A BELIEF IN THE SPIRITUAL

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this Matter on which we stand be all? And by the measure of our Sense circumscribe all the possibilities of creation, while we pretend to believe in the Almighty? If where we cannot know, we must yet needs choose our belief, oh! let us choose with better hope that belief which more humbles ourselves; and in bowed down and fearful awe, not in presumptuous intelligence, look forth from the stillness of our souls into the silence of unknown Being!

Shepherd. I may weel be mute, sir. Sit nearer me, sir, and gie me your haun-and lay't on my shouther, if you're no quite dune.

North. I would fain speak to the youth of my native land, James

Shepherd. And dinna they a' read the Noctes ?

North.and ask them-when the kindling imagination blends itself with Intellectual Thought-when the awakened, ardent, aspiring intelligence begins in the joy of young desire to lift itself in high conception to the stately minds that have lived upon the earth-when it begins to feel the pride of hope and power, to glow with conscious energy, to create thoughts of its own of the destinies of that race to which it rejoices to belong-do not then, I ask them, all the words which the mighty of old have dropped from their kindling lips concerning the Emanation of the Eternal Mind, which dwells in a form of dust, fall like sparks, setting the hope of immortality in a blaze

"The sudden blaze

Far round illumines heaven?"

If, while engaged in the many speculations in which our studious youth have been involved, they suffer themselves to be dragged for a time from that primal belief, do they not find a weight of darkness and perplexity come over them, which they will strive in vain to shake off?-But as soon as they reawaken to the light of their first conviction, that heavy dream will be gone. "I can give no account"-such a one might say "nor record of this conviction. I drew it from no dictate of reason. But it has grown upon me through all the years of my existence. I cannot collect together the arguments on which I believe, but they are for ever rising round me anew, and in new power, every moment I draw my breath. At every step I take of inquiry into my own being, they burst

1

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IS THE LIGHT OF LIFE AND OF SCIENCE.

upon me in different unexpected forms. If I have leaned to the side of the material philosophy, everything that I understood before was darkened-my clearest way was perplexed. I believed at first, because the desire of my soul cleaved to the thought of its lofty original. I believe now, because the doctrine is a light to me in the difficulties of science-a clue in labyrinths otherwise inextricable."

[Knocking at the front door and ringing of the front-door

bell, as if a section of guardians of the night were warning the family of fire, or a dozen devils, on their way back to Pandemonium, were wreaking their spite on Christopher's supposed slumbers.

Shepherd. Whattt ca' ye thattt?

North (musing). I should not wonder were that Tickler. Shepherd. Then he maun be in full tail as weel's figg, or else a Breearious. (Uproar rather increases.) They're surely usin sledge-hammers! or are they but ca'in awa wi' their cuddie-heels? We ocht to be gratefu', howsomever, that they've settled the bell. The wire-rope's brak.

North (gravely). I shall sue Southside for damages.
Shepherd. Think ye, sir, they'll burst the door?

North (smiling contemptuously). Not unless they have brought with them Mons Meg." But there is no occasion for the plural number-'tis that singular sinner Southside.

Shepherd. Your servants maun be the Seven Sleepers. North. They have orders never to be disturbed after midnight. (Enter PETER, in his shirt.)

Peter, let him in-show him ben-and (whispers PETER, who makes his exit and his entrance, ushering in TICKLER in a Dreadnought, covered with cranreuch. NORTH and the SHEPHERD are seen lying on their faces on the hearth-rug).

3

Peter. Oh! dear! oh! dear! oh! dear! what is this! what is this! what is this! Hae I leeved to see my maister and Mr Hogg lyin baith dead.

Tickler (in great agitation). Heavens! what has happened! This is indeed dreadful.

Peter. Oh! sir! oh! sir! it's that cursed charcoal that he

1 The iron arming on the heels of boots.

2 A piece of ordnance famous in Scottish history, and now placed on the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle.

3 Cranreuch-hoar-frost.

A WRESTLING-MATCH.

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would use for a' I could do the effluvia has smothered him at last. There's the pan-there's the pan! But let's raise them up, and bear them into the back-green.

(PETER raises the body of NORTH in his arms-TICKLER that of the SHEPHERD.)

Stiff! stiff! stiff! cauld! cauld! cauld! deid! deid! deid! Tickler (wildly). When saw you them last?

Peter. Oh, sir, no for several hours! my beloved master sent me to bed at twelve-and now 'tis two half-past.

Tickler (dreadfully agitated). This is death.

Shepherd (seizing him suddenly round the waist). Then try Death a wrastle.

North (recuperated by the faithful PETER). Fair play, Hogg! You've hold of the waistband of his breeches. 'Tis a dog-fall. [The SHEPHERD and TICKLER contend fiercely on the rug. Tickler (uppermost). You deserve to be throttled, you swineherd, for having well-nigh broke my heart.

Shepherd. Pu' him aff, North-pu' him aff-or he'll thrapple Whr-whr-rrrr-whrrrr

me!

[SOUTHSIDE is choked off the SHEPHERD, and takes his seat on the sofa with tolerable composure. Exit PETER. Tickler. Bad taste-bad taste. Of all subjects for a practical joke the worst is death.

Shepherd. A gran' judge o' taste! Ca' you't gude taste to break folk's bell-ropes, and kick at folk's front doors, when a' the city's in sleep?

Tickler. I confess the propriety of my behaviour was problematical.

Shepherd. Problematical! You wad hae been cheap o't, if Mr North out o' the wundow had shot you deid on the spat. North (leaning kindly over TICKLER, as SOUTHSIDE is sitting on the sofa, and insinuating his dexter hand into the left coatpocket of TIMOTHY's Dreadnought). Ha! ha! Look here, Mr Hogg! (Exhibits a bell-handle and brass knocker.)

robbery ?

Shepherd. Hamesucken !1

North. An accomplished Cracksman!

Tickler. I plead guilty.

Street

Shepherd. Plead guilty! What brazen assurance! Caught

1 A Scottish law term, expressing assault and battery committed on a person in his own house.

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THE SHEPHERD'S TRANSMIGRATIONS.

wi' the corpus delicti in the pouch o' your wrap-rascal. Bad taste bad taste. But sin' you repent, you're forgien. Whare hae you been, and whence at this untimeous hour hae you come. Tak a sup o' that. (Handing him the jug.)

Tickler. From Duddingston Loch. I detest skating in a crowd-so have been figuring away by moonlight to the Crags. Shepherd. Are you sure you're quite sober?

Tickler. Quite at present. That's a jewel of a jug, James. But what were you talking about?

Shepherd. Never fash your thoom-but sit doun at the side-table yonner.

Tickler. Ha! The ROUND! (Sits retired.)

Shepherd. I was sayin, Mr Tickler, that I canna get rid o' a belief in the mettaseekozies or transmigration o' sowls. It aften comes upon me as I'm sittin by mysel on a knowe in the Forest; and a' the scenery, steadfast as it seems to be before my senses as the place o' my birth, and accordin to the popular faith where I hae passed a' my days, is then strangely felt to lose its intimate or veetal connection wi' my speerituality, and to be but ae dream-spat amang mony dream-spats which maun be a' taken thegither in a bewilderin series, to mak up the yet uncompleted mystery o' my bein' or life.

North. Pythagoras!

Shepherd. Mind that I'm no wullin to tak my bible-oath for the truth o' what I'm noo gaun to tell you-for what's real and what's visionary-and whether there be indeed three warlds -ane o' the ee, ane o' the memory, and ane o' the imagination-it's no for me dogmatically to decide; but this I wull say, that if there are three, at sic times they're sae circumvolved and confused wi' ane anither, as to hae the appearance and inspire the feelin o' their bein' but ae warld— -or I should rather say, but ae life. The same sort o' consciousness, sirs, o' my ha'in experimentally belanged alike to them a' comes ower me like a threefauld shadow, and in that shadow my sowl sits wi' its heart beatin, frichtened to think o' a' it has come through, sin' the first far-awa glimmer o' nascent thocht connectin my particular individuality wi' the universal creation. Am I makin mysel understood?

Tickler. Pellucid as an icicle that seems warm in the sunshine.

SHEPHERD AS A LION'S CUB.

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Shepherd. Yet you dinna see my drift-and I'm at a loss for words.

Tickler. You might as well say you are at a loss for oysters, with five hundred on that board.

Shepherd. I think on a cave-far ben, mirk always as a midnicht wood-except that twa lichts are burnin there brichter than ony stars-fierce leevin lichts-yet in their fierceness fu' o' love, and therefore fu' o' beauty—the een o' my mother, as she gently growls ower me wi' a pur that inspires me wi' a passion for milk and bluid.

Tickler. Your mother! The man's mad.
Shepherd. A lioness, and I her cub.

North. Hush, hush, Tickler.

Shepherd. I sook her dugs, and sookin I grow sae cruel that I could bite. Between pain and pleasure she gies me a cuff wi' her paw, and I gang heid-ower-heels like a bit playfu' kitten. And what else am I but a bit playfu' kitten? For we're o' the Cat kind-we Lions—and bein' o' the royal race o' Africa, but ae whalp at a birth. She taks me mewin up in her mouth, and lets me drap amang leaves in the outer airlyin doun aside me and enticin me to play wi' the tuft o' her tail, that I suppose, in my simplicity, to be itsel a separate hairy cretur alive as weel as me, and gettin fun, as wi' loups and springs we pursue ane anither, and then for a minute pretend to be sleepin. And wha's he yon ? Wha but my Faither? I ken him instinctively by the mane on his shouthers, and his bare tawny hurdies; but my mither wull no let him come ony nearer, for he yawns as if he were hungry, and she kens he would think naething o' devoorin his ain offspring. Oh! the first time I heard him crunch! It was an antelope - in his fangs like a mouse; but that is an after similitude-for then I had never seen a mouse-nor do I think I ever did a' the time I was in the great desert.

North (removing to some distance). Tickler, he looks alarmingly leonine.

Shepherd. I had then nae ee for the picturesque; but out o' thae materials then sae familiar to my senses, I hae mony a time since constructed the landscape in which my youth sported-and oh! that I could but dash it aff on canvass !

North. Salvator Rosa, the greater Poussin, and he of Dud