bog, where his efforts to extricate 
 himself only plunged him deeper at every awk- 
 ward struggle, till some one, I myself for ex- 
 ample took compassion on the moaning monster, 
 and dragged him out by mane and tail. 
 
 As for me, my portrait is, if possible, even 
 more scandalously caricatured. / fail or quail 
 in spirit at the upcome ! Where canst thou shew 
 me the least symptom of the recreant temper with 
 which thou hast invested me, (as I trust,) merely 
 to set off the solid and impassible dignity of thine 
 own stupid indifference ? If you ever saw me 
 tremble, be assured that my flesh, like that of 
 the old Spanish general, only quaked at the 
 dangers into which my spirit was about to lead 
 it. Seriously, Alan, this imputed poverty of 
 spirit is a shabby charge to bring against your 
 friend. I have examined myself as closely as I 
 can, being, in very truth, a little hurt at your
 
 40 LATIMKE TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 having such hard thoughts of me, and on my 
 life I can see no reason for them. I allow you 
 have, perhaps, some advantage of me in the 
 steadiness and indifference of your temper ; but 
 I should despise myself, if I were conscious of 
 the deficiency in courage which you seem will- 
 ing enough to impute to me. However, I sup- 
 pose this ungracious hint proceeds from sincere 
 anxiety for my safety ; and so viewing it, I swal- 
 low it as I would do physic from a friendly doc- 
 tor, although I believed in my heart he had mis- 
 taken my complaint. 
 
 This offensive insinuation disposed of, I thank 
 thee, Alan, for the rest of thy epistle. I thought 
 I heard your good father pronouncing the word 
 Noble-House, with a mixture of contempt and 
 displeasure, ag if the very name of the poor little 
 hamlet were odious to him, or, as if you had se- 
 lected, out of all Scotland, the very place at 
 which you had no call to dine. But if he had had 
 any particular aversion to that blameless village, 
 and very sorry inn, is it not his own fault that I 
 did not accept the invitation of the Laird of Glen- 
 gallacher, to shoot a buck in what he emphatically
 
 LATIMKU TO FAIKFOKD. 41 
 
 calls " his country ?" Truth is, I had a strong 
 desire to have complied with his Lairdship's in- 
 vitation. To shoot a buck ! Think how magni- 
 ficent an idea, to one who never shot anything 
 but hedge-sparrows, and that with a horse-pistol, 
 purchased at a broker's stand in the Cowgate ! 
 You, who stand upon your courage, may re- 
 member that I took the risk of firing the said 
 pistol for the first time, while you stood at twen- 
 ty yards distance ; and that, when you were per- 
 suaded it would go off without bursting, forget- 
 ting all law but that of the biggest and strong- 
 est, you possessed yourself of it exclusively for 
 the rest of the holidays. Such a day's sport was 
 no complete introduction to the noble art of 
 deer-stalking, as it is practised in the Highlands ; 
 but I should not have scrupled to accept honest 
 Glengallacher's invitation, at the risk of firing a 
 rifle for the first time, had it not been for the out- 
 cry which your father made at my proposal, in 
 the full ardour of his zeal for King George, the 
 Hanover succession, and the Presbyterian faith. 
 I wish I had stood out, since I have gained so 
 little upon his good opinion by submission. All
 
 42 LATIMEK TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 his impressions concerning the Highlanders are 
 taken from the recollections of Forty-five, when 
 he retreated from the West Port with his brother 
 volunteers, each to the fortalice of his own sepa- 
 rate dwelling, so soon as they heard the Adventurer 
 was arrived with his clans as near them as Kirk- 
 liston. The flight of Falkirk parma non bene 
 selecta in which I think your sire had his share 
 with the undaunted western regiment, does not 
 seem to have improved his taste for the company 
 of the Highlanders ; (qua?re, Alan, doest thou 
 derive the courage thou makest such boast of from 
 a hereditary source ?) and stories of Rob Roy 
 Macgregor, and Sergeant Alan Mhor Cameron, 
 have served to paint them in still more sable co- 
 lours to his imagination. 
 
 Now, from all I can understand, these ideas, 
 as applied to the present state of the country, are 
 absolutely chimerical. The Pretender is no more 
 remembered in the Highlands, than if the poor 
 gentleman were gathered to his hundred and 
 eight fathers, whose portraits adorn the ancient 
 walls of Holyrood ; the broadswords have passed 
 into other hands ; the targets are used to cover
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFO11D. 43 
 
 the butter-churns ; and the race has sunk, or is 
 fast sinking, from ruffling bullies into tame 
 cheaters. Indeed, it was partly my conviction that 
 there is little to be seen in the north, which, ar- 
 riving at your father's conclusion, though from 
 different premises, inclined my course in this di- 
 rection, where perhaps I shall see as little. 
 
 One thing, however, I have seen ; and it was 
 . with pleasure the more indescribable, that I was 
 debarred from treading the land which my eyes 
 were permitted to gaze upon, like those of the 
 dying prophet from the top of Mount Pisgah, I 
 have seen, in a word, the fruitful shores of merry 
 England ; merry England ! of which I boast my- 
 self a native, and on which I gaze, even while 
 raging floods and unstable quicksands divide us, 
 with the filial affection of a dutiful son. 
 
 Thou canst not have forgotten, Alan for 
 when didst thou ever forget what was interesting 
 to thy friend ? that the same letter from my 
 friend Griffiths, which doubled my income, and 
 placed my motions at my own free disposal, con- 
 tained a prohibitory clause, by which, reason 
 none assigned, I was discharged, as I respected
 
 44 LATlMEJt TO FAIRFOKD. 
 
 my present safety and future fortunes, from vi- 
 siting England ; every other part of the British 
 dominions, and a tour, if I pleased, on the con- 
 tinent, being left to my own choice. Where is 
 the tale, Alan, of a covered dish in the midst of 
 a royal banquet, upon which the eyes of every 
 guest were immediately fixed, neglecting all the 
 dainties with which the table was loaded ? This 
 clause of banishment from England from my 
 native country from the land of the brave, and 
 the wise, and the free affects me more than I 
 am rejoiced by the freedom and independence as- 
 signed to me in all other respects. Thus, in seek- 
 ing this extreme boundary of the country which 
 I am forbidden to tread, I resemble the poor te- 
 thered horse, which, you may have observed, is 
 always grazing on the very verge of the circle to 
 which it is limited by its halter. 
 
 Do not accuse me of romance for obeying 
 this impulse towards the South ; nor suppose 
 that, to gratify the imaginary longing of an idle 
 curiosity, I am in any danger of risking the so- 
 lid comforts of my present condition. Whoever 
 has hitherto taken charge of my motions, has
 
 LATTMER TO FAIRFORD. 45 
 
 shewn me, by convincing proofs, more weighty 
 than the assurances which they have withheld, 
 that my real advantage is their principal object. 
 I should be, therefore, worse than a fool did I 
 object to their authority, even when it seems 
 somewhat capriciously exercised ; for assuredly, 
 at my age, I might entrusted as I am with the 
 care and management of myself in every other par- 
 ticular expect that the cause of excluding me 
 from England should be frankly and fairly stated 
 for my own consideration and guidance. How- 
 ever, I will not grumble about the matter. I 
 shall know the whole story one day, I suppose ; 
 and perhaps, as you sometimes surmise, I shall 
 not find there is any mighty matter in it after all. 
 Yet one cannot help wondering but, plague 
 on it, if I wonder any longer, my letter will be 
 as full of wonders as one of Katterfelto's adver- 
 tisements. I have a month's mind, instead of 
 this damnable iteration of guesses and forebo- 
 dings, to give thee the history of a little adventure 
 which befell me yesterday; though I am sure 
 you will, as usual, turn the opposite end of the 
 spy-glass on my poor narrative and reduce, more
 
 46 LATIMER TO FAIRFOUD. 
 
 tuO) to the most petty trivialities, the circumstan- 
 ces to which thou accusest me of giving undue 
 consequence. Hang thee, Alan ! thou art as unfit 
 a confidant for a youthful gallant with some spice 
 of imagination, as the old taciturn secretary of 
 Facardin of Trebizond. Nevertheless, we must 
 each perform our separate destinies. I am doom- 
 ed to see, act, and tell ; thou, like a Dutchman 
 enclosed in the same diligence with a Gascon, to 
 hear, and shrug thy shoulders. 
 
 Of Dumfries, the capital town of this county, 
 I have but little to say, and will not abuse your 
 patience by reminding you, that it is built on the 
 gallant river Nith, and that its church-yard, the 
 highest place of the whole town, commands an 
 extensive and fine prospect. Neither will I take 
 the traveller's privilege of inflicting upon you the 
 whole history of Bruce poniarding the Red Co- 
 myn in the Church of the Dominicans at this 
 place, and becoming a king and patriot, because 
 he had been a church-breaker and a murderer. 
 The present Dumfreizers remember and justify' 
 the deed, observing, it was only a papist church 
 in evidence whereof, its walls have been so com-
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 47 
 
 pletely demolished, that no vestiges of them re- 
 main. They are a sturdy set of true-blue Pres- 
 byterians these burghers of Dumfries ; men after 
 your father's own heart, zealous for the Protest- 
 ant succession the rather that many of the great 
 families around are suspected to be of a different 
 way of thinking, and shared, a great many of 
 them, in the insurrection of the Fifteen, and some 
 in the more recent business of the Forty-five. The 
 town itself suffered in the latter era ; for Lord 
 Elcho, with a large party of the rebels, levied a 
 severe contribution upon Dumfries, on account 
 of the citizens having annoyed the rear of the 
 Chevalier during his march into England. 
 
 Many of these particulars I learned from Pro- 
 vost C , who happening to see me in the 
 
 market-place, remembered that I was an inmate 
 of your father's, and very kindly asked me to 
 dinner. Pray tell your father that the effects of 
 his kindness to me follow me everywhere. I be- 
 came tired, however, of this pretty town in the 
 course of twenty-four hours, and crept along the 
 coast eastwards, amusing myself with looking out 
 for objects of antiquity, and sometimes making, 
 3
 
 48 LATIMER TO FAIUFORD. 
 
 or attempting to make, use of my new angling- 
 rod. By the way, old Cotton's instructions, by 
 which I had hoped to qualify myself for one of 
 the gentle society of anglers, are not worth a far- 
 thing for this meridian. I learned this by mere 
 accident, after I had waited four mortal hours. 
 I shall never forget an impudent urchin, a cow- 
 herd, about twelve years old, without either 
 brogue or bonnet, bare-legged, and with a very 
 indifferent pair of breeches how the villain grin- 
 ned in scorn at my landing net, my plummet, and 
 the gorgeous jury of flies which I had assembled 
 to destroy all the fish in the river. I was induced 
 at last to lend the rod to the sneering scoundrel, 
 to see what he would make of it ; and he not only 
 half filled my basket in an hour, but literally 
 taught me to kill two trouts with my own hand. 
 This, and Sam having found the hay and oats, not 
 forgetting the ale, very good at this small inn, 
 first made me take the fancy of resting here for 
 a day or two ; and I have got my grinning black- 
 guard of a Piscator leave to attend on me, by pay- 
 ing for a herd-boy in his stead. 
 
 A notably clean Englishwoman keeps this small
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 49 
 
 house, and my bed-room is sweetened with laven- 
 der, has a clean sash-window, and the walls are, 
 moreover, adorned with ballads of Fair Rosamond 
 and Cruel Barbara Allan. The woman's accent, 
 though uncouth enough, sounds yet kindly in my 
 ear ; for I have never yet forgotten the desolate 
 effect produced on my infant organs, when I 
 heard your slow and broad northern pronuncia- 
 tion, which was to me the tone of a foreign land. 
 I am sensible I myself have since that time ac- 
 quired Scotch in perfection, and many a Scot- 
 ticism withal. Still the sound of the English ac- 
 centuation comes to my ears as the tones of a 
 friend ; and even when heard from the mouth of 
 some wandering beggar, it has seldom failed to 
 charm forth my mite. You Scotch, who are so 
 proud of your own nationality, must make due 
 allowance for that of other folks. 
 
 On the next morning I was about to set forth 
 to the stream where I had commenced angler the 
 night before, but was prevented, by a heavy 
 shower of rain, from stirring abroad the whole 
 forenoon ; during all which time, I heard my var- 
 let of a guide as loud with his blackguard jokes 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 LATIMER TO FAIRFOHD. 
 
 in the kitchen, as a footman in the shilling gal- 
 lery; so little are modesty and innocence the in- 
 separable companions of rusticity and seclusion. 
 
 When after dinner the day cleared, and we at 
 length sallied out to the river side, I found my- 
 self subjected to a new trick on the part of my 
 accomplished preceptor. Apparently he liked 
 fishing himself better than the trouble of instruct- 
 ing an awkward novice, such as I ; and in hopes 
 of exhausting my patience, and inducing me to re- 
 sign the rod, as I had done on the preceding day, 
 my friend contrived to keep me thrashing the 
 water more than an hour with a pointless hook. I 
 detected this trick at last, by observing the rogue 
 grinning with delight when he saw a large trout 
 rise and dash harmless away from the angle. I 
 gave him a sound cuff, Alan ; but the next mo- 
 ment was sorry, and to make amends, yielded pos- 
 session of the fishing-rod for the rest of the even- 
 ing, he undertaking to bring me home a dish of 
 trouts for my supper, in atonement for his of- 
 fences. 
 
 Having thus got rid of the trouble of amusing 
 myself in a way I cared not for, I turned my
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 51 
 
 steps towards the sea, or rather the Solway Frith, 
 which here separates the two sister kingdoms, and 
 which lay at about a mile's distance, by a plea- 
 sant walk over sandy knolls, covered with short 
 herbage, which you call Links, and we English, 
 Downs. 
 
 But the rest of my adventure would weary out 
 my fingers, and must be deferred until to-morrow, 
 when you shall hear from me, by way of conti- 
 nuation ; and, in the meanwhile, to prevent over- 
 hasty conclusions, I may just hint to you, we are 
 but yet on the verge of the adventure which it is 
 my purpose to communicate.
 
 C 52 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 Shepherd's Bush. 
 
 I MENTIONED in my last, that having aban- 
 doned my fishing-rod as an unprofitable imple- 
 ment, I crossed over the open downs which divi- 
 ded me from the margin of the Solway. When 
 I reached the banks of the great estuary, which 
 are here very bare and exposed, the waters had 
 receded from the large and level space of sand, 
 through which a stream, now feeble and fordable, 
 found its way to the ocean. The whole was il- 
 luminated by the beams of the low and setting 
 sun, who shewed his ruddy front, like a warrior 
 prepared for defence, over a huge battlemented 
 and turretted wall of crimson and black clouds,
 
 LATIMEIt TO FAIRFOBD. 58 
 
 which appeared like an immense Gothic fortress, 
 into which the Lord of day was descending. His 
 setting rays glimmered bright upon the wet sur- 
 face of the sands, and the numberless pools of 
 water by which it was covered, where the inequa- 
 lity of the ground had occasioned their being left 
 by the tide. 
 
 The scene was animated by the exertions of 
 a number of horsemen, who were actually em., 
 ployed in hunting salmon. Ay, Alan, lift up 
 your hands and eyes as you will, I can give 
 their mode of fishing no name so appropriate ; 
 for they chased the fish at full gallop, and struck 
 them with their barbed spears, as you see hunt. 
 ers spearing boars in the old tapestry. The sal- 
 mon, to be sure, take the thing more quietly than 
 the boars ; but they are so swift in their own ele- 
 ment, that to pursue and strike them is the task 
 of a good horseman, with a quick eye, a deter- 
 mined hand, and full command both of his horse 
 and weapon. The shouts of the fellows as they 
 gallopped up and down in the animating exer- 
 cise their loud bursts of laughter when any of 
 their number caught a fall and still louder ac-
 
 54 LATIMEU TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 clamations when any of the party made a capital 
 stroke with his lance gave so much animation to 
 the whole scene, that I caught the enthusiasm of 
 the sport, and ventured forward a considerable 
 space on the sands. The feats of one horseman, in 
 particular, called forth so repeatedly the clamorous 
 applause of his companions, that the very banks 
 rang again with their shouts. He was a tall man, 
 well mounted on a strong black horse, which he 
 caused to turn and wind like a bird in the air, 
 carried a longer spear than the others, and wore 
 a sort of fur cap or bonnet, with a short feather 
 in it, which gave him on the whole rather a su- 
 perior appearance to the other fishermen. He 
 seemed to hold some sort of authority among 
 them, and occasionally directed their motions both 
 by voice and hand ; at which times I thought his 
 gestures were striking, and his voice uncommon- 
 ly sonorous and commanding. 
 
 The riders began to make for the shore, and 
 the interest of the scene was almost over, while 
 I lingered on the sands, with my looks turned 
 to the shores of England, still gilded by the 
 sun's last rays, and, as it seemed, scarce distant
 
 LATlMEtt TO FAtllFOJIU. 65 
 
 a mile from me. The anxious thoughts which 
 haunt me began to muster in my bosom, and my 
 feet slowly and insensibly approached the river 
 which divided me from the forbidden precincts, 
 though without any formed intention, when my 
 steps were arrested by the sound of a horse gal- 
 lopping ; and as I turned, the rider (the same 
 fisherman whom I had formerly distinguished) 
 called out to me, in an abrupt manner, " Soho, 
 brother ! you are too late for Bowness to-night 
 the tide will make presently." 
 
 I turned my head and looked at him without 
 answering ; for, to my thinking, his sudden ap- 
 pearance (or rather I should say his unexpected 
 approach) had, amidst the gathering shadows and 
 lingering light, something which was wild and 
 ominous. 
 
 " Are you deaf ?" he added " or are you 
 mad ? or have you a mind for the next world ?" 
 
 " I am a stranger," I answered, " and had no 
 other purpose than looking on at the fishing I 
 am about to return to the side I came from." 
 
 " Best make haste then," said he. " He that 
 dreams on the bed of the Solway, may wake in
 
 56 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 the next world. The sky threatens a blast that will 
 bring in the waves three foot a-breast."" 
 
 So saying, he turned his horse and rode off, 
 while I began to walk back towards the Scottish 
 shore, a little alarmed at what I had heard ; for the 
 tide advances with such rapidity upon these fatal 
 sands, that well-mounted horsemen lay aside hopes 
 of safety, if they see its white surge advancing 
 while they are yet at a distance from the bank. 
 
 These recollections grew more agitating, and, 
 instead of walking deliberately, I began a race 
 as fast as I could, feeling, or thinking I felt, each 
 pool of salt water through which I splashed, grow 
 deeper and deeper. At length the surface of the 
 sand did seem considerably more intersected with 
 pools and channels full of water either that the 
 tide was really beginning to influence the bed of 
 the estuary, or, as I must own is equally proba- 
 ble, that I had, in the hurry and confusion of 
 my retreat, involved myself in difficulties which 
 I had avoided in my deliberate advance. Either 
 way, it was rather an unpromising state of af- 
 fairs, for the sands at the same time turned softer, 
 and my footsteps, so soon as I had passed, were
 
 LATIMER TO FAIIIFORD. 57 
 
 instantly filled with water. I began to have odd 
 thoughts concerning the snugness of your father's 
 parlour, and the secure footing afforded by the 
 pavement of Brown's Square and Scot's Close, 
 when my better genius, the tall fisherman, ap- 
 peared once more close to my side, he and his 
 sable horse looming gigantic in the now darken- 
 ing twilight. 
 
 " Are you mad ?" he said, in the same deep tone 
 which had before thrilled on my ear, " or are 
 you weary of your life ? You will be presently 
 amongst the quicksands." I professed my igno- 
 rance of the way, to which he only replied, " There 
 is no time for prating get up behind me." 
 
 He probably expected me to spring from the 
 ground with the activity which these Borderers 
 have, by constant practice, acquired in all relating 
 to horsemanship ; but as I stood irresolute, he ex- 
 tended his hand, and grasping mine, bid me place 
 my foot on the toe of his boot, and thus raised me 
 in a trice to the croupe of his horse. I was scarce 
 securely seated, ere he shook the reins of his 
 horse, who instantly sprung forward ; but an- 
 noyed, doubtless, by the unusual burthen,' treat-
 
 58 LATIMEll TO KAIRFOIU). 
 
 ed us to two or three bounds, accompanied by as 
 many flourishes of his hind heels. The rider 
 sat like a tower, notwithstanding that the unex- 
 pected plunging of the animal threw me forward 
 upon him. The horse was soon compelled to 
 submit to the discipline of the spur and bridle, 
 and went off at a steady hand gallop ; thus short- 
 ening the devious, for it was by no means a direct 
 path, by which the rider, avoiding the loose quick- 
 sands, made for the northern bank. 
 
 My friend, perhaps I may call him my preser- 
 ver, for, to a stranger, my situation was fraught 
 with real danger, continued to press on at the 
 same speedy pace, but in perfect silence, and I 
 was under too much anxiety of mind to disturb 
 him with any questions. At length we arrived 
 at a N part of the shore with which I was utterly 
 unacquainted, where I alighted, and began to 
 return, in the best fashion I could, my thanks for 
 the important service which he had just ren- 
 dered me. 
 
 The stranger only replied by an impatient 
 " pshaw !" and was about to ride off, and leave me 
 to my own resources, when I implored him to
 
 LATIMEH TO FAIKFORD. 59 
 
 complete his work of kindness, by directing me 
 to Shepherd's Bush, which was, as I informed 
 him, my home for the present. 
 
 " To Shepherd's Bush ?" he said ; " it is but 
 three miles, but if you know not the land better 
 than the sand, you may break your neck before 
 you get there ; for it is no road for a moping boy 
 in a dark night ; and, besides, there are the brook 
 and the fens to cross." 
 
 I was a little dismayed at this communication 
 of such difficulties as my habits have not called 
 on me to contend with. Once more the idea of 
 thy father's fire-side came across me ; and I could 
 have been well contented to have swop'd the ro- 
 mance of my situation, together with the glorious 
 independence of control which I possessed at 
 the moment, for the comforts of the chimney- 
 corner, though I were obliged to keep my eyes 
 chained to Erskine's Larger Institutes. 
 
 I asked my new friend whether he could not 
 direct me to any house of public entertainment 
 for the night ; and, supposing it probable he was 
 himself a poor man, I added, with the conscious
 
 00 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 dignity of a well-filled pocket-book, that I could 
 make it worth any man's while to oblige me. 
 The fisherman making no answer, I turned away 
 from him with as gallant an appearance of indif- 
 ference as I could command, and began to take, 
 as I thought, the path which he had pointed out 
 to me. 
 
 His deep voice immediately sounded after me 
 to recall me. " Stay, young man, stay you 
 have mistaken the road already. I wonder your 
 friends send out such an inconsiderate youth, 
 without some one wiser than Ipmself to take care 
 of him." 
 
 " Perhaps they might not have done so," said 
 I, " if I had any friends who cared about the 
 matter." 
 
 " Well, sir," he said, " it is not my custom 
 to open my house to strangers, but your pinch 
 is like to be a smart one ; for, besides the risk 
 from bad roads, fords, and broken ground, and 
 the night, which looks both black and gloomy, 
 there is bad company on the road sometimes at 
 least it has a bad name, and some have come to
 
 LATIMEK TO FAIltFORD. fil 
 
 harm ; so that I think I must for once make my 
 rule give way to your necessity, and give you a 
 night's lodging in my cottage." 
 
 Why was it, Alan, that I could not help giving 
 an involuntary shudder at receiving an invitation 
 so seasonable in itself, and so suitable to my na- 
 turally inquisitive disposition ? I easily suppress- 
 ed this untimely sensation ; and, as I returned 
 thanks, and expressed my hope that I should not 
 disarrange his family, I once more dropped a 
 hint of my desire to make compensation for any 
 trouble I might occasion. The man answered 
 very coldly, " Your presence will no doubt give 
 me trouble, sir, but it is of a kind which your 
 purse cannot compensate ; in a word, although I 
 am content to receive you as my guest, I am no 
 publican to call a reckoning. 1 ' 
 
 I begged his pardon once again, and, at his 
 instance, once more seated myself behind him 
 upon the good horse, which went forth steady as 
 before the moon, whenever she could penetrate 
 the clouds, throwing the huge shadow of the ani- 
 mal, with its double burthen, on the wild and 
 bare ground over which we passed.
 
 62 LATIMEK TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 Thou may'st laugh till thou lettest the letter 
 fall if thou wilt, but it reminded me of the Ma- 
 gician Atlantes on his hipogriff, with a knight 
 trussed up behind him, in the manner Ariosto 
 has depicted that matter. Thou art, I know, 
 matter-of-fact enough to affect contempt of that 
 fascinating 'and delicious poem ; but think not 
 that, to conform with thy bad taste, I will forbear 
 any suitable illustration which now or hereafter 
 may occur to me. 
 
 On we went, the sky blackening around us, and 
 the wind beginning to pipe such a wild and me- 
 lancholy tune as best suited the hollow sounds 
 of the advancing tide, which I could hear at a 
 distance, like the roar of some immense monster 
 defrauded of its prey. 
 
 At length, our course was crossed by a deep 
 dell or dingle, such as they call in some parts of 
 Scotland a den, and in others a cleugh, or nar- 
 row glen. It seemed, by the broken glances 
 which the moon continued to throw upon it, to 
 be steep, precipitous, and full of trees, which are, 
 generally speaking, rather scarce upon these 
 shores. The descent by which we plunged into
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. DO 
 
 this dell was both steep and rugged, with two or 
 three abrupt turnings ; but neither danger nor 
 darkness impeded the motion of the black horse, 
 who seemed rather to slide upon his haunches, 
 than to gallop down the pass, throwing me again 
 on the shoulders of the athletic rider, who, sus- 
 taining no inconvenience by the circumstance, 
 continued to press the horse forward with his heel, 
 steadily supporting him at the same time by rai- 
 sing his bridle-hand, until we stood in safety at 
 the bottom of the steep not a little to my con- 
 solation, as, friend Alan, thou may'st easily con- 
 ceive. 
 
 A very short advance, after this ugly descent, 
 brought us in front of two or three cottages, one 
 of which another blink of moonshine enabled me 
 to rate as rather better than those of the Scotch 
 peasantry in this part of the world ; for the sashes 
 seemed glazed, and there were what are called 
 storm-windows in the roof, giving symptoms of 
 the magnificence of a second story. The scene 
 around seemed very interesting ; for the cot- 
 tages, and the yards or crofts annexed to them, 
 occupied a haugh, or holm, of two acres, which 
 12
 
 64 LATIMEIl TO FAIEFOIID. 
 
 a brook of some consequence (to judge from its 
 roar) had left upon one side of the little glen 
 while finding its course close to the further bank, 
 which seemed covered and darkened with trees, 
 while the level space beneath enjoyed such stormy 
 smiles as the moon had that night to bestow. 
 
 I had little time for observation, for my com- 
 panion's loud whistle, seconded by an equally 
 loud halloo, speedily brought to the door of the 
 principal cottage a man and a woman, together 
 with two large Newfoundland dogs, the deep 
 baying of which I had for some time heard. A 
 yelping terrier or two, which had joined the con- 
 cert, were silent at the presence of my conductor, 
 and began to whine, j ump up, and fawn upon him. 
 The female drew back when she beheld a stran- 
 ger ; the man, who had a lighted lantern, ad- 
 vanced, and without any observation, received 
 the horse from my host, and conducted him, 
 doubtless, to stable, while I followed my conduc- 
 tor into the house. When we had passed the kal- 
 ian, we entered a well-sized apartment, with a 
 clean brick floor, where a fire blazed (much to 
 my contentment) in the ordinary projecting sort 
 H
 
 LATIMER TO FAIUFOIU). 65 
 
 of chimney, common in Scotch houses. There 
 were stone seats within the chimney ; and ordi- 
 nary utensils, mixed with fishing-spears, nets, and 
 similar implements of sport, were hung around 
 the walls of the place. The female who had first 
 appeared at the door, had now retreated into a 
 side apartment. She was presently followed by 
 my guide, after he had silently motioned me to a 
 seat ; and their place was supplied by an elder- 
 ly woman, in a grey stuff gown, with a check 
 apron and to?/, obviously a menial, though neater 
 in her dress than is usual in her apparent rank 
 an advantage which was counterbalanced by a 
 very forbidding aspect. But the most singular 
 part of her attire, in this very Protestant country, 
 was a rosary, in which the smaller beads were 
 black oak, and those indicating the pater-noster of 
 silver, with a crucifix of the same metal. 
 
 This person made preparations for supper, by 
 spreading a clean though coarse cloth over a large 
 oaken table, placing trenchers and salt upon it, 
 and arranging the fire to receive a gridiron. I 
 observed her motions in silence ; for she took no 
 sort of notice of me, and as her looks were sin- 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 66 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 gularly forbidding, I felt no disposition to com- 
 mence conversation. 
 
 When this duenna had made all preliminary ar- 
 rangements, she took from the well-filled pouch of 
 my conductor, which he had hung up by the door, 
 one or two salmon, or grilses, as the smaller sort 
 are termed, and selecting that which seemed best, 
 and in highest season, began to cut it into slices, 
 and to prepare a grillade ; the savoury smell of 
 which affected me so powerfully, that I began 
 sincerely to hope that no delay would intervene 
 between the platter, I must say, and the lip. 
 
 As this thought came across me, the man who 
 had carried the horse to the stable entered the 
 apartment, and discovered to me a countenance 
 yet more uninviting than that of the old crone 
 who was performing with such dexterity the office 
 of cook to the party. He was perhaps sixty years 
 old ; yet his brow was not much furrowed, and 
 his jet black hair was only grizzled, not whiten- 
 ed, by the advance of age. All his motions spoke 
 strength unabated ; and, though rather under- 
 sized, he had very broad shoulders, was square- 
 made, thin-flanked, and apparently combining in
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. bi 
 
 his frame muscular strength and activity ; the last 
 somewhat impaired perhaps by years, but the first 
 remaining in full vigour. A hard and harsh coun- 
 tenance eyes far sunk under projecting eye- 
 brows, which were grizzled like his hair a wide 
 mouth, furnished from ear to ear with a range of 
 unimpaired teeth, of uncommon whiteness, and a 
 size and breadth which might have become the 
 jaws of an ogre, completed this delightful portrait. 
 He was clad like a fisherman, in jacket and trow- 
 sers of the blue cloth commonly used by seamen, 
 and had a Dutch case-knife, like that of a Ham- 
 burgh skipper, stuck into a broad buff belt, which 
 seemed as if it might occasionally sustain wea- 
 pons of a description still less equivocally calcu- 
 lated for violence. 
 
 This man gave me an inquisitive, and, as I 
 thought, a sinister look upon entering the apart- 
 ment ; but without any farther notice of me, took 
 up the office of arranging the table, which the old 
 lady had abandoned for that of cooking the fish, 
 and with more address than I expected from a 
 person of his coarse appearance, placed two chairs 
 at the head of the table, and two stools below ;
 
 68 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 accommodating each seat to a cover, beside which 
 he placed an allowance of barley-bread, and a 
 small jug, which he replenished with ale from 
 a large black jack. Three of these jugs were of 
 ordinary earthenware, but the fourth, which he 
 placed by the right-hand cover at the upper end 
 of the table, was a flagon of silver, and display- 
 ed armorial bearings. At the upper end of the 
 table he placed a salt-cellar of silver, handsome- 
 ly wrought, containing salt of exquisite white- 
 ness, with pepper and other spices. A sliced le- 
 mon was also presented on a small silver salver. 
 The two large water-dogs, who seemed perfectly 
 to understand the nature of the preparations, 
 seated themselves one on each side of the table, 
 to be ready to receive their portion of the enter- 
 tainment. I never saw finer animals, or which 
 seemed to be more influenced by a sense of deco- 
 rum, excepting that they slobbered a little as the 
 rich scent from the chimney was wafted past their 
 noses. The small dogs ensconced themselves be- 
 neath the table. 
 
 I am aware that I am dwelling upon trivial and 
 ordinary circumstances, and that perhaps I may
 
 LATIMEU TO KAIRFOHD. 69 
 
 weary out your patience in doing so. But con- 
 ceive me alone in this strange place, which seem- 
 ed, from the universal silence, to be the very 
 temple of Harpocrates remember that this is 
 my first excursion from home forget not that the 
 manner in which I had been brought hither had 
 something the air of an adventure, and that there 
 was a mysterious incongruity in all I had hither- 
 to witnessed ; and you will not, I think, be sur- 
 prised that circumstances in themselves trifling 
 should force themselves on my notice at the time, 
 and dwell in my memory afterwards. 
 
 That a fisher, who pursued the sport perhaps 
 for his amusement as well as profit, should be 
 well mounted and better lodged than the lower 
 class of peasantry, had in it nothing surprising ; 
 but there was something about all that I saw 
 which seemed to intimate, that I was rather in the 
 abode of a decayed gentleman, who .clung to the 
 forms and observances of former rank, than in 
 that of a common peasant, raised above his fel- 
 lows by comparative opulence. 
 
 Besides the articles of plate which I have al- 
 ready noticed, the old man now lighted and
 
 70 LATIMEtt TO KATHFORD. 
 
 placed on the table a silver lamp, or cruisie, as 
 the Scotch term it, filled with very pure oil, which 
 in burning diffused an aromatic fragrance, and 
 gave me a more perfect view of the cottage walls, 
 which I had hitherto only seen dimly by the light 
 of the fire. The bink, with its usual arrange- 
 ment of pewter and earthenware, which was most 
 strictly and critically clean, glanced back the 
 flame of 'the lamp merrily from one side of the 
 apartment. In a recess, formed by the small bow 
 of a latticed window, was a large writing-desk of 
 walnut-tree wood, curiously carved, above which 
 arose shelves of the same, which supported a few 
 books and papers. The opposite side of the re- 
 cess contained (as far as I could discern, for it 
 lay in shadow, and I could at any rate have seen 
 it but imperfectly from the place where I was 
 seated,) one or two guns, together with swords, 
 pistols, and other arms a collection which, in a 
 poor cottage, and in a country so peaceful, ap- 
 peared singular at least, if not even somewhat 
 suspicious. 
 
 All these observations, you may suppose, were 
 made much sooner than I have recorded, or you
 
 LATIMEtt TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 (if you have not skipped) have been able to read 
 them. They were already finished, and I was 
 considering how I should open some communi- 
 cation with the mute inhabitants of the mansion, 
 when my conductor re-entered from the side door 
 by which he had made his exit. 
 
 He had now thrown off his rough riding-cap, 
 and his coarse jockey-coat, and stood before me 
 in a grey jerkin trimmed with black,'which sat 
 close to, and set off his large and sinewy frame, and 
 a pair of trowsers of a lighter colour, cut as close 
 to the body as they are used by Highlandmen. 
 His whole dress was of finer cloth than that of the 
 old man ; and his linen, so minute was my obser- 
 vation, clean and unsullied. His shirt was without 
 ruffles, and tied at the collar with a black ribband, 
 which shewed his strong and muscular neck ri- 
 sing from it, like that of an ancient Hercules. 
 His head was small, with a large forehead, and 
 well-formed ears. He wore neither peruke nor 
 hair-powder ; and his chesnut locks, curling close 
 to his head, like those of an antique statue > 
 shewed not the least touch of time, though the 
 owner must have been at least fifty. His features
 
 72 LATIMEH TO FA IK FORD. 
 
 were high and prominent in such a degree, that 
 one knew not whether to term them harsh or 
 handsome. In either case, the sparkling grey eye, 
 aquiline nose, and well-formed mouth, combined 
 to render his physiognomy noble and expres- 
 sive. An air of sadness, or severity, or of both, 
 seemed to indicate a melancholy, and, at the same 
 time, a haughty temper. I could not help run- 
 ning mentally over the ancient heroes, to whom I 
 might assimilate the noble form and countenance 
 before me. He was too young, and evinced too 
 little resignation to his fate, to resemble Belisa- 
 rius. Coriolanus, standing by the hearth of Tul- 
 lus Aufidius, came nearer the mark ; yet the 
 gloomy and haughty look of the stranger had, 
 perhaps, still more of Marius, seated among the 
 ruins of Carthage. 
 
 While I was lost in these imaginations, my 
 host stood by the fire, gazing on me with the same 
 attention which I paid to him, until, embarrassed 
 by his look, I was about to break silence at all 
 hazards. But the supper, now placed upon the 
 table, reminded me, by its appearance, of those 
 wants, which I had almost forgotten while I was
 
 LATIMEK TO FAIRFOR1). 73 
 
 gazing on the fine form of my conductor. He 
 spoke at length, and I almost started at the deep 
 rich tone of his voice, though what he said was 
 but to invite me to sit down to the table. He him- 
 self assumed the seat of honour, beside which the 
 silver flagon was placed, and beckoned to me to 
 sit beside him. 
 
 Thou knowest thy father's strict and excellent 
 domestic discipline has trained me to hear the 
 invocation, of a blessing before we break the daily 
 bread, for which we are taught to pray I paused 
 a moment, and, without designing to do so, I 
 suppose my manner made him sensible of what I 
 expected. The two domestics, or inferiors, as I 
 should have before observed, were already seated 
 at the bottom of the table, when my host shot a 
 glance of a very peculiar expression towards the 
 old man, observing, with something approaching 
 to a sneer, " Cristal Nixon, say grace the gen- 
 tleman expects one." 
 
 " The foul fiend shall be clerk, and say amen, 
 when I turn chaplain, 11 growled out the party 
 addressed, in tones which might have become the
 
 74 LAT1MEK TO FAiKFORD. 
 
 condition of a dying bear ; " if the gentleman is a 
 whig, he may please himself with his own mum- 
 mery. My faith is neither in word nor writ, but 
 in barley bread and brown ale." 
 
 " Mabel Moffat," said my guide, looking at 
 the old woman, and raising his sonorous voice, 
 probably because she was hard of hearing, "can'st 
 thou ask a blessing upon our victuals ?" 
 
 The old woman shook her head, kissed the 
 cross which hung from her rosary, and was si- 
 lent. 
 
 " Mabel will say -grace for no heretic," said 
 the master of the house, with the same latent sneer 
 on his brow and in his accent. 
 
 At the same moment, the side-door already 
 mentioned opened, and the young woman (so she 
 proved) whom I had first seen at the door of the 
 cottage advanced a little way into the room, then 
 stopped bashfully, as if she had observed that I 
 was looking at her, and asked the master of the 
 house, " if he had called ?" 
 
 " Not louder than to make old Mabel hear 
 me," he replied ; " and yet," he added, as she
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFO11D. 75 
 
 turned to retire, " it is a shame a stranger should 
 see a house, where not one of the family can or 
 will say a grace do thou be our chaplain."" 
 
 The girl, who was really pretty, came forward 
 with timid modesty, and, apparently unconscious 
 that she was doing anything uncommon, pro- 
 nounced the benediction, in a silver-toned voice, 
 and with affecting simplicity her cheek colour- 
 ing just so much as to shew, that, on a less solemn 
 occasion, she would have felt more embarrassed. 
 
 Now, if thou expectest a fine description of this 
 young woman, Alan Fairford, in order to entitle 
 thee to taunt me with having found a Dulcinea 
 in the inhabitant of a fisherman's cottage on the 
 Solway Frith, thou shalt be disappointed ; for, 
 having said she seemed very pretty, and that she 
 was a sweet and flexible creature, I have said all 
 concerning her that I can tell thee. She vanished 
 when the benediction was spoken. 
 
 My host, with a muttered remark on the cold 
 of our ride, and the keen air of the Solway Sands, 
 to which he did not seem to wish an answer, 
 loaded my plate from Mabel's grillade, which, 
 with a large wooden bowl of potatoes, formed our
 
 76 LAT1MEU TO FAIllFORD. 
 
 whole meal. A sprinkling from the lemon gave 
 a much higher zest than the usual condiment of 
 vinegar ; and I promise you that, whatever I might 
 hitherto have felt, either of curiosity or suspicion, 
 did not prevent me from making a most excellent 
 meal, during which little passed betwixt me and 
 my entertainer, unless that he did the usual ho- 
 nours of the table with courtesy indeed, but with- 
 out even the affectation of hearty hospitality, 
 which those in his (apparent) condition generally 
 affect on such occasions, even when they do not 
 actually feel it. On the contrary, his manner 
 seemed that of a polished landlord towards an 
 unexpected and unwelcome guest, whom, for the 
 sake of his own credit, he receives with civility, 
 but without either good will or cheerfulness. 
 
 If you ask how I learned all this, I cannot tell 
 you ; nor, were I to write down at length the in- 
 significant intercourse which took place between 
 us, would it perhaps serve to justify these obser- 
 vations. It is sufficient to say, that, in helping 
 his dogs, which he did from time to time with 
 great liberality, he seemed to discharge a duty 
 much more pleasing to himself, than when he paid
 
 LATIMEU TO FAIRFORD. 77 
 
 the same attention to his guest. Upon the whole, 
 the result on my mind was as I tell it you. 
 
 When supper was over, a small case-bottle of 
 brandy, in a curious frame of silver fillagree, cir- 
 culated to the guests. I had already taken a small 
 glass of the liquor, and, when it had passed to 
 Mabel and to Cristal, and was again returned to 
 the upper end of the table, I could not help ta- 
 king the bottle in my hand, to look more at the 
 armorial bearings, which were chased with consi- 
 derable taste on the silver frame- work. Encoun- 
 tering the eye of my entertainer, I instantly saw 
 that my curiosity was highly distasteful ; he 
 frowned, bit his lip, and shewed such uncontrol- 
 lable signs of impatience, that, setting the bottle 
 immediately down, I attempted some apology. 
 To this he did not deign either to reply, or even 
 to listen ; and Cristal, at a signal from his master, 
 removed the object of my curiosity, as well as the 
 cup upon which the same arms were engraved. 
 
 There ensued an awkward pause, which I en- 
 deavoured to break by observing, that " I feared 
 my intrusion upon his hospitality had put his fa- 
 mily to some inconvenience."
 
 78 LATTMER TO FAIllFORD. 
 
 " I hope you see no appearance of it, sir," he 
 replied, with cold civility. " What inconvenience 
 a family so retired as ours may suffer from recei- 
 ving an unexpected guest, is like to be trifling, in 
 comparison of what the visitor himself sustains 
 from want of his accustomed comforts. So far, 
 therefore, as our connection extends, our accounts 
 stand clear." 
 
 Notwithstanding this discouraging reply, I 
 blundered on, as is usual in such cases, wishing 
 to appear civil, and being, perhaps, in reality the 
 very reverse. tf I was afraid, 1 ' I said, " that my 
 presence had banished one of the family (looking 
 at the side-door) from his table." 
 
 " If," he coldly replied, '" I meant the young 
 woman whom I had seen in the apartment, I 
 might observe that there was room enough at the 
 table for her to have seated herself, and meat 
 enough, such as it was, for her supper. I might 
 therefore be assured, if she had chosen it, she 
 would have supped with us." 
 
 There was no dwelling on this or any other 
 topic longer ; for my entertainer, taking up the 
 lamp, observed, that " my wet clothes might re-
 
 LATIMKR TO FAIRFORD. 79 
 
 concile me for the night to their custom of keep- 
 ing early hours ; that he was under the necessity 
 of going abroad by peep of day to-morrow morn- 
 ing, and would call me up at the same time, to 
 point out the way by which I was to return to 
 the Shepherd's Bush." 
 
 This left no opening for farther explanation ; 
 nor was there room for it on the usual terms of 
 civility ; for, as he neither asked my name, nor 
 expressed the least interest concerning my condi- 
 tion, I the obliged person had no pretence to 
 trouble him with such inquiries on my part. 
 
 He took up the lamp, and led me through the 
 side-door into a very small room, where a bed 
 had been hastily arranged for my accommoda- 
 tion, and, putting down the lamp, directed me to 
 leave my wet clothes on the outside of the door, 
 that they might be exposed to the fire during the 
 night. He then left me, having muttered some- 
 thing which was meant to pass for good night. 
 
 I obeyed his directions with respect to my 
 clothes, the rather that in despite of the spirits 
 which I had drank, I felt my teeth begin to 
 chatter, and received various hints from an aguish
 
 80 LATIMKR TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 feeling, that a town-bred youth, like myself, could 
 not at once rush into all the hardihood of coun- 
 try sports with impunity. But my bed, though 
 coarse and hard, was dry and clean ; and I soon 
 was so little occupied with my heats and tremors, 
 as to listen with interest to a heavy foot, which 
 seemed to be that of my landlord, traversing the 
 boards (there was no ceiling, as you may believe) 
 which roofed my apartment. Light, glancing 
 through these rude planks, became visible as soon 
 as my lamp was extinguished ; and as the noise 
 of the slow, solemn, and regular step continued, 
 and I could distinguish that the person turned 
 and returned as he reached the end of the apart- 
 ment, it seemed clear to me that the walker was 
 engaged in no domestic occupation, but merely 
 pacing to and fro for his own pleasure. An odd 
 amusement this, I thought, for one who had been 
 engaged at least a part of the preceding day in 
 violent exercise, and who talked of rising by the 
 peep of dawn on the ensuing morning. 
 
 Meantime I heard the storm, which had been 
 brewing during the evening, begin to descend 
 with a vengeance ; sounds, as of distant thunder, 
 
 9
 
 LATIMER TO FATJIFORD. 81 
 
 (the "noise of the more distant waves, doubtless, 
 on the shore,) mingled with the roaring of the 
 neighbouring torrent, and with the crashing, 
 groaning, and even screaming of the trees in the 
 glen, whose boughs were tormented by the gale. 
 Within the house, windows clattered, and doors 
 clapped, and the walls, though sufficiently sub- 
 stantial for a building of the kind, seemed to me 
 to totter in the tempest. 
 
 But still the heavy steps perambulating the 
 apartment over my head, were distinctly heard 
 amid the roar and fury of the elements. I thought 
 more than once I even heard a groan ; but I 
 frankly own, that, placed in this unusual situa- 
 tion, my fancy may have misled me. I was tempt- 
 ed several times to call aloud, and ask whether 
 the turmoil around us did not threaten danger to 
 the building which we inhabited ; but when I 
 thought of the secluded and unsocial master of 
 the dwelling, who seemed to avoid human society, 
 and to remain unperturbed amid the elemental 
 war, it seemed, that to speak to him at that mo- 
 ment, was to address the spirit of the tempest 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 himself, since no other being, I thought, could 
 have remained calm and tranquil while winds and 
 waters were thus raging around. 
 
 In process of time, fatigue prevailed over an- 
 xiety and curiosity. The storm abated, or my 
 senses became deadened to its terrors, and I fell 
 asleep ere yet the mysterious paces of my host 
 had ceased to shake the flooring over my head. 
 
 It might have been expected that the novelty 
 of my situation, although it did not prevent my 
 slumbers, should have at least diminished their 
 profoundness, and shortened their duration. It 
 proved otherwise, however; for I never slept more 
 soundly in my life, and only awoke when, at morn- 
 ing dawn, my landlord shook me by the shoulder, 
 and dispelled some dream, of which, fortunately 
 for you, I have no recollection, otherwise you 
 would have been favoured with it, in hopes you 
 might have proved a second Daniel upon the oc- 
 casion. 
 
 " You sleep sound " said his full deep voice ; 
 " ere five years have rolled over your head, your 
 slumbers will be lighter unless ere then you are 
 wrapped in the sleep which is never broken."
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFO11D. 88 
 
 " How !" said I, starting up in the bed ; " do 
 you know anything of me of my prospects of 
 my views in life ?" 
 
 " Nothing," he answered, with a grim smile ; 
 " but you are entering upon the world young, 
 inexperienced, and full of hopes, and I do but 
 prophecy to you what I would to any one in 
 your condition. But come ; there lie your clothes 
 a brown crust and a draught of milk wait you 
 if you choose to break your fast ; but you must 
 make haste." 
 
 " I must first," I said, " take the freedom to 
 spend a few minutes alone, before beginning the 
 ordinary works of the day." 
 
 " Oh ! umph ! I cry your devotions par- 
 don," he replied, and left the apartment. 
 
 Alan, there is something terrible about this 
 man. 
 
 I joined him, as I had promised, in the kitchen 
 where we had supped over night, where I found 
 the articles which he had offered me for break- 
 fast, without either butter or any other addition. 
 
 He walked up and down while I partook of the 
 bread and milk ; and the slow measured weighty
 
 84 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 step seemed identified with those which I had 
 heard last night. His pace, from its funereal 
 slowness, seemed to keep time with some current 
 of internal passion, dark, slow, and unchanged. 
 We run and leap by the side of a lively and 
 bubbling brook, thought I, internally, as if we 
 would run a race with it ; but beside waters deep, 
 slow, and lonely, our pace is sullen and silent as 
 their course. What thoughts may be now corre- 
 sponding with that furrowed brow, and bear time 
 with that heavy step ? 
 
 " If you are finished," said he, looking up to 
 me with a glance of impatience, as he observed 
 that I ate no longer, but remained with my eyes 
 fixed upon him, " I wait to shew you the way." 
 
 We went out together, no individual of the 
 family having been visible excepting my landlord. 
 I was disappointed of the opportunity which I 
 watched for of giving some gratuity to the do- 
 mestics, as they seemed to be. As for offering any 
 recompence to the Master of the Household, it 
 seemed to me impossible to have attempted it. 
 
 What would I have given for a share of thy 
 composure, who wouldst have thrust half a crown
 
 LAT1MER TO FAIRFORD. 85 
 
 into a man's hand whose necessities seemed to crave 
 it, conscious that you did right in making the prof- 
 fer, and not caring sixpence whether you hurt the 
 feelings of him whom you meant to serve. I saw 
 thee once give a penny to a man with a long beard, 
 who, from the dignity of his exterior, might have 
 represented Solon. I had not thy courage, and 
 therefore I made no tender to my mysterious host, 
 although, notwithstanding his display of silver 
 utensils, all around the house bespoke narrow cir- 
 cumstances, if not actual poverty. 
 
 We left the place together. But I hear thee 
 murmur thy very new and appropriate ejacula- 
 tion, Ohe, jam satis .'The rest for another time. 
 Perha p I may delay farther communication till 
 I learn how my favours are valued.
 
 C 86 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 ALAN FAIRFORD TO DARSIE LATIMER. 
 
 I HAVE thy two last epistles, my dear Darsie, 
 and, expecting the third, have been in no hurry 
 to answer them. Do not think my silence ought 
 to be ascribed to my failing to take interest in 
 them, for, truly, they excel (though the task was 
 difficult) thy usual excellings. Since the first 
 moon-calf who earliest discovered the Pandemo- 
 nium of Milton in an expiring wood-fire since 
 the first ingenious urchin who blew bubbles out of 
 soap and water, thou. my best of friends, hast the 
 highest knack at making histories out of nothing. 
 Wert thou to plant the bean in the nursery-tale, 
 thou wouldst make out, so soon as it began to ger- 
 minate, that the castle of the giant was about to 
 elevate its battlements on the top of it. All that
 
 FAIRFOED TO LATIMER. 87 
 
 happens to thee gets a touch of the wonderful 
 and the sublime from thy own rich imagination. 
 Didst ever see what artists call a Claude Lor- 
 raine glass, which spreads its own particular hue 
 over the whole landscape which you see through 
 it ? thou beholdest ordinary events just through 
 such a medium. 
 
 I have looked carefully at the facts of thy last 
 long letter, and they are just such as might have 
 befallen any little truant of the High School, who 
 had got down to Leith Sands, gone beyond the 
 prawn-dub, wet his hose and shoon, and, finally, 
 had been carried home, in compassion, by some 
 high-kilted fish-wife, cursing all the while the 
 trouble which the brat occasioned her. 
 
 I admire the figure which thou must have made, 
 clinging for dear life behind the old fellow's back 
 thy jaws chattering with fear, thy muscles 
 cramped with anxiety. Thy execrable supper of 
 broiled salmon, which was enough to ensure the 
 night-mare's regular visits for a twelvemonth, may 
 be termed a real affliction ; but as for the storm of 
 Thursday last, (such, I observe, was the date,) it 
 roared, whistled, howled, and bellowed, as fearful-
 
 88 FAIKFOKD TO LAT1MKR. 
 
 ly amongst the old chimney- heads in the Candle- 
 maker-row, as it could on the Solway shore, for the 
 very wind of it teste me per totam noctem vigi- 
 lante. And then in the morning again, when, 
 Lord help you in your sentimental delicacy ! 
 you bid the poor man adieu, without even ten- 
 dering him half-a-crown for supper and lodging ! 
 You laugh at me for giving a penny (to be 
 accurate, though, thou shouldst have said six- 
 pence,) to an old fellow, whom thou, in thy high 
 flight, wouldst have sent home supperless, be- 
 cause he was like Solon or Belisarius. But you 
 forget that the affront descended like a benedic- 
 tion into the pouch of the old gaberlunzie, who 
 overflowed in blessings upon the generous do- 
 nor Long ere he would have thanked thee, 
 Darsie, for thy barren veneration of his beard 
 and his bearing. Then you laugh at my good 
 father's retreat from Falkirk, just as if it were 
 not time for a man to trudge when three or four 
 mountain knaves, with naked claymores, and 
 heels as light as their fingers, were scampering 
 after him, crying furinish. You remember what 
 he said himself when the Laird of Bucklivat
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMEK. 89 
 
 told him that Jurinish signified *' stay a while." 
 " What the devil," he said, surprised out of 
 his Presbyteriaa correctness by the unreasonable- 
 ness of such a request under the circumstances, 
 " would the scoundrels have had me stop to have 
 my head cut off?" 
 
 Imagine such a train at your own heels, Dar- 
 sie, and ask yourself whether you would not ex- 
 ert your legs as fast as you did in flying from the 
 Solway tide. And yet you impeach my father's 
 courage. I tell you he has courage enough to do 
 what is right, and to spurn what is wrong cou- 
 rage enough to defend a righteous cause with 
 hand and purse, and to take the part of the poor 
 man against his oppressor, without fear of the 
 consequences to himself. This is civil courage, 
 Darsie ; and it is of little consequence to most men 
 in this age and country, whether they ever possess 
 military courage or no. 
 
 Do not think I am angry at you, though I thus 
 attempt to rectify your opinions on my father's 
 account. I am well aware that, upon the whole, 
 he is scarce regarded with more respect by me 
 than by thee. And, while I am in a serious hu-
 
 90 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 mour, which it is difficult to preserve with one 
 who is perpetually tempting me to laugh at him, 
 pray, dearest Darsie, let not thy ardour for ad- 
 venture carry thee into more such scrapes as that 
 of the Solway Sands. The rest of the story is a 
 mere imagination ; but that stormy evening might 
 have proved, as the clown says to Lear, " a 
 naughty night to swim in." 
 
 As for the rest, if you can work mysterious 
 and romantic heroes out of old cross-grained 
 fishermen, why I for one will reap some amuse- 
 ment by the metamorphosis. Yet hold I even 
 there, there is some need of caution. This same 
 female chaplain thou sayest so little of her, and 
 so much of every one else, that it excites some 
 doubt in my mind. Very pretty she is, it seems 
 and that is all thy discretion informs me of. 
 There are cases in which silence implies other 
 things than consent. Wert thou ashamed or 
 afraid, Darsie, to trust thyself with the praises of 
 the very pretty grace-sayer? As I live, thou 
 blushest ! Why, do I not know thee an invete- 
 rate Squire of Dames ? and have I not been in thy 
 confidence? An elegant elbow, displayed when the
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMEE. 91 
 
 rest of the figure was muffled in a cardinal, or a 
 neat well-turned ankle and instep, seen by chance 
 as its owner tripped up the Old Assembly Close, 
 turn thy brain for eight days. Thou wert once 
 caught, if I remember rightly, with a single 
 glance of a single matchless eye, which, when the 
 fair owner withdrew her veil, proved to be single 
 in the literal sense of the word. And, besides, 
 were you not another time enamoured of a voice 
 a mere voice, that mingled in the psalmody at 
 the Old Grey Friars' Church until you disco- 
 vered the proprietor of that dulcet organ to be 
 Miss Dolly Maclzzard, who is both " back and 
 breast," as our saying goes ? 
 
 All these things considered, and contrasted with 
 thy artful silence on the subject of this grace- 
 saying Nereid of thine, I must beg thee to be 
 more explicit upon that subject in thy next, un- 
 less thou wouldst have me form the conclusion 
 that thou thinkest more of her than thou carest to 
 talk of. 
 
 You will not expect much news from this 
 quarter, as you know the monotony of my life, 
 and are aware it must at present be devoted to
 
 92 FA1RFOIID TO LATIMEK. 
 
 uninterrupted study. You have said a thousand 
 times, that I am only qualified to make my way 
 by dint of plodding, and therefore plod I must. 
 My father seems to be more impatient of your 
 absence than he was after your first departure. 
 He is sensible, I believe, that our solitary meals 
 want the light which your gay humour was wont 
 to throw over them, and feels melancholy, as men 
 do when the light of the sun is no longer upon the 
 landscape. If it is thus with him, thou mayest 
 imagine it is much more so with me, and canst 
 conceive how heartily I wish that thy frolic were 
 ended, and thou once more our inmate. 
 
 I resume my pen, after a few hours interval, 
 to say that an incident has occurred, on which you 
 will yourself be building a hundred castles in the 
 air, and which even I, jealous as I am of such 
 baseless fabrics, cannot but own affords ground 
 for singular conjecture. 
 
 My father has of late taken me frequently
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 93 
 
 along with him when he attends the Courts, in 
 his anxiety to see me properly initiated into the 
 practical forms of business. I own I feel some- 
 thing oa his account and my own from this over- 
 anxiety, which, I dare say, renders us both ridi- 
 culous. But what signifies my repugnance ? my 
 father drags me up to his counsel learned in the 
 law, " Are you quite ready to come on to-day, 
 Mr Crossbite ? This is my son, designed for the 
 bar I take the liberty to bring him with me to- 
 day to the consultation, merely that he may see 
 how these things are managed." 
 
 Mr Crossbite smiles and bows, as a lawyer smiles 
 on the solicitor who employs him, and, I dare say, 
 thrusts his tongue into his cheek, and whispers 
 into the first great wig that passes him, " What 
 the d 1 does old Fairford mean by letting loose 
 his whelp on me ?"" 
 
 As I stood beside them, too much vexed at the 
 childish part I was made to play to derive much 
 information from the valuable arguments of Mr 
 Crossbite, I observed a rather elderly man, who 
 stood with his eyes firmly bent on my father, as
 
 94 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 if he only waited an end of the business in which 
 he was engaged, to address him. There was 
 something, I thought, in the gentleman's appear- 
 ance which commanded attention Yet his dress 
 was not in the present taste, and though it had 
 once been magnificent, was now antiquated and 
 unfashionable. His coat was of branched velvet, 
 with a satin lining, a waistcoat of violet-coloured 
 silk, much embroidered ; his breeches the same 
 stuff as the coat. He wore square-toed shoes, with 
 fore-tops, as they are called ; and his silk stock- 
 ings were rolled up over his knee, as you may 
 have seen in pictures, and here and there on some 
 of those originals who seem to pique themselves 
 on dressing after the mode of Methuselah. A 
 chapeau bras and sword necessarily completed his 
 equipment, which, though out of date, shewed 
 that it belonged to a man of distinction. 
 
 The instant Mr Crossbite had ended what he 
 had to say, this gentleman walked up to my fa- 
 ther, with " Your servant, Mr Fairford it is 
 long since you and I met." 
 
 Myfather, whose politeness, you know, is ex-
 
 FAIEFORD TO LATIMER. 95 
 
 act and formal, bowed, and hemmed, and was 
 confused, and at length professed that the dis- 
 tance since they had met was so great, that 
 though he remembered the face perfectly, the 
 name, he was sorry to say, had really some- 
 howescaped his memory. 
 
 " Have you forgot Herries of Birvenswork ?" 
 said the gentleman, and my father bowed even 
 more profoundly than before ; though I think his 
 reception of his old friend seemed to lose some of 
 the respectful civility which he bestowed on him 
 while his name was yet unknown. It now seemed 
 to be something like the lip-courtesy which the 
 heart would have denied had ceremony permit- 
 ted. 
 
 My father, however, again bowed low, and 
 hoped he saw him well. 
 
 " So well, my good Mr Fairford, that I come 
 hither determined to renew my acquaintance with 
 one or two old friends, and with you in the first 
 place. I halt at my old resting-place you must 
 dine with me to-day at Paterson's, at the head of 
 the Horse Wynd it is near your new fashionable 
 dwelling, and I have business with you." 
 
 16
 
 90 FAIRFORD TO LATIMEK. 
 
 My father excused himself respectfully, and 
 not without embarrassment " he was particular- 
 ly engaged at home." 
 
 " Then I will dine with you, man," said Mr 
 Herries of Birvenswork ; " the few minutes you 
 can spare me after dinner will suffice for my busi- 
 ness ; and I will not prevent you a moment from 
 minding your own I am no bottle-man." 
 
 You have often remarked that my father, 
 though a scrupulous observer of the rites of hos- 
 pitality, seems to exercise them rather as a duty 
 than as a pleasure ; indeed but for a conscientious 
 wish to feed the hungry and receive the stranger, 
 his doors would open to strangers much seldomer 
 than is the case. I never saw so strong an ex- 
 ample of this peculiarity, (which I should other- 
 wise have said is caricatured in your description,) 
 as in his mode of homologating the self-given 
 invitation of Mr Herries. The embarrassed 
 brow, and the attempt at a smile which accom- 
 panied his " We will expect the honour of seeing 
 you in Brown's Square at three o'clock," could 
 not deceive any one, and did not impose upon 
 the old Laird. It was with a look of scorn that 
 
 17
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMEE, 97 
 
 he replied, " I will relieve you then till that hour, 
 Mr Fairford ;" and his whole manner seemed to 
 say, " It is my pleasure to dine with you, and I 
 care not whether I am welcome or no. 1 ' 
 
 When he turned away, I asked my father who 
 he was. 
 
 " An unfortunate gentleman," was the reply. 
 
 " He looks pretty well on his misfortunes," re- 
 plied I. " I should not have suspected that so 
 gay an outside was lacking a dinner." 
 
 " Who told you that he does ?" replied my 
 father ; " he is omni suspiclone major, so far as 
 worldly circumstances are concerned It is to be 
 hoped he makes a good use of them ; though if 
 he does, it will be for the first time in his life." 
 
 " He has then been an irregular liver ?" insi- 
 nuated I. 
 
 My father replied by that famous brocard with 
 which he silences all unacceptable queries, turn- 
 ing in the slightest degree upon the failings of 
 our neighbours," If we mend our own faults, 
 Alan, we shall all of us have enough to do, with- 
 out sitting in judgment upon other folks." 
 
 VOL. i. G
 
 98 FAIRFOBD TO LATIMER. 
 
 Here I was again at fault ; but rallying once 
 more, I observed, he had the air of a man of high 
 rank and family. 
 
 " He is well entitled,' 1 said my father, " repre- 
 senting Herries of Birrenswork ; a branch of 
 that great and once powerful family of Herries, 
 the elder branch whereof merged in the house of 
 Nithesdale at the death of Lord Robin the Phi- 
 losopher, Anno Domini sixteen hundred and 
 sixty-seven." 
 
 " Has he still, 1 " said I, " his patrimonial estate 
 of Birrenswork ?" 
 
 " No," replied my father ; " so far back as his 
 father's time, it was a mere designation the pro- 
 perty being forfeited by Herbert Herries follow- 
 ing his kinsman, the Earl of Derwentwater, to 
 the Preston affair in 1715. But they keep up 
 the designation, thinking, doubtless, that their 
 claims may be revived in more favourable times 
 for Jacobites and for Popery; and folks who in no 
 way partake of their fantastic capriccios, do yet 
 allow it to pass unchallenged, ex comitate, if not 
 ex misericordia. But were he the Pope and the 
 Pretender both, we must get some dinner ready
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATJMER. 99 
 
 for him, since he has thought fit to offer himself. 
 So hasten home, my lad, and tell Hannah, Cook 
 Epps, and James Wilkinson, to do their best; and 
 do thou look out a pint or two of Maxwell's best 
 it is in the fifth binn there are the keys of the 
 wine cellar. Do not leave them in the lock you 
 know poor James's failing, though he is an ho- 
 nest creature under all other temptations and I 
 have but two bottles of the old brandy left we 
 must keep it for physic, Alan." 
 
 Away went I made my preparations the 
 hour of dinner came, and so did Mr Herries of 
 Birrenswork. 
 
 If I had thy power of imagination and descrip- 
 tion, Darsie, I could make out a fine, dark, mys- 
 terious, Rembrandt-looking portrait of this same 
 stranger, which should be as far superior to thy 
 fisherman, as a shirt of chain-mail is to a her- 
 ring-net. I can assure you there is some matter 
 for description about him ; but knowing my own 
 imperfections, I can only say, I thought him 
 eminently disagreeable and ill-bred. No, ill-bred 
 is not the proper word ; on the contrary, he ap- 
 peared to know the rules of good-breeding per-
 
 100 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 fectly, and only to think that the rank of the 
 company did not require that he should attend 
 to them a view of the matter infinitely more 
 offensive than if his behaviour had been that of 
 uneducated and proper rudeness. While my fa- 
 ther said grace, the Laird did all but whistie 
 aloud ; and when I, at my father's desire, re- 
 turned thanks, he used his tooth- pick, as if he had 
 waited that moment for its exercise. 
 
 So much for Kirk with King, matters went 
 even worse. My father, thou knowest, is parti- 
 cularly full of deference to his guests; and in the 
 present case, he seemed more than usually desi- 
 rous to escape every cause of dispute. He so far 
 compromised his loyalty, as to announce merely 
 " The King," as his first toast after dinner, in- 
 stead of the emphatic " King George," which is 
 his usual formula. Our guest made a motion 
 with his glass, so as to pass it over the water-de- 
 canter which stood beside him, and added, " Over 
 the water." 
 
 My father coloured, but would not seem to 
 hear this. Much more there was of careless and 
 disrespectful, both in his manner and tone of con-
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 101 
 
 versation; so that though I know my father's 
 prejudices in favour of rank and birth, and though 
 I am aware his otherwise masculine understand- 
 ing has never entirely shaken off the slavish awe 
 of the great, which in his earlier days they had 
 so many modes of commanding, still I could 
 hardly excuse him for enduring so much inso- 
 lencesuch it seemed to be as this self-invited 
 guest was disposed to offer to him at his own 
 table. 
 
 One can endure a traveller in the same car- 
 riage, if he treads upon your toes by accident, or 
 even through negligence ; but it is very different 
 when, knowing that they are rather of a tender 
 description, he continues to pound away at them 
 with his hoofs. In my poor opinion and I am 
 a man of peace you can. in that case, hardly 
 avoid a declaration of war. 
 
 I believe my father read my thoughts in my 
 eye ; for, pulling out his watch, he said, " Half 
 past four, Alan you should be in your own 
 room by this time Birrenswork will excuse 
 you." 
 
 Our visitor nodded carelessly, and I had no
 
 102 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 longer any pretence to remain. But as I left the 
 room, I heard this Magnate of Nithesdale dis- 
 tinctly mention the name of Latimer. I linger- 
 ed ; but at length a direct hint from my father 
 obliged me to withdraw ; and when, an hour af- 
 terwards, I was summoned to partake of a cup 
 of tea, our guest had departed. He had business 
 that evening in the High Street, and could not 
 spare time even to drink tea. I could not help 
 saying, I considered his departure as a relief from 
 incivility. " What business has he to upbraid 
 us," I said, " with the change of our dwelling 
 from a more inconvenient to a better quarter of 
 the town ? What was k to him if we chose to 
 imitate some of the conveniences or luxuries of 
 an English dwelling-house, instead of living piled 
 up above each other in flats ? Have his patrician 
 birth and aristocratic fortunes given him any 
 right to censure those who dispose of the fruits 
 of their own industry, according to their own 
 pleasure ?" 
 
 My father took a long pinch of snuff, and re- 
 plied) " Very well, Alan ; very well, indeed. I 
 wish Mr Crossbite of Counsellor Pest had heard
 
 PAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 103 
 
 you ; they must have acknowledged that ye have 
 a talent for forensic elocution ; and it may not be 
 amiss to try it at home now and then, to gather 
 audacity and keep yourself in breath. But touch- 
 ing the subject of this paraffle of words, it's not 
 worth a pinch of tobacco. D'ye think that I care 
 for Mr Herries of Birrenswork more than any 
 other gentleman who comes here about business, 
 although I do not care to go tilting at his throat, 
 because he speaks like a gray goose, as he is ? But 
 to say no more about him, I want to have Darsie 
 Latimer's present direction ; for it is possible I 
 may have to write the lad a line with my own 
 hand and yet I do not well know but give me 
 the direction at all events." 
 
 I did so, and if you have heard from my father 
 accordingly, you know more, probably, about the 
 subject of this letter than I who write it. But 
 if you have not, then shall I have discharged a 
 friend's duty, in letting you know that there cer- 
 tainly is something afloat between this disagree- 
 able Laird and my father, in which you are con- 
 siderably interested. 
 
 Adieu ! and although I have given thee a 
 
 15
 
 104 FAIRFOBD TO LATIMER. 
 
 subject for waking dreams, beware of building a 
 castle too heavy for the foundation ; which, in 
 the present instance, is barely the word Latimer 
 occurring in a conversation betwixt a gentleman 
 of Dumfries-shire and a W.S. of Edinburgh 
 Ccetera prorsus ignoro.
 
 I 105 ] 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 UAIISIE LATIMER TO ALAN FAIKFOKD. 
 
 ln continuation of Letters III. and IV.)] 
 
 I TOLD thee I walked out into the open air 
 with my grave and stern landlord. I could now 
 see more perfectly than on the preceding night 
 the secluded glen, in which stood the two or three 
 cottages which seemed the abode of him and his 
 family. 
 
 It was so narrow, in proportion to its depth, 
 that no ray of the morning sun was like to reach 
 it till it should rise high in the horizon. Look- 
 ing up the dell, you saw a brawling brook 
 issuing in foamy haste from a covert of under- 
 wood, like a race-horse impatient to arrive at the 
 goal ; and, if you gazed yet more earnestly, you
 
 106 LATIMER TO FAIKFOUD. 
 
 might observe part of a high water-fall glimmer- 
 ing through the foliage, and giving occasion, 
 doubtless, to the precipitate speed of the brook. 
 Lower down, the stream became more placid, and 
 ,opened into a quiet piece of water, which afforded 
 a rude haven to two or three fishermen's boats, 
 then lying high and dry on the sand, the tide be- 
 ing out. Two or three miserable huts could be 
 seen beside this little haven, inhabited probably 
 by the owners of the boats, but inferior in every 
 respect to the establishment of mine hostj though 
 that was miserable enough. 
 
 I had but a minute or two to make these ob- 
 servations, yet during that space my companion 
 shewed symptoms of impatience, and more than 
 once shouted, " Christal Christal Nixon," until 
 the old man of the preceding evening appeared 
 at the door of one of the neighbouring cottages 
 or out-houses, leading the strong black horse 
 which I before commemorated, ready bridled and 
 saddled. My conductor made Christal a sign with 
 his finger, and, turning from the cottage door, 
 led the way up the steep path or ravine which
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. ]07 
 
 connected the sequestered dell with the open 
 country. 
 
 Had I been perfectly aware of the character 
 of the road down which I had been hurried with 
 so much impetuosity on the preceding evening, 
 I greatly question if I should have ventured the 
 descent ; for it deserved no better name than the 
 channel of a torrent, now in a good measure 
 filled with water, that dashed in foam and fury 
 into the dell, being swelled with the rains of 
 the preceding night. I ascended this ugly path 
 with some difficulty, although on foot, and felt 
 dizzy when I observed, from such traces as the 
 rains had not obliterated, that the horse seemed 
 almost to have slid down it upon his haunches 
 the evening before. 
 
 My host threw himself on his horse's back, 
 without placing a foot in the stirrup passed me 
 in the perilous ascent, against which he pressed 
 his steed as if the animal had had the footing of 
 a wild cat. The water and mud splashed from his 
 heels in his reckless course, and a few bounds 
 placed him on the top of the bank, where I pre- 
 sently joined him, and found the horse and rider
 
 108 LAT1MER TO FAIKFOJID. 
 
 standing still as a statue ; the former panting and 
 expanding his broad nostrils to the morning 
 wind, the latter motionless, with his eye fixed on 
 the first beams of the rising sun, which already 
 began to peer above the eastern horizon, and 
 gild the distant mountains of Cumberland and 
 Liddesdale. 
 
 He seemed in a reverie, from which he started 
 at my approach, and, putting his horse in motion, 
 led the way through a broken and sandy road, 
 which traversed a waste, level, and uncultivated 
 tract of downs, intermixed with morass, much like 
 that in the neighbourhood of my quarters at 
 Shepherd's Bush. Indeed the whole open ground 
 of this district, where it approaches the sea, has, 
 except in a few favoured spots, the same uniform 
 and dreary character. 
 
 Advancing about a hundred yards from the 
 brink of the glen, we gained a still more exten- 
 sive command of this desolate prospect, which 
 seemed even more dreary, as contrasted with the 
 opposite shores of Cumberland, crossed and in- 
 tersected by ten thousand lines of trees growing 
 in hedge-rows, shaded with groves and woods of
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 109 
 
 considerable extent, animated by hamlets and 
 villas, from which thin clouds of smoke already 
 gave sign of human life and human industry. 
 
 My conductor had extended his arm, and was 
 pointing the road to Shepherd's Bush, when the 
 step of a horse was heard approaching us. He 
 looked sharply around, and having observed who 
 was approaching, proceeded in his instructions to 
 me, planting himself at the same time in the very 
 middle of the path, which, at the place where we 
 halted, had a slough on the one side, and a sand- 
 bank on the other. 
 
 I observed that the rider who approached us 
 slackened his horse's pace from a slow trot to a 
 walk, as if desirous to suffer us to proceed, or at 
 least to avoid passing us at a spot where the dif- 
 ficulty of doing so must have brought us very close 
 to each other. You know my old failing, Alan, 
 and that I am always willing to attend to any- 
 thing in preference to the individual who has for 
 the time possession of the conversation. 
 
 Agreeably to this amiable propensity, I was 
 internally speculating concerning the cause of the 
 rider keeping aloof from us, when my companion,
 
 110 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 elevating his deep voice so suddenly and so stern- 
 ly, as at once to recal my wandering thoughts, 
 exclaimed, " In the name of the devil, young 
 man, do you think that others have no better use 
 for their time than you have, that you oblige me to 
 repeat the same thing to you three times over ?- 
 Do you see, I say, yonder thing at a mile's dis- 
 tance, that looks like a finger-post, or rather like 
 a gallows ? I would it had a dreaming fool hang- 
 ing upon it, as an example to all meditative moon- 
 calves ! Yon gibbet-looking pole will guide you 
 to the bridge, where you must pass the large 
 brook ; then proceed straight forwards, till seve- 
 ral roads divide at a cairn. Plague on thee, thou 
 art wandering again !" 
 
 It is indeed quite true, that at this moment 
 the horseman approached us, and my attention 
 was again called to him as I made way to let 
 him pass. His whole exterior at once shewed 
 that he belonged to the Society of Friends, or, 
 as the world and the world's law calls them, 
 Quakers. A strong and useful iron-grey gal- 
 loway shewed, by its sleek and good condition, 
 that the merciful man was merciful to his beast. 
 
 14
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 1 11 
 
 His accoutrements were in the usual unostenta- 
 tious, but clean and serviceable order, which cha- 
 racterizes these sectaries. His long surtout of 
 dark-grey superfine cloth descended down to the 
 middle of his leg, and was buttoned up to his 
 chin, to defend himself against the morning air. 
 As usual, his ample beaver hung down without 
 button or loop, and shaded a comely and placid 
 countenance, the gravity of which appeared to 
 contain some seasoning of humour, and had no- 
 thing in common with the pinched puritanical 
 air affected by devotees in general. The brow 
 was open and free from wrinkles, whether of age 
 or hypocrisy. The eye was clear, calm, and 
 considerate, yet appeared to be disturbed by ap- 
 prehension, not to say fear, as, pronouncing the 
 usual salutation of, "I wish thee a good mor- 
 row, friend," he indicated, by turning his palfrey 
 close to one side of the path, a wish to glide past 
 us with as little trouble as possible just as a 
 traveller would choose to pass a mastiff of whose 
 peaceable intentions he is by no means confi- 
 dent.
 
 112 LATIMEK TO FAIKFOKD. 
 
 But my friend, not meaning, perhaps, that he 
 should get off so easily, put his own horse quite 
 across the path, so that, without plunging into 
 the slough, or scrambling up the bank, the Qua- 
 ker could not have past him. Neither of these 
 was an experiment without hazard greater than 
 the passenger seemed willing to incur. He halt- 
 ed, therefore, as if waiting till my companion 
 should make way for him ; and, as they sat front- 
 ing each other, I could not help thinking that 
 they might have formed no bad emblem of Peace 
 and War ; for, although my conductor was un- 
 armed, yet the whole of his manner, his stern 
 look, and his upright seat on horseback, were 
 entirely those of a soldier in undress. He ac- 
 costed the Quaker in these words," So ho ! 
 friend Joshua thou art early to the road this 
 morning. Has the spirit moved thee and thy 
 righteous brethren to act with some honesty, and 
 pull down yonder tide-nets that keep the fish 
 from coming up the river ?" 
 
 " Surely, friend, not so," answered Joshua 
 firmly, but good-humouredly at the same time ; 
 
 7
 
 I.ATIMER TO FAIItFORD. 113 
 
 " thou canst not expect that our own hands 
 should pull down what our own purses establish- 
 ed. Thou killest the fish with spear, line, and 
 coble-net ; and we, with snares and with nets, 
 which work by the ebb and the flow of the tide. 
 Each doth what seems best in his eyes to secure 
 a share of the blessing which Providence hath 
 bestowed on the river, and that within his own 
 bounds. I prithee seek no quarrel against us, for 
 thou shall have no wrong at our hand." 
 
 " Be assured I will take none at the hand of 
 any man, whether his hat be cocked or broad- 
 brimmed," answered the fisherman. " I tell you 
 in fair terms, Joshua Geddes, that you and your 
 partners are using unlawful craft to destroy the 
 fish in the Solway by stake-nets and wears; and 
 that we, who fish fairly, and like men, as our fa- 
 thers did, have daily and yearly less sport and 
 less profit. Do not think gravity or hypocrisy 
 can carry it off as you have done. The world 
 knows you, and we know you. You will destroy 
 the salmon which make the livelihood of fifty 
 poor families, and then wipe your mouth, and 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 114 LATIMEE TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 go to make a speech at Meeting. But do not 
 hope it will last thus. I give you fair warning, 
 we will be upon you one morning soon, when we 
 will not leave a stake standing in the pools of the 
 Solway ; and down the tide they shall every one 
 go, and well if we do not send a lessee along 
 with them." 
 
 " Friend," replied Joshua, with a constrained 
 smile, " but that I know thou dost not mean as 
 thou say'st, I would tell thee we are under the 
 protection of this country's laws ; nor do we the 
 less trust to obtain their protection, that our prin- 
 ciples permit us not, by any act of violent resist- 
 ance, to protect ourselves."" 
 
 " All villainous cant and cowardice," exclaim- 
 ed the fisherman, " and assumed merely as a cloak 
 to your hypocritical avarice." 
 
 " Nay, say not cowardice, my friend," answer- 
 ed the Quaker, " since thou knowest there may 
 be as much courage in enduring as in acting; 
 and I will be judged by this youth, or by any one 
 else, whether there is not more cowardice even 
 in the opinion of that world whose thoughts are 
 the breath in thy nostrils in the armed oppressor,
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFOED. 115 
 
 who doth injury, than in the defenceless and pa- 
 tient sufferer, who endureth it with constancy. 1 ' 
 
 " I will change no more words with you on the 
 subject," said the fisherman, who, as if something 
 moved at the last argument which Mr Geddes 
 had used, now made room for him to pass for- 
 ward on his journey. " Do not forget, however," 
 he added, " that you have had fair warning, nor 
 suppose that we will accept of fair words in apo- 
 logy for foul play. These nets of yours are un- 
 lawfulthey spoil our fishings and we will have 
 them down at all risks and hazards. I am a man 
 of my word, friend Joshua." 
 
 " I trust thou art," said the Quaker ; " but 
 thou art the rather bound to be cautious in rash- 
 ly affirming what thou wilt never execute. For 
 I tell thee, friend, that though there is as great 
 a difference between thee and one of our people, 
 as there is between a lion and a sheep, yet I know 
 and believe thou hast so much of the lion in thee, 
 that thou wouldst scarce employ thy strength and 
 thy rage upon that which professeth no means of 
 resistance. Report says so much good of thee at 
 least, if it says little more."
 
 116 LATIMKIl TO VAI11FOKD. 
 
 " Time will try," answered the fisherman ; 
 " and hark thee, Joshua, before we part I will put 
 thee in the way of doing one good deed, which, 
 credit me, is better than twenty moral speeches. 
 Here is a stranger youth, whom Heaven has 
 so scantily gifted with brains, that he will be- 
 wilder himself in the Sands, as he did last night, 
 unless thou wilt kindly shew him the way to 
 Shepherd's Bush ; for I have been in vain en- 
 deavouring to make him comprehend the road 
 thither Hast thou so much charity under thy 
 simplicity, Quaker, as to do this good turn ?" 
 
 " Nay, it is thou, friend," answered Joshua, 
 " that dost lack charity, to suppose any one un- 
 willing to do so simple a kindness."" 
 
 " Thou art right I should have remembered 
 it can cost thee nothing. Young gentleman, this 
 pious pattern of primitive simplicity will teach 
 thee the right way to the Shepherd's Bush ay, 
 and will himself shear thee like a sheep, if you 
 come to buying and selling with him." 
 
 He then abruptly asked me, how long I intend- 
 ed to remain at Shepherd's Bush. 
 
 I replied, I was at present uncertain as long,
 
 LATIMER TO FAIKFORD. 117 
 
 probably, as I could amuse myself in the neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 " You are fond of sport ?" he added, in the 
 same tone of brief inquiry. 
 
 I answered in the affirmative, but added, I was 
 totally inexperienced. 
 
 " Perhaps if you reside here for some days," 
 he said, " we may meet again, and I may have 
 the chance of giving you a lesson." 
 
 Ere I could express either thanks or assent, he 
 turned short round with a wave of his hand, by 
 way of adieu, and rode back to the verge of the 
 dell from which we had emerged together ; and 
 as he remained standing upon the banks, I could 
 long hear his voice while he shouted down to 
 those within its recesses. 
 
 Meanwhile the Quaker and I proceeded on our 
 journey for some time in silence ; he restraining 
 his sober-minded steed to a pace which might 
 have suited a much less active walker than myself, 
 and looking on me from time to time with an ex- 
 pression of curiosity, mingled with benignity. For 
 my part, I cared not to speak first. It happened 
 1 had never before been in company with one of
 
 118 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 this particular sect, and, afraid that in address- 
 ing him I might unwittingly infringe upon some 
 of their prejudices or peculiarities, I patiently 
 remained silent. At length he asked me, whe- 
 ther I had been long in the service of the Laird, 
 as men called him. 
 
 I repeated the words " in his service ? M with 
 such an accent of surprise, as induced him to say, 
 " Nay, but, friend, I mean no offence ; perhaps 
 I should have said in his society an inmate, I 
 mean, in his house ?" 
 
 " I am totally unknown to the person from 
 whom we have just parted," said I, " and our 
 connection is only temporary He had the chari- 
 ty to give me his guidance from the Sands, and 
 a night's harbourage from the tempest. So our 
 acquaintance began, and there it is likely to end ; 
 for you may observe that our friend is by no 
 means apt to encourage familiarity ." 
 
 " So little so," answered my companion, " that 
 thy case is, I think, the first in which I ever heard 
 of his receiving any one into his house ; that is, if 
 thou hast really spent the night there." 
 
 " Why should you doubt it ?" replied I ;
 
 LATIMEIl TO FAIRFOUD. 119 
 
 " there is no motive I can have to deceive you, 
 nor is the object worth it." 
 
 " Be not angry with me," said the Quaker ; 
 " but thou knowest that thine own people do not, 
 as we humbly endeavour to do, confine them- 
 selves within the simplicity of truth, but employ 
 the language of falsehood, not only for profit, but 
 for compliment, and sometimes for mere diver- 
 sion. I have heard various stories of my neigh- 
 bour ; of most of which I only believe a small 
 part, and even then they are difficult to reconcile 
 with each other. But this being the first time I 
 ever heard of his receiving a stranger within his 
 dwelling, made me express some doubts. I pray 
 thee let them not offend thee." 
 
 " He does not," said I, " appear to possess in 
 much abundance the means of exercising hospi- 
 tality, and so may be excused from offering it in 
 ordinary cases." 
 
 " That is to say, friend," replied Joshua, 
 " thou hast supped ill, and perhaps breakfasted 
 worse. Now my small tenement, called Mount 
 Sharon, is nearer to us by two miles than thine 
 inn ; and although going thither may prolong thy
 
 120 LAT1MK11 TO FAIllFOltl). 
 
 walk, as taking thee off the straighter road to 
 Shepherd^s Bush, yet methinks exercise will suit 
 thy youthful limbs, as well as a good plain meal 
 thy youthful appetite. What say'st thou, my 
 young acquaintance ?" 
 
 " If it puts you not to inconvenience," I re- 
 plied ; for the invitation was cordially given, and 
 my bread and milk had been hastily swallowed, 
 and in small quantity. 
 
 " Nay," said Joshua, " use not the language 
 of compliment with those who renounce it. Had 
 this poor courtesy been very inconvenient, per- 
 haps I had not offered it. 11 
 
 " I accept the invitation, then,"" said I, " in 
 the same good spirit in which you give it." 
 
 The Quaker smiled, reached me his hand, I 
 shook it, and we travelled on in great cordiality 
 with each other. The fact is, I was much en- 
 tertained by contrasting in my own mind, the 
 open manner of the kind-hearted Joshua Geddes, 
 with the abrupt, dark, and lofty demeanour of 
 my entertainer on the preceding evening. Both 
 were blunt and unceremonious; but the plain- 
 ness of the Quaker had the character of devo-
 
 LATIMEK TO FAIUFOH1). 
 
 tional simplicity, and was mingled with the more 
 real kindness, as if honest Joshua was desirous 
 of atoning, by his sincerity, for the lack of exter- 
 nal courtesy. On the contrary, the manners of the 
 fisherman were those of one to whom the rules 
 of good behaviour might be familiar, but who, 
 either from pride or from misanthropy, scorned 
 to observe them. Still I thought of him with 
 interest and curiosity, notwithstanding so much 
 about him that was repulsive ; and I promised 
 myself, in the course of my conversation with 
 the Quaker, to learn all that he knew on the sub- 
 ject. He turned the conversation, however, into 
 a different channel, and inquired into my own 
 condition of life, and views in visiting this remote 
 frontier. . 
 
 I only thought it necessary to mention my 
 name, and add, that I had been educated to the 
 law, but finding myself possessed of some inde- 
 pendence, I had of late permitted myself some 
 relaxation, and was residing at Shepherd's Bush 
 to enjoy the pleasure of angling. 
 
 " I do thee no harm, young man," said my 
 new friend, " in wishing thee a better employ-
 
 122 LATIMEll TO FAIRFOIID. 
 
 ment for thy grave hours, and a more humane 
 amusement (if amusement thou must have) for 
 those of a lighter character." 
 
 " You are severe, sir," I replied. " I heard 
 you but a moment since refer yourself to the 
 protection of the laws of the country if there 
 be laws, there must be lawyers to explain, and 
 judges to administer them." 
 
 Joshua smiled, and pointed to the sheep which 
 were grazing on the downs over which we were 
 travelling. " Were a wolf," he said, " to come 
 even now upon yonder flocks, they would crowd 
 for protection, doubtless, around the shepherd 
 and his dogs ; yet they are bitten and harassed 
 daily by the one, shorn, and finally killed and 
 eaten by the other. But I say not this to shock 
 you ; for, though laws and lawyers are evils, yet 
 they are necessary evils in this probationary state 
 of society, till man shall learn to render unto his 
 fellows that which is their due, according to the 
 light of his own conscience, and through no other 
 compulsion. Meanwhile, I have known many 
 righteous men who have followed thy intended 
 profession in honesty and uprightness of walk.
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORU. 123 
 
 The greater their merit, who walk erect in a path 
 which so many find slippery." 
 
 " And angling," said I, " you object to that 
 also as an amusement, you who, if I understood 
 rightly what passed between you and my late 
 landlord, are yourself a proprietor of fisheries. 1 " 
 
 " Not a proprietor," he replied, " I am only, 
 in copartnery with others, a tacksman or lessee of 
 some valuable salmon fisheries a little down the 
 coast. But mistake me not. The evil of an- 
 gling, with which I class all sports, as they are 
 called, which have the sufferings of animals for 
 their end and object, does not consist in the mere 
 catching and killing those animals with which 
 the bounty of Providence hath stocked the earth 
 for the good of man, but in making their pro- 
 tracted agony a principle of delight and enjoy- 
 ment. I do indeed cause these fisheries to be 
 conducted for the necessary taking, killing, and 
 selling the fish ; and, in the same way, were I a 
 farmer, I should send my lambs to market. But 
 I should as soon think of contriving myself a 
 sport and amusement out of the trade of the 
 butcher as out of that of the fisher."
 
 124 LATIMEll TO FAIRFOBD. 
 
 We argued this point no farther ; for though 
 I thought his arguments a little too high-strained, 
 yet as my mind acquitted me from having taken 
 delight in aught but the theory of field-sports, I 
 did not think myself called upon stubbornly to 
 advocate a practice which had afforded me so 
 little pleasure. 
 
 We were by this time arrived at the remains 
 of an old finger-post, which my host had former- 
 ly pointed out as a land-mark. Here, a ruinous 
 wooden bridge, supported by long posts resem- 
 bling crutches, served me to get across the water, 
 while my new friend sought a ford a good way 
 higher up, for the stream was considerably swelled. 
 
 As I paused for his rejoining me, I observed 
 an angler at a little distance pouching trout after 
 trout, as fast almost as he could cast his line ; and 
 I own, in spite of Joshua's lecture on humanity, 
 I could not but envy his adroitness and success, 
 so natural is the love of sport to our minds, or 
 so easily are we taught to assimilate success in 
 field-sports with ideas of pleasure, and with the 
 praise due to address and agility. I soon recogni- 
 zed in the successful angler little Benjie, who had
 
 LATTMEK TO FAIRFORD. 125 
 
 been my guide and tutor in that gentle art, as you 
 have learned from my former letters. I called 
 I whistled the rascal recognized me, and, start- 
 ing like a guilty thing, seemed hesitating whether 
 to approach or to run away ; and when he deter- 
 mined on the former, it was to assail me with 
 a loud, clamorous, and exaggerated report of the 
 anxiety of all at the Shepherd's Bush for my 
 personal safety. How my landlady had wept, 
 how Sam and the ostler had not the heart to go 
 to bed, but sat up all night drinking and how 
 he himself had been up long before day-break to 
 go in quest of me. 
 
 " And you were switching the water, I sup- 
 pose," said I, " to discover my dead body ?" 
 
 This observation produced a long " Na a a" 
 of acknowledged detection ; but, with his natural 
 impudence, and confidence in my good-nature, he 
 immediately added, " that he thought I would like 
 a fresh trout or twa for breakfast, and the water 
 being in such rare trim for the saumon raun, he 
 couldna help taking a cast." 
 
 While we were engaged in this discussion, the 
 9
 
 126 LATIMEIl TO FAIRFOUI). 
 
 honest Quaker returned to the farther end of the 
 wooden bridge to tell me he could not venture to 
 cross the brook in its present state, but would be 
 under the necessity to ride round by the stone 
 bridge, which was a mile and a half higher up 
 than his own house. He was about to give me 
 directions how to proceed without him, and in- 
 quire for his sister, when I suggested to him, that 
 if he pleased to trust his horse to little Benjie, the 
 boy might carry him round by the bridge, while 
 we walked the shorter and more pleasant road. 
 
 Joshua shook his head, for he was well ac- 
 quainted with Benjie, who, he said, was the 
 naughtiest varlet in the whole neighbourhood. 
 Nevertheless, rather than part company, he agreed 
 to put his pony under his charge for a short sea- 
 son, with many injunctions that he should not at- 
 tempt to mount, but lead the pony (even Solo- 
 mon) by the bridle, under the assurances of six- 
 pence in case of proper demeanour, and penalty 
 that if he transgressed the orders given him, " ve- 
 rily he should be scourged." 
 
 Promises cost Benjie nothing, and he shower-
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 127 
 
 ed them out wholesale ; till the Quaker at length 
 yielded up the bridle to him, repeating his char- 
 ges, and enforcing them by holding up his fore- 
 finger. On my part, I called to Benjie to leave 
 the fish he had taken at Mount Sharon, making, 
 at the same time, an apologetic countenance to 
 my new friend, not being quite aware whether the 
 compliment would be agreeable to such a con- 
 demner of field-sports. 
 
 He understood me at once, and reminded me 
 of the practical distinction betwixt catching the 
 animals as an object of cruel and wanton sport, 
 and eating them as lawful and gratifying articles 
 of food after they were killed. On the latter 
 point he had no scruples ; but, on the contrary, 
 assured me, that this brook contained the real red 
 trout, so highly esteemed by all connoisseurs, and 
 that, when eaten within an hour of their being 
 caught, they had a peculiar firmness of substance 
 and delicacy of flavour, which rendered them an 
 agreeable addition to a morning meal, especially 
 when earned, like ours, by early rising, and an 
 hour or two's wholesome exercise. 
 
 But to thy alarm be it spoken, Alan, we did 
 
 16
 
 128 LATIMEB TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 not come so far as the frying of our fish without 
 farther adventure. So it is only to spare thy 
 patience, and mine own eyes, that I pull up for 
 the present, and send thee the rest of my story 
 in a subsequent letter.
 
 129 ] 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 ln continuation.^ 
 
 LITTLE Benjie, with the pony, having been 
 sent off on the left side of the brook, the Qua- 
 ker and I sauntered on, like the cavalry and in- 
 fantry of the same army occupying the opposite 
 banks of a river, and observing the same line of 
 march. But, while my worthy companion was 
 assuring me of a pleasant greensward walk to his 
 mansion, little Benjie, who had been charged to 
 keep in sight, chose to deviate from the path as- 
 signed him, and, turning to the right, led his 
 charge, Solomon, out of our vision. 
 
 " The villain means to mount him !" cried 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 Joshua, with more vivacity than was consistent 
 with his profession of passive endurance. 
 
 I endeavoured to appease his apprehensions, 
 as he pushed on, wiping his brow with vexation, 
 assuring him, that if the boy did mount, he 
 would, for his own sake, ride gently. 
 
 " You do not know him,' 1 said Joshua, reject- 
 ing all consolation; " he do anything gently ! 
 no, he will gallop Solomon he will misuse the 
 sober patience of the poor animal who has borne 
 me so long ! Yes, I was given over to my own 
 devices when I would ever let him touch the 
 bridle, for such a little miscreant there never was 
 before him in this country." 
 
 He then proceeded to expatiate on every sort 
 of rustic enormity of which he accused Benjie. 
 He had been suspected of snaring partridges 
 was detected by Joshua himself in liming sing- 
 ng-birds stood fully charged with having wor- 
 ried several cats, by aid of a lurcher which at- 
 tended him, and which was as lean, and ragged, 
 and mischievous, as his master. Finally, Benjie 
 stood accused of having stolen a duck, to hunt it 
 with the said lurcher, which was dexterous on wa-
 
 LATIMEtt TO FAIltFORD. 131 
 
 ter as on land. I chimed in with my friend, in or- 
 der to avoid giving him farther irritation, and de- 
 clared, I should be disposed, frotfi my own expe- 
 rience, to give up Benjie as one of Satan's imps. 
 Joshua Geddes began to censure the phrase as 
 too much exaggerated, and otherwise unbecoming 
 the mouth of a reflecting person ; and, just as I 
 was apologizing for it, as being a term of com- 
 mon parlance, we heard certain sounds on the 
 opposite side of the brook, which seemed to in- 
 dicate that Solomon and Benjie were at issue 
 together. The sand-hills behind which Benjie 
 seemed to take his course, had concealed from 
 us, as doubtless he meant it should be, his ascent 
 into the forbidden saddle, and, putting Solomon 
 to his mettle, which he was seldom called upon to 
 exert, they had cantered away together in great 
 amity, till they came near to the ford from which 
 the palfrey's legitimate owner had already turned 
 back. 
 
 Here a contest of opinions took place between 
 the horse and his rider. The latter, according to 
 his instructions, attempted to direct Solomon to- 
 wards the distant bridge of stone ; but Solomon
 
 132 LATIMEU TO FAIRFORU. 
 
 opined that the ford was the shortest way to his 
 own stable. The point was sharply contested, 
 and we heard Benjic gee-hupping, tchek-tchek- 
 ing, and, above all, flogging in great style ; while 
 Solomon, who, docile in his general habits, was 
 now stirred beyond his patience, made a great 
 trampling and recalcitration ; and it was their 
 joint noise which we heard, without being able to 
 see, though Joshua might too well guess, the 
 cause of it. 
 
 Alarmed at these indications, the Quaker began 
 to shout out, " Benjie thou varlet! Solomon 
 thou fool !" when the couple presented them- 
 selves in full drive, Solomon having now decided- 
 ly obtained the better of the conflict, and bring- 
 ing his unwilling rider upon high career down 
 to the ford. Never was there anger changed so 
 fast into humane fear, as that of my good com- 
 panion. " The varlet will be drowned !" he ex- 
 claimed" a widow's son ! her only son ! and 
 
 drowned ! let me go " And he struggled 
 
 with me stoutly as I hung upon him, to prevent 
 him from plunging into the ford. 
 
 I had no fear whatever for Benjie ; for the
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFOR1). 
 
 blackguard vermin, though he could not manage 
 the refractory horse, stuck on his seat like a mon- 
 key. Solomon and Benjie scrambled through the 
 ford with little inconvenience, and resumed their 
 gallop on the other side. 
 
 It was impossible to guess whether on this last 
 occasion Benjie was running off with Solomon, or 
 Solomon with Benjie ; but, judging from charac. 
 ter and motives, I rather suspected the former. 
 I could not help laughing as the rascal passed, 
 me, grinning betwixt terror and delight, perched 
 on the very pommel of the saddle, and holding 
 with extended arms by bridle and mane ; while 
 Solomon, the bit secured between his teeth, and 
 his head bored down betwixt his fore-legs, past 
 his master in this unwonted guise as hard as he 
 could pelt. 
 
 " The mischievous bastard !" exclaimed the 
 Quaker, terrified out of his usual moderation of 
 speech " the doomed gallows-bird ! he will 
 break Solomon's wind to a certainty." 
 
 I prayed him to be comforted assured him a 
 brushing gallop would do his favourite no harm 
 and reminded him of the censure he had be-
 
 134 LATIMER TO FAIUFORD. 
 
 stowed on me a minute before for bestowing a 
 harsh epithet upon the boy. 
 
 But Joshua was not without his answer; 
 " Friend youth," he said, " thou didst speak of 
 the lad's soul, which thou didst affirm belonged to 
 the enemy, and of that thou couldst say nothing 
 of thine own knowledge ; on the contrary, I did 
 but speak of his outward man, which will assu- 
 redly be suspended by a cord, if he mendeth not 
 his manners. Men say that, young as he is, he 
 is one of the Laird's gang." 
 
 " Of the Laird's gang !" said I, repeating the 
 words in surprise " Do you mean the person 
 with whom I slept last night ? I heard you call 
 him the Laird Is he at the head of a gang ?" 
 
 " Nay, I meant not precisely a gang," said the 
 Quaker, who appeared in his haste to have spoken 
 more than he intended " a company or party, I 
 should have said ; but thus it is, friend Latimer, 
 with the wisest men, when they permit themselves 
 to be perturbed with passion, and speak as in a 
 fever, or as with the tongue of the foolish and the 
 forward. And although thou hast been hasty to 
 mark my infirmity, yet I grieve not that thou
 
 LATIMER TO FAIXFOU1). 135 
 
 hast been a witness to it, seeing that the stumbles 
 of the wise may be no less a caution to youth and 
 inexperience, than is the fall of the foolish." 
 
 This was a sort of acknowledgment of what I 
 had already begun to suspect that my new 
 friend's real goodness of disposition, joined to the 
 acquired quietism of his religious sect, had been 
 unable entirely to check the effervescence of a 
 temper naturally warm and hasty. 
 
 Upon the present occasion, as if sensible he had 
 displayed a greater degree of emotion than became 
 his character, Joshua avoided farther allusion 
 to Benjie and Solomon, and proceeded to solicit 
 my attention to the natural objects around us, 
 which increased in beauty and interest, as, still con- 
 ducted by the meanders of the brook, we left the 
 common behind us, and entered a more cultivated 
 and enclosed country, where arable and pasture 
 ground was agreeably varied with groves and 
 hedges. Descending now almost close to the 
 stream, our course lay through a little gate, into 
 a pathway, kept with great neatness, the sides of 
 which were decorated with trees and flowering 
 shrubs of the hardier species ; until, ascending
 
 136 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 by a gentle slope, we issued from the grove, and 
 stood almost at once in front of a low but very 
 neat building, of an irregular form; and my 
 guide, shaking me cordially by the hand, made 
 me welcome to Mount Sharon. 
 
 The wood through which we had approached 
 this little mansion was thrown around it both on 
 the north and north-west, but breaking off into 
 different directions, was intersected by a few fields, 
 well watered and sheltered. The house fronted 
 to the south-east, and from thence the pleasure- 
 ground, or, I should rather say, the gardens, 
 sloped down to the water. I afterwards under- 
 stood that the father of the present proprietor had 
 a considerable taste for horticulture, which had 
 been inherited by his son, and had formed these 
 gardens, which, with their shaven turf, pleached 
 alleys, wildernesses, and exotic trees and shrubs, 
 greatly excelled anything of the kind which had 
 been attempted in the neighbourhood. 
 
 If there was a little vanity in the complacent 
 smile with which Joshua Geddes saw me gaze 
 with delight on a scene so different from the naked 
 waste we had that day traversed in company, it
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 137 
 
 might surely be permitted to one, who, cultivating 
 and improving the beauties of nature, had found 
 therein, as he said, bodily health and a pleasing 
 relaxation for the mind. At the bottom of the 
 extended gardens the brook wheeled round in a 
 wide semicircle, and was itself their boundary. 
 The opposite side was no part of Joshua's domain, 
 but the brook was there skirted by a precipitous 
 rock of limestone, which seemed a barrier of Na- 
 ture's own erecting around his little Eden of 
 beauty, comfort, and peace. 
 
 " But I must not let thee forget," said the 
 kind Quaker, " amidst thy admiration of these 
 beauties of our little inheritance, that thy break- 
 fast has been a light one." 
 
 So saying, Joshua conducted me to a small 
 sashed door, opening under a porch amply man- 
 tled by honeysuckle and clematis, into a parlour 
 of moderate size ; the furniture of which, in plain- 
 ness and excessive cleanliness, bore the charac- 
 teristic marks of the sect to which the owner be- 
 longed. 
 
 Thy father's Hannah is generally allowed to 
 be an exception to all Scottish housekeepers, and
 
 138 LATIMER TO FAIHFOK1). 
 
 stands unparalleled for cleanliness among the wo- 
 men of Auld Reekie ; but the cleanliness of Han- 
 nah is sluttishness, compared to the scrupulous 
 purifications of these people, who seem to carry 
 into the minor decencies of life that conscientious 
 rigour which they affect in their morals. 
 
 The parlour would have been gloomy, for the 
 windows were small and the ceiling low ; but the 
 present proprietor had rendered it more cheerful 
 by opening one end into a small conservatory, 
 roofed with glass, and divided from the parlour 
 by a partition of the same. I have never before 
 seen this very pleasing manner of uniting the 
 comforts of an apartment with the beauties of a 
 garden, and I wonder it is not more practised by 
 the great. Something of the kind is hinted at in 
 a paper of the Spectator. 
 
 As I walked towards the conservatory to view 
 it more closely, the parlour chimney engaged my 
 attention. It was a pile of massive stone, entire- 
 ly out of proportion to the size of the apartment. 
 On the front had once been an armorial scutcheon ; 
 for the hammer, or chisel, which had been em- 
 ployed to deface the shield and crest, had left
 
 LATIMER TO FAIEFORD. 139 
 
 uninjured the scroll beneath, which bore the 
 pious motto, " Trust in God." 1 " 1 Black-letter, you 
 know, was my early passion, and the tomb-stones 
 in the Grey-Friar's Church-yard early yielded up 
 to my knowledge as a decipherer what little they 
 could tell of the forgotten dead. 
 
 Joshua Geddes paused when he saw my eye 
 fixed on this relique of antiquity. " Thou canst 
 read it ?" he said. 
 
 I repeated the motto, and added, there seemed 
 vestiges of a date. 
 
 " It should be 1537," said he ; " for so long 
 ago, at the least computation, did my ancestors, in 
 the blinded times of Papistry, possess these lands, 
 and in that year did they build their house." 
 
 " It is an ancient descent," said I, looking with 
 respect upon the monument. " I am sorry the 
 arms have been defaced." 
 
 It was perhaps impossible for my friend, Qua- 
 ker as he was, to seem altogether void of respect 
 for the pedigree which he began to recount to 
 me, disclaiming all the while the vanity usually 
 connected with the subject ; in short, with the 
 air of mingled melancholy, regret, and conscious
 
 140 LATIMEll TO FAIRF011U. 
 
 dignity, with which Jack Fawkes used to tell us, 
 at College, of his ancestor's unfortunate connec- 
 tion with the Gunpowder-Plot. 
 
 " Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher," 
 thus harangued Joshua Geddes of Mount Sha- 
 ron, " if we ourselves are nothing in the sight 
 of Heaven, how much less than nothing must 
 be our derivation from rotten bones and moul- 
 dering dust, whose immortal spirits have long 
 since gone to their private account ? Yes, friend 
 Latimer, my ancestors were renowned among 
 the ravenous and bloodthirsty men who then 
 dwelt in this vexed country ; and so much were 
 they famed for successful freebooting, robbery, 
 and bloodshed, that they are said to have been 
 called Geddes, as likening them to the fish called 
 a Jack Pike, or Luce, and in our country tongue, 
 a Ged a goodly distinction truly for Christian 
 men ! Yet did they paint this shark of the fresh 
 waters upon their shields, and these profane 
 priests of a wicked idolatry, the empty boast- 
 ers called heralds, who make engraven images 
 of fishes, fowls, and four-footed beasts, that men 
 may fall down and worship them, assigned the
 
 LATIMEU TO FAIRFORD. 141 
 
 Ged for their device and escutcheon, and hewed 
 it over their chimneys, and placed it above their 
 tombs ; and the men were elated in mind, and 
 became yet more Ged-like, slaying, leading into 
 captivity, and dividing the spoil, until the place 
 where they dwelt obtained the name of Sharing- 
 Knowe, from the booty which was there divided 
 amongst them and their accomplices. But a 
 better judgment was given to my father's father, 
 Philip Geddes, who, after trying to light his 
 candle at some of the vain wild-fires then held 
 aloft at different meetings and steeple-houses, at 
 length obtained a spark from the lamp of the 
 blessed George Fox, who came into Scotland 
 spreading light among darkness, as he himself 
 hath written, as plentifully as fly the sparkles 
 from the hoof of the horse which gallops swiftly 
 along the stony road. 1 ' Here the good Quaker 
 interrupted himself with, " And that is very true, 
 I must go speedily to see after the condition of 
 Solomon." 
 
 A quaker servant here entered the room with 
 a tray, and inclining his head toward his mas- 
 ter, but not after the manner of one who bows,
 
 142 LATIMER TO FAIIIFOED. 
 
 said composedly, " Thou art welcome home, 
 friend Joshua, we expected thee not so early ; 
 but what hath befallen Solomon thy horse ?" 
 
 " What hath befallen him, indeed !" said my 
 friend ; " hath he not been returned hither by 
 the child whom they call Benjie ?" 
 
 " He hath,"" said his domestic, " but it was af- 
 ter a strange fashion ; for he came hither at a swift 
 and furious pace, and flung the child Benjie from 
 his back, upon the heap of dung which is in the 
 stable-yard." 
 
 " I am glad of it," said Joshua, hastily, " glad 
 of it, with all my heart and spirit ! But stay, he 
 is the child of the widow hath the boy any hurt? 11 
 
 " Not so," answered the servant, ** for he rose 
 and fled swiftly. 11 
 
 Joshua muttered something about a scourge, 
 and then inquired after Solomon's present condi- 
 tion. 
 
 " He seetheth like a steaming cauldron," an- 
 swered the servant; " and Bauldie, the lad, 
 walketh him about the yard with a halter, lest he 
 take cold." 
 
 Mr Geddes hastened to the stable-yard to view
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 143 
 
 personally the condition of his favourite, and I 
 followed, to offer my counsel as a jockey Don't 
 laugh, Alan, sure I have jockeyship enough to 
 assist a Quaker in this unpleasing predicament. 
 
 The lad who was leading the horse seemed to 
 be no Quaker, though his intercourse with the 
 family had given him a touch of their prim so- 
 briety of look and manner. He assured Joshua 
 that his horse had sustained no injury, and I even 
 hinted that the exercise would be of service to him. 
 Solomon himself neighed towards his master, 
 and rubbed his head against the good Quaker's 
 shoulder, as if to assure him of his being quite 
 well ; so that Joshua returned in comfort to his 
 parlour, where breakfast was now about to be dis- 
 played. 
 
 I have since learned that the affection of Jo- 
 shua for his pony is considered as inordinate by 
 some of his own sect ; and that he has been much 
 blamed for permitting it to be called by the name 
 of Solomon, or any other name whatsoever ; but 
 he has gained so much respect and influence 
 among them, that they overlook these foibles. 
 2
 
 144 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 I learned from him (whilst the old servant, 
 Jehoiachim, entering and re-entering, seemed to 
 make no end of the materials which he brought 
 in for breakfast) that his grandfather Philip, the 
 convert of George Fox, had suffered much from 
 the persecution to which these harmless devotees 
 were subjected on all sides during that intolerant 
 period, and much of their family estate had been 
 dilapidated. But better days dawned on Joshua's 
 father, who, connecting himself by marriage with 
 a wealthy family of Quakers in Lancashire, en- 
 gaged successfully in various branches of com- 
 merce, and redeemed the remnants of the pro- 
 perty, changing its name from the Border appel- 
 lation of Sharing-Knowe, to the evangelical ap- 
 pellation of Mount Sharon. 
 
 This Philip Geddes, as I before hinted, had 
 imbibed the taste for horticulture and the pur- 
 suits of the florist, which are not uncommon 
 among the peaceful sect he belonged to. He 
 had destroyed the remnants of the old peel-house, 
 substituting the modern mansion in its place ; and 
 while he reserved the hearth of his ancestors, in 
 s
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 145 
 
 memory of their hospitality, as also the pious 
 motto which they had chanced to assume, he 
 failed not to obliterate the worldly and military 
 emblems displayed upon the shield and helmet, 
 together with all their blazonry. 
 
 In a few minutes after Mr Geddes had con- 
 cluded the account of himself and his family, his 
 sister Rachel, the only surviving member of it, 
 entered the room. Her appearance is remarkably 
 pleasing, and although her age is certainly thirty 
 at least, she still retains the shape and motion of 
 an earlier period. The absence of everything like 
 fashion or ornament was, as is usual, atoned for 
 by the most perfect neatness and cleanliness of 
 her dress ; and her simple close cap was particu- 
 larly suited to eyes which had the softness and 
 simplicity of the dove's. Her features were also 
 extremely agreeable, but had suffered a little 
 through the ravages of that professed enemy to 
 beauty, the small-pox ; a disadvantage which was 
 in part counterbalanced by a well-formed mouth, 
 teeth like pearls, and a pleasing sobriety of smile, 
 that seemed to wish good here and hereafter to 
 every one she spoke to. You cannot make any 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 146 LATIMEU TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 of your vile inferences here, Alan, for I have 
 given a full-length picture of Rachel Geddes ; 
 so that you cannot say in this case, as in the let- 
 ter I have just received, that she was passed over 
 as a subject on which I feared to dilate. More 
 of this anon. 
 
 Well, we settled to our breakfast after a bless- 
 ing, or rather an extempore prayer, which Jo- 
 shua made upon the occasion, and which the spi- 
 rit moved him to prolong rather more than I felt 
 altogether agreeable. Then, Alan, there was such 
 a dispatching of the good things of the morning, 
 as you have not witnessed since you have seen 
 Darsie Latimer at breakfast. Tea and chocolate, 
 eggs, ham, and pastry, not forgetting the broiled 
 fish, disappeared with a celerity which seemed 
 to astonish the good-humoured Quakers, who 
 kept loading my plate with supplies, as if desi- 
 rous of seeing whether they could, by any possi- 
 bility, tire me out. One hint, however, I recei- 
 ved, which put me in mind where I was. Miss 
 Geddes had offered me some sweet-cake, which, 
 at the moment, I declined ; but presently after- 
 wards, seeing it within my reach, I naturally
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORO. 147 
 
 enough helped myself to a slice, and had just 
 deposited it beside my plate, when Joshua, mine 
 host, not with the air of Sancho's doctor, Tirtea 
 Fuera, but in a very calm and quiet manner, 
 lifted it away and replaced it on the dish, obser- 
 ving only, " Thou didst refuse it before, friend 
 Latimer."" 
 
 These good folks, Alan, make no allowance for 
 what your good father calls the Aberdeen-man's 
 privilege, of " taking his word again ;" or what 
 the wise call second thoughts. 
 
 Bating this slight hint, that I was among a 
 precise generation, there was nothing in my re- 
 ception that was peculiar unless, indeed, I were 
 to notice the solicitous and uniform kindness with 
 which all the attentions of my new friends were 
 seasoned, as if they were anxious to assure me 
 that the neglect of worldly compliments interdict- 
 ed by their sect, only served to render their hos- 
 pitality more sincere. At length my hunger was 
 satisfied, and the worthy Quaker, who, with looks 
 of great good-nature, had watched my progress, 
 thus addressed his sister : 
 
 " This young man, Rachel, hath last night so-
 
 14-8 LATIMER TO FAIIiFORD. 
 
 journed in the tents of our neighbour, whom men 
 call the Laird. I am sorry I had not met him 
 the evening before, for our neighbour's hospita- 
 lity is too unfrequently exercised to be well pre- 
 pared with the means of welcome." 
 
 " Nay, but, Joshua, 11 said Rachel, " if our 
 neighbour hath done a kindness, thou shouldst 
 not grudge him the opportunity; and if our young 
 friend hath fared ill for a night, he will the bet- 
 ter relish what Providence may send him of 
 better fare. 1 ' 
 
 " And that he may do so at leisure, 11 said Jo- 
 shua, " we will pray him, Rachel, to tarry a day 
 or twain with us : he is young, and is but now 
 entering upon the world, and our habitation may, 
 if he will, be like a resting-place, from which he 
 may look abroad upon the pilgrimage which he 
 must make, and the path which he has to travel. 
 What sayest thou, friend Latimer ? We con- 
 strain not our friends to our ways, and thou art, 
 I think, too wise to quarrel with us for following 
 our own fashions ; and if we should even give 
 thee a word of advice, thou wilt not, I think, 
 be angry, so that it is spoken in season.""
 
 LATIMER TO l-'AIRFOKD. 149 
 
 You know, Alan, how easily I am determi- 
 ned by anything resembling cordiality and so, 
 though a little afraid of the formality of my host 
 and hostess, I accepted their invitation, provi- 
 ding I could get some messenger to send to Shep- 
 herd's Bush for my servant and portmanteau. 
 
 " Why, truly, friend, 11 said Joshua, " thine 
 outward frame would be improved by cleaner 
 garments ; but I will do thine errand myself at 
 the Widow Gregson's house of reception, and 
 send thy lad hither with thy clothes. Meanwhile, 
 Rachel will shew thee these little gardens, and 
 then will put thee in some way of spending thy 
 time usefully, till our meal calls us together at 
 the second hour after noon. I bid thee farewell 
 for the present, having some space to walk, see- 
 ing I must leave the animal Solomon to his re- 
 freshing rest." 
 
 With these words, Mr Joshua Geddes with- 
 drew. Some ladies we have known would have 
 felt, or at least affected, reserve or embarrassment, 
 at being left to do the honours of the grounds to 
 (it will be out, Alan) -a smart young fellow an
 
 150 LAT1MEK TO FAIRFOHD. 
 
 entire stranger. She went out for a few minutes, 
 and returned in her plain cloak and bonnet, with 
 her beaver-gloves, prepared to act as my guide, 
 with as much simplicity as if she had been to 
 wait upon thy father. So forth I sallied with 
 my fair Quaker. 
 
 If the house at Mount Sharon be merely a 
 plain and convenient dwelling, of moderate size, 
 and small pretensions, the gardens and offices, 
 though not extensive, might rival an earl's in 
 point of care and expense. Rachel carried me 
 first to her own favourite resort, a poultry yard, 
 stocked with variety of domestic fowls, of the 
 more rare as well as the more ordinary kinds, 
 furnished with every accommodation which may 
 suit their various habits. A rivulet which spread 
 into a pond for the convenience of the aquatic 
 birds, trickled over gravel as it passed through 
 the yards dedicated to the land poultry, which 
 were thus amply supplied with the means they 
 use for digestion. 
 
 All these creatures seemed to recognize the 
 presence of their mistress, and some especial fa-
 
 LATIMKK TO FAIRFORD. 151 
 
 vourites hastened to her feet, and continued to 
 follow her as far as their limits permitted. She 
 pointed out their peculiarities and qualities, with 
 the discrimination of one who had made natural 
 history her study ; and I own I never looked 
 on barn-door fowls with so much interest before 
 at least until they were boiled or roasted. I 
 could not help asking the trying question, how 
 she could order the execution of any of the crea- 
 tures of which she seemed so careful. 
 
 " It was painful," she said, " but it was ac- 
 cording to the law of their being. They must die ; 
 but they knew not when death was approaching; 
 and in making them comfortable while they lived, 
 we contributed to their happiness as much as the 
 conditions of their existence permitted to us." 
 
 I am not quite of her mind, Alan. I do not 
 believe either pigs or poultry would admit that 
 the chief end of their being was to be killed and 
 eaten. However, I did not press the argument, 
 from which my Quakeress seemed rather desirous 
 to escape ; for, conducting me to the green-house, 
 which was extensive, and filled with the choicest 
 plants, she pointed out an aviary which occupied
 
 152 LATlMEli TO 1-AIKFO11D. 
 
 the farther end, where, she said, she employed 
 herself with attending the inhabitants, without 
 being disturbed with any painful recollections 
 concerning their future state. 
 
 I will not trouble you with an account of the 
 various hot-houses and gardens, and their con- 
 tents. No small sum of money must have been 
 expended in erecting and maintaining them in 
 the exquisite degree of good order which they 
 exhibited. The family, I understood, were con- 
 nected with that of the celebrated Millar, and 
 had imbibed his taste for flowers, and for horti- 
 culture; But instead of murdering botanical 
 names, I will rather conduct you to the policy, 
 or pleasure-garden, which the taste of Joshua, or 
 his father, had extended on the banks betwixt the 
 house and river. This also, in contradistinction to 
 the prevailing simplicity, was ornamented in an 
 unusual degree. There were various compart- 
 ments, the connection of which was well managed, 
 and although the whole ground did not exceed 
 five or six acres, it was so much varied as to seem 
 four times larger. The space contained close 
 alleys and open walks ; a very pretty artificial
 
 LATIMER TO FAIltFOKD. 153 
 
 waterfall ; a fountain also, consisting of a con- 
 siderable jet-d'eau, whose streams glittered in the 
 sun-beams, and exhibited a -continual rainbow. 
 There was a cabinet of verdure, as the French call 
 it, to cool the summer heat, and there was a terrace 
 sheltered from the north-east by a noble holly 
 hedge, with all its glittering spears, where you 
 might have the full advantage of the sun in the 
 clear frosty days of winter. 
 
 I know that you, Alan, will condemn all this 
 as bad and antiquated ; for, ever since Landseer 
 has described the Leasowes,and talked of Brown's 
 imitations of nature, and Horace Walpole's late 
 Essay on Gardening, you are all for simple na- 
 ture condemn walking up and down stairs in 
 the open air, and declare for wood and wilder- 
 ness. But ne quid nimis. I would not deface 
 a scene of natural grandeur or beauty, by the 
 introduction of crowded artificial decorations ; 
 yet such may, I think, be very interesting, where 
 the situation otherwise has no particular beauties. 
 So that when I have a country-house, (who can 
 say how soon ?) you may look for grottoes, and 
 cascades, and fountains ; nay, if you vex me by
 
 154 LAT1MER TO FAIBFOKD. 
 
 contradiction, perhaps I may go the length of a 
 temple so provoke me not, for you see of what 
 enormities I am capable. 
 
 At any rate, Alan, had you condemned as ar- 
 tificial the rest of Friend Geddes's grounds, there 
 is a willow- walk by the very verge of the stream, 
 so sad, so solemn, and so silent, that it must have 
 commanded your admiration. The brook, re- 
 strained at the ultimate boundary of the grounds 
 by a natural dam-dike or ledge of rock, seem- 
 ed, even in its present swoln state, scarcely to 
 glide along ; and the pale willow-trees, dropping 
 their long branches into the stream, gather- 
 ed around them little coronals of the foam 
 that floated down from the more rapid stream 
 above. The high rock which formed the opposite 
 bank of the brook, was seen dimly through the 
 branches, and its pale and splintered front, gar- 
 landed with long streamers of briars and other 
 creeping plants, seemed a barrier between the 
 quiet path which we trod, and the toiling and 
 bustling world beyond. The path itself, follow- 
 ing the sweep of the stream, made a very gentle 
 curve ; enough, however, completely to hide the
 
 LATIMEll TO FAIRFORD. 155 
 
 end of the walk, until you arrived at it. A 
 deep and sullen sound, which increased as you 
 walked forward, prepared you for this termina- 
 tion, which was indeed only a plain root-seat, 
 from which you looked on a fall of about six or 
 seven feet, where the brook flung itself over the 
 dike of natural rock which I have already men- 
 tioned. 
 
 The quiet and twilight seclusion of this walk 
 rendered it a fit scene for confidential communing; 
 and having nothing more interesting to say to my 
 fair Quaker, I took the liberty of questioning her 
 about the Laird ; for you are, or ought to be, 
 aware, that next to discussing the affairs of the 
 heart, the fair sex are most interested in those of 
 their neighbours. 
 
 I did not conceal either my curiosity, or the 
 check which it had received from Joshua, and I 
 saw that my companion answered with embar- 
 rassment. " I must not speak otherwise than 
 truly," said she ; " and therefore I tell thee, that 
 my brother dislikes, and that I fear, the man of 
 whom thou hast asked me. Perhaps we are both 
 wrong but he is a man of violence, and hath
 
 156 LATIMER TO FAIltFOKU. 
 
 great influence over many, who, following the 
 trade of sailors and fishermen, become as rude as 
 the elements with which they contend. He hath no 
 certain name among them, which is not unusual, 
 their rude fashion being to distinguish each other 
 by nicknames; and they have called him the Laird 
 of the Lakes, (not remembering there should be 
 no one called Lord, save one only,) in idle deri- 
 sion ; the pools of salt water left by the tide 
 among the sands being called the Lakes of Sol- 
 way." 
 
 " Has he no other revenue than he derives 
 from these sands ?" I asked. 
 
 " That I cannot answer," replied Rachel ; 
 " men say that he wants not money, though he 
 lives like an ordinary fisherman, and that he im- 
 parts freely of his means to the poor around him. 
 They intimate, that he is a man of consequence, 
 once deeply engaged in the unhappy affair of the 
 rebellion, and even still too much in danger from 
 the government to assume his own name. He is 
 often absent from his cottage at Broken-burn- 
 cliffs, for weeks and months." 
 
 " I should have thought," said I, " that the
 
 LATIMEIl TO FAIRF011D. 157 
 
 government would scarce, at this time of day, 
 be likely to proceed against any one even of the 
 most obnoxious rebels. Many years have passed 
 away " 
 
 " It is true," she replied ; " yet such persons 
 may understand that their being connived at 
 depends on their living in obscurity. But in- 
 deed there can nothing certain be known amongst 
 these rude people. The truth is not in them 
 there are few but participate in the unlawful 
 trade betwixt these parts and the neighbouring 
 shore of England ; and they are familiar with 
 every species of falsehood and deceit." 
 
 " It is a pity," I remarked, " your brother 
 should have neighbours of such a description, 
 especially as I understand he is at some variance 
 with them." 
 
 " Where, when, and about what matter ?" an- 
 swered Miss Geddes, with an eager and timorous 
 anxiety, which made me regret having touched 
 on the subject. 
 
 I told her, in a way as little alarming as I could 
 devise, the purport of what passed betwixt this 
 Laird of the Lakes and her brother, at their morn- 
 ing's interview.
 
 158 LATIMF.R TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 " You affright me much," answered she ; " it 
 is this very circumstance which has scared me in 
 the watches of the night. When my brother 
 Joshua withdrew from an active share in the com- 
 mercial concerns of my father, being satisfied with 
 the portion of worldly substance which he al- 
 ready possessed, there were one or two under- 
 takings in which he retained an interest, either 
 because his withdrawing might have been preju- 
 dicial to friends, or because he wished to retain 
 some mode of occupying his time. Amongst the 
 more important of these, is a fishing station on 
 the coast, where, by certain improved modes of 
 erecting snares, opening at the advance of the 
 tide, and shutting at the reflux, many more fish 
 are taken than can be destroyed by those, who, 
 like the men of Broken-burn, use only the boat- 
 net and spear, or fishing-rod. They complain of 
 these tide-nets, as men call them, as an innova- 
 tion, and pretend to a right to remove and de- 
 stroy them by the strong hand. I fear me, this 
 man of violence, whom they call the Laird, will 
 execute these his threats, which cannot be with- 
 out both loss and danger to my brother."
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 159 
 
 " Mr Geddes," said I, " ought to apply to the 
 civil Magistrate ; there are soldiers at Dumfries 
 who would be detached for his protection. 1 " 
 
 " Thou speakest, friend Latimer," answered 
 the lady, " as one who is still in the gall of bit- 
 terness and bond of iniquity. God forbid that we 
 should endeavour to preserve nets of flax and 
 stakes of wood, or the mammon of gain which 
 they procure for us, by the hands of men of war, 
 and at the risk of spilling human blood !" 
 
 " I respect your scruples," I replied ; " but 
 since such is your way of thinking, your brother 
 ought to avert the danger by compromise or sub- 
 mission." 
 
 " Perhaps it would be best," answered Rachel ; 
 " but what can / say ? Even in the best train- 
 ed temper there may remain some leaven of the 
 old Adam ; and I know not whether it is this or 
 a better spirit that maketh my brother Joshua 
 determine, that though he will not resist force by 
 force, neither will he yield up his right to mere 
 threats, or encourage wrong to others by yielding 
 to menaces. His partners, he says, confide in his 
 steadiness ; and that he must not disappoint them 
 12
 
 160 I.ATIMER TO FAIRFOUD. 
 
 by yielding up their right for the fear of the 
 threats of man, whose breath is in his nostrils." 
 
 This observation convinced me that the spirit 
 of the old sharers of the spoil was not utterly 
 departed even from the bosom of the peaceful 
 Quaker ; and I could not help confessing inter- 
 nally that Joshua had the right, when he averred 
 that there was as much courage in sufferance as 
 in exertion. 
 
 As we approached the further end of the wil- 
 low-walk, the sullen and continuous sound of the 
 dashing waters became still more and more audi- 
 ble, and at length rendered it difficult for us to 
 communicate with each other. The conversation 
 dropped, but apparently my companion conti- 
 nued to dwell upon the apprehensions which it 
 had excited. At the bottom of the walk, we 
 obtained a view of the cascade, where the swoln 
 brook flung itself in foam and tumult over the na- 
 tural barrier of rock, which seemed in vain to 
 
 
 
 attempt to bar its course. I gazed with delight, 
 and turning to express my sentiments to my com- 
 panion, I observed that she had folded her hands 
 in an attitude of sorrowful resignation, which 
 
 7
 
 LATIMER TO FAIKFOltl). 161 
 
 shewed her thoughts were far from the scene 
 which lay before her. When she saw that her ab- 
 straction was observed, she resumed her former 
 placidity of manner ; and having given me suffi- 
 cient time to admire this termination of our sober 
 and secluded walk, proposed that we should return 
 to the house through her brother's farm. " Even 
 we Quakers, as we are called, have our little 
 pride," she said ; " and my brother Joshua would 
 not forgive me, were I not to shew thee the fields 
 which he taketh delight to cultivate, after the 
 newest and best fashion ; for which, I promise 
 thee, he hath received much praise from good 
 judges, as well as some ridicule from those who 
 think it folly to improve on the customs of our 
 ancestors. 1 ' 
 
 As she spoke, she opened a low door, leading 
 through a moss and ivy-covered wall, the boun- 
 dary of the pleasure-ground, into the open fields ; 
 through which we moved by a convenient path, 
 leading, with good taste and simplicity, by stile 
 and hedge-row, through pasturage, and arable, 
 and woodland ; so that, in all ordinary weather, 
 
 VOL, I. L
 
 162 LATIMEB. TO FAIKFOttfi. 
 
 the good man might, without even soiling his 
 shoes, perform his perambulation round the farm. 
 There were seats also, on which to rest ; and 
 though not adorned with inscriptions, nor quite 
 so frequent in occurrence as those mentioned in 
 the account of the Leasowes, their situation was 
 always chosen with respect to some distant pro- 
 spect to be commanded, or some home- view to be 
 enjoyed. 
 
 But what struck me most in Joshua's domain, 
 was the quantity and the tameness of the game. 
 The hen partridge scarce abandoned the roost 
 at the foot of the hedge where she had assem- 
 bled her covey, though the path went close beside 
 her ; and the hare, remaining on her form, gazed 
 at us as we past, with her full dark eye, or, rising 
 lazily and hopping to a little distance, stood erect 
 to look at us with more curiosity than apprehen- 
 sion. I observed to Miss Geddes the extreme 
 tameness of these timid and shy animals, and she 
 informed me that their confidence arose from 
 protection in the summer, and relief during the 
 winter. 
 
 " They are pets, 1 ' she said, " of my brother,
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 163 
 
 who considers them as the better entitled to Ms 
 kindness that they are a race persecuted toy the 
 world in general. He denieth himself/ 1 she said, 
 " even the company of a dog, that these creatures 
 may here at least enjoy undisturbed security. Yet 
 even this harmless or humane propensity, or hu- 
 mour, hath given offence," she added, " to our 
 dangerous neighbours." 
 
 She explained this, by telling me that my host 
 of the preceding night was remarkable for his at- 
 tachment to field-sports, which he pursued with- 
 out much regard to the wishes of the individuals 
 over whose property he followed them. The un- 
 defined mixture of respect and fear with which 
 he was generally regarded, induced most of the 
 neighbouring landholders to connive at what they 
 would perhaps in another have punished as tres- 
 passes; but Joshua Geddes would not permit 
 the intrusion of any one upon his premises, and 
 as he had before offended several country neigh- 
 bours, who, because he would neither shoot him- 
 self nor permit others to do so, compared him to 
 the dog in the manger, so he now aggravated the 
 displeasure which the Laird of the Lakes had
 
 164 LATIMEll TO FAIRFOED. 
 
 already conceived against him, by positively de- 
 barring him from pursuing his sport over his 
 grounds. " So that," said Rachel Geddes, " I 
 sometimes wish our lot had been cast elsewhere 
 than in these pleasant borders, where, if we had 
 less of beauty around us, we might have had a 
 neighbourhood of peace and good-will." 
 
 We at length returned to the house, where 
 Miss Geddes shewed me a small study, contain- 
 ing a little collection of books, in two separate 
 presses. 
 
 " These," said she, pointing to the smaller 
 press, " will, if thou bestowest thy leisure upon 
 them, do thee good ; and these," pointing to the 
 other and larger cabinet, " can, I believe, do thee 
 little harm. Some of our people do indeed hold, 
 that every writer who is not with us is against 
 us ; but brother Joshua is mitigated in his opi- 
 nions, and corresponded! with our friend John 
 Scott of Am well, who hath himself constructed 
 verses well approved of, even in the world. I 
 wish thee many good things till our family meet 
 at the hour of dinner." 
 
 Left alone, I tried both collections; the first
 
 I.ATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 165 
 
 consisted entirely of religious and controversial 
 tracts, and the latter formed a small selection of 
 history, and of moral writers, both in prose and 
 verse. 
 
 Neither promising much amusement, thou 
 hast, in these close pages, the fruits of my tedi- 
 ousness; and truly, I think, writing history 
 (one's self being the subject) is as amusing as 
 reading that of foreign countries, at any time. 
 
 Sam, still more drunk than sober, arrived in 
 due time with my portmanteau, and enabled me 
 to put my dress into order, better befitting this 
 temple of cleanliness and decorum, where, (to 
 conclude,) I believe I will be a sojourner for 
 more days than one. 
 
 P. S. I have noted your adventure, as you 
 home-bred youths may perhaps term it, con- 
 cerning the visit of your doughty Laird. We 
 travellers hold such an incident of no great con- 
 sequence, though it may serve to embellish the 
 uniform life of Brown's Square. But art thou 
 not ashamed to attempt to interest one who is 
 seeing the world at large, and studying human
 
 166 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 nature on a large scale, by so bald a narrative ? 
 Why, what does it amount to, after all, but 
 that a Tory Laird dined with a Whig Lawyer ? 
 no very uncommon matter, especially as you state 
 Mr Merries to have lost the estate, though re- 
 taining the designation. The Laird behaves with 
 haughtiness and impertinence nothing out of 
 character in that : Is not kicked down stairs, as he 
 ought to have been, were Alan Fairford half the 
 man that he would wish his friends to think him. 
 Ay, but then, as the young lawyer, instead of 
 shewing his friend the door, chose to make use 
 of it himself, he overheard the Laird aforesaid 
 ask the old lawyer concerning Darsie Latimer 
 no doubt earnestly inquiring after the handsome, 
 accomplished inmate of his family, who has so 
 lately made Themis his bow, and declined the 
 honour of following her farther. You laugh at 
 me for my air-drawn castles ; but confess, have 
 they not surer footing, in general, than two words 
 spoken by such a man as Herries ? And yet 
 and yet, I would rally the matter off, Alan ; but 
 in dark nights, even the glow-worm becomes an 
 object of lustre, and to one plunged in my un-
 
 LATIMEIl TO FAIRFORD. 167 
 
 certainty and ignorance, the slightest gleam that 
 promises intelligence is interesting. My life is 
 like the subterranean river in the Peak of Derby, 
 visible only where it crosses the celebrated cavern. 
 I am here, and thus much I know ; but where 
 I have sprung from, or whither my course of life 
 is like to tend, who shall tell me ? Your father, 
 too, seemed interested and alarmed, and talked 
 of writing ; would to Heaven he may ! I send 
 daily to the post-town for letters.
 
 C 168 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 ALAN FAIRFORD TO DARSIE LATIMER. 
 
 THOU may'st clap thy wings and crow as thou 
 pleasest. You go in search of adventures, but 
 adventures come to me unsought for; and oh 
 in what a pleasing shape came mine, since it came 
 in form of a client and a fair client to boot ! 
 What think you of that, Darsie, you who are 
 such a sworn squire of dames? Will this not 
 match my adventures with thine, that hunt sal- 
 mon on horseback, and eclipse the history of a 
 whole tribe of Broadbrims ? but I must proceed 
 methodically. 
 
 When I returned to-day from the College, I 
 was surprised to see a broad grin distending the 
 adust countenance of the faithful James Wilki n-
 
 LATUIER TO FAIRFOED. 169 
 
 son, which, as the circumstance seldom happens 
 above once a-year, was matter of some surprise. 
 Moreover, he had a knowing glance with his eye, 
 which I should have as soon expected from a 
 dumb waiter an article of furniture to which 
 James, in his usual state, may be happily assimi- 
 lated. " What the devil is the matter, James ?" 
 
 " The devil may be in the matter, for aught I 
 ken," said James, with another provoking grin ; 
 " for here has been a woman calling for you, 
 Maister Alan." 
 
 " A woman calling for me ?" said I in sur- 
 prise ; for you know well, that excepting old Aunt 
 Peggie, who comes to dinner of a Sunday, and 
 the still older Lady Bedrooket, who calls ten 
 times a-year for the quarterly payment of her 
 jointure of four hundred merks, a female scarce 
 approaches our threshold, as my father visits all 
 his female clients at their own lodgings. James 
 protested, however, that there had been a lady 
 calling, and for me. * As bonny a lass as I have 
 seen,' added James, * since I was in the Fusiliers, 
 and kept company with Peg Baxter.' Thou
 
 170 FAIRFORD TO I.ATIMER. 
 
 knowest all James's gay recollections go back to 
 the period of his military service, the years he has 
 spent in ours having probably been dull enough. 
 
 " Did the lady leave no name nor place of ad- 
 dress r 
 
 " No," replied James ; " but she asked when 
 you wad be at hame, and I appointed her for 
 twelve o'clock, when the house wad be quiet, and 
 your father at the Bank." 
 
 " For shame, James ! how can you think my 
 father's being at home or abroad could be of con- 
 sequence ? The lady is of course a decent per- 
 son." 
 
 " I'se uphaud her that, sir she is nane of your 
 -~>~whew QHere James supplied a blank with a 
 lowwhistle] butldidna ken my maister makes 
 an unco wark if a woman comes here." 
 
 I passed into my own room, not ill-pleased 
 that my father was absent, notwithstanding I 
 had thought it proper to rebuke James for ha- 
 ving so contrived it. I disarranged my books, to 
 give them the appearance of a graceful confusion 
 on the table, and laying my foils (useless since
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 171 
 
 your departure) across the mantle-piece, that the 
 lady might see I was tamMarte quam Mercuric 
 I endeavoured to dispose my dress, so as to resem- 
 ble an elegant morning dishabille gave my hair 
 the general shade of powder which marks the gen- 
 tleman laid my watch and seals on the table, to 
 mark that I understood the value of time ; and 
 when I had made all these arrangements, of which 
 I am a little ashamed when I think of them, I 
 had nothing better to do than to watch the dial- 
 plate till the index pointed to noon. Five mi- 
 nutes elapsed which I allowed for variation of 
 clocks five minutes more rendered me anxious 
 and doubtful and five minutes more would have 
 made me impatient. 
 
 Laugh as thou wilt ; but remember, Darsie, I 
 was a lawyer, expecting his first client a young 
 man, how strictly bred up I need not remind you, 
 expecting a private interview with a young and 
 beautiful woman. But ere the third term of five 
 minutes had elapsed, the door-bell was heard to 
 tinkle low and modestly, as if touched by some 
 timid hand. 
 
 James Wilkinson, swift in nothing, is, as thou
 
 172 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 knowest, peculiarly slow in answering the door- 
 bell ; and I reckoned on five minutes good, ere 
 his solemn step should have ascended the stair. 
 Time enough, thought I, for a peep through the 
 blinds, and was hastening to the window accord- 
 ingly. But I reckoned without my host; for 
 James, who had his own curiosity as well as I, 
 was lying perdu in the lobby, ready to open at 
 the first tinkle ; and there was, " This way, 
 ma'am Yes, ma'am The lady, Mr Alan, 11 before 
 I could get to the chair in which I proposed to 
 be discovered, seated in all legal dignity. The 
 consciousness of being half caught in the act of 
 peeping, joined to that awkward bashfulness of 
 which I am told the law will soon free me, kept 
 me standing on the floor in some confusion ; 
 while the lady, disconcerted on her part, remain- 
 ed on the threshold of the room. James Wilkin- 
 son, who had his senses most about him, and was 
 perhaps willing to prolong his stay in the apart- 
 ment, busied himself in setting a chair for the 
 lady, and recalled me to my good-breeding by 
 the hint. I invited her to take possession of it, 
 and bid James withdraw.
 
 FAIRFOHD TO LATIMER. 173 
 
 My visitor was undeniably a lady, and proba- 
 bly considerably above the ordinary rank very 
 modest, too, judging from the mixture of grace 
 and timidity with which she moved, and at my 
 entreaty sat down. Her dress was, I should sup- 
 pose, both handsome and fashionable ; but it was 
 much concealed by a walking-cloak of green silk, 
 fancifully embroidered ; in which, though heavy 
 for the season, her person was enveloped, and 
 which, moreover, was furnished with a hood. 
 
 The devil take that hood, Darsie ! for I was 
 just able to distinguish that, pulled as it was 
 over the face, it concealed from me, as I was con- 
 vinced, one of the prettiest countenances I have 
 seen, and which, from a sense of embarrassment, 
 seemed to be crimsoned with a deep blush. I 
 could see her complexion was beautiful her chin 
 finely turned her lips coral and her teeth ri- 
 vals to ivory. But further the deponent saycth 
 not ; for a clasp of gold, ornamented with a 
 sapphire, closed the envious mantle under the in- 
 cognita's throat, and the cursed hood concealed 
 entirely the upper part of the face. 
 
 I ought to have spoke first, that is certain ; but
 
 174 FAIRFORD TO LATIMEK. 
 
 ere I could get my phrases well arranged, the 
 young lady, rendered desperate, I suppose, by 
 my hesitation, opened the conversation herself. 
 
 " I fear I am an intruder, sir I expected to 
 meet an elderly gentleman. 1 ' 
 
 This brought me to myself. " My father, 
 madam, perhaps. But you inquired for Alan 
 Fairford my father's name is Alexander." 
 
 " It is Mr Alan Fairford, undoubtedly, with 
 whom I wished to speak," she said, with greater 
 confusion ; " but I was told that he was advan- 
 ced in life." 
 
 " Some mistake, madam, I presume, betwixt 
 my father and myself our Christian names have 
 the same initials, though the terminations are dif- 
 ferent. I I I would esteem it a most fortunate 
 mistake if I could have the honour of supplying 
 my father's place in anything that could be of 
 service to you." 
 
 ** You are very obliging, sir." A pause, du- 
 ring which she seemed undetermined whether to 
 rise or sit still. 
 
 " I am just about to be called to the bar, ma- 
 dam," said I, in hopes to remove her scruples to
 
 FAIKFOHD TO LATIHKR. 175 
 
 open her case to me ; " and if my advice or opi- 
 nion could be of the slightest use although I 
 cannot presume to say that they are much to be 
 depended upon, yet " 
 
 The lady arose. " I am truly sensible of your 
 kindness, sir ; and I have no doubt of your ta- 
 lents. I will be very plain with you it is you 
 whom I came to visit ; although, now that we are 
 met, I find it will be much better that I should 
 commit my communication to writing." 
 
 " I hope, madam, you will not be so cruel 
 so tantalizing, I would say. Consider you are 
 my first client your business my first consulta- 
 tiondo not do rne the displeasure of withdraw- 
 ing your confidence because I am a few years 
 younger than you seem to have expected My 
 attention shall make amends for my want of ex- 
 perience." 
 
 " I have no doubt of either," said the lady, in 
 a grave tone, calculated to restrain the air of gal- 
 lantry with which I had endeavoured to address 
 her. u But when you have received my letter, 
 you will find good reasons assigned why a writ- 
 16
 
 176 FAIEFORI) TO LATIMER. 
 
 ten communication will best suit my purpose. I 
 wish you, sir, a good morning." And she left 
 the apartment, her poor baffled counsellor scra- 
 ping, and bowing, and apologizing for anything 
 that might have been disagreeable to her, al- 
 though the front of my offence seems to be my 
 having been discovered to be younger than my 
 father. 
 
 The door was opened out she wentwalked 
 along the pavement, turned down the close, and 
 put the sun I believe into her pocket when she 
 disappeared, so suddenly did dulness and dark- 
 ness sink down on the square, when she was no 
 longer visible. I stood for a moment as if 1 had 
 been senseless, not recollecting what a fund of en- 
 tertainment I must have supplied to our watch- 
 ful friends on the other side of the green. Then 
 it darted on my mind that I might dog her, and 
 ascertain at least who or what she was. Off I set 
 ran down the close, where she was no longer to 
 be seen, and demanded of one of the dyer's lads 
 whether he had seen a lady go down the close, or 
 had observed which way she turned. 
 
 15
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 177 
 
 " A leddy !" said the dyer, staring at me with 
 his rainbow countenance. " Mr Alan, what takes 
 you out, rinning like daft, without your hat ?" 
 
 " The devil take my hat !" answered I, running 
 back, however, in quest of it ; snatched it up, and 
 again sallied forth. But as I reached the head of 
 the close once more, I had sense enough to recol- 
 lect that all pursuit would be now in vain. Be- 
 sides, I saw my friend, the journeyman dyer, in 
 close confabulation with a pea-green personage of 
 his own profession, and was conscious, like Scrub, 
 that they talked of me, because they laughed con- 
 sumedly. I had no mind, by a second sudden 
 appearance, to confirm the report that Advocate 
 Fairford was " gaen daft," which had probably 
 spread from Campbell's close-foot to the Meal- 
 market Stairs ; and so slunk back within my own 
 hole again. 
 
 My first employment was to remove all traces 
 of that elegant and fanciful disposition of my 
 effects, from which I had hoped for so much 
 credit ; for I was now ashamed and angry at ha- 
 ving thought an instant about the mode of re- 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 178 FATKFOllD TO LATIMEll. 
 
 ceiving a visit which had commenced so agree- 
 ably, but terminated in a manner so unsatisfac- 
 tory. I put my folios in their places threw the 
 foils into the dressing-closet tormenting myself 
 all the while with the fruitless doubt, whether I 
 had missed an opportunity or escaped a strata- 
 gem, or whether the young person had been real- 
 ly startled, as she seemed to intimate, by the ex- 
 treme youth of her intended legal adviser. The 
 mirror was not unnaturally called in to aid ; and 
 that cabinet-counsellor pronounced me rather 
 short, thick-set, with a cast of features fitter, I 
 trust, for the bar than the ball not handsome 
 enough for blushing virgins to pine for my sake, 
 or even to invent sham cases to bring them to my 
 chambers yet not ugly enough either to scare 
 those away who came on real business dark, to 
 be sure, but nigri sunt liyacinihi there are 
 pretty things to be said in favour of that com- 
 plexion. 
 
 At length as common sense will get the bet- 
 ter in all cases, when a man will but give it fair 
 play I began to stand convicted in my own mind, 
 as an ass before the interview, for having expect-
 
 FATKFOKD TO LATIMKH. 179 
 
 ed too much an ass during the interview, for 
 having failed to extract the lady's real purpose 
 and an especial ass, now that it was over, for think- 
 ing so much about it. But I can think of nothing 
 else, and therefore I am determined to think of 
 this to some good purpose. 
 
 You remember Murtough CTHara's defence of 
 the Catholic doctrine of confession ; because, " by 
 his soul, his sins were always a great burthen to 
 his mind, till he had told them to the priest ; and 
 once confessed, he never thought more about 
 them." I have tried his receipt, therefore ; and 
 having poured my secret mortification into thy 
 trusty ear, I will think no more about this maid 
 of the mist, 
 
 Who, with no face, as 'twere, outfaced me. 
 
 four o'clock. 
 
 Plague on her green mantle, she can be no- 
 thing better than a fairy ; she keeps possession 
 of my head yet ! All during dinner time I was 
 terribly absent ; but, luckily, my father gave the 
 whole credit of my reverie to the abstract nature
 
 180 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 of the doctrine, Vinco vincentem, ergo mnco te ; 
 upon which brocard of law the Professor this 
 morning lectured. So I got an early dismissal 
 to my own crib, and here am I studying, in one 
 sense, vincere vincentem, to get the better of the 
 silly passion of curiosity I think I think it 
 amounts to nothing else which has taken such 
 possession of my imagination, and is perpetually 
 worrying me with the question will she write or 
 no ? She will not she will not ! So says Reason, 
 and adds, Why should she take the trouble to 
 enter into correspondence with one, who, in- 
 stead of a bold, alert, prompt gallant, proved a 
 chicken-hearted boy, and left her the whole 
 awkwardness of explanation, which he should 
 have met half-way ? But then, says Fancy, she 
 will write, for she was not a bit that sort of per- 
 son whom you, Mr Reason, in your wisdom, take 
 her to be. She was disconcerted enough, with- 
 out my adding to her distress by any impudent 
 conduct on my part. And she will write, for 
 By Heaven, she HAS written, Darsie, and 
 with a vengeance ! Here is her letter, thrown 
 into the kitchen by a cadie, too faithful to be
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 181 
 
 bribed, either by money or whiskey, to say more 
 than that he received it, with sixpence, from an 
 ordinary-looking woman, as he was plying on his 
 station near the Cross. 
 
 " FOR ALAN FAIRFORD, ESQUIRE, BARRISTER. 
 " SIR, 
 
 " Excuse my mistake of to-day. I had ac- 
 cidentally learned that Mr Darsie Latimer had 
 an intimate friend and associate in a Mr A. Fair- 
 ford. When I inquired for such a person, he 
 was pointed out to me at the Cross, (as, I think, 
 the Exchange of your city is called,) in the cha- 
 racter of a respectable elderly man your father, 
 as I now understand. On inquiry at Brown's 
 Square, where I understood he resided, I used 
 the full name of Alan, which naturally occasion, 
 ed you the trouble of this day's visit. Upon 
 further inquiry, I am led to believe that you will 
 be the person most active in the matter td which 
 I am now about to direct your attention ; and I 
 regret much that circumstances, arising out of my
 
 182 FA1RFORD TO LA TIMER. 
 
 own particular situation, prevent my communi- 
 cating to you personally what I now apprize you 
 of in this matter. 
 
 " Your friend, Mr Darsie Latimer, is in a si- 
 tuation of considerable danger. You are doubtless 
 aware, that he has been cautioned not to trust 
 himself in England Now, if he has not ab- 
 solutely transgressed this friendly injunction, he 
 has at least approached as nearly to the menaced 
 danger as he could do, consistently with the letter 
 of the prohibition. He has chosen his abode in 
 a neighbourhood very perilous to him ; and it 
 is only by a speedy return to Edinburgh, or at 
 least by a removal to some more remote part of 
 Scotland, that he can escape the machinations of 
 those whose enmity he has to fear. I must speak 
 in mystery, but my words are not the less certain; 
 and, I believe, you know enough of your friend's 
 fortunes to be aware, that I could not write this 
 much without being even more intimate with 
 them than you are. 
 
 " If he cannot, or will not, take the advice here 
 given, it is my opinion that you should join him, 
 if possible, without delay, and urge, by your per-
 
 FAIRFOKD TO LATIMEB. 183 
 
 sonal presence and entreaty, the arguments which 
 may prove ineffectual in writing. One word more, 
 and I implore of your candour to take it as it is 
 meant. No one supposes that Mr Fairford's zeal 
 in his friend's service, needs to be quickened by 
 mercenary motives. But report says, that Mr 
 Alan Fairford not having yet entered on his pro- 
 fessional career, may, in such a case as this, want 
 the means, though he cannot want the inclination, 
 to act with promptitude. The enclosed note, 
 Mr Alan Fairford must be pleased to consider as 
 his first professional emolument; and she who 
 sends it hopes it will be the omen of unbounded 
 success, though the fee comes from a hand so 
 unknown as that of 
 
 " GREEN MANTLE." 
 
 A bank note of 20 was the enclosure, and 
 the whole incident left me speechless with asto- 
 nishment. I am not able to read over the begin- 
 ning of my own letter, which forms the intro- 
 duction to this extraordinary communication. I 
 only know that, though mixed with a quantity of 
 foolery, (God knows very much different from my
 
 184 FAIIIFORB TO LATIMER. 
 
 present feelings,) it gives an account sufficiently 
 accurate, of the mysterious person from whom 
 this letter comes, and that I have neither time 
 nor patience to separate the absurd commentary 
 from the text, which it is so necessary you should 
 know. 
 
 Combine this warning, so strangely conveyed, 
 with the caution impressed on you by your 
 London correspondent, Griffiths, against your 
 visiting England with the character of your 
 Laird of the Solway Lakes with the lawless 
 habits of the people on that frontier country, 
 where warrants are not easily executed, owing to 
 the jealousy entertained by either country of the 
 legal interference of the other ; remember, that 
 even Sir John Fielding said to my father, that 
 he could never trace a rogue beyond the Brigg- 
 end of Dumfries think that the distinctions of 
 Whig and Tory, Papist and Protestant, still 
 keep that country in a loose and comparatively 
 lawless state think of all this, my dearest Dar- 
 sie, and remember that, while at this Mount Sha- 
 ron of yours, you are residing with a family ac- 
 tually menaced with violence, and who, while
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 185 
 
 their obstinacy provokes violence, are by prin- 
 ciple bound to abstain from resistance. 
 
 Nay, let me tell you, professionally, that the 
 legality of the mode of fishing practised by your 
 friend Joshua, is greatly doubted by our best law- 
 yers ; and that, if the stake-nets be actually an 
 unlawful obstruction raised on the channel of the 
 estuary, an assembly who shall proceed, viajacti, 
 to pull down and destroy them, would not, in the 
 eye of the law, be esteemed guilty of a riot. So, by 
 remaining where you are, you are likely to be en- 
 gaged in a quarrel with which you have nothing 
 to do, and thus to enable your enemies, whoever 
 these may be, to execute, amid the confusion of a 
 general hubbub, whatever designs they may have 
 against your personal safety. Black-fishers, 
 poachers, and smugglers, are a sort of gentry 
 that will not be much checked, either by your 
 Quaker's texts, or by your chivalry. If you are 
 Don Quixote enough to lay lance in rest, in de- 
 fence of those of the stake-net, and of the sad- 
 coloured garment, I pronounce you but a lost 
 knight ; for, as I said before, I doubt if these 
 potent redressers of wrongs, the justices and con-
 
 186 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 stables, will hold themselves warranted to inter- 
 fere. In a word, return, my dear Amadis ; the 
 adventure of the Solway-nets is not reserved for 
 your worship. Come back, and I will be your 
 faithful Sancho Panza upon a more hopeful quest. 
 We will beat about together, in search of this 
 Urganda^ the Unknown She of the Green Man- 
 tle, who can read this, the riddle of thy fate, bet- 
 ter than Wise Eppie of Buckhaven, or Cassan- 
 dra herself. 
 
 I would fain trifle, Darsie ; for, in debating 
 with you, jests will sometimes go farther than ar- 
 guments ; but I am sick at heart, and cannot keep 
 the ball up. If you have a moment's regard for 
 the friendship we have so often vowed to each 
 other, let my wishes for once prevail over your 
 own venturous and romantic temper. I am 
 quite serious in thinking, that the information 
 communicated to my father by this Mr Her- 
 ries, and the admonitory letter of the young 
 lady, bear upon each other ; and that, were you 
 here, you might learn something from one or 
 other, or from both, that might throw light on 
 your birth and parentage. You will not, surely,
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 187 
 
 prefer an idle whim to the prospect which is thus 
 held out to you ? 
 
 I would, agreeably to the hint I have received in 
 the young lady's letter, (for I am confident that 
 such is her condition,) have ere now been with 
 you to urge these things, instead of pouring them 
 out upon paper. But you know that the day 
 for my trials is appointed ; I have already gone 
 through the form of being introduced to the 
 examinators, and have gotten my titles assigned 
 me. All this should not keep me at home, but my 
 father would view any irregularity upon this oc- 
 casion as a mortal blow to the hopes which he has 
 cherished most fondly during his life ; viz. my 
 being called to the bar with some credit. For 
 my own part, I know there is no great difficulty 
 in passing these formal examinations, else how 
 have some of our acquaintance got through them? 
 But, to my father, these formalities compose an 
 august and serious solemnity, to which he has 
 long looked forward, and my absenting myself 
 at this moment would well nigh drive him dis- 
 tracted. Yet I shall go altogether distracted 
 myself, if I have not an instant assurance from
 
 188 FAIUFOED TO LATIMER. 
 
 you that you are hastening hither Meanwhile 
 I have desired Hannah to get your little crib into 
 the best order possible. I cannot learn that my 
 father has yet written to you ; nor has he spoken 
 more of his communication with Birrenswork ; 
 but when I let him have some inkling of the dan- 
 gers you are at present incurring, I know my re- 
 quest that you will return immediately, will have 
 his cordial support. 
 
 Another reason yet I must give a dinner, as 
 usual, upon my admission, to our friends ; and 
 my father, laying aside all his usual considera- 
 tions of economy, has desired it may be in the 
 best style possible. Come hither then, dear Dar- 
 sie ! or, I protest to you, I shall send examina- 
 tion, admission-dinner, and guests, to the devil, 
 and come, in person, to fetch you with a ven- 
 geance. Thine, in much anxiety, 
 
 A. F.
 
 [ 189 ] 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 ALEXANDER FAIRFORD, W. S. TO MR DARSIE 
 LATIMER. 
 
 DEAR MR DARSIE, 
 
 HAVING been your factor loco tutorls, or ra- 
 ther, I ought to say, in correctness, (since I acted 
 without warrant from the Court,) your negotio- 
 rumgestor; that connection occasions my present 
 writing. And although having rendered an ac- 
 count of my intromissions, which have been re- 
 gularly approved of, not only by yourself, (whom 
 I could not prevail with to look at more than 
 the docket and sum total,) but also by the wor- 
 thy Mr Samuel Griffiths of London, being the 
 hand through whom the remittances were made, 
 I may, in some sense, be considered as to you
 
 190 ALEX. FAI11FOUD, W. S. TO LATIMKH. 
 
 functus officlo ; yet, to speak facetiously, I trust 
 you will not hold me accountable as a vitious in- 
 tromitter, should I be still occasionally interested 
 in your welfare. My motives for writing, at this 
 time, are twofold. 
 
 I have met with a Mr Herries of Birrenswork, 
 a gentleman of very ancient descent, but who hath 
 in time past been in difficulties, nor do I know if 
 his aifairs are yet well redd. Birrenswork says, 
 that he believes he was very familiar with your 
 father, whom he states to have been called Ralph 
 Latimer of Langcote-Hall, inWestmoreland ; and 
 he mentioned family affairs, which it may be of 
 the highest importance to you to be acquainted 
 with ; but as he seemed to decline to communicate 
 them to me, I could not civilly urge him there- 
 anent. Thus much I know, that Mr Herries had 
 his own share in the late desperate and unhappy 
 matter of 1745, and was in trouble about it, al- 
 though that is probably now over. Moreover, 
 although he did not profess the Popish religion 
 openly, he had an eye that way. And both of 
 these are reasons why I have hesitated to recom-
 
 ALEX. FAIllFORD, W.S. TO LATIMEK . 191 
 
 mend him to a youth who may be hath not alto- 
 gether so well founded his opinions concerning 
 Kirk and State, that they might not be changed 
 by some sudden wind of doctrine. For I have 
 observed ye, Master Darsie, to be rather tinc- 
 tured with the old leaven of prelacy this under 
 your leave ; and although God forbid that you 
 should be in any manner disaffected to the Pro- 
 testant Hanoverian line, yet ye have ever loved 
 to hear the blawing, blazing stories which the 
 Hieland gentlemen tell of these troublous times, 
 which, if it were their will, they had better pre- 
 termit, as tending rather to shame than to honour. 
 It is come to me also by a side-wind, as I may 
 say, that you have been neighbouring more than 
 was needful among some of the pestilent sect of 
 Quakers a people who own neither priest, nor 
 king, nor civil magistrate, nor the fabric of our 
 law, and will not depone either in civilibus or 
 criminalibus, be the loss to the lieges what it may 
 Anent which heresies, it were good ye read " the 
 Snake in the Grass," or " the Foot out of the 
 Snare,*" being both well-approved tracts, touch- 
 ing these doctrines.
 
 192 ALEX. FAIKFORD, W.S. TO LATJMER. 
 
 Now, Mr Darsie, ye are to judge for yourself 
 whether ye can safely to your soul's weal remain 
 longer among these Papists and Quakers ; these 
 defections on the right hand, and fallings away on 
 the left ; and truly if you can confidently resist 
 these evil examples of doctrine, I think ye may 
 as well tarry in the bounds where ye are, until 
 you see Mr Herries of Birrenswork, who does 
 assuredly know more of your matters than I 
 thought had been communicated to any man in 
 Scotland. I would fain have precognosced him 
 myself on these affairs, but found him unwilling 
 to speak out, as I have partly intimated before. 
 
 To call a new cause I have the pleasure to tell 
 you, that Alan has passed his private Scots Law 
 examinations with good approbation a great re- 
 lief to my mind ; especially as worthy Mr Pest 
 told me in my ear there was no fear of the " cal- 
 lant," as he familiarly called him, which gives me 
 great heart. His public trials, which are nothing 
 in comparison, are to take place, by order of the 
 Honourable Dean of Faculty, on Wednesday 
 first ; and on Friday he puts on the gown, and 
 gives a bit chack of dinner to his friends and ac- 
 1
 
 ALEX. FAIRFOBD, W.S. TO LATIMKR. 193 
 
 quaintances, as is, you know, the custom. Your 
 company will be wished for there, Master Darsie, 
 by more than him, which I regret, to think is 
 impossible to have, as well by your engagements, 
 as that our cousin, Peter Fairford, comes from 
 the west on purpose, and we have no place to 
 offer him but your chamber in the wall. And, 
 to be plain with you, after my use and wont, Mas- 
 ter Darsie, it may be as well that Alan and you 
 do not meet till he is hefted as it were to his new 
 calling. You are a pleasant gentleman, and full 
 of daffing, which may well become you, as you 
 have enough (as I understand) to uphold your 
 merry humour. If you considered the matter 
 wisely, you would perchance consider that a man 
 of substance should have a douce and staid de- 
 meanour ; yet you are so far from growing grave 
 and considerate with the increase of your annual 
 income, that the more you get, the merrier I 
 think you grow. But this must be at your own 
 pleasure, so far as you are concerned. Alan, how- 
 ever, (overpassing my small savings,) has the 
 world to win ; and louping and laughing, as you 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 ALKX. FAIBFORI), W.S. TO LATIMEIl 
 
 and he are wont to do, would soon make the pow- 
 der flee out of his wig, and the pence out of his 
 pocket. Nevertheless, I trust you will meet when 
 you return from your rambles; for there is a 
 time, as the wise man sayeth, for gathering, and 
 a time for casting away ; and it is the part of a man 
 of sense to take the gathering time first. I re- 
 main, dear sir, your well-wishing friend, and obe- 
 dient to command, 
 
 ALEXANDER FAIIIFOED. 
 
 P. S. Alan's Thesis is upon the title De pe- 
 riculo et commodo rei venditce, and is a very 
 pretty piece of Latinity. Ross-House, in our 
 neighbourhood, is nearly finished, and is thought 
 to excel Duff-House in ornature.
 
 C 196 3 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 DARSIE LATIMER TO ALAN FAIRFORD. 
 
 THE plot thickens, Alan. I have your letter, 
 and also one from your father. The last makes 
 it impossible for me to comply with the kind re- 
 quest which the former urges. No I cannot be 
 with you, Alan ; and that, for the best of all rea- 
 sons I cannot and ought not to counteract your 
 father's anxious wishes. I do not take it unkind 
 of him that he desires my absence. It is natural 
 that he should wish for his son, what his son so 
 well deserves the advantage of a wiser and 
 steadier companion than I seem to him. And yet 
 I am sure I have often laboured hard enough to 
 acquire that decency of demeanour which can no
 
 196 LAT1MEB TO FAIHFORD. 
 
 more be suspected of breaking bounds, than an 
 owl of catching a butterfly. 
 
 But it was in vain that I have knitted my 
 brows till I had the headache, in order to acquire 
 the reputation of a grave, solid, and well-judging 
 youth. Your father always has discovered, or 
 thought that he discovered, a hare-brained ec- 
 centricity lying folded among the wrinkles of my 
 forehead, which rendered me a perilous associate 
 for the future counsellor and ultimate judge. 
 Well, Corporal Nym's philosophy must be my 
 comfort " Things must be as they may." I can- 
 not come to your father's house, where he wishes 
 not to see me ; and as to your coming hither, by 
 all that is dear to me, I vow that if you are 
 guilty of such a piece of reckless folly not to 
 say undutiful cruelty, considering your father's 
 thoughts and wishes I will never speak to you 
 again as long as I live ! I am perfectly serious. 
 And besides, your father, while he in a manner 
 prohibits me from returning to Edinburgh, gives 
 me the strongest reasons for continuing for a lit- 
 tle while longer in this country, by holding out 
 the hope that I may receive from your old friend,
 
 LATIMER TO FAIEFORD. 197 
 
 Mr Herries of Birrenswork, some particulars con- 
 cerning my origin, with which that ancient recu- 
 sant seems to be acquainted. 
 
 That gentleman mentioned the name of a fa- 
 mily in Westmoreland, with which he supposes 
 me connected. My inquiries here after such a 
 family have been ineffectual, for the borderers, 
 on either side, know little of each other. But I 
 will doubtless find some English person at whom 
 to make inquiries, since the confounded fetter-lock 
 clapped on my movements by old Griffiths, pre- 
 vents me repairing to England in person. At 
 least, the prospect of obtaining some informa- 
 tion is greater here than elsewhere ; it will be an 
 apology for my making a longer stay in this 
 neighbourhood, a line of conduct which seems to 
 have your father's sanction, whose opinion must 
 be sounder than that of your wandering damo- 
 selle. 
 
 If the road were paved with dangers which 
 leads to such a discovery, I cannot for a mo- 
 ment hesitate to tread it. But hi fact there is 
 no peril in the case. If the Tritons of the Sol- 
 way shall proceed to pull down honest Joshua's
 
 198 LATIMEll TO FAIRFOED. 
 
 tide-nets, I am neither Quixote enough in dis- 
 position, nor Goliah enough in person, to at- 
 tempt their protection. I have no idea of at- 
 tempting to prop a falling house, by putting 
 my shoulders against it. And indeed Joshua 
 gave me a hint, that the company which he be- 
 longs to, injured in the way threatened, (some of 
 them being men who thought after the fashion of 
 the world,) would pursue the rioters at law, and 
 recover damages, which probably his own ideas 
 of non-resistance will not prevent his participa- 
 ting in. Therefore the whole affair will take its 
 course as law will, as I only mean to interfere 
 when it may be necessary to direct the course of 
 the plaintiffs to thy chambers ; and I request they 
 may find thee intimate with all the Scottish sta- 
 tutes concerning salmon-fisheries, from the Lex 
 Aquarum, downward. 
 
 As for thy Lady of the Mantle, I will lay a 
 wager that the sun so bedazzled thine eyes on 
 that memorable morning, that everything thou 
 didst look upon seemed green ; and notwithstand- 
 ing James Wilkinson's experience in the fuzi- 
 liers, as well as his negative whistle, I will ven-
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 199 
 
 ture to hold a crown that she is but a Peg-a- 
 Ramsay after all. Let not even the gold per- 
 suade you to the contrary. She may make a 
 shift to cause you to disgorge that, and (immense 
 spoil !) a session's fees to boot, if you look not 
 all the sharper about you. Or if it should be 
 otherwise, and if indeed there lurk some mystery 
 under this visitation, credit me, it is one which 
 thou canst not penetrate, nor can I as yet even 
 attempt to explain it ; since, if I prove mistaken, 
 and mistaken I may easily be, I would be fain to 
 creep into Phalaris's bull, were it standing before 
 me ready heated, rather than be roasted with thy 
 raillery. Do not tax me with want of confidence ; 
 for the instant I can throw any light on the mat- 
 ter, thou shall have it ; but while I am only 
 blundering about in the dark, I do not choose to 
 call wise folks to see me, perchance, break my 
 nose against a post. So if you marvel at this, 
 
 E'en marvel on till time makes all things plain. 
 
 In the meantime, kind Alan, let me proceed in 
 my diurnal. 
 
 On the third or fourth day after my arrival at
 
 200 LATIMER TO FAIUFOKD. 
 
 Mount Sharon, Time, that bald sexton to whom 
 I have just referred you, did certainly limp more 
 heavily along with me than he had done at first. 
 The quaint morality of Joshua, and Hugue- 
 not simplicity of his sister, began to lose much 
 of their raciness with their novelty, and my 
 mode of life, by dint of being very quiet, began 
 to feel abominably dull. It was, as thou say'st, 
 as if the Quakers had put the sun in their 
 pockets all around was soft and mild, and even 
 pleasant ; but there was, in the whole routine, a 
 uniformity, a want of interest, a helpless and 
 hopeless languor, which rendered life insipid. 
 No doubt, my worthy host and hostess felt none 
 of this void, this want of excitation, which was 
 becoming oppressive to their guest. They had 
 their little round of occupations, charities, and 
 pleasures ; Rachel had her poultry-yard and 
 conservatory, and Joshua his garden. Besides 
 this, they enjoyed, doubtless, their devotional 
 meditations; and, on the whole, time glided 
 softly and imperceptibly on with them, though 
 to me, who long for stream and cataract, it 
 seemed absolutely to stand still. I thought of
 
 LATIMEll TO FAI11FORD. 201 
 
 returning to Shepherd's Bush, and began to 
 think, with some hankering, after little Benjie 
 and the rod. The imp has ventured hither, and 
 hovers about to catch a peep of me now and 
 then ; I suppose the little sharper is angling for 
 a few more sixpences. But this would have been, 
 in Joshua's eyes, a return of the washed sow to 
 wallowing in the mire, and I resolved, while I 
 remained his guest, to spare him so violent a 
 shock to his prejudices. The next point was, to 
 shorten the time of my proposed stay ; but, alas ! 
 that I felt to be equally impossible. I had na- 
 med a week ; and however rashly my promise 
 had been pledged, it must be held sacred, even 
 according to the letter, from which the Friends 
 permit no deviation. 
 
 All these considerations wrought me up to a 
 kind of impatience yesterday evening ; so that I 
 snatched up my hat, and prepared for a sally be- 
 yond the cultivated farm and ornamented grounds 
 of Mount Sharon, just as if I were desirous to 
 escape from the realms of art, into those of free 
 and unconstrained nature.
 
 202 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 I was scarce more delighted when I first en- 
 tered this peaceful demesne, than I now was 
 such is the instability and inconsistency of hu- 
 man nature ! when I escaped from it to the open 
 downs, which had formerly seemed so waste and 
 dreary. The air I breathed felt purer and 
 more bracing. The clouds, riding high upon a 
 summer breeze, drove, in gay succession, over my 
 head, now obscuring the sun, now letting its rays 
 stream in transient flashes upon various parts of 
 the landscape, and especially upon the broad 
 mirror of the distant Frith of Sol way. 
 
 I advanced on the scene with the light step of 
 a liberated captive; and, like John Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim, could have found in my heart to sing as 
 I went on my way. It seemed as my gaiety had 
 accumulated while suppressed, and that I was, in 
 my present joyous mood, entitled to expend the 
 savings of the previous week. But just as I was 
 about to uplift a merry stave, I heard, to my joy- 
 ful surprise, the voice of three or more choris- 
 ters, singing, with considerable success, the lively 
 old catch,
 
 LATIMER TO FAIUFOfiD. SOS 
 
 " For all our men were very very merry, 
 
 And all our men were drinking : 
 There was two men of mine, 
 Three men of thine, 
 
 And three that belonged to old Sir Thorn o' Lyne ; 
 As they went to the ferry, they were very very merry, 
 
 And all our men were drinking." 
 
 As the chorus ended, there followed a loud 
 and hearty laugh by way of cheers. Attracted 
 by sounds which were so congenial to my pre- 
 sent feelings, I made towards the spot from which 
 they came, cautiously however, for the Downs, 
 as had been repeatedly hinted to me, had no good 
 name ; and the attractions of the music, without 
 rivalling that of the Syrens in melody, might 
 have been followed by similarly inconvenient con- 
 sequences to an incautious amateur. 
 
 I crept on, therefore, trusting that the sinuo- 
 sities of the ground, broken as it was into knolls 
 and sand-pits, would permit me to obtain a sight 
 of the musicians before I should be observed by 
 them. As I advanced, the old ditty was again 
 raised. The voices seemed those of a man and 
 two boys ; they were rough, but kept good time, 
 and were managed with too much skill to belong 
 to the ordinary country people.
 
 204 LATIMEE TO FAIRFOKD. 
 
 " Jack looked at the sun, and cried, Fire, fire, fire ; 
 Tom stabled his keffel in Birkendale mire ; 
 Jem started a calf, and halloo'd for a stag ; 
 Will mounted a gate-post instead of his nag : 
 
 For all our men were very very merry, 
 And all our men were drinking ; 
 
 There were two men of mine, 
 
 Three men of thine, 
 
 And three that belonged to old Sir Thorn o' Lyne ; 
 
 As they went to the ferry, they were very very merry, 
 For all our men were drinking." 
 
 The voices, as they mixed in their several 
 parts, and ran through them, untwisting and again 
 entwining all the links of the merry old catch, 
 seemed to have a little touch of the bacchanalian 
 spirit which they celebrated, and shewed plainly 
 that the musicians were engaged in the same joy- 
 ous revel as the menyie of old Sir Thorn a Lyne. 
 At length I came within sight of them, three in 
 number, where they sat cosily niched, into what 
 you might call a bunker, a little sand-pit, dry and 
 snug, and surrounded by its banks, and a screen 
 of whins in full bloom. 
 
 The only one of the trio whom I recognized 
 as a personal acquaintance, was the notorious lit- 
 tle Benjie, who, having just finished his stave, 
 was cramming a huge luncheon of pie-crust into
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 205 
 
 his mouth with one hand, while in the other he 
 held a foaming tankard, his eyes dancing with all 
 the glee of a forbidden revel ; and his features, 
 which have at all times a mischievous archness 
 of expression, confessing the full sweetness of 
 stolen waters and bread eaten in secret. 
 
 There was no mistaking the profession of the 
 male and female, who were partners with Benjie 
 in these merry doings. The man's long loose-bo- 
 died great-coat, (wrap-rascal, as the vulgar term 
 it,) the fiddle-case, with its straps, which lay be- 
 side him, and a small knapsack which might con- 
 tain his few necessaries ; a clear grey eye ; features 
 which, in contending with many a storm, had not 
 lost a wild and careless expression of glee, anima- 
 ted at present, when he was exercising for his own 
 pleasure the arts which he usually practised for 
 bread, all announced one of those peripatetic 
 followers of Orpheus, whom the vulgar call a 
 strolling fiddler. Gazing more attentively, I 
 easily discovered that though the poor-musician's 
 eyes were open, their sense was shut, and that 
 the ecstacy with which he turned them up to 
 Heaven, only derived its apparent expression
 
 206 LATIMEU TO FAIRFO11D. 
 
 from his own internal emotions, but received no 
 assistance from the visible objects around. Beside 
 him sat his female companion, in a man's hat, a 
 blue coat, which seemed also to have been an ar- 
 ticle of male apparel, and a red petticoat. She 
 was cleaner, in person and in clothes, than such 
 itinerants generally are ; and, having been in her 
 day a strapping bona roba, she did not even yet 
 neglect some attention to her appearance ; wore a 
 large amber necklace, and silver ear-rings, and 
 had her plaid fastened across her breast with a 
 brooch of the same metal. 
 
 The man also looked clean, notwithstanding 
 the meanness of his attire, and had a decent silk 
 handkerchief well knotted about his throat, un- 
 der which peeped a clean owerlay. His beard, 
 also, instead of displaying a grizzly stubble, un- 
 mowed for several days, flowed in thick and 
 comely abundance over the breast, to the length 
 of six inches, and mingled with his hair, which 
 was but beginning to exhibit a touch of age. 
 To suin up his appearance, the loose garment 
 which I have described, was secured around 
 him by a large old-fashioned belt, with brass
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFO11D. 207 
 
 studs, in which hung a dirk, with a knife and 
 fork, its usual accompaniments. Altogether, 
 there was something more wild and adventurous- 
 looking about the man, than I could have ex- 
 pected to see in an ordinary modern crowder ; and 
 the bow which he now and then drew across the 
 violin, to direct his little choir, was decidedly that 
 of no ordinary performer. 
 
 You must understand, that many of these ob- 
 servations were the fruits of after remark ; for, 
 I had scarce approached so near as to get a dis- 
 tinct view of the party, when my friend Benjie's 
 lurching attendant, which he calls by the appro- 
 priate name of Hemp, began to cock his tail and 
 ears, and, sensible of my presence, flew, bark- 
 ing like a fury, to the place where I had meant 
 to lie concealed till I heard another song. I 
 was obliged, however, to jump on my feet and 
 intimidate Hemp, who would otherwise have bit 
 me, by two sound kicks on the ribs, which sent 
 him howling back to his master. 
 
 Little Benjie seemed somewhat dismayed at 
 my appearance ; but, calculating on my placabili- 
 ty, and remembering, perhaps, that the ill-used 
 
 14
 
 208 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 Solomon was no palfrey of mine, he speedily af- 
 fected great glee, and almost in one breath assu- 
 red the itinerants that I was " a grand gentleman, 
 and had plenty of money, and was very kind to 
 poor folk ;" and informed me that this was " Wil- 
 lie Steenson Wandering Willie the best fid- 
 dler that ever kittled thairm with horse-hair." 
 
 The woman rose and curtsied ; and Wander- 
 ing Willie sanctioned his own praises with a nod, 
 and the ejaculation, " All is true that the little 
 boy says." 
 
 I asked him if he was of this country. 
 
 " This country i" replied the blind man " I 
 am of every country in broad Scotland, and a wee 
 bit of England to the boot. But yet I am, in 
 some sense, of this country ; for I was born within 
 hearing of the roar of Solway. Will I give your 
 honour a touch of the auld bread-winner ?"" 
 
 He preluded as he spoke, in a manner which 
 really excited my curiosity ; and then taking the 
 old tune of Galashiels for his theme, he graced 
 it with a wildness of complicated and beautiful 
 variations ; during which, it was wonderful to ob- 
 serve how his sightless face was lighted up under 
 
 5
 
 LATIMER TO I-'AIJIFORI). 209 
 
 the conscious pride and heartfelt delight in the 
 exercise of his own very considerable powers. 
 
 " What think you of that now, for three-score 
 and twa ?" 
 
 I expressed my surprise and pleasure. 
 
 " A rant, man an auld rant," said Willie ; 
 " naething like the music ye hae in your hall- 
 houses and your play-houses in Edinbro'; but 
 it's weel aneugh anes in a way at a dike-side. 
 Here's another it's no a Scots tune, but it 
 passes for ane Oswald made it himsel, I reckon 
 ~he has cheated mony ane, but he canna cheat 
 Wandering Willie." 
 
 He then played your favourite air of lloslin 
 Castle, with a number of beautiful variations, 
 some of which I am certain were almost extem- 
 pore. 
 
 " You have another fiddle there, my friend," 
 said I " Have you a comrade ?" But Willie's 
 ears were deaf, or his attention was still busied 
 with the tune. 
 
 The female replied in his stead, " O ay, sir- 
 troth we have a partner a gangrel body like our- 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 210 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 sells. No but my hinny might have been bet- 
 ter, if he had liked ; for mony a bein nook in 
 mony a braw house has been offered to my hinny 
 Willie, if he wad but j ust bide still and play to 
 the gentles." 
 
 " Whisht, woman ! whisht !" said the blind 
 man, angrily, shaking his locks ; " dinna deave 
 the gentleman wi' your havers. Stay in a house 
 and play to the gentles ! strike up when my 
 leddy pleases, and lay down the bow when my 
 lord bids ! Na, na, that's nae life for Willie. 
 Look out, Maggie peer out, woman, and see if 
 ye can see Robin coming. De'il be in him ! he 
 has got to the lea-side of some smuggler's punch- 
 bowl, and he wunna budge the night, I doubt." 
 
 " That is your consort's instrument," said I 
 " Will you give me leave to try my skill ?" I 
 slipped at the same time a shilling into the wo- 
 man's hand. 
 
 " I dinna ken whether I dare trust Robin's 
 fiddle to ye," said Willie, bluntly. His wife gave 
 him a twitch. " Hout awa, Maggie," he said, 
 in contempt of the hint ; " though the gentle- 
 man may hae gien ye siller, he may have nae
 
 LATIMEK, TO FAIBFORD. 211 
 
 bow-hand for a' that, and I'll no trust Robin's 
 fiddle wi' an ignoramus. But that's no sae muckle 
 amiss," he added, as I began to touch the instru- 
 ment ; " I am thinking ye have some skill of the 
 craft." 
 
 To confirm him in this favourable opinion, I 
 began to execute such a complicated flourish as 
 I thought must have turned Crowdero into a pil- 
 lar of stone with envy and wonder. I scaled the 
 top of the finger-board, to dive at once to the bot- 
 tom skipped with flying fingers, likeTimotheus, 
 from shift to shift struck arpeggios and harmo- 
 nic tones, but without exciting any of the asto- 
 nishment which I had expected. 
 
 Willie indeed listened to me with considerable 
 attention ; but I was no sooner finished, than he 
 immediately mimicked on his own instrument the 
 fantastic complication of tones which I had pro- 
 duced, and made so whimsical a parody of my 
 performance, that, although somewhat angry, I 
 could not help laughing heartily, in which I was 
 joined by Benjie, whose reverence for me held 
 him under no restraint; while the poor dame, 
 fearful, doubtless, of my taking oifence at this
 
 212 LATIMEK. TO FAIHFO11D. 
 
 familiarity, seemed divided betwixt her conjugal 
 reverence for her Willie, and her desire to give 
 him a hint for his guidance. 
 
 At length the old man stopped of his own ac- 
 cord, and, as if he had sufficiently rebuked me by 
 his mimicry, he said, " But for a' that, ye will 
 play very weel wi' a little practice and some gude 
 teaching. But ye maun learn to put the heart 
 into it, man to put the heart into it. 11 
 
 I played an air in simpler taste, and received 
 more decided approbation. 
 
 " That's something like it, man. Od, ye are 
 a clever birkie !" 
 
 The woman touched his coat again. " The 
 gentleman is a gentleman, Willie ye maunna 
 speak that gate to him, ninny." 
 
 " The deevil I maunna !" said Willie ; " and 
 what for maunna I ? If he was ten gentles, he 
 canna draw a bow like me, can he ?" 
 
 " Indeed I cannot, my honest friend," said I ; 
 " and if you will go with me to a house hard by, 
 I would be glad to have a night with you." 
 
 Here I looked round, and observed Benjie 
 smothering a laugh, which I was sure had mis-
 
 LATIMER TO FAIR FORD. 
 
 chief in it. I seized him suddenly by the ear, 
 and made him confess that he was laughing at 
 the thoughts of the reception which a fiddler was 
 likely to get from the Quakers at Mount Sharon. 
 I chucked him from me, not sorry that his mirth 
 had reminded me in time of what I had for the 
 moment forgotten ; and invited the itinerant to go 
 with me to Shepherd's Bush, from which I pro- 
 posed to send word to Mr Geddes that I should 
 not return home that evening. But the minstrel 
 declined this invitation also. He was engaged for 
 the night, he said, to a dance in the neighbour- 
 hood, and vented a round execration on the lazi- 
 ness or drunkenness of his comrade, who had not 
 appeared at the place of rendezvous. 
 
 " I will go with you instead of him," said I, in 
 a sudden whim ; " and I will give you a crown 
 to introduce me as your comrade." 
 
 " You gang instead of Rob the Rambler ! My 
 certie, freend, ye are no blate," answered Wan- 
 dering Willie, in a tone which announced death 
 to my frolic. 
 
 But Maggie, whom the offer of the crown had 
 not escaped, began to open on that scent with a
 
 LATIMER TO FAIEFORD. 
 
 maundering sort of lecture. " O Willy ! hinny 
 Willie, whan will ye learn to be wise ? There's 
 a crown to be win for naething but saying ae 
 man's name instead of anither.. And, waes me ! 
 I hae just a shilling of this gentleman's gie- 
 ing, and a bodle of my ain ; and ye wunna bend 
 your will sae muckle as to take up the siller that's 
 flung at your feet ! Ye will die the death of a 
 cadger's powney in a wreath of drift ! and what 
 can I do better than lie doun and die wi' you ? 
 for ye winna let me keep either you or mysel 
 leevin." 
 
 " Haud your nonsense tongue, woman," said 
 Willie, but less absolutely than before. " Is he 
 a real gentleman, or ane of the player men ?" 
 
 " I'se uphaud him a real gentleman," said the 
 woman. 
 
 " I'se uphaud ye ken little of the matter," 
 said Willie ; " let us see haud of your hand, 
 neebor, gin ye like." 
 
 I gave him my hand. He said to himself, 
 " Ay, ay, here are fingers that have seen canny 
 service." Then running his hand over my hair, 
 my face, and my dress, he went on with his soli-
 
 LATIMER TO FAIHFOED. 215 
 
 loquy ; " Ay, ay, muisted hair, braid-claith of 
 the best, and seenteen hundred linen on his back, 
 at the least of it. And how do you think, my 
 braw birkie, that ye are to pass for a tramping 
 fiddler ?" 
 
 " My dress is plain," said I, indeed I had 
 chosen my most ordinary suit, out of compliment 
 to my Quaker friends, " and I can easily pass 
 for a young farmer out upon a frolic. Come, 
 I will double the crown I promised you." 
 
 " Damn your crowns !" said the disinterested 
 man of music. " I would like to have a round 
 wi 1 you, that's certain ; but a farmer, and with a 
 hand that never held pleugh-stilt or pettle, that 
 will never do. Ye may pass for a trades-lad 
 from Dumfries, or a student upon the ramble, 
 or the like o"* that. But hark ye, lad ; if ye ex- 
 pect to be ranting amang the queans o' lasses 
 where ye are gaun, ye will come by the waur, 
 I can tell ye ; for the fishers are wild chaps, and 
 will bide nae taunts." 
 
 I promised to be civil and cautious ; and, to 
 smooth the good woman, I slipped the promised
 
 216 LATIMER TO FAIttFOKD. 
 
 piece into her hand. The acute organs of the 
 blind man detected this little manceuvre. 
 
 " Are ye at it again wi' the siller, ye jadd ? I'll 
 be sworn ye wad rather hear ae twalpenny clink 
 against another, than have a spring from Rory 
 Dall, if he was coming alive again anes errand. 
 Gang doun the gate to Lucky Gregson's and 
 get the things ye want, and bide there till ele'en 
 hours the morn ; and if ye see Robin send him 
 on to me." 
 
 " Am I no gaun to the ploy, then ?" said 
 Maggie, in a disappointed tone. 
 
 " And what for should ye ?"" said her lord 
 and master; " to dance a' night, I'se warrant, 
 and no to be fit to walk your tae's-length the 
 morn, and we have ten Scots miles afore us? Na, 
 na. Stable the steed, and pit your wife to bed, 
 when there's night wark to do." 
 
 " Aweel, aweel, Willie hinnie, ye ken best; 
 but O, take an unco care o' yoursell, and mind 
 ye hae nae the blessing o' sight." 
 
 " Your tongue gars me whiles tire of the bless- 
 ing of hearing, woman," replied Willie, in an- 
 swer to this tender exhortation.
 
 LATIM-EIl TO FAIRFO11D. 217 
 
 But I now put in for my interest. " Hallo, 
 good folks, remember that I am to send the boy 
 to Mount Sharon, and if you go to the Shep- 
 herd's Bush, honest woman, how the deuce am I 
 to guide the blind man where he is going ? I 
 know little or nothing of the country ." 
 
 " And ye ken mickle less of my hinnie, sir," 
 replied Maggie, " that think he needs ony guid- 
 ing ; he's the best guide himsell, that ye'll find 
 between Criffell and Carlisle. Horse-road and 
 foot-path, parish-road and kirk-road, high-road 
 and cross-road, he kens ilka foot of ground in 
 Nithsdale." 
 
 " Ay, ye might have said in braid Scotland, 
 gudewife, 1 " added the fiddler. " But gang your 
 ways, Maggie, that's the first wise word ye hae 
 spoke the day. I wish it was dark night, and 
 rain, and wind, for the gentleman's sake, that I 
 might shew him there is whiles when ane had 
 better want een than have them ; for I am as true 
 a guide by darkness as by day-light." 
 
 Internally as well pleased that my companion 
 was not put to give me this last proof of his skill, 
 I wrote a note with a pencil, desiring Samuel to
 
 218 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 bring my horses at midnight, when I thought my 
 frolic would be well nigh over, to the place to 
 which the bearer should direct him, and I sent 
 little Benjie with an apology to the worthy Qua- 
 kers. 
 
 As we parted in different directions, the good 
 woman said, " Oh, sir, if ye wad but ask Willie 
 to tell ye ane of his tales to shorten the gate ! 
 He can speak like ony minister frae the pu'pit, 
 and he might have been a minister himsell, 
 but " 
 
 " Haud your tongue, ye fule ! But stay,Meg 
 gie me a kiss, we maunna part in anger, nei- 
 ther." And thus our society separated.
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 You are now to conceive us proceeding in our 
 different directions across the bare downs. Yon- 
 der flies little Benjie to the northward, with Hemp 
 scampering at his heels, both running as if for 
 dear life, so long as the rogue is within sight of 
 his employer, and certain to take the walk very 
 easy so soon as he is out of ken. Stepping west- 
 ward, you see Maggie's tall form and high-crown- 
 ed hat, relieved by the fluttering of her plaid 
 upon the left shoulder, darkening as the distance 
 diminishes her size, and as the level sunbeams be- 
 gin to sink upon the sea. She is taking her quiet 
 journey to the Shepherd's Bush. 
 
 Then, stoutly striding over the lea, you have a 
 full view of Darsie Latimer, with his new ac-
 
 220 LATIMER TO FAIftFOED. 
 
 quaintance, Wandering Willie, who, bating that 
 he touched the ground now and then with his staff, 
 not in a doubtful or groping manner, but with the 
 confident air of an experienced pilot, heaving the 
 lead when he has the soundings by heart, walks 
 as firmly and boldly as if he possessed the eyes 
 of Argus. There they go, each with his violin 
 slung at his back, but one of them at least totally 
 ignorant whither their course is directed. 
 
 And wherefore did you enter so keenly into 
 such a mad frolic ? says my wise counsellor- 
 Why, I think upon the whole, that as a sense of 
 loneliness, and a longing for that kindness which 
 is interchanged in society, Jed me to take up 
 my temporary residence at Mount Sharon, the 
 monotony of my life there, the quiet simpli- 
 city of the conversation of the Geddesses, and the 
 uniformity of their amusements and employ- 
 ments, wearied out my impatient temper, and 
 prepared me for the first escapade which chance 
 might throw in my way. 
 
 What would I have given that I could have 
 procured that solemn grave visage of thine, to 
 dignify this joke, as it has done full many a one of
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 221 
 
 thine own ! Thou hast so happy a knack of doing 
 the most foolish things in the wisest manner, that 
 thou might'st pass thy extravagancies for rational 
 actions, even in the eyes of Prudence herself. 
 
 From the direction which my guide observed, 
 I began to suspect that the dell at Brokenburn 
 was our probable destination ; and it became im- 
 portant to me to consider whether I could, with 
 propriety, or even perfect safety, intrude myself 
 again upon the hospitality of my former host. 
 I therefore asked Willie, whether we were bound 
 for the Laird's, as folks called him. 
 
 " Do you ken the Laird ?" said Willie, inter- 
 rupting an overture of Corelli, of which he had 
 whistled several bars with great precision. 
 
 u I know the Laird a little," said I ; " and 
 therefore, I was doubting whether I ought to go 
 to his town in disguise." 
 
 " And I should doubt, not a little only, but a 
 great deal, before I took ye there, my chap," 
 said Wandering Willie ; " for I am thinking it 
 wad be worth little less than broken banes baith 
 to you and me. Na, na, chap, we are no gang- 
 ing to the Laird's, but to a blithe birling at the
 
 222 LATIMER TO FAI11FORD. 
 
 Brokenburn-foot, where there will be mony a 
 braw lad and lass ; and maybe there may be some 
 of the Laird's folks, for he never comes to sic 
 splores himself. He is all for fowling-piece and 
 salmon-spear, now that pike and musket are out 
 of the question." 
 
 " He has been a soldier, then ?"" said I. 
 
 " Fse warrant him a soger," answered Willie; 
 " but take my advice, and speer as little about 
 him as he does about you. Best to let sleeping 
 dogs lie. Better say naething about the Laird, 
 my man, and tell me instead, what sort of a chap 
 ye are, that are sae ready to cleik in with an auld 
 gaberlunzie fiddler ? Maggie says ye're gentle, 
 but a shilling maks a' the difference that Maggie 
 kens, between a gentle and a simple, and your 
 crowns wad mak ye a prince of the blood in her 
 een. But I am ane that ken full weel that ye may 
 wear good claithes, and have a soft hand, and yet 
 that may come of idleness as weel as gentrice." 
 
 I told him my name, with the same addition I 
 had formerly given to Mr Joshua Geddes ; that 
 I was a law- student, tired of my studies, and 
 rambling about for exercise and amusement.
 
 LATIMER TO FATRFORD. 
 
 " And are ye in the wont of drawing up wi' 
 all the gangrel bodies that ye meet on the high 
 road, or find cowering in a sand-bunker upon 
 the links ?" demanded Willie. 
 
 " Oh no ; only with honest folks like yourself, 
 Willie, 1 ' was my reply. 
 
 " Honest folks like me ! How do ye ken 
 whether I am honest, or what I am ? I may be 
 the deevil himsell for what ye ken ; for he has 
 power to come disguised like an angel of light ; 
 and besides, he is a prime fiddler He played a 
 sonata to Corelli ye ken." 
 
 There was something odd in this speech, and 
 the tone in which it was said. It seemed as if my 
 companion was not always in his constant mind, 
 or that he was willing to try if he could affright 
 me. I laughed at the extravagance of his lan- 
 guage, however, and asked him in reply, if he 
 was fool enough to believe that the foul fiend 
 would play so silly a masquerade. 
 
 " Ye ken little about it little about it," said 
 the old man, shaking his head and beard, and 
 knitting his brows " I could tell ye something 
 about that. 11 
 
 16
 
 LA-TIME-U TO FAIR FORD. 
 
 What his wife mentioned of his being a tale- 
 teller, as well as a musician, now occurred to me ; 
 and as you know I like tales of superstition, I 
 begged to have a specimen of his talent as we 
 went along. 
 
 " It is very true," said the blind man, " that 
 when I am tired of scraping thairm or singing 
 ballants, I whiles make a tale serve the turn amang 
 the country bodies ; and I have some fearsome 
 anes, that make the auld carlines shake on the 
 settle, and the bits o 1 bairns skirl on their minnies 
 out frae their beds. But this that I am gaun to 
 tell you was a thing that befell in our ain house in 
 my father's time that is, my father was then a 
 haflins callant ; and I tell it to you, that it may 
 be a lesson to you, that are but a young, thought- 
 less chap, wha ye draw up wi' on a lonely 
 road ; for muckle was the dool and care that came 
 o't to my gudesire." 
 
 He commenced his tale accordingly, in a dis- 
 tinct narrative tone of voice, which he raised and 
 depressed with considerable skill ; at times sinking 
 almost into a whisper, and turning his clear but 
 sightless eye-balls upon my face, as if it had been
 
 LATIMEU TO FAlEFOItD. 225 
 
 possible for him to witness the impression which 
 his narrative made upon my features. I will not 
 spare you a syllable of it, although it be of the 
 longest ; so I make a dash and begin 
 
 Wantttring milliez Cale. 
 
 YE maun have heard of Sir Robert Redgaunt- 
 let of that Ilk, who lived in these parts before the 
 dear years. The country will lang mind him ; 
 and our fathers used to draw breath thick if ever 
 they heard him named. He was out wi' the 
 Hielandmen in Montrose's time ; and again he 
 was in the hills wi' Glencairn in the saxteen hun- 
 dred and fifty-twa ; and sae when King Charles 
 the Second came in, wha was in sic favour as the 
 Laird of Redgauntlet ? He was knighted at Lonon 
 court, wi' the King's ain sword ; and being a red- 
 hot prelatist, he came down here, rampauging like 
 a lion, with commissions of lieutenancy, and of lu- 
 nacy for what I ken, to put down a 1 the Whigs 
 and Covenanters in the country. Wild wark they 
 
 VOL. i. p
 
 LATIMER TO FAIKFORD. 
 
 made of it ; for the Whigs were as dour as the Ca- 
 valiers were fierce, and it was which should first 
 tire the other. Redgauntlet was aye for the strong- 
 hand; and his name is kenn'd as wide in the 
 country as Claverhouse''s or Tarn Daly ell's. Glen, 
 nor dargle, nor mountain, nor cave, could hide 
 the puir hill-folk when Redgauntlet was out with 
 bugle and bloodhound after them, as if they had 
 been sae mony deer. And troth when they fand 
 them, they didna mak muckle mair ceremony 
 than a Hielandman wi' a roe-buck It was just, 
 " Will ye tak the test ?" if not, " Make ready 
 present-^-fire !" and there lay the recusant. 
 
 Far and wide was Sir Robert hated and feared. 
 Men thought he had a direct compact with Sa- 
 tan that he was proof against steel and that 
 bullets happed aff his buff-coat like hail-stanes 
 from a hearth that he had a mear that would 
 turn a hare on the side of Carrifra-gawns and 
 muckle to the same purpose, of whilk mair anon. 
 The best blessing they wared on Jiim was, " De'il 
 scowp w'f Redgauntlet P He wasna a bad mas- 
 ter to his ain folk though, and was weel aneugh 
 liked by his tenants; and as for the lackies and
 
 LATIMKR TO FAIftPOKD. 227 
 
 troopers that raid out wi' him to the persecutions, 
 as the Whigs ca'ad these killing times, they wad 
 hae drunken themsels blind to his health at ony 
 time. 
 
 Now ye are to ken that my gudesire lived on 
 Redgauntlet'sgrund they ca 1 the place Primrose- 
 Knowe. We had lived on the grund, and under 
 the Redgauntlets, since the riding days, and lang 
 before. It was a pleasant bit ; and I think the air 
 is callerer and fresher there than onywhere else 
 in the country. It's SL deserted now ; and I sat 
 on the broken door-cheek three days since, and 
 was glad I couldna see the plight the place was 
 in ; but that's a 1 wide o 1 the mark. There dwelt 
 my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, a rambling, rat- 
 tling chiel* he had been in his young days, and 
 could play weel on the pipes ; he was famous at 
 " Hoopers and Girders" a 1 Cumberland could- 
 na touch him at " Jockie Lattin" and he had 
 the finest finger for the back-lill between Berwick 
 and Carlisle.- The like o' Steenie wasna the sort 
 that they made Whigs o\ And so he became a 
 Tory, as they ca 1 it, which we now ca' Jaco- 
 bites, just out of a kind of needcessity, that he
 
 LATIMEtt TO FAIRFOKD. 
 
 might belang to some side or other. He had nae 
 ill-will to the Whig bodies, and likedna to see 
 the blude rin, though, being obliged to follow Sir 
 Robert in hunting and hosting, watching and 
 warding, he saw muckle mischief, and maybe did 
 some, that he couldna avoid. 
 
 Now Steenie was a kind of favourite with his 
 master, and kenn'd a' the folks about the castle, 
 and was often sent for to play the pipes when 
 they were at their merriment. Auld Dougal 
 MacCallum, the butler, that had followed Sir 
 Robert through gude and ill, thick and thin, pool 
 and stream, was specially fond of the pipes, and 
 aye gae my gudesire his gude word wi' the 
 Laird ; for Dougal could turn his master round 
 his finger. 
 
 Weel, round canic the Revolution, and it had 
 like to have broken the hearts baith of Dougal 
 and his master. But the change was not a'the- 
 gether sac great as they feared, and other folk 
 thought for. The Whigs made an unca crawing 
 what they wad do with their auld enemies, and 
 in special wi' Sir Robert Redgauntlet. But 
 there were ower mony great folks dipped in the
 
 LATIMUR TO I AIKFORD. 
 
 same doings, to make a spick and span new 
 warld. So Parliament passed it a' ower easy; 
 and Sir Robert, bating that he was held to hunt- 
 ing foxes instead of Covenanters, remained just 
 the man he was. His revel was as loud, and his 
 hall as weel lighted, as ever it had been, though 
 maybe he lacked the fines of the non- conformists, 
 that used to come to stock larder and cellar ; for 
 it is certain he began to be keener about the rents 
 than his tenants used to find him before, and they 
 behoved to be prompt to the rent-day, or else the 
 Laird wasna pleased. And he was sic an awsome 
 body, that naebody cared to anger him ; for the 
 oaths he swore, and the rage that he used to 
 get into, and the looks that he put on, made men 
 sometimes think him a deevil incarnate. 
 
 Weel, my gudesire was nae manager no that, 
 he was a very great misguider but he hadna the 
 saving gift, and he got twa terms rent in arrear. 
 He got the first brash at Whitsunday put ower 
 wi' fair words and piping ; but when Martinmas 
 came, there was a summons from the grund-of- 
 ficer to come wi 1 the rent on a day preceese, or 
 else Steenie behoved to flitt. Sair wark he had
 
 230 LATIMER TO FA1KFORD. 
 
 to get the siller ; but he was weel-freended, and 
 at last he got the haill scraped thegether a thou- 
 sand merks the maist of it was from a neighbour 
 they ca\l Laurie Lapraik a sly tod. Laurie had 
 walth o" 1 gear could hunt wi 1 the hound and rin 
 wi 1 the hare and be Whig or Tory, saunt or sin- 
 ner, as the wind stood. He was a professor in 
 this Revolution warld, but he liked an orra sound 
 and a tune on the pipes weel aneugh at a bye- 
 f.ime ; and abune a\ he thought he had gude se- 
 curity for the siller he lent my gudesire over the 
 stocking at Primrose-Knowe. 
 
 Away trots my gudesire to Redgauntlet Castle 
 v/r a heavy purse and a light heart, glad to be 
 out of the Laird's clanger. Weel, the first thing 
 he learned at the Castle was, that Sir Robert had 
 fretted himsell into a fit of the gout, because he 
 did not appear before twelve o'clock. It wasna a"*- 
 thegetherfor sake of the money, Dougal thought; 
 but because he didna like to part wi 1 my gudesire 
 aff the grund. Dougal was glad to see Steenie, 
 and brought him into the great oak parlour, 
 and there sat the Laird his leesome lane, except- 
 ing that he had beside him a great, ill-favoured
 
 LATIMEU TO FAIRFOItP. 
 
 jack-an-ape, that was a special pet of his ; a can- 
 kered beast it was, and mony an ill-natured trick 
 it played ill to please it was, and easily angered 
 ran about the haill castle, chattering and yowl, 
 ing, and pinching, and biting folk, specially before 
 ill-weather, or disturbances in the state. Sir Ro- 
 bert ca'ad it Major Weir, after the warlock that 
 was burned ; and few folk liked either the name 
 or the conditions of the creature they thought 
 there was something in it by ordinar and my 
 gudesire was not just easy in mind when the door 
 shut on him, and he saw himself in the room wi' 
 naebody but the Laird, Dougal MacAllum, and 
 the Major, a thing that hadna chanced to him 
 before. 
 
 Sir Robert sat, or, I should say, lay, in a 
 great armed chair, wi' his grand velvet gown, and 
 his feet on a cradle ; for he had baith gout and 
 gravel, and his face looked as gash and ghastly as 
 Satan's. Major Weir sat opposite to him, in a 
 red-laced coat, and the Laird's wig on his head ; 
 and aye as Sir Robert girned wi' pain, the jack- 
 an-ape girned too, like a sheep's-head between a 
 pair of tangs an ill-faur'd, fearsome couple they 
 were. The Laird's buff-coat was hung on a pin
 
 LATIMEB TO FAIRFORI). 
 
 behind him, and his broadsword and his pistols 
 within reach ; for he keepit up the auld fashion 
 of having the weapons ready, and a horse saddled 
 day and night, just as he used to do when he was 
 able to loup on horseback, and away after ony 
 of the hill-folk he could get speerings of. Some 
 said it was for fear of the Whigs taking ven- 
 geance, but I judge it was just his auld custom 
 he wasna gien to fear ony thing. The rental- 
 book, wi' its black cover and brass clasps, was 
 lying beside him ; and a book of sculduddry 
 sangs was put betwixt the leaves, to keep it open 
 at the place where it bore evidence against the 
 Goodman of Primrose- Knowe, as behind the hand 
 with his mails and duties. Sir Robert gave my 
 gudesire a look, as if he would have withered his 
 heart in his bosom. Ye maun ken he had a way 
 of bending his brows, that men saw the visible 
 mark of a horse-shoe in his forehead, deep-dint- 
 ed, as if it had been stamped there. 
 
 " Are ye come light-handed, ye son of a toom 
 whistle ?" said Sir Robert. " Zounds ! if you 
 arc v 
 
 My gudesire, with as gude a countenance as
 
 I, ATI M Kit TO FA1RFOK1). , ( 23& 
 
 he could put on, made a leg, and placed the bag 
 of money on the table wi' a dash, like a man that 
 does something clever. The Laird drew it to 
 him hastily " Is it all here, Steenie, man ?" 
 
 " Your honour will find it right,"' said my 
 gudesire. 
 
 " Here, Dougal," said the Laird, " gie Steenie 
 a tass of brandy down stairs, till I count the 
 siller and write the receipt.* 1 
 
 But they werena weel out of the room, when 
 Sir Robert gied a yelloch that garr'd the castle 
 rock. Back ran Dougal in flew the livery-men 
 yell on yell gied the Laird, ilk ane mair awfu* 
 than the ither. My gudesire knew not whether 
 to stand or flee, but he ventured back into the 
 parlour, where a' was gaun hirdy-girdie nae- 
 body to say * come in 1 or * gae out.' Terribly the 
 Laird roared for cauld water to his feet, and wine 
 to cool his throat ; and, Hell, hell, hell, and its 
 flames, was aye the word in his mouth. They 
 brought him water, and when they plunged his 
 swoln feet into the tub, he cried out it was burn- 
 ing ; and folk say that it did bubble and sparkle 
 like a seething cauldron. He flung the cup at
 
 LATIMEH TO FAIIIFORJ). 
 
 Dougal'si head, and said he had given him blood 
 instead of burgundy ; and, sure aneugh, the 
 iass washed clottered blood aff the carpet the 
 neist day. The jack-an-ape they ca'd Major 
 Weir, it jibbered and cried as if it was mocking 
 its master; my gudesirc's head was like to turn 
 he forgot baith siller and receipt, and down 
 stairs he banged ; but as he ran, the shrieks came 
 faint ajid fainter ; there was a deep-drawn shiver- 
 ing groan, and word gaed through the Castle, 
 that the Laird was dead. 
 
 Weel, away came my gudesire, wi' his finger in 
 his mouth, and his best hope was, that Dougal had 
 seen the money-bag, and heard the Laird speak 
 of writing the receipt. The young Laird, now 
 Sir John, came from Edinburgh, to see things 
 put to rights. Sir John and his father never 
 greeM weel he had been bred an advocate, and 
 afterwards sat in the last Scots Parliament and 
 voted for the Union, having gotten, it was 
 thought, a rug of the compensations if his fa- 
 ther could have come out of his grave, he would 
 have brained him for it on his awn hearth-stane. 
 Some thought it was easier counting with the
 
 LATIMKJt TO FAIU10KD. 
 
 auld rough Knight than the fair-spoken young 
 ane but mair of that anon. 
 
 Dougal MacCallum, poor body, neither grat 
 nor graned, but gaed about the house looking 
 like a corpse, but directing, as was his duty, a' 
 the order of the grand funeral. Now, Dougal 
 looked aye waur and waur when night was com- 
 ing, and was aye the last to gang to his bed, 
 whilk was in a little round just opposite the cham- 
 ber of dais, whilk his master occupied while he 
 was living, and where he now lay in state as they 
 ca'ad it, well-a-day ! The night before the fu- 
 neral, Dougal could keep his awn counsel nae 
 langer ; he came doun with his proud spirit, 
 and fairly asked auld Hutcheon to sit in his room 
 with him for an hour. When they were in the 
 round, Dougal took ae tass of brandy to him- 
 sel, and gave another to Hutchecn, and wished 
 him all health and la-rig life, and said that, for 
 himsel, he wasna lang for this world ; for that, 
 every night since Sir Robert's death, his silver 
 call had sounded from the state chamber, just as 
 it used to do at nights in his lifetime, to call 
 Dougal to help to turn him in his bed. Dougal 
 said, that being alone with the dead on that floor
 
 236 LATIMEll TO FAIUFORJ). 
 
 of the tower, (for naebody cared to wake Sir Ro- 
 bert Redgauntlet like another corpse,) he had 
 never daured to answer the call, but that now his 
 conscience checked him for neglecting his duty ; 
 for, " though death breaks service," said Mac- 
 Callum, " it shall never break my service to Sir 
 Robert ; and I will answer his next whistle, so be 
 you will stand by me, Hutcheon." 
 
 Hutcheon had nae will to the wark, but he had 
 stood by Dougal in battle and broil, and he wad 
 not fail him at this pinch ; so down the carles sat 
 over a stoup of brandy, and Hutcheon, who was 
 something of a clerk, would have read a chapter 
 of the Bible ; but Dougal would hear naething 
 but a blaud of Davie Lindsay, whilk was the waur 
 preparation. 
 
 When midnight came, and the house was 
 quiet as the grave, sure aneugh the silver whistle 
 sounded as sharp and shrill as if Sir Robert 
 was blowing it, and up got the twa auld ser- 
 ving-men, and tottered into the room where the 
 dead man lay. Hutcheon saw aneugh at the 
 first glance ; for there were torches in the room, 
 which shewed him the foul fiend, in his ain shape, 
 sitting on the Laird's coffin ! Over he cowped as
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 237 
 
 if he had been dead. He could not tell how lang 
 he lay in a trance at the door, but when he ga- 
 thered himself, he cried on his neighbour, and 
 getting no answer, raised the house, when Dou- 
 gal was found lying dead within twa steps of 
 the bed where his master's coffin was placed. As 
 for the whistle, it was gaen anes and aye ; but 
 raony a time was it heard on the top of the house 
 in the bartizan, and amang the auld chimnies 
 and turrets, where the howlets have their nests. 
 Sir John hushed the matter up, and the funeral 
 passed over without mair bogle-wark. 
 
 But when a' was over, and the Laird was be- 
 ginning to settle his affairs, every tenant was 
 called up for his arrears, and my gudesire for the 
 full sum that stood against, him in the rental- 
 book. Weel, away he trots to the Castle, to tell 
 his story, and there he is introduced to Sir John, 
 sitting in his father's chair, in deep mourning, 
 with weepers and hanging cravat, and a small 
 walking rapier by his side, instead of the auld 
 broad-sword that had a hundred-weight of steel 
 about it, what with blade, chape, and basket-hilt. 
 I have heard their communing so often tauld
 
 238 LATIMEH TO FA1UFORU. 
 
 ovver, that I almost think I was there my sell, 
 though I couldna be born at the time. (In fact, 
 Alan, my companion mimicked, with a good deal 
 of humour, the flattering, conciliating tone of 
 the tenant's address, and the hypocritical melan- 
 choly of the Laird's reply. His grandfather, he 
 said, had, while he spoke, his eye fixed on the 
 rental-book, as if it were a mastiff-dog that he 
 was afraid would spring up and bite him.) 
 
 " I wuss ye joy, sir, of the head-seat, and the 
 white loaf, and the braid lairdship. Your father 
 was a kind man to friends and followers ; muckle 
 grace to you, Sir John, to fill his shoon his 
 boots, I suld say, for he seldom wore shoon, un- 
 less it were muils when he had the gout. 1 " 
 
 " Ay, Steenie," quoth the Laird, sighing 
 deeply, and putting his napkin to his een, " his 
 was a sudden call, and he will be missed in the 
 country ; no time to set his house in order weel 
 prepared God-ward, no doubt, which is the root 
 of the matter but left us behind a tangled hesp 
 to wind, Steenie. Hem ! hem ! We maun go to 
 business, Steenie ; much to do, and little time to 
 do it in." 
 
 11
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 239 
 
 Here he opened the fatal volume; I have 
 heard of a thing they call Doomsday-book I am 
 clear it has been a rental of back-ganging te- 
 nants. 
 
 " Stephen," said Sir John, still in the same 
 goft, sleekit tone of voice " Stephen Stevenson, 
 or Steenson, ye are down here for a year's rent 
 behind the hand due at last term." 
 
 Stephen. " Please your honour, Sir John, I 
 paid it to your father." 
 
 Sir John. " Ye took a receipt then, doubtless, 
 Stephen ; and can produce it ?" 
 
 Stephen. " Indeed I hadna time, an it like 
 your honour ; for nae sooner had I set doun the 
 siller, and just as his honour, Sir Robert, that's 
 gaen, drew it till him to count it, and write out 
 the receipt, he was ta'en wi' the pains that remo- 
 ved him." 
 
 " That was unlucky," said Sir John, after a 
 pause. " But ye maybe paid it in the presence 
 of somebody. I want but a talis quails evidence, 
 Stephen. I would go ower strictly to work with 
 no poor man." 
 
 Stephen. " Troth, Sir John, there was nae- 
 body in the room but Dougal MacCallum the
 
 240 LATIMER TO FAIRFOKD. 
 
 butler. But, as your honour kens, he has e'en fol- 
 lowed his auld master." 
 
 " Very unlucky again, Stephen, 11 said Sir 
 John, without altering his voice a single note. 
 " The man to whom ye paid the money is dead 
 and the man who witnessed the payment is 
 dead too and the siller, which should have been 
 to the fore, is neither seen nor heard.tell of in the 
 repositories. How am I to believe sC this ?" 
 
 Stephen. " I dinna ken, your honour; but 
 there is a bit memorandum note of the very coins ; 
 for, God help me ! I had to borrow out of twenty 
 purses ; and I am sure that ilk man there set down 
 will take his grit oath for what purpose I borrow- 
 ed the money. 1 ' 
 
 Sir John. " I have little doubt ye borrowed 
 the money, Steenie. It is the payment that I want 
 to have some proof of." 
 
 Stephen. " The siller maun be about the house, 
 Sir John. And since your honour never got it, 
 and his honour that was canna have taen it wi* 
 him, maybe some of the family may have seen it." 
 
 Sir John. " We will examine the servants, 
 Stephen ; that is but reasonable."
 
 LATIMER TO FAIBFORD. 241 
 
 But lackey and lass, and page and groom, all 
 denied stoutly that they had ever seen such a bag 
 of money as my gudesire described. What was 
 waur, he had unluckily not mentioned to any li- 
 ving soul of them his purpose of paying his rent. 
 Ae quean had noticed something under his arm, 
 but she took it for the pipes. 
 
 Sir John Redgauntlet ordered the servants out 
 of the room, and then said to my gudesire, 
 " Now, Steenie, ye see you have fair play ; and, 
 as I have little doubt ye ken better where to find 
 the siller than ony other body, I beg, in fair 
 terms, and for your own sake, that you will end 
 this fasherie ; for, Stephen, ye maun pay or 
 flitt." 
 
 " The Lord forgie your opinion," said Ste- 
 phen, driven almost to his wits'" end " I am an 
 honest man." 
 
 " So am I, Stephen," said his honour ; " and 
 so are all the folks in the house, I hope. But 
 if there be a knave amongst us, it must be he 
 that tells the story he cannot prove." He paused, 
 and then added, mair sternly, " If I under- 
 stand your trick, sir, you want to take advan-* 
 
 VOL, I. Q
 
 242 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 tage of some malicious reports concerning things 
 in this family, and particularly respecting my fa- 
 ther's sudden death, thereby to cheat me out of 
 the money, and perhaps take away my character, 
 by insinuating that I have received the rent I am 
 demanding. Where do you suppose this money 
 to be ? I insist upon knowing." 
 
 My gudesire saw everything look so muckle 
 against him, that he grew nearly desperate 
 however, he shifted from one foot to another, 
 looked to every corner of the room, and made no 
 answer. 
 
 " Speak out, sirrah," said the Laird, assu- 
 ming a look of his father's, a very particular ane, 
 which he had when he was angry it seemed as 
 if the wrinkless of his frown made that self-same 
 fearful shape of a horse's shoe in the middle of 
 his brow ; " Speak out, sir ! I will know your 
 thoughts ; do you suppose that I have this mo- 
 ney ?" 
 
 " Far be it frae me to say so," said Stephen. 
 
 ** Do you charge any of my people with ha- 
 ving taken it ?" 
 
 " I wad be laith to charge them that may be
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 243 
 
 innocent," said my gudesire ; " and if there be 
 any one that is guilty, I have nae proof." 
 
 " Somewhere the money must be, if there is a 
 word of truth in your story," said Sir John ; " I 
 ask where you think it is and demand a cor- 
 rect answer ?" 
 
 " In hell, if you will have my thoughts of it," 
 said my gudesire, driven to extremity, " in hell ! 
 with your father and his silver whistle." 
 
 Down the stairs he ran, (for the parlour was 
 nae place for him after such a word,) and he heard 
 the Laird swearing blood and wounds behind 
 him, as fast as ever did Sir Robert, and roaring 
 for the baillie and the baron-officer. 
 
 Away rode my gudesire to his chief creditor, 
 (him they ca'd Laurie Lapraik,) to try if he 
 could make onything out of him ; but when he 
 tauld his story, he got but the warst word in his 
 wame thief, beggar, and dyvour, were the saft- 
 est terms ; and to the boot of these hard terms, 
 Lawrie brought up the auld story of his dipping 
 his hand in the blood of God's saints, just as if 
 a tenant could have helped riding with the Laird, 
 and that a laird like Sir Robert Redgauntlet. My
 
 244 T.ATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 gudesire was, by this time, far beyond the bounds 
 of patience, and, while he and Laurie were at 
 de'il speed the liars, he was wanchancie aneugh to 
 abuse his doctrine as weel as the man, and said 
 things that gar'd folks flesh grew that heard them ; 
 he wasna just himsell, and he had lived wi' a 
 wild set in his day. 
 
 At last they parted, and my gudesire was to ride 
 hame through the wood of Pitmarkie, that is a' 
 fou of black firs, as they say. I ken the wood, 
 but the firs may be black or white for what I 
 can tell. At the entry of the wood there is a 
 wild common, and on the edge of the common, 
 a little lonely change-house, that was keepit then 
 by an ostler-wife, they suld hae ca'd her Tibbie 
 Faw, and there puir Steenie cried for a mutchkin 
 of brandy, for he had had no refreshment the hail 
 day. Tibbie was earnest wi' him to take a bite 
 of meat, but he couldna think o't, nor would he 
 take his foot put of the stirrup, and took off the 
 brandy wholely at twa draughts, and named a 
 toast at each : the first was, the memory of Sir 
 Robert Redgauntlet, and might he never lie quiet 
 in his grave till he had righted his poor bond-
 
 LATIMEH TO FAIRFOfiD. 245 
 
 tenant ; and the second was, a health to Man's 
 Enemy, if he would but get him back the pock 
 of siller, or tell him what came o't, for he saw 
 the hail world was like to regard him as a thief 
 and a cheat, and he took that waur than even 
 the ruin of his house and hauld. 
 
 On he rode, little caring where. It was a dark 
 night turned, and the trees made it yet darker, 
 and he let the beast take its ain road through the 
 wood; when, all of a sudden, from tired and 
 wearied that it was before, the nag began to 
 spring, and flee, and stend,that my gudesire could 
 hardly keep the saddle Upon the whilk, a horse- 
 man, suddenly riding up beside him, said, "That's 
 a mettle beast of yours, freend; will you sell 
 him ?" So saying, he touched the horse's neck 
 with his riding-wand, and it fell into its auld 
 heigh-ho of a stumbling trot ; " But his spunk's 
 soon out of him, I think," continued the stranger, 
 " and that is like mony a man's courage, that 
 thinks he wad do great things till he come to the 
 proof." 
 
 My gudesire scarce listened to this, but spur- 
 red his horse, with " Gude e'en to you, freend."
 
 246 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 But it's like the stranger was ane that does 
 na lightly yield his point ; for, ride as Steenie 
 liked, he was aye beside him at the self-same pace. 
 At last my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, grew half 
 angry ; and, to say the truth, half feared. 
 
 " What is it that ye want with me, freend ?" 
 he said. " If ye be a robber, I have nae money ; 
 if ye be a leal man, wanting company, I have 
 nae heart to mirth or speaking ; and if ye want 
 to ken the road, I scarce ken it mysell." 
 
 " If you will tell me your grief," said the 
 stranger, " I am one that, though I have been 
 sair miscaad in the world, am the only hand for 
 helping my friends." 
 
 So my gudesire, to ease his ain heart, mair than 
 from any hope of help, told him the story from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 " It's a hard pinch/ 1 said the stranger ; " but 
 I think I can help you." 
 
 " If you could lend the money, sir, and take 
 a lang day I ken nae other help on earth," said 
 my gudesire. 
 
 rt But there may be some under the earth," 
 said the stranger. " Come, I'll be frank wi' you ;
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFOED. 247 
 
 I could lend you the money on bond, but you 
 would maybe scruple my terms. Now, I can 
 tell you, that your auld Laird is disturbed in his 
 grave by your curses, and the wailing of your 
 family, and if ye daur venture to go to see 
 him, he will give you the receipt." 
 
 My gudesire's hair stood on end at this propo- 
 sal, but he thought his companion might be some 
 humoursome chield that was trying to frighten 
 him, and might end with lending him the money. 
 Besides, he was bauld wi 1 brandy, and desperate 
 wi' distress ; and he said, he had courage to go 
 to the gate of hell, and a step farther, for that 
 receipt. The stranger laughed. 
 
 Weel, they rode on through the thickest of the 
 wood, when, all of a sudden, the horse stopped 
 at the door of a great house ; and, but that he 
 knew the place was ten miles off, my father would 
 have thought he was at Redgauntlet Castle. 
 They rode into the outer court-yard, through 
 the muckle faulding yetts, and aneath the auld 
 portcullis ; and the whole front of the house was 
 lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and 
 as much dancing and deray within as used to be
 
 248 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 in Sir Robert's house at Pace and Yule, and sucli 
 high seasons. They lap off, and my gudesire, as 
 seemed to him, fastened his horse to the very 
 ring he had tied him to that morning, when he 
 gaed to wait on the young Sir John. 
 
 God !" said my father, " if Sir Robert's death 
 be but a dream !" 
 
 He knocked at the ha' door, just as he wont, 
 and his auld acquaintance, Dougal Mac Call urn, 
 just after his wont, too, came to open the door, 
 and said, " Piper Steenie, are ye there, lad ? Sir 
 Robert has been crying for you." 
 
 My gudesire was like a man in a dream he 
 looked for the stranger, but he was gaen for the 
 time. At last, he just tried to say, " Ha ! Dou- 
 gal Driveower, are ye living ? I thought ye had 
 been dead." 
 
 " Never fash yoursell wT me," said Dougal, 
 " but look to yoursell; and see ye tak naething 
 frae onybody here, neither meat, drink, or siller, 
 except just the receipt that is your am." 
 
 So saying, he led the way out through halls 
 and trances that were weel kenn'd to my gudesire, 
 and into the auld oak parlour ; and there was as
 
 LATIMEK TO FAIKFOHD. 249 
 
 much singing of profane sangs, and birling of 
 red wine, and speaking blasphemy and sculdud- 
 dry, as had ever been in Redgauntlet Castle 
 when it was at the blythest. 
 
 But, Lord take us in keeping ! what a set of 
 ghastly revellers they were that sat round that 
 table ! My gudesire kerni'd mony that had long 
 before gane to their place. There was the fierce 
 Middleton, and the dissolute Rothes, and the 
 crafty Lauderdale ; and Daly ell, with his bald 
 head and a beard to his girdle; and Earlshall,with 
 Cameron's blude on his hand ; and wild Bonshaw, 
 that tied blessed Mr CargilPs limbs till the blude 
 sprung ; and Dumbarton Douglas, the twice- 
 turned traitor baith to country and king. There 
 was the Bluidy Advocate MacKenyie, who, for 
 his worldly wit and wisdom, had been to the rest 
 as a god. And there was Claverhouse, as beau- 
 tiful as when he lived, with his long, dark, curled 
 locks, streaming down to his laced buff-coat, and 
 his left hand always on his right spule-blade, to 
 hide the wound that the silver bullet had made. 
 He sat apart from them all, and looked at them 
 with a melancholy, haughty countenance ; while
 
 250 LATIMER TO FAIRFOIID. 
 
 the rest hallooed, and sung, and laughed, that 
 the room rang. But their smiles were fearfully 
 contorted from time to time ; and their laughter 
 passed into such wild sounds, as made my gude- 
 sire's very nails grow blue, and chilled the marrow 
 in his banes. 
 
 They that waited at the table were just the wick- 
 ed serving-men and troopers, that had done their 
 work and wicked bidding on earth. There was 
 the Lang Lad of the Nethertown, that helped to 
 take Argyle ; and the Bishop's summoner, that 
 they called the Dell's Rattle-bag ; and the wicked 
 guardsmen, in their laced coats ; and the savage 
 Highland Amorites, that shed blood like water ; 
 and many a proud serving-man, haughty of 
 heart and bloody of hand, cringing to the rich, 
 and making them wickeder than they would be ; 
 grinding the poor to powder, when the rich had 
 broken them to fragments. And mony, mony mair 
 were coming and ganging, a' as busy in their vo- 
 cation as if they had been alive. 
 
 Sir Robert Redgauntlet, hi the midst of a' this 
 fearful riot, cried, wi' a voice like thunder, on 
 Steenie Piper, to come to the board-head where he
 
 LATJMEU TO FAIRFORD. 251 
 
 was sitting ; his legs stretched out before him, 
 and swathed up with flannel, with his holster pis- 
 tols aside him, and the great broad-sword rested 
 against his chair, just as my gudesire had seen 
 him the last time upon earth the very cushion 
 for the jack-an-ape was close to him, but the crea- 
 ture itsell was not there it wasna its hour, it's 
 likely ; for he heard them say as he came for- 
 ward, " Is not the Major come yet ? w And an- 
 other answered, " The jack-an-ape will be here 
 betimes the morn." And when my gudesire 
 came forward, Sir Robert, or his ghaist, or the 
 deevil in his likeness, said, " Weel, piper, hae ye 
 settled wi' my son for the year's rent ?" 
 
 With much ado my father gat breath to say, 
 that Sir John would not settle without his ho- 
 nour's receipt. 
 
 " Ye shall hae that for a tune of the pipes, 
 Steenie," said the appearance of Sir Robert 
 " Play us up* Weel hoddled, Luckie.'" 
 
 Now this was a tune my gudesire learned frae 
 a warlock, that heard it when they were worship- 
 ping Satan at their meetings ; and my gudesire
 
 252 LATIMEU TO FAlltFOKD. 
 
 had sometimes played it at the ranting suppers 
 in Redgauntlet Castle, but never very willingly ; 
 and now he grew cauld at the very name of it, 
 and said, for excuse, he hadna his pipes wi' him. 
 
 " MacCallum, ye limb of Beelzebub,"" said the 
 fearfu' Sir Robert, " bring Steenie the pipes 
 that I am keeping for him !" 
 
 MacCallum brought a pair of pipes might have 
 served the piper of Donald of the Isles. But he 
 gave my gudesire a nudge as he offered them ; 
 and looking secretly and closely, Steenie saw that 
 the chanter was of steel, and heated to a white 
 heat ; so he had fair warning not to trust his fin- 
 gers with it So he excused himself again, and 
 said, he was faint and frightened, and had not 
 wind aneugh to fill the bag. 
 
 " Then ye maun eat and drink, Steenie," said 
 the figure ; " for we do little else here ; and it's ill 
 speaking between a fou man and a fasting." 
 
 Now these were the very words that the bloody 
 Earl of Douglas said to keep the King's messen- 
 ger in hand, while he cut the head off MacLel- 
 lan of Bombie, at the Threave Castle ; and that
 
 LATIMEK TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 put Steenie mair and raair on his guard. So he 
 spoke up like a man, and said he came neither 
 to eat, or drink, or make minstrelsy ; but simply 
 for his ain to ken what was come o' the money 
 he had paid, and to get a discharge for it; and he 
 was so stout-hearted by this time, that he charged 
 Sir Robert for conscience-sake (he had no power 
 to say the holy name) and as he hoped for peace 
 and rest, to spread no snares for him, but just to 
 give him his ain. 
 
 The appearance gnashed its teeth and laughed, 
 but it took from a large pocket-book the receipt, 
 and handed it to Steenie. " Here is your re- 
 ceipt, ye pitiful cur ; and for the money, my dog- 
 whelp of a son may go look for it in the Cat's 
 Cradle." 
 
 My gudesire uttered mony thanks, and was 
 about to retire, when Sir Robert roared aloud, 
 " Stop though, thou sack-doudling son of a 
 whore ! I am not done with thee. HERE we do 
 nothing for nothing; and you must return on 
 this very day twelvemonth, to pay your master 
 the homage that you owe me for my protection." 
 
 My father's tongue was loosed of a suddenty s
 
 254 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 and he said aloud, " I refer my sell to God's 
 pleasure, and not to yours." 
 
 He had no sooner uttered the word than all 
 was dark around him ; and he sunk on the earth 
 with such a sudden shock, that he lost both 
 breath and sense. 
 
 How lang Steenie lay there, he could not tell ; 
 but when he came to himsell, he Avas lying in the 
 auld kirkyard of Redgauntlet parishine, just at 
 the door of the family aisle, and the scutcheon of 
 the auld knight, Sir Robert, hanging over his 
 head. There was a deep morning fog on grass 
 and gravestone around him, and his horse was 
 feeding quietly beside the minister's twa cows. 
 Steenie would have thought the whole was a 
 dream, but he had the receipt in his hand, fairly 
 written and signed by the auld Laird ; only the 
 last letters of his name were a little disorderly, 
 written like one seized with sudden pain. 
 
 Sorely troubled in his mind, he left that dreary 
 place, rode through the mist to Redgauntlet Cas- 
 tle, and with much ado he got speech of the 
 Laird. " Well, you dyvour bankrupt," was the 
 first word, " have you brought me my rent ?"
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 255 
 
 " No," answered my gudesire, " I have not ; 
 but I have brought your honour Sir Robert's 
 receipt for it." 
 
 " How, sirrah ? Sir Robert's receipt ! You 
 told me he had not given you one." 
 
 " Will your honour please to see if that bit 
 line is right ?" 
 
 Sir John looked at every line, and at every let- 
 ter, with much attention ; and at last, at the date, 
 which my gudesire had not observed," From 
 my appointed place " he read, " this twenty-Jifth 
 of November" - " What ! That is yesterday ! 
 Villain, thou must have gone to hell for this!" 
 
 " I got it from your honour's father whether 
 he be inheaven or hell, I know not," said Steenie. 
 
 " I will delate you for a warlock to the Privy 
 Council !" said Sir John. " I will send you to 
 your master, the devil, with the help of a tar-bar- 
 rel and a torch !" 
 
 " I intend to delate mysell to the Presbytery," 
 said Steenie, " and tell them all I have seen last 
 night, whilk are things fitter for them to judge 
 of than a borrel man like me." 
 
 Sir John paused, composed himsell, and desi- 
 
 8
 
 256 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 red to hear the full history ; and my gudesire told 
 it him from point to point, as I have told it you 
 word for word, neither more nor less. 
 
 Sir John was silent again for a long time, and 
 at last he said, very composedly, " Steenie, this 
 story of yours concerns the honour of many a 
 noble family besides mine ; and if it be a leasing- 
 making, to keep yourself out of my danger, the 
 least you can expect is to have a red-hot iron 
 driven through your tongue, and that will be as 
 bad as scauding your fingers wi' a red-hot chan- 
 ter. But yet it may be true, Steenie ; and if the 
 money cast up, I will not know what to think of 
 it. But where shall we find the Cat's Cradle ? 
 There are cats enough about the old house, but 
 I think they kitten without the ceremony of bed 
 or cradle." 
 
 " We were best ask Hutcheon," said my gude- 
 sire ; " he kens a' the odd corners about as weel 
 as another serving-man that is now gane, and 
 that I wad not like to name." 
 
 Aweel, Hutcheon, when he was asked, told 
 them, that a ruinous turret, lang disused, next to 
 the clock-house, only accessible by a ladder, for 
 
 17
 
 LATIMEB. TO FAIRFOED. 257 
 
 the opening was on the outside, and far above the 
 battlements, was called of old the Cat's Cradle. 
 
 " There will I go immediately," said Sir John ; 
 and he took (with what purpose, Heaven kens,) 
 one of his father's pistols from the hall-table, 
 where they had lain since the night he died, and 
 hastened to the battlements. 
 
 It was a dangerous place to climb, for the ladder 
 was auld and frail, and wanted ane or twa rounds. 
 However, up got Sir John, and entered at the tur- 
 ret door, where his body stopped the only little light 
 that was in the bit turret. Something flees at him 
 wi' a vengeance, maist dang him back ower bang 
 gaed the knight's pistol, and Hutcheon, that held 
 the ladder, and my gudesire that stood beside him, 
 hears a loud skelloch. A minute after, Sir John 
 flings the body of the jack-an-ape down to them, 
 and cries that the siller is fund, and that they 
 should come up and help him. And there was 
 the bag of siller sure aneugh, and mony orra 
 things besides, that had been missing for mony a 
 day. And Sir John, when he had riped the tur- 
 ret weel, led my gudesire into the dining-parlour, 
 
 VOL. i. B
 
 258 LAT1MEK TO FAIRFOKD. 
 
 and took him by the hand, and spoke kindly to 
 him, and said he was sorry he should have 
 doubted his word, and that he would hereafter 
 be a good master to kim, to make amends. 
 
 " And now, Steenie," said Sir John, " although 
 this vision of yours tends, on the whole, to my fa- 
 ther's credit, as an honest man, that he should, 
 even after his death, desire to see justice done to 
 a poor man like you, yet you are sensible that 
 ill-dispositioned men might make bad construc- 
 tions upon it, concerning his soul's health. So, 
 I think, we had better lay the hail dirdum on 
 that ill-deedie creature, Major Weir, and say 
 naething about your dream in the wood of Pit- 
 murkie. You had taken ower mickle brandy to 
 be very certain about onything ; and, Steenie, 
 this receipt, (his hand shook while he held it out) 
 it's but a queer kind of document, and we will 
 do best, I think, to put it quietly in the fire." 
 
 " Od, but for as queer as it is, it's a' the 
 voucher I have for my rent," said my gudesire, 
 who was afraid, it may be, of losing the benefit 
 of Sir Robert's discharge. 
 
 " I will bear the contents to your credit in the
 
 LATIMKR TO FAIBFORD. 259 
 
 rental-book, and give you a discharge under my 
 own hand,' 1 said Sir John, " and that on the spot. 
 And, Steenie, if you can hold your tongue 
 about this matter, you shall sit, from this term 
 downward, at an easier rent." 
 
 " Mony thanks to your honour," said Steenie, 
 who saw easily in what corner the wind sat ; 
 " doubtless I will be conformable to all your ho- 
 nour's commands ; only I would willingly speak 
 wi 1 some powerful minister on the subject, for 
 I do not like the sort of soumons of appointment 
 whilk your honour's father * 
 
 " Do not call the phantom my father !" said Sir 
 John, interrupting him. 
 
 " Weel, then, the thing that was so like him," 
 said my gudesire ; " he spoke of my coming 
 back to him this time twelvemonth, and it's a 
 weight on my conscience." 
 
 " Aweel, then, 1 ' said Sir John, " if you be so 
 much distressed in mind, you may speak to our 
 minister of the parish ; he is a douce man, re- 
 gards the honour of our family, and the mair that 
 he may look for some patronage from me."
 
 260 LATIMEE TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 Wi' that, my father readily agreed that the re- 
 ceipt should be burnt, and the Laird threw it into 
 the chimney with his ain hand. Burn it would 
 not for them, though ; but away it flew up the 
 lumm, wi* a lang train of sparks at its tail, and 
 a hissing noise like a squib. 
 
 My gudesire gaed down to the Manse, and 
 the minister, when he had heard the story, said, 
 it was his real opinion, that though my gudesire 
 had gaen very far in tampering with dangerous 
 matters, yet, as he had refused the devil's arles, 
 (for such was the offer of meat and drink,) and had 
 refused to do homage by piping at his bidding, 
 he hoped, that if he held a circumspect walk 
 hereafter, Satan could take little advantage by 
 what was come and gane. And, indeed, my 
 gudesire, of his ain accord, lang forswore baith 
 the pipes and the brandy it was not even till 
 the year was out, and the fatal day passed, that 
 he would so much as take the fiddle, or drink 
 usquebaugh or tippenny. 
 
 Sir John made up his story about the jack-an- 
 ape as he liked himsell ; and some believe till this
 
 I-ATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 261 
 
 day there was no more in the matter than the 
 filching nature of the brute. Indeed ye'll no hin- 
 der some to threap, that it was nane o 1 the Auld 
 Enemy that Dougal and my gudesire saw in the 
 Laird's room, but only that wanchancy creature, 
 the Major, capering on the coffin ; and that, as 
 to the blawing on the Laird's whistle that was 
 heard after he was dead, the filthy brute could do 
 that as weel as the Laird himsell, if no better. 
 But Heaven kens the truth, whilk first came out 
 by the minister's wife, after Sir John and her ain 
 gudeman were baith in the moulds. And then 
 my gudesire, wha was failed in his limbs, but not 
 in his judgment or memory at least nothing to 
 speak of was obliged to tell the real narrative to 
 his friends, for the credit of his gude name. He 
 might else have been charged for a warlock. 11 
 
 THE shades of evening were growing thicker 
 around us as my conductor finished his long nar- 
 rative with this moral " Ye see, birkie, it is nac
 
 S62 LATIMEU TO FAIRFOHD. 
 
 chancy thing to tak a stranger traveller for a 
 guide, when ye are in an uncouth land." 
 
 " I should not have made that inference," said 
 I. " Your grandfather's adventure was fortunate 
 for himself, whom it saved from ruin and dis- 
 tress ; and fortunate for his landlord also, whom 
 it prevented from committing a gross act of in- 
 justice/' 
 
 *< Ay, but they had baith to sup the sauce o't 
 sooner or later," said Wandering Willie " What 
 was fristed wasna forgiven. Sir John died before 
 he was much over threescore ; and it was just like 
 of a moment's illness. And for my gudesire, 
 though he departed in the fullness of years, yet 
 there was my father, a yauld man of forty-five, fell 
 down betwixt the stilts of his pleugh, and raise 
 never again, and left nae bairn but me, a puir 
 sightless, fatherless, motherless creature, could 
 neither work nor want. Things gaed weel aneugh 
 at first ; for Sir Redwald Redgauntlet, the only 
 son of Sir John, and the oye of auld Sir Robert, 
 and, waes me ! the last of the honourable house, 
 took the farm aff our hands, and brought me into 
 his household to have care of me. He liked music,
 
 LATIMER TO FA1RFORD. 263 
 
 and I had the best teachers baith England and 
 Scotland could gie me. Mony a merry year was 
 I wi' him ! but waes me ! he gaed out with other 
 pretty men in the forty-five I'll say nae mair 
 about it My head never settled weel since I lost 
 him ; and if I say another word about it, dell a 
 bar will I have the heart to play the night. Look 
 out, my gentle chap," he resumed in a different 
 tone, " ye should see the lights in Brokenburn 
 Glen by this time."
 
 [ 264 ] 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 I CONTINUE to scribble at length, though the 
 subject may seem somewhat deficient in interest. 
 Let the grace of the narrative, therefore, and the 
 concern we take in each other's matters, make 
 amends for its tenuity. We fools of fancy, 
 who suffer ourselves, like Malvolio, to be cheated 
 with our own visions, have, nevertheless, this ad- 
 vantage over the wise ones of the earth, that we 
 have our whole stock of enjoyments under our 
 own command, and can dish for ourselves an 
 intellectual banquet w th most moderate as- 
 sistance from external objects. It is, to be sure, 
 something like the feast which the Barmecide 
 served up to Alnaschar ; and we cannot be ex-
 
 LATIMER TO FA1RFORD. 265 
 
 peeled to get fat upon such diet. But then, nei- 
 ther is there repletion or nausea, which often suc- 
 ceed the grosser and more material revel. On the 
 whole, I still pray, with the Ode to Castle Build- 
 ing- 
 Give me thy hope which sickens not the heart ; 
 
 Give me thy wealth which has no wings to fly ; 
 Give me the bliss thy visions can impart ; 
 Thy friendship give me, warm in poverty. 
 
 And so, despite thy solemn smile and sapient 
 shake of the head, I will go on picking such in- 
 terest as I can out of my trivial adventures, even 
 though that interest should be the creation of my 
 own fancy ; nor will I cease to inflict on thy de- 
 voted eyes the labour of perusing the scrolls in 
 which I shall record my narrative. 
 
 My last broke off as we were on the point of 
 descending into the glen at Brokenburn, by the 
 dangerous track which I had first travelled en 
 crowpe, behind a furious horseman, and was now 
 again to brave under the precarious guidance of 
 a blind man. 
 
 It was now getting dark ; but this was no in- 
 convenience to my guide, who moved on, as for- 
 merly, with instinctive security of step, so that we
 
 266 LATIMEK, TO FA1EFOKW. 
 
 soon reached the bottom, and I could see lights 
 twinkling in the cottage which had been my place 
 of refuge on a former occasion. It was not thi- 
 ther, however, that our course was directed. We 
 left the habitation of the Laird to the left, and 
 turning down the brook, soon approached the 
 small hamlet which had been erected at the 
 mouth of the stream, probably on account of the 
 convenience which it afforded as a harbour to the 
 fishing-boats. A large, low cottage, full in our 
 front, seemed highly illuminated ; for the light 
 not only glanced from every window and aperture 
 in its frail walls, but was even visible from rents 
 and fractures in the roof, composed of tarred 
 shingles, repaired in part by thatch and divot. 
 
 While these appearances engaged my atten- 
 tion, that of my companion was attracted by a re- 
 gular succession of sounds, like a bouncing on the 
 floor, mixed with ajyery faint sound of music, 
 which Willie's acute organs at once recognized 
 and accounted for, while to me it was almost in- 
 audible. The old man struck the earth with his 
 staff in a violent passion. " The whoreson fisher 
 rabble ! They have brought another violer upon
 
 LATIMER TO FA1KFOU1). 267 
 
 my walk ! They are such smuggling blackguards, 
 that they must run in their very music ; but I'll 
 sort them waur than ony gauger in the county. 
 Stay hark it's no a violin neither it's the 
 pipe and tabor bastard, Simon of Sowport, frae 
 the Nicol Forest ; but I'll pipe and tabor him ! 
 Let me hae ance my left hand on his cravat, and 
 ye shall see what my right will do. Come away, 
 chap come away, gentle chap nae time to be 
 picking and waling your steps." And on he pass- 
 ed with long and determined strides, dragging 
 me along with him. 
 
 I was not quite easy in his company ; for, now 
 that his minstrel pride was hurt, the man had 
 changed from the quiet, decorous, I might almost 
 say respectable person, which he seemed while he 
 told his tale, into the appearance of a fierce, brawl- 
 ing, dissolute stroller. So that when he entered 
 the large hut, where a great number of fishers, 
 with their wives and daughters, were engaged in 
 eating, drinking, and dancing, I was somewhat 
 afraid that the impatient violence of my compa- 
 nion might procure us an indifferent reception.
 
 268 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 But the universal shout of welcome with which 
 Wandering Willie was received the hearty con- 
 gratulations the repeated " Here's t'ye, Willie, 1 " 
 " Whare hae ye been, ye blind deevil ?"" and 
 the call upon him to pledge them above all, the 
 speed with which the obnoxious pipe and tabor 
 were put to silence, gave the old man such ef- 
 fectual assurance of undiminished popularity and 
 importance, as at once put his jealousy to rest, 
 and changed his tone of offended dignity, into 
 one better fitted to receive such cordial greetings. 
 Young men and women crowded round, to tell 
 how much they were afraid some mischance had 
 detained him, and how two or three young fel- 
 lows had set out in quest of him. 
 
 " It was nae mischance, praised be Heaven," 
 said Willie, " but the absence of the lazy loon 
 Rob the Rambler, my comrade, that didna come 
 to meet me on the Links ; but I hae gotten a 
 braw consort in his stead, worth a dozen of him, 
 the unhanged blackguard." 
 
 " And wha is't tou's gotten, Wullie lad ?" said 
 half a score of voices, while all eyes were turned 
 on your humble servant, who kept the best coun-
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 269 
 
 tenance he could, though not quite easy at beco- 
 ming the centre to which all eyes were pointed. 
 
 " I ken him by his hemmed cravat," said one 
 fellow ; " it's Gil Hobson, the souple tailor frae 
 Burgh. Ye are welcome to Scotland, ye prick- 
 the-clout loon," he said, thrusting forth a paw 
 much the colour of a badger's back, and of most 
 portentous dimensions. 
 
 " Gil Hobson ? Gil whoreson !" exclaimed 
 Wandering Willie ; " it's a gentle chap that I 
 judge to be an apprentice wi' auld Joshua Ged- 
 des, to the quaker-trade." 
 
 " What trade be's that, man ?" said he of the 
 badger-coloured fist. 
 
 " Canting and lying," said Willie, which pro- 
 duced a thundering laugh ; " but I am teaching 
 the callant a better trade, and that is, feasting and 
 fiddling." 
 
 Willie'sconduct, in thus announcing something 
 like my real character, was contrary to compact ; 
 and yet I was rather glad he did so, for the con- 
 sequence of putting a trick upon these rude and 
 ferocious men, might, in case of discovery, have 
 been dangerous to us both, and I was at the same
 
 270 LATIMER TO FA1RFORD. 
 
 time delivered from the painful effort to support a 
 fictitious character. The good company, except 
 perhaps one or two of the young women, whose 
 looks expressed some desire for better acquaint- 
 ance, gave themselves no farther trouble about 
 me ; but, while the seniors resumed their places 
 near an immense bowl, or rather reeking caul- 
 dron of brandy-punch, the younger arranged 
 themselves on the floor, and called loudly on 
 Willie to strike up. 
 
 With a brief caution to me, to " mind my 
 credit, for fishers had ears, though fish have 
 none, 1 ' Willie led off in capital style, and I fol- 
 lowed, certainly not so as to disgrace my com- 
 panion, who, every now and then, gave me a nod 
 of approbation. The dances were, of course, the 
 Scottish jigs, and reels, and " twasom dances," 
 with a strathspey or hornpipe for interlude ; and 
 the want of grace, on the part of the performers, 
 was amply supplied by truth of ear, vigour and 
 decision of step, and the agility proper to the 
 northern performers. My own spirits rose with 
 the mirth around me, and with old Willie's admi- 
 rable execution, and frequent " weel dune, gentle
 
 LATIMEK TO FAIRFORD. 271 
 
 chap, yet ;" and, to confess the truth, I felt a 
 great deal more pleasure in this rustic revel, than 
 I have done at the more formal balls and concerts 
 in your famed city, to which I have sometimes 
 made my way. Perhaps this was, because I was 
 a person of more importance to the presiding 
 matron of Brokenburn-foot, than I had the means 
 of rendering myself to the far-famed Miss Nickie 
 Murray, the patroness of your Edinburgh assem- 
 blies. The person I mean was a buxom dame of 
 about thirty, her fingers loaded with many a sil- 
 ver ring, and three or four of gold ; her ancles 
 liberally displayed from under her numerous 
 blue, white, and scarlet short petticoats, and at- 
 tired in hose of the finest and whitest lamb-wool, 
 which arose from shoes of Spanish cordwain, 
 fastened with silver buckles. She took the lead in 
 my favour, and declared, that " the brave young 
 gentleman should not weary himsell to death wi** 
 playing, but take the floor for a dance or twa." 
 
 " And what's to come of me, Dame Martin ?" 
 said Willie. 
 
 " Come o 1 thee ?"" said the dame ; " raischan- 
 ter on the auld beard o' ye ! ye could play for
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFOKD. 
 
 twenty hours on end, and tire out the hail coun- 
 try-side wi 1 dancing before ye laid down your 
 bow, saving for a bye drink or the like o' that." 
 
 " In troth, dame," answered Willie, " ye are 
 nae sae far wrang ; sae if my comrade is to take 
 his dance, ye maun gie me my drink, and then 
 bob it away like Madge of Middlebie." 
 
 The drink was soon brought; but while 
 Willie was partaking of it, a party entered the 
 hut, which arrested my attention at once, and 
 intercepted the intended gallantry with which I 
 had proposed to present my hand to the fresh- 
 coloured, well-made, white-ancled Thetis, who 
 had obtained me manumission from my musical 
 task. 
 
 This was nothing less than the sudden appear- 
 ance of the old woman whom the Laird had 
 termed Mabel ; Cristal Nixon, his male attendant ; 
 and the young person who had said grace to us 
 when I supped with him. 
 
 This young person Alan, thou art in thy way 
 
 a bit of a conjuror this young person whom I did 
 
 not describe, and whom you, for that very reason, 
 
 suspected was not an indifferent object to me 
 
 4
 
 LATIMER TO FAIKFOKD. 273 
 
 is, I am sorry to say it, in very fact not so much 
 so as in prudence she ought. I will not use the 
 name of love on this occasion ; for I have applied 
 it too often to transient whims and fancies to 
 escape your satire, should I venture to apply it 
 now. For it is a phrase, I must confess, which 
 I have used a romancer would say profaned 
 a little too often, considering how few years 
 have passed over my head. But seriously, the 
 fair chaplain of Brokenburn has been often in 
 my head when she had no business there ; and 
 if this can give thee any clew for explaining my 
 motives in lingering about the country, and as- 
 suming the character of Willie's companion, 
 why, hang thee, thou art welcome to make use 
 of it a permission for which thou need'st not 
 thank me much, as thou wouldst not have failed 
 to assume it, whether it were given or no. 
 
 Such being my feelings, conceive how they 
 must have been excited, when, like a beam upon 
 a cloud, I saw this uncommonly beautiful girl 
 enter the apartment in which they were dancing ; 
 not, however, with the air of an equal, but that 
 of a superior, come to grace with her presence 
 
 VOL. i. s
 
 274) LATIMEll TO FAIRFO11D. 
 
 the festival of her dependants. The old man and 
 woman attended, with looks as sinister as hers 
 were lovely, like two of the worst winter months 
 waiting upon the bright-eyed May. 
 
 When she entered wonder if thou wilt 
 she wore a green mantle, such as thou hast de- 
 scribed as the garb of thy fair client, and con- 
 firmed what I had partly guessed from thy per- 
 sonal description, that my chaplain and thy visit- 
 or were the same person. There was an altera- 
 tion on her brow the instant she recognized me. 
 She gave her cloak to her female attendant, and, 
 after a momentary hesitation, as if uncertain 
 whether to advance or retire, she walked into the 
 room with dignity and composure, all making 
 way, the men unbonneting, and the women curt- 
 sying respectfully, as she assumed a chair which 
 was reverently placed for her accommodation, 
 apart from others. 
 
 There was then a pause, until the bustling 
 mistress of the ceremonies, with awkward, but 
 kindly courtesy, offered the young lady a glass 
 of wine, which was at first declined, and at length 
 only thus far accepted, that, bowing round to
 
 LATIMEll TO FAIfiFOllD. 275 
 
 the festive company, the fair visitor wished them 
 all health and mirth, and just touching the brim 
 with her lip, replaced it on the salver. There 
 was another pause ; and I did not immediately 
 recollect, confused as I was by this unexpected 
 apparition, that it belonged to me to break it. 
 At length a murmur was heard around me, be- 
 ing expected to exhibit, nay, to lead down the 
 dance, in consequence of the previous conver- 
 sation. 
 
 " De'il's in the fiddler lad," was muttered from 
 more quarters than one" saw folk ever sic a 
 thing as a shame-faced fiddler before ?" 
 
 At length a venerable Triton, seconding his 
 remonstrances with a hearty thump on my shoul- 
 der, cried out, " To the floor to the floor, and 
 let us see how ye can fling the lasses are a' 
 waiting." 
 
 Up I jumped, sprung from the elevated sta- 
 tion which constituted our orchestra, and, arran- 
 ging my ideas as rapidly as I could, advanced to 
 the head of the room, and, instead of offering my 
 hand to the white-footed Thetis aforesaid, I ven- 
 turously made the same proposal to her of the 
 Green Mantle.
 
 276 LATIMER TO FAIRFOttD. 
 
 The nymph's lovely eyes seemed to open with 
 astonishment at the audacity of this offer ; and, 
 from the murmurs I heard around me, I also 
 understood that it surprised, and perhaps of- 
 fended, the bye-standers. But after the first 
 moments emotion, she wreathed her neck, and 
 drawing herself haughtily up, like one who was 
 willing to shew that she was sensible of the full 
 extent of her own condescension, extended her 
 hand towards me, like a princess gracing a squire 
 of low degree. 
 
 There is affectation in all this, thought I to 
 myself, if the Green Mantle has borne true evi- 
 dencefor young ladies do not make visits, or 
 write letters to counsel learned in the law, to in- 
 terfere in the motions of those whom they hold 
 as cheap as this nymph seems to do me ; and if 
 I am cheated by a resemblance of cloaks, still I 
 am interested to shew myself, in some degree, 
 worthy of the favour she has granted with so 
 much state and reserve. The dance to be per- 
 formed was the old Scots Jigg, in which you are 
 aware I used to play no sorry figure at La Pique's, 
 when thy clumsy movements used to be rebuked 
 by raps over the knuckles with that great pro-
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 277 
 
 fessor's fiddle-stick. The choice of the tune was 
 left to my comrade Willie, who, having finished 
 his drink, feloniously struck up the well-known 
 and popular measure, 
 
 " Merrily danced the Quaker's wife, 
 And merrily danced the Quaker." 
 
 An astounding laugh arose at my expense, and 
 I should have been annihilated, but that the smile 
 which mantled on the lip of my partner, had a 
 different expression from that of ridicule, and 
 seemed to say, " Do not take this to heart." And 
 I did not, Alan my partner danced admirably, 
 and I like one who was determined, if outshone, 
 which I could not help, not to be altogether thrown 
 into the shade. 
 
 I assure you our performance, as well as Wil- 
 lie's music, deserved more polished spectators and 
 auditors ; but we could not then have been greet- 
 ed with such enthusiastic shouts of applause as 
 attended while I handed my partner to her seat, 
 and took my place by her side, as one who had a 
 right to offer the attentions usual on such an oc- 
 casion. She was visibly embarrassed, but I was 
 determined not to observe her confusion, and
 
 278 LAT1MER TO FAIKFOKD. 
 
 to avail myself of the opportunity of learning 
 whether this beautiful creature's mind was worthy 
 of the casket in which Nature had lodged it. 
 
 Nevertheless, however courageously I formed 
 this resolution, you cannot but too well guess the 
 difficulties I must needs have felt in carrying it 
 into execution ; since want of habitual intercourse 
 with the charmers of the other sex has rendered 
 me a sheepish cur, only one grain less awkward 
 than thyself. Then she was so very beautiful, and 
 assumed an air of so much dignity, that I was 
 like to fall under the fatal error of supposing she 
 should only be addressed with something very 
 clever ; and in the hasty racking which my brains 
 underwent in this persuasion, not a single idea 
 occurred that common sense did not reject as fus- 
 tian on the one hand, or weary, flat, and stale 
 triticism on the other. I felt as if my understand- 
 ing were no longer my own, but was alternately 
 underthedominionof Aldiborontophoscophornio, 
 and that of his facetious friend Rigdum-Funni- 
 dos. How did I envy at that moment our friend 
 Jack Oliver, who produces with such happy com- 
 placence his fardel of small talk, and who, as he
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 279 
 
 never doubts his own powers of affording amuse- 
 ment, passes them current with every pretty wo- 
 man he approaches, and fills up the intervals of 
 chat by his complete acquaintance with the exer- 
 cise of the fan, ihejlafon, and the other duties of 
 the Cavaliere Serviente. Some of these I attempt- 
 ed, but I suppose it was awkwardly ; at least the 
 Lady Greenmantle received them as a princess 
 accepts the homage of a clown. 
 
 Meantime the floor remained empty, and as the 
 mirth of the good meeting was somewhat check- 
 ed, I ventured, as a dernier resort, to propose a 
 minuet. She thanked me, and told me haughtily 
 enough, " she was here to encourage the harmless 
 pleasures of these good folks, but was not dispo- 
 sed to make an exhibition of her own indifferent 
 dancing for their amusement." 
 
 She paused a moment, as if she expected me 
 to suggest something ; and as I remained silent 
 and rebuked, she bowed her head more gracious- 
 ly, and said, " Not to affront you, however, a 
 country dance, if you please." 
 
 What an ass was I, Alan, not to have antici- 
 pated her wishes ! Should I not have observed
 
 280 LATIMER TO FAIIIFO11D. 
 
 that the ill-favoured couple, Mabel and Cristal, 
 had placed themselves on each side of her seat, 
 like the supporters of the royal arms ? the man, 
 thick, short, shaggy, and hirsute, as the lion ; 
 the female, skin-dried, tight-laced, long, lean, and 
 hungry-faced, like the unicorn. I ought to have 
 recollected, that under the close inspection of two 
 such watchful salvages, our communication, while 
 in repose, could not have been easy ; that the pe- 
 riod of dancing a minuet was not the very choicest 
 time for conversation ; but that the noise, the ex- 
 ercise, and the mazy confusion of a country- 
 dance, where the inexperienced performers were 
 every now and then running against each other, 
 and compelling the other couples to stand still for 
 a minute at a time, besides the more regular re- 
 pose afforded by the intervals of the dance itself, 
 gave the best possible openings for a word or two 
 spoken in season, and without being liable to ob- 
 servation. 
 
 We had but just led down, when an opportu- 
 nity of the kind occurred, and my partner said, 
 with great gentleness and modesty, " It is not 
 perhaps very proper in me to acknowledge an ac-
 
 LATIMEll TO FAI11FORD. 281 
 
 quaintance that is not claimed ; but I believe I 
 speak to Mr Darsie Latimer." 
 
 " Darsie Latimer was indeed the person that 
 had now the honour and happiness " 
 
 I would have gone on in the false gallop of 
 compliment, but she cut me short. " And why," 
 she said, " is Mr Latimer here, and in disguise, 
 or at least assuming an office unworthy of a man 
 of education ? I beg pardon," she continued, , 
 " I would not give you pain, but surely making 
 an associate of a person of that description " 
 
 She looked towards my friend Willie, and was 
 silent. I felt heartily ashamed of myself, and 
 hastened to say it was an idle frolic, which want 
 of occupation had suggested, and which I could 
 not regret, since it had procured me the pleasure 
 I at present enjoyed. 
 
 Without seeming to notice my compliment, 
 she took the next opportunity to say, " Will Mr 
 Latimer permit a stranger who wishes him well 
 to ask, whether it is right that, at his active age, he 
 should be in so far void of occupation, as to be 
 ready to adopt low society for the sake of idle 
 amusement ?"
 
 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 " You are severe, madam," I answered ; " but 
 I cannot think myself degraded by mixing with 
 any society where I meet " 
 
 Here I stopped short, conscious that I was 
 giving my answer an unhandsome turn. The ar- 
 gumentum ad hominem, the last to which a po- 
 lite man has recourse, may however be justified 
 by circumstances, but seldom or never the argu- 
 mentum ad fosminam. 
 
 She filled up the blank herself which I had 
 left. " Where you meet me, I suppose you would 
 say ? But the case is different, I am, from my 
 unhappy fate, obliged to move by the will of 
 others, and to be in places which I would by my 
 own will gladly avoid. Besides, I am, except for 
 these few minutes, no participator of the revels 
 a spectator only, and attended by my servants. 
 Your situation is different you are here by 
 choice, the partaker and minister of the pleasures 
 of a class below you in education, birth, and for- 
 tunes If I speak harshly, Mr Latimer," she 
 added, with much sweetness of manner, " I 
 mean kindly." 
 
 I was confounded by her speech, " severe in 
 5
 
 LATIMER TO FAIIIFOIID. 283 
 
 youthful wisdom ;" all of naive or lively, suit- 
 able to such a dialogue, vanished from my re- 
 collection, and I answered, with gravity like her 
 own, " I am, indeed, better educated than these 
 poor people ; but you, madam, whose kind ad- 
 monition I am grateful for, must know more 
 of my condition than I do myself I dare not 
 say I am their superior in birth, since I know no- 
 thing of my own, or in fortunes, over which hangs 
 an impenetrable cloud." 
 
 " And why should your ignorance on these 
 points drive you into low society and idle habits?" 
 answered my female monitor. " Is it manly to 
 wait till fortune cast her beams upon you, when 
 by exertion of your own energy you might dis- 
 tinguish yourself ? Do not the pursuits of learn- 
 ing lie open to you of manly ambition of war ? 
 But no not of war, that has already cost you 
 too dear." 
 
 " I will be what you wish me to be," I replied 
 with eagerness " You have but to choose my 
 path, and you shall see if I do not pursue it with 
 energy, were it only because you command me." 
 " Not because I command you," said the 
 maiden, " but because reason, common sense,
 
 284 LATIMER TO FAIRFOED. 
 
 manhood, and, in one word, regard for your own 
 safety, give the same counsel." 1 ' 
 
 " At least permit me to reply, that reason and 
 sense never assumed a fairer form of persuasion," 
 I hastily added ; for she turned from me nor did 
 she give me another opportunity of continuing 
 what I had to say till the next pause of the dance, 
 when, determined to bring our dialogue to a point, 
 I said, " You mentioned manhood also, madam, 
 and, in the same breath, personal danger. My 
 ideas of manhood suggest that it is cowardice to 
 retreat before dangers of a doubtful character. 
 You, who appear to know so much of my for- 
 tunes that I might call you my guardian angel, 
 tell me what these dangers are, that I may judge 
 whether manhood calls on me to face or to fly 
 them." 
 
 She was evidently perplexed by this appeal. 
 
 ** You make me pay dearly for acting as your 
 humane adviser,"" she replied at last : " I acknow- 
 ledge an interest in your fate, and yet I dare not 
 tell you whence it arises ; neither am I at liberty 
 to say why or from whom you are in danger ; but 
 it is not less true that danger is near and immi- 
 nent. Ask me, no more, but, for your own sake
 
 LATIMEB. TO FAIRFORD. 285 
 
 begone from this country. Elsewhere you are 
 safe here you do but invite your fate." 
 
 " But, am I doomed to bid thus farewell to 
 almost the only human being who has shewed 
 an interest in my welfare ? Do not say so say 
 that we shall meet again, and the hope shall be 
 the leading star to regulate my course." 
 
 " It is more than probable," she said " much 
 more than probable, that we may never meetagain. 
 The help which I now render you is all that may 
 be in my power ; it is such as I should render to 
 a blind man whom I might observe approaching 
 the verge of a precipice ; it ought to excite no 
 surprise, and requires no gratitude." 
 
 So saying, she again turned from me, nor did 
 she address me until the dance was on the point 
 of ending, when she said, " Do not attempt 
 to speak to, or approach me again in the course 
 of the night ; leave the company as soon as you 
 can, but not abruptly, and God be with you." 
 
 I handed her to her seat, and did not quit the 
 fair palm I held, without expressing my feelings 
 by a gentle pressure. She coloured slightly, and 
 withdrew her hand, but not angrily. Seeing the 
 eyes of Cristal and Mabel sternly fixed on me, I
 
 286 LATIMEIl TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 bowed deeply and withdrew from her ; my heart 
 saddening, and my eyes becoming dim in spite 
 of me, as the shifting crowd hid us from each 
 other. 
 
 It was my intention to have crept back to my 
 comrade Willie, and resumed my bow with such 
 spirit as I might, although, at the moment, I 
 would have given half my income for an instant's 
 solitude. But my retreat was cut off by Dame 
 Martin, with the frankness if it is not an in- 
 consistent phrase of rustic coquetry, that goes 
 straight up to the point. 
 
 " Ay, lad, ye seem unca sune weary to dance 
 sae lightly ? Better the nag that ambles a' the 
 day, than him that makes a brattle for a mile, and 
 then's done wi' the road." 
 
 This was a fair challenge, and I could not de- 
 cline accepting it. Besides, I could see Dame 
 Martin was queen of the revels; and so many 
 were the rude and singular figures about me, 
 that I was by no means certain whether I might 
 not need some protection. I seized on her will- 
 ing hand, and we took our places in the dance, 
 where, if I did not acquit myself with all the ac-
 
 LATIMEK TO FAIRFOKD. 
 
 curacy of step and movement which I had before 
 attempted, I at least came up to the expectations 
 of my partner, who said, and almost swore, " I 
 was prime at it ;" while, stimulated to her utmost 
 exertions, she herself frisked like a kid, snapped 
 her fingers like castanets, whooped like a Baccha- 
 nal, and bounded from the floor like a tennis-ball, 
 ay, till the colour of her garters was no parti- 
 cular mystery. She made the less secret of this, 
 perhaps, that they were sky-blue, and fringed 
 with silver. 
 
 The time has been that this would have been 
 special fun ; or rather, last night was the only 
 time I can recollect these four years when it 
 would not have been so ; yet, at this moment, I 
 cannot tell you how I longed to be rid of Dame 
 Martin. I almost wished she would sprain one 
 of those " many-twinkling"" ancles, which served 
 her so alertly ; and when, in the midst of her 
 exuberant caprioling, I saw my former partner 
 leaving the apartment, and with eyes, as I thought, 
 turning towards me, this unwillingness to carry 
 on the dance increased to such a point, that 
 I was almost about to feign a sprain or a dis-
 
 288 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 location myself, in order to put an end to the 
 performance. But there were around me scores of 
 old women, all of whom looked as if they might 
 have some sovereign recipe for such an accident ; 
 and, remembering Gil Bias and his pretended 
 disorder in the robbers' 1 cavern, I thought it as 
 wise to play Dame Martin fair, and dance till 
 she thought proper to dismiss me. What I did 
 I resolved to do strenuously, and in the latter 
 part of the exhibition, I cut and sprang from the 
 floor as high and as perpendicularly as Dame 
 Martin herself; and received, I promise you, 
 thunders of applause, for the common people al- 
 ways prefer exertion and agility to grace. At 
 length Dame Martin could dance no more, and, 
 rejoicing at my release, I led her to a seat, and 
 took the privilege of a partner to attend her. 
 
 " Hegh, sirs, 1 ' exclaimed Dame Martin, " I 
 am sair forfoughen ! Troth, callant, I think ye 
 hae been amaist the death o' me." 
 
 I could only atone for the alleged offence by 
 fetching her some refreshment, of which she 
 readily partook. 
 
 " I have been lucky in my partners," I said, 
 
 6
 
 LATIMEIl TO FAIRFOIUT. 289 
 
 " first that pretty young lady, and then you, Mrs 
 Martin. 1 ' 
 
 " Hout wi' your Seeching," said Dame Mar- 
 tin. " Gae wa gae wa, lad ; dinna blaw in 
 folks lugs that gate; me and Miss Lilias even'd 
 thegither ! Na, na, lad od, she is maybe four 
 or five years younger than the like o' me, bye 
 and attour her gentle havings.' 1 
 
 " She is the Laird's daughter?" said I, in as 
 careless a tone of inquiry as I could assume. 
 
 " His daughter, man ? Na, na, only his niece 
 and sib aneugh to him, I think." 
 
 " Ay, indeed," I replied ; " I thought she had 
 borne his name ?" 
 
 " She bears her ain name, and that's Lilias." 
 
 " And has she no other name ?" asked I. 
 
 " What needs she another till she gets a gude- 
 man ?" answered my Thetis, a little miffed per- 
 haps to use the women's phrase that I turned 
 the conversation upon my former partner, rather 
 than addressed it to herself. 
 
 There was a little pause, which was interrupt- 
 ed by Dame Martin observing, " They are stand- 
 ing up again." 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 290 LATIMER TO FAIRFOKD. 
 
 " True," said I, having no mind to renew my 
 late violent capriole, " and I must go help old 
 Willie." 
 
 Ere I could extricate myself, I heard poor 
 Thetis address herself to a sort of Mer-man in a 
 jacket of seamen's blue, and a pair of trowsers, 
 (whose hand, by the way, she had rejected at an 
 earlier part of the evening,) and intimate that she 
 was now disposed to take a trip. 
 
 " Trip away then, dearie," said the vindictive 
 man of the waters, without offering his hand; 
 " there," pointing to the floor, u is a roomy birth 
 for you." 
 
 Certain I had made one enemy, and perhaps 
 two, I hastened to my original seat beside Willie, 
 and began to handle my bow. But I could see 
 that my conduct had made an unfavourable im- 
 pression ; the words, " flory conceited chap," 
 " haflins gentle," and at length, the still more 
 alarming epithet of " spy," began to be buzzed 
 about, and I was heartily glad when the appari- 
 tion of Sam's visage at the door, who was already 
 possessed of and draining a can of punch, gave 
 me assurance that my means of retreat were a
 
 LATIMKR TO FAIKFORD. 291 
 
 band. I intimated as much to Willie, who pro- 
 bably had heard more of the murmurs of the 
 company than I had, for he whispered, " Ay, 
 ay awa wi 1 ye ower lang here slide out canny 
 dinna let them see ye are on the tramp. " 
 
 I slipped half-a-guinea into the old man's hand, 
 who answered, " Truts I pruts ! nonsense ! but 
 I'se no refuse, trusting ye can afford it. Awa 
 wi' ye and if onybody stops ye cry on me." 
 
 I glided, by his advice, along the room as if 
 looking for a partner, joined Sam, whom I dis- 
 engaged with some difficulty from his can, and 
 we left the cottage together in a manner to at- 
 tract the least possible observation. The horses 
 were tied in a neighbouring shed, and as the 
 moon was up and I was now familiar with the 
 road, broken and complicated as it is, we soon 
 reached the Shepherd's Bush, where the old 
 landlady was sitting up waiting for us, under 
 some anxiety of mind, to account for which she 
 did not hesitate to tell me that some folks had 
 gone to Brokenburn from her house, or neigh- 
 bouring towns, that did not come so safe back
 
 292 LATIMER TO FAIRFORD. 
 
 again. " Wandering Willie,' 1 '' she said, " was 
 doubtless a kind of protection."" 
 
 Here Willie's wife, who was smoking in the 
 chimney corner, took up the praises of her " nin- 
 ny, 1 ' as she called him, and endeavoured to awa- 
 ken my generosity afresh, by describing the 
 dangers from which, as she was pleased to allege, 
 her husband's countenance had assuredly been 
 the means of preserving me. I was not, however, 
 to be fooled out of more money at this time, and 
 went to bed in haste, full of various cogitations. 
 I have since spent a couple of days betwixt 
 Mount Sharon and this place, and betwixt read- 
 ing, writing to thee this momentous history, form- 
 ing plans for seeing the lovely Lilias, and part- 
 ly, I think, for the sake of contradiction angling 
 a little in spite of Joshua's scruples though I 
 am rather liking the amusement better as I begin 
 to have some success in it. 
 
 And now, my dearest Alan, you are in full 
 possession of my secret let me as frankly into 
 the recesses of your bosom. How do you feel to- 
 wards this fair ignis fatuus, this lily of the de-
 
 LATIMEll TO FAIRFORD. 2Q3 
 
 sert ? Tell me honestly ; for however the recollec- 
 tion of her may haunt my own mind, my love 
 for Alan Fairford surpasses the love of woman. 
 I know, too, that when you do love, it will be to 
 
 " Love once and love no more." 
 
 A deep-consuming passion, once kindled in a 
 breast so steady as yours, would never be extin- 
 guished but with life. I am of another and 
 more volatile temper, and though I shall open 
 your next with a trembling hand, and uncer- 
 tain heart, yet let it bring a frank confession 
 that this fair unknown has made a deeper im- 
 pression on your gravity than you reckoned for, 
 and you will see I can tear the arrow from my 
 own wound, barb and all. In the meantime, 
 though I have formed schemes once more to see 
 her, I will, you may rely on it, take no step for 
 putting them into practice. I have refrained 
 from this hitherto, and I give you my word of 
 honour, I shall continue to do so ; yet why 
 should you need any further assurance from 
 one who is so entirely yours as 
 
 D. L.
 
 294 LATIMER TO FAIRFORli. 
 
 P. S. I shall be on thorns till 1 receive your 
 answer. I read, and re-read your letter, and can- 
 not for my soul discover what your real senti- 
 ments are. Sometimes I think you write of her 
 as one in jest and sometimes I think that can- 
 not be. Put me at ease as soon as possible.
 
 [ 295 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 ALAN FAIRFORD TO DARSIE LATIMEtt. 
 
 I WRITE on the instant, as you direct ; and in 
 a tragi-comic humour, for I have a tear in my 
 eye, and a smile on my cheek. Dearest Darsie, 
 sure never a being but yourself could be so ge- 
 nerous sure never a being but yourself could 
 be so absurd! I remember when you were a 
 boy you wished to make your fine new whip a 
 present to old aunt Peggy, merely because she 
 admired it ; and now, with like unreflecting and 
 unappropriate liberality, you would resign your 
 beloved to a smoke-dried young sophister, who 
 cares not one of the hairs which it is his oc- 
 cupation to split for all the daughters of Eve.
 
 296 FAIRFOUD TO LATIMEll. 
 
 / in love with your Lilias your green man- 
 tle your unknown enchantress! why I scarce 
 saw her for five minutes, and even then only 
 the tip of her chin was distinctly visible. She 
 was well made, and the tip of her chin was 
 of a most promising cast for the rest of the 
 face ; but, Heaven save you ! she came upon 
 business ! and for a lawyer to fall in love 
 with a pretty client on a single consultation, 
 would be as wise as if he became enamoured of 
 a particularly bright sunbeam which chanced 
 for a moment to gild his bar-wig. I give you 
 my word I am heart-whole ; and moreover, I as- 
 sure you, that before I suffer a woman to sit 
 near my heart's core, I must see her full face, 
 without mask or mantle, ay, and know a good 
 deal of her mind into the bargain. So never fret 
 yourself on my account, my kind ~and generous 
 Darsie ; but, for your own sake, have a care, and 
 let not an idle attachment, so lightly taken up, 
 lead you into serious danger. 
 
 On this subject I feel so apprehensive, that 
 now when I am decorated with the honours of 
 the gown, I should have abandoned my career
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 297 
 
 at the very starting to come to you, but for my 
 father having contrived to clog my heels with 
 fetters of a professional nature. I will tell you 
 the matter at length, for it is comical enough ; 
 and why should not you list to my juridical ad- 
 ventures, as well as I to those of your fiddling 
 knight errantry ? 
 
 It was after dinner, and I was considering how 
 I might best introduce to my father the private 
 resolution I had formed to set off for Dumfries- 
 shire, or whether I had not better run away at 
 once, and plead my excuse by letter, when, as- 
 suming the peculiar look with which he commu- 
 nicates any of his intentions respecting me, which 
 he suspects may not be altogether acceptable, 
 " Alan," he said, " ye now wear a gown ye 
 have opened shop, as we would say of a more 
 mechanical profession ; and, doubtless, ye think 
 the floor of the courts is strewed with guineas, 
 and that ye have only to stoop down to gather 
 them." 
 
 " I hope I am sensible, sir," I replied, " that 
 I have some knowledge and practice to acquire, 
 and must stoop for that in the first place."
 
 298 FAIRFO&D TO LAT1MEU. 
 
 " It is well said," answered my father ; and, 
 always afraid to give too much encouragement, 
 added, " Very well said, if it be well acted up to 
 Stoop to get knowledge and practice is the very 
 word. Ye know very well, Alan, that in the 
 other faculty who study the Ars medendi, before 
 the young doctor gets to the bedsides of palaces, 
 he must, as they call it, walk the hospitals ; and 
 cure Lazarus of his sores, before he be admitted 
 to prescribe for Dives, when he has gout or indi- 
 gestion " 
 
 " I am aware, sir, that " 
 
 " Whisht do not interrupt the court Well 
 also the chirurgeons have an useful practice, 
 by which they put their apprentices and tyrones 
 to work upon senseless dead bodies, to which, as 
 they can do no good, so they certainly can do as 
 little harm ; while at the same time the tyro, or 
 apprentice, gains experience, and becomes fit to 
 whip off a leg or arm from a living subject, as 
 cleanly as ye would slice an onion." 
 
 " I believe I guess your meaning, sir," an- 
 swered I ; " and were it not for a very particular 
 engagement 1 "
 
 FAIKFORD TO LATIMEK. 299 
 
 " Do not speak to me of engagements ; but 
 whisht there is a good lad and do not inter- 
 rupt the court. 11 
 
 My father, you know, is apt be it said with 
 all filial duty to be a little prolix in his ha- 
 rangues. I had nothing for it but to lean back 
 and listen. 
 
 " Maybe you think, Alan, because I have, 
 doubtless, the management of some actions in de- 
 pendence, whilk my worthy clients have intrust- 
 ed me with, that I may think of airting them 
 your 'way instanter ; and so setting you up in 
 practice, so far as my small business or influence 
 may go ; and, doubtless, Alan, that is a day 
 whilk I hope may come round. But then, be- 
 fore I give, as the proverb hath it, * My own 
 fish-guts to my own sea-maws, 1 I must, for the 
 sake of my own character, be very sure that my 
 sea-maw can pick them to some purpose. What 
 say ye ?" 
 
 " I am so far, 11 answered I, " from wishing to 
 get early into practice, sir, that I would willingly 
 bestow a few days " 
 
 " In farther study, ye would say, Alan. But
 
 300 FAIEFORD TO LATIMEB. 
 
 that is not the way either ye must walk the 
 hospitals ye must cure Lazarus ye must cut 
 and carve on a departed subject, to shew your 
 skill." 
 
 <( I am sure," I replied, " I will undertake the 
 cause of any poor man with pleasure, and be- 
 stow as much pains upon it as if it were a Duke's ; 
 but for the next two or three days " 
 
 " They must be devoted to close study, Alan 
 very close study indeed ; for ye must stand 
 primed for a hearing, in presentia Dominorum, 
 upon Tuesday next." 
 
 " I, sir !" I replied in astonishment " I have 
 not opened my mouth in the Outer-House yet." 
 
 " Never mind the Court of the Gentiles, man," 
 said my father ; " we will have you into the 
 Sanctuary at once over shoes, over boots."" 
 
 " But, sir, I should really spoil any cause 
 thrust on me so hastily." 
 
 " Ye cannot spoil it, Alan," said my father, 
 rubbing his hands with much complacency ; 
 " that is the very cream of the business, man 
 it is just, as I said before, a subject upon whilk 
 all the tyrvnes have been trying their whittles for
 
 FAIR/FORD TO LATIMER. 301 
 
 fifteen years ; and as there have been about ten 
 or a dozen agents concerned, and each took his 
 own way, the case is come to that pass, that Stair 
 or Arniston could not mend it; and I do not 
 think even you, Alan, can do it much harm ye 
 may get credit by it, but ye can lose none." 
 
 " And pray what is the name of my happy 
 client, sir ?" said I, ungraciously enough, I be- 
 lieve. 
 
 " It is a well-known name in the Parliament- 
 House," replied my father. " To say the truth, 
 I expect him every moment ; it is Peter Pee- 
 bles." 
 
 " Peter Peebles !" exclaimed I, in astonish- 
 ment ; " he is an insane beggar as poor as Job, 
 and as mad as a March hare !" 
 
 " He has been pleaing in the court for fifteen 
 years," said my father, in a tone of commisera- 
 tion, which seemed to acknowledge that this fact 
 was enough to account for the poor man's condi- 
 tion both in mind and circumstances. 
 
 " Besides, sir," I added, " he is on the Poor's 
 Roll ; and you know there are advocates regular-
 
 302 FAIRFOKU TO LATIMER. 
 
 ly appointed to manage those cases ; and for me 
 
 to presume to interfere " 
 
 " Whisht, Alan ! never interrupt the court 
 all that is managed for ye like a tee'd ball, (my 
 father sometimes draws his similies from his once 
 favourite game of golf,) you must know, Alan, 
 that Peter's cause was to have been opened by 
 young Dumtoustie ye may ken the lad, a son 
 of Dumtoustie of that ilk, Member of Parlia- 
 ment for the county of , and a nephew of 
 the Laird's younger brother, worthy Lord Blad- 
 der skate, whilk ye are aware sounds as like be- 
 ing akin to a peatship* and a sheriffdom, as a 
 sieve is sib to a riddle. Now Saunders Drudgeit, 
 my lord's clerk, came to me this morning in the 
 House, like ane bereft of his wits ; for it seems 
 that young Dumtoustie is ane of the Poor's Law- 
 yers, and Peter Peebles's process had been re- 
 mitted to him of course. But so soon as the hair- 
 
 * Formerly, a lawyer, supposed to be under the peculiar pa- 
 tronage of any particular judge, was invidiously termed his peat, 
 or pet.
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 303 
 
 brained goose saw the pokes, (as, indeed, Alan, 
 they are none of the least,) he took fright, cried 
 for his nag, lap on, and away to the country is he 
 gone ; and so, said Saunders, my lord is at his 
 wit's end wi' vexation and shame, to see his nevoy 
 break off the course at the very starting. ' I'll tell 
 you, Saunders/ said I, * were I my lord, and a 
 friend or kinsman of mine should leave the town 
 while the court was sitting, that kinsman, or be 
 he what he liked, should never darken my door 
 again.' And then, Alan, I thought to turn the 
 ball our own way ; and I said that you were a 
 gay sharp birkie, just off the irons, and if it 
 would oblige my lord, and so forth, you would 
 open Peter's cause upon Tuesday, and make 
 some handsome apology for the necessary ab- 
 sence of your learned friend, and the loss which 
 your client and the court had sustained, and so 
 forth. Saunders lap at the proposition, like a 
 cock at a grosart ; for he said, the only chance 
 was to get a new hand, that did not ken the 
 charge he was taking upon him ; for there was 
 not a lad of two Sessions' standing that was not 
 dead-sick of Peter Peebles and his cause ; and he 
 
 3
 
 304 FAIttFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 advised me to break the matter gently to you at 
 the first; but I told him you were a good bairn, 
 Alan, and had no will and pleasure in these mat- 
 ters but mine." 
 
 What could I say, Darsie, in answer to this 
 arrangement, so very well meant so very vexa- 
 tious at the same time ? To imitate the defec- 
 tion and flight of young Dumtoustie, was at once 
 to destroy my father's hopes of me forever ; nay, 
 such is the keenness with which he regards all 
 connected with his profession, it might have been 
 a step to breaking his heart. I was obliged, 
 therefore, to bow in sad acquiescence, when my 
 father called to James Wilkinson to bring the 
 two bits of pokes he would find on his table. 
 
 Exit James, and presently re-enters, bending 
 under the load of two huge leathern bags, full 
 of papers to the brim, and labelled on the greasy 
 backs with the magic impress of the clerks of 
 court, and the title, Peebles against Plainstanes. 
 This huge mass was deposited on the table, and 
 my father, with no ordinary glee in his counte- 
 nance, began to draw out the various bundles of 
 papers, secured by none of your red-tape or 
 
 4
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 305 
 
 whip-cord, but stout, substantial casts of tarred 
 rope, such as might have held small craft at 
 their moorings. 
 
 I made a last and desperate effort to get rid of 
 the impending job. " I am really afraid, sir, that 
 this case seems so much complicated, and there 
 is so little time to prepare, that we were better 
 move the Court to supersede it till next Session.*' 
 
 " How, sir ? how, Alan ?" said my father 
 " Would you approbate and reprobate, sir? You 
 have accepted the poor man's cause, and if you 
 have not his fee in your pocket, it is because he 
 has none to give you ; and now would you appro- 
 bate and reprobate in the same breath of your 
 mouth ? Think of your oath of office, Alan, 
 and your duty to your father, my dear boy." 
 
 Once more, what could I say ? I saw, from 
 my father's hurried and alarmed manner, that no- 
 thing could vex him so much as failing in the 
 point he had determined to carry, and once more 
 intimated my readiness to do ray best, under 
 every disadvantage. 
 
 " Well, well, my boy," said my father, " the 
 
 VOL. i. u
 
 306 FAIRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 Lord will make your days long in the land, for 
 the honour you have given to your father's grey 
 hairs. You may find wiser advisers, Alan, bu 
 none that can wish you better." 
 
 My father, you know, does not usually give 
 way to expressions of affection, and they are in- 
 teresting in proportion to their rarity. My eyes 
 began to fill at seeing his glisten ; and my de- 
 light at having given him suoh sensible gratifi- 
 cation would have been unmixed, but for the 
 thoughts of you. These out of the question, I 
 could have grappled with the bags, had they been 
 as large as corn-sacks. But, to turn what was 
 grave into farce, the door opened, and Wilkinson 
 ushered in Peter Peebles. 
 
 You must have seen this original, Darsie, who, 
 like others in the same predicament, continues to 
 haunt the courts of justice, where he has made 
 shipwreck of time, means, and understanding. 
 Such insane paupers have sometimes seemed to 
 me to resemble wrecks lying upon the shoals on 
 the Goodwin Sands, or in Yarmouth Roads, 
 warning other vessels to keep aloof from the 
 banks on which they have been lost ; or ra-
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMEE. 307 
 
 ther scare-crows and potatoe-bogles, distributed 
 through the courts to scare away fools from the 
 scene of litigation. 
 
 The identical Peter wears a huge great-coat, 
 thread-bare and patched itself, yet carefully so 
 disposed and secured by what buttons remain, 
 and many supplementary pins, as to conceal the 
 still more infirm state of his under garments. 
 The shoes and stockings of a ploughman were, 
 however, seen to meet at his knees, with a pair of 
 brownish, blackish breeches; a rusty-coloured 
 handkerchief, that has been black in its day, sur- 
 rounded his throat, and was an apology for linen. 
 His hair, half grey, half black, escaped in elf- 
 locks around a huge wig, made of tow, as it 
 seemed to me, and so much shrunk, that it stood 
 up on the very top of his head ; above which he 
 plants, when covered, an immense cocked hat, 
 which, like the chieftain's banner, may be seen 
 any sederunt day betwixt nine and ten, high 
 towering above all the fluctuating and changeful 
 scene in the Outer-House, where his eccentrici- 
 ties often make him the centre of a group of pe-
 
 308 FAIRFOKD TO LATIMER. 
 
 tulant and teazing boys, who exercise upon him 
 every art of ingenious torment. His counte- 
 nance, originally that of a portly, comely bur- 
 gess, is now emaciated with poverty and anxiety, 
 and rendered wild by an insane lightness about 
 the eyes ; a withered and blighted skin and com- 
 plexion ; features charged Avith the self-import- 
 ance peculiar to insanity ; and a habit of perpe- 
 tually speaking to himself. Such was my fortu- 
 nate client; and I must allow, Darsie, t-hat my 
 profession had need to do a great deal of good, 
 if, as is much to be feared, it brings many indi- 
 viduals to such a pass. 
 
 After we had been, with a good deal of form, 
 presented to each other, at which time I easily 
 saw by my father's manner that he was desirous 
 of supporting Peter's character in my eyes, as 
 much as circumstances would permit, " Alan,' 1 
 he said, " this is tti gentleman who has agreed 
 to accept of you as his counsel, in place of young 
 Dumtoustie." 
 
 " Entirely out of favour to my old acquaint- 
 ance your father," said Peter, with a benign and
 
 FAIRFO11D TO LATIMEll. 309 
 
 patronizing countenance, " out of respect to your 
 father, and my old intimacy with Lord Bladder- 
 skate. Otherwise, by the Regiam Majestatem! 
 I would have presented a petition and complaint 
 against Daniel Dumtoustie, Advocate, by name 
 and surname I would, by all the practiques! I 
 know the forms of process ; and I am not to be 
 trifled with. 1 ' 
 
 My father here interrupted my client, and re- 
 minded him that there was a good deal of busi- 
 ness to do, as he proposed to give the young 
 counsel an outline of the state of the conjoined 
 process, with a view to letting him into the me- 
 rits of the cause, disencumbered from the points 
 of form. " I have made a short abbreviate, Mr 
 Peebles," said he ; " having sat up late last night, 
 and employed much of this morning in wading 
 through these papers, to save Alan some trou- 
 ble, and I am now about to state the result." 
 
 " I will state it myself," said Peter, breaking 
 in without reverence upon his solicitor. 
 
 " No, by no means, 11 said my father ; " I am 
 your agent for the time." 
 
 " Mine eleventh in number, 11 said Peter ; " I
 
 310 FA1KFORJD TO LAT1MER. 
 
 have a new one every year ; I wish I could get a 
 new coat as regularly." 
 
 " Your agent for the time," resumed my fa- 
 ther ; " and you, who are acquainted with the 
 forms, know that the client states the case to the 
 agent the agent to the counsel-" 
 
 " The counsel to the Lord Ordinary, the Or- 
 dinary to the Inner House, the President to the 
 Bench. It js just like the rope to the man, the 
 man to the ox, the ox to the water, the water to 
 the fire " 
 
 " Hush, for Heaven's sake, Mr Peebles," said 
 my father, cutting his recitation short ; " time 
 wears on we must get to business you must 
 not interrupt the court, you know. Hem, hem ! 
 From this abbreviate it appears " 
 
 " Before you begin," said Peter Peebles, 
 " I'll thank you to order me a morsel of bread 
 and cheese, or some cauld meat, or broth, or the 
 like alimentary provision ; I was so anxious to 
 see your son, that I could not eat a mouthful 
 of dinner." 
 
 Heartily glad, I believe, to have so good a 
 chance of stopping his client's mouth effectually,
 
 FAIRF011D TO LAT1MEK. 311 
 
 my father ordered some cold meat ; to which James 
 Wilkinson, for the honour of the house, was 
 about to add the brandy bottle, which remained 
 on the side-board, but, at a wink from my father, 
 supplied its place with small beer. Peter charged 
 the provisions with the rapacity of a famished 
 lion ; and so well did the diversion engage him, 
 that though, while my father stated the case, he 
 looked at him repeatedly, as if he meant to in- 
 terrupt his statement, yet he always found more 
 agreeable employment for his mouth, and re- 
 turned to the cold beef with an avidity which con- 
 vinced me he had not had such an opportunity 
 for many a day of satiating his appetite. Omitting 
 much formal phraseology, and many legal de- 
 tails, I will endeavour to give you, in exchange 
 for your fiddler's tale, the history of a litigant, 
 or rather, the history of his law-suit. 
 
 " Peter Peebles and Paul Plain stanes," said 
 my father, " entered into partnership, in the 
 
 year , as mercers and linen drapers, in the 
 
 Lucken-booths, and carried on a great line of 
 business to mutual advantage. But the learned 
 counsel needeth not to be told, sodetas est mater
 
 312 FATRFORD TO LATIMER. 
 
 discordiarum, partnership oft makes pleaship. 
 The company being dissolved by mutual con- 
 sent, in the year , the affairs had to be 
 
 wound up, and after certain attempts to settle 
 the matter extra-judicially, it was at last brought 
 into the Court, and has branched out into seve- 
 ral distinct processes, most of whilk have been 
 conjoined by the Ordinary. It is to the state of 
 these processes that counsel's attention is parti- 
 cularly directed. There is the original action of 
 Peebles v. Plainstanes, convening him for pay- 
 ment of L. 3000, less or more, as alleged balance 
 due by Plainstanes. 2dly, There is a counter ac- 
 tion, in which Plainstanes is pursuer and Peebles 
 defender, for L.2500, less or mere, being ba- 
 lance alleged per contra, to be due by Peebles. 
 3diy, Mr Peebles's seventh agent advised an ac- 
 tion of Compt and Reckoning at his instance, 
 wherein what balance should prove due on either 
 side might be fairly struck and ascertained. 
 4thly, To meet the hypothetical case, that Pee- 
 bles might be found liable in a balance to Plain- 
 stanes, Mr Wildgoose, Mr Peebles's eighth
 
 FAIRFORD TO LATIMEB. 313 
 
 agent, recommended a Multiplepoinding, to 
 bring all parties concerned into the field." 
 
 My brain was like to turn at this account of 
 lawsuit within lawsuit, like a nest of chip-boxes, 
 with all of which I was expected to make myself 
 acquainted. 
 
 " I understand," I said, " that Mr Peebles 
 claims a sum of money from Plainstanes how 
 then can he be his debtor ? and if not his debtor, 
 how can he bring a Multiplepoinding, the very 
 summons of which sets forth, that the pursuer 
 does owe certain monies, which he is desirous to 
 pay by warrant of a judge ?" 
 
 " Ye know little of the matter, I doubt, friend," 
 said Mr Peebles ; " a Multiplepoinding is the 
 safest remedium juris in the whole form of pro- 
 cess. I have known it conjoined with a declara- 
 tor of marriage. Your beef is excellent," he said 
 to my father, who in vain endeavoured to re- 
 sume his legal disquisition ; " but something 
 highly powdered and the twopenny is undeni- 
 able ; but it is small swipes small swipes more 
 of hop than malt with your leave I'll try your 
 black bottle."
 
 314 FATKFORD TO LATIMKII. 
 
 My father started to help him with his own 
 hand, and in due measure ; but, infinitely to my 
 amusement, Peter Peebles got possession of the 
 bottle by the neck, and my father's ideas of hos- 
 pitality were far too scrupulous to permit his 
 attempting, by any direct means, to redeem it ; 
 so that Peter returned to the table triumphant, 
 with his prey in his clutch. 
 
 " Better have a wine-glass, Mr Peebles," said 
 my father, in an admonitory tone, " you will 
 find it pretty strong." 
 
 " If the kirk is ower muckle, we can sing mass 
 in the quire," said Peter, helping himself in the 
 goblet out of which he had been drinking the small 
 beer. " What is it, usquebaugh ? BRANDY, 
 as I am an honest man ! I had almost forgotten 
 the name and taste of brandy. Mr Fairford 
 elder, your good health, (a mouthful of brandy) 
 Mr Alan Fairford, wishing you well through 
 your arduous undertaking, (another go-down of 
 the comfortable liquor) And now, though you 
 have given a tolerable breviate of this great law- 
 suit, of whilk everybody has heard something 
 that has walked the boards in the Outer-House,
 
 FA1RFORD TO LATIMEK. 315 
 
 (here's to ye again, by way of interim decreet,) 
 yet ye have omitted to speak a word of the ar- 
 restments." 
 
 " I was just coming to that point, Mr Pee- 
 bles.' 1 , 
 
 " Or of the action of suspension of the charge 
 on the bill." 
 
 " I was just coming to that." 
 
 " Or the advocation of the Sheriff-Court pro- 
 cess." 
 
 " I was just coming to it." 
 
 " As Tweed comes to Melrose, I think," said 
 the litigant ; and then filling his goblet about a 
 quarter full of brandy, as if in absence of mind, 
 u Oh, Mr Alan Fairford, ye are a lucky man 
 to buckle to such a cause as mine at the very out- 
 set ! it is like a specimen of all causes, man. By 
 the Regiam, there is not a remedium juris in the 
 practiques but yell find a spice o't. ' Here's to 
 your getting weel through with it Pshut I am 
 drinking naked spirits, I think. But if the hea- 
 then be ower strong we'll christen him with the 
 brewer, (here he added a little small beer to his 
 beverage, paused) rolled his eyes, winked, and 
 II
 
 816 FAIRFORD TO LATIMEK. 
 
 proceeded,) Mr Fairford the action of assault 
 and battery, Mr Fairford, when I compelled the 
 villain Plainstanes to pull my nose within two steps 
 of King Charles's statue, in the Parliament Close 
 ,there I had him in a hose-net. Never man 
 could tell me how to shape that process no 
 counsel that ever selled wind could condescend 
 and say whether it were best to proceed by way 
 of petition and complaint, ad vindictam publi- 
 cam, with consent of his Majesty's advocate, or 
 by action on the statute for battery pendente lite, 
 whilk would be the winning my plea at once, 
 and so getting a back-door out of Court. By 
 the Regiam, that beef and brandy is unco het at 
 my heart I maun try the ale again, (sipped a 
 little beer) ; and the ale's but cauld, I maun e'en 
 put in the rest of the brandy." 
 
 He was as good as his word, and proceeded in 
 so loud and animated a style of elocution, thump- 
 ing the table, drinking and snuffing alternately, 
 that my father abandoning all attempts to inter- 
 rupt him, sat silent and ashamed, suffering and 
 anxious for the conclusion of the scene. 
 
 " And then to come back to my pet process
 
 FAIRFORU TO LATIMER. 317 
 
 of all ray battery and assault process, when I 
 had the good luck to provoke him to pull my 
 nose at the very threshold of the Court, whilk 
 was the very thing I wanted Mr Pest, ye ken 
 him, Daddie Fairford ? Old Pest was for making 
 it out hamesucken, for he said the Court might be 
 said said ugh ! to be my dwelling-place. I 
 dwell mair there than ony gate else, and the es- 
 sence of hamesucken is to strike a man in his dwell- 
 ing-place mind that, young advocate and so 
 there's hope Plainstanes may be hanged, as many 
 has for a less matter; for, my Lords, will Pest say 
 to the Justiciary bodies, my Lords, the Parlia- 
 ment House is Peebles's place of dwelling, says 
 he being commune forum, and commune forum 
 est commune domicilium Lass, fetch another 
 glass of whiskey, and score it time to gae hame 
 by the practiques, I cannot find the jug yet 
 there's twa of them, I think. By the Regiam, 
 Fairford Daddie Fairford lend us twal pen- 
 nies to buy sneeshing, mine is done Macer, call 
 another cause." 
 
 The box fell from his hands, and his body
 
 318 FAIIIFORI) TO LATIMER. 
 
 would at the same time have fallen from the 
 chair, had not I supported him. 
 
 " This is intolerable," said my father " Call 
 a chairman, James Wilkinson, to carry this de- 
 graded, worthless, drunken beast home." 
 
 When Peter Peebles was removed from this 
 memorable consultation, under the care of an 
 able-bodied Celt, my father hastily bundled up 
 the papers, as a showman, whose exhibition has 
 miscarried, hastes to remove his booth. " Here 
 are my memoranda, Alan," he said, in a hurried 
 way ; " look them carefully over compare them 
 with the processes, and turn it in your head before 
 Tuesday. Many a good speech has been made 
 for a beast of a client ; and hark ye, lad, hark 
 ye I never intended to cheat you of your fee 
 when all was done, though I would have liked to 
 have heard the speech first ; but there is nothing 
 like corning the horse before the journey. Here 
 are five goud guineas in a silk purse of your 
 poor mother's netting, Alan she would have 
 been a blithe woman to have seen her young son 
 with a gown on his back but no more of that 
 be a good boy, and to the work like a tiger."
 
 FAIRF011D TO LATIMER. 319 
 
 I did set to work, Darsie ; for who could resist 
 such motives? With my father's assistance, I 
 have mastered the details, confused as they are ; 
 and on Tuesday, I will plead as well for Peter 
 Peebles, as I could for a duke. Indeed, I feel my 
 head so clear on the subject, as to be able to 
 write this long letter to you ; into which, how- 
 ever, Peter and his law-suit have insinuated them- 
 selves so far, as to shew you how much they at 
 present occupy my thoughts. Once more, be 
 careful of yourself, and mindful of me, who am 
 ever thine while 
 
 ALAN FAIRFORD. 
 
 From circumstances, to be hereafter mention- 
 ed, it was long ere this letter reached the person 
 to whom it was addressed. 
 
 END OF VOLUME FIRST. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 Printed by James Ballantync and Co.
 
 A 'i iii if i M 
 
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