But he was young, bold, and active, and with the assistance of the beggar's stout piked staff, which he had retained by advice of the proprietor, contrived to bear himself from the face of the precipice, and the yet more hazardous projecting cliffs which varied its surface. Tossed in empty space, like an idle and unsubstantial feather, with a motion that agitated the brain at once with fear and with dizziness, he retained his alertness of exertion and presence of mind; and it was not until he was safely grounded upon the summit of the cliff, that he felt temporary and giddy sickness. As he recovered from a sort of half swoon, he cast his eyes eagerly around. The object which they would most willingly have sought, was already in the act of vanishing. Her white garment was just discernible as she followed on the path which her father had taken. She had lingered till she saw the last of their company rescued from danger, and until she had been assured by the coarse voice of Mucklebackit, that the callant had come off wi' unbrizzed banes, and that he was but in a kind of dwam.' But Lovel was not aware that she had expressed in his fate even this degree of interest, which, though nothing more than was due to a stranger who had assisted her in such an hour of peril, he would have gladly purchased by braving even more imminent danger than he had that evening been exposed to. The beggar she had already commanded to come to Knockwinnock that night. He made an excuse, Then to-morrow let me see you.'' Vol. I. P. 170.

We do not envy the strength of that reader's head, who shall remain unmoved amidst such a description. It is perhaps the most perfect specimen we have of the power of words in holding the mirror to natural appearances. The scene moves before our eyes, and in the fidelity of the resemblance we almost forget that it is but a portrait.

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To return to the story. Our readers will naturally surmise that Lovel is inamoured of Isabella. His birth, parentage, and education, are still involved in mystery. He has plenty of money, but no one in Fairport knows whence he comes, or whither he goes. He is suddenly summoned away, but returns in a few days, in black, having lost, as he states it, the only friend he ever possessed. This circumstance gives rise to some reflections of the Antiquary; clothed in a melancholy sweetness of language, and conceived in a train of observations which give them a superiority over any thoughts on the same subject which we recollect to have seen.

"Indeed? well, young man, be comforted-to have lost a friend by death while your mutual regard was warm and unchilled, while the tear can drop unembittered by any painful recollection of coldness or distrust or treachery, is perhaps an escape from a more heavy dispensation. Look round you-how few do you see grow old in the affections of those with whom their early friendships were

formed!

formed!-our sources of common pleasure gradually dry up as we journey on through the vale of Bacha, and we hew out to ourselves other reservoirs from which the first companions of our pilgrimage are excluded-jealousies, rivalries, envy, intervene to separate others from our side, until none remain but those who are connected with us, rather by habit than predilection, or who, allied more in blood than in disposition, keep the old man company in his life, that they may not be forgotten at his death

Hæc data репа diu viventibus

Ah! Mr. Lovel, if it be your lot to reach the chill, cloudy, and comfortless evening of life, you will remember the sorrows of your youth as the light shadowy clouds that intercepted for a moment the beams of the sun when it was rising.' Vol. II. P. 18.

The nephew of Oldbuck, Capt. Hector M'Intyre, now arrives, and soon proceeds to question the pretensions of Lovel so closely as to give rise to a quarrel. Lovel refuses to give any account of himself and his family to the hot-headed Highland Captain, au insult follows, then a challenge, and they meet in a secluded spot to fight out their differences. The beggar Ochiltree suddenly advances upon them.

"What has this old fellow to do here?' said M'Intyre.

"I am an auld fellow,' said Edie, but I am also an auld soldier your father's, for I served wi' him in the 42d.'

"Serve where you please, you have no title to intrude on us,' said M'Intyre, or'-and he lifted his cane in terrorem, though without the idea of touching the old man. But Ochiltree's courage was roused by the insult. Haud down your switch, Captain M'Intyre! I am an auld soldier as I said afore, and I'll take muckle frae your father's son, but no a touch o' the wand while my pikestaff will haud thegither.'

"Well, well, I was wrong-I was wrong,' said McIntyre, here's a crown for you-go your ways-what's the matter now?" "The old man drew himself up to the full advantage of his uncommon height, and, in despite of his dress, which indeed had more of the pilgrim than the ordinary beggar, looked, from height, manner, and emphasis of voice and gesture, rather like a grey palmer, or eremite preacher, the ghostly counsellor of the young men who were round him, than the object of their charity. His speech, indeed, was as homely as his habit, but as bold and unceremonious as his erect and dignified demeanour. 'What are ye come here for, young men?' he said, addressing himself to the surprised audience; are ye come amongst the most lovely works of God to break his laws? Have ye left the works of man, the houses and the cities that are but clay and dust, like those that built them; and are ye come here among the peaceful hills, and by the quiet waters, that will last whiles aught earthly shall endure, to destroy each other's lives, that

will have but an unco short time, by the course of nature, to make up a lang account at the close o't? O sirs! hae ye brothers, sisters, fathers, that hae tended ye, and mothers that hae travailed for ye, friends that hae ca'd ye like a piece o' their ain heart? And is this the way ye tak to make them childless and brotherless and friendless?-Ohon! it's an ill fight whar he that wins has the warst o't. Think on t, bairns-I'm a puir man-but I'm an auld man too, and what my poverty takes awa' frae the weight o' my counsel, grey hairs and a truthfu' heart should add it twenty times-Gang hame, gang hame, like gude lads-the French will be ower to harry us ane o' thae days, and ye'll hae fighting aneugh, and may be auld Edie will hirple out himsel if he can get a feal-dike to lay his gun ower, and may live to tell you whilk o' ye does the best where there's a good cause afore ye.' Vol. II. P. 130.

Notwithstanding this remonstrance, clothed in all the eloquence of Highland nature, the combatants persist in their purpose. They fire together, and Capt. M'Intyre falls, and is supposed to be mortally wounded, and Lovel flies with Ochiltree to a place of refuge amidst the ruins of an old abbey. Here a curious scene ensues between old Sir Arthur Wardour, and Dousterswivel, a German adventurer, who has brought the old gentleman to the most extreme distress, by flattering his love for mining. He now pretends to discover some old chests of plate which the monks had concealed by some astrological calculations and ceremonies. This gives Lovel, who overhears the conversation, a hint in what manner the distresses of the Baronet may be relieved; and by the assistance of Ochiltree he hides under the grave of an ancestor a quantity of ingots which the Baronet is led to discover, and to imagine them an ancient hoard.

We are now introduced to a fisherman's cottage where news is brought of the death and the burial, after the Roman Catholic manner of the Countess of Glenallan. This awakes the attention of the old grandmother, now in the extremity of life, and the fatuous indifference of age.

"But what can ail them to bury the auld carline (a rudas wife she was) by the night time? I dare say our gudemither will

ken.'

"Here she exalted her voice, and exclaimed twice or thrice, Gudemither! gudemither!' but, lost in the apathy of age and deafness, the aged sybil she addressed, continued plying her spindle without understanding the appeal made to her.

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Speak to your grandmither, Jenny-odd, I wad rather hail the coble half a mile aff, and the nor-wast wind whistling again in my teeth.'

"Grannie,' said the little mermaid, in a voice to which the old woman was better accustomed, minnie wants to ken what

for

for thae Glenallan folk aye bury by candle-light in the ruins of St. Ruth?'

"The old woman paused in the act of twirling the spindle, turned round to the rest of the party, lifted her withered, trembling, and clay-coloured hand, raised up her ashen-coloured and wrinkled face, which the quick motion of two light-blue eyes chiefly distinguished from the visage of a corpse, and, as if catching at any touch of association with the living world, answered, What gars the Glenallan family inter their dead by torch-light,' said the lassie? Is there a Glenallan dead e'en now?'

6

"We might be a' dead and buried too,' said Maggie, for ony thing ye wad ken about it;'-and then, raising her voice to the stretch of her mother-in-law's comprehension, she added, 'It's the auld countess, gudemither.'

"And is she ca'd hame then at last,' said the old woman, in a voice that seemed to be agitated with much more feeling than belonged to her extreme old age, and the general indifference and apathy of her manner-is she then called to her last account after her lang race o' pride and power?-O God forgie her!'

"But minnie was asking ye,' resumed the lesser querist, what for the Glenallan family aye bury their dead by torch-light?" "They hae aye dune sae,' said the grandmother, since the time the Great Earl fell in the sair battle o' the Harlaw, when they say the coronach was cried in ae day, from the mouth o' the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach, that ye wad hae heard nae other sound but that of lamentation for the great folks that had fa'en fighting against Donald of the Isles.-But the Great Earl's mither was living-they were a doughty and a dour race the women oʻ the house o' Glenallan-and she wad hae nae coronach cried for her son, but had him laid in the silence o' midnight in his place o' rest, without either drinking the dirge, or crying the lament. She said he had killed enow that day he died, for the widows and daughters o' the Highlanders he had slain to cry the coronach for them they had lost and for her son too, and sae she laid him in his grave wi' dry eyes, and without a groan or a wail. And it was thought a proud word o' the family, and they aye stickit by it-and the mair in the latter times, because in the night time they had mair freedom to perform their popish ceremonies by darkness and in secrecy than in the day-light--at • least that was the case in my time-they wad hae been disturbed in the day-time baith by the law and the commons of Fairportthey may hae mair freedom now-the warld's changed-I whiles hardly ken whether I am standing or sitting, or dead or living.'

"And looking round the fire, as if in the state of unconscious uncertainty of which she complained, old Elspeth relapsed into her habitual and mechanical occupation of twirling the spindle.

Eh sirs!" said Jenny Rintherout, under her breath to her

gossip,

.

gossip, it awsome to hear your gudemither break out in that gait-it's like the dead speaking to the living.'

"Ye're no that far wrang, lass; she minds naething o' what passes the day-but set her on auld tales, and she can speak like a prent buke. She kens mair about the Glenallan family than maist folk-the gudeman's father was their fisher mony a day. Ye man ken the papists make a great point o' eating fish-it's nae bad part o' their religion that, whatever the rest is-I could aye sell the best o' fish at the best o'prices for the countess's ain table, grace be wi' her! especially on a Friday.-But see as our gudemither's hands and lips are ganging-now its working in her head like barm-she'll speak aneuch the night-whiles she'll no speak a word in a week, unless it be to the bit o' bairns.'

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Hegh, Mrs. Mucklebackit, she's an awsome wife! d'ye think she's a' thegither right?-Folk says she downa gang to the kirk, or speak to the minister, and that she was ance a papist, but since her gudeman's been dead naebody kens what she is-d'ye think yoursel that she's no uncanny?'

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Canny, ye silly tawpie! think ye ae auld wife's less canny than anither, unless it be Ailison Breck-I really couldna in conscience swear for her-I have kent the boxes she set filled wi' partans, when'

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again.'

Whisht, whisht, Maggie, your gudemither's gaun to speak

"Was na there some ane o' you said,' asked the old sybil, or did I dream, or was it revealed to me, that Joscelind, Lady Glenallan, is dead an' buried this night?'

"Yes, gudemither,' screamed the daughter-in-law, it's e'en

sae.'

"And e'en sae let it be,' said old Elspeth; she's made mony a sair heart in her day-aye, e'en her ain son's-is he living yet?' "Aye, he's living yet-but how lang he'll live-however, dinna ye mind his coming and asking after you in the spring, and leaving siller?'

It may be sae, Maggie--I dinna mind it--but a handsome gentleman he was, and his father before him. Eh! if his father had lived, they might hae been happy folk!-But he was gane, and the lady carried it in-ower and out-ower wi' her son, and gart him trow the thing he never suld hae trowed, and do the thing he has repented a' his life, and will repent still, were his life as lang as this lang and wearisome ane o' mine.'

O what was it, grannie?'-and What was it, gudemither?' and What was it, Luckie Elspeth?' asked the children, the mother, and the visitor, in one breath.

"Never ask what it was, but pray to God that ye are na left to the pride and wilfu'ness o' your ain hearts. They may be as powerful in a cabin as in a castle-I can bear a sad witness to that. O that weary and fearfu' night !-will it never gang out o' my auld head?-Eh! to see her lying on the floor wi' her lang